Let’s tidy away all our AMT318 business before AMT319 emerges tomorrow. Upon the matter of the origins of ‘Bluetooth’, Erik writes:
I just wanted to point out that the Blue in Harald Blåtand is nothing at all to do with blueberries. In the ancient Nordic dialects of the Germanic language there was no specific word for ‘black’, and in fact all dark colours were referred to as ‘blue’. King Harald had a black tooth which was presumably dead. I leave to you to guess what his breath was like.
While we’re imagining smells, let’s hear from Lisa:
So… Juliet’s balcony… I can in fact tell you something rather interesting. I went to Stratford-upon-Avon Grammar School for Girls (yes, as in Stratford-upon-Avon, the very home of William Shakespeare) and our school was located in a very very old manor house.
In this very very old manor house, the dear bard himself was betrothed in the chapel (which was my Geography room). Even better? ‘The balcony on the outside of the manor is the very balcony that inspired Shakespeare to write the famous balcony scene from Romeo and Juilet.’ Google that shizz if you don’t believe me.
But trust me, this is not as cool as it sounds. Our school grounds were always invaded by Japanese and American tourists who wanted to visit.
That still sounds cooler than my school, but sluicing time on the bowel ward sounds cooler than my school.
We love to hear how our questioneers have fared in the wake of our counsel. Here’s a brace of emails from questioneers of episodes long past, some happy, some sad. Let’s start happy, with Eleanor from the Isle of Man from AMT305:
You kindly answered my question in January as to whether I should steal my dad’s dough scraper that he clearly had no intention of using. So imagine my excitement this morning when opening my birthday presents from my husband and children to discover they got me not only a dough scraper, but also an Answer Me This apron! Problem solved!
Aaah! Feast your eyes on that birthday joy, then bathe in the sorrow of AMT247‘s Emily:
A few years ago I messaged you about being caught by my boyfriend as I was smoking in the bath and how I tried to play it off as in fact me masturbating.
So, the development is that after 3 years together he has left me, as in ‘stood in the doorway with his bags packed when I got home from work’ left me. I didn’t see it coming and this is really shit.
My question is this: how, when you chose the city you inhabit, the flat you live in, the pets you have and the routine that fills your life for your partner, can you stop being constantly reminded of them once they have left you? Note: I now have a grad scheme job, friends here and am tied into a rental contract (foolishly just in my name) so can’t move away.
Comiserations, Emily. But at least now you can do whatever you want in the bath, without stoking his insecurities.
Readers, have you any ideas for Emily to reboot her life? Rearrange the furniture, take a different route into work, hang out with friends in places you haven’t been before? Not sure what you can do about the pets, but perhaps you could teach them to bark in a different key or swim around the little plastic castle in the opposite direction.
Here’s a conundrum from an anonymous man upon which, readers, I’d appreciate your input in the comments. He writes:
I went on holiday to Amsterdam last year with my now ex. I am now in a new relationship, and have booked a holiday to Amsterdam. So far it’s okay, my current girlfriend has no issues returning to the city for a ‘romantic city break’ despite knowing that the last time I went was with significant ex and (it did take me a long while to get over it blah blah).
However, Helen and Olly, answer me this: should I tell my new girlfriend that the hotel we’ve booked is the same as the one I went to with my ex?
I want to be honest, but at the same time I don’t want it to seem I am just reliving the past etc etc…
For the record, the reason for booking the same hotel is its good location, good price, good mix of guests and they do a really good breakfast…
Mm-hmm, and I’m sure it’s the ONLY hotel in Amsterdam capable of supplying those things.
You say ‘I don’t want it to seem I am just reliving the past’, so WHY ARE YOU RELIVING THE PAST? Or at the very least, rewriting it with a different woman playing the part of ‘girlfriend in Amsterdam’? There are plenty of romantic cities you could visit that you had not been to within the last year with somebody else. But you chose this one. The real question is “Why?” but I suspect you are unwilling to know that answer.
Alright, fine: your question was whether to tell your girlfriend. I don’t think you’ll need to. When she sees you trying to hug the hotel room wall and blubbering about how much you’ve missed it, she’ll probably figure it out.
Summon up all your capacity for doomed adolescent romance, lean over the parapet and cry, “Wherefore art thou, Answer Me This! Episode 318?” In which we discuss:
Plus: as a result of today’s questioneer, Olly has cancelled his vasectomy; Helen has no time for ‘ye olde’; and Martin the Sound Man is keeping up with the movements of Tiffany, mutually bonded forever by familiarity with Staffordshire.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices) we continue to consider Bluetooth, and wonder when our connected household appliances will start embarrassing us on social media. Oh, they already have? Shurrup, kettle, or you’re going in the bin.
if you want to try the early ‘experimental’ phase of AMT, our vintage episodes are available on iTunes, Amazon, and our very own corporate megagiant operation answermethisstore.com, built using today’s sponsor Squarespace.com. Try them out – there’s a free two-week trial, then you can have 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘ANSWER‘. So do!
We’ll return on 23rd July 2015 with AMT319. Keep polishing your boobs till then.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT318 Child-Friendly Rating: 55%. A few swears. At the end, there is question about vasectomies; if your child hears it, it could necessitate you having The Chat: either the ‘how babies are made’ one, or the ‘Daddy, do you actually wish you’d prevented me from being born?’ one. •••
If you would like to contribute to the geographical survey of variations in Greggs the Baker‘s offerings, please do so in the comments. Then we can commission an infographic. Following AMT317, Steven in Leeds writes:
Greggs do offer regional variation in their range – as a fat northerner, the lunchtime meal of choice in my native Warrington as a sixth former was the meat and potato pasty*, which I was astounded to discover was unavailable when I moved to Yorkshire in 2006. I got over this when I went back home and realised that their ‘meat and potato’ was in fact a kind of pinkish-greyish lumpy paste with no identifiable constituent parts…but I’ll still have one about once a year when I go back home.
*As a side note: They love a bit of meat and potato in the north-west: so much so that in that region Greggs actually do both a meat and potato pie (smaller diameter but thicker filled) and a potato and meat pie (larger diameter and thinly filled), with the respective first parts designating the primary ingredient.
You say potato (and meat), I say (meat and) potato…
Readers, please go to the comments and share your views upon this question from Louis:
I have a moral dilemma, I recently discovered that my favourite breakfast cereal is made by a company who I’m informed I should be boycotting for ethical reasons.
So answer me this: should I stop eating the cereal? No other cereal grabs me in the same way, so I don’t really want to change my breakfast routine. Am I a bad person for knowingly paying a company who ultimately do a lot of evil?
Through the prism of your breakfast cereal, Louis, we face the perennial consumer choice pickle. Even if you do try to be a responsible consumer, if you follow a product up its chain, there’s usually evil money/practice SOMEwhere in a big company, riiight? Changing your breakfast routine might prove physically dangerous, riiiiight? Surely true love (of a cereal) trumps all other considerations, riiiiiiiight?
I mock because I know that right now, Louis is floating around in a paddling pool filled with his favourite cereal. ‘Who I’m informed I should be boycotting’ doesn’t suggest personal dedication to the cause.
Dreaming of a male match for Zooey Deschanel, Natalie Portman in Garden State or, the original, Kirsten Dunst’s character in Elizabethtown, Drew from North Carolina asks:
Is there a male equivalent of a ‘manic pixie dream girl’?
For a while, the male equivalent was ‘Ryan Gosling‘. But now he seems to have stopped playing ukulele in the street, and started growing sinister facial hair, there is a gap in the lexicon. Manic pixie dream reader, please go to the comments and supply. ‘Jared Leto during his Oscar campaign’ is too long-winded.
Remember 33-year-old Dave from AMT313 who wanted to eat something older than him? Heidi emailed to say:
Came across this article today and immediately thought of that episode. Apologies if it’s too gross.
Highlights:
Almost half a billion dollars worth of smuggled frozen meat – some of it rotting and more than 40 years old – has been seized in China, official media have reported.
More than 100,000 tonnes of chicken wings, beef and pork worth up to 3bn yuan ($483m) were seized in the nationwide crackdown, the state-run China Daily newspaper said.
“It was smelly and I nearly threw up when I opened the door,” said an official from Hunan province, where 800 tonnes were seized.
Officials from Guangxi, a southern region bordering Vietnam, found some of the meat was “more than 40 years old”, the newspaper said.
That would mean it was packed and stored when the country still under the rule of Communist China’s founding father, Mao Zedong, who died in 1976.
That’s gross, but I suspect there are things in my mother’s freezer that have been there since BEFORE Mao came to power.
I’m about to go on holiday* for a fortnight, and I want to pack a load of new-to-me podcasts; so this Thursday Listening Party, what I’d love to know is: which podcasts have you recently discovered?
Or, if you prefer to stick to your old favourites, let me know what’s in your regular rotation. Mine changes every few months: there are a few hundred shows stacked up in my podcast app, and many of the ones I like the best are released sporadically; but every week I listen to the latest 99% Invisible, Bullseye and Dinner Party Download.
*But still doing the usual amount of work, so there will be a new AMT in your podbucket next week.
Right now, here’s how I’ll be spending my eartime: 1. Tomorrow is final episode of the second season of StartUp: the stakes seem a lot higher than they did in season one. Good luck, Dating Ring! Also, I thought this article comparing StartUp to reality TV was an interesting perspective. 2. Hooray, Pitch has returned! The first episode of the new season is about cover songs. I am all for this. 3. Since we seem to be on the theme of firsts and lasts, try the new podcast First Time Last Time. What was it like the first time YOU robbed a bank, kids? (Don’t tell me; tell an officer of the law, please.) 4. In the latest installment of ‘things which might be a bit like Serial’ is BBC Radio 4’s Who Killed Elsie Frost?, a fifty-year-old cold case being reinvestigated by a team of journalists and the victim’s brother and sister. It’s available on the BBC website and as a podcast.
