Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Kate Thornton (Part Two)

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

We are back on Clapham Common for the second part of our walk with the wonderful Kate Thornton. Kate tells us all about how her career shifted from print journalism on TV, how she feels about her time as the first host of The X Factor, and the value she places on her female friendships. If you haven’t heard part one of our chat yet - you can listen to it here. White Wine Question Time with Kate Thornton is a Stak production, available wherever you get your podcasts.Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Really hope you enjoy part two of Walking the Dog with the wonderful Kate Thornton. Do remember to listen to Part One if you haven't already and we'd love it if you subscribe to Walking the Dog. Here's Kate and Ray Ray. When you were at Smash Hits, when you're editor of Smash Hits, it was during that period that you, I guess, sort of realised I feel that one of your skills or unique selling points is you're very warm and engaging and people like you. And that likeability is sort of a currency, you know. Oh, thanks. My move into telly was not anything that I instigated. And I went and to telly to become a producer,

not to become a presenter. But presenting was the gateway that was kind of put before me by a really lovely smart woman who'd contacted me. When I was at Smash Hits, my job there, obviously was editor. But I was really trying to turn around some very, very declining sales, you know. So my daughter was to be the face of the brand as well as in charge of the brand. And you were also doing things like you would have, the spice girls would come into your office and sing for you.

All of that stuff was brilliant. But I also had to go out and do things like Talk to News at 10, become a commentator around popular culture to push the awareness of the magazine so that advertisers saw us. And it was about the business of the business. which was a lot to get my head around at that age. But with that came a little bit of attention, I suppose, from other producers. I suppose I was new and shiny. It's like, oh, who's the new 21-year-old over at Smash Hits that is in the trade press, like the press gazette had written about me?

And, you know, I suppose I was a bit of a one to watch at that time, maybe. And then people started offering me TV shows, like loads of TV shows. I don't do telly, I don't do telly. I'm an editor, how dare you? And then this one woman just wouldn't let it go. was Trish Powell. We didn't know each other. And she was just quite relentless and I really liked that in her. And I agreed to meet her for coffee. And she was working, we went and met a millbank at ITN and she was working for ITV and she was like, she went, look, I'm going to put this

to you as a business case. Magazines are dying. And I knew that, right? Prince dying. I knew that. If you want to be part of the future, well, that's where she got me because the foamer is terrible. If I think I'm missing out on something, I'm furious, which is why, you know, I've been doing podcasting for five years before anybody else got into it. It was like, I want to be the first. I'm going to be it first. I want to be a digital person. You know, I need to, I need to try all the new stuff. So anyway, so she said, I'm telling you now, digital TV's about to launch, right? So at the time, we only had five channels, right? And she was like, it's coming, it's coming fast. If you don't want to miss out and being part of the future, you need to get

on board now and she was doing this new lunchtime current affairs show for ITV and I said I don't want to be on telly but I'd like to produce you but you have to be on screen but you can also produce we'll teach you everything and basically the show was called straight up and they were looking for four new faces to bring to ITV on a Sunday lunchtime nobody watched it it was up against the East Ender's omnibus when that was a thing and we had to go in and generate our own story every week shoot the film cut the film book a guest off the back of it and present the show live from the studio. So it was a crash course in telly. And she went, at the end of this summer, you do 13 weeks of this.

You all know whether or not you want to be a TV producer. And that's the opportunity I'm putting before you. And I was like, pretty compelling. I'll do it. So I went in purely thinking that at the end of this, I would run a, you know, I would walk away and go and run a newsroom in a television outlet of ITV news. I don't know. I don't know where I thought it might lead. But I just felt I had to be part of the future. So the next thing I know, you know, I've resigned from smash hits.

I signed up as well at the same time. A couple of things were kind of orbiting. So Jeremy Langmead, who's an amazing journalist at the Times, contacted me again because I think it was, oh, she's the new shiny thing, and said, do you want to come and work for the Sunday Times? I was like, fuck yes. Like, I can't even spell, but yes. I was so excited to go and work for one of the best newspapers on the planet.

And Mary Claire magazine quickly followed, and they signed me up as a contributing editor. So I suddenly thought, oh, yeah, actually, I've got this nice portfolio of work now where I do a bit of telly. I do a lot of great print stuff. That's how I ended up stepping into telly. And then I went off and I made this current affairs show for the summer. And it was like me and Nick Knowles living in a Novotel in Southampton because he was one of the other presenters. That's a documentary I'd watch.

