Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I've left my emotional voicemail on (with Prue Leith)

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

Jane and Fi have accidentally recommended a podcast they've never listened to, which gets them talking about seances, having a 'PBV friend' and losing your dicker.They're joined by Bake Off Judge Prue Leith to talk about The Times Health Summit, Sandi Toksvig's knitted friends and more.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yes, did you recommend the Ghost Story podcast? No, but lots of people have thanked me for recommending it. So I'm just going to say, well, it's absolutely fine. Well, I've downloaded it now on the strength of the recommendation you didn't make. And I'm going to listen to it. So the worrying thing is that there are some people who are really really certain that their favourite podcast recommended it

and that means you're listening to something else. But we're happy to just stay in your top three, that'll be okay. But yes, I'm going to download it too because the latest one that came in, it sounds like it's absolutely up our alley. I'm just writing to say that you must listen to the Ghost Story podcast.

It's great. I listened to the whole thing in one day over Christmas while doing my Christmas jigsaw, starting with tea and ending with wine. How big was the puzzle? I think that's probably maybe 1,000 pieces. I'd seen it recommended in top ten lists of 2023 podcasts in The Times, and I'm emphasising that because you then go on to say it's by a BBC journalist I'd seen it recommended in top 10 lists of 2023 podcasts in The Times. And I'm emphasising that because you then go on to say it's by a BBC journalist who's tracking down an old murder mystery in his family house, his wife's family.

It's gripping. I loved it. I really recommend. So we'll take that, Emily. I've got another one from Bonnie who says, I loved Ghost Story. It was Fee's recommendation. It wasn't, but anyway. There's no need to say that with quite so much relish. Enthusiasm. I don't usually listen to true crime or ghost stories.

But this one really was fascinating. I love the fact the presenter explored all angles, including a seance, family members, the police, and pathologists. What was even more fascinating was how little the family knew about the wonderful Dr Naomi Dancy. While I didn't reach a conclusion on what had happened I was satisfied to have the good doctor's contributions restored

as part of the wider Dancy family history. Okay it's got a bit niche there because neither of us know anything about it because we haven't heard a single episode yet. But we're both going to listen to it. Bono, thank you for your recommendation as well. Two intelligent people who say it's really good. And I don't know, it does say sounds fascinating. Most of us don't know all that much about our great, great, great grandparents, do we? No. Have you been to a seance?

No, but I do know people who do believe in them actually and I made a program once Jane about uh shared experiences that people had and we did do I saw a ghost and the incredible thing was I don't know whether you might have a kind of slightly stereotypical image in your mind of the type of people who might see ghosts I think a lot of people do and I think a lot of people is slightly kind of pejorative image as well that these people were completely different some of them have PhDs they were very rational people one was a one was a science person he was a physicist you know so that to me, the absolute need for fact,

you know, often precludes people from believing in the woo-woo. But they'd all definitely, definitely seen a ghost. Yeah. Describe them all. Well, I don't like to disbelieve. No, I'm not going to trample on other people's lived experiences because they're very real to them yeah and it's not halloween but i i'm a bit like you i i wouldn't dismiss all that sort of stuff in a hurry no i'd be scared to go to a seance though i wouldn't you know i'm quite happy to believe that people believe but i don't want it proved to me because that would be too freaky for me well if somebody contacted you from the other side. Yeah, I mean, genuinely.

I'd be all right to do it with someone from TalkSport. I don't want to be contacted. I've got my emotional human voicemail on for those messages. This one comes from Rachel. He says, Dear Jane and Fee, I have quite fair hair, but I have inexplicably many dark, thick chin and moustache hairs that need almost daily plucking plus a couple of rogues on my cheeks and necks perhaps I'm half yeti anyway one thing I've long worried about is that one day I'm incapacitated will it all just grow what would family and friends think if they came to visit

me and my true nature was revealed obviously there are much bigger things about that situation, but the hair is concerning. I have a pact with a similarly hirsute friend that in that situation will visit the other regularly with tweezers. But I think an extension of your dentist hair removal could be a sort of insurance policy for such circumstances. Rachel, I am totally, totally with you. On a previous podcast, Jane and I did discuss this and I have a PBV friend, which is a please bring VEET friend who is, if I were ever to slip into a coma, is going to come and do hair removal for me because it is one of the things and I'm with you, girlfriend. It's not the biggest thing about that situation other people

