Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Spring chicken? Or sad potato?

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Feast your ears on today's ultimate finger buffet of an Off Air episode. Today, Jane and Fi discuss Banksy's potential retirement, six-month-old prawns, and the ingenuity of illegal graffiti placements. Plus Jane speaks to Deborah Haynes, Sky News' Security and Defence Editor, on her new podcast series 'The War Game' If 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 Fi Times Radio, News UK 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] The next book club pick has been announced! We’ll be reading Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession. Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Hannah Quinn Podcast Producer: Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unless Jeff is, I don't know, phenomenally virile. I think he's prime. Do you? Very good. Carry on. I'm Will Kelleher. Join me and Alex Lowe for The Red Lions, a special three-part series on the history of the British and Irish Lions from 1950 to this year's Tour of Australia. With first-hand accounts from the players themselves, it tracks the rancour

and revival of rugby's greatest touring team, the Red Lions. Memories, music, match reports and more available wherever you download the Ruck Rugby podcast from the Times. This episode of Off Air is brought to you by Washington DC. from the times. free things to do. Why not take advantage of the city's green spaces like biking through America's oldest national park, Rock Creek Park. Or you could see a show in a living presidential memorial. Or try out your sea legs and go kayaking around the wharf. The list goes on and on. There's only one place you can do all of these things. There's only one DC. And this month in a special episode of the podcast we're chatting to special episode of the podcast,

we're chatting to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Lonnie G. Bunch, who looks after 17 museums in the city. Sounds like it's time to plan your DC getaway. Book your trip to DC by visiting dialaflight.com forward slash wdc. Can I ask you a question? It's a how do they do that question? Well I won't know the answer for quite a while. So I took a different route home last night because we're all trying to find our way back in the heat, hopefully, and? And I went down some back streets near Brick Lane, which is a fantastic part of London. It's really, it's humming, isn't it? And they have quite a lot of street art there. And so there were these guys doing a mural that must have been about 20 metres high, all the way down the side of an exposed house.

You actually saw them doing it? Yes, so they're doing it. And obviously they're doing it with permission because they had a gantry and everything like that. So they were painting these huge faces. How do they do that? How do you manage to know the perspective of something so big when you're painting it so close? How would you know? Oh, my O-level art, grade C, is straining at the leash to come up with something really important and useful to say, but I've got nothing there. No, it's weird. I do not know.

What was it of? So it was of a couple of young men. They haven't finished it yet. I'll report back tomorrow, see how much more they've done. So I don't know what it's going to be about by the end. But you do see some absolute whoppers on buildings around London. And I don't understand, I mean especially if they're not official people doing it so they can't do it in daylight. If you're doing all of that tagging and graffiti in the night time,

and presumably sometimes you're doing it upside down, aren't you? Because you're hanging off the top of a building to get to the side of a building. Yeah. How would you know that the eye pupil is there and then you've got this bit to the nose and stuff? It's very clever, Jane. I don't want to marvel at criminality, but I'm always impressed by the ingenuity sometimes of how people have got graffiti in particular places. I know, definitely.

Because it's just, there was that, there was, I'm sure it was on the motorway, on a motorway gantry for ages, and it just said banter. For some reason it just made me laugh. And wasn't there a really famous one in Sheffield as well where somebody had proposed to their girlfriend in graffiti on one of the massive, massive buildings outside? We're not encouraging graffiti. No, but there's quite, I mean there's a lot of really, really beautiful graffiti and there are quite a few graffiti artists, obviously Banksy,

and stick in our part of London who make our buildings better. Actually, am I right in saying Banksy's gone a bit quiet? I'd never really followed his oeuvre that much to know how often he churns it out. He could just be retired. He could be. I think he's quite young. He may even be younger than you. We had an email, didn't we, from someone saying, stop going on about your advanced age. Because actually quite a lot of our listeners are way more advanced.

You're a spring chicken at the age of 61. I don't think, I've never felt more of a spring chicken at the age of 61. I don't think I've never felt more of a spring chicken than I do right now. Really? Don't you feel like a trust rotisserie bird? I told you that image that was taken of me in the kitchen the last time it was really hot at the weekend. I looked like a sad potato. I just can't function. Tomorrow though I think the temperature plummets by about 10 degrees. It does. I cannot wait. Me too, I think the temperature plummets by about 10 degrees. It does. I cannot wait. Me too. I keep on checking when it's going to happen. Is it 3am? 4am?

It's worth staying up for, whenever the bloody hell it is. Countdown to 24 degrees. I can't bring it on. Right, can we clear this up? Why do we refer to Jane Mulcairns as Jamal? I couldn't remember either. Paul says he could go back and try and find out where it came from, but plainly, and he makes it clear himself, he just can't be bothered. So what is the answer? So this emerged during one of your absences and somebody I think, and correct me dear listener if I've misremembered this, but I think somebody shouted Jamal Kerens into a smart speaker, one of those things that you're not operating with your fingers, and it came back saying we can't find Jamal Kerens. So it

was the pronunciation thing that led to it, but Jamal Kerens has just stuck. Jamal was born. Yes. Yeah, OK. So that's the answer, Paul. It's a shame you couldn't put the effort in to actually find out. But listen, in this heat, we'll forgive you. Now we've got playlist news, haven't we? Oh, the playlist. Now I think the playlist, especially ahead of our summer vacances,

Ecoutez et Repétez, is going to be a thing of beauty and wonder. The premise is very simple, you add your favourite track or just a track that you think is suitable, just do it as a PS if you're sending us an email, you don't need to take a specific email to do it. And Rosie, our executive producer, will add all of them to our playlist which shapes up as… Well, I'm going to... Is the word eclectic appropriate here? It's always overused, isn't it?

But let's go for it because it kind of is. It's eclectic is almost as overused as surreal, which you didn't used to hear very often. And now you hear it all the time and it needs to stop. But I'm very glad that Smorgasbord has been retired because that was always tedious, wasn't it? People had opened their radio programs so I think we've got a smorgasbord of subjects. Well there you haven't you got a finger buffet love. Yes with those with those white bread fingers with a little bit of salmon paste inside. The ultimate finger buffet of the 1970s, Ship based. Right. Playlist.

