My nephew got married last summer to a woman he had lived with for two years.
Four months later he suspected that she was cheating on him and after Christmas we found our that they had separated but were in counseling.
A month ago we were told that they were getting a divorce.
Yesterday I found out that my nephew is already seeing someone.
While I want him to be happy and find a new soul mate, isn’t this all a bit too fast? Answer me this: how long after deciding to divorce should someone wait before starting to date again?
Readers, if you believe there is an appropriate set period of singletude, or if you have designed an equation to calculate that period in proportion to the length of relationship, share in the comments.
Personally, I don’t see the harm if Pat’s nephew is just having a not-to-serious time with a new paramour, moving on with a fun fling, salving the wounds left by his cheating partner.
If, however, he and his ladyfriend are already dressing alike, running non-essential errands to Ikea, making wedding plans or buying adjacent burial plots, I can understand Pat’s concern. But since he’s an adult man with dominion over his own decisions, I’m not sure she can intervene. As an aunt myself, frankly I wouldn’t feel comfortable judging when my nephew was ready to love again, but my nephew is only five and a half years old so I can hazard a guess that he should play the field for another couple of decades at least.
In AMT257 we learned why in-house polling stations are likely to remain a pipe-dream. But if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed’s house and offer him a lift, according to Leon from Morpeth:
On the subject of corrupt polling stations:
I live in a small village in Northumberland and our local Conservative councillor (of about 20 years now) owns and runs the country house hotel in the village.
On polling day he regularly pays a member of his hotel staff to stand outside the village hall greeting everyone and taking a private register of every eligible voter in the village.
By the late afternoon he will then drive to the house of anyone who hasn’t voted to give them a lift to the polling station to vote for him.
I always thought this was pretty dodgy.
This on its own is not dodgy:
1. As a man heavily invested in the democratic process, the importance of people exercising their right to vote will surely be even more important to him than his own success.*
2. The people he transports can still vote for whom they like once they’ve been driven right into the booth.**
*Which doesn’t seem much in question anyway, if he’s been the election winner for twenty years.
**On the other hand, if he provides them with a homemade ballot paper with just one name on it…
Sound the sirens – today, in Answer Me This! Episode 258, we address a VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION. One of those questions that completely reshapes your neural pathways, redirects your chi, repapers the hallways of your spiritual palace. Get ready:
What is a dickbag?
A bag OF dicks, a bag FOR dicks, or a ballbag?
Yup. One of the greats.
We also discuss:
cinema intervals
sleeping in parks
the not-circular Circle Line
silly cows
presidential perishables
gifts for Sophie Raworth
Dumbo vs. DUMBO
exes vs. economics
potplant-murder vs. potplant-suicide
the White House postal address cartoon crows
and
coffee in the loo.
Plus: young Olly wanted value even more than he wanted Disney cartoons; Helen is a lady; and you don’t want to be hot-desking at Martin the Sound Man’s office, you really don’t.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we feel the threat of the new Greatest Show On Earth: Radio 4’s Tweet of the Day.
If birdsong isn’t your thing, how about a month of free film/TV/games instead? Deprive yourself no longer; sign up to our free LoveFilm offer right now. You’d not only be delighting yourself with all the free entertainment of LoveFilm, you’d also be helping maintain the free entertainment of AMT, because we get money if you take up the trial.
There’s another way you can help keep this show going: send us your QUESTIONS! Leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
I’m guessing from this email that listener Kate won’t be inviting her sister to her 26th birthday party:
In just under a week it’s my 25th birthday. Apart from the inevitable mild existential crisis, this means I’m having a barbecue. I’ve invited friends and I’ve invited my sister. My sister has then invited my mum. Please help me think of a way to un-invite her. I just wanted a nice relaxing afternoon eating meat in my back garden with my friends. I do not want either of my parents there! And if my mum is coming then I am forced to invite my dad and his new wife.
How how HOW can I make sure there are no parents at my barbecue without causing a big family fuss?
Readers, go to the comments and help the lady out. Oh pleeeeeeese. It’s her birthday.
Thanks to Emma from Perth, Australia we can take an imaginary peek under holy skirts:
In episode 250 you had a conversation about whether the cardinals and the Pope wear any kind of underwear under those elaborate robes. Well, I just had to write in and tell you. I recently went on a Buddhist retreat, and the head abbot, a really funny guy with a great sense of humour named Ajahn Brahm, was asked this very question about Buddhist monks.
