We’re picking up good vibrations (good, good, good, good vibrations, oooh bop bop, good vibrations) in Answer Me This! Episode 219, thanks to one of our listeners sending us a Groupon offer for Power Plate sessions.
This week we consider:
gratuitous nudity
sexy playing cards
bomb shelters Sliding Doors, alternative version
abetting child criminals
Joseph ‘Giuseppe’ Pinetti
Apple Paltrow Martin
subtitles Slendertone vs. exercise for cosmonauts
and
Ceefax.
Plus: Olly believes china shops should tolerate, nay welcome, his unapologetic vandalism; fun-hating Helen eschews murder mystery parties, entertainment at weddings, and jiggling in public; and Martin the Sound Man is still imploring you to enter his competition to be the Science Songwriter of the Future, which sounds a bit like being the artist-in-residence on the International Space Station, but is in fact much more straightforward and does not require you to urinate into a funnel. Although, the prize includes a trip to the Green Man festival, so a funnel might prove more hygienic than a Portaloo.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) recounts some incredible facts about jubilees, such as how they used to lead to famine, and how the Queen was probably wasted on hers. This seems a suitable point to mention that the Answer Me This! Jubilee is at last available to buy on Amazon. You may think it a bit late for Jubilee Fever now, but we’ve got a £50 bet on the Queen reaching her Platinum Jubilee, so consider the album 15 years ahead of its time rather than two weeks behind.
If you want more AMT next week, send us a QUESTION: emails should be sent to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and voicemails left on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Either our next questioneer Alex from Melbourne is delightfully innocent, or he has ingested too many household substances in search of a high:
After recently hearing about the Florida zombie and sniffing bath salts turning you into a zombie, I want to know: does the term bath salts mean the actual bath salts like in my grannies’ cupboard or is it a code name for another drug like cocaine?
While I’m sure that snorting granny’s bath additives would have some deleterious effect upon your brain (as well as softening your heels and alleviating arthritis pain), your suspicion is correct that it is another substance – just as meow meow isn’t a wrapful of kitten language, and horse is not a horse. The synthetic stimulant mephedrone sometimes bears the slang name bath salts because it looks a bit like bath salts. You can tell the difference because mephedrone doesn’t smell of lavender.
I know this is all very confusing, Alex, so just try to wrap your brain around the take-home message that DRUGS ARE BAD, KIDS, and you shouldn’t put them in granny’s bathwater.
We sure do receive a lot of wedding questions here, so if you’d like to relieve us of some of the responsibility of answering them properly, take yourself to the comments and advise our next two correspondents. First, we hear from Ben from Britain:
I am a man and in the summer my female friend is getting married. At this wedding I am to be a ‘bridesmaid’.
I have already rejected the idea of carrying a bouquet, which she wasn’t that amused by.
My first question is, am I wrong to not want to be instantly labelled as ‘the gay one’? As it’s pretty obvious already, me being referred to as bridesmaid.
My second question is, she has raised the issue of suit hire and said to me ‘We will leave your fitting for last in case you want to lose weight.’ I am 6ft and have a 38 inch waist. Am I within my social right to not go at all or should I instead intensively eat nothing but chips until the suit fitting?
1. Of course you’re not wrong. Why should your sexuality and/or gender be the defining factor about you? However, when you agreed to be in the bride’s band of indentured slaves, you were effectively signing up for whatever degradation and subjugation the bride wishes. And that includes carrying flowers, wearing a dress, participating in the choreographed dance down the aisle for YouTube, assisting with the bride’s pre-show colonic irrigation…
2. Stuff a pillow down your shirt for the fitting. And, for funsies, a cucumber down your trousers.
All too often, people who are getting married think they have free rein to treat their loved ones like crap, don’t they? (Coincidentally, since my wedding day, my friends now regard me with a mixture of terror and disgust! They’re probably just jealous, right?) However, our next questioneer Laura from Australia seems to be trapped in a cycle of mutual consideration:
As a single lady, if I get invited to a wedding could I take a friend along as my ‘plus one’? Or is it poor form as I know weddings cost a lot and they probably don’t want to pay for an extra meal for my friend. Making small talk to a bunch of people I don’t know over dinner fills me with genuine anxiety and having a friend there would make things less awkward as I’m not great at that sort of thing. Your thoughts?
