Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Thank you for your use of the word 'golly'

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Jane and Fi are back tomorrow so, in the meantime, enjoy this hefty 'best bits' episode. This one features actress Liz Hurley, author Colm Tóibín, broadcaster Adele Roberts and writer Salman Rushdie. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to a Bank Holiday Monday. It is Jane and Fi with you as ever, but not quite as ever because actually, Jane, we're not here. Well, we're not here, but we are here tomorrow, if that makes any sense, because our holidays are almost over. Yours might be as well. But we hope you enjoy this. We are back live on Times Radio tomorrow and there'll be fresh off-air content too. Right, bring in Liz Hurley. Right, let's bring in Elizabeth Hurley.

Eve, named staff of the day, would you like me to read the cue? Oh, God, how unprofessional. OK, right, so I need to read it again. Right, do it properly. Make a note of this. It's extra money. Elizabeth Hurley has been in the public eye for 40 years now as an actress and model. She's also been an organic farmer and film producer, one-time partner of Hugh Grant and also Shane Warne. And that's relevant because we talk about loss in this interview. She's mum to Damien, whose biological father, Steve Bing,

took his own life in 2020. He had played very little part in Damien's life after his relationship with Elizabeth had ended. And that's relevant too because suicide is a theme in Damien's first film, which he's written and directed at the age of 22. It's out now. It's called Strictly Confidential and as well as a raft of thoroughly beautiful young actors, it stars his thoroughly beautiful mum, Elizabeth.

You and your son, Damien, know all about the true pain of suicide. Damien's biological father, your former partner, died by suicide. And I wonder, when you first read his script, and particularly as his mum, undoubtedly, it's a storyline, isn't it, that wishes away the pain of suicide? What did you think? I think it's also knowing that I think when you lose someone to suicide, there's always

unanswered questions. And I think in this film, he has his protagonist who had a whole heap of unanswered questions and she finds answers. Whereas, of course, in real life, I don't think you always do find answers and you're always in that position of just not knowing somebody's mindset, not knowing how you could have contributed differently you

just don't know this was actually sparked initially he first wrote this treatment when at about i think he's about 16 or 17 and one of their peer groups committed suicide a young girl and you know they were obviously kids themselves and they they found it very hard to process and they had a lot of unanswered questions which of course remain unanswered to this day. So yes, I think I could see how he would like to be able to tidy things up in his own life and also know that he can't. So sad.

Yeah, you've had to be so protective of him, I know, because so many things have happened along the way. And I know that losing Shane Warne as well must have been incredibly painful for both you and him but also you've got that added whammy haven't you of the public gaze being upon you and I wonder how you are trying to prepare him for an inevitable life in the public eye, where, I mean, like today, I can ask you these questions. It's an extraordinary position to be in. They're personal questions about your personal life. So what's the wisdom that you try and pass down to him

to be able to cope with all of that? Well, that would be suggesting I have any wisdom, and I'm probably a complete idiot most of the time. No, I bet you do, So don't do yourself down here. Well, I think he is extraordinarily observant. And as a single child of a single mother, we've spent a great deal of time together, which probably also explains more of our comfort level with each other, which might seem more strange to other parents with sons or daughters who might think that's just ridiculous that they could work and for example shoot those scenes we shot which is a question you asked

um and certainly if my mother or father had been directing me it's mind-boggling to think of it so i completely get where those questions come from um we are extraordinarily close in some ways um and he's been involved in for at least 10 years in my professional life in that he's been on sets with me he's run lines with me he's run lines with other actors he's been observing and watching the entire time and also because he's he's a pretty good photographer and videographer he's you know he helps me out with my beachwear company all the time and takes pictures and takes photographs and so it's unlike many parents I can see it would be completely absurd if I've been photographing my dad in his swimming shorts I mean it's mind-boggling to think of but it isn't mind-boggling for me for him I want to see those pictures no I get it I get it and it would have

been absurd so i totally understand where people come from but because he's had a camera in his hands since he was still in single digits photographing everything all my family all my friends always photographing all through school photographing his friends who in all his photographic projects for his a levelslevels and stuff. It's because I've really been able to separate him off as a professional and I think he's also been able to separate me off as a professional. And because I've had my own company and also produced films when I was much younger

and then didn't produce for a long time, I've always been able to completely disassociate myself, as it happens, from the images I'm seeing. So often, as an actress or a model, I've always been able to completely disassociate myself as it happens from the images I'm seeing. So often as an actress or a model, photographers don't like you to come behind the monitor and see the unfinished, the raw stuff because they think you'll go, oh my God, Jesus Christ.

And they always want to say, no, no, no, no, we'll fix that. We'll fix that. I'm fine to see it. I know what I look like and I'm always fine. I know they're going to tidy stuff up. Damien knows that. So I just, we just, there's just a level gone.

We're not in cloud cuckoo land. We know how we look. We know how we are. And we just want to make the best thing we can for whatever basically we're selling. And so it's just, it is just a different thing. So as far as him learning from me how to keep what you need to keep private but how to

understand that there's certain things you need to share if you're asking people to buy your your book or watch your film or buy your makeup or your swimsuits or whatever we know you have to share something and I'm happy to share quite a lot but of course there is a cut-off point and I think he's learned also that I that maybe it is an art of sharing without regretting what you're sharing um gosh that's a tricky one it is it's a tricky one and you have to navigate it and there are gray areas and you make mistakes but I think um you know you I've always been very protective of people who aren't in the business in my family. And I feel really incensed when their privacy is invaded because they're not in the public eye. But he loves my business and he wants to be in the business.

And he gets that you share. He gets it. You are astonishingly beautiful. And can I just say with an age defying cleavage. But I wonder as you get older, as all of us do, we change. There can be a sense of losing something, I think, especially for women and women in the public eye. And so I wonder what you think. Are your wrinkles little enemies? Are they little friends? Do you worry about your looks changing as you age uh you know it's an interesting thing because sometimes i realize that i think much more about changes below the the the face body changes more than the face so i actually know i don't

worry about wrinkles i i completely accept that but and obviously we don't cover our faces up, but look how covered I am today. You're very covered. I always am. I only show very small bits of me now. Because, you know, it is obviously, when you're older, your skin isn't so good on your body.