Playlist. Yes. Yes. Let's get on with the plays. So we've got the Lemonheads, the outdoor type, Laura Mvula, a phenomenal woman, Sing It Back, that's Pete Tong, the Heritage Orchestra and somebody else, but their name is incomplete here on this list. Something from The Greatest Showman. Now, this will be news to me. I don't know this. At least I don't think I do. But you would recognize it. I would recognize it. This is me. Okay. By Your Side by Sade and stumbling in Chris Norman and Susie Quattro suggested by Claire who says, I'm not as common as some Claire's as I don't have an eye. I was named after County Claire. Shame I wasn't as beautiful as my father found the west coast of Ireland. Well, I'm sure

you are beautiful Claire. She just says, I've got so many songs that make me happy, reflective and optimistic. Recently, I fell upon two tracks that were unfamiliar to me, courtesy of Spotify, and I love them. So I'm suggesting them to you. One was By Your Side by Sade from the year 2000. And I must admit I have heard but I've completely forgotten Susie Quattro and Chris Norman. 1978 and the song stumbling in. So Chris Norman was I think the vocalist from Smokey. Do you remember Smokey? No. Okay they were good actually Smokey. I'll revisit them. And I've suggested You to Me

at Everything by The Real Thing which I think I mentioned yesterday so that's on the playlist. What was your... was that The Lemonheads? Yes, The Lemonheads. Was you? Okay. Right, so we need more. Please do get involved if you'd like to suggest a song for the playlist and executive producer Rosie will do the rest. That's lovely. Can we also say a massive props to Anne Sinclair, who's sent us this fantastic picture from the bowels of the underground system in London where the people who do the boards are sometimes superbly funny and there's quite often, especially on the

Jubilee line actually at London Bridge, which has got a massive footfall, there'll be a board that makes some kind of little comment about world affairs or current affairs as you go down. A bit topical. Yeah, but they're always very acerbic and very clever and we're all grateful for that kind of human touch. And there's a board at the moment that Anna's photographed that does all the things about please carry a bottle of water and don't get on the train if you're feeling a bit unwell. And then the last paragraph says there is a high probability that some of your other passengers will smell like a six-month-old prawn. It's the greatest god.

Yes, it was a little bit ripe last night. But listen, you've got to... I'm contributing to it, I suppose. We've got to all be aware that it's not other people necessarily, is it? It's like complaining about the traffic. You are the traffic. Yes, that is a classic, isn't it? Have you ever been out for a drive?

Out for a drive? Yes, I have. Yeah, we used to do that. Yeah, quite often I'd take the kids out for a drive if one of them was having a bit of a mauling afternoon and I listened to a lot of radio too then. It was deeply, deeply comforting. And there'd be one facing forward in the car seat and the back seat and there'd be one in the baby seat and the front seat facing back. And I don't know why but I just always really enjoyed that kind of, that set up. When they were both in the back seat, it's niche this, and they were both in the back seat facing forward, didn't enjoy it as much.

But there was just something about that. I don't know if anyone shares that. Well, listen, I'm sure somebody will, darling. Right, this is more evidence of horrific misogyny. Sally draws our attention to something that has happened to her recently on a very special stay on the tiny Greek island. Now, as you know, with pronunciation of foreign parts, I'm enthusiastic, though not always accurate.

So I'll give this one a whirl. Eriqusa. Never heard of it. Has anybody else? The way I say it, there's a strong chance no one has heard of it. It doesn't exist. Sally says it was completely perfect. It was quiet, it was peaceful. There was a beautiful breeze blowing every day and you can't put a price on a beautiful breeze. But in the tiny tavernas on the beach look what happened when we ordered Theo Pateria Asprocrassi. By the way my taverna Greek fluency is amazing she says. Yes my husband got a much bigger glass than me. Imagine my horror and outrage. Right there's the. Two wine glasses and hubby has got a bigger glass. That's because he's a man and he's allowed more vino. Certainly in Greece.

Right, I'm going to Greece next week. I shall be keeping an eye out for this. But yeah, I mean, you're gonna find it difficult though because you're going with other women, aren't you? Yeah, so maybe, well, maybe we'll all get teeny tiny, teeny tiny glasses, almost invisible to the naked eye, because the Greeks don't want intoxicated women running around, causing all kinds of mischief. Well, they've had difficult women in their history, haven't they?

Very, very difficult women. Yeah, really difficult, very challenging. So we'll have to keep an eye on this. If you're traveling abroad, are you given like basically smaller portions? Although it may just be that in Greece they've really absorbed that news from the World Health Organization about six units of wine a year being more than enough for the average lady. So perhaps they're just going with that. Yeah. What was the allocation for men in that World Health Organization report? I don't remember. I'm gonna look that up. Yeah. Now I don't know whether or

not we should do Joan's fantastic email about Lauren Sanchez. Well I think she, yeah go on, I think in the heat you're allowed special concessions. Okay I'm very happy to do it because I suffer from the same thing so it actually made me have a bonding moment with Lauren Sanchez. There isn't much else that we can bond over. No, there isn't. By the way, people worried about whether I got the refund from Amazon. I did. And I've got to say, whoever that chatbot was, or maybe it was a real person, they've sorted it out for me.

Well, that's good to know. Back to Lauren and Geoff. They're still on honeymoon everybody so I suspect they won't be listening. I think they'll be quite tired. Everybody says that like on honeymoon all you do even in your 50s is have sex. I don't believe it's trophy. Unless Jeff is I don't know phenomenally virile. I think he's prime. Do you? Very good. Carry on. Sorry she shouted there. There's no need for that. Hello YouTube. I'm the Jan in Jan Moments. I have to disagree with you about this woman's wonderful body.

