Off Air... with Jane and Fi - ‘Get Off Air…’ - with Donna Leon

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

It's International Women's Day and Jane and Fi are busy empowering. Plus Jane and Fi consider what to name their dating platform...And crime novelist Donna Leon joins them, lulling them with her pronunciation of ‘risotto’.  If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

we're on welcome uh wednesday already and if you and i were just discussing, sometimes around International Women's Day, we get asked to do stuff. It's quite weird. And it can mean, for those of us in this, let's be honest, slightly niche line of work, it can mean rather a busy week around International Women's Day. And so it's proving. Here, let me tell you. Fee's out tonight empowering. I'm out tomorrow empowering.

And then we're both empowering. On stage on Friday night. We should have mentioned it on the show, shouldn't we? Anyway, we're at the Women of the World Festival Friday evening. And then the best of that will be put out actually by Times Radio as a podcast. And if you'd like to come and see us, it's at the Royal Festival Hall. And you'll be very welcome. Come say hello afterwards.

7.30 start. Tickets are relatively moderate prices. And we are going to be joined by Meera Sayal, so a little bit of quality involved. Yeah, she'll perk us up, won't she? Yes, definitely. As we get to the end of our womeny week. A week just full of women!

Right, more power to them, she said hastily. Now, a couple of people complaining about jingles. I have been told that, yes, change is on the way. Now, none of us like change, but the change is for the better. I'm reliably informed. So it's the theme tune, isn't it, that seems to get quite a lot of people's goats, and also the fact that one of the trails that we did

way back when we joined the station, which seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? Yeah, I was only, oh, I was barely, was I 58? I think you were 58. Just 58. I was just 53. We recorded lots of teasers to wrap around the podcast and they do sound a bit old by now.

So I completely agree with you, whoever is complaining about the Hey Live thing, it grates in my ears too. So all of those things are going to be refreshed and changed. Yeah, so stop complaining, basically. Just shut up. Yeah, we don't so all of those things are going to be refreshed and changed yeah so stop complaining just shut up yeah we don't need any of those complaints uh this one uh comes in from angie i think probably uh hello jane and fee i hope you read this out the fashion fault wasn't with you two but with the seemingly uh i don't want to say untalented stylists, because they were very nice people.

They were very lovely. And this is about the never to be forgotten, once seen, never to be forgotten fashion shoot that was in the Sunday Times Style Mag last week. So whoever it is, our correspondent just says, shame on the paper for not showing more respect to their greatest assets. Well, that's not true. Had you been dressed by Gok Wan, a classic style may have appeared, which you both would have loved too. As for the ridiculous bikes, well, yeah, we didn't go anywhere on the bikes and I think the bikes were chosen

because of their lurid colours, which seemed to accentuate, is that a fashion term? Accentuate the dresses that we were wearing. But I know that lots of people had very mixed opinions about those photographs. And having said that, we weren't going to refer to them. I think we referred to them quite enough for now. But I would refer everybody to the very sensible gentleman who emailed yesterday,

pointing out that it was satire. And we were very grateful. You're right. We're going with that. That's the decision we made yes um i'd be very keen to help gabby if we possibly can i think this is a probably it's going to be a stretch this one gabby we'll try uh dear jane and fee you've kept me buoyant through lockdown as a disorientated new man with postnatal an emergency c-section breastfeeding agony and no support you waffled at me through many close to sleepless nights while my small cluster fed once for eight hours straight my children probably know your

voices as well as my own but i'm about to relocate now this is to a place in belgium i don't know how to pronounce this but it's spelt m-e-c-h-e-L-E-N. Mechelen? Shall we do some alternatives? Mechelen? Mechelen. Yes. Mechelen. Yeah, that is more likely.

I think the first one sounded more likely. As part of your new and hopefully profitable matchmaking initiative, would you ask your listeners, does anybody live there? Does anybody that I might like live there, basically? They'll be the only people I want to associate with and I'm really scared of being lonely.

