Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Just don't strap your penis to a ballpoint pen (with Ben Macintyre)

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

You join us mid-conversation – no prizes for anyone who can guess what Jane is referring to... After that, Jane and Fi move on to walking in non-motion, AI friendships, what the youth are reading, and a scolding email about their Crittall window IGNORANCE! Plus, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre discusses his latest book, Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy. We're taking suggestions for our new book club! And the new playlist 'Hunker Down' is open... You can buy tickets to the Cheltenham Literature Festival here: www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/jane-garvey-and-fi-glover-with-anneka-rice You can check out our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffAirWithJaneAndFiOur most asked-about book is called The Later Years by Peter Thornton.If you want to contact the show, ask a question or get involved in the conversation, please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just drink vitro juice and ginger. My God. No trouble. You do not want to know what we're giggling about. No, you don't. No. I'll tell you one of the best things I've ever invested in, Jane, was when I brought a new sofa,

this will be of interest to you, I did tick the box for the anti-stain fibre. Oh, yeah. Thingy, Majiggy, What's it? And it came, it's come into its own many, many times. It really came into its own. the night before last, when Nancy... How much do we need to know about what happened?

Not very much. But it's remarkable, actually. We will still be able to use a sofa that previously we would not have been able to use if I hadn't tick the box for the anti-stain fibres or whatever it is. I just highly recommend it. I'm sure some people will say it's made of terrible things and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, no, I'd still say to take it. Because let's just be honest, sofas are quite the investment.

I mean, they're not cheap. I know that you can get cheaper ones, but if you get a one that is likely to see you out, and I think that now about products. Oh, no, no, definitely. I want a lifetime thing. Yes, yeah, absolutely. And also I don't want something that then is going to attract lots more pets

by its scent to think of it as, you know, a litter tray rather than a sofa. So it is of importance in our household that it lasts stain-free. I just pass that on to people. You might think that it's not worth it. It is. We probably need to announce the update. Funnily enough, a greyhound features in the book I discussed yesterday. Louise Kennedy's book, Stations, has a greyhound character. Another reason you would enjoy that book, you should read it.

But how is she doing? She is definitely entering her final phase, Jane. So, I mean, I won't make too much of it because, you know, there are other people going through worse pains in life. I mean, you're going through one yourself with an actual. actual real human being who's very dear to you. But when you know that things won't ever get any better and it's about just having a nice time now,

you're just in a different phase. The odd sort of accident is not the end of the world. No, we just get on with it. It's just, it's not her fault. She doesn't want it to happen. So there we go. But she is lovely and just so slow. So when we go for a walk,

she's okay on the way down to London Fields, but we quite often have to sit down for a bit. And when we walk back, It is so slow. You know, sometimes when you see kids walking to school and they don't want to go to school, they're walking so slowly it almost defies gravity that they're staying upright. Somehow they manage. It's just almost non-motion, but there is some motion.

And, yes, Nancy has taken on that kind of comedically slow walk. She's actually very frustrating. Yes, okay. Especially for a bustler. Oh, God, yes. She's really holding you back. Because, you know, I was on the escalator behind Ed Faisie the other day. So he's a slow walk.

Oh, my, it's bumbling. I mean, just absolutely bumbling. He was on the, he's doing ages to get on to the escalator. I thought he was a very old person. I almost offered him some help. I saw it was Ed Faisy. I just marched past him. But honestly, Ed Faisy, just speed up a bit.

Well, it's all the self-doubt, you see. It holds him back. It means you just can't walk. It's quickly. Very hard. I can't compete with Nancy News. I can tell you about the Fox family who are increasingly dear to me in East West Kensington

and this morning there was one asleep on the roof of the shed as there often is when I came down and I think it was either the mummy or the daddy of the group and they sort of came to and started getting themselves together than making a few stretching movements

seem to be in a bit of pain and I thought my God it reminds me of myself because basically now you get up in the morning and the first thing you do is go oh I was just about to ask if the foxes we're having a massive itch. Do you do that too?

I don't have an itch, but I do... Oh, I just sort of wake up that what's, okay, what's hurting today? There's always something, isn't there? Usually the small of my back. Okay, well, get a different mattress. You shouldn't be full of aches and pains at 62, love. No, I think it's just...

I've never quite recovered from hauling my suitcase up the stairs of the... What do they call the underground in France? Metro. The Metro. It's never been quite the same since late June. Well, I'll go and see... Yes, I probably do need to.

An osteopath? Yeah. That's the right one. But what I am seeing is I'm going to Pilates tomorrow morning, 8 o'clock. So let's hope that just loosens me up a bit. Right. Can we talk crital windows? Yes, let's.

Very firm. We do, both Fia and I are the sort of people who we pretend to be mavericks, but I think on the whole, we didn't really like being told off that much. I used to get bright red in the face if anyone told me off at school. Jane, I mean, of all of the things to not have the absolute spot on answer to, I remain a little unconcerned that it was critter windows. I had a good stab. It was a frame. It's a frame. I thought you knew the answer. I thought it was me that didn't know what they were.

No, it's a frame. And the bit that I'd left out was for glass. I think that's the important thing to know. But no, we've been properly shown up. Well, I should say, Chavonne, first of all, just says, just writing as I listen and catch up. Crittle is a type of steel window frame, quite often grid-like, popular and common on Victorian to 1920s old London factory buildings. Chavon says they're beautiful, in my opinion. Thank you, Chavon, for your... expertise. However, Karen takes a slightly firmer. She certainly does. Dear, oh dear you two, what is wrong with your general knowledge?

Listen, I would actually say, Karen, that between the two of us, we'd be pretty bloody useful in a pub quiz team. Do you know what? In our small defence, we cover a lot of ground every day. We don't know everything. But I, for one, know the name of the World Cup final referee in 1974.

Go, go, go, what's the name? Jack Taylor. Thank you. Go, Jack Taylor. Go Jack Taylor. Can we check that, actually? So I also, I know other useless stuff. And you know stuff that's both useless and useful.

