Archive for the ‘extracurricular questions’ Category

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execreble exhibition

October 9, 2012

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I like almost all museums, and frankly I would have enjoyed this holiday excursion which has left Baggsie so aggrieved:

On a family holiday we were starting our long journey home. We had to leave the caravan site at Lago Maggiore in Northern Italy at 10am and our train from Milan to Calais motorail was not leaving till late in the afternoon. So in a country of such supreme culture, where did Mum and Dad decide to take us to cap off a fantastic holiday???? The Umbrella and Parisol Museum.

It was as exciting as the website appears… particularly if like us you do not speak Italian. None of their info was translated!!

Answer me this: what is the worst museum you have ever been to?

It certainly wasn’t boring, Baggsie, but my stomach nearly flew out of my mouth when I visited the Pathological Museum in Vienna last year. Like the Umbrella and Parasol Museum, the information was not translated, but my ignorance of the German language wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle: I recognise a pickled conjoined twin foetus when I see one, in between waxworks of syphilitic genitals.

Readers, do let rip in the comments about the museums which have left you underwhelmed or, like me, swallowing down the bile as you dash for the exit.

NB I will not hear a word against the Keswick Pencil Museum. Especially as it’s 2 for 1 this month, making it very good value educational fun.

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beans, beans, the musical fruit

October 9, 2012

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I gather the rest of the world recoils in horror when they learn of the popularity of baked beans as a component of the Full English Breakfast. How refreshing, therefore, to hear this from Danielle from California:

One of my online friends from the UK recently introduced me to Beans and Toast which I heard was very popular in the UK, and I loved it.

Helen and Olly, answer me this have you ever been to the USA, and if you have what is your favorite food from America?

Pssst! Guys! I don’t want to be the one to tell her that it’s ‘beans on toast’; she seems so happy.

Danielle, if you trawl the AMT back catalogue, you will hear each of us rhapsodise about our numerous holidaysvacations in the USA, where between us we must have notched up over 15,000 road trip miles thus far.

We stuffed down many wonderful items along the way, including a few tonnes of peanut butter M&Ms, Cheetos, chowder, giant sandwiches, and some very impressive Vegas buffets. However, what we all love the best is the Mexican food that has successfully leapt the border fence into the States and flourished all over the nation, but has not thus far swum across the Atlantic to repeat the trick.

You may point out that there’s Wahaca and a few other decent representitives of the genre, but you can’t buy chimichangas with tomatillo salsa in every service station in Britain, so we’re still trailing behind.

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“Room to let. Non-smoking, non-enthusiastic, non-cool preferred.”

October 9, 2012

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As living arrangements have taken over from weddings as the AMT question topic of the season, let’s hear from Alistair:

I’ve recently been flat hunting in London. Due to the competitive nature of London dwellings at prices I can afford, I’ve found it to be much more like an interview or X Factor audition every time I see a room, rather than a viewing of the property.

So answer me this: should I play it cool and collected when I view a room, or should I go all out and let my full personality shine through in an overly enthusiastic horrible mess?

Try operating on a setting somewhere between those two extremes, Alistair, because most people don’t really want to share with either a sociopath or a chatterbox. Aim for engaging, but not too needy. You can unleash the real babbling lunatic Alistair when you’ve successfully signed the lease and it’s too late for them to get rid of you. Aaah-hahaha!

Readers, please visit the comments to give Alistair your own tips on how to wow his potential new cohabitants, because it has been many years since I had to audition a flatmate (Martin just moved in with me without even asking, and I DON’T EVEN GET MY OWN ROOM). But I would recommend that you don’t turn up late or use a false name. Both of those used to sour the start of the vetting process, and it rarely improved from there.

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flatmates or fiance?

October 4, 2012

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Difficult cohabitation has been a theme at AMT lately, and like many of you, the communal living situation is stoking murderous rage in Amanda from Virginia:

I live in a big house with my fiancee and three other roommates. We’re all students in our late 20s. When my fiancee and I moved in here, we were too poor to afford anything else. I’ve got a well-paying full-time job now and go to school online.

I HATE LIVING HERE. My roommates are ridiculously messy. I’m no neat freak, but this house is fucking disgusting. I clean all the time only to find the house trashed again within hours. My roommates also go around all winter long leaving windows and doors open, saying the cold air will rev up their metabolisms and make them skinny.

The problem is our upcoming wedding. If we want a decent wedding and honeymoon in Mexico (which we REALLY want), we’re going to keep living here another year in order to afford it. We haven’t really set a date yet, so I suggested postponing the wedding so we could afford to both move out AND go to Mexico. My fiancee doesn’t want to postpone the wedding at all. I dread my own home. Answer me this: what should we do?

I don’t know how you can postpone something which has not yet been organised, but if another year of domestic dread is likely to damage your relationship so much you never make it as far as the wedding, MOVE. Meanwhile, I assume you’ve eliminated the following possibilities:

1. Evicting the roommates and drafting in super-neat new ones;
2. Finding somewhere else cheap to live;
3. Having a smaller budget for the wedding, because weddings – and particularly American ones – are NEEDLESSLY EXPENSIVE.

