Fi is back at Jane's side after a week away. They talk about her trip to the Cotswolds, Michael Ball (again), and recalling a Yorkshire visit where they once faced a closed hotel kitchen. 
Journalist Sean O'Neill from The Times shares a personal story about his late daughter Maeve and a crisis is affecting the coroners' courts. 
If you've been affected by any of the issues discussed in this episode please email feedback@times.radio and we can put you in touch with the relevant support services. 
If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: janeandfi@times.radio. 
Follow our instagram! @JaneandFi 
Assistant Producer: Matt Murphy 
Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler 

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So it's Monday and Phee is back from her restful holiday.

Well it was quite, it wasn't entirely restful, We didn't go very far.

We went to the Cotswolds, beautiful part of England, kind of southern England, a little bit in the middle.

That's for our international audience, Jane.

Yes, absolutely, for the vast and varied international audience.

Well, do you want to try to describe the Cotswolds for people who genuinely...

Is it, would it be fair to say it's the ultimate clichéd English England?

Well it is, but they've decided not to use that as a slogan.

By the way, I got fired from a job in an advertising agency.

So it's bucolic England, I think at its best.

So the River Thames runs through quite a lot of the Cotswolds, so you have an undulating rural landscape.

It's not hilly or mountainous at all and it is the site of lots of those very, very beautiful sand-colored stone villages.

That's what defines the Cotswolds, isn't it?

Before you get to a couple of miniature villages that are there.

And I think there's a big water park there now, isn't there?

And the big towns are quintessentially British.

So they'll have a high street with a couple of pubs on either side.

There'll be a lot of organic wine being sold at the moment.

Quite a lot of sourdough will be available to you at every meal.

But it's also it's got a rural beauty to it that I really love.

So there was 1 night when my daughter and I were sitting outside and the grass had just been mown in the church graveyard next door to where we were staying.

You could just see the dying embers of the sun across a long low horizon.

Well, it sure would normally, wouldn't it?

Well, it could be the start of something because

So you didn't see any giant cheeses heading in your direction or anything like that?

A staycation appeared to mean that you literally stayed in your home, but it was misinterpreted, wasn't it?

Oh yeah, people went to Margate and said they were on a staycation.

Genuine question, did you see any men in those very distinctive red, slightly pink trousers?

So we did see 1 gentleman striding out of a morning in a pink short but it was that dark pink.

So definitely some pleats I think along the waist area.

So that would be the summer version of the long pink trouser.

But if you're seeking to deride this part

You're right about the sandstone, they're gorgeous.

But I was in an Italian restaurant the other night and a man, shall we say, of a certain vintage, with a very particular sort of confidence, came striding in and said, the kitchen was closed and the lady in charge couldn't have made it clear.

1 of those voices that, you know, he was so posh he couldn't completely make himself understood.

He's a little bit like Miriam Markley's impersonation of a posh person.

Now, I mean, if I were to go into that restaurant and say, oh, could I possibly?

And I would say, oh, and I would take my leave.

But when you've got that kind of inbuilt certainty about what you're entitled to, you get your pasta.

If the lady tells me the kitchen is closed I would have beaten a retreat.

Actually, no, because where did we get stuck once when the kitchen had closed?

It was Harrogate where the kitchen was closed.

And we couldn't eat it in the bar, even though there was no 1 else in there.

We had to go down to the billiard Room in the basement.

Because you didn't lift a finger for that.

But we weren't very welcome, that's for sure.

No we've got nothing against Harrogate but it wasn't quite the northern welcome that might be on their tourist posters.

It wasn't the northern welcome we got in for example Chester.

Well we got lost in the 1 way system but the people were lovely.

You got your dimples out for a Doctor Who.

something I put to him, which I'm not sure he was entirely pleased to hear, although he was very charming, and he does look amazing for 52 but he wasn't particularly giving on the beauty tip front.

Because I genuinely if I see someone who just looks amazing and their skin is utterly clear I just would like to know if they use an ointment remember when we asked Greg James and he favoured Hawaiian Tropic?

Yes, well he favoured a moisturiser that had a slight little self-tan

Yeah, so I was hoping for a little bit of that from my new showbiz pal David.

But you definitely were having a nice little rapport.

I said I'd seen Staged and to quote my perhaps slight lapse on the radio show, I did say to him that I'd found it insufferable.

His PR lady looked a bit shifty, but he was alright about it.

We went on to have a discussion about the persona of actors.

Anyway, I've had some devastating news just in the last couple of minutes.

Oh Gosh, well we had a big, big guest tomorrow, you've done all of the work, you've gone to see the show.

I've been to see Aspects of Love and can I just say, although I did say last week and I mean it, that the staging was magnificent, the performances are impeccable, costumes are superb?

I was taking 1 for the team because the plot is rubbish.

And I think that's okay because other people have said it.

It's incredibly dated and it features a man shooting a woman and then the character played by Michael Ball deciding that that signifies that the couple belong together.

She wasn't dead, by the way, it was merely a graze.

But I put it to you that in the 21st century, if a man has shot a woman, you don't necessarily think that means they should belong together for all time.

Anyway, several other twists and turns in what was an utterly deluded plot.

But the terrible news this afternoon is that Michael Ball has pulled out.

Well he's having problems with his voice and I think that does happen to people when they're in long runs of shows and they don't want to risk it for a biscuit by doing a 19 minute interview with the likes of us.

And we could have done some of it with mime.

I wanted to ask him a question about what is the most inane line he has had to sing in a show?

Because Aspects of Love does contain some very daffy bits that could have been spoken but are in fact sung instead.

And it is things like what time does the bus leave from the main station and stuff like that.

So I just, it would have been, anyway, there's the question if anybody else wants to use it.

what, just on that tip, we were listening to Alita Adams' Get Here, which is a

I can't remember whether it was a song we played a lot during the first Gulf War on local radio or it was a song that we were banned from playing on local radio.

Gosh, it's quite telling if it's not the latter,

See all Off Air... with Jane and Fi transcripts on Applepodcasts

Nothing against Harrogate