Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Pelvic floor exercises on the radio (with Rob Rinder)

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Fi and Louise (The Minch) Minchin are back with a final episode of Off Air together before Jane returns next week.They cover when you should do your pelvic floor exercises, 'I'm a Celebrity' secrets and how many hours there are in a day. Louise is sure it's 23. TV personality and lawyer Rob Rinder joins to talk about his new book 'The Trial'.Please note: this episode contains discussion of allegations of sexual assault made against Daniel Korski. He denies all claims. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] our instagram! @JaneandFiAssistant Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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What have you got there? Oh. Oh, there's my nicotine replacement. Terrible. Well done, are you? I bet you were never a smoker. I'm so annoying, aren't I? That's not true. I did smoke, but I was never a smoker. I'm so annoying, aren't I? That's not true.

I did smoke, but I was never a smoker. Can that be true? Yes. Annoying, I just don't have that addictive thing. Apart from exercise. Okay, okay, okay. Well, I'm going to challenge you on that. Okay, you can challenge me on that. Not about cigarettes.

Yes, not just not about but I think there is a little bit of a really I need to keep going

back to it going on don't you think it does make me feel good yeah

no that's very good yeah the smoking thing it's much discussed and

I'm now I'm really properly trying to wean myself off of those as well of those that is a 20 year addiction to the Nicorette I'm really properly trying to wean myself off those.

That is a 20-year addiction. To the Nicorette's? To the Nicorette's, yeah. Is it? Well, it's better for you though, isn't it? Loads better. But nobody knows because I started using them, as did lots of other people, almost when they first came on the market.

So nobody knows really what... You won't be doing yourself any huge damage by still being on them, but it can't be great 20 years down the line. It's also really expensive. Right. Anyway, here we are. Here we are.

So thank you very much indeed to everybody who emailed in about our Daisy Goodwin interview yesterday. Yeah. Dear Jane and Fi and the wonderful Louise, this one comes from Jennifer. Yes, of course no woman should have to put up with having their breasts or thighs or anywhere else

fondled by someone's unwelcome hands. But I couldn't help thinking of the humiliated wife in this story. Daisy Goodwin might be able to take it, but what about the sisterhood? The poor wife with a career and a marriage and possibly children not mentioned now has to watch her life unravel and she's not even mentioned so jennifer i really take your point about that

and we are referring to daniel korsky but actually his family was mentioned in an interview that our colleague kate mccann did for talk tv where she asked him a very direct question, actually, about his commitment to his marriage. And he talked about the strength of his family in that. But I think you're really, really right, Jennifer, to point out the other people who are always affected when stories like this are published. But I suppose what Daisy Goodwin is trying to do is just make her story available.

So she kind of takes the sisterhood with her and helps fewer women in the future have to be a wounded wife. Yeah. And I actually often think about what Jennifer says, because I think when you're at the centre of a news story, it's one thing you being at the centre, it's not just your wife is it it's your I don't know it might be your teenage children or whatever and it does these things have an impact on lots of different people in lots of different ways um but yeah what Daisy's done is is I think the whole point or one of the points that she's made to us is that if you say something about someone who has grabbed your breast or whatever it is, and I have done this in the past and I have actually confronted someone and reported them in a work environment. What struck me was as soon as I said this had happened and they said, who was it?

Was it that person over there? You know, I was not alone in that. said who was it was it that person over there you know i was not alone in that and i think sometimes it helps to put up your hand so that a case can be made for example um so it's so it's important what stacy's done can i ask what happened in that case with you yeah so in that case um he was very heavily reprimanded for what had happened um and it was not somebody it was just a one-off event actually that i was at he was very heavy reprimanded i don had happened. And it was not somebody, it was just a one-off event, actually, that I was at. He was very heavy reprimanded. I don't know what happened career wise, because it's not an industry that I'm involved with. And he wrote me in a very apologetic letter. So, you know, that's closure for me. But what I think about it is that I felt in a position where I was able to do that and to stand up and say something. And there may be other women who that person,

and clearly there were other women because they were like, oh, it's him, obviously a serial offender. But for other women who couldn't, that's why I did it. Because I wasn't, you know, I just, you know, it happened to me and in some ways sort of no big deal, but I just did it for other people who might not be able to say something in that sort of position. Yeah.

