We kept the picture of this monster small, but click on it to see the big version. But BEWARE, it may make you spit out your breakfast. But, believe it or not, someone wishes to own this bear SO MUCH that it has caused a rift in a friendship. Hear all about it in Answer Me This! Episode 253:
Today we discuss:
summer jobs
summer camp
rat poison
Australia’s bush capital
Helen vs. Michael Jackson Refreshers vs. Refreshers Crash vs. Crash dying and decaying alone
handmade cheques
funfair capitalism
the sword in Disney’s stone
and
lobster hunting.
Plus: Olly is all about the winning, not the taking part; from humble childhood aspirations, Helen grew up into this (warning: disturbing); and Martin the Sound Man seems upset that Kids These Days prefer Nemo to Pinocchio. Nobody likes a fibber, Martin.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android), Olly describes how the late Margaret Thatcher out-Beadled the late Jeremy Beadle. Maybe he pranked her back in the 80s and this was her comeback. What a pair!
As usual, we invite you to send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. From those, more AMT will be begotten.
Our next questioneer Voni from Birmingham is like, baby, baby, baby urrrgh, like baby, baby, baby, NOOOO:
Last weekend a friend of mine had her first baby. As per usual with new parents, she’s been putting pictures of the baby on Facebook and everybody and their mum’s been cooing over them. I’m really happy for her, as I know she really wanted this child and she’s obviously delighted with him. However, I just do not care!
I think I’m suffering some sort of grown up fatigue, as everyone around me at the moment is either buying houses, getting married or popping sprogs. Although I’ve been with my boyfriend for ten years, I have no interest in getting married or having kids. This is very difficult for people to comprehend, and I’m constantly barraged with questions about when I’m getting hitched or knocked up. One charming person even said, ‘He can’t really love you if he’s not proposed to you!’ Quite frankly, I’m sick and bloody tired of it.
I think my friend having this baby is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m so tired about hearing about other people’s kids and wedding plans, I just can’t muster the enthusiasm required of me for these situations. So, answer me this: Am I a horrible person for not caring about this baby?
If you are, then you can join the legion of horrible people who email us similarly lamenting the onset of the new generation, especially when it shits up their Facebook feeds with countless photos of infants.
Happily for you, software has come to your rescue: unbaby.me is a Chrome plug-in that replaces baby photos on Facebook with pictures of other things.
I’ll let you know when they come up with a plug-in to block out mortgage- and marriage-chat.
Release the ‘Political Correctness gone MAD’ hounds, to chomp on this question from Nathan from Nottingham:
Recently my wife bought a load of stuff from the community art shop including a bag full of pipe cleaners of various colours and sizes.
As I was playing with them with my nearly-2-year-old son, showing him how to bend them into a little pair of glasses or a stickman, I said, “These are called pipe cleaners.” Then my wife piped up (pardon the pun), “You can’t call them pipe cleaners any more, it’s not politically correct.” Apparently it would be promoting pipe-smoking.
Call me stupid but up until that moment I had no idea they were called pipe cleaners because they were used to clean pipes, especially not smoker’s pipes. I thought it was just hypothetical cos, yeah, that would clean a tiny pipe if you ever needed to clean one.
I asked about their new name. They’re now called… chenille sticks. Seriously?! If we have to rename them why not focus on what they are for (craft wire?) or what they are like. I suggested the name “fuzzy benders” before realising that probably wouldn’t catch on.
So answer me this, would any kids really take up pipe smoking because of exposure to pipe cleaners? And can you please think of a better name than ‘chenille sticks’ (or ‘fuzzy benders’)?
Readers, do propel yourselves to the comments to answer the following questions:
1. Did you take up smoking as a direct result of playing with pipe cleaners when you were a child?
2. Have you ever cleaned any sort of pipe with a pipe cleaner? (Keep your answers U-rated, thanks)
3. Since hardly anybody is going to answer ‘Yes’ to question 2, if pipe cleaners rarely actually clean pipes, what would be a more appropriate name for pipe cleaners? (Again, I invite you to keep it suitable for the children.)
4. The term ‘politically correct’ hardly makes sense, does it?
Last week, we discussed the peculiar wince arising from eating something that tasted completely different to your expectation. Davi from Chicago comments:
In the vein of your discussion in episode 252, I have a story to tell. My first year in college, my friend Big Mike came into our apartment, giddy with excitement because he had just illicitly obtained a handle of cheap whiskey. He left momentarily to go to the bathroom or something — an opportunity my friends and I took to pour his whiskey out into another container and refill the handle with diluted soy sauce, which very convincingly reproduces the color of bad whiskey. When Big Mike came back, we all pretended to be drinking some and encouraged him to do the same. Needless to say, he was not very pleased.
