Ladies! Are you looking for love? Love AND homemade cake? Billy from London could be the man of your dreams:
I am a twenty-something guy, and I have recently discovered the joys of baking. I wouldn’t say I was an expert: more an enthusiastic novice who has managed to master a few basic cake and muffin recipes.
I am also single and am actively looking for a girlfriend. As a result, I am doing my best to promote myself and my many talents to members of the opposite sex.
Please answer me this: Should I advertise my baking skills to dates and potential girlfriends? Will they see it as charming and cute, or will they automatically assume that I’m gay and lose interest? Alternatively, might they feel threatened by my venture into what is traditionally seen as a female activity?
Woah, Billy, woah! You were doing really well at looking like an adorable and modest prospect, until you introduced the notion that baking is for gays and girls, and furthermore that feminism has failed to such an extent that the ladies might object to you encroaching upon ‘their territory’. Are you still reeling from the earful you received when you turned up at Greenham Common in 1982, whipped out a bra and set fire to it, then as it burned exclaimed, “That wasn’t so hard, gals, I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss about everything. Is it because you’re all on your rags?”
Concentrating on the first part of your question: I don’t see why you wouldn’t. Unless you’re only dating coeliacs.
You guys are probably already camping on the pavement outside the cinema waiting for Twilight IVa: They Finally Boff. However, if you have a little room left for things other than Bella’n’Edward, allow it to be filled by Answer Me This! Episode 196:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
There are no babies chewing their way out of wombs in the episode, but there is talk of:
Frozen Planet Riverdance
fun with magnesium
Scooby Doo: talk show host
Sammy Davis Jr vs. Jimmy Constable from 911
Akon vs. Shakespeare
flapjacks vs. fun cakes Scrappy Doo vs. Scampi
candles vs. ‘wax-filled tins’ Sophie Wilcox
scaring off the Mongol army The Works
Mario Balotelli
the scent of Jelly Belly
and
medical circumcision.
Plus: [Olly] Mann cannot live on raw cake-mix alone; Helen did not spend her childhood in the back of the wardrobe with Aslan; and Martin the Sound Man wishes the whole world was scented with synthetic rhubarb.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone, iPad or Android) is a treatise on Movember, starting with Martin’s recent facial deforestation, and ending up at Craig David’s current career choice, via Robert Mugabe and Halle Berry, because where else could such a discussion possibly go?
Next week’s episode is going nowhere without your QUESTIONS, so send them in: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or write emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Best of luck to all you readers who are bristly of upper lip this month, in the pursuit of a good cause – like Nick here:
It’s Movember, so gentlemen (well men anyway) of the world are uniting to boldly grow moustaches for the month in aid of prostate cancer charities. This is an excuse for the men of the world to get away with doing so without the usual complaints from their better halves as it’s ‘for charity’.
I am one of these noble men and as such, answer me this: what style of facial hair shall I attempt to groom over the month?
Inspiration for you comes in the form of Martin the Sound Man, who swam against the Movember tide* last Saturday by having his quarterly shave. He debearded himself incrementally, so several ‘tache styles were modelled on the way to bare-face.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
*Not because he has anything against fundraising for prostate cancer; he spent four years curing prostate cancer with lasers. He just couldn’t remember what his face looked like.
Danny from Leeds has discovered nice things to look at from one’s seat on the Great North Eastern Railway, aside from Durham cathedral, the Angel of the North, and Berwick-upon-Tweed:
Recently I was travelling back on the train from my home in Leeds to uni in Edinburgh. I was sat opposite this very attractive Asian lady, probably a bit older than me. We were doing that thing where you catch each other’s eye, hold their gaze and smile, and other flirting for ages. THIS NEVER HAPPENS TO ME.
So answer me this: are there some rules or advice for how to take it further and do you think I have may have missed a golden opportunity??
Put it this way: you certainly didn’t GRAB any golden opportunity, did you? Therefore you could be said to have missed one. As for taking it further, how about striking up a conversation? If you needed a pretext, you could have offered buy her an overpriced drink from the buffet car, even though the tea tastes like burnt shepherd’s pie. You then have several hours for chit-chat, so by the time you chunter into Edinburgh Waverley you should have definitely reached the point of at least exchanging email addresses.
But you didn’t, so you’ve condemned yourself to a lifetime of “What if?”. If only you’d seized the day, like Alan here:
Last weekend I got a girl’s number on a night out. I’d never done this before so decided what the hell, I will text her. That went well and we decided to meet up this weekend to do “something”.
This is where the problem is… I have no idea what to do! Usually I have a habit of hooking up with friends, or at the very least acquaintances, so I know them before we ever go on a date and therefore can usually plan something I know they’ll like. All I know about this girl is her name.
So answer me this: what are good things to do on a first date? Something fun, unique and memorable that will ensure I get a second one!
Are AMTfans hopeless romantics, or just hopeless? Readers, over to you. Go to the comments and plan Alan’s date for him, giving him suggestions not only for the first date but for the putative follow-up. His happiness depends upon it!
Alex in Hampshire has a useful suggestion for how Sarah from Stirling from AMT195 can damn her friend’s debut novel with faint praise:
I used to take a creative writing class at uni. Every week, we’d have to read other students’ manuscripts and give them some feedback on their work. Now and again, someone would come along and write something that was complete and utter bilge.
I found the best way around this was to start every savage criticism with the phrase “I like it, it’s good – for a first draft”, before pointing out the multitude of stylistic and creative errors they had made.
This had the effect of giving the poor, talentless writer the affirmation they desired, whilst also inferring that they should not in any circumstances show their magnum crappus to anyone whose opinion may actually matter, or the wider world in general.
In AMT194, Rosemary Daniels taught us that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, and this is far from unusual as Elliott from Coventry observes:
The Reg Grundy/Rosemary Daniels discussion reminded me of Gene Roddenberry’s wife, Majel Barrett. Not only did she play a character in the classic Star Trek, but she was also Deanna Troi’s mother in The Next Generation. Additionally, she provided the voice of the ship’s computer in all the incarnations of Star Trek, including the 2009 film, which was released after her death in 2008.
Idioms present a challenge when attempting to master any language, as Jeannie in Beijing demonstrates:
I work as a business English trainer and a few months ago one of my students asked me to recommend a good chicken tail wine.
Following several moments of confusion, I realised that he was referring to cocktails, but had adopted a very literal translation. This is one of my all time favourite examples of Chinglish – the term complacent expats (who usually speak little or no Chinese funnily enough) use to refer to entertaining mistranslations from Chinese to English.
My top 3 examples:
3. (On a toilet door near the Olympic Stadium) ‘Deformed man toilet’
2. (Written on the front of a school text book) ‘Today’s real simple like you, you and you no longer’
1. (In a hospital waiting room, pointing the way to gynaecology) ‘Cunt Department’.
Readers, do please share in the comments your favourite foreign malapropisms. Although I suppose Jeannie’s examples aren’t so much malapropisms as the very essence of bluntness.
Last week’s discussion of songs about wanking raised some upsetting memories for Sarah from Oklahoma:
When I was about 5, I learned all the words to “I Touch Myself” and learned a dance where I kept touching my face and my arms – it was very good. My brother who was 11 years older than me thought it was hilarious and said I ought to go show my mom’s friends who were downstairs.
I made it about 3 lines in before my mom grabbed me and put me in my room and told me to never sing that song again.
If you are five and you want to cause a stir, here’s the song you need to master:
Kaboom! Bangbangbang! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Sizzle! It’s Bonfire Night this Saturday, but we’re letting off a rocket a couple of days early, in the form of Answer Me This! Episode 195:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Plus, in this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, Olly recounts a bad-taste wedding-day prank with tragic consequences. So if you want to ruin an upcoming wedding, fire up your iPhone, iPad or Android device to learn how. At least you won’t have to sit through the bride and groom’s honeymoon photo slides, since they’ll never speak to you again.
We will never speak to YOU again if you don’t send us your QUESTIONS, so you had better leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Don’t make us send you to Coventry, OK?
There’s something which is far more likely to result from a wedding than a lifetime of marital bliss: everlasting rifts with family and friends! Add a faraway wedding destination to the usual stresses, with associated expense and inconvenience, and forty years later Cousin Mabel will still be shredding the bride’s Christmas cards.
So have pity – and advice – for Rob from Bedford here:
We are a UK-based family. My sister is getting married next year and has decided to do it in Sri Lanka of all places, which means we are being asked to fly to Sri Lanka and spend a week there for the wedding.
My wife thinks that this is an unreasonable request and I’m fairly uncomfortable about it myself. I also have a small child to think about, who will be a few weeks short of two years old by then. Who knows, we might even be expecting a second.
I don’t think you can use hypothetical foetuses as an excuse not to go, but I understand your grievance. ‘Reasonable’ is not usually uppermost in a couple’s mind when planning a wedding, although even the most wedding-bonkers pair should be reconciled to the fact that many of their guests will not be able to make it if distance and cost are involved.
However. As a member of the immediate family, you really are obligated to make every attempt to attend, even if you have to go solo and leave your wife and child (and, alright, your potential child-to-be) at home.
Agreed, it’s pricey and annoying, if your sister or her fiance have no ties to Sri Lanka and have no reason to be holding the event there other than it’s nice. But your absence would be interpreted as a hostile gesture, not only by your sister but by other members of your family. If you think going to Sri Lanka for a week is inconveniencing you, just imagine all the tearful phonecalls and rows in the run-up, and the recriminations for an untold span of aftermath.
It’s an event that means an awful lot to your sister, so if she means anything to you, stop complaining and start researching flights. Better still, start thinking positively about the occasion: I hear Sri Lanka is very beautiful and child-friendly, and your sister has given you the excuse to take a family holiday there.
Jack in Leeds sounds more chipper about his faraway wedding problem:
My friend is getting married in November. We would love to attend but he has, rather selfishly, chosen to hold the wedding where he lives, Sydney in Australia.
Despite this, I still want to get them a nice gift, but would like something more imaginative than ordering flowers etc. So, answer me this: what would be a great wedding present that would fit in a card?
Readers, go to the comments and help Jack choose a present. As things which fit in a card tend to be vouchers, which are BORING, I have decided to extend the criteria to include non-floral items and/or services he could order for delivery in Australia. Go!
Are there any vets* reading this? We’ve just received an emergency call from James from Washington DC:
My dog just swallowed a condom.
It’s not mine…we were in the neighborhood for his morning walk.
Will he be ok???
Readers – will he? Does James need to perform emergency surgery with the stick with which they were playing fetch? Should he try to get the dog to puke up the offending item? And does he need to take any special measures to avoid catching an STD from the inadvisable snack?
Answer Me This! Podcast 