Does that make sense? It makes complete sense, yeah. And I think, you know, it's a huge motivation for Daisy Goodwin talking about it now. It's exactly what she's trying to do. But I agree with you, Jennifer. I think, you know, the bigger picture about all of the other people who are dragged into this, you know, we should always be a bit thoughtful about them, whilst not allowing that thoughtfulness to stop us from telling the stories too. This one from Victoria who says, just wanted to say thank you to Daisy Goodwin for speaking up and doing her part to make my daughter's future a safer place. And this one comes from Karen and it's about Karen. and it's about Karen.

So Karen yesterday was one of our listeners who emailed the programme to say that she really didn't agree with what Daisy Goodman was doing at all or what she was saying and that she was taking down a man's career and that there was a presumption of her innocence, actually, in the whole thing that Karen didn't like at all. And this Karen, keep up everybody, I know it's a lot of Karens, is 65 years old

and she says, I heard your interview with Daisy. I was cheering her on, shouting at my radio. I am totally on Daisy's side. And how dare those pompous, self-righteous men think they can have whatever they want. They all need outing. Can't believe the other women who defend that behaviour. I think this is going to continue, isn't it? I think it is.

Can we also pick up on something that we needed to get to the bottom of and we have done this week and this is for an australian women australian women and i think other people listening to this podcast waiting with crossed legs to the answers about whether or not cranberries and pumpkin seeds helped with incontinence and we got a physiotherapist on to times radio who talked us through the fact because i sometimes think with those things oh really that how would that be making a difference to incontinence but actually there is science isn't there and i took some notes like i'm not the physiotherapist but shall i say what i can remember or would you like to know you can okay so what i remember was she told us that

the cranberries help because it binds with bacteria in our urinary tract. So that can help. And the pumpkin seeds help because they bind with testosterone also in our urinary tract. So that may help, particularly with men, because we also talked about, you know, it's not just a female problem. This is also a male problem. So that may help as well. But on the answer of how many cranberries and how many pumpkin seeds, she couldn't be clear.

No. And also she did make the point that both of those things are sold as extracts now. So it's very difficult to work out what quantity you should be taking. But she basically said you can't overdo it really. They're natural products. So by all means, try them out and just see what works for you. Yeah. So I'd start off at, you know, a small handful.

Let us know whether that works. I wouldn't go beyond... What do you reckon? I wouldn't go beyond a kilogram. A kilogram? No, nobody ever would. Nobody ever would. But we'd be really interested in your anecdotal evidence about it.

She did basically say the main issue was that you need to do your pelvic floor exercises. I wasn't listening to that bit. I'm just going to go pumpkin seeds and cranberries. Go easy. But I did like the fact, actually, that she was very sympathetic towards everybody's attitude about pelvic floor exercises, which is kind of, oh, what do I have to? And then you do 10, don't you, on a Monday? And, you know, by Tuesday you think, oh, I'll do some on Wednesday

and by Thursday you can't be bothered. And I know that we should all be doing that. I know that we should all be doing that. But I've yet to meet a woman who has consistently done her pelvic floor exercises for 20 years. I mean, you might look at me as a woman who loves exercise, but pelvic floor exercises, yeah. Yeah, so if even the minch can't do them,

then we can forgive ourselves for doing them. Actually, we did a very funny interview with Sarah Jarvis, you know, the fantastic doctor. Oh, yes, I do, yes. And she said that, I think either Jane or I said that we only ever did our pelvic floor exercises when we heard her on the radio talking about it. And she said that she only did her pelvic floor exercises

when she was on the radio talking about it. So she was like, okay. Should we get to the guest? Oh, God, yes, because this is a close personal friend of yours, Rob Rinder. There was a lot of love in the studio. What an interesting man. I mean, really properly brain-zooming, isn't he?

He is a fierce intellectual, former barrister, and also Judge Rinder. I don't know how many of you watch Judge Rinder, but absolutely brilliant stalwart of daytime TV, and also hilarious. We never got to talk to him about the actual show, because he's got lots of stories about that.

