Answer Me This! - AMT305: Stolen Olives, Men with Tiny Feet, and Chicken and Egg

Episode Date: January 8, 2015

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Are all seaside towns as unlucky as Broadchurch? Answer me this, answer me this Where does big bird buy a big enough bird perch? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this Welcome back listeners to Answer Me This and the podcast is now eight years old Yes, I'm going to keep referring to 2015 from this point onwards as my

ninth year because our anniversary is the beginning of the year i always say to people we're in our ninth year that is is technically true but we don't actually become nine until january 2016 my granddad really made merry with that little linguistic uh quirk because um my aunt organized a big 80th birthday for him because he'd been saying when you asked him how old he was i'm in my 80th year but that meant that he was 79 oh no big party oh no he shat all over his own party he did no i mean not literally because he was still fairly healthy then good glad to hear it a couple of years later yeah yeah so what so he had an 80th birthday on his actual 79th yeah renegade what did he do for his 80th probably uh

laughed and laughed and laughed about his good trick maybe he thought well i might not see my 80th birthday because you don't know what's going to happen at my age and so i'll get this party in the bank anyway many happy returns in the sense that you listeners have returned to us and we're many happy about it and uh you can hear the uh the the reverbate laughter of martin the sound man he's with us as well hello martin good of you to come back as well yeah it's great to be back with the answer me this team in 2015 say it with feeling i just i'm just saying what you wrote down it's practically he's practically sliding out of his chair with indifference already uh how was your christmas also pretty good we were at the grand canyon at actual Christmas. It was snowing.

It snowed on Christmas Day at the Grand Canyon. Which is the first time I've ever seen snow actually fall, technically making it a white Christmas. The irony. The irony. I mean, I was here in London, you know, Dickensian Christmas card London, and not a drop.

Clear blue sky and sunshine. Oh, God damn it. Yeah. Swapsies. I went chock-a-lock-a-mental at Christmas. What does that mean? It meant I ate chocolate. I don't eat chocolate much the rest of the year. Loads of chocolate. We want a big It meant I ate chocolate. I don't eat chocolate much the rest of the year.

Loads of chocolate. We want a big sugar and caffeine buzz then since you abstain so much the rest of the year. Yeah, essentially. I bought two large trays of lint chocolates that were designed to taste like different puddings. So imagine very rich, very thick, very chocolatey. But they all just taste like kind of vanilla cream.

Exactly, yeah. And I bought them as presents for the in-laws I bought one box as presents for the in-laws and one box because I was working on Christmas Day I thought I'd bring it

in for my producer at the radio station but did it more work out present for the in-laws present for Rolly no what happened is I bought them in early December

because I was prepared yes left them in the garage for safekeeping Christmas Day went in to get the chocolates to bring to Ashwell where the in-laws are

and to bring to work mice eaten through the box both boxes Christmas Day, went in to get the chocolates to bring to Ashwell, where the in-laws are, and to bring to work. Mice. Eaten through the box. Both boxes. My grandmother, who admittedly didn't give Christmas presents because she was Jewish, would have happily gifted those anyway. Well, I thought about it.

I did think, because I looked at it and I was like, well, obviously if there's mouse shit in this, I can't give it. Fair enough. But there weren't. Just tooth marks. Just tooth marks, and they'd ripped into the box. And the box was shreds. Yeah, they like packaging more than food, I've found, when I've had mice. It's obviously the smell of the sugar that tempts them.

And then they think, well, I'm happy enough with the cardboard now. I'm full. I'm full. So have they got the chocolates? No. They didn't leave any room for dessert. So I was like, well, do I give the... I can't give a box that's been ripped into. And I can't really decant them because they're a presentational box.

I can't decant them into a tub. But I'm not going to throw seven pounds worth of chocolates away either so of course i just ate two massive boxes of lint selection box that was the only solution that was my christmas oh dear just every day breakfast lunch and dinner i've basically been eating dessert flavored chocolates as regularly as a devout orthodox person would pray well like every time you wash your hands every time you go to the toilet every time you make something in the kitchen, I've been having a chocolate. It's like an Auntie Lent for you. Yeah, exactly.

I'm glad you're still with us now. It was touch and go at times. And in the end, I did throw some away because I just couldn't bear to have them around the house anymore. Yeah, I kind of feel like you brought that on yourself by not giving them away. I mean, you could have said it humorously to the in-laws. Oh, look at this.

Miles ate it. Because they're country people. They know what mice get up to. Yeah, I told them them the story and of course they said in a jolly way oh of course you could have brought them anyway but i couldn't i couldn't walk in when they'd saved christmas dinner for me as well in a little plate on the side with a you know little side of cranberry sauce and a glass of champagne give them a mouse mouse ear box of chocolate i think you could have if you'd brought them other presents as well and i think also what what was implicit in their statement, like, oh, you should have brought them anyway. Brackets, you fat pig.

Well, talking of things we get for Christmas, this is from Eleanor from the Isle of Man. She says, last year for Christmas, my dad was given a dough scraper, and to my knowledge, he's never used it. Well, have you checked the logbook? This year, to save you from tears, you should get him something more special. Yeah, good point.

