Answer Me This! - AMT333: Buckingham Palace, Key Parties and Kestrels

Episode Date: June 16, 2016

In AMT333 we assist listeners with queries about Narnia spin-offs, kestrel welfare and environmentally responsible vibrator disposal. Find out more about it at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode333. Tweet us http://twitter.com/helenandolly Be our Facebook friend at http://facebook.com/answermethis Subscribe on iTunes http://iTunes.com/AnswerMeThis Buy old episodes and albums at http://answermethisstore.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

May I watch Cinderella rather than England playing? Answer me this, answer me this Do you think Rod Stewart's sexy? Would you take him sailing? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this I know we're all on tenterhooks since the last episode when Martin couldn't be arsed to Google how many times Kelsey Grammer had played Frasier.

Why do we keep Martin around? But luckily, Stephen Chicken on Twitter, at Helen and Ollie. Staunch listener, Stephen Chicken. He has been in touch. He has done the maths. Because we were saying in the last episode, it could be that we have played the parts

of Helen, Ollie and Martin the Soundman as many times as Kelsey Grammer had played Frasier. But I'm talking Cheers as well. This is it. Cheers is a long-running series. Correct. We all know that, Martin. So as far as your Wikipedia wings could fly you last time,

took us to 263 episodes of Frasier. So obviously easily we beat that. However, as Helen pointed out, you've got to take into account Cheers. Stephen's done the power googling there was also a spin-off sitcom called wings what based around some of the cheers characters uh had cameos in it because it was written by the same people and it was set in an airport in boston airport uh nantucket massachusetts massachusetts oh no not this again apparently i say remunate wrong as well

It's a runner You not being able To pronounce Massachusetts A place you've been to Anyway I didn't know That that sitcom existed So

No does that mean It lasted less than a series It did And how many Frasiers appear in that Frasier appeared in Wings once Oh But obviously

You know If we were approaching The number of Answer Me This Is Which is currently 333 That one could still Come into play, couldn't it, Tip? It's over the edge. It's true.

So we've got 263 episodes of Frasier. We've got one episode of Wings. Hailbiting stuff. How many episodes of Cheers were there? Loads. Yeah, 203. Frasier was in 203. God, how much Cheers was there?

Christ! So the total number, once you do all the maths, is 467 appearances. Oh no, it's been years off! So yeah, so we've got 134 episodes to go until we equal Kelsey's run. I'm so tired! How did he do it? He was paying a million dollars an episode by the end, wasn't he? That's probably

how. I'm sorry to hear, Helen, that you are distressed that we have many episodes to go. Yeah. However, there is something even more distressing that's happened to you in the last week week uh yes this is the part of the show we're setting a tradition now uh last episode uh we were filling you in on my personal tragedies why are you building this up as if i have anything to equal that um no okay fine no one's dead my problems are trivial well trivial you say that yeah we've been kicked out of uh the flat where answer me this was suggested by you at our housewarming that would have been the conception would it we've

recorded nearly every episode here so what's happened your landlords our landlord is moving back in after 10 years you're evicted he said if he was a reality tv character well he might have said that but it came through the letting agent so because they really like me because my emails have complained a humorously phrase they really softened that blow i really how did they put it uh well they were really upset about it dreading giving me that call how did they say it she said i'm so disappointed for you i'm disappointed because i know that this place where we've recorded answer me this for the last nine and a half years is a place that you would have probably carried on living had the rent not increased for another 10 years again until i couldn't crawl up the steep stairs anymore yeah here's a question from a chap called daniel uh he says for the past year or so i've

done some voluntary work to expand free funk a decentralized free and open mesh network what this is mainly to provide refugees with access to the internet. As part of this work, we recently had to install equipment in a church tower. Doing so involved drilling a few holes into the wall. None of this would be a problem if it weren't for a kestrel that has a nest in the tower.

Shit! You think this is a question about do-gooding? Then you think it's a question about towers. Then a kestrel turns up. Oh, that's amazing. It changes the game. I was concerned, continues Daniel, that the kestrel got traumatised by the noise and the vibration caused by our drilling, which is why I want to ask Helen,

answer me this. Is it okay to cause distress to a bird family in this way in the service of a generally valuable project? Well, lately, I really feel a lot of sympathy with kestrels because they are the renters of the bird world. Because they don't build their own nests, they move into nests built by other species. So they're probably used to some discomfort, as we renters are. Kestrels have actually adapted very well to man-made environments and they can survive in the center of cities and they nest in buildings and they hunt on major roads so i think the kestrel probably wasn't

