Can you hear the snails raving in the streets? (with Kate Atkinson)

0:00Your 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. Dominic O 'Connell and Hannah Previtt here from The Business Podcast.

0:33Join us for a special episode with President of the British Chambers of Commerce and former Chief Economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, and PwC's UK tax leader, Claire Blackburn, as we look ahead to John Healy's first budget. We'll discuss the challenge he faces trying to get the economy growing with an uncertain geopolitical backdrop and a party that's not keen on making cuts to public spending. We'll also ask what businesses are looking for, whether the government will be in a position to deliver, or if more tax squeezes are on the way. Listen to the business wherever you get your podcasts.

1:09Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0, depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments.

1:46You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

2:37Welcome to Off Air with Jane and Fee, with Jane and Eve. And Fee is back next Tuesday. Well, you're both back Tuesday. Yeah, exactly. Because you'll be off on the Monday. Yeah, because it's a bank holiday here. It's the August bank holiday. What with it being in August. How did you come into work this morning? Well, I came in on public transport. My chariot that normally takes me to Times Towers didn't turn up, so I had to use. Well, other people were using it as well. It's just extraordinary. Anyway, it was raining, wasn't it? So what state did I arrive in? We had to take Jane down to the makeup department to get a hairdryer for her blouse.

3:15Yes, yes. And that's because I was then immediately, this is why I'm so tired, I was immediately called into service, making a, what a short promotional film. I'd call it a public service announcement. A public service announcement. Are we allowed to talk about it now? I think we are. Okay, about the new Times Radio Studios. I mean, talk about anoraks. If anyone... You did come in in one. I needed an anorak, I should have had one. If you are interested in radio studios, then you'll be riveted to hear that Times Radio does have a new studio, which has so far had what is known as a soft launch. So it's being used, but we're not talking about it.

3:55I mean, I find this quite weird. But from next Tuesday, it'll be hard launched. It will be hard launched. And Jason... Jason? Jane has been the face of the hard launch. Well, I think that's probably exaggerating it, but I have done some lines for a promotional video about the new studio, which I mean by the way you can how do people see it they can see it on YouTube can't they yes we'll be live streaming exactly so you can watch Times Radio on YouTube all day every single show yep yeah it's amazing isn't it and it is quite flashy studio yeah this is a bit like telly it is a bit it is a bit teller isn't it we need to sneak some more of our podcast props onto the shelves of the studio we're gonna have to just say to people just give it a watch next week yeah we'll leave some Easter eggs for the podcast listeners yeah there'll be some little things on the shelving.

4:44It's an interesting studio set up. I actually quite like it in there. It's quite cosy. Yeah, it is weirdly cosy. Slightly to my surprise, I quite like it. But people will have a view, and we'd love to hear from you, at Jane and Fee at Times.radio. And if you've never given the Times Radio station a listen or our show a listen, start on Tuesday. Two o 'clock till four. Fee and I will be here. Who's our big guest on Tuesday? It's Ian Dale. He'll be live in the studio. He's live in our New Look studio talking about his book about Margaret Thatcher. a divisive figure but always I think one always worth talking about it's actually the paperback it's the paperback so it's a new paperback of an existing hardback okay I think that's probably too much detail but thank you for that Eve other guests next week as advertised Miriam Margulies and Scott Bryan so lots to look forward to next week okay now what was I going to talk about oh I know my guest today is the novelist we're not going to get anywhere if you're not sure what you're going to talk about I mean, regular listeners will know that I rarely know what I'm talking about, but I do have a vague idea when I come in, hard to believe.

5:47It was actually odd today because were you woken up by the rain? I was. I'm not sure. I must have been because I woke up about an hour before my alarm. Yeah, well, that was it then. Which is quite rare, but that is true. But I wasn't aware it was the rain. But then I saw it was raining and I thought, oh, lovely. So I opened my curtains, put some lights on and just sat in my bed and did a little bit of work and a little bit of admin. Work. Enjoying the cosy vibes. Yes, it did. It felt autumnal, but it's not really... I think it's my least favourite weather, so it's wet but hot. Yeah, I arrived very clammy and it's sort of slimy to work.

6:20Yeah, exactly. I saw an enormous snail actually going a pace up the wall outside. He's probably having a great time. I know, it was quite odd. For a snail, it was a fast mover. It's probably been a very long summer for snails and slugs. Yeah, I haven't seen any up until this morning. Where do they go? Really good question. Do they dry out? Are we losing our snail population? I don't know. Why did they all, presumably, I can't have been the only person who saw an enormous snail this morning, why did they all come out as soon as the rain came out? It was very weird. It was probably like a party for them.

6:56Yeah, well, is there an informal or formal gathering of Britain's snail population over the next couple of days? Because I understand the weather is going to be a little challenging and I shouldn't laugh, but my youngest has just gone off to a festival. Oh, yeah. I mean, I did see a few people as well at the tube station with rucksacks and all the rest of it there. I mean, they're bold, your generation, aren't they? You do love, I mean, credit to you. You may not have been in the Girl Guides, but by God, you do festivals. Come rain or shine. Yeah, I'm impressed. I really am. Thank you. I'll say thank you for my generation.

7:26Your entire generation. What has been your most memorable festival experience? Weather-wise, I went to Bestival. it was absolutely horrifically freezing and torrential. Yeah, whereabouts in the country is that? It used to be in the Isle of Wight but then it got moved to the mainland and then it stopped. And I know why. On the Sunday evening we were so cold all the girls just piled into one tent for each other's body heat and I could hear the festival happening in the next field over and we just couldn't even leave the tent. It was brilliant. It got closed for part of the days because bits of the stages were falling on people from the wind.

8:07It was a great time. You paid for that. Yes. God. I did want to go home that night. That was crying for our mums. There is no shame. I've said that to her today. I said, if you want to come home early, there's no shame in it. Look, thoughts and prayers with everybody under canvas as we speak. Sheltering. Correction Corner, this is Rebecca. Sorry, Rebecca. I listened as always with huge pleasure to yesterday's podcast and thought you'd be interested to know that BBC Sounds, who? It's currently serialising Patrick Bringley's All the Beauty in the World. It is completely immersive and very touching.