I am a keen bread maker continues Eleanor And a dough scraper would come in very handy Yep to scrape that dough If you're a really keen bread maker How comes you don't have a dough scraper already Is it not essential I'm a keen bread maker and I've never felt the lack of a dough scraper But maybe I don't know what I'm missing

I think I know what I'm getting you next Christmas Don't get me anything Therefore Helen answer me this When if ever is it acceptable to mention to someone i know you have something you were given as a gift and will clearly never use can i have it in support of my question i'd like to add that dad got a quiche tin two years ago and he's never used that either doesn't seem to be much of a cook does he yes someone hasn't identified this trend in their gift giving uh although i don't plan to make qu of a cook does he yes someone hasn't identified this trend in their gift giving uh although i don't plan to make quiche do you think i should just throw that in

as well well why not two for one if you're raiding his cupboards for presents for you and you might want to make like a pie or a tart in it um i think with something as small as a dough scraper and if you're convinced he never uses it because a dough scraper is pretty much a spatula isn't it so he could use it for other spatulation tasks. What would you use a spatula for? Scraping out any bowl full of things like cake mix or meringue or muck. I'm trying to think if I even have a spatula. What I've got is a cheese slicer.

Very different. They're not very different. Aren't they the same in effect? No, because it's made out of... Metal. Spatulas have a silicon rubber end. Right. It's flexible.

But if I make something in a pot like some rice and I need to scrape it out, I do sometimes made out of... Metal. Spatulas have a silicon rubber end. Right. It's flexible. But if I make something in a pot, like some rice, and I need to scrape it out, I do sometimes use the cheese slicer. Is that totally wrong? No, I'm glad you found a use for bloody cheese slicers, because I've never found a useful one. What, even the primary use of slicing cheese? I've got knives for that.

Yeah, but that's cutting cheese. That's not slicing cheese. Anyway, you've created a long interlude in my already very long sentence to Eleanor, which was, when something is as small as a dough scraper and you're convinced that it never gets used, you could just take it without mentioning it. Just have to borrow it and don't give it back. Can I borrow your dough scraper rather than spending two quid on buying myself one?

I can relate to this because my parents' dining room is a catalogue of dad's presents from Christmas past. Yeah, there are a lot of clowns in there, but that's an incidental thing. What like? Because you've said before that Stanley Mann is a tough guy to buy for. Oh my God. I mean, I've actually now taken to buying him things, exclusively things that I might like to inherit when he dies, because there's no point.

That's dark. He's not going to use them. How do you know what you're going to want in 20, 30 years time? Well, it's a very good question actually, Martin. What I tend to go for is stuff that's kind of classic, masculine, you know, stuff that will endure. Like a bicycle pump. Subutio sets.

You go for a lot of tan leather goods for him. Exactly. So, yeah, we were together, in fact, in Manchester. We went to Map It and Web. Do you remember? And I got the leather passport cover. Very smart. That was a prime...

Now, that's a £50 passport cover. I wouldn't spend that on myself, but I was thinking... £50 passport. On a thing you have to take off your passport at the only time when you get to use it. But, you know, classically stylish and will endure for decades. Because it never gets used.

And I bought that, yeah. Dad didn't use it. I've already started using it. I thought I'd have that now before he died. Okay, well, how did you get it back? I just took it. I just took it. Yeah, didn't even ask.

He has no idea that it's there. I mean, I can catalogue to you what's in that dining room from the last few years. Yes, great. There are numerous scarves that I'd like when I'm a bit older. Nab them. There's an Aloe Aloe DVD box set, which he's never opened.

Leave it. I'd like that. This year I got him a soundbar. I mean, I was just flagrant about it. You've already got one of those, though, haven't you? I've got one downstairs. I've got one upstairs. Oh, no.

I haven't got surround sound on my bathroom television. I find it so depressing that your father's just become a conduit for home accessories in your extraneous parts of the house. Well, look, it would be depressing apart from the fact he genuinely doesn't care, which is why he doesn't open them. This year, my grandma got him a CD of great speeches from history. Yeah. Despite the fact that in his car, which is the only place he ever listens to CDs, he's had the same two CDs for over two decades. More Abergold and CD one of the original cast recording of Sunset Boulevard.

He's not going to listen to it. it no unless they set it to show tunes even then it would take a lot for him to press eject on abogold i don't even know which of those two cds he'd want to kill in favor of martin luther king i'm predicting neither well it was thoughtful of her uh does he open gifts in a way that makes him seem appreciative that you've at least bothered to buy him something yes actually he does in his favor he does even though i'm bad at that right no he's very like he's he he he actually he laughs so you go oh like that and then says oh and then says whatever it is oh a book of churchill speeches and because he's prefaced it with oh it sounds like implicitly he's saying what i've always wanted whereas actually he's just laughing at the pointlessness of it all another marker of the futility of existence and human affection exactly i mean with with your

flagrant stuff to inherit when he dies have you started getting your initials monogrammed onto the tan leather goods it's only a matter of time it absolutely is just get man keep it ambiguous but anyway i think certainly by the christmas after the gift has been received is an appropriate time in which say did you ever get around to using that dose grouper i got you last year yeah maybe not because i could make use of it if you don't need it yes but i would just go for the sly filch if it's a small item uh well here's another thing that people get for Christmas, but you might not want to get back after they've had them. Socks from Toby from Cheshire who says,

