Off Air... with Jane and Fi - The closest we'll ever get is each side of a pair of espadrilles!

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

It's Jane M's (Other Jane/Secondhand Jane/Supply Jane/Locum Jane/Jane By Proxy/Substitute Jane/Jane 2) last show before Garvey returns tomorrow! In this episode, Fi and Jane discuss the Genny-Lex, dentures and the summer of 1995. Plus, Fi is joined by journalist and best-selling author Åsne Seierstad to discuss her latest book 'The Afghans'. You can book your tickets to see Jane and Fi live at the new Crossed Wires festival here: https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/book/instance/663601If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Flashing her pins. Flashing her pins. Flaunting her cuffs. Flaunting her cuffs. She flaunted them, Jay. She flaunted them. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on.

Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day.

Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Right. Sorry, I just had to do a race across the office. Very much like broadcast news. Do you remember the film? Do you know what? I've never seen it.

I know, I might watch it tonight. I recommend it. There's a whole kind of, there's a surfeit actually, of really good movies from the 80s and 90s about politics, newspapers, radio stations, all that kind of stuff.

I watched The Post again the other day. Oh, I love The Post. It is wonderful, isn't it? And I've watched The Newsroom all three seasons endlessly. I could just watch it forever. I love it.

I love anything Aaron Sorkin's ever put his name to, done, directed, forever. I love it. I love anything Aaron Sorkin's ever put his name to, done, directed, written. He is clever. Do you think he talks kind of that fast? I know he does. I've interviewed him several times. And with that many adjectives.

He's walking down a corridor. Yeah, he's a really fast talker. He speaks in the kind of metaphors and sort of similes and visualises things in the same way that he does in his scripts. He's also, I have to say, one of the few people I've ever interviewed that give me properly sweaty palms. I just have an intellectual crush on him because he's so clever and I just always want to sound clever in front of him.

Yeah. Yeah. Did you think you managed it? We emailed for a while. Oh, well, that's good enough. I need to say a very big hello to Sophie, who was really kind, and we both just got off the,

we were about to get off the Eurostar at St Pancras, and I'd had a very, very, very, very, I took the train all the way across France yesterday, Jane. It was really lovely, but you know, you just feel a bit grubby, and sometimes you're just a bit embarrassed that someone's saying hello to you because you just think, oh, I'm really, this is a low par me. You're covered in tijouvi.

Very much covered in tijouvi. And Sophie, it was really lovely to meet you. So thank you for stopping to say hello. And I hope that your journey was good. It was very smooth though, Jane. And I did think that for the french visitor to the uk were you to arrive uh let's say at ashford and you wanted to take two trains one very long journey off to the other side of the country um and you wanted to travel over 700 kilometers in under

four hours no No chance. And you also just couldn't guarantee in this country you'd make the connections anymore, could you? Not at all. No, not at all. But my journey from London all the way to Marseille and all the way back, absolutely on time, each way, every train. How long did it take from London to Marseille?

Well, do you want to get stuck into this conversation? Here we go. I do. You know I love trains. It's my whole personality now talking about trains as I move to Brighton. So I got the... Which journey do you want to do?

Just the back journey? You don't want to do both journeys? Are they different? They are. I went for a leal on the way back. Do you know what? It's fine. No, it's fine but

it was just perfect it was just perfect and the trains are beautiful and it's not like they're super clean like Japanese bullet trains or whatever but they are clean they are clean and they leave on time and they're double deckers and it's that beautiful I think the one that you did

that beautiful one that hugs the coast, isn't it? And it's just so beautiful as you're pulling round that bit of France and you just think, oh, just gazing out the window, it's stunning. Achingly so. Oh, how lovely. It's very much like that when I get stuck at three bridges on a Wednesday.

Before we start digging into the emails, can I just say in reference to a topic that we discussed last week, foreign accent syndrome, there was a Guardian experience about it on the weekend. Isn't that spooky? There was a lady who'd written a first-person piece, or she'd been interviewed out of her, in the Guardian,

about waking up with a Welsh accent. So had she had an illness or a sudden head injury or something horrible? Yeah, she had functional neurological disorder, a condition that disrupts how the brain communicates with the body. It causes mobility issues and seizures, but I would also develop a temporary vocal tickle-sled speech. So it didn't come as a huge surprise when one day in June 2023, I woke up and my voice sounded different.

