Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Thinking about the Roman Empire every three minutes (with Ian McEwan)

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Calling all Davids! This one’s for you. Jane M and Fi dive into everything from beard-growing and cycling to hormones and being triggered in East London. Later, Roya Nikkhah, royal editor of The Sunday Times, speaks with best-selling author Ian McEwan about his new novel 'What We Can Know', set a hundred years in the future in a UK partially submerged by rising seas. We've announced our next book club pick! 'Just Kids' is by Patti Smith. You can listen to the playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3qIjhtS9sprg864IXC96he?si=uOzz4UYZRc2nFOP8FV_1jg&pi=BGoacntaS_uki.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfi.Podcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think I may have a little bit too much of it myself. Testosterone. Interesting. Why did you say that? Full beard. I have constant vigilance. Five o'clock shadow. Wet shave or dry shave.

This episode of Offair is brought to you by Cancer Research UK. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, where people, charities and organisations globally come together to put children's and young people's cancers in the spotlight. the progress made, but also why we still have so much further to go. Now, around 4,100 children and young people are diagnosed with cancer every year in the UK. That is 11 new cases every day. Thanks to research, children's cancer survival has more than doubled since the 1970s in the UK.

But while survival has improved, cancer is still the leading cause of death by disease in children and young people over the age of one. Cancer Research UK is actually the biggest charitable funder into children's and young people's cancers in the UK. They also partner with other charities, funders and people affected by children's and young people's cancers to make the biggest impact they can. They are backing some of the brightest minds in science across the country and internationally to make discoveries that will transform outcomes for children and young people. Thanks in part to their work, in the last 50 years, around 34,500 children and young people have survived into adulthood in the UK. To find out more, you can visit cruk.org slash children and young people, or you could visit your local cancer research UK shop this September. I'm reading a book about your neck of the woods

Dalston East London Hackney Slough Swindon East Coast of Scotland The earlier ones you just mentioned Your current neck of the woods

What's the book? It's called Considious Self Kist by Jessica, somebody or other And Interesting so long Because it's on my Kindle I can't remember the name of the person who wrote it You know that thing when it's on your Kindle So you don't see the front of the book

Stop right there, lady sister Don't have a Kindle Well look, I have, I was going to say I have both I do have both But obviously I don't read the same book on both Because that'd be silly But I can't have a Kindle I didn't take to it at all

Okay, what do you think of the spinning Jenny Is that too modern too? No, so it's, I'm not Luddite in I mean you should see the kitchen It's gadget heaven and I can fully appreciate many of the advances in technology but the Kindle thing, it just completely flammocks me. I just couldn't see where I was in a book

and I just couldn't ever get it. There's a little percentage in the corner. It's not right. Okay, fine. When I broke my shoulder, my mum looked at the number of hardbacks I was lugging around with me still with a broken shoulder with, you know, wonky side. And she was like, yeah, I'm going to get you a Kindle.

And actually it's very helpful when you're going away and you want to take five or six things to read that means you don't have to lug them all. Oh gosh, totally. No, I don't diss anybody's love with the Kindle. But you don't do it. It didn't work for me at all. But look, let's go back to the content of the book.

How does it show East London, which is just the scene of so much caricature? Well, it is. And it does it. So the protagonist lives with her boyfriend on Wilton Way. Oh my God. He now works at the Times

in the book. Oh my God. He's a journalist. It's kind of set around Brexit and it's very relatable to any, you know, any one of us who is, I mean, they're kind of my age. There's a lot of sort of,

having first and second babies, there's a lot of, there's a trans man in her NCT class in London fields. At first, I thought it was, I thought it was lower rankings. tricklet and I didn't think I was going to like it and now I've got into it I think its observations are actually very good okay um Jessica can you look it up eve would you mind it's called

consider yourself kiss which is a terrible title um but I'm quite enjoying the just the references to everything that is um in fact Jessica Stanley Jessica Stanley and uh it's very close at home to me a friend from her a friend from her original her only local friend has now gone to L.A. because her boyfriend is a quite, this is actually a real person. It's a famous musician and he's gone to L.A. to do some work and she's got a new friend now who's very rich who lives on the road that I was housing on the other week. So is it your friend? It's not actually my wife, but it could be. It is, whoever Jessica Stanley is, and I haven't actually done any Googling of her, but she obviously knows everyone we know. And by any chance, is, is part

of the plot that they may actually find their authentic cells underneath the patter of matcher, lattes and strange cloven hoof shoes and pretension and learn to live a nicer life somewhere else because that seems to be the main plot in Dalston

in life. Well no I think at the moment the female protagonist there's a level of dissatisfaction because she's Australian, she's a transplant into all of this, where her partner is of that world

a bit more she works in sort of graphic design in Farringdon obviously and he works in the media has written a book about Ed Miliband that didn't do very well he takes it all very seriously and seems to think that it's the be on and end all

where she definitely wonders if there might be more than this so yeah she is looking for her authentic self and she takes the Birken socks off do you know I feel very sorry for London Fields Dolston and Hackney in general because it's become such a creative hub. There is so much noise that goes on around it because of the type of

