Off Air... with Jane and Fi - One man’s breakdown is another man’s breakthrough (with Lyse Doucet)

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

It's a “welcome to autumn” type of day, and the vibes are good! Jane and Fi discuss bike theft, pet obituaries, and the moment you knew it was time to retire - now known as a 'Denise moment'. Plus, foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet reflects on her career and discusses her new book ‘The Finest Hotel in Kabul’. We've announced our next book club pick! 'Just Kids' is by Patti Smith. You can listen to the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qIjhtS9sprg864IXC96he?si=uOzz4UYZRc2nFOP8FV_1jg&pi=BGoacntaS_uki.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 Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm about to say something incredibly faux-faced, so brace yourself. I've never stolen anything. And I just, I can't, have you not taken somebody's heart? No. No. Press, play and record, go. You're meant to be a bit kinder to us than that, Eve. Maybe it's better just to be brisk and assertive.

Welcome to off-air, where we find ourselves on a beautiful Tuesday morning here in London town. I hope it's a sunny, wherever you are in the world, which, of course, is an impossibility if you're listening in the dead of night. It is. But today, I would say, Jane, is that beautiful welcome to autumn day. It is properly crisp outside. It was very, very chilly in the early hours of the morning

when I walked the Nants. When you say the early hours, you're not creeping around the streets at three or four, are you? No, that's true. But it was only just seven. And it was a beautiful sunrise in London. It was just gorgeous.

And it's got that really lovely, it's like the sharp focus, isn't it? It's like when you clean your glasses, it's that kind of day where everything's just a little bit more, everything's slightly heightened and clear. I'm afraid the tranquility of East West Kensington was shattered very early on

by the tree fellers in both senses of the term doing the dew doing the dew in our street getting trimming down those and they are rather beautiful those London plain trees and they were giving them a right old going over in our road they've got a beautiful bark haven't they

they are that well have they I was going to just agree with you and then I just thought why lie I haven't noticed. Tell me about it. No, so when you walk home tonight, just have a look at their bark. I think bark is one of the most beautiful parts of our natural flora and fauna diaspora, don't you? No tree is the same, and they're all wonderful. And I think sometimes because we've had an awful lot of cherry trees planted in the Hackney environment on our streets.

And in fact, that was, you know, we were talking about what women can do often. when they put their mind to it in the local community. That, the tree planting around the streets of Hackney was largely started and amplified by quite a few women. So there you go, I just dropped that in, because we've got an email, haven't we, complaining about what we're always rude about men? It's not so much that we're rude about men. We do like to big up women.

Actually, that's a good point at which to mention our guest today. Yes, yes, well, because, okay, you... Well, no, you said, because we both admire. this woman hugely but um she's just very significant oh i thought you're going to talk about yannis because you're just about to do yannis but that will go out tomorrow yes but he's biging up women isn't he yes so let's big up the man who's who can yeah this is janis verifakis who was the who is an academic and um i think it's it's fair to describe him politically as being left of centre that's what just a touch uh but he's got some interesting views he was the briefly and it was

quite briefly. He was the Greek finance minister and he's become a best-selling author. His tomes were all over all over Greece. I noticed very, very big in Athens Airport where, by the way, there's a new shop called It's All Greek to Me. Brilliant. Which I enjoy. Do you think there's one in Ankara that's just called Turkish Delight? We could continue on this theme. You can assist us if you like. Jane and Fiat Times Strait Radio. What is it, Eve?

But today's guest. But today, oh, she's raining us in. We're back on track. today's guess. He's been very funny already this morning because she was trying to send me a PDF

it was a telegraph article and some reason my home email kept on rejecting it and she just said it's a bit overdramatic and it was I mean it's just a PDF

Google Mail there's no need to make a song and dance about it maybe you've got some special system set up that rejects right of centre thinking wherever it might come from

I hope not so never get my base lips Oh dear, we're getting into very, very dodgy ground now. Can we just focus on who our guest is because we were discussing the fact that one contributor had said, look, you're always knocking men. We're not here to knock men. We sometimes do because sometimes they need knocking.

But we're here to build up women and the importance of our guest today. I mean, there's no country in the world has benighted as the one she's writing about in what is a best-selling book. And I just don't think we talk about this place enough. So Lee Doucette has written the most fantastic book about the intercontinental hotel in Kabul in Afghanistan. And there's a story, isn't there, in our bulletins today?

And I was glad to hear it because I think you're right. We don't focus on Afghanistan at all anymore. And it's that weird thing because we aren't hearing voices from Afghanistan. Perhaps we have stopped realizing how much we need to be hearing voices from Afghanistan. The vacuum and the silence is worked, hasn't it? Because that's what the Taliban want. they want to just disappear into their own world and not be challenged. And now they've cut off the internet completely.

And that's the story today, yeah, that 3G, 4G and 5G don't appear to be working anymore in Afghanistan. So we will talk to at least Doucette about that. But also her book is so lovely because it is set in this pleasure palace. That's what it was built for. So she takes us through the modern history of Afghanistan, through the eyes and the ears of all of the people who worked and some of the people who stayed at the hotel in Kabul and it's just wonderful Jane.

It's really, really wonderful. She's got really lyrical prose which doesn't always happen with news people. Sometimes their books can be a little low on the colour but Lisa's isn't at all. Sometimes they're just not very good writers. I mean, that's because they excel in other areas. Which reminds me, I'm still plowing through Kamala Harris's book.

