Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I had a FEW scoops

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Jane risks being caught by the paparazzi in a vulgar display of commonalty, while Fi asks: why bother with colonic irrigation when you can just drink vodka?They're joined by Times Radio presenter Stig Abel to talk about his second crime novel 'Death in a Lonely Place'.Our next book club pick has been announced - A Dutiful Boy by Mohsin Zaidi.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If she wanted to really, really be making the money, I don't think she would have written about total eclipses. She would have written a partial eclipse. She'd make a lot more money. A partial eclipse of the heart. So when I went to the Kinnemaw, that's what my mother would call it, I had an hour to kill beforehand, so I did have a spicy bean burger. Yeah, and?

From the Burger King. Have you digested it? Not quite yet. I've not full ever since. It's a glorious thing, though, the spicy bean burger. I'm not familiar with that product. You should give it a go, then we can we can compare and contrast well i did tell you didn't i that i've been to that reunion of a radio station where we both used to work and you got a little wet pest i had a few scoops and found myself at a local local mackie donald's restaurant

very close to home and i just thought you know what soak up the alcohol have a quarter pounder and i walked home eating the quarter pounder that is so common it's it is so common thank you no it's it's so so common what are you thinking and what if someone i know or knew had seen me? In East West Kensington. I know. You walked down the street. Inexcusable behaviour. Shoving machetes in your gob.

But, and this isn't a health tip, as you may have gathered, I woke up the next morning, I felt a million dollars. Well, you see, that's interesting, isn't it? Because I woke up after my spicy bean burger, genuinely full, and i still am okay um so the difference is the alcohol really isn't it that's maybe that's what you need do you think it's a little bit like um if you have a is it a fondue or a raclette where they say that you should always have a shot of vodka to kind of cut through the fat that then lurks in your intestine? So maybe you've just done it the other way around.

Why bother with colonic irrigation when you could just have a slug of vodka? Well, you've put fat on top of the alcohol, haven't you? I have. To soak it up. And look, as you may have gathered, this isn't a lifestyle podcast. It's not. Actually, in its own way. It kind of is. It's not. Actually, in its own way, it kind of is.

It's not. But I am worried about you because I think you might get snapped by the paps doing something like that. And it will say, it will say, former, former BBC broadcaster, Jane Garvey, caught in vulgar shocker. Display of commonness. Yes, and it'll be in the daily mail no but in my defense i have brought a jar of i've bought a jar of capers this week so i'm all right i've got so i've totally balanced it out so got capers eaten quarter pounder anyway um we had a comment

on the instagram a couple of days ago about shoes and i think this is really important because we were both a bit baffled so could you please please elucidate? By the way, if you want to communicate with this podcast, and we want someone to, it's janeandfee at times.radio. Big guest today is, and they don't come any bigger, although next week we have got Marion Keys, I just want to say that. This week, today, Stig Abel. Stig Abel. So he is on his second crime caper.

It's more than a caper, actually. They're proper crime detective novels. They're featuring Jake Jackson, a former police officer who has inherited a mansion in the middle of nowhere from a kindly uncle who wanted to send his life in a different direction. So he finds himself entangled with crime and hedgerows and there's a sexy vet. I thought you were going to say hedge funds.

But it's hedgerows and a sexy vet. Female or male? Female. Right. Yeah. A little bit heteronormative, Stig. Well, I mean, you know, this is only his second book and he's already written four. And I would imagine that there are probably some more to come.

So who knows? Who knows who might be on the turn, Jane? There's plenty of scope in that there. Countryside. I don't know why I've done that accent. So you're absolutely right. We did get, and this was on the basis of, you know, funny things that have been left to people

that they've kept after people have died. We did get this extraordinary Instagram from arja 1945 two victorian children's leather boots inherited from the previous owner of the house her builder found them walled up by the back door when she had renovations her instructions were that they were not to leave the house and when i move on they must stay and be passed on to any new owner so Jane and I got the chills at that because I think to both of us that slightly reeked of harm yeah why would you have some children's shoes hidden in a wall in your house so we went immediately to the very very darkest of places and listener forgive us because it turns out that the real reason is far more benign and actually

it's quite uplifting isn't it well where we should have gone is not to the darkest of places but to Northampton Museum um which is the place well Northampton of course uh was the Northampton Shire was the home of shoemaking wasn't it in the UK yeah so Northampton Museums have written a very thoughtful article called Why Were Shoes Concealed? And it's fascinating. The widespread practice of concealing shoes over many years attracted a variety of theories and modern interpretations. But the true reasons are difficult to understand. This is because no written records have ever been found to explain why people did it.

But then if you turn over the page, it absolutely does explain why people did it, just in you turn over the page it absolutely does explain why people did it just in the first paragraph i think second sentence for many years shoes have been viewed as protective objects hidden shoes are usually well worn they're very personal items which retain the shape the personality and the essence of the wearer these well-worn shoes were thought to have been infused with the good spirit of the wearer. So they were walled off in secret places so that they could ward off bad spirits in your house. And the deal was, as the paragraph continues, that you shouldn't disturb them because they're bringing good things into your house, not bad things.

Why are shoes considered a symbol of protection? One theory is that evil spirits don't like the smell of burning leather. So a hidden shoe inside a chimney would symbolise the burning of shoes. This is really weird. Perhaps the idea of protection comes from the story of a man called John Sean, a parish priest from Buckinghamshire, believed to have conjured a devil into a boot. No, you didn't, Sean.

I mean, honestly, I'm sorry to bring that news to him, presumably many, many years after his demise. But you didn't conjure a devil into a boot. And don't go telling people that you have. All right? Well, what do you want your legacy to be? Do you want it to be disputed like that? What do you want? You're constantly telling us about your visions,

about your imaginings, about your certainty, about your predictions, and then you condemn this poor guy. You never know, Jane. Maybe you did. We didn't. Parish priest who conjured a devil into a boot. Maybe you did.

Oh, there's a subplot in Stig's book about being in a priest hole, being trapped in a priest hole. I'm fascinated by the priest holes. Well, yes, I mean, they are creepily... Are they confined only to houses built around... It must be around the Reformation. Reformation and just slightly afterwards

when Catholics were on the run. It's just slightly on my mind because I've just interviewed for next week Marion Keyes and she was talking about how Ireland has just changed in her lifetime and the grip of the Catholic Church on the country is just not what it was, to put it mildly. And just how when she was growing up she just describes it as just being really boring because there was just a real limit on what you could do, where you could go, who you could sleep with. I mean, it was just extraordinary.

Anyway, that does seem to have changed slightly. No fun to be had here. Well, limited amounts of fun. Or just pay the price for the fun. Yeah, exactly. Now this is a very... Oh, by the way, it was Beck in Northampton who sent us the details about the museum.

So thank you very much indeed for that. We really appreciate it when our questions are answered. And this one comes in from Eleanor. We were asking about how you should deal with a hypochondriac. And Eleanor has recommended that we read a book or maybe talk to the author of a book about hypochondria, a woman called Caroline Crampton. Or we could just listen to Helen Zaltzman

doing an episode of The Illusionist on hypochondria recently. Now, I love everything that Helen Zaltzman does. Yes, she's great. So I'm really happy to give that a recommendation without even having listened to it. Eleanor goes on to say, I think it's like most types of anxiety. It is rarely completely unfounded and often has some

trigger even if it's in the distant past and the fact is that all of us get ill at some point so it's a very tricky one to navigate validating someone's experience without fanning the fire and then there's the whole can of worms that women and anyone not a cis white man have historically been ignored by medical professionals and written off as hysterical and making it up. So interested to hear from other people about the phenomenon and maybe how we deal with hypochondria a little more gently as a society. So that is exactly what we're looking out for

because I think both Jane and I agreed it was quite a, it's a little bit of an ignored or slightly kind of poked fun at anxiety, isn't it? Unfortunately, though, it's an anxiety that can impact on other people. If you live with or in close proximity to a hypochondriac, it's not easy for you, is it? Yep. Because you're permanently teetering on the edge of just thinking, I've had enough. Yes. And, you know, it's a plain fact that we're all going to go with something at some point.

But why waste the healthy years, or even the bearable years, worrying about how it's going to happen? She's very wise. She's very wise, this one. She's very wise indeed. I'm going to turn a devil into a boot. I look forward to it.

Will it be a heel? Will it have a heel? Will it be a flatty? Be a big, sturdy, flatty be a big sturdy flat boot a doc martin type boot but it will actually be the devil incarnate well i think stilettos are i'm going to do that over the summer so stay tuned um because that's when it'll be happening now um i read with interest that bonnie tyler has had a week. She's gone all the way up the charts. Bonnie Tyler's total eclipse of the heart

has climbed to the top of the US iTunes music chart. I mean, Bonnie must be absolutely... I wonder if she notes in her diary when the total eclipse is coming up. Well, I mean, bless her. If she wanted to really, really be making the money, I don't think she would have written about total

eclipses. She would have written a partial eclipse. She'd make a lot more money. A partial eclipse of the heart. Not got the same... I don't actually know whether she wrote it. Isn't it... Is it not a song by... Have you got your phone with you?

I have. Is it Jim Steinman? Let's have a look. The batter of hell bloke. Anyway, thank you very much to Jill near Ottawa in Ontarioario canada who says i wanted to weigh in on the eclipse that wowed north america on monday i drove 100 kilometers to be in totality along the st lawrence river on the border between quebec and ontario i did listen to

your podcast and i did giggle about your thinking the eclipse didn't really translate to radio or the written word very well and you're right it didn't even do all that well on visual media when i came home after the eclipse i watched some of the videos that were streaming in and i found them verging on boring except for reaction videos of the crowds but in the minutes leading up to totality a group that were throwing an eclipse party started blasting bonnie tyler Eclipse of the Heart, which had the people where I was sat singing and shouting. The moment we were plunged into totality was mind-bending. It's as though your brain can't make sense of what it's seeing.

I'm 62, and I think it was the first time since I was a child that I experienced that sense of wonder that only children have with each new experience wow um thank you Jill I saw a lovely video I think it was on the tick tock last night of a child very sweet little girl watching the wiggles on stage have you seen it no it is never mind a total eclipse this little soul has seen the wiggles and she cannot, it just doesn't compute. But watching her reaction is an absolute delight that would warm the cockles of any gnarled old heart.

Sorry, you've completely lost me there. She's watching the wiggles. She's gone to see a wiggle show with her dad. Yeah. And she's standing on the seat and the wiggles are in front of her and she's trying to she just is beside herself so sorry it's not during the total eclipse nothing to do with the total eclipse it's just i've moved on to the wiggles live please keep up well i was just

looking up something for you who wrote total eclipse of Total Eclipse of the Heart? So it was Jim Steinman and he gave Total Eclipse of the Heart to Bonnie Tyler after Meatloaf temporarily lost his voice. I think we'd be calling him Mr. Loaf, if that's okay. Well, he's deceased, isn't he? And it became the lead single for Tyler's 1983 album

Faster Than the Speed of Night. Every time I saw Meatloaf, he said, Bonnie, that song should have been mine, recalled Tyler. I said, well, Jim gave it to me. So there you go. So a good week for Bonnie and a sad week for the late loaf. But there we are.

Yeah. So if you're gifted a song, does that mean that you are given the publishing rights? No. So Jim or Jim's estate would still be absolutely ka-chinging it in. They've also had a good week. Yeah. But Bonnie won't have had a bad one.

Not that I'd wish it on her. Not as flush. Not as flush as we might have thought. Do you think she wrote Lost in France, your other favourite Bonnie Tyler song? I don't know who wrote Lost in France. Will you tell me more about... No, no, I've moved on.

Only I could make a link between somebody seeing The Wiggles live and A Total Eclipse, but I have. And this is also the only podcast on Earth where you'll hear about devils being turned into boots or the other way around. And Bonnie Tyler and The Wiggles and A Total Eclipse all in the same couple of minutes. Anthony Horowitz was a guest on our podcast earlier this week. A very successful author, the man who brought us Foil's War and the Alex Ryder books and his own Hawthorne detective stories as well.

This is from Chris, Chris Martin. Oh, not that one, he says. Your interview with Anthony Horowitz brought to mind a holiday in Greece back in 1992. Six friends and I rented a villa in Crete, a group of three women and four men. None of us were couples yet, but with a great deal of sexual tension in the group. But that is another story. Well, Chris,

it's a story you could probably find time for. So if you do have a spare couple of hours over the weekend, Jane and Fee at times.radio. Staying in the villa next to us and sharing the pool were Anthony, his wife and his two small sons, one of whom must now be helping Rishi with his comms. Their nanny was there as well. Anthony was lovely and on one occasion made me and my friend Liz some delightfully strong G&Ts to sip by the pool. A couple of them in the group got friendly with Sherl, that was the nanny, who headed off to town on a regular basis.

One day she spilled the beans that Anthony, ever the wordsmith, referred to our group as the seven deadly sins. You see, even on his holly bobs, a term I hate, Anthony Horowitz was still thinking about words and how to use them. Well, I suspect he's a man who never stops observing and turning that into some kind of prose somewhere. I was thinking about holidays in the summer because we're having to work out whether or not

we'd be able to fit in an election in between our many holidays, were it to be called in June. I do think Mr Sunak needs to think very carefully about my holiday plans. He is going to annoy so many people if he does call an election, I think, anywhere around the June area. And you can't call it after the school holidays arrive, can you? I don't think there's ever been an August election, no. No.

I mean, the assumption is probably a rather ridiculous one that everyone's away. But of course they're not. I mean, that's just a farce. No, but you just really, really annoy the people who are. So, you know, an awful lot of the population do try and up sticks just as soon as, you know, the last bell rings on the summer term.

So anyway, we're trying to work this out and, you know, we will both obviously do our duty to Times Radio first, were that to be the case. But I was just thinking about... Just think for yourself. ...a whole load of things. You know the thing that really really really annoys me it doesn't matter how nice the villa is or the airbnb or whatever it is

it's when the owner or the company running it they just leave you one dishwasher tab that's a bit do they really do that they really, really do. I have yet to turn up, and we do quite a lot of the Airbnb-ing, really like it. I've yet to turn up in somebody else's house where they've been generous with the dishwasher tablets. I suppose that is the ultimate token gesture, isn't it? Oh, it's just so annoying.

Oh, there's just, you know, there's one washing powder capsule and just one roll. It's not enough, is know, there's one washing powder. What about loo roll? Capsule. And just one. Just one roll. Just one roll. It's not enough, is it? It's not. I wish they'd changed that.

I wish they'd changed that. I've got to the stage where I travel with my own moist cloths. Do you really? I think it's wise. Oh, dear. Oh, no, I wouldn't want to do that. Oh, there we are. Anyway, that was just a tiny thought that popped into my bobbins of a head

and lots of people really wanted to say uh thank you actually to adele roberts who was our guest yesterday who was talking about life with a stoma wearing a bag and all of the things that she has decided to still do she is a woman who will not be defeated by the bowel cancer that made it necessary for her to have a stoma. And we've had a really overwhelming response on Instagram, which I know that Adele has seen because she put a really lovely reply and comment at the end of it. I'm really glad that people reacted so positively to that.

Yeah. Because it isn't the easiest thing to talk about. And it's not actually the easiest thing to hear. Because I think if we're all honest with ourselves, that would be one of the health dreads, wouldn't it? Yeah, but I think people have a really prurient interest in the detail of it. And I can understand why.

Yeah, because we simply don't talk about it enough. It's not become a normalised conversation at all. And her book really doesn't spare the horses in terms of those details. And I think, I'm absolutely with you, I think she's amazing to be talking about it and to be so visible about it. I hope it never completely overshadows her work

because she's a really good DJ as well. And, you know, you can understand that if you're in the midst of a publicity campaign with a book about something so personal where you're really only talking about that. You might, you know, you might think, Oh, God, what have I done? But I hope that she doesn't think that because so many people are really, really grateful. I'll just mention Sandra, you know, I hope that you are okay now. Sandra woke up from emergency surgery for an abdominal

infection in September with a stoma, which she wasn't expecting. And that would be quite something. And Liz as well, who says, listening to Adele today brought a smile to my face. I got my SID when I was 26. I thought I would turn into an old person with elasticated waists and loose-fitting clothing. How wrong I was.

I had fantastic support all those years ago. The two pieces of advice i was given i have stuck with one best not to go scuba diving in a very tight wetsuit there's nowhere for the farts to go and number two enjoy a diet of crisps and beer i eat lots of fluid as without a bowel i don't reabsorb as much liquid or salt anyway liz also just wanted to say keep in touch with your stoma care team, because actually things are really progressing at quite a pace at the moment. So whatever it is that you might have been fitted with a couple of years ago, things might have changed now and all

for the better. So thank you for that, Liz. And we were talking yesterday about this, this listener who had a relative who'd been the first person to die of bubonic plague in Sydney in 1900. Yeah and it wasn't Donna though was it but we've had an email today from Donna who says hello from Sydney. There was indeed a specific outbreak of the plague in Sydney in the early 1900s. It is a known historical event that i have heard about in response there was a whole operation launched to catch and kill rats and to clean up some of the poorer neighborhoods you do like photos so i've enclosed one here a delightful image of a successful haul of dead rats from the time and you have indeed done and we're more grateful than we

can begin to express for this image um of a cluster of um all everything that behatted gentlemen oh this huge pile of rodents standing around a huge pile of dead rats and i mean as ever with rats it is just the size of them uh they're they're not just big mice are they no they're no they're really not there's something else and i i think we've all every day's a school day and this week we have learned They're not just big mice, are they? No. No, they're really not. They're something else. And I think we've all, every day's a school day, and this week we have learnt that there was a specific outbreak of bubonic plague in our lovely, friendly city of Sydney. Why have I said friendly city?

I don't know. It's because, no, because I think one day you will go. Two-way family favourites. You'll have to leave now. They're part of us. Yes, to go on a cruise there. Yeah, and you'll get there in, I don't know, 2032? Well, that would probably

suit you, wouldn't it, if I went on a long sea journey. Now look, don't say that. I only attempted to join the podcast via a crackly phone line. Earth calling. Oh, we've just lost her. Oh, never mind. She's gone overboard. No, don't laugh at that, Fi.

Oh, right. Shall we just do one from Vermont before we hear from Stigable? Hello, Jane and Fi. Thank you for reading my email. I'm so thrilled. I'll tell the donkeys too. So this is our correspondent

who was watching the eclipse with the donkeys. A little bit more information about Vermont. I'm going to read this out because it just sounds like a very interesting place, actually. It's mountainous, so the mountain's not very big. We have a mountain next door to us, Mount Philo. It's a very popular eclipse viewing spot. It's only 980 feet in elevation. Some are maybe 3,000.

We've got Lake Champlain, which is something like 100 miles long and what comes out of vermont most famously perhaps bernie sanders and ben and jerry's ice cream there are more craft breweries than any other state lots of cideries too and lots of cheese you'd love it vermont is the most blue state in the us this is probably due to lots of hippies moving here in the 60s and 70s in the back-to-nature movement. Also, a lot of draft dodgers who sensibly went to Canada during the Vietnam War came back over the border and settled here. We're one of maybe two states that have legalised assisted dying.

We do have some Republicans, including our governor, but they're mostly the old-fashioned, reasonable kind. Thanks again for your podcast and your interest in Vermont. Well, we are very interested. It sounds intriguing. Yeah, I just think as we approach the American election, I just want to hear from people all over America about how things are and how they're feeling about it

because it is a set of circumstances that the rest of us find both baffling but also incredibly interesting. Yeah. And I also just feel so ignorant because you know i've said it before but we just think because we speak the same language we understand each other we really don't we really really don't yeah and i'm very interested to hear about that disparity and whether or not it makes you angry on both sides of the fence you know if you're in vermont and you look at what's happening in Florida, do you just think that it's so far away, it

kind of doesn't really matter to me. You know, go get on with it. And if you're, you know, somewhere else bordering on Florida looking up at somewhere like Portland, Oregon, do you think the same thing? A bunch of wet hippies? It's such, here's another

devastating observation, it's a very big place, the United States. You're not wrong. Some of you wanted to chip in briefly before we get to Stig about what it's like to be Swedish or to be married to somebody Swedish or to be married to somebody we call foreign. Although we're all foreign in our own way.

Lena says, Jane and Fee, it's true Sweden isn't perfect, but I would argue that most Swedish people are well aware of this, and they're not smug. I am Swedish, and I've lived in England for over 50 years, but I go back frequently. Sweden has very similar problems to the UK. The gang violence we have there now is very worrying.

There may have been a level of smugness a few years ago, but no longer. It is, though, a lovely country in many ways, but then so is the UK, and I love them both. I just hope both countries can move forward in a positive direction. Doesn't Lena sound reasonable? What a reasonable hope. Yes.

Sorry, I was just thinking of other lyrics that Jim Steinman should have written in order to really, really ka-ching. And actually, he should have just said a space event of the heart. I guess then there'd be numerous opportunities. It could just be wheeled out. During the year.

Yeah. In order to do that. Anyway, so carry on. A space event that takes us out of the mundanity of our everyday lives for a couple of seconds. Every single time one of those things happens. Yeah. But then before we know it,

we're right back to, why haven't we got any descaler? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Brace yourself, Jane, says Livia. those things happens yeah but then before we know it we're right back to why haven't we got any descaler yeah yeah okay um brace yourself jane says livia uh this might be too rich for your blood and you might need a lie down you do underestimate me livia or maybe you know me too well you asked for stories of living abroad uh here's mine my parents are hungarian my lovely mum came to the uk in 1962 she says it was the best day of her entire life and we still mark the date every single year. My father was a staunch Central European, never really fitted in here. He moved back to Budapest when my parents divorced. He definitely yearned to go back to his roots. So I was born in London, but when I was four we moved to Austria for eight years, then we moved back to London. born in London but when I was four we moved to Austria for eight years then we moved back to London I already spoke Hungarian with my parents English at preschool and in Vienna I went to the

English-speaking international school but I learned German from living there I feel British and agree that Brits are not smug about Britain but rather joke about its failings and underplay its successes my children were born in Britain and have only lived here, but are ethnically Swedish-Hungarian. They do sometimes get confused by saying they're English. They, like me, have learnt to be chameleons and be whichever ethnicity according to the situation. Thanks to Brexit, my younger son may well go to Sweden to study to avoid the fees. So I guess it's good to have options, but I dread him meeting a Swede and settling there. That's the thing isn't it? That is the thing. Yep yes it is the thing so I have a friend who married an American who now has American children who are all going to go well actually no they might not

all go to American colleges one of them might come back to the UK for college but she is now facing that third age in a country that she knows isn't home, but it is home to her children. She recently flew to Australia for the wedding of her niece, who is a London girl marrying an Australian. And she won't mind me saying this, I know that it touched something in her to see the younger generation embarking on a life in a strange country where you will probably raise your family and stay at a time at which you're thinking oh you know if I'm standing in front of that clicker clacker board at the airport am I excited by going back home and which airport is exciting me at going back home am I standing in America thinking, oh, it says London,

or London going, oh, it says New York? It's a really tricky one, Jane. It must be very tricky. Yeah. I would find having a really close family far, far away extraordinarily difficult, I think. Well, you've got a van to us to contend with, so it's almost turned out that way.

I'm using it tomorrow. Thoughts and prayers. If you have any positivity you want to share with me, please be with me at around about a quarter to nine. But I love, was it Livia's last email?

Which is basically acknowledging though that her kids can kind of choose an identity. Yeah. And that's a good thing. That is. It is a very good thing

at the moment. It's a very good thing with Brexit. Not that we have a view on it, but with some of the complexities that it's a very good thing with with brexit's not that we have a view on it but with the some of the complexities that it's um thrown up i thought i dealt with that quite well it's all right we don't have to we don't have to phone ed poll anymore i've taken ed poll out of my directory out of my life out of my life ed uh right so there are two things and only two

things really that you need to know about stig Abel. He's written his second crime novel featuring the ex-policeman Jake Jackson who has moved into the back of Beyond to a house called Little Sky. His second crime novel is called Death in a Lonely Place. And the other thing that you need to know about him is that he works at Times Radio, he does The Breakfast Show, and also a little bit of kind of management stuff. So he's practically our boss. He's basically our boss.

But I don't think that you'll be able to hear any sign of that kind of sycophancy or total respect in this interview. Well said, sister. But I hope you're going to be really nice to him. Bloody hell, I hope so. Stig Abel is our guest, as well as co-presenting the soon-to-be award-winning

Breakfast Show on Times Radio. He is penning a series of detective novels, the second of which is out now. It's called Death in a Lonely Place. They star Jake Jackson, former policeman who's inherited a huge house in the middle of nowhere from a kindly benefactor, his uncle. We find him working out his

new life there meeting crimes along the way and sexy vets wherever he goes very good afternoon stick how are you please do carry on talking i don't think i want to be talking oh don't be ridiculous uh so tell us a little bit more about jake do you want to talk about air fryers first i'm really interested no we've moved on from air fryers. And we're not doing insulation today. Fine. We want to hear about Jake. Fine, okay. Incidentally, air fryers are always in the top ten books.

Have you seen that? If you go to the Amazon top ten books, at least four of them are about air fryers. I think it forms most of Channel 5's output now. It's just ovens with good PR, though, aren't they? They are. If we're absolutely brutally honest about it. But Jake Jackson, should we talk about that?

Yes, please do. Sorry. I was really interested in the air fryer segment I don't want to let that go unremarked if you get a bit boring about your books

we'll come back to the air fryer but this is your opportunity can you imagine that when you say what about air fryers have you ever plugged a book before

get on with it I'm not great at this the plugging side of things I've written a second book if you read the first one thank you very much it's called Death Under A Little Sky

I wrote it during Covid I wrote the second one when the If you read the first one, thank you very much. It's called Death Under a Little Sky. I wrote it during COVID. I wrote the second one, before the first one had been bought, out of the same principle of joy and love, because I just wanted to write about it. It's this guy called Jake Jackson. He leaves the city. He ends up in the middle of nowhere, no internet, no form of connectivity. And the question, which I often ask myself, I'm sure you guys ask yourselves that people will ask themselves it which is how much would you like to renounce the bleeps and blurts and nonsense of the modern world how much would you get dragged back in it's a kind of an interesting philosophical question but in a practical level he gets drawn back in because

he has a relationship with a sexy vet which is very important to the book. But he also gets drawn back in because, as is common in crime fiction novels, some things start to go awry and you might need someone to find out exactly what is going on. And so in this second book, some cold cases of his past resurface, connecting to this shadowy group called No Taboo, which provide illegal things for rich people with impunity. How big an air fry will he get get oh come on man i try not to do the whole plug you told me to start plugging away and then you then you just cripple me with an air fryer no it was low-hanging fruit and i've plucked it and we are fascinated i think as the reader by this notion of somebody who can leave behind the difficult, busy, polluted life in the city

and find genuine happiness. So do you feel that you've got to constantly give Jake kind of bumps in the road in order to make that realistic? Because otherwise it might be a bit too just idyllic. I think the bumps in the road would exist anyway. I think actually we all talk about, I'm sure you do this, where you kind of have this fantasy world

where your phone is less important, it's less important to your children, less important to you. And you think, what are my obligations in life? Could I start shedding some of those obligations? And what would those be? And actually, it's impossible to shed all of them and i think what happens with with jake is a thing that is is semi-realistic which is he might say

i've got this amazing place i can go tromping around i can jump in my lovely lake uh but if you want a relationship with someone that relationship comes with responsibilities if you want to play any role in any type of society that comes with responsibilities so it's not it's an interesting question i i think because it's one that we all have to wrestle with, because we're living in this social experiment that has no control, has no endpoint, which is what happens when technology speeds up the way it has? What happens when you can't close your door on the world anymore? What happens when your kids have access to all this stuff which no generation of children have had in the history of human experience all of this stuff is crazy and weird and difficult

and its shaping is in ways we can't possibly fully realize and therefore the notion of a pause a rest is really really appealing which is possibly one of the reasons i ended up writing this particular character in this particular situation. But it's also an impossibility, even in fiction, because A, as you say, if it was a crime book where all you did was wander around and swim, it's not really interesting enough. There'd have to be a lot of air fryers in it for the second half to really work at all. Yeah, and because he's got to constantly work with people

who are working with the technology, because we can't read modern crime fiction without somebody going through a database or looking at AMPR or digging out a file. No, but equally, I also, I'm quite nostalgic for lots of crime fiction, which didn't have to wrestle with the issues of technology, because quite a lot of crime fiction, if you set it in the modern period, so many of the answers are, well, just look at their phone. Yeah, I'm absolutely with you. The amount of times in modern crime fiction on television, you set it in the modern period, so many of the answers are, well, just look at their phone and you'll find them. I'm absolutely with you.

The amount of times in modern crime fiction on television, when we see it depicted on television, that the crime is solved by triangulating a phone mast. And it's just like, that's not clever. And I wanted with this to... And there are places, I mean, everyone who's been on a train knows, there are places in this country where you get no internet reception whatsoever.

Black spots do exist all over the place. And so I kind of wanted that to be a deliberate thing where you don't just have to be on your phone. And he can't be on his phone the whole time. And he actually has to solve some of this stuff by talking to people and walking a lot. And he doesn't have a car. So there is a bit of a, you know, I'm a bit of an unreformed Luddite really, and a sort of failed Luddite because I I moan about it. And yet, I know where my phone is every second of the day. And so I'm not a very good Luddite. But it's definitely something that's sort of there in my brain that's something I'd like to do. Some people might think this is a bit rich, coming from a man who's steeped in the media. You are literally Mr. Metrosexual, surely? I think metrosexual is overstating it.

Well, how would you describe it? Well, I am in the media. You are in the media. I remember, there's this brilliant moment in the BBC in 1930, have you seen this? It was the 6 o'clock news in April, probably about now actually, about April something in 1930, and they said today there's been no

news, and we'll play piano music yeah and the notion of that happening now is obviously completely crazy so but i think it's because i'm so saturated in a way that we all are to a lesser or greater extent i mean i think if you work in the media you're more so but it doesn't bring you happiness it doesn't necessarily bring you anything other than unrest and i think everyone like like I say, is experiencing it to a lesser or greater extent. So some of this is a bit of the idea of a countryside fantasy. But the flip side of that is, I think,

the countryside is a place where you have gaps. You have places where people can't make contact with other people. You have places where the light isn't very good. You have places where you can't get on your phone and text someone because the thing doesn't work. And actually for a crime writer, there's this tug between beauty and peace and restfulness

against the busyness of the world versus isolation, loneliness, and an inability to make contact with people. And those type of issues, we kind of all wang on about a lot because they're the heart of news stories now of what does loneliness mean? What does being connected mean?

How should you bring up children in this world? So some of this actually, I think, is conditioned, Jane, by the work we do, which is we spend an awful lot of time looking at the outcome of a society being constructed in the way it is. And that, I think, has definitely informed how I think about it. I don't have any answers, but it's definitely a presence, I think, in the novel,

even if there's a bit of a fantasy around it as well. I know that you said that you initially started writing the Jake stories for your wife. Was it during lockdown to give her something amusing to read in the bath every night? Yeah. Is she still your first reader? She's my first reader. I've written the next two. I honestly just love doing this so much.

It's been, I find it a real joy doing. But so when I'm writing them, I write sort of 1,500 words a day and then I text them or I send an email to my wife, which is good because it means someone else has them in case my computer breaks, which I think is quite good. But then she sits in the bath with her phone. So again, too much connectivity.

And she reads the 1500 words and then sends me little messages from the bath. And I'm with my little one who's about to go to bed at that point. So she sends me little messages about what she likes and doesn't like. And also she's a very nice woman. So she's, I mean, she's not a super critical reader she's a

she's a supportive and jake is a very likable man his internal voice is kind it's not particularly macho i don't think he's got an offensive male gaze so do you think some of that is because you know that your wife's going to read it first i actually think niceness is really important and it's a much underrated part of fiction. I think people want, I certainly do as a reader of crime fiction, I want to root for someone, I want to support someone, I want people who are fundamental, I think you want decency in crime books, even if it's just a contrast with the sort of bloodthirstiness that necessarily follows the genre. I actually think niceness is so important. And it's become travestied in the

world of hashtag be kind which is often by people who are unkind but they're very kind in a specific area which makes them think they don't have to be kind in other ones there's quite a lot of ostentatious public kindness exactly and you suspect that that conceals something that's particularly unkind but i actually when i'm reading and i i wrote these also partially because i love i know you do fears but i love the genre i love reading these books i find these books written by other people that's really hugely important to to my sense of well-being and i think therefore niceness sounds boring but is an underrated part of life and fiction uh stig abel is our guest this afternoon we were a bit cheeky stig because we didn't want to upset you too much.

Jane and I are quite new to the roost here at Times Radio, and you're very much in a managerial position as well as on air, so we didn't want to ask you anything that would reflect badly on us. We've asked our listeners to do nothing for granted. Nor do I. And Catherine says, Stig, do you honestly listen to anybody else's show on Times Radio? Oh, I do.

Do you? I do, with great pleasure. No, I mean, one of honestly listen to anybody else's show on Times Radio? Oh, I do. Do you? I do, with great pleasure. No, I mean, one of the things that I love about Times Radio is actually, when things happen in the world, I want to turn on and have people talking about it. Interesting, the OJ Simpson thing. That's a moment where the world of 24-hour news really kicked in, especially in America, that chase. And that was one of those sort of pivotal media moments,

which looks almost quaint now, actually, because that was, oh, it's happening live now and people are filming it. Whereas in the social media age, it's gone a thousand times more than that. But it's definitely, in the course of the world getting faster, the O.J. Simpson arrest is definitely a marker point. Yeah, and also just the filming of his court case,

which was unfortunately, for all of the wrong reasons, mesmerising, wasn't it? We will talk more about that after four o'clock. Mike says, Total disclosure, I'm not a crime fiction aficionado, so I often end up wondering how the market hasn't already reached its peak. Am I being sniffy?

No, it's an interesting point, that. But I think that's true of all fiction and music. There's only a certain number of notes to play, and yet people still find different ways of playing them. I think the good thing about the crime market is that it is incredibly generous in terms of different approaches, different levels of violence, different locations, different settings, periods of time. It can go back 2,000 years, it can go back 2000 years,

can go into the future. It's a weirdly generous place, actually, I think, because there's a fundamental thing, which is we want that resolution, we want to have a problem and we want it solved. That's a very human thing. But the variations on that theme, I think, are inexhaustible. Yeah. I think it's just a genre that becomes incredibly addictive, more so than novels perhaps about love. I think sometimes when you read a really meaty novel about human nature, you kind of have to rest for a little while afterwards,

whereas crime fiction, I can literally get to the end of one and start the next one. But you can add a bit of human nature. And I think love, by the way, love stories in crime fiction, I'm deeply for hence your sexy vet my hence my sexy vet will they stay together i don't want to ruin it well

you've written the next two yeah they are they are still yeah i've written i've written a quite a romantic scene actually in in later ones do you mean you've written some sex i'm glad you raised the question of sex actually guys because i i know you, Jane. Fee was very eager to do it, I felt. Yes, I wouldn't do it. Yes. What I do is there's quite a lot of nudity and there's quite a lot of come hither looking. But I draw a discreet veil over the process itself.

And can I thank you for that? And I just think no one wants it. No one, everyone knows what it is. And actually, when you read it, and you know, I've often read The Bad Sex Prize. Yeah. John Updike, who I used to love as an author, I just used to, it just used to send me mad when there would be

two pages of needlessly specific detail. We all understand the hydraulics. We understand what's going on. And so there's a little bit of nudity, there's a bit of sort of smoky eyes, and then the camera shifts elsewhere and a towel is put on and we go on with the story. Excellent. Thank you very much indeed for that. Can I ask you something completely different? I heard you talk on the radio and I can't remember what the news story was, but it was something around anxiety. Maybe it was around anxiety in young people.

And you said that you used to be quite an anxious young man and quite a kind of, you you know you would visibly shape stressful situations and I was genuinely interested in how you get from that to this which seems like an incredibly confident older man with not very much anxiety going on at all I think there's two things one the lesson in life generally is that you never really know what's going on behind people. And social media is a thing, is a front, and behind which there's all sorts of things roiling in the background. In my 20s, I was so anxious that I would shake in the night time. And I think the reason I was mentioning it was partly to do with books

because you talk about the pleasure you take in crime fiction and that sense of being in crime fiction, and that sense of being in another world, having your brain, the problem when you're feeling anxious is your brain is both the thing that's going to get you out of it, and the thing that's in trouble. And that's really difficult to work through in your own mind, because you want your brain to take control, but your brain is actually rebelling against itself. And I found that actually terrifying, because I thought I can't get a grip here. And although my body seems to be shaking,

I seem to be very nervous, I can't find a way of overcoming that. And one method of overcoming it actually is to place your brain in a different place. And a world which is entire, which has a beginning, a middle and an end, in the sense of series, which can be something that you can read 20 books of

or five or 10 books of. So it's actually a long period of time to invest in. All of that stuff, I just find deeply, deeply reassuring and a mechanism for managing. And I think generally the world is full of people who seem very confident, but the world is now built on fronts.

And the way we communicate, particularly everyone's a genius on social media. Everyone's are perfect and actually no one's lives are everyone is struggling one way or another so i seem a bit confident as we all do because we talk for a living but i don't think that necessarily is always the best indicator no but you know i just think i'm always grateful to somebody for in adult life being able to talk about the turmoil of their younger lives because i think we are stuck in a very horrible place at the moment where for our young people they don't hear enough of those stories of what happens after you get over and you can get over and you don't have to pathologize it to such an extent you have to take it seriously yeah but

also recognize that lots of people are having different stages of that at different levels of it and my worry is that if everything is sort of pathologised to an unbelievable extent everybody has mental problems and therefore no one has serious ones and there are distinctions of severity but everyone is struggling and actually one of the reasons I love writing

is because ultimately I love reading and one of the reasons I love reading is reading is one of the great human inventions of empathy and something to take your brain away from turning in on itself. That was Stig Abel and his book is out now. It's called Death in a Lonely Place. I'm really enjoying it. I'm about a third of the way through.

No idea what's going to happen. Who did it? No idea, Jane. No idea. Okay. Oh, I don't know where that burly male voice came from. But it was, can I say, marginally better than your extraordinary rural accent

a little earlier in the podcast. For once, I'm the one who's behaved sensibly during the course of this recording. No? Oh, I thought I had been. No, I don't think you have. Okay, have a relatively good couple of days and we will rejoin you in bodily...

In mind, body and spirit. That's it. On Monday, have a lovely weekend. Goodbye. Jane and Fia, Times.Radio. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five.

You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run. Or running a bank. Thank you for joining us, and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know, ladies. A lady listener.

I'm sorry.