8:41Dane, Jane, Dane, Jane, Jane, Jane, Jane, Jane, Jane, oh God, it's such a distant dream. Jane, did you mispronounce Bringley? Yes, I did. Possibly my hearing, but I'm sure you said boringly. And I took note of this because I thought it was quite a reductive point to make at the time, but I thought what an unfortunate surname. I should have questioned that. I don't know. Yes, you're absolutely right, Rebecca. I was a prat. It is, in fact, Patrick Brinkley's All the Beauty in the World. But she goes on to say, like so many others in the Hive, I take so much wisdom, knowledge, joy, humour and comfort from your podcast.

9:19In this unsettling world, you are a unique constant to so many of us. You are my radio family. Oh, Rebecca, thank you. Dame Jane. Yeah, well, you know, shouldn't all together rule it out. I think I have. Tracy, I'm sorry to ask this again. She says, never apologise. I was listening to Laura Hackett and was interested in her recommendations for books, especially one that she recommended to Jane at the end. And this is, again, a fault on my part. So the books we were raving about, and I cannot recommend them highly enough, are the Cazalet Chronicles. so that's Cazalet C-A-Z-E-L-E-T Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard Tracy they were written and they were written in the 90s actually they're not as old as I thought they were which is my own ignorance and they're about a family during the course of the 1930s World War II and beyond and a member of Elizabeth Jane Howard's family has written another book designed to be read after you finish finished the fifth of Elizabeth Jane Howard's books.

10:28So I think she's called Louisa Young. So that book has just been published, but it's not really worth reading that one unless you've read the Casalette Chronicles. And I just can't recommend them highly enough. So get stuck in. This brings me on to Amanda. I've lived in France for many years, addicted to your podcast, which remind me, oh, this is good, of great female humour. I was interested to hear a reference to the Casalette Chronicles of books. Having my ear tuned to the French, I heard cazolet. Cazolet? Cazolet. Not cazolette. Cazolet. Oh, God, I'm really making a meal of this. Cazolet is an amazing dish from around the Castel Nordre area of southern France, which includes slow-cooked sausage, pork and beans.

11:15That should be interesting, I thought. So I googled Cazolet Chronicles, expecting to come across stories of derring-do and cooking tales in the time of the Black Prince. But I just found pages of rival recipes from the area, each claiming to be the original. I finally got there, found Elizabeth Jane Howard, and I now look forward to reading the books. Amanda, enjoy yourself in La Belle France. Thank you very much for being a devoted listener. Well, I've decided that you are a devoted listener of the podcast. Yes, Cassellet. I should have asked our guest yesterday, Jay Rayner, about Cassellet. I've had it.

11:53It's actually, that dish, I know you won't eat it because you're a vegetarian, that dish just confounds me. I can't take on all that pork and beans because I worry that somewhere embedded in it there'll be some gristle and I'm very gristle and fat resistant. Where do you stand on a fry-up? Well, I'm all right if I can see inside the sausage. So I cut it in the middle and have a good look to make sure there's no little balls of fat or anything like that. Is someone going to end up sending in a photo of you happily tugging into a castle? Oh, God. Well, because I'm the woman who's constantly contradicting himself.

12:28I just plain lie. Let's face it. We've had a number of very artistic emails this week and I'm extremely grateful. Sarah joins us from Ledbury, which if you've never been to Ledbury, have you been there? I have not. Oh, well, can I really recommend it? It's a lovely, bustling market town in Herefordshire, close to the Morven Hills. I've never lived there but it must be a lovely place to live Do we have quite a few listeners from there? I feel like it gets a couple of shout outs from the podcast I really hope so because I spent a bit of time in Ledbury when I was working in local radio there and I think it's just a gorgeous place and I particularly like the independent shops they've got in the town centre it's just a really nice place to visit and Herefordshire generally is apart from the Hay Festival which is in Wales anyway I think Herefordshire can get a bit forgotten and it shouldn't be forgotten because it's beautiful.

13:19I caught your piece about Anish Kapoor, says Sarah in Ledbury, and just wanted to say I found him to be a very lovely person to discuss art and making with back in my art college days. So Sarah actually met him. He was my tutor, in fact, in the sculpture department at Portsmouth Polytechnic. He was just a few years older than us experimental fine art students. And I recall having really long chats with him as he rather loosely used to sit back, arms behind his head, explaining how to make this and that. Now that's a look, isn't it? You can picture that, can't you? It's an artist's look. Yeah, that very much is a sort of, I don't know, just a man who just wants to share his experience and is quite relaxed in doing so.

14:07What comes first, the look or the art? Gosh, good question. I was once interviewed by a man who was so, this is for a job, which I didn't get. This man was so overconfident that he put his hands up like this above his head and it was a hot day and he had massive sweat patches but he was so pleased with himself but I don't think he cared. No, I'm sure he didn't. Didn't get on terrifically well with him which might explain why that particular conversation stroke interview did not actually result in employment. That surprises me. Right, I had long chats with him as he rather loosely used to sit back.

14:41Yes, here we are, we can all picture it now. He talked about how his powder cake, pure pigment sculptures, were influenced by the extraordinary landscapes of his youth. We had some really terrific chats, particularly about his early works, which I really loved. Transient pyramids of powder, which would collapse if touched. It's very interesting, isn't it? I know that his recent works look rather overwhelming, Jane, and I'd struggle to describe them or truly explain. the scale is off the scale I guess so is that is that what makes it extremely abstract I don't know I'm very late to all this she says but I wanted to chip into the chat before my 66 year old brain forgot good to have Eve back she's very funny well thank you actually should we talk no we're not going to talk about what the mistake you made no no we can't no uh Sarah thank you because that But it is funny.

