Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Lady Jane Ma'am-a-lot (with Jake Humphrey)

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Aaand we're back! Jane and Fi are reunited and chat Christmas TV, the Queen of Denmark and fantasy lives. And they're joined by a noise in the studio... is it the wind? Is it the groan of the door? No, it's their stomachs. We can only apologise... Plus, broadcaster Jake Humphrey is here to discuss high performance and his new book 'How to Change Your Life'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Eve Salusbury Times Radio Producer: Kate Lee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hang on. I'm not plugged in. Oh, I am plugged in now. Happy New Year. Plug in, everybody. Welcome to 2024. We've just received an automated message on our phones. It's no laughing matter, actually, is it?

Saying that we can't leave the building because of the high winds. So we're spending the night together in this studio. Can't wait. So, no, we just have to go out of a different side entrance. Oh, so I hadn't realised that. So I hadn't really read the message in its entirety. I've got a text as well. Yeah.

So we're allowed to leave, but we have to go out of a different entrance because the way that the building's built, there's just quite a wind tunnel between the high-risers at the front. Hang on just one second. We're on the 14th floor of a building and we can't, due to the high winds, we can't leave the main door.

But we're all right to be here on we can't leave the main door but we're alright to be here on the 14th floor having a chin wag but imagine if you were right at the top of the shard tonight I think that would be a little bit too breezy wouldn't it? Anyway I hope you're all warm and tucked up where you are listening to this, it's very nice to be back

I hope you had an okay Christmas and New Year, how was yours? Well it was okay and I honestly think that you, we've always been the whole business of Off Air, I nearly said Offside, that's our new sports podcast that's coming a little bit later in the year when Fi and I muscle up and just cover ourselves in deep heat and we'll talk extensively about sport. Someone texted in today to say that we'd been a bit mean about Wayne Rooney because he's

been exited from his 13 week stint in charge of Birmingham City. It was only because it was just after an interview I'd done with Jake Humphrey in which I was incredibly empathetic about sports people and the challenges. And you're just about to hear that. But I think I've piled in on

Wayne. But the thing, sorry, we will come back to your Christmas. Yeah, well. The thing that I just thought Wayne Rooney got wrong was in his statement after he'd been fired. It was just all about him, how he was going to have to deal with this setback in his career. And it's kind of like, well, no,

maybe that's why you didn't get the dressing room behind you, because... It was all about Wayne. Yes, maybe it just needed to be more about the players, more about the fans. Well, I don't, this is all for our sports podcast. Sorry, you're right. Anyway, which has yet to be commissioned, but you know, I think there'll be a market for this. Go on,

your Christmas. My Christmas, I will, genuinely it was alright, it was alright. I mean, what we don't do, either of us, is sugarcoat our personal lives and make them sound fabulous, because like everybody else's personal lives and family lives, things are up and down. And voices were raised in our

house, or in my mum and dad's flat to be precise, on Christmas Day. A little bit of an issue. My brother-in-law had done the cooking, I have to say, very well. And it's no mean feat, because he'd driven it up the motorway from their home in the Mid have to say, very well. And it's no mean feat because he'd driven it up the motorway from their home in the Midlands to Liverpool so we could all enjoy it, which is, you know, good

because it means we can be with Mum and Dad and we're, you know, very fortunate to have them. Well, you've changed tune because you weren't being very welcoming towards his turkey casserole before Christmas. It wasn't a casserole in the end. The casserole came into the frame and it was dismissed. Oh. We had a crown.

So you had a crown. We had a crown. A crown and the trimmings. Well, don't use the word trimmings. That's a triggering word for me because I can't stand the fact that it's only ever applied to that one meal. I mean, by all means, if you're going to say trimmings, you use it with every meal.

You don't just say only that one meal every year gets the term trimmings attached to it. Do other countries have trimmings? Well, I was just thinking, actually, maybe a nice hoisin duck pancake with the trimmings is a thing in... Where? Downtown Shenzhen. Oh, I see.

OK, that's our travel podcast, which is coming later in the year. What will that be called? Jane's Not Coming. Off on your holes. Coffee goes it alone. That's what it's called. you can't get you to leave the blooming country you're not going to tip up in shenzhen trying some hoisin duck you're dead right there and what was what was quite funny about it was that um when you take so obviously my mom used to be very much um and she did some amazing christmas lunches over the years made a lot of effort often including all sorts of different people.

So it was a big effort for her. But this year, of course, the responsibility was taken away and that can be, it's quite an annoying thing, I think, isn't it? If you've been the person who was responsible to have somebody else come into your kitchen and do it, it can be a little tricky. So there was lots of talk beforehand about whether or not the oven, whether everybody would understand how the oven worked,

how warm it was, because ovens differ. Every oven is different, Fee. Some are big, some are small, some are hot, and some are quite slow to heat. This is another idea for a podcast if an oven manufacturer would like to go for. Do you think we'll ever get to number one again? No, I don't think we will. Not with this kind of content.