Oh, mostly useless. Yeah. But no, I couldn't call to mind exactly what Crittal referred to. The thing that I was really struggling was why it's called Crittal. So is it a person? Oh, yeah, could be. Or is it a style? But anyway, Karen's livid with us.

If you don't know what Crittal windows are, do some blooming research. Before you air, your ignorance, please. More and more I'm astounded by your lack of knowledge You can't have been listening for long, Karen Anyway, it turns out my info about the World Cup final Men's World Cup final of 1974 was correct Thank you, Eve, thank God for that Yes, thank God for that

Yeah, we're not really here for the detail I mean, I think We're here for the vibes I think if you're after really incisive intellectual input Just in the wrong podcast, Karen, so please bear with us. We're trying to make do with what we've been given and sometimes

it doesn't stretch that far. Thank you very much indeed for all of your playlist suggestions. So Fiona in Berwick not North Berwick suggests Autumn by Paolo Natini and actually Fiona she's got a little bit of a tick

on as well. She says Fee I had you down as a fellow Republican but you've morphed into Fee Jenny Bond Glover. She really hasn't. How could you? I say move them all to Balmoral where they can live in peace and let's have a lovely president like Catherine Connolly in Ireland

or like the poet they had before her up the Republic. Fiona, please, please don't be in any doubt at all. I very much still veer towards the Republican camp. I think in this instance my only defence of the royals is maybe to just understand what might have been meant by what was apparently said in a non-gossoping, non-goolish way but no, please don't worry.

I would love William actually to just say, enough's enough. I've got way more than I can ever spend in my lifetime or my children's lifetime. The nation can have it. Good people can look after it. We will go and kind of downsize and live a small or more contained life. I think that would be fine. Have you read, I didn't read it, the book that Sue Townsend wrote about the royal family ending up or the late queen ending up on a council estate.

Oh, I do remember it, and I never read it, I remember it. I wonder if anyone has read that, and they can let us know, because I think that was at the time considered rather a bold concept for a novel. But well done to Sue for having the idea and pursuing it. I met Sue Tanzan once at the Hay Festival years and years ago, and she was a lovely person. I thought she was great. She was, of course, the author of Adrian Moll,

and they gave people such pleasure those books. as I continue to be royal gossip adjacent and I'm not going to pretend otherwise doesn't mean I'm like you I keep saying this I'm just boggled by the lack of interest in their money how they've acquired it how they spend it why they've got so much I just don't get why so many people just go

oh that's alright and is it I don't know I don't think it's alright at all and it's sometimes used isn't it well it's always used as the kind of balance on the other end of the seesaw that actually we're kind of people justify by gulping and gossiping about them because they've got so much money.

But as we seem to be learning more and more, that's not going to protect you from the shit that's flying around. I mean, it might mean that your drive is longer and you've got more security detail or whatever it is. But as a human being, you're not doing particularly well. Well, I mean, just be more normal. You might actually be happier. Well, they were wheeled out last night again,

weren't they, with their showbiz pal, Tom Cruise. I have to say, have you seen those posters for Tom Cruise's new film? What is Tom Cruise's new film? It's called Digger. And apparently it's about, and to be fair to Tom, he's a man known for his youthful appearance. Is it about construction work? I very much hope so. He plays a gentleman in a cowboy hat who I think is going to try and save the world.

But I don't know how, because obviously I haven't seen the film. But he's aged up for the poster. and it's quite an impressive prosthetic he's wearing. He does look absolutely ancient. Oh, so this is the publicity's done where he's gone open-shirted, hasn't he? Well, yeah, it was the premiere of the film, I think, last night. So he had a shirt done up for that? He had his shirt very, he looked immaculate, as he always does, to be fair to Tom,

on the red carpet. He looked absolutely lovely. But yes, he's been on the cover of one of those men's magazines bearing his chest. And some people, to be fair to them, I thought some of the criticism of that was a bit OTT. I mean, it's a bit hard to argue. argue that he looks anything other than good for his age. But some people were appalled by him bearing his chest. But I mean, do he, is there a rule that says after 60,

men cannot bear their tors in public? I'm trying to think of older torsos I've known and seen. And like, can you come back to me on that? The thing about Tom Cruz is, he is a good actor, isn't he? I mean, I'm not much of a judge, as you know, Jungle Cruz, it remains my favourite film of all time. I love going to the cinema. And a great film of Tom Cruise's was born on the 4th of July,

which, I mean, is an incredibly moving and powerful film about Vietnam War veterans. I don't think the man's a bad actor. No, one of my favourite films of all time is The Firm. Yeah, there you do. Which we go back to actually about once a year to watch it. And I thought he was lovely in Jerry Maguire. I'm a bit old-school Tom Cruise.

The one where he pretended to be Irish with Nicole Kidman was not a good film. So actually I'm in danger as ever. I think everybody's allowed a couple of turkeys. But he did all his mission impossible things. I never really bought it. I'm not a huge fan of the action movies. I'm not a bit too years.

But people seem to believe that he made that hugely, hugely watchable because he was a bit more than just action hero. But wasn't that one of those franchises that ended up because it was just so big around the world, only having about five lines of dialogue in it so that you could watch it in... Whoever you were. South Korea, Japan, Mexico, here, the Netherlands.

So he only said a couple of things, which I suppose makes acting easier. I'm just going to shoehorn in a reference to our guest in this podcast if you're interested in geopolitics and the world of espionage, which we were loosely speaking about their... Horn away. Thank you. The guest in this edition of the podcast is the King

of spy lit, I guess, Ben McIntyre. He's really always very interesting and his new book is about a Russian agent of KGB who defects to the West in Tehran in the 1980s and he does it because,

well one of the reasons he does it, he is disenchanted with the Soviet regime, I should say, but he has got erectile dysfunction and that's not funny. It's not funny for men. It's not much fun for women either when it happens. But honestly, it was one of the reasons why he wanted to defect because he thought that Western medicine would be able to help him.