Right. I was in the next room to him listening to him twang his guitar all night singing extreme more than words over and over. True story. And I had a brilliant time. I loved live telly. I got the bug. We were on air. They kept us on air the day Diana died.

That was something that turned my head in, like, to be part of something that was as seismic as that. And to be on air reporting it and to be part of that team, I just thought, yeah, telly's for me. So that's how I ended up in telly. And you, Kate, it has been said, are partly really. responsible some say for candle in the wind being associated with Dona. Well, I played it. Yes, I played it that day because it was all I had in my car that was sad and slow. Everything else was just rave tunes from Ibiza at that point in my life.

And the music library was shut because it was a Sunday. So yeah, yeah, we played it. I don't know if I was the first. People have said you were, though. People have said that, yeah. It just seems like a horrible thing to sort of like be all happy about. I don't think it's being happy, but I think what I would take from that is... An ability to read the mood.

Yeah. Obviously, a lot of people, I imagine, still recognise you from X Factor, because that was so huge that show. Yeah. I think what you've been doing, what I've been doing as long as I have, it just doesn't go away. Like, I've just been doing it for so long now. I was in a meeting a couple of years back,

and I was referred to in this meeting like I wasn't there, really. but it was very nice. They went, well, you're a heritage presenter. And I was like, what does that mean? And they went, well, just, you'll never not be known now. You've just been doing it that long. And I was like, right, okay. Thanks.

Like, all righty. But yeah, I mean, maybe that's just where I am. It's okay. I have been doing it forever. People feel like they've grown up with me, and that's so lovely. And they come over and they ask me how my son is and they know his name. and, you know, they ask how my brother's getting on with his firefighting,

and, you know, you just become a professional friend, I suppose. So, Kate, tell me what it felt like that process of being on the X factor, and presumably it's like sort of, it's a big, steep learning curve doing a show like that, is it? Well, yes, no, but I'd had a running at it on Pop Idol, so I'd already done two years of Pop Idol, and I'd literally, you know, I'd been doing the ITV2 show and then got promoted up to the ITV1 show for X Factor. But I've been watching the masters at work, Anton DEC. I mean, like, as an apprenticeship.

But equally, like, Antoneck and I all knew each other from my smash hits days. And actually, I'd worked really closely with them. This sounds awful, at killing off PJ and Duncan and rebirthing Antoneck. And we did that in a photo shoot with Rankin. And we created the cult of Antoneck. and you're laughing.

It's all true. I turned Dex hair ginger by mistake. It was meant to be blonde. Yeah. And then I put them on as the presenters of the Smash Hits Awards. It was their first live. So we did a lot of great work together in that time.

You all sort of grew up together in a way. We did. And we really got each other and we got each other's strengths and I love working with the boys and I loved learning from the boys. So I guess by the time I got to X Factor, there'd been no time to catch my breath.

Really, it was just like, get on with it. And enjoy it, which I did. I did. Did you? Yeah, I did. I enjoyed the on-air. I enjoyed the contestants. I enjoyed working with so much of the wider team

that I'm still in touch with now, which is lovely. So, yeah, there were lots of good things that came from it. Come on, Ray. Yay. If you want me to carry you. I mean, he is trying to compete with grass that's almost as long as tall as him. Little Ray. It's like you're fighting your way through bamboo, isn't it?

You've said since, Kate, and I respected you for being honest about this, because people so rarely are, whenever they leave shows, they say, we're going on to pursue new opportunities. I'm spending more time with my family. And what I loved is that you said after you left the X-Factor, you said, I was really gutted. Well, I would like to have been able to spin a yarn to say that. I was going off to do other things,

but they didn't give me that. They wanted the headlines. They wanted the big story of a sacking, and they got it. So then, you know, if you put that out there and you throw somebody under that kind of bus, then you have to live with the snapback. So did they just, did you just get a call saying, that's it? Because it happens in this job, isn't it?

Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And listen, it does happen in this job, and it happens time and time again. And a lot of the time it happens, and people just don't know about it

because it's not as public. or as big a show, but it happens. And you just have, you know, I am not the first person to be fired. It certainly wasn't the last time either. And I think we have to try to take some of the shame away from it. It's not a failing. You know, nobody, I know what happened on the lead up to that. I know possibly why I was, that decision was made.