Anyway, Amanda, your living arrangements are now in our readers’ hands, as I invite them to vote:

Whatever you do, don’t move out into a commune. Something tells me it wouldn’t suit you.

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Taxi!

October 2, 2012

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Not since ‘Friday‘ has there been such spiritual turmoil about the choice of car seats as there is in this question from Fraser from Erskine

When getting in a taxi alone, should one sit beside the driver or in the back seat? I don’t want the driver to think that A) I want to have a conversation or B) that I’m an antisocial weirdo.

Don’t worry about part B, Fraser – Taxi Driver set the ‘antisocial weirdo’ bar really high.

Anyway, I don’t think the average taxi driver wants you to sit in the front seat; that is where they keep their sandwiches, plus they might worry that anybody who automatically gets into the front is about to stick a gun into their ribs and order them to DRIVE.

As for part A, the driver knows that you required a taxi because you needed to get somewhere, not because you wanted to make a new friend. Nevertheless, EVERYbody knows that it is not up to you whether you’ll be having a conversation, so you might as well suck it up and prepare some gambits about The Football, something about Britain that is not as good as it used to be, and Princess Diana.

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fun divorcee WLTM rugbyist. Must love tatts.

September 27, 2012

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After the rather unsavoury brace of love-related questions we’ve just had, let’s cleanse the palate with this from Lindsay:

Almost two years ago, my husband left me and I’ve spent the last year or so moving on, having fun and relearning who I am as a singleton.

I’m now in the place where I’m considering dating, however it’s a thought that petrifies me as I’ve never done the whole dating thing before and I don’t know where to even look for a lovely bloke.

So please answer me this: can you help me find the hot, tattooed rugby boys who would consider dating a Christian girl divorced by the tender age of 32?

AMTfans are a wonderfully diverse bunch, so there MUST be some tattooed rugby boys amongst you lot. Any of you also currently single and looking for ladies? Go to the comments, and answer these Bliiiiiiind Daaaaaate-style questions:

1. Where would you take Lindsay on your first date?
2. If you were a foodstuff, what would you be and why?
3. How’s your tackle?

Or just tell her a bit about yourself, you know, the usual. Let love blossom!

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nark of naughtiness

September 27, 2012

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Poor old B from Montreal is complicit in a right pickle:

I have a bit of a situation right now. I recently moved into uni with a girl I graduated with. When we graduated we weren’t that close, we were just acquaintances; now that we live five doors away from one another we have become really close and that’ss all well and good!

The only problem is that she has a boyfriend (who graduated with us, and is also my friend) who lives quite far away and I know something about him that she doesn’t know. Before we graduated they were dating and he cheated on her several times and never told her! All her friends knew but no one ever told her because no one was ever close enough to her to tell her.

So basically they are still dating now and she is going to visit him in the US pretty soon and she doesn’t know. We keep getting closer as friends and she keeps telling me about him and how he is so good to her and how he never cheated!!! I feel as if I am keeping something from her and even though it’s not my secret to tell I feel like she should know (because he also cheated on her recently).

So answer me this: should I tell her about her cheating boyfriend and risk him not being my friend anymore and risk her getting hurt, or just shut up and forget about the looming guilt that this secret is crippling me with?

Since this sounds like one of those situations where no outcome is likely to be happy for all three of you, I’m taking the coward’s way out and deferring to you readers. Go to the comments and advise B, because B has a pained conscience even though his infidel friend does not.

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I got 99 problems – and they’re all entirely of my own making

September 26, 2012

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We’ve come to this question from Mo a little late, since the critical deadline was the end of September. Sorry, Mo! Though you do seem to be ‘suffering’ from a ‘problem’ that many of our listeners would love to have:

Around February I meet a girl who is 37 and I told her that I am 27, despite her saying I am too young for her I managed to lure her into sleeping with me, the first problem is I am actually 23. Should I come clean? If yes, why ruin a good thing? (The sex is good, we are both quite adventurous.)

The second and maybe the main problem is why I am not breaking up with her or cheating? It is not like I love her (we did clear this matter between us that we cannot love each other even with artificial 10 years age difference!!). Even now that she has gone abroad for 3 months I still am not cheating on her although I had the chance to go out with girls my age!!

I cannot break up with her now cause she is not coming back till the end of September (I hate breaking up on SMS or Skype etc) and once she is back I wanna have sex with her for a couple of months before I do anything, but by then it is Christmas and who wants to break up in new year? So suddenly it will be a year I have been with this girl that I still do not call my girlfriend!!

I should say I do treat her nicely and with respect and I try to be a gentleman and not a jerk!!

Help me with my dilemma please!!!

By now, I presume she has returned, and you have embarked upon the beginning of your two-month sex adventure, which means you probably have not done what you should have done before and broken up with her. Why do I think so? Because if you have to ask why you’re not breaking up with someone or cheating on them, you’re really too silly to be in a relationship. Sorry, ‘relationship’.

(Also, she’s not a girl. And not in a Britney ‘Not a girl, not yet a woman’ way – she’s 37. SHE’S NOT A GIRL. At least one of the two of you is going to have to get used to this.)

