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surprise celebs

February 18, 2015

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Nathan from Manchester has written to share his various brushes with fame:

Back in 2001 I worked in a Levi’s store in central Manchester. Often celebrities would come in to buy overpriced jeans so I served Hollyoaks and Corrie actors, premiership footballers and even the drummer from Oasis. But I didn’t recognise any of them. It became a bit of a running joke with my colleagues as I would serve someone, then they would give me clues so I could work out who I had just talked to.

The one exception was Ainsley Harriott who was unmistakable, mostly because of his size. I had seen him on TV but was still surprised with how big he was. (He said Levi’s was the only place he could buy non-custom jeans from.) I got him some huge jeans and he also tried on some imported Levi shoes from America but even the one size 12 pair we had were too small for him.

Anyway, answer me this: have you ever interacted with a celeb or star without realising it at the time? And how did you find out about it afterwards?

I have, Nathan – also when I worked in a shop, in this case Hall’s Bookshop in my home town of Tunbridge Wells. One morning in the late 90s, I sold two old French paperbacks to a man who seemed quite tipsy even at that early hour, and refused to to take his 20p change. Then after he left, another customer rushed in to ask which books Tom Baker had bought. Having been too unborn/young to see him play Doctor Who from 1974 to 1981, I was oblivious.

(I just had a look on the new Hall’s website, and it appears Tom Baker is still frequenting the place!)

Readers, go to the comments to boast of your unwitting celebrity interactions.

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Marital Munters

February 16, 2015

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Mark has something to say about an AMT from the very distant past:

I’ve bought the first two batches of back episodes and been working my way though them.

I had to email when I came across Munters in episode 16. While my wife Michelle turned up to our wedding in the fancy car, I arrived in my friend’s Munters Van!

Wedding-66-1954x1308
unnamed

Aah, love is beautiful! And not munting.

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chicken and egg

January 20, 2015

fea2-chicken-and-egg1

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Chicken and egg recipes keep rolling in. Robbie from Santa Barbara, California says:

I read about a Moroccan dish, which I can’t wait to try…it sounds delicious! Two ingredients in pastilla, sometimes called bastilla, are chicken and eggs, each being the main ingredient in one of the layers of this complex dish. Here’s a recipe.

Henrik writes:

Since AMT305, I’ve had a think about dishes with chicken and eggs on them, and in the Philippines we have at least one: chicken galantina, which is essentially stuffed whole chicken, with a hard boiled egg inside. And some versions of our adobo (a quintessential Filipino dish where meat is cooked in vinegar, garlic, peppers and soy sauce) has some hard boiled eggs in it. But then I had one more thought: what about dishes that have chicken and eggs that are not from chickens? Like quail egg. I’ve seen dishes with chicken and quail egg. Does it make things less morbid?

Good question, Henrik. I maintain that poultry doesn’t really go with eggs, texturally or flavourwise; but if you’re eggsperimenting, why not venture further afield? Say a dish of chicken and dinosaur egg? What do you reckon? Come on readers, I know at least one of you has tried it…

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tea and cock-fee

January 6, 2015

MadHatter_Tea_Party

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Here’s a question from Lou:

I was listening to your podcast and Olly mentioned that he had had afternoon tea – a treat he clearly enjoyed.

I love afternoon tea but my husband just doesn’t get it. He has said that next time I want to go I should take a friend instead, but I want to share the experience with him! How can I help him to ‘get’ how amazing afternoon tea is so we can keep on sharing the experience?

Thanks very much for your help – this is a very pressing problem in our relationship as you can no doubt tell!

The three of us all are afternoon tea fans, and obviously, Lou, we are all strongly on YOUR side. Your husband is lucky you’re standing by him, despite this absolute perversion of his. Such a monster doesn’t DESERVE afternoon tea. You could try showing him the saga of Olly’s conversion to tea in this video we made. Or perhaps you could jazz up his hot beverages with this tip from listener Chris:

In your Best Of, Martin commented about how he’d buy a breakfast with a dick’n’balls drawn in tomato sauce.

I live in Melbourne and sometimes Courtenay from Cup of Truth will draw me a dick’n’balls in my morning coffee:

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phantom pheedback

December 8, 2014

Point-of-no-Return-alws-phantom-of-the-opera-movie-1646888-476-254

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Opinions are flooding in regarding Jenny from Vancouver’s question in AMT303 regarding whether the Phantom of the Opera phornicates with Christine.

Simon says:

Phantom of the Opera makes it clear that the Phantom did not sleep with Christine. When in the lair at the end of the musical, Christine asks him outright if he is (finally) going to rape her.

“Have you gouged yourself at last in your lust for blood?
Am I now to be prey to your lust for flesh?”

The lady doth protest to much methinks.

He answers,

“This fate this requires me to wallow in blood,
Has also denied me the joys of the flesh.”

So they’ve never had sex, he’s a virgin, and he’s impotent.

The less said about Love Never Dies the better….

Too bad for you, Simon, that Calico has written about precisely that subject:

In Love Never Dies (it is exactly as shit as you would assume), the whole thing of Christine and the Phantom having sex actually takes place after the end of the first musical. This is the same in the novel the musical is based on (yes, it’s a book. A terrible fucking book by Fredrick Forsyth).

Music of the Night is just about singing, I’d say the rape connotations don’t really hold as the last song basically has the Phantom say he is a virgin (“This face that condemned me to wallow in blood, has also denied me the joys of the flesh.”).

It’s also obvious in the book he doesn’t rape her because Erik’s (the Phantom) end speech to the Daroga (the melted troll doll dropped him from the naff musical) has him state that Christine kissed him on the forehead and it’s his first kiss and the only true touch of intimacy he ever had.

Thanks, literary detectives. I’m relieved to discover that non-consensual sex probably did not take place. But I’m the opposite of relieved to discover you lot spend so much time thinking about the Phantom’s phallus.

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Paperboy and paperman

November 26, 2014

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Following the discussion of paper round ageism in AMT302, Marina from London writes:

I am 26 and have never had a paper round, however I have just been for lunch with my boyfriend and his mum and her friend. The friend is in his eighties, and does a paper round every morning.

He was telling us about his paper round at lunch, and how the most popular paper on his round is The Telegraph. I asked him if he walked or cycled, and he replied, he drives! He drives about 30 miles every morning, delivering papers to lots of different villages, which takes him about an hour and a half.

He told us that he doesn’t get paid for doing this, some of his customers don’t even tip him, but the shop he delivers the papers for does cover his petrol. He says that the petrol expenses are enough to cover all his petrol, not just the paper round, and that’s the only reason he does it.

His payment is petrol! Very smart, especially if he’s charging them for the spare barrel he keeps in his car boot.

Here’s more paperboy correspondence from Ian in Cambridge:

You probably have way too many emails about this because there’s nothing nerds like more than someone being wrong on the Internet, but Paperboy wasn’t the first video game developed in the United States. It was the first game developed in the United States for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but there had been a number of video games developed in the USA long before the NES was invented.

Depending on how you define “video game”, the first one developed in the United States was either Tennis For Two (created in 1958 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory), Spacewar (Developed in 1962 at MIT) or the games of the first commercial home console, the Magnavox Odyssey (developed in 1972 by Ralph Baer). The first game for the Odyssey was Table Tennis.

This is way more information than you needed or asked for, but at least now it’s over.

This may be the most polite AND informative correction we have ever received. Thank you, Ian.

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Hooters hooters

November 25, 2014
Physically diverse Hooters staff

Physically diverse Hooters staff

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We love it when you listeners give us a peek behind the tight T-shirt curtain of your varied and interesting jobs, and following AMT301,
A Respectable Probate Attorney has been in touch – and not about probate:

As a probate attorney I would prefer to remain anonymous, but I’m happy to clarify that NO there is not a cup size requirement to be hired by Hooters.

However, there was an ass size requirement in 1999. On my first day of work I was asked what size shorts I wanted to wear; and when I asked for a size medium the manager gave me a size XXS. The short sizes available to servers were XS, XXS, and XXXS. One of the waitresses was able to get formal permission from Hooters Headquarters to wear a size small. The reason being that she was in college to become a certified public accountant and needed to dress more conservatively (less cheek showing).

To back what Olly said, Hooters servers do have to be charming. We were expected to wear our makeup and hair “like we were going to senior prom.” I would say it’s all harmless flirtation; we were never expected to dance or entertain for tips. If someone made advances, he’d be tossed out.

It’s also worth mentioning that in 1999 there was no policy that bathroom masturbators had to leave. The manager caught one of my customers in the bathroom and I still had to politely wait until he finished his meal to give him the bill. I’m glad to hear the policy has changed since.

So there we go! Perfectly standard workplace policies. Hooters really is all about the chicken wings, and NOTHING ELSE.

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rubber soul

October 29, 2014

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Gordon has written in to expand upon a point Jesse and Theresa Thorn touched upon in AMT300:

In AMT300, you had James from Glasgow ask about how to hide his rubber fetish collection from his girlfriend when they move in together.

I think he’s asking the wrong question.

If he’s hiding his fetish, he’s hiding something important about himself, and he’ll be lying to his girlfriend. Trying to hide something in a relationship is never good. Then think about the fireworks that will result when the girlfriend finds out – because she will. It’s practically impossible to keep something like this a secret. Whilst he’s trying to hide it, he’ll always be worrying that his girlfriend might find it.

He needs to have a chat with his girlfriend over his fetish. Is it the whole fetish that she’s against, or just the quantity of his collection? Also, if they’re moving in together and his girlfriend is not into latex, when does he expect to indulge his fetish? Whilst they’re living apart, James can go back to his place and indulge himself in private. But living together, there will be little alone time in their shared flat to indulge.

He needs to resolve this before they move in together.

I speak as someone who’s gone through this – and the arguments and break-ups that ensued.

