Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Greatest Tits Radio (with Max Hastings)

Episode Date: July 23, 2025

Off the back of that dramatic Lionesses game, Jane and Fi muse over why they never went pro... They also consider scary airplane toilet noises, midges in Scotland, and crap on your kitchen island. Plus, bear with us as we make a screeching gear change from all that to geopolitics with journalist and historian Sir Max Hastings. Jane and Fi speak to Max about Trump, the Middle East, Ukraine and domestic issues. You can listen to the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qIjhtS9sprg864IXC96he?si=uOzz4UYZRc2nFOP8FV_1jg&pi=BGoacntaS_uki If you want to come and see us at Fringe by the Sea, you can buy tickets here: www.fringebythesea.com/fi-jane-and-judy-murray/And if you fancy sending us a postcard, the address is:Jane and FiTimes Radio, News UK1 London Bridge StreetLondonSE1 9GFIf you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] next book club pick has been announced! We’ll be reading Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession.Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yeah, does that explain why we weren't playing up front for the Lionesses last night? I think it might be part of the explanation, won't it? What, because our bosoms were getting in the way? Yeah, I felt that was why I didn't get the call-up. Okay, and I bitterly resented. I'm Will Kelleher. Join me and Alex Lowe for The Red Lions, a special three-part series on the history of the British and Irish Lions

from 1950 to this year's Tour of Australia. With first-hand accounts from the players themselves, it tracks the rancour and revival of rugby's greatest touring team. The Red Lions, memories, music, match reports and more, available wherever you download the Ruck Rugby podcast from The Times. We've got such a delightful bunch of emails today, Jane. They really cheered me up this morning. There were just some fantastic ones about arms at night. Night Arms is a separate spin-off podcast. We'll get to those in a moment but we've got important news about HRT. Would you like to impart it?

Now hang on, how effectively is my I'm back on the HRT working? What am I supposed to say here? It's meant to say that Eve is booking an expert because actually we are in danger of doing what we're complaining about if we carry on just talking about HRT without being able to give any definitive answers. So Eve is booking a spurt. An expert, exactly, on HRT, which I gather in some parts of the world is called something else. So we've had a range of interesting emails, haven't we? Yeah, MHT.

MHT, is that menopause? Hormone therapy. Right, OK. Is that what it's called in Australia? I believe so. Right, so we could read out some of the emails we've had about HRT, couldn't we? But what I think they illustrate is that the picture is a bit confused. So confusing. Confused. Confusing. Yeah. It really seems to depend on how much work your clinician has put into research in different parts of the world. I think the research appears to be different and how much

research you've done yourself, which you know is, I don't know, it's not always particularly helpful. So yes, let's do a couple of the ones that we've got in today, and then if you've got specific questions, then we would really love you to pop them on an email. Put a HRT question at the top as your subject, and we'll put those to the experts, which will happen in the next couple of weeks or so. So do you want to pick a couple of HRT things?

Hang on. Hang on. in the next couple of weeks or so. So do you want to pick a couple of HRT things? Hang on. Hang on. We should just say, this is the morning after another great escape by England's female footballers, the Lionesses. And I think, honestly, I couldn't get to sleep. We were both a bit shattered. And we were both very firmly kept on the bench.

I was half expecting David Gouldon to rescue the situation, but no, they chose young Michelle instead. I'm just to say, how fantastic for her family and for her that she was able to come on in the... She scored in the 96th minute. So this is 19-year-old Michelle Michelle Angermang who has just changed the direction and the atmosphere and the energy levels and the vibe of the last two matches and I mean just all hail to her I think gosh I mean she's only 19 and she's doing this how fantastic and also just two fingers up to the racist mob who made life so difficult for the England squad

This time around you can just go and do one because look who it was who did all of those things for us HRT and older woman comes in from Christine Porter age 73 and hoping to live another 20 years still taking HRT And this is the one that really interested me because she says I lived in the USA for 35 years only moving back here 11 years ago when I lived there I had a wonderful OBGYN who was very up-to-date and very respected in women's health he prescribed the HRT when I was about 50 and after a few years I asked how long I should continue to take it he said there

was absolutely no reason for me to stop. Fast forward to moving here and registering with the local GP who said that in the UK the feeling was to stop it as soon as possible. I was very reluctant and spoke with her and emailed my US doctor. He kindly sent some literature links to my UK GP and to her credit she did her own research and came back to me saying she was now a convert to staying on HRT. So I'm very fortunate that I've been able to still get it. I would add that I do still get regular smears and mammograms even though after 62 in the case of smears and 70 for mammograms you no longer get called for regular check-ups but you have to make the calls yourself. Shameful, I think it's

a really good point to make. Christine says, I'm sorry if this is a very rambling point but the thing I wanted to say was stay on HRT as long as possible. If for no other reason then hopefully my hair won't start getting thin. Actually that is no small reason for remaining on HRT. I also think women in this country have a lot to thank Davina McCall for with all her publicity for the benefits of HRT. Lots of people are enormously grateful to Davina McCall for all of the work that she's done on HRT. Some people aren't though actually Christine and think that what her documentary did and her campaign was to worry an awful lot of women who weren't on HRT into

thinking. Which is exactly why we do want to talk about it clinically and scientifically. But it's such an interesting point, Jane, that Christine has experienced two completely different attitudes to exactly the same thing and presumably the administering of exactly the same drugs just because she's lived in two continents. How can that be? We're all women. Yeah exactly. And I want to hear too from those women who have never taken it and have never wanted to and perhaps luckily for them have never required it because they're out there aren't they? And the experience is it's a very individual thing not everybody seeks HRT or in any way feels the

need to. Felicity says Jane's recent attempt to come off her HRT completely does sound a bit like my flirtation with a lower dose, it didn't end well. In April I was feeling very positive after an earlier spell of life struggles and I thought I could manage with a lower dose. So after a month of trimming even more off my patches than usual, and people do that they get the scissors don't they and they just make the patch a bit smaller. I had to go back to my original dose she says, my mood really went downhill as did my energy levels. I persevered for a while but I was just too miserable. For people who like the facts I dropped from 65 micrograms to 50, then return to 65. I have since read that some GPs prescribe

HRT for low mood, as it does work at least as well as some antidepressants. That made perfect sense to me. Actually, also, Felicity wants to get involved in the great arm debate. I too have started to think about how to arrange my arms in bed. They're such a nuisance. I wish I could detach them. I think it started when I had to move to a bedroom even further away from my partner's bedroom than the one I originally slept in. He's just incapable of doing anything quietly. Bedtime has become a bit of a trial rather than a source of relaxation. It's one of the pleasures of middle age, I suppose. Sleep tight, says Felicity, who finds herself in Cumbria. Sleeping in a bedroom that she's still coming to terms with. Right, good on you. We will keep all of the rest of the HRT ones then until we've

got our expert in sight. But can I just say to Sarah Smith that definitely your point about whether or not you can do things with herbs is one that we should consider because for a long time we've had a lot of stuff marketed at us haven't we? Oh yeah, not cheap either. Yeah exactly the natural way to deal with it and it's worked for you Sarah we will talk about that some more and the ship called Dignity by Deacon Blue, which you asked for on the playlist, I have definitely seen that on the list. So if it's not up there yet, it means that Rosie will be adding it when she comes back from her holiday. And she'll be busy that day because there are about 100 tracks that we need to

add. So she'll get on it. Toot sweet to return to my holiday language. Yes, well we've got a few issues with the way you pronounce it. I'm in trouble with the pronunciation please. We'll move on to that in a second. But this is the last word on HRT for now. Deborah is in Northamptonshire. I had the menopause at 46 because of chemo for breast cancer so I just had no perimenopause. I was then excluded from HRT because of the type of breast cancer I'd had. I then had seven years of hormonal cancer treatments which had the effect of magnifying the menopausal symptoms. Now I finished this treatment nearly a year ago and although my ability to get to sleep improved immediately I still have hot flushes though not

as frequent or intense and low mental and physical energy. And the weight which piled on thanks to the drugs has so far failed to melt away. And she says my mum had hot flushes until the end of her life. So that was for about 10 years after coming off HRT. We really, really need proper wide ranging research into metaphors. Deborah says she found that a small glass of red wine knocked back at bedtime seemed to prevent hot flushes overnight, but there are calories involved. She says well I won't worry about them. Paracetamol can also help but I shouldn't have to be figuring all this out for myself she says. I must admit I hadn't heard that red wine stopped hot flushes.

I would have thought that was more likely to induce them, but I'm not a doctor. She does say really cats bottom toilet paper dispensers. I always challenge myself to see how many sheets of paper I can extract in a continuous brilliant challenge, in a continuous strip, that is without breaking the perforations. My personal best is nine. Very good. Well, I mean, people say, I mean, our previous correspondent was saying that middle age can be somewhat challenging, or she was hinting at that. But there are, there's fun

to be had. Yeah, there is. Why not do that with the cat's bottom paper dispenser over the course of the next couple of days? And tell us how many you can extract. Now, Isabel, I think, is taking the pissay here because she begins her email with, your pronunciation is just lovely to hear, Fie, but I don't think it is because the rest of your email. You just wanted to tell me how to say cap foret, foray, and that's because Isabel is from the Bordeaux region. You have to forget the last letter, the T, and pronounce the E as if it had an accent.

So that is for Ray, isn't it? Yeah. I'm glad you enjoyed my region. Try Biscarrosse next time, a bit lower down on the other side of Arcachon. Same coastline where the Nazi Germany thought the Allies will disembark. Many bunkers can be seen. You must have seen them, Bon Genet ladies. Well we did and they're extraordinary Jane, so we were lying on the beach, Plage de la Horizon on Cap Ferret and I mean every 60 to 100 feet there are these huge great big concrete bunkers which have been painted to return to one of our familiar topics about street art with all kinds of joyful depictions to get away with obviously what they were being used for. And Isabel, I think I'm right in saying there has been occasionally a ding-dong

about whether or not the bunkers should stay on all of those beaches, but I just say as a visitor, it was such an important reminder of times gone by and of what that coastline must have been like in the war. I think it was good to see, maybe not all of them, I completely understand that if you're a resident maybe you feel that it's just a blight to have so many bunkers on your beaches, but I think it would be a shame if all of them went because it made us think and we had a good chat about where we were and what the history was and you know who would have been there you know back in the Second World War. It was important actually I felt.

It's very important. They thought that was where D-Day would take place. So clearly the Germans felt that that was the vulnerable part of the coast. Or had we fooled them into thinking that? Well it's quite far down as well. That's the surprising thing, I suppose, to us. But yeah, it was a really... I felt it was quite an important reminder of recent modern history, Isabel.

But do get back in touch if you think that's wrong. There's nothing worse than people who've been on holiday to a region then deciding that they've got a more important view than the residents. And also to the person who just wanted to point out that Cap Ferret is quite smart in itself, I completely agree and I don't want to be one of those people who's you know pretending to have some kind of a downplayed holiday whilst sending Instagram pictures from their five-star sun lounger at all, because it is a very nice part of France to go on holiday, but it's not cat for rat which is just Just astonishing. I mean, it's just one of those parts of the world. That's just gone ding-dong bonkers in terms of

money and Bling right, but that's not where you went. No down with the people Sorry Down with down with the people. I'm sorry. Down with the people. Now, hang on, this is from Julie. Just got back from Switzerland

after watching some of the Euros. Great tournament. I watched two of the quarterfinals and spent time in the fan zone. I can only say just how family friendly the women's game is. And we don't want to sugarcoat this too much because I'm sure there are pockets of unpleasantness,

but on the whole it does seem to be just a fantastic gathering of people who love sport and like to get together to watch it. Well there were so many kids at the game last night and you did, I had to check my term dates, oh I mean wouldn't you? I would actually. I know that's naughty to say, but I would. Well, we were saying earlier, weren't we, that whole kind of business. So I went out for dinner last night with a couple of friends that I've known for yonks,

and in the end, we didn't want to be out, we wanted to be at home watching the telly. So we got three women in their late 50s and in my case very very very sitting on the sofa watching other women play football and living every single moment of it and honestly that wouldn't have happened wouldn't have happened ten years ago would it no well we didn't have the chance and and it felt wonderful so I watched it with my daughter last night and there just isn't anything that I can compare that to with my own mum. So, you know, if we watch sport at home, there just wasn't very much on the television, but I do remember watching Wimbledon. I think we watched Virginia Wade, I would have been incredibly young at the time.

There would have been maybe a polite round of applause at the end and that would have been it but you know we were we were roaring we were roaring with our encouragement and joy and it was just a fantastic feeling Jane. It's the raw emotion I literally lost control of my faculties pretty much when Michelle and your bank... You're going to have to replace the sofa again. I'm due for another visit to that shop where I sit on a sofa and then much when Michelle and your bank is good. You're going to have to replace the sofa again. I'm due for another visit to that shop where I sit on a sofa and then embarrass myself by not being able to get off it, which instantly then rolls it out. Are you going to blame last night on Dora? Even Dora was there actually, she came in to watch the football. It's like she knew. God bless her. She's not even a supporter I don't think. What was I going to say? I was onto something there. I can't explain why I get, I suppose I want to hear from men, is this the way they've always watched men

play football? Because I sit, I can watch Liverpool men endlessly, I want them to win, but I'm not as involved as I found myself being last night. Is that the difference that we're watching the people, I was going to say the people we might have been, but realistically fit? No, that's the stretch. I was never going to play football for England. But I just think this has kind of just crept up on all of us and I think it's one of the best things about the last couple of years. So I'd be interested in hearing from men about that too, but I think also what I really really love Jane is that when the cameras panned to the crowd there were loads of men there.

Yeah, great. So the idea that somehow there is a real huge gender distinction that prevents you from enjoying all sport, I think women's football at this level is really proving that to be wrong. It was fantastic to see some of the blokes in the crowd going absolutely bonkers as well because that's the level playing field that we want, isn't it? Yeah, I will say I did look up the Italian for parking the bus today. Yeah. Would you mind doing that actually because I've forgotten to bring my phone in and that's what the Italians did last night It's a footballing term which means that you've gone ahead and then you do absolutely Nothing else you just protect your lead and you waste time

And if that their goalkeeper was wasting time and then there was a shot just before the end of the game Of the kind of original game if you like before, before Extra Time, of the Italian bench, all sort of chuckling away, a little bit of a laugh. And then it was infuriating. I was so angry about it. And then they weren't laughing, of course. In fact, actually some of them were crying, which I didn't take any pleasure in either, because it must be bloody miserable. They're all really young women, and I think to go through getting perilously close to victory and then finding yourself defeated is miserable.

One of them is 35. Yes, she's very young. What have we got? Pace, Pace Grande, Lottobus. That's what they did. It's disgusting. Mil grazi, mil grazi, mil grazi. So I took one of them is 35.

Yay! disgusting. Milgratzi, milgratzi, milgratzi. You said one of them is 35. Yes, really young! Oh stop shouting. Sorry. You're not that old, so that's the point I'm trying to make. Sandys in France, long time listener, stand down, frequent emailer. Lovely to have you back. Have you seen the response from Megan Brian? Now this is with regard to the CEO Coldplay kiss cam thing me jiggy. I'm not sure that's a real statement. The initial statement that was put out that pertained to be from the CEO himself was revealed not to have been an authentic statement. Oh really? Yeah so Sandy beware, beware, beware, we'll check it out for you. Just wanted to comment about your discussion about Karen Pirrie.

I'm waiting to watch it with my daughter at the weekend so we'll now be totally focused on her bum bag and I'm sorry Sandy because we might have just ruined a tiny bit of it for you because once you've noticed it, Jane's right, your eyes are drawn to her fanny pack in every single scene that she's in. Never mind who did it. Does she ever take that off? And also, I tell you what, Sandy, because you're going to be new eyes on this, fresh eyes on Karen Pirrie. Can you tell us whether or not she ever takes anything out of it? Because I can't be bothered to watch the whole thing again. We have watched the whole thing now. Just to see if she ever unzips it.

So yeah, what is in there? Can you remember if she ever uses something from it? I haven't seen her open it. It is a really weird accoutrement to have, because actually it's not like it's a very fashionable thing at the moment. It's not. I mean people have, the young people seem to have over the shoulder bags. Well they do, they have crossbody bags.

Crossbody, that's it, that's the expression. Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long time since the bum bag was a thing. I'm not sure it's ever been a thing with me. I think it was like the 1980s thing. Yeah, you went travelling a lot didn't you? Did you have one then?

Do you want to, could you say it in a more patronising way? Let's stick with holidays. Yeah, can we just stick with Sandy because she says I want to point out that if Jane's life was ever made into a film you would have the same problem with holidays. Yeah, can we just stick with Sandy because she says I want to point out that if Jane's life was ever made into a film you would have the same problem with accents. This is because I said that some of the people in the modern setting of Karen period lost their very strong Scottish accents from when they were young. But it's just a really interesting question actually. Did you have a Crosby twang when you were a child and do the rest of your family still speak with the same accent and did you lose an accent? If you had a recording of yourself you know maybe in your 20s

would it sound very different to now? Probably I think my voice has got deeper but I don't think I mean I don't know when I went to my school reunion a couple of weeks ago it was noticeable that none of us sounded in quotes scouse because the scouse accent that appears, the telly scouse accent, is actually quite different to that used by the people in the area. Yeah. I mean, it depends where you are in the city, obviously.

I'm very suburban, as you might recall, that Crosby is northern suburban Liverpool. Oh, let's not start that postcode thing again. No, we don't. I'm still, by the way, the lovely woman in the Liverpool City Council press office, I think of her daily when I look at the very attractive bin she sent me. I keep my pens in there. That's nice.

So it's on the kitchen surface. I've always longed to be one of those people with a kitchen island that's completely clutter-free, but I have got so much stuff on that little bit of very important land in my home. I know what you mean. I've currently got a bubble hat, very kindly made for us by one of our listeners, a travel scrabble that's got too many tiles missing for it to be any use at all, and then just that really weird random collection of papers, some of which I think may well be court summons by now. Oh, I'm sure they will be in your house. I've got things like insurance renewal letters.

Exactly. I'll deal with it tomorrow. Yeah, very much. Well, I'll deal with it sometime. Yeah. Yeah. And you always put that on the bit of the kitchen island that's on top of the drawer that contains all the shit. Oh, actually, that reminds me, I've got a very funny quote here from Lady Angela, who's in the Spanish Pyrenees. I audible-ed that book The Salt Path, but I haven't seen the film. Now I thoroughly enjoyed the listen, and lots of people did enjoy the book, and I'm sure they enjoyed it whether they heard it or read it, but there were a few times when I heard

my feisty grandmother's voice in my head. Well that's about as far-fetched as a bucket of shite from China. Yeah, I think that's good and I might use that expression in the future. There are a couple of points that Angela in the Spanish Pyrenees draws our attention to, but she just says that, and you're right because Fee mentioned earlier, was it earlier in the week, that there are some possible legal issues pending here. But Angela does outline a number of occasions in the story where she simply felt that this didn't quite work. And she could hear, she could hear her grandmother's voice. And do you remember, do you remember the day, and I always think of my grandmother on this occasion, it was the day that Diana got engaged to Prince Charles. You were

probably... Did you watch it? It was on Newsround. I'd got in from school. So I know that obviously I know that it happened but I don't think I was prepared by it. No. So it was the lead item on Newsround that night with John Craven. I was probably outside having a peg. Well you would have been. Although you were only 14. Yeah. I wouldn't be here without having a bag. I was 25 and had just recovered from my first cigarette, which I took on a Girl Guide holiday in the Isle of Man.

Anyway, I just remember watching Newsround with my gran, who lived with us, and my sister, when we all got in from school, not my gran, and they showed the images of Charles and Diana now excruciating engagement into... Whatever love is. Awfully so painful. It's not my best impression actually. I don't know, you had me. You'll be shouting at gardeners before you know it.

Oh, that was a Sunday time story, wasn't it? Quite funny actually. That's the second time he's had a mention this week because of his beard oil yesterday. Anyway, we were looking at this footage and my grandmother said to That's the second time he's had a mention this week because of his beard oil yesterday anyway We were looking at this footage of my grandmother said to my sister and I she's just a child And that I remember thinking at the time. Well, that's dead in the mood Why has she said that but of course she was right? Yeah, she was an 81 year old woman spotting something that just didn't look or smell right. And I'm glad that Angela and the Spanish Pyrenees still recall some of her grandmothers.

Slightly cynical phrases maybe, but we all need them. Keep them in the locker, because you never know. Do you want to just... There was one of the things that she had noticed in the film, which I too thought was just bewildering, and that was... Pick it, because I don't know know she's got many good points here. It's about Moth having left the house to go on the trip to walk 630 miles without his medication. Preposterous. Yeah, I mean you'd go back for it or you'd go to a pharmacy and you get a new prescription. Surely. I mean it'd be dangerous to head off. Well you'd think wouldn't you? You'd think, yeah. So, thank you for noting that. Looking to change your career is a helpful email in from Lucy.

I'm a long-time listener and I heard one of your listeners write in today about moving away from her self-employed administrator role into something new. Her quandary really resonated and I'd highly recommend her searching out Career Shifters. It's a business that helps mid-career people work out what to do next and how to enter a new industry. They also do a podcast called The Same Thing, which might be a good place to start. I would highly recommend them. And you've got an exclamation mark in there with love Lucy, and I'll pass that on to Jane Morecarons. So that sounds good. Why not pop that in your ears and give it a rattle around and see whether or not that can to Jane More Carons. So that sounds good. Why not pop that in your ears

and give it a rattle around and see whether or not that can be a little bit helpful. Lea says, is it too late to add a band words? In her case, this is actually a band phrase, but Lea really takes exception to dulcet tones. That's so lazy, isn't it? So, so lazy. This is also very helpful indeed. Sunbeds comes in from Julie. I can't compete with our continental cousins and getting up early. So now I only book hotels that very cleverly allocate you your own personal sunbed for the week on holiday when you check in and nobody can take it.

Lots of hotels do that now. Try it. They're not expensive hotels either. Cyprus is very good at offering this in their hotels. Well I'm only ever going to go to Cyprus from now on. So there you go. That does seem very sensible, doesn't it? But what happens if you don't like the sunbeds that you've been allocated? That would be a tricky week, wouldn't it? Oh golly, you fit on something there. Because not everybody wants to be near the pool or

near the sea. No. Because there is that splashing potential isn't there? Yeah. You don't want to be on the first, if you're around a hotel pool being on the first row, unless you have youngsters, lively youngsters who are pitching in and out of the pool, you don't want to be within the splash area. No, and I don't like people being behind me, so I'm always booking that. Gosh, you are fussy. That last row on the plane as well. Which is incredibly close to the toilets and it's a deal I've done with myself.

I can take the whiff but I can't take the sniff. That's what does for me, it's the noises that come from people behind me. You know, when somebody... I won't go into it because I'm just going to give people terrible ideas and they'll all be going off on their own. We don't need that. There is still something very frightening about the noise that the aeroplane Lou makes. Does it have to be that noise? That. Yeah. Well, presumably because it's a suction. It's not a flush, it's suction.

I hate the word suction. I think we should ban that. Do you? Oh, okay. Nasty word, isn't it? This is from Ali in Auckland. Oh, hello. I think we're due a jingle here, so she's not really been that quick off the mark this

week, so I'm just looking at her so she can move with the times a bit. Dear Jane of Fee, LTLFTE here. I was prompted to message, says Ali, on the topic of preserving sun chairs while on holiday. I'd never come across this until the first morning of a recent sun-kissed fortnight in Bali. Not slow on the uptake, I was short to bags a set for my husband and I the very next day and thereafter. But no matter how early I was up, with an already read book, towel and some other insignificant possession, I could never beat the Russian tourists, of which there were many. They appeared to love Indonesia, who knew? Says Ali. Well, I mean, there are all sorts of things we could say about that. But that

is interesting that it used to be, didn't it, that it was the Germans that were notorious for going to the sunbeds. So why don't we start a new national stereotype? Well, of division. What a good idea. I think... Those bloody Ruskies! I am surprised, can I just say, and you're going to take me up on this, I know you are, I'm surprised Ali, that hubby doesn't do the bagging. Isn't that a job for a man? We didn't have a man on our holiday, which is why I had to do it. But don't you think hubby should go out early with their possessions?

No I think it's best left to a woman. I do! We've got some really... This is controversial territory here. It certainly beats what to do with your arms at night. I think the man might get distracted. Oh, you're right! Yep, he might have a lack of spatial awareness. I mean, how many other boxes do you want me to tick with my prejudice here? None of which I actually have, being a warm and loving kind of a whatever. I'm not. This comes in. All the time. Definitely

not on a what's the day of the week? It's Wednesday. Wednesday. No wonder we're tired. We've done two whole days' work and here we are again. God. I know what you mean. I tell you what, when I've put the second patch on, which will be tomorrow now, I should be fine by tomorrow. Well, maybe next week I'll be back. I don't think you've been not fine, actually. I don't know. I definitely had a definite turn on the Northern Lion the other day. I just felt so hot. Okay, that's not good. No. Although our tubes are hot at the moment. This one comes in from another Jane. I've composed many an email in my head,

but this is the first one I've actually written. So she is an LTL FTE, but we've had the jingle already. Do you want to go again? Here she is. ["First Time in a Love"] On the subject of what to do with one's arm when falling asleep, I've always been a front sleeper and had no posture related getting to sleep issues until fairly recently. Thanks

to pandemic induced idleness over the last five years and shitloads of steroids over the last year, I've put on a bit of weight and my boobs have increased in size to the point where I don't know where to put them when I want to go to sleep. The damn things are always in the bloody way. I look back to my pre-menopausal skinny flat chested days with great nostalgia and tiredness." Do you know what? Big boobs in middle age are a bit of a pain. The massive caveat is by this stage in life we all know women who've had to lose theirs so let's just put that out there to start with and very sadly nearly everybody will know somebody whose bosoms actually take

them off the planet so let's pop that there too but it does seem weird Jane, just at a time when they have no use to anybody. There they are. So I'm with you another Jane. Another Jane, I'm with you too. Yeah. Sometimes you just think, oh, not these again. Exactly. God. Who asked you to keep growing?

No way. While I'm here, a long time ago, Fee mentioned holidays spent in Glen Esk. Our family also rented a summer cottage there in the 1960s for several years running. This is niche. I wonder whether it was the same one. Now, Jane says

no electricity and a walk further up the glen to fetch milk and eggs from the farm. It can't have been much of a holiday for mum but we kids loved it. The midges were horrendous but that aside it was paradise. One year another family joined us at the cottage and between the five of us we took almost every under-10s prize at the local Highland Games. Finally, the cottage was never available to us again after that. We were the cheeky outsiders from all of 40 miles further north and no longer welcome. Well Jane, our cottage did have electricity actually, it was really basic, but I remember it definitely did have electricity, but the midges, I completely agree. And actually on the east coast of electricity but the midges I completely agree and actually on the East Coast of Scotland the midges aren't even as bad as the

West Coast so you're meant to kind of get off lightly. What can I ask, what is a midge? It's a mini mosquito. Is it? Yeah. But why does that part of this country, why is it so severely impacted by them? So that's a very good question and I don't have the really detailed answer to it, but I think it's just the climate, isn't it? And presumably it's because there are an awful lot of inland water areas, especially in the west coast of Scotland. So you've got all of the locks.

So presumably that kind of standing water or not tidal flow. Would lend themselves to it. Yes, I presume that's it and the vegetation. But do you know what? The West Coast of Scotland holds no appeal to me because of the midges. You know sometimes you'll see people will post those pictures of their inside their tent and there's just this terrible, you know, biblical swarm outside. obviously they bite so they can bite but but but also they get in your hair and I mean I just can't I just can't do I know the West Coast is beautiful but just give me the East Coast anytime but they're not

there 12 months a year so it's purely summer yep yep it's the it's the kind of them the long low summer Sun as well I think just encourages them out. Well it's not that far away from, is it Highland Games season now? It certainly would be in August would be Highland Games season. End of July, beginning of August because actually the Scottish term is very different to our school term isn't it? They go back early and then they break again for the tatty harvest. The what? The potato harvest which is another big holiday coming when all our kids down south will be back in school. So yeah, Highland Games must be going on at

the moment. And where have you been in July? Have you been to many Highland Games? Highlights? Well tossing the cave was always funny, isn't it? I think it's something that should be done, strictly speaking, behind closed doors. I'm surprised the Scots have turned it into an outdoor pursuit but there we are. I mean it's just such a... I understand where it came from. Where did it come from? Well I think it's from working on farms and you know having to actually hoof timber around yourself so you had to be a mighty sign. I might be taking my bra off.

yourself so you had to be a mighty sign. I might be taking my bra off. Well, so do you know what, we could create the Cosmopolitan middle-aged woman Heinen games and actually getting your bra off on your own would be, would definitely be one of the prime activities with a very big prize at the end of it. Yeah, does that explain why we weren't playing up front for the Lionesses last night? I think it might be part of the explanation, won't it? What, because our bosoms were getting in the way? Yeah, I felt that was why I didn't get the call-up.

Okay. And I bitterly resented them. Them! I bitterly resent them. I was thinking the other day actually, because both of us would really, really love further down the line to just have one of those, by comparison comparison quite easy jobs on radio playing music. After 40 years in speech radio you do think, these people are just literally, they only have to speak about a tenth of the amount of words we have to come up with. They're paid a lot to do it so I was listening to Greatest Hits Radio and I

didn't think actually you and I could... I'm glad you were careful there. You and I later on in life could set up Greatest Hits Radio. Okay let's do it sister. You're right because all we'd need to do is say Fleetwood Mac and then you know maybe something else about 10 minutes later. Yeah, that's true. It's true. Why are we sitting here really exerting ourselves? Oh, I know, and people getting upset with us. I've gone mad. No one's accusing Ken Bruce of that, are they? What to do with a lullaby in bed comes in from JJ from Berlin.

23 years ago when I met my husband we started sharing a bed together he realised that spooning was problematic as he didn't know what to do with his underarm. Being German after a short time he quickly came up with an ingenious idea. I'm very grateful to this because it balances out the terrible prejudice that James Sunbed comments. Yes. Thank you. Well done. It had us in fits of laughter when adopting the spoon position. Fashionable back then were four poster beds, the ones with brass knobs and lots of space underneath. He suggested what we both felt would be the perfect solution. A hole in the mattress for said arm to fit through.

Exploring the idea a little further, we agreed that, so the arm didn't get cold just hanging there, there should be an up- the shoulder giant padded mitt attached for warmth and comfort like a long up and glove. Excellent. I love that. Well, oh dear, and JJ says although we never pursued its development, we still almost cry laughing when either of us remembers what we like to call the thermal arm. Do you think you would ever catch on? Well I think you could put it in knickknacks for dickheads and it'd sell out this Christmas. I don't think I've ever slept or ever wanted to sleep in a four-post bed.

I find that very hard to believe, James. I know with all my links to the gentry but amazingly I haven't. I just don't say, I mean I see the point of them when it was way back when you needed curtains because it was cold and all that kind of stuff but I don't get them now. The weird ones are the ones that don't have anything on top you know and people just have kind of four poles. What's the point? God we've covered some ground. So what you're thinking now is what I'd like to hear are

the really interesting geopolitical thoughts of I wonder who the guest on the podcast is today. And ladies and gentlemen, I'll give you my colleague here who can set up today's guest. Who is it, Fee? Is it someone who'd be able to join in with all the other conversations we've been having? Very much so. After the break, Max Hastings. So let's bring in our guest this afternoon. It is Max Hastings, the author and journalist, once the man in charge of The Evening Standard and The Daily Telegraph. Max Hastings, good afternoon to you. How are you? Good afternoon. Very well indeed, as long as I don't think too much about the state of the world.

Well, that's why we've invited you on. I'm afraid we are going to ask you to think a little bit about the state of the world, if you don't mind. Shall we start in the United States? Tell us actually when you first went to the USA and what you were doing there. I went to the US for the first time when I was 21 in 1967 and I stayed for a couple of years and I was incredibly lucky because I was able to travel in 36 of the 50 states and I met all sorts of people including President Lyndon Johnson and one got to know America pretty well then so that when I became editor-in-chief of The Telegraph, I was always saying to our journalists, and then we had quite a big staff over there,

don't just sit in Washington or on the West Coast. Get out in the middle, all the places in between, because that's where the real America is. And of course, it's those places in between that are driving the MAGA movement, that are driving President Trump today. And so I think to understand what's going on in America, one has to know a lot about those places in between. First of all, how little we mean to them. Well, I mean, do they care one iota?

A lot of, I'm amazed how many British primeisters over the years, starting with Winston Churchill, thought that the Americans might have a sentimental attachment to Britain, and of course they don't. It's not that they dislike us, they're just not really interested in us at all. And as we know, the vast majority of Americans don't even have passports, and those who come here, they come as tourists, but do they take us seriously in the world today? No, they don't.

I do think, although when one goes to America, and especially when prime minister goes to America, they're incredibly polite to us, but are they regarding us as serious players? Will they ever do us favors because they like the color of our eyes? I'm afraid the answer is no. We shouldn't complain about that or we're surprised about it but we should recognise that's the way things are. Can I just draw your attention to an article I'm sure you've read from the Daily Telegraph. It's by Michael Lind. It's about Donald Trump and I'll just read you a couple of sentences. Unusual as he is compared to other American presidents, Trump resembles a figure familiar in American local politics in all regions of the country.

The sleazy city mayor who, without using direct coercion, strong arms others into doing his will. Do you think that's right or do you think he's more dangerous than that? I had an email yesterday from one of the most distinguished historians in Britain and America. And she'd been thinking a lot about Donald Trump. She'd written a lot about Donald Trump. She thinks that he should rightly be described as a malignant buffoon. Now, that may sound quite tough, but when one looks, an awful lot of what Trump does

is not getting reported in British newspapers. Don't ask me why but I think that since in the eyes of many of us what's going on in America is one of the most important things that's happened in the Western world since 1945 that I think we ought to be being told a lot more about what's happening from day to day. Well I mean you've got the opportunity tell us what we should we should know. First of all, Trump's assaults on the courts, the judicial system, which many of Trump's opponents placed huge faith on at the beginning of his term to check him. The judicial system is failing to check him. Trump has mounted a head-on assault on it. It's going on every day. Second, the blackmail, the attacks on media institutions.

There's been a terrifying series of episodes involving CBS that CBS's owners, Paramount, settled a completely spurious libel action that Trump launched against CBS for an interview during the election campaign with Kamala Harris. Paramount settled it for $60 million. Absolutely no lawyer thought the suit had any merit. Why did they do it? Because Trump had the power to stop the sale of CBS, which had just gone through, from

happening at all. And the fact that CBS cancelled last week the late show, which has been one of the foremost satirical television attacks on Trump over the years. All these things are interpreted by many sensible Americans, not as commercial acts, well as commercial acts driven entirely by their fear of Trump. Then of course we see such acts as his attacks on Brazil, that Trump is threatening 50% tariffs on all Brazilian goods imported into the United States unless effectively the Brazilians drop their legal proceedings against Jair Bolsonaro, the former president, who is under indictment for having attempted to launch a coup following his election defeat three

years ago. Now all these things, these are very big things. These are very scary things that are going on. Trump is attempting to strong arm both his own people and much of the world and very little of this is actually getting into the British media and I find that very disturbing because it seems so important. If the MAGA fan base doesn't care about all of those things though, Max Hastings, what is it that actually brings Donald Trump to account? Will it ultimately be his handling of the

economy? We don't know. At the moment, I think the fear of Trump's foes and critics is that he seems to be winning a lot of the battles, that in his struggle to become what, yes, many Americans are saying, is effectively a dictator rather than a president checked by the judicial system or by the legislature, then the question is what can prevent him that he acts in a more and more arbitrary fashion from day to day? I mean, it's fantastic. An American president should suddenly demand that the Washington football team change its

name back from the commanders to the Redskins and he suddenly on his social media output demands that this should be done immediately. Well what is the President of the United States doing trying to tell a football team what they should call themselves and this is an extraordinary turn of events but nobody seems able to stop him. We have to realise just how serious this is. If we have, to put it politely, some not very successful leaders from time to time, it doesn't matter that much because we're not big players in the world. The United States is still the most powerful nation in the world and what happens there matters desperately. But do you also think that

all of those things that you've listed are deliberately used by Donald Trump to distract attention from his inability to turn around the economy? The thing that he promised the two blokes who are sitting in a bar somewhere on Main Street, you know, two years ago that their lives would be better, that Detroit would have car manufacturers again, that their children would be in work forever. Those things, it is extremely unlikely that he will be able to pull them off. So in the meantime, it absolutely plays to his strength to just fire off these salvos against existing institutions and against logic and decency. I'm not an economist, but the economists whom most people respect say that what's going

for Trump is it may be quite a while before the failure of most of his economic measures becomes apparent. Whereas his base, one thing we have to keep coming back to is his stand on illegal immigrants. Trump only cares about those 40% of Americans who represent his base, who broadly support the MAGA agenda. And as long as he continues to send masked men out on the streets to grab migrants off the streets and ship them to what are effectively concentration camps in Salvador, his base thinks this is wonderful and we should be aware of this.

And although, yes, the economy is out there, and of course you're right, that his insistence that he was going to revive the Rust Belt, it just ain't going to happen, that it may be quite a while before that becomes plain. And here of today, opinion polls show that the majority of Americans are opposed to most of the big things he's doing. But that base, what's extraordinary is the act of his, again, almost, or very under-reported in British media, that really got his base fired up, is this ridiculous argument about the Epstein, the sexual predator, the disgraced financier and sexual predator, about his links to Trump.

And this issue is at the moment dominating the MAGA base, dominating Trump's agenda. And in fact, all the American media are saying today that what matters most to Trump today is not what's happening with tariffs, what's happening with Ukraine or with Gaza or anything else. All he cares about is trying to sort out the huge rile within his base about the Epstein case and his own possible links to Epstein. But that's not to say that isn't hugely important, Max Hastings, not least because we think the lives of hundreds of girls and young women were really blighted by that truly horrific

man. Of course it matters whether Trump was linked to these people, whether as some of these MAGA people are suggesting, although some of the wilder conspiracy theories, which ironically Trump himself started, are some of the conspiracy theories are ridiculous, but of course the charges against Epstein were very real. But compare this with what is happening in Gaza, an appalling tragedy in which the United States appears quite unable to stop what's going on, or Ukraine, where the whole future of Ukraine hangs on the whim of Trump about whether he is going to continue to support Ukraine or whether a some of us fear it could happen any day that he could pull a plug on.

So we have to consider the fate of whole nations is at stake out there. So yes, the Epstein case is horrible, but it's grotesque that the president of the United States should be overwhelmingly preoccupied with trying to get himself off the hook on this. Right, can we just briefly go back to something you said earlier? You said that Trump, I hope you're quite generous here, behaves in what you described as an arbitrary fashion. There are other people familiar with, for example, his overnight rantings on truth social. You'd say this guy isn't behaving in an arbitrary fashion, he is completely unhinged. I think that's not far from the truth. We're not in the position of sovereign governments. Most governments, including our own, feel that

they have to play along with Trump in his madness, and yes we can call it madness, but we are in a position, and I think what worries me about how little relatively British media are doing about a lot of this stuff, is that we are not in the position of Keir Starmer, who has to be civil to him and treat him as if he were a rational human being, or the Secretary General of NATO, who had to send that cringe-making, crawling message to Trump of a kind that certainly cost him his self-respect, but may just have contributed to keeping going the flow of arms to Ukraine. So governments have to do this, but we as journalists, we in the media, we don't have

to do this. So we ought to be calling it like it is. We ought to be saying from the rooftops, the United States has fallen into the hands of some terrible and grossly incompetent people as well as corrupt people. And we have to keep saying that from the rooftops and making clear to people how serious is it. Right can I just put a question from a listener Steve who says could you ask Max Hastings why other Arab nations are not up in arms about what's going on in Gaza? The scenes I'm seeing are shocking and I just can't understand why more Arab countries are not

pressuring Israel or the US to make it stop. What is the answer to that? I'm afraid there's a sad truth about the Palestinians. I wrote a column for an American publication a few weeks ago. The Palestinians have no friends. That is their tragedy. Unlike Ukraine, they've never had a spokesman of the global stature of President Zelensky. The only Palestinian leader anybody's ever heard of was Yasser Arafat whom everybody hated. And I personally think that the Palestinians' future, it's a great tragedy and it's a monstrous

injustice. But I think that the Palestinians are entirely at the mercy of Netanyahu and the Israeli right and behind him President Trump and those others because I'm afraid the Arab states, although they pay lip service, the listener is absolutely right that the Arab states do sometimes publicly deplore what's going on. But in truth, none of the Arab leaders are willing to do anything practical to save the Palestinians and I'm afraid the future of the Palestinians, I believe that within the next few years Israel will annex Gaza and the West Bank. And these will be monstrous acts and they will cause, if it's possible, even greater human suffering than we've seen so far. But I don't see any of the Arab states

doing much more than the Americans are doing to prevent the Israelis from doing it. If one looks at the broad picture, and I'm not the first person by a long short, far more important people than me have said this. We're moving into a terrifying world in which might is right, in which it seems possible, whether it's Putin or not, and Yahoo or Trump to do what you've got the power to do, that the word justice and the word compassion do not feature in Trump's lexicon. And I think if one was choosing one thing about Donald Trump that we should all find

terrifying and unbelievably depressing. There is no compassion in this man at all. There is only an extraordinary capacity for, on a good day, insensitivity and on a bad day, terrible cruelty. Can we have a quick word with you about Britain and in particular about the small boats which whatever you think about this issue it is it's dominating at the headlines domestically. There are problems outside some of these migrant hotels notably in Essex but elsewhere in the country as well, Norfolk as well. How do we rectify this? I think the British people are entitled to be bitterly angry with successive governments, not only this one, but years and years of Tory

governments for what they've allowed to happen. The boats have become the symbol, but of course the numbers are tiny compared with the huge numbers, vast numbers, millions that have entered Britain as a result of Boris Johnson's introduction of a point scheme for immigration. And I'm not surprised there is such anger out there. And those of us who live in cozy little middle-class bubbles, we're not seeing the huge social pressures and tensions that are created by uncontrolled migration.

And although I think it will be a terrible thing for Britain if Nigel Farage becomes prime minister and reforms the government, I don't think it's surprising. And no government, I don't believe, can get elected in Britain again that does not have some serious answers to the problem of uncontrolled migration. And it's no good anymore saying that those who oppose uncontrolled migration are racists. But the Western world is hugely threatened by migration on a scale which if it's not controlled really will overwhelm us. I mean it shows no sign of stopping and if you look at obviously the confused geopolitics of many regions, the aggression, the rising temperatures that are forcing people to move, you know,

our children and grandchildren will look back on this time and say they thought those were big numbers. My hero among historians, now some years dead, was a very close friend called Sir Michael Hard, who's the wisest man I've ever known. And I remember Michael saying, probably 15 years ago to me, he said the wave of migration from the southern hemisphere to the north that is now starting is the most serious movement of population since the early Christian era. And the failure of not just the British government but of other governments convincingly to address this, partly I believe by making a huge effort to try and encourage or incentivize peoples

to stay where they are in the Southern Hemisphere, I think is one of the huge failures of our lifetimes. And as you say, what it's going to mean for our children and grandchildren is incalculable. And you're absolutely right also that Michael Hire was right. He said back there 15 years ago, he said, when he's seen the beginnings of this, even now the numbers could get vastly greater because of climate change, because of what's happening down there and no government seems to have any credible answer about what to do about it. How does a prime minister, a technocratic chap if you like,

in the form of Sir Keir Starmer, take on Nigel Farage? It's very hard. It's often been said about Kirsten Stalmer in times gone by. I've done any questions with him a few times. There's no doubt he's an immensely decent bloke, but he's not a politician. He doesn't understand how to cope with somebody like Farage or for that matter, if it is possible, I think, that Boris Johnson had the effrontery to make some sort of comeback, I don't think Farage would have a clue how to deal with him. We seem to be living in a world in which there's a resistance to serious players at the top. There's this appetite for celebrity leaders that of course is completely bonkers. But I never forget a woman saying on a BBC radio just around the time of the Tory leadership

election at which Boris Johnson got an elected leader and this woman stopped in the street she said I want Boris to get it because he'll make politics fun politics aren't meant to be fun government's meant to be serious and I think what we should plead for and we're not getting from any party, we need some serious people instead of jokesters of one kind or another. But part of the trouble, a lot of it comes back to social media. Social media makes the lives of conventional politicians and career politicians so dreadful,

the terrible persecutions that we only see the tip of the iceberg on. Who would be a proper career politician, a public servant? And they still exist, there are still some of them, and they deserve respect, and what do they get? But treatment on social media that is beyond belief and I think at the root of many of the issues we've been talking about that including checking Donald Trump's successes, finding ways and finding the will to control social media is terribly important and it's very hard to see how it's going to get done.

Max Hastings, thank you very much indeed for talking to us this afternoon. I was going to say I enjoyed it. It's certainly given me some more food for thought. I really enjoyed it. You enjoyed it. OK, we enjoyed it and I've just been made to think. That's never a bad thing. Trust me. Max Hastings, thank you very much indeed. Max known to many of you, of course, but he is also, should be said,

author of a book called Sword D-Day Trial by Battle. And I bet that's a cracking read. Thoughts of Max Hastings. And as Jane said earlier, boy do we cover some ground on this podcast and maybe next time Max Hastings comes in we can run him past thermal gloves underneath four poster beds and whether or not he'd like to join us on Greta's tits radio. Okay, we've gone too far. We saved ourselves from being quite so puerile within this because actually it's really important stuff isn't it? Will the world ever go back to a time when Donald Trump seems like an aberration or are we just in Donald Trump shaped politics forever?

Oh dear, I fear that's a possibility. Yeah. Well, we've still got our general... General what? Well, I was about to say this is our place of sanctuary. Have you joined the army? What's going on? No. Another thing I won't be doing. Right, thank you for putting up with this, that, and everybody else, what?

It's, it's... Goodbye. Stop, just wind her down, unplug her. She needs a rest, she's very old. Goodbye. Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale and if you listen to this you'll understand exactly why that's

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