Recently my favourite book, Dante’s Inferno, was turned into a game. Although it is a journey through hell, I don’t remember Dante wielding a weapon in anger. So answer me this, which of the books you love would make a random computer game?
By ‘random’, we assume you mean ‘inappropriate’. Therefore we can confidently say: all of them. I struggle to imagine a first-person shooter based on The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology or some mid- to late-period WB Yeats.
A more pleasing question, if you’ll allow me to venture, would be the following: “Which totemic literary work is ripe to be converted to a video game?” Readers, you know what to do. Trot to the comments, suggest away, and if anyone at Square or EA is reading this, we could be playing Wuthering Heights Tekken by Christmas.
Are you keeping calm? Are you carrying on? Because this week, in Answer Me This! Episode 164, we wonder how a morale-boosting WWII poster spawned all of this shit (nb by ‘this shit’ we don’t mean the episode here):
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
But before we get onto that, we talk of:
the G6 Summit
Bruce Wayne’s toilet Jingle All the Way
Muffin the Mule
bingo wings before bingo wings
kleftiko
Levi Strauss
Tinie Tempah
Club Med vs. opera
synergy vs. symbiosis
pranks vs. sexual harassment Tape
the fresh air suburb
domesticity, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-style
Groupon’s discount slaves
Shingai Shoniwa cutlets
and
bat guano.
Furthermore: Olly sees what could have happened to X Factor alumni G4, given a Sliding Doors-style alternative existence; Helen scripts Downton Abbey without ever having seen it; and if you catch Martin the Sound Man scrutinising your crotch when you’re at a public urinal, don’t worry – he’s just conducting a survey. At least, that’s his story, m’lud.
And if that weren’t bad enough news for your genitals, this week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a cautionary tale of how if you go orienteering, you’ll most likely get a stinging nettle on your reproductive organs. Heed that warning on iPhone or Android. Those of you with elderly phones, just remember to keep your pants on AT ALL TIMES. For nature can be so cruel.
Happily, you don’t have to keep your pants on in order to ask us QUESTIONS: all you have to do is send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by dialling 0208 123 5877 or Skyping answermethis.
Actually, it would be better if you kept your pants on. Sorry. We’ve got such sensitive constitutions.
See you next Thursday!
Helen and Olly
PS. If you’ve ever done anything particularly G6-like yourself, by all means show off about it in the comments.
To some, Fight Club conjures up images of bloodied punched-in faces; others, of Meat Loaf’s boobs; others, Helena Bonham Carter in orgasmic ecstasy. But for Lorna from Yorkshire, the associations are far more pleasant:
Whilst listening to your discussion of fight clubs a week or so ago I reminisced, misty-eyed, about my now fiance Edward taking me on our first date
to see Fight Club at the Warner Village Cinema at Clifton Moor (a handsome industrial estate on the edge of York) back in ’99.
Some people think it’s very strange that he took me to see Fight Club on a date and that it is a terrible choice for first dateyness. I suppose they think it ought to have been something more romantic, but i think romance could be quite awkward on a first date.
Anyway answermethis please: what film would be your ideal first date movie and why? And what film would be the worst possible film to see on a first
date and why?
My own first date took place at a showing of Naked Gun 2 1/2, which of course contains all the elements of the ideal first date movie – nukes, OJ Simpson, Richard Griffiths’s arse… If, however, you have strong feelings that another film is the pinnacle of the first date movie genre, then commit those to the comments; alternatively, feel free to apply yourself to Lorna’s supplementary question and tell us which film totally cockblocked you.
Mother Teresa wasn’t a mother, and according to Arjun from Canada, she’s not a saint either! We’re so confused. Was she even a nun? Is she still alive and living in a bungalow with Elvis, Princess Diana and Lord Lucan? Now THERE’s a reality show we wish Channel 4 would broadcast…
Anyway, as our minds wander, Arjun explains:
Just wanted to point out to you that Mother Teresa has not been canonized as a saint yet – she’s been beatified, which means she has the title “Blessed”, but isn’t a full saint!
It’s not really certain who the next saint will be. The Next Saint – now there’s a good reality show!
A good reality show (though not as good as my suggestion), but an even better game to play RIGHT NOW! Go to the comments and tell us who you think should be canonised – and because about 80% of you are bound to want to bow down in front of St Stephen Fry, we’ll allow you to nominate candidates who are still alive. Give your reasons, and we’ll send off the five best suggestions to the Vatican next week.
Good news for Emma from Bristol! Sarah knows exactly what you should do with your four boxes of unwanted Christmas talcum powder:
Picture the scene.
A rare hot sunny day in August. You’ve bundled the family into the car at 5am and driven to the coast for a well deserved fun filled day at the beach. You’ve spent so much money on parking, undercooked burgers and overpriced buckets and spades that you could’ve flown to Greece for a week. At least one member of your party has been sick or cut themselves on the rock pool.
Now it is 4.30 and you’ve got to fight your way home on the motorway with all the other fuckers. You’ve been on a sandy beach all day, in and out of the sea. You have sand in every crevice of your body, and trying to brush it off with a towel, apart from being utterly ineffective, makes you red raw. Road rage is setting in already.
Talcum powder will save you. Liberally applied to sand covered areas, it will remove all traces of the evil stuff and leave you feeling silky smooth, calm and ready to face the long journey home.
So when great aunty Mabel presents me with a little bottle of talc every Christmas I smile, thank her, and tuck it away with my suntan lotion.
Hooray! So by deploying it for a post-beach clean-up, you should have used up your supply in a mere 80 years or sono time. But whatever you do, don’t sprinkle it on a baby, Jamie in Nottingham warns:
My partner Marie and I have a 14-week-old daughter, Lily Sophia!!! And we have been told by medical professionals that you cannot use talc as the tiny particles – if that is the word – is bad for them! I fucking loved talc!!
Don’t let such a pure love die, Jamie! If you’re scared to sprinkle the substance over your daughter, give yourself a thick dusting instead. You’ll look like John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons, which might give Marie a nice post-natal thrill.
I’m sure you’re all agog to know, as we were, the technical details of Josh from Warwick University‘s lift ordeal from last week’s podcast:
I’d just like to clarify, where you were wondering if the lift got full of wee – it didn’t, as we managed to open the inner doors and (as Martin suggested) have a wee down all 4 feet of lift shaft, since we were trapped between the first and second floor.
Since the inner door opened fully, and only the outer doors were locked, even Olly could get his sizable penis through the gap.
What a relief! In both senses. Here’s another relief, this time for waggly pop sensation Chico, who must have been very hurt that his career-high concert in Hyde Park didn’t even make it into Olly Mann’s medium-term memory bank. Cheer up, Chico! You made a far more lasting impression upon Michael:
You reminded me of the strange moment I met Chico – I was on a trip round Europe with 2 mates, and when on a boat on Lake Como in Italy, we spent the whole journey distracted not by the beautiful scenery around us but by trying to decide whether it was him or not. We decided it had to be and ended up getting a picture with him and his daughter, the best snap from the whole holiday!
Wow. Call Cameron Crowe – I think we’ve got a plot for Almost Famous II!
Have you ever had selective amnesia? I, for instance, have blocked out every memory of looking into a mirror before my childhood fringe grew out. And in Answer Me This! Episode 163, we discover the event that must have been so traumatic, Olly Mann’s mind banished it…until now:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Things we have not banished from our minds this episode are:
ordnance survey
mouse mats
Lesley Garrett The Ring and the Book
Jesus Christ: gap year student
Karl Pilkington vs. Aeschylus Thunderbirds vs. Sex and the City
gastroenteritis – the pleasant kind
Saint Princess Diana
Marie Carmargo
MI1-19 Alexei Sayle’s Stuff
pick-up sticks
the Pope’s posthumous Parkinson’s panacea
and
natural selection through cock-size.
Plus: Olly retracts what he said about Love Actually in Episode 161; Helen invents the portable carpal tunnel preventative gel wristlet; and Martin the Sound Man reveals his ghost pelvis, although luckily just to Helen rather than the entire world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android; not available for landlines) is a question from Lois, who wants to know the truth about the mythical place whose name everybody knows but whose nature few understand: the Watford Gap.
This January, we’re on a detox diet: nothing but cottage cheese and your QUESTIONS. So feed us! Leave your voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Because we HATE cottage cheese, and we’re hungry.
I just had my first shave (I’m 14). Olly and Martin, answer me this: do you prefer a dry or wet shave?
Olly prefers 80s-style designer stubble, kept at the perfect length by a beard trimmer; while Martin only shaves once a quarter, for which he uses an industrial sander. So, readers, it’s over to you to tell Callum in Penrith how you keep your face bald:
Enjoy, if you will, the coif conundrum faced by Sophie from Middlesborough:
My mother won’t let me dye my hair bright blue, but at 17 years of age and willing to pay for it myself I think I am well within my rights to dye my hair whatever colour I wish.
She tried telling me I would get fired, but the lady I work for say she was fine with it.
She tried telling me that it would look awful. I pointed out that she says that every time I get my hair done and then a week later she runs off to get the same style.
If what you say is true, maybe she is trying to insinuate that she doesn’t want to have to dye her hair blue next week.
Now she is telling me that the bleach will ruin my hair.
So Helen, answer me this, when I bleach my hair how long should I wait before dying it?
You’re asking the wrong person, dear; the nearest I’ve had to blue hair is when I was bored at school and used to colour strands in with my fountain pen. But I’m sure some of you readers are far more follicularly adventurous, so please go to the comments and tell Sophie the optimal timings for the bleaching and dying so that her scalp doesn’t fall off.
Hey! Guys! WAIT A MINUTE! Before you all scuttle off to form your own Fight Club-style fight clubs, inspired by last week’s episode, check out the legal ramifications of such, as summarised by Ian:
A ‘real’ Fight Club would still be illegal even if the participants signed some kind of waiver because an individual is prosecuted by the state not by an individual. Imagine if Helen smashed me round the face with some kind of beautifully macraméed cosh.
For a similar example, look up the Spanner case, but preferably not on an employer’s computer. Lots of men doing things to each other with full consent and repeated participation, but they all got prosecuted for it.
This is an important principal in things like domestic violence cases where once an allegation is made, it has to be followed through (so that a violent partner cannot coerce the other to drop charges).
Huw has done the experiments we’re too afraid to do (not being all that keen on heart attacks, or third-degree burns on our arms):
Further to your discussion in Episode 162, I thought you’d like to know that you CAN deep-fry an egg. My parents used to do it all the time; crack an egg into the chip pan – magic!
It’s a bit different to a shallow-fried egg: a bit more crispy around the outside, and because it floats, it allows the egg to become a bit more three-dimensional, with the yolk almost ending up spherical.
You paint a beautiful romantic picture, Huw, of the balletic egg dancing in its death-bath of oil, and of your childhood with your maverick parents and their eggsperiments.
No such romance from Bruce in Paauilo, Hawaii, but I am regretting not having asked him how he came to know the following information:
I listened to that episode the other week that talked about the etymology of the phrase “Pissing like a race horse”. There is an important bit you didn’t find in your research that is germane to that expression. Have you ever done a course of steroids? Race horses have a long association with them… and they make you piss like a race horse.
It seems this week, every human celebrity with a working womb has declared herself pregnant. Since we blindly follow celebrities in all our actions, allow us to take this opportunity to announce that we, too, have a bun in the oven. Our due date is 13th January 2011 and we’ve already picked a name for the new arrival, Answer Me This! Episode 162. Ooohowowowow – we think the blighter’s on its way….:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Today’s episode is accompanied by a token amount of afterbirth and a sizable amount of the following:
Reebok Runtone Trainers
white-collar boxing ‘Heart and Soul’ Love and Other Drugs
Richard Branson
greedy Jet Li
Peter Pan, master builder
Babycham ivy-covered halls
Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’
Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love
Sidney Paget
witches’ hats
bullet time*
the MTV Generation
the greatest album Meat Loaf never made
and
deep-fried eggs.
Plus: Olly has a horrific DIY suggestion for replacing a lost eye; Helen brings down London, one neighbourhood at a time; and Martin the Sound Man recommends that if you only read one book in your life, it should be this one.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (get it for your shiny iPhone or your shiny Android – those of you with non-shiny phones, forget it) is a question from Mark who’s been thinking the unthinkable: if Wills’n’Kate don’t make it to the altar on April 29th, what will happen to our promised national holiday? Panic! (Don’t panic.)
You’ll also note that, at the end of the episode, we appeal for your suggestions to guide listener Karen gently into the magnificent world of book-reading. Please leave those in the comments below; then please leave your QUESTIONS for future episodes as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Great! Now we’re off to stand on the front steps of the Portland Hospital holding a wadded-up pale blue blanket so that maybe someone takes our picture. We’re over the moon! Etc etc.
Helen & Olly
* In case you couldn’t remember what that is, here’s a refresher:
Answer Me This! Podcast 
EPISODE 163 – 80 years of failure
January 20, 2011Dear friends,
Have you ever had selective amnesia? I, for instance, have blocked out every memory of looking into a mirror before my childhood fringe grew out. And in Answer Me This! Episode 163, we discover the event that must have been so traumatic, Olly Mann’s mind banished it…until now:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Things we have not banished from our minds this episode are:
ordnance survey
mouse mats
Lesley Garrett
The Ring and the Book
Jesus Christ: gap year student
Karl Pilkington vs. Aeschylus
Thunderbirds vs. Sex and the City
gastroenteritis – the pleasant kind
Saint Princess Diana
Marie Carmargo
MI1-19
Alexei Sayle’s Stuff
pick-up sticks
the Pope’s posthumous Parkinson’s panacea
and
natural selection through cock-size.
Plus: Olly retracts what he said about Love Actually in Episode 161; Helen invents the portable carpal tunnel preventative gel wristlet; and Martin the Sound Man reveals his ghost pelvis, although luckily just to Helen rather than the entire world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android; not available for landlines) is a question from Lois, who wants to know the truth about the mythical place whose name everybody knows but whose nature few understand: the Watford Gap.
This January, we’re on a detox diet: nothing but cottage cheese and your QUESTIONS. So feed us! Leave your voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Because we HATE cottage cheese, and we’re hungry.
oxes,
Helen and Olly
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