Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I'm completely over beavers

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Anoosheh Ashooori was held in an Iranian prison for five years only to be released last year alongside Nazanin Zagari-Radcliffe. He joins Jane and Fi to relive his harrowing ordeal. Today PM Rishi Sunak announced his wish for all UK students to continue studying some form of maths until the age of 18. University challenge star, broadcaster and math's teacher, Bobby Seagull, discusses why he thinks this is a good idea.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.

now this is a lovely email from david and i can't even remember why we were talking about putting on weight but he says putting on half a stone in seven or eight days is perfectly possible if you take a cruise holiday because the only time all the restaurants are closed is between 5.15 and 5.30am also the bar opened at 6am

to stimulate your appetite and was conveniently named the first wave that's a terrible name for it david i was so excited to have my first afternoon buffet that when i sat down i discovered i had two scones with jam and cream on my plate alongside two vegetable samosas oh well i feel the first wave of something coming over me david welcome to off air with jane and fee that i'm sorry you've let you you've let this yourself down and the podcast with that. Two jam scones with cream and two vegetable samosas on the same plate.

Disgusting. So do you know what? I'm a huge fan of the buffet, Jane. And we went on a holiday once where it was an all-inclusive thingamajiggy. And there was a wonderful, wonderful lunch buffet. And I don't know why, but I was having a massive carb overload at the time. I used to have every single type of potato, and that was my lunch. So a roast potato, a potato salad, some potato rosti with a little bit of mashed potato,

possibly a tiny bit of ketchup on the side, and that was lunch. Well, yeah, because there's veg and tomato ketchup. Oh, wonderful. Well, that would be, if it was on MasterChef, that would be potato six ways. Well, you know my theory about lamb three ways. Who's ever gone into a restaurant and said, I'd like lamb one way, please. Just one way.

Just one way. Just a lamb chop. Do you have any two-way lamb tonight? No, it's just lamb three ways. Well, I think that's probably very niche, slightly unpleasant. What? We can't even go there.

It's what? Lamb two ways. Lamb two ways. Oh, dear. Right, okay. pleasant no we can't even go there it's what right okay it was wellness wednesday today do you feel better oh i know that was why um we were we were talking about putting on weight because we had a very interesting conversation with a doctor hazel wallace about detoxing and hazel actually was good enough to basically make it clear that there is no such thing as detoxing. So don't waste your money on these quite expensive regimes and these particularly expensive cleansing teas, because essentially they're laxatives.

And you may as well just leave your body to do its own business, which, if you're fortunate, I think you'll find it will. Yes. Because we all know what the body does to detox. Well, I just like the fact that she started off with that very sensible medical explanation of what your internal organs are for. And you're right. It's your liver and your kidneys and your bile duct. Yeah.

Constantly detoxing. So if you just stop drinking, stop drinking, Jane, all the time, then that will be a detox enough. She was a nice woman. Yes, it was interesting. I mean I think there is this emphasis in there at this time of year and it's slightly ridiculous on fresh start, new body it's all bullshit isn't it?

Well it is but I'm always drawn to it. I like those kind of I didn't say I wasn't drawn to it I like those markers where you just go you know I'll have a I'll have another Cornish pasty today because tomorrow it's the start of a whole new year and we'll be fine. I've done that, I think, nearly all my adult life. I haven't finished my Christmas chocolate, so it just would be rude to just leave it.

So I'm still chowing down on that. And my dry January lasted until yesterday evening when I got in after work. I just thought, oh, I'll just have a little bit of a drink. Really? As soon as you got in from work? I did, actually. It reminded me, in fact, I think I was channeling my own mother because all she used to do, she used to come in from work, slam the door, I can hear it now, go straight to the fridge and make herself quite a stiff drink before she confronted her evening shift. Because, of course, that is the sad truth, isn't it, about lots of women's lives

is that, and not just women, she said said suddenly remembering um say it in a nice voice and not just women not just women and not just when you come in you shut the door and then you begin you begin your evening shift of cooking and flipping washing i went on um a full scale washing strike um during the period between christmas and new year and put a message on the family WhatsApp group that just started. The washing situation remains critical. And it did actually get their attention because what they do is I do the washing and then it's not collected. Oh. So it just mounts up this massive amount of clean washing that isn't claimed by anybody.