When I say, I'd actually, it's not really true. If you're listening to an audio book, you don't plow through it, do you? No, but there are some quite good suggestions, aren't there, from our listeners, about what you could do with when you find it difficult to engage with whoever it is who's narrating an audiobook. Well, just to speed it up. Yes, so you no longer recognise the voice. Maybe Kamala a little bit more.

speed. It might be easier to digest. I should say that I haven't read all of it. I haven't listened to all of it. I keep confusing the two. I haven't listened to all of it yet. But it does sound as though the Biden people, they did give her a tough time. This is her account, obviously, but they gave her lots of impossible jobs to do, never defended her when she was attacked and didn't big up her successes. And then all of a sudden needed her just at the last minute to do the impossible, as it turned out, and win the presidency. Well, sometimes liberals aren't liberal. They're not great.

Well, I think, you and I have had encounters with people of all political stripes, and it's not always the ones you think who are particularly friendly. Yeah. So, you know, and in fact it's a criticism, isn't it, that has often been leveled at the elite of the Democrat Party that it's impossible to break into. It is very much the establishment. It's not particularly welcoming.

I don't think that would be an original observation to have. I mean, there's a lot of internecine. What's that expression? Yes. Squabbling in the higher echelons of all organisations. I mean, we need to be honest about this. You and I have worked almost exclusively in radio stations, and I'm going to break it to people.

Not everybody, for example, the presenters, they don't always get on with each other, do they? They don't. Handover is from hell. Channel 5, 8pm, weekdays. Somebody should make that. Honestly, fear and low. in the media industry. There's a lot of it

about. There is. I have to say though, Fee, hopping onto my on message board, not as much of it here. No, this is a nice radio station. As in other establishments. To work out. Anyway, you know, we're in our infancy at Times Radio. Yeah, we're still in. I think it's small enough. I think we're in year one now.

Small enough for it never to get too hierarchical. Yeah, I think that's true. We've done the nursery. We've done reception. I think we're in year one now. Do you think so? At Times Times Times, yeah. Oh, I feel a bit. I feel a bit. I feel a bit bigger than that actually i feel a bit yeah three oh do you know what there are so many little ones struggling to get into school at the moment aren't though um just we live on a street which is on its way to about four different primary schools so there is a cacophony of wailing going on

well it's because it's just dawned on them this is for real that they've got to go every day and there was exactly that situation there was a little one who just sat down outside my house this morning and just had a right old whale and I really felt for the mum because there isn't there isn't really anything that you can say that's going to make it better for a one who's that tiny because something's just something uncomfortable has happened to them in their world hasn't it and they just don't want to go they don't want to go and how do you tell them you've got 14 years of this well so knuckle down she was being very lovely and very logical and very thoughtful and she was just kind of walking her little one through the day.

So she was saying, and then you'll be able to do this, and then you'll be able to do that. And I thought you're lovely, lovely, lovely parent. So I wish them all well. Yeah, when I was, when that terrible period of our lives with the tube strike, which I felt I dealt with relatively well, although I found it profoundly stressful getting the overground. There was one morning.

Yes, darling, we lived it with you. Everybody did, to be fair. There was one morning where a woman was wrangling, and there's no other word for it, her triplets onto the tree to get them to school and they were as cute as anything I was going to say there were three of them

well there would be two lads and a girl who was the girl who perhaps inevitably was the leader of this particular triplet back but they were all over the place with excitement and were you know

shouting out of the window where's the school is it now do we get off and the poor woman you felt she'd done a shift and a half before they'd even left the house actually. So, I mean, she deserves to come home and get herself a nice

brew on the go. Oh, totally. And just relax. And I'm sure that there'll be many parents who remember rising fives as being a very key phrase in the household. And there just does come a time, you know, all hail to the people

who homeschool their kids and want that for their family situation. But I think there are many of us who just think, yep, school is where this little one needs to be now because you run out of options for excitement, socialising and all of that kind of stuff.

So, yeah, I mean, I definitely, definitely, even if we're turned up at the wrong school, I think I just said, don't worry, just find a go-took. You'll be fine, they'll be welcome. I'm joking. I did then miss them as a very strange echo, isn't there?

The first, oh my goodness, those first couple of weeks when, I mean, in my case, I suppose it was when both of them were at school. It really did feel like there was just an echo of them all day, every day. I adjusted reasonably well. Right. Yikes.

Hello, Jane, Fee and Eve as a long-time listener from the before times and a first-time emailer, I really want to thank you for keeping me going through many dips and troughs with your warmth and wisdom and basically keeping me giggling on through. I've often thought of emailing you, but the moment it's past, so today I'm just getting on with it before that can happen. When I was about three, this is love to you all, Helen, and my sister. slightly impatient mother was trying to potty train my little brother, I helpfully offered her some advice. Don't worry, mummy. It'll be all right when that little thing drops off.

Right. This is in relation to our discussion yesterday. Very, very informed discussion. It was about a hot, wasn't it? And about why the male nude is less, apart from all those Greek, I really am, plumbing the depths of my ignorance here, apart for all those Greek statues. Yes, love. It's mainly the female form that is displayed. Well, I think it's not just... Through the male gaze. It's not just the Greek form.