And I do find myself covering up quite a lot when I'm in public, because unfortunately, you know, cameras now are high def and they're really unflattering but also newspapers do that unbelievable thing still up in the contrast where they do before and after and the before and after is aging that's what it is it is and and because we manipulate pictures because we're in the business they're very easy to manipulate and and hi it's interesting because we just went on we're in the business. They're very easy to manipulate. And it's interesting because we just went on vacation.

It was the first time we'd had a break since we started this movie, the whole process. So for 18 months, we've worked pretty much 23 hours a day. And we just took a 10-day break. And I found my little Leica camera. Not film. It's not a film camera. It's digital. But it's from the early 2000s.

And as you know now, everybody takes photographs of themselves on their phone the whole time. They're so high def, they're absolutely hideous. So you know, you can look at your friend and they look great. You take a picture on your camera and everyone goes, what? And you say, no, you don't look like that. And it is the camera. It's high def and it's really unflattering and it's not fair. So we took our Leica with us and suddenly we looked like the camera. It's high def and it's really unflattering and it's not fair. So we took our Leica with us and suddenly we looked like the photographs, we actually look like how we do look when you look at someone,

where it's not hideous high def, but it's very hard for people in the public eye when you're photographed in really unflattering high def and then they turn the contrast up again and it's really hard. You know, when we used to be shot on film to make a movie, film is beautiful. You could still have bad lighting on film but film is very beautiful the high def we shoot on now is not beautiful it's raw and it's open and you know a 16 year old can they're quite challenging shots sometimes which is is why now, even in TV and films, everything's retouched

because you have to counteract the horror of high def. So it's a completely different, it's a different aesthetic and it's a different business now. And in real life, you know, people are tended to cover up. If you look at the red carpet now, people are covered.

They cover their arms, they cover their legs. They just show little bits because it's deeply unflattering, no matter how old you are. And people don't like it. Why would they? No one likes it. That's a very interesting point, actually. And I was going to ask you about some of the women

who went to the Met Gala. There's been quite a furore about very, very small waists. Have people had their ribs removed in order to get tiny wasp waists and all of that kind of stuff going on? But at the same time, when you look at that red carpet, that is a red carpet full of female empowerment. Unbelievable women who've done unbelievable things,

made fortunes, been in control of their entire lives. So when do those two things actually meet in the middle, where a woman can be the woman she wants to be without it being about a very specific image of the female body? Will we ever get there? Golly, well, I'm not sure. I mean, I think most people I know are relatively comfortable with who they are and where they are at their stage in life.

Everybody, in the public eye or not, most of us try to make the best of ourselves you know eliminate the negative accentuate the positive do what we can keep our hair clean and glossy you know not you know do our nails off we've done the gardening i had to do mine yesterday mine was shocking every single broken nail full of mud um but you know most people do the best they can but i think most people also and I'm definitely in that camp I accept the inevitable of you know the changes we go through through life and I think having that kind of acceptance is pretty important you could be pretty miserable in fact I'm very much looking forward to reading a book I just read a review of it yesterday it's written you

might enjoy it it's written by a lady called Bonnie Hammer, who... Great name. She was a force to be reckoned with. When I did the Royals, she was running a whole slew of NBC, Bravo, E, a whole lot of channels were completely under her control. She was a tiny little woman. She was brilliant, absolutely brilliant at her job. She's just published a book for women about how women navigate through the workplace. Now, she was a rocket. She was a little bit frightening.

She was very nice to me, but she was a very fierce lady and she was brilliant in the job that she did. She had some excellent advice. Just in the little piece I read lifted from that, it could be a book that's really worth reading, I think, for women navigating their course through the workplace like Bonnie did. Nice recommendation.

Thank you for that. Can we just talk politics before we let you go? I know that, well, you've been... I haven't had time to read the papers and watch the news for 18 months, so I'm going to be behind. Don't worry, it's not a quiz. It's not a quiz.

No traps here at all. I have read, though, that you have been in the past a pro-Tory Brexit supporter. And I wonder whether that has changed at all, not least because as a farmer, the owner of land, I know that you sold your farm 10 years ago, an awful lot of farmers have come to a different position, actually, because what they've been trying to navigate after Brexit has been very complicated and perhaps not what was foreseen. So it's a very open question. I'm

not testing you on regulations here at all. But I suppose I'm asking if you've changed your mind at all. Well, I'd be very happy to talk about the plight of the British farmer. So what was interesting, when I, obviously, was not a big landowner, but I had an organic farm. I had 400 acres. We were part of the EU at that time. All I can say at that time is that the paperwork was absolutely astonishing. I don't think any farmer could fill it out by himself.

Everybody had to hire people to do it. It was the most confusing system I'd ever seen. I remember sitting there with my then husband and just thinking, we can't cope with this paperwork. It's unbelievable. So you're right, everything did change for landowners, or has half changed or not really changed, and nobody really understands it. So every farmer I speak to, and I could not be a bigger supporter of British farmers, I think they are astonishing. We moved heaven and earth to buy as much British farm product as we physically can. Milk, meat, vegetables, Ireland included.

But we try incredibly hard to eat as little as we can that's imported, plus we grow as much as we can. And I know now that on the smaller amount of land that I now have, it's so confusing and I don't know why. I don't know why it can't just be easy. The rules on set-aside, the rules on what you can plant and what you can't plant and what grants you may or may not get anymore because most of them, they were changed and taken away.

But it was a useless system before and I think it's pretty useless now too. So the plight of the British farmer is not over. Has it changed the way that you'd vote? No. Liz Hurley, thank you very much. And also, can I just thank you for using the word golly in this interview? I haven't heard that for years. That's brilliant.

Yes, it was lovely. It was a golly. Right, let's bring in Colm Tabin, because he is just one of the great living Irish writers and it was such a thrill for me to interview the man responsible for Brooklyn and now for its sequel, Long Island. Now, fans of the novel Brooklyn, or indeed anyone who saw the film, which is fabulous, will know that we left Eilish in the USA,

married to her Italian-American husband, Tony, and left best friend Nancy Sheridan and old flame Jim Farrell to get on with their lives back home in Ireland. So did Colm always know he would return to these much-loved characters? It was never in my mind. I mean, I think when you finish a novel, you have a duty to write as much as you need to write and leave it there. In other words, the whole construction of a novel is really not the construction of a novel so it's open to sequels. It's the construction of a single entity that the reader has a right to be.

