Off Air... with Jane and Fi - My inner philatelist is a-flutter - with Elizabeth Day

Episode Date: April 3, 2023

Jane's asking what people did in the old days on a Sunday afternoon when all the shops used to be closed, while Fi's mangling adjectives in her sleep. They're joined by Elizabeth Day, to talk about her new book 'Friendaholic'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Assistant Producer: Kate Lee Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome and thanks to everybody who's emailed to say they approve of the new music. I don't think we need to mention it anymore because it's gone down a treat. So thank you all for your positivity in that direction. I concur. Thank you. Shall we move on? Yes, let's. Did you have a nice weekend? I did have a weekend that was nice, in part. The thing is, when you say what everybody does say on a Monday, do you have a nice weekend? And I say it myself. I did not use that kind of tone.

I did when I came in, when I was asking everybody. Did you literally? You sat down and went, nice weekend? Well, it's just one of those things you throw out, because I am interested, I am quite nosy but I'm not in a constant state of niceness throughout my weekends

because sometimes I get quite grumpy and it's hard to believe I know but there are little moments I don't know about you I don't think you have to report those to the team at work do you? isn't the point of a weekend you can just have a grumpiness dump and then come in with a nice little smile on your face, please, Jane Susan?

With those closest to you, you can just dump it all on them. Do you sometimes, this is a semi-serious point actually, I genuinely mourn the days before the smartphone. Every now and again, I think, take me back there. All the time. Okay, so I'm not alone. No. It makes me feel better.

Because I think you and I, I mean, let's just pretend we're the same age. It's easier. It is, yeah. Our weekends of yore, when we were in our teens or early 20s, were unrecognisable to how they are now and they were just absolutely no question about it better. You relaxed more, you worked through more stuff, you actually thought about more things,

you had to get off your arse and do more stuff. You had to do more stuff, you had to go to places. And sometimes when I see people pounding down the streets to the latest military boot camp, whatever it is, and they've got a coffee in one hand and they're trying to do something on Instagram at the same time and they're going off to de-stress themselves with exercise. You just think, well, just stop doing all of that.

Just chuck your phone in a skip and you'll find yourself a lot better. And do what we used to do, which is get on a bus, go to the shops, walk around Topshop, try and find a skirt, walk around Dorothy Perkins, try and find a skirt, get upset. Cry. Go and try and find a 7-inch disc somewhere, then think, oh, oh no i can't find the right one i'll buy a 12 inch wait for the bus the bus is gone oh dear what am i going to do but you but it did allow you to actually i think experience more emotions which is just quite a healthy thing to do i think you're right and sometimes i do despair another semi-serious comment coming up at it's

detrimental to family life. You can be sitting at the table and whether it's four of you, two of you, three of you, whatever your family make-up is or whether you're just housemates or whatever, there's that permanent distraction. Someone's always looking at their bloody phone. And it doesn't matter.

I mean, I'm beyond getting sort of tearful about it, although I have had my moments over the years at home just saying, fuck your phone! I don't matter. I mean, I'm beyond getting sort of tearful about it, although I have had my moments over the years at home. Just say, fuck your phone! I don't know. I'm just sort of going through a phase of slight mourning for what used to be. And I don't know whether it'll ever come back. The thing that I really miss as well is that sense of time being different during the day. And that's not as stupid a comment as it might first appear to be. But you know what I mean? There was a kind of setting to a Saturday morning

and then a different setting in the afternoon and then a different feeling on Sunday. Because when you and I were young, God, we sat out last summer wine, but there weren't any shops open. We genuinely had to have something else to do on a Sunday. Kids, you had to make your own fun. I think people just, I think they had sex.

I can't think of what else people did. Well, there was church. And it goes on for an hour. Yeah, but do you know what I mean? Now I think it's perfectly acceptable to watch a small Netflix movie on your phone at 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning. It shouldn't be, you're quite

right. No, that should be for later in the day when you're relaxing. Oh, I don't know. Occasionally, I just really feel quite... No, I'm with you. I'm with you. And then there just seems to be a whole industry around relaxation.

