Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Stop The Cats (with Jon Ronson)

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

Jane is climbing aboard the Times Radio broadcasting bus and she's making sure everyone knows about it! Then there's more chats of motor homes, warmed milk and early political memories. Plus, journalist and broadcaster Jon Ronson stops by to discuss his podcast 'Things Fell Apart'. Our next book club pick has been announced! 'Missing, Presumed' is by Susie Steiner. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Were you about to say that you've never been wrong? I've never been wrong. Well, I don't acknowledge it anyway. I'm rarely wrong, in fairness. Are we good to go? Right. It's Monday and we're fired up. I'm going to be on the election bus tomorrow, Fi, and I know you're jealous, but you're just going to have to contain yourself. I'll tell you all about the facilities on the bus,

the soft furnishings. I feel I've heard a lot already. You're going to hear more. Yeah, actually, to be fair, Tide Radio has spent... You've mentioned it more than any other OB you've ever been on. I don't really know why. Well, because it's a bus.

Because I'm going to... I've never been on, like on a fully functioning broadcast bus, although Callum MacDonald did tell us last week that it was just missing one thing when he tried to broadcast from it. A microphone. He didn't have a microphone. But he had brought his own. And I love the way that he said,

he said, well, I saw the microphone as I was packing, I thought, yeah, I'll chuck that in. And I thought, actually, I bet Callum does that on every holiday and mini break mini break mini break it's a Scottish mini break he calms on a mini break uh because he's that type of guy isn't he always ready to broadcast oh yes given moments broadcast notice mic ready yeah whereas believe it or not we don't take microphones everywhere we go we really don't now we've had a load of emails and I just want to make the most of some of them. For a while I did actually, Jane. I had a little Sony handheld

and do you know what? The kids used to really, really love it. You know how kids always love a grown-up's piece of equipment rather than the toy that they're given? So you could buy them all of the fake microphones in the world but anything that came into the house that they're given. So you could buy them all of the fake microphones in the world,

but anything that came into the house that was sometimes BBC equipment, they were really fascinated by. So I did used to travel with a microphone quite often. Isn't that weird? But now I don't. When I would need it the most, it's gone to me. Thank you for that wonderful memory

that you've dredged up from your own personal archive. Oh, Eve, this is going to be a long week. That reminds me that the BBC, if they want to come round, Thank you for that wonderful memory that you've dredged up from your own personal archive. That reminds me that the BBC, if they want to come round, they did leave some equipment at my house and they still haven't been to collect it. Well, I've still got an ISDN like that paying for Jane. I mean, nobody's even on an ISDN. And that is why the licence fee is not the only reason it's going up. Now, look, lots to get through. Debbie says, quick email in response to Jane's remark about bottle tops.

I think the change to bottle tops may be due to health and safety concerns and the danger of bottle tops being swallowed. As bizarre as this seems, it does happen. And the playwright Tennessee Williams died from swallowing or inhaling a bottle top. That is such a fascinating detail, isn't it? Thank you for that, Debbie. I had absolutely no idea. And yes, this is this new thing where bottle tops

don't come fully off the bottle. And you notice it across all kinds of bottles. And I thought it might be to do with the recycling so you didn't take a bottle top off. It's like a ring pull, isn't it? It's a really easy thing to then just chuck on the floor. I thought maybe it was that. But it makes total sense if it's like a ring pull isn't it it's a really easy thing to then just chuck on the floor I thought maybe it was that but it makes total sense if it's a safety thing too

I do notice now that they have slightly rode back on the unbelievably difficult child locks on quite a few household products because they were just proving too difficult for adults particularly on

washing up liquid, no, washing liquids. Washing balls and capsules. Yes, capsules was the word that I was searching for because you really couldn't get into those at all. I just had to take some scissors to quite a few boxes because the press and hold at the same time and double your thumbs and all that kind of...

Oh, when it asks you to do two things at once... It's tricky, isn't it? It's a no-ho for me. But they seem to have made those a little bit simpler. Yeah, well, there you go. Some aspects of life are just changing. Evolving. Evolving.

We are all evolving. Very quickly, Cathy says, I'm going to keep it short. Keep it short. Always keep it short. Like us, keep it short. Rhubarb grows in the dark. Well, quite a few people,

because this was my horror at mushrooms growing in the dark, quite a few people have said that lots of vegetables can grow in the dark well quite a few people because this was um my horror at mushrooms growing in the dark quite a few people have said that lots of vegetables can grow in the dark there was another correspondent who suggested that carrots and potatoes can also grow in the dark but i thought that's what photosynthesis was all about you had to have light oh that's what we were told in the science lab that's a big fin yes another thing we've unearthed. We'll keep that one to ourselves, just in case other people get onto that. Just in case we want to go underground

and develop a carrot cave later in life. Maybe we had too much daylight, and that's why neither of us grew. Well, it's unlikely, love. I was born in Slough, you were born in Crosby. It seems very unlikely. Contain yourself. This one is called Cucumbers. It's Kath here, with Shagging Tortoises

and the Budgie at Newcastle Uni. Chancing my luck with a second email, just catching up with the third of June episode on Mishearing Hymns. My dear late mum used to love recounting the story of me insisting that I had to take a cucumber to Sunday school. She was confused as it was nowhere near Harvest Festival

but went along with it. I had to shamefully admit when I got home that we were supposed to bring a newcomer and everybody had brought a new friend. That, that, Kath, is worth the entrance fee alone. That is a blissful, wonderful, superb anecdote. And I know what you mean about having to shamefully admit, do you know when you had to admit to your parents

that you've got something wrong and they might have been right terrible times I still don't do that in fact I very rarely acknowledge as regular listeners well no just drop something there I've actually just dropped some vital research fee

were you about to say that you've never been wrong I've never been wrong well I don't acknowledge it anyway I'm rarely wrong, in fairness. This is about cat owners. It's today, June the 10th. If you haven't microchipped your cat, you could be fined up to 500 quid.

