Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Keeping it real in the Brownies

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

It's Monday, which means the fire is lit and Jane and Fi are providing all the facial expressions... You can watch this episode on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@OffAirWithJaneAndFi Jane and Fi tackle some heavy topics today: the lost art of team-building exercises, why professional scaffolders are preferable to amateur ones, how drunken tattoos led to Brexit, and why problems arise when an M&S food hall is too big… Our new playlist 'Coiled Spring' is up and running: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tmoCpbp42ae7R1UY8ofzaOur next book club pick is 'A Town Like Alice' by Nevil Shute.Our most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.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! @janeandfiPodcast Producers: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We can begin. Very formal. Yes, we are beginning. Welcome. Here we are. We're visualised, which won't mean anything to you if you're listening to this. But we don't care, do we? Well, we do care.

Oh, no, we care. We do care very much. We don't mind whether people watch or listen. Yes. So we don't mind what you choose. And don't you go worrying about us? Because actually, I think, for both of us, having thought that having to go into hair and makeup might be a little bit bothersome.

It's actually lovely, isn't it? I guess for 10 minutes. Somebody just gently wafts these lovely badger brushes over your face. And, you know, we have nice chats about other people in the building. It's lovely. So it's gorgeous. And they are very gentle brushes. Very gentle.

Skillfully applied. And then someone comes on and just gently poofs the back of your hair, which, of course, in other parts of the building is an HR problem. But in that room it's not. So it's turned out to be lovely. I do, when I catch a glimpse of myself on the visualising, days in the ladies' toilet mirror, I am a little bit, what's happening? I'm the kind of woman I'd be frightened of if I were to meet her.

Because in normal life, I don't know how many times I see my reflection during the day, but I think it's just not very, it's not very many times. I don't seek out my reflection in the way I might have been tempted to some decades ago. Let's put it that way. Yeah, so it is a bit strange. Anyway, this does mean absolutely nothing if you're just listening. And we really, I mean, we love it if you're just listening. We completely understand it.

There's nothing just about it. No, if you're listening. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I've got a couple of new topics that our beautiful, wonderful listeners have introduced to us. Hull them into the mix. Shall we hurl them into the mix right at the beginning as opposed to what we usually do? This is about team building. I like this.

Yes. It comes in from Adam, who says, as a PS, I don't think my colleagues listen. they're all Australian. Well, Adam. Adam, I don't know how often you listen because we get a lot of antip it. I mean, Fee does the accent, but she's not going to do it now.

Carry on. I'm not going to. Hello, both. As I edge towards retirement, I'm exposed to increasing musings on social media about the subject of retirement. And yesterday, a recent retiree mused that something she wasn't going to miss

was the ridiculous role-playing and team-building exercises she had to endure. A day or so later, there are over 600 comments and whilst I haven't read them all I think it's fair to say the overwhelming sentiment

is one of agreement. In the old days of course a team building event involved trying to get across a river with a couple of buckets and planks of wood and a rope or competing against a team of colleagues to erect a scaffold

which is by the way much harder than you think. Well is that because the kind of people we see and let's face it here doing scaffolding work don't always seem to be life's brightest spot

But it probably isn't a very easy thing to do. And I think scaffolding is one of those things that you definitely don't want an amateur scaffolder. You're always going to want a professional. And if they bring Kiss FM along with them, that's fine. Adam continues, if it was an overnighter, you'd end up in the hotel bar and after the boss had retired to bed sing bawdy songs until the earlier house before dragging yourself into the morning's activity, nursing a heroic hangover. These days, or last week, to be precise,

it's an altogether different proposition, with our dietary requirements taken care of at the end of the first day. Do you think it was a whole day of dietary requirements? It sounds quite unbearable, this. After plastering endless sticky notes on every available surface, our team of seven was called into a circle by the facilitator and invited to say something vulnerable about ourselves.

That's just awful, isn't it? The first up started promisingly about how much their mum and dad meant to them, but before everyone else could say, where's the tissues, the tears started flowing. It was frankly awkward and unnecessary. I'm curious, what is your view of team-building rituals and perhaps as importantly,

what are you and your listeners experiences? Because I have to admit, the idea of any more of these is making early retirement look attractive. Best wishes, Adam. Well, team-building, I'm always a bit mystified. Let's say you and your colleagues do learn how to build a raft and get across,

presumably a non-threatening stretch of water. How will that help in your everyday working schedule? Let's say you've got a, you want to pitch an idea to another company or you've got a new product and you want to get it out on the market. How will having built a raft together help you in that project? I don't understand. Neither do I. No.

And I never have done. And also I don't understand how the hierarchy, that exists in any workplace is then transposed to the team building exercise room and let go of because I don't think it is ever let go of. No, because the boss is still the boss. Yes. So you would turn to them and expect that they'd know how to get that raft up and running. Very much so.

And because they're probably being paid three times as much. You should bloody well know how to do it. Then it's up to them. It's their responsibility. Sing or swim. So in those team building exercises where everybody suddenly becomes level, you think, well, that's just terribly unpleasant for the person who was right down at the bottom of that chain, having to assume control.

