Archive for the ‘extracurricular questions’ Category

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lewd laptop

August 14, 2012

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT227 •••

In the past two episodes we’ve had questions about a dead laptop and a saucy home video, and now those two tropes combine in this question from Matt from Brownhills:

I work in the exciting field of IT repair for a big public organisation, and often do freebies repairing people’s personal computers when they break.

This week I was given a laptop that simply would not turn on. The laptop was knackered, and they just wanted all the files back.

Whilst getting these files, I noticed there were lots of videos of this person and I presume their partner “together”. (Yes, shagging.)

Answer me this: do I give her these files back on disk, thus making it awkward for the rest of our lives with her knowing I know about them, or do I pretend I never found them, giving her everything else but live with knowing she might have really wanted them but was too afraid to say?

OK Matt, answer yourself this – what do you think is MORE incriminating: returning all her files, with no suggestion that you looked at any of them; or returning only those files which you have personally filtered for acceptability?

I assume you’ve also fully perused her photo folders, combed her Word documents carefully in case she’s been writing erotica in her spare time, and thoroughly checked her Excel spreadsheets on the offchance you can convert the data into a titillating scatter graph. And backed up all her files to your own external hard drive, y’know, just in case she ever has computer trouble again or something…

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Haribo mystery

August 9, 2012

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT226 •••

Here is another confectionery question, from Lottie in Cardiff:

For months now this is a question that has been bothering me profoundly.

We all love Haribo, kids and grown ups alike. It says so in the song. And as is tradition with jelly-type sweets of the Haribo kind, they often come in the shape of something, eg a heart, a Coke bottle, cherries etc.

But there is always one in the bag that I just can’t fathom as to what it is:



Some of my friends agree with me in my bemusement, while others seem to think it’s a baby’s dummy. But what sort of freaking dummy looks like that?!

What kind of heart, Lottie, is made of red and white gunk? What kind of bear is translucent and green? One must suspend some disbelief when eating sweets. However if you crave realism coated in citric acid, then reconcile yourself to the contentious curiosity being a jelly rendering of one of the following:

1. a key
2. an ankh
3. the little plastic thing you blow bubbles through
4. a blackhead remover
5. a noose
6. a magnifying glass
7. an absinthe spoon.

••• The AMT Sports Day: ear candy •••

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performance-enhancing potassium

August 9, 2012

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT226 •••

Sports nutritionists and environmentalists, please go to the comments to offer a more useful response than I can to this question from Charlotte:

As a professional circus artist I’ve always heard that I should eat bananas to avoid muscle cramps, apparently because the potassium in the bananas does some electrolyte magic on my muscles.

I perform a handbalance act that includes balancing en pointe (on my toes) on little tiny platforms, so getting cramps in the arches of my feet is a definite problem. But I’m trying to eat in an environmentally responsible way, buying fruits and vegetables that are grown close to wherever I am, which is usually in North America or Western Europe and definitely very far away from wherever bananas come from.

So answer me this: does eating bananas actually prevent me getting cramps in my feet? Is there something else (with less of a carbon footprint) that I could eat instead?

Since you’re travelling around, I can’t gauge the potential carbon footprint of every item you might eat whilst on two continents. Bear in mind that pumpkin and sunflower seeds, cocoa, paprika, chervil, avocados, nuts, salmon, orange juice, potato skin, beans, spinach, dried apricots and whelks are potasstic, so mix them all together into a delicious paste and carry it wherever you go for a portable potassium banquet.

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“And no returns!”

August 7, 2012

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT226 •••

Readers, you may offer your advice in the comments to our next questioneer, A Confused Girl:

I have a close male friend who has recently started displaying signals that he wants to take our friendship to the next level, but I’m not interested because I don’t want to ruin the friendship with him.

I’ve tried to make it clear to him and he has definitely toned down the flirting lately, so that’s good, but he keeps buying me things!

I’ve been unemployed for many months now and he’s been a great friend in helping me out of financial jams, but now the things he’s paying for me are just becoming too much!

Honestly, I can’t say that I’m not enjoying his gifts but I feel really guilty!