I know. Do people... I don't think people know this. No. It is in many newspapers today. New rules come into force today requiring all cats aged 20 weeks and above to be microchipped but dare i ask whether yours are they are all microchipped are they legal cats

they are but cool cats very late to the party so he's 13 years old and i just took the only reason why i got him microchipped was because we wanted to put one of those cat flaps that keeps other people out a bit. Stop the cats. Yeah, very much so. You want to stand on a podium with stop the cats. Stop the cats. Because so many unwelcome cats were coming in. Let's not pursue that analogy at all.

And the vet said exactly that, that I would have been breaking the law. And actually, he just assumed that I was there because so many people have been taking their pets into Beechit. Well, I looked at this article on The Times Online, little contribution there from On Message Mandy, who's back for the election period, urging everyone to follow election coverage in The Times. Anyway, lots of comments underneath the article today from people saying, well, look, my cat's 19 or 23. Not microchipped. I can't be arsed.

So people are just not doing it. I mean, and in fairness, there were a number of other people saying, have they not got anything else to focus on? I think if I would pay very, very, very good money, my own money, and I'll take some of Jane's as well, money, my own money, and I'll take some of Jane's as well, to anybody who can show us the first picture of a police operative in your local community scanning cats for chips. Because if anyone can get that

picture, the front pages will really want it ahead of the election. Well, no, they've formed a new unit. Do you not know about this? What, the cat catching unit? No, it's Paw Patrol. They're going out they're going to check as if i'm with my colleague there yeah uh rachel joins us with a wonderful political memory i've got to say some of your early political memories are very very very very funny this one is

particularly niche rachel says my first political memory is watching a family of blackbirds make a nest in the garden i called called them the Blairs. It was fun to watch Tony and see how busy he was in the run-up to the 1997 election. I might have stretched it too far when he won and another blackbird family made a nest nearby. I made that number 11 and tried to call the new blackbird Gordon but it didn't catch on. And this is where it gets really weird, even weirder than that. I also remember thinking that John Major looked a bit like my grandpa's white Volvo.

Thanks, Rachel. Politicians as cars, that's another good one, isn't it? Yeah, well, we'll get contributions. I'm sure we will. I don't know what Rachel's on, but I'm glad I'm not on it. Oh, I'd like some of what Rachel's on. Send it now, Rachel. Lottie has a first political memory as well. It must have been the 1992 general election, so I would have been around seven. Our next door neighbours had just put a Vote Labour poster in their window and my mum,

ever the curtain twitcher, clocked this and mentioned to my dad that evening I never had them down as Labour voters. I somehow internalised this and of course the next time I saw said neighbours I piped up my mum didn't think you were Labour voters much to her mortification. At the time I was really puzzled by her reaction but as an adult looking back it makes perfect sense. We Brits just don't talk politics. I wonder why it is that we are happy to openly discuss and criticise policy and individuals, but much less willing to pin our colours to a mast in terms of which party we support best wishes.

Well, I think that's true. And there is always an element, a squidgy element, isn't there, in the polls to allow for, it's usually shy Tories, or it has been over the last couple of elections, the people who don't want to say that they are going to vote Conservative. Why would it be more shy Tories than shy Labour? I'm just about to ask the same question.

I think it's that, to be honest, I think it's sometimes harder to admit that you have right-of-centre views, even though probably, certainly in historical terms, the majority of this country would probably have, judging on how they voted, would be said to have right of centre views, wouldn't they? But whereas it's perfectly okay to say, oh, I'm a proper lefty me. Yes, I'm a fully paid up Labour supporter.

You're right though, what is... But I wonder whether this time around that squidgy bit is shy Labour, is people who don't want to say, I'm heading off in the other direction now. We'll get a pollster on and we'll ask exactly that question. Yeah. Because we're both looking quizzically into the middle distance. Well, there's always been...

Thinky kind of way. Yes. In some ways, there's a respectability to being a Tory or becoming a Tory as you move up in the world, in financial terms I guess, and then often your children turn against those views of right of centre and become liberal lefties as they become more fully paid up members of the middle class. It's weird, isn't it? Yeah, but the figures are going to tip that on its head, and they did in 1997, didn't they?

