Answer Me This! - AMT322: Selfie Stick Deaths, Hair Transplants and Phone A Friend

Episode Date: September 3, 2015

Today's listeners are afraid of holidays, perplexed by hair transplants, and worried about death by selfie stick. Find out more at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode322. 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

Was the new Google logo designed by a toddler? Answer me this, answer me this Is there a difference between crumble and cobbler? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this What was it that got you listening to this very special show we call Answer Me This? I'm genuinely curious to know what got a lot of our listeners to do it. Yeah, I genuinely do yeah i sound like i'm

ironizing no but it's quite difficult to find a podcast isn't it so yeah i'm curious and also there's no digital way of finding out of logging how you found it well you think that but we have our spies and our drones anyway i imagine most of you started listening because you saw our beautiful cover art and you thought those look like people that i could fuck uh but joshua but joshua in portland oregon says i'm a devoted answer me this listener all because of a man named jay jay jay just the initial jay who is this man named jay well my question helen adds mystery to that question answer me this is jay alive oh god i don't know now you'd think that uh joshua would be better qualified to answer whether or not his friend is alive than yeah we who have only just met him

through the form of an email and it's a long way from us to portland oregon unfortunately uh but uh he clarifies okay a few months ago and i feel like this email should be soundtracked uh by that romeo and juliet suite from R-Tune. Okay. If that helps. A few months ago, Jay stopped showing up for his shift as a barista at the cafe that I manage, and I have no way of contacting him. Hang on, you were managing his workplace and you don't have a way of contacting him? Or is he just uncontactable on the ways that you do have contacting him? Like he's not picking up his phone.

I think the former, bearing in mind what he's about to say, this all sounds very ramshackle to me. I mean, if anything, the email to me suggests, Joshua, that you're not fully in charge of the establishment with which you've been given control. We tried everything, says Joshua. We even tried calling his tattoo artist

to see if he was still alive. Only in Portland. If I go missing, you can call my local Turkish restaurant. There's a good chance that I've had a coronary in their toilet. That's how I want to go. One time, continues Joshua, whilst Jay was still showing up for work, I asked him if his name was short for something. He looked me straight in the eye and said,

I don't tell anyone my name. Wow. So I have no way of looking him up. It's amazing that you can employ somebody where you only know one letter of their name. I don't understand that that's legal. Is it cash in hand work? It must be, mustn't it? I think Joshua is outing himself

as running a very dodgy establishment here, actually. For all I know, continues Joshua, Jay might be in a Thai prison. And the only way I know he'll hear this is if you mention it, assuming, of course, that Thai prisons have 3G. Or Wi-Fi. Yeah, I think most prisons you're not allowed to access the internet, are you, if you're a prisoner? So, Helen and Ollie, please tell Jay to call his old cafe

and just tell him to let us know he's still alive. Much thanks. Oh, that's sweet. I hate to think of Joshua worrying into the night about Jay. Absolutely. Jay, if you're out there, Joshua in Portland is very worried about you. And he doesn't need you to come home. He just wants to know you're okay so that he can get another man to make his creamy froth.

But then Jay sounds like the kind of guy who, if he's hearing this, is going to think, yeah, I'm not going to do that, though, just to fuck with their heads. Well, Jay, you could let us know that you're alive. Yeah, in a cool, diffident way. Yeah. And then we'll let Joshua know. How will we know that it's the real Jay? Well, I was just thinking that anyone listening to this would be like, yeah, I'm Jay.

Yeah, I moved to, you know, Hawaii. Got a test. We could say, for us to know you're the real Jay you have to tell us your name and if they do then we know it's not the real Jay hi it's Joe from Kent Ellen normally answer me this I'm currently in a tent at Broadstairs Folk Festival and there are a lot of Morris dancers around what's the earliest example of Morris dancing when he says there's lots of Morris dancers around do you think he means performing or do you think he means just walking around because at folk festivals it often is

the case. Could be both. It's both and there's nothing weirder, I'll rephrase that in the context of a folk festival there are few things weirder than someone who's decked out in full Morris gear with the black face sometimes just standing

and watching someone playing an acoustic guitar but not with their other Morrissey friends if a Morris dancer is isolated that's a very dangerous time they have to travel in packs yeah otherwise it appears like weakness we haven't actually explained for anyone who's not British or indeed for the large majority of people who are British you don't understand what Morris men even are so in your answer Helen can you include that description okay we have broached this phenomenon before in the podcast uh but in some where other countries have some pretty cool folk costumes and folk dances and uh ancient cultural

