Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Single, female, unwilling to get you out of a third-world prison (with Chloe Dalton)

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

There's been a new addition to the list of things we need to get sorted in the Off Air community—so we need your help! (Admittedly, the list is getting rather long...) Jane and Fi also chat hair sausages, Jeff Bezos' wedding, and XXL croissants. Plus, Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Chloe Dalton discusses her book 'Raising Hare'. If you want to contribute to our playlist, you can do that here: Off Air with Jane & Fi: Official Playlist - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qIjhtS9sprg864IXC96he?si=9QZ7asvjQv2Zj4yaqP2P1QIf you want to come and see us at Fringe by the Sea, you can buy tickets here: www.fringebythesea.com/fi-jane-and-judy-murray/And if you fancy sending us a postcard, the address is:Jane and FiTimes Radio, News UK1 London Bridge StreetLondonSE1 9GFIf you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] next book club pick has been announced! We’ll be reading Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession.Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's always to say hello to Nancy actually, but I try and shoe-haul myself in Jane. It's me here, me. I'm the one who can talk. That's just nasty. What was that? This episode of Off Air is brought to you by Thomas Fudge's Biscuits. We've got a bit of a reputation, haven't we, Jane? Our desk here at Times Towers is pretty famous for having the most delicious sweet treats in the office.

Yep, guilty as charged. But we're not into any old treats, no sir, only the most elevated biscuit makes the grade. Because we're so classy. May we introduce you to Thomas Fudgers, born from the expert British craftsmanship of inventive Dorset bakers in 1916. Thomas Fudgers' Florentines are an indulgent blend of moorish caramel, exquisite almonds and luscious fruits draped in silky smooth Belgian chocolate. You've said a few key words there Fee. Exquisite, moorish, exactly the way my colleagues would describe me, I'm sure. Did you say sophisticated? I didn't, but I can. Just like the biscuits, you're very sophisticated darling. And like you, Thomas Fudges believes that indulgence is an art form and it should

be done properly or not at all Jane I concur Thomas Fudges hats off to remarkable biscuits dear shame because I sounded quite professional. Do you know what, you just sounded a little bit... Too professional? Yes, no, it just sounded a little bit formal actually. Can you dial it down? Have we started now?

This is the informal start. I'm relaxed, I'm doing a podcast. That's much better. That's much better. Just slink in like Dora probably does when you're not looking and there's something on the counter that she might like to partake of. Actually speaking of which. Slink by the door and up you come. I've got a couple of things to bring to the table today. Number one, I was slicing up some cooked chicken breast on my kitchen surface this morning. On a board. Hopefully not just straight on the surface. And on the meat board. Yes good.

All the hygiene. Well it's cooked anyway so it's low risk isn't it? Slicing a cooked chicken breast. Yeah you should be fine. Yeah well I am fine. Crack on love. Back door was open and what creature, this should resonate with you, what creature nearly entered my premises? A fox. Yeah. Honestly, honestly Fee, it's getting beyond a joke. It was right up to the kitchen door and nearly came in and I leapt quite athletically towards the kitchen door, slammed the door shut, locked it. Have you caught that on the nanny cam? It's not on the nanny cam, but I wish we did have. I'd like to see it.

But it's a worry. Oh Jane, it's such a worry because as reported earlier, our foxes are coming in. They're coming into the house. Yours has actually been in. They've been in the house. They come in the house and they eat the dog food and and I think they're baby foxes, I don't know what you're meant to call them, cubs I suppose, they're small enough to get in the cat flap so once they work out the cat flap we're just gone

and and I have phoned the council. You've been so busy, neighborhood Nellie. Yep, well I, do you know what, if the kids were much younger then I really would be worried. Oh it's not funny at all if you've got babies or... I mean it's absolutely horrific. I just felt a real fall for it. It's the smell of the chicken isn't it? It seemed to draw this mangy old thing off the lives behind the shed. And yeah, it's absolutely terrifying. Anyway, the other thing I just wanted to mention was hairballs. Just because I don't really know what they are.

Hairballs? Why is it, and the other day Dora, after an explicit, there's nothing like the sound of a pretty small cat coughing. She's not large, the noise, absolutely cacophonous racket and she leapt out, you know, coughed up, spewed up, what wasn't a hairball but a kind of hair sausage. It was disgusting. Thanks for bringing that up. Well sorry up. What wasn't a hairball but a kind of hair sausage. It was disgusting. Thanks for bringing that to the court. Well, sorry, I just don't know what it is. I wanted to stop. Yeah, well, I don't think you can stop that. But I think

the foxes, I think maybe we have to add that to our list of things that we're going to get sorted in the off-air community. Because it's just, it's too much. It's not, it's just not right. And I don't want to get... Because haven't you got someone you recommended? Yeah, I sent you the number. Yeah, but they're going to come and... Oh no, they're hardcore. Probably shouldn't mention them. No. Jane's got access to some strange people.

