Off Air... with Jane and Fi - He had three nipples and a lisp (with Lisa Jewell)

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Jane and Fi discuss great-great uncles, ongoing extreme heat and Jane reminds us how busy she is, actually.Plus, author Lisa Jewell joins Jane and Fi to discuss her new psychological thriller ‘None of This Is True’.  If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail].  Follow us on Instagram! @JaneandFi  Assistant Producer: Eve Salusbury  Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

those nuts deliver oh did you have a sneaky after show nut not yeah they're good aren't they they definitely hit the spot so do you know i'm really i'm slightly troubled actually by that email we won't mention his name and well the texter who texted in after we'd done that lovely interview with Trevor, who'd left the army because he was gay and he had to decide between having a loving relationship with someone he wanted to have a relationship with or staying in the British Armed Forces and serving his country. And he was on the horns of a dilemma and chose the relationship

but has been part of a lobby group, lobbying for justice around that. I didn't realize Jane that even by the year 2000 it was still illegal to be gay in the army so that's not serving on the front line or anything like that. Just to be in it. I think it also applied in the Navy and the RAF. Yes, sorry, sorry, British Armed Forces, I should have said. But somebody then messaged in to say, why would you have any sympathy? You know, they basically, they being gay people,

knew what the laws were. So, you know, why would they expect it to change? I mean, just because it was wrong? Is it naive to say that? You know, it's just wrong? I think maybe naive to think that everyone has got on board with the 21st century, because I think we only have to look at social media and indeed read some letters pages to know that not everybody is. Not everyone has hopped on the 21st century bus. No, I know that. But I suppose it's just the...

It's sad when you actually see evidence of it, isn't it? Yes, and just not being able to, you know, put the glasses of hindsight on and reconsider people's positions. I think, you know, you should do that, shouldn't you? Yeah, well, you should, yes. Yeah. It just annoyed me.

Yes, but you're right, good to be reminded of that. Right, on to brighter things. Now, I was quite disappointed, actually, after yesterday's podcast, Jane, that we didn't hear anything about the exciting Japanese business offer that had come our way. It seems to have, just for the moment, vanished. But I'm sure they'll be back. Because they did say they were, was it the third or fourth time

they'd emailed us I can't remember I don't know but they were looking for they were looking to link up with us in a partnership that would be beneficial to everybody we just had to agree to their terms yeah it reminded me a little bit of a couple of years ago when I got a letter to my home address from a long-lost cousin informing me of the death of another relative I hadn't heard of and promising me all kinds of riches gosh I know well I'd never funny enough I haven't heard from them since either yeah but you must have been very upset at the demise of a relative you didn't know it's a bit difficult it's a bit like when you see um what's that show where you retrace your family uh long-lost fam no who do you think you are no long lost family is really sad i mean i do cry at that but who do you think you are always find it they do a lot of the celebrities they have

on they do sort of obligingly well up when they discover that great great great great great great granddad reg you know had a had three nipples and uh and a lisp yeah died in the work and died in the workhouse yeah you know in the workhouse, yeah. You know, I just think, yeah, well, you didn't know him, did you? What I always love is where they find a very, very, very tenuous connection way back in the past. So you'll have someone who's an absolutely certifiable entertainer in this generation.

And 14 generations ago, Bob great great great great great grandfather once held the door open for the equivalent of Bobby Davro in the 17th century. Thus proving that it's genetic. It's always in your genes. It's always always new. My destiny. We shouldn't because I'm sure it's a very successful format. Well, it must be because it keeps coming back. So they investigate people without you knowing that you're being investigated before you're invited on, don't they? Oh, do they? Yes.

So if you're a bad bet, they just leave you alone? Because they don't want too many dullards. So I think you can guarantee that your past has been investigated and it's just too dull to be on. Okay. If it wasn't't would you go on because there's always a possibility you find out something terrible yes i'm not sure i'm not sure i would want to find out anything because it might then slightly haunt you in a way that would be completely inappropriate because as i've already said they aren't people they're actually

figure in your life you'll just vaguely share some dna with them no i'm going to say no to who do you think you are excellent who by the way haven't expressed a shred of interest in featuring me um we did talk to karen brady yesterday on the program just about small business and about the problem of not getting paid if you are running a small business and just really quickly this is from jenny who says running your own business is as Karen Brady described, you do have to get the work in, you have to do the work, then you have to get paid for it. Our terms are 30 days from date of invoice. 25% of clients, though, take us up to 60 days or more to pay. And they are usually the ones with the multi-million pound turnover. This gets worse when times are tough as paying

suppliers late is cheaper than paying the interest on your business overdraft. So it all comes down to raw economics doesn't it? Yeah that's vicious isn't it? So I totally get what you're saying Jenny just says how stressful it is running a small business and we have in the past due to being owed a month's turnover for a year we had to remortgage our house in order to pay employees and keep our business going and what is the business uh it looks like a design company okay yeah i've been chasing late payments for 33 years says jenny so i don't expect it to change so it's just a cultural thing isn't it it's just what you do is i suppose you try and get away with i mean it may be that you can't pay because you haven't been paid i suppose that's possible isn't it yeah well you're still receiving some payment issues from our previous employer that date back

to the previous century i don't open that one no that's not that's not okay let's move very quickly on to tapestry on the Northern Line, everybody. Dear Fee and Jane, I heard you talking about the man embroidering on the Northern Line and your thoughts on what the design might be. My friend who also embroidered on the Northern Line, and that's gone into inverted commas, which I will now use as a euphemism for something, does these kits and tomoffinland.org is where you can go if you want to. Hang on a sec.

