Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Clean my gong

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Moments after Suella Braverman departs as Home Secretary, Jane and Fi chat about the jeopardy of live radio.They're joined by human rights barrister Adam Wagner to talk about his new book Emergency St...ate: How We Lost Our Freedoms In the Pandemic and Why It Matters.And Skip Innes tells Jane and Fi about the benefits of cold water swimming for this week's instalment of Wellness Wednesday.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: janeandfi@times.radioAssistant Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to Off Air with me, Jane Garvey. And me, Fee Glover. And we are fresh from our brand new Times Radio show, but we just cannot be contained by two hours of live broadcasting. So we've kept the microphones on, grabbed a cuppa, and are ready to say what we really think. Unencumbered and off air. Right, here we go.
Starting point is 00:00:40 So the door slams on another day of political theatrics. It never ends, does it? It never ends. It's quite a turmoil. I think we ought to just... We ought to say that we're recording this at about five o'clock when Sveta Bravman has just exited the Home Office. But by the time you listen to this, who knows?
Starting point is 00:00:57 Well, who does know? I think it's Grant Shapps going in, isn't it? Well, that's what we were... That was the rumour. But, frankly, I no longer know. I what we were talking about. That was the rumour. But frankly, I no longer know. I'm all over the place. Who are you? Who am I? Why am I here? This is Off Air. This is Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. This is the pocket-sized
Starting point is 00:01:14 version of our Times Radio live show three to five, Monday to Thursday. And we are both enjoying the live radio excitement, aren't we? It's very different. We're like in a jeopardy. Well, there's an enormous amount of jeopardy, yes. Our guest this afternoon was Adam Wagner, who might not be a name known to everyone listening,
Starting point is 00:01:33 but I thought he said some, he made some pertinent comments about lockdown and about the law. And his book is properly interesting, isn't it? Yeah, so it's Emergency State, looking at all of the laws that came in during COVID that are still on our statute books that determined how we behaved.
Starting point is 00:01:53 And do you know what? He reminded me of so many things that I've chosen to forget, like the fact that you weren't meant to be having any kind of sexual relations with somebody who you were previously not having sexual relations with. Yeah, they had to live with you. Yeah, before COVID. And he didn't know how many people had received
Starting point is 00:02:10 a fixed penalty notice for that crime in speech marks, or indeed how it would have been discovered that that had been the case. No, but I think he did make reference to the fact that Leicester was a particular hotbed of COVID fixed penalty notices regarding sex outside households. Anyway, look, have a listen to it because he was properly interesting.
Starting point is 00:02:31 And I think that huge point about how we go forward with all of that behind us is one that possibly we aren't talking about enough. I mean, we've got a lot of distracting things on our horizon. So we have, I think, stopped referencing the changes in law and things like that that happened during COVID. This is a very nerdy comment, and people don't really need to know this, but we didn't get copies of the book.
Starting point is 00:02:51 I had to read elements of it on a PDF first thing this morning. Get you. I know. So there I was sitting up in bed in my Winsiette nightgown, reading it with my mug of tea as dawn cracked over east-west Kensington. And I thought there's some fascinating references in his book to the bubonic plague and how governments at the time did try to enforce lockdowns. There were certainly rules and regulations.
Starting point is 00:03:17 But of course, back in those days, we're talking, I think, 16th and 17th centuries, and perhaps before that as well, it was really difficult to impart information far and wide. There wasn't, incredibly, there wasn't the radio, there wasn't the telly and there was no social media. So people, I don't know how on earth they would have gone about doing it. And they were asking people to stay indoors, shut their windows. I mean, in some cases, I gather people were sent out to live on windswept moors during the summer months
Starting point is 00:03:45 and then they were allowed back into town as long as they shut all their windows and never went out. Because how else would they have prevented the spread or tried to prevent the spread of the bubonic plague? So it's not new, any of this, really. It has been going on as long as humans have been around. I would have thought it'd be much easier in pre-technological times to spread the word. How? Not with a town crier? Yes, but just house to house. That's how the information would have gone.