Well, if the couple actually stated on your invitation that you were welcome to bring a cohort, then they are acquiescing to the possibility of paying to feed someone they don’t know in exchange for your contentment (or bulking up their audience). But if they didn’t, then I don’t think you can bring along a freeloader – and if you yourself don’t know anyone at the wedding, then the person who is only going along because you’re making them is unlikely to have a particularly good time in a roomful of strangers and salmon en croute.
It’s fine to fly solo, and if you really expect that there will be no mutual friends at the event, allay your worries by asking the couple if they can seat you amongst nice people who are easy to talk to. Hopefully they will be considerate of their friends’ social requirements, but as per my point above, it’s far from a given. So maybe take a good book along, as back-up.
Following our discussion of LMFAO’s ‘Sexy and I know it’ in AMT215, Ashlyns School felt moved to share their sixth form leavers’ video with us. Enjoy their exuberance, but don’t have inappropriate feelings about a bunch of schoolchildren proclaiming their own sexiness and knowledge thereof, OK? OK.
Lucky for us, Finlay from Edinburgh but now in Tokyo speaks fluent Super Mario:
In the latest podcast you mentioned the phrase “1-up”. This is a classic example of Japanese English: basically, when the Japanese borrow words from English, sometimes the meanings change.
In this case, the Japanese word(s) for “up”, usually represented by the character 上 (down is 下, in case you were wondering), have a wider range of meanings than the English word “up”, including things like go up, increase, get up, over, on, and so on. When they borrowed the English word “up”, it was applied to a wider range of meanings, in this case particularly the one meaning “increase”. Another word that was changed is “get”; they use it when they achieve something.
Some of these phrases eventually filter back into English, so you often see 1UP and GET in videogames, and internet denizens sometimes use get in phrases like FIRST POST GET!!
And that is today’s lesson about linguistic borrowing. We’re all learning through play, we really are.
There are a lot of really weird stories in the news at the moment – cannibals, dismembered bodies, Octomom doing a porno – but fortunately this week, AMT218 is a largely horror-free zone:
Today we talk of:
marriage licences
the Pitcher and Piano
expensive clothes
actors’ motivation Fifty Shades of Grey vs. The White Hotel vs. Wuthering Heights
Mario vs. Lazarus
moist Jo Whiley
Tinky Winky, live in Luxembourg
outlet stores
death by giant snail
and
#.
Plus: Olly doesn’t want to get married in Vegas; Helen doesn’t want to have to watch embarrassing bodies on Embarrassing Bodies; but Martin the Sound Man DOES want you to enter his science songwriting competition, so click here to find out how to enter before you dash off to your zither-room to compose.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) involves Claudia from Melbourne asking whether you can text the police rather than calling them. With all the cuts to public services, unfortunately the police have had to lay off their full-time team of interpreters waiting to figure out what you mean by HLP pls sum1 tryn2 mrdr me non-LOL srsly >:-O
If you still have proper command over vowels, send us a QUESTION for next week: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Also, if you’re especially interested in what goes on around here, you can hear us being interviewed on the latest episode of Podcast Squared. We hope that the demystification of our Process doesn’t spoil AMT for you. If not, we’ll see you back here next Thursday.
Apropos of last week’s question about the water in Singin’ in the Rain, John writes in to tell us something which, in its own way, explains why the hosepipe ban might not pertain:
As a painter in theatre, I meet a lot of crew with many and varied stories about theatre, T.V. and rock stars. My friend Steve was a member of the crew of the touring version of Singin’ In The Rain which led directly to the West End revival; he is usually a reliable source, and tells me that one of the stars was such a massive cock that a part of the set-up in any new venue was for the amassed crew to meet in the fly tower to piss in the water tank.
The tour consisted of 64 dates of being pissed-on in the rain.
Readers, if you’re thinking of attending a watery stage show, do NOT sit near the front.
Do not get a job in the orchestra pit either; those poor guys are effectively working in a latrine.
Steve from Reading‘s eyes are bigger than his stomach:
I’m currently watching Man versus Food, an American show where a crazy man travels around the USA eating silly amounts of food or super spicy food and other such food based challenges set by restaurants.
My friends and I got to thinking, why have we never seen a challenge like “eat your entire weight in chicken wings and get on the wall of fame” over here in the UK? So answer me this: are there any such crazy eating-based challenges in the UK, and do you think you could complete them if there are?
In answer to the second question: no. Gluttonous as we are, we would be incapacitated by tears of shame well before we had cleared our plates.
