Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Was it an absolutely fantastic fish cake? (with Simon Mayo)

Episode Date: January 9, 2024

There's illness in the studio so Jane and Fi are keen to escape it but, before that, they discuss the Queen's podcast, HRT dreams and porn. Plus, Fi speaks to broadcast legend Simon Mayo about his latest novel 'Tick Tock'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Oh, I've got a Vera to watch.

That's what I'm going to do tonight. I forgot about that. It's OK. Oh, no, don't. Well, I never understand. I never know who's done the killing anyway, so it's always a mystery to me. Well, I'm good to go, but V's on her phone.

That's the problem with young people today, isn't it? I was just checking. They're addicted to their phones. Because there was a message from an important person, Jane. Yes. Somebody in the biz of show. Yes. Well, you were busy doing an impersonation of me out there. I heard as I walked away.

You nasty little person. I wasn't. I was just trying to do your laugh. Anyway, we won't be doing this podcast for much longer because the Queen has entered the podcasting arena with her new pod, The Queen's Reading Room. Now, don't you wish, because when you said that on the radio programme earlier, I thought, oh my God, it just would have been amazing if

the previous Queen had done a podcast. I agree. I'm not saying that we don't want to hear this one. But wouldn't you just have sent that to the top of the charts? I think we know it would have gone straight to the top of the charts. It would have been amazing. Well, Hilary Rose has written a very, very funny article

in Times Two about it today. That's the newspaper. And this is the bit I like the best. It's called The Queen's Reading Room, and in fairness to the Queen, it's about her great love of reading. She really is. She's a big, big reading fan, as are we. There's simply nothing better. But Hillary says, It starts with the sort of music they use in Channel 5 programmes

about Balmoral through the ages or the early love life of the princess royal and that's true because i once i once had to watch a channel 5 documentary called the seven loves of the princess royal which it was quite extraordinary program about all her loves and with this god awful music oh goodness. When you think of the invasive nature of the media and the royal family, you never really think of Princess Anne. Well, she's been around a while.

No, but you don't automatically think she's the one who's really had the intrusive eye of plebeian curiosity focused on her. Well, she will have from on her channel channel five certainly giving her a good going over i can tell you um anyway um the podcast cuts to camilla sounding as though she's just lobbed a marlborough through the window and uttering the fantastically gnomic statement is it gnomic yeah yeah i didn't get out from under a chair for a very long time after i saw it for the first time so what hillary writes saw what was it attached to the king anyway well done hillary what was what was it do we ever find out i'm just gonna read off

dear it's a why is her first remark about something she's seen and not something she's read anyway we haven't got time to read out the whole article but this sort of thing is one of the reasons why hillary rose is very very funny and you should read very much you're right so i won't be the only person thinking of that scene from napoleon now which which for me is is my go to remember my dad has seen that film amuseamuse-bouche in my head. Is that the bit where... That's the bit where Josephine is being a little bit of a saucepot. Oh, goodness, yes.

What does the city lady do? Well, she slightly legs a Kimbo and she basically says, to paraphrase, Napoleon's sitting opposite her, look down, once you've seen it, you'll never not want it. And the gags are just endless. What is it, a BMX chopper?

A big Toblerone? Sliced plastic cheese? What is it? Oh, the absolutely fantastic fish cake I had for lunch. Okay, well, anyone can play that game at home. It's such a terrible line, but it is funny.

Well, that's how it was in Napoleon times. What? Terrible but funny. Yes, they chuckled their way. Actually, it was probably bloody awful to be around them, wasn't it? And you were French. You were French. And also, he's just got that silly hat.

I mean, what is the function of those two bits sticking out the side of that hat? I mean, I understand a wide brim hat to keep the sunshine off you, but what's that going to do? Just keep the sunshine off some very large earlobes? Well, no, it's a baffler. I find military hats anyway quite peculiar. You know those enormous, really high ones that the North Koreans wear? I mean, some of them are about a foot tall, these

gigantic military hats. What's in there? Well, they've probably got some kind of a spying device, haven't they? They probably have got a couple of cameras fitted. But also, why are people still wearing those bear skin ones on a hot day? Well, it often leads to fainting. It does, doesn't it? But that's just silly. I think they'd be better off worn by the bears, those things, anyway.

