Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - S11 Ep 11: Jon Sopel

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

This is a GREAT episode. Zooming in from Washington DC, we talk to BBC North America Editor Jon Sopel about his new book ‘UnPresidented'.Jon reveals that he was known to Trump as 'the guy who asks stroppy questions in the briefing room’. We get to hear about Obama's Christmas parties and the exquisite food laid on compared to the fries and chicken wings at Trump's do. He's been - and reported from - everywhere and we hear what family life is like for an international correspondent. Growing up in the East end and spending a lot of time at the Jewish Youth Centre, he tells us about his bar mitzvah and the injustice of his friend's being allowed to sneak off with luncheon vouchers...He longs to go to the Holly Bush pub in Hampstead as soon as he’s back in London and talks about having a TikTok account, thanks to his daughter who was incredibly impressed that he’s on Table Manners!And we will leave you with this gem from Mr Sopel - 'Food off other people’s plates contains no calories'. Enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with my mum and we've got new headphones and mum feels like... Do they suit me? Does my bum look big in these? Do you feel like Jenny Murray now? I do. I feel kind of... Yeah, I feel like a broadcaster now. Mum, look, well, you still don't know how to speak into your mic so you aren't there yet. I feel like... Oh, ruth's got her phone across the road okay we are doing a podcast mum's just uh nosing on the neighbors anyway we have a really

exciting guest today he's tuning in from washington dc and he's the well mum you introduce him well he is probably considered to be one of the most professional and talented correspondents for the BBC. What did my dad say about him? Hold on, I'm just going to tell you. So my dad is a journalist. He is top of the range correspondent. His coverage of Trump has been superb. Brackets, and he's Jewish.

L'chaim! one of our own so we have john sopel on the podcast uh you would have probably seen him on the bbc usually late at night corresponding from dc and he's written a whole book about fabulous book called unprecedented which is all About politics, pandemics And the race that trumped All others It's kind of like a diary The detail is amazing because I've I've read it and

He must have kept a diary Right the way through which makes me think maybe I should keep a diary of my Journey Today I had a poo No today I had a poo. No, today I had soup. Today?

Yeah, what would you... If he's lucky, yeah. It's amazing he's got so much content, given there was a pandemic. It's mostly about his professional life, really. A bit about his family, which is really interesting. So, John Sopel coming up on Table Manners, dialing in from DC. John, thank you so much for...

What time is it where you are now? It is 20 to 9 in the morning. OK. Oh, have you had your breakfast? Well, it's coffee and croissant time. So, you know, there's a lovely little French patisserie just up the road and it really is properly French and I can even go in there and speak French in there, well, badly.

And, yeah, so you get my croissant, get my coffee, and I'll do that once we've finished. But you've had a bit of a night because you've just had your first grandchild born, so you've probably not slept. It's probably as stressful as election night. Well, we have been on tenterhooks for a little while, waiting for the news,

because the baby was four or five days overdue but my son and daughter-in-law they live in Sydney Australia and she's Australian and so we've been waiting for news so the news came last night I have a granddaughter which is spectacular thank you very much and it's very very exciting and i just fear that she'll be doing her a levels by the time we're able to get to australia to go go and meet her i mean it's tough but you know there we are it's fabulous news it's every parent's nightmare that your son will go on gap year and then meet an australian is that what happened that they actually met they were at university.

My son was at university in the UK. She was at an Australian university and they went to America. They both met in an American university at UMass, University of Massachusetts. And we kind of thought, oh, Australians. And she came to live in London

for five years and it was fabulous and we adore her. And but then they bloody well moved back to Australia and Australia. They're laughing now, aren't they? Yeah. Well, I mean, they're living normal lives. They kind of hear about all the craziness that we're going through on a daily basis. And they're blessed. They have taken a very tough, aggressive approach to people getting into the country, which means, you know, I have no idea when we'll be able to get in. But within Australia, people are leading

