Begins with a T and rhymes with cat

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2:57Well, hello everybody. Now, the good news is that although we are very, very close to you in spirit, we're very close to you in mental capacity and we're very close to you in subject matter, we're not geographically close to you and you can't catch germs by listening to a podcast. But we do need to do a little bit of an explanation because things have been slightly bumpy over the last couple of days and I do apologise for that. So I got a bit of a bug, as we were discussing last week. It may have started from Jane Garvey's nostrils, but we will never be sure of that, Eve, really. Anyway, by the time I got to Wednesday, I'd absolutely had it last week.

3:40So I wasn't here on Thursday, which is why there wasn't any podcast on Thursday. There was never meant to be a podcast on Wednesday, but I still don't really understand why, Eve. Nor do I fear. It's best not overthinking it. Okay. So I don't need to apologise for that one. No. Okay. So nobody was here on Thursday. Thank you for bearing with us. You can always dip if you feel the need, especially if you're using us as a sleep aid. You can dip into our back catalogue. We've got an enormous back catalogue. We've got an enormous back catalogue. Based on the fact that we do four times as many podcasts a week as normal podcasters do.

4:20and you can also go back and listen to some stuff. Are we allowed to say from the other place? Go on. Yeah. So I think in the Fortunately back catalogue, there are some absolute belters, actually. So look, apologies for a disruption. Jane will be away for the whole of this week. She was away for last week and she is with her dad up in Liverpool. Alison is there with her. It is a time where the whole family needs to be with Ray at his bedside. so we do pass on all of your lovely wishes to her and Jane really loves doing this podcast as well so she is always unhappy not to be able to do it and just as soon as she can be back she will be back but as we said just before Christmas with her mum she is absolutely in the right place at the moment and it has been a belter of a year for their family so we are sending lots of love ourselves.

5:16Is that enough? that's enough that's enough that's enough that's enough yeah i know it's always really difficult and it's one of those things as well isn't it let's just be honest about this um in a podcast we reveal much more of ourselves than than we would in a normal job and that kind of is a plus point in many ways i think sometimes it's also a little bit difficult if i can be honest i think when huge family things emerge, you know, you may feel that you want to know a little bit more about it, but it's not my story to tell. So we'll wait for Jane to be back in situ before we talk about that a bit more.

5:54And I just hope that you'll bear with us. We've got the lovely Eve here today and Robbie is going to join us to do books. She's going to come bounding in in about 20 minutes. Yeah. So I think lots and lots of people across the country have got this bug at the moment. It is a coffee bug. It's very rife. It is very, very rife. It is really doing the rounds. You have my deepest sympathy if you do because it's just that incredibly irritating cough that won't go away. And I think most people have had to take to their beds for a couple of days too. It seems early in the season. Yes. But is that just because it's still so sunny outside, Eve?

6:34I do associate bugs spreading better when it's colder. Oh, do you? And I don't know why that is. Now, here we're going to reveal the fact. What's your highest science grade in the educational establishment that you went to? I think I might have scraped a B. In science. GCC. Oh, okay. So you're the age of science, double science, triple science. Yes, I had to do double science. Double science. Yes. Okay, right. But don't ask me anything about it because that was a long time ago. So my highest level is, obviously it's O levels back in the day, is a C in biology. Okay, so we're not in great scientific company.

7:14We're not. And I don't think that even our most loyal audience needs to hear two humanities graduates discuss the spread of germs. I just saw my vague theories. No, I know. Well, I mean, that can propel you across the internet these days. It can turn you into a Secretary of State for Health in America. Shall I share my vague theories and make millions? Yes, why don't you? Why don't you do that? Now, following on from your reveal about your nasty incident on the line by a man shouting at you, for which you've had a lot of sympathy, and rightly so, we've had some very thoughtful emails as well about where that conversation started, which was the partner of a woman who was on a plane, who was elbowed very harshly, out of nowhere, by a man sitting next to her.

8:06And this comes in from Tamsin. I want to say that even though she didn't do anything at that time the fact that her partner has written in about this is already a positive thing to do in getting this out there and forewarning others of the possibility it will cause all women listening to pause and think what they would do in that situation should it ever occur forewarned in this case can be forearmed when I was a child in the 80s travelling back and forth between boarding school in the UK and my parents home overseas I often travelled with my two brothers but without our parents. When I was about 12 years old, I was woken by the man next to me stroking my bare leg.

8:44I was in school uniform. Do you know what? That was one of the weirdest things about those flights, which we were quite often on too, but with my mum, we weren't unaccompanied minors. All of the kids would get on in school uniform and it was regarded as a kind of safer way to be able to keep an eye on them, but actually it was so strange and I think very inappropriate. print my younger brother who was six years old and had been awake the whole time said to me this man keeps saying he loves you we both knew this was really wrong but we're too young to really do anything about it as far as i remember nothing much was done but i think i must have stopped him by me moving or something or maybe my older brother swapped seats with me however about two years later i was on a plane and a dutch sea captain probably in his 40s started reading a pornographic novel next to me.

