Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Fly on the (urinal) wall (with Lisa Jewell)

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Jane's off for the rest of the week, so it's the good ship Fi and Eve gliding into your ears. They discuss thickening agents, Tom Daley's poolside knitting, important jobs for flies, and insomnia.Plus, best-selling author Lisa Jewell discusses her new book 'It Could Have Been Her'. You can buy tickets for Fringe by the Sea: https://www.fringebythesea.com/off-air-with-jane-fi-and-special-guest-jan-ravens/Our book club pick is a collection of short stories! 'Interpreter of Maladies' is by Jhumpa Lahiri. You can check out our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffAirWithJaneAndFiOur most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.If 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.

Oh yes, you did. You told the nation about your sleep problems. And I think Jane told the nation about her fears about colds and flu, and I told the nation about my flaky foot. I didn't use the flaky foot, babe. The flaky foot's gone. It's come up quite a lot, though, recently, hasn't it? It more than got its moment.

It's flaky no more. Something in the Austrian waters. did something very, very good. Welcome aboard. It is a good ship-even fee addition because Jane has headed up to Liverpool. We are going to do our very best to get through what has become, this seems to be, a bigger stack than normal of unread emails for a Wednesday, Eve.

Have we just been very slow? I think you looked upon them all with a very, very favourable eye that we had such good quality that you wanted all of them. I've starred too many of them. what he says. So there was a fantastic one that came in in the early hours of the morning, which is all about yoghurt. I'm going to start with yoghurt. Greek yogurt, Trump and Cats. It comes in from Stella. Hi, Finn, Jane, a few days ago this popped up out of the blue on YouTube. I found it very informative about facts on what is actually in so-called Greek yogurt

and how to look for the best makes worth a watch. So I clicked on it and it was half an hour. of a film called This is Not Yogurt which in very careful detail I just got sucked into it I thought I'll just watch the beginning and then I might watch the end but I did watch the whole thing

I did watch the whole thing yeah so it went very carefully through all of the brands of yoghurt detailing which ones were actually proper Greek yogurt and which ones were just faking it or did you learn that if you got

if you turn around the tub to the ingredients and it says something like water, cream, agents, milk, then you shouldn't go anywhere near it with a barge pole because included in the term agents might be a thickening agent. We've all met one of those. The poor clients represented by a thickening agent. They're the ones who don't get on traitors.

Oh, darling. The thickening agent can be the same type of stuff that's used in wallpaper paste. No. Yeah. And if it's cream and water, it means that a fermentation process when it had taken place

so you're not getting all of those treats for your gut biome also this is quite important really it's very important it was a lovely lovely film I did realise at the end I thought the guy had a very nice voice who was doing the voice over

and I realised at the end that it was AI because he started mispronouncing things that a normal person represented by a not so thickening agent would have been told to correct so this is very niche so you watch this morning

a 30-minute, AI-n rated yogurt film. Well, blame Stella. Stella sent it. Well, this is why we're all doomed, isn't it? But basically, the high-end supermarkets are providing a very good service. If it's Greek yogurt and you turn it around and it's got basically milk as the prime ingredient, then you're probably okay. And the organic ones, it has to be organic as well.

because there's something a bit weird that might have gone into the cow feed of non-organic yogurts. I don't want to spend as much time on this topic as I've already spent preparing for this topic because we were probably, if we really went for it, be able to allow a jug of milk to ferment and turn into yogurt if we kept going too much.

On another topic, I thought of you to have to laugh when I saw this little book on a second-hand stall your hate and loves. If you haven't seen it, I can send you the copy. Please don't. You hang on to it because it just looks fantastic. It is, well, can you read that out or will we not be able to be broadcast across the UAE?

Hugh Janus. Thank you. Trump Cats. The lack of wit and wisdom of Donald Trump as told by cats. It's brilliant. The cat's face. It's magic, is magic?

Really, really magic. And a bit repulsive. Yeah. So Stella, thank you. That was educational and informative. It was Reithian in what it covered. Game of Wool. Do watch it.

This comes in from Susie from Sydney regarding your recent knitting and crocheting discussion. I'm not a knitter, so, embroider, crocheter, or anything remotely crafty. But the show sucked me right in. Watch it, if only to marvel at the creations worn by the host, your lovely Tom Daly. Did you ever graze across that? I never did, but I did get sorry. into him posting all his lovely jumpers and wouldn't he sit at the side of the pool

after diving and just knit? Yeah. I thought that's very sweet. Well, it was very lovely. He charmed me with that. Yeah, and very sensible as well. Because it's a lot of hanging around in diving, isn't there? And they do their dive, and then they get in their hot tub,

and then they wipe themselves down with a very small flannel. I always wondered why we had to see that. Apparently we had to see that. He said flannel in Tom's case. And then he did. He went to do something. something more successful in his time. Which probably does speak to the very calming

nature of it. Yeah. So, onto that, so many people have got back to us about Adam's sleeping problem. So I very much hope that Adam is still in the house. You've had quite a lot of insomnia in your young life, haven't you, Eve?