people who are now living there. But actually, you know, I'm not from Hackney. Hackney, in its origins, has been a welcoming community for so many incoming types of community. And the current one that is there and that is making lots of noise will never overwhelm the majority of Hackney residents who actually are the Windrush generation. So the biggest, the biggest community community in Hackney is the Afro-Caribbean community. And I do wonder what parts of that community must think of this extraordinary, you know, £4,50 coffee-loving, complicated,

incredibly, you know, what they think of a £7-pound cronut. Yeah, and the nickety-pickety kind of microaggressions that some of those lovely creative types find difficult to live with. I mean, just, you know, maybe broaden your horizons a tiny bit. and so should I because although I've been there for nearly 30 years I am not Hackney-born and Bread

so I'm still very much an incomer too but definitely people like me shaped part of the community that probably wasn't particularly welcome either are next door neighbour actually one of the reasons why he moved on was because he couldn't stand people like me coming into the community I do see him from time to time because he's very well known in the publishing world

I think there's a hypocrisy there but we'll carry on Yeah, this book, I wish it skewered it a bit more because it doesn't quite, it does a bit of skewering that but I think I was wanging on about it when I was on with Jane the other week about perfection which is this excellent book by Vincenzo LaTronico about Berlin and basically it skewers all the blow-ins who go there to find their authentic selves

but then move on because more people come and they are these blow-ins Yeah, it's the couple. Who are obsessed by every single leaf on their house plant Oh, was it you? I was wanging on to you about it? Oh, Fee, I might have to buy it for you. It's one of the best things I've ever read, and I read it in one sitting. Okay, well, that's very good to know. It's so good. It's only tiny, it's about 110 pages. Well, that suits me.

Yeah. I went into a well-known bookshop. It's what books should be, to be honest. At the weekend, we had some time to kill before going to the cinema. Actually, I wanted to talk you about the cinema, the film that we went to see. And, you know, the plethora of books all over the place, and it's such a gorgeous thing to be in a bookshop. isn't it? Soothing.

It's really soothing. But I did end up buying Claire Keegan's latest, I mean it's not even a novella but I definitely definitely bought it because it's only about

60 pages long I thought I'll be able to do that Yeah I'll feel okay It won't be another book on my bedside table I haven't managed to get through

I got three quarts the way through dream count and then put it down I read that in hardback mistake Very heavy and big I don't know if it'll ever get finished I don't think

I've moved on to, I've read two or three books since I put that one down. There's not room in a life to finish a book that you weren't to enjoy. I was enjoying it. Oh. It was just big and long and I got way laid. The thing that I wanted to chuck in about the cinema, we went to see The Roses. Have you seen the Roses?

Oh, no. I'm dying to see it. I was meant to go to a screening and then I couldn't make it, and I haven't been to see it, and I really want to see it. So this is a remake of The War of the Roses, which was Kathleen Turner and I want to say Michael Douglas. I think it was. And Young Eve.

Oh, it's lovely to have Young Eve back. Although young Hannah was very good as well. Yeah. And everybody on the program is very good. Oh, shush. I'm saying that. To our very, very, very, very big boss is in the building today. Yeah, I heard that on my way in.

Apparently he just came for a look around. It's made me nervous. He comes through the newsroom downstairs too sometimes. Does he? And how does everyone behave? Does it change their behavior? We try not to look. look. We try not to look.

But you secretly do. Oh, yeah. Take a little picture. No, of course you don't. Right, so back to the roses. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. Right, on track, Glover, on track, concentrate. It's a fantastic film and it's beautifully done. I think this version... Sorry, I'm just really noisly drinking my ice coffee. I'm listening to you. This is like an audience with... It's like film to 2025. What's happened there?

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to drink that noisy. It's like being in the cinema. Yeah, it's like being in the cinema now, isn't it? I don't know. Just make a call. Fabulously done. And Olivia Coleman and Benedict Cumberbatch are brilliant. They both really, really, really pull it off.

But it's got a theme of Benedict Cumberbatch ends up, something happens to his career, and he has to be the one who stays at home. And is the homemaker. while Olivia Coleman's career just goes absolutely stellar. And it's very similar to the family in Coldwater that we talked about yesterday because Andrew Lincoln is playing a bloke who, I don't know what's happened in his life, but he's ended up being the home carer, maker, giver, whatever you want to call it.

And both of those men are portrayed as struggling with the tasks that they've been given, really, really struggling with the challenge to their masculinity, with the challenge of not being out in the world, with the challenge of not being applauded everywhere that they go and that feeling that they've lost something even though they should be feeling fantastic about the privilege, and I've put that in inverted commas,

and italics everybody, of staying at home and being the one that looks after the kids. And on the one hand, I really cheer for that because it is always good to just see balance between the parents and it just doesn't have to be the mum who stays at home anymore and we know that

but then I realised I was just a bit annoyed by it actually because both of these the screenplay and the TV show are written by men and there was a little bit of me that just went

oh my God is that the worst thing you can imagine yes and we're being asked to dive into this well of sympathy and kind of I don't know unique insight into the fact that an adult person's world has changed and that there are challenges

chucked into that. And I just couldn't really work it out. So I put it out there to the hive. Is that just a churlish reaction? Is it actually terrific that those kind of plots are really successful as a kind of generator in a drama? I just couldn't work it out at all. And it's one of those things that once it settles and once somebody else says it in a cleverer way than me, I may better understand myself. I'm just trying to think if I've ever seen many or in any dramas where a woman has been made redundant and that's the engine of the plot. We don't.