I have size seven feet. Yes, that's right. Size seven. He's a little man. Well, he's got little feet. I used to have a flatmate who was six foot one or two and he had size seven feet. And you also had a flatmate here who was six foot one

and had feet the size of Tyrannosaurus Rex. As in the whole dinosaur not just the dinosaur's feet those feet still i still get fried i get sweaty when i think about those feet you used to worry that you would get lost in his shoes that he left on the floor anyway toby says this means the only socks i can buy are for size 7 to 11 and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a sock that is snug on a size 11 is going to be laughably baggy on a dinky size 7 and uncomfortable to boot or in boot. Good to see that Toby has retained his sense of humour.

That's right, yes. In this socky crisis. A constrictive sock has not limited his wordplay abilities. Why doesn't he buy women's socks which are available in sizes 4 to 7? Then he'd be on the upper bounds of sock size. What I'm going to do is I'm going to copy and paste that answer into the answer, Helen.

What's the question, first of all? Prepare thyselves, listeners. Imagine that highlighted and selected, listeners. Toby's question is, Ollie, answer me this. How come they don't produce socks in more sizes? And edit paste. With five pairs for £10,

it can't be impossible to come up with a better fitting sock for relatively little cost. I suppose you're going to tell me that there are online retailers who will sell me bespoke hosiery. But honestly, honestly, honestly, would you tell Toby that? I think I would, yeah. Because I think you can't, in all fairness, expect a really super mainstream retailer like Sainsbury's to do much else other than cater for the mainstream man. Now, as you say, Helen, other than cater for the mainstream man now as you say

Helen uh they also cater for the mainstream woman and no disrespect Toby but that is roughly the size of your feet so just find some relatively neutral colored women's socks which there are there are lots of uh perfectly gender non-specific socks that you with your neat gentleman feet would find fine neat Neat petite feet. Where do we find these genderqueer socks? Well, I don't know. I haven't bought socks for years because I wear tights. But back when I used to shop at Primark,

they had lovely socks. Colourful. They washed well. But it's the case, isn't it, with anything like that? Like condoms don't come in very small or very large. If you want those those you have to shop around yes uh you know if you've got elephantitis you're not going to be able to buy a baseball cap this is how it works uh unfortunately they have to cater for the mainstream uh the mainstream man

and those socks do fit most however um when they say one size fits all on garments that's usually one size fits small people and everyone else can fuck themselves. But you could get tube socks because unlike non-tube socks, tube socks don't have the heel knitted in that means your sock is a specific size. So then your foot will just slip into it and you'll have a slightly longer bit of sock on the calf

than the average gent. What size are your feet, Ollie? 11. Do you find socks too tight for you? I've never thought about it. No. So in that case, socks are too big for poor Toby with his foot at the end of the size range on the socks. Well, I don't find socks too tight for you? I've never thought about it. No. So in that case, socks are too big for poor Toby with his foot at the end of the size range on the socks.

Well, I don't find them too tight, but now I do think about it. Now in that 10 seconds that you've been talking, I've actually lent any of my brain space to this at all. Thanks. I am aware, I suppose, that they're a little bit short. They're not tight. Yes. They don't go as far up the ankle as I would like.

Well, maybe Toby's finding the opposite problem. They're coming up above his waist. Here's a thing that i never could have predicted all this talk of socks is making me feel a bit claustrophobic oh well we better move on to the next question then but you know what i mean that feeling of like binding on the foot i'm a bit yeah just stop saying it it's making me feel a bit i'm a bit like this with gloves i like gloves that are cheaply made so they're quite well aerated i don't like the ones that are scintillated and actually really uh very heat containing and you wear giant pants as well do i yeah what about my pants is giant i wear boxer shorts yeah but they're not close fitting box shorts they're not no that's true i don't wear trunks yeah i mean hammer pants would be

the ideal trousers for you you're right i like a little bit of air flapping around and it's the same with the socks and it's the same with the gloves that's what it is yeah it's a little bit of air and i tend not to tuck in my shirt as well same thing i like a little bit of air flapping around and it's the same with the socks and it's the same with the gloves that's what it is yeah it's a little bit of air and i tend not to tuck in my shirt as well same thing i like a little bit of ventilation around yeah we're lucky you're wearing clothes at all frankly i got a question email your question to answer me this podcast to googlemail.com And submit this podcast to googlemail.com And submit this podcast to 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. There's a question from Jack in Worcester who is 23 and 8 twelfths, which I believe is two thirds.

So why not use that fraction, Jack? Jack says, I recently treated myself to a lovely new tattoo. The design perched on the outside of my forearm, is inspired by my favourite novel, Stephen King's It. I love novels where ten-year-olds bang. Okay. I love it. Sorry, Jack, you do know that that's a book about a pederast serial killer, yeah?

