Hello listeners! We hope you have survived our three-week absence. If not, it’ll be no use to you to know that Answer Me This! Episode 262 is ready for your attentions:
Nor to learn that in it we speak of:
the A1 (the road, not the boyband)
baseball caps
food trucks
hammock hazards Pulse and Cocktails (link NSFW)
ice cream vans and cocktails
Steven Spielberg’s headgear ‘Looking for Freedom’ vs ‘Looking for Linda’
pate
and
great big strapping Michael Parkinson.
Plus: Olly receives the wrath of the Hoff; Helen would not give away what goes on in large discreet carparks; and Martin the Sound Man describes his brief moment as the young Frank Rossitano in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App – or, given the subject matter, this week’s Bit of Cap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android.
Please do click here to preview/purchase our SMASH HIT TOP 15 ALBUM Answer Me This! Holiday, that was briefly but thrillingly sandwiched between Robbie and Rihanna.
And also please do send us your QUESTIONS for the new series: leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT262 Child-Friendly Rating: 60%. Question about sex shops polluting an otherwise innocent episode.
It’s rare we receive feedback about one of our jingles, even rarer that such feedback contains courtroom drama, 90s number one hits (in Norway and Greece), venomous centipedes and tragic death. But this email from Claire from Cork has it all:
In one of your bits in the middle of the podcast, Olly has recorded a piece which goes as follows:
“Hello I’m the monk out of 90s band Enigma.
Helen, answer me this.
Why-aii-aaiiii…etc
What was that all about?”
I’ll tell you exactly what that was all about.
It was an Ami (indigenous peoples of Taiwan) traditional song.
In 1988, husband and wife duo Ying-nan Hsiu-Chu Kuo sang the song in Paris as part of a cultural exchange, where they were paid $15 a day. It was recorded by Maison des Cultures du Monde and later put on CD of ‘Taiwanese Aboriginal Songs’.
Then, Michael Cretu of Enigma fame got his grubbly little hands on it and began sampling – resulting in the classic ‘Return to Innocence’. The Kuos then took their asses to court along with EMI for violation of copyright.
They won the case which was then settled out of court in 1999 for an undisclosed amount. Cretu still maintains that he was of the impression that the song was part of the public domain.
Mr Kuo died in 2002 from a venomous centipede bite. Hsiu-Chu died a few months later.
Another bit of business left over from AMT261, addressed by Storm:
Re: the accountant who gets the ‘bored’ look from people when he tells them he is an accountant..
I’ve had this for years…I tried to evade the subject by just saying ‘I work in an office’ and then I discovered that my neighbours thought I was a cleaner!
I now try to talk about a project I’ve been working on, as I tend to find that what people think accountants do isn’t. For example I’ve recently been working on a project to open up new children’s homes.
In the 1980s there was a big move to use the private sector to provide old people’s homes, it was very successful with price decreasing and quality increasing. So the project was extended to children’s homes. Children in care are substantially different from old people, there is more shoplifting, casual violence and vandalism so the private sector haven’t been made keen to move into this market.
These places are really expensive: it costs less to send a child to Eton than to put them in a private children’s home. I met a guy who owned two children’s homes and had bought a helicopter to fly between them.
It’s better for children to be nearer their old homes, school, and friends. And I found that opening a new children’s home would save over a million pounds per year.
Good work, Storm: you’re providing many potential avenues of conversation for your chat-partner. However, not every accountant can speak of an interesting, socially important project. Does anybody have a useful gambit to say instead of, “I help a wealthy corporation stay wealthy”?
Or maybe it’s best to avoid referencing any jobs, ever. Here’s a cautionary tale from Kendersrule:
Many moons ago, while I worked at a supermarket deli counter…
*wibbley camera of the past*
One day when a woman came up to the counter to ask for some ham, we got chatting about the probiotic yoghurt drinks in her trolley.
I asked her how they tasted, as the actors in the ads all looked like they were about to vomit when they downed one.
She replied, somewhat indignantly, that she was one of the people responsible for those ads.
I said “oh” and we spent the next 30 seconds of ham wrapping time in silence. Whoops!
Silence was better than her screaming, “I don’t tell you how to wrap ham!” which would have been quite a reasonable response.
Before we embark upon the new series, let’s clear up some loose ends from the last series, namely your opinions of energy drinks. Yasmine, 16, from Cheltenham, you have the floor:
I was just listening to AMT260, in which you were talking about Red Bull, a drink I have never tried or ever intend to try, being a self proclaimed H2Only – only drinking water.
I was at the doctor’s talking to a nurse about my new inhaler prescription, when the nurse said, out of the blue, “Don’t drink Red Bull with your inhaler as you can get high.”
Answer me this, is it true? And if so, WHY WOULD SHE TELL THAT TO A 16-YEAR-OLD?!?
Because she thinks it’s a safer way for you to get high than meow meow.
It sounds risky, but less so than the concoction Rachel in Phnom Penh describes:
Your assumptions about SE Asian energy drinks are basically true – in Cambodia you can buy energy drinks far stronger than Red Bull quite happily from just about everywhere. The entire teaching force of the country pretty much runs purely on energy of these drinks.