No, we don't tend to. So are we saying that for men that is an inciting incident above all other? you know whereas for women it's the loss of a parent or you know being unable to have a child or you know we see many more of those kind of drivers as sort of engines of character development and plot but are we saying that for men you know the loss of identity is only really realised

through the loss of your ability to you know earn money provide for your family give yourself an identity through work yeah but it could either be crashing through a barrier which would be a very good thing to see it displayed or it could actually be like, well, you know, this has been happening to women for centuries. You know, why are we kind of amplifying it for men?

But I genuinely, Shane, I couldn't work it out because it was really good fun. You know, I ended up having a really good conversation after going to the roses with my later in life love interest, you know, about how he felt about that kind of portrayal on screen. And that is always good when you see something which stimulates conversation. But I wonder what anybody else feels.

And I suppose it's the stereotype, isn't it, that has always been there in TV drama and in movies and in books of motherhood for women where you see a woman struggling with her identity. So she's either feeling really guilty because she's going back to work or she goes back to work and it means that one of her kids falls out of a tree and she's not there.

You know, that just is the usual depiction of trying to balance things. And I suppose that is this just showing a reality that isn't, you know, has never really been there for ladies? Have you ever been made redundant or not having things renewed? Oh my God, I mean, I've been freelance all my life. So yes, there have been lots of series that haven't been renewed and stuff. But also I took a real step back when my kids were tiny

because I genuinely felt that I just remember being on the 73 bus one day. going to work and and and I was just having to spend so much energy on staying on the 73 bus to go to work and a lovely friend of mine we talked about it and she said too and we're both worked at the PBC she said that whenever she was at work her body and her head felt like they were in the wrong place and I just thought yeah that's exactly how I feel and the way that our family was at the time my partner at the time was working abroad quite a lot you know there was just a lot going on and my dad had died there were all kinds of things in the background and I just thought I can't do this big thing and it was a weekend job as well I was working at weekends and doing a

show so I just I really really stepped back and there was definitely a lot involved in that definitely a lot involved and because for a while I've been the breadwinner too so all kinds of gear changes happened and I don't remember handling it particularly well myself but what You know, so am I being a hypocrite in seeing somebody else do it? Maybe that's what's triggering to use a dulceton frequency word. Yes, you were definitely lingo of your locale there. Yeah, I also have had many, many jobs, not renewed, or even cut off. And how has that affected your ego for one to the best words?

Oh, God, terrible. I would be much better at it now because I'm more practiced at it. And I think I'm older and I'm more secure. I wouldn't say that I think my life is any better balanced, but I think you become more resilient. But the first few times it happens. And, you know, it happens. We work in the media.

It happens a lot. And sometimes it was personal and sometimes it wasn't. You know, I've dealt with entire newspapers being closed down. So obviously that's not personal. But, yeah, it's not easy. And every time you do think, will I ever work again? I've definitely had times and I thought, yeah, maybe

we're barking at the wrong tree here. It might be time to think about doing something else. Yeah, but of course it affects your psyche at home, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. And your sense of value. Yeah, but I've also had to counsel quite a few men through a similar thing happening to them and them feeling as if it is the end of the world

and no one has ever been through it before. Yeah. You know, mansplaining to men, this is what you're feeling. Because I just think, I don't know, it's, certainly when I've seen it happens to men, it's come as such a shock and it has pulled the rug from under them and their sense of identity. Yeah, and it's definitely a truth, isn't it, that as women, we quite often have more identities that we can then slip into.

Whereas I think the male identity in this country in the Western world is so tied to work and status at work. So there's nothing to be envied. there at all. No. Well look, drop us an email if any of this makes sense or you can make disagree with us as well. We like that. I've got some emails that disagree with me here. Okay. Well, don't do all of them. We haven't got time. No, no, doby, no, don't be tough because people love you on the podcast. This is from Rachel, who says hello to all the podcast crew. Thank you for your ramblings. They've kept me company while I travel around the country.

This weekend, I was at my mother's 80th birthday, who I emailed about in March. She's the one who's enjoying her partying at the races. I thought you would appreciate a picture of her at her 80th party dancing on a table, looking forward to seeing you in Cheltenham. I'm coming with my neighbours, Jen and Sal. We can't wait. And Rachel says I went back through the email to remove exclamation marks as Jamal is in this week and I don't want to annoy her.

You are all so considerate and I appreciate it, thank you. No triggering with exclamation point. This is the lady in question, dancing on a table, very close to a road on her 80th birthday, swigging champagne. In heels. In heels. We say, uh-rah to you for that. And in Cheltenham, you can buy tickets.

