Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Nobbly Bobblys and counterfeit Feasts

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

Jane and Fi are reunited after a week of utter tranquility... not. Fi’s been busy swimming with Austrian ducklings and navigating a whirlwind holiday romance with Dave the Seagull. Meanwhile, Jane��s "Bordeaux buttock ache" miraculously cleared up, thanks to a fast-moving news week in Times Towers. You can buy tickets for Fringe by the Sea: https://www.fringebythesea.com/off-air-with-jane-fi-and-special-guest-jan-ravens/Our next book club pick will be a collection of short stories! 'Interpreter of Maladies' is by Jhumpa Lahiri. You can check out our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffAirWithJaneAndFiOur most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producers: Hannah Quinn and Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, the good news is that last week nothing happened at all. No, you didn't. Honestly, it was, the world was a sea of tranquility. You missed absolutely nothing. Welcome back. How was it? So we had a lovely time, Jane. Absolutely lovely time. But you need to go first because I haven't caught up with your Bordeaux experience. So let's do this chronologically.

How was Bordeaux? Well, it was ever so hot, but obviously totally restful and beautiful. And I don't know what it is about France. What is it about France? It is a really lovely country and it slightly pains me to acknowledge that... Are we going to have a France-Greece standoff now? Because they're very different. But I was really just struck by just how big France is and I do forget that sometimes.

Well, it's what an opportunity to mention Bonnie Tyler. Again, it was in a sense it was a really sad week. We'll talk about Anne Whittaker in a moment. But actually, Bonnie Tyler's death, which was announced on Wednesday. or Thursday, I confess I now can't be absolutely certain, I think it was Thursday, was also really sad. And it really struck a bit of accord with listeners to Times Radio because we had a number of messages, people saying that they'd met her in their real lives and what great value Bonnie Tyler was. We had a lovely message from a man who'd met her in an Italian ski resort

a couple of years ago. And she was just cracking fun in the hotel bar. So that's what came through in all the obituaries, wasn't it? And wasn't that that that? lovely guy who had asked her to sign a Christmas card once and ended up spending every Christmas with her afterwards because they just became really good friends. But she had a turn of phrase and actually there are a couple of things that are mentioned in her obituaries but we wouldn't be able to repeat even, you know, being visualised on the YouTube. It's slightly, slightly a way of com's reach. I mean really, really, but, but also you can imagine delivered in her fabulous Welsh tones which she never, ever left behind her,

apart from in song, weirdly, and maybe we'll talk about that another time. But yes, I mean, you just think she would have been, as my mum would say, a guinea minute. That's a good expression. Very, very sad loss. And, of course, you know, she was lost in France, wasn't she? She was.

That was one of her big, big hits. I did listen to her greatest hits. As soon as I heard the news, I downloaded her greatest hits. And, I mean, she's so well known, isn't she, for the booming great big power ballads. But I didn't realize that she had veered off quite so much into pop. I mean, proper, proper pop. Name a pop song.

I can't. And I didn't like it. Oh, you didn't. Okay. Well. But she had this huge kind of solid pop career as well. Yeah. Which was all part of her.

Well, schick. The guy who messaged to say he'd met her in an Italian ski resort said that one night they did a bit of karaoke. And the locals were absolutely amazed when this woman sang totally eclipse of the heart. did it really, really well. And he had to explain, you know, that's her. Yeah. That's Bonnie Tyler.

So, yes, much missed and fantastic to hear about somebody's, I don't know, full-bodied authenticity to the end. Absolutely. And, I mean, that is the same, although there are very, very few other similarities with Anne Whitaker. An authentic person whose life has been taken away from her way too soon. And there's no charge has been made yet, but we still need to be very careful about what we say about the exact events surrounding her death, Jane. But the shocking nature of realizing what a violent end she met

is quite something, isn't it? It is quite something. Her death was announced, and then it was a bit later that her murder was announced. And I still can't get my head around. at all. I worked with her. We did a BBC one reality show together. Goodness, I remember this. Tell me about this. 24 hours in the past. That's right. And I was hosting it lightly. And she was one of the contestants or participants. So it was an amazing program. It was her, Colin Jackson,

Alistair McGeeta, Oliver, Tiger Drew, Honey, forgive me if I've left anybody out. What was the setup? The schick was they had to go and completely immerse themselves. in three or four different situations from early Victorian England. So a workhouse, a prison, a hospital, I think, and a pottery. And they actually probably had to live all the way through as those workers would have lived back then. So they had to sleep in prison overnight with no heating. They had to build all their own fires for the furnaces and the pottery. This was a BBC show.

It was a BBC show and it was grueling. And Anne Whitacom was remarkable. I mean, they were all remarkable. What year would this have been? It was, well, I had children. I was better. Do you do that? It was working out based on.

Pre and post. Yeah. I think probably, I'm going to say, 2010, 2012 maybe. Right. Yeah. Quite a while back. Yeah.