And probably there's a little bit of herrump thing going on from the people who are usually in control as soon as they get to floor 17 or whatever it is. I think it's also very exposing to expect people to say something. Was it vulnerable about it? Vulnerable. Yeah. No, that's just horrible. Although I don't think that, you know, I mean, I say this as somebody, we're kind of, we have become professional at shedding emotional.

We have become professional. No, there's more to the sentence. Okay, don't worry. Yeah. We have turned it to our financial and professional advantage to drop emotional and personal and personal bits of our life into this. but we're quite in control of that. I think it is very different. I'm just saying that in case people go,

what a couple of hypocrites. I think if you're put on the spot in front of your colleagues and asked to be personally vulnerable, why should you be? It's your workplace. And also, we're not junior. So, I know, no. Do you know what?

I've waited four years for you to say that. We're not as junior as we used to be. And so we can get away with exposing. Those bits of us we choose to explain. I suppose, of course, not everything, because we are in charge of, more or less in charge in my case of what comes out of my mouth. I think it's potentially really unpleasant to ask a young or inexperienced individual to chat about personal matters. But just anybody, Jane. I mean, we've been quite lucky.

So at our previous employer, the not quite state broadcaster, they didn't have money for these elaborate team building things, did they? Oh, but they had so many away days. Oh, away days. But we used to just go upstairs. Well, a law came in, didn't it, saying that you couldn't have an off-site away day? Right. Because that was a waste of licence fee-payer's money. So you couldn't go to a hotel just outside Reading and try and bridge a stream in the grounds.

Try and recreate a program that had been running since 1946 in a whole new way. Yes. It just wasn't possible. Big whiteboard. The whiteboard. The whiteboard. The whiteboard. somebody would write some amazing ideas

and sometimes draw a circle around it. Yeah, very much so. And then the circle would be linked up to another circle down the bottom. It didn't. It never really worked. And sometimes they were slightly dried up at the edges of sandwiches,

but that was as good as it ever got. So we haven't been exposed to the real brutal. I mean, some people go away on outward bound courses, don't they? I mean, if you're in the SAS, absolutely, go for it. You should. but not if you work for an upholstery company in dorking. It can't be necessary.

So we would love to hear more stories. Definitely. Because we don't have enough in the bank to contribute to this. We just think, Adam, they're absolutely dreadful ideas. And we don't want to build a team. The last thing we want. We don't want young people getting ideas above their station, shipping in with things we don't want to hear,

and maybe even making criticisms or much worse than that, actually, giving us advice. No, thank you. But also I think it is worth saying there's a certain type of person who thrives at an away day. What kind of person? They are the person you should just move away from in life. Are they the kind of people who used to get to pick the teams at school? I think they are.

They, you know, they very much, I think they very much expand into the space of, you know, a corner room at the Heathrow Crown Plaza. And I don't know. I think it's all part of the office thing, isn't it? I'm not sure what's happened in terms of office behaviour, but I don't think it's good. I think you are completely entitled to go to work where your work clothes, your work attitude,

your work mask, and go home and have your personal life. Yeah. I think the blurring of those boundaries. And we went, didn't we, for a very, It was, you know, an exciting and interesting morning at a digital company to learn more about how this thing. When we arrived, they were having a mental health moment, weren't they? Well, they have a mental health hour.

It was more than a moment. Every morning where they, you know, can all come and talk about their difficulties and stuff. And of course, that may be incredibly helpful for some people. But I think for other people, they may be made to feel like they don't. have enough to contribute and that they should be bringing their authentic cells to the workplace. And that's the dreadful sign, isn't it, that was up at Meta? What was it? Even Nikki Nick Clegg tried to make a joke about, which was bring your authentic selves

to work. I'd say don't. You know, bring the nicer, kinder, more determined version of yourself to work and spill all of your horribleness and your other personal bits at home. Yeah, I wish we could travel forward in time a decade to find out what Mark Zuckerberg is doing. I wonder what will happen. We seem to be a bit of a turning point with all that,

don't we, in terms of what social media has done to young people. And I think we're on the cusp of some proper, finally, some proper challenge to what they've been allowed to get away with. But isn't it interesting, Jane, because we are talking on the Monday after a court in, Was it California or was it? California. Florida.

Forgive me for not knowing the exact state had granted substantial damages to a woman who had successfully sued META for ruining her childhood with addicted algorithms. And it is that that if it were to turn into a class action would be the punch that might actually stick with these social media platforms. For all of the families who have been arguing that for years and asking for the companies to change themselves because they're causing harm.

Of course, I mean, it's a Pyrrhic victory, isn't it? And it must really, really hurt. Because ultimately, if it's only the money that is going to make them change, it confirms everything, everything that we have thought about them for such a long time. And it just shouldn't come down to that, should it? I can't recommend that book Careless People Enough

if you haven't read it or I think it's out in paperback, if not now, very soon. she was, what was her role within the company? Gosh, I can't, I must admit, I can't. Sarah Wynn Williams. Yeah. What I do know is that she was due to be interviewed by both of us, one of us. Can't remember which one actually.

Perhaps it was me because I'd read the book. And she had to cancel the week of the interview because they'd taken action against her to stop her publicising the book. So she knew enough to know some pretty bleak stuff about algorithms and what meta were up to. And yeah, she was stopped from publicising that book. When you actually think about that, that's incredibly authoritarian, quite frightening, despicable, actually.

