Answer Me This! - AMT 411: Sperm Donation, Snake Charming, and Open Top Bus Parades

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

AMT411’s questioneers want to know whether snakes really are charmed, if people of Yore really slept sitting up, and what you should do when your mum finds out she’s the child of one of the most prolific sperm donors in history and wants to meet her hundreds of half-siblings. For more information about this episode, visit answermethispodcast.com/episode411. Got questions for us to answer? Send them in writing or as a voice note to [e-mail], or you can call 0208 123 5877 like the old days. Next episode will be in your podfeed 27 November 2025, so get your festive questions in, or hang onto them for a full year.  Become a patron at patreon.com/answermethis to help with the continuing existence of AMT, and to get an ad-free version of the episode, plus bonus material each month, and our live video question-answering session Petty Problems which is next happening 16 November 2025. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, the all in one platform for creating and running your online empire. Go to squarespace.com/answer, have a play around during the two-week free trial, and when you're ready to launch, get a 10% discount on your first purchase of a website or domain with the code ANSWER. Thanks to Naked Wines for sponsoring AMT, and for providing bottles straight from world-class winemakers, cutting out the middleman, delivered to your door. Head to nakedwines.co.uk/answer to get a £30 voucher on your first 6 pack, including free delivery.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now streaming on Paramount Plus is the epic return of Mayor of Kingstown. Warden? You know who I am. Starring Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner. I swear in these walls. Emmy Award winner Edie Falco. You're an ex-con who ran this place for years. And now, now you can't do that. And BAFTA award winner Lenny James.

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Yep, it's the most powerful iPhone ever, plus more peace of mind with your bill over five years. This is big. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at tellus.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. Am I a cannibal if I bite my mind? Nassauley Nets, Asso-Me-Dex, which has posher, eggs, sturgeon or quails. As-Sahony, Answer-Niss, heaven and only, answer-me-this. That's a little bit of a Coronation Street crossover for you right here on Answer Me This.

Is it a crossover if it's one direction only? All right, tribute. I did it because you'll remember, Helen, that last month we were speculating on why characters from Corrie have never appeared in EastEnders. And listener Eddie has been in touch to point out a soap universe crossover that did happen. He says, Coronation Streets Reg Holdsworth did appear in the straight-to-video Emmerdale special, The Dingles in Venice. That's nonsense. Dingles in Ireland. Good point, Martin. The Dingles in Dingle would have been amazing. I looked it up and you can still buy it on VHS for £15, I think its value has held.

But the full title is Don't Look Now for Dingles in Venice, which I just think in the age of online streaming would be a massive disappointment for anyone looking to watch. Don't look now. Is Red Holdsworth running around in a little red hood? Originally they wanted Donald Sutherland. They ended up with Red Holdsworth doing the cameo. And was there an extended sex scene that people thought was real in the Dingles in Venice? Did you know when

Lisa Riley was eating that pinini, it was simulated? Apropos of the last episode where we were asked about getting rid of a friendship tattoo that the questionnaire no longer wants. We've had this from Maggie, who says, I have four tattoos, two of which I deeply regret getting.

I got all of them when I was 18, and my friend had just recently gotten their tattoo license and needed people to practice on. That's a false economy, isn't it? Oh, bargain tattoos, I'll get four. Well, that's what Maggie agrees with, Ollie. I being 18 and stupid, thought this was a great way to get cheap tattoos. Of course, I got what I paid for.

Yeah, I fall into that trap before with the student hairdresser ruse. They're still learning. It's just five pounds, but of course, that isn't permanent. I'd tell you what, Ollie, those people don't want to learn curly hair at all. No, exactly. Maggie says two of them are matching tattoos with my best friend at the time. We have grown apart since then. But unlike your questioneer last episode, I really like these ones.

They remind me of a friendship that I thought would last forever. They look mostly good, better than the other two anyway. The two that I hate are a one-eyed goat, not a euphemism, and a bloated, ugly fox. Is this like a fox corpse that's been floating around in a river and has got swollen? The fox could be fixed up by a more practice tattoo artist if I ever wanted to get around to doing that, but the one-eyed goat has got to go. Right. A totally different friend is thinking about getting into tattoo removal.

And I told her I would be her first customer. Learn from your mistakes. Exactly. My friend is thinking about getting into tattoo removal. Listen to yourself. Find a trusted practitioner. Jesus Christ. Let them practice on someone else.

Isn't it very expensive? Again, save up. You get what you pay for. Yeah, you get what you pay for. Maggie says, as I'm a few years older now than 18, I can honestly say I will likely not. never get another tattoo, but good for people who get ones they actually like. I wonder whether when she says one-eye goat, she means cyclops.

Ooh. Is it cyclops a goat? Well, cyclopia can affect all kinds of different species. And I know from being an avid reader as a child of Ripley's believe it or not, that that can include goats. Oh, okay. The two orbits for the eye have failed to form so they come out as well. It happens in humans as well, which is where the cyclops myth comes from.

Right. The point is, that had spiritual significance, didn't it, for people, albeit some time ago. So maybe if you are stuck with a one-eyed goat, you could at least answer the inevitable question, why have you got a one-eyed goat on your whatever, with some, you know, classical-sounding mumbo-jumbo. Oh, it's a powerful mythological symbol of the complexity of human nature. Yeah, I like that idea, just recontextualising the tattoo. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my Cyclops. Yeah, I got it done when I was 18 because I was just really well read. Maybe you could put it in a little frame

Like get a frame tattooed around it So that that adds to the Re-Contextualising It's like not just a representation of the goat It's meant to be a goat that is being Looked at in an art gallery Yeah, that's body art about art, isn't it? Whoa!

