Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Unstable but not unfriendly (with Zac Goldsmith)

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

This podcast is the living embodiment of managing your expectations - please keep them low… at all times. In today’s episode, Jane and Fi chat piles, the questionable nature of freestanding baths, the danger of paving stones, the similarities between CoolCat and Kim Jong Un, and estate agent jargon… Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Plus, Zac Goldsmith, sculptor and former Tory minister, discusses his latest collection. Our next book club pick is 'A Town Like Alice' by Nevil Shute.Our most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.You can listen to our 'I'm in the cupboard on Christmas' playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1awQioX5y4fxhTAK8ZPhwQIf 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! @janeandfiPodcast Producers: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can you hear yourself? Yes, thank you. Thank you. Jane's already been called unstable today by Eve. She said, to quote her, you're not the most stable. I meant on your feet. She came and quick with her, had she? But I'm not sure.

I don't know, Jane, I'm not sure. Jane falls over in the office quite a great. I trip over things. It's not my fault. I've always been a bit prone to accidents. Though fortunately for me, and it is fortunate, Never anything remotely serious. Shouldn't have said that.

Shouldn't have said that? Don't say it. Don't say it. We've got a family member who literally can just be walking down the street and suddenly she's not there anymore. She's got what happened there? Okay, right, well, just get back up, it's fine. There wasn't a crack pavement. Wasn't anything.

What? What happened? Paving stones are, you know. Oh, paving stones. They can really, they can. Yeah, well, they can. At the moment, because there's so much rain around. The wobbly ones, you know, you tread on the first bit

and this whoosh of water just comes up and hits you as it tips over. We haven't actually mentioned that at the moment, well actually I'm looking out, oh no, it looks like it could rain at any moment. It just hasn't stopped raining in England for what seems like months. Well, I think there's a village in Cornwall, isn't that? And the whole of Aberdeenshire, which has had 46 days of rain on the trot. Okay. I did look and Sunday in London, a Saturday in London is really,

really bright and sunny. But that's it then and then there's another week of rain. Well, go outside. I will. Sit with your face tipped to the sunshine. Soaking up the vitamin D. Yeah, absolutely. But the poor little crocuses and the snowdrops and the little daffs they struggled to get through

and they're just all sitting in great big puddles of water in London's parks, aren't they? I know this is probably a terrible challenge to farmers but won't this mean that when spring does finally come in this part of the country wherever it comes, it will come everywhere I hope. it will be glorious because of all the rain. I don't know because I was listening to a report yesterday where a farmer who had sowed wheat and primarily depends on wheat

so that if the seeds are underwater for 21 days, then you just won't ever be able to get them back. They're never... And he's in day 16. So unless it turns a corner, that's his whole farm. That's his whole crop gone. Right. Look, if you're in the farming business, do let us know.

know what this means for you because it sounds grim. It does. It does, it does. Hot news, though, on Saturday, you're having a new sofa delivered. Friday. On Friday, you're having a new sofa delivered. Never rely on a journalist for accurate information. Yesterday, I've just had my time slot. It's always slightly nerve-wracking, isn't it?

So it's the woman who put the Winter Olympics in Russia. Well, they've been in Russia. They were in Beijing. We had this argument on air. Okay. By the way, Britain's not doing very well. We've had to... We're in fourth a lot, aren't we? We keep getting...

And that's what happened at the last Winter Olympics. And they went big and said, Team G.B. You're going to have their most successful Winter Olympic Games ever! And you think, shouldn't have said that. And we haven't. But anyway, all hope is not entirely lost.

But even... I mean, I say even the curlers. They didn't get bronze or nothing. So I'm sorry about it. I'm depressed. I feel depleted. I also went to the cinema as a diversion last night to see H's for Hawke.

And I've been going to the cinema now since I was, I think I was about five, probably four and a half when I first went to the cinema. So we're talking over half a century of cinema attendance. And something happened last night that had never happened to me before. Didn't wet the seat, didn't you? I felt like doing it. Do you know what?

The cinema didn't work. And we got our money back and a free gift. No. No. It just didn't work. By Russia. Something had happened. I was just settling down for the first of the trailers.

I do love trailers. Sometimes I enjoy the trailers, the whole trailer experience more than the film. And it was Wuthering Heights in Speech Marks, there was the trailer. But it just kept stopping. So you'd get a really frustrating nanosecond of Jacob Allaudy, and then it would stop,

and then there'd be a blank screen, and it would start again. So it was really, really frustrating. And then in the end, after a lot of rebooting that we were promised by the harassed-looking woman in charge of proceedings, the whole thing was called off. But what she actually said,

what I told Eve earlier, she said, I'm so sorry, guys, we're going to have to abandon ship. I thought that is a classic exaggeration of a, I'm going to say it, a millennial. We weren't at sea in a raging storm. Well, no, I think that's lovely. It's better than some terribly kind of formal commercial speak due to unforeseen circumstances, this carriage will terminate it. What? What? What's terminating?

It wasn't that. No, it wasn't. But it's such an odd sensation when you've, you know, you've brought into the notion of sitting in the dark for an hour and a half or so. And then you've got to go back out. You just got to go home. That was the end of that. Well, I'm so sorry to hear that. There's a story in the Times today. It's probably in other papers. We're just going to mention it's in the Times today about the Office. vulnerability to superhacking at the moment because we're just all completely and utterly bound to this technology, aren't we? So it's the idea that we've been so clever with all of the air conditioning and the fridge that speaks to you and the coffee machine that knows who it is

as soon as you approach and all that kind of stuff. And the Mini Cooper that asks if you want to break. All of that. That it's slightly... It's made it easier for the hackers to get in, not just because you've got all these many, many different forms that allow you to get into an office but just because it's tech of such a high level the hackers can slide in and nobody really understands tech at that higher level so they're not

spot them unfortunately yeah so you know in your in your cinema if you just had the we haven't been able to lace the reel up properly then you've probably been able to see the movie i just think they'd the unpleasant nature of a russian who just want to stop me enjoying a couple of hours in a cinema. Well, I mean, let's join the ranks of the conspiracy theorists and one day they may be proved to be right. Oh, on that note, actually, there's a fantastic documentary available on the Netflix at the moment called the Martha Mitchell story, which is about the wife of John Mitchell, who was the senator involved in the Watergate scandal. He was Nixon's chief of staff and, I think, electoral campaigner. And he was heavily involved in commissioning

Watergate, his wife had a runaway mouth on her and became a real sensation within the Republican Party at the time and started speaking the truth about her belief of who was behind the Watergate scandal and she got shut down by Nixon in the most awful kind of criminal way. Oh, she wasn't suddenly put away. She was jabbed in the bum in a hotel room in Los Angeles with sedative and basically kept against her will. It's an extraordinary story. Wow. Really, really extraordinary.

