Answer Me This! - AMT279: Hangovers, Grandparents and Stage Magic

Episode Date: November 21, 2013

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Would a bear really want a John Lewis alarm clock? Answer me this, answer me this Aren't you bored of celebs eating kangaroo cock? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this Listeners, you're such a lovely, thoughtful bunch that you've been in touch in droves to suggest romantic comedies where people don't end up together

as demanded by Heartbroken Maz of Answer Me This, 278. We've had tons of responses from you listeners, and the ones that you said again and again and again are 500 Days of Summer and The Breakup. No! Oh, no. What? The Breakup is... I've not seen it.

It's one of those films where it seems to have such a great disregard for how humans actually behave and what is actually funny that it's sort of like a little minion of dystopia. Two stars at best. Okay. And there is no best. Is Jennifer Aniston sweetly bland and attractive in it? She's fine. Well, that's okay then, isn't it?

Vince Vaughn is repugnant. Oh, is he? To your taste or to any sensible woman? It's not a physical thing. Right. He just has written himself a repugnant character to play. so not one that he plays it repugnantly 500 days of summer is quite good though isn't it it's not a rom-com which is what maz demanded a rom-com i would say it's not a com particularly it's a whimsy indie film romance with comic elements

depending on maz's heartbroken mood she might not be that keen to watch these uh tossers flirt around the relationship with each other because they are annoying and i like both those actors what is that job that joseph gordon levitt is supposed to have in that film greetings cards in a in a like a loft apartment in los angeles when you think if you really worked for a company like hallmark it would it would be like qvc you'd be in an industrial estate and it would all be made in china and you wouldn't be cool i know someone who used to work for one of those companies. I think he worked in Croydon.

Exactly. That would be a much less romantic film. I like to sit in the spot in Croydon and look at the bus station. Exactly. If you moved all of 500 Days of Summer to just outside the Ikea, then I think you've got yourself a more realistic film, haven't you? But probably not one that's going to cheer Maz up. 500 Days of Ampere Way.

Oh, but they could have a date at the Wing Yip. Oh, that is a good date. 500 days of Ampere Way. Oh, but they could have a date at the Wingyip. Oh, that is a good date. 500 days of Dim Sum. Well, Sim has suggested This Is 40 saying, it's depressing as hell and no one is happy in it and it's not funny or entertaining, but they definitely split up. That's also got someone in it with a ridiculous

job. Not as ridiculous as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's job in 500 Days of Summer, but the main character in that, he works in a record company. But again, just completely unconvincing. Does he make the holes in the middle of vinyl? No, he's just, he's far too cool. It's all far too

cool. And the story's about how the record company's not doing well because of the internet. But I mean, he's not remotely mogul-ish or executive. He wears cool clothes and tight jeans and he's a really nice guy but he's a millionaire from the record industry. Those like those people just don't exist they don't look like that or they wouldn't be 40 they'd be older but it has got albert brooks in it which i think is always good god is he still alive yeah constant surprise and an amazing voice as well so maybe

that is one for maz to check out albert brooks to soothe her woes here's another option though listeners to cheer yourselves up in whatever state Of misery or non-misery That you find yourselves in Yeah this will work even if you're already happy And you didn't realise you wanted to actually be just super happy There's always room for a tiny bit more happiness Because we have a new album out We bloody do

The Answer Me This Christmas It's an album we've done Oh now I don't know which bit you're doing Christmas it's a whole lot of fun Oh you're doing the full spectre thing. So, okay, I was thinking you were, I was doing Slade. I thought you were doing the theme to Fun Haze. Anyway, the point is, we've done an album all about Christmas.

One hour of questions about Christmas. Yeah, in fact, last year people were saying to us, have you done an album about Christmas? Have you done an album about Christmas? And so we've responded. Let's hope it's not like when children say, oh, I wanted a Polly Pocket. And so next year the parents get it for them

and they've grown out of it. They're like, I want an iPhone. If you've ever wondered why we have mistletoe, who invented Christmas crackers and why Rudolph has a red nose. And how to uninvite people that you've invited around for Christmas dinner. That's a good one.