We are interviewing Penny Lancaster. Oh, yes. She's got a blue cat. And we'll be talking about all things Penny. And we'll just allocate a very short section on Rod at the end. It's mainly Penny. That actually is a lovely segue into the email I'm about to read. I'm going to loop back to penny at the end of the email.

This is from Lorna. Hi, both. Wondering if you can get Lara Bryson on the show. She wrote a great book called The Period Repair Manual. I don't think what you said about not needing to have a period is quite right, but I appreciate you were saying you didn't have the info. Also, I may have misunderstood, says Lorna, you probably, we probably misunderstood, or certainly I probably misunderstood. Lorna says my understanding is the period does so much more for your overall health.

I found myself raging when Jamal was previously on the podcast. slagging off women that blame everything on their hormones. Not mentioning this now to be a crank, says Lorna, only because it's adjacent to this. Your hormones are linked to more than just your menstruation and actually control an awful lot in your bodies. I think Laura Bryden could help with this too. Thank you all. Love you all, obviously, says Lorna,

just being authentic and articulating this. Well, we appreciate you being authentic, Laura, and I appreciate you pulling me up on my feelings that some people do just blame everything on the hormones. I'm not saying that hormones aren't important and that there aren't some situations which are very heavily influenced by hormones. All I've been trying to say is that I think a lot of women are dealing with a lot of external circumstances as well. And my feeling is certainly amongst people I know

it can be a catch-all and it can feel to me a little bit of a lazy explanation. There may be other explanations rather than just hormones. I had an incident recently. We don't need to go into it, but some people have responded to it saying, well, it could be perimenopause. It wasn't perimenopause. I can safely say. Perimenopause wasn't a thing. And it just annoys me that everything, it's just become a sort of default explanation. But to Penny Lancaster, I actually commissioned a brilliant, I didn't write it, I commissioned a brilliant interview that someone else wrote, with Penny Lancaster about a year and a half ago.

I know it was May 2023 because it was the nights that the general election was announced. I saw Penny Lancaster do the most amazing talk with Mariella's menopause charity in Westminster in which Penny talked about her horrendous menopause and she was such a good speaker. I was so blown away by her. I immediately went away and demanded

that she'd do an interview with us for the cover of the Times magazine and it was one of the best pieces I've read. And so I know she'll be absolutely fantastic in conversation about everything because she's so open and she tells the story so well. And so I just wanted to say, Lorna,

I am not uninterested in stories of menopause or in discussing hormones. I would just like it to be done. I think in balance. Yeah. I do think I'd love to relive my life with more balanced hormones, though, and see what it looks like. Oh, where would be the fun in that, Fee?

Well, maybe it would be more fun because, you know, what would you have more of? Wouldn't have had so many kind of, I definitely, there are definitely times. So I love my hormones now because they are, they're medicalised. Right, because they're controlled. Well, I feel calmer. in my 50s than I've ever done since about the age of 12.

And sometimes I catch myself thinking and you know I'll have I'll be in a kind of headspace where I think yeah this really genuinely reminds me of when I was 12 so before hormones kicked in I was cycling the other day and I used to cycle.

Oh that always makes me feel like I'm 12 though well but yes so absolutely it could just it could be exactly I'm like a seven year old boy I love I love my bike I like playing football you know there's things like that, you know, I feel like a, yeah, it's very freeing. I think that's...

But anyway, back to your hormones. Well, I mean, I've often cycled, you know, over the years, but I was cycling the other day, and I was just completely, completely taken back to the cycling I used to do to school every morning, which was amazing, so it was through the water meadows in Winchester. It was so beautiful. And then up this incredible kind of Tour de France gradient hill.

And I did used to ruin it, because obviously I must have been quite fit to be able to cycle. I did use to stop and have a fag halfway up. At 12? No, not 12, but not that much. Not that much old kids don't do it. But anyway, but my head was just like, yes, I feel like I felt when I was 12. So I think that some, you know, maybe my hormones have been taken back to that place.

That's really interesting. I would love to have not been governed by something else. It felt like sometimes, you know, I was a puppet on a string. And I think lots of women say that. It's almost like at times it became. came a little bit out of your control. But I think men feel the same way with their testosterone and look at the evidence.

There are an awful lot of men out of control with their testosterone. Sorry. We welcome all men on the program, but not when your testosterone's out of control. For God's sake, don't send us an email. Come to me when your testosterone's out of control. Yeah, what a good idea. And I think if there's a woman who can handle that,

it's Jamal. I think I may have a little bit too much of it myself. Testosterone? Interesting. Why do you say that? Full beard. I have constant vigilance. Five o'clock shadow.

Wet shave or dry shave. Just going back to our conversation of yesterday. Yes. When I was on the contraceptive pill that was really good for my skin, it's definitely, I barely had any body here. and my acne was really, really, my skin was so clear. And I think it is, it definitely reduced testosterone levels as well as suppresses antigens, maybe.