And all of the participants were great because it really, really was hard work. And I thought after the first week, one of them was going to say, I'm a celebrity, get me out of here. because they didn't, I think nobody understands quite how unpleasant you're going to feel, living in those kind of Victorian workhouse conditions after a while. She was so nice to everybody on the set.

I'd only known her politically. I didn't share very many of her political opinions. And her attitude sometimes towards women I'd found very difficult to take on board, as so many people had. There is never a reason for a woman to be shackled when she's giving birth. Apart from anything else, they're very unlikely to run away, I would say. But she was, she genuinely had a twinkle in her eye. She was very, very kind to everybody around her.

And I was really struck by how seriously she wanted to take it. So she wanted to have that experience. She wanted to understand how those people felt. And I'm not trying to be salacious in saying this, but she was the only one of the contestants who said, and to that end, I'm going to dispense with every single thing from the 21st century. So she dispensed with her brassiere. And she lived life for a sacrifice.

I would not be willing to make. Neither would I. But she did it because she just wanted to, she had a curious mind. She wanted to properly, properly be that person. And she really was nice to people around her as well. I'm really glad you, I've forgotten about that.

And I'm really glad you've told us about that. And also, I just think it's worth saying that the way people treat other people in the end is all that matters. And nobody's looking or where they think nobody's looking. And when the gap actually, and as is often the case in a workplace, person up there, person down there. But she didn't treat people like that.

I haven't spoken to anyone who hasn't found the circumstances of her death genuinely distressing. And I want to hear it for forthright women who, if they want to, should be able to live in the middle of nowhere, with no security, and be their authentic selves for as long as it's possible, that to be the case. I completely agree. Her life should not have been ended that way. It's horrendous. And if you believe that in order to be it, you need to see it, then she represented a very, very rare part of female society. So she had completely rejected the excitable frisant between men and women, or between women and women. She had just said, that bit of the world

is not for me. And she had dedicated herself to politics and to faith. And they just aren't very many women who are doing that very publicly in our world. And we should always cheer. They get mocked, don't they? Yes, we should always cheer because there will be younger women out there who will seek to find a role model or just somebody who they feel an affinity with. And she represented, yeah, I mean, quite a kind of rare thing, I think. I think the reaction to her death has been quite,

there's been some nastiness and some toxicity, but there has been a great deal of decent reflection on a life that was a bit unusual and should not have ended in the way it did. And I hope that the majority view is actually this view. We've got a lovely email from Anne in Cumbria who says, let's set aside all the speculation, political chatter,

whether we agreed with their views or not. Can we just take a moment to recognise that two women in their 70s died this week, polar opposites in so many respects. Bonnie Tyler came up through performing in Welsh working men's clubs before success as a recording artist. Anne Whittacom undoubtedly had her own battles

with a male-dominated institution to follow her own career path and wasn't afraid to take on new challenges in later years, which you've talked about. I mean, she really was utterly unafraid. I'm 62 and a generation below these women, definitely more in the Bonnie camp, I mean, who didn't want to be a rock chick. However, these two women in their 70s both still working, and it seemed to me embracing life, they should be commended for living their lives on their own terms and showing us how it's done long before girl power was a thing. And I think that's brilliantly expressed and you certainly speak for both of us.

And thank you very much for sending that in. I think that line about living on their own terms and showing us how it's. done and the great Han Wittaker would have been the last person to acknowledge girl power which she probably would have always I'm a load of nonsense stuff and nonsense and she would have said exactly that but you know she did her thing in her way absolutely I like to think that maybe of an evening when she had taken a dip in her pool she came back in and put on some Bonnie Tyler and just rocked out a little bit I'd love to think that too anyway how was Austria Austria was beautiful.

Austria was very, very beautiful. Is it better than France? Oh gosh, I don't think I want to set these countries off against each other, Jane. There's enough going on in the Europe. Yes, that's true, actually, yes. Okay. But Austria was magnificent. And can I just say that if Andy Burnham, who is going to be our prime minister,

is going to be by the end of him next week, if he is looking for a way to incentivise and raise the game of the water executive, in this country, send them to Worthency in Austria to learn how to keep a beautiful, beautiful lake clean. Can I ask a dark, is that a freshwater lake? It is a fresh water lake, yep, and they can quite safely say it's one of the cleanest lakes in Europe. They built a 154 kilometre high-powered sewage pipe all the way around the edge of the lake so that no waste goes into the lake. And it also benefits from the runoff from the slopes, the alpine slopes, which does some kind of very brilliant natural decalcification.

Are we at the outer edges, if you're not at the boundary? But the combination of respecting the natural environment and building, using really, really clever modern engineering stuff to protect the natural environment, means it's so bloody beautiful. And you do think, what have we done in this country that we're, have ignored the possibility of keeping our lakes and rivers as lovely as that. It was an absolute treat to be in it. The water is so clean, Jane.

So you were in it every day? Every day for hours and hours and hours. Bobbing about? Yep. It was just spectacular. Are they fish? Yes. So you swim alongside the fish and an awful lot of birds.

