Answer Me This! - AMT296: The Great British Bake Off, Ballet and Gromit

Episode Date: August 21, 2014

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Is Boris's true ambition to be king of the planet? Has to be this! Has to be this! Why is Ottolenghi's food all garnished with pomegranate? Has to be this! Has to be this! Helen and Ollie, has to be this! Now, last episode we were considering how many people catch a bouquet at a wedding and then actually get married as a direct consequence have loads of people written in saying i caught the bouquet and as a direct consequence of that wouldn't have

happened if i hadn't caught the bouquet i got married they haven't although even if they had i'd be dubious because i think there has to be a clear statute of limitations here what is that well i think really you've got to say did you catch the bouquet and then within a year become proposed to i think if you're saying, yeah, I caught a bouquet and 20 years later, I met the man of my dreams. I mean, you might as well say, yeah, everyone who catches the bouquet will at some point die. Anyway, it turns out there is more than meets the eye

to these misogynist bum fights. Wayne in Cambridge has written in to say, I recently attended a wedding where the bride threw her bouquet. Before the event, though, there was a lot of talk amongst the female half of the wedding party about fixing the throw. No! Controversial, isn't it? Why? I know. This is the kind of thing that should never

be made public. You're the Edward Snowden of bouquet throwing. They wanted to fix the throw so that one of the bride's sisters caught the bouquet. She wanted her boyfriend to ask her to marry him, and they thought that if this sister caught the bouquet, then social pressure would force him to pop the question. Because that is such a romantic reason to ask someone to marry.

Social pressure. Social pressure, bouquet-based. It's the thing people always say, isn't it, in the wedding speech. First met across a crowded room, but it was really social pressure that brought us together. Yeah, we'll never look back. And also if this man is uh not inclined to propose anyway i'm not sure the bouquet toss would make him think oh actually i've had a complete about turn there was a lot of planning continues wayne and the bride let fly unfortunately the bouquet flew straight over the waiting girls i didn't plan properly did you put it up a net or something. And into the arms of a young girl

standing at the back of the hall. Did she get married? Yes, well, someone now must obviously marry her because that is social pressure. Can't leave her hanging. I must admit, says Wayne, that I thought the idea of them trying to fix a blind throw was quite amusing.

Well, listeners, I know you've been waiting on tenterhooks since the last episode of Answer Me This to find out the results of who's got better legs from knee to foot okay ollie or martin can i just say before you reveal the results and i don't i genuinely don't know you've been collating the data right yes okay martin do you know so the audience have been impartially voting on who they think has got better legs but

may i just say and i'm not criticizing you helen i'm just saying it's a fact it's not a good photo the photo you put up of our legs although i'm happy with the way my leg looked in the photo and I think is representative of the shape and definition that I am proud of in my legs. Yeah. I don't like the fact that the picture includes our feet, because I'm just going to concede now, if I've lost, Martin does have better feet than I. Oh, thank you. I wasn't saying that I had good feet, I was saying I had shapely legs.

I was very specific on that point. Right, right. I think some people are voting for Martin because they like his feet. That's nice, actually, and I appreciate that. I mean, looking at that photo, I thought both of our legs look pretty nice, actually. No, I've got better legs than you. Well, I know you would say that, but you're wrong. If you want to see this photo while I deliver the verdict, go to answermethispodcast.com slash legs. People have said such things about your legs as I wouldn't kick either pair out of bed. Very flattering. That's nice, thank you. I'd have both.

He just likes to have pairs of legs in bed with them, detached from the bodies. He's a bit Louis Vuitton now, isn't he? I'd have both and lick golden syrup off either. Saucy. Really? Neither are good, but the leg on the right is the best of a sorry pair. Fuck that guy. Left wins best ladies, right wins best mans.

So I can reveal now that the legs on the left belong to Martin that the legs on the left belong to Martin and the legs on the right belong to Ollie. See? See that shapely definition? And by the way, I wasn't tensing to people who say that I'm tensing and trying to show off that definition. That's just natural muscle that's there. You haven't had implants or anything.

Exactly. You can get them. They're all a procedure. Martin's the one who's just got an absolutely straight leg. I've got a picturesque line, mate. It's like Heather Mills is standing there with me. I'm like a fucking Coke bottle. Do you want to hear who is the winner? I think the world wants to hear, Ellen. There was a 60-40

split in leg preference and the winner of the leg off, Ollie's legs! But a lot of people like the right legs. Are they Martin's? Yeah. Isn't it interesting that I think people maybe voted for them because they thought they might be martins yeah and they didn't like your foot pose you gave really bad foot so as i say i'm not claiming to have better feet but um but yeah i'm

glad that the audience has voted for my legs impartially and they're right they're right to do so uh so which body part do you want to compare this episode i think ballsack is the obvious next step all right i'll post a photo answering this podcast.com slash no thanks. Hello, Helen and Holly and Martin. It's Rebecca from Letchworth. Please, please answer me this because it's been bugging me for ages. What breed of dog is Gromit from Wallace and Gromit?

