Recorded on 4th November 2022, Andy speaks to sister, co-host and senior parter at Oury Clark Juliet Oury who sadly passed away on 7th June 2023 from Pancreatic Cancer. She was 47.

Juliet gives us personal insight into her illness and subsequent effects, and how she approached managing it the best she could. Priceless advice for anyone going through the same experience.

Please share with people who you think will benefit from hearing it.

BWB is powered by Oury Clark

businesswithoutbullshit.me

Hello and welcome to Business Without Bullshit.

I am Andy Uri.

And today we have a very special, special, special, special guest I'm interviewing my unbelievably fabulous and utterly hilarious sister, Juliet Uri, senior partner of Uri Clark Solicitors, the original criminal lawyer in my book.

Anyway, uh, heavily involved in all sorts of crazy things.

Juliette, welcome to the podcast.

Oh, exciting.

So we always like to start with this question and uh, yeah.

So the first question is, what is keeping Juliet ery up at night?

Wow, Andy, that's quite a big question for me right now.

And I had a pretty terrible night.

Uh, so just over four weeks ago, uh, I was told that I have terminal cancer.

It is incurable.

I am stage four pancreatic cancer.

I knew nothing about this or this area at all until four weeks ago.

Wow.

And had you been feeling unwell or So about a year ago I started feeling pretty rubbish.

And I As long ago as that.

As you think it was a year ago?

Yes.

Right.

So I love to eat and drink excessively, goodie, yes, as you know.

And I started feeling a bit rubbish and not able to drink and eat very well.

And then in May this year, so May, 2022, I deteriorated pretty rapidly and felt pretty awful.

Uh, went to the GP and got a blood test and within a few hours was told that I needed to be admitted to a and e immediately.

And over the course of the next three days, they performed various tests on me.

And this is because at the time you were, what's it called?

Uh, go going green, but, um, jaundice.

Jaundice.

I wasn't yet jaundice, but what was it?

The blood, the blood test was just my bloods were off the chart.

Right.

And they asked whether I was a drug addict, an alcoholic, and um, I said, well, you know, I do feel a bit rubbish, but I don't think I'm any of those things.

Mm-hmm.

Um, anyway, they found that my bald duct was three si, three times the size that it should be.

And ultimately I went jaundice pretty quickly and ended up being hospitalized for more than a week.

They performed an amazing procedure where they go down and they cut open your bar duct, which they did for me, and I felt a million dollars after that and I could suddenly eat and drink again, and walk around and do stuff.

This is in May.

This?

Yeah, this is, well, that was at the, just at the end of May, beginning of June.

And they, they took various samples and they ran lots of bloods and said, not sure why that happened.

Anyway, they ultimately decided, okay, we're gonna take your gallbladder out cuz my bowel duct had blocked.

And normally the suspect is that I've got stones or there's something wrong with it.

So I said, okay, well I'd like to go on a family holiday.

Can I do that?

So, agreed to do that, and came out and have my gallbladder out at the beginning of August.

So on the 4th of August, they took my gallbladder out from, once they took my gallbladder out, I got this pain and I kind of concluded, well, you know, deep, deep down inside a sharp pain or, um, by my boulder in my right hand side, I had this pain.

And then I was constantly stretching in meetings.

I was like, there's, there's something there.

Like I've got this pain.

And then I got a pain in my back and it was just this constant pain, pain, pain.

And every morning I woke up feeling like I had a hangover and I hadn't drunk.

And I decided, mm, not sure about this.

So, um, lots of people said to, you know, it could be the menopause you are of that age, you know, I was having sweats and um, Just felt generally pretty awful.

Um, but kept giving myself a, talking to about, you know, I have to say, as a family, we were rather like, oh, come on, pull your socks up, you are fine.

You know, but, but, but you, you were, you were being, um, I guess, uh, well, uh, very, you maybe, maybe very British about it all sort of thing, like, oh yes, you know, it'll be fine sort of thing, I guess a bit, yeah.

I didn't, I mean, once the pain started and the pain just constantly went on and on and on and on, so I went back to the lady that cut open my bar duct and I said, look, I dunno whether I'm imagining this or not, but it's a month since my surgery.

You all said I'd feel a million dollars and everything would be right as rain.

I feel rubbish.

So they took a blood test and they scanned me.

I mean, I have had scans constantly since May.

But anyway, they take a scan at the beginning of August and she immediately calls me to say, there's an infection in your blood and there are shadows on your liver.

This doesn't look very good, but I think you've got a liver infection.

So we are gonna put you on these really high core card core antibiotics, and hopefully you'll be all right.

Um, and we are gonna review all of your documentation because basically I'd been this mystery patient from May that I was complaining about various things, but nothing was in my blood.

Nothing was coming up in my blood, nothing they couldn't see or do anything.

I mean, this is the nature of pancreatic cancer.

I mean, one of the problems with pancreatic cancer is that it's discovered late because people have mystery symptoms.

Yes.

You know?

Yes.

It's sort of very hard to pin down.

And had I seen a pancreatic specialist in August and described my pain, which since I have met a pancreatic, he's like, well, I would've known you've got pancreatic cancer.

Right.

Because you described this, this constant pain, irritating, dull pain.

You still, you still have this pain, I assume.

Um, that pain has stopped.

So basically, Um, I get different pain now and my pain is altering and now I'm under chemotherapy.

But basically I, I'd felt rubbish.

So they gave me the antibiotics.

They said, okay, we're gonna do a big review.

And they reviewed all of my scans and then they started asking for greater scans and more scans.

And then they did a liver biopsy on me, which has probably been my worst procedure to date, where they stick needles into your liver and take out samples from you.

And I start screaming the hospital down and really in pain.

Yeah.

And you are, isn't it not under the local anesthetic or they give you some pain relief?

Probably some Valium as well.

And your liver.

You shouldn't feel anything in your liver, but Right.

But they were pulling out tumor, so I think that maybe, so they would, they doubled the pain and they all said, oh, we think it's infection.

We're gonna go in and there's gonna be puss everywhere.

And they went in and then the, the lovely doctor afterwards went, I'm really sorry, but there wasn't any pass.

So I'm actually a bit concerned.

I was like, Right.

This is in August, September now.

Yeah.

So this is, um, at the beginning of September.

So I'd have my gallbladder out at the beginning of August.

I go back at the beginning of September, and so I feel rubbish stills.

So they take some bloods, they look at my liver, they say something's going on.

So they dig further.

And on the 30th of September, on a Friday afternoon at 3:00 PM uh, I had a special meeting, um, where they told me that I had the most aggressive cancer they'd ever seen.

That the tests had come back, positive cancer, that it was across my entire liver.

It was metastasized cancer, which meant that at that stage they didn't know what my primary was.

I was inoperable and I really didn't have very long.

Um, so I thanked them profusely for that information.

Yeah.

Fucking hell.

And as a true Brit, my husband was with me.

We, we.

Walked outside and went for a walk across common to just digest being told that I was about to die.

And in true British weather, it fucking chucked it down.

With Renee, we had to come back home and, um, with 24 hours you kind of get over the shock and I realized, I actually felt some form of relief that, okay, you've just told me I'm going to, I've been hit by a bus, but actually I'm still alive.

So I have now a bit of time.

Let me plan everything.

I have to for people who, dunno, my sister very well.

Um, she is incredibly organized and she's, uh, uh, uh, when we used to go on holiday, we would stay one night in a hotel somewhere and she would get her luggage out and fold her knickers into the drawers.

Silted silty for one night.

I lived out the suitcase the entire holiday of course.

But you know, she, you like to be organized.

So organization, brain kicked in.

Yeah.

And it's very common apparently, particularly when you are told you're gonna die and you've got no control of your health that you do go into.

Okay, well I can control my whole home environment and to be, and to be, to be fair, this is about the worst.

This is pretty much everyone's biggest nightmare, but there are lots of worse things, you know, dying suddenly is worse.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, so for me, actually, I felt a real relief because for a year I felt like shit.

And I was like, am I making this up?

I just, I can't describe to anybody feeling rubbish.

And normally I like to operate on five cylinders and I love life and I like to be out.

And I just, literally, everything was such an effort for me and I couldn't drink and I couldn't eat and I was just becoming so boring.

And I was like, oh my God, am I 46 and having a midlife and is this life?

Yeah.

And people were like, oh, you're gonna, you are going through the menopause.

This is what it's gonna be like.

So my big fear was they were gonna tell me, you are gonna, you, we don't dunno what it is, which is what they told me for months anyway.

And you are this mystery patient.

And every doctor was like, oh, please, can I follow your journey?

It's really fascinating, like what you've got and why, and I don't understand this.

So for me it was a relief to be told, oh fuck, okay, you've been, I've got cancer, you've got an answer.

This is what it is.

And then the following week, so this is now I'm five weeks ago since they told me and.

Um, the following week, they thought, initially my primary was my bar duct cause that's where my problem had been, but it's pancreatic.

And the three worst cancers you can get are pancreatic, ovarian, and, and esophagus.

Oh, okay.

Or bar duct.

This is, esophagus is very terrible.

So, so it's really common that basically it, it sits there and nobody detects it and nothing happens until it's basically taken over your body.

You know, we're all together and this is a family, so you can't go back.

So there's no point going, oh, well, and the thing is with pancreatic, yeah.

If it was very early, maybe there are situations that can have surgery, but for people who don't understand, the pancreas is really very, it's that deepest thing within all of your organs.

This, this, this very sort of almost, uh, light structure and it's plugged into a lot of things.

It creates insulin for the body.

It is incredibly hard to get to and very embedded in there.

But do you feel that.

You know, you feel like with all these mystery symptoms, well, we got a person with a load of fucking mystery symptoms.

Let's go check a x.

I have no criticism of the treatment that I've received and what's happened and how it's happened.

I'm, I'm glad I didn't know before because it's meant that I had the summer.

Yeah, we had our parents, both our mother and our father's eight years.

Eight, which you managed to pretend to be fine in, which is very impressive.

By the way.

I think you drank first times too.

I attended to drink, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Didn't go very well.

And you had, you had your holiday and stuff, and in a way, my mom and dad's 80th, our parents' 80th is a very, very distinct moment.

It was the first time we'd all been together as a family twice, you know?

You know, James flew over, so, you know.

Look, at the end of the day, I, it wouldn't make any difference at what point they would've found it living now as I do.

So the only thing that happens though, when you are told you are terminal is it becomes a full-time job.

So I've had to stop work.

Yeah.

Well I was about to say again, for people's reference, we, we, ERY Clark is really technically two firms.

Ary, clut Chartered accounts, er, k Clark Solicitors, Judah, a senior partner of the solicitor's firm and managers and runs that firm.

So, I mean, lots of things are going on here.

You're receiving a diagnosis and you've got responsibility to your family, but also to the firm and things.