And I'm very proud of how I represented myself in the run up to that decision being made. I won't go into the ins and outs of it because it's old news now. But fundamentally, I don't feel like, you know, doesn't feel like a failing in my life at all. And I had a great time working on the show for the time that I did. And it is, I mean, it's just so old, no, it's 20 years. And you said at the time there, but I did think it was interesting looking back how you said,

you'd been told to lose weight. Yeah. By, which just my jaw hit the floor. Yeah, yeah. It was a size eight at the time. Yeah. That was a television executive. Yes.

And what did they say? They just said... They offered me and all expenses paid to a retreat where I could go and lose weight and possibly get my freckles bleached because they were quite annoying on camera. I told them to go and fuck themselves.

Yeah. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I'm a recovered anorexic. You wouldn't tell an alcoholic to go and have a drink so they're more fun with a pint inside them. You know, it's the same. And it's wrong.

When I say I'm proud of the way I represented myself, that's why I'm proud of myself. And it alienated me and it made me an easy target, but it also made me, with my shoulders back, somebody I could look in the eye and be proud of. And that was more important. And the size of my brain and the ability to drive a live show is always what I wanted to be measured by in those circumstances,

not the circumference of my waist. And, you know, I measure the world differently to people like that person. And that person has daughters. Shame on them. Shame on them. You went on to work on loose women and you're so brilliant on that, Kay. I love that show. And you've subsequently, you've carved out this brilliant, as you say, it's a portfolio career.

But also, don't forget, I'm a single mum. that informs so many of my decisions over the last 15 years. Right. Is can I make it work with Ben? When I get offered a job, I never go like, oh, what is it? How much is it? I go, where is it? What are the hours?

Oh, then what is it? Like, you know, he has been first and foremost in all of my thinking. So that's why I've had a bit of a portfolio career. And also, I think that's the future. You've always struck me as a real grafter, and I think that's from your parents that I can remember must have been shortly after might have even been after you left to X-Factor

I can't remember when it was but I remember seeing your name it was at the point when you were a big big, big household name TV star I remember seeing your name in the Sunday Times you'd written an article and I remember looking at it

and I thought God I've got so much respect for that woman that you'd never lost your head you'd never thought I'm a TV star I'm not going to run and I thought good on her she's a real I'm a broadcaster

and I'm a gun for hire But listen, hey, hang on a sec, the Sunday Times. That's one of the greatest publications in the world. And they still want me to write for them, even though I'm dressed in a sparkly dress on a Saturday night going, you know, phone this number. So actually, that's my privilege and honour to still be in print where they take me seriously as a journalist

because that could have so easily been lost in all that kind of jazz hands and shiny floor. And it wasn't. my job to retain that and where I get to now is like you know sitting here is I I just feel really lucky I do do do a lot of things well I love them and I work really hard at them you do you do a brilliant podcast which I love thank you um which you've been doing five years you've been doing it a long time I know um it's so great Kate because as I say you're very natural with people You're very engaging and you get fantastic guests and it does feel like eavesdropping.

That's everything that I strive for is I want it to feel like you have pulled up a chair at the table or on the sofa. So the show's called White Wine Question Time and every week and it's literally 52 weeks a year. I interview hopefully a really fascinating well-known guest and I ask them three thought-provoking questions over three glasses of wine. I've literally written my own dream ticket. I am, this is like I'm seeing out my years with the show that nobody would have commissioned from me, so I did it myself. And I'm so lucky that an audience follows it and grows with it and she tells their friends. And every year we get bigger and stronger and we get more and more kind of access to great guests. Like last week I just recorded with Tim Peek.

I mean like, Tim Peek! I had a right little fan girl moment over that. Is it that way? Yes, this way. Yes. And I've got Jane MacDonald coming on this Friday, which will just be... So what I've done is I've set up this WhatsApp group with all the girls from New Swam in and all the production team that worked with us during that time that we were all on the show together.

And honestly, this WhatsApp group has given me life. The whole show is just going to be me playing in these messages to Jane and getting her response to it. And it just reminds me as, you know, tapping into everything we've just discussed. God, I've been so lucky. I've worked on some brilliant projects with amazing people. and I feel like I've sort of kept the very best of them. I was 50 last year and I spent the whole year celebrating with all of these pockets of people that I've collected as my friends along the way.