About me, I'm five foot, although by evening, 4'11". Good sense of humour, cat person. Can speak Dutch, but not fluently. Hook, I'll be importing my own tea. Right, OK, this is a shout-out then to anybody living anywhere near the place we've decided is pronounced... Mechelen. In Belgium.

Gabby is moving there and she needs like-minded friends. So if that could be you or it could be somebody you know, please do email. And if you then go on to meet, make sure it's in a public place and please let someone know that you're going. I already feel nervous trying to arrange dates for... It's not dates. She just needs someone to come up with. Well, I think quite a few of our listeners have been

very taken with the suggestion that we could have an off-air married couples evening or just couples evening where everybody brought along a single friend who did want to meet somebody. So that might well take off. I think there's a commercial glint in the eye going on about that. What would you call it?

Three's company. I think there's a commercial glint in the eye going on about that somewhere. What would you call it? Three's company. I guess. No. Three's a crowd. Get off. Get off. I mean, I haven't heard that expression now since the late 80s. Oh, no, the mid 80s.

You've lost it. Was that the preferred term in Hampshire? Yes, it was. In Liverpool, you used to say cop off. Okay, I rather like it. Did you get off with them? Did you cop off? Oh, Lordy.

Okay, this is an anonymous one, and it is critical of something that I said, and I want to do this justice. Dear Jane and Fi, I've thought long and hard about whether I should raise this with you, not least because I feel you are both reflective and self-deprecating human beings and let's face it, there doesn't seem to be much of that about at the moment. Anyway, I listened with interest to your discussion about the societal culture around George Michael and I agreed with most of your observations. However, culture around George Michael and I agreed with most of your observations. However, as a mother of a 16-year-old gay child, I sat back when I heard Fee use the words lifestyle choices within

the context of George Michael's sexuality. I hate to pick you up on this, Fee, because you're obviously a kind and thoughtful and compassionate in your journalism, but I have to challenge this much misused phrase. So you're absolutely right to do that. I would only try and make the defence, Jane and I have been talking about this George Michael documentary, and I was trying very hard on air not to say something a little bit too graphic about the offences that he was then arrested for, which were a choice of his to make, if you see what I mean, because I completely get your point that homosexuality is not some kind of lifestyle choice that you make. It was more talking about the kind of things that George then did, which were outed in

the most terrible way by the newspapers. So that's my only caveat. But absolutely, I agree with the criticism and I take it on board. And I would hate your son to be listening to any kind of conversation that implied that he had a choice in who he was because his identity is obviously incredibly important and authentic. And it is the right thing for him. So I get all of those things. So I'm sorry if any offence was caused. I didn't mean that at all. No, I think everybody will know that you didn't mean that. But we're always grateful to you for just picking out things

that we've said that perhaps you didn't, I don't know, the cut of the jib of it you didn't like or whatever it might be. I was having a conversation with my daughter the other day about the term queer because I I know that people nowadays are very happy to to absolutely embrace that term but I was trying to tell her that I think it might have been in connection with the George Michael documentary that I do struggle with that because it reminds me of a terrible time when when I was growing up when it was just the most damning and unpleasant insult.

Because it implied that you were odd. Yes, that you were odd. It's an othering term, it's a real othering term. And I know it's now been completely adopted by that community and good luck to them and all the rest of it, but as me, I do associate it with a dark time, I have to say, and I wouldn't ever, I don't know, I'm just not, I was like slightly cringe, but that is a generational thing, I think.

You've seen the George Michael documentary. Have you watched both of them now? Yes, I've seen both of them now. If I'm honest, it probably could have been one documentary. I'm not quite sure what the second episode brought to me. And I think his case is so interesting, and this is what we were talking about on air, just how quickly times have changed so much for the better and the

terrible pressure that artists were put under i mean elton john was in the same yeah yeah kind of place wasn't he where he was made that was much earlier of course to pretend in public something that he wasn't in private but when you watch it i haven't seen it do you have that sense of it's a kind of you know it's almost a historical thing we're talking about now? Does it seem like a long time ago? It sort of does in some ways and it doesn't in others. And actually, I was quite struck by George Michael completely owned everything. So he made a lot of very public appearances.