would be affected by me being in a coma but I'm worried about the hair so yes PBV and and we also did discuss the fact that that should be on a form somewhere so you can have DNR the do not resuscitate and you can have PBV just to alert people within the hospital environment that you'd like the occasional tweak. Right. Okay. How would they do it with tweezers? Well, I think so. I mean, I think you could specify how you'd want it. But I just think it's, I think a lot of people have had that thought. And it's one of those weird things, isn't it? In, you know, in the TV and the drama and the films, quite frequently when you see people in comas. They stay the same six months down the line in the drama

to how they were when they entered the hospital, and that's not the reality. Of course that can't be the reality, and it's wrong, Jane. I suspect after any time in a coma I'd look like Cat Weasel. That can't be the reality. And it's wrong, Jane. That needs to change. I suspect after any time in a coma, I'd look like Cat Weasel. Well, I can be your PBV friend, but you just have to alert me. You have to give me the permission. I don't know.

Do you want wax or a cream, love? I'm going to mull that one over. See, who would I... Which of my glittering arrays... Well, I think it says a lot, doesn't it? I've not asked you to be mine. I don't think... Well, I couldn't be trusted with a sharp implement. I don't think you could.

Helen says, after hearing your listener on Monday's episode discuss the lost art of stamping library books, I felt compelled to share with you a related story from my own childhood. My dear departed dad was a secondary school head teacher and one of the very few perks of his job was that he used to bring home unwanted school paraphernalia such as PE whistles gosh I mean the knights must have flown by in this household with PE whistles coming home every couple of weeks and various bits of stationery there were different days folks when schools did have spare stationery says Helen one time that sticks in my

memory is the wondrous afternoon he brought home for me, his then six-year-old daughter, a school library book, Stamper. I loved it. It quickly became a staple of my imaginative game, Libraries, where I would carry armfuls of books downstairs and arrange them onto every surface of the lounge, ready for my queue of dolls and teddies, eager to take out books such as Brambley Hedge or Enid Blyton. For some reason that I cannot fathom, I decided to dub said library stamper a dicker. I had three very much older brothers, in fact I still do but now they're really old, who as you can imagine found it really hilarious that I would occasionally shout downstairs to my poor mum, I can't find my dicker, who took my dicker? I loved my dicker. It's still the stuff of family folklore and I've kept many of the childhood games which have holes or huge marks on their first

pages where I'd obviously dickered them. Oh sorry, childhood books, I do apologise, which have holes or huge marks on their first pages where I'd officially dickered them in those long ago library games. Oh the innocence. Nearly 40 years on, I wish we had music here, my much-loved dicker has been lost in the sands of time. Instead, says Helen, I'm around, where are you Batesy, I'm around 50,000 words into a novel of my own. One day I truly hope somebody will dicker a copy of my book with my name on the cover once I stop having existential crises, plural,

about whether it's going to be good enough to be released onto an unsuspecting public. Helen, you carry on writing and it will be released. And it'll be, I think, right royally dickered when it comes out. What would the R tune be that would be played for our correspondent there? Would it go into Malick Street Preachers, Designed for Life, with the opening line, Libraries gave us power? Oh, gosh, power to the people.

It's true, though, in a way, isn't it? Yeah. Which is why I'd always oppose any cutbacks to libraries. Right okay sister. Pippa in Gloucestershire says hit us up. Thank you Pippa. I remember this mousse, whack ingredients in the blender, put in ramekins, those little dishes we've all got too many of in the 1980s, bung in the fridge, absolutely delicious, you need to use Campbell's consummate as it sets in the fridge you've got to remind people what this terrible terrible dish was can you remember it was snaffles mousse and apparently it featured in a letter to the times

yesterday uh margaret thatcher used to serve it she was known for a cuisine of course so it was Philadelphia cheese Philadelphia cheese, curry powder now it didn't specify mild medium or hot just curry powder and then an undiluted tin of beef consomme now I'm not even sure you can get do they exist still?

yes I think you can still get those someone will know Victoria says hearing about Maggie Thatcher's mystery starter brought back horrendous memories of my parents recreating the recipe as a lovely surprise for us at a family dinner on one of our visits. They kept saying, you'll never guess

what's in the bottom of the bowl. Absolutely disgusting. A real struggle to keep it down. All the while saying, oh my goodness, what an interesting starter. Wow, Philadelphia, who would have thought? Me and my sister still talk about it. It was served to all of us on separate occasions. I think my parents thought it was the height of sophistication.

