Answer Me This! - AMT216: Keeping Up Appearances, Non-Alcoholic Beer, and Grapes

Episode Date: May 24, 2012

Keeping Up Appearances, Non-Alcoholic Beer, and Grapes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the lights go out, will the Greeks want their torch back? Answer me this, answer me this This Jubilee be a new gig for Aaron Barshak Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this We've got a really easy question to start off this episode with, Ollie. It's from Rebecca from Manchester who says, Answer me this, will you wish my boyfriend john a happy 30th

birthday it was on sunday no no so cruel no one listening cares do they about john's birthday rebecca does but then we have a bigger audience than john exactly that's why we don't do birthday shows because it's not just about you is it there's this thing they do have you seen live with on channel five no it's a daytime show they have a different host every day the day i saw it was my lean class hosting they have this thing where they have a picture frame on the desk your child can be in the picture frame i don't have a child exactly so i don't have a child either so i'm watching thinking well my cat can't be in the picture frame so why not why can't coco be in the picture frame when will there be a quality for felines on daytime tv and so you call up and you say bradley's gonna be four years old

can he be in the photo frame today please my lean and then my lean says it's bradley's fourth birthday here's a picture of bradley ah and the whole audience goes ah and then they all clap and everyone at home is just thinking so fucking what and then and then after that they're not i bet they're people going oh bradley's cute i'll steal him if i see him at the supermarket okay maybe it's for crazy deranged elderly women like a lot of daytime television yeah the thing that i just find weird is bradley's not watching he's four years old the next item is going to be how to cook after the menopause he's not interested he might think what am i going to do when i go through the male menopause how will i feed myself anyway yeah whatever happy birthday john although we are asked a lot we have a policy

of not doing a shout out unless it is accompanied with a question that we wish to answer and in this case it is because rebecca says i bought john the answer me this book and the first 10 episodes for his birthday present oh well my attitude to you has changed entirely thank you very much yeah although maybe you'd have been better to start on episode 30 she says i put the downloaded mp3s on a cd very creative designed a cover very creative and went to a photography store to have it printed now that's just ridiculous why couldn't you just print it at home or just do something with pencil and pen when i got home i discovered that i had been given someone else's photos this got me thinking ollie answer me this what is the strangest thing you've ever received by mistake

and did you keep it um every year i get sent a round robin letter at christmas oh lucky a family in canada who i've never met before and who are obviously intending the recipient to be someone else what someone who lived in your flat before you yeah but not the guy that i bought the flat from that i have a forwarding address so they could have been doing this for 30 years and i know that i know listeners that what i should do is write to the address in canada although that would cost me money exactly is write to the address in Canada, although that would cost me money. Exactly expensive. Write to the address in Canada and say Elizabeth Peters, or whoever it's addressed to, doesn't live here

anymore. She's dead! It's like, oh no! She found your round robin so boring she jumped off the nearest skyscraper. But I actually am sort of into the story now. What happens next? So annoying. I want to know, is Simon going to still be working in the

local nursing home next year did they manage to sell the holiday cabin at the lake the people i know that do round robins to my parents they seem to have a really tragic life but the tonal shifts are incredible because it'd be like unfortunately robert's leukemia has returned but we had a wonderful holiday in france at the same old place. My tapestry hobby is really going great guns. I have not recovered from my depression, though. The best example I've heard of this kind of thing, actually, someone being given something that they weren't expecting.

Presumably wasn't intended for them either. Yeah, one of our listeners told us that their husband or partner, whoever it was, got them a classic edition of a novel they liked from an antique store. And when they opened it inside, there was a map of Nazi Germany. That's a freebie. That's extraordinary, isn't it?

I think things in old books are a different category. I mean, this, she has got the wrong photos. Presumably somebody has her homemade Answer Me This episodes one to ten cover. Someone who's expecting pictures of their holiday in Ibiza as well. Where are my my wedding photos who are these bingers uh well uh from our back catalogue to a question about another comedy show that trots out the same old shit week after week it's from phil from billericay who says my as levels start this week i am so glad i'm not at school by the way

just want to put that in there and i've developed sinusitis a throat infection and conjunctivitis show off as a result I've been in bed says Phil watching back-to-back keeping up appearances on Netflix rather than revising as much as I usually would are you trying not to get better Netflix don't really push keeping up appearances do they in their campaign literature there's a lot of photos of Russell Crowe there's a lot of photos of Johnny Depp on the tube I haven't seen one of Patricia Outledge Phil says Helen answer me this how the hell did the makers of keeping up appearances

stretch it to 44 episodes every single one is a slight reorder of the previous one just like life the format is always the same like on the Today programme on Radio 4 don't get me wrong I love love Keeping Up Appearances. I just can't understand how the BBC thought it was more worthwhile producing five series of that show than just rerunning it.

