Answer Me This! - AMT321: XXX Parents, Networking and Bad Blood

Episode Date: August 20, 2015

Today's questioneers are concerned about networking, Taylor Swift's 'Bad Blood', and what they've found on their parents' hard drives. Hear about these problems and more at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode321.Send questions to [e-mail], or the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis)Tweet us http://twitter.com/helenandollyBe our Facebook friend at http://facebook.com/answermethisSubscribe on iTunes http://iTunes.com/AnswerMeThisBuy old episodes and albums at http://answermethisstore.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did Uncle Bulgaria used to dress as Mike Batt? Has to be this, has to be this Is Donald Trump on the rag or is he just always like that? Has to be this, has to be this Helen and Ollie, has to be this Shock news for the Mann family men and your brilliant idea to have a Mars-themed restaurant, Ollie as outlined in episode 320 where all the food will be red.

Has someone provided crowdfunding? Can we finally get this off the ground? The shock news is that it's already been done. Oh, well, that doesn't surprise me. And it's already been shut down. Sarah says, one of my favourite late 90s Times Square theme restaurants was Mars 2112, at which the elevator from street level to the cave-like dining room simulated a rocket launch.

That's cool. I hadn't thought about how you'd enter the premises. I just thought about the colour of the meat. Cost billions every time. I don't think the burgers were coloured red, says Sarah, so perhaps there was room for improvement. Certainly was. Anyway, Ollie's dad was right. It was tremendously popular. Stanley Mann, burger visionary.

Yeah, but it shut down. But nonetheless, in the 90s, it was tremendously popular stanley man burger visionary yeah but it shut down but nonetheless uh in the 90s it was a good idea he wasn't necessarily coming up with ideas that would last the uh the course of decades i mean even the rainforest cafe is a bit patchy these days if you've ever been in there i've not been in there seen better days which is odd because you'd think with the theming of a rainforest if anything as it ages it would become more beautiful regarding different facets of answering this episode 320 chris has written in to say following your discussion about parents who don't name their babies immediately the american former olympics gear peekaboo street was known as baby girl or little girl until she was three baby girl

it's quite sassy isn't it yeah baby Yeah. Baby girl? Hmm. A baby girl. As an actual name, it's quite cool. Her parents wanted to let her pick her own name when she got older, but apparently they had to name her when she was three so she could get a passport. Ah, you see, this is it. So even if legally nothing intervenes to say you have to name your child, which is what we were speculating about. Practical considerations.

Eventually, yes. You're going to have to enrol them or you're going to have to get some documentation. Also, at some point you're going to have to referrol them or you're going to have to get some documentation. Also, at some point you're going to have to refer to them in a third person by something other than a pronoun. That's a practical consideration that happens really early on. Chris says, I assume she chose the name Pickaboo, which is exactly the kind of name a toddler would pick.

But, according to Wikipedia, she was named after a town near her home in Idaho. Where do you stand on naming people after the place in which they were conceived? Like the Beckhams did. It depends on the place, doesn't it? If it's like Swindon, then maybe that's not what you want to peg on them forever. Yeah, but I just wonder whether Swindon would be as exotic for a couple from Brooklyn as Brooklyn was to the Beckhams. It probably worked if you didn't conceive them in the place that you always are otherwise. Letchworth would be a bad. Letchworth.

Or McDonald's toilet. Is that where you were conceived? Mark on the subject of names as well says there is a predominantly Catholic practice of choosing a new name upon one's confirmation usually the name of a saint. I chose one when I was confirmed at 17, although I haven't used it at all. Yeah, my friend Julie had this. She's from Ireland, where I think it's pretty standard to get confirmed, even if you don't believe it or care. Which saint did she go with? Patrick. Of course, a realster.

I can imagine. That's a real middle finger up to the tradition, isn't it, whilst you're going through with it? Exactly, because you're meant to go for something like... A lot of the saints have horrible names that they go for. They're like, um, Conceptor. I can understand why she veered off course. That's like a superhero villain, Conceptor. True. What's the superpower there?

They get you pregnant with just one beam. Well, just before we conclude the leftover business from episode 320, David would like you to know there were beavers in Greece. It's Becky from London. Answer me this. How come in the doorways of butcher shops they have, like, metal chain curtains? What's the point of that?

Well, Becky, it just so happens I have a butcher shop in the family, so you've asked the right person about metal chains in butcher's doorways, or as I like to call them meat flaps oh uh it turns out uh if you are walking around as a butcher wielding a large animal carcass with blood all over your hands with blood all over your hands it's not great to have to open a door of any variety then why not just have nothing in the doorway uh because flies like dead carcasses too yeah but can't they get through the metal chain curtain? They can't get through plastic flaps Which is actually what your most modern day butcher shops

Including my family butcher shop Louis Mann and Son in Edgeware High Street Yes Have nowadays I used to be obsessed with the multicoloured plastic flaps curtain In the butcher of my childhood I used to try and plait it But the traditional butcher does still sometimes have the metal ones The reason for that is well i mean obviously metal predates plastic so

it's an older thing no shit um you know iron age before plastic age yes uh and so it's a sort of traditional thing for a traditional butcher sometimes people like to have it just merely for the tradition but uh the reason that they were metal rather than anything else when they made them uh is that uh was, it's twofold, really. It puts off the sun because it's reflective. Yes, although not completely impermeable. Well, of course, not completely. It's being made of chain.

