Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Strangled by our robot carers (with Julie McDowall)

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

Jane explained why she won't be throwing a Eurovision party, they talk anxiety inducing meetings and softy civil servants.Plus, they’re finally, finally, finally joined by nuclear threat specialist and journalist Julie McDowall…and its just as disconcerting as you’d expect. Her book ‘Attack Warning Red!’ is out now.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

it's wednesday as you join us i mean you could be joining us at any time but right now it's wednesday and we are just calculating it three sleeps away uh from the coronation unfortunately in a slightly less celebratory mood our big interview today was finally the interview we seem to have been talking about as you pointed out for absolutely ever with julie mcdowell about her book attack warning red we'll talk about that in a moment but first of all we do have to clear up the groping vicar don't we because there's some quite important advice to give to all those people who have and it's quite incredible i have to say how many people have been on the receiving end of some unwanted touching by a man of the cloth in the case of all the emails we've had and the advice i mean it is it's very clear yeah and it's very simple and and also loud and so it

should be it's a massive safeguarding issue and you just need to go and tell somebody yeah every diocese has a safeguarding representative so So you just go online, have a look within your diocese, there'll be a website, there will be a number, and you could always be anonymous if you call that number as well, if you think it is difficult for you, but you should definitely not be shy of reporting it, because if it's happened to you, it's probably happening to somebody else. And what happened in this instance wasn't the very worst of things. No, it wasn't. But you never know what might happen. It clearly shouldn't happen. And that, of course, is the Church of England. But we're

certainly not suggesting that such activity doesn't occur in every Christian church and indeed probably in every religion on earth. Let's be clear about that. We're not singling out the Church of England here. Far from it. Now, shall we just change tack immediately, put up a different sail? That is the absolute boundary of my sporting sailing knowledge, so please don't ask me to carry on any analogies any further.

I'm going to take you to Betty the Badger. This comes from Hannah, who says, I hope you're well. I wanted to write in after you mentioned the badger outside Defra. I thought it only proper that you anoint her with her official name. It is Betty Badger. I'm sorry, I hope you're well. I wanted to write in after you mentioned the badger outside Defra. I thought it only proper that you anoint her with her official name. It is Betty Badger. I'm sorry, I didn't know that.

Rather than simply Mrs. Badger. And note that she's still operating her campaign. Good grief. I'm a civil servant and welcome her waves and her toy badgers. Best of all, there is a blog from the perspective of Betty herself. It's one of the more enjoyable opinion pieces of our current government leadership that I've read.

And you can find that at bettybadger.blogspot.com. Thank you, Hannah. I hope you're all right as well in the civil service. It's all going on down there, isn't it? Apparently you're all really wet and don't like being shouted at. I mean, what's wrong with these people? You and I love being shouted at, don't we? I like nothing more than throwing up into a dustbin

before attending a meeting, Jane. You see, actually, I mean, we're saying this sort of in a faintly comic way, but it's just dreadful to be shouted at at work routinely. It's just vile. Why should anybody have to put up with it? Anyway, I've said my piece. I should have mentioned this on the programme, but I know you're a big Eurovision fan,

so am I. Eurovision is getting a Merseyside makeover. It's going to have its own Scouse commentary. Did you know this? What available on the Scouse channel? Paul Quinn, a 32-year-old civil servant. There we are. My voice went up there because civil servants are well used to being shouted at. A 32-year-old

civil servant from the Dingle has been handpicked from hundreds of hopefuls to provide an alternative commentary on the competition. He will co-present the Scouse edition alongside Brookside actress Claire Sweeney, 52, during the final. The main show we know who's going to be presented by, but the BBC said it would be the first time in 67 editions of the contest that audiences would be able to listen to an alternative commentary in a regional accent of the host city. So for people like me who won't be able to understand the received pronunciation of the mainstream BBC commentators,

I can retune to Channel Scouse and I'll understand every syllable. Well, I think that's marking the modernity of the moment there, Jane. Listeners can tune in to the Scouse Alternative Commentary via BBC Radio Merseyside, BBC Sounds and the iPlayer. Lovely. Will you have a party to celebrate the Eurovision? It's all a little bit up in the air at the moment. Is it?

