Off Air... with Jane and Fi - It's the pomp of it all! (with Gillian Anderson)

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

It's another slightly giddy episode as Jane and Fi discuss Clacton Pier, Crosby and badminton. Plus, actress Gillian Anderson discusses her latest film ‘The Salt Path’, with Jason Isaacs, based on the best selling memoir. If you fancy sending us a postcard, the address is: Jane and FiTimes Radio, News UK1 London Bridge StreetLondon SE1 9GFIf 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! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I just gave my bloke a shirt. It's a nice shirt. It's a lovely blue, brings out his eyes, but I've gone into an accident. I knew that would happen. You let yourself down, you let the podcast down. Right, we're on aren't we? Brilliant. We're always on darling. Tell me about it. Eve was just suggesting I sue the company because I've got a one-armed chair and I might fall off it. And then I could get compo. You could, couldn't you? Shall I say, oh look I've just taken a tumble. No, it's alright. I'm back with you. Right, very briefly I just want to bring in a friend of mine who's I think illegitimately emailed in to suggest that there's nothing wrong with paddle and that I'm rude about paddle

because my idea of exercise is lying down Pilates and what she describes as a short walk to the little bakery. For a start I don't just lie down at Pilates and actually doing some Pilates exercises lying down is harder than doing them sitting actually. Actually! Plus I don't go to the little bakery every day, I only go about three times a week. Right that's cleared that up. Still not into paddle but I thought we'd hear from more paddle enthusiasts and we haven't they've all been a bit quiet. Well they aren't quiet that's the problem. Oh yeah that is also the problem. they've all been a bit quiet. Well they aren't quiet that's the problem. Oh yeah that is also the problem. They make a bloody noise. I'm sure they'll get round to it or maybe it's just not

particularly popular amongst our audience I don't know. Perhaps is this the height of the paddle season? Well is a paddle court always outside? Can you have an indoor paddle court? Look these are questions we need a paddle expert on. I thought we'd get more reaction to badminton and I don't think anybody emailed in either in defense or not in defense of badminton. It's just a benign sport. I think it's hard to work up passion. Is it an Olympic sport? It is. Commonwealth. Commonwealth but not Olympic. I don't believe so, no. Well, that seems a little bit unfair, don't you think? I mean, there are, I mean, there are all kinds of things, call themselves sports in the Olympics these days. Well, they haven't got darts

yet, have they? No, but they have got gaming, haven't they? Which I find just bizarre. Absolutely bizarre. Right, I promised you yesterday that we would get to the bottom of Jane pretending to be a Scouser. So this one really made me laugh out loud it's from Fiona in Hove. I can't tell you how pleased I was to hear Louise's email about Jane not being a Scouser. I wrote to the BBC years ago saying the same thing but it was never read out on air. I bet it wasn't. I come from Formby, it was just put in the file Fiona, it's a big file. I come from Formby five miles from just put in the file Fiona. It's a big file. I come from Formby, five miles from Crosby and I'd never dream of calling myself a Scouser. In fact, we were

called Woollybacks as Jane would have been. You've been had Jane Garvey and then there's a smiley face emoji so it's not entirely serious. But what's a Woollyback? How far does a Woollyback It's a sheep. No, no, but why? Why are you called Woollybacks if you're from? Because you live in the country. Oh, I see. Gosh. And Formby was always referred to as the debtor's retreat. It's five miles up the coast and a highly suspicious place.

Rather lovely. It's got the red squirrels and Formby Beach. And is George from there? Well, this is the really funny thing. The funny things you know, the funny things that keep you awake at night, if you're me. It's bizarre that there were two people. So Bing Crosby and George Formby. Isn't that weird? And the places are only separated by a bypass

where people always go too quickly, by the way. Quite a dangerous road there. Anyway, yeah, just up the coast, there's another place that's given its name to a sort of showbiz personality. I think Bing was bigger than George in all fairness, but because George was purely British, wasn't he? He didn't spread. Cleaning windows didn't have international appeal. That was his big hit, wasn't it?