However, you do keep making feeble excuses for why you have not broken up with her. Where does it end? ‘I can’t break up with her at New Year, but then it’s Valentine’s Day in February so I can’t break up with her before that, and if I break up with her right after Valentine’s Day everyone will think I’m a heartless bastard, but then it’s Easter and I want the egg she’s bound to buy me, then in May it’s World No-Tobacco Day and it’d be too stressful to break up without nicotine, then it’s the summer so I’ll probably want to have sex with her a lot, then it’s her birthday, then it’s Halloween and I want us to go as Bonnie and Clyde together, then it’s Armistice Day which is solemn enough, then Christmas, then New Year again, then I’m 80 and she’s 94 and I can’t tell her I want to break up with her because the shock might kill her and she still doesn’t know that I lied about my age.’

I’m rather expecting her to dump you because you’re not decisive enough.

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what fresh(ers) hell is this?

September 19, 2012

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It’s harvest time! Which means it’s the start of the new educational year. Which means it is time for this question from Lauren from Kidderminster:

I managed to get into the university of my choice, but now I am panicking about Freshers Week.
A week of non-stop partying sounds like hell. I am very shy, hate dancing and don’t see the point in spending all my money on getting drunk and making a fool of myself on the dancefloor.

I’m not an anti-social person, it’s just that partying isn’t really my idea of fun.

Please help, how did you survive Freshers week at your university?

As a non-drinking square? I kept a massive supply of crumpets in my room, so rather than submitting myself to the full clubbing experience, instead made friends with people once they returned from their night at the fleshpots and were hungry for toasted snacks. (Also I had three essays to write in the first week, so couldn’t have gone out even if I had wanted to.)

But readers, I’m sure you have crumpet-free techniques which Lauren could adapt. Go forth to the comments and share.

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ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

September 17, 2012

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We all know that listening to Answer Me This! is life-changing for the worse. We started the podcast because we wanted to Make A Difference that did not benefit the world in any way. And lo, we have! Nick writes:

In a recent podcast you discussed eating the crumbs from a packet of crisps with the choice of either tilting the packet directly into the mouth or pouring into the hand and eating from there. All my life I have gone for the pour-straight-from-the-packet option, but after your arguments now pour into the hand.

Answer Me This: have any other listeners changed something they do as a result of listening to your podcast?

Listeners, step into the comments and tell us!

We already know that, thanks to AMT4, some of you no longer feel you are allowed to wipe your bottoms standing up. As we said, truly life-changing.

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‘Man, I sound like a woman’

August 16, 2012

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Here’s a question of gender identity from Stuart, living in Lyon but from Newcastle:

I am working in a call centre for the summer. However the problem I seem to have is no matter how gruff I try to sound, I get mistaken for a woman so much that I have assumed Judith as my female alter ego in the office.

While this is great when someone complains about ‘Judith’, it leaves me asking whether I should really be correcting the customers (going against the mantra of ‘the customer is always right’) and trying to reestablish my masculine credentials.

You sound like you are already quite comfortable with your masculine credentials, if you’ve allowed Judith to be brought to life, rather than just announcing yourself as ‘Mister Stuart’ at the start of every phone conversation. Instead of killing her off, why not use this opportunity to explore the myriad other female identities lurking within you? Come into work wearing Judith’s sensible shoes and box-pleated skirts. If you’re doing a late shift, change into something slinkier and conduct your phone calls as sexy Sarah. When you get bored of her, no doubt the varied costumes and accents of Brigitta, Haruko and Svetlana will keep you fresh.

Hold on – it has just dawned on me that you might not be working in the type of call centre that deals with customer complaints or tech support. If in fact your summer job is answering the phone at 0898-HOT-BABES, this problem you’re experiencing is far less surprising.

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men’s milk

August 16, 2012

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Two milky questions this morning, the first from Freddie in Edinburgh:

My friend Fergus is utterly convinced that if a man gently rubs his nipple almost constantly for around three months, he will begin to lactate. Like a lady-boob.

So answer me this: can this be done?

Apparently it can! Thanks to unusual hormones or excessive stimulation – and I think three months of continuous rubbing would count as excessive – men can experience galactorrhoea, as spontaneous lactaction is known. It was also very common amongst men released from prisoner of war camps at the end of World War Two, but no doubt was not their most pressing health problem at that point.

Anyway, if any of you gents manage to produce enough milk for a glassful, perhaps you could experiment to help Mark from Telford with his question:

I was eating breakfast today and came across a difficult conundrum. I got the milk out of the fridge and my box of strawberry Nesquik and was just about to pour the milk into the glass when I asked myself, should I put the powder in first or the milk?

I mean, you can pour the milk in first and then stir in the powder, or put the powder in first and then pour the milk on top, but in years of drinking strawberry milk at breakfast, I still cannot fathom which way gives the optimum strawberry milk experience. So answer me this, which way IS the best way to make strawberry milk?

You’ve conducted a TEN YEAR study and you still have not managed to draw a conclusion? We’re not going to help you because you could solve this yourself in the course of two mornings.

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