Yeah. No, I'm not going to have a party. I was hoping I might get invited to someone else's. You bother to have a party? What, with all that effort? I think, yeah, I'm looking forward to it enormously. Right, Sarah has joined

our throng with an absolutely brilliant email, which hopefully is going to take us off in a new direction and we do love it when an email does that. Yesterday on the podcast, you mentioned novels in other languages. I can highly recommend the french writer valerie perrin i absolutely love everything she's written i try and read at least

one book a year in french so that i don't completely forget the language i studied to degree level well yeah it's really good on you yeah and here we go forgive the pronunciation forgive the accent les oublies de dimz l'eau de fleur and Trois are all amazing novels that I got completely lost in. I was reminded of my love for France and French culture and I really missed the characters long after I finished each novel. Sarah goes on to tell us that she now lives in Spain where she doesn't get very many opportunities to speak French. Spanish, having taken over the space in my brain reserved for foreign language speaking.

I always wonder about those people who can speak seven languages, whether their compartments in their brain are just very, very small and they can only speak a certain amount in that language, or whether they get bigger when they haven't spoken the other language for a while. I just want to, because I'm hopeless at languages, I want to know what language they think in routinely. Yes, and what they dream in as well. Yeah. But look, we've done an emergency translation of Les Oubliés de Dimanche.

The Sunday Regrets? Maybe. Changez l'eau des fleurs. That can't be Change the Flower Water. It might be. And toi? No, I don't know that one. Three. I knew it, really.

Yes, I know. I know. Je sais. So we might try and read some of those. I'm going to try and read one of those in translation. Obviously, I'm going to go for Change the Flower Water. Yes. Because I think if that wasn't the title of a novel, it's a missed opportunity and somebody should write that right away.

It sounds a lot better in French than Change the Flower Water. I think it does. Yeah, no, it really does. I mean, Croque Monsieur. What does the croc in Croque Monsieur mean? I always just meant injured man. No.

Croc. Croc. That's an old croc. Is it a crook? A bit crook. Oh, it oh it's a crook yeah you're not a bit crock are you no you're an old crock if you've had an accident on them an old crock people say that okay sarah we need you come in sarah uh so we'll give one of those a go and see if it works in translation shall we go to julie mcdowell then yes i'm not gonna say let's get it over and done with because that sounds like i'm being rude about jul Julie and I'm not but I just feel because you've become obsessed with this interview

so you trailed it as the interview that was happening on a day that it wasn't happening when you went on the breakfast program. It's all gone to pot this time. And then on this podcast when it wasn't the big guest that we were playing out on the podcast you trailed it then. I just feel that if you haven't thought about nuclear Armageddon for a while, now it's all you can think about because of you. Well, it's that and the coronation, isn't it? It's occupying my... and Eurovision. So it's a straight...

No wonder my dreams are really weird at the moment. Anyway, this is an interview with Julie McDowell, author of, and she is right to say, I have become markedly obsessed with this book, Attack, Warning, Red, which is Julie, who's a historian. She's become slightly obsessed herself, as I think she'd be the first to admit, with what a nuclear war would mean or would have meant

if it had happened in Britain or to Britain during the 1980s. So her book, Attack, Warning Red, is, well, basically, it's come out of all the research she did on a whole load of declassified documents about civil defence and about what would be planned and who'd do what and how the collapse of civilisation would, well, there'd be a sort of an attempt to overcome it, but my goodness, it would have been extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. Anyway, it stems, Julie's interest in all this stems from the fact that when she was very, very young, and she'll go on to explain just how young, Britain was subjected to a BBC film called Threads. Now, it was about a nuclear attack on the city of Sheffield.