But the reality is you just have to stop, I assume.

Yeah.

So well.

They told me I had to immediately stop and, um, as the doctors did, all doctors, um, because they needed to find out as quickly as possible because they haven't seen such aggressive cancer.

So in this, even for pancreatic, cuz this word aggressive is quite sort of, cuz cuz pancreatic cancer is sort of famous that it's sort of, is quite dormant random symptoms then boom.

Yeah.

I mean, boom, boom.

Yeah, I don't, I haven't massively got into with my current doctor, but the, the, the person that had to deliver the news to me, it is clear from my scans, but within a month it had taken most of my lip.

Like it was barely, I had two tumors and then I had 12 within two weeks.

So it had spread.

Very quickly.

I mean, I know not very much about cancer.

I am now on a journey to learn about it.

Not that I have that much interest, to be honest.

Not, not from the point of view of, but I, I don't, I want to spend my time having fun.

So I got told, my immediate was to tell my immediate family, uh, which was obviously you and the, so you all found out that same day and I have also quite an extensive in-law family.

And so they all found out.

It was obviously incredibly shocking for everybody because we have no history in our family and we didn't really envisage And worst case I thought they might say you've got, but you know, of course it's all gonna be all right on the night.

That isn't necessarily the case.

So I'm now, what happens when you get diagnosed is you are suddenly then plugged into like a crazy number of doctors and stuff.

And so for the past month, I basically have been sorting out what was wrong with me, what my primary was, and then what my treatment plan is.

And so I now have a treatment plan, which is the only thing that they can do for me is give me chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy is is purely about pumping me with the most toxic drugs that I've ever experienced in my entire life.

Um, but to try and stop it spreading any further.

The drugs, the drugs attack, reduce attack cells that are multiplying is what it looks to, to, to do.

Hence people lose their hands.

And I have been incredibly lucky.

So I've done my first round and I've been incredibly lucky that I've got the most incredible medical people helping me, including your d i.

Um, and I now have a treatment plan.

My treatment plan is pretty intense because of the level, I mean, as my husband or, uh, said to me, for fox sake, you always have to dial everything up to 11.

I know.

So why You have to go for the top freaking notch cancer?

Oh, look at that.

Oh, Ladi do pancreatic cancer to Oh, what Drama queen to go to the 11th dial.

He's like, oh, Jesus.

Do you think, um, it's been interesting watching.

My wife is a, a gp, um, uh, uh, big printer, but, uh, do you think when someone's going through a journey like this, obviously the, the NHS is very busy, we're also using private, it's all of it's fucking busy.

Is it important to have a, a, a medical advocate, you know, or, or put another way?

Is that from what you're learning, is there advice you would give to other people in terms of putting a team together to deal with this?

Yeah, I think, well you are gonna be one of two types of people you are either gonna be really interested in and read everything about it.

Oh really?

Some people do that.

Do they?

Yeah.

I don't, once I know I've got it.

I, I might read about it if I, you know.

Yeah.

But I'm sort of with you if it's, I don't, uh, that's fucking, I don't wanna know too much.

So, so either you are gonna be interested and you are gonna fully get involved, and then, and then you'll get very technical in the meetings and, and, and, and, and say, I read this online and I read that.

Yeah.

Or, or you are not, I mean, for me, I'm like, I'm not.

Interested in reading about it.

I fully trust the medics.

What completely blows your mind is the number of procedures I have to have and the number of doctors involved and the terminologies involved that mean utterly nothing.

And, and for me, I'm severely dyslexic, so I can't even say the chemo drugs that I'm on because they're, they're just too complicated to say.

And, and that part is unbelievable.

There is then, like I get called a minimum of four to five times a day by different places.

Really?

Yes.

Really?

So you I was immediately put in touch with the palliative team, which basically the dying team.

Yeah.

And are they jolly, are they jolly bunch or are they Um, some are, some are.

Hello.

Welcome Billy.

It's very Monty Python.

Some of this.

Yeah.

So.

For me, I've met incredible people thus far.

The, the doctors and nurses and people.

I mean, I, I didn't even know what oncology was until the other day.

Yeah, I think and, and I've had a port put in, which is basically cuz all my veins, they've been collapsing all year anyway, so they put in a port into my shoulder, which basically attaches into my main artery.

And it's a bit like having a button on you and then they.

Put all the drugs through that and the, the guy that put my port in was a lovely member.

Very little is kind of explained to you unless you wanna know or ask.

Like I just arrived at hospital and they're like, you're going straight into surgery now.

We're putting in a port.

There you go.

But you.

You meet incredible people.

The people that work in it are phenomenal.

The thing I find hard is lots of the patients are pretty depressing and the environments are really depressing.

And so I keep kind of getting banned or I'm not the kind of norm.

So I've become a bit famous.

In each of the hospitals that I gave you, you're fairly, you're fairly unique, uh, uh, to know.

Well, I just, everybody approaches you.

So they obviously have read my medical file or whatever and everyone that calls me to offer help and support and services, which there is this phenomenal, now come feel like undertakers almost.

Yes.

Like, hi.

Now how are, I'm like, we're in any fight.

How are you?

What's going on?

And you know, for them, most people, and so they've all admitted to me actually, they're really struggling to deal with me because they're not used to somebody that's like, this is what I've got.

Please, you know, what have we gotta do?

Let's get on with it.

Well, it's, it's, there's a couple of interesting things in there.

It as we know, we're in the business of dealing with clients.

It's quite a complicated thing.

When you have a really nice client and then you have a client who's a pain in the ass, who do you look after better?

Long term, I would like to say you look after the nice client better, but you know, it, it can be that if you, if you're sort of like, Hey, I'm fine, then people may be treating you then Yeah.

I mean, I definitely think from once they told me you have a choice, which is I can sit and get depressed and cry.

I mean, I don't get me wrong, I cry quite a bit, but you, you can sit and, and lose the will or you can go, okay.

Fine.

And so for me, I now have a plan.

Well, I liked what you said when you said, I, I have time to cry.

I don't have time to be sad.

Well, it's just a waste of time.

It's a waste of time, so, so I want to spend my time doing the stuff that I enjoy.

I want to spend my time with my family, hanging out with all of you.

And there are two experiences and two people that I cannot thank enough for helping me.

So I think.

My background and we'll talk about it anyway, but the work that I've historically done has definitely helped me in a crisis, and I quite like crisis.

I'm quite good in a story, which is that you started your career in what?

The late nineties Qualifying and law and doing criminal law.

Yeah.

Here and overseas.

Dealing with Supreme and doing hardcore.

Hardcore.

So only really death penalties and murders and serious gang violence.

Again, dared up to 11.

Of course.

It's like, oh, we got someone who robbed something.

No, fuck him.

You got only like proper kid murderers.

Yeah, so I would only do the most extreme and that definitely.

In being in those terrible experiences and spending a lot of time on death row and people facing death and all of that.

I've been around it a lot to be in a crisis, so, okay.

You know, I know what to do in a crisis.

And then the two people that have massively impacted me, it is Toby, who is a former partner that was here and he sadly passed away from cancer.

His was bowel cancer.

Yes.

And I remember him phoning to tell me that he'd been diagnosed and everything wasn't good.

And we used to speak quite a bit and I said to mom, my God, you must be gonna quit work and sell off everything and go around the world and do all of these things.

And he said, no, I just want normal to.

He taught me that all you want is normality and all you want is really simple stuff.

And he taught me, um, That don't tell people.

And he said, the reason don't tell people is because they don't forget and they treat you really differently once they know.

And I was like, oh, fascinating.

Okay.

And then I had a secretary, lovely lady called Marion, who sadly she followed very similar path to me and went jaundice and had bowel duct cancer.

And I looked after her.

And she sadly passed away.

And I taught her what Toby had taught me when she got diagnosed, cuz she was about to tell everybody and then she didn't.

And lots of her close friends were really crossed that they didn't know that she had it.

But that's about them.

Yeah.

And I remember her saying, thank you so much for telling me not to tell anybody.

I did then tell a few people because you kind of want some support.

You know your close mates, you do tell a couple of people.

And so I.

She told a couple of people and she said, the problem is juliete, they just don't react the way you like them to react.

And I was like, well, what did you mean?

And she's like, the problem is you tell people, and it's exactly what I've experienced over the past month, which is she had told friends so that they could support and help her.

And you watch as you tell people, and you know, I, I don't have any good news to tell people, right?

Like, it is, I have been told I'm dying.

I have the worst cancer.

But look, I now have, you know, I've got a program, but I'm not gonna be here forever.

And you watch as, as effectively, you are telling people you are dying and they will go through grief like you are going through grief.

And the downside of it is that, You are all going.

Those that know the truth at the moment are all on a horrible journey.

I get to die at the end of this and not have to carry on and and live and it's way worse for the people that have to remain.

And for her, she said, you know, you are then picking up the pieces.

And I've had to tell my, well, what you, you tell someone and then you are having to support them is what happens.

Yeah.

You and, and I particularly like all my mates, I am the person that people typically come to you.

My wife comes to you for your, her problems.

Yeah.

It turns out you guys have had some private chat group for years, ages, and she was like, I really like your sister.

Who am I gonna go to?

My problems?

So talk, talk to daddy.

You know?

So, so that's what's really hard is that I told my closest mates and they would naturally phone me in the crisis and, and, and now they can't.

But what, what good always comes out is that at least other peop, like they are now all communicating with each other and helping each other.

Could, could I be more specific when you say, Don't tell anyone.

I mean that, that, that, that is a rule's not really possible.

Do you know what I mean?

As a firm, we had to make an announcement, you know, to staff and partners because you're not here anymore and you're not gonna be around to help with the business currently, you know?

Yeah.

It's a question though of how much information you give and do you mean don't tell your friends, you know, I mean, you're, you're a ceo, you're sitting there, you can tell them.

So I've reached, uh, so there's different journeys.

I don't know how long I have.

Right.

And I don't really want to spend the time that I have.

And this sounds very selfish going around telling everybody that I'm sick.

Right?

Yeah.

And.

There have been people.

So I have ended up telling a lot more people than I ever envisaged I would've at the start.

So within a month, my closest family know, um, the staff here know, but not all of it.

And only the owners know the truth.

And my close friends and, and now there's some more people I need to tell my convocation and my upset is that I, um, my only real, and where I get really emotional is I have two small children who are five heads, seven

and an amazing husband.

And, um, it's the fact that it's them that I will leave behind.

So I have had to tell their school, my children don't know.

They know that I'm not well, and they know I have a bug and they know I'm getting treatment and I'm having to work through what point and when and what you do in telling them.

Yeah.

And not the really horrible part because as a mom you always expect that you would be there and you'll always be there.

And my other problem is that I'm a really honest person and I'm really bad at lying.

And so I.

I, I don't mind now people knowing, but I don't think that it gains them anything, and I don't think it helps anybody.

And I think in life, you know, I've, I've learned that I've got all these amazing people around me and people I really care about and stuff.

And I don't want people to go through double grief.

So I'm kind of all right in them knowing I'm not very well, and it's quite obvious because I've lost quite a lot of weight.

I'm gonna lose all my hairs and it's gonna become more and more obvious.

But I've been talking recently about whether I do come up with some rules or some lie, because I don't really want to spend my time telling people the truth, and I'm not sure that it's of benefit to people.

My, my, my view on it generally is that, You, you, you, the way it should work within friends is you tell your close friends and I actually think they need to tell other people.

And then what everyone needs to understand is don't, I'm not interested in talking about it.

Don't send me texts to say, how are you?

Yes.

But human nature bit eids that you know, you are, people want to be able to help and people want to be able to do things.

And so you can't stop people doing that.

And I don't want to stop people doing that.

I want people able to be able to deal with it in the way that they wanna deal with it.

And I am a really open person and I'm happy to talk about stuff.

Are you,

you already saying that cuz you dunno My secrets.

Yeah.

But um, yeah, I think, look, if anyone's facing it, I would, I would.

For me, I'm, I'm really lucky.

I'm really lucky that I have an incredible husband, a family, all of you, my siblings, my parents.

The business has never been, never been in a stronger place.

All my fellow partners, like I can't be in a luckier place than the, than the support network I have.

I then have private health insurance that are being phenomenal and, and I'm working with them for people's future.

And like today, they've just approved for me to have this really great pioneering stuff and they've approved that they will fund it.

And really, what's that?

So I'm going to try, so there's two things that happen.

So I have chemo, but you probably, Andy will know more about it than me.

But two things need to happen, which is I, one, I have to find out genetically what my cancer is.

Yeah.

And how and what also for your sake and, and all the family's sake, because we don't have a history.

So it's quite extraordinary that we don't have a family history of cancer.

No.

And now I have dialed it up to, and it's rare for a woman of my age to get what I've got.

I think.

I think just to interject, just if people don't understand cancer, just a simple way to understand cancer is, cancer is yourself.

You know, as you, as the body gets damaged and as the body fixes itself, it's always multiplying cells and then one of these cells goes a bit mad basically and starts replicating all the time.

That's all cancer is.

And when it metastasize it physically, a piece of it breaks off and usually through the lymphatic system, then passes to another part of the body lodges there and starts duplicating and duplicating there.

So when you're talking about it was you, but it mutated a cancer is some sort of mutation that happens that usually as a result of damage.

Hence, you know, things like smoking or any kind sort of damage to the body increases your risk of of, of getting a cancerous, uh, outcome.

And so what you're saying is the cancer, which was originally you, is some sort of mutation and you need to get a genetic analysis of this cancer to see how similar it is to your original genetics.

Because the more different it is, the more likely there's some immunology route.

There's sort of the three main roots for ca Well it's for the surgery.

Chemotherapy, which is chemicals, uh, to slow down things that are, uh, multiplying radiotherapy, which is using obviously, uh, blasting it in a way to, if you can, if you can pinpoint it and you can kill it with, uh, radio radiation.

And I can't have that cuz it's all around my body.

Well, and also pancreas is so deep inside of you, it's very hard to get to.

You can't really hit it, you know, if it's on the surface you can hit it.

And then immunology, which is a huge new, very exciting field, which is revolutionizing cancer treatment, is getting the body to attack the, the, the cancer itself.

And I think, uh, also importantly, to give all this context, although this is all shit, you know, like chatting about, but just so people understand, you know, the chances of you surviving five years aren't zero.

You know, they're sort of one 3% people survive.

You know, there are groups of people who live well.

I just like to say some amazing things have been happening.

And yesterday I was in the hospital, I spent a lot of time in the hospitals like.

Literally every other day I'll be at hospital, but, and an amazing lady came up to me and sat down next to me.

And every time I go into a hospital, I'm told we are not our usual fish and you're a cracker.

And um, they, they now are giving me my own room cuz I'm a bit too noisy or I'm having a child.

I have been with my sister a lot in hospital.

People come in our room to, I don't know, change the bin chat.

And she's like, hello, how are you?

And you know, he's from Zimbabwe, his daughter's called Esmeralda and she wants to be a lawyer.

It's like a game show.

It's hilarious.

Um, you may, oh, I met a lady called Carol who has worked in cancers for 27 years and she told me that she'd been drawn across the room to come and talk to me.

And, uh, she works for the McMillan charity, which is amazing Charity, which I'll know that.

Work with or do a lot with.

And she said that in her 27 years she has, um, met one lady who I reminded her of and she had a very similar diagnosis and prognosis and was told, you know, she really didn't have very long and she lived for six years.

So I'm like, well, I'll take that.

I'm, I'm gonna go with that.

And, and I'm, I am on a mission.

So, you know, despite the fact that they say, I mean, they have no idea how long I'm gonna live for and what's gonna work, not work and all of that.

And I hope.

It does all work.

And I, I plan to kind of defy the odds and irritate it.

What did the um, insurance company though, they're gonna support a particular nutrient, so they're gonna support temps.

So temps are, are getting my, um, cancer out of the labs and they will then this is into the, is this the fruit flies?

The fruit flies.

Okay.

I mean, that's fascinating that there's this company, they have a place in London and New York.

I think that they basically fruit flies.

Uh, those little things you played in biology have very similar genetics to humans.

They have a stomach or pancreas, all the same thing, but very, very small.

And they put the cancer into the fruit flies, and then they experiment on the fruit flies.

So the fruit flies of the Guinea pig, not you, because everybody's biology is different.

We all have different blood types.

We all work differently and, you know, effectively some drug that one person might be allergic to could stop another person's cancer.

So you, it's, it's a game of sort of looking at the genetics and throwing shit at it sort of thing.

So they've approved today that they'll fund that.

So hopefully they will basically create a hundred fruit flies, inject them all with my cancer, try all every different type of drug, and hopefully something might work, and that then can be interjected into my chemo and hopely, lengthen my chemo.

I think, um, just speaking as, as a brother and as, um, someone who's in business with you and everything, you know, I, I think you have incredible spirit and I think, um, what was been most helpful to us as a family is, yeah, we all got the news.

I didn't sleep much.

Well, I, I thought they're drinking a bottle.

I was like, I'm not gonna be able to sleep.

I'm not gonna, so, you know, I was like, I woke up in the morning and it, and, and you know, it is this horrible thing that you look, many people have been through stuff in their life that were recognized.

This feeling that every day you wake up and you're just trapped in this room mentally, and you can't find a way out.

And, but you set up a WhatsApp group the next day with us all and then dropped a message in there like, what's going on guys?

I'm all right.

I'm good.

I'm still fucking here.

Fuck you.

Oh, well, you all to chill out.

And, and you've been, you haven't stopped being like that.

And your strengths are certainly from our parents.

You know, obviously we, there are so many dynamics to this and obviously the most difficult for you and the, but really the most difficult one is, is your kids and then your husband, you know what I mean?

And that, that, that, that is as deep as it gets.

But we have this incredible family, like, you know, um, in terms of siblings and everything.

But, you know, but I think this, this, this, if, if there was anything someone could do is when you have this prognosis is your family is to do what you've done about, you know, as we said in the, we had to then talk to all the part the owners, you know, of.

It was a very difficult meeting, you know, um, to get through just to try and talk in sentences without crying and stuff.

And certainly I think probably we all found that first week we just permanently were crying sort of thing.

But as dad said in that meeting, if anyone's feeling down about Juliet, just give her a buzz.

She'll soon cheer.

You are.

Yes.

And I, and I.

Look, I, I will cry saying it.

I, I can't thank you enough for your, you know, spirit.

And I would take that a step further, which is that they absolutely know that they mind has such a bigger part to play.

And how humans deal with it.

You know, there's been incredible stuff proven, you know, whether it be, you know, Wim Hof Defying Medicine, but underneath it, you know, the ability, uh, Mike Underwood, who's our, uh, chief Operating

Officer, one of my very closest friends, and his sister sadly, did die of cancer, but she was given six months and she was fucking, you know, had spirit due and said, fuck you, it's not happening.

And live seven years, you know, and it's, there's something about the psychology of the situation that is, is, is crucially important, you know?

So it definitely has a massive heart to play.

And all in all of the hospitals and all the places, they say, oh God, you are gonna bloody defy the odds.

Um, Yeah.

Look, you have a choice, right?

In life.

And at the end of the day, I have to thank our mom and dad.

Right.

And our father particularly has always been shit happens in life.

Yeah.

And get on with it.

Um, and roll with it.

And you know, the only certain thing in life is death.

Right.

Plus x and I, and I was having a midlife crisis about the fact that I was a middle aged woman becoming very dull with various fucking ailments.

And I was like, my God, is this really, it?

Is this what I did?

I did like discussing my ailments last night with you.

I've had a me grave for a couple of days.

My a, my Achilles are quite badly damaged.

They're pretty sore.

I'm getting a lot of stomachache.

No, but to.

The thing is, once you get cancer, they will give you any drug for anything.

So I have this like smorgasbord now of, well I feel a bit like this.

Well I'll have a bit of that.

I have a bit of this, I'll have a bit of that.

And you know, you have to get over yourself and taking medication because I don't like taking medication.

You don't like taking medication, you don't like drugs, don't anything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you just have to get over yourself and accept this is what I've gotta do.

And since I've done that, I feel a hundred times better.

And like I had stopped being able to eat and drink.

I, I still can't drink alcohol.

Like if I attempt to drink alcohol, not because the dogs have told me not to, but I will now and then attempt and it is literally like I'm drinking toilet bleach.

Well, it is, it is a poison.

You don't need any more poisons.

So I'm like there.

Thank you.

Um, so bizarrely, I'm happy now with my non-alcohol beer and, and getting into, I think we discussed this even while this has been going on, and, you know, I joked, well, you know, you and me have been at the forefront of Harry Clark's, uh, entertainment.

Uh, well, no, but that the client said no.

In fact, one of our fellow partners said to me once, I said, look, I can't drink any, they're like, well, I think you've had enough fuel lifetime already.

The the, the funny thing is, is.

I do think some people do need to drink i e socially, I think it really helps reduce anxiety.

I don't think our family have that problem.

We, we, we, we drink cause we're all fucking D adhd, so it's kind of a way of slowing the brain down a bit.

But as we've noticed, we go out with a client and we, we, we have a drink to get them to have a drink so they relax and we can talk at our level.

I mean, you know, otherwise they're like, oh, I wouldn't say that.

Andre like, oh fuck, you know, this is, oh, I dunno why I'd bother coming out with this bloke.

