Archive for the ‘extracurricular questions’ Category

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stomachs versus sense

June 6, 2012

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Steve from Reading‘s eyes are bigger than his stomach:

I’m currently watching Man versus Food, an American show where a crazy man travels around the USA eating silly amounts of food or super spicy food and other such food based challenges set by restaurants.

My friends and I got to thinking, why have we never seen a challenge like “eat your entire weight in chicken wings and get on the wall of fame” over here in the UK? So answer me this: are there any such crazy eating-based challenges in the UK, and do you think you could complete them if there are?

In answer to the second question: no. Gluttonous as we are, we would be incapacitated by tears of shame well before we had cleared our plates.

As for the first question: readers, do you know of any competitive eating challenges in the UK? Go to the comments to inform us, then Steve can start on the rigorous training required for each.

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Marmite ‘mare

June 6, 2012

And guess what? Foreigners hate it.

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There’s an ocean between us and Alexandra in Wisconsin. An ocean of yeast extract:

I’ve always been a fan of British culture, so I went to my local World Market (a speciality store that sells imported goods of all kinds) and bought the biggest jar of Marmite I could get my hands on.

I took it home, and toasted an (English) muffin in anticipation, mouth watering at the deliciousness that was to soon come my way. After all, England has given us so many wonderful things: David Bowie, to name just one.

OH MY DEAR SWEET GOD IT WAS THE WORST TASTING STUFF EVER. I tried it on bread, crackers, muffins… I tried dipping celery in it… to say this is an acquired taste is a huge understatement. How can you eat this stuff?

I’m Marmite-ambivalent, so if you need suggestions for how to eat your Marmite, I direct you to this three-course Marmite menu by Gary Rhodes (non-Brits wondering who he is: a spiky-haired celebrity chef, slightly less annoying than Guy Fieri). And here is a whole website devoted to Marmite cookery. Marmite Victoria sponge? Excuse me while I choke on my own vomit.

Also, a tip: you may be spreading it too thickly. Try a little less Marmite. If you still find it repugnant, try even less Marmite – ie zero Marmite. Problem solved.

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minty fresh feet

May 30, 2012

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It’s time for home spa treatment tips from Mel in Melbourne:

You may have read on various blogs about softening the skin on the bottom of your feet with shaving cream and Listerine.

I haven’t, Mel, I haven’t! I must be reading the wrong blogs. Help me learn.

You cover your feet with shaving cream. Then mix half Listerine and half hot water, soak flannels in this liquid then wrap up your feet and relax for half an hour.

This sounded ridiculous but I gave it a try and to my astonishment it worked. So answer me this – why does this work?

Scientists of footskin and/or alternative uses for toiletries, please go to the comments and deliver your conclusions. I’d just expect one’s feet to be softer if you soak them in any warm liquid for half an hour. NB never try the soup round at my house.

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sweet suite

May 29, 2012

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We can infer that our next questioneer Paul was waiting so long for his doctor’s appointment, he finished all of the 8-year-old copies of You magazine and Gardeners’ Almanac, and had to occupy his mind with other concerns:

Whilst at the doctor’s today I heard a woman explain to her child (hope it was her child – otherwise she was a really posh kidnapper) that the waiting room we were in at Medical Suite 2 was called a suite because it was a collection of rooms and not because it was tasty to eat.

Answer me this: what has a collection of rooms or music got to do with a sugar-based confection? Why are sweets called ‘sweets’ and how does the word relate to ‘suite’, if indeed it does?

Indeed it does not, aside from being a homophone. ‘Sweet’ descended from the Old English ‘swete’, which came from the Latin ‘suavis’ meaning pleasant. Because sweets are pleasant to eat, right?

Meanwhile ‘suite’ is nicked from the French ‘suite’, which means a room or set of rooms. As to why that is the case, I’m sorry to say that etymology in French is far beyond my capabilities.

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BYO wedding cake

May 24, 2012

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We get many questions about weddings; they are a mine of problems. Such as the one suffered by our next questioneer, who wishes to remain anonymous:

I have recently been invited to the wedding of a friend from university. We haven’t really spoken much over the last couple of years, for various reasons, but we were, previously, very close.

The wedding invitation came with a request that I bring with me some cake to add to their wedding supply, which I found odd, given the not-spoken-much thing, but never mind, I enjoy baking.

Answer me this: on the basis of the invitation, plus my expected assistance in supplying said wedding with cake, is it acceptable for me to reply asking that I get a plus one? (It should be possible as I know others who are turning down the invitation.) My friend has met my boyfriend a couple of times, briefly, so it wouldn’t be like I’d be bringing a stranger, but it would give me some sane back-up in yet another wedding.

Also, if I take cake, I’m excused from present-buying, right?