Yeah, anyway. Right, we've gone off on one, haven't we? And we've got so many different things to cover. Can we start with the serious one about the Andrew Tate documentary? Yeah. So this was sparked by the interview that you did yesterday with Dan Reid. Who was the executive producer of this Channel 4 documentary, I Am Andrew Tate, now on all four. This comes in from Pippa, who says, executive producer of this Channel 4 documentary. I am Andrew Tate, now on All 4.

This comes in from Pippa, who says, Thank you very much for that interview. I'm glad you're bringing it to the forefront. Even though I don't plan on watching, I'm unimpressed by the documentary byline. Is he a dangerous icon for toxic masculinity or a misunderstood internet star? Pippa goes on to tell us that at a New Year's Eve party, I met a lovely guy who came across as thoughtful, interested in what I was saying, and we laughed a lot together.

We ended up having a snog at the end of the night. For context, I'm 28, he's 29. He mentioned he had an inspirational quotes Instagram page. You see, that's the difference, isn't it, between the youth and us. I would be checking out at that point. Although I have my own inspirational quotes Instagram page, as you know. Isn't that funny? Because what would the equivalent be in the 55 to 59-year-olds dating world?

I've got every edition of Smash Hits right from the start. What have you got? And to counter with, I've got all of the wisdoms. Actually, that was... Anyway, look, let's get back to it. That's depressing. Carry on. When I was looking through it,

unfortunately, I found a few videos he'd reported from Russell Brand and Andrew Tate. And do you want to read out the context? Yes, because our contributor here tells us, well, she actually includes the messages that she's exchanged with this chap. By the way, I wanted to

ask you, on the train home from Liverpool, I looked at your Insta and saw you'd posted Russell Brand and Andrew Tate vids. What's your view on these guys? From what I remember from our chats, I thought you weren't a fan, so I was a bit taken aback, to be honest. And he replies, no, I'm not a a fan but I think everyone

has their own opinions on things and sometimes I agree with certain things but others I don't. Overall I don't think they're bad people. I think Tate is obnoxious and uses it purposely to gain attention. I don't think he truly believes half the things he says and I like everything Russell says about big corporations and the establishment. I think he's bang on, to be honest. Now, I would say my warning goes off because some of the punctuation is appalling and capital's... I can't use.

We'll keep that back for a while. We disagree about some things. I'm so with you there. I look at that and I just think that's sloppy. It's very, very sloppy. I couldn't fall in love with someone who didn't understand where to put an apostrophe. No, and because Pippa is absolutely perfect.

I mean, I would use a little bit more punctuation at the end, but my children have told me off about that. They say it makes me look aggressive. Yes, no, I've been told off about full stops because I include them in messages. Anyway, look, we carry on. Pippa says, I've not replied because it made me sad and a bit conflicted

that this guy who talked about how he liked to go hiking with his friends and wanted to buy his mum a house one day which is all just fantastic stuff still holds some kind of a candle to these men even if he didn't agree with everything that they said so she goes on to ask our advice and our

listeners advice on basically whether or not this is the thin end of the wedge if he didn't agree with everything that they said. So she goes on to ask our advice and our listeners' advice on basically whether or not this is the thin end of the wedge of something really difficult and disturbing that you would never be able to get over, or it's the exact opposite and it's just something that we shouldn't worry about at all. So here is Lady Jane Marmalot with her thoughts. But this is a really difficult one.

Let's say you really liked somebody and then found out that they had, I'm going to say, some quite unpleasant views about migration or migrants or immigration, all of those things. I would really struggle. And it might very well be that they had...

Because, look, we all have opinions. I've got loads of opinions. Some of them are utterly ridiculous. I'm also incredibly inconsistent. I would not, though, like to be in the company of anyone who was consistently small-minded, petty and nasty. And I think... But we see the problem with this exchange

between our correspondent and and this bloke it's it's when he says i think tate is obnoxious and uses it purposely to gain attention i don't think he truly believes half the things he says no but he still says them and he has an immense power to influence those people not as savvy as our correspondent's young man. And that's the bit at which I absolutely check out. And I don't want to hear that he doesn't believe half the things he says, therefore it's all right. And as for Russell Brand being right about big corporations, it's just bollocks.

it's just bollocks yeah i would just transpose uh a a female friend into that eye line yeah would you want to be in the and if your friend had sent you stuff saying what your bloke has said what you'd think of her and if it wouldn't bother you that you had a friend who could look past what Russell Brand's accused of, denies all allegations, and what Andrew Tate is accused of, denies all allegations. And he says these outrageous things and he's saying them for profit. But they're vile. They're violent. They are deeply, deeply traumatising, frankly, to actually hear and see. And there's absolutely no female equivalent. There is no woman out there on the Internet saying, oh, I keep a machete by my bed and blah, blah.