And in this book, Ben McIntyre makes the suggestion that actually this case of erectile dysfunction may have helped to prevent World War III. That's what I'm just saying. That's the book. So if you think you're not interested in spy books, I tell you, you'll be interested in this. It's riveting. It's called Redwood, which I think is a bit.

cruel. A bit cruel. And there we have in a nutshell, the British sense of humour back in British security service circles in the 1980s. But, because that was his code name. He was, he was very tall, though, wasn't he? Yes, he was. So he could have been called Redwood because he was tall. I mean, how well known was his erectile dysfunction? Because one of the huge problems is that men often can't talk about. Well, I don't think, I very much doubt it was, it was one of the reasons he couldn't seek help from Soviet doctors because he felt that it would be gossiped about. I mean, he was really ashamed and it's not funny.

Okay. So then it wouldn't have been a nickname based on, you know, no, no, that was the nickname the British gave him because they did know about it. Because he had told them that one of the reasons he wanted to come over, not the only reason, but one of the reasons was that he wanted proper help for his problem. And I think quite cruelly,

the nickname they gave him was. I think all we need to, to always think, Viagra was the world's best-selling drug for a reason. Absolutely. Because it's just such a common problem. And in fact, it's almost not a problem, is it? It's just such a common experience for men. So I'm amazed that it's still not talked about enough for it not to be shameful.

Well, I think it's becoming easier to talk about now. But back, you won't be surprised to hear, back in espionage circles in the Soviet Union, in the 70s and 80s. It wasn't something that you could bring to your KGB bosses. I mean, did he get it sorted? Well, you have to read the book, but the British came to his rescue initially, oddly, with a ballpoint pen.

But you'll find out more from Ben McIntyre. Right. Okay, don't strap your penis to a ballpoint pen. If that's what anyone's going to take from this episode, please don't do that. Well, you said it. I'm just putting out the safety. Necessary safety advice. Can I also just plug tomorrow's guest, who is May Musk, Elon Musk's mum.

Now, I'm reading her memoir. It's called Timeless. And I picked it up with, I'm just going to be honest here, a slight reluctance. I thought, oh gosh, is this going to be a little bit PR flim flam. She's a very successful older model. Oh, is she? Yes. And she has been for the last 20 years.

Right. No longer married to the dreadful. Oh, good God, no. She is so honest about her marriage to Errol Musk. And he was brutal to her, Jane. So she says the bruises started on their honeymoon. Oh, God. Yeah. And she doesn't kind of overindulge the listener in the detail of the brutality that he meted out to her.

But she's very clear about what happened in that marriage. and her bravery in getting rid of the guy, which would have been incredibly difficult back then with very little help from people along the way. But she also talks, I think, really fantastically about the isolation of abuse in a marriage which cut her off from her own family. People didn't really want to have them over in a social setting

because his nastiness towards her made everybody uncomfortable. she was still trying to make out it was all fine. You know, it's really, really telling. And we will talk about that. We will talk about Elon. But actually, just as a woman who then went to the other side of the world in order to provide a fresh start,

always took her three kids with her. She did have custody of them. There's quite a lot to be learned. I think we judge Elon Musk entirely, entirely on what Elon Musk does. We're entitled to do that. those are his actions, we're on the receiving end of them. But it is interesting to know a bit more about his childhood and about that hinterland around him.

Because children who grow up in a brutal marriage often find that their imagination, their own sense of self, is all they have and they retreat into it. And it can have extraordinary consequences for them further down the line. I think we know that, don't we? I'm not excusing Elon Musk, because I think some of the stuff he does at the moment is incredibly dubious.

Does she still speak to him? Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. But it's going to be a very interesting interview, and I admire having all of that on the page, and I haven't got to the end of the book yet, so there will be more to come, but I hope that it will be quite an educational listen all round. That is tomorrow, here,

on off air with Jane and Fee. Young people are reading, says another fee. I often listen to your podder if I wake up in the night and I've just done so. It is 4.30 a.m. Well, good morning to you, Fiona. I just wanted to say that my son Fred is in his early 30s.

He is passionate about books. In fact, he works in a second-hand bookshop in Stoke Newington in London, Abney Books, it's called. Every couple of months, they have a fill a bag with as many books as you can for 20 pounds event. And just to say, she says, the next one is this Sunday, the 27th of September.

Long queues form and the majority of people there are in their 20s. So there you go. Young people are still reading. Right, get down there if you can this Sunday. Just to fill a bag for 20 quid, that's good, isn't it? It's absolutely fantastic. So that's very similar to the book annex that Harlan Coben talked about. Oh, yes, yes, it is.

Which did the same thing. Just get a bag and see how many books you can squeeze into it. And you can hear Harlan Coben sometime. Towards the end of this year. Yeah. Stay tuned for more details. But what a lovely email to receive for, so yes, thank you for pointing that out. I need to say hello to Tiff and Laura, who I met yesterday evening.

I was coming out of a jewellery show at London's Goldsmith's Hall. My friend Emma is one of the exhibitors there. And she makes absolutely beautiful kind of slightly South American-themed, beaded jewellery. it is if you ever get a chance to go inside some of these halls these livery halls in London goldsmiths is one of the finest take the opportunity they are so mind-boggling I mean the money the money sloshing about that has enabled that hall to survive is quite phenomenal

and it's quite a slice of life you know I wouldn't get an invite if my friend Emma wasn't there and her stuff is absolutely beautiful I bumped into Laura and Tiff on the way out and they are old, old friends of this podcast. They came to see us at the Royal Festival Hall. They see us and I think hear us quite often through a haze of rosé wine. And we congratulate you for that.

I think the podcast benefits from that. And thank you very much for getting in touch this morning, Tiff. We've been invited to a Freddie Mercury tribute night on the 9th of October in Battersea. I'm giving it a bit of a plug because TIF was absolutely lovely. I don't know whether we'd be able to make that. It's a fundraiser for Sparkle.

It is where it's a multi-generational approach to childcare and company, so grandparents and very small kids can all mix around. Isn't that a lovely idea? That's a very good idea. Very good idea. And yes, happy to give that a plug, so you can find tickets at Event Bright for that.

