Answer Me This! - AMT262: Ice Cream Vans, Baseball Caps and the Wrath of the Hoff

Episode Date: July 11, 2013

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Will Andy Murray take Ruby's place in rhyming slang? Answer me this, answer me this What is there to celebrate about coolin' the gang? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this Hello listeners, welcome back to Answer Me This. I've just been on holiday, Martin the Soundman's just been on holiday. I sure have.

Olly Mann has not just been on holiday. No, but I have just been on holiday i sure have ollie man has not just been on holiday no but i have just bought a house which is pretty exciting some of you will be getting deja vu at that statement because you'll remember that at the start of the last series i said that i just bought a house actually what happened is is we had our offer accepted don't go into it i mean i'll just fade out on you describing what happened i'll tell you what i've learned helen over the past three weeks whilst we've been away i I've learned that all solicitors care a lot less about the thing that you're buying than you do. I'm sorry that it took you a practical experiment to discover that information.

I've also learned that garden centres are actually interesting when you own a garden. I never knew. Have you got a swinging bench yet? Because I don't have a garden. I don't have a garden. I would really like a swinging bench. I'm thinking about getting one of these things

like a totem pole with a hammock hanging off it. But it's quite dangerous. I tried it out in the garden centre and I nearly killed an old woman who was coming in the door with it. The trouble with the hammock is the entrance and exit can be hazardous. And how was your holiday, Helen? Oh, it was jolly nice, Ollie. And in fact, we bumped into an Answer Me This listener

as we were going through the security checks. Oh, yes. Hello to Rich, who was on his way to Prague as Martin was getting frisked for all of his ammo. He said, are you the Zaltzwicks of South London? Oh, that's a nice way to ask. He said, step into the private room, please. Full cavity search.

And of course, listeners, although we were away, we put out that album we threatened to do. It actually happened. Of course, our threats always happen. So a lot of you should be quaking right now. So yeah, the Answer Me This holiday album is out now. So thank you very much to everyone who has bought it. And financed our holidays.

Yes, it is an hour of us answering your questions about holidays. Which, given the season, in the Northern Hemisphere anyway, should be of use. So if you would like to hear about my experiences of being forced into sex on the beach in Cancun. Yes, you actually do want to hear that. It's quite a shocking expose. Or just what in hell a utility door is.

Disneyland, what lies beneath. All of this is revealed in the Answer Me This Holiday album. It's out now. Go to answermethispodcast.com slash holiday if you would like to buy it. By doing so, you keep the podcast going that's right it's very altruistic of you to buy it yes and it's not that much outlay and i think you'll enjoy it yeah so it's two pounds 49 on itunes and it's five pounds 49 on amazon it's not our fault it's

not our fault they set the prices and they must think that their customers are very well to do as uh as australian and japanese itunes as well who've racked up the price, they must think everyone living in Australia and Japan is sitting on a gold mine. So not our fault. Don't ask us about the price. Sorry about that. Sorry. But we do appreciate it. And the exciting thing was we've got to our highest ever chart position.

In the music album charts, by the way. Yeah. Which means we are pretty much what, Sean Paul? Well, this time, Answer Me This Holiday got to number 14 in the UK Top 20 album chart, albeit only for an afternoon. But we were there. That's fine. Sandwich between Robbie and Rihanna. Really?

Which is a lot of people's fantasy. Well, whilst we're talking of Matters Holiday, here is an appropriately summary question. It is from Eric from Philadelphia, the artisanal cream cheese region of the world, who says... That's not artisanal. It's made out of massive factories. That's right. I was being ironic. I have no idea, he says, if you have ice cream trucks in the UK.

We do. He does actually explain, if anyone's never seen one before. He says these are trucks that drive around and play music to compel children to scream at their parents until they wave the truck down and buy a neon-flavoured treat. Isn't that pretty much the plot of that film where Rutger Hauer terrorises everybody from a truck? Neon-flavoured treat is a confusing phrase as well, isn't it? Because, of course, neon's a colour, not a flavour.