When I'm sitting down with this, this has an arc or a shape or a structure or an aura that somehow gives you completion. And I think if you don't feel that as you're reading, you think, well, hold on a minute, why don't I wait until the sequel appears and I'll read both together? So no, I never did. And I feel a bit guilty and sheepish about it. Were readers pestering you to revisit the characters from Brooklyn? No, no, really. It might have been mentioned once or twice, but it's been mentioned

with every book that I've written. And so if I'd written 10 novels before this, so I would really be blue in the face writing sequels if I was, you know, paying attention to people pestering me. No one's ever pestered me really about anything much. And so, no, it was done entirely on my own. In other words, it was no publisher. I had no commission for it or anything like that. I simply started it because I got an idea for the opening. And if I hadn't got that idea, I wouldn't have written it.

In other words, that it depends on the first two and a half pages where something in their lives momentous happens. And therefore, the rest of the novel is dealing with that big event. It's dramatic and the novel takes its bearings, not from the previous novel as much as from this action at the very beginning of this new novel, Long Island. Okay, so what new joiners need to know is that we left Eilish living in Brooklyn, actually I think she'd moved to Long Island, hadn't she, in New York with her Italian American husband, Tony, and back home in Enniscorthy, her best friend Nancy and Jim Farrell continued to live their lives.

Jim Farrell was a man that Eilish had had a brief relationship with when she returned to Enniscorthy because her elder sister had died. I hope that brings everybody on board. Absolutely. I couldn't improve on that. Well, thank you. That's fantastic. I like you even more than I thought I would. you that's so that's fantastic um i like you even more than i thought i would um so uh what we need to to emphasize is that time has moved on although it's 1976 i think in the book long island life in ns corthy hasn't changed all that much i think cheese toasties are on the horizon uh and sort of small town Irish snobbishness and judgment still abound. Is that an accurate up some? Yeah, there are tiny changes in the book that really represent much larger ones. For example, in the 50s, it wouldn't have been possible for a pub like Jim Farrell's to

attract both old timers and new professionals, as it were. an old pub like that would just be considered old fashioned. But now old pubs like that are considered fashionable. And that's a big change, oddly enough, in the sort of way a small town works. People go to Dublin sometimes for shopping, which again is two hours away. People normally wouldn't have done that before. So there are a few tiny things that signal much bigger things.

Did you anticipate that the ending of this book, and I won't give it away, would be an ending for these characters? Or, I mean, I have to say there's plenty of potential. Is there still a literary itch to be scratched about the fates of Eilish and Nancy and Jim? That's a really good question. Honestly, honestly, I never put a thought into the idea that there would be another book. In other words, as I saw it, that ending of this novel, Long Island, is pretty conclusive. It doesn't tell you, spell out in clear newspaper sentences what exactly was going to happen over the next weeks or years but it's pretty clear from what's gone on and I didn't want to make it any more clear simply because I wanted to leave the reader not with a sort of clanging informative

sentences written by the author telling you what happened to the characters. Remember, the characters, it's from their perspective, not from mine. So I can't go further than give you what one of their perspectives is. And therefore, as far as I was concerned, it is a complete ending. Yes, as a reader, I'm just angry with all of them for what it's worth. But anyway, perhaps I shouldn't. Oh, yeah, but I mean, the thing is that if I start making characters that you're going to be pleased with, that's not what that means, perhaps I shouldn't. Oh yeah, but I mean, the thing is that if I start making characters that you're going to be pleased with, that's very novel, but that's me.

You're quite right. I want to make it quite clear to listeners that there's also a lot of humour in this book and anyone who has any Irish heritage knows anything about Ireland. The depiction of the wedding and I think it's the sisters of the groom who get up and sing

that old dirge, the old bog road. I mean, this is 1976. I think there's another example of modernity and some older system in collusion or in cahoots or indeed in conflict. That, yeah, the sisters, they've made their own clothes, it seems, for the wedding. And their hairdos are very old-fashioned and they come and yet three sisters go up and without using harmony and without any accompaniment they sing the old bog road you can just imagine in an Irish town what that would have looked like it would have looked you know the snobberies are not just about class they're about who's from the town who's from the country and certainly in those years people from

the country tended to be old-fashioned they could have a lot more money, but their manners, their habits, the songs they sang. And what the mother, one of the sisters says in the end was, we'll have to learn new songs. Yes, quite. Okay. You have up until very recently been the Chancellor of Liverpool University. And I mean, did you accept that role or were you chosen for it because of all the links between Ireland and Liverpool? Oh I suppose that the links were very important that the way Liverpool faces Ireland and Ireland faces Liverpool and but I mean I never actually you know I never sat down with them and asked why but I suppose suppose that would obviously, I think, have been one of the reasons. And what did you find out about the students when you were in that position?

Because a lot of people are hard on today's 18-year-olds and slightly beyond, but they are an interesting generation, aren't they? More than interesting. Could anybody get a life on this business of young people and demanding that they conform to some set of ideals? Because Liverpool

it was really an eye opener to be there at graduation and stand on the stage as I did. I stood on the stage in my big robe for some of the days and I handed out the degrees

to various people who were coming to get the degrees. Now you should have seen them because these were young people who, for example, had become dentists, doctors, accountants, had studied literature, had studied science, had studied languages. They had all got through this actually quite a gruelling process to graduate from Liverpool. I mean, you have to do exams. You really have to deliver on time. You have to be a deliverer to be up on that stage getting your degree.

And it was wonderful to watch their families in the audience accepting as normal that their children in the north of England would be getting these sort of qualifications. It wasn't gasp of surprise from people who themselves may have never been to university, watching their children getting degrees. It was considered a natural process, a strange part of the great success story, which is modern England. Now, I was in various places reading about Brexit, reading about the various ways in which England, especially the north of England, was in decline. On the other hand, what I was witnessing on those days was like it wasn't just that it was a big achievement to get the degrees. There was a sense of confidence and there was a sense of diversity.