Yeah, but I mean, he can talk forever about everything, can't he? Yeah, he's also done Strictly. And what gave me more pleasure than anything was seeing his sort of toes curl as I read out this lovely intro to him describing him as ferociously intelligent, funny people. And he was so uncomfortable with it. And I knew he would be, so that's why I did it.

And here's his reaction. It's lovely you got to the end of that. It's like when someone stops playing the bagpipes. I knew you would not like to sit there and listen to me say that. How much do you know who your listeners are and the fact that you read them out? Oh, I think it's always best to. I think you have to lance those boils, actually.

That's what you need to do. That's one way of doing it. I used to correct the spelling of my old clients who were angry and just send them back and also because I think there's something quite powerful about hearing what you sent into a radio

back to yourself read out on the radio and if that's someone's opinion then that's fine let's not be shy I've got so much to talk to you about and what

and there's so many things I love about you I love that you do really serious things and then you do strictly and let's go with that's serious have you seen love about you. I love that you do really serious things and then you do strictly. And let's go with... That's serious.

You've seen my cha-cha. I have. Let's go with the serious first because Rwanda's making the headlines today. Yeah. You have worked actually directly, I think, around that subject, haven't you? Yes. So tell me what's going on and what does it mean? Well, I just arrived and saw the judgment.

I've only just seen it from a couple of websites. So I must emphasize, I've not read the court judgment. I always say to people, before you come to any view, do the work of reading, it's not that many pages, whatever the court has said. But as I understand it, the Court of Appeal have ruled that Rwanda haven't given sufficient guarantees to safeguard the rights of anybody that we would seek to send there, asylum seekers. Now, what does that mean

in legal terms? It means that each and every one of us, you, me, and anybody being deported, has a right to provision against cruel and unusual treatment, which is Article 3 of the Human Rights Act, not to mention a number of other provisions which on the face of the judgment look like they also can't be safeguarded, which means that in effect, the government of Rwanda could not give a court sufficient assurance, that's all of us,

that anybody being sent there would be safe. And just to be clear about that, that hurdle of safe is a pretty high hurdle to jump. An example of it, years ago, I dealt with a case called Ex Party Mare. I was counsel in that case, where there was an application to send somebody back to South Africa. And I ran an argument saying that he should not be sent back to South Africa because at that point the prison system was such that he was likely to confront deeply, as if they were unserious, but he was going to be the subject of targeted violence

and that the prison system and consequently their interior ministry couldn't give us guarantee to safeguard his safety. I lost that case and he was deported. Right. That's one example of it. So people know very little about Rwanda. You know, the fact of the matter is, whilst it is miraculous in its recovery in many respects

from a genocide that people know too little about, Paul Gigami has been in power there for a very long period of time, to say the very least. It doesn't have sufficient separation between the judiciary and the legislative branches. It doesn't have safeguards that protect the safety and rights of individuals. And unless a country can give those guarantees, none of us are safe. It's not just about those who are going to be deported there. These rights, as we call them, they are rights, are there to protect you and me and all of our listeners. Because it may

be asylum seekers who you don't know, whose faces you can't see, whose names you won't hear, whose lives you know nothing about. But tomorrow, it could be one of your relatives. That's extremely important to understand. This court, the Court of Appeal does not come to this decision a breach of Article 3 or a lack of assurance on Article 3 of the Human Rights Act we didn't leave it because we left the European Union unless it is deeply concerned

about the state of the judicial system the various safeguards that are in place to ensure that when you're sent back there you're going to be safe. Couldn't have had a better guest today. Well, I only just read, I must emphasize,

I haven't read the judgment in full. I know that the Home Office is going to appeal it. And that was going to be my next question. Supreme Court is the next stop. And we don't know what is good though. And this is a bit of a segue. And I've been talking a lot about this recently to students is that it's a fascinating thing and worth reflecting on.

If this were in America, we would have an instinctive sense of where the Supreme Court would land on this. It would be highly politicized because we would know the names of our Supreme Court justices if we were in America. Now, I look to you, and this is not a trick question because I speak to emergent, serious practitioners often. How many of our Supreme Court members do you know? Wouldn't be able to name them at all.

