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.
Our next questioneer, Claire in Nottingham, is a lone wolf at her workplace, and would like to stay that way:
I currently have a conundrum concerning some workmates who constantly want to socialise with me. While I sometimes enjoy their presence during the odd lunch break, they have become increasingly annoying and sometimes even offend my sensitive nature (eg racist/sexist remarks).
As I have a variety of other non-work related close friends and a live-in partner, and one of these workmates doesn’t, I have indulged her need to socialise with a few cafe visits. Because of the reasonable frequency of these meet-ups, I now find it increasingly hard to wriggle out of them. I’ve even had a dinner invitation and desperately don’t want to go.
How can you politely decline without destroying your work life? ‘I can’t make it that day’ doesn’t seem to work for the permanently friendless.
There are various different approaches:
1. The reality TV deflection: ‘I’m not here to make friends.’ Underline the point by putting this as your email signature.
2. The boldfaced truth: ‘I don’t like to mix my work life and my non-work life. Remember when my brother turned up to the office one day as a birthday surprise, and I refused to see him? No exceptions.’ Underline the point by issuing a pan-company request that photos of loved ones on computer desktops be banned immediately.
3. The barefaced lie: ‘All my spare time is completely busy at the moment, because I’m doing an Open University degree/caring for my elderly mother/on day release from prison.’ Underline the point by getting an Open University degree/ordering mobility aids over the phone at work/wearing an ankle tag.
Readers, please add your helpful suggestions in the comments. The winner’s prize will be a full hour’s lunch with Claire (during which she is immediately called away for an emergency Skype conference with the Rotterdam office, and never returns).
Here’s a question of cash from Dave from Australia, where the banknotes are made of plastic so you don’t kick yourself for leaving a tenner in your trouser pocket when you put them through the wash. Dave says:
A mate of mine went on a holiday in the UK, when he returned he had a one pound coin in his jacket pocket.
He noticed this coin had some writing on the edge.
So answer me this:
What does this writing mean? Is it on all of your coins or just the one pound?
As all Brits are fluent in Latin, we know that the slogan ‘Decus et tutanem’* which appears on the edge of a pound means ‘An ornament and a safeguard’: the writing is ornamental, because otherwise the edge of the pound might look boring; and historically it was also a safeguard, as people used to shave metal off the edges and sell it on, back when coins were still made of precious metals. Though nowadays a pound coin is not worth that much, and a few tiny scrapings off the edge will not attract many bids on eBay, we still have not altered this system. It’s surely only a matter of time before there are advertising slogans around there.
There is only writing on the £1 and £2 coins, as the others are not thick enough to have much good reading around the sides. On the £2 coin it says ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’, in tribute to the fourth album by that most British of bands, Oasis.
If you are enthralled by the subject of the £2 coin and crave more, I direct you to AMT166.
*Yes, Wales and Scotland, I know you have regional variants, but let’s not force Dave to run before he can walk.
Spring has yet to spring in our homeland, but the spring run of AMT is ready to spring into your ears right now. Spring into action and listen to Answer Me This! Episode 250:
Today we discuss:
pizza delivery
Billy Kennedy’s fluffy dice
lolliPopes
selling intangibles on eBay
papal pants Les Miserables, unabridged
musicals vs. literature
second-hand gravestones vs. serial killer memorabilia
the Littlewoods catalogue
and
the Vatican’s sauna.
Plus: Olly would rather be gifted olives than a car; Helen is not comfortable being on first-name terms with South By Southwest; and Martin the Sound Man is uncharacteristically quiet, which you can attribute to the presence of a bag of Cheetos.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we speculate upon what name Kate’n’Wills are likely to bestow upon their impending royal spawn. Clue: it’ll be something more boring than any of these.
Not boring, on the other hand, are your QUESTIONS. We want lots of them for the new series, so don’t be shy: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Apropos of more things to listen to this week: click here to hear Helen on Jordan, Jesse, Go! And our free Audible audiobook offer is still open, but not for long! You have until midnight on 1st April to get yourself a free audiobook, so click here right now.
Here’s a sad question from Eddy from Colchester, aged 11:
My best friend I’ve been with since I was four years old.
Tomorrow is his birthday party and I’ve been to every single party since we were four. So now he has not invited me to this birthday party just because i don’t play Minecraft in the evenings with him.
So answer me this, is my friend being a dick?
Yes.
That’s not a comforting answer; nor is the fact that I doubt Minecraft is solely responsible for the schism. Perhaps you are growing apart. You’ve spent some 60 per cent of your lives as best friends; change may be upon you. You could test this by agreeing to play Minecraft with him and seeing if he becomes cordial again.
Whatever the reason, he’s still being a dick. Does Minecraft turn people into dicks?
A couple of friends and I are going on a “lads’ holiday” this summer. We have started talking about where we want to go and the consensus is an 18-30s all-inclusive with the sort of alcohol fuelled street of bars and clubs one sees on BBC3 doumentaries involving a teenager vomiting in the street and flashing various bodily parts at passing emergency service vehicles.
I am all for the idea of a lad’s holiday and would even like to double the laddiness of my holiday by seducing men. So, answer me this, do any of the famous libidinous holiday towns of “wahey lads” fame (suggestions currently being made are Ayia Napa and Magaluf) also have reasonable gay scenes?
I am ambivalent about chosing a holiday location on such a basis but having seen the BBC3 documentaries I am lead to believe that my two friends will spend the week endlessly tickling one lady’s tonsils after another’s. After such apparitions, I imagine I would want us to have a night or two somewhere I can experience the same cocktail of germs and STDs. Is this an achievable goal? Am I doomed to resent my friends or to go cottaging in Cyprus?
Hmm, not sure you’d have super holiday fun in Cyprus right now whatever your sexual orientation. Other than that, I have no knowledge at my disposal with which to help you; even back when I was a member of the 18-30 age group, a booze-fuelled week in Camp Chlamydia was the opposite of my idea of fun.
Fortunately for you though, Chris, Team AMT contains far more hedonistic members; so readers, travel to the comments and let Chris know whether there’s a destination that will provide myriad sexual targets for him and his friends, or whether Chris would be better off saving up to go to Fire Island or Sydney Mardi Gras while his heterofriends terrorise the Med.
I have written in recently inquiring about the intricacies of how to tell if somebody doesn’t want to go on a second date with me. Believe it or not, I have successfully had repeat dates in the past, sometimes for years on end. My most recent ex and I broke up last June and are still good friends, but recently she has been suggesting going on a trip together.
I have no objections to this except that I think it might be a disaster. I am worried that we might spend the whole time butting heads over both inane, pointless disagreements and larger assumptions that we thought we shared about what we would do on the trip. It’s a lot harder to deal with that when there’s no sex at the end of the day.
So answer me this: how do I tell her that I think this is a bad idea without hurtfully saying, “I don’t want to go on a trip with you”? I can’t keep dodging the question forever.
Readers, take a trip to the comments right now and advise Joe in Seattle as to the best rebuff. Based on one thing we already know Joe (he’s a musician), I’d suggest intimating to her that you can’t afford a trip right now (based on one thing we already know about most musicians – they’re rarely rolling in spare money). Based on another thing we know about Joe (he’s in the USA), I think he could alternatively pretend that he’s saving his vacation time for later (based on one thing we already know about most Americans – they are allowed about ten minutes’ annual leave).
I’m more curious to know why Joe’s ex is so keen to take a trip with him, anyway. The break-up is still a bit too recent for them to be recast as just good old friends, with no awkwardness or residual tension. Is she perhaps hankering after a Joe re-run?
And, do not forget, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 249 as well:
Today we discuss:
tweed
Michael Jackson’s umbrella
chopsticks
Gaelic warlords
pipe-smoking
tax trends
The Fugitive vs. fairytales
Harold Wilson vs. Gandalf
lockers
the goddess Ériu
Toronto, Kansas
chopsticks
and
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
Plus: teenage Olly was the lovelorn Bard of txtspk; Helen is going to spend the AMTbreak in Scotland investigating The Mystery of the Missing Sweet and Sour Pork Balls; and Martin the Sound Man won’t sacrifice choice for convenience when it comes to the specific heat capaity of his toast toppings.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android), we delve further into Chris from Lewes’s question about combining butter with other spreadable substances. Perhaps he’s just ahead of his time! Or perhaps he really is just unbelievably lazy.
You, however, ought not be so lazy that you fail to send us your QUESTIONS for the next series. Leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Give us something great with which to celebrate AMT250, because we can’t afford a marching band.
Answer Me This! Podcast 