Feedback!

I’m sure you’ve all been agog to know what Dan the office poacher from Episode 62 succeeded in nabbing before he was shown the door. Here’s the inventory:

I made off with copious pens, god knows how many pads to help my girlfriend who’s at uni, enough envelopes to run a post office, post-it notes to leave me hilarious notes around home like “Get a job loser”, staplers - spare one for Olly if he wants - and my footrest stool (good for posture when nerding it at home). But my piece de resistance was my office chair - distinctively green and comfortable. All of which is now at home.

My next question is: How can I convince my former work colleagues who come to visit that I procured this through proper channels without having to sweep it all under the carpet when they come round?

The answer to that, Dan, is: don’t! They will be super-jealous that you were so audacious to nick a pile of stuff from the mothership, especially when they realised you managed to sneak out large pieces of furniture under your coat. Ah, if only you had put your wiles to good use rather than petty crime…

Hiccup-related missives are still trickling in since Episode 58, including this eerie question from Steve:

All the suggestions for curing hiccups were probably almost useful for normal people, but answer me this - do you know of any ways to cure the hiccups of our unborn child? It’s getting kinda creepy to watch!

Um…tell the foetus to drink a glassful of amniotic fluid from the wrong side? I fear this cure from Nicole in Kent won’t work on embryos:

If you get the hiccupper at the front and get everyone to stare at them and say HICCUP they should stop.

Yup. They should stop and burst into tears because of all the chanting bullies.

On the back of Episode 59, Nicole also offers a rather less intimidating homework dodge:

Say your water bottle leaked and made it completely illegible; just wiggle lines on a page then run it under a tap to do this.

It’s certainly less of a risk than this one from Doug in Jersey:

This excuse saved me the other day: how about I made my homework into a aeroplane and it got hijacked?

Those teachers in the Channel Islands must either have mischievous appetites for absurdism, or simply not give a shit about their jobs at all.

Finally, following Episode 61, Krabbers reveals who would appear in his ultimate Celebrity Superwank:

I would like to see Vera and Jack Duckworth in a swappsy party with Richard and Judy.

Yum.

Hold onto your stomachs!

On the back of George from Aberdeenshire’s question in Episode 60, regarding bugs which use the human skin much as a mole treats a village cricket pitch, Charlie has written in with the following nightmare-inducer:

I think they were thinking of the bot fly, which does indeed lay its eggs under animal skin (can be human) and then when the larvae hatch they pop out of your skin. This has happened to someone I know when in Africa, but I think they are indigenous to quite a few countries. Pretty rank! To treat them you supposedly cover the eggy skin areas with Vaseline to suffocate/kill the eggs/larvae, although this may be an old wives’ tale. Nice.

There are also lots of nasty wormy type things, generally found in Africa, that infect humans as part of their life cycle, and that you can sometimes see under the skin e.g. guinea worm, or wiggling across the front of the eye e.g. loa loa filariasis. Mmmm. Not sure about the worm that would jump out of the loo and up your urethra though…!

It’s not a worm, Charlie, it’s a fish! In fact Gene wrote in to identify it as the candiru fish; apparently its urine-ascending powers are mere rumour, but as a precaution you might as well take a tea-strainer with you the next time you need to piss in the Amazon.

Helen and Olly looking unusually animated for a Monday morning…

** Click here for EPISODE 60 **

Oh listeners, we do love it when you send us things. Questions, that’s a given. Pictures, a rare but great delight. And now animator Weles Bussett has gone and turned the pretitles from Episode 45 into a piece of animation for the dialogue* section of his portfolio! Loooooook!!!

I only wish we were that charming, moving and toned in real life.

Anyway if any of the rest of you fancies sending us your creative projects, we really look forward to seeing what you come up with: a Punch & Judy-style puppet show, with Helen and Olly beating each other with tiny truncheons? A feature-length Pixar version of Answer Me This? A Jan Svankmajer-esque version in which Helen and Olly are played by sausages? Weles has set the bar pretty high, but that certainly would arrest our attention…

*if the speech looks a bit out of sync, it’s not Weles’s fault - Youtube likes to jigger about with that sort of thing, just in case you forget who’s boss.

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Well, have YOU ever seen a penguin with hiccups?

** Click here for EPISODE 60 **

Hiccup cures are still a hot topic, even though Episode 58 is but a distant memory (yeah, I know it was less than three weeks ago, but these days my mind is as retentive as a crocheted teapot). Amy has written in with the following fun-sounding hiccup cure:

when i have hiccups i stand up and pull my arms behind my back and pretend I’m a penguin, it pulls your diaphragm back.
and it works! (plus is quite entertaining if you tell someone who’s doing it that they have to make a penguin noise)

Yikes! Isn’t that also how they tell you to kill a dog that’s attacking you?