15:37Sarah, thank you very much for that. And how interesting that you've met Anish Kapoor. And honestly, that description of him just sitting back and just talking to his students who weren't that much younger than him about how he did what he did is, yeah, it's brilliant. Thank you. Really appreciate it. I mean, if only we could talk about Eve's mistake. We can't. I don't make mistakes. Everything happens for a reason. Let's stake with Anish Kapoor several years ago. And actually, this is an email not just about Anish Kapoor, but about a travel experience, because we were talking about this at the end of the podcast yesterday.

16:12This is from Emily in Edinburgh. Several years ago, I was travelling to Chicago with my now ex-husband and we went through immigration control separately as we thought it might be faster. It turns out that was a mistake as it made us look suspicious. My ex is British with Indian heritage and was stopped for a prolonged period where US immigration control were absolutely adamant that he was illegally importing curry leaves to the US. After an extended search and the failure to locate any curry leaves, we were free to leave. It was funny afterwards-ish, I imagine, but not so much at the time. He also experienced quite a lot of racism in Eastern Europe.

16:54notably somebody putting gun fingers to his head and that was scary jesus yeah these things are they they really do happen to people and i think um so many of us because they don't happen to us we need to know that it does happen to other people chicago says emily it's where i first came across anish kapoor i really loved his cloud gate aka bean sculpture but most of all enjoyed reading about how he forbid any other artists using vanta black leading to another artist creating the pinkest pink and forbidding anish kapoor from using that one okay um i did not know uh that he'd made vanta black something only he could use have you heard about vanta black is it the blackest black the blackest of all blacks yeah which looks like and it is incredibly clever because it really does make you think you could tumble into it yeah and it's it's quite disturbing but also quite impressive i like the fact that the the opposite to that was the pink is pink yes which interestingly i don't think you'd think you could jump into because it's not that kind of color is it no i mean what is the pink is pink is it a hot pink is it a soft pink Or is it a soft pink?

18:09Then you'd feel like you'd been swallowed by a human being. Right, let's bring in Anonymous, whose email is headlined, Am I the only person having a weevil summer? I don't know about this, but I'm going to read it out. She's in a right two and eight, this correspondent. I will say she's female. I've got guests coming this weekend, so I'd better remain anonymous. Is there anything worse than guests coming for the weekend? Truly, let's just be honest about it. Who really wants them? I mean, what is it they say? You should only be a house guest for, is it three days? Maximum of three days or less?

18:44I don't know. There will be rules and some of you will know what they are. There's that expression about fish, isn't it? But it seems the guests never know the rules. Well, that's the problem. You know, just little and often. Actually, just little. Not often, necessarily, if you're a visitor. Anyway, there have been many things triggered, says Anonymous, by the Longhut Summit in the south of England. As well as a hosepipe ban, I've had to throw out most of my dry goods stored in the kitchen. Have you had anything like this? I haven't had anything like this, but I've had a similar sort of experience.

19:19Anonymous, don't worry too much, because I've had a lot of ants in my kitchen. I've been very aware of that. Well, you read the email and then I'll tell you what happened to me. All right. These have included six types of flour, gluten-free and normal, rice, pancake mix and oats. I haven't checked my custard powder and corn flour, but I probably should. Even unopened packets of flour have had small, black, wriggly things in them. Are they weevils? This seems shameful and off-putting for guests, so I have kept quiet about it. Am I the only person suffering this infestation? Some of my dry goods have even been in date.

19:57My God, this woman is so posh. She's got in date dry goods. Will anybody else own up to this or is it really just me, Anonymous? I know your name but I will never reveal it. Thank you. So does Anonymous think that the heat has brought this about? Well, I think she's probably right. What would cause that? I don't know because I'm not a weevil expert. No. But there is no doubt that after a very hot summer, particularly if you're having visitors, I mean, we are heading towards Christmas, lest we forget, it might be not a bad idea just to... I mean, I'm really not... I haven't done it myself. I should say, open those packets of things like cornflour that you don't use very often, but you've got in the back of the cupboard, they may or may not be in date.

20:39I mean, who knows what's going on in there. Anyway, what happened to you? So I had an experience where I ordered a parcel of clothes from a very well-known clothing store. Yeah. And upon arrival, I was sat with my housemate and I opened the parcel of clothes whilst we were watching TV onto the sofa and out fell a load of maggots. what yeah how what and i literally jumped up and i shook them all off and i screamed and ran out into the garden i put the parcel out there and what they think happened was that a fly laid eggs yes in the warehouse right and now i am so careful never open your parcels over your bed over your furniture i always do it outside or on the floor they literally poured out Okay, thank you.

21:29Sorry. I felt like I was on I'm a Celeb. Where are they now? Well, I took the whole parcel out into the garden. Encompassing maggots. And I just shook it all out. And I left them to kind of, I left the clothes to quarantine. Have you, have they been on a hot wash? Hardly dare ask this question. Well, so I did get my money back, but also the parcel, the clothes were all then individually wrapped. Right. So the maggots were just in the... It's quite a high quality place you're buying this gear from. Well, is it? the maggots were in the wider casing so I did keep some of the clothes my god is there anything we can rely on isn't that horrific yeah it was a really disgusting experience really ruined my evening let's cheer ourselves up by talking about the charms of Cornwall Angela has recently returned I've just got back from a week long trip to Cornwall we used Newquay as a base we went to Port Isaac, Padstow the Lizard, Land's End Mullion Cove Lou Penzance, Pulpero, that's a lot of blooming Cornwall, Red Ruth, St Ives, and we still didn't touch the sides of everything there is to see and do there.

22:33The scenery across the county and the wild, frothy, turquoise, Celtic Sea and English Channel crashing onto the beautiful white sandy beaches and against the black, rocky coastline is stunning and unforgettable. Wow. Angela does work for the Cornish Tourist Board. No, she doesn't. She could do. Blimey. adding in the delicious pasties fish and chips cream teas ploughmans and ice creams and even the thieving seagulls it was a such a memorable trip and we enjoyed every single minute of it well that's really good that's good actually thank you i'm glad you had such a great time back to liverpool i located doc martin on itvx this is helping to wean me off the excitement of cornwall and back to the day today here on merseyside i used the frequent ad breaks to put a wash in make a cuppa or nip to the loo.

