Answer Me This! - AMT253: Refreshers, Dead Rats and Giving People Wood

Episode Date: April 18, 2013

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Aren't we overdue another comeback from Shaggy? Has to be this, has to be this Who's everyone going to hate? Now they've lost Maggie Has to be this, has to be this Helen and Ollie, has to be this Last week with our special guest Izzy Sooty we talked about how did casting directors

broach the subject of looking for somebody who's maybe not conventionally Attractive or shapely You're being too kind I'm not a casting director When casting directors are looking for ugly fatso's How do they do it? Sarah from Oklahoma has been in touch to say

I've worked in a really successful casting office For the past four years We did a job where we were looking for plus size ladies To wear bikinis in mid-October for a film and all we said were sizes something along the lines of we're looking for women between sizes 16 to 20 for a bikini shoot you'd be surprised how many ladies were all for it no i wouldn't you don't get many casting calls saying we're looking for ladies size 16 to 20 to play ophelia do you so when one comes along saying anything of course they're going to apply sarah says we've also had casting calls for uglies, circus freaks and giants.

And I think there's a point in people's lives when they just become okay with the fact that they're considered ugly. I think even if you're the person describing yourself like that, you're not really saying this is how I see myself. You're saying I'm aware this is how others see me and I'm in a profession where others will judge me based on how I look. It's a selling point. Well, Sarah says people who don't care or who are okay with it are the ones who submit to us. Yeah, I think that's right. So not insecure uglies. Well, yes, but then you get things like dwarf actors don't you where you think okay these people might be comfortable with the fact they've got dwarfism they might be comfortable with the fact they're going to have to play you know the dwarf in snow

white the seven dwarves they're reconciled to it exactly they're reconciled to it but they'd probably rather be playing liettis that's the thing. Sarah also has a question. She says, answer me this, Ollie, who were your childhood heroes? Phillips Gofield. Good choice. Because I wanted to be a presenter and also he was mates with Gordon the Gopher in my mind.

So that's cool. Was it Phillips Gofield who had to actually operate Gordon the Gopher? No, absolutely not. God, no. The strict no touching clause in the broom cupboard.

You know, there's a very serious art to portraying a puppet with that much character and charisma for a younger audience, Helen. You can't expect someone to present a live TV show at the same time. But it's a very small studio. I didn't really have heroes. I've never really been the kind of person that has role models. It shows.

I know. I've steered my own course. However, what I aspired to be when I was little, because it seemed like the most kind of unobtainable thing, was to be a backing singer on top of the Pops. Now that's a nice modest ambition, I would say. Well, I wasn't showy then. I was shy. Look at me now. Yeah, you're not the backing singer. You're front of stage, aren't you? I'm Jerry Halliwell now.

Hoofing around, entering through a massive pair of legs like she did at the Brits. Do you remember that? Yep, of course. Everyone remembers that one. The iconic Brits moment. Yeah, except with a rubbish song, unfortunately. Which one was it? Yep, of course. Everyone remembers that one, the iconic Brits moments. Yeah, except with a rubbish song, unfortunately. Which one was it? It was, look at me. Was it? I thought it was, bag it up. Oh, really? Yeah. No, because

then she'd be entering through a massive bag, surely. She'd be a giant colostomy bag split in the middle. Bag it up, chop up the body, don't leave no trace, clean with bleach. Did you have any heroes, Martin? I think probably most of my heroes were completely fictional.

Like either they're characters in science fiction TV shows. God. Like Commander McCarroll or maybe like Greek heroes. Maybe like... Really? Maybe like Hercules or something.

That's not very West Midlands type of ambition. Everyone always picks the ancient Greek heroes, don't they? No one ever goes for a modern day... What's Cyprus or...

Stelios. You know, whereas he's a very successful entrepreneur. Ariana Huffington. Yeah, exactly. Hi, Helen and Ollie. This is Dallas. I just had a question. So my mom recently bought a resort

and there's a simple job that I can do this summer. It's just like driving... It's like a camping resort. And it's just like giving people wood and stuff like that. Giving people wood. Giving people wood. If Dallas's guests don't get wood, will he get into trouble? I'm sure he would.

Because they'll have nothing to keep them warm at night. But I'll be making $6,000 for that summer. But I'll be working every day all summer. And that's in between school. So Helen and ollie answer me this should i take the job or should i just stay home this summer should i just stay at home what's the benefit that's going to be boring compared to working the campsite i know you'll be shunting around wood but it will furnish you with anecdotes and possible sexual experiences to amuse you for

decades of your life thereafter and you could make a misty-eyed coming-of-age film about it have you not seen dirty dancing could you be just like that but with more wood more wood than watermelons you're not going to be using the time more wisely than that i reckon you should go for it and also you'll be in the outdoors as long as you don't have to stay in a tent all summer because that would suck but as you say it almost certainly there's going to be a trade in hot youngsters coming through. Legal ones, you mean? I do. Yes.

Holiday romance. You can feel the sort of sweaty excitement, can't you, that this job may hold. And if not, at least you will get to grips with a lot of wood. There is a romance around camp, isn't yes especially american camp that's a different kind which which which is special to that kind of experience which is actually i think exactly the kind of thing you should do when you're in a break at school i think you should go for it

did you ever go to a camp well they didn't really have camps like they do in america when i was young did you not even go to like your school didn't run a sort of half day thing where you go and play archery day doesn't count well it does it still counts i did silversmithing i did oil painting i did trampolining did you do those things at the same time on the silversmithing course i did set fire to my hair with a blow torch but not deliberately wow how i'll just back a blowtorch had very long hair at the time what happened just burnt hair for a while but i mean how how how inflamed did it get well the flame looked very impressive ollie the flame was about three feet high but the amount of hair that went up was minimal it's interesting though isn't it how michael jackson went one way after

setting fire to his hair you know getting addicted to plastic surgery and becoming one of the all-time great weirdos you went, went a different way. Silversmithing. I had a spoon to finish. If only Michael Jackson had a spoon to finish. Instead of an album. Dangerous would have never happened and everything would be fine. But what would he have done with that spoon?

He would have put it in Mother's silver cabinet for serving salt at special occasions. It was quite a small spoon in the end because silversmithing is quite difficult. Especially when your head's on fire. Here's a question from christine from canberra uh which she's described as australia's bush capital women do not shave there this is a brilliant episode she says i need a man to bring me wood she says she says we thought we had possums in our roof making lots of noise uh but the pest guy who came out to remove them corrected us and said we had possums in our roof making lots of noise. But the pest guy who came out to remove them corrected us and said we had rats

and put down some poison in the roof cavity to kill them. I asked the possum rat man about dead bodies lying around the place. And he assured us that the poison gives them a raging thirst. Rats, not Christine's victims. Correct. And then they'd leave the property in search of water and die. That sounds

a little too convenient. That's quite clever actually, isn't it? If that is how poisoning works. If it is. Unfortunately, one rat didn't make it out and appears to have died in our roof space where we can't access its body, which seems to be above my ten-year-old's daughter's bedroom. Well, she's going to have a complex, isn't she? Yeah.

And the noxious smell has made the room uninhabitable yeah decomposition is not a tasty smell so helen answer me this how long do dead rats stink for when will the smell dissipate and my daughter can return to her own bed the smell has been there for five days and seems to have incredible staying power yeah well you do have a rotten corpse just above her room and it may take a month some rats dry out after a week but if it's humid don't know how humid canberra is if there's like a water pipe or steam in the loft then it could it could take a month and even then the lingering stench of decay may last for a really long time and also it might drip through your daughter's ceiling so the ideal thing really would be to remove the rat

body because also maggots could start oozing out of it and you do not want that but she said she can't access it so what do you propose try harder the rats got in so you can get in and also you do need to find how the rats got in and block it off yeah that's true apparently you can get in. And also you do need to find how the rats got in and block it off. Yeah, that's true. Apparently you can get air cleaners that filter stench out of the air. There's still a decaying rat body just above your daughter's sleeping head. But there was that woman who died, wasn't there,

in Wood Green and no one knew she was there for two and a half years. So if you can't smell a decomposing 40-something woman, then actually maybe the rat smell isn't as bad. Maybe it will fade over time. Well, there's a comfort, isn't it? And then maybe a very interesting docudrama will be made out of it

starring Zoe Ashton as the rat. Yeah, absolutely. Dare to dream. If you've got a question, email it in. To Martin the sound man, Holly and Helen Answer me this podcast

At googlemail.com Answer me this podcast At googlemail.com Yeah So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car that ripped off an iconic American car.

On Thursday, how American airlines invented air miles. And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America. We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors. 10 minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a question from Tigger in Brighton who says, my friend Jade and I went on the Brighton pier today and went into the gambling bit with the grabbing machines and coin thingamajigs where we wasted lots of money. Just as we were leaving, says Tigger, I asked my friend Jade if she could have a go for me

at the grabbing machines because I am completely incompetent at the grabbing machines. Right. To my surprise, she won the teddy. Wow. She won the teddy? Yeah. Does she say how many times she's done it?

No. That's amazing. After picking it up, I took it from her, but soon things got complicated. As Jade said it was rightfully hers whoa ollie answer me this who should actually have ownership of the teddy i did give her the money for it and she did agree to do it for me even though she did the work i believe it's rightfully mine she's attached a picture of the teddy which looks like a terrifying monster. Like a sort of

satanic fetus. That, to be honest, has not helped Tigger. That's confused the issue because you would wonder why you... Why would you want it? It's terrifying.

It's awful. But I think, basically, what you're describing here is capitalism, isn't it? You outsourced the grabbing. You should have had a contract in place, Tigger, before you did the grabbing.

She's been unionised. On acceptance of the fee, I claim rights over anything resulting from the grab. In the contract. Yes. Because everyone goes to Brighton Pier with contracts, don't they? I disagree. I don't think she needed it in writing.

I can see that if it ever went to court, that might be the case. It would have been so much easier now if she'd just done the paperwork beforehand. But nonetheless, I think there was a fairly clear verbal agreement there. Here's the money. You're doing it on my behalf.

Have fun because she was doing it, your friend, because it is quite a laugh, isn't it, using the grabbing machine? You were paying for her fun. But then the rewards of that job were very clearly yours. You paid for them. You commissioned her. And I think that's the verbal agreement that happened. I think it's a bit odd, though,

that you would ask someone else to do the grabbing machine for you because the prize is not worth having. So really the only joy in it surely is to see whether you can beat the system which has made it so that it's virtually impossible to grab something yeah so you can't outsource the grabbing no i disagree i think you can outsource the grabbing i think the joy is in the winning not in the controlling of the claw but for tigger the joy is is it's very much results driven process rather than the process-driven process. Yeah.

She's only after the end result. There's a mismatch of philosophy there. Well, I disagree. I think she's getting off on the fact that she won. I think the fact that it's a teddy is irrelevant. She didn't win. She paid for someone else. It still counts.

It's like whoever... That's how you win on the stock exchange, isn't it? No, but if you... You commission someone to go in there on your behalf and buy up stock but if you had put mo farah through running training yeah since he was a child and then it would be him that wins the race exactly you wouldn't think right those medals they're mine yeah but it's a collective effort though cut the bear in half i think that's the problem the bear's indivisible normally the capitalist would take a cut of the workers value it wouldn't take 100 percent or not take the head but that

defeats the object of the output no no no because no one wins using the formula one analogy team tigger gets a lot of plaudits for having put the money in and invested in the talent that could use the claw yeah at the point that the prize is won team tigger has done a pr exercise for themselves and they should feel gratified with that they've beaten other teams that were using the clawing machine but i think if tigger gets the bear now it's going to be tainted it's going to spoil the friendship which i think is more valuable than this awful bear well the fact that it's not a particularly attractive toy does really and you'll look into its devilish eyes and think was it worth all the heartache just for you you little furry monster well actually if we're

talking about terrifying claw grabbing games uh one that I've seen on the internet they do it at the main lobster festival with a live lobster tank. What? Yeah so you can pick your lobster to be cooked and eaten using a claw. Isn't that horrible? It's a bit perverse isn't it? I mean the whole choosing your lobster I think

anyway. Pretty rank. It is depressing but it's bad enough that they're just waiting there to die they don't know that though to then have a terrifying final moment where a claw comes i think it's so much of a muchness i mean if you're gonna eat a living creature i mean a creature that was living once why not turn it into a game well you may as well embrace the experience well that's kind of what hunting is isn't it that is what hunting well yeah and it is a bit wrong whereas that's like lobster death row.

It's not really... You're not really hunting a lobster if it's stationary in a tank and you're using it. Exactly, you're not going to win. Someone's already had the fun of hunting the lobsters with a lobster pot. It's bullfighting, basically, isn't it? Either way, you win, really. Bullfighting a lobster would be quite fun. That would be fun.

With a claw on your head. I'm Humphrey and on the Twitters I follow at Helen and Ollie. I should clarify when I say at I don't mean the preposition at.

I mean one of those A's with a little surrounding circle of the sort that used to designate the price of foot per foot well it's that time of the show where we like to take a question on the phone line the number for which is 02081235807 Or you can Skype answer me this and just leave us a message like this person has done. Hi, this is Rebecca from Brisbane in Australia. Hello, Ollie, answer me this.

I was at my niece's birthday party and they had fairy bread, which is hundreds and thousands, or I think you might call them sprinkles on bread. What are and how do they make hundreds and thousands? There are so many different colours that would have to be made individually. And they're so small that surely putting the coating on would make them stick together. It's just really confusing me. Bizarrely, I never heard the term hundreds and thousands at any point during my childhood. It doesn't surprise me because there are a lot

of linguistic terms that you're unaware of even now. Well's true but i i think what it is is is hundreds and thousands a brand or is it just a type of thing it's it's the type of thing yeah so that's the thing and because it hasn't been advertised at young ollie man through children's itv i had no awareness of it you were totally brand centric yes whereas if rolo had done a spin-off product called hundreds and thousands i would have known all about it but all over it it would have been all over me that would have been exquisite it would have all over it, it would have been all over me. That would have been exquisite. It would have made a change from the usual youthful acne.

I'd have just been like the singing detective with Hundreds and Thousands all over my face. Well, if Hundreds and Thousands haven't already been ruined for you by that image, they are a paste made out of cornstarch and sugar and fat. And that's extruded through a machine to make very thin strands like spaghetti and then they're shaken so they break up into lots of little bits and then they are sprayed with a kind of shellac which has a glaze in it to make it all shiny and colourful and wax which would mean that they didn't stick together really if they're waxing okay so it is a labour-intensive process but if hideously so for what is basically just a cake topping It does not taste of anything either, it's rubbish

I'm not aware that Heston Blumenthal has done anything exciting with hundreds and thousands But it seems like the sort of thing he'd do What he would do is he would make an ice cream cone that was made out of mashed potato And the hundreds and thousands would be colourful chipolatas Here is another question of sweet things From Johnny from Lincoln Who says When browsing my local sweet shop recently, I noticed that there are two completely different brands of sweets available called refreshers.

Fuck off. This will not stand. Unbelievable. Oh, no. There are Barrett's refreshers, the chalky circular disc made out of fruity sherbet. Yes. And there are Swizzles refreshers, chewy rectangular ones with a lemon sherbet centre. There are two types,

you're right. Sherbet being the common theme. Johnny says, I find this surprising given how possessive companies are these days about their brand names. Surely,

this is like two competing companies both selling a detergent called Fairy Liquid. There's probably a drugs company selling Fairy Liquid, isn't there? Probably. As well as the detergent company.

Also, I bet if Alan Carr ever put out an aftershave, he'd call it that. Oh no. So, Ollie't there? Probably. As well as the detergent company. Also, I bet if Alan Carr ever put out an aftershave, he'd call it that. Oh, no. So, Ollie, answer me this. How can two competing brands have exactly the same name? And why didn't whoever had the name first sue the ass off the other?

I have a feeling the reason as to the latter part of the question... Tonight's going to be a question about Matlows. the answer to the second part of the question why didn't they see the arse off each other is because they don't make enough money out of selling 20p sweets au contraire helen they're both million pound turnover companies million pounds is not that much for a sweet no not one many millions i can't remember you know tens of millions of pounds both of them make um and they're both british companies which is good actually isn't it? I'm so proud.

In this very retro nostalgic type market. These are sweets, though, that no one outside Britain would want to eat. I have a feeling that Barrett's. The fizzy ones. The fizzy ones. Barrett's has been bought and then bought again and then assumed as part of a larger group and then split off from Cadbury's and then bought by someone else. And it's been bought by so many people that actually they've never had time, frankly,

to stop and sue anyone else yeah because they're it seems like people only buy that company to then accrue some more sweet companies and then sell them to another sweet giant oh because they want some free sweets meanwhile uh the swizzles matlow factory the chewy refreshes the chewy refreshes is still as far as i can tell owned by people related to the original matlow brothers yeah they still have a family factory that's run in Stockport. Here's a fact about Swizzles Matlow. They don't sue. We can say whatever we like. They maintain a

stick up a lip because their lips are glued together by chewy sweets. All of the refreshers. They get through a 20 ton tanker of sugar every day in their factory. Because both these sweets seem like really retro sweets, is it even possible to know which one was first called refresher well i can't find that information

although i have found a date relating to the matlow one which is the chewy one which is the chewy one uh in 1955 they relaunched refreshers as new refreshers uh so that pre-war refresher well actually that's a good point they stopped production during the war because there was no sugar so therefore it does actually tell you that the original refresher brand if they were relaunching in 55 must be from the 20s or 30s that's how far it goes back and it started as a family business two of them selling them in a market stall in hackney so i think therefore with that kind of brand actually is quite difficult isn't it to sue and say well we got here first i mean it doesn't really two people could have had the same idea for the name it's

quite a basic name isn't it obviously i think it'd be problematic if you launched a bar that was called a mars bar that was nothing like a mars but i think mars would take issue with the name i think they would however i think in this case there would be a lot more problems if the other company had launched the same product and call it refreshes something quite different yes and maybe intellectual property law has not yet extended to cover suites with names i think it's a bit more of a problem that um for instance there are two fairly high profile films called crash albeit it's not like one of them is a jolly u-rated film that you would be watching with your kids and then it turns out to be a car wound sex fest. No, but actually that would, in a way,

perversely, you'd think that would make it easier because then you'd never confuse the two crushes. Whereas, actually, they are both films for adults, aren't they, of a different sort? One of them's worthy and one of them's vile. Also, when I was young, I used to think, God, isn't it a problem that so many bands have called their album Unplugged?

That's a good point. Hello, Helen and Ollie. This is Dave from Smedeker Dave. Helen and Ollie, answer me this. When you write a cheque, you know, to pay someone, you know, for something, you have to put down how much you're paying them in words. And then you have to put it down again. But you have to put it in words.

You have to write it, 12 in T-W-E-L. You have to write that down, and then you have to put the numbers in as well. You have to put down the figures figures what you're paying as well. Why do you have to do that? All right. Bye. My mother had always intimated to me that the reason why this was done

is to protect you against Czech forgers and naughty people. So it would be easy to slip in another digit if you were just writing in the numbers. But then why not just have it in the words? Why have the words and the numbers, Ollie? Because the numbers are easier to read, aren't they? They're quicker. So the bank teller, the bank clerk,

can look down at the cheque as you give it to them and they can see the digits and they can type them in quickly. But they can glance across and check that the intention was the numbers that they're typing in um so that's why you have both and it is yeah i mean it was actually a fairly recent development in the history of checks because um checks in their earliest form go back all the way to the romans and the idea of writing down iou on a piece of paper and signing it you know quite quite a basic idea they evolved over the centuries and actually the the whole idea of writing down the numbers in words was only as recent as the 19th century that people started to do that um but it was just because they started becoming the

predominant way to pay each other through banks and they started becoming personalized so you'd have the name of the bank on you'd have the the account number on the bottom and stuff and they became the sort of thing where someone might make the kind of transaction like buying a house where it really would be a problem if someone put a one and a comma in front of it. Right, rather than turning up with their knickers full of ingots. Exactly. There was that weird thing with cheques where you don't say £100 in the text book. You say £100 only.

Yes, that's weird, isn't it? Well, sometimes people put £100 exactly. Oh, is that what they do? To indicate and no pence isn't it but then if you're doing check for all just to get an extra 99 pence that's pathetic there was a kid at school who i remember owed me money because i bought tickets to go to the cinema or something when we were 17 yeah and i said to everyone right you owe me whatever it was eight pound 50 and he took about six weeks to pay me back and i had to chase him, you know, which gets a bit embarrassing.

A pound of flesh. Alright, thank you, Helen. But I said to him, you know, please, can you pay me today? And he wrote out a cheque by hand as in not a printed cheque from a bank but wrote the whole thing by hand. Wrote Bank of Scotland, account number blah blah. Really?

I hereby pay the person blah blah. And he put a little box which he wrote by hand and he goes well there you are they have to accept that it's true and I was like I'm not going to take

I'm 17 years old I'm not going to go to the bank and present this did you try it no of course I'm not going to do that that would be amazing and he was being such a knob

like he had a checkbook he was just like oh well technically they have to accept that wow well he's not allowed on Olly Mann's cinema trips anymore is he

he's on the shit list he is yeah down and lonely Wow. Well, he's not allowed on Olly Mann's cinema trips anymore, is he? He's on his shit list. He is, yeah. Down and lonely Life is so confusing I need some answers Preferably amusing Now I find A podcast that will suit

I listen to Helen and Ollie On my half-hour commute Here is a question from Luke in Fife who says, During my first ever trip to Disneyland Paris as a child, do you remember your first time, Ollie? Yeah, I do, yeah. I can't remember the worst time. Because they're all amazing

because it's magic. I, like most of the other children, says Luke, tried to draw the almighty Excalibur from its stone. Without lack of trying on my part, I failed to do so. But that got me thinking,

can the sword actually be drawn from the stone? And if you manage, do you get to keep the sword? Do you get recognized as king arthur reborn within the magical kingdom ollie answer me this is it actually possible to draw excalibur in disneyland well my initial response based on my own experience and instinct was no of course it's not possible to draw the sword from the stone because just health and

safety wise like if a kid comes up to it and pulls really really hard on it and he's able to dislodge it then every kid's going to try and do that some of them can dislocate their shoulders something we waving a sword around yes they're all going to feel entitled that they can then keep the sword as a souvenir you're going to get through a lot of swords you're implicitly saying that some of the children are magic and others aren't and the whole point of disney is that everyone feels magic because they've all paid their hundred dollars it's very complicated easier to just make it so that no of course because only arthur or merlin can draw the sword from the center easy right okay but then i looked into it online and i can't find anything written about disneyland

paris but in disneyland in california the happiest place on earth there did used to be a ceremony every day in the park and by ceremony they mean sort of slightly chintzy stage show, where Merlin or, you know, actor playing Merlin, would come along and select a child to come and do it and one of them would be able to draw the sword from the stone.

At which point there'd be kind of like a light show and apparently, I know that Luke says in his question, did you get to keep the sword and get recognised as King Arthur Reborn? Not quite, but apparently, traditionally,

you did get to be King of Disneyland for the day. It's quite cool. And did that mean you got to pass a lot of laws? Yeah, you got to put out pest control on Mickey. So anyway, there are then in these forums, lots of speculation as to how the mechanic worked that

enabled the sword to detach from the stone at that exact moment. Because all day, the sword is in the stone and people are having photo opportunities going trying to tug it according to personal testimony by someone who was king of disneyland for the days i think we can believe them yeah drunk on power they were remarking upon the fact that when they withdrew the sword they noticed that it was wet on the end and reflecting upon this later in life as a scientist they said they realized therefore this was a hydraulic mechanism uh and that it was actually being powered by water uh and then

there's speculation as to who is doing the controlling uh in this particular forum that was on like i say particularly geeky and uniquely american there were people who were saying well i know someone who once played merlin and he was controlling the sword by remote control in his pocket then someone else said no no no i've been to fantasyland and i've seen the sword by remote control in his pocket. Then someone else said, no, no, no, no. I've been to Fantasyland and I've seen the sound op press a button. And if you stand in a certain place at the back of Mr. Toad's Crazy Ride, you can see the light go from red to green. And that's when the sword comes out and the sound op's operating.

And then someone else said, no, no, no. There's a janitor who stands by a blue rock. Look out for a blue rock in Fantasyland. It's different to all the other rocks, and this is a special rock that's got a key in it, and the janitor flicks a switch to release it. This is like a JFK assassination. There was a guy on the grassy knoll,

and there was a hidden mechanism. It just goes to show that even Disney aficionados, even people who want to ruin the magic for themselves, even people who know people who have worked there cannot ruin the magic. They can't agree on how to ruin the magic. That's nice, isn't Exactly. Do you know what? I've never been to a Disney,

but I wonder whether I wouldn't enjoy it because all this sort of forced... You would enjoy it because it's amazing. But all the forced street theatre, Ollie, sounds an awful lot like the Disney version of the Black Country Living Museum. No, no, no. I can't imagine it being as good as the Black Country Living Museum.

The rides, especially. Going down into that mines shaft in a barge. Look, a printing press. No, because you don't... I've only just found out about this detail of the stage show by the Sword in the Stone

and I've been to Disneyland like seven times. So you can ignore the stage shows. Not only ignore it, there is so much to feast on that you wouldn't even notice it unless you've been there for like three days.

And you don't have to hang out in the street with someone dressed as Rapunzel or whatever. It depends on your definition of hang out. She's not very Disney, is she? Sorry.

Well, maybe you would be hanging out with Rapunzel because she wants to be one of the regular characters, Helen, but she won't be because she's a slag. She's not Pocahontas or Cinderella, is she? She's not a slag. She's stuck up a tower with no one. That's true. She's very much the opposite of a slag.

She wants to put it out, though. She just can't. Maybe she sends a lot of letters to prisoners. Anyway. She can empathise with them. Maybe she sends a lot of letters to prisoners. Anyway. I couldn't help noticing... She can empathise with them. I couldn't help noticing on my most recent visit to Disney Park, which I admit was Florida, so again, complicating the story still.

Was the magic still there as an adult with no children with you? Yes, obviously yes. Even more so than having children with you because you had time to do what you wanted and go on all the roller coasters. Yeah, I was going to go to the toilet every 20 minutes. And the whining dickhead should have gone before we queued, I was going to go to the toilet for 20 minutes. Should have gone before we queued! I was keeping an eye out last time I went to Disney World because, you know, we were doing the podcast.

So if my accountant is listening, definitely was for research purposes that I went. Talking about it now. Inspiration trip. That's right. So whilst I was there, I was keeping an eye out for this kind of detail. I noticed, I mean, it was notable that films like Sword in the Stone,

the ones from the 60s and the 70s, Robin Hood, they'd gone. Wind in the Willows, that had gone. Even Pinocchio, I think, has gone now in New Fantasy Land and there's very much a focus on things like Nemo and Ariel and characters that younger kids know. Well, they're better dolls, aren't they? Nemo and Ariel.

Whereas the doll of Ge geppetto not so cool well you say that but the little cat geppetto's cat was a cool soft toy i had that yeah but well this is it we can't remember because we're too young so they're absolutely they know what they're doing that corporation they know how to target children they do and they've got rid of as far as i could tell they've got rid of all the sword and stone references and replaced them with more contemporary ones so it might well be that there's no longer a sword in the stone at disneyland paris even it's been replaced by a giant buzz lightyear anyway oh sorry well on that very uh deflating note it's time to end the show and go away and think for a week about how sad and empty the world now seems but there is light because in a week we will return with another

episode of answer me this so please send us your questions via email phone or skype and all our contact details are on our website answer me this podcast.com and if we choose your question like arthur revealing the sword from the stone uh then you'll feel just as magic as if you'd been that lucky child selected in the pyrotechnic show i'll see you next week bye