Showy Ovaries with Penny Ashton.
Comedian Penny Ashton is on a voyage of discovery into the hormonal hocus pocus of menopause. So what better way to learn about her moisture moving from inside her body to perspiring out her face, than by talking to a series of wondrous women and owners of ovaries about their own lives and their menopause journeys. A series of frank and funny interviews all about what to expect, when expecting the change. Warning: salty language, and not just from the night sweats. Season Three and beyond is opening up wider to include women and trans individuals of all ages and bodily functionings.
Showy Ovaries with Penny Ashton.
Felicitous Susannah Fullerton - For the Love of Jane Austen
Hoorah! Showy Ovarians, grab your bonnets and pop the kettle on because today, December 16th 2025, we’re throwing a literary birthday bash! Jane Austen turns a whopping 250 and what better excuse for a Showy Bonnets Special?
And who better to to spill the tea on all things Austen than NZ's other Janeite of notoriety, the head of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for 30 years; Kiwi Susannah Fullerton.
Susannah is a global Jane Austen powerhouse. A writer, academic, tour guide, speaker and all round literary super fan from the moment she could pick up a book. She has led JASA to being the largest literary association in Australia and is also variously patron, founder and member of numerous other societies from Dickens to Georgette Heyer.
Penny beamed into her Paddington pad to chat about Susannah's body's favoured position, her skill at hitting a ball, the alarming notion of giving birth 18 times and Great Writers and the Cats Who Owned Them.
But mostly she and Penny both wax lyrical on the proto-feminist, supremely witty, joyous literary superstar that has changed both of their lives, our dear lady Jane Austen. If only Jane could see how her star shows no sign of dimming, even if her life was tragically cut short.
Apologies for some of the high feedback along this podcast.
CONTENT WARNING: A touch more swearing than in Pride and Prejudice....
ALSO sending love to Sydney and all it endured in its horrific attack at Bondi Beach only 2 days ago.
Kyoto Koto, no my haremai, and welcome back to another episode of Showy Ovaries. I have been deeply dormant for a lot of 2025, like perimenopausal ovaries, and suddenly I am sputtering back into life to release a few more ovums in 2025 for your ears to soak up. This is a special edition of Showy Ovaries that I am renaming Showy Bonnets to celebrate some milestones. Most importantly, today, the 16th of December, 2025, is the 250th birthday of the woman that has changed both mine and my guests' lives, the literary goddess that is Jane Austen. It is also 30 years since two iconic screen Austen were released. Nearly exactly this day in 1995, my gateway drug, Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility, graced the big screen, along with many, many, many others' gateway drug, the BBC's Pride and Prejudice, which hooked so many of the world on the small screen. It's also 20 years since Matthew McFadden brooded over Kira Knightley in the Pride and Prejudice movie. 17 years since I started doing Austin shows with Austin Found, which we are coincidentally performing tonight at Tapak in Auckland. And 29 years since my guest, Susanna Fullerton, took over the helm of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, which she still reigns over like the literary queen she is. Susanna, who has a Medal of Order for Services to Literature from the Australian government, and is a fellow for the Royal Society of New South Wales, is a lecturer, speaker, literary tour guide, author, academic writer, powerhouse generator of countless literary-themed events and gatherings, and the ultimate Jainite, which is a Jane Austen fan, in case you had not heard of that term. Her energy is as boundless as Lydia around a regimental soldier. Her intellect equal to Elizabeth Bennett, and her Paddington Flat rivals Lady Catherine's Rosings, but with better pizza. She was an enormous help to me in touring Australia this year with Promise and Promiscuity. I'm delighted to welcome her to my podcast from said Paddington Flat. It is Susannah Bulletin. Hooray!
SPEAKER_00:Welcome, welcome, Kilda. How are you doing? I'm very well, thank you. Thanks for that lovely introduction. Oh, there's more to come. There's more to come. There's so much to say. You've got you're doing a lot.
SPEAKER_03:I am indeed. And of course, this is just such an incredibly special day with Jane Austen's 250th birthday being celebrated around the world. This really is a global event. And as you said, Jane Austen has changed our lives. So for me, this is a hugely important day.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And what are you doing for the birthday itself? Which is today, obviously, but we are doing this two weeks ago. So what are you doing on this day in two weeks?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's very exciting that New South Wales State Parliament is hosting a high tea, especially for Jane Austen's birthday. So the most important building in the state is getting in on the act, and we're going to have a wonderful high tea. It's been booked out for some weeks now with 300 people attending. They've got a waiting list. I'm going to be doing some readings, chosen readings from Pride and Prejudice and from Emma. That's going to be lots of fun. But I'm also going to find some time today to just sit quietly with six books in front of me. And I'm just going to let them fall open wherever they happen to fall. And I'm going to read and I'm going to delight in what I'm reading, no matter which age it is, it doesn't matter. And I'm just going to feel incredibly grateful that Jane Austen was born on this day 250 years ago, and that her books have given me so much pleasure, have given me my career, they have enriched my life, they've given me my friends. They've just done so much for me. I'm going to delight that that baby girl was born in Hampshire 250 years ago. I think she needs a birthday cake.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. I did look at getting a birthday cake for Tapak, but they're quite expensive to feed like 150 people. So I think I might get some chocolates. Do you have a favourite, Jane Austen?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, Emma. Emma's the one I love the most. Pride and Prejudice was my first, but Emma is the one that I think is her utter masterpiece. I think it's the greatest novel that's ever been written. I don't think a single word could be changed to improve it in any way. I absolutely worship that novel.
SPEAKER_01:Sense and Sensibility is my favorite because it was the first, and I just love that screen adaptation so much.
SPEAKER_03:That's the best movie, isn't it? The best Jane Austen movie by a long way.
SPEAKER_01:I agree entirely because it was just it's beautifully done, beautifully portrayed the book, but just those wonderful actors as well that just did update some stuff for a bit of a more modern sensibility that you know things like because in the book Edward is a bit dull, and they made him slightly less dull on the screen.
