Answer Me This! Podcast

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We’ve got weddings on the brain this week, so let’s have a look at this question from Mark from St Neots:

On the anti-clockwise M25 just before you get to the M1 (Junction 21) there is a bridge where someone has painted onto it:

Did Louise say yes, and is this a romantic way to propose or not?

ATTENTION TEAM AMT! Answer us these*:
Is one of you Louise?
Is Bob among your number?
Or do you know Bob and/or Louise?
If the answer to any of the above questions is ‘yes’, tell us: are Louise’n’Bob married? To each other? Happily? Or has Louise never forgiven him for proposing on a slab of concrete?
And do graffiti and the M25 say romance?

*because we’re on holiday, so it’s your turn.

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** Click here for Episode 174 **

All is not harmonious for Luke from Fife at present:

I am heavily involved in music activities, and this is where I met my boyfriend of 8 months.

I asked him to leave me alone, but he continues to contact me and message me through any form he can. So, answer me this: how do I deal with this rage?

We thought music was supposed to soothe most existential angst, but in this case it obviously isn’t; so, readers, tell Luke in the comments how to transform his fury into nonchalance.

The bigger question, we think, is why Luke’s ex is the one obsessively contacting him. Block him, Luke!

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** Click here for Episode 174 **

We know that a lot of you use the pumping beats of AMT to keep you entertained whilst running (that counts as us doing exercise too, right?), so would like to say a very big “Good luck!” to all of you listeners who are running the London Marathon this Sunday. But we reserve the biggest amount of “Good luck!” for Sam from Cambridgeshire:

I am running the London Marathon. However, because I am a little strange, I have decided that 26.2 miles just isn’t enough, and have decided to run the 86 miles back home again to St. Ives, Cambridgeshire, straight afterwards.

This foolhardiness is all in the name of charity, as I am raising money for the Epilepsy Society, aiming to raise over £2,000.

We can’t deny that this feat is both very charitable and very foolhardy. Accordingly, we would like you to answer us these in the comments: firstly, have you ever done anything more foolhardy than this in the name of charity; and secondly, have you ever completed an impressive physical feat and followed it with an even more impressive physical feat as a chaser?

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** Click here for Episode 174 **

How gutting for Rowan to be so blatantly reminded that his joint is less fun than the bog in a retirement castle:

The other day, one of our ferrets escaped. After hours of searching he was eventually found in the washroom of a local old people’s home. So Helen and Olly, answer me this: have you ever had pets run away? And did you get them back again?

Rowan, how clearly I remember the day when our two dogs and cat walked across America just to find their way home…the things they must have seen! The perils they faced! The geological features they posed next to!

However, readers, if you’ve experienced the less fictitious loss and return of a pet, by all means share with Rowan by means of the comments.

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** Click here for Episode 173 **

Strap yourself in for a question from Finn:

I recently watched your Great British Questions series (awesome). i couldn’t help noticing the mouse in dungarees standing outside the cheesery.

Answer me this: why does it become socially unacceptable for males to wear dungarees past the age of three? It’s annoying as I think dungarees are the coolest clothing item ever, but if I wore them at the age of thirteen I would probably be put in a circus, put in a mental home, or possibly both.

Come come, circuses would go bust if the entertainment they were offering consisted of 13-year-old boys wearing dungarees.

By all means, readers, go to the comments and explain to Finn why this twist of sartorial fate is thus; however I think the more pressing mystery is why anybody over the age of three would WANT to wear dungarees. Pregnant women, I give you a free pass; everyone else, why would you wear a garment that makes you LOOK pregnant (regardless of your gender and relative waifishness), plus forces you to undress every time you go to the lavatory? Why? WHY????

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** Click here for Episode 173 **

Help us promote inland tourism today by contemplating the following pair of questions, then going to the comments and offering your best suggestions for fun in the towns mentioned therein. Lorraine from Ireland is the first person needing your guidance:

My two kids – a 5-year-old girl and 2-and-a-half-year-old boy – have become crazy for Thomas the Tank Engine after getting some of the books as a gift.

We were considering taking our small people there during the easter break but am wondering what else Birmingham has to offer. So answer me this: what else could we do during a weekend in Birmingham?

GO TO CADBURY WORLD.

Sadly, Cadbury World is not an option where Dom from Shrewsbury is going:

A year and a half after leaving university I have finally got a graduate job. It involves moving to Nottingham so I’ve been researching my new home and I’ve found sod all. Answer me this – apart from Robin Hood and that one old pub is there anything interesting about Nottingham? The only thing I’ve found is an exciting level of gun crime.

In my brief acquaintance with Nottingham, I went to a lovely tea shop where the staff were all dressed like The Past and had an impressive selection of cakes and crockery. I can understand how that might not keep you in thrall to the place long-term; in which case, the Nottingham Caves certainly look worth a gander. And I’m sure you’ll settle into the gun culture in no time.

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** Click here for Episode 172 **

Following in the wake of the celeb craze for spring 2011, Elaine from Cork has some happy news:

My significant other and I found that we are expecting a new arrival in November.
It is a surprise for both of us really… we have told our immediate family but not our friends yet!
My question is: do you have any interesting ways for us to break the news to our friends and work colleagues after I have my first scan?
I was think via facebook for friends— but that just seems boring!
Any crazy ideas like sky writing etc… greatly appreciated?

Bravo Elaine and Mr Elaine! It would be pretty easy just to direct your friends to this post, but, I’ll grant you, perhaps insufficiently festive. You could stuff a cushion up your jumper for your next social occasion, and pretend you are practising for six months hence. You could leave a bun in each of their ovens, with a little note explaining this bizarre act (people are quite lenient towards odd behaviour in pregnant people, don’t they?); you could send them one of those creepy photos amalgamating your face with your partner’s and sticking it onto a baby’s body, with the caption, “Brace yourself!”; you could show them all how you’ve turned your erstwhile drugs den into a nursery. However, none of these ruses are satisfactory given the significance of the news, so I put it to you readers who unlike me have produced offspring. Go to the comments, and with your mental fecundity give birth to a glorious scheme via which Elaine can intimate to her friends and colleagues that in a few months’ time they will have to get used to her being tired, distracted and covered in regurgitated milk.

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** Click here for Episode 172 **

Having read listener Laura‘s email, I have been led to believe there’s a leaking gas main beneath her new garden:

My boyfriend and I recently moved into a new flat in Crouch End. On our first day sitting out in our new garden we were absolutely, COMPLETELY convinced we saw a hummingbird hovering and sipping from a flower only metres away. It was very tiny, probably only two inches high and about an inch wide.

HOWEVER after much internet consultation it seems hummingbirds simply don’t exist in Britain – so Helen and Olly answer me this – what was it that we saw and are we just deluded in persisting in our romantic belief that it was a hummingbird in our new garden?

Of course dear, it was a hummingbird, and then the unicorn next door banged on the fence and told you to stop making so much bloody noise.

However, as I once saw a crayfish on our driveway in Tunbridge Wells, who am I to say it definitely was not this exotic bird? Or a big dowdy bumblebee? If any of you readers are ornithologists, or psychotherapists, go to the comments and clear up the mystery surrounding Laura’s vision.

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