pretty normal lives that are untouched by COVID. You know, this is a really big moment in your family's life. Is there, being a correspondent, have you had to sacrifice and miss quite a few moments or have you kind of been lucky? Because I can only imagine because you have to sacrifice and miss quite a few moments or have you kind of been lucky because i i can only imagine because you have to be in you can't be in two places at the same time so no there there have been moments where uh yeah i've missed out on things i was just laughing because i think if my wife was answering this question linda would say yeah absolutely you were never there for swimming lessons you were never you never bloody there for this you didn't turn up for that you missed the school play and i would say i was there for everything that mattered

which is my narrative and i'm sticking to it um there was a famous occasion where i'd been covering um the war on the israel lebanon border uh that had been raging and we were due to go on holiday to italy and i was moving with the with the Israelis sort of across the border into Lebanon and I was due on a flight out of the airport that evening to go back to London and then we were flying to go to Italy and I managed to get back I told Linda you see I did it I've made it we're going to be on the family holiday together and we went to Heathrow airport and I handed over the passports I have a spare passport because I need to have one passport that at any time that isn't getting a visa or whatever. And I had left my wife's passport at home.

I had taken both my passports. I had taken the kids passports. And so I was in a bit of trouble then. What happened? Did she take the flight? No, she made one taxi driver in London the happiest man in the world when she said, it's to Hampstead in North London and wait and return. And he went, yes!

So she went with my son to go and get her passport. And my daughter and I were put on the flight and we met in Milan a bit later on that day. So there are loads of stories like that of the chaos of getting back for things and trying to, you know. We had a bit of that when you were growing up. So Jesse's dad is John Ware, who you might know of. And that we were often going on holiday on our own. Well, yeah.

And he would join us later because. He nearly missed my birth, no? Yeah. he was doing the miners strike when you were born um i went on my honeymoon on my own that is so depressing well i we went we went on holiday with another family down to cornwall when i got a call about the tsunami and and so we were going to spare we were all going to spend new years together in this sort of you know on them out on the moors uh roaring log fires except I went back to London the next day and got on a plane to Sri Lanka and you know and and covered the horrible events unfolding in the tsunami so yeah look things get disrupted but my narrative is still I was there for all the key events yeah so you're

in Washington now and your wife is back in England yeah she's here at the moment she came over because we wanted to be together when we heard about the birth so she's here at the moment and then uh yeah so she's got a very elderly mother and she just felt that she needed to be a year ago she moved back uh to london because she's got very elderly mother i thought i'd be on the road endlessly uh for the u.s election and we had sort of various plans to meet and all plans got trashed by coronavirus and so you know it's been a year where i've sort of thought i would never be in this apartment at all and i've been here virtually non-stop because of the restrictions on travel. So, look, everyone has had a tough year.

Everyone has got, you know, and, you know, touch wood, the family as well. And that's all that matters. So how long will you stay on in Washington for? Oh, I don't know. How much longer? Well, not that much longer, I think. I think that two reasons. I mean, one, you know, normally an appointment as a foreign correspondent is for two years and then it gets renewed for another two years.

I've been here nearly seven years now. So I've overstayed my welcome. I think everyone just loves you. You've seen it all. Well, look, I have reported on half the impeachments in the whole of US history, have reported on half the impeachments in the whole of US history which is another way of saying I have covered the four years of Donald Trump which journalistically has been the most amazing experience and challenging though yeah I mean look it's exhausting and exhilarating and you never know what's going to happen next. And you never know what will unfold.

And then you kind of get Joe Biden come in and it's calm and it's quiet. And he's not tweeting. Well, you may say that, Lenny. I couldn't possibly comment. It's like you're on holiday. But I can remember you sitting in the press corps and standing up to talk to Donald Trump or the president then and he had it in for the BBC at that time and you stood up and he said hmm another beauty and he was so rude to you and I don't know how you didn't jump over and

grab him by the throat well do you know what i was absolutely determined that i wasn't going to back down but i wasn't going to do what a lot of the american journalists have done which is to think right i'm in a fight now and i so i just very politely said we're free fair and impartial um and he goes yeah we'd like cnn and i go uh well we can banter back and forth and then the conversation carried on and eventually he he said, stop, stop. I know who you are. And then I got text messages from my kids saying, he knows who you are. Does he know who you are, John?