But it's about speaking the truth and how women are often just dismissed as deluded. She's gone mad. She needs to be sectioned. She's gone mad. Don't listen to her. It's an old classic old trojan. Yeah, and then of course she comes good in the end.

I would highly recommend it. I think it's only about 23, 24 minutes long. But it's beautifully done. And she's wonderful. And there was a film starring Julia Roberts as Martha that came out a couple of years ago. I'll search that out and find the name for you. you, but the actual

this is, you know, real thingies. And it's called the Martha Mitchell story. With real thingies. How did we get onto that? I don't know. After my unsuccessful cinema trip, I suppose if you go as many years as I've been going to the cinema, it's going to happen one night

that you just don't get to see the film. This aging thing's going to just... It's only going to get worse, isn't it? As many years as I've been going to the cinema. It's over half a century is. It's all right. Everything just sounds like a QNard ship being launched or welcomed into port. Let's just

bring in the baby I saw on the Northern Line. This is incredible. I mean, this is a great coincidence and thank you so much to Louisa who's taken the time to email to say, I think I knew it was you, Jane, on the Northern Line this morning, but I was too nervous to say hello. Don't be nervous. I am unstable

as my colleagues have pointed out. But that doesn't mean I'm unfriendly. No, but I think sometimes and I will say that I have this too, so I'm not being insulting towards Are you going to mention the resting face? Yes. Yes.

But the point was I'd been cheered up by the baby, so I didn't have my resting face. Gosh. I had my old face on. Okay. Anyway, the baby in question, where is the name here? I think the baby was Leah. Layla. Laila.

Sorry. See, that was not very coordinated. Louisa, thank you so much for the lovely further images of Lela. Her hair definitely did bright. up my day. She says on the topic of teet holes, which I have reference, I'd ask you to spare a thought for those of us with a baby, mine is currently three months old who won't accept a bottle. Yes, I remember that other email of yours on that subject. So isn't it interesting that it was someone who'd emailed the podcast previously who I saw on the Northern Line yesterday

and has got back in touch with images. That's amazing. Yeah, I think we're quite a close circle, aren't we sometimes? We're all travelling on the same trains. Yes, yeah, because there's a lovely woman who I quite often have a chat with who's leaving, coming into London Bridge at the same time as I'm going home. They're all around us, Jane. They're people. They're everywhere. Anyway, wonderful head of hair and yes, I know it's frustration when babies won't have bottles, but whatever you're doing, Louisa with Leila, it's working.

She looks highly intelligent and has abundant head hair. There's a very, very young baby who's been born. brought in by her mum to Times Towers today in the canteen. Her mum was having a very nice... She's working in the canteen. No, she's in the canteen with a friend. Did you take your babies in to meet the team? No.

No, neither did I. I just remember thinking that would be so weird. It's like two worlds really, really colliding. I don't know what people are expected. Because I would say that my babies, look, I mean, they grew into their looks. But initially, you know, I loved them, obviously. I thought they were beautiful and so did my family. But in the outer world, I wasn't sure what reaction they'd get.

Gosh, did you really think that collies would go, oh, that's not very pretty? It's a woman's out. I didn't have babies when I was on women's out. Oh, sorry, you were at 5'9. No, I was at 5'5.5. Oh, sorry, I forgot you were great age. Exactly. It was all jock straps and embracation, you know.

Okay, so that might have been taken. They wouldn't have known what to say. I did walk my son definitely past Broadcasting House because it was very, very close to John Lewis. It was one of the reasons to working a pageo for. And I did walk past and I just thought, no, I'm just not going in there with my baby. But really weirdly, I bumped into Steve Wright.

So Steve Wright met my baby. Was it in the afternoon? No, it was in the morning. Oh. He said lovely things. I'm sure he would. Yeah, absolutely. I'm still missing.

Yeah, so do I actually. I do. I do. This one is hitting a bum note And it comes in from Emma Who Harks from Liverpool And says often at Burbo Bank What's that?

Well, I was down there Sunday morning It's where you go We used to call it, I don't know why, the erosion Does that mean it's that anything? The erosion, what's such a coastal path? It's a kind of, yes Well, no, it's a coastal viewing area It's you can get a really great view

Of the Anthony Gormley's down there And I was there on Sunday morning which felt weirdly spring-like. So, Emma, if you're ever there on a weekend, and you do see someone who could be me, crack on. Yeah, run. Just don't let it lie. Make my acquaintance.