But the book's still out there and you can still read it. Yeah. She just can't talk about it. Well, it is mad, isn't it? Because it's the basic hypocrisy of that, that you're a company that only exists to make money out of people wanting to spread information between each other, but you won't let any information about yourself be spread. Funny that, isn't it?

It is. Now, on a lighter note, Eve and I have both over the weekend seen Project Hail Mary starring Mr Ryan Gosling, but we won't talk about it today. We'll save that for tomorrow. But if anybody has also seen that, and I am going to tell you, Fee, it's almost as long as Marty Supreme. And yes, I know, but I was lost in space with Ryan.

So I'm giving it five golden stars. There was something very strange happening out. this building last week. Yes, well, to do with the film where, what was it? That was Rocky. That was Rocky? In the cage. Well, not cage as such.

A kind of Rocky lives inside a sort of glass shape. Okay. You have to have seen the film to appreciate that. Right. But we will save that for, yeah, let's save it for tomorrow. Can I also throw in if anybody is watching Love Story, Disney Plus's most streamed series ever. Is that one the Kennedy one? It is the one about John Kennedy Jr.

and Carolyn Bissett and their love affair and love story. Why is that sufficient for a whole series? Well, I mean, we're only four episodes in. It is so schmaltzy. It is like giving in to a mega pack of quality street and just going, yeah, I don't care. I'm eating all of them. But it is strangely, strangely powerful.

But I would like to hear other people's thoughts about it too because we were drawn to it because it was Disney Plus's most streamed series. And you wanted to know why? Yes. So it's, you know, the mentality of that PR is absolutely superb. It might be that nobody's ever really streamed a Disney Plus before. But I doubt that would be the case. But it is mesmerizing.

Isn't there a tragic end though? Oh, yeah. No, I'm sorry. Sorry. Well, I mean. Which I'm not laughing because I know that it's a tragic end. Yes. Yes.

Well, there's tragedy. throughout that family, isn't there? Well, yeah, there is. Although sometimes I think if you have a family that big, you are bound to have more tragedies just because there are just more of you to have the tragedies. I didn't realise that RFK Jr. is one of 11 children. I mean, Robert Kennedy had, yeah, 11 children.

I know that from my most recent Ken Follett audiobook. By the way, for other people who've indulged, I have now completed the Century Trilogy, which features the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War. And it's just finished. I think all together, 95 hours of listening pleasure. I really admire you, Jane.

I couldn't at the moment turn to fiction about war as my go-to. Can I just read this next email? Because it's not going to cheer you up either. Okay. Because I did ask you about this last week. It's from Julia in Brisbane. Have you watched the dramatization of the Hugh Edward story? Do you have strong feelings about it?

Remembering your interview with him at the other place, I felt you could sense something menacing about him or a casual cruelty that lurked just beneath the surface. I am going to watch the show, thanks to my VPN, says Julia. It looks like Martin Cloons has done a marvellous job of portraying the man. What I will say, Julia, I don't think you've watched it at all, have you? No, and I won't. No, I've watched about 30 minutes, Julia, and I couldn't bear it anymore.

And what I completely agree, Martin Cloons, who I've always thought was a good actor, I now actually think I would elevate him to a great actor. I honestly think he's got him. He's absolutely nailed the version of this man that you and I met. I mean, not in every. But it was excruciating and I won't be finishing it. But not because it was badly done. I almost can't finish it because it was so well done.

And I think... And this is a genuine question. Why would you want to, in the bracket of entertainment, watch a fictionalisation? Of that, hideous episode. Steve Coogan played Jimmy Saville, didn't he, in a fictionalised account of Jimmy Saville's life. And people said the same thing.

You know, it was a Piesta resistance. Fantastic, fantastic performance. I really properly struggle with that. It seems to be a curdling of two worlds, actually. I wonder, though, from an acting. You win an award for. Well, I've heard, well, it's interesting you say that. I've heard people say about the Hugh Edwards, Edwards,

portrayal by Martin Cloons, it should win awards, but precisely because the world of loviedom is rather protective of the media and people would rather not know too much about what really went on here. He won't win an award for this, but he should. And honestly, Fee, you and I know that people at the BBC did know that Hugh Edwards was behaving in a very peculiar way. Yes. And there is absolutely, and worse than peculiar, as it turned out. And for, whatever reason that that wasn't dealt with. Now, I don't know why. I suspect he was being protected for all the reasons that powerful people are protected in all sorts of institutions. We know it happens everywhere, certainly not just at the BBC and certainly not just in the media.

Do people, do you genuinely think, though, that people at the BBC knew that he was worse than peculiar? That I don't know. But I do think the peculiarities, because they were quite out there. Yeah. They were definitely forgiven in the bracket of... Well, should just have been questioned. He's a, you know, he's a personality, and therefore we indulge the personality. And there's just a history of that throughout show business.

And in, probably, he was in news. Well, gosh, that's true. He was in news. He was a journalist. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really... Look, Julia, if you do watch it, let us know what you think.

