Off Air... with Jane and Fi - We had a really great thirty minutes...

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Jane and Fi have swanned off on holiday, so Chloe Tilley and Calum Macdonald are here to hold down the fort.They're joined by Adam Vaughn, Environment Editor of The Times to talk about water pollution, and by Lola Tambling, the 14 year old skateboarder who placed sixth in the World Skateboarding Championship this weekend.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell 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. Hi, it's Chloe Tilly and Callum MacDonald.

We're in for Jane and Fee this week. If you joined us on the radio, really good to have your company. It's slightly bizarre for us because we normally do breakfast Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We even come into the building in daylight. The canteen's open. I mean, there's no food over weekend when we come in. And there were many, many people. Who knew that this building was filled with people through the week?

It's astonishing. People sitting at every desk. I don't know what they all do they work hard that's what we did well for our first program i think it went pretty well well it went really well i thought three till 3 30 yes i agree i feel like we made the transition seamlessly from breakfast to afternoons if he does say his self we were thrown by the daylight of Of that, there is no doubt. The daylight pouring in the windows. I think the thing that really threw us, though, was as we went to the 3.30 news, we were quite happy.

We then found out from producer Rosie that our big guest, who we were going to speak to for 25 minutes, was not answering at all. For radio context, that's quite a big deal. If you're not sure how big a deal that is i challenge you to just speak for five minutes and make it feel like you're adding value to anything around you well that was what i was worried about callum and i can talk the hind leg off a donkey i wasn't worried about talking i was worried about the quality of chat uh so yes sophia kiani was who we meant to

be speaking to she's a a un kind of ambassador, if you like, a global ambassador for climate change. She's really young, in her 20s. We were really excited about speaking to an Iranian-American. But yeah, she just went AWOL. Yeah, far be it from me to sort of promote somebody who in the end didn't show up on our programme. But there's some really interesting stuff on her Twitter feed,

including when she spoke at COP27, which was something we were going to ask her about, but behold, we'll never get the answers to those questions. So she didn't turn up, but it's fine. So we would normally give you the big interview here on the pod, but we couldn't. So instead, here are some of our favourite news stories. Yes, absolutely.

We did have some brilliant people on today who did pick up the phone, so that was good. We were speaking a lot about water pollution and water companies today. This is to coincide actually with the Times launching a campaign where they are really pushing for the Times newspaper, really pushing for the government to take action on pollution in rivers and on beaches and in waterways in general. And on the front page of today's Times,

the story that water companies may not face big fines for spilling sewage into rivers and seas because ministers are now suggesting that multi-million pound fines could scare off investors. The Times reports that Environment Secretary Therese Coffey thinks that fines of up to £250 million for polluters are disproportionate. Of course, there is the consideration that you don't have to impose that big a fine. It could be less. Exactly. But you might want to give yourself the leeway to impose that big a fine should the offence merit it. All

of these things were covered in our urgent question today. We spoke to Adam Vaughan who's the environment editor at the Times and he explains why water pollution is still such an issue in the UK. Last autumn there was a bit of a frenzy about water companies and in the party conference season under Liz Truss, her briefly lived environment secretary Ranul J. Awadina, he proposed raising a cap on civil sanctions of £250,000 for particularly serious pollution events to £250 million, so a thousandfold increase that so the the reason for that being that generally speaking 250 000 pounds is not considered much of a disincentive for bad behavior by water companies and now the question now is where do we land so the it looks like we're probably not

going to land on 250 million but we are's clear something higher than 250,000 is coming. I suppose the point of a fine is that it should change behaviour. And so if it's something that can be factored in as the cost of doing business for, in this case, water companies, then actually that's completely redundant. It makes no difference at all. Yeah, that's right. And it's important. I mean, it obviously needs to be a deterrent. Otherwise, there's not much point in it. That's that's the idea. I mean, it's important to stress that these are these are this is sort of separate from the Environment Agency. It does have powers and has used them to prosecute companies through the courts and fine the millions.

But that is a really slow process and takes years. This is a sort of different thing, which is civil civil sanctions which the environment agency can just do itself and which is very its new chairman who's just started is very keen to use those powers more so where are we at then taking all of that in in total where are we at with with trying to get a grip on this problem what's your assessment of where things stand yeah i mean i guess to sort of zoom out a little bit you know i think people will know from sort of going down to their local river or their beach that things are maybe not as good as they'd like them to be in terms of water quality and particularly in rivers and lakes beaches are somewhat better overall and across the country um i mean the statistic i like to sort of focus on in

the one that the water companies and the government likes to look at as well as something called good ecological status. And this is like a measure of how close a river is to its natural state. Now, in England, the figure for water bodies that reach that standard is about 16 percent. And the problem is that figure five years ago was 16 percent. So there's there has been some progress behind the scenes and it's quite an you know, it's quite an exacting standard. there has been some progress behind the scenes and it's quite an exacting standard. But the target is that we'll get to 75% being good by 2027. So you can see there's a bit of a mountain to climb there in terms of where we need to go. I'm just wondering, when you think about this in a broader sense, the online safety bill is looking at charging individuals, chief executives, if content online is a danger to people.

I'm just wondering, is the solution here to say to the chief executives of these water companies, you personally are going to have to pay potentially up to X amount of money? Is that the deterrent? I just feel like we don't quite know what the deterrent is. So, you know, it's interesting you say that about the sort of getting personal about it as it were chloe i mean there's this the emma emma howard boyd who's the former chairman of the environment agency or chairperson i should say she um last last summer she suggested effectively just that she said that there should be some sort of criminal penalties for directors and obviously one of the issues is people can work at one company and then go on to another so she had these proposals to make it much more personal labor is still sort

of fleshing out what its policy would be on that but it is along the lines of some sort of tougher penalty for the individuals at the top of these companies for and to be clear this isn't for like just you know an accidental bit of dumping of suits this is for like you know only for the most serious repeated systemic problems but i think it's clear that some sort of some sort of greater deterrent is needed yeah tell us more as well about the uh the times the clean up water campaign and one thing i love about the times when it when it starts campaigning on issues whether that be education or health with the commissions that have been established and run over the last couple of years and indeed uh the health one's ongoing but with this sort of campaign as you

have there is a manifesto there are clear tangible things that are kind of being pushed for so just tell us about that adam yeah yeah we love a manifesto uh there's uh so there's four there's four sort of rough things and i can go into more detail but they basically boil down to better regulation more money more designated bathing waters around rivers. So these are like things that give you, it's a sort of designation that gives you better monitoring of water quality. And then finally, help for farmers to curb their impact. So yeah, so those are the four big things we're asking for.

And I think, you know, the more money there is, you know, it's important to be upfront. A lot of this is going to mean spending more money and that at some point is going to have some sort of bearing for people's bills so we need to make sure that's done in a good way because you know we have as everyone knows you know from the the broader cost of living crisis that's something that needs to be give it some thought given to but there's also political decisions that need to be made as well about how much funding and how many people to resource regulators like the environment agency yeah it's worth saying just on one of the points in the manifesto at number one jail and other criminal penalties for water chiefs under beefed up

environment agency so you know we're not pulling punches here in this thing no no and that's you know that's exactly what emma howard was just talking about is you know was recommending herself and you know i think it's to be clear you, that no one wants to see the executives jailed and no one wants to, you know, that is really the sort of ultimate, you know, I think that's really about the most extreme end of things. Right. And then that is really if sort of there's very much a pattern of persistent behavior. I don't think, I don't think anyone wants to see that you sort of willy nilly.

How long has this been going on? How have we found ourselves in this position? That's a really good question. So it's not like we've all sort of, you know, discovered there are rivers this week, right? So, I mean, I think, you know, I think concern has been growing for sort of around a decade now. And I think what amongst the public at large,

and then I think what's really happened was covid sort of turbocharged that concern because you know obviously under restrictions people could there's only certain places people could go and a lot of people sort of rediscovered or maybe for the first time discovered you know their local river stream lake you know whatever it was and that you know so then you already had this sort of thing before of like more people doing wild swimming more people doing paddleboarding but then the restrictions really charged that up and i think we're seeing that collide with the sort of longer term issues of under investment and infrastructure and you know more intensive farming and so on so i think it's a sort of combination of factors of greater awareness that we're looking out for it more and also there's you know to be give companies credit where it's due sort of combination of factors of greater awareness that we're looking out for it more.

And also, you know, to give companies credit where it's due, you know, there's also greater transparency. There's a better monitoring network in place. So, you know, like Thames Water launched this map last month where you can now see in sort of near real time where places are spinning. And we've had another, you know, that doesn't always paint a very happy story for them. You know, we had another story out of that about how one little stream had been in one week in January and Oxfordshire had been spilling for four days out of seven, you know. So, but it's better to know, right? So, you know, that's good. You need the 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

from 10 to 11 and get on with your day accessibility There's more to iPhone. You're listening to Off Air with Jane and Fi, but this is Chloe and Callum. Hello. Thanks for having us. Thanks for listening. We'll be here all week. We're live on Times Radio three till five in the afternoons and then on the podcast as well. So one thing we were talking about today was the Women's Premier League auction in cricket and i just felt so uncomfortable saying this i know this is cricket terminology so it's like the ipl for men um the women put themselves forward said yes all 15 england cricketers said yes i want to go and play in india in this league for a few weeks and clubs basically auction and they

say yep they bid this, they bid that. And the terminology is just really uncomfortable for me. We're hearing that this player, Nat Shiverbrunt, was bought for. She was sold for. It's just, yeah, it's kind of uncomfortable. But I know it's the appropriate terminology. So, yeah, we spoke about that because, of course, the T20 World Cup is underway in South Africa.

And for me, I find it really weird that in the middle of a World Cup, this would take place. An auction for players would take place. Would that happen? Would there be a transfer window in the middle of the men's football World Cup? Would it happen in cricket to the men's game? I mean, I would hazard the guess not. It just seems weird. Yeah, the closest thing I can kind of get to in my own head is the

NFL draft in American football where players are kind of recruited. During my own head is the the NFL draft in American football where players are kind of recruited um during a world cup well no well absolutely that's the point absolutely not no that's exactly right and everyone's kind of ranked in order of how they did the previous year um and it's it's sort of intuitive as to how it's then done but it's how most teams then recruit people but you're right the timing is the timing for me that seems very very odd well when we spoke earlier on to cricket correspondent georgie heath england had just beaten ireland in the t20 world cup i mean it was an odd one yeah i'll give you that the fact that almost a world cup game and there's obviously another one literally just

starting as we speak sort of played second fiddle to, in essence, a domestic tournament at the same time. There were a lot of lakhs going around. I know a lot more about Indian money than I ever did before now. So I can now, my conversion rates are going a lot better than they were. But obviously Nat Siver Brunt went for 320 lakhs, which was one of the highest. Smriti Mandana going for 340. But yeah, an interesting one. I was one of the highest smithy mandana going for 340 but yeah an interesting one i was all i was sort of wondering because england players were going up for you know they're suddenly being sold is someone going to run on with water and be like oh by the way you've been sold exactly or it was it was very bizarre it also went on for a very long time it sort of started at

nine o'clock this morning and i was all hyped up and then by that point I was like right okay let's get on with this now because I'm getting quite confused but such an exciting day for the women's game obviously the world cup is exciting all that's going on but the women's premier league we thought it might never happen and it is a huge moment for the women's game that that much money and that much interest is going into it so and what does it mean for them tell me what it means for them because the the pay for women's cricket is really low so what will it actually mean for them in their pocket I mean for someone like Nat Siverbrun she's got 320,000 pounds going into one tournament yeah that's just for her that is just her her wife didn't get sold but you know that's what happens. I think there's a lot of it. They're looking at the young domestic Indian players, the young players, the likes of Alice Capsy.

Izzy Wong was sold. So that's a hell of a lot of money, especially for someone in women's cricket. But what that does for the women's game, as we look ahead, is that, you know, there's youngsters going, yes, I mean, I know there's a career in there, but it really is the career and there is a lot of money now in the women's game this is viable for me to do as a career so it's just going to expand it across the world I mean we all know the sway that India has with any kind of cricket and so the fact that they're now putting all this money and this effort and interest into the women's game is just astonishing really I did there were times I thought this day might not come I mean they're always going to be teething problems there's always going to be people saying this that and the other but for the women's game globally this is a really big day

yeah good stuff Georgie thank you ever so much for speaking to us thank you as cricket correspondent Georgie Heath I don't know why this is just the feminist in me I always feel uncomfortable with women being sold I know it's the terminology of cricket there's nothing against georgie but it always just sounds odd because men are equally sold in this but it's just yeah yeah the freezing yes auctioning people it's all just yeah anyway it feels a bit uncomfortable for me now let's talk about some sport that you might have missed because the skateboarding world championships took place in the uae they came to an end after British skateboarder Sky Brown. You'll remember she's 14. She became a world champion,

marking the first time that Britain has achieved gold at the competition. Lola Tambling is also 14 and finished in sixth place for GB. Tambling had a sensational journey in her first world championships, coming all the way from the heats through to the final and finishing in that fantastic sixth place. And I'm delighted to say she's landed back in the UK this afternoon and is here to talk to us.

Hi there. Hi. Massive congratulations, Lola. Can you quite believe what you've achieved? I'm feeling super stoked. I can't believe this has actually happened. To be honest, I don't think it's actually like properly hit me yet.

I'm not surprised. So tell us about what you had to do just to get through this world championships you know people who don't follow skateboarding explain it to us um so there was uh four rounds so there was the open the quarters semis and then finals so I had to do basically it was like four competitions in like a whole week and had to just get through and play there was like a certain place you had to do basically it was like four competitions in like a whole week and had to just get through and play. There was like a certain place you had to. So like make the cut, basically. Yes. OK. And do you before you go out, excuse my ignorance, do you before you go out know what moves you're going to do? Or do you look at what you have to achieve and make the decision kind of there and then? Look at what you have to achieve and make the decision kind of there and then.

So I see the course, there's like photos and that, and I figure out like what I want to do. And then when I go out, obviously, I try it. And then if it doesn't work, I have to change it. And if it does work, then that's obviously a bonus. But I do have a plan in my head before, really. And does the course stay the same through every single round? Does it get easier i mean not easier clearly but as you get to the final if you've done that course several times or do they change it oh no the course stays the same it yeah it stays the same so does it get

easier i mean clearly there's the pressure but i just wonder because you've you've done several rounds on it is it easier um no it definitely it definitely gets definitely very harder. Does it? Oh, yeah, 100%. Yeah, you've got to change your run because the judges are looking for different things. They don't want to see the same lines and the level gets higher and higher each time.

Do you also change it based on what you see other people doing to try and do something better than you've just seen? Yeah, because obviously if someone does a better run than you and they score higher, you want to try and do better than that and up your game and score higher than them. So I definitely do change my run up, yeah. I'm fascinated when I speak to elite athletes like yourself that I'm always told that it's a minimum 80% mental, 20% physical.

How do you keep your head in the right place to be able to achieve fantastic results like sixth at the World Championships? I just try and not think of the negatives. I just have fun and do my breathing and stuff like that so and this this was your first world championships so I mean sixth that's incredible do you hope to I mean what are your goals now or have you achieved your goals um I'm very I'm so like happy of what I've accomplished this like weekend it was really good but obviously I'm gonna happy of what I've accomplished this weekend. It was really good.

But obviously I'm going to keep pushing because I want to work on my goal to Paris 2024. And then I've got all the other events coming up this year. And then the next one is Argentina. So I'm excited for all of them. I always find it incredible. I mean, I find it incredible when I speak to any elite athlete about the commitment, the psychology, the single mindedness, which you have to have clearly to be an elite athlete.

But when you apply that to children effectively, and I hope Lola isn't offended by me calling her a child, but she's 14. Incredible. And the way that, you know, you were asking her about, you know, do you change your run and do you look what other people are doing to have the maturity and the confidence to be able to do that on what is the biggest stage of your sporting life it's just incredible i can never quite compute the pressure and indeed the preparation that goes into getting ready for that moment in the spotlight i suppose um and the various runs that she has to do to get to the final and then end up placing sixth. And that improvisation, actually. Because imagine standing, watching somebody and going, oh, well, they've just done that.

That's going to earn them three more points than I got for the thing that I did halfway through my routine or whatever. So now I have to change. Well, the thing is as well, do I go for the big skill and potentially mess it up? Or do I say I'll go safer? I always remember, you know, my daughter's gymnastics mad and I'd follow the sport intently.

And I remember Max Whitlock talking about the last Olympic gold that he won on pommel. And he was talking about how he just knew he had to go all out. He had to do the biggest routine. He was up first and it was like, what do I do? Do I go safe? Do I go big? And he went big. But he's an adult. What is he, 30, something like that? he was up first and it was like what do i do do i go safe to go big and he went big and it is just

the but he's an adult you know he's what is he 30 something like that but a 14 year old like leonard i found it absolutely incredible really yeah amazing to speak to her and her experience and incredible achievement sixth in the world championships in skateboarding the closest to this that i can get in my brain i'm a i'm a very amateur musician and less so now than i ever used to be but i play the accordion which is actually a lesser known fact about me so you can have that off air listeners um and so in the highlands where i grew up i would be playing at kayleys and 21st birthday parties and weddings and you name it and whatever uh one thing i hated and i only ever did it twice i think in my entire life was competition absolutely hated them hated them found no enjoyment Found no enjoyment, no pleasure, hated the stress, hated the pressure.

Whereas at a Cayley, you just play and people have a good time. But I felt performing for several people to judge me was just not in any way enticing. Whereas on the other side of this are people who clearly thrive on that environment and I just find that amazing. Absolutely.

Thank you for all of your emails. We've got loads of lovely messages today welcoming us to Afternoons. So that was was really nice we're encouraging our breakfast listeners over and also got some lovely messages from you guys that listen um to jane and fee all the time so thank you ever so much for that let's do this one hi callum and chloe how do you fancy robotic anesthetists putting up trips doing spinal anesthetics intubating etc surgeons tend to be robotic but as anesthetists are very different this is from david so this is in response to the story that actually surgeons might start using

robots to carry out kind of more precision surgery and indeed do it with a better level of accuracy the sort of side effects the long-term scarring is reduced because they can be so precise and so exact and we were asking on the radio today, weren't we, whether you would feel comfortable with the idea of a robot effectively. Anesthetists blow my mind. When I was having a cesarean for my second daughter, I remember the anaesthetist standing on my left shoulder, not on my left shoulder, that'd be weird, by my left shoulder. That's another operation.

By my left shoulder. And she said, it was my second cesarean, so I knew what it was like. And she said, can you feel anything? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I can just feel like, no, I can you can you feel anything and i was like yeah yeah i can just feel like no i can touch your tummy yeah yeah no i can feel that a bit and she'd get okay give me a little bit more can you feel that yeah really lightly a bit more can you feel that no blows your mind that it's that accurate it's a tiny bit here or there astonishing yeah that's a real skill it is an absolute i take david's point on whether that if that was to become robotic would we all feel a little bit more uneasy yeah if the robot's asking me i don't know how i'd feel about that johnny has got in touch hi chloe and callum as promised i am here thank you johnny

thank you johnny um i'd like to ask if callum got a haircut especially for this occasion as requested or was it actually done with the brit awards johnny don't give him another opportunity to talk about flipping brit awards uh anyway what's it all about this special prize well we've told you about the special prize uh you just need to collect those five words we gave you the word today sharky nice four more to come uh three on afternoons one on breakfast on friday and then you can go in for a draw to get a six month subscription to the times tell us about the haircut really quickly before we get bored so i've gone for a mid-fade um no no no oh sorry you mean to talk about the brits don't you yes okay well i'll do that so you got the haircut for the brits so yeah i got a haircut for the brits because i was very kindly invited to go along to the brits having begged on the radio

for somebody to invite me and so the owners of the o2 arena invited me the thing the thing that i loved most about this story was callum and i were ridiculously excited at the prospect of the o2 arena invited me the thing the thing that i loved most about this story was callum and i were ridiculously excited at the prospect of having a weekend off yeah so i was like i'm going out with my husband it's going to be amazing callum's like yeah i'm going to go and have a night out i never get a night out and then he found out he'd only got one ticket for the brits i was like you're going on your own to the brits then so what about this big night out you're going to have with your mates and he was like um but then you did manage to wangle i eventually i got a plus one which was a total gift it was honestly it was a dream come true i've always wanted to go to the brits i think the music is amazing the production is amazing the

showbiz vibe of it is pretty cool as well let's be honest and so i was very very glad to be there on saturday with my new mid feed into into as well so i'm now going to think about what i might want to get yeah you need to start begging no i've got no i literally i have more pride that's where we differ thanks for listening we'll be back on times radio at three o'clock in the afternoon monday to thursday this week and on off air with jane and fee but with with Chloe and Callum. You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. Now you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget that if you like what you heard and thought, hey, I want to listen to this, but live, then you can, Monday to Thursday, 3 till 5 on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening, and hope you can join us off air very soon. Goodbye. calendar double tap to open breakfast with anna from 10 to 11 and get on with your day accessibility there's more to iphone