And you're having to buy into that industry because all the other industries have made you feel like you're not relaxing enough. And that just seems preposterous. Well, if you've got any any thoughts if you can liven up the mood a bit because we're both sounding a little bit distracted and it's monday but the sun's out it's been a beautiful day in london hope it's been lovely with you may the blossom be fermenting on all your local trees unless you live on the other side of the world and that reminds me

lots of you have been in touch from all parts of the globe. We're very grateful. Yes, we do seem to have a really fantastically global audience. Jennifer has got in touch to tell us about house prices down under. Yeah, go on. And this was because of the lottery winner thing, wasn't it? If you won £1.5 million, it actually just really wouldn't get you far enough in life in this country. So we were wondering what it would buy you elsewhere uh hello jane and fee i too thought as i listened to the podcast about lottery winners and thought a million dollars wouldn't go far either down under the pandemic resulted in a lot of people

in melbourne and sydney selling their houses and moving to the smaller and friendlier city of adelaide where they got significantly more for their money sending house prices in Adelaide, where they got significantly more for their money, sending house prices in Adelaide spiralling out of control. That's what happens. The CBD of Adelaide is surrounded, that's what, Central Business District, is surrounded on all sides by the wealthiest suburbs. So if you want to live close to the city, you're looking at

$1 to $2.5 million for a family home. Also, most houses in Adelaide are single-level dwellings. That's a bungalow. That's a bungalow. It's a bungalow. A little bit of interpretation. Do you remember when Joan Collins went out with a man called Bungalow Bill Wiggins? We were trying to explain that, weren't we? I think to the younger crowd in the office.

Go on, explain it to me again. Why was he called Bungalow Bill Wiggin? Because he was big downstairs with nothing up top. That's it. Poor old Bill. I don't know if he's still with us. Mind you, we've got to be a bit careful here. We were killing off various people last week. You turned out to be completely alive.

I don't know a bit if you're listening. Also, as Jennifer says, most houses in Adelaide are single-level dwellings and three-plus bedrooms. So if you want a small house, two bedrooms or less, the only option is an apartment. And then she says, in comparison, my sister's three bedroom house in Northern Ireland, a 20 minute commute from Belfast is worth about 200,000 pounds.

She says we're still saving for a deposit in Adelaide and we're rubbing our hands with glee as the idiots who paid over the odds for houses during the pandemic are now crippled by the increase in interest rates. Isn't it lovely to watch somebody else's downfall, Jennifer? I'm glad you're enjoying that. She says everybody just got too greedy. So I think it's allowed. And greetings to Bob in Carmel in Maine in the United States. I think it's Carmel. Carmel? I don't know.

Anyway, Bob says, on house prices, I sold a one-bedroom flat in Enfield about 30 years ago. And when I looked online recently, the same flat last sold for a bit more than my current house is valued at here in Maine at around $300,000. My house is a modern ranch-style three-bed, two-and-a-half bath, about 2,000 square foot on over on over just over 20 acres of land my old flat in enfield would probably fit in my living room maine is one of the safest and most beautiful states in the us but because there is no so much land available house prices remain really

affordable um bob says i'm a full-time carer so i listen to a fair bit of radio during the day usually starting with the voice of Maine and then switching to your show at 10am, oh well thank you for that Bob that's really interesting, he's a politics junkie your show is my favourite because it never fails to improve my mood and make me smile, oh that's very nice, that's brilliant Bob

thank you very much, when are we coming over? when are we coming over, because that looks good doesn't it and of course it'll be a big day of American politics news tomorrow, won't it? We have sort of slightly, whilst I'm far from uninterested, there's something about the way that everybody's just allowing that buffoon to get his moment in the spotlight again

that's driving me slightly mad. What do you think is going to happen the other side of that moment in the spotlight? I think it'll all just grind on for months and months, won't it? And he'll probably be still fighting the legal case when he's almost certainly running for president. Okay, this is Donald Trump in case anyone's waking from a stupor.

I thought we were talking about Paddy Ashdown. No, Paddy's no longer with us. Oh, sorry, we're certain about that, aren't we? Yes. And a quick one on property prices from Melanie. My old school friend Emma introduced me to Offair. She says, I work and rent in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia for a three bed apartment on the northern edge of Riyadh. I pay the equivalent of five thousand pounds a month.

Wow. It's a nice compound, but prices in Riyadh are crazy. I'm just trying to think. It has got three bedrooms, but even so... That's a lot. That is a lot of money, isn't it? Having said that, I'm thinking, I guess you'd probably pay that for a house in parts of London for a month if you were renting it. Oh, easily, yep.

And you'd pay way in excess of that if you wanted to be in central London. Yeah, that's true. This is just ridiculous. It is. Can I just say about Paddy Ashdown? I think he's one of those people, isn't he, whose life and reputation was completely ruined by that headline. Because I don't think anybody listening was listening to what you were saying. They were thinking of Paddy Pantsdown, weren't they? As soon as you say his

name. And I think... And they should be thinking about his formidable political career and his service in the special boat service. Well, all of that. But he was a very, very dedicated politician who did apologise for his affair. But it was such a clever headline. That's the problem, isn't it? It's like I watched all of the George Michael documentary that we were talking about a couple of weeks ago. The zip me up before you go go headline, which if you were going to take out all of the emotion the prejudice everything else surrounding it from a journalistic point of view it's a very very clever headline but it's that kind of stuff that stays with you and completely obliterates

you know the nuances of a story about homosexual prejudice basically so I just put that in there because that's what I was thinking about Paddy Pantzner and then I had to check in with myself and get over it. Dear Jane, I've been a fan of your broadcasting for years and I especially love your podcasts with Fee.