I have. I would very much consider myself a bad sleeper. Do you do the thing where you find it easy to get to sleep, but then you wake up? I'm the other way around, but I have also. had that but mostly it will it can take me hours and the reason I think I'm a bad sleep because on average even on a good night when I'm getting seven hours it will still take me about an hour to drift off if not more I just cannot lie down and fall asleep but in bad cases it's taken

you know until like 5am or at points where I just haven't had any sleep at all oh either that's horrible but it does it's definitely all that kind of mental rut of you have one bad night's sleep and then the next night gets worse and then it gets even worse okay and have you tried did you try in those dark periods of insomnia, any remedies? Did something work for you? So I, and I think someone actually suggested this, but I was suggested by a doctor when my sleeping pattern got really bad to then take a really drowsy antihistamine and not regularly, but just to then get my sleeping pattern would fall back on track. So sometimes if it gets really bad and I'm in the early hours, then I'll have a drowsy anti-histamine because that really does

help but I feel quite groggy and a bit agitated the next day so I don't like to take them but in a pinch I would so I'm glad to hear that that did work a little bit for you are you are you sleeping better at the moment I am sleeping better at the moment and I always it does help to have a pot of melatonin on the bedside now and again just in case I never really understand melatonin I don't really understand it either but it does seem to work right that's what you need to say that's the usual standard of forensic examination. So I think it does something to your circadian rhythms, doesn't it? That's what I'm always drawn to.

We don't allow it to be sold over the counter in this country, do we? No. No. But you've been abroad to get it. Should we just put it that way? Yes, you have to catch a friend when they go to America or something. Okay, and let's definitely advise people to be doing that because you don't want to buy it off Tintanet.

It could be anything on Tintet. Yeah, yeah. So let me have to have. you a couple of emails because people have been so helpful and we might hit on something that works for Adam. This one comes in from Beck who said I had some issues and after trying and failing with the usual suggestions, my GP put me on to the RE sleep program. It was, and I'm sorry about the cliche, life-changing. Beck, never apologise. The program you follow gives you a step-by-step practical way to improve your sleep and debunks many myths including sleep hygiene, which doesn't

work for insomniacs and that we all need eight hours sleep a night. It isn't cheap and it does take effort but it was worth it in my opinion. They have a free trial period which might be useful. I hope this helps. So this is RE dash. Is that the right one? The one that goes in the middle, not underneath. Yeah. RE dash sleep will take you to that sleep program. And I had a quick look round it this morning and it seems entirely sensible. It's so difficult to tell from testimonials on websites these days because of course they're not going to put up Gary from Yoval, thought this was shite.

But the testimonials do seem to attest that it definitely has worked for some people. If it's recommended by a GP, then I would hope it's got some very good stuff in it. What do you got? I've got one from, well, the email adjuster O'Neill. R.E. Sleep, it's actually been proven, according to this email, that you should do the craft, light knitting during the times that you're awake at night.

The evidence is there to support this. It's ideal as it doesn't over-stimulate you, but gives you something to do instead of lying awake. It's very tempting when you're awake in the middle of the night to reach for your phone because you're a bit bored, but that's definitely going to be the thing that's going to stop you from actually getting back to sleep. Totally.

So, yeah. Although if you're reaching for your phone in order to put this podcast on, a proven sleep aid to many, many people. Very, very true. then carry on doing that. This comes in from Sarah in Dublin, who says in relation to Adam's email about sleep problems, I advise him to listen to the WhatsApp dot podcast with the Van Tulligan Twins.

They've recently covered this subject with an expert who talks about it being completely normal to have two to three sleep cycles and be awake for an hour or two in between. The best thing to do is not to worry about being awake and trying to get back to sleep, get up and do something. reading all puzzles work for me

then I can be back asleep for my second cycle the podcast expert is very enlightening and reassuring you both might find the answer to a lot of your wellness quandaries in the WhatsApp doc podcast that's quite enough advertising they are very good actually those two I like them so you never actually got up and did something

I've never done that because I feel too determined to try and chase the sleep that is completely eluding me and it hasn't proved completely successful. One thing that actually did work for me when I had a really bad batch of it, but I'm hesitant to say it because it sounds exactly like, I'm sure if you've had sleep trouble, you go and see the doctor, this is on the list,

but actually really, really regular exercise did ultimately help me. Even if I'd just go for a walk in the evening, just I think tiring my body out actually really helped get me into a regular sleeping pattern. Excellent advice, young Eve. Excellent. This comes from