Anyway, listen, 10 million downloads. Don't sniff at it. Nobody is. Nobody's sniffing at that. What was I saying? I don't know. No, no, it was all just about the slight passive aggression of someone else coming into your kitchen and doing the cooking there. So a certain amount of trepidation

about how long it would all take. But anyway, we had a very nice meal served at Hoppers 2. What time did you eat? We ate at about three and it was beef with all the trimmings. Trimmings. But this Christmas

and I think that people will sympathise who either come from, shall we call them blended families? Yes. Or have created blended families

and I come from one and I've created yes you're totally blended aren't you so we're so so blended yeah we're we're really really finely pureed but what it what it can mean at christmas is you just have to do christmas about seven times yeah so how many turkey and actually by the time you get to christmas day what do you want to be? Just please. Please, please, please. I'm just having to live a roo.

But I think it's more about the investment that you have to make every time. That's an incentive to stay married if you possibly can. Just think of the number of Christmas dinners. The number of Christmas dinners. That your children might have to eat in the future. Stick it out if you can. I think it's really complicated. And because every time you sit down at that type of meal, in whichever formation it is,

everybody is expected to give a good cheer. That's the whole point in you doing it. It's pressure. And I think it is quite a lot. And this was the first Christmas that I really noticed a sight and kind of, I don't know, I think I just flagged a bit actually towards the end of it, Jane, if I can be brutally honest.

So I was very grateful because you really love that Twixmas period, don't you? And I've always really hated it. So I tend to just go, you know, static and low for those four days. It's like not really moving, not really doing anything. Puzzling days like the 28th and the 29th. It'll pass, it'll pass, it's not over yet.

But by the time I got to those this year, I was very grateful. I think they were an underrated pleasure. I enjoyed them more. But anyway, we'd love all of your tales of woe or of joy or of getting through it or of different ways of doing it. You can dump anything

you like on us. It's Jane and Fi at Times.radio I stayed with my kids in a hotel in Liverpool so that we could get to my mum and dad's on Christmas morning and it was I've never thought about this before and I should have done but people who work in hotels over Christmas I think they

I talked to one of the young waitresses on Boxing Day morning and she said they got double time for Christmas Day but that's it, there's nothing special for working Boxing Day or any of those other days and I for Christmas Day but that's it there's nothing special for working Boxing Day or any of those other days and I thought they just did a really good job, they were cheerful nobody banged on about Christmas because I suspect some people in that hotel

had come for a multitude of reasons including perhaps wanting to escape the whole thing for who knows what personal reason or something had happened or whatever it might be I'd love to, actually, I want someone to set a slightly poignant film or drama in a British hotel over Christmas

because I think you'd get some good stories. Yes, I think there would be tears in that. Well, not so much tears, I don't know, just there was a certain sort of poignancy when we got back to the hotel on Christmas night. Quite a few, in our corridor, there were quite a few trays of food that had just been left out for somebody to pick up and so that suggested that someone

had room service. And people do because lives can be very shit or just a bit challenged. But also, Jane, we are a multicultural society. Not everybody's celebrating it. No, that's true. But anyway, yes, I really appreciated

the effort the staff went to, but without going to OTT. Yeah, but it's nice. I did find the Christmas TV incredibly disappointing. And in my conversations with, I mean, there are quite a few octogenarians now and septogenarians in the family. And actually, conversations about TV dominated those Christmas chats after we got to the final furlong

because it was just shite. Yes, and I think it's worth saying that these are often people who are dependent on terrestrial television. Totally. And I'm not patronising people there. And usually really look forward to the Christmas schedules, you know,

got the radio times out and highlighted it. But I thought it was rubbish. I ended up going down a property, I don't know what you'd call it, a rabbit hole, where I found myself actually, I think by about the 28th of December, really enjoying Cheryl Baker's Escape to the Country.

Okay. So that was the BBC's contribution, was just to celebritise every single series that the BBC has. So you had Celebrity MasterChef, then you had Celebrity Critics MasterChef, you had Celebrity University Challenge, or, you know, just absolutely everything was just celebritised. And some of those are not with a capital C, Jane.

Well, no, because I watched one Celebrity University Challenge and, as you know, I know almost everybody in show business. I didn't... And I'm not just being awful here. I didn't recognise any of them. No. Celebrity. I know. And so for Escape to the Country, to think...

Well, Cheryl is. I know who cheryl is cheryl baker and it was fantastic i mean i thoroughly enjoyed the episode but i did think geez geez if you're celebritizing that we may have come to the end of the road as cheryl did actually she found a very nice house at the end of the road with what was described as as a showbiz electrical gate. Sorry? She had a showbiz electrical gate. So there was one of those gates, you know, that was automated, that opened, and the host said, well, it's the house for you, it's a showbiz electric gate. So naturally, did she buy it?

I think she is going to buy it. Oh, I see, so this is totally authentic. She was looking for a property. Yeah, the other celebrity who'd been celebritised for the series was Christopher Biggins. God, I wouldn't have... Well, he didn't go for the turreted small mansion somewhere in the home counties.

