Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Let's share a thimble of sherry! (with Rachel Parris and Marcus Brigstocke)

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

In this episode, Jane and Fi go from West Country porn to exploring why we're obsessed with the breakdown of relationships. Fi also shared Cool Cat's diagnosis from the vet... he's fat and happy. They also speak to comedians Rachel Parris and Marcus Brigstocke about their new podcast 'How Was It For You?'. You can book your tickets to see Jane and Fi live at the new Crossed Wires festival here: https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/book/instance/663601 Our next book club pick has been announced - A Dutiful Boy by Mohsin Zaidi. 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: Hannah Quinn Times Radio Producer: Eve Salusbury Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

come home of course because i so often don't know where i'm going to spend the night wherever i lay my head that's my under a mattress topper yeah carry on we'll start from now now now starting now Hello. Now, we've got some professional podcasters on a bit later, haven't we? Oh, gosh, we do, don't we? We've got husband and wife team. Let's go different. We've got wife and husband team. Yeah.

Rachel Parrish and Marcus Brigstock. And they have released a podcast together. They're married. And it's a podcast that is just all, they're kind of grading everything in life and that can be everything from a kitchen utensil to a kind of pastime. They're going to kind of talk it through so you don't have to. Yeah, I think the idea is that they'll take on the scourge

of the influencers. I see, that's it. Play them at their own game. Yes, and see, I don't really follow very many influencers. Do you? I think I'm your greatest influence. No, that's like that weird anti-magnetic thing. When you say you like it, I'm most unlikely to take it off.

I'm a reverse influencer as far as you're concerned. That's not a bad thing, necessarily. I did hear them talking about mattress toppers and it did bring to mind the time when I did get a mattress topper with a, I'm going to say, a partner as impractical as myself and we slept under it. It's not a mattress underer. I don't know. I didn't. So what did you think?

To this day, I don't know what happened that night. What did both of you? I have absolutely no idea. Think the elastic bits around the edges were for? I don't know. Was it a fun night? No, it was incredibly hot. I remember thinking afterwards,

I mean, I'm now thinking to myself, is this real and have I just imagined it? But no, I definitely think it happened. It did happen. But did you accidentally get underneath it or you thought that's what it was for? We thought that's what you did. People are very young, aren't they,

when you start getting bedding. I mean, initially you don't take much interest in bedding and then as you get stages of life, you become quite obsessed by thread count. I think, for me, 46 was an absolute rubicon of a year what happened then well i just think it was the time when i genuinely would rather spend time in my airing cupboard than in any other room in the house and it started to really matter that the sheets were next door to the fitted sheet was with the right duvet cover and all of that type of

stuff yeah i think you just you realize that the greatest one of the greatest joys in life is or the fitted sheet was with the right duvet cover and all of that type of stuff. Yeah, I think you realise that one of the greatest joys in life is getting into a clean bed. Oh, it's just alarmingly good. Which I do at least twice a year, and it's wonderful. How often did you change your bed linen at university? I don't think I ever did. No. Yours is probably part of an art exhibition, I would imagine.

No, I always had... Did people queue up to see it? No, I always had a very tidy study bedroom. Well, you probably worked, didn't you? And I don't mean that in a judgmental way. What do you mean I probably worked? You put the hours in. No, I had a very lazy degree.

I did not. I had a very lazy degree because it was basically recapping. was like putting the icing um on a cake that was already baked because most of the stuff that would we did in our classical history degree had already been done in the classical history ayla we just looked at it with a more quizzical eye of course you did, yes. I mean, I wonder, is there ever a hectic day in a classical... classical... in that department? Just because it's already happened. So you're not going to get an emergency, are you? No, but you don't get emergencies in the English department, do you?

I beg your pardon. Yes, you do. New novels are coming out all the time. Oh, I see what you mean. OK. That's a good point. There's fresh material. But there was always a fresh eye being glanced over, you know, something that had been written by Sophocles. I see. OK. Century BC. But you're right, it didn't have an air of...