He did an interview on CNN. public appearances. He did an interview on CNN. He did what struck me as a very, very frank and open interview with, I think, either Michael Parkinson or Michael Aspel. In those days, you had to be a bloke called Michael to have a chat show in Britain.

Actually, there are still no chat shows with women, are there, hosting? Anyway. Not on TV. Michael McIntyre did a chat show, didn't he? So maybe that legacy lives on. Oh, yes, that's very true. And John Bishop also has a chat show, although he's called John. So he's something of an outlier.

Yeah, but it was interesting because he did talk. He actually used the term masturbation, which I don't remember anybody ever saying on a chat show, a very middle of the road, mainstream chat show. But George Michael went on and talked about it. So, I mean, in many ways it's, perhaps I'm now contradicting myself, I said the second half wasn't worth watching.

Perhaps it was. I think we should all watch it. It sounds great. It will absolutely amaze young people growing up today to think that that's what happened. Because the idea that now a male popular crooner would lose any kind of well sales for example by admitting in speech marks that they

were gay it's laughable yes so we are living in better times we are living in better so if you just think about harry styles who did he does quite a lot of coming out shout outs doesn't he? It's a thing at his concerts. Completely embraces the whole thing. I love the fact that Harry just will not, he won't really commit to anything. He does what he likes, goes out with who he likes,

wears what he likes. He's styled in a really clever way with lots of kind of what you might call, back in the day, feminine, frilly touches. And I love his music. I love his... You know the kind of dungaree romper suit that he has coined as his own?

I'm not as keen on that. Are you not? It has shades of rainbow for me. Really? You do have to be my age to appreciate what that means. I really like it. I mean, I don't think... You and I wouldn't be able to sport them ourselves

because we would look like we were just about to attend something that's probably called monkey music. But, yeah, I like that. I think that's a practical outfit for a gig. Now, I have... I'm just moving on. I have offended podiatrists. Oh, you have? Not my intention. Not my intention.

This is from Kate Harrison, podiatrist. Thank you for emailing, Kate. I wanted to email in following Jane's flippant comment about a pamphlet entitled My Life as a Podiatrist. This pamphlet needs to be in every career advisor's arsenal as there's a national shortage of podiatrists. We desperately need people to consider it as a career. In fact, says Kate, I'm going to a careers fair at a local secondary school tomorrow evening to help spread

the word. Now, I think that might be tonight, in fact. So, Kate, I hope it goes well. I came to podiatry via a short teaching career when I decided that rather than dealing with teenagers for the rest of my working life, I'd rather work with feet. That was 28 years ago and I've had the most fulfilling and satisfying career ever since. Part of the problem is that podiatrists have a rather unglamorous image. We're still perceived as spending our days cutting old ladies toenails. However, podiatrists are specialists of the lower limb. We assess, treat and diagnose, sorry, we assess, diagnose and treat a whole range of issues from the hip down. And there's room to specialise in a whole host of areas. Sports podiatry, gait analysis, dermatology, diabetic care, minor surgery, etc.

I'd be so grateful if you could read this email. It might just reach a young person or a young person's parent who is currently thinking about their future career it is national careers week after all please don't forget to encourage them to explore podiatry as an option uh kate thank you you've well and truly put me in the picture there and i now know much more about the potential for a career as a podiatrist. I think we should get Kate on Inside Job to tell us a little bit more. Good idea. Because I bet that people tell her loads and loads of things while she is attending to the lower limbs. I think they probably do and