I think he knows that. He knows that I'm the Brit who asks stroppy questions from the briefing room. Because all during the start of COVID, he was giving these briefings. And to keep the briefing room at the White House safe, they only allowed, you know, 11 or 12 journalists in at a time. And Donald Trump, because he was bored out of his mind

and was desperate to be on TV, would come into the briefing room for literally an hour and a half, two hours, and just shoot the breeze. And you'd be asking him multiple questions. And he could never understand why we were asking difficult questions. Why couldn't we just be lovely to him? And the fact of the matter is, you know, we've got a job to do,

which is to find out what is going on, and not to either be a cheerleader or to be an opponent, but just to ask journalistic questions. So Donald Trump, you ended up spending quite a lot of time with him during this period. And it was really odd because he needed the attention. He needs to be in the spotlight. And it's almost like he doesn't mind whether it's good or it's bad,

but he just needs to command everyone's attention and for him to be the person that everyone is talking about. So attention's like oxygen for him. Yeah, we were his ventilator. We were, to give a COVID metaphor, was anyone ever less suited to be Donald Trump's ventilator than a bunch of reporters like us? But that's what he wanted.

And because, you know, heads of state were no longer visiting, he was no longer travelling, he wasn't going around the world, he wasn't doing of state were no longer visiting. He was no longer travelling. He wasn't going around the world. He wasn't doing his rallies in these early stages. And so he just wanted to come to have anywhere to talk. And so he came to the briefing room on a nightly basis. And it was unreal. And so I was there that night where he talks about maybe we could inject disinfectant. Oh, God.

And I was there that. And I was thinking, has he really just said that? I kind of think it must be one of the most one of the less interesting jobs as a press officer to be the press officer for Domestos bleach. But that night, that night, the press officer for the American version of Domestos, a thing called Clorox, is issuing a release overnight saying, whatever you do do do not listen to the president of the united states please ignore him could that guy have ever imagined when he went into work the previous day that that's what he'd be doing i mean you spent so much time with him i just you know this this podcast is about many things but predominantly about food did he ever kind of host was there any food snacks drinks did he ever have anything particular that he needed on

his rider oh my god on his rider yeah diet coke chicken wings macs and fries oh wow i mean the contradictions there so so so he's he's teetotal why is that did his father have an alcohol problem no i think he he had a brother who died who was an alcoholic okay so he's not even drunk when he says these things no you may say that again i couldn't possibly comment with my bbc how no yeah he was he was absolutely sober i mean he did once make a very good self-deprecating joke he said i'm teetotal i mean can you imagine what i'd be like if i was drunk you know this is me sober so. So his food tastes are extremely simple. And, you know, there were times when American football teams or whatever would come in.

And in the Obama year, so I used to go to the Obama Christmas parties and the tables would be groaning with the most delicious food cooked by the White House chefs. most delicious food cooked by the white house chefs when donald trump held events for you know visiting football teams or baseball teams or whatever it would be chicken wings fries you know that was that was the it was about as interesting as megan trainer's choice of food when she came on table manners no comment oh oh i shouldn't have said that pizza and pizza so you don't think melania was knocking up a little Slovenian national dish? My guess would be not. Did you ever meet Melania? No, I didn't.