It was his big hit. When I'm cleaning windows. Which is... It's quite a nasty song. It is, but also it's just so irritating. It's so irritating. Sorry. Well, it doesn't bother me. Yeah, really irritating. Bing Crosby had White Christmas, of course, which was a bigger hit. Yes, well, I don't know what you know, your tunes. Nobody can take that away from you. Stephanie says, answer me this Louise lady from Liverpool City Council, why does Crosby have a Liverpool L postcode, it's L23, I challenge the lady to go to L20 and tell the good people

there of Bootle they're not Scousers. Besides Sefton is part of the Liverpool City region, to Ra then from someone who originally hails from L31. No, not Plassey, not Woolley. It is intriguing. But Louise from Liverpool City Council Press Office, I hope you're happy with yourself. You've created a lot of upset. Livia just wanted to thank us for reading out her email and says her son plays paddle

too and she sent a photograph of her dog Cosmo who's just lost sight in one eye. Now he's only eight and I think the vet has done a really good job though, Olivia. I hope that Cosmo feels the same way. But he is looking a little bit sorry for himself, so we send our very best off-air wishes. And I also want to say hello to the very lovely Mary and Claude, who we bumped into when we were out taking a little walk on Wyrmwood Scrubs on the bank holiday weekend and she did that fantastic thing where she recognised Nancy. Ah!

And she literally said, are you Nancy? Nancy went, yes I am. Is this Claude? How did you know? Was it my bandana? And Claude was sensational as was Mary and it was very nice to jump into. So the scrubs, I've been there a few times. I'm always a bit, it's because you can almost always, though not absolutely everywhere on the scrubs, see the prison.

Is that right? Well, I didn't see it. No, but maybe I'm just looking in the wrong direction or not looking for it. Do you always see it? When it's particularly verdant at this time of year. Oh, perhaps you don't then. I don't know whether you do. Oh, maybe it was that I'd started my walks from very close to the prison and so I never

lost sight of it because I didn't go very far. That might have been it. We are going to choose the book club book as well. We're going to announce that tomorrow. Thank you very much indeed for all of your suggestions. We've shared them out amongst the team and we've done lots of research, haven't we Jane? Well, we have. Absolutely. No, not yet, but I will do before tomorrow. I just want to, we're talking about books and this is from Jess who says, I just had to email about the book Jane mentioned

All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker, very successful book. I'm part of a book club and we read it a few months ago. Most people loved it but like Jane I just couldn't get on board. My heart sank as soon as it opened with the attempted abduction of a young woman by a complete stranger. It really enrages me that this kind of event is so over-represented in books and films and TV shows, despite being really rare in real life. Yours from atop my high horse, Jess. Thank you, Jess. Yes, I mean, I'm with you, which is why I didn't get into it and couldn't like it. But Chris Whittaker is a great writer. I can appreciate that Chris Whittaker can write brilliant books.

I just... Do you ever feel this? You know, when you give up on a book, do you feel really angry with yourself for giving up on it? Oh, constantly. Yeah, I don't like doing that and I very rarely start a book, read a hundred pages or so and then just give in, but I'm afraid I did with that. Oh gosh, I do it all the time. Oh do you? Okay, makes me feel a bit better. But yes, I do, I get annoyed with the amount of time that I've put into the book and then I actually just have to give the book away. I can't have it in the house because it reminds me of my failings. So the latest one...

We are similar in some ways. ...was Andrea O'Hagan's Caledonian Road, which lots of people really, really loved, described it as a seminal work of our time, you know, really one for the ages. And I completely get the quality of the writing. It's a very funny premise about this guy, old guy, older guy and I'm not just being kind of ageist, writer who realizes that actually he's only going to have a humdinging publishing success if he attributes his latest work to a very young person who's all over the Insta and all that kind of stuff. So it's very clever, that really makes you think. And from memory, and I'm sorry if I get this wrong, but the book that he is flogging is called

Why Do Men In Cars Weep? Or something along those lines, which is... That's the title of the pretend book. Yeah, which is funny as well. Because it's all about Psycho Babble and, you know, who moved my cheese and all that kind of stuff. I hope nobody does move my cheese. So at the beginning of the book I thought, oh yippee, diving into bliss.

And then I just couldn't, I couldn't get on with it. It's quite a weighty tome though. It is a weighty tome. And I felt so, so disappointed in myself. But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it, Jane. It's so funny that you say that you have to get rid of the books you don't finish and take them away because that's what I'm doing on Friday.

Is it? Yes, after I've got the pest control bloke round. Okay, so you've got a little infestation. Well, I don't know, but I was watching the end of... We're not going to do any accents. Let's try and get through this. No, we're going to set a challenge to ourselves. We're going to get through this podcast without any accents. So I was finishing fake.

Fake? Fake? On ITVX last night, about romance scam. I'd give it 8 out of 10, I recommend it. Unfortunately the climax of proceedings was completely ruined by what can only be described as a scrambling noise, a very vigorous scrambling from the kitchen. Woke up Dora, who shot into the kitchen to deal with matters, and by the time I attended things

had reached a crescendo shall we say. And she caught the mouse? No, but it had gone. Okay, so why do you need the pest control? Can't you just rely on Dora? No, actually that's a silly question. Sorry if you said that. That's very sweet, Vy. Anyway, I think I'm going to have to get the professionals in because this isn't the first time it's happened.

Let's put it that way. We've had so many postcards and Young Eve has had to assemble an entire other wall. It's now a big, big wall. We are really pissing off some of our colleagues now, which is brilliant. So if you have... We've got a very, very visible sign of our popularity and it's gone down terribly. Yes. So keep it up everybody. It's Jane of Fee at Times Radio, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF. This is a great card from Chris and Chris I remember your name from the olden days.

She said she's been listening forever and Chris we're really grateful to you, thank you. I won this set of World War Two cards in a raffle she says. And this is a really odd card because on the front it's got a chap in what you might call very smart World War II classic clothing. It's got kind of a burgundy suit, lime green tie and a very proper hat. And on the postcard it says, imagine Lee Hitler, question mark, tell no one. They'll think you're a burk. And sitting next to our hero driving

this World War Two style motor is a sort of cut out version of Adolf Hitler, so an outline of Adolf Hitler. And the blurb says, in the early days of World War Two during the so called phony war, it was easy to become overwhelmed by the media's portrayal of the enemy. This poster was widely used by the Ministry of Health to instruct British men on how best to deal with any psychological issues resulting from the constant media bombardment of war stories. Just very odd. I just didn't know anything about this attempt by the Ministry of Health to help men deal with any psychological impact. No, I'd never heard of that too.

No, all very peculiar but I suppose it was felt to be essential at the time. So all life is contained in the history of the postcard, isn't it? Well, it is actually. Yeah, shall we just mention this beautiful book we've been sent? Yes, please. Yeah, this is thanks to, who's this from? Thank you so much to Charlotte, who sent this book, This is a thanks to, who's this from? Thank you so much to Charlotte, who sent this book, Nothing to Write Home About, celebrating the heyday of the British holiday postcard. And as Charlotte says in her letter on the subject, each message in the cards contained in this book is like a perfect vignette and it really makes me want to know about whether or not

Hilda got her tomatoes for her chutney etc. And let me just read one postcard in its entirety. This was sent on, I mean not that long ago, I was alive in 1980 as was little Fee, the 12th of July 1980. This card of County Kerry in Ireland was sent to Exeter in Devon and it said as follows, Hi there, having a fantastic time, my uncle is a great laugh the food's great honestly the amount I'm eating the weather so far not too good but on Monday I'm venturing into the sea on the train up there was a bomb scare it was quite frightening with all the police and everything see you soon Mandy are you having any benefit from the new hearing aid? End of card. And there's just something absolutely beautiful about that. All human life. It is. So there must be a postcard museum somewhere. Then if there isn't, then we should definitely start one up.

And we should make sure that we do something a little bit more permanent when the wall of postcards comes down. That's not happening anytime soon. But we could put them all into a book, couldn't we, because they are fascinating. And people just tell us such lovely little things about their lives. So thank you very much indeed to Karen. I love your PS Karen. Reform. And then there's a phrase afterwards. It shows that you're abreast of modern politics, Karen. Well done. This one comes from Jane. I know the Avanti North West line well as her daughter lives in Cheshire, have often experienced hens, race goers and football fans too. She wanted

to say a special hello to you, Jane. Thank you. Belinda is hoping to start a new career at 29. She's quit her job and will be doing an MA in journalism soon. Good luck. So yes, it's never too late to start something new and certainly at 29 you've got years, years on us. And this one comes in from Natasha. Thank you very much indeed. So really extraordinary