Sarah, who actually suggests slightly differently that Adam should maybe go for a sleep apnea test. We wake ourselves up as the muscles in the windpipe get floppy and cover the airway. If he falls asleep all over the place, this could be because he's in a sleep deficit. He has classic symptoms. I'm no expert, though, just a thought. Claire's having a similar issue with her husband, who says that he's resigned himself to being a bad sleeper, but he won't do anything about it. She's trying to steer him to things like speaking to a doctor,

magnesium and sleep apps. And I think someone else said in the emails to just suggest, Adam, that he should actually just talk to his friends about it. And maybe it is a thing of amongst men opening the discourse up a bit. Yeah. I mean, it definitely helps when you share it any problem, doesn't it, with your female friends. I'm just always amazed, Eve, that men haven't grasped this, because we still say it so often, because that's what we find amongst our men folk,

that they're finding it difficult to talk. And in fact, we watched First Dates Ireland last night on TV because we are quite addicted to first dates in our household. And there was a really, really lovely guy on there who had had some, you know, properly bad depression. He was in, I'd say he was in his late 50s. And he talked about how once he opened up and said a couple of things to friends,

everybody else opened up around him. And actually he'd ended up doing some really good. work in a kind of public forum about male depression. And it was really lovely to hear him say that, but we did end up on the sofa having a conversation around how often it is that you hear men say, I found it difficult to talk. And that is being heard by people. So why hasn't it had the domino effect? And I suppose it's pertinent to yesterday's guest as well, isn't it? Harry Hardesty. it seems weird that we've all been saying to men for a long time, come and join us on the oversharing couch.

Why not plug into it? So I hope it does change. I hope it does change. And actually on the island first dates, it's thoroughly entertaining. They do a very, very good job on that program. That guy, we had high hopes. We had high, high hopes for the couples.

Did he get a kiss? I don't think he got a kiss. They both went outside. to share a fag. It's the start of many a beautiful relationship. It's just as good as a kiss, I think. Now, a lovely listener has emailed in

about your voice, Eve. Yes. Now, your radio mums, me and the Jane Garvey, we have said this to you quite often. Beautiful, beautiful voice, but you lose it too often. Yes. And it gives you jip too often. Could you just on behalf of our very loving and loyal?

audience promise everybody that you have had it looked at so it's not going unnoticed because people are worrying about you my lovely i have had it looked at i'm on some sort of list um but no i will i will go on record and say that i will push harder thank you okay we're all behind you we all wish the best for you shall we talk urinals please let's okay so jeanette frozen shoulder continues to improve thank god for that jeanette prompted by your chat about urinal's last week week. I had to discuss this with my husband. I was particularly perturbed about the splash on the trousers. He tells me that urinals often have an image of a fly for men to aim at. I take back all of my last conversation about men reaching out. You need a fly to aim your

wee-out. He doesn't want to piss on a fly. I had to Google this info and this will add to your history of urinals. So here we come. It's a clever behavioral trick designed to give men a which significantly improves aim, reduces splashing and cuts down on bathroom cleaning costs. The idea started in the early 1990s at Amsterdam's Shipple Airport. A maintenance manager realised that when there was a dot or a target to aim at, spillage dropped dramatically. They chose a fly because it is universally disliked but not scary, giving users a satisfying subconscious target to eliminate.

Right. Do you like to try and think of a fly? when you're we're weing. No, we don't. I suppose, but also men could go into a stall and sit down, couldn't they? Well, I have just come back from St Marlowe in France, and we went to lots of lovely independent restaurants and cafes, and with that there was a lot of just single toilets

in these kind of like smaller establishments. I came away with such little faith in men, because you just went into every single toilet, and it was just covered everywhere. And you're in. And I spent. so much of that holiday squatting, kind of wiping at it. The hover. Yeah. I'm, yeah, yeah.

I don't think they're learning. I don't think they ought to. And I had high hopes. I'd just assume that once you'd learned to aim, you continued trying to aim. Set them off into the world. It's very odd, isn't it? It is. They can't, I mean, you can't want to be in such an unhygienic setting. But what's wrong with just clearing up off to yourself? Yes, but that's the huge problem with urinales is you can't really, unless you've got a mop and a bucket out, we'll be able to do it. Those squeegees that goes down. So there are some people who get urinals installed in their house, aren't they?

Are there? Yes, there's somebody not too far away from home in this podcast who had, yes, who had urinal installed. That must mean he has really terrible aim, possibly. But obviously very good taste in some quarters. Yes. Stanley Tucci's got nothing on Roy Ganeer. I was so coded, wasn't it?

This one comes in from Andy. Hearing in yesterday's podcast about the listener who has stood behind Stanley Tucci in an airport queue made me realise that I have my own, I stood behind a celebrity in an airport queue story. I'm hoping a lot of people have this. Shortly after we were married in 1984, my wife and I took a week's holiday in the Algarv.

The holiday was great, the journey home less so, after an hour-long coach ride to Farrow Airport. Is it Farrow or Faroe? I believe it's Faroe. Let's keep both in. Over roads that seem to have been designed by somebody testing washing machines, I began to feel spectacularly ill. I was to have the following six weeks off work.