My neighbour said to me, you sound just like my aunt, she's from South Wales. So there we are. Isn't that strange? It's a real thing, people. In case anyone thought I was pulling your leg about it last week. Yeah. It really wasn't.

And I think it must be one of those very disturbing things, actually, for people who've had a serious accident or a horrible illness or a stroke or whatever it is. You know, because there inevitably is something comical about it and that doesn't reflect what's happened. No, of course not. No, absolutely not. Not the comical at all. No. So, bienvenue

à le podcast. I know, it's Practically Fluent Kids for a moment. Eve thought, I'm in France. No, you're so not. Jane Markerans is with us for a final day on this stint. So far, we have known her as... Standing Jane.

Intermittent Jane. Yep. Second Hand Jane. Locum Jane. Locum Jane. Supply Teacher Jane. Yep. The Other Jane.

Yesterday, Luke Jones called me bank holiday bus replacement service Jane. Well, that's just rude. I quite liked it. I am a bit more reliable than a bank holiday bus replacement service. Well, he can talk. Exactly. I mean, he just pops up when it's double rates, doesn't he?

I've clocked him. It's true. Yeah, he's over time, Luke. Right, so this is a rather inevitable thing that can happen from time to time. And Jackie from Mark's Tay in Colchester has had a very, very... Well, actually, it wasn't even a near miss. It happened, didn't it? After fees near miss with the toothbrush and fixer dent, it brought to mind something that happened to my husband on a recent holiday

after a five-hour drive to the Yorkshire Dales. We arrived at our holiday cottage, we unpacked our essentials and after a fabulous walk with Dottie, our new spaniel puppy, I bet that was busy, we decided on an early night and set about our evening ablutions. I don't think we use the word ablutions enough. The next morning my husband called from the bathroom, where's the toothpaste? In the cabinet, I yelled, the same place as it was last night. I bristled, mumbling, bloody man, search under my breath. No, he called, the tube on the shelf above the loo. That will be my hemorrhoid cream, I smiled.

His gums must have been rendered numb with all that lidocaine. We did eventually have a good laugh, but I said, surely he must have realised something was off. He admitted that while brushing his teeth, it had felt a bit oily and didn't taste very minty, but he just assumed I'd bought a different brand. When we returned home, I regaled the tale to my grown-up daughter, who was in absolute stitches and quit while it made sense,

because he does talk out of his backside sometimes. So there we go. And I'm sorry as well that you can't come to the Crosswires Festival in Sheffield, but you have been to see us when we did a show at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester a few years ago.

And I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I had to recheck my mind because actually, do you know what? I've been telling people we had a really nice time at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, but I've got it confused with Bury St Edmunds

because I thought we'd never been to Colchester but we did, you're absolutely right Jackie but I'm thinking that's Bury St Edmunds so my apologies to both, I've probably told some people Bury St Edmunds was marvellous and they should go and live there but I actually mean Colchester Sorry about that. Big in East Anglia now are you?

I intend to be Karen writes in, Dear Jane and Fi, I count myself very interested in the upcoming election, but I'm still dreading the intense repeated coverage across all media. I've listened to you two for several years now, and I'm trusting you to find the other angles. I want to know the social, personal, even frivolous angles, says Karen.

What's it like for the candidates' families during the campaign, particularly those with younger children, who's stepping in behind the scenes roles? How do female candidates feel when there's more pressure on them to look good, especially in front of the camera? And how do they manage that in terms of clothes, hair, make-up? They can't just sling on a suit like the male candidates. How do they manage sleep, healthy eating, if that's important?

Exercise? How secure do they feel? What about the MPs not standing or likely to lose their seats? Are they shelving all that until after the election? How much door-knocking do they actually do and what is their strategy? Same for the journalists who now can't think about anything else for the next six weeks. I'm someone that believes people go into politics because they genuinely want to do the job, make a difference, represent their constituents, whatever their party allegiance. After all, they definitely don't do it for the dosh and there are personal risks. I think it would be good to discuss that. genuinely want to do the job, make a difference, represent their constituents, whatever their party allegiance.

