It’s the news you’ve all been waiting for! OK, some of you have been waiting for. Not like you wait for an exciting parcel to arrive, or for you tea to be ready; more how you might wait for a dental appointment, just to get it out of the way, or you wait for someone to hurry up in the loo because SERIOUSLY WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING IN THERE FOR 40 MINUTES?
Yep, that’s how to feel about feedback about the toaster latching mechanism as considered in AMT292. Sean from Waiheke Island, New Zealand appears to be qualified to explain it:
In a previous life I spent several years traipsing around toaster factories in China, inspecting their wares and production methods, helping them improve their quality and designs, and buying them, quite literally, by the truckload for the eager British public.
In this capacity, I can advise you with some confidence, that the reason a toaster won’t latch when it’s not plugged in is because the mechanism is held in the down position by an electro-magnet. And as the term suggests, electromagnets need the “electro” component in order to work.
Basically, there’s a small electronic timer (a chip on a circuit board) which powers the electromagnet for the period set by the “browning control”. While the electromagnet is powered on, it holds on to a small metal plate attached to the lever and the bread carriage. When the time’s up, the power to the electromagnet is cut, the magnetism stops, and the whole mechanism is released, with springs bringing the bread carriage back to the up position.
In the “olden” days, all of this was done much more mechanically using latches and bimetallic strips, which was a great system, but with varied results. But because it was purely mechanical, you could latch the bread carriage down without the power being switched on. The fancy new electromagnetic timers are cheaper and more reliable, and the reason why the toaster needs power before the mechanism can be latched in the down position.
So there you go… mystery solved.
Thanks, Detective Sean! And for all of you still wondering whyyyyy this is necessary, here’s a cautionary tale to illustrate the vital role the toaster-latch plays in our lives. Josh from New York writes:
When I was in high school, my parents had an older toaster with a latching mechanism that allowed you to push in the bread even when the toaster was not plugged in.
One fateful Fourth of July, I was in the mood for some toast. I put some bread in the toaster, pushed the bread down, and waited five minutes before realizing toast was not being made because the toaster was not plugged in. (Yes, like your original questioner, I was apparently too stupid to make toast.) Without pushing the bread back up, I reached to plug in the toaster. As soon as the plug was in the socket, the toaster short circuited and lit on fire.
I was burned badly enough that I had to go to the emergency room, where I waited two hours so a doctor could tell me he did not believe my story and insisted that I had probably been playing with fireworks for American Independence Day. And on top of that, I NEVER GOT MY TOAST.
In short, if you’re as bad at making toast as I am – and the original question asker apparently is – you should probably just eat your bread cold.
There we go. Those electromagnets are just looking after us, knowing that we’re too stupid to be trusted. I’m going to delegate all my life admin to electromagnets.
PS Star Wars fans, I have found THE toaster for you. HERE. No need to thank me.
PPS If your tastes fall more on the Olly Mann end of the spectrum, I also have the toaster for you.
In AMT292 we left Pat from Canada pissing around her garden to keep raccoons away. But Sara from California but living in the Ozarks has another solution:
I have a solution for Pat’s raccoon poop problem and that is to get a large dog. Or perhaps a small one, but ours is large. Raccoons used to use the chimney of my parents’ backyard fireplace as a toilet. I can even remember my dad building a wooden pyramid to cover it in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the raccoon menace. As soon as we got a dog, the raccoons disappeared. The chimney is the current dog’s barking-at-cats stand.
It’s not a flawless solution: even if you eliminate the raccoon poop, you’ll still be left with a load of dog poop. And what if the dog doesn’t deter the raccoons at all? Look how well these two are getting along!
If that happens, Pat, here’s a guide to caring for your new pet raccoons. In brief: don’t let them eat too many sweets; don’t smack them; and don’t let them chew through your electrical cords. Now we know.