I swam every morning with a duck and her seven ducklings. I ignored the swans, whenever the swans around as they can be. terrible, can't they? Oh, a swan once Nick a sandwich of mine. Really? Okay, well they say don't go near them when they've got their young around them and there were two swans with their signets. And Dave the Seagull, who we made friends with and we're both

missing him very much indeed. He was lovely. Very territorial word. Just a holiday romance though. Yes, a little bit. You'll never hear from him again. You do know that. But yes, we have done something very bad in this country that we've let our... Because Windermere suffers terribly now from pollution and it makes people very

ill and that shouldn't have happened. Is Austria, was it like Germany a fashionable holiday destination for the British but then wasn't? I believe so, yes. And where we were is still a very fashionable place for Austrians to go on their holidays, especially Veldon and Worth a Sea and apologies for my lack of, you know, Germanic touch with the language. Come in Austria.

I'm not sure we get loads of emails from Austria. your near friends Australia we do hear from but not so much Austria so come on board it was one of those destinations you know where you selfishly think I'm not going to tell anybody about this because it's so lovely well you've done it now yeah I don't know it should be shared truly truly beautiful you would mentioning where you flew to so what was it again Clark and Furt yeah which is I've never heard of it and it's close to Slovenia it's closer to Slovenia than it is to the rest of Austria really but we also did a massive train journey on the way there and then we flew back. So we took a train, we flew to

Vienna and took a train from Vienna down to Clagenfurt and then across to Portchatch, which is where we were. Keep up at the back. Some of these variations are approximate, but we welcome them. But I went at them, so I'm hoping that I've got away with them. Food? Really, well, schnitzel, I mean, coat meat in breadcrumbs and deep fry me. Well, that's just, I don't really get it. That's just chicken and breadcrums. Sorry, you don't get schnitzel. It's breaded chicken. Yes, it is. What's the, I don't get it.

What don't you get? We've had Finder's breaded chicken forever. Okay, it's very, very finely beaten and it's usually porpoil. I don't do veal, sorry about that. And the meat layer is very, very thin, and the schnitzel layer is really quite substantial. And it's always served with a kind of cranberry or Loganbury sauce, which I think is rather a lovely touch. I don't mean to be disrespectful. That's just IKEA, isn't it?

No. Right. I'm going to just look to the hive for help here. What did you eat in France? Oh, well, you sent a voice in it, didn't you? It's saying that everything had chicory in it. It had chickory, isn't it? Chiquary is not widely available in British supermarkets, is it?

Or am I just going to the wrong supermarkets? No, I don't. Well, I mean, it probably is, but we're not buying it, are we? Maybe that's the case. I had a friend on the holiday who was very chickory positive. So there was a lot of chickory in our salads. I wasn't doing any of the cooking. was with some friends mercifully who are so much better in the kitchen than I am.

So another of the ladies on the trip, we did the clearing up. Oh, that's nice. I say we, but actually I'd slightly put my back out on the way up there. We had to, we were crossing Paris to get the connecting train. I know, and I was a bit worried about you because I did look at the weather over there. It was 37 Celsius on the day we made that trip across Paris. And there were a couple of occasions where the escalators had just simply run out. So you had to haul your wheelie case up some steps.

and I just did my, I think I had a bit of buttercake throughout the time I was in Bordeaux but I did some exercises which were recommended by one of the holiday makers of the trip and more or less sort of it out. But we had a lovely time and I sent you an image of a stone greyhound which my friend actually has in her house

which they were lovely and they are widely available in those extraordinary French I'm probably I'm going to mispronounce now a brocant which means what? Antique Is that what it means? Well, I suppose is it where Brick of Brack comes from? Brickaback, it must do. Yeah.

There was some lovely... We went to a brock-aunt, and there was an oil painting in the middle of... It was a huge warehouse-type installation. There was an oil painting which had been covered up with a bit of gauze. And all you could see was a woman's head. But the rest of the image had been covered, covered up. Now, I'm afraid I couldn't resist. Was it a naked image?

Well, I pulled back the gauze and the oil painting. Fee, it was of a lady pleasuring herself. And that's why they'd covered it up with gauze. But I thought the French were, you know, open to almost everything. But apparently not to that. But I did wonder. Kel O'Rourer. Well, Kel O'Rour, but who buys that?

Well, where do you put it? Well, very good questions. Very, very good questions. I don't know how much it cost. But it did seem like, I'm going to say it would be a bold image to stick in your... your front sitting area. I think you've chosen your language very carefully there.

So do let us know if you have ever been to that brocant. Let us know if you've seen the image that I've just referenced. It could be a famous painting for all I know. I don't know. It was probably a copy of something. Maybe. It was definitely bold. But listen, nothing wrong with what the lady was doing.

Do you know what, no, but if I walked into, let's say I walked into just a random Airbnb somewhere in Ike's en provence. I never know how to say that. A's on province. Whatever. It's very different to have. It's not worry. And that was hanging in a bedroom.

Do you what? It would, I'm not trying to make a terrible joke here. It would kind of be alright if I was staying there on my own. But if I was with company. Yeah. Well, who knows? I don't know. And I definitely, definitely, do you not want to see the male equivalent, Jay.