Join us for our really incisive political coverage here on Off Air. We're going to call it questions with no answers time. Absolutely. We're going to get on to motorhomes in a moment, but I like this from Australia. Leanne is in New South Wales. It doesn't need saying, but I love your show. No, we're reading all these things out now. So keep those thoughts coming. My first political memory, I was nine. It's 1975. And I heard this on the TV. Ladies and gentlemen, we may well say God

saved the Queen, but nothing will save the Governor General. The speaker was our Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. And he'd just been sacked by the Governor-General, who was the Queen's representative in Australia. The sacking was due to a double dissolution and budgetary supply crisis. Yes, I will remember that. Do you, Fi? Sorry, I'm just catching up with that. Gough Whitlam, Australian Prime Minister,

been sacked by the Governor-General. It was because of that double dissolution and budgetary supply crisis. That one, right. Yeah, I've clawed it back. Can I just ask our Australian listeners two things, please? Very good afternoon to you. I won't say the predictable good day.

First of all, is High Country, one of your television series, worth me getting an international VPN for? Just put that out there. It's a slightly selfish query but people will understand people will understand what i'm talking about and also we were wondering in the office because somebody one of our french listeners uh bonjour a vous and said that they were enjoying the very french adverts that they get when they travel to france and listen to us in france because obviously you get these wraparound local ads now we were just wondering what is advertised around us in other parts of

the world so if there's something that's made you prick up your ears um and we don't need to mention brand names or anything like that but we're just quite interested in how you're sold us in different corners of the globe well in france it'll probably be medical stuff won't it do you think you know how obsessed they are with what they do over there. What do they do over there? What? You go into a French pharmacy and it's all wonderful. Yeah, they are wonderful, but they tend to be

keener on certain products that... Oh yes, we've had the suppositories. It's bound to be them. Yep. There's nothing that you can't get a suppository for in France. And you're going to need some because you've got a snap election too. Just a last one on the earliest political memory for now, but do keep them coming because they are really fascinating.

From Vicky, she's got one about the Thatcher milk snatcher, which, you know, I think as a child or a teenager, once you've heard that, obviously you never forget it. It's just one of those rhymes that is easy to stay with you forever and it just did solidify a time in that conservative government and a feeling yes against that conservative government although um i hate to be boring but it was actually labor who brought in the original taking away the milk policy okay she just carried it on so who could you have rhymed? Who should you be rhyming Milk

Snatcher with? Not her ironically. She didn't stop the policy but I don't think it was her idea. Somebody will know, certainly more than me about this but I, like our correspondent was so glad when that milk disappeared. It was warm. It was.

It just always smelt on the turn. Well, because they stored it by the radiators. And because back in those days we really hadn't heard of global warming, the primary school radiators were fired up to way beyond the max. But Jane, it was so good for us. That's why we got strong bones. No, the milk. The milk.

No, not when it was practically at cheese level, as you indicate. Well, I mean, now it's just kefir. I'm going to campaign for every child in Britain to have a bottle of kefir. OK. Vicky says, her second point, on holiday in Devon, would it have been Callaghan? Callaghan, Callaghan, milk snatcher. It's just got no real twist at all.

No, it would be whoever was the labor education secretary before margaret before because she was the okay we'll look at somebody will know on holiday in devon jeremy thought was at the same hotel one morning at breakfast a bowl of prunes exploded and security leapt into action thinking it was a bomb this was before the world knew that there were so many more exciting tales to be told about the Liberal leader. I should say so. That's a separate spin-off podcast, isn't it? Oh my God. But also, a bowl of prunes exploding.

I'm just quite taken by that. I mean, were they in a can? How can a bowl of prunes explode? It's a terrifying prospect, Vicky. I'm so sorry you had to live through that. Yeah, could those prunes have been fermented? Were they early adopters of the fermentation process? Maybe, yeah, might have been.

Now, I was just wondering last week about how people go on holidays in motorhomes. We've had quite a few contributions, and thank you very much. Anonymous says, Hello, setting off in our van on a bumpy country road with the cutlery rattling insanely in the drawer, I knew I'd forget to secure the overhead kitchen cupboard so baking potatoes would roll steadily out on the first bend into my husband's lap,

causing the first holiday complaint. Later, on a nice straight bit of motorway, I could nip to our loo, requesting no braking or overtaking during the activity. We shipped our van across the pond and drove for eight weeks from Halifax, Nova Scotia across to Banff. By this time I had dented the bathroom handrail in frustration, claustrophobia, you can imagine. But the scenery was spectacular and the roads wide and empty, unlike the UK. Now that does sound spectacular. Word of warning though from our anonymous correspondent,

do not have sex during the day in a camper van. We did wonder why we heard a round of applause and cheering outside. To our horror we'd built up quite a crowd. The van had bounced on its suspension. So I'm not going to that campsite in Banff ever again. Right well um. I think it's a great shame for the other users. Yes, it is. Even with cramped conditions, we had a wonderful time driving around the USA, and the darkest... Sounds like you did, love!

That's right! And the darkest... I don't think you should go to Radcliffe. Oh, maybe do you think I should be more lucky if I went to Banff? And the darkest regions of North East Scotland. And I think this is true you have to really love someone to be in a camper van with them you would um actually she says my husband died two years ago and I miss him and I even miss the rogue potatoes uh anonymous thank

you for what does sound genuinely like a really lovely memory of your motorhome yeah and I really really admire those couples who you know maybe once the kids have left home or if you don't have kids, once you've finished your jobs and all that kind of stuff. Oh, brilliant. Their dream is to, you know, drive across the Rockies in an RV or something like that because you just think, gosh,

you must have such a lovely relationship. You know, just really want to be each other. It's great. Be with each other all day, every day. And stop off in the afternoon and have a little bit of spring action. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.

