Elisa sees my John Thaw enrapturement in last week’s episode, and raises:
I think I might win the age gap contest regarding celebrity crushes. I’ve been in love with Michael Caine for years. I first discovered my love for him in 2007 after the movie The Prestige – I was 19, and he was 74.
Eurghhh! Michael Caine at any age….shudder.
Readers, the gauntlet has thrown down. Are you able to beat Elisa’s age gap crush? Moreover, SHOULD you be able to?
You might think towels are boring, but a little theatre can make them fun! As this email from Toby demonstrates:
Further to your discussion in AMT202 about the use of heated handtowels in Indian restaurants, I have a tepid towel-related question that I am sure will blow your minds…
Eating in an Indian restaurant recently, a bowl of what I thought were mints was placed on our table at the end of the meal. Just as I was about to gleefully pop one into my mouth (an action which would have, unbeknownst to me, surely led to a slow, suffocating death), a waiter appeared and poured hot water into the bowl. The small, white, spheres which were NOT mints suddenly expanded and revealed themselves to be rolled-up handtowels.
Answer Me This: what the Heston Blumenthal was going on?! Was this magic?
ENCROYABLE! Is that restaurant staffed by waiters, or SORCERERS? It’s the greatest towel-based show on Earth!
I don’t think it detracts too much from the towel-fun to explain that you can pack fabric down to very small volume when all the air is forced out of it: that’s the magic JML has been trading off for years, similarly those pellets you can buy at Muji that turn into a very wrinkly T-shirt.
That restaurant is very smart for choosing this towel showmanship, though: firstly, because it’s an impressive thing to do right before you hand somebody the bill; secondly, they can fit the entire evening’s towels in a shoebox; thirdly, it gives the diner the reassurance that their towel is virgin, freshly hatched in front of their eyes, never to have frotted the crevices of another curry fan.
The downside is, as you hint, the trail of death. Being suffocated by a towel you mistook for a Mint Imperial is not a noble exit from this plane.
You sure can read a lot into those curved wine bottle bottoms. After last week’s speculation upon their reason/purpose, Dan tells us:
I have a sommelier mate, and according to her the curve in the bottom of the bottle is to help keep sediment in the bottom of the bottle.
It certainly sounds plausible. Meanwhile, nobody has been in touch to refute my assertion that a flat bottle bottom is as reliable an indicator of a rubbish wine as a picture of a high heeled shoe on the label.
One question on last week’s episode struck a chord with Sam from Norfolk:
I am in almost exactly the same position as Matthew from the Wirral; I was with someone for 4 1/2 years, until she dumped me for another bloke in February of this year.
She was insistent that we stayed friends and so we gave it a go for a while. Although we have drifted apart over the last couple of months, I imagine that she may suggest meeting up, since we’ll both be at home for the festive period.
I am sorely tempted to ignore her to express my distaste for her actions but I don’t know if this is just acting childish and I should be able to be friends with her after 9 months.
I just wanted to show some solidarity with Matthew and perhaps gain some advice.
What more advice do you need, Sam, beyond Martin’s mum’s reverberating exhortation to “tell the drunken bitch where to go!”?
Unless you do feel genuinely friendly towards the infidel (and only friendly, with absolutely no traces of romantic yearning remaining), why bother? Meet up with some better friends over Christmas, ones who definitely didn’t want to be your friends just to assuage their guilt over ditching you for another chap.
Besides, all the successful ex-couples-who-are-now-friends of my acquaintance became so after a year or more of non-contact following the split; so if you really do want to be bezzie mates in the future, you’d do well this Christmas to barricade your door, screen your calls and do not listen to any Mud. Even though it is one of the best Christmas songs of all time.
this is a misprint, they meant 'pie'
AMT198‘s debate continues over what exactly qualifies a combination of carbohydrate and filling to be called ‘pie’. Robert from Bedford:
According to my old cookery teacher when I was 9-11 years old, a pie has a wet/moist filling and a pastry has a dry/non-runny filling.
I continue to be unenlightened. David complicates matters still further:
Just listened to your latest missive, and thought I would chip in with a definition of a pie. I fully agree with Rule 3 of the British Pie Awards:
“All Pies in all classes of the British Pie Awards must comply with being ‘a filling totally and wholly encased in pastry’. Entries which do not comply, e.g. lattice-topped, fruit-topped, potato-topped etc, will not be submitted for judging.”
I have nothing against Fish Pie or Shepherd’s “Pie” – tasty yes, Pie? No! Blackberry and Apple Crumble? Yum, Pie? No!
And don’t get me started on the standards imposed by the Cornish Pasty Association…
Oh, we won’t. We know that wars have been fought over the laws which govern Cornish Pasties.
