Here’s an antidote to existential bleakness from Linda:
A bunch of us yarn-bombed the Saffron Walden Turf Maze on Saturday.
Helen, you’re a crafter, answer me this – how can I explain it to my husband who still doesn’t see the point of it?
Point? Why must there be a point?? I don’t think yarn-bombing needs to have any more urgent or noble intention than making something look a bit more pretty/colourful/comical.
If you insist upon getting a bit more thinky about it, you could say that it compels you to reexamine the yarn-bombed object and its context with fresh eyes; or that it has a similar function to graffiti, but in a cheery and harmless way because, unlike graffiti, it’s easily removable, and it looks like your granny did it.
But it’s thoroughly objectionable to muse so pretentiously about jolly old yarn-bombing, or indeed any crafts; let’s just enjoy the fact that people go to quite considerable effort (click here to see more pictures of Linda’s yarny adventure, which must have involved a LOT of knitting hours) for the sake of harmless fun. And if you want to argue against harmless fun as an objective, I will squeeze my hands over my ears and chant ‘Lalalalaa’ until you shut up and go away.
We’d just booked our research tour of southern Africa to delve further into last week’s zebra-riding question, but now have to seek a refund as Charlene has done our work for us:
I’ve recently moved back from Kenya (I lived there for three years) and went on many safaris.
I asked ‘Why can’t we ride zebras?’ in Nakuru park.
Apparently we can’t because they don’t have strong rib cages and they would break and the zebra would die.
And there go our dreams of becoming zebra dressage champions.
It’s pretty unusual for us podcasters to venture out of our comfortable armchairs, let alone venture into the great not-indoors. Last weekend, however, we donned our cagoules, stocked up on wet-wipes, and took in a lungful of folk-laced fresh air at the Green Man festival – where we had such a smashing time, we decided to record Answer Me This! Episode 189 right there:
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)
Plus: Olly fears the revenge of Kris Marshall; Helen discovers a sport she IS interested in: topless frisbee; and Martin the Sound Man sees a future where Batman and Catwoman give birth to Dustin Hoffman.
As you’ll hear, we were joined this week by some unexpected guests in the shape of wasps. (They weren’t just shaped like wasps; they were wasps.) Next week, we should be joined by a much less stingy and stripy special guest in the shape of Jon Ronson. (He’s not just shaped like Jon Ronson, he is Jon Ronson.) So concoct some QUESTIONS for the fan of psychopaths, goat-starers and Robbie Williams, and send them in the form of voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We do hope that Jon remembers to turn up, but whether he does or not, we’ll deffers see you next Thursday,
It’s sobering to think that the stuff with which we have delightedly surrounded ourselves may one day be a hideous rod for our descendents’ backs. Amy from Carlisle‘s ancestral haul has a particularly grotesque bent:
Last episode you discussed an inherited frozen shark’s head. My family have also recently become the custodians of various dubious animal body parts inherited from my Gran. My six-year-old nephew is now the owner of a stuffed baby crocodile, and a pair of antelope leg table lamps are now residing in our attic.
However, my dad is insisting on keeping the elephant’s foot on display. It has two drawers cut into it but with no key we have no idea what, if anything is inside it.
It’s best you never open those drawers – judging by Gran’s other possessions, you’ll only be saddled with her collection of embalmed voles.
Still, if you do find yourself saddled with a heap of dead exotic animal-bits, you might as well make the best of it. Here’s a tip from Andy from Boston: (more…)
We realise by now you’ll have had your fill of The Wanted, but save a little room for this – listener Hannah has made a bid to rehabilitate their current ear-botherer with a charming cover:
Damn you, Hannah, DON’T MAKE ME START TO LIKE THIS BLOODY SONG!
I’m not the only person to ‘win’ a piece of crap from a local radio station! James from Salisbury is similarly garlanded:
I entered a competition on North Devons local radio station when I was 9, and won a Gabrielle CD! It was shit, and I used it as a coaster.
I also won a set of erasers (because saying I won a set of rubbers sounds perverse) in a Radio 7 competition about 4 years ago. They are still in the packaging.
What are you complaining about, James? Both of these could make perfectly adequate Christmas presents for relatives you don’t particularly care about. As for other business raised by last week’s episode, Dom says:
Both MI5 and MI6 actually advertise jobs on their websites. If your listener still fancies becoming a spy then that’s not a bad place to start. Not quite as exciting really, is it?
