Archive for the ‘User-generated answers’ Category

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last meal on earth

September 29, 2011
••• ANSWER ME THIS! RETURNS ON 13th OCTOBER; IN THE MEANTIME, CLICK HERE TO CATCH UP ON EPISODES •••

It may be too late for Texan inmates, but the rest of us may consider the following hypothetical (we hope! Especially after this post) question from Paul in Newcastle:

If you were on Death Row, what would you pick as your last ever meal?

Like many Death Row residents, we might find that our usual appetite deserts us at such a time. Also, we understand that the famous Last Meals are ordered from unhealthy takeaway joints, and we wouldn’t want our last words to be, “Ouch, heartburn!” Not even as an ironic comment upon the efficacy of the electric chair.

Readers, what would you order? Click here if you need inspiration.

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Posted in extracurricular questions, User-generated answers | 4 Comments »

serial killer methodology

September 29, 2011
••• ANSWER ME THIS! RETURNS ON 13th OCTOBER; IN THE MEANTIME, CLICK HERE TO CATCH UP ON EPISODES •••

A fellow who dubs himself ‘Most certainly not a serial killer’ from Brooklyn, New York has a question that is PURELY THEORETICAL:

Answer me this: what is the ideal way for a serial killer to go about his/her work?

I’ve developed a system of sorts, but it is rather lengthy [as behoves something which is 100% PURELY THEORETICAL, ALRIGHT?].

1. The Location
Ideally an area that has high traffic during the day but virtually none at night and sans CCTV cameras, for example an alleyway or side street which many traverse, allowing for any evidence left at the scene to be contaminated with the residue of hundreds of others.

2. The Means
Anything that would leave residue at the scene is not viable, such as firearms; blades are acceptable as long as slashing is kept to a minimum, reducing blood loss of the victim. Ideally a fast acting poison, ricin or cyanide, leaving virtually no evidence of the actual means at the scene.

3. The Act
As quick as possible obviously, without alerting the victim so as to avoid shouts &c, have a means of travel (car) nearby but not too nearby and in a location where there are no CCTV cameras between the location of the car and the location of the murder.

4. Disposal
Multiple sacks of powdered concrete are needed for this step. First chop up limbs into segments that would fit in 25cm by 15 cm by 10cm blocks of concrete (standard cinderblock size, prepare concrete beforehand to expedite this step). The head can go whole in a block of its own not bigger than 30cm by 15cm by 15cm. The remaining torso shall go in a shallow slab, 60-70cm by 30-40cm by 20cm. These blocks, once set, can be disposed of inconspicuously at a derelict building site, or if one lives near a port, in a pile of ballast, which would allow the body to be disposed of rather efficiently as the body parts would be scattered across the world by boats, making it extremely unlikely that the body would ever be found.

It’s a very sensible method, I’ll give you that; but where’s the fun? If you pay heed to the modi operandi of some of the world’s most notorious serial killers, efficiency and/or a clean getaway weren’t necessarily trademarks.

Readers, perhaps you’d like to take this opportunity to regale everybody in the comments with your own ideal serial killer routine. Don’t be shy. I bet you’ve thought of one.

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Posted in extracurricular questions, User-generated answers | 4 Comments »

Tempestuous

September 27, 2011
••• ANSWER ME THIS! RETURNS ON 13th OCTOBER; IN THE MEANTIME, CLICK HERE TO CATCH UP ON EPISODES •••

We’ve got a schoolboy moral dilemma to tackle, from somebody who, for his own good, had better remain nameless:

I have a confession to make.

This child – shall we call him “Fred” – he had his book of The Tempest which our teacher says we are required to bring every lesson on pain of detention, sadly I had forgotten mine.

So this boy “Fred” left his bag unattended with his copy of The Tempest in it; so I ripped it out of his bag and rubbed out his name, then I put mine in.