After all, they definitely don't do it for the dosh and there are personal risks. I think it would be good to discuss that and to get a range of opinions. I have to say, Karen, I'm completely with you. I'm very, very interested in the personal side of all of this. And actually, that is something that on the Times magazine we do try to sort of do when we interview politicians. I also spoke to someone yesterday who

has a very pivotal job in the election and who told me that he gets a car at 4 30 every morning at the moment to the office for the 5 a.m meeting which is the first meeting of the day i mean it's just mind-blowing 5 a.m is the first meeting in person it is every day but in in a way i'm glad that they're working that hard for democracy because it's important and all of that but but that is is frequently cited as one of the reasons why women find it so difficult to come back in at the same level that they left at after they've had children because a 5am start if you've got little ones or even if you're still breastfeeding or you've got a school drop-off or you know whatever it is you're just ruled out you're just whoever it is who's caring at home for your little tiddlers

you are just ruled out aren't you so it is difficult but um obviously i hope that your friend will be okay. Do they have stamina, Jane? I think they'll be okay. So, if you like the platydubes, says Louisa in Bristol, then this is great. The 4th of July is being called the Jennylex. Are you calling it the Jennylex? No, I'm not. Someone called it that to me the other day.

And I just thought, oh, God. I don't know whether I can. I call it some things I can't say on air sometimes. Yeah, exactly. Election. But I'd completely forgotten about Platy Jubes. I mean, I think that my mind wanted to completely forget about Platy Jubes. But we'll see if Jenny Lex catches on.

Now, this one is funny and I'm going to read it out today and I'm going to keep it for tomorrow as well because we don't do things behind each other's backs on the podcast here and this is about Jane Garvey. Dear Jane and Fee I live in Crosby and I found this in the College Road, Roy Castle

Jammerton shop it made me giggle and I thought you might enjoy it too, bargain price. And this is from the woman who had no clue who John Barnes was in the early 90s despite his protestations that I did. That was a fantastic anecdote about meeting John Barnes at a petrol station

and he was so absolutely convinced. Goodbye, Kate Borsay. There she goes. John Barnes was convinced that, you know know she was just making it up that she didn't know so the picture is this it is a signed photograph of adrian childs looking his just biggest bicep beefiest he does look he looks buff as hell in that picture he does he's flexing i would say adrian if you're listening don't take this the wrong way He does. He's a lexin. I would say, Adrian, if you're listening, don't take this the wrong way. I'd say it's a couple

of years ago. It's alright, Adrian, you could say the same about me. But the thing that really, really made me laugh and this comes from Honesty Blaze, the name of the email is that you think that that is a good price.

It's £7.50. I mean, for a charity price. It's £7.50. I mean, for a charity shop, it's £7.50 for a signed photograph of Adrian Childs. So I'm going to keep that for Jane because I think she's probably got a couple of those down in the basement. She could make £14, £15 off that. She might be able to pop them up on eBay for something even more than that. But that did make me laugh.

He's looking good. He's looking good. This in from Hilary, a.k.a. Hill. Dear Fee and Jane Times 2, greetings from Darmstadt in Germany, where I've been living for nearly 30 years and actually where I went on a German exchange when I was at school.

So hello, Hilary. I got last weekend off to a good start by deciding to catch up with my backlog of off-air pods and selected to start with the last email special I enjoyed the usual banter and the discussion on the lunches you'd enjoyed beforehand even if they had some unwanted side effects for Jane not me Jane, other Jane

however, the more I listened the more I was convinced that you'd neglected to mention that in addition to lunch you'd clearly had a glass or three of something alcoholic as you were both sounding a glass or three of something. Alcoholic. As you were both sounding a little worse for wear. Bear with. I finished this episode and moved on to the next,

in which you seemed similarly affected. I found the whole thing very amusing and marvelled to myself that you were blessed to have such understanding bosses. Then, as the third episode started with the same problem, I realised something was clearly not right. But I couldn't work out what. Checking my phone, I realised that it wasn't you, it was me.