Is he a beagle? He is a beagle. Did you just... I thought he was a beagle. I thought he was the ear shape and the snout. Actually, what are they still doing? Because I haven't seen any of their work since Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Which was great, wasn't it? I can't remember. It was dead good, that, I think. I think I went with our friend

who had just broken up with someone, so he was quietly crying around the screening. Okay. At the storyline, because there's obviously a a love love interest i don't think he was paying attention to the film okay that's a shame but what they've been doing since then is um a couple of spin-off like bbc series for kids some of them are animated like normal drawn animation aren't they well of course the problem is i mean and nick park's been quite open about this they've time consuming exactly they've always refused even offers from American telly for millions of dollars

to make a proper, you know, 10 part, 30 minute series or even a 15 minute series because it takes so long that that would be years of work. It's not worth it.

So yeah, the series that they do are kind of like teaching kids about science or something like that. So you get like a two minutes worth of Wallace and Gromit

and then, you know, actors or cartoons or whatever. What does Wallace know about science? Well, he's an inventor. Yeah, but he's an idiot.

He's a bit ramshackle. He's a try it and see if it works kind of guy. He's not an idiot. He built a rocket in his back garden that took him to the moon safely and back again. He's an idiot. That's something that took NASA years. Yeah, but he ate part of the moon, Martin. Well, of course he would.

Yeah, Buzz Aldrin probably did as well. You would. You would, absolutely. Where are the crackers? Me and Armstrong. But the other Absolutely. Where are the crackers, me and Armstrong? But the other thing they've done, actually, is they've opened a ride

at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Oh, cool. Yeah. The bleakest place on earth. Yeah. Well, if anything was going to get me going back to Blackpool,

it would be to ride the Wallace and Gromit ride, which looks decent. It costs 5.25 million pounds to build. Okay. I thought you were going to say it costs 5.25 pounds to go on. I thought that was a very odd way to say that. It probably £5.25 million to build. I thought you were going to say it costs £5.25 to go on. I thought that was a very odd way to say that.

It probably is about that. It's more like a Disney ride in that it's not got many thrills and spills. It's a slow-moving ride around the history of Wallace and Gromit told in animatronic form. That's cool. Sounds fun. Actually, they could easily have a Legoland-style Aardmanland. Totally. That would be quite great.

It would be good yeah yeah but again i suppose more expensive and time consuming than simply licensing your brand to someone who's going to develop one ride for you here's a question from drew helen answer me this why is sleep often referred to as kip as in i'm going off for a kip yes that is how that word is used that's right do you use it naturally it's not one of those slangs that it's unacceptable to use because it's so put on it's like you're in a Guy Ritchie film. No, that's right, yeah.

It's one that we would say a bit. Something that the Cockanies say that we would say too. God bless them. Kip is the grid leveller. Kip is also the unit of currency in Laos. I was interested to read and it also means the hide of young animals.

But it used to mean a tavern or a brothel places where you would go and lie down in a bed because taverns people used to stay over in them and uh eventually it just came to mean the act of sleeping that you would have done in those places lost the meaning of having sex with prostitutes yeah well generally but i suppose euphemistically people could say i'm going for a kip with their partner and and actually that's really what they're up to yes you know excuse themselves from a party time to get some kip ho ho i don't think going for a kip with their partner and actually that's really what they're up to. Yes. You know, excuse themselves from a party. Time to get some kip. Ho ho.

I don't think you go for a kip at a party. I don't mean literally as the party continues. I mean, I was imagining dinner party here where you're staying over, for example. Or, you know, you're in a hotel bar. Time to get some kip. But actually you're going to go upstairs and fuck. I think that's an incidental application.

I'm just saying it can happen. Yes, of course. Yes. Yes, kipping can still mean that. Yes. Like, oh, I'm off for a kip and then you go down to the nearest whorehouse. You've got a question.

Email your question to 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 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. Here's a question from Rick in Manchester who says, I was lucky enough to receive a gift of Kendall mint cake from my mother-in-law recently. Sounds amazing. Yeah. She must like you.

Apart from tasting pretty vile, he says, it doesn't really taste like that green mint stuff growing in my garden either. So Helen asked me this. Do they use actual mint in the production of Kendall Mint Cake? And if not, what the frig is it? It's peppermint oil. It's an extract of mint, presumably.

Yeah, exactly. Whoa, whoa, whoa. How do they make that? Because, I ask this because, for example, I use chilli oil on my cooking. Yes. Here's how I make chilli oil. Chilli and oil.