9:32I saw the book. I went to the galley. I told the air stewardess to move me. I said I was uncomfortable and she moved me next to an older woman and put a man in my previous seat. If the earlier incident aged 12 hadn't happened, I don't think I would have had the guts aged 14 to request action. So I would like to reassure your correspondence that even if nothing was done in her partner's case, a small mercy is that it can be discussed in a way that she and all of us listeners can be forearmed should it happen gratefully Tamsin Tamsin is such a good point so if we all just have a think about it think through what we do I think you're completely right it may help us if we find ourselves in that situation to not have an instinct that we're floundering to actually think okay this is what's going to happen it's such a good point but it's also such a sorry state of affairs that we already know that to almost be on this constant high alert you've already planned for it in your mind this awful thing that could happen so that when it does you are prepared to act accordingly it's just such a shame that it has to be that way it is you're absolutely right about that but i think it's um i think it's also true that for many people who are not fuelled by aggression and don't ever cross that line into violence, our reaction just has never been practised.

11:02And actually, did you ever do a self-defence class? They're so good because one of the things that they teach you is to break through that barrier. So you do all have a practice screaming. And actually, I think till I attended a self-defence class, I'd never moved at such speed in response to somebody else's physicality and I'd never really screamed out loud like that. And it does make you feel powerful. It's definitely within you. Because you're not really encouraged normally to do something like that. No, we're told to be very quiet and very biddable. Yep. And to move away from trouble, aren't we?

11:37That's how we're brought up actually as women, which is wrong. So I think this is superb advice sometimes for us all to just have a bit of a think through and just feel that inside you've got the capacity to be able to do something, whether or not you then can is a completely different matter. Don't blame yourself if you can't. Because I think exactly as you said, in the moment, it's so shocking, that fight or flight thing. That's what governs your reaction. But it would be nice to be prepared because it's awful to then have, which I think a lot of people will be familiar with, that feeling of regret and being like, I wish I'd said this and all the things you could have said and should have done.

12:15feeling bad yeah how empowering to walk away from that and be like i really gave it to him yeah i stuck it to the man absolutely i do find increasingly that if i'm protected by my car which is still the monte carl plow them down i don't do that no i don't do that but i do emit some absolutely terrible language and and especially a very arrogant young man there's a man who refused to move forward so you know i could pull into the turning behind him and i mean he had about six foot in front of him and he was there in his throbbing bmw and i said could you just move forward please and he said no no i said oh please because you know the traffic's backing up behind us now and we'll just get we'll both lanes will get stuck and and he said no i'm not moving forward because of safety and i just i lost it so i i did and and i did use i i would admit to this i did use a swear word you effing and blinding and then i used a word that began with t and rhymes with cat and he was so surprised that this little middle-aged woman sitting very very very close to the steering wheel with a great big ronnie corbett glasses you do sit very close He's staring at him.

13:39Emits such filth. And he moved forward. Good for you. Well, he was just being an arse, Eve, and it's just like, don't just stop being an arse. Anyway, right. So many deep breaths. It's only Monday. So many things about uniforms. We love a uniform, don't we? I've given you a couple. That's a very nice one. About uniforms throughout time. Yes. Could you do some of that? I'm going to drink some of my coffee. Very fragile. Oh gosh. This comes in from Raquel. I was inspired by your podcast question about who likes a uniform. My trademark is a self-imposed uniform. It's my costume, something I hide my insecurities behind.

14:21It quells my imposter syndrome by giving me a sense of identity. When I was at school, I was, quite frankly, a goody two shoes. A swat. I never broke a rule, except when it came to uniform. I felt such a rebel when I joined the other girls in my class in eschewing our grey A-line skirts and trading them in for mid-length pencil skirts. But my uniform allowed me to be one of them. For a brief moment, I wasn't the scholarship kid, the poor kid, or the kid who didn't have a dad. I was in the in crowd. Years later, I lived in Thailand and worked for a law firm where all the secretaries were given a uniform so no one could tell who came from a rich family and who came from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks.

15:04I thought that was a brilliant idea. Throughout my career, I've relished putting on a suit as I became a lawyer. Whenever I felt insecure about my career choice, my mother, who was an actress, told me to treat my clothes as a costume for the part I was playing. And so, me and my insecurity made it through a big city law firm and into a New York record company where Prada shoes and designer jeans were purchased. That became my next trademark. Seven or Citizens of Humanity jeans, a black and white t-shirt and flip-flops or for meetings, killer heels. Eventually, having followed the wrong man to Idaho, that's a whole different story, I ended up working at university where the school colours, as sported by the sports teams, fans and alumni, were blue and orange.

