This week, we learn a few very important lessons about sheep: not to underestimate them intellectually and emotionally; what they have in common with Margaret Thatcher; and what they also have in common with Helen’s mum. Discover these things right now in Answer Me This! Episode 261:

In which we also learn about:

emogothpunk style
Casper the Suicidal Ghost
small-talk with accountants
the losers’ cafe in The Apprentice
BHS Dr Martens
free sunglasses
pony-drawn rollers
the Cabinet vs. the Divine Right of Kings
iced coffee vs. cold coffee
Olly’s face vs. Richard Gere’s face
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club
hair-blindness
and
advice from Paul Ross.

Plus: Olly had to go cold turkey on the brown, by which we mean Mr Brown drinks, not heroin; Helen sounds and looks and smells like an old fart; and Martin the Sound Man’s emotional needs are not going to be met by sheep. Let’s not even contemplate whether they can meet his sexual needs, please. But you can meet Martin’s needs by going to his website or YouTube to watch his spectacular new music video (/visual evidence of his nervous breakdown).

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Helen expresses her ever-unrealised desire for unusual-coloured hair. She may have wimped out of having an experimental phase in her teens, but when she’s a geriatric she WILL go full-bore Marge Simpson. Promise.

Promise us to send us your QUESTIONS for our next series: leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

We’ll be back with AMT262 on 11th July, so please join us then; in the meantime, check back here for our imminent album, the Answer Me This! Holiday, our all-new follow-up to our Top 20 (no really!) albums Jubilee and Sports Day, available for your delectation at answermethispodcast.com/albums.

Byeeee!

Helen & Olly

AMT261 Child-Friendly Rating: 90%.
References to hiding pornographic magazines; very mild profanity.

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The following question from Kev wouldn’t be too weird if he worked in a strip joint. But, he doesn’t:

I recently started working at a call centre for a bank. I am nearing the end of my training, and a couple of days ago I met with the team I am to join, and my prospective manager. They all seem perfectly likeable, and my manager – a woman in her mid-forties – is very welcoming. But during this brief meeting she announced that she plans to organise a day of pole dancing for the group, which I do not like the sound of at all.

So, answer me this: What do I do? Do I make up a weak and potentially transparent excuse and not go? Do I go, and have a very uncomfortable, unpaid day constantly thinking about what else I could be doing with my time? Or do I outright and honestly tell my manager that I do not want to go as I don’t think I would enjoy it or get much out of it? Would that result in her making my life at work harder than it needs to be?

Even though we discussed in AMT221 how pole dancing can be an athletic discipline rather than a purely sexy one, this does not seem to be an APPROPRIATE WORK ACTIVITY. Can you suggest an alternative?

If not, and you’re determined not to go, just tell her you have a long-standing spinal or muscular complaint. Pole dancing is physically demanding, and your manager is unlikely to want you to be laid off work with a slipped disc.

Readers, any other ideas? I’m not best placed to help, since I’ve managed to get myself out of all such situations by working on my own since 2005.

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KLAXON! AMT LISTENER IN DISTRESS! It’s Lachlan, who writes:

I have just been dumped by my girlfriend of one year.

We have always been very close and I have never lied to her. Answer me this: WHAT THE HELL AM I GOING TO DO TO MAKE HER TRUST ME AGAIN?!?!

Unfortunately, Lachlan, I cannot offer you a quick fix to regain trust. It will take time, and willingness on both sides to overcome this incident. I imagine you have already gone strong on contrition, but you could also demonstrate your commitment to such a thing not happening again by giving up drinking.

Readers, if you have any suggestions for Lachlan convincing his girlfriend to give him a second chance, deliver them in the comments, as well as tips for him avoiding getting himself into similar scrapes again. For instance, wearing a welding mask to music festivals would preclude extra-curricular kissing.

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••• CLICK HERE FOR AMT260 •••

Following last week’s discussion of Red Bull, Timothy and Melissa in Australia sent the following inquiry:

Energy drinks contain a shitload of taurine so answer us this: what is taurine?

Taurine, nicknamed NH₂CH₂-CH₂SO₃H, is a sulfonic acid that is already sloshing around in your human body performing many important functions in your heart, muscles, blood, nerves and bile. Bile? Bile. Yes. Taurine was first discovered in ox bile, and thence came the bull in the name Red Bull.

Although your Red Bull only contains synthetic bile these days, it has maintained the authentic flavour of a bull’s puke.

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Last week, we spoke upon the act of judging one’s neighbours by the contents of their recycling bins. This week, Hattie‘s recycling-judgement-capacity has been completely scrambled by her neighbours:

I recently noticed one of my neighbours had an entire glass recycling box FULL of empty Nutella jars. I had to walk past twice to make sure I wasn’t imagining things…but yes – the box was entirely crammed with empty pots.

Evidence:

Exhibit A: a LOT of Nutella jars

My hunch is that they were making a giant Ferrero Rocher. It’s the only reasonable explanation…OR IS IT? Readers, go to the comments to offer your own hypotheses for the profusion of Nutella. Someone was getting rid of their late grandmother’s lifetime collection of Nutella jars? They bath in it? They’re using it to regrout the bathroom? The floor is yours.

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This week, listener Melvyn from Israel got in touch to ask whether we have a system for identifying AMT episodes which are suitable for his children to listen to. So from this point forward*, each episode will have a rating so you parents/children are aware of the incidence of blue language and depraved material. Answer Me This! Episode 260 scores a Child Friendly Rating of 70% (mild swearing/bawdy talk and one question about dicks).

Today we discuss:

Wagon Wheels
jalapeños
disappointing Oxford Circus
Loose Women‘s stools (not as in bowel movement stools)
tuk tuk drivers
Fentimans
The Pammy vs. The Governess
Lord Adonis
helium
and
dressing to the left/right.

Plus: Olly has a simple but cunning method for hiding his Special Racy Magazines; Helen is a fan of neither Buckfast nor Red Bull; and the only thing bigger than Martin the Sound Man’s head is his…ego?

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we discuss Desert Island Drugs. We may be squares in our normal lives, but leave us to die alone on a desert island and we’ll give any intoxicants a whirl.

If you haven’t, give QUESTION-ASKING a whirl: leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

Plus, if you’re interested in hearing swear-free episode 59 or Martin-free episode 78, they – and 118 more retro AMT episodes – are available to buy at answermethispodcast.com/classic. There’s also free entertainment at answermethispodcast.com/LoveFilm.

See you next Thursday, for our last episode of this current series (oh don’t, you’ll set us off too),

Helen & Olly

*This does mean our previous 259 episodes remain the Wild West, but if you have a craven desire to go through all of them to rate them, be our guest.