I don't know we don't need that detail, Andy. By the time we reached the airport, my concentration was focused upon not redecorating the departure lounge. My groans were making it fairly obvious to everybody around me. I wasn't having my best day. standing just ahead of us in the queue was the character actor Roy Kaneer his wife and their young children

I recognised him immediately but asking for an autograph was far from being tough of my priorities Roy noticed that I was in a bad way and immediately went into full looking after people mode he found someone to organise a wheelchair assisted my wife with getting me on the aircraft

persuaded the cabin crew to move me near of the toilets found blankets and even arranged for a wheelchair to be waiting when we landed back at Gatwick Isn't that lovely? He simply couldn't have done more for a complete stranger. What struck me just as much was that throughout all of this, he was also being a calm and attentive dad to his own young children. Looking back, I realise now that one of them will have been a six-year-old Rory Keneer, now one of Britain's In Just About Everything Actors. Roy Keneer was famous for making people laugh, but my lasting memory of him is simply his kindness. Four years later, he was tragically killed, falling from a horse whilst filming the return of the musketeers, which makes that charge. encounter feel even more precious in hindsight in hindsight. Andy, thank you very much for that. And it's nice to pass on good stories about celebrities. They're rare. People being nice. Yeah. I wonder though about the wisdom of getting on an aircraft when you're feeling that unwell. Well, yeah. Yeah. It is the nightmare situation, isn't it?

Yeah. I know what I'd do if I was definitely not a celebrity standing in the queue behind somebody that I would I'd move away and try and board the plane in a different part or actually say are you sure you want to go ahead but I'm sorry you felt so

ohlandy because travelling when you're feeling extremely and what is a really really unpleasant thing to do and I'm glad you got back in one piece I'm just getting memories of dicky tummies on flights should we not go there please let's not

It's been conjured to my mind. Just one thought though. I just think that the ratio of toilet to passengers is now very, very wrong. Because back in the day when you flew, you wouldn't always have a full plane. It was quite rare to have a completely full plane. So when we were doing our journeying out to Hong Kong, early 1970s, there was never ever a full plane. So quite often it would be half empty.

Oh, that's a luxury. I know. people can't believe it now this is a story that I tell from the ancient times evening but there is something different now with the number of passengers onboard it is always completely utterly full and also just

you know the amount of drink that's being served it does make people need to we and I wonder whether they need to review that they won't because it means that a couple of seats will be taken up with toilets and it does mean that you're if you're in the front row your legs literally half a metre from the toilet cubicle

so there's no privacy there No privacy at all. And well, let's not think of the splashback that's happening in those confined spaces. Okay, we've got to move on. This is terrible. We've just got to move on very quickly, especially for people who are trying to get back to sleep. Dawn in Haywer says, I know you don't really do news as such on your podcast. It's one of the attractions of listening to you both.

I'm interested, of course, but I'm sure we don't need to know all the ins and outs of everything, every detail of what's happened from moment to moment. Every word, everybody has said, bullet points and facts. That's what us mere minions need. As for the new PM, I'm already sick of hearing his name, Andy Burnham this, Andy Burnham, that. They're all the same when somebody else is in power, full of promises of what they could do, etc, etc. Then once they're in, well, I think you know we'll wait and see more of your general chit-chat and day-to-day ramblings, please. Well, we're always happy to provide that dawn.

Jane and I do like a bit of our politics and our news, though, so it will always creep into the podcast just a tiny bit. You're very much we're two caps. We do, we do. and at the moment there's quite an excitement about British politics and I was thinking about this coming to work today that there used to be a very natural lull

in the summer as soon as the parliamentary big summer recess started I mean it really was a chance in the newsroom to do some other stories and we used to joke about that summer glut where you would do the biggest hamster in the UK you know it was mated with

the smallest hamster in the UK, it was a time to find those in-depth stories and shine the true spotlight of journalism upon them. On the most medium-sized hamster as a result of the big hamster of the big hamster. Yeah, but you take after. But that's just gone completely because this summer, I mean, quite often in the summer, there's a massive change of leadership. You know, everybody goes home from Parliament fighting and biting, and then you come back and there's another Prime Minister or two on the way.

And of course, this summer, we've got a new Prime Minister. At the beginning of the summer, there's not a hope in hell that the big fat hamster mating the tiny hamster is going to get a look in. And I'd just put that out there to you, Dawn. We might have to talk about politics from time to time, but you can always put us on 1.5. Have you been watching Android?

I have not, but I know that our TV expert, Scott Bryan, wants to discuss it today. And why have you stumbled before the word expert? Because what was it going to call him? searching for. He's an expert. He is an expert. Scott Bryan.

He's blooming fantastic. Well, we should talk about it. Quite a few people have recommended it, and I saw it lurking up there on the eye player, but I got stuck into the pit. Oh, God, I can't believe you're doing that. Well, that's probably why you're doing First States Island as well. Yeah, exactly that.

Exactly that. It was very much the calming slice of white bread after a too hot curry. Yeah, the pit is, it asks a lot of you. Blindly. You go home after a full day of work and you put that on. I just don't know what's running through your mind. Well, I thought because Jane had done it, it would be okay.