I mean, there's quite a lot of kind of pornography actually involved in Greek art, which is fascinating. It's the subject for another time, Jane. But the Renaissance was where the male form just... I got my interested face on it, yes. There was a lot of it about, wasn't there? Who needs BBC...

or BBC 4 when you've got this. Phoebe, after listening to your discussion last week about gravestones for pets, I thought you might be interested in this. And Phoebe, I am, and I'm sure a few years as well. Here in Ireland, we have a long-established website, rip.I.E, where people can upload death notices of their loved ones. I'm not sure what the UK equivalent is. Well, Phoebe, I don't think there is one.

I could be very, very wrong. more recently a man from county cork has created a new website and it's got a lovely name it's called rest easyfriend.com and it's not for humans it's for pets when I heard about this I jumped on and I took a look at some of the obituaries that people had written about their beloved pets or five minutes later I was just in floods of tears note I have never cried when reading the notices on the human website

so if you or any of your listeners are in need of a good cry I would encourage them to visit this website because honestly it will really pull at your heartstrings. Phoebe, thank you. So that is resteasyfriend.com. I think that's lovely. I think that's lovely too.

I do remember in the Liverpool Echo, which we used to get when I was growing up, the death notices in the Liverpool Echo, some of them were so OTT and wouldn't, I mean, I'm not suggesting that these were entirely the Catholic population of Liverpool, but I think on the whole, the more flowery and blousey the tribute in the Liverpool ECHO to the deceased.

They tended to be Catholic members of the community. But honestly, they were, I mean, you'd get paragraphs of stuff written about people and special verses about, you know, Patrick Domfio Flarty and his life and times. Yeah. Anyway, bit of a ramble there. If you've ever read the death notices and the Liverpool Echo, you will probably know what I mean. So what happened if they were Protestant? It was just a jean, gone and forgotten. A little briefer and presumably a lot cheaper to post.

What is he saying? The Protestants are tight. Oh, my God. I don't want to play any part in this kids. At all. But I don't know, and that's why I said I didn't know, whether or not we have one of these online tribute places. I guess people, when they want people to know about the death of a loved one, you would probably, would you put it on Facebook?

I don't know, I don't really do Facebook. So how do you inform people? Well, there's an awful lot of being informed on Instagram, so I'd imagine it's there on Facebook 2. I haven't really been on Facebook since about 2004. No. But it does come up on Instagram, and it's one of those weird things of modern life where you will be looking at a fitted sheet one moment.

Yes, I get you. You know, the glorious life and times of, you know, Vanessa Feltz and then suddenly you're informed of the death of somebody but I completely understand people's reason for doing it because actually I think it brings you enormous comfort

if you can you know publicly display the loss you know that's what so much of the ceremony around death is about isn't it? You know the wake and sitting in Shiva all those things are about publicly

saying this wonderful person has gone so I completely understand why you do it but I find it, I mean I'm not alone in this it's not an original observation at all but it's so, it just punches it can sop through when you're really, really, really not expecting it but then I don't suppose I mean is that any different to

you know the phone call that would come out of the blue and you know when my dad died my sister phoned you know in the middle of the night and I knew because obviously dad had been in hospital I say obviously I don't expect you all to know this at all so I kind of knew what was coming but even so there's nothing that

your meniscus of daily life is absolutely punched through in that moment and I suppose Instagram is just doing the same yeah I'm sure it is there's something about that phone call in the middle of the night though isn't there I mean we've all had some of them over the years about one thing or another and there is just something there's something shattering about hearing that sound

10 to 3 in the morning whatever it might be that just I think we all live in mild terror of that, don't we? Yeah. But I get it as well. That business have gone. Yeah, no, I was just going to say, though, I was glad to know then. I think it just would have been so...

Were you? Yes, definitely. Okay. Definitely. And gosh, I mean, this is all quite kind of personal stuff. I don't mind people knowing this at all, but I was very pregnant. And I think my sister just knew that, you know, everything was a bit weird in my world at that time. And it just wouldn't have been great kind of... wait, you know, I think there was probably a sense for lots of people that you wait until the

daylight hours, but I think with a, you know, with a pair and with somebody very close to you, actually it's quite important to know quite immediately. That's my feeling anyway. Other people might completely and utterly disagree, but if you do, I don't want to know because... No, it is very personal. Yeah, it is very personal actually, so, you know, I'm not asking to kind of be corrected on this or damning you if you've done it a different way. Definitely not doing that. but there's something don't you think where you just want to be involved in the moment a bit I suppose that's what it is

yeah I honestly don't know and I don't want to I wouldn't judge anybody for how they deal with this we all have I'm trying to think whether I mean I haven't lost a parent so I don't know what that feeling is like I've been with people

and helped or attempted to help them with their losses and some of them quite sudden and there's no correct way to behave. I just think if you can be there, even if you're saying the wrong thing, is it better to say the wrong thing than to say nothing at all? Yes, I think it is.

Yeah, okay. And because you don't, you know, I don't think being on the receiving end of people trying to give you solace, I'm not sure that you entirely know what the right thing is anyway. And it may be in those initial stages of shock that there's nothing right that anybody can say.

But I think silence is definitely unhealthy. helpful because and also there's something on you that always makes you want to fill silence isn't that so if people don't say anything i think it's either a little bit gaslighty like nothing bad has really happened it's just like what it has actually or you you try and make them feel better in their kind of discomfort around you so i remember in my adolescence a friend had a terrible and shocking bereavement women were teenagers and she rang me um and it was going to be the first time I had spoken to her since her loss and I was 17

and I remember the phone ringing and my mum going into the hall and speaking to my friend and saying all the appropriate things and then coming to get me and I remember saying to mum I don't know what to say to her I don't know what to say to her

I don't really and she my mum just literally physically got hold of me threw me towards the phone and said it doesn't matter what you say you just have to get on this phone call and just be with her because she needs to talk to you you, it's not about you.

