Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Members of the long bosom WI (with Dolly Alderton)

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Fi's taking personal calls and Jane's doodling on herself. Amongst these distractions, they also discuss surfing events on The Seine, Christmas trees and EastEnders. Plus, they're joined by Dolly Alderton to discuss her new novel 'Good Material'. Out on 9/11/23. 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: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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You were glumphing your way through a chomp or something. What were you doing? Well, we had an email from Lorna to complain about the noise I made on Thursday. To be fair, we were talking about muffins. No, they were crumpets. They were crumpets, I do. They were very, very claggy crumpets. Yeah, it's actually, if you're going to do a radio feature

about what have turned out to be crumpets, you've got to probably eat them, haven't you? You've got to probably eat them. Yes. I probably did. That's a split eat them, haven't you? Mm. You've got to probably eat them. Yes. I probably did. That's a split infinitive, isn't it? I probably did eat it and I'm really sorry if it offended people. All right. Well, people will get more offended by the grammar now. Yeah, that's true.

So, yes, you've been told off, but the funny thing is that your mum then got in touch to tell you off again because she'd forgotten to tell you off when it happened first time around. So, the telling off is just echoing around the world it's just brilliant just leave me alone i didn't ask to be born right did you have a nice weekend i had an absolutely lovely lovely so uh so i had a very london weekend actually jane did you spend it in london i did and with relevance to uh a topic we were talking about last week on the podcast,

which was those funny tropes of London. Yeah. We did go for a walk on Hampstead Heath on Sunday. Did you crunch through the leaves? It was so wet and soggy. Everybody was slipping around. But also it was so busy. Well, that's why I'm always fine.

We had to queue to get onto the path. That's what I mean. We literally had to queue to get onto one of the main paths going between Hampstead and Parliament Hill fields, the one that goes past all of the ponds. So it was just quite comical. And the problem is if you go with a dog, I think about 40% of people have also gone with dogs.

And some of the dogs up there are huge. London Fields has quite a small dog, but there are these great, you know, these lolloping St Bernards flummoxing around. Doing their first aid. Yeah, exactly that. So what should have been a really nice, very relaxing, lovely autumnal London thing

was actually incredibly stressful we went to a pub for a late lunch and food took a very long time to arrive 45 minutes also stressful yep we thought we'll sit outside because it was sunny and then the sun went down cold and the food arrived at 4 15 4 15 it was late lunch and the rain arrived at 4.17. So we sat there in the pouring rain, shoving roasts into our mouths. It took us four and a half minutes to eat

and then we went. How was your weekend? Not as good as yours. I've still got indigestion actually. Oh dear, I'm not surprised. We are talking tropes and Angela has got in touch to say whenever anybody enters a church, there's always organ music playing. That is true.

And it's always good organ music. And as most people know, usually when you enter a church, it's really bad. We don't want to offend crap organists, but there are a few of you out there. Oh, I've just done it. Pauline says, I had to email after listening to your podcast about ridiculous tropes in films.

Can someone please explain to me why it is that everyone buying a takeaway coffee in the movies clearly has an empty cup? Sometimes, particularly in police dramas, you will see the young officer arriving into the very serious incident room with a tray of cups. He seems to be able to balance

all these steaming hot cups of coffee as if they're full of air, which is exactly what they are full of. I don't expect the film production team to provide hot coffee, thus causing a scalding incident, but surely they could fill them with water. At least it would look realistic. Similarly, when you see someone drinking from one of those air-filled cups, they make all the right moves, pretending to take a sip, but then somehow manage to be able to join in a conversation, while in reality, the liquid would still be in their mouths. This is true, isn't it? Yeah, it's very true. And because you can tell an empty cup from a heavy cup, they're always empty. They don't weigh them down enough. No, I mean, Pauline does say,

really grinds my gears mind you i'm easily grinded these days it's the menopause pauline good luck with that um you will find yourself incredibly exasperated by absolutely everything in the years ahead but welcome to the club it has its benefits i also think that people don't have enough outdoor clothing so whenever there's a scene in an office when somebody comes in, they've never come in from the outdoors. They never spend five minutes hanging up their coat and their scarf and tripping over the hat stand and then getting their bag off

and all that kind of stuff. They just arrive at work. They're just there. They're just there. And always with freshly ironed clothing. Yes, usually. Every single person has. I mean, particularly I noticed this on EastEnders.

Everyone is wearing a box fresh garment. Are they? Yes. I've watched the Enders for years. I just occasionally catch a glimpse while I'm waiting for a news and current affairs documentary. In Latin? In Sanskrit. That's my chosen documentary language.

Yes, indeed. I don't watch the news in the same way as I don't eat. No. What am I talking about? I don't know, Jane. I only watch the news and I don't eat carbs. Yeah. We have got an email special coming up.

We don't really know when because it took so much arranging today in the office. But I checked out that conversation about three and a half hours in. Yeah. But it's happening at some stage. Great. And because there are loads of you who sent really, really long, thoughtful emails, conversation about three and a half hours in yeah but it's happening at some stage great and because there are loads of you who sent really really long thoughtful emails particularly about weight and about how to talk about weight to your children so we will talk about quite a few of

those we'll save those for the email special are there a couple that you really feel that you need to do now well not on that subject actually because i agree with you should we save them all until the email special probably should yeah yeah so that's a promise um i just want to mention this one on divorce because we did have an email last week from a listener who was i mean she'd sort of acknowledged that she probably needed to end her marriage but she was still not certain and i totally get that and this listener says just heard your podcast with that inquiry from the listener about whether or not she should get divorced. It sounded like my own situation. And the reason that I hadn't left was because I was terrified. How would I cope financially? Where would we live?

