Answer Me This! - AMT341: Dirty Diana, McDonald's Fries and Frogs' Legs

Episode Date: October 6, 2016

In AMT341, Olly has some big news. Is it about his cat? Is it about an amazing bargain he bought at Costco?? Is it about a fake tan spray that never fades??? Is it even better than any of those things???? Listen now to find out! There's more information about this episode at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode341. 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

Is being England manager now just a temp job? Has to be this, has to be this Does the Incredible Hulk have a massive green knob? Has to be this, has to be this Helen and Ollie, has to be this Wow Ollie, you really managed to pack in the major life events into 2016 That's my motto Becoming a father, losing your own father yeah losing a job yes

whatever next uh i just got married yes so i mean i've had to dismiss quite a lot of intermission clips in the last few weeks since learning of your plans to get married because so many of them you go never get married don't get married getting married shit getting married to idiots i was never anti-wedding per se i always liked other people's weddings other people's weddings being the critical qualifier yeah look who doesn't like a party who doesn't like watching me i don't like parties that's true which of us normal people doesn't like parties doesn't like introverts doesn't like free food and drink i've always enjoyed other people's weddings but i just felt an intrinsic fear of my own and that's because i

never really had a desire to have one um and indeed my wife i can now say um thank you thank you my wife and i uh did you do that i actually did do that kind of ironically yeah nice um uh my wife never really grew up wanting to be a sort of, you know, Disney princess type wedding star either. And so neither of us really wanted, like the idea of standing up and talking about how much I love my girlfriend in front of a room of my extended family actually made me feel physically sick.

That is nerve wracking. I'll tell you what it is. When people have written to us over the last 10 years, when I've had the reaction of don't get married, whatever you do, don't get married, it's a waste of time, it's awful. It's because people have been asking like, why is my mother such a nightmare?

Yes, exactly. How do I choose the dress? Why is the bride such a nightmare? Yeah. Why is the bridesmaid such a nightmare? Why are people being nightmares about weddings? Exactly.

That's a very popular wedding question trope. Exactly. And that's what I wanted to avoid in my own wedding. It's not that I had any fear at all in the kind of nick hornby style of you know making a commitment to someone i mean after all i have an eight month old son with this woman we've been together for 13 years or something and we have a mortgage and probably some very long john lewis guarantees on joint possessions exactly um so i didn't have any fear of making any commitment i just didn't want to have those discussions about our extended families and you know having a big

event that had expectation on it we didn't want a wedding with the weight of expectation of a wedding but you can have a marriage without a wedding can you like only only if you go to a registry office yourself with no one there and then that is a bit grim we didn't want that either also becomes a bit of an issue doesn't't it? Because there are a lot of people who would like to be invited to your wedding. Some of them have a legitimate claim on that. Exactly. We decided that we wanted a guest list of 15,

which, by the way, is why you weren't invited. Ouch, not even in the top 15? You could have pretended for the listeners that we were invited. Hold on. Oh, it was wonderful. I loved the cake. It's not that you weren't in the top 15.

You definitely were in the top 15. Thank you. You weren't in the top five. definitely were in the top 15 thank you you weren't in the top five like to make to make 15 yes we had to invite five people and their partners and their family so that's that's why like so what we decided in the end to do was just invite our five closest friends from school because me and my wife met at school you have a lot of overlap as well in that friendship five exactly so we just it was really difficult because there there are people that we were friends with at university, but I just knew if I invite them, then my wife had to invite her equivalent

set from her university. And then you're having a wedding for 70 people, which is what you didn't want. Before you know it, you're getting to at least 50 and we just really didn't want that. So, I mean, it even goes to the point like I didn't invite my dad's sister, which was really tricky, and my mom's brother, you know, so we really kept it very small. So anyway, we haven't even gotten to where i got married sorry you had talked about caribbean previously but that in practice is quite a long way and quite expensive with an eight-month-old child that's just not the most practical location uh so in the end we decided well we decided upon

spain lovely um because it's hot and uh it's close and they've got great food and booze oh my god sensational sausage i mean that was almost the main criteria that's what she said um but then we found out that actually it's quite difficult to organize a civil registry office secular style wedding in spain right um because it's basically non-officially a catholic country they make it quite difficult if you don't want to get married in a catholic church you have to be a landowner in spain wow um or have a job there which obviously we don't um so then we were like okay well we can't really get married because we didn't want to do the thing where people fake it sometimes people go to a registry office in the uk and then go out there with their friends and family and do a fake

thing in front of like with a fake registrar. An action replay. Yeah. Which is fine if there are 200 people. But we felt we're only inviting 15. It's pretty intimate. We want it to be the real thing. Yeah. And also, if you didn't want to get married once, you definitely don't want to do it twice.