But it's extremely unsettling and unpleasant. but that's not to take away from the strength of all the performances, including the actor who plays the young man who's involved. Yeah. Why is it easier to watch a fictionalised account of child abuse than to actually just make yourself read an account in, you know, within the boundaries of publishing, you know, which keeps some of the very darkest details from people

for the sake of their own health, basically. But you could go to any number of news sources and read about what Jimmy Saville did and about what Hugh Edwards did. You could read about Stuart Hall. The list goes on and on. Yeah. So why would you feel more comfortable?

And the thing that upsets me about that is that I think you're plugging into a very strange part of your brain that actually excuses any kind of rather horrible curiosity in the name of I'm finding out about the truth. But in fact, what you're doing, and I don't want to call it titillation at all because that's not fair,

but you are exercising, I don't know, it's something which you know is a little bit wrong, actually, in your brain, a curiosity about something that's wrong. But then we're back to the conversation about why do we read crime fiction and lots of us love it? And isn't that just the same thing?

Isn't that just a glimpse into the... Yes, and crime fiction can quite often contain, you know, very dark crimes indeed. Indeed, we have an author coming up later in the week. Well, we do. Well, actually, we've got two very contrasting authors later this week. Well, William Boyd, who I don't think has ever written crime. No, no, I don't think you'd know. Crime fiction.

No, at all. Certainly not that I've read, no. And Stig Abel, who writes... And it's not cosy crime. He writes popular crime fiction. Yeah. And it does contain crimes that are, you know, they're not,

he's not talking about financial fraud or anything like that or, you know, some tax crime in the British Virgin Islands. I wouldn't read those. It was about tax fraud. Oh, I'm reading a really good, a gripping book about financial fraud at the moment. Said nobody ever. What, do you want, there was a great TV series, though, that I watched, which was, I'm going to remind myself, I can write it on my hand.

Okay. Well, because you laughed at the time and I said I'd really enjoyed it because it was about quite a specific area of accounting and customs between Amsterdam. Okay, thank you. Dublin and London. But it was very good. I'll look it up.

I'll bring it. I just wanted to mention this from Anonymous, who says, I'm a devoted listener. I felt compelled to write after a recent conversation. I have with a colleague. I work as a teaching assistant in a junior school, which I thoroughly enjoy. But I was rather taken aback

when a colleague made a somewhat sweeping assumption that children from broken homes are more difficult. Now, I'm not usually one to speak up. I'm definitely in the shrinking violet flower bed. Well, that's where you and I used to lurk. But we've come out of ourselves in our more mature years. Our correspondent goes on. I felt compelled to do so on this occasion

because it hits such a personal nerve. I've got three children. aged between 15 and 10, and recently divorced their father, and we've both worked very hard to maintain a positive relationship and have done our utmost to ensure the children remain secure and loved. However, upon reflection, the thing that struck me most was that term, broken home. Why is it that when parents separate this term is used to, is used,

which implies they no longer have a safe place to live, when in actual fact, my children now have not one but two loving homes? I appreciate this isn't always the case and consider myself very lucky but as kindred spirits on the other side of the dark tunnel of divorce I wondered whether you'd ever felt this sort of stigma or question the term.

Anonymous, thank you and it sounds like you and your former partner are doing all the right things. It is a very weighty, a little bit like the expression only child, broken home comes with it. And we need to talk about only child. We absolutely do.

But that it carries a lot of judgment in it that broken home. And I think you and I would agree that it is perfectly possible to build a reasonable and loving environment for your children to go to and seek sanctuary in. And if you're fortunate enough to have two versions of that in two separate locations, then that's brilliant. Not achieved overnight, is it necessarily? But it can be achieved if both of the separating couples or divorce, both halves of that couple are prepared to do the decent thing. I think things have changed enormously in just one generation because statistically your children are as likely to have friends from divorced families, separated families as they

are from nuclear together families. That's just a fact. You know, the divorce and separation rates are so high. So I think that takes away from the immediate pejorative terms of that anybody is using about parents who split up. And I'm absolutely with you. I think if you are thoughtful about it, I think it's a very, very rocky boat in a storm for a while. But as with anything in life, it's what comes next that can define the experience, isn't it?

So actually, if what you can then manage to provide for your kids to stable homes, what might have been happening before can actually be made a little bit better. Yeah. And I would, I mean, obviously, there's so much guilt that goes on in separating from a partner, divorcing a partner. And there are so many questions you have to ask about yourself, you know, as well as the other person. And you got to do an awful lot of kind of re-sculpting, haven't you? But the thing that is very unhelpful to children is guilt, I think, because the way that they might then interpret it is, I've got to help mum out more, or I've got to help dad out more, or do you.

dad was more wrong or mum was more wrong. And actually those are the things that they shouldn't have on their shoulders at all. Definitely not. I mean, the only tip bit of advice, if you could loosely call it that I'd ever give anybody, is remember that if you're a heterosexual couple and it's the manners, you've split up with a man. Remember, your children weren't, they weren't married to him. He's their dad. Yeah.

So totally different relationship. So their connection, absolutely. Oh, completely. And it's very precious and it should be encouraged. It should stay. But also, and I'm quite a firm believer in this, actually. I do think that you can be honest with your kids about, you don't have to make it all, because it would be absurd, wouldn't it?

