Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Gloves off for Boxing Day

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

Welcome to the first of our best-of episodes of 'Off air' with some of Jane and Fi's favourite interviews of the year.Today they are joined by Monty Python star and seasoned traveller, Sir Michael Palin, to talk about his latest journey through Iraq. Plus, Britain's second astronaut, and first to be a resident of the International Space Station - Major Tim Peake.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producers: Kate Lee, Emma Sherry, Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Hello and welcome to the best of me, Jane Garvey.

I know. And you? Fee Glover. Over the next couple of days, you'll hear our big interviews with all sorts of people, a real range of guests, actually. Likes of Jamie Oliver, the director of Bridesmaids, Paul Feig. That's what I call, can I just say, variety. I mean, it is variety, isn't it? Where are you going to get that line up?

It's bing, bang, bong, all over the place. First, we start with a conversation though with the legend the one and only michael palin who we just loved meeting he joined us to tell us about his new book and his travels all around the world how do you feel michael about travelling the world now? Is it a circle that you can square, the climate change problems caused by mass tourism, but yet the need to still be able to see other parts of the world to keep our horizons broad?

Well, I'm afraid I would say, well, it is a circle I can square because that's what I can do, and I've been able to perhaps inform people about the world and other countries and what they think and their expectations by being actually able to go to those countries. I mean, if I could go by ship, but even then, you know, ships are fairly poisonous to the atmosphere as well. I think there's no question that when you travel,

you're going to be using up a bit of i think in my particular case um i feel it's really important to go to the country country itself if you really want to find out what's going on it's always very different to what you hear from the media back then and is is the style of travel show, the traditional style of travel show, which is done by venerable white chaps, is that still okay? Venerable white chaps. She said, gazing with reverence at a venerable white chap. I'll take the venerable bit, that's fine. No, you deserve it. Well, I think anybody who's got anything to say about the world should be considered to say their piece.

And if they can deliver good ideas, good opinions, good insights about the world, whoever they are, man, woman, child, whatever, race, colour, they should be able to do it and should be encouraged to do it. I think it is important to have a range of opinions and deliberately go out for that. I think the most important thing is to get people who are good,

who know what they're talking about. I'm afraid I just don't think getting in people for the sake of whatever their view might be or their operation might be. Their current popularity, yes. Yeah, well, you know, you've got to know your stuff, I think. But I watched some of your revisits of your travels

around the world in 80 days that you did during the lockdown it was us watching you watching you very meta but I sense that there was a tiny bit of reticence from you sometimes about the places you've been to

and the things that you've seen and said? Well, my reticence is always because I know that I'm not an expert. I don't like to be seen as an expert. You're a 79-year-old white man. You can run for president. Yeah. Your category... I can't run.

...is expert. I can walk for president. Well, stagger for president. No, I can run actually reasonably quite fit i've avoided politics um and i'm not regretted that um sorry what was the question whether you were reticent when you watched your earlier work back about anything about a change in times or a change in tone yeah i think it again i just feel i'll be very very careful making judgments instant instant judgments,

especially about countries and the way the world is. Things will change, you know, drastically, or even change just, you know, in a few months. The emphasis will change. I mean, you'll get something like the war in Ukraine, which is a massive change. But at the same time, you've got climate change, which is, you which is having different manifestations

as we go by each year. But I think we ought to be very careful of saying well, if we do this, that will happen. If we do this, it'll make it all better. And I feel I'm still discovering, and that's what travelling is about for me. It's satisfying a curiosity,

not being an expert who knows his stuff and trying to tell the rest of the world what to do. Now, I'm glad you're fit now, and you clearly are fit and well at the moment, which is great. I got here. Yes, indeed. But when you put it to the family that the trip to Iraq was looming,

how did that go down? Not well. No. Not well. Can't say I'm surprised. I mean, my wife's terrific, really. She's always been very keen on me going away for long periods of time to remote parts of the world.

It's a sign of her love for me, I suppose. But North Korea was the first one. That took a bit of a battering. Well, yeah. And Iraq, too. North Korea, I think, was slightly worse because so little was known about North Korea. And even though we went at a time when there was a rapprochement,

people went there and some people didn't come out again. So there was the feeling that no one would know anything about what happened when you went into Korea, whereas in Iraq people know where you are all the time. It's a bit like going into a Western country in a way. Yes, I mean, of all the places you've been in the world, was North Korea by some margin the worst? Well, worst in what way well if you could imagine or could you possibly imagine carving out in any way a half decent life there

possibly really how just possibly well you would have to stop reading the books you like reading you stop listening to the music you like necessarily you stop have to stop reading the books you like reading. You would have to stop listening to the music you like, necessarily. You would stop listening to radio and TV and have a very, very limited mix of things you could see. If one wanted that life, I wouldn't at all. I'm quite the opposite. I'm a sort of sucker for information from all quarters. But I can see that some people may see it as a kind of the ultimate retreat,

where you'd have to think very little. Everything's done for you. It's reasonably comfortable. There's no litter in North Korea at all. You know, if you just wanted to be on your own and be out of it and turn your back on the noisy world outside, yes, I could see you could like it. And it takes away the choice of even a haircut, doesn't it, for men? I mean, that is quite something.

Do most Iraqis want more people to come and visit Iraq? Yeah, I think they, I'm sure they do. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and be good for business. It's something that, you know, they feel, I think, that they've been sort of rejected by the world for a long time and people have turned their back on Iraq. So obviously, yes.

But there is, in almost every country I went to, even, dare I say, North Korea in some ways, there is an urge to welcome people. If you approach with the right attitude, you haven't got a gun and you haven't got an opinion that you want to have and you haven't got a Bible, then you'd probably be welcomed. And certainly people in Iraq welcomed us.

They didn't, oddly enough, didn't blame us for all the terrible things that have happened which they could well have done. They really didn't? It never came up? Well, no. I mean, this could be, we weren't there for a long time they may be trying to be nice to us but the general feeling was

that they knew that the problem was within Iraq itself. It's a country of so many different tribes, groups, religions. They know that. They know it's not a perfect country and it's never really worked. So I suppose you could blame the British for lumping it all together in the first place. But I think they see the problems, their own problems, which they have to sort out. Thank you very much. Presumably with their oil, I mean, obviously I know oil is in itself difficult, but they could be a hugely successful, prosperous place. Yeah, absolutely.

It's all there. A lot of Iraqis will tell you that. I mean, we went to a school with super children. I mean, really very, very clever, bright, lots of energy. And yet the buildings they were in were sort of falling apart you know and these are a lot of them were taking sort of science as education and yet the actual facilities the laboratories just weren't there at all i mean they were such bright buttons weren't they really amazing they're terrific yeah yeah and is when you

think back to that journey what is the most kind of mesmerising memory that comes to you of all of the places that you visited? well I think it's probably going up that tower the minaret in Samara it was a beautiful building and I had to do something which I wasn't prepared for at all which is to walk up the building which has no fencing on the side just on the inside

so you're looking out over i have i have suffered from vertigo i managed to go up this 200 foot building stand on the top with no fence around at all and suddenly was able to stand there without quaking i don't know why that happened i think it possibly because it's an 800 year old building and people have been going up and down there every day for 800 years. It was terrifying just watching. It really was. And also because there didn't seem to be a language between everybody as to who moved to the other side to let them pass.

It wasn't commonplace. It wasn't. That was Michael Palin. And if you haven't seen it, and I think we were both so enthusiastic at the time, I hope a lot of you did go and have a look. That series about Iraq is available still on my five it's his channel five travel series and is one about North Korea also absolutely fascinating voiceover describes what's happening on your

iPhone screen voiceover on settings so you can navigate it just by listening. Books, contacts, calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Welcome to the best of Jane and Fee, where we're mulling over some of our favourite conversations from the last couple of months. We're delighted to say that our guest this afternoon is Britain's second astronaut and first ever resident of the International Space Station, Major Tim Peake. Now that is right,

isn't it? I've got all those facts completely right. Absolutely, yes. Helen Sharman was our first British astronaut in 1991. And Helen flew to the Mir space station. And she's a good friend of mine. And she gave me lots of great advice before my mission in 2015. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because sometimes she gets a bit forgotten. But you've always, I think, been really, really decent about acknowledging that you are not the first Brit in space. No, absolutely. that you are not the first Briton in space.

No, absolutely. And in fact, we've had several other astronauts who were British born with dual nationality that flew as NASA astronauts, the likes of Mike Fole and Pierce Sellers, for example. And so I think it's great that we have this heritage of space exploration in the UK. And we're very good at it. And we shouldn't forget that.

How old were you when you went up to the space station, Tim? I was 43 years old when I arrived, 44 when I came down. Okay. So do you now see your life as the years pre-space station and post-space station in terms of the way you think about your life? I do, but I wouldn't say it's that in isolation. I think all of us, as we journey through life, we pick up experiences from so many different things that we do, whether they're actually part of our job, whether they're physical experience, whether they're emotional experiences. And certainly traveling into space was a major part of my life and has had a big impact. But so was being a test pilot, so was becoming a father.

And so I kind of feel that life goes through in these incremental phases. But yes, space is definitely a huge part of it. I suppose what I'm really getting at is the kind of stuff that I think William Shatner has talked about, that impression that you get from space of our home planet and how it changes you. What about that? Yes, it does. It does change you forever, really. And it gives you a completely different perspective of the planet. And it's something that I draw strength from, actually. I can always see myself up on the space station looking down at Earth and realizing how incredibly beautiful our planet is, but also how fragile it looks against this vast black backdrop of space.

And we are just travelling through a very ordinary solar system, orbiting a very ordinary star in this ordinary galaxy of the Milky Way. And it does allow you to kind of step back and see things in a slightly different perspective. So you do this enormous amount of training on planet Earth, and then you go up to the International Space Station. Have you come across people who cannot make the same kind of connection with where they are, though? So they do slightly lose it once they get to space, even though they have trained to imagine

themselves to be in that situation? I've not heard that from any professional astronauts. Our training is so incredibly thorough and it prepares you for every eventuality. And it is difficult to fully prepare you for weightlessness and the view of Earth and how your perception will change. But generally speaking, we've trained so long and so hard that it's not such a shock to the system that when you go into space that you do have a major change. I love the way that you said professional astronauts, other amateur astronauts. Where are they? Well, it's interesting that previously you might have thought that every astronaut was a professional astronaut. But there's a big difference between an international space station crew member who is qualified to fly spacecraft, dock spacecraft, do spacewalks, medical training, etc. to perhaps somebody who might fly into space with Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic,

who has done a very small amount of training just so that they can look after themselves for a very short duration flight. What personality traits should immediately disqualify you from becoming an astronaut or a resident of the space station? Well, you're not looking for extremes of personality. So neither extremely introvert nor extrovert in terms of how you relate to other people as well. You want people to be confident, not fearful, but you don't want them to be overconfident. So if you're looking at the psychological profile of an astronaut, it will be kind of down the middle in most of the categories. I think I know already what the answer to this is, but have you ever been on the space station or during the time that you were there, did you ever come across someone who you thought should not have been there because of their

personality? No, absolutely not. We work so closely with our teammates. We do all sorts of training, for example, seven days living in a cave and 12 days living underwater. These environments are designed to put us under stress, into difficult circumstances, to test us to our limits. So we get to know ourselves very well. We get to know our crewmates very well. And we get to practice all of those really important interpersonal relationships. So you don't want any conflict, any clash of personalities in space. By the time we get to the space station, we pretty much have dealt with all of that during our training. Can we just talk about the male ego in space, if you don't mind, Tim?

I mean, you seem a man who ironically is very down to earth, but I'm thinking of the likes of Bezos and Mr. Musk and our own Richard Branson. What is it about these very, very rich guys and their interest in space? Are you entirely comfortable with all that? Well, I think I would probably break those down into individual companies and perhaps with Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. They're looking at doing something separate to Elon Musk in terms of they're looking at trips to space in low Earth orbit, suborbital. So they're not getting into orbit. They're simply going up 100 kilometers, breaking the space boundary and back down again. It's a very commercial endeavor

and it's there for the enjoyment of people who can afford it at the moment. What SpaceX are doing are very much part of the space exploration program going back to the moon and as a stepping stone to Mars. They're on the critical path. We can't do these Artemis missions, which will see humans walk on the moon again in 2025. We can't do that without SpaceX. They're building the lander system that's going to take us down to the surface of the moon, and they're providing a lot of logistic support. So I think it's important to make that differentiation between those three different companies. And I think it's fascinating that so many people have an interest in space. And of course, one of the hurdles to that is finances. And when you have wealthy people, they've decided to put their finances into space exploration. But a lot of that is not being spent in space, of course.

It's jobs for the economy. It's technology that will be used down here on Earth to improve people's lives down on Earth. Some of the things we do on the space station, for example, it's all about solar panel technology. It's about carbon dioxide removal techniques, water purification systems, pharmaceutical research. Everything about the space station is about improving life for people down on Earth. Who's policing the space traffic? The policing of the space traffic is a really interesting question because it's one that needs to improve. As we use space more and more, we need to protect it as an environment. We need to think about the debris and we need to think about the policing. The United Nations 1967

Outer Space Treaty is the specific answer to your question. And we are constantly revising that and updating that. But it is an old treaty. And the pace of space exploration at the moment is very rapid. And the rules and the regulations are not keeping up. So we need to make sure that we continue to collaborate, work together and explore space responsibly. Tim, can you just take us inside your head as you're waiting to launch? Do you consider yourself a brave person? I mean, I would consider you brave, but I want to hear it from you.

I think I've always considered myself to have an interesting appetite to risk, I guess. I don't ever consider myself... No, that's brave, Tim myself it's not an appetite for risk i don't consider myself to be an adrenaline junkie but then when people point out to me that i enjoy you know parachuting motorbike riding flying helicopters and flying to space then you kind of have to perhaps you have to perhaps rethink your position on that um but i i've always kind of thought that i when i do things it's it's always with a balanced approach to risk. As a test pilot, you would never go off and just jump in an aircraft and take it to its limits without fully considering every eventuality. There's just a small amount of risk left, which is the uncontrollable stuff. And, you know, if it's something I mean, you've said goodbye to your family. It's very much a mental mindset. On launch day, there's a whole range of emotions. And yes, when you're

there, you're behind the glass, you're saying your final farewells. It's very emotional. And one of the hardest things I've ever had to do to wave goodbye to my family. But when you actually sit on top of the rocket, you make a mental mindset change, you're operationally focused, you need that clarity of thought, you need to be able to have fast decision making processes, and you need to be absolutely focused on the job in hand. So it's one of excitement and adrenaline, but I'm not thinking of my family, I'm not thinking about what could catastrophically go wrong. No, it's very much focused on the mission ahead. Your wife must be very lovely because, I mean, it's bad enough,

isn't it, waving goodbye to your husband off on a golfing weekend, but off to the International Space Station. Did he mow the lawn? Did he do the laundry? Off you go. Bye. Did you have a careers teacher at school, Tim? And if so, have you seen them since? Well, yeah, my poor wife's been long suffering, both when I was a test pilot and as an astronaut. I think she was just delighted that for six months she would know exactly where I was. That's true. So there was probably less risk involved in flying to space as well than flying helicopters. So, you know, but I've had so much support from my family. I couldn't have done any of it without that. And in terms of ambition,

I mean, tell me that when your head hits the pillow last thing at night, you're not agonising over anything because in a way, you've achieved a multitude of ambitions already, surely. I haven't been very, very fortunate. I've had a very exciting career, very rewarding career. I think it's important to give back as well, which is why I'm so passionate about, you know, reaching out in the education department to schools, colleges, universities, because I think we have to help to inspire our future generations.

Jane was saying that one of her favourite outings for her children was the Science Museum, where kids, and mine were the same, they go straight for anything to do with space. You know, there's just an element of wonder, especially about seeing objects that have been in space. But at the same time, I know that my kids, they can experience a virtual reality that can tell them that they can be in space themselves. You know, the boundaries have changed a little bit, haven't they? Well, I think what virtual reality does is it allows you to immerse yourself in an environment. And I think that's brilliant.

We actually use virtual reality as a training method here on Earth. We learn to fly a jetpack in virtual reality. We have to pass a jetpack exam before we can go and do a spacewalk. We practice our spacewalks in a VR environment, even on board the space station. So that's one of the most amazing things is being in virtual reality in space. So it's a great tool that enables us to experience more. And I think that what's fascinating is young children today have got access to some of these devices and they can experience these things and get closer to what it's actually like to be out in space. Now, you've been listening to Off Air. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. You can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or download every episode from wherever else you get your podcasts. And don't forget, if you like what you've heard,

then you can listen live Monday to Thursday, 3 till 5, on Times Radio. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on, settings So you can navigate it just by listening Books, contacts, calendar, double tap to open Breakfast with Anna, from 10 to 11 And get on with your day Accessibility, there's more to iPhone