The questions were written anonymously on little bits of paper that he read out in front of a crowded hall. Some cheeky person asked him if they wear underpants, and if so, are they a special kind of holy underpants just for monks. Ajahn Brahm replied that the best thing about being a monk in Australia is that no, you don’t have to wear underwear beneath those robes and it’s really cool during the hot weather.
So there you go.
There we go, and there they go, swinging freely in the breeze.
Last Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest has left you with many questions (aside from WHY DIDN’T GREECE WIN?). For instance, this one from Orpon:
This year the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Malmö, Sweden. This happens to be my hometown and I barely made it out of this frenzy alive.
For several weeks every year nothing else matters but the ESC and since it was held in Sweden this year it was much, much worse. Even if our prime minister should be murdered (again) I don’t think it would make the news if it happened during the ESC craze.
Answer me this: when so many European nations succumb to the ESC madness, why don’t the British care at all about it? Are you too good to hang out with the rest of us? Don’t you like feather boas, confetti and crappy music?
Oh, we Brits do like those things – but only through a veil of sneering irony. And it’s inaccurate to say that we don’t care at all – we care very much that the Britain scores as close to nul points as possible.
On to a question from one of the scornful Brits, Paul from Northampton:
I’m watching Eurovision and all the awful acts that are desperately trying to win with this awful Europop. So answer me this: if Britain wants to win so badly, why haven’t they enter One Direction, as everyone seems to love them for some reason?
I take issue with Paul’s assertion that Britain wants to win so badly; see my statement above, along with every British entry since Katrina and the Waves – Daz Sampson? Scooch? Bin Man Andy? Jemini??? These are NOT the entries of a country with victory in the crosshairs.
Plus, I think One Direction are a bit too busy at the moment. But previous experience indicates that in ten years or so, they’ll probably need the gig.
Finally, a question about the scoring system from Rikki from Dunfermline:
Why is there no number 9 or 11 in the Eurovision Song Contest?
Those numbers have been banished from the Eurovisional points allocation since 1975. They got rid of them because Björn Ulvaeus said they were the least poppy numbers under 100. Or maybe there’s a solid mathematical reason, such as it helps avoid tied votes, or something.
Readers, do you have any idea? Go to the comments and inform us all. I lost a large part of my brain during this year’s contest, and it was the part that made me willing to google this sort of shit.
… What with the ‘second screen’ being very much the in thing of this year’s Eurovision, I have just remembered the following section from the Answer Me This book. I have reproduced it here without asking the publishers, but, hey, we wrote it, and this is the bloody internet. We based it on our experience of watching previous contests, so why not refer to it tonight and let’s see how many we get right.
Acatia from Bar Hill: Helen and Olly, Answer Me This: Are there actually any rules for Eurovision?
It might look like a disoragnised, outdated cheese-fest but actually Acatia, yes, the Ten Commandments of Eurovision are:
1. Contestants must all wave and smile to the camera at one point during their performance, whether their song is a singalong spectacular or a mournful ballad about the war tearing apart their homeland.
2. All hairstyles must be inspired by the 1984 production of Starlight Express.
3. All men must resemble either Ian McShane or H from Steps, and ne’er the twain shall meet.
4. Five points will be deducted from any song not containing the lyrics ‘la la la’, ‘yeah yeah yeah’, or ‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’
5. Israel is in Europe.
6. Palestine is not in Europe.
7. The hosts of the award – one male, one female – must both be entirely without merit.
8. The videos between each act promoting the host country must contain one of the following images:
– a couple walking hand-in-hand by in a fruit market
– some ropey old men playing chess
– a little girl spinning around in a white lace dress
– a crane shot of a bell tower
– some ladies with nice boobs smiling as if caught off-guard
9. All countries must give their highest score to their closest neighbours, except for France and Ireland, who must snub Great Britain.
10. Extra points will be added for dance routines involving clapping, twirling, or removal of clothes. If all three are achieved at once this will be considered the greatest cultural feat of all time.
(If you enjoyed this extract, please do consider buying the book. It will pass some time before you die.)
Hello listeners! We have wonderful news for you this week: you can have a free month’s subscription to LoveFilm, whereby you can gorge yourself on unlimited telly and film, whilst we get a bit of dosh for you doing so.