But again, in the pre-air conditioning era, it does put off the sun a bit. Stops your meat getting tanned. And the other thing is all to do with the way that flies actually see the metal beads. Because, you know, they've got those weird sort of hexagonal eyes, haven't they? Yeah. They see metal beads and they're confused by it

and they can't understand what it is so they fly away. So that's the reason. So it might look like a sort of sheet of water or something, like a waterfall. Or possibly a solid door. They obviously couldn't understand that they could fly between the two bits. Who can tell what a fly is thinking, Martin? Exactly. Inscrutable.

Anyway, trial and error over the years, butchers deduced that this was a way of keeping the meat cool, fly-free, and also accessible. Good to know that when you touch one of those curtains, you're probably getting a lot of raw meat. A lot of raw meat bacteria. Yay! Hello, Alan and Ollie, this is John from London. If you were going to be a character in Taylor Swift's Bad Blood music video,

what would be the name of your character? Okay, so I know that pretty much everyone in the world, judging by the YouTube count, has seen this video, but until today I hadn't. No, it was interesting to watch your first time. And there were a lot of people in it that you did not recognise.

The video? Yes. It didn't look like they'd scrimped on budget too much on that, although... Except for the special effects. The explosion was a bit poor. And the sets.

Why were they putting up London? Some say that it is a jab at Taylor Swift's ex-boyfriend Harry Styles, who is from Great Britain. Really? Or at Katy Perry,

her enemy, whose ex-husband Russell Brand is from Great Britain. Possibly. How much money did they spend doing a really lame beef?

Well, they didn't literally blow up London. No, I'm aware of that. No, we're still here. Otherwise, Taylor Swift would now be considered a terrorist. I have an alternative suggestion for why it's London. I think it is one of the most recognisable skylines in the world. Only recently now, actually. Obviously, Brits knew St Paul's, for example.

It's because of the gherkin, isn't it? It's because of the gherkin. So now you've got the gherkin st paul's big ben everyone in the world that's london yeah um and so it's recognizable around the world but it's not an american city so americans aren't gonna have the discussion on their talk radio shows about why did she just blow up apple why wouldn't she blow up paris that's got an eiffel tower yeah that's a good point actually maybe she couldn't get there because of all the striking maybe the special effects found it easier to do our cartoon buildings than Paris.

Anyway. Anyway. The video's full of cameos from people that I didn't recognise, which just underlined to me how old I am. Well, you don't spend enough time beating off to Victoria's Secret models. That's what my careers advisor said to me. He was so right. So I recognise literally out of everyone in the video,

Taylor Swift, Cindy Crawford, who I did put the beat-off time into back in the 90s. And she appreciates that. And Ellie Goulding. No one else. Who else is in it? Lots and lots of Victoria's Secret models. And Lena Dunham's in it for a split second.

Oh, I miss Lena Dunham. Who's the woman that double-crosses her at the beginning? Selena Gomez. I recognise that name. Did she used to go out with Justin Bieber? Correct. Ah! So she and Taylor Swift had a falling out probably because that relationship would have been hideous to watch. Right. So Taylor Swift got

all of her famous friends together, or not even all, a tiny fraction of her famous friends and got them to be in this video and they got to choose their own names. So they went for crap things like Domino and the Headmistress. Yeah, one of them's called Arson. With a Y. That sounds like a medication you take it's like your preparation age if you had been in taylor swift's collection of friends you would have been able to choose your name so ollie which name would you have chosen what's my shit superhero name that I'd choose? Well, if I was wearing spandex like Taylor Swift is,

maybe like... Elixir. Elixir's good. I was going to go for Jufro for you. Such a racist. For me, I would go for... Oh, hold on. Can I choose?

Yeah, go on. Gob Shite. That is better than mine. I love that. I was going to go for either Grammatica or The Blob. No. Yeah, I think because she's being taught in the ways of combat. I mean, compared to Taylor Swift.

Don't I get a ninja name? The Hairball. Yeah. Yeah. Something, I was thinking Beard with a Y somehow. Beard. Yeah, like Beard Sisters. Yeah.

I think there's something more to her song, but I really like that name. You've been looking for a new band name, haven't you? Beard Sister. really like that you've been looking for a new band name haven't you beard sister yeah that's a good name for folk band isn't it it actually is yeah i can see the artwork yeah so can i it's like those 70s psychedelic things where it's all purple with like a lime green font except there's fur all over it if you've got a question email your question to unsubmitthispodcast.com unsubmitthispodcast.com unsubmitthispodcast.com So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History?

On Monday, we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car that ripped off an iconic American car. On Thursday, how American airlines invented air miles. And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America. We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a question from Christopher from London, who says,

My mother has a cupboard full of ageing desktop PCs in various states of disrepair. Wow, I must go to her house. It's like a theme park. Long since abandoned by her children when they moved out. She asked me to enter this Windows 95 Narnia to see if there's anything worth keeping before she threw them out. Well, that is a positive step. My dad's Windows 95 Narnia equivalent

is all up in our attic, and I think he's basically waiting for the weight of the combined computers to bring the ceiling down so he doesn't have to deal with it individually takes the decision away exactly says christopher i duly took out all the hard drives looked through them and found many old photos which my parents were pleased to see again oh you're a good son he really is i then use the other parts to build my parents a file server that will sit quietly under the stairs simultaneously backing up their laptop both locally and to the cloud, and also allowing them to revisit these rediscovered digital

memories. Okay, I withdraw my previous comment. You're too good a son. Fuck you. You're upstaging everyone else. We have arrived at the bend in this road, Ollie. Oh. However, says Christopher, one folder I found was named House Insurance.

