Answer Me This! - AMT272: Brie vs Camembert, Typical Aliens, and Bounty Bars

Episode Date: September 19, 2013

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, it's Neil Murdoch from Crawley in West Sussex here. Hello Nolly, answer me this. I was listening to your podcast this week and the office cake debate and it brought up some issues from our own office. There's a chap in our office who basically, when it's someone's birthday, the tradition is to bring in cakes for everyone to eat. However, when it's his birthday, he doesn't bring in cakes because he says he's a Jehovah's Witness

and doesn't believe in birthday cakes or some such. However, when there are cakes available, he's the first one in munching them. So what's the politest way to tell him to go fuck himself? At the end of Dexter, will he kill all of them? Helen, seriously, no spoilers. Answer me this, answer me this. At the end of Breaking Bad, will Walter...

Hold it there, Ollie. Answer me this, answer me this. Helen and Ollie, answer me this. It's very interesting to ask listeners what things in this podcast really grab your imagination. And it seems that more imaginations of yours had been grabbed by last week's anonymous Cupcake Lady than ever before. It's gone mad on Twitter for Cupcake Lady. Many of you will rejoice to hear that Cupcake Lady has been back in touch. My God.

She says, thanks for answering my cupcake dilemma you made my day that's all right that's what we do here at answer me this day make yeah we're the day makers she says you were all spot on with your comments about office nemesis being an absolute basket case what wonderful people we all are yeah let's tease the woman with troubles i went grocery shopping today and searched and searched for the strawberry-filled cupcakes but couldn't find them. Oh, no. So this is the plan

that Martin and I mooted that you should go in with some of the strawberry-filled cupcakes and say that you'd made them. No, you can't. She says, I spoke to a sales assistant

and they informed me that those particular cupcakes were at a summer special and have been discontinued. Oh, dear. So I have hatched a brilliant plan. Okay. I'm going to ask Office Nemesis to bake me some strawberry swirl cupcakes for my birthday

in November. Shazam. Not going to get any summer specials in November, not if she goes to every store in the land. And she's frozen them. Well, that's a good point. She might have bought a load and just stuck them in the freezer. Flooring the plan. Yeah. Or she might say to you, well, I thought point. She might have bought a load and just stuck them in the freezer. Oh, flaw in the plan. Yeah.

Or she might say to you, well, I thought strawberry swirl was a bit out of season, so I've made you pumpkin swirl. That's what she's going to do. She's going to say, not all the ingredients in this ancient recipe that I worked to are available in November. Fresh strawberries, are you kidding?

Because it's seasonal. Yeah. Yeah, that's what she'll say. Hello, this is Guy from Reading. I don't know, answer me this. Why do people think it is difficult to tie your own bow tie? It is in fact no harder than tying a regular tie. Why does it have this fiendish reputation as being a difficult thing to do? That's an interesting point, actually, because I've never had occasion to sport a bow tie.

And yet I have assumed because of the propaganda that it is a real puzzle. Well, it's not that people think it's difficult per se, it's that they haven't been taught how to do it. Oh, so is that the thing? Because a lot of people have to wear ties as part of school uniform, they've been drilled into it in childhood, but bow ties, most schools, no. Exactly that, yeah.

I mean, I'm sure driving a bus is the same level of difficulty as riding a bike. But if you learn to do it when you're seven, easy. Yeah, I know how to cycle. I don't know how to drive a bus, so I look at bus drivers and I think, level of difficulty as riding a bike but if you learn to do it when you're seven easy yeah i know how to cycle i don't know how to drive a bus so i look at bus drivers and i think oh well that would take me a week to learn how to drive that bus same with the bow tie you know i learned when i was six or seven years old how to tie that school tie never had to do a bow tie i also imagine that people who wear a bow tie frequently don't find it difficult to tie one however a lot of people

only wear them on very special occasions so they never really get the practice to be confident in their tying yeah to the extent that it's actually a photo opportunity isn't it a classic wedding shot that isn't it putting on the bow tie pre ball or prom in fact i think when i was best man for my friend ben's wedding uh there was the shot of all of us the best man and the ushers putting on their bow ties and i'm pretty sure it was staged. I'm trying to remember now, but I... Most wedding photos are, aren't they? I have a feeling Ben's mum

actually had to put the bow tie on for me because they didn't know what I was doing. But there was the shot of us all, you know, standing there in a row. Like opposite strippers. Yeah, exactly. Very much so. And if you'd seen the state of us,

you'd be glad that we were the opposite. I've noticed an unwelcome new trend in tattoos of the tattooed bow tie. Oh. That is one that is very temporary. What if you're not going to a formal occasion? This is the thing. Can't take it off.