I am very pleased though, Davi – pleased that you didn’t replace the whiskey with piss. I think that’s what we were all expecting from the first couple of sentences of that email, right?
Here’s what Rachel from Sale really was not expecting:
I was at a National Trust car park with my family, sitting in the car and we were just about to leave. My mum then passed me a conker and told me it was a Malteaser. I thanked her and put it into my mouth. Instead of chocolate I tasted soil and spat it on the floor. It was disgusting!! Answer me this: why do parents play tricks like this on their children??
Ahem – because it’s funny, parents, am I right? Until your beloved child chokes to death on a conker.
And shame on Rachel from Sale’s mum for pulling a prank on NATIONAL TRUST SOIL!
AMT252’s special guest Isy Suttie is kinder in spirit than the average casting agent, as demonstrated by Ben:
After listening to last week’s podcast, the point was raised that on casting calls the casting director might not want to hurt your feelings.
However a few years ago I had an audition for the stable boy in the HBO series Game of Thrones. On the casting call it said “small very fat stable boy”.
I didn’t feel that this was written with feeling in mind, especially as this was sent to young teenage boys!
PS I didn’t get the part… I wasn’t fat enough.
That’s what they told you. Maybe they were taking care of your feelings by not saying you were too crap at acting, or the wrong kind of fat. Or that horses bolt at the sight of you. (No offence, Ben; I’m purely speculating.)
Happy Special Guest Episode day, listeners! For today, in Answer Me This! Episode 252, we are delighted to be joined by Isy Suttie:
With Isy we discuss:
allowable celebrity shags
A Level revision tips (caution: may not work)
buying condoms
slapping your thighs with mirth
emu pasta
Twitter by osmosis
clean-up dogs
neighbourly mysteries
the curious habits of Seann Walsh Dans le Noir
cheese vs. butter
online bingo vs. offline bingo
otters vs. bears vs. gummy bears
the ‘Roseanne Barr type’ beetle drives
and
Roald Dahl’s Magic Finger.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we learn more about the pitfalls of fantasy crushes – especially when they’re on Isy – then address a question from James about why girls wear school ties when adult women rarely wear ties (Diane Keaton and Janelle Monae notwithstanding).
If this episode makes you wish for more Isy, her new series Love Letters is on Radio 4 Extra and will be on Radio 4 at the end of April; the latest and last series of Shameless is airing on Channel 4; her recent Sky Living musical comedy Miss Wright is still available on your Skyboxes; and Peep Show is always worth a rewatch.
It’s always worth sending us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Furnished with those, we shall return next Thursday with AMT253.
For the first time ever on AMT, we have a question of cicadas. It is from Sam from Charlottesville, Virginia:
I live on the east coast of the United States, and every 17 years millions of cicadas emerge from the ground to fill the skies and cover the trees as they produce the next generation of cicadas.
This spring marks 17 years since the last time it happened, so answer me this: what should I do to commemorate this event? The last time it happened I was quite young, but now I have more agency, so I should be better able to take advantage of the opportunities it offers, whatever they may be.
Ordinarily I am not one for eating insects, but I don’t have a shellfish allergy, and it seems a shame to let them all go to waste. Are there any good recipes for cicadas? What beers, wines, and liquors pair well with cicadas? Are there any good theme parties that incorporate cicadas?
Readers, over to you: how best to celebrate this momentous event? Dressing like a cicada? Strapping on your prosthetic proboscis and getting hammered on sap? Emulating the cicada’s song by choosing a John Secada number at karaoke?
Or, battening down the hatches and hiding indoors until you’re certain the other nine Biblical plagues aren’t going to follow?
Reader, feel free to go to the comments to answer the following question from Anon; alternatively, charge five people £20 each to answer it on your behalf. For Anon asks a question of pyramid schemes:
Can you please advise on the best way to explain to a family member that the new venture that they are incredibly excited about is CLEARLY a pyramid scheme and that they will never see a return on the thousands of pounds that they have already pumped into it?
Other family members seem happy to go along with it because it is making the person in question happy at the moment, but this is infuriating as I feel something needs to be said. The trouble is I have been known to have a condescending demeanour on issues such as this and I don’t want to be horrible, so I need some help!
If you really don’t want to be horrible, how about ignoring your relation’s business follies and instead concentrate on your own anger issues, hmmm?
Anyway, the time to have discouraged them from joining a pyramid scheme would have been BEFORE they ‘invested’ thousands of pounds in it. Now it’s too late, you might as well shut up, sit back and enjoy watching the disillusionment set in.