Would the children turn into delinquents? I realised later this was because of the way that I'd been treated during the marriage and constantly put down. I would suggest to your listener that she take the time to get her affairs in order, look at how much bills would be, where you would live, find another job if you know it's going to be impossible, then wait, something will happen that will spur you on. For me, him choosing to go to the gym over a family trip out, that was it. Then I felt confident enough to go. So it can often be a quite relatively, well, let's face it, yeah, it is a relatively minor incident

that will finally make people confront what will have to be their truth from now on. Yes, it's the thing that you just can't go back from, isn't it? Thank you for your conversations and your thoughts about bras. This one comes from Elizabeth. As a well-endowed woman of many years 77 i can confirm that there are 36 double h bras and elizabeth describes herself as a long bosom listener i really like that i'm going to use that when someone next says what's your podcast about well Well, it's mostly Longbosom. I think it does sound like a village, Longbosom.

Longbosom. Do you know anyone in Longbosom? I think that's somewhere on the borders between Somerset and Wiltshire. I'm a member of the Longbosom WI. Yes, I'd love to live there. Yep. Is it, Is it what? Is it twinned with...

Oh, be careful. Well, I was thinking maybe with... What would it be? Well, we all know what it would be. Le petit-tite. In La Belle France. Probably that or somewhere in Belgium. Yes, it could be in Belgium. Or indeed Switzerland.

I'm just showing my knowledge. Oh, you're very international today, Jane. Or indeed Tahiti. Did you know that the surfing events at the Paris Olympics are going to be in Tahiti? Well, I mean, they can't be on the Seine. Why do you expect them to be? I thought they could just get a wave machine. No, I don't think

so. It's quite interesting because the papers are full of stories from France at the moment. I think it's partly because France is having a little moment, isn't it? Because it's just had the Rugby Union World Cup. It's having the Olympics. Well done, France. It's having the Olympics next year. Yes, let's hear it for little France.

Punching above its weight. No, it's... All the stories about the Olympics next year. Yes, let's hear it for little France, punching above its weight. No, it's... And all the stories about the Olympics are negative, but it's just the same situation as in London in 2011 and the early months of 2012, where all we heard was how terrible the London Olympics were going to be. And particularly from taxi drivers.

Oh, taxi drivers, yes. Do you remember how infuriated they were about the Olympic lane that was coming their way? But it wasn't just that. It was an ocean of negativity surrounding that event. And then it was the most glorious summer of fun and proper, really wonderful British hospitality on display. The volunteers, do you remember them? Brilliant. Superb.

So it'll be the same in France. They'll be superb. Superb. So it'll be the same in France. They'll be superb. Superb. I really, really hope it is. Because once it starts, you'll just find yourself carried along. And if we've got any listeners in France, let us know what the mood is. Not necessarily in Paris, because Paris can get a cob on very easily, can't it? And a lot of people don't want to be in Paris in the summer.

You should never be seen should you in Paris Well everybody goes it makes me laugh when they say that it's not everybody is it? Of course it isn't in the same way as not everybody leaves London for a country weekend So they call it les vacances it's the proper two week holiday isn't it

where everyone disappears Are you going to try and get tickets because you could easily get across to France. I do know really super well-organised friends who have tried to. I only really managed to get tickets for one British Olympic event. So I don't think, realistically for you,

I won't be going. I'll be quite interested if we do have listeners in France on what your ticketing is. Because we all had to enter a ballot, didn't we? And there was such high excitement about who might get what and all that kind of malarkey and we didn't get anything we were very upset at the time but we got loads of Paralympic tickets and it was better oh yes you went to the yes I remember you going to the Paralympics well the only thing I went to was the women's football at

Wembley uh which was actually at the time a record I think it might still hold the record for a record crowd at a women's game. It was the Great Britain team against Brazil. I think Great Britain won, I think. Let's just say they did. What a marvellous performance it was. Day one. Hello to Anna, who's Anna Walker, who used to be on Wish You Were Here and Sky News.

Your phone's ringing. Let's just listen to this. Anna, as a media professional, will enjoy this. Hang on. ringing. Let's just listen to this. Anna is a media professional. We'll enjoy this. Hang on. Hello. Oh, God. Yes.

Yeah. Oh, he's got a nice voice. Oh, I'm fine. But actually, I'm actually at work at the moment. I'm at work. She gets paid for this. Yes. Can I give you a call tomorrow?

She'll call you then. Sorry. I'm actually doing a podcast, Connor. Can I give you a call tomorrow? She'll call you then. Sorry. I'm actually doing a podcast, Connor. Can I just call you back tomorrow? Would that be okay? She's doing a podcast. Yes, lovely. That's grand.

Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Who was that? Well, he thought it was just an excuse. He didn't seem to respond with much enthusiasm when you said...

No, he was a little bit tardy and a little bit rude. What's his job? So that was about finance. Oh, I'd like to have heard that conversation. Anyway, Anna says she used to be on television. I'm sure she could be again if she fancied it, but she's far too busy because after 20 years in broadcasting, we moved to Switzerland. We were the first British family to live in my small Alpine village. As I'm not a linguist, I had a choice of A, learning French,

I got a B in my O-level many years ago, same as me, or letting my friend speak for me, quite an incentive, letting my husband speak for me, quite an incentive to learn another language, I can imagine. Many French films and hours of French radio later, I was offered a job as an estate agent, not a job as an estate agent. Not a job I would ever have considered in London, but somehow selling chalets in the Swiss Alps appealed. Believe me, a tiled splashback sounds so much better in French. Oh, I bet it does.

