Sure…but if people are liable to confuse a 10-year-old self help book with a Scandinavian crime novel/publishing phenomenon, then they probably aren’t all too likely to be able to get through either book, are they? Similarly, anybody who bought a copy of The Holy Bible by the Manics and sprinted back to Our Price the following day shouting, “I thought I was buying an audiobook of a sacred text, you bastards!” needs to have their credit cards impounded.
This week, we hint at the reason behind one of the most pressing mysteries of the 1990s. Not what happened to Princess Di, nor what became of Richey Edwards, but why Mick Hucknall decided to hack off his dreadlocks. Discover all in Answer Me This! Episode 224:
We also consider:
stage kissing
business kissing
The WI in WWI Great British cheeses
Whoopi Goldberg The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo vs. Men Who Hate Women
fabric conditioner vs. towels
going cold turkey on caffeine
Adelaide Hoodless
feta
and
dead landladies.
Plus: Olly wishes to replace his happy childhood with a lot of bonking; Helen launches her campaign for more Wigmore cheese to be made (WigMORE! WigMORE!); and think carefully before accepting Martin the Sound Man’s handshake, because you may be getting a whole lot more physical contact than you bargained for.
We’d love to hear more from you, in the form of QUESTIONS sent as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Readers, please go to the comments and answer this eggy question from Tilly from Newnham:
I have somehow wound up with 60 chicken eggs due to a mix-up at my local farm shop and I haven’t got the foggiest idea what I’m supposed to do with them.
So, answer me this: just what CAN you do with 60 eggs? I know I could make a substantial number of cakes and omelettes etc. But is there anything particularly interesting I could do with this number?
A one-night-only theatrical production of Cool Hand Luke. You’ll have ten spare eggs with which to rehearse.
When my sister was two years old my cousins taught her to say goodbye to people by saying “Bye bye you fucking idiots”. They also used to play barbies with us by dressing them like dentist prostitutes, scuba diving strippers and plain naked.
Recently my cousin’s baby turned three, so now I think it’s my turn to get back at her. I’ve already taught her the diarrhoea song, how to cook her Barbie dolls in her toy oven and how to give her toys funerals.
So answer me this: what else can I teach my cousin that is mildly inappropriate? Keep in mind I don’t want her mum to kill me.
Readers, this is for you: please go to the comments and suggest ways to pollute this wee child. I’m not going to help, because Socrates was executed for corrupting the youth.
I’m surprised to discover that it is not only Olly who decides his tertiary education venue via late-90s TV dramas, as recounted in AMT222; Phil from Biggleswade is also that sort of reckless student:
I too was gripped and thrilled by 1998 classic Killer Net, starring Paul Bettany (the albino goddy bloke in Tom Hanks’ factual exposé “The Da Vinci Code”, and the voice of Robert Downey Jr’s computer in the Iron Man films) and in fact have strong recollection of recording this onto a VHS cassette which I believe is still living in a box at my mother’s house “just in case I need to re-watch it one day.”
Rather sensationally, my top choice was the University of Surrey in Guildford, where incidentally the university scenes of Killer Net were filmed despite the rest of the series being shot in Brighton. Rather like Olly, the decision to apply there may have been influenced at least in part by the Channel 4 blockbuster, as well as the awesome Jim Al-Khalili and the great reputation for physics.
A young (25 years old!) colleague of mine stared at me in disbelief when I mentioned that I still have old VHS tapes sitting in a box somewhere and so please answer me this: do you still cling onto articles of yesteryear technology (such as VHS cassettes) ‘just in case’ you might want to revisit them?
Of course! A box of videos still resides beneath the sofa (including Tom Waits’s Big Time and the BBC adaptation of The Box of Delights), but we no longer have a video player. I have, however, disposed of my minidiscs.
Readers, tell us in the comments what you’ve got stashed away, just in case you wake up one day and the past twenty years’ technological advances are wiped from history.
Apropos of the prime real estate that is the Disney castles, as discussed in AMT223, Peter from Oxford writes:
The different Disneylands have different castles. Whilst Olly is very correct in saying that Disneyland (as in the California one) is Sleeping Beauty’s castle, as does EuroDisney (her European holiday home perhaps), Disney World Florida has Cinderella’s castle.
But – but – Cinderella doesn’t have a castle! She’s a kitchen slave! Therefore, in the interests of accuracy, Disney World Florida ought to bulldoze the castle and replace it with ‘Cinderella’s dank basement kitchen and scullery’. The kids are gonna love it.
The kids are definitely gonna love Chris from Belfast, who has been in touch to tell us how one can become a real Disney princess for the night! He writes:
I just thought I would let Olly know, as he loves all things Disney, that the castle in Walt Disney World houses an apartment that you can stay in for a night, as is usually offered in Disney competitions.
Wow. Check out the photos. Olly has pinned them on his inspiration board for when he redecorates his bedroom.
Happy wedding anniversary, Henry VIII! Verily on this day in 1543, he married Catherine Parr, and as they say, sixth time’s the charm. According to the Big Book of Weddings, the traditional gift for the 469th anniversary is ‘MP3’, so here’s Answer Me This! Episode 223 for you, you loved-up kids:
Today we contemplate:
speciation
bloody Mary
pub lighting Def Leppard videos vs. Duran Duran videos
Bieber vs. dopamine
pride vs. prizes
curry house atmosphere
crisp etiquette (US translation: potato chip etiquette)
farm-themed restaurants
sepulchral Hollister
and
that bitch Tinkerbell.
Plus: Olly is mistaken for someone even lower on the celebrity ladder than he is; Helen breaks the bad news that Cain and Abel were motherjeffers; and Martin the Sound Man has something in common with the Queen, other than his fondness for shiny jewels and waving.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available on iDevices and Android) demonstrates how Martin paid a woman to write his name on her body. For ‘charity fundraising’, allegedly. Good ruse!
Another good ruse is to send us your QUESTIONS by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). More questions, more podcasts, see?
And don’t forget to click here to check out our latest album, the Answer Me This! Sports Day – the best 59 minutes and 33 seconds of all-new sporty-talk we have ever produced.
A canine question now from Stevie from Edinburgh:
I have a fantastic dog called Shaun. He is great company, comes out with me to work, goes to the pub with me, and everyone loves him. Except the postman. He can hear when the postman arrives at our flat, and springs into action. He then goes absolutely crazy when the post arrives, even putting his head through the cat flap and barking in to the close (Scottish for stairway), which echoes loudly and most likely annoys my neighbours.
Helen & Olly, answer me this, how can I get him to stop this? It is highly annoying on a Saturday morning after a night out. I can’t shut the cat flap, the cat needs to use it.
Maybe you could install one of those catflaps which only opens for cats wearing a special collar. Or, to address the other side of the problem, get a PO Box.
Alternatively, all you Barbara Woodhouses reading this could advise Stevie in the comments as to how to reprogram his dog.
This week’s obligatory wedding question is, for once, not a spin on “Why has the bride become such a cnut?” Instead, Katie from Christchurch, New Zealand asks:
I agreed a couple of years ago with my best childhood friend that we would marry each other if enough time passed and we both remained unattached. I would say we agreed on 40 as an appropriate age, but honestly I don’t remember if we even agreed an age.
That lack of certainty may make the whole thing not binding (I’m sure otherwise it would absolutely be enforceable in court), but my question is this, do you know anyone or have you ever heard of anyone actually following through with their backup? Do backup pacts serve any purpose other than reassurance when you’re lonely in your twenties?
My friend is a wonderful man and we have a deep history of love and loyalty, and I have no doubt he would make an excellent husband. Nevertheless I can’t imagine my fortieth birthday rolling around and suddenly deciding that the single life was up and it was time to settle down with him.
Good point Katie – is this something which ever happens outside of a Jennifer Aniston film? Readers, please go to the comments right now and let us know whether you are now happily/unhappily married to your backup.
Obviously this hasn’t happened to any of us, because all of our friends contemplated the prospect of marriage to us and realised that the single life is really not so bad after all.
Who owns the William Tell overture and could they sue everyone and make a shit-ton of money?
Rossini, the composer responsible for said overture, died in 1868; therefore the piece is well out of copyright and hence is used on zillions of adverts, trailers, soundtracks, ringtones etc, which is why I’m assuming Ryan thinks suing should be done.
Meanwhile, I would like to sue all the people who are currently deciding that what their advert needs is a thin-voiced indie-girl cover of a well-known song. I just don’t have the legal knowhow to figure out upon what grounds I can get them.
Our next question is the 2012 equivalent of someone giving you a series of fridge magnets with crappy adages on them. Martin on the Isle of Man asks:
How do you deter a Facebook friend from incessantly posting links to images with trite advice on how to live your life? For example:
Granted, this is trivial compared to other issues in my life, like my broken tibia and fibula. I think it is the constant drip, drip effect of reading a dozen such items of tosh every day that is maddening.
The main offender is actually a very nice person, and a dear and old friend, so I don’t want to upset them, and certainly wouldn’t consider ‘unfriending’ them.
It’s very Rear Window 2.0: like Jimmy Stewart, you’re quite irritable being stuck at home bored with broken bones, and you have this puzzle to solve without being able to do much about it yourself. Have you got a Grace Kelly handy to sort it for you?
If not, what you could do is customise your Facebook privacy settings so that only certain groups of your friends can post on your wall. If this still seems too harsh, suggest to this friend that they might enjoy Pinterest. They’ll immediately fall down a glorious wormhole repinning this sort of shit, and won’t have time to encumber your Facebook profile any more. Hurrah!
OK listeners, lots of admin to get through this morning, so pay attention:
1. We have a new album out! Click here to learn more about/buy The Answer Me This! Sports Day. Clue: it’s all about the Olympics sport.
2. We’re interviewed on the latest episode of the marvellous podcast Getting Better Acquainted, which you can hear here.
3. We’re also on Answer Me This! Episode 222, as you might expect.
4. If we sound a bit maniacal to you in the episode, it’s because of the sugar rushes provided by the AMTfans at Roly’s Fudge. Sooooo many sweeties… We’ll have a little lie-down while you listen:
Today we consider:
the definitive version of ‘Hallelujah‘ Brighton Pavilion
campfire guitar war
the Cornwall vs. Devon clotted cream war
universally compulsory therapy
Disneyland Battersea Giraffe
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
Dr Richard Russell’s seawater cure
energy drinks
Emily Woof A Handful of Dust
afternoon tea strategy Muse phoning it in
and
an extremely traumatising image of calamari.
Plus: Olly almost allowed Lynda La Plante to steer his destiny; Helen shares her psyche with the ship from Dark Star; and we discover Martin the Sound Man find crumbs deeply upsetting. He’s really too delicate for this cruel world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App takes the episode’s prevailing theme of afternoon tea and heads straight for the cucumber sandwiches. Fire up the iDevices or Android to hear, and if you try the Cucumber Supercrunch Megasandwich, let us know if it is pleasant.
It is definitely pleasant to send us QUESTIONS; please do so by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Answer Me This! Podcast 