Starting point is 00:04:14 But you wouldn't have wanted to be constantly updated as to whether or not a scotch egg was permissible, a meal that you could eat in a pub. Because do you remember all of that endless detailing of COVID regulations, which became just bemusingly, bewilderingly, inefficiently confusing? It was also hard for those of us who never really cared for scotch eggs and often waste a lot of unnecessary headspace wondering about how you put the egg inside the scotch bit.
Starting point is 00:04:45 And also those, if you live up north north you'll know about gala pies you know those really long eggs in the middle of park i can't remember whether the scotch egg was a good guy or a bad guy now was it the meal that you were allowed to have or the meal that you weren't you had to at one point you could only go for a drink if you had food and the suggestion was you could have bar snack. And one of those bar snacks was a Scotch egg. So that was counted as a whole meal. Do you know what? In my dotage, I'll be there in the rocking chair, no longer in any kind of a home for the impartial and infirm.
Starting point is 00:05:16 But these crazy things will come into my mind. And I'm now having a little bit of a vision of Michael Gove saying something about Scotch eggs. Oh, my God. He's not going to be in the same home as you, is he? I don't know. Thank you for your emails. Dear Fi and Jane, my name is Raquel Rodriguez Caldas. I've probably
Starting point is 00:05:32 got that wrong. A 59-year-old Brazilian who lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I've been listening to your podcast since 2018 and the new daily programme at Times Radio from day one. Congratulations, first of all because it's a good programme, a mixture of information, wit, good humour and warmth,
Starting point is 00:05:47 but especially because it's so good to see two women who are nearly my age starting a new career path. Thank you for keeping me company in good times and in difficult times. The pandemic, our terrible and frightful political Brazilian scene. Well, we're competing with you there today, Raquel. We're doing our best, Raquel. I wish you and your producers all the best. Well, what a lovely with you there today, Raquel. We're doing our best, Raquel. I wish you and your producers all the best. Well, what a lovely email. Thank you very much indeed.
Starting point is 00:06:09 Well, we'll pass it on to our vast team of operatives who work tirelessly on both this podcast and on the Library Radio Show. What Raquel, sitting in Sao Paulo, gets from our conversations about the sudden, it has to be said unexpected resignation of our home secretary I do not know but we're very grateful to her um we should also say hello to Judith I'm glad I found you two again after moments of grief after hearing about the imminent demise of your other podcast for me it's been an important part of sanity maintenance sanity maintenance but I'm astounded to learn I don't just have to put the phone volume down
Starting point is 00:06:47 and hide it under a cushion at night. You two are public service announcement gold. Judith, I'm very grateful to you. I have been on the receiving end of a certain amount of mockery for yesterday's confusion. And I'm very grateful to the unexpectedly large number of people who are coming out to say, I thought the same as Jane or Sol. I honestly didn't know.
Starting point is 00:07:08 Yeah. But the funny thing is, now you've rectified the situation, you admitted that you were perkier today because you hadn't... I had a wonderful sleep. Yeah, you hadn't been pinged all night. I hadn't been pinged all night. And I think I slept through, I'm talking about myself as though I'm a newborn baby,
Starting point is 00:07:24 I slept through until 7.25. And actually, oddly, I'm talking about myself as though I'm a newborn baby, I slept through until 7.25. And actually, oddly, I was quite angry because I'd missed, I'd like to hear the seven o'clock bulletin. And I'd slept right through it. Okay, right. I love that phrase sanity maintenance in that email. I think that's a good name for a company. What do you do? I offer sanity maintenance. That could be what we call ourselves. Why don't we set up a lucrative international enterprise
Starting point is 00:07:46 called Sanity Maintenance? And will we be disporting ourselves as lifestyle coaches or life coaches, I think they just call themselves, don't they? You had another Meghan Markle moment today. Well, I've given up. No, I've given up. I've given up. No, well, it's just that every single week,
Starting point is 00:08:03 we know a podcast drops, everybody piles in yet again. And there is something tiresome about this. But on the other hand, the woman does not help herself. So I have given up, Jane, because she was saying that she was objectified when she was a hostess on Deal or No Deal in America, where there was, I think she described on the podcast, an eyelash bar, a nail bar,
Starting point is 00:08:30 and they were given spray tan vouchers. And she felt that she was being employed largely for her looks and not for her brain. And I was listening at about 7.30 as this drifted past my ears. And I just thought, gosh, I tell you what deal or no deal it's definitely different in America because over here it's just a really random game show where you open briefcases and Noel Edmonds affects excitement as to whether or not there's a fiver in them so then I looked it up in the paper no that is what she was doing yeah so just come on I mean of all
Starting point is 00:09:02 of the women that you can fight for and and claim objectification voluntarily going on one of those game shows as a hey look at the briefcase you know that is going to be about your looks not your phd and masterful communication it does remain the case as well that if you are whether you're female or male and you have it's an unfortunate expression but i kind of think it works. If you have a face like a welder's bench, you will not be asked to go on shows like that. No, but you can host them. That is actually true.