Exactly. But then we discovered Gibraltar. Gibraltar, obviously, for whatever weird reason, and at the moment before Brexit kicks in is British. Yeah enjoy it while you can. Yeah so that means you can have effectively a British registry office ceremony but effectively in Spain. I know the Gibraltarians wouldn't like me saying that but it is really in Spain isn't it? Spain adjacent. Exactly. Very close to Spain. Spanish. Yeah so yes that's what we did. So we went to, we had our honeymoon and kind of pre-wedding get-together thing in a posh hotel in Marbella. And then everyone got on a coach and went to Gibraltar for the wedding.

And because it's Gibraltar and it's got lots of nice places outdoors, you don't have to get married in the actual registry office. You can choose from a variety of quite cool places. So we got married in the Botanical Gardens. Oh, delightful. So it was really nice and uh yeah and then we had our our sort of reception in a nice hotel called the rock which looks over a shipping harbour which doesn't sound romantic and isn't so this is like on the one hand it's like an incredible panoramic vista of you know two oceans colliding because it's where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic. On the other hand, it is the biggest shipping strait in Europe. So there's a smell of diesel that permeates the balcony

where we were having our canapes and a man was playing Spanish guitar. And my new lady wife was actually so excited by the various different types of oil rigs that were floating past, she actually spent most of our wedding day looking at an app which allowed her to identify which country that originated in. I did not know that your good lady wife was of oil rigs that were floating past. She actually spent most of our wedding day looking at an app which allowed her to identify which country that originated in.

I did not know that your good lady wife was into oil rigs. She loves any kind of international carrier identifying app. She does the same for planes. But there you go. So I am a married man with two Ns. Got any major life events left to cram into the last quarter of the year? We have filed for uh extension on our house so if that gets granted then that is another big life event yeah because i was thinking like

you've been through some of the most stressful events having a child yeah losing a parent yeah losing my job losing a job yeah getting married and i was thinking well you're probably not going to move house because you love your house but of course you're getting the builders in getting the builders in very stressful well done let's find out what you guys have been up to um here's a question from andy from chelmsford who says a few days ago my other half and i were driving up to alton towers and oh and michael jackson's dirty diana came up on the radio a rare treat don't hear that on the radio much while listening to this, says Andy, I realise that I have no idea

why Jacko is calling this Diana dirty. So answer me this, why is Diana dirty? Is Jacko slut-shaming Diana? Is Diana actually dirty, as in Christina Aguilera dirty, and needs a bath? I don't think that's what Christina Aguilera is really referring to.

No, Christina Aguilera is effectively slut-shaming herself in that song. Yeah, you confused yourself, Andy. If this is the case, surely Jacko could let her borrow his shower and towels. No, you're just being whimsical. This is silly. Just because you're going to Alton Towers,

calm down. Let's have a realistic discussion about it. But it's good that the adventure has started already in the car before even getting there. Alton Towers will do that too. I would research lyrics, says Andy, but I'm scared of what would pop up on search engines if I search Dirty Diana. We have no

such fears, do we, Ollie? No, no, well not with our search history. I tell you what turns up when you search Dirty Diana. Wikipedia entry for Dirty Diana. Video of Dirty Diana. Lyrics for Dirty Diana. It's almost like it's one of the most famous songs by one of the most famous recording artists of the last century. That said, I didn't click on the Google Images images tab so anything could be there do you know

it is extraordinary though like that's a song off bad right it was the fifth single off bad there were nine singles on that album wow at the time they didn't turn them out like they do now where it's easy to release nine singles off an album because it's just putting it on itunes because it's just a digital download and see what people go for then doing more than like five off an album was pretty big i'm dirty diana by the time that came out as a single he'd already released i just can't stop loving you bad remember that one the way you make me feel remember that one yeah man in the mirror yeah that's good that's harvey's favorite song by the way oh that's what i sing with him when I hold him up in front of a mirror

