Answer Me This! - AMT276: Pound Shops, Movember and Facts About Birmingham

Episode Date: October 24, 2013

http://answermethispodcast.com/episode276 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did even Cliff Richard like Millennium Prayer? Answer me this, answer me this How much cream is in Jenny Eclair? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this Sorry Ollie to start this episode on a very depressing note for you but we have had this email from Daniel in Stevenage who says I hate to ruin your evening but i come bearing bad news no what has he been looking at my medical

file this is your doctor isn't it and this was the best way to tell you i have the joy of working in my local cinema okay daniel since i know stevenage i know that's the cinema world so anything you're about to say could prejudice your job prospects in the future. So be careful. And on occasion, much like your 14-year-old self-proposed, as recounted in Answer Me This episode 275, we have a local comic shop that comes in and sets up a stall in our lobby selling merchandise. Oh, okay. They get there early, make everything look all nice, and sadly, never sell a single thing.

Well, that's okay, Daniel. that's not bad news for me like if i was still clinging to my business hopes of uh 20 years ago yeah uh it would be uh fortuitous to me wouldn't it that the competition had failed yeah i would be thinking well i can i can get that market all for myself and also you can market it better than maybe they are maybe they're selling comics but not trash merch exactly the bottom line is because I didn't take it up as a business, it doesn't bother me that it wouldn't have worked out. He says that the lack of sales is because parents usually say, I've just spent all that money on cinema and popcorn.

You're not getting a bloody Superman action figure. So based on my very limited knowledge of the subject, i.e. one sample group in Stevenage, I would suggest sticking to the podcast racket over the cinema stall game that's clearly where the big bucks are lol that's interesting but i think times are different now to when i came up with the idea in 1994 yeah um uh it's been a few years since i went to the cineworld in stevenage leisure park but i think the tickets are probably about seven pounds there do you think would you care? Even nowadays. Well no, I think

that's expensive for what I'm about to say. If you care to guess Helen, what the price of a child admission to see Jurassic Park at the Letchworth Broadway was in 1994? £1.95 £3.50. £1. £1. That's what we paid. So, you know,

my idea was with that as the background you know, the adults had only spent three quid taking their child to the cinema i think at that point they are willing to spend 20 pounds on a stupid hat but at the time you could get your car mot'd for three quid actually my local cinema now in south hertfordshire costs four pounds a ticket which is a good deal isn't it it's in south hertfordshire gotta make ends meet well yeah but there's another one that's nearby that's a chain one and that one costs i think eight pounds a ticket i think the disadvantage of the independent one is that you have to walk through a haze of smokers who are standing outside the gala bingo and just to get in so it's a bit

like emerging through the door in stars in their eyes there's like a massive haze of smoke but you must love that tonight matthew i'm gonna be watching the One Direction film actually you must have harboured dreams to be on Stars in Their Eyes who did you want to go on as do you know I ladies and gentlemen Mr Elton John I can't find I suppose I would have to pick someone obviously with a beautiful rich

baritone like myself but actually like the person that I'd want to be really is I'd want to be bon jovi or something because it would be fun but i think would have been good in the 80s i know that i couldn't pull that off with my face so you know i think you have to be realistic don't you when you're going on stars in their eyes you have to say well who actually could i could be young billy joel that's about it really isn't that good well there's a reason why that guy won looking like chris de burgh because that is an attainable visual goal.

There is something brilliant though about a 45 year old shop assistant going on and saying tonight Kat I'm going to be Christina Aguilera. Well if that's what

you think and it makes you happy good on you. But you know I'm not sure it's entirely achievable. Who are you going to do?

Me? Well I can't sing because that's a problem. You have to go who you sound like really. I think female singers are's entirely achievable. Who are you going to do? Me? Well, I can't sing, because that's a problem. You have to go who you sound like, really. I think female singers are less fun to ape. I like doing the woman from the Cranberries. John Lennon died! I quite like doing that.

Actually, I can now do Lisa Stansfield, because the other day I was at a corporate function, and they wheeled on Lisa Stansfield at the end. Not literally, she's not in a wheelchair now. She's not, but she doesn't look in peak health. Right. She came on and did some unrecognisable hits because she was doing them in a jazzy style.

So she started scat singing. Her voice is a lot lower than it used to be. And so it really sounded like... Oh, that's very good, actually. It was rough. I can do Dr. Allburn. Stop winning me, stop winning me, stop winning me, stop winning me, stop winning me, stop winning me, it's my life. I don't know if there's much cool for Dr. Alban.