I mean, it's just and I like to chop off men's bits after I've after I've had sex with them. Ha ha. There we are, I've said it. Aren't I funny? Or, you know, man's places in the home and in my bed. Not saying that. Doing what I want him to do. And then shutting up! So Pippa, I really feel for

you though, because I think if you've met somebody who it seemed to be on the initial meeting said really lovely tick my boxes things like i want to buy my mum a house and i quite like to go hiking gorgeous all of that is absolutely lovely so thank goodness that you've looked at his inspirational quotes page on instagram because it's told you something hasn't it's told you something really interesting but there we have a proper insight into the fact that andrew t has a way in to the lives of so many young

men. As does Russell Brand. Yeah. Including some very fundamentally right thinking decent people. And that's the really disturbing thing. But fascinating email to get and thank you for sharing it with us. And you know as we always say, I think it's

very easy to send emails to a podcast and then sometimes when they're read out, you might be going, oh gosh, actually, I don't want everybody piling in on this and stuff. But it's a really nice crowd who are listening to this too. So any thoughts, particularly to the contrary, we know that they'll be put in really nice terms. So please don't worry about that. Another anonymous listener says, I was listening to yesterday's episode

and you talked about vivid dreams. I too have them when I'm taking the progesterone part of my HRT. So for most of the 14 nights a month I take it, I have the weirdest, sharpest dreams I've ever had. I don't always remember them, but I do know they are always so real, so busy. They can be shocking or funny in equal measure. Once I woke up and recounted that I'd had a life-size squirrel in my car directing me somewhere. And it was normal and entirely real. But everybody at the traffic lights was taking photos and laughing.

I got quite cross about it. Hormones do indeed have a lot to answer for. Thank you to that listener. I've not had the giant squirrel in the car directing me. Well, it's not giant squirrel in the car directing me. Well, it's not giant, it's life-size. Which is terrifying. That would be quite small. For you, yes.

No, the squirrel. So if it were life-size, then the squirrel would be squirrel-sized. Okay, right, I'm with you. I'm sorry. Anyway, I'm not taking directions from a bloody squirrel. So to that listener, I'm not to think I'm on that kind of HR. I should know what kind of HR I'm on, shouldn't I, really? Now, do you remember a couple of episodes ago

we were talking about being a female British Army officer? Yes. And we've had some really lovely and very thoughtful correspondence back about it. This one comes from a serving officer saying, six months ago, I returned to work full time since having a baby. For balance, my pregnancy I returned to work full-time since having a baby for balance my pregnancy and return to work journey sounds far more positive than that of the officer you read out I was terrified to notify my chain of command of my pregnancy but they were nothing but supportive

and accommodating the army has an excellent maternity package which I made use of taking a full year off work and since coming back I've been incredibly lucky to have a boss and colleagues who are understanding of the constant juggle my life now seems to be the process has been so much better than I could ever have hoped and she does acknowledge that she's very sorry to hear about some very different experiences from our original correspondent but she goes on to say, my view is that women in the army, in a broader context, are held to a much higher standard than men. Our credibility as leaders is far more delicate and subject to enormous scrutiny. If our fitness

dips or we make a mistake, it damages reputation way beyond that of a male counterpart. It's a hard place to work and often very lonely there's little room for vulnerability and it demands you to be robust whilst expecting you to behave how a woman should behave i once had a boss who during an appraisal told me the army didn't want a girly girl like me but a steely eyed dealer of death yeah i think that's fascinating. Isn't it? Because we were talking about where if you wanted to go down a kind of gender stereotype line, those qualities of

nurture and care and empathy and understanding fit in an army sense and it doesn't sound like he's got a handle on that at all. No, he doesn't. But our correspondent ends by saying that there is a wonderful sisterhood of women army officers

and whilst we don't get to work together very often, networks on social media allow us to share experiences and support one another. My closest friends are the women I went through Sandhurst with. We talk daily and they are brilliant and I simply can't imagine doing life without them. And finally, to answer

Fee, to be a good mom, that's you, absolutely means being a good follower. In fact, it's essential. We call this followership. Jane, take note. You see, there I might struggle because I'm not very good at being told what to do. That's why you want to just be addressed as mum. I just want to go right.