too disturbed by noise um they have done studies that suggest birds uh they suffer increased stress because of human activity but it was temporary you're not drilling in the kestrel's party wall every day like our neighbors seem to have been for the last two years. I will miss them terribly. So I think probably it was worth disturbing that one Kestrel for the greater good. But then that's kind of how I skew anyway. The discomfort of the few for the benefit of the many. It strikes me that because Daniel is working on this worthy project,

he sees everything through a different lens than if he were a big business. If he were a big business and he was... That Kestrel would be charged rent. Exactly. And he was... Clear Channel would be right in there. He was turning that church tower

not into a phone mast for refugees, but into a branch of curries or whatever. He would be saying well okay i know we have environmental responsibilities but it's only a bird so long as we factor into our plans space for birds then we've done the right thing by nature i mean i know that's how really big companies think when they do massive land grabs on uh nature reserves isn't it the disney company uh when they built disney world promised and delivered a massive wildlife sanctuary, which is amazing, apparently.

I've never been because, why would you? It's next to Disney World. I want to go to Disney World. The last place you want to see wildlife. Apparently, you can go and visit this nature reserve where you see birds and fish that they would naturally have in the kind of mud plains that Disney World was built upon

that have been preserved and encouraged to thrive over 40 years and actually you know obviously it's improved land conditions because of all the money that's gone into protecting it so the company then says well yeah we built our ridiculous plastic palace on top of thousands of species of animals but look at look what we've done for you nature we went to a very strange place on our recent road trip in idaho oh yeah on the map it was supposed to be a particularly good sanctuary for birds what didn't you talk about the morley nelson snake river national wildlife preservation of birds of prey in it it was also a sanctuary for words it was also a sanctuary for words. It was also a practice zone for military manoeuvres. Oh, yeah.

The sound of firing is quite disturbing to birds. They have very sensitive hearing. And apparently it has diminished the bird population. So those things, I would say, are not compatible. So we drove around for what felt like many hours and saw no birds. I never made it to the end of Freedom. But does Jonathan Franzen have an opinion on this? I've forgotten. I skipped quite a lot. I think Patty's all right. like many hours and saw no birds i never made it to the end of freedom but does jonathan franzen have an opinion on this i've forgotten i skipped quite a lot i think patty's all right though

that's the important thing it's such a good book isn't it and then and then you get to the bit about birds and you're like was it all for this here's 50 pages i've got to wade through i didn't know just skip them yeah well that's what i should have done because i was enjoying the whole like american beauty s kind of you know God's Eye view of these teenagers struggling through their lives. Strip mining. Yeah. That's like, oh, birds.

Thanks, Franzen. Katie from Birmingham. Answer me this. How does one responsibly dispose of vibrators? I think it's very good that she wants to be responsible about this because like many electrical goods, if improperly disposed of, vibrators will leach toxic chemicals into the ground

and be landfill because the silicates and plastics, they're not going to degrade. Yeah, but I imagine that if you call the council, there isn't a special sex toys bin. I mean, I know from experience getting rid of a clock radio was troublesome enough. I had to go especially around the back of the Tesco Express. But there was a bin for electronic items

and I imagine you could put a vibrator into that. I've got this image now around the back of a Tesco express um but there was a bin for electronic items and i imagine you could put a vibration i've got this image now around the back of a tesco express and when there's a landfill just full of vibrations anyway i think it is worth getting in touch with your council to find out how you are supposed to dispose of small electrical goods yes your local sex shop might have a scheme for recycling sex toys or it might be affiliated with scheme or no of a scheme and in britain the store love honey you can send your sex toys or it might be affiliated with a scheme or no of a scheme and in britain the store love honey you can send your sex toys off to them and they will recycle oh that's good it is good i was gonna i thought you were gonna say they'd have a system like you know where they send one to africa and give you a new one or something don't they deserve sex toys too

because they're a market for used erotica why are you asking us yeah we've got a great sideline we're like the only fools and horses of sex toys. There is famously a market for soiled underwear and stuff, isn't there? Oh, I see. Do you really think there wouldn't be a market for something that's actually been inside someone's... So the kind of dirtiness is the appeal. To a niche, but that niche, I imagine, is prepared to pay.

