Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Returning to smoking and tap dancing (with Sir Bill Browder)

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

Are you a bell ringer? Were you the first person to ever use the word 'chillax'? How do you feel about plastic chairs? We want to hear from you! There's also chat about retirement, party etiquette and Lourdes. Plus, financier, political activist and Putin’s "number one enemy” Bill Browder discusses recent events. Episode recommendations: Supremacy by Parmy Olson Get your suggestions in for the next book club pick! If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Podcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Because I guess that must be true all over the states. I mean, it's a bit like leaving parties and I'm expecting some. Well, possibly, quite possibly. But I think it probably happens here too. Hello, I'm Holly Mead and with me is Lucy Andrews and we are both from the Money Team at The Times and Sunday Times. And our new podcast is called Feel Better About Money. It's a safe place to talk positively about money and personal Times. And our new podcast is called Feel Better About Money. It's a safe place to talk positively about money and personal finance.

Each week we will tackle a specific financial topic from managing debt, saving for a pension, buying a house or deciding whether to insure your cat or dog or goldfish. Feel Better About Money is sponsored by Lloyds Readymade Investments. We're on. On. On. Welcome to Off Air for Thursday. And yet another Advent calendar door has been opened so Karen I'm afraid we are that one day closer to Christmas lots of stories around about the cost of the festive season today this is the headline in the Times newspaper the Times of London Scrooge's all savvy nation's split on charging

Christmas dinner guests now I do think this is interesting Christmas doesn't come cheap and there are cliches about parts of the country but it just so happens, V, that residents of Yorkshire, according to this vital research, appear to have the least qualms about asking their guests to cough up money for Christmas lunch. 57% of people living in Leeds say it's an acceptable practice. I think that's terrific. I think that's only good things about there. At the other end of the scale, let's bring in Brighton, hometown of course, to our colleague Eve. Oh dear. Only 33% of Brighton's residents would ask Christmas guests to cough up. Right. Would you ever? Absolutely. I'm not, no. I think,

Absolutely. I'm not, no, I think it's difficult isn't it? Because if you've got family, then the emphasis has got to be on somebody playing mine hostess or host, I guess. And I suppose, do you know, I'd never really considered whether, so my, I think I'm generally remember what we do in my, my, my sister and I and my brother-in-law. We do share the cost of yeah, we share the cost of Christmas food. Mom and dad do a bit as well. So it's the kiddies who don't contribute the miserable. Well, they're kids though. Some of them are. But when you say you share well on the way you share the cost.

You mean you literally we all contribute we bring something. Okay, but you bought something you don't you don't send. No, no, we don't know we don't write it's 17 pounds 50 per head. you don't send each other a message saying, right, it's £17.50 per head. We don't divvy it up, no. Here's my bank account. I think we should be more open about doing that, actually. Yeah. Well, I don't know.

And especially if you're in one of those families where actually it just seems to be that you never quite do take it in turns. You know, the scales of justice are always a little bit imbalanced. I think it's probably a good idea. We let Christmas take over and tread on so many norms of life, don't we? And I was thinking this morning, because this story was being discussed on the Breakfast Show, do other religions and cultures have this kind of a moan about their religious festivals? Who does what? Is there a feeling as you approach Diwali or even Ramadan where everyone's sitting

around going, you know, I can't stand my aunt and I can't do this and it brings out the worst in people and oh, we just have to get on with it and I can't bear it and it brings out the worst in people and oh we just have to get on with it and I can't bear it, it's hoving interview and I mean... Or is it entirely? Is it just us? So please could somebody inform us on that? I'd be very interested to hear. We did have an item on the programme on the Times Radio show yesterday, 2 till 4 of course,

Monday to Thursday on Times Radio, get the Times Radio app, it's free, about a miracle that had occurred many years ago at the site that you said I mispronounced in a funny way. No, no, I just really enjoyed the pronunciation. It's a very, very, it's a very significant site to people and certainly in the Northwest people were quite frequently frequently every year there'd be Charavangs got up and people would go to this pilgrimage site and although this chap called John Trainor went to the site in 1923 and died in 1943, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool has just declared that his recovery from really quite severe injuries as a result of his First

World War service, it's a miracle, or it was a miracle. So the way that the story was told does seem miraculous. So he had become paraplegic, he had even had some kind of trepanning done in order to relieve the mental pressures in his head. He'd had all kinds of things and he got into the bath of holy water. Nine times. Nine times. Not just the once. And when he got out the ninth time he could walk.