Before you make your official acceptance, call or email your friend asking whether you can bring your boyfriend. Though it may seem to you that your boyfriend can take the place of one of the non-attenders, your friend may have budgeted the wedding according to an expectation that a proportion of invitees would not be able to come.

Or, he might not have invited your boyfriend outright because, not having seen much of you recently, he might not have known whether you were still together, and didn’t want to stir up something painful if you weren’t.

Or maybe he just doesn’t like your boyfriend.

By the by, I think the cake thing is quite nice! It means you get to eat cakes that are much tastier than wedding cake, which is nobody’s idea of a tasty cake. But, if you really want to stir the pot, Cake Wrecks has plenty inspiration.

make one of these. WE DARE YOU.

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tasty tampon

May 21, 2012

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We always enjoy hearing the tricks deployed by food stylists – yacht varnish on the turkeys, ice cream made of mashed potato – so if any of you readers are food stylists, please apply your professional expertise to this question from Amy from York:

Is it true that in food adverts they place a steaming hot tampon behind the plate of food to make it look as if the food has just come out of the oven and is piping hot?

Not looking so appetising now, is it?

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broken legs

May 17, 2012

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There’s a new hot trend amongst AMT listeners: broken legs! Lynne from Doncaster started it:

I broke my leg on the 4th of April 2012, well I actually broke my tibia and fibula clean in half. I had an operation to fix it where they inserted a metal rod down my tibia bone and fixed it into place with two screws at the bottom of my leg and two screws underneath my knee.

The physiotherapist sent me home with a leaflet, which says that part of my physio is to clench my buttocks together and release. Answer me this: how does clenching my bum cheeks together and releasing them, fix my terribly broken leg?

You can’t reasonably expect a buttock-clench to knit together broken bones! My guess would be that it is to keep those muscles from completely atrophying while your leg is out of action, and maybe also something to do with blood flow? If you are a physio reading this, please do enlighten us in the comments, for you are wise in the mysteries of recuperation.

Chiara should prepare to clench her buttocks for medical reasons too:

I am currently writing to you from my hospital bed – on Friday a car drove straight into my on my bike, snapping my tibia and fibula clean in two, puncturing the skin. Big owee.

When they operated on me on Friday they put a rod in my tibia, but no cast, so that I was standing on crutches 28 hours later – modern medicine is really quite miraculous!

Answer me this – What is the rod in my leg made of?

Doctors/surgeons/manufacturers of metal implants, please tell us of what Chiara is made. I believe she and Lynne are now technically cyborgs, so we have to answer their questions to keep them sweet, lest they rise from their convalescence couches and go all Terminator on us.

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There goes the neighbourhood

May 10, 2012

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Here’s a tale from Jordan from Bridgend which is shaping up to be a Welsh version of Pacific Heights:

I work once a week in my local charity shop and one week, this woman came in, clearly drunk and off her face on drugs by the way she was speaking and walking. She asked me where the childrens clothing was, so I kindly showed her. She collected two pairs of children’s jeans aged 12-13 and asked if she could try them on; I said it was fine and I showed her the changing rooms. She came out of the changing rooms and said that they were both a little bit loose on her so she would think about having them and come back again.

A few weeks later on my way home from college on the local bus, the same women got on and sat with me at the back of the bus. She was still in the same state as I last saw her, She recognized me from the charity shop. She was asking me all sorts of questions such as do I smoke, do I have tattoos, where do I live etc, and then she asked me if I was a buffer. But randomly I said yes even though I did not understand her question. After me saying yes I was a buffer, she did not say no more. I got off the bus and she stayed on it…

But two weeks ago my next door neighbour moved out, and to my despair I found out this women from the bus is now living next door with her boyfriend and I have been told that they are both alcoholic drug-taking mental freaks. Ever since I found out they live next door I have been hiding away in my room. Answer me this: what should I do? And what on god’s earth is a buffer? What have I let myself in for? Should I let her know I live next door!?

The answer to that last question is obviously NO. Although they will surely find out soon enough, when you run out of food and supplies and are smoked out of the house. You could try to confine your entrances and exits to, say, 7am, a time of day where the average commuter or parent of young children is up and at’em, but the average drugged-up alcoholic is not. Obviously, when they do discover your whereabouts, don’t feel pressured into inviting them round for some welcoming drinks and nibbles, or into lending them your lawnmower.

Readers, you’re more reliable than the OED – can you step in to define ‘buffer’ for Jordan? Presumably his neighbour was not referring to the social media app, the shock absorber for trains, or the velvety thing that makes your shoes shiny.

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Facebaby

May 10, 2012

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Gordon here has a problem that didn’t exist back in the days when people had to pay to develop photos:

One of my best friends from school uses a popular Face-themed Social Network that I also use.

I have her in my close friends list because she is nice, and I am interested in funny things she might say, and what she gets up to.

However, for the past year she has had a – admittedly cute – baby. Which she posts pictures of approximately 6 million times a day.

