Answer Me This! - AMT300!!!

Episode Date: October 16, 2014

What a landmark episode! Read all about it at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode300 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, I'm Ollie. Hello, I'm Helen. Congratulations, listeners, you've stumbled across a revolution in podcasting. A revolution in sound. This is Answer Me This, podcast.com, a new sort of weekly-ish show where we're going to answer your questions. Hello, I'm Ollie's dad, Stanley. Hello, I'm Helen's brother, Alison.

And I'm David, the sound dad. And we want to say well done to our kids for reaching episode 50. This feels like a moot point now, but anyway, welcome to the Art of In This 100th episode! A lot of you were wondering what we've got in store for episode 150. What, historic landmark episode 150? Yeah, what have we got in store? Nothing. Nothing at all.

I'll put some bunting on the website if you want. Episode 200. We've done it. We're here. We're here. And now, are you ready? If you're not ready, press pause and come back when you are ready. It's Answer Me This, episode 300!

Can you believe we're 62 episodes ahead of the goons? Answer me this, answer me this How can anyone stand 300 of these theme tunes? Answer me this, answer me this Happy 300th episode, Ollie! And like I like to say at any kind of Answer Me This landmark, can you believe it? Who'd have thought when we began, we reached 300 episodes? Yeah, I've kind of got to the stage where I just sort of feel the weight of expectation now

and actually anything I say now is going to be underwhelming so I'm just going to shrug my shoulders and go meh I feel like on some of this it's going to carry on going after we've died they'll somehow reanimate our culture

it'll be a franchise it'll be a franchise oh I've never thought about it like that the idea that I might be able to leave something behind for my grandchildren from this shit is actually quite reassuring

because I'm not planning to have children will it be me at 90 with one of your grandchildren with one of my offspring it's going to be the freaking mousetrap of. Because I'm not planning to have children. Will it be me at 90 with one of your grandchildren? With one of my offspring. It's going to be the freaking mousetrap of podcasts. Well, I'm very excited to reach our 300th episode, and this is a very exciting day in the world generally,

the day that this podcast comes out, 16th of October, because as Ed from Colchester has written in to say, your 300th episode day coincides with the 30th birthday of Melissa Loren, French porn actress and director. Ah, the star of Plucked Then Fucked. Do not ask me how I know who this is. I mean, I don't know who this is, says Ed.

But Ed also says, I'm looking forward to the hopefully racy version of Answer Me This. Shudder. I actually in fairness had not knowingly ever seen any of Melissa's work. Have you redressed that gap in your pornographic knowledge? Well, I did look her up just now and I now realise why, if ever I've even glanced a glimpse of her gash, I would have shut it down. It's got a little French flag on it.

It's because she looks a bit like my mum. Wow. I don't like the whole Oedipal thing. If I see anyone who facially and titilly resembles mother it's a tab closed as soon as possible i feel like that is a good policy if it looks like my dad however quentin ring a ding ding add two faves hi stanley if you're listening i bet your parents have really enjoyed your work over the 300 episodes of artemias they probably think why can't he be

more like that roman mars he's such a nice podcaster and it's his birthday on the day that this comes out so he shares a birthday with a french porn star another reason it's a significant day i mean of course i know that we're making a big fuss of this completely arbitrary milestone of the 300th episode because arbitrary 300 it's a round number but really the birthday of the show actually was january the 2nd 2007 i remember it well ollie it's funny to think that january 2007 when we began katie perry was not a thing iphones did not exist yet unimaginable twitter was only a few months old so none of us were on it how did we slide people off just to their faces i sent them bitchy postcards i hadn't joined facebook yet

because you maybe do that to publicise the podcast. I also think about what I was doing in January 2007 back when I was 26 years old. Don't make us cry, Helen. This is a happy episode. What would I be doing now if we hadn't started doing the podcast then? This is like turning into a pop song. I'd probably

now be the greatest freelance proofreader of my generation. I think you already are, aren't you? Probably, even though I've been slacking off for years. I'd probably now be the greatest freelance proofreader of my generation. I think you already are, aren't you? Probably, even though I've been slacking off for years. I'd probably be richer, because I had a career in daytime television at the time. I was only a researcher, but everyone else who was a researcher this morning when I was in 2006

has gone on basically to become at least the editor of a programme. That's a six-figure salary. At least you would have been a series producer by now. Yeah, there was one guy who was a researcher when I was there who went on to be series producer of the X of a programme. Yeah. That's a six-figure salary. At least you would have been a series producer by now. Yeah. There was one guy who was a researcher when I was there who went on to be series producer of the X Factor USA. Wow. I mean, I know you had to deal... Bit of a poison chalice.

Yeah, you had to deal with Cheryl Gate, but I mean, wow. That's good, isn't it? I'd have been living in California. Imagine that, Helen. Instead, you're here. I'd be the John Oliver to your Helen Zaltzman. You're here with us.

You already kind of are. I mean, you've got this job that takes you away from me. It means the podcast is less frequent. You Olivers are poison for us Saltzmans to podcast with. Well, Tom has a question for us about just how deep our relationship really goes. We're colleagues. Yeah, that is essentially the answer. He says, Helen, answer me this.

Did you ever, ever? I don't need to finish it, do I? No. It's quite sweet, actually. No, never. never well he finishes by saying uh have a kiss and cuddle no it's funny isn't it it's like I know like rumors go around about like Diane Abbott and Michael Portillo you know even though there are so many reasons that you can't even list them as to why that almost certainly wouldn't happen we've spent a lot of

time together but there's never literally literally never like literally never an underlined and bold and italic even ever been a flicker it's just no just never crossed our minds and we've known each other now for 14 years we met in october 2000 and we've spent the whole time since then disproving what billy crystal says in when harry met sally and i mean specifically men and women can't be friends because sex always gets in the way not the other things that he says yeah no the thing he said about like meet me for a salt beef sandwich in the canteen that was probably right you've definitely done that you definitely had a deli sandwich together yeah we certainly would less orgasms um but yeah it's weird isn't it people expect any double act especially if they're mixed gender must have had some kind of relationship and i suppose in some cases that probably is true which helps

propagate this myth but it really has never been an issue we had a question once someone asked us do you think ant and deck have ever tossed each other off again i think you know seeing it from the outside yes i do you know but it's because they've worked together since they were 14 i just i just think that means they're less likely to toss each other off well i think they've probably both double ended the same scally was it spuggy what i'm saying is that's more likely from the background that we know they've had i think they probably paid the nova castron version of soggy biscuit i don't know what the equivalent is for biker i think the secret to their partnership is probably that they haven't because i think if they had there would be this kind of underlying awkwardness afterwards that made them drift

apart in the end because it's fine when you're in the uh it's a member tell me yeah exactly it's fine when you're in the midst of this mutual sexual frolic, but afterwards, when that enthusiasm has passed, it's probably quite difficult to present big Saturday night ITV shows together. This question from Lou is interesting. Lou says, Ollie, answer me this. Have you and Helen ever broken the law?

Ooh. Well, I don't know if you've ever broken the law by yourself, but together we have broken the law. We're like Bonnie and Clyde. Podcasting. We've broken some really dull laws, haven't we? We have, yeah. Mostly relating to filming and recording permissions.