But I would just rather the council had a council-wide approach to it, that everyone could report their foxes and we could really get it sorted calmly. What would the name of the fox hotline be? I don't know, I don't know. Foxy chat. Foxy chat, something with Foxy in it. Just one more time, because I know that regular listeners would have heard this for a long time, but our lovely childminder, who we still see a lot, Jolanta,

when she first came to this country, she's originally from Poland, but she's very much part of this country now, let's always say that. When she first came here and she was working in Hackney, there is a bus service that you can hire to take you on your hen party or whatever it is that you want to to hire it's called Fox Transport and she thought that it was a transport service to take urban foxes out into the countryside and release them. And we've always had this vision whenever we see fox transport buses go past these little foxes all dressed up ready to go to the countryside. Like evacuees. Yes, I did, yeah. And there was a little bit of me that when she told me that that didn't

want to correct her. I thought what a lovely thing if we did in London town have fox transport. All little foxes come here. We're off to Epping. Come on. Also I just want to say Fox hunting has been outlawed hasn't it? But I wonder whether there might be a never mind tally hoeing across the countryside.

Come into London. Do it up and down West East Kensington and East West Kensington and indeed your manner as well. Come on. Blow your horn. Can I bring something to the party that I just saw on the tube on the way in? So I was reading all about Jeff Bezos' wedding, which is going to happen. Has it not happened yet? No, it doesn't happen yet. I think it's on the way, isn't it? So he's heading off to Venice to ruin it for everybody else for a weekend and a wedding that's going to cost, apparently, is on June the 24th.

It is going to cost about 10 million dollars. That's the rumor. He's booked up five luxury hotels and every water taxi in the city. That's just mean, isn't it? What happens if you actually want to go somewhere as a Venetian? Anyway, he was talking about what he saw in women and wanted in women several times when he's been interviewed and there just is a difference between his first wife and his second wife. Well I think Jeff himself has undergone

quite a transformation. A sea change. Yes, so his first wife, Mackenzie Scott, who has gone on to do really great things hasn't she? A renowned philanthropist. Interestingly, I'm quoting from the article here, Bezos said in 1999 he found Scott when he was looking for a woman who was resourceful. He wanted someone powerful enough to save him in a crisis. So thank God that's counted us out. Can't even deal with a verbal. But here it comes, Jane, here it comes. This is a quote from him. The number one criterion was that I wanted a woman

who could get me out of a third world prison. Right, but Mackenzie served a purpose and he's now moved on. He has, but what kind of a criteria is that? Get me out. Of a third world prison. A. Jump him from a third world hellhole. If you're in a third world prison, what have you done mate? Yes.

B. Why would I want to get involved? C. I wouldn't want to be... And C. Oh I don't know, it's not, that's just weird, don't you think? It's almost as though as he's lost his hair, he's lost some of his marbles and quite a few of his scruples if he had any. I mean he started off flogging books and did you remember how he leapt upon it? I know I did. I couldn't believe the efficiency and it was. I mean, look, I can't pretend I don't use his facilities because I do. Yeah, Bezos cultivated an image of aggression in the job when he was first at Amazon.

A project was once named Gazelle after he casually mentioned they should treat small ailing book publishers like a predator with a sickly gazelle in their sights. There you go. Well, I wonder, well I just wish him and his new lady his bride. Well I hope she's prepared. I mean I don't know where they're going on honeymoon but she's going to have to bail him out. Well they'll be going somewhere in a penis shaped capsule won't they? And you've just got to wish them well. Well, well-ish. It's a lot of money to spend on something that, as you often say, has no guarantee of success. Statistically, Jane.

It really doesn't. No. OK. Thank you for all your postcards. Can I just say, because a question has asked of us in this one, look at that. Look at that. Adora Bubble. Can you describe it, please?

It's a pair of lovely tabby kittens tucked up together under a quilt i mean it's not something i've seen tabby kittens do but i those two seem incredibly happy to be there very cozy so this is liz who sent it it's the second postcard liz has sent i'm not sure if my postcard of the pretty poly tights billboard with the very appropriate graffiti actually arrived uh Did Fee's postcard from her holiday ever arrive? No, it didn't, did it? We never got that. I mean, I hate to say it, Fee, but people are mottering that perhaps you never sent

one. No, I absolutely did. Well, that's what people are beginning to wonder. No, I did, I promise. Loving the show, as ever, really appreciate you the chat with their Davey, but not sure I can summarise my thoughts on a postcard. Well, when you get back to Coventry and sometimes Enfield, but you're currently in Cyprus, Liz, you get about darling, don't you?

Send us a longer email about Ed Davey if you would like to. Claudia has asked if she saw me in Islington at the weekend. Well, I didn't know whether you wanted to be specific about this. No, I mean, I used to live around there in my, you know, what pasts for my exciting 20s. And now one of my offspring is living around there. That's spooky, isn't it? Yeah, so I've started to pay regular visits. I mean, she doesn't invite me, but I just go anyway.

And I had a lovely time, some tap-ass lunch over there on Sunday. So yes, Claudia, you did see me. You should have said hello. Honestly, neither of us mind, do we? We don't. We welcome it. And actually there was a lovely young lady in London Fields this morning who came rushing over. It's always to say hello to Nancy actually, but I tried to shoe-haul myself in Jane. It's me here, Fee. I'm the one who can talk.