Thank you. You get many, many things right in my opinion. I know what's coming. But you were wrong about the Mayor of Casterbridge on Thursday. And I feel compelled to email and urge you to re-read this brilliant novel if you've not done so since you took your O-level. The opening chapter is not set at a wife-trading fair. It's set at an agricultural fair at which the main character,

at this point a poor agricultural labourer, currently unable to find work, gets drunk, agricultural fair at which the main character at this point a poor agricultural laborer currently unable to find work gets drunk and in a bitterly cynical mood declares as a joke that he's going to auction his wife and daughter he does not expect another man to rise to the joke and give him five guineas for them and wakes the next morning ashamed at what he's done but unable to find her the incident overshadows the rest of his life. So it should. Quite. But the next day he moved on, found another wife and lived happily

ever after. Exactly. By Wednesday he was over it. Although it prompts him to give up drinking and he prospers economically and socially. Thomas Hardy seems in his personal life to have been quite cruel to both his wives but in his fiction he writes with astonishing sympathy

and insight about the experiences of powerless but usually dignified women, dignified women living at a time when society applied unjust double standards. Please give it another try, says Elizabeth. Do you know, I've got to be honest, I won't be giving it another try.

Only because I don't think I've ever read a book twice. Have you not? No, just because there are so many books in the world. I don't want to relive them. I just don't feel that's something you should do. It's a very personal thing. I know some people hold certain books very, very

dear and I read them every year when I go to Tuscany. But I don't. I just don't. I got something wrong last week. I know. I was picking upuscany. But I don't. I just don't. No, I just don't. I got something wrong last week. I know. I was picking up a book, which I'm still reading

because I'm doing it really slowly. I'm sort of savouring it. At the Table is a great paperback I've been recommending. And I got the name of the author wrong. It is not Claire Stewart, as I said last week, but Claire Powell and Emma,

who I think is a friend of the author's, has just corrected me. So Claire Powell's book, At the Table, make sure you read it. I couldn't be any clearer, could I? No, and it's always good to just do a correction. God knows I've got enough things wrong too. This from a person who wishes to remain anonymous says, Hello, my favourite podcasters.

I won't be too gushy, but you know that you two bring me great joy each week. I was listening to your listener's email about the platyjubes equivalent for the coronation. I write from New Zealand, where this week I attended an industry conference. The corporate world here in New Zealand is littered with examples of taking normal words from the English language and giving them odd corporate meanings. We socialise an idea. We take the organisation on a journey. We socialise an idea.

We take the organisation on a journey. This week, though, I think we reached a new low. A well-meaning speaker at the conference talked about the need for collab-a-action. Oh, no, that's dreadful. Collab-a-action. I started laughing before realising that the speaker wasn't joking. I know language needs to evolve, but this feels like a new low, And I wanted to share it with you two, who are such extraordinary linguists and who bring me joy with your clever use of the English language. Well, we're not that. And I can mangle an adjective in my sleep, actually.

But that's terrible, isn't it? Collaboraction. I never, ever want to hear that again. No, absolutely not. Can I also just add this is a rant from somebody whose name I think they're perfectly happy to give. It's Ivy, who says, I'm compelled to write as Friday's pod, which I normally listen to, to let me fall asleep, kept me awake. This is our royal special. Royal special. Which dropped as a special regal treat to you last Friday. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong.

Yes, as the, are we calling it the Corrie Boggs? Corrie Bobs. Corrie Bobs, I do apologise, gets ever closer. Although, in all honesty, it isn't something that people are talking about, is it? And we did hear today that every public building in the country can apply for a portrait of the king at a cost to the government of eight million squids.

Do you know what? I've got some very, very bad feelings in my waters about that story. Because I think that story ends up with photos of enormous piles. Hanging around. Of pictures of King Charles that nobody's applied to have. We don't know that's going to happen. Well, we don't. But as we were saying on air today, you could just photocopy something from a magazine and put it in a very nice IKEA frame.

Get a stamp and stick it in a teeny tiny frame. They come out, don't they? Yes, they're coming out soon. On Wednesday or Thursday. Is it Wednesday? I think, yep. My inner philatelist is all a flutter. Yes, and we need to put it back because it's not very nice to look at.