I assumed that it would contain boring but important scan documents, but a cursory glance revealed what was unmistakably my parents' homemade porn. Oh! Now I'm glad I'm a bad son. House Insurance.

Good God. Whilst my parents and I have never comfortably discussed matters of the heart nor loins, I am not shocked that my parents should have taken such photos. Sure, but that's different to having to look at them, isn't it? Nor traumatised for seeing them, though fortunately, a slow-loading thumbnail view saved me from knowing exactly how much of the Kama Sutra they have ticked off.

But now I don't know what to do with these files. Scrub them from your brain, perhaps by pouring soap in your ears. Ollie, answer me this. Should I delete the folder and never speak of it? Tell them I found it and teach my father how to properly encrypt and hide files? Why not teach your mother? Or not mention it, but leave it on the new file server for them or potentially any of my visiting family to find in the fullness of time.

Okay, if i hadn't recently read a newspaper scare story i would have actually gone for the latter option because if you called it home insurance again and kept it on the new server okay on some level your mum or your dad if they were looking for that file would assume uh that indeed you had stumbled into its contents and that was embarrassing but they would never talk to you about it and they'd be grateful it was there. Yeah I think they might just assume you'd backed up everything without looking into it. Well exactly there'd be a cloud of doubt over it so it would be the least awkward option. It would still be there if they wanted to explore

the photos of them exploring themselves and equally you wouldn't have to confirm or deny that you'd seen it. Indeed. However I I have just this week been reading a story. It was a guy who posted on Reddit that after he upgraded to Windows 10, his wife woke him up in the middle of the night to ask why there were pictures of naked celebrities on his screensaver. And it is because the new Windows 10 operating system, by default, accesses your My Pictures folder, regardless of how deep a sub folder within that folder there is microsoft and creates a screensaver out of whatever photos you have in there brilliant

so a warning to anyone who's in that position that is very useful information to have but it just made me think you know if microsoft have done that other companies are going to follow suit it's probably going to become increasingly common that files that you've stored not only locally, but probably also in the cloud are going to be accessed by devices in the future in ways we can't predict. What if my screensaver is all my invoices? Yeah, exactly. So I think for that reason, I'm not sure there kind of is a hiding place anymore unless it's encrypted and password protected. So for that reason, I think the option of just leaving it on the new server is a hiding place anymore unless it's encrypted and password protected so for that reason i think

the option of just leaving it on the new server is a poor one it'll end up in a drop box which will end up at you know their three-year-old nephew's birthday party in five years time being projected onto a giant clown screen so don't do that what are you suggesting printouts getting one of those printed photo books from apple i'm afraid that i think the best option is to delete it because they'll be too embarrassed if ever they remember it was there at all to ask you where it is yeah but they might want to be reminded of themselves in sexier times they've probably forgotten that it was there which is why they asked you to look at their computer and if they suddenly remember they'll be grateful to think you deleted it without looking at it couldn't

you just put it in some obscure part of the file system so it's not like a top level photo folder, or even in the photos at all, so it wouldn't get grabbed to be put on screensavers? Nonetheless, if they have any understanding of computers, they'll at some point log on to that and realise he's created a place for that file to live. That then brings the conversation, did he see or did he not see, better to just delete it.

I don't think it does, because I think most people of parental generations wouldn't question if something wasn't where they're expecting it it's because nothing is where they think it should be because they don't necessarily find uh the folder systems intuitive helen you're talking about this in a fairly i think dispassionate way yeah imagine this is your parents fucking impossible you've seen you've discovered the photo collection impossible you've seen you've discovered the photo collection are you telling me you don't delete it you're telling me you create a subfolder you can't delete it that's the memories that's their sexual memories i have an

idea you create a folder which is like photos to sort and you put in loads of photos in it a lot of which are inconsequential where you say i didn't know whether you wanted to keep these so maybe you want to sort through them and see what you want to keep. And then they will come up on their own pornographic photos as well and they'll be like, oh, I've forgotten about these old favourites,

but then it's their decision where to put them. That's not a bad idea, but there's a lot of contrivance there. You see, what I'm saying by deleting is not having to confront it. What you're saying is kind of creating a wider lie. This is a real insight into your... I love to lie and Ollie loves to confront it. What you're saying is kind of creating a wider lie. This is real insight into your... I love to lie and Ollie loves to erase history.

Exactly. To create a folder that's called Photos to Sort, he's going to have to generate fake photos. No, he's not. It just takes them from the rest of the computer system. But pretends he hasn't looked at them. Yeah, it's got to be like, well, this is like a boring picture of your old kitchen.

This looks like a folder full of pictures of us sledging. We don't need all these pictures of us sledging. What do you want to keep? I didn't have time to sort through all of these. There's a thing called home insurance. I didn't want to look at that because that's probably got your financial details in. So I put that on there as well for you to look at. It's fine. It's fine. Or actually just make it into a screensaver and then they'll be confronted by what they forced you to do. Well, I think now we are all going to need an intermission.