Somehow I'd managed to start playing the podcast at 0.75 times speed, with you speaking too slowly, which gave the impression of careful, deliberate, but slightly slurred speech. Returning you to normal one-time speech cured you of your affliction of the liquid lunch. However, says Hill, I would recommend to other listeners to give this setting a go if they're in need of a jolly good giggle, because

it's absolutely hilarious. Hill, I have to say, I've done that accidentally to myself listening back to interviews when I'm transcribing them thinking, good lord, I sound like I've had some sort of affliction. Some sort of affliction. Oh yeah, did I not know I was drunk during that interview with an A-lister?

It's very odd. Yes. Do you like listening to yourself? No. No. As soon as I could, and I could excuse it to myself in terms of expense, I paid someone else to do my transcribing for me, so I wouldn't have to listen to myself. Not so much the questions or the answers,

but just hearing my horrible sycophantic laughter. I was like... Some terrible showbiz sort, you know, made some joke or me trying to encourage them into some personal anecdote. Oh God, it's just revolting, listening back to oneself and just sucking up to celebrities. But that's really funny because

now you're, well, I mean, I know you've always had an interest in the radio arena, but when you're on the radio doing interviews, is that then a very deliberate thing that you have to switch off that desire to please people in order for them to give you the answer that you would like them to give I don't think I have to particularly think about I don't think it's very conscious

because uh it's just a different kind of medium and obviously their answers are going out live um so i don't know what's different about it in when it's just the two of you and a dictaphone and it's being recorded for which do you think is more honest radio yeah definitely definitely both for me and them yeah um you know you can keep asking and asking in different ways if you're trying to get something out of someone on a print interview. Or you can really, oh, this is, I'm really exposing journalistic, I can't even say techniques, just like horrible methods. I mean, sometimes I've listened back to myself and I've found myself pre-apologising for a question I'm going to ask

and basically saying, you don't really have to answer if you don't want to. Because you just think, I'm about to ask you a horrible thing about your divorce or, you know, your child or your arrest or something. And you do want to please them because you want them to carry on speaking to you and give you good stuff. But, yeah. But the advantage, obviously, that you have in print

is that if you think that somebody is being a little economic with the actuality as... Was it Alan Clarke's wife who said that about him? I think it was, wasn't it? Anyway, so if you think that somebody's telling a little bit of a porky or there's something still hanging in the air, you can write that down in your observance of the person. Yeah.

And it's the only thing that I find frustrating about radio is I think it's a very honest medium and I think you can hear when people are lying, but when people manage to not say something, it is not on us to say, he looked like that,

she looked like that. Absolutely, there's no kind of authorial intrusion, is there? No, and there's an unwritten rule that you don't do that. You don't as soon as they leave the studio go I didn't like this bit, I didn't like that bit it just doesn't happen actually which is quite strange. I suppose it could maybe you know the podcast world

makes that more available but there's a code that you enter into isn't there in a radio studio where you're not going to bitch about them when they've gone. Maybe we'll change that. It's a good idea Eve, write down bitch about when they've gone. This one comes from Jane Gidder, who says,

after all of the debate about the lack of female headliners over the last few years, I watched Ray play a blinder of a headline festival set last Saturday when I went to Radio 1's Big Weekend with My Daughter. She demonstrated to die for versatility and vocals alongside being warm warm honest and engaging in her dialogue brutally honest in her lyrics some of which describe her experience of sexual violence

and it recently won her an Ivor Novello award while Jane it won her that album my 21st century blues won her six Brits as well for all of the same stuff. And Jane goes on to say, I searched for reviews online and found they described her looking stunning in a white dress and that her performance was emotional. All truly great singers will show emotion and Ray looked incredible, but we need the gender biased language

of reviews to progress as well as highly deserving female artists being given the top billing they deserve. Seriously, I felt like shouting at the screen when I read them. Well, I don't think that you'd get any kind of disagreement from this studio about that, Jane. I would entirely agree. I mean, Ray is a really beautiful young woman,

but if you go and see her or you listen to her music, that is secondary to the stories that she tells. Those are the remarkable things. And I don't know whether she did this at Radio 1's People Weekend, but when I went to see her at the O2, she talks ahead of a couple of her songs about her own loathing of her body and how she looks. And it's really heartbreaking, actually,

because she's got thousands of people eating out of her hands and hanging off her every word and loving every single thing that she does and she still can't see herself in that kind of glow of positivity but i think she's a remarkable remarkable artist and i can't talk enough about her actually Jane as you can tell so I'm glad you spotted that too. Yeah let's stop saying look strunning in a white dress. Flashing her pins Flashing her pins. Flashing her toned pins

Flaunting her curls Flaunting her curls. She flaunted them Jane she flaunted them Oh good lord Can I read this out from Jo? Yes Who says I've just been listening to jane two and fee discussing the practice of people having their teeth removed to wear dentures my grandma born in glasgow 1921 had her teeth removed as a 21st birthday present it's one of

those things i always grew up always knowing about her but now i stop and think about it the idea of wearing dentures for 70 years voluntarily seems quite extreme um i'm sure i read that people had their teeth filed down now to have veneers fitted that thought of that makes me shudder too um thank you for that joe i actually um took a moment to consult professor google on the internet uh of things about this and apparently so i was saying that my grandmother also had all of her teeth pulled out um when she was 21 and apparently in the early 21st century having all your teeth removed was considered a great gift for the young woman turning 21 or the young woman getting married um to spare them from a lifetime of pain because of course it makes sense this is pre-nhs so most people couldn't afford dentistry

and uh even if they had quite healthy looking, they'd pull them all out to prevent massive bills going forward. And then that changed from the 40s onwards when the NHS meant that people could get dentistry, you know, for less than a billion quid and could keep their teeth. So that's really interesting. So you'd even take out healthy teeth. Yeah. You wouldn't spare the nice ones.

No. But then when you look at the, did you ever watch that film where they colourise the First World War films and you saw all the soldiers? Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Oh my goodness, the teeth. That was the thing I couldn't get over. I mean, you know,

obviously it was the terrible conditions in the trenches too, but mainly it was the teeth. People still think that about us. Well, they do. I mean, God, when I lived in America, I got dental dysmorphia. I just, I thought my teeth were terrible because, again, I was sitting opposite

sycophantically laughing at celebrities with amazing teeth, bearing my British teeth. And I really did think quite seriously about having quite major dental work done because I felt quite bad about my mouth. I'm okay now. Yeah, please don't.

And now I'm obsessed with looking at your teeth. I'm going to smile like, oh, my mouth's shut. Whilst I read an email, and we're going to get to our guest in a couple of moments' time, she is the Norwegian author Osne Seierstedt, who has written a fantastic book called The Afghans, which is charting the lives of three young Afghans in order to tell us a bit more about the geopolitical world of the country. But I'm going to do this one

about Jeremy Clarkson, whilst you get up some pictures of you with dark curly hair on your phone. Yeah. Okay, here we go. We're multitasking. That's gonna work really well on radio, isn't it? Well, I'm going to ask you to use the powers of description which is the welcome to radio lesson 463 your task for today uh this one comes from susan mccormack who says about clarkson's farm i did love this but it's interesting to look and see the cracks to the rough way his girlfriend lisa spoke to people in order to get them to move their cars move them or there'll be collateral damage lisa went off at a surprise by clarkson says oh a proposal which of course it isn't no subtlety so they're well matched uh susan goes on to say that

clarkson embarrasses both men and women with his unnecessarily smutty descriptions the male sheep farmer whispers as they walk across a field saying there are people here as clarks and lapses into sheep's vaginas as opposed to anuses i'm sorry about that but i should have given you a bit of a trickle warning though the shepherd girl keeps her nerve on the subject of ewes being prone to lesbianism and susan says and i feel this too actually feeling sorry for poor charlie who remains a gentleman throughout, though becomes less buttoned up through the series. And Susan ventures that Clark's hairbrained schemes almost suggest ADHD in a childhood with no fun. And it's hard for him because Caleb is so much more competent and patient. And I would say a very likable, very, very likable young man.