He returned and whilst looking through his bag he panicked and said he couldn’t find it. He received a detention and the teacher told him he needed to bring it or he would get another detention.

I felt as if I could not just laugh it off and say sorry then take the hit and get into major trouble, so I went home with the copy.

The next day our teacher told us that they were dealing with a theft and if anyone got caught with the book they would have detention for the rest of the week and the following week, so on the way home I threw his copy of The Tempest into someone’s garden.

Should I keep this as a dark secret, never to be revealed to anyone but AMT? Or do you think I will get caught as it is just a matter of time before they piece it together, as they have CCTV in our classrooms?

The Tempest is categorised amongst Shakespeare’s ‘problem plays’, so it is little wonder that his epic problem has raised some questions of my own, namely:

1. What did Fred do to deserve this?
2. Depending upon the smallness of your hometown and the astuteness of the mystery garden owner, won’t the retrieval of a copy of The Tempest with your name written inside be fairly incriminating?
3. Why didn’t you just sneak it back into his bag at the end of the first day?
4. I know that schoolbook loss/theft isn’t to be encouraged, but isn’t your teacher rather overreacting? Or is your school actually run like a police state? I can’t believe your teachers would in reality be planning to frisk everybody for contraband copies of The Tempest. I also can’t quite believe your classrooms have CCTV, and that it would really be worth the school’s while, for the price of an out-of-copyright book, to plough through the footage.
5. Is it just me, or is The Tempest (whisper it) a bit rubbish?

Readers, I can’t raise a great deal of sympathy for this young fool, so please do my job for me and head for the comments to offer your advice for him. I worry that if we leave him to deal with it on his own, the situation will escalate to the point where he has to kill every member of his school and burn all books to cover his tracks.

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Posted in extracurricular questions, User-generated answers | 6 Comments »

no Friend of mine

September 20, 2011
••• ANSWER ME THIS! RETURNS ON 13th OCTOBER; IN THE MEANTIME, CLICK HERE TO CATCH UP ON EPISODES •••

Everybody, whatever you do, don’t tell Darcy in Chase, British Columbia about what happened in the final episode of Sex and the City, as he’s currently finding series finales from 2004 rather upsetting:

I stopped watching broadcast TV about a decade ago, so I didn’t know how Friends ended until I finished watching the DVDs today. I was so mad that Ross and Rachel got back together that I’m seriously tempted to run all 40 DVDs through the shredder. Their whole romance was unbelievable and annoying enough as it was, but Rachel not going to Paris because of her “big realization” that she loves Ross was beyond absurd!* Really!? She loves Ross? We had no idea! She had only realized it – and told Ross – about a thousand times over the course of the series!

I gather lots of people feel the same way about the way Seinfeld ended and can’t watch reruns of it. So answer me this: what shows’ endings sucked so bad that it completely ruined all your past, present, and future enjoyment of the whole show?

Evidently I am more forgiving than Darcy, able to concentrate on the tranches of series that were still good (Michelle Dessler) and excise the terrible bits from memory (Kim Bauer). That said, my second viewing of Twin Peaks was approximately 60% less good than the first because by then I knew that the thirteen episodes following the Big Reveal (the effective climax of the series) were, at best, moderately diverting, and at worst a very vortex of shittery. There, as in many other cases, it’s not the ending alone, but the lengthy inexorable decline that precedes it which ruins it for me – and, presumably, commissioners.

Readers, by all means comfort Darcy by telling him in the comments which series’ conclusions left you mentally cancelling out all their preceding credits; but better yet, advise him of completed series which he can watch without fearing that they will take a turn for the craptacular. I’d hold up Spaced, Arrested Development and My So Called Life as finite and fulfilled, and Blackadder actually manages to get even better right at the end. Then Darcy won’t break his shredder.

*Too right it was: he’s so neurotic, shrill and underwritten that he is essentially unlovable; while one-dimensional narcissist Rachel is incapable of any depth of feeling. When you look at it like that, they really are a perfect match, just like everybody thought in 1996.