SPEAKER_03:He needed a bit of pep, and and I think you know you can see the reasons why she made the changes. Yeah. She gave Margaret more of a role as the younger sister, and you know, you can see why she did those changes, and I think she she did such an amazing job with it. Great actress, gorgeous filming. It really is the best movie version of a Jan Austen novel.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, because there is some there's that tricky thing around, you know, modern sensibilities applied to old books. And and yes, I can see that it was of the time, but I can also see that the fact that 35-year-olds married 16-year-olds is pretty gross, ultimately. So she she aged Marianne up slightly, etc. And I think things like that are good for a modern sensibility. And I think we can acknowledge that that was the way it was, but also acknowledge that misogyny and female suppression and dominance was so much that that was something that could happen. Whereas we've come a bit further now, and 16-year-olds are actually children. Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, now I have a longer introduction for you than I'm going to do now because there's just too much to say about you. So here we go. Susanna Fullerton was born in a town I have performed in quite a lot, Edmonton in Canada, in 1960. She then moved to Auckland and grew up in New Zealand. Though your Wikipedia entry calls you a Canadian Australian, which I took. I know, which is all wrong. I know. I took Umbridge with what I read. On a key with. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, and it was in my hometown of Christchurch that your mother first read to you from Pride and Prejudice, and she was hooked. She went on to major in English literature at Auckland University, and then a postgraduate degree in Victorian fiction and prose from Edinburgh University. She then moved to Australia and has become one of the most sought-after speakers in Australia and the world, really, on all manner of literary grades. She adores all things historical, being a founding member of the Dickens and Bronte Societies of Australia, is the patron of the Kipling and Georgette Heyer Societies, a member of the Dylan Thomas Society, and of course the shining matriarch of the Austen Society. She's written various books, available to buy, of course, look in the episode notes for this, such as Jane Austen and Crime, Brief Encounters, Literary Travellers in Australia, Happily Ever After, celebrating Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but most recently, and selling its whiskers off. In fact, it has sold out with more stock due soon. Has it arrived yet? The new stock? No, it's due any day. Okay, which is Great Writers and the Cats Who Owned Them, which I love as a title. A celebration of writers such as Dickens, Hemingway, and our very own Dame Lindley Dodd's Wuskit, who was the inspiration for Slinky Malinky. She's not in Australia. She's flitting around the world, leading literary tours such as The Upcoming, Marshes, Mists and Murders, a literary exploration of East Anglia with music and musical interludes, oh, and artistic interludes in 2027. Basically, I would like to be her when she grows up. She's crafted a career from her passions and is a wonderfully welcoming, encouraging, and professional ambassador for all things literary with Austin at the very tippy top. So one more time, please go wild like Marianne on a wanton carriage ride for Susanna Fullerton. Thank you, Penny. That's right. Do you like hearing all of that at once? Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_03:I feel exhausted just hearing about it. And you did that.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes. And you've been doing so, when did it all start? Was it like because you've been doing that since you were 30?
SPEAKER_03:Early 30s, yes. So I it just started gradually where I began giving the odd talk about writers that I liked and I loved giving talks, and one thing really just led to another. Then I started writing books, then I began leaving my literary tours. So I really have turned my passion for books into a job, which has been wonderful. I love my career. I don't want to retire from it. I absolutely love it. So I will keep going.
SPEAKER_01:And you know, one thing I've discovered is that women of a certain age are certainly the ones that drive a buying the tickets to theatre shows. Absolutely. You know, you know, the women of like I 45 plus is who I advertise to on Facebook. And I find that, you know, they've got the passion, and a lot of the time they've got more disposable income now. Obviously, this is very difficult times currently, but you know, often their children have left home, etc., and they wanted to spread their wings and do fun things.
SPEAKER_03:And it's women who are buying the books, you know, it's women that keep the bookshops going. And the same with literary tours. It's mainly women who are coming on my literary tours in different places around the world. Uh, it's women mainly who turn up to my talks. I'd love to have more men come along, but uh, it's women who are really driving forces.
SPEAKER_01:It was quite funny because I gave a talk to the Jane Austen Society about my famous uncle who flirted with Jane Austen. And my uncle, my uncle came, who's the one who discovered the connection when he was doing ancestry stuff. And he he's such an Aussie bloke. He was like, Oh, there's not very many men here. Like, oh no, like he was that was so funny. I'm like, you'll be fine, you'll be fine, Uncle Dave. Sat at the back and then was like, Oh, that, you know, and then quite enjoyed himself. And he came to my theater show and he hadn't been to the theater in like 40 years or something crazy. And so he, yeah, so it's like women, women, you know, women rule the world, let's be honest. Well, except for these warmongering men at the top who've just always, yes, if only women could yeah, break that glass ceiling and stop killing each other, that would be good.
SPEAKER_03:Those warmongering men might be much better people if they read a few novels. That's right. That's right. I think they might learn some very badly needed lessons.
SPEAKER_00:Putin just needs to read Pride and Prejudice. That's what Putin needs to do. He does.
SPEAKER_03:So, what did you want to be when you grew up? Well, I thought for a long time of being a school teacher because I knew whatever I did had had to have something to do with books. So I thought, well, I'll become an English teacher. But I sort of went off that idea when I was at high school myself, and I saw, well, I was the most attentive child in the class, uh, some of the others were not, and they listed the books and they complained when there had to be a poem read uh or discussed. And I thought, oh, do I really want to stand up in front of kids like this and give talks about the books and the poems that I adore, and find that they're not listening in the back row or they're you know throwing paper darts or whatever it might be. So I really went off the idea, and then I did a master's in English literature, which is what I did at Edinburgh, and I thought, oh help, you know, what sort of career does passion for books lead to? Do I become a librarian? But you know, you're handling books then, but you're not necessarily talking about them with people. So then I was busy for some years, I had small children, and it was really only once the children had all got to school that I began giving the odd talk, and I thought, oh, I've now found what tiggers like best. I I can talk to adults. Adults choose to come. Nobody's going to be badly behaved in the back row. Uh, I don't have to worry about marking. I don't have admin and red tape. I can choose whichever favourite authors I want to talk about. I don't need to give talks on any author I don't enjoy. So I found that I really had complete freedom to choose what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. Fitted in very well with children who were, you know, coming home from school and needed taking to soccer or whatever it might be. So gradually my career just sort of grew. So it really all came about by accident, and I'm incredibly grateful that it did.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I met your husband, he was very charming. He didn't come to the talk, did he, if I recall?