I think even I know what Tom of Finland is. Cross stitches of homoerotic iconography. Yes, very famous. Yes, I favour the subversive cross stitch book, which has lots of sweary motifs, which is called subversivecrossstitch.com. And that's the only one that i looked up because i wasn't brave enough to look up tom of finland on the office computer today vicky uh so i looked up

subversive cross stitch and i'm going to order myself a pack uh because they're fantastic uh one of them says i love the nights i can't remember with the friends i can't forget that'll be us at latitude it will won't it and the other one can't forget. That is good. Which I think is brilliant. That'll be us at Latitude. It will, won't it? And the other one that I liked was Fiesta, like there's no manana. And then you can hang them up, you know,

where people have the keep calm and carry on type poster things in your house. So I'm probably not going to do the Tom of Finland one, if that's okay. Well, it is okay, yeah. Only because that's okay, but only... Well, it is okay, yeah. Only because that's just, I think Brian and Barbara might find it tricky. I don't know. Cool Cat certainly wouldn't. That's

absolutely his type of thing, and as for Nance... But I like the idea of a bit of subversive cross-stitch. That would be one of those craft things I start and don't fit Miss Jane. Well, yeah, but the whole gorilla knitting area is fascinating. know i do i love all that stuff i love the fact that people make things for the tops of post boxes and stuff like that and quite often there's a slightly um kind of saucy undertone yeah in craft which i enjoy enormously i mean it's how grace and perry made his fame and fortune, isn't it?

Because when he was doing his pots, they were covered with all kinds of things, Jane. Yes, but of course the ancient Greeks weren't no strangers. They weren't, no. We had a terrible, terrible classics lesson once with the much-revered Mrs Rankin, often mentioned on this podcast, where she was giving us a slideshow which involved quite a lot of men's quivers

right yeah it didn't go well and that was the moment where she said to all of us you're on the verge of becoming adult women just grow up well yeah and she had an absolutely massive point but it did take us about half a year to say something else there she had a massive point right okay right stop it no puile. And I'll take that back. OK, this is from Rosie and this is a serious email, actually, about Diana Bird, who was the RAF squadron leader that I talked to when you were on holiday about the evacuation from Kabul. And Rosie says, I'm not connected to the military in any way, but I was also involved in the evacuation from Kabul. also involved in the evacuation from Kabul. I've only recently stopped work on evacuations of those who are not lucky enough to scramble onto a plane in those few weeks in August. I ran a women's

integration project at a refugee charity in London and through that work met several incredible Afghan activists who've been granted refugee status and sought refuge in the UK before the most recent Taliban takeover. They continued their activism here, running women's rights seminars and programmes to aid their fellow female refugees in knowing and exercising their rights in the UK. So when things in Afghanistan started to deteriorate in 2021, my friend and former colleague WhatsApp me in a panic, My friend and former colleague WhatsApp me in a panic, asking if I could help her family and former colleagues, many of them female judges and lawyers who were stuck in and in danger in Afghanistan. So Rosie goes on to say that actually listening to Diana, I was struck by the horrific choices she had to make. And I could hear the complex and competing mix of rationality and professionalism and deep empathy and concern in her voice. Like her I was diagnosed with PTSD caused by the extreme and

unrelenting stress of this experience and I've spent nearly a year getting myself better. So to Rosie I really do hope you are better now and just I couldn't read out all of your email but it's very much been read and I'm a huge admirer of what you've what you've been able to do yeah absolutely i concur with all of that uh this one comes from riannon who's very kindly invited us to tasmania do you think we're likely to get there jane no okay well there you Rhiannon. It's a hard no from the Garvey. This is because she has recently returned to Tasmania after 17 years living in London, and it's because we were talking about Deadlock, which is this really funny, funny anti-misogynistic crime drama

that I've been banging on about. Are you going to sample it? Deadlock? Yes. I don't think I am. I'm sorry. I'm very resistant to anybody else's suggestions. It's not just that.

I genuinely don't have the time. Yes, you do. There's the housework. There's preparing for this podcast. Yes, you do have the time. You have no idea. There's the Radio Times column. You've got, well, I think you've got some time for it.

It's only about 45 minutes an episode. Oh my goodness. Okay. Well it's very funny. For other people who do want to indulge I think it's on the Netflix. No, I think you said Amazon Prime. Or the Amazon. And it's Deadlock with a CH at the end. But Rhiannon just wanted

to say that there are lots of similarities in Tasmania where so fact and fiction have merged, because in the series they do have a seal called Kevin who keeps on tipping up on the shoreline. The real one is called Neil and is known for all sorts of antics, and they also have a huge midwinter festival, which the series takes the piss out of absolutely brilliantly.

But I just wanted to note this fantastic local newspaper headline neil the seal breaks tassie park bench and that is why local newspapers are that they need to keep going yeah they really are brilliant yeah um fasting was something we did briefly discuss actually on the program today because fasting as as we've mentioned, I think previously, has just become very much a thing. Ian says, I've been fasting for years. I work from home and find eating lunch or breakfast makes me sleepy. I fast from getting up to about eight or nine in the evening.

Living in Greece for five years didn't help. No idea what it does, but I feel fine, he says. You see, I think perhaps if you are working from home, then it might be all right. I think for lots of people it's all right. I think just when it's not all right, you might feel there's a bit of pressure to keep going. But shout out to regular correspondent Billin Hyten,

who says, ladies, a word of warning, diabetics should be wary of fasting, as we don't have to fast for blood tests any longer as it's too risky. Right, that's interesting. Yes, thanks for that, Bill. Probably should have known that diabetics can't fast. Well, now, Ian mentioned living in Greece

and thank you to the people who've talked to us about being in heat waves. Have you got any of those? Oh, well, Julia has recounted some tales to tell from Puglia, which she has just come back from. And the sentence that really sums it up for me is she says, it felt as if my eyes were literally boiling in their sockets. Because even in one of those trullos,

which are those extraordinary dome-shaped houses that you get in south-east Italy, which have been built because it is such an arid and acrid and hot landscape. Even inside those, they couldn't get cool enough. And it just sounds nightmarish. And I really do fully understand. We're talking about people going on holiday and not having a great time. This is not people having to lose their livelihoods and their families

because of the heat. But it is just um i i think those stories of human bodies not being able to cope with it we are drawn to those aren't we because it's such a nightmarish scenario have you got one of horror yes i have i was just looking at julia's again we've never been so glad to return to the cooler british weather as we were in the early hours of monday morning the point that comes across from Julia's brilliant email is this is just not fun. And I absolutely take your point that it's a first world issue. And if you're lucky enough to be having a foreign holiday, you're basically doing OK. But we do, most of us really look forward to our week in the sun,

don't we? Yeah. And also it is really, really true, Jane, that if we stop going to lots of destinations that we've gone to for the last 30 or 40 years, those destinations will suffer. There are whole swathes of Europe that really, really depend on the tourist industry. So if we all go, not going anywhere near those because it's too hot.

Kiki says, I live in Mallorca. How do you pronounce that? Mallorca. No, it's M-A-L-L. Mallorca. Yeah, that's Mallorca. Oh, is it M-A-L-L. Mallorca. Yeah, that's Mallorca. Oh, is it? Yeah. Right now, she says, it's just awful.

When I first moved here 10 years ago, I thought it was really odd that the local people kept their shutters closed all day in the summer. What about the views, the sunshine, I would now think. No, sorry. What about the views and the sunshine, I'd think. My shutters have now been closed for a week. I'm off to Scotland on holiday in a couple

of weeks and the thought of packing a jumper is just joyful. I have attached a photo of the temperature in my car today, 42 with around 60% humidity. I try not to think of idiots chucking cigarette ends out of cars or starting barbecues because it honestly feels like a tinderbox here i hope the local economy and the ecology of these beautiful baleric islands survive none of the locals i speak to think any of this is normal anymore uh right and kiki says she's grateful for her air conditioning unit um we wanted to do a feature on one just an item on air conditioning to talk about who invented it, how it works, whether in fact we've just been making the situation much worse ourselves if we all installed it. So it's a difficult one, isn't it? Well, I think we've probably still got some opportunity to do that over the next couple of weeks.

So I'll tell you what, now here's a sentence I never thought I'd find myself saying. If you've got any specific questions about air conditioning, Jane and Fi at times.radio. Or even better, if you're an air conditioning expert. Oh, yeah. Or you know one. Just phone in, OK, if you'd like to come on and explain air conditioning. 8722, start your message with the word times.

You've just got to do it really sexily, though. What they have or I have. No, not us chance to be a fine thing i want someone to come on and just you know and be sexy about aircon absolutely okay right turn the heat down everybody uh sean i loved your email because uh it was about alita adams and uh actually mishearing the lyrics to get her where you can, which has in reality an excruciating rhyming couplet where caravan is rhymed with Arab man. But a colleague of Sean's had been confused for years

and she had been belting it out, rhyming caravan with errant man, which I think is much better. It is actually better. Like an errant man. And think is much better it is actually better man and it's just lovely that that's what she heard and can i just say a quick tip as well because you read out an email yesterday um about uh somebody who was a little bit worried about the ripper bar opening up and was reporting a campaign uh not to celebrate the work of jack the ripper and to have a whole pub where you go yeah let's meet in this place it's pathetic which just seemed ridiculous um and uh i just wanted to say

there's a fantastic book have you read the five i haven't always actually i have read it and i was trying to remember the name of the author i think she's having reuben that's it she shares an agent with us yeah yeah so uh she has written a really, really brilliant book called The Five, which is the untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper. And it's just such a superb book because you might think, oh, this is going to be a bit depressing, but it's not because what she's trying to do

is to tell you all about these wonderful women whose lives were taken away from them. But she does it in a way where you're really, really interested in their lives. So it's not salacious, it's not celebrating anything about him. It's really, really good. So can I just recommend anybody

who would like to feel that they're slightly redressing the balance, I suppose, have a read of that book. It's very good. Celia says, Eleanor of Aquitaine was a wonderful woman from history and she is often a history answer her second husband

she was married to what a sauce pot her second husband was Henry II careful with whom it says here with whom she fathered four sons I don't think so she clearly was a remarkable woman from history and two of them became king

two of them became king can Two of them became king. Can you name the two sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine? This is your start of, it wouldn't be your start of a term, would it? It'd be like an extra harder question. It would. From Amal. So, well, I know that one of those is Henry I. Nope. Henry II.

How would Henry II's son be Henry I? I don't know. That's why I didn't do very well on your university challenge. One of them's Henry II's son be Henry I? I don't know, Jane. That's what I didn't do very well on the university challenge. One of them's Henry II. No, he was Henry II. Henry II was Henry II. OK. I tell you who I don't know anything about.

Henry III. I don't know much about Henry II, really. I don't know anything. Well, I know, but... Anyway, the answer to this rib tickler is that two

the two sons of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry the second who became king were Richard and I always think Richard the first it says here

oh yeah there was a Richard the second wasn't there because he died in a very unpleasant way and then there was Richard the third and we know about

Richard the third don't we yeah Richard the first and John. John. Okay, well. Oh, John.

He was king. Not for long. Oh, dear. Thank you, Suna. I actually don't really want to see the miniseries about any of them. That's where we started. There's been a graph sent in. I'd love a graph.

Do you like a graph? I do. This is a very good one. Oh, so this is a graph that is, on the one hand, it's affinity versus human likeness. And points in the graph include healthy person, bun raku puppet, stuffed animal, industrial robot, corpse zombie and prosthetic hand.

Here comes the email. Dear Jane and Fi, I was listening to your piece about the disturbing photo of old toy dolls. We've put it up on the Insta. I'm a psychologist and a few years ago, I came across an article in our professional publication about a phenomena in psychology called the uncanny valley. This is an experience we get when we look at something

that has an uncanny resemblance to the human form, yet something about it isn't quite right. And so it makes us feel very uneasy. It's called a valley. don't make any jokes though. It's called a valley because we're initially drawn to the human-like qualities but can then be disturbed by the oddity or eeriness of what we're actually seeing. So seeing a box full of effectively broken and contorted bodies probably triggers this neurological response. We know it's not human yet the uncanny familiarity draws us emotionally towards it. Geeky graph attached. I think

that's absolutely fascinating. Yeah it is. But for someone to have bothered to do a graph that's incredible isn't it? Well I mean I think the days can be quite long at some of these institutions and to be honest we had quite a long afternoon here today didn't we? We did. Quite a long one. And we've got a very long car drive. Oh, I know, yes. All of us together tomorrow.

Yeah. There was talk of someone making a mixtape. No, we were going to make a playlist. Oh, yeah, that's what you call it these days. But the front seat's already been bagged by someone who's car sick. I know. It's not a dream journey,. We've got a dream team though she said hastily. I might put that Alita Adams on the playlist. Yes do that. Yeah right

our big guest and we really enjoyed chatting to her is Lisa Jewell. You really have got to hand it to Lisa. She keeps the books books coming she wrote her first book Ralph's Party in 1998 actually she started it I think the year before it came out in 1999 and I think it was the best-selling debut novel of that year that was I suppose a relatively frothy London fun times kind of caper book but her latest is the sort of book she now writes much more regularly a very dark psychological thriller and this is dark it's called none of this is true and it's about two women whose lives collide there is alex a glamorous podcaster and a woman called josie fares who says she has a story to tell alex now lisa did admit that in real life, she doesn't know a great deal about what podcasters actually get up to. Are our lives as glamorous as Lisa seemed to think in the book?

Well, we had to tell her that actually podcasters tend not to be quite as glitzy as she might have imagined. I have to say, I don't really know much about what podcasters' real lives look like. I'd originally, the character who's a podcaster in the book was originally going to be a novelist. Right. And again, I mean, I can only take my own experience of what the life of a novelist looks like. But when I decided she was going to be a podcaster, I just had to make it up. I thought, I don't know any podcasters.

And I just thought, well, she's surely got to be terribly glamorous and live in a lovely house in North London. Ring any bells? Yes, it is. Okay. So it's just me then. wedi cael ei fod yn ddiddorol o ddiddorol ac yn byw mewn tŷ gwych yng Nghymru. A chyffwrddwch unrhyw beliau? Ie, mae'n rhaid. Iawn, felly mae'n fy mhen. A'r ddyn yma yw Alex Summers. Nawr, mae hi'n gwneud podcast lle... Yn wir, mae'n syniad da ac efallai y byddem yn ei ddod yn ei ddod. Mae hi'n cyfweli ddynion llwyddiannus ond yn amlwg, ar y llwybr eu llwybr i llwyddo, maen nhw wedi cael ychydig o gwmpas a thwm. Ie.

Dyna'r ystafell yw hi, ond mae'n teimlo ei fod wedi cael ei gyrru o'r peth gyda'r gynnydd hwn. Ie, mae hi wedi gwneud 20 o ffyrdd o gyfrifo'r bobl hyn sydd wedi cael ymdriniaethau anhygoel i fod yn llwyddiannus ac mae wedi dod i'r diwedd ac wedi cael ei gyrru o syniadau. Fel nofelist, rwy'n gwybod beth mae hynny'n teimlo. Pan wyddoch chi y dylai ychydig chi ddechrau gweithio ar eich prosiect nesaf ac nad oes unrhyw beth yn y banc. Ie, ar y cyfnod cywir lle mae'n teimlo nad oes unrhyw beth yn y prynhawn hon, pan mae'n teimlo bod dim yn y banch, mae'n cyfarfod y ddyn gwahanol mewn pub yn Cwyns Park. Mae'n eithaf sylweddol bod y ddynion yn ymrwymiadu eu 45 oed.

A oes unrhyw beth am ddod i 45 oed sy'n bwysig i chi? Oes 45 oed pan ddod llawer o ddynion i'w cyrraedd? to you because I read once I'm sure I read that 45 was when women reached their sexual peak oh which is I didn't get that incredibly bad news from my perspective but I but I had I had read it somewhere yeah no I didn't it was nothing to do with sexual peaks my I think it was subconsciously and it actually worked out really well because I wanted to really delineate these two women who happened to be born in the same hospital on the same day um but have ended up living incredibly y ddwy wneud hynny, sydd wedi bod yn nes i'r un ysbyt ar yr un dydd, ond wedi byw yn byw yn bywydau gwahanol. Ac roeddwn i'n meddwl bod rhywbeth ddiddorol am ddwy gyrff 45 oed, yw bod eu bod yn y lle yma ar hyn o bryd yn hynny, yn hynod o ddibynion

os maen nhw wedi cael plant ar hyn o bryd maen nhw wedi cael y plant. Mae rhai o'r wneud hynny yn y nes amser oedden nhw'n 45, fel yw'r achos gyda Josie. Roedd ei blant yn ifanc ac nawr mae hi'n byw yn y nes amser a'i edrych ar y hanner nesaf ei bywyd a'i gydagysg sut mae'n mynd i edrych. Felly, mae Alex wedi cael ei blant yn ifanc ac nawr mae hi'n byw yn y nes gwarchod y llwybr nesaf a'i edrych ar yr ail hanner o'i bywyd a'i gydagdwyd am beth fyddai'n mynd i'w edrych fel. Ond Alex wedi cael ei blant yn ei 30au, felly maen nhw'n ysgol prifysgol ac mae hi'n ddydd yn y llawr o'r fath o ddynion plant bach o'i bywyd a ddim yn meddwl yn y dyfodol am beth fyddai'i byw yn y bywyd nesaf. Felly roedd yn ddiddorol o'r safbwynt hwnnw. Rwy'n gwneud hynny yn union. Ond mae yna hefyd ychydig am fod yn 45, ac os ydych yn onest â chi, you take that but there's also a bit about being 45 where if you're honest with yourself if it hasn't happened for you by 45 chances are yes it's not going to is it yes it's rather brutal

it's there is I'm sure there are exceptions to that I'm sure there are many honourable exceptions to that but it is yes if you do feel like you're running out of time to do the thing that you wanted to do or make the success of the thing you wanted to make a success of yes so Alex is looking for new inspiration she knows that she needs a new concept for a podcast why does this woman appear to her uh well she sort of doesn't she sort of repels Alex in a way because Alex is very glossy as you say um and Josie appears from nowhere into her life on the night of their 45th birthdays and she's kind of odd. She's unsettling.

She's a little bit creepy. And I love writing about creepy people. So when she approaches Alex, she finds out where Alex's children go to school. And it's the same school that her children went to when they were small. So she approaches her outside the school and says, I've got this great idea for a podcast. You should do one about me because I'm about to change my life. And I thought it might be really interesting for you to interview a woman while she's changing her life. am gyflwyniad. Byddwch yn dweud rhywun amdano amdano amdano am fy mod i'n ymwneud â newid fy fywyd. Ac roeddwn i'n meddwl y byddai'n ddiddorol iawn i chi gyflwyniad y gwirioneddol i'r gynhyrchydd wrth i'i newid ei fywyd yn hytrach na'i gwneud yn ôl.

Ac mae'r reacsiwn ysgwng Alex yn dweud, nid di, chi'n rhywbeth anodd, dydw i ddim eisiau chi mewn fy fywyd. Ond yna, mae ddwy beth yn digwydd. Mae'r math o ddyfyniad cyflym sy'n ymwneud â hynny. Nid yw hi am fod yn ddifynol, nid yw hi am ofn, nid yw hi am wneud yn ddiddordeb o'r cyflymder cyflym yn ei ddod o hyd i hynny. Nid yw hi eisiau bod yn ddiddordeb, nid yw hi eisiau gwneud rhywbeth i'w ddiffyg, nid yw hi eisiau gwrthdaro'r gwen, ac hefyd y gwirfoddolwyr yn ei gilydd, oherwydd mae'r gwen hon yn ei ddod o hyd i stori, ac mae hi'n ei ddod o hyd i hynny ac mae hi angen stori. Felly mae hi'n mynd o hyd i'r holl instignau ei ddynion a'i ddweud ie.

Iawn, mae'r llyfr yn y math o gwych yn y gwedfr, oherwydd mae Josie yn mynd i'w llywodraeth, yn mynd i'w llywodraeth, ac yn byw yno am rhesymau nad ydym yn ei angen i fynd i mewn. Ac mae'r gynulleidfa Alex, Nathan, yn ymddygiadol am hyn, wrth gwrs, fel byddwn i. Rwy'n gofyn ychydig mwy am yr effaith y mae hi ar y teulu hwnnw. about the impact she has on that family? Well, yes. I mean, it's absolutely... I think from the minute that Alex says yes to Josie's proposition, that's it. She's lost control of the situation completely. She doesn't know she's lost control of the situation completely,

but she actually has. So therefore, once Josie decides how the rest of the story is going to play out, Alex hasn't got any choice in the matter. So, yeah, she ends up, as you say, cuckoo in the nest and makes everybody miserable, makes everybody miserable, everybody uncomfortable, including Alex. But for reasons that we can't go into, she feels unable to turf Josie out onto the street. Well, partly because Josie's still coming up with this amazing material. Yes, and it's very drip feed. And I'm sure actually in the real world if someone was interviewing someone for a podcast they'd have got the story out to them a bit quicker but for

the sake of the book it is quite drip feed and she does stretch it out yes. How enjoyable is it as the writer to write thrillers with an unreliable narrator? Well it's brilliant for me in particular Sut yw'n dda fel ysgrifennydd i ysgrifennu thrilwyr gyda'r cyflwyniad anhygoel? Wel, mae'n wych i mi yn benodol oherwydd dwi'n ysgrifennu heb bwriad ac dwi ddim yn gwybod beth fydd yn digwydd hyd yn oed wedi digwydd. Felly, er mwyn cael cyflwyniad anhygoel, mae'n golygu y gallaf i... Dwi'n gwybod, gallant fynd unrhyw ffordd maen nhw'n penderfynu i fynd ac gallaf i'w ddweud y cyflwyniad nawr ac yna. Ac mae cyfle mor fawr mewn ysgrifennu cyflwyniad anhygoel lle dwi ddim yn gwybod os yw'r hyn maen nhw'n dweud wrthi. they decide to go and I can just tweak them now and then and there's so much flexibility in writing an unreliable narrator where I don't know if what they're telling me is the truth. I didn't work out what was true or not in this book until about six months after

I finished writing it. Really? Yeah, six months after I finished writing it I suddenly thought, oh, okay, I absolutely see exactly what happened now. Okay, can I just say that by the end of the book I have to say by the way I didn't just read this book I gobbled it up on a train I was making a journey on Saturday I read the first half on the way there the second half on the way back I'm not sure I've ever done that before actually so you have that incredible ability to write books that just fill your head and you need to you need to finish them but to go back to your point that you started

making about an hour ago when I started this question um I don't know I've read the book but I'm not sure I fully know okay by the end who is telling the truth yeah well I do now but it's taken me a long time to piece it so I shouldn't be hard on myself no no and is it very different to how the reader might end up feeling no I think I think for a reader who might go directly from A yw'n wahanol iawn i'r ffermwr sy'n dechrau teimlo'n ddiffyg? Dwi'n credu, i'r ffermwr sy'n dechrau gwrando ar y sgwrs hwn, i ddewis y llyfr a ddarllen y llyfr, byddwn i'n hoffi ddweud wrth y ffermwr hon, mai'r gwir yw yn y llyfr diwethaf, mewn gwirionedd yn y ddau paragraffau diwethaf o'r llyfr diwethaf. Mae rhai pobl wedi cymryd y ddewis i fod yn ambygol neu agored, nid yw hynny. Mae hynny'n wir. Mae yna bethau eraill sydd ddd wedi gwneud gwirionedd i mi

hyd yn oed yn y llwybr. A felly, a yw hynny'n wahanol i'r teimlad rydych chi wedi ei gael pan wnaethoch chi ddiweddarau llyfrau eraill? Ie. Ie, yn bendant. Yn bendant. Dydw i ddim wedi cael y syniad hwnnw o fy mod i wedi'i gyhoeddi a chanfod llawer o fwyaf o fwyaf o fawrau o'r llyfr nad ydw i hefyd yn siŵr yn unr o beth sy'n wir a beth sydd ddim,

ac mae'r titl yn ei gyflwyno fel, dyma'r perffaith. Dwi ddim wedi cael y teimlad hwnnw ar ddiwedd llyfr, lle rwyf yn ymlaen yn y golygfeydd hefyd, am yr hyn a ddigwydd. Rwy'n ei gweithio ar hyn o bryd rwy'n ei ysgrifennu, yn hytrach na gwybod beth oedd yn ei wneud cyn i mi ysgrifennu'r llyfr, ond dwi ddim wedi ysgrifennu'r llyfr ac wedi gwybod beth oedd yn ei wneud hyd at chwe mis yn ôl. Mae rhywbeth arall yn y llyfr a fydd yn arwain yn fawr it as opposed to knowing what it was before I've written it but I've never written it and then not known what it was until six months later something else in the book that I think will really resonate

probably all modern day parents is the concept of a child spending almost their entire time in their bedroom yeah and I have to say it was ringing far too I mean I was actually thinking this is is so this does this is a thing for everybody then. And actually it is, isn't it? This, I would like to say this is slightly taken to an extreme in as much as Josie shares a flat with her oldest daughter who's 23 and hasn't seen her for a year. And she's developed some really serious neuroses, hasn't she? But that's a very, that's such a telling trope ddweud y bywyd modern,

yn dda? O ran bod ymddygiad eich plant yn debyg, neu a ydych chi'n eu gallu eu byw yn rhywbeth nad ydym yn ei ddeall, oherwydd nad oedd gennym sgrinau yn ein llyfrgellau a'r holl beth sy'n mynd ymlaen. Ac rwy'n credu bod llawer ohono'n gysylltu â hynny. Y sgrin yn y llyfrgell,

y byd cyfan yn y llyfr, ac mae'r character yn y cwestiwn hefyd yn cael problemau sy'n gwneud iddo fod yn anodd i hi fod yn y gwleidydd allan. Mae llawer o blant yn gwneud hynny'r dyddiau hyn, ac felly mae hi wedi gwneud y byd o'i hun yn ôl ei drwyth y llyfr. Ac mae'n enghraifft yn fawr o rywbeth sy'n eithaf cyffredinol y dyddiau hyn. And it is an extreme example of something that I think is quite common these days. I think it will make quite a few parents just squirm slightly with recognition. I should say, it isn't normal not to have seen your own child for a year. I think we can all nail that, can't we?

Yes, but it's something to bear in mind. You are listening to Off-Air and our guest today is the novelist Lisa Jewell. She started her writing career writing romantic novels and so I asked Lisa if she'd always had a little bit of a desire to write the darker psychological stuff. Interestingly my ambition if I was ever to imagine myself sitting down to write a novel, which I hadn't really in my 20 bod y math hwnnw o beth o brifysgolion 20-odd oedol oedol oedd yn gwneud. Ond os oeddwn i wedi meddwl amdano, byddwn i wedi sylweddoli fy hun yn ysgrifennu thriller. Ac mewn gwirionedd, fe wnes i eistedd i lawr pan oeddwn i yn ystod i ddechrau'r llyfr. Fe wnes i ddechrau thriller ac doedd hi ddim yn teimlo'n iawn. Doedd hi ddim yn teimlo'n iawn, felly fe wnes i ei bwyno ac fe wnes i ddechrau rhywbeth llawer mwy o llawr, a oedd yn fath o ddyniaeth romantig was um like a romantic comedy about flat sharers in Battersea in the 90s you did all right it was a brick you

know it was a cool Britannia novel it was great it was of its moment and that was Ralph's that was Ralph's party um and yeah so then I just that's that's the writer I was for a while I was a writer of like cool quirky romantic comedies set in London. But then they always had some quite dark undercurrents going on. And I think just what happened is as I got older, I've been writing a book a year since then. And with every book, I've just sort of stepped further away from the romance, stepped further into the darkness. At some point, I killed one of my characters, kind of crossed the Rubicon. You can't go back once you've done that. And it's just been very incremental going from one style of book to the other. gallwch chi ddim fynd yn ôl unwaith rydych chi wedi gwneud hynny. Ac mae wedi bod yn fawr o gyfres,

mynd o un ffordd o lyfr am y llyfr. A chi wedi dweud bod eich cyfres cyntaf ddim yn ddiolchgar yn bennaf, mae ganddo rhai bwyd golygfeydd yn eich canolbwyntio, ond mae wedi darparu llawer o arian a'n debyg, llawer o emphatiaeth oherwydd mae'ch cwreiddau yn eich llyfr

yn cyd-dwylo llawer o emphathiaeth yn ymwneud â'r ffordd y mae'r characterau chi yn ei ddarganfod yn eich llyfrau. Mae'r gwirionedd yn cyd-dwylo'n llawer, ond mae'n aml yn ymwneud â phrysion mewn cysylltiadau a allai fod yn dda o'r allan. Ac mae'n aml yn ymwneud â phower a chyfrwng, ac rwy'n credu mai dyna'r peth sy'n gweithio yn llawer o fy llyfrau, hyd yn oed yn fy llyfrau llyfrau gwell i'w ddysgu, yw cyfrwng cymhwysol. Ac roedd y gwirionedd i mi yn fy 20au cyntaf, doedd gennym hyd yn oed y terminell i'r cyntaf. Roeddwn i'n meddwl fy mod i mewn perthynas anodd, ond mae'n ddweud y gwir, roeddwn i'n cael fy nghyrff cyrff gan y dyn i'n gyrff. Ac yn fywyd sy'n ddiddorol iawn, y chwmniad o fy fywyd 5 mlynedd lle roedd popeth yn agor a'r holl ddwyloedd wedi clywed arna i, oedd yn fforddol iawn ac yn

anodd iawn i mi fod yn gallu i fy mywyd ddod fel hyn. Felly rwy'n cofio ysgrifennu amdano, ceisio edrych ar pam mae rhai pobl eisiau rheoli pobl eraill, a sut mae pobl eraill yn gallu eu rheoli a sut mae pobl yn ymdeimlad â hynny. A ydych chi'n gwybod a oedd hi wedi darllen eich llyfrau? Dwi'n gwybod. Dwi'n credu… Dwi ddim yn gwybod. Nid, nid, nid. and how people react to it. Do you know if he's ever read your books? I know, I think he, I don't know. No, he hasn't, no he hasn't. Does he know you've gone on to become a wildly successful writer? He does, he does.

At the end of things it was fine. We'd both come to a place with our relationship and with each other where we were ready to move apart and I have no ill will against him and he did write me. He wrote me an email when Ralph's Party came out saying that he was very proud of me and very happy for me so no there's no ill will but it was a good experience for someone who wants to be a writer to go through in an awful way because it's a great I mean we all do we compartmentalize so much don't we and I think

that's what I meant about the the story about the teenage the aspect of the teenager being in her bedroom all the time you know there are plenty of parents who think oh I must do something about this exactly but we never quite find the right moment no um so here you are now wildly successful with your I have to say this is there are aspects of this book and I don't I don't want to go too much into it because we don't want to give it away but there's a suggestion of paedophilia and incest. Yes. Is there anywhere you wouldn't go as a theme in your books? I would go anywhere, but I would never dig gratuitously deep, go gratuitously descriptive, linger too much on the unpleasant aspects of the things that I write about.

I will allude to them. I will suggest to the reader that these things are happening. I'm not going to shine a spotlight on the really, really unpleasant things. I'm not interested in doing that. byddwn i'n ysgrifennu iddynt, byddwn i'n argymell iddynt, byddwn i'n argymell i'r darllenwr bod y pethau hyn yn digwydd. Ond dydw i ddim yn mynd i ddod o hyd i'r pethau hynny. Dydw i ddim yn bwysig yn gwneud hynny. A ydych chi'n credu y gallai gweithwyr eraill wneud hynny'n rhy ddewis? Ie. Ie, os ydych chi wedi cyfathrebu'r pasigau, yn enwedig am ymdriniaeth tuag at dynion, o llyfrau sy'n gwerthfawr nawr i llyfrau a oedd yn gwerthfawr hyd i, d eu cael, hyd yn oed 20 neu 30 mlynedd yn ôl, mae'r newid yn fawr mewn gwirionedd. Ydych chi'n credu bod pobl yn ysgrifennu mewn ffordd fwy graffig ac ymddygiadwy am y pethau hyn?

Yn fawr iawn. Ie, rwy'n credu eu bod yn ymddygiad. Rwy'n ceisio meddwl am fy nesaf darllen. Rwy'n ceisio meddwl am llyfrau... Wel, rydym wedi bod yn cael cyfweliadau gyda llyfrau fficsiynu ffrindiau. Yn fawr iawn. with crime fiction writers where the descriptive passages about what happens to bodies and particularly actually what happens to women are really very very detailed

now. I feel that there was a sense, there was a backlash building, there was all that sort of Scandi noir that we were watching five, eight years ago and it just became a sort of trope, this idea of this sort of torture, crime, torture porn thing. And I felt, I thought that we'd all taken a step back from that

and had decided that we didn't need to focus in on the girl being sort of tied up and dragged around and brutalised. And so maybe I'm watching different things and reading different things, but I don't feel there's as much of that around as there once was. Well, having said that, I mean, true crime podcasts remain incredibly, well, as part of your book,

incredibly successful. Yeah. So there's clearly perhaps a rather dark part of us that wants this stuff. Oh yeah, I love the darkness. I want the darkness. I want the darkness. I want as much darkness in my life as possible on a creative level.

It feeds me. I love it. But I don't think I need the gore and the cruelty and the agony and the horrible descriptions of what's actually happened to people. And in fact, a lot of the darkness that I really, really enjoy

has got nothing to do with violence. I'm listening to Scamander at the moment, which is a podcast about a woman in America who pretended to have cancer for many years. ddiddordeb, mae'n ddim yn gysylltu â'r gwirionedd. Rwy'n gwrando ar Scamander ar hyn o bryd, sy'n podcast am ddyn yn America sy'n ystyried cael caner am lawer o flynyddoedd ac gwybod bod ei ffrindiau a'i teulu a'i eglwys ar gwaith o ddau milion a ddau milion o dolar. Mae'n ddwylo iawn ac mae'n gwbl, ond nid oes gwirionedd, nid oes blwyd, nid oes gore. Felly, rwy'n credu y gallwch fynd yn ddwylo iawn heb ystyried y mathau hynny o sgynnau. Felly rydych chi'n ysgrifennu, nid yn unig yn llwyddiannus, So I think you can go incredibly dark without having to visit those sorts of scenes. So you are, in writing terms, you're not just successful, you are a machine because you do produce.

I do feel like a machine. But it's a compliment, Lisa. Well, it is because I mean, you obviously I mean, I honestly was captivated by this on that train on Saturday. So you what you do is you buy people this special time where they can just involve themselves in something they fervently hope will never happen to them yes I thought it takes your mind off your problems but this is for me as a reader that the greatest gift that a writer can give me with their book is to just lose me in it is to do all the work for me and turn the pages for me and keep me glued to keep me off my

smartphone for goodness sake keep me off the pages for me and keep me glued to keep me off my smartphone for goodness sake keep me off the television for goodness sake keep me in the book and it's so rare these days I find it harder and harder to stay focused on a book so any book that can keep me in on the page in the book in that world is just a gift to me so for you to say that is that's my goal I want to keep the book that I don't want the reader to put put the book down and pick up their phone well you couldn't get a higher accolade then from but who do you turn to who do you read for exactly that the last book I wrote I read the way that you read my book was um everyone here is lying by shari lapina which um just came out last week

right in fact and I read that I think I started it in the morning I was travelling to Madrid by three o'clock in the morning that same day I'd finished it right okay and I just guzzled it down but so that was amazing I can't remember the last book other than that that I've read in such a... And do you ever worry that if you read too close to your own genre bits and pieces might get a bit stuck like a kind of lint roller? No I'm really really good at keeping my writing ddewch i'ch hun genhraff. Efallai y byddai bachau a phosib yn cael eu llwyddo fel rolau dynol. Nid wyf yn dda iawn am gadw fy nghyfraith yn gysylltiedig â'r rest o fy nhymorth. Mae'n rhywbeth rwy'n ei wneud yn y foment hwn ac rwy'n darllen yn y foment hwn, rwy'n gwylio TV yn y foment hwn, rwy'n

ysgrifennu mewn foment arall ac nid ydyn nhw'n ysgrifennu yn y foment arall, yn ffordd ddewch, mewn maybe really good, helpful ways. Do you think women write more convincing, creepy women than men? Yes. Oh, actually, no, I can't think of an example, but I've definitely read some really great creepy women written by men, but I just think writing creepy people, generally, I like writing creepy people. Yeah, it's funny. Maybe I'm just being sexist, but if a man writes writing creepy people, generally, I like writing creepy people. Yeah, it's funny.

Maybe I'm just being sexist, but if a man writes a creepy woman, I'm just a bit resentful. But if a woman writes a creepy woman, I think, yeah. You need to read anonymously. You need to put a piece of brown paper in the right. Yes, the ultimate test. Exactly, the brown paper test. So presumably you're underway with, what will it be, novel number?

No, this is number 21. I'm doing rewrites on number 22 at the moment, which is not behaving quite as well as this book behaved in the writing process. And yes, and then I'll be starting number 23 in September. Okay, and you are someone, just to give people hope, you didn't study English at Cambridge, no? No. And I hope that's not patronising.

No, I like this. I love this. I love that I can say this to people who want to write books. I left school when I was 16. I went to a really good grammar school, but I didn't do very well because I wasn't very academic. I left school when I was 16. I went to my local college. I did an art foundation course. I then went off to another college and did some strange fashion illustration course. oherwydd nid oeddwn i'n ddysg iawn. Fe wnes i adael ysgol pan oeddwn i'n 16, fe wnes i fy mynediad lleol, fe wnes i gwrs o'r Gadeiryddiaeth Celfyddydau Celfyddydau, ac wedyn fe wnes i fynd i'r coleg arall

a gwneud rhywfaint o gwrs ddiddordebau ffasiwn. Fe wnes i weithio mewn ffasiwn athro am lawer o flynyddoedd, ac ar y pryd fe ddechreuais ysgrifennu Rouse Party, roeddwn i'n brif weithredwr. Nid oeddwn i'n gwneud gradd, nid oeddwn i wedi darllen unrhyw o'r clasigau. A sut oeddech chi pan oeddech yn ysgrifennu Rouse Party? Fe ddechreuais ysgrifennu pan oeddwn i'n 26,

ac fe wnes i ddod o'r diwethaf cyhoeddus pan oeddwn i'n 28, ac fe ddod o'r llawr o'r 30 oed. did write Rouse Party? I started writing it when I was 26 and I got a publishing deal when I was 28 and it came out just around my 30th birthday. It's not a bad present to yourself. Not a bad way to yeah start a new decade. And what happened to that original thriller that you tried to write? Oh. Is it somewhere? I think it's I think it's everywhere. I think that idea I had for that thriller which was very much to do with my first marriage I've scattered it it's all in it's everywhere. I think that idea I had for that thriller, which was very much to do with my first marriage, I've scattered it. It's in all my books. Okay.

In different shapes and forms. So that's more encouragement for people who perhaps are in need of just a boost to know that, because you might be in a bad place in a relationship or elsewhere and everything can be material. Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. That is incredibly true.

Lisa Jewell, and I think probably i do often claim that i've really enjoyed a book and i gobbled it up and all the other phrases i i do turn out to backtrack on other books no no and say that you like this one the most no it was just immensely i i couldn't leave it i actually found some aspects of it always too dark to contemplate, if I'm honest. But as Lisa says, basically we all like that. We may not want to admit it to ourselves, but we do like to read about it. Well, a lot of people.

I wouldn't say everybody, actually. No, my mum just likes a book about nature. Oh, yes, my mother keeps complaining. What was it she didn't like about it? She didn't like Ten Pound Poms because there was too much about the war. There was too much violence. Well, you see, there you go. There was too much something else

and I just said, what do you... I think she said, too much heat. What do you think it was like to go to Australia in the 1950s if you were from Manchester? There was probably quite a lot going on. She might just want to stick with celebrity pointless as well.

Can I just chuck out the graph and thing that we were talking about earlier? I didn't quite get to the end of Susie's email. Oh, yeah, go on. Well, she says, I'm a mum juggling two teenagers' work and a seven-year PhD due in this November. So she just wanted to say thank you, because sometimes the radio keeps you going through stuff like that, doesn't it? But I am intrigued

as to what the PhD is on. Do all PhDs take seven years or if you're a quick typer, could you do it in a year? I don't know. I think it's a fair old body of work isn't it? I don't know whether you can do it in a year. I think seven years is quite long

but I don't want to be offensive because I'm sure some subjects of research take a very long time and also if you're mumming two teenagers you genuinely don't have very much spare time You've got your hands full with the housewife I've still got time to watch Deadlock I can't watch the telly

I've got more pets than you You don't know how many pets I've got I know exactly how many pets you've got on The Quiet Love I know where all your hamsters are uh i want to say quick hello to eva i hope i've pronounced your name right eva's daughter last week discovered an interview she wanted to show her mom with a fantastic lady interviewing her favorite star david tennant guess who it was was it sue lawley no he was a very loyal polish listener so thank you very much for that and all the best to your daughter as well right uh thank you for listening we'll hopefully uh

contact or see a couple of you at latitude oh yeah come and say hello uh don't be shy and especially if you walk past the listening post tent and there's nobody in there then call up all of your friends, take pity on us, maybe, you know, morph yourself into two people or maybe bring a stuffed scarecrow with you or maybe put a jacket on, a chair next to you and talk to the jacket and pretend it's a person. Please come. Please come.

By the way, I think the weather forecast for tomorrow is... It's dreadful. What? Dreadful. I think she whispered dreadful. I don't know why. Good evening. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe.

And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. I need a bank. I know, ladies. A lady listener.

I'm sorry.