We did get thrown off a National Trust property for filming there without a permit. We did. On the other hand, we didn't have a permit to film in the Eden Project and they were like, hey, come on in. Yeah, why not? Get your cameras out. Why not? I'm sure you don't have to pay the 30 quid cover charge. But actually, the most extreme version

of that very extreme law-breaking that we've committed. Filming on National Trust properties without permission. Probably when we were filming our Visit Britain series. AnswerMeThisPodcast.com slash Britain if you would like to see it. Well worth a look, even though it seems rather juvenile by today's standards

and poorly filmed. We did film it ourselves. It was gonzo. Yeah, it was pre-smartphone cameras. If you watch that video, there are scenes of us talking and driving. I did not apply for special car insurance for work so at the time we were doing that we were being paid to make that video uh we were working if i'd have had a car

accident i didn't have i was effectively driving without insurance i was driving on my insurance for car travel for pleasure kids lock me up now let this be a lesson to you don't do it come and get me ross's first the pret a-a-Manger confession, now this. I think we've learnt that crime is not always glamorous and exciting. I don't think I've ever done anything illegal in the service of answering this, apart from maybe letting some of your vocal performances slip through. Some of your jokes should be illegal. If you've got a question, then email your question.

To want to be this podcast at googlemail.com. To want to be this podcast at googlemail.com? Who wants to be this podcast at googlemail.com? Who wants to be this podcast at googlemail.com? Who wants to be this podcast at googlemail.com? Well, that is a lovely special email jingle recorded for our 300th episode by the Hackney Colliery Band. Thank you. And they are touring at the moment.

So go to hackneycollieryband.co.uk to find out where. They're playing the London Jazz Festival, which is the... I was a receptionist at the London Jazz Festival 10 years ago. And that was the last job in an office that I had. That was the job that made me think, I hate jobs. And so without the London Jazz Festival, if that hadn't put me off real work, maybe I wouldn't be doing this podcast.

Yeah, that was your sliding doors moment. Mercifully, without John Hanna quoting Monty Python. I'll always take you over that, Ollie. Well, Joe from Newnham says, Helen, answer me this. If you could have any two celebrities, dead or alive, replace you both for one special episode,

who would you choose and why? Well, Jo, we have chosen because for the rest of this episode, Ollie and I are going to take it easy. We're going to take a back seat, but we have got insurance for it. And we're going to turn the question answering over to this. Galaxy of Stars! Ooh! and turn the question answering over to this galaxy of stars my family are very good at bumholes we've all loads of people in my family have had bumhole problems but of course there are lots of people who don't like the sound of music

i'm personally not one of them who am i to to judge it? Why is it better that I like a Raymond Carver short story about a boy hugging a half of a fish? I'm not saying I've sussed the meaning of life or any of that shit. So I guess the key to a long-lasting relationship is for one of the people in it to relocate to a different continent.

That really puts the spice in the relationship. Maybe just get, like, a big tub of ice cream done problem solved some familiar voices there from the world of showbiz and podcasting you'll find out who they are some of our showbiz pals as you'll find out who they are it's gonna be big you're gonna be you'll find out who they are as the's going to be big. You're going to be stars. You'll find out who they are as the episode continues. But Greg says, my favourite guest star on Answer Me This was Ollie's cat.

Is she going to be appearing? Coco is not appearing in this episode. She has got a real bitch of an agent, hasn't she? Well, I think it is true to say of my cat that she wouldn't get out of bed for less than 10 grand. But she also wouldn't get out of bed for all the money in the world because she's a cad currency is just meaningless to her so without any further ado and i think you'll agree

if you look down at how long this episode has already taken there's been quite a lot of ado i think if you look back at answer me this you could subtitle it ado uh let's move on to actually put some of your questions to our celebrity answerers. So who's our first celebrity question answerer? Hello, Ollie. Hi, Helen. Adam Buxton here. It's Adam Buxton! Adam bloody Buxton. So pleased to have Adam Buxton on the show because when we started this podcast, I think we just pretty much wanted to be Adam and Joe. I think that's quite still quite a good ambition. Adam and Joe was the podcast that I first got completely addicted to. It was the first podcast I ever heard. And in fact, the only podcast I'd ever heard before we started doing this one.

And then I didn't listen to another podcast until about a year after we started doing this one. And Adam Buxton, he's just continued on being brilliant, even after Adam and Joe have stopped doing stuff together. I feel like he's our generation's Kenny Everett. Do you know what I mean? Like chopping up tapes and kind of doing stuff, putting loads of effort into things that everyone else just wanks off really quickly. Well, Adam Buxton, go forth and answer

this question. Freddie from Edinburgh says, this world is an imperfect place. Tell me about it, Freddenborough! I came through from the back garden today and saw an enormous turd on my front lawn. Well, we've all been there.

Adam Buxton, answer me this. How can I catch the perpetrator, dog or man? Hmm. I mean, it's tough if it was the only time it had ever happened because the cat is out of the bag bag the turd is out of the bottom unless you are going to go csi on its arse and start collecting um dna i don't know what to suggest really i mean you could call the cops but apparently uh they've got better things to do if it's something that happens on a regular basis it's time to get a cctv camera and that's what i would go for when i i mean i've had turd problems in my life before in the olden days when we lived in london the only turds that i had to deal with on a regular basis were mouse turds. Mouse turds, tiny mouse turds,

little presents from a tiny mouse. That's my new ringtone. And they would turn up in the kitchen every now and again. No-one likes turds in their personal area, I don't think, do they? And mouse turds are no different, even though they're little. You just feel like you're living in a pet shop, in like a hippie pet shop. I don't want to live in a hippie pet shop. I'm too uptight.

So what I did was set up, I had, you know, some cheap video cameras, and I hooked one of them up to a VCR. This was a while ago. And put in, you know, a six-hour tape and set it to long play. So I was going to get 12 hours out of that mother. And I opened up the chassis on the video camera so that it wouldn't switch off. And it was a night vision camera. So I switched on a little goofy night vision thing and filmed the heck out of that kitchen.

And sure enough, the next day I had this 12 hour account of what had happened in the kitchen during the night. And there they were, the little twats. About two hours after I went to bed, they emerged and they were just scurrying up and down. Crapping with gay abandon on the beautiful kitchen floor. The other thing you could do to stop people turding on your lawn is stretch a big net across it. That wouldn't solve it, though, would it? You'd just get, like, diced turd.

At least if the turd is diced in even chunks, it will be neater and tidier than a sprawling curly turd in its natural state. I'm just thinking if you've got OCD in a turd on your lawn, maybe that is a preferable option. Well, here's someone that anyone would be happy to find on their front lawn. It's our next celebrity question answerer. This is Sarah Millican. It's the star of the Sarah Millican television programme. Sarah Millican!

Good God. What, the woman who plays Sarah Millican in the Sarah Millican show when you go and see her live? Sarah Millican. Well, let's put Sarah Millican's question answering skills to the test with a savoury and delightful question. Sarah from Christchurch. I have an anal fissure. This is about as much

fun as it sounds, i.e. excruciating. It is also embarrassing and so far the only person who knows about it is my boyfriend. Because of the fissure, I am sometimes in visible pain and have to hobble around and sit on cushions. I have told some of my work colleagues that I have a sore back, but Sarah Miller can answer me this. Should I be more honest about my condition, if not with my workmates, then at least with my family and friends after all everybody has an anus anus everybody has an anus i would welcome the support or sympathy but i am mortified about telling people it's a really good question you poor bugger it sounds that sounds awful that sounds awful um but i do have a sort of similar story that might help you. I had piles a couple of years ago.