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Attention, Martin the Sound Fans!

Your favourite West Midlandese sound man has been very busy this year, and not with the invention of new compound cuss-words involving balls. No. He’s been paper-cutting, green-screening and back-projecting to make the video to his song 10,000 Letters of Love, and the finished product is finally here:

Wow, right? Surely the best papercut video about London sewerage pioneer Joseph Bazalgette you’ll see all year.

If you’re interested in how he made the video, click here; and if you liked the song and want to buy it plus ten more, click here to purchase his beautiful album The City of Gold and Lead, under Martin’s musical alter ego The Sound of the Ladies.

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This question from Margaret in Indiana is the kind that some people spend their whole lives trying to answer*:

I was listening to the lightbulb jokes on last week’s episode, and I had a question:

What is the best joke?

*Not me, though. I am not especially fond of jokes. Therefore I delegate to you, readers, the task of going to the comments and submitting your best joke. The winner gets to be plagiarised by everyone else forever.

Go on, by the end of today I expect the comments section to be like this:

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When I say that this question from Will from Bristol is draining, I mean it is even more so in the emotional sense than in that of drawing off liquid. Here goes:

Answer me this: how on earth are you meant to clean a sieve successfully? It’s always the item I leave to the end of the washing up due to its annoyance. Is there a kitchen tool out there for aiding in the process if cleaning a sieve?

Yes. A BRUSH.

And if that’s too commonplace and sensible for you, Will, find a fencing champ and ask them what they use to clean their mask.

Fig.1: a brush

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In last week’s episode we suggested that a desert island, such as the one you’d be stranded on in Desert Island Discs, might be more like this…

…than this:

But Luke disagrees with our interpretation:

Surely the ‘desert’ in desert island is about it being deserted rather than the climate……

You may be right, Luke. However, perhaps they decided not to call the show the more accurate name of Deserted Island Discs to avoid confusion with one of Britain’s more unpleasant deserted islands.

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Today we discuss the world’s greatest audio format apart from this one: Desert Island Discs. What would your luxury be? (If you’re a cheating cheater who wants to take a fully-stocked iPod, throw yourself into the sea.) Find out ours, along with myriad other important nuggets of information, in Answer Me This! Episode 259:

In which we also consider:

condoms vs. opera gloves
knits vs. nits
Tim Burton vs. Faust
Olly vs. Ollie vs. Olleigh
cherry-pickers
gentlemen’s clubs (nb not ‘gentlemen’s clubs’)
The Reform Act
This Life
personalised Coke bottles
Simon Cowell’s reflection
mayonnaise spa treatments
retro-live-tweeting
and
Russ Abbott.

Plus: Olly is nostalgic for an infestation of headlice; Helen WOULD with the person who changes the lights in supermarkets; and Martin the Sound Man doesn’t want to swallow himself. Just reflect on that quietly.

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Olly rhapsodises about the Coca-Cola Freestyle Machine. All the different types of sugar water – in one machine! A miracle of modern life.

Another miracle of modern life is to be able to watch thousands of hours of entertainment for FREE thanks to our LoveFilm offer – which, equally miraculously, helps pay for future Answer Me Thises.

As well as free money, we can only sustain the podcast with your QUESTIONS, so send them along in the form of voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

See you next Thursday,

Helen & Olly

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Joe in Oxford could be getting himself into a sticky situation, in more ways than one:

My wife has a friend, who now does porn.

How annoyed would my wife have the right to be if I watched her friend’s videos, on a scale of 1 – mildly annoyed, to 10 – divorce?

Readers, go to the comments to express Joe’s wife’s annoyance in a number; but you may not want to waste your time, since he’ll have obviously watched the videos by now anyway regardless of the potential spousal fury.

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How soon is too soon, wonders Pat from Canada:

My nephew got married last summer to a woman he had lived with for two years.

While I want him to be happy and find a new soul mate, isn’t this all a bit too fast? Answer me this: how long after deciding to divorce should someone wait before starting to date again?

Readers, if you believe there is an appropriate set period of singletude, or if you have designed an equation to calculate that period in proportion to the length of relationship, share in the comments.

Personally, I don’t see the harm if Pat’s nephew is just having a not-to-serious time with a new paramour, moving on with a fun fling, salving the wounds left by his cheating partner.

If, however, he and his ladyfriend are already dressing alike, running non-essential errands to Ikea, making wedding plans or buying adjacent burial plots, I can understand Pat’s concern. But since he’s an adult man with dominion over his own decisions, I’m not sure she can intervene. As an aunt myself, frankly I wouldn’t feel comfortable judging when my nephew was ready to love again, but my nephew is only five and a half years old so I can hazard a guess that he should play the field for another couple of decades at least.

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In AMT257 we learned why in-house polling stations are likely to remain a pipe-dream. But if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed’s house and offer him a lift, according to Leon from Morpeth:

On the subject of corrupt polling stations:

I always thought this was pretty dodgy.

This on its own is not dodgy:

1. As a man heavily invested in the democratic process, the importance of people exercising their right to vote will surely be even more important to him than his own success.*

2. The people he transports can still vote for whom they like once they’ve been driven right into the booth.**

*Which doesn’t seem much in question anyway, if he’s been the election winner for twenty years.
**On the other hand, if he provides them with a homemade ballot paper with just one name on it…

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Sound the sirens – today, in Answer Me This! Episode 258, we address a VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION. One of those questions that completely reshapes your neural pathways, redirects your chi, repapers the hallways of your spiritual palace. Get ready:

What is a dickbag?
A bag OF dicks, a bag FOR dicks, or a ballbag?

Yup. One of the greats.

We also discuss:

cinema intervals
sleeping in parks
the not-circular Circle Line
silly cows
presidential perishables
gifts for Sophie Raworth
Dumbo vs. DUMBO
exes vs. economics
potplant-murder vs. potplant-suicide
the White House postal address
cartoon crows
and
coffee in the loo.

Plus: young Olly wanted value even more than he wanted Disney cartoons; Helen is a lady; and you don’t want to be hot-desking at Martin the Sound Man’s office, you really don’t.

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we feel the threat of the new Greatest Show On Earth: Radio 4′s Tweet of the Day.

If birdsong isn’t your thing, how about a month of free film/TV/games instead? Deprive yourself no longer; sign up to our free LoveFilm offer right now. You’d not only be delighting yourself with all the free entertainment of LoveFilm, you’d also be helping maintain the free entertainment of AMT, because we get money if you take up the trial.