I like to use her as a filter. Yeah. And she said it was absolutely brilliant and it would be okay if I looked away from... Are you enjoying it as much as you can? There's a massive event that the ER has to deal with quite late on in the series and actually I did have to switch it off last night

because I would have been looking away for the entire 45 minutes of the episode and then there was another episode after that and it was just too much actually way way way too much and they do that thing and of course they have to do it because it's TV where they solve

incredibly complex medical dilemmas just like that in a nanosecond and in an earlier episode there'd be some point woman had come in and she wasn't in anaphylactic shock but she was a bit rigid and her heart rate had gone down nobody could work out why and they're pressing her belly

and they do that you know order a scan high IT medical drug they'd done all of that and they couldn't work out what it was and she was just about to conk it and sorry

it's not funny no you should pray sorry What I was going to say, carc-kit, actually that's so horrible. So it changed a con. Anyway, so it was just about to conk out.

And then the doctor decided to check her feet. And they checked her feet and there were two tiny pinpricks and she went, Black Widow spider. And you just think, no, but you...

No, that's just too much of a leap. It's way too much relief. And then she shook her crock and out fell a Blackwooder spider. And then they managed to get the anti-venom in, and she just perked up immediately. It was all in the space of three minutes. It doesn't sound as serious as I thought it was.

It's quite comical. But you just think there are many, many things that the NHS is having to deal with. But people's expectations of a miracle solution are now very, very much on the cards, aren't they? Now, if you're heading off on holiday this summer, chances are you'll see a copy of a book by our next guest flung onto at least one towel.

Lisa Jewel is prolific. She's written 24 novels, including the best-selling thrillers, then she was gone and the family upstairs. She's sold more than 15 million books worldwide. And her latest one, it could have been her, is set in a dark corner of Hampstead Heath. It centres on a missing woman and a dysfunctional family. It went straight to number one in the Sunday Times bestseller chart at the beginning of July and currently sits at number four. Jane spoke to Lisa and started by asking whether she pays much attention to reviews. and those bestseller charts.

I care. I do. Yeah. I do. I kind of get a sense before the book is even published whether it's going to be liked or not because there's a lot of advanced stuff that happens these days like NetGalley and Goodreads. So you already know before it's published

whether it's a turkey or not. So just for people who aren't in the know, copies of the book are circulated to influencers. To influence. Net Galley is more for readers and librarians and booksellers and you can get a piece. PDF, you register and then a certain amount of PDFs are sent out to early readers. In exchange for them then going on to their social media platforms and talking about it,

leaving it a nice review. So I've already, like months ahead, seen whether I've written a bad book or a good book. So I can kind of relax when the book comes out. I think, okay, I think it's going to be all right. I think my readers are going to be happy with this one because that is always still of all the things, all the sort of fears and worries I've let go of over the years of my career. that one I will never let go of and that's disappointing my readers. You don't want that.

That's always at the, yeah. Okay. This is your, what number book is this? 24. 24. Yeah, you're very much, you've got the hang of things. I think I've got the hang of things. Oh gosh, you should never say that.

No, be careful. So this is, I was intrigued by the location because it's set around Hampstead Heath. Yes. Now, I've never lived in Hampstead. I've visited it. Is it as faintly sinister as you suggest? It's, I'm going to. say no. I'm going to say no. I don't live in Hampstead. I live a 30 minute walk from

Hampstead. So it's one of my dog walks. So I spend a lot of time in Hampstead Village. And Hampstead Village is very boochy. It's very chichi as all sorts of lovely French boutiques and brosuries and bakeries and all the things beginning with be. It's gorgeous. But there are lots of little nooks and crannies and little secret pathways leading to corners of the village you'd never seen before. It's a big village. So yeah, you do sometimes find yourself heading down a passageway or an alleyway and thinking, wow, anything could happen here because it's also hidden away, tucked away. And the specific area you mentioned, I'd never heard of it, the veil of health? The veil of health, which some people think is a fictional place name.

Is it real? Yes, it's a real place. It's like a hamlet. It's kind of not part of Hampstead village. You have to go all through the back streets and cross over a busy road and then down a winding lane. And then you suddenly find yourself in another sort of mini village. where I think it's about 60 houses. There's no shops or restaurants or bars down there.

It's just houses. And it is called The Vale of Health. It's where the Londoners went in the 1800s to escape from the plague. So, yes, that's what it was named for. And it's just very, very quiet. There's not a lot of traffic. You don't really see people walking around. And there's all these beautiful little houses.