So that is really, really remarkable. Yeah. So if you've got any aches and pains, get some matey, put it in the bath. Yeah, I was just about to say whatever bath salts they're using over at Lewids. See what it does for you. I'd like some of those in my Christmas stocking please. Thank you for your emails. Jane of Fee at times.radio. Charmaine says, since retiring a few months ago, I like to set myself a new challenge each year as I find learning something new is exhilarating. A couple of months ago I saw an ad for bell ringers and I thought

why not? I love it. It's a challenge mentally and physically but also quite meditative and I always leave with a smile and presumably also a banging headache as well. I can't imagine that it's anything other than excessively noisy in that bell ringing tower. I don't think we've ever discussed campanology. No. So bring it on. If you're a bell ringer and it's something you hold dear and it's something you're doing a lot of at the moment, let us know about it. I bet it's being replaced by AI, isn't it? So you can just on your digital app, you can just ask for a quick chime if you're the vicar of a remote parish. What's up? Oh, Eve's got a very good interjection. So Eve had the really brilliant idea actually yesterday of putting in the blurb about each edition any mentions that there have been of recommendations, books, TV programmes, songs or whatever. But you won't need to do

that with the person I'm about to mention. She's coming on the show as a guest on January the 7th, but I do need to mention it because the lovely person who wrote in wanted to buy it as a Christmas present for their brother. So it's a book about AI and chat GPT. It's written by Parmy Olson. That's O-L-S-O-N and it's called Supremacy. And just really and it's it's written almost like a kind of thriller drama about the characters involved in it too so I am thoroughly enjoying it. Oh well that's interesting so she's gonna be a guest yeah that's that's very good Charmaine also includes that quote that I think I was trying to recall the other day life is what happens to you while you're busy

making other plans which she says first featured in John Lennon's song Beautiful Boy. Do you think John Lennon came up with that or did he just appropriate that phrase and use it in the song? I think it must have been before that. I just feel like I've read it in things. But you never know. I mean, there are lots of things that are born into our culture, aren't they? And they do have to come from somewhere, but they're used so much you think they've always been around. Somebody once wrote in to a late night radio show that we were doing and was absolutely adamant that she was the first person to ever use the term chillax. No.

We did a feature about it, Jane. Feature? Long feature. Well, to be fair, what year would this be? How long has chillax been around? Well, it would have been 2000, 2001. No, but she was absolutely certain and where did it come from? Who did first go? Pioneer. Chillax. Yeah, okay. It's quite the thing to have in your, well, on your TV, isn't it? I'm the person who invented the word chillax. Yeah. Yeah. Well, well done her. Do you recall the lady's name? No. No. Okay. Well, lost to history, I'm afraid, but, but still very much with us. Right. Okay, at least in Fee's memory anyway. Lynn is in New Zealand where she will be celebrating Christmas this way.

My family are planning a buffet dinner. That's good. What is a buffet dinner? Oh, a buffet served at dinner time. Yeah. I'm thinking too hard. I do apologize, Lynn. It'll be international this year as it will include a curry, Irish potatoes, Greek salad and tiramisu. Actually, I would eat every single thing. That sounds lovely. I might try and book my flight. I'll disregard everything I've ever thought about

long distance travel. I'll be there, Lynne. It's likely to be warm and there'll be no post-Prandial slumping in front of the telly for us. We'll be throwing frisbees, tossing gumboots, playing cricket and possibly visiting the local fairy house walk. Lyn in New Zealand, happy Christmas to you and everybody at your international buffet dinner. I don't like Greek salad, do you? Yes, I do. Okay. I find there's something, it's too many different textures. I can't, I just can't quite, I never yearn for a Greek salad. I wake up in the morning and say, oh, I tell you what, I'm going to power my way through the day

by looking forward to a Greek salad. Couldn't, I couldn't agree with you less. Really? Yeah. I particularly enjoy the difference in textures. The slight bounce of the olive, that kind of dense, chalky feel of the feta. The lettuce you don't really notice. Oh, I've never put lettuce in a Greek salad. Okay, apologies. Cucumber, neither here nor there, you never know. I mean, it's sort of cold. And then what else? Tomatoes.

And tomatoes, yeah. I just don't like it. Fiona says regarding solo travel last year I took a month off and rented an apartment in Palermo in Sicily. It's quite close to Lourdes. I explored the island got completely lost while trying to reach, no idea, Ragusa. Ragusa. Ragusa. Let's go Ragusa. Ragusa. Let's go. Try everything.

Yeah. Finding myself sitting in a plastic chair in the middle of nowhere waiting for a bus armed with Google Translate and a willing smile. If you've ever seen Inspector Moltebiano, you'll know the appeal. I ate in restaurants alone, explored alone. The whole thing was glorious.

