Sound clips 2

This is a podcast episode where Chloe Fox interviews elderly individuals about taboo topics like sex, money, politics, and religion. One interviewee discusses how money doesn't motivate her and instead finds joy in giving it away. Another talks about their journey and staying in touch with their wife while being away. The concept of attractiveness is also discussed, and how it's subjective. The interviewees also touch on their writing and the impact of lies. The topic of religion is seen as an art form rather than a science. The interviewees reflect on life and the inevitability of death, hoping to face it with dignity. Testing, testing. Yes, I think it's jumping up and down. It is? Yes, because it would be disastrous if nothing was recorded. Wouldn't care. Welcome to the Late Fragments podcast. I'm Chloe Fox and in this series I'll be talking to remarkable octogenarians and some nonogenarians about the four topics of conversation that should apparently be avoided in polite company. Sex, money, politics and religion. They are the things people want to talk about. Is money something that you've valued in your life? Does it motivate you? I'm not sure completely how much it motivates me because, for example, I won't do anything with Piers Morgan and he offered me a large sum of money. I think it was £50,000 and I wouldn't dream of having anything to do with him. You, on the other hand, I don't think have offered me anything and I'm doing it because I want to. I get so much pleasure from the money that I've given away. Poverty of income, poverty of earning, poverty of sufficiency makes for poverty of expectation, of aspiration. Nothing changes, just because you're old. So, I'm a great advocate for geriatrics now, by name it would be. This last journey, I borrowed a mobile phone once or twice to reassure my wife that I was still alive. But really, at about three week intervals, perhaps, I was able to talk to her. It was a bit rough on her, but she understands that need and just says, think about the journey, don't think about me, think about the journey. So, I have full backing now. Someone is either sexy or they're not, and who the hell knows what it is? I mean, if you could sell it in a bottle, it would sell well. I said, do you remember that holiday we took in Devon? And he said, we were in love. And I said, yes. Before I drove away, I said, can I do anything for you? And he said, I'd like a transistor radio. I didn't think about politics in my writing, except in a very indirect way. I wasn't in the mainstream of the kind of plays which were being written. And that's not a choice, of course. You are what you write, and you write what you are. One particularly true thing was said, which is I had told a lie about a hotel bill. I was caught lying, and I paid a heavy price for that. Where was God's assets? And the Christians fumble with that one. Religion, no, to me is an art, not a science. It's the way we tell stories and write music and paint pictures to try and express the complexity of our own condition. All I can tell you is, almost any idea you have, you'll almost certainly think something else as you move along. So I just haven't learned absolutely nothing from being here, I don't think. Except I did have a good time. I think, possibly, one of the reasons people dread the end is that there's no one who can help you towards it, really. You just have to help yourself. Everybody realises at the last moment, you're by yourself, and in my case, not meeting my maker, but ending a life I've absolutely adored, really, even though it was full of pain and suffering and misbehaviour. It's the one thing that we can all be sure of. Boris Johnson, as well as me, we will die. I hope I do it with dignity, I hope I do it gracefully. I hope that all my bodily fluids are under control.