I have to look through the windows and sort of... Yeah. And wonder who lives there. But, yeah, the house in this book was actually based on... a house I hadn't realised existed because I thought it was a private driveway at the end of the veil of health and one day I walked a little bit further with the dog

and I thought, oh, I actually can walk down here and then I found this house that looked like the last house at the end of the world. It was just completely kind of separated and surrounded by the heath, completely surrounded by the heath on all sides with this huge garden. And I immediately thought that's going to have to be a setting

for my next book. Well, because it's just really sinister. Yes, sinister. And apologies to the people who live in the house. I'm sure there's nothing sinister going on there at all. Well, we can't rule it out. You can never rule it out. Actually, for people outside London,

they won't believe that an area as bucolic as this does exist so close to this throbbing centre of a city. Oh, absolutely. You're a 10-minute walk from a tube station. You're a 25-minute walk from Camden Town. You're just absolutely in the heart of London. And this was something when I was on my American tour and talking to American readers, I did spend quite a lot of time at each talk,

trying to explain it to them because I know that if you read that your mind is immediately going to go to the English countryside and you're going to have mentally left London because it doesn't sound like London but it is very much in the heart of London.

So many of your books are about what goes on behind the I was going to say the net curtains but the kind of very superficial respectability of seemingly wealthy, contained respectable households.

And this is no exception. Yes, absolutely. So this is essentially this book, there's a lot going on in this book, as there always is in my books, but essentially this is about the family who live in this house. And they're called the blacks

and their father, mother, daughter's son, probably on the surface looked like a very respectable family. But I went into this book knowing I wanted to write about the most dysfunctional family I could possibly come up with.

There is so much dysfunction in this family. But it's all hidden behind this facade, as you say, this lovely Hampstead cottage and the mother Annie Black, she spends half her life in Brent Cross buying towels from John Lewis. The father always wears a blazer and a handkerchief tucked in his, you know, he works at John Lewis on Oxford Street. Nothing to see here. Yeah, nothing to see here, but so much to see here because that's absolutely what I wanted to explore with this is that sort of the darkness that could hide behind that respectability and it's super dark. No, it is.

And there has been a lot of talk recently about the incredible number of very successful books that feature dead women, that center around dead women. And your books do often feature women in peril. Yes. Women in jeopardy. Yeah. Does it worry you? No.

Tell me why it doesn't. Number one, I never set out to write a book thinking, like rubbing my hands, thinking, oh, I can't wait to write about another missing girl or an imprisoned teenage female or a dead woman. I, you know, that's not how I operate. I quite often don't know who the victim is going to be or what's actually happened until I get very far into the book. Number two, not all my books are like that. I just finished writing my 25th novel. There's no dead women.

There's no women in peril. all the women in my book are pretty safe. Are there only men in peril? Yes, there's a terribly, terribly physically mutilated man at the beginning of my novel. The 25th book. The 25th book. And I didn't set out, I didn't think, oh gosh, I've written enough books recently about women in peril. I should write about a man who's had a horrible time instead.

It was just a story that I wanted to tell. And that was how I wanted to tell the story. And I do think that this story is a little bit sort of, it's not what it seems, because I study the Sunday Times bestsellers forensically every single week. I'm so curious about what books make it into that chart. And why? And why?

And some weeks you'll find that eight out of the ten books in the Sunday Times bestsellers are romances. Sometimes it could be a whole group of like non-genre sort of semi-literary kind of book club reads. It just absolutely depends on the, you know, the ebb and flow and the movement of the publishing market, the way publishers publish book, the way readers read book, the way booksellers market books. And I just think this was a particular week where, yes, it probably does look a bit like that's all we do is talk about dead women and write about dead women and read about dead women.

But I just don't think it is. But I mean, obviously there's another bigger social point to be made about this, which is I've seen a lot of commentary around the fact that maybe the enjoyment in this trope is that this isn't what happens in the real world. world that women get hurt, women get, you know, abused and they're not necessarily ever shown justice, whereas in a book, you know. It's resolved. Yes, it's all resolved and there is something wonderful about that. But I don't think it's as big of an issue as might be suggested by the headlines at the moment. Okay. And we should always bear in mind that actually more men are murdered than women. Absolutely. More men are beaten up, more men are hurt. By other men. Absolutely. The issue is male violence, Yes, which is what my 25th novel is about.

Okay, right. Let's not bother about the 25th. We're talking about the 24th. You do in this book talk about clowns. Now, a lot of people have got a phobia about clowns, haven't they? Is that why you decided, because I find clowns faintly creepy. Yeah. Do you?

I find them faintly creepy. And I realized I'd taken a bit of a gamble by not only including a, he's not a spooky clown. He's a very sad and tragic clown. But I realised that I was possibly putting an obstacle in the way of some readers wanting to read the book because I know that it is a serious phobia that some people have. Like you say, faintly creepy, don't like them, look at a picture of a clown thing. Oh, not for me. The phobia is so serious.

I don't think you'd put a clown on the cover, would you? No. No. No. And so I have been, another thing I've been doing while I've been out on the road talking about this book at numerous events. is to try and downplay the whole clown aspect. Oh, sorry, I brought it out. No, absolutely.

I think it's good because some of some people listening might have heard rumors about there being a clown in the book and been put off reading it. The clown is, he's a young boy, and it's a coping mechanism. He's had a very traumatic childhood, and it's a persona that he uses to protect himself from the world, and he's not like a Stephen King sort of clown.