I saw a picture of her I think in the time. She's got big fat knees. of her I think in the time. She's got big fat knees. Jan goes on to say, what a bear of show-offs, no class whatsoever, money doesn't buy that. However she is 55 and her body does look okay but the knees, it's the wrinkle at the top of them. I'll try and find the picture and send it. Right Jan, it made me laugh. I've got terrible, terrible, terrible knees myself for some reason when we're at 5'5". I can see one of them. No, they're really, really awful. I've got my dad's knees.

But what does that mean? Well, they're quite, they're just extremely large. What do you mean, extremely large? Show me yours. Okay, so your knee, your actual knee cap and all of that. Yeah, my knee cap, yeah. I see, actually, it's tantalizing, isn't it? Well, it is, but it's quite nice and neat and your leg goes in before it. It's my only just. It doesn't. And I've got the same thing, I've got a fat bit at the top of my knee.

We did a feature on it once at Five-Eye. Your knees are quite cute, they're sort of, they're a little face. Yeah, no they're not, they're extremely unattractive. I beg to differ. No, they really are, So I have some sympathy. Okay, right. Jan, just know that I love you. That's what I'm saying. Jan, we hear you, we see you and thank you for that. And we should say Lauren Sanchez, she's an award-winning journalist. What's she won an award for?

She won the Jeff Bezos Award for contributions to journalism. I'll look it up. Okay, so look, we've slagged off a lady. Let's slag off a couple of blokes. Well, actually, this just really made me laugh yesterday from Monday's edition of the Daily Mirror tabloid. And it's just, if I'm honest, I'd forgotten about both of these people. But it's just good to know that quiz show legend and former breakfast radio host here in the UK Chris Tarrant, who was the host of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, he has blasted Phillips Gofield. Now, Phillips Gofield was omnipresent on British television, fell out of favour relatively

recently and you can all, you probably either remember why or you can look it up but what I really like about Chris Terran is that he's just he's just sucking it to him he just clearly doesn't like Philip Schofield probably never did and Chris is great to say Schofield they always said oh but he's a safe pair of hands and I like this this. Did anyone ever say, oh, it's five to eight, got to get home quick because the safe pair of hands is on. The shows he did were mainly crap. Right, Chris. Thank you very much.

I wonder whether the heat's just getting to everybody. But anyway, he's had a go. He's had a go at Philip Schofield and the Mirror goes on to refer to Chris Tarrant as twice married Tiswas star Chris. Well he is! It's true, you're forever known to the tabloids by you know the number of times you've been married, the number of times you've been divorced and usually the value of your house and usually your age as well then, in fairness they do say 78. But the Tiswas connection is quite interesting isn't it, because actually Chris Tarrant has done so many other things since Tiz-Waz. If you said Chris Tarrant, word association,

I wouldn't say Tiz-Waz. I'd say he wants to be a millionaire. I'd say Capitol Radio. Well I'd say yeah, I mean his breakfast show on Capitol Radio was much admired. It wasn't really my cup of tea, but much admired. But I do get his point that there is a kind of peculiar bland quality that could attach itself to almost all successful TV presenters. And whatever you think about Philip Schofield, for years he was a successful TV presenter. But I rather like Chris Terran's point that his capable presence on television wasn't necessarily something that captivated viewers. No, I agree.

There was no spark, was there, particularly. There was just extreme competence. But how ironic that he turned out to be an absolutely unsafe pair of friends. And that's, ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth, girlfriend? Just on the Capital Radio Breakfast show, I loved it, Jane. When I first moved to London and I tuned into it, it just sung of all of the things that this great capital city had to offer.

Do you remember? Because they had the helicopter that went up every morning. The Eye in the Sky. The Eye in the Sky. And sometimes they'd be really naughty and they would tape whoever was in the Eye in the Sky singing along badly to the song that was on before they came to the eye in the sky and they'd play it out and hilarious knick-knack things like that from the cupboard of hilarity. But actually it did bounce along. I thought it was a great, great show. Really, really good show.

What did you listen to? Well, I wasn't in London, so... But when you came to London, because you couldn't be on air... I was on radio. That's true. Sorry, that means I wasn't in London. But when you came to London, you were on air. I was on radio. That's true. Sorry, that means I wasn't listening to you. This bit won't be included when the podcast is put out. In 1999, Lauren Sanchez returned to KCOP TV to anchor UPN News 13, where her team won an Emmy.

Sanchez was co-host on KTTV Fox's 11's Good Day... Oh, she was what? Sorry. Hang on, hang on everybody. What are her credentials? She was co-host on KTTV Fox 11's Good Day LA. Good day LA. An anchor on the Fox 11 News at 10, she was the runner-up in the nationwide hosting competition during season two of The View in February 2000.

Runner-up. But she won the big prize now. Yeah, oh she certainly has. Yes, and there'll be nothing but... Is there anything above five stars in hotels? I don't know. Oh, I think there is these days, isn't there? Okay.

Yeah, I think there is this kind of six-star thing going on. Sometimes they... Rob Rinder does that amazing hotels life beyond the lobby series, doesn't he? No, he doesn't, I haven't seen that. With Monica Galletti, is that correct? Right. And they go to some of the world's most expensive,

exuberant deluxe hotels. And it's quite a clever conceit because they go and work there, well, they pretend to work there for a day, behind the scenes and all of that kind of stuff. But some of the luxury on offer Jane is just, I mean it's wasteful, we know all about. Is it sort of clean sheets every day, that kind of thing? It is exactly that. That's mad isn't it?

Yep, and the amount of waste is just ridiculous. So you'd never leave a soap bar that had been used once in the bathroom. Everything is new, new, new, new, new. Every single day. Yep. And just some of the opulence is just weird. You know, all the gold taps and the gold chandeliers and the 27 different dining chairs in your suite. And you just think it just genuinely I just feel a bit lonely yeah if I booked into the presidential suite and I had

four rooms to choose from and it was just me. Well you wouldn't be lonely with Jeff Bezos though, we don't know how attentive he is as a hubby. I think we ought to have a new feature hubby of the week I've thinking about this. We could even have a jingle for that. And it doesn't need to be heteronormative, so we could have an alternative as well, Partner of the Week or Girlfriend of the Week, whatever you like. But I do think there might be some legs in Hubby of the Week.