Starting point is 00:09:38 Adam Wagner is one of Britain's best known human rights barristers. He was a prominent voice on the law during the pandemic, described in the House of Lords after the passing of the Act that governed us all during the lockdowns as the only person in the country who can make sense of this variety of regulations. His new book is called Emergency State, How We Lost Our Freedoms in the Pandemic and Why It Matters. And guess what? It's out now. Hello there, Adam. Good afternoon. So the book title does a very good job of setting out your premise. I mean, during the lockdowns, we might have been doing star jumps with Joe Wicks and baking banana bread,
Starting point is 00:10:12 but you were busy doing other things, weren't you? Not least asking the police what they were up to and examining how the law really did protect us. What were the main things that you thought were wrong? So it was obviously a very difficult time for everybody. And I don't say in the book at any stage that this wasn't a real emergency. And I'm clear that this once in a hundred years pandemic did need some really serious emergency responses. But as we went along with the lockdowns and all the restrictions ranging from hotel quarantine to self-isolation to Covid passes, it became clear to me as a lawyer that there was something going wrong with the way that the law was operating to impose these
Starting point is 00:10:57 extremely unusual and extraordinary rules on us. Can you talk us through the legal perspective a little bit more, just in terms of the timing of the bill that went through Parliament? I mean, it did go through the Commons very quickly. Was it a six or seven hour debate? And then it passed through the Lords very quickly. But I suppose the counter argument is you couldn't have spent weeks and months debating that law. It had to be passed quickly, didn't it? Oh, yeah, I totally agree. You're talking about the Coronavirus Act, which came into force right at the beginning. In fact, it was during the same week the Prime Minister said to everybody, I give you one simple instruction, you must stay at home
Starting point is 00:11:36 the week of the 23rd of March. But that bill, that act, didn't actually contain the lockdown in it, because when it was drafted the lockdown wasn't being contemplated. I think it's right to say that the government only decided to lock down and only thought they were going to even think about locking down in the days before Boris Johnson's announcement. So when he announced the lockdown on the 23rd of March it took another three days for the law to appear which would which would impose the lockdown and make leaving the house um you know going to work doing the most basic things that we do as human beings illegal criminal and criminal offenses and that law came came in three days
Starting point is 00:12:17 later and then i mean that would have to be done extremely quickly i don't criticize that it was actually a very simple law. But what then happened is there were over 100 more laws over the following two years, so roughly about one a week, which changed the lockdowns, which increased the exceptions. And so you got to a point where a year later, when the second or less than a year later, when the third lockdown came into force,
Starting point is 00:12:42 the law was over 120 pages long. And the other problem with it was that of those over 100 laws, I think it was 109, only eight of them were looked at by Parliament in advance. In the most part, they were just signed on the bottom of the piece of paper by Matt Hancock. And they came into law, which is a very unusual way of doing lawmaking, especially when you're restricting people's freedoms in ways they've never been restricted before. So how vulnerable do all of those laws now make us as a society? Well, on the one hand, you've still got the same Public Health Act, which gave ministers the power to rule by decree. I mean, that's the thing that I really hope comes out from the book,
Starting point is 00:13:26 is that over a two-year period, we were ruled by ministerial decree in the same, not really like happens in a democracy, but more like what happens in a non-democracy, that ministers would meet in a small room. I think there were four ministers, including the Prime Minister, who decided the rules. They would then decide what was going to happen next, what we would be able to do and what we wouldn't be able to do. And then a few hours later, or a few days later, a law would appear with Matt Hancock's name at the bottom of it.