There’s another way you can help keep this show going: send us your QUESTIONS! Leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

See you next Thursday,

Helen & Olly

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I’m guessing from this email that listener Kate won’t be inviting her sister to her 26th birthday party:

In just under a week it’s my 25th birthday. Apart from the inevitable mild existential crisis, this means I’m having a barbecue. I’ve invited friends and I’ve invited my sister. My sister has then invited my mum. Please help me think of a way to un-invite her. I just wanted a nice relaxing afternoon eating meat in my back garden with my friends. I do not want either of my parents there! And if my mum is coming then I am forced to invite my dad and his new wife.

How how HOW can I make sure there are no parents at my barbecue without causing a big family fuss?

Readers, go to the comments and help the lady out. Oh pleeeeeeese. It’s her birthday.

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Thanks to Emma from Perth, Australia we can take an imaginary peek under holy skirts:

In episode 250 you had a conversation about whether the cardinals and the Pope wear any kind of underwear under those elaborate robes. Well, I just had to write in and tell you. I recently went on a Buddhist retreat, and the head abbot, a really funny guy with a great sense of humour named Ajahn Brahm, was asked this very question about Buddhist monks.

So there you go.

There we go, and there they go, swinging freely in the breeze.

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Last Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest has left you with many questions (aside from WHY DIDN’T GREECE WIN?). For instance, this one from Orpon:

This year the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Malmö, Sweden. This happens to be my hometown and I barely made it out of this frenzy alive.

Answer me this: when so many European nations succumb to the ESC madness, why don’t the British care at all about it? Are you too good to hang out with the rest of us? Don’t you like feather boas, confetti and crappy music?

Oh, we Brits do like those things – but only through a veil of sneering irony. And it’s inaccurate to say that we don’t care at all – we care very much that the Britain scores as close to nul points as possible.

On to a question from one of the scornful Brits, Paul from Northampton:

I’m watching Eurovision and all the awful acts that are desperately trying to win with this awful Europop. So answer me this: if Britain wants to win so badly, why haven’t they enter One Direction, as everyone seems to love them for some reason?

I take issue with Paul’s assertion that Britain wants to win so badly; see my statement above, along with every British entry since Katrina and the Waves – Daz Sampson? Scooch? Bin Man Andy? Jemini??? These are NOT the entries of a country with victory in the crosshairs.

Plus, I think One Direction are a bit too busy at the moment. But previous experience indicates that in ten years or so, they’ll probably need the gig.

Finally, a question about the scoring system from Rikki from Dunfermline:

Why is there no number 9 or 11 in the Eurovision Song Contest?

Those numbers have been banished from the Eurovisional points allocation since 1975. They got rid of them because Björn Ulvaeus said they were the least poppy numbers under 100. Or maybe there’s a solid mathematical reason, such as it helps avoid tied votes, or something.

Readers, do you have any idea? Go to the comments and inform us all. I lost a large part of my brain during this year’s contest, and it was the part that made me willing to google this sort of shit.

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… What with the ‘second screen’ being very much the in thing of this year’s Eurovision, I have just remembered the following section from the Answer Me This book. I have reproduced it here without asking the publishers, but, hey, we wrote it, and this is the bloody internet. We based it on our experience of watching previous contests, so why not refer to it tonight and let’s see how many we get right.

Acatia from Bar Hill: Helen and Olly, Answer Me This: Are there actually any rules for Eurovision?

It might look like a disoragnised, outdated cheese-fest but actually Acatia, yes, the Ten Commandments of Eurovision are:

1. Contestants must all wave and smile to the camera at one point during their performance, whether their song is a singalong spectacular or a mournful ballad about the war tearing apart their homeland.

2. All hairstyles must be inspired by the 1984 production of Starlight Express.

3. All men must resemble either Ian McShane or H from Steps, and ne’er the twain shall meet.

4. Five points will be deducted from any song not containing the lyrics ‘la la la’, ‘yeah yeah yeah’, or ‘Tora! Tora! Tora!’

5. Israel is in Europe.

6. Palestine is not in Europe.

7. The hosts of the award – one male, one female – must both be entirely without merit.

8. The videos between each act promoting the host country must contain one of the following images:

- a couple walking hand-in-hand by in a fruit market
- some ropey old men playing chess
- a little girl spinning around in a white lace dress
- a crane shot of a bell tower
- some ladies with nice boobs smiling as if caught off-guard

9. All countries must give their highest score to their closest neighbours, except for France and Ireland, who must snub Great Britain.

10. Extra points will be added for dance routines involving clapping, twirling, or removal of clothes. If all three are achieved at once this will be considered the greatest cultural feat of all time.

(If you enjoyed this extract, please do consider buying the book. It will pass some time before you die.)

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Trot along to answermethispodcast.com/LoveFilm to take up the offer, but beware, your achievement levels may slump immediately as a result – I almost didn’t get around to posting Answer Me This! Episode 257 because I got sucked into rewatching all of 90s wobblycam dramedy This Life. Oh Egg. Stop allowing football to distract you from the fact that your relationship is so thankless.

Unlike AMT257, of course. Listen:

Today we discuss:

yoga and pilates
the room being full of hotties
hog-faced coons
personalised polling stations
polling pencils vs. polling pens
child actors vs. pushy parents
magpies vs. ratatouille
Ben Affleck vs. his past self as one half of Bennifer
Aunt Bessie vs. Mrs Elswood vs. Sarah Nelson
Google Doodles vs. Bing…things?
something saucy
James McAvoy
Burning Man
Charlie Chaplin’s 122nd birthday
Dennis Hwang’s Wikipedia page
Nude Nuns with Big Guns
and
supermarket shopping dividerzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Plus, if that last topic didn’t put you sleep: Olly hopes his career develops well enough that he doesn’t have to do ‘ass to ass’ with some frozen honey-roast parsnips; Helen was a Google Virgin until she met Olly; and Martin the Sound Man is so angry at the mere mention of Madonna, he drowns in his own bile. And if you want to do the same, revise her shit ‘American Life’ here. Yep, that’ll do it.

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Olly is feeling unlucky since the loss of Google’s ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button. Someone organise a black tie benefit dinner-dance for him, asap!

While that’s going on, the rest of you can send us your QUESTIONS for forthcoming episodes: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

See you next Thursday, LoveFilm-wormholes notwithstanding,

Helen & Olly

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Here’s a different sort of mistaken identity question from Maria:

Every time my husband Bjorn meets someone new, the person usually says they feel like they have met him before. Men and women actually come up to us in pubs or when we are out shopping asking, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Numerous folk say, “Oh you remind me of someone I know” but can never seem to absolutely pinpoint who that person is.