Emma writes in to say, further to yesterday's part in the conversation regarding the bizarre anales-ole plot twist, I just wanted to say, I hopefully gets to the bottom of it. You're welcome, she says. And that is scarce humor. And then she says,

watch this space for more quality correspondence. such as this. Now I couldn't be bothered to watch the whole of betrayal, but I did fast forward to the end, just so I had a sense of completion. Because I thought that there might be a moment where it all made sense that some of the plot

had been dedicated to his haemorrhoids, but I don't think it was. I watched the last 20 minutes. So if anybody has gone all of the way through, and there is a sudden moment where they're sitting at River House, MI5 headquarters, and he makes reference to his piles,

being an integral part of being able to solve state-sponsored assassination, let me know, because it just seemed to fade away. I mean, I hope for his sake they did, because they were obviously proving to be incredibly difficult for him. You do wonder whether that would be something that would unite the despots of the world, our friend in North Korea and in the White House. They've all got piles. They will have. They're bound to, are they? I mean, it strikes all of us at a certain time in our life. There's no, it's hard to avoid them if you make a sort of

traditional life journey, I would say. But also they're probably doing all of the wrong things, aren't they? So they're sitting down for very, very long periods of time. Certainly the North Korean fella is an absolute... He's not quite as big as your cat, but blimey fee. Too far off. I am genuinely wounded that you've compared cool cat, king of cats, to King Jong-ung.

I'm sorry. There's nothing Kimish about him, but he is, he's a whopper, I think. think he's going up on the Instagram. Yes, I mean, his girth is truly quite magnificent. Yeah, don't like the word girth. It seems like unpleasant on that. I don't know if I wish I hadn't said it. Laura, thank you for your lovely picture of your baby, Olaf. You've been keeping me sane during the first 12 weeks of maternity leave with Olaf. The first 12 weeks, look, if you've cracked it, haven't you? If you've got through the first 12 weeks, they always say, don't they? Things get a lot better after 12 weeks.

Okay. This has often meant laughing instead of crying during nappy changes and long days spent not getting much further than the bedroom save for brief dashes to the kitchen if I'm lucky and to the loo, she says. Oh, she occasionally treats herself to a trip to the loo. That's nice, isn't it?

It's not just the kitchen. Sometimes you get the chance to see the loo. Do keep doing that. Thank you very much, Laura. I do know what you mean. I used to think that trip to the bin was actually quite exciting because it me getting out of the house, however briefly, going a load of stuff you needed to dispose of. It will become easier.

She says, P.S. Attached is a photo of Olaf, complete with milk on his face, because I just think he's gorgeous. Well, he is. Look at that. He's a champ. Again, congratulations to you, Laura. And keep chugging on. Honestly, this will all become part of anecdotage in the years ahead, and you'll be able to tell Olaf all about it. Yeah. And don't overstretch yourself.

And also, you know that thing when people say, oh, it's going to get better here and oh, it's going to get better there, sometimes it doesn't for you, and that's fine. Everyone's got their different kind of markers, haven't they? I think it's very difficult when people say that about, or your baby will sleep through the night at five months, six months, whatever it is. And if you've got the kind of baby who doesn't,

it can feel incredibly disheartening. It's kind of going to happen when it's going to happen. And there's a weird thing as well where when you're expected to rejoin the real world, I think that that is sometimes quite a difficult time for women as well. There's something bizarre, weird, not terrific about being locked in the house and permanently breastfeeding. I completely get that. But there is something as well about when you're expected

to be able to get out and go to the supermarket and do all those things again. All those dreamy things like going to the supermarket. Yeah, but it's not necessarily, you know, it's not giving you greater freedom. You're still with the baby all the time. So I'm just saying manage your expectations. Find the places that work for you. God knows. It's not going to be the same for everybody.

This podcast is the living embodiment of managing your expectations. Isn't it? Keep them low at all times. Really, really low. At all times. TV recommendations come in from Alison. Alison, is it you? No, it won't be her. Does your sister never listen?

Not very often. Fair enough. Fair enough. It's a bit like taking your baby into work. A little bit. It just crosses too many lines. This Alison says I've enjoyed Holt and Catch Fire

on ITVX Now have you heard of either of these two things I haven't They did sound intriguing Don't they And I just wonder whether you're on a different ITBX I haven't seen these at all Three series of 10 episodes

The first two series very good Oh I see So is it just one Is it just called Holt and Catch Fire Or is it Holt And then there's another one called Catch Fire I thought there were two separate shows So did I

Maybe it's one I'm going to keep going to keep going going Alice. Bear with us. Go on. Three series of 10 episodes, the first two series, very good, the third,

less good, but does tie it all up so you know what happens to everybody. It's about the early days of computing in the US when it was all young, visionary, fearless and often immature programmers with energy and ideas.

You don't have to know about or even be that interested in computing. It's told through four engaging characters. And Alison makes the point, here's the joy. No politicians, no police, no guns, no brutally murdered or abused women, no macho men avenging the killing of wives and families,

no neurodiverse or alcoholic divorcing, packing up smoking, maverick, suspended detectives. What? No suspended... You're off this case. But guess what? You'll be off it and you'll go on to solve it in your own time. Yes, as some weird consultant who's suddenly on the payroll. No retired assassins persuaded back into the game for one last job,

just people living through a fast-changing... and exciting time and how they're changed by it. Right, well, that is a great recommendation. It's halt and catch fire then, isn't it? It's not halt and catch fire. So we'll take a look at it and we'll get back to you, Alison. But it does sound good. It'd be nice to make a move away from all of those tropes and cliches.

Jude and in brackets Marge have been in touch to say, whilst allowing you to Lullis to sleep tonight and listening to your guest Lisa McGee referring to her new series as a little like Scooby-Doo, that's the Derry Girls creator who has a new show on Netflix starts tomorrow called How to Get to Heaven from Belfast there you go I've done all that information

I sat up with a start and said I didn't check my kombucha My wife told me I had to share this with you So here I am Love Jude and Marge P.S we enjoyed tea and cakes with Fee When she opened the new wing of the library At the University of Kent a couple of years ago

What a treasured memory That must be for you both Jude Thank you. But how interesting that Jude was in a semi-coma and then she suddenly, the reference to Scooby-Doo, that was it and she realised that she needed to blurt, I didn't check my kombucha. Does that mean that you're making kombucha and it needs to be kept an eye on that you need to monitor it?

Probably do you. I've never attempted kombucha. I was flattened by the sourdough starter. Oh, God. I know that a neighbour gave me when I moved in. to the house, actually that we're planning to move out of soon, so 17 years ago. Is it still there? We moved in and I remember saying to my husband of the time, look this lovely, lovely present that neighbours given.

He looked at it, he said, that's not a gift. And it was so, I mean, it is a commitment. It is a commitment. And I'm ashamed to say that the starter, which was meant to be Napoleonic in its origins, they always say that, don't they? It died. Oh, dear. And I think kombucha's.

probably the same, because it's a fermentation process, isn't it? So maybe if you don't put the right conditions in for it to ferment. Oh, I don't know. How do you ever tell when kombucha's gone too far? How do you tell when kambu's gone too far? How do you tell when kombucha's gone too far? I don't know. So it's a question for the ages.

You've just casually mentioned that you might be moving out of your house, putting the entire nation on full alert, people thinking, oh my God, will that woman and her petting who be moving in next door to me. Any time soon. Could be. It could be. People would be scrambling to get to the airport. Yeah, we're casting our net wide.

Oh my God. You see, we could end up anywhere, Jane. That really really, way. Do you know, it's one of those weird things, actually. I'm making myself say out loud in public places because actually it's a really big thing. Oh, it's a massive thing. You know, it's where my kids

have spent their entire childhood. We've always been in the area. It's not the house that they were born in. No. We'd move out. The only house they remember? It's the only house they remember. I think that's hugely significant. Yeah, and they went to the school down the end of the road and all that kind of stuff.

So I'm saying it out loud in order to be brave because it is just something that we've got to do and we will find another place and it'll be fine. It is quite funny looking. It is quite funny looking. Because at the moment it's not like urgent, urgent. You know, I've got to move by, you know, in three weeks' time. I'm lucky.

I thought you're not saying your house is funny looking. You're saying it's funny looking at other houses? Yes. Okay, just to clear that up. If you're interested in me, making an offer. It's a very nice house. Right, Carol. Just because of all of the descriptions that you start reading,

which they're all AI generated now. So they've done the AI scrape on appalling use of adjectives and flowery descriptions of rooms. And then they've added, you know, the AI bit on top again. So just a tiny bit, this is just from a place that I was grazing at on the tube on the way in this morning. A beautifully arranged three-bedroom period. townhouse. I mean, it's a house in a town.

Yeah, it's a townhouse. Actually, what is the definition of a townhouse? I don't know. It's a terraced house, isn't it? That's what it's, they're trying to to gild that lily. It benefits it benefits from an exceptional balance of indoor and outdoor space. It includes a roof terrace, a generous 22-foot garden.

People will be laughing at that outside of London because that probably doesn't sound very generous. It's entered on the raised ground floor, a striking open plan reception immediately impresses. It's just so over the top all the time. And you just, nobody reads it. Just don't, don't put it in. Nobody is reading this, apart from, for the purposes of laughing further down the line at it. It is cobbler, isn't it? It benefits from a roof, which is terrifically handy if you're interested in keeping the rain out. And you will be if you're in the UK right now. So, yeah, the first floor is dedicated. to a bedroom.

It's dedicated. I dedicate this floor. It's just a bit nonsense, Jane. It's a bit nonsense. Adet says, Fie Jane and of course Eve, en suites a yuck. That just about sums it up,

but please don't get me started on the concept of freestanding baths in bedrooms. Now, there'd probably be some AI-generated crap about them. I'm completely with Adet there. The bathroom is a sacred place. It is not also where you sleep.

unless you've been like me at so many crazy all-night parties the way you've ended up of course having a sleep in the bath but that's relatively rare and on the whole ablution should be kept strictly separate from the area in which you sleep

I completely agree and also I don't want to fall asleep in a bedroom that's a bit damp because you've just had a hot bath in it that's just so weird that's a really good point actually you can tell you're very serious about this house moving thing

because that is a very rich Surely that's a genuine issue. Yeah, it'd be kind of mouldy and damp and horrible. Plumbers, make contact, Jane and Fee, at times. dot radio. Flex conditioner is still alive and well in Australia. Well, there are so many things happening in Australia, Jane, that lure us down under, but we still haven't booked the tickets.

Jackie says, I bought Flex for five Australian dollars today, and it smells just as good as when I was a teenager. I wish M&S would post liquids to Australia. I'm busting to try that disinfectant. You are our kind of person, Jackie. Also note, I think it's okay to keep talking about Epstein. I am to anyone who'll listen. I've discovered that people do care.

They just don't know what to do about it. Yours, your ears and eyes on the ground in Sydney. Much appreciated, Jackie, thank you. Yeah, well, we're definitely going to carry on talking about it. There just is going to be more to come. We know that. This email came in from Githa, who says, Why is no one asking why the late Queen turned a completely blind eye to all of Andrew's misdemeanours

back from when his awful connections to Epstein came to light? Why did she see fit to ignore everything and acted only when there was a big public uproar after Andrew's Newsnight interview? She must have known years back about his association with a sex offender. The whole royal household chose to defend one of their own until they were forced to act by public opinion and only out of fear for the tide turning on them as well. The whole family, starting with the late Queen, were complicit in covering up the truth, let's not forget. It's a point being increasingly vociferously made, Gita.

Rightly. Yes. And because we know that Andrew was the Queen's favoured son, there have been kind of tip bits and little bits of gossip all the way through the last 40, 50 years about how kind of... Favoured he was. Yes, and how people were putting up with his...

Antics. and idiosyncrasies and so of course they would have known and in fact I mean it's not even that it was a well-kept secret that he was a nightmare I mean on the trade end of his stage he paintballed some journalists once

he used to prank his way around the world all kinds of people were in his entourage and therefore staying in places on taxpayers' money you know it wasn't an open secret it was just him it was him yeah it was him idiosyncrasies, pranks, antics.

It's hard to imagine that we will end the year without the authorities knocking on his door, I hope. What a great thing to see. Yeah, but it would really restore faith for me in this nation and what it purports to stand for. Let's see, let's keep a beady eye on that. That's definitely. I know that a lot of you have written to us

with your thoughts about Epstein and actually so many people have written with their personal experiences. One person has made the extremely good point that actually every single story about Epstein is accompanied by a picture of him, smiling, looking well, looking happy. You know, you can see something in his eyes where he's just looking, he's just king of the heap in his world.

And that must be so painful, so painful. There are billboards, magazines, covers everywhere. You know, if it's triggering something in you, wow. He's not a face you can avoid, is he? Well, you can't know. And I'm afraid you won't be able to avoid him for quite some time to come. And it's easy as a journalist to get caught up in the story

without thinking very much about the impact of exactly what you just described. But I think we're trying to do a really slightly different job here and actually really give voice to that and do that on the afternoon programme. well. So we hear your stories and we're hanging on to them trying to do something useful with them. Just one point before we leave that topic for today, Prince, I always want to call him Prince, it is Prince William, isn't he? He's not King yet. You're a royal expert. I love the fact, I like it when he turns to me and wants to know, just get some of my wisdom. I might be unstable, but there's no doubt. You know you're royals. I know the Royals. He's currently the Prince of Wales.

Thank you. And oddly, he's on a visit to Saudi Arabia this week. So on his visit to Saudi Arabia, he put out a statement. It's the most fulsome statement that he's made so far. It's not that fulsome. No, exactly. It's not. And it's the same thing that we've been talking about, which is, you know, we're absolutely supportive of the victims.

We're remembering the victims. How amazing, Jane, would it be if the royal family, any member of them, phoned up something like the Survivor's Trust and said, what would you like me to say? And then they can quote that in their speeches and their statements, and they could say, we've asked victims what it is that they would like to be hearing from people at the moment,

and here it is. Because time after time, we're just getting these very, very bland statements, and everyone goes, oh, that's amazing. You know, it is good they're leaning in, but it's not amazing because they're not telling us something really helpful, are they? No, and I think if they want to stay, in place and it's not a given that they will be in 20 or 30 years time enjoying their immensely privileged lives then they've got to do something much more proactive than they've come up with so

far and I think you're absolutely right why not bring in one of the charities that helps people who've been abused and why not seek professional advice they're supposed to have advisors I mean politicians have advisors too and it's really telling how just how rubbish some of the advice is that these advisors give. Incredible. I mean, you'd be better off getting my advice. Maybe, you know, we should just offer our services on a Wednesday afternoon. A couple of hours. We could have like a surgery, couldn't we? Of just sensible women's advice. Come along, just plonk yourself down. Whoever it is, I mean, Kirstarma needed us this week.

Yeah, we've been ever so busy this week. We really have. Quick one on bingo wings from Marie, regular correspondent. Regarding your conversation about Karen Brady, I've been noticing the current trend for very toned upper arms as opposed to so-called bingo wings. I think I may have first have noticed it in Jennifer Aniston in the morning show. She must have had it written into her contract that all of her outfits have to be sleeveless because as well as the compelling storylines, her toned upper arms are very comment-worthy and are featured heavily in every single episode. She's clearly delighted with them and so she should be. Well, yeah, I'd never seen that program. It's on one of those

things I don't have access to because I've got poor packages relative to others. And I haven't seen it, Marie, but thank you for alerting me to Jennifer Aniston's magnificent upper arms. It's the drama with cold play. I've noticed him. He's got very good upper arms. Have you? Where have you been watching him? I'm going to move on now to Eileen, who's in Solihull. And Eileen, again, you're our kind of listener. I didn't quite realise how dependent I was on my mobile, says Eileen, until I popped into Waitrose.

Well, we've all done it, and realised I'd left my phone at home. I couldn't get my free coffee or scan my shopping Desperate times Let's all have a go-fund-me for Eileen in Solio I felt bereft without my phone But, and this is a good A good advert for waitrose this But the lovely cashier saw my pain

It was very real And she got me a coffee which made me feel a bit better Isn't that lovely? That's wonderful That's waitrose I've realised my life Falls apart without my phone Which is perhaps a trifle concerning well, it is a trifle, as you say, Eileen.

And I know you've sent that email with humour. And we do feel for you. And I'm so sorry that incident happened. But how wonderful that everybody ratted round gave you your free coffee anyway. Yeah, feely. Yeah, absolutely. The nation is staying safe for now.

What have Boris Johnson, Trudy Stiler and Lady Caroline Bamford got in common? There's no prize, I'm afraid. It may have already been one, though, if there was one, by Zach Goldsmith, whose sculptures they have bought. He turned his hand to sculpture during the pandemic whilst in lockdown. He started with wax models, worked his way up to bronze, and he's selling them with the proceeds going to charity. Toothpicks and Nick Combs were involved in his process.

Zach, very good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. We so need to know more about Nick Combs and toothpicks. So how are they involved in your sculpting process? I mean, the list goes on. anything you can if you're making something out of wax and you don't you know I'm not a professional I've never had a lesson you use anything is a pencil a toothpick a cheese grater um anything anything becomes a potential tool if you're trying to create an effect on the wax

sort of thing so I just I have a pile of very eccentric tools and they do the job I think more of less right well it's good to know that you're a man of the people and your kids have nits I mean that's one thing that we can take from that they never don't have nits as far as I can tell It goes on and on and on, doesn't it? Talk us through what happened then that led to you turning to sculpture, because I don't think it would have been in the Zach Goldsmith game plan, would it? No. I actually started with wood.

We had a really beautiful ancient oak tree which came down in one of the storms. This is before COVID. But it's really beautiful. You can imagine how wide, probably 300, 350 years old. And I didn't want to chop it up for firewood. I wanted to use it. So I ended up carving a big chunk into kind of double-sized silverback gorilla. So that was, and I wasn't planning on doing that.

I just knew I wanted something to be carved. I googled, I found a couple of professionals. They were going to do the job for me, but they wouldn't work with, oh, this is too hard. They wanted to work with, work with pine or something softer. So I did it myself and I enjoyed it and it sort of more or less did it. It worked. And so I just got the bug. But you can't, the thing about wooden sculptures, it's messy, you can't do it indoors, it's all you're doing.

If you're doing wooden sculptures, nothing else comes into it. It's 100% commitment. Whereas with wax or clay, you could be chatting, you could be on the phone. You could even be on a Zoom call, as long as you're not expected to do too much performance on it. You can do it in your office, you can do it anywhere. And so I just got involved in wax, and I loved doing it. It became almost an obsession, almost. And how many sculptures have you made, if that's the right verb?

I mean, probably about 30, 40. I mean, I'll go for months without doing one. I mean, at the moment, I have a huge blob of wax that has been on a desk in my office now for about two months. And I just haven't had time to get to it. But I will do eventually turn it into what I'm planning and turning it into. So when you look at the blob, what are you saying in your artist? It annoys me that it's still just a blob. But I want to turn it into something else.

but it will be two lion heads. That's an idea. Okay. I mean, we've got to address the literal elephant in the room, which is that you can sell these sculptures for vast amounts of money. Is that because you are Zach Goldsmith? Look, I'm sure it helps that there are. Not everyone who's bought them has been a friend or known to me.

But you know, you mentioned some people before. These are people I've worked with before. I wasn't planning. It was never part. I never imagined that. I'd be able to sell them. I didn't make them thinking I'm going to sell these things and become a sculptor. But I'm always asked to provide things for charity auctions. And I've sort of stripped my house bare of anything interesting that would go well in an auction. And you kind of run out of ideas of

experiences to add to the menu. So I sort of tentatively, slightly nervously added one of these sculptures. It was a big giant Galapagos tortoise into one of the auctions. And people went crazy for it. There was a huge bidding war. It sold for them. costly more than I could ever have imagined it was worth. So I thought, okay, it's easy. I'm doing something fun. I love doing it. It's not that difficult.

And I'm making a lot of dosh at the same time for charities that I would otherwise be struggling to raise money for. So it's going to win-win, just very lucky. Sure, sure. Are those charities all nature and environmentally based? Pretty much all animal welfare or nature. Yeah, pretty much. But I mean, that's because those are the people I, you know, those are the causes that I've always, always been involved in.

I wouldn't not contribute pieces to other causes. But my first one, I think, was for, it was that amazing organization, Animals Asia, which campaigns against bear bile farming. I don't know if any of you or your listeners have ever Googled them or seen the images. I can't think of anything crueller that humans do. I mean, keeping these bears for up to 30 years in such confined cages. they can't even scratch themselves and they have a rusty thing shoved into them and their gallbladder are milked for some mad medicinal purpose. And this one organization set up by one incredible woman called Jill Robinson is actually on the cusp of ending this practice. She's campaigned in Laos and

Cambodia and Vietnam. She's just done the most incredible thing, a completely kind of just ordinary person who decided to make this her mission and has done it. She's a champion. So that was one of the things that I was very happy to contribute to. And, you know, when these things sell for pretty significant sums of Dosh, that it makes a difference. It will, you know, it will push her campaign on a little bit further and it's a great thing. Are we allowed to know what type of animal Boris Johnson bought? Do you know what? It was a gorilla. Was it? Yes, it was a gorilla. A little, a small one. Wasn't one of the giant life-size, life-sized, pieces. I've got a lot of guerrillas, lots of different ones. And there I started, my first was a little

jackdaw, which I actually rescued from someone's chimney, a little baby, and I brought it up, and it became a great friend. And I remember my office when I was a minister at the time. And it was all during COVID, and obviously everything was done virtually. I'd be on the computer, doing my very serious zooms, and the bird would just fly onto my... I accidentally leave my window open, and the bird would fly in and sit on my shoulder, and I'd have to pretend it wasn't happening in the middle of these conversations. And it became very famous in the foreign office in Deffre, virtually. And then eventually she came less and less, and she joined a wild flock.

I would see her sometimes, but probably once a week. And so I did a little portrait of her. That was my first kind of real one, first wax one. But now I do a lot of animals that I've met. You know, I did a portrait of a gorilla, which I met in the Congo. and I mean, I guarantee none of your listeners will believe this, but I met that gorilla nearly 20 years before in Kent at Howlitz as a tiny baby gorilla running around the lawn.

And if someone had said at the time that little gorilla, you're going to meet it in the wild, of fully grown silverback, and having been rewilded by the Aspinall Foundation, I just would never have believed them. Right. So that was why the baby gorilla was in Kent. That was why it was in Kent.

All those gorillas that can be rewilded are being reweld. I think they've put 100 gorillas back into the world. Almost all of them have survived, if not all of them. Breeding, 120 babies have been born on the back of it. It's just one of those wonderful organisations that actually does stuff. Right. Well, the breeding and Boris Johnson have something in common. We might go back to it.

You are known for your environmental credentials. You co-headed the review of the Conservative Party environmental policies under David Cameron, which was quite a moment, actually, in politics. Can you take us back to that time? and tell us what it was that he then took on board because I think that is unrecognizable, actually, to where the current Conservative Party is with its environmental policies. I mean, the party has been, so I was not even involved with the Conservative Party at the time.

And I think I'd met you five years before that when I was doing the Ecologist magazine. And I forget where we were talking. But I was plucked from that by David Cameron and his team and asked if I would help them come up with a, a sort of blue-green manifesto. What would a conservative approach to the environment look like? Worked on it for a year with a bunch of very good people. We produced a document which was far, far too big, in my view, but we did.

