Happy Scottish Referendum Day, everyone! To commemorate, in Answer Me This! Episode 298 we decipher what Scotland’s finest non-whisky exports the Proclaimers were going on about. Vote YES to listening:
We also contemplate:
actors’ posthumous endorsements
Jacob Frank
godparenting
James Brown’s bridge vs Robbie Williams’s bridge Henry Hoover
tubby Ryan Gosling vs Peter Jackson
tubby Jared Leto vs gout
tubby Christian Bale vs emaciated Christian Bale vs tubby Christian Bale vs emaciated Christian Bale
being shot in the shoulder vs being shot in the ball
and
‘Uptown Girl’.
Plus: Olly’s pet Roomba hates not hiding under the sofa; Helen hates disco; and Martin the Sound Man hates the ethics of the contracts for Baywatch, which is bad news for anybody hoping of a revival of that show starring Martin. Him running in slowmo down a beach, haversack full of microphones swaying seductively, will have to remain only in your imagination.
Ahem.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices old and new, Android or Windows playthings, we continue Cathy’s question about godparenting, and whether you’re obliged to buy a silver spoon for a baby. Because what says ‘Welcome to the world!’ as much as a spoon that tastes weird? Maybe we should start putting around the rumour that the traditional christening gift for godchildren is one of our albums or vintage episodes from answermethisstore.com. They’ll probably grow into it.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com, for sponsoring this episode, for allowing people to build and host websites easily and beautifully, and for offering you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer.
And joy of all joys, Martin the Sound Man has a delightful new album out, available now HERE. Make an old Sound Man happy by downloading those sounds.
We will return with AMT299 (TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY FRICKING NINE!!!!) on 2nd October, and we hope you do too.
Yours haveringly,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT298 Child-Friendly Rating: 52%. A few medium-ranking swears and an F-level swear. Discussion of dick-shaped vacuum cleaners and Barry Manilow’s penis, which latter may prove traumatic for all ages. •••
Jordan from Bridgend, South Wales is throwing down the gauntlet to Sea Monkeys:
I never had Sea Monkeys as a child but wanted you to check out what I did have as a child… TRIOPS!
They are similar to Sea Monkeys in the way you hatch and look after them, but they are amazing! When I was a kid I had this huge plastic tank which had tunnels running Off it to different rooms: there was the feeding room, the hatching room and others.
I’d recommend these to anyone who is thinking of getting the crappy Sea Monkeys.
I am also a ‘gobber’ when I have a slash and it really ‘pisses’ my wife off (see what I did there).
I don’t do it all the time, but if I use a toilet that has not been flushed or use a public loo (which 99% of the time has a lovely thick aroma of stale piss), I find that as it enters my nasal passage and passes my taste buds, my natural reaction to this ‘delight’ is to try and expel the intruding stench as much as possible. This is normally achieved by holding my breath and gobbing out what I have inhaled in to the toilet.
Does that sound reasonable, or is it a load of old shit?
It sounds reasonable, as a load of old shit (and piss) is most of the problem.
Wedding questions are still being flung at us like a barrage of confetti. George and Jackie from Indianapolis write:
We are planning a wedding and like the idea of a unity ritual. However, we think the candle lighting and sand mixing is sort of silly. Do you have any suggestions?
Er, a wedding IS a unity ritual. Do you need to have a unity ritual within a unity ritual? You do? OK, OK… I’m a bad person to ask about this, because even the standard procedures at a wedding are too ritualistic for me. But readers, go to the comments and recommend or invent something delightful for George and Jackie to do, stopping short of humping in front of the congregation.
What a thrill it is to learn that the podcast has transformed the life of Chris in Washington, DC:
Your discussion in episode 297 about spitting in the urinal has changed my life. You see, I have severe public piss syndrome. I cannot go in a public bathroom if someone has seen my face or is waiting for me to finish. I tried the technique of spitting beforehand and it worked! Thank you for that.
Answer me this: is there any act that most people have no trouble doing in public that causes *you* embarrassment and anxiety, and do you have any tricks for getting over it?
It’s pretty embarrassing talking shit all the time, but after nearly eight years of making this podcast, I’ve broken through that pain barrier.
Exciting news: Martin’s got a new album coming out on Saturday! Go here to preview three of the tracks and to buy; it’s £5 to preorder but pay what you want when it is released. Or, if you are a retronaut who prefers your music on a physical format, wait a couple more weeks and then buy one of the forthcoming limited-edition CDs with a handmade papercut sleeve (if you follow Martin on Instagram, you may have seen some sneak peeks).
There’s a new news-themed episode of the Sound Women podcast, in which Olly’s LBC colleague Petrie Hosken tells me how she felt safer nearly getting kidnapped as a war correspondent in Bosnia than as a woman working in British radio. Good times!