23:26It's just like being back in the 70s. There is a version of ITVX you can get without so many ad breaks, isn't there? But I haven't got it and there are a lot of ad breaks. You can pay a subscription. You can pay a bit more, yeah. So far, I have resisted the temptation to order a pizza, book a cruise or take out an emergency cash flow loan, but I am considering switching dog food brands. So she's been quite heavily influenced. I'm now up to series three of ten and there have been so many laugh-out-loud moments already, I'd recommend it as a daily tonic. It is all the more enjoyable because I've been to Port Isaac and I've enjoyed a cold drink in the Crab and Lobster, real name Golden Lion, I've had lunch at the Slipway and an ice cream from the pharmacy and I've posed for pics outside the surgery, the school and Louisa's house with the tiny door.

24:14Poldark is next up for the Cornish binge watch. Get down to Cornwall, you will not regret it, says Angela. Do you know, I don't think I've ever seen an episode of Doc Martin. Have you watched it? Really? I haven't ever seen it. I've seen it. I'm quite tempted now. My mum's watched it, so I've kind of seen it on in the background. Right. So I feel like I've absorbed the vibes. Okay, well, I mean, there couldn't be a more full-bodied endorsement than Angela's. Our guest today is the novelist Kate Atkinson. I mean, I raved about her anyway because I love all her books. Her new one, honestly, Eve, it's so good.

24:47And I'm a big fan of social history. It's very much up your street, I think. Yeah, it is up my street. But anyway, we'll hear from Kate Atkinson in a minute or two. But there's a couple of emails here that are well, well worth reading out. First of all, this is from... I will keep her anonymous. I'm not sure she's asked to be, but anyway. She's attached a video of a shelf I saw in Tesco this afternoon. At first, I found it amusing, but the more I thought about it, actually, the more enraged I became. I saw it whilst shopping for household bits for my children going to uni in September. One starting the first year, one going back for the second year.

25:24Well, Tesco was awash with products and displays clearly aimed at this very event, and it had a lot of great supplies, for which I was genuinely very grateful. However, I was dismayed to see this shelf in all its misogynistic glory. I'm sure you can describe it to your listeners, but can you do it without swearing? Well, I'm just going to carry on reading your email, Caroline, because I think you do it brilliantly. It is clearly marketed towards women with the bright pink and duck egg blue branding. And there's just something weird for me about the combination of hand and nail care alongside cleaning products and the horrifyingly casual inclusion of pregnancy tests.

26:05What really winds me up is the repeated use of the phrase keep it handy. Nail clippers? Keep them handy just in case you break a precious nail whilst doing all the housework. Pregnancy tests? Keep some handy just in case you have another oopsie, you silly puppet. What are we ladies like, eh girls? Scrubbing the sink one minute, being knocked up the next. I shuddered that this was all mingled in the household goods and cheap university kit aisle, especially as the go-to was pregnancy tests and not condoms. My husband thinks there must be some kind of consumer research that indicates that these products are often brought together by a specific demographic, leading to this combination of products appearing on shelves in this manner.

26:53He doesn't condone it, he wouldn't dare, but I thought it was an interesting take. Should this be renamed the Trad Wife section? Yes, says our listener. I am currently reading yesteryear. Anonymous, thank you very much. to me I think it's just horribly reductive she says and quite lazy on the part of Tesco but I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on it do you know I've had the book yesteryear by my bed now for months and I still haven't read it, have you read it? I haven't it is the trad wife book isn't it I should definitely make the effort to read that thank you for that, I must confess that is one of my local supermarkets, I go very regularly I haven't seen that aisle thank you for the video you've sent so I absolutely appreciate that what you're saying is right it is frustrating that pregnancy tests are there and apparently not condoms that does seem odd I think there's nothing wrong with making pregnancy tests accessible in a shop floor and that maybe it's away from the kind of like stigmatised area where you don't want to hang around and there's all these sort of things where you're sort of seen hovering near an area I think there's nothing wrong with that but I don't think that that's what this is.

28:08I think the pinkness and the household cleaning, I completely agree with the correspondent that... Yeah, it's not the same. Yes, if you've seen that and you've got a view on it, do let us know at janeandfee at times.radio.

28:36variability 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 at pwc we optimize the systems that put your data to work so you can scale your ai from proof of concept to competitive edge and accelerate your tech evolution so you can redefine what's possible from blueprint to breakthrough we take you further with tech so you can out think outpace and outperform pwc so you can pwc refers to the pwc network and or one or more of its member firms each of which is a separate legal entity therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in the smallest moments.

29:30You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance, and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends.

30:12You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. This is from another anonymous correspondent, and it's a passionate email, and I hear you. she says as a mum of three youngish people one at uni going into the third year one just got a level results a week ago soon off to uni one just had gcses i'm one of the unfortunate parents who've had this summer anticipating two different sets of results and navigating the decisions prior and after them the turmoil the emotional exhaustion and the extraordinary effort required to be that person who the teens need to say what they need to hear.

31:18I have felt seen and reassured when this time in life generally and Results Day itself was described by Jane last week as traumatic. I totally agree. I experience so much anxiety about what is ahead for my children in terms of housing, job market, AI, climate crisis, online world, mental health, unemployment, student debt. In my head, I struggle to escape it. despite being at a point where I should feel able and desperately want to celebrate their fabulous achievements and exciting next steps. What I'm noticing is that this has happened in part because I just can't escape the doom and gloom narratives that exist everywhere regarding the world our young people are in.

31:59Every podcast and I mean I have to say that we have certainly been a part of that or I certainly have I appreciate that. Online news platform social media feed over the last couple of weeks has been telling me persistently that they'll leave college or uni and face an impossible job market which will mentally break them, that the choices of careers they've made or are considering are now considered pointless because of AI, that we're all going to suffer with catastrophic climate change, they'll be crippled by debt, university isn't worth it, universities themselves are crumbling, the streets aren't safe, I could go on.