All of those questions answered in this exclusive album. It costs £2.49 and you can buy it right now from answer me this podcast.com slash christmas hi hello nolly it's max and portsmouth here i'm in london and very hungover what on earth is there to do here answer me that cheers that's a very broad question what is there to do in london and also what is there to do when hungover and what's the crossover between those two things well i've done those things in in tandem um and i would say that sleep in a park until you feel better my favorite experiences when hung over in london were okay one going up

monument really i know that's counterintuitive you have to climb it you have to yeah legs spiral staircase yeah lift um but i know that's counterintuitive because you think oh god you'd be dizzy you'd feel sick yeah but actually when you have to focus on you know when you're still a little bit drunk the next morning you have to focus on something and then when you get to the top the reward of the wind in your face and the sensational view and no one chucks you off the topic well not literally obviously but no no one there's not like time shifts on monument it's not like on the london eye you can sit there for three hours if you want if you need to puke though is there facility to do it can you projectile vomit out of the monument onto some buses by a group of french tourists yeah you're probably good yes

which would be entertaining in its own way so i'd highly recommend that that's a great suggestion my other second my second favorite thing to do when hungover in london was to go to i forget exactly what it's called now but it's a facility within the BFI on the South Bank where it's like a viewing room where you can sit for free all day with a pair of headphones on and watch Weird Archive. Wow. I have no idea about these things.

What's the matter with me? Yeah, it's really good. I've lived here for 11 years. It's called something like, not this, but something like Filmcotech, something like that. And it's a bit poncy, but it's great because no one asks any questions. You can sit there and they have these weird subcategories you know uh french pornography of the new wave 70s or

anglo-jewish comedy of the early 50s and you know it looks like it's all academic but actually you're just watching telly it's great aside from going to somewhere like a library to have a sleep or going somewhere to have a fry up something that often makes me feel better but maybe it's not a good idea when hungover is taking a riverboat because the gentle motion of the boat, it's a bit like being rocked to sleep but if you're hungover do you need that motion? No I think that's okay, a great way to see the city as well

I think again it's similar to my monument suggestion because I think the wind through your hair counteracts the movement. Fresh air, very important Failing all that, the breakfast burrito at the breakfast club in Soho Excellent. Or the other branches of the breakfast club if you're not near Soho. I can't vouch for those. I mean, I've been to them, but I haven't had the breakfast burrito in all of them.

And you know, I only want to recommend what I can absolutely vouch for. But somewhere with fresh air first, I reckon, before you attempt burrito. Fresh air and fresh eggs. Hey, me again. I should probably clarify, I'm an art student and they just kicked us out of a hostel we were staying at before we could even have a shower.

So yeah, that was really the thing. Where in London can I get a shower during the day? That'd be good. I'll see that. What's the fact that you're an art student got anything to do with you being kicked out of the hostel? Were you talking loudly about Da Vinci? They painted on the walls. They did collars with their own hair.

Maybe they were repurposing the urinals into sculptures. Don't they have showers that you can pay to use in a lot of the mainline train stations? It's something like four quid for a shower. They certainly do. Kings Cross, Paddington and Victoria. Oh, that's handy. All have shower facilities.

And I suppose that's because people go to those stations from the airports and stuff. So the idea is there are people that have been awake for like 14 hours getting there. This is a bit weird, but if you pretend to be in a group, for example, a running group, you can hire the hub,

which is a room full of showers in Regent's Park. You can hire a room full of showers? Yeah, because it's like a changing facility. That's two pounds. Two pounds for the whole room? Two pounds to hire it, yeah. So in fact, if you were just on your own, you could hire the hub for two pounds?

Well, they'd look at you a bit weirdly. You could say, oh, my friends, they're just coming, they left the towels. They're doing the sport. The group are on the way, yeah. Can I just hire it for an hour? Have a room full of showers to yourself in Regent's Park. That's a good tip.