Apparently there’s been some Royal News this week? [Shrug] It’s an ongoing mystery at AMT that none of us give a shit about the royal family, and yet questions about them are always fruitful on the podcast. So whether you give shits or not, have a go on the Answer Me This! Jubilee album for an hour of regal hijinks.
Noises from elsewhere:
The show Strangers is always worth your time, but particularly the recent Love Hurts episodes (part 1 and part 2), in which Lea Thau transforms the question ‘Why are you single?’ from an awful thing Smug Marrieds say to a very personal and reflective investigation into why she has been reluctantly single for the past four years. At least, judging by the exes who appear on the show, she’s dated some Good Sports during that time…
From Strangers to friends: I really enjoyed this Woman’s Hour/Men’s Hour collaboration all about friendship. Of course, they cover the When Harry Met Sally adage that men and women can’t be friends, which Olly and I have been disproving throughout our fourteen-year friendship. If you need additional on-air partnerships as evidence, I direct you to the programme’s guest Geoff Lloyd, whose brilliant Hometime Show on Absolute Radio with Annabel Port crackles with sexless tension.
And finally: I was thrilled to hear two AMTpals and primo podcasters team up, when Little Atoms‘ Neil Denny went on Dave Pickering‘s Getting Better Acquainted. They talk about reading books, prayer, and masturbation – all the solitary entertainments, really.
I’m always listening out for shows to try; please recommend some in the comments.
PS In case you missed it: my Bugling brother Andy and I were interviewed by the Guardian about why the Zaltzman family communicates in jokes rather than human emotions. Click here to read it.
Zora in LA writes in defence of the indefensible (ie green peppers, the scourge of AMT297):
Green peppers aren’t totally worthless. In many cuisines, they’re used in cooking. Creole cooking is the main example. The bitter pepper adds a note of pleasant sharpness when contrasted with sweeter cooked vegetables. It’s also excellent on pizza, as it provides the same contrast.
And, working in a supermarket as I do, I can confirm that they are indeed cheaper.
But eating them raw? Only sickos do that.
Well, now I’m torn, Zora – I hate green peppers, but I love Creole food. Let me wrestle with my feelings while we contemplate this email from Simon in Germany:
Your recent conversation on Pizza Hut reminded me of something I once saw in a Pizza Hut in China. There they seem to have a “only one visit to the salad bar” policy. So this led to some ingenious solutions as to how to beat the system.
As you can see from the photo attached, the basic idea is to use the more solid and brick-like pieces of salad to build a wall around the lip of the bowl – luckily in China there is a large supply of cubed water melon – and then to fill in the middle using the less structurally sound greenery.
One I saw was about twice the height of that pictured, took 45 minutes to make, and a further another 45 minutes to carry back to the table as any jolt or shake would have brought down their towering shaft of salad.
P.S Surely if you owned a Pizza Hut in China you would have melon balls rather than cubes!
I’m impressed people manage to build such structures on the rim of a small salad bowl. Readers, do share your buffet-cheating tactics and triumphs in the comments.
Got any great tips for gaming a hotel breakfast buffet? Do share in the comments; but first, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 297 to learn from the master (ie Olly Mann):
In today’s buffet of audio delights, we’re serving:
Sea Monkey refills
second hand wedding dresses
green peppers vs red peppers
Bob Dylan vs grapefruit juice Steve Wright in the Afternoon vs heroin Harold Von Braunhut
the Pizza Hut salad bar
Oxford divorces
cryptobiosis
spying on your children
and
gobbing in the pot.
Plus: if you see Olly roving towards you armed with a Tupperware tub, he’s either going to take advantage of your buffet or imprison you with fatal consequence; Helen will be survived by a sackful of raw gingerbread; and Martin the Sound Man is a masochist for grapefruit juice.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we tackle another Great British Bake Off question from Katherine from Sheffield. To find out how we go from that to the Sword of Gondor in just four short minutes, fire up the app on your iDevices, Android or Windows playthings. As a happy by-product of buying the app, you’re funding the show – likewise if you splash out on any of our albums or vintage episodes at answermethisstore.com. So you know that along with your purchase you’ll receive a free dose of our eternal gratitude.
And because we’re simply brimful of gratitude today, let’s throw a bucketful over Squarespace.com, for sponsoring this episode, for allowing people to build and host websites easily and beautifully, and for offering you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer.
By the way, if you’re keen to start your own podcast, book a ticket for this Guardian Masterclass and on 20th September, Helen and a host of other podcasting mavens will teach you all you need to know, and then some.
We will return with AMT298 on 18th September, and we hope you do too. Cheerio!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT297 Child-Friendly Rating: 88%. Light on profane language. Unfortunate TMI about Olly and Martin’s bodily fluids. Question from a parent running surveillance ops on their teenager, which may instill trust issues in your own offspring. •••
Here’s an email from Claire from Brooklyn, NY. Don’t read it while eating, because it contains the term ‘rancid spunk’. Thanks Claire!
When my husband and I first moved into our current apartment it was a slight fixer upper and I spent an afternoon deep cleaning the kitchen (scrubbing all surfaces, soaping up the fridge, going through cabinets and drawers, etc).
In the process I discovered a used ‘French letter’ wrapped in some takeout napkins. Not to gross you out too much, but the stench was alarmingly horrific! You seem like nice people, so I hope you never have to find out what rancid human spunk smells like. I think being forced to actually realize that rancid spunk is a thing felt as much like a punch in the face as the actual, repellant particles hitting my nose did.
Anyway, we still wonder whether this lovely cadeau was courtesy of our building superintendent (an illicit encounter during the pre-move-in renovation?), or of the previous tenant having a last hurrah after all the trash cans had been loaded into the moving truck.
Who do you think is the likely culprit, and if this had been you, would you have tried to exploit the situation for a deal on rent or other perk? We didn’t say anything-we just speculated ad nauseam about such questions and over a year later, I still think about it sometimes!
By leaving it for more than a year, you’ve rather spunked the opportunity to use this as leverage for cheaper rent. But if you’re so hell-bent on identifying the culprit, Claire, send off that putrid prophylactic to a lab – there’s plenty DNA to be swabbed.
Readers, have you ever found an unpleasant surprise left behind in your new home? Let us know in the comments.
PS Claire, I do admire that you used such a coy expression as ‘French letter’ in the same breath as ‘rancid spunk’.
We are having a debate in the office – how do French people say they’re having a small lunch, if that expression is already bagsied?
As in petit dejeuner, literally small lunch but meaning breakfast? Usually the adjective follows the noun in French, so would that make small lunch ‘un dejeuner petit’? Readers with working knowledge of French, am I right? Help me out in the comments, because I haven’t spoken French since 1994 and my memory is mauvais.
In the latest episode of The Media Podcast, Olly’s coming from the Edinburgh TV festival – with June Sarpong! Listen here, or here:
This month’s Sound Women podcast is all about SPOOOOOOOORT, which as you know is my favourite topic…
COUGH COUGH COUGH. OK, you know that really one of my favourite topics is My So-Called Life, and since this Monday was the 20th anniversary of the show, hear me banging on about why I love it on this episode of Little Atoms from earlier this year.
Noises from elsewhere:
• Another TV show for which, over the years, you may have noted my fondness is Twin Peaks, so I’m intrigued by this new podcast Fire Talk With Me, contemplating the show episode by episode. Good luck to them when they hit that three-episode arc starring James Hurley in the second half of series two, amirite?
• When I was at SXSW last year I saw the documentary An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story, about a man who was exonerated after serving 25 years in prison for murdering his wife. He was a local man, so many people in the audience had been following his case since the 80s and throughout the film were booing the corrupt lawyers and cheering the good guys. Then at the end, when Michael Morton came out on stage along with the lawywer who spent a decade proving his innocence, the audience went APESHIT with joy – screaming, crying, it was truly amazing to watch. The facts of the case are pretty horrific, though; here is Michael Morton talking about them on Outlook from the BBC World Service.
• At the more cheerful end of the spectrum, here’s a sweet episode of 99% Invisible about Ikea Hacking. I’m fond of an Ikea hack myself – in fact the urge runs in the family. Back in the 80s, my grandad used to do such hacks as turning an Argos flatpack black ash bookcase into a desk (he went through an inexplicable black ash phase; such were the times, I guess). A few years ago, before Ikea Hacker was even born, I was working on a daytime TV show and was asked to pitch ideas for a home improvement segment that they could do easily in the studio. I suggested getting a designer to rejig cheap, easily available flatpacks in a slot called ‘Flatpack Revivified’ or ‘Flatpack Chimera’. It didn’t happen, because OBVIOUSLY NO SLOTS ON DAYTIME TV SHOWS ARE CALLED THINGS LIKE ‘FLATPACK CHIMERA’.
But regarding the act itself, grandad and I were clearly way ahead of our time.
By the way, if you’re a big fan of 99PI host Roman Mars, check him out on 100 Words Or Less talking about creating his podcast empire and being a straight-edger.
• Aaaand finally: Radio 4 is repeating the very charming and funny Susan Calman Is Convicted. Get on board.
Learn to make your own noises:
On 20th September you can learn all you need to start podcasting at the Essentials of Podcasting Guardian Masterclass: hardware, software, editing, production, formatting, publicity, building an audience, making a show that isn’t shit, etc etc from the likes of Bugle producer Chris Skinner, Guardian podcast producer Jason Phipps, software inventor Drew White, and meeee. Book your place here.
Which shows have been delighting you lately? Recommend some in the comments.
Answer Me This! Podcast 