Yeah, wow, steep We'll be doing more of this sort of thing, by the way, in our occasional live streaming event, Petty Problems, which is returning. What a treat that is! I got a petty problem A petty problem's not a problem to me. You've got to save the theme tune for the patrons, Martin. That was an exclusive, I guess.

You don't get to hear it on the free feed. It's copyright. It's not mine. With the Pulges stream, OK. So, yes, we do these sort of bimonthly-ish live streams in which we discuss things that aren't very important. Wow. The next one is 10pm on Sunday, November the 16th.

That's 10pm UK time. So obviously a different time for Helena Martin in North America. And indeed, for some of our Australian patrons, They've informed us. They prefer to watch it afterwards, which they can do at patreon.com slash answer me this because it's like 7 in the morning there. I'm really sorry about time zones,

but they're not our fault. I'm really sorry. That's right, yeah. We're not responsible for those. But the live streams are super fun because what is great is hearing from the people who can make it in real time, chipping in on the questions, giving us follow-up information if it's their question, etc.

It's a joy, a communal answering session. Yeah. Join us for Petty Problems by becoming a paid-up patron at patreon.com slash answer me this. Here's a question from Keith in Cambridge who says, I recently broke my collarbone. As you can imagine, it's quite uncomfortable and I've been having trouble sleeping.

However, I've had some success sleeping while sitting up. I mentioned this to a chap I met while walking the dog and he said, of course, in the past, we all slept sitting up. I nodded and it wasn't until later that I thought, what the fuck is this man talking about? So Helen answered me this Relatable, Keith, relatable. Did people used to sleep sitting up

or was this fella talking total shit? I mean, not total, but definitely partial shit. The history of beds actually beds are quite recent in a lot of cultures. Like in the UK, there were really, really expensive pieces of furniture. So aristocrats had them,

but not necessarily everyone else. And also people would sleep communally, even aristocrats on like big piles of hay, covered in furs and cushions and feather pads and stuff like that. Yes, because it wasn't central heating and it's a cold country. Right. And also, beds aren't necessarily where you'd have sex in a culture where they're full of fleas

and aren't changed regularly. You might have sex somewhere else. Well, I think the culture was full of fleas, Ollie. You just had to get used to the flea life. But yeah, people did have sex in these communal beds because I think the attitude to sex was quite different as well. It's just like, oh, that's happening. It's the missing chapter of Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.

Oh, my God. All the buckets are there. I do imagine Roldale would have written that in one of his adult short story collections. Yes. I always think it's like a magic trick when I see animals sleeping standing up. Like it seems so unrelatable to me as a human being that that would be possible. And so although what you're saying about the evolution of the furniture itself is true, the people who didn't have the money for a feathery bed were nonetheless generally lying down,

weren't they? It might be in a hammock or it might be on the floor. But they were lying down. They weren't sitting up, were they? by choice? You know, sometimes people were, and they advise this now as well, like if you have like acid reflux and stuff, it can be eased if you sleep propped up. They weren't like sitting bolt up right in a chair, but like historically people have

been propped up, but not necessarily to the extent that they would make beds shorter just for that. I think when you go to a stately home, beds often look tiny, but that's because the rooms are massive and the ceilings are like 20 feet high, but the beds were all bespoke. So if you were short, you got a bed made to your length. They weren't standard sizes. But also, life was generally less comfortable. Even in a stately home just had to shit into a piece of wood with a hole in it, didn't you?

We went to disheum together a couple of weeks ago when the toilets were those pieces of wood with a hole in. I didn't go for a sitting down wee whilst I was there, so I did not experience that. Oh, you missed out. Did you have to weed through a hole in a piece of wood mounted to the wall? Yeah. I think quite a lot of the everyone slept sitting up myth is because in medieval paintings. There were a lot of depictions of people propped up in a bed,

which I think was A, to make it very clear that they weren't dead because dead people would have been depicted like lying flat and B, so you could see more of them, you could see their face. More features, yes. Right, and also beds at the time sagged a lot more, like everything moved around a lot more. If they had ropes suspended, like the ropes sagged during the night with your weight, so you might wake up with your head like higher relative to your body

than you'd gone to sleep with it. Sure. I'm not going to sleep sitting up. though. If that was something that humans found comfortable, then airlines wouldn't be able to charge an extra two grand per ticket for a bed because the demand would not be there. My mum finds it a lot easier to sleep sitting up or partly sitting up in a sort of motorised chair because it's like she has a lot of injuries and physical disabilities, so it's hard of her to get up. And also when I was in hospital, I couldn't lie flat because there was stuff wrong with my neck.

So like, depending how your body works, there's often quite a lot of utility to sleeping not flat. yeah okay but then that's a different conversation that isn't it that's how can i make it less uncomfortable uh you know my mother-in-law as well she had esophical cancer at one point so she also sleeps with her head elevated because she's less likely to choke she's got used to that yeah but that wouldn't be a preference that's like that's less uncomfortable it's not more comfortable do you know what i mean like you wouldn't you wouldn't suggest to people who haven't had that that would be more comfortable because it obviously wouldn't the myth that often goes around to accompany the, in the past, everyone slept sitting up thing, is that people were very

superstitious about breathing in bad air. So if you propped your head up, you're above the bad air. But I was like, what difference does, like, a foot and a half make of elevation? Well, yeah, but when there were rats running around on the floor, that must have been quite vivid. Do you what I mean? Like, being just a little bit further away where your head is. Maybe that did make people feel better. Rats can climb. Here's a question from Melanie, who lives on a small dairy goat farm in extremely warm. rural Ohio.

Wow. One of my goats has one eye. Would you like a tattoo of it? She doesn't say. Once a month, I make a trip to the post office to mail my milk samples. Oh, my God. Melanie, in like two lines. You've painted such a big picture.

And I admire that. Every time I go to the post office, she says, I end up waiting five to ten minutes for someone to notice that I'm there. It's a small town. There is only one person working there, and they often alternate between helping customers and sorting the mail, using loud machines in the back. I don't want to be rude, but saying, hello, excuse me, doesn't seem to have a long enough duration or a high enough volume to reach

the back of the post office. Today, while standing at the counter, I'm contemplating, I'm sort of texting us from the counter. I'm contemplating if a longer series of words might help my voice to be heard in between the kachunks of the mail sorter. But do I stage a conversation with an imaginary friend? That's an option. Only for the person to walk up and realize I am in fact alone, perhaps a pre-prepared monologue, or pretend I'm in a musical and simply burst into song. Helen answered me this, what is the least weird way to have a one-woman conversation in front of the post office until you get noticed? Oh, I wouldn't go for the least weird, I'd just go for the most effective. And I love the idea of staging a one-person musical.

I think there'll be such a treat for the person working in the post office, really brighten their day. Yeah, I guess if it doesn't, you're then stuck, you know, wanting a service that they're providing. Well, you haven't lost anything. And you've got to singing practice. What if you wrote a song that was really flattering to the person that works there, how could they possibly resist? I would go for the slightly more subtle, pretend you're leaving a voicemail as you come in. Yep. So then the moment the person hears you, you can be like, okay, bye. But you can be talking into your phone saying loudly, yeah, yeah, we're going to do it at five o'clock and this is my number and then there's a sustained series of words that they can hear.

That's what I would go for. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't even need to be a voiceover. It could be a fake conversation on your phone as long as you've turned the ringer off, obviously. And you could go, yeah, I'm at the post office, but I'm not sure if anyone is here. They really should have a little bell, you know, one of the kind of dingh ones that you slap. Totally they should.

This is on them. The trouble with the human voice is it's not the frequency that is going to pierce through if all these loud machine noises are happening. So maybe take them a little bell. They need a dog. Maybe buy them a puppy. No, that's too much.

Bell does not require maintenance. Buying other people puppies, Ollie, that's bad. We know that's bad. It's like buying someone else a fragrance, isn't it? You shouldn't do it. It's a very personal decision of puppy. At least you can put a fragrance in a drawer. Puppies don't respond so well to that.

I got a question. Email your question. To answer me this podcast at Googlemail.com. Answer me this podcast at Googlemail. Here's mail this podcast at Googlemail.com. And submit this podcast at Googlemail.com. Here's a question from Charlie in Canberra, Australia, who says, I am Charlie.

You may remember me from such questions as, If Adam and Eve only had Cain and Abel, how did they have children? And what happened to the statues in London of when Lock and Manderville. A few years ago, says Charlie, my aunt sent off to one of those DNA websites to find out her heritage. On receiving the results, she phoned my mum to tell her that she needs to get a DNA test done urgently. Gosh. It turned out they were part of a scandal from the 1950s, where they were actually daughters of a prolific sperm donor, Bertold Weisner, who fathered

hundreds of children out of a clinic in London. Extraordinary. My mother, says Charlie, is hell-bent on trying to meet as many half-brothers and sisters as she can. Don't blame her. I know everyone would have a different reaction to this. I would like to meet my half-brothers and sisters to you.

It's got a lot to choose from. And since I live in Australia, she is suggesting I try and meet the, quote, lost family over this side of the world. But Helen, answer me this. Am I a heartless bastard for not wanting anything to do with this debacle? As truthfully, I just don't care. Your thoughts are appreciated as my sister is fully invested in this twist in the family's tale.

I couldn't care less. I don't think you're 100% heartless, but I do think you're 50 plus percent heartless because this is an exceptional situation. And it's a big deal to your mother, so unless you really don't like her, just do her a fucking favour. Like, what is the benefit to getting your own way on this? It means so much to her. Just do it. And if need to, approach it like a documentarian when you're talking to these people. Actually, one of her half-siblings is the documentarian Barry Stevens, who has made work about this situation. Another half-siblings is the comedian Simon Evans. Right. Oh, wow. That's cool. I mean, not cool. Interesting.

You could meet some really interesting people. It's intriguing, isn't it? I mean, this is so many half-siblings to wrap your head around because Bertolt Weissner, it's thought to be at least 600 children that were birthed as a result of his sperm, and it could be over 1,000. I think if you found out that you had, say, 20 half-siblings from a sperm donor, that would be like, whoa. I mean, that's a lot of, it's more siblings than most people have,

but finding out you have hundreds is just, I don't even know how you process that, and this is how your mum is choosing to process it. Imagine doing a DNA test just for a laugh, just for fun, and then finding that out. That's the bit that's hard. I mean, having hundreds is weird anyway, and that's why it's no longer allowed in clinics where you buy sperm for that to happen in a regulated industry. Yes, there were no regulations until 1990 governing this in Britain. It's mad, isn't it?

Yeah, and this was the 30s to the 60s that this clinic was operating. But it does still happen in informal sperm donation, where people hook up on Facebook. It happens a lot in single-sex couples. I've covered this on the modern man, where lesbian couples will often go to someone who's very sympathetic to their situation who has a particular way of doing it, who maybe doesn't charge,

because they see it as a philanthropic thing to do, but it does end up with loads of people's kids all having the same dad because they've met through this informal way online, and that's not regulated. No, there's no rules governing that? There's no rules govern it, but the point is, usually now,

the person who's doing that has a policy of, I'm going to be up front and say it was me all along because the children now have the right to find out it was them later in life anyway. So at least all the kids know that their father was this sperm donor who lives in this place and then get in touch if they want to. I found the story of

this fertility clinic very interesting. Bertolt Weisner's wife was Dr. Mary Barton. She was an obstetrician. And she founded, I think England's first artificial insemination clinic in the 1930s.

at which point it wasn't illegal but it also wasn't legal like there weren't any regulations governing it and it was very very controversial because there were two kinds of artificial insemination that she practiced artificial insemination by husband and yes was the word husband and artificial insemination by donor and the archbishops at the time were like really furious about the latter they were like that's adultery and if if the woman's husband because also they were all married like using these clinics if the woman's husband puts his name on the birth certificate, that is perjury because he's not the biological father. So for Mary Barton to be vocal about providing these treatments at that time and publishing scientifically about them was like pretty brave and bold, but people were still very secretive

about having the treatments because there was so much taboo around them. And she told the parents, you should never let your children know that this is how they were conceived and the donors should never be identified. But it's also all the more reason then, isn't it, if you're in that very narrow niche to be really transparent and trustworthy, it's an abuse of power, isn't it, to not say that the father, by the way, is my husband and also, by the way, he's the father of most of the children we've produced here. I think about 1,500 children were birth because of her clinic, and Bertolt Weisner was a biologist. He was pretty important in, like, hormone and pregnancy research and stuff that led to pregnancy tests being developed. and hormone replacement therapy and stuff. But it was his job to find the sperm donors for the clinic.

It was really difficult to find donors. Like there were some former patients or husbands of patients or acquaintances, but it was still like hard to convince people to do such a thing because of the controversies. And it's not clear whether Mary Barton was aware that her husband dealt with that by providing his own sperm. Or whether she didn't know that the sperm half came from him. you'd ask

if you work in fertility he could be like oh yeah yeah I got this from Bob you remember Bob the professor but you wouldn't be like dear hubby are you committing possibly the greatest ethical breach

it's possible to commit in the service of this kind of work it's a hell of a question to us I have my suspicions that she'd have her suspicions but you're right I haven't looked into it maybe that was her line one vial of sperm looks much like another

I imagine yeah and if she wasn't on the on the collection He could have been like, oh, we had a lot of people in while you were, you know, off at the shops the other day. I mean, this guy must have been masturbating a lot. And at work. You would think that he, as a scientist, would be like, maybe this isn't a good idea because of all these people that don't know their half siblings, maybe meeting and maybe reproducing. Totally. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Of all things, if you're a biologist, you know, the risks that can come with half brothers and half sisters trying to reproduce.

Yeah. Which is, you know, possible, isn't it? You've got thousands out there. Yeah. Well, I thought it was interesting that. the controversy around this wasn't anything to do with that highly problematic aspect and it was because of archbishops and they made various attempts in the 40s and 50s to get the government to pass laws against it. One Tory lord called artificial insemination the brainwave of Beelzebub, but they didn't because they thought if they passed laws about it, that would draw more attention to the fact that this thing exists and they just didn't want the general

public to understand that artificial insemination existed, even though thousands of people was seeking this treatment and there are only like six providers in Britain even in the 50s. And people came from abroad because the clinic produced results, I guess. There were a few other countries that did it. I think in the US and Israel, artificial insemination was practiced much more openly. But I wonder whether Charlie's feelings of not being interested in this, not wanting to find the half-brothers and half-sisters of their own mother, is genuinely that they're heartless and don't care, or whether that's another way of saying, I don't want to have to deal with this, it would be weird to walk into a room full of people who might look a bit like

my mum and learn about some traits that I might have inherited. You describe me like a scene from being John Malkovich. I don't think it would be quite like that. And that's not something I want to have to deal with because I'm secure and happy in myself. And it does it. You understand the difference between why her mother wants it and why they as the next generation aren't bothered. But is it that they're not bothered or is it that they don't want to open cans of worms? I can understand because I don't really know much about my family

and I'm just like, well I never will, you know, it's just not a door I've thought was worth opening it's basically a bunch of strangers that if I tried to meet them. Yeah, my paternal grandfather was absent for my father's life and he was very clear like, I don't want to know him

like fucking, but I'm so curious. I wasn't curious enough to find out more in my dad's lifetime because I knew it would have upset him. But now that he's dead, I'm just like, I could. It's obviously a different situation. But to be like, I don't care and I'm not interested, that seems a little bit of a strong reaction.

But might not be the things that I'm saying. Might genuinely just not, I do not have an interest. And Charlie's sister is very interested. So presumably if Charlie wasn't in Australia and therefore more geographically convenient for meeting certain siblings, then Charlie would just be left out of this whole thing. I mean, I've got a weird thing with my cousin.

I recently went to a sort of reunion, if you can call it that, of some cousins that live in Australia come over and when they come over our extended family hook up. And it's weird because they're my... I can't even do the maths on cousins. I don't understand the cousin maths, don't worry. The removed thing. Yeah. What is it? Their grandfather and my grandfather were brothers. That's how we're cousins.

Okay. And I have more in common with them than I do with my first cousins. And that's because my dad had an older sister and my mum had a younger brother and there's a nine-year age gap between my dad and my mum. So at either end of those families when my parents' siblings had children,

they're wildly different ages to me. My cousins on my mum's side are now 30 and my cousins on my dad's side are now like late 50s. So I just never had anything in common with them compared to the ones that are my age. And I'm saying this because Charlie's saying, basically, I don't care. But you sort of don't know

until you meet people, how you might relate to them. In the case of the ones I'm talking about, it's by age. When I walk into a room and I'm suddenly like, oh, there are people in my family who actually look a bit more like me and behave a bit more like me because they're my age. I had a completely different sort of relationship to them than I thought I was going to. Yeah, I think there's that.

But also, even if you felt like the genetic connection is totally irrelevant, they all share this extraordinary story. Yeah. Story that's fairly recently come to light. Yeah, it's like the post-off. office scandal, except they're all brothers and sisters. Just the way that they're processing that, and maybe they want to process that together, that is the interesting common factor, I think.

Send us, Charlie. We'll talk to them for you. We love talking to people with interesting stories. It's our job. I've made my fortune on the dark web selling machine guns, but my dream is to monetise my homemade cream buns. They don't sit too well listed X2A. K-47s, my poor lonely buns. Build your bun shop of dreams using Squarespace.com. There's 24-7 support if you get it wrong, and you'll be selling more buns than guns before very long.

If you evade the law. Oh, I've just been arrested. Thanks very much to Squarespace for sponsoring Answer Me This. And providing the world with their 2025 refresh, Helen. Ooh! Everything that they have innovated recently, I'm like, that's a clever idea. Really? What's your fave? Well, you know, they've always had templates for all different kinds of websites.

You used to be able to say, like, award-winning templates, award-winning. You've always been able to say, like, I want a portfolio for my photography, or I am a restaurant, so I want a website that's got a page for my menu or whatever. But you can now actually search for a template based on your business, no matter how relatively specific that is. So you can now, for example, type Dance Studio into their prompt and it'll say, oh, okay, well then

as a starting point for that kind of business, you want this template with this font and this thing and it sort of tailors it around the thing that you've put in as a prompt. That's fun. So we could just be like, you know what, today I'm going to pretend I don't make a podcast and just see what my life could look like. Yeah.

It can also do a little audit on your site to make sure that your business is visible in AI search as well. Because of course it's no longer just about being on Google or whatever. It's when people are asking a chat service about a thing that your business is one of those things that can be provided in an answer. So they do that as well. Well, I mean, I hate even having to think about that, but if I can just deflect it to Squarespace, then that's something. Exactly. Head to Squarespace.com slash answer for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch,

save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using archive. answer. Hi, Helen and Olly. I'm Claire from Belfast. And you might be able to tell by my beautiful accent. And I'm so glad that you guys are back. And oh my God, I forgot to say hello to Martin to find back. Hi, Martin. Helen and Olly, answer me this. The skills had fallen from her eyes. What does that mean? It means that your vision, usually your metaphorical vision, had been a But now you can see clearly, probably thanks to some kind of revelation. Which I've never thought about where it comes from etymologically, but I suppose now I think about it, it sounds ridiculous to say. On some level I'd always assumed fish, fish have scales.

So I thought it was too with dead people, like you put something on people's eyes, and then scales falling from their eyes is like they've risen from the dead or something? I mean, you put coins on their eyes. That's different to scales. Coins are sometimes used to scales, aren't they? Like in Big Ben to correct the motor, so it's on the right time. Well, it's not to do with scales as in weighing scales, and it's not to do with coins at all. It is more

like fish scales, but more accurately than that, it's like a scale like a scab, you know, something that's scaly on the human body. Oh. But this is a biblical phrase. It's from the Book of Acts Chapter 9, and it's to do with St. Paul, or before he was St. Paul, when he was Saul of Tarsus

and loved persecuting followers of Jesus. Yeah, big trip to Damascus. previously in the Bible 2,000 year old spoiler he was on the road to Damascus he was struck by a heavenly beam of light and he heard Jesus' voice saying

why are you persecuting me and he was blinded and he had to be helped to Damascus by his travel companions who were like I didn't hear or see anything I don't know what he's talking about and for three days in Damascus he just sat there being blind

didn't eat or drink anything and God was like oh for fuck sake and sent a decisive named Ananias to heal Saul and he laid his hands upon him and delivered a blessing from the Lord whereupon in Bible translation something like scales fell from his eyes and he could see again and that's when he got baptized and started standing Jesus and that is a damascene conversion a literal road to Damascus moment to me this kind of scale seems like he's getting instant cataract

surgery or something yeah yeah yeah I was like it's like cataracts are a bit sort of like scales on Is that a sort of metaphor for them? Well, that's the thing. I think people would have been familiar with the idea of scales on the eyes whereby you couldn't see and you could read it as metaphorical rather than literal scales.

So it could mean like his own ignorance. But the point being, it comes to the non-literal understanding of the phrase because it was the heavenly intervention that caused it, right? So he's suddenly realized a thing. It's not actually that relevant what the biological detail

of what the crust was around his eyes, is it? The point is it's the cause of the interaction with the sublime that has caused him to understand something fully for the first time. I'm not sure where the actual moment of conversion from being anti-Jesus to the point of persecuting people to pro-Jesus to the point of becoming a saint eventually comes in this three-day period. Is it at the point when the beam of light comes down and he hears Jesus's voice? Is it during the three days where he's contemplating?

Because the Bible does not go into detail about that. Or was it when he's cured, where he's like, all right, I guess God gave me laser eye surgery via a disciple. When's the conversion? It lacks a clear dramatic structure, doesn't it? You just have the one moment where the light came down. He was like, oh, I need to stop being an asshole. But it has this extended structure that does not fit traditional dramatic tropes. Another question of scales now from Rob, who says, Helen, answer me this.

How does snake charming work? Does it work? Or is it just a very dangerous parlour trick to get money from tourists? Well, it's not dangerous really, is it? I know that because they remove the venom from them usually by the time they're by the side of the road performing a trick because they need tourists not to die so they can continue to be there. Well, moreover, the people doing the so-called snake charming need not to get bit,

but they tend to remove their fangs. And then they sew their mouths up and just leave a little hole for their tongue to poke out. They can't eat, they can't drink, and they die really quickly from that or infection. That's awful. Snake Charming is really grim. Modern Snake Charming. I'm going to go back to bear baiting. No, that's a sport you can just enjoy.

Through history, snake charming hasn't always been thus. I think in India particularly it originated because snakes were sacred. And the people who were the precursors of snake charmers were rescuing snakes from people's homes and also healing snake bites. But in the 20th century, because Snake Charming was considered like this big part of Indian culture, it became emphasized for tourism. and that led to these kinds of bad practices, which, again, I don't think you're exclusive to India. It's banned there now, technically. But when he says, does it work?

I think what Rob's referring to is, exactly. So the bloke on a thing, what is that instrument called? It's like a recorder, isn't it? It's terrible noise. I'm sorry, that's a culturally intensive thing to say, but that noise is awful. So they go, it's called a pungi or pungi.

A pungi, okay. And then supposedly the snake is tempted up out of its box to that noise. it's been in a dark, confined space. They lift the lid and it's like, what the hell's going on? Supposedly, it's the vibration, isn't it, that brings them out rather than the music? Yeah, they can't hear. So the music is for the human audience. The snakes can feel the vibrations through the ground of that and the snake charmers movement.

And that makes the snake feel threatened. So what you're seeing is actually their defence mechanisms, which is to wave their bodies around. And cobras, because it's mostly cobras, they spread their hoods, the things around their faces they make them big. And the musical instrument is there for them also because they are following its movements. So although they can't hear it, they are fixated upon it. And that is what they are pinning the feelings of threat upon. Right. Okay, yes, that makes sense because what you see by the side of the street, that's a tame version, literally. But to get the snakes to bring them into your performance, you do have to capture a wild snake at some point, right? And I guess that

the pipe music thing, that was used in snake catching. So there must be something in it. They must, if they're distracted by it and looking at it, that is obviously a way that you can get a snake out from under a rock in the first place, isn't it? No, because they're not charmed. They are seeing that as a threatening object. Yeah, yeah. Well, I didn't say charmed.

So it's not helpful in capturing them because it's just going to make them more likely to attack you. Oh, I see. You're better off just going behind them. Right, or grabbing them with a stick that is six feet long so they can't really reach you. I mean, the thing is, if you know where to find snakes, they're really easy to find. I went to a wildlife talk in a park in Aldernum. Yeah. Any charm snakes there? Well, they don't have a snake charmer.

They have a guy wearing a khaki shirt with a doormat. And he puts a doormat down. And then a month later, he goes back and says, look, I put this doormat down. Come over here, kids. Lifts it up. There's guaranteed a snake under there. Wow. What?

Yeah. And I had no, I mean, it's a swamp in a country park. So he knows. That's what I mean. If you know where you're going, it's really easy to attract snakes if you know where they naturally live. I didn't even realise we had snakes in Britain at all. Anyway, put a damp doormat down outside your house. You'll get a snake. Here's a question from Reese in Lincolnshire who says, Olly, answer me this.

Where does the tradition of an open-top bus parade come from? Is it just a British thing? Is it predominantly for football? I don't think I've ever seen one for a rugby club or a snooker player. It's not just for football, but you're really. Right, it's predominantly used for football now. Olympic boxers were actually the first to have motorized processions. Oh, cool. And that kind of tells you a bit about the origins of it in the sense that it's kind of got a classical flavor to it, hasn't it?

You know, the triumphant warrior returns. That's the kind of vibe, right, of being paraded around. And obviously, that's how long some form of carriage parade of an athlete goes back. Obviously, it used to be horses or slaves carrying the athlete through the streets. but that happened for centuries. And the reason for that, essentially, is crowd control is easier along a route than in one centralised place with fans pushing and shoving their way to the front. And so then what happened, essentially, is in the 20th century, obviously they modernised

the horses and the slaves, and they got buses. The first football team in the UK to do it are often claimed to be Manchester United, in 1963, although I found a video of FA Cup winners Sheffield Wednesday parading their trophy in 1935 on an omnibus in Sheffield, which is really cool. So I think what they mean is that Manchester United did the first sort of modern style open-top bus tour, i.e., the audience that were congregated to see it were there just for that. That was the event. You know, we're going to parade through the city and you're going to come.

Whereas I think when Sheffield Wednesday turned up, they were literally coming back from Wembley with their trophy in a bus. It wasn't necessarily a planned thing in the same way. They were in the open top. But they were in an open top omnibus, yes, I've seen the picture. I think that counts. Yeah, I think it counts too. Because you don't take an open top bus all the way back from London to Sheffield

without having a plan to wave your trophy around because it's a very cold way to travel. That's a good point, actually, yeah. Although I'm not sure that that's entirely true either because there was some link between the bus company and Sheffield. So maybe they did take an open top bus. Oh, it was bus spawn. Yeah, my big bus. Anyway, here are some fun facts about open top buses. Sometimes the demand from the crowd is not there.

No. Essex Lower League team, the Duck Ponds FC, organised a celebratory open-top bus parade when they won their league in 2014. And nobody came. Oh, maybe they didn't publicise it well enough. Maybe that was the problem. I mean, 60 people turned up to their matches each week,

so that's still 60 people who couldn't be fucked. Yeah, well, that's people who like watching football and don't necessarily care about seeing people on a bus. I agree. Of course, it backfired because the news story became how they didn't have any fans. They'd spent £1,400, including a victory banner towed across the sky to parade across Harwich. Sometimes, as well, bus tours are arranged pre-victory. Oh, that's bold.

It is bold. I suppose you do have to pre-book a bus. There was a famous one where Scotland did an open-top bus tour just to celebrate the fact, basically, that they had reached the international finals in any kind. Like, they got through to the World Cup. And so, like, it's like, put back in their face afterwards. It's like, ha-ha, do you remember where they did the open-top bus tour and then they went straight out there and flunked out the competition.

But I think it's more forgivable in international competition because particularly countries like Scotland and Wales are excited to be included. But sometimes bus tours are arranged assuming victory and then have gone ahead even when defeat has happened instead. You've already paid for the bus, so why not? Why not use it? In 1976, Southampton secured a shock win against Manchester United States. in the FA Cup final.

I remember it well. But Manchester United went ahead with their planned bus trip. They had no cup to wave. They had a flat cardboard replica fastened to the front of their bus instead. Of course, I don't know very much about sport, but I do know that a significant amount of people

love for Man United to lose, and so I can imagine a lot of people would have turned up in bad faith. So the really interesting example on that one is 1986, which is kind of, I mean, I don't know much about sport either, but you know that's kind of like, peak hooliganism issues, right?

Everton and Liverpool agreed to do a shared open-top bus tour. Shit, really? To showcase the unity of the city, yeah. Because again, I don't know much about sport, but I know that those two teams don't get along. Yeah. And Everton were defeated in the FA Cup and league by Liverpool and then had to share this bus. So this thing that was conceived as kind of Liverpool's two top teams were like Liverpool's rivals one just having thrashed the other together. and there's footage of the squad on the bus

the Everton squad just getting increasingly drunk and miserable as this thing goes around Oh no That sounds awful Would you do an open top bus If you were, I don't mean Of course you'd do an open top bus

For fun to see a city I mean that's everyone loves that But if you were invited To wave from a bus Is that would you say yes What for? Because I've recently successfully mounted a coup Against a government

I don't know Let's say, it would have to be a podcast parade, wouldn't it? The podcast parade of Vancouver, and you get to be on the podcaster's bus. It seems like something I would not necessarily gravitate towards doing. Yeah. You sound Olly like maybe you would love to have the opportunity to go around an open bus. No, I have thought this watching the Disney parade. It's a hard gig, because you just have to keep repeating the same thing

because every 10 feet, there's someone who hasn't seen you 10 feet to go. Right, smile and wave, smile and wave is the first time for everyone. And I just think, that's not fun, actually, after about five minutes, is it? Like two hours, smile and wave, smile and wave. Hard. That no one said victory was easy. Right. Here's a question from Cleber, who says, Olly, answer me this.

How should I approach a neighbour who I've known since I was three years old to discuss the possibility of purchasing her home in the future? She is in her 80s, widowed, lives by herself, Her two adult children barely see her, and we are noticing that she is starting to outsource the upkeep of the house. She's not wealthy for this sort of thing. She is someone that always took a lot of pride in doing it all herself. Q in the housing crisis, the fact that the house is in original condition, so not renovated, etc., and also the fact that location is ideal to me, I can think of many perks to this deal, such as no real estate agent fees,

flexibility in the closing date. I would let her rent the house from me for as long as she needs. The money from the sale would be a big boost to her day-to-day expenses. So, Olly, answer me this. How do you start this conversation? I feel like when is maybe more important than how. Okay. Because it can be an opportune.

I know this because one man approached me at my father's funeral, which was three days after he died, to talk about how his son should run my dad's business. That was too soon. No. Well, he just thought get in there before they make a decision that was not ready for that decision. Oh, I wasted my time at your dad's funeral,

not trying to get in on his empire. It's hard to know when to do it, though, isn't it? Because if you leave it too late, you'd have sold the business. And if you start discussing it before your dad's died, that seems ghoulish too. Yes, that looks like you're going to murder him. Circuling like vultures. I mean, that is probably the worst time.

It's a bad time. There's no good time. Well, what about if you wrote a letter, though, and it meant you wouldn't have to read it at the funeral of your dad three days after he died but it was in writing from there so it's sort of setting precedent as you're the first claimant and similarly maybe this questionnaire could write a letter

for her to read at her leisure so it feels a bit less like well you have to answer on the spot if someone like drops around to your house and then puts this question to you directly I think that's probably right I mean if she is in her 80s and she's no nuisance you were three she'll probably be quite fond, I presume, of you. And if there's a letter from you, that might be quite delightful. The letter doesn't just have to be about that one businessy thing.

You can say other things in the letter. Yeah, but don't clutter the letter with stuff because you don't want her to miss the point. You're not trying to get a pen pal. But people in their 80s tend to love correspondence. Exactly, yes. I think that's right. I think, I mean, conversely, the other way to do it is to kind of drop it in, but drop it in a casual way, not in a way that feels like you've gone over there to say that particular thing.

So if there is the sort of over the garden fence putting the bins out type moment, then obviously that's something that you could try and capitalize on using your actual in the moment feelers for whether that would be appropriate or not. But I can relate to this because the house that I live in is exactly the sort of house that lots of people kind of in their 30s and 40s want to buy. We live in a 120-year-old house, so it's kind of charming. it's in a conservation area so it's pretty it has what they would call

on location location location curb appeal but it's also kind of small enough to not cost millions of pounds despite being relatively close to London so we get these handwritten notes that come through our door yeah and we've had like maybe the whole time I've lived around three or four of these

do they give you bribes like a cookie or anything no but it's strangers and they've come round and written a genuine handwritten note you know as you can see it's not been laser copied and it's not in like a handwritten style font from their computer. It's not comic sans. Yeah, no. It says, hello, I'm Anna. I live in wherever. Just to let you know, me and my husband have always been very jealous of your house. We think it's lovely.

If ever you were interested in selling, we'd be interested in buying. Please keep my details. And we're not trying to sell. And actually, I must say, like in my limited experience of financial transactions around property, I would say to anyone listening who cares about my advice. Just pay the extra for an estate agent. Seriously, it's back to the cheap tattoos thing. Like, people trying to represent themselves. Like, just having someone on your side with experience of all the weird shit that solicitors can do and someone who will just balsally defend the asking price is worth it.

Because it's a massive transaction. What does it matter? Yeah, most people with agent in their job title are Satan, but they are good at having difficult conversations about money that you don't want to have. And I exclude literary agents from my satire. analytic analysis. You guys are okay. You never know the converse to you. You never know what would have happened if you didn't have the agent. But you just,

there are enough conversations where the agent is useful that I think is worth it. But anyway, although I've never replied to any of those notes. Do you keep them in a folder? I don't because we're not intending to move. But I'm not dismissive of them, is the point. It always prompts a conversation between me and my wife. Like, you know, okay, yeah, but what would you take? That's the point, isn't it? like we're saying no we don't want to move no we're not interested but it naturally

prompts the conversation around the dinner table once you have the letter in your hand. Everyone has a price exactly if it was 1.3 million pounds then you'd think about it wouldn't you because that's a massive like ridiculous profit on what we pay for it so I guess it starts that conversation so I agree that the letter is probably the way forward I think it's a bit easier to brush off strangers

and in this case this is someone that they've known for a really long time You could possibly frame it as a conversation about how she's doing. Are things difficult for her now? In case this information is useful, if you were ever thinking of moving, do let me know because blah, blah, blah. You know, just frame it as something that maybe could help her during a difficult time. Yeah, but you don't want her to report it to her adult children

who barely see her as the guy from next door is trying to manipulate me into selling. That's what I'm saying. It's like very gentle. Yeah, but, you know, they're only going to go on her reportage of that gentleness. what if it sounds like you're trying to well then you better practice it in a mirror first make sure you don't sound like an unscrupulous shark but I would say basically go for it

what have you got to lose what you've got to lose is that she won't like it and she'll feel like you're someone she no longer wants to talk to and that doesn't really matter because you don't really talk to it so you might as well try go for it well that brings us to the end of this episode of Answer Me This but if you want to fuel future episodes of Answer Me This then we need your questions

in the form of emails or voice notes, all of our contact information is on our website. Answermedyspodcast.com. And could you do us a lovely favour if you are so inclined? You know, the podcast has been back for nearly a year, and yet every week it comes to our attention that some people are only just learning this. So if you have the opportunity, could you remind people?

Yes, because there are loads of people out there who used to listen to the show back in the day who don't know we're back yet, because the technology doesn't really tell. them in the way that it used to. So please, if you've got friends who used to listen to answer me this, just tell them with your actual mouths that we're back. Or with a, I don't know, a mouth of like a talking doll you've got programming it into a builder bear. But if you don't mind telling people, that would be great. Because personal recommendations are still

the best way for people to get podcasts, I think, or for people to be reminded that their beloved old podcast has been resuscitated from the dead. Exactly. We've actually got a new automatic cat feeder that you can record a personal greeting on. Whoa! You can podcast to your cats. Yeah. Olly Man's dream. So yeah, if you've got one of those, program itself, people answer me, this is back.

Then when they're in the kitchen, and it just goes off in the background, they'll be reminded and the animals will be fed. It's a way. You know, use what's at your disposal. It'll be very much appreciated. And also, we'd love it if you checked our other work as well, like the Ollie Man.

Stable of podcasts. Yes, all of my shows are listed upon my website, Ollieman.com. Although I did actually mention last episode that it was the 10th anniversary of the modern man this month. That's right. Congrats. Yes, the modern M-A-Double-N.

Pardon of my name. But I didn't want to spoil the middle feature before the man fans had heard it, but I can now tell you what it is. The interview I've done this month is with a chap called Matthew Caudill from Ohio. And he is someone that I've been chasing as a guest, Helen,

ever since you and I had our internet slot on Saturday edition on Five Live all those years ago. So it sounds quaint now, but there was a time when Helen and I used to pop up on the radio 15 minutes a week and be like... Explaining the internet to people. Here's what's happened on Facebook this week. Back in 2013, he made a viral video. He was 22 years old and he made a YouTube video confessing to having killed a man

through his drink driving. And I remember watching that video then and thinking, after he's gone to prison and got himself sober, that is a fascinating story like A, obviously having that experience anyway and coming to terms with yourself but B, choosing that method to tell everybody in a world where people weren't just broadcasting everything about themselves like they do now

and making this kind of professionally produced video about it as well. I just thought it's a really fascinating thing and I've literally been chasing him for years through LinkedIn and he finally agreed to be interviewed by me it's obviously not hilarious it's quite a serious interview but it's a really really good one so that's on the modern man this month So it lived up to your long-held dreams.

It did, I think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are my dream guests. Like, I don't have a list of celebrities I want to interview. There's a list of people whom slightly extreme experiences have happened. So right now, you could be planning the interviews that you want to get in like 14 years time. Oh, there's some we've got in the can that we did years ago that we still can't play for legal reasons. One day we will. No way. Helen, what do you have coming up on your other shows? Well, lately on The Illusionist, I ran an interview that the very brilliant performer and writer Molly Nayla did on her podcast, Making Trouble, with me, about creativity, and it's basically me brain dumping a lot of chaos and despair, so you can hear that on The Illusionist,

and also check out Molly's podcast at Making Trouble and her other work at mollynaylor.com. And also on Halloween, you can see me on the video show, 50 Shades of Tay, talking about the film Teen Witch. Martin, what's happening? I've taken my music off. Spotify, that's the big news. Because, fuck them. But if you go to Ban Camp, you can actually get the music. You can just demo stuff, hear what you like, and download it.

We do quite often get messages to answer me this with people saying that they're playing your old tracks, which is very nice, I think. Oh yeah, the band used to be called The Sound of the Ladies, which is a crap name, and so I changed the name to Pale Bird. And I think some people don't know that I've been making music since 2017 is Pale Bird

and all of the old stuff is there as well it's definitely a better I mean I don't know if it's a good name but it's a better name and it's slightly less likely to suggest that it's a bunch of novelty songs which it's not it's existential folk music Palebird.bondackamp.com

that's the one there we go remember as well this URL Patreon.com slash answer me this for petty problems on the 16th of November we will see you there

if you pay for the privilege and we're looking forward to it and Answer Me This will be back with a fresh episode in your pod feed on the last Thursday of the month which means 27th of November That's right, yes Get your questions in now, see you then

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