Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Up and down the street with a loudhailer

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Please be warned: accents feature in this email-only podcast episode. Jane and Fi also discuss adolescence, Hadrian's Wall, Mother's Day, and Basingstoke. Send your suggestions for the next book club pick! If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a child there was a rumor that if you did fiddle with your bellybutton your bottom would fall off. Did you hear that? No I didn't. Okay well now I do because I... There was definitely something that... By the way, I'm not a doctor. But that's not true either. With the Fizz loyalty program you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan.

You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Eve's just done a little confession to us. I think a lot of the younger staff here do use this as a kind of informal, reverend mother confessional type situation, don't they? And we're happy, we're happy to be of help. We pass no judgement. Well, obviously we do. We do, but we try not to look as though we do. Anyway, it's alright Eve, it's all in the past. Okay, welcome to our podcast for today.

And thank you for all the emails that have blundered in over the weekend, including one from a woman who put an ad in the lady. And I'm so chuffed she's got in touch. Oh, well, let's just start with that one. Shall we start with it? Because we've got some serious ones. Because when I saw it this morning in the email inbox I did think oh I hope this isn't someone kind of taking the mickey or pretending to be the person because we've had that before haven't we? We've had that with them with a picture from London Fields Lido that just went off on an

extraordinary gander around the boundaries of truth. So we say hello to Amy and we believe that Amy is Amy. Dear Fian Jane, hello it's me, the well-educated, red-built but not well-bred American who placed a personal ad on the lady one lonesome Sunday evening and it's all down to you. As a faithful listener from the before times, that's very clever, I'd often had you mention the lady and as a jaded veteran of dating apps who hasn't had one bit of action since the middle of the pandemic. I'm very sorry about that, Amy.

I thought I'd give it a go. So spurred on by gin and a faint whiff of desperation, I jotted down a few sentences, paid my dues and sat back to see what happened. Well, I got a few responses. The ad was live online a few weeks ago, all of them polite which makes a change from the apps. Several of them were intrigued enough to warrant a response and a few of those resulted in a bit of back and forth correspondence rights. One included an offer to go and live in Sri Lanka, which I must regrettably decline. I think Amy would be worried if you had said yes to that love.

What I neglected to mention in the ad is that I am an American lady currently living in America, Washington DC to be precise, which may explain my dream of an escape to another country. I'm also an incurable romantic who believes that there is somebody out there and he probably lives somewhere else because I've pretty much exhausted my options here. Anywho, the upshot of all of this is that I've been rewarded by hearing my ad read out by two of my favourite females and I made you giggle job well done. Now send me a kind, sufferable man who wants to poke around Hadrian's wall with me and make me

cups of tea, yours in sisterhood and the pursuit of a comfortable bra. And Amy says P.S. shout out to Kath at the lady who kindly forwards the replies to my ad. I'm wondering if any might come through the post. Well Amy, you just sound so delightful. I really hope that somebody who's completely and utterly up your Hadrian's Wall street does reply to you and you can sail off into the distance wearing sensible Gore-Tex clothing because Hadrian's Wall can be a little bit windy can't it? I don't think I've ever been, have you been? Yes I have. So I took the kids up there we had a really fantastic trip actually with a friend of mine Suzanne and her too and

we did a bit of Hadrian's Wall we went to the Keelder Observatory we did a bit of Hadrian's Wall, we went to the Kielder Observatory, we held a piece of a meteor, we made homemade rockets, fired them up into the air, used the smelliest compostable toilet that I've ever been in, because if you imagine, so the Kielder Observatory has a compostable toilet, so if you imagine that groups of school children, because it's just too far away to get on the main sewerage. Oh, I see, OK. So it's, oh I didn't realise it was... Oh yeah, because it has to be in the darkness because it's a proper observatory. You still have a flush toilet, sure.

Well I think they don't put, you know, they've got, they don't have their, they're not on the mains electricity or water supply. But if you imagine it's a place for school visits and the school visits use the compostable toilet and sometimes I think I can still smell that at the back of my nose. But Adrian's wall was I mean it's you know it's uh how much of it is there to see? Not very much. So if you were going to get a builder and ask them to put you know I'd like this wall rebuilt what would they say? Well there was it's a big job love. you know, I'd like this wall rebuilt. What would they say? Well, it's a big job love. It cost you.