It still brings back a feeling of nausea. But the good news is that Victoria has often felt that she'd like to chip into the podcast and it's taken Maggie's mystery starter to encourage her. I do, do you know what? It sounds absolutely disgusting, Jane, but I do love those very simple kind of, you know, three ingredient recipes. My mum had one for a kind of sherry, a pudding thing.

Oh, yeah. That was cream whipped to which you added a lot of sherry like half a bottle and then you lined up lots of ginger nuts oh yeah in a loaf yeah and you spread all of the gooey creamy sherry stuff on and the ginger nuts kind of sink into it all you put it in the fridge and then you get it out and slice it and that was a pudding highly recommended yeah it was quite something i mean really really quite something what was the overwhelming was it ginger was it alcohol alcohol i just calories yep no i just remember it being i mean the kind of pudding that you know as a child would make you probably drunk it's a lot because obviously you're not burning off the alcohol. What was it called? I don't know. Do you want to phone my mum

and ask? I honestly don't know. Creme a la piss, I don't know. Creme a la ginge, surely. That sounds even worse. Oh shit, it does? God. I'm sure you can get something for it. Right, this is from a listener who wants to talk about

self-checkouts. I don't like the self-checkout. I'd like to be served by a human, but then I'm an old fart. This correspondent says, I used to regularly visit my supermarket in our quiet market town early every Wednesday for my weekly shop. It was quiet at that time of day, and it was always the same and indeed only person on the checkout. The lady was convinced she knew me.

She had apparently known my husband years ago, but I had no recollection of her. And she was always overly familiar, telling me all about her medical complaints, commenting on my shopping, and even questioned why I wasn't at work. Like all good comedy, a Carolina Hearn sketch, it was based on truth.

I don't remember that Carolina Hearn sketch. Did she have one about a checkout? We talked about this yesterday. Are you all right? I don't think I am. I do. Did she have one about a checkout? We talked about this yesterday. Are you all right? I don't think I am. I do remember now. Do you remember now? Yes.

So it was just Caroline Hearn at the checkout, and she would just make a facetious and funny comment about every single item that went through. And it was very good. I might try and dig it out and put it on the Insta. I did. Okay, I'm back in the room. Our correspondent says says it got to

the point where i simply had to change my weekly routine and my shopping day as i couldn't bear the thought of having this uncomfortable interaction every week even if there were other checkouts open she'd spot me and call me over to her or open her till up especially for me i breathed a huge sigh of relief when scanning the shopping on the mobile phone became a thing at my supermarket. And I was an enthusiastic and early adopter of the practice. Please don't use my name, she says. As you'll see, I could fairly easily be identified. Yes. OK, I see your point. Right. OK, well, sorry to hear about your trouble at the checkout. And I think I do think it's one of those it's very awkward and British isn't it when

you meet someone who thinks they know you and you don't know whether they do or not but you strongly suspect they've just got it wrong and they persist in interacting with you interaction is difficult enough for most British people interacting with people that they don't know is a really big ask but don't you find that quite often you can't place the person who you know you know so you do that slightly kind of digging around conversation while you're trying to get a kind of a handle on where it might be. Where it might be in my life that I came across them. Because I find it happens more and more especially because you know you do interview quite a lot of people in this line of work and sometimes because we see a lot of people

on Zoom so that doesn't make the same kind of recognition impression as it quite a lot of people in this line of work and sometimes because we see a lot of people on zoom so that doesn't make the same kind of recognition impression as it should do in real life so then if you ever do bump into them in real life i find that quite a kind of hazy connection i can't really i can't quite remember who they are and what they do but if i've interviewed them in person i you can i probably can. I have had some embarrassing encounters where I met people socially I'd interviewed weeks before and I just didn't remember.

Well, you couldn't even remember yesterday. I can't, no, I can't. Like two minutes ago. Now be quiet, I'm going to read something out about the archers. This listener goes to sleep every night listening to us and the archers. Do you play them both at once? That would be quite complicated, wouldn't it?