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Posted in extracurricular questions, User-generated answers | 3 Comments »

holiday reading

September 8, 2011

** Click here for Episode 190 **

Ben from Southampton has done the research that we couldn’t do in the fields of Wales the other week:

I just listened to episode 189 where the provenance of Ferris wheels came up. You’re right that they were named after a Mr Ferris but here are some further details, as learned from the brilliant book The Devil In The White City (movie rights owned by Leonardo DiCaprio).

The Chicago World Exposition at the end of the 1800s was tasked with outdoing the previous one in Paris where the Eiffel Tower was unveiled. A contest was held for the centrepiece of the fair and while many people submitted designs for towers, Daniel Burnham, architect and director of the fair, wanted something different so as not to be seen as copying Paris. The Ferris wheel was the design he picked from the competition entries.

It’s a brilliant book following two concurrent stories – one, Burnham’s impossible task of building the amazing Exposition against seemingly impossible obstacles, and the other being the story of HH Holmes, America’s first known/documented modern psychopath who is alleged to have used the Expo as a cover for killing hundreds of young women (I think it can only be proven that he killed somewhere in the teens but there’s reason to believe it was many, many more).

I highly recommend the book if you are into either the macabre or architecture.

It sounds like a treat! I’m looking for books to read during our month off; readers, please make your recommendations in the comments. They don’t need to be about the macabre or architecture, although I do imagine these to be common enthusiasms amongst you.

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, User-generated answers | 8 Comments »

Bus nudity dilemma

September 8, 2011

** Click here for Episode 190 **

I’m going to steer clear of the buses in Seattle, after this question from Joe in Seattle:

Answer me this: would you rather sit directly beside a naked man on the bus or a fully-clothed man with his wiener hanging out?

I’d go for the naked man, because I’d assume he was either a harmless naturist, or a groom from a 1980s wedding farce who’s managed to unchain himself from the lamppost and swim back to the mainland, and is now on the bus to his own wedding where he has to stop the bride saying ‘I do’ to the evil best man who has sabotaged him thus.

Whereas a man who was clothed but whose wiener was unleashed, I would assume that he was keeping it easily accessible as he finds buses sexually arousing. I don’t want to sit next to anyone who finds public transport erotically stimulating. Nor would I want to be there when he finished.

But readers, how about you?

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Posted in extracurricular questions, Rock the Vote, User-generated answers | 1 Comment »

labour pains

August 30, 2011

** Click here for Episode 189 **

Congratulations in advance to John from Leeds and his wife, who must be readying the overnight bag and practicing the breathing techniques:

My wife and I are shortly due to welcome into the world our first child, expected September 23rd. Last week we went to our first ante-natal class (or ‘Parentcraft’ as it has now been rebranded) to find out all about how to tell you’re in labour, what to do when you’re in labour and, most important in my wife’s eyes, what drugs you can have to ease the passing of the (hopefully) lovable little tyke.

The nurse was very keen on distraction techniques whereby you forget all about the pain by the simple process of having a bath, listening to some music (or an Answer Me This podcast) or having a game of Scrabble, whatever works for you.

I realise that as none of you have given birth you may not be the best qualified people to ask but qnswer me this: what distraction techniques would you recommend for forgetting the stress and worries of childbirth?

How about grabbing the forceps and the umbilical scissors and putting on an impromptu puppet show between her knees? Leading a singsong of some of the more rousing hymns? Or propping up a target at the end of your wife’s bed of pain, to give her something to aim for during the final shunt? If she hits the bullseye, she wins a prize! Of an episiotomy.

Our inexperience in childbirth is hereby made all too obvious, but readers, many of you will have reproduced, so kindly share your distraction techniques in the comments.

Incidentally, my sister-in-law DID play Scrabble during her first labour, but it wasn’t as effective as the three doses of epidural drugs.

