Answer Me This! - AMT344: Staying Alive, Zombie Cockroaches and an Argos Spending Spree

Episode Date: November 17, 2016

AMT344's questioneers are having their jaws realigned, beheading cockroaches and contemplating eating banana peel. Find out more about this episode at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode344. 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 it okay never to get out of bed again? How silly it is, how silly it is How did they stretch to seven series of Mordekov the Glen? How silly it is, how silly it is Heaven and lonely, how silly it is We're recording this episode a few days before it comes out, actually on the day of the US election So at the time of recording, we don't know if Hillary won or the Hunger Games won. Yeah, so this is going to be

a news-free zone. Like Fox News. What? That's right. We can still do politics. I made a confident prediction actually on the show a few years ago that Condoleezza Rice

would be the Republican candidate. We thought Condoleezza versus Hillary would be this race. That would be good, wouldn't it? Where's Condi? Yeah. Where are you, Condi? Yeah, where are you Condi? We used to have so much fun

Love the way that our brains work in that same malfunctioned way Where's Betty Boo while we're at it? Last time you were talking about your experience at the recent ARIA Awards Oh yes, yes Congratulations again for your silver award Thank you, I don't want to use the opportunity again to plug my podcast The Modern Man, but thank you Will from Bedford has also been honoured similarly. He says, I've been lucky enough to be nominated for a student journalism award by the British Council for the Training of Journalists.

All of the winners are required to give a speech or they're interviewed on stage. Now, I'm not pre-empting that I've won, but... But I am a bit but I'm having both my jaws realigned next week and may not have recovered by the time the ceremony rolls around both my jaws I didn't realize that the two sets of teeth were considered individual jaws interesting well that's because you probably haven't spent as much time in jaw medicine as Will has if he's got a realignment

didn't you wouldn't you say though that the jaw is the bottom part of the bottom teeth and if it needs realigning, it would be with the top. If they're both out of line. It sounds serious, anyway. It does, yeah. I've never heard of this double jaw alignment. Ollie, answer me this, says Will.

How do you give a speech when you can't open your mouth? I'm sure there's a South Park answer to that, which you don't want to hear. What are my options? Well, what you could do, of course, