Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I love Nando's mash - with Romesh Ranganathan

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Do you still partake in a cheeky Nandos? What would you do for a famous 'black card'? Fi suggests a tattoo may get you there?Comedian Ramesh Ranganathan reveals the story behind one of his fascinating tattoos, talks about his new sitcom with Katherine Ryan 'Romantic Getaway', and with his former math's teacher hat on he discusses what his plans would be do to fix the UK education system.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Tuesday, 3rd of January.

Gosh, we were quite chippy yesterday. You make it sound like a hostage situation. It did sound like that, didn't it? Help! Day 432. We were quite chippy yesterday. But I have to say, it was interesting that on public travelling in on the Tube today, there was just a general mood of gloom because everybody was wet as well because we'd all got wet before we got on the train train and you could see that not everyone was delighted to be

going back to work i of course maintained a spring in my step i bet you did yeah no i did couldn't wait to get here but you could just sense that for a lot of people it was very much that oh back to work tuesday the grind well maybe we did ourselves a favor by coming in yesterday so we got used to it all again yeah yeah, we have. We slipped one in. Yep. Right, there's a lovely couple of emails here. This one from Maria says, I was fascinated listening to your discussion of Godmersham Park. That was yesterday because Jill Hornby was in

talking about her novel of the same name. Maria says, I have a tenuous connection to it. My great aunt and uncle worked there for years. She is a housekeeper and he is an agricultural labourer. I remember visiting them during the 70s at their tide cottage on the estate. My understanding is that at that time, Godmersham was owned by the Catt family who made oodles of money in the cigarette business. We all pronounced it with the emphasis on the first syllable, Happy New Year. So imagine that you're listening to a little guff and gubbins podcast

of two women shooting the breeze with the occasional erudite guest. And along comes a reference that keys into your family history like that. A slice of your own family story. I love that, actually. Thank you very much for that, Maria. So with the emphasis on the first syllable, that would be Godmersham. Godmersham. Yep.

So I think I was saying it wrong because I was saying Godmersham Park. Godmersham, but I think that's what I said because I thought it would be. But I think in the English language generally, is the emphasis not usually on the first syllable? Manchester. Bournemouth.

Manchester. Portsmouth. I think you're right. Yeah. Winchester. No, that doesn't work. Winchester, yeah. So, yeah, that seems to be the thing.

Right, I mean, stay with us, it gets better. Well, I'm not sure that it will necessarily, but there's so much of interest with language and the way it develops that there's never, almost never, a dull moment. Don't you find in broadcasting quite often there'll be a name that comes up and you just have to read a lot of things on site? And it is absolutely true that if you just go at it with some welly, then you can usually, usually manage to pull it off.

The one that has always done for me, and it hasn't come up all that often, to be fair, is Saskatchewan. Oh, gosh, I'd struggle with that. But most of it, it's rarely in the news. But there was a time when it was in the news for some reason. And I just used to see it coming towards me. It was like Beecher's Brook in a steeplechase.

I'm just not going to make that. You can't remember the story. I can't, no. But I just remember thinking're just not going to make that. You can't remember the story. I can't, no, but I just remember thinking that's just going to defeat me. Do you remember the Icelandic volcano? Oh, gosh. I mean, there were newsreaders practising for hours before going on air for that one.

It became quite irritating because some of them got really good at it and I suspect were rather angry when it faded from the news. But that actually had quite an impact, that thing, because it made people have to stay in places far longer than they wanted to because of the clouds of volcanic ash

drifting around planet Earth. Well, I tell you what, there'll be some people who are stuck at their family retreats at the moment because of the rail strikes, won't there? They may be wishing that they were in Iceland with a volcano erupting all over them. Yes, there hasn't been much interest in my epic journey across Britain,

which I so fondly regaled you with. Do you know what? There was a lovely bit in Godmersham Park, actually, where the young Anne Sharp, the governess that the novel is all about, she makes an observation to herself that after a particularly arduous journey in a carriage to Godmersham Park, she mustn't talk about it too much because talking about your journey is really boring.

Well, I suppose, yes. And even then, in 1864, it was dull. No, it was 1807. 1807 it was earlier. Was it 1807? That's right. But obviously you'd arrived somewhere and you'd be so saddle sore after being bumped around

in the back of a horse and carriage, you'd want to talk of nothing else. Yeah, and eyes would glaze over in exactly the same way that they do when you arrive and you're discussing the toll road. The M6 toll. Yeah. The M6 toll is the source of... Well, I mean, people can't stop talking about it.

By the way, it is marvellous. Glazing over now. No, except I was one of the people who set off super early. Glazed on Christmas Eve to get up to the northwest of England. Yes. And because everyone had listened to the apocalyptic warnings given out by all broadcasters urging everyone to stay at home, there was no bugger on the road,

and we were there in absolutely record-breaking time. And you say no-one's been in touch. No-one wants to hear this story. In fact, no-one wants to hear anything I've got to say. Oh, don't be so stupid. Silly Jane Susan. Yeah, thank you. I did make some really award-winning spicy soup yesterday,

which went down well at home. And every now and again, you've got to pat yourself on the back. The ingredients looked unpromising, but by God, it worked. Right, okay. Wendy says, Happy New Year to you both thank you wendy i listened to your podcast today as i took down all our christmas decorations here in boston massachusetts you normally keep me company on my commute home but today is the last day of the christmas new year break before

returning to work tomorrow now i thought everybody in the united states went back to work after about three hours i didn't realize they had a Christmas break. Do they? And obviously Wendy has. Well, obviously Wendy has. I can't answer that question. I mean, it's definitely not as big as Thanksgiving, but maybe people do make the opportunity.

But do people exchange gifts on Thanksgiving? No, I don't think so. It's just a big turkey dinner. What's the point? Oh, good Lord. Okay, well, you'll start something there. You'll get some responses now. The puff pastry discussion you had, this was yesterday, prompted me to write to you to let

you know my Christmas Eve horror. Sausage rolls are an essential Christmas morning tradition for my family. We are originally from the UK and you can imagine my panic when I couldn't find any packaged puff pastry while doing my Christmas grocery shop. I tried three stores before finally giving up. So homemade pastry it was and yes it was a total faff and very labour intensive but it turned out to be deliciously scrumptious. But next year I'll be buying packaged puff pastry well in advance. Life is too short says Wendy. Yes I mean if I were you Wendy I'd get out there now and get the puff pastry and shove it in the freezer. And then you'll know for sure that you won't have to go through that aforementioned faff next Christmas time.

Shall we save Katrina's lovely email until after we've heard from the big-name guest today? Yeah, who is? Who is Ramesh Ranganathan. He was in talking to us about his new sitcom, which is called Romantic Getaway, which is on Sky Comedy and also on Now TV. Now, because you work harder than me, you actually watched some of Romantic Getaway.

I did. There was an episode available to me, so I watched all of it. Yes. And? And it's got an intriguing plot line because it's based around a couple who arrange a heist in order to pay for their very expensive IVF after their NHS available round of IVF has failed. So I love that premise. There's something a little bit, and I think it just would have cured itself in episodes two through to the end, there's something quite strange about seeing two very well-known comics.

It's Catherine Ryan, isn't it? Yeah, and Romesh. Together acting as a couple. Are they not married in real life? Both of their work, they're big characters, the two of them. And I did see on another chat show, and unfortunately we failed to get this particular nugget of detail out of Romesh in the interview that you're just about to hear,

where he said that Catherine Ryan had said at the beginning of the shoot that she didn't think that they were the kind of couple who would hold hands or even touch. So during the whole series, they're a married couple trying to embark on having a family together who never touch each other. And I thought, actually, that's it. That's what slightly kind of threw me in episode one. Okay, well, let's hear our chat with Romesh Ranganathan. Fee's already bigged it up by pointing to quite a funny bit. We didn't get out of him, but never mind. Here is Ramesh. And we started the chat with me, actually.

I don't know why I do this. Reminiscing about the last time we'd met. Hi, Ramesh. How are you? I'm good, thank you. How are you? Yeah, I think the last time I saw you, there's no reason why you'd remember this,

was at the Woman's Hour Christmas party recording. Yeah. And you were with your mum. I remember being furious that I'd only been invited on with her. No, that sounds like a great story. It was a fabulous occasion.

Right, Ramesh, lovely to have you on the programme. I think we just need to nail down the premise of the romantic getaway because it doesn't sound to me like the normal pattern of a romantic comedy. It's certainly not the normal premise, is it, this? No.

So basically the premise in a nutshell is Catherine Ryan and I are playing a couple who are trying to have a baby through IVF and we can't afford the next round. So we decide to pay for that by stealing the money from our place of work. So the first episode is us committing the crime the next round so we decided to pay for that by stealing the money from our place of work so the first episode is is us committing the crime and then the series is basically the fallout from all

of that both in regards to their journey towards trying to have a child and also trying to get away with stealing this money from their work and is it is it a first actually to attempt to because infertility is absolutely no joke IVF is a pretty tough thing to go through is it the first time that people have tried to lighten this up a little bit and make it a subject for comedy I don't think it's the first time it's been done but sort of what the question you've asked there kind of hits a nail on the head in terms of you know we wanted to make sure that we were writing a comedy but at the same time you don't want to be too flippant about the whole thing with IVF so you know the the sort of ongoing battle we had was to make sure that we got across

kind of the gravity and the desperation and the heartache that comes along with with trying to do that and how challenging that could be for people but also you know fit it alongside the show and we feel like we've achieved the balance I mean it's up to the viewers to decide whether we've managed to do that but it is something we thought we didn't take that lightly we thought very carefully about how we're going to do that. Presumably there can't be two more opposite ends of the spectrum from doing a kind of spontaneous stand-up in front of a live audience to doing what is possibly I don't know endless retakes maybe you always nail it in one in an acting scenario.

So did you know that you'd be able to do it before you started? No. I mean, I've done some acting. I've done some stuff in a BBC series called Avoidance that I wrote. But the truth is, I wasn't sure about my acting. I sort of felt like it would be something I'd enjoy doing and I'd be all right at. my acting I sort of felt like it would be something I'd enjoy doing and I'd be all right at but my wife used to be a drama teacher and I was sort of talking to her about how best to prepare for turning on one of the day's acting but you know one of the points she made to me was that because I'd written it you do a lot of the prep that an actor would do in order to get ready you know you get inside the character you try and figure out do you know the character's motivations do you know what they would do in each and every scenario and just by

dint of actually having written it and thought about that character in depth you kind of automatically do a lot of the prep but currently I'll describe myself as fine but I hope to get better I mean I'm a work in progress. No you're brilliant you're absolutely brilliant you seem to be brilliant at everything you turn your hand to doing Romesh what is your area uh where you don't shine two things anything that requires any kind of level of physical coordination uh sport wise I'm absolutely terrible I would describe myself as subhuman with regards to that and then also uh I would say that um my level of competence at just being in and around the home is I would say marriage testingly bad so yeah i uh that's very kind of you to say but my my wife would have a very contrasting account uh in terms of my levels of competence i would say

well you couldn't do anything with a flat battery in a car or anything like that is that what you're saying no i would abandon the car and look to for a dealership probably i mean i i i don't uh i can't go and buy a new car well i'd I'd ask to borrow one, certainly. I'm not that flushed that I would just buy a new car in the moment. But I would certainly look to get, I just, I mean, I do spend a lot of my life watching YouTube videos of an expert showing you how to do something very, very simple. Do you know what I mean?

Like, you'll often find me in my house, just my phone held up. So, you need to fix this tap. Well, let's start. And, you know, I watch i i'm often watching those because i've got no instincts i've got no common sense when it comes to an example i'm very familiar with those videos as fee will testify because often the blokes are wearing polo shirts and they've got very very nice upper arms i'm i'm quite keen on them um actually in avoidance um it was a bbc show wasn't it about a, a rather hapless man whose marriage has fallen apart.

And he was a proper loser, wasn't he? And his relationship with his young son was, it was both beautiful and sometimes comic and often actually pretty tragic. Did you enjoy doing that? Yeah, well, I mean, that character was based on a character flaw that i have which is basically this kind of inbuilt fear of confrontation this desire to be a people pleaser this kind of just not knowing how to handle social situations where you have to be kind of assertive so we thought how do we make him change and the most obvious way is that his partner splits up and he has to change for the sake of his son i i found it really fun to play because I'm naturally kind of like that,

you know, having somebody really struggle with how to complain about food he's received in a restaurant is something I can relate to like very well. But what I did find is when that show came out, a lot of people said that they related to my character in ways that they didn't want to, do you know what I mean? So you'd be watching it going,

Oh, that's like me, but I didn't want to be told that. So it was really good fun. And then a lot of the stuff with his son is we kind of sat down in the writer's room and talked about sort of parental foibles and stuff like that and I remember like you know there's one episode where Jonathan's son is auditioning for Cats the musical and he's worried about the social ramifications of doing that and

that came from that came from a thing that I had where like, you know, that when you're a parent, you want your kids to be individuals. But you're scared that them being individuals or who will mark them out for bullying by the other kids at school. I mean, it's a it's a thing that a lot of parents contend with, I think. So, yeah, it was it was a lot of fun. It was it was a fun thing to write and be. Can we just talk a tiny bit about your teaching? Because you seem to speak very fondly about your time as a maths teacher. If you could wave a magic wand and you were education secretary for a day as a teacher, I felt like what was being delivered wasn't keeping up to speed with what was required. You know, and, you know, one of the things that we were often told as a teacher is you're preparing kids for jobs that don't yet exist. 12, 13 years. But one of the things that I was aware of was that there were kids that were not being, their needs were not being met by the courses and classes that were being offered, but they still had something to offer. And, you know, that might be more vocational things,

that might be more practical things, it might be things in different areas. I felt like the education that we were delivering was slightly too slow to meet the very varying needs of children. And so, you know, as we get to know more and more about what kids need and how different children are, this sort of one-size-fits-all approach to education I don't think is good enough. And I know that we've moved beyond that and it's a very difficult thing to tackle, but that would probably be what my channel my energy is into. That's such a good point, isn't it?

Because you were a maths teacher, weren't you? And actually, just, you know, the kids who I've known, including my own children, just constantly struggle with the fact that they have to learn so much in maths that actually a calculator, AI, everything on a computer will just automatically do for them throughout the rest of their life. on a computer will just automatically do for them throughout the rest of their life they can't really see why they're learning so much stuff that one button can simply change you know you teach kids that found maths really challenging and there's part of you that thinks that why am i teaching them to add fractions with different denominators together when they're never ever going to do this

ever again or need to and you know the the answer because it's in the exam is just not a good enough answer do you know i mean and there's there's like an argument that actually what you should be doing is focusing on stuff they're actually going to need you know there's so many people when i used to do parents evenings you come across so many parents who just have developed a complete and utter fear of the subject or anything to do with maths they're just going rubbish at this and I think that's partly a symptom of what you're talking about which is kind of forcing a like a single curriculum towards people regardless of their levels of interest and ability and I think that you know a more variated kind of curriculum would be good and

they do they to be fair that is happening and look obviously I'm speaking I'm slightly out of date well very out of date because i haven't taught in over a decade but certainly that was my kind of frustration with it was that you want to be teaching kids stuff that they need and also trying to find a way to engage them and sort of teaching them stuff that they're never they can never see where they're ever going to use and also have no interest in it's a difficult one to it's a difficult one to contend with i think did did your pupils find you funny uh some of them did i think i mean i was pretty much how i was in the classroom is pretty much how i am with you now i mean i never really raised my voice or anything like that i was pretty i was a pretty chilled teacher i would say but i

would do whatever you asked me to do now jane wouldn't you i'd be fully attentive sir uh no i'd still see myself as the prat at the back i'm afraid so i think right right right i try but can you remember the faces of the pupils that really did give you a hard time there must have been one uh that is there were loads there were loads but you know the the the thing was is like i often found that one of the things i felt was you know and i'm saying this as somebody that had i had kids that i couldn't you know would really give me a hard time and um i went and taught at a school that had just come out of special measures and i had a particular group like a bottom set year nine who were you know difficult it would take me

20 minutes to get them sat down and ready to do anything you know it's certainly the beginning of my time with them but the the truth is is that um if you looked into their backstories you completely understand where they're coming from and i think that one of the things that i found was that if a kid believes that you've got their best interests at heart they will pretty much take any kind of punishment admonishment or whatever from you if they believe that you like them and you want the best for them. I think that a lot of the problems stem from when a kid doesn't trust you or they don't think that you want the best for them.

That's when you start to get real problems that you can't get around. Whereas even if a kid gives you hassle, if you have a frank discussion with them about why it is you want them to sit down and do this thing, if they believe that you've got your best interests at heart, which hopefully you do, then they will kind of accept that, you know. And I found that was just having a bit of empathy. I'm not saying it's as easy and as simple as that.

I'm not saying I've cracked behaviour management at teaching, but I definitely felt like that helped me, you know, definitely helped me. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can navigate it just by listening books contacts calendar double tap to open breakfast with from 10 to 11 and get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Can you tell the difference between people like you who've made successful careers in comedy and have written successful comedy dramas as well, and those people in comedy who do that but have never worked in the real world as you have,

because you must be able to bring your real-life experience to your current way of earning a living. The thing with comedy is you're sort of, especially when you're writing comedy, the old saying is write what you know, and I wrote a sitcom years ago about a guy whose dad passes away and he ends up having to take over his pub unwillingly.

And that happened to me. My dad passed away, he ran a pub and we had to take it over. And so immediately you've got loads of stories to plunder. And similar with avoidance, I had loads of parenting things to look at. And obviously there's loads of relationship things that we looked into. I haven't committed a half a million pound robbery. Just to make that clear yeah um but um i think that there's two things that i kind of found from being a teacher is one there is no comedy club or tour venue that can be as frightening as trying to

teach year nine on a friday period five there's absolutely no way that compares and then the other thing is i just think it gives you well i tell you what it's given me i i it's just given me an appreciation for you know the fact that i make my living from doing comedy is something that i don't think i'll ever take for granted you know it's uh there is no level of stress that i've had in comedy that's even come close to the level of stress that i experienced as a teacher partly because of the workload but also because you're so invested in in those children that you're teaching. I mean, and like it was it was a really hard it was a really rewarding but hard job. But if I have a bad day doing comedy, it's fine. Probably all right.

Nobody's nobody's future is hinging on it apart from mine. So I can sort of live with that. When you started out in comedy, did you imagine that you'd also make a star of your mum? No. And there's a certain amount of regret involved there. No, it was a really it was it was a crazy one because I did this show years ago called Asian Provocateur, which is the whole premise of it was that I was getting in touch with my Sri Lankan heritage and my Tamil heritage. And, you know, because I was born over here and I've had no real exposure to it and so when we did the BBC wanted like a little kind of taster and so we did a thing where my mum the idea was that my mum would tell me what cultural experiences to you

know a cultural crash course in my heritage and just I I had always thought my mum was funny but loads of people are funny do you mean whether they're going to be funny on tv or in that kind of context is a different thing but she just was like so hilarious like she just is you know how she is on cameras how she is all the time and so when the show came out you know it went from putting in the taster to putting her in the main series and then she just became this breakout star and you know and like they got to i realized it was a problem when i started working up my new tour and people just started shouting where's your mum where's your mum do you mean and and now she's just you know she just i mean i'm my mom's been through some hard time

so to see her enjoying this is is really good but what i would say to you is she really does enjoy it i mean you know some people are reluctant celebrities i would say my mom could not be polar opposite to that has it changed her has it changed her rubbish uh she's still the same but what i would say is she's she'll say her surname as much as possible when out in public do you know what i mean it reminds me when i was doing the vangernation actually you know she loves she absolutely loves getting recognized she never arrives anywhere and thinks i hope i should maintain a low profile that's absolutely not my mum at all and does that ever I don't suppose you can really admit to it but but does it ever slightly annoy you that you've got to share the limelight with a person who let's face it we all you know it's part of growing up isn't it

you want your own space well you know my mum is uh she's very uh she's very gracious about it and she's she'll always say if you want me there i'll be there and and she's incredibly supportive and even from when i first started you know my mum's one of my heroes man she like she my dad put her through a hard time and you know we fell on hard times and my mum sort of single-handedly raised us for a long time for a long period of our childhood and she went through a really a really hard period of her life and so i owe her everything you know so so for her to be you know i don't think any of us would have ever dreamed that my mom would become some sort of celebrity i don't think that was ever on if you do ask me to guess a million different options what was going to happen in our lives i don't think that would have been one of them so

so the answer question is i i love seeing her enjoy it would i like her to be a million different options for what was going to happen in our lives i don't think that would have been one of them so so the answer question is i i love seeing her enjoy it would i like her to be a little less popular yeah sure uh have other comedians tried to involve their own mothers yeah i mean like russell howard's done it i know jack whitehall does stuff oh yeah they're relentless yeah and i think um i think adam buxton years ago did a thing uh with his dad but um uh but the difference is is that their parents don't want to be involved in everything whereas like you know when i recently had a stand-up special my mum said what do you want me to do i said well it's a stand-up special what is there for you to do it's a solo show i don't understand why you're asking about what your involvement is going to be so uh she has she has a direct expectation

that regardless of the show, she's going to have some sort of involvement. This might be one of those terrible, I've read Wikipedia and someone's put something daft on it. But here we go. Do you really have a tattoo of the Albanian flag? Yeah, I can show it to you here. Okay. Do you want to talk us through your tattoos? Sure. Well, I've got a lot hip-hop tattoos of just rappers and rap groups that i like the albania tattoo is um i went to albania i do a travel show called misadventures

of roma shanghai and i went to albania and they have all these bunkers from the war that they've that they've still got there um that they've kept and used for other things and one of them that we visited was uh has now been used as an art gallery for this guy, this ex-con that's kind of turned his life around and become an artist and tattoo artist. And he said, do you want a tattoo? So I said, yeah, all right.

So I'd had such a nice time in Albania. I just got the Albanian flag on. But I'll tell you what did happen is that I was then in a restaurant because I thought to myself, well, if I don't like it, I'll just get it covered up or get something else done. But then after the show went out, I kept getting asked about, just random people come to me and go,

did you really get the Albanian tattoo? And then they'd ask to see it. Then once I was in a restaurant with my family and the waiter said at the end of the meal, my manager would like to have a chat with you and i said okay the manager came over and he said um i saw your show in albania um can i just ask do you have the albanian flag tattooed in your arm and i said yeah i do and he said do you mind if i see it so yeah so i showed him the tattoo and he said i'm albanian you never have to pay for anything in this restaurant ever again which which was very nice but it also meant I could never go but I can't go back there

and just go I'll be paying with my arm thank you very much I mean so so I've not been back but but I was very grateful to get a free meal yeah that's no that's nice that's nice and you're right you could just go there for Christmas couldn't you or you could try having one of those Nando black cards tattooed on the other arm and see if it works in the same way. Yeah, that's not a bad shout. That is Romesh Ranganathan and Wee Fee there with a suggestion about a black Nando's card.

Do they exist? I know they were rumoured to exist. Do they exist? I think they very much existed. I don't know whether they still do, but there was a while when it was very very very high on a celebrity's list of wannabes yeah because you could you could pitch up at a nando's and if you had the black card whoever you were with you and your entourage you had all your peri peri for free really so it was

a big thing that was well worth having then we don't hear quite so much about going out for a cheeky nando's as you used to when we were doing our theatrical tour yes we would quite often warm up for a show with a little backstage Nando delivery we enjoyed it very much always had exactly the same thing I had chicken breast pizza medium and what did you have well I had the chicken butterfly with two sides usually the spicy rice no the macho peas oh yeah and i love nando's mashed potato i do i really love it yeah just the right amount just the right amount of salt absolutely beautiful if you could have something tattooed on you that's active well i've got the bbc crest on my buttocks which is a bit of a challenge these days to be honest does it say from one buttock to the next nature and she'll speak peace unto nation?

Is that what the... I've forgotten it already. I can't see there, that's the problem. She's not got two buttocks, she's got two nations. They're speaking peacefully to each other for now. I would not have a tattoo. Would you never? No. You can either be the sort of person who can carry that off or you're me.

It's so clear that I'm not. Well, I was just amazed that that's a true story from Romesh. He had the Albanian flag tattooed. It lasts forever, mate. I know. Forever and ever and ever. It's a weird one, isn't it? I wouldn't do that.

I mean, that's a bizarre anecdote to have the flag of a country other than your own tattooed on your person. But I'm always slightly perplexed by people who name their children after countries. That's a very odd thing to do. You do get Indias floating about, and I've known a China. Yeah. It's just odd. Why would you do that?

Have you ever known a Zimbabwe? Not yet, but I mean, and there are other... I don't know, it just seems odd. It just, it's not, I don't know. Why you'd attach the name of a superpower to your there are, I don't know, it just seems odd. It just, it's not, I don't know. Why you'd attach the name of a superpower to your newborn baby, I don't know. Anyway, I'll have that out with Peru when I see a native, right? Right, shall we do this lovely one from Katrina, who says, Happy New Year.

You asked whether other countries produce foreign language dramas about notable British figures and this was because you're obsessed with Marie Antoinette and I keep asking everybody I meet has anybody watched it no one has now normally I'm a really reluctant binger for reasons I can't put my finger on I've just been lost in the world of Marie Antoinette available on out there um eight wonderful episodes wonderful costumes lots of prancing around uh and it's all in English you You don't have to trouble yourself with any of that French nonsense. But it did make me think, as we were

discussing yesterday, how angry the French must be. I mean, this is partly funded by a French channel, but it's odd that they just have to give in and let it all be in English. It is weird. But we threw out the question, are other people doing the same thing to our heritage?

So Katrina has written in to say, Germany went one better, and in an odd blend of creator and content, named its longest-running TV series, 29 years and counting, after a living British author. The 160-plus TV movies in the Rosamund Pilcher series are based on her books and filmed in Cornwall,

but are made in German with German actors. The series occupies a similar easy-viewing Sunday TV slot like Call the Midwife. Despite doing a German degree, I remain completely oblivious of Rosamund's legendary status until a few years ago when our German au pair mentioned that visiting Rosamund's Cornwall was obviously on her bucket list. I was confused, as for some reason I'd always thought Rosamund Pilcher was Irish. Our au pair was confused, as she had assumed that the author was also the face of all things Cornwall within the UK. It turns out there's a whole micro-industry around this series.

Germans form about 40% of Cornwall's international tourists and numerous tours are offered to various filming locations. As for our au pair, she finally made it to Cornwall in the summer, driving all the way from Germany with her husband and dog, also apparently a fan of the TV series. Sadly, they tested positive for COVID on arrival, so spent their week looking at stunning beaches through either their cottage or their car windows, oddly similar to all of those years

of seeing Cornwall through their TV screen. Katrina, that is fabulous. Thank you for that nugget. Something I knew absolutely nothing about. And I love the just element of tragedy. They schlepped all the way over from Germany to pay tribute, to make that pilgrimage. And then they get the flipping COVID

and can't do anything and can't go anywhere. Isn't that just bizarre? 29 years of Rosamund's call. I know. I can picture my late grandmother reading a Rosamund Pilcher. But I don't want to offend fans of Rosamund Pilcher. I thought they were sort of slightly sudsy romantic fiction. Perhaps a bit more to them than that.

I don't know. I think they're romantic fiction perhaps a bit more to them than that I don't know I think their romantic fiction I think whether or not they're sudsy is probably in the eye of the reader or the beholder I enjoy a bit of sud and that's just fascinating I wonder if you have any more from that sort of

deep mine of TV twaddle we'd really appreciate it love those kind of things. It makes us all feel a little bit connected, doesn't it, all around the world in a rather obscure way. Oh, we're very connected. And don't worry, one day you'll be big in an obscure place

and people will come to London to visit Jane's East West Kensington. And I think you may already be big in Peru. You just don't know it. That's possible. You too can tread the familiar path between my front door and Lidl's bread counter. I still swear by their low GI loaf. I really do.

Do you? Well, you're looking very good on it. We've had soup. We've had bread. We've had the toll road. Good night, everybody. Bye. Sleep tight.

You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. Now, you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that if you like what you heard and thought, hey, I want to listen to this, but live, then you can. Monday to Thursday, three to five on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon. Goodbye.

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