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Toot your horn, Trumpet Girl!

September 7, 2011

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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giddy up, stripy horse!

August 29, 2011

** 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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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine | 1 Comment »

Pachidermy Taxidermy

August 23, 2011

** 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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Glad Hannah came

August 23, 2011

** Click here for Episode 188 **

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!

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, videos | 2 Comments »

Winning, websites and the Wanted

August 23, 2011

** Click here for Episode 188 **

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.

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cabin bed is now open for business

August 9, 2011

** Click here for Episode 186 **

Oh, last week’s episode, dispatch from a more innocent time, a time when our greatest problem was what to do with the space under a cabin bed… Let’s return to that carefree world for just a moment, with this response from Hannah:

I had a Cabin bed for a while from IKEA. It barely fit in the room.

I was 11 at the time so used the space as a stage for plays my friends and I put on or little musical performances.

I also had some shelves under this bed which were laden with videos. I had also just discovered the joy of spreadsheets and Excel (yes, I know I’m strange) so I spent an afternoon labelling all the videos with special codes and then running a video rental store for my family and friends. I would use a spreadsheet to document when videos were out and in. I still have some little special membership cards and seem to remember that I made quite a few quid from running this little bedroom store.

Awww, young Hannah was almost as nerdy as this kid! Readers, were any of the rest of you running small businesses out of your childhood bedrooms? I’m prepared to bet that some of you could even have given Olly ‘Dragon’s Den Junior’ Mann a run for his money.

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“We all want some figgy pudding, we all want some figgy pudding, we all want some – arrrrrrrghhhhh!”

August 3, 2011

** Click here for Episode 185 **

I’m not a fan of either figs or wasps, but even if I were, this email from Andy from Birkenhead would make me consider changing my alliance to prunes and hornets:

I’ve just listened to Episode 185 and the bit about Martin having a vegan friend who wouldn’t eat figs. You mentioned that it seemed daft not eating figs just because a wasp may have laid its eggs in it.

But according to my friend Lindsey, wasps and figs have a symbiotic co-evolutionary relationship – a particular type of wasp (the fig wasp) burrows its way inside a young fig, pollinates it, lays loads of eggs then dies inside the fig. The fig then consumes the nutrients from the dead wasp. Later on the eggs hatch and lots of the baby wasps die, but a few burrow out to go on and live happy waspy lives. See here for a fig giving birth to wasps:

The fig gets pollinated and a juicy waspy snack, and in return the wasp gets somewhere safe to lay her eggs.

But this means that the characteristic crunchiness of figs is partly due to seeds, and partly due to the crunchy decomposing corpses of wasps.

And I guess if you munch your merry way into a fig just before it’s due to ‘give birth’, you’re in for quite a surprise as your mouth fills with scores of baby wasps.

Needless to say, I no longer buy fig rolls.

You might buy them if they were advertised as ‘Fig rolls – fortified with wasp protein! FREE WASPS in every pack!’ It’s really just a matter of marketing.

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Tags:figs, veganism, wasps, yuk
Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine | 2 Comments »

verticals schmerticals

July 20, 2011

** Click here for Episode 183 **

In AMT183, my brother tried to translate the businesspeak term ‘verticals’ into a recognisable concept, yet my argot-lite brain refused to compute. Thankfully I now have pictoral aids from Chris from Cardiff, Australia:

Based on my rudimentary knowledge of business jargon (from Year 12 Business Studies), my understanding of “verticals” is thus:

A “vertical” is, much like Martin and Olly suggested, a broad term for the different “genres” of businesses in the marketplace. I think one of the easiest ways to explain vertical and horizontal businesses is using a graphical analogy for wheat.

In the diagram, the vertical lines represent some of the different commercial functions of wheat. Each dot on the line represents a different point in the process between the raw material and the finished product. The processing business (marked with the red line) is able to sell its services horizontally to the different lines of use, thus expanding its market potential. The processing needed for wheat to become suitable for bread (pre-milling) is marginally different to the processing for wheat to be suitable for use in a distillery, so the business can expand over multiple markets.

Much of the time, a big business in the main markets will buy out the businesses or facilities which perform the different tasks on the vertical axis, this is called vertical integration.

So, in short, “verticals” are the general markets which a business can sell its services to.

Thanks, Chris. I will try to work the term into a sentence today.