I wasn't fully convinced. Well that's just nasty. What was that? That was rude. Jamal, come in. Jamal's off. Claudia says I wasn't convinced it was her and I was laden with a big bag of wet laundry I was taking to the laundrette to tumble dry. So didn't really have the shoulder strength or confidence to linger and say hello. Well honestly, we're women of the world, we've seen wet laundry

before and I wouldn't have been remotely upset by it so please do say hello. She's seen some really famous people, I mean I'm not putting myself in this group by the way. Keira Knightley. Nice. Katlyn Moran. Nice. Rosamund Pike. Nice. And Jeremy Corbyn. Hello. No, I don't find a bit of jazz. I'm all for good old school lefties because I think we need them just as we need people of all. Yeah, I completely agree but I was thinking only yesterday because

we've had the strategic defense review announced in this country and it's an absolute whopper and it does change our direction and I was thinking gosh the Labour Party is unrecognizable in its leadership on defense at the moment isn't it and if Jeremy Corbyn had been our Prime Minister now it just would have been a very very different direction we were going in and I wasn't I'm just having a bit of think about that I just would have been good or not. You don't have to agree with a politician to welcome the fact that they're, well, that they've got an opinion and that other people are going to hear it. I mean, you need the like, I've just started reading Diane Abbott's memoir, which I got at the Hay Festival.

Oh, by the way, Gina has now emailed. I didn't mean to call her out yesterday for not emailing, but Gina, thank you, and it was lovely to talk to you at Hay as well last week. I would have liked to see Daya Labbert speak because I've never heard her interviewed, I mean I've interviewed her but I've never heard her in a kind of book festival setting and her book is interesting and it's called, well I think it's called A Woman Like Me, anyway I'm enjoying it and it's an insight into her early life in the Labour Party and her trajectory, what happened afterwards. But it is funny when she talks about, she did have a relationship with Jeremy Corbyn,

and he was so committed to the cause that he made her seem a bit of a lightweight, which emphatically she isn't. Where did he take her? Highgate Cemetery. She said, come on, we can't just keep going to political meetings. To see the grave of... Karl Marx. So when she said look I'm sick of this can't we go on a proper date? You talk at a Highgate Cemetery. I mean as an anecdote it's great, it's unbeatable. So yeah. There's a very funny WhatsApp exchange at the bottom of that email that will be almost impossible to read now,

but it's basically our lovely correspondent reporting to her mum that she'd just seen Jeremy Corbyn in Islington and her mum texts back to say, oh well that's nice, I mean I've often wondered what's happened to him since Top Gear. Sorry, I wish, I wish now I had seen it. Claudia, thank you. Something I also saw in that Neck of the Woods on Sunday, it was, there's a very posh patisserie on that road in London's fashionable N1, which sells giant croissants. Oh yes, I've been there. Have you? Because it's actually opposite my dentist. They are creeping ever closer to me.

Can we tighten up the electric fence? So mean. But the giant croissant is £25. Yeah, and we bought one once. Oh did you? When it first opened. So they, I mean, by giant, do you want to just explain how big they are?

Oh, I mean, initially I thought it was a model because funnily enough there's a photograph of me and my former husband sitting next to each other on a giant croissant. Of course there is. At the French World Cup in 1998. Bien sûr. But that was not a real croissant. And so when I went past the patisserie and saw these unbelievably, unfeasibly large pastries, I thought it was one of those models.

But it isn't. It's the real thing. So they make the real thing and then they just blow it up. They do cost an absolute fortune. And when they first opened that patisserie bakery cafe, there was a kind of crowd of people outside all the time so we went to investigate and of course everybody wanted to be photographed next to these huge things. I mean they're over a foot long.

Oh yeah sorry yes you're absolutely right I struggle to do measurements. They're like small cats really. Yeah they are they're enormous. Absolutely vast. So we did buy one because we thought okay this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to have an enormous great big croissant. They don't taste right. Oh don't they? No because there's just a lot of aeration involved and I think their idea is that you could you can take them home and kind of slice them but then you can't put them in the toaster

because ours just kind of melted away and we thought okay well we've done that once and we won't ever need to do it again. I'm really glad you've done it so I don't have to. Yeah they don't work as great big things and because if they had worked as great big things then all of the supermarkets would do them wouldn't they because they look amazing. Yeah they do they do it was beautiful sort of crusting and the colors were absolutely... It did draw your attention. But I'm glad you've been there, so that's okay. If there's anything else really, really overpriced and ridiculous that you'd like me to test so you don't have to splash your cash, you just let me know, sister.

And if you are in France, and I don't know whether the French, would they mock that kind of thing or would they have their own giant pastries, who knows? I think they'd think that was ridiculous, wouldn't they? Is that a chemical thing that the bigger the object, the less tasty it's going to be? The alchemy just doesn't work. I've got no idea. I suppose that's what Heston Blumenthal was trying to find out. Remember he had a whole Channel 4 series where he just made enormous things. It was so boring to watch because you just knew at the end... You just knew what it was going to be.

It was just going to be a sausage roll. It's just huge! No, I wouldn't have thought it works. You wouldn't get all of the right crusting and things like that on things, would you? Oh, who knows? Who cares? Go on. Sorry. Andrew in Bristol says, hi both and Eve. The best use of an actual ramekin, and I think he's got a point here, is to serve baked beans in a traditional breakfast in order that they don't infect the rest of the food. Only a savage would

serve beans on the plate without the use of a ramekin. Maybe your listener stroke contributor could ask their friends how they serve beans to get ramekins into the conversation. That was our friend from Kosovo who was wondering how she could shoehorn the word ramekin into a conversation. Andrew, thank you very much for that thoughtful contribution. It is interesting that if you go to a hotel breakfast, and I do love a cooked breakfast in a hotel, they kind of have, they ring-face the, ring-fence the beans in a ramekin-like container, haven't they? Because I don't think some people do like that ooze of the sauce. I don't mind ooze. I don't mind it.

