Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Garvey and Glover's Tops and Bottoms TM

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

In today's email special, Jane enlightened Fi on 'mucky-tube'... buckle in for that. They also cover beautiful pebbles, Jane's Esther McVey impression and finding a late in life love interest at Crossed Wires... You can book your tickets to see Jane and Fi live at the new Crossed Wires festival here: https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/book/instance/663601If 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! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Hannah QuinnTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I thought people knew about it. Is it porn? That's what I mean. I think I assumed it. I don't know. I've never looked at it, but I know it exists and I think it is. This is great. I've had a little bit too much chilli oil there on my... I always get this wrong. Genuine salad or genius salad? I think it's genuine. OK. They are a company that supply salads of all descriptions

across large catered kitchens in London workplaces. But they could equally be called genius salads. I find it rather odd that they're called genuine because it implies that their competitors might be disingenuous salads. I don't want one of those. I remember the good old days back in the 70s when a salad was one hard-boiled egg, a bit of lettuce and a tomato. You were perfectly happy with it, weren't you?

Very much so. Do you remember the, would it have been Pizza Hut salad bar when it came into existence? Yeah, Pizza Hut. Well, actually, isn't that the, no, help yourself, not all you can eat, you help yourself. Just help yourself. I think you still can.

Yeah, but it was the height of culinary desire in Winchester when that came along. Well, I would imagine, because they quartered their tomatoes, didn't they? They did. It was very difficult to pile it up. But that's the most exciting thing in the pizza hut salad bar circa 1987 was the croutons because everything else was just a sliced salad vegetable wasn't it you know there was no faffing around with quinoa and pomegranate seeds and there was

no fetter was the dressing i think there was maybe salad cream no i think there would have been a proper dressing anyway these are fun times so we didn't have a certain age will understand yeah dressings down south but i suspect no dressings up north at that time but i could be wrong if you had a salad dressing in the north of england or elsewhere in the united kingdom back in the 70s i suspect you had blood. Because those were the days when olive oil was in the chemist. Yep, and it might go back that way because one of the side effects of Brexit is the difficulty importing from parts of mainland Europe now.

Although I've got two olive trees in my garden, Jane. Do you think I could press my own? I've got a fig tree, so if we combine my figs... We're in business. I could do my own? I've got a fig tree so if we combine my figs we're in business what could I do? I could ease people's constipation and you could help people get rid of their earwax so there you go

that is that's if we don't open off hair our waxing salon which is at the back of our fashion house which is called, if people have been listening to us for a very long time, Garvey and Glover's Tops and Bottoms.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that. It covers everything. This is an email special. I mean, how much there's going to be special about it, I don't know, but we've certainly had your emails. And we do, I keep saying this and I'm not going to stop until i am stopped obviously by the authorities uh we do love hearing from you and nothing goes to waste does it nothing does and

we read every email and we are genuinely sorry that we can't read every email out that there just isn't the time on the planet so it's not that we pick the best ones it's we pick ones that go with the one that we're going to read next sometimes oh yes it's all very So it's not that we pick the best ones, it's we pick ones that go with the one that we're going to read next sometimes. Oh yes, it's all very, very, it's quite slick and produced. Don't you feel a bit bad sometimes because there'll be some absolute crackers, but because we've got a lot on that topic, we can't always do all the crackers. So I'm sorry about that. This one comes in from Clarissa, who says, the email from the young mother who was enjoying her infant and feeling anxious about getting back to work reminded me of one of my favourite moments from early motherhood.