He thought the stairs would be a bit too much. Oh. How old is Biggins these days? Four hundred and six. He's being a little bit careful. Yeah. I mean, it's no joke, stairs. I also do actually think you mentioned older people.

I think it's just worth saying because we will be old one day if we're lucky. I think Christmas is quite a strain for them because I think it's a break in their routine. And a lot of older folk do love a structure and a schedule which they stick to seven days a week. I think to have that disrupted, to have people in your flat or house, to eat at slightly different times, to have the noise and to have the young people. And every single conversation revolves around put your phone down, put your phone. All of that must be really discombobulating once you're over the age of 80 or 85. I do think that for a lot of older people, the relief when everyone's gone is probably quite considerable. And then you can start to enjoy the memories and you can tell your friends and neighbours that, yes, the whole family came and they left.

Thank God. Yeah. So maybe we just need to confine it. You know, you just do a couple of hours of Christmas. Just make it an ideal world. Yeah. A little bit less of a just endless series of celebrations. Lots of us in Britain just don't live that close to our parents. I mean, you know, we probably grew up,

well, our parents would have grown up quite close to our parents, but that's not been our experience. So it's more difficult, it's more challenging, isn't it? Yes. Anyway, I had a lovely time, broadly speaking. Well, that's all that matters. And you would say the same for yourself. I was really hoping for some blue sky, some literal blue sky today,

to bounce back into work with a spring in my step for 2024 and a whole new year here at Times Towers. It was the bleakest, drizzliest. It was just a total kind of rinsed out morning, wasn't it? And even Nancy got halfway down the road. She just turned round. We just went home. She couldn't even bother to have a poo and a pee.

Really? Couldn't be asked. Okay. Wish you well there. Would she take her chances elsewhere then? In the conservatory. A few people have done that over the years. Naomi has emailed.

I think this is an important subject, actually, and you mentioned the dark. I totally agree with you both about school coats, she says, as a headteacher. Oh, yes. Well, join my campaign. Well, yeah, as a headteacher, Naomi says, I always emphasise I don't mind what colour coat children to wear to school, but it's just got to be bright.

I want my children to be visible and safe. Coats cost a lot of money for the length of time they fit, so I like my family to be visible and safe. Coats cost a lot of money for the length of time they fit, so I like my family to get the wear out of theirs rather than having to buy an additional school coat. I also think if they're distinctive, they are easier to find in a busy cloakroom and individuals

are easier to spot on the playground. I am behind your school coat campaign 100%. Well, Naomi, I am really serious about that because actually, you know, once retirement beckons, which could be sooner rather than later, who knows, God willing, I'd like to do something

really useful and I think that I can't imagine that very many people would disagree with you, Naomi. So I just don't get it with the uniform militia. Too expensive and impractical. Really impractical and really, really unsafe

and also it's just not in keeping with how kids want to dress these days and I think we're asking a lot of our kids at the moment, aren't we? Well, I ask. I don't get a lot. I don't get a lot. But the bar gets higher and higher and higher for them and it's kind of like, at least stop dressing them up in a kind of 1950s fetish of what a school uniform should be

and stop making them unsafe in the darkness when they're trying to get home. So Naomi, I'm in all seriousness going to keep hold of your email and we shall go forth and do this together. Anonymous says, this is a bit behind with your chat but i've been in copenhagen and neglected to listen whilst away that's that's just not good enough absolutely shocking excuse just you're going to denmark well denmark of course has been very much in our minds uh because of the shock abdication of the queen and fee was talking about it on the radio show today. You were funny, Fi, I have to be honest,

because it was about the Daily Mail's unique marital strife spin on the abdication of the elderly Queen of Denmark, which I got quite lost, but the headline was absolutely astonishing. It was just... So this is an 83-year-old woman who's just had really serious back surgery yeah who's decided that being you know the roving queen is a bit too much for her so she's abdicated in favor of her 55 year old son perfectly normal thing to do she simply couldn't we'd all do it wouldn't we we would yeah and the daily mail spin was that party prince, smoke and mirrors, queen abdicates.

But it's really to draw attention away from the fact that he went to a restaurant with a Mexican woman. Yeah, but who had the surname Casanova. So I think you don't have to be a private detective to be pretty concerned about the state of that one royal marriage. Oh, to imagine a single woman going out to lunch with a married man. Anyway, our anonymous correspondent, who's been to Copenhagen and just couldn't be arsed listening to us while she was there, read Jane's comments about wishing she had a career involving being called Marmalot.

It isn't too late. Sorry, just do that again. Wishing to be called Marm-a-lot, not Marmalot. Actually, I wouldn't mind if they called me Marmalot. I'd be sorry. late. Sorry, just do that again. She needs to be called Marm a lot, not Marm a lot. Well, actually, I wouldn't mind if they call me Marm a lot. It isn't too late. All you need to do is to become a magistrate. Actually, I have thought of this. I very much enjoy it. I am one. Despite the cases which occasionally fill me with despair, I also, I'm slightly ashamed to admit, enjoy all the marming it entails. Sometimes there's also a bit of madamming, which is OK, but not as good. I, too, regret a career choice that didn't lead to any marming.