Yeah. I know, and it's a very important lesson to learn. Do you know, I think the art of the condolence letter has been really lost as well, and I think they mean so, so much. And by a condolence letter, I mean when you write to somebody, and you don't just say, I'm really sorry for your loss, you remember things about your own experiences with that person. And it's so wonderful to then receive all of these extraordinary memories,

many of you which you will never have heard before I think they bring enormous enormous comfort but I think those have really really dropped out and I suspect to go all the way back to our original point about Instagram that that has kind of hastened the demise of the condolence letter because you might feel that you have actually expressed your sadness and sorrow and empathy for somebody but very rarely have I ever seen anybody

then detail, you know, really careful memories about that person. So I think we should definitely try to revivify that. I think it's really interesting, the condolence letter. I've written a few. I hope some of them have been helpful. But it is lovely to do it if you can, and you're right. You know somebody in a way that their child or their partner won't know. They'll know them very, very differently,

but you'll have maybe have worked with them or you'll have just spent time. you need to be able to celebrate your own funny memory or, you know, just hopefully funny memories. They're wonderful to receive. Yeah, they're lovely to receive, I'm sure. And especially, I think, for, you know, when you've lost an older person, because there just will be so much of their life

that you haven't known. All of that time before you arrived on the planet in the case of parent and child. And, yeah, they're fantastic memories. And also because people feel that they don't need to edit them after somebody's died. So, you know, you do hear stuff that you just know within their lifetime they probably don't don't mention that bitch they don't need to

know that it's kind of yeah no yes they do this is great bring it on anyway phoebe thank you and if there is a british equivalent um somebody will tell us oh they certainly well yeah thank you very much to give it a bit of publicity yeah uh dear feet in brackets and of course jane i felt my blood pressure rising sharply as i washed up this evening triggered as i was to hear of the gutting moment you realize your trusty bicycle had been stolen now this is quite a bicycle story i know you exactly how utterly horrible, angering and brutal this feels as though it was yesterday. But in my case, it was 11 years ago. One Tuesday morning, I woke up ready for work, went outside my South London flat to find the

wheelie beans in our front yard all over the place and my treasured motorcycle gone. I noticed the heavy chain hanging cut on its anchor and only then, to my horror, realized the bike was gone. Now, this was quite some bike. This comes from Claire, who said, I'd ridden that motorcycle solo from London to Cape Town. and had known the story of every dent and scratch on it as a solo traveller. Wah hey, that bike had become my best friend,

my trusty ally and my witness to all of the various encounters, both mad and life-affirming and everything in between that I got myself into. The feeling of helpless, boiling anger at whoever in my community had done this was completely horrible and not something that faded quickly. Long story involving training midwives to maintain motorcycles in rural towns.

Tanzania. That's quite a thing. Incredible. Short. Eventually, I moved there, started a community motorcycle safety organisation run by women, and met my husband, who is now dad to my two lovely kids, age seven and three. So, I mean, that really is a bike of memories, isn't it? There's no point even attempting to compete with that. No, gosh, no. I'm not attempting to at all. But just how, and also, Claire, I mean, the really horrendous thing for you, when you've got so much life attached to one possession is that you know that the little effer who took it doesn't know any of that, won't value it,

and just couldn't give a monkeys, just couldn't give a monkeys. So that's just awful. And Claire didn't get it back. Thank you very much indeed for telling us your story, though. Maybe it means a tiny bit, you know, to be able to tell other people about it. And what fantastic work you've done, because actually, in rural communities, the ability to travel places on a motorcycle or a moped

would be a life and death skill to have, wouldn't it? And would also just be so helpful for the midwives, who I bet were expected to cycle before. So we say all hail to you for doing that. It sounds like you've put your motorcycle awareness to some really good use. Now, any news on the bike? No, it's just gone.

I did have a look for it on Gumbtree and eBay. but no it's not up there and it's just left me peed off that's what it's left me peed off so I'll get another one

and I'll get a very very very very cheap one yeah and this one wasn't it wasn't expensive anyway no I know I'm just I'm about to say something incredibly po-faced

so brace yourself I've never stolen anything and I just I can't have you not taken somebody's heart No. No. But so I do think, I just think it's just really...

I mean, you know, when you sort of witness, and I've witnessed, and I'm sure you've witnessed shoplifting, even that is really annoying. I mean, it's not you that's being robbed, but to see someone else just grabbing and just going for it and hurling themselves down the street, it does massively brass you off. Yeah.

Oh, no, I don't think you... You need to warn people about saying that at all. No. And it is a slippery, bloody slope if we start to go, oh, that's just how society is now. You see something nice and you nick it. I don't want to go there. I do not want to go there.

I understand austerity. I understand the implications of it. I don't have to live it myself. So you could judge me as being a selfish person who doesn't understand. But I still think we can't just accept that crime and theft is the solution. It's not.

It's just not. we do need to find others but nicking everybody's stuff I mean I don't want to sound lacking in compassion I did once spend a soul-destroying day in a magistrate's court just watching all the cases for I can't remember what it was for some BBC project

and there were so many people drug addicts in particular who had quite genuinely stolen nappies for their children and it was just it was one of the most depressing days of my working life. And huge, huge sympathy to people who find themselves in that situation.

But the solution isn't to change the rules, though, is it? No. It's not. Maybe Kirstarmer will address some of this in his speech later on this afternoon. We're going to get some cake in, aren't we? Because it's this big conference speech starts at 2 o'clock. Our show starts at 2 o'clock. So we thought about getting a celebratory call in.

And that's not us displaying any political colours at all. It's not the fact that we need some sugar to keep But actually, we won't be getting a Colin today. We can get one next week to see in sort of post-post-Eve's birthday to celebrate it next week. When's Eve's birthday? It's on Sunday, apparently. She dropped, she told me a long anecdote this morning,

which involved referencing the fact that it was her both. Good for you. Oh, it's on Monday. Oh, it's on Monday. In that case, we'd definitely get one. They do a frozen Colin now, don't we? We won't be getting that. Would you like a frozen Colin?

I'm not sure I would travel. Okay. Well, it's only got to travel from the marks across the way there, so who should be I'd rather have the cavapoo, because there's a Colin dog creature. I haven't seen that. Oh, we had that at a recent birthday celebration. Wonderful. They are those better than Colin.

Well, I'd just find out which it's the cheapest. Or is he buying it. Jane and Fee, this is another Denise moment. It comes in from, let's get the name right, Jackie, hello Jackie. After five years working on a temporary contract as an acting team leader in the Special Needs and Psychology Service five years spent proving I was capable of a permanent role

my head of service pulled me aside one Friday morning now this will be something a lot of people are familiar with they told me the permanent post was about to be advertised that the job spec had been written with me in mind and I should apply now it wasn't a perfect job the brief was vast the hours were long but after 20 years as a teacher on rolling one-year contracts with no pension at 50, I was finally looking at some financial security. We went into our regular Friday team meeting

and I watched my colleagues jaded just playing the game. Subtle and not so subtle, eye rolls whenever somebody spoke. Later in the office, sarcasm and passive-aggressive digs at the head of service and I had a sudden, sharp realisation. In 15 years, that would be me too. I tore a strip of paper from my diary, wrote my resignation, and I handed it in. Temporary contract meant only two weeks notice, and two weeks later, I was gone. I later heard my boss suggested I'd had some kind of mental breakdown.

In fact, I'd had a breakthrough. Within a month, I'd found tenants for my house, scraped together my savings, bought a 30-year-old camper van unseen on eBay, and me and my dog, Dougal, set off on what ended up being a 10-year adventure across Europe and North Africa, living on the rent money. I loved it so much after a couple of years I sold the house, gave away everything except one file box of precious papers, and I kept going. It was the single most freeing decision of my life. Mental breakdown, my ass, says Jackie. Jackie, thank you, and I don't know if you're still on the road in the camper van with Dougal, but let us know, if you are, where you are,

and what you've done in that incredible period of time. And I love that perspective. One person's breakdown is another person's breakthrough. I'm going to remember that forever. It's good, isn't it? It is. Yeah, and we all know what she means about that atmosphere in a workplace with all the passive aggression.

Yes. And how wonderful to just be able to go, no, I don't want that in my life anymore. I think there's so much stuff that you have to put up with at work that after a certain age and I think as well it's about having spent a lot of time in different places isn't it? So if you've raised kids

you've been in a playground you've been in more of a community setting it may be the time at which you've experienced the health service more than any other so you've just seen lots of different people lots of different ways of reacting to things and being in control of situations and sometimes you do come to work

and you just think nope this isn't the way to do it actually. It's really loud. But I'm just impressed by the courage. There is courage there that I know I don't have. Just throwing it all away, buying that camper van unseen and heading off with

your dog. Yeah. So you won't do that, but that's fine. But that's fine. Yeah. That is fine. You'll be going to little at 10, Aldi at 11, M&S at 12. I'll be going to little as it opens. Well, not necessarily opens. I have been outside it before it opens. But not

recently, I've sorted myself out. And then you'll be home in time with your laden shopping bags to sit down and watch Jackie and Terry buy a nice two-bed and now mirror. There's a different version. There's the one on at half, is it half six

on Channel 4? Don't pretend you don't know. Don't you dare. I think it's called something like selling Son and the City. It's on just before Channel 4 News. And there was a woman yesterday and she'd done up a lovely two-bedder. And but she put it, and I don't understand this. Look, I respect people who make this decision, but one of her

bits of interior decor design was a sombrero on a peg on the wall. Now, why do people do that? Was she in Spain? She was in Spain, but if you're going to have a sombrero, leave it on a hat stand or have it, you know, on your head, but you don't put it on a peg on a wall. I just don't get that. Well, I don't, I'm not sure about that. So I think when I take my retirement in France, I'm going to stick a couple of berets up. Just you come in. Were they the ones had taken

all the lovely Borg and Villar off the wall? This was a woman and she was being her work was being praised by a couple but I couldn't work out

the relationship. Anyway, I was waiting for the news bulletin obviously. Obviously. Now, last one from me this comes in from Jenny. I'm writing as a medical

gastroenterologist who loves to eat and make my own kimchi and kombucha to express exasperation at some of Tim Specter's comments in his interview. I think that went out on Thursday last week. Which, by the way, we should say, we had a lot, when the interview went out and it was recorded,