SPEAKER_03:No, he didn't. He doesn't come to the Jane Austen Society. He has yet to be converted, Kenny. I have tried, believe me, I have tried.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, um, my husband, I tried to make him watch Sense and Sensibility, and he he just wouldn't do it. He eventually did, but yeah, no, he not for him, and that is fine. But your husband, well, sorry, I've forgotten his name. What was I Ian? That's right, but he was very supportive. Yeah, well, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, what's that story then? Well, I think he feels I read too much, and he's a bit puzzled by my career. So he's moderately supportive, but I wouldn't say fantastically. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01:What does he do? He's a lawyer. See, you know, like the um manipulation of words in a pleasing and dexterous manner is surely something that would please you to a lawyer.
SPEAKER_03:You'd think so, but no. You would think so.
SPEAKER_01:That's so funny. What about your children?
SPEAKER_03:What do they think? Oh, they're all delighted with what I do, and they've been so proud of my recent book, my book on famous authors and the cats who own them. They were all there for the book launch, and so was my husband. Um everyone made it into a very special occasion. So my children all read, but one more than the other two. He loves audiobooks, which is great. So, but I've yet to get both my boys to read Jane Austen. So that's another work in progress.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, interesting. Right, okay. So, who don't you like as a writer, not a person?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I'm not crazy about James Joyce, I have to say. Quite hard to read? Yes, I've read Ulysses twice, but I don't intend ever to read Finnegan's Wake. I agree with George Bernard Shaw, who in his 90s said, Life is too short to read Finnegan's Wake. Right, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Who else don't I? Well You're on every society for every person. Yes, I'm very promiscuous, you see. I can as promises of promiscuity is something that I believe in.
SPEAKER_03:I'm totally promiscuous when it comes to my literary societies and also my literary loves. You know, there's so many men I'm in love with, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Knightley and Henry Tilney, and so many. So it's it's one of the joys of reading literature. You know, you you fall in love with these writers and their characters, and it so enriches your life. Yes. It gives a whole new dimension to life.
SPEAKER_01:And there is something about, you know, the sisterhood, which it is not entirely 100%, but there are there are some men dotted around the Jane Austen societies. But like some of the best times I've had, like so after I gave the talk, I went back to Susanna's house with some other ladies of Jane Austen Persuasion. We just had a bloody good time. And same, I've given a talk to the Jane Austen Society of Adelaide, you know, so I've met it's so it's like a sisterhood that you meet through these things as well, too. So you said so are most of your friends Jane Austen inclined?
SPEAKER_03:Many of my friends, and you know, I've met so many wonderful people through the Jane Austen Society and also through my tours because I do tours to so many different places. People who've enjoyed one will book for the next one in another country. Although some people have actually done the same tour twice over, they've loved it so much. So that's really nice. So, I mean, that's the best review. Most of my friends love books. I I feel that that's almost a qualification. You don't like reading, then I'm really not going to have a lot of fun being with you. So I feel that books are necessary for a good friendship.
SPEAKER_01:Now, there's one thing about the fact that so often if something appeals to women more, it's denigrated as being less than or less worthy or less literal or less intellectual. So what have you come up against that sort of thing?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, you do, and I find that when I give a talk on a male writer, say Oscar Wilde or Shakespeare or Tolstoy, I do tend to get more men in the audience. So they think, oh, female writer, no, it won't come. And that's so sad. I talked once to a teacher who was teaching Pride and Prejudice to boys in a high school, and he said that one of the mothers had come along and complained that he was teaching a book by a woman writer who was mainly about women to her son in an English class. And I thought, you know, imagine a mother coming along or father coming along and saying, Well, you're teaching Dickens to my girls, and it's mainly about David Copperfield and his male friends. You should be teaching a book that's about girls. I mean, it's just so ridiculous. It makes me really angry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, me too.
SPEAKER_03:And I think there can be a lot of snobbery in the book world. It makes me cross when crime fiction is denigrated as being a sort of lesser genre. And of course, many of the great crime fiction writers are women. Uh it was a job women could do from home. I think women do murder really well in literature. It was the sense, oh no, a crime novel shouldn't really be winning a book a prize or a you know a major award. They're just crime novels. But I think it takes phenomenal skill to write a good crime novel and plot your clues properly. And you know, had Jane Austen had that reading available to her, I think she'd have really enjoyed good crime fiction. So that makes me cross as well. There's snobbery around that, too. I think the snoberry around Jane Austen is going. Also get annoyed when English people think, well, Jane Austen belongs to them. Only English people can really understand Jane Austen. And that's not true at all. Wonderful books about Jane Austen have been written by Australians, New Zealanders, and Americans and Canadians. Jane Austen is universal, and yes, she happened to be born in England and her books are set there, but that doesn't give English people a sort of exclusive right to understanding her.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So there is snobbery in the book world.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and it's often like it's like when you do a solo show as a woman, it's deemed to be for women. But if men do a solo show, then everything down. Yes. It's so the same. And the thing I find quite interesting about Jane Austen, too, people always like, why are people still doing it? But she's still so relevant. You know, yeah, yeah. When you think about like 2020, respiratory illnesses, the wage gap, housing instability, housing insecurity, all those sorts of things. It's still like it's because Jane Austen's all about the search for love and sexuality. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:And you know, coping with a difficult employer like Mr. Collins, who has Lady Catherine as his employer, false friendships, as Isabella Thorpe is to Catherine Moreland in North Anger Abbey, you know, working out who is going to be a worthwhile friend, somebody worth keeping, falling in love with the wrong person, uh, having embarrassing parents like Mrs. Bennett. All those things are just as relevant in our world today as they were over 200 years ago when Jane Austen wrote the novels. And she teaches us so much about human nature, about other people and our friendships and our relationships. Just so many reasons for reading Jane Austen today.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I like because the other thing that really bothers me is when, you know, I read there was a uh you may have seen it, a Guardian article recently by like a Gen Z guy. I don't know. Why is everybody so obsessed with this? You know, it's all about just marriage and who cares about marriage? I'm like, wow, you don't know what it was like to live in a time when you didn't even have any rights. Like this was before the marital rights sort of act. I think I can't quite remember if that's what it was called, about the fact that all of the money went to the husband, that the only way to have any autonomy or anything was to be married. I reckon the best thing to be was widowed. Being widowed was the best thing to do.