How do I tell my friend that he’s becoming far too generous without suggesting that I think he’s trying to bribe me into bed with him?

Here’s an idea: STOP ACCEPTING HIS GIFTS. Uncomfortable feelings of obligation, over!

As an aside: when somebody says they don’t want to get together with somebody lest they ‘ruin the friendship’, they should be honest and revise that statement to ‘because really I don’t fancy him/her’. Right?

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Olympic visuals

August 7, 2012

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT226 •••

PURE FILTH


With the Great British Sports Day in full swing, we’ve had a record-breaking number of emails asking the same question, to whit:

Have you ever noticed that the London 2012 Olympics symbol looks like Maggie Simpson giving a blow job?

Actually, questioneers, in the five years since said logo was unveiled then plastered over every available surface in our home city, it has been noted.

Here’s a far more observant Olympics question from Maddy:

Why is John Inverdale so creepy?

It’s not a scientific answer, but I think it’s because something about the arrangement of his face suggests he’s a lost Gelfling from Dark Crystal.

The visual evidence speaks for itself.

Whilst your eyes are enjoying John Inverdale, let your ears enjoy the AMT Sports Day.

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Pick’n’Mix

August 1, 2012

••• THE AMT SPORTS DAY: PERFECT WITH A SIDE OF OLYMPICS •••

Readers, here is a question for you to chew on from David from Whitstable:

I love Pick’n’Mix. It is ace. My bag/tub always contains white mice, fizzy cola bottles, those prawn things, those white buttons with hundreds and thousands. Maybe a jelly snake.

Answer me this: What is your strategy at Pick’n’Mix? Do you go for variety, or quantity? Or do you always get the same ones?

Well obviously variety rather than a large quantity of one thing, which one could buy elsewhere for less money. But with experience, one learns not to dally with the rubbish ones – the coconut mushrooms, the rum balls, the fudge which is invariably disappointing. One hones one’s selection, and also cannily avoids the heavy ones, though personally I’ll make an exception for the chocolate Brazils.

Since Olly has already elaborated upon his tactics in the AMT book, it’s up to you to go to the comments and enlighten David upon your own Pick’n’Mixing strategy.

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crannies: always nook’s bridesmaid…

August 1, 2012

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT225 •••

Something unlikely in last week’s episode stirred the neurones of George here:

Regarding your offhand comments regarding the propensity of nooks by comparison to crannies: I though that crannies were the raised spaces surrounded by nooks. Thus, a cranny is defined by the absence created by nooks.

Assuming that is correct, then the world at large is mostly crannies, due to the relatively few nooks.

So, please answer me this, how far wrong is my assumption?

So far wrong that you are the very opposite of right, George! Observe how the dictionary defines ‘cranny’:

A small out-of-the-way place or obscure corner; nook.

If it’s any comfort, there IS another sense of cranny. But the dictionary has yet to validate it:


••• THE AMT SPORTS DAY: PERFECT WITH A SIDE OF OLYMPICS •••

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50 Shades of Prawn

July 25, 2012

•••THE ANSWER ME THIS! SPORTS DAY IS OUT NOW•••

I’m completely bored of Fifty Shades of Grey, and I haven’t even read it. I’m even bored of all the humorous deconstruction of it, but our next questioneer Mike from Shropshire may have hit on a way to quell some of the public enthusiasm for the phapping phenomenon:

Many women I know are putting status updates on Facebook telling us all that they are reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Some of these people are also professional colleagues of mine.

In view of this new openness about reading of pornography, answer me this – is it now acceptable for me to tell the world on Facebook what porn videos I am watching?

Readers, what do you reckon? Tell us in the comments – if you’re not too busy being tied to your bedposts by an arrogant businessman, or whatever.

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT224 •••

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World War Weetabix

July 25, 2012

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT224 •••

We keep telling you, listeners, not to let the little things come between you and your loved ones. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter who is right as much as not breaking up over the world’s least important disagreement. But did you take heed? NO YOU BLOODY WELL DIDN’T. And now nuclear war is brewing in Worcestershire, thanks to a breakfast food that tastes like a compacted bird’s nest. Carl in Kidderminster writes:

I have been with my lovely wife for almost 12 years, we have an amazing relationship and I consider her not only my wife but my very best friend. However, there is a problem that has been a bone of contention throughout our relationship.

My wife and I cannot agree on the correct and proper way to eat Weetabix.

I like to eat mine with ice cold milk, my wife however insists that the correct way is to have it hot. Now I’m not averse to eating them hot on a cold winter’s morn but my belief is that they are intended to be eaten with cold milk.

This situation has now escalated as my wife is trying to convince our 5-year-old daughter that her way is correct too! My daughter even sneaks into our bedroom on my day off to wake me up so I will make her weetabix with cold milk rather than hot.

So answer me this:

What is the correct way to eat Weetabix, hot or cold?

I looked on the official Weetabix website, and the serving suggestion is “with a steaming-hot dollop of marital disharmony”. So you’re both right, hurrah!

Anyway, since I’d rather eat a Weetabix box than a Weetabix, I invite you lot to end/save Carl’s marriage with your votes.

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three score eggs

July 19, 2012

•••THE ANSWER ME THIS! SPORTS DAY IS OUT NOW•••

Readers, please go to the comments and answer this eggy question from Tilly from Newnham:

I have somehow wound up with 60 chicken eggs due to a mix-up at my local farm shop and I haven’t got the foggiest idea what I’m supposed to do with them.

So, answer me this: just what CAN you do with 60 eggs? I know I could make a substantial number of cakes and omelettes etc. But is there anything particularly interesting I could do with this number?

A one-night-only theatrical production of Cool Hand Luke. You’ll have ten spare eggs with which to rehearse.

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Little Miss Foulmouth

July 19, 2012

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT223 •••

Here’s a question from mucky-minded Millie:

When my sister was two years old my cousins taught her to say goodbye to people by saying “Bye bye you fucking idiots”. They also used to play barbies with us by dressing them like dentist prostitutes, scuba diving strippers and plain naked.

Recently my cousin’s baby turned three, so now I think it’s my turn to get back at her. I’ve already taught her the diarrhoea song, how to cook her Barbie dolls in her toy oven and how to give her toys funerals.

So answer me this: what else can I teach my cousin that is mildly inappropriate? Keep in mind I don’t want her mum to kill me.

Readers, this is for you: please go to the comments and suggest ways to pollute this wee child. I’m not going to help, because Socrates was executed for corrupting the youth.

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Killer Net U

July 18, 2012

••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT223 •••

I’m surprised to discover that it is not only Olly who decides his tertiary education venue via late-90s TV dramas, as recounted in AMT222; Phil from Biggleswade is also that sort of reckless student:

I too was gripped and thrilled by 1998 classic Killer Net, starring Paul Bettany (the albino goddy bloke in Tom Hanks’ factual exposé “The Da Vinci Code”, and the voice of Robert Downey Jr’s computer in the Iron Man films) and in fact have strong recollection of recording this onto a VHS cassette which I believe is still living in a box at my mother’s house “just in case I need to re-watch it one day.”

Rather sensationally, my top choice was the University of Surrey in Guildford, where incidentally the university scenes of Killer Net were filmed despite the rest of the series being shot in Brighton. Rather like Olly, the decision to apply there may have been influenced at least in part by the Channel 4 blockbuster, as well as the awesome Jim Al-Khalili and the great reputation for physics.

A young (25 years old!) colleague of mine stared at me in disbelief when I mentioned that I still have old VHS tapes sitting in a box somewhere and so please answer me this: do you still cling onto articles of yesteryear technology (such as VHS cassettes) ‘just in case’ you might want to revisit them?

Of course! A box of videos still resides beneath the sofa (including Tom Waits’s Big Time and the BBC adaptation of The Box of Delights), but we no longer have a video player. I have, however, disposed of my minidiscs.

Readers, tell us in the comments what you’ve got stashed away, just in case you wake up one day and the past twenty years’ technological advances are wiped from history.

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