There was a sense of various people who eat different sorts of food coming together in this place to study and create a new society. And if anyone has any doubts about young people being smarter than they are, you must remember these people studied harder than you did, achieved more than you did. And if you have anyone having any views about the habits of 18 year olds and 20 year olds, just come to those graduations and just see this, because it is a remarkable example of a sort of England that's not being written about and that's not being described anywhere and that people

should be immensely proud of. This is where their taxpayers' money have gone into the creation of a set of ideals which actually are summed up by a university. I'm really glad you said that. That's something that we need to celebrate and perhaps we just don't do that often enough now. We don't allow ourselves to in this country. What about Ireland's prospects? Is a united Ireland likely to happen, country. What about Ireland's prospects? So is a

united Ireland likely to happen do you think in your lifetime? This word in my lifetime has become the cliche. From about 1970 onwards every Irish politician, everyone always says I'd like to see they always say it in this dull sort of

dreamy sort of old man tone I would like to see a united Ireland in my lifetime. In my lifetime, it's your town forever. It's just simple. There's a simple solution to this. That if you're driving from Belfast to Dublin, you think you're nearer than you are as you're driving south because it's miles in the north and it's kilometres in the south.

So we're starting in the Republic to think in kilometres. In the north, they think in miles. I mean, that is the strangest idea on this tiny island, to have two ways of measuring distance. Now, I'm not proposing a compromise. Everyone's always suggesting a compromise, because how do you get a compromise between kilometres and miles? But I think maybe we should go back to miles or they should come down to kilometers. We've got to have a meeting about this. But if we can't agree, first of all, on a number of very small things, miles, kilometers being one, for example, why are there two arts councils in a country where the artists don't recognize the border? Since the artists, the painters, the poets

don't recognize the border. People come from Dublin to Belfast, go up to Derry, people don't know it doesn't matter what side of the border you're on, whether you're reading a Michael Longley poem or you're writing a Michael Longley poem it doesn't really matter what side of the border you're on. So why are there two art councils? I mean, why? And so you just start with very

small things and if you can't do those, how can you do the big constitutional thing? Danielle Pletka So is that a no? David Farley It's just, it seems a dreamy, mystical idea of a United Ireland. It's mystical and it's dreamy. And all of us know when nations, nation states get involved in being mystical and dreamy, nothing good comes of it. I'm not suggesting fascism or anything like that. I'm just suggesting a sort of

inanity around language where people talk about United Ireland without having the slightest clue what that means. For example, are people in Northern Ireland really going to abandon the NHS? Are they going to abandon the BBC? Is the BBC going to close in Belfast? Is that what they're talking about, like a takeover

from the Republic of the North? That's serious. Yeah. The more you go into detail, the more complicated the picture appears. So, right, let's park that. But it's been an absolute delight to talk to you. And we just now want to move to our politics section of the interview, if that's all right. I know I'm not expecting you to answer in a British way necessarily or give British answers to this because you probably wouldn't have any interest in the British general election beyond the kind of token level of interest that you may or may not take. What is your earliest political memory?

I think I was born in 1955, so I certainly worked on the 1964 general election, putting posters or putting little pamphlets into envelopes. That was my job. And then maybe my sister would, my older sister would write the address on them. This was for the Fianna Fáil party, which has remained one of the ruling parties of the Republic of Ireland. My father was involved in it and certainly I was involved in it. But I have some memory of an earlier election, perhaps in 1961. So I would have been six or seven. But I was brought up in politics and, you know, the whole idea of setting up envelopes or knocking on doors or coming up with slogans or, you know. Yeah, I've done all that. And the first election that you actually voted in?

Oh, I suppose it would have been, let me think, 1969. And the first election that you actually voted in? Oh, I suppose it would have been, let me think, 1969. Yeah, I suppose it was maybe 79 European elections, perhaps. Yeah, maybe the 1979, but the first elections in the European Parliament. And the biggest issue for you when you consider who or what to vote for? The biggest issue usually is just get them out, whoever is causing most trouble. And often you get to like a government,

but generally the good thing is to see if a government could be, who's annoying you in any way, should be removed. And so certainly at the moment in Britain, I think it's pretty obvious. Listen, we're trying to pretend. Think about policy, think about all the other problems you have made, or just get them

out. Get them out. Get them out. Yes, all right. Well, you can say that. I can't. Let's say, I know you work a lot in America. So let's say you have a vote in the American presidential election. Who would you vote for? I'd vote for Joe Biden.

That's pretty simple. I'd vote for Joe Biden. And I think anyone who's talking about, oh, Joe Biden is not good on this, he's not good on that, just stop it. Give it up. This is a crisis. Vote for Joe Biden. Have an argument with him later.

Argue after, vote now, because this is a crisis. If you don't vote for Joe Biden, it is in fact a vote for Donald Trump. You may not be directly voting for him, but an indirect vote for him equals a vote for him. Vote Joe Biden, Joe Biden, Joe Biden. You could not be any clearer. Thank you so much for your time. Vote Joe Biden.

Who's our guest? Adele Roberts is our guest. She is an award-winning BBC broadcaster, TV personality and DJ. You might know her from lots of the different shows that she did on Radio 1 Extra. She has got a fantastic anecdote about one particular listener to her show, her early morning breakfast show on Radio 1 Extra, towards the end of this interview. Jane and I have met her before and really enjoyed her company. She's a real sparkling kind of person, isn't she?