She also just wanted to contribute her sister-in-law's doll's name. So the doll was called Sarah, and in their household, a penis was called a donker. Nobody really knows why. And her sister-in-law's doll called the doll, Sarah Donkerfield. Okay. And it stuck. Let's move swiftly to Bahrain.

Please, let's go to Bahrain. Zane, thank you for your email. Zane says, I love your show. I'll listen every morning on my drive to work. I'm a 36-year-old librarian living in Bahrain, and I think I could be the first person to write in from our beautiful little island. Well, I can't remember anybody else from Bahrain emailing,

or am I wrong? Perhaps during... No, we have heard from Bahrain, haven't we? Come in Bahrain. Come on. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, in your last episode,

you asked what young men are reading these days and I immediately thought of this, dungeon crawler Carl. I think it might be exactly the kind of thing you're looking for being totally out of your comfort zone. It is though a genuine reading phenomenon. I never thought I'd enjoy this sort of thing but after seeing countless recommendations on book talk

I gave it a go and I've binged all eight books in about five weeks. Okay, here's the premise. You ready? An alien race has taken over Earth. The survivors are forced into a dungeon, that is essentially a televised intergalactic reality show run by an alien AI. Carl enters the dungeon wearing only his boxers, accompanied by his ex-girlfriend's cat, donut. From there, complete chaos, hilarity and adventure ensue.

Wow. Well, Zane, I don't know. Beneath this ridiculous premise is genuinely brilliant character development, well-building, humour and high emotional stakes, and Donut, the cat who becomes sentient, is somehow one of the funniest, most outrageous and most lovable characters I've ever encountered. I have seen that book weirdly recommended to me on Audible.

I mean, quite what Audible thinks like it, because sometimes I get recommended, you know, romance, which I probably wouldn't read either, but I really wouldn't read Dungeon Crawler Carl, normally, but I wonder whether that's not a bad shout as I'll kind of get out of your comfort zone, book club book. Could be. I mean, if young men are hooked, then I'm interested.

Yeah, we will definitely pop it onto the list. We don't have to decide on a book yet, do we? I think they may have decided in a couple of weeks time. I did have a whole list, actually, of tunes. Just bear with me, please. Thank you, here we go. Yes, this one comes in from Emily. This is for our hunker down for the autumn.

Hunker Down for September. Let's go autumn because we won't get around to it in September. This one from Emily. Jeff Buckley's lover you should have come over. Stephanie suggests, Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day. This one from Sarky Lisa, love and affection by Joan Armour Trading.

And Nairme in Wiltshire suggested October skies by Mumford and Sons. And that's so weird, because when I was thinking about what I needed in a new playlist because I can't carry on playing my disco hits that's too summery Jane too summary stop dancing and I thought I have a little bit of a kind of autumn and I thought yeah mumford and sons that is autumny isn't it it's big jumpers big jumpers yeah I mean it's too early for jumpers

well because the temperature is really just resent what am I trying what's the word I'm looking for it's still hot it is still hot hot yeah it is shouldn't be it is it's start It's stubbornly hot, isn't it? It's stubbornly hot. Yes, Eve. What will be your contributions to the playlist?

Or do you want a bit more time to think about it? Well, it's problematic because I would have said September Mourn by Neil Diamond, but I'm just very troubled by his kissing booth now. So I'm afraid I'm just going to have to have a little bit of a think. I might go with the Mumford and Sons myself. It just, I don't know, it says big Sunday lunches and gravy and big jumpers and soggy walk. Lovely.

Yeah. Soggy Sunday lunches you don't want to do you. I was recommending a pub to Evelyn a little earlier for some event she's having. When is this? The 4th of October. Right. Steer clear of that hostelry because Eve might be in there.

Well, what hostelry? Well, we won't name it. Just don't go out at all. Don't go out that day. Eve's celebrating your birthday. Stay in. I'm amazed she's not taking a trip. Oh, God.

Now let we... Have you got anything booked? Well, to be honest, Hammersmith from Peckham is a bit of a trip. All right, yes. It'll feel like they're abroad, won't it? It will feel like abroad. Take your passport. Anonymous writes, I was listening to Monday's episode as I walk to work. And there were so many points where your chat aligned with my life.

So I've reappeared in your inbox, but please keep me anonymous. First thing, I just want to say that the Wether Spoons in Exeter is indeed in an excellent building. over the summer as our university management convulsed itself by walking 500 people to the edge of a compulsory redundancy cliff and then backing away in early September leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, the Imperial ceased briefly to be a student hangout and became an unexpected campaign headquarters for a furious, organised and energized staff body. Your podcast kept me sane during a summer spent at risk, but I'm glad to say that beautiful glass window at the weather spoons,

is now back to being the backdrop for different student tribes. It sounds as though your work situation has been resolved anonymous, I hope it has, because that's really horrible, isn't it? I mean, I know it's not just universities that are going through these sorts of changes at the moment,

but to be told your job is, quotes, at risk. Nobody wants to hear that, do they? Second thing, she says, student homesickness, this is the season. As someone who has seen students arrive in September and move through the state now for many years, I would add two pieces of advice to fees excellent suggestions re-routine. First, remember that lots and lots of people do feel the same way,

even those who appear to be having a brilliant time. Behind the privacy of office doors, the story is very different. Second, for homesick student pet owners, see if your university has a volunteer student group, like the one that we have here, which pairs student dog walkers with dog owners who can't always walk their pets. The benefits are enormous.

You get contact with animals, fresh air, routine and the feeling of doing something genuinely useful, plus providing connection for both the students and the sometimes older and lonelier people who can't walk their own pets as they would wish. I've seen so many students in their first terms transformed by this simple thing. It is simple, but it's lovely, isn't it?

That's a really life-enhancing initiative, and well done to Exeter for coming up with that. There used to be a bumper sticker attached to Exeter University. Do you remember that one? No, what did it say? at Exeter probably, it was like the Carlsberg ad, and it had Exeter probably the world's greatest university. Wow. A bold claim.