It'd be safe. He's that great. Why aren't you still with him? Exactly. Fair enough. Why have you split up? Absolutely no reason at all. He's fantastic.

I'm fantastic. It was all fantastic. I mean, that's such gaslighting nonsense. But if what they go on to experience is actually something a little bit better, obviously I think that that's going to be the most helpful thing. But I don't think I have heard in the younger generation, the term broken home. No, I think it's probably fading used very much. But I suspect there are still people, as our correspondent illustrates, who do hear it in a judgmental fashion,

perhaps from people who don't necessarily have the most perfect domestic set up themselves. Who knows? I don't know if you know this fee, but sometimes behind the neck-coversy, of suburbia, all is not entirely well. Did you know that? Well, yes, I'm slightly aware of that. Slightly aware of that. Also, I've got some sympathy, in fact, quite a lot of sympathy

for people who are staying in very difficult relationships. I can understand why you would envy somebody else's... Absolutely. And also, at the moment, can we just get real about economic situation? Yeah, there are so many reasons why people can't separate. You would have to buy two houses? I can't imagine. Trying to live two separate financial lives.

So I completely understand. Aren't we understanding? Well, we can be. Certainly professionally, we're extremely understanding. Can I just thank Jocelyn, who has sent the most beautiful picture here? Now, you may not be across the work of the great inspector Moldabano. No. Moldabano.

Cicely. Oh, yes. Available on BBC 4. Each episode is 17 and a half hours long. Right. You really have to commit to it. I mean, is it about the mafia? No, it's just, it's about a very lovely inspector dealing with crimes on the island of Sicily.

Always stops for lunch. And the lunch has all of the prima and the pasta and all of that in it. Okay. No wonder the mafia still roams free if they're stopping for lunch. Well, this all came off the back of Eve and I having a conversation about Brett from Swade. And the fact that he looked like he could star in his own detective series. Right. He was standing by a classic car.

And all detectives have classic car. cars, don't they? Apart from the great inspector, Moldabano, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, because he, as can clearly be seen in this picture, I'm holding it up to a camera now, he drove a Fiat, very similar to a Ponto.

Yes. Or a Fiat Tipo. And that's not really a classic car, is it? It looks to me like the kind of vehicle that would have a choke. I think it may. Yeah. It may well have done. We often veer into surprisingly informed car chat. Talk, talk.

The name of our, that's the podcast we'll do after this. It's, we will. Tutting loudly is Anne, who says, as soon as I heard you discussing upside down pineapples, my ears pricked up, can't have happened to many people, but I'm glad it happened to you. Recently, I was sitting waiting to board a flight at the airport. Next to me were two older ladies.

Well, okay, probably about my age, she says. I, of course, listened in to their conversation. What, of course you did? I mean, you weren't listening in. You were simply hearing it. It's a completely different thing. They were talking about another friend of theirs, whose children had taken her on holiday to Spain

to celebrate her 70th birthday. They'd got her drunk and had taken her to have a tattoo of an upside down pineapple. They went on to discuss how this signified that you were a swinger. What lovely kids this woman must have. Unbelievable. I mean, that is a low, isn't it, in caring for the elderly.

On lots of levels change. It is truly, and I'm sorry, and no wonder you're tutting. I do think that's no way to treat your old mom. No, it's not. But also, there are so many questions. The tattooists shouldn't have carried on with the, I mean, you can't. There's got to be a woman who's too drunk to understand what's happening to.

I'm going to suggest that this was in Spain and they may have a whole different set of rules and regulations. I don't think you could do that in this country. Mainland, Europe, Jane. There's a reason why we left. What was that reason? Oh, it was that reason, yes. We were concerned about lax permissions in Spanish tattoo parlours. That's why we left.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, I don't like the sound of that at all at all. How big was it? Well, I don't know. We haven't got the dimensions. Okay. Pineapples aren't particularly small. It wouldn't be real life size, would it?

I would hope not. And what has the pineapple done to deserve becoming the symbol of swinging? I can't imagine what the link is, actually. unless is it anything? No, I mean, we just don't know. Sorry. Unusually, we don't know. And very unusually, we're not even going to have a stab at it.

I know better. It's not to. Guess who switched on the Christmas lights and Bridgewater in Somerset? We hear so much more from Somerset than from other parts of the counties, the English counties. Who would it be? A local personality or somebody internationally renowned? Well, let me tell you, this comes from Jacob, who's in Bristol.

My hometown is Bridgewater in Somerset. You may remember it if either of you ever did a stint at BBC Somerset Sounds. That was you? Certainly did. Yeah. What was the biggest story while you were there? The biggest story, I went overnight fishing. Actually, this is so linked to the previous topic.

I went overnight fishing with the elver fisherman in Somerset, who are granted a licence for only one or two nights a year in order to catch the elvers. So it's a very, very, very big thing. and they're incredibly... Why is it so restricted? Because otherwise the elvers would be over fish and you wouldn't have any eels because the elvers are tiny baby eels

but they're a real delicacy in lots of parts of the world so it's incredibly profitable couple nights. And how are they pan-fried or what do you do? I think I've never had an eel once. I didn't go back to it. No. So I think I don't know. The elvers presumably they're salted and fried.

I don't know. The size of an anchovy? Yes, they're tiny little things. Oh, okay. So I went elver fishing with them, but it was the day after I'd had a tattoo done and I had to wear waders, thigh-length waders.

And when you have a tattoo done, it could be very, very itchy. And I just remember the night being so, so uncomfortable because all I wanted to do was get a big stick and shove it down the side of my waders and itch the tattoo. And relieve the strains and I couldn't do it. So there we go.

I wonder if that's a niche part of the internet, Pictures of you in Waders. They're probably out there, those images, aren't they? No, they're not. Are they not? Are you sure? It's a very dark night. Right.

Anyway, it's a relatively unremarkable small market town, but in 2004 we hit the big time when our town's Christmas lights were switched on by the cheeky girls. Oh, well, now we're talking. Can you remember that boyfriend? Yeah, it's, hang on, because I interviewed him. I interviewed him in a town in Midwales that I enjoy trying to pronounce my. Hancloth. Very nice.

Bless you. Lembert O-Pic. You're absolutely spot on. Thank you. Not sure if you remember them. They were naughty's pop stars. Their USP was that they were Transylvanian identical twins who always dressed in matching outfits. Well, that's nice, isn't it?

This is genuinely the only time I can never remember anybody famous visiting, saying that. Actually, the Wurzel's also used to show up everywhere, and I think they still do. There's one of the original members that's still alive. Only one was or left? I believe so. I don't know. I haven't really followed their career. No, I mean, to be honest, there was the one about the tractor and... Yeah, was there anything else they offered us? Was it a tractor? Were they the... I've got a combine harvester?

I've got a... Oh, sorry, a combine harvest, yeah. Sorry, I'm, you know, as you may have gathered, I'm not from a farming background. Yeah, quite city, city dwelling. Yeah. Also, here we go, though. This is amazing. Princess Die opened the town swimming pool in 1991. Jacob, that's in paragraph four. Yeah, I mean, that's your lead.

That is your lead. I don't think you've done a news course because I would have put her first. But Jacob was too young, so I missed it, and it's since been demolished anyway. Gosh. Yeah, he's got a recommendation for the next book as well. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor, not the actor. Well, in 1972, it's the best book I've read in years. It's a lovely story about an older lady making a new life for herself in a rather sad London hotel.

Funny, thoughtful, remind me a little of Leonard and Hungry Paul. and he also enjoyed David Soley. Right. I'm really, really glad that you mentioned that book because honestly, that book by Elizabeth Taylor is by some margin the most depressing book I've ever read. Oh, okay. And I do think it's brilliantly written

and I think it's about a subject that we probably don't talk about enough, but by God, it was depressing. Right. Yeah. I'm not even sure I would urge people to read it unless you're in such a happy place that you want, for some reason,

to be taken down. Yeah, to be really, brutally cut down and made to think about very much dwell on your own mortality. What makes it so sad? Because it's about a sort of a hotel in London for sort of slightly bedraggled gentry, gentlefolk to see out their days. But very gradually they're becoming older and more infirm and should we say losing some of their faculties and end up being shipped out somewhere else. Fee, it's honestly, I could barely bring myself to finish it. Okay.

Has that given you an idea? Gosh, it has. It's no Ken Follett. Yes. No, well, I mean, I'm going to take note of that because actually I think you can read darker stuff than I can, so if you say it's too sad, I'm not even going to be able to open the cover. Maybe I just wasn't in a very happy place when I read it and it just brought me down.

I can't remember, but, I mean, it's brilliantly written. And Elizabeth Taylor is one of those really underrated writers, lady novelists, who doesn't get the attention she deserves. Look, there's somebody else in Somerset here. It's Flora. I live in Somerset, she says. I was listening to you on Tuesday as I was driving home from my day in the upholstery workshop. Now, I do think that's a wonderful, wonderful thing to do.

I've taken a leap of faith this year to pursue a creative career, and I'm studying a three-year diploma in upholstery. When I heard you questioning the fabric used on tube seating, it really felt like my time to write in, so she has done. I can tell you, this fabric is called. called Mokette, M-O-Q-U-E-D-E-D-E. It's used on buses and trains as it's very hard-waring, but as I'm sure you'll agree, not all that comfortable. My 33-year-old male fiancé has also grown to love listening to you. Sometimes when I get into bed, he rolls over and says,

shall we put on Jane and Fee? He likes to do a robot dance to the podcast theme tune and said that listening reminds him of being a small child falling asleep in the back of a car as his mum chatted away to her friends. And that, says Flora, is the magic. What a lovely, lovely idea of you and your male fiancé, Flora, winding up your day listening to us, sending you to sleep. Or maybe we keep Flora entertained, but the fiancé just nods off. Nods off.

I mean, it doesn't matter. That's fair enough, isn't it? It's absolutely fine. Flora, that's interesting. Thank you for that. Love to your fiancé. And McKet is that hard-wearing fabric. not all that kind to the buttocks,

but freely available on all underground trains and indeed on the buses as well. Other countries do have leather seats, don't they? Do they? Do they? Do they? Yes. Well, we used to have those on our buses, didn't we?

Did we? Oh, yeah. No, I'm not that old. No. I was used to enjoy... Because when I was really little and wanted to be a bus conductor's, I used to enjoy wobbling about on a squeaky seat.

Okay. Yeah. I think I can only remember buses when they had that very, I remember what we now know to be Marquette. Yeah. Quite a vicious tartan as well was on the number 137 bus

which is a fantastic bus street actually. It goes over Battersea Bridge and all the way up through Hyde Park and then turns right and goes all the way up Oxford Street. Oh, that sounds like a gala bus. Yes, it was lovely. Werewolves in hot water, cool-cented tails.

All the best comes in from Jonathan one of your West London older gay male devoted listeners here. I once saw Jane and Chiswick but was too star-struck to approach. How are you feeling about the gigantic new Chiswick M&S food store, Jane? God, it's so funny he mentions that. A friend declared it too overwhelming to tackle. This is me, Jonathan. Is it you?

I slipped in there yesterday, actually. And honestly, there's simply too much going on and too many options. It's giganticus. How big is it? Well, it's taken in, I think, two shops. either side of the original shop, which was already food only. And it's, it's now kind of food mega store. But it's, I don't know where to turn. So how many aisles of, of beef, pork and lamb with the beef, for example? There's probably, no, there's probably only one raw meat aisle,

but there's a whole section devoted to various breads. You can get hot chicken. It's got a sushi thing. It's got a sushi thing. Yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, it's. Okay. So, yeah, the big One in Westfield, Stratford has got a sushi bar where they're making it fresh. Yeah, I mean, you could spend a whole weekend in there. And if you just want some skim milk, it is overwhelming. I mean, I shouldn't be so easily overwhelmed,

but I'm glad I'm in good company. Thank you, Jonathan. Is it what St. Michael would have wanted? I don't know. I mean, I don't know why they chose St. Michael. Is he the patron saint of retail? I don't know. I don't even know whether he's still mentioned on their labels.

No, I think they dropped that year. years ago. It was, it's nearly Easter, isn't it? It was Palm Sunday yesterday. Yeah, and I always remember going on a brownie camp to the Lake District. Were you 26? I was in my late team. No, I was, when I was in the brownies, I kept it real. I was very much brownie positive age. It was the guides. I stayed in a bit too long, so I get you facts right. But I get this old woman off the bus. I do remember going to brownie camp and we, at Easter and we got a lovely, we went to church on the Sunday, as you would do. And we got a lovely palm cross made out of, yeah.

So I used to know exactly, and I'm not religious, but it was kind of ground into us a bit our generation, wasn't it? God, totally. Yeah, I used to know what happened every single day of Holy Week, but now I don't know anymore. Were you learning it through school? School, Sunday school, Brownies, guides, yeah, yeah. Yes, it was very much, I don't think it's wound into the fabric

of our education system in the way used to be. No, because our education system, in state schools has to be non-denominational. Yeah. So, and in fact, my kids don't really know their Christmas carols, which I always assumed, and this is completely my fault, would be you'd just kind of ingest them. Yeah.

So you'd know them by the time you were teenage. But of course, they didn't. They had a winter concert all the way through primary school, which was amazing, Jane. It was always held in this huge round chapel up in East London. and it went on for hours and it was a glorious thing. But of course, you know, they weren't singing Heart the Herald Angels sing, nor should they have been because, you know, the Church of England was,

and isn't the predominant community of East London. That will get some people going, I know. Well, I just feel myself twitching even as you speak. Oh, my gosh. No, we had a blood-curdling pamphlet put through the door over the weekend. Just, shall we say, urging us all to, vote in the local elections in our part of East West Kensington. What flavour was it urgent?

It was from the red corner, making it plain that if a certain number of complacent, shall we say, liberal-leaning voters didn't turn out on May the 7th, we might end up with a kind of council we didn't want. Have I made myself clear? Yes, yeah. And I do think there's, there is an element of that. I was listening to a very interesting discussion on Times Radio this morning about the local elections. There's a lot of elections happening in May right across the country and elections in

Wales as well. And the idea amongst the chattering class is that we've reached peak reform isn't necessarily the truth. So I might, and I put myself in the chattering class category, I own it, I might think we've reached peak reform and we no longer need to be overly concerned. But actually, that's not necessarily true. I mean, I think the problem, well, I mean, many people may have many problems with reform and obviously quite a lot of people don't at all but one factual problem has emerged in that there is so little experience

from so many reform candidates who've won in other parts of the country at previous local council elections that actually those services have ended up being very challenging to be on the receiving end of because the people running the council really don't have the ability to balance the books and to understand social care is complicated.

The pressures on it. Incredibly, as it turns out, are fierce. You know, there probably isn't actually a way out of the problems of social care other than if somebody just printed acres and acres of money and gave it away. So, you know, you've got to be factoring in that, I would say. I would just urge, if you're the sort of person who votes in general elections, but maybe doesn't bother the rest of the time, just see if there's an election in your area in May.

Yeah, the turnout's always very, very poor. It's pitiful. It's about to 30%, isn't it? And I haven't always voted in local elections, I don't think. I might have claimed to, but I think the truth is that I haven't always. But I will this year. Yes, make your way to a polling station. Jonathan, sorry, Jonathan.