I bet even the real Dr. Alban couldn't get on Stars in Their Eyes being himself. Anyway, on to a question from Cathal from County Derry, who says, I'm about to begin a night shift with a newspaper's website. Ollie, answer me this. How do I make it more bearable? When do I go to sleep slash get up? Do I go to sleep as soon as I get home or stay up for a while and wake up just before work?

When do I eat and what? If I get up at 4pm, do I eat breakfast or dinner? Okay, so it's been my whole life for me. Should I avoid caffeine entirely? What should I wear? Well, obviously the main thing you should be doing cathal is listening to uh ollie mann covering for duncan barks on lbc 97.3 if it happens to be an evening that i'm on the level of rage that will engender keep you awake all night

because you actually have quite a lot of recent experience of pulling work-based all-nighters that's right yeah i've been doing overnight radio you've got to stay alert you've got to talk for four hours so i've been toying with lots of options as to how to stay awake speed well the thing is i think a lot of these questions that you've asked resolve themselves when you're simply physically unable to carry on anymore yeah and you're delirious exactly so it doesn't matter what you eat so exactly so for example the strategy of and i guess if people think about this in the abstract form and they've never tried it themselves they may think this is a good idea the strategy of time shifting your day,

so you've got 12 hour jet lag, so you wake up to go to work at one in the morning, that doesn't work. It doesn't? No, because your body can't adjust that quickly because ultimately it'll come to the weekend and you won't want to be getting up at one in the morning and going to bed at 5pm.

So therefore, you know, just even by the end of the week, changing your pattern a bit will throw your body out of kilter. So what I would suggest is you have to reverse the way an ordinary person's day works. So you have to do morning activities in the afternoon, you have to do evening activities in the first part of the evening, and then go to work and do afternoon activities in the late evening. Okay. So you get up about 2 p.m okay uh then you have breakfast now of course i'm calling it breakfast but actually this is your only time to go out so if you're someone who likes going out for dinner you go out for lunch meet a friend for lunch if you've got any friends who aren't working during

the day you often get some very good set lunch deals get some very good deals but of course the problem is you feel like you want breakfast so i end up doing a lot of eggs i do a lot more eggs when i'm doing overnights than any other time because that's something that's on a lunch menu but is also really a breakfast item but that's probably quite good because eggs are protein which helps your energy correct yes then you've got two or three hours to do the sort of evening admin stuff so go to the toilet uh watch some box sets yeah laundry um if your partner happens to be at home during the day then that's the time to have sex and socialize then uh you then have to go to work right it's slightly odd but it feels like you're working in

the evening rather than working sort of throughout the morning and overnight it's the only way to do it here's a question from sam in brighton who says, someone I know is currently going sober for October. Stoptober. Or Oct-sober. Oct-sober, that's very good. In aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. She is a good friend and the cause is excellent. Yes.

But simply not drinking alcohol for 31 days doesn't seem like an achievement worth sponsoring. Yeah, I mean, I've gone many months without even thinking, I should drink some alcohol. And no one has given me a penny for charity. I think it depends who the person is and what their history is. I mean, you wouldn't say this to Gaza, would you?

Oh, 31 days without a drink. What's the big deal about that? Yeah, but the incentive really should be to save himself first. And the charity perhaps could benefit from something else that he does. Sam continues, My friend has already broken the sober pledge in the first week by using a golden ticket option which can be purchased from their website

for 15 pounds well at least then the charity's getting 15 pounds right and gives free drinking for one day nonsense that's ridiculous isn't it the charity would benefit more if you just paid the 15 quid a day to it for the golden ticket yeah exactly why don't you pay them to drink rather than getting other people to pay you to do something that if you want to stop drinking just do it in your own time it's like if i go on a diet i wouldn't expect other people to pay me to do it as an incentive well sam says if i'm going to pay for someone to not drink is it fair for them to pay to drink anyway helen answer me this should i sponsor her no and not because you shouldn't give money

to the cancer charity. No, just give... Do that anyway. Yes, do that anyway. I think this feeds into what Ollie was saying a little while ago about how a lot of people do things for charity

that they want to do anyway. They want to climb a mountain anyway. Yeah, exactly. Or abseil. And this... Or want to swim. This, you shouldn't go, well, you have to sponsor me