I didn't meet. I would have loved to have met Melania. I mean, there are a lot. You know, look, she's a very interesting woman. She's also, you know, she's quite litigious as well. So you have to be pretty careful about what you say and the only it's very interesting in america all the news organizations are covered by the first amendment which is freedom of speech and you can more or less say what you like and you will never get done for libel the only two news organizations that melania trump has sued while

she was first lady and successfully was the daily mail and the daily telegraph because they don't have first amendment rights melania is able to look after herself i think the idea that was put around that melania was this sort of free melania feeble free melania blink if you can hear us i think that was wider the mark i think she could look after herself pretty well and you know there were one or two incidents where she got involved in some pretty brutal political knife fights and saw off people who she didn't like, who she felt were undermining her. And, you know, look, it was a complex. Everything about the Trump White House was unbelievably complicated. You know, so Ivanka, the daughter who's senior advisor to the president, doesn't get on with Melania. There is rivalry between the East Wing and the West Wing. And, you know, it was a complicated dynamic working in the Trump White House, to put it mildly.

I've read your book. Well, first of all, congratulations. It's a brilliant book. And did you have you always kept a diary because the or five days you forget that intense feeling or the color or the moment or where you were when you heard it and so that it starts to blur and so I kept a diary pretty much every night and of course when I started writing the diary I thought it would be a conventional I thought it would I thought it would be an election of planes trains and automobiles me rushing to here rushing to their Iowa New Hampshire wherever wherever wherever um and you know eating dinners in kind of crappy airport restaurants where there is very little on offer instead of which the whole story changed because of COVID and lockdown and you know the kind of sense of also

that very powerful sense of family being so dislocated. And, you know, so I had my wife living and daughter living in London. I was living here in the US. My son was in Australia and we couldn't get to we couldn't get towards to each other. And so that was tough. And so the book changed. But it was also a story about how, you know, Donald Trump, I think when I started writing it, I thought would absolutely easily win the election and how Covid came along. And because of his really erratic handling of it. And I think the American people who were might have been minded to vote for him on the basis that, you the economy was looking good just thought this is too chaotic i can't do it and so voted for joe biden instead did he really have covid do you think yes

i do you do i i remember that night um you know being woken at 1 30 in the morning i love it when london always ring you in the middle of the night the news desk in london and they say uh you know it's two o'clock in the morning have we woken you up no i was just partying actually no you know i've just just come in from a rave or i'm just going for a jog um and they told me that he'd got covid i think that donald trump knew that he would look weak going to hospital and he hates looking weak the white house has got a fully equipped surgery. There are 24-7 doctors and nurses on duty in the White House. Very different from Boris getting sick at number 10

when there are no doctors or nurses. I mean, it was almost negligent, the lack of attention there is to our Prime Minister compared to the President. So unless he was really sick, they would have treated him at the white house and wouldn't have taken him to walter reed but i mean i could you know that that day on the sunday he was taken on the friday and on the sunday i'm i'm doing a live for the news and suddenly donald trump is on a covid he's going up and down wisconsin avenue on a covid joyride and you think i can't make you can't make this up um and he's you know passing

within about four or five feet of where i'm standing and sort of waving out the window and i've done politics no i've done politics you know for 30 years in my bbc career i have never seen anything or reported on anything like donald trump and I'm pretty sure I won't do anything like it again no so what's the food like in Washington you mentioned Cafe Milano ah yeah the place to go yeah Milano's a great place um I I my general take on American food okay I'm gonna get in huge trouble now i think the really top end food is fantastic so yeah if you and but wow will you pay a lot of money for it um and there are some lovely restaurants in washington like milano and there's a fabulous place called lutis which has

just opened uh up the road and because of covid they have been they've been told they can install on the roadway on the road that so they've blocked off one lane and they've installed a series of greenhouses so i've got a booking there tonight so they so you sit in your own individual greenhouse and have dinner so they've got a row of 10 greenhouses or thereabouts and they can seat four or six people and so so i've booked a greenhouse for this evening for dinner and that's fantastic and it looks really they look really cozy and fabulous so you've got things like that um and there are some really amazing places in america i mean you know we when linda was last over here we don't we drove down to tennessee to