Do you know what? Out of anyone I've ever talked to, I can honestly say this, I would not describe you as lucky. I would describe you as someone who completely makes your own luck, possibly more than anyone else other than that. I see you as someone who you make things happen for yourself. Try to. Try to. But also... No, you do. Oh, thank you. But I also very much try to keep my ladders down and take people with me.

And I think there is something to be said for that. But that's why you've lasted this long. Yeah. You know, last year I just felt like I reveled in this sort of bath of loveliness of like just... I spent the best of times with the best of people that were from all pockets of my life from school onwards. And it was like a world tour in my head of all those... brilliant people and the projects that we were associated with. I just had the best time. And tell me Kate, with White Wine Question Time, who are some of the guests that you've had where you've sort of finished the chat thinking, God, I've really learnt from that?

Oh my God, so many. I mean, I've got over 300 episodes in the back catalogue now. And what's lovely now is that people might come in and find the podcast because they go, oh, Tim Peek, or we had Princess Eugenie. People were so interested in her. And then what you do is, as you'll know, with this podcast, is you can track how long they listen for, who else they listen to. And what tend to find is that people come in and then they stay with us for months because they can just kind of gorge on this all-you-can-eat buffet of that catalogue, which is great. And the shows are pretty timeless. So many of my guests have taught me so much. But also you have these moments and these opportunities, I suppose, like, so usually he was great.

And, I mean, I really loved showing her. to the world. We didn't know each other. And I'd, you know, one of the things I said to her is, you know, can we just spool through your Instagram? Because she posts her own pictures, right? And she writes her own captions. And can you just, can I just drill into the moments

that you've chosen to share with the world? Because I thought that was fair, right? She opted to put these pictures up herself so maybe we can get into some of the stories behind them. And she was amazing. And I thought it was a brilliant window into her world. And then we talked about the female line that she's from. all of these infamitable women

that form the spine of her history. So she was great. Tim Peep was just awesome. Who else have I had on night? There was a lovely moment when a mate of mine was just on the precipice of just becoming huge. And she'd been working away for years, West End, dazzling,

and a triple threat, right? This is a woman that can sing, make you laugh, make you cry, she can dance. And then suddenly she gets cast. in one of those, it's just a show that just suddenly she's a global superstar now, Hannah Waddingham. So to be able to tell her story. And she, so the Hans.

So you've known her before. So Hannah and I met, Tams in Outweigh is a mate of mine. I'd asked me to go and do this charity thing one night where I had to volunteer as a waitress at the Ivy to raise money for the actors benevolent fund. So I was like, yeah, sure. So I went along dressed as a waitress. I used to be a waitress. I loved being a waitress. And Hannah was there.

And she came home She went, hi, I'm Tansin's friend She went, everyone all says I look like you, can we do a selfie together? And I was like, shit, we do look a bit like each other. Like, not, I mean, she's gorgeous, but we've got the small eyes and the big smile. Do you really?

Do you look like each other? And that's how we became friends, right? So then we kept in touch and we've met up and, yeah, so we became mates. And then when she got Ted, so obviously she's done things like Game of Thrones, which were really huge, but she was dressed as a nun saying shame. People couldn't see the gloriousness of her.

And then Ted Lassow came along and it was just that minute and that moment where it was just a privilege to sit down. So she came to my house in an Uber. We got tipsy. I cooked to curry. And we just downloaded her story. And it was just a beautiful thing as a mate to go like this.

Look at my amazing friend. Isn't she incredible? And you're all going to fall in love with her. And you have. And that's lovely. So that's a special show, I guess. Honestly, Kate, it's such a brilliant podcast, and I really recommend people listen to it because it is absolutely, as you say, it's one of those things you listen to one.

It's a bit Pringles. It's the Pringles of podcasting. Once you pop, you can't stop. Thank you. You just say, I want to hear another one. I mean, I spend at least a day researching each guest and then writing it. And then I'll sit and listen to the edits a couple of times before they get signed off. Because I love it.

It's my baby. And also, if I went up to anybody writing, right? now and said can I talk at you for an hour or talk to you for an hour most people would say I'm really busy I've got a lot on I've got other things I'm sorry I haven't got time for you so when somebody elects to give you the luxury of their time the very least I can do is put something that is absolutely top-notch in their ear and you know and I apply that to the radio show as well at greatest tips it's like every time you open a mic have something to say or don't say anything I mean

You probably might not get that from listening to my shows. But this is your show on Greatest Tits Radio. I now have just moved to Saturday afternoons. So I'm live one or five every Saturday afternoon on Greatest Tits. And then on Sundays I do a really, I've just started a new, it's called UK Pop 40. It's a proper old school chart countdown show. I'm so nervous. Where I have to say things like, you know what I mean to go, and inner number five.

And it's like the inner Bruno Brooks in me is literally wetting himself. I can't believe it. All those years that I spent pressing play and record making my own top 40 and cutting Bruno Brooks out, here I am. And Greatest Hits has been a bit of an episode

that I didn't see coming in my career. I got called up to join the network by one of my old 90s comrades, Rick Blacksill, who used to run top of the pops. And he took me for a coffee and he was like, listen, you know, and we didn't have Ken Bruce then.

He was like, Mayo's here, Gambuccini's here, Mark Goodman. is here. Jenny Powell's here. Jackie Brambles is here. Why don't, why aren't you here? And I was like, oh, I never really thought about it. And I, you know, I was doing stuff on and off for years at Radio 2, kind of bride mays, all was the bridesmaid, you know? You're such a professional and I think that's your reputation. But you shouldn't always be the bride, you know, you can't. It's just not possible. I've been doing it 30 years now. But what I mean by, as I suppose I don't see you as

someone sulking if you don't get off of the bride's role. No, and listen, And everybody that I work in and around are friends, you know, pretty much. Like I'm always thrilled when somebody lands a job. Even if I've gone for it, you know, much rather it go to a mate than an asshole. You know, that's the way I look at it. But also I just don't think I've got that level of ambition that I once had. Do you think not? No, I'm far, I think at this stage in my life, I'm far more interested in being heard than seeing.

that's why I think I'm at and like you know I'm sure you're going to try and wrap this up by saying what do you think you'll do next fuck knows who knows what's lovely is what I suppose I've leaned into now I hate that expression I can't believe I said that

leaning into this it's just like see what happens yeah like because none of this stuff was planned the only plan I had was to come to London and be a journalist everything that's gone beyond that has been other people's decisions and I'm okay with that now

you know beyond the podcast, that's the only world I reside over where it's my way or the highway. Not that that's how I look at it, but do you know what I mean? I have control over. What do you think, Kate, there's a question I often ask people, which is what do you most hope people would say about you when you leave a room and what do you most fear they'd say about you? I'd hope they'd say that she was nice. That's it. And I would hate to say that, anyone to say that I wasn't. Yeah.

And I think, you know, I'm just coming out of, I hope, oh my God, I want to touch some wood. If every time I say this, I then fall into a hormonal nightmare. But I feel like I'm through the worst of my perimenopause. And for a long time, over the last two or three years, I really worried that I wasn't representing myself well. Why? Because I had no control over my emotions, my anger, my sadness, my abilities to cope, my abilities to remember things. I just lost me. So I think I spent a lot of time really worrying

about what people would say when I left the room because I didn't like who I was, so why would I expect anybody else to? Do you know what? The thing is, all those things that you've said, they've always been defining characteristics of mine. So that's why perimenopause didn't worry me. So this is just how I am all the time.

I'm always crying, can't regulate my emotions, lose things, forget things. People say, isn't it awful? perimenopause and I'm like welcome to me. Are you quite a I think you're very quite an organised, controlled person. I think one of the words I would use

to describe myself is very capable and I became incapable and I lost myself horribly and at the moment I'm on a really good run where I felt like me for at least six months and I don't... What's that? That looks like Noss, is it?

What's Noss? That's Noss. That's what the young people have. Nitrous oxide. Is this like chemsex that I don't know about? Jesus, man. There's a whole world going on that I don't know about. I thought of you was quite a rock and roll. I did, but I don't know. What's that called Noss?

NOS is the nitrous oxide. Listen, I loved Ibiza, but I'm a control freak. So you didn't take drugs? It's not my bag. It's not like to go out and lose my head is my idea of hell. Because I'm quite a controlled person. Are you? Yeah, probably.

Are you quite, very neat and tidy? Yeah. Are you? Yeah. Yeah. To the point where it can be. Oh, it's hugely irritating. Yeah, massively.