Starting point is 00:13:57 And that would be the law for the next few weeks or months. And Parliament would barely get a sniff. I mean, weeks later, usually they would get a vote, but the vote would only be yes or no. They wouldn't be able to amend. So I think one of the messages that I hope comes through from the book is that these were extraordinary times, but what happened to the country and to the state was also extraordinary and not something we necessarily want to repeat.
Starting point is 00:14:23 And also that emergencies are danger times for freedom, whether it's a public health emergency or a war or terrorism or a financial crash, they are always danger times for freedoms because governments say, well, we need to step in and take the reins and we'll give them back when we're ready and when the emergency passes. And I think it's always a risk that they don't give them back for a long time or in some respects, they might not ever give them back in certain,
Starting point is 00:14:54 in respect to certain aspects. And those are the sort of dangers. Yeah. And that Adam would pose a real threat to all of us if Britain were ever ruled by a truly despotic figure. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I think one thing we probably could learn from the pandemic is it doesn't necessarily need to be a despot,
Starting point is 00:15:14 but it can be somebody who's willing to use that opportunity or that crisis as an opportunity for themselves to achieve their personal aims or their friends' personal aims. And I think there was an element of corruption during the pandemic, which is concerning. And there were certain rules which were secretly changed to benefit. For example, it might sound a bit of an amusing example almost, but I think it's still worrying if you think of the context. At one point during the pandemic, there was an exception added to the rules, to the lockdown law,
Starting point is 00:15:51 which allowed for something called outdoor sports events, which was defined as something like people outside in a group with a licence to do something, which is an outdoor sport. And the background to it, it turned out, was that um the prime minister had been lobbied by his backbenchers to include a reference to ground to allow grouse shooting um as a sport um and and the civil servants were meant to be meeting with michael go but then the meeting was cancelled and they were then instructed to come up with a with a
Starting point is 00:16:22 with an exception which didn't say grouse shooting, but only would include grouse shooting or would almost only include grouse shooting. Well, I'm sure that's a huge comfort to the many regular grouse shooters who listen to the show, I'm quite sure. There was also a time at one point, I gather, and you can correct me if this is wrong, when it was actually illegal to have sex with someone you didn't live with. Is that correct? Yeah, I mean, in certain parts of the country for over a year, it was a criminal offence to have sex with someone that you didn't live with. And it wasn't, if you remember, we had
Starting point is 00:16:56 support bubbles. So if they didn't fall within the support bubble category, which meant you had to live alone, and you didn't have any other support bubbles then you couldn't have a relationship even with somebody you've been you know if you've been with someone 30 years but you didn't happen to live with them you would then quite literally not be able to have a relationship with them and that was in Leicester for some reason particularly in Leicester it was that was illegal for over a year and I think that it just goes to show, and that's not necessarily about corruption or about the way that laws were made.
Starting point is 00:17:29 It's just a reflection of these extremely strange laws that were in place that were there to prevent the spread of COVID, but had all these collateral effects, which I think a lot of people felt very very strongly and to their detriment. Do you know how many fixed penalty notices were issued to people who were having sex with people that they weren't having sex with before? No I don't I mean I think that the only case which came out publicly ironically was Matt Angcock who was um who was having a relationship with um someone at work yeah and resigned because of it yeah I was caught on camera
Starting point is 00:18:10 although not not having sex but he was caught on camera let's be honest about it yes let's get our facts straight on that one I just mean that that wasn't that wasn't the photo but he wasn't you know he he I think was quite lucky to escape a police investigation for that incident. And I think if that had come after Partygate, when the Met had revealed their policy for when they would investigate retrospective offenses, I think he probably wouldn't have escaped an investigation. Adam, you make a series of points about constitutions. Why would that have made a difference in this country? I think that one of the... So we have a constitution, but it's not a written constitution. It's not written in any particular place.