32:31The negative messaging is constant, invasive and deeply upsetting. I really want some optimism for my grown-up kids. I try and bring this to them myself with blue-sky thinking and a sense of lightness, trying to motivate and reassure them. But not only do they see through it and often feel pretty fed up with the reality they're being battered with left, right and centre, I also feel I can't continue waving this flag of hope for them without the world around us cutting them some slack and starting to deliver something, anything, positive and inspiring for them. Is it just me? Am I in a silo of negativity?

33:10Or are other parents feeling this too? Well, if you are, please do tell us at jayandfee at times.radio. But I do hear that and I think it's a passionate plea for a bit more positivity. And I think we should be a bit more positive and we should try to, should we try next week? Yes. Not today. Not today. Well, no. It's too much for today. Well, it is a bit too much, although I am going to end with a funny email. Do you find yourself feeling that way as a mother? Well, sometimes I do. I mean, it's one... Do you know, I do, in the wee small hours of the morning, I suppose we do worry about, yes, what life might be like.

33:47I wonder almost if it's just like the sentence of a mother. Yes. As a parent, are you simply condemned to worry? Yeah. And I'm still a daughter. My dad is, you know, quite frail. and I've got that, but I'm far from alone. I mean, this is such a common experience. And you do worry about, funny enough, one of the things I worry about, I wonder if anyone else does think about this, I wonder what life will be like when your generation are old. I've been thinking about that lately. How will care work for you? Because so many of you are going to live such a long time. What will that be like? And then you realise, and this is idiotic, you realise at 20 past three in the morning that you won't be around to help your children because you'll have died and rightly because you nobody can live forever but what will life be like when yeah because it's funny to think how how much the landscape has changed since you were children yeah to now so much has evolved i assume i wasn't exactly there but from what i know you weren't there at all you weren't not exactly there you weren't there and so are we gonna have that same level of progression and evolution over the next kind of 50 years so it is really hard to imagine what it could look like.

34:56Well, we're not helping our listeners. Sorry, sorry. So to that woman, absolutely, you're not alone. Trust me, I think so many people, not just parents, so many people look at the stage of the world and think, oh, but actually this isn't a bad time. We'll do the funny email right at the end. But this isn't a bad time to bring in our guest, the novelist Kate Atkinson, because her book, her new novel, Our Noble Selves, is about Britain in 1951. And it's about the Festival of Britain. and it's about the people who made it happen but the stories that those people were carrying because so many of them had had wartime experiences that they either shuddered to remember or weren't allowed to talk about because they'd done all sorts of slightly, shall we say, off-the-books kind of things for Britain and then there were other people who had been, shall we say, far too sympathetic towards fascism before the war and then had to deny it afterwards so there's such a lot as always with Kate Atkinson's books there's a lot going on but the great thing about our noble selves is it's also incredibly funny here she is Kate Atkinson is here she's one of my favourite novelists Kate it's lovely to see you how are you I'm very well thank you lovely to be back here well it's great to have you um and your new novel is not out quite yet so I know your fans have been asking, well, can I see it?

36:17Can I get it now? You can't. 10th of September. OK, you can always pre-order it. It's called Our Noble Selves. Now, you are, amongst many other things, the creator of the hugely popular Detective Jackson Brodie. People love those books. And then you have other novels that greatly enjoyed Life After Life, Transcription, Shrines of Gaiety, and Behind the Scenes at the Museum. That was your breakthrough. That won the Whitbread Book of the Year, didn't it? It did, in either 95 or 96. I can't remember. that was I'd spent a long time thinking about that book before anyone asked me if I had I think I won a short story competition and there was a do and and a woman came up to me an agent and said do you have a novel in the drawer because that's what people say to you for some reason and I said I've got three chapters and then she took them and so after having thought about it for a long time and wanted to write a novel for a long time, suddenly it was auctioned and it was bought.

37:16And I was just horrified because I thought, no, I have to write it now. And it's all very well thinking about it, but actually writing it is properly tough, isn't it? Well, actually, I think I'd thought about it for so long that I wrote it really fast, I mean, really, really fast. And I think, for me, that's a rule of thumb, that if I think about it long enough or unconsciously think about it in the back of my head, then I can write it faster. It's when I start without having really thought too much about it that I get stuck. Can we just briefly go back to the short story competition you won? That was a woman's own magazine.

37:45Well, first of all, I won the Ian St. James short story, or I came second, I can't remember. But I won the woman's own short story competition, yes. That was the most exciting moment of my life, I think. How old were you at the time? Good question, mid-80s, mid-30s, maybe. Because I had been not writing commercially at all until that point. and I'd written a lot of oh woe is me kind of semi-autobiographical and the story that I submitted to Woman's Own was the very very first one that was not about me in any way shape or form it was entirely fictional and I think that was a great lesson to me it's just write fiction don't bother with the self and whoever it was that the literary editor at the time phoned me and I was just like this is it then that's it you know finally I've because I'd had an accountant for a year when I wasn't earning any money whatsoever.

38:39And he said, what do you do? And I said, I'm a writer. I had no proof of this at all. And I thought it was very important to somehow lay down this fact. Yeah. And, you know, believe it and it will be so. Have you stuck with the accountant? No. Sorry about that. Sorry, Steve. He was very good for what he did. Steve, if you're listening. So you're so brilliant always on social history and I'm always so absorbed by the detail you have in your novels. Now, Our Noble Selves is set at that. It was a tricky time for Britain, 1951. It's about a group of people working behind the scenes at the Festival of Britain.

39:17Now, for some listeners, they're not going to know much about the Festival of Britain. I was very surprised how virtually nobody knows anything about the Festival of Britain. And I think that's interesting because it was created and performed, as it were, as an ephemeral event. And that's just exactly what it's been. It's just gone. I mean, it took place in 51, and I was born in 1951, and I've had a couple of other books that I've set in 51, so I'm obviously slightly obsessed with that year, I think. But I've always known about it, but not known much about it. It's always just been one of those things that I think at my age which you probably do have at the back of your head, whereas I think anyone younger than me, to be honest.