I'm singing to Harvey man in the mirror that's what I do and then the next one was Dirty Diana wow that is a lot of hits but the point is after that still another part of me Guara me oh that's quite good too

and then Smooth Criminal Smooth Criminal is the 7th single of that album and that's before you get to the two shit ones, Leave Me Alone and Liberian Girl. Leave Me Alone is quite good. Oh, no, it's good. It's got that video with the monkey. The video's amazing. The song's a bit crap. I think neither of those songs are terrible, though. Just

duck me away. Just keep me out of the papers, even though I'm being really weird on purpose. Anyway, Dirty Diana is about a groupie. She's dirty because she wants sex with michael jackson who in a kind of vaguely like aladdin sane way is playing the character of a rock star but really missing about his own experience because women in the 80s weren't allowed to have desire i don't want to get into the whole area of michael jackson's sexuality

because frankly you'd need like a 10 hour long podcast and a lot of lawyers but like everyone else I've watched the documentaries and I have my questions and it's interesting that really the only two songs that are like rock songs that he wrote about adult sexuality are Billie Jean and Dirty Diana and they're

basically both about female groupies wanting to sleep with him and him being a bit scared. That's basically what they're about. She's like, I got the thing that you want and I want to sleep with you. And I'm like, go away and leave me alone. I want to be with my monkey. I've got a 12 year old coming for tea.

That's kind of what they are. It's like weird. It's like Michael Jackson was alive in the room with us. I like the fact that he had to specify that it was not about diana princess of wales although she did say it was one of her favorite songs the story there this is one of the interviews he gave barbara walters um which one of the few interviews he gave really you know tv interviews proper tv interviews and that's all and yeah he said i want to perform at wembley stadium but princess diana was there i didn't want to do it i want't want to disrespect Princess Diana

but then she said backstage is like one of my favourite songs so I changed it did he change the name so it was like Dirty Denise or something else alliterative

he changed it as in he brought it back into his set he recorded a video at Wembley Stadium and Princess Diana was there for the recording on the first night

he didn't sing it because he thought he'd offend her and then when she said it was one of her favourites he did it and so it's in the video also it's not about diana ross he had to specify that but diana ross used to use it as walk-on music except i

think it kind of is like it's not about diana ross but i think he chose the name diana like he wrote the song he was obsessed with diana ross do you think he chose a name beginning with d just for alliteration i think it was part of it but then that might be why the dirty bit you know i think he'd written a song about diana and it's about groupie and then she's dirty there's another reason why she might be dirty the rhythm of it feels quite well doesn't it yeah it could be like gropey diana that's kind of what it means but he went with boring diana she says i want a cup of tea i say no i want to go and have sex. She says, I want to do my knitting. I say, no, I want to bone you.

Tea and knitting are not boring. Well, well, that's what you want. Are you like anti-slut-shaming Helen at the moment? I've got a question. Email your question. To answer me, this podcast at googlemail.com To answer me, this podcast at googlemail.com To answer me, this podcast at googlemail.com To answer me, this podcast at googlemail.com

To answer me, this podcast at googlemail.com So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car that ripped off an iconic American car. On Thursday, how American airlines invented air miles. And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America. We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors.

Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a question from Jen from Barnet, who says, I'm just in McDonald's after a few bevs in the pub with my sister. I know the McDonald's in Barnet. It's unremarkable. Well, she's from Barnet, but she's in Barnet at the time. Well, my sister. I know the McDonald's in Barnet. It's unremarkable. Well, she's from Barnet, but she's in Barnet at the time. Well, nonetheless, she probably knows the McDonald's in Barnet. So I'm just sharing something with Jen there.

That's nice. She seems to know a lot of people called Bev. Don't get it. Don't get it. What's the joke? Is it too bad to explain? She said after a few Bev's in the pub with my sister. That's really bad. Now I'm thinking if I can name any famous Bev's.

My cousin's called Beverly Beverly All Bev's are called Beverly Beverly Craven Yes Craven and Turner are the only ones I can think of Who's Beverly Turner? She's married to James Cracknell and yeah she's a presenter on LBC

What about Beverly Crusher does she count? She's a fictional character What about men called Bevis? No, I don't think that counts as a Bev. What about Nye Bevan? Nye Bevan. That's brilliant. I'm Nye Bevan, but you can call me Bev.