Well, they would have gone longer, actually, except Patricia Rootledge didn't want to do any more. Yeah, she thought she'd be known forever as Hyacinth Bouquet, which she has been. Although, in my mind's eye, the set is that of Keeping Up Appearances. She is doing Alan Bennett monologues. So those two things are conflated. Of course, Keeping Up Appearances was written by Roy Clark,

who's the guy who wrote all 31 series of Last of the Summer Wine. Oh God, which I've never seen, but I feel like I have. It's a cliche and I'm not the first to say it, but it's true that every time you see five minutes of Last of the Summer Wine, it is compo in a tin bath on a hill. It's almost like one of those Greek myths where someone does something bad,

so they're condemned to be pecked to death by birds forever. Like they never die of it, but they're always being pecked to death. Are you comparing compo to Prometheus? And also, there are so many sitcoms, particularly of certain eras, that are, as Phil says, there are so many sitcoms, particularly of certain eras, that are, as Phil says,

regurgitating the same formula, the same characters, the same catchphrases. I mean, how varied was One Foot in the Grave? I'd like to point to a counterfactual, though. The kind of basic formula

of Red Dwarf is you've got a bunch of isolated people way in the future and humanity's died out. And so it's just them talking rubbish. And for the first few seasons,

it was incredibly funny. When they started using the science fiction context to its full, it went a bit shit. Well, I wonder if that's because at the end of the day, what the English like their sitcoms to be about, really, is people's aspirations getting crushed

and the class system. However you try and explore that, in whatever position you put it, basically, that's what it comes back to. And that's what Keeping Up Appearances is very good at. I mean, it is the ultimate kind of class sitcom of our age, isn't it? Yeah. Working class girl, wants to be upper class, lives in a middle class area. And that's what all the humour comes from.

Which makes me think it wouldn't translate at all. But it's massive in America, Keeping Up Appearances. Good God. It's one of the big shows on PBS. And when they do fundraising drives in the States, they use Keeping Up Appearances as the leverage for why you should donate money so you can get more quality content like this 20-year-old, slightly unfunny British sitcom.

Hello, Helen and Ollie. It's Daniel and John in Edinburgh. Helen, answer me this. Why are basket cases people who are a bit crazy? It's quite an unpleasant route, actually, the origin of basket case. And it originally meant soldiers who had lost all of their limbs.

And therefore... Had to be carried in a basket. Yeah, except they apparently never were carried in baskets. It was just that that was the handy reference for a multiple amputee. And then it kind of, I suppose, did mean people who were incapacitated by mental disorders as well as physical, which I guess could count for a lot of soldiers. Yeah, post-traumatic stress disorder is ruinous.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes perfect sense. Not funny, but very interesting. It's an all bit endgame, isn't it? Here's a question from An Post-traumatic stress disorder is ruinous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes perfect sense. And not funny, but very interesting. It's an all-bit endgame, isn't it? Here's a question from Anish in Munich who says, I'm currently on a work secondment in Munich, which, as I'm sure you know, is a big beer drinking town. Yes.

Even my limited knowledge of geography has stretched that far. Ollie, answer me this. Would it be legal for children to drink non-alcoholic beer? Only if it's genuinely zero alcohol because a lot of them have got a trace haven't they exactly most low alcohol beers are called low alcohol rather than no alcohol because they do have i think it's 0.05 of alcohol so you're not going to get pissed on it but it's actually technically illegal to sell it to children children are only allowed technically to buy completely alcohol-free beer of which there are very few brands and they're not really on sale in places like supermarkets because they

don't actually want to encourage children to be getting a taste for beer well also i'd be surprised if little kids like the taste of beer because children tend not to like bitter tastes yeah but you'd have thought as well that if you were giving a child a beverage that looked like beer you would get into trouble where do you draw the line? Because you get candy cigarettes, wine gums. Yes. If you're selling things that are based around the fact that they taste or look a bit like alcohol anyway

that's the distinction that's being made not whether it's actually got 0.5 content or not. You can even get those liquid sweets that come in a syringe that you squirt into your mouth. What kind of example is that setting? That is outrageous. I wonder if anyone's ever injected that directly into their bloodstream.

Yeah, probably. That'd probably kill you, wouldn't it? Yeah, probably. Not like delicious heroin. I've got a question. Email your question to answer me this podcast at googlemail.com to answer me this podcast at googlemail.com

to answer me this podcast at googlemail.com. To answer me, there's podcasts at googlemail.com. To answer me, there's podcasts at googlemail.com. So, Retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car that ripped off an iconic American car. On Thursday, how American airlines invented air miles. And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America.

We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a question from Anna Lotta from Malmo in Sweden, who says, Helen, answer me this. Why do people always bring grapes to the hospital in British films and TV? Because the grapes have been in a very bad accident and they need surgery. No? It's shorthand that, isn't it?

What for? I'm visiting a sick person, they're a sick person. Exactly. Invalid. It's like if you have a dinner party scene, someone turns up with a bottle of wine in their hand. You know that means I'm going to a dinner party. You know that the wine isn't a crucial plot point.

It's just a prop. Grapes are very common. Hospital food, aren't they? Why is that? I suppose because A, they're full of vitamins. B, they're very soft, easy for an invalid to ingest. That's what I always thought. C, very easy to swallow because they're full of vitamins b they're very soft easy for an invalid to ingest that's what i always see very easy to swallow because they're just water but there is also another reason why

grapes as a gift for the sick is such a common trope because there was a famous cranky health method called the grape cure which my father used to do in fact because he loves cranky health things have very scanty scientific basis this was popularized by joanna brant who was a naturopath from south africa and she believed that grapes essentially cured everything so if you had a tumor they would melt it away they would knit your broken bones they would solve all your gastric troubles so of course my dad believed this for about six weeks until he got sick of grapes and his teeth started getting rotted away by the acid so i think once that idea had taken hold uh it took quite a long time for anti-propaganda to exist about the grape cure i wonder though if there are circumstances under

which you're not allowed to bring grapes because they're presumably there are wards where you can't bring any food at all actually bringing quite a lot of things is frowned upon in hospitals my mum was in hospital for a lot of last summer. And you're not allowed to bring flowers. There's a blanket band of flowers. They get in the way. There's very, very little space, very few flat surfaces. They're moving the patients around from room to room quite a lot as well. I think that's a shame that you can't have a little bit of ornamentation in your hospital room

if you're going to be there for weeks and weeks and weeks. I know, but nurses are already very overstretched and them changing flower water is a job too far. If they're changing bedpans, flower water is a job too far if they're changing bedpans flower water would seem like a relatively uh nice or why not combine the two jobs get the patient to pee straight into the uh the flower well i can think of several reasons why not so can i i think we all can well as if nurses didn't have enough to worry about uh here's this question from nick from colorado who says ollie answer me this why do nurses make such regular appearances

in the fantasies of straight men i'm not sure where i got wind of this fact as i don't watch heterosexual pornography but there seems to be a consensus that fucking nurses is desirable nurses are people who help you shit and deal with the sick and the dying and are probably covered in a thin layer of awful at all times this surely kills my boner well yeah but it's a fantasy, isn't it? It's not about real nurses, really. Pornography tends not to be that accurate about the minutiae of life and jobs.

It's not a fly-on-the-wall documentary. No, although, interestingly, of course, in this age of user-generated pornography 2.0, there probably is real life nurse porn out there somewhere because people are filming themselves at it anyway, aren't they, kinds of walks of life so probably there is but that's not what he's talking about he's talking about the sexy nurse stereotype yeah it's madonna hall complex basically isn't it right here's a woman who's going to look after you but you can also have her she wants it really but also she's going to help you she'll wipe your bum she'll wank you off

exactly it's lazy isn't it it's men who want a fantasy of a woman who's just going to do it for them they don't really have to try because she's there anyway. And I suppose as well, the nurses are very familiar with every horrible facet of the human body. So maybe people think this means no matter what disgusting sexual practice I introduce to her, she's going to be OK with it. My weird foreskin isn't going to turn her off. It's not like when she has to give old people sponge baths on their testicles. It's also a very easy story to convert into a fantasy, isn't it? You know, you're sort of lying in bed already

there's a pretty lady leaning over you to take your temperature so there's boobs involved. Theory. Do you think it also stems from children having formative sexual experiences when they're playing doctor and nurse? Yes, or at the hands of Nanny, if you're talking about Prince Charles type men. I think maybe it comes out of the First World War

where you had men coming back from France and trenches who hadn't seen women for months and months and months. Then suddenly women had been liberated and were allowed to have jobs and they were all nurses. Suddenly there were loads of women... They weren't all nurses. Okay, I'll rephrase that. All of the nurses were women.

Where's all the governess porn? But you see what I mean? Suddenly they were in the hands of these pretty and glamorous women who came from all different classes of society. They've got a very unglamorous job. But as a fantasy, obviously the hands of these pretty and glamorous women who came from all different classes of society they've got very unglamorous but as a fantasy like obviously not all women are pretty glamorous but if you're talking about fantasy roles which this is i can see how the nurse then became someone who got a little bit sexualized such a stupid fantasy i mean nurses i have great admiration for their wonderful work but as i said before they have

enough to worry about leave them alone and i bet they have to slap away a lot of wandering hands as well. Of course they will. When I was a medical physicist, I worked with a lot of nurses and I did not want to touch any of their bumps. What do you want, a certificate? Yeah, I want my medal. He's got a sub-question as well. He says, Oli, what is the most commonly used profession

that pornographers have portrayed? My guess would be a delivery man. Mmm, pizza. Well, it's certainly not pizza yeah yeah hello dear i've covered myself in cheese and pepperoni stick it in mozzarella balls um it's certainly not coal miner is it let's put it that way um i think there are certain professions diplomats there's well actually i mean ones where you're in a position of power that can be abused so for example

you're the boss for the male role that's often quite common teacher, professor school girl exactly school girl counting

as a profession for the women yes exactly the people who'd be in that situation so secretary dominatrix does that count Luke

that's not a job it is a job for some it's not a job you'd put on your passport is it that's all I'm saying well I wouldn't because it'd be deceitful yeah

it's not my job taxi driver maybe really well because like Travis Beckham there's a lot of porn or Andy Kaufman

after my commute when I find the time I can always send a question to the question line inquiries are wanted as a part of the plan a la Helen or Holly

or Martin a sound man answer me this podcast podcast GoogleMail.com. Answer me this podcast at GoogleMail.com. At GoogleMail.com. Here's a question from Ellie from Bangor in Northern Ireland, who says, Helen, answer me this. How did doctors figure out a body's time of death?

Because I've just stabbed my mother through the heart and I want to make it look like my sister did it. Wrap her up warm. Then it will seem like the wriggle mortis hasn't set in until later and you can be well away. Yeah, not really. She didn't really say that last bit.

That probably would help. She says, I was watching Miss Marple and wondered how those village doctors determined a murdered corpse's time of death seemingly quite quickly and precisely. E.g., this person was murdered between 11.30 and midnight. How do they know? Well, it's been in the script.

True enough. They just flicked back a few pages and were like, well, they were alive then, so stands to reason they died at tea time. Yeah, pages are about a minute, isn't it? So, 30 pages back. Helen answered me this. Are such things more accurate now? Do coroners use the same techniques? a reason they died at tea time yeah pages about a minute isn't it so 30 pages back uh helen answer me this are such things more accurate now do coroners use the same techniques do they use a

meat thermometer well probably something similar because the temperature of the body is i suppose the first thing they look at because apparently a body's temperature in normal circumstances i guess drops about 0.8 kelvin per hour after death and it does vary as to the size of the body and the atmospheric temperatures if it's warm or cold out etc and then um rigor mortis sets in so if it hasn't set in yet then they can tell the body is a good fresh corpse but that's usually between half an hour and three hours after death and it spreads from the eyelids and the jaw to the rest of the body so i guess if just your face was stiff they would know that you were still quite fresh and then your eyeballs become a bit more squidgy right yeah which grosses me out a bit and that's after about three hours and then

there's lividity as your blood sort of stops being pumped around the body by your heart and just settles at your lowest point after a couple of days your skin turns green because bacteria breed on it yeah and then and then insects come and lay eggs in you and decompose but that never happens in miss marple does it it's not like a green furry festering body with insect shit on it and they go yeah about half an hour i think everyone knows that bit i think it's the bit where it's that precise thing of is it 30 minutes or is it four hours that people are impressed by well often it's it's a point where they haven't got it right isn't it yeah yeah well we thought it was before dinner because we heard her bell ring, but actually it was after dinner

because they rigged up an elaborate system of furnishings and balloons. Yeah. It is more accurate now, and I guess people are trained a bit better as well. Like the body farm people that go and look at the grubs and how they lay in corpses. Well, so they should be better trained. Better trained than a fictional village doctor.

At a murder scene, obviously it's very important to establish time of death because you're trying to work out who done it. No, it's very important to look between the parlour maid's fingers and see if she's secreting the corner of a very important note that is a vital clue. I don't know whether it's a myth, but I heard this story that in the Victorian times

they used to think that captured in the eyes of a murder victim was the image of the murderer. Like a pinhole camera. It was the last thing they saw, and so if they'd been murdered, they would have an image of the murderer on their eyes. But what they're going to have if you peel the eyelid back is the coroner reflected in the milky film. Oh my god, it was me!

Okay, I'm going to have to... Oh, again! I'm going to have to fake this up and say it was six hours older than it was Sort of like an early version Of looking through someone's browsing history, isn't it? Seeing who they've been stalking Oh, yeah Yeah

That'd be awful if you could look in someone's eyes And see all the things they'd seen Oh I would hate that Like, that when Sookie in True Blood Can hear what people are thinking Oh, jeez Imagine

Selectively Yes, very selectively Yeah, she never says Does she in the context of another scene What? I've already eaten. She never says that. It's only when there's drama to be had from it. Yeah.

But I already feel there's too much information in the world and I'm overwhelmed by it. Yeah. So would you hate more to have that gift or for someone to have that gift and to be able to read your mind? What about, yeah, for my girlfriend to have that gift and to know what I'm thinking? That's all right, because you have fairly innocent thoughts, right?

I don't. No, I have horrible thoughts. I have a dark passenger, Helen. The thing is, I've got one of those faces that people think all the time that I'm thinking something far more deep than I am when I'm looking at them. I know, because you know the truth.

Because usually you're smiling as if you're looking at Mickey Mouse doing a dance. Because you are the Sookie Stackhouse of this podcast, Helen. But other people, they think that I'm looking kind of blankly. And I am because I'm thinking about something completely irrelevant, like what I'm going to buy from the supermarket. And they honestly think that I'm making some judgment on them or that I'm thinking...

I have to deal with that all the time. They're like, no, no, no, what are you thinking? Yeah. Literally, I was just thinking about how much that DVD is. Hello, I'm Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King's It. When not abusing children or turning into a giant spider, I like to sit in my sewer listening to AnswerMeThisPodcast.com. Are you ready for a story, Helen?

Yeah, always. Once upon a time, there was a little boy called Oliver, and he lived in North West London. Why are all stories about you? Why are you doing that in John Munson's voice? And I just found him fascinating. Age killed 14 people and did not show any remorse. And he said to me,

you can have any Disney character for breakfast you want. Anyway, yes. He used to be read bedtime stories. Really? Did he? Yes, but he never used to be read The Elves and the Shoemaker. What a deprived background he had. Oh, I love that story. Tell us the story, Martin, in Pracey.

It was a shoemaker. Yes, that's right. That clues in the title. I think we can guess there's some elves in it as well. He had a big commission from the king. Nike. The king of Prussia. And he couldn't possibly get all the shoes done the next day. And if he didn't, the king of Prussia was going to chop his head off.

So he worked and worked and worked and he fell asleep. He had all of the shoe bits laid out, but he hadn't had a chance to actually put them together. And when he woke up, all the shoes were made. Right. And this happened a couple of nights in a row. And one night he pretended to go to sleep, but kept his eyes a bit open.

And it was all these little elves making shoes. But the really nice thing is, that one night, rather than leaving out the shoes for the king or whatever, because he didn't have a job from the king at this point, he made tiny, tiny shoes for the elves. So they snuck in thinking they were going to have to make some shoes. And they got some pairs of shoes. Oh, well, thank you for that, Martin. That was beautiful. I'm shoes for the elves. So they snuck in thinking they were going to have to make some shoes. And they got some pairs of shoes. Oh, well, thank you for that, Martin.

That was beautiful. I'm ready for bed now. It's not quite the version that we've read online. Oh, is that what happened? Nearly. Well, it's close enough. Was it the King of Prussia? No.

No. Nothing about kings. No royals. The shoemaker was pretty much flat broke. He only had enough leather for one pair of shoes. Very different shoemaker to your shoemaker who was living off Royal Commission. Super successful. Your shoemaker works with fucking Peter Jones or something.

This one, he cut out the one pair of shoes and then dejected, went off to bed contemplating the suicide pact he and his wife were going to make on the morning. When he got up in the morning, the shoes were made exquisitely and someone came in and bought them for more than the asking price.

Ah, so he could afford more leather. Then he could afford more leather, so he cut two pairs of shoes and left them out. Rather presumptuously, and that night, found the shoes to be made again. And so after that, business started to boom. Yeah. Bit like in Little Shop of Horrors, isn't it? Yeah. What is that strange and beautiful plant?

I'll take two. Is that? Yeah. And then only after ages, he and his wife thought, who is doing these shoes? That's the thing that I found unconvincing. Whose labour are we relying on? After about 10 days, seemingly, they're like, you know what? We should probably work out who's doing this.

You should have been thinking that on day one. So they peer and these naked elves arrive, make the shoes and then piss off. So as you say, Martin, they think, well, we should do something nice for the elves. And they make them some tiny clothes and some tiny shoes, even though the elves have proven themselves really capable of making shoes. So if they wanted some, they could have made them. And then the elves come and take the clothes and then they're never seen again.

But the shoemaker's all right. Okay, good. Even though he's become a slacker who doesn't make his own shoes anymore. Why are we talking about this again? We're all up to speed. Everyone now knows the plot. Two different plot versions of the elves and the shoemaker.

But essentially the same, right? Basically the same yeah Well we're mentioning this Helen Because we've got a question from Andy in Blackheath About the elves and the shoemaker Well I should hope it is about that Otherwise this diversion is completely unreasonable This has just turned into story time

Oh this is one of those whimsical podcasts Where we just talk about whatever's on our minds Andy in Blackheath says I was recently reading the story of the elves and the shoemaker To my daughter as her bedtime book Did it include the King of Prussia Andy That's the big issue When I finished it I started to think about the moral

Of the story Very important That's right they're very keen on morals in fairy stories aren't they Well otherwise what are they for fun I don't think so Anyway Andy has two suggestions For what the moral of the elves and the shoemaker may be I'm keen to hear them. Okay, option number one.

Don't give your best workers a big bonus in one go as they'll piss off and not come back. It's not really a bonus though, is it? It's sort of a payment for them having made the shoes for so long. So in fact, it's don't pay your workers or you'll lose them. Yeah. It's a kind of anti-trade union movement story. I disagree. What's his other choice?

Yeah, okay. His second option for the moral of the elves and the shoemaker is don't do any work yourself and use child labour to do everything for you as it's cheap and in the end when you've made loads of money you only have to pay them back with tiny little clothes. What if there's a clean moral to this story? What?

Go on. Work for the King of Prussia. No, no, no. The moral to this story is when things are really terrible and you really die straight people will step in to help you no they won't but that's what happened that's exactly what happened yeah but and if they do that you have to reward them and not be selfish bastard make them tiny shoes but you see the usual the usual moral in the fairy tale is that the elves would have seen the

shoemaker even when he was down to his last penny give away an exquisite pair of shoes to an elderly lady who needed them go don't, don't pay me for them. It's fine. The elves would have gone, aw, let's help him with our supernatural shoemaking ability that we've been saving for this moment. There's nothing in this story

to suggest that the shoemaker is particularly deserving of help. He clearly can't run a business to have been in this position. He's lazy. He might have just fallen on hard times. Everyone always needs shoes, Martin. The version of the fairy story that I read online,

I mean, it'd obviously be translated from the German, so some of it was just slightly bad English or arcane English. I am not believing in it. That kind of thing. But some of it was clearly emphasising the fact that he was an honest businessman and that he was a good-hearted man and all this. And I do think what you say is true

to an extent martin i think it is basically if you're a good person then good things will happen to you whether it's elves or whether it's karma or whether it's god but it has that very important message that you can't just take that for granted if someone helps you you should help them in return yeah then the elves piss off why don't the elves at least say thank you because the elves have already done days and days and days of free labor they saved his business we don't even know if they're getting shares. Yeah, exactly. Why don't they negotiate a deal with him?

Has this become some metaphor for the Facebook IPO? It's more like American Apparel, isn't it? And then they got one of the fittest elf to work in the shop front wearing just a pair of leggings and a crop top. The thing with morals in fairy stories is I actually do quite like it when it's a bit ambiguous like this because the child is perfectly happy to accept it without the moral frankly and the adult

reading the story then does have this conversation and think okay what is this trying to teach us and sometimes it's obvious and sometimes it's not but it's better than i remember i had a book of esop's fables when i was a kid i don't know if all books of esop's fables like this but the one i had literally at the end of every fable said moral colon slow and steady wins the race you're like i can at least put some fun into it at least at least i turned to page 61 for the moral and you have to guess when you got it right don't give foxes any grapes but if you look at a lot of these stories uh then the morals are very confusing and not that nice like cinderella sure she's nicer than her sisters but she's being married off to somebody who doesn't know her.

Probably not going to have a great life with him. It's just a different life. That's probably a better improvement to being a child lady, isn't it? I don't know. Is it? I mean, in Downton Abbey, who's happier, upstairs or downstairs? Well, OK, but you're delving a bit deep here because it's her aspiration to marry Prince Charming.

The shoemaker just wants to make shoes. He hasn't really stopped to think what's more important in life. I mean, maybe the elves should have let his business go under and he could have reassessed where he was up to. Yeah, he could have done something he really loved. Yeah, if anything, all that's happened, they've prolonged the agony here.

The trouble is that he's now stuck in a successful business. I mean, I suppose he could sell it. I wonder if there were jobs that those elves just didn't go and help out with. Yeah. Like, you know, shoemaking does seem particularly well suited to their tiny little hands. They're probably rubbishbish lumberjacks

Exactly If instead of being A shoemaker He'd been A restaurant tycoon Yeah What would the elves Have done

They could have Made Petty Four Yeah You know the elves Would be perfect For property development If the property Is doll's houses

They could flip Doll's houses Sell them on for a profit What else can the elves do After they've finished At the shoe shop Where are they then Going to go Unless they unless they just specialize in shoes and they go around all the shoe shops in town promoting healthy competition between them but that's really

giving an unfair advantage to shoemakers because they can call on elves for assistance unless other fantastical creatures help but maybe giants help with the people who make jumpers dragons help at barbecues the thing is though there's a a certain amount of sort of worth that people take in a job well done that they've done. What concerns me about the fact that the shoemaker spent so long before being curious enough to work out who had been helping them. It's just assuming that everything's going to go right in the night. Well, it's just sort of, they were just so happy to pass on their work to someone else in this very cavalier way.

Outsourcing is a dangerous business. Exactly, I think this is a good lesson for kids. I mean, you know, in a way, if we went to to sleep now you wake up in the morning and some elves have edited this podcast oh god i can't i can't sacrifice the control well exactly like in a way it would be very satisfying but you couldn't absolutely trust they'd done it to your standard and that i'm afraid is all we have for you this week that's it we're done we're finished suffice to say that if you want more next week Then please send us your questions Feed us your questions

Yum, yum, yum Via phone, Skype, email All of our contact details are of course listed on our website AnswerMeThisPodcast.com Where you can also find links to our Jubilee album It's the best way to celebrate the Queen's very special day Apart from mounting a coup and dethroning the royals. And there's a link to a competition

I'll be running over the summer. It's a science songwriters competition. It's aimed at people who are 18 or younger at school. And it's for people who want to write a song about science. And the prize is to go to the Green Man Festival. It's a good prize to go to the Green Man Festival. They have really nice food there. They do, yeah.

And it's very pretty. And they have all those wasps that attacked Holly Mann last year. But don't let that put you off. They're famous wasps now. They do, yeah. And it's very pretty. And they have all those wasps that attacked Holy Man last year. But don't let that put you off. They're famous wasps now. There's a plaque there where we recorded that podcast. There's a wasp that has been living off that anecdote all year. He's actually playing one of the smaller stages this year.

So get going with that if you're under 18 and you like writing songs and you're into science. And you want to be like Martin. That's a very small corner of a very large diagram. The other 98% of you do be in touch with your questions, and we'll see you next week. Bye!