That's heartening to see this insecure, honest, yet arrogant man softened by his failures with nature. He comes to terms with his own reality. Well, Susan, I think that's a rather superb review of Clarkson's farm. And there are bits in it where also I really crunch my conscience because, you know, I don't think you can really complain about the weather ruining your crops and want to elicit sympathy from the viewer when you really have been part of an industry that has promoted fossil fuels for all i think the wrong reasons for the speed

power cost stuff not not eating your, but all of the other stuff. So I'm aware of all of those things too, Susan, and I think you're probably spot on with the Charlie observation too. I mean, Charlie just seems like one of the nicest men on the planet. So nice, just in his jumpers. Yes. Just trying to hold it all together. And he just pops out of a hedge and says something sensible and calming,

usually about sterilising a jar. I like him very much indeed. I also like Caleb. I've interviewed him before as well. Oh, he's a really, really lovely. And I also, and I'm sorry because we're really going off on one if you haven't watched Clarkson's Farm. But Gerald, who is a man whose accent is hard to understand.

He's been working the land for a very long time. He's got such a lovely twinkle in his eye. And there's obvious that there is nothing that man doesn't been working the land for a very long time he's got such a lovely twinkle in his eye and there's obvious that there is nothing that man doesn't know about the land and the seasons and the rain and all of that uh he's it's lovely to see him on tv and he had cancer didn't he which i think he's had some treatment for now and clarkson does say that the show grew up because he knew gerald and he he knew Caleb and he just knew that they'd be such great characters for television that he just thought, okay, I could do this

and I could build a show kind of around them, you know, which I think is very smart because they are really lovable. Yeah, I hope they like their time in the limelight though because it can be a bit harsh can't it? I think they're alright for now. I think they're fine. Okay. Caleb's got his own cider

company don't worry too much jake right let's look at let's look at your hair um here we go this is my hair oh my word this is me at my lowest six ball hang on a sec hang on a sec i'm on the right yes i know actually well actually yep oh my goodness so that is proper dark curly corkscrew curls i use a diffuser and quite a lot of mousse at the time do you remember what year diffuser So that is proper dark, curly corkscrew curls. I used a diffuser and quite a lot of mousse at the time. Do you remember? What year? Diffuser and mousse.

That would be 1995. One of the best summers of my life, I'd just like to say. Wow. Britpop. I spent the whole summer going to amazing gigs. That is quite something. Quite a cute boy. I'm going to show you another one,

which is a later evolution of the hair, when it was long, but I didn't sort of curl it in the same way um so that's me on a safari trip it's sort of it's wavier have you got any of nice sunsets i've got about 700 of nice sunsets no i was joking i was joking four million um we did also have an email which i'm not going to read out because it also it was giving me a bit of a warning about something. And thank you for that, dear listener. But someone did write in to say that when they heard me talking about having blonde hair, it just didn't fit with their idea of me.

So I think that's, you know, underneath it, dear listeners, I have dark hair still. I'm just masquerading as a blonde. There's a very interesting guy up in Scotland who does a kind of, he's got one of those syndromes where he sees, he hears everything in colours and shades.

Synthesia? That's it. And he does a very, very funny kind of routine, actually. Not a deliberate comedy routine, but a very insightful routine about the colours that he sees when listening to the radio some people don't come out of it well voiceover describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can navigate it just by listening books contacts calendar contacts, calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11.

And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Osne Seierstad was a reporter in her native country of Norway when she was sent to cover the war in Kosovo. It then led her to working across the world in war zones, as well as reporting on incredible stories back home. She went to Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan, a place where she has a fascination with. And The Afghans is her second book about the country, the first being The Bookseller of Kabul, a Sunday Times bestseller.