And today's is taken from Answer Me This episode 84, which featured special guest Josie Long. If you're not a long-term listener of the podcast, you might not realise that very occasionally, about once every 25 episodes, we do actually have someone join us to answer your questions. And included amongst the episodes you can buy, you can hear the episodes we recorded with josie long

but also uh john ronson yeah ian collins yeah andy zaltzman heard of him pappies and episode 200 which had all of our families on oh yeah that's right yeah yeah so all of those are available along with the rest of our archive episodes and our albums at answer me this store.com when i was 16 i went out with a boy called called Luke who is now allegedly a crack and heroin addict who sells travel cards at New Crossgate Station. Look out for him. Although he has latched onto a dying industry with Oyster. We went out for 18 months

and we should have been out for six days. But would you have got something out of those six days? Would they have been valuable? Yeah, I'd have got mine out of those six days. But as a relationship, there were lots of arguments. We really didn't go on. He was very messed up as a human being. You don't need this when you're mid-teens.

Brave old Tom. And what happened was I tried to split up with him in February 1998. And he undumped himself. How do you undump? You can't do that. Well, apparently you can with me. Because we went out for another year. Just I said, you're dumped. And he went, no, this isn't the end. No, you can't do that. Well, apparently you can with me, because it went out for another year. Just I said, you're dumped, and he went, no, this isn't the end.

No, you can't dump me. Did you go, he must know something? Yeah, I thought he knows the rules. You idiot. I didn't realise. Did he have, like, a get-out-of-jail-free card? Or he just went, no, sorry. He had the undump pass, and I went around.

This looks official. Listeners, please do call in with your questions, and the number you need to remember is... Or you can Skype, answer me this. Let's hear who's been in touch. Hello, Ellen and Ollie, this is James from Buxton. Ellen and Ollie, answer me this. How does one pronounce the word zhuzh,

as in to zhuzh one's hair up, and where did it originate from, and is it an onomatopoeic word? Because when you zhuzh your hair, it doesn't really make a noise. No, it's not an onomatopoeia. It's essentially an acoustic-less activity, I would say. So it would be odd to suggest that it would be onomatopoeic.

Yeah, well, it is from Polari. Gay slang? I would say so it would be odd to suggest that would be on an utter pick yeah well it is from Polari the uh gay slang from the what pre pre being allowed to be a homosexual era exactly Polari has really lost out since you no longer had to speak in code because what you were was illegal and it wasn't just gay slang it was combined with theatrical slang and circus slang and criminal slang and quite a lot of random influences from different languages so zhuzh might have been from the romany words zhuzho which meant clean or neat so i guess it's neatening up your hair oh zhuzh might be from hebrew uh in which it meant to shine bright but it's hard to know because it's slang and slang is really hard to pinpoint but um the first written appearance isn't till 1977 according to the oxford english dictionary but there are so many ways in which you could spell well i'm not sure there's

one way you can spell it is there yeah i would go zhuzh partly because it's shorter than a lot of the other options i think i'd start with a j i mean if you're writing it out it would be j-double-o-d-j-e but i know english doesn't really work like that. Yeah, then it would sound like judge rather than zhuzh. Yeah, I can see how you've ended up with a Z in that, but that might be your Eastern European influences coming out. Oh, we're going there, are we? But we've got quite a lot of slangs in our language now

that came from Polari, like glossies for magazines and slap for makeup and carzy for toilet. Yes, I can imagine Kenneth Williams saying all of those things on an episode of Parkinson. Here's a question from Matt from Harrogate who says, since we're now in the summer months, I've been enjoying the healthy version of ice cream. Eating an ice cream and then working out?

Yeah, I don't know what that is. Fro-yo! Oh, right. No, no, was that a sigh, Martin? Because I obviously would prefer an ice cream to a frozen yoghurt, but actually, frozen yoghurt's still delicious. I don't really see the difference. I don't feel very kindly towards frozen yoghurt.

What did it ever do to you? It's all right, isn't it? It's just yoghurt has that sour flavour, doesn't it? I like that. Which ice cream doesn't it have? Matt says, Ollie, answer me this. Is frozen yoghurt just frozen yoghurt? Yep, that's all there is to it.

That's all they do. They go and buy a mullet fruit corn and stick it in the freezer. Bang. Done. What's the fuss about? And if I bought a big enough tub of yogurt and froze it, would it be the same? Okay, no, it wouldn't. Because if you put anything that's not designed to be frozen in the freezer, it kind of goes fizzy and weird.

Yeah, or just crappy. I remember I used to try freezing orange juice when I was a child to make lollies and it was always just kind of marshy and didn't taste strong enough okay i need to talk about that right now before i go back to okay um i've recently in a sale uh they're only two quid absolute bargain i got some of those homemade lollipop stick things that will fit in my freezer and it's been a long time trying to find the right ones because we've got a small freezer but cargo in the sale okay been a long time coming but i know a change is gonna to come. The traditional thing to put them is like pineapple juice

and stuff like that. Yeah. I was wondering is there a hipster cool thing to put in ice lolly molds? Mojito. Oh, thank you. That's it.

I'm on that. You've got to watch the alcohol content because that might make it more difficult to freeze, right? Yeah. Well, you need to up the sugar content to make it freeze. So I'd imagine that is also relating

to the frozen yogurt that you need more sugar and you need to churn it. Yes. What is your disposition towards the frozen yogurt, that you need more sugar and you need to churn it. Yes. What is your disposition towards the frozen yogurt chains they have in the USA that haven't really spread across Britain yet? The ones where it's like 20 different things that will extrude frozen yogurt and then a whole pick and mix full of stuff you can chuck in there

as if it wasn't unhealthy enough. Exactly. Well, it's just classic American, isn't it? You know, they've taken something that they're selling on the basis you'd only eat it because you might think it's healthier than ice cream and then you stick literally 20 types of sweets on top of it. I think we were jet-lagged in Seattle and we went to one of these things and I was very excited. And then it just looks like a dog is shitting into your cup

as the thing curls out a lump of frozen yoghurt. That was one of the least pleasant experiences of my life. I think that is why Martin dislikes frozen yoghurt. Hold on. You did it really slowly, so it really looked like a dog was taking long, luxurious shit into your cup. Hello, I am Lola. Sorry if I'm not right.

Sorry, the phone went a bit weird. Helen and Ollie, answer me this if beer is made from barley and vodka is made from potatoes yeah uh what is tequila made from and what have you two been drinking i i wonder if they've been having desperados which is the beer with tequila shots in it i like that is it nice or is it it is nice it is nice actually it's like salty beer so it's like um yummy no but you know when you go to a mexican restaurant and they do i can't remember what they call it but it's it's like a lager and then they'll squeeze like a whole lime in there and some salt and something spicy okay it's a bit

like michelada i think it's called right like that but in a bottle uh and it's good and the tequila makes it a little bit savory which i like a little bit spicy tequila by itself to me is just pain i've had good tequila though i've got a mexican colleague who brought in a bottle of good tequila and it's so different from your supermarket tequila it's one of these place of origin things so only certain places are meant to manufacture it and it's meant to be 100 made from the blue weber ag. So not just any old agave, which is a succulent plant that's related to the lily, not the cactus. It's the one that looks like a big collection of spikes.

Quite cool looking, but very firm. Like if you walk into it, it'll probably slice your arm off. And appropriately Central American as well. Well, that's why they make it out of it. Sure. But sometimes, well, like the Russian association with vodka,

you know, a country will become associated with a product that actually you could make in lots of places now that we have potatoes everywhere. So many potatoes aren't native to Russia, are they? They're South American, right? But the point being, yeah, I can't imagine you get many Mexican flowers you could make tequila out of in, for example, Ireland. Well, yeah, you use what you've got. Exactly.

That's why Irish tequila just hasn't really made big inroads in the market yet um so it's actually made out of the heart of the agave uh called the piña and they extract it it's pretty massive um and then they split it open and steam it in a pressure cooker and then the resulting liquids uh are fermented which can take quite a long time and then there are a couple of distillation processes and then you have your high quality 100 blue weather agave tequila and then lesser brands will dilute it and add loads of sugar water and other shit. I think if I was a bartender,

I would secretly hate everyone who ordered tequila because there's then the performance, isn't there, with the lemon and the salt. Oh, tequila slammers. Yeah, where everyone's like, oh, you've got to do this first, then you've you've got to do that oh she's dropped it on the floor oh and all these drunk people just being annoying yeah but that's like with loads of drinks like jaeger bombs yes to be fair if you get annoyed by drunk people bartending is probably not the

career for you but i just think tequila in particular because it's an experience and people make a thing out and they start taking photos of it and stuff i'd just be like because you'd see it every day. You know, it's like... Novotan might wear off. Yeah, it's like when you go to one of those Chinese restaurants where they set fire to a whole chicken at your table.

I don't think that has ever happened to me. Oh, it's an amazing thing. They set fire to a chicken. Yeah, well, you know, they pour some sort of alcohol on it and set fire to it. Is it dead? The chicken is dead.

Certainly as by the time they finish with it. I love examining the nonchalant expressions of the waiters when they do that because they've seen it all before. I mean, they've set fire to five chickens that day. And yet the people they're doing it to are like, whoa, take a picture. And they're thinking, oh, get over it. There must be a certain pleasure there to bringing that delight

to a whole group of new people, even though it seems commonplace to you. Not for me. It's a bit of theatre. Well, that's why you're not a waiter, aren't you? Yeah. No compassion for other people's delight. That's a bit of theatre. Well, that's why you're not a waiter, only. Yeah. No compassion for other people's demise. That's the only reason.

It does seem that way. The Silicon Roundabout's my favourite place to become a webpreneur would be really ace like that awesome guy, Tom, who was my first friend on MySpace.

We haven't kept in touch. Get your foot on the ladder to online success. Through Squarespace, build a site and get a free web address. Then hang around East London until you get hired in the US. Mountain View is calling. Google have free buffet. Thank you very much to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode of Answer Me This. And thank you for making websites

that are easy to design and then work, not just on PCs and Macs, but also on tablets, on smartphones. Automatically resizes, even those ones that are in between a tablet and a smartphone, I will not say the word. So go to squarespace.com,

have a poke around, try out their different templates and functions. And then if you choose to sign up, you can get 10% off using the code ANSWER. And you get a free URL as well. Yes. Chucked into the deal. I'm about to set up a new website with Squarespace,

but I can't talk about it. It's a secret. It's exciting. Why would you bring it up if you can't talk about it, Martin? I'm quite excited about it. I'll let listeners know next time. It's a tease. Is this you doing a tease?

You're blue-balling all of our listeners. Hello, Helen Olly. It's Tom from Manchester. My friends have started reaching the age now where they start to talk about things like networking, and it just seems a little bit wrong. Like, I'm trying to give an image of myself to these people that just isn't real.

It just feels a little bit disingenuous. So, yeah. How do I network? Preferably without wanting to die. I think networking is disingenuous if you make it disingenuous, but I think in its ideal form, it is human beings having a conversation

about human being things. And I think actually that is what turns out to be useful because later when you have to contact someone in a business context, you can add a bit of warm-up in your emails like oh hi lovely to meet you the other week how are your two children yes how was Peru yeah exactly yeah well the problem is that comes when you've done that sort of deliberately like I think it is very cynical when you're kind of going around the room going right now who's in this room that I can I can use and but that's because you have self-doubt as well if you go into the room thinking

i have things to offer the people in this room it's a business context okay so if you find that cynical then you're right you should never go to a networking event but if you actually want to meet other people who do the same job as you or who might indeed be useful to you in your job i think you need to walk into that room thinking i am a useful person for these people to meet i have things to offer them as well they might like me and if you go up to them and have a conversation in a way that is about as much what you might be able to do to help them as what they might be able to do to help you then you're not thinking about it in that cynical way of using each other you're using it in a very honest way to say we both do similar things are there ways we could work together but that is the cynical way no's not, because it's not about your advantage necessarily.

Sometimes there's a relationship where you're of more use to the person you're speaking to than they are to you. But it's very commodifying. And what I'm saying is, for you not to be uncomfortable, make it like a real conversation. And that work will already be done by the fact you've had a real conversation. But I didn't say don't make it like a real conversation. You implied it. No, I didn't. Hello, my name's ollie man how am i a bit of use to you today and you to me because this is reciprocal good day but if no but if you walk in just being confident that there's a reason people would want to talk to you as well what if you

can't have that confidence because there is no good reason but what if you can't there is always a reason why a lot of people are not as confident as you what i'm saying but everyone has to fake it in those situations. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying you need to go in knowing that there is a reason people would want to meet. And that might be... You've got loads of free Smarties. It might be that.

It might be that what you have is a humorous take on the event you've just been attending together. But the point is, there's a reason someone wants to talk to you as well as the reason you want to talk to them. Well, I've got a slightly different perspective. And this isn't something that I didn't come to until I was in my 30s, which is, like, genuine networking is finding people you like and want to work with. It's got nothing to do with the advantages you give them or they give you. It's just when you get to a point in your career where you have choice about who you work with,

you want to work with people that you have a rapport with and that are nice. And you don't know who that is. That might be someone that you met two years ago and you had no reason to think that either of you would be useful in the professional still there's still the background that you think that there may be something you could do together but it could be something very tenuous i mean there's a new book that's out by um brian grazer the hollywood producer it's called something like the secret to a bigger life uh he sounds like a bit of a dick to be honest but it's quite interesting what he does is he writes to people that he finds interesting and asks them out for lunch and he's been doing that for 25 years

there's a slightly odd power play thing going on where they probably think oh my god Brian Grace is going to make a film about me uh so in a sense he's slightly abusing his own uh you know reputation but he does just write to people that he thinks have had interesting lives and the genuine reason he says is that he wants to expand his own mind and he wants to talk to them about their experiences find someone's that he thinks is interesting and then says let's go for lunch i've done that i've done that with people that i've met on twitter like let's meet in real life not for anything i think it's actually quite an inspirational approach but i just think that there is that slightly unevenness that he's a big shot hollywood film producer say if he

wrote to you you'd be feeling like you're the minor part in that discussion well this is my point about you saying you've got something to offer because you don't always feel like you have and even if you have you might not have identified that you have so i think you're being idealistic when you say that's how it should be so if you are really at the bottom of a career ladder and you're going into a room full of people who are more senior than you how do you at least emulate that confidence that you Olly Mann naturally have because I think I've become a lot better at having to do this kind of thing over the years that we've been working together and part of it was watching you just not

have the barriers that other people have but I know deep down that you are an unconfident mess so how do you how do you fake that um i suppose sometimes i i look for people's physical manifestations and see if they're feeling as awkward as i am okay look for signs of weakness so you know in a british scenario um it often revolves around alcohol uh you know if you've been drinking a lot find me other people that are drinking a lot and you can talk about drinking uh if you're but it's all about finding someone who looks like they feel the same about the do as you do i would suggest if you're at a kind of networking event type thing where there are lots of people around and you've managed to buttonhole somebody don't keep them too long because i sometimes get networked by people which is hilarious to me because i have

nothing i can give people and that's not true you see that's yourself now you do have things you can give people that i'm not going to give them and there you will not leave quickly enough so it's awkward like a few minutes fine then you've got to be like well it's been lovely to meet you and then you go so you've kind of got the power because you have ended the conversation i think if someone says to you can i get you a drink sometimes that means the conversation is going really well. Hey, we're new friends. Let's have a drink together. Usually that means I've had enough talking to you.

I need an excuse to walk away from you and do something. Pick up that hint. Yeah. Like take the drink when they come back and then be talking to someone else. So it's up to them to join back in if they need to. If they've broken the conversation saying, I must go to the loo. When they come out of the loo, say goodbye goodbye to them but don't reinitiate contact yeah knowing when to leave is as important as starting up this conversation but uh what is both of your opinions

on business card etiquette because if someone gives me a card i think well that's just something i'm gonna have to put in the recycling later i actually it's funny you mentioned this just yesterday uh i had 45 minutes in which i was thinking yeah i've done my tasks for the day i don't quite know what to do but i'm in work time i should do some work so i decided to digitize my business cards i've got a big pile of about 200 but i went through and i would say 75 percent of them i didn't know who those people were yeah do you do with business cards yourself do you hand them out i do have a business card but my business card has a picture of my face on it of course is it like one of those postcards of the royal family where it's the shape of your I do have a business card, but my business card has a picture of my face on it.

Of course. Is it like one of those postcards of the Royal family where it's the shape of your face with eye holes cut out? Look, I know that seems like a completely egomaniac thing to do, but that I think is useful because they may think I'm a dick, but at least they'll look through their business cards in three years' time like I was, and they'll be like, oh yeah, that's that dick I met. You know, whereas it's a way of reminding them. I of reminding this is creating as many problems as it solves i've never

had them do you have an elevator pitch do you know this concept the elevator pitch that you're in an elevator with someone for 20 seconds you have to tell them who you are before they get out do you got one i'm only man i'm here to change your life let's make beautiful sounds together no you're too busy farting in an elevator to say that also in britain it would be called the lift pitch which just doesn't sound that sounds like an exercise or something. So that's a no then? Of course not. Well what's your

elevator pitch Martin? I don't have one now. Just a bit of awkward stumbling and then say I like silence. The appropriate thing to do in an elevator is be silent and not to be pushy at people.

I think that's right. I mean I would not take networking so far that I would corner anyone in an elevator. Elevator's private time. It's dead time actually is what it is isn't it? It's like it's private time. It's dead time, actually, is what it is, isn't it? It's like it didn't happen.

It's time to ponder your mortality. Exactly. Bum, bum, bum, bum. Bum, bum, bum, bum. Bum, bum, bum, bum. Bum, bum, bum, bum. Bum, bum, bum, bum. Helen Ollie, answer me this.

Bum, bum, bum, bum. Don't ridicule me And don't take the piss Give me a clue To what I'm asking Then in your awesome knowledge I'll be basking But since I'm mad I'm so alone

No one to email And no one to phone Where can I get new friends from? Answer me this Podcast.com phone where can i get new friends here's a question from robin in manchester who says i recently gave in to the current supposedly de-stressing and useless pastime of coloring books for grown-ups god you're part of the're part of the problem, not part of the solution, Robin. She couldn't help it. She gave in.

No, but she knows that it's useless and pointless. She says so herself. Well, it obviously is not completely pointless because she says, I do have to admit that it has brought a level of peace to my otherwise frantic evenings of watching television. You can do both at the same time. However, it has, unfortunately, brought a further cause of agonising stress into my life. Right. When I bought my colouring book, I also brought a further cause of agonising stress into my life. Right.

When I bought my colouring book, I also bought a packet of colouring pencils. The pack has 19 functional colours and one white pencil. Most paper that would be coloured on is white itself. And any that isn't, I'm sure that a white pencil would not show up well on. Well, don't be sure. I've seen black paper in the past, which is kind of coal-ish. Yeah, yeah. Which white pencil shows up very well on. It shows up all right, but ink or chalk will show up better. on well don't be sure i've seen black paper in the past which is kind of coalish you know which white pencil shows up very well on it shows up all right but ink or chalk will show up better

so ollie asked me this what is the point of white coloring pencils when i was a regular user of coloring pencils i used my white coloring pencil as a dilution tool uh so that the white was there to make the red pink well so you you draw on top of the red coloring yes the white coloring and it works from memory i mean i you know i wouldn't want to vouch for it now but when i was seven i certainly believed it worked you know as far as i'm concerned uh that was a useful thing like say for example as well you were drawing matt berry so you've got like the black hair and then you want a white streak in it there's still a place for the white isn't it because you'd probably you wouldn't leave a gap on the on the color of the paper you'd make it all black and then you'd put a white line through it

yeah okay you know yeah i can think of numerous case scenarios i think the white pencils that i've had that have worked have been quite soft though and often the ones you get in a coloring pencil pack are too hard to make much impact on the paper so maybe you had a particularly good one uh here's a question from daniel in esse, who says, Helen, can you answer me this? Would it be a faux pas to read a book during a live classical concert? Not if it's the musical score, presumably. Otherwise, I would say yes.

Or the programme. He says, I do enjoy listening to the music. I generally listen to classical music at home whilst I'm reading. Although don't read too much into that. I'm from Basildon and I am most likely far from the refined gentleman that that sentence paints. I don't know. I think that's your own snobbery at play.

I find listening to music with lyrics too distracting whilst I'm reading. OK. But I find watching a live classical music performance boring to watch after a short while. Well, that's when you need your adult colouring book. Do you think I'd be booted out of the concert hall or would I have to suffer the frowns of a thousand pompous bellends – reverse snobbery again, this is a self-hating classical music fan –

who are probably envious that they didn't have the same idea? But a lot of classical music concerts are dark, so are you talking about reading a book on an illuminated electronic e-reading device? That would definitely be wrong. That is a no-no. I uh that in this uh four-dimensional world in which we live now one of the joys of going to a classical music concert if you're into it and i'm not but i could imagine might be later in life is that it is all about concentration like reading a really sort of naughty novel or something that like the one of the joys about it

in the 21st century is precisely that you're not multitasking for once you are focusing on this thing and this art form and watching it and enjoying it and the fact that it's a bit hard to get into is part of the reason people like classical music isn't it it feels like something you appreciate like a fine wine rather than something's an instant hit it's an idea developed over time isn't it you're supposed to concentrate on but he's already into it it's not that he's not into it it's just that the the visual interest of an orchestra playing isn't that much for him. I can relate to that.

I think I would get a bit bored with seeing the music. Yeah, but I have that with every gig. It's not just classical ones. My mind wanders a lot with virtually all of them. I would quite like the option. I feel like a festival where it's outdoors, it would be okay. Yes, that's true. But that's because festivals also, it's okay to wander in and out.

People are chatting, they're drinking their ciders, they're reading their programmes. Yeah yes that's true but that's because festivals also it's okay to wander in and out people are chatting they're drinking their ciders they're reading their programs yeah that's true whereas indoors all the rules are different aren't they they are you know imagine being the cellist who looks up having just played a triumphant solo to see that you're reading a fucking book they've been training all their lives for this their fingers are bleeding exactly but there must be a lot of people who fall asleep in castles not because it's boring it's because there's a lot of you know octogenarians that go to, but that's excusable because it's involuntary. If you're reading, what's the point of being there

for this live experience rather than sitting at home listening to it recorded and reading? Well, I do sometimes wonder in those big venues. I mean, I went to see Ben Folds at the Royal Opera House last week. It was amazing, but I was in the second row. Yeah. I did think, if I was sitting in the gods for this,

it'd be one thing if I was actually watching a large-scale opera with hundreds of people on stage belting out songs at me, but actually watching essentially one pop pianist and six musicians sitting around him from the back, you might as well have been listening to the record, really. Yeah, well, I assume that's the case with a lot of people at, say, Wembley or D.O.T. So it is kind of excusable the further away you are from the stage, but I'm imagining sort of chamber concert hall you need

to be watching. I think that's true, but like a good set of musicians will create music in the moment and it will feel genuinely vital. As you were saying, Ollie, this is your opportunity to let your mind be untethered. So don't focus on words. You're at a wordless medium.

So let's see what abstract things your brain can come up with i often come up with new patchwork ideas when i'm watching music that i'm not fully engaged by aka bill callahan at the royal festival hall the other year we don't talk about that gig or do what my grandma does and only attend classical concerts that have fireworks included she is brilliant i mean that's a great evening out yeah it's startling when it wakes you up though picnic songs from the ads fireworks now that is a classical music experience she loves andro rio what is it with the old jewish women in andro rio i tried to ask her i tried to ask her like without being patronizing like why do all old jewish women love andro rio

what is it like he's you're frowning, Martin. I know who you're talking about. Maybe he's done a tour of the shawls. He looks like a German porn star. Right, OK. That's a good start. And he plays, like, umpapa music with fireworks, people wearing lederhosen.

Do you get fireworks coming out of the tubers? It looks terribly corny. Right. And old women in North London all watch it on Sky Arts and love it. And I just don't understand what the connection is. Sounds like a collective hysteria. It's not all umpapa.

He's a classical violinist, isn't he? Yeah, but it's... Oh, God, his face. Isn't he weird? He's got a cum face on the whole time. He looks a bit like Carrie Elwes in the Saw films. His face is so big. I said to her, you know, what is it?

What is it about the old Jewish women in Andrea? And she just said, but it's wonderful. so it was hitting her on some primal level some groinal level yeah he wants to pluck her string she'd like to have a fiddle well listeners that brings us the end of today's question jamboree but for there to be further questions in the next episode of answer me this there's only one way yeah i'm not going to do not going to go down with that. It was a nice attempt to try and pick up a new catchphrase, but it was flawed fundamentally. I mean, people complain about the word podcast, so why not Jamboree?

I'm not disagreeing with you. Why didn't we call the show Question Jamboree? That would have been better. That's not bad. Too late. Anyway, if you have a question for the next episode of Answer Me This, then you can supply it via the contact details

listed upon our website. AnswerMeThisPodcast.com Also, you can find us at Twitter.com slash Helen and Lolly and Facebook.com slash Answer Me This, where there's been some fun activity recently. The other day, there was an amazing thread about the most boring jobs you've ever had. I know nearly about 100 comments on this at the moment. Wine bottle putter honour. Someone said that they'd done quite like that one

what are they putting them on uh here's the label they were putting on the wine bottle yeah uh packing kiwi fruit uh and i think my favorite actually was the lady who said that the most boring job she'd had was putting tights on a machine where there are two fake legs so she's on a production line putting the tights on to see if they laddered wow like those things that that put condoms through stress tests. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So with people doing jobs as boring as that, no wonder you're listening to us whilst you're at work.

And thank goodness that's the case. And one final thanks to Squarespace.com. Use the code ANSWER if you want a discount on Squarespace's marvellous services. Yes, thank you, Squarespace. And thank you, listeners. Tell your friends about our show. We'll see you next time. Bye!