15:49And so began the next phase of my self-imposed uniform. I now work for another university where the colours are easier, black and gold, yellow. People know me as the lady who's always in school colours. Am I in security? My self-imposed uniform has become my trademark. my shtick what i'm known for behind it my insecurity still peeps out occasionally but somehow it feels a little more quelled and boy does it make shopping easier which frankly may be the greatest benefit of all i may have started wearing a uniform to hide my insecurities but now i wear one because quite simply it's part of who i am and i love it brilliant such a nice email it's the way uniforms kind of punctuated raquel's entire line also it's the way that uh that raquel has found herself not needing to wear a uniform but actually managing to create still liking it superb no i love that and i do i wonder lots of things about that a i think it's incredibly sensible uh b did anyone then follow suit and c does that mean that it's a kind of work clothing so when you get home you still change these are small questions do you have a home uniform well but lots of people do though don't they you know they have uh well like jay and i've often discussed she likes to go home and she slips into something more comfortable with the elasticated waist and has her tummy time and i like to even if i've had a soft trouser on during the day i like to wear a hard trouser in the evening yes which i don't you can't do no i don't like to do but what happens when raquel moves on from one phase into the next does she still have all her blue and orange clothes are the killer heels still at the back of the wardrobe somewhere does she wear those as her out of work clothes sometimes i think some clothes remind you of a period of your life that you don't want to be reminded of oh my goodness this is so true so perhaps they're best yeah being sent to the charity shop yeah no very much so very much so and uh i think for people who really didn't enjoy school i think sometimes just a uniform is problematic for the rest of their lives.

17:58This one comes in from someone who'd like to remain anonymous. Yeah, that's okay. So the reason why we're laughing is because I had read quite a lot of your, well, I'd started your email with your name and then I read you want to be anonymous. Have we gone back? Oh, it's very meta. Here we go. Our school uniform consisted of a suit and tie, a collared shirt of any colour you liked, and an Oxford Don style gown over the top. We have a very, very classy type of listener. Slight aside on the gown, you had the same one throughout your time. So what started as a floor-scraping cape-style arrangement for the prepubescent 13-year-old boys morphed into more of an oversized shawl for the strapping 18-year-olds.

18:38The gown was also multi-use, rain cover for your books, goalposts, general mop napkin handkerchief and probably only wash once a term if lucky. But there was one fellow student who always wore the same black suit, white shirt and black tie, day in, day out. when I arrived at university freed from the uniform in some unimaginative jeans and t-shirt the same boy arrived too wearing the same uniform black suit white shirt black tie now without the gown and the addition of a black trilby and sunglasses that's very blues brothers isn't it at university this look was out of the ordinary and he became recognizable around the campus never changing from this look it had been apparent through school that this uniform allowed this chap to hide some excess weight.

19:20But unbeknownst to us, over the next two years, a transformation was occurring under this uniform, and like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis at the beginning of the third year, our suited friend appeared. Skinny jeans, T-shirt, leather jacket. The uniform had worked and could now be shed. Our anonymous gentleman's book recommendation is Ready Player One, which has been made into a film, but the book was brilliant. Quite a few people have recommended that. It's about gaming, isn't it? Yes, it is. And actually, my boyfriend loves that film. Right. Your boyfriend's got good taste in books, has he?

19:54Yes. I think some people said that. There's a bit of a pause. But I can't verify that because I haven't read the books that he's read. Oh, I see. Okay. Well, look, we bow to the greater wisdom of the crowd. Yes. And they said he had very good taste. Do you know what? I'm so off-put by gaming. I just can't think that I'd enjoy a book about gaming. Did you ever read... Well, I used to think that. And then did you ever read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow? No, I've actually got it in a pile by my bed, though. That is about gaming and in a way that you pick it up and you think, really? And then it was absolutely my top book of the year I read it.

20:25Really? It was amazing. I loved it. I'd recommend it really. Do you need to understand gaming to get the book? Not at all, but it gave me an understanding and a respect for it. But it isn't so much about gaming. That's just kind of there in the background. Okay. Well, we've got a huge pile, haven't we, of recommendations for all of these books. and actually we seem to have struck something of a nerve with that category. We're looking for a book that's being read or has been read and really enjoyed by young men. So I can't wait to choose one, actually. I think it's going to be really interesting.

20:57And we could ask Robbie Millen as well, who should be here imminently. We should, we should and we could and we will, in fact.