She's very upbeat, very positive. Well, she went to the same school as me. Well, so she's bound to be. Absolutely bound. What a pedigree. Indeed. No, she is. And I think I'm so glad that she is talking as loudly

and as proudly as she is about what's happened to her because I really do think it's going to make a difference. I agree. So what's happened to her is just really quite shocking. She got bowel cancer diagnosed at stage two but very close to stage three. And she was so young. So young and she will tell her story

obviously better than Jane and I could ever do. But the important thing for you to know is that the book that she has written, which is called Personal Best from Rock Bottom to the Top of the World, is about a very, very quick journey from having serious surgery for cancer, being told that she would have a stoma, possibly for the rest of her life, and then to go on to decide to run the London Marathon and to complete the London Marathon this is all within the space of about three years so that's what the book is about we went right back to the beginning of her cancer story though

for this interview and she started by telling me what her initial symptoms have been. Yeah, thank you for asking that because I think I didn't know for a long time there was something wrong. There was something wrong with me in plain sight as well for a lot of the years before my diagnosis and I just didn't realise. The thing with bowel cancer is it's quite a sneaky form of cancer and a lot of the symptoms you can explain them away. So I started to lose weight but I was running a lot and I felt like I was in the shape of my life so I just thought it was a symptom of the symptoms you can explain them away. So I started to lose weight but I was

running a lot and I felt like I was in the shape of my life so I just thought it was a symptom of getting fitter. I had a bit of a swollen tummy when I'd eat but I thought that was just me being a bad cook and then the the thing that made me ring the doctors was I started to notice first of all mucus when I go to the toilet and then I started to notice spots of blood and then the spots of blood didn't go away and at first I didn't want to be a burden to the GP and I thought don't ring up because Covid was happening and I just didn't want to bother them I knew they had a lot going on and then it became so regular that I thought stop being silly ring up and speak to somebody and that was the main thing. And presumably you also think I'm a young woman and I am fit and

I am still functioning so your brain wants to tell you that everything's okay that's a very natural thing isn't it absolutely and I think that I was very naive as well and it seemed to me that cancer was something that would happen to other people you You don't realise it can happen to you, especially like you say, when you feel like you're fit and maybe you're younger than people definitely that get affected by bowel cancer. And even my GP said when she examined me, I don't think it's cancer, but I'm going to give you the test just in case. And it's such a simple test, isn't it? If somebody tells you to do the test or you're sent the test, don't be put off by the test. You need to have a poo, take a little bit of it, it could save your life, couldn't it? to just spot those symptoms. And like you say, don't fear the symptoms,

fear not telling somebody. Unfortunately, bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK and that's because people don't get diagnosed early enough because they worry about the symptoms or they feel embarrassed. So when you were diagnosed, I was really interested in your reaction, Adele, because you're in the room. I think you had two nurses there with you and Mr. Barn, who was your consultant. your reaction, Adele, because you're in the room. I think you had two nurses there with you and

Mr. Barn, who was your consultant. Your first reaction was to say to him, is it my fault? Yeah. I was so shocked when I first heard the words, you've got cancer, because I wasn't expecting him to say that. My first question was, am I going to die? And then the second one, is it my fault? I just felt this overwhelming shame I thought it must be something I've done to myself I don't know why I thought that but again I think that's maybe why deep down I didn't ring anybody because I thought I'd been doing something wrong what would that wrong be yeah it's a really good. I think just not looking after myself. I think I mentioned in the book about going through grief, and it took me a long time to get out of that grief.

And part of the process of grieving was not doing self-care, not caring about myself. I think I was punishing myself. And so I thought that I'd been abusing my body or I'd not been eating the right things or I'd been foolish and I'd not been looking out for the symptoms. So you got your treatment very quickly. And you know what, we should just take a moment to say all hail the NHS. I'm sure that you want to do that. Yeah, definitely. They were fabulous.

The moment that they knew it was cancer and that it was stage two, very nearly stage three, but stage two, they were like, right, let's get you into hospital and let's sort it out. How much did you know about what would then happen to your body? Not much, to be honest. I tried to have no spoilers because I was going through so much. Once I'd been told I had cancer, I just thought, right, compartmentalise and just get through each day. So I tried not to worry myself and scare myself. I just thought, you're in this now. What's going to happen is going to happen. The NHS are going to help you as much as they can.

So just deal day by day. So I just wanted the operation as soon as possible to take the tumour out. And I thought, if I need chemo after that, I'll deal with it. If I get told I need chemo, and if I need a stoma to help me recover from the surgery, I'll deal with that if I get one. So I'm assuming that an awful lot of people listening to this would have that level of non-knowledge, I don't want to call it ignorance at all, about a stoma. And so much of the book

is just unbelievably helpful and detailed about what a stoma is and what living with a stoma is like. So where should we start with a stoma? I think your description of what it actually is is so important because some of your body, your internal organs that we never really want to see, they are on the outside, aren't they? Yeah, and I didn't know that was possible. I was like, how can someone be alive if a section of their intestine has come through their stomach wall

and is now on the outside of their body? And again hail the nhs and medicine like it's a medical marvel and it's something that once it heals it's just basically you go out you go to the toilet out the front rather than the back that's it really okay tell us about tell us a bit more about the the stoma though because it must be a very weird sensation you know waking up coming around from such an enormous operation and you know that you've got this thing that you have to learn how to take care of it you have to learn that it's with you all the time it is something outside your body you chose to give it a name yeah mine's called audrey um when i first told the stoma nurses i was going to call her audrey they thought it was after Audrey Hepburn, but Audrey wishes. It's actually after the very naughty monster plant out of Little Shop of

Horrors. I don't know if you've seen that film or that musical, but that's kind of what Audrey looks like, like a Venus flytrap. She's very cheeky and very naughty. How do you learn to live with a stoma? Yeah, do you know, I understand when people find it difficult if they get one. You do go through a grieving process. You grieve for the body that you had before, definitely. But I think my grief was quite quick in those terms because again, I wasn't really, I didn't have much self-confidence. I didn't really like my body. And it wasn't until I went through the surgery for the cancer that I realised how incredible the body is and this has been keeping me alive.

It's been fighting cancer and it's been keeping me alive and I got a massive sense of appreciation for myself. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Because that's quite extraordinary. Yeah, when I woke up, my first thought was, thank God I'm alive. And then secondly, it was to ring my girlfriend Kate and just check in with my family and just tell them all I'd made it

because I don't take anything for granted. So I knew that I might not wake up. And then I remembered that they told me that I might have a stoma. So I pulled back the covers and had a little look down and I was like, oh, I've got a stoma. There's a little bag. So I was like, wow. But at the time, because I just had surgery,

I was really sore and I couldn't even sit up to look at it properly so I just like took some sly pictures with my phone so I had to wait until the day after to be fit enough to go over to the toilet and have a really good look in the mirror and um yeah for some reason it just looked beautiful to me and I think it was just because I don't know whether it was the medication from the operation, but I just saw myself and I thought, this is the girl that's going to come back from what she's been through. Was there a little bit of you that also just wanted to embrace the challenge of it? Because there's so much that comes through in the book about how you just as a person are somebody who likes to rise to a challenge.