I wonder which one she plays first. Who cares? The archers. Do you play them both at once? That would be quite complicated, wouldn't it? I wonder which one she plays first. Who cares? The archers or us. Anyway, just been listening to today's podcast and following recent chat about the lack of human-operated checkouts, I asked in two supermarkets local to me, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, why they have just gone. Apparently it's because they just can't get the staff.

I'm not really sure what to say about this. In my experience of having student children, there are always young people after part-time jobs, and they always seem to have copious numbers of staff filling shelves. Yes, there do seem to be staff in the shops, although not as many as there used to be. And you know when you want something in particular, I sometimes find it quite difficult to locate a member of staff

who might assist me in my quest. Maybe you need to ask more nicely. I'm always super polite. I needed a particular brand of polygrip for my mother the other day and it was completely out of stock. And I, you know, that is, that's the fixative dental thing. It was very difficult. Anyway, didn't get it. In disgrace. Let her down.

Let my family, whole family down. It's miserable. We're having quite a lot of very interesting correspondence about living in expat communities and also what to do when you find yourself in a new place and you're a bit lonely and you can't find your tribe. So this one comes in from Australia. Hello team, I emigrated to Australia with my family at 47. It was hard initially to think about oneself and friendships and a whole family is going through separation

and the same thing, obviously putting the children first. And I totally agree that when you emigrate, the expat community takes you in. It's because we all know what it feels like, as we do, to grieve relationships, parental sibling, lifelong friends. But in Sydney's eastern suburbs, there are many feeling the same. And what happens is that all the barriers seem to go down. We have what's called Orphan Christmas, which means if you're not going home and your family isn't coming here here groups of people gather to celebrate together and if you ever see an orphan you pick them up and in they come and our correspondent goes on to say on to the next topic of your lovely lady who's so smart and has tried all sorts i totally agree that you need to say more i left my lifelong friendships and i knew that there was

no way i was settling for boring blokes can Can you see what I've done here? People might think this is from a woman, but it's not. It took me three to four years to find my tribe. In my first Christmas, I found myself Aussie-style on the back porch with the menfolk. The talk was of mobile phone plans, their data and their cost. Hashtag not all men. No, hashtag not all men. That was the spur I needed to dig in. Hunt out interesting people.

Ask key questions immediately. Whatever to sort the potential friends from the hard nose. I'm 13 years in and I have my tribe. It's still not as big as my UK tribe, who have remained steadfastly loyal and still turn up every year. But it's enough. Tell your listener you have to kiss a lot of frogs. Be honest.

Say what you're looking for. Invite people around a lot. There will be rejection. But there's always someone in a local tribe who's bored with the sameness. And you become a chance for them too. Super point at the end. Because there is bound to be somebody in the group at Zumba or the WI or the Ramblers Association or whatever. Who's actually thinking, God, we could do some new blood here.

And you might be just the ticket. So, Andrew, thank you very much indeed for writing that. And I hope you don't mind that I started off on a pretense just to see if I could catch anybody. I've never heard that expression, orphan Christmas. No. And I guess, you know, there'll be people doing that all over the world, won't there?

Yeah, there will be. Can I just briefly return to supermarkets? Because we've got a good guest. It's Dame Prue Leith today um listening to the supermarket checkout discussion reminded me of an incident in my local supermarket morrison's in chroma how wonderful chroma haven't been there for a while but it's very very bracing i think would you pick chroma possibly as britain's most archetypal seaside resort or town or old school. Am I being unfair?

I don't, I mean, I'm sure it's got its bijou boutiques and artisanal products and flat whites. I'm just going to let you dig this. I wish I had started this stuff about Cromer now. I'm not joining in. We welcome Cromer. Lovely place. Marie is We welcome Cromer. Lovely place. Marie is there in Cromer. I was so

glad when my local checkout person in Morrison's in Cromer didn't comment on the contents of the elderly man's basket who was in front of me, as it contained amongst other things, a tin of cocker leaky soup and some incontinence pants. I sometimes wish, says Marie, that I wasn't quite so observant.