I don't think... Yes, a lovely song. Can we hum on the podcast? Or do we get into trouble? No, we don't get into trouble. We're absolutely fine. Can we just say hello to Jo, who is listening to us whilst walking Salty,

who is the Jack Russell, and she joins us from west sussex but has sent some glorious glorious pictures of the beautiful german motorhome hans who's eight meters long separate shower loo permanent bed fridge freezer oven all mod cons and i don't know where it is that you're parked up these pictures that you sent us but but that does look wonderful. And just to that point, we were saying that one of the things that puts us off going on a motorhome holiday is the fact that you'd have to be in a site

with lots of other people, so you wouldn't ever get that feeling of real isolation. You've managed to avoid it. I mean, I don't know whether you've actually infringed on a bylaw here. I don't know that you are parked up. Well, I think we should contact the relevant authorities. It's a marvellous open place.

Well, look at that. I know, it looks incredible. So well done you and obviously greetings to Salty because Salty's having the time of his life as well. Yes, it must be fantastic for Salty. I mean, they've been to France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Germany, Corsica, Belgium, Austria. Also to Scotland, the Outer Hebrides, truly beautiful.

But they do point out or Jo points out that actually the UK isn't really set up for motorhomes. What are we good at? Send a list. What? What? What is Britain set up for? We don't travel

well on trains. Our airports are just ridiculous. I mean the bloke who runs Emirates has complained that Terminal 3's ceiling is too low. It's always bothered me and I'm very, very short. We're not particularly easy to get around, are we, in terms of our motorways, their congestions. You know what you're doing?

You're one of those people. I'm running the country down. You're running this country down. Now stop it. No, but I have asked for people to run it up. So we'll take things that this glorious set of islands is good at. No, you're right. So run your own union flag up the off-air flagpole.

That's what we want. We want positive stuff about Britain, please. Yep, very much so. Oh, now, can I just answer this? A couple of people talking about exams, and Bella says, I'm number four of four kids due to our age gaps being too large or too small we never did gcses a levels or as levels at the same time it did mean that somebody was taking exams in our house every summer

from 1996 until 2005 god that sounds grim so that's almost a decade from my point of view as the youngest by the time i was on study leave i remember the long summer days revising with the house to myself and everyone in the house being quite kind and supportive which definitely wasn't the case all the time with my older siblings but i shall have to ask my mum how the moods affected her and maria just wanted to ask and she said i'm slightly triggered by this. That was me mentioning my involvement in my kids' exam preparation and what a chaotic time it is in the household in general. Maria says, I'm triggered by this because when I was going through exams, my parents didn't even seem to notice. I've never really thought about it negatively, but hearing Fi's dedication to

her kids' education has made me feel like I was let down I don't feel like that at all Maria I have similar memories of I mean honest honest to god I don't think my parents even really knew that I was doing exams I mean my dad was two time zones away and he really wouldn't have known that I was doing exams and my mum had taken herself back to university in those years so she was doing exams she was very busy doing all that stuff herself I used to cycle to school every day and I just remember being mildly concerned that I might you know the alarm might not go off and I might not get to an exam on time but there was no kind of you know fandango about us doing exams back then but I suppose the different thing is Maria and Maria's got much younger kids and is just, you know, looking to put something in the bank in terms of how to parent further down the

line. Jane and I always say, you know, there's no point us giving advice because we've been pretty hopeless at it sometimes, wouldn't call ourselves parenting gurus at all. But I do think there's just much more stress on the kids now to get grades, certainly to get into university. So obviously, I've got one of those who's doing that and just to get grades certainly to get into university so obviously i've got one of those who's doing that and and just to get to sixth form college as well uh you know there's an ask isn't there on the table yeah i just think the whole conversation and let's just be honest about it particularly in the middle classes has just become much more public i think people talk all the time about their children about their children's prospects about what they hope for

them about what they've got there is that there is that, but also within the kids' circle, because of social media, they are all comparing. You know, their feeds are absolutely full of what did you think of Geography Paper 2? What are you going to do? What are you revising tonight? Can you share this flashcard with me? They're just, you know, it's on them all the time. So, do you know what, Maria?

All I'm trying to do is literally just be there. I'm not doing anything else. It's not like I'm going through flashcards with them every night. She's not doing the exams. I'm not doing the exams. I've tried very hard not to put any pressure on them at all. We have loads of conversations about, you know, lots of people. This person over here who never got no level in their life

and stuff like that. But I am just trying to be in the house and actually they do need, sometimes, they do need to be woken up in the morning. Some exams might not have been attended. The human alarm clock. So it's a low bar, Maria. I'm not doing anything particularly grand or whatever.

But I do feel for them, actually, because I think your point's right. We talk about it as parents much more. And if you do want to go to university, then that pressure has been on you for a long time to get a certain type of grade, get on a certain course. And I wish it was different. I wish it was different.