We lived in a very small apartment in a major US city. My son was just one or about to be one. My husband was away for a month on a study tour in England. I'm just going to pause there so we can all sympathise with you. I felt that. Yeah. It was the end of a long day and since it was a beautiful summer evening I decided to take my toddler out for a walk at his pace around the neighbourhood. It's a very slow pace isn't it? Before bath and bed. It was slow going as he stopped to examine a stone or a flower bed or a bicycle parked along the way but nearly every older adult we passed gave me a smile or a word of encouragement. Some even stopped to comment on my sweet boy and said be good for mummy or something similar at last we made it back to our building i was tired but i felt that my parenting skills and the obvious charms of my

child had been seen and appreciated as i carried my son through the entrance hall i caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror there i had an unbroken strand of cooked spaghetti draped over my shoulder for all you do clarissa oh clarissa that's just so lovely and i just love the fact that nobody thought uh to just pick the strand of spaghetti off your shoulder but just you know they were they were catching it weren't they as part of the picture of those early early maternal years where the days go on for years and years or they do and that pace on a walk of a tiny one around the block is really lovely for the first hundred years yeah because everything has to be appreciated sometimes picked up caressed and but you'll miss it because there'll be a time when your child isn't interested in stones or pebbles. Yeah. And, you know, I still occasionally say, look, that's a beautiful one.

I just don't seem remotely interested. Yeah. Okay. Jill is near Ottawa in Ontario in Canada. And she has sent us a picture, I think, of a very well-organised junk drawer. So that's not why I'm reading this out. She just says, as a Canadian currently living near Ottawa in Ontario, I can attest to the dismal radio we have in Canada. It wasn't always so.

But honestly, I think it's been terrible for 20 years. I did stumble upon your previous podcast and slowly over the last several years, I listened to less and less North American radio or TV. It's just so bad. And the politics south of our border dominates everything. I cannot stand it. So I am now... That was my lunch making its presence felt there. Did you hear that? Well, we did.

Was that high up in the esophagus or down in the deep intestine? It was an inst... Not an insta-lunch, although it kind of was. It was an itsu rice box. There could be more where that came from. He wants to come out. I enjoyed it at the time. Anyway, poor old Jill over there, trapped in Canada,

says she's listening to Times Radio. She sleeps very badly. So she wakes up listening to Asma and Stig and she just gets up when Matt Chorley comes on at my 5am, your 10. So she's getting up at 5 in matt shawley comes on at my 5 a.m you're 10 so she's getting up at 5 in the morning at 5 a.m that's a blast that's high energy isn't it yes uh what a what a way to start your day um it brings me to the whole poor ex-brit in vancouver thing because we did have an email from another a brit in vancouver i really feel her pain says jill canada

is a great country and i'm just going to give away a little showbiz secret there. It's taken me several goes to say that sentence. And a couple of times I said the rudest word of all. But I didn't mean to. But, says Jill, it's just so damn big, Canada. It takes forever to get anywhere. You two go on about your train system. Well, don't come to Canada.

Right. When the rest of the world was laying down track, Canada was removing theirs. Is that true? Well, I mean, I don't know. Jill's there. Our public transport system is terrible. When I'm in England, I marvel at your trains and your underground and your buses. So while that former Brit of yours sadly sits in Vancouver with moving regret, I sit here pondering my chances at getting dual nationality with the uk via descent my mother was born in belfast i really am wondering if picking up sticks in my 60s is possible or is it crazy and then jill does have some advice for you she refers i'm sorry to say

to your pet cat pissing barbara yes that is what she's known as. She's got some advice for you, Fi. Put a shower curtain over your bed. Have you thought of doing this? I haven't. And then you put a litter box in the room. So wherever Barbara is prone to piddling, put a shower curtain over anything she might mess up and put the litter tray very close to the action if you like uh jill says there's a

wonderful young irish woman on youtube she has a cat that was being on her bed and the shower curtain trick worked for her well i will definitely uh i will stack that up in the increasing it's like a roller deck of suggestions for barbara if you do go to youtube and you search just be careful what you put in that because it's probably going to direct you to the other tube which um anyway actually they're not they affiliated youtube and and what mucky tube mucky tube it's not called mucky tube it's called something else but i don't want to give the name out, just in case. There's young ears. Or OnlyFans. No. Pornhub. No, the other one. What?