No, I don't like it at all. Okay, right, well we've certainly covered some ground today. Who is the guest on the podcast? Chloe Dalton, and she's written this amazing book. She's a political advisor by trade really, and during the lockdown she adopted a baby hair that she found and she presumed orphaned in a hedgerow near a cottage that she had taken up residence in because of the lockdowns and she raised the hare. It's really interesting because you might think, well I'd read about the book and I thought all that's going to be a bit icky and bit Trix pottery and it'll have a twee name and all that kind of stuff.

But she is so respectful of the fact it's a wild animal living in her house. It is really fascinating. She lets the hair live in the way that the hair wants to live. She only tries to put it in a cage once and it basically goes, you must be joking love. I'm going to just bounce around your garden and your house. I don't want to be in your cage. But presumably no foxes there. Oh foxes and all kinds of predators yeah and and that's the risk that she took in respecting its natural desire to remain a wild animal that one day what happens to wild animals is yeah and but it's a really really really beautiful book, really beautiful. So

she's up next. Can I do just a couple of parish notices, please? Because a couple of you were in touch about the Holly McNish poem that I read out. It was in your absence. It's entitled Five Out Of Six Boys. And it's based on that statistic that one out of six boys love Andrew Tate and her poems about the other five and what they would still like as boys and it's beautiful Jane really really beautiful so a couple of people have asked about her so she's Holly McNish MC NISH but if you want to follow her if you just tap in Holly poetry and that's Holly with an IE that will come up on any search platform and you

can delve into all of her poetry. I hadn't come across her before, forgive me for that, I think it's a little bit outside, she's much younger than us Jane. Good Lord. I think she's operating in a different algorithm but since discovering her I have wolfed down her poetry, I think it's great. Yeah okay that's a good recommendation Holly McNish. I was a bit rude about embassies, well not rude I just wonder what they did. I think you're right too. Yeah thank you, unusual level of support. This is from Anonymous. I sat bolt upright when you wondered what happens in an embassy. It's only because I got lost the other day in London where I've lived now for 480 years

trying to find my way back home from the Chelsea Flower Show. And actually on that occasion, we didn't have a drink or anything, did we? No, we'd had a cup of tea and a remarkable Florentine. Yeah. OK, so my day has come, says Anonymous. I know the answer to this question because I've been a diplomat in several countries. Big embassies from big countries do a lot of stuff. Small embassies from small countries don't do a lot and need to focus on one or two main goals. Sometimes it's a waste of time and resources and it's kept up for historical or political reasons, but other times it's crucial.

History happens between people and two people and being able to understand and influence decision makers can make a big difference to the course of history. I have seen that happen in real time, says Anonymous. Sounds fascinating. Diplomats have many different jobs. They negotiate stuff like treaties and agreements. They represent their country, interpret the local reality of the country they're posted to, and report back on what they see and hear and have come to understand. They promote business and trade, and sometimes their culture and languages, they do consulate work supporting communities and tourists. Like journalists, diplomats observe and report on power, and it can become addictive to be in the room when big decisions are made. Big decisions are made. It is a fascinating ever-changing career which I would recommend

to anybody who lives loving, living in, who loves living in foreign lands, so not Jane, and cares about relationships between countries. So actually it's given the whole business a bit of a big sell hasn't it, which I like. And another correspondent, I don't think we'll mention your name just in case. On the subject of what embassy and consulate staff get up to, it does depend on where you're based. Milan would be quite different to Monrovia. Well yes. Yeah, of course it would. Certainly there's a fair amount of schmoozing of foreign ministries and businesses.

There's a lot of work in supporting Brits abroad for things like lost or stolen passports, arrest or as a victim of crime in a foreign country. Otherwise you might be trying to get import bans stolen, sorry, no, you might be trying to get import bans on pig parts lifted. Valuable work. I never really knew why this was the phrasing we used. Or working on shared initiatives on something like climate change, women's rights, peace building, etc. Jamal mentioned the baffling mathematical reasoning questions of the civil

service fast stream entrance test. Do you remember this? Which she failed. The questions were totally incomprehensible, says our correspondent. To this day I hold some chagrin about the recruitment process and cannot understand why my fluency in Mandarin and German would not be of more value than the ability to find the value of X within 40 seconds. Well I think it's a very good point. It's a good point. Yep, and surely the one thing that you need if you're going to work in an embassy in an

ambassadorial or diplomatic role is good people skills and quite often the people who are incredibly good at doing if x plus y equals z then what does p mean? And maybe not the people who are very good at noting somebody who is in distress and in need of help or offering that kind of emotional lean-in. So it does seem weird. Yeah, yeah it does seem weird. Yeah, why don't you and I try and sit one of those exams and see how we do? Why don't you do it? No, okay, I'll do that. No, I'm happy to. I'm intrigued by all of this interview stuff.