Yeah. Is that really tattoo fodder? Apparently. I can't think of many more inappropriate tattoos. My tattoo is inspired by my favourite book, Schindler's Ark. There really aren't very many tattoos that you want that are worse than that. Well, that would have form-reflecting content. I suppose it would, yeah. My favourite book actually is 1984,

and I've never thought about getting that in a tattoo, but it could be quite a good one, couldn't it? Big Brother style. Yeah. Two eyes looking out, something like that. Sounds fun. Jack says, I love it. Always going swimmingly until my dad noticed it

is that the new tat he asks all in the present tense you see so it feels like we're really there i nod cringing at his use of the word tat but happy nonetheless that he hadn't given me his world famous disappointed grimace yeah that's the worst isn't it disappointed grimace from dad especially with something you can't really remove with great ease i didn't realize winnie the pooh meant so much to you he continues oh burn i have since learned that my tattoo resembles a fairly well-known illustration of christopher robin chasing a lost balloon yeah now we've put the picture up answer me this podcast.com you can have a look for yourself yes i agree it is actually balloons and a tree a red balloon going up in the air with a like a silhouette of a tree and a boy so all it's missing really is a clown in a drain crucially it's missing either a clown in a drain or winnie the pooh so you don't know it so you can't really blame anyone for saying

well where's the protagonist here it's not the tree and also isn't it better this way around if you'd been going for a tattoo of something fairly innocent like winnie the pooh and everyone's like oh that looks like stephen king's it that terrifying terrifying thing about uh child death which was essentially people's first reaction to seeing the cgi paddington wasn't it was it i know that actually subsequently and i'm glad to hear the film's quite good i haven't seen it myself because i don't have children but i will one day uh and apparently it's quite good but when people first saw paddington as a 3D realised bear, they were like, he's quite scary. He looks like a horror bear.

Yeah, you want the edges sort of softened on things like that. You don't want all that modern digimation has to offer. Well, Jack says, now when I look at my arm, all I see is poo. Even though poo's not in the tattoo, it's Christopher Robin, really. So Ollie answered me this. How do I remove the imprint of Winnie the Pooh that is in the tattoo, it's Christopher Robin, really. So, Ollie, answer me this. How do I remove the imprint of Winnie the Pooh that is now sculpted into my brain? It's rather branded into your arm, Jack.

All I seek is validation on my excellent taste in art and literature. I think a lot of people wouldn't say that it was excellent literature. It is entertaining, but it's... Probably Stephen King wouldn't say that it was his most literary work. It's not in his best, is it? It's pulpy, deliberately pulpy trash. Yeah, although still very many questionable elements. I mean, where did the spider thing come from?

Why does the girl have to have sex with all the boys? I can understand why they left that out of the TV adaptation. Do you know they're making a remake now, a film? Yeah, but they've been trying to do that for years, haven't they? Like The Stand as well. Yes, I know. But this time they have a director attached. It's the guy who does True Detective.

Oh, okay. They're filming it in 2015 in two parts. Ooh. Apparently, according to the internet. Two-parter again? Two parts. What is it with the two-part thing? Well, the TV series with Tim Curry, that was in two parts.

I know, but you wouldn't go to the cinema twice to watch it, would you? I caught the second half of it on TV a few months ago, and I don't think it had aged well. No, I can imagine. I remember the second half of it on tv a few months ago and uh i don't think it had aged well i remember the first half being really scary shit yourself scary yeah then you were 12 presumably as yeah and then the second half where it explains everything just like although there is all the like eyeballs coming out of fortune cookies at the chinese restaurant type fun there's some great stuff in it and tim curry arguably apart from home alone 2 his last great performance.

Would you like a balloon? Would you like a balloon? Do you know who's playing Pennywise in the next one? Yet to be announced. Maybe they should have someone like Tom Hardy playing sexy Pennywise. Tom Hardy, I could totally imagine doing that, actually. But still, I think they're going to have a bit of a job

bringing that up to date for the modern generation. I saw over Christmas, Tim Curry doing the most phoned-in performance even he has ever done. Every Christmas I like to watch a So Bad It's Good masterpiece. It's usually Jingle All The Way, but occasionally I deviate. And this year we watched one called Christmas in Wonderland, which was Patrick Swayze's last film, depressingly. And he's quite bad in it as well

and it's set almost entirely in the Edmonton Mall in Canada and it'd obviously been part funded by the Edmonton Mall as a big advert so every scene they were like wow they've got such cool water slides here oh and where's the baddie gone

and it was a really weird mix of jingle all the way home alone and like a really tepid episode of neighbors do you think it was it sounds like the kind of film where the script should have been filmed in the 80s and hanging around for 20 years waiting to be filmed didn't do it any favors i think that's right and actually carmen electra was in it no sexy elf henchman she i think had probably been cast five years before as well she was just looking a bit old to be sexy elf henchman although you know always a welcome relief well i think maybe she should have received a job promotion because she's in her 40s she she deserves a more senior position

well i don't want to ruin the twist but it turned out she was the brains behind the crime operation really and you overlooked that because of her tits her magnificent tits i think in fairness there was sexy saxophone playing every time she came on screen. So I think we were supposed to ignore that. But back to Jack's problem. Oh, yeah, his indelible problem. The problem that he can't shift. Your fault, Jack.