21:07Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most advanced heart rate sensing in an Apple Watch. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, could tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. For general wellness purposes only, not intended for clinical use or to detect, diagnose, monitor, or treat medical conditions, requires iPhone 11 or later. If you felt stuck trying to lose weight, you're not alone.

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23:50While we wait for Robbie to arrive and prepare ourselves, and usually even I have to do some deep breathing and lying down on the floor, this one comes in from Anna Walker, who says, I realise I'm about a week behind, but I felt I had to share three topics following on from your trip to Chatsworth. When I was ten, I went to Chatsworth House on a school trip from Sheffield. As it was a very hot day, we found the tour of the house boring. Four of us ended up in the fountain in our knickers, much to the horror of our teacher who witnessed it from the top floor corridor window. In at number two, I used to be an ambassador for the Prince's Trust and was therefore invited to a dinner at Highgrove House.

24:28when introduced to the then Prince Charles as being from Yorkshire he related a story about a trip there putting on a passable Yorkshire accent he said he overheard a mother asking her son if he wanted to meet the prince or have a baked potato the son opted for the potato what really tickled me, this is number three about the trip to Highgrove were the dinner guests dressed in black tie in the gift shop beforehand literally everybody brought something so I rubbed shoulders with Phil Collins and Joan Armatrading as we queued up to buy our souvenirs. Everything's from pickles to the placemats that we still use 25 years later with images of paintings by the now King Charles C.

25:08Attach photo. However, don't remember there being a room spray back in the day. Those are fantastic memories. I wonder what Phil Collins and Joan Armatrading bought. That's a fever dream, that, isn't it? Phil Collins and Joan Armatrading in the gift shop at Chatsworth. That's just, no, Highgrove. Gosh, it's really, yeah. It's seen everyone. Yeah. But also, can I say, I think that's just a little bit on the make. So you have a dinner at Highgrove, but you keep the gift shop open for the guests to have a bit of a peruse before they're there. I sort of love that. No, he's got a lot of money. Yeah, that's true.

25:47He's got a lot of money. And gift shops are not cheap. Well, someone's got to be manning the till, haven't they? His paintings are very lovely, actually. Those are very old, if I may say so, Anna. My mum's got all of these things. They're very old-fashioned dinner settings, aren't they? Very thick and rigid, those ones. You've got your big placemats, and then you've got your glass coasters, and they all match. And I don't know anybody in my generation who's putting those out on the table. Now, no condemnation if you are, but it was such a blast from the past to see something like that. Oh, Robbie's at the door.

26:29Gosh. Oh, hello. Hello, Robbie. Hello. We are just discussing thick, posh placemats. Oh! He's at home instantly. Do you have those? Do you recognise those? Do you know what? This brings me back to my childhood. They're a bit of a waste of time, aren't they? Well, we were just saying, I'll be very careful, we'll be one of our listeners. Oh, they're beautiful, you know. And because she bought them at Highgrove. Oh, they're organic as well. Yep, she was at a dinner there. Have you ever been to Highgrove for dinner? No, I haven't. Have you been to any Royal Palace for dinner? I haven't, no. I'm a bit of a loser, aren't I?

27:12No, it just means your best years are ahead of you. these reminded me of my mum she keeps these she keeps these in the sideboard for specials it's a little bit old fashioned nothing wrong with being a bit old fashioned yeah a little bit yeah I mean they would be comforting they'd have felt backing wouldn't they oh yes exactly which would slowly rub off yeah we should do this email oh yes we should do this email now Robbie have you had the cold not yet but it looks like I'm about to get it thank you I'm looking forward to it do you have a big week coming up yes I do Jane gave it to Eve. Eve gave it to Hannah.

27:47Hannah gave it to me. I'm giving it to you. That's great, because I'm going to be at Charlton Literature Festival. Tickets still available. Lovely. Talking on stage. Super spreader. Yeah, fun times. Right, hang on. I've got it. Oh, gosh. No, I am officially better. Really? I am. That's why I'm here. Why are you sweating like that? I am a bit hot, actually. Do you know what? I'm going to take my scarf off. Our house, my daughter's had this too. She's had it much worse than me, actually. and we basically, we coughed ourselves into the neighbouring borough over the weekend to the point at which my lovely neighbour, who's in her mid-80s, and she would say of herself that her hearing is going, she popped by to see if we were all right.

28:28Oh my goodness. It just sounded like, you know, we had consumption. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, yeah. She's not in her infectious stage anymore, Robbie. Yeah, anyway. You're a very fit and healthy man. I doubt it. I'm going to have to wipe you down in a moment to make sure there's no spittle sprays and things like that over you, which could be infectious. Yes, it used to be what I came to work for, but I put those days behind me, Robbie. The Night Babs is the email heading. Have you read Matthew Sweet's amazing biography? Oh, yes. I'm interviewing him on stage at Chalotnum on Saturday. It's coming Saturday, 8.30.