Okay, few. Few, yeah. Now, as a child, I know that you read, avidly. And it's so difficult to get today's youngsters to engage in something that certainly I, I just, when I started reading, I just have never stopped. But there was that breakthrough book, which for me was the Inoblighten book, The Ship of Adventure, saying that carefully. And what was yours? Oh, I genuinely can't remember. It would have been Enablighten. I know that. It probably was a magic faraway tree. It's such a cliche. But I mean, go ahead.

what a way to engage childish brains. A tree that you'd keep climbing up and every time you get a bit further there's a whole different world to explore. She gets a real going over all, Dean, doesn't she? Yeah. But for so many people of my age and your age, she was the gateway drug to a lifelong obsession.

Absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt. And the other thing I remember from my childhood, which I didn't realise until I was an adult, that these Angela Banner books, the Anten B books, She was, I think, a linguist or something to do with childhood language. And she wrote those books so that children could teach themselves to read, which I never realized, but they were a huge part of my childhood as well, was sitting in the library without my mother having to supervise me,

just looking at these Ant and B books. So as a reader, that was a massively important thing. And in your family, do the younger members read? So I have a 19 and 23-year-old daughter. they were voracious readers as children, both being read to. In fact, my oldest daughter was read to by my husband until she was 13 and reading, self-reading. My youngest daughter read all the shopaholic novels when she was seven.

Sophie Kinsella. Yes, Sophie Kinsell. She was seven years old. She read all of them in about two weeks. And then they did what I did when I was a teenager. I just stopped reading about the age of 13. I read all the Agatha Christie books in the library. I realized I'd read all the Agatha Christie books in the library,

felt my addiction sort of like run out and then just got into music and other things instead and didn't come back to reading until I was 21. And my older daughter has just come back to reading, not maybe as voraciously as I was reading in my 20s, but she's got back to it, the little one not quite yet. But it made me a little bit sad when they stopped reading in their teens, but I remembered it that it was the same for me

and I just assumed they'd come back to it. Now you and I can't remember, I'm sorry, I can't remember which one of your daughters, the elder or the younger. The elder is Amelie. Is Amelie. And you and Amelie gave an interview to the Sunday Times, the relative values interview where members of a family talk about their relationship. And it was really sweet about that was that Amelie has just realized who you are. Yeah. Which, you know, it's rather, it's rather touching, isn't it?

Because you were her mom, you still are. but she hadn't realized that you were actually, you know, you were Lisa Jewel. Yeah. There was this wonderful moment on TikTok where she was at the races. Oh, I can't remember the name of the races in Leeds. Right. And there was a young girl going around doing interviews with people for her TikTok channel, asking who their most famous contact on their phone was.

And she came up to Amalie and Amalie said, my mom. And this girl said, oh, who is your mom? And Amelie said she's a writer. thinking, well, this girl's never going to have heard of Lisa Jewell. And then the girl said, what's her name? And she said Lisa Jewel. And yes, the girl had never heard of Lisa Jewel. But then she put this up on her TikTok channel and it went viral because other people had. Because it crossed over into Book Talk, which is a massive, massive social media community. And all us writers are just so very, very grateful to the existence of Book Talk because they do so

much heavy work for the publishing industry. With younger readers. With younger readers. Absolutely with younger readers. and I don't think I'd have the profile I have at the moment if it wasn't for Book Talk. And yes, so it went viral. And I think that was a moment for Amalie of just like, ah. So I think she just probably pictured all my readers

being like old ladies with white hair. And I don't think it had occurred to her. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So in that interview, you also talk about Amelie's epilepsy diagnosis. Now, it's still a condition that isn't, it's not much discussed or widely. understood, is it? It really, really isn't. I remember being a student at the age of about 18 or 19

and seeing a fellow student having a seizure in the canteen. And it was all just a bit dramatic and a bit gross and a bit like, oh, let's all turn away. I don't like the look of that. That's horrible. But that was, my understanding of what it was didn't go any further than that. I don't know, I didn't know what caused it or what the outcome was for people who have it. And so we went on a journey from nowhere, you know, with them with no understanding what it was into a much deeper understanding. And I think the worst thing that any person who's diagnosed with epilepsy or the parent of a child who's diagnosed with epilepsy is when they give you the Sudep talk and Sudep stands for sudden unexplained death due to epilepsy. And this is a thing that can happen

at any point to your child. They can just go to bed one night and not wake up, which is, I mean, obviously you've got fears for your child in so many different ways when they're out in the world of the mistakes that they might make and the bad decisions they might make that could lead them to doing something stupid but to know that it's sort of inbuilt it's there and there's nothing you can do about it she's on medication which is fantastic it does keep them at bay but it's still it's all about a threshold there's an epilepsy threshold anybody can have an epilepsy seizure but with epilepsy, the threshold is much, much lower, so it'd be much more easily triggered. And some people with epilepsy have incredibly low thresholds, and they're the ones who have