Let's go here. Helen and Ollie, answer me this. Why is it that bounty bars come in two pieces when Mars and Snickers and so on don't? I thought it might be to encourage you to eat one and save the other for later. But it can't be that, because I've just eaten four. Also, it's very out of character for companies to discourage you from eating loads of it.

Well, unless, of course, that product is aimed at women. Oh! Which I imagine is the case with Bounty, because it is horrible, isn't it? It does taste of coconut shampoo. I'm a woman and find it horrible, but I hate coconut like a venti bar well you're a woman you're both feminine in many ways what i was wondering is whether it's because a bounty bar would be structurally unsound if it all came in one piece because you know you don't have a biscuit yeah yeah soft it's

quite heavy it's gonna snap in half that's actually a very good alternative explanation i haven't thought about that right well no i don no i don't know but from what i've read my speculation is it seems very much aimed at women right from the beginning and although it was created in the 1950s where women on diets wasn't quite such a fad as it is now obviously nonetheless i think women never wanted to be marketed to that they would gorge down and whole chocolate bar that they do something a bit more dainty and refined so is the bounty bar enacting the adage of Matt Lucas, it's half as big

so you can eat twice as much? It's sort of that. It's the equivalent of like the Galaxy ads now where, okay, you've got a woman alone in a bath or whatever. Rubbing herself

with a slab of chocolate. You know in reality, yeah, she's going to absolutely fill every orifice with Galaxy as soon as the camera turns off. But in the shot you see, she just takes one little nibble off the side, doesn she always a delicious treat it was a naughty treat or just

a corner i only bought the big bar because it was better value not because i'm a greedy person it's easier to grip isn't it um so with tiny woman's hands so i think it might be that i think it might be woman's chocolate bar buy one and save it over um you know get twice the value um so i think that's partly it but i like your structural suggestion as well, and in fact Mars tried to register with the trademark office of the European Union. They tried to patent the shape of a bounty

bar. Oh, come on! I know! I mean, I had to look this up to think what is distinctive about the shape of a bounty bar. As far as I know, it's just a chocolate bar in two bits, right? It's like a couple of turds in a wrapper, doesn't it? Apparently, it's got three chevrons on the top of each bar. Wow. And that's where the chocolate, the chocolate,

molten chocolate is sort of folded over. Yeah. Would that mean that motorways can no longer have three chevrons? If they'd won, Mars would have rolled back years of road safety. The ruling said, the allegedly distinctive characteristics, the allegedly distinctive characteristics, namely the rounded

ends of the bar and the three arrows or chevrons on top of it cannot be sufficiently distinguished from other shapes commonly used for chocolate bars.

Aha! In your face. I wouldn't want to get bounty in my face. It'd be horrible. Oh, I know. Maybe that is why it comes in two parts

because you'll probably have realised you hate it before the end of the first one. Then you can give the other one away to a new victim uh here's another question of food it's from sam who says helen answer me this brie or camembert uh before we get to the subclause of the question by the way if that was the question brie or camembert what would you say brie martin brie yeah i'd say brie too really good brie at our local cheese shop runny three cheers say brie too. Really good brie at our local cheese shop, Runny. Three cheers for brie. Brie cheers. But that's not the whole question.

The whole question is, brie or camembert, what the hell is the difference? Not which do you prefer, what's the difference? That's a good question because they do have very similar manufacturing processes and the taste is usually the same, although apparently a very good camembert is a bit stronger than a brie. I think camembert's stronger as well, almost always. Camembert's more farmy. Brie's have got more of a creaminess to it.

Camembert's a bit runnier, I would say. The differences are two. One is region. Brie is from Ile-de-France and camembert's from Normandy. But the main difference is that camembert is small. It's usually four and a half inches in diameter, whereas brie is usually made in wheels that are nine to 17 inches across. Yeah, it can be huge.