picture of Jeff Koons' puppy. Are you a fan of the Jeff Koons? But it's all been jazzed up in flowers. I'm not describing it terribly well. Would you think less of me if I said I wasn't really up to speed with Jeff's work? No, I've never really got Jeff's work. I think it's a little bit Empress New Clothes. And Julie Kane, she has the refined Midlands accent. Thank you very much indeed for you. It's a very, very beautiful hand-drawn design of Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire. Let's have a look. It is nice. Oh yes, that's absolutely

beautiful. So keep them coming. Our snail mail address is News UK 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF. Just before we leave the topic of postcards, do you remember when you used to be able to buy a book of postcards and the first five would be cracking and then the last five would just be absolutely awful? By the end of it, it was literally just somebody's kind of home amateur photograph of some Wellington boots with a beach in the background somewhere. They were comical, weren't they? Most postcards, in fact, aren't all postcards taken on sunny days.

So now sometimes I think that's that's the the joke of the, you know, the postcards in Britain. Contemporary postcards. You can't find a sunny day. So actually, you have got a picture of Clacton Pier, not at its best. Heavy downpour. It's one of those really chilly days in June that you do get. I will never forget my youngest child's graduation in Newcastle last July where I'm swear it was 12 Celsius. I was freezing. Lovely day though. Well you've had very much the

university experience that an awful lot of southerners have when they head up to Newcastle. Have you just called me a southerner? Well you are now, aren't you? Come on, how long have you lived in London? Okay, let's move on to an email from Kay. And I think this is interesting and I suspect people will relate to this. Hope you're both well. I've followed you since Covid when my youngest daughter suggested I tune in and I've never

looked back. Hear that, Fee? Never looked back. Well, I mean, to be honest, neither have we. No, that's true. That is true. I was recently in a fashionable rose garden in East London. Do you know that? It's probably in Vicky Park. With my youngest daughter and a group of young mothers

who clearly knew each other were sitting on the grass laughing and relaxing while their babies played together. Sitting literally a foot or two away from them on the grass was a young mum on her own with her baby on a mat. I just didn't know whether the group didn't notice her but it was heartbreaking to watch this young woman and baby on their own. It was clear the mother wanted to join in, she was physically so close to them, but quite clearly not confident enough to start a conversation. Sadly, the group was so engrossed in their own world, they kept putting their backs to her for the 15 minutes we were there. I'm sure no slight

was intended, but could you remind young mothers to look out for each other? We've all got to remember how lonely parenthood could be, especially during those long days when no matter how much she loved your baby, you craved some adult company. That's it really. Thank you very much, says Kay. Well, thank you. And of course, you don't know and we don't know what happened after you left. I mean, it's possible that somebody in that bigger group of mums looked round and noticed that she was on her own and wanted that just that opportunity to come into the circle. It's not the easiest thing to invite yourself in, is it? No, but I really love the fact that you've sent this email to us and that you noticed

that even though it wasn't kind of your direct situation to be in. And you're absolutely right that the isolation of those early years is quite mind boggling sometimes, but it can be alleviated just in the moment, just by having that lovely chat at the swings with somebody else about how long you've been up or whether or not your little one's had lunch yet or what nursery you're using or whatever. It's the most wonderful time where you can just talk to people, you don't need to know them. You can just talk to people because you're all in the same boat. So I really hope that somebody turned around and just said, how are you? Do you want to come on in? They've all got so much in common. You've got so much in common. And it's, you know,

everything is made better by sharing stuff at that age. And if you do reach out to someone, and I don't mean to say that in a dismissive way, what's the worst that can happen? They can say, I'm alright thanks. Yeah. That's as bad as it will get. Yep, and if they don't want to join in, they'll do exactly that. Yeah, exactly. But also I do wonder whether it's the very lovely rose garden in Victoria Park,

which is, there's a kind of miniature version of the Albert Memorial in Vicky Park. Princess Albert Memorial. Yes, so we've got our own tiny kind of version. And there's a lovely rose garden around it which my children always really misbehaved at. It was meant to be a quieter area. It never was, just wasn't.

Did Prince Albert visit the area regularly? I don't know whether he did, but obviously, I mean, there's quite, that is a love story, isn't it, that marriage of sorts? Is it? Well, I think it was. I mean, she put up monuments to him all over the place and then she had a great time with the groom. Love everywhere, really. Nine children they had.