a lot of questions came in, didn't they? Which, unfortunately, we couldn't put, or you couldn't put to Tim Specter because you've already done the conversation. What he says is really important to lots of people, isn't it? They're hanging on his every word. Yeah. And I think an awful lot of people do see him as having revolutionized their eating habits, their ability to control their blood sugar, ability to control weight and stuff like that. So he is hugely, hugely popular amongst lots of our audience. But this is really interesting, Jenny. Jenny says Tim is right that medical developments take years from initial studies to make it to practice. And part of the reason for this is the need to be convinced by rigorous evidence. The effects of fermented foods,

and that's what Tim's latest book is about. In the study he described, certainly sound impressive but it is important to say that there was no control or comparison group in the study and the findings were all based on subjective reporting of symptoms rather than measuring of for example blood test markers of inflammation or immune function this means that we can't measure the placebo effect by comparing against a group of people who stayed on the same diet and most scientists would be pretty circumspect about the conclusions that could be drawn some patients might be asked to reduce their fermentable food intake in situations where their immune system is compromised, like those cancer patients he refers to, because bacterial

species, which would usually be harmless to us, can become harmful when your immune system can't function normally to keep them in check. There are many people, those with irritable or inflammatory bowel disease, reflux, etc., who will really struggle to digest fermented foods and even healthy people should be made aware that they may have two to three weeks of bloating whilst their gut biome adjusts if they up their fermented food intake. Whilst you mentioned it in your interview, it is worth remembering that Tim is ultimately selling a product, his book, of course, and his high-end supermarket fermented products,

we did talk about that. And while some of his advice is good and fermented foods are delicious, it should be taken in this context. Jenny, thank you very much indeed for that. Just to reiterate that Jenny is a medical gastroenterologist, so it is worth taking on board things that she pointed out. out there. Definitely is. Thank you very much for that. We always welcome your thoughts, as I think we've said before, so many of you are such experts in your fields, and we want your involvement.

We really do. We also, this week, by the way, I had a couple, an email with some questions for our tech expert, Chris Stoker Walker, and I promise that Eve has been incredibly efficient. She has sent them to Chris, and I hope you will have some answers for you on the live radio show tomorrow afternoon. But yes, do feel free to make use of us. I mean, When I say that, I mean it in the podcasting sense. Thank God. Here's Lees Doucette. Now, Lees Doucette first arrived at the Hotel Intercontinental Kabul, known as the Intercon, a day after her 30th birthday on Christmas Day, 1988.

It wasn't the only hotel she could have stayed at in the city, but it was the one that had a reputation for decent enough food and an air of brutalist glamour about it. But Lees can't possibly have known or foreseen the extraordinarily turbulent, times that its residents and employees were going to witness across the subsequent four decades. Her book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, uses the conceit of life at the hotel and the experiences of some of its employees to tell us about that history and that struggle, which goes on. Only today we're reporting that the Taliban has switched off access to the internet

across the country, meaning that for most Afghans, there can be no communication with the outside world. Lise is here with us now. Do you know much more about what's happened there over the last couple of days and how are we going to find out more in future? First of all, so nice to join Fee and Jane, I must say, such a, it's a real thrill for me to be with you and to join your loyal listeners and, you know, how, what a, what a huge contradiction that on the day that you had set up long ago to talk to me about the intercontinental hotel. It was built in 1969 when Afghanistan was a kingdom as a symbol of a nation,

be part of a nation's ambition to modernize and to be connected with the world. We meet on the day that Afghanistan under Taliban leadership is literally disconnected from the world. I'm just looking at, as we do, my WhatsApp group, and it says, no phone anywhere in Afghanistan. That was the only way people got connected. Kabul International Airport today, where flights were going, were supposed to go in and out, was deserted.

Flights canceled. There were Afghans here in London, or in the UK, who were set to fly to Afghanistan with their family. Flights canceled. Banking system disrupted. The United Nations immediately issued a statement. Please, you have cut Afghans off from the world in the midst of one of one of the United States. the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Just imagine if that devastating earthquake, which happened weeks ago, happens again, how are you going to connect? It is just, I mean, talking to Afghan friends

today, just saying, you know, what is it going to take? These Afghan leaders in 2020, 2020, I met them myself. We are going to rule differently this time. We know the mistakes we made in the 1990s where we had such a harsh interpretation of Islam. We didn't understand the ways of the world. And week on week, it just gets worse to now, which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the world. And the last thing I would say to Fianne, the last time I went to Kabul, a founding member of the Taliban said to me, 95% of the Taliban, 95% do not agree with these edicts. We understand that Islam allows, in fact, encourage us the education of women, the opportunities for women. But the unity of the Taliban matters more than anything else

and so far they've not been willing to significantly challenge the ultra-conservative clique which is handing down edicts like this one today so will that change I mean that that's quite a stunning insight and quite a stunning statistic if it's 95% against 5% surely the 95% does win out well this is exactly you know we've got angry messages from afghans and others on social media saying, well, I won't use any expletives, but I mean, if you are 95%, like, what's stopping you? If you're so great and Taliban are so powerful, do something about it. But they have this idea of the, you know, the buy out, the oath of loyalty. And there have been voices that spoke

out. And these people, the senior Taliban members, and they've left the country because they came under pressure. Last week, a friend said to me, it is like this wave is building up against a wall. and at some point the wall will break because probably before what happened with the internet outage cutting the fibre optic across the country we would have talked about the fact that it's the only country in the world

where girls are not allowed to be educated past grade six where women can't go to university where women are not allowed to take on main jobs or even go to parks or even just... Midwives that was one of the end-dicts. Midwives. Yeah, crazy times.

