Off Air... with Jane and Fi - This is worse than being married

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Is there such a thing as a funny Immodium story? What about a romantic pre-wedding wax? We may never know.In the meantime, Jane and Fi are joined by designer and television presenter Patrick Grant, to talk about his new book "Less: Stop Buying So Much Rubbish: How Having Fewer, Better Things Can Make Us Happier".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: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We can't afford to lose listeners. Gosh, we haven't got enough tote bags to bring them back, have we? Or hours in the day. Welcome to Off Air. You join us on what is a rather dismal Thursday here in London town. But hey, summer's approaching and I'm on my holly bobs very soon. You are, aren't you? So it doesn't matter.

I've had a very tense morning. I thought you weren't allowed to call it holly bobs. That is your rule and you've broken it. I know, I've broken my own rule. Are you the sort of person who, well, I know you're much cooler than I am. I just panic, so I've already got some foreign currency. Okay, let's do a checklist. I've got some Imodium Instance.

Okay, yes, I'll take those. Passports already in the bag. Not this bag, different bag. Boarding pass, yes. Do you take your own tea bags? Oh, yes. They're already in a small plastic bag. Must remember to put the sweetener in.

Yeah, because I don't like foreign sweetness. Okay, do you take a little mini torch? Oh, no, but I will. Yeah, that's quite sensible. Oh, but I've got it on my phone. No, so that's weird. Oh, what if there's a power cut? Yeah, so I've got a little mini torch at the bottom of my bag.

Well, you are. You see, you are as neurotic as I am. Can I tell you a funny Imodium story? I never find that. Yeah, but go on. No, it's not. When you set up any story as funny, I get tense immediately.

Oh, I thought it was about the Imodium. Well, no, it's not particularly funny and you don't have to laugh, but it's just rather sweet. So I went to do a rush midweek, pick up some stuff shop at my local M&S I'm gonna name it just outside the station on the way home and there's a really lovely guy who mans all of the self-service tills and he's won an award for being such a lovely guy and he chats to everybody and he does all

the jokes about oh you can't be over 18 and all that type of stuff. But he's very lovely. Yeah, which is easy to mock. But actually, I appreciate that. I like that kind of level of service. Someone who appears to be happy to be there and just jollies things along. And you can never get tired of the compliment. No, it's great. You must be still quite young. And just to put a word in here, at my pharmacy, I happened to go there today,

they know my name. I'm not surprised. does it matter yes it does and it's great and i really appreciate it so i'm all for good customer service as are you now to this hilarious story about i'm not gonna no i'm not gonna tell you because you've interrupted it four times and you're just gonna patronize me at the end of it. So let's go back to the emails. Oh, no, I actually did what... It is just like being married. Carry on.

Now, Mother, Father, do you know what? There's an Imodium gag in the fact that we didn't get to the Imodium gag because it got blocked. You see, it made you laugh. Mother, Father, GV. What does the gv mean oh here we go granny val yeah go on uh this one comes from naomi uh listening on catch up hearing the conversation about what people call their parents mine has always been mother and father

but with a comical rise of tone in voice at the end of each name mother father oh yeah my children have given my mother the name granny val but as they've become teenagers now call her gv she is possibly the coolest granny out there so suits her well on reflection i think that as long as everyone is comfortable with the names it shouldn't matter it's a process of bonding with each other so whatever makes you feel connected is the thing to use which is why my mum has ended up even though her name is Scylla being known as Babs because because when she became a grandmother uh she she did she she wanted a different name from granny or whatever yeah uh so she had chosen the name Babu Babushka yeah oh yes. But my kids couldn't grasp that at all,

so she just became Babs, which now occasionally, in jest and in love, is also, she's also known as Kebabs. So you could say it's gone wrong for her. Has she ever had a kebab? I don't think so. Has Maureen? Is she a regular down at the Doner?

No, she's not had a... No, she certainly... I mean, I used to love one of those after a night of drinking as a student in Birmingham. I mean, I think they were relatively new to the UK at that time and, by God, they really did sort you out. It takes us back to Imodium, really. Did you have all of the chilli sauce?