Starting point is 00:18:52 If somebody wants to find the constitution, they search for it online, they will not find it. And we're an outlier in respect of almost every democracy in the world. And one of the problems with that is that when you have emergencies, constitutions are usually very clear about what governments can and can't do to deal with emergencies, because governments need extra powers in emergencies to do things quickly and pretty mercilessly because of the nature of emergencies.
Starting point is 00:19:20 But then the benefit of a constitution is then if the government takes it too far, there will be boundaries that are written into the constitution and which can be tested by courts. But in the UK, we don't have that. And I think that leaves us quite almost uniquely unprotected against a government that either is behaving in a way which goes well beyond what it should be doing or is in some way corrupt or, you know, like we've talked about, has the wrong morals or intentions. Well, we are almost out of time. Very brief answer if you can, Adam. Are you hopeful and confident of the COVID public inquiry? Watch this space. That was Adam Wagner,
Starting point is 00:20:11 who was talking about his book, Emergency State. We should actually reference a really interesting older lady who appeared on the programme called Rosie, who just talked to us from her mobile home about her fears. I don't think that's too strong, her fears for the immediate future. She's in her early 70s. Her husband has Alzheimerheimer's he's in a care home she's worried about the cost of petrol she's worried about heating her home she's worried about the price of food and this was straight on our program after you talked to a tory mp and liz trust supporter yeah greg smith who's the mp for buckingham it was just quite they both made powerful contributions um i would say just quite different yeah so sometimes i think that's just so that's what radio does best is just put one person after the other who actually wouldn't meet in real life
Starting point is 00:20:52 yeah so what he was saying about you know the future plans for growth in the economy for rosie just worrying about whether or not you know she can afford toast this winter i don't think any of us worry i mean we none of us sit around chatting to our mates about how much growth we want really in the economy i mean of course we'd I mean, none of us sit around chatting to our mates about how much growth we want, really, in the economy. I mean, of course, we'd all benefit from it were it ever to come to pass. But this winter, you might want to be warm. But we had another interview, which we're going to
Starting point is 00:21:13 play out in this part of the podcast. It was with Skip Innes, who is a cold water advocate. So he swims, he teaches people how to swim in cold water. He knows all this stuff. And I know that you're a little bit cynical sometimes about open water swimming. But I found some of the stuff he said actually really useful because there are proper clinical, medical benefits of dunking yourself in extreme conditions.
Starting point is 00:21:39 Well, let's hear from Skip. And now we're all in the zone. Was there a little squeak at the end of that? That was an unfortunate noise. And it's not something I'd expect to hear at my wellness clinic. Will somebody please clean the gong? Hello, Skip. Hello.
Starting point is 00:21:58 To the uninitiated or the plain cynical, one of those is in the studio with us today, Skip, just to warn you, what are the proven benefits of cold water swimming well there's a number of things that people um outline around the cold water um but the main one for me really is is kind of um single thought processes so uh looking at things like uh getting single thoughts so meditation and that kind of thing takes you there through quite a big process. But cold water puts you there almost immediately because all you're thinking about is how cold it is in there.