Like, colour-coordinated wardrobe, all that shit. But I'm okay with all of that now. And I'm okay with, you know, and I've learnt to be very forgiving of the last few years. So, like, if you are listening to this and you met me over the last three years, if you were the traffic warden that I shouted at for no good fucking reason just because you were just doing your job in Brexit in two years ago. I still lose sleep over it. You know, that's where I'm, you know, I've had a rough couple of years and I talk about it because I think we should.

But I'm certainly not sat there going, I'm the only person to have ever been through this. And I also think it's really nice for other people to hear that it passes. I'm not saying it's passed, but at the moment I'm having a good run. And I'm just grateful for that. Kate, are you a very direct person? Yes, but highly sensitive. That's a contradiction, isn't it?

So, yeah, very highly sensitive but very direct and blunt, which is, you know, quite toxic traits. Hashtag stay toxic. I also think I have learned to laugh at myself now, which probably helps. Yeah, yeah, I am. And so with the directness, so you don't have a problem, for example, saying to someone, say you've got to prop, you're upset with a friend or they've hurt you or, you know, I'm the one that gets sent in to do those jobs, like in our group. I'm the one that's like, if there's an intervention, I have to be the one, yeah.

So if you have to say, listen, I'm going to have to tell you something. So-and-so's really upset with you. Do you not get the fear of you? Oh, God, yeah. But you still have to do it. Like, friendships are not built on just good times. Like, life is, all the important stuff that you learn in life comes out of the awkwardness, the difficulties, the uncomfortableness.

It's like goes right back to, you know, lying on the... floor looking at that girl's ankles right that wasn't comfortable but it made me into a resilient person so I extract the value from that and it's the same with those moments and that's what real friendship is it's not just about being there for the glory moments it's about being there for the difficult conversations my most successful relationships have been with my friends in frat last night one of my girlfriends Chiara she set up this WhatsApp group and she's just watched she just got to the end

of friends with her son who's like 10, 11, cash. And she just put a group together and she went, 30 years we've all been friends, girls. We've been through everything that they've watched in friends. And we have, right? How lucky are we to have one another? And that message group just pinged all night and all morning and even on the way here.

And it just felt like the best hug. And we put so much importance against, romantic relationships, childhood, you know, childhood torment that we talked about today. We touch on all of these other things that are either extremely high or extremely high, but we forget about this beautiful middle ground,

which for me has been friendship, predominantly female friendship, not to the exclusion of men, but my girls are like, they're my muscles, they've kept me strong. And we will all grow old together in a retirement home called Pancé de la Casas, which is named after our favourite Margarita.

And we will laugh and hold hands and see each other out of this world, just as we've sort of held each other's hands across this life. And I think that's, you know, they are some of the most extraordinary relationships I've ever had. I'm proud of them. Oh, Kate, I think you're such a nice woman. Oh, thanks. Would you hold Raymond? Raymond.

I didn't give you a compliment just because of all. That sounded so awful. Now hold my dog. I think you're such a nice woman. Would you hold you? Raim and Raleigh does a shit. You're very well loved by some pretty amazing women because I'm a bit obsessed by your friendship group.

Yeah, I mean, I'm obsessed by my friendship group. Because it's these women, like, Tam's and Althwaite's a good friend of yours, isn't she, in Myling Class, and the Athelton sisters. Emma Bunton. Emma Bunton. Mercy. But there's a squad of us, like Lisa Faulkner, Angela Griffin, Julie Graham. Like, they're just fucking brilliant women.

And there are a lesson on legs in any moment that you need them in life. You know, they'll be there for you on the dance floor. They'll be there for you next to you in your hospital bed when you've given birth prematurely and bring you a car seat. I mean, they've done all of those things for me and more. There are some of my greatest loves, yeah. We've so loved having you on this podcast. It's been absolutely, it's really giving me a lovely energy for the rest of the day.

And Kate, what do you think about Raymond? Can you tell us before you go? I think that when you go on holiday, I should look after him. That's what I think. Now that you like me, yeah, can I have the dog? Do you really like him? You wait, next episode of Walking the Dog. Hello, welcome to Walking the Dog with me, Kate Thornton. Emily is locked up in a basement where I've left her with Frank Skinner. I really hope you enjoyed that episode of Walking the Dog. We'd love it if you subscribe.

love it if you subscribed and do join us next time on walking the dog wherever you get your podcasts.