One, two, none, two. Do you know anything about their politics? No. No. Isn't that wonderful? Yeah. That's essential. And so we don't know how they will rule. My instinct is, if I could predict, But we don't know how they will rule. My instinct is, if I could predict,

that given who was on the panel of the Court of Appeal, a very high-level Court of Appeal, that I suspect this will be upheld and the government will not be successful. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Should we change subject? Yeah. But the reason I wanted to...

I mean, you know, you're a barrister and your new book the trial is a really brilliant insight into what goes on in our justice you're so lovely i mean because what you really want to do is a kind of breakfast gorgeous segue here you know we've just gone from breaches of article three the prohibition against torture against my novel which is fun but you know the murder weapon is botox yes i will the murder weapon is botox as he sips a drink going yeah but what i love what's happening i mean the murder weapon is brilliant and clever but it is what i like about the book is that it does good i try to you know

adam in your book is very like you he's super intelligent and it's a brilliant insight into how our justice system works and perhaps maybe doesn't work yeah he's more of a fish out of water and certainly it touches upon some of the um the flaws to say the very least in our justice system now at the heart of it it's um it's a whodunit and you know in the vein of my that the books that i read for delightful escapism the stuff that really just completely can take you away and take you away in the places where you want to be taken away when you're on holiday, etc. Or those moments where TV and radio just won't do it for you. So Agatha Christie, etc. Obviously, I'm reaching beyond my fingertips there, but that's what I wanted to write about.

The initial germ of the idea, I have to say, I wanted to write about. The initial germ of the idea, I have to say, I wanted to write a nonfiction book about three cases I did, which ended in acquittals with three defendants whom I'm certain were guilty, and the different ways in which they were treated by the justice system. And to ask the question, I suppose, at the end of it, what do you think, given their acquittals? And so this book has at its core, exactly as you question, I suppose, at the end of it, what do you think, given their acquittals? And so this book has at its core, exactly as you say, Adam Green, who's a pupil barrister, feels out of place, you know, he's a working class lad, although I sound like I've a little bit been mugged by Mitford, let's say.

I mean, you know, this is my own special creation. I started speaking like this at four and couldn't change it. Being gay, I wanted to be sort of oppositional. So this is what I did. It was my form of protest. I wouldn't be taken to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. They just wouldn't let me in, you see. But it's not real.

And so constantly sort of constructed this false reality, arrive at university, really get involved and very interested in academic things and become a barrister, but never really sort of feel like I'm I'm meant to be there. And that's if you like, that's very much the journey of Adam. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned there about what it's like, well, you mentioned a little bit about defending somebody who you might think is guilty. Tell me about the sort of conflict that that must bring. Well, you say it must bring that it doesn't really i mean you know nobody ever asks

you when you're sitting here in an interview like this and i've just occurred to me really i mean what does it feel like when you're asked to defend somebody who you suspect might be innocent i mean that's absolutely terrifying however rarely it might happen and don't forget you're not the person that makes a decision you don't walk into a client when the evidence is overwhelming and say, now, listen here, this is what we're going to say. And I know no barrister of any seriousness or reputation, which is everything, even now in this field of mine, which I still call mine and my colleagues, who would go and do that.

Your job is to say, look, the evidence is overwhelming. You should plead guilty. And if they tell you they're guilty, you can't carry on unless they continue to plead guilty. But, you know, the reality is, I mean, we've all been accused of something which we may not have done or some aspect of some, I don't know, a social accusation, let's say, in our lives,

where we're slightly guilty of it, but whatever narrative somebody else has claimed is not wholly true. And that's often the case in all sorts of situations. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Rob Rinder's here with us. Lovely.

So you can pack in to just a 30-second, let's have a quick chat during the wonderful creative commercial ad break. You can pack in a kind of encyclopedic tour around modern American legal system. This is not true. No, it's wonderful. No, but this is the thing. I don't think, what is, I've got a really narrow interest in certain things, like a real curatorial interest.

And I think, I was just thinking on the way here to the late great Sister Wendy, her Desert Island Discs, and Kirsty Young, said oh you're so clever she said I don't think I'm very clever I'm just good at put I just said I'm just good at putting my goods in the shop window and that's how I feel okay that's a different well yes I mean I would say that both of you uh were being in Sister Wendy's case and you are being self-deprecating can I ask you a big question because we were talking very briefly about the influence of social media, a conversation that the listeners weren't party to.