I don't want to do any of the training. I don't want to actually do the leadership. No, no, no. I just want to be given the title. Yeah. And a swivel chair. Okay, well, you've got one of those. Well, yes, I have,

but not one of those big, you know, padded Reggie Perrin type swivel chairs that Reggie Perrin's boss had, I seem to remember. It's all a very long time ago. Now, we are going to talk in more detail about porn, aren't we, next week? We are focusing on porn. Yes, obviously, as you'll understand, this is a relatively delicate area.

So there was some discussion about what we were going to call this week and we've settled on... Jane and Fee focus on porn. Yes, it's not the greatest. And I don't think it's going to sell many DVDs but I just worry that people are expecting something very different

God knows what and already we asked a couple of days ago for your thoughts on this whole subject and we absolutely guarantee anonymity so if you're going to share anything with us, rest assured that you can stay completely anonymous. Your name will never be mentioned. But this is just just one experience from a listener who says, I went through the classic midlife married drama, but some porn helped me, us, come out the other side. finishing primary school, one in secondary school. I was tired, working full-time, organising the kids, the dogs, running the house. I'd started to find having sex with my husband just another chore,

another person wanting something from me, another job to do when I was already exhausted. Then I found out he was having an affair. It was heartbreaking. But out of the fog, I got angry. There I am doing everything and he's off getting excited, going to meet her, getting butterflies and having this new exciting sex. So I started watching porn. Now he was very sorry and trying to save our marriage. Through the porn and my anger, I started telling him what to do in the bedroom. He owed me a good time and he had lots of making up to do. I was now the one demanding sex. That was all for me, not him. But he loved it and he loved me watching porn. Six years later, I watch it now and again. I could honestly say the affair nearly broke me, but, and it is a big but, it ended up being one of the best things that happened to our marriage.

We're closer now. We appreciate and love each other more because we know what it's like to nearly lose each other. I have a very strong feeling it's a lot more common than everyone lets on, says this correspondent. We only hear about the marriages that end because of affairs, not the ones that have got better and have been saved through lots of heartfelt talks and, yes, some porn-induced sex. There you go. Very honest. Thank you for that, because I think you may be right. I don't know. Do you think she could be right? Well, I think for her and her relationship, she's absolutely spot on. Yeah.

And it's true. So we don't talk about porn in a positive way, particularly from a news journalist point of view. We only ever talk about porn when there's something very negative. And boy, there's some negative stuff around at the moment. And there is, there's lots of negative stuff around. So stuff like that is very interesting to chuck into our week as well,

because obviously we are looking at it because we are troubled by lots of aspects of it. And the week will start with an interview with the Children's Commissioner, Rachel D'Souza, who's got some stratospherically worrying things to say just about the age at which the youngest generation is viewing porn. And, you know, not comfortable. I mean, not that any child should view porn,

but it's not the, you know, all knock-knock, it's the pizza delivery guy porn. You know, they're watching stuff. I can't imagine how you would ever get those visual images out of your head and how you would process them when you're that young and as as she says you know an awful lot of kids don't really understand what they've seen until they're much older and it was so it will come back and doubly disturb them so good stuff would be helpful yes now it would be really interesting to hear from from you. And as I say, absolutely no danger of your name being used.

I did record an interview today with a porn maker, a so-called ethical. I mean, you can debate this too, but an ethical porn maker whose name is Erica Lust. She's great. She was in Barcelona when I talked to her. I don't think it's her real name. Do you not? I was thinking, how astonishing. What a coincidence.