At work (I’m an ESL pre-k teacher) the staff room provides a popular local mix – a heaped spoonful of strong freeze dried coffee, another spoonful of chocolate drinking powder (Milo) about 1/3 of a cup of condensed milk. And hot water in what little space there is left. It basically tastes like a heart attack.
Answer me this – am I knocking a day off my life every time I drink this?
Dunno, because it doesn’t like the sort of substance whose long-term effects have been subjected to proper scientific studies have been done. If you’re having palpitations, mood swings and insomnia, you’re probably drinking milky amphetamines.
Pack your flippers, sunblock and emergency stomach medicine, because our new album The Answer Me This! Holiday is ready to depart!
It’s 58 minutes 3 seconds of all-new material – right down to the jingles – all about holidays, vacations, minibreaks, staycations, jaunts, sojourns, escapes; whatever you like to call them. In the usual AMT style, we tackle questions about such holidayish topics as:
things to do in New York City
summer reading lists
artificial insemination for pandas
dads’ embarrassing holiday-wear
what lies behind – or, more accurately, beneath – the scenes at Disney
Legoland sculptors
why the Spanish Steps in Rome aren’t Spanish
what to expect from a Chinese breakfast
stag parties abroad
and
why the Brits are lagging behind in competitive eating contests.
• A full range of holidaywear: clip-on sunglasses, short shorts, convertible trousers, Speedos, gilets, electroejaculators; • Classic tourist attractions: the Staten Island Ferry, Downton Abbey, Disney’s utilidors, Burghley House, the Winchester Mystery House, Flambards and A Day at the Wells; • Delicious holiday grub: satirical breakfasts, ‘world famous’ foods, congee, Sex on the Beach, the Heart Attack Grill, pork and its tasty friends, Economy Candy; • Delightful holiday companions: Cara Delevingne, Eugene Levy, Nancy Mitford, Adam Richman, naked mole rats, Spagna; • Fun holiday activities: the ‘bollocks’ game at festivals, drinking games, humiliating your fellow diners, being assaulted by Mexican shots girls, trying to remember your one-night-stand’s name.
Big thanks to Amy Smith and Sam Pay for the jingles and Jenny Robertshaw for the cover – and speculatively to you for buying it, because your outlay helps fund Answer Me This! (and our actual holidays).
This week, we learn a few very important lessons about sheep: not to underestimate them intellectually and emotionally; what they have in common with Margaret Thatcher; and what they also have in common with Helen’s mum. Discover these things right now in Answer Me This! Episode 261:
In which we also learn about:
emogothpunk style Casper the Suicidal Ghost
small-talk with accountants
the losers’ cafe in The Apprentice
BHS Dr Martens
free sunglasses
pony-drawn rollers
the Cabinet vs. the Divine Right of Kings
iced coffee vs. cold coffee Olly’s face vs. Richard Gere’s face
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club
hair-blindness
and
advice from Paul Ross.
Plus: Olly had to go cold turkey on the brown, by which we mean Mr Brown drinks, not heroin; Helen sounds and looks and smells like an old fart; and Martin the Sound Man’s emotional needs are not going to be met by sheep. Let’s not even contemplate whether they can meet his sexual needs, please. But you can meet Martin’s needs by going to his website or YouTube to watch his spectacular new music video (/visual evidence of his nervous breakdown).
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Helen expresses her ever-unrealised desire for unusual-coloured hair. She may have wimped out of having an experimental phase in her teens, but when she’s a geriatric she WILL go full-bore Marge Simpson. Promise.
Promise us to send us your QUESTIONS for our next series: leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We’ll be back with AMT262 on 11th July, so please join us then; in the meantime, check back here for our imminent album, the Answer Me This! Holiday, our all-new follow-up to our Top 20 (no really!) albums Jubilee and Sports Day, available for your delectation at answermethispodcast.com/albums.
Byeeee!
Helen & Olly
AMT261 Child-Friendly Rating: 90%.
References to hiding pornographic magazines; very mild profanity.
The following question from Kev wouldn’t be too weird if he worked in a strip joint. But, he doesn’t:
I recently started working at a call centre for a bank. I am nearing the end of my training, and a couple of days ago I met with the team I am to join, and my prospective manager. They all seem perfectly likeable, and my manager – a woman in her mid-forties – is very welcoming. But during this brief meeting she announced that she plans to organise a day of pole dancing for the group, which I do not like the sound of at all.
I realise that in the corporate world this kind of thing is important for team building etc, and as a new member of the team I could perhaps benefit from an event at which I would have a chance to socialise with my future colleagues, but I simply do not want to go. I don’t like doing even vaguely work-related things outside of work as this is not a career I wish to be in for a long time and there are things that I am passionate about that I could be doing with my spare time. I also think that either watching or doing pole dancing sounds completely boring; not because I am a man, but because it’s just not my thing.
I tried to find out when it was to make up a prior engagement, but I was told that the date of the event is yet to be decided based on our schedules.