things we have got people wearing bells around their socks hitting sticks together yes dancing with hankies yeah the hankies is what we've discussed before because that's supposed to have an indication of your sexual prowess, isn't it? Shaking the hanky off. It's supposed to be your sweat and pheromones attacking the village women. It's a pheromone thing, not like the gay handkerchief code. No. But it is hard to know exactly how old it is,

because written records of that kind of thing don't go back all that far, and neither do visual records. Some say it may be really ancient, and the ancient Celts did it and the Druids did it but it definitely comes from an era before television I mean that much I can tell you yeah okay yeah no it definitely does but the thing is that ancientness might have been made up by the Victorians who like to pretend that certain things had more ancient history than they really did the old chin was but it was definitely around

in the 15th century because they have it in writing in a will from 1458 uh there was a silver cup depicting morris dancing therefore morris dancing at that point was already popular enough to have its own merch and then shakespeare mentions it in all's well that ends well and in henry v he implies that it was well enough known that even the french nobles knew about it which actually i think was stretching the truth a bit but you know every civilization in the world at some point has had men dancing around with bells it's just that's a big claim i reckon it doesn't actually i'm gonna back all the up and i think that's probably true in the world before as i say televisual entertainment you know mass market i think that's just gonna happen i didn't think this would be the thing to bring you two together in opinion but what they don't know is why it's called Moorish dancing.

And they think it was probably Moorish dancing, as in the Moors of North Africa. And it may have come from Europe. Like Italian culture was very popular here in medieval times. But they don't know why it would have been called Moorish. Maybe because of the fancy costumes. And they thought that's probably like what the Moors wore. Or maybe it's because people were wearing blackface and they were like well that's what moors look like yeah so uncomfortable i'm on top of the whole uh blackface in morris dancing

traditional debate thing because in your village that's what they do no well on my radio station that's what we do and there was a moment last year you might recall uh where the prime minister went to i think it was Banbury Folk Festival. And I did feel sorry, actually, for David Cameron in this instance, because there was really no way to win this. He went to his local folk festival with his children. Okay, maybe partly as a photo opportunity, because everything he does, you know, he's the prime minister, is a photo opportunity. But actually, I think genuinely because he was in Banbury at the weekend, wanted to take the kids to the local folk festival, right? So he posed for photos and selfies with people but he wasn't

there with his press advisors and stuff he was just walking around the folk festival and the banbury morris men troop went up to him blackface and asked him for a photo at that point as a conservative prime minister you literally can't win can you because if you pose with the blackface ones then you're the racist conservative prime minister if you say oh no i'm not going to pose with you because people think it's racist then you're giving into political correctness you can't pose with the blackfaced ones well as it turned out of course he did and the judgment of the newspapers was you can't pose with the blackface but i'm sure it could have gone the other way no i think i think most people are like well why are still people dressing up in blackface as if that's okay so i had that debate at one o'clock in the morning on my radio show it was actually one of my favorite ones it's quite

interesting so what's the reason for it so basically the people who think that it's racist are the people who say as helen just did it must be that moors were black and so you're imitating black people i didn't say that's what it must be i said that's one possible explanation for the word i'm saying the people who think it's racist say it must be that moors didn't say that's what it must be. I said that's one possible explanation for the word. I'm saying the people who think it's racist say it must be that Moors were black and that's what it looks like. The people who think that it's not racist have a whole variety of reasons to explain why it isn't. Are they bullshit?

Some of them are, but there was one in particular that stuck with me that I thought, even if this is bullshit, you definitely believe this. Yeah, but that doesn't make it right. No, I know. By all the people who hate women. Let's hear it. Is it plausible? Yeah, it's plausible.

They said the blackface dates back to the 16th century when out-of-work farm labourers would go round begging for money, covering their faces in soot so you couldn't identify them because begging was illegal. So they'd do a little dance and then beg for money and that's where the tradition comes from. But you could do that in blueface, couldn't you? Or purpleface. That's true, but it's a little dance and then beg for money and that's where the tradition comes from. But you could do that in blue face, couldn't you?

Or purple face. That's true, but it's a little bit harder if you're poor and begging to come across purple crayons than soot. Yeah, then, but now they use face paint. I doubt purple is vastly different to black in price. Okay, so now you're having a different conversation, which is regardless of the roots and whether the roots are racist, are people who are doing it now being racist by having blackface?