29:06Ticket's available, I believe. So I interviewed him for this podcast. He's terrific, isn't he? Oh, my goodness. And the book is the best biography I have read, I think, in a decade. Definitely. It's superb, isn't it? And because I think Craig Brown in his review said, no biographer had this much fun writing about, say, Jane Austen. I love Jane Austen, but she's no Barbara Carlin in terms of private life and all the exciting things Barbara Carlin did. She's such a glorious, magnificent monster. She is a magnificent monster and she's just, she doesn't make sense, does she, as a person? There are so many contradictions in that life.

29:45Also, you show a picture to people under the age of, I say, 40, 45. They look at you blankly and slightly horrified. Why are you showing me this picture, this great pink thing? And they have no idea who she is and why she matters so much. But her book sales, apart from anything else, are just stupendous. 570 million. Yeah, I think only Shakespeare and Agatha Christie outsell her. Maybe God with the Bible, that's a good seller as well. But yeah, she's up there. Yeah. You know God didn't write the Bible. Did he not? We'll have a debate of that later. Okay. You can have a special on that. No, but if you go to a second-hand bookshop now, you can't find her.

30:28Because there used to be hundreds of mills and boonshells. You can't find them anymore, a second-hand bookshop, the Barbara Cartlands. She's disappeared down the memory home. Memory hole, sorry. Why is that? Is that just because in one generation she's gone so out of fashion people just throw the books away? I suppose so. I mean, they were always quite cheaply produced, weren't they? Which was perhaps why they sold so well. But, you know, they just disappeared. Yeah. I've never read one. Like placemats. Well, the placemats have kept. That's the thing. Oh, yes, but hidden away in a drawer. Yes, yeah.

30:58Have you read a Barbara Cartland novel? Well, I'm going to read, I think it's called A Virgin in Mayfair. just to get the feel of it. I think that's her ur-text, as literary types like to say. Her what? Ur-text. You are, you are. You know, the original, the kind of the essence of. Oh, OK. Matthew Sweet had read 270 of her books, hadn't he? That's what he said in the interview. Yes, I'm going to question him on this. Is there any authors that you've read that quantity of? No, because no one else is quite like her. It's true. This is industrial levels. I admire her just for that. Yeah. so it is an absolutely brilliant book I just couldn't recommend it strong agree I'm going to buy 10 copies at Christmas and that's just what everybody's getting slightly spoiling the surprise for everyone oh they don't care they'll just be grateful dear I'm buying them something Robbie this is in from Sam where we started Sam thank you for bearing with us I am the exception that proves the rule you don't send me to sleep which was such a treat last night I was able to listen to your interview with Matthew Sweet I'm so jealous that you got to meet Dame Barbara Fee what a legend I went to lunch at her house thought I'd share a photo of the 19 year old me attending a come as your idol party whilst at Royal Holloway getting the train from Egham to Staines dressed as Dame Barbara Cartland along with Arthur Dent Action Man, the Virgin Mary and Dame Kiri Takanoa that's rather lovely isn't it it's fantastic what a group That's just a party of its time.

32:33That's absolutely brilliant. It is, isn't it? It's the drag version, though, of Barbara Carlin. Well, I think she was quite easy to do as a drag artiste. It's sort of a geisha version of Barbara Carlin. She's definitely got a lot of powder going down. But it's quite wonderful. It's just the combination of all of those people I thought was fantastic. and I wasn't really expecting Dame Kiri to kind of wear at the end. 35 years later, I'm off for a weekend away with some of these same folks. Sadly, all dress more subtly, but the great dictator is on Audible ready to keep me company on the journey.