In my fantasy life, I instead chose the army in which I was at the very least a lieutenant colonel or the police where I was at least a commander if not a commissioner of some sort I do enjoy your show and your podcast says anonymous JP but I've got your name here I've made a note of it uh and thank you for that yes I do I quite enjoy hearing from kindred spirits who, like me, have these fantasy lives where you've got some sort of senior title. It's pathetic. I find it extraordinary. It's a bit weird. It is a bit weird.

It is a bit weird, but that's the whole point of the podcast. We deposit on weirdness. But I think, actually, I am just going to refer to you from now on as Lady Jane Marmalot. I think it suits you. Right, do you have one or shall I move on? now on as Lady Jane Marmalot. I don't think it suits you. Right. Do you have one or shall I move on? I just want to get back into our reminiscences about Sting.

Oh, yeah. Dear Jane and Fee, I've been an avid listener of you since the pandemic days. I've always wanted to join in on some of the email conversations but usually I've been a bit distracted by work and family stuff I'll put those things first However, the stories emailed in about Sting reminded me of a time when I was 22 and working as a waitress in London

I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar That's from? Well, Human League, yes And desperately trying to work as an actor my boyfriend was doing rather well he had graduated from rada and was doing play as cast as a first job at the rsc i don't understand that but i think that's very impressive francis tomlety was in the company and one of the actors was asked to house sit herit her and Sting's home. We were subsequently invited to a little Sunday lunch gathering there. Obviously no Sting, but I was terribly excited to see his house.

Very cool, with a minstrel's gallery in the large living room. I had to nip to the loo and my friend said, oh, just go to the bathroom upstairs. I found myself in a large en-suite bathroom and the thing that made the most massive impression on me was not one, but three king-sized bottles. It's my stomach. It's the high winds.

Hang on, let's listen to that again. Is it gone? I haven't eaten very much today, I think that's what it is. I'm on a New Year, New You kind of time. Is that the New Year, New You where you have a little chocolate to a cock? Take a bite and spit it out. About three king-sized bottles of peppermint foot lotion from the body shop. It seemed to me the height of luxury.

I guess we just bought the little tiny bottles and could only dream of buying the large ones. I so enjoy listening to you both and having a good giggle when I'm driving from work. It's like having my mates chatting to me, so thank you. Leslie, it's absolutely our pleasure, and I just love that detail, because you're absolutely right. If you went to somebody's house

and they had a big bottle from the body shop, a big bottle, it was just out of your league, wasn't it? Yeah. If you're the same kind of age as us, then there's no way... I can still smell that. ...on pocket money or, you know, a mini allowance or a first job or whatever. There it goes again. That you could ever, ever get a big bottle from the body shop.

So blissful detail, Leslie. And obviously keep us... Well, maybe get back in touch and let us know whether that boyfriend went on to be terribly famous after leaving Marder. Did she mention the Minstrels Gallery? Yes. You see, when I see Minstrels Gallery written down,

I just think of the sweetest. And I think it's like a gallery full. Because I had some minstrels the other night when I went to the theatre and they really are a lovely suite for the theatre. Aren't they? Yeah, because they're quite nice and crunchy. They've got that hard shell and then you can suck on them during the more tedious bits. But there weren't any tedious bits because it's a play we're going to be talking about a little bit later in the week.

Moving on very swiftly. Let's bring in, we're going to go to Jake Humphrey who's our guest in a moment. But I just wanted to say hello to Melanie. Grateful for our company, she says. Oh, she's had a really horrible fall on the 10th of December, which resulted in three fractures and a dislocated ankle. After three failed attempts at two hospitals to manipulate my ankle back into alignment with a cocktail of pain meds and sedatives,

I had surgery the following day to secure it with plates and screws. This is going to bring my wind back. In fact, I don't think it has. But before the surgery, I was required to provide a urine sample to confirm I wasn't pregnant. Not unless it's the baby Jesus, she says, weirdly. But it came back positive twice. What? I know, it's weird, isn't it, that one? You'll have to explain more there, Melanie, but I like this bit. My husband always excels himself in a crisis. When I responded in the ambulance with five as my pain score,

and it's out of ten, isn't it, when they ask you if you're pain, with five as my pain score to the bemusement of the paramedics, my husband responded with she's from hull right uh then in a and e i can't believe he did this he passed me somebody else's sick bowl rather than thinking to go and get a new one from reception oh no no no no no no no he's a keeper isn't he no no no that's horrible well waste, waste not, want not. Melanie, I hope you're feeling better. That does sound really horrible. What a calamitous episode that was. Anyway, you've got a smashing hobby. You hang on to him. Right. Do you want to move on to

High Performance with Jake Humphrey? Yes. Jake Humphrey is the host of the very successful podcast High Performance. I was thinking about this earlier. If you and I were to start a podcast and call it High Performance, well, first of all, we just wouldn't, would we? Because people would just take the piss. And it's somehow just one of those things that's acceptable for two, and they're very accomplished men, to have a podcast called High Performance because it's what men are all about.