Now, in The Afghans, she tells the story of modern Afghanistan through three main protagonists, Jamila, Bashir and Amriana, showing us the complex nature of a society where outside aggression and foreign influences have made for tough lives and really difficult choices for Afghans themselves. And I thought it was a clever, clever book. Just tell us a little bit about each of your three main characters. Let me start with the one I met first, the oldest one is Jamila. She used to be a minister of the government of Ashraf Ghani, the government that fell to the Taliban. She was also an education activist and a female activist,

a disabled activist. So her main program was access for anyone to all goods in society. She herself, on the first page of the book, actually, she's dying because she has polio, a very high fever, but it's her disability that actually makes her into the career that she has, which is because she cannot be used as a commodity because she can't be sold in marriage

because nobody wants a paralyzed person. So for that reason, she's allowed to get education from this very conservative family that she breaks out from. She's this revolutionary. But then finally, she's evacuated after the fall of the, you know, Ashraf Ghani's government and the Taliban arrives. And she arrives in Oslo in Norway. And I meet her there and I get her story. And after a few months working with Djamila, I realized I have to go to Afghanistan and meet her adversary or her nemesis, which is the Taliban. And I was fighting hard to find a

Taliban at her level, because most of the Taliban, you know, they're foot soldiers, illiterate on the streets. But I found Bashir, who is a major Taliban commander, and I invited myself into his household with him, his mother, his three wives, the children, the children of his dead brothers, the wives of his dead brothers. So it's a story of power now. Someone who's fought for power for 20 years, Bashir,

and now that they're in power and taking over the country. And I thought the book was supposed to be those two people. And then I met Ariana, the young girl of 20-something, who was about to finish her bachelor degree in law, the first step to become what she wanted to be, a judge, a female judge in Afghanistan. And that path was open to her the last 20 years when there was protection, when there was education for women.

She's a very ambitious, very bright young girl. But when the Taliban came, she felt life was over because her life was about learning, about studying, about wanting to play a role in her society. So she has somehow, I realized, she is what everything's about here. So she snuck in as a third character. is what everything's about here. So she snuck in as a third character. It is such a clever way to tell the story of modern Afghanistan, because the book really does read like a novel in many places. The detail, the sense of how each of the protagonists are feeling and the journey that you take the reader through. So I wonder how much of that detail you allow yourself to really play with,

and how much has come from them? Well, I'm very concerned about perspective in a book like this. And it's as you say, when you read a novel, you are in the mind of the person you read about. Smoothly, the writer can go between characters. As a nonfiction writer, it's more difficult because you need to know, is this really what the person thought at the moment? So you need to check all those things. But that's really what I have tried to do. And I think Ariana and Jamila both read their chapters and made their corrections and approved it. Bashir said he'll wait for the Pashto version, which is the language that he does read.

But anyway, when we read about Bashir, a man who is probably so far from most of the readers, we're still in his head and we see what he sees. And when he's fighting and killing Americans or going on his, you know, educating suicide bombers to kill off his enemies that were actually us, the West, British forces, Norwegian forces, American forces, then we are with him.

We don't need to support him, but we are in his perspective. I think one of the things that you do very cleverly is to make us, the reader, understand the motivation. So, Bashid, you can really feel as a very young boy becoming a man that he is drawn to the life of a warrior and a fighter, in fact, for all of the right reasons. And that may sound like a difficult thing to say I mean it's not me backing the Taliban or the cause of Al-Qaeda or anything but it's a young man who's seeking an identity and there is a common enemy out there as you've just said it's the West and he wants to become a man doesn't he he? Yes. And actually, this proves that you've actually gone into the mind of Bashir,

that you find his struggle logical. Like there's a logic in our enemies too. And I think it's very important to know our enemies. And if we had known the Taliban better, maybe they wouldn't have been sitting now with all power as they did. Like they had nothing in 2001 and now they have everything. But definitely he's born, war often is inherited. And he's born into a war, he's born into the Soviet war against Afghanistan.