That never happened. Jen says, I've always pondered the length of the chips in this wondrous restaurant, McDonald's. Ollie answers me this, why are some McDonald's chips so much longer than any potato I have ever seen? Because you've never seen very big potatoes. Are there really giant potatoes out there? There are, Jen.

Not in Barnet, but think beyond the Northern Line. Or do McDonald's fund secret research into mutant crops of everyone's favourite carb? Please enlighten me. McDonald's fries have 19 different ingredients in them. What? Potato, salt, grease. Yeah. What are the other 16?

All of the additives really are to make sure they keep their uniform colour. Because they're always that golden brown, right? To then ship it across the world so it can be you know two weeks later turned into mcdonald's fries that look exactly the same they have to cover them in sugar which is what gives them the caramelized colour and they have to put these different chemicals on to make sure they keep their uniform shape and also the sugar and salt encourage the purchase of soft drinks and then you buy more salty food and you know the cycle are they actual slices of potato or are they kind of mashed up potato

where you constitute it into a fry shape? Like we discover with Pringles, a cake for a short amount of time. Oh yeah, a cake. They're the latter. Talking through the whole process, there's real potatoes in the fries. Their primary ingredient is potatoes. Some of those potatoes are actually very long potatoes

even longer than you've seen in Barnet, Jen. Because they do get all processed into this uniform size, it longer than you've seen in Barnet, Jen. Wow. Because they do get all processed into this uniform size. It doesn't matter what size they are at the beginning. So McDonald's will take potatoes that aren't in any way perfect, like you'd see in a supermarket. And also they are going to be using flowery potatoes, which tend to be bigger than the smaller waxy potato. It's a mix.

There's Burbank russet and something else, like three different sized potatoes. Burbank russet, that's a good name for a young man isn't it Burbank Russet if you have another son I tell you what Burbank Russet

is a great name for a porn star the porn star who fucked a potato anyway all the potatoes get processed through a machine

and turned into a big mush which then gets fired at speed through a die cast until it's perfectly cut so that's how they get the uniform size and length which you're right Jen is almost like the length of the longest bit of the middle

piece of the potato all the fries are that length but because it's made of potato mush yes the fries could be three feet long yeah absolutely yeah it's not practical but they could be the burgers have quite a new marmy flavor so you want something salt and sweet to cut through it then well in japan they've now where they're not too bothered about presenting McDonald's as healthy because they eat fish for breakfast so this is a treat, they now have, for Halloween, pumpkin and chocolate flavoured

sauce on the fries. Which is orange, luminous orange, and black. I mean, I'd just go with mayonnaise but I'd still give that a try. You don't mean mayonnaise, Martin, you mean secret sauce. No one can know what the sauce is. it egg and oil and then 16 mystery ingredients um so yeah they are reconstituted potato but they are potato okay so there are giant potatoes but these have not been cut from giant potatoes exactly speaking of burgers and fast food

lynette in melbourne austral Australia has this question for us. It's imperative we answer her quickly. I bet it is. She says, I'm 25 years old and I've decided to pop my fast food burger cherry. Wow, why now? Just to be clear, if listeners didn't quite understand the metaphor she was making there between... She's not shoving a burger up her vagina. She's just going to eat one. She's saying she's never had a Big Mac or a Whopper

before. A filthy, very bad view burger. That's extraordinary at the age of 25, isn't it? What is it that has propelled her to try this now? Are you the child from Room? She says Helen, answer me this. Should I try the McDonald's Big Mac or a Hungry Jack's that's what they call Burger King in Australia

Whopper first. Oh, I suppose she hasn't mentioned Bacon Double Cheeseburger though, because I might even... I'm not. This is an introductory burger. She's never had one before. She's going for the celebrity burgers of both these.

She doesn't want to add the trimmings, Martin. These are sort of the learner's slips, aren't they? Yes, exactly. And with that reasoning, it has been so many years since I had either type of burger that actually I can't answer this with any authority. But I think you probably want to start fairly low-key

and then work up to the stuff that you'll actually find delicious. Because the first experience doesn't need to be the best burger, does it? It's still going to be a striking experience as a first one. That's true, yeah. So if you try the blander thing first, can we agree that that's Big Mac first? Yeah, I think so I'm happy to

but Whopper's better right I would usually go for whatever the Whopper thing is with bacon in it fine but now gun to your head eat a fucking burger Whopper or Big Mac okay Whopper don't shoot me please where did you get that gun I'd rather eat either than die

I just think there's no contest at all it's got to be it's the flame grill taste for me. You say whopper and I can taste whopper now and it's making me like salivate and I want one. I get whoppers. Like I go and buy probably every year four or five whoppers and I never regret it. At the same time.

But Lynette, why not have both at the same time? Obviously you can only have one first bite of both, but why don't you buy both meals and then have a little taste test on your own fine why not go with a pal and then cut the burgers in half so you're not eating too much sure and yes do it blind so you don't know which burger you're trying first and then your friend can tell you they can adjudicate also i'd say how much do you like bread because the big mac's got an extra slice of bread in it for basically no reason as far as i'm concerned this is why I prefer the Whopper. Yeah, fine.

Okay, if you want more bread in your life to provide more structure, because you need the rules and you can't handle knowing what's in the secret sauce because a Big Mac is like the fucking Freemasons, then fine. Do that, okay? But I'll tell you what's in it.

Thousand Island and pickles, right? It's no big surprise. Get a Whopper. Right. What's in a Whopper making it good? Just, like, all good stuff. A. Yeah, that's what I think. What's in a Whopper making it good? Just like all good stuff. A proper big slice of onion for a start. Like not a namby-pamby chopped bit of onion.

Right. A proper slice of onion like you put in a homemade burger. Well, it's time now to take an intermission. And I think, Ollie, to celebrate your happy event, maybe we'll go back and revisit some of the things you've said about marriage in the past. Excellent. Okay. Which is just about every single episode available uh answer me this store.com that's right okay well just remember as you listen to this that it doesn't make me a hypocrite i may

have said these things about other people's weddings but all along what i really meant was i would really like to have a wedding in 2016 we live in a post-truth universe ollie so it's fine it's wedding season hooray people hating the people they used to love my annual opportunity to reaffirm why i absolutely have no interest in getting married whatsoever florists must piss themselves laughing when they get a quote for a bridal bouquet it must just be like well whatever we charge for a normal bouquet but times a million how much for a bunch of celery? 400 quid. And my solution remains always the same. Don't get married.

Let's take a question from our phone line now. The number to dial is this. 0208 123 58 007 Or you can Skype us on Answer Me This. Hello, Helen and Ollie. This is Martha from Kent.

I'm just ringing because we've booked a surprise trip for my kids to go to Disneyland Paris. But I had a conversation with my dad on the phone the other night and he was really slagging it off. He doesn't know that we're taking our kids because it's a big surprise and he was whinging about how rubbish Disneyland Paris is compared to Orlando and he was saying that the French can't do it properly and it's not proper Disney and it's gonna and it's really rubbish I then couldn't tell him that we've booked to go to Paris so my question is Ollie is my holiday going to be shit or is it going to be okay?

Thank you. Aww. I mean, just because it's not going to be the best place in the world, i.e. Walt Disney World Florida, that doesn't mean it's going to be shit. I thought that was the happiest place in the world, not the best one. No, you always make this mistake, Helen.

Entry level stuff. The happiest place on earth is Disneyland, California. Why do they make it so hard? Why do they have to have lands and worlds? Why can't they just pick a noun? The order of Western Disney parks is, I'm afraid, Florida, California, Paris. That's just how it is.

But if she hasn't been to any of them, won't Disneyland Paris seem like the best and happiest place on Earth? Yeah, it's exactly the conversation we were just having about Big Macs and Whoppers it is the entry slope if you've never been to Disneyland then yes Disneyland Paris will be a revelation is it the happiest place in Western Europe it's arguably not even the happiest place within 20 miles of Paris on occasion this is the issue I mean what your father's hinting at Martha you know that the French somehow don't get it there's some truth in that kitsch isn't necessarily something they're renowned for and American cultural imperialism isn't something they take too too kindly um and workers rights is something that

they treasure uh so you know there are various kind of um uh friction points I guess always were in the Disney company's decision ultimately to locate the park there in the first place. Yeah, why did they choose Paris? Well, if Disney lawyers are listening, then I didn't say this. Bungs of money. Lawyers love money. Reading between the lines, it seems like the French really wanted it because they were choosing between France and Spain.

