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reclaim the name

March 22, 2011

Here’s a question from Adam in London, who does not want to be mistaken for all you other Adams from London. He says:

In episode 170 you talked about the other Martin Austwick that came up on Helen’s Twitter suggest list. This got me thinking about my name and other people with it.

My name is Adam Clifford. Unfortunately I share my name with a goofy looking American gay porn star. If you go to adamclifford.com (DON’T!) there he is in all his… Erm… Splendid glory. He also ‘proudly’ comes up on Google image searches for my name.

So, answer me this!

1) Is there anything I can do to get my name back for me from him or Google? If it was a Hollywood star then I wouldn’t mind, but a PORN STAR?! Obviously I’m worried about a potential employer googling me and being faced with this monstrosity, not giving me the job of my dreams or reporting me to the police. What can I do?

2) Why, as a porn star, would you use your own name? I’m assuming it’s his real name, I can’t imagine anyone choosing a name as bland as mine for sexy things. Couldn’t he just choose another name?

In answer to your first question, Adam, you clearly need to do something that will get you even more Google-juice than a porn star. This may take a while, though, and depending upon your chosen method, might be even more damaging to your employment prospects.

Secondly, many male porn actors do seem to go by normal names. Perhaps, like them, Adam Clifford feels no shame about his profession; perhaps, like them, Adam Clifford does not, like the rest of us, relish the opportunity to take a name containing the word ‘Donkey’ or ending in ‘xxxx’; perhaps, like them, Adam Clifford couldn’t ‘just choose another name’ because he has absolutely no imagination. He is a non-stop boffing-machine and nothing else.

Therefore I suggest to you, Adam Clifford (the SFW Adam Clifford), that instead YOU change your name. You say yourself that it is bland; well, release yourself from the too-many-Adam-Cliffords problem by going for something a little jazzier, ideally which will also impress potential employers at the same time. Captain Briefcase might work.

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Tags:prawn
Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, extracurricular questions | 3 Comments »

Win a car!

March 16, 2011

** Click here for Episode 170 **

Well obviously we’re not giving away a car. But it looks like you people are more than capable of winning them elsewhere. Several of you have sent in stories, from which we can deduce the following common themes: 1. you nearly threw away the winning ticket; 2. you didn’t believe it anyway; 3. you couldn’t afford to keep the free car anyway.

Here are a couple of your tales of free cars. (more…)

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Private investigations

March 16, 2011

** Click here for Episode 170 **

Our next correspondent wishes to remain anonymous. And for good reason: because he’s only a bona fide PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR! So let’s call him Magnum, because we so rarely get the opportunity to call someone that:

Many Police Services utilise the skills of Private Investigation and research firms.

This is because (and I do not mean to criticise) most Detectives are not aware of the wealth of information available on-line both in the UK and internationally and they rely on their special powers (legislatively, not super-heroes!) to solve crimes.

My employers have assisted with intelligence to convict terrorists, paedophiles and a wealth of money laundering and financial crimes.

Additionally many large insurers, investors and mega national companies instruct us as investigators to gather evidence in order to pursue multi-million pound frauds etc perpetrated against them through the civil courts, as Police cannot or will not investigate such matters.

It sounds like Magnum here has a bit of a chip on his shoulder about the police. We like to think that at 6pm they all lay down truncheons and plastic disguises, and head out to a car park to settle their differences with a big dance battle.

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Write! Write! Write!

March 10, 2011

** Click here for Episode 169 **

Help is at hand for the aspiring author wife of questioneer Dave from Colorado from last week, stymied by her own lethargy. Lewis from Cardiff sympathises:

Much like Dave’s wife from episode 169 I have the same problem of tremendous procrastination. This caused me to have to learn an entire module for my Chemistry degree in just 2 days. However I did find something to help called the Magic Work Cycle.

Simply put, it’s a way of dividing every hour into 30 minutes of hard work and 30 minutes of goofing around, work solidly for just 30 minutes (which we’ll all agree isn’t a long period of time) then when the time is up you can do whatever you want for the next 30 minutes (I suggest an episode of South Park), repeat this for a few hours and you’ll be shocked how much gets done.

The promise of half an hour of relaxation helps keep you motivated through the 30 minutes of work, so motivated in fact that I got far more done in 30 minutes using this method than I have ever know myself to in a usual procrastination filled hour. I’m sure this method will help Dave’s wife as I am living proof that this works, in that modules exam I got a 2:1, narrowly missing a first.

Pat from Canada also recommends the following kick up the arse in book form:

I suggest that he get her a book called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

I read this book a couple of years ago as part of a course and found it to be both inspiring and comforting. It has a series of exercises and assignments that you complete each week and through this you identify where you are sabotaging yourself and you can have a lot a fun. I did with with a group of 10 women and couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter. Julia Cameron wrote this book about 25 years ago and many artists and celebrities have cited it as a great way to get your act together.

It’s true – I’ve even heard that Patsy Kensit uses it, and she’s a creative force to be reckoned with.

However I still think that Mrs Dave would be far more productive if she didn’t have the comforts of infinite time and financial support. Ringfence your money and force her to take a dead-end job, Dave, and she’ll be bound to use her few remaining spare hours far more productively.

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I want to go to there

March 7, 2011

** Click here for Episode 169 **

Sir Thomas More’s dreamland is real! Christine from Grand Prairie, Texas writes:

Helen asked if there was a town called Utopia. There is a town in Texas called Utopia which I did a project on in elementary school. Here’s the town website: www.utopiatexas.com

It’s not looking so utopian everywhere though, for instance in former anarchist community Utopia, Ohio. It’s not looking so sprightly there, which is not a great surprise when you try to imagine how well anarchists would handle the rigours of local government. Weekly bin collection? Dream on!

PS If anyone knows of a town called Dystopia, I sure would like to hear about it.

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false economy

March 7, 2011

** Click here for Episode 169 **

Hooray! For once we got something right, according to Paul:

I have an utterly useless qualification in fish biology and once spend 3 pointless weeks working for a goldfish producer. Your advice to the student who wanted to start his own fish finger farm was spot on for numerous practical reasons let alone the moral ones.

Firstly, the odds of finding both a male and female goldfish unless you are skilled in goldfish physiology are remote to say the very least. Plus the only way to sex them involves a complicated surgical procedure which the goldfish has almost no chance of surviving.

Even if you did find a pair, then they would never breed in a tank. Goldfish know when to get “horny” by the hours of daylight (this is called photoperiodism) and as their light is controlled by their owner, they would never even experience the goldfish equivalent of mild arousal. Plus they like shallow warm water with lots of plants to leave their eggs on to breed.

Finally, if by some kind of miracle they do manage “the dance of many fins”, then you would need to produce a supply of tiny crustaceans to feed their offspring. Plus you’d need to separate them from their parents so that they don’t succumb to that most disturbing of goldfish behaviour, cannibalism!

Bad news for you, James from Aberystwyth – your scheme will certainly not keep you in an endlessly renewed supply of fishfingers. Try offering yourself as a concubine to Captain Birdseye instead.

David Beckham's rich, he doesn't even need to grow his own

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famous Belgians

February 24, 2011

** Click here for Episode 167 **

Now whoever could have predicted that the topic of famous Belgians would get you so hot and bothered? Here are just a few of the slew of emails we’ve had about it. First up are Elodia & Julian:

We were both born and brought up in Belgium, and together with our fellow expats we’ve been defending the reputation of the country we call home for as long as we can remember. So here is a list of famous Belgians, to quell once for the misapprehension that “there are no famous Belgians”.

Hergé (author of the Tintin comic books)
Kim Clijsters (professional tennis player)
Simenon (writer, author of the Maigret novels)
Eddy Merckx (professional cyclist)
Jean-Claude Van Damme (actor)
Adolphe Sax (invented the saxophone)
Erasme (politician, active in the creation of the Belgian constitution)
Georges Lemaitre (proposed what became the big bang theory)
Magritte (artist)
Rubens (Flemish baroque painter)
Peyot (author of the Smurf comic books)
K’s choice (pop-rock band)
Hooverphonic (pop/rock band)
Vaya con Dios (latin band)
……..there are more……..

We hope this clears up any confusion as to the importance of our dear old waffle-land.

Despite that valiant effort (which does ignore the rule imposed by my mean schoolteacher, who specified no sports players), this email from Chick from Leeds shows even Belgians don’t necessarily have great faith in their homeland’s position in the celebrity galaxy:

I remember when I was about 10 we were in a restaurant in Belgium, and we asked our Belgian waiter to name ten famous Belgians. Off the top of his head he got about four – Jean Claude Van Damme, Hergé, former footballer Giles de Bilde, and the King of Belgium(!) – before pondering for a moment and walking off saying ‘I’ll phone my mother’.

He’s a long way from Belgium, but Steve from Oakland, California still has nominees:

Aside from the Belgian Waffle I thought of three famous Belgians right away:

– Epic mass-murderer Leopold II
– Epic depictor-of-mostly-exposed-buttocks Peter Paul Rubens
– Epic kicker-of-faces Jean-Claude Van Damme.

So, it looks like the consensus nominates Van Damme and Hergé as the most famous Belgians, unlikely equals that they are. If you’re still in doubt, however, you may like to peruse this site that Michael from Brisbane kindly brought to our attention: famousbelgians.net. But take note that in their top 10 they include the not-Belgian Audrey Hepburn and the inventor of Bakelite. That’s all I’m saying.

