Hello listeners,
Trolls have been in the news a lot lately – the online tormentor kind, but not the toys that used to be so popular. Why is that? Did people finally take a clear-eyed look at those dinky little plastic haemorrhoids and realise that they disobeyed William Morris’s dictum regarding beauty/usefulness? Has there been a worldwide shortage of neon hair?
No. Find out the true reason for trolls’ recent retirement from the limelight in Answer Me This! Episode 269:
In which we also learn about:
wicker furniture
family holidays
murder houses
Ray Winstone vs. June Whitfield
indoor-outdoor space
the Lindbergh baby
the seven generic top-level domains
pianists’ page-turners
Thomas Dam
and
Yoshi.
Plus: Olly gets to talk about cats, and their glands, and their necks, and their cheeks, and their adorable bums; if Helen were the subject of a Thomas Harris novel, it’d be The Silence of the Chairs; and Martin the Sound Man is indignant at the idea of a male dinosaur laying an egg through his urethra.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App features a humdinger of a tale: Olly has alphabeticised his spice rack. For reals! Hear all about it, and how Helen has organised her spice rack, on your iDevice or Android.
Also, if you want to have a holiday that is more enjoyable than questioneer Pat from Canada’s, try the AMT Holiday album – no family rows or screaming kids, just one hour of us jabbering on into your ear. What could be more paradisial and relaxing than that?
Don’t be so relaxed that you forget to send us your QUESTIONS, though. Leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT269 Child-Friendly Rating: 78%. Some swearing, one attributable to Olly channelling Ray Winstone. References to feline sexual delight. Detraction of possibly beloved-by-children Troll dolls.
PS Oh, HERE’s where all the Trolls disappeared to. (Aside from all the ones that have been hiding out here.)
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Tags: animals, cats, Charles Lindbergh, children, classical music, computer games, concerts, conservatories, copyright, crazes, creepy dolls, crime scenes, Danish, death, decor, Denmark, dolls, domain names, domains, Dreamworks, fads, family holidays, feline, Fred West, Furby, furniture, games, gender, holidays, homes, houses, ICANN, intangibles, internet, Japan, Japanese, Jay Foreman, Jonathan Creek, Lindbergh baby, Mario, Matt Cardle, Morgan Spurlock, murder, murder houses, Murder on the Orient Express, music, musical scores, musicians, Nintendo, notorious crimes, orchestras, page-turners, parents, pets, pianists, tamagotchi, Thomas Dam, toy crazes, toy fads, toys, trips, Trolls, URLs, US government, vacations, web, web domains, web history, wicker, wicker furniture, Yoshi
Answer Me This! Podcast 
August 29, 2013 at 11:04 pm |
Huge toy crazes were killed off by smartphones and tablets.
August 29, 2013 at 11:12 am |
I’m sure this is the question that interests people least from today’s show, but I wanted to add to the answer about page-turning.
I used to page-turn “professionally” when I was an usher at Wigmore Hall. I used to work the BBC Monday Lunchtime live broadcast concerts. Best: song recital with literally one page-turn. Worst: world premiere of a sh*t piece by an 18 y/o that was full of crossings-out, so I would turn, sit down, then have to jump right up again.
Most of the time the pianist in chamber music needs a turner and the other players don’t because the pianist plays from the score, which prints *everyone’s* music in it, while the violinist just plays from his own line. This means the turning has to happen way more often. I once did a concert where the cellist also had a page turner (contemporary piece). I felt really bad for her at the end, because she was sat right between the musicians like a lemon while they took their bows and applause.
For the other musicians, it’s up to the publisher to print the music in such a way that the page-turn comes in a gap in the music (either between sections, or just in a bit where someone else has a solo).
In orchestras, that’s the same for wind players, who tend to do a bit less than the strings, and who all have their own parts. But for the string players (where there are 16 people playing the same music, and they share the actual paper parts on “desks” of two people), if the publisher can’t put a turn in a gap, it’s the job of the person on the inside (i.e. not next to the stage) to stop playing, lean over, and turn the page for their desk partner.
Too much detail, probably, but thought I would add my contribution.
September 4, 2013 at 2:35 pm |
I was just about to write exactly these things. Except the bit about working at BBC Monday Lunchtime.
It’s also rarer for pianists to have extended rest periods – they are often either the only musician on stage (e.g. piano sonatas) or else provide most of the harmony and are therefore pretty much a constant (e.g. violin sonatas, lieder). In, say, a Schubert song, it’s very rare (I can’t think of any examples) to have a bit where the singer sings unaccompanied, but very common to have a bit where the piano plays without the singer singing.
And where an instrument other than a piano is playing a solo (e.g. an oboe concerto), they do sometimes have a page turner, but more often the publisher has written the music in such a way that the page turns fall in their rests.
There, wasn’t that interesting?