It was incredibly powerful, extraordinarily explicit, and it led really to Julie basing her working life around what nuclear war would be like. But I put it to her that really, at the age of three, back in 84, Julie should not have been watching threads in the first place. My dad was in charge of me. And my dad was quite a cool young dad. He still likes to think of himself that way so he no doubt wasn't up for put the kid to bed at a sensible hour make sure she's washed, teeth brushed etc I think he just thought oh she'll be fine

and he just left me on the floor playing with my toys and then when Threads came on it was on BBC2 at nine obviously as a three-year-old I should have been tucked up in bed by nine he couldn't be bothered he was too busy watching Threads and he just thought oh she's fine

I'll just leave her in front of the tv playing with her toys but then um the film started and of course as a three-year-old there's no way I could understand what the film was you know a film about the cold war about a nuclear conflict but I was able to of course observe the scenes of horror on the screen and as a three-year-old really all I could take in was the horror I couldn't understand the thinking or the politics or the conflict behind it. I just took in the horror. And a scene that always sticks with me is there's a scene

where we see a doorstep, an ordinary doorstep on an ordinary humdrum street in Sheffield, and there are milk bottles on the doorstep, and we see them melt and crumble in the heat of the nuclear flash. And that scene just stuck with me forever because it's so, it's so calm and ordinary and domestic, putting the milk bottles out for the milkman to collect. And here they are melting into a sticky heap on the doorstep.

And that just horrified me. And there's so many scenes and threads that just stick with you forever. And the director of the film told me that that's why he chose such strong images because there almost aren't words to describe nuclear horror or the absolute horror of a nuclear war you have to go to things like just images to tell the story because words almost aren't enough well like you I am still haunted by images from threads what's so bizarre is that Mick Jackson the director went on to, well, he's the man responsible for The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. He's had a most

unusual career trajectory, hasn't he? Well, some people would say that film never leaves you either. I think it has, that one. Go on, Julie. Yeah, so Mick Jackson knew that if I want to get the horror of nuclear war across to people, it has to be done through images. And there's a famous scene in the film where one of the survivors, Ruth, who's heavily pregnant at the time, all her family have been wiped out, killed in various ways. She is the only survivor from the people that she knew. And she just wanders in a state of shell shock, I suppose, wanders silently through Sheffield, just looking. looking so we I suppose the viewer is Ruth at this point just looking and there's no great you know Hollywood screaming coming from her there's

no great drama she just walks through Sheffield looking bedraggled and exhausted and she looks at them you know corpses which have been blackened and there's a famous scene of a woman clutching a dead baby to her breast trying to you know nurse it back to life almost and she takes in all these horrible scenes and then at the end of her infamous walk through Sheffield she throws her head back and she just howls in despair but then the howl itself is silent because as Mick Jackson had said what words almost aren't good enough neither are human sounds her scream is almost meaningless when it's stacked up against all this horror. So yes, I was kneeling in front of the TV as a three-year-old watching all of this. And of course, that's responsible for my whole nuclear war career.

That experience has never left me. It's just quite extraordinary. It was shown then in 1984, and what, never again on terrestrial television? It was shown on one more occasion. It was shown the year after, 1985, to commemorate, of course, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings. But after that, no, never been seen again. I've tried to badger the BBC with the small amount of clout that I have on Twitter to show it again, but no, it has never been back on TV. I think maybe it's just too much.

It's just too strong, too powerful. And there would be lots of complaints. These days, people are quite quick to take offence about a lot of things, quite quick to complain. I think the BBC are perhaps a bit scared to show it again. But perhaps just now, with what's going on in Russia and Ukraine, the war in Ukraine, perhaps they have to be a bit more careful. It might actually cause some genuine panic and discomfort if it's shown just now. But

