Answer Me This! Podcast

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT241 •••

To the left, to the left, is Paul Merton always looking at a box to the left? You listeners don’t agree with Olly’s hypothesis from AMT241, but nor do you agree with each other. Firstly, Joss in Smethwick posits:

My ears pricked up when you mentioned Paul Merton’s tendency to look off-screen to his left. You suggested that he does this after telling a joke in order to get a second laugh. I’m afraid this cannot be the answer because, as you will now notice next time you watch the show, he does it most of the time.

I think I’ve worked it out though. He appears to do it more when the host is talking. I think he is reading the autocue along with the host, possibly so he can think of his responses before the fact or maybe it’s just a habit.

This hypothesis is corroborated by Jack in Gateshead:

He’s watching the presenter’s autocue – it’s very different to the general looks he give to the audience.

He does this a lot more these days. I noticed it first when they had particularly feckless guest presenters, but he now does it non-stop. You can see him reacting to gags before they’re read out, especially the bad ones.

However, Tom from York disagrees:

Paul Merton isn’t looking stage left, he’s looking straight out to the audience. His desk is at an angle to the front of the stage, but the mid-shots are parallel to the desk, so it looks like he’s looking left. But he’s not. Just to clear that up.

I’ve got another theory: Paul Merton favours the right side of his face, one of the many things he and Mariah Carey have in common.

More news of other well-known figures of the entertainment industry, as featured in AMT241 – Nina writes:

Last week you were discussing the Brand New Heavies. Previous member Jay Ella Ruth is actually now an English teacher at Chiswick School (in Chiswick). She is eccentric but a lovely teacher.

I know this because she teaches me!!!!

Anyone else out there taught by ex-members of the acid jazz movement?

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You’ll recall Paul (rhymes!) from AMT240, who wanted to boss his family into going on holiday to his choice of Toronto rather than their choice of Vancouver.

We’ve heard some gently persuasive arguments from Canada-dwellers so far, but Tony from Toronto is unequivocal:

With regards to Paul’s desire to visit Toronto over Vancouver with his family, I’m going to make this easy for him: don’t be a fuckin’ idiot, Paul! I’ve lived in Toronto all my life and I can’t think of a duller place to visit. Okay, maybe Cleveland Ohio would be duller, but not by much.

If you have to go to a Canadian city, go to Montreal. It’s beautiful and historic, and fun.

Hope you haven’t already booked your flights, Paul.

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••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT239 •••

Oops, Ben in Cornwall has spotted a Bondian blunder in AMT239:

Olly, answer me this: did you actually watch Skyfall or fall asleep during the film as you don’t seem to know where Bond, James Bond strangled a bad guy underwater? That happened towards the end just before SPOILER! dies, NOT in the opening sequence where he got SPOILERED! by SPOILERPENNY! and fell into the SPOILER! off the SPOILER! by himself.

So come on Olly, sort yourself out!

Oops! Looks like Olly mistook Skyfall‘s end credits for the opening credits. No wonder he was surprised the film was only ten minutes long with no proper five-act structure.

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••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT238 •••

Many of the world’s greatest minds have puzzled over Kelis’s ‘Milkshake‘ – people on Yahoo Answers, us in AMT237, and now Benji in Bristol:

I favour a literal interpretation of Kelis’s ‘Milkshake’; I think that she really is talking about actual milkshake. However, I have noticed something peculiar about the lyrics. Kelis bangs on and on about how good her milkshake is, but then she also keeps saying “La la la la la, warm it up”.

Imagine a poor, somewhat plain-looking woman who wishes that all the boys would come to her yard, and in order to achieve this she forks out a load of money on milkshaking lessons from Kelis. She masters all the basic and advanced techniques for shaking milk. She then refines and improves upon Kelis’s original milkshake recipe, by keeping it cold and putting some whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top. After all that time, effort and expense it must be terribly upsetting for her to see all the boys forsake her superior milkshake and avoid her yard. How it must enrage her to see those silly, sleazy boys sitting there, perving at Kelis while sipping their tepid, shoddy shakes.

What you’ve done there, Benji, is take the plot of Dreamgirls and reset it in the milkshaking industry. I like it. Have a two-page synopsis on my desk by Monday.

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••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT237 •••

AMT234 has spurred Martin to write in:

As you have stated on many occasions, you are yet to be blessed with the fruit of your loins; a point emphasized by the comment, “How do parents make it through kids’ films?”

Recently I slept through The Avengers which, from what I can gather from my seven-year-old film critic, had explosions, crashes and fights all the way through. I missed them all. Nothing can keep me awake. Brilliant.

And are there films which work the opposite way round, ie keep the parent lively while sending the sprogs off to Snoozeford? Chip in, people, via the comments. If a DVD of Black Narcissus is all it takes to sedate my gaggle of niecephews, it’s far cheaper and safer than Ritalin.

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••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT236 •••

Yes, the above book is from my own library, and why not? Australia’s slang is as thrillingly unusual as its indigenous wildlife, as demonstrated by Steve from Adelaide, South Australia who has donated the following suggestion to AMT236’s appeal for synonyms for ‘the bollocks’:

How about “She’s the duck’s guts”?

Very poetic, Steve. However, let’s not forget that in the question in question, Brad in Philadelphia’s wife was writing a letter of recommendation for a student. An expression evoking a duck with its entrails on display is perhaps not the most enticing for an employer, unless that employer is a Satanist or Fergus Henderson.

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