I can't help feeling that renting a whole shower in to yourself is a bit like trying to rent a hotel room by the hour. Surely the owners will go, hmm, we've heard this one before. I think that's probably right. Although, since the owners are the Royal Parks, I wonder if they have heard that one before or if people just simply don't dare. I think if you're hiring out showers in a park,

then you don't ask questions. Me again. Just to say, we stumbled into the Natural History Museum, Chris tells me, and my mood has been a complete 180. There was a fucking giant robot eye and yeah, that's shit for Hypers.

So hang over, come to Natural History Museum. See ya. I never would have expected that the hangover crew would be seeing a giant robot eye in a museum. No, but it was good of him to keep us updated, wasn't it? Try it, listeners, if you're feeling a bit groggy after a hard night. It is an architecturally magnificent building, though, isn't it, the Natural History Museum?

I always think the things in cases are very spectacular. But actually I prefer the architecture to the dinosaurs, genuinely. I think you could put anything in there and it would look beautiful and significant. The problem about going to there though when you're hungover is the noise of the children reverberating off all those lofty walls. I think that's right. And actually even on a weekday morning, probably for a school trip or something. I got lost in the Natural History Museum once on a school trip when I was 10 or 11.

I went to look at the big whale. Who wouldn't? Exactly. And then everyone went. Did you used to hate it on school trips when they'd give you some sort of educational task in addition to the museum? Yes. Because I just used to think, actually, even though I'm only eight years old, I understand that we're learning things by being here. I'm looking at a dinosaur skeleton. You don't need to give me a questionnaire. Yeah, I don't need to colour stuff in. It's very reductive, isn't it? Yeah.

It just turns it into an acquisitive exercise rather than, you know, expanding your horizons. Go around the museum and find the gold stars. It's like, no, let me just look at this painting. This is going to infuriate you, Ollie. They did that even when we went on a school trip to Chessington World of Adventures. There's no need. How did they manage that?

I'll tell you how they managed it. By not letting us go on the rides. Really? Not at all? Just the monorail. What? And then we just had to look at the giraffes because there was the zoo bit then. That is close to sadism,

taking a group of children to Chessington World of Adventures. It's very difficult to pull off as well. Not letting them have any adventures. Chessington Closet of No Adventure, more like. Chessington World of Adventures it's very difficult to pull off as well not letting them have any adventures Chessington Closet of No Adventure more like Chessington World of Disappointment

Chessington Land of Unadventure Chessington World of Questionnaires oh I'm sorry Helen did you ever get to go on the vampire yes

when I went on trips there with my friend whose parents had split up so she got taken there a lot by each side divorce friend win

yeah if you've got a question email it in to Martin the sound man Holly and Helen answer me this podcast at googlemail.com Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com

So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's round 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 Retrospecters. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.

Time for a magical question from Ryan in Melbourne, Australia. That's right, what was that? Magical noise. You wouldn't actually make that noise if you went to see Paul Daniels live, would you? No, because I wouldn't go to see Paul Daniels. It might recoil in horror, similar sound. Ryan says, Helen

asked me this, how did playing cards become synonymous with stage magic? Well, you could say that also white rabbits and hats had become synonymous with stage magic. If, say, you were doing a clip art thing to express stage magic, you could choose any of those elements. The woman torn in half? A bit fancier. Still synonymous with magiciansians though, isn't it?

You don't see it generally outside of stage magic context without it being a horrific crime. Nonetheless, see what it means. Cards do form an interestingly large portion of magicians' repertoires, doesn't it, even now? Well, I think that is a fairly rational thing to happen because

there are so many variables and yet it's a common object that people recognize but it becomes magical in the correct hands people understand the odds don't they one in 52 chance yeah i'm guessing my card and and yet those 52 things are small enough to do sleight of hand with yes do they still do much card magic though magicians because david blaine just seems to do self-sacrifices and everyone else does fancy stunts don't they uh they do but even the likes of um dynamo will do a ridiculously extravagant where he gets shot by the card in his chest and then it comes out in his poo trick but it still

involves a card right because there is that still that thing everyone understands what the pictures mean they understand the chances the odds yeah they also can't actually inspect the prop in the same way as when you say, look at this knife. Is it a real knife? I mean, that clearly is or isn't a real knife. Whereas with a pack of cards, look at the cards. Are they real or not? Well, you're dealing them, mate.

You're the magician. They're probably a trick pack of cards, aren't they? But I'm not going to look through every single card and I don't know how to deal them to make them a trick pack. So I can't tell you. So I think there's that element as well. And also I suppose it's the tradition, isn't it? I mean, magicians, they tend to be boys.

They tend to be quite geeky boys when they're younger who spend many, many hours in their childhood bedrooms trying to be David Blaine or David Copperfield or Houdini or whoever it is. And therefore I think that it's inevitable that when they grow up and have their own magical stage shows, they're going to want to do playing card tricks. I'd imagine for a teenage boy,

it's a bit easier to emulate David Blaine staying in a box, mortifying his own flesh for a long time than it is being David Copperfield and making huge buildings disappear. Yeah, but David Copperfield does card tricks too. Does he? Yeah, I went to see David Copperfield this year.

Yeah, yeah. He was very good actually. No Does he? Yeah, I went to see David Copperfield this year. Yeah, yeah. He was very good, actually. No, really? I was in Vegas and I was like, well, you know, when in Rome... Oh, hold on, I'm not in Rome. That's the themed hotel up the road. When at the MGM Grand, obviously one should go and see David Copperfield because it's that kind of place.

It's like, see him or share. But I mean, let's not fuck around and pretend we're here to see art. And it would have been amazing if he'd gone to see it and it had just been somebody reading the book David Copperfield on a chair on a massive stage. Simon Callow's one-man show. Just him reading for four days. No, it wasn't that.

It was a good archetypal Vegas show to go and see. Because he has got that kind of ultra-tanned 90s cheese. Exactly. That you would still tolerate in Vegas for loads of money where you wouldn't elsewhere, right? And it's the kind of show as well where you can appreciate the artistry that's gone on in designing it

and yet it's still fundamentally cheesy and you can actually drink whilst watching it and not feel guilty. So I went to see it, but I went to see it thinking, not tongue in cheek, but thinking I'm going to see someone who was famous 20 years ago.

I bet this is a bit rubbish but has a few good illusions in it. And although that was broadly speaking correct. The illusion is that his hair is still as thick as it was when he was a boy well i have to say that was part of it part of it was i was impressed by the way he looked he didn't look like he'd had loads of work done and he was really washed up he actually looked like a sort of a gracefully aged 50 something which i was really genuinely shocked by and he actually did a lot of audience interaction which i guess i suppose always was part of his act but if you only see him on telly you assume he's going to be really celebby about it yeah but actually a lot of his act involved talking to the audience and riffing with them and actually he seemed like a decent guy as well i know

you can't really tell that too much but you probably need all that audience badinage to pad out the actual trickery oh so much badinage my god i mean in the whole 90 minute show there was like saying ross noble with a couple of amazing illusions essentially there were yeah i'd say there were three sort of staggering illusions right as in cars appearing out of nowhere and you know things blowing up and stuff cars not cards uh cars yes right like a whole jeep appears on stage at one minute and stuff like that okay so that that kind of thing's cool and then i would say three kind of tricks that if you went to go and see a mid-range magician would be the end of their act

but when you see david copperfield you're like yeah well that's good yeah it's an album track from david copperfield yeah exactly and then three pretty rubbish close-up card tricks oh really i was like he doesn't need to do card tricks but it's that thing that when you go and see a magician you sort of expect it and what they had obviously is they had cameras so you could see on the screen what he was doing but actually i did wonder whether the person that he was doing it with was just a plant and because most of the audience were watching it on the screen the screen could actually be a pre-recorded vt of what's in his hands. And actually he could just be talking to an actor. And I thought, since that could be the trick,

this is a really bad trick to do. But maybe it's because they know that with all these extraordinary illusions that are very televisual, you want to show people that you've still got it when it comes to the close-up stuff. Although evidently he didn't do that. He inspired your cynicism.

I think that's right though, isn't it? It's true that you've still got the chops and it's not all about camera trickery. Although I like an illusion. I like a good illusion that I didn't see coming. That is you know i was even though it was cheesy i was clapping spontaneously when that happened couldn't help it but the thing is that the narrative of a card trick the second someone brings out a deck of playing cards you know that it's going to end with them finding your card or so it's not a surprise when it happens ever or there'll be the misdirection

where they were like your card was the jack of clubs and you go no it wasn't it was a seven of diamonds and they go ah and then they show that they've had the seven of diamonds tattooed on their chest exactly when you were watching the illusions were you actually gobsmacked were you just thinking well i'm pretty sure i know how he did this because i'm very credulous when it comes to tricks i never know how they're done uh i was slightly ruined for me by the fact that um i'd seen the uh the masked magician that series on sky one no tonight the mass magician will reveal the tricks but again this is david copperfield's fault for not changing his show for 20 years in that show and i'd forgotten all about it until i saw the thing being reenacted on stage in front of me and they showed how one of his most famous illusions happens it's the one where he goes through a giant uh blade of

a fan so there's a giant fan on stage that wouldn't work with a dyson air blade would it i'll just pop right through no problem uh there's a giant sort of i guess i'm at like 30 foot diameter fan on stage and it's spinning it's all very dramatic and he does the michael bolton wind in the hair thing and it's all very 80s and very like you know does he have a very floaty shirt as well yeah he's got the floaty shirt kind of christ-like pose with yeah it's sort of um uh kind of earth song era michael jackson that's the stage that's what i'm saying yeah so you've conjured up that in my mind a lot of purple um and so that's all happening on stage and his assistants who are also doing this funny sort of mime dance thing all come on with these panes of um sort of tracing paper I suppose in

frames yeah and they slot it around the giant fan so that eventually you've got a kind of stairway up to the giant fan made out of tracing paper so that when they project it from behind you see the silhouette of david copperfield walk up to the fan and then walk through the fan and you think where is he is he dead what's happened to him and then he turns up at the back of the theater i was here all along at the back of the theater which is pretty good right because you've just seen him on stage two seconds before does that mean he's had a look-alike minced up yes having seen masked magician reveals the tricks i knew what was going to happen so i looked out for it and so i saw the moment when david copperfield

carrying one of these tracing paper pain things walks off the stage to be replaced by his look alike holding it over his face but wearing otherwise identikit clothes slotting into place his silhouette going into the fan so I was looking for David Copperfield to come into the theatre and I saw the moment because we were sitting in the back in the cheap seats

I saw the moment where the usher came in with a man with a blanket over his head with a torch into the middle of the and of course everyone else was watching the stage

but I was looking for it so I saw it and actually when you see it it's so pedestrian and unmagical seeing just a middle aged man with a blanket over his head and then but what was clever is how the usher managed to remove the blanket and then somehow make himself very scared yeah but you might not have even noticed if david

copfield had come in without a blanket on his head because you wouldn't have been looking for an unusual person if he'd come in dressed as an usher yeah so you would have just thought he was part of the furniture effectively that's true you're trained not to notice people in uniform he still would have had to have only had 20 seconds to get changed into an usher's outfit stripper uniform type usher uniform i mean that was the thing actually in a way what was the most impressive thing about it was he still none i saw the moment he swapped on stage and he only had about 20 seconds to get from the stage to the back of the theater so what you've learned is that he's a good runner he's good on his feet yeah maybe he's got a segue to take him around the

corridors um so really they're just playing to the expensive seats. Cheap seats, they don't get the illusions. Well, that's America for you, isn't it? 2013 is nearly at an end So I need to make money to buy Christmas gifts for friends Last year I got them all socks and they had to pretend That I'm not a stingy bitch. Well this year

why not try to make some money online build a store through squarespace.com and perhaps tap a gold mine and with the dosh you can buy everyone a crate of red wine or milk for the kids kids love milk

Yes, big thanks to squarespace.com for supporting this episode of answer me this thank you uh and also big special thanks to alan who works for squarespace in dublin uh with whom i had a live chat the other day how lovely i was asking a lot of boring questions about file formats and then he was like leave me alone ollie let me get on with my work after about 20 minutes of my incessant boring questions he was like but by the way i really like your show all the time hi alan so there you go exemplifying the great thing about squarespace live chat support in dublin and new york that is extremely tolerant of boring questions from ollie mann but also the kind of people work there who are answer me this listeners through and through so by squarespace supporting the show

they're giving alan something to listen to and thus cheering up his life and making him a better Squarespace employee well for all I know he could have been listening to us whilst he was advising me on tech support because of course it was all done through live chat I don't think anyone could deal with Ollyman in stereo no well listeners if you fancy a bit of Squarespace action yourself then you can have it at a discount price if you enter the code ANSWER11 if you want to buy their web building services. And also, if you have built a Squarespace website, then please let us know about it by tweeting us the link with the hashtag AMTSQUARESPACE.

And then we will choose our favourite and that person will have their free trial extended for a year's worth of full subscription to the Squarespace service. Nice point, yeah. Here's a question from Heather in Newcastle who says, my eldest daughter is about to give birth any day now, so

I'm going to become a grandmother for the first time. Isn't that nice? That is nice. Yeah. She says, I want to be a good grandmother. Good! She doesn't want to be one of those shit grandmothers. No. She wants to be a good one. Doesn't want to be a demon grandmother. And my husband, he wants to be a good grandfather. Well, you seem

like a very well-matched pair i think you've got the basics there actually already uh because she says helen answer me this what do you think makes good grandparents and i think that's quite important isn't it the desire to be a good grandparent that's such a sweet question it is a sweet question i think uh you have two different focuses one of them is the child and one of them is the parents of the child and they have quite different priorities i think for the child you want to be the fun person that does things with them that are a bit out of the ordinary so it's special time with grandparents like taking them swimming or uh yes my grandparents always used to do like a weird diorama in their cellar for for bonfire night

full of like candles and weird decorations and frogs and stuff the frogs were just there anyway but they made it seem like a fun thing um just really wanted to make sure you hated catholics right from a young age but i think that's right i think it's important that the time is special rather than the time is uh lavishly expensive i think grandparents often confuse that don't they there's competition especially between maternal and paternal grandparents to buy the best present. Oh gosh, yes.

And that's not important. Well. It can just be something cheap like taking them to a council swimming pool or a library. It's just got to be your thing you do.

Playing board games as well because often the parents of the child are too busy or too tired. Yeah. But that financial restraint actually I think is important in being a good grandparent

for your children, the child's parents because I think it's important not to muscle in too much i think it depends on the child some of them will be really dependent on you and your advice because they'll be panicking but i think offer it when it is asked for don't give unsolicited advice but i have no grandparents anymore ollie you still have an incredible grandma grandma terry what is it that makes answer me this 200 yeah yeah what what is it about terry though that makes her such a top-notch grandma uh well see that's slightly

unfair question because not everyone can do this what what she does which is impressive is she becomes more liberal as she gets older and that's unusual she does a lot doesn't she she still does a lot there's a very active there's a world as well of bridge and dating yes and is she seeing anybody social networking she is yes brian how is quite a catch is he he is is he your new grandpa no he's not but actually i think it shows how modern she is that that isn't even part of the discussion is she's just grandma's boyfriend i don't want to settle down boyfriend how old is he uh he is a toy boy He's 81 Wow Yeah

Racey Yeah No but he's What's he like? He's very tall and debonair He's got a very sort of Rich melted butter type voice Yeah

Does he always have An excellent jacket and shirt? Yeah Like very crisp He's fun That's what he is He's someone that probably She wouldn't have felt

She could have settled down with In the first She's someone that frankly Frankly She clearly finds more sexually attractive than my grandfather. Yeah, but her grandfather... But she wouldn't necessarily have been married to him for 50 years. Your grandfather gave her family life. Yes.

Now it's the time of her life that she wants to be footloose. Yeah. But I think also, actually, anecdotes about the past as well. And because, you know, the cliche about grandparents, you know, Uncle Albert sitting in the rocking chair and only fools and horses banging on about the war, is that if you sit there crapping on about your old life it's boring actually it's not boring if you tell an interesting story and that doesn't have to be that doesn't

have to have an incredible twist or be a misery memoir about child abuse it just has to be vividly recalled evoking a time i know kids aren't interested in this but teenagers genuinely i think a lot of them if they switched on and their interest in history are interested in like for example my grandma telling me about when she first saw my grandpa across a ballroom during wartime and you know she was 19 and she was a virgin and she'd like petitioned her parents so that she could go out to this ball and then she saw him and their eyes locked exactly what her parents did not want to happen and i think a month later they were engaged

or something ridiculous. That was in the style of time. I just, you know, that stuff's captivating if told well. That's lovely. However, when I asked my grandparents

about interesting times of their lives, for instance, Grandad, what did you do behind the iron curtain? Complete stonewalling. And Granny destroyed all the paperwork

of mysterious work that they did around wartime. Yeah, well, if there's a government contract insisting that they do that, Helen, it's a bit difficult to break it for the grandchildren, isn't it? I often wonder what it is that my nieces and nephews see in my father, their grandfather. Because he is not hands-on at all.

He views the children with somewhat irritated tolerance, as long as they let him watch the rugby in peace but he doesn't really interact with them much what do they make of him i can't work it out i don't know but i think as a senior man as a senior jewish man in particular actually you're allowed to get away with fulfilling that archetype in a way that i think is actually unjustifiable my own father does this too you know if you live your life as if grumpy old men isn't a comedy but actually a documentary um then everyone's just like oh he's a grumpy old man ha ha and you can get away with stuff which women aren't allowed to i think it's not on actually well but there you go my mum i think

is a very good grandmother i think she was always anxious that she wasn't a full-on grandmother and so now both of my sisters-in-law seem crazy for my mum to be involved yes well well see now this is it i think there's a third person you need to bear in mind uh in addition to the child and the parents yes and that's yourself yes uh ultimately the grandchild is going to be part of the menagerie of people who are choosing your old folks home so you know bear that in mind it's it's it's not your primary motivation and it'll be obvious if you if you make it clear that it is but in the back of your mind you've got to be thinking ultimately these people you know they're going to inherit what i own yeah and also they're going to decide where i die yeah think about that think

about that before you get a really shit present nice, thanks for putting a sad Paul on these things Also storytelling I think is important Not if it's not your natural gift Oh my god, I wish I had not Over-recorded these when I was little My grandfather recorded himself reading the Just So stories And he had such a great Soothing voice

And then when I was a teenager I probably recorded the chart show over it What idiot! What you choose to record over it is the embarrassing thing I'm it i've actually got grandpa matt uh telling the stories of fish tale and percival right who were these two characters that he'd invented oh now i'm sure that if i listen back to them now and i'd like to because i'd like to hear his voice again but i never have for 20 years because i suspect they'd be shit but at the time i thought they were incredible and he was better than everyone on Jackanory and I now realized that actually the fact that he was recording them on

cassette at all wasn't in fact so that I could have them for posterity it was to shut me up because he'd tell me a story and he'd go Oliver be quiet because we can record the story very clever technique that's another technique to bear in mind then when you're a grandparent have an arsenal of tricks to shut a child up well we're going to shut up now but if you would like to contribute a question to next week's show then all of our contact details are on our website answermethispodcast.com

and add slash christmas to that url if you want to get our christmas album because not only do you get an hours worth of fun and jollity about Christmas but also you're supporting the show if you buy it. Absolutely right. And this is the time of year

frankly where you need to be getting in the mood for Christmas. It may not seem like it. It may seem like the year's gone in a flash but get on it now otherwise you'll just be miserable. You'll just be Scrooge and this album will help you along. Scrooge probably wouldn't have bought it would he? He's Scrooge. Well he's tight with money isn't he Scrooge? He is. So he, would he? He's Scrooge. Well, he's tight with money, isn't he, Scrooge? He is.

So he wouldn't want to shell out £2.49. £2.49, that's cheaper than a candle for Bob Cratchit. That's right, Mr Cratchit, it certainly is. So thanks for that in advance, and we shall see you next week. Bye!