What is it in French? Yeah, you'll have to tell us. I wouldn't be able to tell you. Oh, I'm speaking to Anna directly. Oh, sorry, hello. I was involving a listener in the podcast there. So, Anna, we don't know what Tiled Splashback is. Please, please, can you tell us?

Can you send us a voice note? Yes, and then we'll include it, because you as a former broadcasting professional will be more than capable of doing that. Actually, could you send us on a voice note your very, very, very best estate agent speak for a chalet because it's something that drives jane and me really really mad and lots and lots of other people uh the high level wc type stuff the beautiful west facing aspect all of the really stupid things because you could go to town

on a chalet couldn't you i'd also like to know from anna just how much a chalet in a swiss alpine village is costing these days. Your mate Connor on finance would be... Well, I mean, if I bother to call Connor back and actually engage with him on my finances, you never know. A little view over the Mont Blanc might be yours in retirement. This one comes from a listener in Hong Kong, and it's a bit of a criticism which I'm more than happy to take. Thank you for your discussion with Matt Willis, and I'm sure many listeners learnt much about addiction from it.

But Fee's reference in closing concerned me. Two types of groups affected by problems with addiction within society were broadly described as people in entertainment and people on the streets, and whilst your point that we generally treat them differently is true, those are extreme examples to cite. I've been sober for a number of years after a series of binge drinking episodes placed my marriage and health in jeopardy,

and I don't fit into either of those categories. I attend a 12-step programme to get support from and give support to my fellow alcoholics to maintain my sobriety. And to an outsider, we look like a regular bunch of people. Around the globe, there will be meetings today with members drawn from every age group, sexual identity, economic means and ethnicity. What we have in common is our powerlessness over alcohol and other substances

and a desire, however faint, on any given day to stop using it. Our stories are all slightly different, but what we have in common is that bodies cannot tolerate alcohol and substances safely. And she goes on to say one of the fastest growing groups identified by King's College Hospital research are middle-aged women. Likely this is a good chunk of your listening public, so I wanted to write in and say that if you're at home or in a workplace

and find yourself reaching for a drink more and more often, you may well fit in where I go to receive support myself so thank you for pointing that out and you're absolutely right of course to point that out I suppose the point that I was just trying to make was the hypocrisy about the way we almost, almost encourage people in entertainment to have a life lived in these extreme places and we don't really call it into question as much as we should, whereas I think it is easier for some people to condemn people who they see as, you know, being in real jeopardy on the streets or whatever. you know, being in real jeopardy on the streets or whatever. But I totally get your point that all of those kind of abusive, all of those addictive behaviours can manifest themselves in anybody's life.

There's no kind of particular reason. So thank you for pointing that out. And obviously, I wish you well, and I hope that you're doing OK. Yeah, and I should tell you, if you're not an addict, you're not special, you're just fortunate, aren't you? Hugely, Jane. It's as simple as that. Hugely, and just that thing about, you know, you place two people in the same circumstances

and one person may get so tripped up by addictive behaviours and the other person can just walk away. Yeah. You know, that rhyme and reason, there seems to be none. So I'm just glad we understand it better, actually. And I think all of the reaction to Matthew Perry's death suggests that we do understand addiction way better. So, you know, that's a thing. It's terrible for him not to be here to see us all talk in a different way about it, actually. Yeah. Yes, it is sad that, but he's just not going to. I mean,

this is a pattern that sort of repeats itself, isn't it? That people who do go too young have no idea what impact they've had. Of course, you're never going to know because you're not going to know what people say about you after you've died. Which is why, actually, going back briefly to... Do you want me to try and get... I could do this through an FOI, could you? I could try and get your obituary from the BBC.

Do you know what? It's really weird you mention that because I know there is one. Because I saw it in a file once. There'd be one for all of us. But shall I try and get it and see what people say? And I'll get yours. Lovely. Well, that's Christmas.

Oh, dear. Actually, just thinking about all the... We have had a lot of emails on this subject of being overweight and actually people who are overweight just wanted to talk about me or anyone else who's no longer around, well, she did keep herself trim. Wasn't it marvellous? I never saw her binge eating a packet of biscuits. She was never more than nine stone. Five for one, about nine stone.

They're wonderful. What a wonderful achievement. It's bollocks, isn't it, really? It is all bollocks, that. Anyway, I don't know why that suddenly came into my head but sometimes you just think i mean i would happen to be with my parents at the weekend they're both very elderly they can still enjoy a good meal and it's a lovely thing to see genuinely to be able to have a drink and have a good meal come on

everybody let's not overthink all this stuff what did you have i had a good meal well i made the bloody thing oh i see oh I thought you went out. No, no. Can't go out in the cold weather. That was a problem yesterday. Yeah, exactly. Horrible. Yeah.

Claire says, I was baffled by your discussion about the number of Christmas trees per household. Gosh, V, this is you and I told. Why wouldn't you have more than one tree? I've let my family down. My inadequacy's starting already. It's only, what is it, November the 6th?

Claire's in Scotland and she says, and I put up three trees every Christmas. Before having children, I had one tree with my specially collected glass decorations from Germany. When children came along, practical issues had to be considered. So a second tree came into play so I could continue enjoying my special decoration. Just to give you the specific details in case you might be interested, there's one huge tree in the living room that is child-friendly

with all the decorations the kids have made and bought. The second tree, medium-sized, is in the dining room with my glass decorations. Children are banned from running around in that room when the tree is up. And finally, the third tree is a teeny tiny tree I put on top of my bedroom chest of drawers just for me to enjoy. My husband thinks I'm a bit Christmas crazy. I love the completely different topics on the podcast, says Claire. Well, we aim to please Claire.