because otherwise I'll never get off the booze. I just don't think there's anything noble in this. I agree. There was this guy, actually, who actually who's on x factor i can't remember his name but he's this year's sort of ollie merz style cheeky chappy from essex with a six-pack and he in his vt last week was saying something like yeah i'm well used to doing challenges because last year i did and it's something like 30 challenges in 30 days to raise money for whatever

teenage cancer trust and they showed pictures of him and the challenges were things like eat a giant pizza you do that every weekend jump off a rock and it's like you're 19 you're on holiday

like yeah get out of bed without falling over I think one of them he had something like love tattooed on his arse or something he would have done that anyway

exactly he would have done it anyway like he's that kind of guy the distinction for me is doing physical exertion things like running a marathon or climbing a mountain i probably wouldn't be able to do so i'm impressed by it whereas not drinking is something i do virtually every single day and i think other people are also seeking sponsorship for stopping smoking in stoptober also something i've done all of my life and received no

sponsorship money imagine how much i could have raised movember movember drives me nuts i appreciate people raising money for these very valuable causes and drawing attention to these causes but movember i just think well it's not that hard to grow a mustache unless you're justin bieber and it's just wisps so where's the endeavor it's really just drawing attention to yourself and you're like yeah i'm doing this for Movember, right? So I'm doing something good that also makes me look a bit like a hipster. It's artificial hardship, isn't it? Yes, artificial hardship.

It makes you look better, in fact, by doing it. For Dick Ember, I'm going to have sex every day. Pay me, though. Even when I'm tired. We've slugged off a lot of these charity endeavours. Can we think of a better one? I do give to the guys dressed as Superman in the train stations because they always look like not official Superman people. Yes.

So it's a bad outfit and they look totally ridiculous. And I think, well, it's cold. You're standing there with a pair of pants outside your trousers all day. They could just be a lunatic and you're giving them money. I know, but they're putting in effort to raise money for a cause. That's the thing. They are making themselves look ridiculous. They're not just growing a moustache.

I encountered one of those people. I was in Fortnum and Mason spending a gift. That's the thing. They are making themselves look ridiculous. They're not just growing a moustache. I encountered one of those people. I was in Fortnum & Mason spending a gift card at the chocolate counter. Were you doing that under sponsorship as well? Yeah, because I really put myself through a lot of discomfort

being in Fortnum & Mason buying chocolate. And one of these people came in in a Spider-Man suit, full facial covering and the woman behind the chocolate counter freaked out because she thought they were going to pull a gun on her

because she couldn't see their face. They shoved the bucket at her and she was like, I don't think so. You need to work on your approach. If you've got a question, then email your question to answer me at this podcast at googlemail.com Answer me at this podcast at googlemail.com. Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com. Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com.

Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com. It's Halloween. 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. And soon, so here is a scary question from Ross from Glasgow, who says... All good horror movies seem to have one thing in common. They bore me. No? A girl aged six to ten being a scary little bitch ollie answer me this why is it that a girl in a bright summer dress is cute but by adding creepy music and turning down the lights they

become one of the most scary things in the world where did creepy horror children in movies originate and what makes them so damn petrifying oh it's like children's choirs when they're faintly discordant on a soundtrack. Yeah, because I think you need to define the kind of horror we're talking about here. I think what we're talking about here is not actual terror. It's being creeped out. Like, I would say Sadako in The Ring is an example of creepy scary. Well, she's like the modern thing that kicked it off, wasn't it?

The Ring and The Grudge and those films. What about the creepy twins in The Shining? Yeah, well, actually, I mean, if you... Okay, let's start with the historical origin of this. Is there, like, a ghost story from the 17th century or something? Well, I think it's just been with us since... Definitely since gothic horror. So if you think...

I think the one that springs to my mind is Turn of the Screw, Henry James, right? So if you take it back to... I mean, at least then, maybe it was before then, but certainly by the peak of Victorian Gothic horror, scary, creepy kids were part of the story. So it's not even a film trend this at all. It's reflecting the ghost story origins of Victoriana, right? That's number one.

But then even in film, we obviously being of our generation, born in the 80s and the late 70s, we think of The Omen and The Exorcist and The Shining. But actually, even in film, you've got Village of the omen and the exorcist and the shining but actually um even in film you've got village of the damned in the 60s and before that in the 50s there was a film called the bad seed which is about a kid who commits a murder and so it's not really it's not really a ghost story but it's a horror story in the sense that it's a thriller about a murderous child and it's got a scary kid in it so actually this trope of demonic children has been around really since film and since literature.