We’ve made a few sounds this week: Olly helms the brand new episode of the Guardian’s Tech Weekly, and a fresh Media Podcast will appear tomorrow. In the new Allusionist, I learn about how words can become your worst enemy and how psychotherapy can put them back in their place. Listen at theallusionist.org/behave.
Catch up with AMT316 to hear about the peace symbol, bridegrooms and Greggs the Baker, and rejoin us next Thursday for AMT318.
In Answer Me This! Episode 317, one questioneer is risking the beauty of his bottom for a bet; one appears to be too close to his sister; and another has an inferiority complex over his local multiplex (an inferiority multicomplex?). We also deal with:
Cornwall vs Greggs
Milton Keynes vs Merseyside
the Mercedes logo vs the peace symbol
Victoria, British Columbia
John Lahr’s remote working practices
dinner party gifts for the booze-free
unwanted text messages D-BOX seats, not to be confused with these d-box seats (link NSFW)
movie premiere attendees
Leningrad
bridegrooms
and
Matthew McConaughey’s norge.
There’s a double bill of childhood nostalgia-themed Bonus Bits of Crap on the App (available for iStuff, Android and Windows devices): Olly reminisces about another junior marketing exercise, and Helen about the Tunbridge Wells cinema now apparently known as a ‘grot spot’.
••• AMT317 Child-Friendly Rating: 62%. To be honest, we can’t remember the swear-situation in this episode, so we’ll be cautious and assume there are some. No bawdy-talk, though. •••
It’s the annual appearance for the following wedding-related question, this time posed by Jamie in Rugby:
I was at a wedding recently, and this reminded me of the thing I always wonder at weddings, which is: has anyone EVER come forward at that point where the registrar/priest asks if anyone knows of a reason why these two may not be wed?
It seems like a bastardly thing to do – you would have thought if someone had inside knowledge, they might have piped up sooner – but has it ever actually happened?
Readers, have you ever witnessed this mythical event? Part of me would love to see such a spectacle, but in reality I’m usually fonder of the couple than I am of emotional cataclysms.
Jake in London concurs with Olly’s advice in the last episode about the lineup in wedding photos:
Following the discussions in AMT316 about having couples in the official wedding photos who broke up shortly after, I thought I’d share the now comical story of the latter happening at my dad’s wedding a few years ago.
At the wedding me and my brother were asked to be joint best men, which we were pretty pleased with. Our girlfriends were also invited along: I will point out here that whilst me and my partner had been together for several years (and still are), my brother and his girlfriend had only been together a couple of months.
As they have loads of photos taken on the day, me and my brother were naturally in the majority of them. Some of the nicest ones were taken right outside the wedding venue, with my dad and his wife, me and my girlfriend and my brother and his girlfriend. As my brother’s girlfriend was the smallest person in this group of six she was naturally placed front and centre, she was also placed front and centre in all photographs she was in on the day – fucking loads!!!
Within a couple days of the wedding, my dad and his wife had decided on the photos that they liked the best and that they were going to get enlarged portraits of, the biggest of which being one of the photos of the six of us. In the time in between them ordering this blowup and getting it back, my brother and his girlfriend split up. As she was front and centre there was no way of cropping her out and there were no photos of just the 4 or 5 of us. As a result, the massive canvas print hangs proudly on my dads sitting room wall, with all six of us smiling out.
The final irony of this is that my brother has subsequently been in a long-term relationship for the past few years, and his new girlfriend has regularly frequented my dad’s house, meaning she’s always greeted with the smiling face of his ex-girlfriend eyeballing her in the sitting room.
The lesson is, if you are going to have people’s new partners come to your wedding, make sure they’re on the fringes of the photographs and not front and centre.
Also on the wedding tip, an anonymous lady from London writes:
I was just listening to AMT316 and I feel compelled to provide an alternative view on behalf of myself and other ‘expensive randoms’ who plague the existence of listeners like Elizabeth.
I am facing a summer of successive weddings with my boyfriend and I have barely met ANY of the couples whose nuptials I have been invited to celebrate. I do appreciate being thought of, but I haven’t really been given the option to turn the invites down (one of them my mother-out-law RSPVed to on my behalf before I was given the invitation, which doesn’t even have my last name on it because neither of the marriers knows who I am).
So answer me this: what can I do to entertain myself in a hotel in the middle of nowhere all day before I am required to turn up at these numerous receptions at 8pm (after my boyfriend and everyone else involved has spent all day drinking)?
Readers, can you go to the comments and give her some suggestions? Try to come up with something more ingenious than ‘masturbation’, ‘minibar’ and ‘reruns of Columbo‘, even though those are all decent ways to while away her time.
Answer Me This! Podcast 