So maybe camembert is stronger and runnier because smaller cheeses are going to ripen quicker. A lot of surface area to fully moisten. I don't know about camembert. I think it's one of those cheeses where it just sort of loses for me. You get all the stinkiness with none of the pleasure. Like an evening with Martin, what, what? If you've got a question, email your question Like an evening with Martin, what, what? Podcast at googlemile.com It's great. 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. Question from Lorna, who says everyone knows the typical image of an alien but Ollie, answer me this. How did it come to be so? podcasts question from lorna who says everyone knows the typical image of an alien but ollie answer me this how did it come to be so it by typical image of an alien i can think of a few because in sci-fi films the alien invented for the film alien is now very common amongst other films that feature an alien right like a big toothy slimy haired really tall body scary teeth

taller than sigourney weaver who's very tall yeah that's right on the other hand then you've got the little greys with the sort of egg-shaped head and the big eyes and the tiny bodies shorter than the face yeah exactly so i'm gonna i'm gonna for the sake of argument suggest she means the greys because those are the ones that are more easily mimicked on car stickers and stuff well i don't see there's a huge amount of difference i know that one is slimy and one is and stuff. Well, I don't see that there's a huge amount of difference. I know that you... One is slimy and one is a grey, Ollie. Greys don't have scary teeth.

I know the grey ones are a little bit more pathetic, aren't they? They're a little bit more in need of our help unless they're en masse. Yeah. Whereas the big green ones you would run away from. They're not even that green, are they? They're more kind of brownish, maybe khaki, but they're not little green men, are they?

It's a very specific design there. That's H.R. Giger's conception. I think there's a lot more diverse aliens, but they're basically humanoid, aren't they? Exactly. This is the thing. I don't think they're all that different. I mean, I think the aliens in Alien are more based on reptiles

and the aliens, the grey ones that you're describing... They're more like foetuses. Exactly, yes. But they're all recognisable traits, aren't they, from the animal kingdom? They all represent in some way a reptile or a crustacean or an insect or a mammal. That's why it makes me so frustrated when I see films that star aliens. I just lose interest as soon as I can see it because I think, oh, that is familiar. Given that you can invent whatever you want, why did you go for that?

Well, because actually human imagination only stretches so far. For a star, it's more relatable, isn't it, to an audience if they can identify roughly that where the alien's brain would be for example if it has no brain it's harder to feel scared of it unless it's a gas in which case that's still a relatable thing whereas the chances are aliens who have managed to get to planet earth because that's where most of these things are set are going to be because we're the most important and new york is the most important that's right well or the white house because of course you know trip to see the president that would be the most important thing for any visiting you don't set it in the white house you just blow it up and then you go back to new york and finish your business and maybe you knock out los angeles for fun yeah you don't pop by darby

on the way it makes sense that for an alien to be intelligent enough to have made that journey over here when people start thinking what would being that intelligent look like they do start me it would look like me well bigger but we are king of the food chain here aren't we we are here but it doesn't mean that we're the most intelligent design there is yes but you take the principles of evolution that get us to where we are and you say okay well if you put evolution on a different planet you'd probably still end up with something i mean this is the thinking i don't necessarily agree with it you end up with something similar you'd end up with space for some sort of brain so you'd end up with some sort of ability to use tools so then you end up with something a bit like hands you know it's hard for us to imagine something that doesn't

have that at all the thing about a humanoid alien is it allows relatability you can understand uh a gesture of threat and if you if you like in star trek you're trying to have sympathetic aliens you can see like friendliness and communication with them. It's just a way, because if you take away that physical communication, it makes it very, very hard to write a character which is an alien. It's also the fantasy, isn't it, of sex with an alien, frankly.

Right, but you could still have an alien that has a vagina, but it doesn't have to have a humanoid face. Yeah, but again, I'm not sure that's so horny for the 14-year-old boys, as, for example, the miniseries V. Yeah, oh, she's fit, isn't she? Rather than being Brody's wife off Homeland, was just a big furry alien with a vagina.

Like in the Starship Trooper movie. It would be less popular as a fantasy, you see. But, I mean, that's film aliens. But there is also this problem in the general conception of life that is not on Earth. And it's not something that I have any particular interest in or that I fantasize about. But when they say things like, oh, there couldn't possibly be life on that planet because there's no water and the atmosphere is made of sulfur. It's based on us. We would have trouble.

Yes. Breathing sulfur. But if your whole planet was made of sulfur, you'd probably adapt to be pretty sulfur friendly, wouldn't you? Yeah, I think that's right. planet was made of sulfur you'd probably adapt to be pretty sulfur friendly wouldn't you yeah well there's some thermophilic bacteria that occur around um underwater volcanoes and they realize that they can exist in very very high temperatures and use a slightly different metabolism that really surprised biologists when they found that i think the traditional if you like if we can call it that shape of aliens that we all roughly know um like you say the sort of egg-shaped face basically yeah um

that does seem to be a fairly recent thing i know that in the uh fourth indiana jones film uh indiana jones and the kingdom of bullshit uh they did have scenes where there appeared to be cave paintings showing aliens to justify the denouement which made absolutely no sense at all or to justify the whole film prometheus which made no sense at all i think to justify the whole film Prometheus which made no sense at all. I think actually it probably wasn't until really the invention of modern science fiction was it in the Victorian age. It wasn't really until then that people started thinking like this at all. Because I guess everything

on Earth was such a scientific mystery that you didn't need to start worrying about what was happening on other planets. You didn't know whether the moon was inhabited. So to start thinking about what was happening in other solar systems and what other completely different beings in different natural orders would look like just actually wasn't even really a thing. I wonder if it's even possible to know who first came up with the kind of greys shape anyway,

whether it was a popular illustration of a very old fanciful alien story or whether someone did one of those mock photos and they thought, well, you can probably get a little child to look like one of these and get it to move around and that'll freak people out. Well, I think ideas with this sort of thing inspire each other don't they and actually we're probably still if you think about it in the midst of this development process happening because of so many of our films being about aliens and sci-fi and stuff that actually like i say it's only been around for the last 100 150 years really then actually say oh there's this great tradition

of aliens and how they look well we're still we're still birthing that now like the fact that there's a few that look kind of similar that's not really a surprise because people artists feed off each other don't they but actually the aliens in popular imagination might look different in 100 years as well well one would hope because you saying oh 150 years of development is quite quick think how much fashion has changed in 150 years yeah what women wear now particularly is unrecognizable for a woman 150 years ago would have worn. That's true, but most of us see women every day, whereas not aliens. Well, some people see those every day.

Yes. But they're troubled. I think most of those are the people who don't see women every day. Listeners, we would just like to take this opportunity to thank Squarespace.com, who have brought this episode of Answer Me This to you. That's right. And if you don't know what Squarespace is... Here is a song explaining

their delicious service. Do you remember how websites used to be? Comic sons and backgrounds that look like trees Flash intros links to geocities But now thanks to Squarespace your site needn't be crappy

They make great design easy, so everyone's happy And on desktop phones and tablets, your site looks well snappy So there you go, that's pretty much everything you need to know about Squarespace.com Yes, they have many templates for making your website look exquisite It's very simple to use, there is customer service on the phone 24 7 and best of all you can do a two-week free trial and then if you want to buy the squarespace service then in order to get 10 off you just need to enter the code amt9 as in answer me this nine so go for it you have nothing to lose you start your trial and have a play see what you think just have a play where's the harm unless you set up a website like the one in this question from anonymous who

says my dad has an account on dogging.co.uk it is not very well designed i have to say i'm sure that was set up with a rival platform which is a website where you can hook up with other adults no one in my family knows about this except me so So Ollie answers me this. Do I just ignore this and carry on with normal life? Yes. Or should I tell someone like my mum? No. I've also been aware of emails my dad has been receiving, like, we should meet up.

Because you're looking, aren't you? Because you're looking through his inbox. Well, and on admits, this whole thing was a result of me being nosy. Yeah. But it would be really difficult to tell someone. Yeah, so don't. It's obviously not good if your dad

is cheating if indeed that is what happening but you don't know that that's what's happening because this email was not designed for you to see some people might just be enacting various fantasies but not going through with them as a way to avoid going through with them exactly because i imagine that quite a powerful fantasy is setting up a hookup and then not actually following through with it but thinking in your brain oh i, I'm going to go and meet this... Yeah. I'm choosing the morally right thing by not doing this to my wife in secret.

Exactly. But this woman is ready to do it with me. Or man. Or group of people in a car park. Well, this is the other thing. So dogging, I know that there's lots... It's getting supplied, doesn't it, as a brushstroke term

to lots of different sexual practices now. It's alfresco in cars. I think now it just sort of means like dirty English people having sex. In rural car parks. I think it's having sex anywhere that somebody who is a footballer that gets caught by a tabloid

can watch you doing it. Yeah. But the point is, in its initial, in its pure form. In its pure, primal form. In the golden age of dogging.

That's right, yeah. Dogging rose to prominence as essentially being, watching other people having sex, right? Yeah. From your car. Or being that person having the sex. Well, yeah. Dogging rose to prominence as essentially watching other people having sex, right? Yeah. From your car. Or being that person having the sex. Well, exactly. So therefore, Anonymous, is it not entirely possible, I put it to you in Exhibit A,

that your mother might in fact be part of this scheme as well? You're ruining Anonymous's life, taking down both parents! So what you certainly don't want to do is be raising this to your mum as if, I've got some gossip on Dad, because you're either then going to have to have a conversation about her dogging with her or you're going to ruin her dogging or you're going to ruin their relationship none of those outcomes is desirable I know it's very difficult to have to imagine that your parent has any kind of sexual forces left in them after the ones that created you but if this this is really troubling you, the person to talk to about it is your dad, who may bullshit you and say,

oh, no, I wasn't doing anything. But at least then you've said, I know this. And if it's a bad thing that you're doing that is going to harm your relationship, then please sort it out yourself. I think it's highly context dependent. I know of somebody who found out that their father had a separate family.

Yeah. Through the power of the internet. Now, it depends on a lot of factors. If this is a marriage which is on the rocks and there's reasons to suspect this is a symptom of a much deeper malaise, then I think you probably should tell your mum. If, on the other hand, it is absolutely out of character and asymptomatic and a very happy marriage, then I would agree with Ollie.

But are you in a position to make that call? If you're in this family you know, you must get a sense of the dynamic and whether they're happy together. Here's a question from Derry in Reading who says, in our fortnightly citizenship lesson at school we had to make paper hats and decorate them. That's going to

teach you how elections work isn't it? Citizenship? Yeah. I thought citizenship was supposed to be useful things, like how to be a functional member of society, not how to make a hat. Well, there's a lot of youth unemployment these days, Helen. If you've got a skill you can do with your hands, that's virtually an apprenticeship, isn't it? Yes, there is a lot of youth unemployment,

but there's also not that much hat wearing, generally. I made a Robin Hood-style hat, says Derry. That's sort of like an informal Napoleon hat, isn't it? Usually green. But two corners, not three. Yeah. My teacher presented me with a packet of 40 coloured feathers and said I could stick on a feather for the authentic

Robin Hood look. Authentic being used loosely. Yeah, I think you'll find the definitive Robin Hood, Kevin Costner, does not wear a hat at all. No. He's got two beautiful hair, hasn't he? Has he? Yeah. I don't think of him as a beautiful haired man.

Neither do I, but I think... Does he have long hair in that film? Long blonde locks. Right. I mean, the marketeers of that film would want you to say he had beautiful hair. It was certainly flowing. And although in real life you could tell because he had that sort of face, Kevin Costner would have had a bald spot, his Robin Hood definitely didn't.

So, this got me thinking says dairy helen answer me this where do commercial feathers come from is there perhaps a special farm where feathers are plucked from birds with the ability to quickly regrow their plumage what a fanciful idea i do rather suspect it's just from dead birds isn't it they're killed for something else am i right well yes okay a lot of feathers are the byproduct of the poultry for eating industry yeah but there are some birds like some types of geese or ducks you can pluck their big feathers a few times before you kill them really okay and are they actually bred for the feathers or are they still there really for the meat industry i think all of the feathers are a byproduct yes fair enough

so a lot of people would disapprove of using any feathers apart from ones you'd found that'd be naturally shed by a bird but in reality if you're going to dress up in fancy dress and you go to your local party shop or indeed you're a citizenship lesson teacher who has to kit up cheaply for a fortnightly lesson you're likely to be going to a source where you've not been acting in such an ethical fashion aren't you i'd imagine that if you're getting feathers that have been dyed many different colors for crafting they probably have been scalded off a chicken yeah but better to use the feathers isn't it than kill the bird eat the meat and not use the feathers i suppose yes and and some of the feathers come off birds that been raised to lay, and so they're around for long enough for you to gather their feathers many times.

It's not like they're going to need them in that battery farm. I wonder if it's coincidence that feathers rose in popularity as a fashion item at roughly the same time that we saw the quill very much losing out its market share on the writing industry. Because you would have had a lot of lot of quill feathers knocking about wouldn't you suddenly had to be repurposed into i wonder if even robin hood only got his feather at the point where they had to start selling costumes with feathers in my brother got a prize at school which was a quill made out of gold and that is just annoying isn't it because

it's something that has no sentimental value to him it has no use it has no value of beauty because it's just a quill pen made of gold and yet it's quite an expensive thing so melted down it would have been better than the object but you can't melt it down because it's a school prize yeah i guess with school prizes though you've got a set budget haven't you they probably had 30 quid and thought what can we dip in gold what do school boys love quills great this will be the new fa cup but what would he have liked a Subutio football player Dipped in gold more? He would have more, yeah

That would have been better I think a dog turd dipped in gold more At least that would have been funny Hello, I'm the monk Out of 90s band Enigma Helen, answer me this Why are high Oh why are

Oh why are What was that all about? Here's a question from Beth from Leighton Buzzard who says I'm pregnant with my first child and at five days overdue could go into labour at any point. If I don't interrupt, how much of that song are you going to do?

Yeah, what does it go after that? Beth continues. I downloaded your holiday album Weeks ago and plan to listen to it During childbirth Well if you can get your childbirth done Within an hour then well done In the hope that this will provide some

Amusing distraction from the pain Or provide a different sort of pain I don't mean to be less than positive but I'm beginning to wonder Says Beth whether the album alone Will be enough No do you think so? It's the tool that women have been waiting for since the dawn of time

to distract them from the agonies of Eve. Beth, by all means, please do give it a go, but please don't rate the album on iTunes on that basis. It didn't work as an epidural one star. That's not fair. So, Helen, answer me this. What would you do to prepare for a scary agonising and majorly life changing event

that could happen to you at any point within a five week window unfortunately running away is not an option in your condition well I suppose there's no way that you can prepare for childbirth because I'm given to understand by everybody that's ever done it that you can neither

prepare for parenthood or labour and so I suppose reconciling by everybody that's ever done it that you can neither prepare for parenthood or labour. And so I suppose reconciling yourself to that fact is a useful step for actually being prepared. Because I think if you have a rigid idea of what either of those things are going to be like, then you're going to be shocked, maybe disappointed. You're saying that like that's words of comfort though. A lot of people would be plunged into existential crisis by that.

Just try and keep the panic down. And maybe distraction is the best way. I've got two friends who are due to give birth in the next couple of weeks and they seem to be distracting themselves by doing things that i think will get more difficult once there's a baby like going to the cinema and going to the theater yeah but no one wants to break their water in a theater do they you probably won't have given birth by the time the curtain falls and make sure you sit in an exit, obviously. If that happened to you, though, would you flamboyantly go,

oh my God, that water's a broken in the middle of the theatre because it's your only opportunity to do it and everyone would understand? Well, I... Or would you try and be really discreet? I have no first-hand experience, but I am led to understand

that the actual breaking of the water is not how television and film portray it. And it can happen way before you start actual labor or it can happen during labor and you barely even notice it often but it's not this kind of sudden seismic start in most cases i gather the flip side of accepting what you were saying that you will never be able to prepare for it really is that you embrace the fact that you won't be able to prepare for it and just try and really really enjoy the fact that you haven't got a baby at the moment oh yeah now it's time to go out drinking up late i think also lining up a lot of box sets that you can watch in the middle of the night while the baby is feeding

that's a that's an idea i think what do i really want to watch and make sure it's ready because when you're tired and bleary you might not want to have to shuffle around looking for it yeah i mean actually looking at purely from a box set point of view having a baby what's the best box set to distract myself from this life having a baby's great because the baby's not really conscious of the swearing and the sex and the violence at first no so you've got at least a year there where you don't need to worry about psychologically impacting it and you have it clung onto your breast and be watching the most vivid hbo show you're absolutely fine yeah good plan so get them in get the grisly stuff in that you're not going to be able to watch

once they're sort of more conscious True Blood for instance yeah True Blood I don't know if you want something biting your nipple whilst you're watching True Blood

good point well with that we have reached the end of this week's episode of Answer Me This and if you would like to contribute to the show in future weeks

then all the details about how you can send us a question can be found on our website answermethispodcast.com and listeners we will be taking next week off like a little half term in this semester of answer me this but you can keep yourself amused by perusing our archive at answer me this podcast.com slash classic or our albums at slash albums there's a lot there to keep you busy plenty uh and if you're asking why are we taking this week off,

what exciting thing are you doing? I refer you to the early work of Billy Piper, It's Just Because We Want To. So we'll be back in two weeks. Please join us then. Bye!