There wasn't an awful lot of jeopardy, in my degree. No. It's fair to say. There wasn't pandemonium on a weekly basis. No. Phones ringing off the hook with more news from me. From Telemachus' journey. Is he home yet?

Is he home yet? No, you're not home for ten years. Well, that was his dad, actually, wasn't it? Oh, was it? Okay. Yes. Banty West. That's Odysseus. Oh, oh god I'm afraid I found him very

tiresome well we did discuss him at secondary school I don't know why I think it must be one of those one of those tomes all those those bits of writing that were anyway this is I'm so out of my depth let's let's move on yeah and after all the excitement from Scotland yesterday, we've entered calmer waters today, haven't we? Well, not quite yet, because there's... Oh, politically we have. Well, but there's no announced replacement, comes to you, sir. No, our breath remains baited.

Yes. OK, well, you should definitely use mouthwash on that. Can we just start with the nakedness that we were referring to yesterday because um this is uh this has really struck a little bit of a chord because other people have seen the nakedness too rebecca got back in touch to say i'm just writing back to you again to fill in a few of the gaps in my original email about lunching starkers in macclesfield it was on wednesday january the 3rd this year thank you for being so precise details are very important i have to say could there ever be a more

dull day of the annual calendar i'm with you there yeah kate my daughter and i were in macclesfield on the way to manchester airport so i could drop her off on her flight back to berlin where she lives and we thought it would be a pleasant end to a Christmas holiday with us. Little did we know it would be forever etched in our minds for quite bizarre reasons. The other customers were just seemingly getting on with having their lunches or coffees and quite possibly all just thinking the same as us in their heads. This is not normal. But I did feel for the waiting staff who had to serve them. I suppose looking them in the eye at all times was the only way to make it through the shift. And I did upon my return home Google or Bing or ask Jeeves in decent exposure, but it seemed lunching politely naked didn't qualify. Well, that's what intrigues me. Yes, me too.

Because I don't think it's the fact that you might be in a respectable place without your clothes on. I think it's just the fact that you don't have your clothes on. What's the difference between somebody flashing at you and somebody being naked in front of you if in both instances you're not expecting it, you don't want it and nobody else is doing it? I'm as puzzled as you because by entering that emporium you are hoping to get a frothy coffee,

maybe a bit of flapjack. And maybe warm up a bit on a cold January morning. Exactly. You're not consenting to be exposed to somebody else's nakedness, are you? That wasn't part of the plan at all. But that wasn't the only email we had on that subject, and it seems that there is a naturist a naturist uh in that part of the world so there's a well-known uh local naturist called neil uh and suzanne who sent in the email about him says there's a website attached i'm not going to look on that we haven't no um and somebody said

that this the same sighting had cropped up on somebody else's podcast too so the plot thickens but you know what i did think um there was this weird thing on saturday night jane i went to a friend's birthday party happy birthday kate we had a really lovely evening it was in a pub in on the hackney islington borders that i'd never been to before uh and the loos in the female loos uh they it was absolutely covered the walls are absolutely covered with photographs of naked men and in the male loos apparently they are equally covered in pictures of naked women so proper pictures that you would get in the old-fashioned porn mags and pornography magazines i think that's somerset porn from the sound of that but i can't

be certain it's it is west country porn um but it was horrible jane it was oh i thought you were going to say that it was fascinating okay it was really invasive really nasty right i don't want to see that and also um there were a couple of younger people uh who were there to celebrate kate's birthday too and we ended up all being in the ladies at the same time and all of us were just cringing. It was kind of like, I don't want my... I wouldn't want my daughter or her friends to think that that was a kind of accepted norm

and obviously the pub was doing it in a, oh, it's so cool and ironic kind of way, but I found it horrible. Just because you're not expecting it and not everybody likes that no i mean did you discuss it yes all of us and so all every single uh woman who went to the ladies that night came back with a oh my god nobody came back with just a you know a quiet smile on their face having really enjoyed having to look at an awful lot of todgers that you didn't want to see out and about i just i don't get it at all i don't really understand why you're allowed to do

