We’ve had a huge response to AMT289, and nearly all of it concerns cups! Firstly, many of you got in touch, from places as diverse as Wales, the South of France and Windsor to inform us that there ARE proper china cups in Pret a Manger. So file Pret cups under ‘Things we didn’t believe in because we haven’t seen them with our own eyes’, along with the dark side of the moon, Argentina and Emmerdale.
Pret cups: photographic evidence
Numerous correspondents were also moved to write in regarding red Solo cups, those essential vessels of America. Although still nobody provided an answer for why they are almost always red (with occasional forays into blue). WHY ARE THEY RED, AMERICA, WHY???
Anyway, while we wait for the White House to supply that important information, here are some additional Solo cup facts. Kyle from West Lafayette, Indiana is a red Solo cup expert, because:
I am currently a member of a fraternity, and we use red Solo cups for multiple reasons:
-They are extremely cheap and can be found anywhere in the United States.
-For absolutely no charge, some marketing companies will provide us with red Solo cups with movie logos printed on them. All we have to do is take pictures of people partying with the cups, and the company keeps sending more.
-Standardized cups make drinking games like beer pong and flip cup easier because the players have had a lot of practice on them before.
-Each solo cup has indentations marking the size of one shot, one glass of wine, and, at the very top, one glass of beer.
Elaborating upon the last point, Eric from New Jersey writes:
The ubiquitous American red Solo cup is interesting because the lines on the cup are markers for different servings of alcohol. The bottom line is a shot of liquor (1 ounce), the middle line is a glass of wine (5 ounces) and the top line is a glass of beer (12 ounces). The company that makes Solo cups has said these lines are unintentional but accurate. This makes it very easy to serve people in a party setting. So, answer me this: do the knock-off brands in the UK also have these volumetrically accurate markings?
Having bought some for a picnic the other day, I can confirm that indeed they do, Eric. Though divided by an ocean, our nations are not so different.
The last time I had to think of brownie law, I was aged seven and being sworn into my school troop. But following AMT289, Conal has supplied an update:
I’m afraid that your listener who considered taking an unopened brownie from Pret would have committed theft by finding if they had taken it.
However, they may have had an excuse to avoid getting arrested (not in the real world would they ever be arrested!) if they had made reasonable steps to return the Brownie to the rightful owner.
British law uses the word “reasonable” quite a lot, so you’d just have to show that you looked around a bit and maybe asked staff if they had seen the person leave.
Well, Tori has been back in touch to tell us what did happen:
I DID take the brownie.
I waited a full 15 minutes before moving the tray it was on onto my table, putting my my rubbish on the tray, then sneakily used the brownie to mark a page in my book, then slipped the book into my bag after a minute.
I hate to see food wasted – it definitely would have gone in the bin since it was under loads of other wrappers. Pret brownies are too good to waste.
It may not be the sort of ‘reasonable’ that stands up in court, but it does seem reasonable. Is Paul from Wimbledon similarly reasonable, though? He writes:
I was in a London wine bar with a friend, enjoying some wine. A couple at the next table were doing the same but also had a platter of cheese. They left, and about 45 minutes later we noticed that they had left most of their tasty cheese platter. We decided this was fair game and tucked in, polishing the whole lot off. They’d also left half a bottle of wine so we snaffled that as well.
You’ll never guess who then came back? That’s right – the rightful owners of the cheese and wine. My friend grasped the initiative and decided we should leave (after all, we didn’t have any wine or cheese left – which was ours). I quickly paid the bill and we legged it.
Do you think what we did was ok? Surely after 45 minutes you forfeit the right to said cheese and wine?
It certainly seems optimistic to think that you can ditch it for that amount of time, because surely a member of staff would clear it away and give the table to someone else. In fact, if you’re in an establishment where they leave the tables festering for so long, do you really want to eat the cheese? OK, further question: if you eat someone else’s abandoned food and then suffer from food-poisoning, can you complain to the premises where you ‘reasonably’ stole it? Wannabe freegans, you need to brush up on the law before you get started.
