Olly has just laid a hot fresh episode of the Guardian’s Tech Weekly, in which he debates the future of your ear-tertainment what with Apple Music and Beats 1 entering the fray. Hear it here, and don’t forget to check back tomorrow for more Mann on The Media Podcast and his LBC show.
Almost certainly less raucous, but still fun and funny, is Radio 4’s News Quiz: I’ll be on it tomorrow night, 6.30pm.
In the new episode of the Allusionist, I reluctantly learn about emoji, and discover a world of misbehaving medieval nuns. Hear it at theallusionist.org/emoji.
Catch up with AMT316 to hear about dirty knickers, banana thrift and the undead Mike Oldfield, and rejoin us next Thursday for AMT317.
What have you been listening to, dear audiophiles? Tell me in the comments!
In Answer Me This! Episode 316, we have two very different questions concerning overpreparation for death. We also have:
cobbler problems
quinoa
wedding +1s
retirement climates
free salad vs free prawn crackers
cat shit vs cat sick
Mike Oldfield
Metallica Monopoly
soiled lost property
and
popular onions.
Plus: Olly will go on a cruise, as long as it’s free; Helen’s first musical memory is of a cool saboteur; and Martin the Sound Man wants you to slice your own apples and peel your own bananas, you big babies.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iStuff, Android and Windows devices), we continue AMT315‘s discussion of facial hair, and at long last hit on the format that’ll make Olly and Martin into YouTube stars. Or might have, ten years ago.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘ANSWER‘. If you’ve ever wanted to launch your own website/podcast/blog/online gallery, deploy the code and GET ON WITH IT.
I am currently sitting in my living room in Tunbridge Wells having a cup of tea. My daughter is also in here busily making a bizarre structure out of Lego. As a background soundtrack to her industry, she is listening to a generic music, video and internet device, tuned in to a Minecraft video blog on You Tube.
I am familiar with this turn of events, as she will often listen to these Minecraft vlogs (I think that’s the phrase) and I will tune out, allowing the voices to add to the ever growing cesspool of white noise that you build up a tolerance for.
This time, however, things are different! I heard the voice of the vlog and thought, “That’s familiar, who’s that?” Then it came to me: that is the voice of Olly Mann!
I asked my daughter (who had forgotten I was in the room with her, so deeply immersed in the Lego and Minecraft) who it was and she replied, “It is Mr Williamo.”
So, answer me this: is Olly Mann secretly moonlighting as a Minecraft Video Blogger going under the name of Mr Williamo?
I would love to hear from you on this, from what I understand the Minecraft video blogs can be quite lucrative.
They can? Dammit! Why are we bothering with this question-answering audio bullshit?
As far as I know, between AMT and his LBC show and Guardian Tech Weekly and the Media Podcast and trying to get his cat to love him back, Olly doesn’t have time to masquerade as Mr Williamo. But over the years he’s talked so much, it’s entirely possible someone has extracted every phoneme and created a Siri-style Olly Mann Universal Commentator, ready to be the voice of anything. If this hasn’t happened yet, prepare yourselves for the inevitable.
Go to the comments and help out Brian in New Hampshire with the following issue:
Having moved long distances three times in three years for various reasons, I don’t have any friends.
I don’t find this to be an issue, but my parents have become busybody worrywarts about it. Their solution is to insert themselves in my life and try to be my friends. Obviously this is not a desired outcome.
So, answer me this, how do I tell my folks that they certainly would not be the type I would befriend without making things weirder than they already are?
The long term ramifications of telling your parents to fuck the fuck off are probably best avoided, so perhaps you should try the opposite route in order to repel them: incorporate them into your life MORE. Invite them to join you in activities – activities that they will hate. I don’t know your parents, Brian, but I’d imagine many would not enjoy a joint-testing day of bog running, a shopping spree at Ed Hardy, or a weekend conference by pick-up artists. They’ll soon be making their excuses and leaving you in peace.
Here’s a nice question from Jo:
Is there any link between the English word ‘nice’ and the French city named Nice? Nice is very nice after all.
Yes, but no. Sorry to disappoint.
Nice the city was founded around 350BC by the Greeks, who named it ‘Nikaia’, meaning ‘victory’, after the Grecian winged goddess of victory, Nike. I’m guessing that ‘k’ probably morphed into a ‘c’ when the Romans were carousing around taking charge of that region in the subsequent centuries and spelt the name ‘Nicaea’.
The adjective ‘nice’ came from Latin and old French, in which it meant ‘stupid’. Not so nice after all.
PS Perhaps you’d like to revisit the classic Dave from Smethwick question in AMT145 about whether you’re supposed to pronounce Nice Biscuits like the place or the adjective.
I was on the News Quiz last week! If you hurry, it’ll still be a tiny bit topical. It’s on the BBC website (there’s a redux version as well somewhere apparently) and the Friday Night Comedy podcast feed on iTunes etc. So do I still sound just like Sandi Toksvig? (Or Rebecca Front, Jeremy Hardy and Francis Wheen?)
In the latest Allusionist, I found out how the word ‘pride’ was chosen in 1970 for LGBT civil rights events. It was fascinating, especially to discover what the Quakers and Black Power had to do with the movement. Listen at theallusionist.org/pride or here:
What have you been listening to this week? Share your recent favourite noises in the comments.
The ‘Britney’ episode of Mystery Show was such fun. Starlee Kine’s investigations are full of surprises, but perhaps the biggest one in this was her conversation with a beleaguered-sounding man in a call centre.
This was a really interesting and entertaining episode of Song Exploder featuring Tune-yards (I can’t with their official upper/lower case salad, sorry Tune-yards) talking about what went into their song ‘Water Fountain’.
The Radiotopisiblings have been on terrific form, as ever: I particularly loved ‘How to be a Princess’ from The Heart and the ‘Art de Vivre’ two-parter from Theory of Everything.
Altogether, it has been a good week for my ears, and I hope for yours too.
Are you ready to get your stonk on? (Whatever that actually means.) Then listen to Answer Me This! Episode 315:
Today we deal with:
caffeine overdoses
the Lotto Drawmaster’s gloves
iPad infidelity alerts
soundchecks
Periscope
Hale and Pace
goatees
Van Dykes
imperials
and
nemeses.
Plus: Olly lies about his breakfast and reveals a surprising new phobia; Helen ruins some of your favourite songs; and Martin the Sound Man luckily has grown out of his Nu Metal phase.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices) is a question from Steffy in Bristol: ‘What is Swarovski crystal?’
For more additional listening, this is the podcast we mentioned about the consequences of soundchecking by asking interviewees ‘What did you have for breakfast?’ Makeuthink.
We’ll return on 11th June 2015 with AMT316, can you keep your stonk going until then?
Helen & Olly
••• AMT315 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. Quite a few swears. Question about infidelity; not sexually graphic, but may compel your child to ask Awkward Questions. A lot of boner chat in the question about ‘stonk’, but not so much lewd as sobering in light of recent BBC revelations. •••
Here’s some relief for questioneers from the past couple of episodes.
E-J writes:
In AMT313 you had a letter from a vet student who is allergic to animals and is concerned about whether or not she should continue training.
I’ve been a registered veterinary Nurse for over 10 years and have worked with many vets who are allergic to animals – it is a very common problem and they just take antihistamines daily and are ok. One vet I worked with was so allergic he had to wear gloves all the time as well, but he was an extreme case.
I have also worked with vets who are phobic about certain animals, and we have had to lock them in their consulting rooms until the animal of their phobia has left the building so it can’t get to them!
Seems like an imprudent choice of profession for an animal-phobe, but maybe they were trying immersion therapy.
Jon writes:
For the lady in AMT314 who encouraged her colleague to join her in training for a cycling event what she should do use a tip used by runners with a similar challenge.
Both (or more) cyclists start from the same point on an agreed route. After a set amount of time, they all turn around wherever they are on the route and head back to the start point. Assuming an even pace, all participants should finish at the start point at the same time. The challenge for participants is to cycle further on the outward leg and still win the return leg.
If done correctly, the final stages of the training session will always be exciting for all participants.
Exciting? To zoom back from the halfway point only to be stuck behind all the slowpokes for the triumphal final straight? Blood will be spilt.
I just finished listening to AMT302 where you discuss a hamster sitter who froze the hamster that died on his watch. This reminded me of the time my mom’s cat died and she froze it in a shoebox rather than burying it straight away.
This cat ended up staying in her freezer for at least a year. So gross!
I wasn’t living at home during this but each time I went home to visit I refused to eat anything from the freezer for fear of cross contamination.
Answer me this: was I right to be concerned or am I just squeamish? Is a dead cat in your freezer, even though it’s wrapped in bags and in a shoebox, still a health concern?
Readers, what’s your opinion? Is a wrapped, boxed dead cat any more of a contamination threat than a shrinkwrapped joint of meat?
In my opinion, the greatest health concern in this scenario is the mental wellbeing of the woman who put her cat into the freezer for a year.
Today I read an article about who that mysterious “LTB” guy is. The source is producer Bill Bottrell.
I’m sure I’m the only one who cares about this, but it reminded me of AMT and I thought I’d share, in case anyone else cares. 😀
For those of you who can’t be arsed to read the article, here’s the big reveal:
The mysterious L.T.B. credited as the rapper is none other than…
.
.
.
..
…
…..Bill Bottrell himself!
And apparently he gave away the secret years ago, but in a publication too techy for anyone* to read. So there’s a tip for any of you burtsting with a secret: tell it to Sound on Sound, nobody will ever know.
*Except Martin the Sound Man; there are copies of Sound on Sound in the AMT loobrary.
Following Olly’s suggestion in AMT314 that Wings contains the first offical gay kiss in mainstream cinema, Anna says:
I have two other suggestions for the first gay kiss in cinema.
The first is Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1930). Dietrich’s character, Amy Jolly, is a nightclub singer who does one of her songs in a very fetching tuxedo and kisses one of the women in the audience. Obviously, this isn’t a full-on snog in the context of a gay relationship, but it’s definitely sexual rather than friendly.
The second is from Madchen in Uniform (1931). Again, it’s not a full-on snog in the context of a gay relationship, but its lip-to-lip and there is lesbian feeling between the two characters that kiss (revealed in another scene in the film). Madchen in Uniform was the first film to show lesbians in a positive light – yay for the Weimar Republic! Obviously, with the unfortunate turn that German history took soon after 1931, it was banned in Germany a few years after its release. Nearly banned in America too, but Eleanor Roosevelt saved the day by giving the film her endorsement.
Friends, this evening I’m on a new Radio 4 panel show, Best Behaviour. It’s hosted by (AMT jingle alum) Holly Walsh and is all about manners. Hear it on R4 at 6.30pm, or afterwards on the BBC website. And you might as well remain tuned in to Radio 4 for eight days, because on Friday 29th I’ll be on the News Quiz! Finally we can test whether I really can convincingly pass as a Sandi Toksvig soundalike…
I’m also on the latest episode of the bicontinental gameshow International Waters, hosted by Dave Holmes. Arnab Chanda and I were pitted against Paul Provenza and Brigid Ryan. We recorded pretty soon after the election, so were in an emotionally weakened state rather than 100% combat ready.
The new Allusionist tackles one of the most pressing questions of our time: what IS brunch? I’m joined by Dan Pashman of The Sporkful podcast, who champions something called ‘the porklift’. Racy! There’s more information and different ways to hear the show at theallusionist.org/brunch.
What have you enjoyed listening to this week? Let us know in the comments! I’ve just started on Nocturne, which is really beautifully made audio essays about the night; and I’m catching up on ARRVLS before their second series begins next month. The Norjak episode will appeal to any of you who were into the DB Cooper theory of Mad Men. Backed the wrong horse, didn’t you? Maybe it’ll happen in one of the DVD extras.
Answer Me This! Podcast 