Absolutely not. I don't know why. But we welcome your thoughtful emails on the pleasures to be found in a brocon. where so much heavy brown furniture is available at reasonable prices. Yeah, yeah. The glasses are steaming up at the mere thought of all of this. Oh, can I just say before I forget, I have one of those wonderful chance hive encounters

on Saturday morning in the park in Liverpool. And hello to Kim and to her sister Julie, who are regular listeners. Kim had, she'll never know how much I needed to speak to her. Perhaps she will if she hears this. Kim, we just met at the right moment. And I like him for a multitude of reasons, not least that she was a great person to talk to.

But she was walking a friend's dog. I won't mention the dog's name, although I do remember it. And she was loosely speaking in charge of the dog, but got slightly distracted by the conversation she had with me, which I was very grateful for. And the dog she was caring for started to mount another dog in the park,

which the owners of the second dog were not entirely happy about. So I hope nothing resulted from that encounter. and Kim, I hope you haven't got into trouble. I tell you what. You've had a very sexy week, Jane. Anyway, it is one of the many, many brilliant things about doing this is that sometimes out in the wild, you meet people. And it was lovely, so hello to her.

Hello to Kim, hello to Kim. Likewise, I met a lovely lady at the Lido on Sunday who was reading Valerie Perrauss-Fresh-Wresh-Whor. for flowers. The first book that we read in the book club. Yes. And in fact, her mum, who's no longer with us, ran a bookshop, and she would quite often recommend freshwater for flowers to people who,

equally like us, had never even heard of Valerie Perrin before. Shall we move it on to some, I'm always intrigued when I get back from holiday to see what the inbox is full of. So you appear to have been in search of nobly bobby. And just taught me through briefly, if it's possible, the kitchen roll saga. I will keep it brief because people did suffer with this last week. Now, in your absence, we had Eve, who did a great shift until she was off sick with her glands and Rosie stepped in. Then Eve came back.

Okay. All this with more news than frankly any of us could handle last week as well. So a lot going on. But when I was in France, I did observe that there was half sheet kitchen roll available. Now, talk me through what you mean by. Half, do you mean half the average size? Or half vertical? Half vertical on a wedge of kitchen roll, which meant that for minor spillages, you didn't need to use a whole wedge.

But of course, you do use a whole wedge of the half sheet. None of this makes any sense. So we had so much reaction from people telling me that actually this kitchen roll, so-called half sheet, is available in Britain too. Okay. Does any of that make any sense? No, I'm still struggling. No, I'm still struggling to, to me in my head, I've never seen this thing. at all. It makes more sense if it's a horizontal half sheet, so you just rip off a little bit.

Does anybody just rip off one small part of a sheet? But sometimes the spillage doesn't justify a whole sheet. Yeah. Oh, don't be ridiculous. Every spillage does. Anyway, you don't use kitchen roll. No, I don't. I don't. So it wasn't a conversation, strictly speaking, you could have taken part of me. So it's very good that you had it in my absence. What happened with the nobly bobblies?

Well, here's one. In response to Imogen's plea for a nobly bobbly stockist. We're solving the problems in the world. I can confirm that boxes of four of the genuine article can be purchased at Iceland and farm foods. Even better when there's an offer on. I've been a fan for a few years now, says Lucy. Also been a fan of your podcast since stumbling. Stimbling.

Stimbling across. I've been a fan of your podcast since stumbling across them during lockdown. I can totally relate to the topics covered. I am a menopausal woman of a certain age. Lucy, we are your people. You are our person. Stick around. Thank you for that. Now, Martin Groucho Horseman. Do you think that's his real name? Well, I want it to be. Okay. Let's just say it is. Hello, Jane Fianneve. I've had flat feet for as long as I can remember. Were you specifically talking about the flat feet? We were talking about why flat feet prevented men from entering the military. Yeah. Okay. And you've had a successful answer to this? I'm not.

Do you know what? In the heat, and we haven't even mentioned the football, I don't know. Okay. Back with Martin. My parents searched for a cure. I jumped off stairs on tipto and picked up pencils and ping pong balls with my toes. My start right brogue shoes had arch supports all to nerve ale. I still have flat feet. My chiropractor once said I had the body of a couch potato, but the calves of a marathon runner because of my flat feet. That's brilliant. And Martin describes himself as editor cook, gardener and gentleman. Oh. Yeah, he's very, very welcome in our sound of menopausal ladies. So that's quite funny, isn't it? Because I do remember, I remember at school having flat feet, it was a bit of a thing. But I think my mother regarded it as morally dubious if you had flat feet. Did it common?

You'd let your family down. You'd literally let your arch down. And you only had yourself to blame. But I didn't realize that you could do exercises to try and raise. them again and I think this is just gone Martin I don't think the younger generation care about whether or not they're flat footed and they're all housing

their feet and trainers now aren't they and I don't know whether that helps or hinders I'd like to hear from a profession we very rarely hear from but they do such valiant work the corropodist what are the potential long term impacts of all this trainer wearing

it's a very good question I'd like to know and because women have had terrible problems throughout the last couple of centuries, through having to squeeze their feet into small shoes, small feet have always been the feminine ideal, haven't they? When did the heel emerge? And when did the high heel emerge?