They did have nine children. I mean, that is just remarkable, isn't it? Isn't it just? So, love everywhere, really. Nine children they had. They did have nine children. I mean, that is just remarkable, isn't it? Isn't it just? Yeah. I think they were cousins. I'm gonna say it's not the ideal thing. So they had a lot in common. You see, you always look on the bright side.

You're wonderful, truly wonderful. If you know why that little miniature Albert Memorial ended up in East London, let us know. Well, it's because it's Victoria Park. Because Queen Victoria, when the slums were being cleared she said you've got to build a park, you've got to build a massive park, you've got to provide the East End with some lungs. So presumably it was royal money, I bloody hope it was royal money and not just by order of the Queen taxpayers will pay. We have this very similar, you know that kind of dark, I'm going to get the stone masonry wrong, my apologies, but that's kind of like purple granite. It's exactly the same stone.

And whenever I walk past it, I think that's just so strange. We couldn't be more different to the big Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. That's absolutely stunning. It's ridiculous. Yeah, it's absolutely incredible. I mean, the pomp of it all is just off the scale. It's remarkable. She really loved him.

Yeah, I just gave my bloke a shirt. It's a nice shirt. It's a lovely blue, brings out his eyes, but I've gone into an accident. I knew that would happen. You let yourself down, you let the podcast down. I'm so sorry. Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel comes in from Rachel who says, I feel like emailing you almost every day as you raise so many interesting and important topics in your conversations,

but today I was straight onto the iPad because as a Guernsey-born woman I was sorry to hear the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society being recommended as a good book about the war in Guernsey. Many of my relatives lived through the occupation, one family of cousins were sent to a camp in Germany as a result of the father having served in the First World War and my great aunt suffered from the deprivations of food and health care caused by the occupation. My father volunteered for the merchant navy and my mother and brother managed to get out of the island before the Germans invaded and spent the war in rented accommodation near Swindon.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pills Society was written by an American woman who had never been to the island and who riddled the book with geographical mistakes and other misconceptions. It may be a good story but it bears very little resemblance to the island I love. The film of the book wasn't even shot in Guernsey but in Ireland. Okay Rachel we're very sorry but Rachel gives us a recommendation at the end a much better book about the occupation is Island Song by Madeleine Bunting who has spent a great deal of time in Guernsey and paints a much more accurate picture within a gripping story may I humbly suggest it as a possible future book club read. Now Madeleine Bunting formerly of a newspaper that's not the same as

the newspaper that's here and I think also the Think Tank demo she's a very very good writer so I'm sure that that is a really good book. So let's pop that one out there. Island Song by Madeleine Bunting rather than the Literary and Potato Pills Society thing. So thank you we're always happy to be corrected. And just to say I am influencing people in Spain. This is from Justin Literally, potato pill society thing. So thank you, we're always happy to be corrected. And just to say I am influencing people in Spain. This is from Justin who ends the email. They'll never take me alive. I love that when people do it. I hail from Oxford but I've been living in Malaga in the south of Spain for 25 years now. In three years time

I'll have been here longer than the UK. I've settled down with a Spanish wife and kids. I was drawn to Jane's advice too late in the middle of the blackout last week, which for us lasted 14 hours. Luckily we have a gas hob so we could have a hot meal, cooked by candlelight, and we were only worried about the food in the freezer. By nightfall we could see that other roads had electricity while we didn't, we went to bed early and we'd woken at two o'clock when the streetlights outside our window turned on. I imagine that would happen, wouldn't it? Because you'd be in a lovely kind of pleasant-ish stupor, coma, whatever it might be, sleep, let's call it, because there'll be none of that artificial light or indeed any stimulation of that nature.

But then suddenly in the middle of the night, I mean if the power went off when you were you know doing aerobics workout or watching the television or listening to some banging house music as I know that you're keen to do all three of those on a midweek evening then boy you're going to come too quickly aren't you? So to speak, yes. Justin says he's since bought a wind-up radio and noticed while he did so that the top searched items were wind-up radios, wind-up lanterns, phone chargers, batteries and candles, followed by gifts for Mother's Day, which was this Sunday here, says Justin. This message seems to be getting through.

