Answer Me This! - AMT334: Glastonbury, the Genius Bar and the Price of Bricks

Episode Date: June 30, 2016

While Britain Brexits, the rest of us brick it. Well, one listener certainly does, as the proud owner of a single brick. Congratulations, that man. Find out more about Answer Me This! Episode 334 at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode334. 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

Fuck, fuck, fuck, what have we done? Has to be this, has to be this Why did you believe what you read in the sun? Has to be this, has to be this Helen and Ollie, has to be this Well, I found out what would finally break my sense of humour and it was the EU referendum. I don't know what you're talking about, Helen.

I think you'll find we've taken back control. That's what's happened. We all voted to take back control, and that's why we still have the monarchy, the House of Lords, and a Conservative Party membership of 150,000 people choosing our next Prime Minister. Fantastic!

Control! On the other hand, I'm Secretary of State for Defence, so well done me. It wouldn't surprise me if by the time this podcast comes out you actually are Shadow Secretary. So yes, it's not exactly been a slow news week and uh it's very much been a week where i feel like there is an apple-sized lump in my throat that is a scream that cannot come out but will not dissipate i think in fairness

in perspective in context this moment if you listen to this podcast in two years time delightfully what were they all so worried about exactly fine remember we did that podcast about swine flu yeah yeah yeah exactly well it's not going to be like that it is going to leave it's going to be much worse yeah okay brexit is bad in the short term i think even the people who voted for it can admit that yeah i think there is an argument that you know in 60 years time it might work out better for our country the one thing that I found vaguely comforting in this opening of the Hellmouth was you listeners getting in touch to say,

I turn to answer me this to get me through this time and to drown out the absolute horror assaulting me from every direction. Do you know, it's a lovely thing when people say that they turn to us in moments of anxiety. I suppose that just as well applies to national moments of political anxiety. And what do we have to turn to? Nothing!

I am the great Pilachi! Well, the one thing that I had to turn to on the night of the referendum itself was Barry Manilow. At the actual time that the results were being counted, I was at the O2 in guest list seats watching Barry sing Could It Be Magic Twice, once in an up-tempo Take That style. Was that the remain-leave difference? And then once again towards the end of the show,

in the original ballad style from the 1970s, as a duet with his young self on a video screen. Live, still an amazing performer, vegas band the whole bit and you feel this incredible sense of unity watching a barry manilow concert because it's young and old glow sticks in the air not not many non-whites in the audience i must be honest but you know a unified audience and then it's like a rally and then i got home turned on the telly and leave had just edged in front in the referendum count and all of barry's magic dissipated her name was lola she had seceded well ollie the leave campaign aren't the only people to have been caught telling lies lately

because you lied to me in the last episode it It wasn't deliberate. I incompetently answered a question that you posed spontaneously. When we were trying to work out how many times Kelsey Grammar played Frasier, we'd counted cheers, we'd counted Frasier. We had not counted wings. That's right, I sprung wings on you. Yes.

I was like, there's this other sitcom called Wings. He was in it once. Yeah, he was in it once. And I said that that and then i said i didn't know that sitcom existed yes and then you say out of the blue bit of bants was that a one series wonder to which i say humorous riposte it did no but why would you say that why not just be like i don't know i don't know i don't know i've been racking my brain all week it's okay to appear vulnerable and admit to not knowing something, Ollie.

But what you've done is cast aspersions upon the veracity of this show. We've spent nine and a half years building up the reputation for total truth. I've shat over the integrity of this as a question answering platform. You've shat because there were eight series of Wings. They lasted from 1990 to 1997

and there are 172 episodes. so it's a successful sitcom we haven't watched i i guess you must have asked the question about whether it had just lasted one series so persuasively helen did it did it or did it not last one series exactly yeah that i felt forced to confess not just acquiesce i did johnny cochran you um exactly um but yeah no listeners i feel terrible about this i misled you i can only apologize it was on for seven years frasier was only in it once so that that fact was right yes okay but uh i wasn't the only one to step out of line in the last episode helen you referred to queening in our last question about buckingham palace yes um to

describe the daily tasks of Her Majesty, you said, how many rooms does she need for queening? Yeah. Well, several listeners have pointed out that according to Urban Dictionary, queening is actually, it's a British term, apparently, to describe the act of a woman sitting on her subservient's face for the majority of the day.

That was what I was talking about. That is kind of what she does to us as a nation, isn't it? It's metaphorical. It's a friendly, voluntary suffocation in her... Corridors of power. Apparently this particular sexual quirk is also known as throning. So it is a very regal thing. It is.

