Answer Me This! - AMT271: Elvis Lives (or doesn't), Cupcake Wars and the Parliamentary Mace

Episode Date: September 12, 2013

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Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash theiporter to learn more. Will Sophie Ellis, Bexter, Murder Bruce on the dance floor? Have to be this, have to be this. Affiliates, Fox, Nobby, Crisps, igniting a class war. Have to be this, have to me this. Helen and Ollie. Answer me this. Hey, listeners.

I don't know what you're doing while you listen to this episode of Answer Me This, but I'm slightly disturbed by this email that Susie has sent in about a circumstance in which she and her boyfriend found themselves listening to Answer Me This. Oh, good. Because if we like emails about people's relationships, we like them best of all when they're disturbing. Susie says, My boyfriend and I spent a lovely evening together in Manchester

and got rather carried away with a number of experimental cocktails. Dry ice, conical flask, flaming, etc. The flaming, etc. It's not as good as the ampersand and tonic, but it is good. Oh, that is refreshing. That would just be ampersand, ampersand, tonic. When we got home, although we were both tired and a little drunk, we were feeling quite amorous.

So the lights were off and one thing led to another. The odd thing was, I could hear this faint mumbling noise around me at the time. I thought we must have left the TV on. It was really bugging me. To my surprise, with no hesitation or trying to hide the evidence, my boyfriend quite happily told me that he was listening to Answer Me This on his iPod at the same time. No.

Maybe it's the only thing that can get him up. No, the only explanation I can muster is that he was listening to our podcast to actually stop himself climaxing. Oh yeah, that's a good idea. That actually, fair dooms. I can imagine that works. It doesn't seem to have aroused her that much though.

She sounds indignant now. As well she might be. Well, indeed. Did you not notice that he had headphones on? Maybe they're in the ear droppies. Or maybe in the pillow speakers that some people have. Yeah, but then you'd both be listening to it as a couple and of course that would be incredibly sexy, wouldn't it?

What could be more sexy? Just both of you with your head in the pillow, him doing you from behind, listening to our voices. Maybe we should make a special sexy album for others. Can you imagine that? And now stimulate the clitoris It's a question from John Can you imagine that would just be weird

We couldn't do that I think the birth rate would drop I think you have to accept my explanation That he was trying to prevent himself from climaxing Or you have to accept he simply doesn't love you It's one or the other It might not be about love He might just think you're not interesting enough in bed

We're speculating I can't think of anything less sexy than only talking about his cat It's one or the other. It might not be about love. He might just think you're not interesting enough in bed. We're speculating. I can't think of anything less sexy than only talking about his cat. Well, here's another tale of podcast listening on the phone line. Hi, this is Jayesh from India. And I have a weird first world problem living in one of the poorest parts of the third world. See, the thing is, because of complicated reasons, I have a chauffeur, because that comes out cheaper than having another car and all those sorts of things. But for whatever reasons, I have a chauffeur. And I listen to podcasts and an occasional audio book on my way to work, but he doesn't speak English. And in any case, I don't think he's interested in the kind of things that I listen to.

So Helen and I will answer with this. Is it rude for me to play things that I know he's not interested in? Or is it part of the bargain that he drives wherever I ask him to drive and he listens to whatever I care to listen to? I don't like that, but is that fair? This really sounds like the emerging Indian middle classes getting hung up on something that would not have occurred to the old guard when they had 25 servants to whack them off, would it? If you're used to the idea that you just pay people and they do what your bidding is you're you're absolutely fine with this idea of servitude but if you're if you're kind of a bit anxious about the fact you've got a chauffeur i think i'd feel this level of awkwardness and discomfort even if i just had

someone who came in to clean i'd probably find myself massively overpaying them and being over solicitous because i just felt really awkward that I delegated a menial task to somebody else but as it is my flats aren't clean actually well I had this specific thing of listening to our podcast when I had a build around the other day genuinely my work for that morning was listening to the edit of the podcast so I could send you some edit notes and normally I'd do that on loudspeaker but I just couldn't face the embarrassment of the conversation like oh what's this you're listening to especially if you thought it's rubbish yeah I put it on my iphone and i sat in the garden and listened to it on earphones yeah he came up to me and he said have you not got any work today then and then i said well actually i am working that's what i said yeah i'm testing this chair i know i know that