Yeah, I've had moments like that, Marie. But, you know, it will all be incontinence pants sooner or later, I suspect. I'm not a fan of coccolichi. What is it? Is that chicken and leek? Yes, I think so. Yes. Yep. I thought I'd like a chicken and leek pie,

so I don't know why I wouldn't like a chicken and leek soup I've said it before, I'll say it again I do not like savoury things encased in pastry OK You're flying low, love Again, these genes are bust Actually, I picked the wrong moment to sort that out because there's a group of observers outside

I wonder what kind of podcast this is okie dokie shall we move on to prulie yes uh it was lovely to see her today uh she was in at times towers because the times newspaper has been conducting a health commission so this is a year-long inquiry into the state of the health service and the health of the nation that then reports in the paper. You can read all about it. It's not behind a paywall and comes up with suggestions from the people that have been interviewed.

And it's done in an incredibly thorough way. Rachel Sylvester, the journalist, has led the Education Commission and now the Health Commission. And one of the people whose expertise she's been dipping into is Prue Leith. So in case you don't know who Prue Leith is, she's the founder of Leith's Restaurant and Cookery School. She did that back in the 1970s in London. And she's gone on to have a hugely successful business career in food. She's also written eight novels along the way a memoir

and 14 cookbooks and we now know and love her as the jewellery bidet judge of Bake Off she always has a twinkle in her eye and she's quite saucy isn't she she always as well I think dresses brilliantly in a kind of characterful way and she did tell me I can't remember when it was but I interviewed her and she just said, wear bright colours. You know, older women do tend to shy away from bright colours. Why? Why not just, well, I know, but I did pay attention because I did buy a bright yellow coat after I'd spoken to her. I don't wear it very often.

But I do think she's got a point. Why don't we just go for the colour? Because she does and it really serves her well. Yeah, well, you're speaking my language. I've come dressed as a traffic light today. Prue's also been vociferous about the need as she sees it for a change in our attitudes on laws on assisted dying.

We do get on to talk about that later on in the interview. But we started by asking her how she would solve this nation's obesity crisis. Well, I think the best way to solve the obesity crisis is to start with children, A, because they are the ones who are getting obese the fastest, the section that really is in difficulty and going to get worse. So I think we need to do three things,

and the report gives quite a lot of this, and I think they should go a little bit further, but my main thing is that the government already does three things that if they did it all over the country instead of in tiny little bits would make a huge difference. Free school meals, for a start, if they just made universally free school meals, that would be good.

Up to the age of? All the way through school. 18? I would have it all the way through school. But that might be too expensive. And in fact, what this report suggests is for children on universal credit. So, free school meals make a difference.

You know, there's a scheme called the HALF scheme, which is holiday activity, something or other. And that's absolutely brilliant where it works, but it's in tiny patches, you know, it needs to be right across the country. And it's, you take schools in fairly deprived areas or where there are a lot of preschool meal children, and you turn the school in the holidays into a kind of community hub and it belongs to the parents so the parents come in they've got somewhere to go they get a decent meal they um there are cooking lessons children have sports and general activities because one of the problems we have in holidays is not only the children are going hungry,

it's that they are in the street. There's nowhere else for them to go and there's no club or anything. So I think if you extended that, it would be terrific. Do you think that the government needs to take a much firmer line on tax interventions? So on sugar tax, on fat taxes. I honestly think the only way we will make it acceptable

for people who basically, not to put too much, it sounds a bit dismissive and I don't mean to be rude, but there are a large section of society basically lives on junk. And it's not their fault, because they never learned to cook at school, they never learned to love good food. And they've always had handheld street food, and the children even more so. So I think the real answer is what Henry Dimbleby suggested in his food strategy, which was that you tax sugar and salt very heavily

but you tax it at the wholesale level so it's not that you're taxing the junk food but you're taxing the manufacturers who make it. So if they want to put in a huge amount of sugar, that chocolate bar will cost more.