Well, that's also an option, Katie. Selling them to fetishists. If you've got a question, email it in. To Martin, the sound man, Holly and Helen. 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 round of Today in History? On Monday, we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car that ripped off an iconic American car. On Thursday, how American airlines invented air miles. And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America. We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's a question from John from Portsmouth who says my wife and I went to a house party with other couples from different friendship circles. One of the guests joked that the next game was keys in the bowl. This never materialised, although I'm sure it did cross some of our minds. Oh, you old rascal

John. I wonder if they were just joking and it was only you who thought that would be a good idea. Just to break it to the innocent people here here this is like a notorious 70s sex party game where everyone put their car keys in a bowl and at the end the women picked the keys yes and went home with the key owner I think so everything was very heteronormative answer me this does this really happen at parties nowadays and how could one seriously propose this game without ruining a marriage and friendships um you could have your own 70s themed party and talk about it so much at the beginning that by the time it's action

stations no one's like awkward laughter they still will feel awkward about it but you could also do the 70s thing of just doing loads of quaaludes and booze i think it is a lot more prevalent in popular culture than it ever really happened i mean it seems to be a thing that really basically just happened in san francisco and places like that really i mean i'm sure it happened across the whole world but really like on a large scale i bet it happened in birmingham yeah i reckon anywhere where it was boring there would be more impetus to do these things but it's everywhere now like it was in the ice storm originally yeah it's in how the grinch stole christmas no No. What? Yeah. They have a sex party in a Grinch thing.

Yes. What? There's a flashback where they're telling the story of how the babies were born into Whoville. They land by umbrella rather than stalk. In the terrible film. Yes. Not in the cartoon or the book.

In the 2000 film starring Jim Carrey. No wonder that film bombed. And anyway, in the flashback sequence when the baby is dropping from the sky in an umbrella, he drops outside a house where the adults inside are clearly engaging in a key party. Oh, no. But it's a joke for the adults. It's only like three seconds.

But that's the wrong kind of joke for that kind of film. Yeah, I agree. Anyway, I agree that it would be very difficult to seriously propose it without ruining a marriage and friendships amongst my friendship circle. But I do think you'd know if you were the kind of person who had friends who'd be open-minded enough to do this or be interested in it or you could search online for swingers and that's the real answer to the question isn't it i think these days no it doesn't happen spontaneously

because uh you can use the internet to make sure that people that are there are receptive to this kind of thing yes you know what makes things fun prior organization exactly are there are receptive to this kind of thing. Yes, you know what makes things fun? Prior organisation. Exactly, and there are guides now to how to organise your orgy online. Great. This is one from a page called How to Do an Orgy. Okay, what kind of snacks? Hang on, this is distinct from an orgy, though.

A keypad is not an orgy, is it? Correct, but don't ruin my fun. Okay. It's talking about how to get the Facebook invite right. Think of a cool name for your party. Forget things like My Orgy Party. That's just unoriginal and might turn off some people. Damn it.

You need to find something sensual that suggests your kind of party without blowing the whistle. My Sexy Orgy Party. You're not far off. Dot com. Try more along the lines of. These are serious suggestions. Fantasy Island.

Oh, that's been done. Welcome to the sensual side we have all the cute cookies now that's long to go on a facebook invite terrible um splurge your fantasies bit to jizzy definitely or even bring your own beef if you want to be funny that could be like a barbecue with stand-ups none of these sound sensual so i think if that's a guide for people who are actually interested in this kind of thing and it sounds as flawed as that, the idea that you'd actually just spring it on people

when you could organise it before the event, you just would, wouldn't you? You want it to start almost immediately. I don't think you want any awkward small talk at all. And I know that a key party technically is not the same as an orgy because you're supposed to go home with a person whose keys are in the bowl,

but still the whole party you'd be aware that your keys were in that bowl at the front door, wouldn't you? Well, so what if you don't drive? Oyster cards in the bowl. Yeah, I don't know how that works. It seems like an admin nightmare not to have your own keys. What if you had some bad twiglets

and you really just want to go home and feel queasy and someone else has got your keys and they're fucking your partner? This is why you don't get invited to key parties. Well, also, I don't go to parties, generally. So it's not a sex party thing. Also, it's going to damage the fishbowl. No one ever thinks of the fish.

Is this a fishbowl thing? I always picture one of those big 70s abstract clay fruit bowls. No, in America it's a fishbowl. I think if you were a committed key party person then you'd probably buy a special fishbowl just for the key parties not for your fish what do you think you'd get one of those like nice ones from john lewis that says keys on it

carved out of wood john lewis is catering for the key party people well it's time for us to take an intermission and thus we are going to take one more opportunity to remind you that we have recorded a one-off one-hour exclusive album of special material about romance. And love. And... Sex. Squidgey things. Filth. And it's called Answer Me This Love.

It is, and it's available now from the AnswerMeThisStore.com. I did, by the way, also buy AnswerMeThisStore.com on your suggestion. It's not my suggestion. It was your own suggestion. No, you said you should buy AnswerMeThisStore.com and redirect itcom i was being flippant well i cannot take me seriously when will you learn this you've known me for such a long time you should be like don't do anything helen says well the redirect is active how much did that cost you uh it's about 20 okay so answer me this door.com that's right you can you can go there and it'll redirect you to answermethisstore.com where you can buy our albums and our first 200 episodes.