that either i am again you you perplex me i don't know what the answer to that is and i'm surprised it's allowed yeah because as you say although a pub is i mean children do go into pubs and of course they do they will use the loo yeah and and i think I let my kids go and use the loo in a pub on their own from about the age of six or seven. And I'd be really properly, I think my I think my daughter would have burst into tears if she'd seen that at the age

of six and I would not have wanted her to see that at the age of six. I'm thinking of writing quite a formal letter of complaint, Jane, in all seriousness. No, I don't blame you. I'm not going to mock you for doing so. I think I was going to writing quite a formal letter of complaint, Jane, in all seriousness. No, I don't blame you. I'm not going to mock you for doing so. I think I was going to say a really stiff letter and I bitterly regret that now.

But sometimes... No, sometimes, Fi, it's the only thing you can do. I think... Do you know what? You just let yourself down. I know. I'm sorry. This was always... And this is why, you know, I didn't make progress with other employers. Well, you made quite a lot of progress.

You ended up, you've done those 13 weeks on Woman's Hour. It was years! I do love it whenever I say that. It does trigger me then. It does, doesn't it? OK, so I would welcome other people's opinions on that, and so would my colleague here, Jane O'Phee at Times.Radio. I just wanted to mention this because we've been talking a lot about marriage,

the institution, and indeed about the ceremonial, but this is a very sad story, and I suspect it's one that's actually not uncommon. We don't need to name the listener who says, when I was 14, my mother walked out, leaving me living with my dad. She moved in with another man. It's fair to say my father and I were both devastated. My father never got over it and although he did meet somebody else they have

never moved in together. They stay with each other from time to time and they go away together. My mother's second husband died about 12 years ago and after another unsuccessful relationship and a period living on her own she now lives with me and my family my partner and my two children my mother and i have had a difficult relationship since she left and it isn't easy living with her well i have to say i'm based on that i'm so impressed that you have your mom living with you right now um because that's that's quite the thing you're doing there anyway um our listener goes on. texting me to find out if he's left so she can come home. My father simply refuses to have anything to do with her. I'm an only child and I feel disappointed and angry that neither my mother

nor my father are mature enough to get past this. My father sees his grandchildren very infrequently and I'm worried that this behaviour will have a negative effect on them. And that was... I'm really sad to hear about that and thank you for telling us that that ridiculous bitterness is still playing itself out and impacting now on the lives of children who weren't even born when it all started. I mean, it's just... You can see why. I mean, listen, I'm sure it's awful to have your partner

leave you with short notice, perhaps, and move in with somebody else. And of course, you're going to be angry. But now, oh, God, couldn't you just try to have a cup of tea and just make the best of it? You do wonder what hanging on to that resentment achieves. sometimes people sometimes are just fueled by that aren't they and it's an anger that propels them through the rest of their life but it's no way to live and when it starts to have an impact on people who are utterly blameless in all this oh it doesn't seem worth it yeah anyway well that's a really sad one it is a sad one and and actually i just hope that there's that that maybe and i know 30 years is a long time for that wound to have festered, but I hope maybe sometime further down the line there is some kind of a healing process because it would be awful to never have rectified that, wouldn't it?

Oh, it really would. Even just a tiny bit. And sometimes things happen in life which necessitate people who perhaps don't get on having to communicate with each other because perhaps there's been some sort of tragedy or an illness in the family that absolutely cannot pass without people communicating properly with each other. And I hope that doesn't happen to our emailer, but I just feel for her because she's in the middle of something that she's got absolutely no control over either. It's grim. So this doesn't have anything to do with this particular person and their family set-up, but we've just finished watching Married at First Sight Australia. It's been a really, really long haul, Jane. We thought that there were 34 episodes.