It wasn't a huge bunch of grapes like I'd heard it would be. It was just sort of one, like a little tongue popping out. And is that too much? Well, if we've proved anything over the years, it's that there is no such thing as too much. And my mum is so proud of me. I was mortified. Luckily, my family are very good at bumholes.

Loads of people in my family have had bumhole problems. So I rang my bumhole phone friends, my parents, and they were like, ain't us all hot baths as much as hot as you can stand. And sure enough, it sorted itself. It was fine. But when I had it, I was mortified. It was very painful.

And I just sort of felt the need, like you do, Sarah from Christchurch, to tell somebody somebody just to tell somebody so that you could get a bit of sympathy and maybe they'd have advice but also a bit of a moan it's always good to have a bit of a moan it's nice to have more than your boyfriend I totally get it the day that I discovered it well that sounds awful it was with a mirror uh it was tricky because i'm i'm not a skinny girl um my friend was coming around one of my really good friends and she came around and as she opened the door i'm not very good with secrets as she opened the door i'm telling you this this is why this is how rubbish i am with secrets as she opened the door i just went i've got piles and this was the

the reaction i was least expecting she went oh i have two, I have two. And we high-fived. We high-fived piles. And then even now, even years and years later, we sometimes ask about each other's bumholes. And it's lovely. I think you have to pick one friend. Pick one friend. Well, our next special guest answerers are definitely more than friends. But are they bumhole friends? I wouldn't like to speculate upon the state of their marriage, but maybe we'll find out. Here they are.

Hey, I'm Jesse Thorne. I'm the host of Bullseye with Jesse Thorne and the co-host of Jordan, Jesse Go and the Judge John Hodgman podcast. And I'm Teresa Thorne. I'm co-host of One Bad Mother. And guess what? We're married to each other.

The first couple of podcasting. And as we've established, that's not us, Ollie. We're colleagues. We're not a couple. Correct. Here's something from Gary in South Pasad Ollie. We're colleagues. We're not a couple. Correct. Here's something from Gary in South Pasadena. I have an 11-year-old daughter. This is a prime time to have the talk with her.

I know she's had the requisite video that discusses the magical changes that are about to take place, as well as the special hug that happens between a mommy and a daddy who love themselves very much. Love each other very much. Love each other. Although I have been known to engage in the special hug that daddies do when they love themselves very much. Love each other very much. Although I have been known to engage in the special hug that daddies do when they love themselves very much. I know that at some point, like if you're on vacation or something like that. Oh, right. Sure. I know that at some point I will most likely have to have a conversation with her about this subject. I'm not looking forward to it

and I have no idea how to go about it or anything else that would seem like something out of a weird teen sex comedy. So Jessie and Teresa, answer me this. Can you lend any insight as to how to approach this sensitive subject and what to discuss without emotionally scarring both of us forever? P.S. Please do not recommend a book for me to read.

I learned all the facts of life from the Bible, Gary. The fact, just the plain fact that, well, first of all, she's 11. I'm sorry to tell you this, Gary, but you're a little late. She's already had sex. I mean, I feel like... If you think she's a virgin, you're fooling yourself, Gary. She's been around the block.

I feel like I was demanding answers by age four. And once I knew the answers, I was like totally mellow about it. I'm guessing that your 11 year old daughter actually already knows. And also just the fact that you're saying I will most likely at some point have to have this talk with her? He's talking about when she gets pregnant. Is, I mean, honestly, my first question would be if it makes you feel this awful, is there anyone else who can have a conversation with your daughter that would be more into it? Cool auntie.

Yeah, like a cool auntie. Well, you're a cool auntie, Helen. How do you feel about that? I feel very indignant that if the parents of my niece views don't want to do this task, I would have to pick up the slack. Or somebody who, you know, who your child is comfortable with and that you trust. And, you know, if not, if it does come down to you, I think that I'm going to encourage you to talk to her about it in a way that is totally just acknowledging, first and foremost, that you're really uncomfortable about it and that you want to have a conversation with her about it because you love her and you want her to have the information.

You think it's important for her to have the information, but that you feel really awkward about it and you can't help that. And that's not her fault. It has nothing to do with her. It's just you. I also think it's important not to put the onus on her to... You give her the opening to come to you with anything, but don't open the conversation by saying,

what do you want to know? Because she will say, I don't want to know anything from you, my father. This is terrible. I'm going to go play Minecraft. So what I think you can do is you can open the conversation by saying, look, we're going to have a birds and the bees talk. I know that I'm your dad and you're 11. You probably know a lot of Birds and the Bees stuff.

I'm going to say all the Birds and the Bees stuff that I think it's important for you to know, whether or not you know it. And if you have any questions about any of it, ask. And that way, you don't have to get involved in a conversation about whether she knows what a blowjob is. Because nobody wants that. You just tell her what a blowjob is. Because nobody wants that. You just tell her what a blowjob is. You know what I mean?

Like, if you cover all the bases, you don't force her into a position where she has to do something that is incredibly difficult for an adolescent, which is ask for help from their parents. And ask for help from their parents about sex is, like, the worst thing ever. Now, that's good advice from the Thorns,

but their children are still really little. They're only one and three, so I assume they have not had to deliver the talk yet. However, Adam Buxton's kids are slightly older, so maybe he's got some experience that will help ease Gary's fears. I have kind of had this, but not with a girl.

I think it's different with your daughter my daughter is six and so i'm still a little way off having to explain the nuts and bolts as it were with my sons it was not too bad i mean it was a little bit embarrassing uh and i felt like i had to tell him absolutely everything because i i was told nothing when i was little by my parents literally abso-fucking-lutely nothing so that when the whole when the whole subject of reproduction came up i was just grasping for anything straws cocks an idea and uh i remember putting my hand up in a in a biology class when the teacher said um how do humans reproduce and i said asexually and there was a laugh and he said no no, seriously. And I was like, yeah, asexually. I think I think I thought that humans could either reproduce sexually or asexually.

They had a choice. You know what I mean? Like if you were disgusting and you wanted to have full penetrative sex, then, yes, you would probably conceive. But every now and again, without having without having to have sex women would just become pregnant every few months they just get pregnant and then you would have an opportunity to either keep the baby or terminate that pregnancy i mean it was a nightmare vision of reproduction that i conjured. Really horrible. But that's what I thought, I think, because I thought that the idea of actually my parents actually screwing was so appalling that there had to be some other way that I was created.

I agree. There must have been some other way because there is no way the parental saltzmans would have voluntarily done that with each other. They probably just shared a damp towel or something. To celebrate this episode, we reached out to you listeners via twitter.com slash hennellandnolly and facebook.com

slash answermethis to ask you what the best thing is that you've learnt from answermethis. You could interpret the words best and learnt as you will. Yeah. And Stephen said the best thing I learnt is you will. Yeah. And Stephen said, the best thing I learned is I got to my 40s without noticing that it's raw plug and not raw plug.

Never too late to learn that, Stephen. I think a lot of people identified with that section when we covered that. It's the kind of minutiae that people hadn't really considered until we discussed it, and that's the beauty of this show. Absolutely, absolutely. You don't know those gaps in your knowledge until they're un-gapped.