And what are we expecting people to come up with? If people tell us something positive there, Hubby has done that week, whether he's made a shelf or fixed something or I don't know proactively taken the rubbish out or made a beautiful meal. Just your overall level of expectation from men has sunk so low. It's probably true. Can we just bring in Canada? Some of them are just functioning really well, Jane. Do you accept that?

Well, let's hear about it. Okay, they need a special prize. They need a special jingle. Now, have we got the jingle ready, Hannah? I know jingle can cause alarm. Yeah, jingle coming up. We need a jingle to warn about the jingle. Actually, Hilary Burt, who's made some of these fantastic jingles for us, you could

make a jingle warning jingle, Hilary, if you've got a moment. Right, let's actually try and be slick and let's have the jingle. Thank you, Hannah. I thought it was brilliantly done and I didn't think that was too loud at all. Let's call in Canada. Canada calling. Oh, that was too loud. Was it? Yeah. Okay. Canada calling. Carol in Canada. I've got to say living here in British Columbia, Canada, so close to Canada Calling. Oh, that was too loud. Was it? Yeah. Canada Calling. Carol in Canada. I've got to say, living here in British Columbia, Canada, so close to the USA, what we have on television every day is Trump speeches, Trump tweets, Trump soundbites, on and on

it goes. Then there is the never-ending analysis of what we just heard or what we just saw. The right-wing Trump supporters and their so-called journalism is sickening. Can I ask you to please, please, DON'T stop mentioning fresh American developments? We in Canada have felt pretty lonely at times, as the rest of the world falls all over him and bends to his demands. I do not blame any leader for attempting to shield their citizens by placating him as we're dealing with a very fragile ego here. Just give us a wink, as our Prime Minister does,

or cross your fingers behind your back so we know that the rest of the world hasn't gone loony tunes as well. I was so dreading our Prime Minister's meeting at the White House after witnessing Trump bullying Mr Zelensky. However, nothing Trump said or did even touched Mr Zelensky's dignity, nor our Prime Minister Mark Carney. By the way, I nearly fell out of bed with your first jingle, but I will gladly turn down the volume for a second just in order to hear your laughter and the obvious enjoyment you get out of it and share with us all. I hear so much joy says Carol. Yeah you see we're just we are enjoying it Carol. We are both frustrated. 20 something disc jockeys.

So we really think this is great and thank you for sharing our joy. She mentions a hobby here. Are you ready? I too am a woman giggling in bed while hubby snores. Yeah there's a lot of snoring husbands who aren't joining in on this fun. I know. They're miserable aren't they? But Carol thank you very much. And we hear you and we won't stop mentioning him because as we both attempted to say last week we don't really have an option. Irritating though the man may be in any number of ways. We're not really playing to his tune by referencing what he does and says because as Carol understands we're all actually impacted by his presence whether we like it or not so to ignore him just I'm afraid isn't really an option. Well it's not an option in our profession and it would be a foolish thing

to do but my theory is that Melania won't get in touch with hubby of the week. Can we call it clap a man? Clap a man? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. Well, we could have a little round of applause. That shouldn't be too difficult to conjure up, should it? No, it shouldn't be at all. I can't wait to hear what people say. Now, this is going to remain anonymous, but Jane and I are both really really interested by the weight loss drugs and the speed with which they have taken off and seemingly taken over so many areas. It's AI, it's just the medical world's AI isn't it?

It is. In terms of the, you're right, I mean the speed at which it's become completely normal, acceptable to reference Monjaro or Govee or Azempic and I think it would be fair to say that we all probably know some people who are on the drugs or have been on them or might be thinking of going on them so anyway let's see the email. But so many of the discussions we are having are about the side effects that becoming quite apparent about the difficulties we were talking yesterday the journalist Lucy Cavendish had written a piece for The Times

about her experience of being on Manjaro and the fact it means that she's stopped cooking. And it's completely changed her family life. She's got three young adult children living with her and she no longer cooks a meal and puts it on the table every night. One of them had resorted to just buying cheese strings in the fridge as supper. That really is a sign of protest isn't it? It is. Because I don't think there's any real string in those cheese strings.

Well, yep. I think the fact that we have left the world cheese strings in our generation is something that is worth talking about another time. Do you actually read that article? If you haven't already read it, I think it was the most read article on the Times.com yesterday, wasn't it? Because she was a woman who loved her food. I think she'd been the editor of the Observer Food Month. She'd been the launch editor. Yeah, so she knew all about it. It wasn't like she didn't enjoy food much. She really did. And now she has not a shred of interest in it. Yep. And it's quite telling when you're the provider of the family meal as well, if you've stopped doing that.

Anyway, here we dive into our anonymous correspondent and thank you for sending this. I'm a woman of a certain age who's been taking Monjaro for 14 weeks. I was very hesitant due to having some severe gut problems and radical lower anterior resection surgery for diverticulitis in 2022. Apologies if that's the wrong pronunciation. Post-surgery I was left with what was probably intense and life-affecting IBS but I was also uncomfortably overweight so took expert medical advice before starting the drug under medical supervision. I am paying privately for it. The effect on me has been nothing short of remarkable. As well as having steadily

lost around 16 pounds so far, the drug seems to have stabilised my gut problems. The IBS has all but disappeared, and I'm now able to function like a normal person once again. I do suffer from nausea from time to time, but not to an unbearable extent. I can cope with it. I've also lost my taste for alcohol,

and in the main, for chocolate, previously a huge weakness. For me it would be worth taking this drug even without the weight loss, that is how profound the effect on my gut has been. I do accept it's not everybody's experience but the drug might be worth a try if you need to lose weight or have certain gut issues. You can always just stop taking it if the side effects are too difficult doing resistance and weight-bearing exercise whilst on the drugs also crucial, but I was doing that before so it's no hardship for me. I found that fascinating because I've not heard that told about the weight loss drugs so far that it can really help with gut problems and so many people have IBS and other things

you know particularly in our time of life. So I don't know why it would be that this drug is managing to do so many things. A lot of people say that it has helped their mental health as well, it's disconnected for some people the little addiction nasty that's going on that means you're thinking about food all the time or whatever it is. It's just extraordinary, Jane. Well, I didn't know about that. IBS are possible.