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And they all lived happily ever after

July 19, 2011

** Click here for Episode 183 **

I am most impressed by the solution James in Nottingham came up with to his own problem:

This is in response to my question last week about what I should do about this online paramour coming to visit me. Well I actually like this guy and he is a bit fragile so I didn’t want to disown him, so I resigned myself to give man up and give him a blow job as Olly suggested (actually I think Olly suggested a handjob – but does anyone who has actually had sex like a handjob? why not just wank yourself?).

However, on the night I had instead arranged a far more attractive mate of mine to constantly hit on this guy at the pub. After a few drinks, my visiting friend succumbed and kissed my mate; I acted highly offended and stormed off in a huff. The next day I met up with my visiting friend and said I was highly offended by his actions the night before and it was obvious that he was just looking for a quick shag whereas I was looking for a relationship (I’m not). He agreed and we parted on good terms and he had the ego boost of having my attractive friend hit on him.

Now I was quite please at how things had turned out: I managed to not sleep with someone I don’t fancy and he left with his ego increased and not hurt. But some of my friends think I should be ashamed of myself for my Machiavellian manipulations. Have I broken some moral code or should I congratulate myself for a job well done?

It looks like you manufactured a win for you AND a win for your visiting friend, so that’s certainly a job well done. You did, however, force your attractive friend to prostitute himself, which does present a moral conundrum for you and him. Readers, let us know what you think – and also if you’ve ever come up with as cunning a method as this to let someone down gently.

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, User-generated answers | 5 Comments »

pocket bombs

July 14, 2011

** Click here for Episode 182 **

Nige from Sohar, Oman has some feedback on last week’s episode:

Pockets being sewn up dates back to the IRA planting small incendiary devices in Oxford Street in the ’80s.

Now I’m no bomb scholar, but I’m going to hazard a guess that this is a little nugget of Horseshit History. Firstly, because I suspect the pocket-sewing practice is older than that; secondly, because by extension of that logic, clothing emporiums would also have had to sew up every shoe, sock, trouser-leg, Speedo and shirt cuff, glue down every pile of T-shirts, and seal all manbags in protective concrete shells. It would have been easier to shut up shop completely.

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine | 1 Comment »

Nesquik – now available in pus flavour

July 6, 2011

** Click here for Episode 181 **

Craig from Louisville, Kentucky has some feedback which sounds like bollo to me:

US Sailors’ asymmetric ear-piercing is determined by which ocean they are deployed from. Left ear Atlantic, right ear Pacific. The right ear being for gays is due to US east coast bias that gays come from California.

Of course, there’s not a single gay on the east coast. Not in New York, Fire Island, Cape Cod, no!

Mark in Portland, Oregon also writes to us concerning something which sounds like bullshit (and in this case looks a bit like it too):

Recently a conversation came up about chocolate milk and a couple of my friends told me that chocolate milk is the pus and blood-tainted milk which is then covered up with the chocolatey color and smell so we don’t know it is, well, pus and blood. I half believe them and half hope that this is either no longer the case or simply myth. Please, for the sake of children everywhere, let us know!

I’d heard that most intensively-produced milk contains a few shots of pus, but now I’ll start looking out for a delicate pinkish tinge as well. If any of you readers work in the chocolate milk industry – or, better yet, are disgruntled former employees of the chocolate milk industry with an axe to grind – go to the comments to tell Mark whether or not he’s drinking pus and blood. Frankly a glass of that doesn’t sound much worse than flavoured milk to me.

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jar of hair. JAR. OF. HAIR.

June 29, 2011

** Click here for Episode 180 **

Aww, Team AMT has its own little late-period Howard Hughes! Molly from London writes:

In episode 157, you discussed what one could with spare hair. One of the options given was to send of the a charity that used it for cleaning up oil spills. Having long, thick hair that is prone to shedding, I began to collect it in an old, clean, Nutella jar.

When people I know heard this, they tended to react negatively, and my boyfriend wouldn’t stay over in my room. However, I was righteous, and knew that I could take a little mockery if it meant that the people and animals suffering because of oil spills could be helped in a small way by me.

The jar was getting very full, and starting to become reminiscent of the exhibition I saw at Auschwitz, of all the Jewish hair the Nazis had collected for clothing, so I decided to send it off to the charity. However, when I looked it up, I found that they were no longer collecting hair!

Noooooo! But let’s not allow that lovely jar of hair go to waste. Anyone here want it? Perhaps you’ve got a small oil-spill in the kitchen that needs taking care of; or you’re in need of a witch jar.

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