Answer Me This! Podcast

** Click here for Episode 170 **

Here’s an email from listener Brand. That’s right, Brand:

My name is “Brand”. That’s not short for “Brandon” or anything. It’s just “Brand”. I’ve never run into anyone else with this name, and I’m just wondering if my parents were so unbelievably creative that nobody else ever thought to name their child the same thing.

Am I the only one?

Everybody out there, answer Brand this: is Brand the only one?

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** Click here for Episode 169 **

Nom nom nom, it’s time to chew on the following question from John in North Hollywood:

I am 28 years old and a pretty good cook, but I still enjoy eating an entire box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner now and then. I know, objectively, that it is vile. It’s a totally unnatural hue of orange and doesn’t actually taste much like cheese, but it’s one of the first things I ever learned how to cook and has become a comfort food.

So answer me this: What are your nostalgic comfort foods?

Here at AMT Kitchen (twinned with the heart attack ward), we all enjoy a potato waffle or five. Martin the Sound Man also loves to tuck into a nice big bag of pork scratchings, like the good Midlands boy that he is. If you too have a snack that reminds you of the cosy embrace of childhood but will probably kill you before you reach middle age, please tell us about it in the comments.

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** Click here for Episode 168 **

If we heard right, it’s a question from Lizzie from London:

So, we all went to the shitty pub around the corner from our office for after work drinks one night. A lady I work with (who’s a bit odd e.g. eats bananas with the skin on etc) said she fancied a cocktail. She went up to the bar and ordered a Margarita. The bar staff said they’d bring it over to her, so she sat down and patiently waited. About ten minutes later they brought her over a pizza.

So, Helen and Olly, answer me this have you ever had such confusion over a homophone?

Like the time when we tried to buy a Russian doll and ended up with a mail-order bride (with six increasingly small brides inside her)? Or when we ordered a bag of aubergines and got stuck with a stack of 7″ copies of ‘Auberge’ by Chris Rea wrapped up in an old pair of Wranglers? Or when we got touted tickets to Black Swan and had to sit through two hours of Billy Corgan side-project Zwan sporting most unacceptable face-paint?

(Oh, stop complaining, readers, and explain your own Homophone Hilarities in the comments.)

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** Click here for Episode 168 **

James from Portsmouth needs to take a cold shower:

I have a new flatmate who is very attractive and walks around the flat in nothing but his boxers. He also gets very protective if I ask him about his previous relationships.

The thing is that I seem to have fallen for him but I’m not sure if he’s gay, so can you tell me a good way to ask him without sounding like a idiot or scaring him off?

Since he’s being weirdly clammish about his romantic history, I can’t tell you a good way. But if he happened to return home while you were, say, watching a gentlemen’s movie in your communal living space, that would be bound to open up the channel of conversation at least. Readers, try to think up a classier method than this and instruct James in the comments, please.

A word of caution, though: even if he does turn out to be gay, it’s not a particularly good idea to put moves on people with whom you live. If he rejects your advances, there’ll be awkward moments forever after, as either of you exits the bathroom in a towel or brings a date home. If he accepts, well, you’re already living together, and not much puts the dampener on a brand-new source of sexyfun than cosy domesticity. Rowing over who forgot to put the milk back into the fridge overnight is rubbish foreplay.

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** Click here for Episode 168 **

Apocalyptic thoughts are haunting Shaun, who asks:

If the world was going to end next week, what would you do?

I’d probably read every Harry Potter book one more time.

I scoffed, of course, at this plan – then realised that despite my usual tendency to be spurred to action by a looming deadline, in this case I would probably just lie on the sofa watching Arrested Development until close of play.

However, if you want to pretend that in this event you’d do something amazing instead of running around flapping, tell us what it is in the comments. If it involves listening to podcasts, we will cry on your behalf.

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** Click here for Episode 166 **

Seeing as it’s Valentine’s week (ie: heart-shaped boxes of Ferrero Rocher are now heavily discounted in the shops! Why are you still here??? Go, go!), let’s continue this run of romantical questions and consider the following missive from Nathan:

A while ago, my partner got a research job at Cardiff university. I decided not to leave my current job in Manchester until I had a job to go to in my specialist area – renewable energy engineering. However, it’s been six months now, and I’m getting really sick of doing the alternate-weekend thing.

C) Keep job-searching in the evenings after work, and try to learn to love the sandwiches in Crewe train station?

I can’t vouch for Cardiff, car insurance rate calculation, or Crewe comestibles, so readers, I turn to you. Should Nathan move 200 miles for love, or keep the job and commute fortnightly? Go forth and decide whether the future of his relationship and career is to be A, B or C. Or even option D, if you think of one.

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** Click here for Episode 165 **

Remember Jessii, the perforated lady from St Helens? Well hallelujah, she has succeeded in finding new bits of her body to puncture! Ours not to reason why, etc etc. She says, through swollen face:

I recently got my tongue pierced (venoms).

Well I am in a lot of pain at the moment because my tongue is swollen.

Sorry to hear that, Jessii – I am totally surprised that firing bolts through a nerve-rich chunk of muscle could have negative side effects! Really I am…

I can’t eat or talk and even swallowing is a bit of a chore.

What is the most painful thing you have ever done to yourself or had done to you willingly?

Mine will remain between me and the lady at the family planning clinic, thanks; but readers, go to the comments and reveal your self-inflicted agonies.

yes dear, it looks lovely

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** Click here for Episode 165 **

Ahoy, shipmates! Batten down the hatches for a question from Robin on the Skandi Carla in Stavanger, Norway:

I work offshore on a boat so I am away with about 30-40 people. We have people who do the cleaning and our washing who are generally great people; however the girls I work with end up doing their own washing because they don’t trust getting their pants back and at least one friend has had all her underwear stolen.

My question to you guys is: Why would men want to steal women’s underwear? Girls in underwear I do find interesting, but when girls are separated from the underwear, the undies become inanimate objects.

Now, Robin, I can only guess at what it must be like to live on a boat with only a handful of people and some walruses for company. Who knows, after enough time trapped on a boat, being both lonely and lacking in privacy, perhaps I too would seek solace in ill-gotten undies – maybe using them to dress up my imaginary friend, whose company is the only thing preventing me going a bit Triangle. Or maybe I’d be stealing them because I’d started to find the society of inanimate underwear more appealing than that of humans. Or maybe I’d just run out of clean pants.

Those are my theories, but amongst you bunch of pervs there must be someone who can explain this predeliction, so go to the comments and type up your observations with one finger.

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** Click here for Episode 164 **

Smile! It’s a question from Ben in Letchworth:

My 14-month-old daughter has recently started to produce a big cheesy grin whenever we point a camera at her, without us even needing to ask her to say ‘cheese’. This got me thinking ‘fromage’ just won’t get that smiling look before a pic is taken; so answer me this, what do people that speak other languages ask their subjects to say?

A friend of mine always asks people to say ‘Prunes’ to get a pouty Victoria Beckham look.

If ‘prunes’ is good enough for the Olsen twins, it’s good enough for Friends in Letchworth. And the Mitfords used to say ‘brush’, which produces quite a coy smirk.

Team AMT, International Chapter: I call upon you to go to the comments and tell us how you crack a smile in a non-English-speaking country.

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