I'm intrigued as well actually. I know I wouldn't have a hope because I wouldn't be able to find the value of X within 40 seconds. But also I think there's a wider point that our listeners would probably grasp with both hands which is that the skills that you learn throughout your life possibly mean that you are far better equipped to apply for those roles later in life than you would be when your brain is super smart with all of that kind of stuff maybe in your earlier years and I wonder whether any of that is reflected in the kind of stress testing that they're giving your brain in those exams. I bet it's not Jane but I think we would you know we all we all

know that you are just more experienced at dealing with people by the time you get to your 50s than you are in your 20s. So, yard-boo. So you think I could become the ambit? Unfortunately, I'm not terribly... Okay, so I think if we wrote down, I mean, it's not all about you, but I get it. I'm not diplomatic. No, I know. And if you wrote down the things that you have to be good at in order to run an embassy, let me just try some of them.

Would you like an awful lot of strangers coming into your house on a near daily basis, expecting you to offer them hospitality? Oh God, no. Would you like lots of people who only want to talk about themselves, not about you? Definitely not. God. Is there anything else I would want? Would you like to go and live in a foreign country? No, I don't think it's the job for you. I think our correspondent

has absolutely put a finger on it. But other jobs are available. A late life career in the diplomatic service does not lie ahead for me. No, but do you know what I'm saying? I think it's, you know, it's always about the, you know, the civil service intake is highly achieving graduates and that's great, absolutely great. But why can't you also have a recruitment drive that is specifically aimed at people who really have had the knocks and bumps of life and therefore might be able to take that

into the business of running the country because that's what the civil service does. Yeah, yeah. I'm hearing you. Yeah, but it's not there. No, you're definitely onto something. Quite a lot of people have had bad experiences with the fraud departments of their banks. Pippa says, I've had a similar call with a fraud chap from a bank when I was trying to pay my husband a large sum on a joint account of another branch. I was asked if he had forced

me and other such questions. I was really shocked at the questions. It was a 45 minute call. I know they have to be thorough, but really. I think though I completely agree with you about that Pippa. I think the tone of the questions would make it incredibly difficult for somebody to actually admit that they were in a vulnerable position. I think that's where they come a cropper because we both understand why they have to ask, but it's the manner in which they ask and often going back to worldly experiences as you age, these questions are being asked of mature people by people who are realistically in their 20s and possibly early 30s and can seem incredibly arrogant.

Arrogant and very antagonistic and very patronising and Pippa's right, you know, you should be asking whether somebody has forced you to, you know, within a relationship to give them an awful lot of money. We know that financial coercive control exists but you've got to be so emotionally attuned to people's circumstances to allow them to tell a stranger that that's what's happening in their home. And certainly the questions that were being asked of me and these other correspondents who've got in touch, they all say the same thing, that you feel like you're being slightly pinned against the wall and you've done something wrong that they're trying to expose, which just makes everybody curl up in a porcupine ball and go, no, don't want to do it.

This is really the 21st century at its worst in a way, isn't it? Because there was a time when you could pop into the bank. I know. And I know it's hard to believe, but sometimes those encounters weren't always pleasant. I had a very difficult one with the manager of the NetWest. Oh, I'm so sorry. When I was a student, he took against me.

But ultimately, the branch manager, and it was Barclays, another one of our listeners said, do name and shame. The Barclays branch manager, who I saw on the Saturday morning, was so helpful. Because you saw them face to face? Yes, because I had to go in with two forms of identification in order to get my bank account reinstated and she actually said as I was leaving and she was so... She was a lady bank manager? It was a lady bank manager and do you what she was so nice, she was really good at handling people because I was so angry when I arrived and I wasn't angry at all by the time I left and that

was down to her brilliance. She said that, you know, we can tell within a couple of minutes whether or not somebody's been the victim of a fraud. We, you know, that's just our, what we've learned to do. And you just think, yeah, that's the point, isn't it? Because you're in person. The other thing that really surprised me was when we were going through all the mechanisms to get the bank account reinstated, she had to use the same phone line that the normal punters have to use to get through to the fraud department so we were put on hold for 17 minutes too. Well he must have learned what's dark sound was she? How can they not have internal cons? Why are they using the same line? You are held in a queue,

your call is important to us. She works with you. What's going on? So thank you very much indeed to all of the people who got in touch. Somebody had a bad experience with Halifax, wishes to remain anonymous. And this from Chris who says I was also transferring a large amount of money to my daughter who's going to have some work done on her house. I had a woman at the end of the phone, she asked all the right questions, didn't lead to my age or sex and then apologized as she said she was going to warn me about how scammers work. I felt reassured that she had my best interests at heart. On another note my friend Veronica, she who didn't know

her mother could speak Polish, has just returned from Mexico where she's been on a swimming holiday where she and her daughter swam three kilometers a day. She's definitely a chip off the old block for sure. Chris lovely to have you back in touch with us three kilometers is a very very very long swim. Lisa has written in celebration of Jamal spare Jane Jane Mulcarens it's reassuring she says to have Jane as part of the off-air community. She is wonderful, funny and thoughtful. That's nice isn't it? Thank you Jane's mum. No, from Lisa who thinks Jane Mulcairons is great and she is great and thank you very much for writing

in about that. Millie says I grew up in Herefordshire, slightly closer to Hereford than to Hay, and I have lots of relatives on the English-Welsh border. It really is a great part of the world. I now live in London, but go back regularly. And wow, I did used to find it incredibly boring as a teenager, but I now love the fact that it's so inaccessible and unspoiled. Having said that, there have been some changes. The River Wye has changed significantly since I was a child in the 90s and is now, and this is very sad, no longer very swimmable. Oh, it's really un-swimmable.

There's so much chicken waste, isn't there, in the Wye? Yes, that's right, you're right. She does say there is still a Christmas Day dip in hay for the brave. Please though though do not under any circumstances persuade Netflix to make that documentary you were talking about. The area is too perfect and I fear they might ruin it. You're right though, there are some absolute characters in Hay who have been there for years and it really would be fascinating. I like to hear stories from my mum who used to run a female owned restaurant with some

friends in the town. This includes stories of the waitresses delivering cocktails around Hay on rollerblades. And also the ladies-only lunches which caused a scandal at the time. Blimey. I don't know what that can possibly mean. Were you travelling in a pack of ladies-only? Around Hay on rollerblades. No, I just...

No, no. Were you just lunching and being in... Was it a ladies only pack? Um, in Hay. When you went to Hay. Sorry. Um, no, there were definitely men there and some of them were allowed to speak. I mean, we kept them, you know.

Okay, as part of your party. Oh yes, very much. Turned the volume knob down a bit. What's the expression? Fig jam. Have we talked about this? Fig jam? Fig jam. We can't use the swears but it's... I'm great, just ask me. Okay, I'm with you. If you've ever encountered a Fig Jam, you'll know what I mean.

Yes. I didn't meet any at A, I should be clear, but sometimes one can find oneself in the close company of a Fig Jam. And they go on and on and on and on and on. Yeah, that was something conjured up by a friend of mine, I think. Okay. Now the official playlist that we're trying to create on Spotify, it needs a little bit of liftoff. Claire Jones has been in touch with us from the Cambridge area. Great idea about the playlist. You might be a bit disappointed by the results so far. As well as a link to the playlist, you need to share the invite collaborators link,

which appears when you click on the three dots at the top of the playlist. The link only lasts for seven days but Claire has attempted to share her favourite Laura Mvula track Phenomenal Women which she thought was very apt for the Offair Collective so we're on the case we will do that and the idea of the playlist it's not that Jane and I will fill it up with things that we like it's that we will make it available to everybody and we can build a community of it. Is that OK Eve? We'll have to wait until Rosie's back because she's... Oh!

We'll have to wait until Rosie's back and she's gone gallivanting around Milan hasn't she? She's back Tuesday. OK, so if you can all think of your tracks, get ready to load them. Have them just there on the Spotify and then we will sort it all out and we'll build a merry playlist, which I'm looking forward to listening to very much indeed. Quick one from Gail, in your quest to explore future location, location, location, the answer could be appearing on the celebrity version of Escape to the

Country. You could be taken to view a number of houses in an area you fancy. I'm not sure you'd fit the brief as in the celebrity edition the house viewers have no intention of moving to the country or anywhere else. Have you thought of Liverpool? Not recently, Gail. Liverpool! It's very true. Is it true that they never buy them? Well they don't odd escape to the sun or whatever it's called either. I know they never do. But it's always fun to watch. So we could do that. We're still waiting for all of the invitations and they just don't seem to come our way. Well no, but on the other hand I'd have to brush my hair. When I went to Hey I've

forgot a hairbrush. So humiliating to have a hairbrush or a comb. You're so Boris Johnson. I'm just a maverick. I'm so... You are so... That is exactly his MO. Yeah, so is. We have so much in common. We really, really don't! Right, Eve wants us to wrap up. She's made the signal.

Here comes the guest. When Chloe Dalton writes about the hair who came to live in her house, it is always with a sense of wonder, the soft circle of fawn-coloured hare around its eyes, its powerful haunches, the tiny puff sound it makes as it goes about its business. It is a love letter on the page. Chloe found the hare as a baby, a leveret, and didn't automatically think that years later it would still be such a part of her life. But in Raising Hare, the book she's written about her journey with the animal, we learn just how strong the bond becomes between this

high-powered political advisor and this tiny vulnerable creature she finds. The book is part diary, part meditation on nature and a rallying cry for us all to stay in touch with the world that surrounds us. Chloe came in earlier to talk more about the book and I started by explaining, asking her to explain more about where she was in her life when the hare came into it. I had left government a few years previously where I'd worked for many years as a what we call a special advisor and speechwriter in the world of foreign policies. I'd worked in the Foreign Office for years and I'd left that and I was working outside government

but on the same kinds of issues. So on issues affecting women, in conflict, on issues surrounding terrorism and displacement of people and refugee issues, things like that. So my mind, even though I was in the the countryside in the north of England when this story began, my mind was very much overseas and not really focused on my immediate surroundings in terms of the environment other than of course we were all gripped by what was happening with lockdown and concern for our families. So which year was it? Which lockdown are we talking about before the actual lockdown lockdowns? Oh, we're talking February 2021. I couldn't tell you which one that was. It was now blurred

in my mind. It's not really, as you know, a lockdown story. It's just the set of circumstances that took me away from London, from my normal life where I travelled constantly. I lived with a suitcase half packed or half unpacked all the time and catapulted me, flung me into the countryside where I had this very unlikely experience. Tell us about the first time that you meet the hare. Well, it was a very grey, damp day and it came hard on the heels of a very long cold snap that seemed never ending. There was snow and ice on the ground for weeks and I ventured outside and heard, as I was getting ready to leave the house, the sound of a man shouting and a dog barking.