Okay, so don't bother. No, but anyway, Amy, how lovely to hear from you and and you really did make us smile with your well-educated, red-built but not well-bred. Yeah, it was brilliant, absolutely brilliant and I agree with Fee's sentiment. You sound absolutely wonderful and good luck to you in your pursuit of a sufferable man and as Fee said right at the start of all this, congratulations on just saying

sufferable because that it's just something we should all do much more often. Thank you for that and so lovely of you to email and you never know maybe Mr. Just About Right will hove interview as a result of it. Well hopefully we've amplified the message because one of our listeners did point out the very logical fact that maybe not very men read the lady so they don't know who's lurking in the personal ads there. Oh I think a few men, a few well-bred chaps know where to go for the ads. Do you read The Man? Yes I do. Do you? I get The Man every month. Did you know you were mentioned in a song on a very obscure Radio 4 program yesterday? What my sister told me about this.

I didn't, I often, no I don't often hear it. I have heard that program, I didn't hear it yesterday. It's Broadcasting House with the lovely Paddy O'Connell. Paddy's lovely, yes. Yeah. And you were in it. I was in a song. In a song.

Yeah, which was about Broadcasting House. Oh dear it did. Every now and again, let's be honest, that institution does disappear up its own. No, this one was really funny Jane, because obviously I went back to listen to it. Of course you did. By the way, I appreciate your honesty. I'd have done it too. On the way home. The song was really good. And I don't want to paraphrase this, they were talking about theme tunes. They had the guy on who's written the weakest link theme tune and the chase theme tune.

A very, very talented man called Paul. And they'd done a little theme tune for Broadcasting House with lyrics. I'm going to get this slightly wrong, but it did make me laugh out loud. It was something along the lines of, Paddy O'Connell has spent so long in this place, he now qualifies for George Orwell's parking place. Parking space. That didn't make you laugh? No, I'm afraid it hasn't. No, I don't. Why is that funny?

Oh, because... Because of the George Orwell statue outside. Oh, I see. George Orwell statue outside. Oh, I see. Yes. OK. Gosh, it needs a bit of work, doesn't it? Perhaps I do. Lucy. Tell you what, that's a burn for everybody involved. No, but congratulations.

Right, this is just a quick parish notice to Lucy, a bit of public information here. She is interested in going to Paris for lunch to celebrate a significant birthday. She's 50. My gorgeous friends have persuaded me to have lunch in the international city of intrigue or is it romance? I think I recall that Jane did this as part of her, it was just part of my 60th celebration and I was hoping she'd share with me the place she had lunch. Fee, you mentioned you don't think of yourself as short, hurrah, and double hurrah, at 4 foot 10. I have never thought of myself as small and in fact feel sorry for others for

being too tall. Well done, sister. Yeah, well done. I'm told this is the ultimate Napoleon, Napoleonic complex. Well done, Sister. Yeah, we're with you, Lucy. Actually, there's a lot to be said for that. She doesn't think of herself as small and I bet because Lucy doesn't think of herself as small, other people don't really think of her either as being small. It's all part of the psychological game we play, isn't it? But anyway, back to the information. The restaurant I went to was Ardent and I looked it up. It's still there, Lucy, I'm not quite sure whether they're open all day

Saturday and Sunday, in fact I went for lunch on a Saturday and I think they were about to close as we staggered out. I regret to say I can't furnish you with much information as I was somewhat tipsy but the food was lovely, very authentic, staff were great and it was just called Ardent, you'll easily find it. Lovely. Keep us posted. We very much hope that you enjoy your time there. Happy birthday. Now, I'm in trouble with Jenny, youngish listener here, 28. It's my first time getting in touch, but I felt compelled to after listening to your discussion on feminism in Tuesday's episode.

Claiming to be an equalist and not a feminist is nonsensical. Feminism, by definition, wants equality between men and women, and I think claiming otherwise is damaging and demonizes those who fight so hard for equality. Well Jenny, it was me who said that and I think the problem is and I'm intrigued because you're 28 so you are far far closer to the younger generations than I am But from my experience of the younger generations, I think feminism has taken on a meaning particularly to young men, which is about female dominance.

So in our generation, I think feminism was just interpreted that literal term, I'm not saying the activism, I'm not saying the belief at all, I'm saying the actual term, I think carried something a little bit different alongside it. And I know, unfortunately, and it makes me a bit sad to say this, that it can be used by angry young men as a term, a real term of abuse towards women who they believe are denigrating them. So it's lost that interpretation to be a fight for equality that anybody can join in with. So I hope that kind of explains my position a bit better. But what do you think as a woman who powered the hour for a long time? It's funny you talking about generational differences. I asked my mom But what do you think as a woman who powered the hour for a long time?

