Answer Me This! - AMT219: Bomb Shelters, Ceefax, and Saucy Playing Cards

Episode Date: June 14, 2012

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Are the Sultans of Swing fairly elected? Answer me this, answer me this How did Prince Philip's bladder become so infected? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this Despite the fact that most of the world seems to be very happily frotting itself silly, reading Fifty Shades of Grey, not everybody is very happy about this book which we of course discussed last week and answer me this memorably kyle contacted us via twitter to

say your recent dissection of 50 shades of grey came at the worst possible time my mum is reading it my mum is reading porn what a 21st century take this is on the traditional thing of the parent discovering their child watching porn. Don't worry, Kyle. The important thing is to recognise your mum is just being naturally curious. It's just a phase, Kyle. She'll hit the menopause and she won't want to touch herself. Don't make her feel embarrassed by discussing

the subject awkwardly. In a public forum. Yeah, maybe take her out for a burger and see if you can bring it up in a natural way. Well, the sentiment that he's going to be bringing up the burger in a natural way after this conversation. Well, this is a sort of related question from Gary from Air, who says, I've just finished watching the series finale of Game of Thrones. Well done, you.

I don't have Sky Atlantic, so I've never seen it. Yeah, I'm a bit pissed off about that now, because they're going to have those Partridge specials on there as well. Oh, what? They've got everything. I know. They've got Mad Men. I know that's kind of the point of Sky Atlantic, isn't it? Is to make people like us, who would never have paid for Sky Atlantis, or been that bothered about not having it, really want it.

Did you say Sky Atlantis? I did, yeah. What was that show on it? Just deep water fishing. Well, anyway, Gary continues. Whilst Game of Thrones is rather rip-roaring, riveting telly, the gratuitous nudity makes it uncomfortable family viewing. Oh, whereas the violence, absolutely that's right yep uh the same was true he says of boardwalk empire

yeah you're just showing off about your sky atlantic subscription now uh and the tudors i don't want to see the tudors so not bothered i saw a bit of the tudors it's a nice idea isn't it let's reinvent the perception of henry the eighth that's one completely inaccurate exactly yeah gary continues uh helen answer me this have you ever watched a film or tv series and thought i'm enjoying the acting i'm following the narrative the direction's fine but this scene could do with the actress losing her blouse and or pantaloons i do actually think this but i don't think in the way he's inferring whereby you would think what this is lacking is gratuitous sex scenes. What I'm talking about is when there is a sex scene and they're keeping clothes on in a completely unrealistic way.

And it's not that I want to see their parts. It's just by them, say, Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids. I don't want to see her boobs. But by her keeping her bra on in quite a rampant sex scene, you're just thinking that must mean that christian wick did not sign a contract saying she would show her boobs you don't think the character has naturally kept her bra on because they're in such a hurry to get to it you would but if you saw christian wick's boobs you would think oh those are christian wick's

boobs not the character's boobs i thought they could probably cover them with bedding or limbs when i was about 14 i probably would have liked every film to have more sex in it yeah like when i was 14 my favorite film was true lies and to have more sex in it like when I was 14 my favourite film was True Lies and I like that because in between the bombs

and the Islamophobia you've got Jamie Lee Curtis doing a striptease for no reason at all and I think probably at that age I would have quite liked all romantic comedies

to have actual sort of hardcore penetrative sex in the middle of them I would have thought that would have been perfect I just think Sliding Doors

would not be the same if it was a man's dick getting that would have been perfect. I just think Sliding Doors would not be the same if it was a man's dick getting stuck in a tube tray. Well, this is the Sliding Doors moment, does he just on her face or on her stomach? Yeah, well, I agree, that would be a different film, but that's the film I would have liked to have seen. Whereas now, I agree, it takes you out of it. Well, here's a question from Maria in Norwich who says,

I'm wondering what to do for my 21st birthday in six months send out the save the dates now yeah not too previous bloody hell maria you're not the most important person in the world my friend nick is going to be 40 later this year and he wanted to send the save the dates out a year before oh come on we're all going to be 40 at some point we're all going to die but you don't need to think about it until a few weeks before surely i'm already saving the date for his 50th actually can you save the date for my 50th alan because i would like you to be there thanks ollie 12th of may 2031 yeah put it in the diary yeah i'm sure it'd be lovely to have a reunion then because of course by then we won't have been speaking for several years maria says i was thinking about going to a murder mystery event but after a bit of investigation what are you

poirot i found out that it's pretty expensive however i've seen kits that you can buy to host your own murder mystery but i'm not sure it would be very good you can get those at charity shops and i'll tell you why because they're only good enough to play once but anyway ollie answer me this should i host a murder mystery for my 21st actually i think if the idea of a murder mystery appeals to you then yes you probably should if you think it's a good idea. I mean, it's an acquired taste and it's not for everyone. And you can tell by the fact that Helen's making the noise of a cow there that she doesn't think it's a good idea.

You would think that I would like them because I love a detective thingy. But there isn't that much suspense. If you haven't done it, then there's not any real reason to lie. I think you might think it's a really good way to bring together strangers. What it actually means is no one actually talks about who they are or what they're like or what they're interested in. That's what appeals to me about it. I'd prefer to talk to most people about a fake job. But the thing is, you get to two hours into the evening,

the murder is revealed, and you go, OK, the murder mystery part is over, we can just have party. But you've been around with people for three hours and you don't even really know what their names are. It just doesn't work really. And also, if you've got more than about 12 people, it's too many because in the kits they don't really write that many

characters and also the kits show that it's actually really hard to put together a good whodunit. Yes, I mean the thing that I don't like about the kits is that they're often just very crude aren't they? Like the characters are like... Oh, filthy! No, no, no, but it's an adult game Like crass. Like, hello, I'm Marilyn

Monmore. I'm an actress That kind of thing, you know. Hello, I mean... It's an adult game. Like, crass. Like, hello, I'm Marilyn Monmore. I'm an actress. That kind of thing, you know? Yeah. Hello, I'm Sir Eat-A-Lot-A-Cookies. I'm the local biscuit magnate. And it's just like, oh, for fuck's sake. Why don't you give me a good, like, Agatha Christie type who does it? Because they're very hard to do.

It's better to have a really good game of hide-and-seek than do one of these. Hi, Helen Olly. It's Joel from Southampton, but living in Kent. Helen Olly, answer me this. what was the world's first card trick? In brief card tricks probably evolved out of people cheating at cards

and it was usually kind of street magic type stuff until the latter half of the 18th century where the most famous magician of the time, Josephoseph pinetti born giuseppe pinetti but known as joseph uh he did a lot of card tricks in grandiose theatrical settings so he's sort of credited with being the father of modern card trickery but why would cards be good for a grandiose theatrical setting because they're better for close-up magic aren't they

grandiose theatrical setting better doing david copperfield type tricks aren't you well maybe his set of cards was massive i always feel faintly harassed by magicians especially if you're in a place where they're doing close-up magic going table to table you never had this and you're like you're on i don't go to such places yeah but if you're at a wedding and they're doing it i've never been to a wedding where they've had magic no because usually the weddings i go to they have a wedding going on so you don't need additional entertainment yeah i agree with you but i have been to those weddings did they have a puppet show as well no does anyone have clowns at their wedding just a freak out half the guests um and it's that thing of when they're on the table next to you and you hear the patter then

and then you hear the bit where he does the thing where he produces the watch from inside his jacket and everyone claps and goes hey and then he comes to your table you're like i know exactly what you're gonna do i've just heard you do it on the last table well i know why you're uncomfortable with that ollie because you naturally are averse to audience participation as am i that's true even though we do this audience interactive show it's not the same as when you're being picked on at the pantomime because you're sitting in the front yeah that's true i do sit the whole way through theater where they come down into the stalls and try and get the audience involved just with my bum on my hands basically

your bum on your hands sitting on my hands was the image i was going for literally mean that i'm fingering myself in the children's show bum on my hands basically. Your bum on your hands? Yeah, sitting on my hands was the image I was going for. I literally mean that I'm fingering myself in a children's show. I was trying to be restrained. And that's why they sell those giant foam hands at the property. I had a Gordon the Gopher card set when I was a kid. Did you?

That's cool. It was kind of cool actually, Helen. Yes, thank you for finally recognising that. You're a cool guy. I was. I was really cool. Why did no one notice at the time? You could have got Philip Schofield to sign every one of those cards.

I could have, yeah, but I threw them away by the time I ever met Philip Schofield. I've got a pack of cards with some dirty pictures on from the 50s that were my grandad's. That's brilliant. Yeah. Although you realise your grandad probably did have a wank over those. Look, you can still shuffle them so i wonder if the um porn on cards thing actually was a way of hiding the pornography in an innocent looking thing if you have a look at gideon's bible from 1955 steamy if you've got a question email your question

to answer memit this podcast and give them out our call Unsubmit this podcast and give them out our call Unsubmit it Unsubmit it 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. Okay, we've got some good news for those of you who hate Apple. As in the computing? Yeah, rather than the fruit. Yeah, or Gwyneth Paltrow's daughter. That's right.

That'd be really harsh. She's only about eight, leave her alone. She's a real cunt. Probably will turn out to be a bit of a bitch. Stop it. Those of you who hate apple the computer company which we don't but if you do uh and you've written to us and you've said why can't i buy your jubilee album not on itunes why can't you put it somewhere else i don't want to use it well now you can you can give some money to a different american corporation because the answer

me this jubilee album is now also on amazon and it's good that the jubilee album is finally available over a week after probably anybody cared about the jubilee but nonetheless like not the questions in that album they're not just about the jubilee they're about the royal family yeah for as long as the monarchy stands that album will be relevant and then after the monarchy has fallen that album will be an interesting time capsule it'll be a monument won't it like the victoria monument people will be performing around it in 100 years' time at a special concert. Anyway, the links to the version of the album on Amazon as well as the iTunes links is on our albums page on our website. So please head there.

Thank you very much. And in the meantime, we have this question sort of about the Jubilee. Well, inspired by the Jubilee. Inspired by the Jubilee, as we all were. Don't bring up the BBC and complain. It's from Jenny from Gainsborough Who says, Helen, answer me this How did the system of associating materials with years come about?

I.e. 25 years for a silver jubilee And 50 years for a golden jubilee, etc So this applies to marriages as well, doesn't it? Yeah, well I think they got it from marriages It originated in probably medieval Germany because it was a tradition that if a couple had been married for 25 years, then you brought them gifts of silver wealth

to celebrate the good fortune that had attended them for those 25 years. And the same on the 50th, a wealth of gold. And the rest of them were irrelevant. Do you think the rest were irrelevant because no one ever lived that long? So you could say, oh yeah, it's diamond at 60 because no one ever had a 60 year marriage really.

No one lived till 85. Well, diamond used to be 75 and then for Queen Victoria, they lowered it to 60 because they thought realistically, no monarch is going to be celebrating the diamond jubilee if we leave it at 75. Yeah. And actually, if anyone has some diamonds to show off, it's Queen Victoria. Yeah. Although she was probably just wearing jet morning jewellery as she did for most of her life after Albert died.

But what I mean is the anniversaries in between 25th and 50th, or even just any of them, was the American National Retail Jeweller Association, now known as Jewellers of America. In 1937, they introduced an extended list of gifts. So extended list of things you could buy through their outposts to celebrate anniversaries. Although it's Martin's and my 10th anniversary

earlier this year, and that is tin. And are you going to do anything for that? Maybe buy each other a DVD of The Wizard of Oz? We watch Pushing Tin. Pushing Tin, okay, nice. We had a weekend of eating lots of nice food. Yeah, lots of nice tinned food. One of them is really shit, isn't it?

Is it paper? Paper, yeah. Paper, cotton. This is rubbish, though. You know that gold is really shit, isn't it? Is it paper? Paper, cotton. This is rubbish, though. You know that gold is 50th, right? And 60th is diamond. 75th is gold and diamond. What a cop-out that is!

It doesn't even mathematically make sense, does it? No. Because that should be... Your 110th anniversary. So it's a biggie, everybody. Here's a question from simon from hull who says helen answer me this why do news readers always have to tell people what their name is i don't want to maintain mystery anymore do they martin's chuckling at the inanity of this question i understand what he means because he's not saying why does fiona bruce say hello i'm fiona bruce

because she's about to anchor a half hour program what he means is in a radio news bulletin where someone's on for two minutes unless they've got a really funny name like Fenella Fudge what's the point of them saying hello I'm Ollie Mann because ultimately who cares you've tuned in to the Steve Wright show you haven't tuned in for the newscaster some people might tune in for Sally Traffic no well they might yeah in her case because she's obviously got some really weird men who like to be dominated who listen to her. Okay, one, some people might not care about the specific person, but they want to know that it is a person, and therefore someone who is blamable if things go wrong.

Possibly. Two, some people might care. They might think, oh, I trust that newsreader. Three, the newsreader might want to be recognised for their work. Yes, I think that's really what's happening. It's like watching TV credits going, I personally don't care about any of these people but other people do care they want their work recognized someone somewhere cares you just got to accept listeners other people care

about things you don't care about it's for instance i might think why do they bother having branches of bookies or dry cleaners or showing football but it's because those aren't my interest that's right yeah and you might think why do they bother making cotton printed fabric where do you stand on the whole thing of shrinking the tv credits down to the tiny corner in the uh in the side of the screen and then running a promo in the two-thirds of the screen because that seems that seems like the worst of both worlds just disrespecting the people yeah and you're not really giving a proper promo i'm sure charlie booker's talked about that how much it annoys him i'm pretty sure that in america though i've actually seen the credits for the previous show running over the beginning of the new show.

Yes, yeah, yeah. That's just silly. It's too much rushing. There's enough time in the world to let the credits breathe. Here's another question about the entertainment industry from Ellie from Bangor, Northern Ireland, but in gold as green, who says, I've applied for a job in the TV subtitling sector.

Wow. I've loved having subtitles on whilst watching TV for as long as i can remember it's good to have a passion yeah ollie answer me this have you any tips factoids subtitles related gems pearls of wisdom or further insight into the world of tv subtitling that i should know and could dazzle my interviewer with goodness i might love subtitles but i don't actually know much about them right well uh i'll try my best i don't think an interviewer who is looking for a subtitler wants to be dazzled with facts about the industry they themselves work in

they want somebody who can type fast and accurately ah well interesting you should say that helen because that is a misconception no well it depends whether you're doing live subtitling or not like if it's live 70 words per minute or more no. It is a misconception about live subtitling. It is in fact only on pre-recorded subtitling nowadays that they tend to use typists, stenographers. On live broadcasting actually now, the modern way with subtitling, they have someone wearing headphones

listening to the speech as it comes out. And then what they do is they speak it into a speech recognition software package. Oh, that explains why there are so many wrong words now then in the subtitles. Because the speech recognition software package oh that explains why there are so many wrong words now then yeah subtitles because the speech recognition software package is a bit fallible anyway if it was translating what was actually going out on the screen that would be problematic so it they have a special person who can command the you know that it's learned the voice of and they read the words in their sort of soft neutral tones and they try their best

to match up as many words as they can but if one goes out wrong like if you get two instead of t double a yeah exactly there's not much you can do about that basically but the job is actually talking into a machine rather than typing okay although my friend claire admittedly this was a while ago but she went on a date with a subtitler at a news channel and he said that there were two subtitlers working simultaneously for the live news stream so they took every other sentence. So they were typing, were they? They were typing, but that was 2003

so maybe the industry has moved on a lot. It has actually, in fact, because the BBC set a deadline. I can't believe I've learned this today. Dazzling pearls of wisdom facts! The BBC set a deadline of, I think it was 2008, that by then 100% of their programming would be subtitled and they were the first broadcaster in the world to do that and to meet that deadline uh they had to innovate all this stuff basically we have subtitles to thank for the bbc news website now cfax originated as a service

for the hard of hearing oh good they invented cfax because they were working on a system for deaf viewers at the time in whatever it was the the 50s or 60s on the BBC. The whole idea of the BBC doing anything other than video and audio came out of the fact that they had CFAX and so they had like a wire news service, which then became the website. I've got another sort of subtitle-ish fact. Okay, I've got one too. Claire's date with the subtitler went really badly.

He was vile, even though on email he promised so much. Oh no, what did he do wrong? Well, they had a kind of picnic date where they promised to bring each other lunches. They'd discussed already what their favourite sandwiches were and she'd gone to a lot of trouble to make him a really nice sandwich and then he just got her a crappy packet sandwich. Did he? Yeah, what a dick.

Maybe he was busy and that's all he had time to do. At least go to a nice shop to buy a packet sandwich. The thing is, actually, you're never too busy to go and buy some bread and some sandwich ingredients are you even in your lunch break from the local test better to go to and buy baguette and some hummus and crudités yeah buy some crudités you subtitling wanker if you want to impress a girl tiny sticks of celery I'm an answer me this fan I listen with my nan She is not so keen She finds it too obscene

I follow them on Twitter Though Ashton Kutcher's fitter I want to take things further Just one step short of murder I want to look like Olly Mann I want to smell like Olly Mann I want to feel like Olly Mann I want to chase like Olly Mann I want to look like a loony man I want to feel like a loony man I want to chase like a loony man

I want to be like a loony man I want to touch like a loony man I want to be like a loony man We've had a few people complain that they don't like the musical interludes on our podcast. Which I say, fuck you! You know, they don't just serve as a respite from us talking, they also convey valuable information and they act as mnemonics. For instance, we've had this email from Kate who says,

for years I've had trouble remembering my home phone number, but recently realised that the last four digits, 5, 8, double, 7, are the same as yours. Oh, that's brilliant. Now I sing my phone number to the Answer Me This jingle and have no trouble remembering it whenever a nice man asks for my number. Does she also do her email address to our song?

Anyway, if you want to set your own telephone number to a jaunty bit of music, here's the tune and here's our number two. 0-2-0-8-1-2-3-5-8-double-7 You can also Skype us at Answer Me This. There's no tune for that. You just have to remember with your brain. Hi, Helen and Ollie.

It's Lawrence from Reading. I'm in a shop and I just watched a baby, well, a toddler of about two, break a china pot. His mother just told him to, you know, tidy it up and put it back on the shelf and then she left very hurriedly. Answer this should i have told the shop assistant the baby was very cute and his mother was wearing an m&s worker's hoodie so maybe she couldn't afford to pay it what a soft

heart he has for a cute baby and a mother who may be tired after a long day at the m&s coal face i disagree helen i think this is outrageous. I think, Lawrence, you should be calling Crimewatch with this information. You've seen a baby break a pot. Was there a notice up saying all breakages must be paid for? Because if there was, that's watertight and absolutely cannot be violated. You're probably going to go down for being an accomplice. I often unintentionally bash into people where I'm wearing my backpack on the tube.

Unintentionally. Sometimes you wear wing mirrors on your face just so you can see the looks of pain. And that underlines my lack of spatial awareness. And so when I go into a china shop, I try very much not to because I am like the proverbial bull. I've often wondered whether if I did knock something off,

whether I'd maybe haggle about the price. Because don't you only really owe them the cost price? I know that they could get the sale price from someone, but why should they make a profit on you breaking it? Like, I could agree you could maybe meet in the middle and say, okay, I'm going to cause you inconvenience, you're going to have to order another one, that's worth another couple of quid.

But why shouldn't they make a profit on your breakage? Because you could sort of argue that they're making a profit on putting things in the line of where I'm likely to knock them over. If it was in a glass cabinet, that wouldn't have happened. Not everyone can protect their business against the Olly Mann effect. Surely most of the time they just go, yeah, we account for breakages

in the cost of the items that we sell. This is what happens to me at supermarkets, where admittedly the things that break, say a jar of pickled onions, is only worth a couple of pounds. And I say, don't worry, I'll pay for it. And they go, no, no, don't worry. Here's another one. Completely intact.

And I always find that quite remarkable customer service. So I'm happy to pay for it, seeing as it was my fault that it broke. See how different we are, Ollie. You know, I'm happy to pay. Which supermarket is this? Sainsbury's and Iceland. Oh, I'm going to go to Sainsbury's and Iceland

and willingly go around smashing pickled onions and see what happens. Oh, they still make ketchup in glass bottles, do they? Bah! Anyway, Lauren, should you have told the assistant, no, I don't think it's really your job, because what would you gain from actually telling them that that person's gone?

It's not like they're in the shop. If you'd have said quietly, look, you might just want to check if that woman's knocked something on the floor. Yeah. But once they've walked out, no, what's the point? Yeah, you're just looking like a sneak and they're still not getting the culprit.

Yeah, you might look actually like you're trying to cover up for yourself having done it. Yeah. That's the worst of all worlds. That wasn't me, it was a baby, honest. Although I can't see a baby now. There was one. Well, here's another question about breakages.

It's from Rebecca who says, Ollie, answer me this. What was the point of building Anderson shelters in World War II? What? I understand that it was for protection during the Blitz. Well, that's kind of the point then, Rebecca. But they don't look that safe at all. That's because they're associated with the Blitz.

Those that are still visible today have been standing since the Blitz, so give them a break. Can you explain what an Anderson shelter is? It's one of those curved, corrugated metal shelters that people put in their gardens. They're about six foot long and you would dig about four feet down

and put them in the garden and then often you would sleep out there if there was an air raid, etc. The point wasn't that they're the safest possible design. The point was that at the time when materials were rationed and you were trying to get something out

to every household in the country, that was a sensible design. It wasn't that it's the optimum bomb shelter. Well, she says, most appear to have been made of sheet metal and packed dirt how was that ever meant to stand up against a bomb well i think you'll find that because it had a curved roof rather than vulnerable corners it could absorb a lot more energy if there was a nearby bomb was unlikely to be dented into a different shape wasn't it that was the idea and also i suppose it's a much smaller target than a whole house. Yeah, well presumably it's a peripheral damage thing

isn't it? Yeah, or were they designed to make people feel better because they were doing something proactive? Well a bit of that. Like presumably those drills that people of my mother's

generation had to do where they went under their school desk with their hands on their heads to withstand a nuclear bomb blast. Yeah. I guess there's partly that but then who's to say

that that propagandistic bit of the war effort isn't an important bit of keeping everyone's spirits up and not making the country go into civil war well also presumably a lot of people died from just glass breaking in their houses anderson shelters don't have glass that can fly at you and serve your art i think she's underestimating the um the effect of a bomb blast it's not like people got hit in the head by a bomb if their head their houses will collapse glass will fly everywhere or they'd be trapped under rubble.

Or they'd get hit by shrapnel or something. Yeah, so if you're a little bit away from flying bricks, then that itself makes it a bit safer, doesn't it? That was the idea. So, I mean, it was a relatively reliable place to hide,

although, of course, I guess more people were saved by going into tube stations and stuff than in these things at the end of their gardens. Well, it was interesting. A lot of people refused to sleep in the Anderson shelters

because they were bloody horrible. Yeah, damp and scary. You could still hear the bombs and the smell and everything. Well, it was interesting. A lot of people refused to sleep in the Anderson shelters because they were bloody horrible. Yeah, damp and scary. You could still hear the bombs and the smell and everything. Well, they're very prone to flooding because they were lower than ground level and they were really cold in winter. So then they invented the Morrison shelter, which is that one that was like a cage

that you could also use as a dining table in the day. Yeah. That was designed to withstand the impact of a two-storey house falling on top of it. Wow. Yeah. And actually to qualify for one of those you need an income of less than 350 pounds a year so you'd still qualify yes

worth getting in there free dining table i don't know about you listeners but sometimes i reach the end of a podcast with a wanton craving for more. In such moments, I confess, I have recourse to the Answer Me This app on the iPhone and additionally, in times of dire need, Android, upon which I have indulged in the weekly bonus material and over three hours of best bits

So we're finishing off the show today with a special offer of a question from Michael from Los Angeles who's written to us attaching a Groupon offer. Well, we're not going to be able to reclaim that if it's for people in the Los Angeles area. That's right. He's not expecting us to do that, even though in America they take scant notice of environmental impact of flying. Yeah, but it's not worth taking the offer if you have to pay 500 quid to get there and back.

Despite that, he's actually sent it to us because he finds it humorous, Helen, not because he intends us to do it. Oh, okay. And the Groupon offer that he sent us is a $24 voucher. It's $24 for $105 worth of value. Ooh. Very good ratio.

Value is what you're willing to pay. And it's for seven whole-body vibration sessions. Seven whole-body vibration sessions. Seven whole body vibration sessions. Isn't that just sitting on the train? It's what my dad has every day because he suffers from Parkinson's disease. For free. So, Helen asked me this. What do you think of this Groupon offer?

Could there be any credence to it? In other words, could it make you healthy, getting your body vibrated? Well, the whole body vibration thing sounds really creepy. Actually, it's the same as what they call power plate over here, where they say we've compressed an hour-long workout into 10 amazing minutes where you do a lot of demanding positions. We vibrate you so your muscles are doing so much more work. It does sound like a lot of bollocks, doesn't it?

Well, it's like those slender tone things. Do you remember those? Those were amazing. So they're like, just sit back and relax in your best underwear while our pads pummel your stomach into incredible tautness. My mum's got this incredible machine actually in the shed from the 80s. So it works really well then. It's called a lawnmower and it will mow your fat.

I'm somehow kind of picturing the seat in Burn After Reading. It's not that bad. It's a kind of totemic grey structure right with um a sort of seat belt coming off it sounds dodgy and you attach yourself to around the seat and lean back and it just shakes your ass you can turn around and it'll do your tummy as well yeah well yeah i'm sure that if it gave one a 22 inch waist then it would not be in the shed it'd be in the middle of the living room yeah but used every day it's so obviously a crock of shit that i can't believe that even 25 years ago that wasn't apparent just from the catalogue picture.

Well, I think the thing is they have not actually done any in-depth studies yet into the long-term efficacy of power plate. So it could well be a fad. It's not cardiovascular exercise and presumably it's also, even if it is vibrating your muscles, it's not necessarily building genuine strength. It sounds plausible as a toning exercise. I knew a couple of ladies that i used to work with who would do it regularly and they seem to be well toned but you don't know whether they would have had the same amount of toning from standing in the squat position just on a non vibrating plate yeah i mean what you don't know is whether their toning uh is a result of their

interest in fitness which is indicated by the fact they bought this machine, if you know what I mean. They take an interest in their body so they may be doing other things. I worry that they would make me more saggy because there's so much flab in my body that I think me standing on one of these would be like a yoghurt in an earthquake. My flesh would just stretch and stretch

and stretch with the motion. But actually, interesting, it was invented in the 1960s by the Russian scientist Vladimir Nazarov for cosmonauts because their muscles would waste when they were in space. Okay, yeah. So that's quite effective. Well, obviously...

Maybe. I mean, they don't have a very big sample of astronauts to test it on. Yeah, and that's different as well, isn't it? That's to do with stimulating cells that aren't getting used because there's no gravity. But, listeners, if any of you are conducting long-term studies into power plates, write in and say whether all it does is uh jiggle your belly like a bowl full of jelly or whether it genuinely can make you into live gorgeous human machine or just send us a question so we can use it in next week's show and our contact details are available on our website answer me this podcast.com where you can

also find links to our first three years worth of episodes if you you're wondering where they are, that's where they are. Check out our Twitter and Facebook. All the links are on the website too, as is the link to Martin's science songwriting competition, which is still limping on. Yeah, if you're 18 or under, send in your science songs before July 13th. Well, I don't know why you're still hanging around here when you should be going into a music room.

Get writing! Yes, and we'll see you next week. Bye!