So it's not quite a cure for IBS, but it has quietened it all down. Yes. Yeah. Okay. I mean, that might be careful. We don't know whether that would be the case for everybody taking a weight loss drug. Exactly. But that's the thing, isn't it?

Yeah, it's just so different. exactly but that's the thing isn't it? That we find ourselves reporting these seemingly endless side effects both good and bad but they do seem to be drugs that have come to the market without an awful lot of clinical trials that can tell us about these different aspects of it of course it had the clinical trials to do with weight loss and particularly to do with how that would help people suffering from diabetes but all of these other things so we find ourselves going wow or ooh nearly all the time in a way that I cannot think we've ever done for another drug that's come to the market. On Thursday Jack Mosley's on the program and therefore in the podcast and he's written a whole book about the other medical side effects of the weight loss drugs. So we'll definitely talk about this with him.

Are you reading his book now? I finished it, yes. And? It's absolutely brilliant. It's called Food Noise and it's part a kind of thesis about what the drugs were meant to do and what they've turned out to do, but it's also a program of what to watch out for when you take them and the other things that you do need to be worried about because there's actually quite a lot of malnutrition around for people who've been taking the drugs consistently for quite a long period of time, you know, if you're not getting the right vitamins and minerals because you're simply not eating as much which is just absolutely absurd.

So it's also... We don't start creating other problems. I mean, Ricketts could make a comeback, couldn't it? He mentions all of these things, so we'll have a really decent chat with him about it. And you know, if you're on the weight loss drugs and you think that you've got something worth telling us about, we'd be very interested in hearing from you and mostly we hope that they're working and you know they're beneficial to people. Yeah, I mean it's still not a level playing field is it, so if you want the NHS to pay for your weight loss drugs you've really got to tick a quite a long list I think of boxes haven't you?

There are four conditions you have to be suffering from. You have of boxes. You had to be. You had to be. You had to be long. That'll be because you've got peculiar knees that you said that then. I've never known this about her knees before today. Has it put you off? Well, just slightly. My stomach's really kerky. I'm really sorry. It's all right. Annabelle has a point. She says her book club was chatting about breastfeeding recently. We do occasionally talk about the book, she says. Yeah. Some of our older members have been mused by the current insistence on breastfeeding at all

costs. And they contrast this with their own experience. They were discharged from hospital with a great big pack of formula and tablets to dry their milk up faster. Yep, absolutely that's what used to happen. My favourite anecdote was from one ridiculously glamorous 80 year old Pauline whose son wasn't interested enough in his bottle so the health visitor, and she says in capitals, the health visitor recommended adding Nesquik to make it taste nicer. I would add that all the bottle fed offspring have grown up perfectly healthy, so younger listeners shouldn't feel bullied by anybody about this. Now it's a delicate area. I've always said you do what works for

you and your baby and it's none of our business really frankly what happens. Nesquik, I'm here to say I don't think you should add it to formula feeds. That's all I'll say. Thank you, Doctor. Well, if you do, just make sure it's the banana flavour. Oh, God! It's much nicer than the strawberry. Is it, though? I quite like it.

Right. Okay. Claire Bresfed, her six-month-old, whilst in a conference room in a hotel in Belfast as she was preparing to be a contestant on Mastermind. That's impressive. It is, isn't it? They had to film the whole room of about 30 of us listening to a presentation about the rules and what we could and couldn't tell people afterwards. I didn't win my episode, but I was pleased with my performance considering I hadn't slept for longer than about three

hours in the previous six months. Well done. Well done. That's brilliant. I'd like to hear from other people who've been on quizzes. You've been on some, haven't you? On the celebrity, in inverted commas, university challenge. Yeah, but I'd like to hear from people who were, I don't know, a civilian egghead or something like that. Definitely. Yeah, it'd be interesting. And how were you treated by the host? Was he a jocular? They're usually chaps, aren't they? Women aren't really allowed quizzes because we're a bit too silly. Yeah I think I probably have told our lovely group about what was the other

one? Celebrity Weakest Link. Oh Weakest Link, yeah. No you didn't really, yeah. We can't go there. Let's just talk. Well I mean it must be a boring job to do but it's also very well paid. Point well made. Karen comes in with her family going to Disneyland when her newly born daughter was three weeks old. God. I mean that's quite bold isn't it? Not to miss out on any of the rides. We went on the Jaws ride along with my four year old son and husband. I don't know if you've been on it but there's a lot of fire and large killer sharks jumping out of the water. It must have been quite alarming for my daughter so the easiest thing to do was to stick a boob in her mouth and feed her while Jaws' head passed by perilously close to us. As a child and adult she's always loved scary fairground rides maybe due to the early experience

that she had. And Karen is living in the Cotswolds, the best retirement move ever made. What a glorious village I live in. Is it called geating power? I don't know. Greeting power? Let's have a look. Guiding power. Greeting power.

I don't know. I've honestly... I live in... No, I've never heard of that place. She's a Geordie and now she's in the Cotswolds. Yes. Oh, that can happen. Yes. You could move to the Cotswolds. Could be where Vera's gone.

You could move to be closer to Ed Vasey. Yes, I could, Fee. Thank you. Greetings from Luzerne in Switzerland, says Georgina, though I'm originally from Basingstoke. Oh, fabulous. Beautiful Basingstoke. It makes me chuckle every time you mention it. Well, there's another mention for the, what would you call, Basingstoke is the, what is

it? It's the something of the home counties. But what is it? Well, it's the former important and rather beautiful market town swamped by the financial services industry. Right, yeah. She says, just thought you'd enjoy knowing that here in Zurich, the ladies Lido charges an entry fee of eight francs while the men's version across the river Le Mat is totally

free. Make of that what you will. I've chosen to channel my outrage into cardboard signs at the annual Frauenstrike tag, that's Women's Strike Day, although it's one of the most magical places I've ever visited, free from loud music from tinny iPhones and a very broad church of women from everywhere, attached to some virtual postcards of the wonderful ladies Lido. I love the pod, I'm one of your younger, I hope still, listeners at 28

and I often boast about my advanced knowledge of the menopause, thanks to you. Yeah, it's always good to have an advanced knowledge of the menopause at the age of 20. Don't let it worry you too much. No, no actually don't let it worry you. But that's an outrageous thing, isn't it? The ladies lido is extra, or in fact there is a price to be paid and the men get in free. That's peculiar. Why is there a men's lido in the first place? Indeed, why is there a women's lido? Why can't they mix? But also, what's the Women's Strike Day?