It's funny you talking about generational differences. I asked my mom and dad the other day and I'm still I'm very fortunate to have to be able to have Conversations of this nature or indeed any nature with my parents who are in their 90s now whether they understand I mean this sounds awfully patronizing how they would define feminism They certainly don't understand it to be the battle for the equality of the sexes. I've always thought that feminism, you know, even on Woman's Hour, I've got to say that it's a very middle-class thing and we were always preaching to the choir. I felt that after over a decade of doing it, that yeah, we all agreed that there was so much that we had to offer

and so much that needed to change and this was wrong and that was wrong. But I don't wonder how many minds were actually changed by those conversations truly. I think if you believed in the fact that women still had so much progress to make, I think you were already listening and I don't know whether we changed the minds of those. And Radio 4 generally has an issue with battling for an audience that I don't know whether we changed the minds of those. And Radio 4 generally has an issue with battling for an audience that I don't think they're ever going to achieve, if I'm honest. I don't know, perhaps I've got all that wrong. No, I don't think you've got that wrong at all.

But I think it's really interesting that somebody as young as our contributor Jenny, who's only feels angered by a term being used, you know, the idea that equalism is in somehow really undermining feminism, because surely to me the whole point of feminism is to achieve equality. But I think it has been used and it's fascinating that your parents may well have more in common with a whole generation of very fed up young men in believing that feminism means that men will become or are on the short end in terms of what they receive from the world. Yeah, it is extraordinary isn't it that there is a feeling, I don't know if you've read Katlyn Moran's piece today about adolescence, it's just appeared online at thetimes.com and I know that sounds very old message Mandy but Katlyn makes the point that in her opinion...

It's alright, you just slugged off the BBC, we're absolutely fine. Yeah, great. I didn't slug them off, I just... Because I still think they're wonderful in lots of ways. Katlyn makes the point that in her opinion adolescence is as much about the crisis in fatherhood as it is about the crisis in young men and boys and all the rest of it. And I would actually, I agree with her sort of 85% but I watched the final episode of Adolescence and felt tearful about my own approach to parenting. I think you can broaden it out and those of us who have left our children, I'm going to say to their own devices with the pun being

intended here. You know, we did lose our children to the internet and to social media and how much of a fight did we really put up against that? I've got to say, I'm not sure I did as much as I could have done. No, but I think you didn't do as much as you think you should have done. And most parents of our generation haven't because we really had no concept

of what we were sending their kids to their room to see because we weren't with them. And it just defies belief that some of the stuff that is on the internet is there. You know, the first time that I realized you could watch, and sorry, and you know, let's just put out a warning here if people are trying to get to sleep and stuff, you might want to skip the next couple of minutes.

But I didn't realize that available on a very very easy to reach social media platform you would be able to see a beheading. I didn't think that that existed because you and I have been brought up on such a carefully curated and censored media supply and we are better for it. So I think you know I don't I wouldn't want to meet the parent who had watched adolescence and just thought well that's got nothing to do with me. Well that would be horrific. Because it's got something to do with all of us. But I think it, you know, overwhelmingly its message is about how fragile boys are.

And of course they are and of course they want their role models to guide them into a frightening world and you and I know that about our kids don't we? Well also I thought it was the, have you seen it all? Yes I have. So it was the final episode that really really got to me because it did make me question my own approach to parenting and the things I feel I could have done better and I could have intervened and I could have asked more questions. But also it's the fact that I thought the young woman playing the sister was absolutely incredible in that episode, as was the young actress who played Jade, the friend of Katie,

the murdered girl. And it just left you in that final episode with the rest of the family with the mum and the daughter still having to live with the male rage of the father still having to make allowances for it with the terrible paint scene outside being cute and beating up the young boys still thinking about that I'm still thinking about it and I thought it was incredibly incredibly powerful and then the dad the dad Stephen Graham his character talks about how his own father had hit him and you just think oh god this is it's so important that we have these conversations and thank God by the way that program exists and I

really I can't believe how successful it's been all over the world so it does look as though it's properly igniting conversations. So people have just needed it Jane, because all of that has been there in conversations, you know, on panel discussion shows, on speech radio, on podcasts, all of that kind of stuff, for such a long time. But I mean, you know, this has always been the case going right the way back to Greek tragedy. You know, quite often the way that you reach people is through fiction because it allows you to sit back and really receive a message. And when it's done well,

and I think it has been done brilliantly in adolescence, it feeds you with stuff without asking you to come up with your own thought process about it or resist some part of it or not like the person who's telling you it or get angry because it's a politician who's let you down before. It just lets it wash over you and so you can really take on board what it is. Do you know what I thought and then you know we throw it open to the hive.

We'd love to hear your thoughts if you've watched it. I thought that really, really telling thing that came up in the son's conversations with the therapist about the way his dad had had to look away at football when he didn't do well. And then in the final episode where the dad recognises that he had to look away from his son in football when he wasn't doing well was just absolutely brilliant because it just told you everything about their relationship, that it was just built on a belief of what you should be and how you should succeed and not what the actual reality was. And clearly, you know, he was a young boy who was really good at art.

You know, he'd given that lovely card to his dad. And there's one tiny line in there where the mum says, oh, you know, do you remember that time when he just used to sit at the table doing his art? But then he went up to his room with the computer. It just says it all. I think it's absolutely brilliant. It really is. And also, the idea that women getting angry about male rage is all about women wanting to protect women and girls. Obviously that's a part of it. And it's very significant that the victim in adolescence was female.

I'm not sure the programme would, I hate to say it, would have packed a similar punch had the victim been male. Well no, because it's about not being able to fulfill your, what society expects of you as a young boy. But what I was really going to say was that we never, we should never forget that it's much more likely that a man or a boy will be the victim of male violence than a woman or a girl. Yes, but they did include that because that's what's so telling about the scene at B&Q.

Yeah, absolutely. Just loses it with the young boys. But it's, we've just, there are so many clichés. You know when people say, oh girls can be so difficult can't they, because you know they're really bitchy. And that's true, women can be nasty to each other, girls can be nasty to each other, but we should never ever let that just be taken as given when we know that boys and men can be incredibly cruel to each other. Let's be blunt about it, prisons are full of men serving sentences for killing other men. Prisons are not full of women who've killed other women, they're just not. But I think we do need to connect those two things

don't we, because the whole point of adolescence is that a young boy felt that he was so slighted by the rejection of a young girl who presumably felt that she was in a powerful enough position at school to do that to a boy. I think that's telling and I think we have to just constantly talk about that. Yeah, I know, I'm that, I read a, you know, I read a comment under a Times piece about adolescence from a man saying, oh everyone's forgetting, everyone's forgetting that Katie bullied him. And I get that, and you're right, but if that's what you take away from those four episodes of adolescence, you probably need to watch it again. Yes, but I think the connection between the boys and the girls is what you need

to take away. It made me really, I didn't go to a mixed sex, nor did you, to a mixed sex secondary school so I felt actually, I do feel slightly out of my depth commenting because it did make the contemporary school environment for girls and boys look really terrifying. I'd really, I'd like to hear from teachers on this, I really would, yeah, and trying to sort all that out must be so difficult. I'd really like to hear from teachers about finding that pathway for young boys at the moment because you know so many, so many schools have struggled with the Andrew Tate drip-down effect and, you know, our generation just haven't understood it at all.

And I think, as we've said before, you know, I know a lot of people have not gone to look at what Andrew Tate stuff is about because we've had a conversation at a level where his name is thrown around, but if you can bear to, and you can see all his highlights, they're clearly available, you know, just go and have a look at what it is that he actually says about women in order to understand what the message is, because it'll just blow your mind. It's astonishing it's there.

Like the beheadings, it's astonishing it's there. Yeah. Yeah, and as you say, just there for anyone who's got a smartphone or knows someone who has Yeah, and that's that's what's anyway. So that's that if you do want to chip on chip in on the adolescence conversation You can do that. It's Jane O'Fee at times dot radio With the Fizz loyalty program you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz.

Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Now we did have a very serious question last week from someone who's frankly dreading Mother's Day, which in the UK is this Sunday. And this is from Jane who says, My mum died in August and having dealt with Christmas followed by her birthday, the prospect of the first Mother's Day is genuinely extremely painful. Like your correspondent, I too am single without children and my siblings will be with their families on the day. I'll be spending the weekend visiting my dad,

although I still find it difficult being at the house in the absence of my mum. I'm 52 and I hadn't anticipated how much I would still need her. There are just so many things I want to tell her, just the everyday sharing of things going on in life. I'll read something or I'll see something I know she'd be interested in and my immediate thought is I must tell my mum about that and then I realised that quite honestly I obviously I can't. I knew that when my mum died our family's life would never be the same without her but I hadn't anticipated that mine would never

feel the same again either. I just wanted to say to your correspondent Vanessa I know what she's going through and it's shit. And we've got another lovely one from Glyn as well, thank you for this Glyn. My mum died a couple of years ago and the thing that helps me get through her birthdays, Mother's Day etc is just establishing a ritual of some sort that I carry out on that day. Now for me this is going for my mum's favourite walk but it could be anything. Cooking her favourite meal, playing music she loved, buying something for privilege that you don't really need from her favourite shop. Think of something she loved doing and do that vicariously for her. Yes there'll be

tears, it would be odd if there weren't, but I bet there are smiles and happy memories too. I hope this helps, Glyn. It does help and thank you very much for that. And also tears are good, I'd say don't keep them in. No, don't feel that you can't. In fact, you know, I think your mum would probably want you to. And I mean that in a positive way. People say I don't want there to be tears at my funeral. Well, I actually do. Yeah, but it makes people feel better. Yeah, and it might make you feel better. It's all very well saying, oh, just be positive. No, no, I definitely want a period of mourning. How long? I'm not dead yet. I think about a decade would be appropriate.

And do you want a special memorial service in the in the Nash Church opposite broadcasting house or has that faded now? I think that's gone from... Is it Southwark Cathedral? Quite close to us here. I think St Paul's. Catherine says, imagine my surprise to hear your somewhat derisive comments about Basingstoke. I was born in Wales but moved to the USA at the age of 10 so my knowledge of UK geography and its various reputations is pretty limited to my 10 year knowledge plus wherever we went on our holidays back home.

I always thought Basingstoke was very posh as one of my mum's cousins moved there and it was always spoken about with reverence and with a view that it was very swish. Other relatives moved to South Africa and Canada and us to the States, but it was the one that got out and moved to Basingstoke that seemed to have really made it. I'll have to visit to make up my own mind about it on my next visit. Well, Catherine, I'm sorry to have picked on Basingstoke really. And I suppose I was just trying to pick on somewhere which I felt I kind of knew so people could, you know, bat it back to me in exactly this way rather than pick on

another part of the country and get into trouble. I'm in trouble with Chiswick. We've just had an email that just says don't come for Chiswick. So there are places around Basingstoke that are astonishingly swish. And in fact, the, what is she Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. Is she still the Duchess of York? Does she use that still? Well they're, they're, they're not married are they? But strangely, she still uses the title. Okay. So Sarah Ferguson, her family come from a village called Dummer, which is quite close

to Basinsley. Is it really called that? Dummer. It's quite close to Basinsley. It's called Dummer. is quite close to Basin Stoke. Dummer. Is it really called that? It's called Dummer. Yes and Elizabeth Hurley, I think her family originally came from Dummer, quite close to Basin Stoke and there are some really really beautiful places around Basin Stoke and that part of Hampshire is absolutely delightful. I heard Aisha Hazarika from the best place in Britain to live on Friday. Saffron Walden. Saffron Walden in where is that? Essex.

Never been, have you? It's very beautiful. I have been and actually the last time that we went was on a Saturday morning and we went into their little market square where they were having their farmers market and there is an oyster and champagne bar in the farmers market. We couldn't believe it. Just oysters and champagne? Yes, in the farmers market. People sitting there like they're in the south of France.

Do they think they are? So they're having a great time in South from Walden. It is very, very beautiful indeed. Are you a little bit upset that East West Kensington didn't make it onto the list? It's never ever made it. Dolston was a no-show too. Just how fashionable we both are. But we cling to our, actually we're both very loyal to our parts of London. But I always say generally, London as a city has been really good to me and I'm not one of those, I know I'm a professional northerner, but I'm a professional northerner who acknowledges

the brilliance of London and I'm never gonna stop doing that. I'm going to struggle to ever leave Hackney. I don't really want to leave Hackney. Don't. Been there a long time now. This is Angela Clark-Javois. That's a name and a half. Well it's two names. Three if you include the first name. Angela, she's got two L's as well. She's a very, very smart lady.