SPEAKER_03:And you look at you look at Mrs. Ferris and sense and sensibility. She's got control of her m mummy. So does Lady Catherine Deberg and Mrs. Jenning, the widows, do very nicely in Jane Austen's world. And then you look at women like Charlotte Lucas, who has to face the fact that she'll have Mr. Collins in her bed for the rest of her life.
SPEAKER_01:And that's exactly what I was thinking of when I brought this up. That you know, and then that the way that Elizabeth berates her. For marrying such a revolting man as Mr. Collins, but then gets shown the reality herself. She's she's almost like the Gen Z writing that today, whereas Charlotte Lucas slaps that down. Absolutely. And you see that prag the acceptance of the pragmatism of the situation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And Jane Austen was so aware of that. The terrible plight of women. There was no rights to their own money, no vote, and of course, no not even any rights to their own bodies. And she had two sisters-in-law who died giving birth to their 11th babies. She was very aware of when you did get married, you still were not guaranteed any sort of happiness. And in my book, Jane Austen and Crime, I write about adultery, which of course happens in Mansfield Park. And, you know, the woman is so punished for the adultery, but the man isn't. He can pretty much get off scot-free.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:What happens when a young woman like Lydia runs away with Mr. Wickham and doesn't even get to Gretna Green? Her reputation is damaged completely. But Wickham's isn't. He can just still continue to go where he wants to go. And so the penalties, as Jane Austen says, the penalties for women and for men are very, very different. And I think today we we still have a lot of that. It's still more that the woman is blamed for fair or whatever. And women in some parts of the world still lead unbelievably dangerous and insecure lives in places like Afghanistan. And they lead hideous lives with no education and no proper medical services for them because they're women, and then husbands don't want them to go to a male doctor, but there's no female doctors being trained. I mean, it's it's just appalling. So a lot of what Jane Austen writes about is sadly still in our world today.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, absolutely, hugely. So you talked about her body there. So that's a good segue into my question that I ask everybody on this podcast, which is what has your relationship been like with your body and what journey has it been on through your life?
SPEAKER_03:But the best place for my body is lying on a bed holding a book. And I don't I can't ever remember a time when that was not the case. You know, live reading is the best place for my body. Sadly, that of course is not going to keep it going for as long as I want it to keep going. And so some exercise is involved. I have discovered that exercise is a lot easier when you can plug in an audiobook. I was gonna say that and listen to it as as you exercise. So that helps. Yeah, I guess my problem is I came from quite a sporty family. Most of them were good at sport, and I was the one that wasn't. And my favorite exercise in the world is turning the pages of a book, which is not going to make you lose weight.
SPEAKER_01:It's not very good for your cardiovascular fitness, unless it's like, you know, Mr. Willoughby being all very charming and then your heart might race.
unknown:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So that I guess means that you know exercise doesn't come naturally to me. And as the years have gone by, I've put on a little bit more weight than I want and would like to lose it. So I guess that's really my my big problem with my body is that I'd love it to be the body of a gorgeous 20-year-old, slim and fit, but it's putting in that effort to get it to to anywhere remotely near that stage that's so hard.
SPEAKER_01:Right, okay. So, like, what's your journey like, would you say? Like, you know, did do you remember puberty? Did you relate it back to you know, Bronte's or anything like that when you were going through that sort of thing? And actually, I'm be curious to know, I haven't actually looked into what sort of mentions there are around anything like that in the female literature of the time.
SPEAKER_03:Not a lot. I mean, we're the the whole concept of being a teenager is really a more modern one. I guess in Jane Austen's day, you were a child, and then you had your coming out, and suddenly you were an adult. And there's some discussion of that in Mansfield Park where they say, Is Fanny Price out or is she not out? And and I think that was a much more sudden thing from being a child to suddenly being an adult and expected to behave like an adult and of course have an adult body. So a woman would have then put up her hair, uh, she would not have shown much of a glimpse of ankle, she was expected to be more decorous, she would learn to dance and of course would need to use her body properly on the dance floor. That was very important. You had to make the most of that time dancing with a man. And in Jane Austen's day, if a man asked you to dance, the dance could go on for as long as 30 minutes. So it was a long time. Right. If Mr. Collins asked you to dance and you said no to him, then you were not allowed to stand up and dance with anybody else for the rest of the evening because that was seen as being very insulting to the man you had turned down. So really you had no choice. It's rather interesting to note that the one and only time in her novels when Jane Austen uses the word ecstasy is in connection with Mr. Collins. Elizabeth has been dancing with Mr. Collins, and we hear the moment of her release from him was ecstasy. So it's fascinating to think that the only reference to ecstasy in Jane Austen comes with Mr. Collins.
SPEAKER_01:Right, okay, that's so interesting. Did you have any sort of coming out in in Auckland situation?
SPEAKER_03:No, no, not really. I mean, in my teens I just almost dived into novels. You know, I read my way through the Bronte's and through Jane Austen and through Georgette Hayer and every novel I could sort of get hold of. And of course, most of them were romantic. There'd be some sort of love affair. So I longed for Heathcliff to sweep me away to the moors or Mr. Rochester to come up on his great black horse and take me off to the south of France to live with them there, which Jane refuses.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know, the Brontes, there's a lot of burning to death in the attic and terrible boyfriends with the Bronte's. I'm not a big fan of the Brontes, they do not.
SPEAKER_03:Well, see, I love them in my teens, but now I look at them and I think, oh my goodness, Heathcliff needs a really good psychiatrist.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly, exactly. Yeah, not yeah. So was there any like, you know, Eastern suburbs boys or anything that in Auckland that was um passing muster as Mr. Darcy or anything like that?
SPEAKER_03:No, no, not as no, I've never yet met a man who's even come remotely close to passing muster as Mr. Darcy. So they set very unrealistic standards, Penny. Yes, yes. You look, there were boys, and you know, yes, I went to school dances and things like that. But I think I lived very intensely in my head through my teens, you know, because it's books I was reading. I had girlfriends and I had some social life, and you know, I enjoyed all of that. But really, my major memories of my teens are looking back and thinking, yes, that was when I read that book, or that's when I read this book. So I think I lived so vividly in fiction throughout my teens. And I don't think I was a particularly difficult teenager for my parents to cope with. They had more of a challenge with the next sister that came along. I see. So I you know, I was pretty good and loved English at school, of course. I did drama classes, which was wonderful. I was acting in various plays and I was doing exams and speech and drama, which I really loved. So no, I think I was a a pretty good teenager on the whole for my project.
SPEAKER_01:And didn't really think about your body that much at that time. No, not a lot.
SPEAKER_03:I mean I'd have liked to have been taller. I'm the shortest in my family by quite a long way. So my sisters always looked more elegant in their clothes because they were taller. I had to get contact lenses because I hated my glasses. You know, of course, everyone's got things about their body that they don't like. So inevitably, as a teenager, you're you're more aware of all of that. But I didn't get lots of spots or you know, have any of those teenage problems. So I think I cruised through reasonably well with my teens, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Right, okay, great. And then university was that like because I found my tribe at university, definitely with the comedy club and and all that sort of stuff. So was it like that for you as well?
SPEAKER_03:Yes. I started university young. I left uh school at after the sixth form, I didn't do the seventh form, and I went off to university, and my very first lecture was Professor Musgrove at Auckland University doing Dr. Faustus, and he was walking up and down the stage declaiming, is this the face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium? And I thought, I have found my spiritual home. I know I belong here. And I went home and I said to my mum, I love university, and I'm going to do a master's degree when I finish my BA. And he was very relieved because I was still I was only 16 when I started, so I was very young. I wouldn't be allowed to now. I didn't miss school one bit because at school they made me do science and maths and all these other subjects I had no interest in whatsoever. Whereas at university I was able to do languages and I was able to do English, and it was just so wonderful to at long last feel that I was really getting the meat and the nitty-gritty of these books that I loved so much. Yes, I was made to read some things I didn't love, but yes, yeah, but but most of it, you know, to to do Wordsworth's poems and I I I was just in total heaven, and not everybody in the class shared my passion, but I was sitting there completely wrapped, loving every single minute. I can see that in your face. I had a nice social life. I I had a boyfriend who was around for quite a few years, and not that he was a great reader, but everything was fine. So I adored Auckland University. And when I go to Auckland now and I wander around and see the old grad building and see where I studied German, and there's nothing but happy memories. It's just all it was all wonderful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I had a pretty good time. I did English for the first year and I hated it. I dropped it faster than you could say this is the most boring lecture of my entire life. The Shakespeare lecturer, one of them was so boring. Oh my god, it was just he made and he was the comedy's lecturer, and it it was just so boring. And heart of darkness, I was like, this book can it's fuck off, excuse me. I just like it was the heart of oh I I just hated, I hated it so much I dropped it as soon as I also hate Heart of Darkness.
SPEAKER_03:Can't see why anyone thinks it's a great novel.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly, exactly. I was like, this should have boring. Uh and so then I did classics and drama, and so obviously drama was the thing.
SPEAKER_03:Well, we both have that love of drama, so it's you know, it's been it's so wonderful when you can act out or you can do good readings from from the books that you love. Of course. And act out the characters, it's fabulous.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then you went to Edinburgh, and where did you meet Ian again? I met him in Edinburgh. So You did, yeah, right. And was he doing lore there? No, he wasn't actually.
SPEAKER_03:He was doing English. Not that he's done much since. Right, okay, fantastic. Uh yeah, we got engaged in Edinburgh and then we lived in London for some years, which was wonderful. We loved being right in the heart of London. Yeah. And then we sort of argued about whether we would move to South Africa, which is where he's from, or New Zealand, which of course is where I'm from. Uh, we couldn't solve that argument, so we sort of compromised and came to Sydney. And, you know, it's been a great city to live in, and my career has been able to flourish here in a way it probably wouldn't in New Zealand because it's a much smaller population. I'm living in Sydney, which has got a population of over four million, so I can get people at my lectures and my book talks and my tours. So Sydney's been great. But I am a Kiwi, I'm a Kiwi.
SPEAKER_00:Right, yes, yes. So do you have a favourite part of your body? Oh.
SPEAKER_03:Uh I once would have said my hair, which is lovely and thick, and never had any worries about thinning hair. But of course, now it's going grey, so I'm not so fond of it anymore. Do you dye your hair? Yes, I do. But I'm wondering how much longer I should keep doing that.
SPEAKER_01:I just as long as you want. Like I know Peter Matthias just stopped dyeing her hair a little while ago. And she's so now she's got this incredible silver hair, but I'm gonna be doing this for quite some time yet.
SPEAKER_03:I'm yeah, I think I might be too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. My mother is incredible. My mother is 79 and she doesn't dye her hair and it's still quite brown.
SPEAKER_03:So the other thing I think I'd have to say is my voice, because my voice is my job.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Giving talks, dramatic readings, reading poetry aloud, and I'm a good reader, and people say, Oh, you know, I I love listening to you read. And yeah, I guess I'd say my voice. And is your voice resilient? Yes, very, yeah. Yeah, so you can I can do long talks without any trouble whatsoever. I can project my voice. People come up come up to me afterwards and say, Oh, I could hear every word you said. Yeah. Such a relief.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, my voice can have issues of like uh it's like right now, it's quite husky. Like this is because I had a cold, as opposed to doing shows. But see, I have to be very careful. I just bought a nebulizer. Where is it going? Like this nebulizer here for sucking the steam off it, etc., to keep it going. So, yeah, having a resilient voice in this sort of industry is really important. Now, this podcast did start its life being about menopause. I have sort of branched out a little bit now, but do you have any takes on your own menopause? Like how was it for you? You were from a a generation like the previous one that just didn't have the information that we do now. So, what was that like? And also, is there any mention of that in any Jade Austen or anything? I I don't feel like I've seen that. But how was your menopause, young lady?
SPEAKER_03:Well, a bit of a non-event, really. I never really sort of thought about it all that much. I thought, oh well, thank goodness that part of having to go out and buy sanitary equipment has all come to an end. And so no, I didn't, you know, I'd had three children, I didn't want more, there was no sort of grief connected with not having more children or anything like that. So, no, really, pretty much of a non-event. I I suspect that women in Jane Austen's era must have longed for it because it would have meant no more babies. Yeah, well. She knew somebody in her village who'd had 18 babies, and she wrote in a letter, I'm sure the poor woman they ought to have separate bedrooms. I'm sure that poor woman longed for a separate bedroom.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So I think uh many of them must have greeted menopause with absolute delight. And then also coping with periods, lack of what we'd call modern equipment for all of that, they didn't have. You know, Jane Austen grew up in a house with six brothers. So how did she and her sister cope when rags and other things had to be washed out? Count it been easy for them.