Just do it, ladies. Well, Fiona, what a fantastic little visual image you've created there. A plastic chair in the middle of nowhere waiting for a bus to arrive. That's just heaven isn't it? It's a moment in life. I can picture that white plastic chair and that's because it's got to be the single most ubiquitous sort of furniture on the planet. Because they are everywhere, those plastic chairs. They're a particular shape, they're a particular style and I think they're probably scattered all over this earth. I think they are. A friend of mine always used to base her holidays on plastic chair or no plastic chair and

that was her dividing line. Do you mean so she wouldn't go to a place with the plastic chairs? No. Okay. So if an Airbnb had a picture of plastic garden furniture, she clicked on the next one, but she said it was quite a foolproof method if you wanted, just a certain type of accommodation. I rather like that. Okay, sorting the wheat from the chaff there based on that all prevalent white plastic chair. Ben says I like to hear you talking about the freedom that comes with going to the cinema on your own. I'm 30, I'm a gay man,

I've never had a relationship so I've learned to take the activities one would traditionally do with a partner and do them anyway. For me this has include cinema trips, reading a book in a pub, city breaks and full holidays alone. It is freeing to fully disconnect from the social and digital world, become comfortable with your own company and discover what you truly enjoy doing in life. Date yourself is the advice from Ben. And I love the fact that so many of you, and it's so sweet, you're taking my television

problems extremely seriously. I've had some lovely advice about what I should be doing to reconnect me with the delights of ITV. But so far, I'm afraid, unless I use my iPad, they are lost to me. But this is from Joanne who says, Jane, you should consider ordering a smart free view TV from John Lewis or August, they're only 120 quid, which sounds very reasonable, for a 24 or 32 inch diagonal screen size. What, um, may I ask what size your screen is? Oh it's enormous. Yes. Probably in the 50s I think. Oh really? Yeah. Okay well that is big. No but that's, Joanne is more where I'm coming from. I think 32 inch would be super. I'm aware that this is actually a podcast and

people will be listening and there is a limit to most people's interest in this. If you read this out, she says, I say even I pass. If you read this out, please say hello to the man in the jewellery shop in Walthamstow Market. Oh, lovely Walthamstow. Yeah, he is a secret but avid listener. I walked into his shop with my headphones on and got you on mega stereo. Brilliant. Fantastic. There's a lot to be said for Walthamstow. Yeah, well hello to the man in the jewellery shop, Walthamstow Market. Happy Christmas to you, sir. Very happy Christmas. Walthamstow has got a lovely rebellious underbelly.

Oh, I think it's always had a little... Yeah, it's really... It's like a subversive element. It's a glorious place and long may it stay that way. Lorraine with one R is from Oxfordshire. Now, listening to your Rob Brydon episode this evening, another Lorraine popped up, but one that lived in Lowestoft. You said she was a frequent get-in-toucher and always good value.

And I felt a great wave of jealousy because I'm a frequent get-in-toucher and always good value and I felt a great wave of jealousy because I'm a frequent get-in-toucher and I often make you both giggle and I wondered if Lowestoft Lorraine, who I bet has two R's in her name, was basking in the warm glow that was rightfully mine. Well Lorraine it's a possibility, it just is a possibility. You're both pretty. Anyhow I'll set aside that unintended hurt and hit you with a vasectomy story. I was married to a medic in another life who did his Registrar Stinton Neurology. Over dinner one evening, his boss, a lovely man, shared the joy of the evening. He decided to do his own vasectomy. He took everything he needed, local anaesthetics, scalpels, sutures, dressings, etc. and disappeared into the bathroom.

Although confident... Do you believe this story? I don't know. Although confident everything would go swimmingly, he thought it was wise to leave the bathroom door a little ajar in case he became faint and needed to call his wife, but halfway through the procedure the door slowly opened and his dog padded in and then started doing what dogs do. So Lorraine, well I mean apologies if you've had the wrong attribution and apologies to the other Lorraine as well if you've had the wrong attribution. It happens to Jane and I all the time actually doesn't it? And quite a few people still write in and say when Jane

said and I read it and go no that was me and vice versa for you and I think I've just given up on correcting it now because it kind of doesn't matter. We've long since passed caring. But in the moment it does actually. It's terribly hurtful. What's the matter Eve? So in case people can't hear this, there was a man in South America that Eve booked for the Breakfast Show who had done his own vasectomy. How did that end? Did it end well? It did? Okay. He was doing it to advertise it and how simple it was. That's so, that's just ridiculous. That's like somebody, that's like an optholomist just getting one of those laser pens, you know, I got one free with my car and demonstrating his own laser eyes. I mean, don't do it. Don't do it. Okay. I