But I'd like to ask you something bigger, actually, about what you think this extraordinary power of the individual voice now will end up doing to really, really serious court cases. Because we have already started to see people who do not want to play by the rules of innocent until found guilty. And you can post all kinds of stuff out there now, it will be seen. Do you think we can carry on saying that juries will be able to retain the same kind of sanctity that they might have had 40 years ago?

I mean, the quick answer to that is I trust juries. But do you? Yes. By and large, in every case I did, and I did a number of murder trials, other than in perhaps one case, they got it right. And it's a curious thing, you know, that you were asking me earlier, Louise,

what's it like to defend someone when you, in inverted commas, know they're guilty and you don't know. so i don't make that determination the jury does based on evidence and i'm not sure if either you have ever served on a jury no you may leave a court dissatisfied but generally speaking you walk away thinking given the test i feel like we got it right now juries are warned against doing their own research. And I think, again, I can speak, you know, from some experience, but now a number of my friends sit in the High Court or sit certainly as senior criminal judges, and they do warn a jury not to do their own research.

And I kind of believe that they do that. And even if they don't, bear in mind, there's a special... There's a different complexion to your relationship to a case, which is a long-winded way of saying it feels different and is different when you're sitting in court and you're listening to the evidence as opposed to listening to however many words are allowed nowadays on Twitter. I'm much more, so I don't know how it's going to end up there.

I'm much more concerned about something else about social media, so two elements of it. The first one is that it has this disproportionate power to influence, shape and curate the political and cultural narrative. So how many of us are 1% on Twitter, let's say? You know, I've had experiences, you know, on telly or whatever it is, and you say something good, all of a sudden, somebody who's been up all night chain-smoking parliaments

and wearing a muumuu, other brands are available, don't smoke, it's bad for you, will say, oh, isn't Rob Rinder so marvellous? And the next thing, it's the headline on, you know, some news program, there's no journalist, and then that's been retweeted, that becomes news. And the real danger of it is that SPAN, so the people who are advising politicians and people who are curating and editing those programs,

are addicted to this thing, and they get a little dopamine hit every time their show is mentioned good or bad and so consequently this starts informing shaping as i say curating what the news becomes and what culture becomes and also we make assumptions about it i was covering news for channel four uh excuse me the election for channel four if you'd followed that last election you'd assume it was going to be or one before that if you'd followed that last election, you'd assume it was going to be, or one before that actually, you'd assume that, one before that, that Jeremy Corbyn was going to do very well, it was going to be a landslide.

That was a moment of Twitter. That's how we'd observed what was happening. And of course it represents only a tiny minority of what's actually taking place. Yep. And similarly, I think you can see into the future the power of the provocateur over the power of the journalist, because an awful lot of news is just boring. The way you have to explain it and the way you have to balance it and what you have to bring to the party can seem very true, because you see it through the prism of shouty on Twitter. But you know, 90, however many percent of people are not getting their news from there are not acting in reactionary, they don't care about these so called cultural wars, they're

trying to deal day to day with the cost of living and trying to, you know, cope with all of the standard lived experience challenges of getting through the day and I don't know and you don't and you don't really anybody with surplus energy let's say to espouse hate on the internet and what I do know no but I know people who are quite happy to just kind of like it and see it and let it feed into them without thinking like it is that actually desensitizing what do they like do they like hey they might like a piece like an op-ed let's say that's um slightly more has a strong opinion strong flavor towards somebody but i can't imagine your friends or your friends with anybody who would like something which was just um gratuitously

cruel and one of the things I'm always aware of, I used to represent people from various backgrounds, and some, in some instances, because there's a cabaret role as a lawyer, as you know, you can't make a determination of who you represent. It's just a rule. Some of them were members of the National Front, being very proudly gay and certainly also proudly Jewish. One of the things I used to see was this sort of abyss,

this unhappiness. It was like a sort of sea of human debris. And I always imagine somebody at the other end of that tweet, the kind of detritus of their lives, and I wonder, hmm, what makes you... Yeah, and I totally agree with that. And that's why you read out, I suppose, come full circle, really.

