More weddings, more problems. Firstly for Ricki from Hamilton, Canada:
I’m getting married next year to my lovely boyfriend. We got engaged on holiday a few months ago and are both happily looking forward to getting married.
When I let certain people in my social group know that we were engaged, they expressed extreme shock that he hadn’t asked my parents for permission before proposing. When I told them I intended to walk myself down the aisle (I’ve got legs and I’m not chattel!) and it won’t be in a church, they were extremely judgmental. They also seem to think that, in spite of all of my other actual accomplishments (IE university degree, handicraft ability and cat-rearing skills), getting married will be the MOST IMPORTANT THING I EVER DO. Now, whenever they bring it up – which is frequently – they ask if I’ve considered getting married ‘the right way’ since our engagement wasn’t done ‘properly’.
Answer me this – how do I politely ask them to back up the crazy-train and let us enjoy our wedding the way we want it to be?
Politely? Fuck that: you need to dump all these rude friends! And/or elope immediately, because otherwise you’ve got months of this bollo to endure.
If you absolutely have no choice but to invite them to the wedding as planned, amp up the convention-defying to the max. Say your vows at an abandoned theme park, attended by tiger bridesmaids, wearing a welding mask as a veil. It is ‘the right way’.
Eurgh, why do people become such dicks about someone else’s wedding? At least Oli from Egham‘s dad is making a fuss about his own wedding:
My dad was due to get married in February, but has been pushing the date back ever since. I’m a full time travelling street musician and I’ve been putting off a long-awaited trip to south east Asia for months now, waiting for the wedding, which is now set, finally, for the 11th of July.
The nature of my work means its much harder to support myself in England; street performers do far better in the tourist areas of mainland Europe. I’ve saved enough money for my Asia trip, and now I’m just trying to keep my head above water, but my funds are dwindling.
My dad informed me today that he wants me to buy a new suit foir his wedding, even though I have a perfectly good one from when I used to work as an estate agent. My dad knows that the lifestyle I’ve chosen means a cetain amount of frugality, and although I can sometimes do very well, a suit would probably be the same price as my flights (with concessions).
So answer me this: is it unreasonable for my dad to ask me to spend this money on a suit, when I already have one? He’s very accepting of my lifestyle, even though I know it’s probably not what he wanted for me.
Also, he voted UKIP, so I’m mad at him for that.
That is hard to swallow, Oli, but as you’ve said he’s been accepting of your lifestyle, so I suppose you have to extend him the same courtesy.
Go suit-browsing. Tell your dad you’ve found a good one, but you can’t afford it, and perhaps he’ll splash out for you. If not, for the charity shop. I would have said it’s fine to wear your old suit, until you mentioned it’s an estate agent suit. Few people want to be reminded of estate agents on what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives.
Time for feedback about AMT long past, from Adam from Yorkshire:
Just listening back to episode 165 and Olly mentions you have to be circumcised to have a Prince Albert piercing.
Well you’re incorrect!
I’m with a guy atm that has that piercing and isn’t circumcised. And it’s perfectly fine. Nothing going wrong there and can still have as much fun as he wants. Just thought I’d let you know.
From the ashes of the late lamented Guardian Media Talk rises…the Media Podcast, with Olly in the driving seat. Head over to themediapodcast.com to get the show.
Martin the Sound Man has just unleashed a new episode of his podcast Brain Train, which makes learning FUN. This one’s about everyone’s favourite topic: housing law! Come back – it’s actually very interesting to hear all the different ways we renters are given the shaft.
On this month’s Sound Women podcast, I have a very jolly chat with the very excellent broadcaster and person Fi Glover:
• If you’re interested in death, sex and/or money, you might like new podcast Death, Sex & Money. • If you’re only interested in death, check out Richard Bacon’s forensic science special – it’s the 9th June episode of the Daily Bacon podcast. Warning: contains tales of gore.
What’s in your ears, drowning out the sound of football chants? Share your spoken-word highlights in the comments.
• Catch up on AMT291 and the episodes preceding it. •AMT episodes 1-170 and the special AMT albums are all available for a piddling little price at answermethisstore.com, and if you buy any of them you’re bankrolling the podcast, so thank you very much indeed. •Olly’s on LBC every weekday 1am-4am. If you’re an insomniac, a night worker, or in a time zone where those hours are compatible with waking life, tune in. • On Saturday evenings I’m on BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition, available subsequently as the podcast Let’s Talk About Tech.
Today, one poor tired questioneer asks how to stop being kept awake by their mum’s sex noise. Any advice for them? Apart from cranking up Answer Me This! Episode 291 for forty-three minutes of respite?
We speak of:
hat world records
rodeo clowns
bank robbery
converting to Judaism
baht vs Bitcoin Craig David’s Toffee Crisps vs Busta Rhymes’ Courvoisier
Papal holidays
presidential golf Castel Gandolfo
Chequers
webuyanycar.com
the pronunciation of ‘niche’
shaking like a Polaroid picture
and
$.
