Answer Me This! - AMT227: Vatican Olympians, Carbonara and Zooey Deschanel

Episode Date: August 9, 2012

Vatican Olympians, Carbonara and Zooey Deschanel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who's the most expendable one in Expendables 2? Has to be this, has to be this Are the kids in Glee really younger than Mr Shoe? Has to be this, has to be this Helen and Ollie, has to be this We've had complaints from freaks. Right. And the nature of these freaks Freakishness Is about our pronunciation last week

Of the substance Muesli Okay good I thought it might actually be about the content Of what we're saying which does verge on the disgusting Far more frequently than I would like That is much less offensive than us saying muesli No it's saying food stuff slightly wrong What do they want us to say muesli

I've never heard any sentient being say muesli If we'd have done the whole section about musely, yes, that's how I say it, kids. Musely, musely, musely. If I say musely, musely, musely, we'd sound like David Starkey or something. That's what it's called. Yeah, but it's just wrong, isn't it?

It's like when people say issue. Oh, aye. Lord Coe says that. Sexual. The receptionist at my GP surgery says urine. He says that. That's wrong as well. I don't even care.

In fact, I'm going to start mispronouncing other words just to irritate you listeners. Tuna. Yeah. American listeners are going to be fine with that, actually. Me too. I'm going to start mispronouncing things as well. This is from Jen from Wisconsin, who says... Very good.

Thank you. I was just listening to podcast 222. 222. 222. One month later. Joke still works. And Ollie asked if anyone in America actually eats from a trough. I did ask that, Jen, yes, but it was largely a rhetorical question.

He wanted to know on his next American road trip where he should go for the trough scoff. I should have really learned after five and a half years of looking up questions and answers on the internet that if a question can be asked, it cannot be rhetorical. Because Jen comes in with this feedback. When I was a child, my mother would do something similar for my birthday. We'd invite children over, clean the table well. That is a fun party, isn't it? Oh, yeah.

Children, get your cloths ready. Then scoop ice cream directly onto the table. Whoa. And put syrups and toppings and jimmies on it. What's a jimmy? I thought that was the slang for date rape drug. We went directly at the ice cream with our spoons from the trough. It was fun and certainly memorable.

I'm in fact having false memory syndrome now. God, childhood was brilliant. Remember when we all ate ice cream directly off the table, sprinkled with jimmies? I'm a bit dubious of the idea of ice cream all over the table it looks great when it's going on once it's all melted into the custard and you all feel a bit sick because you've had so much then it's just an unholy mess

yeah but I have got the brand name for it McSlurry oh my god it's almost worth doing now isn't it here is a question from Chris from Dunoon in Scotland. And he says, last October, during a drunken night out, I dislocated my shoulder by falling over a tiny, tiny wall. This is it, isn't it?

Listeners who haven't listened to our work from early 2010 might not recall. But I dislocated my shoulder. By falling over tiny, tiny nothing. But yeah, I was able to say I had a skiing injury, but actually I fell over whilst waiting for my first skiing lesson to begin. It was an injury in the context of skiing. You tripped over your own stupidity, didn't you? Essentially.

And it is so annoying because you want to tell people that you have this battle scar by, I don't know, defending some vulnerable village child from a terrible racist thug. Yeah, or rescuing a goat from a terrible racist thug. Yeah, or rescuing a goat from a well. Yeah, but actually just falling over a tiny wall because you're a bit pissed. It's just not fun. Anyway, Chris says,

thanks to this accident, I did nerve damage to the shoulder, resulting in several operations, the most recent of which has meant my arm has been in a sling since. Again, I say there is a positive to this situation, Chris. Smelly armpit? No, yeah, oh God, that's not a positive.

You do get to learn your own smell though, which is educational. And you do get to appreciate your other armpit more. Yeah, absolutely. You don't realise how clean you are until you've done that. No, I was going to say the positive is it does give you an excuse to be a bit lazy in the bedroom, which, you know, actually, you know, once in a while every man would like the excuse. Yeah, not

to make the bed. Absolutely. Well, he says, with my arm completely immobilised, I started looking for new TV shows to watch and came across New Girl. Yeah. Put the fan in the room. What?

I haven't started watching it yet, says Chris, as frankly, it looks a bit shit. Yeah. Are you just going to sit there and take that, Martin? Screw this guy. However, it does star Zooey Deschanel.

There we go. So answer me this, Ollie. Is it acceptable to start watching a TV show I think will be rubbish just because I fancy the main character? Uh, yes.

I don't think I've ever fancied the star of a show. So, like, I really fancied Katie Holmes in Dawson's Creek when I was 16. Yeah. I only knew that because... You didn't fancy Dawson?

I only knew that because I wanted to watch Dawson's Creek anyway because everyone was talking about it at school. And then I learned from watching it that I fancied Katie Holmes. I've never been in a situation where I've thought, oh, she looks good. She's available now. Yeah, I don't know.

A bit of a poison chalice now, though, isn't it? What are you saying about her stinking vagina? No, I'm saying Scientologist poison chalices. It's well known. So I've never been in exactly the situation. But yes, I'm sure Scientologist Poison Chalices. It's well known. So I've never been in exactly the situation, but yes, I'm sure plenty of people watch. I mean, the whole Hollywood industry is based on the fact that people often go

and see entire films because it's got someone in it who they quite fancy, even if they know nothing about the plot and all the money's been spent on the star and there isn't even a script. You have to spend so much time in the company of the show

that I think after about 10 minutes it would actually make you go off that person that you fancied. That's the danger. In show that I think after about 10 minutes it would actually make you go off that person that you fancied. That's the danger. In fact I'd rather not see somebody that

I had a crush on in some kind of TV serial that was bad because I don't want to associate them with that hate profiteer. Yeah I was so

disappointed when Karl MacLachlan did Sex and the City. But actually I think New Girl is a grower. I think the first couple of episodes were a bit ropey and

then some jokes start to happen. And actually Zoe Dishner's character gets marginalised as the other characters get a lot more interesting. That's quite a good thing because the character's a bit ropey and then some jokes start to happen. And actually Zoe Dishner's character gets marginalised as the other characters get a lot more interesting. That's quite a good thing because the character's a bit thin. Okay, but when you're watching with the sound down, I imagine it's a bit difficult to follow the plot. Well, Martin's humping the

television so he can't even see. A question of food now from Andrew who says, Helen, answer me this. How can I make a faultless carbonara? More specifically, what is your brother Andy Zaltzman's recipe for the same? Why is he asking that? His recipe's full of shit.

My brother is a real carbonara braggart, and he trumpets his amazing carbonara recipe. I've had it. His secret, okay, is adding a tot of sherry. That makes the pancetta taste like pepperami. So I do not recommend it. It's disgusting. It also sounds like what an alcoholic would do. Doesn't he put peas in his carbonara?

Oh, he'll put anything in there. A purist would have only pancetta and egg, wouldn't they? Possibly not even cream. Carbonara is a very minimal dish. Yeah, but the standard recipe, you know, I mean, if you look into like a non-frilly kind of cookbook, Delia's recipe for carbonara, it does involve a lot of cream, eggs.

Is there cheese as well? Well, I'd add parmesan. Oh, God. I mean, I made it once and it was nice, but I just didn't realise that what I was eating when I was eating what feels like a relatively light dish is actually basically an English breakfast mixed into pasta. Well, Andrew continues, my wife and I greatly enjoy Italian food but whenever I make it, I get lots of small eggy bits like omelette. Well, that

sounds to me like maybe your pan is a little bit hot because it's meant to cook into a kind of silky smoothness by the heat of the pasta after draining it, which is why speed is of the essence. But I think you don't want to really be cooking it for longer than 20 or 30 seconds, Max. Hold on. Is your basic recipe then the same

as Andy's but without the sherry? Pancetta, pasta, egg, cream. Cream. Yeah. Black pepper, Max. Hold on. Is your basic recipe then the same as Andy's, but without the sherry? Pancetta, pasta, egg, cream. Cream. Yeah. Black pepper. Lots of black pepper. Lots and lots of black pepper. I would add parmesan as well.

Otherwise, I think it's a little bit bland. Yeah. Yeah. And that's it? Yeah. What's interesting is there's all these pasta sauces, aren't there? From pesto to bolognese to Neapolitan, whatever.

Yeah. I've never really seen a convincing jarred carbonara sauce. Oh, it's awful. They're awful. Yeah, but they're awful in a way that the others aren't. But that is because it's mostly egg, and so you're getting a jar full of egg. You can't really save time on a carbonara by buying it because it's a very quick dish anyway.

It was invented by the carbonari. They could cook it in the streets when they were doing street wars in Florence. Good fact. Hi, it's Imogen calling from Richmond. I'm renting a house with 17 friends for a week. And they're talking about spending what seems like far too much money on food and drink. And I am not so keen on this because I'm both trying to save money and also trying to diet. But it's been made very clear to me in the group that we are planning to, everyone has agreed to split the bills completely equally.

And for anyone to disagree would be completely bitchy. So Helen and Ollie, answer me this. Should I try and say that I don't want to eat as much or drink as much of the food, therefore I shouldn't have to pay as much or just pay lots of money, not eat very much and come grovelling to my parents after the holiday. Well, it's a bit late, isn't it? You've agreed to these socialist rules of the holiday, haven't you? You said yourself everyone has agreed. You're all going to split the bills equally. So you really have to do that. You don't want to be that dick that is going to ruin the uh communal aspect of the holiday and it's your fault for agreeing to do something with 17 other people yeah if it was five people it'd be fairly easy to be like oh we'll work out the

bills wouldn't it yeah in a group of 17 as well you really don't want to be the person who's like well actually i didn't have the ice cubes i mean you're dividing a bill by quite a large number there it's not going to come to that much compared to what it would if you were there with four people. Actually, you make a good point because the difference made by you asking them to cut back the expenditure once divided by 18 is not going to be significant

enough. You're probably saving yourself 15 quid. Yeah, 15 quid is not worth being that level of a dick. Plus, you're from Richmond, you sound a bit posh, your parents can probably afford it. I think you'll be absolutely fine. I mean, the thing is, you're on holiday, get into the summer spirit. You know, stop thinking, oh, I'm on a diet. Don't be on a diet. Go on holiday for two weeks.

That's the point of a holiday. I remember going on school trips when I was, say, 12, 13, and my parents would give me spending money for the trip, and I'd often go back with 75% of that spending money intact. That was stupid. I thought they'd be pleased. But really, this was my only bit of the year when I had the licence to buy frivolous crap.

And so did you actually give it back to them? Yeah. What? And did they take it? Well, my parents weren't going to waste money. They weren't going to rip it up in front of my face going, you could have spent it on ice cream. Also, Imogen, there are so many ways

that you could make your money back on your holiday. Oh, what, by running a poker syndicate or something? Discover a yet-to-be-imported condiment or sauce from that country and be the next Levi Roots. What if they're having a holiday in Britain? Where's the mysterious condiment going to be? Another kind of sauce comes from Worcestershire. I refuse to believe it. Let Herefordshire have a go, Worcestershire.

Pull your neck in. Enter the knobbly knees competition. Depends where they're going. If they've gone to Lourdes, I'd imagine there are a lot of people there with knobbly knees that they're trying to get cured by St. Bernadette. I got a question.

Email your question to AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com So retrospective, 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. I want you to know, Helen, that this next section is entirely your fault. Really? Yes.

Why is everything my fault? Well, that's a broader question. But last week you invited our audience to indiscreetly overshare details of their relationships and their private lives. Yeah. Well, that chicken has certainly come home to roost.

Because this is a landmark moment on Answer Me This, our first ever question from a man whose penis I have seen. Well, even that guy that wrote in saying, I've stapled my balls to the Keith and the Girl book. Yeah, because you only saw his balls, didn't we? You only saw his testicles.

He taped his penis out the way, I think. He had, yeah. Really strange sort of hammock. Too much preparation for an impromptu prank. The question comes from Anonymous in California. Why would they hide their name? Yeah, well, as we're about to discover, they're not all that anonymous.

Who says, Helen, I have a wicked quandary for you. their name yeah well as we're about to discover they're not all that anonymous uh who says helen i have a wicked quandary for you is it about whether it's worth getting tickets to see wicked it's not it's very far from the innocence of that question because i wouldn't know how to answer that i've never seen it yesterday he says i was on the internet researching my doctoral thesis on things i like to wank off to isn't't it funny how Americans use the word wank now? Yeah. In a tag on a porn video online, that meant this is a British video.

I wonder whether he's translated what he would normally say into language he thinks we can understand. Probably jacks off or jerks off. Well, this is it. But you see, now I think Brits are just as likely to jerk off and the Yanks are just as likely to wank. Yank wank. Yank wank.

Anyway, I made a most disturbing discovery. It was an undated video of myself and a former lover from about five years ago engaging in hot sex for a sultry six minutes. Okay, well that's the kind of thing that you would have done with an ex-lover. I thought you were going to say it was us stabbing a pig to death and really enjoying it. Also, you know, six minutes, that's beating my sex record

by about five and a half minutes. It's your cumulative sex record of your entire life. He says, this is a video I do not remember ever being made, which is the Carly Rae Jepsen defence. In the interest of research, I should say, listeners, by the way,

we've seen it. And all I can say is it's a very solid performance, good lighting. Not very well shot. The camera angle isn't very flattering. I thought it was quite romantic, actually. Yeah, well, it builds to a nice climax.

They both come together and then there's a little kiss, which is nice, isn't it? It was textbook, let's say that. Yes, yes. Anyway, to be fair, he says, I cannot say with 100% certainty that it is us. I don't know how, because you can see your face in it. Like, either that's you or it's not. Yeah, but I wouldn't recognise can see your face in it. Like either that's you

or it's not. Yeah but I wouldn't recognise my own penis from that angle. Probably recognise your girlfriend's side boob wouldn't you? Also noises,

behaviours etc are consistent with my memory so I'm pretty down. They're pretty consistent with normal people doing it aren't they? Well this is it.

They're fairly conventional noises and behaviours I would argue. You don't moo or anything. There's not even any applause. Caveat. Nothing about the room is familiar to me. Apart from the girl, presumably.

Though I dated the lady in question for two years, so there are many rooms to account for. That you filmed yourself having sex in? Yeah, well, this is what I find extraordinary about this. Like, surely you remember the moment at which you filmed it. Maybe not. Maybe they did that every time and it became just commonplace. It's like sometimes when you're in the shower

And you can't remember whether you've shampooed your hair or not Because when you're in the shower It's just routine And then you think, hang on, I can't actually remember Whether I've done my routine that I've done every day For 30 years You can't remember if you've showered your hair You can't remember if you turned round to the webcam built into the wall

And stuck your finger up your arse You're right, I can't remember It's hard to remember, isn't it, this sort of thing? Commonplace. Yeah, absolutely. Work a day. Also, he says, the video is edited. You don't see anyone turn the camera on or off.

That's right, because that's not what people whack off to usually. That's right. All of our amateur porn, he says, from that period, so suggesting that he did actually make some, begins with the camera being turned on and ends with it being turned off ring a ding ding uh probably end with me being turned off as well i don't know how to edit video and i doubt she does either but she might have learned in the last five years as could you a child could do it now the technology has become very much more

accessible yeah absolutely i don't think it's much of an alibi now helen answer me this what am i to do with this information share it on our podcast obviously you've already done it well done i'm not particularly concerned about the video being on the web why not obviously it actually seems like appropriate cosmic justice for how many times i've masturbated to strangers on the web well that's very that's very generous isn't it i think it's an interesting idea. Imagine if there was a system where for every video you whacked off to,

or as they now say in the States, wanked off to, someone, just one, saw a video of you doing that act. Yeah. That would change

people's attitudes, wouldn't it? They wouldn't click through so rapidly. It's like if everybody who listened to us doing this podcast sent us a podcast

they had made, we'd probably stop doing this podcast. Yeah. I think that's probably true. And although I think there are times where we're quite self-indulgent, I wouldn't compare even our early work

to the sound of us wanking. But I see your point. Anyway, he continues, I'm not planning on running for Congress. Well, you don't know yet, do you? Well, this is the thing, isn't it? Come back to bite you years and years later. This has already been five years.

Actually, by the time he's considering running for Congress, this will be an asset in his campaign. Yeah, by the time he's planning on running for Congress, they'll be running anti-the-other-guy videos where you see him prematurely ejaculating. Yeah, with his tiny penis. Mitt Romney can't even go for more than three minutes. Mitt Romney could not affect an easy flip

such as Anonymous from California managers in his six minute video. Barack Obama was thinking about war crimes during this humping. But the mystery of it, he says, sticks in my craw. Where was this video made? By whom? Well, by you from the looks of it. It doesn't seem like anyone else is there. It's static camera. Why was it uploaded to the Internet in april five years after the fact um well i'd like to know uh what format you made the video in and therefore could it have fallen into somebody else's hands either digitally or as a physical old-fashioned format but he's saying that he

doesn't remember making the video at all but that when he did make videos it started with him turning on the camera five years ago that would suggest to me mini dv yeah yeah so someone else someone could have found the tape yeah yeah and edited out the turning on because as we said not all that fascinating uh the only person i can ask is my ex and we're still on good terms yay you look like you're on good terms yes yeah you started from a good place and as you say the video stopped before you uh actually uh press the stop button on the camera so the video doesn't show the bit where you break up but continue cordial relation. But I'm afraid she'll be really disturbed, he says,

at the prospect of herself getting it on on the internet. Well, then she shouldn't allow herself to be filmed in the internet age. I have no idea if she knows this exists or if she's the one responsible. I'm terrified to even bring it up with her but also can't stop thinking about it helen answer me this what should i do well you should just ask her because at least that way if she says oh yeah that was me that's virtually all of your doubts eliminated and then you can find

out why yeah and how maybe she just thought i'd like there to be some permanent and publicly accessible record of when i was young and my boobs were very aloft yeah i had a very slender waist i suppose if there is any doubt as well because you say you don't recognize the room although i think that could just be angle and lighting yeah yeah exactly and a lot of rooms look different to how you remember i mean five years is quite a long time and it's not a particularly remarkable setting from what we could see it's got a yellow wall and a maroon bedspread which i think yellow walls in particular are walls that you could easily misremember as white. Yeah, good point. More so than almost any other colour, I find.

Maybe you were filming yourself in a B&B or someone's house where you were just staying for the night, you filthy creatures. In any case... You didn't wait till you were home. In any case, she can help authenticate whether it is indeed, as you suspect, you. I've never filmed myself in such private moments. So stop Googling, everyone, you're not going to find that footage. But I assume

that people who do, a lot of it is just about the fact of being filmed rather than the possibility to watch it afterwards. So if you are worried about this happening to you listeners film it and then just delete it straight afterwards. Which is exactly what I did when I found myself jacking off when I was about 15. I got a

video camera for my bar mitzvah. I mean, once you've filmed a certain amount of Christmases, really, what else is there to do when you're 15? And that is what they assumed you would do with it. Well, I was just curious what it would look like. When I stated that curiosity, I wish I'd never seen it. This is how I imagine, really, Dawson Leary would have behaved.

He wouldn't have made all his fake Spielberg films. He would have just been setting up that camera in his bedroom and then trying himself out at various angles Well of course because at some point Katie Holmes is going to climb up the ladder into his room And maybe not want to talk about her feelings again Yeah that's true she's climbing in through the window A lot of upskirt potential 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.

I'll a Helen or Ollie or Martin, a sound man. Answer me this podcast. Podcast at GoogleMail.com. Answer me this podcast. Podcast at GoogleMail.com. At GoogleMail.com. Now, listeners, you may not have noticed, but there is a sporting event happening in London at the moment.

Sport, sport, sport. That's the official Olympic song, isn't it? It's the Muse song. Sport. We throw things and we run sportily. No, I'm just going to let you carry on. No, I was enjoying it. Track suits, track suits everywhere.

Yeah. Who's going to win? Everyone on. No, I was enjoying it. Tracksuits, tracksuits everywhere. Yeah. Who's going to win? Everyone cares. It's the sporty. Sporty sports sports. Right. And then Dizzy Rascal comes in halfway through. Sporty sports sports.

Am I crazy? No. Am I wearing trainers? Yes. That's how it goes. Anyway. You could have won the Mercury Prize easily, Ollie. Olympics.

Let's bring this back oh then the olympics is happening yeah they really are uh and uh we would take this opportunity to plug the fact that if you haven't heard it yet there could be no better time well i suppose the paralympics we might as well try plugging that one away but anyway for the moment there could be no better time than to download the answer me this sports day album for only £2.49 from itunes it's most diverting you know even if you're not that interested in sport, there are probably some things that entertain you in it. It's an hour of us talking about sport

and it's stuff that we've never featured anywhere else and never will. And you're contributing to our holiday fund. It's about as good a time to tell you that this is our penultimate episode before we go off on a month break. Yes, so enjoy every second. But that aside,

I think we should talk about the Olympics more generally because guess what? It's been prompting some questions in your mind. Surprising, really. Considering it's received hardly any televisual coverage. That's right. This first Olympic question comes from Alex from Xinjiang in China, who says,

Helen, answer me this. Why, even in the London Olympics, does everything need to be said in French first when it's broadcast over the PA? So that it can all sound like when they're delivering the results at the Eurovision. I was thinking that as well when I was hearing the dual announcements. You instantly think Eurovision. N'est-ce pas? It's just the words Royaume-Uni that immediately make you feel Eurovisional.

He says, I realise that the head of the Olympic Federation is French. And also, may I say, not much of a communicator in any language. Really? I just think if you're the head of the International Olympic Committee, you should be able to talk properly in a way that looks like you're enthusiastic about sport at the very least. But are they really that protective over their language? What, the French? Yes.

Lots of evidence to say yes. French and English are the official Olympic languages and it says in the rules that the countries have to agree to before being allowed to do the Olympics that French announcements must take precedence there are thousands of pages of these rules apparently and they're very sturdy on that matter

does it come down to the fact that the bloke who decided to revive the Olympics in modern times was French wasn't he in 1896 yeah very good yes I've been to the Olympic exhibition in the Royal Opera House, I learnt that. I'm surprised you did the reading bits at an exhibition.

It's not really your speed. You had to. They locked you in a room and they move you round room from room. So once I'd walked in, checked my emails on my phone, seen the medals, I had to read the placards. Oh, dear. Well, then you know more than me

about Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Yes, oh, he was a tremendous moustache. He really was beautiful. So fair enough, he's a tremendous moustache. He really was. Beautiful. So fair enough, he's going to invent something like that that the world's going to really catch on to. You might as well say, yeah, you've got to do it in my language. Yeah, he founded the International Olympics Committee. But it needs updating, doesn't it? Because A, Chinese, or Mandarin or whatever,

is more spoken than French worldwide. So is Spanish and Portuguese, yeah. So it should be one of those languages, really, or even one of the Indian dialects. Well, the rules are French, English, and then the language of the host nation. So actually this year they managed to tighten it up a bit due to English-English.

And B, how many bloody technological sponsors do they need? Samsung, Panasonic, Acer, Amiga? Can none of them do live translation, for God's sake? I'm sure you just choose what language you want to watch it in, don't you, rather than having to sit through it. Hello, Molly, it's Carys from Hull. Answer me this. Why Hong Kong and china participate separately in separate teams again a sort of historical reason behind this as you might expect yeah because they always have

and when britain did the handover deal with china for hong kong which was paced over decades wasn't it it was like yeah we'll give it to you in whatever it was 1997 and then you can phase it out and then you'll be part of China, whatever always, all along, part of the contract basically was that if Hong Kong wanted to it could list itself separately in international events so it does. Wow, the Isle of Man, I'm surprised

doesn't have its own team I'm not that surprised because I'm not sure what they'd qualify for. Guernsey? Olympic event in Borden. Oh yeah, the Cornish separatists. That's going to be their next thing, isn't it? But I guess, I mean, it would be weird, wouldn't it,

if like East Germany and West Germany still competed separately. Yes, good point. I mean, I know they were keener to unite than the Hong Kongians were. Or if all 38 countries

of pre-unification Germany competed separately. Or before that, the several hundred countries that make up modern Germany now. Well, here's a question from Ryan from Melbourne who says,

Helen, answer me this, could the Vatican send an Olympic team if they wanted? Why, because they are a sovereign state. Yeah. But they're a place with 800 inhabitants. Who aren't really known for their sporting prowess. The Pope, he's more of a sitter and a watcher, isn't he? And the Cardinals aren't really that lively either, are they?

It'd be an amazingly weak team, wouldn't it? Yeah. 800 people, that's probably going to provide a weaker team sitter and a watcher isn't he and the cardinals aren't really that lively either are they it'd be amazingly weak team wouldn't yeah 800 people that's probably going to provide a weaker team than your average secondary school but the fact is uh it appears that um they don't particularly want to compete in the olympics because to compete in the olympics you have to have a national olympic committee they don't have one which means the international olympics committee can't let them enter well here's another question of olympics from charlie from bristol who says whilst watching the equestrian events at the olympics i began wondering how horses are transported over such large distances from their home nations okay ollie answer me this do they all get to ride in a plane together it's

the same as if you see them on the road they're in those bespoke equestrian trailers where they don't they basically can't move but that's how horses like to be transported they've created special bespoke fedex planes well are basically like the horse trailers on the road that is incredible but they're in the but they're in the air with the hay with the water they pack them into a small cardboard box and hope for the best do they sell that as a jiffy bag i also wonder if they have special bespoke movie channels for the horses mid-air so they you know just showing

Seabiscuit. Black Beauty. Well listeners we've just landed at the end of this episode. Nice. And like I said this is our penultimate

episode of the series which means next week is our last episode of the series because that's what penultimate implies. That's right so if you want to get a question

onto the last episode of this series of Answer Me This you must send it to us. Yes! Quickly! Call 0208 123 5877. Skype Answer Me This. Email answermethispodcast at googlemail.com. All the details are on our website

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