Because men wore heels before women wore heels. I think that's right. I think so, because dandy men did wear high heels, didn't they? Actually, when did it? So when did the male heel go down and when did the female heel go up to the point of which, I mean, nobody in their right, mind would now, if they were starting from scratch, design a high-heeled shoe for a human

being to walk in. They're so impossible. I've got some little platformy things on today, which I haven't worn. I've been wearing my wedges abroad. Yeah, I know. So I thought, well, I'll put my heels back on. Dittalate the Austrians. It's very much so, very much holiday footwear.

And even, you know, just doing a kind of half-mile walk to the tube station and these, my little clicky clacks. has made the back of my legs hurt. I mean, they're just, they're ridiculous, aren't they? A high-hield chew is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. It's painful. It's almost certainly bad for your feet.

And why we put up for them for so long, I do not know. So chiropractors of the world, come on in. Chiropractors and coropidus, because in later life... What's the difference? Well, caropidus just do feet. What does a chiropractor do? That's aches and pains, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Coropitis, I mean, pensioners, I'd include myself here. As you get older, I'm not quite a pensioner, as you know, because the state pension age has been rather crudely raised in Britain to 190. So I've never really, who knows. No, I'm tantalising five years away from my state pension. I know. But do you think it is going to change again before you get to it?

It's not due to. It's due to go up to 68, but that's after I will have started mine if I'm spared. and we should never take anything for granted, obviously. But yeah, chances are, we'll have to, after going up to 68, they'll have to go up to 70. And I tell you what we did do last week, we just had a brief conversation on the radio program about the possibility of the old triple lock going

and fee people, our listeners, Times Radio listeners, they don't like the idea of the triple lock vanishing, but chances are it'll have to. And there's a lot, there is a lot going on at the moment. I mean, Andy Burnham starting next week, when we know honestly I'm not a nailed on Tory but I do think it's not unreasonable to ask why is it we know so little about what this man actually stands for

and what he's going to do anyway that's that's kind of next week's conundrum there was a bit of a technical interruption there wasn't there because apparently to quote our producer who's Hannah today because he was on holiday with our glands they always travelled together to quote Hannah we got comfortable and the sound had changed I mean I don't know what that means we haven't been drinking or anything.

I was ranting about Andy Bunn. I'm taking over next week when, although I'm not necessarily of a right-wing disposition on political matters, I am a bit boggled by how he's kind of being imposed on most of us without all of us or too many of us

knowing exactly what he stands for and what's going to happen. The thing that I think might come back to bite everybody on the bum is the fact that they couldn't find within 400s, than 400 people currently elected as Labour members of Parliament, a person who could lead them forward. So they've invited in, you know, the one over there.

And I don't know. I mean, it's just always easy to fancy the French exchange guy. But it doesn't mean that there wasn't anybody nice in your own school that you could have had a snog with. Yeah. Should we put it that way? I think that's a very, very good way of putting it. Yeah. And also, he's not putting himself up for scrutiny.

So he's done like Nigel Farage, and there is a direct comparison, statements rather than, you know, the usual Q&A. And you can argue that usual Q&A favours mainstream media or any certain outlets or whatever you want to do. But actually, politicians without good journalism are dangerous. So just if you're going to make statements, allow people to ask questions. questions, you know, journalists are asking questions on behalf of their listeners and viewers and readers, aren't they? Yeah. You know, the fact that they say their name first that makes them sound super important might be annoying to some people, but I really don't like that. I don't like that direction of travel at all, Jay. Not least because it threatens our own. Well, there is that,

there is that, I mean, who else is going to talk about knobbly bobblies if not us? But no, I mean, you're completely right. I mean, that journalism gets so much stick, but where people think we'd be without it, I do not know. Yeah, and we will suffer if we can't poke and prod. Yeah, it does not bear thinking about. Anyway, Andy Burnham is next week's issue because the plain truth is... We're too full this week. We're just too busy this week.

But also, I don't want to say it, but you know what? Could have come home. Stop. No, stop it. No, okay. I must admit, I'll just need to out myself as... I fell asleep on Saturday night before. In the second half.

In the second half. Yeah, me too. I mean, for all the, I mean, it is exciting on one level. The temperature in Miami, I think it wasn't the greatest football match ever played, although the result was obviously marvellous for England. But, and I'm really sorry for Scotland. I gather Glasgow was absolutely packed with people wearing Norway shirts, which does make me laugh.

And I don't blame them. I mean, why wouldn't they feel that way? But it was a tough old watch that game for those of the same. Well, it was because obviously both teams have been. told to stand still as much as he can. I mean, in the first half, Norway stood still. I mean, they stood in the right place. They stood still.

They didn't move a lot. I mean, that's what boggles me. I mean, not an expert, obviously, but Erling Harland, he doesn't do a lot of moving. No, but when he does. But when he does, it counts for something, obviously. 6,000 calories a day he takes on board. That's incredible, isn't it? How, I'm just going to say it.

