Here’s a question of Cruises from Anna from Switzerland:
From time to time – not very often – I read German tabloids. There is not that much to read though, and apart from all the other useless stuff they write about, they constantly print pictures of Tom Cruise’s biological daughter and her fancy clothes and Nicole Kidman and her biological daughters.
If I remember correctly, when Cruise and Kidman were still a married couple, they adopted two kids. So, answer me this: What happened to them? Did Tom and Nicole just send them back to the orphanage, or put them up for another adoption? Or are they adults now and happy not to belong to either family anymore?
Isabella and Connor Cruise have made two massive mistakes, leading to their tabloid nonprominence:
1. Now aged 20 and 17 respectively, they’re far too big and old to be carted around by their parents at every convenient photo opportunity as Suri Cruise is.
2. They’re adopted. The tabloids are notoriously less interested in adopted than biological kids, and pictures of the former are worth far less to them financially. Take the Jolie-Pitt Child Legion, for instance: tabs love the blonde blue-eyed members but seem ambivalent about the Cambodian, Vietnamese and Ethiopian ones, who are of course sleeper agents for Team Aniston anyway.
In case you were wondering, Connor Cruise is now a DJ and you can follow him on Twitter, if you must. Isabella Cruise, if the pap shots are any indication, has a full-time job as Suri’s blankie carrier.
Here’s another question about liquids from Rob, who claims to be stuck at work. From his question, I’m guessing he works at an olive oil factory, and he isn’t too good at his job. He asks:
What’s the difference between olive oil, virgin olive oil and extra virgin olive oil?
Several pounds in price. And a vow of chastity.
Alright FINE. There’s more, but it’s a bit boring and technical, ok? I was merely trying to save you with glibness.
I’ve checked my weekly newsletters from the International Olive Oil Council, which says that olive oil is ‘Oil obtained solely from the fruit of the olive tree (Olea europaea L.) to the exclusion of oils obtained using solvents or re-esterification processes and of any mixture with oils of other kinds.’
So, oil made out of olives. Simple enough so far.
Here’s what they have to say about virgin olive oil: ‘Olive oil fit for consumption as it is. Olive oil obtained from the fruit of the olive tree (Olea europea L.) solely by mechanical or other physical means under conditions, particularly thermal conditions, that do not lead to alterations in the oil, and which has not undergone any treatment other than washing, decantation, centrifugation and filtration.
Virgin olive oil which has a free acidity, expressed as oleic acid, of not more than 2 grams per 100 grams and the other characteristics of which correspond to those fixed for this category in the IOC standard (COI/T.15/NC No 3).’
Everyone still following? Oil. Made of olives. Not heated up too much. No more than 2% acidic. Numbers and letters. So what of the extra virgin olive oil, that which Jamie Oliver pours over his cornflakes? That is:
‘Virgin olive oil fit for consumption as it is which has a free acidity, expressed as oleic acid, of not more than 0.8 grams per 100 grams, and the other characteristics of which correspond to those fixed for this category in the IOC standard (COI/T.15/NC No 3).’
So there I was, thinking the adjectives referred to how many pressings the olives had been through or something, but actually it’s all a matter of acid. Back to work, everybody.
Demetrios has been in touch with a pH-interesting response to AMT220:
In reference to Rory Gallagher’s guitar and the question of rusting sweat, there is a phenomenon of people whose sweat is particularly rust-inducing. They are called, creatively, “Rusters”, and though I am not one, I know of some Rusters who can’t safely handle metal, because the surface of whatever they’re holding will actually begin to oxidize slightly if held long enough.
I have not researched this before, but a brief Google search yields two articles from 1979 in the Acta Dermato-Venereologica which test and confirm a subtle degree of corrosion in low-copper metals from palmar sweat. Certainly, the effect is weak, and does not necessarily translate to corrosion of guitar-surface lacquer, the chemistry of which I don’t know.
Personally, I think that the power to very, very slowly degrade metal is a lame mutant power, and should be the basis for a super team called “The Corroders”.
Well the craze for superhero films is showing few signs of waning, so readers, go to the comments, write the plot summary for the first installment of the potential Corroders franchise, and we’ll send out a pitch to the Weinsteins.
If Martin from Bolton pays you a visit, don’t let him use your loo:
My wife, 12-year-old son and I were invited around to our very good neighbour’s house for drinks and food for the England-Sweden game the other day.
After a several hours and a few beers our neighbors starting talking about what a good job they had done in refurbishing and decorating their main bathroom upstairs and that I should go and have a look. So off I went and yes it was really nice n- ew bathroom sink and toilet etc. I lifted the seat on the toilet so I could have a pee. Then I went to lower the seat (I am a well-trained house husband) and to my horror it slipped and fell hard and cracked.
I went back downstairs and pretended nothing happened and just commented on how nice the new bathroom was. Now I feel really bad. There were a few children at the party and I thought they might be the prime suspects. Do you think I should just come clean? I have not seen them since but we are having them round to ours soon.
Poor Martin! It’s not your fault they bought a flimsy seat from the pound shop. Nor that your house-training came back to bite you in the arse, metaphorically.
I think that too much time has passed for you to come clean without it seeming really weird, and also, you might as well allow the innocent bystander children to be blamed – they won’t know or care, or be ridden by the shame with which you are currently beset. But readers, do you too think Martin should just live with his guilt? Go to the comments and tell him how to fix this situation, because I’d feel terrible if Martin’s life henceforth turns into a toilety version of ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’, being followed everywhere by the supernatural sound of flushing until he loses his mind.
As AMT devotees, you know that we don’t shy away from the most serious questions the human mind can concoct. Remember AMT198 last year, when we boldly tackled “What makes a pie a pie?” Today, in Answer Me This! Episode 220, we broach another foodstuff with an identity crisis – salad:
Seriously though, how can this and this and this and this be even nominally related? Pffft.
Anyway, tossed into the conversational salad this week are:
facts about Eugene, Oregon
Hamlet, the Madonna of his time
Madonna, the sexual bully of her time
alternating current vs. direct current
dentist chair vs. electric chair
Natalie Portman Hershlag
French Freemasons William Kemmler
Pizza Express
rainbow parties Rory Gallagher’s guitar
and
Spin the Bottle.
Plus: Olly impresses the ladies with his great big throbbing veins; Helen discovers that Thomas Edison was a right cnut; and Martin the Sound Man plays coy about his age. Don’t worry Martin, you don’t look a day under 55.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is more crap-related than usual, as it features a question from Stephy from Bristol about the point of patterned toilet paper. Along the way we learn upon what Simon Cowell and the Queen probably wipe their bottoms. The rich educational resource that is the Answer Me This! app is available for iDevices or Android, you’ll be relieved to know. Relieved. Ho ho ho.
Enough japery for one week; but if you want to listen to more of our japery next week, you are obliged to send us a QUESTION: emails go to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Time for our weekly wedding-related question, which today issues from Nick from Colorado:
During a wedding ceremony, the question is asked, “If anyone knows any reason these two should not be joined in matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.” What the hell could somebody say that would make everybody stop what they’re doing and leave?
Say for instance, it is revealed that the groom has cheated on the bride; does the bride not have the right to say, “Go on with the wedding”? What kind of system is in place to proceed ceremoniously after such an interruption?
Nick has omitted some important words: ‘lawful impediment’ (/modern-language equivalent). Though of course poor form, the groom cheating on the bride is not actually unlawful. Remember one of literature’s greatest examples of someone not forever holding their peace: in Jane Eyre, when [SPOILER!] the heroine and Mr Rochester’s wedding ceremony is scuppered by Mr Mason turning up and mentioning that Mr Rochester already has a wife up in the attic, and their marriage is still legally binding even though she’s a bit nutty and no longer good-looking.
Aside from bigamy, lawful impediments might include the bride and/or groom being underage, or too closely blood-related; although in Britain at least, these possibilities have to be discounted beforehand else you will be denied a marriage licence. I assume that our registrars have nonetheless kept the phrase in the script because the audience would be disappointed to be denied the famous moment of tension, followed by either OMGOMGOMG SCREAMING TEARS WEDDING CATACLYSM or relieved nervous giggling.
Actually, let’s push aside Nick’s questions for a more interesting one: readers, have you ever attended a wedding where this happened? Or where the bride and groom split up at any point during the proceedings of the day? Speak now (in the comments) or forever hold your peace (until our next call for your responses).
Of course I don’t wish misery upon any of the people I know, but I do think it would be a bit amazing to see, and admit it – so do you. You’re tired of all these weddings where everyone’s happy and well-behaved and no relationships go down in flames, aren’t you? AREN’T YOU?
Cait from Bristol but currently in Orlando got a little wild in her hotel room and now is suffering the shame that inevitably follows:
I am staying in a hotel and have just accidentally got chocolate all over the white bed sheets. Unfortunately, the chocolate looks a lot like I’ve shat myself.