And therefore, I then refill. I fill up three laundry baskets with clean washing, uncollected. I have no more baskets. I can do no more washing. Why don't they do their own washing? Well, they just don't. They're in their 20s. No, they're not.

One is only 19. One is at the Cornish pasty end of 19 she's very much at the greg's end of 19 okay uh we had a really serious couple of guests on the program today didn't we jane no we did and and um it's worth saying that what we're i mean obviously we're still in quite the sort of nursery slopes of doing the live radio show aren't we and it has already changed a bit since we started in october and will continue to change. But what we hope to do is every day, Monday to Thursday at half past three or thereabouts, have an interesting guest. And sometimes it will be somebody really well known. Sometimes it will be a writer. Tomorrow's is a writer,

really interesting woman. And sometimes it will be somebody who's been in the news and not necessarily for headline busting recent reasons. But today's guest was Anousheh Ashouri. Anousheh had spent five years in prison in Iran in the absolutely hideous Evin prison in Iran. It's quite notorious, actually, a foul place in which hideous things, I think, happen to far too many political prisoners, opponents of the Iranian regime. And he only came out of prison in the April of last year alongside Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe. So you might know that side of the story. You might not know some of the detail of his capture.

And that's what we started asking him about. What happened to him the day that he was taken by Iranian police? I was just an ordinary person living an ordinary life and when I was going to take my suitcase to the local market to have it repaired as I reached the bottom of the hill where my mum lives I was surrounded with these people and they asked my name and after after making sure that it was me, they just manhandled me into the car and we drove off. And I was blindfolded.

And you know the rest of the story. What did you think was going to happen to you immediately? I mean, my heart was coming into my mouth. I was numb from head to toe. I didn't know what was happening. And words cannot explain the feeling that I had in that time. Were you taken straight to Evin prison? No, I was taken to what they call a safe house. And my interrogation started there. And when they realised that I am not cooperating with them, they took me to my mum's place. They searched my room and they took quite a number of my

belongings. And from there, we headed towards Evin Prison. At what point did they say anything to you about the charges that they had laid upon you, the prospect of those being tried in court, any kind of legal representation? Was there anything of that in their handling of you? The next day they took me somewhere where they gave me my indictment and I read it and I was just frozen there. And I didn't know what to say. I started crying and telling them that it was a mistake. But then they took me back to my cell.

And quite a while later, when I was transferred to the prison itself, I was taken to that notorious Judge Salavati for me to start my trials, of course. And the conditions that you've endured are just horrendous, aren't they? And I know it must be quite painful to have to still be talking about them. But can you just give us some idea of what your day-to-day life was like in that jail? I used to call it a circle of hell or valley of hell and days are just a repetition and you're just if you don't have a plan then you can easily go insane so I had to make a plan for myself but fighting bedbugs, cockroaches, rats was an everyday business and we couldn't get rid of them. In fact, you can see just a few of the bedbugs that I had collected.

And in fact, I am planning to hold up an exhibition and hopefully I'm going to put all these on display. Hopefully, I'm going to put all these on display. Okay. So you've just held up a piece of paper onto which have been squashed numerous bedbugs. That is quite a thing to see. So if we spool forward to the time when you were released, were you actually told very much about what was about to happen to you? No.

Up until the day before that I didn't know and it was only in the, I think it was in the afternoon of that day when I was called downstairs. There are certain forms that you have to sign if you want to make a request for conditional release. They usually give these forms now and again, different occasions, so that you would fill them up and ask for clemency. And usually they are rejected. But this time, when I was called downstairs, the head of the wing was insisting that I should hurry up and sign it, because he has to go quickly to the intelligence base there, the 209, as they used to call it. So I was a bit hopeful that something is happening because I never asked for that. And now they're asking me to do that.