And if you do have a gap in your knowledge, there's probably a knowledge rule plug you can use A lot of people also identify with this charming sentiment from Neil Who says, it's amazing how you can get used to something No matter how annoying it seems at first I think we all learned that, didn't we? As hate has turned to love Or at least, not love, but tolerance

Perhaps for this podcast It's interesting though, because when we put out episode one Which now sounds so tremendously irritating, I want to gouge out my own ears. But you can buy it for 79 pence at Tantamunisstore.com. It's interesting to reflect that when that came out, we thought that was the least annoying version of ourselves we could manufacture.

And also my voice, because I think most people hate the sound of their own voices. And the thing to get over that is to edit yourself for, like, 10 hours a week in perpetuity and then you'll still be annoyed at yourself but you'll just be too broken to care i think what i found is i've just become annoyed at everything else in the world but i'm cool with my own voice so that's the best thing in your life isn't it absolutely the sound of your own voice that's the thing they can take everything away from me but i can still talk to myself.

Which is the next guest voice to be allowed out of the Answer Me This dungeon to answer a question? British radio legend, Tony Blackburn. Bloody hell. Yeah. Tony effing Blackburn. The first ever voice on Radio 1

and also currently host of Pick of the Pops on Radio 2. So let's see what he makes of your questions, Pop Pickers. Ray in Melbourne asks me this question. Why do they put garnish on otherwise perfectly good dishes? I agree with you, Ryan. I used to be out on the pirate radio ships in the 60s, and we had a Dutch cook on board, and he put nutmeg on everything. Now, I particularly like mashed potato. Mashed potato should be left alone. If you want to put your own salt on and things

like that, that's fine. But putting nutmeg on mashed potato, for me me ruined it. I had to put up with this for three solid years. I've hated nutmeg ever since. And I agree with you. If something tastes nice and it's good, well, why not just leave it the way it is? After all, you know, it comes in, say, for instance, cabbage. I don't particularly like cabbage, but cabbage tastes like cabbage. Why would you want to make it taste like anything else? A banana. Would you put garnish on a banana?

I don't think so. Bananas taste quite fine the way they are. So therefore, going back to nutmeg, if you like nutmeg, why not just have nutmeg? But for goodness sake, don't put anything on nutmeg. It'll spoil it if you like nutmeg. There was a lot more nutmeg in that answer than I was expecting. And I hate to take issue with something Tony Blackburn says, but even if you like nutmeg, it doesn't mean you want to eat

pure, unadulterated nutmeg. Firstly, disgusting, and secondly, if you eat too much nutmeg, it has psychoactive effects. So, as reluctant as I am to say, do not follow the wisdom of Tony Blackburn, I would urge you not to eat pure nutmeg unless you want a five-day coma maybe you do I suspect that in the 60s on the pirate ships

the psychoactive effects of nutmeg probably wouldn't have gone noticed right who is next hello answer me this listeners I am Andy Zaltzman the elder brother of Helen Zaltzman who you may know from the show answer me this wow Andy Zaltzman star who you may know from the show Answer Me This. Wow, Andy Zaltzman, star of Answer Me This 132. How did you get him? Star of the Zaltzman family since 1974. With me from Stateside is Mr John Oliver. None but his old mucker, Johnny Stardust. Hello, Helen. Hello, er...

Ollie. Ollie, we met once at a Gavin Osborne gig. Ollie, my name's in the theme tune. This is from Jenny from up north. We'd been invited to a christening for what we thought was a nine-month-old child. Today, on checking the child's age, we were told that the christening wasn't just for the baby, but also for its three other siblings, aged from nine months to 11 years in total. So, four children. John, Andy, answer me this. What do we buy for a christening of four children we don't really know,

especially with such an age gap between the youngest and the oldest? We only really know the oldest child. Can we just buy for her, or should our mere presence be enough of a gift? For a four-child christening, that is objectively ridiculous. Unless I would at the very least hope they do them all at once yeah that's just a quadruple dunk that's how synchronized swimming began wasn't it was mass christening gigantic font just or just line them up put the holy water in a bucket and just smash it across them like the ice bucket challenge. I'm trying to think of it as like a power hose. I would say to an event as ridiculous as that,

especially for kids you don't know, turn up with a fucking bow on yourself. Say, take this bow off me. They'll take the bow off and just scream in their face, you're fucking welcome. Where do I sit and where's the buffet? Well, we don't need to put a fucking bow on our next guest because she's a very exciting gift to have at any party and you've been begging us to

get her back on answer me this ever since she appeared as a guest in episode 84 yes it is none other than comedian josie long chris from cardiff in australia asks what says this year i decided to take a year off from my law degree to write an honors thesis for my ba i have been researching What says? few months. However, I'm now in the position where I have eight weeks to write and edit a 20,000 word thesis about genocide in Sri Lanka. So Josie Long, answer me this. How can I beat the urge to procrastinate and get my work done? Josie gets more stuff done than anyone else I know. She thinks of an idea and makes it happen. I think of an idea and then I sit on the sofa for a year watching Netflix. Oh my God, Chris from Cardiff, I have so much good advice for you here, right? A while back I had a month to write up a screenplay idea that I had been working for a long time but I hadn't written the script and I was absolutely freaking out about it and this is what I did. I set myself

a page goal each day, right, and I said if I can fit my page, do my page goal, doesn't matter how long I work, it just matters that I do it and I'll be all right and it has changed it changed my life massively right so you've got eight weeks so that's eight times seven please don't judge me too hard is 56 days right now bear in mind six of those days you're probably not going to be able to do it so let's say you've got 50 good work days right so you've got 20,000 words and you want to do some editing as well. So let's say we're going to take the last five days off to edit. So you've got 45 work days and you've got 20,000 words. Oh my God, it's so hard to divide 20,000 by 45.

So you're dividing 20,000 by 10 is 2,000 words. And then divide that by four and a half is like... 444. Not that many, is it? Okay, so you've got 444 words a day. Oh, mate, that is so little. This is going to be an absolute breeze and a walk in the park. So let's say you have to write 500 words a day, because then you're going to come in over and you're going to get it done quicker than you are. So the first rule is you have to write 500 words a day, right? You can write more if you like

and it doesn't matter to which part of the thesis you're adding, right? So what I would say is on your first couple of days, just write yourself in a structure of the thesis, right? Write the bare bones of all the different kind of points you're making, write the plot of it, if you will. That will probably be about 1,000 or 2,000 words in itself. You'll feel such a thrill that you've got this done you'll be spurred on to keeping on going right then all you have to do is add 500 words a day until you've got your 20 000 words just do it like don't take

a day off just every day get your 500 words done do it at the start of the day do in the middle of the day do at the end of the day but make sure that you do it by about the 20th day you're gonna feel like the king of the world and that you've cracked writing don't do what I then did which is go out get really really drunk and then don't write for six days like trying wait until you've actually done the 20,000 words but honestly if you set daily page goals and stick to them it will stack up and you'll feel like you've conquered writing and you'll feel like the cleverest person in the world and then afterwards you can do as much youtube as much reddit as much podcasting as you'd like just get your daily goal done i really hope this works for you because honestly

i think it's a really good thing to do also try and cut down on booze and sugar and cut down on caffeine because it will help you concentrate better. Good luck and Godspeed. I think genocide in Sri Lanka is a pretty important topic for people to be trying to be useful on. So make sure you do that. And remember that as well. Keep thinking, I'm trying to do something to benefit humanity here. Well, since Josie's being so productive for us, here's another question for her from Isla who says,

answer me this, why does anyone like Lord of the Rings? Can we just end the podcast here because I'm happy. I'm so happy Even though I like The Radio 4 series starring Sir Michael Horde Isla says I'm a self-professed nerd