We're back with him. We've been on absolute tenter hooks there because we're only half. your email. Your talk of call centres reminded me of a summer job on the Thameswater helpline 30 years ago. We had one caller who phoned up every time there was a full moon and howled down the phone like a werewolf. Another caller complained she was in the middle of washing her hair and the hot water packed up. I patiently explained that Thameswater only supplied the cold water and she may need a heating engineer. Simpler times, all the best.

I just love that. I love that. So that individual thought that Thames water were in charge of temperatures. Yes, and hot water too. I mean, God knows. Thames water are responsible for a lot. Yes. Quite bad stuff.

Very bad stuff, too. But that, yeah, that isn't one of them. I suspect we've almost got to wind up. We'll get a wiggle on, I promise. But I did want to mention this from Dawn in Ireland. I've had to stop. What? She's had to stop listening to last Monday's podcast

when you were discussing the Manosphere documentary by Louis Theroux. Yeah. He isn't clever. this is Dawn here, not me, he's rude. Read the interview with him in the Saturday Guardian a couple of weeks ago. He was rude to the female interviewer, apparently mimicking her voice

and telling her he would have thought of better questions to ask. It made my blood boil on her behalf and has put me off this self-satisfied male. Okay, Dawn, I read that interview too. Can I say it was an excellent article? And all I'll say, Dawn, is that, by the way, I think Louis Theroux is far from talentless.

I'm going to say that he's far from talentless but but I have interviewed him too and I didn't like him that much I don't think he liked me either it was a young woman who interviewed him in The Guardian

an excellent interviewer and it was an excellent article what I would say of course is that when you write up an interview it's not like a live radio encounter which goes out there's nothing you can do about it when you write up an interview

the interviewer in charge for the article can write what they like can't they? Yes. They can write about all of the nuance around the edges. Yeah, of course. We just hope that the listeners catch.

Exactly. But it's not for the interviewee, I think it makes them more vulnerable because the interviewer can be nicest pie in the flesh and then go away and write whatever the hell they like within reason about what went on and about what they sensed. But, Dawn, I do understand what you're getting at.

And I also read that. And I thought that based, on what the interviewer had said, Louis Thruh hadn't been particularly pleasant to her. If, yeah, so yeah, she dawns onto something. Yeah. I think mimicking somebody's voice is such an interesting thing. It's a, it's passive, aggressive.

Yes, I think it's very, very sharp weapon disguised as comedy actually. They're doing a bit on maths at the moment and we have gone back in for more of married at first sight, Australia. And there are some absolute cows who are kind of ganging up against some of the other women there

and one of their weapons is to mimic their voices. And yeah, it's quite something actually to watch. And it did make me think, should I reel my accents in? Yeah, I wasn't. going to mention your accents. Although quite often you've taken the piss out of my pronunciations. It's only theatre. Say it again. Oh no, don't. Actually, that's why you don't

go, isn't it? Because you don't. If they were just called playhouses up and down the country, I'd be fine. I'd be there every Saturday night. I'm wondering, could I tempt you to Sam Rider as Jesus Christ Superstar? Yes, quite possibly. Yeah, I'm a Sam Rider fan. Yeah, I know. And I think you'd be good in that and I'm wondering. Yes. Oh gosh, I think he'd be amazing. Do you know why I'm a Samrider fan? He's just, I just think he's so himself. He just never really gave in to want him to be anything other than a really, really well-meaning, vegan, long-haired, three-octive crooner. He's a troubadour.

Is that the right? Troubadour? That's what I think when I see him. Yeah, I love him for that. But I've gone back into my religious phase. I would like to see his Jesus Christ superlux. Well, maybe we could take, wait, we could do a team-building exercise. Let's see if we didn't.

And we'll pop along and roll play. Build a rath. To take us to the London platoon. We're back pretty much where we started. Right, we better finish. You're right. Yes, I think, can I just say hello to Anonymous? You had to chip in on the Swade and Brett conversation.

They're still going strong, gigging all over the place. I saw them last month in Bristol. Brett totally still has all of the charisma. You speak of the. The reason for the anonymity is that Brett lives in the same village as me. I shan't say where for fear of groupies chasing him away. Sometimes it can be spotted. the local co-op.

I've seen him once during lockdown while I was queuing at the post office counter and giving daggers to the person who was taking an age to send off parcels. It was only after he passed me, I realised it was him and all I could do was mutter, I love you, under my face mask.

My husband saw him once in their purchasing a baguette. And to my eternal shame, he said, Good morning, Mr. Anderson, like some sort of village joker. Apparently Brett looked up and smiled, what I would have given to be there. I can confirm he still has all of the charisma and loviness he ever did.

And he also had a baguette. And a baguette. Yeah. Well, thank you for bearing with us. I'm surprised he does gluten. Well, yeah, it does. Yeah, it's unusual. But in the older, in the retired rock star department.

But there you go. Isn't it wonderful? The world we live in. It's crazy. Thank you for bearing with us. Thank you for the emails. This wouldn't be possible without the emails. We've had so many over the last couple days.

It would be ever so quiet. Very short. We just sit looking at each other in a slightly moony way. Right. Goodbye. We'll see you soon. Can we sing, Jesus Christ, super star. Who in the world looks like a woman and he wears a brow? Thank you. 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 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. 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.