Answer me this: how can one person look like so many different people to so many different people? And does he look like anyone you know?

Maybe he just has ‘one of those faces’? Perhaps its planes are arranged in a particular way that chimes with some sort of universal face-recognition. Or possibly his photo was used without his knowledge in a widespread public health advertising campaign, like this.

Readers, below is Bjorn’s face. Go to the comments to name the person of whom he reminds you. Personally I’m seeing the Jeff Bridges resemblance but not the other ones, although maybe the hat is overly influencing my judgement.

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Here’s a question from Oliver from Manchester. Not Olly, or Ollie, or Ol, or Ollingtons. OLIVER. Oliver says:

My name is Oliver, and when introducing myself to, lets say, a mutual friend, of a friend, of a friend, I will say ‘hello, I’m Oliver.’ Moments later this practical stranger will refer to me as ‘Olly’ even though I never said that was my name.

So answer me this, who is the toss-face in this scenario – the stranger for giving me a nickname even though the piss-weasel doesn’t know me; or me for going on about it?

You’re a bit of a toss-face for calling a stranger a piss-weasel (as am I, now, for just having done the same); however they are the bigger toss-face for being presumptuous.

We do receive this question a lot, and have encountered it in life as well – eg former AMTflatmate Matthew Crosby is always Matthew, NEVER Matt. Nonetheless, many people are unable to bypass their InstaMatt function.

It’s not a problem I have, because Helen is a name difficult enough to abbreviate that to do so feels too personal for most piss-weasels and toss-faces.

But, readers, if you are a Margaret-never-Maggie, a Ben-never-Benjamin, a Josh-not-Joshua or a Catherine-nary-Cathy, go to the comments and suggest a polite way for Oliver to correct the abbreviators. A cold, unresponsive stare until they give him the right name might work, but also runs the risk of compelling them to keep calling him ‘Oli’ just to piss him off.

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How things have changed since my generation did gap years. Back then, in the late 90s, gap years were supposed to be twelve months of reckless headonism, under the guise of going abroad on a do-gooding expedition.* The new batch of school-leavers, though, are a bunch of SQUARES. Charlotte writes:

My friend has very recently (in the last few months) become (some might say excessively) close to a boy in our year. They are both adamant that their friendship is entirely platonic, despite constant speculation from our school peers. He is a bit of a rogue and has been labelled a ‘manwhore’ by some, while she is highly principled and generally repelled by that sort of behaviour.

They both wanted to take a gap year and, with nobody else to go with, have decided to spend most of the year in Africa together doing charity work. Both my friend and I are more than a little concerned about this plan since:

a) they have only relatively recently become friends and
b) they are generally quite incompatible (she’s extremely mature, him not so much).

Since they are both set on going, I suggested they make some ground rules. So far, I think they have:

1. no sexual tension
2. he can’t take drugs
3. he can’t leave her to go out and get drunk or go off with other girls.

He has agreed, although there was some dispute over the second and she is already being forced to compromise…

So Helen and Olly answer me this:
Do you think such an intense friendship that has developed so quickly between two complete opposites can be genuinely platonic? And if not, do you think their first ‘ground rule’ can actually be implemented?

Also, my friend would like you to suggest any other ground rules you think might help them? She is mostly concerned that his sexual frustration will drive him to come onto her, or abandon her for somebody else…

Erm, your friend can’t have it both ways. IF she – apparently – doesn’t want to have sex with him, she can’t reasonably prevent him having sex with other people. But, as she is trying to, I deduce that this friendship is as platonic as Clinton and Lewinsky, Ross and Rachel, Silvio Berlusconi and a teenage prostitute. They’re obviously going to cop off. Then they’ll spend most of the gap year in a cycle of tension → copping off again → rationalising why they should be ‘just friends’ → being jealous when the other one shows interest in someone else → tension → copping off, etc etc, with the occasional break for a spot of food poisoning.

Even if they don’t, here are the problem with your ground rules so far:

Rule 1. You can’t legislate for that sort of thing. Either it’s there, or it’s not. They can only choose whether or not to act upon it.
Rule 2. If he’s already disputing that before they even go, it may make drug use an even greater temptation, especially as
Rule 3 makes your friend sound like an ABSOLUTE KILLJOY.

She’s being ‘forced to compromise’, whereas he’s being forced to change all of his ways. I don’t think this will work out very happily for your friend, unless she gets a VIP ticket to the drugboozeorgy that his inevitable rebellion will probably result in.

Readers, do go to the comments and add some useful ground rules for Charlotte’s friend and her reformation project. I’d opt for Rule 4: lighten up, kids, and stop making ground rules for everything, because there’ll be plenty of opportunities when you’re older to stop yourselves having any fun.

*Not mine, though. I spent nearly all of it sober, in a long-term relationship, living with my parents and working six days a week for minimum wage in an antiquarian bookshop in Tunbridge Wells. I’ve never been much of a headonist.

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We know some of you like to listen to the podcast with your little children, so just to warn you, Answer Me This! Episode 256 contains some bawdy-talk. But by all means go ahead and listen if you’re happy to field such subsequent questions from your progeny as, “Mummy, what’s a sex party?” and “Where’s a clitoris?” They were bound to find out at some point anyway, most likely from the school library’s copy of Meg and Mog go Swinging.

Today we discuss:

crunching on the quiet carriage
black tie and board shorts
seals vs. sea lions
holes vs. flaps
owls vs. Bruce Springsteen
fat Fred Flintstone
hot tub ming machine
pants sandwiches
swinging seven days a week
LinkedIn fashion fails
and
the etiquette of revealing your genital piercings.

Plus: Olly’s very happy to be the only man in a jacuzzi, unless it’s at his local sex party house or crawling with children; Helen retroactively destroys your childhood, one bloated dead duck at a time; and Martin the Sound Man would cast Holly Hunter as Harry Potter, Gandalf, Katniss, Edward AND Bella AND Jacob, Luke Skywalker, and his wife in the film of his own life. (Holly Hunter: “Er…sorry Martin, I’m busy.” (Busy changing her locks.))

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we worry further about the Flintstones’ health, what with the imbalanced diet and the smoking. They’re like a bunch of prehistoric cartoon Don Drapers, aren’t they?

We invite your ears to bend around more podcasts this week: Helen’s new venture Sound Women; the newest pony in Martin the Sound Man’s stable of podcasts, Brain Train; our weekly excursion on 5 Live’s Let’s Talk About Tech; and our recent guest appearance on episode 56 of Ian Collins Wants a Word.

And as ever, we invite you to send us your QUESTIONS for forthcoming episodes: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

See you next Thursday,

Helen & Olly

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Here’s quite a tricky question from Damon:

I’m a gay man who lives in a medium-sized midwestern city. My mother lives in a smaller city, and is your typical midwestern housewife type. She is very sweet, moderately conservative and church-going. She’s a bright person, but not very worldly, and has rarely, if ever, travelled outside of her state.

Also, if I do go, is it fair that I talk her into getting cornrows done in her hair, as so many women who visit the islands do, as a wicked revenge?

Readers, help out.

Obviously whichever option you choose, she’ll be having the cornrows as well. Dyed to match the rainbow flag.

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Surprising news arrives from the provinces from Sarah from Gateshead:

I was in my local library and in the literary criticism section I found your book next to JEREMY CLARKSON’S. So, answer me this… what the fuck?

I know – no wonder the bookshops are all on the fast train to oblivion if they can’t even alphabeticise authors properly!

You may also question why our book and Mr Clarkson’s are filed under ‘literary criticism’, a section usually filled with the works of F.R. Leavis and Harold Bloom rather than, er, toilet reading. Well, it’s quite simple. In our book, there is very lengthy analysis of Michael Bay’s video for Meat Loaf’s ‘I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)’, which is of such totemic significance to 20th century art that it has been officially recategorised as literature. And Jeremy Clarkson’s book is literature which people like to criticise.

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‘Money lent to a friend will be recovered from an enemy,’ says whoever it is who sits in the back rooms of Hallmark who composes depressing proverbs that they can’t use in the mainstream greetings cards. And two AMT listeners have lately discovered this first-hand. Elly, a first year student in London, writes:

When I first started university last September I mostly hung out with the people from my halls including a trip to the OXO Tower bar around Christmas.

What do I do?!

What do you do? Grit your teeth, forget about it and try to move on. Although you need the money, and it is rightfully yours, he’s obviously not going to give it to you, and it’ll cost you more than you’ve already lost to take him to the small claims court. And remember, although Shylock kind of had a point, he’s not exactly the good guy in The Merchant of Venice, is he?

Readers, if you disagree, go to the comments and give Elly advice for retrieving her lost dosh. While you’re there, perhaps you could also counsel Adam in Nottingham:

I recently went to an ice hockey game with a few friends. I offered to buy the tickets in advance and was happy to get the money on the day.

Or can I take the high road, knowing I did the right thing?

You didn’t exactly do the right thing, did you? You just didn’t do the worst thing. While you may have exercised goodwill towards a random stranger, but you did rather pettily ask your friend for the £2, knowing that he was unlikely to pay it and also that it would hardly make a difference to your finances if he did; so I can only believe that your motive for bothering to mention the £2 was to make him feel a little guilty. Or, more likely, pissed off.

But since £2 is not a sum worth souring a friendship over, I have to wonder what your real beef is with this friend – not to mention your other ones as well! If you ever find yourself asking, ‘Are all my friends out to rip me off?’, your immediate follow-up question should be, ‘Where shall I find some replacement friends?’

If you like, you can test them by dropping a £2 coin on the floor then seeing whether they pick it up and return it to you, or slyly pocket it. But I warn you, Adam, it’ll be a lonely life.

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We really hope you didn’t first hear the sad news about JLS on Answer Me This! Episode 255. If you did, please accept our condolences at this difficult time.

Through our veil of grief, today we discuss:

fruit PDA
inappropriate gifts
Volvos
proofreading Pitbull’s party anthems
Pop Star to Deer Farmer
Abz from 5ive
bangs
Andre 3000 + Beyonce covering Winehouse
porn prodigies
Paul Torrisi
Olly’s mum’s sex tips
and
Olly’s cat’s arsehole.

Plus: Olly’s not so much house-hunting as Costco cupboard-hunting; Michelle Obama makes Helen weepy; and if unlike Martin the Sound Man’s parents you DO want to listen to his albums, get them from thesoundoftheladies.com. Perfect soundtrack for gardening and cat funerals.

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we consider the ridiculousness of reading about Web 2.0 via Web 0.0, ie print media, which is going the way of JLS before too long.

We don’t intend to go anywhere soon, though, so do send us your QUESTIONS for forthcoming episodes: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

Bye!

Helen & Olly

PS Revisit our previous discourse about the male and female symbols in AMT96 and JLS in AMT187.

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Here’s Joe in Seattle again, but this time with a problem pertaining not to girls or ice cream cones. He writes:

I am trying to find a new home for a fluffy, three-legged cat that I have developed an allergy to. Answer me this: do you think three legs is a selling point for a cat? Or should I leave that detail out of the description of this cat I’m trying to get rid of?

That’s a tricky one. It might make some people feel sorry for the cat and therefore more obligated to take it on. On the other hand, responsibility for a cat with special needs might seem too much work to a potential cat-buyer.

One thing’s for sure, though: if you do leave out the detail the cat is lacking one leg, it seems deceitful. Yes, even if you supply a prosthetic leg along with the cat. The cat-buyer, upon discovering the absence of leg no.4, would be bound to feel vexed that you’d sold them an animal without the full complement of limbs – perhaps because they’re sticklers physical perfection, have OCD about odd numbers, or become furious when they feel they’ve been short-changed, eg when they buy a tube of Pringles and only later discover that someone ate the top two inches of the stack then replaced the tube on the supermarket shelf.

Anyway, listeners, what do you think Joe should do about his tripod cat? Limp to the comments to help him.

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Here’s an email about love, both romantic and fraternal, from Freddie:

This is a question about the Bro Code, specifically the clauses that apply to girls.

Answer me this: what’s a bro to do? I’ve been back to this coffee shop three times since then and I’m definitely in love with her. I plan on asking her out within a week whereas he hasn’t made a move in months. Can I ask her out and keep my Bro License?

I’m not best placed to answer this question; partly because I’m not a bro, but mainly because the word ‘bro’ is repugnant to me. Yes, even when people are using it with mild irony. It is like the linguistic equivalent of acid reflux.

So, to put it in language I CAN stomach: this is the same situation as arises in Chaucer’s ‘The Knight’s Tale‘ (AKA bros before prose). In that, they settle it because [600-year-old SPOILER ALERT!] the god Saturn intervenes and one of them dies so the other one gets the girl by default.

In your case, Freddie, rather than relying on a god and one of you dying, maybe you could simply see which of you the barista prefers – if indeed she is single, heterosexual and has any interest in either of you, because she is a SENTIENT WOMAN and not merely your prize. If she DOES like one of you, the other should retire from the contest with grace. If she likes neither, the Bro Code can continue to be adhered to without underlying disharmony.

If that solution is not satisfactory to you, hire a solicitor to comb the Bro Code for loopholes. But it’ll cost you.

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To solve AMT254 mystery of the continuing existence of Artex, Pete has written in to say:

My dad works for Artex, and I can reveal that one of their biggest sellers is a sort of plaster stuff for covering up horrible Artex.

Makes you wonder if that’s what they had in mind all along.

I can accept that conspiracy theory far easier than I could accept the notion that there are still people out there who actually wish to smear Artex all over their interiors. Of their houses, I mean. What you people do with your own bodies is none of my damn business.

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In Answer Me This! Episode 254, we consider whether it’s acceptable to share creamy substances with your partner in public. Ice cream, that is. What did you think we meant, you dirty birdy?

We also discuss:

netball
space food
Artex
AMT wedding lists
Tanzanian supu vs. Jewish chicken soup
tiger penis vs. whitebait penis
the Kennedy Space Center gift shop
greetings card inspiration
cleaning up after your parents
goat lungs
and
Nossex.

Plus: there’s only one Olly Mann, apart from the other one (and the imposter one); Helen doesn’t know where you need to go to find stimulating material for your braces fetish, so don’t even bother asking; and Martin the Sound Man is crackers. But you can follow him on Instagram if you like crackers (or, eggs and pictures of clouds).

Speaking of clouds, we’re very happy to tell you that we’re now on SoundCloud! The AMT cumulonimbus is amassing and ready to rain podcasts on you at SoundCloud.com/answermethis.

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we throw shade at one of the biggest menaces of the 21st century: cupcakes. Crapcakes, more like! Amirite?

It just remains for us to request your QUESTIONS for forthcoming episodes: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

Bye!

Helen & Olly

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Thanks to John, we now all know how to upset the fairground economy by loading up on horrible cuddly toys above the odds:

Last week when you discussed the grabby machine, Olly seemed amazed that the inquisitor’s friend had been successful at the ‘game’.

I have since tried this technique with a modicum of success. I think looking out for recently filled machines is key to the level of success he enjoyed.

That man really has it made. He gets to enjoy all the fun of the grabbing (a questionable amount) and he’s supplying his own business all the while. I don’t know why he’s not wearing a smart business suit, but maybe the grubby mac is his equivalent of Steve Jobs’s perennial t-shirt. He’s so successful, he doesn’t need his clothes to brag about it.

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Since AMT252, you’ve been telling us about your unpleasant food surprises. Amy in Toronto regrets this light refreshment:

In the summer when I was 8 or 9 I was super thirsty and poured a glass of what I thought was iced tea over some ice cubes. I took a huge long drink (as you do when you are super thirsty) just to realize my mother had put beef stock in the fridge in what she usually made iced tea. My stomach heaved and I gagged, didn’t throw up but felt sick for hours afterward.

To this day, some 40 years late, I feel physically ill and strong revulsion when I think about it. So gross.

Congratulations, Amy; that’s even worse than the paella I made with elderflower cordial instead of chicken stock. You may think that doesn’t sound too bad, but imagine prawns with elderflower, or chorizo with elderflower, or onion with elderflower. If your imagination is at all accurate, it will tell you that that is NOT an agreeable combo.

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It’s a double dose of Disney on the site today, with this update from Chesca:

This is a very delayed follow up to episode 238 where I asked for advice on whether I should go work in Disneyworld in Orlando.

Are there any questions you would like me to find out for you while I’m working for The Mouse?

Readers, go to the comments to post your Disney queries for Chesca to address when she embarks upon her spying missionnew career.

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Herron has written in with eye-witness experience of the Disney sword in the stone experience as speculated upon in AMT253:

As of 2006, it was still being done. My wife & I took our 2 boys, ages 4 and 7 at the time, to Disneyland in California. Merlin (long white beard, purple robe & hat) gathered people around a rock with an anvil on it and a sword handle sticking out of the anvil. He had some burly man try to pull the sword out but (ha ha ha) no go. Then, Merlin called to my older son, Cole, to try. Shazam….he pulls the sword up (though it never came completely out … Merlin’s good, but Disney lawyers are more powerful). There were cheers; burly man looks sheepish; all are happy.

Contrary to what you said, there was no ruling over the Magic Kingdom for the day (just as well, not sure I want to live in a land ruled by a 7-year-old). He got to wear a crown for about 30 seconds. But he did get to take home a special medallion.

Kris has also written in with the inside scoop on this magical weapon-pulling. WARNING: If you don’t want THE MAGIC RUINED, do not continue reading this post. If your eyes are still following these words, we are NOT responsible for the destruction of your dreams. Ok? Kris says:

I’ve worked at Disneyland Paris now for ten years, in the show department, imagineering and I’m even one of the voices on the phone when you call Disney.

Sorry to spoil the magic.

I’m crushed, Kris. CRUSHED. But not so crushed that I can’t wonder what an ‘imagineer’ is and how I can become one.

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We kept the picture of this monster small, but click on it to see the big version. But BEWARE, it may make you spit out your breakfast. But, believe it or not, someone wishes to own this bear SO MUCH that it has caused a rift in a friendship. Hear all about it in Answer Me This! Episode 253:

Today we discuss:

summer jobs
summer camp
rat poison
Australia’s bush capital
Helen vs. Michael Jackson
Refreshers vs. Refreshers
Crash vs. Crash
dying and decaying alone
handmade cheques
funfair capitalism
the sword in Disney’s stone
and
lobster hunting.

Plus: Olly is all about the winning, not the taking part; from humble childhood aspirations, Helen grew up into this (warning: disturbing); and Martin the Sound Man seems upset that Kids These Days prefer Nemo to Pinocchio. Nobody likes a fibber, Martin.

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android), Olly describes how the late Margaret Thatcher out-Beadled the late Jeremy Beadle. Maybe he pranked her back in the 80s and this was her comeback. What a pair!

As usual, we invite you to send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. From those, more AMT will be begotten.

See you next week,

Helen & Olly

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Our next questioneer Voni from Birmingham is like, baby, baby, baby urrrgh, like baby, baby, baby, NOOOO:

Last weekend a friend of mine had her first baby. As per usual with new parents, she’s been putting pictures of the baby on Facebook and everybody and their mum’s been cooing over them. I’m really happy for her, as I know she really wanted this child and she’s obviously delighted with him. However, I just do not care!

I think my friend having this baby is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m so tired about hearing about other people’s kids and wedding plans, I just can’t muster the enthusiasm required of me for these situations. So, answer me this: Am I a horrible person for not caring about this baby?

If you are, then you can join the legion of horrible people who email us similarly lamenting the onset of the new generation, especially when it shits up their Facebook feeds with countless photos of infants.

Happily for you, software has come to your rescue: unbaby.me is a Chrome plug-in that replaces baby photos on Facebook with pictures of other things.

I’ll let you know when they come up with a plug-in to block out mortgage- and marriage-chat.

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Release the ‘Political Correctness gone MAD’ hounds, to chomp on this question from Nathan from Nottingham:

Recently my wife bought a load of stuff from the community art shop including a bag full of pipe cleaners of various colours and sizes.

So answer me this, would any kids really take up pipe smoking because of exposure to pipe cleaners? And can you please think of a better name than ‘chenille sticks’ (or ‘fuzzy benders’)?

Readers, do propel yourselves to the comments to answer the following questions:

1. Did you take up smoking as a direct result of playing with pipe cleaners when you were a child?

2. Have you ever cleaned any sort of pipe with a pipe cleaner? (Keep your answers U-rated, thanks)

3. Since hardly anybody is going to answer ‘Yes’ to question 2, if pipe cleaners rarely actually clean pipes, what would be a more appropriate name for pipe cleaners? (Again, I invite you to keep it suitable for the children.)

4. The term ‘politically correct’ hardly makes sense, does it?

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Last week, we discussed the peculiar wince arising from eating something that tasted completely different to your expectation. Davi from Chicago comments:

In the vein of your discussion in episode 252, I have a story to tell. My first year in college, my friend Big Mike came into our apartment, giddy with excitement because he had just illicitly obtained a handle of cheap whiskey. He left momentarily to go to the bathroom or something — an opportunity my friends and I took to pour his whiskey out into another container and refill the handle with diluted soy sauce, which very convincingly reproduces the color of bad whiskey. When Big Mike came back, we all pretended to be drinking some and encouraged him to do the same. Needless to say, he was not very pleased.

I am very pleased though, Davi – pleased that you didn’t replace the whiskey with piss. I think that’s what we were all expecting from the first couple of sentences of that email, right?

Here’s what Rachel from Sale really was not expecting:

I was at a National Trust car park with my family, sitting in the car and we were just about to leave. My mum then passed me a conker and told me it was a Malteaser. I thanked her and put it into my mouth. Instead of chocolate I tasted soil and spat it on the floor. It was disgusting!! Answer me this: why do parents play tricks like this on their children??

Ahem – because it’s funny, parents, am I right? Until your beloved child chokes to death on a conker.

And shame on Rachel from Sale’s mum for pulling a prank on NATIONAL TRUST SOIL!

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AMT252′s special guest Isy Suttie is kinder in spirit than the average casting agent, as demonstrated by Ben:

After listening to last week’s podcast, the point was raised that on casting calls the casting director might not want to hurt your feelings.

However a few years ago I had an audition for the stable boy in the HBO series Game of Thrones. On the casting call it said “small very fat stable boy”.

PS I didn’t get the part… I wasn’t fat enough.

That’s what they told you. Maybe they were taking care of your feelings by not saying you were too crap at acting, or the wrong kind of fat. Or that horses bolt at the sight of you. (No offence, Ben; I’m purely speculating.)

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Happy Special Guest Episode day, listeners! For today, in Answer Me This! Episode 252, we are delighted to be joined by Isy Suttie:

With Isy we discuss:

allowable celebrity shags
A Level revision tips (caution: may not work)
buying condoms
slapping your thighs with mirth
emu pasta
Twitter by osmosis
clean-up dogs
neighbourly mysteries
the curious habits of Seann Walsh
Dans le Noir
cheese vs. butter
online bingo vs. offline bingo
otters vs. bears vs. gummy bears
the ‘Roseanne Barr type’
beetle drives
and
Roald Dahl’s Magic Finger.

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we learn more about the pitfalls of fantasy crushes – especially when they’re on Isy – then address a question from James about why girls wear school ties when adult women rarely wear ties (Diane Keaton and Janelle Monae notwithstanding).

If this episode makes you wish for more Isy, her new series Love Letters is on Radio 4 Extra and will be on Radio 4 at the end of April; the latest and last series of Shameless is airing on Channel 4; her recent Sky Living musical comedy Miss Wright is still available on your Skyboxes; and Peep Show is always worth a rewatch.

It’s always worth sending us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Furnished with those, we shall return next Thursday with AMT253.

Helen & Olly

PS Click here to hear our previous special guest episodes.

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For the first time ever on AMT, we have a question of cicadas. It is from Sam from Charlottesville, Virginia:

I live on the east coast of the United States, and every 17 years millions of cicadas emerge from the ground to fill the skies and cover the trees as they produce the next generation of cicadas.

Ordinarily I am not one for eating insects, but I don’t have a shellfish allergy, and it seems a shame to let them all go to waste. Are there any good recipes for cicadas? What beers, wines, and liquors pair well with cicadas? Are there any good theme parties that incorporate cicadas?

Readers, over to you: how best to celebrate this momentous event? Dressing like a cicada? Strapping on your prosthetic proboscis and getting hammered on sap? Emulating the cicada’s song by choosing a John Secada number at karaoke?

Or, battening down the hatches and hiding indoors until you’re certain the other nine Biblical plagues aren’t going to follow?

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Reader, feel free to go to the comments to answer the following question from Anon; alternatively, charge five people £20 each to answer it on your behalf. For Anon asks a question of pyramid schemes:

Can you please advise on the best way to explain to a family member that the new venture that they are incredibly excited about is CLEARLY a pyramid scheme and that they will never see a return on the thousands of pounds that they have already pumped into it?

Other family members seem happy to go along with it because it is making the person in question happy at the moment, but this is infuriating as I feel something needs to be said. The trouble is I have been known to have a condescending demeanour on issues such as this and I don’t want to be horrible, so I need some help!

If you really don’t want to be horrible, how about ignoring your relation’s business follies and instead concentrate on your own anger issues, hmmm?

Anyway, the time to have discouraged them from joining a pyramid scheme would have been BEFORE they ‘invested’ thousands of pounds in it. Now it’s too late, you might as well shut up, sit back and enjoy watching the disillusionment set in.

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Today we hear from two lovelorn ladies. The first is Hannah from Diss, Norfolk:

I am currently suffering from the great agony of heartbreak. I keep contacting the guy (my first and only boyfriend) who dumped me, who I’ve been with for 2 years, and he will always text me back. I’m not moving on! How do I break my need for contact with him and move on??

Your need for contact with him will diminish the less you contact him. Sure, that’s a mean old cycle there, but it is up to you to break it: there is no external force which will do that for you (although it would help if he didn’t reply; what does he think he’s playing at, huh?). Try following the classic two-phase recovery process.

First phase: Prevention. Delete his number. This is not an act of hostility, but of self-preservation. Make it more difficult to contact him. While you’re at it, block him from appearing in your Facebook feed; ignore his tweets; cast him into the distant shadows of LinkedIn, or whatever it is people do on there, I dunno.

Second phase: distraction. Keep yourself busy. Gather your friends and/or relatives and socialise. Go on rambles. Join classes. Form a book group. Make sure that you fill every possible moment that you’ll otherwise spend pining for him, and meanwhile, encourage yourself towards activities through which you meet new people; no, not so you find a new boyfriend – although let’s not rule it out – but so you interact with people who have no idea about your heartbreak, and who do not plant you in the context of being your ex’s girlfriend.

Run the two phases concurrently, and be plucky, Hannah. Be plucky.

Now here’s Helen‘s partnership problem:

If you have been shagging someone for over 2 1/2 years but it’s still a secret, are they shagging someone else as well?

Not necessarily, but they’re sure as hell not especially bothered about you. Move on. You can follow the phases as outlined above for Hannah, if that helps wean you off. And next time, remember there surely is a time limit for a shagging-only/friends-with-benefits/funbuddy relationship, and unless you only meet up once every few months or less frequently, it is one year. You do not get to celebrate a ruby anniversary with a funbuddy, Helen.

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As revealed in AMT 251, Isy Suttie will be our very special guest in AMT 252, out on Thursday.

And here’s the proof.

As you can see, when you come to AMT Towers, we literally make you sing for your supper. Since Helen had made a tasty Chinese pork and aubergine feast on the night in question, this seemed reasonable.

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Does a place make a man, or in this case a Mann? If today’s questioneer decides to move his young family to Stanmore, will he find himself raising his own curly-haired cat-obsessed musicals lover? Or will he just benefit from convenient Jubilee Line access and a nice Lebanese restaurant? We consider the benefits of the burb that birthed Olly in Answer Me This! Episode 251:

Today we ponder upon:

morning sickness
Pimms
poisonous plaster
flirting
the Wiki Wiki Shuttle
wiki wiki Ward Cunningham
phone sex vs. sex
carpenter-style jeans
Nupedia
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
human chorionic gonadotropin
the only non-singing, non-dancing part in West Side Story
and
the sanitary iPad.

Plus: Olly needs to learn to speak Bloke; morning sickness won’t put Helen off having a baby, but everything else will; and Martin the Sound Man is a big hairy flowerpot, and no returns.

In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we continue our discussion about equine actors; it moves on to child actors, then somehow to Olly having sex with a Battenburg cake. Which is the inevitable end of any discussion if you continue it long enough.

Next week will be a Special Guest Episode, and if you haven’t listened to the episode yet to find out who it will be, here’s your SPECIAL GUEST SPOILER:

Isy Suttie!

That’s right, Dobby from Peep Show/Esther from Shameless/Isy Suttie from Isy Suttie’s comedy shows will be joining us to answer your QUESTIONS. So send them to us: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

See you next week!

Helen & Olly

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Here’s a question of national – nay international! – importance from Will from Ipswich:

Ok, so I recently learned that one can purchase a packet of 100 stickers which read “For rectal use only” from the internet fairly cheaply.

Now, answer me this! Where would you stick these stickers?? I was thinking the kitchen utensil aisle at Tesco?

Readers, go to the comments straightaway to deliver your suggestions. I’m sure you have some very satirical ideas.

This seems to me to belong in the same chapter of the Prank Lexicon as a jape committed by a schoolfriend (whose brother, coincidence fans, shared a room with Olly at boarding school! small world etc etc). He collected Professional Lady Cards from phoneboxes, then went down to the Sevenoaks branch of Tesco and hid them inside ice cream cartons.

Of course nowadays this would cause a tabloid OUTRAGE and Tesco would have to decontaminate each of its branches and incinerate all the ice cream; but it was the mid-90s, so nobody cared.

Anyway, please endeavour not to stick funny stickers anywhere that could endanger health, and especially not anywhere that will later ruin someone’s special treat of pie a la mode.

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Our next questioneer, Claire in Nottingham, is a lone wolf at her workplace, and would like to stay that way:

I currently have a conundrum concerning some workmates who constantly want to socialise with me. While I sometimes enjoy their presence during the odd lunch break, they have become increasingly annoying and sometimes even offend my sensitive nature (eg racist/sexist remarks).

How can you politely decline without destroying your work life? ‘I can’t make it that day’ doesn’t seem to work for the permanently friendless.

There are various different approaches:

1. The reality TV deflection: ‘I’m not here to make friends.’ Underline the point by putting this as your email signature.

2. The boldfaced truth: ‘I don’t like to mix my work life and my non-work life. Remember when my brother turned up to the office one day as a birthday surprise, and I refused to see him? No exceptions.’ Underline the point by issuing a pan-company request that photos of loved ones on computer desktops be banned immediately.

3. The barefaced lie: ‘All my spare time is completely busy at the moment, because I’m doing an Open University degree/caring for my elderly mother/on day release from prison.’ Underline the point by getting an Open University degree/ordering mobility aids over the phone at work/wearing an ankle tag.

Readers, please add your helpful suggestions in the comments. The winner’s prize will be a full hour’s lunch with Claire (during which she is immediately called away for an emergency Skype conference with the Rotterdam office, and never returns).

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Here’s a question of cash from Dave from Australia, where the banknotes are made of plastic so you don’t kick yourself for leaving a tenner in your trouser pocket when you put them through the wash. Dave says:

A mate of mine went on a holiday in the UK, when he returned he had a one pound coin in his jacket pocket.

What does this writing mean? Is it on all of your coins or just the one pound?

As all Brits are fluent in Latin, we know that the slogan ‘Decus et tutanem’* which appears on the edge of a pound means ‘An ornament and a safeguard’: the writing is ornamental, because otherwise the edge of the pound might look boring; and historically it was also a safeguard, as people used to shave metal off the edges and sell it on, back when coins were still made of precious metals. Though nowadays a pound coin is not worth that much, and a few tiny scrapings off the edge will not attract many bids on eBay, we still have not altered this system. It’s surely only a matter of time before there are advertising slogans around there.

There is only writing on the £1 and £2 coins, as the others are not thick enough to have much good reading around the sides. On the £2 coin it says ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’, in tribute to the fourth album by that most British of bands, Oasis.

If you are enthralled by the subject of the £2 coin and crave more, I direct you to AMT166.

*Yes, Wales and Scotland, I know you have regional variants, but let’s not force Dave to run before he can walk.

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