It's just a complete coincidence that she's ended up in this world. But she's interesting. But she also pointed out that the people in her ethical porn, they're performers. They are performing. And actually, Katlin Moran always said about porn, it's one of her best lines,

lots of good lines, but she said about porn, you've just always got to remember you're watching people at work. They're at work. That's what they do for a living but she said about porn, you've just always got to remember you're watching people at work. They're at work. That's what they do for a living. Yep. And actually, you made the very good point when we were talking about Stormy Daniels. What? I made a good point. Yes.

With Jamil Kerens, who had done an interview with her, one of several that she's done with Stormy Daniels, who objects to people describing her as porn star Stormy Daniels the first time that they meet her or write about her because as you said the equivalent would be to describe a man the first time you introduce them or write about them as porn user yeah so if we if we stopped saying president donald trump and said poor news at donald trump every time we were talking about him you'd have a different image of him can we start doing that? Let's do it.

Let's see whether we can get that past the news desk. Give it a whirl, let you know how we get on. Yeah. Right, a couple of quick emails. Annabelle, thank you very much for saying kind things about The Weakest Link. And I'm very happy to go out there. She was robbed.

To represent, as you say, quite normal middle-aged women. And you suggest that we might want to interview dame shirley sorry dame stephanie shirley um about the kinder transport and by sheer coincidence we were in touch anyway weren't we so that is going to happen yeah and this one just made me laugh it's from ben humphrey he's a man who's listening i'm listening to your podcast while kissing my wife four month old boy and dog goodbye hopefully not all at the same time and considering my own mortality before a long drive from London to Paris this morning I suddenly had to consider my attire should I not make it well let's never think that oh and become a ghost today so I switched from Lacoste polo and

cricket jumpers skinny jeans and white pumps to just a white sheet. Looking forward to catching up on your podcast on the auto route. Bon chance. France has got a new prime minister, hasn't it? He's only 34. Well, I mean, President Macron is only about 18. 46. 46.

He looks good. Yep, David Cameron's younger than us. Richie Sunat's younger than us. All right, let's just come on. Okay. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings.

So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone.

Shall we get into the big interview? Well, it's Simon Mayo today, who used to be a colleague of ours at the British Broadcasting Corporation, and he's now a novelist. And he writes these, they're quite pacey thrillers, aren't they, his books? They're always described as pacey, twisty and taut. Taut. What does taut mean in this book? So, well, it's very difficult if you're only listening to that

because you might think it could be about a pie. Pie? A taut. Oh, I see what you mean. God, you're so sophisticated. You really are are you shouldn't spend so much time with me i'm not like it's not it's not about a pie um so he writes uh pacey thrillers he's actually written more books for kids and young adults than he has for adults

i think this is his second adult thriller it's called tiktok it's got a bit of an audio theme as you'll hear because it's set against the background of a pandemic. But the pandemic is one that's affecting people's ears first. And a strange tick tock sound starts to come out of people's ears because what is inside are evil spores. Spores. Yep. So that is where our interview started. Other things that you might need to know just in case you're thinking, who is Simon Mayo? Ouch, how painful for him.

Well, he's worked across Radio 1, 5 Live, Radio 2 at the BBC. He did leave under a bit of a cloud because management asked him to co-present a show with Joe Wiley. It didn't really go down very well with the listeners and it didn't go down very well with Simon. And he left in 2018. We talk about that in the interview. He's got an MBE and apparently he's the winner of the attendance prize for never having taken a single day off sick during 15 years at Radio 1. Right, here we go. What about the spores? Yeah, okay. Well, yes, we start with the evil spore. In fact, the plan was to start and finish the book

with exactly the same page. That was the plan. It didn't quite end up like that, although the first page is reproduced almost towards the end. And the evil spores make a very, very early appearance. To start with, the book appears to be a medical thriller about tinnitus. I don't know if you've ever suffered from tinnitus.

A lot of radio people have tinnitus. A lot of people listening will have tinnitus. I don't know if you've ever suffered from tinnitus. A lot of radio people have tinnitus. A lot of people listening will have tinnitus. And I've had it for a while and it's just sort of slightly annoying. And then I discovered that there are two types of tinnitus. There's objective and subjective tinnitus. Most people have subjective. In other words, there isn't any real sound. It's just an apparent sound in your head. But there is a very rare thing which is called subjective tinnitus, which means that your ears actually generate a noise. Usually it's a tone. Occasionally it's a clicking. And as all thrillers have a ticking clock, metaphorical ticking clock, I thought I'd have ticking people actually in the book.