think with a vasectomy, I mean, let's be realistic about this. You're having it done so you can have copious amounts of sex for pleasure rather than reproductive measures. You don't want to be getting that wrong. No. I mean, an unfortunate will be a woman who bears the scars of that if it is. Speaking of which, we have had this email from Denzel. Denzel, you know who you are. Denzel's in Belgium and in this email he has outlined his own experience of vasectomy. The last thing I want to do is to discourage men from having one. So I am loath to read out some of the details here. But suffice to say, he says, with three young children, aged nearly four, nearly three

and 14 months. Let's just think about that. Yeah. And my wife, eight months pregnant. We decided that a vasectomy was the logical next step. You don't say Denzel. Bloody hell. We scheduled the procedure for December the 23rd. Perfectly timed to coincide with my to me was the logical next step. You don't say Denzel. Bloody hell. We've scheduled the procedure for December 23rd. Perfectly timed to coincide with my freelance business's Christmas closure. What could go wrong? Well, as I say, I'm not going to read out all the details. The operation itself was quick, efficient and uneventful. In fact, says Denzel, it was a masterclass in medical minimalism. I went home that morning with a sore but manageable ache as expected By late afternoon, however, things had taken a turn

My scrotum had swollen to a concerning size Unusual I thought but probably nothing to worry about well unusual upgraded later in the day to alarming Concerned I went to my local GP hoping for reassurance. He said, I've never seen anything like this and recommended that I go straight to the emergency department. Now, we'll leave it there. But he's okay because he sent this email in. He's obviously very much still with us. But I'm surprised to say that further on in the anecdote age, a nurse faints and had to call for reinforcement.

Okay. Right. I'm convinced, Vee, that that kind of thing is extraordinarily rare. I hope so. I haven't heard very many stories of that ilk. Do you know very many women who've had their tubes tied? I don't. I was only thinking about this yesterday.

I don't think I do. I only know one. Right. And actually, she lives in America. I think it's maybe more common over there. Actually, some of the gynaecology in America is just different to ours. Different approaches, different views of what women and men should do. Yeah, and also just different procedures available. And this is a conversation for another time

and I'll dig out the proper email because a couple of people have mentioned this when we've been talking about periods that ablation is quite a common procedure in other parts of the world, which is something you can have done if you've got very, very heavy periods. I think it's very rare in this country or more rare than it is in other countries, but quite a few people have asked us to talk a bit about that. So maybe we will look into it. Any stories would be very much appreciated. You just reminded me, I had a conversation with my friend the other day who just got back from a holiday in America. And I'm just going to put this out here because I don't

know if it's something that happens regularly in America, whether you've been in similar circumstances. She was at a sort of neighborhood gathering in North Carolina. I hope that's right. I think it was North Carolina. It was certainly one of the Carolinas. And the evening was perfectly pleasant. Some of the people there were quite quite Trumpy. Others were absolutely emphatically not. But the atmosphere was very genial and everyone was getting on well with everybody else.

And then a lady that she was talking to suddenly said to my friend, well we've got to go now because my husband has just told me he wants to take me to bed. She said, oh my god. How old were these people? Good evening. Well, similar to our age. Wow. Similar to us. Gosh. Is that because there's only a certain window? You have to make the most of it. I don't know. I don't know whether something had clicked into gear or whatever. What is the relevance of some people being Trump supporters and other people not what is it just a general colour? Just to give you a glimpse into the event, into the milieu, because I guess that must be true all over the States. I mean, it's a bit like...

Leaving parties no sex? Well, possibly, but I think it probably happens here too. But no, I suppose the atmosphere at a lot of social gatherings in the States, and I don't know, obviously, it might be a little bit like post-Brexit here where you'd you know the traditional Christmas where you'd get together and you'd see Uncle Roger who you probably wouldn't normally see and you discover that maybe you didn't share his politics. Yeah I'm digging a hole here, wish I hadn't started. Toodle pip is the departing word from Anna who says I'm just writing about doing things on my own.

When I was very pregnant with my second child, I do think this is a great idea. The first thing I did on my maternity leave was to take myself to London just for a couple of days on my own. Now I was 37 weeks pregnant with what turned out to be a nine pound, nine ounce whopper. I took myself off for a delicious solo lunch.

I toured Buckingham and Kensington Palaces and I terrified my seat neighbours in the theatre watching the bank robbery that goes wrong. Even I was slightly concerned that the hilarity would provoke labour. Having a two and a half year old at home, I knew I would never get another chance for a long time to do something like this and I totally relished it.

