Nom nom nom, it’s time to chew on the following question from John in North Hollywood:
I am 28 years old and a pretty good cook, but I still enjoy eating an entire box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner now and then. I know, objectively, that it is vile. It’s a totally unnatural hue of orange and doesn’t actually taste much like cheese, but it’s one of the first things I ever learned how to cook and has become a comfort food.
So answer me this: What are your nostalgic comfort foods?
Here at AMT Kitchen (twinned with the heart attack ward), we all enjoy a potato waffle or five. Martin the Sound Man also loves to tuck into a nice big bag of pork scratchings, like the good Midlands boy that he is. If you too have a snack that reminds you of the cosy embrace of childhood but will probably kill you before you reach middle age, please tell us about it in the comments.
Help is at hand for the aspiring author wife of questioneer Dave from Colorado from last week, stymied by her own lethargy. Lewis from Cardiff sympathises:
Much like Dave’s wife from episode 169 I have the same problem of tremendous procrastination. This caused me to have to learn an entire module for my Chemistry degree in just 2 days. However I did find something to help called the Magic Work Cycle.
Simply put, it’s a way of dividing every hour into 30 minutes of hard work and 30 minutes of goofing around, work solidly for just 30 minutes (which we’ll all agree isn’t a long period of time) then when the time is up you can do whatever you want for the next 30 minutes (I suggest an episode of South Park), repeat this for a few hours and you’ll be shocked how much gets done.
The promise of half an hour of relaxation helps keep you motivated through the 30 minutes of work, so motivated in fact that I got far more done in 30 minutes using this method than I have ever know myself to in a usual procrastination filled hour. I’m sure this method will help Dave’s wife as I am living proof that this works, in that modules exam I got a 2:1, narrowly missing a first.
Pat from Canada also recommends the following kick up the arse in book form:
I suggest that he get her a book calledThe Artist’s Wayby Julia Cameron.
I read this book a couple of years ago as part of a course and found it to be both inspiring and comforting. It has a series of exercises and assignments that you complete each week and through this you identify where you are sabotaging yourself and you can have a lot a fun. I did with with a group of 10 women and couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter. Julia Cameron wrote this book about 25 years ago and many artists and celebrities have cited it as a great way to get your act together.
It’s true – I’ve even heard that Patsy Kensit uses it, and she’s a creative force to be reckoned with.
However I still think that Mrs Dave would be far more productive if she didn’t have the comforts of infinite time and financial support. Ringfence your money and force her to take a dead-end job, Dave, and she’ll be bound to use her few remaining spare hours far more productively.
Sir Thomas More’s dreamland is real! Christine from Grand Prairie, Texas writes:
Helen asked if there was a town called Utopia. There is a town in Texas called Utopia which I did a project on in elementary school. Here’s the town website: www.utopiatexas.com
It’s not looking so utopian everywhere though, for instance in former anarchist community Utopia, Ohio. It’s not looking so sprightly there, which is not a great surprise when you try to imagine how well anarchists would handle the rigours of local government. Weekly bin collection? Dream on!
PS If anyone knows of a town called Dystopia, I sure would like to hear about it.
Hooray! For once we got something right, according to Paul:
I have an utterly useless qualification in fish biology and once spend 3 pointless weeks working for a goldfish producer. Your advice to the student who wanted to start his own fish finger farm was spot on for numerous practical reasons let alone the moral ones.
Firstly, the odds of finding both a male and female goldfish unless you are skilled in goldfish physiology are remote to say the very least. Plus the only way to sex them involves a complicated surgical procedure which the goldfish has almost no chance of surviving.
Even if you did find a pair, then they would never breed in a tank. Goldfish know when to get “horny” by the hours of daylight (this is called photoperiodism) and as their light is controlled by their owner, they would never even experience the goldfish equivalent of mild arousal. Plus they like shallow warm water with lots of plants to leave their eggs on to breed.
Finally, if by some kind of miracle they do manage “the dance of many fins”, then you would need to produce a supply of tiny crustaceans to feed their offspring. Plus you’d need to separate them from their parents so that they don’t succumb to that most disturbing of goldfish behaviour, cannibalism!
Bad news for you, James from Aberystwyth – your scheme will certainly not keep you in an endlessly renewed supply of fishfingers. Try offering yourself as a concubine to Captain Birdseye instead.
David Beckham's rich, he doesn't even need to grow his own
This week, listeners, we go on a journey. Don’t worry – it’s not an emotional one like they have on reality shows! We go from Great Yarmouth to Gibraltar, California to Celebration, and end up in Utopia. It must be good if Cliff Richard is skating around it. Anyway, strap in and travel along with us in Answer Me This! Episode 169 (dudes):
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)
We also consider:
Sam Cooke vs. Claire Tully
razor clams
dirty sexy waxworks
carp
Visalia
dusky pink
Alisha’s Attic
cork floors
sorghum
creative management tips from Jeffrey Archer
bathroom predictions from Sarah Beeny
dried apple
pork six-pack
and
Aberystwyth.