In many ways But I don't enjoy Lord of the Rings I tried to watch it I think watch Is the crucial word here Rather than read Well it's a lot quicker

Than reading it True I got around an hour in And nothing had happened Well it's a trilogy Often the way They've got to stretch it Yeah seriously

Try The Hobbit If you want to redefine nothing. A short man had decided to go to a mountain or something. It's a road trip, for God's sake. That's the point of the story. Answer me this. How did you manage with Lord of the Rings? I feel very bad because my boyfriend absolutely loves

Lord of the Rings. The books. The books. He loves them. I think they're brilliant. I think they're too long. If there's one thing I admire in literature, it's brevity. I like terse books i do not like 30 pages of songs in a language you've made up for no reason and i do not like things that do not have a ripper of a plot right so this is what i would say the films i think are very different now i went to see the films when they came out with my dear friend julie and they were so beautiful and massive and epic and exciting that we came out of every single one of them like short of breath thinking like we've seen a cinematic event that we're going to take our

children to um and I don't don't fully know if that would still be my opinion now because I've only seen them those three times in terms of why people like it, I don't really know. It's just so earnest. But then I don't want to be slagging it because I sort of think if people love it that much and that intensely, who am I to judge it? I'm just some schmo, you know? Why is it better that I like a Raymond Carver short story about a boy hugging a half of a fish? I'm not any better. I'm not sure what Peter Jackson would make of Raymond Carver's fish. I don't know whether he could string nine hours out of that. It's the merchandise rights that I'm excited about. Can't wait for part two, gills. I didn't

like Lord of the Rings either. Possibly because I only saw about a half an hour of it and got bored. And as far as the Hobbit's concerned, I wasn't the slightest bit interested in that either. Well, that should be some comfort to you, Isla. You and Tony Blackburn are on the same side, Lord of the Rings wise. The thing is, Isla, we've all got different opinions, haven't we? It would be a shame if we all lacked the same thing. So why not try The Sound of Music with Julie Andrews? I mean, I've watched that several times.

It is absolutely fantastic. So, you know, you can do without... There's no hobbits in it, and there's nothing weird going on. It's just somebody going up a mountain, and going over a mountain and escaping. So that might be the film for you. I still find it unbelievable, Ollie, that given what a fan of musicals you are,

you still have never seen The Sound of Music. What is wrong with you? It's got everything. But of course, there are lots of people who don't like The Sound of Music. I'm personally not one of them. But there you go. I agree with you. I don't like Lord of the Rings. And if a hobbit turned up at my house, I tell you something, I wouldn't let it in. Sounds like he's been scarred by his experiences of working with Anton Deck there. So hello, once again once again Isla I'm just here with my boyfriend Simon who's a big fan of the Lord of the Rings say hello hello nerd okay Simon I'm gonna ask you these questions and I need your response I would also like it known that we've both had a couple of glasses of wine yes and I don't normally drink Why does anyone like the Lord of the Rings so much?

Isla, Isla, Isla. I mean, first off, you have to at least give a glance to the source material, which is... Oh, it's 900 bloody pages of walking. If you can get on board with a man describing in detail for maybe a thousand to twelve hundred words a droplet of water on a leaf then you can be in love with the lord of the rings world what listen all those people in ancient china writing poems my second it's a beautiful narrative that is a love letter to old England and it feels like it's a perfect example

of narrative structure everything happens in the right order but it might take it may well take it's time and have a leisurely pace but every single plot point is in exactly the right place. I put it to you that at the end of the third film there's like an hour at the end where they go back to

bloody Gryffindor or whatever. Could have been an hour longer, mate. Extended cut is four hours and five minutes long. Stick another hour on it and I'm happy. You've been writing in about what you've learnt from Answer Me This and apparently we have had a great linguistic influence on you. Doreen says, I learned that the declarative I reckon is used quite a bit in England

whereas out here in California you only hear it if you're watching an old western on the movie channel I love that cowboy drawl I love the idea of sitting at home and watching an old western on the movie channel I haven't yet in my life managed to find the space to do that

I'm still on Columbo I'm willing to diarise it to make it happen I'm surprised she has the time in California I thought they spent all of their time surfing and looking at sequoias. Here's another linguistic life lesson which we've managed to impart to listener Sam, who says,

I've learned how to use pronouns correctly. Thank you, Helen. My life has not been in vain. I actually do remember you saying in one episode, if I make just one small difference to one little insignificant life like Sam's, then yours has been worthwhile. Congratulations, Sam. So congratulations to you, Helen. Not just thanks to you.

Your life has been worthwhile, not as it seems on the surface, completely pointless. You should take the rest of the year off. On other matters linguistic, Wayne says, I have learned and enjoyed well-placed swears. Go fuck yourself, Wayne. I swear far too much and no longer have the desired impact. Wanker.

Titting failure. It's not just via email that you've been submitting your questions for our celebrity answerers. It's also via the medium of phone and Skype. You can Skype answer me this or you can dial the following number. And who's been calling in? My name's Callum from Chilworth. I've recently just entered into a long-term relationship. Just wondering if you have any advice for making this work.

I don't know, Theresa. Would you say that our relationship works? We don't have any tips um we have been together since we we got together when we were 17 we've been together for a really long time it helps if you have no other friends right that definitely helps it helps if like to keep the excitement you could just not have sex for like the first maybe five or six years right because then you always have something to look forward to yeah but then once you've done it it's like been there done that the answer is very simple really you know if you're in a long-term relationship

you get to know somebody very well so it's not a question of impressing them the whole time. It's a question of basically going out, enjoying yourself, having fun, and try not to fall in love with somebody else. You know, quite honestly, you quite often find somebody that you're attractive to. But if you're with somebody that really is the person for you, just think to yourself, the grass isn't always greener on the other side. I mean, it could well be, but the best thing is not to try and find out. Wow, that is the voice of experience talking as well. I've read Tony's autobiography.

So, summing it all up, really, you've found somebody that you're in love with, you've found somebody you want to be with. It's probably best not to spoil it, So just enjoy the relationship as it is now. And as I said, none of those wandering eyes. Do we have any actual practical advice? We like each other. Yeah. I feel like I meet couples and they don't even actually like each other.

Yeah, you have to make sure that you actually like hanging out with the person. Like all the other crap aside, you have to really like each other. I would also add that I think it's very important to avoid resentment. I think resentment is a horrible poison. And I think that is the responsibility of the resentor. When you see something coming up that seems like it's an issue, you have to honestly and reasonably engage it. You cannot bury it because it won't work. And, you know, the longer that that I hate this thing pathway is reinforced in your brain,

the harder it will be to back out of it at some later point. So I would say you have to engage it and understand that it's probably your fault. I'm just going to nod and smile at that one. I would say, Andy, that it's not a great sign that he is Skyping questions to a podcast about this. Well. I don't. That is, if you have questions, they should be for a trained professional. This is not the way.

Asking Andy and I this is basically pronouncing your current relationship dead. Well, I mean, I think I'm quite a good person to ask because I've just celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary to Helen Zaltzman's sister-in-law, coincidentally. And I would say the secret of our relationship is my wife being superior to me at almost everything that we do together. Right.

I don't know where he's getting that almost from because she's superior to him in every way. I can't think of a single exception except possibly political stand-up but it's uncharted territory. I reckon if she put her mind to it, she would do it. Just the knowledge that I am batting way above average, I think that's absolutely

key. And don't tell her that, otherwise she might start to ask some questions that have no real answer. Also, our own working relationship, John, we've been working together on and off for almost 15 years, hopefully 14, 13, 14 years now. Is that true? Oh my God!

Since my first enemy show, 2001, so that's, yeah, 13 and a bit years now. Is that true? Yeah. Oh, my God. Since my first enemy show in 2001. So that's, yeah, 13 and a bit years ago. That's when we first, I guess, started doing stuff. And so I guess the key to a long-lasting relationship is for one of the people in it to relocate to a different continent after about five years. That's right. Yeah.

That's clearly the absolute key. That really puts the spice in the relationship. And to basically maintain that relationship through only audio means and only actually see each other about once a year. It's good advice. That's very good advice. Very good advice.

Well, from the other end of the relationship scale, there's this question that Adam Buxton is contending with. Boom, da-na-na-nap, shana-na-na-na-na. Boom, shana-na-na-nap, shana-na-na-na-na. Boom, shana-na-na-nap, shana-na-na-na-na. Boom, shana-na-na-nap, shana-na-na-na-na. Ah, yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip. Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom.

Anonymous Lady. I write to you, says Anonymous Lady, with a rather personal question. You see, I'm a virgin. I do see, Anonymous Lady. I thought I shouldn't mention it, but I can clearly see you're a virgin. No great shock there. Many people are, says you. I don't know any.

But I'm a 23-year-old virgin. Who is not religious, nor conservative, thank Christ, and is not unattractive. Oh, wait a second. Shit just got more interesting. I'm also not even remotely from a culture that values innocence. I'm American. Yeah, well, then you can say that again. Yeah. I've had several opportunities, continues anonymous lady, to, how to put it, rid myself of this rather dubious categorisation, but have never really cared about the people offering. Oh dear. And have therefore said no. Quite right. I also don't go out looking for connections or put much effort into finding or developing a romantic relationship with someone. When you say connections,

are you talking metaphorically there or are you just sort of thinking, hmm, I could plug that in. Adam Buxton, answer me this. Is there an age where waiting till you love or just really, really want someone becomes silly? Is it only to women that the idea of waiting is romantic or at the very least understandable? Is there something wrong with me that I'm not trying to meet someone or fall in love? So basically, let me summarise. Anonymous lady, this is what you seem to be saying. You don't care about having sexual intercourse and you feel no pressure to do so for the first time. Is there something wrong with you? Well, no. Obviously, there isn't.

Sexual intercourse causes a massive amount of problems in the world. It's one of the number one causes of misery and war. So avoiding it is ideal if you can. But the problem is that there seems to be a inbuilt physical and mental imperative for a lot of people that compels them to seek out sexual congress and that's when the disasters start a happening can you be too careful yes you sort of be, you can careful yourself out of the market like monks. I mean, monks, they've got something else going on, though. I mean, that's fine.

They've got a whole monk code that they are complying with for an ulterior purpose. I don't know if that's the case with you, but even the monks, they are still getting the urges. Let's get a lady's view from Sarah Millican. Point one, a 23-year-old virgin is not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It's genuinely not a bad thing. I was very late when I lost my virginity, and I was just picky, that's all.

I had had offers. I mean, not like millions. They weren't knocking on the door but you know the odd one and I knocked them back because I wasn't interested in those people and I just think we're not all we're not all wired the same way some like I know women who are like oh I just really want to get some action so off they go I can't do that I'm not like that but I think some of us just aren't wired that way I don't think there's anything wrong with you at all anonymous lady I think the fact that you're not going out and and looking for someone is fine I think it means that you don't feel like there's a gap in your life at all which is great is there an age where wait until you love I just really really really want someone to become silly, knowing that in the slightest?

Because I'd much rather be you than be somebody who lost their virginity very early on to somebody they regret. Is it only to women that the idea of waiting is romantic or at the very least understandable? I don't know. I'm only a woman. I've never been a man. And I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters if men don't feel that way. I think any bloke worth his salt would understand and would appreciate and also would not really be bothered. I don't think people are bothered by this. When I was like when I was a 22 year old virgin, I thought everybody could tell just by looking at me. And I thought they all looked at me like, oh, she hasn't done it.

Nobody cares. Nobody cares. I remember asking my friend if she thought I you know she wasn't a close friend but I just we had a chat about when you lost your virginity and I said to her do you do you do you think I have and she said I don't know like she literally hadn't thought about it nobody cares but you nobody cares but you and I think you should shake it off and just live your life and have a lovely time it sounds to me from what you've said that you're not actually that interested in having someone that you love you said that you haven't really put much effort into finding or developing a romantic relationship with someone

so it definitely won't happen if you're just sitting quietly waiting on your own if you do want it and if you do think you like the idea of falling in love with someone then I suppose it's not a question of waiting around it's a question of like changing what you're doing like maybe going and seeing if you can start some new things to do meet some new people ask friends if they know anyone that you might want to date or even trying things like internet dating or anything like that like might be a way of meeting people and you might meet someone you like the idea of having a relationship with.

I think women are definitely marketed to in different ways to men and women are really sort of told that they would rather have love than sex and things like that. I mean, my own experience of losing my virginity was when I was a teenager and I don't know whether I should say it I was 15 years old and to be honest by the time I did it I was absolutely desperate to do it

and I really didn't care much about love I cared that the person wasn't going to be an arsehole but I much more cared about the fact that I was going to do it I really wanted to so I think that falls down again to like do you want to do it or not and if you don't, don't worry about it. You might find someone eventually that you do want to do it with.

And if you don't, you know, I don't know. I just feel like I really want to reassure you that you're allowed to get to know yourself and know, like, what is right for you. And also, like, I don't know how detailed I should be, but I should say something about, like, masturbation't know how detailed I should be, but I should say something about like masturbation. Like, maybe you should give that a try. Step off, Josie Long. I do the wank chat around here. Maybe she thought you'd be tired of it after this long. Never. Thanks,

Josie. She's touring soon and you should go. So keep an eye on JosieLong.com for details and follow her on Twitter and support her charity Arts Emergency. I can't believe with all of her political principles she created a charity for a tax dodge. What a hypocrite. Yeah, why does a charity's office have to be in the Cayman Islands, Josie? It's just weird. An anonymous man has been in touch to tell us the greatest thing that he has learned from Answer Me This.

He says, it was your question on what to say to your co-workers and boss when you come into work limping after a circumcision. I have no recollection of what our advice was on that matter. Well, it was clearly great because he says, as a Jewish man, I never thought that advice would ever be useful to me. Understandable. Already happened.

You can't even walk when you're eight days old. That's right. But indeed it has been since next week I have to go into surgery to have some growths lasered off my rectum. Excellent. In what can only be described as a pain in the arse. Wow. I did that once.

What? It was my job. I used to be a medical physicist. I lasered a man's rectum. I'm glad it was your job. It wasn't just a game of LaserQuest gone wrong. It's a field that admits relatively few amateurs. So, Retrospecters, 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 Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.

OK, here's something from Phil from Triarchy. Triarchy. Triarchy. Triarchy. This one will be particularly apposite for you, John. Answer me this. Why is the toilet called a restroom in America? The toilet is the last place that I would consider taking a power nap.

It's the perfect place for a nap, Andy. Particularly New York, John. Full body rest. New York, famously the city that never sleeps. Not true. It's just people don't see it sleeping because everyone sleeps on the john. Clearly. Exactly. I can handle this sleeps. Not true. It's just people don't see it sleeping because everyone sleeps on the john. Clearly. Exactly.

I can handle this one. Go ahead. Because we're not disgusting animals. Yeah, because we're dignified. What are we supposed to call it? The poop area? The shitting room? Yeah.

You can call it... I, you know... In the UK, they may call it a shitting room. For all I know. We have morals. And decorum. We don't just call it the diarrhea salon. For pee-bees and poo-poos.

Charlotte asks, different recipes call for garlic to be chopped. Others say to crush it or to slice it thinly. Andy Stroke John, answer me this. Does this make any difference to the flavour? No. You just want to throw the whole thing in and hope for the best. Really? Just the whole heads of garlic? I say you want to crush it, but you don't want to crush it physically.

You want to crush the garlic spiritually, because then it sweats out its despair and the taste of a despairing garlic is I think 18% more tasty than the taste of an optimistic piece of garlic. So I'd say crush it. That's why French food is so garlicky. They've managed to imbue it with a scent of ennui.

That's right. It's all those arty films with no real ending. Of course you can hear more from Andy and John on their podcast, The Bugle. Andy's also touring at the moment

a really funny show called Satirist for Hire. I'm going to be doing a few gigs with him as part of the tour. That sounds like worth watching if you're a Zaltzman fan. Double Zaltzman.

He's playing staff at the end of the month. Should we go to that? And John Oliver, I'm not sure what he's up to, actually. No idea. I haven't heard anything.

What's up to his career? He's basically disappeared. What he needs to do is focus on comedy that really works online. Yeah, get some kind of online presence. We can give you some tips, John. Call us. This is from Helen. Please help me out with something that has confused me for years.

When a couple start dating, and by couple I mean fumbling teens, their progress is traditionally measured in bases, as in on their second date, the guy made it to third base with his girl. However, when I think I have worked out exactly what each base number represents, I come across another reference that seems to mean something else. So answer me this, Sarah Millican. Is second base kissing or boob fondling? How many bases are there?

Do the numbers mean different things in the USA versus the UK? Help. P.S. As I have made it to 32 years old and have been married for five years, I seem to have survived my ignorance. I understand this may not be the most essential of questions, but please don't make me Google it. I would not make you Google it, Helen. I think it is different in the USA and the UK. I don't think it's something that everybody uses as a term because we don't have a baseball. We use rounders as our equivalent in the uk so i think it's probably post instead so first second third and fourth posts and you know what the more i

think about it i don't know either i think it probably is first base i'm just going to go top to bottom if i'm honest first base is is kissing second base is maybe a little bit of boob fondlery. Third base is nunny time. Stop. Nunny time. Do, do, do, do. Do, do. And then maybe fourth base is toe sucking.

Let's call it that. I think that's okay because I think that's very intimate. I've not got fourth base yet. I just realised I've not got to fourth base i'm perfectly happy with second and third and a little bit of first chucked in if you want to hear more excellence from sarah millican then her new dvd homebird is out in november well so not just hear it but see it yeah hear the voice coming out of the magnificent millican body the magnificent the magnificent millicanificent millicanificent Millican body. The Magnificent... The Magnificent... The Millic... Millicificent. Millicinificent.

Millicinificent, yeah. If Angelina Jolie played Sarah Millican, I would certainly watch that. Wow, wow. That would be a better film, wouldn't it? The Dark Side of Sarah Millican. That would be an extraordinary casting. If only Disney put money into that. And if Brad Pitt played Sarah Millican's husband,

Gary Delaney. I think we're again creating fantasy films that are better than the actual things Hollywood is producing at the moment. And if you want to read stuff Sarah Millican's's written she's writing for the new online magazine standard issue which is so good i'm also writing for it well that's a bar of quality but as a brit sarah millican's answer on bases may not be entirely textbook so let's see what actual americans jesse and theresa thorn say first base is uh smooching uh-huh second base is smooching.

Second base is hot and heavy. Third base is things that involve genitals but aren't intercourse. Home run is intercourse. That makes total sense. Anal is a grand slam. Alistair from Glasgow. I'm not going to do the accent because I think that would be racist Anyway

You shouldn't There's no room for any comedic manoeuvring at the moment as far as Scotland goes so I'm going to keep this straight I commute daily from Glasgow to Edinburgh says Alistair My trip has, of late,

been plagued by what I am calling a honker. A man gets on every morning and repeatedly blows his nose. This is what I imagine it's sounding like. Like that. Maybe it's worse uh he repeatedly blows his nose the sound is indescribable i just described it with my nose the best i can do is that it's like a foghorn honk okay so it's worse than what i did that can be heard from miles around and that has a woken up sleeping passengers and b made a small child cry in recent weeks. It's deeply disgusting somehow and has a similar effect to nails on a chalkboard. Adam Buxton, answer me this. What, if anything, can I do? The train, he continues, is the only one I can get without getting up an hour earlier and the carriage is the only one that guarantees a

seat. The honker is marginally better than standing for an hour and a half. I'm wary of approaching him. Perhaps there is a medical reason for the honk. Is there a polite way to tell someone to keep their honking down to a minimum? Please help. Hmm. Well, this is a pickle inside a quandary. Admired within a quandary. It's a nightmare, this situation. My first thought, if I'm honest, Alistair, in Glasgow, when you said that your trip had been plagued by a honker, I assumed that was just somebody sexually harassing all of the women on the train in a kind of sort of way. Just because it's got a canny noise, that doesn't mean it's all right.

So I'm quite pleased that it's just a man who was blowing his nose. There's all kinds of things you could do to get out of it, but I'm not sure you're going to like any of these suggestions. Suggestion one, alter your life so that you no longer need to commute for an hour and a half each way. That to me seems like a living nightmare. I mean, it's all very easy for you to say, Buckles, you may be thinking, you know, in your special recording studio there, reading YouTube comments and living your ludicrous facsimile of a life. You're lucky. But for us regular folks, this is reality. An hour and a half commute both ways.

So don't tell us to get a new life. Well, I'm sorry you feel like that. But what about getting a new life? Think about it. There's all kinds of other things you might be able to do with your life that don't involve that hour and a half commute. I'm just saying, entertain the idea, that's all. Carpe diem. Someone tweeted me the other day carpe diem and then translated that phrase as cease the day rather than seize the day i thought that was a good egg corn for goodness sake cease the day call a halt to the day and uh start a new one

so it works both ways. So there you go. There's one suggestion. Change your entire life. And the final option is headphones podcast. All right. Always the perfect solution for any problem. I'm sure you've done that before, but you need to get on top of the whole audio book, podcast, music situation.

Don't turn those headphones up so loud that they interfere with the enjoyment of your fellow passengers, whether they're honking or not. But just get some decent headphones or get some shit ones and just ram them right inside your ear and then put gaffer tape on top of them

to insulate the noise. Noise cancelling style. And try and ignore the honking man. Well, that was Adam Buxton doing some spectacular question answering for you listeners. Yes, thank you very much, Adam. And if you are somehow unfamiliar with the work of Adam Buxton, just type his name into Google and set aside a week. And also you can follow him at twitter.com slash Adam Buxton

and look out for Bug, the live events and the videos as well. Here's something from James in Glasgow. I have a fairly pronounced rubber fetish, but my girlfriend of five years doesn't. This hasn't been a major issue to date as I accept that it's certainly not for everyone and I wouldn't dream of imposing it directly. However, my girlfriend has laid down a stipulation for when we move in together shortly and We'll be living together for the first time. That is that I get rid of my admittedly

bulky latex collection. Jesse and Teresa answer me this. Given the high expense of these items and wishing not to prematurely throw away clothing that may outlive a relationship. Wow. Horrible. Yeah, you really took a downward turn in esteem as soon as you said that.

Yeah. Five years you've been with her. Do you have any advice on smart places to conceal in a generic small flat? Really, like, I was- This question is so sad. I'm so not bothered by your rubber collection. No, not at all. And yet so bothered by that your plan is to hide it for later after you break up with

her. Yeah. You should hide it in plain sight. Like, try to use it for things that you would normally need rubber things for around the house. Like as a planter? Yeah, like you could use it as a planter, as a tarp. You could put it down in the shower so you wouldn't slip.

She'll never notice. Mud flaps on your car. Yeah. That was Jessie Thorne and Teresa Thorne. And you should really check out Teresa's podcast, One Bad Mother, which I love, even though I'm not interested at all in the subject matter, which is parenting. She makes being a mother really interesting, and I'm not a mother.

You are a big mother, though. Thanks. I often say it. Thanks. And Jessie's show, Bullseye, is compulsory listening. It makes you big mother though. Thanks. I often say it. And Jesse Show Bullseye is compulsory listening. It makes you feel like you're pretty tapped into what's cool even if you absolutely aren't. We hope

that we have helped you people of the world. Answer me this listeners. Helen, Ollie, Martin, congratulations on 300 delightful episodes. We are diehard fans here in America. We wish you all the best in all of your future endeavors.

And we're so sorry that we won't have Answer Me This to look forward to in the future. This is the last episode, right? I'm under that assumption. All I can say is I hope it's the last episode. Yeah. Well, we did think this was the best way to break it to you listeners can you imagine that'd be so good no we'd never do that to you because we enjoy uh answering your questions too much yeah the modest degree of fame and success it's brought us um so uh we're not going anywhere but

but i can say this now because it's been a very long time okay we did and you may not even remember this yourself, have quite a serious conversation once round about 191 that when we got to episode 200, we might end it. That that would be a nice round number to end it. I mean, we had the episode 200 suicide pact, didn't we? That we didn't invoke in the end, but we had it. But we did think, because at that point, we'd been going for like five years or so, six years.

It felt like a long time, whatever it was. And that felt like, you know, sort of nice round number 200. You know, at that point we were selling kind of a hundred of them. We thought, well, that's easy. Let's just end it there. You know, we've answered every question you could possibly answer. Go out on a high. And then we just kind of stumbled into carrying on. And now I can't imagine

having a discussion about ending it, which is weird. Because I've just bitten into the cyanide capsule that I had secreted in my mouth. So bye, guys. Do you find that the gap between 100 and 200 went slower and now since 200 it's gone quite quickly and i feel like this is just thing to do but now that we do the podcast fortnightly 300 400 will take over four years yeah we're going to be 75 by the time we get to it's mostly going to be about the medicine we're taking well rowan has actually sent us a question

on this theme uh he says congratulations on reaching 300 episodes but i am sure he says you must have had times where you considered jacking it in approximately once a week so helen answer me this what's the closest you've come to quitting the podcast this feels like we're really on sacrilegious ground here you're not supposed to discuss this on the show i think last year i'd reached peak editing and I was just so sick you make it sound like Everest yeah yeah I'd reached peak editing I reached the peak of the Everest that is audio editing and I was just I was just a bit ground down by it I wasn't enjoying it that much anymore and then we went fortnightly and I feel great about it again hooray a happy ending hooray I think it was just we were seeing each other too much Ollie and it meant that we had nothing to say to each other.

And it genuinely is a delight, isn't it, to get the emails and phone calls. And, you know, sometimes people ask boring questions and know we get up about that. They can't help that. I feel like we should... I know this is a bit lame, and I know that's often, as Alan Partridge famously remarked,

when presenters say this, they're usually lying. Are we going to get gooey? I just think part of the reason we do this is you. Well, most of the reason we do it, because if you weren't listening, what would be the point? Exactly. Yeah, we'd just be talking to ourselves in a really exaggerated way. No, but I often think, God, our listeners are bloody great. They are, yeah.

The stuff you communicate to us listeners, I love hearing from you. I think it's the fact that people share details of their lives. Yeah. You know, that they update us on situations. There have been listeners that have been with us since episode one they're now 299 episodes four albums and at least £130 spent on our back catalogue still here

and if that is you thank you very very much but even if it's not you thank you as well for your attention because thanks for pressing download once you could have just whacked off but I genuinely very excited listeners that you all do pay attention to this podcast and listen to it and tell people about it.

It's really delightful. And also, they're all over the world. And then sometimes when I see that we've got a listener in like Suriname, I just think, how does someone in Suriname know about it? Where is Suriname? It's a question for a future show. And indeed, if you have a question for a future show,

yes, we are saying this even in episode 300. You should know the drill by now, but bears repeating. Some of you are stupid. All of our contact details are listed on our website, answermethispodcast.com. When you're on their website, there will be links to all of our very excellent guest answerers who have featured in today's show.

And actually, if you want to hear more from them, all of them sent stuff we haven't used in this show. As ever, there is extra material on the answer me this app but a super bumper edition but this episode literally there's there's there's almost as much in the extras as there is in the episode so if you've enjoyed it please do buy our app it helps support the show it's available for android it's available for apple and it's available for windows it is a thing helen people have windows and all the links are there on our website as well yeah and if you have enjoyed this episode in particular please use the hashtag amt300 and

please use it for complimentary tweets mainly yeah that would be nice because that's the other thing isn't it that we should thank you for those of you who go and tell your friends to listen to the show i know that in podcast terms we can seem like a big beast in the jungle uh you know we sometimes have our picture put on itunes and we get to be on the radio and stuff but actually this is a show we make by ourselves in our sitting room the reason people listen is because people like you tell each other and this is something we never say enough as well please tell your friends we really appreciate it yeah people think well it's a big operation now but this is very similar to how it was when we started the three of us in our living room the only difference is we started off recording on the sofa and that made the tone of it too sleepy so now we sit on uncomfortable wooden

chairs sometimes they give you biscuits only if you're good yeah and sometimes we go and get a bottle of champagne out of our money fridge otherwise it's the same um but thank you for being such a wonderful positive force listeners, listeners. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is actually getting a bit Jerry's final thought. I feel like someone should say cunt, so it'll be me. We'll see you next time. Cuntbags. Bye!

Excuse me, just dissipating some internal wind. A bit more. That's enough. Excuse me, I apologise for that. Happy 300th episode to all of you, and do keep supporting Ollie and my magnificent sister Helen, and thanks for listening. Goodbye. Bye.