I always remember Dolly Alderton saying that she... She had a great line about it, didn't she? Yes. Which was? That basically she left university, less clever than when she went into university. She went to the University of Exeter and she managed to lose some knowledge. That's unfair because one of my dearest friends went to Exeter. do terrifically well, but academically, but so she has

many great memories. Well, actually she struggles to remember a lot of what happened to Exeter, but she thinks she had a good time. Yeah, if you're going to Exeter, I'm sure you'll have a really lovely, lovely time. There was a very nice email about postcards

helping. Have you got that? Oh, and I... I've put it on the wrong thing. We're going to save it for tomorrow. We'll carry on talking about homesickness and the best way to deal with it. My apologies, whoever our postcard writer is, please fear not. We'll put you into tomorrow's podcast. And actually, Tina, the people of Upton are getting really fed up with this now. Minge Lane definitely does exist, says Tina. She has moved away from Upton, but she says as a teenager,

it was always amusing to see the repetitive disappearance of the sign until the local council gave up and simply wrote the street name on a bit of cardboard. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. People are such a chart. It's one thing you can guarantee wherever. you are in the world, someone sees the word, minge, and they behave in a childish way. Thank goodness, listeners to our fair, would not do that. We'd never do that. This is fantastic. It comes in from M from Disley, long-time listener correspondent and original sausage boiler. So we know who you are, and we're coming to your barbecue. Your barbecue is safe. On the topic of AI friendships, whilst I haven't gone that far, I can highly recommend the

personalisation section in the settings. Did you know? I didn't, I'm absolutely hopeless when it comes to where I. I don't, I just don't think I know anything about it really. Okay. So, um, I didn't know anything about this. So here we go. This enables you to give your responses a tone and personality. Someone I know has instructed hers to call her the queen. Oh, quite like that idea. I've attached a screenshot for mine, which will perhaps resonate with the wishes of many of the hive. So you can go into your settings. So, sorry to interrupt, but I could get mine to call me mum. Like I've always always, wanted. Yeah, you could.

Okay, absolutely. More warming to it. In the personalisation section, you can have bass style, which is just the default setting. You could have warmth, you could have professional, friendly, you could have candid, quirky,

efficient or cynical. So I might try changing mine to cynical, which is critical and sarcastic, and see whether or not I'm quite so thrilled to get in touch with Chachy. PT to talk over my finances later in life. Presumably they'd be able to, well, they know everything about critical windows. They certainly would.

Yeah. Yeah. So you can't change any of the settings to stupid. I don't believe you can. No. No. But it's a very handy tip. We're learning all the time, aren't we?

Difficult food comes in from Sue in northeast Derbyshire. Thank you for appreciating Chatsworth. It's a wonderful place, says Sue. I've got a few suggestions for food that would be difficult to resident rectors, popular items in M&S. Brawn. Oh God. I'm still, and I never really want to find out

what Braun was or is. But it's just... How is it spelled? B-R-A-W-N. Oh. If you have eaten it... If you're still eating it. What are you doing with Braun?

Stuffed hearts, pigs, trotters, tripe, and then chitlin and bag. Now, I don't know what that is. Do you know what that is? Chittling. Oh, they're sausages, aren't they? They are, I think they're but a specific sort of sausage.

I don't know quite right. Shall we look this up so that Karen doesn't get back in touch, infuriated by our lack of knowledge about reconstituted meat? What does it say? This is difficult for Eve because Eve is a vegetarian. A chitlin's bag typically refers to a packaged five to ten pound frozen or fresh bag of commercial pork. chittlings, brackets, cleaned pig intestines.

Right. I like the fact they've been cleaned. Something we said for that. Yeah. Sue goes on to say, Dear old dad ate all of these, but fortunately, mum, never subjected me to them. I'd add black pudding as something I could never eat,

but it is very popular up north. It's still very popular, actually, on a full English breakfast down south as well, Sue. But you're right. I mean, that just is quite... It's quite a list, isn't it? So, yes, I don't think M&S is going to embrace any of those things, but you never know. No, you don't, because our tastes do appear to be, well, as ever, they're in flux, aren't they?

Things come and go and become unfashionable items, suddenly have their day in the sun. Rose says, after the pickled onion chat on yesterday's podcast, I thought you might be surprised to hear that, according to an article in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago, pickled onion sales in this country are up by 12%. Doesn't know that to do? Fees looking amazed. I only clicked on the article because this summer I made a lot of jars of them

with the glut of shallots and onions that I'd grown. We cracked open... We cracked open the first jar while visiting my cousin in Suffolk, a friend of Fees? One of the Lucy's. Yeah. And she polished off the whole jar in less than an hour. No, less than a week. I exaggerate.

I don't like them myself, but I'm taking this as a sign that they were more than passable. I wonder if the rise in popularity is because we all existed off picky bits for dinner for the last couple of months because of the unrelenting heat. I think that might be, yeah, I wonder whether because nobody could be asked preparing anything. You did just sort of find yourself just scavenging, just picking something out of the fridge. Yeah, and just opening a jar. Yeah, yeah. But also, I think all of that pickling and fermentation is definitely having a bit. its moment, isn't it? So we've returned

to the pickling jar because now we know that it's actually good for us. By sheer weird universe coincidence, I hadn't seen the Lucy's for ages and I was getting off the train. I dropped my car off for a service. Actually not a service. You're still having it,

the old Scoda Monte Carlo gets a service. It actually had a prang, somebody reversed into the back of it. Yep. So I had to, anyway. I was dropping it off at the garage. part of the town that I never usually go to and I bumped into one of the Lucy's and literally hadn't seen her for years

isn't that just so spooky and then this email comes in it's just like all of the laylines Jane they're all here oh well it's Glastonbury next summer isn't it talking of laylines we must make sure we're alert to get our tickets

would you go no if you got a ticket you're going Eve I'll be trying yeah Eve always goes because when she comes back she has her emotional day.