You know, if they get a bottle of wine down them and suddenly you're feeling like, oh, this is rolling nicely, you know?

Yeah.

So I look, I, I, I think the only other thing if I can tell anybody, and hopefully, you know, nobody gets diagnosed with terminal.

Um, and, or you know, what you also learn is lots of people are impacted and lots of people.

Do have shit going on.

And there are people in way worse situations than my situation.

Um, one of the things that I did, so the only, the other person that I have to thank is Hugh, who was another partner of ours, he sadly passed away in Covid, is that he made me get on an absolute mission to get life insurance.

Yeah.

And during Covid I took out life insurance and I think it, it's probably gonna be my best investment I ever made in my entire life.

Nice word out very well.

And I think, I think, I think people should understand life insurance because it's, it, you know.

Your situation, his situation has changed things.

So you know, you can get cover, uh, provided you, you, you, you, you're healthy at the moment.

It might cost you a hundred pound a month.

That's probably about a million quids worth of life insurance.

200 quid a month, probably 2 million quids of life insurance.

Sounds like a lot of money a month.

But if you, if you find out the worst news or you get hit by a bus while all this terrible stuff is going on and everyone's dealing with the grief of it, money is not.

The issue, you know?

And I think so for me, so, so that's where I also feel lucky because lots of people have financial issues when, when they get diagnosed.

I bet fortunate for me, I have a life insurance, which means I don't have financial issues.

Um, and, um, I don't, I have also private medical care, which means I've been able to get the best treatment and new good chemotherapy treatment, which isn't freely available everywhere else.

So to have medical insurance and a life insurance policy means that the two main worries that most people have in terms of their treatment and care and.

Financially, how do I pay The bills have been resolved.

And so to me I'm like so lucky, like you couldn't write on a piece of paper.

And my other thing is the fact that I have lived like this amazing, amazing life and I've met the Queen and Maggie Thatcher and Woody Allen, and I've

been around the world and, and we've had, we, we have had amazing, most, we have had like the most incredible, and, and I don't have any kind of regrets.

So for me I'm like, frankly sis, you've done it all.

But like, I just, I feel lucky.

And, and for me, we've been building the business for a long time and the people involved in the business, I look and the team that we have is, it's phenomenal.

Is.

Is the most special team and the most amazing people.

And my only upset is that I won't be able to see that all the way through.

But I hope that I will be able to see it for as long as possible and watch everyone like, be able to perform and be like, ultimately their full ability because we have such amazing people.

And for those, um, listening, you know, we are a family within a family business, but you know, it, a partnership has some very special things about it, which is in a scenario like that you have a group of 12 people or something who are owners that we sat down with.

Um, and we are like a family and everyone goes through different shit.

They might be divorce or whatever and I can't thank them.

And, and indeed the wider firm, I mean we just had the Toby Awards, the Toby Awards is a thing we put together after we lost Toby.

Just to, cuz he was an amazing guy.

I'm very positive in the business.

He was son of the other senior partner along with our father.

He's married to Amy who's still in the business.

And we just, me and Amy, you know, wanted to have a way to remember him and to, you know, celebrate his values.

And you just present, you did, you know, when you were obviously clearly really sick, you were like, you know, the star of the show and ran the Toby Awards, but it was at those awards that I walked around and I was just like, wow.

Like, It's, it's just such a great group of people.

There were no ARS assholes here.

We have got this firm to a place, and, and this is not easy to achieve.

You know, people talk about business culture and shit, and it's like the fucking culture here is like, is deep.

There are, there are, there are no toxic politics.

There are people who've got problems, but we are really.

Got this incredible fucking team.

We have straight really special people.

Yeah.

And you've been responsible in London for hiring people, really, you know, picking, picking out the assholes.

Um, our other sister Caroline has been responsible in SL and I don't know, I, women's intuition, I have to say.

I always, you know, don't get blokes to hire people because we are fucking useless.

We're like, well she's hot.

This ever, you know, I mean that's the kinda shit that runs through a bloke said, you know, you guys always like, I mean, you've always been doing this to me, sis.

You, I mean, all you know, you particularly, but you know, women in my life's like, Something, something wrong with that person.

Something, something, something.

My radars up.

Well, like our mum has always said, you have Hoovers and radiators, right?

Yeah.

Hoovers and radiators darling.

Uh, so, so the Hoovers that suck everyone's energy and it's everyone else's fault and the glass is half empty and oh my God, everything's a problem.

And then you have the radiators that are the people that give.

And, and for us within this business, you know, all of the people here are radiators.

Yeah.

It's a really special place.

I, I agree.

I think within the insurance thing, just to be very detailed on a business level for a moment, I think, uh, people should understand.

There's obviously personal life insurance, um, and then there's private medical insurance.

All of you should get that.

If you can afford it, you should all do it.

And life insurance, you can choose how much to get.

But there's also, as a company you can take out what would be normal is four times salary.

Life insurance.

I would say as a business you should definitely do that because if, uh, as as has happened to us, you know, uh, um, you know, if something suddenly happens to someone and you've got a grieving family, that person could have worked for your business for 12 years.

And if you haven't got any insurance, you're like, well, sorry about that.

Best of luck.

You know, good luck with it.

So fucking sorry.

Yeah, bye.

Um, at least you can say, well, the firm of course has four times life insurance, so here's a check for whatever.

200, 300 grand, whatever makes a big, big differe difference, makes a big difference to family.

It means you give a shit, it protects your brand if you want to be, think about it in those sort of basic terms.

So I think without doubt, that is something that you should really do, I think.

Is there anything else you, you, you, you feel, you know, as a boss or as a ceo, e or you know, advice, advice to people who go through this?

Have we missed anything?

Is there anything else you wanted to say?

I think we're probably still on, on the journey.

I dunno whether we've got it right, but, um, I'm sorry that we don't necessarily share all of the information and that isn't, cuz you don't care and it isn't because you don't trust.

It's more working through whether there is any benefit in sharing that information.

Yeah.

Um, and therefore, and how do you want people to react if you share this information with them?

I don't have a desire of how, I mean my poor greatest mates.

I, I decided that I wasn't gonna tell them.

And I did a, I recorded a video cuz I thought if I was gonna go so quickly, oh, this is the horrible thing.

Yeah.

You know, and continue to record thanks to you.

Also there I record videos, um, and I do voice notes about different stuff and, and a lot for my kids and things, for their future and stuff.

And, um, I decided I wasn't gonna tell my great mates if it was gonna be so quick.

And then I ultimately did, and I did it on the following basis, which I'm so sorry to all of you.

And I've No idea.

In fact, I mean, they're all, they're now off of the floor and they've made it to the couch and they're all lying on the couch.

They're not yet standing up.

Right.

And, um, Uh, I decided I had to tell them all in one go.

I didn't want to be, we we're all around the country and so it wasn't practical to be like, let's all meet at, in a bar.

You know, if I was fit and well, I would've said like, let's meet in a champagne bar and down in, and I was like, I can't bring them all in and go, listen, I'm dying and off you go home.

So I did it on a Zoom and um, I sent them all to WhatsApp to say, look, I've got some news.

Uh, are you all free tomorrow?

You know?

And they were all like, no, we need to talk about this tonight.

Um, I said, okay, we'll chat about it for half an hour.

And I put them on the Zoom and I just told them what had happened and what was going on.

And um, so I'm such an idiot.

I didn't mute the like, all of them.

And so literally as I'm telling my story, each of them start breaking down on, on the zoom, which then like interjects my, my, I'm now my God, girls, girls together together.

Can we get it all in tune, at least Please?

Can we go for a C flat cry and, um, So I taught 'em all through, they said d know, they were really blown away, um, by how I presented it and what I did.

And I wanted to know that I was all right.

But no, there isn't a way for people to react.

There isn't a, a way everyone's gotta go on their own.

And, and actually what makes me sad is they're all saying, and everybody thinks they've gotta be really strong, including all of you and my parents.

And I'm like, you don't need to be strong.

It's totally cool to cry around me like, you know, Christian and I, my hu my dear husband.

I, we, we cried for a week.

I mean, it was, we were complete disasters.

You know, we have to keep, get, keeping our shit together.

Thankfully, you know, when you've got small children, they keep you going Now.

I haven't told my kids yet.

They know I haven't been well in stuff.

And, you know, that is gonna be a big journey and that's a really important journey for me.

And I'm getting help and advice about how and what.

But I mean, it seems that it will just transpire and the thing that I'm learning, the stuff that you really fret about and oh God, it just works its way through and, and you find solutions and things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, obviously these days you can, you can of course record things everywhere.

You can have voice notes, you can do videos, you can, um, you know, we've, even with the, the help of metaphysics, um, uh, pick them up, um, done some stuff.

You can create avatars of yourself.

So I think if anyone is facing this, um, just remember that you can, you can at least, uh, do some incredible things technologically now, even with a, a basic iPhone.

So now we are onto our bullshit question, which is to talk about, um, something or maybe a couple of things that we think are business or bullshit.

Um, I mean, I I we, we've had a, we've had a bit of a chat anyway about this, but you mentioned it earlier, so I, I think I wouldn't mind kicking off with the, um, with, uh, the platitudes, which I, I'm not fucking, you

know, I don't think I've got cancer and it's like not, but you know, I get fed up with platitudes generally, people asking each other constantly how you are all you think about platitudes, you've got a real issue in it.

I have a real issue with it, but it's in the how I was amazed that you said you went into the hospital and everyone asked you how you are.

It's like Jesus.

Really?

Oh yeah.

They ask you all the time and now, I dunno.

Um, I'm now beginning to look to have fun about it.

Yeah.

We do have a ridiculous culture of how are you and we don't really mean it and we're not really interested.

We're not really interested.

Yeah.

In what people's answers are.

So that actually more my bug bear.

I thought about this last, yeah.

What is your bug bear?

That's clearly my bug.

Bear my, that is your bug bear.

My absolute bug bear is people's bullshit, dishonesty and compliance.

So, All the bluff and the nonsense.

And so at the moment, and in fact GDPR is my real bug bear and compliance and just, ah, okay.

The amount of shit I'm having to deal with administrative bullshit, put onto buy businesses, put onto business.

Yes.

So, so in running a law firm, the amount of compliance, the amount of paperwork, the amount of form filling, the amount of approvals that I don't think gets me anywhere.

No value in it at all.

I mean, doesn't it put people, is it, isn't it, partly it's one of those things that it's just a pain in the ass, so it puts other people off maybe.

But I think that we've gone bonkers and now in being sick.

So you sat with me in the hospital.

The same is in the medical.

And in medical it's even worse.

And I'm so cross with my profession that.

There is obviously so much medical negligence that the form filling I have to do and the disclaimers and the signing and the whatever to get anything done for me medically is, is completely crazy and completely disproportionate.

I just think it's incredibly sad that we are creating this culture of sign a form, waive your liability.

You know, this, we, we have just gone really barking about it and so for me, like in the hospital, they're not prepared to disclose or discuss like you sat with me in the hospital.

Every time a doctor comes in the room, they won't speak if there's someone else present because of gdpr, because of gdpr, and you know, do they know?

Do they not know?

And so I now walk around and I've given all of you this disclaimer and I was just talking to, to the hospice.

That is where I made darling various places to say, You have to disclose everything to any family member of mine that comes in.

If they wanna know anything, you must provide that to them.

If you start being like, no, where's it all coming from?

I mean, if we take the medical industry as a thing, I assume look, Things go wrong in hospitals, then people die.

Then families are very angry because the death could be avoided.

But the reason I think that's slightly bullshit is like people, we make mistakes in our profession all the time, and sometimes people will die, you know?

No.

There are very few doctors out there who want to kill anyone.

They're devastated too.

But then what happens is, I think that that the lawyers get involved, then the insurance companies have to pay out, and then the insurance companies, Say, right.

Well we better have all of this shit.

Yeah.

There's just all this paperwork.

You know, like what I sign is, you know, accepting that I might die.

And you know, having chemotherapy is the most hilarious thing.

I mean, the forms that they filled out, though I haven't read hardly any of it.

And they're like, my God, you're the first lawyer that's ever come in achievement and hasn't read any of it.

It's just sign because it's just shit.

Like I believe that the doctors are gonna treat me as best they can.

I believe in people and I think that we have to give trust back and we should just let people be able to do the job that they need to do.

And you know, before any procedure, they read out this massive load of shit that has come through medical negligence and through lawyers advising all we must warn and we must do.

And you know, I get.

There are a few people out there that are gonna blame and are gonna pursue, but I really think that we should stop and, and we need to really take stuff back.

I mean, if anything, it's getting worse and, and if you talk to someone, That people can get very inflamed with you.

I've had these arguments when they're just like, no, they did something wrong.

They have to pay.

And it's like, you know, shit happens.

You know, it's like, um, it, it, it all, all that you're doing is creating these sort of layers and layers of onion, making it more and more terrifying to be in the profession.

Do you know what I mean?

In, in all the professions.

So, you know, in medical, in law, in everything, it's all like, it's gonna be someone else's fault.

It's like, we need to stop that.

You know?

Everybody has a qualification.

Hopefully you have to trust that they will do the best that they can.

They will be honest and honorable.

You can only advise as best.

You know, I look at the medical and I look at my scenario.

The doctors have no idea what's gonna happen, but they will do the best that they can do for me.

Right.

Nobody knows how my body's gonna react or what's gonna happen, do you think?

No, let's take the law firm as something that we under you understand in detail, because you look after a lot of the regulation, you know, people don't want to go to a law firm

that's not heavily regulated and they want to know that the lawyer are very responsible and that I can blame them if they, you know, part of what a lawyer is providing is protection.

Uh, people would argue, part of what you're paying me for is for protection.

Are you kind of intrinsically saying, look, if you're gonna be a professional, being a professional has certain characteristics, integrity, you know, um, should have integrity.

Not all lawyers do, though.

Yeah.

And, and the, the, the, how do we, how do we see sift the wheat from the chaff?

Because clearly what's happening is the lawyer institute and stuff.

That's not really, it doesn't really define it.

Anyone could be trained to be a lawyer and pretend to be a lawyer and be, well, it's equivalent offense if you have a Of course, but I'm just saying it's like there's not, it's not.

I mean, are they, are, are the institutes help?

So I definitely don't have the answer, but if I look from when we started the law fund to now, the amount of compliance, the amount of forms, the amount of regulation has become more and more and more and more.

And I don't really understand why.

Meanwhile, the professions are being less and less respected.

You go back to our father's generation and stuff, right.

You know, nobody really cares.

Now, the bigger your organization, it does seem, the more information, you know, the more compliance there is, the more things you've gotta do.

The more accountability, the more this, the more that I just, I feel like we all need to say enough, you know, let's have some proportionality and let's be risk.

Take more personal responsibility too, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it, it, for me, it feels like the American sales culture of like the customers or is right.

You know, there's this sort of blame culture now that if anything's not right, you know, I blame someone.

And then there's this sort of anger that's there now, rather than being people, being much more people not taking their own responsibilities.

Yeah.

People being, look, I've gone to a law, I've taken some advice, but at the end of the fucking day I've got, I thought the law, you know, good clients as you know, I mean, I've had this, you know, they sometimes come for advice, say, good, I thought you were gonna say that.

I'm, I'm gonna ignore it and I'm doing X because I just wanted to know that's what you were gonna say, because that helps me.

You know, a good client is taking on their own responsibilities, isn't it?

And then, and then it's the sort of outliers who aren't, and then you end up with all this.

Shit as a result, trying to sort of protect us.

Yeah.

I just hope that we need to stop going down this, let's have another rule and another rule and another rule because this happened or that happened and political correctness and, and all of these things.

I just hope that we need to go more back to basics and trust in people and have, you know, your word is your bond and, you know, maybe I'm naive, maybe, but I think it's mostly there.

I think part of part, so, you know, part of this whole lawyer must never remit blame, you know, we have this anyway, remain nameless, but you know, uh, you know, we as a firm and as people, we try and be honest and say, yeah, we fucked something up here.

We're not trying to run away from it.

You know what I mean?

But everyone in the procession is being trained as like, no, no, no.

Don't give an opinion.

Don't be honest, you know, well, not, don't be honest.

Don't admit anything, you know?

Yeah.

You are.

Training is crazy.

I mean, For me, where I feel lucky is every client comes to me is in a total pickle and how much of the pickle will defend, right?

But they've always all generally cocked up.

Um, and some really quite badly.

And so they're exposed.

So then it's just a question of how best you deal with that and how you work through to a solution.

Yeah, providing them 50 page documents about my liability or paying more money for this or that, just, I'm not sure on the accountability and stuff.

I think, you know, we should go back to the basics of being basically regulated with your insurance.

And there be better judgment in relation to that.

And part of the reason it's hard to get information like in the medical setting isn't just gdpr, but is things do go wrong and things aren't perfect and no one wants to say, oh, something should have happened or something didn't happen.

I mean, what, what's interesting, I think you can compare medical and law because, and that sounds really ridiculous, and I sound so like a lala.

Every situation is different, but every situation is different from a ca from within our firm.

I do not have one can that has a business that is fully compliant.

Right?

Yeah.

There is no way you can be fully compliant and make money.

Uh, and that's, or not even make money.

You just, there are so many regulations and so many things that it's not practical.

And then from a medical point of view, I mean, I, I know like.

Well, going back to my tonight, like lots of you are looking at, you know, should it have been picked up or whatever, like the human body is freaking complicated, right?

And, and I had every test and every, everything.

And then at some point my cancer appeared.

It doesn't, it doesn't fix anything.

It doesn't, it doesn't fix anything.

It's a way of directing your anger.

But I, I think it's, More likely those people should probably have some therapy because it's not, you know, good idea.

Um, well ass in, you know, you, you get a, well, I always think of my, my wife when she was, uh, working in Annie came back one evening and someone had come in with a, a stroke and they, he was such an, this is a sort of, it illustrates a few different points.

He was such a nice person.

This is about like, being an annoying client or a nice client.

He was kind of, no, no, I'm fine.

No, no, I don't wanna bother anyone.

I don't wanna, so he didn't get seen.

And then the moment he walked in the room, you know, any good doctor will tell you, they diagnose people in seconds cuz it's the color of their skin, the way they're walking.

Boom.

You know, it's like, fuck, this guy's had a stroke, this, he's got a gate, he's got, he's walking funny.

And then you have that horrible thing is, is it a bleed or is it a clot?

And so most of the time it's clot.

But some of the time it's a bleed and they have this drug, they stick in you and it will clear the, clear the clot and can help you, you know, so, you know, praying and my wife's there and had had to make that decision.

You make that decision.

It's a sort of, it's just a guess, it's an educated guess based on theri, on, on certain, uh, details, made the decision, injected him with a thing and blood starts coming out of his nose and he dies about an hour later.

You know, she comes home in a, in, you know, actually to be honest, when this happens to her, she comes home just very serious.

And you're like, oh, I've got dinner.

I don't want any dinner.

And you're like, whoa, okay.

But you know, then all night start starts crying during the night and we start talking about, I start crying, she's crying, whatever.

And of course then what happens is the layer of.

Now I have to wait for the autopsy because if I was wrong that I have a potential claim now against me, that I made the wrong decision and I killed this guy.

And you, and as a, as a husband, as a friend, as a whatever, you just think, this is fucking crazy.

And it will be a question of how angry and how much blame there is from the other side.

And I, I just think, I don't know, you know, shit's gonna happen.

Professionals have to, professionals have to be, have as much integrity and do the best job they have.

There will be certain situations when there are really bad professionals and they need to be taken out of action.

Like they are just, I think we need to focus on them.

Yes.

And give the rest a break and Yes.

Yes.

And we know as professional, how many lawyers and accountants, fucking guys, Ben, you know, but on the other hand, to your point, you cannot be whiter than white.

You cannot be perfect.

You know, and I get, I get very confused with what the lawyers are.

You know?

Do you blame the legal profession?

Do you think that.

It's going in the wrong direction or, yeah.

I think they do need to take responsibility and I think they do need to be accountable.

And I think they need, but also not blame.

So the, the two sides of it, I feel the same with politicians.

It's like we should blame them.

We should be less angry and blame people less.

I maybe we say, Hey, you fucked this up.

And they say, yeah, but there's less sort of like, what?

This could be a million pound negligence suit sort of thing.

Because otherwise they're not gonna be, they're less able to be professionals themselves cuz they're living in fear.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

I I almost feel there has to be more reasonableness about it or just, you know, a kind of on both sides.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

But your main, what is bullshit is massive compliance at the moment for all businesses.

Yes.

And you couldn't pick a high amount.

That's my first thing.

Okay.

I've got another thing that thought about.

Yeah, another thing, yeah.

There were various things that really fucked me off at the moment.

My other thing is the fact that you can have it all.

And this whole concept in life, that everybody's living this perfect life and able to have everything.

And I think that we need to be a bit more realistic about things.

So I think that you can have it all in life, but not at the same time.

So I think that, um, you can have a career, you can have a happy marriage or relationship, and you can have a family and children, but I think having all three of them perfect at the same time.

Is not possible.

Something in a Hollywood film or something, you know?

Yeah.

Like fairy tale and I think Cinderella and all of these concepts that we're all brought up with, that we, it's all magical life and wonderful.

And you know, you don't have to work very hard and earn lots of money and folly your dreams.

Yeah.

All that.