And I mean, I've just come back from the Costa del Sol. That's where they were going to put it. It would have been a much better choice to put it there. It's an area where most of the businesses speak English and are happy to cater for tourists from the UK. It is in climate much closer to California and Florida than Paris is. You have a lot more space that they could buy a lot more cheaply for expansion. So for all those reasons, I think they would have been much better putting it in spain what it was ultimately they say because

they don't say it was bungs of money they say it was because the location in paris meant it was closer to more people it's basically either a two-hour drive or two-hour flight away from the major cities of western europe i was gonna say spain is kind of on a peninsula isn't it so it is more difficult to get to it's 40 pounds to get an easy jet flight so actually yes you can get a euro star theoretically from king's cross yeah but was this when easy jet and ryanair were no exactly yeah but what i'm saying is ultimately they made the wrong decision oh okay it would have been fine and they would have been better off putting it in spain i think although paris is a international air hub true yes true uh anyway look there are some benefits to Disneyland Paris, in my view.

Is the food there better than in the American ones? I wouldn't say better because they are approximating the American style. So you're going to get a better plate of ribs in Florida than you are in Paris. But it's better than if they tried to do the same thing in Kent. How dare you! Kent has some of Britain's most fine soft fruits yes i'm sure but i would say the benefits are these um the rides generally are more recently constructed than the ones in the older parks good point and i think i believe i'm right in saying had more

money spent on them but i've ridden upon uh pirates of the caribbean numerous times in all three parks i'd say paris is by some margin the best and that's your favorite ride isn't it when i was 10 yeah yeah now it's space mountain but you know i'm all about the big thrills these days and and also you've got to qualify the quality of experience with the cost so it would cost you a lot more to go to florida or california from britain than paris and therefore the expectation is a lot higher it's a much bigger risk yeah and the fact is you've already booked it so forget what your dad is grumbling about well you're gonna go yeah when i was a child my family didn't really take holidays very much so anywhere we went was exciting we had a week in my mom's friend's flat in Scarborough,

where there was not a lot in the mid-80s. Oh, yeah. And even that seemed quite magical because it was holiday. So I don't think you need to worry about your kids' reception. I know what you mean. What was the best thing to do in Scarborough in the 80s? There was an island covered in lights, and at night you could go and see the lights on.

Hi, guys. It's Adam from essex here i recently went to france and whilst there i ate some frog's legs to see what they tasted like they were nice and it got me thinking about the rest of the frog so helen and ollie answer me this when you order frog's legs what do they do with the rest of the frog uh the best scenario that i have found for this is they might use the frog's body to make stock. Yes, that's what I assumed, although I've never seen frog soup on a menu. I think mostly what happens is they slice the legs

off and possibly don't even kill the frog beforehand and just leave it to die and then throw the body away. That's horrible. I mean, it's horrible, but then I mean, if you take a chicken, for example, you know, the eyes don't get used generally, do they? They might make their way into cat's food or something.

I think you're getting more use out of the chicken than just eating a couple of drumsticks. But if the legs are really the only edible bit, I mean, is the rest of it just disgusting? I think the rest of it probably doesn't have the muscle on it that legs have. You've got this tiny body with not that much flesh. But the problem is there is a shortage of frogs. So climate change has affected amphibious populations particularly badly.

Can you not farm them? You probably can. But most of the frogs, like France buys in most of its frogs now from, I think Indonesia is a big frog producing place, other Asian countries. That's depleting frog populations. So frog eating has actually become a very controversial thing because of the frog populations. I was in Lidl the other day and I saw that they had in the freezer section um snails now really prepared snails like you get in a french supermarket well i suppose it is a european

supermarket isn't it but there it was in boreham wood snails which uh as we discovered before no mean feat preparing a snail that's a two-week process yeah absolutely yeah and for a bargain price as you'd expect four quid something like that for about 12 snails were they prepared with garlic butter and stuff they were yeah but i was a bit freaked out i'd never tried snails until this year and then i went to brasserie zadel in london where they do french food at sort of brasserie prices and i thought okay i'll try it and i was a bit like yeah it tastes like garlic mushrooms yeah it's chewy i would like to know actually what frog's legs do taste like because adam Adam, you said you tried them to see what they tasted like and then you said they were nice.