It might have got that wrong. But anyway, it was miraculous, suddenly having had quite bad skin for quite a long time. I had beautiful skin and never had to shave my legs. It was amazing. I just think I, I just think that there are certain things about me that maybe suggest I have more than your average testosterone

and maybe we'll leave it there and talk about Kistama and Peter Mandelson Do you like making kick cars at the weekend? Is that what you mean? I think about the Roman Empire every three minutes. Are you brewing craft beer in the shed? Are you doing the attack?

Are you? Doing the attack. Are you wishing you to take a holiday to Japan? You're a man. Why do men want to go to Japan so much? I know those of men who want to go to Japan. But those are people who've been to Japan. It's not new.

It's not euphemism, but it just seems extraordinary. Why? Oh dear. Anyway, Lorna, thank you for your lovely email. Can I just explain something ahead of the guest? And I know that you've got another couple of emails you want to do. But Royneika is doing the interview today. It's with the novelist Ian McEwen.

So, Royanika is the royal editor for The Sunday Times. She's... Yes? No, no. I was going to say she is. And also... I thought we got the title wrong. Horsewoman.

She is. She rides out with the household cavalry. She wrote a beautiful piece in Sunday Times' Style magazine this past weekend about having her father's old shirts refitted so that she can wear them when she's riding the household cavalry. If you've got a digital subscription at The Times.com, you can read Roy Anika's lovely piece. It's a tribute to her dad and to the household cavalry and her amazing hobby that she got from him. It's beautiful. It is a lovely piece.

And she's a lovely woman. And she quite often sits in on the co-prez in the afternoon show. And she's with us this week, although not tomorrow, because she's obviously got front row seats at the Donald Trump's state visit. Yes. You may not have heard. So she is doing the interview with Ian McEwen that will interspers what is loosely called this podcast. Just on the subject of visitors, Margaret says,

please carry on your negative attitude to Donald Trump. It's more than justified. Well, that's kind, Margaret, because yesterday I was ticked off on air for being too anti-Trump. But I did say that it's probably a hill that I am prepared to die on. Because I think we may lose sight of the man's madness and menace

if he does manage to pull off a couple of deals. You know, he's bringing lots of... He's bringing some... Sam Altman with him to London. What? Why? Well, if it then translates into investment for the UK, that is fantastic. But I genuinely don't think that everything that Donald Trump might manage to achieve would be able to outweigh what he has undoubtedly done to that Office of State.

What he's unleashed on the world. Yes, which is just too much for me to handle. So Margaret, thank you very much indeed for that. We are sending out, I think yesterday on the programme, two till four, Times Radio, available on the app. we were sending out metaphorical not literal Trump tabards of critique so Margaret you may have one of our Trump tabards I am yeah I think that I mean you've seen that video of the Oval Office

with all of the heads of tech companies sitting around I mean when I first saw that it'd be funny if that was AI generated because it's just it's wild just to watch them all go oh yes you just think What world are we living in when... I get it because they all want deregulation and they all want their business opportunities. But I think this isn't what it was like in 2016. It just wasn't what it was like in 2016.

No, there's no pushback. Part of the politics of the moment, a really key part of the politics of the moment, is to be able to create something that stands apart from this AI revolution. and that is regulation, it is a safety net, it is protecting the users, there's so much fear out there, it is not something that should be part of the immediate political love in. I want to see a space between our legislators and the people who are making insane amounts of money out of AI

because as you and I and all of our listeners know, quite often as journalists and as parents and as users, what we see are the people to whom damage has been done by exactly those kind of platforms and those kind of inventions. So it should in no way be quite so cosy-cozy, you know, lap dancing with the tech bros of Silicon Valley. I just don't want to do it. I don't want to see it.

The money for the country would be great, but it also means that loads of people will lose their jobs. So no, Jane, I'm with you. I'm absolutely with you. Ryan Eka will be able to tell us all of the details of the Trump visit and she's very, very good at reading those signals because the weird thing, you know, is that the soft power is being rolled out

by the royal family. But, you know, King Charles, I mean, he's no, you know, he's not a stupid man and we know what his thoughts are about climate change, you know, and he's got a cross behind his back. Yeah, so we are looking out, you know, for the tiny signs, aren't we? Yeah, absolutely. One quick one. This is from Sophia, dear Jane and Fee, not a first-time emailer and a long-time listener from the sunny shores of the Caribbean.

Hearing you talk about your visit to Downing Street, I remember my own visit. Sophia says some years ago when I had a proper job, I was working for a very large international NGO when we were working on a big coalition campaign with a number of other NGOs. As part of the campaign, I'd organised a big petition hand-in at Downing Street with about 100 children from across the country. We weren't planning to go through the hallow door. it was a photo opportunity with David Cameron, wait for it, David Walliams, and David Bull, not the one from Talk TV, the UK director.