Today we hear from two lovelorn ladies. The first is Hannah from Diss, Norfolk:
I am currently suffering from the great agony of heartbreak. I keep contacting the guy (my first and only boyfriend) who dumped me, who I’ve been with for 2 years, and he will always text me back. I’m not moving on! How do I break my need for contact with him and move on??
Your need for contact with him will diminish the less you contact him. Sure, that’s a mean old cycle there, but it is up to you to break it: there is no external force which will do that for you (although it would help if he didn’t reply; what does he think he’s playing at, huh?). Try following the classic two-phase recovery process.
First phase: Prevention. Delete his number. This is not an act of hostility, but of self-preservation. Make it more difficult to contact him. While you’re at it, block him from appearing in your Facebook feed; ignore his tweets; cast him into the distant shadows of LinkedIn, or whatever it is people do on there, I dunno.
Second phase: distraction. Keep yourself busy. Gather your friends and/or relatives and socialise. Go on rambles. Join classes. Form a book group. Make sure that you fill every possible moment that you’ll otherwise spend pining for him, and meanwhile, encourage yourself towards activities through which you meet new people; no, not so you find a new boyfriend – although let’s not rule it out – but so you interact with people who have no idea about your heartbreak, and who do not plant you in the context of being your ex’s girlfriend.
Run the two phases concurrently, and be plucky, Hannah. Be plucky.
Now here’s Helen‘s partnership problem:
If you have been shagging someone for over 2 1/2 years but it’s still a secret, are they shagging someone else as well?
Not necessarily, but they’re sure as hell not especially bothered about you. Move on. You can follow the phases as outlined above for Hannah, if that helps wean you off. And next time, remember there surely is a time limit for a shagging-only/friends-with-benefits/funbuddy relationship, and unless you only meet up once every few months or less frequently, it is one year. You do not get to celebrate a ruby anniversary with a funbuddy, Helen.
As revealed in AMT 251, Isy Suttie will be our very special guest in AMT 252, out on Thursday.
And here’s the proof.
As you can see, when you come to AMT Towers, we literally make you sing for your supper. Since Helen had made a tasty Chinese pork and aubergine feast on the night in question, this seemed reasonable.
Does a place make a man, or in this case a Mann? If today’s questioneer decides to move his young family to Stanmore, will he find himself raising his own curly-haired cat-obsessed musicals lover? Or will he just benefit from convenient Jubilee Line access and a nice Lebanese restaurant? We consider the benefits of the burb that birthed Olly in Answer Me This! Episode 251:
Today we ponder upon:
morning sickness
Pimms
poisonous plaster
flirting
the Wiki Wiki Shuttle
wiki wiki Ward Cunningham
phone sex vs. sex
carpenter-style jeans
Nupedia
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
human chorionic gonadotropin
the only non-singing, non-dancing part in West Side Story
and
the sanitary iPad.
Plus: Olly needs to learn to speak Bloke; morning sickness won’t put Helen off having a baby, but everything else will; and Martin the Sound Man is a big hairy flowerpot, and no returns.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we continue our discussion about equine actors; it moves on to child actors, then somehow to Olly having sex with a Battenburg cake. Which is the inevitable end of any discussion if you continue it long enough.
Next week will be a Special Guest Episode, and if you haven’t listened to the episode yet to find out who it will be, here’s your SPECIAL GUEST SPOILER:
That’s right, Dobby from Peep Show/Esther from Shameless/Isy Suttie from Isy Suttie’s comedy shows will be joining us to answer your QUESTIONS. So send them to us: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Here’s a question of national – nay international! – importance from Will from Ipswich:
Ok, so I recently learned that one can purchase a packet of 100 stickers which read “For rectal use only” from the internet fairly cheaply.
Obviously I bought a pack.
Now, answer me this! Where would you stick these stickers?? I was thinking the kitchen utensil aisle at Tesco?
Readers, go to the comments straightaway to deliver your suggestions. I’m sure you have some very satirical ideas.
This seems to me to belong in the same chapter of the Prank Lexicon as a jape committed by a schoolfriend (whose brother, coincidence fans, shared a room with Olly at boarding school! small world etc etc). He collected Professional Lady Cards from phoneboxes, then went down to the Sevenoaks branch of Tesco and hid them inside ice cream cartons.
Of course nowadays this would cause a tabloid OUTRAGE and Tesco would have to decontaminate each of its branches and incinerate all the ice cream; but it was the mid-90s, so nobody cared.
Anyway, please endeavour not to stick funny stickers anywhere that could endanger health, and especially not anywhere that will later ruin someone’s special treat of pie a la mode.
Answer Me This! Podcast 