Answer Me This! Podcast

In Episode 92, Olly said he needed an iPhone. Subsequently, you listeners are being a bad influence on him – egging him on first is Matt from Cambridgeshire:

All I can say is: Olly, GET ONE!!

I brought mine a couple of months ago and haven’t looked back. The amount of apps/games available to download is mind boggling. Not to mention downloading podcasts or TV/film straight to it. I really can’t recommend it enough.

Sounds fun and all, but I still dispute that he needs one. But Gareth from London takes me to task:

I beg to differ in your statement “Nobody NEEDS an iPhone!”

Let alone the Twitter and Facebook apps… which are actually quite worryingly addictive! 😉 oh – and Tap Tap Revenge, which is basically guitar hero for iPhone!!

Indispensable as knock-off Guitar Hero on the move sounds, I propound, Gareth from London, that you COULD literally do without yours, seeing as you managed to do that very thing until a year ago without being eaten by a lion, scuttling your ship or losing all of your shoes. So bearing in mind that ‘need’ is not quite the same creature as ‘want’ or ‘find moderately useful’, answer us this:

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** Click here for EPISODE 87 **

Here’s a curio from David from Sheffield:

One of my friends and I were having discussion a while back in a particularly boring maths lesson where we attempted to come up with the nerdiest pick-up lines we could. The best ones we got were “I’ll balance your equation…” and “Wait till you see my hypotenuse…” What are the best ones you can come up with?

As none of us are allowed to chat people up, lest we ruin our long-term relationships, we’re going to throw this out to YOU. If you have an irresistible geeky chat-up line that you don’t mind sharing, “Nice pair…of compasses” or the like, then please avail us all of it in a comment below!

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** Click here for EPISODE 78 **

Since last week’s batch of namealikes, Peter from Chicago has written in to point out:

I had thought proper term was “googleganger.” It was one of the “new words” of 2007.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=googleganger
http://wordie.org/words/googleganger
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-googleganger.htm

Hmm – “googleganger” sounds a little bit too ‘prison shower’ for our tastes, so fingers crossed for ‘namealike’ as an early entrant into the new words of 2009. Anyway, on with your titular twins!

Says Joe List:

When I googled myselfI  found this guy… http://www.myspace.com/joelist
He’s a stand up comedian from Queens. But he’s not funny at all.
I’m an animator/designer and I don’t make jokes about chicks. I don’t even say ‘chicks’.

So, little common ground between the Joe Lists. What about the Andrew from New Yorks?:

There is only one other person that I have ever found with my same name, he also lives in New York, but while I am a Forensic Scientist working for the police, my internet doppelganger is an Ukrainian Dance instructor/architect.

It’s fascinating enough that one man could be at once an architect and a Ukrainian dance instructor, let alone that his namealike has a job which ITV would make into a long-running drama series. Can any other listeners top that? Perhaps Paul Styles:

My namealike is an American wrestler called (you guessed it) Paul Styles.
His full stage name is Paul ‘The Role Model’ Styles. All the good nicknames must have been taken.

Cor! But let’s take a break now from all that showbiz and see who’s sharing the good name of Elizabeth in Aylesbury:

It turns out I’m a Barrister and a Lesbian and Gay rights campaigner, which is a million miles from what I do as I am a straight lady and a Sales Advisor in a department store.

For some reason, few of you are considering a namealike-inspired career change, even though for some of you it is pretty much already fixed up for you. Take, for instance, Tom T:

My namesake is an electrician who lives round the corner from my house, which explains why I’ve had phonecalls asking to do building jobs.

You should keep up the pretence, Tom T! You’re missing out on a not insubstantial hourly rate.

Finally, let’s check in with the Stan Dennings:

Imagine my surprise when I discovered my name-alike to be none other than the unnervingly hairy ‘Pastor Stan Denning’ and was introduced to the organisation ‘Marantha Motorcycle Ministry’, who according to their website have a desire to ‘promote God’s love and grace in the motorcycle community’.

Well, someone needs to do it.

If YOU have an inapt namealike, please tell us all about him/her in the comments below!

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** Click here for Episode 77 **

In Episode 77 Geoff raised the notion of people who share your name but not your career path, and you lovely chaps have been in touch with your own examples of this phenomenon. Charles Firth says:

My job is as an IT consultant, but there are two much more famous Charles Firths out there – both in Australia, oddly enough. One is a conservative talking head, and the other stars in the very funny show Chaser’s War on Everything (watch it if you can).

I’m sure there are a bunch more out there as well, and wonder if Google ranking is the right way to determine relative worth? Maybe there’s another Charles Firth out there who saves hurt puppies or something….

Keep hoping, Charles Firth! Perhaps YOU will find a cure for cancer and prevent the icecaps from melting, without even lifting a finger!

Chris Stringer has also been self-googling:

I share my name with a Professor Chris Stringer, who is a British anthropologist, and ‘one of Britain’s foremost experts on human origins’. Wouldn’t it be funny if I was a devout Christian? I’m not.
BUT the most interesting part was that on wikipedia, I was asked if I meant Chris Stringer the football player, my complete opposite – I’m an acoustic singer songwriter! I decided to have a look, and imagine the shock I had when I saw that Chris Stringer, from Grimsby, a former English pro footballer who played for Sheffield Wednesday, has the same birthday as me! What a coincidence!

Spoooooky! As is this tale from Nicole in Santa Barbara:

When I googled my maiden name Nicole Pursell, I got me (a teacher in California) and a high school swimmer in Washington. This is really nothing of note, but it gets funky. One day I was mailing a package, and the person commented on my name. The conversation went something like this:
“Your name is Nicole Pursell.”
“yes.”
“My last name is also Pursell, spelled the same way.” (usually people spell it Purcell)
“Interesting. We’re probably long lost relatives.”
“Yeah, but the weird thing is that my sister is Nicole Pursell.”
“Is she a swimmer, and are you from Washington?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“I googled myself and she came up.”
The conversation continued with him telling me his life story about how if he were born a girl, he would have been Michelle (his name was Michael), and his sister would have been Nicholas, but they weren’t.
I just wanted to mail my book, but it was odd to meet a relation of the other Nicole Pursell.

Coincidence – or do postal workers in California just habitually tell name-related lies to keep themselves entertained throughout the day?

Keep US entertained by sending in your own strange and spooky namealikes, people!

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