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_03:No privacy with toilets and and in those long dresses, you know, how did they keep everything in place? I think it must have been so difficult. So I think they probably greeted menopause with absolute relief in many cases.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, and it's good you had an easy one too, because you know, there's and what I think about, you know, like I'm getting a bit hot right now. I have I've also got a fan nearby that I've been using. Um, so did you get any hot flushes or anything like that? Small, but nothing major. No. You're so lucky.
SPEAKER_03:I call them hot blushes because mine aren't too bad. Hot blushes. Some friends have felt they could, you know, power the whole of the national grid with the heat they're giving off. But yeah. I had a bit, but nothing, nothing major. It was really on the whole very easy. Right, that's fantastic. My body has not really let me down in any particular way, except for putting on a few more pounds than I want. And that's my own fault because the food and books and wine all go so beautifully together.
SPEAKER_01:They really do. And chocolate, let's not forget chocolate.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:That's great because sometimes I ask that question, it just people can talk for 45 minutes, 50 minutes. I've got a lot of hang-ups, I've got a lot of chronic illnesses, a lot of things that have gone wrong with me. So I think it's very it's quite extraordinary to get to how many. 65 and just be so content, you know, etc. So well done. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Well, when I go on my tours and I see you know some of the tablets that tour members are having to take and all the medication they have to take with them, I stick a couple of band-aids in and a few aspirin just in case I need I get very mild asthma, so I take a latinizer.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:But that's the extent of my medication. That's when I go traveling. So long may it last because you know my blood pressure's good and up cholesterol and all those things are all good.
SPEAKER_01:So it is good, especially if you because like my I take I take my epilepsy medication, I take statins now because I've got family history of cholesterol, because I diet, you know, like quite a lot, uh, and still have to do that. And I like in the past, I've surprised my husband with like trips to a hotel, and I'm like, I can't do that anymore because I don't know what medications he needs. Because he got gout actually during lockdown, which is very, very historic. Uh, very reasonable. Exactly. It's like the Prince Regent. But it is remarkably good of you, yes. And I think about, you know, and I constantly think about this just because I've talked to a lot of people about menopause, and some people had horrendous menopauses, particularly around the fact that so many women were institutionalized with various women's ailments, except they were just told they were crazy. And I just sort of think about women that had debilitating like vulvadinia, like really painful vulva things and lichen sclerosis and all this sort of stuff in these eras who would not have been able to say a thing to anyone and the suffering that they had to endure. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_03:It must have been awful. And especially if it wasn't a part of your body that was never talked about.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:And even going to a doctor. I mean, all the doctors in Jane Austen's day were men, and they most of them didn't really know what they were doing. There was not great understanding of medicine. And when you know Jane Austen became sick with the illness that would kill her, which might be Addison's disease, but we can't be certain, you know, she'd have had no idea. She wouldn't have even had Dr. Google to have a look at, or absolutely nothing to help her understand what was going wrong with her body and what might be happening. Yeah. And I guess gradually she thought, right, getting weaker and weaker, clearly I'm going to die. But she didn't even know what she was dying from. And today that's it's hard to even imagine. But she had no idea what she was dying from, or what on earth she could do that might make things any better. Yeah. Tragic to think of, and and that there was so little understanding, and all those poor women who died in childbirth, and it was hideous for them. So I'm very grateful to be a modern woman when it comes to medicine. So yeah, I think I know.
SPEAKER_01:Some people say, like, you know, like Lost in Austin, when that woman goes back to Austin Times, say, Would you want to be in? I'm like, no, no, I like tampons, I like paracetamol. Yeah, I I would not want to be a lot. I like getting dressed up and pretending for a while.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. That's a different matter altogether.
SPEAKER_00:And we can go home to our flushing toilet.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. Very important. All that sort of thing. I know, and actually for me, the thing that I have, I mean, I love Austin's stories and characters, but the thing I've been drawn most to is her and her story. And I always cry when I talk about her. I'm like, where does this come from? I don't know. Just all of that. She was 41 only when she died. She died in her sister's arms. She struggled her whole life to be published. She was finally published. She made so little mummy. Yes. And then said, Oh, these ones have made a lot of money for other people. Now I'm going to put this book out, which didn't sell anywhere near as well, with Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey. And so, and then and then she loses and then she dies. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:It's just and if somebody had somebody had been able to let her know before she died that there would be a Jane Austen society in Australia, which is the largest literary society in this country, that this year a Jane Austen society in France was started. There are Jane Austen societies in Spain, in Belgium, in Brazil, Argentina, Singapore, Japan, the Philippines. How amazed she would have been. When you think of the merchandise, the movies, the sequels, the prequels, the theatre shows, all these things that have the books that have been written about her. So many people have made money from Jane Austen. Both of us. Both of us. Not a centre, but of course, you know, enriched. Her in any way, and she died thinking six novels, well, four published at the time of her death, no particularly famous name. Had she been able to somehow know that she would be the most famous woman writer in the history of the world, how extraordinary that would have been.
SPEAKER_01:I I just wrote a piece for a play market in New Zealand about why I wrote Sense of Sensibility, and that was the very last thing I said, if only she could see. Yeah. I donated money to the Jane Austen House in England. Excellent.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we we make donations to good causes, and you know, I think that's important that we keep her house going. Also, at the moment, we all need to be signing a petition because there's a terrible building development planned all around Chawton. And we're all signing a petition. I'll send you a link, Penny, to sign this and try and stop this dreadful 20,000 houses going up in and around, you know, so the lovely countryside that she walked through is at risk, really got to be stopped. So we've really got to do something about, you know, making sure that doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_01:I love visiting, because that's the thing with the literary tourism. Like, I wonder about this for for me at some point. We have talked about that, like, because I did a little bit of my own literary tourism. Like, I went to Chaughton, I went to her her gravestone in the Winchester Cathedral, which doesn't even mention her books, which blew my mind. That's extraordinary. It's just crazy, you know. Uh, like there's that sculpture there now, and it was actually sculpted by my friend who used to be an Austin Found's wife's mother, which is crazy. And then I went to like Beatrix Potter, I went to the lakes, and I went up to Hilltop Farm, and I went to Cockermouth because I had to get my picture with the sign for a start in Cockermouth. Um, and that was Wordsworth. And yeah, and I and I really enjoy doing all that sort of stuff. So it is quite fun taking people around to show them these things that they've learned about.