Correct. And here is a snippet of the aforementioned Answer Me This love. I love a wedding, I genuinely do. Well, you love theatre, don't you? Exactly. I like a show, I like dressing up, I like a good meal that someone's paid a decent amount of money for where there's cheese. You always wear tremendous outfits at weddings, Ollie. But on another level, I've been now to lots of weddings in my life.

I'd quite like to go to one where it all fell apart at the last minute, just to see what that would be like. And would you want it to come from the couple, or from someone dramatically standing up and saying, I object? Wow. I think from my reaction now, it would have to be the objection, wouldn't it? That is more dramatic.

But I'd want the party to go ahead. I would want the meal. I wouldn't dress up and pay for the hotel without the meal. I'm afraid it'd be there, wouldn't it that is more dramatic but i'd want the party to go ahead i would want the meal i wouldn't dress up and pay for the hotel without the food to be there wouldn't i know but i think people just say oh no no i think people would be eager to gather together because you've got to talk about what you've just seen i think probably if anything it would be more festive than a lot of weddings listeners if you're gripped by the urge to call us and leave your questions on our voicemail, then you need to dial this number.

0208 123 58 007 Or you can Skype answer me this. Hi guys, this is Ollie from Egham. I'm sitting here watching Antiques Road Trip. And the other day I watched that old episode of Only Fools and Horses where they find the very valuable watch they sold for so many millions of pounds. And it got me thinking, has anybody on one of these auction shows ever found something that's just ridiculously valuable

so what is antiques road trip is it just like antiques road trip but with dennis hopper in it it's the um daytime ripoff it's exactly what you'd expect so whereas on antiques road show you have people from all over the country go to where the thing's being recorded with their item of value that they actually know is worth quite a lot of money and then you get some big valuations. On Antiques Road Trip... They just knock on people's doors and say, have you got any old shit? More or less.

Sounds great. They give the antique dealers £200 each, which is a format point lifted shamelessly from Bargain Hunt. And then over the course of the five days, the same two experts go around the country trying to beat each other by getting better things for their 200 quid um so uh the record for the largest profit on a single item

on antique road trip is held by charlie ross who in 2012 bought a chipped staffordshire elephant clock for eight pounds which was sold for ohamic often goes for a lot because it breaks and that dries up the value of the ones that haven't broken. It's chipped What can it reasonably be worth? Probably someone bought it for £20,000 and it was probably hideous China always does well when it's hideous £800 is Martin higher

or lower Helen? Well I said £20,000 Okay so you're going to stick with the others. That mathematically is higher Ollie. I know you weren't great at maths Well I'm afraid because of your adamance, Martin has in fact won. Yes! Even though it was in fact higher, it just wasn't as high as that.

How much was it? £2,700. That's quite a lot. That's a hell of a profit, isn't it? It's a big appreciation. From eight quid. But if you look at the Antique Roadshow by comparison, it gives you an idea of how the Antiques Roadtrip

is really just the fly on the arse you know the antiques road trip is really just the fly on the arsehole of the antiques road show god what a graphic image is that a thing you just made up or is that an expression it's an analogy i just made up well someone add that to wiki quote why would that be a fly on someone's bum i guess i was thinking of an elephant with a fly on his bum i guess okay that makes sense okay... Fine. It's the fly on the arsehole of the Chip Staffordshire elephant clock. Okay? Okay. Does it have an arsehole?

It's an analogy. It doesn't matter. Is it a pencil sharpener? Anyway, on the Antiques Roadshow, the most valuable thing, care to guess the amount? Oh, Antiques Roadshow? Bearing in mind the format is

you come with your thing that you think is worth a lot of money. Well, Antiques Roadshow, probably someone took in a is You come with your thing That you think is worth A lot of money Well Antiques Roadshow Probably someone took in A first failure of Shakespeare And it was worth millions I'm going to say £200,000

£200,000 Martin Drunk Antiques Roadshow Is the only way to watch it I'll go higher I think I'd say I'd say £250,000 Again Martin is closer

But again Oh you cock Wildly out in terms Of the actual number £600,000 A million Cool million What was it? It was a model of The Angel of the actual number. 600. A million. Cool million. What was it?

It was a model of the Angel of the North, which, as far as I'm concerned, isn't an antique. I thought it had to be 100 years old to be an antique. Apparently not. Apparently you can take something in that's just 10 years old collectible, and that counts. Why is that so valuable?

They stole the Angel of the North. I suppose you say a model, you mean a scale model one-to-one. Scrap metal is very valuable. I guess Anthony Gormley's really come up in value, hasn't it? And probably there was only one model before he built the real thing. So it is a Gormley model. It's not just like something they sell at the souvenir shop.