I stand by it. I stand by it. Hi, hello, it's Richard here from Bradford. A Muslim was walking through a field the other day and he asked me what a buttercup was called. I told him it was a buttercup. And he asked me why it was called a buttercup. I said well obviously when you hold it under someone's chin if it goes orange they're like butter. Hell no Nolly, answer me this. Where does that story come from and how on earth does that make any sense? Difficult to tell exactly where that story came from because it's an old wives tale which I wonder is a misogynistic

expression that I shouldn't use. indeed and actually inappropriate to this particular thing because it's not so much old wives as young children this is a playground tale not an urban myth it's more of a suburban and rural myth uh most people listening to this i reckon who grew up in britain uh or the country we once knew as britain uh will remember being told as a child that if you put a buttercup under your chin yep if it goes yellow that means you like butter yeah that just means you have a greasy chin so maybe people were inferring that you had more butter grease on your face does it doesn't it just depend on the way the light reflect i always knew when i was a child it was bullshit yeah i mean now martin's got a thick beard

so nothing is going to reflect off that and i really like butter but is anyone's chin not going to reflect a buttercup anyone's non-bearded chin a child's chin is what you're saying a child's angelic what about like a child with like a double chin so they're like kind of got caught in the folds or a non-caucasian child i mean i imagine on white skin it's more reflective isn't it good point slash chinese skin and also a lot of chinese people are lactose intolerant aren't they that's a good point this proves it instantly but buttercups are lactose intolerant, aren't they? That's a good point. This proves it instantly. But buttercups are a more reflective flower than other flowers.

They have shinier surfaces. They have two-layered petals, and each of the layers reflect light like a mirror. So they're much flashier than other flowers, which is why it doesn't work with other flowers. I think what we're seeing is the conflation of two ideas here, aren't we? We're seeing a flower that's buttery-coloured being called the buttercup, and then its reflective properties being reflected back aren't we? We're seeing a flower that's buttery coloured being called the buttercup. Yep. And then its reflective properties being reflected back in a helpful epithet.

Yeah. But actually, you know, the two are basically unrelated apart from the fact they've got butter in them. Yeah. And the real point of it was so that if a bee was flying around in the field and a buttercup wanted to attract that bee and not for it to buzz off to one of the other bitch flowers uh the buttercup um it reflected uv at a frequency that um insects can see whereas humans can't and it would look like it was flashing at the bee and the bee would be like yep go and get that here's a question from kelly from las vegas who says recently here in las vegas a couple was arrested for having a shag while on a ride on the high roller,

which is Las Vegas's answer to the London Eye, the slowest thing in Vegas. A large Ferris wheel with pods sort of thing. Yeah, we know what the London Eye is, but thank you for clarifying. She's being generous to the other listeners. That's right. She's considering the other listeners.

Ollie asked me this. Which world landmark holds the record for the most committing sex acts in public style arrests so many different facts that you have to work into that answer is that even possible yeah well perhaps unsurprisingly this isn't documented anywhere there isn't a wikipedia list of tourist attractions with the most sex-based arrests correct uh and even if you start power googling around the likely answers like if you type in sex eiffel tower, it's even worse than throning, Helen. Is it worse than when we had a question about pink socks?

No, it's not worse than that. Apparently, Eiffel Towering, I guess, to turn it into a verb. That's the thing, is it? Yeah, it's when a lady, but I suppose it could be a man, a sexual partner um is being done by two men right uh but they're high-fiving over their body that's eiffel towering over the woman's body yes not a dead body so yes do you think there's a whole series of trends where people try and recreate um architectural icons through the medium of sex yeah maybe pyramiding the saint louis arch that would be classic yeah the taj mahal that would involve a lot of people. I'm being jolly about this.

The guy who was arrested for having sex on the high roller died a few weeks later. So it's been quite a big story in the US tabloids. Apparently what happened is he sold the story of him fucking on the high roller to Inside Edition and then went bragging to his fiancée's strip club where she worked about how much money he earned

and then was the victim of a carjacking and they reckon it's because he'd been saying how much so yeah quite an unpleasant story really so anyway hard to find out one thing that i did see is that tom hanks when he was researching the role of walt disney for the movie saving mr banks went and had sex in sleeping beauty's castle close uh discovered that the reason that the Skyway ride was discontinued at Disneyland was because too many people were fucking in it. Wow. What form did that ride take?