I'm sure there's one. Okay. Hannah doesn't even know. What's she going on about? It must be just for old ladies. Where have you been spending time? God. I tell you what, I'm going to play back your Alexa. It's not Channel 5 next time I'm round at yours.

The Duchess of Gloucester's Hats. Eight o'clock on a Saturday night. What are you talking about? going to play back your alexa it's not channel five next time i'm around at yours the duchess of gloucester's hats eight o'clock on a saturday night what are you talking i was talking about red tube that is that's a thing isn't it what's red actually just while we're talking about thank you hannah um talking about red can we just bring in a little bit of, this isn't an art criticism podcast, although... Don't try and change the topic. What's French? I thought people knew about it. Is it porn?

That's what I mean. I think I assumed it. I don't know. I've never looked at it, but I know it exists and I think it is. This is great. Anyway, let's just talk briefly about art. Yes, please, let's. It does dig me out a little bit of a little bit of a hole here um by the way yeah anyone wants to take issue with jill's assertion that canada's a bit ropey i mean you've got uh you've got such a lot going for you um maple syrup

the mounties very good looking chap in charge you would have thought people would be happy with all that really wouldn't you yeah i'm sure there are lots of very very happy people in charge you would have thought people would be happy with all that really wouldn't you? I'm sure there are lots of very very happy people in Canada Oh no I'm sure there are, I've never been I have relatives there Well maybe we should both go there My aunt married a Canadian

Do you call it a scion of the family over there? I don't know, you could do If you were a bit poncy Don't call me Ponce. With your very specific porn channel. It's for Liverpool fans. Let's just briefly refer to the portrait of the king, our monarch here in the UK.

Yes, let's try. Charles III, which came out yesterday. In fact, during the time we were on the radio, so we were able to talk about it, and there was, I have to say, quite the reaction to this. Partly, this is what's so weird about this portrait of Charles, is it's 45% brilliant, and then 55% downright weird. It's got an incredible red background,

and because he is wearing a red guards uniform it all kind of merges in so if you if your eyesight isn't spot on uh or you're you know you're looking at oh you're colorblind of it oh my god why do you think the colorblind people have no idea i don't know what it's like to be colorblind that's how i stumbled onto red tube don't start making up excuses genuinely never looked at it it was probably closed down in 1983 i don't know what i'm talking about anyway caro is in norwich i'm moving on with this and caro says thank you for bringing my attention to the new portrait of the king by Jonathan Yeoh.

The background reminded me of those distressed look rugs currently available in all DIY and discount Homewood stores. I know what she means. That's exactly what the background looks like. I don't know what he was thinking. I think he just got bored of doing it. I think I heard either him or an agent for him trying to explain it this morning on radio and he wanted to just try and do something a little bit different. You've done that, love.

So he went in with the red roller brush, I think, really. But it's just a bit of a shame because the face of King Charles III is just beautiful. That's what I mean. The part of it is truly the work of a genius. And he's really captured something about him that is warm and twinkly-eyed, but also monarchical.

Is that a word? Well, you've come up with all... I don't know what you're on. You're on something today, yeah. But then the background is a distraction, which it just shouldn't be. It should be in the background. But then I suppose if you did just a very formal, normal picture

and in the background, oh, I don't know, you just had some leafy trees from Highgrove or something, we wouldn't be talking about it. It wouldn't be considered a really kind of artistic moment in time. But do you know what it reminds me of? You know, when people go in to face a Banksy, it's that. You know, there'll be someone who comes along and, you know what it reminds me of you know when people go in to face a banksy it's that you know there'll be someone who comes along and you know decides to just paint over something it's a bit like that well someone did message us on the program yesterday to say it looks as though just stop oil have already got to it it's just they would they won't need to bother at all anyway