Then, in the May edition of the Sound Women podcast, I reflect upon My Brilliant Career coughspluttercough, and also learn about prison radio, headed notepaper campaigns, and how YouTube stars are made (talking about hair, apparently):
Further audiotainment:
I’ve spent much of this week doing a large and very fiddly drawing with a tiny dip pen last used by my grandfather at school. My eyes were busy, but my ears were not, so it was an optimal time redress how lately I’ve been slacking on This American Life-listening duties – so many other shows are influenced by This American Life, it made me take the actual This American Life for granted. But blasting through several episodes, including this week’s Call for Help, brought me right back in. I’ll never leave you again, This American Life!
I chased this with an episode of TLDR featuring Alex Tew, who in 2005 created the Million Dollar Homepage whilst sitting around waiting to go to university. Nowadays the site is a bit of a joke for being a relic of a past internet age, and for being more than 20% dead links – but to me, it’s incredible that it is still nearly 80% undead, and still hauling in money. While I was waiting to go to university, I learnt Italian, which earnt me zero dollars and I’ve since forgotten nearly 100% of it. You win this round, Alex Tew!
Drawing with a dip pen takes a REALLY long time, so I also blasted through two series of Radio 4’s The Ideas That Make Us, which is the kind of radio show that makes you feel cleverer as you listen (like In Our Time) whilst being very fun (unlike In Our Time). (Sorry, In Our Time. Melvyn Bragg, please don’t enact revenge on Bettany Hughes for my offence.)
Recently Woman’s Hour ran a belter of a fashion special, featuring such legends as Celia Birtwell, and Grayson and Philippa Perry; there was the serious business of sustainable clothing and the Rana Plaza disaster, and the less serious business of stripes and how they used to be the pattern of the devil. The more you know, eh?
Requests are welcome at the Thursday Listening Party. No need to dance sexily next to the DJ booth hoping to be noticed, just recommend shows in the comments.
Enya, winning at Hide and Seek for the 4000th game in a row
I’m not sure we’ve EVER had a question about Enya, and certainly not one that is URGENT. So mark this day on your AMT Bingo card (we should make AMT Bingo cards!) and then apply yourself to the following question from Nicole from Santa Barbara, California
My almost three-year-old son loves Enya – he’s even slept with his Paint the Sky With Stars CD. He has the same birthday as her (May 17) and worked so hard to make her a birthday card (I wrote the message on the top, which he said that he wanted to write to her).
I don’t want to send it to the record company and have it just be destroyed, and I know she’s had some stalker issues, so the only way to get this to her is with your help.
Please, please answer me this: How can I get this card to Enya?
Gosh, it’s difficult! Enya does not appear to be on Twitter. There are no contact details on her official site. And it would be a bit expensive for Nicole and son to fly last minute from Santa Barbara to Dublin, locate this ‘crack cocaine hell hole’ and visit every posh-looking house within a few hundred yards in order to track down Enya. Clue: this is the house you’re looking for.
Therefore, readers, I appeal to you on behalf of Nicole and particularly her Enyaraptured son: can you use your contacts/detective skills/long-term friendship with Enya to track her down and give her this card, ideally by or on Saturday?
Kid sure loves Enya
Awww looooooook he’s HUGGING THE CD! Come on, Enya; there’s a whole new generation of tiny fans out there for you.
UPDATE: Thanks to the machinations of listeners, the card is on its way!
Apologies to Gina G for the theme in Answer Me This! Episode 289. YOU WERE ROBBED, GINA! The injustice smarts as much now as it did in 1996! Neva 4get!*
On today’s agenda:
Pret a Manger
ladies ‘freshening up’
homecoming queen
wood-panelled station wagons
red Solo cups 60 Minute Makeover
the Mosquito Alarm vs turds
stealing leftovers
Olly’s schoolboy politics Marlene from Neighbours Four Weddings and a Funeral vs The Inbetweeners vs Trainspotting
Skype calls with your parents
pebbledash (again!)
the cloakroom
Peter Andre’s career
and
Nigella Lawson’s handbag condiments.
Plus: abandoned milkshakes bring all the Olly Manns to the yard; Helen tries to become the Barbara Woodhouse of effusive emailers; and please excuse Martin the Sound Man, he’s just off for a ‘bio-break’.