Everybody who goes to Gastonbury. May the first day back at work, it's an emotional day, isn't it? Sorry to really, really dob you in there. We shouldn't laugh, but

because... It's a spiritual experience. Yeah, you see the thing about we, podcasters here, Fee and I, we live amongst the this generation of people who feel emotional and we work with them and we love them all dearly

we need to say that as I think you know but sometimes they do make us laugh let's move on to spying and my guest today our guest today no because in theatre really strictly speaking well because we're no longer working together on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons on the radio Ben McIntyre is my guest

and May is your guest tomorrow yeah you can own it Just do a first person. My guest is Ben McIntyre, ace writer. He's had so much success. He's the guy who gave us SAS rogue heroes and the siege and Operation Mincemeat and so much more. Here he is talking about his new book, Redwood.

Ben McIntyre, he's here. Hello, Ben. Hello, thank you for having me on. It's such a pleasure. Your book is Redwood. We'll talk about that in a moment, but we were just saying off air, actually, that Iran has, we were about the same age,

so early 60s, and Iran has dominated our lives in one way or another. Absolutely. I remember the revolution, as I'm sure you do. And I think there's a strong case to be made that that episode is the single most significant event of the latter part of the 20th century. It changes everything. So much of our modern global history flows from that event, including what we're seeing today in the Gulf. It's all related to that tumultuous explosion. Well, we'll talk about that. We should also just say what's happened today. The Iranian president has been speaking. speaking to the UN, the American delegation walked out. That's probably not that surprising. Here's just a quick excerpt from what the Iranian president had to say. The U.S. president has described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism. I come from an Iran in which our esteemed supreme leader was assassinated without any legal framework or reason. I come from an Iran where,

in truth, they bombed a school. He then held up images of the children killed in that bombing of the Minab school back in February. Innocent children, he said, whom in truth had committed no crimes and no sins. What would you say about that, Ben? I think the gulf of mutual incomprehension between the US and Israel on one hand and Iran on the other is almost unbridgeable.

I mean, it seems to me that we are still stuck in this extraordinary antagonistic inability to hear each other on either side of that story, and I'm not making a value judgment. But it is extraordinary the way that history has kind of, in a way, not moved on, really. There is still this kind of complete block, really. So let's talk about Redwood. You have written about Iranian matters before, because I remember speaking to you about the siege,

which is the book about the Iranian embassy siege in London. That is briefly referenced in this book as well. Redwood is set in Tehran in the 80s and just give us an idea of what life was like in the cauldron of activity in Tehran post-revolution. So the Shah has been toppled in 1979. The Ayatollah has swept to power with his Islamist regime. But the place is still in bloody flux, really.

I mean, there are different groups competing for power. it hasn't yet solidified into that kind of autocratic theocracy that we know today. So really everything is up for grabs. And you've got nationalists, you've got monarchists, you've got communists, crucially still vying for power there, and you've got the kind of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the rise. But it is all still up for grabs. And that, of course, for spying, for espionage,

that's when you really earn your chips. So it's a real cauldron of competing spy groups as well. And for younger listeners and viewers, and we do have some, they will need to know that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan happened when? That is also in 1979. So that's at the other end of that year. So you have the revolution in February and then you have this Soviet full invasion of Afghanistan to prop up a communist regime in that country.

It's very important to realize that that's what they were doing. So this was the Soviets maintaining their sphere of influence. right up to the borders of Afghanistan, which borders Iran. So it's important really to see this story through the prism of the Cold War. This is a Cold War story, and you've got the Soviets sort of pushing, as it were, from the east and the north. And you've got the West, the capitalist West, tried to hold them off. The Shah had been the West's strongest ally in the region. The money was pouring in and the oil was pouring out.

The Shah was a very, was a bulwark, really, against communism. And that's how everybody saw this. story. So once the Shah has gone and the Ayatollah's in place, the whole question is who's going to get control of Iran? Which side is going to triumph in there? What they hadn't quite taken into account was the fact that the Ayatollah in his own slogan was neither east nor west. He loathed communism almost as much as he loathed the capital west, the capitalist west rather. So as a sort of front line of the Cold War, it's tremendously important and also fascinating and unpredictable. Now, I must admit, I was surprised that Britain had any kind of diplomatic presence at all in

this version of Iran in the early 80s. Why were we still there? Well, we were there by the skin of our teeth. The US embassy hostage crisis had just taken place, an appalling standoff, really, at the end of which the Americans were effectively kicked out of Iran. There were no diplomats left. There were no CIA station. But the Brits managed to maintain a kind of skeleton staff in there. There were really only about six diplomats left. They were allowed to stay on, on condition that they did not involve themselves in any espionage, which rather boldly the Thatcher government decided to ignore and insert one MI6 officer inside the diplomatic embassy. Yeah, I mean, you say that that was a bold move in the book.

Who would have made that decision? Was it Margaret Thatcher? I mean, Carrington was only the Foreign Secretary for a short time, wasn't he? Well, actually, he was there for a while, and he was overseeing the security service and the intelligence service. And it would have been referred up to Thatcher because it was quite a gamble. I mean, if the Iranians had realised – and bear in mind, there is a long history of Iranian distrust of Britain. I mean, the very word English in Farsi carries – connotations of cunning and duplicity and, you know, two-facedness, had the Iranians discovered

there was a British spy operating in the country, they would have shut down the embassy. They would probably have taken the embassy staff hostage. So it really was quite a radical thing to do. I love the fact as well that this guy, McCready is his name, MI6 man. He had to pretend he was involved in some sort of commerce. That was his cover. What kind of commerce could there possibly have been? Well, oddly enough, there were a few rather brave and sort of maverick British businessmen still in Iran. The potential profits from business in Iran were still quite good. I mean, nobody knew what the future was going to look like. Nobody knew that actually this was going to clamp down into somewhere where the West could do no business at all.

So there were still opportunities. And poor old Ian McCready, his job was to go around sort of trying to drum up local business and trying to encourage Iranian companies to export to Britain. I mean, very difficult thing to do. Also, as he put it, extremely boring and he didn't really know much about it. He was there as a spy, but he had to pretend under his diplomatic cover that he was really doing commercial work the whole time. Yeah, I mean, as ever with your books, there's some brilliant detail.