Starting point is 00:22:32 And it makes you think about one thing instantly and refers you to your breathing almost instantly as well. And instantly breathing, as we know, is really, really important for wellness and getting our breathing correct. So it's something that puts you there really, really quickly. Why do you think it's having such a, I don't know whether it's even a resurgence actually, it's having such a moment, isn't it? Yeah, it's having a real growth spurt. We experience, we've been doing it here for a number of years,
Starting point is 00:22:59 but certainly through the COVID lockdowns and things like that, when we were able to get people in the water for wild and open water swimming, that had a real kind of big impact on what people could and couldn't do. And one of the things we could do was swim in the outdoors. And then that kind of followed on through to people getting a little bit curious about why the cold water is of interest. And as I say, that's something we've been doing for a while. is of interest and as i say that's something we've been doing for a while and we found that a lot of our swimmers that swam through summer seasons with us into the autumn then became curious about the winter and we were able to then advise them and put them through the processes that we put through to keep them safe but to get the benefits and the benefits all really happen within the kind of
Starting point is 00:23:38 first three minutes of being in the cold water and so it's not about swimming so much when we get to the colder months it becomes more about the impact and the benefits of the cold water. So it's not about swimming so much when we get to the colder months, it becomes more about the impact and the benefits of the cold. Why would it be dangerous to start cold water swimming in the autumn or the winter? Why is the advice that, you know, you should have been swimming through the summer and, you know, if you're only swimming once a week, then carry on? Surely your body can't hold on to that memory of swimming from one wellness wednesday to the next can it well interestingly actually um we find that with the cold water in particular it can last quite a lot longer than that so those are people that have swum through a winter season previously actually their body is more inclined to deal
Starting point is 00:24:23 with the cold the following season even if they haven't swum through a summer season and we kind of encourage people to get into the water around September October as the water starts to drop and then your body physically reacts to that drop and allows you to kind of get used to it but we also dramatically reduce the amount of time that we're in the water which helps with the safety side of things as well. And in a location like ours, we're able to really help people and advise them about that and then reducing their time in the water to be applicable to them as individuals because we're all so different. Can I ask, how good a swimmer, Skip, do you have to be to do this safely? What, in the cold water?
Starting point is 00:25:01 Yeah. Actually, you don't need to be a particularly good swimmer because, as I say, it becomes less about the swimming and more about the immersion in the cold water yeah um actually you don't need to be a particularly good swimmer because as i say it becomes less about the swimming and more about the immersion in the cold water where the benefits come from so actually being a really good swimmer is not that important it's more about where you choose to do that and in what environment and who with so if you've got people around you that know a little bit about what they're doing and some safety on site as well that's a real added bonus and we're able to as a team kind of keep an eye on people and look for some of the telltale signs that might tell us that they they're coming towards the end of the time that they should be in
Starting point is 00:25:32 the water and encourage them to come out of the water but the other thing we teach is about people learning about their own bodies so that they understand when it's a good time for them as an individual to come out of the water and that can change based on what you've been eating that day when you've had a good night's sleep whether you've been out the night before and had a couple of drinks all sorts of things impact our swim so therefore we have to learn about what the signs are for us individually to get out of the water when the time is right right and is it true because women's body fat is slightly different or distributed differently i can never remember which it is. Is it easier for women to do it for longer? I don't know whether it's easier. And I'm not an advocate for push people to necessarily be in there for longer and longer and longer.
Starting point is 00:26:15 I think it's more about certainly at the moment, what we recognise is that the women tend to come together as groups of individuals to support each other in these environments, in uncomfortable environments, more than men do at the moment. One of the things we're working on is trying to increase our male contingent so they can start experiencing more benefits. I think women are just a little bit braver than men, generally. Is that true for you? Well, I mean, I'm not going to...
Starting point is 00:26:41 There are more women in your group who do it, though. Well, yes, definitely. I think mainly women, yes, just women. It's just women. Yeah, I'm not going to argue with a man who says that women are better at anything, actually, Skip. Final question. Is it a truly democratic activity? I mean, it's got a terrible reputation at the moment
Starting point is 00:27:03 for being part of the kind of middle class wokery. We were laughing about eating tofu earlier. I think some people chuck it in the same kind of basket as that. And I mean, the terrible reality is that an awful lot of kids don't learn to swim. They then find it's too expensive to go to a swimming pool to learn to swim they then find it's too expensive to go to a swimming pool to learn to swim is it just a bit elitist? I think it has become or got a reputation for that as you say but it doesn't need to be it's all about the education as you correctly say particularly with kids and helping them understand the dangers of cold water, which are essential year-round, actually, because some of the bodies of water we have in this country
Starting point is 00:27:47 are incredibly deep, and people don't necessarily understand that when you drop into cold water, there's generally a thermo layer of water that retains some warmth, and then beneath that, it gets incredibly cold. And it's the impact of people jumping into deeper water, going through that thermo layer and into the cold water, where the body has an instant reaction of a gasp response. And we take on water because of that. So getting the education out there about the fact that how we get into the water is really important.
