I’m enjoying your Tales of International Christmas very much, so please do join in by describing your strange (to you) festive scenes in the comments. Here’s an illustrated despatch from Edd:
I am currently in Malaysia and have just been listening to last week’s podcast in which someone asked if in Australia they associate the same snowy imagery with Christmas as in Britain.
I will be able to confirm that in a few days, but for the moment I can say with certainty that they do here and it’s 30 degrees and so humid I can barely breathe. They also plaster every available square inch with Christmas trees, Santa Claus and candy canes.
I have attached pictures of a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur which I hope you will agree is about the gaudiest thing you’ve ever seen. They also loop Chris Rea over the sound system for good measure.
Our next correspondent Chris is from Hollywood, so it’s little wonder he is touched by fame! Alright, Hollywood in Solihull. Which is why he’s been touched by very minor fame:
In 1989, Dave Benson Philips made my mum a balloon hat at Chessington.
In 2009 I attended a preview screening of Ice Age 3 with my son, and sat slightly near Alison from Big Brother 3.
In 2010 I walked past Paul Lewis from Radio 4’s Moneybox Live in Euston station. He was sitting on the railing outside the paperchase kiosk.
in December 2012 I bumped into Martin the Sound Man at All Tomorrow’s Parties.
So answer me this: what’s your least impressive celebrity sighting, that you will still fondly remember in 20 years?
OK, get ready:
In 1990ish, I sold Peter Sissons ten books of NSPCC raffle tickets at a horse show.
Around the same time, they filmed an episode of Perfect Scoundrels in my road.
As recounted in AMT148, my mum was a maker of celebrity bread (celebready?).
Arthur Miller took my cousin on holiday to a safari park.
I walked past Chelsea Clinton in the street once.
Readers, think you can the-opposite-of-outdo those? Go directly to the comments to dazzle us with your own encounters with (not very shiny) stars.
Don’t feel too disappointed if you can’t unbeat Martin the Sound Man’s story in AMT131 about how his mum was in a bakery queue with Phillip Schofield.
UPDATE: just remembered another good one from a few years ago – backstage at Latitude Festival I practiced glockenspiel next to Gary ‘sacked from CSI for prolific drug use’ Dourdan, who fell asleep on his chair. I also told Amanda Seyfried where the water was kept.
Here’s a festive question from Liz in Haskayne, Lancashire:
Today I have been writing letters to Santa with my toddlers (Toby, age 3 and Eden, age 2).
It got me thinking about what actually happens to all the letters sent to Santa. Surely they don’t send them on to the North Pole where there is some kind of giant paper recycling plant?
So, answer me this – what do Royal Mail and the like do with all that post for Santa?
They do send it on to Santa, of course, and Santa answers it himself – or at least rubber-stamps his signature onto a template letter he dictated to a secretary.
Then he puts the letter into a shredder and uses the shreddings to line the bottom of his hamster cage.
Oops, Ben in Cornwall has spotted a Bondian blunder in AMT239:
Olly, answer me this: did you actually watch Skyfall or fall asleep during the film as you don’t seem to know where Bond, James Bond strangled a bad guy underwater? That happened towards the end just before SPOILER! dies, NOT in the opening sequence where he got SPOILERED! by SPOILERPENNY! and fell into the SPOILER! off the SPOILER! by himself.
So come on Olly, sort yourself out!
Oops! Looks like Olly mistook Skyfall‘s end credits for the opening credits. No wonder he was surprised the film was only ten minutes long with no proper five-act structure.
My father’s girlfriend is Lithuanian and has never seen any Christmas films; which Christmas films would you suggest to show her?
This is a great question! And one which demands a surprisingly careful approach. You can’t throw a novice straight in at the deep end with Bad Santa or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (which, I’m sorry to tell you, doesn’t stand up as well as memory hoped). With that in mind, start her off on a classical version of A Christmas Carol, like the Alastair Sim version, before progressing to a deconstructed Christmas Carol such as The Muppet Christmas Carol and Scrooged.
Do supply her with oldies-but-goodies like The Shop Around the Corner and, of course, the repurposed summer blockbuster It’s a Wonderful Life; but you don’t want to begin with those, else it’s all downhill thereon.
Now brace yourself for my controversial suggestion for her starter film.
Come back! Hear me out. Yes, it’s a three-sickbag movie; yes, at least a third of it seems too indulgent even to be a dream sequence; but its dominant characteristic is the sentimentality that has been begotten by Christmas-mythologising films. It will provide some sort of context for her subsequent viewing.
Then you can make the nausea go away with a refreshing dose of Gremlins or Lethal Weapon. Too strong? Elf.
Readers, what would you add to BM’s dad’s girlfriend’s festive film marathon? Jingle all the way to the comments with your suggestions.
So that unfeasibly rich child from Two and a Half Men says you should not watch Two and a Half Men because it is pisspoor FILTH and THE ENEMY’S PLAN.
As usual there’s some mild FILTH in Answer Me This! Episode 239. Can’t disclose the enemy’s plans; you’ll have to interpret them yourself when you listen:
Plus: Olly blows bubbles out of his bum; Helen calls for tougher gum laws; and Martin the Sound Man is pleased you all seem to like his package.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is more hot air from Olly, as he recounts how he burped into a stranger’s face. Luckily, because Olly couldn’t hear it at the time, it DID NOT COUNT.