Nothing you can do about it. I don't think it is a problem because of all the tattoos you could get commemorating Stephen King's It. This seems to be a very artistic one. It almost looks like a Banksy. But maybe what you need to do is just add something to make it shitter. But just put the words it next to it and then no one will mistake it for

winnie the pooh anymore or you could put poo into it and then have pennywise stabbing him from behind have pennywise bumming poo an amazing literary tattoo mashup i think it's fine i think it's i mean you can explain it to people i think talking. I think in later years you'll come to celebrate its ambiguity rather than being angry at me. Also, at the moment,

you're 23 and 8 twelfths, but you have so many books left ahead of you. I'm not saying that Stephen King's It Isn't a Great Lifetime Choice

is your favourite book, but there are others that might also be quite well symbolised by Little Boy, Balloon and Tree Silhouette. Really? Maybe. Such such as i don't know yet probably some russian novels there's a balloon in that right yeah definitely a tree in it i mean actually out of all stephen king books if he'd gone for misery that would be bad yeah the shining also bad how would you do

the shining you do red rum or you would do axe and face coming through the door or just write all work and no play makes jack in Worcester a bad boy. Pet cemetery, that would be distasteful. Carrie, you would just have a big blood splat, wouldn't you? Yeah. Giant for giant. So we've come around, really, to Jack's choice, haven't we? Yeah, exactly.

I mean, out of all the ones he could have gone for, actually, I think it's pretty good, yeah. I think whatever tattoo you get, some people are going to make mean comments about it. They'll make you feel a bit annoyed. But really, Jack, you should look at your arm and think, yeah, that's my arms and my secret. Everyone else can think Winnie the Pooh if they want. That's not my problem. Or you could make it clear, couldn't you?

Because it was in two parts. There was the bit set in the 1950s, the bit set in the 1980s. Yeah, the 80s tattoo on the other arm. Exactly. So on the left arm, you've got the silhouette of the tree representing the boys in childhood. On the right, you could have the gay man being thrown off the bridge at the beginning of the book in 1986.

And then, you know, then no one could mistake the fact that you've got both sides of the story there. Nailed it. Yeah, I think so. Well, I think it's time for us to retire to the intermission. And this little window into a questionnaire's life is from episode 108. Available now at answmethisstore.com This is Nick from London.

I just found out that the love of my life fucked a guy in a wedding festival which I was there sleeping in the tent at the same time so Ollie and Martin answer answer me this.

Why are all girls such slutty bitches? Listeners, we hope you haven't forgotten over the Christmas hiatus that in order to ask us questions using your voice, you need to phone the following number. 0-2-0-8-1-2-3-5-8-0-0-7 Or you can Skype us by typing the words answer me this into Skype. Or Siri-ing them in, if you've got that. Yeah, but then it's bound to phone someone else, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I mean it's pointless, isn't it?

I don't understand you. Yeah, what? Manchester United 5-0. Anyway, let's see who's on the phone line today. Hi, this is Katie calling from Christchurch. Helen and Ollie, answer me this. How do they audition people for audiobooks and meditation CDs? Because I think that Ollie in particular would do spectacularly at both. I agree.

I think you'd be great at both audiobooks and meditation CDs, Ollie, with your lovely soothing tones. Katie claimed that Ollie would be good at meditation CDs and Helen agreed. I'd love to do it. I'd love to do it more than almost anything else in the world. It's the any kind of voiceover job is the easiest job. It's easy enough being on the radio and just talking for a living and doing a podcast and being able to monetize it. And having to think what to say. Exactly. We have to at least think what to say.

Someone puts a script in front of you says read this you know enter our prize drawer online at marks and spencer.com that'll be 10 grand please on the other hand though you're reading for a long time protractedly and um we have both individually auditioned in the past for an audiobooks making production company indeed so the correct answer the question how do you audition for an audiobook is you go to an office in archway but it's very well protected because it was in the same building as the uh trade industry body for the fur industry i remember it had a huge security gate and a man there just checking that you weren't going to throw red paint all over the building i believe other options are available if you want to read audiobooks i don't think you'd have to come all the way to Archway from Christchurch,

but there are just a few production companies that make audiobooks, and you go and have a voice test for one. And we went and did it. So we did this individually. We've not really ever conferred notes. So what happened at yours? What happened at mine, Ollie, is even though it was November, I was stuck in a very, very, very, very hot recording booth.