And I didn't think a huge amount of it, but I went to see what was going on. And when I had walked only really a few hundred meters from my home, I came across a tiny creature lying in a very exposed position in the middle of a track that runs down near my house and even though I had never seen a hair before I knew immediately that I wasn't looking at a baby rabbit I was looking at something very wild and very different and the word Leverett sprang into my mind. And Leverett is a baby hair. Yes it is, yes. The levrat was tiny, wasn't she? Yes, obviously I didn't come close to the creature. I stood back at a distance

and thought how extraordinary it was to see a baby hair. Normally they're hidden away. I didn't know a huge amount about them at this point, but I certainly knew that you wouldn't expect to see one in an explosive place like that. So I stood at a distance, I did what we all do nowadays, I whipped out my iPhone and took a photo because I thought that would be the starting end of it, and I went on my way, but I made a mental note about where the spot was because there are lots of predators, the tracks used by cars, the skies full of buzzards where I live and the thought did cross my mind that it was vulnerable

but I hoped that its mother might come along and take it back and that would be the last that I would ever see of it. But that didn't happen, did it? No, I came past four or five hours later and found that the lever hadn't moved, it was still lying completely in the open. As you say, it was sort of minuscule really. When I eventually came to pick it up, it fitted easily in the palm of my hand, it weighed less than an apple really. And at that point I worried, I thought perhaps it had been injured, I assumed

it had been picked up and dropped or certainly chased at least by the dog that I heard, I worried that perhaps the dog had caught the mother. And with all these thoughts growing through my mind I made a decision to bring the little animal in for what I thought would be a couple of hours I went to great length not to touch its fur directly and I had this idea which of course was naive that I would be able to return the Leverett to the field under the cover of darkness where there might be more chance of it being safe or found by its mother. Let's spool forward a little bit because the story in the book is about

your relationship with the Leverett as she grows into a hare. There are so many points at which I had tears in my eyes because what develops is just the most incredible bond of trust between a wild animal. You at no point tried to anthropomorphize the Leverett. You never give her a name, you try to put her in a cage once she's not having it at all. I think that's what makes the journey so remarkable. So can you explain a bit more about why you didn't want to do all of those things, which I think come quite naturally to us as humans. We want to befriend these creatures, we want to tame them, don't we?

Yes, and I had no prior convictions on this point. As I say, I was a foreign policy specialist. I didn't really think about nature and conservation issues, but as is the way of life, when something like this happens, you discover things about yourself. And it turned out that I had this quite sort of stubborn instinct to wish to protect their leverage. I never felt that she belonged to me as she grew into her hair, or even from those very early days. I felt that this was an animal that belonged to the wild and that had to return to the wild. And my job, having intervened in its life, rightly or wrongly, was to prepare it to return to the wild and my job having intervened in its life rightly or wrongly was to prepare it to return to the wild and then from that point you know flowed other decisions like restraint in how much I touched the little hair and also this feeling that I had much to the annoyance as it were sometimes

of my friends and family that I just didn't want to give her a name. It felt if I gave her a name I would be turning her into a pet. That's what we do with pets and the extraordinary thing about hares is that they've never been domesticated despite many attempts that we've made as humans. They're one of the few wild animals in the landscape that have resisted our attempts to instrumentalize, tame, tame, harness them the way we do with many other species. And so I don't claim that I did anything special. I think many people listening would have had the same instinct, that they were in the presence of something, of an animal that we don't understand a great deal about, that is very, very wild and should stay that way. Well I think you're underestimating your own self-restraint because I think most people would want to pick up a baby hair, a leaver it and stroke it and cuddle it and you know

turn it into a domesticated pet. Tell us about the level of trust that you manage to bring to your relationship with her though. I don't want to give too much of the book away because it's got some lovely twists and turns in it but she basically comes to trust you with her family doesn't she? Yes it turned out that this instinctive decision not to cage the levirate, not to try to tame the levirate, which also extended to making sure that that she could always come and go from the house and garden whenever she chose. And that it had this consequence that

she felt so comfortable in the house that even when she learned to leap the garden wall, which is a kind of moment that comes quite early on in the story when I feel sure the experience must have come to an end because she's got the wild at her feet and what you know she can run and run and that is although I felt sad it was a very beautiful moment but instead she chose to come back and to live between my house and the wild and as you say I won't give away too much of the story but she did make this extraordinary decision to give birth to Leveretts in my house and to raise them alongside me as a wild animal that came and went As she chose and her Leverets were completely wild. I've never touched them and

But yet they live alongside me in my house for a long period of time and they still alongside me in the garden What do you think the hare did to you? Is it is it? Is there a before meeting the hare Chloe and an after meeting the hair Chloe? Definitely and I'm still changing, I feel that. There are so many things I could say. One is the beautiful irony for me personally that I was somebody who always worked behind the scenes. I would never speak like this, I would never be on the radio, I would never speak in public, but I wrote for people who did and I was proud of what I did. I loved it I would tell us he wrote for for instance William Hague