multiple seizures a day. Amelie's threshold is a little bit higher, which means it can be managed through medication, but the threshold does lower through life. So she's constantly going to be having to be represcribed a higher and higher and higher dose of this medication. At the moment, it doesn't have any side effects, but at some point it might be. such a high dose that it does have side effects. So, and she can't just, she has to take two, like they're like two massive horse pills twice a day. If she forgets them, she will have a seizure. It's as simple as that. It's a simple as that. She will have a seizure if she forgets to take a medication, which is a massive thing when you're going off travelling and backpacking and

all wanting to stay out at somebody's house and thinking, well, I can't stay out at somebody's house because my meds are at home. And so, yeah, there's an awful lot packed into it. And also the awful, awful humiliation of having a seizure in public, you know, the first. You know, the fear of having a seizure in public. It's a horrible thing to live under. I would say that Emily is much more pragmatic about all this than I am. Because you're her mom. Just because I do think it's important, how should the rest of us, what should we do if we do see somebody having a seizure? Okay, time it. That is number one thing is, as much as your brain is going to be spinning, you're going to be thinking, oh no, what's happening. Start timing it because most epileptic seizures

should resolve themselves within five minutes. And in that case, the brain will reset. And that's another thing to be aware of. It takes an awful long time after a seizure for the person who's had the seizure to come back around to themselves. It's like unplugging a computer and then plugging it back in and waiting for all the windows and programs to come back on. They won't know who they are.

They won't know what's happened. But it'll take a while. But if it goes over five minutes, you call an ambulance. Because then it's turning into a very serious medical crisis. And should you move them or touch them? You should get them on their side because obviously there's a possibility of vomiting. So get them onto their side. If you know how to do a recovery position, that's always a good idea to do the recovery position.

But the most important thing is time it and make sure it doesn't go over five minutes. If that person is still fitting after five minutes, call an ambulance because that is a medical emergency, which could end in death. Yeah. I mean, I do think, I'm really glad you've had the opportunity to say that because I think there is still this, I don't know, this kind of ancient fear around. down depalxy, isn't there? Yes. Never really lost that. Yes, because it is.

That person is no longer functioning in the real world. They've gone. They've gone somewhere else and their body is out of their control. Their mind is out of their control. And that's a very terrifying thing to watch. And obviously, horrible thing for the person to experience, but they're not seeing it in the same way. But yeah, it is good to look out for those things and to not be,

not to be so put off in the moment by what you're physically. seeing that you can't think straight. You are someone who is, I mean, you're phenomenally successful at your chosen profession. What is your ambition now? Because, I mean, I've always, I'm always very jealous of writers because it's an amazing thing to be able to do because you are company for people. Well, you're an adventure. People love going on an adventure with your books.

What do you want to do next? That's such an amazing question. And it's something that I'm giving a lot of sort of, sort of, behind the scenes thought to in quiet moments of where do I go next? Because I feel like if there was a bingo card for things that a writer would like to achieve in their career, I'm pretty much at full house. I'm not sure what else there is to do. Obviously, I want all writers write forever. I don't think I've ever heard of a writer just retiring. Just giving up. Yeah. Possibly slow it down a bit. You're a book a year person. Yes. And being a book a year is fantastic.

Fabulous, particularly now my children are grown. I have nothing else to do. I'm not a person with all sorts of hobbies and other ways of filling my time. This is the only thing I have to do apart from walking the dog. So yes, being a book a year, a writer is fantastic. But it's not just a writing of the book. It's when you are a big high profile writer. When you're a big cheese with your imprint and you're one of their main titles of the year. everything kind of revolves around you to a certain extent, which is amazing. It really, really is amazing, but it's a lot of pressure and it's every year and you have to just show up for it every year. And of course, all writers are introverts. We're all introverts. I'm a homebody. I just want to be at home with my dog. But you're constantly having to put yourself out there and do all the things that you have to do to support the publication of your book because your publishers are putting so much into the publication of your book. And you're very aware of that. And so it's like, well, without being too, I mean, you keep people in work. Well, yes.

There is that element of being a hugely successful writer. Absolutely. So no, it's very much a teamwork thing. It's very much they're working their socks off and throwing all the money at everything. And I'm working my socks off in order to support what they're doing on the other side. And you both have to do that. You can't. Neither of you can slack off. So not that I want my publishers to stop working so hard for me, but I'm trying to imagine a time where that might just naturally. So maybe it's a book every other year? Yes.

Maybe like two books and then a year off too. I don't know. We'll find our way through it. But I think it will naturally just sort of start to slow down. It has to. I don't know of any writer who has kind of carried on into their 60s and 70s still at this sort of frenetic. like high octane level of publishing every single year.

Well, you might be the exception. I might be the exception. We'll see. Lisa Jull, in conversation with Jane Garvey. We return tomorrow, Jane and Fee at times.org. Love to hear from you. Keep your emails coming in. And if you're listening to this in the middle of the night, sleep time. Congratulations.

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