made me look really twatty but i it was true so i said well actually i'm working i'm listening to a podcast and as i said it i realized that i'm talking to someone who really has absolutely no understanding of like that you could possibly do work by sitting in a chair and he just looked at me like i can't believe people like you exist yeah yeah but to be fair like i think a manual worker can figure out that other people work in offices but most people work in offices ollie not on your recliner i know yeah lucky me yeah i'm at work driving my bus choo-choo then he would have left you alone but anyway who would have guessed that an indian chauffeur who didn't speak any english maybe might not like this podcast it's a big shock to me shrug um but i think of course it's fine for you to suggest what the soundtrack should be he's on payroll right i find it too awkward to ask

taxi drivers to turn down or off truly horrible radio stations or stick with ones that they've just turned off that I was enjoying. Chauffeur. Chauffeur on your payroll. See, I kind of feel like this about massages. Because when I go for a massage, the one thing I really can't stand is the panpipes. The panpipes. It's not relaxing.

It's tedious. And it makes me want to wee. But that's your trigger. I suppose it is things whizzing through a pipe like urine and when the best track on the cd is the panpipes cover of the theme from titanic that cd really needs to be snapped in half yeah and i always want always want to say to the masseur can you please turn that off pipe literally down and i've sometimes been bold enough to say do you mind turning that down um but what i've never said've sometimes been bold enough to say do you mind

turning that down um but what i've never said is what i really want to say is which is and by the way can we listen to radio four that's what i really want to say and actually probably the massage artist uh would probably enjoy that as much as i would but i don't feel confident enough in saying that however if it was in my house and i was paying a masseur or a masseuse to come to my house and administer that service on a weekly basis, my house, my rules. Your chauffeur, your podcast. Also, I think it's less bad making your chauffeur listen to English podcasts that he doesn't understand than it would be to make him listen to music that he really hated. Because at least he can just tune out the babbling of the podcasters, whereas the bad music is bad music in any language. Yeah.

Although there's nothing wrong with sitting in the back with some headphones on either. No, if you're so worried about what he thinks, just put on headphones. Hi, it's Fred from Kent. I'm just playing table tennis with some of my friends. One side of the bat's red and black, so Helen and Ollie, answer me this. Why do table tennis bats have different coloured

sides? It is, of course, in tribute to Red or Black, the greatest TV entertainment format of all time. Whatever happened to Red or Black? I think ITV realised they'd spent about seven times too much money on something that no one liked. Even though it had Ant & Dec in it, and everyone likes Ant & Dec. Everyone does like Ant & Dec. Ant or Dec, that would be a great show, wouldn't it?

You put Ant & Dec in one of those old-fashioned weather clocks, and you have to bet on which one's going to come out when it rains. Anyway, no, that of course is not the reason. No. Is this the case across all table tennis bats? Well, it's certainly the case across all professional tennis table bats since the rules were changed in the professional game. I remember the day well. I think it was in the 1980s at some point.

Right. Red and black was a very popular colour combination in the 80s. See all the duvet covers from Argos back then. So ever since then, in the professional game, it's been one side red, one side black. No doubt, no doubt, in scouts clubs up and down the country, there are still ping pong rackets that are older than that that are green. Well, all the rubber's fallen off anyway. Exactly.

But in the professional ones, yes, they're red and black. And the reason for that... They love the Stendhal book et noir it's actually um because well all table tennis rackets have always had because they're two-sided the ability to have two different thicknesses of rubber oh so one side gives you a slow spin one gives you a fast spin oh of course as a relatively amateur player as i imagine you are as i am oh i'm not a player yeah you've probably never noticed that but to professional table tennis players this is obvious um and what's important is actually i thought maybe they designated one side should be red one side should be black so the player

can clearly see which thickness of rubber they're going to use when they you know make it move or that the other player can see which thickness of rubber has been used to hit the ball at them well that's it oh actually the reason is it's yeah it's so that you can see what your opponent's doing so before the match you're entitled to go and have a look at your opponent's bat work out which is which because it doesn't have to be the black is always the thin one or whatever but one is one one is the other work out which red is which black is and then you can see as they're about to hit the ball whether they're using a slow spin or a fast spin so that you can then volley in response accordingly so that's the reason i wasn't expecting to learn anything today especially about ping pong if you've got a question then email your question yeah to answer

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

And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America. We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Time for a question from a lady who has chosen to remain anonymous. Yes. Who says, I work in a large office. Ooh. Yes.