lucy suggests that the headline uh for coverage of the new King Charles portrait could have been born ready. So we're a bit late with this now, let's face it, because it's days after the event. But Lucy, I think that's very good. And it should that should have been that should have been the tabloid headline for coverage. Lots of you are still wanting to talk about what you call your parents. And Rachel says, I had to call my parents, mummy and daddy when I was a child. I've just turned 66. As mummy said, mum was common. I had to call my parents Mummy and Daddy when I was a child. I've just turned 66. As Mummy said, Mum was common. I had to make sure that I found birthday and Mother's Day cards that didn't use the word Mum as well

or they'd have been rejected. What? Really? Yep. When my father died in the late 1970s, my mother embarked on a rather dramatic and unexpected love life. This so embarrassed me as a quite naive 21-year-old that I immediately started calling her mother. And so she remained to me until she died aged 97 in 2019.

Looking back with the wisdom of years, I can now admire how she picked herself up, widowed at 57 and really embraced a wild and totally un-mommy-like lifestyle. A shame I never told her I secretly admired her rebranding. Isn't that lovely? Oh, yes, that's full of regrets. It's very poignant.

And actually, yes, well done to the mother in question. But it's wonderful that she chose to refer to her as mother just to make absolutely clear that... There was disapproval. There was absolutely more than a hint of disapproval. And Vicky says, I'm just catching up and listening to the conversation, what you call your parents.

We call my 89-year-old dad Minorm. His name is Norman, but preferred Normie, not Grandad. My now 30-year-old son used to chant Normie, Normie, Normie when he started speaking, and this sounded like Minorm. So now we call him Minorm. And we also have Nanny Gilly, Nanny Trainset, Nanny Ryash. Is that the right way to say it? She moved from Ryash to Allington.

My apologies if I've got that wrong. And Vicky says, I'm hoping I might see you at Black Deer this year. Now, Black Deer, for those who haven't listened very, very closely to this podcast, is the festival that Jane attended, which then meant that she became a very confirmed festival goer, having never wanted to go to a festival or have been to a festival before. I need to be clear about it.

I saw the very good group Cardinal Black, who sent me a T-shirt, very grateful, still wear it occasionally in bed. Although, obviously, these hot nights, I'm not wearing it. Is that more information than was strictly needed? You crack on, though. Yeah, no, black deer. But I only went for the day.

I didn't stay there, because that would have meant being under canvas. Actually, we've got a mention here about a festival from Helen in Bristol. I've worked at the Glastonbury Festival for many years. I and many friends have acquired lots of cotton bags, and I'm now turning them into bucket hats to wear

at the festival. Very sensible. So Helen says she'd like to have one of our tote bags. Now can we explain can we re-explain? By the way our tote bag would be too big to use as a hat wouldn't it? You could probably get two hats out of it. But isn't that what she's doing she's taking apart the tote bags and making them into bucket hats yeah probably so so our merchandising rules is tell a friend get a tote or is it tell a mate get a tote tell a friend get a tote tell a friend get a tote because a bit like our previous correspondent i think mates a bit common okay right and jane garvey is now going to explain the rules oh god tell a friend get a tote right you email us at janefee at times.radio

explaining that you are a relatively new listener to Off Air thanks to your friend, insert name of friend. Yeah. And then we will duly consider your plea and we may or may not, judges' rules apply, send tote bags out in the post to you both. Correct? Yes.

Isn't the USP that you have to tell a friend who hasn't yet listened to us because it's an attempt to grow our audience? Oh, yeah, that's right. Hello. We're attempting to grow our audience. So, if you are a new listener to our fair because a friend has introduced you... No, because that's our existing audience. So, what we are a new listener to Off Air because a friend has introduced you...