It's kind of like a monorail, but it's in individual pods, so you would just sit with the person you were with. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the crucial thing. I mean, of course, you can find all sorts of pictures of people at it in all sorts of places on the internet now, some of them even on Google Street View. But generally, when there's a meme for having sex in a public place it's because it's a

place that allows you to have semi-privacy like that yeah whereas the london eye there'd be 13 other people in the pod with you exactly that's not going to do it for everybody exactly some people will carry on anyway and they'll get tutted at exactly so so so when when you look into news stories of people having sex in public, it's often places where they were pretty much alone or thought they were alone. Just a few weeks ago, a couple got arrested at the Odeon Printworks in Manchester

for doing it during Batman versus Superman, Dawn of Justice. But then maybe they needed something to pass the time. To come aboard. Yeah. So I'd assume that a lot of the world's landmarks that would be obvious candidates for this are too heavily guarded and watched or they

are religious places like you wouldn't go into a cathedral and do it without some severe repercussions i've never had a boner in a place of worship that's just you sure i'm just a lot of people that's the only place they can get one of the priests oh dear there are also people who uh i think it's called object of failure or object sexualism who actually have sex with landmarks like there was that woman who married the berlin wall the woman who married a roller coaster because they have to legitimize the sex they can't just have a casual relationship with the berlin wall yeah the thing is i mean that is fascinating i always find that story fascinating but presenting it as here's a very small minority of people with fetishes who have an interest in landmarks rather than people

I think that's misleading really what you're saying is here's a very small percentage of people with mental illnesses who have this particular mental illness like you can't actually have sex with a building can you? that's beyond kooky isn't it? that's true but I think getting turned on by the Berlin Wall is not particularly weirder than getting turned on by like

shoes or you know like leather or gas masks or whatever. Yeah having sex on the Berlin Wall but actually having sex with the Berlin Wall or wanting to marry it is a bit different. Yeah well sure. I think it's more unusual because it was a woman who had sex with the Berlin Wall. A man sticking his dick into a fissure in the Berlin Wall. That's not surprising to

so many people. It goes all the way back to Pyramus and Thisbe. I think the Berlin Wall after it was decommissioned though because before that you would get your dick shot you've got a question email your question to answer me this podcast at googlemail.com answer me this podcast at googlemail.com 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 someone who calls herself a student failing her degree so badly

that even her MacBook has lost faith. The last straw. She says, well, he answered me this. How do I become an Apple Store technician or genius bar genius? Okay. Do I need to learn how to hack into important websites

and hope I get spotted and headhunted? I think that's probably a bad way to get noticed. Or is it a case of turning up to an interview looking cool in a nonchalant San Francisco nerd kind of way and hoping to be trained up. More like that. You do have to look good in a t-shirt. Also, do they have a coolness code?

Not officially. Why is everyone there so cool? Because they're in an Apple store, so it just makes people look cool. It's like galleries make art look artistic. What happens if they want to employ someone, but they're not a hipster? Okay.

I've encountered a lot of employees where in isolation they would not seem hipster-y. I think that's right, actually. I think there's a lot of people, if you took them out of the Apple t-shirt, put them in different light and stuck them in Iceland, they'd look like Iceland employees. The shop, not the country. Well, either, but I meant the shop.

It's never t-shirt weather in Iceland, the country. Yeah, good point. Unless you're in the Blue Lagoon. I should deal first of all with the point that she says, how do I become an Apple store genius or a technician? A lot of people don't realise those are two different things so the genius bar they like the public face of the technicians yeah well actually the phrase that i understand that apple retail uses is specialist rather than technician and specialist means as it suggests that you specialize in in one thing

so the specialists tend to for example be very good at um taking semen out of iPhones or whatever it is. It sounds like you've got experience. Whereas the genii, is that plural? I'd go geniuses, but that's because I object to the false Latin plurals. Me too. The geniuses, they don't specialise, but they are able to fix Macs, which of course are the most expensive thing that people bring in to be fixed. So in other words, if you want a job in the Apple store,

apparently you're best to try and get in first as a specialist and then work your way up to genius. How do you learn how to be a specialist? How do you get experience at that? Well, I mean, you need some technical know-how to be a specialist. Of course, to be one of the people who's just advising people on which phone they should buy or which mouse they should buy, you don't need particularly much specialist knowledge what you do need and this is very very clear from a lot of documentation that's leaked online their

training manuals and so on what you do need is a lot of smiley enthusiasm it's quite interesting clearly what apple value more than anything else is very enthusiastic customer service tailored specialized customer service so what they look for in an interview is they do roleplay. They all sit around in a group. Not like we were all dressed in an animal costume and there's whips or anything. No, because they were all wearing red and blue t-shirts anyway. But yeah, Apple store roleplay. They pretend to be a customer.

That's my favourite kind of roleplay. Tonight, darling, can I be genius? I don't know whether to get a MacBook Pro on air. Oh, it's so thin. Oh, USB-C. No, I'm feeling sick now. Head compact. What they're looking for, more than in other stores,

is that you are answering the query of the customer. So if the customer comes in and says, I'm looking for a laptop for word processing and using the internet, you don't sell them the top spec computer oh right so you're not like the leave campaign then satire zing whereas you know curries for example they are like the leave campaign

they are all about you know selling you something that isn't what you're getting yeah I mean I understood the satire you don't need to labour it I'm just checking that everyone's on board just clarifying curries for example or car phone warehouse or whatever they incentivize their employees to sell the most expensive thing

at maximum profit even if the customer doesn't need that thing might be a good product but not what they need whereas apple really apparently put this focus on give the customer exactly what they want and really make them feel like they've had a sort of positive life experience what's extraordinary is that the training takes 14 days um and it's it's sort of brainwashing it's using all kinds of psychological techniques it's like when jason bourne gets made into jason bourne yeah exactly and actually i mean in a way it's good because it's all about making sure they have excellent customer service and they do but it means that people are sort of neo-linguistically programmed not to use the words that they naturally would

so a lot of computer specialists if you went into some hairy ass market store with your iPhone would say oh yeah that crashes every time you put it down it bombs you can't say those words in an Apple store you say oh it doesn't respond it doesn't respond it's withholding affection

you can't use the word crash you have to say oh it appears to have stopped responding but we can deal with that It's withholding affection. Yeah, exactly. You can't use the word crash. You have to say, oh, it appears to have stopped responding, but we can deal with that and make it better. And everything's about trying to make people feel like you've made their lives better. That's their mantra. Like nothing is irretrievable. So there you go.

Have there been any instances of someone going into the Apple store wearing a red t-shirt and pretending to be an employee and then taking all someone's money? I think I've told this story before, but I did once wear an orange fleece to ikea and i got approached so many times uh yeah it's a good it's a good technique because they you don't even they don't have a cash till do they no they just walk around in fact with iphones and take your credit card which yeah you're right so you just need one of those little things that plugs into the bottom of an iphone and a t-shirt anymore do you because contactless you could probably get a contactless

app yeah but would just take people's money it's a good idea Helen I mean obviously it's a terrible idea that is criminal and I'm not encouraging it but it's a bloody good idea or someone needs to be 15 years younger

to pass as an Apple store employee actually of all of us you're the one who looks most like an Apple genius would you like a mini it fits right in your bag

yeah I think we'll work on the patty I think actually that would disqualify you Martin right it's time to take our intermission

Or as they call it in the football Half time Someone's in a sporty mood Which is apt because it's such a sporty time of year Oh, isn't it? You can feel it in the air, can't you? The foot sports and the wimble sports The wimble balls It's a perfect time, therefore, to take

An intermission clip from the Answer Me This Sports Day album Which is all about sports So much sports, sporty, sporty Sportingtons. It's our one-hour special all about sport, and you can buy it on iTunes, on Amazon, and at answermethisstore.com. Answer me this. Why is a boxing ring called a boxing ring when it is clearly a square? Can't fault the logic, though.

A lot of the London squares aren't really square. Some of them are rectangular. Don't play with my brain here. What do you mean? It is a square. It's not in Leicester, though. Yeah, exactly. Stop it, you're blowing my mind.

Where's the circus at Oxford Circus? Stop it! Zero lion tamers there. So where does ring come from, then? Well, it used to be fought in a circular ring. Well, a chalk ring. Well, the round generally is the best way to get a view of anything, isn't then? Well, it used to be fought in a circular ring, well, a chalk ring. Well, the round generally is the best way to get a view of anything, isn't it? Oh, yeah, well, it's like theatre in the round,

but with people punching faces instead of doing artistic speeches. That's right, I'm sure Sir Alan Akebourne was highly influenced by all the boxing matches that he watched when he decided to do Absent Friends in the round in Scarborough. Listeners, if you have a question, give us a call with it. You can dial the following number. 020-813-5977 Or you can Skype Answer Me This.

And let's find out who's done that. Hi, Helen and Ollie. This is James and Ewan calling from Glastonbury Festival. And we were wondering why Glastonbury Festival is called Glastonbury Festival and not Pilson Festival when it's in Pilson. A call right from the mods of Glastonbury Festival last weekend. We thought because of the timing of the concert that Barry might be in the legend slot at Glastonbury. Barry?

Barry Manilow. Oh, sorry. Remember that? No. But he wasn't. It was ELO, wasn't it? Yes. And for my money, Barry would have been better.

More of a crowd sing-along. I know that ELO had some cracking hits, but they're not really a festival band, I don't think. Well, those songs were great. Jeff Lynne is a performer who does not give a shit about putting on a stage performance. I think that's right. He's basically a producer that happens to have a good voice, isn't he?

He has the demeanour of someone waiting at a bar for a Guinness's head to settle. That is exactly right. That's perfect. And between every song, he just sort of went, well, this is all right, isn't it? No, except for when he stopped doing that

and there was no banter at all. Absolute silence. Like watching on the telly anyway, I wasn't there, but if you were at Glastonbury watching Jeff Lindsay, I don't know. Between the songs, it looked like complete silence

from the crowd and the performer. I think by that point on a Sunday afternoon, people are so wet and tired and it was raining on them at that point wasn't it and no one was going to beat Adele at the bants no true I mean her set was all about the in between bants wasn't it it was basically a comedy set with a few power ballads

but I still think he could have made a bit more of an effort although I quite like the fact that you know once you're at a certain age you don't care do you that's our review of the one performance that we saw let's just review what the question was. The question was, why is the Glastonbury Festival called the Glastonbury Festival rather than the Pilton Festival?

Because Pilton is the village that Worthy Farm is nearest to, whereas Glastonbury is seven miles away. Yeah. Which I don't think is that unusual, because Woodstock was called Woodstock even though it was on a farm in Bethel, which is 60 miles from Woodstock. Yeah. You tend to name a festival after the nearest thing of interest well Shepton Mallet is only three miles from Worthy Farm so therefore uh I assume that uh they were tapping into

the uh hippie culture that had grown up around Glastonbury and that already had a reputation yeah well Glastonbury has had a reputation for centuries if not millennia for isn't Glastonbury and that already had a reputation. Yeah, well Glastonbury has had a reputation for centuries, if not millennia for... Isn't Glastonbury on a ley line? Yeah, it's on ley lines if you believe in those. Do you believe in those Martin as a scientist? No. Right, okay. Of course not. It has a lot of ancient history it has Celtic myths, Joseph of

Arimathea apparently took the Holy Grail there after he caught Christ's blood in it and it has all these Arthurian legends attached to it except apparently the connection with King Arthur was invented deliberately by some monks in 1184 because they had a financial crisis caused by a big fire in the monastery. So presumably they had to increase tourism.

Very clever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it very much had that reputation. But the first ever Glastonbury ish festival the first music festival on worthy farm was called the pilton pop blues and folk festival was it in 1970 but then in 1971 there was the glastonbury fair set up by a man called andrew kerr who had been to the isle of wight festival in 1970 and found it too shambolic. And he thought, we need a good festival. Also, that is not commercial

because he was very into a giving event which sought spiritual awakening and a demonstration against greed. And he wanted it to be timed around the solstice. He was very into earth mysteries, so myths and folklore and stuff. And he'd heard that Michael Evers had had the Pilton Festival.

So he asked Michael Evers if he could rent the farm. And that's when they built the pyramid stage as well. They doused the site to see the best place to build it. What does that mean? It's like a divining rod thing. They're checking where the mythical water is. Oh, it's more bullshit. Like a giant wishbone that's meant to detect water.

Do you think Evers really believes in that stuff? No, he doesn't. Because I read an interview with him where he was talking about Andrew Kerr and his friends approaching him. And he said, I thought it was interesting stuff. and they were nice people and they were good fun. But the ley lines and stuff didn't really make a lot of sense to me. And I thought they were slightly off their heads and they were smoking dope. Right. Well, that's on brand, isn't it? Yeah, it is now. But Michael Eavis doesn't seem to have been that into that.

But anyway, when Andrew Kerr first went to meet Michael Eavis in 1971, he said Glastonbury was the new Jerusalem. And so he wanted him to change the nameis in 1971 he said Glastonbury was the new Jerusalem and so he wanted him to change the name of the festival to include Glastonbury. Oh, right. So they wanted that association with all of that hippie mystical stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Makes a lot of sense. Also, I mean I get that it's in Pilton

but I don't think even if it was called Pilton it would put Pilton on the map. What I mean by that is, Latitude that's in Suffolk, right? Southwold. It's nearish Southwold, but not that near. Exactly. Now, if I'm going to describe where it is geographically, I'll do exactly what I just said. I'll say it's in Suffolk. Oh yeah, Southwold. I don't know the name of the farm. It's not important. I think a lot of the residents in and around Pilton are quite pissed off by Glastonbury because the roads are really busy

for a week. There's a lot of noise. There's more than a week as well because it's all the setting up. Yeah, and people stay there for a long time now. It's basically like Tuesday to Monday. Yeah, also, I guess you can't just bring a giant sand sculpture of David Bowie or Ziggy Stardust up the A5. That's going to take a while. It's going to, yeah. And everything's going to smell of weed and BO. Yes, exactly.

Radio 4 is on 24-7 But that's not enough recorded speech for me So I'll trot off to answer me This podcast.com slash Audible And download more for free Like Lord of the Rings starring Sir Michael Gordon And Michelin Web series 1 to 4 Just a minute, Alan Bennett down the line,

Ross Noble and the best of BBC News Hour. That sounds awesome! Have you got a free audiobook yet to add to your collection? No, I should get one. You bloody should. What should I get? I'd like some non-fiction, please. Shall I have a look now and see what's trending in the non-fiction charts? We've already expressed a preference for

comedy actors' memoirs but maybe I should try something a bit different for my forthcoming trip Shop Audible Oh my god, Elon Musk is on there I'm alright for Elon Musk's memoir I think that would be Oh it's not his memoir, it's written by someone else and narrated by someone else but it is

13 hours and 23 minutes About Elon Musk. About Elon Musk. Unauthorised Elon Musk. Unabridged, unauthorised Elon Musk. What would be funny is if that unabridged Elon Musk biography was narrated by Elon Musk himself. Just really sardonically. Yeah.

Just occasionally. Footnote, that didn't happen. Stephen Fry, More Fool Me. I've not read that book, but I reckon him reading his own memoir would be very nice. Is there a Morana Festo on there by Catelyn Moran because our friend Joanna Neary narrates that

Oh yeah, the voice of Bjork on Azar Jingles not Bjork's Not actually Bjork's voice Bjork mostly does her own vocals Although we can't be sure I've never seen them in the same room Yeah, you can get

I mean you can get How To Be A Woman as well and you can get Moranthology but yeah, Morana Festo narrated by Joanna Neary. There it is. I want to hear Joanna Neary. 13 hours and 44 minutes of Joanna Neary. I love spending time with Joanna Neary, so that would be a treat for me.

There you go. Can you check if Moby's memoir is on there? Moby? Yeah. Is that also narrated by Joanna Neary? Oh my God, that would be an absolute winner. You search Moby and it gets Moby Dick. Nah.

Oh yes, Porcelain, a memoir by Moby, narrated by Moby. Because I'm not interested in Moby's music, but I've heard that memoir is great, so maybe I'll go for that. He had a very turbulent life. Okay. Before he became a very famous man. There's three ratings, let me just see what people have said. Great,

says Adam, not knowing much about Moby other than I liked his music. Different camp to you, Helen. Already you can disregard that review. It was a great surprise to hear, spelt wrongly, hear him talk so honestly about the highs and lows on the lead up to his mainstream success. Highly recommend to

all. That includes me. So there you go. Adam says all would like that book. I'll like that book then. So there you go. That's you as well, listeners. Okay. If you'd like your free audiobook, and remember all you need is an amazon account that's all you need to do is sign up take the free audiobook and then you can keep it forever and we get money if you don't have an amazon account can you still do it no you need to register and get an amazon account that's okay it's fine who doesn't have an amazon account what's wrong with you true i think you're assigned

one at birth now then all you need to do is go to answer meethispodcast.com slash Audible. Wherever you are in the world. Here's a question from Phil from Sawbridgeworth. Ever been there? No. Where is it? Sort of on the border between Essex and Hertfordshire. It's got a very good antiques market.

Noted. Astronaut Tim Peake, I've heard of him, has recently returned from his six-month stint in space. Stint in space. On his return, my dad noted that he doesn't look as though his hair had grown, but that surely cutting hair would cause an almighty problem, as even with gravity, the hair goes everywhere when you cut it. Our next thought then was that hair might not grow in space,

or that it might slow the growth. This is why Tim Peake went into space, isn't it? To get us asking the crucial questions about science. So, Helen, answer me this. Do astronauts get haircuts in space? Yes. What? Really? Yeah.

Does it like a vacuum cleaner with teeth? Basically, yeah. They attach a hair clipper to their vacuum and so it sucks the hair as it's being clipped. A lot of them have buzz cuts because having hair, it all stands up in zero gravity and i think that gets irritating and it gets everywhere and it gets in your eyes right so you can't see apparently particularly russian cosmonauts are trained routinely to give haircuts and also they've got a lot of time to fill it's like having a barbie styling head but why haven't i seen that footage because

i've seen a lot of other dicking about in space. I've seen a female astronaut washing her hair, which was long. She showed how that was done. And she just had to drip water on it and try and catch the droplets that, of course, were flying around in the air and then rub it into her hair. Gravity is such a help, isn't it, for these things? It really is. It makes more sense than Phil's other suggestion that the hair might not grow in space.

They haven't done conclusive studies. There was an article in in the mail so obviously i didn't want to read it um that was you click the link anyway and then you just like i can't read this both yeah i can see the top of the sidebar of shame don't look don't look um and it was they'd done some test on three mice and apparently um you get more skin irritations. Your hair doesn't grow slower though. But it may inhibit growth when you get back or something like that or encourage too much growth. Okay. They just don't know.