We’re talking brown sludge in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, albeit not the same kind of brown sludge as covering the lawns at the beginning of this episode, or being emitted by ladies under the cover of Euphemisms. The tide of not-effluent is available for iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
There’s also a shitload more bonus material here – the full-length interviews we did with podcasters including Marc Maron, Roman Mars, Night Vale, Keith and the Girl, Dan Savage and the Bugle for our Radio 4 documentary Podcasting: The First Ten Years. So head over there if you’re interested in hearing Helen talk shop with other podcasters; Olly’s interviews will be added to the playlist shortly.
Many thanks to Squarespace.com, who have not only funded today’s podcast, but also offer you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer when making your website-building dreams become reality.
Make our question-answering dreams become reality for the 290th time: call the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And you are of course welcome to join us at facebook.com/answermethis and/or twitter.com/HelenAndOlly to discuss your findings following this episode.
Until AMT290 on 22nd May, farewell,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT289 Child-Friendly Rating: 68%. Early scatchat. A few strong swears. Largely harmless overall. •••
*We’re sure Gina G is reading this from the secret clubhouse where she, Sonia and Love City Groove retreat to shoot spitballs at a cardboard cutout of Katrina and the Waves.
Retro Feedback Time is here again! Nick in Hampstead writes:
I am a recent convert to your podcast, and have been steadily been working through your back catalogue on iTunes. Everything was all fine and dandy and adequately amusing until I reached episode 222 and your discussion of Battersea Power Station when I was SHOCKED by an inaccuracy.
You bring up that it was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, and mention that he is commemorated in the restaurant of the St Pancras Hotel. Well, apologies for this, but that is WRONG WRONG WRONG. The Gilbert Scott Restaurant is named not after Giles Gilbert Scott, but his grandfather, Sir George Gilbert Scott, also, confusingly, an architect. The elder Gilbert Scott was the one who originally designed the St Pancras Hotel, along with the Foreign Office and The Albert Memorial to name a few others.
I realise there this is hardly an earth-shattering update, but I felt it was worth noting.
Duly noted, Nick. We will travel back in time to July 2012 to slap our wrists, and also to place a lot of bets on the outcome of the London 2012 Olympics.
Your emails are so full of surprises! For instance, I was amazed to learn from Luke aka Boney Stark that not only does Suffolk have a roller derby club, it has MORE THAN ONE roller derby club:
I help run Suffolk’s first co-ed roller derby club, Suffolk Roller Derby. Most roller derby events have a theme and punny name for example “Mad Smax: Beyond Rollerdome” and “Skate from Alcatraz”. Can you suggest any for our upcoming events that will take place in our home town Bury St Edmunds?
Buried Alive?
Suffolk You Up?
Bury St Edmutherfuckers? Sugar Beet You to Oblivion? Ab(bey)olition?
Alright readers, your turn. Skate over to the comments and offer Luke some suggestions for his co-ed wheely carnage.
We do enjoy the glimpse into private lives that so many AMT listeners willingly supply; here Anonymous from DC writes:
In AMT288, you mentioned that you felt like you lose all your power in the sexual relationship if you’re the third in a couple’s threesome.
I would like to say from experience that this is NOT the case, and that actually the third often is the most powerful player in the proceedings. As the third, I’m the exotic new addition to the state of affairs, so I get to call the shots.
Maybe it’s different because I’m gay, though, and both other members are attracted to me, whereas if you’re a guy in a MMF threesome with another guy, the focus is still on the girl.
Anyway, that’s my unsolicited confession from my sex life! I’m sure you live for emails like these.
We certainly do, Anonymous; in fact any readers are entirely so welcome to share their own Penthouse Forums musings about their sense of status in multiplayer sexytimes.
What have you been listening to lately, dear reader? Share your recommendations in the comments.
A few more things that recently caught my attention:
Martin and I were on holiday driving around a desert sparsely populated with small towns, and when you’re in a desert sparsely populated with small towns, the most suitable soundtrack is of course Welcome to Night Vale.
Also on the subject of driving around in deserts is this extraordinary story of reclusive billionaires, legal wrangling and Mormons on Love + Radio.
If you’re a fan of the Jimi Hendrix cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’, allow me to direct you to this great account of how the record came about, including a hilarious clip of founding Rolling Stone Brian Jones contributing a piano part, before being relegated to the vibraslap.
