from someone we only know as K – K is female, though, so we know the email didn’t come from the star of Kafka’s The Trial. We can also gauge that from the cheerfulness of the content:
I have a great job in Stockholm, where I am treated very well, and am basically my own boss. Not to mention we all got iPads for Christmas!
I won out over around fifty other applicants for this job, but although I was very clear when I started that I would like to grow with the company, they have said that no one they have met could do my job as well as I can. Which means they’re not too keen on promoting me.
In the meantime, another company is interested in hiring me for their Nordic branch of their business. Because it is an American company, I would be getting an American salary (ie. not capped or structured through Swedish laws etc), so I would be making much better money and have a chance to grow. But the work environment could not possibly be as good as this one.
So do I mention this to my boss now, or later? I know I could use one against the other, but I am not sure I have the balls for it!
Hmm, what’s more important: nice colleages, or progress? Being your own boss, or more money? You’ve already got the iPad, so that’s not a deciding factor.
Readers, go to the comments and tell K what you’d do when faced with this dilemma, although we’d understand you don’t have much sympathy for someone choosing between AN AMAZING JOB and ANOTHER AMAZING JOB.
In AMT286, Ben from Northumberland complained of the assault upon his nostrils from his grandmother’s strong perfume. Chris from Hook writes:
A friend of mine used to work with a charity and in doing so she used to meet a lot of people who did not smell particularly good. She used to manage not to gag most of the time by dipping her finger into her perfume before meeting them. She’d let it dry, then she’d have a very strongly scented finger. She’d sit there talking to them, and when she needed to, she’d rub her nose or sit with her finger under her nose, and it worked like a charm.
That’s fighting fire with fire – perfume might not drown out perfume but intensify it into a super-perfume, like the MRSA of scents. Perhaps Ben should counter with quite a different sort of smell, like Roquefort or mackerel. It’s a risk, though, and also people might wonder why Ben permanently has his finger beneath his nose, as if he’s covering up a Hitler moustache someone drew on him with permanent marker while he was passed out drunk.
So perhaps Ben should try Kyle from London‘s advice:
I used to work for an organisation which served a sometimes distinctly pungent clientele. We used to dab a bit of Vaseline (or in extreme cases Vicks) under each nostril which apparently catches some of the smell particles. Always worked for me!
Smart! Now all Ben needs to worry about is whether his suspiciously glistening upper lip will make his grandmother whip out a hanky and give his nose a vigorous wipe.
There’s been something I’ve been trying to find out for a decent amount of weeks now but I can’t find what I want.
Over the past few months I have been subscribed to Graze, a website you can paid £3 odd for a box of 4 healthy snacks and have them delivered to your home. One of the snacks I last got included a teabag (not just a plain PG Tips teabag, it was flavoured), and it got me thinking.
Answer me this, is there not just a website somewhere like Graze that you can only order tea bags? Like you choose which different types of tea you want to try and they give you ones of each.
Readers, do you know of any such companies? Advise Ashley in the comments.
From what I’ve found, you could build your own tea pick’n’mix from Chinalife or Olly’s favourite Teapigs, or buy yourself a selection box from somewhere like Post Tea or Fortnum and Mason. My brother got me a tea advent calendar from Imperial Teas of Lincoln, which was a delightful means of trying twenty-five different teas.
But all of those are a rather expensive way of getting a cuppa. It would be more economical to buy yourself several boxes of different types of teabag, removing them from the packaging and mixing them all together in a big box, then grabbing a handful, shoving it into a fancy envelope and posting it to yourself every week.
Of course, this approach would lack some of the serendipity and surprise you associate with Graze, so write your postcode with a minor mistake on the envelope and send it second class, so you’re thrilled when it finally turns up.
Alternatively, buy a fairground grabber and fill it with assorted teabags. Then every time you want a cup of tea, you have to play the grabber game. You’ll die of thirstFUN!
This week, prepare yourselves for a FRIDAY listening party, because tomorrow, 4th April 2014, the first part of our documentary Podcasting: The First Ten Years will be on Radio 4 at 11am British Summer Time. The second part goes out at 11am on 11th April, so mark your calendar accordingly; and each episode will be available on BBC iPlayer shortly thereafter. A lot of people have been asking whether a show about podcasting will be podcasted, but that would be TOO obvious (ie we don’t know whether it will, but shall let you know if it is).
So to recap: 11am Radio 4 on 4th and 11th April, and then on iPlayer. Alright? Onto some other noises:
Here’s a double shot of my Sound Women Podcast. Episode 11 features DJs Annie Mac, B.Traits and Monki:
Episode 12 is all educational, featuring university lecturer Kate Murphy and the work of the freshly Radio Academy Award-nominated Podium.me, plus a shedload of good advice from seasoned radio professionals:
Dave makes podcasts including Getting Better Acquainted, and you should definitely listen because hooray, it is Personal Season! In episode 154 Dave talks to his dad about open relationships and losing his virginity, which I could not discuss with my own dad without a hellmouth opening and devouring the whole of south-east England.
• Catch up on AMT286 to learn how Olly wowed the ladies (and gentlemen) at his school leavers’ ball. •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. • Every Saturday I’m on BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition, available subsequently as the podcast Let’s Talk About Tech. • AMT episodes 1-170 and the special AMT albums are all available for a trifling price at answermethisstore.com, and if you buy any of them you’re bankrolling the podcast, so thank you very much indeed.
What’s on your own Thursday Listening Party playlist? Tell us in the comments.
Amid all this talk of other things to listen to, don’t forget to apply yourself to Answer Me This! Episode 286:
In which we discuss:
castles
Oktoberfest
chilled red wine
velvet ropes
decorative sticks
babysitting vs kitten-sitting
Mardi Gras vs Pancake Day
Navajo rugs vs dreamcatchers
Glastonbury scheduling EcuadorPanama hats London’s cat cafe
mythical bestiality
and
the first ever porn film.
Plus: Olly was all business, no pleasure at his school leavers’ ball; Helen prefers the pong of garlic breath to perfume; and Martin the Sound Man worries about worldly souvenirs making him into a bellend. Don’t worry Martin, you were already a bellend! JK. (Or is it?)
Today’s Bit of Crap on the App contains more perfume-chat, in which Olly sabotages any future he had as a department store perfume salesperson. Pinch your nose and spray the app into your ears from your iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
Here’s something that doesn’t stink: today’s episode-funders Squarespace.com offering you a 10% discount off their services for a whole year if you use the code answer3. What a breath of fresh air!
And finally, we ask that you take a deep breath and send us your QUESTIONS: call the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Back in a fortnight!
Helen & Olly
AMT286 Child-Friendly Rating: 42%. First three quarters are clean, apart from a couple of questioneer-led swears. The episode ends on a question about porn films, but by then your children will probably have fallen asleep during the earlier question about road signs.
We so rarely receive questions of wiring, but here is such a thing from Mike:
I have an ethical dilemma.
I live in South Orange NJ, in a 100-year-old house which we bought last year. The lovely neighbors next door, who were very welcoming to us, including having us over for dinner, just moved to San Francisco on short notice due to a job relocation and put their house on the market last week.
Being a nosy sort I went to the open house to get to see the parts of a house you don’t see when over for dinner, and saw telltale signs of knob and tube wiring. Knob and tube, which I didn’t know existed until las year, is an old kind of electrical wiring which is perfectly legal to leave in place but prone to fires and impossible to fix of there’s a fault, so you can’t get insurance if it’s known to be there. It’s very common in houses of this vintage and it’s one of the things as a buyer you pay for an inspector to look for after you sign contracts. Unlike UK are contracts are done first and are binding unless defined unresolvable defects are found (no gazumping!).
Jonathan, the house inspector who looked at our house, missed it however, and we were stuck with a $10,000 bill getting the house rewired. We told Jonathan last year after the electrician we hired to do some minor work dropped this bombshell on us but he shrugged and said he can’t see everything, although now that I know what to look for it’s completely obvious, so I’d suspect he’d miss it again.
I just looked out the window and the neighbors’ house is under contract and the same inspector is there. Should I say anything to my new neighbors (whoever they are)? What about after they move in?
I’ve seen knob and tube in friends’ houses and my wife insists I keep silent. Is it ever appropriate to point out a potentially costly defect in somebody else’s house or is this something one keeps to oneself in polite society.
Oh Mike, I can smell your conscience from here. Although it’s too late for you (unless you sue Jonathan, which will cost you considerably more than the wiring), you’ll never be able to live with yourself if some other innocent gets hammered with $10,000-worth of rewiring. You have to tell. Doesn’t he, readers? What do you think? Advise Mike in the comments.
I started listening to the podcast a few months ago when in my monthly scavenging of the internet for all things Zaltzman (I want to marry Andy*), I came across you guys and the rest was history.
The thing is that I listen to the podcast starting from the back episodes every night sleeping in the same bed as my girlfriend. Since she is very hot, we end up fucking almost every night and in the excitement, always fail to turn off the podcast.
It has therefore become the soundtrack to our love in a way that it induces Pavlovian responses every time I hear it in the day even which can result in fairly disconcerting scenarios.
Oh good grief. Usually we only hear what a boner-killer AMT is.
Couldn’t you just STOP listening to the show at bedtime? Listen to it at safely non-sexy times, such as in the waiting room at the verruca-burning clinic, or in a queue at a market stall to buy cut-price offal that’s been out all day.
(If you are somebody who actually finds those situations sexy, then you are too priapic to function in this world. But maybe you could get a job as a condom-tester, allowing you to hump all day in lab conditions.)
*Too late, ladies and gents: Andy is already married. Console yourselves with the knowledge that he’d never love you as much as he loves cricket.
Are we going to have to insert Jackass-style warnings into each episode of AMT, insisting that no one attempt to recreate of re-enact any stunt or activity performed on this show? Because we would NEVER have recommended anyone do what Richard in Finsbury Park did:
In AMT last week you talked about Snaffles Mousse, the 70s dish made from canned consommé, Philadelphia and curry powder.
I was morbidly fascinated by the suggested combination and had to make a batch. When it had set, my boyfriend and I had some on toast. It was without doubt the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. On every level. I can still taste its foulness now.
Answer me this: what is the most revolting dish you have ever cooked up?
It was by accident, but I made paella with frozen elderflower cordial instead of chicken stock. In fact, because even that mouth-trauma did not teach me to label the contents of my freezer, it happened TWICE. Mark me, it is one of the very few circumstances in which elderflower cordial is NOT more palatable than chicken stock.
Readers, tell us in the comments about your own culinary horrorshows. Maybe then Richard in Finsbury Park will try them out, since he appears to have declared war upon his palate.
And as a fun game between courses, speculate upon the ingredients of this recipe, which I found in a cookbook yesterday:
•Little Atoms always makes me feel cleverer after listening, like I’ve read a good book. It was a particular treat to hear AMTpal John Grindrod on there discussing his recent book Concretopia, which makes mid-20th century town planning a thousand times more interesting than you thought it could be.
Fun fact: I fainted at John Grindrod’s book launch. Concretopia = the new Beatlemania! Luckily I did not faint whilst listening to the podcast, but I have decided not to attend any more book launches immediately after donating blood.
• Little Atoms presenter Neil Denny also tells a true story on the new Best of Spark London. (And if you didn’t hear me talking about my dead grandparents on another recent episode, I encourage you to click here to do so.)
• Congratulations to the Picturehouse podcast for reaching 200 episodes! The Picturehouse, Brixton Ritzy flavour, is my favourite cinema; don’t make me choose a favourite film podcast between Sam and Simon here and Mark and Simon. NB to make a great film podcast, at least one of you must be called Simon.
• Our friends at Maximum Fun have launched their annual donation drive. If you want to support independent creators of entertainment – and/or you enjoy such shows as Bullseye, One Bad Mother, Sawbones, Jordan, Jesse, Go!, Judge John Hodgman, International Waters and more – do chip in.
Listen to our regular gigs too:
• Catch up on AMT285 if you still haven’t heard whether Nora in Malawi accepted Greg in Baghdad’s proposal of marriage, or why AMT is only one step removed from Olympic gold medal glory (admittedly, that step is quite significant). • There’re all the retro AMT episodes (nos.1-170), plus our albums, available for a trifling price at answermethisstore.com. •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. • Every Saturday evening I’m on BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition, available subsequently as the podcast Let’s Talk About Tech. • Martin the Sound Man makes numerous other podcasts, including Brain Train, The Global Lab and The Sound of the Ladies.
No need to shout “Hey Mr DJ! Play my motherjeffing song!” like a twat; if you want to recommend a podcast for the Thursday Listening Party, do so in the comments.
MESSAGE FROM THE MOTHERSHIP:
If you downloaded AMT285 very soon after it was released, you may have ended up with a version that is rather longer or considerably shorter than the correct AMT285-length of 42 minutes 45 seconds. If so, please delete it and obtain the proper one, as linked to below. Thanks! HZ
In response to AMT284, the first few minutes of Answer Me This! Episode 285 are SO exciting, you should listen RIGHT NOW:
But do carry on listening beyond the first few minutes, to hear about:
‘Torn‘ by Natalie Imbruglia vs ‘Torn‘ by Ednaswap Randy Newman vs Tom Jones
the Recycle Bin vs Trash
rawl plugs vs wall plugs
Lizzy Yarnold
Magic FM
saloon doors
Mini Babybel
‘Hazard‘ by Richard Marx
the face of fistula
and
magnolia paint.
Plus, there’s a manliness contest between Olly and Martin the Sound Man. Which of these opposite-of-Titans is the least masculine? It’s a VERY close contest. Like a boxing match between a wet lettuce leaf and a fluffy sock.
There’s double Crap on the App this week, as Olly chooses chateaubriand over speakeasies (whither the gastrospeakeasy?), then says gardening’s for girls, even though he’s got a grow-your-own Alan Titchmarsh. Fire up the app on your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgetry.
Also fire up Squarespace.com, who have not only given us money to make this episode but are also giving YOU a 10% discount off their services for a whole year if you use the code answer3.
Back in a fortnight!
Helen & Olly
AMT285 Child-Friendly Rating: 52%. The topics aren’t unsuitable, but two f-bombs are detonated in the first ten minutes. Miscellanous other swears appear towards the end, when discussing the vile names Martin the Sound Man gives to computer things. So blame Martin for the defilement of your children if they hear this episode.
Another Anonymous Man has been in touch regarding Anonymous Man’s question in AMT284:
Great to hear a question about men wearing knickers – I love them myself, but my wife wouldn’t like it so very few people know.
I do wear thongs designed for men, but they just aren’t as slinky as ones designed for women. As you said, you need to be careful with the choice of design – so there’s enough room at the front!
Is it wrong to wear them when I go to the Doctors or Osteopath (both female)? – I expect they’ve seen everything before, but it is “fun”.
Unlike you, my instinct when dressing for medical inspections is to choose underwear with as much coverage as possible. I opt for a full set of Mormon undergarments with another full set of Mormon undergarments beneath, just to be safe.
But I’d hate to ruin your fun, so I can’t tell you your practice is wrong. But it does place you in the same sartorial school as Peter Stringfellow – click here for photographic evidence that is probably NSFW and definitely NSFLife.
As an avid consumer of podcasting over many years now it has become obvious that my relationship to podcasters follows a similar pattern to many relationships with actual people.
At first I might think they are quite amusing and or interesting and then I get to know them better and find they become quite loveable. Right up until the day when you realise that you can’t stand the sound of their voice and never listen to them again. My podcast page is littered with discontinued subscriptions for podcasts that once upon a time I actually looked forward to hearing.
Please answer me this: since I have been listening to you for about six months now, how much longer do you think we have?
Oh let’s not think about the future, Peter; let’s just enjoy this precious time we have together.
It seems we have the capability of ruining relationships we’re not even part of, judging by this email from Oliver:
Last night I was engaged in foreplay with a new partner, when without warning, one of the Answer Me This jingles became stuck in my head. I think it ruined the moment, because she informed me that she’s been seeing someone, and she didn’t want to have sex (thanks guys).
Answer Me This! Podcast 