If they put in less sugar reformulate their candy bar or whatever it is it'll be more healthy but yes it'll mean that people who can least afford it are going to be without the cheap food that they're used to or at least it's going to be more expensive for them to buy it but hen Henry's idea was that the tax would raise around about three billion pounds a year and that would be enough to do all the things that I've been talking about, to do the holiday activities at school, to give more money to people who really need it,

to help them buy more healthy food, to be able to afford food that they otherwise couldn't afford, to do a whole lot of interventions that would make that transition from junk food to more healthy food more acceptable interventions the key word isn't it and certainly it then forms part of quite a long-standing debate within the Conservative Party about whether or not you are being nanny-statish if you intervene. But actually, I mean, it's true, isn't it, that Henry Dimbleby left his position advising the government because he wanted to be a more firm advocate asking them to intervene more. And his point is interesting, isn't it, that actually a

lot of people do want intervention because we've got to the stage of not understanding what food is doing. So would you support all of that? I would. And I don't know why we're all so frightened of the idea of a nanny state. Of course, we don't want a sort of Putin-style dictatorship.

But we don't object to the nanny state insisting that our children learn maths at school. Why would we object to schools having an obligation to teach children to love healthy food? It would save the nation a fortune. It would make the children happier. They'd live longer. I don't think people would object to that. I think sometimes you need a nanny. You know, if the parents can't or don't know how to feed their children properly, maybe they need a nanny. The parents as much as the children. I think this nanny state nonsense is nonsense. It's just an excuse for not doing something. You clearly passionately believe in a sugar tax. I don't

think Keir Starmer is very keen on it. The Conservative government haven't done anything about it. Who is going to impose the sugar tax? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm hoping that Keir Starmer will think again because it is... I don't know how else you're going to get the money to do the things you need to do

if you take away the ability to buy cheap food. And we can't go on eating nothing but junk. One of the points I think you raised, which I think is really important, is that some people want an any state. And actually, a lot of manufacturers want this sort of regulation because they don't want to be the first in to make a healthy bar that's going to cost more money because they will lose out but if everyone's doing it everybody has to right so there's a real benefits a lot of regulation would be welcomed by the industry and they won't say that aloud but when you talk to them individually they say well you know if the government makes us then we'll have to do it and you know when when i was chair of the school food trust we got the

government to ban fizzy drinks from schools the number of people who walked into my office from the industry saying but you know you can't do that children Children love Coca-Cola. They love this, that, that. And we went ahead and did it and managed to get it done. And what happened? Those companies immediately started thinking, well, we only allowed 5% of any sugar. And the result was they all reformulated those drinks. And that, do you remember, there was an explosion of drinks that were sort of basically water,

slightly flavoured, slightly flavoured drinks. And everybody got on the back of it, everybody did it, and they were very quickly making more money by selling basically water than they had been by the fizzy drinks full of sugar. So with the Times Health Commission, which you've been part of today, it's being held in this hallowed building, in floors way more important, far higher than the floor that we're on. Who's been nodding away on panels and in the audience and witnessing the things that are being talked about who could actually affect change? Well, what was interesting

is we had both the shadow health minister and the current health secretary so west streeting and victoria yes exactly and um i was rather impressed with them both i've always been impressed with victoria because i think she's quite a punchy politician and when she was her husband is the man in charge of he works for the sugar industry doesn't he does he oh god i didn't know that well yeah no reason not to be impressed by her but you know it's a factor well i have yeah well chris made the very interesting point that you cannot deal with anybody who you cannot get anywhere if you think you can do something in partnership with any of these big companies because however much they'd like to at the top do the right thing,

in the end it's their shareholders and the money that talks and they never manage to deliver. So he's all for just, he says the same as I do, actually they wouldn't mind it if it was across the board. Yeah, tell them all what to do.

Tell them all what to do and then they don't mind so much that they're... Prue Leith is our guest as well as her thoughts about food and health. Prue has also often spoken about her wish to see the laws about assisted dying change in the UK and she's travelled to

Oregon with her son, who's the Tory MP Danny Kruger, to make a documentary on the subject because Danny's views are very different to hers. Prue, while we have you here, can we tap into some of your other areas of interest and expertise, particularly on assisted dying, where I know that you have quite strongly held beliefs about the need for this country to change its laws. What do you think needs to be in place to assuage the fears of people who think that any assisted dying will make more vulnerable people more vulnerable?