It's tiny as well, isn't it? It's like solitary confinement. Yes, made out of dark foam. And it's so dark. Yes. So it's like solitary confinement yes made out of dark foam and it's so dark yes so dark you're reading by candlelight some people like dead poet society some people are in there for a week yeah narrating an audiobook this is why roger allum never has a tan he's been too long away from daylight and i was in there for about 20 minutes or half an hour reading the beginning of a book about cycling and um the problem i had was that my my mouth became extremely dry in these circumstances and it felt like i wasn't really

allowed to make mistakes because i was auditioning and you want to have minimal edits anyway if you're doing a massive audiobook but also the problem i ran into is i think on the pretty much first page of this book the author was narrating a conversation she had with someone who was supposed to be a person being obstreperous in an indian call center and i with someone who was supposed to be a person being obstreperous in an indian call center and i was like am i supposed to be doing a racist accent now because i really don't want to that's interesting because i had the same thing not the racism thing but you realize fairly soon that one of the reasons they prefer using actors to radio presenters and podcasters because it's acting it's because there's elements of acting

so i was reading a thing by simon hoggart you know the times journalist um which they deliberately given me because it was roughly in my voice you know slightly aggravated middle-class man talking about his own life yep um so that i suppose is the kind of audiobook that i'd be narrating sure a bit of range um but the problem was even within that like the bit that they got me reading was a bit where he went to a sofa store dfs or something and i had to do the voice of the manager i had to do the voice of another customer who's in the shop i had to do the voice of the guy who's trying to assist him and before you know it i'm not an actor and i was doing a yorkshire accent i was doing a cockney accent and well my yorkshire and cockney are all right yeah you know that's it so had there been 10 characters i

would have ended up doing chinese and that would have been highly offensive know, that's it. So had there been ten characters, I would have ended up doing Chinese. And that would have been highly offensive. So that's the issue, I think. To be honest, I wasn't too surprised when they didn't ask me back. I don't feel like it was my best work. But I bet you did all right on the sight reading. My problem was that the book was really badly edited. So my temptation was to tidy sentences up a bit.

Particularly when you're reading them out loud, you want a sentence to progress in a natural manner so beginning middle and end not to have like a beginning a huge subclause then return to the beginning and then veer off again and then finally end yeah sub clauses must be a nightmare for uh for people doing audiobooks absolutely and and for a former proofreader and copy editor so So I just think I was ill-equipped. Also, I don't think my voice is that nice. I'd be infuriated if I had to spend 10 hours with it. I have to do that every day. Hey, shut up.

That's all right. So yeah, so they give you a book that you've sort of slightly prepared and then a sight reading one. And my sight reading was really heavy. It was about a journalist in Afghanistan or something. It was okay, but it was just, you know. Bring on the lols. Exactly.

Hard to put too much warmth behind that. Yeah, because you always sound like you're smiling, which I think is a nice quality for the listener. Yeah, but not necessarily appropriate for certain material. No, keep it light, I think, for the Ollyman audiobook. But they never called me back. Did they call you back? They didn't, but hey, I'm available.

Yep. Ollyman.com, all my details are there. I'd love to do an audiobook. Although the problem is time, because as you say, if you're reading a whole book, that is days work isn't it yeah and you must get parts reading for hours and hours a day i have admiration for people that can do it and they don't sound like they're just droning by about the second chapter because you know your mind goes elsewhere and your mouth is just saying words and that disconnect i think is annoying

when you're listening because you start to lose interest in the book. It's harder than it sounds, isn't it? Well, I hope that satisfied you, Katie. I only like things that feature the number seven Like the secret seven and magnificent seven I've even got time for lucky number seven Who doesn't love lucy lou you're gonna gush with joy over squarespace seven it's a cross-platform web design tool sent from heaven the site you

build will be full of surprises like the end of seven what's in the box thanks very much to squarespace for supporting this episode of Answer Me This. Yes, thank you, Squarespace. Thank you. And thank you especially for providing the world with Squarespace 7, your one-stop shop to make a funky website that works across numerous different platforms, even if you think the word funky is for old people. Or that it means things that smell bad like old shoes,

which in some countries is what funky means. Yeah, I reckon some Americans listening to this think exactly that that's what it means. Although Bruno Mars is bringing funk back in the old sense to me. Is he? Yeah. I would say really what you meant instead of funky

was easy to use and well-designed and works on mobile and desktop. That's exactly what I meant. I think so. And also what I implied by the use of the word is that you can have 10% off a year's subscription by using the promo code ANSWER. All of that and the word funky.

I know. Kyle in Bloomington, Indiana says, our nearby ever-expanding supermarket has put in an olive bar. Someone should move to Bloomington and his name is Olly Mann. I've heard that Bloomington is very nice. Is it?

Yeah. Well, I can tell because they've got supermarkets with olive bars in them. I live two miles away from an olive bar. What hell? I think that's reasonable. I mean, they have a car park, but I'd rather that my local post office had an olive bar. Your mission statement is to always be within 30 yards of an olive bar. When I lived near Newington Green, literally my local post office and newsagent had an olive bar in it,

and I would like that situation back. They had drive-through olive bars, didn't they? They would just shoot them into your mouth with a cannon. Anyway, Kyle explains what this is, if we don't know. Well, not everybody used to live in Highbury. True. Olive-rich area. He says, an olive bar is where you scoop out your olives and put them in a plastic container

and weigh them at the checkout. We're all up to speed now. It's all the fun of selecting olives. But also, importantly, you then buy that weight of olives and you take them home and you eat them. I think it's a savoury pick and mix, basically, if you're unfamiliar with the idea. I have a habit, continues Kyle, of sampling, let's put that in inverted commas, sampling one or two or more of the olives whilst I shop. My wife says this is shoplifting, as I've not yet paid for or weighed the olives. I say I am merely sampling to make sure they are of a fine quality.

Sure you are, Kyle. Yeah. The supermarket gives out samples of other foods. This just has the ring of the self-justification doesn't it immediately i've just got this vision now of kyle ripping open cereal boxes and eating a handful and be like it's a sample you just forgot to put it out so continues kyle i feel i'm within fine moral ground sure you do besides the olive bar is nine dollars per pound yeah because they've got to up the price because of olive thieves like you so i figure there is quite a lot of margin in there for a few samples yeah you do self-justifying

the site if you went in court and said well i didn't feel like it was murder so helen answer me this am i as my wife contends an olive thief yeah yeah i think so because you're stealing the olives that's right no absolutely no what what for them. Absolutely not. Whoa, what? What? No, I think that's completely justified. I mean, if you sample one and no more than one olive of each type, that is genuinely trying to detect the difference between opening a cereal box is that you're causing damage to the product.

Opening a little box or whatever it is in an olive bar and seeing if you like the olive, I think that's totally justified. You couldn't be more wrong, Martin. I shall tell you for why. Please do, Martin. If you were to eat the cereal from the sugar puffs box And then take that box of sugar puffs to the checkout They scan it and you pay the same whether you ate it or not

Yes You're still like dirty and weird Yes But you pay the same amount By eating the olive It's not contributing to the total weight is it? Yeah but it swings around a bit Because if you ate from that cereal box

But then did not purchase it Because you did not like the product that would ruin a whole box of cereal. Two wrongs don't make a right, Martin. You're imagining a scenario where someone's living in the supermarket. You're not ruining the whole olive bar by trying it. You're not paying for the olive. They need to weigh Kyle on his way in and his way out and charge him for the

weight of olives. I think you're right in saying that. It's factored into the cost of the olives. It doesn't mean it's right, though. Kyle is raising the cost of olives for everyone in Bloomington. Everyone else should take advantage of the statutory rights to eat olives. I disagree. I think you're part of the problem, not the solution. Yes.

I think the reason this olive bar is... Yes, represent the reason this olive bar is $9 per pound is because people like you thieve olives. I'm not siding with the man. You'd rather side with the Walmart of olive bars. I'm saying why should the vulnerable corporate giants like Tesco have to build into their price for thieving? That's not thieving.

It's wrong, Martin. Try it before you buy it. It's the opposite of wrong. Yeah, but if he was like, well, I don't know if those olives in that jar are nice or not, so I'm going to try one for quality control, and then he doesn't buy the jar, why is it different?

That's exactly the point. It's not ruining the whole jar because it's an olive bar. Yeah, but it's still stealing. It's like you've eaten the old foam shrimp. You're ruining the whole jar Because it's an olive bar It's still stealing You're ruining the whole jar by even touching it If I saw you in the supermarket With your finger on those olives I wouldn't want to go near them again Because you're a thief

That got very heated very quickly Here's another question Which olives never should be Except in some Spanish food Or in a puttanesca sauce It's a question from Orla Who is 29 this January. Happy birthday.

She says, I am a huge fan of eggs. Oh, God, this is going to go bad down Martin Street as well. I find them so versatile. I like to steal them from chickens. Is this theft? I like to crack them in the supermarket just to check they're not vulnerable. And then if they break, I will not buy them. And if they don't break, I don't buy them.

I find them so versatile, says Orla. Great for breakfast. Can be cooked in so many ways. Yeah, someone works for the eggs marketing board, I suspect. She's watched that Delia series where she cooked eggs for days. Yeah, the eggs marketing board's in Farringdon. You can go to their building. Great.

It's just around the corner from Smithsville. It's the one shaped like a big egg. One day, Martin, you'll make an app of all the boring places in the world. Orla says they are a wonder food. I also love chicken. Don't we all? Grilled, roasted in sandwiches. Now, I obviously know that both chicken and eggs

are from the one animal, the hen, but Ollie asked me this. Why, oh why, in all the wealth of cooking and recipes, can I not think of even one dish that uses chicken meat and egg? What? Egg for you. I've never heard of a chicken and egg sandwich,

not even a chicken and mayonnaise sandwich, Orla. A chicken omelette, not even a chicken om never heard of a chicken and egg sandwich Not even a chicken and mayonnaise sandwich A chicken omelette Not even a chicken omelette A chicken and egg sandwich She's said that twice Because she's never heard of it twice She's got a point hasn't she Which is you can think of scenarios

Where eggs are used as lubricant In the form of mayonnaise Yes But hard actually to think of Sliced boiled egg for example And chicken being a combination Whereas you would get that with pork You would get that with steak even but hard actually to think of sliced boiled egg, for example, and chicken being a combination, whereas you would get that with pork.

You would get that with steak even. She says eggs go so well with pork in breakfast dishes. Surely chicken and eggs should go together, no? It's a different flavour combination. Chicken's relatively bland, it's got similar marmite, but it's not got exactly the same sort of characteristics as egg. And also, I think you need more textural contrast. Like bacon is a crisp and a firmer thing,

whereas both egg and pork are... And pork is salty. The only time I ever use chicken and eggs together, says Or bacon is a crisp and a firmer thing, whereas both eggs are porky. The only time I ever use chicken and eggs together, says Orla, is if I'm crumbing chicken. But that is merely washing the skin with eggs or the crumbed stick. It's hardly a dish with egg and chicken as the heroes of the dish. I actually disagree there.

I mean, it's a hidden hero. An unsung hero. It's an unsung hero. It's a working class hero. But the egg is crucial to fried chicken. But anyway, there are lots of dishes that do use chicken and eggs, like egg fried rice. it's an unsung hero it's a working class hero but uh the egg is crucial to fried chicken but anyway there are lots of dishes that do use chicken and eggs like uh egg fried rice yes that's a good one and um although that has so much meat in it could you really say that the

chicken is the star there okay well the same with cob salad though because that has bacon and blue cheese in it but it does also have chicken and hard-boiled eggs yeah oh um club sandwich club sandwich club sandwich is an egg and chicken sandwich with bacon. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. No, it only occasionally has solid egg. It's usually just mayonnaise. And I was outraged when I received one with solid egg in it.

Disgusting. Well, I had one at Claridge's the other day, and it had the hard-boiled egg, chicken, and bacon. And it was delicious. And a lot of mayonnaise, which has egg in it as well. Avgolemono, the Greek chicken and egg soup. Like a chicken noodle soup. Probably has egg noodles in it, doesn't it?

But then egg is not the hero ingredient. Yeah, but you might have to make white mixing with that soup to thicken it. Say a breakfast burrito that's got scrambled egg and chicken in it. Yeah, you don't get, you do not get chicken in a breakfast burrito. But you would. Very rarely. Yes, you might get like someone saying, I took last night's leftovers of our Mexican chicken.

Yeah, exactly. And I made a fried breakfast out of it. But that's because they haven't got any pulled pork it's not because it's the best ingredient i bet that happens a lot uh yeah but that's not that it's not the hero ingredient chicken schnitzel with a fried egg on top yeah that happens a lot does it yeah ethiopian stew doro what has uh chicken and eggs doro what is is chicken and egg kosher because in an answer me this episode long past we answered a question from dave from smedic asking why milk and meat was not kosher because in an answer me this episode long past we answered a question from dave from smedic asking why milk and meat was not koshered together because uh you're not supposed to be able

to cook the child in its mother's milk but is the same true of chicken and eggs or jews just not really bothered no you can have chicken and eggs together in fact they love chicken and eggs in fact there is a soup that is prepared on passover which is essentially a chicken soup with eggs in it and in fact there you go waller i shocked this year because my auntie Elaine made this delicious soup on Passover and it's the egg always looks different to eggs and other soup it's quite hard and I said to my cousin Sarah who works in the butcher shop I said oh where do you where do you get this egg from because I really like to make it at home I can never make my eggs go this hard like this it's just the yolk and she said it was from the chicken and I said yeah I know eggs are from the chicken but where do you just the yolk. And she said, well, it's from the chicken.

And I said, yeah, I know eggs are from the chicken, but where do you get it from? She went, no, no, it's from the inside of the chicken. It was the chicken's ovary. It's from the cut open womb of a dead chicken. That's where they get the eggs from for the chicken soup on Passover. So yeah, it's quite freaky when you realise what you're eating.

But no different to any other egg, it just hasn't hatched yet. I had food poisoning a few days ago, so I've been feeling sick ever since and in fact just the words egg buffet made me projectile vomit

all over a bathroom mirror and so I'm finding this question really difficult you've done really well to stay with it but I am going to say let's end the show here

before I puke into the mic but listeners if you want to send questions to nauseate us or delight us for a future episode then all of our contact details are on our website. AnswerMethispodcast.com

Because two things that go very well together, like chicken and egg in obscure dishes from around the world, are of course us and your questions. Absolutely. I think you can say us and your ears, that would have been better. Yeah, those go well together as well. We need your questions. We need our questions to fill your ears with. Otherwise, what would we talk about?

Well, don't find out. Send us your questions and we will feature them in the next episode which is out in two weeks time other things on our website in the meantime oh our twitter and facebook details so you can befriend us online yeah and uh there are links to uh lots of stuff like our classic episodes and our albums which are also on answer me this store.com so remember all that we'll see you in a fortnight and remember if there isn't an episode of answer me this in a week uh obviously it's a very tough week to get through uh but there is an episode of the media podcast which is the show that i present and helen is sometimes on and you can find that when you're on it but not when i'm on it it's like chicken and eggs we're not in the same dish we rarely go well together it's an acquired taste which is which uh and you can find out about that at themediapodcast.com.

Okay. It's enough for you to get on with, isn't it? Yeah. It just remains for us to say thanks very much to Squarespace. Use the code ANSWER if you're going to use their services. And... Happy New Year. Happy New Year.

Oh, so many things. All right. Well, okay. But let's wrap it up there. Right. Bye! Bye!