I'd like to hear more about that. Frawan Strike Tag. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. Could you get back in touch, please? A little bit of extra work, but she's only 28. So she won't be minding that, will she? She's got time on our hands to send us a long missive. But also what a beautiful place to live. That is a very, very beautiful Lido.

Yeah, it does look absolutely gorgeous, doesn't it? Yes, there's obviously no mixed Lidos in that part of the world. We have Lady Bathing Night at our local Lido. So it's women only. it's lovely. Is it? Yeah, really lovely. What night is it? Tuesday. Right.

Tonight. Tonight? Yeah, but it's all fully booked. Yeah, you won't get in. So I don't really understand, the Lido is purely for those who can book? No, you can just walk in, but you have to join quite a big queue at the moment, but if you're a member then you can book. I'm so sorry, up to...

That was loud, that one. Up to a week in advance. That was quite a substantial parp from the digestive tract of leading broadcaster Fiona Glover. Have you seen, we have got a guest today you'll be glad to hear, have you seen Scrublands? Yes, I have seen Scrublands. So I'm glad. We finally found something we've both watched. Now I have not watched, I've only watched one episode of the first series, which I don't know how I missed it the first time around because I loved the book and I've forgotten what happens. So I'm absolutely gripped by Scrublands.

This is, it's what's so brilliant about it at the moment is that it's set in Australia. It's on the BBC iPlayer and it looks so hot doesn't it? It just looks so hot, fleabitten out back town and it's really quite sinister. I'm loving it. Yep, so it's based on the book by Chris Hammer. Yeah, it's very good. And then season two of Scrublands comes out this week, doesn't it? Yeah. So it's interesting because I've only watched it recently and I completely missed it being around.

So I wonder whether it's arrived quite recently on the iPlayer. It's got adverts in it. What? I know. I was watching it on the iPlayer last night and by episode three I was being shown adverts. Isn't that spooky? You're being targeted. I didn't see any adverts. Isn't that spooky? You're being targeted. I didn't see any adverts. Okay. But I'd be interested in your thoughts by the end of it. I've really, really enjoyed watching it, Jane. Yeah, well, those are very good books. If you're looking for some, I mean, let's be honest, slightly grimy outback noir. He's the king, isn't he?

Yes, he is. Jane Harper, we should always give a mention to. Oh, and I like Jane Harper too. Yeah. But we don't need to be pulverised by Australian heat, we've got our own thank you very much and just to our Australian listeners can you take it back please, we don't want this because we're not built, our houses aren't built for it, our transport structure isn't built for it, we can't do it. Yeah but our temperaments are not built for it. No, indeed. Now the government's much anticipated strategic defence review of last month warned of the

immediate and pressing threat posed to this country by Vladimir Putin. The Russian embassy in response said Putin's regime had no intention of attacking the UK at all. But what if? How would the government react and would we be able to be kept safe? Well, there is an interesting new podcast series available now by Sky News and Tortoise Media, it's called The War Game and it puts former ministers and top officials into a war game, a hypothetical crisis and asks them how they would stop a military assault on our shores. Now it's devised and written by Deborah Haynes who is security and defence editor at Sky

News and Deborah joins us now. Deborah, just reveal exactly where you are and what you're doing. Well, you've actually really saved me to be honest, because I'm at a hostile environment training refresher course, which people who go to conflict zones need to go on every three years to sort of keep us up to speed. And the most useful bit is the first aid bit. And I believe I'm missing the catastrophic bleed element, which usually involves getting squirted with lots of fake blood.

I'm hoping I also miss the bit where you have to gouge out sort of lumps of cookie from someone's mouth to prevent them from choking. But obviously, it's very serious and important, and I will be making sure I catch up with my colleagues who are currently doing this good work. MS. I'm glad you changed course there and made light of all this and then suddenly remembered that you need to take it all very seriously. And I should say, having listened to all five episodes of The War Game, I'm taking all this very seriously indeed. Was this the intention, was that the intention of the Wargame podcast to actually make those of us who don't know an enormous amount about the defence

industry and about the defence of the realm just to engage with this as something that's actually very relevant, all too relevant you might say? I mean it's incredible to hear you ask that question. Like it's a really, it's sort of a labour of love. And it is kind of like a life's work poured into this podcast, because I'm somebody who's, because of my job, had to cover conflict over the last two decades, really. I first went to Iraq in the beginning of 2004 and have seen what it's like for a country that doesn't have security. And then from 2014 have been really alive to the reality of the threat posed by Russia to Europe in terms of rewriting borders by force and the idea that this peace dividend that all European countries, NATO allies took, including the US, following the end of the Soviet Union perhaps wasn't such a wise thing and that it's been almost a holiday from history rather than a new reality in terms of living in a world that feels very peaceful or in a country

that feels very peaceful. And for people like me, as in journalists, and then also people who work inside the military and do security stuff, they are all too alive to the reality of the threat that is evolving and the challenges it poses to liberal democracies like ours and then what it means when a country like the UK that is a nuclear power has a, you know, it sees itself as a leading member of NATO, has countries that rely on it for their security and has chosen to erode our capability and our capacity to fight high intensity war, which is all very complicated and kind of nebulous and abstract if you don't feel the threat. Right. So the idea of the podcast was to try to bring it to life in a way that hopefully is easy to understand and makes people think. Well, it did make me think. And can we

just deal with a kind of elephant in the room, which is that some people might be thinking this woman Haynes, she's in the pocket of the defence industry, because it would be impossible to listen to this podcast and not conclude that Britain does indeed need to spend more on defence. So can you answer that, please? Are you in the pocket of the defence industry? I have never been in the pocket of the defence industry. I'm a journalist. I don't get paid by anyone other than my employer to do my work. And I have worked every single weekend, Easter holidays, I've worked the entirety of this year trying to put this together out of a driving passion to make something that hopefully,

it gives, you know, and it's not just me, there's Rob Johnson, who is the academic at Oxford University, who actually, he created the war game, as in the actual scenario. He too, the two of us together, we sat last year trying to think of a way to engage the public in a way that we feel it's not about telling people that you need to spend more at all. It's about educating people, that people understand the risk of long hospital waiting lists and the real, the fear of not having a school in your neighborhood that could educate your children sufficiently. But because we haven't had to deal with an existential threat to the homeland as our, you know,

our forefathers did during the Cold War and then those who lived through the Second and the First World Wars. We don't understand, and it's through no fault of our own, and our ministers, our leaders don't understand it so much either. So it's, we wanted to create something that would help to make people, help people understand and then you're able to make more of an informed choice because it is about choice. Yes it is. We should say you have a stellar cast list of real life former politicians. There's the defence secretary, once defence secretary, Ben Wallace. He's playing the prime minister in this scenario. Jack Straw's in there. You've got Amber Rudd, people like Baroness Helena Kennedy are in the mix as well. Did they initially start off treating this as a little bit of fun,

or was it serious right from the start? What was the atmosphere like? Yeah, it was, I mean, I have to say, I asked every person individually if they would want to take part and kind of explain what the genesis of the idea was. And I think every single person who took part, they did it, you know, freely and did it because they really believed in the idea of trying to create something a bit unconventional to tell a story that's really, you know, if you listen to any parliamentary debate or read, you know, the Times. My dear colleague Larissa at the Times has been reporting on this for a long time, and I did before her as the previous defence editor, they really brought into the idea of this being a novel way of telling an old story. And then it was genuinely, I was so nervous, like I kind of stopped eating for the last 24 hours before everyone came

together because we had one shot at this. So everybody came to this basement in a building in central London at nine o'clock in the morning in early April and we didn't know if it would work. We didn't, everybody needed to get into their roles and take it seriously and it was just, it was incredible to watch. They all turned up, everybody came and they all sat down and they all just went switched. It was like magic switched into this into their former roles and just to watch it was a huge privilege. And it was incredible because it's not scripted so they didn't know what was coming at them. So yeah, it was really amazing to watch. Okay, now I don't want to give too much of this away because I'm sure people will take

the hint and listen to the war game. But in brief, it all starts with a kind of false flag operation and the Russians accusing Britain of something it didn't do. Can you just tell us a little bit more about that? Yes, so it needed to be a pretext for what then subsequently happens. And you know, you're drawing on reality, like Russia has been accused of false flag operations. There was a lot of concerns about Vladimir Putin doing some sort of false flag in the Ukraine war

in the early days and also now. And so it's a real thing. And so, yes, so there is a big explosion at a naval base in northern Russia, that kills dozens of Russian sailors. And the intelligence points to the perpetrators being Dagestani militants, and the Russians know this, or at least suspect this. And yet they use the fact that this attack has happened, which

they didn't. So a classic false flag would be they actually carried out the attack on themselves and then used that to blame the British. But the attack happened by these Dagestani militants in our game and the Russians used that as a reason to target the UK. And in the run-up to that, there it's a state of heightened tensions which you know echoes with the reality now let's face it and there's been some some mysterious outages on on the on the railway and the traffic lights in London have stopped working and there's been some a spike in cyber attacks and then the reason that the first Cobra meeting is called because it's all based around these Cobra emergency government meetings

is because police in Norfolk discovered the bodies of two F-35 pilots who've been murdered and clearly in the context of everything and the messaging from Moscow which is increasingly hostile the Prime Minister who's paid by Ben Wallace as you say calls this first emergency COBRA meeting and tries to work out how they can respond and try to deter threats because by this point, a big Russian naval task force is in the North Atlantic with its missiles within range of the UK. And Russia does attack Britain in your scenario, and our support or lack of it from the rest of the world is pretty chilling, Deborah. It is and I think it is. There were a number of reasons, of elements that I really hoped that the war game would draw out and enable us to talk about. And that first of course is like

is that the sort of the hollowing out of the armed forces and what it means not to have a military that is is designed to be able to fight a high intensity war. And then also about a population that's lost the resilience that we once had and there's a lot of language now about resilience. So wars are not fight by professional militaries alone. militaries fight battles, countries fight war. So it was to get across that message, which is something that, again, our predecessors absolutely understood through bitter experience.

But then also it's to talk about our allies. Whenever the government talks about our defences, its first stock answer is that we're part of the most successful defence alliance in history in the shape of NATO, which is true. It's an alliance of 32 member states, the most powerful of which is America. But when you have a White House with an America first foreign policy, as we have with Donald Trump and the language that the US president has used about whether or not he would defend

NATO allies that don't pay their way. And yes, there was a love in last week with Daddy Trump. And yet it's really a sign of how the European nations absolutely need to keep Donald Trump on side because they need him to understand the value of NATO, of being part of this alliance and being willing to commit, you know, American force to the alliance. But what happened? What would happen if that wasn't the case? And so that's, you know, we're testing, it's a low, extremely low likelihood, but high impact scenario, which means a low chance of it happening, but catastrophic consequences if it did. Just, I mean, very briefly going back to what you said about the NATO summit, it was you,

wasn't it, who asked the question to Donald Trump about the whole daddy thing? Yeah, I did ask that question. But it was, obviously, it was a bit of fun, but it was a serious question in the sense of, you know, we were all as journalists covering the summit, you know, kind of quite surprised to see Mark Rutter, the head of NATO, sending this text, this message to Donald Trump, a private message, which then the US president posted publicly with sort of gushing language about how appreciative NATO allies are of Donald Trump's leadership and how this is a big win for him that NATO allies at the summit agreed to increase defence spending, which is all absolutely true, but it was more kind of like the language that was being used.