But as someone who worked for a while producing an antiques segment of a daytime TV show... Did you? I did. I produced Eric Knowles and madeline can't remember her surname talking about antiques on this morning you're about what 25 at the time i was quite young to be doing that i know but i was sorry to be prejudicial it just feels like more of an old-timers game uh i i genuinely was the only straight man in the office all the women and the gay men ended up doing the showbiz and And just purely through the prejudicial heteronorms,

I was given science and antiques and royals. Those were my three areas. Whereas women and gay people can also wrap their heads around those things. Apparently not. So those were my areas of specialist concern. So I was the antiques researcher. And if you've ever wondered why it is that daytime telly is full of antiques shows, but they're all filmed on location, you know,

whereas actually the most popular daytime TV shows, the ones in studios like BBC Breakfast and This Morning and These Women, if you've ever wondered why don't they bring the antiques to the studio? It's because, well, it's for a variety of reasons, but essentially when you bring an antique that hasn't been sold yet, so this is why auctions also feature prominently in daytime antique formats when you bring an antique that hasn't been sold yet it is the property of the auction house whilst it's in their care they're insured for it on their premises

as soon as it leaves their premises it has to travel with someone from the auction house at all times until it reaches the studio at itv or wherever it is at which point their insurance covers it when it's in transit it needs to be escorted at all times like a child star right now if you're doing an antiques feature on daytime tv say you've got 10 antiques they need to come from multiple auction houses because you can't just feature one no so you've got 10 antique escorts who you have to look after for the morning. And that is a task so tedious that no one can bear it. Right.

Which is why you don't get antique features on this morning anymore. That was a real insight. Because you used to have to put them all in the green room, look after them all, fluff them all, give them croissants and coffee. And they're all very tedious people. And so it's really laborious looking after them. So that is essentially the reason. And you can't leave the antiques in the office overnight either no so they have to arrive for the rehearsal at 8 30 in the morning so all of these antique experts with their antiques

need to be in cabs at six in the morning to get there that's why that's why they're all those cheap antiques shows are filmed in auction houses, because of insurance. I have new sympathy. So now you know. What do you do when you want to drown out your incessant interior monologue? Sing opera loudly, try pneumatic drilling or bash your head against a log. Or go to answer me this podcast.com slash audible and get a free trial

to download Miranda Hart or Louis Theroux or Hunger Games or Jeremy Kyle that sounds preferable yes thank you very much to our friends at audible

who are offering you a free audiobook have you got yours yet how do you eat yours? Oh no, listen to yours. Yeah, you can't really eat it because it's intangible. You do insert it into your body though, don't you? It comes through your earpipes.

Is everything you insert into your body eating, Ollie? You've made me think about that. I think yes, everything I insert into my body I eat. Right. I think. Q-tips? Yeah. Is there a problem with that? I bought Harvey a toy the other day that I just like I eat. Right. I think. Q-tips? Yeah. Anal beads. Is there a problem with that?

I bought Harvey a toy the other day that I just like anal beads. What? Really, I thought, is this a toy or is this just being sold in a bring-it-by-self parent? Is this for mum and dad? Anyway, Audible's not like a sex toy. Although there is erotica on there. Yes. It's actually a platform with over 150,000 novels,

memoirs, comedy shows and more to choose from. And the Anmora does include dirty books. It does. So you can download it for free. Keep it on your phone forever. And by so doing, to do that, you have to take up a free trial at Audible. Which you can cancel at any time.

Indeed. You are giving us cash because it's your way of telling Audible to support us. Yes, which they do with cash. Which they do with cash, to be clear. It's a circle of love. So it's absolutely a promotion for winners, this. It's really easy to do as well, by the way.

All you need to do now is register with your Amazon account. So long as you've ever used any Amazon service, like Amazon Prime Instant video or amazon.com you can just log on wherever you are in the world you can get this deal interesting because i think i have two amazon accounts which might mean two audiobooks for me an audio bonanza so uh go and get yours at answer me this podcast.com slash audible here's a question from nate who says i'm reading a feature in a magazine about flying cars. There's an intriguing number here.

9,242,738. Okay. Apparently the 9,242,738th patent, at least in America, is for some sort of flying car. That's exciting, isn't it? Ollie, answer me this. What is patent number one? Or more broadly, what is the first thing ever patented?

Is that the same question? It's not. Because when he says what is patent number one, with reference to 9,242,738, what he means is in the USA, as we know it now, what was the first patent of the US Congress? The answer to that is Samuel Hopkins' patent for making potash,

which was issued on July 31st, 1790 by no less than President George Washington himself. Gosh. You can see this certificate online. It's actually a patent that is actually signed personally by the president. That's how important, in those days, the idea of intellectual property was becoming.