Trot along to answermethispodcast.com/LoveFilm to take up the offer, but beware, your achievement levels may slump immediately as a result – I almost didn’t get around to posting Answer Me This! Episode 257 because I got sucked into rewatching all of 90s wobblycam dramedy This Life. Oh Egg. Stop allowing football to distract you from the fact that your relationship is so thankless.
Unlike AMT257, of course. Listen:
Today we discuss:
yoga and pilates
the room being full of hotties
hog-faced coons
personalised polling stations
polling pencils vs. polling pens
child actors vs. pushy parents
magpies vs. ratatouille
Ben Affleck vs. his past self as one half of Bennifer
Aunt Bessie vs. Mrs Elswood vs. Sarah Nelson Google Doodles vs. Bing…things? something saucy
James McAvoy
Burning Man
Charlie Chaplin’s 122nd birthday Dennis Hwang’s Wikipedia page Nude Nuns with Big Guns
and
supermarket shopping dividerzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Plus, if that last topic didn’t put you sleep: Olly hopes his career develops well enough that he doesn’t have to do ‘ass to ass’ with some frozen honey-roast parsnips; Helen was a Google Virgin until she met Olly; and Martin the Sound Man is so angry at the mere mention of Madonna, he drowns in his own bile. And if you want to do the same, revise her shit ‘American Life’ here. Yep, that’ll do it.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Olly is feeling unlucky since the loss of Google’s ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button. Someone organise a black tie benefit dinner-dance for him, asap!
While that’s going on, the rest of you can send us your QUESTIONS for forthcoming episodes: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday, LoveFilm-wormholes notwithstanding,
Every time my husband Bjorn meets someone new, the person usually says they feel like they have met him before. Men and women actually come up to us in pubs or when we are out shopping asking, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Numerous folk say, “Oh you remind me of someone I know” but can never seem to absolutely pinpoint who that person is.
He has been likened to Patrick Swayze, Jeff Bridges, Benny from Abba, Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Steve Martin – all of whom I personally think look totally different from each other and nothing like him.
Answer me this: how can one person look like so many different people to so many different people? And does he look like anyone you know?
Maybe he just has ‘one of those faces’? Perhaps its planes are arranged in a particular way that chimes with some sort of universal face-recognition. Or possibly his photo was used without his knowledge in a widespread public health advertising campaign, like this.
Readers, below is Bjorn’s face. Go to the comments to name the person of whom he reminds you. Personally I’m seeing the Jeff Bridges resemblance but not the other ones, although maybe the hat is overly influencing my judgement.
Here’s a question from Oliver from Manchester. Not Olly, or Ollie, or Ol, or Ollingtons. OLIVER. Oliver says:
My name is Oliver, and when introducing myself to, lets say, a mutual friend, of a friend, of a friend, I will say ‘hello, I’m Oliver.’ Moments later this practical stranger will refer to me as ‘Olly’ even though I never said that was my name.
So answer me this, who is the toss-face in this scenario – the stranger for giving me a nickname even though the piss-weasel doesn’t know me; or me for going on about it?
You’re a bit of a toss-face for calling a stranger a piss-weasel (as am I, now, for just having done the same); however they are the bigger toss-face for being presumptuous.
We do receive this question a lot, and have encountered it in life as well – eg former AMTflatmate Matthew Crosby is always Matthew, NEVER Matt. Nonetheless, many people are unable to bypass their InstaMatt function.
It’s not a problem I have, because Helen is a name difficult enough to abbreviate that to do so feels too personal for most piss-weasels and toss-faces.
But, readers, if you are a Margaret-never-Maggie, a Ben-never-Benjamin, a Josh-not-Joshua or a Catherine-nary-Cathy, go to the comments and suggest a polite way for Oliver to correct the abbreviators. A cold, unresponsive stare until they give him the right name might work, but also runs the risk of compelling them to keep calling him ‘Oli’ just to piss him off.
How things have changed since my generation did gap years. Back then, in the late 90s, gap years were supposed to be twelve months of reckless headonism, under the guise of going abroad on a do-gooding expedition.* The new batch of school-leavers, though, are a bunch of SQUARES. Charlotte writes:
My friend has very recently (in the last few months) become (some might say excessively) close to a boy in our year. They are both adamant that their friendship is entirely platonic, despite constant speculation from our school peers. He is a bit of a rogue and has been labelled a ‘manwhore’ by some, while she is highly principled and generally repelled by that sort of behaviour.