And that's when the thought was initiated in my mind that this time may be different. Were you told that you had to admit to the charges that had been made against you in order for you to be released, in order to save the face of Iran? Yes, the night before my release, I was made to sign a few pieces of paper. It was dictated to me what I should write. In fact, when I didn't write it the way they wanted it, the man tore the piece of paper up and he asked me to write whatever he is dictating to me. And I knew that if I didn't do that, I wouldn't be released. They were not joking. But I mean, everybody can understand you get to the point where you would sign that in order to be able to get on the plane. Can you describe the moment when you saw your family again?

Well, when I was taken out of the prison compound in this Ministry of Intelligence car, we parked there and I didn't know why. And moments later, another car came behind us and parked and they asked me to get out and I got out. And it was my mum who was in car came behind us and parked and they asked me to get out. And I got out and it was my mom who was in the car behind us. And we hugged and she was crying. It was unbelievable.

And they took us to my mom's apartment from there on. Is it possible to describe how something like this affects the rest of your life? There hasn't been a single day that I haven't had flashbacks and some of them are really disturbing. And in fact, Hostage International are arranging for a trauma treatment, which is in fact, I think it's government's responsibility to do that. But the charity organisation, Hostage International, is actually looking into it. And I have an appointment to meet a psychiatrist.

Well, that's quite disturbing. So you're saying that, in fact, the British government, the Foreign Office have not provided you with any aftercare, particularly? Yeah. When we were released and we were taken to that safe house just after my return to the UK, very superficially, there was a psychiatrist who came and he interviewed me for 20 minutes. And an MD, a GP came and she also talked to me. And that was it. What is your view of how the British government handled your whole case? What is your view of how the British government handled your whole case? We can actually ask this question in a broader sense.

How did they treat this case with Nazanin, for example? It's just a combination of so many blunders. And as Nazanin mentioned it quite correctly, how many prime ministers and foreign ministers did we have to go through for us for that £200 million, £400 million to be paid for us to be released? You will know by now, if you're a listener to Times Radio, that the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been speaking today. It's actually his first speech of 2023 and he made five promises. He unveiled new education policies, including this plan to get all children to study maths up to the age of 18. I am now making numeracy a central objective of our education system. Now that doesn't have to mean a compulsory A level in maths for everyone,

but we will work with the sector to move towards all children studying some form of maths to 18. Right, now we spoke to the comedian and former maths teacher Romesh Ranganathan only yesterday and asked him what he would now do to improve education. 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'd probably be what my channel, my energy is. You know, you teach kids at Fanmas really challenging and there's part of you that thinks, 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 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 when I used to do parents even if 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 forcing a like a single curriculum towards people regardless of their levels of interest and ability and I think that a more variated kind of curriculum would be good. That's interesting that's the view of a former maths teacher and highly successful individual now of course Romesh Ranganathan. So to Bobby Seagull maths teacher, broadcaster, writer, Bobby good afternoon to you.

Good afternoon. Now, I don't think there's any doubt, is there, that maths is hugely important, but what you want is useful mathematics rather than the theoretical, complicated stuff that does leave many of us completely behind. And I'd say there's two arguments to this. One, there is, firstly, I would say, that there is a need for a nation like the uk to develop mathematicians that can do the algebra geometry of course yeah scientists the technical people the mathematicians but i teach many students like ramesh mentioned that find maths really challenging and because of their negative school experience they go on to hate the subject

for the rest of their life and when they come to looking at a bill or they're planning any budgeting or even they're looking at like the times for how to cook a turkey they're like oh my god my brain's fuzzled with numbers yeah so i think the key thing with uh the prime minister's initiative and i welcome doing more maths i'm obviously going to as a math teacher it's going to be the detail the devil will be in the detail when he means by more maths from 16 to 18 what exactly is it do we have enough teachers for it will it involve maths that's like personal finance because that's what students are crying out for. So I think the details are going to be very important for me. I've got an interesting email here from a listener

who says, how on earth does forcing young people with, for example, dyslexia and ADHD, to suffer two further years of maths help anybody? My daughter is studying a performing arts and she can't actually do a degree without a maths GCSE. She's got an IQ in the top 2% but she just cannot pass a maths GCSE exam. So she's having to study for it for the duration of her BTEC and she's finding it pointless, torturous and it's causing her mental distress. So, Bobbie, you're right, there are some people who just can't get past their fear of mathematics for a string of no doubt good reasons. Why should they be made to carry on suffering in this way?

It doesn't seem fair. The thing is, there is definitely a small proportion of the population, in fact, it's 2% to 5% who have something known as dyscalculia, which is sort of the equivalent of dyslexia for maths. And for this percentage of the population doing conventional maths through mainstream exams is genuinely challenging and that's something where mainstream solutions won't necessarily work but for the vast majority that's like 95 to 98 of the population i would say maths is a skill it can be hard but they can do it again

with the right teaching the right teaching, the right mindset, the right type of maths. Again, not just learning trigonometry and Pythagoras, but learning the relevant things again, like decimals and percentages. But I do sympathise with people who find maths extremely challenging. Is Rishi right, though, to just illuminate the changing world that we live in and the fact that the skills our children will need are different to the ones that we might have needed. He talked about being able to look at statistics to understand data that will be more in our daily lives now, won't it? And I think I applaud the Prime Minister for that recommendation. Because if you look at the jobs

that are being created now and the job the next 5, 10, 15 years, you are going to need people to understand risk, understand data, understand stats. So you don't need to have incredible mental arithmetic because my students sometimes say, but sir, I've got a calculator and I can do everything on this phone. That's true. But for now, phones, calculators, they don't interpret data for us. That still requires humans to say, what does this mean and i'll give you a little uh anecdotal example from a lesson a few years ago taught a year eight class and we are working out the average height of students we put up all the heights of the students on the board 148 163 and i told them add all these numbers up and divide it

by the 25 30 students and one student put their hand up and said so i've got the answer very quickly and he said to me it's about 15 meters and i said you sure 15 meters and he pointed his calculator says look the calculator says 15 meters sir i'm correct i'm like well the calculator was correct but you obviously tapped in something incorrectly and that's one thing i think we should sort of understand society maths is not just being able to tap in numbers into calculate it's trying to understand does this number make sense does Does my insurance premium make sense? Does this 10% discount make sense? It's trying to give people a sense that they can understand numbers in the real world.

Yeah, maths for life is what everyone needs to know, surely. Yes. And this is where I think maths almost has a bad bit of PR in schools because when most parents, he talks about maths, they'll talk about Pythagoras and trigonometry and learning algebra. I love those things. But those aspects of maths scar people. But they all do need to understand how to check their bank statement, how to check what an interest rate means, how to check how long to put the turkey in for Christmas, how long to boil water for all these things are practical maths

and I think this requires the government to look at the curriculum and go how can we change it to make it more relevant and just one bit of defence I will say there is a course that's not well known it's called Core Maths and it's a post-16 course aimed at students who've passed GCSE but not doing A11

this does cover things like data, risk and statistics but I think it's a case of there's one third of children that fail GCSE but not doing A11. This does cover things like data, risk and statistics. But I think it's a case of there's one third of children that fail GCSE in maths every single year. And that simply isn't good enough for Britain. Right. I mean, do you hold to the notion that you shouldn't do a degree in this country without that GCSE maths equivalent qualification? This is challenging because if someone has genuinely something like

dyscalculia, and that's two to five percent of the population, yet they're a brilliant writer and thinker, then we need to be more innovative. And as Avromesh said earlier, one size doesn't fit all. There should be obviously a general rule, but I think there should be discretion based on someone's individual circumstances. Really interesting. Thank you very much, Bobby. based on someone's individual circumstances. Really interesting. Thank you very much, Bobby. Actually, maths in its purest form, and I'm talking as though I know what I'm talking about, which I don't,

I've been assured by lots of people, is a truly beautiful thing. It's an art, isn't it? Yes, and this is where mathematicians often really revel, like at university when you're doing pure mathematics and you're spending ages looking at the number zero and the consequences of getting things closer and closer to zero um and there's a beauty in that and the same way in which art music uh literature are expressions of human creativity mathematics is too and i think we shouldn't you know wasn't throw the baby out with the bath water there is a need for practical functional maths but at the same time

we need to appreciate the beautiful side of maths the same way There is a need for practical, functional maths, but at the same time, we need to appreciate the beautiful side of maths. The same way in which I need to know how to paint my fence in the back garden, I can still appreciate Michelangelo at the same time, but I don't need to be able to do a Michelangelo to appreciate how important it is to paint my fence correctly. Bobby Segal.

So he's such an enthusiastic proponent of why maths is important. I really enjoyed listening to him because it's just too easy to say, I don't like maths and I've got a phone. And those were two things that he managed to dispel within the first three minutes of his entertaining conversation. It's a slightly, well, I don't think it's just British, but there is a sort of tick in British society, isn't there,

to say, I can't do maths. And somehow as though it makes you interesting if you can't do maths it doesn't um if you can't do maths but you're really good at reading or history well bully for you but it doesn't make you special um I think I just feel in a way that um I wish I'd been better taught maths at school I think my kids who enjoyed maths were better taught than I was. But frankly, I may not have really had an aptitude for it. But there is no reason not to try. And I was saying to you earlier, my maths O level, grade B, is the single greatest achievement of my life because I properly worked for that, knowing just as now, actually, that you cannot go to university without a qualification of that standard in maths you still can't so if you haven't got one you have to keep trying to get one

and we did have a really interesting email from a listener who says look my daughter is she's gifted she's really keen on the arts that's where her strengths lie but she is being made to press on with maths in order to have even the faintest chance of doing a degree. But I was quite interested by what Bobby said at the end about this core maths qualification that you can do, which I think I understood from what he said to be a destination for exactly that kind of person, that kind of student who's not enjoyed maths, hasn't excelled at the current syllabus, but still needs to better understand it. I don't think a core maths will get you into university. Well, I don't know, we should check that out. Because maybe it will. I think it's something you can carry on doing if you're not doing maths A level. But you still need GCSE equivalent pass in maths to get to uni. Yeah, you definitely still need a sixth or above

to get into most sixth form colleges as well. I mean, it's interesting that that was the sort of bit of Rishi Sunak's speech today that was leaked to get the headlines today and actually to create a talking point, which, I mean, they know what they do. They know what they're doing when they chuck these slightly dead cats onto the table because they work.

And we have been spending a large part of today talking about maths. So I'm just trying to think what other part of Rishi's speech, if you were sitting there in the press office thinking, what will we put out for the morning bulletins? I'm just trying to think what it would have been. Well, we both did point out the violence against women and girls thing. Yes, and that was a very good mention from him. Yeah, because in case you missed it, he actually said we must do something about violence against women and girls.

And that means men, to a degree, have to take responsibility for their own behaviour, which I think we thought, although it doesn't seem like a lot, it seemed to be a bit of a first. Yeah. I wonder whether very many other people will pick up on that. There was a continual use of innovation. Maybe I would have put out something on innovation. I'm interested always by what politicians mean by innovation, because it's a lovely word, isn't it? It just conjures up this new world of technology and we're going to find something and make something completely different, sends us into a different orbit. But it's often not like that. You look at what's happening in Silicon Valley at the moment with all that innovation. It seems a harsh world to be in. Right, lots of emails. This one is about my pronunciation again.

I actually can't make head nor tail of it. It's from Emily, who starts off very kindly, delighted to have found this podcast. Fee, would you allow me to give you a little help with the pronunciation of the one that I can't pronounce? Saskatchewan. That way you too can feel confident using the word in everyday parlance.

Immediately after you and Jane decided that as a general rule place names are pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable, you trot out Saskatchewan, much to my relief. You did not then refer to it as Saskatchewan, but correctly as Saskatchewan. My slight correction is to the two final syllables. Stay with us, everybody.

You pronounce Ewan as you read it, Ewan. Canadians pronounce the Ewan, Ewan, probably due to our penchant for lazy speech. So what does that mean it is, Jane? Saskatchewan. That's where I'm struggling. I don't know. come in ben you're still awake he's not allowed to speak yes you are allowed to speak i think you said it right the

first time saskatchewan yeah i think she's happy with how you said oh okay good right uh thank you for both being you says emily sometimes i'd love to be someone else. I know I would. But thank you. Who would you be? Mariella Frostrup, I think. Would you? Yeah. I should be thrilled to hear that. Well, you just want an earlier time for this show, don't you? You do.

You said that the other day. I just said some of us peak earlier during the day. Darling, she's not well by five. Well, no. Emily also says that she enjoys a mary lawson too or i assume she does because she says she thanks me for championing mary lawson not as hilarious as your fascination with beavers after you watch that documentary but a shout out to canada yes um i'm completely over beavers i'm into marianne to annette now as regular listeners will know um following today's discussion with romesh ranganathan you

mused about whether IVF and fertility had been a topic brought up outside of his latest sitcom. Well, when we embarked upon our journey of IVF, Ben Elton's novel, oh, I remember this actually, Inconceivable, became our Bible, and it did help diffuse what was a highly stressful period in our lives. Unfortunately, it contributed to making me a little too blasé about the whole

process, and on the second occasion, and after installing my wife in the ward for the egg harvesting procedure, I was dispatched to the slightly seedy room with well-thumbed pornographic magazines to provide a sample. Knowing I then had a couple of hours to spare, I naturally arranged a game of golf, but due to some delays in paperwork, I was running a bit late. There was one other very nervous looking gentleman waiting. And as you might expect, particularly in the UK, it's the last place on earth that you would make eye contact, let alone hold a conversation. However, and I think you'll appreciate this with your newfound enthusiasm for golf, Jane, needs must. Excuse me, I said, are you here to do the business?

I will never forget the horror in his eyes as he nodded. Would you mind awfully if I went first? Only I've got a tea booked in 20 minutes, I asked. He never said a word, but continued to nod vigorously. And so in quick time, I was in and out, chucked my sample at the nurse as I rushed out and bid him good luck with, if I'm not mistaken, and much to my shame, a wink. Our attempt was successful and we have two delightful young men as a result of IVF, the eldest of whom lets it be known to all and sundry that he was conceived in a test tube. Meanwhile, as for the other gentleman, I can only think he's still in the room. I will never know, but I do hope they were successful too. I'm listening from Perth in Australia. A colleague and I love the show. That's from Adam. We just need a few more of your colleagues. Just the one

is good Adam. It's a good start. There are two of you listening but I don't know where you work. It's a huge office probably. It could be. Spread the word but thank you for that. Adam adds we have a competition as to whose email will get read out first. Hopefully this one does it. Well, it depends whether or not your colleague is perplexed either, who's from Melbourne in Australia. Because if it is, it's a draw. Well, it can't be, unless your office is enormous,

or I've got the size of Australia wrong. Oh, I was watching Miriam Margulies in her tour around Australia. She's such a pleasure to watch. You and I have both interviewed her, and it's a challenging position to be the interviewer on stage with Miriam. I think I was, although I wanted to enjoy myself last night, I was sitting on the edge of the sofa. I couldn't fully relax because I kept waiting for her to shock me.

Well, I think it's different, isn't it, in a pre-recorded travelogue, which I think she does really well, because the, you know, the moments of Miriam's frisson with the live world can obviously be edited out, although not all of them are. But it's a very good watch, actually. She was effing and jeffing. If you're looking for something. She's examining whether Australia really does have a fair-go mentality. And it's actually written into their constitution that Australia should be a classless place with a kind of fair-go. I think that's ridiculous. No, and I think the more she delves into it,

obviously the more she finds that there's prejudice riven through it. There were some shocking mullets in that show last night, weren't there? Well, there were some quite... I tell you what, the Australian male has a brave attitude to hair, speech and all kinds of things. I wish those young boys in school quite a lot of luck with their life.

She interviewed a group of private school boys. Yes, and they were grown men. And, you know, sometimes you do see lads who must be in the sixth form at school and you'll see them walking down the road and their school uniform is so ill-suited to their body shape because they've simply outgrown everything and their mum and dad have obviously decided

they're not shelling out for anything new because they'll be leaving shortly. Well, I found it astonishing that these boys who were in sixth form, weren't they? They were wearing shorts. They were wearing shorts and blazers and little ankle socks. It looked, I have to say, utterly ridiculous. It did because they were clearly, some of them were shaving twice a day.

At least. No mullets at that place, I noticed. But they were very thoughtful and they were all very sure that their obvious privilege wasn't going to kind of be very apparent when they left school but it really will be guys it really will be and I hope you do very well with your lives and your choices perplexed Eva from Melbourne in Australia takes us on a bit of a different jaunt dear Fian Jane long-time listener first-time correspondent in Australia Christmas comes alongside the end of the academic year so it's at the start of a six week break and summer holidays.

The country pretty well stops for the month of January. So very few businesses are open, which means little progress can be made on almost anything. We were talking about this on the programme yesterday, whether January was a kind of fertile month for creativity or just a month where you sat still. Snow's on the Christmas cards, says Eva. Spray snow on windows and, of course, all the outdoor lighting. But as it isn't dark until 9pm, the kiddies don't enjoy the full impact of the lights.

Never thought of that. Thoughts and prayers. Eva says, often we feast on a hot turkey roast with all the trimmings and plum pudding. Air conditioning blasting. It was 30 degrees this Christmas day in Melbourne. says often we feast on a hot turkey roast with all the trimmings and plum pudding air conditioning blasting it was 30 degrees this christmas day in melbourne we enjoyed lunch outside a marquee lots of prawns alongside baked ham and i've perfected the perfect christmas pudding ice cream my final comment is i've thoroughly enjoyed many christmas days in the northern hemisphere and

look forward to more to me it just feels right to celebrate this festive holiday during winter, wishing you a happy and healthy 2023. I really like the sound of that Christmas actually, Eva, and maybe that's where we'll head to next year. Eva, thank you. And to contact what passes for this podcast, you can do so by emailing janeandfee at times.radio. If you haven't heard the live radio show, give it a whirl. We're wittering on Monday to Thursday between 3 o'clock and 5. GMT. Is that right? It is, but I've got distracted again because there's a screen that shows the television

when you're rabbiting on, and there's some poor person on Pointless who's got none, and there's a person who's got 24. But because that's Pointless, do they win if they've got naught? Or do they win if they've got naught or do they win if they've got 24 have you have they got points for not getting points this is why we have yet to appear on pointless despite being asked a couple of times we can't can we no i really don't think we can uh tomorrow's guest is the writer nadine matheson she's also a lawyer

and her book her latest book is called the binding. And it starts with a couple of bodies. Anyway, there's plenty to discuss and it's all a bit gory. I'm girding my loins to read that in bed tonight and I may have to call you. No, you know, we've stopped that now. Have a good evening. 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, 3 till 5 on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon. Goodbye.