Yeah, I've learned that from my mum and dad. They've both had very tough lives. They've not had it easy. And I think I've seen them time and time again get back up every time they've been knocked over. And that's the way I choose to deal with things. And so you're right, in some way, I understand that difficult times can be very painful, but I understand that pain is where the growth happens. And I just wanted to let people

who read this book know that, that when you're hurting, that's when you're winning. But there's a huge gap, Adele, between wanting to rise to the challenge and deciding that you want to run the London Marathon with a stoma. So soon, actually, after your operation. Why did you want to do that? That is a great question. And the main reason was rejection, I think. I tried as much as I could not to let the cancer win. I know that there's a lot out of my control when it comes to cancer.

Cancer could come back at any time. I know that I'm a lot out of my control when it comes to cancer. Cancer could come back at any time. I know that I'm lucky every day that I'm cancer free, but I just wanted to stick it to cancer. When I first found out, I was shocked. Then I was really upset and then I got angry. I was like, no, you're not going to ruin my life. So I always had this thing in my head that I would try and at least do a little walk every single day to be my little rebellion to cancer and so that walk turned into a little bit of a jog and then it eventually turned into the marathon but I think the main knockback that I got that you'll read about in the book is getting rejected from a TV program and the rejection came from having a medical and the medical team said I wasn't fit enough to do it and I felt like cancer had won in that in that moment because I really wanted to be able to take part in the show

to hopefully help other people with stomas to show what's possible that hope was taken away from me and I think that really hurt me yeah there is so much stigma around stoma you know that so much more than than many other people but do you sense that that is changing and do you acknowledge how much somebody like you is a part of that change thank you for your hope so um from recently taking part in dancing on ice the thing that kept me going every week was the uh sorry the messages and the letters that I get from people of all different ages um from kids to older people just saying thank you thank you for showing people that there's nothing wrong with us and we can do things too yeah absolutely because I think when you first get

a stoma then this happened to me people don't mean to do it but they almost tell you what you can't do and I just didn't want that to be my experience I wanted to know what was possible because the stoma gave me my life back I don't want to give away too many of the stories in the book Adele because uh you know well we shouldn't do that this is the game that we're playing isn't it but one of the ones that I wouldn't mind you just alluding to because I think it is so helpful is the story of Scott Mills, Audrey and a bag of sugar. Could you tell us that? Oh you set that up really well. Scott Mills and the bag of sugar. So yeah this is, you'll find if you are ever the owner of a stoma that gut reaction is real. And if you get really excited or really nervous or you feel things deeply,

your stoma reacts. Well, mine does anyway. And I was very anxious about Scott Mills leaving Radio 1. That also coincided with me getting to do my first ever show on Radio 2. It was the same day. I wanted to be at the party to say farewell to Scott Mills who'd spent 28 glorious years at Radio 1. He's someone that I really look up to and I love deeply.

I was also super excited at the thought of being on Radio 2. And that combination made my stoma go wild. And I don't know how much more I can say, but basically I nearly had to go to hospital if it wasn't for a bag of sugar. So the bag of sugar is just a kind of trick that you can use to soak up when things go really badly wrong.

Yeah, really badly, yeah. And your stoma can turn into a monster. We don't know what kind of cancer it is that the Princess of Wales, Catherine, is suffering from and neither do we want to speculate about it at all. But as a young woman who has been dealt a massive blow and has had to tell everybody about her treatment, I wonder what your thoughts about her have been. Yeah, I've been thinking about

Catherine and William. Both of them have been incredible to me. They were kind enough to write to me when I first got ill. Were they? Yeah, yeah. I know this sounds like a complete lie, but I promise you it's true. When Prince William used to work on the air ambulance, he used to listen to Radio 1 and the show that I used to present, The Early Breakfast Show. And apparently, well, he told me he used to text in all the time, but with a different name.

I think we thought he was Wayne the Trucker, but I'm not sure if that was actually him. But yeah, he used to text all the time. So he used to listen to my show. So when I got ill, he was kind enough to get in touch just to say, good luck. And then he wrote again once I was cancer free to say that him and Catherine were really happy that I was feeling better.

And they just also know the importance of speaking about what you're going through if you can. And the fact that Catherine has been so, to me, courageous to share what she's been through. And like you say, respect her privacy and don't speculate. But to see somebody like Catherine lets people know it can affect anyone at any time and so i think that she will be helping so many people around the uk not feel alone can you tell us a little bit about your hopes for the future and your plans for the future and what you would like to happen yeah i just want to be able to get to five years cancer free. That is my main goal now. I'm two years cancer free. If I can make it to five, that will be my

biggest achievement. That's all I'm focusing on. And in the meantime, I think spend more time with my family and just try and enjoy my life. I feel like I've got a second chance at life and I don't want to waste it. Now, the author Salman Rushdie won the Booker Prize for his 1981 novel Midnight's Children. That book went on to win the Best of the Bookers and later something called the Booker of Bookers, but it isn't actually his most famous work. That is the Satanic Verses, which caused such offence in parts of the Islamic world. It was seen by some as an irreverent depiction of the Prophet Muhammad and some countries banned it. And a few months after it was published, the then Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini,

issued a fatwa ordering Rushdie's execution. And between 1989 and 1998, Salman Rushdie was forced to move home 30 times. Finally, in the August of 2022, Salman was attacked by a young man at a literary event in upstate New York. Miraculously, and it really is miraculous, he survived to write Knife, Meditations After an Attempted Murder. I asked him when he decided he needed to write this. Well, initially I thought I didn't want to, and then I really thought I did, so I had to change my mind about that.