Plus: Olly will SEE YOU IN HELL if you use Shazam during the pub quiz music round; Helen has a terrible confession to make about Pitbull; and Martin the Sound Man is panicking about what to talk about if he is ever invited on a lads’ holiday with the Pope. We smell an odd couple sitcom…
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we contemplate the wellbeing of the boys brought together as McBusted, and of Jason Orange’s tearducts. Hear it and not-weep on your iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
It only remains for us to thank Squarespace.com for supporting this episode. They’re also supporting your own website-building enterprises by offering you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer. Gawd bless’em.
And gawd bless you, listeners! We shall return on Thursday 19th June with AMT292, barring terrifying and unforseeable acts of gawd.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT291 Child-Friendly Rating: 54%. A few F-bombs. A clip about the clap. Question about parent’s sex life, the very notion of which may traumatise your child. •••
I was listening to the question about Tetris when Olly talked about Tetrominoes and wondered why not do it with 5 or 6 squared shapes.
When I was in primary school in the mid-1980s, our teacher Mrs Doubleday taught us a game called Pentominoes, where you had 12 shapes cut from squared paper (all the possible combinations of 5 squares) and you had to make a larger shape – usually just rectangles of varying dimensions (if 4 lines is a “Tetris” would 5 be a “Penis”?) from the pentominoes as quickly as possible. It was actually quite a lot of fun, and even subliminally educational.
I guess she didn’t jump on the bandwagon and try to licence it to the Soviet government because a) she was about 70, and b) one of the pentominoes was called “The Stinker” and was invariably the piece that was hardest to fit in – it would have been the cause of millions of smashed gameboys had she ever taken it public.
X
X X X …X
That’s the shape of The Stinker.
What a shame Mrs Doubleday wasn’t commercially minded, because there must have been scores of Tetris addicts wanting to move onto the harder stuff, stinky or not.
Here are the rest of the Pentomino shapes, in case you had a hankering to make your own cut-out-and-keep Penises (?):
It seems you lot have mixed experiences of cheap dates. Jess, 21, from West London, seems quite positive:
In AMT290, Alan from Dublin asked about the use Groupon Vouchers on dates. I thought I’d throw in my two cents as someone who likes to feel like they’re being made a fuss of, but also like they’re not taking the piss – make it clear it’s a groupon voucher, but go for something a bit wacky date-wise! “How would you like to go Go-Karting this weekend? I got a groupon voucher and I thought it would be fun” type thing. That way it doesn’t sound cheap and it comes across as a more inventive date than the run of the mill “dinner and a movie” type crap.
Gen from Adelaide, however, is not so keen:
You talked this week about the appropriateness of using vouchers to purchase two-for-one meal deals on dates? We have similar schemes here in Oz, and can be quite handy, if a group of friends are going out for a meal. My sister sent me on a blind date with one of her colleagues a few years ago, and the ‘gentleman’ in question took me to a semi-posh cafe for lunch. He said he would pay for the meals in a kind of a ‘aren’t I the magnanimous one’ way and then proceeded to pull out his voucher book.
Hmmm, I thought, that’s unusual. Then, to avoid any awkwardness, I went up and got the drinks, and also paid for the coffees at the end, which cost about $30. I won’t bore you with the in-between bits, suffice to say that I had to listen to the guy talk about himself non-stop for two hours.
At the end, I happened to glance at the receipt from the meals, and realized that he’d only spent about $18. By the time we got back to my house, it was all I could do to stop myself jumping out of the car and running inside and locking all of the doors and windows – he was clearly expecting a little ‘afternoon delight’ – and unsurprisingly we never met again. So, if you want to impress a woman on a first date, I say a definite ‘no!’ to the use of restaurant vouchers.
It’s a bit unfair to blame that on the vouchers rather than the boring talk – but perhaps that is a valuable lesson to absorb: even if the meal is heavily discounted, the chat action should still be 100%.
Also, producing a voucher BOOK is far from suave. In the same non-sexy vein as pulling out a pocket calculator to determine your exact share of the bill.
Readers, answer me this: what IS the best way to impress somebody on a cheap date? I’ll buy 30% of a coffee for the person who gives the best advice.
Here’s an email from a mystery listener who is a little frustrated:
I’ve only recently got into Tinder, but since I did I’ve been addicted and just can’t stop.
HOWEVER.
I just found a very attractive man and, as you may know, Tinder displays your mutual Facebook likes. and what did this attractive man like on Facebook?? ANSWER ME THIS PODCAST.
Unfortunately, I was looking through all this photos, but accidentally pressed the ‘back’ button whilst swiping through his photos, and……… swiped him left and he’s gone into oblivion.
My only hope is that maybe he might listen to the podcast??? He did like you on Facebook after all. Although his bio said that ‘most of his likes are things he thought were funny 4 years ago’. The only other one I remember was Salem the cat from Sabrina, so between that and you guys, this guy sounds like my ideal man already.
His name was Frederic so if there are any attractive man listeners named Frederic, who probably hail from the south-east ish area of England (or were there at some point) and like Answer Me This and Salem (and I think Franz Ferdinand??) on Facebook, maybe he wants to go out for a drink or something. unless he already swiped me to the left in which case this is awkward.
But work with me.
Reader. Are YOU Frederic off Tinder? Did you find this podcast funny four years ago? Are you a fan of the cat below? Please get in touch!
If you can hear heaving sobs issuing from the AMT bunker, it’s because one of our favourite podcasts, the Guardian’s Media Talk, is coming to an end. (Unless one of you is a generous benefactor and fancies having Media Talk in your own entertainment stable? Save Media Talk!) I was on the last episode. But, in a ‘Clap if you believe in fairies’ moment, there may be a glimmer of hope for its future… Read here to find out.
As one podcast ends, another begins: Leila Johnston from Shift Run Stop has launched a new podcast, Hack Circus, and for its inaugural episode she and I (and her dog) met up in a pub and had a big old chat, which you can hear on iTunes or not-iTunes. Or right here:
Further audiotainment:
I love a bit of true crime, so I’ve been blasting through the newish podcast Criminal. Counterfeiters! Murderous owls! Polygraphs! Flytrap thieves! The production is classy and the show is very interesting and fun (funteresting?).
Remaining on the crimey theme: Unfictional is perennially excellent but the ‘Murder In Jersey’ episode was particularly excellent. It involves two brothers looking into their grandfather’s murder, unsolved since 1970. The episode is no longer on the main feed, but you can still find it elsewhere eg here and here.
Frankly, I haven’t felt this bereft since I watched Dear Zachary (which you can watch here if you are in the mood for Devastating Emotions).
After all that sorrow and tragedy, I’m hitting RISK! for a bawdy pick-me-up, and I suggest you do too.
Ibiza club anthems are NOT welcome at the Thursday Listening Party, but your spoken word entertainment recommendations ARE welcome. Please share them in the comments.
Victoria Beckham’s jumpsuit, from listener Bee’s collection
Hi listeners,
Above is a sacred relic from the 90s: Victoria Beckham’s jumpsuit, from the post-Geri era of the Spice Girls. It’s also a sacred relic of the 90s, in that it’s from Answer Me This! Episode 290, which is here:
Plus: Olly teaches a child empathy, through Robbie Williams; Helen comes up with a strong concept for the Spice Girls’ fourth album; and Martin the Sound Man reckons going up Anish Kapoor’s Olympic Meccano-crash would be cheap at a third of the price. What IS a bargain is Squarespace.com, who are offering you 10% off for a whole year if you use the code Answer when plumping for their website-building and -hosting services. And the great thing about the 90% you pay is that some of it ends up supporting independent podcasts like this one! Hurrah all round.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, Olly voices his disappointment over the ubiquity of Emeli Sandé. Our app is almost as readily available for your iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
••• AMT290 Child-Friendly Rating: 95%. Pretty clean – possibly even entirely free of swears – although there is a fleeting reference to a Wenlock and Mandeville sex toy towards the end. •••
Welcome to the first AGM of the mutual appreciation society, members: us, and Sarah from Oakland, California:
I am the owner and designer of a small leather accessory line based in Portland, Oregon, and Oakland, California. I have recently discovered your awesome podcast and have passed the long hours of getting ready for upcoming trade shows with your wonderful humor. In response to how much I love your show, I would love to send a thank you gift to all three of you.
And she bloody well did! Here we are, modelling the beautifully handcrafted leather passport wallets from Sarah’s line:
Louis Vuitton, we ARE available to front your A/W 2014 print campaign if Michelle Williams has a change of heart.
To gawk Sarah’s wares without our stupid mugs getting in the way, head to the website for Martine Satchels. Now that my passport is looking so smart, I’m saving up to be able to clothe every single one of my possessions in matching encasements.
NOTE: this is not a paid endorsement, but a thank you note to Sarah for sending us lovely gifts.
Following our homecoming queen election speculation in AMT289, here’s more Americana feedback from Mark from Virginia:
The reason it’s called “homecoming” is that the high school football team always plays a string of away games — i.e., not at the home field. Then when they finally have a home game again, that’s “homecoming”. There’s a parade before the game, there may be some events during halftime, and the homecoming king and queen are announced.
It’s not just that there is “often” a football game. Rather, the whole thing is based on football.
That is all 🙂
IS it all, though, Mark? What is the queen really FOR? Why does sport require monarchs? Here in the UK, our royal family has already had to cut back quite a bit, and they can’t go around crowning somebody every time there’s a home footsport game. Prince Edward barely gets a look-in as it is.
Answer Me This! Podcast 