Anyway, Jake Humphrey is a nice, thoroughly nice guy. He's ex-BBC. Is that my stomach in there? That was you. I wonder whether it was you all along. That's me. Jake Humphrey, ex-BBC and BT Sport football host and co-host of the High Performance podcast,

as previously discussed. He was once sacked by McDonald's for his poor communication skills. He also failed his A-levels, which I think was quite difficult in his family because his mum was in the teaching profession. In fact, I think she taught at his school. So it was all hugely embarrassing, but he has more than proved himself. He is now the co-author of a new book, too, called How to Change Your Life. That's with the psychologist Damien Hughes. Now, on the whole, Jake's message is all about positivity. And let's face it, we need it at this time of year. But he acknowledges himself, he hasn't always had it that easy. Yeah, absolutely. Look, nice to chat. And I think that

I think I am all about being positive and finding the good stuff. And that actually is against the backdrop of hard times. And I've spoken loads about some of the challenges in my upbringing. that actually is against the backdrop of hard times and I've spoken loads about some of the challenges in my upbringing but without going into too much detail I would have 2023 down as one of my worst ever years actually all kinds of professional challenges all kinds of personal challenges all kinds of hard moments and actually it got to the point where I said to Harriet my wonderful wife at the end of the year I said you know we need to stop saying to people oh it's been a hard year because we found ourselves like so many others saying that. And actually, we sort of had a chat like, what is that doing for us?

Saying to people, oh, it's been a hard year, but we're hoping 2024 will be better. And I kind of needed to remind myself of all the conversations I've had on high performance, all the things that I've learned in this mantra, really, that you can be negative or positive. And I'm not trying to tell people how to be. But for my own sanity and my own well-being, being positive does so much more for me than being negative. You know, like the truth is you can rewire the brain. It's a muscle. And what you spend most of your time working on with that muscle really does have a big impact on the way that you live, the way that you think, and therefore the things that happen to you. Just tell us a bit then about why 2023 was so tough for you. So we had a few, both me and my wife had some sort of physical health things going on. And actually, maybe we shouldn't be too surprised. We're both in our 40s now, sadly, at that point

where we maybe need to take a bit more care of ourselves. And these kind of moments, especially with two little kids, they do make you sit up and think wow okay right you know um even though we don't live badly we need to be extra careful perhaps now so there was that and then we sadly lost two family members that were close to both of us um who passed away that was really challenging quite a few members of my family and my friends have all had their own individual problems and issues that they're trying to deal with whether it's linked to the economy whether it's linked to the cost of living whether it's just some mental health challenges some relationship

challenges that got going on and then after 10 years um i left working for bt sport and you know as much as i was involved in that decision um you don't stop doing something you've done for 10 years and just walk away and everything's fine. There are like serious moments of doubt there. You know, I'll be totally candid with you. And there are moments where I wake up or I woke up in the night thinking, I've got two kids to feed and a mortgage to pay. I'm now not doing the thing that did all of that. I better get my act together quickly. Yeah, I must admit, Jay, when I heard about you doing that I I was surprised it didn't yeah it felt a bit of an odd one but tell me but it was just I've the longer

I've done high performance the more difficult I found being a football presenter the more annoyed I've got with these tiny obsessive nuanced conversations about individuals making mistakes and I saw one only a couple of days ago, a referee making a mistake on the football field and all of the media were crying for consistency. And I'm like, well, human beings are not consistent. Like I've spoken to enough footballers. I've spoken to referees. I've spoken to football managers. I've spoken to football accountants and executives about the mental health

challenges of being in the public eye. And then on the podcast, loads of sports people and other business people and artists and creatives. This kind of new world way of obsessing over the tiniest detail and going on social media and then deriding someone until their name is trending. And then other people diving in and delighting themselves about the fact that this person is sort of being publicly criticized I just hated it and although I wasn't doing that on the television I still had to have conversations about should that manager be sacked should that player be dropped should that referee be refereeing next week and then in the back of my head there's this voice going well you spend all week on your podcast talking about empathy and understanding and leaning into people like how do you know whether that footballer isn't suffering with a mental health challenge as an ill child,

as an ill parent, as something they're struggling with? And the more that I lived a life where I was required to have an opinion, the more at odds it felt with my new way of thinking, which is to lean against empathy. Do you think those of us who love sport, and I do love sport, have just got nastier? I'm thinking of Owen Farrell, for example, who just, I mean, that's an astonishing thing. I mean, the idea that in my childhood, some of the great rugby legends of the 70s would have said or would have been forced to say in public that they're taking time out because of the treatment they've had and for the sake of their own mental health. I mean, it just it would be quite extraordinary. It would. And partly this is driven by technology, right? I mean, I remember talking, you know, Eddie Hearn, the boxing promoter, you've no doubt chatted to him over the years.