Plus: Olly wonders why toilet seat vendors have missed the opportunity to part this fool and his money; Helen fails to reap the full entertainment offered by a bowel movement; and Martin the Sound Man wishes* that the whole world could be as democratic where men’s crotches are concerned as Madame Tussaud’s is. If that’s not enough crotch for you for one week, today’s Bit of Crap on the App is us reminiscing about that 90s TV trend to line naked men up behind a screen then leer at their genitals. Relive those glory days of The Word with us on iPhone or Android.
It’s Lent next week, but we’re not going to give up answering QUESTIONS, so send them as voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Not that Lent holds much sway with atheist Jews, mind.
See you next week, for AMT170!
Helen & Olly
* He also wishes that you stick around till the very end of the episode to hear one of the songs off his new album ‘Songs from the Scientific Cabaret’. Make his wish come true, do. And come to see him play at the Geekpop festival on 10th March, why not? Because you’ll have given up geeky pursuits for Lent? Liar!
If we heard right, it’s a question from Lizzie from London:
So, we all went to the shitty pub around the corner from our office for after work drinks one night. A lady I work with (who’s a bit odd e.g. eats bananas with the skin on etc) said she fancied a cocktail. She went up to the bar and ordered a Margarita. The bar staff said they’d bring it over to her, so she sat down and patiently waited. About ten minutes later they brought her over a pizza.
So, Helen and Olly, answer me this have you ever had such confusion over a homophone?
Like the time when we tried to buy a Russian doll and ended up with a mail-order bride (with six increasingly small brides inside her)? Or when we ordered a bag of aubergines and got stuck with a stack of 7″ copies of ‘Auberge’ by Chris Rea wrapped up in an old pair of Wranglers? Or when we got touted tickets to Black Swan and had to sit through two hours of Billy Corgan side-project Zwan sporting most unacceptable face-paint?
(Oh, stop complaining, readers, and explain your own Homophone Hilarities in the comments.)
James from Portsmouth needs to take a cold shower:
I have a new flatmate who is very attractive and walks around the flat in nothing but his boxers. He also gets very protective if I ask him about his previous relationships.
The thing is that I seem to have fallen for him but I’m not sure if he’s gay, so can you tell me a good way to ask him without sounding like a idiot or scaring him off?
Since he’s being weirdly clammish about his romantic history, I can’t tell you a good way. But if he happened to return home while you were, say, watching a gentlemen’s movie in your communal living space, that would be bound to open up the channel of conversation at least. Readers, try to think up a classier method than this and instruct James in the comments, please.
A word of caution, though: even if he does turn out to be gay, it’s not a particularly good idea to put moves on people with whom you live. If he rejects your advances, there’ll be awkward moments forever after, as either of you exits the bathroom in a towel or brings a date home. If he accepts, well, you’re already living together, and not much puts the dampener on a brand-new source of sexyfun than cosy domesticity. Rowing over who forgot to put the milk back into the fridge overnight is rubbish foreplay.
Congratulations to Richard from Bermuda upon his recent unions with loved ones:
I got married last year and as part of the best man’s speech, my brother returned to me my childhood teddy bear. This teddy bear was a gift my Aunty Margery made by hand from coarse curtain fabric and stuffed with old tights. Despite this I loved this teddy bear; he quickly became my favourite and I would cuddled him to sleep every night.
Fast forward 30 years and my brothers returned this teddy bear. I take the teddy bear home with me and it is with joy that I put him on my
bedside table. A couple of months later the wife and I are having a BBQ. An American friend walks through our bedroom sees him and all of a
sudden I’m getting the question: why has your teddy bear got a willy on his face?
I’m heterosexual and comfortable in my sexuality (always turned to the lingerie section of the Kay’s catalogue when wanking as a teenager), so answer me this: should I be concerned about the homosexual symbolism of my teddy bear?
Even if you were gay, I doubt your phallus-faced cuddly toy would have been a critical factor; and with cast-iron proof of heterosexuality like the Kay’s catalogue (and, alright, the happy marriage to a woman that presumably is not a beard/purse arrangement), I don’t see why you need be concerned. However, you probably should be a bit concerned about Aunty Margery. I’d expect that penis-nose nonsense from the Chapman Brothers, not a senior relative with a taste for handicrafts.
Apocalyptic thoughts are haunting Shaun, who asks:
If the world was going to end next week, what would you do?
I’d probably read every Harry Potter book one more time.
I scoffed, of course, at this plan – then realised that despite my usual tendency to be spurred to action by a looming deadline, in this case I would probably just lie on the sofa watching Arrested Development until close of play.
However, if you want to pretend that in this event you’d do something amazing instead of running around flapping, tell us what it is in the comments. If it involves listening to podcasts, we will cry on your behalf.
This week, we learn how to arm yourself in the event of the outbreak of cyber-warfare. Start digging a hole in your virtual back garden for your Javascript Anderson shelter; lay down supplies of canned goods, water, batteries, masking tape and binbags (because even in an emergency you need to be able to cobble together a rudimentary fancy-dress costume), and load up your rifle with Answer Me This! Episode 168:
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)
Conversational shrapnel includes:
Steamboat Willie True Grit
Alan Turing
Nicole Kidman News in Briefs
topless Kelvin MacKenzie
Sharon Stone’s dress-down Oscar-day
puntits
Victorinox
the Colosseum vs the O2 Arena
perfectly controllable semis
John Virgo
Marchesa
and
swim-gimps.
Plus: Olly’s not going to fall for your elaborate apple-tasting double-bluff, wiseguy; Helen will take out your unwanted small pets, no questions asked; and Martin the Sound Man swims like a middle-aged woman. This is almost as good a show as the Geekpop show he’s playing on 10th March, for which you can and should get tickets via geekpop.co.uk. There’ll be a taster of his new album, Songs from the Scientific Cabaret, at the end of the show next week, so let that be the bright point of light at the end of the tunnel that is the next seven days.
You can also enliven the next seven days by sending us QUESTIONS, which you can then pose to us in a voicemail to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And if you still find yourself with time to spare, you could squander a few more seconds on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android), which contains further musing upon what the whole deal is with Snow White. What’s with them apples? Eh?
Now whoever could have predicted that the topic of famous Belgians would get you so hot and bothered? Here are just a few of the slew of emails we’ve had about it. First up are Elodia & Julian:
We were both born and brought up in Belgium, and together with our fellow expats we’ve been defending the reputation of the country we call home for as long as we can remember. So here is a list of famous Belgians, to quell once for the misapprehension that “there are no famous Belgians”.
Hergé (author of the Tintin comic books)
Kim Clijsters (professional tennis player)
Simenon (writer, author of the Maigret novels)
Eddy Merckx (professional cyclist)
Jean-Claude Van Damme (actor)
Adolphe Sax (invented the saxophone)
Erasme (politician, active in the creation of the Belgian constitution)
Georges Lemaitre (proposed what became the big bang theory)
Magritte (artist)
Rubens (Flemish baroque painter)
Peyot (author of the Smurf comic books)
K’s choice (pop-rock band)
Hooverphonic (pop/rock band)
Vaya con Dios (latin band)
……..there are more……..
We hope this clears up any confusion as to the importance of our dear old waffle-land.
Despite that valiant effort (which does ignore the rule imposed by my mean schoolteacher, who specified no sports players), this email from Chick from Leeds shows even Belgians don’t necessarily have great faith in their homeland’s position in the celebrity galaxy:
I remember when I was about 10 we were in a restaurant in Belgium, and we asked our Belgian waiter to name ten famous Belgians. Off the top of his head he got about four – Jean Claude Van Damme, Hergé, former footballer Giles de Bilde, and the King of Belgium(!) – before pondering for a moment and walking off saying ‘I’ll phone my mother’.
He’s a long way from Belgium, but Steve from Oakland, California still has nominees:
Aside from the Belgian Waffle I thought of three famous Belgians right away:
– Epic mass-murderer Leopold II
– Epic depictor-of-mostly-exposed-buttocks Peter Paul Rubens
– Epic kicker-of-faces Jean-Claude Van Damme.
So, it looks like the consensus nominates Van Damme and Hergé as the most famous Belgians, unlikely equals that they are. If you’re still in doubt, however, you may like to peruse this site that Michael from Brisbane kindly brought to our attention: famousbelgians.net. But take note that in their top 10 they include the not-Belgian Audrey Hepburn and the inventor of Bakelite. That’s all I’m saying.
History Corner now, which for reasons of economy this week will be combined with Bawdy Corner. Shaun from Canton, Massachusetts writes:
You recently requested examples of historical glory holes. I would suggest the hole in Pasiphaë’s hollow wooden bull through which she mated with a bull, producing the Minotaur.
Though the incident is mythological, it suggests that the concept would have been known to the Ancient Greeks, though they don’t seem to have properly worked out how best to use such powerful sexual technology.
How do you know, Shaun? For all we can tell, finding the wherewithal by which to allow humans to mate with unwitting bulls might have been the pinnacle of Grecian sexual ambition. Perhaps it is in fact we moderners who are missing out on the zenith of erotic joy.
by Julia Cameron.
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