So please answer me this: do I leave housekeeping a note explaining that it’s chocolate and not shit? Do I do nothing and let them think I pooed the bed? Or something else?
It’s so delightfully British of you, Cait, to think of leaving a note! If it makes you feel better, by all means do that – or leave the chocolate wrapper in the bed as an indicator of what has gone on in there (NB also a useful cover in the event of you actually shitting the bed).
However I imagine that the average hotel housekeeper has far too many rooms to clean to spend much time analysing your suspicious-looking stains, or sniffing them to ascertain their origin, or sending off a sample for lab testing. Moreover, they will have surely seen so many scenes of filth and degradation during their careers that your little one-woman scat party would barely warrant an eyebrow-raise.
It’s not the proper peer-reviewed scientific study of the efficacy of Power Plate for which we asked at the end of AMT219, but it certainly is a ringing endorsement from Rebecca from Loughton:
I have been using Power Plate for a few months and it definately does work with toning! You don’t just stand on it but perform exercises and specifically ones which strengthen your core so it really does make a difference. I for one have lost a stone which I hadn’t done with similar exercise alone!
The evidence is persuasive, but where’s your control experiment, Rebecca? We cannot grant our approval to Power Plate until we have seen the alterna-universe Rebeccas from Loughton, one of whom who spent the same year not doing anything different to usual, and the other doing the same exercises on a non-vibrating plate. Ask them to write in.
‘Two wrongs don’t make a right’ is the moral of today’s parable from Pete from Essex:
The other day when I came home late, I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth, but to my despair, I walked in on my brother’s slutty fuck buddy brushing her teeth…WITH MY TOOTHBRUSH!!!
Instantly I asked her what she was doing, she replied saying, “Your brother said I could use this brush.” I wasn’t best pleased but didn’t make a fuss of it; needless to say, I had to go to bed with stinky breath and waited till the morning to go and get a new toothbrush to brush my teeth.
The next day I came home at about the same time, only to discover the bitch in the bathroom once again, using the very toothbrush that I had bought the day before… I was fuming… Again I said to her, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” and she replied again saying, “It was a new toothbrush and your brother said I could use it…” I said “Yes! It was a new toothbrush to replace the one you used yesterday!!” For the second night in a row I had to go to bed with stinky breath. Extremely annoyed, I had to bite my tongue.
The next day, I woke up and went to the bathroom to relieve myself but I noticed my brother’s toothbrush in the corner of the room in the little pot and thought to myself, what can I do to get my own back? I thought about sticking it up my arse, but had second thoughts as it might hurt and I’m not so keen on the idea of having something up my arse.
As it was the morning, I had a raging hard on, so I whacked one out and flumped on his toothbrush. Answer me this, was I too harsh doing this? And if so, what would you do to get your own back?
I’m currently only three episodes in to series one of Revenge, so I don’t think I’ve got to the bit where Emily/Amanda lets the complex businessy schemes slide in favour of this more playground-style retaliation. I’m definitely looking forward to her pissing in Madeleine Stowe’s milkbottles, though!
Now, even if I had had the physical capacity to ejaculate upon my brother’s toothbrush, I would not have done so, for manifold reasons:
1. I am well zen, innit.
2. a) It was not your brother who was wrongly using your toothbrush, it was his ladyfriend; b) you have no proof that your brother did sanction her usage, for her statement at the point of apprehension is not reliable evidence.
3. The idea of your own sibling INGESTING YOUR SEMINAL FLUID is too awful to contemplate (even if this doesn’t happen).
While I agree this lady’s actions are presumptuous and horrifying hygienewise, I don’t think they warrant an act of vengeance – YET. I would have slapped a name label on my own toothbrush, and splashed out the £2 on buying an extra toothbrush for your brother’s sexual partner, so she had no excuse for sticking yours in her mouth.
However, I invite you readers to suggest your own courses for revenge in the comments, in case this spree of toothbrush promiscuity continues.
We’re picking up good vibrations (good, good, good, good vibrations, oooh bop bop, good vibrations) in Answer Me This! Episode 219, thanks to one of our listeners sending us a Groupon offer for Power Plate sessions.
This week we consider:
gratuitous nudity
sexy playing cards
bomb shelters Sliding Doors, alternative version
abetting child criminals
Joseph ‘Giuseppe’ Pinetti
Apple Paltrow Martin
subtitles Slendertone vs. exercise for cosmonauts
and
Ceefax.
Plus: Olly believes china shops should tolerate, nay welcome, his unapologetic vandalism; fun-hating Helen eschews murder mystery parties, entertainment at weddings, and jiggling in public; and Martin the Sound Man is still imploring you to enter his competition to be the Science Songwriter of the Future, which sounds a bit like being the artist-in-residence on the International Space Station, but is in fact much more straightforward and does not require you to urinate into a funnel. Although, the prize includes a trip to the Green Man festival, so a funnel might prove more hygienic than a Portaloo.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) recounts some incredible facts about jubilees, such as how they used to lead to famine, and how the Queen was probably wasted on hers. This seems a suitable point to mention that the Answer Me This! Jubilee is at last available to buy on Amazon. You may think it a bit late for Jubilee Fever now, but we’ve got a £50 bet on the Queen reaching her Platinum Jubilee, so consider the album 15 years ahead of its time rather than two weeks behind.
If you want more AMT next week, send us a QUESTION: emails should be sent to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and voicemails left on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Either our next questioneer Alex from Melbourne is delightfully innocent, or he has ingested too many household substances in search of a high:
After recently hearing about the Florida zombie and sniffing bath salts turning you into a zombie, I want to know: does the term bath salts mean the actual bath salts like in my grannies’ cupboard or is it a code name for another drug like cocaine?
While I’m sure that snorting granny’s bath additives would have some deleterious effect upon your brain (as well as softening your heels and alleviating arthritis pain), your suspicion is correct that it is another substance – just as meow meow isn’t a wrapful of kitten language, and horse is not a horse. The synthetic stimulant mephedrone sometimes bears the slang name bath salts because it looks a bit like bath salts. You can tell the difference because mephedrone doesn’t smell of lavender.
I know this is all very confusing, Alex, so just try to wrap your brain around the take-home message that DRUGS ARE BAD, KIDS, and you shouldn’t put them in granny’s bathwater.
We sure do receive a lot of wedding questions here, so if you’d like to relieve us of some of the responsibility of answering them properly, take yourself to the comments and advise our next two correspondents. First, we hear from Ben from Britain:
I am a man and in the summer my female friend is getting married. At this wedding I am to be a ‘bridesmaid’.
I have already rejected the idea of carrying a bouquet, which she wasn’t that amused by.
My first question is, am I wrong to not want to be instantly labelled as ‘the gay one’? As it’s pretty obvious already, me being referred to as bridesmaid.
My second question is, she has raised the issue of suit hire and said to me ‘We will leave your fitting for last in case you want to lose weight.’ I am 6ft and have a 38 inch waist. Am I within my social right to not go at all or should I instead intensively eat nothing but chips until the suit fitting?
1. Of course you’re not wrong. Why should your sexuality and/or gender be the defining factor about you? However, when you agreed to be in the bride’s band of indentured slaves, you were effectively signing up for whatever degradation and subjugation the bride wishes. And that includes carrying flowers, wearing a dress, participating in the choreographed dance down the aisle for YouTube, assisting with the bride’s pre-show colonic irrigation…
2. Stuff a pillow down your shirt for the fitting. And, for funsies, a cucumber down your trousers.
All too often, people who are getting married think they have free rein to treat their loved ones like crap, don’t they? (Coincidentally, since my wedding day, my friends now regard me with a mixture of terror and disgust! They’re probably just jealous, right?) However, our next questioneer Laura from Australia seems to be trapped in a cycle of mutual consideration:
As a single lady, if I get invited to a wedding could I take a friend along as my ‘plus one’? Or is it poor form as I know weddings cost a lot and they probably don’t want to pay for an extra meal for my friend. Making small talk to a bunch of people I don’t know over dinner fills me with genuine anxiety and having a friend there would make things less awkward as I’m not great at that sort of thing. Your thoughts?
Well, if the couple actually stated on your invitation that you were welcome to bring a cohort, then they are acquiescing to the possibility of paying to feed someone they don’t know in exchange for your contentment (or bulking up their audience). But if they didn’t, then I don’t think you can bring along a freeloader – and if you yourself don’t know anyone at the wedding, then the person who is only going along because you’re making them is unlikely to have a particularly good time in a roomful of strangers and salmon en croute.
It’s fine to fly solo, and if you really expect that there will be no mutual friends at the event, allay your worries by asking the couple if they can seat you amongst nice people who are easy to talk to. Hopefully they will be considerate of their friends’ social requirements, but as per my point above, it’s far from a given. So maybe take a good book along, as back-up.
vs. exercise for cosmonauts
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