They both wanted to take a gap year and, with nobody else to go with, have decided to spend most of the year in Africa together doing charity work. Both my friend and I are more than a little concerned about this plan since:
a) they have only relatively recently become friends and b) they are generally quite incompatible (she’s extremely mature, him not so much).
Since they are both set on going, I suggested they make some ground rules. So far, I think they have:
1. no sexual tension 2. he can’t take drugs 3. he can’t leave her to go out and get drunk or go off with other girls.
He has agreed, although there was some dispute over the second and she is already being forced to compromise…
So Helen and Olly answer me this: Do you think such an intense friendship that has developed so quickly between two complete opposites can be genuinely platonic? And if not, do you think their first ‘ground rule’ can actually be implemented?
Also, my friend would like you to suggest any other ground rules you think might help them? She is mostly concerned that his sexual frustration will drive him to come onto her, or abandon her for somebody else…
Erm, your friend can’t have it both ways. IF she – apparently – doesn’t want to have sex with him, she can’t reasonably prevent him having sex with other people. But, as she is trying to, I deduce that this friendship is as platonic as Clinton and Lewinsky, Ross and Rachel, Silvio Berlusconi and a teenage prostitute. They’re obviously going to cop off. Then they’ll spend most of the gap year in a cycle of tension → copping off again → rationalising why they should be ‘just friends’ → being jealous when the other one shows interest in someone else → tension → copping off, etc etc, with the occasional break for a spot of food poisoning.
Even if they don’t, here are the problem with your ground rules so far:
Rule 1. You can’t legislate for that sort of thing. Either it’s there, or it’s not. They can only choose whether or not to act upon it. Rule 2. If he’s already disputing that before they even go, it may make drug use an even greater temptation, especially as Rule 3 makes your friend sound like an ABSOLUTE KILLJOY.
She’s being ‘forced to compromise’, whereas he’s being forced to change all of his ways. I don’t think this will work out very happily for your friend, unless she gets a VIP ticket to the drugboozeorgy that his inevitable rebellion will probably result in.
Readers, do go to the comments and add some useful ground rules for Charlotte’s friend and her reformation project. I’d opt for Rule 4: lighten up, kids, and stop making ground rules for everything, because there’ll be plenty of opportunities when you’re older to stop yourselves having any fun.
*Not mine, though. I spent nearly all of it sober, in a long-term relationship, living with my parents and working six days a week for minimum wage in an antiquarian bookshop in Tunbridge Wells. I’ve never been much of a headonist.
We know some of you like to listen to the podcast with your little children, so just to warn you, Answer Me This! Episode 256 contains some bawdy-talk. But by all means go ahead and listen if you’re happy to field such subsequent questions from your progeny as, “Mummy, what’s a sex party?” and “Where’s a clitoris?” They were bound to find out at some point anyway, most likely from the school library’s copy of Meg and Mog go Swinging.
Today we discuss:
crunching on the quiet carriage
black tie and board shorts
seals vs. sea lions
holes vs. flaps
owls vs. Bruce Springsteen
fat Fred Flintstone
hot tub ming machine
pants sandwiches
swinging seven days a week
LinkedIn fashion fails
and
the etiquette of revealing your genital piercings.
Plus: Olly’s very happy to be the only man in a jacuzzi, unless it’s at his local sex party house or crawling with children; Helen retroactively destroys your childhood, one bloated dead duck at a time; and Martin the Sound Man would cast Holly Hunter as Harry Potter, Gandalf, Katniss, Edward AND Bella AND Jacob, Luke Skywalker, and his wife in the film of his own life. (Holly Hunter: “Er…sorry Martin, I’m busy.” (Busy changing her locks.))
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we worry further about the Flintstones’ health, what with the imbalanced diet and the smoking. They’re like a bunch of prehistoric cartoon Don Drapers, aren’t they?
We invite your ears to bend around more podcasts this week: Helen’s new venture Sound Women; the newest pony in Martin the Sound Man’s stable of podcasts, Brain Train; our weekly excursion on 5 Live’s Let’s Talk About Tech; and our recent guest appearance on episode 56 of Ian Collins Wants a Word.
And as ever, we invite you to send us your QUESTIONS for forthcoming episodes: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Answer Me This! Podcast 