And he was recruited by, it was one of those, was it a tap on the shoulder at university? It was almost literally a tap on the shoulder in his case. He was in his final year. And one of his tutors said, there's a part of the foreign office that you might like to go and talk to old boy. And sure enough, off he went. Those were the days. It doesn't happen that way this... Doesn't it? No. No, they are fair. You can apply. You know, the ads appear in the back of the economist. You know, you write into MI6. It's not the old boy network that it was. But no, so his recruitment was absolutely classic. And he, he was the man who, well, was it a

friendship with the KGB man who'd affected in the end? We should talk about him, first of all, before we get onto their relationship. Tell us about Kazitschkin. That's how I pronounce it, isn't it? That's right. That's exactly right. So Vladimir Kozichkin was a 6'4, very handsome, very clever, highly successful, very senior KGB officer. He'd been in the KGB for eight years. He was rising up through the ranks.

He spoke perfect Persian. He was based in Tehran. And he was the second most powerful Soviet spy in the place. So he was a figure of considerable consequence. And as you said, I mean, he, one day in 1982, he walked into the British embassy and offered to spy for Britain. And he walked in because the British embassy was next door. Right next door.

I mean, there was one road between the Soviet embassy and the British embassy. It had been called Winston Churchill Street. It had recently been renamed Bobby Sands Street, which to some of your listeners will... We'll give an indicate, Bobby Sands was the IRA hunger striker who had recently died. That gives you an idea of just how hostile the Iranian regime was to the British government. So his walk-in, as it's called in spy parlance, was about 40 feet. I mean, he walked out of the Soviet embassy and into the British one and made this extraordinary offer.

Now, a walk-in, as it's known in spy parlance, is often regarded with extreme suspicion. because somebody who volunteers to spy may also be a trap. And initially, MI6 was extremely dubious about this approach. But over the next few weeks, Ian McCready was responsible for recruiting this character, whom he codenamed Redwood on account of his extraordinary height. Well, there was another reason. We will get on to that. And by the way, I want to make very clear, we're not,

I certainly wouldn't dream of laughing at erectile dysfunction. It is not funny. But it is at the heart of this extraordinary tale. Absolutely. I mean, spies have many reasons for doing what they do. Money, ideology, coercion, ego. These are all the things that go into deciding to betray your country. Kuzikkin's reasons were entirely different and unique in my experience of studying this part of the world.

Kuzikin suffered from erectile dysfunction. He adored his wife. He was desperate to get his marriage back on track. This was a kind of emasculating, mystical, terrible affliction as far as he was concerned. And he believed that the West had medicines that would cure it. I mean, Soviet citizens had a kind of almost mystical faith in the efficacy of Western medicine. Well, you say in the book there were loads of doctors in the Soviet Union. They just didn't have the resources.

They didn't have the resources. They didn't have the expertise. They didn't have the supplies. In fact, the Soviet medical system was really in free fall. It was one of the harbingers of what was about to happen in the Soviet Union was the crumbling of the health system. And Kuzitschkin, like many, believed that the West could cure anything. He just believed, but of course they couldn't.

Viagra had not been invented. Nonetheless, there was this extraordinary scene where McCready and Kuzitskin are in the... the bathroom at the top floor of, because it's of McCready's own house inside the embassy. They chose the bathroom because? It was the only room that McCready believed was probably not bugged by the Iranian security service. They were everywhere and they turned the taps on and they turned on the radio to try and cover their voices in case they were being eavesdropped on. And in the middle of this

extraordinary exchange of secrets, really, I mean, Kuzzikin was telling McCready everything. He put his hand on his knee. I mean, it does sound comical. In retrospect it is, but he put his hand on his knee and said, I have a problem, he said. I have no power in the bedroom. And poor McCready, I mean, initially he thought he was referring to the electricity supply in Tehran, which was quite dodgy. Unpredictable. And then in this sort of slightly broken English, because I'm able to explain, no, I have no power in the bedroom. I have no power with my wife.

And poor old McCready, I mean, nothing in his training or experience had ever prepared him for dealing with a spouse. with erectile dysfunction. But to his credit and to MI6's credit, they took the problem, this was very foresighted of them in 1982. I mean, they took the problem intensely seriously, and they did what they could, which was truly not much,

to try to help him with this deeply personal, terrible problem that he had. And it's worth making the point that to be, you know, this very tough, clever KGB officer in a very macho institution, like the KGB was a living death. He could tell no one. His wife, they were very much in love. I have to say, she didn't sound overly supportive. No, I think their marriage, as these things are, I think, was coming apart quite gradually. They had been deeply in love. He still adored her. But as I understand,

is the case in these circumstances, she was becoming infuriated and very frustrated by it. And at times, very angry and turning on him and saying, you are less than a man, which again in the circumstances of the Soviet Union at that time, would have been a tremendously wounding thing. So nonetheless, he was determined to try to save their marriage. The story is in some ways a kind of twisted love story. Well, there's just human frailty splattered throughout the book, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

So enter British medical intervention in the form of a ballpoint pen. Yes. I mean, the chief medical officer of MI6 at that point was an ex-R-A-F officer who said, and I paraphrase, well, we get sort of this sort of thing all the time with fighter pilots, you know, a bit of overstress. So he sent him a kind of prescription written in Russian, hidden inside a ballpoint pen, which was really just a series of lifestyle suggestions, really, get more sleep, here are some relaxation exercises. And they also send a little bottle of red pills. which were nothing more than vitamin pills. But they hoped that they would have some placebo effect, that this would be enough to sort of, you know, getting back on track, as it were. Of course, it didn't work and it didn't, well, it didn't work for long enough. Right.

People will be desperate to know, did it work in the end? I'll give away the second part of the story. Yes. Good. Because it's skin did recover completely. He ended up having a daughter. So that part of the story, yes, there was, truthfully, once he was out of the incredibly stressful situation he was in, being a KGB spy in hostile Iran, and then being a double agent for a year working for the British. This was a terrifying situation. Once he was out, he got better.