Yeah, I did have... That was really... I mean, I hadn't really come across super spicy food until I became a student and you know biryani was really exotic back in the day and in Birmingham on what was the name of the street oh it's very close to the uni but they would always have half a hard-boiled egg on top of your biryani. Nice. A bit of protein there much appreciated by students. Naomi goes on to say, love the tote bag idea. The tote bag idea is really...

Well, it's been causing a little bit of strain in the office because we do like to open up the world of show business because authenticity is... Well, I wish it was my middle name rather than Susan, but we do swear by a degree of we try not to swear although I did yesterday you did I know you do oh yes um I've I've tried to put a word in for you but uh I'm afraid I think Ofcom have got slightly bigger fish to fry I think my little bloody hell I think they might have I think you're probably okay um what were we talking about we're talking

about the tote bag oh yes Oh, yes, tote bag. So there's been a flurry of conversation in the office, if there ever could be a conversational flurry, about how this is all going to work. Well, if we had a drum roll, we'd play one now because I'm about to read the very first email that will mean that both the writer of the email and the person who introduced her to Off Air,

both are now going to get tote bags. Are you ready? Yeah. And we're very grateful. We've had lots and lots of emails asking for a tote. Tell a friend, get a tote. That's loosely speaking the idea here. Is that right? It is, yeah. Okay. And this is from Beth. Hello, Beth. Lovely to have you on board. She says, I am a nearly 30-year-old junior doctor. I live in Nottingham and I've had the pleasure of your company for almost a year now.

So, Beth, you've barely suffered, actually. It was my wonderful aunt, Judith, who recommended Off Air to me. We've become especially close in recent years and she is an inspirational woman. In her 50s, she left her job as a solicitor working in employment law and set up her own floristry business. Her drive and her no-nonsense attitude have shaped my approach to life and work. The type of medicine I practice sadly still feels like a male-dominated world but I'm intent on helping to change that. Your interviews and your listener stories are a regular point of discussion and help,

and they make us feel closer when we're apart. Your words have better equipped me to tackle the issues I encounter, both professionally and personally, as well as making for a comforting listen as an unfettered singleton. We lost our beloved grandad stroke father in March, and as a family, we wrote his eulogy.

My aunt delivered it to a full crematorium and I could not have been prouder. I know your conversations about loss of loved ones brought us both great comfort at the time. Anyway, having just reread the instructions on your Instagram page, I'm not sure if we qualify for the tote bag. Well, you're as confused as us Beth

but the above still stands and I wanted to share it. Beth you more than qualify and Aunt Judith richly deserves a tote bag too and we're very glad that you and your aunt have got something out of our fair over the last year or so and your work as a junior

doctor, well it goes without saying but let's say it anyway where would we be without you and i bet sometimes the days are long and your work is is pretty tough so we're so grateful that you're a part of this and rest assured that one of our operatives it's young kate with us today will make certain that you get your totes and they're sturdy sturdy things with a wonderful image of Fiona Glover and myself on the um on one of the sides it's not both sides because we're not made of money also it does mean that you can just use it as a turn it around you're not in the kind of company

where people want to see our faces did you ever think you'd be on a bag? No. I never thought I'd be on a bag, no. But it's, look, it's look, I just take I've never, I mean life's just come up with, particularly I've got to be honest, since I started working for you it's been an absolute sea of surprises. It's been a blast

hasn't it? Well yeah, sometimes we don't honour that enough. It's just been it has, it's been a laugh. It's quite funny isn't it uh now the role of the italian women woman oh yeah uh this is an email that comes in from barbara i'm sorry it just seemed to be followed around by the name barbara or whatever it's no it's a bit strange but anyway um i thought after we'd introduce this as a topic that actually we might have really annoyed some people because were we giving into a stereotype and being a little bit something-ist, Italianist, Italian man-ist or whatever.