ADDENDUM: when recording AMT200, Martin’s mum told us this interesting Pie Fact: that during the Second World War, fat was rationed so pie-lovers couldn’t make pastry. In its stead, they topped their pies with root vegetables, and in certain pies this habit stuck. Necessity is the mother of invention, as ever.
After last week’s discussion of dogs in church, listener Jennifer sent us a picture of the annual blessing of the animals at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in NYC on the feast of St Francis of Assisi:
And St Francis looks down from upon high and thinks, “Hmm…this wasn’t entirely what I expected.”
We weren’t the only people to be rather alarmed by last week‘s question from Chris about his armful of glass; Jim from Twickenham was too:
That question about NHS records and the guy with glass in his arms made me think that maybe you guys missed an important part.
I think it’s a real possibility that the questioner tried to slit his wrists and that was the real reason for the fake name and secrecy. I had a friend who actually did drunkenly cut up his arms by accident and got a real grilling from the doctors about suicide.
Good point, Jim, but fortunately your fears proved unfounded. How do I know? Because we also received the following email:
It’s Chris from episode 199. Thank you for answering my question. I will now go to my local GP and explain the situation without fear of punishment.
I thought you might like to know exactly how I smashed the glass into my arm:
Two of my friends were play fighting drunkenly and toppled over into a TV cabinet with glass doors. They smashed one of the doors.
He did not want his parents to notice the smashed door so we decided to even it out we would pull the other door off the cabinet. I volunteered to do this as I was sober and everyone else had been drinking.
I pulled the glass door off; it smashed into my arm. I then asked politely to use my friend’s bathroom as blood was spurting from my arm!
I know, I’m an idiot!
A noble idiot, Chris. Well done for trying to save your friend from parental fury (which I’m assuming didn’t work, as if there’s anything a parent notices than one missing glass cupboard door, it is two missing glass cupboard doors). Less well done on potentially incurring far greater parental fury directed towards yourself, and for causing yourself long-term physical damage; but as we all know, no good deed goes unpunished.
As we said in last week’s episode, we can’t condone cheating in Quasar; but if you INSIST upon cheating, you might as well not waste your time with inferior methods. Here follows an admonition from Henry:
In the latest podcast, Olly seemed to come to the conclusion that you could cheat at Quasar using a laser pointer. This is WRONG. Growing up as a nerdy kid in the early 90s, I can tell you that the lasers in lasertag games (yes, there is a blanket term and this is it) are JUST FOR SHOW.
The packs actually communicate on the infra-red (like VCR remote controls), meaning that you could cheat and give yourself an extra gun by smuggling in one of those universal remotes and programming it by shooting your gun at it while it’s in learning mode. Later, when such remotes were collapsed down into handy watch form by Casio, these could be deployed to similar, but more surreptitious effect.
Other popular (but lower-tech) cheats popular in the Coventry Laser Quest revolved around blocking up the sensors on your pack, either with black tape, chewing gum or a baggy hoodie (this being Coventry).
If, however, you do prefer to maintain your honour during laser games, Mark from Essex has some above-board tactics for you:
I am part of a group of friends that goes to Quasar every week (indeed, because we are that cool). Please pass along these tips to the questioneer if he wants to improve his game:
– Create a formation. Always have at people defending the base, people regularly storming the opposing team’s base and midfielders. The ratio should be about 3:2:1. Try to get almost everyone in a strategic place where they will not have to move much. You lose lots of points running around.
– Do not attack the opponent’s base while it is guarded. In most versions of Quasar, if you get shot 10 times or more while attacking a base, you have lost points. For this reason, never send more than 2 people in – if you send 5 people in and they each get shot twice, you have lost points.
– For the same reason, you should have lots of people defending – when the opponent storms the base, shoot them as many times as possible.
– Ensure your teammates do not stand too close together – the guns are infrared, not laser, and if two team members are standing next to each other, they will probably be shooting each other more than the opponent.
– Have an emergency signal for summoning team members for assistance. We use whistles.
So: stand very still, keep distant from your friends, and play a defensive game. Got it. But…it doesn’t actually sound FUN.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding. For all I know, Quasar might not in fact purport to be fun.
Quasar + Segways, however = indisputable fun
Don't do it! It's SUICIDE!
So you’re out playing a nice game of Fetch with your pet dog. Everything’s going brilliantly – your throwing arm is strong, its aim is true; the dog is showing unprecedented levels of agility and enthusiasm – until suddenly you realise that on your way out of the house, you accidentally picked up a Chocolate Orange instead of a tennis ball. (This is an all too common mistake in the run-up to Christmas.)
Knowing that chocolate is poisonous to dogs, you rush over to the hound, but it’s too late – the Chocolate Orange has already been bolted down and is heading rapidly for the canine colon. The dog swoons into a pile of rotting leaves, life already ebbing from its furry face. You crumple over its prone body, caterwauling to the God you don’t believe in, begging him/her/it to save your beloved pet.
God, of course, doesn’t answer, but fortunately AMTfan Alan does:
Yes, chocolate is poisonous for dogs but did you know by giving them a slice of bread, it counteracts it?
I did not know! Thankyou, Alan, for potentially saving the lives of dogs everywhere. I’ll never again embark upon Walkies without ensuring there’s a bap in my pocket, just in case.
Irish dancing has a defender, in the form of its newest fan Lesley from Forest Hill:
I just started taking Irish Dancing lessons. In my long 4 weeks’ experience, I can confidently say that there are no arm movements because the foot part is so complicated, your brain would explode if they tried to add anything more.
Incidentally, Irish Dancing is amazing fun. I’m completely allergic to all forms of exercise, but this class makes me actually willing to be all sweaty!
It’s true; whenever I’ve been to ceilidhs, they’ve been far funner than aerobics classes, and about 20 times more taxing. Seriously, I was worried that my friend Tom’s heart was going to burst in the middle of a 60th birthday ceilidh. Yet oddly, all the octogenarians present were hopping around as unflushed as daisies. What’s their secret?
Chris from Cardiff, Australia has also written in to stick up for the underdog:
I just thought I’d say that Canberra is actually quite a nice place to go to – as long as you have an interest in politics or museums. There are tons of great museums and exhibition buildings. As a person whose childhood holidays were either (a) camping in the rain, or (b) museum-hopping, Canberra is an veritable haven of enjoyment.
Canberra hosts “Questacon” (an amazing interactive science museum), the High Court (where you can sit in on hearings), parliament house (‘where your federal MP will be happy to give you a tour’), the mint, the Australia Museum, the War Memorial (which has some amazing exhibitions), the Federal Police Museum, and a heap of other interesting and cool things.
If, however, your idea of a good holiday is sitting on the beach or getting blotto, then Canberra is not the place for you.
I shun beaches and blottificaiton, so maybe Canberra IS the holiday for me! I’m booking my tickets pronto.
This medical circumcision business seems endless [pun intended]. Let’s rattle through the emails we’ve received on the matter, and if you have any further suggestions for people who are anticipating or recovering from the snip, add them in the comments.
We’ll kick off with a couple of ideas for explaining away your post-operative crotchpain, the first from Mike:
Just say you had a hernia op on your groin, very common amongst men and produces a similar limp, make sure to do a quick search on hernias in case of any awkward questions though.
If you are disinclined to lie, heed the advice from Adam:
I had a medical circumcision too, but I was 3 at the time so it wasn’t much of a problem with telling friends. All I remember is not being able to pee, so I had to go to hospital to have it removed.
But if I’m ever discussing with my friends about who’s been in hospital and for what, then I say that I’ve become an honorary Jew or anatomically Jewish. They normally understand what I mean without actually saying what I had done.
Readers, it sounds like Alasdair here needs your comfort and reassurance:
Does it hurt when you get a circumcision? And I heard that you can’t masturbate after it. It would be great if you answered this because I don’t want to ask anyone else.
Maybe you don’t even need to have one, Alasdair – Mark has possible alternatives:
Circumcision isn’t always needed for a tight foreskin. There is a support group called Norm (www.norm-uk.org) that advises on alternatives, such as stretching, or even a frenuloplasty – which is a cutting of the band that often restricts the foreskin from retracting. This keeps the foreskin intact, but relieves the tightness.
I’ve got a friend who wasn’t able to retract his foreskin until he was in his 30s – but after using some of the stretching advice on the website he was able to do so.
I’ve now stretched my foreskin-related attention span to its limit, but if your interest is piqued, I recommend you read Talking Cock
Last week, when Chris from Dundee was wondering how to divert attention from his post-circumcision limp, we invited you to recount how you’d fibbed away your ailments. Says Vikki:
You asked listeners how they have explained their ailment. When I was 16 I had to use a wheelchair for long distances due to neurological condition M.E. Most accepted this but some did not, so I would go on to explain I drink too much and need a wheelchair to get home after a night out. I stuck a sign on the back of my wheelchair saying “I’m not disabled, I just drink too much” – sadly I forgot to remove this sign when attending the ChildLine awards!
Anything to brighten the mood at the ChildLine awards, right? I’ve never been, but I’m imagining the evening is light on jokes.
On a not-jokey note, readers, Vikki runs a charity called Post Pals, which seeks people to write emails and cards to ill kids. So head over to her website, then uncap that fountain pen and commence correspondence. Although please remember to keep it cleaner than the correspondence you send to us. Ahem.