I mean, I want to know more than that. I want your powers of description to come in here. In what way were they nice? I've had them and people say they taste like chicken. They do in that they're not hugely flavourful. It's a slightly more dense meat. So like a quail is slightly more dense or a poussin is slightly more dense than a

chicken yeah but i wouldn't say as dense as a partridge okay but similar dimensions and boniness okay i would say i just it's never massively appealed apart from as a novelty yeah it's quite fiddly i think the only time i've had them was in a vietnamese restaurant and it took ages just to get the meat off the bones. But now I feel badly to ever have eaten frog's legs. Well actually, I mean having criticised your powers of description Adam, I was watching Jamie Oliver's latest show where he pretends that

healthy eating is his real calling in life even though he's spent the last 10 years telling us to smother everything in lard. Yeah, unless you're out of school, in which case eat healthily. Yeah. And I mean I like Jamie oliver it's a good show uh but um they had that thing they do now on channel four where to justify the fact that it's on peak time they just like splurge a load of budget unnecessarily traveling around the world

to research a food stuff for two minutes right the brian cox production method exactly uh blumenthal does this too so like Blumenthal adores to do that it must be his production team just wanting as many jollies per episode as possible it was flagrant the whole thing the whole episode is clearly filmed in one day except he says and for this I'm using kimchi so to find out about that I went to Korea and then it's him in like a market in Korea the VT lasts like 90 seconds and lots of colors of kimchi he goes oh it's amazing and he also i was astonished at how his descriptive powers failed him now admittedly he may have been on a very long flight probably first class mind you but you know long flight

turned up maybe he hadn't quite got his bearings he is a chef and a broadcaster he put this kimchi from the market which is supposed to be the best kimchi in the world put it in his mouth and he just said I can't describe it to you but you just have to take my word for it it's awesome Right, that was worth the flight I could do a better job than that Did he not even say, oh it's pucker kimchi lovely jobbly kimchi

I haven't watched a Jamie programme for quite a while so I'm going from his 90s adjectives Maybe he was in Korea anyway, opening some Jamie's Italians. I suspect that might actually be what had happened. And that will dictate what ingredients get VT. This week I'm going to be making healthy food that's sourced from Saudi Arabia. Particularly at a shopping mall in Riyadh

where they have fresh sand. 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

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just by clicking on the link and getting your free audiobook. And then you can cancel. You don't even have to take out a subscription if you don't want to. Sounds like a good deal, which this horrible world has so few of. Hi, guys. It's Johnny Hammond from Hammersmith here. if you don't want to. Sounds like a good deal, which this horrible world has so few of. Hi, guys. It's Johnny Hammond from Hammersmith here. I was watching the football,

Southampton versus West Ham on Sunday, and it got us talking. Why are so many towns in Britain, why have they got so many named ham in them? For instance, Southampton, West Ham, East Ham, Birmingham, Caterham, Cobham. Did he just say his name was Johnny Ham something? Johnny Hammond. And he's calling from Hammersmith about word names with Ham in them.

He did say that. He said that. That's Hammy in itself. It's like he was born to ask this question. Doesn't everyone know the answer to this question? All right then, Martin. If you know the answer to this question? All right then, Martin. If you know the answer to this question, by all means, go forth. It was from Hamlet, isn't it?

Not the play. I know Hamlet as in small village. Yeah, but what does that ham mean? If you're so smart, marty pants. Oh, what does that mean? Oh, I don't know. It's not from Hamlet. It's the same type of ham.

But a hamlet is just a small town. Oh, I see. Sorry, okay. Ham meant two things, which I think is why we have so many towns with that word in. It was a homestead. So if it was Cobham, I don't know that this is definitely why Cobham is called that, but it would be Cobb's home if Cobb was like an 8th century farmer or warlord or something. So that's how a lot of them work.

But a ham was also a bend in a river so you might have a town where it is just referring to the fact that it is in the bend of a river but also referring to like the person that owned that field next to a river or whatever uh here's a question from chris from birmingham martin yeah oh birmingham birmingham that's right yeah birmingham it's near where you're from isn't it it? Why do you say something like, oh, great, oh, Chris, how are you? Oh, how's the ball ring? Oh, I've heard of Birmingham. There's an amazing Polish restaurant there where the menu's got hinges. Isn't it hairy? No.