That's my safety message, at least here in Spain. Well, I'm not surprised after what happened last week, which by the we still haven't had a... have we had an explanation for that yet? No but interestingly Susanna, my hairdresser, she obviously dresses the hair of other people she doesn't just belong to me. No, no, she waits for a call from you. But that's the kind of thing, we do say that a lot don't we? My this, my that. Susanna, who does my hair, she hails from Spain and we were talking about how her family had been affected by the power outages and she said that about three months ago the

Spanish government had issued what felt like at the time a pretty monumental call to arms as Oliver Dowden had done in this country to stock up your prepping cupboard to make sure you had all of the essentials. Her family couldn't remember having been kind of told that they should be doing that type of stuff in a very long time. And so we just gave each other a little bit of a look across the mirror. Right. Yes. Interesting. Interesting times. Okay. Any more thoughts on that? It's Jane and Fee at times.Radio. Now we have a stellar guest on this edition of the podcast don't we? We do it's Gillian Anderson. Come in Gillian. Gillian Anderson is one of our finest actors. She's played Mrs. Thatcher in The

Crown, made her name as the iconic agent Scully in The X-Files, taught a whole generation of kids how to discuss sex as the therapist mum Jean in sex education and now she takes on the role of Ray in real life. Raina Wynn who wrote the best-selling memoir The Salt Path about how her and her family's life fell apart when they were evicted from their farm and why she and her husband Moth decided to put what was left of their lives into two rucksacks and walk the south coastal path, a journey as much about finding a new internal view as admiring the external ones. I asked

Gillian whether basically this is the universal story of how close so many people come to the chain falling off the bike of life. It really, really is because, you know, particularly today in the world that we currently live in, there are so many opportunities for things to not work out the way that we had hoped or thought we can be moving along our lives innocently, putting one foot in front of the other, building a nest egg or even not able to build a nest egg just living one day to the next, being able to pay the rent and raise our kids, put a roof over our kids. And the bottom can drop out. And there's a lot of uncertainty today. And even when the book was written and this happened to Ray and Moth, the book was a number one bestseller, I think, as much as anything because of the identification.

Not just a beautiful, very, very poetically beautiful, extraordinary book, but also I think there was a lot of identification with the readers and it's a fear that many of us, many people have. But then they decide to do this walk, aside from anything else it seems, because they can't see what the next step in their life is going to be. And I think you're right, the reason why the book was a bestseller is because it challenges all of us to think what would we do in that situation. But there's a so much more complicated, Gillian, isn't it, because of Moth's illness? Well, they, yeah, so that same week they went to the hospital because Moth had a, and remember this is a true story, this is a memoir, so Moth went to the hospital because he'd had

a bad shoulder for some time and was told that actually he had a disease, that the shoulder was the result of the fact that he had a disease called CDT. In the moment that the bailiffs were at their doors and windows banging to get them and extricate them from their house within the same week that they received the diagnosis, RAY saw a book, they were hiding under the stairs, and RAY saw a book that was about the South Coast path. And she just thought it felt like a left line to her, that we have nowhere to go. None of our friends that we've reached out to have space. Lots of people are on holiday, we can't reach them. We have nowhere to go. All we have are the tents that we have under the stairs and we know this path and we'll figure it out if we get onto this path and put one foot in front of the other.

We will have time to process what has just happened and at least it's a thing. It's something that we can hold on to. We can hold on to the fact that, you know, at that juncture they hadn't necessarily decided that they were going to walk the 630 miles that they ended up walking down towards Land's End, from where they were at the mouth of the path, but that's what they did. And in the process of walking, they ended up, they processed, as you can imagine, the fury, the resentment, the anger about the injustice that had taken place. They also had two children, one was starting uni and one was just about to start a job in another country. And one of the things they contended with

aside from having very little money and sometimes needing to choose between putting money on their phone so that they could either make or receive a call from their kids or to their kids and eating. They somehow continued on this journey and sometimes that was pitching a tent in fields that, you know, belonged to landowners that were cross about the fact that they were pitching illegally and sometimes they pitched on the path because there was nowhere nearby that they could put a tent up and they were exhausted. Can I ask you a couple of other questions about some of your other bodies of work, which

is so interesting? The compilation of female sexual fantasy won. How did that first come about? I was told by my literary agent that I had been getting, after playing Jean Milburn in Sex Education, I had had some inquiries from publishers about whether I would do a book interviewing women about their sexual lives or as if I were Jean or some such. And she, I don't even know if she passed those on to me because she knew what my response would be. But then she had an idea. She had an idea because she came face to face with her mother's copy of My Secret Garden from 1973,