Yeah. Here's a question from Bernard, who says, there is a removals company I see around my part of London. Can I just interrupt to say we don't ever hear from anyone called Bernard in this day and age. It's so nice to hear from a Bernard. I think it's a shame that we haven't until now, and I thank you for your correspondence, whatever you're about to say. I wonder whether Bernard is one of the names that is now quite popular amongst preschoolers.

Dude, come back, yeah. Bernard says, there is a removals company i see around my part of london called aussie man and van yep ollie answer me this if i an english person called bernard applied for a job at aussie man and van and was rejected for not being australian could i sue for discrimination since the only reason i'd been refused is my nationality also i am weak and lazy but let's ignore that um yes is the answer you could i presume that is the reason why if you go to the website of said removals company uh their adverts make it very clear uh that the nationality does not have to be antipodean. We are looking to recruit 15 to 20 new Aussie team members, it says. Aussie, the brand, not the country.

As you might imagine, the role is very physical in nature. You will be lifting heavy items. So, Bernard, you wouldn't be, as you point out, appropriate for the job for that reason. But they do then go on to say, we have on occasions had customers requesting only Australians or Kiwis. Racists. They're laying the groundwork there

that the customers might request it. They're not saying they wouldn't fulfill that request. Yeah. But they then do say, or even being shocked, that the removal men that turned up were not of an Australian background. Well, you would be if you'd asked for Aussie man and van.

You might think something had gone wrong. We open our vacancies to people of diverse backgrounds regardless of their ethnicity. We recruit based on experience, willingness to learn, and of course, an awesome personality. Then it should be

awesome personality man with Vans, shouldn't it? Yeah, but they're using the word Australian in the context to mean straightforward. Awesome. Capable.

Fun. Laid back. Yeah. Gets the job done. Yeah. So I guess that in that sense, they're not being, what would be the word prejudice against people who aren't australian they're saying do you want someone who's got an

australian sensibility to moving your items australian attitude yeah exactly which actually you know when you think about it you know a lot of the fast food restaurants for example sell themselves on the basis of an american attitude but they're not staffed by americans the other day i did see a vehicle with a nice manemanwithavan.com written on the side, and I contemplated whether I would hire that person if I needed a nice man with a van. And I thought, someone who puts the word nice in their URL probably does have a bit of a cheeky sense of humour,

so maybe they would be a good person to hire. Maybe, but they might also, you could argue, have a high opinion of themselves. I'm not sure that any arrogant person would describe themselves as nice, would they? They might say amazing man with a van. Yeah, exactly. Or very strong or fast or something.

Nice seems like such a British way to put it. Slightly self-deprecating but also positive. There was actually a woman who went on Dragon's Den this year with a company called something like Lady Trucks. And she was looking for an investment for a company that has a big fleet of like pink trucks. And they do your removals. And it's all women who work for her.

Oh, those poor women. It's going to be like the naked butlers, isn't it? But for removals. Well, the theory was she said, we are less threatening to families with children. We're less threatening to women living on their own. We're less threatening to older people. We're less threatening to gay couples. We don't catcall.

Than having your traditional, you know, hairy ass blokes turning up with boxes. Doesn't have to older people, we're less threatening to gay couples. We don't catcall. Than having your traditional, you know, hairy-arse blokes turning up with boxes. It doesn't have to be pink, though. I just, well, you know, that was a branding thing to get money on Dragon's Den. But I just wonder whether that's true. Yeah. I'd feel guilty having women come to pick up my boxes, I think.

We got some furniture delivered recently and it was a man and a woman and the woman was incredibly strong. I was very impressed with her lifting work. I wouldn't... They were lifting work. I wouldn't... They were absolutely equals. I wouldn't rule them out in the running. Yeah, but would you hire her especially?

Would you hire women especially? I just think that that company is not necessarily going to be hired by the people they think they're going to be hired by, are they? You think it's a sexual objectification thing. I don't. Well, I think that's what would end up happening. No, I don't. Could be.

A stag party would hire them. Well, I think that's what would end up happening. No, I don't. Could be. Stag party would hire them and be like, oh, come and move my furniture. If there's a business in that, all credit to them, I can't imagine a stag do where you sit around in someone's house

waiting for their furniture to be moved. That's an amazing stag do. If you're a stag do, you're going to move house. What? Yeah. That's brilliant.

I've got a question. Then email your question to answermedisp this podcast at googlemail.com answer me this podcast at googlemail.com answer me this podcast at googlemail.com answer me this podcast at googlemail.com So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car that ripped off an iconic American car.