I would say that's a good thing. We should be uncomfortable and worried and anxious with what's going on in Ukraine. And can we talk a bit more about those people who you mention in the book, Julie, whose lives were completely ruined by their belief that their reality was going to be ended. I was so struck by the story of Elsie Marshall. Well, that's a horrific story, yes. It happened in the 50s. Elsie and her husband, an ordinary working class family, husband, wife, three daughters, they killed their three young daughters,assed them in bed and then they the mother and father vanished to the seaside jumped to the sea roped themselves together jumped into the sea and killed themselves by drowning and the suicide letter that they left

for Elsie's mother was about fear of an impending war and they of course remembered the second world war and they didn't want their children to go through another world war one They of course remembered the Second World War and they didn't want their children to go through another world war, one which of course this time around would be a nuclear war probably, one involving atomic and thermonuclear weapons. And at the time in the 50s when they did this terrible thing, this murder-suicide, the newspapers were constantly filled with talk of an impending war but also with constant talk of nuclear tests all around the world America were doing it of course we were doing it the Soviets were doing it and we were beginning to realize what that meant it meant of course fallouts and the poison that that left in the in the environment so this family were seeing these

news reports everywhere and I dug into the newspaper archives and I saw that even what I assume would have been their local newspaper local papers in Lancashire where they lived even these small local papers were talking about nuclear tests so there was no way to escape the threat of nuclear war it was being talked about at the highest level and it worked its way down to even the small local papers that were hitting the doorsteps in Lancashire. There was no escape from this. It was all encompassing. And of course, that's the horror of nuclear war. It can happen, say, in a bomb can drop in London, Moscow, Washington, you know, the big capitals.

But the small towns in Lancashire, for example, can still be affected by it because of fallout. can still be affected by it because of fallout. The blast might be in the big city, but the resulting fallout can drift on the wind and can reach the lovely, rural, quiet, innocent, if you like, parts of Britain. There is simply no escape from a nuclear attack. But it is interesting in our civil defence preparations, which you detail, I was going to say, almost lovingly in the book,

were based on the slightly odd well the ridiculous notion that the aftermath of a nuclear war might be a little bit like the Blitz and I'm saying that and I'm not in any way suggesting that living through the Blitz was a walk in the park either but that was the absurdity at the heart of it all. That's true yes at the beginning of the Cold War, we continued to apply the same techniques to civil defence that we used during the Blitz. And I don't blame the authorities for that, because of course, it all worked well in the Blitz. As we know, we survived, we came through the rescue techniques and the welfare system that was set up to help survivors, that all worked. So the government, I like to think of it as a kind of blitz hangover.

The authorities said, OK, well, let's apply the same techniques. But behind the scenes, Clement Attlee, for example, who, of course, was our first post-war prime minister, he knew very well the reality of it. And he knew and said to his colleagues in Whitehall that it's futile. If we try and apply the same techniques to a nuclear attack, it's absolutely futile. But I'm reluctant to say this, but if I have sympathy for the government and for the authorities, I can understand why they clung to those old methods,

because it might have caused panic or despair or perhaps a wave of left-wing nuclear disarmament fever which of course would have favoured the Soviets in the Cold War if they had said to us bluntly these civil defence tactics which works in the Blitz will not work against a nuclear attack indeed nothing will protect us against a nuclear attack and even if you did survive it you might wish that you hadn't because the outcome would be so horrific. If the government had been brave enough to say that bluntly and openly, then yes, we could have had panic, despair, we could have had a wave of suicides

and it would have benefited our enemy, the Soviet Union. So reluctantly I say I can see why they were happy to mislead us at least with the truth about civil defence. We are talking to the writer Julie McDowell about her book, Attack, Warning, Red, and we went on to ask her what the British people would have been expected to do if a nuclear attack were imminent. Civil defence had changed through the Cold War.

At the beginning of the Cold War, as we just said, it was still very blitz-like, but towards the end of the Cold War, in the beginning of the Cold War, as we just said, it was still very blitz-like. But towards the end of the Cold War, in the 80s, for example, it became very, it's almost as if it became facturite. It became, as she famously said, no such thing as society, you should look after yourself. So instead of saying, okay, the government will provide shelters down in the London Underground, for example, and we will come round with hot tea and blankets. Instead of all that, it became look after yourself. And the most famous example of that was a booklet, which some listeners might remember, called Protect and Survive, which was issued in 1980. And it said, basically, the home, your home has to become your protection against