We have to get a wiggle on. We do, because you've got a lot to do. You've got to do a pre-rec. Yes. You have, haven't you? Okay. Yes, thank you, Eve. Now, shush, we're going to get on to you a wiggle on. Yeah, we do, because you've got a lot to do. You've got to do a pre-rec. Yes, you have, haven't you? Okay, crack on. Yes, thank you, Eve. Now, shush, we're going to get on to you in a minute. I just want to say hello to Catherine and Becca.

So glad the bags are doing you service. You look great with your totes, and may they bring you a great deal of, well, as much joy as a tote bag can ever reasonably give you. I really hope those tote bags are giving you that joy. Yes, I'm going to red car later. Now, Eve, have I mentioned it? Eve has lost her voice,

but I think people would quite like to hear her trying to speak. Oh, I'll tell you what you could do. Joe Sire has pointed out that we've been adding an extra book to the book club book list. It's not book number seven. It is book number six. Could you read out the previous books? And Jane's not book number seven it is book number six could you read out the previous books and james right eve's got a glorious voice and at the moment if

if you want anything sold especially anything that might have something to do with the language no don't because my voice sounds really annoying at the moment yeah because it's gone it's gone sounds quite horrible um the previous books are oh no do you know no it's awful. It's gone. It sounds quite horrible. The previous books are... Oh, no, do you know... It's awful. Don't put yourself through it, love. Stop it. OK, that's just an illustration of what Eve sounds like

before she's been to Glastonbury. And we very much hope that she sorts herself out. She's had one small weekend already, which is what's caused that voice. We'll get you to read out lovely things later. Can I just do this list? Because it's important. You're absolutely right,e fresh water for flowers my sister the serial killer boy swallows universe an elderly lady is up to no good a dutiful boy and now suzy steiner's missing

presumed so you can count and we can't and it's lovely that you're listening thank you and now i talked about microchipping cats and the fine. It's just worth saying that in the Lady magazine, which Fee gets every month delivered to the office, which I open because I'm a lady, there's a great letter, well, it's actually a problem to the problem-solving column, about somebody who wants to talk about their dog.

They've just moved back from Andorra and the Andorran government demands registration of your dog's DNA. So if it does a wee on the pavement, or even worse, and you don't clear the mess up, they can track you down. But again, I ask, who's registering? All of that, I mean, again, props to the person who can send us a picture of a policeman or community support worker taking a sample of poo. John Ronson is a journalist over the last 30 years.

He's put his finger on things, writing about extremists, the rise of the psychopath, the explosion of the porn industry, the dark, hidden world of shadowy power, how easy it is to be publicly shamed and cancelled. It is as if he can sniff the winds of change before the rest of us. And in his latest podcast series, he takes individual stories and shows us how we all play a part in world events.

From the acorn of one person's experience comes a huge forest of change. I asked him how he had put it. Well, I'm trying to humanise the culture wars. I'm trying to reduce the culture wars to nuanced human stories which are quite often origin stories um we're all screaming at each other about this and that how did it start what was the pebble thrown in the pond creating the ripples that now consume

our lives and and so i find these really incredible stories of something that happened, just some chance meeting at a yacht club in California in 2004, which then directly leads to the first great pandemic conspiracy theory and so on. So, yeah, I'm tracing these origin stories. Well, that is such a good episode that we could dwell on a little bit more because it is really fascinating. And you say in the opening to that particular episode, the story starts with a chance encounter between a bartender and a customer at a yacht club in Ventura in 2006.

Right. So who are those people and where does that story take us? Well, this is amazing because this story is about something. The downside of this story is that it's a little complicated. The upside is that it's incredibly important and interesting. John, Times Radio listeners can cope. Just go for it. Okay.

So the bartender was a woman called Judy Mikevitz. She used to work at the National Cancer Institute, but she gave it all up for love, moved to California, started volunteering at the Yacht Club. But she was crazy about diseases. She was constantly talking about how to cure AIDS, how to do this, how to do that. at the Yacht Club, but she was crazy about diseases. She was constantly talking about how to cure AIDS, how to do this, how to do that.

And finally, she meets this very wealthy couple called the Whittemores via the Yacht Club, whose daughter is very sick with chronic fatigue syndrome. So Judy and the parents set up an institute to cure chronic fatigue syndrome. Sure enough, a couple of years later, they announced they've discovered the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome. And it's a little known mouse virus called XMRV. And science, the esteemed publication science publishes Judy's findings. And it's just it's like an explosion because you know what you found a treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome. And also we're all walking around with this mouse virus infecting each other so it becomes a massive deal

all these other scientists uh try and replicate judy's findings and can't and then it spirals judy like doubles down and doubles down it ends up with her going on the run ending up hiding on a boat they're trying to arrest her she's now a fugitive from justice. Scientists say, you've got to retract the paper. She's going, no, I refuse to retract the paper. So she becomes like more, instead of, this is like the individual versus the institution, right? She's an individual who won't listen

to the scientific community when they say that she made a mistake and her findings are wrong. Instead, she's just deeply wounded. And for some good reason, because she ended up in jail. But as a result of this wound, she then wants to seek revenge on the medical community. And her way of doing it is to come up with the first great COVID conspiracy theory, a documentary called Plandemic. And loads of people who refused to be vaccinated did so because of Judy, not realising that this was Judy's revenge on the medical establishment.