So take it from Gordon, James: the couple that rubberizes together stays together.

naked-gun

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hitchhiking tales

October 14, 2014

Hitchhiker_WB

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In AMT299 we revealed how, in the matter of hitchhiking, none of us have ever given or received. But Jezz has written in with first-hand tales from the road:

Back in the early 1990s I spent about a year in total (over 4 years) hitchhiking around Southern Africa, Europe and Asia. During that time I had some lifts with some very interesting people, including a wealthy witch doctor from Lesotho.

The place where my girlfriend of the time and I got the strangest lifts was during our 3 weeks in Turkey. Whilst there we got a lift off a school bus full of children and a speedboat (we were trying for a car, but the speedboat did the trick). But the strangest of all was when a fire engine stopped for us. They told us to get on quickly (we did), and just few miles later we were told to get off quickly again (we did). We then watched the fire engine turn down a side road towards some smoke in the distance!

The easiest places to hitchhike, in my opinion, are Turkey, New Zealand – where there are no towns, and friendly people, so when you get picked up, you will usually go all the way to your destination – and Japan, where the locals don’t understand the rules. I once got a lift just outside the place where I was living, and was taken for about a 2-hour ride to the city I was intending to go to. When I was dropped off, I asked my lift where they were heading to next. It turned out that they were only planning to drive around the corner, and so had done a 4-hour round trip for no reason, other than that was where I said I was going to.

One last point: I got my first post-university job from hitchhiking. I had a 2-hour lift in France with an English guy, who turned out to be a metal trader. By the end of the lift, I had a job, and got to travel around the world on business trips – and also led me to getting my longest ever hitch of 13 days, when I went from the UK to Almaty, Kazakhstan to buy some Indium, but to have the experience of seeing Russia along the way. This was back in 1994, and it was a *very* interesting time to do that route.

Does anyone else have happy hitchhiking stories (ie ones which didn’t end with them being murdered by Rutger Hauer) to share in the comments?

And does anyone else feel, like me, that they’d rather pay to travel via some other method just so they don’t have to make chat for four hours with a stranger.

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get some ink in your pen with Viagra

October 14, 2014
Is that a pen in your pocket, or...

Is that a pen in your pocket, or…

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Simon in Elephant and Castle writes:

In AMT299 you spoke of a Rohypnol tea towel, and Olly mentioned medical trade shows. As the child of a medical professional our home was often filled with promotional tat from conferences my mother attended, including two Viagra pens.

My mother used to crack out one of these pens (the more chunky one as I remember) to sign cheques with when doing the weekly shop, something that caused great embarrassment to my elder sister. My mother found this hilarious, and at the time I thought it was because of the branding of the pen, but now looking back I can only think she chose this pen on purpose, as there is nothing funnier than an embarrassed teen.

That is true! Do you have your own surefire technique for making your teenage offspring cringe – or have you been the teenage victim of a parent’s mischievous mortification? Please let us know in the comments. In a few short years, I’ll be the aunt of teenagers, and I want to be fully prepared.

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B*minster

October 2, 2014

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Apologies to Malc from Beaminster, and all the Beaminster buddies:

Just listened to episode 298, which although excellent as usual did have me shout obscenities at one point regarding the article about Henry vacuum cleaners.

Olly mentioned the history of the little happy robots and gave a shout out to my hometown, unfortunately as everyone who has never been there does HE WRONGLY PRONOUNCED IT.

The small Dorset market town in question is pronounced Bem-minster and not Bee-minster as Olly said.

It drives the locals mad, as no-one except the local news ever gets it right (including Mel Smith who mis-named it in a Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch).

Although a small dwelling of only about 3,000 people, it is famous as not only the birthplace of the Henry but has the home of Clipper Teas, national treasure Martin Clunes (who lives there), author Lynne Reid Banks (The L-Shaped Room, The Indian in The Cupboard) birthplace of Thomas Hine (of Hine cognac fame) and as Emminster in the Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

Carry on.

The curse of British place names strikes again. Let’s all memorise this list to try to avoid future slip-ups.

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Roomba: Rise of the Machines

October 1, 2014

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Choco has been in touch:

Just thought I would email you after listening to AMT 298 and hearing your suggestion that Roombas could have cute little faces on them to make them more appealing. My good friend Nic has stuck little googly eyes onto his Roomba, which does indeed look very cute.

roomba

However, it does not disguise the fact that the Roomba is EVIL. Whenever I stay at his flat, anytime Nic goes out, literally within 30 seconds of him leaving the flat and me remaining inside, the Roomba will “wake up”, leave its docking station and zoom directly towards me. When I run away it will follow me around, attempting to eat my toes, unless I get up onto the sofa, at which point it will trundle around a corner and wait for me to get up again and walk past it.

Once Nic went out while I was in the shower, and when I got out and opened the bathroom door the Roomba was directly outside waiting for me! When Nic gets back and checks it, it always turns out that Roomba is not even programmed to run on that day or at the particular time it woke up.

OK, so Roombas might be convenient if you don’t want to vacuum your flat manually, but at least regular hoovers aren’t sentient and vicious…

Two options, Choco:
1. Your ‘friend’ Nic is having a great time fucking with you;
2. You are living in the film Hardware. Escape while you still can!

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