What's potash again? It's something that you use in fertiliser. Oh, yeah, yeah. But as Nate points out, there's another question, which is what was the first thing ever patented? Because let's assume, America being quite a young country, that the first thing patented by their Congress isn't actually the first thing ever patented.

Patent, patent. You'll notice I'm using both so i'm i can't decide i can't decide my instinct is patented but uh mine too that's why i'm overriding it in case i'm wrong and the answer to that uh you can divvy up by territory the first in north america was 1641 when samuel winslow was uh granted the first patent by the Massachusetts said it right that time, by the Massachusetts General Court for a new process for making salt in the UK 1331 is

the first recorded one it was again issued personally by the King to John Kemp and his company, although the detail's been lost as to what exactly John Kemp and his company did, but anyway they're protected by law to do it but of course if you go to the ancient world it goes even further back than that and according to athenius writing in the third century there were patents back then for people who had designed especially elegant pots to make sure their

designs could be protected and that they'd continue to earn a royalty. But the patent only lasted for a year. Huh, but what's the point in that? It's extraordinary. You think how long Louis Vuitton have managed to hold on to designing three initial letters interlocked. You know, you design an exciting pot and you only get a year's worth of copyright out of it.

That's the ancient world for you. I remember being told by an archaeologist, I think, they used to transport olive oil and wine and things in these pots and they'd come from all over Europe and they'd just chuck them away. So Rome has these huge piles of just like debris and you can trace back the origins of these bits of pots to all over the ancient world. That's the kind of thing that archaeologists tell you

and you think, God, it sounds really exciting being an archaeologist. Yeah. Then you remember they spend all their days on their knees in a lab brushing. Just brushing a little bit of mud. Etymology queen, do you care to guess where the word patent comes from? Or patent? Is it from an open letter or document from some authority?

Short and form of Anglo-French, lettre patente. Literally, open letter. It's amazing how you did all that off the top of your head. I did. Well, yes uh apparently um the very first patents in renaissance italy used to hang so that the seal was open so that everyone could see it like a public declaration like when your wedding bands get posted or whatever so that's where that where it comes from it's latin for open letter everyone can see it the public shall come and they shall see that you own this property that's where the word comes from well nate has a secondary question he says i read somewhere that a few years ago

someone registered for and received a patent for toast while that's surely one of the dumbest and most unenforceable modern patents ollie answer me this what was the most ridiculous patent in history granted for you know that's very subjective isn't it um some things look ridiculous on paper uh like dancing cacti or stress balls that are shaped like cocks but they look like a cock on paper but the point is if there's money to be made the inventor deserves a cut of that cash doesn't he or she um you know, if there's a business in it, I'm not sure that any patent is completely ridiculous. But if I were to choose one personally,

it would be the 2001 patent for user-operated amusement apparatus for kicking the user's buttocks. What? This was a sort of wheel with lots of boots on it, a bit like a sort of ship's steering wheel um and then i suppose like a circus performer or some kind of cabaret performer would stand in front of the wheel and then crank a pedal and kick themselves in the arse someone painted in that not in the victorian days of circus that sounds like terry gilliam would have invented that exactly but at the turn

of this century someone painted that yeah turn of this 21st century. Yes, 2001, someone managed to get a patent on that. Have they made one? I do not know. If they do, they're the only ones that are allowed to without paying themselves royalty.

Right, quick question. Narnia books, the Narnia Chronicles, whatever you want to call them, the Christian propaganda that we all love from our childhood. When do they go in, will they go into public domain or will they keep being renewed on the copyright law or what? Because I've got an idea for a story based in Narnia but I'm pretty sure the C.S. Lewis family will not approve of it because i'm gonna modernize it it's gonna

be good answer that there are narnia related things that have happened there's a band called narnia people have written narnia albums and i'm sure they've written a lot of narnia slash fic i'm sure i was about to say i'm sure there's narnia porn out there. Yeah. Oh, I've been a naughty fawn. And the C.S. Lewis family are raking it in from that. Vivid Entertainment cut them a very good deal. Well, no, but you see, there's a distinction in law, isn't there? That's parody. Porn is parody? Well, if it's a parody, if you're doing jokes about...