All right. They haven't done enough. It's not priority experiment, is it? It doesn't matter. I know all I need to know now so that when I go to space I can get my hair cut. Here's a great story from Jono

who says, Today I bought one brick. That is a great story. It cost me 38 pence. That is extraordinarily good value for a brick. Is it? How much is a brick? I've no idea, but I just assumed since houses are made of bricks and houses are worth half a million pounds, that a brick would be worth more than 38p. Yeah, but you need so

many bricks in a house that if they were worth 5 quid, then your house would be very, very expensive. I guess. I just, didn't you think Martin, 38p would be a bit low for a brick?'t think he's half a million bricks to my cares how much of bricks on amazon can you buy when you buy a single brick from johnny says i can't think of a time i've got more weight for my pennies i love the thought of value he bought one brick because that's all he needed just one just one to finish his house ollie answer me this what is the most weight i could buy for my

money what is the heaviest thing you can buy for 38 pence that's amazing yeah it's a great question yeah well you've got i i think he's got a pretty good deal as he suggests you could maybe get a really dense log um well oh old candle mint cake fire sale well i've i've looked into the weight of an average brick yeah uh It's 3.5 kilograms. Okay, we've got one downstairs, but it's got three holes in it. That one is not good value for weight because it has the three holes in it. Sure, why has it got holes in it at all? So that your wall is less heavy, so less likely to bow, but still has the structure.

As I say, average brick weighs 3.5 kilograms. A 30 kilogram dumbbell, right, Is £8.95 On Amazon You're still getting more weight for your pennies With the brick Exactly so the brick works out as about a third of the price per kilogram Right So that's a pretty good deal

The only thing I could think of Because also you've got to factor in the £6.99 postage and packing For a dumbbell The other thing that I can think of Is a sandbag the sandbag is 35p including the sand no right but if you had free sand if you went around and filled a sandbag yeah i mean i know your time costs money but if you live in a place where they're sand and you filled a sandbag that costs 35p technically you've spent less and that could

weigh more if you got a uh a 30 litre plastic bag and filled it with water that would be 30 kilos oh that's cool and that probably wouldn't cost you very much money and the water is i mean that's almost zero cost i feel like these are skirting the issue though you're not really buying weight there you're buying something with the capacity for that weight i think john i was expecting a clever clever answer yeah which i think we've given right how much much is three and a half kilos of onions? Just trying to think of a cheap, heavy vegetable. That would be a lot of onions.

Yeah, but he wants weight for his money. I think that would probably be about two pounds. More than 38p, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Damn it. You've done well, Jono, at this competition that only you want to win. If you could get the raw materials of making a brick,

that would be cheaper than a brick, because it wouldn't involve the labour of making a brick. I see what you're saying, yes. But that's not an item, is it? Well, you could get some clay. You can buy clay if you're... Can you, though? For 38p, buy a brick's worth of clay. I bet you can't.

If you're a potter. Yeah, but you've got to buy... It's a potter's merchant. Yeah, but what if you... You've got to buy the kiln, then. No, you just have the clay. I'm not saying you make the brick. I'm saying you just have a load of clay. Right, and what if you... You've got to buy the kiln, then. No, you just have the clay. I'm not saying you make the brick. I'm saying you just have a load of clay.

Right, I see. So the constituent items of the brick are cheaper than the brick. I'm just googling the price of clay. Excuse me. I thought we'd hit a low when we were live audible searching. I'm looking at a graph. Stephen Fry reads the price of clay.

It does sound like a sore balloon I'm looking at the price of 12.5 kilos of clay How much is that? The cheapest one, Red Smooth is £6.05 That's more expensive than bricks That's funny isn't it Probably if you buy loads of clay

then it works out as cheap as her bit But you could just get some bricks and smash them up to make clay I mean basically Jono you've got a good deal there with your 38p. Bravo. I mean, I'd buy a chocolate bar, but you enjoy your brick. Shh. It's the question line. It's the question line.

0-2-0-8. 1-2-3-5-8. Double step. 0208 123 58 double seven Answer me this, shhh, answer me this I don't know nothing, such a perl over It's question nine. 0-2-R-8-1-2-3-5-8-7-7. Here's a question from Yana who says, I hate wind chimes.

That's an odd thing to hate. Because even if they're annoying, they're kind of a benevolent sound. She says, I live in a four-storey apartment building with windows looking into the yard. Someone on the same side of the building has wind chimes outside on their balcony or porch. It can get very windy and at night I can hear wind chimes making that awful, unrhythmical sound. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's like the church that never stops ringing yeah some people

would say what you can hear is actually the beautiful melodic sound of wind chimes i'm not a huge fan of wind chimes because during my dad's feng shui phase of the early 90s they were all over our house really yes how many did he have i don't know it was quite a big house so i can't remember but like in most of the rooms wow because I think like the threshold for Crazy Cat Lady you know three I think more than three wind chimes no because Feng Shui says you have to have them

in certain places Ollie and also mobiles but I was staying at my friend Lee's house a few weeks ago and I thought I was hearing constantly like the tinkling

of a little fountain then I realised it was wind chimes did it make you want to wee? no little fountains would make me want to wee but not wind chimes well exactly the wind chimes do it at a frequency that does not make you want to wee? No. Little fountains would make me want to wee, but not wind chimes.