nuclear attack. It's not the government it's not society it's yourself so you have to fortify your home so you have to you know get sandbags and board up the windows etc you have to gather first aid supplies you have to secure uh water and food enough to last you for 14 days and you've got to hunker down in that home so very factually very look after yourself now of course that only works if one you're not in a in a target area there's no point giving that advice to someone in central london for example or someone who lives near an airbase for example so it only works if you're not in a target area and if you have the privilege of a nice big sturdy victorian home with lots of rooms that you can use to stockpile things in

where you can burrow down and protect yourself. If you live in a bungalow or a high-rise flat, then you would be done for. And if your furniture isn't heavy enough in order to move it into... IKEA, possibly. Yeah, absolutely. IKEA furniture would be useless. I love the little addition in the Protect and Survive booklet

that also says, if you leave, your local authority may need to take your empty house for others to use, so stay at home. Well, that was, I mean, that was terrible. But also, we need to be a bit careful about misinformation, don't we? I mean, I thought that our family had had a copy of Protect and Survive. But in fact, it wasn't delivered to households, was it? No, that's a common misconception. A lot of people seem to remember receiving that booklet on the doormat, but that never happened. If nuclear war had been imminent and the government had decided,

OK, this is it, then yes, they would have, if things had gone according to plan, printed it en masse and delivered it to each household, but we didn't ever reach that point, thankfully. What people might remember is a booklet from their local council, because in the 80s, there was a so-called nuclear free movement, where a lot of left wing and Labour councils across Britain said, we don't agree with this, we don't agree that you can prepare for nuclear war. And indeed, the very act of preparing for it suggests that it's something survivable, but it's a risk that we can run. So we don't agree. We do not want to prepare for it. Nonetheless, we are legally obliged to.

So they would send out these leaflets saying this is the full and absolute and blunt horror of nuclear war. So that was their way of fulfilling their obligation to Whitehall. We are educating and informing the public, but we're doing it in a very lurid, hideous and honest way. So much so that Whitehall might have preferred if we'd just shut up about it. I mean, this book, it couldn't be more bleakly comic. And some of the nuggets you've dug up about the role of the WRVS, for example,

and the possibility of them operating a jigsaws on wheels service. Yeah, I've got great admiration for them. They were formed at the start of the Second World War to do a kind of womanly version of civil defence, you know, so the welfare aspect, it was for women who perhaps were too genteel to, you know, muck in and get their hands dirty with, you know, rescue work or anything seen as dangerous but they could be in hand to provide blankets and food so it's typically old-fashioned feminine type of civil defense and they continued during the cold war to cling on to that same notion that after a nuclear attack we will still turn up with blankets and foods and

we all know that the women's royal Voluntary Service are famous for their meals on wheels service, which they provide to the elderly. Well, they carried that forward even further and said, not only will we have meals on wheels, but we will turn up with blankets and with hot soup and with jigsaws to keep everyone entertained, to keep their mind off the collapse of civilisation. That's just so mind-boggling. Can you also tell us about Operation Vicar Elastic? Oh, yes. That was an idea to get the clergy involved.

Of course, after the nuclear war, the government had to try somehow to keep up the public's morale, because the government would need us, the survivors, to rebuild society, if that would be at all possible. And to do that, you would need, of course, a population who weren't just hopeless and psychologically battered and destroyed. So one of the ways of possibly keeping up morale and giving the impression to survivors that, yes, the British state is still here and is still functioning, was to have vicars, priests, etc. on hand, meeting survivors with a little armband on, saying clergyman. that everything was still ticking along. The street might be choked with rubble and corpses, but here is the vicar with his vestments on to give you spiritual advice and to give you guidance.