I wrote for William Hague with William Hague for ten years when he was foreign secretary and before that when he was in opposition So whenever he represented the UK overseas and spoke at the Security Council on issues of war and peace I would work with him to write what he said. And he, and it's an incredible privilege. But of course, it meant I'd never written or published a word under my own name. And there's this incredible, beautiful irony for me than utterly silent creature helped me find my own voice. So I've written a book, I'm here speaking to you, all sorts of things have changed in my life. But obviously, beyond that, there's the more fundamental factor of having reconnected with nature. I didn't realise the extent to which I lived separate from nature. We all do in a way in

a modern world, most of us at any rate. But I was particularly separated from nature. And I think I've come to realise that we suffer as humans when we live like that. We are animals, we're not so different. There's more in common than divides us, us and wildlife as it were. So in many different ways I've changed my life, I've changed the focus of what I'm doing. I still do my foreign policy work, I still write speeches, I still give advice on those issues, but a big part of my heart and focus is now in the countryside and working on issues indeed to do with the protection of hares. Hairs are remarkable, aren't they? I didn't know about their mystical place in the folklore of this country, the fascination that so many writers and poets have had with them too.

We know them as the mad march hare, but actually we, I don't think we really, I don't think we think of them as a very important animal in the country anymore. I don't think so. They've been hiding in plain sight. They've had plenty of reason to fear us. The way we live our modern lives drives them to the fringes in many places, makes it harder for them to have their home rages safely. But I think also we've assumed that we know them, you know, we love them. They, as you say, they're in children's stories and folklore and Shakespeare and everything you can possibly think of. But I've had, for example, people say to me, you know, aren't hares just big rabbits? And of course I can now explain the distinction, but before I

didn't know myself. I'm a prime example of this. There are different species. They live all their lives above ground. They have this incredible athletic prowess. They're the fastest land mammal in the land and that's why they've been persecuted so much. Their numbers have declined by a significant percentage, over 85% in little over a century. So we're in danger of sort of not losing them, because they're still luckily in parts of the country, they're in healthy numbers, but under appreciating them, not studying them and not considering what the value and the beauty that they bring, well the value in terms of the ecosystem and the beauty that they bring to our landscape,

what they represent about our national character. I like to think, this sort of quiet persistence and perseverance of the life of a hare is not that dissimilar for how the qualities I note in many of my compatriots. And why are they so important in the ecosystem? Well they, I mean, they are prey to many animals for starters, but they also, I think, have suffered from this notion that they are pests. I'm slightly coming away from your question, I hope you forgive me. But we've treated them as if they are in such large numbers that they don't require any protection. They're the only game species in England and Wales that you can shoot at any time of the year.

So pheasants, which are bred commercially to be shot, quite rightly have a close season, a period where they can't be shot when they're breeding deer, it's the same for them. But hares somehow aren't even accorded that basic protection as an animal welfare matter. And many hares are shot during the breeding season and if that happens, their leverets starve to death if they're female. So I'm trying to get the law changed on this, I've got a petition, I'm raising it with government, I've got various parliamentarians trying to push to change the law, because that's, I suppose, one thing I learnt how to do while I was in government

and I'd love to put it to the service of hairs. Well, maybe that little Leveret was sent to you as a messenger from the wider hair community because of your political connections and boy, they chose right. Oh well, I don't know about that, but I do like to imagine as almost as a joke but the idea of a group of hairs getting together and saying look enough is enough. Something has got to change. You get over to Chloe's and Chloe will sort it. You can spare a lever it. No but in all seriousness I don't I still don't know I don't try to

I try to make this clear in the book I'm not saying we know we shouldn't go around picking up hairs I've not done it again the circumstances were unique these are animals that suffer in human hands they need to run and to be wild so even though it might seem a bit unfair really you know part of the message of the book is don't do what I did but let's together protect hairs in the wild and also I mean I say that's the message of the book, the book is I hope is something simpler than that it's just a story about how beautiful and special and enchanting these creatures are because they certainly do cast a spell I think.

Chloe Dalton's book is called Raising Hair it's available in paperback now I would recommend it I think it goes really really well if you've read some kind of very kind of hefty or complicated novel and you want to then place yourself back in the world of nature and read a beautiful story about how our friends with four legs are doing, then it's definitely one for you. Did you mention a show called Fake on the telly? Yes. Yeah, because Pratchett has emailed us and doesn't like it.

Well, you recommended it to me, that's why I watched it. It was on ITV, it was about the... God almighty. Which one was that then? It was about the dating scammer. Oh yeah, that was good. Pratchett, I'm sorry, I can't agree. Right, we've got to stop.

She says it's the most depressing, pointless eight hours of recent times. I tell you something, I'm so sorry, you're absolutely right, Bea, and you're wrong, but thank you, she does describe herself as being 58 and 11 months. But clearly much saner than me. A show I wouldn't recommend is Sirens on Netflix, which I watched one episode on last night. It was rubbish, absolute rubbish. Right, okay, and Julianne Moore's in this one, she's normally good, didn't get it at all. Well, I mean everybody needs to pep up their pension pot.

Right, oh, which reminds me, we'll very much be back tomorrow. Goodbye. 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, 2-4 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.