She's an executive coach as well. She wants to recommend Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson, a funny book about horrible things. This is for our next book club book. Lawson suffers dreadfully and unfairly from numerous crippling mental health conditions, but she shares her experiences in this memoir in all their colourful awfulness in a way that does make it funny. The fact that she can turn such experiences into laughable prose, where we're laughing with her, not at her, is a gift and a triumph. And Angela with two Ls says,

sometimes I burst out laughing while reading the book in bed. My husband would initially be annoyed at the interruption, but then require me to read out the passage so he could share it. And more than once I'd be laughing so hard it was impossible to do, and I'd just hand over the book pointing out the paragraph. Tony the truth cat is a much-loved trait in our household. The story about the stuffed animal on the cover making a guest appearance on Jenny's husband's Zoom calls. He's got a very important job with Capital Letters is also a cracker. More

of those suggestions would be fantastic and we'll decide the next book club in the next couple of weeks also. Yeah and postcards. This is really interesting and this particular email, very touching, from Margaret who is in sunny Hoy Lake on the Wirral, absolutely beautiful. In 1989 my son Carl flew off to America with his best friend Chris on their gap year adventure. They'd saved for five years from part-time jobs. They went to New York next day, bought a cheap brown pickup. No self-respecting person would ever drive it.

They didn't have mobiles and so we asked them for two things. First, that they phoned us every Sunday evening, reverse charge. Remember those calls? Oh, will you accept this call? Oh my goodness, there was always an element of jeopardy wasn't there? Just in case they said no. Yes, if I rang from guide camp hoping for some reassurance. No.

Er, second, that he send a postcard from each town or city they visited and they did. Tragically, Carl died very suddenly in 2000 but we still have his postcards and the realisation that he had the time of his life. Grew up, matured and happily went off to university. Chris was always his best friend and did a quite amazing eulogy at his funeral. Oh, that's Margaret, I'm so sorry to hear about Carl, but what a testament. First of all, to the whole notion of postcards, which are underrated. They're just one of those quiet joys aren't they and let's hear it for them

and also to his great friendship with Chris who did such a good job at the funeral I'm glad he was able to do that because not the easiest role Margaret thank you very much for sharing that please please please this one comes in from Pearl W by the way there's no guest in case you're thinking oh why are these two gonna show up? We can't afford one. So if you want to send money so that we can afford guests, let us know. We accept cash mainly. Well, we accept cash only. No, I'm just tap and pay.

Oh, I... I like used notes. Brown envelope, please. In very, very modern. Do you know what? I was given a Scottish 20 quid note. You'll be lucky. I just cannot get rid of it in London. I really cannot. I'm a canote. Nobody wants it. I'm gonna save it until we go up to Scotland on our festival. We're having a little tour aren't we of North Berwick.

People say leave London. Well how about that? So North Berwick it is? In August. First week of August, yeah. I'll buy you some fish and chips on the beautiful beach side location. With the 20 quid. Just as a travel note, my sister has spent the weekend in Iceland. And she reports that the fish there is the tastiest she's ever eaten. And she's not sure she'll ever be able to settle for British fish again. Well I guess it comes straight out of the Arctic waters doesn't it?

Because we probably do eat Icelandic fish. I'm sure we do. But we buy it here. Has she been to the Blue Lagoon? Has she dunked herself in a very hot bath? She doesn't go in open water at all. Never has. I don't know why that is. You once reported that she contacted you from a hot tub in Wales. I mean the Blue Lagoon is just like a massive hot tub somewhere outside Reykjavik. She has done a hot tub, but no, she doesn't do sea or swimming pools. Never has. So I'd be amazed.

My nephew went in. Anyway, all this is completely irrelevant, but no, she just doesn't do it. I don't think she can swim that well. OK. Right. Right. I've always been pretty keen on, you might find this hard to believe,

you know, I'm happy to go into the sea, you always have been. Don't do it very often, but you know, when the opportunity arises, in North Berwick, for example, I'll be in there. Don't let me stop you. Well, it'll be very hot, I imagine. It'll be burning, as my mum always used to say.

She used to say, whenever we set off on our two-day car trip up to the North northeast of Scotland for our annual summer holiday? And she always used to tell us the same story about how the sands on Cyrus Beach were so hot in her childhood, they'd burn the soles of your feet. Well, she exaggerates me slightly. It's a lovely story. Well, you know, it got us in the car and two days later we could test it out for ourselves after a little brief stopover at Charlotte Richards. Heady, heady days.