Ivy says, Valentine Lowe and Roya Nika are very interesting. And then they said, the public have warmed to Camilla and the majority have come to accept her. No, says Ivy. I don't agree. There are a lot of us who simply cannot forgive the disgraceful behaviour when Diana was brought into the royal family like a lamb to the slaughter. And not just by them either. when Diana was brought into the royal family like a lamb to the slaughter and not just by them either. Those words Diana said on her engagement about her being fine with Charles by my side were unforgettable.

Camilla will never be my queen. I'm not the only one rant over, says Ivy. I mean, I'm sounding like I'm sort of faintly laughing at Ivy. I'm not because I think there are other people who think that along those lines actually and um i too am old enough to remember uh diana's very first interview uh when the engagement was announced and she was so young she was so young and really didn't know i don't think she had a clue what she was letting herself in for i really don't uh anyway so ivy um try to enjoy the coronation in your own way perhaps by simply ignoring it altogether, is what I'd suggest. Yeah, but it'll be interesting, won't it,

to see what the other channels put on the other sides. What would you put? Mission Impossible. One of those John Wick movies. Oh, no. Not a shot. He's a bargain hunt. Oh, no, I think they'll do a nice location, location, location,

won't they? I suppose so. Yeah, well, they could just strip a whole bumper day of that or Friends or something right across the day, couldn't they? Yeah. Channel 4 always like to do something wacky and alternative. Yeah, they'll need something spikier than that. They'll probably, well, BBC 2 will just send Greg Wallace

around a factory, I would imagine. And why not? That man, I tell you what. You know, where is he going this week? Oh, it's Jaffa Cakes. He's visiting the Jaffa Cake factory. I can already see the expression on his face as the little bit of orangey jam plops on to a spongy biscuit base.

And do you know what, Greg? I've just seen it before. Sometimes when he's on MasterChef and he's eating, because he takes a very large mouthful, doesn't he? I can't watch. Jonte Rhodes, as he was always known in our house. The kids thought he was called Jonte. But anyway, Jonte Rhodes.

He had a normal-sized fork. Yes. And Greg would always come along and just have this like comedy amount of food on his fork. Well, he's a big unit. Yeah. Plonking it into his mouth. Lovely. Yeah.

Well, anyway, he's let loose on Jaffa Cakes this week. So you've been warned. But I should say these programmes keep getting commissioned because people are still watching them. So despite the valiant efforts we've made to ease people off their greg wallace dependency some people are still addicted i don't understand it well we just need to get into that commissioning office don't we and throw all of idea all of our ideas on the pile in front you keep saying this and we're nowhere near that office i know nobody's

invited us in a quick one one from Susie Walker. I could talk about house prices all day, to be honest. Two stories for you. House prices. A friend who lives in a tiny flat in Maida Vale came to visit me in our beautiful grade two listed six bedroom house in North Yorkshire. When can we come? When I said we'll be downsizing.

That's twice you sounded desperate about visiting a listener. I want a holiday. You're on holiday next week, aren't you? When I said we'll be downsizing, she asked about the sale price. Being very British, I said it would about visiting a listener. I want a holiday. You're on holiday next week, aren't you? When I said we'll be downsizing, she asked about the sale price. Being very British, I said it would start with a seven. That is very British. We then had an odd conversation

about how to spend that much money until I realised she was talking about £7 million, whereas I was talking about the actual price of £700,000. Her one-bedroom flat had just been valued at £750,000. At some point, this nonsense is going to have to stop, isn't it? I don't think it will. I don't think it will, because I think in some parts of the world, wages in odd industries have matched those kind of house prices,

which is why people can ask that amount of money for them. So we're led to believe it all starts with bankers' bonuses and just works its way through the population. Yeah, and that's obviously still true. Just a tiny birthing story from Susie. After our first child's birth, there was a great deal of needlework required, and I sympathise with you, Susie.

I very much felt that I had an affinity with the bio-tapestry myself. Off went husband with our new son, leaving me to wait alone for half an hour before being left to the tender mercies of a female doctor to put the mess back together. Second birth, husband was told to stay with me, which the lovely and frightened man did. In walks a male doctor, to my delight. At least he would know what the before was supposed to look like, which the female doctor hadn't.

Hello, Peter, says he. They knew each other from windsurfing and continued to have a chat about races, sails and the wind. Not a word to me. Not a word. She was up in stirrups. If they'd cracked open a beer and used me as an ashtray, it wouldn't have surprised me. We stopped at two children, but we are still happily married.