It's really big, isn't it? Utility. Oh, it's enormous, my office. And whilst I get on with most of the people I work with, I do have an office nemesis. Yes! I had one of those once. Have you ever had one? You've hardly worked long enough in offices to have one, really.

You're my office nemesis. So true. It's funny because it's true. Yes, yes, I have. Yeah. Was it a he, was it a she? It was a she. What was the problem?

She played Jamie Cullum all day Fair enough I had one once who just, he was fine I would have liked him He had a problem with me because I was also a man with a sense of humour Literally that Everyone else in the office was a bit older

Or a woman Or had a defining characteristic which wasn't that they were a bit fun And I came in and he thought that I was kind of crazy Colin From the Fast Show basically And I wasn't I just sometimes told jokes Because that was his thing I was a bit happy He just hated me made it really obvious that I was his nemesis

Some people hate other people's happiness But that's because they're very unhappy people themselves Well let's hope that this anonymous lady is not that person And that in fact she is full of joy In this question Fairly recently she said My office nemesis came up to my floor And presented a large plate

Full of homemade cupcakes What a bitch What a salute cow She made a big song and dance about them And proceeded to talk to my boss For ten minutes about how awful it must be having an assistant who doesn't ever bake.

Me. Maybe that was her joking. Yeah. Maybe she's like, well, anonymous girl, she's much too busy being a clever executive to be able to mess around making cupcakes, isn't she? Unlike me. I'm just trying to play devil's advocate.

Here, she said, have these cupcakes stuffed with strawberries. I couldn't let you miss out on them. I was up all weekend baking three batches. I split vanilla pods and made a strawberry filling and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I want to make you fat with cake. Anyway, to her credit, says anonymous lady, the cupcakes were absolutely delicious.

God damn it. And I emailed her telling her so. That was very magnanimous of you, anonymous lady. The cupcakes were absolutely delicious. God damn it. And I emailed her telling her so. That was very magnanimous of you, anonymous lady. You're trying to overcome your natural distaste for this woman. We proceeded, continues anonymous lady, to have a long email conversation about how awesome she is because she bakes. Look, baking is not that hard.

She's not that awesome. And how inferior I am because I don't bake. Baking's not that hard. You could bake if you wanted to, but you don't and that's fine this one would suffer steam hinges on a very small amount of flour and sugar doesn't it yeah it is funny though the baking snobbery that there is because baking is bad for you not the baking but the eating of cakes and it's also something you can buy quite cheaply so if you're a busy power office woman it's fine not to bake i think i wouldn't judge a woman who doesn't bake no nor would i and yet clearly this is an established trend isn't it have you have you ever do you

think made people feel inferior because you do bake i hope not i'm always very embarrassed when people praise my baking like when i make bread because i know how easy it is and they don't so i don't want them to feel inferior because they could easily do it they just don't realize that couldn't do this job though the podcast no i'm unique and i'm the best i'm the besty besty best this is the hardest job in the world and you're all dicks because you're not me la la la la la anyway take it all back the story continues uh fast forward to last weekend and whilst doing the weekly shop guess what i saw in the cupcake aisle? Was it strawberry cupcakes with a vanilla... Don't actually guess, Martin.

Keep it rhetorical. I've got an email to read out. It's exactly the cupcakes that she tasted from this woman that claimed she cooked them, right? Well, perhaps. Let's see. Was it a dragon? Oh, yes. You guessed it. She guessed it. You guessed it. I did guess it. Her homemade cupcakes. She knows me so well. Before you question my judgement, she says,

let me inform you that there is not a shadow of a doubt that these were the very cupcakes my office nemesis had claimed to make. Unbelievable. This is like in a film where someone you think is dead isn't. Who's in the coffin then? The double swell vanilla strawberry icing and stuffed strawberry centre was a dead giveaway.

Unless office nemesis had got the idea from the shop bought once and she thought I can easily replicate that She says be in no doubt Helen We have to take her at word She's going to answer me this question here There's always doubt I trust you as much as I can trust anyone

So she continues Being the bitch that I am The surprisingly self aware bitch that I am And pleasant seeming I thought I would have some fun with her And come Monday morning I emailed her Saying I couldn't stop thinking about those cupcakes all weekend and that i'd love the recipe i fully expected her to fess up at this point and admit that she hadn't really baked them oh she's been caught in a lie but after 45 minutes she called me and proceeded

to tell me that the recipe is many years old. Oh, yeah, because cupcakes were very popular in 1700. And actually written in German. And that she had her mum round over the weekend to help translate the recipe. Oh, that's really kind. That is actually a brilliant excuse, though, isn't it? She's used a lot of imagination there. Yeah, but anonymous lady just needs to go, oh, that's all right. I'm fluent in German.