What's so fascinating about that story, John, is what it tells us about people's desire to believe in something hopeful and optimistic, though. And it's very easy, isn't it, in the culture wars, I know that's a loose term, I don't know whether you like it or not, you know, to almost make out that it's because we're all so stupid that we're falling for these things and we're getting too angry and we're not understanding people. But I think what you consistently seem to be trying to do is to show us that it's actually quite a good thing in human nature to want to believe in all of this stuff. It's kind of not our fault all the time, is it? Well, we're certainly being prodded at by the tech billionaires

who profit, or at least theoretically profit from our rage. I'm not sure how much Elon Musk is profiting from X right now. But yeah, I do, though, I mean, everything you just said, I agree. But I also think that sometimes the way that we fight these wars has a disproportionately negative impact both on our own mental health and on the mental health of the people that we're attacking defining ourselves as being in opposition to other people and so on but isn't it because we want to believe that we're right and there's not there's nothing wrong with that i mean that is quite an

innate human condition true but i do feel and i'm out about this in my book so you've been publicly shamed that that on twitter for instance we've created the stage for constant artificial high drama where we perceive everybody as being either magnificent heroes or sickening villains so that speaks to what you say um but i think the truth and what we all really know is the truth about our fellow humans is that we're just a we're a mess. People are a mess, where we're good and we're bad, clever people. So I think there's something quite damaging to, you know, the way we interact with other people, when we see people as being, you know, either

incredible or terrible, you know, a more healthy way to perceive our fellow humans is that we're just all an absurd mess. We do good things, we do bad things. And we know that's true. But we, for some reason, we don't like to. So we define somebody by just a tiny sliver of information about them. We think we now know everything about that person. Just a bad wording and a joke in a tweet. Do you think that we're at the absolute nadir of public shaming and bad social media and horrible, nasty human rage? Are we going to dip at the bottom and come back up? I think we are coming back up. I think we've already dipped and we're on the up.

One arguably positive thing about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter is that the sort of punitive bullying aspect of the left, there's lots to love about the left, of course, and I'm firmly on the left, but there's also a bullying punitive aspect of the left. And I think that's diminished, because many of those people have now gone to blue sky and threads and they don't have the power to destroy someone's life. But, you know, the right were going on about, you know, cancel culture, cancel culture. Now they're the ones who are doing it. They're constantly cancelling people.

Lips of TikTok is, you know, outing some teacher who's a drag queen and the next thing you know, their school is getting bomb threats and going into lockdown. So it feels like, quote unquote, cancel culture, which is a phrase I hate because it meaninglessly encapsulates huge numbers of completely different situations, has now kind of moved to the right now and the right to doing it. Do you also think that we, because of the age that we are, and I think you're probably about the same age as me, mid-50s?

Yeah, mid-50s. Yes, about that. So we did have this journey, didn't it, where we started off as analogue humans and then the digital world came along. And I think we have been quite hard on ourselves, actually, about that interface. It's happened in our lifetime.

We've not had the skills in our adult life to really know what it is that we're dealing with. Do you think it would be too optimistic to hope that the next generation because they've always been digital will just manage to do it better they'll look back on us and just think oh dear yeah how awful to have been them i don't think it's too optimistic to think that i agree with you i i've you know i've spoken to a bunch of people who's who say that their kids you know the new generation of kids coming up, kids who are like 11, 12 years old now, they don't want that.

When I was writing So You've Been Publicly Shamed, I thought this generation's coming along who are creating a set of rules that are so draconian it's going to be impossible for them to live up to it. People being punished for crimes they committed when they were minors. You know, years ago, they did something stupid and now it resurfaces and people are being punished.

You know, these are very draconian punishments. And I think a younger generation are coming along. Here's my optimism, is that they've learned from all the positive things that have come from all of this, Black Lives Matter and Me Too and, you know, the upsides of those things and how we now have a greater understanding of how the systems work.

But they're not interested in the more like, let's destroy somebody for a badly worded tweet. So, you know, my hopeful thought is that this younger generation are going to be much smarter about this. So in a sense, we've had one foot on the boat and one foot on the dock of the bay, haven't we? And we've gone splash in the middle. You've mentioned your fantastic book about public shaming a couple of times

and well done, you're a talented talented interviewee professional yeah that's in fact that's very much what I was thinking when I decided to do psychopath night my tour in the autumn brilliant we'll come on to that the the publicly shamed book though it was so prescient wasn't it when you wrote it I don't think many of us really understood quite how prolific this public shaming was going to be. Did you? Yes. It was the night of Justine Sacco.

She's like the centrepiece of that book. She's the AIDS tweet woman. She tweeted, she was getting on a plane from Heathrow to Cape Town. 170 Twitter followers, like no one, a comedian in an empty room. She tweeted, going to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white. What she was trying to do was do a kind of South Park-y mocking of her own privilege.

But while she was asleep on the plane and oblivious, Twitter took control of her life and completely dismantled it. And the fact that she was oblivious to the fact that she was now on trial and found guilty and punished, fired and so on, was hilarious to people. And very few of us that night thought, well, I mean, I thought something has shifted in society. For me, the two times when I really felt something has shifted now was that night, the night of Justin Sackett, the fact that everybody just loved it. This was a bullying that everybody could get behind. And then the day that Donald

Trump came down the escalator and called Mexicans rapists. On both of those occasions, I thought something shifted and it's going to be really hard to go back again. What happens after Donald Trump, you live in America now, don't you have dual citizenship? He is a post-truth human, isn't he? As he so clearly demonstrates at the moment, he's demonstrating it by not taking any, well, just not accepting the verdict in his criminal trial. Does what he's done create a permanent Trump-shaped hole in the world

into which somebody will always now be able to fill the void with the same kind of politician? Or do you think that we will look back after Trump, and I know that that might be after he serves another term in office, and go, that was just one dreadful person? person? I mean, it was certainly a huge and shocking coarsening of values. I mean, you get to a really interesting point here, because, you know, one of the great issues of our time is the individual versus the institution. So these institutions are crumbling, rightly so in a lot of cases, because institutions were very troublesome.

The legacy media would have gatekeepers who would not allow certain voices inside and pastors were abusing children and the healthcare system was exploiting people. So it was a very good reason to, you know, attack our institutions. But sometimes I wonder, this is a slightly secure way to answer the question i think is sometimes i wonder whether do we really want to live in a post-institution world because for all of their myriad problems institutions offer some good things right they

give us a place in life they make us understand how we behave towards our fellow humans we have bosses we have people working under us. It gives us a place. It makes us understand how society works. And in a post-institution world where it's just individuals smashing into each other, it feels like a kind of disastrous world. So what I think is that there will maybe be a kind of pulling back.

Institutions hopefully will learn from their mistakes, but also the people who want to destroy institutions will learn from their mistakes too but also the people who want to destroy institutions will learn from their mistakes too. This all sounds kind of very idealistic. Idealistic is good though, surely. Well, maybe. So I do think, look, Biden was the return, you know, he presented himself as the return to normalcy.

You know, he would say, if I'm president, you don't need to think about me every day. I mean, you know, I thought about Trump every day for four years. And this is very much my own fault. I now regret it. Every night I watched Anderson Cooper. You know, we mock QAnon believers. Anderson Cooper was my Q.

Like, I just listened to everything that he said and believed it all and got more and more scared about life under Trump and so on. And at the end of the four years, my one positive thought is that when at the end of the four years, when Trump really did try and destroy democracy on January the 6th and refusing to accept the election, the institutions held. In a way that's negative, because it means I think it's more likely that Trump will get in for a second term, because he doesn't seem quite as frightening this time around. And I think that might be the reason why he gets in for a second term if he does. So I think the answer to my question is like, you know, we've gone through these seismic changes, but the fact that Biden

won in 2020, and the fact that the institutions held does give me some hope. Are there as many psychopaths who are female as male? It's 80-20 is the anecdotal. I base that on the fact that there used to be in Britain five DSPD units, Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder units. Four were for men, one was for women. Right. Why is that? Although sometimes I should say that women might get diagnosed, women psychopaths might get diagnosed with something different, like they might get diagnosed, more likely to get diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, for instance. So there could be some sort of,

you know, psychiatrists thinking about different genders in different ways here too um and will one of the benefits of a more equally gendered world be that there are more female psychopaths i would like to hope so yes no it's uh yeah so 80 20 but there's definitely female psychopaths out there yeah and and many of them aren't just like male psychopaths out there. Yeah. And many of them aren't, just like male psychopaths, aren't actually physically hurting people, but they're just creating a sort of low-level malevolence. But your point and theory, so deliciously investigated

in your psychopath's work, and this is coming on to give you an opportunity to talk more about the tour, is that they are everywhere. They're the people who get to the top, aren't they? They're the people who lead us.

Of all the mental disorders, why do we reward the very worst one of all? Like, you know, the fact that capitalism rewards the mental disorder that means you have no empathy, no guilt, no remorse, and they're the ones that the shareholders make CEOs. Statistically, you have one in 100 people is a psychopath, but that figure rises to 4% of CEOs and business leaders.

You're four times more likely to have a psychopath at the top than at the bottom. And what about politicians? I'd say that tallies politicians, lawyers. Do you think that either of the two main contenders in the UK elections are displaying psychopathic tendencies? No, not that I've really noticed. And also, you know, there's a danger in armchair diagnosing people from afar. People ask me about Trump all the time. And am I about, is he a psychopath? Or is he he a narcissist and that's a really interesting distinction i think from from what i understand the outward manifestations of psychopathy and

narcissistic disorder are quite similar they can be manipulative and and cunning and you know vengeful but what's going on underneath is completely different um with narcissists there's a whole load of emotions are going on that they suppress because they can't handle them whereas with psychopaths there's like nothing going on it's just emptiness underneath so i think you always have your finger on the pulse before other people manage to take that pulse because you've written about extremism you've written about psychopaths you wrote about the explosion of the porn industry and the butterfly effect as well. Stop me when all of this adulation is too much for you, John. No, I will not stop you.

What comes next then? What's occupying your brain now? Actually, something I touched on earlier about individuals in a post-institution world, I think is a really interesting subject. And I'm looking at that in a way, I should say that, you know, when people were asking me about The Psychopath Test when I was writing it, I was saying it's a book about neurology and brain anomalies and it didn't turn out to be that at all. So I write funny, unfolding adventure stories.