So, answer me this: What do I do? Do I make up a weak and potentially transparent excuse and not go? Do I go, and have a very uncomfortable, unpaid day constantly thinking about what else I could be doing with my time? Or do I outright and honestly tell my manager that I do not want to go as I don’t think I would enjoy it or get much out of it? Would that result in her making my life at work harder than it needs to be?
Even though we discussed in AMT221 how pole dancing can be an athletic discipline rather than a purely sexy one, this does not seem to be an APPROPRIATE WORK ACTIVITY. Can you suggest an alternative?
If not, and you’re determined not to go, just tell her you have a long-standing spinal or muscular complaint. Pole dancing is physically demanding, and your manager is unlikely to want you to be laid off work with a slipped disc.
Readers, any other ideas? I’m not best placed to help, since I’ve managed to get myself out of all such situations by working on my own since 2005.
KLAXON! AMT LISTENER IN DISTRESS! It’s Lachlan, who writes:
I have just been dumped by my girlfriend of one year.
Recently I attended a music festival, where I got very drunk and ended up making out with another girl. Because I was so drunk, I cannot even remember this girl’s name or what she looked like.
As I could never lie to my girlfriend, I told her everything the second I got back. She was obviously extremely saddened by this, and as much as I tried to tell her that it is not something I would ever have done if I was sober, for obvious reasons she says she can never trust me again and she can’t stop thinking about me with the girl.
We have always been very close and I have never lied to her. Answer me this: WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO TO MAKE HER TRUST ME AGAIN?!?!
Unfortunately, Lachlan, I cannot offer you a quick fix to regain trust. It will take time, and willingness on both sides to overcome this incident. I imagine you have already gone strong on contrition, but you could also demonstrate your commitment to such a thing not happening again by giving up drinking.
Readers, if you have any suggestions for Lachlan convincing his girlfriend to give him a second chance, deliver them in the comments, as well as tips for him avoiding getting himself into similar scrapes again. For instance, wearing a welding mask to music festivals would preclude extra-curricular kissing.
Following last week’s discussion of Red Bull, Timothy and Melissa in Australia sent the following inquiry:
Energy drinks contain a shitload of taurine so answer us this: what is taurine?
Taurine, nicknamed NH2CH2-CH2SO3H, is a sulfonic acid that is already sloshing around in your human body performing many important functions in your heart, muscles, blood, nerves and bile. Bile? Bile. Yes. Taurine was first discovered in ox bile, and thence came the bull in the name Red Bull.
Although your Red Bull only contains synthetic bile these days, it has maintained the authentic flavour of a bull’s puke.
Last week, we spoke upon the act of judging one’s neighbours by the contents of their recycling bins. This week, Hattie‘s recycling-judgement-capacity has been completely scrambled by her neighbours:
I recently noticed one of my neighbours had an entire glass recycling box FULL of empty Nutella jars. I had to walk past twice to make sure I wasn’t imagining things…but yes – the box was entirely crammed with empty pots.
So, please answer me this – how on earth can someone eat so much nutty spread? Or, alternatively, what are they doing with it?
Evidence:
Exhibit A: a LOT of Nutella jars
My hunch is that they were making a giant Ferrero Rocher. It’s the only reasonable explanation…OR IS IT? Readers, go to the comments to offer your own hypotheses for the profusion of Nutella. Someone was getting rid of their late grandmother’s lifetime collection of Nutella jars? They bath in it? They’re using it to regrout the bathroom? The floor is yours.
This week, listener Melvyn from Israel got in touch to ask whether we have a system for identifying AMT episodes which are suitable for his children to listen to. So from this point forward*, each episode will have a rating so you parents/children are aware of the incidence of blue language and depraved material. Answer Me This! Episode 260 scores a Child Friendly Rating of 70% (mild swearing/bawdy talk and one question about dicks).
Today we discuss:
Wagon Wheels
jalapeños
disappointing Oxford Circus Loose Women‘s stools (not as in bowel movement stools)
tuk tuk drivers
Fentimans
The Pammy vs. The Governess
Lord Adonis
helium
and
dressing to the left/right.
Plus: Olly has a simple but cunning method for hiding his Special Racy Magazines; Helen is a fan of neither Buckfast nor Red Bull; and the only thing bigger than Martin the Sound Man’s head is his…ego?
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we discuss Desert Island Drugs. We may be squares in our normal lives, but leave us to die alone on a desert island and we’ll give any intoxicants a whirl.
Your favourite West Midlandese sound man has been very busy this year, and not with the invention of new compound cuss-words involving balls. No. He’s been paper-cutting, green-screening and back-projecting to make the video to his song 10,000 Letters of Love, and the finished product is finally here:
Wow, right? Surely the best papercut video about London sewerage pioneer Joseph Bazalgette you’ll see all year.
If you’re interested in how he made the video, click here; and if you liked the song and want to buy it plus ten more, click here to purchase his beautiful album The City of Gold and Lead, under Martin’s musical alter ego The Sound of the Ladies.
Answer Me This! Podcast 