It's just, you just... It's 2025 and this is, how is it possible Let's talk about your book, which I congratulate you on, because it is really beautiful, and it's just such a fantastic way of telling the story of Afghanistan. It's also astonishingly well written, and we were saying on the podcast that not everyone who comes from news has lyrical prose within them. But just in the opening chapters of the book, you say the following about the Intercontinental Kabul Hotel. The cavernous lobby, chilly and dark, stretching into forbidding corners, brightened solely. by a shiny blue and white banner

promoting the Soviet airline aeroslot. Most of the chandeliers their dangling crystals hushed by dust were dark only one glinted stoically above the reception desk. I mean it's tingle stuff, isn't it Jane? I can see why you got that book deal.

Yeah. Oh well. But you know let's discuss now all of us you know all of us journalists every time you try something new like when you embarked on this you think it's going to work is it not going to work As you say, I was a jobbing journalist, so I had to see if, A, if I liked writing a book,

B, if I could write a book, C, would I finish the book? And what would the readers think? And the reaction has been positive beyond my expectations. You know, last week, number three on the General Harbac, below two cookbooks, my next book will be on air friars, just saying here, exclusive breaking news, long listed for Bailey Gifford. And what I want to believe is, okay, it has cobble in the title. Some of your listeners may be saying, oh, my goodness, another story about Afghanistan. I wanted to tell a story about how people survive in times of war and disruption because they survive no different from you or I.

They have to get up in the morning, find a way to face the day. What happens in those spaces between, you know, the snapshots we give as journalists. You were just at an item about the war in Gaza. the images we see are people running away from the bombs, people crying in the rubble of their home, people moaning in hospital. But what happens, you know, what happens at other times of the day

where people, families send their children off to school, if there is school, there are births, there are birthdays, there are weddings, there are celebrations, there is love, there is humor, there is all of that. And so that is what I want to try. How does people carry on? and by using the conventions of a novel, a fiction, to tell a non-fiction story.

Literature has this great power to expand horizons and hopefully to expand empathy. So it's very gratifying that people are buying the book and like you reading the book. And also everybody loves checking in to a five-star hotel. A luxury hotel. A luxury hotel. Is it really a five-star hotel? Yes. It was.

In 1969, it was, Kabul was, to called the Paris of Asia, at least in rarefied circles. It was when Jumbojet travel was just starting. One trip had set up Panama and Airways fly the world and then stay at a luxury intercontinental. I had Americans even saying to me, wow, I had my first escargo and aubergine at the intercontinental in Kabul. I never had that in the U.S., he said.

So there was beguineas by the swimming pool and all of that. Now, a word of warning to your listeners. If they go on booking.com, they can book the, intercontinental Kabul, but don't pack your bikini. You cannot go by the swimming pool with your bikini. There is no dancing, no music, no cocktails, and no escargo. But there is still a hotel. And it was for many years a proper luxury hotel, the first luxury hotel in Afghanistan, but once the Soviet troops rumbled in, Christmas Day, there's something about Christmas in Afghanistan, Christmas Day, 1979, the intercontinental chain pulled out.

But it's a very Afghan hotel. They stubbornly refused to give up the name. They wouldn't give in, wouldn't get out. They called it Melma Pal, the guest house. Everyone called it the Intercon. So when I arrived a decade later, there was still chicken kebab and spinach. There was still the marble floor. There was still the chandeliers, not all of them, of course, glittering.

There was still a sense. And what really struck me in all the times I went to the hotel, there were still the people who served there, like Hazrott, proud to this day at 70 years old that he had been trained by the proper intercontinental. He knew the proper way to run a hotel. So that dignity, that bearing, the waiters in the restaurant, still carrying that pride in service. I found it really touching. And on top of it, when I went to the hotel in 2020, when I started writing the book, the people that I'd known for decades who had started all, in their late teens and early 20s, bicycling to work.

We're still bicycling to work. In a city washed with corruption, and there they were honest, hardworking, going back and forth, an intercontinental employee. Can you tell us a bit more about some of the people who you introduce us to who work at the hotel? So let's talk about Hazrat. When we meet him, he's 20 years old, six foot tall, handsome, hopeful.

you know, full of optimism for his future. Tell us a little bit about what happens. You know, the first time when I met Hazrod, very tall, you know, grey bearded, and I said, I'm going to write a book about the hotel and his eyes prightened. And then he immediately launched into, in fact, he mimicked the wealthy tourists

flicking a white, a white, soft plush towel across their shoulders and gliding across the marble floor heading to the swimming pool. losing that life of ease and privilege. And of course, that wasn't his world. He was the eldest son of 10 children. His father had died when Hazrat was just a teenager.

He'd been electrocuted by a heater falling into the water. Hazard had to quit school, go to hospitality school. But he still remembered that. And then he went on and on about remembering the standards and saying, I think we can still be one of the best hotels in the world. And he said, again, so much pride in the hotel. But he'd moved from being a waiter to being a housekeeper. And, of course, his life went up and down with the fate of Afghanistan.