It’s unlikely to end up in a John le Carré novel, true. Likewise those other famous users of covert communications, The Wanted; Joel from Hamburg notes:
Look up the sign language for ‘lesbian’. The guy from The Wanted in that mall may have just been communicating with deaf fans…
[Insert requisite joke here about how you’d have to be deaf to be a fan of The Wanted etc etc.]
Like us, Sarah in Liverpool has been overthinking the disparate boyband (and also spending her days the same way as I do, even though I’m not a student. Ready for your morning dose of Gilmore Girls, Sarah?):
While attempting to doze off listening to your podcast, you managed to inadvertently wake me up by mentioning my favourite current boyband, The Wanted. And when I say favourite, I rather mean my favourite boyband to make fun of.
As a university student I have spent many hours staring at a television flicking between Neighbours and music channels and The Wanted have struck a chord with me, particularly due to how ramshackle the band looks. So I was incredibly happy to hear you’ve also analysed and been frustrated by this band, and like me you’ve seemed to scrutinize them enough to give them nicknames. These names are:
Sexy Thug
(The unfortunately named) Little fish eyes
Paul from A1
Hot Cow (Specifically the Lactofree cow)
The boy who turned up at the wrong band auditions.
It’s a game you can all play! Everybody, consider yourself continuing the grand tradition begun by Smash Hits when they dubbed Melanie Chisholm ‘Sporty Spice’, and think up nicknames for the five members of The Wanted. Here are your prey:
The Wanted: pop pick'n'mix
For bonus boyband points, guess the member who a) is secretly gay; b) will be the first to leave for a solo career; c) is planning a career in acting; d) has knocked 5 years off his age; e) is pretending that he doesn’t have a degree from a top-tier university.
This week, listeners, we delve deep into one of the darkest mysteries of our age: the T&C of Pizza Hut’s ‘Don’t Open Me‘ wheeze. So tantalising! What could possibly be within the mystery envelope? Without even looking, we can guess a) heart attack b) disappointment c) spelling mistakes. Find out what else in Answer Me This! Episode 188:
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 conversation features:
GCHQ
autotuned ocarina
diet and fitness messiahs
Winchester James Morrison vs. Radiohead
pseudo-hedonistic parties vs. Butlins Spy
the Milky Bar Kid
Ibiza
Pinkberry
loggers
Chuck Jackson
and
a frozen shark’s head.
Plus: Olly prefers M&Ms to be faceless, voiceless, nameless and unopinionated about film; Helen challenges you to match the member of The Wanted to her descriptions (ideally without having to expose yourself to their current single); and Martin the Sound Man doesn’t want to win a year’s supply of anything, thanks, although we suspect that if you offer him a new guitar every day, he wouldn’t kick you in the box.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App includes some precautionary advice from Ashley from Atlanta regarding last week‘s questioneer who was intent on having sex atop a washing machine. Try to guess how this results in a story about Rome Police Station, Olly’s arse, and a leaking Nissan Micra. You can’t! So you’d better fire up your iPhone, iPad or Android to string this tale together.
So that we may string next week’s podcast together, you should send us your QUESTIONS: voicemails go on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis), and aim your emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Or, if you bump into us at Green Man or Edinburgh over the next week, you could questions in person! That’s a less reliable method than the usual phoning and emailing, but hey, we’re feeling risky.
Congratulations to clever Jenny from Bath! Not so much for achieving good marks in her course as for getting away with this shit:
This message is to give you guys a huge thank you because even though you had no idea, you have contributed greatly to my education. I am currently doing a Masters in English language/linguistics. In my third assignment I had to transcribe and analyse spoken conversation and I was racking my brains about what conversation to transcribe, but then, I thought of your brilliant podcast. So, thanks to episode 176 I received a nice 2:1 of 68 [smiley face].
Although, I must say it did take me a while to actually find six minutes of you guys not speaking about rude explicit things. In spite of this, the transcript did contain Olly’s comment about ‘Tommy Lee’s cock in Pamela Anderson’s face’, it couldn’t be avoided (and I felt I owed it to you).
It sounds like Jenny got that 2:1 through the same tactic we found successful: blind the examiners with chutzpah. Works a treat in the arts subjects. Wouldn’t recommend it for something which actually requires the demonstration of knowledge, though.
Aaah, this question from Sean takes us back over 100 episodes, to AMT86, when newlywed Kate asked us what title she should bestow upon her new lady wife. Being imaginative sorts, we suggested ‘wife’. Let’s see what we can pull out of the bag for Shaun:
I have the gay and next year I am marrying another man who also has the gay, and at this happy time in our lives we’re beginning to look forward and are on the borders of ‘thinking about a family of our own’.
