Answer Me This! - AMT331: Lads' Mags, Cereal Toys and Blue Rinses

Episode Date: January 28, 2016

With Olly's baby poised to make his entrance into this world, AMT331 is our last episode before our three-month paternity leave. But there's the all-new AMT Love album ready for your ears at http://answermethispodcast.com/love - and 331 episodes of AMT to catch up on. Read all about this one at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode331.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

How much hush money do they pay to the hush puppies? Answer me this, answer me this How long will I live if I eat only chiparties? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this Welcome listeners to the last episode of Answer Me This before we go on three months paternity leave Can I call it the season finale?

If you do it in a growly American trailer voice, yes. Okay. This is the season finale of Answer Me This. Where we spend all of our budget on blowing up all the sets. And tie up a lot of loose ends. We're going to finally explain why Martin's here. But we also want to leave a cliffhanger so that we get renewed for another series.

Well, here is a question from Chris from South Wales, who says, I'm currently in Disney World, Florida. Wow. Watching the Merry Mickey Christmas Parade or something. Uh-huh. Ollie, answer me this. Did any Disney cast member go on to become really famous? I'm talking specifically about cast members

working in the theme parks, not your likes of Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake. Yeah, who were in the Mickey Mouse Club. At the same time as Ryan Gosling. I know. What a weird mixture. Amazing. so yeah yeah it's well known isn't it that there's a graduate course really from uh you know being hannah montana style acting to being dirty pop star shoving foam fingers up your vag but um what about people

who actually work in the theme parks then going on to acting and dancing and singing careers well there have been many oh okay and and how many of them were just in the foam suits anonymous and how many were visibly themselves in a princess costume uh none of them were in foam suits and anonymous oh and i don't think that's a surprise actually because i think if you're someone whose ambitions lie in being a famous face yourself you're not going to subsume yourself inside a mickey costume plus yeah but you might need to just have work no the thing is it's also ambitions lie in being a famous face yourself. You're not going to subsume yourself inside a Mickey costume. Plus... Yeah, but you might need to just to have work. No, the thing is it's also, they're really short.

So generally actors, I know people always say clichés, oh they're not shorter when you meet them in real life. But they used to have to be quite statuesque usually in Hollywood. So, you know, if you've played Mickey or Minnie, you're four foot tall. So there haven't been too many of those. However, Michelle Pfeiffer in the mid-1970s

played Alice in Wonderland in the Main Street Electrical Parade. I suppose because she's from Orange, which is close to the first ever Disney park. Kevin Costner worked as... Don't just laugh at a mention of his name. He's not at Mel Gibson levels, Helen. Yeah, but he's pretty grumpy. No, it's funny you should say that.

He took on one of the most uh kind of evangelistic enthusiastic roles in the park actually wow as a tour guide on the disneyland jungle cruise oh wow you really couldn't half-ass the tour guide could you it's quite irritating if it's one of those rides it's a classic attraction the jungle cruise but it's quite irritating if you've ever been it's often a wannabe stand-up comedian trying to do family-friendly material quite irritating because it's one of the only rides where the cast members get to improvise their own version of the script do you think talent scouts go to disney for that like model scouts go to top shop oxford circus to look for 14 year olds who are willowy yes i think if they're looking for talent that is based purely

on the way you look then yes because uh that would explain as well why kevin from the backstreet boys played aladdin of course at disneyland got the eyebrows for it he has hasn't he you know when that would explain as well why Kevin from the Backstreet Boys played Aladdin at Disneyland. Got the eyebrows for it. He has, hasn't he? You know, when I say it, it kind of makes sense. He's still got a kind of cartoonish Disney face. Also, Steve Martin worked in the Main Street Magic shop for about three years.

Crivens! And learnt how to do magic and juggling and banjo playing and creating balloon animals. This is all documented, by the way. He did like a special commemorative video for the theme park on their anniversary, which played in the shop. Well, sticking in the US,

here's a question from Larry in Salem, Oregon. You ever been there? You're a fan of Oregon. Been close, but not in Salem, Oregon. I think it's the state capital. It's not the witch trial Salem, is it? That's the one that's in the east. Yeah.

That's Massachusetts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He says, Helen, answer me this. Why is there such a difference between the English and American versions of... Is it going to be me behaving badly? The office? The word schedule. Yeah.

It is for he's a jolly good fellow. The annoying song people sing on people's birthdays when they run out of happy birthday. Or because they didn't want to pay the rights when there were rights on happy birthday. Correct. For he's a jolly good fellow, according to Guinness to pay the rights when there were rights on happy birthday. Correct. For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, according to Guinness, is the second most popular song in the English language after happy birthday before Auld Lang Syne. What?

Yep. More popular than Sorry by Justin Bieber? More popular than Imagine. Good God. The answer for any why is something different in America to Britain always is because there's an ocean between us. Yes. Different country.