We thought that was going some anyway, but it turns out there are 37, and we're really struggling to get through the last couple. So I just leave that out there. If you're going to commit to a series, maybe not have so many episodes in it. But one of the things that we've been left thinking is just about the level of entertainment now

that rests on estrangement. So it used to be there and it's there in all works of classical literature, fiction and film. You know, the idea that somebody turns on somebody and can't get back towards them. I completely get that. But the way that modern television creates jeopardy out of that in nearly every circumstance is completely unreal. Most people, I think, go through life trying very hard to get on with everybody and then sometimes that can include wounding yourself a little bit taking a little bit

on the chin compromising compromising maybe not metaphorically you know lashing out at somebody as much as you would do but of course that doesn't make good television so everything is heightened and the idea especially with married at first sight which is ludicrous anyway that you know you just you might fall in love and genuinely want to spend the rest of your life with the person uh you know who you meet on a promontory windy sydney or whatever it is selected by some tv producers yes selected by tv producers um and i think that is different actually to arranged marriages because in arranged marriages you know you know your you know the the partner

and their family don't you so i'm not or your family know the family yeah yeah and i know that sometimes those do work out but but the whole premise is a bit flawed but but that just by the time you've got to the end of it i actually a little bit of my heart is broken by watching it jane because it just fuels this idea that you can love somebody one minute and then the next week you hate them and then you found out about their infidelity and then you're never going to talk to them again and actually that that's a kind of uh you know a perfect solution to the problem and it's not because actual estrangement and actual breakup is horrendous and affects lots of other people. And there are 37 episodes of this.

Yeah. How long is each episode? Well, sometimes we've tried to watch some of them without adverts, but I think with adverts in, some of them are up to 90 minutes long. Oh, Fiona. Yeah. You could have gone back to Odysseus. I could have.

Caught up with his travels. Well, I don't know. I've read the Odyssey a couple of times. Yeah, I mean, Mrs Odysseus, she was a very understanding lady. She was very understanding because part of the subplot of that is her husband is wandering back from the wars and the way that it's portrayed in classical literature, he kind of gets caught by a beautiful goddess

and has to spend time on an island. But you wonder whether that was just one of the biggest excuses. I never gave. Hi, it's me. You won't believe this, but I'm not being allowed to leave by a very, very nubile woman. I'll let you know when my visa comes through. See you later.

How is Telemachus? Let's bring in Georgina. And I'm reading her email, not just because she begins it with, Dear Fee and Jane, Jane is right. Of course she was. Jane is right. If you want to get an email read out on this podcast, that is what you need to put in the title.

In the title. Jane is right. May Day is for commemorating the historic struggle and gains made by workers. In continental Europe, that aspect of it remains very present, with marches and rallies by workers still the norm. That is, of course, then linked to an increased police presence. A friend of mine here in Germany once had a van of police officers in riot gear

turn up to her house because she'd forgotten it was a bank holiday. In Germany, the bank holiday falls on the exact date, not the nearest Monday, and my friend was mowing her lawn. A previous listener has already mentioned the seriousness of quiet hours in Germany. I personally like to surreptitiously use the bottle bank on a Sunday as my own little piece of civic rebellion. The police didn't dress in riot gear, especially for this outing to the suburbs. They were in the area awaiting any rally shenanigans when they were called to this alternative situation. They did feel slightly sheepish as they politely asked the British housewife

if she wouldn't mind waiting till the next day before finishing her gardening. So you see, things abroad in the continent are very different. What is that accent? It's just a little lisp. Because I had a lamb cough. OK. Thank you for that. News from abroad there, from Georgina.

Yeah, I kind of admire you, Georgina, for your act of civic rebellion, but a little bit of me, the law-abiding part of me, thinks that's very, very naughty. And if on a Sunday you heard the sudden shattering of a bottle of Carlsberg, I think arrest would follow. Right, do you want to crack the briefcase code in under 33 minutes? Well, I've read this a few times,

and Dr Rachel, who says she's not usually the useful sort of doctor is cleverer than me okay here we go that won't take much but no she's brilliant can carry on just in case anybody does have a briefcase with two three digit locks on it that they cannot undo here we go each three digit lock can have a possible 1000 10 by10x10 combinations because there are 10 possible numbers each single dial can take. And if you work systematically through these at a rate of one U combination per second, you could have gone through all of them in 1,000 seconds or 16 minutes and 40. Same for the other side, so a maximum of 2,000 seconds or 33 minutes 20 seconds.

But Rachel is making two very big assumptions well i thought she was you can immediately forward slash quickly tell when you've landed on the correct combination with a click or obvious loosening of the opening two you can tell when one lock is unlocked even if the other isn't if not then it's really a six digit lock with a million combinations taking around a million seconds or 11.5 days. I can't remember the actual combination but it would be likely not to be near the end of any systematic approach so you wouldn't need to try all 1,000 on each side. Hope that helps. It has, thank you. I was going to say no, it doesn't help at all. I'm just trying to put her off. Oh, okay. Thanks, Rachel.

It's a shame she's not a useful sort of doctor, because that kind of attention to detail and systematic processing of figures, I think, will be very comforting. Yeah, well, we'll always take emails from doctors. We love doctors of all sorts. Ree Ofsted and One Word Judgements of Schools.

Helen says, imagine the reaction if teachers rated their pupils outstanding good requires improvement or inadequate. Yeah, take your point at this from an anonymous older teacher. No one seems to mention the fact that about 20 years ago, a team of about a dozen inspectors used to come in for a week, and every department would have an inspector. Now there are just a few inspectors for the whole school, and they do a deep dive on just a couple of departments. In my view, that is inadequate.

I'm guessing this is because there aren't enough Ofsted inspectors, just as there aren't enough teachers. I think the one-word rating is so wrong, as when you work in a school, you realise there are things you cannot measure, such as the dedication of staff communication with parents teachers trying their best to deal with the current mental health crises etc it's so wrong to just wipe out any staff morale there is in a school by a simplistic one word

inadequate and i can imagine that is yeah that would be tough to hear yeah because as our correspondent says that there's so much for teachers to do now they are meant to be doing a whole world of things way outside the i'm going to say the the obligations that i think the teachers who came up against us probably felt yeah it is a very very big remit isn't it yeah it really is with so much more liability i think now if you get things wrong too yeah and can i just say though before other people feel the need to write in that there is quite a lot of systematic marking of children with just one word there is quite a thing in schools and uh and there's a kind of progression that you can use which is uh unsecured learning, secured learning, something or other, something or other.

There are all kinds of processes now for marking children and I think an awful lot of teachers and parents find that incredibly, I don't know, just a bit unhelpful actually. And I can see why you might no longer want to do those long-hand reports that we used to get in our day. But sometimes you just want to know a little bit more nuance as opposed to just whether the learning's gone in. So it's a problematic system all round.

But do you know what, Jane? I'd be amazed if we got anyone writing and saying the one-word thing is brilliant, don't change it. Even if they consistently had outstanding. But I think even if they consistently had outstanding but i think even if you consistently had outstanding you have sympathy for schools that yeah that don't i mean all kinds of reasons why schools some schools just can't get to outstanding no never good in a million years yeah okay well keep them coming jane and fee at times dot radio um is it time we brought in our guest or have we got another have we got time for one more on conception well i think we've got time if it's

a quickie when i was at school in the 80s our headmaster was obsessed with the top stream kids collecting as many exams as possible consequently i was forced into the cse child care class in my final year even though i knew then I didn't want children. Our course book was the M&S Book of Childcare, and in lesson one, we turned to the first chapter, which included the gestation table. Have you ever seen that? No.

I didn't know M&S had done a book of childcare. They did a lovely book of soup, which I always recommend to people. Not just childcare. Exceptional childcare. No, very good. of soup which i always recommend to people not just child care exceptional child care not a very good nine months the day of my birthday was my mum's birthday i went home and asked mum when i was conceived and she had to think very hard eventually she remembered that yes it was her birthday during a norwegian cruise lovely is there a fjord gag you could shoehorn in there? Naturally, I've got a grade one CSE to add to my exam collection. And it's been utterly useless, says Nikki. Because she

didn't want children. And that, can I say, that was very typical of the mindset of the time in the 80s. So headteachers who just wanted to get kids through exams would put a child who they didn't feel would get the GCSE or GCSE into a CSE childcare class to get them off the books if you like and it's just that kind of thing is it's not it's not good is it really I don't think well perhaps it does happen now I don't think it should. Testing life so you don't have to is the basis of a new podcast from the comedy duo Rachel Paris and Marcus Brigstocke. They're promising to review everything from the bizarre to the inane to the heartfelt with a star rating and the podcast is called How Was It For You? Now the real shtick of the podcast is that Marcus and Rachel are married and they've

done a lot together. They've even won Pointless Celebrities together. Is there a greater show of love out there? I don't think so. You might know Rachel from the MASH report where her work was nominated for a BAFTA. She's also won 2018's Female First Comedian of the Year. Bless you, Jane. Thank you.

You might also know Marcus from all kinds of stuff at Radio 4, Think The Now Show, The Museum of Everything, The News Quiz, et cetera. He's also a world cheese judge. And in his time, he's also been a podium dancer. More on both those things during this interview, please. Rachel and Marcus, very good afternoon from the both of us. How are you?

Hello. We're well, thank you. How are you? Are you well? Yes, we're very well indeed. If I can be honest, I was better before I heard the train toy noise because that's just hellish, isn't it? It's like a cheese wire going through your head. It's so unnecessary because you're fine with the noise of a tractor, which it is, but sort of German techno music is not something you need to come out of a child's toy at that volume and yet it does. An incredibly bright sort of disco light underneath the tractor next to the off switch as well which

when you turn it over to try and turn the sound off you're also blinded by it so on every level it's an assault. Yes this has obviously stayed with you way past the time at which you managed to switch the toy off but this is an example of what you do on the podcast, isn't it? You're going through things in normal daily life and giving them a kind of value or no value at all, just through your own personal experience. That's the basis of it, is it? Yeah, which essentially we're being uh influencers without any of the benefits that influencers get in terms of free stuff so that i you know you feel quite a lot of the time with the influencer thing that's happening that they're a bit bought and paid for when they go i really like these new shoes i've been sent for free uh we're not getting anything for free. Yeah, we're not really reviewing products or even really like art in a traditional sense.

We're reviewing, yeah, like experiences, things that come up. For example, we went to the cinema to see a brilliant film, American Fiction, but we're not reviewing that. We're reviewing popcorn. Yeah. Turns out neither of us have much good to say about popcorn.

Popcorn's time is up as far as I'm concerned. It's packing foam that's been getting away with it for too long. Well, I would be with you on that. The USP, though, is the fact that you are married and you're married to each other. And the obvious question that you must have been asked a thousand times before so i'm expecting a very very very good answer to this uh is is there a danger that you know when when you're having a good day as a married couple the podcast could be brilliant but when you're having the inevitable bad day as a married couple do we all want to hear that we've had it yeah it's that's uh that's a

great question we haven't been asked it before, but there are two episodes of the podcast that we're not putting out. Really? Okay. We were in a bad mood with each other, and we listened back to the edit, and we were like, yep, it shines through. Yep, you can hear that.

That we're in a bad mood with each other. So we re-recorded it when we were in a good mood with each other. Okay. So now, I'm sorry guys but now oh i've used guys i apologize for my colleague um but the the we only want to hear those episodes now the bleak ones yeah well i think that i think there are some things on which we have quite profound disagreements i mean one of the things we've reviewed is skiing which is you know a passion for me i was on channel four's the jump broke my leg still had the time of my life and would do it

again and rachel has effectively and i'm going to admit this been forced to ski against her will so genuine ongoing argument in our marriage um and we do air that uh on the podcast uh there if it's like a juicy row that is a bit of fun to hear then we'll include that if it's just we're sort of quietly seething at each other and it means there's no energy in the room yeah okay that would usually be based on me having made plans that i haven't told to Rachel. Right, and those then emerging on the podcast. Okay. How many episodes have you been commissioned for? Indefinite.

Yeah, the world of podcasting, it turns out, has no boundaries, no barriers, very few rules. So we'll keep making it as long as it's fun. I mean, we were doing doing we did so much during lockdown we did online shows every tuesday and it started as a thing we were like well this will pass half an hour maybe and we did so many shows and it was brilliant and then when the pandemic sort of ended we were so keen to get back out into the world we should really have done the podcast then but we didn't because we've been busy touring and having a baby

and those sorts of things. So now's the time. Okay. So you met when you were both performing as comedians. You know, that is your job. And I suppose it's inevitable as well that people will think within that kind of partnership and marriage, who is the audience to whom? whom oh I think it's fairly mutual

we take turns I would say we have to take everything in our life um in turns like I go on tour and then Marcus goes on tour you know he does a gig I do a gig especially you know with a child and stepkids in the mix and in terms of who's the audience I mean I think you're more of a natural entertainer in the home than I am you're very kind I'm more of a sit in a corner and read kind of person while I entertain which is lovely for Rachel she hasn't finished a book yet yeah I mean I'm sort of I'm louder really But like Rachel does Ostentatious, which is a narrative Jane Austen, an improvised narrative Jane Austen. Every week they get a title for an unheard of Jane Austen and improvise the entirety of the story. Plugging Ostentatious for free on Times Square.

free on times it's i've improvised with all of you in different forms and i still go and see that show and i'm blown away by how brilliant it is so rachel's chops as an improviser are endless and far superior to mine so maybe but what's that got to do with her question well it's to do with me being entertained by you isn't it oh yeah sure the point is she's quite funny i love the way this is playing out i'm very happy to just leave you to it and see what happens by four o'clock they might be on the cusp of a row we can't broadcast this oh we are okay we are this could be it we've had a text from steve who says uh brigstock is married to rachel paris that's almost criminal levels of punching up well done lad so many people have said that to Marcus that Marcus now has had to have he's got a half an

hour stand-up routine about punching up and how many people have told him that he's punching up and people telling him that he was punching up on our wedding day I'll tell you a true story I did I did some material about punching above my weight at the Edinburgh festival uh last year and then Rachel and I were walking up the royal mile on maybe day two or three of the festival and this lovely elderly Edinburgh couple came up and said oh we were at your show last night I must say I thought it was very funny and oh gosh you weren't kidding spotted Rachel and confirmed it so yeah whoever yeah, whoever sent that text, I agree. I'm a very lucky man. Thanks.

Yeah. Let's have the serious question about comedy, because it's something that our colleague John Pienaar is going to be discussing on his show on Times Radio after five o'clock and it's Jerry Seinfeld adding his voice to what is a growing chorus of comedians who think that wokeness is just ending our innate desire to be able to laugh at everything. And do you now have that kind of voice of censorship in your heads when you're writing stuff, when you're delivering stuff? I mean, certainly if you're improvising stuff, is it just more difficult now because you might offend everybody? I, for myself, I can only speak for myself, I feel that I definitely have more sensitivity to people, to issues than I have before, more awareness.

And I don't think that that's a bad thing. What I do think is a danger to comedy and something that definitely holds me back is how much everything is recorded and can easily be recorded. That's the fear. Because I think there's a contract between you and the audience at a live gig,

which you feel like you can say things in the moment and there's a level of trust there. Whereas I think things being, anyone could record it on their phone and then put it all over the world within a matter of seconds. And that is much scarier than the idea of what happens. It's like if someone could take it out of context and it could be everywhere and you didn't intend it to be everywhere. You tended it to be between you and 40 people in a room.