As for the first question: readers, do you know of any competitive eating challenges in the UK? Go to the comments to inform us, then Steve can start on the rigorous training required for each.
There’s an ocean between us and Alexandra in Wisconsin. An ocean of yeast extract:
I’ve always been a fan of British culture, so I went to my local World Market (a speciality store that sells imported goods of all kinds) and bought the biggest jar of Marmite I could get my hands on.
I took it home, and toasted an (English) muffin in anticipation, mouth watering at the deliciousness that was to soon come my way. After all, England has given us so many wonderful things: David Bowie, to name just one.
OH MY DEAR SWEET GOD IT WAS THE WORST TASTING STUFF EVER. I tried it on bread, crackers, muffins… I tried dipping celery in it… to say this is an acquired taste is a huge understatement. How can you eat this stuff?
I’m Marmite-ambivalent, so if you need suggestions for how to eat your Marmite, I direct you to this three-course Marmite menu by Gary Rhodes (non-Brits wondering who he is: a spiky-haired celebrity chef, slightly less annoying than Guy Fieri). And here is a whole website devoted to Marmite cookery. Marmite Victoria sponge? Excuse me while I choke on my own vomit.
Also, a tip: you may be spreading it too thickly. Try a little less Marmite. If you still find it repugnant, try even less Marmite – ie zero Marmite. Problem solved.
On the subject of unfortunate postal dispatches as contemplated in AMT216, Garry from Sussex has a tale from which we learn to exercise caution when recycling stationery:
As an art student I agreed to be a nudey photo model for a fellow student. Soon after she gave me a sheet of contact prints in a large brown envelope.
Some time after that I was applying for a job – back in the days when they asked you to send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to put your application form in.
I was at first a little nonplussed when I was sent an application form with a sheet of pictures of me with my knob out – how on earth did they get them? I thought.
Don’t seem to recall getting the job.
I’m surprised – I thought we were always being told to make our CVs and covering letters stand out! As it were.
This week, we face a big, big question: should Singin’ In The Rain be BANNED, for flouting the hosepipe ban as the rest of southern England shrivels under drought conditions? Start drafting your petitions whilst you listen to AMT217:
Today we talk of:
child beauty pageants
impressing Jeremy Paxman
reverse cat psychology
sunburnt tattoos
Prince Philip’s barbecue
theatre curtains
mortar boards
chinos for hipsters
milky special effects
and the managing director of Little Chef.
Plus: one of Olly’s early theatrical productions nearly brought the house down – literally, with fire; Helen recaps her late granny’s theory about what really happened to Princess Diana after that fateful night in Paris; and Martin the Sound Man is dissed by Olly for being a professional cleverclogs. Bullying doesn’t stop after school, you guys.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Tony from Worksop about whether we’ve ever killed or maimed a celebrity. Look, Tony, the evidence is purely circumstantial. They’ll never be able to convict us on it.
While, as a precaution, we book our passage to Rio under false identities, you should get on with sending us your QUESTIONS: send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Before we go, here are a couple of other things for your entertainment: Helen just appeared on Charlie Brooker’s So Wrong It’s Right, with Graham Linehan and Matthew Crosby; and Olly’s cat Coco should imminently be appearing on Channel 5’s Live With Fern Britton. Click here to read the extraordinary correspondence which ensued after last week’s show. And since we’ve almost arrived at Jubilee weekend, treat yourself to the Answer Me This! Jubilee, which is better than the Jubilee proper because you don’t have to sit through a whole solo set by Gary Barlow or be jostled for eight hours whilst you wait on the banks of the Thames for a glimpse of the Queen on a boat. Which might be worthwhile, if she does this.
It’s time for home spa treatment tips from Mel in Melbourne:
You may have read on various blogs about softening the skin on the bottom of your feet with shaving cream and Listerine.
I haven’t, Mel, I haven’t! I must be reading the wrong blogs. Help me learn.
You cover your feet with shaving cream. Then mix half Listerine and half hot water, soak flannels in this liquid then wrap up your feet and relax for half an hour.
This sounded ridiculous but I gave it a try and to my astonishment it worked. So answer me this – why does this work?
Scientists of footskin and/or alternative uses for toiletries, please go to the comments and deliver your conclusions. I’d just expect one’s feet to be softer if you soak them in any warm liquid for half an hour. NB never try the soup round at my house.
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