I remember him coming on and saying that when his dad did a boxing fight, you know, huge night of boxing, months of work, loads of effort. He'd finish, go to the bar with his mates and say, what a great night of work. Eddie immediately has all this criticism coming his way on social media everyone has an opinion about what he said what he's done and he said no matter how good it is i feel it was awful because the negative comments stick right so partly this is driven by technology you know every single person in the public eye okay their phone number isn't public but what's the difference like no one can whatsapp me but anyone can send me a message on Twitter or a message on Instagram.

And I see them like you just do as much as you like to public. I don't look at those things. You see them, they get through and they hit you. And this is where we really have to distinguish, right? Because I put up a post about the whole Owen Farrell situation and the replies were, well, he's, he's either, either he has to take be able to take criticism or he should have been better as a player.

And I'm like, hold up. Owen Farrell is not someone that can't take criticism, right? You don't get to the top of international sport unable to take criticism. He will take criticism every single day from teammates, from managers, from coaches, right? He will sit and watch a video to improve. What he doesn't get from those people as insults and aggression and anger. And let's just, you know, let's be totally honest. Once someone who is he has to be incredibly strong mentally and physically to do what he does for him to have to take a break shows the depth of the anger that is rolling around in society caused by all kinds of other reasons as well.

Right. Including politics and the way that news programs carry sort of constant negative messaging in the way that we all love to have a pop at each other like we I honestly feel that we are spinning around Jane in this like world of anger and because it's so normalized now it's just it's everywhere that's why I'm kind of using high performance and using the book and stuff to try and take a stand, really, against this feeling that being horrible is OK because it's normal and everyone does it. Well, how about let's say it isn't OK? Yeah, I was listening to the Stephen Gerrard high performance episode

where you talk about that incident during that game against Chelsea back in 2014. In case anybody doesn't know, that was when, very uncharacteristically, Steven Gerrard just fell over. He slipped and he gave the ball to Chelsea and they scored in a really important game. And he, I mean, it was so obvious that Steven Gerrard, despite his best efforts, is still tortured by that.

Yeah, exactly. And there was a moment, wasn't there, where we said, if that hadn't happened would you've gone into management and he kind of ummed and erred for a minute perhaps not and he will carry that the rest of his life and i think that we don't you know like when people accuse footballers of not caring i'm like or anyone in any walk of life are you serious that's their job like you can't get to the top of any profession unless you really care unless you make sacrifice unless you dedicate yourself now okay they're not perfect and they might have off days and they might be struggling with things that we don't know about but human beings like you know

i always have this sort of feeling in my head when i'm having a bit of a tough period that you know we're all a bit like a flower right you can't bloom all the time life is not a constant upward curve yet we expect people in the public eye to always say the right thing, always do the right thing. This thing about politicians making U-turns, fantastic. I want my politicians to make U-turns because it means my politicians are learning and growing and have fresh information. We had Professor Brian Cox on high performance who said to us, think like a scientist, be proved wrong. Like, let's live a life where, you know, I think our spectrum of knowledge is way smaller than we think it is.

But social media and I do it myself makes us feel like we should have an opinion about everything. Even today, I saw something I thought, well, I'm going to have an opinion about that. And then I stopped and thought, I think the last thing the world needs is another opinion, particularly my opinion about something that I don't know about. Right. Yeah. I mean, that's I was so tortured by that that I just I just stopped social media because I like you I was thinking oh I better I better express a view on this it's absolutely vital what yeah what's that about what is that about god knows I honestly don't know and I feel better for getting it out of my life, frankly. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. We are talking to, I am talking, but Fi is listening intently and hopefully learning something from Jake Humphrey, the co-host of the High Performance podcast and also the co-author of a book called How to Change Your Life. He's in the company of Damon Hughes when it comes to the new book, which is out now.

But I guess the podcast High Performance is what he's best known for right now. And when you hear that podcast title, there is a kind of machismo about it that you might find a bit off-putting. But in all honesty, the podcast isn't like that. Jake is full of empathy and he really listens when his guests outline what they've been through and the challenges they've faced. But he does acknowledge that title perhaps isn't perfect. With the title of high performance because of because of the kind of connotations that it brings. But I think that almost the fact that it gets people talking is enough for me.

Do you know what I mean? It's like, like what is that about i better have a listen so really let me just first of all say that for any any of your listeners like high performance is your own version of high performance right and also that changes every single day which is why this idea of consistency really sort of um grates with me quite quite a lot high performance sometimes for me looks really bloody good like i'm flying other times high performance is can i just get out of bed today get my kids to school and I rang my wife Harriet on the way to doing some recordings of that I said I just feel like crying and it's totally weird I feel like this anxiety is overwhelming me I don't know what's going on but that's why we have these conversations because high performance is about

finding your own happiness high performance is about finding your version of what excellent looks like and actually one of the real key differentiators between the people that we have on the podcast and other people is this ability to deal with the setbacks to deal with the knockbacks this idea of making sure that you're resilient and i don't think there's anyone we've spoken to that hasn't just pushed forwards you know gordon ramsay growing up in a really challenging difficult household with a hard relationship with his father. Dame Kelly Holmes suffering with mental health challenges and self-harming on her way to being a double Olympic champion. Tom Daley losing his dad at a young age.