Of course, being modern 21st-century types we’re less concerned with ‘how will we feed it and not let it die from our own ineptitude’, we’re much more concerned with superficial things like naming conventions.
Once we have adopted/surrogated/otherwise legally procured our children we’ve been wondering what we should encourage them to call us; it seems that calling us Dad and Dad or Daddy and Daddy would be confusing. It feels that we should each ‘own’ a term. I’m vetoing Pops, Popa and Papa. And of course we’re vetoing ‘mum’.
So, answer me this: if you had two dads, what would you call them to differentiate between one and the other?
I call both my parents ‘Sir’, of course. That’s de rigueur where I come from.
Readers, do you have – or are you one half of – a pair of paters? Please go to the comments to tell us how your own nomenclature situation shook down.
By the way, Shaun, the choice might not even be yours in the end; children tend to be fairly imaginative in this area, so whichever tasteful or humorous titles you opt for may be passed over in favour of a truly horrific bundle of infantile phonemes. But you’ll learn to love it. Or at least your defences will be so broken by the daily exertions of childcare that you won’t be able to correct it until it’s too late. Either way, you’ll be stuck with it forever, so you might as well not worry about it now.
Deploy the Glade Plug-Ins for this question from Max:
I was recently acting as an examiner for medical student exams, with an actor pretending to be the patient.
One of the candidates was really quite smelly and the actor marked him down as she was supposed to be marking his communication skills, and as she pointed out it was rather off-putting having to hold her breath.
I didn’t mark him down for his pong. Should I have done?
It’s highly subjective. If there was a section where you were marking the candidate’s personal presentation, then certainly you should have given him a D-. If there wasn’t, but there was room to comment on pastoral rather than academic qualities, then that would be an apt place to address the issue.
But if neither option was available, should one’s BO affect one’s professional standing? Particularly in a job which involves, on the one hand, considerable interpersonal contact, but on the other, potentially critical actions which transcend ponginess? Readers, weigh in:
Don’t forget, this person has spent seven or more years of their life and god knows how much money to get to this point. I can’t predict in which direction this might propel your judgement.
Team AMT! Please line up at the assembly points and let us check you’re all present and correct. Everyone OK? Nobody hurt? Good. Here’s Answer Me This! Episode 187, which as it happens was recorded before our home country irreparably damaged its international reputation for decorous manners.
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 we talk of:
fruit machines
the holy iPad
moneysupermarket.com vs. Swingers
the distinctive Requiem for a Dream soundtrack Edo in Crystal Palace
David Beckham’s pants
buttery John Lydon
Paddy McGuinness’s penile pain
scaring The Hoosiers Girl From Rio
the King James Bible
skip-diving
whale fellatio the Edinburgh festival
and
the biggest testicles in the world.
Plus: Olly finds that his musical tastes have not matured at all when it comes to classic New Kids on the Block; Helen’s love of a) free food and b) sushi is severely tested; and Martin the Sound Man will be multitasking at the Green Man Festival next weekend. Watch him transform from a nerdy scientist to a nerdy musician in the blink of an eye! We’ll also be there too, reading extracts from the AMT Book, so please come to see us all at the Solar Stage in Einstein’s Garden, if you can make time between the folk bands and the crumpet-eating.
Make more time for this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone and iPad, or Android), which is a question from Chrissie from Cheltenham about whether can-can dancers cover their nether regions properly. Additionally, please make time to ask us some QUESTIONS as well: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis), or send emails answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next week, assuming civilisation still exists by then,
Under no circumstances make a bet with Nic from Chester:
A friend of mine once got a tattoo of a My Little Pony on his shoulder for a £5 bet. Admittedly £5 was a princely sum at the time and it wouldn’t have been so bad, had the masterpiece not cost him £25 to get done! So my question is this, what ridiculous stunts have you performed for cash?
THIS. But in its course, Jodie Marsh regaled us with a far more amped up version of Nic’s story above: she won a bet with a friend over the length of the world’s longest tiger, and his penalty for failing at this trivia question was having ‘Meat is murder’ tattooed in massive script down the full length of his arm.
Listen to me, children: tattoos are NOT an appropriate bet penalty, nor anything that will cause permanent damage to your body. If Jodie Marsh told you to cut off your finger because you didn’t guess the maximum circumference of a puffer fish, would you? Don’t answer that. But do answer Nic’s question in the comments, because we know that you have a reckless silly streak and you’ll do anything for the price of a tin of peas.
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