No, very much so, because you just wonder how Nick feels after sending that. You know, I wonder if someone posts something incredibly, and this is removed from Nick completely, if you post something incredibly sexist or rude or homophobic or anti-Semitic, do you just press send and then think, all right, I'm going to have a nice cup of tea now?

You know, wonder whether that lovely Rob Rinder's on the box yet. But we have to get in the game. Because one of the things I think that's sad is that that is, I think, yours is the pervasive, slightly pessimistic, entirely pessimistic view. The problem is that then if you get out of the job, who fills that vacuum in the middle? It's conspiracy theory.

It's these absolute sort of cesspits of misinformation and disinformation but what i do think and this is exciting is that people will listen to long-form podcasts people will listen to this people will actually go and to thought right and they'll crave it and you can sell out arenas of people trying to search for what we might loosely describe perhaps as meaning nowadays they'll listen for hours so you know i think it's an exciting time too and there's lots of reasons for optimism okay in reasons for optimism she says screeching handbrake turn what are you up to at the moment you've been doing all sorts of fun things well i'm right i'm here to plug my

book it's called the trial is there going to be another one well hopefully actually you should know about this so um i'm going to announce it here it's not about you but oh come on so this is very upset by the way susanna reed is in his book not me yeah i wrote it when i was sitting next to her at uh gmb it was after lockdown um um so you're both pretty uh that's true the world and brilliant although I mean Louise is way more badass you've got 30 seconds oh right sum it up

the trial is a bit like sort of Rumpel you get to see the old Bailey you get to see what the life of being in chambers is and you get a mystery where a lot of my friends who are very seasoned lawyers

and high court judges haven't guessed so I'm really delighted by the next one the murder is going to take place in daytime television is it? yes live? live wow right and it's a whodunit but it starts very much as you were talking about before where we have a really confident sense the evidence is overwhelming yeah but the person may

just not have done it oh fantastic and i'm delighted to announce although you don't know that i may or may not have entered you into the mouth and to sublet you. You do a bacano. Oh, bacano now, sorry. You didn't say cue. Cue Louise. That was Rob Rinder and his book is called The Trial. It's out now. Yes, it's out right now.

Now, Louise Minchin, we have had the pleasure of your company all week. I promised people that we would work our way through our own running order, actually, and we've done pretty well. But luckily, there's still less things to talk about. Well, I think we might have saved the juiciest till last because you have done I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. And most people that you hear talk about it. I mean, you are kept on quite a tight leash, actually, after something like that. I have to remind myself I have signed an NDA and I did look at it the other day. But I can tell you some things.

What do you want? I mean, there's lots of things I can't tell you, actually. Yeah. Which is kind of... Which is weird. Can you even tell me the things that you can't tell me about? I mean, can you tell me what the subjects are that you're not allowed to talk about?

No. Oh, OK. Am I allowed to... Well, I'm just going to go random. I mean, if you can't answer you can't answer uh what do you actually do all day okay so um can i back up a bit so one of the things the reason i went on i'm a celebrity is i love reality shows i'm because i love stories and i love being observing people and all the rest of it so that's why I kind of love them so much. And particularly I'm a celebrity. And I wanted to be inside the show.

For me, that was super exciting. Until, of course, I mean, I work in television. You'd think I'd work this out, wouldn't you? So the show is one hour, maybe an hour and a half long. But obviously there are 23 hours in the day. So what are you doing for the rest of the 23 hours? Sorry, there are 24 hours in the day so what are you doing for the the rest of the 23 sorry there are 24 hours a day clearly the 23 hours of the day when you're not on the telly and being as you know having sat next to me for a week or nearly a week I am very active I can't sit still can I

so it was very hard for me so there is very little to do and you're in a very confined space with only a certain amount of people. You can't talk to anybody else, even the production team. You can't talk to any of them. And there was that for me was the hardest thing, the inability to I could see because it was in Wales and I could see the mountains and I could see the sea. And I just wanted to be in the sea or climbing up the mountains. But so it was like a physical felt like a, you know, felt very imprisoning, actually. Are you at all aware of where the cameras are? Of course I am. Yeah. And I went out of my way to sort of sneakily find out where they are and they are everywhere.