I mean, they do have to bear in mind that that sort of conversation can profoundly irritate the woman in stirrups. I like it when you say things like that. conversation can profoundly irritate the woman in stirrups i like i like it when you say things like that profoundly irritate beep the beeping beep yeah quite okay who was our guest today our guest was elizabeth day today jane what was she on to talk about she was on to talk about her book friendaholic um which is and and it's interesting because as she points out in the introduction, there aren't that many books about friendship, which is crazy because I think

everybody needs friends. Although interestingly, Stig Abel, Times Radio's breakfast host, has actually owned the fact that he doesn't have any friends. He does keep talking about it. And I find that, I do find find it odd and I know it's hard sometimes to carve out time for your friends but I don't think it's a good thing to have no friends at all I really don't I don't care with your male female non-binary whatever you are I think everybody needs somebody not necessarily that you go way back with because it's not possible for everybody but someone you can shoot the breeze with and offload and actually be available to

yourself as well yep i wouldn't be able to get through life without my friends they are the grouting yeah it's it's really important i mean i do think i mean having said that i was reading elizabeth's book this morning and towards the end she talks about how you can be a friend to other people and i suddenly realized there were two people I probably should just message just to see how they are because they've had various things going on and I hadn't messaged them you know I'd been busy I've been preoccupied and you have to do it don't you you do I just check my phone right uh so a 2017 relate survey it's not come through yet a 2017 survey found that an astonishing 13 percent of people didn't have friends, which I do think is odd. Anyway, everything you need to know about friendships is covered by Elizabeth in her book, including topics like ghosting.

And she speaks to really honestly about her infertility issues. And I think she's really brave because she's about to say in the interview um sometimes those stories don't end with a baby they just don't and those stories have to be heard as well don't they they do uh we began by telling her how delighted we were to have her on the program hello I'm delighted to be here with my two friends no we're more delighted oh we are let's have a competition let's have a delight off. Yes. Yeah, OK, you start. Because I find it hard to gush.

I'm from the north. I know, OK. But you two will be fine. Yeah, we will be. Can we start with life taking a different direction? Because you have written very movingly about not being able to have babies yet and the pain that you felt along the way. And also how much it's hurt you, the way that friends of yours who've had children

have not really dealt with you not having children at the same time as them in a very nice way and I know that that has caused quite a stir and I wonder what the kind of feedback is that you have had from pre-publishing that part of the book. Yes I wrote a whole chapter in Friendaholic about fertility and going through a life phase that not all of your friends will understand and not all of your friends can accompany you on. And that chapter was extracted in the Saturday Times magazine. And I felt extremely vulnerable about it. But often when I feel vulnerable, it's for a good reason. It's because I've told the truth about something.

And that can be really exposing. So I was slightly anxious when the Times Magazine piece went out. And then I was overwhelmed by the most extraordinary response from people who have walked the same path as I have, unsuccessful fertility treatment, recurrent pregnancy loss, saying that they felt seen and thanking me for putting something into words that they hadn't been able to articulate. And then I also got amazing messages from parents saying that they also had felt seen because part of the point of that chapter is that the fetishisation of motherhood specifically does us all a disservice when we see those things online that are either proclaiming that motherhood is the greatest thing ever or roll on gin o'clock, it's so stressful being a mum. Those things make people feel excluded whether they're parents or

not. And it just so happened that my fertility journey started at a time when that fetishisation was becoming ever more noxious. And so there were some outer circle friendships that fell by the wayside because they couldn't understand where I was coming from. And I couldn't understand where they were coming from because they treated parenthood as if it was an exclusive private members club. And unless you were a parent, you couldn't possibly hope to understand the depths of their love. These are things that I heard all of the time. And it really upset me. And I felt unsafe sharing what I was going through. So perhaps some of the time. And it really upset me. And I felt unsafe sharing what I was going through. So perhaps some of the blame is also mine in that I didn't speak up soon enough.

But it's very hard to know what you would have said. It is hard. I think it took me a long time to realise that just as people are absolutely allowed to say what it is to be a parent, I am also allowed to say what it's like not being one in a society that has been geared up for families for so long. And that's all I was saying in that chapter. And that's absolutely not my saying, you can't celebrate your children. I think it's marvellous. And I know many amazing parents and many of them are amongst my closest friends. It's simply that historically, women and men who have experienced fertility issues have been silenced or felt that they've been silenced because they felt this misplaced sense

of shame and stigma. And I want to do a bit of redressing that balance. And because I do have a platform, that's what I want to use it for. I feel very, very passionately that it's part of my purpose on this planet. So I think you said some really, really important practical things as well. And one thing that I really noted was when you said that you have not wanted to endlessly be asked by friends who've got children to come and babysit their children as if somehow they are doing you a favour by imposing children on you whereas of course what you want are children of your own not somebody else's kids yes exactly but they've probably been doing it in a well-meaning