Two weeks remain to fund Olly’s new hosting gig on the Media Podcast, so if you’re feeling generous with your cash, kick in to their Kickstarter, and if you’re feeling generous with your time, listen to the show at themediapodcast.com.
Since it’s that sporty time of year with all the footsport and the Wimblesport, treat yourself to the AMT Sports Day, which you can read about here (prosthetic foreskins! Nude athletes! David Attenborough!) and buy here. From it, here’s the most classy song about tennis ever written:
Oscillating my eardrums:
In recent weeks several different people recommended I listen to the Deadline Podcast, so I’m listening to it. I’m listening to it right now! It’s on iTunes and SoundCloud, and in it, the Telegraph’s obituarists discuss the lives of the freshly dead. I realise I have mentioned deathy podcasts at the lasttwo Thursday Listening Parties. Don’t read too much into this.
Take a look at the ‘Most prevalent tags’ graphic in the sidebar of this website, and you’ll see ‘food’ is twice as big as the rest. It’s not much surprise therefore that we’re devotees of Radio 4’s The Food Programme. 18 months ago I went on a waistline-terrorising road trip around the southeastern US, so I particularly enjoyed the recent episode featuring Sean Brock talking about food revivals in South Carolina, although I enjoy even more the fact that in the feed there’s an episode simply called ‘Knives’.
Usually when I write these Thursday Listening Party posts, I’ve been appearing on and listening to several different shows; but I don’t have many to report this time as it’s been a quiet fortnight for me on both counts. I went on a silent retreat to spend time in meditation and self-actualising contemplat- OK FINE I didn’t, I binge-watched both series of Orange is the New Black. Now that important task is out of the way, what should I be listening to? Please recommend some podcasts in the comments!
Listeners, who is the bigger idiot: the questioneer who is too big an idiot to make toast, or the podcasters who talk about that big idiot for nearly ten minutes?
The only way to decide is to listen to Answer Me This! Episode 292:
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we delve deeper into the grotesque and terrifying world of novelty toasters. Join us if you dare on your iDevice, Android or Windows toy.
If you’ve invented your own amazing multi-functional toaster (“Guys! It can heat soup at the same time as cutting the toast into perfectly equal croutons!”) then build yourself a snazzy online store through our benevolent sponsors Squarespace.com, deploying the code Answer for 10% off their services for a whole year.
We shall return on Thursday 3rd July with AMT293 – but we’ll also be appearing on this Radio Academy panel about podcasting on 25th June; and as we mentioned, we’re also available at our side project podcasts The Media Podcast, Sound Women and Brain Train. Furthermore, to accompany all the SPOOOOOORT that seems to be happening at the moment, you can hear us talking as sportily as we are able on the AMT Sports Day album, available now at answermethisstore.com.
That’s it! We’re off to make some toast. We could be gone for some time.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT292 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. Swears. Cartoon phallic noses. Kicks off with feedback about parental sex, the very notion of which can be traumatic for your progeny. •••
1. Next Wednesday, 25th June, we’ll be discussing podcasting on a Radio Academy panel at the Apple store on Regent Street, along with Football Rambler Pete Donaldson and Bugle producer ‘Fuck you’ Chris Skinner. If you’re interested in podcasting, do come along! The event is free, but you need to register for a place. All information can be found here. Sure, you’ll miss Bosnia & Herzegovina vs Iran, but you’d be home in time for Honduras vs Switzerland.
2. I’m starting a new free podcasting advisory service, and the first fixture is TODAY. Details here.
3. I posted last week about Olly’s new gig on The Media Podcast. There’s a Kickstarter campaign to keep the show going for a year. It is Olly’s dream job, so make him happy by chipping in here.
I had no idea there was something amiss until I was 14, when my friends loudly pointed out the freakishness. I’m the only one in my family with them, and I’ve met only one other person with little thumbs.
After years of hating them, I’ve come to accept them. However, recently my stepsister (rudely) mentioned that she’s always found my thumbs creepy and was glad we aren’t related by blood. Apparently, she was horrified at the possibility of her future kids having them. This had never occurred to me! If I do have children, how likely is it that they will have my thumbs? And how many people have these squat little nubbins? Surely I’m not alone!
Toe thumbs!
Lorelei, you’re definitely not alone; Megan Fox has them; these people on Facebook have them; readers, raise your hands proudly if YOU have them too! Indeed, there are enough people with Brachydactyly type D (BDD) that there are several nicknames for the condition, eg ‘club thumb’, ‘Dutch thumb’ (?), ‘potter’s thumb’, ‘hammer thumb’, ‘murderer’s thumb’… OK, the nicknames could be more complimentary, but they’re still nicer than your stepsister.
Geneticists, are Lorelei’s future offspring likely to have murderers’ magic thumbs? Should she be searching for knitting patterns for mittens with short thumbs?
More weddings, more problems. Firstly for Ricki from Hamilton, Canada:
I’m getting married next year to my lovely boyfriend. We got engaged on holiday a few months ago and are both happily looking forward to getting married.
When I let certain people in my social group know that we were engaged, they expressed extreme shock that he hadn’t asked my parents for permission before proposing. When I told them I intended to walk myself down the aisle (I’ve got legs and I’m not chattel!) and it won’t be in a church, they were extremely judgmental. They also seem to think that, in spite of all of my other actual accomplishments (IE university degree, handicraft ability and cat-rearing skills), getting married will be the MOST IMPORTANT THING I EVER DO. Now, whenever they bring it up – which is frequently – they ask if I’ve considered getting married ‘the right way’ since our engagement wasn’t done ‘properly’.
Answer me this – how do I politely ask them to back up the crazy-train and let us enjoy our wedding the way we want it to be?
Politely? Fuck that: you need to dump all these rude friends! And/or elope immediately, because otherwise you’ve got months of this bollo to endure.
If you absolutely have no choice but to invite them to the wedding as planned, amp up the convention-defying to the max. Say your vows at an abandoned theme park, attended by tiger bridesmaids, wearing a welding mask as a veil. It is ‘the right way’.
Eurgh, why do people become such dicks about someone else’s wedding? At least Oli from Egham‘s dad is making a fuss about his own wedding:
My dad was due to get married in February, but has been pushing the date back ever since. I’m a full time travelling street musician and I’ve been putting off a long-awaited trip to south east Asia for months now, waiting for the wedding, which is now set, finally, for the 11th of July.
The nature of my work means its much harder to support myself in England; street performers do far better in the tourist areas of mainland Europe. I’ve saved enough money for my Asia trip, and now I’m just trying to keep my head above water, but my funds are dwindling.
My dad informed me today that he wants me to buy a new suit foir his wedding, even though I have a perfectly good one from when I used to work as an estate agent. My dad knows that the lifestyle I’ve chosen means a cetain amount of frugality, and although I can sometimes do very well, a suit would probably be the same price as my flights (with concessions).
So answer me this: is it unreasonable for my dad to ask me to spend this money on a suit, when I already have one? He’s very accepting of my lifestyle, even though I know it’s probably not what he wanted for me.
Also, he voted UKIP, so I’m mad at him for that.
That is hard to swallow, Oli, but as you’ve said he’s been accepting of your lifestyle, so I suppose you have to extend him the same courtesy.
Go suit-browsing. Tell your dad you’ve found a good one, but you can’t afford it, and perhaps he’ll splash out for you. If not, for the charity shop. I would have said it’s fine to wear your old suit, until you mentioned it’s an estate agent suit. Few people want to be reminded of estate agents on what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives.
Time for feedback about AMT long past, from Adam from Yorkshire:
Just listening back to episode 165 and Olly mentions you have to be circumcised to have a Prince Albert piercing.
Well you’re incorrect!
I’m with a guy atm that has that piercing and isn’t circumcised. And it’s perfectly fine. Nothing going wrong there and can still have as much fun as he wants. Just thought I’d let you know.
From the ashes of the late lamented Guardian Media Talk rises…the Media Podcast, with Olly in the driving seat. Head over to themediapodcast.com to get the show.
Martin the Sound Man has just unleashed a new episode of his podcast Brain Train, which makes learning FUN. This one’s about everyone’s favourite topic: housing law! Come back – it’s actually very interesting to hear all the different ways we renters are given the shaft.
On this month’s Sound Women podcast, I have a very jolly chat with the very excellent broadcaster and person Fi Glover:
• If you’re interested in death, sex and/or money, you might like new podcast Death, Sex & Money. • If you’re only interested in death, check out Richard Bacon’s forensic science special – it’s the 9th June episode of the Daily Bacon podcast. Warning: contains tales of gore.
What’s in your ears, drowning out the sound of football chants? Share your spoken-word highlights in the comments.
• Catch up on AMT291 and the episodes preceding it. •AMT episodes 1-170 and the special AMT albums are all available for a piddling little price at answermethisstore.com, and if you buy any of them you’re bankrolling the podcast, so thank you very much indeed. •Olly’s on LBC every weekday 1am-4am. If you’re an insomniac, a night worker, or in a time zone where those hours are compatible with waking life, tune in. • On Saturday evenings I’m on BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition, available subsequently as the podcast Let’s Talk About Tech.
Today, one poor tired questioneer asks how to stop being kept awake by their mum’s sex noise. Any advice for them? Apart from cranking up Answer Me This! Episode 291 for forty-three minutes of respite?
We speak of:
hat world records
rodeo clowns
bank robbery
converting to Judaism
baht vs Bitcoin Craig David’s Toffee Crisps vs Busta Rhymes’ Courvoisier
Papal holidays
presidential golf Castel Gandolfo
Chequers
webuyanycar.com
the pronunciation of ‘niche’
shaking like a Polaroid picture
and
$.
Plus: Olly will SEE YOU IN HELL if you use Shazam during the pub quiz music round; Helen has a terrible confession to make about Pitbull; and Martin the Sound Man is panicking about what to talk about if he is ever invited on a lads’ holiday with the Pope. We smell an odd couple sitcom…
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we contemplate the wellbeing of the boys brought together as McBusted, and of Jason Orange’s tearducts. Hear it and not-weep on your iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
It only remains for us to thank Squarespace.com for supporting this episode. They’re also supporting your own website-building enterprises by offering you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer. Gawd bless’em.
And gawd bless you, listeners! We shall return on Thursday 19th June with AMT292, barring terrifying and unforseeable acts of gawd.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT291 Child-Friendly Rating: 54%. A few F-bombs. A clip about the clap. Question about parent’s sex life, the very notion of which may traumatise your child. •••
I was listening to the question about Tetris when Olly talked about Tetrominoes and wondered why not do it with 5 or 6 squared shapes.
When I was in primary school in the mid-1980s, our teacher Mrs Doubleday taught us a game called Pentominoes, where you had 12 shapes cut from squared paper (all the possible combinations of 5 squares) and you had to make a larger shape – usually just rectangles of varying dimensions (if 4 lines is a “Tetris” would 5 be a “Penis”?) from the pentominoes as quickly as possible. It was actually quite a lot of fun, and even subliminally educational.
I guess she didn’t jump on the bandwagon and try to licence it to the Soviet government because a) she was about 70, and b) one of the pentominoes was called “The Stinker” and was invariably the piece that was hardest to fit in – it would have been the cause of millions of smashed gameboys had she ever taken it public.
X
X X X …X
That’s the shape of The Stinker.
What a shame Mrs Doubleday wasn’t commercially minded, because there must have been scores of Tetris addicts wanting to move onto the harder stuff, stinky or not.
Here are the rest of the Pentomino shapes, in case you had a hankering to make your own cut-out-and-keep Penises (?):
Answer Me This! Podcast 