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Posted in extracurricular questions, User-generated answers | 3 Comments »

Winning, websites and the Wanted

August 23, 2011

** Click here for Episode 188 **

I’m not the only person to ‘win’ a piece of crap from a local radio station! James from Salisbury is similarly garlanded:

I entered a competition on North Devons local radio station when I was 9, and won a Gabrielle CD! It was shit, and I used it as a coaster.

I also won a set of erasers (because saying I won a set of rubbers sounds perverse) in a Radio 7 competition about 4 years ago. They are still in the packaging.

What are you complaining about, James? Both of these could make perfectly adequate Christmas presents for relatives you don’t particularly care about. As for other business raised by last week’s episode, Dom says:

Both MI5 and MI6 actually advertise jobs on their websites. If your listener still fancies becoming a spy then that’s not a bad place to start. Not quite as exciting really, is it?

It’s unlikely to end up in a John le Carré novel, true. Likewise those other famous users of covert communications, The Wanted; Joel from Hamburg notes:

Look up the sign language for ‘lesbian’. The guy from The Wanted in that mall may have just been communicating with deaf fans…

[Insert requisite joke here about how you’d have to be deaf to be a fan of The Wanted etc etc.]

Like us, Sarah in Liverpool has been overthinking the disparate boyband (and also spending her days the same way as I do, even though I’m not a student. Ready for your morning dose of Gilmore Girls, Sarah?):

While attempting to doze off listening to your podcast, you managed to inadvertently wake me up by mentioning my favourite current boyband, The Wanted. And when I say favourite, I rather mean my favourite boyband to make fun of.

As a university student I have spent many hours staring at a television flicking between Neighbours and music channels and The Wanted have struck a chord with me, particularly due to how ramshackle the band looks. So I was incredibly happy to hear you’ve also analysed and been frustrated by this band, and like me you’ve seemed to scrutinize them enough to give them nicknames. These names are:
Sexy Thug
(The unfortunately named) Little fish eyes
Paul from A1
Hot Cow (Specifically the Lactofree cow)
The boy who turned up at the wrong band auditions.

It’s a game you can all play! Everybody, consider yourself continuing the grand tradition begun by Smash Hits when they dubbed Melanie Chisholm ‘Sporty Spice’, and think up nicknames for the five members of The Wanted. Here are your prey:

The Wanted: pop pick'n'mix

For bonus boyband points, guess the member who a) is secretly gay; b) will be the first to leave for a solo career; c) is planning a career in acting; d) has knocked 5 years off his age; e) is pretending that he doesn’t have a degree from a top-tier university.

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, User-generated answers | Leave a Comment »

my two dads

August 17, 2011

** Click here for Episode 187 **

Aaah, this question from Sean takes us back over 100 episodes, to AMT86, when newlywed Kate asked us what title she should bestow upon her new lady wife. Being imaginative sorts, we suggested ‘wife’. Let’s see what we can pull out of the bag for Shaun:

I have the gay and next year I am marrying another man who also has the gay, and at this happy time in our lives we’re beginning to look forward and are on the borders of ‘thinking about a family of our own’.

Of course, being modern 21st-century types we’re less concerned with ‘how will we feed it and not let it die from our own ineptitude’, we’re much more concerned with superficial things like naming conventions.

Once we have adopted/surrogated/otherwise legally procured our children we’ve been wondering what we should encourage them to call us; it seems that calling us Dad and Dad or Daddy and Daddy would be confusing. It feels that we should each ‘own’ a term. I’m vetoing Pops, Popa and Papa. And of course we’re vetoing ‘mum’.

So, answer me this: if you had two dads, what would you call them to differentiate between one and the other?

I call both my parents ‘Sir’, of course. That’s de rigueur where I come from.

Readers, do you have – or are you one half of – a pair of paters? Please go to the comments to tell us how your own nomenclature situation shook down.