Send it over. Not a problem. She talked for 20 minutes about sectioned icing bags and how the recipe would be much too hard to replicate for someone like me. She sounds really passive-aggressive, doesn't she? This woman sounds insane. I love her. Anyway, I had a

good old laugh about this to my boyfriend, and every time she does something remotely annoying, I bask in the knowledge that I know this nugget of information about her and that even though I don't bake, I would never dream of buying a cake and pretending I had baked it. Aww. I think it's nice that she's finding internal satisfaction in this.

Yeah. Anyway, this brings me in a fairly long-winded manner... I've enjoyed the journey. I have too. ...to my question. Yesterday at work, my nemesis was extremely rude to me and called me a number of inappropriate names and generally crossed the line in terms of office etiquette. What is wrong with this woman?

She sounds like a real mess, doesn't she, psychologically? She does. Now, I am sorely tempted to reveal her secret, but I know that this would make me just as much of a bitch as her, and in situations like this, it is often best to retain a dignified silence. Yeah, because the big reveal won't actually matter to anybody else. Everybody gather round, guess what? in dignified silence. Yeah, because the big reveal won't actually matter to anybody else. It'll be like, oh my, everybody gather round,

guess what? Nemesis, you know those cupcakes she brought in? She did not bake them. She didn't even plagiarise them. She bought them. And they'd be like, oh, right, where can I get them?

I really enjoyed those. Yeah. Oh, supermarket, great. Then back to work. Yeah. So, she says, Helen, answer me this. What would you do in this situation? Is it worth revealing her secrets and igniting a full-scale office war that only you are involved in which

as we say would not happen or should i just keep quiet and carry on i really can't decide please help uh i think you should keep toying with her having this knowledge you should just nudge her more and more to extreme lies to cover up the fact that she bought these cakes yeah so i think you could you could say that you knew german so you could have the recipe you could say that you saw her cupcakes in the shop and they must have ripped off her design and does she want you to help her write a letter full of legalese telling them to knock off the plagiarism well actually if you were gonna out her cupcakes the the meanest way to do it would actually not to make a big statement at all, but to turn up with a tray of the cupcakes and offer them around the office.

Either you turn up and say, oh, I just got these from the supermarket. Or you say, oh, I baked these. Because then she can't call you out. No, you offer her one and say, I baked these. That would be the full-on... This took me all weekend. That would be how Iago would do it. They taste just like yours

I think that's brilliantly clever yeah and also because she might actually almost convince herself that that's true to play along with the lie

like she doesn't know where the truth begins there no well she has started banging on about divided piping bags and so on so there's just

more satisfaction for you to pull the rug from under her gradually every day yes much more satisfying revenge yeah than looking to the rest of the office like the woman who really cares about the cakes yeah yeah the the unfunny answer is that she needs to put in a complaint about this woman

she's actually been abusing her the cupcake thing that's a nice that's an aside that's a fun that's a fun revenge but at the same time, yeah, like, grievance procedure. Your company probably has one. Yeah, if you approach HR, just try and focus on this woman's unprofessional behaviour. If you start talking about the cakes, they're going to think you're nuts. Yes. They're going to edge away towards the door. What can you buy for £7.99 on iTunes that seems worth it? Kesha's new LP.

Churchill's biography. Or an app that seems worth it. Kesha's new LP. Churchill's biography. Or an app that does jack shit. For the same sum. You can get all the fun at five hours of our old stuff. We're selling the first three years of Answer Me This in iTunes. Most of it is good, just a little bit is guff. Go to answermethispodcast.com slash classic and click the link. And with your money we'll swaddle ourselves in nothing

but the finest mink finest mink and gold shoes and diamond hats but normal pants here's a question from josh from new york who says i was recently discussing archaic institutional traditions with a british friend and he mentioned that the brit British Parliament cannot go into session without the presence of some particular mace, as in, not the husk of a nutmeg or the spray that wards off attackers, but the ornamental thing. Well, I don't know, Maggie Thatcher may have had some of that in her handbag. Oh, yeah. She farted it.

The mace is an ornamental... An ornamental mace, yes, a weapon, an ornamental weapon. Is it the one that's a ball on a stick or something like that? Yes, yes. It's a big club with a ball on the end. It's like an ornate cudgel, essentially. Well, Josh says, or he answers me this, is this a real thing, or is my friend pulling some sort of prank on my American ignorance? Don't want to be an American

ignorance. Someone threw it on the floor, didn't they? They did. Well, numerous people have, in fact. Oh, that suggests it's real, then. First things first. Yes, it is real. The House of Commons actually cannot proceed i mean of course they actually could i'm sure they'd survive if it got stolen but they love any excuse just to piss around they do you know they oh six week holiday we'll take that uh yeah the house of commons technically can't proceed can't sit and debate unless every day uh the mace is carried in and out of the commons and

lord chambers by the sergeant at arms so is it in and out of the Commons and Lord Chambers by the sergeant-at-arms. Oh, for goodness sake. Is it like a sort of symbol of their authority over the crown, relative to the crown? Yes, it's to do with royalty, yes. It originated when government was the king, and when the king was governing, he made damn sure there was someone near him with a big weapon

to cudgel anyone to death who tried to kill him. Right, I bet now if you tried to hit anyone with the mace, they would be furious because it's an antique. Yeah, exactly. But in the olden days, and I can't remember which monarch it was, but it was hundreds of years ago. One of the olden monarchies. One of the olden monarchies.

That's exactly what it was. The mace wasn't ornamental. I mean, it might have looked pretty because it was a royal one, but it belonged to the head of the king's military who was there to kill anyone who would try and kill the king. And let's face it, if you do ornament a mace with jewels, that's going to make it all the more painful for the person getting whacked with it. Yes. Although I think it got more ornamental over time because weapons developed in alternative

ways, but they liked the tradition. We're a traditional country. We like the traditions. Yeah, we like to bedazzle our machine guns now, don't we? It just wouldn't be the same if it was like, and the placing of the golden Uzi. Exactly. Begin with the succession of Parliament Exactly and then when it got to the point of course Where the Queen is figuratively the head of the government But actually isn't there apart from during the Queen's speech

She's a real slacker It is purely ornamental and it's there just to represent the fact That they're there for the Queen But they still carry it in every day By the Sergeant at Arms who presumably is an ex-military person Yes it's quite seriously taken At the beginning of the day. At the beginning of each day, in the Lords and the Commons.

And it's placed under the table so that they can debate. What if you need it in the Commons and the Lords at the same time? No, there's two different ones. There's two bases. I think the Lords has two bases and the Commons has one. But Martin correctly remembered that, in fact, some politicians have been done for lifting it aggressively. Three, in fact.

In 1976, Michael Heseltine had a go. Oh, naughty Heseltine. Apparently during a heated debate on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, which we all remember being very tense, he grabbed the mace and shook it at the opposing Labour Party members. He was just trying to show what a plane in flight looks like.

Not just Tories that have done this, Helen. In 1987, Ron Brown, the Labour MP for Leith, picked up the mace during a debate on the poll tax and threw it to the floor. No! Break the mace. Fight the power.

Well, actually, if you do break the mace, you're basically suspended, which is actually what happened in the most recent one, which was also a Labour MP, John McDonnell, in 2009. Tear away. This was about the expansion of Heathrow. It wasn't even worth having a throw about that because it's still going on, that debate.

Why is aviation such a mace-destructive topic? Anyway, apparently after the vote in which the Transport Secretary, Geoff Hoon, at the time announced that the government had decided to approve a new Heathrow runway, Macdonald picked up the Commons mace. And shoved it up Geoff Hoon. Actually, we'll never know where he shoved it

because at that point the camera's cut out. So serious a breach is this considered. Geoff Hoon has not been able to pass solids ever since. Is that why it works so funny? Do you think there is an equivalent odd practice in American government? Like each day they let loose a bald eagle around the chamber. Actually, there is a directly equivalent tradition because guess what?

They have a mace too. No way! So this isn't just a stupid... Wait, was that from monarchist times? Well, it's from the fact that British people wrote the way so this isn't just a stupid wait wait was that from from monarchist times well it's from the fact that British people wrote the American Constitution isn't it

oh but is it shaped like Mickey Mouse or something no that's their royalty it is a standard mace size but instead of being under the

what is that though well you know sort of weapon size mace-ish you know let's say like tiny little pistol or cannon it's about half the size

of a pike but double the size of a pike, but double the size of a short sword. Stop it. But what's different about this is it stands in a cylindrical pedestal made of green marble. Right, so like an umbrella stand for a mace. Just for the mace, yeah.

It's odd, isn't it? Because I'd imagine otherwise it's very difficult to get a weapon in to American parlor. Yes, into the House of Representatives, you bet. Oh, but it's fine if it's an ornament with a marble stand. Yeah, and I don't think they bring it in every day i could be wrong about that but it sits to the right of the speaker so if you ever see footage of the

united states house of representatives look to the right of the speaker and there's a green marble mace stand fact that's probably a sink plunger or something isn't it? Or a toilet brush. It was Paris in the spring of 1898. Two children paddled gaily in the Seine. One giggled like a girl, the other was a girl, and their names were Olivier and Hélène. Here's a question from Sam from NS Gillen, who says, I just heard on the radio the song Elvis Ain't Dead. Who's that by?

Don't know who. Never heard it. Oh, hold on. No, I know who it is i just remembered and it's awful oh no it's um oh who are those three clowns called who do so she's so lovely she's so lovely um no uh the other thing oh what are they called yeah no something like that yeah fatuous twat yeah um three shades of wank what are they called oh school boy errors i could obviously look it up but oh what are they called scouting

for girls they did the song elvis ain't dead i'm glad that we didn't have to google that because i don't want google to think we're interested thanks to scouting for girls sam and ellis is thinking the following he says ollie answer me this what started the conspiracy theory that elvis presley didn't really die and was the conspiracy theory that Elvis Presley didn't really die? And was there any evidence to suggest that he didn't really die? Well, of course, with conspiracy theories, there's always evidence, in inverted commas,

if you know where to look for it, but that doesn't mean that it's actually evidence, does it? He's still living in the toilet. I thought the rumour was that when he went into the army, he died then, or he never came back from the army. So it was an actor playing him for 20 years in Vegas and in the comeback specials. Doing a really great job.

It was his brother. That's the thing. What? Wow, that's properly mental. The conspiracy theory that Elvis didn't die didn't really start until 1979 when Geraldo Rivera did a show about it. Yeah, because I'm assuming that in 1977

there were quite a lot of people that had seen dead Elvisvis well yes his open casket was on display and you could go and see it yeah although that sowed the seeds for what later would become the conspiracy so so what happened is you could go and see it obviously is pre-twitter age by some decades so people weren't sending the photo around their friends they weren't allowed to take pictures of the corpse but someone in fact someone who was a confidant of Elvis, which is a bit horrible, sold the picture of the corpse to the National Enquirer. Nasty. It then became the biggest sailing issue of the National Enquirer ever.

Even bigger than the ones recently about how the Queen is dying and Prince Philip's having an affair with Charles Agarbor. I believe so. Although actually they repeated this exact trick with Whitney's corpse a couple of years ago. Good magazine. Anyway. Classy like. So morbid. As a result of that being in circulation, obviously people were able to study the photo of Elvis's corpse a little years ago yeah good magazine anyway classy like um so morbid as a result of that being in circulation obviously people were able to study the photo of elvis's corpse a little

bit more than the graceland estate had intended and were they saying it's not convincing well they were saying it looks a bit like a dummy but then so do all embalmed bodies yeah because also they put loads of makeup on corpses and and i bet he looked pretty messed up shortly before he died anyway well this is the point. He probably wasn't in his best physical shape. Exactly. So what people say is,

look at his last concert footage and then look at the dummy. The dummy is either, some people say, more glamorous, but of course it would be because he's wearing loads of makeup, or more bloated,

which of course it would be. He was a beast at that point. And also corpses can bloat up with gases. So the thing is, back then, it's not like now where we get pictures of celebrities all the time.

The official photographs of Elvis in the years leading up to his death did make him look thinner than he was because they wouldn't want to show what he actually looked like. But if you look at the famous Hawaii concert, he's very energetic, but he's pretty big. Again, another part of the conspiracy, and you can find the conspiracy wherever you look, is that at that concert, which was in Hawaii,

he signed off by saying to the crowd, for the first and only time in his entire career, adios. Now, bearing in mind the crowd aren't Spanish, I think he was just being playful, but people have taken that to mean, oh, he was saying goodbye finally. This was his final goodbye because he knew he was going to die.

But there's no way to know that, like, he never ever did that before. Anyway, that conspiracy theory relies on the fact that he faked his own death um now the reason that that came about as a theory at all was basically because there was a lot of confusion after he died as to exactly what the cause of his death was and really the reason there was a lot of confusion was because uh his people didn't want it to be known that he was a drug addict yeah like mama cast as well that myth about her choking on a sandwich. Yeah, exactly. And this is the thing, and nowadays we find that odd because, e.g. Michael Jackson,

you know within hours because it's on the rolling news and everyone can see straight through what the press statements are. But something about Mama Cass is that she had a heart attack. It wasn't drugs related and she didn't die choking on a sandwich, but they just put that rumour out because they thought everyone was going to say, oh, it's drugs. Well, actually, the thing with Elvis is he also had a heart attack. And actually, as recently as the 1990s they did a

they looked into his autopsy file again and at the time uh that scientist said actually looking at the evidence you would say that yes of course polypharmacy so i being prescribed too many prescription drugs contributed to his bad health but actually at the moment of his death what he died from was a massive heart attack wasn't necessarily drug induced so you have to tip the scales one way or the other is it drugs or is it the heart attack but because there was this fudge at the time and elvis's people just told the news outlets that he had died of cardiac arrhythmia there's then conspiracy afterwards that oh they didn't mention the drugs at all and cardiac arrhythmia as it turns out is something that scientifically you can actually only suffer from if you're still alive if you're dead right he's right here with us oh my god it's like elvis

so yeah so they they obviously misappropriated the term to mean heart attack and then that started this whole conspiracy theory you've got all the elements combined together then you've got the fact he said goodbye at his last concert you've got the fact that he looked better or worse depending on how you look at it in his tomb that he did when he was last seen alive. And you've got the fact that, of course, bearing in mind he had a small child as well, his people did not spread the news that he was a massive drug addict.

So all of that taken together, he's obviously still alive. It seems awfully circumstantial to me. Also, is he not buried at Graceland? Yes, he is, yeah. Is he buried or cremated? Buried, yeah. So if there was really an expectation that Elvis was actually alive,

I think they probably would have exhumed the coffin and had a look at just exactly what's inside. Well, I don't think anyone's ever taken it seriously. Even that Geraldo programme that I was talking about wasn't about, is Elvis still alive? It was about, what did Elvis really die from and why haven't we been told the truth? But it sparked this idea.

And then, of course, to a generation of teenagers from the 50s you can imagine how that would be the most earth-shattering news you'd want him to still be alive because he meant your childhood and america changing um and of course it's kind of fun isn't it they're all these elvis impersonators and in fact the elvis impersonators fudge the issue as well because there've been pictures apparently showing elvis standing in graceland like that's where he'd hide out. Got the whole world. He'd go to one of the world's biggest tourist attractions,

which is known as his house. I don't think so. But anyway, there's photos of him at Graceland. But of course, that's easily explained away by the fact that there are thousands of men literally dressed as Elvis Presley walking around Graceland every day. I also assume that he wouldn't wear his white jumpsuit at Graceland. It's more stage wear, isn't it? Exactly.

Do we have an equivalent of our generation? We don't have that kind of Kurt Cobain stories or Jeff Buckingham. Richie Edwards is the conspiracy theory of our age. But then the body didn't come back with Richie Edwards, so that's sort of reasonable. There's some ambiguity there. But with Elvis, he would now be 78, and given his lifestyle,

I don't think he'd be alive by now anyway. I don't think he would either. And I think he'd have stepped in at some point Whether it was Whether it was Michael Jackson marrying Lisa Marie Presley Or just Priscilla Being Priscilla At some point he'd say yeah I don't want you to carry on making money out of me Actually

I mean that would be the most amazing comeback tour of all time Wow that would be good Lots of things for our brains to chew on But time for us to say adios but which doesn't mean we're gonna die no but we will fake our own desk but listeners you can give us more things to chew on with our brains and mouths for next week's show so please send in all of your questions and our contact details are on our website answer me this podcast.com where you can also find links to buy our holiday album one hour of new if you

haven't heard it yet material of us talking about the world of holidays and our other albums as well sports day and jubilee not a difficult sophomore album amongst them um and uh remember if you enjoy listening to helen and myself chatting uh that you can also do that every week on the bbc's let's talk about tech. If you've listened to this and thought, I like the cut of their jib, I'd like to apply that jib to talking about the week on the web, then that's the podcast for you. If, on the other hand, you like my exciting interjections, you can listen to one of my podcasts, Brain Train podcast,

Sandy Laird's podcast. Just one long interjection. Bye!