Now where is Charlotte? It's some... It's about half way up. Is it? OK, Charlotte. Oh, do you know what? They used to have a buffet breakfast which just, which consisted literally of a couple of tables in a corridor where they'd just put some bread rolls with the individual portions of butter and margarine and little jams and

things like that I thought I was just in heaven I thought it was the height of sophistication Jane. Well this would be what the 1980s? 1970s? The buffet didn't really catch on but in Liverpool we used to call them smash and grabs. I don't know why. It made the corridor just look like we were attending some kind of a very very bad, I don't know, church event. But anyway, I did have a... With some notable exceptions, I'm not sure the British service station has ever really... Oh no, some of them are flourishing. Oh, I know there are these wonderful ones that people harp on about,

including that one that everyone harps on about, but they're on the whole. No, I don't think they're brilliant. The thing that I will never ever ever be able to get my head around is now there are pubs in service stations. What? Yes. Yes, it's just like, what's going on here? Just what is going on? This is madness.

What is going on? Pearl W says, please, please, please, now this is largely aimed at you, don't stop doing the Northern accents. Particularly the Scouse accent, it's one of the elements that make the show so appealing for me. And that's saying something because the range of topics you cover is amazingly broad and entertaining. In addition, it's always fun to be reminded of where the Beatles came from. Thank you, Pearl. Perhaps you could issue a warning in RP when you're about to do an accent so the listener who finds them unamusing can put her hands over her ears momentarily. I still have happy memories of Jane saying lightly battered tempura in a scouse accident years ago. Could you just

give it to us one more time? Lightly battered tempura. There we go. There wasn't a warning there though, was there? Although you asked me to say it, so. Yes, I'll do it in my very best RP. Jane Garvey is about to announce lightly battered tempura in a Scouse accent. Lightly battered tempura. That's what you pay your money for.

Now there was a new TV show set in Scouserland last night. Oh is it Sean Bean's? Interestingly, I mean, it's watchable tosh I suppose. Although I am sick of crime gang. It's gangland isn't it? Yeah, for god's sake give us something new. It's also one of the Scouser dramas where a character walks very close to the live buildings on average about once every 10 minutes.

Or, oh look, there's one of the cathedrals. Where are we? I think we're in Liverpool. I mean, in real life, most of us don't walk around the centre of the city that often with all the major landmarks in the background, but whatever. Also, I just think the whole business of a crisis in a crime family, you know what, don't be a crime family. I'm sorry to hear about your troubles, but you're importing drugs. So there is literally, you could do a map of the UK at the moment and allocate the kind

of Sunday evening crime drama featuring gangland killings and rivalry to there's one that came out of was it Bolton where was Verdi Bradford Bradford yeah and then you've got this one which is Liverpool you've got Kra which was over in Northern Ireland yeah I think Northern Ireland must have had enough I think probably of gangland dramatization surely there's gangs of London yes I mean you know it's just it you're right it's gangs of London. Yes. I mean, you know. It's just, you're right. It's, I find it tedious too,

because I don't really know who to like. Yeah. Well, there isn't a, but Sean Bean in this has obviously excused the scarce accent. Everybody else has a go, including there are actually some Liverpool-born actors in it, but Sean Bean just stays with Sheffield. He doesn't do any accents.

Maybe he's a Yorkshireman who went to Liverpool to become a criminal. I'd love to see his contract. Can we just say hello and thank you to Gaynor Frostick who sent us a picture of her salt and pepper ex-redhead status at the moment and it's beautiful Gaynor, absolutely beautiful. It certainly is. Well done you. That's all I can say really. And shout out because she's young to Maisie, one of our younger listeners. She's 19 Fee. Gosh Maisie welcome aboard. I know she's well she's been here a while. She's in her second year at UCL, started listening with her mum during the

pandemic. Wow. She says I'm currently sat on the train home from a lovely weekend wedding dress shopping, wedding dress shopping with my mum, grandma and two aunties, one of whom is getting married in June. Gosh, I hope that was a fruitful expedition, you had the whole family there. Sometimes she says, I do struggle to explain to my friends at university why I listen to your podcast. What kind of people are these students at UCL who don't understand why Maisley listens? But after this weekend, I think I can explain why. It reminds me of exactly how these wonderfully strong, intelligent, funny women in my life talk to each other, and as my mum despises phone calls as a concept, Off Air gives me

such a sense of homeliness in amongst the London bustle of university. I like my friends in uni life, but sometimes everyone is so preoccupied with their own achievements and pushing themselves forward. So it's just wonderful to be able to sit on a bus, a bus home, smiling to myself at the familiar conversations you have. I just wanted to write in and just say, thank you for keeping me company and reminding me of home.