The service I got everywhere was incredible, as it often is when you dine solo, and I look back on that trip with enormous fondness. Great idea, Anna, well done. Do you know what, there's a book forming, isn't there, of people's solo trips for all kinds of different reasons and stuff. It would be really good to read. Do we know a publisher? I don't think. I don't think we do. We're very unfamiliar with the world of publishing. Well, that's something for the third age as well. It's really stacking up, isn't it? Gosh, I'm so busy. I must retire.

And the final one from me comes in from Helen and we were talking about change in financial circumstances across lives and generations. And Helen says, I never really thought other people would relate to this, but the wealth guilt is real. With relative poverty in childhood to a very comfortable situation in adulthood through education and hard work, my husband finds it impossible to spend money on himself guilt free. He actively doesn't want to look like he has money. He's not mean though, very generous with his family. But our biggest issue with a change in financial circumstances is his parents. They don't let

any of us forget how hard it was for them at every possible moment. For atheists, they do a good line, in poverty is virtue, therefore anyone with money must be evil. I'm sure they'd like me and the kids more if we were watching Everypenny. I've got so many examples of ridiculous accusations against our extravagance, which by the way is non-existent seeing as he's petrified of spending too much. So we either keep things private like holidays or we have to declare ourselves so unendingly lucky despite the long hard hours of stressful work done to earn the money. We have probably denied our kids things which many parents with much less would have bought as we're not wanting them to be spoiled. I realized I'd gone too far when in primary school. Our son asked

if we were poor, he was visibly worried about it." Well that's really interesting Helen and I suppose that's exactly what we were referring to yesterday. You know all your hopes and dreams may well, you know, have come true in terms of money, but the feeling that you aren't expecting presumably is that other people will be chilly towards you because of it. And if you've got that through education and hard work, you know, that's not, you haven't been gifted it. It's not just privilege being kind of tipped on top of you. So I feel for you in that, that must be really difficult

and awful to not be able to, you know, enjoy talking about things that you've done and places that you've been and presumably quite confusing for your kids. So thank you for that Helen, that's very illuminating. Yeah, that's interesting. Can we just end with, before we get to our guest, who today is Sir Bill Browder, it's Vicky who says, I was talking the other day about Christmas cards and sending Christmas cards and you realised that the list of people to send them to has obviously dwindled. Oh, that's a very poignant one that one. It is, it's very sad and it's from Vicky who just says,

my 89 year old dad is going to be 90 on Boxing Day. Well happy 90th birthday to your dad. I caught a glimpse of his ever dwindling Christmas card list. Thick black lines crossing out those people who've died. I did notice that some lines were thicker and some had more than one line. Apparently this denotes how much he liked them. There are also comments along the lines of dead sad, dead not surprised, dead rest in peace, dead won't really miss them and dead shame I like

them. That I don't know why that is so poignant. It's very poignant. But it is. We had a good laugh and I said dad it looks like a hit list. He has had a good life though. His grandchild plans to celebrate his 90th birthday with recording his thoughts on how to live a long and happy life. And I'm just going to read them out because there are some good tips here for all of us. Topics will include raw eggs for breakfast, add brandy on your birthday, four S's every morning at 8am, shit, shower, shave and smoke. Super Kings only. Now if you include the Super Kings that is actually five S's at 8am.

Hang on. Shit, shave. Shit, shower, shave and smoke. Oh yes, Super Kings only. No it's fine. Yeah, four S's. Dance naked in the garden. We've been doing that for years. Dance naked in the garden when there's a thunderstorm. You've got to be ever so careful with that. Yeah, don to be ever so careful with your health and safety. And cold showers. I'm afraid I won't be able to join your nearly 90 year old dad in a cold shower Vicky, but some of his other tips do sound worth exploring. No, no, no, not the super kings. Not the super kings. Super Kings are very, very, very long cigarettes. You know, I know. And also, but I guess when you're 90.

Yeah. I used to say that I'd take up smoking again when I was 80 because I was really, really good at it. It's nice to revisit old hobbies, isn't it? But actually, of course, of course you won't. You go back to fags, I'll go back to tap dancing. I always rated myself as if I could tap. Nobody else did. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having

your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programmes and policies apply. Details at fizz.ca. We're going to focus for the next quarter of an hour or so on Russia in the company of our guest Sir Bill Browder, the author of really important and very much well-read books like Red Notice and Freezing Order. He is known as an arch-critic of Vladimir Putin and he was once in the 1990s the largest foreign investor in Russia. He was the founder of the Russian investment company Heritage

Capital Management and as you'll hear in the interview Vladimir Putin hates him with a passion. Sir Bill lives in New York these days. So I asked him just to explain very simply why he has become one of Putin's biggest critics. So I was once living in Russia and running the largest foreign investment fund in Russia. I uncovered massive corruption in the companies I was investing in. I exposed that corruption. In retaliation, I was expelled from the country. My lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was then arrested, tortured, and killed in Russian police custody.