And his father dies when he's three months old. So he grows up with just the stories of his father. And when he's put not in a regular school, but into a Quran school, the way they teach it in this time of resistance, it's the jihadi version, it is the fighting, it's killing of the infidels, it's to regain power of the country. So it's really the hero is Osama bin Laden. And the way to become a hero is through either the suicide academies or the training camps of Haqqani Network that he joins, where he, because he's a clever young boy, he raises in the ranks as a

commander of Bohem dies, he will get the position and so on and so forth. And he survives. And in the end, he's part of those victors. I fell a little bit in love with Jamila. I think she's a really beautiful young woman. And she asks so many sensible questions along the way, doesn't she? And one of the things that she asks is a really important thing and it is about the afterlife. And she questions what's the afterlife going to do for women when they die? Because the afterlife for men is providing them with 72 virgins and a life of unparalleled ability to fulfill all of their desires.

And it is very true, isn't it, that until the afterlife is questioned from within Islam, not by people like me, not by people like you, it's not our right to do that. But it needs to be questioned as Jamila questions it for a lot of reasons, doesn't it? Absolutely. And it's interesting in such a religious society as Afghanistan is, the afterlife becomes a place you can travel to almost. It's like they know exactly how it is, how it looks, like the floors in paradise, the ceilings in paradise,

the plants, the rivers of milk. And then it's, as she asked the teacher because she's think this is not logical because she asked the question what's happening to women and they say oh the women will get back their husbands but she's like but the husbands they're with the 72 virgins so that is how is that going to work out and then the teacher gets so annoyed by all her questions and says you know learn arabic read the original and read it for yourself and that's for her it's like a revolutionary moment when she is able to read the quran the original by herself because she's all her life she's's been told, don't do this. It says in the Quran, don't do that. Islam says no. And it comes to participation and education.

And the first word of the Quran is read. And she's like, God tells us to read. He tells everyone to read, not just the boys. He tells everyone to take responsibility for participation in society and to, in order to, you know, seek knowledge, whatever you'll find it, even if you have to go far, everyone. So it's all, and then first her audience is her family, like the brothers and the fathers. She's starting to discuss, like, that's not what it says.

And then later when she comes back to Afghanistan, because she's been a refugee in Pakistan as a young girl, she comes back to Afghanistan when she's 20, starts all these education projects and schools and open schools and going around to speak to the local mullahs and just also telling them and discussing and explaining her view that it's not fair to keep half the population out of studies and participation. What is the current state for most women in Afghanistan now?

It's extremely sad state. It's almost, if not completely, back to zero. And zero meaning 2001, when the Taliban was in total control, like before the Americans started their bombing campaign. And we were, the West being so ambitious in both getting rid of terrorism, Al-Qaeda, reforming the Taliban, liberating the women, building a democracy, which all in the end failed. But there are a few changes from the Taliban of that area, so the Taliban of 20-something years ago. In the 90s, there were no schooling at all for girls.

Now girls can go to school until the age of 12. Right. And another thing is like those secret schools that they have, like the girls above 12 that can't go to school, they have them in their cellars at home. The Taliban now closed their eyes to that. As before, that was harshly punished.

Another thing about, you you know we all remember the the pictures of cutting hands and beheading and stuff on the stadiums now that's happening behind closed doors uh but it's still the same as it was well i mean thank goodness that there are people like you who are really telling the stories osne syrstadt. We didn't have time to talk about Ariana, the third of the Afghans whose lives are detailed in the book. But it's a really, really insightful book. And, you know, you kind of,

it's kind of an obvious thing to say that we need to better understand the motivation for people who want to go to war against us. But we just do. And I do think her book really helps to understand that too. So it was a pleasure to meet her. Jane Mulkerins, it's been a pleasure to have your company.

Thank you so much for having me. Garvey, the little holiday munchkin, is back from her very long holiday actually and hopefully last time she went to Greece Jane she brought me back a very small bar, I think it was probably part of a three pack but I only got one

of donkey soap and just to say Garvey if you're listening that remains unopened so don't feel that you need to replicate the gif. Just come in. Which holiday was it where you've got matching frigged magnets? Oh, that's a cute one.

Yeah, so that was, I went to Menorca and I bought us each side of a pair of Aspergills. Oh, you guys. He's got one and I've got the other. And that's as close as we'll ever get. You guys. He's got one and I've got the other. And that's as close as we'll ever get. Goodnight. 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 don't get that. A lady listener. I'm sorry. voiceover describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can

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