You put some chillies and some olive oil. No. In January, I go to the Christmas sales and I get a half-price Oaxaca gift selection of chilli oil. You're a winner at life which you can buy in boots for £10 but in January

it's a fiver I only eat things I buy in boots she says frothing at the mouth it's great if you just drop a couple of Nurofen in it's delish

but anyway Oaxaca for pudding and then I top it up with olive oil throughout the year so that my oil becomes infused with the chilli that's in there but I didn't know if what it was really right from the beginning up with olive oil throughout the year so that my oil becomes infused with the chili that's in there but I didn't know if what it was really right from the beginning was just

olive oil and chili is that really all it is there's no essence going on they've just put some chilies in some oil well there's capsaicin and that's a waxy substance so you need an oil to draw that out really see I had no idea what he just said it's what he said's right oil got chili in it Ollie how do you make mint oil do you just put mint in oil that's my question no it's a more sophisticated process to extract the oils that are in the plant So it's like the oil that comes off on your fingers when you rub the plant together? Yeah, it's the extract In fact, Kendall Mint Cake is a very pure product

The only ingredients are sugar, glucose, obviously that is refined That's sugar, yeah Water and peppermint oil It's all sugar though, isn't it? Yeah, and did I mention sugar? A fuckload of sugar Yeah, but and water, healthy water It's almost impossible to avoid water in foodstuffs, isn't it? And did I mention sugar? A fuckload of sugar. Yeah, but and water, healthy water. It's almost impossible to avoid water in foodstuffs, isn't it? It's possible actually that people listening to this around the world

have not heard of candle mint cake. Right. Because as parochial disgusting foodstuffs go, it does travel. I mean, of course. But probably most of our listeners in the USA, for example, won't have heard of it. Well, it's like tablet outside of Scotland isn't really available. What is tablet?

Tablet is like Kendall Mint Cake Without the mint Oh god even worse What's a just sugar then? Well it's sort of like Fudge but I think A bit less

Condensed milky All fudge can go Fuck itself You've made your feelings On fudge known before It's worth saying again And the fudge is busy Fucking itself in the corner

Yeah Kendall Mint Cake Is like Oh yeah that It's like a little brick Made out of sugar It's like a peppermint cream If a little brick made out of sugar. It's like a peppermint cream, if you've ever made one of those. Or like fondant out of the middle of a cream egg that's gone hard. And the branding was very clever because all along they've sort of suggested that it has medicinal qualities.

They say if you're stuck up a mountain like in Kendall, where it's from, then you can have this sugar boost. And that's the branding that still now people associate with it. This is because obviously it's a very compact source of calories but when Sir Edmund Hillary did his successful expedition to the top of Everest in 1953 he took Kendall Mincake with him

and after that it was the Mountaineers' celebrated food of choice. But you know, I don't know. When Olympic swimmers won their gold they came to the podium wearing Beats earphones. It doesn't mean the two things are connected,

is it? It's just product placement. Here's a Kendall Mintcake fact that I think you will enjoy. In New York, customs banned Kendall Mintcake

because they said a product called cake had to have cake in it and so... Keeping America safe. A shipload of Kendall Mintcake was dumped in the

Atlantic in the 50s. No, really? Yeah. Was that the famous Boston Kendall Mint Cake party? The New York Mint Party. And yet they're able to sell Coca-Cola there as a vegetable drink. I mean, this is the ridiculous double standards.

Other fun Kendall Mint Cake fact. It was one of those foodstuffs that came about by accident because in 1800 and something, someone was trying to make Glacier Mints in Kendall, you know, those those clear boiled sweets and left it on the stove too long and it turned into Kendall mint cake but then presumably obviously at that point

didn't have chocolate wrapped around it no chocolate is a later addition to the canonical mint cake but do most of them now get sold with chocolate around it no there's white mint cake which is made from white sugar brown mint cake which is made of brown sugar and then chocolate enrobed mint cake here's another made from white sugar, brown mint cake, which is made of brown sugar, and then chocolate-enrobed mint cake.

Here's another question of cake now from Amy and Simon in Ealing. They say, during our recent holiday to Cornwall, we had four afternoon teas. On one day. Yeah, I think not knowing how long you were there for is, you know, making it difficult to judge whether that's just excessive. So Helen asked me this. Who eats all the leftover cake

at the end of the filming of The Great British Bake Off? We were defeated by even a small assortment of cakes and scones. Despite both of us having like... That's right, I say scones. Yeah, I say scones. Deal with it. We're scones people here. Despite both of us having large appetites, we just couldn't manage it.

Simon thinks the crew eat the cake. Makes sense. But in the first episode of the new series of The Great British Bake Off, there were 36 tiny cakes per contestant and there were 12 contestants. 36 times 12. Is it 432?

I think that they give the cakes to the stately home. So, Helen, answer me this. Who eats all the cake? Crew. The crew there is massive. It's over 60 people because you've not only got the normal tv crew of like producers assistant producers researchers runners runners who've been sent to

the supermarket to pick up more ingredients sound light makeup people doing the washing up paramedics health and safety they've got six cameras which is a lot for that kind of show they've also got home economists on the team because they need to be backstage like checking everything works like you've got to have people who know how to make tv programs and also people who know how the food works they're also filming over a weekend so there are dozens of people working i reckon they could get through those cakes so i think the greater question is how do paul hollywood and mary berry face eating like the contestants they're making sort of three different challenges each. So how do they face tasting 36 or more cake samples?

She's tiny. How does she eat 36 cakes a weekend and stay so slim? Do you think she's got cake bulimia? Is that what you're saying? No. It's possible, isn't it? No, I think she's just got mind over matter honed to the extent that the cake

is not going to dare stay on her bones. Is it like whiskey tasting where they just spit the cake into a bin afterwards? If it was, I'd rather watch that. Jeremy Berry shooting cake at a target with her mouth. Yes, that's what the spin-off show presented by Joe Brand should be. On the one hand, I can see the argument that it's a great temptation to be around cake all weekend,

be filming cake and thinking, oh, I want a bit of that, and as soon as it's finished, you're going to think, right, I'm going to eat that bloody cake now. On the other hand, actually, if you're around that much cake, it probably loses its lure, a bit like working on pornography. It gets a bit samey and as soon as it's finished you're gonna think right i'm gonna eat that bloody cake now on the other hand actually if you're around that much cake it probably loses its lure a bit like working on pornography you know people say that same isn't it yeah when you're working on pornography exactly do you know what i mean you're not in the mood for anything sugary well i find when i've been cooking a lot i don't want any of it i just want to be far away from it maybe because the smells already create the experience somewhat

it's like people who work in a sweet shop, you know, tend not to eat sweets for fun. Well, because otherwise they'd be dead. But I just don't think it's that implausible that most of the cake would get eaten and some of the crew would take bits home and some of it would get thrown away. And some of the contestants would take bits home. You know, you've just been there all day. You want to say, mum, this is what I've been doing this weekend. Try my cake.

The contestants must eat a bit of each other's cakes so they can slug them off backstage. I mean, they're all, they've been through an auditioning process to see these are people who are really into cake. You know, of anyone, if you're going to choose a sample group of people who might want to eat cake after making cake, it's those people. Imagine if you turned up and they said,

so, do you like cake? And you went, yeah, it's all right. Yeah. Now, you're actually getting into this series of GBBO, as I refuse to call it, because I'm not a prick. Well, I've only seen one episode so far, but I've foresworn it the previous few series because I like shows like Ace of Cakes

where they're making a massive, really intricate animatronic cake. Yeah. That's difficult. I could not do that. Correct. Bake Off, hitherto, they've been making just ordinary cakes. And I think, well, where's the mystery in that? I'm capable of that.

Whereas now they're doing things that are a lot fancier and I think, all right, they've been making just ordinary cakes. And I think, well, where's the mystery in that? I'm capable of that. Whereas now they're doing things that are a lot fancier. And I think, all right, they've got some game. Cake for me is something where I don't want the mystery explained. To me, it's a bit like the masked magician. You know, I want cake to be a thing that I casually eat. I think, oh, fancy a bit of cake. Now, I don't want to think about the work that goes into it. That doesn't make it taste better to me.

No, to me, cakes and also close-up magic and stunts are not diminished by knowing how they're done if anything my wonder only increases by knowing the process i was with all of those cases you want to replicate the process i'm very good at stunts i personally can't bear the show i mean i've not sat and tried to watch it properly is it all the pastel colors and the bunting it's the unbearable mock drama of it all the unbearable lightness of baking that would be a good alternative. And the awful music.

There's this piece of music that crap TV uses, which is just like one chord, which is meant to generate tension. It's the tension. And I don't have any tension. Will Clare's brownie ride. Don't care. Don't care.

It's just a brownie. No one's going to die. Brownies are easy. It's living that's hard. Apparently Mel and Sue, they're keeping an eye on the contestants because they can get a bit blind to the task they're doing which is just making cakes it's not important enough to cry and have a breakdown over so if someone's looking a bit breakdown-y

they'll go up to them and swear a lot so that the footage of them talking to them doesn't make it onto the show so it's like having a private conversation but in the middle of this live shoot that's a good that's a good technique um Have you ever bought something specifically because you've seen an ingredient be used on a cookery programme? Absolutely not. If anything, that would make me think, pfft, too predictable to say that. It's over.

It's like when I was a teenager and I was like, I'm not going to listen to music that other people I know have heard of. Yeah. Well, this is the thing with Great British Bake Off now being on BBC One. They're talking about it in terms of the Delia effect. You know, when Delia first used cranberries, they went off the shelves or whatever, or North Wales sea sea salt there was an omelette frying pan that disappeared off the shelves yeah they're saying and they're saying this they they the pr person for the great

british make-up yeah is saying this year dried raspberries is it freeze-dried raspberry and strawberry powder powder yeah because apparently the first time they had to get freeze-dried raspberries for one of the contestants they had to pick them out of a box of Special K because you couldn't buy them in isolation. I mean, I suppose it's nice that it does widen people's experience of how they cook, but it is kind of a bit sad that everyone wants to do it just because it's been on the telly all at the same time.

Everyone wants to join in, though. Everyone wants to join in with things. I don't. Apart from Helen, yeah. Surely you'd want to be a part of Mary Berry's lemon curd surge, though. Is that the after watershed version she used it on her tv series apparently and there was a surge in lemon curd purchasing

hashtag curd surge well I'm no longer so worried about rising sea levels on that delightful note it's time to take a little tea break with today's intermission from answer me this episode 169 available along with all our other archive episodes and albums and stuff from answer me this store.com angel says regarding the wax works in madam two swords uh two swords pride themselves on almost 100 accuracy if they could they could breathe, they would be real. But Helen, answer me this. Does that mean to swords mould everything, even the genitals?

Oh, yes. And after normal opening hours, you can go back there and they take all of the statues' pants off and you can have a little go. I wonder if that would increase corporate bookings you know if you consider stride johnny depp i know that with men they have a special uniform mold where their private parts would be so that the trousers hang properly so every celebrity in madame two swords has the same sized penis michael jackson george w bush johnny depp they've all got the same number that's a wonderful sort of... Democratic. Utopia, isn't it?

Isn't it, yeah. Where everyone's just the same. Same size penis, same size balls. It's less interesting than actually seeing the true variety of shape and size. The diaspora, if you will, of celebrity genitalia. Well, stick this in your pipe. It's a question from Skype. Someone has dialed answer me this using Skype.

Or equally, they could have called us if they had the number to do that would be this. Question from Skype. Someone has dialed answer me this using Skype. Or equally, they could have called us if they had the number to do that would be this. And let's see what they've said. Let's hear what they've said, Ollie. And let's hear what they've said. It's David, originally from London, but now in ridiculously sunny Moscow. Last night, I went to see a wonderful ballet production of The Nutcracker, and it left me with a fairly, I suppose, obvious question, which is why did ballet develop as an art form? I mean, I can understand how we went from spoken stories to written stories, things like plays and films and obviously TV and podcasts.

But how did ballet in itself come about as an art form? A lot of things happened, David, before people had telly to entertain them. And this is just one of those. Yeah, but it still goes on now doesn't it people very into their dance not many it has to be said that's the thing it's marginal and it's so expensive but it's well okay so difficult to do aren't both of those things slightly untrue though like it's marginal sort of but then if you look at things like Cirque du Soleil which are the biggest tourist attraction in Vegas and tour their shows all over the world and not ballet or well

or you look at something like so you think You Can Dance or Britain's Got Talent. Not ballet. Well, you say not ballet. There are elements of ballet incorporated into it, aren't there? Elements. Yeah. So it's not completely marginalised and uninteresting to people. Uninteresting to me, but not to most people.

Or like Cats, for example. You know, massive musical, but really a dance musical with a lot of ballet style movement in it. Ballet style is not ballet the purists not gonna be happy with cats and also i take issue with the fact that you say it's expensive you can go get a ticket for sadler's wells can't you for 25 quid yes but then you're watching something like matthew bourne which i have watched in sadler's wells for 11 quid but ballet purists again blow there's a bit too much jazz in this i've seen a matthew bourne thing as well i saw play without words i haven't seen that no i saw the nutcracker and also sleeping beauty i've not seen the nutcracker maybe i should go and see

one of the traditional ones i know that he puts his own spin on it but it's very not traditional yeah but at least the music is recognizable whereas play without words um that was a play right and without words and i just yeah and this lack of words just made me drift off a bit yes well here's the thing i always feel like ballet is beautiful and impressive physically but it's a language that i don't speak yeah which is a bit of a shame my thought watching it is wow i could never do anything like this yeah i think that's that's right very obvious play devil's advocate this one but also is it worth it for those dancers to devote so many decades of their lives to training

when they might not make it and physically ruining themselves? Because dancers have a lot of joint problems and bone problems. Art shouldn't be about technique. If you want to see good technique, you can go watch athletics. Why shouldn't art be about technique, Mark? Because it's about expression. That's the only one component of it. But can you express without the proper technique?

That's what a lot of people would say about the abstract artists. And you've just made a good comparison there with gymnastics. I actually weirdly love watching gymnastics on the telly and maybe that is because i understand it and it's not trying to tell a story yeah but actually ballet is so actually i should love it more because i love watching bouncy people being bendy in fun costumes and so why not do that whilst they're also telling the story of the uh the capulets you know but somehow i don't relate to it i know that there are people who are listening to everything we're saying i think we're philistines and we don't understand you're probably right but i sort of don't relate to it. I know that there are people who are listening to everything we're saying. I think we're Philistines and we don't understand. You're probably right, but I sort of don't care.

Anyway, ballet and opera kind of sprung up at the same time, which was 15th century in Italy. It was like a spectacle in the courts. Noble men and women had pretty much fuck all to do. And so they would watch and participate in these big extravaganzas, which included dance and music and poetry. And I think even painting at the same time. And Catherine de' Medici thought this was so amazing.

When she married Henry II of France, she launched ballet there. She was funding ballet for the French court. And it was meant to be based on the social dances of the courts, which is why there's a lot of these rigid upper arm movements and very set patterns in which they move. And then it became like a social requirement. So the nobles were all learning how to do it and uh in fact louis the 14th he was a major player in ballet because he danced a lot of the roles himself and made it hugely popular

but it was a bit shit though but compared to a you know if you're having a meritocratic auditioning process he wasn't really that good yeah but if you get beheaded for not casting him you probably would wouldn't you well the same thing happens with celebrity casting now doesn't it just get a good support cast lindsey lohan fine you know we'll get someone from the rsc to play her husband be all right yeah with speed the plow they just need an understudy that is never ill because that in fact this is the best understudy role there has ever been even better than understudying martin mccutcheon in fair lady you are gonna your career is going to be made off this if you do find yourself watching a ballet and you do find yourself if you just wake up and you're like shit there's a ballet right in front

of me how did i get here if you're there uh how do you keep yourself entertained in a boring theatrical event well it's not necessarily boring it's just well let's say it is right but i'm asking you even if it isn isn't, like at gigs, especially gigs where there aren't words, I do tend to drift off. Me too. And even if I'm really enjoying a gig, I kind of want to know how long I've got to enjoy it for.

Exactly. So what do you do? Well, often I plan patchwork in my head. I went to quite a boring Bill Callaghan gig at the Royal Festival Hall. Please don't talk about that. Why was it so boring? Every song turned into a 15 minute jam with the worst guitar solo

you can imagine. This is why Barry Manilow was good. Three and a half minutes in, out, change your costume. Still take Bill Callaghan over Barry Manilow. He didn't change costumes once. But I was planning patchwork the whole time. I do sometimes think ahead to my week because I'm someone who tends to diarise paper and pen diary. I've got a file of facts

so I can visualise it. I don't need to get my phone out of my pocket if I'm very bored and someone's doing a song that I don't know, I can just think I can actually visualise it, I've got Thursday on the right hand side of the page, what's happening after 4 o'clock where am I going to get a coffee? everything is wasted on us isn't it it really depends though on whether I'm sitting down

or not, if I'm standing up and I'm bored I just am only thinking about how I hate the world and I want to go home but he even that i like that have a ballet bit yes the ballet bit is the boring bit so like for example a chorus line which we went to see the london palladium oh yes everything was beautiful at the back you know it goes on forever so boring and so during that bit of a chorus line the rest of the show i completely enjoyed. I thought they did that number very well, actually. Still did it well, but it's ballet. During that number, I actually tried to visualise all of the songs that I remembered from a chorus line and tick them off.

That I can do. I thought, what's left? What's left to come? And I was like, oh, it's all right. What I did for love is around soon. How does that one go again? Let's see if I can remember the tune whilst i'm hearing the tune to this boring one i think the odd thing about that particular experience was that we were sat in the front row because they hadn't sold very well in a massive theater we could see up the gusset of the chorus line sweaty gussets and also you could hear all the thumping because part of the attraction of ballet is it looks like these people are defying gravity when

you can hear this kind of it changes things and i know that you can't help it because that's what humans jumping sounds like it was it wasn't much of a promotion because we went to the palladium it was half empty their tone was almost like well congratulations you've got the cheapest seats but you're going to be in the front row you know neither of us moved you to row aa or whatever it was neither of us ever want to be in the front row of anything ever exactly they might ask us to come on stage it's a comedy gig they don't go so what are you in for that would have been a novel twist on the format of a chorus line wouldn't it if at the end the director said actually you're all shit i'm choosing you

light onto the theater dance dance dance it would have brought new meaning to the word singular sensation the silicon roundabouts my favorite place to become a webpreneur would be really ace Like that awesome guy Tom Who was my first friend on Myspace We haven't kept in touch Get your foot on the ladder to online success Through Squarespace build a site and get a free web address Then hang around East London until you get hired in the u.s

mountain view is calling google have free buffet well i know what you're thinking such beautiful music will surely compel me to design my own website you'd be right to think that and you'd be right to head over to squarespace.com try their 14-day free trial and then if you like what you see and you want to buy a year's membership enter the code answer to get 10 off and uh i'd also like to say thank you very much to squarespace for funding this episode of answer me this oh yeah yeah they're good at that as well have you decided what you're going to do with the money uh i am going to buy myself a vivian westwood hat i i i think uh that's that's going to be a bit over now. I think the backlash has started against Hat.

Well, I can only afford it in the sale with what Squarespace are currently paying us. It'll come around again. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what? The other day I did a gig and it was expenses only and I left before the expenses were apportioned out.

So the gig booker messaged me afterwards and she said, give me your address and I'll send it to you. i said buy a scratch card and if you win split it uh she won 20 quid no she actually did that yeah who would do that everyone would think oh she said buy a scratch card i'm keeping that fiver but she actually did it yeah because she profited as well she well yes but she could have lost i was willing for her to take that risk with money that i hadn't expected to get anyway yeah but my point is if i was her i don't know if i'd be willing to take that risk with money that I hadn't expected to get anyway. Yeah, but my point is if I was her, I don't know if I'd be willing to take that risk

with money that I'd said was yours, but actually I could keep for myself. Well, anyway. Well done her, well done you. Yeah, but Squarespace is not that kind of risk, by the way. You know what you're getting and it's a reasonable price for it. That's right, yeah.

So be happy. Yeah, indeed. But maybe I'm going to reinvest my winnings in scratch cards, what what, and a cycle of doom will be perpetuated. Here's a question from Nervous Husband in Thailand. This is definitely not spam. I can improve sexual performance with bank transfer degree.

Nervous Husband says, my pregnant wife seems to have grown a second pair of nipples just below her armpit. Strong first sentence. Wow. I'm in. It's not even finished yet. Which also appeared during her first

pregnancy along with a third set of nipples on her midriff. Wow. That's six nipples altogether. Her body is making sure that a baby can find a teat at almost every possible angle on her torso. Very resourceful. Next one's on her nose I think. Nervous husband says Ollie answer me this

what is this multi nipple manifestation all about? It's all about the mammary ridge Mammary ridge I think I went camping there once Just by the Alps, isn't it? The mammary ridge is the part of the lady Going down from the breast to the groin Which is kind of the milky pathway, really

It's the bit the milk channels through across your body And as you get pregnant, that's the bit that gets larger and more developed and that's what leads to breasts getting larger but sometimes and quite commonly apparently up to six percent of women get this wow i've never heard of this before well because people don't want to proudly discuss it exactly yeah i don't know i'd imagine there are some pretty bawdy websites devoted to this very phenomenon apparently it can just sprout a nipple anywhere along that ridge amazing so your wife nervous husband in thailand has actually sort of unfortunately really this has happened to her not once but twice and what the percentage of that happening is but it's possible it could carry on happening but she

just becomes like a whole nipple field a nipple super highway all the way along that ridge and it is just to make sure that your milk is going to get to the baby basically that is amazing but are they functional though oh they are um but obviously it's encouraged to use your real nipples rather because there's more milk there than in the ones that are just the little stops along the way yeah it's also possible if we're being truly cronenbergian about this uh to develop an ectopic milk duct that leaks milk through your skin without any visible breast tissue or a nipple at all. That's much cooler. Milky stigmata.

Yeah. Here's a question from James from Watford who says, whilst browsing the internet for places to go on our upcoming holiday to Cornwall... Loads of places to go. He could go on four teas. Yeah. I noticed that Barnoon Cemetery is number eight in TripAdvisor's list of top tourist attractions in St Ives. What are the other seven?

I thought that maybe people with relatives buried there had contributed to this. Well, they certainly have contributed to the cemetery. Just maybe not to the reviews on TripAdvisor. It's big society, isn't it? I'm not sure that after going to a funeral I would review the funeral service. No. That's just me.

Possibly not. But it seems that people have actually reviewed the cemetery as an attraction. Call that a grave. One star. The rides were rubbish. One person said that they visited St Ives just to see the cemetery. Another went off on a strange tangent about a James Bond-related epiphany. It's almost as if people who review things on TripAdvisor

aren't necessarily the best representative of ordinary people and their experiences of things. Unbelievable. Now, I appreciate that not all of the West Country's tourist attractions can pull the crowds like Devon's barometer world but wow. It sounds good. Devon's got it all hasn't it? It has. But Ollie answer me this. Do people really go to cemeteries on holiday? Saga holidays is borderline. Or just, you know, when you're dead. You sometimes tell the grandkids, don't you? They've got away on holiday for a time. Holiday with God.

Like when they broke Marlene out of Neighbours. She's gone on a cruise. But yeah, some people, some people do, do go to cemeteries on holiday. A lot of people go to Père Lachaise's cemetery in Paris, don't they, to see the famous graves? James Morrison, yes. Oscar Wilde.

We've talked about that before. Not James Morrison, the young singer-songwriter that's still alive. Jim, as in from the doors. Oh, you're on formal name terms. But in fact, until this question came up, I hadn't really remembered this myself, but I've been to a cemetery on holiday. I mean, it wasn't the destination, it wasn't the reason we went, but I've

been to the old Jewish cemetery in Prague, which is one of the major tourist highlights of a trip around the old city there. It's because you've got 12,000 tombstones there all crammed into one tiny little city block. So you've got them going from the 15th to I think the 19th century. And they're all on top of each other,

like at slanty angles and stuff. And what's amazing obviously is despite the Holocaust and the fact that all the Jews were taken away, they still have this Jewish graveyard with all the sort of very Jewish-looking graves with the stars of David and stuff. So that's fascinating, and it's all around the old synagogue and things,

and that is hugely popular with tourists. Yeah, and also people go to the graves on the North French coast, marking the first wall. Yes, of course, indeed. Yeah, exactly, and they'd see that more as, I guess, a historic trip to Normandy rather than a trip around a grave,

but that's what it is. But there are a number of cemeteries in London that I would encourage tourists to go to. Nunhead, Highgate. West Norwood. Stoke Newington. They're all really beautiful cemeteries. Yeah. And what is it about a cemetery, though, that you would choose to use the word beautiful to describe?

You'd want fancy catacombs. The ones that are like little buildings. Maybe a celebrity corpse. A nice hill. hill yeah a nice setting good view yeah but a bit morbid you'd admit

sometimes on holiday it's not all sweetness and light Ollie no but you're aware aren't you that there's lots of dead people underneath you yeah but then

to be honest a lot of places where you're walking in a city used to be a cemetery anyway yeah that's true actually a stunning one

that I went to again forgotten about it until literally this conversation right now but just two years ago I went to Stirling Cemetery in Scotland and you know actually I went to, again, forgotten about it until literally this conversation right now. But just two years ago, I went to Stirling Cemetery in Scotland. Actually, I went to have a spaghetti in an Italian restaurant that was rated very well on TripAdvisor as it happens in the local shopping mall. But whilst I was there...

You got lost. I got lost and I went through Stirling Cemetery and it was swathed in fog and very atmospheric. And also I've considered as well when I was in Los Angeles and in the end I think I was right to choose the Warner Brothers studio tour over it. But I'd considered going to Forest Lawn. Yes. Who's buried there?

What's Forest Lawn? Betty Davis. Liberace. Oh, right. I bet Liberace's got a fancy tomb. Yeah, well, there's a lot of Venetian glass mosaic apparently as well.

Actually, I bet the burial grounds in places like venice are pretty remarkable to see so yes i think what we're saying is it's pretty common for people to go to cemeteries although not boring ugly ones like the ones that are around the modern crematorium no i think that's it they need to have a special feature and in fact another one that i've seen online that i'm intrigued by if i ever go is la corraleta in buenos aires uh which is where eva peron's buried so So Celebrity Corps got that. Tick that.

But also amongst the various different carved mausoleums, there is a sculpture of a bride who died in an avalanche on her honeymoon. And the sculpture depicts the person who's buried there. That's unusual. Yeah. I slightly discount TripAdvisor and their rankings of top tourist attractions anyway.

Yes. For two reasons. One is I think you have to remember what motivates people to post a review in the first place. It's either unbelievable adulation or red hot rage. And in a context of they think other people haven't remarked upon this. You know, no one's ever going to say that Claridge's is the best because people know Claridge's is a good hotel. Well, when you say no one's ever going to, I bet people do quite regularly. Sure, but comparatively, people are more likely to say this four-star hotel that's half the price of everywhere else is surprisingly really good and underrated.

So then when you look at attractions, I think you get a slightly skewed list because people don't say the Tower of London's amazing. The other reason why I don't trust them is because the geographical groupings. So, you know, let's take Slough, for example. Okay. Slough is very near Windsor. That's right. If you're a tourist, you might not realise that. A lot of people who are staying in a, you know, three-star modest motorway-style hotel in Slough

are staying there because they can't afford to stay in Windsor. Or because the hotel had Windsor in the name. Sure. But they're staying there because they want to go and see Eton and they want to go and see Windsor Castle and they want to go to Legoland, but they can't afford Windsor, right? But if you go on the Slough page of TripAdvisor

and say, what are the top attractions? It's not going to come up with Windsor Castle and Legoland. It's going to come up with like, you know, a local arcade centre. And that's because that is in Slough. But actually the point is Slough is near Windsor. That's why you're there. So I think there's always that skewing going on as well. Hmm.

Yeah. So there you go. That might be why. Because if you're in St Ives, top attractions in St Ives technically might be in Penzance, if you see what I mean. You might be there for the general area of the beautiful beaches around Cornwall.

And yet you say, what's the best thing in St Ives? There might not be that much listed. So I think in summation, you're saying TripAdvisor creates more problems than it solves. Oh yeah, but I love it. I love those problems. I've spent hours trying to resolve those problems. It's the modifiable unit area problem, isn't it really? Yes, that's what

I said. But what does that mean when I said it? Well, it's a geographical conundrum that just the geographical areas you consider skew the data that you're collecting and it might actually give you patterns that don't exist or obscure patterns which do exist. Well, it's not going to get better than that this show,

so let's bring this to a close. If you want to plan a holiday for yourself and you don't want to just rely on TripAdvisor, you will, of course, want to listen to our hour-long special album, Answer Me This Holiday. I'm not sure that's going to be much help in planning a holiday. Well, we talk about various destinations in it, you know, internationally, there's Italy in there,

we talk about stuff in the USA. I think if you're not on holiday, it might feel a little bit like you are on holiday for the hour that you're listening to it in. Oh, yeah. Well, that's a good reason as well. Anyway, that's available on answermethisstore.com. But if you want to send us a question

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So do pay to visit and do check out our sponsors, Squarespace.com and do return in a fortnight's time for Answer Me This 297. Do it. Bye!