How fat do you think you and I would be by the end of a month if we took on 6,000 calories a day? I'd be a nobly-bobbly, for sure. We would be nobby-bobbly-bobbly. On the subject of nobly-bobblodies, and I don't want to start a terrible thing here, but I had a feast the other day, and they've changed. What's happened to them? Well, you know, a feast used to have a solid block of hardened, cocoa-flavored vegetable fat in the middle of it. Wasn't chocolate, wasn't chocolate, it was it? It was chocolate adjacent, surrounded by a bit of ice cream adjacent vegetable fat, and then you had the lovely, crunchy thing on top.

What's gone? the inside chocolate bit and the chocolate flavoured ice cream. So I had a feast that was basically the stuff on the outside, the crunchy bit with the nuts or whatever it is, and then just ice cream in the middle. I know. I did wonder afterwards whether it had been knockoff. What?

I know. I know. What, you mean counterfeit feasts now out there? It's nothing sacred. No, probably not. But it's hard to find, you know, I'm not in a, enormous fan of ice creams and the huge magnums. I just can't do a whole one.

Well, we've always said the minis are too small and the average size are too big. So quite often the feast is my go-to in an ice cream vat in a chest freezer. Yeah. Go-girl. Can you also explain what you've been saying about awful? Well, I wondered, I don't know why. Oh, I know. That was not unconnected to,

in its own way, this podcast is a tremendous entity. Erling Harland eats a lot of offal And I was talking about him and his calorie intake last week Because our man at the World Cup Who is Les Snowden Who's been travelling around the World Cup for Times Radio And who's been brilliant Because he's taking

I don't normally like sideways looks at things I just think Just look at it But he's been doing a really good Sideways look at the World Cup Visiting locations, meeting people chatting To normal folk And he's had some incredible insights actually

and I know he's been spending time because I heard him this morning with Argentina fans in Miami ahead of the big clash on Wednesday against England but I challenged him last week to eat awful like Erling Harland but he couldn't find any hearts

because Erling Harland eats a lot of stuff like hearts that led to a conversation he did have pork intestine in the end Les by the way quite enjoyed it he said finished the whole thing that led to a conversation on the podcast about awful and whether people still eat

liver. And do you? I haven't for ages, but I'm always struck by how cheap it is. Yeah. Are you a fan? I am a fan. In fact, it was one of the very few cravings I had in pregnancy. It's full of iron. It is, but you're not meant to eat too much of it, are you, in pregnancy? Because it's got vitamin A in it. Oh, I see, and you can't have too much. And you can overdose on vitamin A quite easily, I think. But I had real craving for that and ice. What were your cravings? Just food. Hence the substantial weight gain. Honestly, I didn't discriminate.

Well, I'm glad to have cleared all of these things up. Michael is telling me off. Why? Fee, Penelope Keith and the burden of reality. There's quite a title for an email, isn't it? Do you think any other podcasts on Earth gets emails with titles like that? Go on. I need to hear this. As I'm a little behind, I think Fee will be away by the time I send this.

Nonetheless, colon. In reference to Penelope Key's death and her role in the sitcom to The Man of Born, Fee recently offered the opinion that the program would look old-fashioned to modern eyes. The set was incredibly obviously a set. It was very clear it wasn't filmed in a great big country house. It really was the wobbly kind of acorn antique set design. That's a quote. That's actually what I said.

Did you? on the podcast while you were away. Okay. Michael says, indeed, it is obvious that it isn't filmed on location, but rather than the fault of the set, that's the result of the usual television production methods of the day, where exteriors would routinely be shot on film, which in basic terms has a more realistic look,

and interiors on videotape in a studio, which has a correspondingly more artificial look. In addition to this, studio interiors were frequently overlit to avoid receiving complaints from older viewers, who remember would be watching on much small, smaller televisions than we have now that the picture was murky. The set design of To the Manorborn from designer Ian Rornsley is really rather good, thoughtful and well observed, and is additionally, though this is to damn with faint praise, sturdy, no wobbly walls at Granany Manor. But there is a further point.

I had a feeling you might say that, yeah? Colon. I believe some comedy benefits from a shared understanding of its artificiality. Private eye front covers still look as though they're made by someone with scissors and glue, because subconsciously we don't want to think that someone took too much time over a quick, silly joke. If they looked more polished, we'd feel the execution was in excess of the gag. Ronnie Barker's sublime sitcom Porridge shares the same production techniques as to the man are born, and the benefit of this is most clearly shown in the film version of 1979,

which is shot entirely on film, in a real disused prison. It is too real, and seeing Fletch, Godber and Mr. Mackay in a real prison, in all its grime and grimness puts us in mind of the brutal reality of that existence and of the likely crimes of some of their cohabities. Suddenly, it doesn't seem so funny

after all, reality isn't always better with apologies for having felt compelled to send this. It's me told. I thought that was fascinating. Yeah. That's me. Absolutely told, Michael.

