Answer Me This! - AMT218: Teletubbies, Embarrassing Bodies and Fifty Shades of Grey

Episode Date: June 7, 2012

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Why can't Justin Bieber recognise glass doors? Has to be this, has to be this Isn't it sad to see S Club 3 clutching at straws? Has to be this, has to be this Helen and Ollie, has to be this Let the record show that Ollie Mann got something right. I dread to think what, because some of your ideas are so dangerous to mankind that if any of them

come true then this world is even more problematic than we thought it was. Someone contacted me on Twitter the other day to say that I should stand for some sort of political role. Oh no no no no. What? Even I think that man's living in a crazy parallel universe. You know when everyone thought it was weird that Ronald Reagan was going to be in politics because he was

an actor and therefore not qualified. Well this is like a million times more wrong. Well anyway if the record were to show this helen it would show that when it comes to guessing the mechanics of theatrical special effects i am king of this podcast i should have known that i should have known uh last week you will remember that i say you will remember because it was a significant moment in your life you must i said that uh singing in the rain the west end show singing the Rain, probably used a closed circuit system of water rather than water from the tap. And Martin, the sound man, and I said,

that sounds like a real health hazard because it would be full of crap. How you laughed at me. How you doubted my expertise. Naive. Dirty water-loving fool. But Chris from Hook has been in touch to say, I work in a theatre, here we have inside knowledge, Helen, that has done quite a few rain and flood effects recently

and the water was mostly reused. That's right, environmentally. I just think it's potentially bacteria heaven. Yeah, well, actually, funny you say that. He goes on to say, it's treated with chlorine to prevent most bacterial growth. Oh, great. That's going to be lovely running over your face, isn't it?

But our last show involved a large amount of soil too. Presumably that was the little-known musical Singing in the Soil, about plantation workers in the 50s. He says there was vegetation growing underneath that stage by the end of the run and clearing it out was really quite unpleasant. But nonetheless, I was right and that's the important thing. Yes, great, I'm singing in chlorine, bringing back memories of the war. So I hope everyone's up to date with the tetanus shots.

Here's a question from Rachel in Fife, who says, Helen, answer me this. Could you still, or could you ever, in fact, actually be married by a ship's captain? Not really. I don't know what she's on about. You know that thing that they have in loads of TV shows and films where they're like, oh, we want to get married. How can we do it? And the captain's like, well, I'm allowed to marry anybody because i'm the ship's captain i've never seen that yeah well it's crap

african queen i've just told you i've never seen it martin i'm not lying the thing is it's boring to show in a film or a sitcom the fact that you have to apply for a license beforehand it's like going to vegas getting ham and waking up married you have to get a license to get married in vegas you either have to apply for it online beforehand or go to the the license shop which thinks in a courthouse but i bet you could still do that in one night it's probably a 24-hour course yeah but still it's two journeys so that is going to take the spontaneity out of it particularly if you've had to queue to get a license the whole idea of getting married in vegas just seems bleak to me oh sordid yeah i'm sorry to anyone listening who did it maybe they thought well it'd be nice and efficient But the fact is if you want a marriage that doesn't really

Take any toll on you Like if you just want to get married And it not to really be a bother Then you can do that in somewhere else A registry office But also what's special about saying yeah we commemorated our love And made a contract to each other for the rest of our lives Round the corner from an excellent brothel

This is weird Why would you think that's a romantic thing to do When you've got chuggers on the corners going girls in your room in 20 minutes yeah oh that is beautiful that's more beautiful than confetti there are some exceptions to the ship's captain not being able to marry people uh japanese ships captains can marry people as long as both of those people have japanese passports i think bermudan ship captains can also do it but generally if the ship's in international waters then it's not going to be governed by the marriage licensing laws of any country so your marriage isn't going to be legal so as long as you do the legal stuff beforehand

you can have a fake wedding on board the ship if you wanted that niceness or you can get married when the ship is docked but you still have to have sorted out making it sound like an administrative nightmare it's not fun and the captain they can recognize, but you still have to have sorted out paperwork. You're making it sound like an administrative nightmare. It's not fun. And the captain, they can recognise the marriage, but they can't actually perform one. Right. Also, they've got the boat to steer.

I mean, this is how accidents happen, isn't it? Captain's too busy marrying off the passengers. Hello, hello, hello. Dave from Smellick. I didn't know you'd gone away. We've been back for two months, Dave.

You've missed a lot of Answer Me This, but it's good to hear from you. Our listeners go apeshit when Dave from Smethwick's been in touch. That's all they want, really. They don't want this podcast. They just want one minute-long call from Dave from Smethwick every week.

Anyway, what does it say when they say ship shape and Bristol fashion. What's it to do with Bristol? Bristol used to be one of the foremost ports in Britain because it's on the River Avon Estuary. But because there were extremely variable tidal flows where Bristol is,

you had to tie everything down on the ship and make it very orderly because otherwise you could lose a lot of cargo or things get terribly broken um and um also they used to get beached twice a day in low tide so in order to dock successfully at bristol and unload your cargo everything previously had to be ship shape and bristol fashion no i'm good order i'm guessing dave from smithick that you're slightly than us. I'm not sure in my day-to-day life I hear ship shape and Bristol fashion very often. The only time I've ever come across the phrase Bristol fashion is in the 90s when I was reading a copy of Viz. And in the top tips, it says, get your girlfriend to suck on a Sterodent tablet

and then when she gives you a blowie, your bellend will come out Bristol fashion. I wonder if Bristol fashion would be the name of that blog that Sarah Palin's daughter writes. Oh! She will never have heard this expression. She probably doesn't even know that Bristol is a town in the West Country of England. Well, I don't know if she's named after it, so she probably does.

Well, she's probably named after the American town that's named after it. Bristol, Minnesota or something. Bristol, Alaska. I think she's gone as far as Minnesota. Have you been to Bristol? Oh, many times. My brother used to live there. I went there for a stag do recently. There's I can say to her. Have you been to Bristol? Oh, many times. My brother used to live there.

I went there for a stag do recently. There's a great zoo in Bristol. Did you go there on the stag do? It's got kangaroo rats. We didn't go to the zoo, Helen. It was a proper stag do. We went to the Slug and Lettuce and places like that.

And the thing about, like when you get out of London, even if you're in a big city like Bristol, those kind of chain bars, they all put in a lot more effort. Yeah. Like the Pitcher and Piano in Bristol is genuinely one of the most beautiful bars i've seen in this country

it's a it's duplex and it's got a grand piano in it oh yeah it's a piano bar is it is literally a piano bar yeah which is a different take on the picture and piano to the one in leicester square where it just has pictures yeah exactly if you're lucky yeah well they've misspelt the word pictures that's the kind of place it is in london it reminds me of i was in turkey recently in bodrum there's a starbucks which has its own private beach as soon as you get out of london you're like car chains can be quite good actually if you're in the right place whereas in london you can fold your ups go i don't need you i don't need you yeah i'd rather go to the one that i've never heard of that's clearly a bit shitty more expensive because i'm cool well it was like when crystal Palace very briefly for six months had their own version

of Nando's that was better. I think there was also a version in Croydon, but the only things that served were chicken and ribs. And on at least one occasion we went in and they had neither chicken nor ribs. And you think if you can't get that right, then you're pretty screwed. Sometimes there's a reason the big companies are big. But you've got your own version of Pizza Express now, haven't you? Patp.

It used to be Pizza Express and then they maintained the structure of the logo, but renamed it. But they've called it PATP. Well, it's Pizza at the Palace. But they've put PATP on the song. That's quite new. PATP. PATP.

It doesn't work as an acronym. Well, it's one that is just going to get you spat at in the face if someone says it to you. You know what's missing from cool independent shops? Brand consultants. PATP. Honestly. This is from Ben in Upper Norwood, so local boy.

Hello, Ben. Do you frequent Pat? He says My friends and I Were discussing fashion And the like And one of them mentioned That someone they knew Bought a t-shirt

For £320 Was it an invisible t-shirt? And they paraded around Going look at my amazing t-shirt And everyone's like Yeah It's an emperor's new clothes Brought into the modern

age no i see what you were doing good because you were looking at me blankly when you don't see what i was looking at you thinking are you really doing an emperor's new clothes joke hey it's what all the kids are into right the thing is i've seen designer t-shirts before like if you go into like liberty or selfish as a harvey nicks or something they go up to about like 150 quid and you think that's ridiculous i've never seen one for... I can't imagine what's on a 320 pound t-shirt. Is there like some emergency medical equipment strapped to it? Or an LCD screen?

No matter how much you spend on a t-shirt, it's still going to be as shit after a few washes as all t-shirts. Helen, answer me this. What's the most expensive casual item of clothing you've ever bought? Well, I've got... About tenner, wasn't it? bought well i've got about tenner wasn't it my whole wardrobe is worth a tenner um i've got some dresses that i bought for about 60 quid like vintage dresses yeah most of my clothes are 40 pounds or less and second hand but the most

expensive item i have in my my whole wardrobe is the shoes that i wore at my wedding which are 160 pounds more than my wedding dress and they're not shoes that I would wear casually because they're heels and I never wear heels for fun because I have a fear of

breaking my ankle I'm not sure that counts as casual shoes if you bought them for your wedding Yeah but they're casual-ish in style they're not like

wedding shoes where they're white satin slingbacks they're like brogues You could wear them out to a classy establishment like the Pitcher and Piano

in Bristol but Dare to dream One day someone might squire me there who knows out to a classy establishment like the Pitcher and Piano in Bristol but... Dare to dream. One day someone might squire me there, who knows? Nonetheless you bought them for your wedding and I think that counts as formal attire therefore so I'm discounting that as well so you got casual. Yeah casual. It'd be 40 quid would it? Yeah about 40 quid. That's pathetic isn't it? Well I've got that duffel coat that I bought. Yeah that was what about 300? You were arguing with me that it didn't count as casual because it was a coat.

Yeah, well it... But it has toggles on it. Yeah, it's not smart. Toggles are informal. And if you're trying to work out which of your clothes are casual and which aren't, if there is a scaled down version

of that garment at Build-A-Bear, then it's casual. If you've got a question, then email your question to answer me this podcast at googlemail.com. Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com. Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com Answer me this Podcast 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. 10 minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a question from Rachel in Cambodia who says, Helen, answer me this. Why do so many people hate the word moist? Well, it's really down to context, isn't it?

If someone says, oh, this carrot cake is really moist, no one minds, do they? I don't know. I reckon there are some people that get a bit of a shudder then. But it's because of their own latent sexual problems.

If you say, this carrot cake is really moist. Yes. If you savour it too much. Yeah. That's gross. Not everyone hates it, Rachel. i learned the fact that joe wiley the dj it's her favorite word and what did you learn that well i don't know it was in a magazine interview many years ago and what i don't know is why my brain recalls those things and nothing useful well uh rachel continues

i ask only because it appears in Fifty Shades of Grey three times I have counted all the words in Fifty Shades of Grey That's not that many because Fifty Shades of Grey from what I've read which is only excerpts on the Daily Beast

it's not a big vocabulary being used in that book and sexual words there's a limited supply of them so I'm amazed in fact that moist doesn't appear on every other page We should explain to listeners

who haven't been aware of this it is a phenomenon isn't it 50 shades of grey but it is the kind of thing that like a lot of men specifically listening won't have any idea what we're talking about it's erotica for housewives isn't it mummy porn they call it which i think is a bit patronizing really was it set in egypt um god there probably is like slash fic about that on the internet yeah probably yeah but no they call it that because this is sort of essentially aimed at bored housewives who maybe aren't satisfied in their relationship at home and it's actually got elements of S&M and bondage in it. Oh, it's got fisting in it, hasn't it?

Yeah. But also, you know, in the context of quite a reassuring, almost, I was going to say traditional story, but a storyline about, it's based on Twilight, isn't it? The woman who wrote it, she was writing Twilight fan fiction and then thought she'd probably get into less trouble by taking the names of those characters out. And then she kind of self-published it for Kindles

and people went nuts for it because they could read it on Kindle without everyone knowing they were reading a dirty book on their commute. Yeah, exactly. It's the modern equivalent of hiding Playboy inside your copy of the FT or whatever. I haven't read it because it sounds lame. I imagine it's not really your preferred genre, is it? suppose not it's fiction for mums it sounds really badly written and i did read uh when i was a teenager the lengthy poem novel the white hotel which i think was kind of classic bdsm erotica of its time it is horrible though and really really tiresome and

it's about this woman who is on a hotel on top of a mountain and she and this guy have loads of sex and then it might all be in her mind and she's explaining it to freud who's her psychiatrist and then she gets killed in the holocaust bloody hell the holocaust that turns me on yeah that's sort of wuthering heights but with a porny bit isn't it it's the same sort of thing in a way yeah i suppose so this is the incredible thing about the difference between men and women the internet comes along for men that means instant visual gratification through explicit pornography even more graphic than before yeah you know get off in minutes any time of the day wherever you are do it work do it on your phone

do it in a toilet still do it anywhere do it job interview for women it means download a novel where you have to wait for 50 pages before you get some oral sex. That is not the only thing women do with the internet. I mean, look what they've done with Pinterest. Yes, I know. And I'm aware too that some women like watching some of the hardcore pornography I've just discussed for men. But I'm just saying, this is the thing that I'm guessing many men aren't reading because this is very much aimed at the slow build of a woman's fantasy.

That's the case with erotic literature generally it tends to be pitched at women whereas men prefer visual actual visual content yeah anyway i think a lot of people might hate the word because uh they do not like to acknowledge uh women's personal moisture right wow i've got uh an etymological theory as to why people might not like the word moist yeah it's go on. It's because it's from the same Latin root as the word mucus. And show me a person who likes mucus. No one likes mucus. Not in a sex way.

Slugs like it. I quite like picking bogeys out and sort of turning them into little snowballs and flicking them on the floor. I don't feel well. Well, you asked me to show you a person. Here I am, Helen. Call me Mr. Mucus. How many social networks are you on? Vibo, Friendster, Parkview, Porn

MySpace, Ping and Google Buzz If you want to be our pal, go to this URL Facebook.com slash AnswerMeThis Or Twitter. com slash Helen and Dolly but please don't follow us in real life Righto, time to take a question off

our phone line, the number for which is 020812358 007 or you can Skype us at AnswerMeThis. Let's see who we've got on the phone line today. Hi, Helen Nolly. It's Samantha from London. I was wondering today, after watching Embarrassing Bodies, how come they think they can't go to the doctor, but they can manage to go on Embarrassing B bodies and put it in front of the whole national TV.

So answer me this. Why do people not just go to the doctor instead of flashing their bits and scrotums all over the TV? It's sort of an extension of the urge that makes them think, hmm, I won't sort out my embarrassing personal problems in private with dignity. I'll go on jeremy kyle uh also the way these shows are uh written for the voiceover because it's only the voiceover that's telling you these people are too embarrassed to go to their own doctor but they've come to us is sort of a crock isn't it it's like when the mary porters shows they say i'm on a crusade to reform Britain's high street and customer service. No, you're not.

You're trying to do a makeover on DFS. That's what you're doing. One charity shop in Orpington is not a movement. Sorry, Mary. Absolutely. And I don't think she believes it is either. But that's how those shows are packaged. A producer has said.

Exactly. So when it comes to embarrassing bodies, the story they want to tell the audience is that this person is too embarrassed to go to the docks because there's like public service information here here because they've got a mole the shape of a swastika on their arsehole yeah and it's basically you at home you shouldn't feel embarrassed to go to the doctor either there are other people who've got this yes but imagine if you've got something that's more grotesque than what is on embarrassing bodies then you would very much feel alone then you think yeah god these people apparently have embarrassing bodies my body is mortifying i don't watch this program why why do people watch this program why would you want to watch this

program why um i think we are naturally fascinated by other people's bodies aren't we that's not nice ones sure yeah but why don't they have nice bodies on channel four um i think that's kind of what they do on channel five isn't it this just taps into the sort of everyone's concerns that they've basically got a small dick that's what a lot of it is isn't it this just taps into everyone's concerns that they've basically got a small dick that's what a lot of it is isn't it have you got a small dick well let's see

these are 20 real men's penises and this is the size that they actually are which you can deduce by just going to a changing room by the way you don't have to see on channel 4

did they show penises on embarrassing bodies yeah if you google embarrassing bodies the five things that come up are the vulva gallery and the penis gallery number one and two

do not want so that's but they're fine they're just they're normal people's bodies. But that's what it is. But Brits are very embarrassed by their bodies traditionally. The only time I've actually turned it on was over dinner

and there was a woman talking about her prolapsed anus, which is really... Not nice. Not appetising. I think what makes me uncomfortable about it is the scheduling, actually, partly. Not just that it's at dinner time. It is dinner time.

But it's the fact that it's in prime time. All of this business about you at home if you have this disfigurement you should go and see your doctor is fine if it was 11 in the morning yes or distributed on a dvd at a sexual health clinic or if one of the ads in between the prime time programs was for a public service going if you have this mole then please seek medical assistance but it's prime time entertainment it's being sold like that there's ads in between for McDonald's and stuff. Well, here's another question of telly, I suppose.

It's from Mike from Luxembourg, who says, yesterday I went to an English comedy show in Luxembourg and one of the comedians was Dave Thompson. Dave Thompson? Yeah, the Dave Thompson. The Dave Thompson. Very exciting. I can't believe you got to see him in a small venue.

I can't believe he came to Luxembourg when he started his sellout run at the Apollo Hammersmith. Which has about the same number of people in it as Luxembourg. It seems, says Mike from Luxembourg, that Dave Thompson's greatest accomplishment was being tinky-winky on the Teletubbies.

He's the one who got fired for saying tinky-winky was gay. A, what reason do you have to think that? B, why was there such an uproar about it? I'd say there's an uproar because the Teletubbies' sexuality was not really a defining part of their character. It was a suggestion that sexuality was involved at all in something for preschool children. So I think it was to do with that.

And A, because he's the actor. If he thinks to himself... My motivation is gayness. Tinky Winky is gay. Then actually that's fine, isn't it? I mean, I'm sure there's actors who play characters on things like Casualty or whatever Or Coronation Street

And they know that their character's gay But the audience doesn't Because it's not actually been scripted But they've done you know extensive methodology Behind the character Why should Teletubbies actors be exempt From the Stanislavskian style of acting Well also you're trapped inside that big felty suit

You're going to be a bit bored You're going to be thinking aren't you You might as well Mike's question is Ollie Ollie, answer me this. Who were the other actors playing the Teletubbies and what are they doing now? Right, okay. John Simmet played Dipsy.

Which colour was Dipsy? I can't remember what colour he was in the show, but it was interesting because he was obviously the black one. What? The producers actually said, like, Dipsy is black. Oh, it's fine for there to be a black Teletubby, but not a gay one. Well, the idea was be a black Teletubby But not a gay one Well the idea was

It was the Teletubby That black children could identify with How on earth did they Dipsy was green And look I'm not defending it I'm just saying what happened They said Poe is Cantonese

And Dipsy is black He's now a club comedian anyway That's what he does Okay Poe Was played by Poe Fan Lee But that might not be how you say the name

And it says here in the sun Poe was played by Poo Fan Lee, but that might not be how you say the name. And it says here in The Sun, Poe appeared in Racy Channel 4 series Metrosexuality as a sex-mad lesbian. She was seen romping naked with another girl and performing an intimate sex act. Shock! Horror! So that's what she did in 2001. But since then, apparently she's become a presenter on CBeebies

and she's also been in Bridget Jones' The Edge of Reason. Really? I wonder who she played in that. Presumably that slightly off-colour scene in the Thai jail. Nikki Smedley, who played La La, is now a storyteller. So I suppose that means tells stories to kids in libraries and stuff. And also a dancer and lives in Shipston-on-Stour. Where's that? Fuck knows.

What would be interesting is if the baby who played the son, as in literally the son That rose It's probably now an adult Almost Like the baby On the Nirvana album If she becomes an actress now There'll be a massive gap

In her IMDB CV Oh embarrassing Same baby The whole way through Which surprised me Because of child Sort of you know Licensing laws

Yeah but presumably They just filmed as her Doing a load of stuff One afternoon Once yeah yeah And then it's always the same That's the thing with kids shows Isn't it?

They are always the same All the same because there are hundreds of episodes of teletubbies aren't they but they're all the same they're all the same they might have well just made 10 and just showing them i suppose they do that's what they used to do with bagpuss and stuff i suppose it's for the parents isn't it so that you don't actually go completely mental watching the same thing every day if you're a parent and having to watch the teletubbies every day you would go as mental as if you were dropping acid every day yeah but at least you've got the stimulus of a slightly different storyline i mean it was literally the same every day i watched telly tubbies for the plot and the writing and so the jubilee celebrations are nearly at an end and her

majesty has donned the jubilee nightie and is climbing into the royal bed oh the queen is yawning she's really ready for sleep now. And as her royal head adorns the royal pillow, our coverage continues over on the BBC News Channel. The Ant Smith is jubilee. One hour of right royal fun. Available now

from iTunes. Time for a question from Laura from Southampton. She says, I'm 17 and I've just joined Twitter. Jolly good. Well done. Hope it works out for you. Helen, answer me this. What was the hash key used for before hashtags?

Seems incredible to think of a time before hashtags, doesn't it? It just lived in a punctuation wasteland. Like that funny squiggly key that is in the top left of my keyboard. I'm struggling to think of a use before hashtags, doesn't it? It just lived in a punctuation wasteland, like that funny squiggly key that is in the top left of my keyboard. I'm struggling to think of a use of it, actually. I think it's used in LaTeX typesetting language. Yeah, it's quite popular in computational languages, but that doesn't explain why it was on all the push-button phones before even mobiles were invented.

Because in mobiles, you know, you use it to navigate menus. In America, they use it quite a lot because it means number and also it means pounds as in pounds of weight because it was just like a contraction of writing the letters lb but when you write it down to mean number so you say for example we're the number three best-selling apple in the united states and then you'd put we're hashtag three or turn to him number 213 exactly fine but when you why are they on the phones because you don't have to press that to press number do you it knows you're dialing numbers

was it like a command for like call center waiting things and stuff yeah but it was something like that i've never heard i've never heard press the hash key have you yeah every time i pay my mobile phone bill on orange please enter your long number followed by the followed by the hash key but in in medicine it's the symbol for a fracture and in Swedish, it's the symbol for lumberyard. So, you know, it gets around. One of its other names is the Octothorpe. That's cool.

They could be called Octothorpe tags on Twitter, but they're not. Are there shit businesses that have the hash sign in their typography? Like, you know, cafes in the late 90s had at signs in their name like cat fey well maybe someone's called their fried breakfast place hash browns that's good that's a good idea isn't it yeah yeah full of good ideas here's a question from bagsy from evesham who says i've been playing mario with my lad he runs through a little green

mushroom and gets an extra life. Hurrah! But then he turned around and said, Daddy, what does one up mean? So Ollie answered me this. What does one up mean? Well, I think it's pretty obvious. He said it means you get an extra life.

That's what it means. It means you have one up, one more extra life than you had before. If you get two up, you have two extra lives. But it's odd that that is up. Why that word? Why not just plus one or something? Because, well, look,

it's got to work internationally across languages, hasn't it? It should be a little heart symbol or something but it's it's about an extra life which doesn't happen in real life it only happens in video games the whole thing's trippy if you think about it too long you'd have a massive existential crisis ellen the point is they have to then because i've had my existential phase in my teens when it is supposed to happen and was it about super mario brothers no not really maybe that would have saved me i think if you are going to analyse Super Mario Brothers for inconsistencies, I would say, why is it that just walking into a big snail kills you? Well, that is

terrifying. Yeah, don't get me wrong. If there was a snail that size coming towards me I would be scared too. And I don't know if I would muster up the courage just to jump on it and fire it at my opponents by jumping on it again. But no reason for that to kill you. It's only a snail. it's vegetarian for a start yeah but it might not be by the time they've grown that big they might have got a taste

for a sweeter kind of meat taste for small italians also a snail that big is it human size is it equal size to mario well it is human size but i think we're supposed to infer that mario himself is smaller than the average human okay but nonetheless the weight of the shell alone could be damaging um actually the whole one-up thing does have a precedent before super mario uh is it in dante's inferno um well quite possibly but uh the one that i found new testament jesus gets a one-up uh again possibly lazarus um he gets two yeah mine was from the 70s helen it's from pinball games american pinball games of the 70s had one up as a sort of life you know you get an extra ball or whatever if you get the one up so i think they were taking it from

that well i say it's with arcade machines from before i had a console or computer yeah yeah exactly yeah because again that kind of makes sense because somehow one up feels right to mean that you've made more for your money do you want me to put another coin in so it's just building on a grand tradition that went right from the bible to arcade games uh yes that's just what i said here's a question from Gary Who says What is it with outlets? My local Thornton's has become a Thornton's outlet Growing up, an outlet meant one thing and one thing only Sewerage at the seaside

Ollie, answer me this How and why has it become a type of shop? And what the hell is the difference between a shop and an outlet anyway? Well, the term outlet though comes literally from being the outlet on a factory production line so if you had like a warehouse where you were making say shoes and there was actually a production line and you'd made too many then at the end of the line in the outlet you would sell off the shit you didn't need right so what the concept is like a shop that's part of a factory like the one we went to in emma bridgewater in socon trent when we made our great british questions an atypical factory

outlet store because usually they are filled with awful awful garments yeah and this was filled with plates with cocks on them yeah yeah well by cocks you mean chickens yeah yeah you left that deliberately ambiguous i did that's right i was doing a funny helen the emma bridgewater brand would not have any obscene things on there. Very expensive china. That's true. But anyway, that, for example, was a traditional outlet centre in that it was in the factory.

And it was a bit cheaper than the real stuff. Yes, but it's come to mean a shop that's owned by the company that makes the products. It's not a franchise, you're not lending your name to anyone. It's not a department store. You know, if you go in the Louis Vuitton outlet, it's actually the shop is literally owned by the louis vuitton company it's just that they don't have to actually be in the factory anymore because the factories are in china so they put them in vista village or whatever so does outlet still confer a kind of discount

status to the shop yes okay it's just the same as if it were in the factory it's cheaper it's seconds it's surplus goods it's just that they now put them all together in sort of desirable shopping villages rather than you having to traipse around factories. So the Thornton's outlet is probably... Last year's chocolate. It's out of date Easter eggs. Exactly. Well, I think that is enough of Answer Me This,

episode 218. Yes, we wouldn't like you to get too excited and max out on the fun. Well, we don't want you to max out because we want to come back next week with episode 219. And for that, we need your questions. Oh, yes, please.

Which you can deliver to us via several means of communication, all of which are to be found on our website. AnswerMeThisPodcast.com And there's still time to enter Martin the Sound Man's amazing science songwriting competition for 18s and unders. Yeah, you've got a few weeks. Go to SociablePhysics.com. All the details are there and entries are open now. So please go and send in your science songs to me. Wow, we're at the centre of a movement.

Really nerdy movement. For children as well. We're twice as old as the average entrant of this contest. No, it does sound like a cool competition. And they get to go to Greenman with one of their parents. What could be cooler than going to a festival with one of your parents? If you're 18 you can go with a friend.

Yeah. Okay, good. And we'll see you next week. Bye!