33:10Well, Sam, I hope you had a lovely time and how lovely that you've kept in touch actually with all of your university friends and I'm sure it was a great party. Right, Robbie. Don't look at me like that. I'm just worried. Don't be worried. fine uh because i don't want to do a heimlich or something like that i'm not very good with my hands all right can you just do some talking please yes please i can do that what books do you bring to our table this week robbie millen oh that that's a very good question um well shall we start with one which i found absolutely baffling in a good way i think it's on the book of shortlist so i'm trying to read my way through four down two to go and it's called m john it's not called that it's called the end of everything but m john harrison m john harrison is kind of um he's been he's quite always well into his 70s now and he's always been on the kind of the weird spectative fiction sci-fi side of things um and the book of judges this year are quite um an odd bunch you've got jarvis cocker popster uh and then patricia lockwood who's a poet quite zany so they've they've gone a bit weird in their tastes and this is by far the weirdest book on the shortlist um and it's very strange but i found it quite beguiling it's sort of set in a a sort of Britain in the sometime in the near future somewhere in Kent i think because a lot of time um the character the main characters are wandering around kind of amusement arcades and things like on the Kentish coast and it's essentially these people called the Igetti have arrived from outer space and um it caused uh great confusion civil wars and things like that but we never see the i get no one really knows what they are and the main character in this finds something on the beach apparently when the i getty came these things kept washing up on the beach artifacts items but they're sort of living things that grow and change shape um it's very strange it sounds awful well do you know what i i approached it with some trepidation um but found myself actually quite rather enjoying it and usually I like to know what's happening in a novel that's usually a precondition I'm fussy like that but this one I didn't mind just sort of letting the weirdness flow over me because there's some beautiful images for instance there's this scene where um lots of um dead people from the past dead men sort of start appearing in like a murmuration it's called the chapter's called the murmuration off the coast sort of flying around to things like that and you think i have no idea whether this is something um that one of the characters is seeing because they've gone a bit deluded or whether it's something that he wants to have it's very strange does it have a resolution well i wouldn't say because i put it down and thought well that was baffling and weird but in quite a good way i enjoyed it okay i could see why the judges went for it normally i i just i'm a very um i like things to be quite straightforward yeah so it's harsh of me to say that sounds awful it doesn't appeal to me for all of those reasons you just said oh dear it's spreading already so soon i mean i have to say i'm uh because it's quite a good short list um because we've got the elizabeth elizabeth strout yeah uh the things we never say and john of john by douglas stewart and they're both real kind of emotional books I mean, both of them had me crying because you're going on a sort of a journey with people and their feelings.

36:49I love feelings. Yeah, and stories. Stories, exactly. And then there's another one called Black Bag by Luke Kennard, which, again, very odd book about an out-of-work actor who, for a social science, he's hired by a university to appear in a social psychology experiment which involves him wearing a black bag, big, huge black leather bag, so you only see his feet. and he comes rather attached to the bag and really doesn't want to ever leave the bag. So I told you it's a weird list. It's very funny, though. Okay. If you want to read a novel about a man living in a black bag, because he's trying...

37:28That day will come. It's not here yet and it will come. And then it's an exploration of our British society, masculinity, probably all of those things. And it's got some great jokes in it. Yeah, well, that... So that's Black Bag by Luke Kennard. That sounds intriguing. If that's your bag. Can I just ask you, as a well-read man, so Jarvis Cocker's criticism of the books that came in before they narrowed them down was that he didn't think that the writing standard by the male authors was as good as by the female authors. He thought that men were writing rather mediocre, kind of self-absorbed stuff.

38:07And that picked up quite a lot of traction. Yes, he did. And we discussed that. But then by the time we get to the shortlist... It's mainly men, isn't it? It is mainly men. Four men to two women. What do you make of that? Judges are odd people, aren't they? It's very hard. I mean, this sounds like a cop-out. But there's so many books published each year. There's something like 100 ,000, 150 ,000 new titles published each year. And, OK, some of them might be reissues of classics or things like that. But nonetheless, so anything anyone says about what trends in the book world are usually wrong, unless they're really obvious big ones like romanticism.

38:45That is definitely a newish thing which has got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. But whether men are better than women, you know, this depends where you're looking. Yeah, but I suppose the inference slightly was that it's easier to put a man on a shortlist for a mixed gender prize than it is to put a woman on that list. And if the books that came in originally by men weren't very strong, how can it be that four of them are the strongest? Yeah, that's what I didn't quite understand about his criticism. It doesn't seem to stack up to me. Because to be honest, generally, there's always a push to make sure that there are more women voices or ethnic minority voices or whatever it is, or unused or non-traditional voices, whatever the particular phrase is.

39:33So I was slightly surprised in having said that and then ending up in the shortlist of four. Who would your money be on to it? Well, the one I haven't read is Marlon James' The Disappearers, but it's getting people terribly excited. The New York Times called it a masterpiece, which maybe got a bit overexcited. But even someone like Giles Corrin, who's read the, our esteemed colleague, he read the longest and the shortlist, thought he was really admiring of it. Although he thought because he's a previous winner, maybe not. So I'm not sure he's going to win. It's really intriguing, isn't it? Yes.

40:12Because actually there's just so much other stuff that's in a judge's room apart from the quality of the writing. Exactly. Yeah. And we know, you know this because you are a previous chair of judges for... The Bailey Gifford Prize. Thank you. Britain's leading non-fiction prize. Thank you. I only mentioned it a hundred times last year. I was so puffed up with my self-importance. No, we're keeping it going. I'm now Emeritus Chair of Judges of the Vale of Gifford. It's not an official title, but it feels right. It's a bit like the placenta. Yes. OK. I still matter. We'll plant you under a pear tree, and I'm sure it'll be very fertile.