Your QUESTIONS definitely do count, so please email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
Here’s a question of ticks from Tammi from Blackburg, Virginia:
I recently found a deer tick attached to my earlobe. It hurt for days after I removed it! I starting talking with my hubbie and he said he once found one in his belly button and it itched for months!
So where are the most unusual places y’all have found ticks before?
On my dog’s neck. Other than that…um…well, we three all live in London, not a very tick-heavy place. But readers – some of you must live in the humid sandy deer-populated lands which ticks favour. Go to the comments to delight Tammi with your tick stories. Tell you what: we’ll open this out to any other parasites. Emotionally draining humans DO count.
Many of the world’s greatest minds have puzzled over Kelis’s ‘Milkshake‘ – people on Yahoo Answers, us in AMT237, and now Benji in Bristol:
I favour a literal interpretation of Kelis’s ‘Milkshake’; I think that she really is talking about actual milkshake. However, I have noticed something peculiar about the lyrics. Kelis bangs on and on about how good her milkshake is, but then she also keeps saying “La la la la la, warm it up”.
Warm milkshake? Yuck! Milkshake should of course be served cold. I’m beginning to suspect that her milkshake-making prowess might not be all it’s cracked up to be. Is it possible that the boys have some ulterior motive for coming to Kelis’s yard? I’d hazard a guess that what brings all the boys to the yard is not the prospect of a delicious, wholesome milkshake, but rather a desire to indulge in a spot of ogling. Kelis is, after all, a very attractive young lady.
Imagine a poor, somewhat plain-looking woman who wishes that all the boys would come to her yard, and in order to achieve this she forks out a load of money on milkshaking lessons from Kelis. She masters all the basic and advanced techniques for shaking milk. She then refines and improves upon Kelis’s original milkshake recipe, by keeping it cold and putting some whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top. After all that time, effort and expense it must be terribly upsetting for her to see all the boys forsake her superior milkshake and avoid her yard. How it must enrage her to see those silly, sleazy boys sitting there, perving at Kelis while sipping their tepid, shoddy shakes.
What you’ve done there, Benji, is take the plot of Dreamgirls and reset it in the milkshaking industry. I like it. Have a two-page synopsis on my desk by Monday.
Our next questioneer Chris needs your help adding the ‘fun’ to ‘draising’:
Next July I am participating in a charity rally that starts in London and finishes in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. My team mate has decided we should drive the 10,000 mile route in an ambulance, which we then donate to the charity organising the event.
It turns out that these high-tech life saving vehicles are quite expensive on the second hand market as people want them for camper van conversions.
We have tried approaching companies for sponsorship, but so far have been turned down by almost every one.
We thought of holding a black tie charity dinner, but soon realised we didn’t know anyone that wouldn’t be turned away at the door for being too poor.
So answer me this: how do we raise enough money to buy the ambulance, pay for the visas, fuel, food and accommodation plus raise a respectable amount for the charities we are supporting?
Look at us, Chris. Do we appear to be the kind of people who have any idea of how to make money? [chokes back a sob]
However! Readers, you are ingenious and, in some cases, wealthy. If you can be of any help to Chris in his efforts, either go to the comments and donate a Plan of Action, or donate him enough cash to buy an ambulance.
Information about his endeavour and the charities which will benefit can be found at www.alphabadger.com.
When Martin the Sound Man is not enabling us to make sounds, he makes sounds of his own under his musical alter ego The Sound of the Ladies. For his brand-new album The City of Gold and Lead, he not only made the sounds, but also the pop-up CD sleeve you see in the photo above, which is almost as pretty as the music within.
You can buy the album in CD or MP3 form from HERE, and you’ll make an old sound man very happy if you do.
Unlike Whigfield, we don’t spend our Saturday nights dancing by ourselves in front of a mirror. (That is, of course, our official Tuesday night business.) Instead we trot off to talk about the week’s most thrilling internet events on BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition.
Many of you have previously asked whether the show is available as a podcast. Hitherto, the answer has been ‘No’, but now, it is ‘YES!’ It is called Let’s Talk About Tech and you can get it HERE. Also includes tech, cars, gaming and other matters of interest.
Happy Thanksgiving, American chums! While you bust a gut on deep-fried turkey and marshmallow-topped yams, perverts that you are, everyone else can get on with listening to Answer Me This! Episode 238:
In which we give thanks for such traditional American foods as onion loaf and Big Mac special sauce. We also talk of:
Plus: Olly’s lack of confidence (and grade D in GCSE French) held him back from pursuing his dream career at Disney; Helen’s grammatical tips encourage solipsism; and Martin the Sound Man won’t give you any of his blood because he’s a wuss when it comes to needles. But not when it comes to albums – his lovely new longplayer The City of Gold and Lead is out tomorrow, so click HERE to obtain your copy, in digital format or fancy hand-made papercut CD package.
There’s more food in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android), as questioneer Ollie asks whether he can gorge himself on raw biscuit batter. And survive.
We would like to gorge ourselves (and survive) on your QUESTIONS, so please email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
Answer Me This! Podcast 