I just think we've gotta be more realistic, and I think particularly for, for women working, like, you know, I, I have an amazing career, but since having children, I cannot work the hours that I used to work.

And I don't, I can't do that.

So I don't think I should earn what I did.

Before, because I now can't do all that I used to do.

Yeah.

And we've had, I mean, I'm two years younger, but we have that, that parallel.

And you said that to me early on about, you know, I think coming back to work is so difficult for, for, for, for women and that's a whole separate conversation.

But you said exactly that said, you know, bear, I can't, I can't give as much as, you know, well I'm two years younger, but in the time that you were away having babies, you know, I, I, I progressed so much, you know, in terms of what I was up to as a person.

Like I wasn't really, I was probably doing more, but it's more like, you know, I'm at a hundred and 110% and then you go to zero for two years and then you come back to 30% that, that car's very fucking far in front of you now, you know, in terms of it.

But I don't begrudge, I don't think that I should come back and have the same as you.

Yeah.

So to me, I.

You know, I, I've had a family, I want to spend time with my children.

Mm.

You know, there are women that choose to outsource it all and continue with their career and not have anything to do with fed kids.

I, I don't want that.

So to me, I want to be present in their lives and I want to work.

I think my point is that just, it will never be smooth sailing.

There is no promised land and, and the juggle of working, having a marriage, you know, and spending time with your husband or wife or partner or whatever, you know, and having children and time as a family is, is incredibly fierce to balance.

And, and each of those plates will never beautifully spin.

There will always be one that has broken or is fallen or isn't quite going to pan slightly.

Interestingly, you are almost saying, This sort of modern song, gonna use the word woke role model concept of people putting in the media constantly.

These women, they're high achievers, they've got a family, they've done it all in offense.

That's a sort of dialogue which is damaging.

So there are quite a few women that have really upset me and I've really reflected on it because, um, there are various women that portray that you can have it all.

And it's all marvelous and my life's wonderful and I'm at top of my career and I must be paying.

And I'm a brilliant mom.

And I'm an amazing mom and I'm at everything and dah, dah da da and you are crying.

Bullshit.

Yes.

And it, it's definitely bullshit.

And when I actually dug in with these women, because I'm like, I, I, I'm really sorry, but I'm really trying to do all those things.

Yeah.

And I've either missed a meeting, which was really important at work, or I've missed my child's play.

Like there is no perfect.

Right.

And so I'm falling down.

You're 24 hours a day.

Yeah.

And that.

You have to accept that it is never gonna run smoothly.

And the women that I've drilled into and are huge advocates, and I really don't like the message that they convey, that I do think, yes, you can have a career and you can

have just not all at the same time perfectly, but those that are doing, that have husbands or partners at home and they are performing the parental role predominantly.

And I'm happy to be proved wrong on that.

But the ones that I've been taken to task and had a real meltdown with, they then have conceded, oh yes, my husband.

Yeah, the man is work.

Is the woman in the, yes.

That's a sexist way of saying it, but whatever.

Well, exactly.

The carer, the, yes.

The primary, primary caregiver.

Yeah.

I think that's a really interesting, um, thing.

And I think, I think I.

I, I'm all, this whole sort of concept of equality, and it took me quite a long time to find out that feminism means equality.

And I, I make feminists very upset when I say this.

Well, something seem to get very angry about it when I say, could we please call it equality?

Because as a man, I find I'm a, you know, if I went around saying, oh, I'm into manism.

Uh, and then I said, what's manism mean?

Oh, it means equality.

And now I get all the arguments and historically, and why, da, da, da, da, da.

And it's important to say that it's not equal and dah, dah, dah, but it's not fucking equal.

Nothing is equal.

I mean, I had this fascinating conversation with Howard who helped put the podcast together, whose wife is an amazing entrepreneur and whatever, and he says, it never fucking will be equal.

I, you know, I cannot, you know, the shit, she's just had a second child.

The shit she's going through is 10 times what I go through.

You know, I, how can it possibly be equal?

And he gave a whole bunch of examples where things were in each way.

Um, and I think that's, I think that's the truth of it.

I think, I think, you know, I always laugh that at work there's this whole push for it's gotta be equal with women, it's gotta be equal with women and stuff.

And okay, that's great.

We have a more than 50% female staff and we're 50 50 at the top.

And we haven't tried to do that.

That's just because that's what makes sense because they were, they were with good people.

But you know, this, this sort of, um, at home meanwhile, anecdotally, I've found that almost every man I know is not in charge at home.

I very much doubt Christian is in charge and you're home.

No, and I laugh about this cuz years back of my ex-wife, I, I moved the sofa a bit when she'd gone out one evening and what the fuck?

You move the, so get the sofa back, move it back.

And I was like, no, no, it's better here cuz of x, Y and I can see the TV and whatever, move the sofa back.

And I was like, Oh my God, this is my house.

I pay for it.

We were dating at the time and I fucking no saying it.

I mean, uh, my final comment on this, I very much like Chris Rock's joke about this, which is like, you know, men get an extra dollar an hour because when the building's burning down, it's women and children first, so fuck you.

I need a dollar extra hour.

But I think what you're saying, you know, and only you could say it being you, Juliet, but you as a woman and you as a, an entrepreneur, you as a business

owner, you as a mother, It's really important and needs to be said because this dialogue, if you can do it all and you should, is very destructive.

And I think it's really wrong that businesses have to pay equally and stuff.

I think you should be paid based on your input or your output, you know, not on a piece of paper.

So I just think, yeah, I think we've just gotta have more honesty around the table.

And I think men are doing lots more.

And the expectation, I think that's equally hard is that men are having to pick up more and more at home and everything.

Yes, that's, yeah.

I would say in London the attitude is kind of, well, you gotta do you know a bit, mind you, I do.

No laundry.

I'm sorry.

Sorry wife.

No, but she could make me, but she likes it.

She likes doing laundry.

She's fucking nuts.

Honestly, when I found that out, I proposed to her pretty much.

I was like, she loves ironing, she loves doing, like when she, when she wants to relax, she's like, oh, I'll do some folding and ironing.

Eh, no, I get that though.

Well, you remember, I mean, I get therapy from cleaning.

Yeah.

Well, and tied.

I would never forget that I moved into my sister's house during my, uh, separation from my wife and subsequent divorce.

And, um, after a week of trying to sleep on different people's sofas, which was pretty also the sympathy problem again, you know, or you, I'd be like, oh fuck, this is awful.

I need to get out of all these situations.

Went to my mom and don't go to your mom and dad's house when you've been separated.

They're just like, Well, well, you know, they're dead.

Oh.

They just, they poor them and, you know, anyway, up, I I'm still relatively scar.

I still, still, I know I trashed it.

I did ev you know, my sister, we lived together previously.

She did not want me back in her life.

No.

But anyway, I still remember the evening I arrived, you know, with a, a, a, you know, a black bag full of dirty laundry and a mess thing.

And I was fucking all over the shop back then.

And, you know, you just talked to me for two hours while, and at the end of the two hours you've handed me all of my clothes, fold cleaned Lions thing.

And I, I realized I'd watched you do this while we were talking for two hours.

But it was, it was, it was remarkable.

It was absolutely remarkable.

You cl you clean.

I don't even know you, you know, as much as I say I load all that.

Actually it was really amazing to, to reconnect.

Oh.

As when we were older and, and hang out and spend time.

I don't, I don't, I don't regret the time and I'm sorry for the general damage.

I, and so preaching, I could tell you something you don't know, which is quite funny.

Actually.

I could let a secret out there.

No, don't let a secret.

No, it's a funny one.

It's a funny one is I, at the time I was living, you know, pretty much out of a bag and I had this, these two, they were, they were used to be called X Eyes or something.

They were two little speakers.

They were the first mini speakers you get and you, you'd turn them and they'd pop open, and they were really amazingly loud.

And I had two of these.

Yeah.

And me and Doug were hanging out listening to music, having a wonderful time.

Knock, knock, knock at the door.

No.

Cause it was midnight.

Open the door and there's fucking police there.

And they're like, uh, we've had complaints of neighbors.

I mean, I mean, my area is so rock and roll next to your area.

And I, and it's about the noise.

And I said, you're fucking kidding me.

And he's like, yeah.

I said, do you wanna see my stereo?

And he's like, yeah, let's see.

Your stern came in the house.

I said, there it is, the two smallest speakers you could possibly think of.

And I was like, I don't know how of course the noise could play, but that's, that's the fucking thing.

Whoa, you gotta, anyway, after that, I had that visit and I thought, oh.

God, I hope they don't send a letter.

One day, this letter, I just happened to be leaving home.

They stuck it through the door when I was still living there, opened up the letter.

This is just to confirm that we have visited your president.

I thought, fucking Alan, God, my sis didn't see that she would've murdered me, and she never believed me.

Doug was there.

I was like, the whole thing was farcical.

I was like, you fucking kidding me.

Okay.

Yeah, sure.

I'll turn my miniature stereo down, you know?

Anyway, it's all outta the bag now.

Good to clear these things.

Any, anything else that pisses you off?

That was, that was good one.

Uh, my only other real, um, my two minor things are, um, I'm spending loads of time in hospital at the moment and, um, the problem in all of the hospitals that I go in, I'm going into cancer hospitals, all of the material that they have is cancer.

All of the booklets, all of the information, I'd never, never thought of this, but you're absolutely right in those waiting rooms, oh God, gimme a National Geographic and an economist don't.

And then all of them have windows and not one of them open.

Oh my gosh.

And I am now on a mission.

I'm on about my seventh or eighth hospital.

There must be a hospital with windows that open.

It can't be the law that hospitals have to have their windows closed.

Me, I have not yet.

And I challenge anybody, and I wish any hospital to get in touch or, or, or I've ever to go to, or any, anyone that's visiting, please.

Because every hospital I have been to, and every room I have had has had windows, but they are not open.

I cannot, what the fuck?

Why?

And so I asked the fuck security, what is the problem?

So, so they are able to open.

But it is, it is for the fact, health and safety.

Health and safety.

Fuck fucking commit suicide.

Is that what it's about?

Yeah.

Because some blo jumped out of a fucking window once.

We've all gotta lock our windows.

And so now, I don't dunno them or something.

Why they bother building hospitals with windows?

Why don't they allow them to open a little bit?

And you know, because I'm with you, I have that, that we, I think we grew up in a house with all the windows open or something.

I don't know because I, when I can't open a window, I get this claustrophobic, I get it in airports because they often, they're sealed the airport.

Yes.

And you get that sort of feeling of like, fucking hell.

Yeah.

But what could be, what could be more healthy than opening the fucking window?

I.

Oh, okay.

So any other, any other, hopefully before I die, we've got the magazines too.

Please, for fuck's sake.

We know we've got cancer.

We're in the fucking waiting room.

You know the parents don't be reading.

Oh, have you read, uh, page three on pancreatic cancer.

Alright, how does it go, darling?

Well, it's not gray, I have to say.

You're literally like, what should they have?

They should have fucking, uh, some pornography maybe.

You know, they shoulda have anything.

Porn, cartoons.

Yeah, everything.

And anything that's just non-cancer, you know, that you are there for cancer.

Literally, there has not been a day since my diagnosis there.

I have not met somebody who has thrust also literature with cancer all over it.

And in fact, I fed back to them yesterday.

I mean, there is amazing literature out there, but I fed back to them yesterday because my children are of an age where they're able to read.

And my major problem is people visit the house, they deliver me material, they give me material, and I leave it on the side and my son is able to read, oh, he's pretty smart.

And all of these.

Things are like, you know how to deal with terminal illness and cancer and it's all branded and so I fed back to them yesterday actually.

As a mom who has been given this, you really need to put like the porn covers on anything on, yeah, yeah.

To allow me to at least to, so that I can leave the stuff on the side.

I have to say, you know, a bit like you being, you sticking out in a hospital cause you're so hilariously positive, you know, and you really, I'm sure you bring the place to light, you certainly bring every room on.

But actually that whole, the whole waiting room, the whole way it starts.

You know, you, you, you had a guy the other day talking about, you know, anyway, you know, it's all self-fulfilling.

You know, if we started on the right foot about, hey, be positive, you know, it's like no one wants to give full soap, but we're we're already in the fucking waiting room of death, aren't we?

Sorry, interrupted.

No, no, no.

And it, it, it is just really, yeah, they've got a.

Get away from all of that and that material or, you know, you can have a shelf of it, not the whole place.

God, there's so much good shit out there now.

They could do something that's fucking, they could have breaking bad on the tv.

Yeah.

I mean, he's got cancer, but it's fantastic, bro.

So we're onto our quick fire questions.

This is, uh, for those of you who don't know, um, Juliet backwards.

Well, anyway, let's just get some juice out of our thing.

This is where I'm gonna ask you just a list of questions, get to know you a little better.

Uh, and we just want Yeah.

Punchy little answers.

Okay.

Uh, Juliette, what was your first job?

Uh, it was the factory supervisor of a sew factory, sort of in, at the top, at the bottom.

Well, I, I, the world sew, sew is a type of fat from animals or something.

So, so it is fat and flour that you mix together.

You put it through a, a machine.

And I went in as a laborer.

And within a few days was running the, the, the, the production past the behavior, which I imagine as followed you the production line.

Right.

Cuz you got to know everyone.

Yes, yes.

Couldn't help yourself.

Yes.

I couldn't know.

This is Doris.

Doris and has a bad knee and they like to be Yeah, yeah.

You know.

No, you love people, you know, as a family, we love people.

I loved it.

So yeah, I, I brought up production to the fastest, highest levels it have been.

And we, we got cracking and we put the music on and had, had a good time.

Very good.

And what was your worst job?

Um, I was thinking about that.

I, um, volunteered at Liberty, the human rights charity, so I always wanted to change the world.

And so, uh, one of the jobs that I did was go and be a volunteer at a time where, I mean, Liberty is an incredible human rights organization and they set up a helpline and without any training, they put me on the helpline.

And because I loved to chat, but everyone that phoned up the helpline had serious mental health issues.

And so I had a person attempting suicide on the helpline.

Oh my God.

Um, and had what?

Describing it in detail.

Yeah.

They were on a bridge trying to kill themself.

So a lot had serious mental health issues and you've no idea whether they're making it up or not making it up.

And I was very young at the time.

Yeah.

Um, and you know, people phoning up day night did being watched, did they die?

They kill themselves.

No.

So the services arrived in time, but it really scarred me in terms of just.

You, you must be fully trained to do that type of thing.

So that, yeah, that's quite a deep one.

Favorite subject at school?

Uh, I, I would say at university, my favorite subject was, was a course called Sex and Gender in the Law, which is all about the fact that in law we are obsessed a and in everyday life with whether people are man or women.

So people's genitalia, and, and that seems to, to define some, we were obsessed whether people are men or women.

So in the law, everything was historically written of, you know, man shall not kill.

And all the statutory defenses to murder were a male reaction, rather female.

And then you get that paragraph saying, any reference to men means women or, so then they altered it.

But at the time when I was at uni, um, PE women were able to rape men and it wasn't considered rape women because yes, because only a man can rape because you have to do penetrated, only penetrate.

Penetration by penis.

Yeah.

But then they got rid of the fact that it had to actually be a penis and it could be by any object.

But that's, you found that already fascinating.

Do you think these days, you know, contracts are being rewritten now to take out any mention of gender and do you feel that's, that's, you know, that's sensible for the law to do?

I.

Um, yeah, I mean, I guess I'm, I, oh, that's such a massive, I mean, I am very pro and very aware of transgender issues.

Um, I have a dear friend whose child will go through it.

I, transgender means changing gender, so changing your gender.

So it, it isn't uncommon to be born what you would call gender neutral.

So neither man or woman, you meaning physically or mentally?

Mainly.

Mentally, yeah.

It, it's rare now for hermaphrodite to be born so with part organs.

Yeah.

Um, but it is more common for people to feel they're in the wrong bodies and that type of thing.

And I, uh, one of my greatest mates at university was a very butch man who has gone through full gender change, um, to be a woman.

Yes.

Right.

Do you think, I mean, I think, I think everyone's.

Yeah, that one.

Not everyone at all.

The world's pretty fucked up, but anyone who's got half a brain is, is, is down with people being whoever they want.

But I think it all comes down to that age point, isn't it?

You know, what point, what age should you start doing the track?

Because I think, I think the controversy is n its' funding stuff in teens.

I might be wrong about that, but I have a, well, there is, so there's an incredible clinic.

There's only one clinic in the country and, and the Tavistock clinic, which isn't far from our office, which is totally oversubscribed and, um, they are the only place that you can go.

It isn't as simple.

Oh, to do a do, to do a sex change, is it?

Yes.

And, and you have to take a lot of medication.

You have to go through two years of counseling.

Well, that's what it was historically.

It's hor hormone therapy.

They start with as well.

Well, counseling and then hormone therapy before you then get into anything else.

And you have to live as that sex and stuff.

And so when people bandish around, you know, teens, it's happening.

Like one of my greatest friends, they had a daughter and that daughter I watched be very unhappy with themselves Yeah.

For a long period of time.

And from the moment they were allowed to live as a boy, which was, how old were they?

Out of interest?

Um, even when they were six, seven, when they were, uh, at about 10 11, they, and even at six or seven, they were very much like, I don't feel right.

Yes, yes.

Stop putting me in the pink corner with the flowers.

Yes.

And I would hide in the corner and just not.

Be, and then to see that boy walk into my house and be so happy, and this is who I am.

Mm-hmm.

And this is what I want to be.

I don't think you can make sweeping generalizations about, it shouldn't be this age or that age.

You know, we are each individual and everybody's circumstance.

But I completely agree with that.

But that's the problem with law, isn't it?

You end up having to pick a number.

It's like, what age is the age of consent?

Well, if you go to some parts of Europe, you can get down to the age of 13 or something, you know?

But we come up with this number 16 and it's where you draw the line, isn't it?

You know?

Yeah.

I mean, I think you've gotta have, I think we're lucky in this country that you've gotta have some guidelines and then fortunately, you know, we have a jury system and we have common law, which means that you can kind of ignore that.

In some scenarios.

Right.

And allow, explain that a little bit more.

That common law overrides it, or what do you mean?

Or, so look, you could be tried or charged.

Well, look, one of, one of the last criminal cases I did in the UK was, was a young boy who did murder his stepfather.

So he took a meekly into, put a meat cleaver into his stepfather.

Um, he had been very badly abused for most of his life.

He was charged with murder and put on trial.

He should have been convicted of murder.

There were all the elements of it in criminal law.

Right.

But the jury acquitted him.

I mean, probably the right verdict was manslaughter, but they made him walk free because they heard all of his case and decided No, this kid has gone through enough.

Through enough.

He, enough responsible.

Yeah.

Well, he was, but, but actually that would be the definition of manslaughter.

It wasn't my fault, but it still happened.

Yeah.

Yes.

You know, technically he should have probably been done for manslaughter.

Um, but with a jury trial, they can just ignore and just verdict.

Is this.

And you.

And you.

That's a good thing, I assume.

Yeah, I think it is because I don't think life is black and white.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we write the law.

So you say, you know, the age of 16, so sure you can go on trial, but in the scenario, hopeful, hopefully with it jury, it's the classic, isn't it?

You are, you are 18 and they're 15, or no, you are 17 and they're 15.

It's like, well, consent is is the major problem and, and alcohol, drugs, all of that.

And people waking up and being like, aha, I, I don't remember that and I didn't.

And you know, that is a mind field of an error.

You probably should do a separate podcast and pull in the wife because that's a specialist area forensic.

I think you need to be very interesting on that.

I think.

I think that's, I think it's the rabbit hole that we could go down for hours, but I think it's, I actually didn't really know.

Particularly the, the, the sexual aspect given you the what you like to school and stuff is that, that particular area of law is really fascinating to you.

I think.

Well, I've al but I've also defended lots of people that have been unfairly prosecuted or put in really horrendous scenarios and women.

As much as I love you ladies, we are incredibly deadly and I would say the most dangerous and I defending women, I find far harder than men and we are way more cool, calculating and premeditated.

It's incredibly sexist to say, but I ha I have to anecdotally say I, I've never, I don't really see it very often otherwise, that in a divorce the man just wants to be done with it.

He'll give up anything.

He doesn't care.

But there's this, this, this, this vindictiveness, this, this grudge that comes from the other side, you know, often exacerbated by a lawyer.

May I say so?

Well, you know, cuz the law here is very against, um, the asset holder often anyway.

It's a bit complicated.

But there, yes.

So would a, I would say the bulk of my car.

Car, there's a grudge.

You guys hold, you're like elephants, you don't forget and you don't give it up.

And you want your pound flesh.

Yes, yes.

And that's, yes, that's the bit that I find.

Yes, it's not always true, but generally true.

We, we are so irrational.

Yeah.

Um, and we definitely can't walk away.

And it is, we are very revengeful.

I, uh, the flip side, which is the positive side is I think that piece of your brain is the, the, the bit that's much more mum about worrying about family and thinking forward.

You know, my wife's always thinking about the future.

I think about today, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon.

That's fucking it.

You know, I don't get much further than that in my brain.

I'm exaggerating.

But there's something in you that's quite sort of, you know, I, I make the basic point.

Well, of course, you know, there will be some difference because if, if, say the two tiger comes through the door, men will need to be ready to jump up and fight.

And that's our mentality.

Whereas, you know, the mother is much more planning and thinking.

And I think the, unfortunately, you know, there's a flip of that psychology, which is that, you know, I think together we operate pretty amazing, but we are very different psychologically.

Yeah.

And like, yeah, the fact that we will protect our children.

And, and do anything for them, you know, that becomes self, both men and women.

I feel like that.

Do you not feel, you know, I mean, I, I, I, yeah.

Although you always say that you'd protect your wife before your children wear.

Oh, no.

That was a very fascinating discussion we had.

As I said that the.

You know, the hormonal reaction to having kids, my wife was like, you know, being a doctor, trying to analyze it when it was happening to her early on, saying, I have this incredible feeling to nurture these children and protect these children.

I said, well, actually, my emotion is to protect you.

That's, that's, I'm getting that feeling.

And I, and I think again, anecdotally, you know, discussing it with one and a half friends, I have proved without an unequivocal shadow of a doubt that, you know, men in a way.

Yeah.

Th th this is what the, my point is that my wife always comes first and my kids.

You know, a almost an equal second.

But, you know, it's like, um, it, it, it, whereas when you have kids, I think a lot of men I've seen suffer from this in a way, is that the woman, the man now comes way below, you know,

definitely below the kids and, you know, in relationships where the woman has been being very caring to the man and, and he needed that care, or they had a very, their relationship was very, yeah.

And I can think of people off the top of my head, you know, I, I, I've seen it with my own wife that she's still amazing to me.

But it's, yeah, there's some shift that I don't think happens with men.

I think we still, like you are my number one, you know?

Yeah.

Enough.

No, I would agree.

Children.

Anyway.

Uh, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll come up.

We completely, what's a special skill?

I think extracting secrets.

That's so true.

I could say chat, but yeah, I think, let's take it to the next extracting secret.

You are gifted and not giving any, well do, do you know, I would never have said that if I wasn't dying because you keep going around telling everybody and then I don't get the information.

It's cuz if it's, it's need someone, you wait, my sister will get your deepest, darkest secret.

You can't, I've barely said that to anyone.

But you know, you keep saying that.

Quite so.

I like, like my God.

So no, I definitely think my specialist center is extracting secrets.

Great answer.

Uh, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to change the world.

Did you?

Yeah.

What did you think was wrong with it?

Everything or?

Yeah.

Lots of things.

Okay.

And so I met an amazing American on a train when I was young and he asked me, oh, you are quiet, you know, Chatty and Ian, what, what, what, what are you one of these, you're good at extracting secrets.

And I, and I said, well, I really wanna change the world.

And he said, well, you can't change the world.

And I, he really mortified by, I said, what do you mean I can't change the world?

He said, you can only help to change a part of the world.

Do you know what part you want to change?

Well, good answer.

And since then I've been trying to work out what part, but I think it's helped.

People, you have changed people's worlds.

And that's, that's, that's sort of the same thing.

You've helped a lot of people.

I, I hope so.

I I've got a lot more people to help.

Like, oh, we ain't fucking done yet.

Well, I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm like, well, come on, let's get on with our chat because, you know, well, even, even what we're doing now is very brave and very fascinating as a sort of, um, way of trying to sort of help people with things.

Um, what did our parents want you to be when you were Prime Minister?

Was it Dad wanted me to be Prime Minister.

You reckon?

I, Maggie Thatcher.

Fucking hell.

When we need some good leaders could kick it.

I, I'd love to.

You allowed to go into it.

If you, if you let you What?

If I'm dying specialist?

Well, she life last half the term that, you know, well, the thing is, I can't be bothered to play the politics and the schmoozing and the bullshit.

You lucky.

Fuck it.

He wanted you to be Prime Minister.

He wanted me to be an accountant.

Did he?

Of course he did.

Did.

Ha.

Um, you see, you see this is where, this is where it's easier to be a daughter.

That's only do you feel?

Oh, yeah.

With a dad like us.

He's like, well, well, James will be a law and accountant.

He wanted me to go into politics and then he realized, now you can't earn enough money.

That's brilliant.

I didn't know that.

What is your go-to karaoke song?

Haven't seen your karaoke.

You have to crack.

No, I don't karaoke.

This is a really, Julie's very good at sort of like being, setting everybody up.

You're setting it all up and then somehow, okay.

But Andy, I've got to explain this to you.

I am completely tone deaf and I went to an all girls boarding school and there were 80 girls in my year and I was the only girl that was not allowed in the school choir.

Oh, wow.

Because I could not sing and I was positively told You must not participate.

Oh yeah.

And so I don't do karaoke, but in answer, I mean my real like get up and go song is so you are gonna die at how cheesy this is.

But like, if, if I've gotta go do something really freaking heavy, I have to listen to something inside so strong by, um, a guy called Labe.

Uh, sfa Safi.

Sfi.

Let's go.

Safi.

It sounds Bos.

Um, and that is my real or something like Is that from the, the one from the South Showman.

Okay.

The Greatest Showman.

Okay.

No, it's not from the Greatest Showman.

Something inside so strong.

If you, I should get it on for you cuz you would know it.

Yeah, I can listen to it.

Yeah.

Um, it's that build your barriers.

De could put it in the background about now a little bit.

He should.

Little d Dinkle.

Dinkle.

With the Ivan, it's got very good lyrics and very light I'm gonna take on the world.

The higher you build your

the taller I become.

The farther you take my rights away, the faster I will run.

You can deny me.

You can decide to turn your face away,

no matter

strong.

I know that can make it.

You're doing, you thought

so strong.

I love it.

All right.

Careful.

He's in the building office.

Dogs business will bullshit.

You've gotta be honest.

Right.

All this bullshit.

Okay.

Very good.

All right.

That's a good thing.

We've, uh, cleared that up.

Uh, have you ever been fired?

So, I've thought about this No, but I have because I've, I mainly haven't been fired cuz I've had various jobs, but most of which have been self-employed.

Right.

But I have been banned from a number of establishments and the main, oh, in my criminal.

So I was a criminal defense solicit solicitor for a long time and I mainly operated out of, um, hybrid Islington Toll Plaza Police Station, which is at the back of our office.

And the custody sergeant, if I was on duty or if any of my clients got arrested.

They have to phone and notify you to that.

You must come and attend, and he reached a point.

Where he would not allow me to attend because they got so fed up that I wouldn't leave the police station unless they bailed my clients.

And I had an amazing relationship with the custody sergeants up at Toll puddle for for many years.

And then he started to go, I've officially banned you, and if any can, and it began to get known around here, just say, your lawyer is me.

You're sound a bit like, better call Saul here.

Yeah.

So I just, and I love the concept that any of my clients got arrested.

It's like, all right, so it's like on an ongoing basis, I'm a crook.

It's like, I, I would've thought you got arrested, then you found a lawyer.

It's like, oh, no, no.

So, so I.

I would, I did the various gangs that operate around here and did a lot of the East London gangs and things who would regularly be arrested and regularly, you know, I, I have, I had can where we had massive spreadsheets on the wall of which court on what day for which case.

And they would often have 10 to 15 to 20 cases on the gun.

And then they were being arrested at night for other stuff.

Wow.

And do you think, uh, just that, just, I mean you, you, you, you had to move on from criminal law maybe, maybe that was part of the nature of the family business and where, where it was going as a thing.

But all this stuff in the press, now that there's no legal aid and everything, is it all appalling and they need to be paid more?

So yeah, they definitely need to be paid more.

So I.

Was trained by one of the best criminal lawyers, and during my training, she became pregnant and went on maternity leave.

And I was left with her caseload and I knew nothing.

And she was acting for some of the most dangerous people in London and things.

Okay.

And I had to teach myself and they taught me to, and when I started and I got known to do murders mentally ill and particularly juveniles with mental health issues.

So I acted for, for the first glide, diagnosed with A D H D and all of the, the disorders.

And, um, You.

I would spend nights in police stations, days in court, and then be paid 50 pounds or a hundred pounds and be told by the legal aid at the time, Madam, you should have only spent 20 minutes talking to that client.

Not an hour, and we're only gonna pay you 20 minutes.

And, um, I ended up, so I was doing that and I was doing death penalty work, so I was doing the final appeals for, for those in the Caribbean region before execution and not being paid.

And I was working like crazy, being paid not very much.

And what's unfortunate is when I was training there was a phenomenal criminal defense bar and people and proper representation.

And in the olden days you also had a police force that you had phenomenal police officers that basically trained up through the ranks and they would walk the beat, they would then, you know, work their way up and, and there was a moral code and you think this is all gone.

You in.

I think a lot of it is gone because what happened in the police force is they started positively bringing in parachuting people that had just studied into being detectives and stuff.

And so suddenly you go to the police station and you'd have a young, a naive, inexperienced person telling you that you, they're gonna charge your client with like 15 charges and your li you got one of them.

Like, let's charge them with that and we'll all move on.

And, and you ended up in these big arms.

They, they weren't practical.

What takes a long time is being commercial, we would say and our in as professionals.

Yeah.

Just reasonable.

And I had an amazing relationship with lots of police officers.

And you also had like why I also got banned from, from, it's cuz you had an amazing intelligence room and so in, in lots of areas or communities, if you've got a really

good police force and in the olden days, particularly when you'd been promoted all up through the ranks and you were near retirement, you were put in the intelligence room.

And the intelligence room was full of people that had walked the beat, had done everything right.

And so when the young officers came in and they said, oh, X, Y, and Z crime has happened in the area.

They go into the intelligence room speak with all the wiser wise people speak to Bob and Ted Graham and whatever, and they say there's five families in that area, in this area that do that kind of thing, rather than nowadays they type into a computer, you know, somebody's done this or that.

It doesn't give you that human brain intelligence, that proportionality that sense of things that you only get from walking around and knowing the family.

And it would be like, I always, you know, that's a crime that so and so and so and so and soAnd.

So would perform, have a look at their files, see where they are, uh, what's your vice?

I would've said wine.

Mm-hmm.

Love a glass of wine.

Mm-hmm.

I now can't get on a bar stool and drink wine.

Mm-hmm.

So I would say chatting cuddles.

Mm.

Love a hug.

Mm-hmm.

Hugs are good.

Hugs are the best.

Wish my kids would hug me anyway.

Working on it.

Um, do you think, uh, this is my personal question.

Do you think, uh, this, we are in Uri Clark solicitor's offices, that's, uh, 10 John Street and it's, uh, a basement.

Uh, we have this wonderful studio, but this is the, the place you've built for many, many years.

Um, has anyone had sex in this building?

Yes, I have caught somebody.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

What did you see?

Full, full, like action.

Like Yes.

Rocking back and forward.

Yes, yes.

Did you stop him?

You sort of stepped back.

Yes.

Cause what's the etiquette in that kind of situation?

I'd say, well, if, if no one else could see, I could say, well, Let me know when you're done.