No, because that's our existing audience. So, what we need you to do is... I wonder why I got the sack from that ad agency. So, I think, and I might be wrong here, Jane, it wouldn't be the first time. I think you tell somebody new about the podcast and you say, this is an amazing podcast, adjectives here or it's just a podcast why don't you give it a listen yeah and then they start listening and if they like us then they email us and say i was referred by so and so i'm a new listener we've got no way of

checking this and therefore can you send us both tote bags so that's what you're meant to do but there's a flaw in the plan here jane because people might not tell the truth oh no our listeners will tell the truth even new listeners listeners we've grown will tell the truth oh dear uh on men and finding things deborah says my then eight-year-old lost his PE kit and insisted it wasn't a lost property. I walked into the cloakroom and immediately said, there's your PE kit. That's not my peg, said my aggrieved son. Someone hanging it on the wrong peg had rendered his PE kit completely invisible.

Deborah, I'm so with you. So this is what we call in our house the man search, where it is right behind the tin that is obscuring it. But it's there. Move the tin. And it's been going on for a very, very, very long time. Deborah also wants to make a comment about Eurovision as saying, I'm very much hoping that by next year's Eurovision, celibacy will have become so trendy amongst the youth

that we will be spared the dry humping.umping well and scantily clad cavorting that we got this year the Irish entry was certainly no Johnny Logan what's another year Bambi Thug I mean she was I have looked back I didn't because I didn't see Eurovision at the time but I have looked back at both Bambi Thug and our own staging by Olly Alexander and Bambi Thug. Do you remember last year, after we'd watched Eurovision, we did make the point that all of the women were on the floor. They were just writhing on the floor. Get up! Get up!

Stop messing around down there. Just get up. The floor won't love you back. I'm here to tell you. No, Bambi Thug, non-binary person. So, you know, it's wonderful in lots of ways that people are able to express whatever they are. And good, listen, good luck to every single one of them. But I do miss the days of, I mean, Johnny Logan's a good example.

What's another year for Johnny Logan? It's a good song. What's wrong with a lovely song or a moving song, well sung by a pleasant-looking individual? I don't give a damn what they do in bed or don't do. I just want to hear a decent song with tunes and words I can hear. And so says the spokesperson and ambassador for RedTube. Oh, there are two sides to Jane Garvey.

No, there aren't! No, you're only getting one. This is about Red Eye, and it comes in from Emma Bennett. We're a bit giggly today. We haven't even done the show. No. We've had a calm down, haven't we? Now, Red Eye, we need to explain what that is. I've watched the final episode, so I know okay more or less what was happening oh did you get that little feeling of deflation where you just thought oh god well i spent a lot of time on this

there's a spoiler coming up do you need to turn off you've turned off if you're not interested or you don't want to hear it from me. I never thought that American bloke was to be trusted. And I was never happy with the idea of that. It was at the head of MI5, who had a very poorly partner, I think, who was in bed at home, wasn't he? Yeah, but she was doing some international cavorting. Well, she was doing, she was certainly doing everything she could for our relationship with the Americans by having intimacy moments with their CIA representative. So I thought, in all seriousness, that the bit at the end where she goes back, she's played by Leslie Sharp, who always does a really good job, I think she's...

Yeah. You've made a face there, Jane. Didn't. She did. I thought she was perhaps not trying as hard as I've seen her try before, but anyway. Oh, no, I quite like watching her. I find there's something quite kind of...

I don't know, because she says everything much slower than other actors. So I find myself kind of... Well, that would be to give it gravitas, wouldn't it? Yes, yeah, I find myself staying with her. But the bit at the end where it's all gone absolutely tits up with the CIA bloke and, you know, everything's been blown away. She got over that quite quickly.

Well, and then she goes back to family house and her partner, who is being looked after 24 hours a day because he's had some terrible accident and he can't move and whatever, and she gets into bed with him and gently strokes his cheek. I just thought, what a cow. Did you? Yes. Well, I guess.

Well, I mean, it's an extraordinary show. As Pia's already pointed out, so many holes in the plot. Anyway, look, I stuck it out to the end, just about. I think I might have missed out the fifth episode. And, yeah, it all ended not all that satisfactorily. But the plane never did get to Beijing. They turned it round, didn't they? Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think it's going to help our attempts to get to the other side of the world. There were some moments there where I thought, I'm not getting on a plane again. No, God, well, I'm getting a plane on Friday. And it's not going far, though, is it? No.

No. Emma wanted to join in with our conversation about how ridiculous ITV's red eye is. Having lived in China for two years, I can tell you that nobody visiting Beijing for a conference would ever hire a car and drive themselves around the city. So many things wrong with the series. My husband and I watch it sighing, but obviously we come back for the next episode. There we are. And there is that thing, I mean, there were elements of it where it was just so bad it was good. Slightly contradicting Fee's earlier point

that we read out emails in a sensible order, I just want to go back briefly to this subject of mummy and daddy and mother and father and everything else, because this is an anonymous email, and I do think this is... It hints at something really difficult for this individual, and I don't suppose they'll be alone. Your query regarding the names we give our parents

really, really got me thinking because towards the end of my mother's life, I started calling her Mummy. She asked me why and I said I didn't know and truthfully, I really didn't. I continued calling her Mummy for the next few years, right up until her sudden death in 2021. I don't know why I did it,

but I think it might have been because we had quite a strained relationship for most of our adult lives. I wonder whether I was trying to establish a sweetness or a childlike intimacy that just wasn't there. I still don't have any answers but I'm grateful to you for having given me pause to question myself and to then put it down and say I don't know why I did it. I just know that I wanted to call the person I'd been frightened of for most of my life, yet loved, mummy. And I just think that is, thank you so much for sending that because that gave, I think, well, it certainly gave me food for thought reading it. And I'm just very sorry for you. I hope that doing what you did gave you a sort of solace.

But how sad that you've been frightened of all people, your mother. But I wonder whether other people have had that experience without that horrible underbelly of something, you know, which sounds really abusive. And I echo Jane's sentiments there. But maybe that desire to return in those final months or days, years or whatever to the place where you both started, where you recapture that essential relationship,

maybe that's more common than we know. Yeah, quite possibly. Because it would be very endearing, wouldn't it, for... I would find it incredibly endearing if my children in my final hours called me Mummy because they haven't called me Mummy for ages and ages and ages and it just kind of fell away in our household when they got a bit older.

I think you get to about year where you don't want to be the one in the playground who's still talking about their Mummy. Yeah. So it falls away. What do you reckon? Year four? Yeah, four or five. Yeah. So, and I can imagine, oh, I don't want to imagine my mum in her final days,

so I'm not going to say that. But thank you for that email. That's very telling. Yeah. And lots of love to you, because I don't suppose that was easy to write. So I hope you're okay. Yeah.

And actually that whole thing about what the maternal relationship should be i think is so painful for people who don't have it it's such a it's a really all-enveloping trope that one of maternal love and you know some women find it impossible to give and that obviously means lots of people have found it lacking in their own life. But it's a chilly wind, that's for sure. It really is. Livia says, so, tongue firmly and cheat you two, what are the chances of me finding a late-in-life love interest

at your event in Sheffield? Well, I guess that somewhat depends on what you're looking for. It might do, but I would say you can absolutely guarantee that every single person in the Crucible on the evening of May 31st, with a special guest, tickets still available for the Crosswires Festival, is going to be a decent kind of person. And we have found, haven't we, when we've done shows,

live shows before, that everybody in the audience, they just get on because you all know that you're part of this whatever it is so you've got an opener there haven't you even if it is which one's which oh i didn't think they'd look like that um so livia you know if you're living in hope i would say absolutely live in hope and who knows we've got some lovely lovely gentlemen who listen to this podcast we don't welcome uh difficult men and nasty men will have switched off because they don't like us as we women talking about women's things so i would say

the chances are high if you're after a bloke and if you're after a woman well boom again absolutely boom love so come along it'd be really nice to see you there. And there are still some seats available. Brilliantly put. I still think at the moment we can't say who our special guest is, can we? No, we can't. It's annoying. We're on the hooks of Tenter, aren't we?

Yeah. Can we hint? No, because one hint and you're there oh okay yeah oh yeah that's true actually it wouldn't be difficult um can we just have a slightly sensible word now about hair removal yes you ready we can buck your ideas up uh dear jane and fee hollywood waxing i'm just so sad that women feel they need to rip out hair around the perineum and intimate areas. We are meant to have hair there. It protects us from microorganisms, probably arresting urinary tract infections and vaginal thrush, etc.

Why are we doing this? Women are duped into thinking our bodies are not acceptable. It's the misogyny we do to ourselves. Look, Susan, i take it i absolutely i've heard it before um obviously in other places where i've worked and i have every sympathy with that with that argument i really do i remember having a bit of a strop some years ago about um all the high street chemists there's a particular big one in the uk which had that um what was it feminine hygiene thing you just think well okay but where's the masculine

hygiene why are we mucky and smelly and have to deal with ourselves when the fellas don't have to bother and i think hair removal do you know in the end i think it comes down it certainly should come down to personal preference you do what you want you take away what you want taken away and you keep what you like. Is that correct? Well, yes. If you're not careful, I won't do my Esther McVeigh impersonation. Well, I offered you a tenor for it yesterday and you wouldn't do it,

but I know that you did a free Nadine Doris for Matt Chorley. I did. That just doesn't seem right. I did. You did? That's because the Scouse um vernacular does it does encompass me and nadine doris and um esther mcveigh yeah minister for common sense she's the common sense czar yeah czarina well that's gone terribly wrong uh just a very very quick whiz through lanyard gate so esther mcveigh but we speak, it's now next week and this was last week.

It is. So last week, the government got into a ding-dong about whether or not members of government and civil service should be wearing rainbow lanyards, because that could be construed... Or as Esther would say, rainbow lanyards. Thank you. Could be construed as a political message.

And overwhelmingly, the last word on that went to many people who contacted the programme, who said, you know, I am very proud of being gay. It's not a political statement. It's who I am. Yes, it's not about your politics. It's not politics. No, and you're not saying, I mean, you may actually, who cares what your your sexuality is if you want to wear a rainbow lanyard good luck to you it's the least of this country's problems at the moment the lanyard we got a lot of other shit going down we did get a funny text message from a listener saying um that you wouldn't wear a lanyard if you had hemorrhoids no bc it's that kind of thing it's just it's idiotic it is and because it's now turned

into something that people can make that kind of joke about i think genuinely a lot of gay people have found it so offensive to be compared to people who have piles you know it's not that's not that's not what the fight has been about as a member of the piled community in the past, absolutely no laughing matter if I can find a suitable lanyard. OK, you can answer the emails that come in about that. No, every pregnant woman gets piles. Yes, but I think it's different from your sexuality. Of course it is. I don't think...

It's when you start... It's when the humour kind of... I know. ..is upsetting people. It's when you start... It's when the humour kind of... I know....is upsetting people. It's just like, oh, God, this is just not what the Minister for Common Sense should be common-sensing about. Esther McVeigh.

No, I can't... Actually, it's deserted me now. I could do it yesterday. I'm Esther McVeigh. Minister for Common Sense. It's getting there. We're edging towards it. Anyway, oh dear.

Right, thank you very much. So this is going out whilst... Is it? Some of it. Whilst Jane is on her holidays, she is sunning herself with Factor 50 in an island, an undisclosed location, because obviously the paparazzi would just be

swarming otherwise. So it's me and the other Jane with you for the rest of the week and we've got so much to talk about so I hope you'll be able to stay with us. Oh yeah, Lamar Kerens is full of bants, full of chat and basically a woman in the know

so she's excellent to have around and I know she'll be great company. Jane and Fi at times.radio remains our email address. You stay safe, take care of yourselves, goodbye. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us

every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly.

Running a bank? I know, ladies. A lady listener. I know, sorry.