And it's one of the chemical elements, so maybe that does have a flavour, but probably not one that children should be eating. I don't think it does, it's a noble gas. Here in the UK, I would say the ice cream is as likely to be a beige treat or a white, bright white treat. Or pinkish.

Yeah, but not neon really. I mean the ice lollies are occasionally neon. There used to be one that was swirls of neon and it was pretty disgusting when you actually tried to eat it.

It's funny though isn't it? I don't know at what age that kicks in, that fear of things that are so ridiculously artificial they blind you. For me, what age is that?

I think it was probably once I was in my teens. Yeah, but early teens like I reckon even at 14 I realise this can't be a good thing I'm putting in my body. So, Helen, answer me this. When did ice cream trucks first show up? Well, usually around the time when the kids are getting out of school. Yeah, clever like that, aren't they?

Does that make it a good job in terms of you don't have to get up till late in the day or actually to sort of stock an ice cream truck and keep it up to date and everything is it a full-time nine-to-five i don't know i'd imagine i'd imagine it is a harder job than yeah the uh the fun exterior would hint at because also it's a freezer on wheels if you think about the logistical difficulties of that you've got to drive it you've got to stock it up you've got to go to the cash and carry you've got to sort out your plot with the council actually it's not that much fun is it and you've got to listen to the annoying tune all day. You're stuck in a very hot little van because to make it cold,

there's all this hot air being pumped out of the appliances. You've got to talk to kids all day as well. No one's going to have the right change either. No. Yeah, and I mean, although your profit's good on each item, you're still turning over a pound, aren't you? It's not glamorous, is it? It's not big money.

You know the trend for food trucks that is trying to grab hold in London, but it's generally too rainy most of the year. This is sort of an LA thing, isn't it, that they've tried to make happen in King's Cross? It's very big in Portland, actually. Yeah, big in Portland. Big in many towns in the States.

Ice cream trucks, or vans as we call them in the UK, are essentially the precursor to the food van revolution, aren't they? Yeah, I suppose they are. Although those food trucks tend not to be in the same places as ice creams because they are sort of the same sort of thing. Actually, at music festivals you see ice cream vans and people selling hot dogs and

kebabs and burritos. I think there's a sort of adult-child split there, isn't there? Food trucks are meant to be a bit more hip and grown up. I would kill for a well-made cocktail in a park. If next to the ice cream van, i'm sure there's all sorts of licensing issues with this but if they could have a beer van i mean i guess there's all sorts of problems with kids queuing up well you say that ollie you say that but recently in crystal palace right next door to the sweet shop there has opened a double fronted bong shop and that's just up the way from

the ice cream shop as well is the sweet shop called slippery slope start them early you would be worried wouldn't you about sending your kids out to get some rhubarb and custard so obviously the laws are less stringent than we might have hoped well well i'm welcoming that i'm saying as an adult i'd like to buy my child a bong a flake 99 and buy myself a bloody mary in a way that's the reversal of children now being a lot more welcome in pubs yes exactly yeah when you have your child you'd like there to be a fully functioning wet bar in the nursery what i'm saying is let's all get stoned in playgrounds that obviously seems like a really good thing to do well actually that probably is quite a common activity amongst young

and old anyway how did ice cream truck start The advent of the ice cream van was quite an incremental process because it started out as bicycles and little horse-drawn carts. And then once vans were invented, people started driving around in vans because most people did not have home refrigeration then. No. I imagine that going down quite well in Shoreditch, an ice cream bicycle. Yeah. And in fact, maybe ice cream is the next foodstuff due to revival because frozen yoghurt has had a while.

Yeah. Macaroons have died down. How do you feel about frozen yoghurt, or foodstuff duo revival because frozen yoghurt has had a while. Yeah. Macaroons have died down. How do you feel about frozen yoghurt, or for Americans that are listening, frozen yoghurt? I had a wonderful experience with it on our holiday in Seattle. We went to one of these places where they've got like 30 different flavours in its self-serve, soft-scoop frozen yoghurt,

and it extrudes like a dog doing a really long jump. All of the flavours look like a dog doing a poo into a little cup. So anyway, apparently like the horse-drawn and bike-drawn ice cream things were around from the early 19th century. Yeah, people have always liked putting cold things in their mouth. Anyway, I can't find out when the first mechanised ice cream van was, but I can find out when the first soft-serve one was, which is the whippy type ice cream.

The soft-serve van was the invention of two Irish brothers called William and James Conway, who put an ice cream freezer and a generator in a Chevrolet panel truck. And they went around selling green ice cream on St. Patrick's Day in Philadelphia in 1956. No, it's actually from Philadelphia, like Eric. It's remarkable, really, that there's not some kind of monument that Eric would have observed in his hometown of Philadelphia. Catherine from Cardiff. Hannah Manoli, answer me this.

I'm watching Wimbledon, it's very sunny, and lots of people have baseball hats on. And I'm wondering, why are they called baseball hats? And the second thing is, why do they have holes in the back? Is it purposely just so girls can put their ponytails through? No, of course not. It's so they can adjust the size. We should come clean, Catherine, and tell you that baseball hats

or baseball caps, as I would call them, are so-called because they were worn by baseball players. Yeah. It's not such a surprise really, is it?

They're actually compulsory for baseball players to wear. To keep the sun off their face. Well, it's part of the uniform. I think it's the only

sport that has a compulsory non-helmet hat in the States. And that is partly why it's so popular, because baseball is popular. Yeah, no, that's curious, because cricket, most of them wear hats to protect their faces, but it's not part of the official outfit. It doesn't have the insignia on it, does it? And also there's an inconsistency of hat styles.

As there used to be in baseball, baseball players used to wear mirror hat styles, like pillbox hats and different types of cap and even floppy hats no consistency at all some had long visors like beaks some had short visors apparently there was a victorian ladies bonnet that looked a lot like a baseball cap actually we don't see people wearing them around why isn't ashton kutcher wearing those so a company called the new era cap company developed a fitted cap as the Major League Baseball official uniform hat, and that is called the 5950, and that was invented in 1954, and so it has been ever since. Normally I'd associate a hat wearing with sort of dandyish style,

but to me a baseball cap... Dandy? He never wore a baseball hat. I don't know, just because we've not seen the pictures. But a baseball cap is one of those items of clothing, like, I don't know a bandit t-shirt or like tracksuit bottoms that says i do not care about the way i look it's almost a very definitive male statement which says i am not a dandy i think one of the great things about wimbledon was the fact that some slightly more elegant hat styles were represented not only by the crowd but

on the court there was one linesman who had the kind of dandiest cool flair of Samuel L Jackson he was he was also a probably middle-aged black man and he was standing on the back line in the same shirt and trousers as everybody on the line yeah just a little bit cooler looking cooler and with a white Kangol cap yeah but the Kangol thing's interesting isn't it because no one else can pull that off apart from Jackson oh excuse me David Cameron wearing a Kangol cap would be absurd my dad has a grey tweed Kangol cap and he looks fine in it yeah but it's not as good as that one that you got him for Christmas that looks like a shark's eating his head no that's better but that is a bit fancy for every

day yeah it is yeah my favourite baseball cap when I was a kid was a shiny black PVC one with NASA written on it in gold writing well that sounds like what Joan Collins or Cher would have worn yes it was a bit like that bit sweaty a PVC it was PVC hat. It was a bit sweaty. I never really liked caps. I never did. They would smell a bit funny when you've been wearing them too long. Smell of dead skin. Well, that's because they're made of plasticky materials

and your head's just sweating into them. I wonder if Steven Spielberg still does that thing where he gets the name of the film he's just made put on his baseball cap. Because it works fine, doesn't it, for Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T.? It's a bit weird for Schindler's List and Lincoln, isn't it? Amistad.

Yeah. Colour purple. All that seems a bit odd. I'm guessing that a baseball cap wasn't made for those films. And yet the E.T. one, iconic image it? Amistad. Yeah. Colour Purple. All that seems a bit odd. I'm guessing that a baseball cap wasn't made for those films. And yet the E.T. one, iconic image, him with the E.T. baseball cap,

standing next to E.T., which is odd because you're blurring the boundary there between fiction and real life. Because if E.T. was real, he wouldn't be looking at an E.T. baseball cap because they wouldn't have made a film about him. Well, unless it was a documentary and E.T. had stuck around or had come back

because he leaves at the end. Sorry, spoilers. But if he'd come back to see the premiere or end. Sorry, spoilers. But if he'd come back to see the premiere or something. Would be incredible access though, wouldn't it? Stay with the alien from the moment he lands on Earth.

Yeah. That's a good documentary. Well, we've seen the Beyonce documentary. Yeah, yeah. Does he still wear the caps? I think he's phased it out a bit now, but probably only, you know, literally in his early 60s.

I think he was wearing them for a long time. Do you think he's gone to more old man hat style like a knotted hanky? That would be nice, wouldn't it, if he suddenly turned up in a pork pie? I've got a question. Email your question to AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com.

AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com. AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com and submit this podcast to googlemail.com and submit this podcast to googlemail.com so retrospect is 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 Heidi, who says, Ollie, answer me this. Why do German people love David Hasselhoff?

I thought this was very well known, actually. I don't know why. You don't know why. I assumed it was some kind of ironic thing. No, I'm not sure Germans do irony, do they generally? I thought maybe it was so ironic it had flipped around to being quite sincere, love. He sells more records there than anywhere else on earth, and they have an affection for him. That's not hard, because he probably sells ten records in other countries.

Well, indeed. I mean, most people don't even know he's a singer. The reason is, as I've heard recounted in literally every interview I've ever seen him do, but I suppose if you don't have the same passing interest in the work of Hasselhoff that I do, perhaps you don't know this. I don't know it. No. The reason is, he was the guy who performed on the berlin wall shortly before the berlin wall came down wow he did a new year's concert there did he precipitate the uh reunification of germany well they thought we can't agree on much but we can agree that both sides love the hoff well actually some would argue that he did there is

a book called something like did davidelhoff End the Cold War? Which is obviously a tongue-in-cheek title, but what happened is he had a song called Looking for Freedom. Is it a kind of remix of Looking for Linda by Hugh and Cry, which was also out that year? No, it's a terrible 80s power pop song. So is Looking for Linda. Yes.

Well, I would say Looking for Freedom is two stars, Looking for Linda is three. Anyway, Looking for Freedom was number one in Germany for eight weeks over the summer. Wow. It was kind of the 1989 equivalent of Everything I Do, I Do It For You in Germany. Yes, but that was 16 weeks. Yes, I know.

So it's half Everything I Do, I Do For You. Half is half, Brian Adams. It was just Everything I Do, no parenthesis. Okay. And that was number one for eight weeks in Germany. Like I say, he lucked out with that title. I mean, if the title was Because I Loved You, no one would have given a sod.

Do you think it was not luck so much as calculation? No, I don't think it was calculation because it was an American album. It wasn't aimed at the German market. I bet he had a nose to the German market. I just don't know. Do you think he's that smart? He's an American TV star.

He's in Knight Rider. Well, he seems like an idiot, but so does Boris Johnson. I don't think he's actually an idiot. I think it's a calculation. I think the Hoff might be the same well anyway calculated or no you know it became associated with east germany's desire for reunification yeah and so when david hasselhoff was invited to perform in berlin he specifically asked if he could perform on the berlin wall thinking they'd say no but actually he was so popular in germany by that point that both

chancellors of both East and West Germany agreed to allow David Hasselhoff to be the only musical actor to perform on the Berlin Wall

and so was he teetering on the wall because that's my vision yeah basically that's amazing and he said he performed this massive concert

New Year's Eve 100,000 people lighters in the air and essentially that moment became an iconic moment and shortly afterwards the wall came down

David Hasselhoff associated with East Germany's freedom hence a lot of people quite like him how did he know which way to look he probably just looked uh parallel to the wall because then everybody gets one side of his face well when you go and see one of those plays where they've staged it so the audience is sitting on the stage yeah it's usually the cheap seats on the stage isn't it most of the time they perform out to the audience they do the occasional bit where the people at the back can see so i wonder it on that basis he was probably getting more money from the west germans probably performing most of the time out west well

west germany was bigger yeah uh and also east germany was more austere so they probably were okay with just getting his elbows or something although getting the back of hasselhoff in 1989 you're probably getting a pretty spectacular mullet situation to admire solid buns as well um and he's actually still exploiting this uh association he has with the berlin wall uh because he's actually still campaigning to save the bit that's left because apparently property developers in germany want to take the last bit of the berlin wall and knock it down he says uh yes it's a painful reminder of what went before but by having that you've got something for families to go and see and have a memorial

is it big enough for him to do a gig on? You could sit on it like Humpty Dumpty with a guitar. You've met the Hoff, haven't you? I have. When did you meet the Hoff? David Haselhoff was my first ever celebrity guest when I worked on when I was

a researcher on This Morning. It was on my first ever day at work and what it was is his video had come out. I say video like it's something he officially licensed. Was first ever day at work. And what it was is his video had come out. Well, I say video like it's something he officially licensed. Was it Jump In My Car? No. It was the video of him rolling around drunk on the floor trying to eat a hamburger. Oh, the sad video.

The sad video had hit YouTube about a week before this interview. So was it an interview that had been pre-planned? Yes. Or was he rep-saving? No, he was in to talk about his role in the West End Musical Chicago. Uh-huh. In which he lies on the ground and talks to a hamburger. And so in true kind of fluffy daytime TV style,

you know, all the PR people had sent in so many missives beforehand to me and the producer saying, look, whatever happens, you are not to ask him about being drunk on the floor. You're not to ask him about that video. It's a very painful situation with his daughter and blah blah and i mean of course you can say that as often as you like to the researcher but at the end of the day it's a live tv program you can't stop the presenter asking whatever they want you try and rein in fern britain exactly and you know fern britain's a pretty astute journalist she knows what people want to hear

and she knows exactly how to ask it so she just totally brilliant this is why i don't understand when people kind of undermine her interviewing skill fern britain didn't ask directly so she didn't technically go against the advice that had been issued to us by the lawyers and the pr people what she did this is in the middle of a fluffy interview about his thing on chicago she lent over to him and she said um now david i've been reading all sorts of things about you in the papers and then she put her hand on his knee and then she said how are you brilliant question how are you that's creepy but he had a full-on like post-traumatic stress disorder flashback and just started talking all this psycho babble he was like i'm through it now and i'm fine i hit a wall originally but i've come over it and it was great interview like classic but then of course he comes

off the set and feels a bit exploited and like, what the hell just happened there? And, of course, he takes it out on me because I'm the face of the production team. And it was my first day. What did he say to you? Yeah, he came up to me and goes, hey, dude, you threw me a curveball out there.

That was not cool. I'm a junior researcher. I don't produce this show, mate. And then he still gave you a signed photo. He did, yeah, because he's the Hoff. He's like, I'm so upset, I'm only giving you Like two lines of affectionate writing On your signed photo

So what did he say? What was your comeback to the Hoff's Sorry, sort of I just said, I'm terribly sorry, I don't know what happened there But I'll certainly try and find out for you Something totally delivered like that The bottom line is, in these situations, even with A celebrity of some renown You've got an Easter egg item to produce or whatever is coming up next you know cookery

demonstration or whatever i had to get him out there as soon as possible you cannot linger on the this morning set no i've got a testicular examination to get him for 12 15 yeah and there is zero time for that tonal shift to happen so physically was the half strapping was he strapping yes very strapping dominated a room like no man I ever met working on This Morning apart from, wait for it. Phillips Gofield. Michael Parkinson. Wow. Yeah, who is surprisingly still, even at his age, really tall, really strapping. And you actually get it in a way that you'd never get from watching his sycophantic interviews

that he did when we were a bit older. But if you watch the interviews from the 70s where he's really confrontational, you understand that it's because he's actually a man that dominates a room and is a very strong, like, dominating personality. You never got that, do you, from watching on telly? Because he's sitting down, yeah. For the adverts, did they have to make a special scaled-up free Parker pen so it looked normal size in his giant hands? Quite possibly.

Helen and Ollie, answer me this I don't want you to dance or kiss, but reveal your theories and take off your muzzle. Ponder my query and solve this puzzle. It's swell, good golly, you crazy kids. Oh, Helen and Ollie, answer me this. For the first time time this series listeners, please pay attention to our phone number. 0208 123 58 007 And if you dial that number, you can leave us a question in your own voice.

That's right. Don't sound that excited. I mean, this is pretty straightforward technology these days, Helen. Radio stations have been doing phone-ins for years. Yeah, right. Well, you can Skype us as well. Do radio stations use Skype? Actually, they're only just catching on. They're rubbish at Skype. Yeah. Anyway, let's hear who has been in touch with their voices.

Joseph Higgins. Helen, I'll answer you this. Why is it when you go to a restaurant and order a pate dish that you get so few bits of toast or oat cakes? Like, I went for a meal last night, ordered a pate, it was lovely, but I only got two, three oat cakes and was forced to then just spoon the pate into my mouth like some sort of savage. Yes, yes.

What? Why? I'm with you, brother. You're so right. Testify. We're all with you. Why are they not stacking up on the cheap ingredients, the cheap padding carbohydrate? It's like when you have a load of cheese and three biscuits.

Madness! Could it be that they are, in some establishments, I think this happened to me in the Blue Legume on Upper Street the other week. I'm going to name and shame. Blue Legume. Yeah. Pond.

Posh Pond. In that restaurant. It's a nice place, by the way. They gave you a bowl full of bolognese sauce and three strands of spaghetti. I ordered a mezze of some kind. It was a sort of Turkish-inspired thing. It was a bit of halloumi and some dip, basically.

Okay, nice. And that came with five thin slices of French bread. Eh? And I was like, that's not going to get me through one of the dips. You've given me three. Like, what am I supposed to do here? And I asked for some more,

and I'm pretty sure, and I'm sorry, apologies to the Blue Lagoon if they didn't, but they probably did. Because why would Ollyman lie? I'm pretty sure they put an extra £1.50 on the bill for ordering extra bread. Oh, dickheads.

So I think that's what this might be about. Restaurants, honestly, be generous with the cheap things, as goodwill, because then you'll get more... More like to buy dessert, aren't you? Yes, for God's sake. Although... Although you've filled yourself up on bread.

This is the thing, I'm a devil's advocate here, you do fill yourself up on bread. So could that be the reason? Yeah. The thing is, whatever the reason, the frustration is, you order the extra bread and you sometimes can just anticipate that this is going to take five or six minutes to arrive.

Too late. In that six minutes that it takes to reach your table, you've eaten too much of the pate without the bread, haven't you? Yeah. Because you go through the bread and then you start eating just forkfuls of pate without bread. Yeah. And you feel like a pig.

Yeah, well, you are probably eating pureed pig. It's pig butter, isn't it? I mean, you don't want pig butter without a bit of bread. No. You need the combination of textures. There was a guy at our school called Anil Patel. I used to call him Anal Pate. Just remembered that.

You monster. He's probably had years of therapy to do that. No, he hasn't. No, he's a very sound guy, actually. He came up to me in a service station, weirdly, about two months ago. Called Wally Man, and that made him feel a lot better. I haven't seen him for 10 years. No, he was a plumber and electrician.

We like, hey, Anal Pate. He had a beautiful wife. No, I didn't actually call it to his face. I don't know if that makes it better or worse. Oh, that makes it much better. I was playing with the words in my mind, really. It wasn't personal to him. I think I used to think pate was like the most luxurious thing on the earth.

Well, in the Midlands, it is the most luxurious thing in the world. Because that was what the rich kids smeared themselves with for winter instead of goose grease. Pate, though, is one of those things that restaurants chuck into their set meals as well, isn't it? Because it's a bit cheaper for them as well. So actually, they're just swindling us all around with the pate don't go for the pate i think that's the easiest to get around for this here's a question from elizabeth in ealing who says the a1 the road has lots of side of the road establishments services truck stops cafes etc handy if you want to pull in for a cup of tea or slightly alarming looking egg sandwich but answer

me this ollie why just south of grantham between thes for Boothby Pagnol and Stoke Rocheford, is there suddenly a side-of-the-road adult superstore? Do lots of people on long journeys suddenly think, I know what would improve this trip, some PVC lingerie and a couple of DVDs? Well, that clearly happens a bit, doesn't it? Well, it's not everyone on long trips, because that shop is near to places such as grantham where people have needs they might not have to go very far at all to visit yeah

but why put it on um what is essentially a motorway the a1 well pulse and cocktails which is the store in question they say it's a perfect location as it has its own car park which is ideal for customers who wish to visit the store by car rather than go to the town centre one in Grantham where they can go on foot. They keep saying we have a large, discreet car park. Are you sure the large, discreet car park thing isn't for people on long journeys who just want to pull in and have a wank? I can't be sure, Martin.

I've only been past this shop on trips up the A1. I have never stopped there. But the website handily includes directions of where to pull a ue if you've got and you need to go back to the shop yeah which is thoughtful and maybe they think people won't be ashamed to go in because you're unlikely to be seen by your next door neighbor popping into the sex shop if it's by a motorway than if it's next door to where you buy your groceries i think what we're saying is that the reasons that this store might appeal to both passing trade and predetermined visitors is one and the same.

It is highly accessible, yet away from prying eyes. Yes. And that's the psychology of the Dirty Coat Brigade, isn't it? I want pornography now, I want as much of it as possible. I also don't want my mum to spot me going into the shop. It's interesting that you chose mum for that. Well, I suppose that was my thought last time I went into a dirty shop because the internet came along.

I mean, the thing is, if you watch the body language of people outside a sex shop in Soho say well they're more brazen aren't they their body language is them thinking I'm okay with this I'm cool with this I'm an adult yeah I've been to an adult store no problem we're in Soho we all know what that's about exactly but if you watch them the people that come out are very very self-consciously thinking about what they're projecting and they're thinking about the thing that they're projecting being that they're laid back but the fact that they're then self-consciously thinking about what they're projecting. And they're thinking about the thing that they're projecting being that they're laid back. But the fact that they're then self-consciously thinking about it means that they cannot be laid back about it. This shop as well is quite a forlorn site.

It looks like a massive, sad bungalow. And a modern trend for sex shops has been making them female-friendly. And a lot of the female-friendly ones are quite public and some are in many town centres there are a lot of ones around london that are quite posh and classy but on very well frequented streets whereas this seems like the slightly shady operation that is more targeted at men yeah although actually if you look through their products online um i mean if we're talking just purely in terms of orifices there's certainly much to cater for the lady as well as the gentleman. But I wonder whether a lot of those products are bought optimistically by the gentleman.

Yes, that's possibly the case. On that happy note, listeners, it's time to end this edition of Answer Me This. But don't fear, we're not going away for three weeks this time. No. We're coming straight back next week with another edition of Answer Me This. That's how it goes. And to do that, we need your questions. All of our contact details are on our website,

AnswerMeThisPodcast.com where you can also find our holiday album as well as our other albums, Jubilee and Sports Day, if you want the full set of albums, the triptych, which they were not designed to be.

Oh no, are they a trilogy? Because then we're over. If they're a trilogy, the modern thing is we're over until we do a terrible American Pie the Reunion type thing. No, we'll do a prequel trilogy, of course. Let's do a reboot.

Of course, yes. Not a problem. So, of course, we can do nine, in fact, can't we? So until we get round, until we pollute our own cultural achievements with the prequel trilogy, please do enjoy our current trilogy of albums that is not a trilogy.

It just happens to be three things. Are we going to get Eugene Levy on the next one? Eugene Levy is mentioned in the holiday album, actually. Is he? Yeah. And they are all available if you click albums on our website. We've made it nice and easy for you.

Indeed. And it's also very easy for you to return next week for Answer Me This 263. Bye!