Well, but by somebody with genuine experience. And we enjoy being put right by people who know more than us. Don't. Don't. It's not true. We love it, Michael.

What did Michael do? What's his professional experience? We don't know. He doesn't say. But I think he's got some kind of insight into it. And I confess I'd never really thought about that. But I suppose the comparison to Acorn Antiques is for a reason, isn't it? That Acorn Antiques was taking the piss out of things like to the Man of Born with its very obvious built sets.

And I'd never thought about that. I'd never taken it back and back and back and back. No. Okay. And you don't get TV like that anymore, do you? If you do, it really screams wrong, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. You know, sometimes you'll still see people in driving sequences

where you know that they're just in a backdrop because they've always doing that, aren't they? And you just think, that wouldn't work on the road. If I did that with my scowdra, I'd be arrested. Yeah, but you have been. Not arrested. Oh, no, not arrested. No, just penalties.

point. Oh, yes, yeah. Yes, too many. But otherwise, no, I think we... You look lost in reverie there, just for a moment as you thought about your SCADA. I was just counting on points, yeah. Dear me, it's just a...

No, it's 23 and a 20. It's nothing to... No, because... And it's not... ...or laugh about. No. I didn't. I just wanted to mention this

because it was weird this. I had the privilege of going to Wimbled last Sunday. Did you? Yes, I went to Wimels, yes, with my eldest and who'd got the tickets, it was nothing to do with me. Absolutely brilliant.

Who did you see? Well, we were on fashionable number one court mercifully fee in the shade. Because had we been on the other, I honestly, I don't think I'd have survived. Honestly, don't. And now you're putting me on the spot and slightly asking me,

well, more than slightly, you did ask me who I saw. And I definitely saw a women's man. I know this is terrible because so many people would love to go. Can you remember the nationalities? Well it was Jovich

who was an American but with Croatian roots playing another American and it was a good game actually and she didn't win the Jovich but she was only 18 she was beaten by a 31 year old fellow American I think. Okay.

And then it was Felix, the amazing Canadian player. Okay. Against another player. Osia Asia Seam. That's right. Thank you. But who did he defeat? Because it was a long old slog in the heat.

And he then went on to lose to, was it, did he lose to Djokovic? He did lose to Djokovic. Yes. Anyway, I wondered in the light of our Wimbledon experience, by the way, the price of drinks there. How much? Off the, well, champagne was an extraordinary off the... Like 20 quid. For a glass.

I mean, I think it was more than that. Just on that tip, did you see the cutaway to some of the boxes at the England game in Miami? Mick Jagger. Yes, and Venus Williams sipping champagne. And it just, you just thought, how far this game has come. Yes, that's extraordinary. You know, from pires and pints to that. It was quite weird.

It was just like, whoa. Okay, that's what they're doing now. Anyway, sorry, back at Wimbus. No, I'm just, Mick Jagger, he's, he's in, is he 82? I think he's definitely an octogenarian now. Yeah, he's over 80. Still, he's still 95% sinew. And the other 5% is pretty robust hair dye.

Let's just, let's just, look, look at me. But what a, what a guy. In the past, I think he's only ever brought England bad luck. Oh, yeah, he's never been at a winning, right, significant winning match until. Well, he's turned it around. Saturday night he has. Yeah.

So I don't think he's going to play up front in the semi-final, but we wish him the very best. Anyway, I'm very interested in any Wimbledon experience. Oh, no. My question was simply, after the Wimbledon experience, what happens to this? Because it is huge. The All-England Club.

I've been there in the past, but not for a couple of years. And it just seems to have grown, and I know it wants to grow even more. And I think some people in the area are pretty enthusiastic about this possibility. And I just want to be a bit enthusiastic about this possibility. what happened there the rest of the year. Because unless you're a member of the club,

you can't go in. Is it not used as a training camp? I honestly don't know. But apparently I'd asked last week, you asking, says Caroline, who's near Marlow. I'm actually near High Wickham, she says, but it doesn't sound quite so good.

You have to be familiar with the Home Counties to really understand why she makes that comment. But there's nothing wrong with High Wickham. I like High Wickham But Marlowe is nicer I mean it's just as simple as that Last week I apparently asked what happened to Wimbledon

For the other 50 weeks of the year Well that's true I did And he went on to say Would it be possible for a Mrs. Joan Sparks To pop along for a midweek game with her mates I must have just used that name It came out of my head I can't answer that says Caroline

But my nana was Miss Joan Sparks Spooky I mean What are the chances I doubt she ever played tennis But when she was in service as a girl in London, a long way from her little village in Suffolk, she did like to go and stand in the gods at the Royal Opera House

if she had a Saturday afternoon off. As a child, she regaled me with many tales of that time, including the time she was sent out to buy rabbit for dinner, disappointed by what was on display in the butcher's shop. She went back to the house empty-handed. Cook was less than impressed, so the ever-resourceful Joan sent word to her George, my granddad, back on the farm in Suffolk.

he caught a couple of proper country rabbits, put them on a train and Joan collected the box from Liverpool Street and Cook then had her rabbits for dinner albeit a bit later. That anecdote has got nothing to do with Wimbledon but I'm still really glad I know it. It started off.