So the suggestion that this man really did prevent potentially World War III, what information was he able to supply? Well, the key piece of intelligence that he brought to the West was the fact that the Soviet Union after Afghanistan was planning a full-scale assault on Iran. Iran was going to be the next domino. The Communist Party, as we mentioned earlier, was still quite powerful in Iran. They had thousands of members. They had a lot of guns. They had a secret military underground network. And a plan was afoot coordinated by the KGB to set them up in a coup.

against the clerics, against the Ayatollah and his regime, topple them, replace them with a communist government, and invite the Red Army across the border from Afghanistan and Tajikistan, to move in, to move into Iran. Now, if that had happened, that would have put the Soviets in control of the oil fields and the Strait of Hormuz. They would have won the Cold War.

And this was a long-term nightmare for the Western intelligence services. Ever since the fall of the Shah, They had been increasingly fearful of just such an incursion into Iran. And a contingency plan was in place. The Pentagon had plans. The plans were nuclear. They did not have enough weapons or conventional troops in theatre to repel a full-scale Soviet invasion.

And so the idea was that they would use nuclear weapons. Now, the least radical of the three tiers of nuclear response was to take man-packed nukes, portable nuclear weapons into Iran and try to collapse the mountains in the northern part of it. It sounds extraordinary and try and block the roads and the passes and the valleys so that the Soviets could not roll in with their tanks. And that was the least of it. The most radical was simply to nuke to nuke the nuclear bases inside the Soviet Union. If that had happened, the Soviets would have responded in kind. So there is this threat of potential nuclear Armageddon that hangs over this story. Honestly, it's gripping. I can testify to that. I just want to bring in a listener who is

interested in, and I'm interested in this too. It's Andy who says, he's reading your siege book at the moment about the Iranian embassy siege. I'm blown away by the level of detail and analysis in the book. How does Ben go about acquiring that level of knowledge and detail? Well, I've been incredibly lucky, actually. I mean, the British government began declassifying its secret files in 1997. Not all of them. I mean, MI6 still doesn't do it, but MI5 does routinely now. So I've been, you know, the archival material is often extraordinary in these cases. In the case of the siege, the Iranian embassy siege, and this book actually, pretty much everybody who was involved in that story and is still around agreed to talk to me. And so for me, the gold dust is having,

Some archival, declassified secret material, and living witnesses. Because then when you've got both of those, the tricky thing is to try and work out who's telling you the truth. Because, you know, memory is an extremely, as we know, from other stories in the news. Indeed. People, recollections differ. And, you know, teasing out what is real and what is not is a very difficult job. Becky says, the last four books she's read have all been written by you. Oh, how marvellous.

She's currently on Agent Sonia. I'm getting a copy for my 91-year-old grandma for Christmas. Well, I think your grandma might enjoy Redwood as well. Yeah, I mean, here we are again, though, in 2026, Iran still dominating headlines across the globe. I don't know. What wisdom do you have to impart on all that? Well, I mean, this regime, the Iranian regime, has its roots, you can argue, partly in the Redwood story. Because having produced this piece of intelligence about this looming. potential coup. The West MI6 decided it had to share it with the CIA, and the CIA and

MI6 jointly decided in deep, deep secrecy that they would have to tell Iran. They would have to secretly inform Iran that there was a potential communist coup looming. As a consequence of which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard moved to destroy the Communist Party. Thousands of people were arrested. Several thousand were executed. And that is the moment that you can date the Iranian regime's absolute determination to clamp down on all opposition. Opposition is met with brutal violence. And we've just seen that in Iran in the last year. Thousands of people.

Thousands of people. Yeah, by the regime, which is only there because Western intelligence warned them of a plot. Well, I don't think we could say it's only there because of that. But inadvertently, MI6 and the CIA propped up this regime. They made the Ayatollah stronger. They did not intend to, but that was the unintended consequence. So you can see the Redwood story in two very different ways. I mean, it is both a Cold War victory.

I mean, it achieved what it was intended to do. They stopped this potential Soviet assault. Half the Soviet diplomatic corps were kicked out of Tehran. Communism was snuffed out in that country. So if you looked at it purely through the prism of the Cold War, this was a success. However, my enemy's enemy did not turn out to be my friend. I mean, they ended up creating or helping to create an even more vicious enemies. And I had to keep rewriting the final chapter of this book

because the very young leaders of that regime in the 1980s were the very old leaders of that regime in 2026. And some of my characters were taken out in the first Israeli air strike. You know, Ali Khamenei, the former Supreme Leader, we heard the current president of Iran referring to him. He plays a critical part in the Redwood story. It's absolutely gripping. It really is.

And people, I'm just looking at the messages coming in, I could listen to Ben McIntyre all day. We should have Ben McIntyre radio, which solely consists of Ben talking about his book. I think people would love it. Lovely to see you. Thank you very much. Lovely to see you too. Thank you.

Ben McIntyre. Redwood is out now. and tomorrow in the pod you can hear from. May Musk, Elon Musk's mother and former wife of Errol Musk. She's kept the name then. That's slightly surprising based on what you said earlier, but I don't know. I think it's complicated, isn't it, when your kids have that surname, you don't want to distance yourself from your kids.

I don't know if my son was Elon Musk. Well, they are still very close. She's very supportive of him. And we will talk about that as much as we can. And just to say, actually, there are some lines around this interview to use a technical journalistic term that we're happy to share with you. Just explain that, yeah. Well, it means when you book a guest,

sometimes the PR people or the agent or the guests themselves will say these are the lines around the interview. So you just can't cross them. And if you want to do the interview, you agree to them. That's all part and parcel of it. But this is a very simple one, isn't it? I can ask May anything that she's written about in the book. That's always the book.

rule that I understand. Yes. Yeah. So if it's out there, it's been published, I'm entitled to ask about it. But there's plenty to talk about anyway. That'll be interesting. It really will. That's tomorrow. Have a good day. We'll speak then. Jane and Fee at times. Goodbye. 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 till 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. Offair is produced by Eve Salisbury, and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.