So there is obviously this is medically impossible because tinnitus is not a germ. You cannot infect anybody else with it. It's just a condition. So it's obviously not tinnitus, but it is, it is appearing as tinnitus. So it becomes apparent after about the first third of the book, actually what we're talking about is a new form of meningitis. And then issue is, where did this new form of meningitis come from? Did it evolve naturally or was it created in the lab? Because if the latter, then there are more sinister implications, more appropriate for a thriller. So you can guess which way I'm heading on that one.

Yeah. Of your own tinnitus, have you found anything that really helps it? Does it really drive you mad sometimes? How bad is it? It drives me mad, particularly this time of year when you go into a pub or a cafe or something and it's very noisy because the tinnitus tends to sit on top of everything else. So there are there are pubs at Christmas that I've walked in and walked out of just because the level of noise is so great. Or a Christmas party in a full room is unbearable. But most of the time, no, there's nothing you can do. I mean, distraction, I think, is the only thing that works. And there'll be some people listening to this who have just suddenly noticed that their ears are actually making a noise because they've forgotten about the tinnitus and then as soon as someone comes on the radio starts talking about it they've

remembered that they've had it so distraction is is the best thing um and one the only reason why i wasn't sure about writing this book was well there are two things one was covid and whether people would want to read a medical thriller and the other was the fact that the more you think about your tinnitus the more you the more you're aware of it. So that held me back for a while. But in the end, I just wanted to get the story down. And did it turn out that there was anything cathartic for you in writing about it? Yes, I think so.

But mainly it's just revenge on my tinnitus. I was thinking, if you're going to sit there for the rest of my life, uh, making me miserable, I might as well write a book about it. So that, so that was the main thing. And it, but it was making the jump from, uh, because I said, you can, you cannot infect someone with tinnitus cause it's not a germ. Uh, it was making the jump from that to, to meningitis, which obviously can be passed on, which was as soon as I made that jump I thought okay yes this is a thriller um that I would like to write and it starts in London and

it ends in Salisbury for reasons that some of your listeners might be able to work out but might have to turn the pages to get the detail yes let's never give away the ending in an interview about a thriller Simon I have no i have no intention of that no no neither of us neither right have you always written because you came to being published quite late in life most people know you as a dj first uh but your novels i mean you are quite prolific actually now aren't you you've done kids novels young adult novels, another thriller, this one. It definitely feels like this is a solid part of your cabinet. Well, it is. I mean, I wish the word prolific could really be attached.

I don't think my publishers would think I'm prolific at all because it does take me a couple of years at least to do that. Well, how many books have you had published in how many years? Seven. Seven in total. And to answer your question specifically, no, I have not always written. When my son, child three, this is, came back from school at the age of 10, only interested in science, for reasons that I still can't remember, I thought maybe I could write him a short story,

which is something I'd never, I had never, ever done before. And the iPad had just arrived. And the first app that I downloaded was one Stephen Fry had recommended, which was an interactive periodic table. And it was quite incredible. And it used the phrase element hunter. And as soon as I saw the phrase element hunter, I thought that's so exciting. Any kid would want to be an element hunter, someone who collects the periodic table. And so I thought, OK, well, I'll do that. I'll write a story about someone who collects the periodic table. So I wrote it as a story for Joe and just for him.

And I didn't have a publisher, didn't have an agent, anything. So I wrote it, printed it off of my printer downstairs. You know, it exhausted the poor thing, you know, 200 pages coming out and gave it to Joe. And he read it over a weekend and said it was quite good, which, as any parent will know, is sort of high praise. So after that, I started all publishers think, well, you can't just have one book. You better make this two. So I made it two and then it became three and so on. And then I start. I think they're all thrillers pretty much.

and so on and then I start I think they're all thrillers pretty much but now I'm now I'm very much in the kind of adult thriller which sounds a bit saucy but it's not intended just grown-ups in the book yeah do you think that there are too many celebrity authors around and you can understand it can't you if you're not a well-known person but you are writing for your profession and you see all these people just saturating the market there was a point um i think sort of radio sort of radio one era uh and five live era when i i used to grumble quite a lot about the number of comedians who would turn up doing radio shows thinking this isn't the way it should be you can't just turn up and do this thing you know you're supposed to you know you learn radio you learn it as a craft over many

years and there are certainly echoes in some complaints about who can write a book and who can't write a book when I decided to write it I I know Anthony Horowitz because our kids are at the same school and and we had always complained together this is before I'd written anything and about celebrity authors in inverted commas and I rang him and said Anthony I've got a confession to tell you that is um I'm right I'm writing a book um and it's in it because it was in that kind of Alex Ryder territory it was in the same kind of I felt I needed to apologize he was absolutely cool with it and he loved. And he wrote a very nice quote for it. So I, but I, I kind of understand because there are echoes in radio land about who can do this and who can't do it.

But I think as long, I think as long as you do it properly, you don't use a ghostwriter. If someone wants to write down a story and it's any good, then good luck to you. You know, it takes a certain discipline and a certain commitment so anyone can do it but i'm so i'm kind of agreeing with proper authors and also disagreeing at the same time yes okay beautifully done it's almost as if you've got bbc balance within your every oh don't. You can never, you never ever get rid of that. Yeah. Just, I'd like your thoughts though on the ghost writers

behind some celebrity works. And you'll know this too, as you've already mentioned, you've interviewed an awful lot of authors, especially at this time of year, you can find yourself in front of an increasing number of celebrities who not

only might not have written their book they don't appear to have read it either yes and that can be a little frustrating can't it uh do you think that that the the time of a celebrity kind of employing a ghostwriter and not acknowledging them might actually be over. I think the public rather want to know the truth about these things now, don't they? I think, yes, I think that's probably right for the most part. I think there will be some people who, you know, an eminent sports person maybe, who could do with sitting down with someone to shape their thoughts and to help them put it down. And then in which case that is, if that's the case, you know, someone like Pat Murphy, who has done quite a few, you know, is just assisting people and they sit down with a

cricketer and they say, no, I think you need to start with that story. Let's shape it like this. I think that is perfectly acceptable. But in essence, you're right. There has to be there has to be honesty at the heart of it. As far as as far as celebrities writing stories and then getting someone else to write them, I think that's just contemptible and useless and should never happen and should be abolished. Yeah. Can we talk a tiny bit about the BBC, Simon? You had a painful exit from the institution, didn't you?

And I wonder whether it's still very painful now. institution didn't you and i wonder whether it's still very painful now when it comes up in interviews uh you pretend that the line's gone dead yes that's right i i think the house is i think i can hear a fire um yes obviously at the time it was uh it was pretty excruciating uh you know, you have cause to reflect on these things over a period of years. And I was very fortunate that in the end, the nice people at Bauer, Scala Radio and Greatest Hits Radio sort of said, hey, come over and work for us. And when they said, come back on drive time, that was like, I i when i was at school and when you're having swimming lessons and you're trying to learn how to dive if you do a belly flop and you never want to go into the pool again they always say no no no straight away you got to dive do it do it go

straight back in uh and it'll all come back so it was i never thought i'd get to do drive time again so i'm very happy to be to be back there doing it uh doing it every day. But that was a relief because it was so painful in the ending of it, which was, I think, first of all, from my point of view, a catastrophic management miscalculation. And secondly, handled very badly by me, I think. So I think I should have walked away immediately. But I didn't because I think that's what they wanted me to do. I think they were trying to make life unpleasant.

And I was absolutely determined to not give them their way on that and to carry on with their idea. But that had a cost for me and for other people. So I didn't do that very well. And I still was at the BBC because I still did the film show at the time on Five Live. And I remember my last day, finished the last show, and my pass had already been cancelled before I left the building.

So I couldn't actually leave the building because the pass had been cancelled. So I had to get the security team to escort me out, which felt a little bit end of days. But yes, I think there is something in big organisations that sometimes they make it, you know, they're very bad at individuals. They make it, you know, they're very bad at individuals and they can't do, you know, the man management, the person management can be very poor. And I think, but for the most part, for 99% of my time, I had a great time. I had people who believed in what I did and I enjoyed myself very much. Whether that be at Radio 1, Radio 2 or 5 Live it was it was fantastic. The issue then is just to make sure that that final one percent doesn't colour your view about everything. It's easy for that to happen sometimes but I try not to. You used to have a feature called God of the Day which ran for a long time definitely on Radio 1. I can't

remember if you brought it to 5 live but let's recreate it now just radio one let's recreate it now if you were god for a day what would you do um well i think what i would do is i would introduce a compulsory reading week because uh i'm always quite jealous of students when they're, you know, I mean, I don't think anyone has ever used the Reading Week for reading, but it's the one thing that you never have any time for when you're grown up and have family. So I think I would introduce, on full pay,

you can take a week off just to read books. And maybe you just have to make a public statement about what you're reading and what you thought of what you'd read so i think i'd do that i'd also i'd also ban hats indoors ban hats indoors interesting yes yes is that aimed at anyone in particular well napoleon anyway so no hats indoors in a compulsory reading week that That's my gift to the nation. Simon Mayo and TikTok is out in paperback. It's in audio form. It's just every single format you could imagine.

Yeah, it's very commendable that he never took a day off sick. But did he come in when he was ill? Well, that's what I always think. That's what I always think, a bit germy. But then I arrived at work today with a bit of a cough and a sputter. Yeah, but you've done very well. You haven't coughed. No, no.

I think Eve's got a bit of a cough and a sputter. Yeah, but you've done very well. You haven't coughed. No. I think Eve's got a bit of a cough and a splutter. Are you better? Oh, gosh. That's a bit throaty, isn't it? She's 24, aren't you? 25? 25. I've been needing to do that cough for ages. Have you? Okay, well, it was Lovey's little guitar roll. And now we're trapped

in the studio with it. Oh, my God. I was just thinking about a book I'm reading at the moment. Have you read Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins? No, I haven't. Well, it's such... It's one of those books, she's such a good writer, and I haven't read everything she's written,

and I bought this, actually, at the tube station the other day because it had been on my list, and it's so, so good, but it's... You have to... You can't read it too quickly. You really have to just absorb it and spend time with it and um she changes you know she changes time all the time so you never know quite which decade you're going to be in as you turn the page uh but it's essentially about a man

called teddy who was in the raf in world war ii and his daughter is so his daughter in the 80s is so dismissive of him and you just you want to shake her and just say, don't speak to your father like that, you bloody idiot! Because he's been through so much, but she's chosen not to express a shred of interest in where he went, what he did, what he saw. And he is... Well, I haven't finished it yet, but honestly, it's a brilliant book.

Do you think that if you were reading that as a young, you know, 20-something, you would still want to shout at the book that much? Or is it just the Keegan of personal experience? It's probably right. No, you're probably right. No, but it's a funny one, isn't it? Because I often think now, when I look across books on the shelf, I think, oh, what would I make of that if I read it now? And it's not just because technology's changed and all that kind of stuff it's just who you sympathize with in a book is

often completely changed yes i wonder whether that's why the post office drama on itv has affected a lot of middle-aged people really badly just because yeah it's a point it's a sea of middle-aged people having a really tough time and coming up against a confounding technology, which just stymies them and makes their lives so difficult. Now, I know that you didn't enjoy Colin from Accounts. Oh, I didn't watch it, actually. Oh, I think you should give it a go for exactly that reason, because there's a very, very clever, really subtle kind of subtext in it about the younger generation and some of the kind of microaggressions that they feel

set against the main protagonist, the guy who has come through really severe prostate cancer, but he's never allowed any sympathy at all. You know, he's looked death in the face and come out the other side of it, but to the 20-somethings... It's all irrelevant. It is very irrelevant.

But what they feel is absolutely of paramount importance. But it's just really beautifully done. So the show doesn't draw attention to that kind of subplot. But I think if you're our age and you watch it, you just think, I'm very grateful you put that in, actually. Okay, well, I'll definitely watch that. I can sense that Eve wants to do another cough. And if she's going to do one that's quite as horrible as the last one,

could we just sign off and go before she does? Sorry, Eve. Good evening, everyone. Bye. Run! Rob! another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five.

You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Money, good bank. I know ladies don't get that. A lady listener. I'm sorry. what's happening on your iPhone screen. Voice over on settings. So you can navigate it just by listening.

Books, contacts, calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone.