Here’s some intportant intformation about the runt of the litter of the seven original major web domain suffices. Int’s from David:
Last week you talked about the original Internet top-level domains, and wondered who on earth would buy a .int domain.
Well, I used to work for the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), whose website is http://www.inbar.int. A guy there told me that only recognised intergovernmental organisations, such as INBAR or the UN, are allowed to have websites ending in .int.
So no-one can simply buy a domain ending in .int (check GoDaddy, it’s not one of the options when you try to register a new domain) — you first need to set up a globally-recognised intergovernmental organisation.
So, answer me this: how does one go about setting up an intergovernmental org?
You think if we knew how to do that, we’d be still be trifling around with podcasts? Readers! Go to the comments to tell David how he can get to play with the big guns (the big guns being the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, of course. What could possibly be bigger?).
You know, sometimes I worry about the advice I dole out on Answer Me This! – though I was pretty sure about the particular nugget which Rupert has written to endorse:
Having only just caught up with Episode 268 (the holiday podcast backlog causing its usual chaos), I heard the bit about not blacking up children and was brutally dragged back to one of the most embarrassing incidents of my life…
I was an awkward child of 8 or so, up in Edinburgh for our annual Christmas stay with my Aunt, Uncle and cousins. For some reason that year, the traditional panto included The Black & White Minstrels (this was about 45 years ago, o tempora, o mores, etc.).
The highlight of the show was the opportunity to get blacked up like a Black & White Minstrel (remember, 45 years ago). My hand shot up, and I was invited up on stage. What I had forgotten was that we had been dressed up in our finest clothes for this treat, which for me – for reasons I have never fully understood, since I was English and lived in Hampshire – meant wearing a kilt.
Having blacked up my face, like the others, they then had to black up my knees – to the great derision of the rest of the audience, who seemed to regard this as the most ridiculous thing they had ever seen. It probably was, but childhood wounds run deep. I have never worn a kilt again.
So I just wanted to endorse the wise advise you handed out: do not black up children.
Indeed. Do not. Not ever. Not even for kiddy productions of Othello.
Trolls have been in the news a lot lately – the online tormentor kind, but not the toys that used to be so popular. Why is that? Did people finally take a clear-eyed look at those dinky little plastic haemorrhoids and realise that they disobeyed William Morris’s dictum regarding beauty/usefulness? Has there been a worldwide shortage of neon hair?
No. Find out the true reason for trolls’ recent retirement from the limelight in Answer Me This! Episode 269:
In which we also learn about:
wicker furniture
family holidays
murder houses
Ray Winstone vs. June Whitfield
indoor-outdoor space
the Lindbergh baby
the seven generic top-level domains
pianists’ page-turners Thomas Dam
and
Yoshi.
Plus: Olly gets to talk about cats, and their glands, and their necks, and their cheeks, and their adorable bums; if Helen were the subject of a Thomas Harris novel, it’d be The Silence of the Chairs; and Martin the Sound Man is indignant at the idea of a male dinosaur laying an egg through his urethra.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App features a humdinger of a tale: Olly has alphabeticised his spice rack. For reals! Hear all about it, and how Helen has organised her spice rack, on your iDevice or Android.
Also, if you want to have a holiday that is more enjoyable than questioneer Pat from Canada’s, try the AMT Holiday album – no family rows or screaming kids, just one hour of us jabbering on into your ear. What could be more paradisial and relaxing than that?
Don’t be so relaxed that you forget to send us your QUESTIONS, though. Leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT269 Child-Friendly Rating: 78%. Some swearing, one attributable to Olly channelling Ray Winstone. References to feline sexual delight. Detraction of possibly beloved-by-children Troll dolls.
PS Oh, HERE’s where all the Trolls disappeared to. (Aside from all the ones that have been hiding out here.)
Questioneer Liz has lopped off her head-top femininity, and people are going apeshit about it even though we’ve seen the same many times over, from Audrey Hepburn/Michelle Williams/Halle Berry/Demi Moore/Miley Cyrus/’Stop’-era Posh Spice/bad-era Britney, right through to Joan of Arc.
She writes:
I recently decided to cut my hair into a short crop style (I am a 29 year old female doctor), and ever since have been astonished at the deluge of rude, inappropriate and frankly outright mean things that people have said to me. When I say ‘people’, I am mostly referring to men. One male friend’s first response was “Are you a lesbian now?” whilst another stated “I don’t like short hair on girls, you look like a boy”. I have been ordered to grow it long again, asked “What went wrong at the hairdressers?” and told “You will never get a boyfriend now”. In contrast my female friends have been highly supportive, stating it looks great.
So, answer me this: Why do men think it is OK to be mean to women with short hair? And are my female friends lying in saying it looks great? (which surely is the safe and socially accepted way to go – to be honest I’d appreciate more men taking this route!)
I’m not a man, but reader, if you are one, go to the comments and explain to Liz why her haircut might be causing upset. Since we don’t have photo evidence that the style doesn’t make Liz look like Jimmy Krankie rather than Winona Ryder, let’s assume that she does look nice with it. Let’s also assume that Liz’s primary purpose is not to look attractive to her male friends.
On the most part my fiancée and I get on really well, but there’s one sticking point that drives me crazy: she refuses to watch movies I am passionate about showing her, especially the Steven King classic Stand By Me.
Answer Me This:
1. Why is she doing this to me and 2. how can I persuade her to watch Stand By Me?
1. Maybe she doesn’t want to be bullied into watching? Or perhaps she is enjoying toying with your feelings thus.
2. Compromise is key. I suggest you effect a semi-regular arrangement of watching double bills, for which you have each chosen one film. You have to watch each other’s film without prejudice, and your own film without pointing out all the things you want the other to notice about it. Afterwards, you may have a reasoned, dispassionate discussion about what you have seen, but if neither of you can be trusted to do that, then keep your opinions to yourselves and talk about something else instead.
Another option is to accept that in relationships, you’re allowed to like and dislike things your partner does not. If you try the double bill plan and your fiancée subjects you to Danny Dyer film after Danny Dyer film, this will be a good backup choice.
We’ll have even less reason to go near the Christmas cake, if Elon from Austin, Texas is reporting truth:
Your exploration of glacé cherries on the show this past week reminded me of a tale I was told growing up in Michigan. Michigan, I believe, is the world’s largest producer of what we call maraschino cherries. Traverse City, in the north of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, is fond of touting itself the Cherry Capital of the World. H
The tale I was told is that when the farmers preserve the cherries they intend to sell to the maraschino cherry producers, they first dump their crop into large pools of chemicals for the winter. And since it doesn’t really matter what happens to the fruits due to the bleaching and candying process, these pools are often outside…essentially just big holes in the ground…which of course attract deer…which sometimes fall in…and get bleached and candied themselves.
The capper of this tale is the bit about how workers are hired in the spring of each year before the thaw completely sets in to fish out the candied deer carcasses and whatnot that falls in over the winter.
So answer me this please: is any of this true? Are health regulations in the US so poorly enforced that this could happen in this day and age? Yeesh!
Readers, if you have any inside knowledge on the candied deer phenomenon, reveal in the comments.
To me, it sounds like bulldeershit. People succeed in covering backyard swimming pools to stop crap falling in. If you had an open-air pool of fruit intended for human consumption, wouldn’t you at the very least put a net over it to catch the larger debris?
And if this is indeed how cherries are stored (rather than in, say, closed tanks), wouldn’t the Michigan climate keep them frozen for several months? Now a deer skating over a frozen pool of cherries, that I’d like to see.
Although August is coming to a close, and with it the Edinburgh Fringe, there’s still just enough time to incorporate our grade-A publicity techniques into your show. Learn from the masters in Answer Me This! Episode 268:
In which we also consider:
SeaWorld
ark logistics
glacier cherries
Peter Nichols’ Passion Play
Noah’s flood vs. the great flood of Edgware
transporting whales
E number 127
aeroplane seat-reclining etiquette
endless Chorus Line
war poetry
and
Barry Scott.
Plus: Olly warns you not to sit behind him on a flight, as he provides his own, er, jet propulsion; Helen still regrets inadvertently reviving the Al Jolson look for Edinburgh Fringe punters; and Martin the Sound Man fails the ‘name the artificial colourant in the glacé cherries’ game.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android, Helen tells you the magic trick with which you can WOW your friends (or thoroughly disappoint them if all they wanted was a nice refreshing orange).
Don’t disappoint us: send us your nice refreshing QUESTIONS. Leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. If we answer them, as Barry Scott would say: bang, and the doubt is gone.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT268 Child-Friendly Rating: 75%. In the aftermath of AMT267, this episode opens with further discussion of virginity loss, with concomitant references to genitalia and sexual practices. However the rest of the episode is clean beans, aside from a couple of swears.
PS Because we’d never leave you with an endless Chorus Line:
He wasn’t good enough for you! You’re better off without him! and other platitudes go out to Matilda in California, who writes:
My boyfriend and I just decided (somewhat mutually) that we needed to stop seeing each other, since I’ve just started a Master’s program, and he wants to move to New Zealand for an indeterminate amount of time. I still care about him very much, so this has been a little bit rough for me.
At night, when I’m not finishing a paper or making dinner, I have taken to spending my time watching sad movies about people who have broken up with each other, listening to sad songs, and weeping uncontrollably into a pillow.
So, answer me this: What has helped you during a breakup, and can you recommend any songs that I should add to my “End of Times” playlist?
Readers, get yourselves to the comments and compile the epitome of break-up playlists. NB Matilda, avoid listening to songs you might need in future years, because once you’ve recovered from the break-up, it can be unpleasant to return to the music that sustained you through the difficult times.
I’m looking for a question that was as far as possible from the unpleasantness of the previous post. This question from Scott from Utah, living in Taiwan, does the job:
I’m not a huge fan of bananas, but they work well with my stomach (I have ulcerative colitis).
I’ve been buying them a lot lately and can’t seem to pick a good batch that will last me a week. They’ll either be too green, too ripe, too bruised, etc. Refrigerating them doesn’t keep them fresh, and nothing else seems to work either.
Answer me this: how does a person know which bananas to pick from the store and how in the world do you keep them fresh?? If there are any foolproof tips, please let me know because google hasn’t helped me.
PHEW. Nothing terrifying there. Readers: banana tips for Scott! Go!
Good morning, you lazy bastards! One listener called Martin has been up and at ’em since earlytimes, because before this post even went up, he tweeted us with a solution to one of the problems discussed in Answer Me This! Episode 267: Josh, who is trying to watch racy HBO shows on his iPad at the gym without feeling ashamed, needs to get one of these. Wallop! Problem solved.* And what have you done lately, eh?
Don’t worry, you don’t really need to do very much at all, except listen to the episode, of course:
We also consider:
spiders Victor David Brenner
SculptureShop
Thomas Jefferson vs. Mariah Carey
Olly’s dad vs. DVDs
corrupt bakers
Theresa May: monarchical midwife À la recherche du temps perdu
madeleines
Farter’s Day
the definition of virginity
and
Richard Nixon.
Plus, each of us is ready for combat this week: Olly provokes a rematch of the Battle of Agincourt, but this time over French cakes versus English cakes; Helen wages war against cliché; and Martin the Sound Man takes a shoot-to-kill policy on spiders and whelks.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android, learn how to decorate your home in the Olly Mann style: with squashed moths. Or, if you prefer slightly less morbid things on your walls, you could get the AMT clock that he mentions in the show. That’s right: Olly Mann’s clockface is his own face. We’re still working on turning Helen’s face into a sundial.
While we do that, you should work on sending us your QUESTIONS. It’s easy: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Bam. Job done.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT267 Child-Friendly Rating: 50%. Just a couple of swears. Question about sex scenes in HBO shows. Graphic mental image of Jack Straw staring up a royal birth canal. Question about virginity at the end of the show with, naturally, references to sexual practices, albeit thoughtful rather than lairy in tone.
Rachel has written in with some feedback upon an episode from three years ago, and an injustice we suffered more than nine years ago:
I just finished watching the 1931 movieFrankenstein starring the magnificent Boris Karloff and I noticed something odd about the mad scientist… his name was Henry Frankenstein, not Victor!
I vaguely recalled you mentioning something in a previous episode about losing money in a pub quiz machine because you selected the wrong name for the mad scientist. I was curious to know if the ‘correct’ name on the quiz machine you had was Henry and after a quick search of your website, I found that in episode 149 (with Ian Collins!) you guys said the correct name according to the quiz machine was in fact Henry and that you lost seven pounds!
It’s really weird that your quiz machine targeted such a specific Frankenstein but you guys definitely could have gotten your money back on that one. Just thought you guys would like to know that quiz machine wasn’t totally full of bullshit!
PS The 1931 Frankenstein is an absolutely fantastic movie and was one of the first major ‘talkies’. I definitely recommend watching it sometime!
It must be absolutely fantastic if it has caused the quiz machine to obliterate its knowledge of the CORRECT NAME IN ALL THE OTHER VERSIONS OF FRANKENSTEININCLUDING, MOST CRITICALLY, THE SOURCE MATERIAL.
Listening to AMT266, your conversation about the legalities of burying people and ashes scattering had me in stitches. So much so that I had to get off my bicycle, lest I cause havoc on the roads.
It reminded me of something that happened a number of years ago when my sister and I were scattering my late father’s ashes.
This was when my sister and I lived at home. My father, he’d sat on the mantle-piece in his little metal urn for a number of years, and one day we got sick of looking at him and organised to go together to somewhere dear to him and us, to scatter his remains.
On the day we traveled to the designated place, and with all the gravity and sobriety requested on such an occasion we both said a little piece, popped open his canister, and upended him.
As expected ashes came ushering forth… only, just at the wrong time there was a gust of wind which as you can imagine played havoc with the scattering mechanisms.
Together we tried to ignore this fact; after my sister and i were done scattering ‘Pop’ we hugged and had a serious, heartfelt conversation. But it was nigh on impossible to keep a straight face between us, as both of our faces were covered in ashes!
So let that be a warning to anyone thinking about cremation. Make sure you conclude proceedings ONLY on a calm day.
Don’t worry, James, we’ve seen enough comedy films to know not to do that. For safety, we’ll be disposing of loved ones’ ashes the Keith Richards way.
Answer Me This! Podcast 