I mean, we do jiggle around all over the place discussing all sorts of stuff. And so far, you are top of our Christmas tree with a grand total of three completely different Christmas trees. That is very impressive. And I can see where she's coming from. I really like the idea of her own private, on top of the bedroom, chest of drawers tree just for her own private enjoyment.

And well done you as well, because there are no flies on your husband, are there? How do we know that? Because he's told her she's quite Christmassy. Oh, yes. He's an observant chap. He's a keeper, Claire. Cling on to him.

This one comes in from Sarah and it's about our Debbie Weinstein interview. Now, Debbie is the MD, chief executive, head honcho, great big pants at Google. Huge. That's the official title. And we were talking about childcare facilities at Google with her. And we did get one email criticising us for the fact that we asked her whether or not there was a crash at Google right at the end of the interview and then didn't pursue that conversation. Can I just say that that was why you asked her right at the end so we interview and then didn't pursue that conversation. Can I just say that that was why we did,

you asked her right at the end so we could just leave it. Yeah. Kind of, sometimes you have to do the work, Lister. You know, we can't spoon feed you everything. We thought it was quite a nice ending. We thought it was clever. More fool us, teachers. Anyway, sorry about that.

And Sarah goes on to say, I work at YouTube, part of Google in London, and I've worked with Debbie in the past, although I would say she's a bit further up the chain. She is a very, very, very big cheese in her time leading the YouTube business globally. I'm also pregnant. And while I'm grateful to work at a company that offers a generous maternity leave and flexible working hours,

I still find my eyes watering when budgeting for full-time nursery on top of rising mortgage costs and everything else. I think a subsidised on-site nursery would help both with worker productivity, no leaving early, to avoid the £1 per minute late fees. Now, that's come in since I was dropping kids off at nursery. £1 per minute. Good Lord. I would find that pressure beyond.

Gosh, especially in cities when you're trying to battle with public transport as well. Wow. Anyway, and help parents manage work and family life more easily. Surely other employees would also be inclined to sacrifice some of the other perks for that. I'm going to pick this up with our parents ERG, Employment Resource Group, and see what they say. So that's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Having said that, people are very protective over the free meals here, and I don't see that being sacrificed anytime soon. If you're ever in King's Cross, I'll get you in for a free Google meal. Tip breakfast is the best. Well,

we can be there at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Yes, let's sort that. Let's do that. We could use it as if we could say that we're doing some very, very undercover research and then just eat all of the hash browns. Just have a huge breakfast and I'd do loads of munching as well just to annoy everybody. It was Claire Balding who said that poodles are clever. I

suggested that. There's no evidence at all to suggest that poodles are clever and Jane has very kindly provided us with an image of her poodle with her reading glasses on. And it's absolutely lovely. I take it all back. Poodles are clearly extremely bright. From the look on that poodle's face,

I think they may just have finished Tackle by Jilly Cooper, which is a book I read over the course of the weekend and which will be the subject of a full-body discussion on this podcast later in the week. Please just tell me that at no point is there any kind of a raunchy sex scene involving a jockstrap. Not, no, not a jockstrap, no. But...

Kit? Sponsored kit? No, there's none of the made-up detail about people performing in Chelsea shirts. Because actually one of the things in the book is that all the names of teams are entirely fictional. So Lanx Rovers and things like that. There's one or two bits that do reveal that Gilly, I think, would be perhaps not the first to admit, but among the first to admit that it's not really her world football. No. And so her take on the football chant is quite extraordinary.

It's a very, very unique and special thing. But also quite benign, you know, by comparison to most football chants, which we couldn't repeat here. Nobody could ever repeat on any kind of audio. You've put viral on your front, love. Have I? In what part of my front? Just underneath your lanyard.

Just there. Okay, I've just drawn on my bosom. You have. Well, you've drawn just below your collarbone. It looks like a tattoo. Well, people will think it is. And that's fine. Okay.

Have you seen the reassurance you've had from Jackie about changing sheets? Oh, could you read it out, please? Fee, please don't worry. Take your make-up off at night. If you don't suffer from night sweats or incontinence and you're generally clean, changing of sheets every three weeks is fine.

I would have been the same until I met my late-in-life love treat. Then the night-time fun times meant there were reasons to wash the sheets more often. That was too much, Jackie! I just love night-time fun often. That was too much, Jackie! I just love night time fun times. That's lovely. Not after a meal, surely.

Anyway, thank you. I did, I changed my sheets as we came. I wonder whether you would, actually. I'm not surprised. When I got home, I thought, oh gosh, everyone's looking at me. Nobody is. Can I just say that I'd love some pictures of dogs in coats.

It never doesn't make me smile, Jane. A dog in a coat? A dog in a coat, because this is the time of year where dogs start appearing in coats. Yeah. And they're just always funny, always lovely. Right, shall we talk about Dolly Alderton? Yes, Dolly is our guest today.

She's the Sunday Times style agony aunt. I always find her advice very sensible, actually. Her wonderful work of nonfiction, Everything I Know About Love, is just something that every young woman and frankly, almost every female I know absolutely adores. And also lots of men love it too, because it's a proper insight into what goes through a young lady's head as she battles the complicated and turbulent years of her kind of post moving out of the home social life that would be right wouldn't it navigating university and beyond but her new novel it's a novel this is fiction it's good material it's set in 2019 and it's about heartbreak but this time the focus is on a man. There is a male narrator, Andy, a 35-year-old stand-up comedian

who's just split with his partner, Jen, after nearly four years. And the man is devastated. He goes home to his mum, of course. We only actually get to hear the perspective of Jen in the last 20% or so of the book. So I asked Dolly why she'd done it that way. I like the idea of setting up the breakup as a mystery for the narrator, as a breakup is for so many people who are dumped.