And after his murder, I went on a mission to get justice, which led to something called the Magnitsky Act. The Magnitsky Act freezes the assets and bans the travel of human rights violators and kleptocrats in Russia. The Magnitsky Act was passed in the United States in 2012, in the UK in 2018, and now exists in 35 countries around the world. And since Vladimir Putin is a human rights violator and a kleptocrat and he keeps a lot of his money abroad. I put his whole fortune at risk.

And so he hates my guts because his entire kleptocratic business model has been disrupted by this legislation that I was responsible for. He does hate your guts. I know you've been asked this before, but I've got to ask it again. Are you safe? I don't believe that when Putin hates your guts, you're safe by any means. I try to take as many precautions as I can. And so far, I've survived. A lot of my friends and allies in this fight have not. As I mentioned, my lawyer Sergey Magnitsky was killed. My friend Boris Nemtsov, who helped me lobby for the Magnitsky Act, was killed. My friend Alexei Navalny, who was a great partner in our anti-corruption fights, was killed.

And that's not to mention many, many others. It's a dangerous, dangerous business to cross Vladimir Putin. He's a mafia boss. He's a murderer. He's a serial boss, he's a murderer, he's a serial killer really. And so I just have to do whatever I can to try to stay safe and you know I don't have a particularly normal life compared to everybody else. This hasn't been a great couple of weeks for Vladimir Putin or for his regime. With the fall of Assad, are we completely wrong to be mildly optimistic about the chances of him being toppled possibly even quite soon?

Well, I think that may be an over-optimistic projection. I think we can say that the bad guys in the world have had a bad week. I don't think, you know, these, but these bad guys like Vladimir Putin can have bad weeks or bad months or even bad years and they bounce back. And you remember after Putin invaded Crimea and he went to the G20 meeting, he sat by himself at lunch because he was shunned by every world leader. And we all thought that's, you know,

the total isolation of Vladimir Putin. And then somehow he was ableunned by every world leader, and we all thought that's the total isolation of Vladimir Putin. And then somehow he was able to sort of warm his way back into the good graces of at least some world leaders. And so I think that this is a very significant development what happened with Assad, because Assad was Putin's man in Syria. And Putin had made the representation that he would do whatever he had to do to keep Assad in place. And for 13 years that worked. But then we ended up with this situation which

completely blew out of control for Assad and for Putin. And this has two really important significant elements. The first is that what it shows is that Putin is materially stretched, that his war in Ukraine doesn't allow him to support his dictator friends, his client states and other countries. And that's significant. But the second thing, and I think this is even much more significant, is that Putin's entire model of dictatorship is to thump his chest, make all sorts of nasty threats all around the world and look like a tough guy. And having Assad just basically blown away by a bunch of relatively poorly armed rebels shows that

the king is not wearing any clothes, that Putin really isn't the tough guy that can come in and save his pal, his friend Assad, when the going gets tough. And if Putin doesn't look like a tough guy, then he's got a lot of other problems at home. And so possibly maybe this inspires people who want to stand up to Putin to stand up to him. What what will the average Russian citizen know about what's happened in Syria and the part that Putin's regime played or as it turned out, didn't play in it? Well, I think that the average Russian citizen will see a very kind of rose-colored glasses view of what happened. I don't think that Russian state television can say nothing happened, but they can blame

it on terrorists, they can blame it on other countries, they can blame it on the West. They tend to take all their failures and find a way to spin it so that the average Russian person doesn't think any less of Putin. But it's not the average Russian person that he needs to worry about. He needs to worry about the generals or some other person that he wants to have a go at him. And he also needs to worry about the Ukrainians who are perhaps emboldened by this whole thing. And he also has to worry about what it looks like in the for the incoming White House does how does Trump view this

situation in Syria does it does it does it make him look weaker does it make him look like somebody who put that Trump doesn't have to make concessions to well Trump Trump was in Notre Dame over the weekend at that wonderful ceremony and the acclaim the applause that Zelensky got. Trump will have seen that, he'll have heard it, he'll have felt it. Is he going to be just reassessing his view of how to bring about an end to the Ukraine-Russia war? Well, you're making a big assumption that Trump actually has a view going into this. I think that he probably will develop his view 30 minutes before he goes into whatever

negotiating room there is with Zelensky and Putin. I don't think that Trump has a strong view. He has slogans. He says, we're going to end this war in 24 hours. We're going to make a deal, all that kind of stuff. But I don't think he has a view on how to really resolve this because it's a very complicated situation. If it was so easy to resolve, it would have already been resolved a long time ago. And so Putin, I believe, is at war in Ukraine for one simple reason. He needs a war of distraction so that the Russian people aren't mad at him. They're mad at a foreign enemy. And Zelensky is at war because Russian troops are killing their citizens, raping their women,

and kidnapping their children. And neither side can back off. The Ukrainians can't back off and say, okay, you can just kill all of us. That's no problem. And Putin believes that if he backs off, he looks weak and that someone's going to come and knock him out of power. And Putin doesn't have the same benefit that Assad has. There's no country in the world

that will give safe harbor to Putin if he collapses because the West will want him and whatever subsequent regime in Russia will want him. And I don't think anyone wants to stand up to the West and to Russia in a post-Putin era. So Putin really views this as sort of a life and death situation. He's got to keep this war going in order to stay in power and stay alive.

But I mean, he's even in Ukraine, he's dependent on these North Korean troops, isn't he? I mean, that's another illustration of how, as you said earlier, he's being really, really stretched. Well, I mean, so this is probably the most interesting thing. So since the beginning of this war, he has refused to call it a war. He calls it a special military operation. Why does he call it a special military operation? Because that gives the impression to the Russian people, this is some kind of like minor thing going on

on the periphery, it doesn't really involve you. You can root for us, but you don't really need to be thinking all that carefully about it. It doesn't affect your life. And as a result, he doesn't have, there's not huge public opinion against this, quote, special military operation. But in order to keep it as a special military operation, as opposed to a war in the minds of the people, he can't impose a general conscription of soldiers.

And this has created a huge problem because according to the Ukrainian estimates, the Russians have lost 750,000 soldiers since this whole thing started, either death or severe disability. And so he's lost the entire sort of fighting force he started with. And so how has he replaced those people? Well, first he went to the prisons and he said, any prisoner who wants to fight in Ukraine can get out. And so all the prisoners, Well first he went to the prisons and he said any prisoner who wants to fight in Ukraine can get out. And so all the prisoners, they emptied out all the prisons and all the prisoners went to Ukraine and most of them died.

Then he started going around the poorest regions of Russia and said to the people, we'll pay you money to come and be a contract soldier in Ukraine. And so a lot of poor people signed up and then they were killed. And the most interesting thing is that they used to pay a bonus of $4,000 to get poor people to sign up to go and die in Ukraine. And now the price has gone up to $47,000. And so basically they've run out of people, run out of prisoners, run out of poor people that are ready to take the money, and they had to raise the money by more than 10 times. And so what do they do?

And they start begging whoever they can to bring in more soldiers. And so now they're paying the North Koreans to send in their soldiers. Apparently there's Houthi soldiers in Russia. And as you said, that shows that this thing is not going well for Putin. And it's not just the soldier problem, but the economics are not going well in Russia. All these people who have died, all the people who have left have created a huge shortage of workers. As a result,

there's massive inflation. They have interest rates at 21%. Apparently, they're going to have to raise interest rates. The price of potatoes and potatoes and butter has gone up by like 60 percent. And so, you know, for whatever impression Putin is trying to give that he's doing a great job and it's all going fine for him and we're the ones having problems, no, he's having some big problems as well and all these things show it. When the end comes for Putin, as it surely will, it will be somebody internal making a move. Now there isn't exactly succession planning in a country like Russia, so have you any idea who that person or who those people might be? Well, it really all depends on how Putin ends up losing power.

If he dies in his sleep tonight, then the oligarchs and the security officials will all get together in the Kremlin and try to figure out how do we keep the whole Putin thing going because there's so much money at stake. They've stolen such a large amount of money over such a long period of time that they would be afraid of having a sort of non-regime approved leader come in and take that money away from them. And so if he dies in his sleep, it's gonna be sort of status quo. You could have a situation like we saw in June of 2023 when Evgeny Progozhin, the head of the Wagner group, you know, one of the most ruthless but effective military men, mercenaries I

should say, marched on Moscow. And that was a situation where it could have gone either way. The Russian people were not like standing in the way of the Prigozhin's tanks ready to protect Vladimir Putin. The Russian people just wanted to know who do they report to now. Or the third option is sort of the Syrian type of option where the whole regime just collapses, all the Putin people get on their private jets and flee, a lot of them don't get out and you have some kind of provisional government put together by the Russian opposition. And you don't rule that out?