And then in a press conference with Donald Trump, Mark Ritter kind of referred to him as daddy, talking about the Iran-Israel war and how Donald Trump kind of, you know, like butted the two heads of kids together, which was kind of the analogy that he was using. And Mark Ritter kind of carried it on with the daddy reference, which then really, you know, people were quite surprised to hear. And I asked Mark Ritter about that language, and he doubled down on it and said, you know, it's, you know, it's good to show that we Europe are appreciative and Donald Trump, you know, he deserves

praise. And then I asked Donald Trump whether, you know, he's been referred to as daddy, but does he regard his NATO allies as children? And, you know, once they've, you know, kind of grown up and got their grown up spending in place, would America then walk away, move away? Could they do it without America? That was the underpinning of the question. And he didn't really answer that. He said, ask Mark, but he did say that right now, NATO needs the US.

And I think for NATO allies, hearing the US president say those words will be hugely comforting because you'll remember on his way into the summit in The Hague, he was questioning the definition of Article 5, which is the founding principle of the Alliance and Attack on All, sort of inferring that there were multiple definitions and he'd give his definition and that did set alarm bells ringing before the summit even started. We should also mention nuclear weapons in your scenario in the war game, because Britain

is isolated and nobody does come rushing to our aid. That would make the use of nuclear weapons, because I should say that again in the war game ballistic missiles have hit major important strategic targets across the UK and although not huge numbers of people have been killed, morale is incredibly low as it would be and we are alone, not for the first time older listeners might say, and therefore the Prime Minister, played by Ben Wallace, has to consider using nuclear weapons, which are of course unusable, aren't they? What do you think? I mean, this was the bit that I probably learnt the most from in terms of everything that

I learnt a lot from the podcast from playing the war game out. But as someone, you know, I'm a defence journalist, so I should maybe be, I should have understood the nuclear deterrence versus conventional deterrence more comprehensively. But what I hadn't properly appreciated is, we are a nuclear power, and with that comes huge responsibility. Like you say, these are, you know, nuclear war can never be won and should never be fought. That's how the saying goes about when it comes to nuclear conflict, because the weapons are so horrific. And yet, when you are in a situation like the UK, where your conventional forces have been reduced,

and the UK in this alliance structure with NATO, it's not designed to deter a country like Russia on its own, it's designed to deter as part of an alliance. But if the UK is isolated and doesn't have the conventional force to be able to give the leaders options, conventional options, then it's called like an escalatory ladder. It suddenly goes, there's a very big wrong jump from nothing to nuclear force or very little to nuclear force. And it was quite interesting that actually the fact that the UK is in this position, this horrific position in the game, you know, the players actually use that to pressure their European allies, to their NATO allies, their American allies, to come to their help with their conventional

force because otherwise the UK's options are alarmingly limited. Can I just put to you some of the points that listeners are making? This is, I mean, a lot of people are saying that, well, here's one. What a load of nonsense. Russia can't even defeat Ukraine after three years of throwing everything they have at them. This is all performative nonsense meant to scare us all into accepting massive defence and arms cost increases. That's from Ben. So can you reassure Ben? No, I can reassure him that unfortunately, well, I can say to him that it's not nonsense. So, him that unfortunately, well, I can say to him that it's not nonsense. So yes, it's true that Russia has not been able to secure victory in Ukraine, yet it's also true that Russia is slowly grindingly using attritional warfare, pushing forward with horrific sacrifice, terms of the fact that Vladimir Putin is willing to see hundreds of

thousands of his own countrymen killed and wounded and then on a horrific tragedy on the Ukrainian side and yet he's still grinding on, he's not stopping and he has also put his entire country, its economy, onto a war footing and so that means that the country is producing weapons at a rate that dwarfs what European allies are able to produce and he has made very clear in previous speeches of his desire to return the borders to the 1991 borders. He sees the collapse of the Soviet Union as this catastrophe and he wants to revert that and we are part of NATO, so therefore should he dare to test the NATO alliance, that means he goes to war with the whole of the alliance including the UK and just one

final point in terms of threat no one's saying about Russia like he said at the beginning it's not about Russia invading the UK of course that would be ludicrous but threat is a threat is about capability and intent like Russia clearly has the capability to launch a load of missiles at the UK, right? No one's saying it's going to do that. It's absolutely not something that anyone is suggesting is about to happen or is even likely to happen. And I've said that it's a low likelihood scenario. Yet the capability is there. Who knows what the intent might be? Russia, Vladimir Putin, right up to the day before he sent his troops into Ukraine to launch their full-scale invasion over three years ago, was denying that the troops massed

at Ukraine's borders posed a threat, saying they were there on an exercise. So you cannot understand and coherently predict intent. So in that case, surely it's good at least to have a conversation and if you think it worthwhile then get prepared. Deborah Haynes and The War Game is out now. You can get it Fee from wherever. You get your podcasts from. Don't go to those naughty places where you can't get any podcasts. Only go to the place that you can get podcasts. Yeah we've said before that is the world's worst sentence. It doesn't really help anybody

who's never got a podcast because they don't know where the hell to go. It won't impact you because you're listening to a podcast and you know where you've been. At least I think you do. It's a moronic oxymoron. Yeah, it is. But there'll be a lot of people sort of popping into Greggs and saying, can I have a podcast? What exactly? They can say, no, we don't sell them. Yeah, I tried to get one from Boots. Just so I could get the fantastic reward points. They said no.

Right, we're back tomorrow. We slightly lost it. It's cool in London. It should be better. You take care of yourselves. Stay hydrated. And if you do get a bit hot and sweaty then, oh I don't know, console yourself with the fact that at least your knees are... No I think, I don't think it's, you're being, you're being too hard on yourself. Would Botox be a thing you could have put into your knee? I don't think, I don't think I want to freeze them as they are. I think I'd like them to move away. Both your knees just looking stunned for all eternity.

Right, thank you very much. It's Joan and Fee at Times.radio. Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do 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. Music