40:02Well, it's interesting. One of my guests next week is Miriam Margulies, and I mentioned to her that I was interviewing you this week, and she said, oh, I went to the Festival of Britain, and she's 85. So people older than you absolutely have very significant memories of it. Yes, and so many schoolchildren, because there were lots and lots of school trips, but so many children who went vividly remember it. So what was it designed to do? At the very beginning of Our Noble Selves, You've got a Noel Coward verse. I'm just going to read it. Don't make fun of the festival. Don't make fun of the fair.

40:30We downtrodden British must learn to be skittish and give an impression of devil may care. Which is very Noel Coward. Sounds very Noel Coward. Not surprisingly, because it was Noel Coward. It was designed to what? Just get us all going a bit. In a way, yes, I think so. It was a project of the Labour government, which was actually in its dying months at the time. Yes, it was about to be kicked out. And I think they saw it as something that would gee people up. I'm going to say a tonic for the nation, that's the quote. But I think it was also from 1945 to 1951, it didn't really feel like the war was over or let the war was over, But what, you know, what we want.

41:14The rationing was still on the go. I was born on the ration. I didn't see a suite until I was about three. That was the end, obviously. But I think it was to not just to cheer people up, as it were, but to show them that, yes, we are coming out of this. You know, all of these dark days. I mean, when I think of my childhood, it's dark. It's dismal. We had sort of 30-watt light bulbs or less. That sickly light. It's sickly light, exactly. I have a distinct memory of my mother plugging the iron into the ceiling light. I just think, how dangerous is that? Very, are we sure? Yes, she lived. And I think it was, because it was, you know, there was lots of science in it, lots of pavilions that were showing the kind of experiments and inventions that were coming.

42:07It was a bit like Tomorrow's World in a way. I think it must have been walking around some of those exhibits in the Dome of Discovery. It must have been exactly like Tomorrow's World. It's all a bit Millennium Dome. And some of the mood of the characters in your book was, it reminded me of the London Olympics. The general view being the 2012 Games I'm talking about here. The general view being that they'd be rubbish. But of course they weren't rubbish. They were amazing and everybody fell in love with the whole concept. But when the Festival of Britain happened, it was hugely popular, wasn't it?

42:38It was. Eight million people, I think, visited it. And those who are still alive have very vivid memories. And I think it was just one of the things it had, which nobody had had, is bright lights. They were really, you know, looking across to the South Bank. It must have been amazing because nobody had seen lights. Nobody had seen colour. So nobody had seen people trying to show them, you know, like cold milk. There was a cold milk bar, there was a dairy bar. And there were people, many, many people who'd never had a cold drink unless it was, you know, the milk on the doorstep freezing. Yes, which isn't quite the same.

43:14And soft toilet rolls. I was at a very strange, eccentric primary school. But we had, you know, Isle toilet paper. We didn't have soft toilet paper. So these things that now we never, I mean, my grandchildren would just be, they would not, they would not understand. 1951. No, we're getting some lovely messages. Ben says, my 91-year-old grandmother has got fond memories of the Festival of Britain. And she often tells me about the day she went to the festival with the firm where she worked at the time. She does have dementia now, but I'm going to buy this book and I'm going to read it out loud to her.

43:45That's rather nice, isn't it? That is lovely. And Kate says, I love Kate Atkinson's books. I've just finished an English degree. I found myself unable to read for pleasure for a while, but I picked up behind the scenes at the museum. and it absolutely rekindled my love of literature. Thank you, Kate. Oh, excellent. Paul says the Festival of Britain was also in 1951 because it was 100 years on from the Great Exhibition. That's right, yes. Right. And they were planning to make much more of that and in the end I think they got a sort of, I've seen a photograph, an odd little archway that was the norm to it, but originally that's where the idea came from.

44:21So 100 years on will show where we've come and particularly where we're going because it was about, you know, marching on cheerfully into this future of modern wallpaper and new kinds of chairs. And soft blue rods. Maybe. Yes. But as ever in your books, your characters are a rackety cross-section of humanity. And in this case, because of the year in question, the people were all carrying, the characters are carrying burdens of one sort or another. Terrible memories in the cases of some people. Experiences that they are not supposed to share with anybody else and were probably never supposed to tell anybody about.

45:01And I'm sure there are still people, maybe not around quite today, but people who've died within the last decade who never told us, told anyone what they did. I mean, on more than one occasion I have heard, or maybe probably read in a newspaper, of adult children whose elderly father has died. And when they've gone in the attic to clear out, they found a whole memoir that they've written because they could never tell anyone but they had to somehow make it more objective by writing down their experiences. So I think I do say at the end of the book that most people who come back from war, most men who come back from war, don't talk about it.

45:38So when we read all the memories and the memoirs and the biographies and autobiographies, we somehow think that's a much greater section of people than it is. But in fact, most are not going, you know, men coming back from the trenches are not going to come back to their wives and sweethearts and children and start telling them what it was like. Because, you know, why would you? Well, your central character here is a man called Harry Flynn. Now, women find him irresistible, which I like. That's strange, isn't it? Well, I couldn't quite work out why, but listen, I'm sure he was lovely. Initially, we meet him.

46:08I think he's wearing a D-Mob coat. A greasy D-Mob coat. Yeah. But interestingly, and I think this is so important, he hasn't been in combat. So tell us a little bit about Harry Flynn. I think, I can't remember because it seems a long time since I started the book, so I can't remember if originally I wanted him to have been in combat. But he was a journalist. He was a journalist in London. And he covered the beginning of the Blitz and got ill. And it was suggested to him that he go out as a foreign correspondent to Singapore. And at the time, there was this myth about Singapore, fortress Singapore.