40:53That's what some people do, isn't it? other people fries and eat it right let's move on uh what else what else on on your list Robbie now let me remember what I said to me oh yes I can't possibly remember what I said a few minutes ago oh I know yes there's a novel I really loved it called Dodge City by Patrick DeWitt yes this is your crib sheet here which I reviewed uh last week um but it's um it's a lovely road story um Set in America in the 60s, the main character called Lee Clark. He's a normal guy in the 60s. He's a student in a big American universe. He likes beer and he likes looking at car engines and he irons his own T-shirts.

41:37He's so square and normie. Not big into the whole hippie culture. But he's so annoyed by a condescending hippie fellow student. He punches him. And there is his downfall because he then has to, because he's no longer a student, his deferment from having the draft is over, the military draft. So he gets his call-up papers. So, I mean, there's one lesson here. Don't hit hippies. Yeah, that's a good lesson. I suspect that wasn't the whole point of the novel. But he then goes, he decides he doesn't want to obviously go to Vietnam. and why does he want to kill these people who also want to kill him?

42:18It seems mad to him. So he decides to go on a trip across America and find his way to Canada and he will say goodbye to his estranged family members along the way. And it's a real delight because, first of all, Patrick DeWitt's a very funny writer and it's full of warmth. Bits of his family, like all families, are kind of a bit messed up. but there's real bits of love in there and misunderstandings and it's a delightful wordplay and I'm not going to say what the ending is because that's really annoying but it skews towards happiness Lovely, it's a beautiful wordpressing We love skews towards happiness You might remember it, a novel called The Sisters Brothers which was turned into a movie about two hitmen in kind of gold rush America Oh, well, I remember you talking about that You bring us a non-fiction title as well.

43:13Oh, yes. This is Hotel Exile. Yes. So that's by a woman called Jane Rogoiska, a historian. And it's all about, roughly speaking, the Hotel Lutetia, which is now, I think, a Mandarin Oriental in Paris. Very posh. But it was a hotel which has got quite an interesting interwar and immediate post-war history. First of all, a lot of exiles from Germany ended up there. So the first section is all about these modern Jewish, obviously, communist German exiles sort of meeting there, trying to work out how to save themselves and save Germany from obviously Hitler on the rise. And then the second bit is during the war when the German army arrives and all of a sudden you've got lots of SS officers milling around there.

44:02But the most affecting bit, the last bit, because right at the end of the war, a lot of the people who survived in the death camps in Poland and the East were brought there. Most of them were either stateless or had originally been sort of French. And it's really affecting how they arrived. And immediately they were puffed with kind of DDT to kill the lice. because there was obviously a problem with typhus and things like that. So these traumatised people, all of a sudden they were told to strip and they were being puffed away at. And they even got terrified. They were little volunteers, schoolboys, with their kind of scout uniforms on.

44:44And they saw the scout uniforms and these terrified people, you know, absolutely nervous. People in military uniforms as far as they were concerned. And it's just this sort of sad story of these people arriving on buses and whatnot and people milling around it trying to get word of their relatives still out there. And it's, you know, the first two thirds I was kind of enjoying, but this last third I thought was so moving. Yeah. Well, also, what a great book to read at the moment. You know, all of that chaos is actually in our very recent history. Yeah. But we seem to have wanted to forget about it and we need it now.

45:21I think she'd obviously, Jane Rogois, had spoken to some people who'd worked there for, had been there, had accounts from people who used to work in the hotel for years afterwards because they would say occasionally they would get guests who would wander in in a very confused way, looking very emotional, and the hotel staff would have known, oh, we know exactly when you arrived. Wow. Well, those sound like three excellent choices, Robbie. I couldn't even remember what they were. I'll go through them just so our listeners can have a quick recap. We were talking about Hotel Exile by Jane Rogoiska.

45:56we were talking about Dodge City by Patrick DeWitt. And The End of Everything by M. John Harrison. For those who need a bit more bafflement in their lives. Very much so. I think the murmuration of dead men over the North Kent coast, it's an image I'm just going to have to put behind me, especially today, if that's right. Well, it's possible I misread it and it's mean something else. But I have to say, I did sort of weirdly enjoy it. Yeah, no, fair enough, fair enough. This has been a very weird broadcast anyway. Do you feel it has? Yes. Sorry, this sort of feels normal, the new normal, chaos. I may be over-medicated, that's for sure.

46:38Yes, your eyes have got a particularly dull quality to them. Today's not a day for a workplace urine test.