I have to say it's a it's a sort of regular highlight of my parents social life. They don't go to a podiatrist they do go to the chiropodist and they always sing its praises afterwards tea and biscuits proper chat uh you know it's it's a it's an event so it is absolutely i was going to say not to be sniffed out but you know what i mean it's it's a very important thing not to be sniffed out please wear a mask uh rachel says and don't worry we'll get to our big interview in just a couple of moments time. It was with one of do you know what? I was so thrilled to meet her. One of my all time favourite writers

Donna Leon. She didn't disappoint. She was a brilliant woman. Let me just do Rachel's email though because it might start a lovely chain. That and finding companions in Belgium. Rachel says greetings you acerbic hilarious ladies. You're a constant

source of pleasure. As I potter on my plot at Victory Gardens allotments in Rawdon, Leeds, even when the temperature is hovering at zero. Men's sheds have always been a thing, haven't they? I'm sure, Jane, you must have addressed this subject in the Hour of Woman in the past.

We did. So why not share the delight? We've moved on now. So why not share the delight? We've moved on now. So why not share the delights of my shed, the place where you accompany me, picks attached to make you feel at home. Makes me very jealous. I'd love a shed. Would you want to use your descriptive powers?

Did you ever have to do this in radio training? I didn't do formal radio training. Oh, well, here's your opportunity. I didn't get on the course. Here's your opportunity. So in 30 seconds, could you describe the second image there to give the listener a full and rounded and 3D picture of the shed? I would say this is less shed, more welcoming lady nest.

There's a lovely wicker chair. There's the hint of some fabric. There are things hanging on the walls. I think there's a kettle on a hob uh there's a book and what else what else has she got in there well she's got a description a wool rug um actually her late mother's wicker armchair that's very very sweet and she's got wine glasses biscuits yeah monty don's book uh and anna karenin as well and I think it's a very good idea to share images of women's sheds or just women's spaces, because for a long time, you know, men have the man cave thing going

on, don't they? A place where they need to go to find some sanctuary, some calm away from the domestic bustle. And I think an awful lot of women might be like me, where sometimes I just shut myself in a laundry cupboard. But invariably, I'm still doing chores. You know, it's not a place of sanctuary. So I admire Rachel enormously for having created her own place and space. I'd like more pictures of those kind of things, please. Send us your hideaways that the man of the house knows nothing about. Or you could send us a picture. I love

you know, some men have what do they call them? Men have in the house not studies, but is it snug? What would be the term? Men dens. Dens, yeah, probably a den. Derek's got

a den. I always want to say of iniquity after the word den So yes, female spaces would be very good Anybody who knows anybody in Belgium would be great too Belgium's not very big, so you might know someone somewhere Who could become a friend of Gabby who's going there Maybe just over the border Yes, actually because Donna Leon told me before we started the interview

that she now lives very close to the Italian border in Switzerland. Sounded gorgeous. And she can sometimes, if she fancies it, walk, just walk to Italy for a coffee. I mean, how cool is that? Sounds lovely. Yeah.

I can walk to Pret for a coffee, but it's not the same thing, is it? Do you know, I was at Lidl this morning before it opened. Were you standing there knocking on the door? No, I just got my timings wrong. I didn't have any bread. I really wanted toast. So I had to scoot down to the shops and I arrived at five to eight. And there's a sort of queue.

It's a dispiriting thing to wait for a supermarket to open. And do you chat? No, everyone just sat pretending because it was in one of those inside shopping centres. We all sat pretending we weren't waiting for Lidl to open. But we all were. That's why we were there. Because the weather was a bit inclement at this point. It wasn't the greatest outing of my life. But I got two loaves, one to

eat and one as an emergency freezer loaf. So you won't have to do that again. No, exactly. Do you know what I really admire you? Because if I was that hungry in the morning, I'd just eat something else. You know, I'd just get out a Punjabi samosa and I'm done with that, Jane. Crime novelist Donna Leon

didn't start her detective novels featuring here we go, Commissario Brunetti until she was nearly 50. She's gone on to pen 32 of the books, selling more than 7.5 million copies in 35 languages. Her success lies in the kindness and the decency of her main character as well as in the backdrop of Venice, the city that all of her books are set in, and the way she combs through its streets and canals