And some of those things were taken on, others weren't. But the point I think is that the Conservative Party at that point had lost sight of the environment. And there's no ideological reason why a Conservative Party or a conservative movement should not care very much about the environment. And conservation, there's nothing unconservative about that on the contrary. looking out for future generations living within your means ecological means all these things are inherently conservative but they lost it and i think the conservative party did then what we're now seeing the right do here today and in the u.s and elsewhere and that is to look at the environment

see only one part of it which is carbon or net zero so whenever we talk about the environment all people think about is carbon and because that's a kind of left-wing cause according to the right and the conservatives they just chuck the whole thing in the bin leave it to the left and i I think it's a tragedy. You know, the greatest environmental movers and shakers politically in the US have always been Republican, going all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt. He created all the great national parks. And here, even Margaret Thatcher, you know, we forget, she was the first leader to really acknowledge climate change. She was the reason that the Montreal Protocol is probably the only really successful international agreement so far that I can think of. It just got

lost, I think, in the kind of politics of net zero, which has become very toxic. And I think very reductionist. You know, you would have climate cops right up until the one we hosted in Glasgow where no one would talk about forests, no one would talk about nature, no one would talk about the ocean. But if you don't, you could put a solar panel on every single square inch of roofing across the world. You could cover every field with windmills. It wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference if we lose the Congo Basin or if we lose the Amazon, we lose a great forest of Southeast Asia. And yet those things don't feature. Why is a mystery to me. But that's, I think, one of the problems with the left's approach to the environment. And I think the response of the right to that

is just to walk away from the whole thing. And it leaves the environment in a pretty lonely place. But isn't one of the things that we cannot balance nature and progress? So now we are very much told that if we support nature, we aren't supporting progress. And sometimes there are valid reasons for that, Zach, because if you're a very hardworking commuter and actually your congested roads do need something to change. And, you know, you're a very hardworking commuter. And, you know, You can't get a bypass because the bats need a tunnel or, you know, you can't get a decent house built because the nukes need better protection. That seems to be the battle that has been drawn by politicians in front of us. But I think that's almost always just an excuse.

And I mean, if I can look a little bit more international, just because that's my job, it was in government and it remains. You know, I've walked through in the Republic of Congo, as opposed to the Democratic Republic of Congo, I walked through the Republic, through their oldest logging concession. And I was taken there and I fully expected to be very depressed by this. I walked through an area where I could see almost no sign of human activity. You had the biggest population of forest gorillas, the biggest population of forest elephants of anywhere in the Congo Basin.

And yet this was a place that have been logged twice. And they've broken the link through a very strict code. They employ vastly more people in the logging sector, proportionately than any of the neighboring countries. But their forests are growing, not shrinking, because they've got a strict code. So they've broken that link between deforestation and logging. Indonesia for years was wiping out their forests to make way for palm oil and things like that,

pulp and paper. Today, there is almost no deforestation from palm oil or pulp and paper, yet both those sectors are growing. They've figured out how to do it. Costa Rica was one of the poorest countries in all of Latin America. It's now one of the wealthiest, probably the most politically stable. And it's the only country in all of the Americas that has increased rather than decreased its forest. They've broken the link between progress.

and just despoiling their environment. So I just think it's, you know, in each of those cases, it's the people, not just one or two corporates or a couple of corrupt politicians, it's the people who benefited from sound, solid policies. Good stewardship of the environment normally makes for good government. There's a very clear correlation between the two. So I don't buy into that.

I think there are lots of things we do which have an impact and there are lots of ways in which we can balance that by doing other things. But the idea that it's progress or the environment, I think has been completely debunked. Where do you think the Conservative Party stands at the moment with its environmental credentials? I mean, right now, they need to figure that question out.

I've spoken many times to Kemi. We take a different view, for example, in relation to climate change, but I don't think we necessarily take a different view in relation to the natural environment. That hasn't come through in policy yet. But it absolutely has to. I don't think any political party deserves to be taken seriously. if it doesn't have a response to the ecological crisis that we're facing.

And it is a crisis. There's no argument. You can argue forever about climate change, but there is no argument that biodiversity is collapsing around the world. There's no argument that these vital ecosystems that make life possible are shrinking, a million hectares a year of the Congo disappearing. This is not opinion, it's fact. And I think any political party needs to have an answer to that.

It can be a left-wing answer. It can be a right-wing answer. It can be a central answer. and answer. And this, I hope, is in the pipeline. I think it is in the pipeline. I think Labor have really done a very poor job in relation to the natural environment. I think they're very bullish on climate and the energy transition. But when it comes to nature, they effectively walked away. I remember resigning as a minister under Rishi Sunat because I felt that we were treading water, that we weren't going forward. It was incredibly frustrating. But we're actually

going backwards now, quite rapidly, even from where we were under Rishishol. Shishisunak. And I think that's partly because the Conservatives haven't been putting pressure. I felt pressure when I was in government from Labour. It was a very healthy, good pressure. I enjoyed it. And from the Green Environmental NGOs, I don't think the Labour Party feels any of that pressure. And as a result, they're just going backwards on pretty much every international and domestic nature issue. Do you think the Green Party is still green under Zach Polanski? I don't. I think it's become a kind of, you know, a slightly more brash and attractive version of the Corbyn Party. But isn't it going to be hugely important that at least there will be a party attracting attention at the next election that is prepared to talk about nature, to talk about the environment, to be that place?

But I'm not sure. I totally agree with you. I mean, I've voted green in the past. I've even given money to the Green Party in the past. But I don't think the Green Party today is really a Green Party. When you look at the big speeches, the big moments of the Green Party at the moment, the environment is very rarely mentioned. It's mostly identity politics. and, you know, tax are rich, big, you know, all the sort of obvious stuff that you would get from the Corbyn Party, but packaged in a more attractive way by Zach Polanski and his team. You know, he's a good communicator. There's no doubt. But I don't think it's a Green Party. I don't think, for example, and I know I'm going to divide, possibly even lose all your listeners here. But if you look at the time where Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, I would be willing to debate anyone, any time that on his watch, the UK government was greener, better for the natural environment here and overseas than at any other time in our history.

I don't think anyone's come close. And I think after he was booted out, after it was clear that he was gone and he wasn't coming back, then you had a kind of reluctant admission. You had the Guardian, the Independent, the FTE, papers which are really not his mates, sort of reluctantly acknowledging that. I even had Green Party, senior Green Party people. I went embarrassed by naming, texting saying, what on earth are we going to do now for the environment? the same people who'd been sort of shrieking about Boris being thrown out just a few days before. So I think it is, I would love all of the mainstream parties and the up and coming parties to have a sort of coherent approach to dealing with the natural environment.

I think you can separate net zero. I don't think you can achieve net zero without nature in any case. But even if you push that to one side and just focus on repairing those or protecting those ecological systems without which we have no future at all on earth, I would love the mainstream. parties to be competing in that space. And I think people do care. I know it's sort of, it may not be. If you ask 100 people, what's your top three priorities?

Nature's not going to come up for many people in the top three. If you are in an area with crap schools, you're going to say education. If you can't afford a house, you're going to say, you know, shelter. If you're sick, you're going to say the NHS. Everyone's going to have an immediate priority that absolutely trumps nature. But if you ask people whether or not they want more nature in their life, they want more leadership from government on nature. It doesn't matter who you ask, black, white, rich, poor, left, right, old, young.

Everyone wants more nature and more leadership on nature. You're absolutely right. And it's the place where people find joy. It's a place where people find peace. And it would be dreadful if it died on our watch, wouldn't it? If you were invited back into politics, would you go? Well, I kind of am in part. I mean, everything's politics.

And if you've signed a petition, you're in politics. I mean, would you, you know, if there was a Tory government again, would you want to be seat at the table type of politician? I don't know to what extent. I will always, you know, I've been working quite a lot with elements of the current Labor government on these issues. And when David Lamy was in the Foreign Office, I worked very closely with him because he is a nature champion.

He was, I think, the only senior Labour champion champion. I was very sad to see him moved out of that department because I don't see any of that leadership now that he's moved. I'll work with anyone. I mean, anyone. This stuff, this is so in a hundred years' time, if we turn things around, people aren't going to be worrying about which party delivered solutions. I just want to know that we were serious about it.

A couple of other things we would really like to talk to you about in the moments we've got left. Of your Jewish heritage, you say that you've developed a stronger sense of identity after recent world events. We absolutely know what world events you're talking about. What does that meant to you? I mean, I was always brought up to feel sort of pride in that part of me that is Jewish. But I never was observant.

I would go to synagogues only for, you know, cousins and so on, bar mitzvahs and various ceremonies, but I never went as a family, we never, you know, worshipped and partook in that way. And it was kind of a very ancillary part of my identity. And what happened on October the 7th, not the atrocity itself, although that was just a grotesque beyond measure. It was the reaction to it, which I felt that it sort of triggered something in me. And I know this is true of almost anyone I know who has, you know,

significant Jewish blood. And it was the fact that within 24 hours, long before Israel had gathered itself together to work out what its response was going to be to the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, long before that had happened. You had people taking to the streets and protesting against Israel. And it wasn't just the usual suspects. I saw people on Facebook, not Facebook, on Instagram and Twitter, people I know personally, who I respect and have always liked, using slogans which are genocidal and they know that. You can be clever about the language. You can pretend it.

Global jihad means this rather than that. You can pretend river to the sea means something very technical. But we all know what people really mean when they use these slogans. And even if, you know, on an intellectual level, they can defend the use of those terms. They know what everyone else is thinking. If I hear, you know, globalize the intervada, I hear Bondi Beach in Australia. I hear massacres, you know, or attempted massacres around the world. I look at the security outside the Jewish school near me in Notting Hill, which is surrounded by security guards.

That's what I think of when I think of globalize the interfaul. And I know that that is what people are thinking when they use these terms. And I found it extraordinary. That, you know, we lost Anne Frank's posthumous step-sister just a few weeks ago. She was a friend of mine. I did events with her at schools for quite a long time where she would speak about her experiences. She's only just died. That's how recent the Holocaust is. And yet you've got people now seeing it as almost a badge of honor to identify themselves with something which is just so unimaginably grotesque in such a thoughtless manner, just because that is where they think the zeitgeist is. And it tells you how easy it is to manipulate people into doing terrible things and aligning with terrible ideologies. And I find it frightening. Most Jewish people I know when they have put their accounts, on delivery or eBay or Amazon or whatever, they don't use their Jewish name. They'll call themselves

John Smith or something. I know many members of my family do as well, but they worry. They're worry now that someone's going to turn up and recognize when they knock on the door that it's a Jewish person and they'll get thumped or worse. And that's a very ugly situation to be in. So I'm much more aware of that part of my identity now than I ever have been. And I know that members of my family who've never really even been remotely, interested even in the politics of Israel, are now paying attention in a way that they probably wish they didn't have to. Zach, thank you very much indeed for coming in this afternoon.

You can view Zach's collection Art for Nature at NoHo Showrooms from today until the 28th of February. And a very quick Google search or other search engines are available online will take you to images of his sculptures. Have you got a sculpture in your house? I used to have a gnome. And was it an ironic gnome? I think it might have gone out with the marriage

because I suspect it was wearing a West Bromstrip. Oh, God. That's as close as I've ever got. To have a scotch. Oh, my word. Whatever the complete opposite of sexy times is. I'm now thinking of it. I've had plenty of those, believe it.

me. Right. Who's our guest tomorrow? Oh, the fabulous novelist, Jenny Godfrey. Oh, and actually on Friday, we've got a bonus pod for you, a Friday bonus. If you are currently off work on a career break and you're thinking of getting back into the workplace, Friday's pod is for you. It's about returning to work after a career break, whether for childcare, elder care, your own health reasons, or whatever it might have been. We've got some advice for you on Friday. I hope that helps. Goodbye. You've staggered somehow to the end of another off-air with Jane and Fee. Thank you.

If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online, on DAB, or on the free Times Radio app. Offair is produced by Eve Salisbury, and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.