Archive for the ‘Answer Us Back! Your time to opine’ Category

“Hard day at the office, dear?”

July 4, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT221

Our pornography expert listeners have written in to elaborate upon the origins of the money shot. Dennis says:

In a porn film, it’s called the money shot not because it cost the most but because unless the male star ejaculates he doesn’t get paid; they will then call on a ‘stunt cock’ who will knock one out and claim the money. Hardly seems fair, but all male porn stars know this when they sign on.

Kristian adds:

‘Money shot’ has come to mean a scene that is disproportionately expensive to the rest of the production. When studios make use of a ‘stunt cock’ where an actor finds he cannot deliver, it raises the cost of that final scene due to the extra expense of the ‘stunt cock’. You actually get more money for the moment of ejaculation than the rest of your contract, as it is after all what the audience is paying for.

Stunt cock sounds like a wonderfully edifying career with great security and plenty opportunity for personal growth.

THE ANSWER ME THIS! SPORTS DAY IS OUT NOW

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man on pole

July 4, 2012

THE ANSWER ME THIS! SPORTS DAY IS OUT NOW

Following Eleanor from Norwich‘s request in AMT221 that we desexify pole dancing, Jay in Manchester has been in touch to say that not only is pole dancing NOT SEXY, it’s also NOT GIRLY:

I thought I’d let you know that a lot more guys do pole dancing than you might think! Though I agree with Eleanor that pole dancing is very sporty and requires exceptional core muscle strength, it does need more recognition as a great non-slutty sport which has the side benefits of transferable skills in the bedroom.

I’m sure many people wouldn’t find this sexy, but I include a video of my boyfriend from some years ago and I find it delightful to watch. I’d recommend that you put this up on your website too to try and break the perception that pole dancing is a supremely girly thing to do.

As footsoldiers in the war for gender equality, we oblige:

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double-ended ice cream

July 4, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT221

Sam in Sheffield‘s question about icecreamlollies has dredged up your childhood memories of this icy compound; but none can agree on the correct terminology. Says Chris in Worcester:

An ice cream with an ice lolly plonked in the top is known as a Popeye and they’re not a new thing. I used to have them all the time from the ice cream van growing up in the 80’s in sunny East Grinstead.

However Dave refutes:

I can confirm that ice creams with rocket lollies in them were available from any reputable ice cream man in Portsmouth in the 70s. They were either referred to as Witch’s Hats (because upside down the the rocket lolly looked a little like a persons silhouette and the cone like a pointy hat) or Pokey Hats (presumably because it was a lolly poked in an ice cream cone).

I don’t want to cloud the pool of evidence, but I saw this last Sunday on an ice cream van in north London and now I don’t know who or what to believe:

THE ANSWER ME THIS! SPORTS DAY IS OUT NOW

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rusty sweat

June 27, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT220

Demetrios has been in touch with a pH-interesting response to AMT220:

In reference to Rory Gallagher’s guitar and the question of rusting sweat, there is a phenomenon of people whose sweat is particularly rust-inducing. They are called, creatively, “Rusters”, and though I am not one, I know of some Rusters who can’t safely handle metal, because the surface of whatever they’re holding will actually begin to oxidize slightly if held long enough.

I have not researched this before, but a brief Google search yields two articles from 1979 in the Acta Dermato-Venereologica which test and confirm a subtle degree of corrosion in low-copper metals from palmar sweat. Certainly, the effect is weak, and does not necessarily translate to corrosion of guitar-surface lacquer, the chemistry of which I don’t know.

Personally, I think that the power to very, very slowly degrade metal is a lame mutant power, and should be the basis for a super team called “The Corroders”.

Well the craze for superhero films is showing few signs of waning, so readers, go to the comments, write the plot summary for the first installment of the potential Corroders franchise, and we’ll send out a pitch to the Weinsteins.

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Power Plate proponent

June 19, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT219

It’s not the proper peer-reviewed scientific study of the efficacy of Power Plate for which we asked at the end of AMT219, but it certainly is a ringing endorsement from Rebecca from Loughton:

I have been using Power Plate for a few months and it definately does work with toning! You don’t just stand on it but perform exercises and specifically ones which strengthen your core so it really does make a difference. I for one have lost a stone which I hadn’t done with similar exercise alone!

The evidence is persuasive, but where’s your control experiment, Rebecca? We cannot grant our approval to Power Plate until we have seen the alterna-universe Rebeccas from Loughton, one of whom who spent the same year not doing anything different to usual, and the other doing the same exercises on a non-vibrating plate. Ask them to write in.

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LMFAO-levels

June 12, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT218

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.

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1upmanship

June 12, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT218

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.

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Singin’ in the WHAT NOW????

June 7, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT217

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.

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No job for Garry’s knob

June 6, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT217

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.

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porn by post

May 29, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT216

Here’s a question of mail redirection from Simon:

Just listening to AMT216 regarding receiving something meant for someone else. My wife and I bought a house just over a year ago. We paid for Royal Mail to redirect our post from the old place to the new one; however the people we bought the new place from didn’t.

As they had moved only a few streets over to a bigger house, and we are nice people, we dropped off the unwanted mail to them. Until last week when we received two brown envelopes that had not been sealed.

Out of these two envelopes dropped four DVDs with very explicit porn pictures on them.

Answer me this: should we i) casually post these discs without saying anything to them, ii) make a big song and dance about them because my 4-year-old son could have picked them up and it would have caused all kind of questions from him, or iii) as they were addressed to the husband, give them to the wife as he’s a sex-starved idiot who can’t cover his tracks and she might take the hint he has ‘specialist’ needs?

You forget iv) keep them for your own ‘specialist needs’.

I’d opt for the first solution of non-comment, because I don’t see the benefit to you of intruding further into the private life of a couple you barely know. After all, there could be a perfectly innocent explanation – LoveFilm may simply have got their order wrong.

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Live with…Olly’s cat Coco

May 29, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT216

Last week, Olly bemoaned the apparent bias towards the faces of ordinary boring children in the photoframe on the desk on Channel 5’s Live With…. And when Olly Mann bemoans, the world sits up with a start and pays attention! We were thrilled and astonished to receive the following email from The Live With… Team:

Thanks so much for mentioning Channel 5’s “Live with….” on the podcast last week.

Unfortunately you’re wrong that we only have babies as our face in the frame – we’ve had men and women of all ages, and a number of dogs. But we have never had a cat – so if you’d like to send us a photo of Coco, we’d be delighted for her to be the first.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

We’ll find out which day you need to tune in to Live With… Fern Britton later this week to see the inaugural cat-in-the-frame moment.

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where to forget Sarah Marshall

May 24, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT215

If you were planning a holiday based on Jason Segel films, Phil from Christchurch, Dorset has done some research you might find useful:

In Episode 214 you questioned whether the hotel in Forgetting Sarah Marshallhas receptionists as attractive as actress Mila Kunis.

I’ve been lucky enough to spend a few weeks in the same beach house used by Russell Brand in the film (the Turtle Bay Resort in Hawaii) and I can confirm that although their receptionists were helpful and efficient, they were either men or more ‘traditionally Hawaiian’ in shape. In fact the reception shown in the film was a temporary and much smaller fake one plonked next to the hotel’s hugely overpriced jewellery store.

I wonder what Phil was doing there for ‘a few weeks’. Perhaps recovering from being dumped by Kristen Bell and wondering whether his puppet Dracula musical might get him any new ladies.

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