So he would represent, of course, the religious side of things, but he would also, in a way, represent the state and the fact that organisation was still going on, so there was still a state there to work for and to, importantly, obey. You know all this, Julie, and now you've told us, and I'm not sure whether I'm grateful or not, to be honest, but you know it because you've been researching

all these declassified documents. And we can sort of laugh about this, as though the threat has gone, but it hasn't gone, has it? In fact, it's presumably, tell us what you think, no less likely than it was back in the 1980s. That's true. I think at the end of the Cold War, we were all, well, certainly I was, far too ready to think

the threat of nuclear war has gone now. And when I think back to the 1990s, it all seems ludicrously happy and giddy and carefree I was just a teenager then so maybe that colors my memory of the 90s and now that seems to have gone completely and of course the nuclear threat didn't go away it never will as long as these weapons exist and I think they always will exist I think campaigning for us all to disarm is pointless there's no way it's going to happen and what we should do is campaign to have nuclear weapons reduced and to make them more um safer so they're

not all on a hair trigger ready to be fired with a few minutes notice so there's no point asking for a disarmament we should ask for reduction but that's not such a catchy slogan but no the threat has never gone away uh you could argue that the threat actually increased because at least in the cold war everyone knew or at least NATO and the Soviet Union knew what the rules were and we had people in charge who had direct personal memory of the horror of the second world war now we seem to have politicians who are perhaps a bit more naive. I think of Donald Trump, who, of course, doesn't seem to have experienced any kind of hardship, any kind of direct experience of war. People like him in charge, who I think don't understand the horror of it, don't understand the terrible responsibility that they hold or that they held.

So I think, yes, we're more at risk now because the old rules have gone and the old the old soviet men for example that we all feared in the 80s we could say at least they remembered the terrible german invasion of 41 and at least they were determined it should never happen again as we're guys on our side let's not get back into another conflict and I think now we're a bit too cosseted and naive and innocent and we're like children playing with these horrific toys and we have no idea really what we're holding in our hands and what the outcome could be. Do you think that climate anxiety is very much the same as nuclear anxiety? Can we make a comparison comparison because a lot of people who are campaigning vigorously against climate change would say that it poses exactly the same kind of

physical mental and existential threat to humankind um i don't doubt climate change at all of course but in a way i kind of resent it because it seems to have taken attention away from the threat of nuclear war i saw a photograph recently of young people doing a so-called die-in down in London, where they, of course, they all lie down in the street and, you know, represents, you know, a pile of the dead of what would happen with severe climate change. And we used to see that in the 80s, famously die-ins down in Trafalgar Square when they were protesting against nuclear weapons. So it does seem as though attention has been shifted away from nuclear war to climate change, which is a bit of a naive move because a full-scale nuclear war would provoke a catastrophic climate change

through the theory of nuclear winter. So if your fear is climate change, you should also fear nuclear war, which could bring about climate change and a lot more, a lot quicker and a lot more suddenly than gradual climate change through industrialisation, for example. So in brief, if you can, Julie, planning for a nuclear war hasn't stopped, has it? No, our government are still, I assume, still planning for it. There's no reason why they wouldn't be. The only difference is that if I go into archives, I won't find any documents and papers about it. They will be released, I assume, in 50 years time if we're all still here. So there's no reason to think that the planning has stopped. It's just it's not available for ordinary members of the public like us.

That is the author, Julie McDowell. And I did think it was really interesting. The question you put her about the environment and young people and the fact that, I mean, Julie makes the point that she doesn't believe we can get rid of nuclear weapons, but they should. It is interesting that they don't appear to crop up much in the environment debate and all those people who are so passionate about climate change.

Do you think it's just nuclear arms fatigue? I can't think of any other explanation. It must be. And an acceptance that actually the way nuclear arms have been handled within their lifetime has made them appear not to be the threat that we thought they were. Because I suppose people would say, and you might well say entirely legitimately, their very existence has prevented a war. Although not every war, as we know, but it's prevented a nuclear war.

Yeah. But you don't want to disappear down that philosophical rabbit hole of something that should never be used, could never be used, has stopped them being used, if you saw what I mean. No, but that is the political argument. Yeah, and it's just, it's a confusing one. Anyway, I just wanted to mention this from Yvette, who says, as I approach my 60th birthday, I remember the feeling of inevitable global demise

in my late teens and early 20s. I always felt it was just a matter of when somebody pushed that button. However, the fear of the bomb came much earlier, and one example was really close to home. The writer Neville Shute lived quite near to where I live now, and in fact I've lived there for most of my life, and he based the location of his novel on the beach right here in Frankston, which is on the outer edge of suburban Melbourne in Australia. It was published in 1957, and the book begins in January 1964,

the month my husband was born, right here. I was six months old. In 1959, Hollywood came to town as the novel was adapted for the big screen. It starred Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins and they were all seen out and about as our small part of the world took centre stage. However, reading the book and watching the film is absolutely chilling. Yvette, thank you for that. And good luck with what sounds like a wonderful life you've got there in Melbourne. How fantastic.