Starting point is 00:28:15 What bodies of water are relatively safe and doing it in a safe environment with people who know what they're doing is really important all year round. We've seen quite a lot of deaths in the last summer, certainly, and all summers, where people aren't aware of that, and that's sadly what happens to a lot of people. Yep, it certainly is. Yep, thank you for making that point. Very nice to talk to you as well, Skip. He was joining us from what looked like a very, very sunny lakeside
Starting point is 00:28:41 somewhere in Surrey. You should keep saying, I mean, the weather is lovely, isn't it? And it's weirdly warm. Can we just be honest about this? the weather is lovely, isn't it? And it's weirdly warm. Can we just be honest about this? It should be colder, shouldn't it? By now, it should be. But let's face it, in an energy crisis, we're taking any warm autumn we can.
Starting point is 00:28:54 End of Wellness Wednesday. That was Skip, who I should say, if you want to picture a man who would be endorsing such activity on a beautiful late autumn afternoon wearing a logoed fleece you'd probably you would have built skip you would have built skip yeah yeah you'd have built skip he was it was a very handsome chap who looked in the prime of health himself that's what happens when you regularly swim in very cold water jane yeah but i'm also in relatively good health
Starting point is 00:29:23 and i just do my plank. So, you know, we should at this point own up to the fact that we made quite a lot of mushroom coffee yesterday, only for me, quite frankly, not to drink it during the programme today. And there's a simple reason for that. We didn't get sent any mushroom coffee.
Starting point is 00:29:40 So, next week I'm totally, totally certain that I'll have some to sample. So we are keeping it real, aren't we? You've got to own up to these things. You big them up and then they don't happen. But I think you and I have probably both done taste testing things on other radio stations where we haven't tested or tasted the stuff
Starting point is 00:29:58 that we're then purporting to bobble on about. So I'm looking forward to the mushroom coffee because quite a few people got in touch afterwards and said, don't laugh at it. Fungi are the future. They've been around a very long time. And they are quite mystical things, aren't they, mushrooms? So perhaps I'll have to ditch my cynicism on that.
Starting point is 00:30:15 Well, that's next week. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves. In the meantime, thank you very much for listening to this. We did have a really life-enhancing message just towards the end of today's programme from a man called Greg just said slightly to his surprise as you said in a passive-aggressive way
Starting point is 00:30:29 he was beginning to not enjoy exactly but to be prepared to put up with what he described as our witterings between three and five. It's good of him, isn't it? Well, we welcome Greg to the party. He can stand at the back but you are still very welcome. We welcome everybody actually. Greg can go round with a bin bag at close of play. That's all he's allowed to do. He can stand at the back, but you are still very welcome. We welcome everybody, actually. Greg can go
Starting point is 00:30:46 round with a bin bag at close of play. That's all he's allowed to do. He can pick up the frazzles and the skips from Tony's Food Thursday. Thank you. Take care now, and do take part. It's at Times Radio. That's for the live radio show. If you want to talk to us via this method,
Starting point is 00:31:01 you can do an email to janeandfee at times.radio. Do an email? Yeah, do one. Do an email? Do one. Keep it in. Do one. You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell.
Starting point is 00:31:32 Now you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that if you like what you heard and thought, hey, I want to listen to this but live, then you can Monday to Thursday, but live, then you can. Monday to Thursday, three to five on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon. Goodbye.

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