I don't rule it out. I think it's a low probability scenario, but it's a scenario. And the chances of a war between the West and Russia, do you think they're higher or lower than they were at the start of this year? Well, I think every day that goes by, they become lower because Putin is running out of resources to fight a war. If he can't take on Ukraine, how is he going to take on the West? I mean, that just doesn't make any sense. I don't think that China wants to come in and go to war with the United States and the European countries over Russia.

I don't think that that makes any sense. And so Putin is sitting there, running out of resources. He can't protect his client states. He can't even fight effectively against Ukraine, which is a much smaller, much less resourced country. How in the hell is he going to have a war with the West? I mean, he knows he'll lose that in a matter of moments. And other parts of the Putin project have got into difficulty.

Romania, Georgia. The Russian state has tried to intervene and it would seem that they've been found out. Indeed, completely. So, you know, Romania is a great example that a totally unknown, massively pro-Russian candidate for the presidency of Romania showed up. And then with a total deluge on all social media channels, with Russian money bombarding those social media channels, he ended up winning in the first round of the presidential elections.

And all the evidence of the Russians involvement came to light very quickly. And their Supreme Court did the right thing, which is to say, why should Russia determine the outcome of our elections? And they nullified that round of elections. In Moldova, the same thing happened. In this case, there was no Supreme Court decision.

Just the good guys beat the bad guys by like 51 to 49. We have a situation in Georgia right now, in Georgia, which Russia, by the way, invaded in 2008, and then took, annexed some part of the territory and then put one of their own people in to run for president, a billionaire to run for president. He won the presidency and he then basically put his own people all over the place in government. And after the parliamentary elections a few weeks ago, Georgia then made an announcement to say that they're not going to be part of the European Union. They're going to cancel their joining plans.

And what's happened? There's like hundreds of thousands of people on the street of Georgia protesting, very much like what we saw in Ukraine in 2014, the Maidan revolution, where the Ukrainian people, it's the exact same scenario where the Russian puppet at the time in Ukraine wanted to abandon the EU, sort of join up with Russia, and the people said, enough is enough, we don't want anything to do with you, and they took over the central square, the Maidan square, and he ended up fleeing to Russia like Assad did. We don't know what's going to happen in Georgia, but it could, again, could go the wrong

way. And so whenever there's something like what happened in Syria, it's not an isolated incident. It shows that there's stress in the system. And often these things lead to other dominoes falling and where those dominoes fall and where we should be looking, it's often hard to say. I mean, who was to have known that Syria would fall? I mean, we were all looking left and that happened to the right. And so I think we don't know what's going to happen next, but this is a very brittle time and potentially not a great time for Vladimir Putin. Sir Bill Browder, as ever, this podcast, I mean, Variety is our middle name. Well, it's actually Susan in my case, but it should be Jane Variety Garvey.

Susanna, get rid of that and call yourself Fiona Variety Glover. I'm sure some people have. I like to imagine the post-Putin Russia, I think it's a healthy thing for all of us to do because it then completely undermines his ridiculous belief in his own authority. Just as a mindset to just be able to look at him and go, one day your time will have come mate. Absolutely mate, because it comes for all of us in the end. It does. But also you would hope, wouldn't you, that in the light of Assad, that all the world's despots are a tremble. Because those images of people just cheerily

running through these hideous people's ridiculous palaces and grabbing what they can and taking it away, it must keep them awake at night. Nobody's that safe. Absolutely nobody. I don't think it does though. I think what keeps them safe at night is just enhancing their armed forces to repel people who want democracy and what have you. But I also vaguely hope, you know, I do think that the grief and sorrow that must be felt in Russia due to the astonishing loss of life in Ukraine isn't something that we talk often enough about and I rather hope that a protest movement comes from that and it will be from women because they've lost so many men and you know that will prove to be the kind of riptide

that takes him out. I mean it's just unimaginable to think of how many communities have been decimated by those young men. And it's poor and courageous too. Yeah, being called to war and just never coming home. Yeah, and they're not, as I understand it, they're not coming from, certainly not coming from the middle classes in St Petersburg. No, they're coming from further and further away, aren't they? Yeah, well, North Korea in some cases. Anyway, all rather grim stuff.

Christmas approaches. Come on everybody! Come on! Karen made those the hinges on the doors of the advent calendar just, I don't know, just not irky quite so much over the next couple of days. May all your robins be red-breasted, may all your tints all be perky. We'll see you on Monday. Yeah, I'm making a final onslaught on the Christmas shopping this weekend, so just get out of my way if you see me, all right? Just get out of the way. Have a lovely couple of days. Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do 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. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the Executive Producer is Rosie Cutler. This episode is brought to you by Google Pixel. I'm Jessi Krikstank. I host the number one comedy podcast called Phone a Friend. I also have three kids. I need help making every day easier.

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