I do think it's a serious question. And I do think we need really strong safeguards. But the comfort I take is that, for example, in Oregon, they've had an assisted dying. They legalized assisted dying over 25 years ago. And they have never had a problem. It is quite narrow. And you could say it's discriminatory in a way because you can only apply for an assisted death

if you are dying anyway you know you're um you've been diagnosed that you will be dead within a year um you have to be over 18 and you have to be of sound mind and that seems to have really worked i mean they've never had a case of somebody coming forward saying you know know, my uncle was bullied into asking for an assisted death. He didn't really want to die, but, you know, the family wanted his money or something. So I think it's slightly scaremongering. But I do think that there is another danger, which we have to be very aware of and it's a sort of more recent danger which is and we have to be very careful cultures can change and i did a documentary with my son daniel who's a who's an mp and he's very against my he's quite on the other side he is totally

against the idea of assisted dying for these reasons because he thinks that maybe vulnerable people would find themselves forced into it. But when we were in Canada, we had a discussion with some people about the change in culture that could happen. If the NHS, let's just, I'm just talking completely, I'm not saying for a minute this is happening

or even is likely to happen but i do think there's a danger that it perhaps could and that's that the bean counters in the nhs who are always strapped for cash and need to save money if they looked at assisted dying versus long-term care in hospital, they would realize that knocking people off is the cheapest thing you could possibly do. Well, they would never say that, but perhaps it could become part of the discussion. When you invited people,

would you like the option of death? Well, I think you'd have to have something in place like you never ask the patient. There's in place like you never ask the patient. There's a protocol that you never ask the patient if they'd like to die. It must come from them or from them and their family or something. Maybe. We have to think about that. And when I said to Daniel, look, this would never happen.

This is England. You know, we would never, you know, nhs is all about caring and loving and it wouldn't it wouldn't happen and he said well you know in germany in the 1930s a good proportion of the population of germany and germany was let's admit it germany was one of the most civilized educated i mean it produced the most amazing philosophers it was an amazingly civilized, educated. I mean, it produced the most amazing philosophers. It was an amazingly civilized state. And yet a good proportion of their population got behind the idea that you should kill all Jews, all gypsies, all disabled people, all black people.

But it is an unpalatable but an unquestionable truth that people are living longer, dying more slowly of more complicated things and only yesterday we were talking weren't we about raising the possibility of raising our pension age to 71 for people born after the april of 1970 um we've got to confront this stuff so you're absolutely right i think we need to have some deeply uncomfortable public conversations don't we we do and we and also we need to realize that yes we are living well actually the um longevity is slightly stalled we're now not living quite as long as we were you know because we're obese

of course we're obese but but our health in old age has deteriorated tremendously. We are living much longer, but a much more unhealthy life. And of course, medicine has got incredibly expensive because there are all these wonderful things you can have done and scans and medical attention is very, very expensive. So yes, old people are costing the country a fortune and what we need to do is make sure that they stay healthy. So one of the recommendations in this report,

which I really like, is the idea of a digital health account that you are a response, you know. It won't work for everybody because some people can't, really can't get on with their phones is the long and the short of it. I'm nearly one of them.

Sometimes I want to throw the bloody thing out the window. We've all been there. But I think if we could free up doctors because people can book their appointments online just like you can book your hairdresser online and you can see your own health status and you can see your own health status and you can be responsible for your own health. I just think that that idea of putting responsibility,

making, not just booking appointments, but seeing test results. And it is strange, isn't it, that our phone can often tell us so many things about our health from apps we've downloaded or not downloaded. You know, mine tells me how many, you know, steps I've taken, how much I've slept, all that kind of stuff.

And that's odd. A lot of that could be... It's a commercial activity, not an NHS activity. It's personalised. And if you think of, you know, organisations like Zoe, which at the moment are rather expensive, but you can have your blood monitored all the time and then told, look, lay off the cheese or the cream

or don't eat broccoli or something. Or don't have a magnificent celebration cake. Yes, exactly. Yes, and we can't let you go without just a couple of nods to Bake Off. Will you stay with Bake Off just as long as you possibly can do you still love it i do still absolutely love it i don't want to stay so long that i fall over on the you know i just don't want to make a fool of myself and i don't want to be there beyond when i'm really enjoying it and the public like me and i think i'm not really perhaps in the best

position to say when I've got there because you know very many old ladies who still think that they are absolutely on it. Can I say it's mainly old men who think that far fewer older ladies let's be honest about that please so you'd like someone to just tap you on the shoulder

I think my children might or my husband but I do still love it, and I'm enjoying it. And I'm going to have... Can I give a quick plug to my new show? Yes, you can. I can? You can always cut it out. Crew, we're going to leave it in.

On the 24th of this month, there's going to be... Starts my new series, which is for ITV, and it's called Prue Leith's Cotswold Kitchen. Is it set in the Cotswold? It's set in my kitchen. It's genuinely in my kitchen. Is it?

Yes, it's really in my kitchen. That's good. So it's not a fake kitchen. It's not a fake kitchen. It's my kitchen. And it's been such fun because it's a 10-week series and it took two weeks to film. And I can't tell you the joy of just being woken up by Bambi,

who's done my make-up for years, knocking on the door with a cup of tea at 8 o'clock in the morning and saying, get up, it's time for make-up. You know, everybody's downstairs working. Instead of having to get up at quarter to five and drive to Pinewood or something to film Bake Off. So I really loved working at home. Well, that does sound pretty kushti.

Can I just ask, were you slightly upset by Sandy Toksvig saying that Bake Off bored her? She basically made her brain atrophy because it was watching, literally watching Meringue's Drive. Watching Meringue's Drive. Yes. She's so funny, Sandy. She was on my programme. We had an absolute hoot. She's try. Watching meringue's try. Yes. She's so funny, Sandy. She was on my programme.

She was just, we had an absolute hoot. She's lovely. No, I wasn't upset by it because, of course, I understand it. I mean, Sandy is one of the cleverest women you'll ever meet. But you're clever. But I didn't have to do, you know what I, you think what I do in Bake Off. I walk on, I eat cake, I tell them what I think of it,

I walk off and I get paid. I mean, I don't have to. You're clever. You've got that job. And I spend hours on my own. I've written two books in my, no books in my bake-off time and and actually i don't believe sandy was really bored with bake-off because although she had you see the thing is the presenters have more time with the bakers and i'm so good grace i'd quite like that i i enjoy it but so you know but i i don't think Sandy was so bored

because she and I shared a wonderful green room in this posh house, which was where we filmed Beckhoff, which was in the library. And so we had the most wonderful selection of books. And she would do, you know, she knits little figures and dresses them beautifully.

Did you know she's a knitter? Which she sells for charity. So she made lots of those. She wrote a few scripts. She did a lot of other things. I mean, I can see that for some people, as clever as Sandy, watching meringue dry is perhaps a bit heavy. But I think she just liked the joke.

I don't think she was really bored. Prue Leith talking about her ex-colleague Sandy Toksvig and saying, really, that Sandy kind of had four different jobs while she was on the payroll of just one job and that is clever. Yeah. I didn't know she was a knitter, Sandy. Did you not?

No, neither did I. I didn't have a down for a knitter no well maybe that's something that i could get you for christmas i could buy at presumably an extortionate rate because some of the money would go to charity uh one of her little knitted dolls would you like that no okay i wouldn't back to the drawing board for me when my big birthday comes up in june fee i don't want that. Do you know what? It's so tempting to now buy that. Please, please don't do that.

Okay. I can't. As you know, I love charity. Yes. And there's no bigger fan of Sandy Toxin. But I don't want one of her small knitted objects. I really don't. I'd like a boat or a pony.

Do you know what? The more you say it, the more you're going to get one. I know what I'm doing on my tube journey home. And what charity would you like me to donate the money to? I love so many charities that it's impossible to pick one. OK. Do you know the name of a charity? Just think of one. Quick, quick, quick. It's very unfair.

And it would be unfair to all the other charities. Okay. Right, we're at Chain of Feet on the Instagram. We're going to put up a copy of the book before the end of the week. We're going to put a copy of the book next to one of Jane's apples. And you'll understand why we're going to do that when you see the picture. The book's dying yeah it's small even even i think it's short it arrived what it's a rip off this

no i didn't think that but uh but jane does have huge apples that's true right thank you for uh indulging us uh and keep the emails coming because there's an email special which we're recording tomorrow but will be made available on Friday so there is time if you want to shoehorn bustle your way in to the email special tomorrow jaydenfee at times.radio good night You did it. Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings. Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We missed the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer.

It's a man, it's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at three o'clock, Monday until Thursday, every week, and you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day, as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and

entertaining guests on all sorts of subjects. Thank you for bearing with us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon.