Answer Me This! - AMT313: Love on an Escalator, Political Posters and Poogatory

Episode Date: April 30, 2015

A questioneer has to choose between her health and her dream job. Another wants to eat something older than he is. Decisions, decisions. Read more about the episode at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode313 Send questions to [e-mail], or the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) Tweet us twitter.com/helenandolly Be our Facebook friend at facebook.com/answermethis Subscribe on iTunes iTunes.com/AnswerMeThis Buy old episodes and albums at answermethisstore.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Mad Men ends, can I have all the props? Answer me this, answer me this What was Mickey Mouse on when he saw the dancing mobs? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this Election fever is gripping the nation. All around Britain, people are practising posting a ballot paper into a box. What a thrill and...

So exciting, isn't it? Thinking about which of three dispiriting boxes you might put a pencil in. Here's an election-related problem from David from Scotland who says, whilst walking up the road home from work this evening, I looked up at my flat to see a certain... Alex Salmond threatening us to vote for him. I looked up at my flat to see a certain political party's poster

in my own living room window. OK. Not being a supporter of this party, I am not keen for their poster to be in my window. When my flatmate, the putter-upper of the poster, returned, I explained that I didn't feel right with a poster for a party I don't align with in our window. I asked if he could put it up in his own bedroom window

and show his support from there. He says I'm being unreasonable by not allowing it to go up. He suggested polling our third flatmate, little pre-election practice, and going with his decision. However, even if they both support this party, I don't feel comfortable with the poster in our living room. This feels like an episode of coupling. This doesn't feel like the kind of thing

that would actually happen in a real person's house. So Ollie answered me this. Am I being unreasonable by not allowing the poster in our living room or am I in the right? Vote now! That is a fascinating dilemma, actually. It is. Because my instinct is, David, no, you're absolutely in the right.

Indeed. But I then thought about it and I thought, well, if you were in a house share of, say, ten people and the other nine all voted for that party, then you'd say, well, nine out of the ten, nine-tenths of us. ten nine tenths of us democracy that's democracy support this party so we put their poster in the city well in some systems one third is uh still the ruling thing well exactly your flatmate does have a point that if the other flatmate supports that party that's a straightforward majority to an extent they'd be within their rights but that's not considering your feelings

no so david's flatmate needs to form a coalition a living room coalition to get this poster but still what is wrong with the flatmate not wanting to display it in his bedroom surely to the passerby uh that window wouldn't mean something different to them well it depends i'm guessing that the living room window is more prominent um also i i mean it's interesting i made a joke about alex salmon earlier i mean david doesn't say which party it is that he's referring to but actually you know across the referendum the snp were uh being accused of being involved in um you know intimidation some people would say if you're not a supporter of the snp you're less likely to put up a big poster because they're so popular in scotland at the moment so i i can imagine that if you come home to your house and you feel uneasy about the Scottish National Party, seeing a big poster for

the SNP, especially if you're a Labour supporter, must feel quite difficult. Maybe you could put up posters of every available candidate. The truth is most of us feel about the parties that we're going to vote for that they're the least worst option. Most of us don't feel that passionate about the posters and that's the problem, isn't it? It's only the people who feel really gutturally excited by a party that put a poster up for it. You know what would win the election for any of these people? If, say, Nick Clegg got Olivia Colman to make house calls, then everyone would be like, yeah, whatever you say, Olivia Colman.

If Olivia Colman goes around everyone's house in a marginal seat in the country. Just with her kind face. I think people would go for whatever she wanted. She holds that power with her kind face i think people would go for whatever she wanted she holds that power yeah possibly with her face where i am um we have an almost unmovable conservative majority that's what happens when you move out of city when you move to the green belt yeah and when you drive to where i live you go down uh an a road and the only advertising for any political party that there is anywhere in the whole constituency that I've seen, including in the major parts of the town, is a series of, I wouldn't call them billboards because they're just like tiny little posters on sticks. You know what I mean? Yes.

They're almost like banners that you'd hold in a protest. They're that size. Yeah. Or like estate agents boards. Exactly. And the Tory candidate, Oliver Dowden, he's bought what appears to be 150 of these and he's just lined either side of the road with these banners. So what do the banners say? Nothing, just his name and his face.

That's all he needs. Name and face and then Conservative. And I just thought he actually had an opportunity there when I was driving past to pitch me a policy. Like a kind of Burma shave type thing. What do you think about immigration? None of that, just his face and his name. It's almost as if he's just basically, do you like white men? None of that. Just his face and his name. It's almost as if he's just basically,

do you like white men? Do you like fields? That's all you need to win in the Greenbelt. It's probably quite a fair pitch, actually, for Hartsmere, yeah. Maybe he's not even standing. He's just like, I'm Oliver and I'm a Conservative. Oh, wow, that'd be amazing. If it wasn't a pre-election tactic, you know,

vote for me because you like these fields and you like my face but instead it was just the beginning of a reign of terror whereby if he does become mp once again he'll start putting pictures of his face over every field and every window indeed because you'll open your curtains and there's oliver dowden no sunshine for you just dowden face but that is equally what he's promising with just his name and a face and a poster yeah i don't know anything more than that let's reel back and help David with this predicament. One option could be to dirty your window, throw some mud or an egg at it. Yes, throw an egg at your own window.

No, throw an egg at your own window from outside so your flatmate thinks that somebody has taken exception to his poster. Oh, I see. I thought you meant whilst you're in the kitchen, just throw an egg at the poster from inside. These things do happen, but that will only serve to glue it further to your window because egg is a very strong glue. You could cause house warfare, David, by taking the poster down or turning it upside down or not taking it down in a deliberate looking way, but making it look like the blue tack has failed and it has fallen on the floor behind the sofa where it is hard to pick up again.

I disagree. I think canvassing or advertising for a candidate is a much stronger political statement than voting for them in the privacy of the polling booth i think he has every right to say i don't want to be an advert for this person just take it there or you if it is just their name and a face a la oliver dowden you could just put an a4 piece paper next to it saying is a cunt yes then you've covered both sentiments haven't you yeah subversion and if they don't like it and be like well we'll both take our posters down then here's a question from sarah who says i'm always stuck in a manky restroom what a life if you can call it a life it's uh what's the stage

between uh purgatory yeah it's purgatory isn't it pougatry it's our first ever it's our first ever email from pougatry well we don't know, a lot of people don't specify I'm always stuck in a manky restroom Without a hook for my bag Okay, always when I'm in a restroom So not I'm always in a restroom But always when I am in a restroom On a vacation when I'm in a restroom Hooks are lacking and by bag she's talking about

Handbag not colostomy bag Hell ask me this, what is more disgusting Putting my bag down on the floor Or putting it on the diaper changing table uh i think the floor is more disgusting because i think it's easier to wipe down a changing table i also think that because of its primary use uh if you're the person who cleans that toilet you're going to take particular care to use wipes yeah it's our surface it's our eye level so you think well better give it a cursory clean whereas the floor i mean you're tracking waste around as well as the waste falling there on its own accord that is a toilet floor and inherently more dirty

than the floor outside well this is what i was thinking i was thinking actually being honest there are probably more germs on a train carriage floor yeah than there are on toilet because the toilet so long as it's a reasonably i mean she's saying manky restroom but as long as a reasonably reputable business someone will have to go and clean that toilet at least twice a day that doesn't happen on a train carriage check the forms on on the wall yeah um but you do have probably a higher concentration of various excretions on the toilet floor and those uh get um uh less concentrated the further away people are walking from the toilet place. Yes. I take your point, but people don't walk into toilets to literally piss and shit on the floor.

Martin, some toilets I've been in, you do think, what went through this person's mind? I mean, she gave us the straightforward choice here between the changing table for the baby or the floor. Changing table. Unequivocally, I would say. But I would still say, given a third third option i would say the cistern is actually probably cleaner than either not always a cistern of available though true enough but if one is available yes it wouldn't you say cleaner because you can you can also go over it with a bit of a paper towel no one craps on there it's very difficult for it's difficult for crap to end up people could easily piss on there by people i mean men could easily piss on there

yeah okay technically they easily could, but you wouldn't aim upwards. You know, you can piss on the floor by accident when you're aiming downwards. Depending on the toilet as well, you might get a thin powdering of cocaine on the bottom of your bag. Maybe it has a certain antiseptic quality.

Go to a camping shop and buy a portable hook. There's a dead cert Dragon's Den product in this, isn't there? I'm sure it exists already. The portable toilet purse hook. You know what would be better if you were Dragon's Den-ing this, isn't there? I'm sure it exists already. The portable toilet purse hook. You know what would be better if you were Dragon's Den-ing anything? Hover bag. I can't wait for someone to invent hover bags,

mainly for suitcases. Wouldn't that be such a help when you're travelling? That would be amazing in the airport, yeah. Trunkies good, but hover bag is better. Hover bag is better, yeah. Someone, please. Hi, I'm Molly, I'm not in the salmon.

It's Becky in Bedfordshire. My cousin Pat wants to know how come when you stir a red wine white wine gets stained out it doesn't what it says popular wisdom but it doesn't really it just dilutes a red wine stain into a pink wine stain that is further spread over your carpet well it surely wouldn't be uh folk wisdom if it if the efficacy of it wasn't at least increased from using soap. No, they have done tests and they've found that white wine was less effective than using nothing. So if you just put your clothes through the wash with not even any soap, that would work better than putting white wine on your red wine stain clothes.

Are the tannins not more soluble in alcohol? Oh, yeah, OK. It's really stupid how on the internet people try and scientifically reason this but they just say the white wine neutralizes the red wine without actually going into what that means but i think it is just the things that stain are the tannins in the red wine alcohol does help uh those not stain so much but white wine is quite an inefficient alcohol with which to do this because it's got a lot of sticky sugar in it it has color itself so if you want to use alcohol for that gin or vodka uh would work a lot better yeah okay but then you're still like chucking expensive stuff all over a stain what you want to do is absorb as much of the stain as possible and then like

douse it with soap or a special wine cleaner thing and put it in the wash straight away the reason why this is such a pervasive cleaning myth it must be because when you have red wine often white wine is near at a dinner party say and so it's either chuck white wine on it or chuck salt on it which also doesn't work very well but it does at least absorb some of it but it's quite an expensive way to absorb wine but you know why this is funny is you've done the googling and clicked on the third link most people when they're googling how do i get rid of red wine stain it's one of the most frantic googles ever i know i read a whole study from uh university california in davis uh where an academic actually tried lots of different things on lots different materials two o'clock in the morning clearing up from a house party you haven't got

i think along with is it okay to have sex with the baby in the room that's gonna be one of the most frantic googles that people do because they just want the reassurance you've got a question email your question to answer me this podcast at googlemail.com answer me this podcast at googlemail.com so retrospectives what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of today in history on monday we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car

that ripped off an iconic American car. On Thursday, how American airlines invented air miles. And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America. We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors. 10 minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts here's a question from dave who says i have a hankering that's a word you don't hear too often isn't it no you don't hankering bring back hankering

it's the yearning that's fun it is it is it's kind of sexy yearning isn't it i don't think it's sexy so much as playful yeah no i don't mean like erotic like full thrust erotic but more like oh chase me yeah exactly innuendo it's like hanky panky yeah yeah hanky panky plus yearning you probably think handkerchief is a sexy word as well i have a hankering to eat some sort of edible food stuff as opposed to some inedible food yeah your ambitions are achievable thus far dave yeah uh that is older than i am okay how old are you if you're one that's not hard uh i am 33 it should be something in my mom's freezer from the early 80s i'm pretty sure my mom's got the odd packet of smash that's at least 20 years old but i don't know 33 so helen answer me this what is the cheapest way for me to achieve my goal

ideally without too much faffing about? Well, I think if you set yourself this kind of goal, then faffing about is part of the fun. Yeah, you've already emailed a podcast about it. I think the faff has already commenced. I mean, otherwise you could just get in touch with the suppliers of extremely artificial foodstuffs and ask them to turn something over to you.

So it has to be food and not drink. So you couldn't have a bottle of wine. That'd be pretty easy. A bottle of wine's very easy. Whiskey, brandy, piece of beer. I wonder how cheap a 33-year-old bottle of wine... If you bought, like, a Jacob's Creek in 1982 or through, whenever he was born, would that be worth much now?

Would it cost much now to buy? Because, like, when people are selling 33-year-old bottles of wine, it's always good stuff, isn't it? Yeah. No-one ever says, this is Blue Nun 1982. I wonder how much that would cost. Yeah. Could you get it for a tenner?

I think you could get that on eBay. You could buy a bottle of 30-year-old whiskey, couldn't you, for a couple hundred quid? But that's good stuff. Yeah, that's what I mean. I just wonder, you know, could you cheaply, he wants to buy something cheap, presumably.

He could just go and have a glass of it. He could go to some vintner or whiskitarian who could just give him a glass rather than a full bottle. True. Anyway, no, he's asking for edible food. Edible edible food none of these inedible foods apparently they have found edible honey in uh ancient roman tombs that is thousands of years old you don't want to go eating in a tomb though no you can take it out of the tomb and eat it sitting on the tomb can you i

imagine unesco have rules about that but i assume when they do things like where they open up a tomb in pompeii and they're like oh oh, look, we found this fish sauce that's still edible. They're probably saying, technically not toxic. Wouldn't kill you. But we wouldn't put it in our mouths. Yeah.

Maybe there's a cheese. It's possible. No, I don't think so. I mean, like a parmesan. No, well, yeah, possibly. I think it's... Is there a ham? Honey is a good one

because that's a natural preservative, right? So that can last for a long time. Yeah. People know that that lasts hundreds of years. Sugar, generally, is long-lasting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sugar a natural preservative right so that can last for a long time people know that that lasts hundreds of years generally it's not lasting yeah yeah that's sugar is a preservative but apart from honey and sugar okay is there anything that is natural that could last that long tinned food natural that's it it's basically got to be a processed food what about what about a pickled onion yeah but i mean you've still got process there and you could still eat things like ship's biscuits

things that were developed in order not to go off. What's a ship's biscuit? A ship's biscuit wouldn't last for 30 years would it? No, apparently they do. It's a very dry

rusky biscuit that they had on ships. If you're at sea for years you needed a lot of provisions when you set off. Makes sense. So for years you'd just be eating

like salted meat and corpses. Bits of rotten wood. That sounds amazing. Didn't the delicatessen slash meat shop in the covered market in Oxford have a ham which was about 150 years old? No. That's so disgusting. That makes my stomach turn.

It looked horrible on the outside, but I guess because it's very salted and cured, on the inside, I guess it must have been edible. I've heard of a few of these hams, and I think they sometimes take off a little sliver to prove that it is edible, but again, I'm not sure it's nice. What about spices? I reckon... because my mum definitely, I know for a fact, her spice rack hasn't been touched since 1999.

There are some there that I reckon probably are 10 years older than that I know there are none older than that because we had a fire in 1989 so then they'd all

be smoked well that could be nice but certainly I lived at home from 1999 to 2001 and she never touched a spice then and they're still there

yeah they won't taste good no but they're technically edible yeah after even a few months your spices just taste of dust if they come you could do an ancient cinnamon challenge couldn't you yes and they probably wouldn't be that bad because it wouldn't taste too much maybe one way of doing this dave is to find something that has not been ready as a food

stuff for the duration of your life but something that is the same age as you that you could kill and eat like there's some really old lobsters yes i was just thinking lobsters the average age of a lobster is about 30 i think so the ones the big ones you see in a tank in a chinese restaurant a really old horse that was gonna die anyway that feels really wrong killing an animal the same age as you just so you can set the challenge martin it's not our fault that it's wrong he's saying minimum of faff though so i think the minimum of faff is just find a granny and ask her for a what about jam what about the jam that's been sealed yes yeah get some jam off her or just ask her for some fruitcake or christmas pudding because she's probably got a stash going right back to the 1860s again my grandmother in the

freezer uh does have some cake that i reckon yeah Yeah. I mean, I think the limit's probably 20 years, because every 20 years the freezer goes bang. Although my mum would affect the transfer from one freezer to another. Had they not gone through a period in 2005 to 2007 of moving a lot, there would be things, Dave, that I could sell you for a very reasonable fee. Ooh! Oh, what about... Yes?

...eating sourdough loaf from Boudin's bakery? Sourdough loaf? Sourdough. Boudin Bakery in San Francisco, the famous bakery, claims to have been using the same sourdough starter for their bread since I think about 1849. What does that mean? That's the thing that makes the bread rise.

It's the same bacterial colony. I mean, it may have changed a bit over time, but it's the same pool that you're drawing from. So you may be eating a bacterium that was born in 1849. And it's fairly likely to be the bacterium that was born in the 70s. It's not a bad answer, but it's a bit of a wanker's answer, that, isn't it?

It's a bit of a strokey bit. What about this weird sourdough thing from San Francisco? Dave wants to know, where can I get a packet of beans that's 33 years old? Doesn't he? You go to a newsag beans that's 33 years old? Doesn't he? You go to a newsagent that's been shut down for a really long time and just rifle through the stuff that's left there. Actually, I don't watch the soaps, but I reckon if you went to the sets of Corrie or EastEnders,

I imagine they have a newsagent there. I bet some of the goods on the shelves in the newsagent... Not so good anymore. They're probably still there because the ones that are at the back, the packets haven't really changed if they're at the back they've probably got packets of beans there that have been and strongly lit as well so they're probably going to kill you but they'd be there they're technically edible stave specified that he's unwilling to die in this exercise he hasn't has he he did well he did say edible so i suppose edible does mean not going to kill me just means he can eat it. I think the best suggestion was, unfortunately,

yeah, animal that is still alive, you know. But what about a plant? What if there's a, I don't know, like a licorice tree you can chop some bark off and kill the root? Yeah, that's not a bad one. That's a little bit less violent. I love licorice. But again, is the bark that you're going to be eating then

going to be 33 years old? Well, an easy-ish solution for this would just be to search ebay for some sweets that were discontinued in the late 70s early 80s yes there'll be some kind of sweet it won't have gone off because it was so artificial to start with and it probably won't be that expensive because it's just a 10p sweet and it will be just as disgusting as when it was fresh yeah and also if you only have one of it if you only have one fruit bolo that's not going to kill you yeah one zoom slab or whatever.

Something that remains forever fresh and delicious, even after all these years, are our classic episodes of Answer Me This, which are available at answermethisstore.com. And we've gone back to early 2009 to episode 87 for today's intermission. Hi Helen and Ollie, this is Alan from Glasgow. Answer me this please. In the film Dirty Dancing something's always bothered me. What could it be? That film is watertight. At the end of Dirty Dancing the Patrick Swayze character goes up to the girl's family and says nobody puts baby in the corner. This makes no sense to me. The whole film is about baby coming of age and becoming this girl, Frances.

Surely it makes more sense for them to come up and say, nobody puts Frances in the corner. So I ask them this, why did they say nobody puts baby in the corner? Maybe that's symptomatic that even though she's coming of age, she's finding a paternal figure in Patrick Swayze and she's being infantilised by her new beau. Or maybe.

Maybe. More likely. As we found out, it's that he drags her up on the stage. Yeah, and then he says... Then he makes a big speech and goes, I've met someone amazing, she's blah-de-blah-de-blah and blah-de-blah,

and her name is Frances Houseman. And that is the moment where the father stands up as if to say, why you little... You can have sex with her before marriage, but you will not call her by the name we gave her. But the point is, that dramatic moment would be undercut, wouldn't it, Alan, from Scotland? If he'd said...

If he'd said, when he went up to the table, no one puts Francis in the corner, then he'd have nothing to say on the stage. And the family would probably be like, who? Now, remember, listeners, if you want to send us a question using the voice that you have within, then you can call this number. 0-2-0-8-1-2-3-5-8-double-7 Or you can Skype, answer me this, and let's see who has done that.

Hi, my name's Laura from London, and I've recently been watching the TV show Grey's Anatomy and in it, Meredith's little sister Lexi says she has a photographic memory. So Helen and Ali, answer me this. Do some people really have photographic memories? And if so, how does it work? Not a controversy about this, isn't there?

Some people say they don't actually exist. Yes, I didn't realise that the literal meaning of a photographic memory is remembering everything as if it of a photographic memory is remembering everything as if it's a photograph that you could zoom in on with accurate detail at any point of your life whereas i think the colloquial way to use photographic memory is somebody who can like learn something very very quickly in a really detailed exacting way there are people like that but yeah the actual definition as you say the literal definition photographic memory i did always used to think that that was possible but as i say as far as i

can tell a lot of people say it's actually just not medically possible to do that there are people who can photographically remember things because visual learning is often a good way to remember but being able to recall everything that ever happened to you is such a rare condition that scientists had to coin a name for it a few years ago which was a hyperthymestic syndrome because they found a woman called jill price who could remember it's brilliant when it gets down to the mundane level of an actually ordinary person ladies and gentlemen victorian man in the freak show jill price the woman who remembers everything she has written a book called something like the woman who Remembers Everything. But the unfortunate Jill Price, she can remember

every single thing that has happened since she was 14 and she says it's unbearable. Imagine if she remembered all of these conversations. Yeah, well she says I can remember every insult,

every embarrassing thing. She's a weirdo so she can probably remember that more than she wants to. She said it's like having a film running in her head all the time so it's exhausting

and she can't sleep properly. So they've been trying to find other people that have this same syndrome and I think they they found a handful now that they've been studying for years and the thing that they all have in common is that their brains are a slightly different shape and so they thought why are their brains a slightly different shape and it might be because of trauma not necessarily a physical one but an emotional one so she might have suffered some kind of emotional trauma at 14 that affected the way her brain is made that means she is tortured by being able to remember everything but even jill price presumably doesn't literally remember

in the sense of a photographic memory opening a book and taking a sort of laser copy of it so that she'd be able to remember the third word from the third line on the right it's not that kind of thing that is the way that jill price can remember so she can not only remember what she was doing every day, but also what was happening on that day. So they've tested her and she kept a diary for about 20 years. So they could cross-reference that along with what actually happened factually on that day in the news and so on.

But a lot of people can teach themselves to remember a 9,000 page book or something. Yeah, but there's all kinds of tricks on there to help further your memory if you're a normal person, if you're not Jill Price. But that is slightly different, isn't it? that's all the sort of nintendo brain training stuff isn't it yeah and you can't take that to extreme so i think there was one famous example where they had uh like 5 000 pieces of paper and and the guy said put a pin through it and then he named the word that the pin went through on each page because he'd memorized the position of all of the words on these pieces such a waste of your brain though isn't it because you think in a way

yeah it is amazing. But imagine if you took all the hours that you spent preparing to take part in this fairly abstract and ridiculous challenge and did something useful, like just volunteered in a charity shop. The thing is though, you're happier if you're stupider generally in life, aren't you?

And I think you're probably- Why are you asking me? Well, I'm telling you my experience. I find that I'm happier remembering less. Yes, me too. On a fundamental level i'm very sad about it like if i actually think oh what was the day like when i was 17 oh i can't really remember that's awful like i hate the fact that i there's whole people that i've forgotten about

there are whole books that i've read that i've absolutely no memory of there are conversations that other people remember me having with them that i have literally no memory of whatsoever that's sad but at the same time until they remind me that i've forgotten them you can't be sad about what i'm living in you don't know you've lost i can't remember lots of things now like today's date for instance but i do have like my brain is full of ridiculous stupid little details that i don't need to know and was never particularly interested in and i'd often wondered why i could remember so exactly things i read in magazines in the mid 90s. But apparently it's because a lot of children have a very, very good memory, but it fades as soon as you hit adulthood, which is when it might come in handy. So maybe I stored all those things up then.

Well, you know, you've made great use of it in this podcast. Yes, I suppose. All that useless information, at least you've managed to employ some. There's plenty left. Still loads left. Another eight years left. One day I'm going to find the pub quiz of dreams. But it is annoying that I didn't use that super memory time

that I didn't know about until I looked into it for this episode to learn seven different languages. Well, that's why they say, isn't it, that children should if they're able to learn musical instruments and learn languages because it's easier. But when you're 15, it all starts going. It all starts going, does it? It would be quite handy, wouldn't it,

to have a little SD card slot in your brain that you can download thoughts and memories onto for later dates. But that's what I'm saying. I'm not sure it is handy. I actually think it might be helpful to forget. You know, people say when they go through a really emotionally turbulent time

that it's good that things move on, you get better in a way. I think that is partly because you literally forget some of it. I think it is useful to forget some of it. And I think, you know, if you don't have particularly exciting thoughts, because you you literally forget some of it i think it is useful to forget some of it and i think you know if you don't have particularly exciting thoughts at least you know repeating yourself doesn't feel frustrating when years later you're still listening to music that is just as

unexciting and reading books that are just as uninteresting you're not you're not at least repeating within yourself the same thought process because you've forgotten you've thought it before it's blissful to forget. Yeah, genuinely. No, I'm with you. I'm with you. Remember this. I agree with you. Here is another question, though, about recording things.

It's from Dr. David A. Holmes, MBBS. Which itself sounds like a memory challenge, trying to remember his title by the end of the show. What does MBBS mean? Master of Big Ballsy Science. Big Bottom Studies. Big Bottom Studies, that's good. He says, Ollie, ballsy science. Of big bottom studies. Big bottom studies, that's good. He says, Ollie, answer me this.

In this day and age of amazing computers, etc., why is CCTV so crap at identifying horrible people that commit crime? Well, you have to question what are CCTV cameras doing? And CCTV cameras actually have a dual function. Deterrent, number one. Yes, but then couldn't you just put up a fake cctv camera that doesn't have any film in it yes exactly presumably they've not got actual film in anymore they're electronic no of course they're electronic yeah yeah but the point deterrent number one okay and then evidence gatherer number two yes so if actually you've got a crime hotspot somewhere and you just want the deterrent yeah you could

put up a fake one and people do. So, you know, when you say, oh, well, the quality of the film isn't very good. Well, obviously to get the best quality image that you can, you need the best quality lenses. Which can cope with outside climates and dirt. Yeah, and then you need to clean them regularly and then you need to position them perfectly.

And then you need to store all the footage. and you need the people doing the crime to stand still in other words it becomes more expensive the better quality you want it to be also is there a problem with the amount of data they're collecting it can't be the highest quality exactly so most of the pictures that they are collating are compressed um and they essentially they take fewer frames per minute than you would if you were filming with a video camera yeah um because it is just to give an impression and it does give an impression it does help the police identify okay this person was wearing a beige jacket this person was black or white it's not supposed to be the high definition

image of them because you couldn't because you'd need a super high quality camera in exactly the right location with exactly the right light and you need to be storing everything it's too expensive so it's the compromise between deterrent and evidence basically my dad owns his own business and uh has cctv because his business involves selling expensive things yes and um he has that thing where there's now an app so you can look at it when you're not in the office is your dad now billy baldwin in sliver he's constantly constantly checking it i I mean, I... You would, wouldn't you? Well, you would.

It's like the early days of Big Brother when you could just watch the live stream all the time. Exactly, but nothing in there is as entertaining as Jade Goody. Most of the time, you can't really see what's going on because he's got a car showroom. Yeah. He's got his five employees in the cars. He can see on his mobile phone on a beach in Turkey

the shadow of a car and a man polishing it you can't see what they're saying you can't really see who they're talking to you can just i guess you can check that his employees have turned up for work that day but is your dad technologically canny enough to be sure that the employees haven't just filmed themselves on a loop polishing a car and then they've somehow managed to jimmy the system so that is playing and they can just piss off for five days while your dad's in turkey like like kevin mcallister would do if he grew up to become an employee of my dad absolutely um no he's not he would be fooled by that yeah that would be complex though in a little bit i think beyond his staff who are very technical people

in the field of cars yes and car mechanics probably not so into jimmy and cctv systems well then he's lucky isn't't he? But it is addictive. And I wonder whether, because when I was a child, if you had this as well, when I was about 12, 13, one of the many fantasies I had about being a grown-up would be that I would be the guy in Sliver, basically.

But I would, I don't know why I had this fantasy, but I always imagined when I was rich enough to have my own house, one of the things I would have, apart from my own postal book, so I could get pornography, would be I'd have mirrored uh walls whole mirrored walls in like guest bedrooms and it wasn't just about perfect on people whilst they were getting changed although obviously that was part of it

it was so that i could then just go and listen to people's conversations behind closed doors then why would you need mirrors for that yeah but it wasn't cameras it was it was me standing behind the mirror listening yeah but, but also looking, presumably. Because if it was just a wall, it looked like a wall, you could still listen. You couldn't see, whereas you want the two-way mirror thing. Whereas, of course, they'd be very aware because the house would be full of mirrors. So, how have you

done up the guest room in your new house? Just mirrors, floor to ceiling. We like it. That's not a recording device in the potpourri. Nuh-uh. Does Dr David A. Holmes' MBBS mean, why is it that's that's not a recording device in the potpourri nah uh does uh dr david a homes mbbs mean why is it that they can't do that thing like they used to on x files where they were like here's a piece of grainy footage zoom in for me crystal clear and hd yeah that's a fake tooth

that's the first clue back to the gold merchant we met last week zoom in on that barcode on that thing he's holding no that's a number eight, not a B. You're right. You never once, not even just to balance it so it seemed more convincing when that did happen, ever saw the scene where they were like, zoom in, zoom in, zoom in. Oh, I can't see him.

He's blurry. What's that? Yeah, that's the same bloke, but it's just too blurry. Quality's bad. Never happens once. Have you got the footage? No, we lost it.

The match was on hello this is joseph cats um kevin and ollie answer me this what is the average speed of an escalator escalators as they're produced now go anywhere between 90 and 180 foot per minute that's the range right okay some of them feel like they're going a lot slower. Yeah. Well, some of them are designed to go slowly because they have a different purpose. For example, in a department store,

the purpose is that whilst you're going up, you're looking around at the garments and merchandise, thinking, oh, I'll go to level two and try that on. That's why it takes so long to get to the toilet. Of course, the point about escalators is that they are slower than elevators, but they can carry more people. You can get 10 10 000 people per hour on an average escalator i'm pausing because i keep wanting to say elevator when i'm saying escalator and vice versa it's not like there was an eric

smith song laughing on escalator as we're going down should have been because they could have had love with 10 000 people instead of just a few i reckon you could do that on the really long escalator in angel station you know one that's the longest in Europe. Well, St Petersburg Underground would be the best place. 949 feet there. Wow! Not just love, but a whole marriage on an escalator there. How long would that take?

Let's say 180 feet per minute. That's almost five minutes. Well, I'm not sure that is the fastest. They go as fast as 180 foot. I don't know how fast that one goes. Your average escalator is set to go at 145 foot per minute but um is it possible for say a station to speed up an escalator a bit at rush hour to get more people going through i don't think so no i mean possible technologically yes but i don't

think the station controller has that command my mom used to be afraid of escalators because she wouldn't travel on escalators well people did fall down i think she fell down yeah on when she was pregnant with me and she wouldn't do it that explains so Well, people did fall down them quite a lot. I think she fell down on one when she was pregnant with me and she wouldn't do it. That explains so much. Also, you can get stuck in them. I remember seeing a lot more warning videos and things when I was young.

You get clothing trapped. Yeah, clothing trapped. If you stand too close to the side, your foot would get sucked in. Don't see that much anymore. Not so much anymore. People are obviously savvy. In India, they have sari guards on the escalator.

Very smart because you don't want to be caught with an unravelling sari. Nope. In places like Hamleys, they've got those kind of plastic guards as you go up into the ceiling, so you don't put your arm up and get your arm chopped. Because too many people in Hamleys are looking for a way out of this life. Hello. I'm Wilson, the ball from Castaway, and here is my song about my favorite balls.

Football, rugby ball, volleyball ball, tennis ball, zoe ball, basketball, net ball, handball, debutante ball, bowling ball, baseball, big sweaty ball. Answer Me This Sports Day, a marathon of fun and games, out now at answermethispodcast.com slash albums. Here's a question from Lizzie from Sydney in Australia who says, I have been accepted into animal and veterinary bioscience at the University of Sydney and I'm very excited to commence next year because this will allow me to transfer to veterinary science later and then

enter my ultimate dream career and be a veterinary surgeon. There is one slight problem. And when she says slight she actually means extremely significant massive problem. She hates animals. I am allergic to certain kinds of animals

and animal hair or fur. The type varies so much that I can't pin down exactly what sets my allergies off. For example, in December 2014, I went away for a month

and when I got back, I was allergic to my own cat. What? That's hell. Which may not be that weird because I was initially allergic to her when she adopted us,

but I also became allergic to my best friend's cat who has a very different kind of hair to my cat. I never had a problem with being allergic to them before I went on this trip, which makes it even weirder. I've had this problem all my life with the allergies sort of coming and going with no obvious kind of pattern.

E.g. I didn't grow out of my allergies, nor does being exposed to the triggering animal for a long time seem to help, nor am I allergic to just a specific species or type of animal. You know when sometimes people get into psychotherapy because they themselves have mental health issues? Yeah. I do wonder whether Lizzie is only studying veterinary science

to try and work out what her own allergies are. She's really become an allergy specialist then, of humans. When I did work experience at a vet, I must admit that I was kind of almost dying and had to pretend that I had a cold to excuse my red eyes using an inhaler and runny nose. Luckily, they didn't notice my blotchy skin. You would have thought that the whole point of work experience would be to try the job and see whether it's suitable for you. Indeed.

You know, that is really what is in it for you from the work experience i mean the ideal thing about work experience is that it is not near fatal yes it flags up crucial operational issues you know you want to be a truck driver do you have arms that kind of thing lizzie says generic hay fever and allergy medication works very well but i'm terrified that when i become a vet i will have to use it for the rest of my life thus wasting a lot of money on medication or i would become immune to the effects of the medication because of the continual use yes that can happen but i would argue that the medication isn't a waste because you would be earning a lot more as a vet than you would spend on generic medication i'm scared of actually asking or telling anyone in the profession or anyone i know about this because i really don't want them to think I'm incapable of achieving

this feat. It's a hard and very long course. I don't want people to think I'm an idiot for going into a rather ironic field of work either or waste my nine years studying to discover I really cannot function around animals on a day to day basis. Particularly if you knew it right from the beginning. Indeed.

But she's been accepted so she's already on the path to doom. It's as if the next nine years have already happened so ollie answered me this am i an idiot for pursuing such a career give my allergies i've always known what i wanted to do with my life and do not envy most of my arty friends who don't that's not just an arty thing i think not knowing what you want to do that's almost everybody i know in every species of pursuit that's true but it's also true to say that a lot of the people who drift towards the arts are the people who haven't got a clue

what they want to do. Yeah, well, it's easier, isn't it? So not being able to do this would probably send me into a perpetual existential crisis. Help, what should I do? Well, as Helen pointed out, you're framing the use of medication for the rest of your career

as something which is thousands of dollars wasted i do think that is something you're just going to have to accept has she not been to a doctor they're not going to rat on her to her future veterinary employers lizzie if you haven't been to a doctor and if you haven't been to an allergy specialist go now because there might be something really obvious that they know about and you don't or they might be able to prescribe a specific antihistamine that would make things so much better yeah well actually i know that at cambridge university scientists there are actually already working on an inhaler for animal allergens and they're they're two years into a five-year process according to the article i read in 2013

okay so we'd be well finished by the time she needs it could be commercially available also you can do courses of allergy shots which are meant to cure you within five years, but it does mean getting jabs every week. But in any case, my point being, even if for the rest of your life, you have to spend thousands of dollars on medication, as you say, you want to get into veterinary medicine because you're passionate about it.

You like working with animals. It's what you've always wanted to do. It's hard to find something you really want to do. It's not just for the money. As it happens, that is a job that if you do well, you're going to earn a lot of money anyway. So actually, actually you know you're going to be earning enough that you'll be able to pay for the medicine and you know other people have to migrate to different continents to get the job that they want other people have to get up at three in the morning you know some

people have to send all their money to a kid they never see your thing is you're going to have to spend a portion of your income on anti-allergen material or in the course of her nine-year study she might find a particular area or specialism that actually works for her like if she got really interested in reptilian pets or fish is there a career in being a reptilian vet in australia in sydney yeah yeah they've got lots of novelty reptiles tortoise vet also jellyfish vet i do think although she does say as well that um you know you can't say continued exposure will make it get better or anything like that the only case she gave us going away from her cat for a month then returning to her cat and being allergic to her

own cat when she wasn't before does suggest to me that actually in some cases continued exposure has nullified the the reaction she was getting yeah well she said her allergies come and go but i suppose it's a bit of a gamble for her point is if she's a full-time vet even if she spends six months in pain actually maybe eventually her body will find a way of resisting the constant fur i suppose you just can't guarantee it she wouldn't be the only vet who is allergic to animals there are quite a lot and um and they say it is hard and you just make sure you take the meds when you're entering into a bad patch and keep your hands really clean because if you don't have too much of the animal on your skin then it's a bit better but also i know like you know there are a lot of cat lovers

who are allergic to cats and the advice to those people is well if you want to have a cat what you do is you have a bedroom at home which is cat free which is your bedroom yeah which is cat free it's not the cat's bedroom however much you like the idea of a cat on your bed when you go to sleep purring doesn't come in and not only is it cat free it is completely pet free the way you said cocoa there it's completely cocoa free uh you remove carpets you remove wall hangings you remove anything that attracts dust you make it the most sort of allergen purepure room in the house. So it's a bit like you're sleeping in an MRI scanner. Exactly.

You don't have any, you have anti-allergenic bed linen, you don't have, you know, duck feathers and all the rest of it. And so the idea being... Eight hours a day at least. Exactly. A third of your life, you're not around pet fur. Very smart. So I would extrapolate further and say if you're around animals all day,

then unfortunately you probably shouldn't have pets at home. You might have to make that decision. Except forile tortoise pets if she's not willing to sacrifice her dream career for her health then uh that's that's a price worth paying i think not having the pets at home yes exactly not having pets at home actually maybe even when you go out wearing one of those weird masks so that you as much as possible you are limiting your exposure the rest of the time then you can probably handle being at work for 10 hours a day being around animals as long as you're careful i think this is a very difficult decision to make actually because uh for a lot of my adult life i've been in the wilderness career-wise not sure what i want to do and imagine if you became allergic to microphones helen i know if i hadn't found uh podcasting as a career there could have

been another 50 years of this uh wilderness wandering therefore i always think people who know what they want to do are really really lucky and it would be such a shame for her not to be able to do it but i do think it would be rather dangerous for her to perform surgery on animals if she's sneezing and her eyes are swollen shut uh so please be sensible lizzie i think that's right but as you say there are other vets in this situation um i wouldn't be at all surprised if once you get to veterinary school you meet other people that are allergic to animals yeah but she says she doesn't want to ask anybody but why can't you ask people that are not connected to you so people in different countries who work as vets you can just email people in fact they're probably vets doing

podcasts they're probably vets doing podcasts where they answer people's vet problems you should give them a call yeah allergen me this that's what you need to find sick puppies that's what it's probably called well that's the end of answer me this episode 313 deal with it but there'll be more uh in the next episode of answer me this won't be more now that really is it well there's like two minutes of more yeah that's just this business this is just this is faff we're just wrapping up really we just can't bear to say goodbye we're keeping you hanging on a little bit more. Never can say goodbye. What we mean today is please send us your questions for future episodes.

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