On Thursday, how American airlines invented air miles. And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America. We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Holiday. It can be so nice. But Simon has been in touch to say, having recently had a holiday in the US, visiting many national parks and outdoors type huge features

that America has to offer. Doesn't it just? And noticing the growth in the phenomenon that is the selfie stick. At every high point, every top of a mountain, every edge of a canyon, at anything that has a drop of thousands of feet associated with it so many people seem to back right to the edge to take a selfie with the aforementioned stick to show how high up they are now i'm fairly scared of heights so i was keeping a safe distance

whilst watching these people you need a selfie stick selfie stick safety stick a stick that takes selfies of other people's selfies well that wouldn't be a selfie stick selfie stick safety stick a stick that takes selfies of other people's selfies well that wouldn't be a selfie that's just a photograph yes and actually i'm annoyed that i just fell into that trap because i hate people using the word selfie to mean photo but says simon the wind was blowing and for the most part people are standing on the edge of something created by erosion yeah but erosion doesn't happen as quickly as taking a photo usually. So Helen answer me this how many people die in the US national parks each year by falling off the edge of something whilst taking a picture? That statistic is surely not readily available is it? No funnily

enough the national park service doesn't like to make a big feature of their death statistics and then it doesn't necessarily break them down by exact of their death statistics and uh then it doesn't necessarily break them down by exact cause of death but i have found some data uh on average apparently 155 people die annually in the parks but it's still a much lower rate than if you're outside the parks is it yeah see because there are a lot of crags to fall into. There are a lot of water features to swallow you up. Yeah, well... There are a lot of spaces to run out of petrol in. Wild animals?

Yeah. Well, actually... Cougars? I saw a bar chart which was the causes of death 2007 to 2013. And the biggest cause of death was drowning with 365 deaths. No record of whether they were taking a selfie at the time no but it's possible and then the second biggest was car accidents 210 then the third biggest 178 falls so that could be and then 99 other so those are unspecified they could be photo related

acknowledge that some of the falls are going to be suicides as well because they probably haven't spelled that out but you know if you're going to go and kill yourself, you might go to a national park to do it. Is Golden Gate classified a national monument or something like that? But anyway, some of them are going to be

selfie fools. But then right at the bottom of the bar chart is bears at four and two other animals. I think someone was killed by a goat and someone by a snake.

I shouldn't laugh because they're dead and that's tragic. Someone was killed by a goat and that's very sad. Who was killed by a goat? I suppose it could be a goat. But the other week, just the other week, a woman was killed by a goat and that's very sad I suppose you could get gored but the other week

just the other week a woman was charged by a bison in Yellowstone because she was taking a selfie with a stick and I don't know whether they see something waving around

and it looks threatening don't fuck a bear with a bison they're huge no exactly also in Lake Tahoe they have advised people to stop taking selfies

with bears you have to point that out because if you've mainly seen bears in cartoons then you're like oh bear lovely no teeth in that i could give it a little hug but i think generally probably the more stupid you are uh the less likely you are to be doing something intrepid so probably the people who are quite savvy and go on backcountry hikes and do climbing and stuff they are more likely to get into fatal situations because they put themselves out there whereas the selfie stick people that might look hazardous to you but they'll probably be all right because actually they're not exposed to hazard as much uh i saw a friend's photos on facebook he's just

been on honeymoon in thailand uh and he posted uh in fact his wife posted a picture of him using his selfie stick that's very meta isn't it so it wasn't a selfie see i was careful not to use the wrong word was documenting a selfie actually there probably should be a term like step selfie exactly yeah so he posted a step selfie uh of him using his selfie stick and this is how he was using it he's an american football fan he was lying in a bed at the hotel, streaming a football match onto his phone, which was being propped up by the selfie stick with the stick under his pillow. Legend.

So actually he didn't, he had hands-free football experience there. And if he put the phone at the end of the bed, it would be too far away. Yeah. You know that thing where you're watching a video on your phone, you're holding it in front of your face for an hour, it hurts your arms.

Actually, I thought, well, there's a new use for the selfie stick. Yeah. Pillow prop. This question segues maybe brilliantly maybe terribly into this one from lizzie in london she says at the risk of sounding like a complete lunatic i am terrified of holidays okay i'm not scared of flying or boats or trains or anything like that just terrified of actually being on holiday if If she'd written to us to say, I'm terrified, Ollie,

of going on holiday with your family, then I would sympathise. Because I am somewhat terrified of ever going away with my parents again, just because of the debate at Terminal 4 about which breakfast outlet we're going to. Oh, man. My God, life's too short.

There aren't even that many options at Terminal 4. It was just Café Rouge or Pret. Half an hour, Café Rouge or Pret. And then it's too late. Got to get on the plane. And it's just a breakfast yeah it's gonna be bad it's in an airport exactly for a start says lizzie i'm a single mom and don't really have anyone other than my eight-year-old son to go with disney world you could have a great adventure with an eight-year-old disney world or somewhere else disney like a road trip to american national parks disney world or says lizzie i could

go on my own but that is even more terrifying i have been on holiday in the past but within a few hours i want to come home it feels like i'm missing out on something happening back at home which of course i'm not i'm just being ridiculous and get bored easily and it feels like a monumental and unproductive waste of time but recently the toils of a stressful job and being a single mum have made me stressed grumpy and tired so maybe what i need is a holiday so ollie answer me this should i go on holiday and if so where and what should i do i can't answer where that's ridiculous i don't know enough about you all i know is that you work hard and you're a single mum yeah we need a budget

exactly but i i would say yes you do need to go on holiday. I think that, you know, there's a reason that it's a popular thing to do. Phil will be your master, et cetera. But, you know, since you do have this issue of having difficulty switching off, and that seems to be more psychological than circumstantial to me. Yes, yes. I think you could probably warm up for the holiday before you leave, not find yourself in this pickle where you're bored and sort of stressed

and a bit flappy when you're on holiday, by preparing at home in advance. That might be learning some meditation techniques at home, but it might be, for example, if you have the money, go to a really nice spa for a weekend in the UK. Or even start going on little day trips, so you can come and stay in your house at night, but you go as

far away as possible for the day and then graduate to a weekend away well the reason i thought spa is because that is all about you it's all about that's a nightmare to me why it just sounds awful like i would absolutely dread i hate even having my hair cut yeah i don't want to be touched i don't want to be pampered i I would find that very boring as well. But that's the whole point. It's about turning off your brain and letting other people do things for you. But maybe she wants her brain switched on.

Maybe she does, but just hear me out. If she goes to the spa, has that level of intense relaxation that you can only get when six people are pummeling away at your legs, and feels like she's completely stressed and thinking about what's happening at home in that scenario,

then don't go on holiday because it's a waste of money. But if you can train yourself to get into the mode, I would try it. No, I think the problem is you're thinking, Ollie and Lizzie, that holidays are just to be relaxed. But when I'm on holiday, I'm doing a lot more than I do at home

because Martin and I go on road trips where we're seeing a lot. And if you're exploring a city, you're not there for very long. So you have to go and walk around a lot and see things. I go on trips to to be away from my life so i've got to change but also to be stimulated yeah exactly so i think choose a holiday that is full of activity and maybe incorporate a mission into it if you feel like you're wasting time on holiday just make yourself busy make yourself do stuff yeah and also an eight-year-old i think could be quite a fun

holiday companion because they'll remember the trip and it could be quite influential on them and they're old enough to have opinions and you could do some quite interesting things. I think when I was not much older than that, my parents took us on a Castles of Wales holiday. Tooling around Wales looking at castles was exciting for an eight-year-old. Surely you've seen one Welsh castle

you've seen them all though. No, they're really different. Really? Yeah, Caernarfon and Harlech are quite distinct, for example. Oh, for example yeah different details in the shops i'm not saying this is what lizzie should do it's just an example yeah but also lizzie is it impossible for you to go on holiday with some friends maybe some friends who have kids of similar age or in a similar situation as you where they're like oh i don't want to go away on my own but yeah but actually i think that's the danger where you are going to end up in a holiday where someone says let's hire a villa and then it will be let's just sit here doing fuck all don't

go on any holiday where you're just in one place plan a holiday where you're moving around all the time and staying in different places i agree with that but everyone go on road trips because road trips are brilliant i still think you should practice by trying to have a weekend away and completely try and turn off your brain from thinking about what you do it's worth trying both it's figuring out which which holiday starts starts it. Are you an only man holiday maker or a Helen Zaltzman holiday maker? But you see, turning off your brain from normal can work both with your methodology

if you're a spa person and my method if you're not a spa person where you want to be distracted by novelties. But you have to accept that not everyone is a spa relaxation person. But she's saying she's stressed. If you were stressed and ground down by life, would your solution really be

throw yourself into a road trip? That's exactly what our solution to that is, yeah. Now you could try taking a one-minute long holiday with our intermission, where we take a little break from current Answer Me This with a bit of vintage Answer Me This. Yes, and in fact, remember, if you are still to head off on your summer holiday... Maybe if you're in the Southern Hemisphere and you're going on a spring holiday. Then remember, you should always take an iPod load of answer me this with you when you go away to divert you no one uses ipods anymore

granddad we've got a whole album about holidays that might be really useful primer yes answer me this holiday is available at answer me this store.com along with our first 200 episodes and today's intermission is taken from Aunt Milas, episode 52. At what age does it become inappropriate to need to sleep with a soft toy? Aged almost 18, I can't help thinking that I should probably have grown out of this 10 years ago. It's got to the stage where I must take Pandy, my one-armed panda, to my boyfriend's house when I stay over. Naturally, Pandy does seem to get in the way,

but if I put him by the side of the bed, I feel as though he's perving on me. Oh, Pandy, cover thine eyes. What should I do? And should I get counselling for this? Why don't you just turn Pandy to the wall so he can't see? Not that he can see anywhere with his cold plastic eyes. That makes perfect sense. And of course, that's what to do.

Just try leaving it at home. Keep Pandy wrapped up nice and warm. Take a photo of Pandy with you to help wean you off. Exactly, wean you off like Nicorette patches. If you've got Pandy's missing arm separate to Pandy, start taking that with you. Bring that, yeah, as a token. Travel Pandy. Please do send in your questions over the phone.

And if you could do that by not standing in a high wind when you call and being in a place of good reception that would be great. So ensure that those conditions are met and then dial the following number. Or you can Skype answer me this and let's hear who's been in touch. This is Hannah from Bedford. Helen and Ollie, answer me this. What stops the people who are a phone-a-friend who wants to be a millionaire from just looking up the answers on Google?

Surely that's what any sensible friend slash relative would do. What stops it, you mean, Hannah, apart from the fact that the series has been axed in the UK so it doesn't happen anymore at all and in the international formats where it does happen,

they've cut the feature of phone a friend because of the problem you identify oh what substitutes instead uh all different things internationally actually uh in the us they've got a version called uh three wise men as one of the lifelines uh where the contestant is allowed to ask a panel of three people chosen by the producers oh um a question so that they're supposed to be people that are more likely to know the answers than the audience uh one of them is usually a former winner of the show um but essentially it's like a mini version of ask the audience um and there's another version of the game where you have asked the expert so obviously if you've got a science

celebrity sitting there and it's a science-based question then that's exciting in the show because it puts pressure on them but obviously if it's a question about showbiz and you've got a science-based question, then that's exciting in the show because it puts pressure on them. But obviously, if it's a question about showbiz and you've got a science expert, you might choose not to use that. Well, also, if it's your friend, they probably won't sabotage you, whereas if the science expert doesn't like you very much, then I don't want them getting 200 grand. Well, and this is the thing, I imagine that the show's producers don't really

want you to get the big prize, do they? They want the jeopardy. They want you to lose the money. That's more entertaining in a way to watch. So, with Phone A Friend, the show isn't broadcast live, it uh it has been it has been but uh no it's not habitually so the the friend only knows the question that's being asked at the point when the person phones up and says correct this is the question the options doesn't give them much time to google i guess you could it gives them 30 seconds so that's enough i guess when you're good at googling like we are i mean i think you do kind of what you identify is right i mean in

the 90s no one knew what a phenomenon that show was going to be and the people who'd been asked to be friends wouldn't know exactly when it was being recorded they wouldn't know that their friend had got through to the round using fastest fingers first and they wouldn't be live broadcasting it at the time and the internet was so slow that it wouldn't have been a problem. Hold on, I just need to plug in the dial-up. I'm going to have to hang up for a second. Excuse me while I just flip through my Britannicas. But yeah, the smartphone basically killed all of that pretense, didn't it? And in the American version,

which was the first to cut the phone-a-friend feature, apparently you could actually hear people typing the answer. I think there are even clips on YouTube that people have cut out because it was funny, because it wasn't against the rules of contestants saying things like instead of reading you the question, which should be Martin,

with which motion picture did Woody Allen follow his 1979 film Love and Death? Instead of reading out the question, they'd just be like Martin, Woody, Love and Death. Right, right, right. So you'd know that there was a method that had been prearranged. I'd always assumed that the phone a friend person was somewhere backstage in the studio in an isolation booth.

Well, if they did that, that would be better, but then they wouldn't be on the phone at all, would they? Yeah, but they could still be on a phone. I thought that was the bit that was cheated, them being on a phone. Oh, no, no, no, they were at home, absolutely. Because there were times people didn't pick up. Oh, shit. Yeah, it just rang out.

So if they don't pick up, do you get to reuse that lifeline at another point? Well, you have five or six friends waiting on standby, so your second choice is to pick up. But there'd be nervous laughter and much banter to be had when the person didn't pick up. It was Chris Tarrant, wasn't it? It was, yeah.

You can imagine he dealt with that well. I can imagine bantering quite effectively. Yeah, a good bit of banter there. They live for those moments. I've often thought, how does Popmaster, the most difficult quiz in the world, on Ken Bruce's show on Radio 2,

how does that manage to live up to its own fearsome reputation in the internet age? And it's because the questions are too hard to Google in the ticking sound that they give you. Stressful, it's a short time. But also, the people who are playing

Ken Bruce's Popmaster, they are doing it for the art. Yes, it's an honour. They're not going to win a big money prize. If they win the week, I think win a mug and a DAB radio. And most importantly, the title of Popmaster.

Yeah. Everyone tells me, but for some reason record labels won't sell me. They say my songs are so crap they can virtually smell me. What on earth do they mean? Instead, use Squarespace to build a musical empire. You can stream and sell your songs and merch through which to inspire other people to try their hand singing as you are so dire. What do you mean? May time the new Jessieesse j mandem mandem thanks very much to squarespace for supporting this episode of answer me this yes thank you

squarespace what you do for us is beyond the call of duty but what you do for people's websites is nothing short of fucking incredible if you want to build yourself a fucking incredible website then get over to squarespace.com and choose a template and then just see how your content looks move it around a bit you've got a two-week free trial you can import the content from a website you already have you can choose a url and then after the two weeks if you sign up to squarespace then you can get 10 off for a year by using the code answer hereWER. Here's a question from Ben, who says Helen, answer me this. What is the cause

of Desperate Dan's desperation? I never had the dandy down as an existentialist publication, which is why I favoured the B note. Way existential. So I find it difficult to believe that Dan is a

melancholy character so what does he seek was his desperation ever satiated the more i think of it the more it seems like he's a modern incarnation of sisyphus whose constant anguish serves only to provide content for a naff comic well not anymore because the dandy shut down is it is it beef because whenever he's pictured, or his most frequent depiction in myth is with a huge beef pie. Cow pie!

Well, yeah, but it says cow pie, snack size, and it's huge. So if that's a snack pie for him, surely there's not enough beef in the world to save his need for beef. Desperate for more. Dietary fibre, because he has not had a crap for several years

So he's desperate for relief. He's desperate for sex because although he appeared in The Dandy from 1937 he didn't get a girlfriend until 2001 Whereas Mickey Mouse was getting his end away within a few years. Love to bang He was probably desperate

to retire as well because he was in every edition of The Dandy for 75 years. I've never read a copy of The Dandy. Desperate Dan was essentially meant to be a cowboy. I think he was based in Texas. Oh right. Is it Desperado? It is Martin.

He was firstly supposed to be an outlaw like the Desperados and then they softened his character and made him more helpful. But it did mean that the comic was not very funny. Yeah. I don't remember, what did he get up to? I think he lifted a lot of things because he was very strong, and then he would eat a cow pie.

But the thing is, cow pie in American means cow shit. Oh. So was it a clever thing? Was it a pun? Was it double entendre? Well, I don't think the dandy was necessarily available there. No, but for the creators, for the comic artists. Maybe, maybe.

You've got to keep yourself amused when you're drawing the same cartoon for 90 years. Yeah, good. Helen, how many minutes should I bake a cake for Before it gets all burned and dry? Ollie! How many onions can I slice? Before my eyes start to cry? And Martin!

How many sausages would you like for your evening meal? If you answer me these, I'll be very pleased. That describes how I feel. Here's a question from Chris in Leamington Spa, who says, I was wondering about follicles, mainly the transplanting thereof. Excellent. I know a few celebs who have had it done,

which if you couldn't get from Chris's long-winded language, hair transplants. Yes. Such as Wayne Rooney and Jason Gardner, that guy off the ice skating reality shite. Oh yeah, he was... Epic bald in Chris's words. It was a dramatic change, yeah.

Full head of hair now. I thought he owned the look of having no hair. He said he was depressed as a result of having his hair falling out. It's probably cold to sit next to an ice rink without any hair as well. Chris continues, as I understand it, the transplanting process involves taking hair from one part of your

head and transplanting it to another. For the bargainer's price of £22 pounds oh for a full head or just a bit in the case of jason gardner's a full head reportedly and often it doesn't work he paid to go to a u.s uh private clinic where they shut the whole clinic for him to have it so that costs a bit more but you're talking over 10 grand jason gardner who would care i know especially if he's then gonna turn up with a head of hair so everyone knows it's happened like Elton John. Well Chris says as I understand it

the transplanting process involves taking hair from one part of your head and transplanting it to another. You don't miss a trick. Now perhaps I'm missing something

screamingly obvious but surely if you have hair on the back and the sides and yet none on top then you transplant it from there to the top of your head

you'll be left with the ultimate short back and sides i.e. all now on the top and your head, you'll be left with the ultimate short back and sides, i.e. all now on the top and very little anywhere else, which luckily recently has been fashionable. Yeah, they don't take all your hair from your sides and the back and put it on the top and the front. They just take a bit.

They take some of the follicles. They don't strip out all your hair. Right, but presumably if you were like completely bald, then it would be a pointless process. Yes, although it's about the follicles working. Yes. So I don't know, but I can imagine that someone who even appears completely bald then it would be a pointless process yes although it's about the follicles working yes so i don't know but i can imagine that someone who even appears completely bald might have some neck hair with some working follicles in it right okay so chris says ollie answer me this where does all this extra hair come from apparently patients typically when they have

this done properly after like three weeks of it looking sore where they've cut out the follicles in the healthy bit and put them on the bit with no hair it starts growing back again right i don't understand how because they have moved the follicles but apparently it does um i think it might be that your follicles are so small that actually when you take a follicle you're taking something like a millimeter thick if they take alternate rows or if they take just a few actually it grows over the top of it anyway so you don't notice that there like a millimetre thick. If they take alternate rows or if they take just a few, actually it grows over the top of it anyway, so you don't notice that there was a strip where it was. But definitely if you look at the before and after pictures, you can see where they call it the donor area,

the bit that they've stripped to take the follicles. You can see it when they have the surgery and three weeks later it is covered. James Nesbitt, you don't notice any missing. It's worked a treat on him. My hair's thinning. But no one can tell because he's so bloody tall no you're saying that but that's because you're so bloody short

people can tell and it's got to the stage now where the hairdresser says it to me when i sit in the seat last time i went to the hairdresser for the first time ever in my life she tried to upsell me some baldness treatments oh um and i said to her like laughingly i'm not the kind of guy who's going to spend 35 pounds on baldness treatment and then she got like her henchmen to come over from the desk at the front of the salon and they were both they had uh bottles of nioxin in hands like uh like guns on a holster and they were like but this isn't vanity this is just i bet your girlfriend looks after her looks doesn't she why shouldn't you have your hair why shouldn't

you try this for 35 pounds just for every quarter this could stop your hair falling out now you might say you don't care that your hair's thinning right now but you will when she leaves you but imagine if you didn't take preventative action to stop the hair you've got falling out god it's like an infomercial happening in front of you and of course as soon as they give you that argument all of which is true but all of which is playing to my vanity it was quite difficult not to buy it because i was thinking you can't disprove that can you like you if i use it and no more of my hair falls out then it's working if i don't use it and some of my hair falls out then i'll think oh i don't use it and some of my hair falls out then

i'll think oh i should have bought that and that would have stopped it but i'll never know by using it whether or not it's stopping my hair falling out because they'll just say well it's slowing it down you'll never know well i suppose if you became balder faster after having used it then you could go back yes that's true pricks if if apparently clinically research anti-balding cure actually made your hair fall out then yes you'd have you would have a concern for complaint so did you buy it i bought it yeah oh 35 pounds is it working um well it's not not working i'll tell you what it does is it it makes my scalp a bit red after i've used it great are you sure that's not the psoriasis

well no i think it might be sensitivity um but it's basically tea tree oil isn't it that's what's in there stuff like that stuff that stimulates your skin and your follicles exactly so in that sense i can feel it's working i can feel that there's shit going on in my hair like my scalp is feeling a bit more alive and replenished but that could just really be a euphemism for sore yeah and i don't really know energize and i don't want to be the guy who spends loads of money on hair treatment i really don't i'm not bothered about it like i would be if i was 21 yeah but i do just feel well i might still have the majority of my life left ahead of me i don't want it to fall out you might look really cool bald it's a big might that i like

it as a look i'm trying to think of someone who's got my face and is bald and they're not pretty well we are at the end of this episode of Answer Me This but to beget the next episode please send us your questions via email, phone and Skype and we've handily left our contact details on our website AnswerMeThisPodcast.com

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Yes. And the emotional support they give us. They're our friends and yours. Yes. Please join in two weeks for the next episode. Bye! support of Squarespace and the emotional support they give us. They're our friends and yours. Please join in two weeks for the next episode. Bye!