Yes. And I think that's because finding things creepy is about feeling that there's something ambiguous going on. Like there's something terrifying about a man coming towards you with a knife, but it's not ambiguous. What makes it scarier, what makes it creepier is if the man has a mask like in scream or a melon baller instead of a knife yes because suddenly you can't read facial features yes suddenly you're like i don't know if this is a threat or if this isn't and the child is the perfect sort of demonstration that because we think of children as being innocent and sweet and little girls most of all sugar and spice and all things nice. Yes, but if they're then singing We're Here to Kill You or something,

suddenly it's ambiguous. You don't know how to react. You feel creeped out. In fact, in the recent film adaptation of The Woman in Black, the Daniel Radcliffe one, they'd added creepy little girls to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And everything actually that that plays on, when you think about it, doll's houses and jack-in-the-boxes and nursery rhymes, all those things are creepy in context those are those are creepy anyway so of course if you add that kind of music when you as soon as you add that some some jaunty angles yes jaunty angles slight discordant slightly slowed down a rocking chair creaking on its own yeah but all the buttons are being pushed it's the ambiguity

though it's the ambiguity that if you lit it slightly differently if you saw it from a slightly different angle it wouldn't be scary at all it's the fact you're not sure how to respond and there's this brilliant quote from stephen king actually who says that terror is coming home to discover that everything you own has been replaced by an exact copy of the original it's that feeling of being really unsettled yes but not not blatant pornographic man coming towards you with a knife because then you can deal with what it is. You can process it. That's very Pet Sematary. And also because it's little girls,

you know that it's not a fear of someone with superior physical strength. Exactly. Although in the film Orphan, look, tune out if you care about what happens in the film Orphan, but it's not very good. There's a little girl. Yeah.

But actually she's a woman with a growth problem. So she always looks like a little girl, but she's actually an evil adult. Oh, that's quite good. So she does have pretty good physical strength in her pint-sized body. I suppose it's also that little girls seem like the most vulnerable of all members of society.

And therefore, when they are the hunter, everything has gone wrong. Everything's topsy-turvy. And people's natural urges to protect children get inverted when you have to kill them for your own protection. Yes. And actually, it makes you uncomfortable in the audience, doesn't it? Even in a heightened horror movie

where it's been set up that the character has to kill a girl, that scene is still, even though it's acted out, it's still not comfortable watching a child getting murdered. Are there any films in which that actually happens? I'm just trying to think. Because in The Omen, doesn't he win? Doesn't he kill everybody? Sorry, spoilers.

I think in Pet Sematary, it's a little boy, but the main character has to kill his own son. In The Ring, they don't kill Sully. They can't. She can't be killed. The Exorcist, don't they kill her? No, they exorcise her. They remove the evil

Do they? I think that's right Imagine bringing that girl Up afterwards though She doesn't remember it I know but you'd remember it Imagine if your little girl Looked at you

Fuck you all Fuck you You would never be able To look at her again Spinny head You would just be waiting For her to kick off again Because let's face it

Adolescence is a difficult time In many households Yeah well that's what That's really about Yeah but it's just The beginning for her isn't it I mean they could it's just the beginning for her, isn't it? I mean, they could have another five years of that. Yeah, yeah.

Crucifix masturbation on a grand scale. God. It must be very difficult for parents seeing their children masturbate with any kind of religious implement. I don't know about you, but the Passover plate always did it for me. I'm not kissing the mezuzah at your house. Five Star Hotel. I'm not kissing the mezuzah at your house Five star hotel It had an omelette station A multitude of pools

But thirty quid for parking WTF Four star hotel There's ethernet, not wifi like it's 1998 But there was a swim up bar in the rooftop pool Three Star Hotel A bit more down to earth They did still have a pool

But it was full of kids Two Star Hotel A lot more down to earth. They also had a pool, but it was full of dogs. One star hotel, there's a body in the pool. Answer Me This Holiday, all the fun of travelling with none of the stinky toilets or frightening food. Out now at answermethispodcast.com slash albums. Listeners, please don't forget that if you want to leave us a question using your speaking voice, then the phone number to dial is this.

0208 123 58 007 Or you can Skype answer me this. Hi, Helen and Ollie. It's Chrisris from crystal palace here i was just thinking uh things used to cost a lot less in the past like a taggo or a freddo bar was only five pence and now i think they're about 20 pence which is 400 increase uh but when i was little they still had pound shops and the things you get in pound shops you you could get, for example, tools. I don't know. You could get them for the same price as you can now. So how come inflation hasn't affected pound shops?

Because they seem to be doing better than ever now. It seems. Helen and Ollie, answer me that. I love the fact that he's used the Freddo bar as the consumer price index. I wonder whether Chris has been stimulated to this thought because Crystal Palace recently got a massive pound shop in where the old blockbuster video oh which brand is it is it pound land i think it's pound land thing is actually it's interesting like a lot of local residents when that happens feel and you can go online and you can see people campaigning against these shops opening on their high street they feel that the high street's been cheapened

they feel that it's going to bring in the wrong kind of person. But actually, because these things have become so popular and mainstream now, apparently quite a lot of sort of mid-market shoppers go there, the kind of people that used to go to Sainsbury's and Tesco trying to save some money. And actually, they're now seen as an anchor tenant. If you have a Poundland on your high street, it means the whole high street is more likely to benefit than suffer. Well, fingers crossed for Crystal Palace.

So there you go. So I was under the impression that paying shops didn't really sound like something that was very useful like when i've been into them it's all sort of random assortment of items i can't imagine going there and getting my weekly grocery shop or my other things that i needed to run my house au contraire martin a lot of them sell things like bulbs for plants and i've got some very good box canvases for painting why is that that part of your regular household shop? I eat a lot of canvas. Well, I think Chris sort of answers his own question in his question

when he says, why isn't inflation affecting pound shops because they seem to be doing better than ever? Actually, it's because they're doing better than ever that in a way they can have this inflation-busting maintaining of their price point because, of course, the more shops they have, the more stock they they have the more they can negotiate on bulk to keep the price down yeah they're buying stuff from the far east so let's say they sell a pair of nail clippers now you look at those as a british consumer and you think oh in boots those would be 5.99 but here they're a pound what's the bargain three pence exactly so even if it was the case that 10 years ago it cost the company 30p and now it costs them 40p, they're still making a 60p profit margin.

And as Martin says, it probably didn't cost them 30p, it probably cost them three pence. So that's their business model. Everything's from the Far East, including when they sell British products, apparently. Obviously, it doesn't go for everything because they always just look for the cheapest thing. So the Dutch originals from there are actually manufactured in the philippines there was a controversy about poundland importing polo as in the mint from the far east even though it's made in york which is where poundland is based because it was cheaper that's terrible isn't it we live in a crazy mixed up world the other thing as well about um these pound shops is that one of the mechanics that they use to make money is the false perception of value in the customers so some things genuinely are great value you know you see an imperial

leather shower gel and you think oh that that definitely that same product is two pounds and here it's a pound and that is the case but then you'll see another product that actually might be 60p in asda but because it's in the pound shop and it's a pound you assume that that is also cheap and it's not you're taking a gamble so they very carefully choose their stock so that i don't know what proportion of it but a proportion of it is not actually cheaper than it is in the supermarkets it's more expensive and they put it next to products where you're saving money so of course they make a profit margin on all of it but some of it they make a much higher profit margin than even the main supermarkets do so it's quite a clever idea well that's been very educational thank you all of us well we have another question of retail it's from zach in hull uh who says helen answer me this

do you have to be chinese to run a chinese restaurant or can anyone with the knowledge of chinese cuisine open one as if there's a law as if there's actually a law on that matter i love the idea that there is a police squadron dedicated to going around Chinese restaurants and busting them for being not from China. Are you from Hong Kong, are you, sir? Does that count, does it? No, your mother was from Macau.

That's not enough, I'm afraid. Come with me. I don't think you would think twice about people who are not French or Italian opening French or Italian restaurants, would you? I mean, Jamie Oliver was trained up by the River Cafe that sells posh expensive Italian food that was started up by two English women true enough but when you're in a French restaurant you do want the waiter to have a French accent don't you and you will settle for foreign accent but you don't like it when

they're British most of all you want them to treat you a bit badly well not really badly just with a sense of innate superiority indeed but they're also there's also been a proliferation of burrito places in London the last few years. Yeah, good point. I doubt many of them have any Mexicans in, and particularly Oaxaca. All of them investment bankers, basically, aren't they, that have decided to go into the fast food industry. Tomasina Myers, who set up Oaxaca, definitely not Mexican. Not Mexican. Just a fan, just a fan.

And that's interesting. That's because Mexican cuisine is a great fast food cuisine and yet we don't have Mexican immigrants. So they've just taken, I guess, what you get in California, haven't they? They've taken what Mexican immigrants do when they move to America and moved it to Britain run by non-Mexican people. The only time I went to a dim sum place that wasn't stuffed by Chinese staff, it was stuffed, I think, by Portuguese people. It was terrible terrible terrible food although

actually if there was a law uh i would insist that there was a law that if it was the case that only chinese people could open chinese restaurants yeah they would also be forbidden from selling fish and chips from the same premises because that's rarely good although we used to live around the corner from a fish and chip shop run by a chinese man who also used to do some japanese dishes, it makes me uncomfortable. Makes me uncomfortable if it's on the sign, because I think you're not, you're not, you're spreading your expertise too wide here. You're

a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Who's Jack of Refuge Trades? And actually, his teriyaki was great. If you think you can best him with a tricky question, send it in on that internet thing. To answer me this thing To answer me this

To answer me this Podcast at googlemail.com Martin, prepare yourself. We've got a question about the Midlands. Hey! What's it about? Which bit of the Midlands is it about? The West Midlands, Martin, the best bit.

Oh, that's a bit. Well, East Midlands isn't the proper Midlands. It's just a bit stuck on the edge of East Anglia. Jim says, I've just moved to Birmingham. Yes! And as I've just started a new job at the University of Birmingham. Oh, that's great. What I've noticed, having moved here, is that, A, it's quite nice, actually.

That's lovely, yeah. Oh, yeah, it's great. But it's interesting how she makes that point, isn't it? Because actually. That's lovely, yeah. Oh, yes, correct. But it's interesting it actually makes that point, isn't it? Because I guess a lot of people not from Birmingham think Birmingham isn't nice. I have that impression from what people in the 70s said about Birmingham, but actually I don't have that impression anymore because the people that I know from Birmingham say it is nice. A lot of places were not nice in the 70s.

Yeah, that's right. New York, for instance. Indeed, yeah. And B, many people that you meet in Birmingham have a slightly underwhelming fact about Birmingham and tell this to you often without prompting. We used to have something like the Millennium Wheel. It was called the Birmingham Wheel.

Is that true? Oh, yes. Every city had one for a bit. I've been on the Nottingham Eye. Yeah, actually, I've been on the Torquay Eye. The Torquay Eye. That's too good for it. You've probably heard, says Jim,

the one about Birmingham has more miles of canals than Venice. Yes, but to be fair, Birmingham is a much bigger area than Venice and the canals of Venice are a lot prettier. So although Birmingham has 35 miles, I think people get more out of the 26 miles of Venetian canals. I think there's few American tourists that come to see the canals of Birmingham, but that's the point, isn't it, of saying it? That's the point.

So did you know more canals? But you wouldn't expect that, would you? Why would you bother going to Venice? You come to see the canals of Birmingham, but that's the point, isn't it, of saying it? That's the point. So did you know more canals? But you wouldn't expect that, would you? Why would you bother going to Venice? We've got all the canals here. Because Birmingham is an industrial centre, and it's essentially landlocked, so how did it get its goods to and from the city centre? Yeah, the thing is, when a statistic is interesting, but the reality is boring, it doesn't change the reality, does it?

Industrial revolution! It's like when people say, oh, we've got an Amazon warehouse near us that's bigger than the Taj Mahal you're like well fine. Which would you rather look at? I'd still rather have the picture on my mantelpiece of me outside the Taj Mahal. Really? Yeah. Very odd. Anyway Jim continues other Birmingham facts that I have encountered include Birmingham has more trees per acre than any other city in Europe. Now I've seen that fact oft repeated on the internet but no one seems to be able to name the number of trees Birmingham has but the council says it tends to 94,000 street trees. As opposed to the trees that hang out in brothels. I struggle

to believe that there isn't a Scandinavian city with more trees than Birmingham. Actually do you want to know the city that is the most tree-filled city of Europe? Well, I would have guessed somewhere like Stockholm. Wait, wait. Or Reykjavik. Strasbourg. Sheffield.

No. Yep. Sheffield. Really? Sheffield has an estimated total of more than two million trees. Wow. So it has more trees per person

than any other city in Europe. So I'd imagine it also has more trees per acre because it's a lot smaller than Birmingham is. OK, another fact is that Birmingham, or more exactly the Clee Hills west of Kidderminster... Oh, they can't claim those as their own. ...are the highest point at that latitude in Europe until you get to the Ural Mountains.

That's a really boring niche fact, isn't it? I think it is, and that one has the ring of truth. Yes, I think... Because it's so boring. Why would you make that up? No one would want to compete with that statistic. You look at a map of Europe at that approximate latitude, and it is super flat until you get to the Urals. And I read an interview with a publican who has a pub called the

Kremlin Pub in the Clee Hills, and it's so cold because until they moved the radio mast in the late 80s, they could pick up radio signals from Moscow because there's nothing in the way. Wow. Okay, more Birmingham facts. The closest coastline to Birmingham is Western Supermare in Somerset. Well, although Western Supermare is by miles the closest beach,

I think 105 miles, Blackpool and Rill are quicker to get to because of the roads, even though they're 125 and 124 miles away, respectively. But they're both more depressing than Western Supermares. Oh, Rill's brilliant. There's a sun centre, there's water slides, there's loads of arcades, there's the beach. As I say, both more depressing than Western Supermares, so worth the journey.

Peter Sutcliffe used to love going to Blackpool to look at the anatomical waxworks. He'd go all the way from Bradford. No, well, maybe they took them away after they were taken by association. Right, another Birmingham fact, inverted commas. Birmingham has more Michelin-starred restaurants than any city in the UK apart from London. Okay, well, it is Britain's second biggest city.

So you'd expect that, really. Yes, but Birmingham has, as far as I know, four Michelin-starred restaurants. Bray, where the Fat Duck is, has four as well. Yeah, but it's not a city. No, it's not. So it stands as a city fact. No, but Edinburgh has five, and Edinburgh is a city, and is in the UK. Oh, okay, right, so that one's wrong. Anyway, why is Jim dazzling us with the

underwhelming Birmingham facts? Well, because he wanted to know if they were true. He says, Helen, answer me this, are any of these facts true? So you've answered most of them. Yeah. Some of them are true, some of them aren't. Yeah, some of them are true-ish. He also says, do you have your own favourite underwhelming Birmingham fact? Martin. As

a son of Birmingham. I thought you were saying that Martin was your favourite underwhelming Birmingham fact. Balty was invented in Birmingham. That's my favourite Birmingham fact. That is a good fact. Is that really true or have you just made that up? I didn't make it up. It's sort of an urban myth. I don't actually know whether it's true.

It was oft repeated on television in the 1990s when they were explaining Balty. But it is just runny sauce. I'd imagine that someone had come up with that in Asia. Yes, and not thought to bother recording it. Yeah. Yeah. They were like, oh, this is just a curry that didn't thicken properly.

Yeah, it didn't work out. Yeah. That is a good fact, though. I think I'll take that. Well, anyway, listeners, if you have your own favourite underwhelming fact about Birmingham, it didn't work out. Yeah. That is a good fact though. I think I'll take that. Well, anyway, listeners, if you have your own favourite underwhelming fact about Birmingham, then you're welcome to share it

to an underwhelmed audience. Yeah, in a way, the less whelming the better, isn't it? I think so. Yeah. We don't want to be whelmed. No. We want to be underwhelmed.

Yes. We want to go, all right, why has a brain formulated that thought? We don't want to go, oh, that's quite interesting actually. No, you've got to pitch it at that level. Yeah, okay. Three out you've got to pitch it at that level.

Yeah, okay. Three out of ten interesting. Ten out of ten facty. You can also send us your questions by emailing, phoning or Skyping. And our contact details are, as ever, listed on our website. AnswerMeThisPodcast.com Where you can also find links to buy our first three years worth of the show for just 79 pence per episode. That is a bargain and that is a whelming fact.

So I hope you feel whelmed. Yes. And also there's written content on there. Some of you may think, oh, my question never get answered. Might have been answered in the form of writing. Well, that would be overwhelming, wouldn't it? Imagine if that had occurred. You thought we'd ignored the question and then it turns out that actually

you've had something personally written by Helen all about it. It's been on the website for six months you don't even know about it just pop in sometime have a read yeah have a read do that and we will see you next week