Housekeeping:
• Catch up on AMT288 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 consider yourself a philanthropist. • The BBC have decided to make our Radio 4 documentary, Podcasting: The First Ten Years, available indefinitely here to stream. If you simply must download it, go here. •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. • I also host the monthly Sound Women podcast. • Martin the Sound Man makes numerous other podcasts, including Brain Train, The Global Lab and The Sound of the Ladies.
Requests are welcome at the Thursday Listening Party. No need to dance sexily next to the DJ booth hoping to be noticed, just recommend shows in the comments.
Listeners, in your opinions, what is appropriate first date chat? The weather? Stocks and shares? How many kgs you can bench-press? Ugh, no – but surely not dental work or having sex in paint, as contended with by questioneers in Answer Me This! Episode 288:
Also on today’s agenda:
Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere
nerdy Jewish vampires
cat toothbrushes
Facebook culls
sex pickles The 64,000 Sixpence Question
washing up
communion wafers
fangs
and
the Clam Van Damme.
Plus: Olly tempts terribly fate by ignoring chain letters; Helen needs to learn to love ‘visually striking cerebral foreign dramas’, whatever Netflix thinks those are; and Martin the Sound Man studies human behaviour via the greasy spoon breakfast.
Many thanks to Squarespace.com for supporting today’s podcast, and for supporting your website-building ambitions by giving you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer.
That’s it until a fortnight hence – unless we fall prey to questioneer Scott from Long Island’s knack for podcast-scuppering, in which case, so long and nice knowing you.
Helen & Olly
AMT288 Child-Friendly Rating: 47%.
A long question about the bawdy requests of Australians. A handful of cuss-words.
Following Joe’s complaint about his slapdash-talking wife in AMT287, let’s tackle this question from Joan from Fremantle:
I have a friend who is a self-proclaimed ‘grammar Nazi’.
Having completed a general arts degree at a parochial university in the 1970s she considers herself to be an expert in correct English syntax, diction and style and takes great satisfaction in pointing out and correcting other people’s mistakes.
I know her well and over our long friendship have come to understand that she is quite sensitive about being judged by others, having struggled over the years with feelings of general inadequacy. I think her censoriousness about grammar reflects that this is one area where she clearly feels confident and empowered, and can judge people instead of feeling judged. For this reason, although I am more qualified and experienced in this area than she is – as a professional editor who has done post-graduate study in linguistics including descriptive as well as traditional grammar, philology and the history of the English language – I have always kept my mouth shut when she strays onto shaky ground, as prescriptive grammarians often do.
For 30 years I have even refrained from correcting a bad habit she has, which is to refer to her husband and herself as “James and I”, even when they are the object of the sentence. For example, she will say, “The film didn’t appeal to James and I”, or “They gave James and I this advice…” and once even signed a card to us “With love from James and I”.
Here’s the problem: as a Facebook user she has started frequently posting humorous instances of grammatical errors using such networks as ‘Grammarly’, sometimes several times a day. I am starting to worry that someone else is going to point her own imperfect command of grammar out to her, possibly publicly, and definitely very hurtfully.
Answer me this: now that she is so publicly proclaiming her grammatical supremacy, is it time for me to come clean to my friend about her overuse of the nominative case when referring to her and her husband? How can I tactfully point this solecism out now, after all these years of putting up with it? Or should I just continue to ignore it (hoping that no one else will be so unkind as to shatter her self-image) and let pronouns be pronouns?
This is actually a rather sweet motive for picking up someone’s linguistic solecisms. Joan herself can clearly tolerate the solecism, having not mentioned it for thirty years.
She may be worrying unduly about other people correcting her friend, because this particular pronoun problem is so common that even teacher extraordinaire Susan Kennedy falls prey to it.
But here’s an idea, Joan: since I sound off about this very issue in AMT287, play the episode to your friend! Pretend you really want her to hear one of the other questions in the show – perhaps she has an interest in human statues? – and hope she absorbs the information.
If she does not, manufacture a conversation in which you cast yourself as the pronoun-messing fool. “Gosh, friend, I found out something the other day – did you know the pronoun formulation is supposed to be ‘Joan and ME‘ in all non-nominative uses? I’ve been using it wrongly all these years, and now I feel like such a tit!”
Readers, if you have any superior suggestions for tactful grammatical corrections, please go to the comments to share them with Joan and I me.
Answer Me This! Podcast 