SPEAKER_03:It's it's fabulous, and everybody reacts differently to different places. So, you know, what will be one person's sort of sacred place will mean very little to another. Yeah. For example, I take people to Virginia Wolf's home, Monk's House. Now I'm not a huge Virginia Woolf fan, but some people in the tour are, and for them that's one of the absolute highlights of the tour.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Whereas for me, standing by Jane Austen's grave, getting this year into the room where she died, and reading the letter that Cassandra wrote about Jane Austen's last moments. It chokes me up now. And there was there was not a dry eye in the room, I can tell you. I'm sure. So, you know, and and walking where Wordsworth walked, standing in Kipling's Divine Garden and seeing his study. Um, oh, there's just so many wonderful places, and and so taking people to these spots is is magical, I think. Yeah. Uh and yet everybody responds differently, and every place is different on a different day with different weather, yeah, in a different group.
SPEAKER_01:Especially in England, especially in England.
SPEAKER_03:You don't get sick of it because it's always it's always going to be a different experience.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I've been back to the grave twice because I did I did a bit of a tour around, and then I also did um my show in the Theatre Royal in Winchester, which was it's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful spot to do the show. So that would that was really cool. Yeah, and I loved being in uh Hilltop and like Hilltop Farm with Beatrix Potter. Like I really liked the movie Miss Potter as well. But just being good, wasn't it? And being in that garden, and I mean they probably put it there, like that that thing that looks like it's in Mr. McGregor's garden, you know, and just seeing those in there, I just thought was it was the watering can and the overturned flower pot and Mr.
SPEAKER_03:McGregor, farmer McGregor's spade. Yeah, it's wonderful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they've done a really good job with that. I'm just trying to find this letter. You probably know it off by heart. But because I put the part of this letter actually when in my sense of sensibility, when Eleanor, Marianne is very sick and Eleanor is like willing her to live. I put, you are, I can't say that either that cry. It's but she put my voice right now. You are, you know, she was she was the son of all of our lives and the guilder of my every pleasure and such a sister that could never be surpassed. You're like, I know, and she died in her arms. It's so moving. So it would have been. Did you read it out or did someone read it to you?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I read it out and I I was so choked up. I know. It's just but it's so English too, because then she goes, but you know, we'll get over it.
SPEAKER_03:That's what I feel like. The rest of that letter is so funny. And she wasn't allowed to attend the funeral because women didn't. So she watched out the window as the men and the the coffin was taken off to the cathedral and the men walking with it. But she had to watch from the window and she was not there at her sister's funeral because women then go to funerals. Oh man. And yet Cassandra was the person she Jane Austen loved most in the world. In the world, yeah. And her sister was not there at her funeral.
SPEAKER_01:See, look at me, I'm getting sweaty because I've showed emotion. Um, but also, I know you don't swear very much, but they can fuck off. It just it just makes me furious. I say fuck a lot around historical misogyny, around people using, you know, Jane Austen wrote about the only world that she was allowed to inhabit, and then then people use that to hold her down and say that she's less than and it's just women's stuff. That can also fuck off. I just get really angry around.
SPEAKER_03:Or stupid men like the Prince Regent's librarian are pompous and condescending and tell her what really she ought to be writing. You know, she should do a book on the house of whatever and you know, Saxa Coburg, and she should do this, and she should, or she should write about him. That was really his suggestion. And Jane Austen writes a wonderfully witty reply and says, you know, she could never write such a serious work if if if she were to be hanged for for attempting it. You know, there's this man who is only now remembered because he wrote stupid things to Jane Austen. It's the only reason he's remembered, and that he's condescending to her because he's a man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and that he asked her to, you know, dedicate Emma to him. Yes. I mean, that's the amazing, you know, from her lifetime, as much as she didn't know, you know, what she would become, she did the the leap from, you know, the first book, um, if people don't know, Sense and Sensibility was published in 1811, and it was written by a lady. Like it was even unseemly for have to have a woman do any sort of employment to have her name on it. But then by 1816, is that when Emma was published? Uh yeah, end of 1815, beginning of 1816.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So just you know, that short time later, she's being asked by the Prince Regent to dedicate this book to him. So then it is an amazing trajectory in her lifetime, but then nothing on what it would become. But it I found it quite interesting too, because she fell out of favour, didn't she, for a bit? But things like people were reading her in the trenches in World War I because it was so remote.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, she was very big in the trenches, and in World War II, the books were taken down into the underground when bombing was happening up above, and and I think people sort of retreated into her calmer, saner world. Yeah. Victorians sort of were not such enormous Jane Austen fans, and and readers were turning to Dickens, George Elliott, the Bronte's, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thackeray. She always, of course, kept her admirers. Uh and she was never out of print. Very briefly, a couple of the books went out of print, but it was only a fairly brief time. Right. And then, of course, they came and they began appearing in cheaper editions that were sold at places like railway bookstalls. And then people could buy a Jane Austen book to read on the train. So that all, you know, meant that more and more people were getting hold of her books because I mean she was writing, of course, books all very expensive to get them from the lending library, or you'd borrow them from friends or whatever. But by the end of the 19th century, books were becoming much, much cheaper. And so people could afford to get a one-volume Pride and Prejudice instead of having to buy an expensive three-volume set, which was the case when Pride and Prejudice was first published. It came out in three volumes. So small. Yes, I know.
SPEAKER_01:I mean Dickens, sure. But like, because I'm actually planning on I'm going to try and write an adaptation I've got of Nicola Nickleby is the idea. Oh, and wonderful.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I know. Yeah, and then just look at that, bloody. It's like a no, yeah, it's like a oh, I love the idea of Nicola Nickleby.
SPEAKER_03:That should be excellent.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, well, I'm glad. I need to hurry up and do it. Um I could the thing, my problem is I don't like writing. I love writing. Yeah, that's good. You're you that's why you've written books uh and things, and I and so I do a new play. That's why you're on stage. But I write my material. It takes me because I'm very tight, so I don't want to pay anybody anything, basically. Uh so that's what it takes so long for me. One thing that I do love about the whole Jane Austen world too is well, you can really know when someone has like permeated the groundwater of the Zeitgeist and all that sort of stuff, is the merch, right? Like I sell tea towels, which go very well, but I bought my favorite rubber ducky from your Jane Austen. Excellent. And it's got pond and prejudice, which I but there are ducks. Charles Duckens is pretty funny. I like Charles Duckens and his reading Beak House. Yes. I saw that in your bathroom and I was very entertained. But just the uh the the absolute, and there's so much more Austin merch than anything. It's extraordinary, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've got socks. I love merchandise too. I've produced a beautiful tea towel to go with my cat book. Yes. With some of the wonderful quotes from people like uh Mark Twain and and others about cats, and that's selling like hotcakes, it's doing really well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, my tea tails certainly add value to my touring, that is for sure.
SPEAKER_03:And the Jane Austen Society, of course, sells lots of fabulous merchandise.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I feel like that's the best merch stand I've seen. It's very good.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, bookmark carry bags, umbrellas, key rings, post-it notes, notepads, you name it. I was impressed, yes. Although we don't sell my very favourite item of Jane Austen merchandise. It was produced in America at one stage, and it was a shocking pink nighty, and it had printed across the front of it, not tonight, dear, I'm reading Jane Austen.
SPEAKER_01:Or obstinate headstrong girl would be got in that situation. It wouldn't do. You've got a ring too, haven't you? One of those.
SPEAKER_00:I've got the turquoise ring, yes. On right now, in fact. Look at that.
SPEAKER_01:Always on my finger. Secret symbol of Jay Nights. Ah, yes, and that is the ring that Kelly Clarkson tried to buy, but then people got together to keep it in England.
SPEAKER_03:Well, she did buy it, but then it had to be sold back. So she purchased it, and then they uh the British government got very concerned about this historic item being taken from the country. She just got engaged and she wanted to wear it as her engagement ring. And she's a big Jane Austen fan. Right. So then it was agreed that if it came up for sale again and the price she had paid for it was not met, and I think that was£160,000. If the price was not met, then she would be allowed to take it back to America with her. But if the price was met, then the ring had to stay in Britain. Right. And it meant that Jane Austen groups around the world had a little bit more time to prepare because we hadn't even heard of the ring being sold the first time. We had time to prepare in different groups, including Jazz O, the Jane Austen Society of Australia, sent money. One American donor sent£100,000 to get the fund off to a good start. A very good start. A very good start. So they raised more than enough money. And we were sold to Chawnton, and the turquoise ring is on display in Chawton, which is really where it ought to be.
SPEAKER_01:That's where I saw it. Absolutely. Right now we've been yabbering on for ages, and I'm sure we could forever. But so now I've got do you have a fun fact at all? And it could be about yourself, uh, but what any fun fact?
SPEAKER_03:Well, one day at school I actually did manage to hit the softball when it was thrown to me with the bat. One day. And it was such a rare event that the entire class began playing.
unknown:Oh.
SPEAKER_03:So there you go. Did that make you feel good or bad? A bit more to find. I don't think I've ever played softball since.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. I know sometimes when you think about like always being picked last and stuff like that, it was very cruel.
SPEAKER_03:I I lived for some years in Tokoroa and went to Tokoroa High School, and we were made to play hockey, which I loathed. And I was the youngest in my class, and also the smallest in my class.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And there would be these fabulously fit and energetic Polynesian or Maori girls who were wielding their hockey sticks, tearing towards me, and I just retreated in total terror. So if I was very lucky, there'd be an odd number for the teams, and I would volunteer to sit out at the side of the field, and then a book would come in. And then read my book. But there was no book, I'd make daisy chains, and I was far happier making daisy chains than playing hockey.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, so you sort of have much more jolly hockey sticks as opposed to actually hockey playing.
SPEAKER_03:So then no, it was no jolly. I like to read about jolly hockey sticks, but certainly not players.
SPEAKER_01:Mallory Towers, etc. Uh, we haven't even talked about Blighton. Uh she's she's a very interesting character as well. I've done a lot about her here, too. Yeah. Anyway, so is there anything you would like to plug specifically now?
SPEAKER_03:No, just to say that I'm incredibly proud of my new book, which was published by the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Oh, that's true. So that was a real thrill. Very fancy. Uh having them as a publisher has just been absolutely divine. The book has been selling incredibly well. I love chatting with Jim Morrer on New Zealand.
SPEAKER_01:I'll put a link in the episode news.
SPEAKER_03:So that was great fun to do. He was a you know, of course, a very good interviewer and we had a lovely chat. Uh, and so all that's been tremendously exciting. So at the moment, my life is just really moving between cats and Jane Austen. Cats and Jane Austen anniversary and my new book. Uh so I wake up in the morning, oh, today is it Jane Austen or is it cats? So unfortunately, I couldn't link them. Jane Austen had made so few references to cats that I simply couldn't have a chapter on her in my book, much as I'd have liked. So I'm now planning to write a book on great writers and the dogs who love them. And that way I'll keep the dog people happy as well as the cat people. Right. But I'm very proud of my new book. So I do hope that people get it and read it. And also I hope that on this incredibly important literary anniversary, Jane Austen's 250th birthday, I hope that everybody who has ever had any pleasure from her works will get out a book, doesn't matter which of the six it is, open it at whatever page, and read and just sink into that wonderful world created by the greatest novelist the world has ever known, Jane Austen.
SPEAKER_01:Do you have one line to finish us with?
SPEAKER_03:Well, Mr. Knightley describes Emma as faultless in spite of all her faults, which I have always loved.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And uh I think that's a wonderful description of Emma and and what a fabulous character she is. Jane Austen has, as far as I can see, almost no faults as a novelist. She is faultless.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, as all women are. Indeed. Uh and tell Ian that. And on those notes, thank you so much for coming and entertaining us with your vast, honestly, the knowledge inside your head is so vast. Uh, you are fending off dementia with every new tour. I am so impressed. And I will see you at some point.
SPEAKER_03:We both do our best, don't we, Pammy?
SPEAKER_00:And it's lots of fun. So fabulous to chat with you and uh happy Christmas. You do. Thanks very much.