Caroline, thank you and how lovely that your late grandmother was called Miss Joan Sparks after I just for some reason came up with that name. Yeah. So a lot has changed in our world, hasn't it? It doesn't answer the question

what happens to Wimbledon the rest of you. No, it doesn't. But the idea that you could be travelling on any intercity rail connection and somebody next to you would have a box of freshly shot rabbits going to a kitchen to be skinned and eaten. Yeah, it's another world. It is. And also the train service was so reliable that the rabbits got back to London.

Right, final one from me comes in from Jeanette, who says I was listening to your podcast in the early hours of Wednesday morning, as I often do at 2 a.m. When I heard somebody has written in to say that split kitchen roll, is available here. I immediately, so this is 2am, I immediately went on to the Arcado app and added plenty flexi sheets kitchen roll to my order. That's the brand. It's arrived in the morning. Deep Joy is the only way I can describe it who knew such a thing existed. I also wanted to tell Fee that while I was on holiday in Greece last month, again in the middle of the night,

I went back to your old B podcast and scrolling through I spotted the episode with Lisa Tarbuck. We did do Lisa Tarbuck, didn't we? Which was of interest as I was at school many, many moons ago with her older sister. That was the episode where feeders go she was suffering from a frozen shoulder and couldn't swim. I've had mine for a few months now and it hadn't crossed my mind before Greece that I wouldn't be able to swim. So that was a pain literally. Jeanette says it is much better now post a jab and lots of physio and exercises. And Jeanette, I just want to say, I think frozen shoulders, for me anyway, have remained up there with childbirth as a painful experience. And I'm so glad that you've got a jab because I didn't have a jab.

I just thought, oh no, I'm going to push on through with this. And it took such a long time. It was really unpleasant. You know, when you catch your frozen shoulder on something and you can actually feel it ripping inside, it is just so grim. And so many women of a certain age get it. It's to do with all of our lovely kind of juicy cartilage

disappearing in our joints. So to anybody who is suffering, and it will be many of you, investigate having a jab, If you think that that's something that will help you, I would say absolutely go for it and definitely, definitely do the physio and the exercises as much as you can. And then it is one of those weird things

a little bit like many cases of childbirth two where you just forget that you ever had it, you know, it's so odd, really, really odd. Well, I still can't do front crawl for long periods of time. Because that might exacerbate it. Something just didn't ever quite go completely back to normal. but when I was swimming in the lovely, lovely lake in Austria, I did realise that I don't miss it at all

because of course if you're doing front crawl you can't see the scenery around you, which is fine when you're in a pool or if you're swimming in a place that you know and swim in every day and whatever. But actually when you're in a very, very beautiful place, just doing breaststroke, so you're coming up for every stroke and looking around.

Absolute magic. Every cloud has a silver light. Oh, do you know, I mean, with the mention of juicy cartilage, we're back to awful. So just very briefly. Sam says, loving the podcast, I listen on the tiny Greek island of Leros. I've never heard, is it Leros?

Our home for nearly 15 years. Liver is one of my favorite meals, despite the gruesome, leathery stuff we had served to us in the 70s. It is readily available here in the butchers and the supermarkets, mainly beef liver, sometimes chicken livers, which can be made into a lovely paté. Yeah, that's true. Personally, I like to slice up some beef liver and marinate it with Worcestershire sauce and fresh oregon. Garno from our garden. Cook it with some onions and thinly sliced peppers and mashed potatoes. It is delicious. Sadly, none of this appeals to my dear wife, Joe, who's been a committed vegetarian for 43 years and finds the sight of raw liver rather revolting. Thankfully for her, I do all the

cooking while she keeps our Greek garden resplendent even during the sweltering hot summers. On that point, I should say that air conditioning is a godsend and the cost of AC units and installation are a fraction of those in the UK. What I cannot understand is that Greece has an almost endless supply of sunshine, yet not much is done to promote installation of photovoltaic panels to pump electricity into the Greek national grid. That seems like a very, very obvious missed opportunity. Well, it would seem to be one, but perhaps we're all missing something here.

Sam, thank you very much for that. Yes, being married to a vegetarian when you like a bit of liver, is probably not easy. By God, we've covered some ground. Haven't we just? And it's only Monday. It's only Monday. Guests coming up later in the week include the fashion designer Amanda Wakely.

And believe me, she's going to have a work cut out. I've been looking at her book on style tips. And Amanda, well, I'm looking forward to asking you some questions on behalf of the shorter lady. Excellent. And Andy Oliver is in this week as well. And it's so speaking actually. I was thinking about her randomly the other week and thinking, It would be lovely to have Andy back on the podcast.

Her energy is just so massive, isn't it? So she's booked in, just by coincidence. Can't wait. We will look forward to that very much. It's another week to stagger through. Do it in our company. And thanks for all the emails. Jane Fee at Times Dot Radio.

Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another off-air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, till four on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case.

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