Yeah, but it's still morphed presumably from a British origin. What is the difference? I assume he means that in America, the prevalent version is, which nobody can deny. Which nobody can deny. It's so say all of us. But some versions have both those lines. They start off with which nobody can deny.

And then the second round is and so say all of us or the other way around it's a bit like the racist second verse of god save the queen isn't it i mean people don't really know that bit they just know the beginning don't they for he's a jolly and then it kind of runs out because everyone's bored of singing it because it's a rubbish song to be honest the difference between the english version the american version it's not as substantial as the difference between those versions and the original French version, which was... He's a massive wanker. It was from the French song Maubras sans va-t-en-guerre,

which meant Maubras left for the war, which was composed the night after the Battle of Malpaquet in 1709, the bloodiest battle of the war of the Spanish succession. And it tells how Maubras' wife was mourning the fact that he didn't return from the war. But actually, he didn't die until 13 years after this war. So it was bullshit.

Just as well they didn't have the lyric, which nobody can deny in that version. Yeah, exactly. Which everyone can deny. Which historians will investigate. So the Spanish secession, is that what you said? The Spanish... Succession. Succession.

What does that mean? There was a very long bloody war about who owned Spain, basically. Okay. And so the lyrics included such verses as, he's dead, he's as dead as a herring, for I beheld his bearing, and four officers transferring his corpse away from the field. Wow! But in French, it's a really long, miserable song.

That's really macabre. Most folk songs have their origin in something quite depressing like that, don't they? And then they become sort of jolly things. I mean, some people say that For He's a jolly good fellow was a medieval song that they sang on the crusades but there's no evidence for that but still like the the transition of this from like the dead as a herring song to what we have now is kind of sketchy so allegedly it became popular because in the 1780s a wet nurse madame potitrine which sounds like bullshit because i think poitrine means cleavage in french she was singing it to marie antoinette's infant son louis the 17th as a

lullaby and because marie antoinette was such a trendsetter everyone started singing it to their little children that does sound like bullshit doesn't it and then lots of different versions came out in the us and the uk over the 1800s and i think for a while it was known as we won't go home till morning and one of the verses was for he's a jolly good fellow but then that took over but again like the evidence is sketchy the version with which nobody can deny was available in Britain at the same time as the USA because Charles Dickens mentioned it in Household Words magazine which he edited 1851 to 1859 he had been to the USA in the 40s, maybe he picked it up there, but maybe they were basically interchangeable. What I hate about it is it's

so indiscriminate. Like the original version that you're talking about was about a particular set of events, fine. Now, for he slash she is a jolly good fellow. Well, all he's done is blow out a candle on a birthday cake. You know, if that qualifies you for goodness, the jails would be empty. Tell me more about what this person has done. It's not enough. It's not personalised enough. He helped me fix my roof. He helped me fix my roof. For he is only man. For he is only man. He's a big Disney fan. Which nobody can deny. If you've got a question, then email your question.

Yeah, to answer mail, this to GoogleMail.com. Answer Me This Podcast to GoogleMail.com. Answer Me This Podcast to GoogleMail.com. Answer Me This Podcast to GoogleMail.com. Help cat. And submit this podcast to Googlemail.com. So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car 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 Will, who says Every time I reach the bottom of yet another box of breakfast cereal, I'm filled with melancholy, as I remember those glorious years here in the

UK when eating cereal meant receiving free toys! And also eating near neat sugar, even if it was sold as a health food. Yeah, it makes the milk go chocolatey, and you'll die sooner. Great. Who needs teeth? Will says,

I'm talking, of course, of the free gifts that most cereal boxes used to contain. Plastic tat and figurines promoting 80s films usually. Yes. My dad wore for years

a pair of sunglasses that came out of a cereal box. Even though they lost an arm fairly early on, he persisted with them. My friend Jeremy's dad used to wear the glasses he got free in a happy meal as well all summer he would only wear things he got free in a happy meal

he wasn't allowed in mcdonald's again no uh will says i'm guessing that a heady mix of evolutions in health and safety marketing methods and economic frugality led to the demise of the breakfast cereal free gift your your guess is half right i don't think economic frugality came into it because they still do give away gifts it's just you now have to collect tokens and send off for them so ollie answer me this what was the first free gift to be given away inside a breakfast cereal box the first to be given away actually inside the box literally amongst the cornflakes or in between the bag and the box would you count that you would count it yeah is lost to history oh no one knows um because it wasn't regarded as an important thing at the time because

uh for 23 years kellogg's ran a promotion with cornflakes where you could send off for a kid's book right and so whenever you ask what's the first thing that was given away with cereal for kids it is the funny jungle land moving pictures book great i imagine was probably revised for racism over its 23 year lifespan but was started in 1906 and it was to build an association between children learning growing and eating cornflakes and so the promotion was if you bought two boxes of cornflakes you could send off to get the book so that's widely credited with like the idea of cementing the relationship between children and cereal and toys yeah uh but actually um you know it then became a trend and no one quite remembers who put the first thing in damn it but it's because

it was all tied in with the evolution of plastic so when plastic made developing things like toy soldiers and spy glasses much cheaper there was suddenly a spate of this like as soon as one company did it you know as soon as kellogg's did it esle did it etc um so everyone was doing it by the 1950s and 60s did they invent snap crackle and pop the characters just in order to be able to print out plastic toys that then they could put in the box and be like get this collect all three i wouldn't imagine actually that they did um because people have got so much more cynical and targeted when it comes to marketing for children haven't they yeah tony the tiger is just a machine isn't he they were feeling their way around i think in the 1950s and 60s and the idea was you know if you can

build any kind of character on the serial then children are more likely to want to take their parents to the aisle to buy it and then a separate discussion was and then you could put a toy in it and then they'd be more like to repeat order but But the modern way of thinking of it is, you know, let's make sure we get the website and the app and the theme park developed before we've even decided what the cereal tastes like. That's reverse engineering once you realise what a huge business this is. Yeah, and all of cereal really is a massive con because even the stuff that is supposedly healthy is still, it probably has as much sugar as if you just ate biscuits. Yeah, well, the thing is, if you drink orange much sugar as if you just ate biscuits yeah well the thing is if you drink orange juice every morning you'll drink a lot of sugar oh yes um so as soon as you start preserving it and putting dried oats in with it as well that doesn't make it

suddenly not sugar just be so much better off having the neat gin but um you're hinting at why it's no longer fashionable to include toys with the cereals so it's partly health and safety is it partly because the law's changed about marketing stuff to So it's partly health and safety. Is it partly because the laws changed about marketing stuff to children? No more free cigarettes for them. It hasn't changed, but it's in anticipation of any changes that would be imposed.

Is it kids choking on the toys? It's never happened, as far as I can tell. But there have been plenty of instances where either a child nearly did, or there would be fears that a child might because the toy broke. So two specific instances, both involving Kelloggogg's obviously the world's biggest manufacturer of cereal so statistically that's going to be well when they do a product recall that costs a lot

of money right so in 1988 a girl in pennsylvania nearly died after choking on a cool flute toy in corn pops um and as a result of that they recalled 30 million flutes amazing they made 30 million flutes in the first place isn't it i mean considering they weren't actually flutes they were just little plastic shapes in the shape of a flute and then in 2000 they had a similar thing nascar themed toy cars the wheels started coming off there's no evidence that anyone ever put them in their mouth but if they did they might have choked and that would be kellogg's fault so they recalled that so each time they do that it costs a lot of money um and then they started being like environmental protests as well so you know

like kellogg's aren't getting enough of this with people saying oh it's full of sugar and you shouldn't give it to your children and you're the spawn of the devil when all they're trying to do is make cereal they then also were getting people complaining saying yeah and the toys you're manufacturing you're making in china and you're importing them and it's costing loads of money and you're damaging the environment and this by the way i think excellent sounding toy runs on mercury it was a what it was a spider-man watch um that um when you press the button projected uh its own little spider-man logo onto the ceiling cool yes but it ran on a mercury battery that's that's like there was um a children's toy that was recalled a few years ago it's one of those ones where you wet beads

and you can stick them together and build different shapes out of them but the coating on them when it came into contact with water turned into ghb well i um was also surprised to read that um because toys are now uh, much rarer in cereal boxes, and also because these promotions tend to be quite short-lasting. Yeah. So rather like the Happy Meal, they'll do a promotion for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, but it'll only last for six months. If you keep your cereal boxes in pristine condition, which of course every cereal eater does,

some of them go for $100, $200 now. Oh dear. If you've got Super Mario cereal from the 80s, it's worth $200. Wow. You'd have to be pretty forward-thinking to have kept your 80s cereal intact. Yeah, so actually for me, it wasn't from cereal boxes.

It was cards I collected with pictures of butterflies from my dad's cigars. He used to smoke cigars. So I had this amazing collection, and I learnt loads of butterfly names because he had all these butterfly cards. Wow. That would now be seen as very much marketing to children,

the worst kind of product. Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure they had, there was another collection which was dinosaurs. So I'm sure it was here, Dad, buy Hamlet and there's something for the kids in the packet. Cereal box toys, the only one I really liked was, do you remember when they do like 3D dinosaurs on the back of the box and then 3D glasses inside?

Yeah. Like not proper 3D, just that blue and red thing yeah and then it still works yeah sort of work well it makes it less blurry not as sharp as a one-dimensional image i mean i had bifocals when i was a child so it didn't work at all so i'd quite like the 3d glasses but not so i could look at the dinosaurs on the back i mean that entertained me for 30 seconds over breakfast but so i could join in with my dad when tutti frutti was on rtl we'd watch that in 3d what's tutti frutti what's rtl uh it's a german satellite channel in the 1980s and the show was a strip based game show that my dad used to enjoy it's kind of like wheel of fortune family fun but the girls would get their tops off men too but mostly

girls because obviously there's tits the practice though of putting inedible treats in food it's a pretty old one the cereal didn't come up with it because it's like people putting a coin in a christmas pudding or like a little ceramic baby in some cultures they'll put in their christmas food what do you do with the ceramic baby when you get to it you win it what do you do with it you win it you put it in a cake mix yeah yeah you probably do that's the only thing you can do. Yeah, but then it's like the Olympic torch. You get to possess it for that year. What happens if you're the sort of person that gets lucky

and ends up with, like, 20 ceramic babies? Do you have to just bake them into a cake that's mostly ceramic baby and very little plum pudding? I think it's one baby per cake, Martin. Otherwise it would look like genocide cake. It would look like Chapman Brothers had done it. Well, an extra special surprise that comes with this episode of answer me this rather like the cereal toy that gets appended to a box of cornflakes uh is uh that we have just released an album you can buy which like our other albums is material that has not been on answer me this

before it's your questions this time all themed in time for valentine's day around love that's right so questions of romance relationships and sex dating why are my genitals called a thing all that sort of thing oh yes uh is in the answer me this love album and it's available now on itunes and amazon and at answer me this store.com that's right and if you buy it from us, then you are giving us more of your... People have been writing to us asking us to actually factor out for them how many more royalties we get by buying it from us directly.

Yeah. It's more. More than twice as much. But it's more than twice as much. So please buy it from us. Answermethisstore.com is an hour of all new stuff about love. Yay.

And if you want to try before you buy, just listen to today's intermission. Here's a question from Anonymous in London who says, I met my friend for a drink a couple of weekends ago. We spent a while chatting about our love lives. My friend is seeing a lovely new man and is enjoying some lovely new sex. Met a real nice guy, had some really nice sex. Then he dropped a bit of a bombshell.

The guy he's seeing has two holes in his penis. Uh-huh. The usual one at the end. Yes. The urethra opening. Yeah. Urethra. You said that like the voiceover that you'd be greeted by

if you were on the Starship Enterprise docking somewhere. Welcome, urethra. And a second one. Yeah. I was a little shocked and confused at this, and then he went on to say that this was the third person he had seen with this two-hole problem this year. Okay, well then he's using some really funky dating app

that puts you in touch only with men that suffer from that condition, because although it is more common than you might think, it is still fairly rare. Is it a problem? It's like a double-yolked egg, isn't it? No, it can be a problem. Okay, right. Well, Anon says,

I'm enough of a woman of the world to have seen quite a few penises in my time, but I've never seen this before. Yeah. I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. Maybe that's what Kylie was thinking about. I've asked friends and colleagues, but no one has ever heard of or seen such a thing,

let alone three in one year. No, that is weird. Unless he's a doctor who treats this. an interesting specialty yeah here's a question from miranda who says helen answer me this what's the difference between cafes brasseries and bistros what defines a bistro uh i think there are probably technical distinctions that have kind of blurred over the years so it was the french that really made these into different institutions i was going to say all three words seem to have their origins in the french language yeah although bistro means fast in russian and so the origin of why the restaurants were called that is somewhat obscure but it might

have just been that in early 19th century france the russians had been there it was kind of fashionable to have russian culture imports and so it was actually quite a quick way to get a meal fast as in quick rather than fast as in not eating because that was not right martin yeah quick yeah that wouldn't be a good that wouldn't be a good name for no so eating place yeah so as restaurants they were kind of quick brasserie meant brewery whereas now it would be a somewhat chintzy restaurant whereas whereas now it would be a somewhat chintzy restaurant whereas a bistro would be a small restaurant and a cafe means coffee yeah so instinctively i think of it in the price scale cafe cheap bistro basically a cafe with hot food

probably a chef in the kitchen brasserie quite posh like it's it's it's the upscale of a chain restaurant so does that sort of come through the same process that we have with gastropubs, as they're unpleasantly called in the UK? Yeah, I guess so. Brasserie is a better word than gastropub. So it starts as a bar and then becomes basically an eating place that has some beer and wine. And restaurant, the word for that means restore your strength. Does it? Restoration, yeah.

I'm trying to think whether I find restaurants restorative generally. Often it saps your energy, doesn't it? Well, that's the thing. Having a nice sit down, that is restorative. But you can do that at a bus stop. Actually, sometimes eating and drinking. Do it in a skip. I'm not sure that every time I go to a restaurant,

I feel like I've been restored. I feel often just... It's gluttony, isn't it? I eat too much, drink too much. That's often quite hot as well, aren't they? I suppose the function of a restaurant may have evolved over the years so before it might have been you'd been traveling a long while and you needed some food and drink to restore yourself i guess that goes back to the origin of inns doesn't it and hotels yeah because they'd be places you'd go for the night if it was going to have a restaurant like most people didn't

go out to eat did they they'd go out on the road traveling and then it would be the same place pubs would be the inns what i'm thinking of of now is Jane Eyre having to go on a long journey when she's a child and of course the coach has to stop driving her occasionally so the horses can have a rest. It's interesting you think of Jane Eyre when you think of literary inns. Shall I tell you what I think of? Go for it. Lord of the Rings. Very similar. See, I always think

Wait, have you read Lord of the Rings? Of course I haven't read it. I've listened to the Radio 4 dramatisation. But it's very faithful, I understand. It's so funny that you're quoting Tolkien, given your avowed dislike for swords and sorcery i don't like fantasy films but i as a child i was really into the radio four dramatization of lord of the rings okay and that was enough for you for life just clarify there and i'd happily listen to it again oh i i did a few years ago listen to half of it i don't know i've ever made it all through all of it so there's that classic scene in the end where they meet the the strider don't they early on well it's just it's never

classified this way because they're on horseback and they've got uh supernatural forces with them it's basically a road trip yeah book isn't it yeah that's exactly what it is and that that first stop at a pub or an inn that that sort of signifies that that's what we're in for now because there's been a lot of nonsense at the beginning hasn't there tom bomb Tom Bombadil. Yeah, and suddenly you're like, ah, okay, we're on a road trip. We're in a pub. Cool, pub. I guess Jane Eyre is partially a road trip as well.

Yeah, but kind of. Very partially. It's really not one of the chief aspects of Jane Eyre. It would be more fun though, wouldn't it? If she took the mad woman in the attic out on a road trip at the end. It'd be like Thelma and Louise. We're opening a cafe

that serves only jelly. The markup is immense and then we'll get on the telly. We want a brand ambassador. We're in talks with Nelly. But also Cisco is keen. We've put the full menu on squarespace.com.

You can choose from raspberry, strawberry, lemon or the green one. And our website will look great even when we're bankrupt after year one they're not ready for our jelly thanks squarespace for sponsoring this episode of answer me this yes thank you indeed and thank you for making uh other people's websites beautiful and also ours as well answer me this store.com very simple template all designed through squarespace i love squarespace do you yeah it's like i'm a beautiful graphic designer

just because you've got a beard martin doesn't make you a beautiful graphic designer i've got black rimmed glasses so close if you want to design a portfolio for your personal brand or gallery or a nicer blog than usual or sell digital files for your digital business. Yeah, use it to host your podcast. Then you can do all of that. And remember, after you've had your two-week free trial, if you like it, you want to go ahead, you want to pay for the service,

you can get 10% off by using our code ANSWER. Here's a question from Sam in Norway who says, I was reminded about blue rinses the other day. Sam! Sam! I sense you've forgotten about this. He's in Norway. Is it an international thing? No one has blue rinses.

I've only spent three days in Norway. I saw not a single person who had a blue rinse. I didn't even see anyone who looked that old, to be honest. Well, this is sort of the nature of his question. He says, and he answers me this, where did blue rinses come from to begin with? Was it only working class, older women in EastEnders that that had them there was definitely people in real life that had them because i used to see them and it's true you don't see them so much anymore because old people have

got a bit more style now haven't they i think it's more just that the the reason for blue rinses was that um when you have white hair or gray hair pollutants and chemicals can make it look yellowish and uh and therefore if you wouldn't want that you might as well offset that by looking like a blue siren so so to get the brightness they would do blue rinse but often that would just mean it was blue rather than bright white or gray so it was a mistake actually they were trying to get white back but there were people who definitely wanted the blue rinse i'm sure you would maybe it became a sort of accidental fashion because it was happening by accident then

people like oh i like what maureen's got i want one yeah probably i think it was just really difficult to get the chemical balance right and the more you fiddled around with it the more your hair was likely to snap off so you were kind of stuck with it until the next time you could get it dyed but i think now the technology has improved so much that it is harder to have an accidental blue rinse but that style of pastel hair seems to be very popular at the moment amongst the young. So maybe now if old ladies do it, they look like they're trying to be hipsters. Yeah, I think if I was looking at someone who was 25

and in Shoreditch and they had grey hair with a blue rinse, I'd probably think it was quite cool. It's very different, isn't it, to looking at an 80-something-year-old 20 years ago. I also read a hypothesis that the older people get, the less receptive they are to certain colors so maybe they didn't realize how blue it was or something like that like they saw their hair as being very intensely yellowy so they really needed to counteract it with a lot of blue well

here's a question from greg and helen from perth australia who say we are currently in a hotel in varna on the black sea coast of bulgaria i was in Varna on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria earlier this year with our mutual friend Arno. Is it nice? It was great, actually. It was lovely, yeah. Although once you got out of the tourist hell holes, which might be where Greg and Helen are.

But there's some really amazing food. Okay. It's funny because I'd never been to a Bulgarian restaurant in my life. What's the Bulgarian food style? It's somewhere between... It's very Mediterranean, basically. Oh, lovely.

Like there, anyway. It's all barbecued fish russian salad uh dips that involve um tahini you know it's great perfect ollie man fair oh so good anyway uh the thing most notable about this uh black sea so-called which we can see from the hotel window actually if you can see you might be staying in the same hotel that i was imagine if they're staying in the same room that ollie man was in wow imagine if they knew well there's probably a plaque on the wall there probably is um uh the most notable thing about the black sea is that it is actually blue well some time ago uh i greg went to the red sea uh which is also i assure you blue in color uh so helen answer is this why is the black sea called the black sea and the red sea

called the red sea and the Red Sea called the Red Sea when they're both actually blue? Well, it's easier to ascertain for the Red Sea because apparently it has a type of algae in it called Trichodesmium erythreum. I don't know. When these algae die off, they turn the sea reddish brown. Oh, do they? Yeah. But then some other people say that the colours correspond to the positions of these seas so like you might say north south east and west the red actually meant south black was north and green was east and white was west okay why i mean why not just call them the west sea i'll get back to you i mean the white the white sea is actually very far north it's a thing on the edge

of the barren sea and it's white because it's often iced up so that's pretty easy the yellow sea i think is the other of like the great four color named seas and that is between china and korea and that is called the yellow sea because it has yellow sand in it not because a lot of kids went for a swim one day but the black sea is more tricky to really pin down as to why it's called that and so the theory might be that it was north when they used to call directions that way because it was north of medieval turkey but it might have just been because it was known as an ominous sea because it was quite treacherous and also it would cloud over very suddenly and that

would make the waters dark hello hello nolly and mart and Martin. It's Rebecca from Letchworth. I'm currently playing Skyrim while I'm watching the boyfriend play Skyrim and we've just seen a rabbit go into the water and we wondered whether if you could answer us this. Can rabbits swim? Can they? Bye.

I didn't know rabbits swam in Skyrim. That's a revelation. Amazing what they can do with video games now, isn't it? I don't know what Skyrim is. What. Skyrim, that's a revelation. Amazing what they can do with video games now, isn't it? I don't know what Skyrim is. What's Skyrim? Skyrim is like a big RPG. It's like a role-playing game. Do you play as swimming rabbits?

No, normally... Not interested then? You normally play as someone who has a sword and can shout loud, and your shout makes things fall over. The good thing is, Helen, I feel like I've used up my conversation about video games for the month in that 15 seconds.

You've got a white column on it. So it sounds like a battle reenactment society in the form of an online game. Yeah, but there's more methodological individualism than you're suggesting with that comment. Oh, is there? Can rabbits swim? Tell me, I'm desperate to know.

Rabbits can swim, yeah. Good for them. But it's not recommended for pet rabbits. So, I mean, wild rabbits can swim. Of their own volition, rabbits can go for a dip and swim. Yeah. However, the general advice, if you have a pet rabbit at home, and especially if you have a swimming pool in the garden,

you're thinking, oh, let's take the rabbit for a swim. Probably don't do that. Chlorine's probably not great for a rabbit, is it? Two reasons. They can panic and drown. Oh, God. And secondly, yeah, chlorine. The reason, basically, that rabbits are used extensively in skin tests for cosmetic products

is that they have more sensitive skin than humans do. So if you put them in a swimming pool that has a safe level of chlorine for humans, that's going to be intense for a rabbit. After my commute, when I find the time, I can always send a question to the question line. Inquiries are wanted, it's all part of the plan. I'll a Helen, or Holly, or Martin, a sound man. Answer me this podcast at GoogleMail.com. Answer me this podcast at GoogleMail.com. At GoogleMail.com. Here's a question from Arthur who says,

the demise of FHM and Zoom magazines and therefore the Lads Mag Genre was recently announced in the press. Well, sort of. They covered the death of FHM and Zoom magazine. I don't think it was an official announcement like when you write into Births, Marriages and Deaths in The Times.

The death. Lots of people suggested this was in part due to the apparent availability of a great deal of salacious material on the internet. I haven't checked and couldn't comment. Yes, indeed. I was prepared to accept this explanation until I visited my local corner shop and whilst queuing to pay for some mediocre wine, noticed that the top shelf magazine section still boasts five or six different pornographic titles it's almost as if paper doesn't spontaneously combust at the point at which it's decommissioned growing up in the 1980s my experience of these magazines was limited to what could be gleaned from the hedgerows surrounding play areas yeah so we just explained the the practice of exchanging porn by leaving it in a wood.

Yes, I think you've just very succinctly explained that. Thanks. Arthur says, these modern mags look exactly the same and don't seem to have adapted to the changing market. I can't recall ever considering buying one in my adult life. But you've just told us you grew up in the 80s, so they're not really for you, are they, Arthur? It's the same

people that were buying them in the playgrounds then who are presumably buying them now. Some people prefer the old ways. Those are also the people that mean that tabloids like The Star and People haven't shut down. Or The Sport, more to the point. And it'll be a few decades before they've completely died off. Whereas FHM and Zoo are catering for a younger demographic

and thus competing with the internet. Indeed. Ollie, answer me this. In this age of rapidly declining magazine readership and widespread online porn availability, how are these magazines still in circulation is there a crucial market of horny techno illiterate supporting them is there some kind of nostalgia behind their continued existence i'm baffled well i think you've actually just i mean in a very florid way you've answered your own question quite well uh yes there is a market of horny techno illiterate supporting them i.e old people yeah and yes there is some nostalgia behind that people

as you were suggesting helen don't like to deviate from their wanking patterns i have a friend who is 37 who has never seen internet porn wow it's like a unicorn in this day and age that is extraordinary i mean i know plenty of people a surprising amount actually of men uh who have told me that uh they've tried it and don't like it and never go back. But to have someone who's literally never seen it, I mean, it comes to you. I mean, it's quite difficult to avoid it entirely. Sometimes you can quite innocently be searching for something

and presto, penetration. Sometimes Wikipedia photos are rather ripe. Exactly. So, okay, let's outline who might still be buying old school paper pornography Plenty of people who are 40 and over Yes I mean I'd put it a bit older I'd say 60 and over But certainly the demographic who still use their local libraries for internet access Also some people might like the convenience of paper

And not want to have to sit by a computer say when they are stimulating themselves Well and also there are couples who use pornography to get themselves in the mood um i think again it's probably a demographic thing but i think you know the process of of going to i know smartphones and you know it's sort of in your pocket so you could take it into the bed with you but for a lot of people the idea of like turning on a computer in the middle of sex is something they wouldn't do whereas if they've grown accustomed to uh looking at uh magazine images wouldn't do. Whereas if they've grown accustomed to looking at magazine images, then again, it's something that they can easily wipe down

and take into the bed with them. There's people in prison. They're traded in prison. It's quite difficult to get internet porn in prison, but it's not that difficult to get a paper copy of Asian Babes in. You can put a provocative picture of people on your wall rather than printing it out from the internet. So many reasons

also just because these appear to be current issues of the magazine is that and i'm sure they are uh you know magazines have a long lead time yep um they might only be publishing sort of quarterly now right and just because the uh strap line on the front says you know december 2015 the content inside could be pictures that are 10 years old it could well be that it's not that expensive to actually reprint these images once they're taken it's a small royalty and you can sell advertising against that and therefore there is still a business there it's just a decreasing one i suppose wanking doesn't necessarily change as much as technology indeed yeah and internationally as well um you know you're talking from someone

who's grown up in a in a presumably quite liberal way and doesn't have any shame or embarrassment talking about your proclivities. There are people for whom it's not just a question about access to the Internet or, you know, their habit. It's that they are too ashamed to either understand how to conceal their cookies online. And so they'll be worried about that or they simply could not imagine bringing pornography into their home their family home or a home where they practice their religion and uh going to get a magazine is something they can do and then pretend it didn't happen and throw it in the bin no i think probably going for the magazine would have a lot more potential for shame because you've got to buy it off a human being yeah but it's a human being that might be someone in a petrol station that's 100 miles away from where you live yeah it's something that

you can take to the premier in and then forget about i don't know because there's physical evidence and therefore i think it's more problematic to be caught with that than the internet well this is what people used to go to sex shops and do helen you can pay in cash you know there isn't necessarily a paper trail do you think there's a trust issue on the internet like i know people that not in a porn context but in other contexts routinely put blu-tack over their computer webcam because they're worried about being spied on so like things like that or like some sort of paranoia how many people do you think feel comfortable about putting their credit card details into a i know i know there's free stuff loads of free stuff but even with that is it a website that's safe to visit is it going

to load loads of viruses onto your computer well also i mean although it is more typically uh women who talk about being turned on by words rather than images uh men do too and there are certainly men out there who like reading sexy stories and sexy letters yeah spelling out boobs on their calculators yeah and actually you know that's a slightly lost to heart form isn't it like like many literary forms that is there on the internet though isn't it it Like many literary forms. That is there on the internet though, isn't it? It is. It's not the mainstream medium. Well, it is there, but it's probably a bit harder to look for. People probably don't think it's there.

If the thing that's got them going for ages is the letters section of Penthouse, they're going to think, well, I'm going to keep buying that. So was the problem with Zoo and FHM then that they were a bit too loud and hectoring for men to be able to get off on those words? Because it's a bit like being shouted at in a pub rather than being left alone with your own imagination well the problem with fhm and zoo is they weren't pornography it was soft core imagery that was designed as a sort of

fig leaf here are some words to read just because it's degrading to women doesn't mean it's porn exactly uh and i mean if anything you know all the people that were celebrating the closure of of those magazines if the alternative is people going on and finding uh unrestricted hardcore pornography at every turn that's not necessarily better. But I did find it a bit hypocritical like and I guess Playboy back in its day had that thing of like oh people read it for the articles. Well now they've got rid of the

centrefolds. They're not having nudie pics in Playboy anymore so it really will be just for the articles. But back in the day, like I say it's a fig leaf. I mean I don't have a problem with people consuming pornography but I do find it a bit weird when they go oh it's you know it's really it's a really cool magazine it's just like well if you want to work that's fine but i find it i find it a weird double standard maybe that's just me it's part of the issue as well with those magazines is that they were a lot

more expensive to produce than the top shelf rasmags yeah because they did have articles in you know it wasn't just like here's bertha here's one of her pubes up close here's one with her legs open it was you know actually there was some here's one of her pubes up close, here's one with her legs open. It was, you know, actually there was some... Here's one of her pubes. A photograph of a single pubic hair. Well, you know, effectively. Very arty. That sounds really amazing.

Did you know there's a cryptocurrency for the adult world called Titcoin? Stands to reason. Fact. Or Botcoin, I suppose, could also happen. It could work, yeah, very good, yeah. Both of them require no explanation, which is why they're good names. Very. Also, a lot of people still have pretty shit internet service.

Yes, true enough. You're not going to have problems with a RazMag only half-loading. My dad permitted a porn shoot to happen in his car showroom. What? In the 90s, yeah. What? I can't remember what mag it was for. It wasn't one of the big ones,

but it was a sort of Mayfair-esque spin-off title. So was it women posing rudely on Bentleys and things? Yeah, it was a woman. It was Jo Guest, actually. Really? Yeah. Was that porn so much as, like, just titillation? No, it was legs out, full spread.

Right. Yeah. It wasn't porn in the sense there wasn't sex. Graphic pictures. Graphic, yes. Hardcore images of a solo woman. I don't know what that category is, but anyway, i'm sure wi

bentley would have approved um really got his engine running yeah uh but yeah yeah yeah yeah joe guest spread eagle across the 1920s bentley did happen in my in my dad's car showroom did you ever see the pictures um for about 10 years afterwards my dad kept the soft core kind of page three version of it uh up in the toilet at work. And then he took it down. I think it got a bit dusty. And also I think he thought, oh, you know, women are coming in here.

I better take it down. And he moved on from Joe Guest as well. No, I'm not sure he did. I'm sure there's a special place in his heart. I'm sure he still holds a candle. As it were. Well, that's the last question we will be dealing with in this, as you want to call it, season of Answer Me This, Ollie.

The season is over but answer me this will return but during our absence maybe you could catch up on our back catalogue both the free stuff and our first 200 episodes which along with our new love album are available on answer me this store.com that's right and the new love album is also on itunes and amazon remember it's an hour of brand new material all about romance and dating and sex and all that stuff uh buying it helps support the show and of course it will help you tide yourself over from answer me this material lack thereof over the period that we're away and uh keep an eye on our social media which is uh facebook.com slash answer me this and twitter.com slash henley lolly where we will tell you when we're going to come back with the new episodes and if you can't be bothered

to remember those links in full just click the buttons on our website, AnswerMeThisPodcast.com And you can listen to our other podcasts as well, which are multifarious. Yes, if you've never checked out The Illusionist or The Modern Man or Song by Song... Then I pity you. Now might be a time...

What are you doing, guys? Now might be a time to investigate our respective back catalogues as well. And we will be back with your questions. Yes, but maybe hang on to those questions until late April so that, you know, you've honed them, they're delivered fresh. Yeah, whittle them down to perfection. What Helen's diplomatically trying to say is we don't want to plough through an inbox

with 5,000 emails in it when we come back, thanks. Yeah, yeah. But still send us some questions, just the good ones. Your best ones. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Why don't you keep a little note of all the questions you think of, and then just at the end of April, send us the ones you think are best. Pick your favourites.

I might also turn off our voicemails, just because the prospect of coming back to like 5,000 drunk calls is making me terrified. But I'll be excited to hear from you for the month before we do come back. And we will be back in May. And thank you very much for, A, everyone expressing their sadness that we're going away for a short time and, B, everyone expressing their pleasure that I'm to be a father. Yes.

Good luck with that. Thank you very much. Bye!