On the tandem subject of sneeze prevention, Olly himself piped up to say that talking about an oncoming sneeze often makes it dissipate. Rather like discussing that novel you say you’re going to write one day, or the names of the children you’re planning to have with the partner you’ve only known a week…

hiccups and sneezes

** Click here for EPISODE 59 **

Beth has more advice regarding sneeze/hiccup prevention tactics as raised in Episode 58:

I cure hiccups by drinking out of the wrong side of the glass like Helen’s family. It does actually work and if you are fully capable adult it is easy to do without spilling. It essentially means you are drinking upside down, whether that’s concentration or something to do with the diaphragm I have no idea.

As for sneezing, I tell everybody who has problems getting sneezes out (’better out than in’, Helen, your tongue method may work but I believe that you should aim to sneeze, not hold it in) that they should look at something light/bright, then to something dark and repeat every few seconds. I think this is because by switching between the two your pupils contract and dilate, and as all things are connected this messes about with your sinuses (and other general sneezy bits), causing you to sneeze out that annoying tickle. I can’t remember if I read this somewhere or made it up, but it definitely works.

Ain’t sinuses crazy? Anyway, a whole NEW question has emerged from this hiccupping debate, thanks to Klaus:

What do you say to someone when they hiccup? With sneezes, it is customary to ‘bless’ the sneezee… when someone coughs, they might say ‘cough up’ or something similar. With a burp, one pardons oneself or is pardoned. But what of hiccups? Why are they are they just forced to linger awkwardly in the air until such a time as someone suggests a dubious hiccup remedy? Please advise!

Hmm, a fine point! In the event that one can refrain from saying ‘Try drinking a glass of water! Hold your breath! Throw yourself down the stairs! Have you tried holding your breath?’ then the usual thing to do is look at the hiccupper in a manner both sympathetic and condescending, if you can manage it; but any more gracious suggestions would be welcomed.

Episode 59 feedback

** Click here if you’re keen to listen to EPISODE 59 **

It’s feedback time! No, not when a horrid screeching sound comes out of the sound system at a gig, but when you delightful chappies shed light on issues raised in the podcast. Firstly, Graham from Canada has a tip in response to Adam’s plea for homework excuses in Episode 59:

My tip to avoid work is: eat about 10 multi-vitamins, then a sandwich, then phone your work once the sandwich is eaten and phone in to work sick (the multi vitamin sandwich thing is so barfing noises are real) this could be applied at lunch as well, if you want a half day. (Note, the zinc in the multi-vitamins in larger quantities is what causes the barfing.)

Before you merrily chow down on multivitamins in preparation for the upchuck of your life, please be aware that THIS IS NOT SOUND MEDICAL ADVICE. Also, why waste your fake sick day on actually being sick? But if you’re an emetophile or fervent self-hater, then go right ahead by all means.

Next to clean up one of our messes is Josh, commenting upon Luke from Birmingham’s question about allergies in Episode 58:

Contrary to what Martin the soundman said, there is such a thing as an allergy to water and it doesn’t kill you before you’re born at all. Interesting!

The condition is called Aquagenic Urticaria. People who have it come up in really painful, itchy, itchy hives after coming in contact with water of any temperature, even their own sweat can trigger an allergic reaction. This means that they have to take really fast showers and have emergency umbrellas on them all the time. Let’s all think about that for a while.

Ouch! Yes, let’s. And then let’s cheer ourselves up by thinking about less severe allergies and weird reactions to foodstuffs, not only because it’s been AGES since we last did that, but also because Beth has been in touch to ask:

Am I the only one who breaks into a forehead sweat when I eat salt and vinegar crisps? Nothing else salty, vinagery or crispy, just them.

IS Beth the only one? Share, readers, share! And while you’re at it, please leave a comment here about your own bizarre food reactions, because we are horrible people who love to laugh at the digestive quirks of unfortunates.

Stools rush in

Seeing as we’ve already had one post about bodily functions this morning, let’s just say, “Sod off, bumface!” to delicacy and have another. Regarding the unanswered question “Why are stools called stools, as in bowel movement stools?” in the theme tune of yesteryear’s Episode 38, Graham from Canada theorises:

It could be because poo is one of the first things they use to test, if they don’t know what you have, supporting them, like a stool…

Maverick theory, young Graham. But rarely are semantics so abstract, and the origins of this term are rather more prosaic: in Old English the word ’stool’ referred to thrones and other such fancy seats, but when the French word ‘chair’ then entered the language, ’stool’ got relegated to armless and backless seats, including those which one sat upon to evacuate one’s bowels. By the fifteenth century, poor old ’stool’ was applied not only to the pieces furniture, but also the shits produced thereupon.

From throne to poo…oh, the bathos.

Red semen at night…

Following the discussion on shades of sperm in Episode 57, Mik wrote in to share this worrying turn of biological and social events:

A while ago my sperm turned bright red. A little worried, I called at my doctor’s. She told me not to worry it was caused by over-active sex (lucky girlfriend) and would gradually disappear. To keep a check I was to wank into a condom every day and compare results. After about a week, and feeling pleased at my now healing sperm, we all had a good night on the town, returning to my place to carry the party on. The question is this: did i get my condoms filled with various shades of spunk out too early to show everyone, as the party atmosphere seemed to lose its direction after that?

