Hello there, chums!
We know you’re probably still watching the new Lady Gaga video that you clicked on last Friday, but when you need a break from [SPOILERS!] all the killing, the Kill Bill Pussy Wagon, and Beyonce’s impassive acting [/spoilers], then Answer Me This! Episode 127 is right here waiting for youuuuuu:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
On this week’s agenda:
Charles Fey
San Francisco special bread
McDonald’s apple pies
steak on a stake
Apt Pupil
malaria
killer whales
Steve Coogan vs. Rednex
Snoop Dogg vs. the UK
gambling machines vs. Canadian homosexuality cures
and
American Psycho.
Furthermore, Olly angers Jesus by using his Gideon’s Bible for nefarious purposes; Helen ponders the fugitive crayfish of Tunbridge Wells; and Martin the Sound Man can get you a nice Geiger counter if you slip him £50, no questions asked. Oh, you’ve already got one? Say no more. Plus, we solve the total non-mystery of what happened to former AMT flatmate Matthew Crosby, for the 0.001% of you who are curious.
As always, we enjoy it ever so much when you ask us QUESTIONS, so please do so by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving a voicemail on Skype ID answermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877. In addition, if you have an opinion on what is the world’s grimmest book scene, express it in the comments – but please, keep any descriptions euphemistic, for we and many of our readers are of delicate constitutions. Also we already get more than enough Weird Googlers as it is.
See you next Thursday,
Helen and Olly
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Answer Me This! Podcast 
March 12, 2012 at 2:57 pm |
Have you chaps not heard of the Cherenkov radiation? Nuclear reactions often have a blue (not green glow). Its really interesting if Martin hadn’t read up on it.
March 23, 2010 at 1:52 pm |
Hi Helen, Olly & Martin,
I read James Herbert’s the Rats as a teenager and I found it very gross/ explicit – wasn’t there this weird sex scene with some tramp who promptly got eaten?
Ooh and Jurassic Park was pretty gory, when Dennis Nedry got got by the little dinosaurs that spat that blinding stuff at him… and it ended up with him holding his own insides
Thanks much for the interesting listening
March 25, 2010 at 8:32 pm |
Ah yes, James Herbert. Did you ever read The Fog? There’s a bit with a pair of garden shears that’s very difficult for a man to read.
I’m still going to have to go with American Psycho as the most disturbing book ever, closely followed by Dearly Devoted Dexter.
March 23, 2010 at 9:15 am |
Hi Helen, Olly and Martin,
Long time listener first time writer inner.
First of all the fourth book in Different Seasons was The Breathing Method and it’s about a decapitated woman giving birth.
Also on the subject of rhymes “Month”rhymes with “Granth” as in Guru Granth Sahib, a holy scripture of the Sikh religion.
Also purple rhymes with hirple which means to walk with a limp.
I know that orange rhymes with a word that is part of a horses tack but I can’t remember what it is.
(orange and month rhymes I learned from QI, credit where credit is due)
Cheers,
John from Glasgow.
March 23, 2010 at 8:06 am |
I came across a rather graphic scene in ‘The Hippopotamus’,a book by Stephen Fry, of all people. I suppose it doesn’t count as gruesome because there wasn’t any violence involved. Still, a lengthy description of a boy penetrating a horse is enough to make most people’s stomachs churn. The worst part was that it was an audiobook, so I couldn’t even fast forward for fear I’d miss some important plot point.
March 22, 2010 at 7:57 pm |
Long time listener, 1st time mailer, so 3 things (but no questions)
I am with 2plus2isjoe, and Liam. Chuck’s “guts” made me do the same. It was a short story on its own, even published in a Sunday newspaper magazine, before incorporated into his novel Haunted.
“Month”rhymes with “Granth” as in Guru Granth Sahib, a holy scripture of the Sikh religion.
And finally, I love my job.
I work at whisky shop in central London where we exchange bottles of whisky and other spirits for money. I spend my day talking to interested people about something I love (i.e. drink) intespersed with bouts of tasting the produce (well you’ve got to know about the stuff you’re recommending).
Love the podcast
Thank you bye!
March 21, 2010 at 8:17 pm |
Ooh, I just remembered another one – in a Tolstoy novel, of all places! In Resurrection, one of the characters is in prison for murdering her husband after he daubed vitriol on her genitals. Don’t try it at home.
March 21, 2010 at 11:18 am |
With regards to gruesome works of literature, whilst American Psycho takes some beating (dissolving lady parts with acid-why, yes please) at least it had some laughs.
Naked Lunch however, not so much. I only made it half way through as my normally cast iron stomach found it all a little bit too much to take.
Speaking of lady parts, if you go to
http://www.loveyourvagina.com/index.php/index/static?nointro
you can suggest your own preferred synonym for aforementioned area. Hours of fun for all the family.
Love and hugs,
Sian
March 20, 2010 at 9:39 pm |
A book scene that comes to my mind is from Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk. It’s more awkward than gruesome as is the whole book. In it an aging adult actress tries to revive her career by breaking the record for most sexual acts in one setting. The way she prepares for it is most peculiar. She works out quite vigorously, bust as well as exercising her body she exercises her lady parts. In one scene she is jogging around her neighborhood whilst weighted balls are shoved into her nether regions. Her goal is to keep the balls in as long as possible to strengthen that area. But while she is running the weighted balls, slowly one by one, slip out her pant leg. I believe at one point a dog grabs one of the balls and runs off with it.
March 19, 2010 at 2:22 pm |
With regard to the discussion of whether you can buy a Geiger counter on eBay, you can most certainly buy uranium on Amazon:
http://bit.ly/c7HMRM
March 19, 2010 at 12:53 pm |
Hello lovely podcast types and, dre i say, friends?!?
Vimto Bonbon’s are not just a Scottish tasty sugary treat. Here in Milton Keynes, there are also available in the popular high street chain (well, popular in bletchley) if Poundland. FOr….er…..a pound. And most yummy they are too.
Ive also realised that most of the follow up discussion is about gross books. And, rather than being absorbet in intellectual literature, i cared more about tasty confectionary. bugger.
Love the show Steve.
Moz x
March 19, 2010 at 12:54 pm |
i meant to say DARE i say! I am not a fan of Dr. Dre.
cherrio
March 19, 2010 at 12:48 pm |
Surely 120 Days of Sodom can claim the title of most gruesome book ever written, although technically it was never finished.
March 19, 2010 at 9:32 am |
I just realised Liam had already suggested it and had the tact to not describe it here. Sorry.
March 19, 2010 at 9:31 am |
There’s a short story in Chuck Palahniuk’s book ‘Haunted’ where a teenager tries to masturbate by sitting on the intake filter in his pool and ends up pulling his own guts out of his arse. That wasn’t much fun to read.
Bye!
March 19, 2010 at 9:35 am |
I remember reading that story and squirming in my seat. Great book!
March 19, 2010 at 4:08 am |
A rather gruesome piece of literature I have read: in the first few pages of “My idea of fun” by Will Self he describes quite graphicaly the experience of removing a tramps head and then making love to the headless neck of the corpse. Will Self being notoriously wordy, he goes into much disturbing detail about the physical and mental feeling of commiting this act. Lovely… Big fan of the podcast I listen to it on mi iPhone at work on the night shift.
March 18, 2010 at 9:41 pm |
As always a great podcast. On the subject of disgusting scenes from novels I’d like to make a contribution with “guts” by Chuck Palahniuk. Google it if you’re curious although i wouldn’t advise it.
March 18, 2010 at 5:56 pm |
Probably the most gruesome piece literature I’ve read is the script for “Blasted” from the collected plays of Sarah Kane. Kane wrote five plays and a short for channel four before she tragically killed herself.
Specifically scene three, where a Bosnian soldier rapes and tortures a journalist, Ian, and recounts his war crimes. From the play:
[The soldier] puts his mouth over one of Ian’s eyes, sucks it out, bites it off and eats it.
He does the same to the other eye.
March 18, 2010 at 5:05 pm |
The most gruesome scene from a book I can remember is from some trashy novel starring a psychologist coming to nineteenth century New York to aid Theodore Roosevelt in solving a crime. The serial killer they had to find had a penchant for removing the genitals (cock and balls) of ladyboy prostitutes and shoving them in their victims’ mouths.
Given Helen’s love of serial killer documentaries I trawled my bookshelves and found it – it’s called The Alienist by Caleb Carr. Sorry Helen, it’s fiction.
March 18, 2010 at 11:14 am |
Most gruesome scene from a book I can recall is from another Stephen King short story book called Skeleton Crew, from a short story which I think is called Survivor Type. A dental surgeon turned drug dealers boat sinks and he gets marooned on a tiny rocky outcrop of an island with a kilo of heroin, a diary (which is how the story is told) and a box of matches. After a few days he begins to starve. He breaks his ankle in a gap in the rocks while trying to catch a seagull to eat. The ankle turns septic. He takes a load of the heroin to dull the pain and amputates the ankle and foot. Then he eats the rotten foot. Over the following days he gradually consumes himself while being too smacked off his tits to feel any pain. So much so that he cant write the diary any more so the story ends.
The missing story from Different Seasons was about a woman who had a baby even though her head had been chopped off. Bit of a shit movie that would have made though. The Running Man was from The Bachman Books. 4 stories about the future. None of them came true. Challenge Aneka was about as close as we ever got to the Running Man.
March 18, 2010 at 10:55 am |
Hey Ollie that 4th Steven king story was a made into a little film called “the running man” Now I’ve got to go and buy the dvd!
Great podcast!
March 18, 2010 at 8:46 am |
Don’t feel bad Olly about using your Bible as a weapon. I remember using them for papers several times when I was out of them.