But in fact, Barbara is totally backing us up. Italian women, this topic makes my blood boil. I'm Italian, but I've lived in the UK for pretty much my whole life. However, I can see how the womenfolk in my family are treated and how they behave and it is so wrong. Shouty letters, says Barbara. My

cousin's wife, who I love dearly, is now 70, married to a misogynistic man since she was 21 and in addition, holding down a responsible full-time job has worked as a slave to the entire family. And that, hang on, she's been married to this bloke for 49 years yes okay did you just do that maths in your head just grade b o-level maths wow uh thank you they have a son now aged 50 when he married his parents paid to do up their house

uh that's after the bride's parents had bought the house and continued to pay some of the bills. The son's marriage broke down and he moved back home. Fair enough, you might say, but that was 15 years ago. About 10 years ago, they rented a flat for him and refurbished it just 10 minutes away from their house. And so this goes on. My cousin's wife retired five years ago and now her only role, and that is in inverted commas in life, is to prepare three meals a day, clean the house every day, look after her ill sister, grandchildren, father. She's running herself into the ground and it makes me livid as everyone takes advantage of her. I do suggest to her that she could take some responsibility and change her behaviour, but alas, I think it is all too ingrained. And she goes on to say the Italians even have a name for these grown-up men

still living at home and tied to their mother's apron strings. Mamone, which translated means big mummy's boy. Never a true a word. Gosh, I mean, to have a word for it, I suppose, does put it into some pretty hard wiring of a society, doesn't it? Because you wouldn't have a word if it wasn't something that people recognized so i wonder you know do it could we hear some evidence of that changing and shifting i really feel for you barbara i feel for your cousin's wife i mean it

just doesn't unless it's making her enormously happy and fulfilled. We can't dismiss that possibility. And joyful, in which case, absolutely hurrah, because heaven knows there are some days when all of us who work, we look at the ran, shackle, domestic environment with absolute longing. I do sometimes. I just think, oh, I'd absolutely love to stay home, just cook some meals today. I don't want to go to work.

Sometimes I think that too. But when I do that and sometimes I do, I do find it. I'm always very keen to come back to work when the opportunity arises. So we're lucky that we're not trapped in either setting. But you're right to raise the very real possibility that this lady may be delighted to have a role of, which is a significant, rather lovely one. But I do, I find it worrying that women in their eighth decade are still working. Because it is work.

I mean, it's not just the making of the meals. It's the thinking of the meals. It's the buying the food. It's the cleaning up afterwards, presumably. It's wiping down your surfaces. I mean, for heaven's sake, it's graft buying the food. It's the cleaning up afterwards, presumably. It's wiping down your surfaces. I mean, for heaven's sake, it's graft. It is. And it just seems such a slog to be expected to carry on doing it forever.

And I think if it's the continuation during generations as well, that is a bit troubling, isn't it? If there's still an expectation in what is definitely, you know, a first world country that a man can stay at home and be thoroughly looked after, but perhaps a woman is expected to be looked after. There are interesting things coming out of Italy because that's where our sister conversation came from as well this week.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. I was just trying to find, you've got the picture in your pile of emails as well of the Deliveroo penny farthing. Yes, I mean, that is disturbing. I haven't, our correspondent asked if I'd seen it myself in the East West Kensington area. And this is an image of a Deliveroo bag strapped to a penny farthing. Is that correct?

No, this is a Deliveroo driver. Oh, no, you're right. Sorry, I couldn't make it out. Yeah. So it was originally sent to me on the Twitter by Dr. Lisa Dunleavy. A doctor. Another doctor is listening. And I tell you what, I'm just following her back.

Yeah. It's always good to have a doctor on call. Even if you've got a PhD in avocados, we'd still very much like to have you in our orbit. If I can't stop the bleeding, I'm going to call you, Lisa. But she had seen it. It had been posted up there. And it is, it's a penny farthing being ridden by a delivery driver.

I mean, imagine if that turned up at your place. I suppose it's quite, is it quite, are you more likely to give a tip if someone turns up on Penny Farthing? Is it Jeremy Vine? Is that his side hustle? The BBC's salaries aren't what they used to be. Not now the women have taken so much.

I mean, no one at the BBC had any idea that women wanted pay. No, I'm going to be fair to Jeremy here. He was one of the decent men prepared to reveal his salary. That is true. Yeah, no, I think, you know,? I'm going to be fair to Jeremy here. He was one of the decent men prepared to reveal his salary in that case. That is true. Yeah, no, I think, you know, credit where credit's due.

Even handed to a fault. Anyway, thank you for sending in the Penny Farthing thing, but don't start us off again, because that almost, Penny Farthing's almost went as far as Morris Dancers. Do you remember? Well, I had a message over the weekend from a friend who said she was in our local park

and there were Morris Dancers there in East West Kensington. They were also a mixed sex group. Honestly, I just... Nowhere and no one is safe. On to the subject now of waxing, which has been amusing all of us for a few days now. Dear Jane and Fee, this is from... Maybe we'll anonymise this person.

I don't really see why we should, but just in case. While listening to you on my walk home last night, I wanted to join the conversation about chit-chatter and intimate waxes. Last year was my first foray into the intimate wax. I'd always wanted to get one, but I kept putting it off for the fear of the flicks of hot wax landing into unwanted areas. I think probably she means delicate doesn't she? Anyway just a little over a week before our wedding day my fiance with some Dutch courage booked himself in for a full-on Hollywood. Well

I wanted to know which salon so I could scour the online reviews and then what time he was going. so I could scour the online reviews and then what time he was going. Reassured he'd picked a top-notch establishment, I booked in for a Brazilian in the same place. Luckily, I got a slot five minutes after him. On the Saturday morning, we both made sure we followed the prep instructions. We arrived at the salon, gave our names, and I announced we're here for our pre-wedding waxes to the technician's delight.

It is romantic, isn't it? Yes, in a way, in a modern way. We followed our wax technicians into our individual rooms. My wax technician and I had the best chit-chat. I asked her at length about what his Hollywood entailed and discussed men's intimate waxing at length. It happens a lot more than I'd assumed. My husband to be and I left the salon more pain-free than anticipated and a lot smoother for our wedding. I'm just glad he booked his first wax as moral support for me getting my first. And that really started the countdown to our wedding day.

Yes, I mean, things have changed a little bit, haven't they? I don't know. And I am still a little baffled and somewhat in allegiance with the emailer we had yesterday who just says, you know, why are people doing this? But to that correspondent and to her fiancé, now her husband, congratulations to you both. Clearly on the day, things went smoothly.

No, it's pathetic, isn't it? But I didn't want to miss the opportunity. Boom, boom. Yes, I was thinking about it last night, the waxing conundrum. It's a tough one. Not a tough one. But it is odd for reasons that I think people do understand.

This need to remove hair that, as our emailer yesterday said, is meant to be there. For quite sound reasons. So I don't want to condemn everybody who's had quite extreme waxing with this comment. I suppose that's what I'm fearful about. We can't afford to lose listeners. Gosh, we haven't got enough tote bags to bring them back, have we?

Or hours in the day. But it's that connection between being hairless and being childlike. That's what I find very troubling. I'm glad you mentioned it because that is it and I feel a bit iffy about that. That makes me feel really, really icky and iffy. But then, you know, so the 60-year-old correspondent who emailed in to say she'd had her first Hollywood wax

and she, you know, had been thrilled by it, her husband was thrilled by it, you kind of think, gosh, well, I mean, if you've got to the age of 60, you surely aren't making, you know, there can't be that kind of desire to be childlike. I just find it a bit troubling. I do find it troubling, Jane. I'm not sure it's one of those things I'm ever going to not find troubling. No, I absolutely get it completely. And I think we'll have to throw that one out. Maybe someone who is a psychologist or someone who I don't know, you will have there'll be a whole range of views on this

and and i'm completely with you and i'm glad you mentioned it because um i think it does i have noticed more and more uh in hackney in the lido where i swim and up at the reservoir uh that there are lots and lots of women who really aren't bothering with an awful lot of waxing at all and i'm very hair back yep i'm very heartened by that yeah yeah it's there for a reason mother nature intended us to have hair there we should say there you'll be glad to know that um there is the relief of a guest and who is coming up soon darlings don't worry who have we got patrick grant is in to talk about a book called less that he has written, which is all about our crazy modern desire to just have more and more and more stuff,

in particular clothes, because that's his shtick, isn't it? So you might know Patrick from The Sewing Bee. He is the impeccably dressed, always in a suit. He's got a lovely... He's one of the few men who I think can really carry off a modern moustache. Oh, yes, that is interesting. You don't get many of them on the telly, do you? No, but there are loads of them around in the London town and the other cities.

The youth is sporting quite an odd little moustache at the moment. So what's happening in our world with some hair being taken away and other bits being allowed to sprout? It's a very good point. It's a very good point. Tell you what. And why, if you're a man, so here's a very good point it's a very good point and why if you're a man so here's a challenge if you're a man who's indulging in the modern kind of metropolitan man shaping what do they

call it manscaping manscaping if you're doing manscaping in your nether regions but you're also sporting a beard or a complicated mustache what's that about um our own colleague john pinar has a careful sorry he has a mighty moustache yes he does but can you think of a single british prominent politician who has one a moustache good question uh no um so it's is it just a young affectation amongst the hipsters and John Pienaar? Well, he's both young and a hipster. And Patrick Grant. And Patrick, I don't know.

Would it be that politicians would be regarded as untrustworthy if they had a tash? Well, there was a time when it must have been a symbol of absolute trustworthiness. Because I'm thinking in the 1930s,s 40s maybe even into the 50s the moustache was de rigueur lloyd george around the yeah when everybody had a bowler hat and umbrella and a briefcase well he had a guest on the program yesterday who had a brolly he had a admiral of the fleet lord west and he had he came into the studio which was lovely in itself because you know sometimes with the technology available these days, people don't. He had a bowler hat and a brolly.

And I noticed, lovely, very well cut suit with a lovely contrasting... Pocket handkerchief. Pocket handkerchief. Yeah, it was quite a bright orange, wasn't it? And it's when you see a chap, and he unquestionably is one, dressed like that, that you realise what we're missing in a way because men of that age and, let's be honest, of that type look good in that sort of thing.

Patrick Grant would have approved, I'm sure. Hugely. Patrick Grant is a very dapper chap. You might know him from his work on The Sewing Bee on BBC Two. His smart suits and keen eye for top stitching are a massive part of the allure. He spent a lifetime in threads, graduating with a degree in material science and engineering

and went on to a successful career in retail with Debenhams, amongst others. He also bought and revived a Savile Row tailors, Norton & Sons, and in 2016 he took on an ailing Blackburn factory and started to produce his own line, Community Clothing. The ethos of the company is to produce long-lasting, sustainable clothes, always made in Britain. His latest venture is less a book detailing some of all of that, but also a manifesto for us to stop buying fast fashion.

Bad for the planet, bad for us, bad for workers, but in the moment it might feel too good, a tough nut to crack. In order to avoid asking Patrick, what are you wearing today? I asked him how long he'd taken choosing his outfit this morning. About zero seconds.

I normally just put on what I was wearing the day before. Do you? Really? Yeah. Well, that's exciting. Actually, the trousers I'm wearing today, I first, I put on, they were a sample of something new that we were doing for community clothing.

I got them in August, put them on in August. I've only had them off about two days since. I think I've washed them on those days, yeah. Yeah, I was going to have to ask you that. So how do you keep your wardrobe clean if you if you know serious question if you want your washing machine to have a huge longevity about them then how do you keep them going for decades and decades well um i mean certain bits of our clothing we need to wash

frequently i mean i wash my pants and socks most, pretty much every time I wear them. But t-shirts and shirts maybe get a couple of days, maybe three days, depends what I'm doing. Trousers very infrequently, jeans infrequently, jumpers very infrequently, really. I mean, we've gotten into the habit of just, you wear it and it's almost easier just to pop it in the laundry basket rather than hanging it up or folding it up and putting it away. But I think the washing powder companies would love us to think that we should be washing our clothes all the time, but we don't need to. I mean, a couple of hundred years ago, we never really washed our clothes. I mean, we probably were a bit stinky then. our clothes i mean we probably were a bit stinky then but um yeah we've we've we've sort of been again indoctrinated into this idea that we've got to keep our ourselves spotless i mean as a child i

was always covered in mud and probably egg and all sorts of things but um you survived i survived gosh yes i mean there's so much in your book that tells the story of just how much our attitude towards clothes has changed in In one of the opening chapters, you point out that most ordinary people, and this is way back a couple of centuries ago, bought no new clothes in their entire lifetime. I'd never considered that. No, it is kind of astonishing, isn't it? I mean, many people would have lived their lives with just one set of clothes, potentially. But there were no shops, there were no clothes to buy.

You know, you had to be rich to afford new clothes. You had to have the money and the credit to be able to commission people to weave cloth for you and then commission other people to sew that for you into the clothes you wore. And most ordinary people relied on clothes from their employer, whether it was part of their uniform or not. It worked that way until the birth of capitalism, until really those people with capital realized that they could earn more capital by making people buy stuff. And there was this watershed moment where they all suddenly woke up to the idea that you know the money supply was

was was not inelastic and that if you made more and sold more and people bought more you could grow your money effectively infinitely and that's when you know all of a sudden those all those moral you know those moral objections disappeared overnight so isn isn't it interesting that we are coming back to recognise that morality? And is there anything that's just a little bit kind of too Presbyterian about wanting that full circle to actually be completed? Perhaps there is, I think, but we're coming at it for very different reasons. We're coming at it now because there is an awareness that the changes that we've made to the way in which we consume things and the way in which we make the things we consume are very harmful both to uh the planet and nature but also harmful to those people who happen to them happen to be making them for the time being. Because,

you know, what has happened in this country is that for several centuries, we had a large industry making clothes and all the other bits and pieces that we used every day. And then, because we decided we wanted more and cheaper things, all of those people got thrown on the scrap heap. You know, we've lost about five and a half million jobs in this country because effectively we've chosen to have more cheap stuff. Yeah. And when you say cheap, I mean, it's just astonishing. It's cheap stuff, but it's made some people unbelievably wealthy at the top of that pile, isn't it? And actually, one of the most compelling paragraphs in your book goes like this. This is where we are today.

As of November 2023, ASOS's value had fallen from £9 billion to just £460 million, Boohoo's from £3.5 billion to £450 million. But we think a six-year-old company which sells the lowest quality disposable plastic clothes is worth $90 billion. In 2023, 100 billion garments were made worldwide, mostly by workers paid virtually nothing, 70% of them from plastic textiles made from oil. And so the statistics go on.

I mean, it is an astonishing industry of two very different ends of the spectrum, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it's a sad irony that the less money you spend on your clothes, the cheaper your clothes are, the more likely it is that money is going to somebody very rich. You know, we've completely forgotten that the making of these things can have a positive role to play in improving the lives of people here locally. play in improving the lives of people here locally. You know, where I live in North Yorkshire and where I work in Lancashire were two of the biggest textile producing regions on the planet. And today, 25% of people don't have jobs in those two regions. And it has had a disastrous effect

on communities. It's had a disastrous effect on individuals. You know, the loss of hope, the loss of purpose, all of this stuff is wrapped up in our desire to have more cheap stuff. And we've done it unconsciously. You know, most of us haven't given it a second thought. You know, we have taken great delight, many of us, in buying more stuff. Statistically, I think we have five times as many pieces of clothing each as we did when I was born. And when I was born, which was only 52 years ago,

I didn't feel like I didn't have enough clothing. I thought I had plenty. So I understand that for many people there is a you know there is a an acute cost of living crisis and for those people of course being able to buy new clothes at an affordable price is a good thing but most people have too many clothes and again statistically we only wear a third of what we have and it is true isn't it that um I think you were told this by a researcher from Royal Holloway, that currently on the planet, there is enough clothing for another six generations

of humans. I mean, that's just incredible, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, we threw away enough clothing last year to clothe the generation before. I mean, we just chucked it in the bin. I did a quick calculation of my own. I think it's probably about seven generations worth of clothing on the planet now. And the number just keeps on growing. So in a nutshell, tell us about your clothing company and what makes it different. Well, there's nothing, I mean, there's nothing mad. I mean, I set up a business called Community Clothing about, well, it was in 2016.

business called Community Clothing about, well, it was in 2016. And I set it up because the year before, I had bought an old clothing factory in Blackburn that was going to be closed. And I had used that factory for years. They were a brilliant factory. I love the people that work there. They made amazing product. They had been a supplier to the British government for about 80 years. They'd been making military uniform. And in 2009, the military uniform contracts moved overseas and lots of people lost their jobs. But, you know, the Department for the Ministry of Defence saved a bit of money, but a load of people lost their jobs

and the Department for Work and Pensions picked up the slack. But this business had been brilliant and I didn't want to see it close. And luckily at the time I had a business at Debenhams that was doing very well. And so I bought it. And I got to thinking about how I could keep this factory busy year round. And so the idea for community clothing was born, you know, how do we make everyday staples, we make really good, long lasting, boring, everyday stuff that forms the basis of most people's wardrobes. Some people it's 5%, some people it's 95%. And we make them them we we don't do seasonal collections we don't

change our product all the time and we sell it at a price that's probably about a third of everybody else for the same for the same quality stuff and happily it's doing very well how could you make that catch on or do you think that we've actually gotten such a pickle with our fast fashion that something like that will always be a niche market it will only be available to a certain customer and it will only be somebody like you who can set it up somebody who wants more from a business than the bottom line well when i i did a business degree in in the early 2000s and And when I got to Oxford, the Jeff Skoll Foundation had just built

a centre for social entrepreneurship at Oxford University. And at that time, social enterprise was a really, really hot topic. You know, we had gone through years of, you know, a sort of ever-increasing feeling that globalised capitalism wasn't really helping many people. And there was a feeling that social enterprise was the solution,

simply businesses whose objectives were not solely profit. And there was a growing feeling that this was a big wave of coming change. And then in 2007, 2008, we suffered the second biggest financial crisis of all time. And all of that momentum was lost. And everybody kind of went back to the bad old ways of just chasing after money. And social entrepreneurship sort of disappeared. But I feel like it's coming back. And I feel that if you look around,

particularly in our industry, there are sort of green shoots of change all over the place. Small local businesses, hyper-local, hyper-connected with their communities, making things out of old stuff, reusing, repairing. And the rise of sales of secondhand clothes, outpacing new at about five to one. And that feels really positive. Before you go, could we just talk about something

very serious? Because you were involved in offering to help with the PPE crisis during COVID. But I know that it wasn't an entirely easy process for you. Were you not in the VIP lane? No, no, I missed out on being a VIP. I was just an ordinary P. And lots of ordinary Ps got involved. And many got involved for just completely, you know, straightforward reasons of wanting to help like the millions of people around the country who got involved in doing all sorts of volunteering during during COVID. No, I was involved with a project that the Cabinet Office ran. In fact, I was involved with a number of projects. In fact, I was looking at a letter that I got from Lord Agnew congratulating me on my success with a campaign called The Big Community So,

which was a brilliant thing to be part of. But sadly, that put me on the radar of the Cabinet Office and we were asked to be involved in another project to build a new an entirely new mask factory and there were there were four companies that were involved and that project did not go very well at all and sadly uh i feel like we got somewhat thrown under the bus by the government and the and the outcome was disastrous for for lots and lots of people why. Why did you get thrown under the bus? You weren't supportive financially? Well, you know, it was one of those opportunities. And I still feel like COVID revealed the depth

of the exposure that we have as a country to these shocks. You know, our health service is almost entirely dependent on China for its day-to-day operation. If China decided to stop supplying us with disposable health products, we'd be pretty knackered. And we were pretty knackered during COVID because we didn't have stocks and there was no onshore capability to make any of the essential day-to-day things we have. And it's the same with military uniforms.

We make our military uniforms in China, which seems somewhat short-sighted. But we do it to save money. There was an opportunity during COVID to bring a lot of this stuff back onshore to create lots of jobs and to create lots of additional economic value. You know, when you spend money in the local economy, it doesn't just get spent once. It tends to get spent about three and a half times by this, you know, local economic multiplication. And I felt that this was a perfect opportunity to reshore some of those very crucial things that we need for the day-to-day operation of all sorts of things in our society. And the sad thing was, as soon as those factories opened up again

on the other side of the world, the contracts got shut and the purchasing started flowing back to China and other countries, similar countries. Right. So what might happen to all of us if China turned out to be the bad actor of hacking, etc, that it sometimes threatens to be? There'd be no military uniforms? Our military personnel would be, what would they be wandering around in? Well, I don't know. They could be getting stuff from Vinted, maybe. So Patrick's book is fascinating and it takes you through a bit of a history of consumerism too with lots of really useful details and research

and facts I really enjoyed it and it's quite comforting to spend time in the company of people who've really managed to change their habits I know that I'm so weak-willed, I will never manage to do that entirely myself. But the idea of having a really lovely jumper that you just mend and mend and take care of and wash carefully and keep, I like the idea of having that. But in practice, I know that I won't do it.

So there remains a dichotomy. But you can listen to the interview and he's really um you know his argument is very forceful his argument is right we just shouldn't be buying so much stuff what are we doing it for well i always feel faintly guilty but i've got to be absolutely honest i i do enjoy the whole retail therapy element well it's exactly what we talk about in the interview there's a you know there's a serotonin hit now, isn't there? Yeah, definitely. And it makes us happy.

Yeah. You know, put it in a basket, makes you happy. Yeah. Can I just do one quick retail email before we get to Patrick and you might have another one to display? Emma is confused. Have I been hiding under a rock for years or has something changed? It seems every time I go to the co-op, I have the wrong members card.

I have a blue one. I was told I needed a green one. And today I was told I actually needed a yellow one. Are they all different co-ops? How do we know which is which and which co-op to use? Well, Emma, I've had a very similar experience to the point at which I've given up. I don't take any of my cards to the co-op.

And when they ask me for one, I don't display it because it's been too bothersome for me. This gives you a slight cut price. I don't. think it does yes I think it did but it has become very difficult and can I just also put out there I don't know whether anybody else is finding it increasingly frustrating to shop at Superdrug because there's always somebody who's filling out the form on the till before you get there in order to have a super drug special card. And sometimes when I'm in a hurry to get to work, you know, the Imodium is calling,

it really is a little bit bothersome. You see five people in front of you and you think four of them are going to tap out their email onto the screen. It does. Don't keep La Glover waiting. I was watching last night just brief television mention of a very good documentary series. I mean, I suppose it's not the most cheerful, but it's about the Cold War, the history of the Cold War.

Oh, good. It's on the iPlayer. But do you know what? I was watching it last night and I never thought I'd say this when I saw this man in this role at the time, but Ronald Reagan as the American president, particularly in the light of what we have now what we might get later in the year my god he was incredible a statesman yeah i mean but the way that man delivered a speech he really was good and at the time we all what do

we call him cowboy ron and everybody was really mean, I'm sure he was far from perfect, but my God, he really did look magnificent and sounded incredible. Just the way he spoke, I mean, his intonation was superb. I mean, I know he was an actor, but he could really deliver stuff. He really could. How wonderful it would be if somebody using the power of AI could put into the mouths of previous presidents, and if we went even further back to FDR or whatever,

the words of the current contender with the orange face. Oh, yeah. Just so we could really see how monstrous it is that he's saying what he's saying. Someone could do that. Yeah, probably someone you already have. But I just want to mention Anonymous, who just says,

I'm one of your many New Zealand listeners, and I can attest it is indeed challenging for us to listen to you. We have to hang upside down and wind our ears back by 12 hours. As a woman without children, I was incensed to hear that some don't consider us fully paid-up members of the sisterhood. Last night, I was invited to drinks by a friend. One of the other women there, who I've met several times before, when introduced again claim

she'd never met me i have vivid recollections of listening to endless stories about children this woman's children feeling completely bored and very excluded particularly by this woman fortunately i do have many great girl pals most of them are indeed mothers and we all support and importantly are interested in each other's lives uh this correspondent would like to remain anonymous because as she says in new zealand where they are listening hanging upside down there is only one degree of separation i bet yeah and actually um that's a great email it's jogged my memory uh there's some noel edmunds news from new zealand which uh i will bring to the listeners next week oh is it not good not really well Not really. Well, is it good for Noel or good for New Zealand?

I'm going to keep people on tenterhooks. Right. We all need to wish Jane a very, very happy holiday. We would like some very decent anecdotes. Please don't do a Shirley Valentine and fall in love and never come back. Enjoy your giant beans. I was literally just thinking of a bean, as you spoke.

You can get tins of these beans in Lidl, but they're not as good as the real ones. It's not the same. No, it isn't. It's not the same. So, happy holidays, Jane Garvey, and it's me and the other Jane next week. Well, have a fabulous time. And remember, get a friend, send a tote.

No. No. Tell a friend, get a friend send a tote no no tell a friend get a tote thank you well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Phi Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run. Or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly.

Running a bank? I know, ladies. A lady listener. I know, sorry.