We interviewed, I don't know whether you've ever spoken to her, but the most incredible lady, Dame Stephanie Shirley. Oh, I have. Incredible. So you'll know the story. You know, refugee escaping the Nazis, came to the UK, set up a tech business. But she said to us that there's this idea that there's an immigrant mindset, right, where you have such a fire inside you from the challenges that you've had to deal with early in your life, that it equips you for the stuff ahead of you, which is why almost half of the biggest businesses in the United States are first or second generation immigrant owned because it lights something up inside you.

And she was fantastic talking about that. And I remember Gordon Ramsay, his final message, what is high performance? He said, I've been through so much expletive in my life. I've learned to dance in the storm. And when someone says to says to me be careful it's stormy out there I expletive love it um and I think that's really what high performance is you know it is doing the best you can where you are with what you've got but also realizing that the tough days are going to come and you know we're talking early 2024 and I'm hoping I have a better year but I might not and the challenge is can you deal with what's in front of you let's let's see because it will come at some point can we talk about um Lindsay and Rob Burrow because um I've I've followed the story of Rob Burrow a absolutely brilliant rugby league player diagnosed with motor neurone disease and and Lindsay is well she was a physiotherapist

wasn't she in in the sport herself, married to Rob and a brilliant support to him, but someone who she's, in a way, she's fighting her own battle as his carer. It's an incredible and very important story. Yeah. And it was actually a really emotional conversation with Lindsay on the podcast. And I think one of the things I really love about this new book, right, is that she sits alongside Tyson Fury in the book now how many other books are there out there at the moment that put Lindsay Burrow next to Tyson Fury to try and explain what high performance is and really I think you know Lindsay hit the nail on the head when we spoke to her and her explanation of high performance is just finding the joy in the small things. You know, there is so much heartbreak and so much pain and so much sadness in their world at the moment.

And, you know, they and we know the outcome of that, right? So it has to become about the tiny little magic things. And we interviewed not dissimilar, actually, a man called David Smith, amazing former athlete who developed cancer, had an operation, was paralyzed, but then came back to compete as a as a paralympian and he i mean his story is so amazing that he's just developed this idea of loving everything like to him there is no such thing as a grim weather day because you're alive and it's

raining and that in itself is a miracle it's it's not getting bogged down by the small tiny little things that actually when you add them all up they really can just eat away at us if we could spend 2024 not allowing those little things to get to us i think we'll be in a fantastic place and then we've realized that there's so much great stuff and i know it sounds corny and i know it sounds cliched but i promise you if your listeners just every day wrote down three things they're grateful for right at the start of each day the highest achieving people we've ever had on high performance do this you know top elite performers in whatever field do this every day um it puts your brain in a place where you're naturally looking for acceptance and happiness and gratitude did you do that today can i ask

uh i have done it today would you like to know the three things I was grateful for? Yes, please. Okay, so we had a team meal last night for the high performance team. And only two years ago, it was three people. And it's now 20 people working on that podcast. So the first thing that I wrote was, I'm really grateful for having a really amazing team of people around me. I then stayed over in London, because i was doing a couple of interviews about the new book and i wrote down i'm really grateful people actually want to talk to me about this book um and the final one i came home and i went to a school concert with florence our eldest singing um and doing a reading at the beginning and i just i just wrote i'm so grateful

to come home to a happy family and like they are things that everyone has right um people that want to talk to them a family of some description and some colleagues if you could be grateful for those simple little things then to be quite honest you don't need to win the lottery to be happy because you realize how much you've already got and does this come jake from a spiritual place or is this a religious awakening you're having here what What's going on? I think I've always felt like this. So I had a real tough time at school and failed my exams. And my mum and dad had a friend visiting. And she sort of felt that she had special powers, right?

Whatever we deem that to be. And she said, this is going to be the best thing that ever happens to you. And this is the day after my A-level failure. My mum was a teacher at the school school my parents were very heavy into academia that actually is is deeply embarrassed you're very exposed in that position aren't you oh honestly it was like i felt like the sort of family fool you know like my brother was super bright my sister had gone off to university and i was this idiot he was having to go back to school again and she said this would be the best thing that ever happens to you and obviously we all scoffed at

that but she also gave me a book by a lady called susan jeffers called feel the fear and do it to go back to school again. And she said, this would be the best thing that ever happens to you. And obviously we all scoffed at that. But she also gave me a book by a lady called Susan Jeffers called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. And it was an absolute eye-opener for me that I think until that point, I'd kind of, I had feared anything that was fearful that I was avoiding, right? And then it was like, well, just because something's scary doesn't mean it is to be avoided.