For about six months I really thought I had no interest in writing about it, and then some switch flipped in my head and it became very important to do it. Not exactly as a form of therapy, because, you know, I think writing is writing and therapy is therapy. But it was a way for me to feel that I was regaining some kind of control of the narrative. And that was important to me. You had had a price on your head for decades. I think it's fair to say that at some level you knew this was coming, didn't you? Well, I knew it for a while and then I forgot it. Because, you know, I've, of course,

in the early years after the attack on the Satanic Verses began, I did think about it. I thought about it quite often, the possibility of an attack. But, you know, I've been living here in New York City for close to 25 years. And for the first 23 of those 25 years, life had gone back to normal, you know, and I was doing everything that writers do.

I was going on book tours and readings and lectures and, you know, all the stuff that writers get invited to do. And there had never been a hint of any problem. So I guess I had thought it was behind me. And then, unfortunately, it wasn't. Why did you make the decision not to name your attacker at any point in the book? Well, I just didn't want his name in my book, you know. I thought he's had his 27 seconds of fame and he should go back to being anonymous and forgotten now. I was particularly touched by your admission, if you can call it that,

that you felt you should have fought back. You seem to have given yourself a really hard time about that. Can you tell me more about it yeah I just felt like I felt feeble you know I thought somebody comes at you why don't you retaliate and I mean everybody close to me has said don't be stupid you know you were 75 years old and unarmed and he was 24 with a knife. And what do you think you could have done? Which is probably nothing. And also, it all happened very, very fast, you know. And before I knew what was going on, I had been attacked, stabbed for the first time. And after that, there was no possibility of fighting back. So yeah, maybe I was a little too hard on myself.

I think I'm feeling a little more generous towards myself now. Other people did attempt to come to your aid, didn't they? Yeah, well, not just attempt. They certainly saved my life. First of all, Henry Rees, who was the other person on stage with me, who was also not a young man. He's a man in his 70s. But he rushed across the stage

and tackled this assailant, this armed assailant, you know. And then, amazingly, members of the audience from the front of the audience rushed up and helped him and pinned down the attacker and restrained him, you know,

subdued him. And if that were not the case, you know, I wouldn't be here to have this conversation. He didn't kill you. Obviously, we don't need to emphasize that. But I mean, you were very, very severely injured. And I confess that until I read the book, I hadn't realized quite how badly hurt you'd been. Could you just outline the most serious injuries that you had? Well, there were 15 different wounds. And the most serious of them, obviously,

was the injury to my eye, which blinded my right eye. But apart from that, there was a big slash wound under my neck. There was a stab wound in my neck on the right side. There were three stab wounds down the center of my torso. There was a quite bad injury to my tongue. I mean, that's just the headlines, you know, but it was a very close thing. My liver was injured. Fortunately, my heart was not injured, but it was, as the doctors afterwards said, bruised, whatever that means. And I was also lucky that the wounds in my neck failed to rupture the artery. Otherwise, you know, otherwise I wouldn't be here.

Well, were you expected to live? be here. Well, were you expected to live? No, I mean, initially, when I was flown by helicopter to the nearest trauma hospital, and the doctors said to me later that when I was brought in off the helicopter, they thought it was probably too late. You know, they doubted that they could save my life. And the surgery then took, I don't exactly know, eight, eight and a half hours, something like that. And fortunately, they proved themselves wrong. And they did save my life. And obviously, the attack made headlines around the world. And you had some very supportive statements from President Biden, President Macron, and the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson did say something.

I mean, I think you feel that it was slightly grudging. Well, you know, back in the day before he was prime minister, at the point that I was awarded my knighthood, he wrote something to the effect that I didn't deserve the knighthood because I wasn't a good enough writer. So I don't know that it came easily to him to be sympathetic, but he did. So there we are. Yes. And your recovery was long and painful. And I was really struck in the book that you don't shy away from the indignities. You were really very frail and you had an exceptionally tough time. Yeah, and I was poked and prodded in all sorts of ways. Well, it took months, you know, because there were, as you say, there were a lot of injuries and the recovery of some of them

was recovered faster than others. You know, the liver has an amazing capacity to regenerate, so that regenerated. But the hardest thing, actually, apart from things healing, was just to regain my physical strength because I was very weak for a very long time. Did you or were you allowed to look at your injuries and how aware were you of how badly hurt you'd been? Well, initially I didn't because my wife Eliza decided wisely that I should not be allowed to look in the mirror because she thought that if I saw the scale of the injuries, it would actually depress me and reduce my ability to

fight back. And so I didn't actually see what I looked like for several weeks by when I looked a bit better. And later on, because she had been taking photographs and making videos, as we'd agreed she should do, when she finally said to me, are you ready to see the early images? And I said, yes. I was actually quite shocked by how terrible I'd looked. And I realized that she had been absolutely right to keep me away from that information. It would have been horrifying. What has she said to you about what it was like for her? I mean, I'm thinking particularly of that dash to your side. Yeah, it was obviously, you know, horrible for her too, because

somebody called her. she doesn't now remember whether it was somebody from the hospital or somebody from the chautauqua institution somebody called her and said you better get up here quickly because he's not going to make it and so all the time that she was traveling she had that sentence in her in her ears that she was going to see her husband who might well be dead by the time she arrived. And I mean, it took an amazing act of strength on her part to then suppress all that emotion of her own in order to be there for me. Would you call yourself, in all honesty, a good patient? I think I was pretty good to begin with. And then by the time I'd been in hospital for six

weeks, I think I got a bit impatient and wanted to leave. I wanted to leave a little bit before they wanted to let me out. And in the end, I realised that they were right and I was wrong. And so I became a good patient again. How often now do you think back to what happened? Do you dream about it, for example? I did. I did for a while. But it's receded now. I wouldn't say I never think about it, but it's no longer right at the front of my mind. I think writing the book, in a way dealt with it. For me, it felt like, okay, I've thought it through. And this is what I want to say about it. And I hope people find it touching and affecting. And I also thought, you know, many people have calamity or tragedy in

their lives. And maybe they can connect my experience to their own. And if so, that would be a good thing. It might be helpful to one or two people. There's a part of the book in which you have an imagined conversation with your attacker. Why did you want to include that? Because I felt he was, other than my wife, Eliza, and myself, he was the third person in the story. And I wanted to try and get a kind of fix on him, you know, because what we know about him is very slight and doesn't seem to add up to enough motivation to commit a crime of this nature. So I wanted to try and imagine myself into his head and see if, you know, using my, using what talent I have as a, as an imaginer and storyteller, to try and find a convincing character in there

who, at least in my opinion, was convincing enough that I would believe that he would be willing to do something like this. You do say that to be attacked with or by a knife is a peculiarly intimate form of brutal attack, isn't it? It sounds absurd, but it's not like being shot. No, guns can injure you from far away. A knife attack is right up close and in your face, as it was.