46:42Those were the words that were always founded about. that it was impregnable, you know, that they would, you know, it's guns faced out to sea so it would stop all, you know. The Japanese could not, could not take Singapore. And they took it in like two days. So it was, he was there for the fall. I was going to have this whole thing, the fall of Singapore and Harry's experience of the fall, Harry's experience on the Burmese Railway, all of these things. And in the end, I just thought this doesn't fit. this doesn't sit right with the rest of the book because it's quite a larky sort of book. I need to emphasise this, it's extremely funny and if you love Britain, and most of us, we do, even though it drives us mad in its various idiosyncrasies, but there's still so much charm and decency about the country, actually, and it's celebrated in this book a lot of that, I think.

47:33I think so, and I think, in a way, that is a good thing that all those men, well, the ones who are my characters who are working in the office come back to that. That's a sort of a normality that they're able to take up again, I think, even though, you know... I think in the acknowledgements at the end of the book, you do say you wanted to write a different book, as you say, emphasising Harry Flynn's experience. Yeah, the Burlington Railway. But you just couldn't. I just thought, because the experiences were so awful, and obviously all experiences were awful, but on the railway there was something particularly grotesque about the level of violence, I think, and the experiences of those men, And I just thought, how do I fit this in with the Festival of Britain and these, you know, comic, semi-comic characters and this whole plot that's going on?

48:18It just doesn't fit. And I thought, I can't do it. It was a bit like I never could write about the First World War. Instead, I wrote about, you know, the aftermath of the First World War and the clubs and so on in Shrines of Gaiety. I thought it's really, I could make it more powerful by only giving you glimpses of Harry's war. because then you just, you sort of flinch at it because it suddenly comes from nowhere. Well, I literally did because I think at some point he's in conversation. I don't want to give too much away about the book, but he's in conversation with somebody and he thinks about eating a live mouse.

48:54Which I read a lot of memoirs and autobiographies of men who'd been on the railway and that was something that struck me particularly when I read that. It's just extraordinary how far you can be driven from what you would think is your life before the war. And I think it's that need to return to a life where you don't eat live mice, I think, is very important. And I think I can understand why you don't want to talk about it and why you just put the lid on it. And I thought, well, that's, for me, it's a more realistic way of approaching it, is to keep that lid on occasionally, lift that lid and go, oh, that sounds horrible.

49:34And it's only at the very, very end that he gets a whole page of memories of the fall. And you just and I've tried to make that as strong as possible because this is all you're going to get of what he experienced. And it has to be part of his, it has to be part of his character as well, I think. So I'm not suddenly going to go and this happened and this happened and this happened. Because although I do do that, I'm saying a slightly better way than that. You're much better than you're making yourself sound. we should say that Harry has moved on and he's actually we find him well he's living on his own because he had an unsuccessful marriage to a lady called Ivy oh I love Ivy Shears from Wealdstone which I think you're quite hard on Wealdstone and he's left Ivy but he he actually is rather close or becomes much closer to her daughter and a really touching friendship is established between I think because because Harry has never had the ability to love although so you think so and he certainly lost any ability he has to love so to find that awakened by his stepdaughter I thought was it was very important that I couldn't really find another way of him to be redeemed by love really there was not going to be a woman who was who was going to do it and suddenly wasn't a woman in this book who's going to do it but then I always knew I was going to bring Veronica back at a kind of a particular pivotal moment in the book and that she would be completely oblivious to all of this emotional stuff because she has no idea what's going on in his mind.

50:59No, she's a great character. You're right, I liked Ivy. There's another standout character I want to mention in a minute, but I do want to talk about the Festival of Britain and the other characters, the people who worked there, many of whom either, well, they claim to have done one thing in the war. We're not sure whether they did that thing or whether they were actually working for somebody else. And then there must have been a whole host of people who hinted that they were actually doing all sorts of secret operations in World War II, but weren't doing anything of the kind. I mean, you could basically invent it all, couldn't you?

51:30Yes, I think there's a kind of catfishing element. Yes, absolutely. Yes, and particularly because there is spying going on in this book. So, you know, you can never trust a spy, obviously. So I think I needed to make everything seem ambiguous and ambivalent without really annoying the reader, because sometimes you could be so mystifying that readers are like, well, I don't even know what happened at the end there. So I think you have to, for me, it's a lot of balancing has to happen, I think. We don't talk much, and I understand why, about the extent of support for fascism in this country before the Second World War.

52:06But you do in this book. I mean, did you think that was important? I think having written transcription, which is all about the fifth column and how they were sort of neutralised at the early years of the war, and I thought well that it's an irritant it has to still be there because people didn't lose their beliefs because they lost the war so I think you know obviously it's a kind of worldview that gets revived occasionally it evolves but I think at the time it really was a very minor thing because I think people are just not going to bother with it for a few years. But there were people left who are in this book who are still, you know, fellow travellers, they're still believers, they still need to be, still need to be neutralised.

52:58Yes. In fact, I also needed a really evil character. So that seemed a kind of a good path for him to be on. Yeah, you absolutely, you've managed that triumphantly. And the character that people, I mean, first of all, she has the best name in any book I've read forever. Mitzi Blinkhorn. Mitzi Blinkhorn. Mitzi Blinkhorn. Celebrity chef, I suppose. Well, she's clearly based on a real person. But again, as with the Festival of Britain, it has always amazed me how many people have never, ever heard of Fanny Craddock. I can't believe it. People really, they must have heard of Fanny Craddock. I send them immediately to YouTube in the Christmas special because there's no better introduction.

53:37But I didn't, I was a bit, I mean, you know, she is inspired by Fanny, this character. but I didn't want to make it. I thought, well, you know, Fanny Cranach's going to have living relatives. I don't want to make it seem... What was her husband called? Johnny. Johnny. He was the wine buff. He provided the wine. He had a monocle, I seem to remember. Right. Yeah, so, and, you know, they gave exhibitions. They were on stages in full evening dress showing people how to cook. Just quite bizarre. Yeah. Mitzi Blinkhorn is a bad lot. She really is. But there's no suggestion Fanny was... No, no. No, we need to make that clear.