Well, I just, I couldn't be happier, Maisie, that we are doing that, because for all the fun and frolics at university, it can be a testing time, can't it, in lots of ways? Yeah, you're right. And I suspect you probably like the idea of your mum just not being into phone calls. It's funny, isn't it?

The phone call as a concept has died out a little bit. But your mum obviously just was never into them. Anyway, Maisie, congratulations on getting to uni and I your mum obviously just was never into them. Anyway, Maisie, congratulations on getting to uni and I hope you continue to have a brilliant time. Yeah, I get slightly upset when people phone me now, if I'm honest. Yeah, I do. What time is good? Shall I call tonight? No, don't. No, no, no. And I struggle with them too. Do you?

Well, I put it down for a fact because we we gabble for a living and she by the time I get home Jane I don't I don't have an awful lot of words left in me I'd suspect you're not the same. I go up and down the street with a loud haler. So sometimes just like a little quiet time. Just quiet time. Yeah. Kerry says would you discuss your thoughts on the castor oil TikTok trends that are going round? People are now rubbing it inside their belly buttons. Apparently it helps aid digestion. It doesn't. Absolute load of old baloney Kerry. I've always been weird about touching my belly button so I'm never going to try it.

Well, you and me both Kerry and it just can't, it just, okay I'm not a doctor, but it can't get through. It can't get through. Your belly button has been tied up for a reason. Yes it's a knot. It just won't get in. But where is it meant to get in? To the gut? Yes but you know just drink it if you want, just drink it. If you want it, drink it. Don't pour it on your belly button. That's not going to work. Oh, TikTok. Yeah, that's just...

Most answerable for so much. But to add that to the list, Jane. It is preposterous. Just beyond, isn't it? So who came up with it? Do we know? I don't know. Do you want me to research that?

I know that as a child, there was a rumor that if you did fiddle with your belly button, your bottom would fall off. Did you hear that? No I didn't. Okay well now I do because I there was definitely something that by the way I'm not a doctor. That's not true either. If that was true with the with the current sometimes obsession which the world seems to have with women being the perfect shape you'd have people wandering around fiddling with their belly buttons all day,

hoping that their bottom would fall off, wouldn't you? It probably would, yeah. But this is the podcast that says, if he's right, ignore TikTok, do not put castor oil near your belly button. And don't fiddle with it. I've got a thing at the moment about healing crystals as well. I don't think it's been particularly healing for, you know, possibly the 11-year-old child who's had to dig the crystal out of a mountainside somewhere in a part of the world that you

don't even know about. And I have recently, in an attempt to prove my theory that healing crystals don't work, you're very welcome to get in touch and let me know if they do. They don't work. I've recently hung a crystal bracelet on a dying pot plant to see whether or not it's had healing properties and the pot plant has now officially died. So that's another one debunked. That was my scientific experiment in the house in order to try and prove my theory. But

talking of experiments I just want to say my diffuser is working an absolute treat in getting rid of the smell of the cat litter tray. So I've never been into diffusers. It's my first diffuser, Fee, and I can only heap praise on it. Been wonderful. Little sticks in the pot. Not the most attractive sight, which I think is why I've always been diffuser resistant up until now, but working like a dream. Okay, next step, fumigators. Next step, taking Dora back to bloody Basingstoke. Oh yes, I'm so sorry. It's Jane and Fee at Times.Radio.

If you'd like to email us on the podcast, we'll definitely take suggestions for the next book club. If you've been healed by a crystal, I'd very much like to hear from you, but I'm going to need scientific evidence backed up by two independent sources. And if you'd like to put in a little bit of a request for Jane's Liver Budleyan accent, this could be you, couldn't it? You could prop yourself up on OnlyFans and your retirement is absolutely sorted. What, reading things in my skirt? I could read the Rotterkuck, couldn't I? Now why have you done it in that accent?

OK, we did have that one email giving us permission to carry on doing accents, so we're going to. I know a friend of mine, Emma, who's a regular listener, she says, wish you'd stop, both of you would stop doing accents. It's the only thing I don't like about the podcast. The thing is, we... It's our podcast. Bye bye, Emma. Bye. See you tomorrow.

Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale, and if you listen to this you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler. Music Music With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff.

And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with FIZ. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at FIZ.ca.