I mean, he was right up against me. And then when I fell down, he was actually on top of me. You can't get much more intimate than that. And, you know, I mean, even though 27 seconds at first sounds like not very long time, if you think about it, 27 seconds when somebody has a knife and is attacking you is a really long time. And so we had that, that kind of long moment of a sort of lethal intimacy. And that was another reason I wanted to get to grips with him. You know, I wanted to try and, well, I wanted to think about him. And then I thought, okay,

once I've done that, I don't have to think about him again. He hasn't stood trial yet, has he? No, I mean, the date, I don't have a firm date yet, but I believe it's coming up in the autumn at some point, September, October, I'm not sure exactly when. And I appreciate you perhaps don't want to anticipate that, but will that be exceptionally difficult? No, I don't think so. I mean, I think, you know, I, in a way, I can't really draw a line under this event until the trial has happened, or until he's, let's say, until he's been sentenced. And I believe, I mean, I've

had a conversation or two with the district attorney, the local district attorney, who does want me to testify. And so if that is the case, and if I'm needed, I will go and do it. Yeah. Bearing in mind, not just this dreadful attack and the suffering you've been through and Eliza and the rest of your close family as well, and the years before when it must have been, if not at the forefront of your mind, then definitely on your mind. To what degree do you regret writing the Satanic Verses? Not in the slightest. Not in the slightest. I mean, I think it's one of the better books I've written. And, you know, there are a lot of people around the world. I mean, it's published in more than 40 languages.

There's a lot of people around the world who really like it, who even love it. And I don't see why their opinion is less important than the opinion of people who attacked it, mostly without reading it. No, I'm proud of all my books and including that one. But you were attacked in such a vicious way with a knife. I mean, we could say that the words are your weapons. But there must have been times when you just felt they were not enough, or don't you feel that way? Well, I felt that way to begin with, yes. I mean, Or don't you feel that way? Well, I felt that way to begin with, yes.

I mean, I think, you know, the attack was in August of 2022. And really, it was about February, six months later, before I could even think about words. They just felt inadequate. And then I thought, I guess I just pulled myself together a little bit and thought, this is the tool you have, so use it to respond. And that's what I did. I know I have read that you say if Donald Trump is re-elected, you would consider coming back to the UK to live. Is that the case? Oh, I think I spoke too rashly, really.

I mean, I love coming to London to see family and friends. And by the way, they really like coming to New York to be here. So I'm not sure that I need to flee. Also, New York is not Trump country. You know, even when he was president before, New York still felt like New York. And I mean, he got almost no votes here. And I expect that to happen again. So there are parts of America that are Trump country in which are less likable to visit,

but New York City is just fine, I think. And what would you say to those people, Jewish people, for example, in London right now who say that they don't feel entirely safe going into the centre of London at the weekend because of the pro-Palestinian marches. And I'm not criticising the pro-Palestinian marches. I'm just saying that it's rather a tough time to be, in quotes, visibly Jewish in London at the moment. What are your thoughts on that? The world is insane right now.

People are very, very angry and seem to have no way of talking to each other. And that's sad. I mean, truthfully, I'm a little bit out of the loop of what's happening in London because I haven't been there for a while. But I can well understand the nervousness that people feel. But you stick to your belief that whoever you are, whatever you are, you should be entirely free to write and say what you think. Yeah, I mean, of course, because the alternative to that is that nothing can be said. You know, if something that offends somebody can be, you know, prescribed because it does that, well, everything offends somebody, you know. And so if

that's the rule, then nothing can be said at all. So it's better, I think, to, you know, as the saying goes, let a thousand voices speak. And I mean, the defense of free speech has always included the defense of people you don't agree with, because otherwise it's not the defense of free speech. And therefore, quite often, the defense of free speech. And therefore, quite often, the defense of free speech is a little ugly because you have to defend people who are saying things that you really despise. But in order to create the arena in which free expression exists, you have to defend that as well as the stuff that you like. And you have done that. You have spoken out in support of people whose views you find difficult. Yeah, I mean, of course.

All the time, you know, people write books or make videos that I find them reprehensible. But to say that they should be banned is a step too far in my view. I mean, there was once, you know, soon after the attack on the Satanic Verses began, there was a Pakistani film in which I was the villain and the heroes were the people trying to murder me. And I defend, that film was refused, initially refused a certificate in the UK.

And I defended it against the ban. And as a result of my intervention, the film was refused a certificate in the UK. And I defended it against the ban. And as a result of my intervention, the film was given a certificate, and fortunately did really badly. So you had the last laugh there. But that must really disturb your critics. When you're prepared to do that, to stand up and do that, where do they go from there? Well, they should think about their own positions. It's very easy to abuse somebody. The defence of free expression is a tough thing to do. And it does involve defending people that you dislike. So we all have to do that if we're in that game.

Can I just ask finally, to what degree you've been changed by the attack? Has it made you, I don't know, harder to live with, easier to live with, more humble? What would you say? Oh, I think I'm really a piece of cake to live with. But there's two differences, I think, seriously. One is that I'm not as strong physically as I used to be. My physical strength has not come back 100%. I don't know if it gradually will. And the other is, I think,

when you have a really close encounter with death, when you get a really good look at it, it never entirely goes away. It's always, so to speak, there's always a shadow in your thoughts, in your mind. And I think that's what happened to me. I think I now have a closer acquaintance with the end, which will come to us all, but we don't usually, I think, spend our lives thinking about it. Well, I do. Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio.

The jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.