54:15Nor Johnny, indeed. Nor Johnny. Well, we have made that clear. Here is Pat, who says, my remembrance of the Festival of Britain was going up to London on the train from Southampton and I was handed the little individual Hovis loaves at the festival. Oh, I had forgotten about it. Yes, I was almost six. My brother was three and a half and was in a pushchair and my father stood on it to take photographs, much to my mother's horror. Yeah, I can imagine that. So, yes, the little loaves, was that a detail that you didn't include? There's so much great detail in here. There were so many things that I didn't have room for.

54:49And then things I found out afterwards. I was in the museum in Whitby, which is a wonderful little bijou museum. And they had an exhibit. I think it was a copy of an exhibit that was in the festival, which I had not known about. It's quite big. And it's a lot of glass involved in it. And it's got leeches in these glass tubes. So if the leeches go up in the tubes, then it's high pressure, and if they go down, it's low pressure. Brilliant. And this is a way, it's this huge, ridiculous barometer, which apparently was in the Festival of Britain, which I only found out about afterwards. But companies could donate things, couldn't they?

55:24They weren't necessarily accepted, though. Ah, OK. Because didn't the hospital try to donate a load of gallstones? 481 or 681, all from the same patient, shaped into the emblem of the Festival of Britain. I mean, so somebody fashioned a load of gallstones into the Festival of Britain Elm and then submitted them to the Eccentrics Corner. Right. OK, but that wasn't accepted. That was not accepted. Right. OK. I just need to say that at the very end of the book, in the acknowledgements, you make reference and say thank you to a hand surgeon. Oh, Ramon, yes. Right. And you say he helped me to pick up a pen again.

56:04So what's happened there, Kate? He operated on my thumb last year because I couldn't hold a pen. I still have a bit of problem pinching, but I can hold a pen and I can sign my name. So, you know, write very wobbly Christmas cards. But yes, so he gave me your hand back. But if anybody wants you to sign a copy of Our Noble Sales, you will be able to do it. Oh, yes. Don't hesitate if you see Kate at a literary festival. I signed a copy for you there. Thank you very much. I'm extremely grateful. Proof of Ramon's Handiwork. Yes, excellent. Well, well done him, because it's quite significant that you are now able to write again.

56:41Our Noble Sells is what, a naval? What is it? It's an army toast. An army toast. A peninsular toast. There's one for every day of the week, and I'm not sure. There's our women, our men, our swords. There's the old sweethearts and wives, may they never meet one. And Our Noble Sells, I think it's Wednesday or Thursday's toast. Right, OK. I mean, it's a terrific book, and it really fizzes with life. and just makes you really ponder about the horrendous mental burdens that some men and, of course, some women carried for so many years after the war and, as you say, often had absolutely no one to tell.

57:18I mean, when you hear people today, and I'm not going to use the term that sometimes is applied to the younger generation, but when people talk about anxiety and, you know, I'm worried about it, do you sometimes think, well... I think it's really hard because your instinct is to go and go, oh, pull up your socks because I'm of that generation. But obviously that is not the answer nor the problem. I think they are living in such a different context now, especially, you know, younger people, that it's not something that you can equate. It's not, you know, kind of apples and apples with apples and pears.

57:53It's a very, very different society, very different life. So I don't think that our kind of old fashioned, rather martinet ways of viewing it is ever going to be the right solution. I don't think you're a very sympathetic person. We should say I was at the South Bank myself, but by Pure Fluke on Saturday night. And one of those things that I just made me feel real warmth for Britain. There was I was in the Skylon restaurant, which is, I think, named after the Skylon exhibit. exhibit and there was a concrete concourse there and there's a lady teaching a crowd of people to dance and it was a fantastic cross-section of humanity slightly nervously dancing as the sun set on the south bank and when people knock Britain and they sometimes do I will I think I'll think about that because that was a really lovely thing that stuck in my head.

58:42I think my greatest joy was finding that there's replicas of the plaster doves in Wetherspoons on Waterloo station from from the festival of britain there we are you will never have a shandy in wetherspoons there again without thinking of the festival of britain uh kate it's a lovely book it's poignant and it's it's also extremely funny thank you kate atkinson and our noble selves and if you are in london or uh you're visiting or whatever do do make a point of going down to the south bank center um and you'll just be able to absorb everything that goes on there it's a very sort of odd place in lots of ways, but clearly it has a fascinating history.

59:20A lot of good things have gone on there. And that book by Kate is just a joy, but it's very poignant at the same time. Let's end on a slightly fatuous note, but it's never stopped us before. This is from Lucy. Thank you, Lucy. Catching up on the pod while doing the housework, Fee did say to keep the names of dolls coming. So here's mine. Honestly, we've had a, this has been a wonderful, a wonderful deep mine to mine. Is that the expression? No. My daughter, age five, was told by her class teacher that they could all bring in one soft toy to school with them to introduce to the rest of the class.

59:56Well, she had 143 soft toys at the time. That's a lot. Of varying sizes and type or species, but every one of them was carefully named and recalled. We were also quizzed by her to see if we too could remember their names. Of the 143 cuddly toys she could have chosen to take to school, she decided to take a little dog. Not the one she called Benji or the one she called Toffee, but the one she called Bona. She simply couldn't be persuaded to leave Bona at home. Lucy finds herself in North Devon. Thank you very much, Lucy. I haven't mentioned your daughter's name just to keep her dignity or what's left of it.

1:00:44Aren't little kiddies a joy? Yes. Yeah, they really are. Right, have a good couple of days. What should we have for Fee when she returns? A brass band? I mean, I have to say, do you know, I found the whole death of Dolly Parton really emotional, but I absolutely loved the Coldstream Guards at Buckingham Palace playing 9 to 5. Yes. Shall we book them for Fee? Let's see if we can put the Coldstream Guards on Tuesday. Right, we'll see you then. That's Jane and Fee at Times.radio.

1:01:29Congratulations. 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.

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