Answer Me This! - AMT242: Baby Photos, Diners and Fairground Goldfish

Episode Date: January 17, 2013

Baby Photos, Diners and Fairground Goldfish Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why did they let Russell Crowe sing? Has to be this, has to be this Why does menthol shower gel make my balls sting? Has to be this, has to be this Helen and Ollie, has to be this Every week we're delighted listeners to enter into your ears and give you the gift of entertainment However, should we be entering your eyes as well and giving you

the gift of visual entertainment i'm not sure we should be entering our listeners at all i think this is deeply unsavory but what are you leading up consensual well daniel has written in to say i've been listening to your podcast for many years now thank you and i've always thought what a video version of your podcast would look like boring thatoring. That's what it would look like. He obviously thinks that a visual version of Answer Me This would be the perfect fusion of audio and video, like the Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia with Martin as the dancing broomstick. So after a few years of listening and pondering,

that's a long time to contemplate. It's like Buddha under the tree. I feel that the time is right, finally, to offer you the chance to make a video version of your podcast. Wow, what an opportunity. I've recently moved to London and thought I would see if you were interested in testing out my idea. No.

See, the thing is, Daniel... We could do it ourselves, couldn't we? Yeah, you've got plenty of televisual experience and a lot of cameras. Well, we've all got cameras on our phones nowadays. I mean, if we wanted to, we could film our every waking move. But it won't change the fact that this podcast i'm sorry to ruin the mental pictures of those of you that have a really thrilling vision for what happens but it's just three people sitting in an untidy living room it's not it's not a visual interest it's like why do people watch the live streams

from the bbc studios on webcam of say mayo and kermode talking i think well well with the five live thing i think if it's for example richard bacon interviewing the prime minister then there's an argument to say well i'd like to see how the prime minister reacted when he put that question about health policy or whatever we always love to see squirming yeah but most of the time it is just people sitting fairly still yeah or in our case when we're on five live with chris warburton it's him looking a bit angry and looking down at his notes frustrated. Yeah, or gesticulating wildly at someone behind the glass.

Which is actually a good segue, Helen, for us to mention the fact that we do have a BBC Five Live podcast. I say we do, it's not ours, but we're on it every week. So it might as well be ours. And it's called Let's Talk About Tech. And thank you very much for everyone who has downloaded it and rated it and reviewed it. Yeah, we mentioned it before, but it was called The Joy of Tech then, but now it's Let's Talk About Tech, golly,

let's talk about internet things. Yeah, search for that on iTunes and subscribe. Or the BBC website, if you care not for iTunes. And Daniel, just to say, thank you very much for the kind offer. It's very sweet of you, but it's best for everybody that this never happens and the visual version only exists in your head. Hi, how are you? It's Matt and Zoe from Winchester. We're sat in an American diner right now,

and we're just wondering, Helen and Ollie, answer me this, are there British-themed diners in America, or is it just us that have this weird fetishist thing with America? Well, I think it's true to say that we in Europe do have a particularly strange fetish for American diners, and that's because, A, America seemed exotic to people growing up in the 50s. And that's when they're always based, isn't it?

It's the 1950s America. B, America has been visually mythologized in films. Correct. And C, if you're talking about something you can sell all around the world, everyone is quite happy to have a cheeseburger. Because I don't think that a traditional greasy spoon cafe aesthetic would really take off in the states but they do have english related things but what's frustrating is they tend to conflate them with irish related things so they have british theme bars which are basically irish pubs and yet the irish pubs have baseball and pool in epcot there's the rose and crown which is a british pub in a way it's very impressive because architecturally they have

recreated the kind of victoriana thing quite well have they got horse brasses on the wall that kind of thing does it look nicotine stained no well this is the thing this is the thing you go in and you can't quite define what it is you can't quite put your finger on what it is but it's just a bit cleaner and a bit nicer and you know it's accessible to wheelchairs and it's just not i'm just that straight away makes you realise you're not in a 200-year-old building. And they can't help that, but that's the thing. English pubs just don't feel quite right

when they try and recreate them. Whereas I think American diners are probably easier to export because you say we're also familiar with that culture. The other thing, when you go in the Rose and Crown, there's a woman playing the piano. That never happened in the pub, dear. Like a sort of Cockney Knees Up. And she was singing Piano Man when I went in there. And sort of cockney knees up and she was singing piano man

and the frat boys were like waving their beers in the air and singing along and i was like i've literally never had this much fun in an english bar it just wouldn't happen it would be really miserable and it was next door a sort of traditional british fish and chip outlet which in disney world they call the yorkshire county fish shop yorkshire does have a very attractive coastline Whippy does some lovely fishing yes but people in Whippy don't call it Yorkshire County do they also in sometimes I've been browsing on TripAdvisor and someone has advertised an English style B&B and to me that's an automatic no-no because firstly I know that it'll be extremely frilly and chintzy but also

English B&Bs compared to American B&b's the breakdown is this an american b&b is twice as expensive as a hotel yeah they'll have like drinks evenings and stuff the owners really want to make friends an english b&b is half the price of a hotel and the breakfast is tinned tomatoes and a fried slice here's a question from adam who says recently tom cruise rudely invaded trafalgar square with the filming of his latest film. What a tool. And the whole area was closed down. Streets were closed, shop shutters rolled down, and pigeons forced to relocate.

I'm sure they were all paid off, including the pigeons. I don't think the pigeons would mind a bit of change of scene, something else to poo on. Pigeons would be excited by pooing on Tom Cruise. People are like, wow, pigeon shit! It's a sign from Xenu! Adam says, Ollie, answer me this

when filming does take place in somewhere such as this i.e. a public place where it is required to close the area down let's shut it down

what's that song that's Black Eyed Peas we're in the club oh thanks let's shut it down every time I hear that I always think why are you shutting it down

you're having a nice time well it's an expression that people use Ollie to suggest that they're having such a nice time that a nice time is being had. And yet they're suggesting like, well, your restaurant is not obeying health and safety.

I found a dead rat on my plate. I'm shutting this down. I'm shutting this place down. It's crazy, isn't it, how phrases invert? I never thought I'd be the old man who'd say that. Like, why do people say wicked when they mean nice? Why are you saying her body is sick? Has she got TB?

But I do think that's just, let's shut it down, means, yeah, there's been some sort of infringement. You're too pathetic, this is what I aimed at you. Okay. Anyway, Adam says, when filming takes place in somewhere like Trafalgar Square where it is required to close the area down, let's shut it down.

Does the film production company have to pay? And if so, whom? Yeah, of course they have to pay. Ooh, whom? Well, my girlfriend says adam thinks they pay the council i think they pay the local tenants or landowners who may be at a loss because of their schedule who the hell is right on this one well both of you oh everyone gets paid neither well of course but they're everyone's money bags aren't they when film company comes to town um so i mean in the specific instance of trafalgar square it's actually quite an interesting one

because uh it's a square it's got numerous sides. That's right. How many sides does a square have? Don't test me. Think back to Sesame Street. You didn't say this would be an IQ test today, Helen. And different companies own different parts of the square. So the square as a whole is run by the Greater London Authority. Then you need to get it cleared by the Mayor of London.

Then you've got the National Gallery there as well and, as he says, private tenants too. And then the whole of that kind of central area of London basically Is run by Westminster Council And Trafalgar Square is a major traffic junction You're interfering with the loyal bus routes Yeah, but it's all available for a price basically And the organisation you have to go and see first

Is the Special Events Group Which is described on its website as a discretionary Brackets, non-statutory service offered by Westminster Council who deal with two and a half thousand applications per year. Oh, so they've just outsourced what... They've created a little subgroup that charge you

for a consultation so that you find out how much you need to spend. It costs £75 an hour to go and discuss with them how much the filming will cost. Trafalgar Square, middle of the day, how much is that going to set you back do you reckon fuck loads at least 20 quid well they yeah but if you think about the films that you've seen set in those places the low budget ones tend to be filmed very early in the morning or very late at night or on a handheld camera if you're talking about a big rig it's a massive hollywood film isn't it you're thinking about things like

skyfall you know in the the born the one wheredy Considine is running around in Waterloo Station? So presumably they just sort of filmed it on the hoof when it was a normal day, right? Because why would you get 2,000 extras when you've got commuters? Yeah, that was like a guerrilla shoot, apparently. But then you've got to really be sure that you're not going to frighten someone,

haven't you? Give someone a heart attack. And Paddy Considine gets shot in it, but all of the blood and stuff is CGI. It's just him falling over, basically, in Waterloo Station. Yeah, which can happen. You could slip on a discarded cupcake or something.

It could easily happen. If you've got a question, email your question to 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. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the email from Shannon, who begins, Other people's kids are shit. Wow. That's a bold opening statement, isn't it? What's her problem with other people's kids?

I mean, not all of them can be shit. Well, we're about to find out. Because they all turn into people. Not all people are shit. She says, my husband and I are happily married and have happily decided not to have kids. While we respect the fact that so many people do want kids. Yeah, we respect the fact that evolution has made the human race want to reproduce itself. We decided we would rather spend our time and money on ourselves.

Yeah. Yeah. However, we're in our mid-30s, so most of our peer group have reproduced or are in the process of reproducing. Yeah, I've got that as well. Again, that's just great for them, but we really don't care.

It seems that once someone has a baby, they assume the entire world cares as much as they do. Not everybody thinks that. But we don't. Facebook albums are easy to ignore. Is that true? I find them strangely compelling, even the ones I don't want to look at at all.

Friends going to weddings of people you've never even met. If anything, the success of Facebook is that the Facebook albums are surprisingly want to look at at all Friends going to weddings of people you've never even met If anything, the success of Facebook Is that the Facebook albums are surprisingly difficult to ignore Indeed Anyway, disagree with you there Shannon, but I'll persist Facebook albums are easy to ignore But what about the people who give us physical photographs? Well, they are really being very presumptuous I think

Have you had this? People giving you physical photos of their children? A couple of times Although one printed out a postcard to say thanks for a baby gift and I thought that was very nice. Shannon says, several friends of hers and my boss's wife regularly send us photos of their kids

dressed up for Easter, Halloween and Christmas. And everybody then complains that paedophiles are looking at pictures of their kids but they're not exactly being careful about where pictures of their kids go, are they? I'm not saying you're a paedophile, Shannon, but you might know one that has access to your photos.

It's a good point. While we're happy, she says, that they are excited about their kids, we just don't give that big of a shit. You have made that clear. Yeah. You have no shits to give. So Helen, answer me this.

Fresh out of shit. Helen, answer me this. What should we do? Kill the kids! Yeah, I mean, really? Is this that big a problem? Just put up with it or make friends with people

that are either past breeding age or too young to want to do it, which, well, they are pretty much kids themselves, so you're stuck with the olds. Well, I have to say, the two solutions that Shannon provides, which are the status quo, seem fine to me.

Okay. She says, currently we throw the pictures away nearly as soon as the parents aren't looking uh but that's wasteful and would probably really hurt their feelings if they knew so don't tell them yeah and it is wasteful but you know you're making an equation here isn't it better to not offend them and be a bit wasteful they've been wasteful by making the picture exactly they wanted to give you the picture the picture has been given that's as much as either of you should really worry about indeed alternatively

shannon says should we tell our friends we don't need six photos of their kids a year so they can save their money and give those photos to people who may care people who haven't run out of shit or people who've got a big backlog of shits waiting to be disposed of should we continue to graciously accept the photos and then promptly throw them away where no one is looking? Yes, that's what you should do. The word graciously is a lot better than any of the other words in that sentence. I think that's right, yes. Because what's more important to you,

that your friends are happy in their giving to you of just six photos a year? That's not too much for you to dispose of. It might be a bit irritating, Shannon, but the fact is there's no point being a bitch about it by telling your friends you're not interested. And they'll stop doing it in a few years because their kids won't be cute forever they'll be annoying little shit and then the parents will just want to complain to you about them which is a whole different problem not sure that's true i and i recognize the picture you're painting but the ugly child but i do also recognize the scenario where someone who is actually very

bored of their child and is actually regretting this is a bit of a taboo isn't it rarely comes up but actually regretting ever having had children yeah well they just missed the life they had yeah that they can't have back i recognize that that person actually might get ever more proactive with distributing photographs of their child to sort of justify why they did it or to assuage their guilt yes exactly so if you get a picture where your children look angelic it almost makes up for the fact that underneath it all They're a terrible nest of cocks Well, it's more that they go

Look, I love my children enough to give all of my friends Pictures of them covering up the fact that they've got Some issues Secretly, I'd quite like them to get adopted Or at least join the army Can you get a two year old to join the army? They don't want anything fatal to happen They're just quite like a month to themselves

Also, I think that no one, no one would understand if you explain to them this scenario, why you were saying it. Because if they feel this much love for their children, that they're doing this in the first place. And for you, because they're giving you several pictures of them.

That takes effort. They'll think it's irrational of you to make the point that the photos are wasteful because you don't care. I think it's difficult, though, when you reach that point of your life when everyone else is having children and you're not, and you do think, oh, should I just get all new friends? Well, it's an option, isn't it? Or just only make friends with other childless couples.

Because I don't object to my friends having babies. I'm sure they'll all be delighted to know. Oh, thanks, Helen. It's good to have your permission. The permission the problem for me were i being selfish is that i wouldn't have friends to hang out with anymore because they'd be too busy raising a child yeah so it's not so much that i'd gone off my friends because i am interested in their children up to a point but then who am i going to hang out with yeah so it's got to be the baron people isn't it weird when you're a child or maybe this was just me because i was an only child narcissistic and self-obsessed but when you're a child you don't really reach self-realization took seven years when you're a child you don't really realize i think that your parents friends

might not like you i'm aware that obviously if you're raised in a house where your parents friends are slightly less discreet than my parents friends friends evidently were, that may not apply. But generally speaking. Maybe they all liked you, though. No, I was a no. Of course they didn't like me. They would have thought I was precocious and pretentious and a bit weird. Yeah, but that's funny when you can leave it at the end of the evening.

Yeah, they may have found me funny, but that's different, isn't it, to actually actively feeling positive about a person. I imagine you being a bit like an urbane version of the kid from Bad Santa. Yeah, I think that's probably about right, actually. Except you never would have whittled somebody a pickle out of wood. I didn't have the skill. Didn't have the handicraft. But you would have publicised that pickle really well. Oh, I would have publicised the hell out of that pickle.

I'd have done posters for that pickle on every lamppost in my street. But it just wouldn't have occurred to me that they'd be talking about me behind my back or that they'd think I just don't give a shit about this guy. He's ruined my relationship with his parents. Because there are a few kids that I know, six or seven year olds, and I don't like them. I mean, I really don't like them. I think they are real tools. Explain.

Can you say without revealing who they are? I don't know. There was one. He wasn't even six at the time. And he gave me a half-hour lecture about iPhone insurance. And I was like, I'm never going to like you. That's not allowed, is it? But the thing is, in a way, isn't it nice that they're showing potential

to be the person that you wouldn't like? To be an insurance broker. Yeah, but that's fine, isn't it? They've got to follow their own path. You've found something he's passionate about, whether that's iPhone insurance or Barney. I to follow their own path you found something he's passionate about whether that's iphone insurance or portfolio careers yeah exactly helen oliver though life is full of questions there are answers you must know one no it will It will not fall off But moderation in all things too Yes, there probably is

But we won't find out in our lifetimes Three, most people prefer colliery But my personal favorite is Dalton Four, if you try and slip a one It would ruin your friendship. Yes. Righto, time to take a question from our question line, the number for which is... 0208 123 5807

Or you can Skype answer me this as well. Hello, this is Anna and my husband Robert. We are just calling to ask whether they still sell or still won't goldfish as a prize at the fairground or whether the RSPCA have banned it. The RSPCA have not banned it because the RSPCA have no legislating power. Even if they wanted, there's lots of things they'd want to ban. Presumably a lot of them would want to ban any meat consumption, but they can't. They have to wait for an act of parliament and no such act has occurred.

Well, also, they are for the P of A, not for the P of fish. F a part of A? No, they're not. When did fish ever give the RSPCA a cuddle? Never. I think it's true. You don't often see the ads on telly, do you? For only two pounds a month, you can stop him getting algae.

No one would care. It's because goldfish only live for about three months well this is the thing and this is why even though there has been an act of parliament fairly recently 2005 in terms of animal welfare there was no mention in the animal welfare act of goldfish specifically and the closest that they came to ruling this out was they raised the age that you're allowed to be if you win a pet as a prize from 12 to 16. So isn't 16 around the age where you really don't want to win a fish? You'd rather win anything, even the giant teddy bear. I think well maybe that was the idea, maybe they were like only people between the age of 12 and 16 are really that bothered about winning a

fish so let's make it impossible for them to win a fish. In Scotland, it is illegal, though. Also, I should imagine that for the proprietors of the fair prizes, it's not convenient to have a bunch of live fish in plastic bags, which are quite vulnerable. It's a lot easier to have a load of toys that cost them maybe 30 pence. Yeah, I'm not sure, though, because I think the fish, when you actually analyse per fish, per unit cost, what does the fish cost?

I think, actually, the fish probably cost roughly the same as those cheap made in China toys. Yeah, but they require feeding and not killing. Yeah, but they don't do that because they treat them really badly. This is the point. They treat them badly, they die all the time. They know they're going to die as soon as they get handed over. And the point is they look like they cost more. People don't think of a fish as worth 30p.

They probably think it's worth a couple of quid. No, but the toys never die. So that's a lot more practical. The toys never get loved either, though, do they? At least the fish has a fighting chance. You can't love a fish. You just can't. The worst thing is that people win the fish and then they go on the waltzer with it. I know that the fish is buffered to some extent

by its watery environment, but still it's not designed to be spinning round and round. Well, it's not designed to live in a polythene bag either. No, well, that's true, but still, it can't be enjoying the ride. It all seems very wrong to me, but the only way that basically anything's going to happen about it, I'm afraid, is putting pressure on your local council

not to allow funfairs that have fish in bags. And, I don't know, if you've got to pick a campaign, it's a hard one to really get behind, isn't it? Howdy, it's Elliot and Shizik. I was telling Ollie, could you tell me, who was the, what was the first novel written on the computer? Was it Douglas Adams? No

but it is sci-fi authors, unsurprisingly Oh, Chaucer Dick No, it's not Dick Was it Stephen King? Well, okay, no one knows for sure because obviously computers kind of evolved gradually.

It wasn't like there was suddenly a moment where there was a word processor that you could buy that was considered the ultimate word processor and therefore the computer age had begun. Yeah. There was experiments, you know, and some authors tried writing bits of books and so on. And also an early adopter of computing, a super nerd, might have written a novel that never saw the light of day. Well, exactly. I mean, there's this guy called Matthew Kirsenbaum who's actually written a book on the subject of literature on computers and he points to geeks writing poetry using computer coding as the

earliest example of computer literature but that's clearly not the answer to this question i'm quite glad actually elliot that you've specified novel because at least that takes poetry out of it novel wise it seems to be a three-horse race. No one's quite sure who got there first. But the ones that are floated about online are Jerry Pornel. Have you heard of him? Can't say I have. No, he wrote a sci-fi book called

Oath of Fealty in 1981. Was it an Irish sci-fi book? Sounds sexy. It was a sci-fi thriller about a sky city above a future apocalyptic los angeles and probably the most high profile is stephen king but he doesn't no one's really claiming he got there first but certainly the most high profile well it's a short story which is called word processor of the gods which he wrote in 1983 so kind of self-consciously meta thing about word

processing which was published originally in playboy. So there you are, pornography innovating online, even in the early days. Some people buy it for the articles. And that later became part of Skeleton Crew, his collection of short stories. So you could say that that was the first part of a big book by a famous author that was written on a word processor. Good enough.

That's good enough for me. He wrote it on a computer called the Wang System 5. Of course he did. Just keep that to yourself. What a droll fellow. 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 and Lloyd upon which I have indulged in the weekly bonus material and over three hours of best bits have Have a banana. Or not, if you're Kath from York, who says this morning, over breakfast, my dad was having an argument with my mum about whether it's acceptable to eat a banana in a meeting.

Not unless you cut it up first, you dirty phallocentric woman. Were they really arguing about that, Kath? Or had their emotions escalated from an earlier hurtful conversation about something else? Mother, father, please stop fighting emotions escalated from an earlier hurtful conversation about something else? Mother, father, please stop fighting! We decided no, says Kath.

No, a banana is not suitable for a meeting. Depends on the meeting, really. If you work for a banana company, then I think anything's fair game. Or in a monkey house. Or a sex meeting. She says the reason is

they class it as a smelly food. That's most foods, isn't it? And the ones that aren't smelly are noisy, like water biscuits. But I'm not sure a banana's that smelly. No. I mean, compared to other fruits. I love it when people bust out a nice fragrant apple or orange in public

and start peeling it because it makes everything smell fresh. Yeah. But anyway, Kath's mother says that in her meetings in the morning, some people eat cereal. Whoa. She thinks that's rude. Dry or milky? Because both are going to make noise, but a different noise. It depends whether you prefer crunching or liquidy noise. So, She thinks that's rude. Dry or milky? Because both are going to make noise but a different noise.

It depends whether you prefer crunching or liquidy noise. So Helen, answer me this. Should eating in public be limited to non-smelly foods? By the way, I don't think a meeting is in public. No, I think you're right. It's not like my granny who wouldn't let us eat sherbet walking along the street in Ashwell, Hertfordshire. I think the convenience of the

food that you're eating is in some way an apology for why you're eating it. So for example when we do get office jobs and I work in an office for the day I've been known to stop off at a Pret en route and pick up an egg mayonnaise sandwich. I'll eat that in front of people. Now that is both smelly and quite ostentatious. And the office that we work in is not very well ventilated. Indeed but you see the distinction in my mind is had I made an egg mayonnaise sandwich at home and brought it with like the tinfoil wrapping and made a real show of it like with a packed lunchbox that would be overdoing it somehow because everyone in the room knows they recognize the branding they see the packaging they're like okay he stopped at pret

and got a sandwich on route they understand that the reason i'm eating is that i've been squeezed for time and it's convenient yes but also you're not eating in a meeting the meeting's not for eating you're eating at your computer time whereas a meeting you should be concentrating on the facts of the meeting surely unless it's an eating meeting where people have brought muffin baskets but i do think cereal anything that requires bowls yes unless it's great no i agree actually any kind of cutlery actually i mean that's again down to my salad argument i think if you can eat it in your hands, you can eat it in a meeting. Although you wouldn't want to eat chicken wings, either would you? Anything that makes mess. Or burrito. Okay, so

anything you can eat in your hands that then is completely gone and doesn't leave behind detritus. So I think we're saying fruit fine, except for maybe the durian fruit, because that is the fruit that smells of dog shit. Hello, this is Matthew from Lowestoft. Helen and Ollie, answer me this. Recently we have moved house and purchased

quite a lot of old antique furniture, including chests of drawers. Now, it's something that's confused me slightly that every single chest of drawers we've purchased, the bottom of the drawers seem to be lined with either Christmas paper, newspaper, or wallpaper um so helen arley answer me this why do people line the bottom of their drawers with this type of paper does he mean why christmas paper rather than any normal wrapping paper oh so it's a two-part question why paper at all and then why that type of paper i assumed that he'd already processed the first part well no let's deal with the first part because i'm not sure really why there's paper in drawers is Is it something to do with stopping the wood splintering? Well, stopping the splinters snagging on your delicate clothes.

Ah. Yeah, and maybe some people like looking into their drawers and seeing some wallpaper down there. So, second part of the question, why is it often wrapping paper in newspaper? I can answer that, because it's cheap. And it's big. Cheap and big, yeah.

If you put it in A4, it's not going to cover your drawer. But also, that would look more like a mistake, wouldn't it? Open a drawer, loads of A4 in there, whereas a piece of paper that covers the whole surface area without break... Yeah, it means that you know that it's not the drawer where you keep the A4. Yeah, and it's pretty as well, isn't it, wrapping paper? Oh, I've got some lovely wrapping paper in my drawers. As it were.

I thought you were walking funny. Well, every November, I smear myself with goose grease and then wrap myself up till March. Well, we have another question of stuff you might find in an antique shop. Or in a drawer. It's indeed yeah we can find anything in a drawer Helen. I mean I could be leading on to ask a question about dildos if it was that. Yeah we probably wouldn't find things that are bigger than a drawer in a drawer. Here's another question about old crap. It's from Robert who says there is a certain Chinese monochrome

print often seen on plates and in blue, not the the boy band and which was popular in the 90s that's right the 1790s do you know what he's talking about yeah he says it has a house and a tiny man and a woman and a bridge and a boat yeah that's pretty much it the willow pattern yeah the willow pattern is that a thing well he says helen answer me this does the design have a name yes the willow pattern right is the artist chinese and what's the story behind it well uh the blue and white china was really really popular in the 18th century because they'd started importing stuff from China. Apparently three million pieces of blue and white China were imported that century,

which is a lot at the time. But it's a souvenir, isn't it? You can't buy it from Amazon. Yeah, it was a souvenir of a place you've never seen. Yeah, exactly. But it's saying I'm rich enough to know people that have been to this place. Well, exactly. Or I'm rich enough to import a load of stuff from this place.

Yeah, well, I understand that. And so the only image that people had of China then really was the pictures that were on pottery. And then it's slightly disputed as to who first had this thought, but Josiah Spode is a good candidate of Spode China. Anyway, he thought, well, instead of importing it, I'm going to make it. And so he just got this really kitsch view of China.

So he thought, well, what do people associate with China? Willows, pagodas, little people dressed as Chinese people. And put them all on the plates in this familiar scene. And everyone copied it. The market exploded. Very good. The other person that people attribute the willow pattern to is the engraver Thomas Minton. I don't know whether you can weave any jokes out of his name.

Yeah, he got minted after all of it yeah it was very popular super so then what happened was that this became so popular that then the chinese uh started reproducing it well as happens now but that got people thinking this must be a traditional chinese design i see and so then a myth was invented to suggest that this was an old thing so the story is there's a little couple they're eloping because the girl's father is a powerful mandarin who wants her to marry an elderly wealthy man and she doesn't want to so he keeps her behind a fence there's also a fence on there and then she and her lover elope and they get on the little boat there's always a little boat uh and uh so they go to an island and then the mandarin catches up with him sets them on fire and they turn into the two birds

that are depicted on the willow pattern as well. The end, everyone is sort of miserable. That sounds like quite a plausible story until you say he kept her behind a fence. A decorative fence. No one could pass a decorative fence, Martin. Very hard to climb. Well, we've reached the end of this week's episode, but we welcome your questions, as always,

for next week's episode. Get them in now via email, via phone, or via Skype. All the details can be found on our tremendous website answer me this podcast.com where you can also find links to our twitter account and our facebook page yes follow us on there please yeah especially as facebook have this cheeky new thing where if you've liked a page they don't necessarily give you the updates of that page so maybe just check in at facebook.com slash answer me this occasionally. See if anything's gone on in your absence.

Because it's one thing offering up a free product and telling people about it for free. We're not going to start paying to tell you that our free product is available.

On a free product that we're using for free. Exactly. Yeah, but we'll be back next week with another free episode of Answer Me This. Unless we have a

$100 billion flotation in the meantime. Okay, see ya. Bye!