the smoky mountains and this place called blackberry, which was and they and it is a working farm where they are making the, you know, they're growing the vegetables and the herbs and all the rest of fantastic. But I often find that American food, it's got a drizzle of this and a jus of that. And it's got too many things going on. And the waiter comes over and very theatrically will say, well, on the menu tonight, we have got this. And it takes him 10 minutes to go through all the complex foods that are kind of piling up. complex foods that are kind of piling up and i i i tend to prefer good simple american fare because i mean look the fruit and vegetables here are fantastic you know coming from the central belt in california or whatever and you know some of the fresh meat but you have to be discerning about where you go because you can get a lot that's quite generic which is your favorite city to eat in wow that's a i love chicago yeah chicago chicago well chicago is such a beautiful city anyway um yeah i mean you know if you want cities that give you a bit of a different flavor

i mean charleston is fabulous in south carolina where yeah it's the most beautiful city is that where you went is it beacon driving oh no that that was that was I think that was in North Carolina that was that was that was crazy that was where you know with good marketing this restaurant would have also had an undertaker's next door because the food mountains were so high of fries, of fried food. There was no fresh vegetable. And, you know, it was just a heart attack waiting to happen. And you could have just had, you know, the Undertaker's next door where this is where you would go to eat your last big meal.

OK, well, on to last supper. Starter, main, pudding and drink of choice. OK, OK, so... And would it involve any fries? Well, possibly, yeah. Starter, main, pudding and drink of choice. Okay, okay. And would it involve any fries? Well, possibly, actually. I mean, there used to be a restaurant chain when I was growing up called the Bernie Inn. And the classic was prawn cocktail, steak and chips and Black Forest Gato. Now, actually, as a basis for...

What's wrong with that? What's wrong with that? I think that's a pretty good last meal. I mean, you know, because i'm a bit more metropolitan i would probably have a ceviche to start with or something like that or oysters fresh oysters with a shallot vinaigrette uh we lived in paris for four years so i've got you know from having lived in paris uh when i was the bbc's paris correspondent i've got a bit of there's a bit of French food love there. If it's last meal,

I think I would stick with the steak, medium rare, and some fries and a very crisp green salad. And I'd probably have to have some lovely French or Italian cheese afterwards. And it would be washed down by a very good bottle of Bordeaux that would be, you know, if we're really talking money, no object.

I mean, you know, I'm going to have a lovely, either a very good Californian Cabernet Sauvignon. Or, and there are some fabulous, there are some fabulous wines to be had here. Again, expensive. Or, you know, a lovely bottle of bordeaux a lovely bottle of pomerol or something like that that would be just heaven i want to ask when you are all at home as a family which may be quite a rarity now that your son's in australia who's cooking the meal and what is your family's kind of traditional dish that will just always be asked for okay so who's cooking the meal um linda is cooking the meal my wife will be cooking the meal she's got

hands up there although anna our daughter will get involved as well because she will say... How old's Anna? She's 28. And there's a big Ottolenghi influence in the house. And so there's all these crazy ingredients that, you know, go into make one of his dishes. I think actually, if we were just talking about the standard fare of what feels like coming home, it would be a roast chicken and roast potatoes and lovely fresh vegetables and you know some kind of some sort of delicious dessert afterwards that would be coming home uh food and that's very comforting but i mean you know when there's time it gets more exotic than that where did you grow up john it's a good question. I grew up, my parents were social workers in the East End of London.

So I grew up, the first 11 years of my life were in Stepney. And that was at a time when Stepney was a place you tried to escape from rather than, oh, my God, it's so cool to live in Shoreditch. How could Shoreditch ever be cool? But, you know, then it wasn't. it'd be cool but it you know then it wasn't and um and so they ran this jewish youth center that was set up um at the time of the first world war when there was the influx of jewish immigrants escaping the pogroms uh from eastern europe and um and my my mother had been to the LSE and then went to work as this community worker in the East End, which is where she met my dad. And they ran this place together. And it was really interesting because it was very ideological.

It was about taking the Jewish community from Eastern Europe. Sephardic Jews who had been in the UK for a long time and were terribly fearful that the influx of all these Ashkenazi Jews was going to upset everything and that what you needed to do was to provide these people with an education and teach them to be good English men and women and the and the youth club was called the Oxford and St George's Club now what could what could be more quintessentially English than Oxford and St George's and so so on the one hand I was grew up in this Jewish youth club where obviously all the food you were eating was kosher my mother had an extraordinary background in that she was my grandmother was a Russian Jew had come over and they were in northeast england there was then some scandal and my mother was born out of wedlock and the

the scandal was such that they had to move and so my mother was brought up on a farm in east anglia in this protestant community how weird so on the on the one hand my upbringing was sort of salt beef and latkes and smoked salmon sandwiches but my mum would also make steak and kidney pudding and suet pudding and all the quintessentially english dishes and a lot of bacon and pork as well so it was a kind of very mixed upbringing that I had, that it wasn't one thing or the other. So I spent the first 11 years of my life living in this community centre. So I grew up, you know, where there was a five-a-side football pitch on the roof. There was a ballet rink. There was a gymnasium. There was a squash court.

And it was, you know, in this area of Stepney. And so that's where I spent the first 11 years of my life. And then I moved to North Finchley, well, West Finchley, in North London. Did you have a bar mitzvah? Yeah. Who did the catering? That's a good question.

I had a bar mitzvah. And at the settlement, the building in Stepney, where I grew up, there was a synagogue in the basement. So I had my bar mitzvah there, but the reception was at the Conservative Club in North Finchley, and it was a lunchtime event, and it was going to be, you know, my mum had insisted that it was going to be fresh salmon, and boiled potatoes, and asparagus, and fresh strawberries, and it was, you know, it was a nice summer day uh all my school friends thought that were just going to be appalling so my mum saved up all her luncheon vouchers she was now the director of a charity in victoria um funnily enough a church of england charity

and my mother gave all my friends luncheon vouchers so they all went off to the wimpy bar to buy themselves to buy themselves a wimpy and chips and then came back to eat their wimpy and chips at my bar mitzvah. Did you have a wimpy and chips or did you get salmon? I wasn't bloody well allowed. I had to have this poached salmon. Whenever I say we talk about having a party, actually, my son always says, not poached salmon, quite right exactly exactly it's not party food where where will be the first place when you touch down in old blighty and restaurants are open where's the first restaurant you're going to go with linda oh god um i think somewhere noisy i feel a need to have i I mean, just an atmosphere.

There's an Italian restaurant and it's been there for years and it's become quite well known now. But Ciccone's in Burlington Gardens, which just looks so wonderfully Italian. And it's got the white and black checkered marble floor and the crostini and everything about it is so delicious and i can just that the thought of having an agroni and some lovely italian food with a bustling atmosphere and the waiters in their white jackets coming around seems pretty fabulous alternatively it's going to be going up to the holly bush pub in hamstead which is i think i first went to it when i was about 15 years old or 16 years old which is when i was when we were hanging out that's where we used to go and it's still a wonderful old boozer and just having sort

of you know a pint of prawns or something like that and a pint of beer would just seem like absolute total heaven and those are the bits of course that i miss about being in the uk you can't get decent bacon in america and you can't get a sausage roll and frankly i you know again this is what i told you this is my mixed upbringing that good jewish kosher boy yeah i'm a nice jewish but all i want is a bacon sandwich with some hp sauce that would be my idea of heaven and you can't get that sort of stuff in here do you bring your own tea bags over yes they're so bad in america tea bags yes marmite yes yes um branston pickle branston

pickle so i could i could open the fridge door now and you would see the branston pickle and you would see that you know so the the key bits of britain actually you can get most of it now here you can you know there are shops that are international because washington is such an international kind of city that most of the big supermarkets will have a little english section where you can buy uh some yorkshire tea and you can buy the smallest pot of marmite you've ever seen and you can buy a bit of Branston Pickle. I remember I put out a kind of search for Marmite when I was on tour somewhere in the States and then for the future dates, everyone brought me

and they were always the minute little Marmites, which kind of worked because then we'd get through one and then we'd get to the next gig and somebody would have given me one. It was very kind. But yeah, you can kind of find them, but they are always tiny. Yeah. But I wanted to know, have either of your children wanted to go into journalism or have they stayed the hell

away? Well, neither of them are a million miles away from it. So my son's working in a TV production company in Sydney and my daughter's working for TikTok oh wow are you on TikTok John yeah yes ish well no I haven't done it I've never done a TikTok you do do TikTok no I thought I was too old but um but I'm loving this that you are so my daughter's so I've got

I've got to say that I adore my daughter to bits but she's kind of you know she's seen me I've had this career for 30 years and you say, I'm interviewing the president. And she goes, oh, that's nice. And I said, yeah, I'm flying on Air Force One. And she goes, oh, that's good. And I said, you know, yeah. And I'm going to be the lead on the 10 o'clock news. She said, oh, good. And I said, yeah, and I'm doing a podcast table manners. She said, you're shitting me. No way. No way. Oh, my God, that is sick. No way.

No way. Oh, my God. That is sick. So all her girlfriends from when she was, they're called Fosh. They just love your podcast. That is really sweet. So for the first time in ages. You've impressed her.

I've impressed her. Well, you're very welcome. It's been years I've been waiting. You're very welcome. Now, John, do you have good table manners? Yes. Yes, I do. Now, John, do you have good table manners? Yes. Yes, I do. I'm nicely brought up. Would Linda agree with that?

No. She'd say that, okay, so again, my mum, you know, you could not put a milk bottle on the table. It had to be in a jug. Butter had to be in a butter dish. And food had to be in a jug. Butter had to be in a butter dish. Food had to be beautifully presented. Yes, I'm very polite and very well brought up and I know which knives and forks to use and all the rest of it. And if I was at a posh dinner, which occasionally I have to attend because with the job, I'm fine about those.

But if I see a little the first sign of a knife and fork being put together suggesting that someone else is finished and I see that there may be a little bit of, you know, meat left over or a little few fries on someone else's plate. I always think that food off other people's plates contains no calories. So I think you're exactly so. We know that. So you're able to take food from other people's plates and it doesn't cost you anything. See that. Now, some might say that is bad manners. I think I'm helping. I'm presuming you're not doing this with Joe Biden's plate.

So it's all right. No, it's at home. No, it's at home. It would not be, you know, but I don't I don't mind if we're in a restaurant or, you know, oh, I fancy a bit of yours and swapping plates. I think that's all right. I don't know whether that's's all right just the same person but I wonder whether this is a journalist thing because my dad is exactly the same my dad will be more interested in my plate he's greedy yeah no we're both greedy yeah but also it's menu envy isn't it yeah so then order the whole menu and then you won't be jealous

he orders everything oh do you you see now I should do that. You see, I think that, I look at other people's food and I think, oh, why didn't I order that? Oh, that looks so good. Well, that's why you should always get the pancakes for the side and then you get a little starter of the granola thing

and then you get kind of your main like thing and then you just like, you just pick and you have lots of bits and bobs. When it's a big night like election night was, was that November the 3rd yeah yeah and you've got to step all night what what fuels the whole night do you do you keep on having takeaways or do you have sandwiches or is someone cooking for you no one is cooking for me uh election nights you just actually what gets you through is adrenaline and then you have too

much coffee and then you go all shaky and think, oh, my God, I can't. I'm, you know, I'm now my hands are shaking and my heart. You can feel your heart rate going up. But it's it's broadly the adrenaline that keeps you going. And, you know, normally there'll be a blueberry muffin that you will say, I'm not going to eat that. And then you find yourself nibbling at it. And then you have something savory and then you have something sweet and then you have some coffee and then you have a diet coke and then you keep broadcasting and before you know it it's you know six o'clock in the morning and you get two hours sleep because

then you've got to start cutting uh for the six o'clock news and the ten o'clock news and you know and you just keep going all the time that you have to and you're grazing i mean i'm just grazing on whatever is around a little bit of cheese a packet of crisps you know all that rubbish you like champagne though don't you no i hate it yeah okay i do look there's no there is no situation so bad that isn't made a little bit better by a nice glass of champagne absolutely and you know and oh my god there have been very very few occasions over the past year where there has been an excuse to drink champagne so when an excuse comes along like a grandchild last night we may have popped a cork of uh and had a lovely you

know bottle of champagne uh between us that had been waiting for the moment. So yeah, a nice glass of champagne. I do think it does make things feel somehow special. You don't drink it every night because then it would become commonplace. But I think every now and then, just to have a flute of champagne, there is nothing nicer. No, I agree.

John, it's been such a pleasure to chat to you and just hear the inside info and just your unprecedented is out now yes it's out yep and everyone can read about his experience and but also just yeah it's been a pleasure to watch you on the telly with such kind of energy and just you were so brilliant during well you're always brilliant but it's just it's always i don't know it feels like you're speaking i know you're impartial and it's bbc and everything but it's kind of yeah that everything about it is so brilliant it's always a pleasure to see you on the screens what's next for you now that you you are potentially going to leave dc yeah where will you

go next i want to ask one other thing because AmeriCast has been so brilliant your podcast will you you won't carry it on now or will you these are these are all big questions that you ask yeah and I don't want to be in any way a politician or evasive or well time will tell and I'm looking at whatever opportunities may come along and present themselves I don't I don't know the podcast has been a huge success that I do with Emilyily mateless and she and i have known each other for years and we have a laugh and a giggle together but hopefully deliver something that's you know a bit intelligent and accessible as well um there'll be something around that i'm sure i won't just give up being in front of a microphone altogether but i honestly you know what tops what i've been doing for the last four years of covering the Trump presidency?

Just as an amazing story, an amazing experience to cover. And so I've got to figure that out. But, you know, maybe it's time to come back to the UK, you know, be able to go to the Hollybush pub and a few nice places that I love. So I'm kind of trying to figure it out at the moment. Lastly, what is your karaoke song, John? And do you do karaoke? You know, funnily enough, when Max got married, the lads took me out on the stag night and I had to do karaoke.

And I think I did Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen. Oh, very good. I love, I love, I love Springstesteen and i've seen him play a variety you know kind of all over the place uh when we lived in paris when i was in london here in the us and so um it would be me doing an appalling attempt to you know high energy asbury park new jersey sound of uh of bruce um you know with steve Van Zandt on guitar and all the rest of it. Yeah, I think that sounds pretty great in rock and roll. John Topol, it's been such a pleasure to chat to you.

Thank you very much. Muzzle Toff on the birth of your granddaughter. I hope you have a lovely dinner in the greenhouse tonight on the road. I mean, it all sounds quite peculiar, but I love it. Yes, please do and congratulations with your book thank you very much indeed

it's been lovely talking to you John Sokol. Oh my God, I loved him. Could have just kept talking. He's so brilliant. So interesting. You want him at a dinner party, don't you?

Would have loved to have had him over for dinners. I didn't even get half my questions in about the banker. Mum wrote questions today. Such a fascinating man. Could have spoken to him about every port he's been in and just loved chatting to him and loved the idea of a really nice man yeah really yeah really kind of genuine and lovely so i want to be going out for dinner tonight with him and linda go in a glass house wouldn't you yeah i'd go in a bloody shed. Honestly, I would as well. I'd go in anything. Yeah, I'd go anywhere.

Anyway, John Sopel, the book Unprecedented is out now. AmeriCast is out. Go and listen to it. Go and read the book. He's fascinating. He's brilliant. That was such a pleasure to chat to him. Thank you for listening.

I hope you're all okay. And we'll see you next week. Mum, do you want to say bye to your fans? Oh, bye, fans. all okay and we'll see you next week mum do you want to say bye to your fans bye fans thank you for listening the music you've heard on table manners is by peter duffy and pete fraser table manners is produced by alice williams