Anyone called David? David, come over it. Yeah, anyone, Davids in London, come on in. They couldn't afford David Beckham. No, David Bull, not the Talk TV presenter, the director of UNICEF UK. And in fact, Sophia says, yes, all the Daves. It was all choreographed. We had instructions of what we couldn't, couldn't do,

and it was made abundantly clear that there was no going inside. on the day there was some kind of unscheduled visit by the Colombian president or similar dignitary so our timing was put out and we had 100 kids outside down the street with limited refreshments on the hottest day of the year eventually we got the signal to start going through security with warning we were being directed through the number 10 door and to a room where they'd scrabble together some jugs of squash and some custard creams i was in something of a panic not knowing how long we were going to have to entertain 100 children and their teachers with zero plan or resources when all of a sudden the volume in the room changed

and in walks, David Williams. It was really very tall, she says. And he said, I hear you've got some questions for the Prime Minister. I then, on the who've organised a kind of question time event with David Walliams on the subject of food security. Prior to the event, we'd been given strict instructions that Mr. Walliams was not doing autographs and with the original plan it didn't present an issue,

no one was going to sign anything as they posed in front of a door for a photo. However, having entered number 10 for refreshments and all the children now had number 10 branded paper cups which were promptly presented for signing and of course Mr. Williams obliged. Happily, my mum was there with the kids from her school and we did manage to sneak a photo inside Downing Street which I never printed

and I then lost when my computer was stolen and a house break-in, always back up be files kids. As we left the building down the stairs with pitch the former inhabitants one child turned to me and said, this place is like the TARDIS. Another said he would remember this day for the rest of his life certainly one of my strangest work days.

Sophia, I would say, just keep those signed cups by David Williams. You never know. Well, you never know. It's rare to hear a good story about David Bowman's these days. Exactly. I was just saying keep them. I'm not saying what for. Yeah.

And how fascinating. I'd like to know more about what David Walliams has been, about food security. Exactly, but also I just, I love this photo opportunity with David Cameron, David Williams and David Bull. Yeah. It's brilliant. Well, I'm glad that the day worked out well for the kids. That's lovely. That's lovely.

We did get an email from a gentleman called Eds who couldn't quite believe that the only things that we had to report from our visit to Downing Street was the fact that, yeah, it was a free sanitary wear in the toilets and that I had a ginger ale and Jane had a couple of glasses. I really enjoyed your report from inside the hello door.

Well, we didn't talk to, it wasn't the great and the good from politics who were there. So Rachel Reeves was there, but she was very careful there, but Jane was pissed, actually. She was a little bit. She had enjoyed a refresh. right? I don't want to speak ill of my colleague. Sir Ian McEwen is one of Britain's most acclaimed novelists, a Booker Prize winner. The Times has featured him in their list of top 50 greatest writers since 1945. With a career spanning five decades, his bestselling novels include the likes of Atonement, The Child in Time, on Chesel Beach, Enduring Love and Amsterdam for which he won the Booker. Now he's back with the new novels, set 100 years in the future. in a UK partially submerged by rising seas.

What we can know asks how future generations will look back on us. And Ian began by telling me this is his first book, largely set in the future. One's always looking, as it were, for a place to stand. And taking this plunge into 100 years ahead is definitely a first for me. It's set in 2119, so we're 94 years hence. And I think it's fair to say the UK looks very, very different to how it does now. It's a lot underwater. There's been a nuclear apocalypse and sort of environmental collapse.

But climate change has had a huge impact on the people in this book. But life goes on. Humans are existing. Tell me more. Yes. Well, it's not an all-out nuclear exchange. So we've had India versus Pakistan. It sounds like a test cricket match, isn't it?

We've had Saudi Arabia joining forces with Israel for an exchange of nuclear weapons with Iran. In all this catastrophe, and these are catastrophic events, there's a tiny bit of hope in that so much dust is put up in the air that global temperatures drop a couple of degrees, and we get another shot at doing something about climate change. But yes, a nuclear weapon has exploded in the mid-Atlantic and the shores of West Africa, Western Europe, and the eastern seaboard of the United States have succumbed to giant tsunamis. And Britain is a series of islands, an archipelago. But life, as you said, goes on, we scrape through. But industrial civilization is severely disrupted. And many of the big institutions of universities, galleries, et cetera, museums have migrated to elevated spots. So we open with the Bodleian Library of Oxford is at the top of Snowdonia.

But, you know, there are humanities departments and there's a researcher Tom Metcalfe who's looking back on us and in particular on a certain poet called Francis Blundee who's got a reputation, I'd say, equal to Seamus Heaney's. But yes, there's lots that's still familiar, just as if we look back 100 years to 2025, you know, telephones, trains. of, you know, modern life in quite recognisable spots. And I've interested in, you know, what, as the title says, what we can know, what we can know about the past, what we can know about each other, what we can know is if we succumb to dementia and how vital history is to any society, to any consciousness of how it's got to where it is. It's, I mean, you mentioned quite a few major catastrophic world events that have taken place, but yet it's not an entirely bleak assessment of 100 years time or 94 years time.