which was a book of anonymous letters written to the Nancy Friday, the author about their sexual fantasies. She'd put a call out to her community and had thought, what if we were to do the same thing in 2023 and put a call out and she thought that it might make sense or be interesting if it were me who did that and what it might tell us about women today and our internal voices, our internal yearnings, whether anything had changed from the seventies. Yeah. And so that's what we did. And it was fascinating and in the end, very successful. And have we changed? Not as much as I would have thought actually, to be honest. I think one of the things that I've spoken about quite a lot in doing press around it is the degree to which I was surprised by how much shame there still is and how difficult women find it, asking for what they want,

not just in fact in the bedroom, but also in life. And the conversation started about that. that. The book elicited many conversations, many thoughts, many women identifying with the fantasies and the letters and not feeling so alone in their own thoughts and fantasies, but also starting to question, do I actually ask for what I want? Do you know, am I complicit in not getting it? And if I don't ask why am I afraid? Or what is it about my partner that I'm afraid of or the conversation? Do I, am I, am I prudish in some way? Am I afraid? And then also other women who absolutely jumped from the bandwagon and thought, I know what it is. What do you imagine the future to be? Because undoubtedly we are in a right old pickle with the amount of misogyny that is coming at the modern woman. And I think for young girls, that belief in

their own sexual agency is perhaps even more complicated than it was for us when we were young, just because of the information that they're accessing might tell them a really horrible story about what some men are thinking of us. Yeah, I mean, that is in truth, a big part of why I agreed to do the book in the first place. And what I was hoping the conversations would be that this would open up even more and encourage young women of all ages, not just to contribute or to buy and to read and to ponder and to talk about, is so much, still in 2025, elicit so much shock and desire to whisper instead of yell. And, you know, it feels like a moment particularly as we seem to be being steered backwards, where at some point we just need to freely put our foot down and refuse to be steered backwards and be unapologetic about the degree to which

we deserve to and will take ownership of ourselves, our bodies, our narrative. That's kind of what this conversation is about. It's about what the book is about. It's about everything that I've been speaking about lately. I've got a drinks brand called G-Spot, which is a natural functional soft drink. And the narrative and marketing around that is the same thing. It's the same conversation.

Yeah. Put it on a shelf where everybody can reach it, is that the tagline for GSPORT? Yes, where everybody can reach it and goes to find it, but also encouraging the distributors, the suppliers, and the places that carry us and not be afraid to say the names themselves. Absolutely. Well, absolutely here, here to all of that.

Might the X-Files be coming back, Gillian? Oh, I don't know. I think Ryan Coogler is an incredible filmmaker and if anyone were to take it up, I would wish it to be Brian and I wish him all the best with it. And you know, more conversations later about whether it's right or the time for me or David to be involved in any way at all, but I'm all in favour of him taking up the mantle and doing the best with it that he can. Final question. You have played so many fantastic people in amazing roles. I wonder when people meet you in the street, who is it that they most want to talk to you about? Who do they most identify you with?

Oh gosh, it changes all the time. It's mostly Jean, Stella, Scully, Thatcher. It's quite a lot isn't it? Gillian Anderson, and if you want to see her and Jason Isaacs in the salt path, then you can do that at cinemas at the end of this month. Were you an X-Files fan, Jane? No. Right, were you a sex education fan, Jane? Not really.

Right, this is going well. I'm having to really dig deep into my... Have I read her erotica? Drinks party, small talk, cupboard. Imagine we were meeting for the cupboards. Have you read want? Her compilation of female fantasy? But I'm interested in what other people think of it because I know it's been wildly popular. It has, yeah. I mean it's I think it's it's been on the bestseller list for a long time. One of Gillian Anderson's fantasies is in there, anonymized, because she said she just doesn't want every single article about her forever more

to say, you know, Gillian Anderson, whose fantasy is blah blah blah revealed and want. But I think she's... I was going to say... What are you going to say? I'm looking forward to this. I was going to say. What are you going to say? I'm looking forward to this. I was going to say she's put her finger on the chair. Put her finger on the chair. Right, well, The Assault Path is out in a couple of weeks time. Hugely successful book by Rona Wynn. I'm interested while she composes herself in hearing from people who've done a lengthy walk like that. Well done. Either with a friend or a companion of another. Right, OK. Right, bye! Bye!

Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2-4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale and if you listen to this you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.