Well, certainly. The wind chimes do it at a frequency that does not make you want to wee, so maybe that's the benefit of them. The charm of the water sound without the weeing. Well, Yana hates them, Helen. I can tell. She says,

the wind chimes are very distracting when I'm trying to fall asleep. So they don't lull you to sleep. That's a shame. Apparently not. So, Helen, answer me this. Is it okay to ask the neighbour to remove their wind chimes? He or she can put them inside their apartment.

Different, though, isn't it, from a Feng Shui point of view, as you suggest? Less wind, as well. Yes, indeed. I was thinking to put a notice in the elevator, since I don't know which apartment actually owns the wind chimes. But even if I did know, our security system in the building allows us to go to our own floor, the main floor, or parking. So if the owner of the awful wind

chime actually lives on the floor other than mine, I can't even knock on their door and ask face to face please help. You could throw a brick at the wind chimes. You might take their window out with them. I think the elevator thing's not a bad plan actually because even if the person who owns the wind chimes doesn't get in your lift, word will get around the building.

Can you believe that uptight yarner woman who put the wind chime poster up in the lift she can't name herself um you can keep herself off it yeah but you've got to keep away oh you think just completely you know don't put contact details or anything just have some consideration for others i don't think you can write it in that passive-aggressive note way because then i think people don't act i think maybe you need to sound a little more humble in the plea. But maybe you could pretend and say... My cat has cancer. Yeah, the frequency in my hearing aid makes the noise untenable. You can't just fake a disability, though.

They're not going to know. No, they won't. The publicness of this does make me side with Jana. Yeah. It's not her flat, but it is in her ear space. If they were playing loud music, then it would be a valid complaint to make wouldn't it even if they were out boozing on their roof terrace beyond midnight on a nightly basis you know once or twice a year you'd be like fine it's a barbecue yeah every night you'd be like i need to sleep shut up for me it would be

worse if it was smells because you can't get rid of that so if a neighbor was constantly burning incense or something um that would really bother me you can't block the smells out whereas she could put in earplugs or headphones if she's trying to get to sleep because a lot of people listen to podcasts to make them go to sleep i find that very odd well i do too but like you know i didn't find the wind chimes thing too odd so we're all different yeah we are yeah that's what we're learning it's extraordinary my son sleeps uh with a lot of ambient noise sleeps like a baby. But the womb is noisy, isn't it? But this is the theory.

So apparently it's easier for a baby to sleep with background noise. So there's an app you can get that has the sound of a vacuum cleaner. It's easier for him to sleep with that than in total silence because they're used to background noise and that's what reminds them to go to sleep. So I guess some people never lose that. And actually, even when they're older, they quite like a sort of distant hum to be going on

to feel comforted. I think also a monotonous noise is easier to fall asleep to than quiet and then an irregular noise. So if you keep the monotonous noise on the irregular noise is like a car horn or something you're not going to stick out as much. Yeah, maybe try an ambient noise out though to counter it, Yarny.

Yeah, well that brings us to the end of this episode of Answer Me This. But don't vote to leave Answer Me This forever. No, please don't. It was bad enough this time. We'll be back in two weeks' time, united in our question answering across the nations. And if you have a question for us, then all the details about how you can contact us, it costs the same wherever you are in Europe, are listed on our website. AnswerMeThisPodcast.com oh that brexit talk has made

me depressed again the episode was a temporary respite and now i'm down remember as well that you can buy our apps and our albums and our first 200 episodes yeah all of that uh from our other website answer me this store.com and we're on facebook and twitter and uh you should keep in touch there as well nice to hear from Also, I just want to remind you that although I'm not making new episodes of The Modern Man at the moment, you can binge to both of the first two series at the moment and we're back in the autumn. ModernMan

M-A-N-N dot co dot UK. I'm still making The Illusionists and those of you who are now listening to it because I called you dicks a couple of weeks ago good. It's real Stockholm syndrome. We're actually specifically appealing now to the kind of listener that wants to be dominated by you to discover more of your content.

There is a niche that's interested in you that likes that. Of your audience, there's a niche that likes to be dominated by you orally. Hourly, with an AU. Well, I think podcasting is quite a sub-dom exercise in that we do what we want and you put up with it. No, we're interactive. We're out there towering our listeners.

It gives the impression it's a relationship, but really sub-dom arrangement. If you'd like to hear a partnership of equals, you can listen to my music podcast, songbysongpodcast.com. And you can fill your ears with a free audiobook from Audible by clicking on Audible on our website. That's all the housekeeping,

so please join us again in two weeks. Bye!