46:50Which day is, Robbie? Yes, I know, yes. That's got me pondering. teams yeah if you have a particular day which you think is good for your intestine write in do you know i've never worked at a place that's needed no i wouldn't like that i wouldn't like that either i would always pass actually i'm very really good goody two shoes oh i just mine would just be like cider do you want to just plug your appearances at the cheltenham literature festival again and then i'll plug mine oh okay that's a good idea so on friday i'm interviewing lionel shriver about her new novel she's great fun she's uh wow she is quite sharp tongue i did once ask her lionel shriver are you misanthropic and she said i'll let you into a secret just a little bit she said she's very entertaining and then matthew sweet on uh saturday night 8 30 i can only remember that time but on saturday morning yes i'm in a treble act with Laura Hackett and Susie Goldborough, my young women from the books team, who do most of the work, actually.

47:55We're talking about our books of the year, what we're looking forward to next year. And you can see us all, the three graces. That is brilliant. That'll be an amazing session. We love all three of your book recommendations. Really? Yeah, they broaden our minds. Do you not have a favourite, though? Yes, we do. Laura, isn't it? No, so that will actually, that might be worth going to. No, they all sound great, Robbie. Yes, there's something else as well. Oh, I'm doing wine time. I have no idea what this means at five o 'clock on Friday. With Will Lyons. That's right. Well, that'll be hugely entertaining.

48:36I think, Robbie, don't you always do wine time? Yes, but I never talk about it, never in front of people. well i think people should turn up for all of your sessions robbie yes unfortunately you do have to pay well that's okay i set wine time yeah which they did although they may be anyway look it up on the website they can cope they'll pay yeah yeah they will uh i've only got one session to contribute jane and i are interviewing annika rice on stage on thursday is she gonna are you going to interview her? She's going to be in a helicopter or something, flying in. Well, I'm very much hoping that she'll be in a jumpsuit.

49:15I'll be very very disappointed. And she should run onto the stage, have one of those massive, because she had the Madonna earpiece going down. Oh yeah, I was just looking, your own ones. Yes. Oh, in the new studio, yeah. Oh, these headphones now. These traditional ones. These are old fashioned ones. You look a bit like a cyborg from Doctor Who. Or Metal Mickey. the younger listeners might have to look up metal mickey won't they did he look like that anyway a cyborg oh my god right you can go now uh we'll see you in cheltenham we'll look forward to it very much well i hope we can use some of this otherwise it's all being a waste of everyone's time isn't it We can use lots of it.

50:03Oh, my God, I've been called so many things in my time, but never a cyborg. What are they called? Cybermen? Those silvery ones? Yeah, all right. Bye. For their funny ears. Bye, bye, Robbie. I'm off. See ya. Bye. Yep. Oh, my word. Right, that's Robbie Millen, and you can catch him in Cheltenham, where he seems to be performing nearly every day. Oh, Eve. It's quieter in the studio now. I do love him, but you've got to be on guard, haven't you? It's woken me up for the week. Right. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Crazy and wonderful. Robbie will be back with us, or one of his young ladies, as he described them.

50:47Women in their own right, Laura Hackett and Susie Goldsborough. They do our book reviews for us on a Monday on the live programme and on the podcast here. Eve and I will be with you all week. we would love to hear from you we're loving all of your stuff about uniforms very much appreciating all of your suggestions for our next book club book we probably won't decide that until next week now end of next week how is the hunker down playlist going? I'm actually off tomorrow sorry to confuse things further oh my word where are you going? it's my birthday oh Eve well that's absolutely lovely are you doing something nice?

51:29I am going to be in Brighton and I'm just going to spend the day with family and go out for lunch and have a lovely day Lovely, and do you know what? The weather at the moment in the south-east of England is so beautiful It's been amazing It's that really clear, slightly sharper September sky and there's still a bit of warmth in the sun So how fabulous Thank you So Rose is, I think, going to be with you tomorrow so that gives perfect opportunity for you to pressure her on the podcast to start the playlist. Right, I'll nobble her while the microphones are on. Good work. So that will come to fruition.

52:05That will appear like magic probably by tomorrow evening. And then are you back Wednesday, Thursday? Yes. Lovely stuff. So we'd love to hear your thoughts on anything that we're talking about. It's Jane and Fee at times.radio. And do stay safe. And like we said at the beginning, you cannot catch germs through a podcast. Just the rest of us in the studio. Just Eve and Robbie are at risk and Rosie tomorrow. Ha ha ha ha ha!

52:49Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.

53:53Transcription by CastingWords The story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. For general wellness purposes only, not intended for clinical use or to detect, diagnose, monitor or treat medical conditions. Requires iPhone 11 or later.

54:09Welcome to the haunted library. Have you come in search of a tale? This podcast invites you to browse the shelves and find stories that will linger long after you've left this place. From gothic masterpieces to pulpy penny dreadfuls, join me, Colin Morgan, with new episodes twice a week. Find The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts.