Episode 194 requires a visual aid, to illustrate Andrew from Southampton‘s rejoinder regarding Lego. He argues convincingly against Will from Haddenham’s assertion in AMT193 that Lego’s for the kiddies, and presents us with photographic evidence of his own Lego creation in action:
Well he’s definitely won me over to the dark side.
Luckily for us all, James from Oxford has spent much of the past two decades in deep cover, just to provide the inside scoop following last week’s question concerning I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter:
I used to work with Unilever in the mid 90s on various projects, including the development of their delicious-sounding ‘yellow fats’ strategy for Asia.
Ever fond of an acronym, ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ was shortened to ICBINB within the company. My team had to regularly feign excitement about the prospects for ICBINB and other yellow fats.
Eventually as our fake excitement for fake butter wore thin we further shortened the name internally to FMIM, or ‘Fuck Me It’s Marg’.
This small act of childish subversion somehow gave us the morale boost necessary to soldier on with our meaningless lives.
Meaningless? You brought yellow fats to Asia! A continent that didn’t even know it needed them! Hold your head high, conquering hero.
Insubordination in the AMT ranks! Dave from Bournemouth has the gall to cast aspersions upon our unerring advice:
I just listened to this week’s podcast and thought your answers to the contact lens question were rubbish!
What the person needs to do is get glow-in-the-dark paint and write “Take out lenses” in tiny letters on the ceiling above her bed. She’ll only be able to read the note with the lenses in, and no-one else will know (unless she gets lucky with someone who has 20/20 vision).
[Slow handclaps] Bravo, Dave! Of COURSE Harriet from Oxford will read the TINY letters several feet away on her ceiling, an INFALLIBLE plan especially when she passes out FACE DOWN after a night on the lash. (From her email we did infer quite a lot about her dissolute lifestyle.)
I don’t know if Josh from Bournemouth‘s suggestion would be any more effective, but I do like his style:
I too like Harriet wear contact lenses. For the first few months I was always forgetting to take my lenses out and so I made a poster full of insults and stuck it to the roof above my bed.
This meant that when ever I went to bed and could read the insults calling me a variety of horrible things, I knew I had to take my lenses out, but if I had already taken them out I was blessed with the ignorance of being able to stare at my ceiling and not be called a cunt that night.
It’s a shock tactic, with the additional bonus of providing a conversation point should Josh ever bring a Special Friend home for a sleepover.
Holy water’s not looking all that holy to me any more, since Anthony from Dublin sent in this photo taken in a central Dublin church:
It's exactly what God wanted.
Karl is helping clear up some matters left over from last week:
According to this (a map accompanies it), in the original series of Oz books written by L. Frank Baum the red brick road goes to the Quadling Country in Oz. Red is the Quadlings’ state colour.
In his books, the Land of Oz was divided into four quadrants and each was designated a particular colour: Winkie Country = Yellow, Gillikin Country = Purple, Munchkin Country = Blue, and Quadling Country = Red. Glinda the Good was the ruler of the Quadlings in L. Frank Baum’s Oz series. As her bubble floats away from Munchkinland in the 1939 film, it appears to be following the red brick road. Therefore, the red brick road most likely leads back to her homeland, Quadling Country.
But it’s not a green road leading to the Emerald City – although I suppose the Yellow Brick Road could be passing right through Emerald City on its way to Winkie County. Emerald City really would benefit from a ring road. Anyway, Jamie in Switzerland casts doubt upon the likelihood of the red brick road fetching up anywhere:
As The Wizard of Oz was one big dream sequence, surely the red brick road didn’t go anywhere, as the end of it was never dreamt about by Dorothy.
IT’S A DREAM? I thought it was a documentary! Time to reevaluate my expectations of Australia.
Oh frabjous day, calloo callay! Glad tidings come from Rikki from Dunfermline:
On episode 173 you mentioned Homebase was out of Easter Island heads.
Thought I’d give you the heads up that we have them in stock now. Enjoy.
Praise Jesus, Buddha, Xenu and all the Middletons!
These would look great next to my recycling bins
You surely remember young Owl City fan Rachel from Dudley from AMT186:
Just wanted to say that the Owl City gig was incredible and we had a fantastic time! We managed to get on the front row through going down the side, so thank you for the advice. We also threw the owl and it landed next to Adam, but he didn’t pick it up.
Sidenote: Owl City fans are called the ‘Hoot Owls’.
Useful to know, in the event that someday I become one.
** Click here for Episode 190 **
Ben from Southampton has done the research that we couldn’t do in the fields of Wales the other week:
I just listened to episode 189 where the provenance of Ferris wheels came up. You’re right that they were named after a Mr Ferris but here are some further details, as learned from the brilliant book The Devil In The White City
The Chicago World Exposition at the end of the 1800s was tasked with outdoing the previous one in Paris where the Eiffel Tower was unveiled. A contest was held for the centrepiece of the fair and while many people submitted designs for towers, Daniel Burnham, architect and director of the fair, wanted something different so as not to be seen as copying Paris. The Ferris wheel was the design he picked from the competition entries.
It’s a brilliant book following two concurrent stories – one, Burnham’s impossible task of building the amazing Exposition against seemingly impossible obstacles, and the other being the story of HH Holmes, America’s first known/documented modern psychopath who is alleged to have used the Expo as a cover for killing hundreds of young women (I think it can only be proven that he killed somewhere in the teens but there’s reason to believe it was many, many more).
I highly recommend the book if you are into either the macabre or architecture.
It sounds like a treat! I’m looking for books to read during our month off; readers, please make your recommendations in the comments. They don’t need to be about the macabre or architecture, although I do imagine these to be common enthusiasms amongst you.
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** Click here for Episode 190 **
This week received approximately 10,000 variations upon the following email:
Have you seen these new NASA pictures of the moon landing site?
They make a mockery of what you said in AMT177!!!!1!!11zomg!!
To which we say: a) yes, thankyou; b) no they bloody well don’t! To recap, we answered the following question from Richard from Dronfield:
In a world where we have amazing powerful telescopes and imaging technology that can see clearly to far corners of our universe and spy out evidence of potential life in far of galaxies, how come nobody has ever produced a half decent photograph of the moon landing sites from Earth, pointed out that we blatantly have left our junk on the moon and then waved this smoking gun evidence it in the faces of all the annoyingly persistent moon landing Conspiracy Monkeys.
You see what he says there, in that question that we answered as it was asked? ‘From Earth’. FROM EARTH. Not from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter a mere 13 miles from the moon’s surface, which gives it an advantage of approximately 221,450 miles. So you can shut your jeering taunting faces, or we will come round to your house (or workplace) and shove the Hubble telescope into YOUR lunar module.
And even when/if someone does manufacture an earthbound telescope good enough to see every crumb of soil in the imprint of Neil Armstrong’s moonboot, it still won’t disabuse those ‘Conspiracy Monkeys’ of their irrefutable notions. Even if you went to the trouble of taking them all the way to the moon on a flight simulator followed by a fake moon set in a disused TV studio, you’ll never convince them that the Apollo missions went anywhere near the Magic Space-Plate, especially not in the face of the overwhelming evidence that it’s just a large round billboard propped up near the flat earth’s rim.
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** Click here for Episode 190 **
Last week our special guest Jon Ronson couldn’t hide his revulsion at the idea of having to perform a solo trumpet recital at school, although he did also acknowledge that our anonymous trumpet whiz was obligated to go ahead with it. Aidan from Bedford has the following advice for the girl to minimise the pain that he believes will be suffered by all concerned:
She could say to her head of year that she will do it, but the piece of music should be something fun like the James Bond theme tune or the Wallace and Gromit theme.
Hmm, I’m not convinced – that could be even more mortifying, no? Anyway, Luca presents the counter-argument:
I think she should do it, without any shame!
I passed grade 8 piano when I was fourteen and my headmaster also thought this was mind-blowing so he asked me to play this piece for the whole school.
I too thought my life would be over; then afterwards, a lot of boys (it was an all-boys school) came up to me and congratulated me and admitted that they were sort of impressed, even the “rough” ones.
So I don’t think she should just assume that everyone will hate it! Surely there are people who will enjoy it, and it’s a fun experience.
GOOD LUCK TRUMPET GIRL!
The #GOODLUCKTRUMPETGIRL hashtag starts here!
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** Click here for Episode 189 **
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.
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** Click here for Episode 188 **
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…)
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