Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I'm not a fully paid up anorak (with Anton Du Beke)

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Jane² are back for day two as Jane Mulkerrins fills in for Fi. They chat waxing near the printers, having a freezer full of crumpets, and getting your 'oh be joyfulls'.Jane G is joined by Strictly Come Dancing’s Anton Du Beke to discuss his new novel "The Paris Affair".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: Eve Salusbury 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. Welcome to Off Air. Now, I had suggested that Fi will be back today,

and she's just had one of those tummy bugs that just has lingered. So she'll definitely be back on Monday. But Jane Mulcairans, who didn't lick Fi's chair, so it's very much still available. Cut my tongue to myself yesterday. Is with us. Yep. And as ever, you've got to dash off

because life at the Times newspaper is all-encompassing and forever busy. And today you've got not scented candles to try, but you've got a leaving due. A leaving due, yes. Yes, OK. Our royal correspondent, Valentine Lowe, is leaving, sadly. Is he? Why is he leaving?

Well, apparently he's retiring. OK. He is in his 60s. Right. I suspect there might be another book deal, potentially. I'm just speculating. A book deal? I mean, he has been the royal correspondent for The Times for a while.

Are you suggesting he might know a thing or two? He might know a thing or two. But yes, it is quite busy. I will tell you, I trot up those back stairs several times a day, Jane. I know. Very, very good for my glutes. It's also very much an upstairs-downstairs situation here. So Fee and I occupy the main house,

and Jane Mulkerrins lives in the... In a coal shed. Basically in the News UK equivalent of the coal shed. If you had ever worked... Well, not that we had Times Radio back in the day, whopping, but I did work for the Sunday Times in my first job back on the old plant in Wapping. Yes. And we had the printers on site.

So the building did have bowels of the building where the newspaper was made. Right. And down there, there was all sorts of things. There was a sweet shop, which was a bit weird. There was the place where you could go and get cash against expenses. If, like me, you're a very young reporter and just didn't have any money ever. Right. And just cash against expenses.

So it's, if you're going out on a story. What a job, yeah. So, for example, it was the lead up to theq war and there were human shields going to iraq on a london bus and i had to go with them and then i had to keep finding them around europe and i didn't have a big credit card i was sort of 23 years old sorry i just said oh yes as though i totally get what you're talking about human shields went to iraq on a london bus yeah you'll have to learn more about that uh so there were some british human shields went to iraq on a london bus yeah you'll have to learn more about that uh so there were some british human shields going to protect uh what they saw as civilian um targets

in iraq so um schools and hospitals and things like that and uh a group of british human shields set off on two london buses from lond London and went all the way to Iraq I interviewed them when they left London and then a few days later my editor said where are they ring them go and find them and so I flew to Rome and found them there wrote a story came back flew to Istanbul found them there so there's a lot of running around um but I didn't have any money so I didn't have a way of getting myself there and back uh and if I needed anything when I was away you know I'd maxed out my you know my student loans and things so cash gates expenses yeah was when you go downstairs and say I've got to go and do this story I think I'm going to need some money

um and you basically just it's like your dad giving you an envelope of money and just saying bring me the receipt back oh okay it does sound fabulous it was great but also in the in the bowels of the building weirdly was also a hair salon where you could have waxing done as well in you in your office near the near the printers i don't i didn't think i could be more shocked but basically you could live you could live in news international hair removal on site okay that's just well it isn't none of that happened at broadcasting house i mean lord knows awful things did happen there but not that um right okay oh right i mean some of those awful things were me presenting terrible programs uh and some quite good ones, she said,

slightly defensively. Now, big guest today, Fee will have been, and I know she was really disappointed to miss Anton de Beck because we've explained on the podcast that we take turns reading the books and Fee had read every word

of Anton de Beck's seminal work, The Paris Affair. So she had any number of really good questions to ask him but he is a very interesting interviewee so he'll come up in a moment or two um because he there are they're always kind of big threads running through through every strictly and um this season is no different i mean i have to say i'm not a fully paid up anorak fan but i do enjoy it every now and again i mean i think i told him I watched every episode. It's not quite true but if I'm in on a Saturday night or a

Sunday the results show does a good job. It's a relatively compact edition isn't it? And you can find out then who's been biffed off. Bite size. Yeah bite size version. Yeah. Okay so celebrity toilet encounters, period euphemisms. What else have we got today? Oh rail travel. I've got rather a serious one here about rail travel. Yes I like the rail travel.

Can I start by wishing you a happy Thanksgiving again? Oh, yes. Because we did discuss this earlier in the live show, but it is Thanksgiving Day in America, or as our listener says, over there, as you like to say. I don't really understand. This is from Elizabeth. She's originally from the Wirral, but now living in Tennessee. Oh, right. And wanted to wish us both and Fi, and all of the American listeners, a very happy Thanksgiving

today. She says, usually at Thanksgiving gatherings, Americans are encouraged to share one thing they are grateful for at this time of year, which I mentioned earlier. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I wanted to say how grateful I am to offer for bringing me a daily taste of home. And to Jane and Fee, who feel like old friends. She says old in inverted commas, by the way. I'm not sure if that's better or worse. Just watch it. like old friends.

She says old in inverted commas, by the way. I'm not sure if that's better or worse. Just watch it. I look forward to your podcast, Monday to Thursday, and feel more connected to British culture and current events. And I have to say, without being really cheesy, when I lived in America, it very much served that purpose for me too. Yeah. It was just like a taste of home.

A taste of home. Yeah. Like Marmite. And crumpets, which I did take back with me. Did you? Yeah. I had a freezer full of crumpets if i was having a sad day oh yeah oh that was what i'd do i'd ration them for bad days hearing anecdotes like that is exactly why i've never ever felt the need to live abroad i just can't i just couldn't in case you didn't have enough crumpets okay so i ran out of crumpets ran out of that honey i like from little it just doesn't i probably not english but i'll buy it there anyway uh that's not the point um In case you didn't have enough crumpets. In case I ran out of crumpets, ran out of that honey I like from Lidl.

It's probably not English, but I'll buy it there. Anyway, that's not the point. Okay, well, thank you very much. It's Sue, isn't it? Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Oh, I don't know why I do apologise. Have a lovely Thanksgiving, Elizabeth.

I'm just thinking about time difference. By now, people really will be sick of their families, won't they? Oh, no, it's only midday. Oh, yeah, but exactly. So people will be falling out all over the United States by now. Murder around the table already. But you had some nice ones there, did you? And would you, as somebody from outside the country, be invited to someone's home?

So that was a sort of interesting thing. I never really got invited to an American family Thanksgiving. It was odd. People would go home to their own families. I often got invited to friends who I'd made who were perhaps other expats for their, we would have sort of expats Thanksgiving a lot. I had friends who bought big houses upstate and would, who were great cooks and would have Thanksgiving. But there was definitely a sense, that was one of the times of year when you felt like a bit of an outsider sometimes um because people would go back and do their very traditional thanksgiving things with their

families and you would make up your own little thanksgiving traditions which was actually lovely by the end um by the end of a decade there i had certain certain of our friends would do thanksgiving certain of us would do Christmas or New Year. And I managed to cultivate a very good group of cooks as friends. So that's all the way that I'm not silly. No, she really isn't. This is another, I think it's probably the ultimate celebrity encounter for the time being. My celebrity toilet encounter was a couple of years back at the National Theatre, says our correspondent.

I can't exactly remember the play we'd gone to see, but I think it was A Streetcar Named Desire with Gillian Anderson playing Blanche. Blimey, I bet that was good. The play was in The Round. Oh, yes, in The Round. I'm familiar with this, but of course, Fee, who doesn't go to the theatre, wouldn't know.

And in a seat across from us, we spotted a woman who seemed to have her glasses on and kept them on for the whole play which seemed odd and drew our attention on further inspection we realized it was anna wintour during the interval anna was spotted in the bar area looking around a bit lost probably because she was wearing her sunglasses i realized this is my opportunity walked up to her and asked, are you looking for the toilet? Yes, she replied. I pointed over towards the female

toilets and said, they're just over there. I mean, this is quite a conversation, this. She then placed her hand on my arm and said, thank you, darling. You are wonderful. And this is how I was told I was wonderful by Anna Wintour. A story I won't ever tire of telling at any opportunity.

Well, that's from Andrew. Andrew, congratulations on that. That is a very good celebrity encounter. I just love the idea that Andrew spotted her, marched up to her and asked her if she was looking for the loo. It's pretty bold. Yeah, but I think it's a safe bet because there's never a time in your life when you wouldn't, I mean, you couldn't do with a safe bet because there's never a time in your life when you wouldn't,

I mean, you couldn't do with a visit to the loo. I had to go out during the radio programme this afternoon during, mercifully, a pre-recorded item about Black Friday bargains, which was just long enough to get me to the loo. Because you started doing live radio on Times Radio, haven't you? And it's a long stint, yours. I'm too scared to go to the loo. You're too scared to go for a week? Yeah.

As I said, not because I don't think there's enough time in the news. Yeah, there always is. It's like three and a half minutes. Yeah, you've got loads of time. It's just in case I stumble and fall over or something in the corridor. I thought I was a catastrophist. Why would you necessarily fall over? I just think something could go terribly wrong outside that door.

And, I mean, Jane, I've fallen off a lot of bicycles. I've broken shoulders. Oh, that's true, actually. I am quite clumsy I could legitimately hurt myself on the way to the loo and I'm the fill-in I'm the fill-in presenter

What happens if the fill-in hurts themselves en route to the loo It's a good point, don't ever go but I do think a commode could be provided Caroline says I work with someone who referred to her periods as the Obie Joyfuls. That's good, though not as good as,

what was the Danish one? The Red... No, Germany is the Red Army. The Red Army are here. The Red Army are here. Communists in the Funhouse was the Danish one. That's it, Communists in the Funhouse. Which is excellent.

So we were talking turnip yesterday. Yeah. After your wonderful interview. Margaret says, Dear Jane and Fee, having moved from Newcastle to London, I noticed that Southerners were definitely confused about swedes and turnips.

My extensive research over 30 years has told me the confusion starts about level with hull. I mean, lots of things get more confused beyond Hull. That reminds me of the BBC yesterday went to cover the autumn statement. They went to Hull and they made a great deal of it. They stood in a museum in Hull talking about ordinary people. And it was just one of those. I could just see them all sitting around in London deciding.

Where's regional? Let's go to a region. Somewhere really obscure. Have you ever been to Hull? No. Let's go there. Off they went. Anyway. Above Hull, apparently, a turnip is a turnip. And below that line, the confusion starts. Margaret says, if you're able to help me test this hypothesis, I'd be very grateful. It's never too late for a doctorate. Right. I love the idea of a turnip doctorate. There probably is one. I absolutely, I remain convinced that you can do, and people have done, PhDs in just about anything. Absolutely everything.

Anonymous writes today about the expense of rail travel. They say, I work in rail, never thought I'd love it, but I do. There are so many falsehoods about rail, and the media love nothing more than a bad rail story. The overly simplified explanation of the problem is politics. We could have cheap rail fares, but that would require epic subsidy, which would need to be funded by taxes. That requires a mental shift from politicians to the public to understand the value in rail and what it can and can't do, and whether we want to prioritise rail in our national spend. Over the years, rail subsidy has been squeezed,

which means more income has to come from fares. The argument being, why should people who don't use rail pay more in tax to fund those who do? I get that, but my beef with this is that, obviously, at the moment, many of us are genuinely trying not to drive very much. I have got a petrol car. I don't drive long distance. Very rarely drive to Liverpool where I go to see my parents. I do want to go on the train because I believe it's the right thing to do.

So it's infuriating. We need to have a proper grown-up conversation about this as about so many other things. Yeah, our correspondent does also go on to say that rail infrastructure and trains are expensive and that we need people to operate them. And there's actually very little of the rail network that can operate fully commercially because of the very high fixed operating costs and that governments have squeezed everything

so it is operating on a shoestring. And I completely get that. She says it washes its face, but not necessarily through the revenue that it takes. And politicians can't get their head around this and therefore they can't fund fund it properly and we need to stop believing that the train operating companies are the problem i mean she's saying they don't make huge financial returns which i i do understand and i think you know i i don't even own a car i've never owned a car because i've always lived in cities that are very well connected and and like you my family lives sort of the other end of the country where i wouldn't drive to even if I had a car.

But you go to other countries and you see how well the railways are funded. They must be doing something right. Sweden, I mean, the high-speed train that I used in the summer in Sweden, incredibly cheap. Korea, where I was two weeks ago, to go from Busan in the south on the high-speed train to Seoul, to the capital, which is about two and a half hours on a high-speed train, cost less than £30. So all the arguments outlined in our very expert email there,

why don't they apply in countries like South Korea? Well, I presume that the government subsidises it. And the public goes along with it. And uses it. I mean, it was packed on a Monday afternoon, because people are clearly using that to get around the country. Right. And it's opened up the country.

It's opened up tourism and jobs. And as our correspondent says, it's about connecting people, not just moving things around. But our government definitely doesn't want to subsidise it to the extent that it's necessary to. It would seem not. And you wonder whether anything might happen were we to have a change of government.

Can we do another slightly serious one? This is from our correspondent. I'm not going to name her. She hasn't said to stay anonymous, but it's a very personal email. So I won't say her name for now. She says, I felt compelled to write to you for the first time following much discussion

on the woes of being both single and married in recent podcasts. I've been single since I was 20, barring casual liaisons, of which there have been reassuringly many, which amounts to nearly 30 years now. A correspondent says, fortunately, I never wanted children, but otherwise I'm just very fed up of having to do it all by myself and even more fed up of the conflicting advice of you try too hard. You need to try harder. You're so lucky you don't have a husband and children. As a footnote, marriage and children, she says, are a choice. The lack of either is very often not a choice.

She does say, I have a brilliant life and many lovely friends, but I'm sick of being told I should be grateful for this by people who've been lucky enough to get to choose whether to stay in an unsatisfactory relationship. What I'm really asking for is a little bit of unqualified sympathy for me and my comrades rather than people who've never been here explaining how not to be here. I think that's a great email. It's a really interesting email, isn't it? Because I think it's the grass is always greener.

Oh, the grass is always greener. I have many friends in unsatisfactory relationships. I can't comment at this point. I'm sure I haven't. I have many friends in unsatisfactory relationships. And I'm long time single as well. But I do look at them and there are very few friends relationships I look at. And I think I'd like that. It's so difficult. I mean, I'm very long time single as well. But I do look at them and there are very few friends relationships I look at. And I think I'd like that.

It's so difficult. I mean, I'm very long time single and largely, I would say, content with that. But everyone has their moments. And I suspect our correspondent may be having a moment right now. But this is a sort of time of year that can be a bit wearing for those of us who aren't in any kind of committed relationship. Yeah. There's a lot of kind of hunkering down with nearest and dearest that goes on. Like you said about Thanksgiving in the States.

But you do get slightly patronised by people in these six out of ten relationships telling you, oh, you're really lucky. And I think the one thing I really liked that she said, sort of to pull it out, is this conflicting advice. Like, you need to train, you is this conflicting advice like you need to train you need to try harder you need to do this you need to have that um it is it is a really tricky

one and i think i have experienced that feeling of where just you just feel worn out of doing it all yourself whether that's just dealing with leaks or dealing with aging parents on your own or you know all those sort of things that you think, oh, I could just deal with a bit of a hand here. I completely get it and I completely, frankly, it resonates with me. I think it's that unqualified backup that you can get. Absolutely. And you don't even know when you've got it a lot of the time.

And I've had it in the past, don't have it now, and I think I do sometimes get nostalgic for it. Yeah. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. I mean, I think the idea of always having someone who's got your back. Exactly. Who doesn't want that?

Yeah. And I think friendship can go a long way to providing that. But not all the way. No. Often. No. And I think, but I also will say, I think that there are emotional reserves that you build up when you have been single for a long time that I think you maybe don't build up if you haven't been single as an adult for a very long time. Just because there are things you have to go through and cope with on your own.

The other thing that I get quite frustrated with is if I mention any kind of romantic possibility or a fling or someone i've met who i'm speaking to or dating and the long time married the six out of ten relationship people swoop in and say do you like them what's happening here are you going to see them again and i think can you not just do you have to do you have to turn everything into hang on what do you want a long-term relationship to Well, just say brilliant. That sounds fun. So if you're one of Jane's friends, that's what she wants you to do. But I think it's because they're bored.

Well, yes, they want to hear about the excitement and what's fizzling and crackling. But I think just this idea that every liaison you have has to be viewed through the prism of, is this going to be a long-term relationship? Yeah. I've written about this for The Times. I think that one of the reasons why people accuse many women of not being good, in inverted commas, at one-night stands, by which I mean not dealing with them emotionally very well,

is because women are trained to look at every single liaison as a prelude to a long-term relationship. You're a handsome prince. Yeah, yeah. And I think sometimes you can just have had a brilliant night with someone and leave it at that. to look at every single liaison as a prelude to a long-term relationship. Your handsome prince. Yeah, yeah. And I think sometimes you can just have had a brilliant night with someone and leave it at that. Yeah. If you're one of those people.

No, I'm serious. Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. You know, because we will do this, we will never use your name. Exactly. Unless you expressly tell us that that's absolutely fine to do so. We won't use your phone numbers either, unless you really want us to. Then we will just read them out if you do want us to use your phone.

Susanna has been to the beautiful... Oh, she's been to Seville, to the train station. Oh, I love Seville. Where she has seen Together. Ken Follett has moved on to a new lady. Who was it? Dolly yesterday. Dolly Olderton yesterday.

He's now cuddling up close to Isabel Allende. Oh, he gets around, doesn't he? He does get around. He's a player. Old robe, is Ken. Fantastic. He is a player. The conversation I had yesterday with Penn Vogel about food and the history of food is interesting.

A lot of people are interested in the whole broad bean thing. Yeah. Because broad beans, I mean, they're not very nice, I don't think. You were talking up the broad bean. I um because broad beans i mean they're not very nice i don't think um but talking up the broad bean something rotten yesterday i shouldn't use rotten in reference to probably sorry about that terrible turn of phrase um yes i mean it's just not fair to say that it really isn't um this is from lynn who says the food discussion i thought was really interesting and your guest recipe for serving broad beans sounded quite tasty. Much tastier than my first ever English school lunch back in 1956.

Ooh. Crikey. Brace yourselves, everybody. Back home, we brought our own packed lunch of sandwiches, something sweet and a bit of fruit. My mother knew many ways with Marmite sandwiches, adding mint, cheese or chopped walnuts. Wow.

But back to me and my first ever lunch. We'd arrived in England after the long sea journey from New Zealand. How long did that take? For my first school lunch. They left in 1952. Yeah, exactly. They gave me and my brother large helpings because they didn't want us to be hungry. Meat and gravy and potato were okay.

But even if I'd had a large appetite, I could not have coped with the broad beans. They'd obviously been boiled for quite a long time with no discernible flavour. The skins were wrinkled and the insides were a kind of dry, powdery paste. I couldn't manage them and was left to sit with the other children who couldn't finish their meals or were being wasteful. I only ordered small dinners after that, as those ghastly grey beans turned up quite often. They must have been one of the few foods in plentiful supply in those post-war years. And I think actually Lynn does hark back to a time, and I didn't think it was a very good idea,

when children were made to finish their plates. And honestly, I just don't think you should ever do that. Never, ever force a child to eat. So Kate, our producer today, ever force a child to eat. So Kate, our producer today, is making a sign at you. She is making a sign. What does she mean? I don't know. Can I just say one more vegetable-related aside?

Bringing it back to Thanksgiving in a very circular way. In America, Brussels sprouts don't have a bad reputation because the way that they cook Brussels sprouts is that they roast them or sort of fry them with onions and apple and nuts and they caramelise them. Brussels sprouts are almost a dessert. They're so delicious over there. So when Brits come over and they see Brussels sprouts as a side in a fancy bistro in Brooklyn, they think it's bananas.

But yeah, I have converted many through a roast Brussels sprout. Well, you made a reasonably convincing case there for the Brussels sprout as a dessert, says Jane Marker. She'll never be invited back. I'm not going on Bake Off, am I? No. Kate, I think, wants me to bring in our guest, Anton Debeck. He is a former Strictly Pro dancer.

He is now one of the judges on the BBC's biggest show. And as ever, the programme is very much in the spotlight. People are always talking about it. A couple of big talking points this year. Leighton, one of the competitors, is he just too good at dancing? And was the TV legend Angela Rippon really worthy of her place in Blackpool? Well, we will get to those very important questions. But first, I asked Anton about his latest book, a novel called The Paris Affair.

There's dance history here, wartime intrigue and a central character called Ray Cohen, who changes his name to Raymond de Guise. Could that person be based on Anton himself? Well, he's a man of many talents, but as he told me, he can't quite do everything. I can't build as I'm finding out my cost at home. That could have been something I should have invested some time in learning, how to build things. So you've got men in, haven't you? Yeah, we literally do.

We have men in, many men in. But it's, yeah, it's all coming together. But apart from that, I've pretty much got everything else covered, I think. Well, I think you have. There's no doubt about it. Can we go then to the book? And this is, I was going to say, there's a great narrative. It's combining some beautiful settings, some adventure, some jeopardy, some romance. There's a bit of everything in there.

Let me ask you a question i always worry with these things and it's the same when i'm in the studio choreographing and having a lovely time um i wonder if it's not just studio what i call studio dancing it's just i'm feeling it and i'm loving it and i'm in the studio it's and i'm looking in the mirror and it's great um but you as soon as you put it out in front of the audience, it doesn't resonate. And that's the most important thing about doing stuff. You're not doing it for yourself.

And that's why it's important that you have a good sort of team around you. So I've got a wonderful team around me, specifically my publishers and my editor. Because all these wonderful stories and things I find fascinating and interesting, and subjects I think are brilliant and characters I think are wonderful, might not resonate with other people. So it's important that you've got somebody there that's going, I don't know, really.

I don't know, really. And I don't have any great ego about this sort of thing. So I'm happy. I've spent my life taking criticism. So I'm not really, I don't, I don't get offended deeply by it. So that,

I can't remember what your question was, but. No, don't worry. The central character here is a man called Ray Cohen. Now he changes his name to Raymond de Guise. Now, at this point, fully paid up Anton de Beck fans are going to say, right, well, Anton's changed his name,

so Ray must be him. So there must be elements of you in Ray. I mean, you know, again, it's that thing, you know, write about things you know. Potentially, but I've met lots of people in my life that have changed their name. Because sometimes you just, sometimes, I mean, in the context of the story, I'm very much about, I like the concept of upstairs and downstairs.

So if you remember that old show, and Downton Abbey is another classic one one what goes on above stairs and below stairs but i find all that stuff wonderful two lives coming together but never quite meeting um crossing over um and i find that same in people i think everybody's got the same sort of upstairs and downstairs about them so i look at people and I go, I wonder what your story is. I'm a terrible people watcher. And,

um, and this is the person I have. I am in the office. This is the person I am on stage. This is the person I am on television, but behind the scenes, I actually, you know,

like to make honey with my beans. You know, it's the sort of things. So, uh, I find everybody's got uh uh downstairs as well as an upstairs and and some people just want to have a new start and want a new identity so they want to literally take their life and go i don't want to go down this path anymore i'm going

to choose this path in actual fact i'm going to have a whole new beginning this is me i'm going to move forward to this and this is raymond de guise really he started in the east end without giving too much away for people um he started in the east end of london from a brother who was always in trouble and a family that had of a certain type that had continued along this and this was going to be their story moving forward you can just see but he didn't want that life he wanted a different life and he and in in the story evolves in this in this novel uh about raymond's early life in the 20s how he went to paris he became a keen dancer he met somebody as often is the case he met somebody who sort of changed his life. And his name change was part of it. And he took on this, say, not new persona, but he became the man he would want it to have been.

And that's Raymond, really. And we discover all that in this book, in the part that's set in Paris during the early 20s. in this book, in the part that's set in Paris during the early 20s. I think people who don't know much about ballroom dancing will be interested in some of the history included in the book here. And there's a key point in the 1920s when the rhythm changed to a slightly different beat

and the dancing changed with it, didn't it? Now, can you just tell us more about that? Well, during the 20s, of course, you had the introduction of jazz during the early part of the last century. So between wars, and then you had the sort of roaring 20s with Charleston, etc, etc. And so as that evolved this new sort of faster rhythm, what became the quickstep as we know it, in that way. So before that, the sort of, you know, the beginning of the last century,

you sort of, everybody waltzed, but in a sort of courtly fashion, as we would know the Viennese waltz. And then what we waltzed called the English waltz or the diagonal waltz, which is the waltz we all know today, the slow waltz, let's say. That started in about the sort of early part of,

that's the early 20s. Before that, it was sort of old-time dancing, like velitas and military two-steps and what we would call the old-time dancing, filed waltz, which is much more rotational waltzes, like a slower version of the Viennese. So the dancing as we know it now sort of really evolved during that early part

with the introduction of new styles of music and new crazes. Things like the one step, the Charleston as we spoke about earlier, the Black Bottom, all these sorts of dance styles. Not many of them sort of lasted. The Charleston has, because we still know the Charleston, but a lot of them sort of lasted. The Charleston has,

because we still know the Charleston, but a lot of them from that time, we've sort of, people don't know about anymore. But a lot of those dances, a bit like the salsa, a lot of these things, what they do is they end up coming into the sort of dances as we know it, and become a part of the dance. So the Charleston becomes a part of that.

It has a sort of identity of its own. But it was all influenced by what was going on around the world and in society. And music was a huge influence. So, as I say, jazz became a big influence. Right. There are also scenes in the book set in the Second World War and particularly based around a hotel, the Buckingham Hotel in London. That's the leader of the park that's our main sort of character yeah was it was it based because there's all sorts of stuff going on at this hotel and you've already made the reference i would have made to upstairs downstairs is it based on

a particular hotel uh no this and all of this stuff is just snippets of bits I know so like the staircase would be the staircase to the Ritz the ballroom would be a ballroom from another hotel, the chandeliers would be the chandeliers I remember from a different hotel Archie Adams orchestra is orchestras that I've danced in front of many times and the white

jackets are from, so this is all snippets of, I mean it's almost a bit autobiographical really, it's like the story of my life and also the story of characters and people I've heard stories about from my old teachers from back in the day, wonderful people like Henry Jakes and Charles Theobald

lovely Maxwell Stewart all these wonderful names that conjure up these incredible sort of images and characters and stuff so that's where all this stuff, all those sort of images come from, all those sort of characters come from, really. Is there a kind of preferred decade for you in which you could have been a dancer? When would you have chosen?

I'd love to have been around in the 20s. I'd love to have been around there. Often people like to be around at the beginning of things. And I'd love to have been around at the beginning just to see how the world, because the world changed, you know, everything shifted. And so, in a way that it doesn't anymore. Life doesn't really shift. If you think about, I was having a conversation with those on.

If you think about from the end of the last, or the beginning of the last century, so the end of the previous one. So when we entered the last century so the end of the previous one so when we entered the last century with queen victoria on the throne i mean don't year but when we get to the 50s we have four monarchs two world wars and we put a man on the moon in another half a dozen years that's quite a shift from people lighting the the lights in the street by hand. I mean, that's... And then I think about what's gone from that moment to now. I mean, we've had advances in technology and medicine and the internet, et cetera, et cetera.

But I wouldn't suggest things have happened quite as dramatically. Well, I don't know. And we don't really know what the next decade will hold for us. I mean, artificial intelligence. Will there be a time when robots compete on Strictly? Depends if you're dancing with her. So you can navigate it just by listening. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. I was talking today in the absence of Fi, just on my own, to the TV legend Anton Debeck, the Strictly judge.