And so from that moment onwards, life came about not looking for someone else to have done something for me to realize that I can do it too it almost became a challenge of like I'm gonna I'm gonna see what I can do and see whether other people can follow which is why I often when I'm chatting to groups of young people who want to work in the media I'm like I really want you to sort of recognize that this story could be your story like I have no special abilities and actually the apart from the elite sports people with a natural talent most people who are on our podcast don't have any natural ability they've just found ways to to be successful often from very difficult starts so then I was like well I'm just gonna see whether I started doing some work experience in telly not long after that I would never have

done that before I wouldn't have even gone to meet them and then I asked them whether I could do some presenting well I certainly wouldn't have been brave enough to do that at school I was in no plays I wasn't standout I was totally Mr Normal I was the grey man at school you'd never have spotted me and then I thought well I'm going to go to London and chance my arm at this ended up on kids telly and then had the sort of balls to apply for the Formula One job as a kids presenter well no one does that and I got it you did and then well exactly then of balls to apply for the Formula One job as a kids presenter. Well, no one does that. And I got it. You did. Well, exactly. Then walked away from the BBC with a four year contract offer to stay to go and work at BT Sport. Well, nobody does that. And all of this came from that book.

Feel the fear and do it anyway. And I thought that I was the scared one and no one else was scared. Right. Everyone's scared. It's about going and making those decisions. And then, you know, we've spoken on a few occasions previously I feel like only now at 45 am I comfortable enough to be my authentic self and talk like this and I probably hid for too long behind a nice tv smile and a comfy tv job and I was like well if I'm on the telly and someone's giving me a contract to talk about sport that's enough but like without sounding I don't want to sound like a egotistical maniac here but I sort of I like the idea that this book and the previous book and these podcast conversations are there for my kids or even my grandkids

I think there's such value in leaning into other people and just saying what have you learned because I feel we're all relearning what people already know. And we can just learn by asking questions of others. Jay Comfrey and his book How to Change Your Life is out now. Now, in one way or another, this podcast has been impacted by wind. There's wind in the studio and there's also high winds outside the building. No, but that's the problem. There's no wind in the studio because we're both holding it in because we're proper ladies.

But it is just making our stomachs go a little bit crazy. I hope it's not a sign. How much worse could 2024 be than 2023? Oh, gosh. I always think it's slightly dangerous to say that, actually. Right. Well, let's not say it then. All right, everybody. No, because, you know, let's just... No, let's not. Let's keep high hopes. Could I just end on this one?

Because I think we need to send out some love to one of our correspondents who will remain anonymous, who says, you make me laugh and think. I've had a really rough few months since my partner of 18 years ended our relationship. And I'm going to be returning to my house early in 2024. It's been harder because my partner's role is a public one. And we live in a small town. So it really feels as if everybody knows. You go on to say some very nice things about listening to the podcast. And

I'm glad that we can keep your spirits up. But also, I think both Jane and I would want to say that is going to be tough. And people will do the curtain twitching and all of that kind of jazz. But I think always with things like that, it's what happens next that obviously defines your life. So let them have a bit of a gossip. Let them all get over it, spread it around. That's just what people do. Let them all spread it around. That's just what people do.

And I really, really wish you well because 18 years is a very long time to be with somebody. And I hope that brighter times lie ahead for you. As Jane said right at the beginning of this podcast in what is almost a professional attempt at broadcasting. Go on. The podcast is all about our real life experiences. And I think when people told me after the end of long relationships

that there were brighter times ahead, I thought, oh, for goodness sake, that's just a saccharine load of nonsense. That's just what people say. It kind of pings off you. But it's true. There you go. Take it.

Yeah. So we wish you well. But it's still going to be hard. And I just don't want to say, oh, it'll be fine. You'll be fine in February. And it will be horrible. And people will talk. And they'll stop talking when you enter a room.

And there'll be some people who just want to know way too much detail. And you wonder why, really. And everything will seem very strange. And you'll feel like you're being over-scrutinised and then they just will pass on to somebody else and you get to choose what you do with your life now. So I suppose that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I was going to say have a happy new year,

but that's too glib. But I mean, I think you probably, going back to the house will be strange. I absolutely get that, particularly if the former partner is someone that other people will know. It's not the easiest set of circumstances. No, it's not. But yes, they will absolutely

and you'll find out who your true friends are and actually that's a good lesson to learn in life as well because you'll want to keep them around. Trust me. Right, have a jolly evening. We've no idea. We don't know how we're going to leave do we? No, we're not. We've got to go out of the side entrance. I don't even know where is the side entrance? I don't know. I thought my to leave, do we? No, we're not leaving. We've got to go out of the side entrance.

I don't even know where is the side entrance. I don't know. I thought my suggestion of spending a night here together was a good one, but you completely brushed it aside. Do you think we're going to be able to go out of Piers Morgan's special entrance? My God. Right, that's it. This podcast has ended. You did it.

Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings. Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We missed the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer. It's a man, it's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at three o'clock Monday until Thursday

every week. And you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day, as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and entertaining guests on all sorts of subjects. Thank you for bearing with us. And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. I'm Calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna, from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility, there's more to iPhone.