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine | 3 Comments »

bovine glory holes

February 23, 2011

** Click here for Episode 167 **

History Corner now, which for reasons of economy this week will be combined with Bawdy Corner. Shaun from Canton, Massachusetts writes:

You recently requested examples of historical glory holes. I would suggest the hole in Pasiphaë’s hollow wooden bull through which she mated with a bull, producing the Minotaur.

Though the incident is mythological, it suggests that the concept would have been known to the Ancient Greeks, though they don’t seem to have properly worked out how best to use such powerful sexual technology.

How do you know, Shaun? For all we can tell, finding the wherewithal by which to allow humans to mate with unwitting bulls might have been the pinnacle of Grecian sexual ambition. Perhaps it is in fact we moderners who are missing out on the zenith of erotic joy.

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Wherefore art thou Wally?

February 23, 2011

Look, he's right there!

** Click here for Episode 167 **

You know how much we love getting feedback from the horse’s mouth, and in this case, we equally love getting feedback from the horse’s nephew’s mouth. Behold the following email from Marc:

I was explaining to my aunt your explanation about why Where’s Wally? is called Where’s Waldo? in the US, as she used to work in children’s publishing (for the company who published Where’s Wally?), and she is friends with Martin Handford. She got quite cross – but then she’s a bit mental and tends to get cross about most things – like errant apostrophes and men with obvious haircuts.

I’m afraid you got the Where’s Wally? thing wrong on both counts.

Martin Handford didn’t name the book. He was an illustrator who liked doing complex crowd scenes. A writer friend of his suggested that he do a kind of puzzle book in which you have to find a character in the crowd scene. So he drew this hapless stripy geeky bloke. An editor at Walker Books gave him the name Wally – because it was a word in popular usage at the time.

When they sold the rights to the US, the American publishers were worried about copyright infringement because there was already a children’s book called Where’s Wallace?. Waldo seemed like a good alternative. No focus groups were involved. Publishing, especially children’s book publishing, in the 1980s was not that advanced.

So hope that clears things up. We used to get hand drawn Christmas cards from Martin Handford back in the 80s – to be honest I always used to hate the Wally books though. We had all of them. Plus all the merchandise – such as it was. All shit. Much preferred TinTin and Asterix books.

OUCH. I hope Martin Handford is not reading this.

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bouncy roulette

February 22, 2011

** Click here for Episode 167 **

The following email from Alan in Glasgow made my day, and possibly also my week, month and, dammit, year:

Hello! I’ve just been catching up on some of the last few podcasts and came across the Bouncy Roulette mention.

I can happily say this does exist, although it works more with the player sitting atop a spinning circular board then falling off onto a corresponding number.

Below is a picture of a slightly bemused bouncy roulette operator in a room that looks far too small for such an activity. The twat in the suit is myself.

‘Twat in the suit’? Alan, you are the king of kings!

And now I know what we’re going to be doing with the spare room.

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friendly fiddle

February 22, 2011

** Click here for Episode 167 **

Here’s some feedback from unimpeachably chivalrous Luke from Stockport:

In response to the ‘nude-pictures-of-a-friend’ topic in episode 167:

My best female friends sent pictures of them in underwear to their boyfriends, and I decided to be trusting and didn’t look at it, even when it was shoved in my face by everybody who had it on their phones due to the boyfriends being dickheads.

To advise you, this had no benefits, they didn’t give a shit, so bonk off to the pictures before your friend finds them and tells you to delete them.

It’s like that adage, ‘regret the things you did do, not the things you didn’t’, isn’t it? Or is it like that adage, ‘keep your friends close, but not close enough to beat off over them’? It’s so hard to pick the right adage in a sticky situation.

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trying for a baby – the sexy way!

February 17, 2011

** Click here for Episode 166 **

No way! Someone’s taken exception to sex advice from Olly Mann? Meredith from Framingham, Massachusetts tells him to shove his conception advice right back up into his man-womb:

I am writing because, respectfully, I thought that Olly’s advice to the lady calling in about her and her husband’s problems keeping sex sexy while trying for a baby was very off base.

When it came time for my husband and me to toss the pills and start our family, it took a couple of months to conceive and the process became very, very un-sexy. It was hard to get the end-game out of our minds. We had been programed so long to avoid pregnancy it took some doing to get over that.

What we discovered that we needed wasn’t to make the process more mechanized and route, but rather, more adventuresome and novel. Our solution: we went away together someplace romantic for a weekend, and had a very nice time in and out of the bedroom without thinking of the same old, same old things. This romantic weekend left us both reinvigorated, and while we didn’t conceive that weekend (which was not the point anyway) we did refocus our sex life on fun and removed the
stress and pressure from the situation. This enabled us to continue the sexy vibe upon returning home, and about eleven months later, our son Jackson was born.

My advice to the caller would be to take her partner someplace fun they haven’t been before for a long weekend, someplace with particularly comfortable beds and room service and to not even say the word “baby” the entire time…and see what might occur!

Egad, I officially know too much about the sex life of strangers now.

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