There is an element of sort of hope running through it. Was that key, do you think, to not like something completely apocalyptic? It's pretty frail my optimism in the sort of short term of 90 or 100 years. But looking around, thousands of small experiments that are happening now among us, where if we simply stop doing bad things to our environment, they push back with an extraordinary vigor. For example, there's 100 square miles off the coast of Northwest Scotland, no fishing, no bottom scrapling, and marine life has surged back to the amazement of what marine biologists. And there are all kinds of rewilding experiments of how we can balance food production with a reasonably rich biodiversity.

So I wondered whether human civilization or at least human society could have something of that resilience. But there are catastrophes along the way, and I can't predict a thing, of course. I don't know the thing about the future, but I can speculate that we've got plenty of crises now and I can reasonably assume that we're going to have them in the future throughout the century. I suppose one big question is, can we get to the end of the century without a nuclear weapon exchange?

Let's hope. You just touched that phrase you used there, frail optimism about the future, particularly in terms of climate change, which you've touched on before in previous novels. There is so much I always find, you know, in the news and media coverage and in some public figures,

sort of interventions on climate change, quite a lot of doom-mongering around the subject. Are you a little bit more optimistic about how we should be approaching that? I think that generally society, especially their intellectuals, culture critics, journalists, etc. tend to be pessimistic. It's kind of a badge of, you know, seriousness, if you like. I'm not sure one could get very far being blandly optimistic. But I mean, I guess this novel

echoes my own rather frail optimism that we don't always fully connect everything that's going on. And of course, news agencies are bound to report things that are going wrong, rather more interesting and threatening than things are going right. But, I mean, give you a recent example, one of those prophets of doom that you alluded to just then, is Bill McKibbon. Now, he has a book coming out this month, I think. And it really is incredibly optimistic in terms of the transition to renewable energy. And he provides plenty of facts and figures that this transition away from fossil fuels is happening.

Its momentum is now too great to stop, even with politicians like Donald Trump. And the reason we don't see it is it's largely happening in China. But the rising curve of electricity produced by renewable energy is set against the generally, very faintly declining consumption of oil and gas. And it was extraordinary to hear Bill Kibben say that there's actually reasons for hope. So for a couple of days at least, there was a spring in my step. Can I ask you, I was fascinated by the depiction of the UK as an archipelago and an isolated island. I mean, you were staunch, staunchly opposed to Brexit, and you wrote and spoke out a lot about that at the time. Is that sort of your vision?

Do you see that we're becoming even more isolationist and separate from the rest of the world? Was that part of the depiction? Well, this archipelago is not a political or democratic choice, I should say. So, no, it's, I mean, whereas, you know, the country decided that Brexit was what it wanted by four percentage points, and that's what we have, and there's no going back in the immediate future. So, no, what has happened here in my novel is that it's become a rather sleepy moribund society, so oppressed by the catastrophe. of its past, of the recent past throughout the 21st century, that it rather cowers in a degree of stability. And that's brought with it, sense of avoidance of risks.

It's rather conventional, very orthodox. And my scholar, looking back on us, is rather envious, despite all the terrible things that go wrong and are going wrong, he admires our energy in and our extraordinary invention in contemporary science, in computer and in AI, biomedicine, cosmology. He often mentions the James Webb telescope made of or appears to be made of gold, set a million miles out from the earth. So he also, you know,

admires looking at a video of a bookstore, the extraordinary creation, intensity of biography, history, science for the layman, novels by the trillion. Whereas, you know, his society can only produce, you know, a fraction of that with a dull, you know, brown covers.

So he knows that it's a society that stood at a kind of crossroads or a forking path. From his point of view, we knew perfectly well what to do about ourselves, and yet we failed to do it. But he does admire, you know, the music festivals, the cheese rolling competitions, the gay pride marches, the way that everybody could. fundamentally disagree about everything, whereas in the world he lives in, everything is much the same and everyone thinks the same things. And it's a way, I guess, of going to the future looking back on us. It's just another way of looking at us now and how we are. You've said of the book, Ian, that people of the future are beyond our reckoning, but we're troubled by what will bequeath them. You, we were talking earlier about, you were a grandfather,

now. Your grandchildren are five and eight. What do you most worry about bequeathing future generations? I think the drift to authoritarianism around the world, the fact is that just about every nation that can afford it now is re-arming at a terrific rate. We have a war in Europe and it seems to be inch by inch expanding. We had that incursion into Poland the other day. But brooding over that like an angry giant is climate and one of the spin-offs of climate is going to be as Africa heats up and becomes unlivable in migration on a scale that we can't even imagine now we'll look back I think people will look back and think well you know 800,000 a year

was nothing and we're going to have to face that deal with it because large parts of the earth are, you know, even southern Europe is getting intolerable two or three weeks a year. And there's another element to all this is a metaphysical element that people more and more, and I don't just mean intellectuals and culture critics, I mean ordinary people are saying things like my children and grandchildren will not have as nicer life as I have. And that loss of faith in the future, and with it there goes a notion of progress, I think is fatal. And not much discussed the metaphysical side of climate change. And so that was another element that I wanted to talk about in the book, just speculate about it.

I mean, the book is partly set in the future, but I want to bring you. back to the here and now, and particularly as we have President Trump rolling into town from tomorrow for a state visit, on the issue of freedom of speech. I mean, his administration is highly critical of our laws here. We had the writer, Graham Linehan, the other day, recently arrested in the UK when he arrived back here from America over posts on X. And we've just recently had a shocking assassination of the American figure, Charlie Kirk. I just wanted to, to ask you, where do you assess where we are and where we might be headed on the issue? I think globally and Freedom House, we back this up with the figures, a very good site on the

internet if anyone's interested, that as things were expanding in the 90s, now they seem to be shrinking, both from the left and from the right, and for some portions of both, not all of both, of course. So we don't have freedom of expression, and I think in major ways, I don't just mean being no platformed at university, but I mean across Russia as it heads into its very expansionist mode, across China, of course, across large parts of the Middle East. And we, in what we're calling the West, had the luxury. of a slowly expanding freedom of expression

now seem to have lost our nerve. And it's very distressing. I mean... Does it worry you that, I mean, figures like President Trump and J.D. Vance seem to have a continual commentary on how we're doing things here? Yeah, it does. And, you know, they...

We have in the United States, you know, books being removed from libraries, you know, by... often from a push from the political right. That's very damaging. But also in the States, we have an awful lot of, from certain parts of the left, you know, a great deal of withdrawal or invitations

and people having to be in safe spaces when someone comes to the campus that doesn't share the opinion. So it's a mess right now, a slow withdrawal, of a colossal privilege that we've had to fight for over centuries. So, yeah, we're not in good shape with this, and I very much wish it, so we'll pause. I was talking to someone, she was a school teacher, which teaches A-level English here, and I'd been asked, what advice would I give to young,

A-level students who are doing English literature. And I spoke of a marvelous lecture that Vladimir Nabokov gave in 1953, when he told his students, well, look, you're not well-read enough yet to be talking about themes. So what I want you to do is when you read a novel, is to fondle all the details, find the, you know, the similes, the turns of phrases, and just underline them with. your pencil, just get down to the details and start appreciating literature for that. And you can find it too in poetry, of course. And the teacher said to my astonishment, well, yeah, that is something I'll pass on, but I dare use the word fondle. And I said, why ever not? She said, well, it's got such

sexual connotations and the students will protest and report me. And I thought, my God, we're talking of freedom of speech in the most intimate word and, you know, and I say, well, what about I remember him fondly? And also, fondly is not an exclusive meaning. And even if you narrowed it to a sexual meaning, it doesn't mean against someone's will. Lovers fondle each other with delight. But anyway, you ask about freedom of expression. Yeah. When you experience it on that intimate level, this is not a government or a president or an imam closing down speech, it's a free-thinking English teacher in a school.

So it's as if we're throttling ourselves with our own bare hands. That's the image that comes to mind. It's quite an image. Can I ask, Ian, we have, I mean, we're. talking during a pretty extraordinary week off the back of last week's extraordinary turn of events in the political sphere. And we are witnessing the endless strife of a prime minister in government who I think a lot of us thought would be a pretty steady, safe pair of hands and run a pretty steady ship, but is producing more and more extraordinary plot lines with every day.

Is politics something that you might turn to again in the future? might you be tempted to write a political book or a book based on political events or figures? I think about it all the time, but I'm nowhere near doing it. But yeah, we are in an interesting mess. I mean, messes are always far more interesting than, you know, five years of stability, as you suggest.

But, you know, I think quite honestly, it was hardly Prime Minister Stama's fault the senior member of his cabinet bought a house and was incorrect in the procedures and taxes and so on not quite his fault

that his ambassador in Washington had relations with a disgraced man and maybe being quicker to fire him but maybe not But these things seem to me quite minor compared to the fact that of the major problems we're facing, the possibilities of a European war expanding, the climate emergency, the problem of relentless high inflation and people's standard of living. So I can see how that famous

Macmillan Fraser, you know, events do boy can really unseat a perfectly serious goodwilled politician as they take Starman to be and it's that conflict that interests me most of all. So you could be

you know, very, have a number of things and I know I keep hearing the Labour faithful among the parliamentary Labour Party saying, well, we have got a good story to tell, but we're still waiting. Well, I can hear possibly the rumblings of the 19th novel by Ian McEwen about a Prime Minister where things half... Ian McEwen's latest book is called What We Can Know, and Ryanica was doing the interview brilliantly there.

So Jane Mulcahrens and I continue on our gentle journey through this week although you will be doing the solo interview on Thursday because who do you have? It's a very small name on Thursday. It's only Nigella Lawson. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing.

The gorgeous Nigella. It's good, yeah, that's Thursday tomorrow. I'm just going to say low your expectations because I've got a big night tonight. I'm going to say keep them high because I will be on. reform. Sober as a judge. Tiggie Walker's our guest tomorrow as well. And she's got quite a story to tell. She's been on the podcast before talking very openly about her struggles caring for Johnny Walker. So we will talk some more. What great week of guests we've had this week. I hope you're enjoying it too with Jane and Fee at times.com. Radio.

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