There's a big difference as well between being woke and being censorious. 40 people in a room. There's a big difference as well between being woke and being censorious. You know, I would think that I'm certainly, in lots of people's opinion, a woke person in that I try to stay aware of groups of people who now and historically have suffered or are suffering and try not to make that suffering any worse. But that's quite different from being censorious about anything in particular. any worse but that's quite different from being censorious about anything in particular and a lot of the comics who are complaining very loudly about this have vast audiences i mean ricky

gervais plays to huge audiences who are very keen to hear about how he can't say anything whilst he's saying plenty of things and jim car who's you know, pretty controversial. Jimmy plays to huge audiences. I'm sure Jerry Seinfeld does as well. So, you know, it's not much of a thing. I worry a bit for my, I've got a 21-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter. And I think that collectively their age group are censorious. And I think that they are quite nervous in how they express themselves to each other. Do you think some of those big comedians, particularly the ones that you've named, are in a sense,

they're also just trying to protect their back catalogue in saying what they're saying now? No, I'd be surprised if they are. I suspect they're more interested in the next show. And I'm saying that because that's what most comedians are interested in, in what we're doing and what we might do next. And they are the back catalogue. I'd be surprised if they worry that anyone's going to go back and cancel.

And in any case, their huge audience are not going to cancel them. Rachel Paris and Marcus Brigstocke there. And their podcast series is called How Was It For You? And I just want to mention Sarah who says she's convinced she needs to share a thimble of sherry with us both. We'll have a shimble. What is wrong? I am convinced I need to share... That's not the easiest. Share a thimble of sherry with you both. I think she put that in as a trick. I'll always recall my lovely mum

relaying with the absolute conviction of a best friend that Martin Clunes is the most lovely man. Well, Martin Clunes was on our fair yesterday, of course. We also, says sarah have the most adorable retired guide dog in our life that was the bit i really wanted to get to they are indeed the absolute best it's been one of the biggest privileges of our lives to have our dog foxy so i i just think that must be a fantastic thing to be able to do to give a home to a a dog that has just been such a fantastic aid

and companion to someone who doesn't have sight. I agree. A lovely, lovely scheme. I took Cool Cat to the vet this morning because he needed microchipping. It's a saga for another day involving quite a lot of stray cats and a microchip cat flap. Hang on. Does this mean, do you get, because this is my horror of a flap and it's why

i don't have one is that you'll come home to come down in the morning or come home of course because i so often don't know where i'm going to spend the night wherever i lay my head that's my under a mattress topper yeah carry on you'd come in to discover that there was like a bloody cat party oh well we had cat gates at about three o'clock in the morning at the weekend. I can't be doing with it. Where there was a stray cat had come into the house, chased the cats upstairs. It was pandemonium. And it was really horrible, actually.

And the cats were terrified. And of course, that can lead to quite a lot of incontinence as well. So we're fed up with it. So long story short, I had to take cool cat to be microchipped because I hadn't bothered to get him microchipped before. I don't know why, actually. Anyway, A, I didn't realise it was going to become illegal after June to not have your pets microchipped.

Did you know that? I didn't know that. There you go, public service announcement there. And Cool Cat has doubled in size since the last time he went to the vet. He's so fat. But the vet was so lovely and just said, he's 13, he's fat and happy, just basically keep going. And I thought, I love you.

So we've talked about vets in the past and sometimes, you know, how you can come out of a vet feeling not entirely, well, an awful lot lighter in certain parts of your life. So we won't revisit that particular argument but you felt it was a good appointment oh i thought it was a lovely appointment and also it's just what i feel about cool cat too so he's really really happy cat now he's not always been particularly happy he is a plus size model but he's just having the time of his life so i

just loved the vet for basically saying yeah yeah, whatever. Go on, mate. Ode to be him. What do you think he's doing right now? Listening to us. Oh, of course. Yes, okay. Yeah, I mean, how did he take the news of the resignation of the Scottish First Minister? He was intrigued. He was absolutely

ear glued to the radio all day, Jane. I suspect he saw it coming. Right, okay. Enjoy, everyone. And we're back tomorrow, if they let us out. 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 was 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.