What if it's dead serious? Aslan fucking. I think if it was the land, the witch and the pawn drove, then that's an obvious joke, isn't it? I think if you're not allowed to call it after the same thing. So you couldn't say Narnia, but you could make it look exactly like the Lion, the Witch and the Pawn Drove and you could have the feature of the characters going through a wardrobe

to fuck each other. Chronicles of Pawnia? That kind of thing. I'm just trying to workshop this. The Lion, the Dick and the Wardrobe. Yes, there we go, we won this. But if his version is not a pornographic version and not a a parody because parody means you can get away with quite a lot yes is it going to be like one of those things where someone does an updated version of pride and prejudice say i

know that is well out of copyright now because jane austen's been dead for nearly 200 years but it feels like he ought to be able to but they are still in copyright because uh different in different countries yeah so the books are out of copyright in canada so they're available on project guttenberg for free but there's a little notice at the top going if you're not from canada don't look but it doesn't geolocate you or anything so you can still look good tip to get a book for free that you could pretty much get from any charity shop for 20p. Yeah, exactly. It's more difficult to read it for free on Project Gutenberg. So they were printed through the 1950s. UK copyright is usually 70 years after the author's death.

C.S. Lewis died in 1963. So you'd be waiting until 2033 anyway. And then the Lewis estate has renewed copyright in various places. So in the US, it renewed it, I think, for 70 years in 1978. And so that's taking you even longer away. I don't know if you'll still want to do them by the time they're out of copyright. I do think the principles of copyright law can't be changed just because you get a hit. They managed to find ways around it, don't they?

They say, oh, Mickey Mouse is the figurehead of the Disney Corporation. So therefore, everything involving Mickey Mouse in the 1930s is still in copyright. And it's like, well, that's not the spirit of the law is it the spirit of the law is by now we should all be able to print t-shirts with Steamboat Willie on them I suppose when it's something visual and you're replicating the visual then they are losing money if someone buys the non-legit version but with this if it's a book and you were going to do something different with the book like it'd be different if this guy wanted just to print his own copies of Narnia books and sell them. No, but he wants to take the idea. If he wants to take the idea.

You might as well write it because no one's going to print it anyway, probably. Well, that's the truth, yeah. Have you seen that they're making another Mary Poppins film at the moment? What's going to happen in that? She flew off. Is it where Jane and Michael Banks are disaffected adults and she comes and she tells them to stop being so entitled? Yeah, that's it.

Is it? Yeah, basically. But also, she'll be closer to retirement age then, so she'll be like, oh, for fuck's sake. Just sort yourselves out. When's the original set? The original set? Well, it's Suffragette era, isn't it?

So what's that? So it's early 20th century because isn't it so what's that so it's early 20th century because they're still wearing um crinoline tight dresses so it's set kind of yeah 15 years later they've got their own family so they've they're awaiting wars yes they've been through one but they haven't had the other one and who can cheer them up in such tough times an exorbitantly expensive nanny on an umbrella if it is set during second world war then her flying on her umbrella is very dangerous in london she could get shot down at any moment god

all people would assume she's a spy also i imagine that they can't not have julie andrews involved in some way if she's still alive whilst they're filming but equally she can't sing and she's definitely too old to still play mary poppins what are they going to do? I reckon, right, here's my guess for what the Mary Poppins movie will look like when it comes out in three years' time. I reckon it'll start with a shot of a book opening. It'll be her narrating it. Or there'll be like a kind of super

nanny's agency and she'll be running the agency. Or she'll play one of the elderly cranky bankers because they're bound to have a call back to that scene. Yes, maybe. Although that's the least successful, isn't it? Even in a film that has Dick Van Dyke's Cockney accent. Bom bom bom bom

Bom bom bom bom Bom bom bom bom Bom bom bom bom Helen Olley Answer me this Don't ridicule me And don't take the piss Give me a clue

To what I'm asking Then in your awesome knowledge I'll be basking Since I'm mad I'm so alone No one to email And no one to phone Where can I get new friends from?

Answer me in this podcast.com Here's a question from Colin who says, Ollie, answer me this. Has the Queen been into every room in Buckingham Palace? May I just say, first of all, happy birthday, ma'am. Again. I think. She's really been milking it.

Well, to be fair, we all get one birthday a year. She gets two. Well, that's unfair, isn't it? To be fair We all get one birthday a year She gets two Well that's unfair isn't it To be fair There should be no monarchy To be fair But anyway This question from Colin Is ultimately unanswerable

Because it was documented Every time the Queen Goes in one of the guest rooms Do they not have An ankle tag on her Exactly A little bit of GPS How many rooms

Does Buckingham Palace have 775 Okay I mean she's She's really old So she's had time A little bit of GPS. How many rooms does Buckingham Palace have? 775. Okay. I mean, she's really old, so she's had time. She has, but I think the chances are that she's been in every one of the 19 state rooms. Probably on an annual basis, she'd be in every one of those state rooms or something.