absolutely way haven't they but it's that's unhelpful isn't it yes I mean I can only talk from my own experience and I know that there are plenty of people out there who probably delight in babysitting other people's children. I don't happen to be one of them for all children. It's not a sort of catch all thing. And you're right that I think we've done a lot of thinking rightly about elements of privilege over the last few years. And fertility is also a kind of privilege. And that's not to say that everyone should be thinking all of the time about their particular privileges, and thinking all of the time about the other things that other people don't have. It's just essentially, all I want is for people to have a bit more thoughtfulness and a bit more kindness when thinking of other

people who don't experience exactly what they're experiencing. And it's exactly that. I just found at the deepest point of my fertility pain, I found it so difficult to know what to say when someone said, well, just come around and babysit our baby. You know, you'll love it. It's like, I don't think I will because it's a bit like you saying, come and have a drive in my Bentley. And I failed my driving test eight times but worse because it's it felt to me like a biological failure it felt that I was failing to be a woman which obviously it wasn't that but that's how I felt and actually one of the things that I found heartening is that many parents have got in touch to say yeah we don't want to babysit other people's kids either to be quite honest and I have to say whilst yeah, we don't want to babysit other people's kids either, to be quite honest. And I have to say, whilst talking about this, that my truest friends were amazing throughout

this time. You know, my best friend Emma has always seen me with such sensitivity and clarity and acceptance, to the extent that she's got two delightful children, and often she won't talk about them. And I have to ask her to talk to me about them because she's so sensitive that she goes the other extreme so I also feel incredibly supported by friends who have made an effort to get it. Emma presumably is Emma in real life I did wonder throughout the book whether some pseudonyms have been used. Yes they have been liberally applied. Can I just read this email from a listener who's actually really grateful to you Elizabeth we don't don't need to mention her name, but she says, I belong to the club of childless people, not out of choice, but circumstance. And the associated difficulties have been painful,

destructive and relentless. Now I'm in menopause and I'm not being psychologically controlled by reproductive hormones. I'm experiencing gratitude for my freedom and independence as a woman in her mid fifties and beyond. I was really excited to hear that Elizabeth Day is with you on Monday. I was gripped in the grief of not having children when I first came across Elizabeth's work and I can't express enough how comforting I found her words, discussion features and interviews. Thank you Elizabeth for your honesty and openness. So there you go. Gosh that's so beautiful and has made me cry. A satisfied customer. That's so beautiful because that's someone who's been through it and is on the other side of it. And I am at a stage in my life where I am letting go of the idea of motherhood.

And that I know will cause me sadness and grief for the rest of my life. And at the same time, I also know I can be at peace with it and that it offers me lots of opportunities I wouldn't have otherwise and that's why I'm so grateful to hear from people like your listener so thank you for sharing that because you make me feel so seen and hopeful for the future yeah and also I think what you've done is so remarkable because you have enlivened a whole community who have felt silence before and it's not very many people actually who are able to do that. So that's my gushing bit of tribute and friendship to you. That was so kind of you.

And I also think that, you know, I got very used to reading, because we do talk more about fertility now and miscarriage, and I'm so grateful to be a small part of that change. And sometimes you read pieces or you listen to interviews, and the person has this excruciating agony that they experience, but they end up getting their baby. And I almost feel that it's a responsibility of mine to talk and write about this not having had that conventional happy ending. Yep. Let's talk about some of the other notions of friendship in the book because everything is covered.

And you start with quite a lot of revelations about your own attitudes towards friendship. You say, I became almost manic in my pursuit of friends. And do you want to just explain a little bit why that would be the case? I would love to explain my own dysfunctions. Thank you. Yes. So I wrote Friendaholic. The prompt was that during the pandemic, during the pandemic, all of our diaries emptied out overnight. And I realised two things. One, that I missed my dearest friends very, very much. And two,

that I wasn't spending enough time with them because my time had been taken up by saying yes to other things to work but also to acquaintanceships to people that I might have met on the bus and suddenly I found myself in a friendship with and I thought well that can't be right and I need to redress the balance where does my mania for making friends come from and so I went right back to my. And I also looked at lots of academic studies in this area. And I think for me, when I was four, we moved to the north of Ireland. As you can hear, I've got a very English accent. My dad was a surgeon, I wasn't anything to do with the military. But in certain quarters, I was seen not only as representative of the occupier, but the enemy. And that's quite a sort of scary position to be in as a child.

