alice

Clare Balding met wife Alice Arnold when they both worked at the BBC in the 1990s, admitting she had one major question she wanted to ask in the early days of their relationship

Clare Balding had a “big question” for her wife Alice Arnold when the pair first started dating. Clare, 55, met 64-year-old Alice when they were both working on the BBC in 1999.

Their relationship blossomed and in 2006 they entered into a civil partnership together, later marrying in 2015, when same-sex marriage was legalised. And while the pair have now been together for over 26 years, Clare says there was one thing that could have been a deal-breaker.

The BBC Sport presenter says she is a lover of animals, having grown up surrounded by “hundreds” of horses and dogs. It meant Clare always wanted to have a dog in her life as an adult.

Speaking on the Bookshelfie podcast, she said: “When Alice and I first got together my big question, ahead of everything, was, ‘Can we get a dog?’ It’s really important. Twenty four years later I’m glad she said, ‘Yes, we can get a dog’.”

Podcast host Yomi Adegoke, added: “You need to lay that groundwork because if the answers are not aligned, this is not going to work.”

Alice has previously admitted that allowing her wife to have a dog was one of the “original commitments” she made during the early stage of their relationship. In Clare’s book, Isle of Dogs, former Radio 4 announcer Alice said she would “never go back” on the pledge.

Clare admits she was left with a “dog-shaped hole” in her heart in 2020 after her much-loved Tibetan terrier Archie had to be put to sleep. While she says it was the “best decision” for the dog, she admits she “thinks about him everyday”.

After Archie’s death, Clare felt compelled to continue walking his favourite routes around Chiswick, London, to honour his memory.

Speaking to The Times, Clare said: “After Archie died in 2020 I wanted to walk his favourite route repeatedly to remember him, which seems a rather masochistic thing to do, and it was so painful because we kept seeing dogs we knew, and I’d stop to say hello before bursting into tears. We cried a heck of a lot, but slowly it became easier.”

Clare hopes that she and Alice will swap London for the countryside eventually so they can welcome a new dog into their lives. Clare explained: “We’re looking to move out of London, and one of the main reasons for that is to have a bit more space and protection from the road so it’s a good environment for a dog.

“As soon as we’re settled, it’s our plan – probably next spring. I smile at the thought of having a dog back in our lives.”

Clare previously revealed to MailOnline that she yearns for “everything a dog brings” to her life, from the icy winter strolls to the “enthusiastic greeting” Archie would offer her upon returning home from work.

She describes Archie as the “perfect dog” because he didn’t moult, which mattered greatly to Alice, who suffers from dog allergies. Clare, who hosts Crufts on Channel 4, explained: “Tibetan terriers are small enough to pick up but strong enough to go on long walks.

“They are intelligent, loyal and full of character. They are good guard dogs but don’t yap without cause.”

Clare will be presenting the coverage of the Winter Olympics on BBC Two between 6pm and 10pm tonight (February 7). It will feature the final run of the men’s singles luge, the ski jumping medal ceremony, and the big air run of the men’s snowboarding among others.

In “Vanished,” premiering Friday on MGM+, Kaley Cuoco plays Alice, an archaeologist, a fact she repeats whenever she’s asked about herself, without particularly seeming like one, apart from passing mentions of Byzantine caves and “one of the earliest examples of Christian worship” to make her sound professional. Sam Claflin plays Tom, who works for a charity organization dealing with Syrian refugees in Jordan; in a flashback we get to see them meet cute on a dusty Jordanian road, where he has a flat tire and no spare. Alice gives him a lift to camp; they banter and flirt after a fashion. He does something heroic within her sight.

They have been long-distance dating for four years, meeting up, as Alice describes it, “in hotels all over the world” where they “actually want to have sex with each other all the time.” Currently they are in Paris (in a $500-a-night joint — I looked it up). But Alice, now working in Albania, has been offered a job as an assistant professor of archaeology at Princeton, which would allow her to settle down with Tom in a school-provided apartment and “build a life that’s mine, not just uncovering other people’s.” After an uncomfortable moment, he signs on, saying, “I love you, Alice Monroe.”

Would you trust him? Despite the script’s insistence otherwise, Cuoco and Claflin have no more chemistry than figures on facing pages in a clothing catalog. Fortunately for the viewer, Tom disappears early from the action — ergo “Vanished.” The couple are traveling by train down to Arles, where another hotel awaits them, when Tom leaves the car to take a call and never returns; nor can he be found anywhere on the train.

This happily makes room for the more interesting Helene (multiple César Award winner Karin Viard), a helpful Frenchwoman who steps in as a translator when Alice attempts to get an officious conductor to open a door to a room he insists is for employees only, and rules are rules. (Is he just being, you know, French, or is something up?)

They meet again when Alice gets off the train not in Arles but Marseilles; after she has no more luck with police inspector Drax (Simon Abkarian), who insists a person isn’t missing until 48 hours have elapsed, than with the conductor, she’ll turn to Helene again, who has the advantage of being an investigative reporter. (She’s also been made diabetic, which has no effect on the action other than halting it now and again so she can give herself, rather dramatically, a quick shot of insulin. Like Drax begging off because he’s late meeting his wife for an Alain Delon double feature, it’s a tacked on bit of business meant to suggest character.) Together they’ll ferret out and follow clues, as Alice comes to realize that it takes more than the occasional gauzy romantic getaway to really know a person, and Helene gets closer to nailing a big story.

Directed by Barnaby Thompson, whose credits are mostly in producing (“Wayne’s World,” “Spice World”), and written by his son, Preston — together they made the 2020 film “Pixie” — the series begins with a flash forward in which Alice flees for her life out an upper-story window, signifying action ahead. And indeed, there will be, leading to a climactic scene I don’t suppose was meant to make me laugh, but did, magnifying as it does one of the confrontational cliches of modern cinema. Many of the series’ notions and plot points (though not that particular one) may be found in the works of Alfred Hitchcock — who, you may remember, made a film called “The Lady Vanishes,” from a train yet — though they have been given new clothes to wear. But where Hitchcock never waited long to show you when a character wasn’t what they seemed, that information is held on here nearly to the end, with some added twists along the way to keep you confused.

Cuoco (unusually brunet here), has been good in many things, most notably her funny, winning turn as Penny across 12 seasons of “The Big Bang Theory” and more recently as the hallucinating alcoholic heroine of the “The Flight Attendant,” but she feels out of joint here. She’s not well served by the pedestrian direction and dialogue, but comes across as a person playing a person, rather than as the person she’s playing. Perhaps by virtue of their accents, the French actors feel more real; France, as usual, looks great.