And my publisher, this is a little bit, I don't know if we quite did this, my publisher liked the idea of it being like a gone girl for a murdered relationship. Nobody dies in this. Nobody dies in the book. The relationship dies. And having the kind of questions answered and the mysteries solved by the person who initiated the breakup in the last 20%. So what I loved about this

was that whilst I was reading Andy's story and hearing only from Andy, I actually found myself rather sympathetic towards him. Only when Jen weighed in at the end did I realise what a complete prat I'd been. Now, was that always your intention? Because I'm, as you know, a head-banging feminist, so I shouldn't have been on Andy's side at all. Why was I, do you think? So this is an interesting experiment that I've done with this book. I am yet to read any reviews, so I don't know what people will think.

But so far what I've got from reader reviews and from people who've read it at Penguin, this seems to be my most lovable protagonist. Everyone seems to find Andy, you know, flawed, but well-intentioned and self-aware. And Andy is by far the least likable narrator that I've ever written and every everything that I've written there has always been a debate about the female narrator how likable she is and I just wonder how much of it as readers that we just have this bank of goodwill oh do you know i'm hating myself now is it because he expresses a certain amount of what a degree of self-awareness he's also concerned about his

appearance because he's worried about his hair loss and actually this is something that i i do feel genuinely sorry for anyone who feels that they're losing their hair it must be awful yeah and he has well he has a just explain what he does with images of his slightly sparser than it used to be head. Because I feel the same as you, Jane. I feel like there's so few instances where I feel like, wow, men have it so much harder than us. But the balding thing. Yeah, it's hard. I just can't believe that this is an accepted part of life for men. I would be out with placards. I don't know who I would be protesting to, but I can't believe that this is an accepted part of life for men. I would be out with placards.

I don't know who I would be protesting to, but I can't believe it. And you really notice it as well when you come out of university, then you do these kind of reunions or you see these friends, and it's like, it just, it spares no one. Just boys who had a full head of hair suddenly five years later are completely bald. So I was just really interested in what that frustration must be like for a man of just knowing that there is nothing you can do about it, really, unless you have an enormous amount of money. And he becomes so fixated and obsessive about his hair loss. And I think what he thinks that symbolizes, like the loss of his girlfriend and the loss of his hair, the loss of his youth, the loss of his virility.

So he said he creates a photo album on his phone called ball i think it's a very clever description as well of the male relationship with rejection which lies at the heart of some really serious nasty stuff in the world actually men's seeming inability to just be able to take it on the chin in the way that I think women, are we more inured to it? Do we have a different makeup? Do we just accept that people rejecting us along the way is going to happen? That's going to be okay. He's quite needy in that respect, isn't he? Well, Jen says it to him at one point and he really bristles against it. But I do think it's true as she says there isn't a vocabulary for rejection for men there isn't this rich textured nuanced idea of

what it is to have to have things that you desired not go quite right there's it's not discussed in the same way that it is amongst communities of women I think it just I think it's about I think it's about, I think it is about processing with other men and they just don't really have a, traditionally have that culture. So when you did your research and you spoke to lots of men, didn't you,

about their attitude towards relationships and stuff like that, were you surprised at how their inability to talk about rejection, hence you've put it on their page, or actually they told you so much about it, that's what is then on the page? They told me so much about it. The thing that I found really interesting is all of them said, no matter how right on they were, no matter how beta they were, no matter how

left wing they were, it didn't matter what age they were, all of them said that they didn't have a sufficient place to process the emotional experience of a breakup and heartbreak. And I really didn't want that to be the case because I didn't want to write a stereotypical male character, but I had to write what I found in life and what I found in my research and every single man said that was the case for them. So that's just so sad, isn't it? And we should just talk about that more. Yeah, and I think it's also, I really wanted to get to the root of why that was. And it was a couple of things.

The first epiphany that I had when a man was talking to me about why he won't talk about his emotional life in depth with his friends is he said he feels like he doesn't have the language for it. So he's a really, really smart man. He can be really, really funny.

He can be really well informed. He knows every, he's read every book. He knows everything about current affairs. He said in this area, he feels so inequipped that it's not so much about feeling the risk of being vulnerable. It was the risk of sounding stupid, which I thought was, I hadn't really thought of that before. Stupid in front of whom?

Other men. Yeah, and the world, that he wouldn't be able to sufficiently articulate what it was that was making him so sad, that it would make him feel stupid. Do we know what the statistics are in terms of breakups in heterosexual couples? Is it mainly women calling it a day? Or is it men? Or is it 50-50? Or does it depend on the age? Have we any idea? I know divorce in the over 60s, for example, is more likely to be initiated by women these days than by men. But I don't know what the figures are lower down. No, I have no idea. I mean, my mum has this theory about men and women, which is probably

pretty dated. But she says that on the whole, men don't leave relationships because of ideas. Whereas women do. Women have ideas about this is the sort of person I want to be with or this is the sort of life I want to have. Where my mum said that basically men don't leave unless there's someone else lined up. And then they might give it it a whirl but what's interesting with Andy is that um he does have male friends and they are I would say they were good friends and they do try to support him but then their own lives intervene and they sort of slightly they fade away don't they but maybe that would happen to a woman too yeah i think that does happen i think that jen and andy are both 35 i think that's a very specific time in a person's life

of transition and i think if you're in a group of friends who are quite conventional the likelihood is if you're going through a breakup in your mid-30s that you might be the the last single person there so the single child free experience is a very different thing at 28 than it is at 35 you mean in what sense i don't know how much community you have around you so something that andy finds interesting is that when he was younger someone being single was caused for celebration in his group of friends yeah yeah whereas this time around he can feel like he is being a bit of a chore he's being a kind of unit of work for all of his friends. They're putting a shift in whether they take a night out.

They're helping him out. They're helping him out. It's not cause for celebration. No. Okay. I mean, we ought to as well bear in mind that when Jen gets her side of the story, I suddenly realised how dismissive Andy had been of aspects of Jen's life. Don't give it all away.

Well, like her career. He wasn't actually that interested. She had a proper job. He was a moderately successful comedian. But he wasn't interested in her world, really, was he? No, and there was something, the difference between life stages of Andy and Jen that I wanted to highlight because I think it happens a lot in

heterosexual relationships that women are sort of forced to grow up much quicker Andy in many ways has this eternal boyhood he's 35 he's bouncing off people's sofas he's doing lots of little part-time work he wants to be a father but he's not really making a plan for it he knows notionally that that's something he can do whenever um and he's got this job that is about going on stage and being funny and asking people to like him so he is afforded this kind of yeah this this prolonged boyhood boyhood in a way that i think most women aren't without an enormous amount of judgment and risk that comes with it but But it's also set, we should say, in the fading months of 2019, which I always, I look back on that time

as just thinking, why wasn't I running around like a mad woman anticipating the approach of something terrible? And you have a character in the book, Morris, who is Andy's landlord, who is, he knows there's something around the corner. Yeah. And I've got a confession here

because I'm not Morris, but I did know something was around the corner. Did. And I've got a confession here because I'm not Morris, but I did know something was around the corner. Did you? I just got it wrong. Did you have a funny feeling in mind? I had a funny, no, that's me. What I did was I went out and bought several illuminated fridge magnets because I thought we were going to have power cuts.

But Jane, I mean... No, I knew there was something. You have been thinking this for years. So it just happened that there was a pandemic that fell into that pattern of thought rather than a pattern of thought predicted the pandemic. I think Dolly's written that with... Morris is almost certainly based on me, is what I'm saying.

Because I think... Dolly, is it based on Jen? But he did know there was something. He's obsessed with the four boys in Liverpool. Yeah, the Beatles. He loves the Beatles. But also, I don't think he... Well, why did you make him a character who sensed there was something really awful on the horizon?

So something that I wanted to do with this book is I wanted to populate it with heartbroken people, small characters who have been through huge historic heartbreak or are going through heartbreak, is that's the fact of life everyone that you're when you're in a room with someone or on a tube carriage with someone most of them will know what it's like to have their heart broken it's like the most accepted pain and torture of life that we all have to live with and move on and Andy is someone who he is so absorbed in his own heartbreak and his own mission to win his ex-girlfriend back that he can't really see that this is something that all

of us this is a wound that all of us carry so his landlord is someone who had heartbreak years and years ago 50 years ago and the way that it manifested is that he learned not to trust anyone and he became a conspiracist and that's almost me, actually, in terms of... To be honest, they've cut me almost. Basically, it is me. Thanks very much. I'm very flattered. I'm so interested in this soothsaying. Have you ever... Oh, no, Dolly, please don't encourage her, because we have this all the way through every major football tournament.

Jane predicts the scores, and Jane's superpower is being able to deliver these messages with a sense of import and foreboding that makes you think, yes, she's really on something here. Have you ever got any of them? I knew that England would get to the final of the Women's World Cup. I had hoped we'd go one better. And I think that's what I felt. It's slim. So I'm just trying to think about, is there any way that anyone could not have had their heart broken? Do you think there's anyone on this earth who's never been dumped? Yes.

Are there? Yeah, yeah. I know a couple. And are they happy or are they weird? Yeah, yeah. I know a couple. And are they happy or are they weird? They're both. And actually, my ex-boyfriend, something that I just didn't, that he's a good man, but that's something that I always was mistrusting was that he'd never been dumped. He'd never had his heart broken. And I remember one of my favourite drunken lectures to do to him was you're going to have to work a lot harder than the average human to find empathy because I really do think that knowing what it's like to have that reject to have that pain of someone who you love saying I don't want to be with you I think it does deepen your connection to other humans and it does deepen your compassion for what this kind of human experience can be

I agree and it also breaks through the meniscus of rather childish optimism you know it can be. I agree. And it also breaks through the meniscus of rather childish optimism. You know, it can be a really good thing, can't it? Yeah. You have to find a kind of reality. Were you a fan of Friends? Are you a fan of Friends? Yeah, huge fan of Friends. And when I was thinking of Heartbreak and people who hadn't been dumped, Matthew Perry was someone who I think I understand. Look, I don't know the man and I'm surprised by how sad I am by his death. He seemed to suggest in interviews that he would just ruin relationships or end them before he was dumped. He just couldn't live with the possibility of getting that. Yeah, I think that's really common.

It's a really, really vulnerable thing. I mean, if you look at... I remember someone telling me a story about... She was a woman in her 60s, she was a journalism lecturer when I was doing my journalism master's, and she told a story, we were writing about love. She said that she went in to see a friend who was dying, she had terminal cancer, and in the weeks before she died,

she went in to visit her. She said, how are you? And she said, awful. And she said, does it feel like heartbreak? Does it feel like being dumped? She said, no, it's nowhere near as bad as that. God, it really stuck with me. This is like the most unbearable pain that all of us are vulnerable to every time we choose to love someone. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books.

Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Our guest this afternoon is Dolly Alderton.

We were keen not to give too much away about her latest novel, Good Material, but at the end of the book, her character, Jen, does go to see a psychic. So we asked Dolly if she'd ever been to see one herself. Twice a year. Really? Yeah. Well, just come to me.

I'm sure I'm cheaper. I'm no good, but I wouldn't charge you. You do it out of the Times building. Don't, for God's sake, don't mention it. It's tax-deductible work. As your psychic told you things that then come true. Yes, and here's the interesting thing about psychics that I've found. All the stuff that comes true is always really small things about you're gonna move to this road or you're gonna buy a new coat or something that like these really

there are huge problems with your electrical works in your flat and then when that moment happens you go oh my god wow that's so cool and that's the extent of it because then all the other huge love stuff none of none of that's been quite on the money and if we're being honest that is really why people go to psychics like it's mainly single women in their 30s and it's probably not actually about your electrical safety it's not i'm not that bothered about the electrical so well don't say that because if something terrible happened to you regarding your electrical works. Well, no, she did.

She predicted that I had some electrical works. And then three days later, my builder rang me and said, there's been this huge problem with the electrics. Well, that is quite sad. It is. That's right. Actually, alumni of the podcast, Elizabeth Day, we went to, we were in Indonesia together on holiday and we booked an Indonesian sous-serve medicine woman. We're like, wow, you're not going to get any more accurate than this. And I think it was the worst reading that both of us had had.

And the main take home that I got that she couldn't get off and I kept trying to steer her off, but she was so fixated on it, was that my dad needs to open a hardware shop that I need to buy for him. That is not what I was expecting you to say. How does your dad feel about this? You know, I didn't even pitch it to him. I didn't even. What would it be called?

I'm not sure. We did, I mean, she really wanted to say on that. She seemed to think it would not only fix any problem in my family life, but in my life. Dolly fixtures. Dolly fixtures. Oh my God god very rare very that's brilliant dolly take it right i will i'm done for the day goodbye when you're a writer you can obviously write your own ending and i think with jen the ending which we won't you know talk about everything that she chooses it seems to me

that you wanted to send a pretty powerful message with that once you had written it did you find that actually you'd managed to kind of shift something in yourself by writing her heading off as she does yeah I do I think I think women choosing unconventional paths, whether that's not having children, having children on their own, having children later in life, not having a partner, meeting your partner in later life. I think it's something that we're also admiring of and it's something that so many of us aspire to. But it's very brave to do. It's still a very brave thing to do. to. But it's very brave to do. It's still a very brave thing to do. I really do take my hat off to women who divert against the pack and choose to do that. I think you have to have a huge amount of inner strength and self-knowledge. And do you still feel that pressure within your generation? You don't have to talk about yourself personally, but just amongst your contemporaries that that path for women, it is a deviation from it if you choose not to have children.

Yes. There isn't a clear path now available to you as an independent, what are you, Jen? Why? No, millennial. Yeah, millennial, whatever it is. The most annoying one. But you still feel that, you know, there's a kind of walking womb element to being a young

woman here's what I think I think so I'm 35 so I'm in like prime time age of this stuff this is the year where everyone tells you you've got this amount of time left which I don't actually think is true but it does come from all angles I think it is really I think you can forge your own path and you can do it by keeping the noise out but i think you have to be so blinkered because everywhere i turn now whether it's like i've just went and got my eyebrows dyed for the first time thank you both for noticing uh and from at the appointment at the appointment obviously i understand why one of the first things she said was do you have children this is something that that is so in the atmosphere

at a certain age everywhere. And it's really hard not to be wobbled and feel like you've messed up if you've not done this thing that everyone seems to assume that you've done or wants for you. So I think you can forge that path. You just either have to have a community of like-minded women around you,

or you've just got to be really, really strong. The truth is, a bloke going to have his hair done just doesn't get that question. No, totally. He might be losing his hair, but he's not going to be asked. By the way, when I get my eyebrows done, I'm also asked if I want my moustache doing as well, which I always find. I mean, obviously not dying brown. No, look, we're all fashion.

Just tending to. No, the worst thing that I was asked was when I first got my eyebrows plucked when I was in the very vulnerable late teens, the woman looked at my face and said, do you want the beard also? Yeah. Oh, shut up. Up the sisterhood.

Right. But to go all the way back to where we started, is that akin to, you know, a young man being asked whether he wants to have his head shaved because actually it's thinning or have his ear hairs plucked out or his nose hair plucked out? Is it just because we don't hear men talking about that, that, you know, we think all of that kind of cosmetic pain is on us? on us yeah i mean something that i found really interesting when i was interviewing uh the men for research for the book is i had assumed wrongly that this idea of this need for physical transformation in the wake of rejection was a feminine pursuit this is something that culturally we've been told in that moment in sliding doors with gwyneth paltrow when she finds her boyfriend in bed with another woman and she gets the very famous crop. Not

unlike your crop actually, Fi. There are many similarities between me and Gwyneth Paltrow, Dolly. I've met both of them and they're Gwyneth's my favourite, but I'm like Fi. Anyway, back to your story, Dolly. Yeah, but