And at secondary school, I got a bit bullied. And that left me with a visceral need to find safety in numbers. So when I left that secondary school in Belfast, and I went to a different school when I was 13, I went with this almost Machiavellian sense that I had to befriend the most popular girl in my year and we were going to be friends. And then I would have access to this group and I would have a tribe and I would belong and be accepted. And I think that mindset carried on into my 20s and 30s. And alongside that, I think I was a bit of a people pleaser. So I didn't have a strong sense of who I was or a strong sense of self-aser. So I didn't have a strong sense of who I was, or a strong sense of self worth. But I thought if other people accepted me, then that was good

enough, then I must be doing something okay. And actually, I didn't take the time to understand who I was. And what I didn't realise was that there's a difference between true belonging, when you're accepted for being who you really are and fitting in when you cut yourself to fit according to someone else's cloth. And I was doing the latter. And actually, what I've realised in my 40s is that I need to spend much more time doing the former. So that's where my mania for friendship came from. And it genuinely was a kind of codependency. Do you believe that there's only a certain number of very close friendships that anybody can have across their lifetime? Now I do. I don't think I used to, but I learned a lot

writing this book. And I really did geek out on some of the research. And there's been amazing work done on just this, specifically by Robin Dunbar, who's a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford. And he's famous for coining Dunbar's number, which is the maximum amount of human connections the human brain can cope with, where they know every single person, they sort of know their family background, they know their name, these are the people you'd invite to a big wedding. And that number is 150. But he then finessed his research and came up with Dunbar's layers. And in the innermost layer, you have up to five key relationships. And if you fall in love or you have children, that will cost you two of those other friendships, because you simply don't have enough hours in the day to nurture something so important. Because you actually need to spend time

with your friends in order to sustain those friendships and to get to know each other that doesn't it doesn't have to be physical time where I'm sitting opposite you at a lunch table but it does have to be a sense of relational depth and you can only do that if you give them enough time and attention and obviously you can't do that for everyone you'd be spreading yourself too thinly and then your truest friends might feel a bit like well what about me and then you might lose them organically anyway i was grateful for the fact that there are a couple of spare pages at the end of the paperback of the book where i could write a little list of exactly that and i won't be the only person who done it yeah and i found it a really really refreshing thing to do to just write down the

people who i think of as truly truly great friends and just slightly you know lose the rest I think we're under pressure aren't we we're under so much pressure in a way that we're not with romantic love with romantic love there is an assumption that you might have a number of romantic relationships before you find someone who you might want to settle down with and even even then, that can end in divorce, as we all know. But there isn't the same degree of shame that we feel with a friendship. With a friendship, you're meant to strike up some sort of common ground with the person that you sit next to at primary school just because their surname starts the same letter as yours. And then if that friendship doesn't last for life you feel that you've somehow failed and

you're a terrible person even the language of friendship up till now good bad friend is moralizing yeah and actually i just want us all to get a lot more liberated with the idea of letting friendships go with love knowing that they have formed part of our life, but they don't need to be in our life forever. Elizabeth Day is our guest this afternoon. Friendaholic, Confessions of a Friendship Addict is her latest book. As you were saying, it really should be easier to ditch friends, shouldn't it? There's a quite an interesting story that you write very honestly about in the book where you are basically dropped by someone. And it's painful, isn't it? It's so painful. Yes, the story that I recount in the book where you are basically dropped by someone and it's painful isn't it it's so painful yes the story that I recount in the book is when I was ghosted

seemingly overnight for me by one of my closest friends and I spent years literally years trying to work out what I must have done wrong and it's a sort of slow motion grief of the kind that I've never fully experienced. Writing about it was incredibly cathartic. And since writing about it, and since the book was published, so many people have got in touch saying that it happened to them, which makes me feel less weird. So that's nice. But it was one of those things where looking back and writing about it, I have so much more fondness for this individual who I gave the name Becca. Because I understand that the lack of language around friendship means that especially if you're conflict avoidant and you did once love your friend, that sometimes you don't want to say the thing that it is that has made you drift apart.

And I think that we were in just different life phases, personally and professionally. And the thing that had originally bonded us was that we'd felt sad. And actually, when one of you starts to feel happier, that can throw the other person's existence into sharp relief. So I think it was that. And I think that she just couldn't find the words to convey that. And I have a lot of sympathy for her now and a lot of empathy. And now I hope that partly what I do with Friendaholic is that I do offer ways to use words. And I do think that there are ways of letting friendships go where you can lead with love, but you can also state what it is. And it is such a weird thing that I think we forgive ourselves more easily when we lose touch with ex-lovers than we do with friends, don't we? And it should be the other way around. Yeah. And actually, there's sort of an expectation that you should lose touch with ex-lovers,

certainly from my husband, as it pertains to me, which is actually something else that I mentioned in the book, because I talk about whether you can ever truly be friends with a romantic ex. Well, you do. Yes. But you're happy to name him your main example. Not of an ex, but you're very good friends with Satnam Sanghera, aren't you? Yes. And it's a very lovely chapter, actually, about whether or not boys and girls can be true friends. I think it's inured into us to believe that we can't.

Well, especially if we grew up in a certain age and culture. And so, yeah, I grew up, I came of age in the 80s and that, 80s and 90s, and it was sort of prime fodder for romantic comedy. So I did grow up believing the When Harry Met Sally conundrum about that idea that straight men and straight women can never actually be friends without the sex part getting in the way. And I don't think that's true. I think that all relationships have an intrinsic nature

and sometimes we mistake them for something else. But with Satnam and me, we were set up on a romantic date and rapidly established that there was no chemistry whatsoever. He said that, by the way. I'm not shading him. Well, he said you looked like a horse and then changed it to a llama.

Yes, thank you for reading the book so closely, Fi. Yes, he said I looked like a horse on our first date and said he meant it as a compliment. So I tried to take it as a compliment. And when I raised that, because I interviewed him for the book, he said, I was thinking recently, not a horse, more a llama. And I said, well, that's even worse. And he said, no, they're really pretty. And I said, no, they've just got long eyelashes. They're not actually really pretty creatures. Anyway, he's become a really good friend and i'm so grateful for him yeah it's a lovely warm chapter that actually uh i did want to ask you

just a tiny question uh and this this isn't me trying to say you know i've read every single comma in the book why did you have to take your nail varnish off when you were going in for an operation at the italian fertility clinic to change the shape of your wound oh my gosh i love how closely you read every sentence. You have to take your nail varnish off because they put a blood pressure monitor on to check that you're not dying when you're under anaesthetic, to check that your heart rate is regular.

And I had shellac nail polish on and that can interfere. So that's why. Right, it was just a tiny thing. It's a niche question, but I appreciate it. Very niche, and I apologise. Shellac is good though, isn't it? It's amazing. Well, but I appreciate it. Very niche, and I apologise. Shellac is good, though, isn't it? Well, I've currently got dipping powder on. Don't know if you've tried that, but it's changing my life.

I haven't tried it. Dipping powder? What world is this you speak of? You sort of dip your fingernail into these coloured granules, and then it comes out. And the effect is like shellac, but it lasts longer and it doesn't chip. Wow, there's an improvement on shellac

that's it i can't it just doesn't compute jane jane may leave the studio now for the rest of the afternoon elizabeth day's new book is called friendaholic and i would highly recommend it there just is something in there for everybody and there's quite a lot to be learnt from it too Yes, there really is and tomorrow we are talking to an author who is new to me I think probably new to everybody because she's terrifyingly young and talented. How young?

She's 26 I think and she's written this book called In Memoriam which I have been talking about for weeks because it really left an impression on me and it's about the First World War and about, well, we'll talk about it tomorrow when we interview her, but I've no idea what she's going to be like. I'm not even sure how often she's been interviewed,

but the book is really successful, so it should be really interesting. Looking forward to that. Anything that we've been talking about today, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Jane and Fi at times.radio. Thank you for liking our new theme tune as jane says we like it too uh so don't feel that you need to write in about that but

pretty much everything else will take and i will also take um other people's thoughts on the abba void show which i did see on thursday of last week and um i just i mean there's so many brilliant parts of it but there are also bits that you just think, come on, get back, get back on stage, keep doing your thing. But the champagne beforehand was quite pricey. How pricey? I'm not prepared to say. Really? Is it higher than a tenner?

Way higher. Really? Lower than a thirtier? No. Jeez. Not for a glass. For a bottle? For a bottle. Oh, I thought you meant by No. Jeez. Not for a glass. For a bottle? For a bottle.

Oh, I thought you meant by the glass. No, for a bottle. Oof. Ooh. And you can't bring your own stuff in. I thought of that. Jane Spondulic, Susan Garvey. I know.

No, we will. Let's talk more about avatars because I'm fascinated by all of that. And it's a really interesting conversation about allowing yourself to age. And as a very, very, very famous person, if all of your stuff was in the full flush of your youth, how you feel about that? Because that's why they're avatars. Yes. Are they avatars or holograms? I'm not quite sure what they... I don't know. I think they might... I don't know. Are they advertised as holograms? I'm not quite sure what they... I don't know. I think they might... I don't know. But actually, I left thinking,

wow, if this is what they're capable of now in 2023, if I can stagger on for another 20 years, I will literally be sitting in my front room with my robot carer and I'll be able to see the Beatles live in the front room, I'll be able to see the Rolling Stones, I'll be able to experience so much stuff without moving a muscle. You won't. You'll still be doing this bloody thing with me, mate. Not in 20 years.

You will, as an avatar. They'll just pop us into chat GPT and off we toddle. And we'll still get paid. Yes. Okay, great. Let's embrace the future. Have a good evening. You did it. Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings.

Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We missed the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer. It's a man, it's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive.

Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at 3 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.