for stories of corruption and power and greed and hubris, always allowing Brunetti to sink back into the loving embrace of his family and food. Can you tell I'm reading this? She was our big guest today. We began by asking her about the original story at the opera that led to the creation of Brunetti. I was at the opera, at the rehearsal of an opera,

being conducted by a friend of mine, Gabriele Ferro. This is 35 years ago, at least. And somehow the name of another conductor came up, and we started speaking, of course, badly about another conductor. And someone posed the idea of what would happen if he died here? And we started, what a good idea. And I thought it would be a great idea for a murder mystery. I wonder if I could make a chocolate mousse.

There was as much curiosity. I just wanted to see if I could do it, because I'd been reading them all my life, just that I'd been eating chocolate all my life. And I sat down, I wrote a novel, a crime novel, in which the opening scene is the discovery of the body of that conductor. You see, it's extraordinary that you use the term just. You know, I sat down and I wrote a novel because for so many people,

A, that would seem like an almost impossible hill to climb. And B, chocolate mousse is harder. Do you think genuinely? Well, to someone who doesn't know how to cook, yeah, or someone who's never eaten one. In my case, I'd been nourished by chocolate mousse for the last who knows how many how many years I was 50 when I started. So I've read, I had read hundreds of mysteries. And I thought, well, I just follow when I started so I'd I've read I had read hundreds of mysteries and I thought well I just follow I follow the rules I follow the path that other people have started and that was it and then what happened to that manuscript because it didn't immediately go to a publisher no no no because I wanted to write it I didn't want I didn't care about it's being published

a friend of mine nagged me into sending it to a contest, which happened to be in Japan, and it won. And then I got a contract, and then I got a contract for two books, and then it was four books, and then here I am, 30 years later. With this astonishing success. Did you ever wonder whether or not you wanted to write a female protagonist, or immediately in your head it was a man? No, no, because the scene is italy where male uh priority is is a visible phenomenon and had she had brunetti been a woman she would

have spent a fair time of spare time as a lot of her time explaining always well I'm just a woman but still you have to answer my questions the the the immediacy of power is is there with a man and a woman doesn't have that but you've created a very lovely man which I think is one of the hugely appealing things in your writing for people who haven't come across him yet more for them really Donna but can you tell us a little bit more about him Brunetti is a Venetian Venetian doc he's his family is Venetian back I don't know hundreds of years he's studied law he has a degree in law but he didn't want to practice law so he became a he became a police He is married, and this was a bit of very clever selection on my part, he's married to the daughter of one of the richest men in the city,

who was also un conte. So the nobility and the money doesn't do Brunetti any immediate good, immediate good, but it connects him to a whole strata of society that he wouldn't be allowed into otherwise. As a lower class person, because he is, his family was very poor, there were no buddies. He has no rank, he has no rank in the hierarchy that exists in Venice, He has no rank in the hierarchy that exists in Venice, but his wife does. And so when he goes among people doing his job, he's allowed sort of a giant step because he can step right in with them and be as tall as they are because his father-in-law is il conte fallere. So it's so clever because it allows him to be an observer, doesn't it, and to take the reader with him on those observations.

And he can observe both sides. him to be an observer, doesn't it? And to take the reader with him on those observations. And he can observe both sides. Anybody pretty much can invent or imagine the upper classes, but only someone like Brunetti can understand what the lower classes were like when he was growing up. And repeatedly in the books, it's made clear that the family was desperately poor. So 32 books have been written. I know that you believe that you've made Brunetti darker as they go on. I think so. Is he at his darkest point yet in your most recent one?

I don't know. Because I'm working on a book now. I guess it's number 33. And I'm more than 200 pages into the manuscript. And I don't have a clue. I don't know what's going to happen. Do you not? No.

Ever? Not at all. With any of them? Never. But I've heard you say that when you're teaching creative writing, you actually lie. You tell bare-faced lies, and you tell the students they need to plan every single second.

Now you're sitting here having sold truckloads of... Oh, okay, well... Okay, Donna, sorry. Could you read the... Oh, okay, well. Okay, Donna, sorry. Could you read the... Just beat it, huh? No, I think that for novice writers, it is easier if they can think through the entire plot and have a beginning, a middle and an end.

Because then they have a map. They know where to... If this is your first or your second book, you leave cookie crumbs. You know where to go. Because if you don't do that, there's just too much temptation for a novice writer.

But after you've written, say, 10 of them, you've learned where to step to the right, and you know what character has what potential. In the beginning, you don't know that. So what I think is wise to do is to examine the possibilities that open from each character. So you have to make a plan for that. Can you just describe to us your first ever visit to Venice? As an American, as a young American woman, you arrive in what I haven't

been myself, what I gather is the sensual bliss of Venice. What did it do to you? It zapped me. I was in my early 20s. I had finished university and I was, I suppose I was running away from having to be a grown up and get a job. So I went to Europe and as a tourist, to be a grown-up and get a job. So I went to Europe, and as a tourist, I went to Venice. And I had read about it. I had seen the Katharine Hepburn movie. I had seen documentaries such as they were.

I'd seen National Geographic, The City on the... I stepped out of the train and walked down the steps of the train station, and I said, Oh, my God, it's built on water. The streets are water. How can that be? Because the imagination, no matter how much exposure it has had, and of course in the late 60s one had far less exposure to the reality of Venice, it cannot prepare a person for what Venice is. And every step presented new beauty i was there for a

week i think and i i was the equivalent of drunk on right on this on these palazzi these windows these the streets the truth the truth though i suppose now is i'd be doing venice a favor by never visiting yeah yeah yeah most people would but everybody wants to see it but everybody wants to see the dalai lama and ulan bator and and we can't anymore but i can't i can't have a vote in this because i profited from early exposure to and constant living in in venice and so now when you go back there and you live in Switzerland and go back to Venice kind of for a week at a time, here and there, what is your feeling every time you leave?

Does it feel like home that's calling you back? Or is there a sense this might be the last time I visit? No, no, no, no, no, no. Because I know I will always want to go back. But I have to, all of us who have left and go back, we know when to go and when to stop going. So you stop going about now and you can go back in October because the 30 million who come, most of them come in the summer.

30 million? They estimate that it's 30 million a year and there are fewer than 50,000 residents now. So where will Venice be in say 30, 40 years time? I don't think it will be. I think that global warming will eliminate it. I think that the rising of the seas will eliminate it because it doesn't have to be under a meter or two or three or four or five of water. A half a meter will do because that will make life impossible. And tell us a little bit about the politics of current Venice and who it is who's fighting for that not to happen,

and why that fight isn't being won, because it wouldn't only be global warming. I mean, it is about the tourism and the cruise ships. It's about everything. Yeah. The mayor Brugnaro, everything. Yeah. The mayor Brugnaro, he's been in office about six years. His first act as mayor, if memory serves, was to order a search through the children's textbooks in the grammar school, because there was, there were problems about what he called gander. Because in the textbooks, boys could have, little boys or little girls could have two mothers or two fathers, and that's not good according to the rules of what he called gander. He was trying to talk about gender, but he didn't know the word, so he used gander.

This should give you an indication of the intellectual level. So has this bloke been elected? And he was re-elected. He was re-elected. Oh, you're a mess, Rick. Because he's the head of the Junta that talks about we must limit the number of tourists who come to the city while doing everything legally possible

to permit the arrival of more and more and more tourists. So it's same, same, same for Venice. It's been badly governed for... Well, Italy's been badly governed for a couple of thousand years. Yes, this may give us a clue as to why your books have been translated into every language on earth, just about, with the exception of Italian. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No?

No. They are not translated into Italian because I don't want to listen to the complaints and comments of people who don't read the books, but who read about the books and resent and become angry at the foreigner, the person who is not Italian, who says these things about Italy. And if I were in their place, I'd probably do the same thing. Because I can talk badly about my parents, but you can't. And I think that they would be justified. No Italian, and I think that they would be justified. No Italian, either friends of mine or people that I meet,

has ever commented in that way that I say bad things about Italy because I don't. I like to think that my love, my adoration for the people and the place is evident in the books. But that would be destroyed, I am certain, by publicity about the publication of these books, which reveal the corruption of, by the American. And I don't want to live with that. I don't need that. You're listening to Off Air with Jane and Fi,

and we're talking to the crime novelist Donna Leon. Now, she was in Iran finishing a PhD on Jane Austen when the revolution broke out. We asked her why she'd gone to Iran. I was in Iran because I needed a job and I saw an ad for a teaching job in Iran. I didn't know where Iran was. I was 20-something years old. And so I applied for the job and I took the job teaching Iranian helicopter pilots English basic English for I did it for four no I did it for about six months and then I got myself promoted to a game that

allowed me to do what I really was there to do which was to play tennis so I played tennis for about six hours a day for three years. Jane are you keeping up with this? Um just about I haven't got to the title of the PhD Donna which is important. The title of the PhD was The Changing Moral Order in the Universe of Jane Austen's Novels, because I had been at the University of Massachusetts and done everything except finish my dissertation. So off I went to Iran with a cartload of books and because there was no internet, there was no none of that. And I assiduously worked on my my dissertation while I was there and I had a rough draft and when we were evacuated in the middle of martial law I put it in a trunk and I made it I was smart so I made a copy and put it in another trunk ha ha ha I dealt with them

wouldn't I yes and when the trunks after six, finally got to my home with everything intact, except any piece of paper, they had confiscated all the books and all of the manuscript. The rough draft. And I was confronted with the choice between continuing to be a vagrant, sort of an academic mercenary, or going back to graduate school. I couldn't, I couldn't go back to graduate school. It just seems so ridiculous. So I wouldn't, I think I went to China then for a year. And so at that age, what did you think that the rest of your life was going to be like? I was very, very lucky in that I had parents who, in a sense, were socially irresponsible. They a sense were socially irresponsible they did not teach me they did not teach my brother ambition they just said have a nice life have a lot of fun study

something that you like get a job have a decent life bye bye and I didn't want to become the boss or the professor or the director or the anything I just wanted to have a whole lot of fun and have a decent life. And so I had no, I didn't have goals. I didn't have commitments to intellectual this or that. I just wanted to go and have fun. It seemed like a logical choice to me. And did your brother do the same thing? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Does he read all of your books? I send them to him. Interesting answer.

Not the same thing though, is it? No, he does. We all know about sibling rivalry. Donna, we've been talking quite a lot on our podcast, courtesy of our listeners, about the choice to be single or the struggle when you're single and you would rather be in a couple. And you said some interesting things about your own choice and your contentment at not being in a couple.

Has that lasted all of your life or has that changed in different parts of your life? Well, I shared a house with a gentleman in Iran for three years, but that was because he was the funniest person I'd ever met in my life. And he gave me shelter. He said, well, I have that down there. And we lived together quite peacefully.

He also spoke fluent Farsi. And so there was no fumbling about getting adjusted to the culture. So he was useful. He was useful. And he was a dearly loved friend. But he was only a friend. But have you found throughout your life, and I don't want to pry at all, Donna, but I'm interested as to this notion that it's a couple's world. And that's what a lot of people say, that, you know, the acceptance of people who are genuinely just very happy to be single is still something that the wider world struggles with a bit.

Oh, I don't see the reason for struggle. In Italy, remember, there are about 300 women murdered almost always every year by their companion, their ex, ex-fianzato, ex-marito, or their current companion. And these are only the ones that are accused. I'm not sure that couplehood, by definition, is a desirable goal. Well, not for everybody.

I think it can be, but it depends on the person. Yeah, no, definitely. Can I ask about why, I mean, this is British exceptionalism at its finest, but why didn't you write a book about a British detective, John? You could have. I mean, I can picture because Venice is all very well. But what about Tewksbury? Would you want to take him home to dinner? Yeah, well, I suppose, you know, come on.

It wouldn't have been impossible, would it? But you picked on an Italian citizen. No, but I never lived in England. I don't know anything about England. I get it all wrong. OK, but I think, as I understand it, your heritage is irish german and spanish so you had no particular affinity to it yeah but i had lived in italy i had lived in venice for about 25 years when i wrote the books so okay yeah it's the old and it remains the only place i've ever lived where i can really i could really live because i

i spoke the language very well. And I had lots of friends in Venice and I still have lots of friends in Venice. So it's really the only place I've ever felt comfortable living. Switzerland is fine. Switzerland is fine. You should put that on a t-shirt.

I'll be delighted down at the Swiss tourist board. Just before you go, we've only got a minute or so left. One of the joys of your books is your description of food. And Brunetti does go home for lunch quite a lot, doesn't he? Yeah, that's brilliant. It is. It's one of the hugely kind of warming aspects of the books to me.

Can you just tell us your favourite Italian dish to end on? It usually depends upon the season, but I'm always a sucker for risotto di zucca. Risotto with pumpkin. With pumpkin? With pumpkin. It's bliss. And is that a fried pumpkin or is the pumpkin the same kind of consistency?

Chopped up in dice-sized pieces and then cooked for a long time with lots of olive oil. Yeah. And an onion. And then on top of the pasta. Or that's the pasta. Or in the risotto when you stir it a lot. Just say risotto again for me.

Risotto. That's better. Yeah, lovely. Risotto. We're there, aren't we? Well, I so love risotto. Risotto, as we call it here. Yeah, rice.

That was Donna Leon, and So Shall You Reap is out tomorrow. And on tomorrow's radio show, and in fact on our fair, we're going to talk about a book called Unscripted, which is about an extraordinarily seamy Hollywood business saga. Ooh. I know. Yes, there's a great deal of semi-smart that we can't really get to. But I'll do my best.

Do you ever wish that you had been born into an incredibly rich dynasty? Do I? That's a very good question. But I think no is the answer because I'm here to tell you, Fi, that I think it can bring a certain amount of trouble. Nothing gets past you. You're a very, very perceptive lady. I'm remarkably astute. Do you?

No. I think it's one of those just very, very odd things that people yearn for enormous wealth and power because the stories told about wealth and power are just shit. Yes. I mean, power doesn't just corrupt. It makes you deeply unhappy. Yep. And if money is in the mix as well,

that can become extraordinarily toxic. Yep. As we'll discover tomorrow. The very kind of wise people who become very wealthy and powerful, they give their money away. Away, yes. their money away. Yes, give it away. So it just seems to be a false dawn.

Yeah, absolutely. You're better off with having enough, but not too much. I mean, of course, that's easy for me. You know, at the moment, the thought of not having enough is really depressing. And I think there are plenty of people around at the moment who would like a bit more. Who would certainly like a bit more. Yeah, yeah, We know that.

Right. So we're going to toddle off and do things for the betterment of the womankind. Well, not really. No, I'm going to the theatre tonight. Oh, OK. So you'll get my full review, which my theatrical reviews, as you know, well worth hearing. So there'll be another one tomorrow. And then I'm bettering women on Thursday night.

I'm going to go and talk about how to collaborate better with men. Shuffling papers. OK. Reporting back on that. Perhaps I should actually attend your evening. No, I don't think so. I don't want you there. Go away.

You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. Now, you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that if you like what you heard and thought, hey, I want to listen to this but live, then you can, Monday to Thursday, 3 till 5 on Times Radio.

Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon. Goodbye.