The restaurant is covered in fur, and the menu looks like an old wooden door with massive gothic hinges. That sounds great. It's really good. The food is amazing. I had a knuckle. Did you drink out of a fairy cup? We're with his parents, Ollie.

Chris from Birmingham says, Amazon has just launched its dash button doohickeys over here in Birmingham, and I'm left with a little question. What the fleek? Good use of our new word of the month. Correct use. Chris says, You can spend a fiver to buy a button,

which once you've gone to the effort of connecting it to your home Wi-fi network and amazon account and associated it with a product in the amazon inventory you can order some more play-doh or dreamies by just pressing the button what are dreamies with a double e uh that's a cat treat ollie answer me this how is this ever going to be a worthwhile thing and how many have you got i haven't got one yet although i am gonna order one just to play with it oh you are what for nappies or washing up i actually think well just to be clear so if people haven't got from chris's description exactly what this is so it's a little um sort of plastic dongle that affixes to your wall and the idea is you put it in the place where you use a product

so uh for example on the washing machine you put an aerial dongle for your washing powder or uh on the toilet you put a toilet duck dongle for your washing powder or uh on the toilet you put a toilet duck dongle for your toilet duck and then when you run out of that household product that you use regularly you click on the picture of the brand and it orders through your amazon prime account a shipment of that to arrive at your door as soon as possible and is that really easier than having an automated repeat order well it's the same as our qr codes discussion isn't it from the other week uh although like hundreds of you wrote to us saying how great qr codes are you're wrong not for public facing yes exactly this was our point public facing not taken

off in the same way uh yes of course to you and i i think we've got smartphones in our pocket you know you go to the bog you see you've run out of toilet paper if you must order it from amazon which is a bit unnecessary really really, when corner shops exist. It is as easy. Well, Amazon are trying to see to that, aren't they? Sure. But it is easy enough to open up the Prime app and type Kleenex into Amazon. So really, it's a novelty.

But yeah, I kind of think the price point's right. They're £5 each. And you get £5 off your first order of that thing. So really, they're free. So actually so actually yes it's ridiculous for convenience but lots of things ridiculous for convenience you know peeled fruit that you can buy ready-made is ridiculous i don't like that either no sure but millions of people do millions of people buy bottled water even though it comes out the tap in this country probably a lot of people have forgotten how to turn on a tap or peel a fruit and i would speak up for the cat sand button so again cat

products don't expect you to know uh it's cat litter yeah that's heavy and it's the kind of thing you forget to buy so like just having a button where i went on the once a week when i need to change the cat litter and it's next to the cat litter tray and i'll be like yep we've run out press the button i sort of see the appeal of that presumably this works for the products as well because if you've got a button set up for toilet duck then you're not going to veer off into other brands that's the idea but i do a lot of my grocery shopping through abel and cole because i'm a wanker but also because their vegetables are really nice and they sell cleaning products so i have it set up like every other week it sends toilet roll every eight weeks it sends toilet roll. Every eight weeks

it sends compostable waste bags. I don't even have to remember that. You're living the life, Helen. Some people have not set that infrastructure up. They live chaotic lives. It just seems so retro to have physical buttons.

Sort of, but then people said it was retro for Apple to have retail stores. I mean, sometimes people just like physical things they can touch. I think that's different because what the retail stores do

is allow you to go and make an impulse purchase and have a thing right then. These buttons don't let you do that. These buttons are kind of doing the opposite thing. Okay, imagine yourself single. You're on a date. You're on a date. Yeah.

You go back to the guy's house. You've had a nice dinner. He's taken you to a Brum restaurant where you can eat knuckle. Right,uckle right hold it if i never want to see him again do i press all of his amazon buttons load so he gets like 5 000 toilet rolls delivered the next day you order a thousand packets of dreamies to his house yeah uh no you get back to his house things going well you go up to the bedroom right next to his bed there's a durex button. He's a player. But also he's thinking about contraception, which is important. Exactly. I can't tell.

Is that good or bad? Is it good because he's someone who practices safe sex? Or is it bad because this is someone who gets through so many condoms, he needs an electronic button to reorder? Maybe he really likes posh wanks. All of which brings us to an end of this episode of Answer Me This. For all things must end. But for there to be an episode

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