So you'd go to bed at night and they'd stop at night because we wouldn't be moving. And then first thing in the morning, you'd roll around in bed and there was a camera right above you and you could hear it go and focusing on you and you know you walk up paths and you'd hear it go so they are absolutely everywhere and what does that do to your head uh i think i i think i'm probably quite annoying because i because i'm very I'm still aware you know I'm a you know like you I'm a broadcaster I have been forever in my career um so I think I'm still the best I don't think I'm the best reality tv uh person because I'm still I think aware of where the cameras are and don't necessarily let everything go and the best ones are the ones who don't care

about that so yeah i think i'm kind of annoying because i'm like i know i know what you're trying to do here so okay and and do some people actually reach the edge of their psychological limit i think um it's very interesting because it is, you know, let's be really clear. We're all paid to go on here. It's a choice. And there are, you know, you know, so we've all made a choice. But there are things which are really hard. So there's for me, it was about not being able to go and move around and do stuff like that. Also, the diet is actually really makes you, you know, when you're so it is 700 calories a day and it is rice and beans. And there's no there's no salt. There's no sugar. There's no pepper. There's no spices.

There's no tea. There's no coffee. So your choice is rice, beans and water. And you can have that water hot or lukewarm. That's it. And actually, that is very hard. And when you I've never I think the thing I miss most was salt, which I didn't. And the thing that when I came out, my children would just laugh at me because they just give me any food. Like if you'd given me the ice cream we tried today, a tomato ketchup ice cream, I would go, oh, my gosh, that's so delicious. The complete lack of taste was really hard. And taste stimulators. Yes, taste stimulators. And then, you know, you're living off 700 calories a day and that makes you

feel probably, you know, a little bit more irritable than you would otherwise. So that's really hard for people. Yeah, I think, you know, so for some, and then for me, again, the first five days, the food was really difficult and also being completely removed from your family because your family are your downtime they're the people you can go oh my gosh you remember that person they said this they did that and that's all removed from you did you regret it not in any way okay do you know what i having said all of that i do hope louise's family are listening to this did i regret what being away from? I miss you so much. But no, I didn't regret it at all.

No, no, I didn't. The question I was answering was, did I regret going on I'm a Celebrity? No. Because I think in life, there are things you want to do in life and sometimes you just need to get on and do them. And I definitely wanted to do I'm a Celebrity.

I learned a lot about myself in a good way and I was just super delighted to be home and when they said to me I was out I was just like oh thank goodness I can go home hug my family see the dogs. And how many of the other contestants do you keep in touch with? That's a really leading question. Yeah. About probably five. That's not bad. Yeah. Yeah. All the girls, actually.

Okay. So, Kadina and Frankie and Snoochie. Yeah. Are you, as a woman, allowed to have a period while you're on as a celebrity? I didn't, but you can. Yeah, absolutely. And are you kind of helped with that? Oh, my gosh.

The latrines look terrible. The facilities are as bad as they come across on the telly. They really are. That would be quite unpleasant. Yeah, it's hard. You are absolutely thrust into a very small space with people you don't know and that can be very uncomfortable. Have I made you want to go on yet? Oh gosh, I wouldn't do anything like that.

I mean, I'll never be asked because I don't operate at that kind of level of celebrity. You'd be good though. No, I wouldn't be any good at all. And I genuinely, which is not because I like watching I'm a celebrity very much. So I'm not condemning the programme or the genre at all. But no, I would feel a form of madness coming on me if I ever seriously thought about being on something like that. I just wouldn't be able to be scrutinised like that all the time. The thing that was was a good thing for me, actually, was I mean, I know that, you know, I always joke with the girls that my most important job is being a mum.

And actually, you know, it's such a cliche, isn't it? job is being a mum and actually you know it's such a cliche isn't it but I became I was mum in that camp without going in thinking that I would be because I think you know that is my most important job but you know and I just became I didn't realize how much I cared about caring yeah well that's a good thing yeah because it'd be terrible if you went in there I didn't realize how much I cared about not giving a shit about anybody else. And we've all seen contestants like that. But let me backtrack a bit before anybody calls out the hypocrisy. Both you and I are doing separate days. Yes, let's do that because I was going to mention that you are going on a sort of reality show.