I was so interested that all of them said, yes, they embarked on a makeover. This is not just something that we have absorbed from rom-coms and women's magazines, that men really feel it too, that the way that they try and raise a sense of their own self-esteem or their own sense of worthiness for love is that they hit the gym, they manifest in different ways,

they only eat protein, they lift weights know, manifest in different ways. They only eat protein, they lift weights. And that was something that I wanted, that vulnerability and that uncertainty, that self-doubt and self-flagellation. I really wanted to communicate to Andy that this is definitely something that men go through as well. Where do you think Jen should find herself when she's 55? Oh, that's such a good question question where would I want her to be? I think that I would want her to be living in a way that fully aligns with her desires and her heart and mind and I hope that she's been able to rid of all the expectations that her very

traditional family had for her and that her friends had for her and society had for her and I think maybe that would involve a partner living life alongside someone or maybe it wouldn't, but I have hope that she will find happiness. But the terrible truth is that Andy, the averagely successful comedian, will just marry a woman 25 years younger than him and go on to have six or seven kids if that's what he wants. Yep. No justice, is there?

Yep. But he might make that woman very happy or he might not i think i think it is a really interesting thing to look out i was watching a documentary about egg freezing the other day and the head of the clinic when the interviewer said what would you say is the one thing that a man could do that we could ask of men to just like try and address this biological inequality? She said, I think men shouldn't be allowed to have children with women younger than them. Terrific. Yeah. Dolly Alderton. And the book is good material.

If you enjoyed, was it Ghost or Ghosts or other book? Ghost. Ghost. How many? Ghosts. Ghosts. Multiple. That's spooky times. We've done that now. We're not going back? Ghosts. Ghosts. Multiple. That's spooky times.

We've done that now. We're not going back there. Yes, I enjoyed that too. And good material is very funny. But also, I do find anything set before the pandemic kind of slightly challenging because I kind of feel I want to shout at the characters. You've no idea what's coming.

And obviously you can't do that. Gosh, I hadn't really thought about that, actually. But it's funny because there are a lot of books around which because of the... Unless you're going to set a book during the pandemic, which makes novels quite complicated, doesn't it? And I don't want to read them. And exactly that.

So you have to set them either just before, so in 2018, 2019, or kind of around now. Well, we've all just pretended it didn't happen apart from the people appearing in front of the COVID inquiry who are revealing that it should never have happened in the way that it did Okay, well that is an interesting thing to think about too

I've been watching The Morning Show Oh yeah, you like that don't you? Which in the season 2 heading into season 3 season 2 has the pandemic as the backdrop and, you know, is a huge part of the plot too. And it's so uncomfortable watching it because it makes you realise

how much we've compartmentalised our experiences of it. For me, my experiences of the pandemic are really locked in a cupboard at the moment. I found it quite weird and not nice to watch it in fictional form. So I'm not being stupid and saying, you know, it was nice at the time anyway, but it's quite odd to watch entertainment made in the, you know, as with the pandemic as the backdrop to it. It didn't quite work for me, actually.

I couldn't wait until that bit was over. No, in a couple of weeks, I think it's quite soon actually. Do you remember Rachel Clark, who we've spoken to, who is a great NHS doctor, and she wrote a very successful book about being a frontline doctor during COVID, and that has been made into an

ITV TV show, I think starring Joanne Froggatt. Okay, gosh. And I think that's coming very soon. Well, that will be a very challenging watch, won't it? I think it's called very soon. Well, that will be a very challenging watch, won't it? I think it's called Breathless. Right. Or is it Breathtaking? I can't remember.

Anyway, sorry, my knowledge is not up to speed since I got the old heave-ho from the Radio Times. Very sad indeed. Gosh. I used to get previews of things, but now I just have to watch with the rest of us. Yes. And it's not something I'm really used to.

Anyway. Right. There we are. Sympathy cards. I've re-entered the civilian population. Can be sent to just Jane at Timestop Radio, not Jane and Fi at Timestop Radio. Right, I really like the point that Dolly made at the end

when she quotes that anecdote from the egg freezing expert who thinks that men just shouldn't be allowed to have kids with women any younger than them. Well, it's a good point because you do sense that women's lives are necessarily curtailed in some circumstances because men have got a better hand of cards to play with. They can afford to wait. They know they can. But also if they get it wrong, and by that I mean a marital breakdown, or find themselves in a relationship where they can't have kids and they want kids,

they have another 40 years in which they can start again, choose something different and go for it. And it's just quite interesting to make your brain think about how the world would be if we had to procreate and if we had to form relationships with people our own age. If it was by law. That you couldn't have an intergenerational mix.

What that would mean. Discuss. Well, it's such a fascinating area. But when you're at school, it's so rigid, isn't it? I mean, you'll never have a friend who's two years younger or older. No. It's just unthinkable. Year 11. No. No's just unthinkable. Year 11. No. No.

Don't be silly. And then you enter the real world of work and you're mingling and mongling with people who could be, often you could be your offspring. Yeah. By the time you get to my age or indeed grandchild. I mean, it's quite ridiculous. And you're right. And so, you know, when you're 16 going out with a 19-year-old. Oh, wow.

Oh, my goodness. But, you know, when you're 33 and you go out with someone who's, what's three above 36? It's been a long day. Right. Not so much. Anyway, we'll take thoughts on all of those things. And don't worry, Eve, you can go now, darling. You can go.

She must have something in the slow cooker. She hasn't. Do you? What's for dinner tonight? Aubergine curry. Aubergine curry. Times have changed. Enjoy every mouthful. Good night.

Bye, everybody. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us.

And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know, ladies. A lady listener. I'm just sorry. Voice over describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. Voice over on settings.

So you can navigate it just by listening. Books, contacts, calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone.