Answer Me This! - AMT249: The Fugitive, Umbrellas and Sweet and Sour Pork Balls

Episode Date: March 7, 2013

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Is there a club called Club Sandwich in Sandwich in Kent? Has to be this, has to be this Is there a good-looking young man who I don't resent? Has to be this, has to be this Helen and Ollie, has to be this Hello to listeners in Toronto, Canada, and also tiny Toronto, as we christened it in England last week. But Helen, we've had an email from Austin, who is in another Toronto. He is from Toronto, Kansas.

Huh? Yeah, I know. He says we have a population of around 100 people. So it's probably OK that neither of us heard of this place. Yeah, OK. To be honest, I don't know that many towns in Kansas generally. No, that's true. I'm not sure I do either.

Kansas City isn't even in Kansas, is it? Yeah, it's on the border, isn't it, with Missouri? So you could go into Kansas City in Missouri and you could literally say, we're not in Kansas anymore. You could. It's like you could go to Warwick University and go, we're not in Warwickshire anymore.

Yeah. Particularly near Warwick, but you wouldn't. No, because it's not a reference to an iconic film, is it? So it'd be different. Not yet, but let's see what Shane Meadows can come up with. Here's a question from Red from Cardiff who says, Umbrella is a funny word. So true.

It's not that funny, is it? Well, it's not laugh out loud funny. It's not boobies. It's not flange. It's not pop. Pop is a funny word. There's no word like umbrella, is there? Umbrella.

That's how my niece used to pronounce it when she'd only just learnt to talk. For some reason with a bit of a Spanish lilt on the L. Well, I'm intrigued to know whether it has a Spanish origin because he says, Helen, answer me this, where does the word umbrella come from? Assuming red is male, so hard to know. I was assuming that. I was thinking of red in the Shawshank Redemption.

But you're right, there could be a female red. Do you think this is Morgan Freeman? No. Right. Red says, was it invented by a man or a woman called Mr or Mrs Umbrella? Or Miss Umbrella

or Ms Umbrella or Dr Umbrella. Dr Umbrella, Puff Umbrella. No, it wasn't. It's from the Latin word umbra, which meant shade

because umbrellas cast shade as well as keep the rain off. As demonstrated by Michael Jackson when he used to walk around with Rabbi Shmuley Botiak and Uri Geller. Yeah, what happened

to Rabbi Shmuley Botiak? I thought Geller. Yeah, what happened to Rabbi Shmuley Botiak? I thought you'd know. What happened to Michael Jackson? He's been quiet for the last three and a half years. He used to be really big. Do you remember?

He used to be really famous. What happened to that run of shows he was going to do at the O2? No, what happened to who? Shmuley Botiak? Yeah.

He's disappeared back into his hovel, hasn't he? Waiting to find another celebrity to leech onto. It's Will from Amersham. Hello, Norlie.

It's my birthday in about a couple of weeks, and I'm turning 18, and I'm meant to go and see my brother at Bristol University. The only day I can go up is the day before I turn 18, and we're planning to go out that evening. So answer me this. Will the clubs let me in at, say, 11 o'clock? Or do they have to abide by the law

and not let me in? Even if you're not, it's your last time of being rejected from somewhere for being under 18, so enjoy it. It's tinted with its own kind of nostalgia, that, isn't it?

Never really happened to me because I never tried to get into clubs. It's funny, like, the moment I had to stop remembering my fake birthday from 1979 uh it was the moment no one ever asked me for my real birthday do you ever still celebrate your fake birthday um but you know what i mean i think you give off some sort of weird body language

when you're lying to get into a nightclub or a bar but actually when you are old enough and entitled to be there you're fine i mean this is a case where I think technically, of course, it would be illegal for the place to serve you, and therefore if the bouncer, for example, is being over-fastidious, then he, for it will be inevitably a he, would be well within his rights to chuck you out to the curb like a piece of dirt. However, it seems unlikely that the county sheriff

will be standing there with his notepad. And a truncheon gently tapping it against his arm, waiting for a nearly 18-year-old head to whop with it. And also the fact that you're actually out for your 18th. I mean, if you wear a big one of those stupid badges that says 18 today and you've got the balloon, I know technically you're not. So you shouldn't wear the badge!

But if you're with a lot of older people, you're going to see your older brother and his friends are older and you're the youngest person there, the rest of them have got ID, and you're 18 that day, effectively. i can't imagine in most places in the uk that they're going to turn down your custom maybe in over 25 spars they would oh yeah don't go to all bar one what's the age limit all bar one 21 there 21 all bar under 21s talking of evading the long arm of the law here's a question from elliot who says, I was watching the hit 90s film The Fugitive the other night. It is on a lot on television.

It's quite long, isn't it? It's good, though. Oh, it's very good, yeah. Well, I say very good. 90-odd percent on Rotten Tomatoes, Ollie. That means it is good, whether you care or not. It's a good story. It's a rubbish story about a one-armed robber.

No, it's not about that at all. How hackneyed is that? It's not about that. It's a good story. It's a rubbish story about a one-armed robber. No, it's not about that at all. How hackneyed is that? It's not about that. It is effectively about that. No, it's about a man who has been wrongly accused of something. It's like the man in the iron mask for our era. Also, it was a real life event, so Was it? Yeah, it was based on a true case. I didn't know that. I thought it was just based on a chintzy 60s TV show.

No, it was based on a real doctor called Sam Shepard who actually spent about 10 years in prison for the crime before being exonerated and later became a professional wrestler called The Killer, which to my mind, if you're innocent of a crime, it's probably a bit too much like OJ writing

If I Did It. Yeah. It's not tactful. Elliot says, I was watching The Fugitive the other night and I noticed when Harrison Ford was on the run, that would be most of the film then, he broke several laws.

For example, stealing an ambulance, holding a policeman at gunpoint, evading the law. Very naughty. That's a bit of a general one, isn't it, in this very specific list? Well, they broke the law by putting him in an unsafe bus. Trespassing and such other things.

Hiding in a drain Jumping down a dam All these other naughty things Is hiding in a drain illegal do you think? I mean for your own safety obviously not best advised It's a 1972 hobo act Although at the end of the film Elliot continues he is proven innocent Well not in a court of law

I mean they have found a convincing alternative But he has not been exonerated officially so if caught he would have to go back to prison until that had happened this is the thing, you don't see those extra scenes because it's boring, it would be anticlimactic wouldn't it, but you're right, it ends at the point in which the audience know that the world will find him innocent but we don't actually

see that happen, well you see Tommy Lee Jones registering it and you think he's in good hands now, leave it to Tommy Lee Jones to sort it out, yeah I mean it's a happily ever after type ending isn't it but not really when you think about how little compensation he will get and how his life's ruined anyway and he still lost his wife well this is the same thing with fairy tales isn't it miserable when you think oh Cinderella's gonna have post-traumatic flashback about this for the rest of her life but at the same time you know the general overarching story she's now with the prince in that way Elliot continues uh

nonetheless he he has still committed a lot of crime. So presumably these actions have no repercussions. Well, we don't know. We don't see the rest. They didn't make a direct sequel. Well, Helen, answer me this. If an innocent person, falsely convicted, did escape and was then proven innocent,

would he have to pay for any of the crime he committed when he was on run from the law? Officially, yes. Yes, of course, but it any of the crime he committed when he was on run from the law? Officially, yes. Yes, of course, but it depends what the crime is. In reality, probably if the crimes you committed on the run were minor, then you might have already served enough time anyway to compensate for those crimes. There's a sort of politics of it as well, aren't there?

It's that if it had been due to a gross miscarriage of justice as Dr Richard Kimball had suffered at the hands of the police department and the legal system, it would be very imprudent for them to throw the book at him because it would look very bad for them. Yeah, well, this is the thing. He is a doctor played by Harrison Ford, so society is going to think upstanding member of society.

I'd imagine if he looked a bit down and out and he'd done some crimes whilst proving his own innocence, they would be like, yeah, send him back in for a couple of years, though, for breaking that lady's flowerpots. It is very interesting the extent to which actually if it was a working class character, even the audience might not feel instinctively that he's innocent like you. I mean, there's some question mark over it, isn't there, throughout the film? Like, we're not sure. But you sort of know in your heart, of course he's innocent.

Well, I think also if they'd gone with some of the other choices for Richard Kimball, there might be more ambiguity. Apparently the first choice was Alec Baldwin. And think back to Alec Baldwin before he was Jack Donaghy. Malice. Yeah, sort of shifty. You wouldn't necessarily believe that he was this paragon that would never kill his wife and had been framed horribly. They also apparently considered Michael Douglas,

which would have been awful. Everyone would have been quite glad that he'd been put in prison incorrectly so he wasn't creeping out the rest of the world with his low-cut V-necks. If you've got a question, email your question To unsubmit this podcast, give them a mail.com Unsubmit this podcast, give them a mail.com Unsubmit it!

Oh-ho-ho-ho! Unsubmit it! Oh-ho-ho-ho! 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. A question from Gordon from Haringey Green Lanes, specifying the district and the name of the road there. That's a really long road, though. He says, I saw a man today. Well done, Gordon. In Haringey? Who'd have thought?

That province of ladies. Dressed, again, a surprise, in full tweed. I bet it wasn't full tweed. Not the underpants. Balaclava. Socks. Actually, I've got tweed. I bet it wasn't full tweed. Not the underpants. Balaclava. Socks. Actually, I've got tweed gloves.

And like Venom in Spider-Man, it's creeping up your body in case you're entirely in tweed. Forever 21, men, if you want to get your own tweed gloves like Ollyman. Yeah, I don't want the biblical stuff, though. You're not a man. Anyway, yes, I saw a man today dressed in full tweed smoking a pipe Yeah It's a question of pipes Oh

He was about 45, so he didn't look entirely ridiculous I mean, not as ridiculous as he'd be if he was in his 20s I wasn't in Dalston It's important to make that distinction It is, I think whenever one isn't in Dalston It's important to celebrate the fact that one is not in Dalston He continues You never seem to see people

smoking pipes these days. What about Pete Doherty? Yeah, what about the guy that you just saw, Gordon? Come on, you just mentioned it. What conception of never do you really have? A special Dalston-adjacent one, of course. But I'm sure, he says, I remember more people smoking

them when I was growing up in the 80s. Well, I remember more people having massive perms. It was the 80s. And well, actually smoking generally, of course. I mean, you know, the 80s, that was when smokers were treated as par for the course. As gods. Yeah. No, but something...

No, it's true. Something you wouldn't chuck out of bed rather than pox ridden vermin who have to be delegated to shelters to do their business. Well, that is strong terms, but I understand your point. In the 80s, there was a lot of smoking advertising and you could do it indoors, you could do it in restaurants. Now you're a pariah. So, Helen, answer me this.

When did pipe smoking lose its popularity? Probably before the 80s, I'd say. And if you must be a contemporary pipe smoker, at what age do you think it's acceptable to make that transition from cigarettes to the pipe? What if you don't even smoke cigarettes, you just go straight to pipe? I don't think anyone's ever done that.

And I'll tell you why, because most people get into smoking when they're early teenagers. And no one, no one around the back of the bike shed has passed around a pipe. I know who would have done though, our friend Alex, star of many jingles in Answer Me This,

who doesn't smoke, does not care for smoking. But he's basically an old man trapped in a young man's body and he bought a pipe in his early 20s just to suck on so he wasn't willing to smoke out of it but I think if he was going to smoke at all it would have been the pipe I assume though that he specifically means

at what age is it acceptable not to do ironic looking pipe smoking, at what age does it look like you're just smoking the pipe and not that you're looking to be seen to do ironic looking pipe smoking at what age does it look like you're just smoking the pipe and not that you're looking to be seen to be smoking the pipe okay i think the answer to that is that no one no one in our generation will ever look like that because i because we've grown up in a world where smoking is so chastised i can't think that we'll get to a stage where even when we're 80 if you see someone who's one of our contemporary smoking you wouldn't think they were posing well i don't think we have grown up in that

age i think we're adults in that age but i think there is a generation that has grown up in an age where smoking is chastised and they might take up the pipe to distance themselves from what they consider old fogies to do which is smoking cigarettes and i wonder whether that's why pipe smoking fell out of favor in the 60s and 70s because those were decades of throwing out social conventions and people rebelling against the expectation that they would become like their parents. And so they saw the older generation pipe smoking and were like, no, we're not going to do that.

I think at the time as well, there were a lot of health scares about pipe smoking. So that probably had something to do with it too. Well, it's very interesting with pipes, how it kind of goes in and out of being an establishment thing in that way as well. Like Harold Wilson, right? He's probably the most famous pipe smoker we've ever had. Well, it's very interesting with pipes how it kind of goes in and out of being an establishment thing in that way as well. Like Harold Wilson, right?

He's probably the most famous pipe smoker we've ever had. No, what about Gandalf? Yeah, I do. But apart from that, I think Harold Wilson started smoking a pipe apparently as a sort of spin thing to look more working class. Really? Because as a Labour Prime Minister, there was a feeling that he was a bit posh. Didn't have any ferrets on him. Even though he was properly northern and everything.

There are posh northerners. Yeah, there are but still you wouldn't think that posh people would think he was posh but anyway. But now pipes are posh. Well, that's what I mean.

But I wonder if Harold Wilson is the reason that pipes are now posh. Like, you know, once the Prime Minister starts smoking a pipe it then can't be cool, can it? Or Sherlock Holmes.

It's like when Gordon Brown said he listened to the Arctic Monkeys or whatever. Ruining their careers. Yeah. Also, apparently pipe smoking is coming back again, at least in America, where because there are increased federal taxes on cigarettes and rolling tobacco, but not on pipe tobacco, apparently sales have risen nearly 1,000% since about 2008. That's not a cool reason to do anything, is it, because of tax?

This is Graham from Falkirk. Helen and Ollie answered me this. Why do the countries of the UK have their current names? I mean, I can understand why England was Angle Land, the land of the Angles. So where does Scotland come from? And Wales? And Ireland? I mean, were the Irish really just very grumpy and irate?

It's not because they were irate. I wrote a poem called Irate when I was about 18. Was it about Irish people? It was kind of written in text speak. Oh, no. That was quite ahead of its time. Oh, yeah. Everything I do is ahead of its time.

You'll see in 10 years time, everyone will want to start a podcast. Apart from your attitudes to gender politics. It went, why are you for me? Was this for anybody in particular or just out of your own head for fun see if you can guess from the second sentence okay since you are my ex and then i think it went you want to be together and be my one forever quite good so far. Well, I wouldn't say that. And then it got a bit shit after that. It went, I don't envy that.

Which no one ever uses that in abbreviation. Envy for envy. Envy. Envy. I don't envy that. That's a good contraction of two letters. And then I'll give it to you straight, as in S-T-R-8. You've made me quite IRA-ate.

I-R-8. Did you ever give it to the lady who inspired it uh i published it in the school magazine wow did it cause ripples amongst the literary community of harfordshire text speak of course it didn't well it was very ahead of its time you're like e comings of st christopher's anyway just reminds me the word ir8 you don't hear it very often do you and you certainly don't see it abbreviated to IRH, not even with the real IRA or anything. Yeah, I think that might be a bit flippant, really, given the message of the real IRA. I don't know, it would make it very clear how angry they were, wouldn't it? Well, maybe they could approach...

With the splinter group IRA. If they're looking for an official poet in residence, they can approach you... I think I'm the obvious choice, really. But anyway, this has been a really lengthy sideshow because the name Ireland has nothing to do at all with the word irate which is from Latin for anger whereas the I in Ireland is from the goddess Eerie. Not sure I'm even pronouncing

that right. Eerie? Eerie. Eerie. Eerie. Eerie. you. Okay. What's she the goddess of? Ireland. Oh, right. Oh, so like air, like they say it now. Okay, so she's probably called air, isn't she? Yeah, probably. Which is a shame because it would be funnier if it was Irish. Yeah. It's not very Irish, is it? But Scotland is, from a Latin word, Scotty, which was the Roman name for Irish

Gaelic warlords, confusingly. And then in the Middle Ages it came to mean specifically people in Scotland, rather than from anywhere else. Hmm. So that's odd, isn't it? And before that, Scotland was Caledonia, after the Caledonian tribes. Caledonia's a brilliant name, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. That sounds very Middle Earth. Apparently there's a bit of contention, though, about which Scots are allowed to call themselves Scots because if they don't have Gaelic heritage, then they don't get to be Scots. If they're not Irish warlords, they're not coming in. This is the kind of discussion they're going to have if they ever get independence, isn't it?

That would go on forever. Anyway, Wales, that's from a Germanic word which was used by the Anglo-Saxons to mean foreigners or outsiders. So you've got three things. One of which means foreigner to represent the Welsh. One of which is named after a goddess so that kind of makes sense. And then the Scots are basically named after Irish people.

The Romans were like a phenomenally ignorant people. Why didn't they just call everywhere places we've invaded? Well, let's say you build a road. Yeah. Phenomenally ignorant. They did lots of good things. Well, you can be an engineer and still not have the slightest clue about the people that you're conquering. You're sort of seeing them as kind of expert

architects who had a copy of the Star rolled up in their back pocket. What do you do when you want to drown out Your incessant interior monologue Sing opera loudly, try pneumatic drilling Or bash your head against a log Or go to answermethispodcast.com Slash audible and get a free trial to download Miranda Hart or Louis Theroux or Hunger Games or Jeremy Kyle. That sounds preferable. It certainly is preferable.

In fact, it's even slightly better than that, isn't it, Helen? Oh, I'd say. Even slightly better than bashing your head against the wall. Absolutely shitloads better, Ollie. better than that isn't it helen oh i'd say slightly better than bashing your head against absolutely shit loads better ollie i think i think anything where you get free stuff and we get free money is brilliant yeah we're literally quids in so uh yes if you haven't got your free audiobook yet why haven't you you're an idiot you're an idiot because there are tens of thousands to choose from and if you don't even like reading you don't have to do any once you've chosen the book because someone else is doing that for you someone with a beautiful voice in many cases like roger allum yes or rob lowe in the book that i've

got that i'm saving up for my trip he's going to be talking about his scandalous life in the 80s and 90s it's not him reading a brief history of time then yeah well that's the good thing about audible isn't it you can get memoirs from people in their own voices so if someone has a nice voice that you like anyway uh actually david mitchell's backstory is one that i want to listen to because it's his autobiography which he's he's sort of used the framework device of him going on walks around london oh that's cool and actually that's when i listen to audiobooks is when i'm walking around london that's perfect a bit meta be like a lovely guide i'll tell you what i'm not going to be listening to though and it's not because the quality is bad because i cannot vouch for it but it is the unabridged version of les miserables

which runs to 57 hours so if some of you are really missing us during our break you can basically fill the whole two weeks with just that that is that is one and a half working weeks there's a lot of i mean i've never read les mis so maybe i should get about it maybe that is a way just to absorb it by osmosis. No, no, just read the Wikipedia summary. I just can't imagine what detail there is there. The barricades had some broken chairs on and a bit of fence and a door

and then some more chairs and a rat and some sewage. Just a big list of what made up the barricades. I don't know what he meant. I think that's pretty much how all classic novels work, isn't it? Just a big list. But if you want, you could get the 12-hour abridged version, but I don't believe it has any songs in it. Anyway, whatever you want, whether it's a classic novel or a comedy concert

or something from Radio 4. A comedy concert? Yeah, you know. Like Flanders and Swan? No. You know, a stand-up gig. You can get, for example, I don't know, Dara O'Brien or whatever. You get an hour of their stand-up off Audible.

Wonderful. And the link, of course, is answermethispodcast.com Slash Audible Here is a question from Barry Who says Ollie answer me this What is the purpose

Of having to deposit 20 pence When using a locker At the gym Or the swimming pool So that I can go around After my swim Checking all the lockers

For the people that have Left the money in there Obviously And how much do you usually Earn from that Enough for a free packet Of watsits for the drive home. That's about three 20 pences. Barry says, I assume it is to stop people stealing the locker keys,

but would 20 pence really act as a deterrent? Well, yes, if you're poor. I mean, you know, leisure centres are for everyone, aren't they? I would bend down to pick up a 20 pence off the street, but not a tuppence. Exactly. And why would people even want to steal a locker key? Well, so they have access to a locker good point from your point of view barry that might not seem relevant but if you owned a gym again that's part of your property

isn't it you don't want to be leasing it out to people without permission i assume that before they went to all the trouble of developing 20 pence powered lockers and also installing them in massive numbers this was a problem that needed solving yeah barry continues why isn't the 20 pence index linked the amount is unchanged over the last few decades he's right on that point actually well this must be a post-decimalization move but then probably so are lockers that lock in swimming pools but even in the last like 10 years i mean you know you've got houses that were 30 grand in the 70s that are now 300 grand so it should be a two pound coin now well the price for parking space in kensington a locker probably is 80 grand um but anyway i think you are missing one of the key points here if i can make that pun barry which i just have which is that it's not so much about

stealing the key or even stealing the locker space it's about not using more locker space than you need yeah you know it's it's inconvenient't it, to find that 20 pence? It's a bit irritating. It's unlikely that you're going to have more than two or three of those 20 pence pieces in your pocket. So worst case scenario, you're going to be hogging three lockers at the gym. Surely the real reason is that if you didn't have that sort of deposit system that you just go, oh, that's good, I'll keep my key

and next time I come to the swimming pool, I'll use the same locker. Which means that there wouldn't be enough lockers for everybody. Some of it probably operates on guilt, doesn't it? It's the psychology of, this is worth something to someone. And also just makes you not forget. Yeah, but it's the same with the shopping trolleys, isn't it? The shopping trolleys, actually, we all know are worth hundreds of pounds. Putting a pound into it, really, I mean, actually, it's fine.

If you steal the shopping trolley, you've got more than a pound's worth of stuff there that you've nicked. But it's just the fact that you want your pound back. Here is a question from chris from lewis uh and ollie you said earlier this series that you're kind of in the mood to launch a new business venture so maybe you and chris from lewis could go in business together no i'm not interested in splitting it helen well he's not either ollie his question is about things that should not be split he says ollie answer me this why has nobody invented combined butter and spread,

e.g. butter and jam? It would make it much quicker to spread toast because that takes hours. Yeah, it would make it roughly twice as quick, wouldn't it? Maybe. Well, you'd only need one knife, so you're saving knife washing time. It would take the guesswork

out of getting the correct portions for the two. No, it wouldn't because the guesswork would be at the factory. Some people prefer more jam, some less, Chris. You see the problems already. I haven't even reached the end of your email. You're sacrificing choice for convenience. It would save two knives and the risk of getting some of one thing into the other thing, e.g. bits of butter in the jam

jar. Yeah, and think about what happens when bits of butter get into the jam jar, and I think you can unpick the answer to this question immediately. I mean, what you'd have is butter that needs to be refrigerated being mixed with jam that can be kept out of the fridge in a long life packet. And butter that you can only use for jam things rather than butter that you can

use for cooking or for savoury spreads. You see the problems. There's a fundamental thing you're missing as well when you've got really nice hot toast fresh out the toaster you want to melt that bit of butter and you want to put that on first so all of the heat of the toast

goes into melting the butter the jam you don't need the jam to be hot whereas if you have the two together the heat is going into both of them

you're not going to melt the butter as effectively and you're going to heat the jam up which is important can you see this nightmare scenario

that you've created Chris think of the specific heat capacity Chris how many social networks are you on Fantastic, Chris. Facebook.com slash AnswerMeThis Or Twitter.com slash HelenAndOllie But please don't follow us in real life Time for a question from Ellie and Sam from Portsmouth who say, Helen, answer me this. Why are chopsticks called chopsticks?

You can't chop with them. You can't stick with them either. They're nothing like Pritt stick, are they? You can stick with them or you can keep using the same pair for years. That's true. But you still can't chop with them, Martin. They're more spears than sticks, I'd say. Well, that's the Japanese ones that are fine to a point, whereas the Chinese

terminate in a blunt end. Oh, that's true, yeah. So they'd be quite a bad spit. Like mini logs, rather. Yeah, like a tiny cudgel. Or a little baseball bat. But anyway, the chop bit... It just means quick because chopsticks, roughly translated from Chinese, was quick bamboo. Chop, chop. Exactly, exactly.

It was from Pigeon English that grew up between the English and the Chinese traders. I thought it might be a translation thing because, let's be honest, Mandarin to English, that's quite tricky, isn't it? A lot of things can go wrong there. As anybody who has read a chinese menu knows yeah or any anyone who's been on the internet and looked at funny foreign pictures can assess oh this menu says bum on it yeah shit pig and noodles even though they've translated perfectly adequately 500 other words yes and uh although i do find it funny i also think how much chinese can i translate

precisely none yeah so they've done a good job. Yeah, but then again, you know, it is a perfectly reasonable response. And you would too, if you were in China and you saw a menu and it said Auntie Fanny's fanny pack on it, you would take a picture. I would. It's the obvious thing to do. I'd send it to my Auntie Fanny. Well, here is another question of Chinese food.

Would you believe? I would. I suppose. You're a very credulous person. It's from Bobby in Dagenham who says, I recently moved to Scotland where I have experienced culture shock par excellence. Everyone speaks French here. One thing that makes no sense

is the complete absence of sweet and sour pork balls in Chinese takeaways. Now, I've heard a lot about Scottish fast food, but I've never heard anyone say, why don't they have more of it? Why can't they deep fry more things in batter exactly is this can this really be true well bobby says i've sought out over two dozen such emporiums wow that is a good sample size that is good and none of them offer this msg high sticky fatty oriental staple even though you can't

get the pork balls in 90 of cases you can get chicken Maryland, of all things, over the border in Carlisle. Wow, Bobby's really done a lot of research. Yeah, the menu is identical to what we had in Dagenham, because Carlisle being in England, the pork balls are restored. So, Ollie, answer me this. Is there some restriction in Scotland on pork balls? That seems unlikely to me. It does, because they do love batter,

and that is essentially a ball of batter. Well, actually, that's the thing, isn't it? It might not be so much that there's a restriction, but that cultural appetites are such that if you can get battered things at other fast food takeaways... Get the haggis. Exactly. When you go for the Chinese, you want something different.

You don't want something that tastes like fish and chips, but with pork in it. You want something exotic, like fish and chips with rice. So, listeners, if you have any idea why this may be the case, and we have to take Bobby's word for it, we have not done our research in Scotland. It's the end of the series. I just couldn't really be bothered. Well, that's why we're taking a break, isn't it?

So we can go to Scotland and check every fast food outlet to see whether they have sweet and sour pork balls. I'm cancelling South by Southwest, and I'm going to Scotland. They're going to every takeaway and surveying them. I mean, I haven't done a proper survey of all of britain to find out whether it's possible that you know maybe 60 percent of chinese takeaways don't have portables in i've never seen one without but maybe it's the case that only daggum and london have them you're right i haven't really done i don't look for them because i don't like them yeah well either that or perhaps you are a scottish person who knows a

local chinese takeaway that we could connect bobby with perhaps we could recommend to them a particular chinese restaurant if there's one near you if bobby needs them so badly bobby should learn how to make them well anyway listeners i'm afraid this is it for this series of answer me this but please please please please please send us questions for the new series and you can get in touch via email and via phone and via skype all of our contact details are on our website answer me this podcast.com that's right we are on our website. AnswerMeThisPodcast.com That's right, we are back on Thursday the 28th of March. In the meantime, you will also

find on that website our first 120 episodes that you can buy on iTunes or through PayPal. You will find links to Twitter and Facebook and you will also of course find the links to our Audible promotion so that you can get yourself that free audiobook and give us some money for our holiday as well.

You call it a holiday? It's a research trip into the pork balls. Well, yeah, that's right. How could you forget so quickly? Sorry, forgive me. I've already lined up a lot of interviews. Very important scientific research, Helen. And if you want something as well as speech,

maybe some beautiful music, perhaps you could get Martin's album. Yeah, it's called The City of Gold and Lead and you can download it for a pay-what-you-want price, which means for free, if you like. And that's from thesoundoftheladies.com Yes, highly recommend that. And also

in the few weeks that we are away, you can also hear our voices every week on the Let's Talk About Tech podcast from the BBC. So make a point of subscribing to that as well if you'd like to hear us talk about internet things. And we will be back on your internet device on the 28th of March. Yay!

See you then. Bye!