Have you read On the Beach? No, I don't think I have. It is a very, very good book. And it's about, again, it's about the same old thing. But it's about everybody. the world has gone to pot and only Australia is left. And it's really just a matter of time and they're just waiting. It's really grim.

I mean, it's, you know, fallout is coming, but quite slowly. So it's not what the Chris Rea classic is based on then, is it? It really is nothing to do with Mr Driving Home for Christmas. No, we've got Christmas to look forward to, everybody. Come on! Let's get on! Let's get on! I didn't know Fred Astaire was in that film, I have to say. Anyway, Yvette, thank you. You can't leap over the coronation and go straight into Christmas.

You've got to give us all a bit of a break. Sorry. Can I just say a very, very quick but very heartfelt thank you to Alex, who is a fairly new fan of the podcast, describes herself following early retirement at 57 after 14 years at the coalface in a school office. Well, you deserve early retirement after that

because you must have met, apart from everything else, some hideous parents during that time, Alex. I bet you have. But it's a really lovely picture that she sent of her and her 20- 20 year old daughter. No, sorry, the photo is taken by your 20 year old daughter. It's of you and your 19 year old daughter holding hands when you were sauntering down a lovely street in Madrid two weeks ago. And it's just a beautiful thing, actually. These little details of people who still hold hands with their mums and do you know what, it really made me think

actually, the next time I go and see my mum if we go out and about to actually hold her hand too, because I think, you know, my mum's in her 80s now, we don't see each other as often as we should do or we can do and I think actually it would be a lovely thing, wouldn't it

I would absolutely love it if I make it to 81 for one of my kids to come and we'll be sauntering around Aldi doing the weekly shop and their little hand reaches out to mine. So I'm going to try and do that. So thank you for everybody who's been in touch about that. Earlier today during the live programme.

No, I'm not holding your hand. No, no. Not during the live programme, but you mentioned... Not during the podcast. You talked about the possibility of us being strangled by our robot carers. I'm here to bring joy to your life. I mean, you say I'm a gloomster. Blimey neck.

I've got a question here, which I'm hoping our operatives will be able to answer. It's from Anne. I'm an avid listener to your podcast, both now and... Yes, all right. Thank you, Anne. I was looking forward to listening to your show on Saturday to hear your take on the proceedings. However, I will be flying back from Zurich while you're broadcasting after a mini tour of Europe, taking in Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna and Liechtenstein. What a life you lead, Anne. Doesn't that sound fabulous? Will the show be available on the Times radio app to listen from the start later in the day?

Or what is the answer? Yes. The answer is, I hope you heard that from rather husky assistant Eve there. It's yes. Yes. It's yes. Yes. She's only had 18 cans of Diet Coke today,

so she's not quite firing on every single available cylinder. At one point, she was wearing a cup on her head that had been made into a kind of DIY crown by Einar Orn. Not everybody is taking this very important event on Saturday as seriously as they might be. Although I've got to say, our canteen, to use a bit of French, is en fête, is it not? It is, but I wondered whether that wasn't because the big boss was in town.

We don't talk about him, I don't think, more than our lives were. Now, Anne, I hope you can join us when you get back home. I mean, it'll be a bit odd listening retrospectively to something that will be completely relevant by the time you get round to listen to it. It might be more fun to join us on Tuesday live next week when we can really talk about what really happened. Is that right? What do you think? Very much so, yes.

I'm just looking forward to absolutely all of it, Jane. Absolutely marvellous, great. I've just ordered a T-shirt with a sequined crown on. Off we go, shuffle papers, goodnight. What size? Extra small. Oh, that's sweet. 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'm sorry.