Yeah. Why do you need so many state rooms? Are they, like, solid, liquid, gas? Different sizes. Some of them might be offensive to dignitaries from a certain country. Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. You know, one of them is going to be more suited for military receptions. One of them is going to be more suited for entertaining the president.

Sometimes you might have 400 pals around for dinner, sometimes just 60. You don't want it to seem like the dining room is empty. Exactly. We've all been there. Do you think that Buckingham Palace is one of those rich person homes that also hasn't been updated for a really long time, so it has that many rooms but only two toilets? Well,

no, there are 78 bathrooms. 78. So they're okay for toilets. She's probably been in a few of them. But it hasn't been redecorated substantially since the 1950s. Does Buckingham Palace have an in-house Starbucks yet? Almost certainly. Branch of Giraffe.

They do have a chapel. Good callback. They do have a chapel, a post office, a swimming pool. A swimming pool? A cafeteria, a doctor's surgery and a cinema. Wow. Bookies. I bet she has an in-house branch of William Hill.

I bet she does, actually. And that's not that surprising when you consider that 188 people live there. She has 426 staff, of which 188 live in. Yeah, well, they're constantly dusting the curtain pelmets. Exactly. There's a lot of it to do. So anyway, in a way, that's the answer to the question.

I think it's, I'm going to say it's unlikely she's been to every room, because even if she shagged around, and I'm not saying she does, I'm just saying even if she did... You can go into a room even if you're not having sex in it. Imagine that, Ollie. I think it's unlikely that she will have made it around all 188 staff bedrooms.

So even if she's seen all the rooms that she could just walk into without there being a faff. What if she likes to check that everyone's turned the lights off when they're not inside the room? Yeah, I still think, you know, let's be generous and say she's visited half the staff bedrooms which i think is also unlikely she might took people in at night but of the rooms that are queen relevant i wonder what they are and how many of them there are what other rooms does the queen actually need for queening she presumably sleeps

yep she probably has breakfast in a different room to the room she eats other meals in. Yeah. She'll have a wardrobe. She has a very extensive collection of hats. Those take up room. Dog room?

Dogs have the run of the place. But I'm still struggling to fill 700 rooms. I don't have the imagination to be a royal. Ah. Well, I mean, you've got to think of yourself

not as a modern day royal but as a royal from 200 years ago when the place was designed as well. It's such an odd thing to design as well. You're like, well, you've got to think of yourself not as a modern day royal, but as a royal from 200 years ago when the place was designed as well. It's such an odd thing to design as well. You're like, well, we've got 500. Do we need more? Might as well chuck a few on. Just make them random shapes and sizes so they can think about what to do with them later.

I think if it weren't for the fact that her parents were all like, there's a war on and we've got to show solidarity. I think if there wasn't any stigma to the queen deciding to abandon buckingham palace she'd have left decades ago she would have got one of those um yuppie penthouses at voxel that they built on the river she was happy on her boat wasn't she obviously she cried when britannia was decommissioned she likes andrew and she likes being outside there's no way if the queen was choosing somewhere to live she'd choose a big roundabout in the center of town well our friend friend Jim is selling a narrowboat on the River Lea.

I think she's got the money for it. There are toilets and showers in the marina, so she wouldn't have to use the chemical one. Towpath is muddy, though. Well, that brings us to the end of this episode of Answer Me This. Please contribute your questions via email, phone or Skype, and all of our contact details are on our website, answermethispodcast.com, Your questions via email, phone or Skype and all of our contact details are on our website.

AnswerMeThisPodcast.com Where you can also find links to buy our first 200 episodes and our albums and our apps. And remember that we have other podcasts on the interwebs as well. In fact, The Modern Man, my show, ModernManMann.co.uk has just come to the end of its current series. There's an interview with a man who lives in the forest i go and meet a modern day hermit and i'm doing an illusionist live show oh when's that it's on the 24th of september at 4 30 pm at king's place uh in london so get your tickets now that's a while away but i've got loads of tickets to sell so do buy them uh so it'll be an hour of uh-up about handwriting. That's what it's going to be.

Sounds good. Well, it sounds like a good description of what you are going to do. I can't give any kind of quality assessment. No. I'm still celebrating my 100th episode of my music podcast, The Sound of the Ladies podcast. How are you continuing to celebrate that? Oh, people are covering my songs, The Sound of the Ladies podcast. Where do you get it?

Oh, SoundCloud. No, give us a URL. Yeah. Soundcloud.com slash S-O-T-L hyphen podcast. Get a better URL, Martin. Jesus, they're not that expensive. Just Google Sound of the Ladies podcast. All you've got to answer me is door.com

and you can't even get your own bloody domains. And please rejoin us listeners in two weeks' time for more Answer Me This. And remember to get your free audiobook in the meantime. Thanks. Bye!