Gosh. In an evening of festivities, how early is ‘too early’ to invite admiration of your bloody emissions? If you are one of Mik’s friends who happened to be present at this gory soirée, please leave a comment to say what time would have been the optimum point of proceedings for him to produce his display; then hopefully his future parties won’t peak prematurely.

Alphabeat confusion

Here’s a puzzle, listeners. (Not a puzzle like these puzzles, but a Curious Conundrum which we’ve had trouble answering.)

A few weeks ago, we had the following email from Josie from Surrey:

Is it just me, or does Olly look very much like the man on the video for ‘Fascination’ by Alphabeat - if Olly was a lot younger and Danish? It worries me that every time I see the song on in the school gym, it seems like Olly’s face is looming out at me all the time. This is understandably disturbing - no offence Olly.

Well, perhaps we are just thick-eyed gorms, but we couldn’t work out which member of the band was supposed to look like Olly! Although we did discount the girl. Watch the video and see what you think:

But that’s not the end of the matter. Even if you do think Olly looks like a fellow from Alphabeat, what do you make of this from Dave from Coventry?

Why is it that when I listen to the podcast you two always remind me of the pop duo Alphabeat, even though I know you don’t look or sound anything like them?

Answer us this, listeners: DO WE OR DO WE NOT LOOK LIKE ALPHABEAT????

To help you decide, here’s us:

And here’s Alphabeat:

Can’t tell us apart? There are six of them, for a start.

Do Helen and Olly look like the band Alphabeat?

• yes
• no

Created on Jun 11, 2008

View Results

more at twiigs.com…

International squabbles settled: cookies vs. biscuits

Back in Episode 54, listener Michele asked: ‘Why are cookies called Biscuits in Europe? To us, biscuits are something that come with overly fried food at KFC, not a sweet dessert best dunked in coffee. And if you call cookies “biscuits”, what name do you use for the soft flaky bread we Yanks call biscuits?’

The Answer Me This! team get approximately 60% of their energy from biscuits, so were greedily qualified to explain that ‘biscuit’ derives from the Latin for ‘twice-cooked’ and that said ’soft flaky bread’ would be pretty much the same as what is known in Britain as a scone (although such an item would never be seen in a British KFC, unless a careless old lady had accidentally knocked her cake-stand into the deep fat fryer).

But a question remained: why do Americans call cookies ‘cookies’? Enter David from Canada, a man used to this biscuit/cookie confusion because ‘as a Canadian, we have to deal with both terms’:

It’s because New York used to be New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam was settled by the Dutch, and because New York was so important to the development of the American lexicon, Dutch words were already being used for a lot of everyday items by the time the British took over. Cookie derives from the Dutch word “koekje”, which means a small cake.

As for the American biscuit, you’re right. It’s essentially a bland, sometimes heavy, scone. Often used to sop up gravy. Here in Canada, we call them tea biscuits.

‘Tea biscuits’?? That’s opening up a whole new world of befuddlement! If that’s the name you give them, what do you call the rich tea biscuit, which, confusingly, is far less rich than the Canadian tea biscuit, and completely hopeless when introduced to gravy? I call the rich tea biscuit a tedious waste of snack-time, but I doubt that title has spread across the Atlantic.

X marks the spot (of your sloppy kisses)

Regarding Phil’s question about the letter ‘x’ denoting kisses in Episode 56, we have received an intriguing new theory on the matter from the lovely Louise:

The letter ‘x’ when said phonetically sounds a bit like this -

“kss”

This is very similar to the word ‘kiss’ which is said like this -

“kiss”

Hmm - certainly doesn’t seem too far-fetched, Louise. But as the origins of ‘x’ as symbol of affection remain undecided, have any of the rest of you got plausible theories for it? Let us know, and through teamwork this mystery can be vanquished.

Salt: Nick answers back

** Answer Me This! is back from holiday on 15th May; meanwhile click here to browse the back catalogue **

So that knackered end-of-term feeling was running high in Episode 53. Mouth was already waiting out in the car park while Brain was still packing up its gym-kit. And that, dear listeners, is how mistakes get made.

But luckily, and not for the first time, the ever-assiduous Nick has been in touch to correct my error regarding Paul in Southend’s question about adding salt to cooking water. Says Nick:

Putting salt in water raises, not lowers, the boiling point; the idea, of course, is that the water can be hotter, and thus cook your food (presumably rice or pasta) a bit quicker. And a bit saltier. Surprised Martin “Mr Scientist” didn’t pick you up on that one.

Yeah, Martin! Did you buy your doctorate off the internet? Pshaw!

Anyway, apologies for that, and thanks Nick. However the crux of my point remains true, that in order for salt to make a larger-than-infinitesimal difference to your cookery times, you would have to add so much of it that your alphabetti would be completely inedible. Not to mention that it would turn your supper into one of the greatest predators known to man! SALT KILLS, people!

Not this Salt, mind. She is, to our knowledge, perfectly innocent.

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