Now, I asked him if there was any truth to the rumour that 79-year-old TV legend Angela Rippon was always going to make it to the Blackpool round of Strictly. In other words, Anton, were the judges told they had to keep her in? No. Are you mad? No. If she was mad, if she was terrible in week one, she'd have been first to keep her in. No. Are you mad? No. If she was terrible in week one, she'd have been first to go, probably. It doesn't really work that way. Really? Yeah. So if she had, and I take your point, week one, she was actually brilliant,

standout performance. But did she deserve it on her dance ability, without patronising somebody, to get to Blackpool? Yes. Without question? Yeah. But we had the opportunity as judges to eliminate her. And we chose not to because she was worthy of a place in the dance-off to stay in the competition.

Because the suggestion is that we care more about who stays in and who goes out than we do. We don't care. Makes no difference to us. What does it make to me? The producers don't speak to me. They don't come to me and go, listen, we wouldn't mind if you kept such and such in. There's a big building. You know this. You've been doing this long enough. You know exactly how it works. You have the BBC building and next door door to it you have a building that's even larger and that's called compliance and if there was any hint of fiddling or people getting involved where they shouldn't the whole thing would come off yeah it'd be taken i'm glad you say it because i think a lot of people if they felt it was in any way fixed would be very disappointed well i, I'd be massively disappointed. What would be the point? What would be the point of trying so hard?

If it's fixed, I might as well just come in. Let's go and have lunch. I'll have Tuesday off. I've got a round of golf booked on Tuesday. Can we go? I'll see you on Wednesday. How's that? Yeah, fine.

All right. I'll see you Wednesday. All right. Anton, you've dealt with that. Let's move on to Leighton, who is quite brilliant and whose performances with Nikita just light up my living room. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. But there are people carping and saying the guy's too good,

he's too good a dancer, it's not fair. Well, he's very good, I'll give you that. He is very, very good. Is he too good? I don't know. I mean, it's, you know, he hasn't been great every week. I mean, I didn't love his jive, I gave him an eight, so did Craig. I didn't love something else, he did Viennese, I didn't love that much. did viennese or something i didn't love

that much uh this week i thought it was it was extraordinary i thought his argentine tango was amazing i thought his quick step was great so it hasn't all been great it's some of it and he hasn't been top of the leaderboard every week i think ellie's probably been top of the leaderboard more than he has so interestingly is the, the interesting thing about Leighton is when he's good, he's extraordinarily good. He's just not great. I mean, I looked at, you know,

I watched the show on Saturday night from the side there, watching it as a judge. And my favourite dance of the night was Angela Scanlon's tango. I just liked it. I gave three people 10 because I just thought their dances were extraordinary.

Leighton, Ellie and Angela. And if I had to pick one of the three, I would have gone for Angela. That's my personal favourite. The thing about Leighton though is when he's good, he's extraordinarily good. Sort of like ridiculously good. But then when he's not so great,

the problem he has of course is that massive sense of disappointment because the expectation is so high so when earlier in a series when he's doing a ballroom dance or he's doing a proper uh standard sort of latin dance or something and it might not be as good then everyone it's unfair, really, but it's such a life. Well, we talked a couple of weeks ago to Shirley Ballas on our programme, and it was lovely to meet her. I thought she was an incredible woman, actually, really impressive. But she was very honest about the abuse she gets. And she did say that she didn't feel that you got it to the same degree.

And I gather that Craig doesn't either. He just couldn't care less. No, I don't read it so it's very difficult for me to comment on that I have I have an attitude about it I don't I don't I don't read it so as far as I'm concerned everybody thinks I'm amazing I don't need to know the truth so I I live in this lovely fantasy that everybody's great. And if I was to read everything that's written about me, I probably wouldn't leave the house. So I feel like it's not a good thing for me to do, so I don't do it.

That's the simple answer. I think Shirley feels that basically women get clobbered and the male judges are largely free to go about their business and say exactly what's on their mind. They are. I've got to tell you. I don't know what to say about it. I don't agree. I don't disagree. Because I don't know.

I haven't got an answer. That's how she feels, and she's fully well within her right to think that way. Because I don't read it, I have no comparison. So I can't say, yeah, I don't get it very badly. She gets it terrible. I know she gets it terribly. And I think it's appalling.

I think it's dreadful. But then I don't understand it, you see. So it's very difficult to get a comment on it. Most people don't understand it because it's not something we'd ever do. Can we talk just a bit about, I mean, you mentioned or you alluded to dancing in the past with the likes of Ann Widdicombe.

I mean, it was amazing telly and anyone who says they didn't enjoy it, they're lying. Is it fair or should we encourage politicians of any type to take part in reality television? Yeah, but only when they've retired. Anne said to me, I'm only doing it because I've retired from politics. I wouldn't do it. Vince Cable did it once while he was still in politics.

He danced with Erin on a Christmas special, did a a fox shop nice and i know he dances with his wife socially they dance there's a hobby they dance pleasure have lessons and they dance and they dance nicely it's lovely fox dance with erin but no i don't think they should really i think they should be doing their day job it's i i think this i i think i i would suggest it's an advance, because I'm not sure how you think it's going to come out for you for a start off. It seems like an odd choice of thing to do when you're an active politician. So Anne did it when she had retired, and I fully understood that. What about you? I think a lot of people, including me, I was very shocked when I heard more about your early life and your upbringing and the really cruel treatment that you got at the hands of your father. You are now, you're Mr. Saturday Night. It's all laughs and it's slightly over the top and it's life enhancing. It's a bit of fun. Slightly over the top. I've never been so offended. I know.

I'm sorry. Okay, I went too far there. I'll take that back. But you are someone who enhances other people's lives after actually quite a tough start to your own. I mean, I'm sounding like a cod psychologist here. But do you feel, are you someone who does want to just cheer people up? Yeah, yes, I do. In actual fact, not.

I mean, it sounds a bit contrived now when you say it out loud like that. And it's not really. I mean, what's the other option? To not? To do the opposite? To make them feel worse about themselves? I can't see the value in that at all.

So as far as I'm concerned, yeah. And you're supposed to be entertaining. So my attitude is to, my responsibility is to make sure everybody has a great time by being entertaining. Now, that doesn't mean, you know, being ridiculous or over the top, as you so cruelly put it. But it is to be, you know, I think positivity is everything, really. I have to be honest with you. Best dance you've ever seen on Strictly?

Gosh, probably one of the ones I did. Oh, gosh, I've seen so many. I mean, just from this year, I think one of the best things I've ever seen was Angela Scanlon's Charleston, the Fosse Charleston, the one that Fosse did With Gwen Verdon She did a version of that With Carlos, I just thought it was Extraordinarily good I didn't give it a 10

I felt like I should have done I felt like I shortchanged it Maybe it was because it was so well in the composition I felt it was a bit out of the blue But I just feel That it's been the most extraordinary moment of the blue but um that i just feel that has been the most extraordinary moment of the dance i mean you go back to rose rose's dance with giovanni yeah i mean ground groundbreaking i mean that's probably too big a word no this is when the dance

when the music stopped yeah stunningly good do you know what the thing i felt sad about, really, because it never gave it enough credit, she didn't really want the judges to mention the fact that she couldn't hear, she was deaf. And I wanted to go, can I just say, and I know taking that dance away because that was sort of symbolic, can I just say, I wanted to say to her, because she that was sort of symbolic. Can I just say, I wanted to say to her, because she started things out of hold. If she wanted to be one end of the room,

she'd be the other, and then she'd start in time beautifully, just by looking at him. I just wanted to, because people, I felt like people sort of forgot, if you can, in ridiculous fashion,

that you can't hear, you know she can't hear the music, right? And you go, oh God, really? I had no idea. She was so, so extraordinary. Yeah. I felt that we underplayed it a bit, really. I just would like to have gone,

oh my God, and you can't hear. For God's sake. It's ridiculously brilliant. So I did, you know, but she didn't want to do it so we respected her wishes on that. Anton Dubac there just reminiscing about the absolutely brilliant Rose Elling-Ellis who was the dancer who won strictly I think the year before

last, not last year but the year before that and she did it with Giovanni and they were absolutely amazing absolutely brilliant so lovely to spend time with Anton and the book The Paris Affair. I don't know if there's any steam in it. I'd have to ask Fee. I'll consult her next week.

Oh, I'm seeing her tomorrow. And indeed, I'm seeing you tomorrow. Yes. We've got a special afternoon tea here at Times Towers for lucky subscribers who wanted to come along. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I hope Fee's well enough for her scones tomorrow. Yes, there's going to be a full cream tea, isn't there? Yeah. After a tummy forward to it. Yeah, I hope Fee's well enough for her scones tomorrow. Yes, there's going to be a full cream tea, isn't there? Yeah.

After a tummy bug, it's just what you think. Is it one down from a Thanksgiving dinner, really? Oh, God. Right, don't start going on about your sprinkles. I'll bring the Gabby scone. Yeah, I think it might be more Imodium that's required. Anyway, have a lovely evening and have a good weekend as well because we are back.

Fee and I, hopefully, everything crossed. I'm sure it'll be fine. We'll see you on Monday. But it's Jane and Fee at times.radio. If you've anything to contribute. We're bringing the shutters down on another episode of the internationally acclaimed podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler

and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. But don't forget that you can get another two hours of us every Monday to Thursday afternoon here on Times Radio. We start at 3pm and you can listen for free on your smart speaker. Just shout Play Times Radio at it. You can also get us on DAB

Radio in the car or on the Times Radio app whilst you're out and about being extremely busy. And you can follow all our tosh behind the mic and elsewhere on our instagram account just go on to insta and search for jane and fee and give us a follow so in other words we're everywhere aren't we jane pretty much everywhere thank you for joining us and we hope 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