By the way, Shaun, the choice might not even be yours in the end; children tend to be fairly imaginative in this area, so whichever tasteful or humorous titles you opt for may be passed over in favour of a truly horrific bundle of infantile phonemes. But you’ll learn to love it. Or at least your defences will be so broken by the daily exertions of childcare that you won’t be able to correct it until it’s too late. Either way, you’ll be stuck with it forever, so you might as well not worry about it now.

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Posted in extracurricular activities, User-generated answers | 1 Comment »

Are you doing that for a bet?

August 11, 2011

** Click here for Episode 186 **

Under no circumstances make a bet with Nic from Chester:

A friend of mine once got a tattoo of a My Little Pony on his shoulder for a £5 bet. Admittedly £5 was a princely sum at the time and it wouldn’t have been so bad, had the masterpiece not cost him £25 to get done! So my question is this, what ridiculous stunts have you performed for cash?

THIS. But in its course, Jodie Marsh regaled us with a far more amped up version of Nic’s story above: she won a bet with a friend over the length of the world’s longest tiger, and his penalty for failing at this trivia question was having ‘Meat is murder’ tattooed in massive script down the full length of his arm.

Listen to me, children: tattoos are NOT an appropriate bet penalty, nor anything that will cause permanent damage to your body. If Jodie Marsh told you to cut off your finger because you didn’t guess the maximum circumference of a puffer fish, would you? Don’t answer that. But do answer Nic’s question in the comments, because we know that you have a reckless silly streak and you’ll do anything for the price of a tin of peas.

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ungiven gifts and unwanted uncles

August 11, 2011

** Click here for Episode 186 **

Keep your knees together, balance a book on your head and invoke the ghost of Lucie Clayton, because we’re going to tackle a couple of etiquette questions. Read, assimilate, then offer your advice in the comments, firstly to Stan from Leeds:

Last weekend I celebrated my 20th birthday. I didn’t see my girlfriend on the day because she was at a festival, but we made plans to meet up in the week and make up for it.

However, we ended up breaking up before I saw her. It was moderately amicable, yet obviously things are going to be awkward for some time.

So answer me this: does she still owe me any presents she bought me, as we were still going out on my birthday, we just couldn’t see each other?

On top of this, her birthday is less than a week after mine and I spent a decent amount of money on gifts for her, which I don’t think I can return anymore. So what should I do with those?

If you’re absolutely sure you can’t return any, then think about who else might be a suitable recipient for them. Of course this won’t work out too well if you bought her a load of rude underwear with her pet name embroidered onto it, but at least there’s a place for everything on eBay.

As for her presents for you: sure, you’re technically owed them, but think carefully about whether you really want them. If they’re really great presents, showing how much she truly understood you, you’ll never be able to enjoy them thanks to the bittersweet tang of a love that died. Whereas if they’re shit presents, they’re shit presents, and nobody wants shit presents.

And let’s not discount the possibility of her breaking up with you to avoid having to get you a present at all.

Onwards, to this question from Sebastian from Ascot:

I was at my uncle’s last weekend and he had had a few drinks and just before I was going to bed he said if I needed his pornography it was under the stairs and this was in front of my mum and she goes, “He wouldn’t need that, he’s only 16…” So answer me this: what the hell should I have said?

Errr – you think I have access to official guidelines for how to act in this scenario?

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Bring on the LOLs

August 9, 2011

** Click here for Episode 186 **

There has already been far too much bad news this week, and it’s still only Tuesday. We could all do with some proper cheering up, so let’s address this question from James from Telford:

What do you think is the best laugh-out-loud film of all time?

Go to the comments, readers, and tell us which films will give us the dose of jollity we need amid all the grimness, which we can temporarily forget whilst we have a chuckle-filled viewing party on electrical equipment we obtained through the proper, legal means.

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Posted in extracurricular questions, User-generated answers | 24 Comments »

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