After the Intercontinental pulled out, whoever ruled Afghanistan set the rules in the hotel. So you had first multiple coups. I've always marvelled at Afghanistan that Afghans have lived through every possible political system known to our world. Peasable kingdom, not perfect, but peaceable before war, Soviet-backed communism, warlordism, which tore Kabul apart, Islamism under the Taliban in the 90s, then a wannabe democracy, bankrolled by the West in the two decades, and then backed by the Taliban again. So, of course, the staff had to move and you tried to hold on to their, you know, had to throw away, put away their black jackets and their white shirts and ties when the Taliban came,

brought them back when the West came back in all the while. proper, you know, trying to keep to the traditions. But of course when you have no electricity, when there's no running water, when the running water is cold, by the time I got there, one of the times I got there was in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban

where half of the hotel rooms had been ravaged in the Civil War. And we, the BBC, of course, being the BBC, raced to the hotel. And we ended up looking for a room which still had a working toilet, a ceiling which hadn't collapsed, windows which weren't covered with plastic tape.

And one of the men in our team raced down the hall and got the only room left with the toilet. And so five BBC women shared one room without a toilet, not much of a ceiling and masking tape. Look at it. I can see you're disapproving. Name and shame. It's not a gender. But then it was, and they were still, there they were still serving. And I, you know, I meant it was a joyous reunion with some of them that I. known from before, you have to admire that the stoicism and the sense of humor that they kept,

they just kept going. And the hotel, so the hotel itself is a character. It's, as you say, a conceit for the still surviving, still standing, the K on the top of it, still surviving after all these years. A listener did WhatsApp to ask about the education of the daughters of the leaders of the Taliban. Very good question. Well, it is interesting. Very good question. So presumably did they are educated outside Afghanistan? Yes. I almost, fingers hovering over, you know, over my phone was going to ask one of the leaders in one of the senior officials who's in Doha, the capital of Qatar, has a WhatsApp group. And I was just about to do it. And I thought, don't be nasty least to say, are you going to shut off the internet? Are you going to shut off this WhatsApp group now? Because your country's leadership has decided there's no more internet.

Why are you using the internet? Their girls, their young women. Finnish high school and they're at universities in Qatar and other places. And in fact, back to my comment about the 95%, leaders do go and ask, well, is there online education for my daughters? Is there any way? People often ask me, and I'm sure they've asked it on your program, what did two decades of international engagement achieve in Afghanistan? What it achieved was that it created the space where Africa created the generation that was never been so educated and so connected before. Young boys and girls dreamed bigger than ever

before. And fathers, even in the villages, understood. Because this is a very, very traditional country, and one racked by war, that it was good that their daughters went to school. Of course, they had to make sure it was safe for their daughters. But so when the Taliban first came to power, you had tribal elders, you had fathers congregating saying, my daughter needs to be educate. And my son needs more than a madrasa jihadi education because that's the other worry is the boys are going to these schools where they're not learning, reading, writing and arithmetic, a little bit of it. They're learning about a very strict Islam. They're growing up without women in public spaces. What kind of a generation will emerge? Can we ask for your thoughts about

what happened in 2021? Because there's a very moving piece in the book. And I don't know whether some of this is imagined, or it was totally real, about a couple getting married in 20, 21. And actually, they can't believe that the Taliban is going to take Kabul. So they've got their lovely wedding going on. And then they realize that the guests aren't coming because they're scared. And they ask for the meal to be served immediately because everybody's scared. I mean, it really tells you something about what Afghans believed would happen in their country. And hence, their disbelief that the Taliban would come and kind of show.

them down. It is that disbelief because everyone knew, and I was in Afghanistan in the weeks leading up to August the 15th, and people said, okay, there's a district after district, province after province, the Taliban are advancing. But no, no, no, they won't come to Kabul. No, no, no. There are still peace talks taking place in Doha. No, no. There's a, in fact, a delegation was supposed to go on August the 15th to Doha, to decide about a peaceful transfer. So perhaps everyone, people convinced themselves this wasn't going to happen. But when the president, Afshafghani, those who follow Afghan news closely, will know once he left, the Taliban had to come into the city.

So the fact, again, back to what made way, life had to go on. So here it is a wedding on August the 15th. It's going ahead. The DJ, the female DJ, is there spinning the discs. The women are arriving on their stilettos and their glittering dresses. And they're, you know, jiggling and wiggling to the music. and the families are all there, but of course, as you said, a lot didn't show up because whispers, the Taliban are coming, the Taliban are coming. Did you hear this? You hear what?

So all that sort of rumor mill and then suddenly panic gripping the city. And it was interesting because when I first heard that story, when I spoke to people in the hotel, they were more upset that the woman had not changed into her wed, the bride, had not changed into her white dress. Can you believe it? There was a wedding. The wedding was stopped. She didn't change from her green dress, to her white dress. I said, really? And then I said, and that's the day the Taliban came. Yeah, yeah, the Taliban came that day too. For a hotel year, it was, have you seen that wedding? Lisa, I wish we had longer. It's one of many stories that just really, really helps us to understand what an extraordinary modern history this country has had. And, you know,

you above all others must wish for a far, far better future for Afghanis as well. The book is delightful it's a hard recommend from us it is called the finest hotel in Kabul it's lovely to see you thank you very much indeed I might have that as my next audio book that would make sense well presumably Lisa's narrating that and you'd love her voice and she would be able to read well wouldn't she yeah do you remember when we were really insulted when

people asked who was going to read our audio books people actually did although I think it would have come across better if they'd have been read by a book okay we're all for the fellas right thank you very much for everything

it's jane and fee at times dot radio that's it that's me Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another Offair with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The Jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online, on DAB, or on the free Times Radio app. Offair is produced by Eve Salisbury, and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.

Thank you.