I’m beginning to think she may be a crazy baby lady in the same way I am becoming a crazy cat man.

Is there any way to make her stop posting so many baby pictures without putting her on my ‘acquaintances’ list?

I’ve been considering recreating all her baby pictures with my cats. Would this be too much? I plan to have a baby one day, but hope I can restrain myself from posting so many baby pictures, because it’s pretty annoying, and it’s kind of creepy in a way (babies need privacy!)

I’m right, right?

So answer me this: what do I do?

p.s. my wife agrees with me.

Good, Gordon, good – I’d hate to hear this VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM was causing a breach in your marriage on top of all the other havoc it is wreaking.

As a fellow Facebook user I am, of course, familiar with this scenario; but to be fair to the baby-owners, whenever they post a picture of it, everyone goes nuts over it, so perhaps your friend is just responding to demand. If you really want to deter her, you could start adding faintly lecherous comments to the photos, so that she’s too creeped out to post any more. She will probably also be too creeped out to be your friend any more, but as aforementioned, this is a VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM and thus demands radical solutions.

But, Gordon, since you confessed you are a Crazy Cat Man, I see you as even more of a problem than this woman: if I look to the future, when you have had that baby you talk about, you will forever thereafter crap all over your friends’ feeds with incessant pictures of both the baby AND the cat – and, inevitably, the pictures of the baby and the cat TOGETHER.

So I refuse to help you, but readers, you are welcome to go to the comments to dispense advice to Gordon. Or maybe you can just post pictures of your babies, to wind him up.

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fear of flying

May 9, 2012

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Mazel tov to our nearlywed next correspondent, Dominic:

I’m to be married to my beautiful fiancé Laura on Friday 11th May, and shortly afterwards we fly to Mexico for our honeymoon (so you can imagine how helpful it was to learn the history of nachos last week!). This will be an eleven-hour flight with just one problem – I have a pathological fear of flying. This is what happens when you utter the phrase “Wherever you want to go, darling…”

Anyway, answer me this – what can I do for eleven hours on a flight to distract myself from the fact that I am just the grace of God away from plummeting to my death?

Dominic! That’s what they have the in-flight entertainment system for! So that people like you don’t run up and down the aisles screaming with a rosary in your hand, but instead sit quietly watching recent cinema hits (NB take your own noise-cancelling headphones, partly because the ones the airline supplies are rubbish, and partly to block out the perfectly normal plane-creaks that you will interpret as a wing about to fall off).

If your airline is a primitive one with no seat-back TVs, substitute with a gripping airport novel. Or Valium.

Readers, any suggestions to quell Dominic’s terror? Unfortunately it is too short notice for hypnosis or any other form of phobia-curing therapy, so the best he can presently hope for is the psychological equivalent of a nicotine patch.

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waiting to pounce

May 3, 2012

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Juan from Venezuela is prowling:

I have a female friend that has a boyfriend, but things with him are not going very well and they surely will break up soon. I really like my friend but I don’t want to look like I’m just waiting for her to break up to ask her out.

So answer me this: how can I confess to this girl without looking that I was with her all this time just waiting for her to break up with this boyfriend?

Does it actually matter that it looks that way? Surely the greater problem is the fact that she is still with her boyfriend. While you may be confident that they are on the rocks, that does not mean she is actually single, and/or open to new offers.

However, you’re clearly going to steam in and proposition her anyway, so I have no counsel for you. Readers, if you would be so kind in my stead, please go to the comments and coach Juan for this moment.

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bouncy wedding

May 3, 2012

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Wedding planning! So fraught. What if the band doesn’t match the chair-bows? Who has to sit next to racist Aunty Denise? And now Ross faces a problem that Queen Victoria didn’t have to consider prior to her nuptuals. He says:

I’m getting married in December and my girlfriend (we don’t use the ‘f’ word) and I both want quite a relaxed, non-traditional wedding that’s fun for us and our friends. However, I think some of her plans might have gone too far that route so please answer me this: should I let her book the bouncy castle that she wants for our reception?

I’m firmly in the ‘no’ camp because the men will be in suits, the women in dresses, they’ll all be hammered and I don’t want to have to clear vomit off a bouncy castle.

Also it’ll be December, and anyone who has ever bounced on a bouncy castle covered in rain and icicles knows THAT IS WHEN BROKEN NECKS HAPPEN.

Now, I’m all in favour of fun at weddings – everyone at mine thought that sitting mock Maths A-Level papers between the dinner and the dancing was a neat idea! – but I agree with Ross’s qualms about how this might not be the optimal type of fun. For a bunch of adults. Formally dressed. Who have been drinking for six hours already.

Instead I’d recommend diverting the bouncy castle funds towards the cheeseboard. The cheeseboard at my wedding was EPIC. Ask anybody who was there (apart from the two vegans).

In the interests of democracy, however, I invite you readers to vote:

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