So I'm not that shy in retiring. So we're both doing The Weakest Link. You are The Weakest Link. Promise. Goodbye. Ranga Nathan. But we're not doing it on the same day which is so disappointing isn't it because we could have you know just we could have helped what would we have done yeah i think we would have done that

wouldn't we yeah oh no totally well i mean i definitely would have backed you up i would definitely done the same but no we're doing it on different days uh we've got to we could have fixed it so we won it somehow we got to play kind play kind of dirty, haven't we, in order to do well. We could have been pretending that we were playing dirty but not being. Yeah. Shame. It is a shame. Anyway.

But that will be on your screens in September. And are you looking forward to it? Do you love doing quizzes, V? Well, I do quite like a quiz. Do you? But we were having this laugh. So my big fear about things like that, and you do loads and loads and loads of award ceremonies and stuff,

and I do the occasional few, and I have a terrible problem with the height of the podium because quite often I've walked on and literally, you know, people applaud you on and then they kind of go, where's she gone? Where's she gone? And because I am only five foot, I properly am not quite in vision in front of a podium. And on the weakest link, all the podiums are the same level, aren't they?

And they have got a little thing in front of them. But can't you stand on an invisible stool? I could stand on a box, I don't know. Yeah. I love that that's your biggest fear. My biggest fear is looking like a complete idiot, which is, of course, not without the realms of possibility. Yeah, but then you let slip when we were talking about this in the office earlier

to say that you've won the chase twice. And also at the same time as doing that, in one of them, look like a complete idiot. So both can be possible. You could win and also look like an idiot. Because people assume that, because I've read the news for 20 million years, that I'm going to be really good at quizzes. And I honestly hate them.

I did mastermind once. I mean, it makes me feel genuinely a little bit sick to think that I even did that. And when John Humphreys asked me the first question, I mean, if he'd said to me, Louise Minchin, you have two daughters. What are their names? I would have forgotten their names. OK. That's how terrifying. me the first question i mean if he'd said to me louise minchin you have two daughters what are their names i would have forgotten their names okay that's how terrifying it is how did you do on mastermind i badly okay yeah no not bottom not bottom no okay but not yeah yeah the first question was really easy and i got that wrong can you remember what it was about darcy bustle who's

my friend and i can't remember it was like? It was about Darcy Bustle, who's my friend. And I can't remember. It was like so obvious. Was it? I had to spell her name or something. What does Darcy Bustle do? Exactly. It wasn't quite that easy, but nearly. Okay.

Well, we're going to have to confer after the week. Oh, listen, Fee. Thank you so much. It's been really lovely. Thanks, Jane, for lending me this time. It's been an absolute pleasure. Really, really lovely. And also because we've just discovered this great chasm of difference between us with really really different

women but it's been really lovely to do that sometimes that's good because you know difference makes friendships doesn't it hugely so and also i think by this age in life actually you do tend to have surrounded yourself by people who you settle in to, you know, the shared comfort of experience with. So it's actually really lovely, you know, to meet someone who does completely different things. I mean, I genuinely mean that. I think you're bonkers with all of your running and all of that kind of stuff.

And, oh, you know, where is Louise today? She's trapped under some ice in Finland. Okay. You know, it's just very different. But I salute you, madam. Oh, well, I shall be listening. Thank you for you. Take care. Good luck. And a week of slick. Thank you. Okay. You know, it's just very different. But I salute you, madam. Oh, well, I shall be listening. Thank you. Take care. Good luck. In a week or slick. Thank you. Goodbye.

Bye. We're bringing the shutters down on another episode of the internationally acclaimed podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. But don't forget that you can get another two hours of us every Monday to Thursday afternoon here on Times Radio. We start at 3pm and you can listen for free on your smart speaker just shout play times

radio at it you can also get us on dab radio in the car or on the times radio app whilst you're out and about being extremely busy and you can follow all our tosh behind the mic and elsewhere on our instagram account just go on to insta and and search for Jane and Fi and give us a follow. So in other words, we're everywhere, aren't we, Jane? Pretty much everywhere. Thank you for joining us. And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can

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