But that's a world I'm really interested in. Like what happens when the old way of life dies and you've got all of these adrift people who are now trying to find a place in life in a different way. And that's what I'm writing about. Well, I will look forward to that. Can we ask you to step into our election booth? Very much so.

Please don't steal the pencil. We've only got one. It is tied to the desk for a reason. Here we go. Earliest political memory. Sir Robin Day. Do you remember? I certainly do. Right. With his huge glasses and I think sometimes smoking a cigarette on the television. Yeah, very. And he was fantastically kind of scabrous. And I loved him and still love him. And my memories of him just like, you know, attacking politicians. And then obviously of him just attacking politicians.

And then obviously Paxman came along after Robin Day doing a very similar thing just as well. And this is casting no shade on them when I say that what they did was magnificent. And you absolutely have to hold politicians to account and have them against the wall and yell at them in that way. But sometimes I wonder, how often does it work? And by work, I mean, how often does it work and by work I mean how often does it does that kind of confrontational adversarial interviewing technique get somebody to reveal something about themselves

and I would say as as brilliant theatre as it was and all of my joy at watching Robin Day as a young kid not sure quite how often it works if you're if you've got someone against the wall and you're yelling at them all it really reveals is how they respond to being yelled at, which isn't necessarily a very interesting way to... Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's not really tickling them on the tummy, is it?

Yeah. Now, you know, like, obviously the... You know, I remember saying something similar to this to Krishna Guru Murthy one time, and he was like saying, but you've got to, you know, are you telling me that we can't, you know,

ask difficult questions to politicians? And of course, I'm not saying that. But I'm just saying that that sort of slightly hierarchical public school thing that we do, where we just, where everything's adversarial, everything's oppositional. I'm not sure that it's the best way of doing things. I think what's better is to, I think, you know, curiosity is better than judgment. Brilliant. First election you could vote in? God. Well, I wouldn't have voted in it. I don't think I voted till 1997.

Right. And I haven't voted, yeah. My mother stood, I think I was just too young, my mother stood as a Liberal candidate in Cardiff one time and lost. Right. But, yeah, so I don't, so, OK, so I was born in 1967, so 77, 87, 85, so what was going on there? Well, I mean, you would have had the opportunity to vote,

you know, either to get Thatcher in or get Thatcher out but 97 obviously was the arrival of Tony Blair yeah so that was your first vote yeah the first time I remember voting was 97 biggest issue for you when you do vote moral character I got very like I you know I hated Trump like I absolutely hated him i had trump derangement syndrome no question and it was because of his moral character i just couldn't believe that somebody's so immoral somebody who lies you know somebody who who considers himself more important than democracy in the institutions i couldn't believe that we were rewarding those things um now there'll be some people listening to this and think that's kind of naive like you know some I couldn't believe that we were rewarding those things.

Now, there'll be some people listening to this and think that's kind of naive. Like, you know, some people have a bad moral character, but just a bit of it hiding it than Trump. And I'm sure that's true. So I think we probably know the answer to the question in America who you would vote for in the next election. But if you've got dual citizenship, you can vote here as well.

I can vote for both places. Well, I'm going to do the obvious thing. I'm going to vote for Biden and I'm going to vote Labour. Thank you very much. It feels... Partygate felt like the... Like, you know, a crumbling empire, right? Like the last days of Pompeii.

You know, this bloated... You know, so Iii, you know, this bloated, you know. So I think, for me, obviously the election was set during Partygate. That was so... Americans don't understand why Brits were so upset about Partygate. They didn't get it. And I've had to explain it to a few Americans. Like, we care a lot about rules. You know, we line up, we queue up.

We were, you know, so proud to sacrifice to not go and see our dying grandmother it was awful but we stuck by the rules and then to find out that the person putting these rules onto us was flouting them was just horrendous well it goes back to your fascination about the relationship between the individual and institutions doesn't it? Because the institution only works because of all of the individuals in it all benefiting from it so when that goes wrong and toxic

it does, it hurts doesn't it? It really hurts I think in America they sort of saw Boris having, you know, doing party gators like, you know they're a bit more individualistic in America sometimes and they think that people can get away with things a bit more. So they didn't quite understand why it was so hurtful to Brits.

John, it's really lovely to see you here. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us. So your show then is on at the moment. Yeah, well, I'm doing a tour called Psychopath Night where I'm going to be talking about all of this stuff, starting mid-October, ending end of November. Places all over Britain, including places I've never spoken in before,

like Ipswich and Southend. Oh, gosh. I mentioned those two in particular, because those are the two where tickets are lagging. Okay, get your tickets now, and Things Fell Apart is available on BBC Sounds. Yes, be ready for BBC Sounds. Lovely stuff. That was John Ronson.

And I'm so sorry, we haven't got time to talk about all that kind of stuff. I'm going to Redcar. Oh, God, just stay in Redcar. Just stay for a couple of days. We'll be fine. Matt Chorley is going to be on the podcast tomorrow. It's a man, everybody. Just wear something appropriate. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover.

Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank.

Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know, ladies. A lady listener. I know ladies don't do that. I'm sorry.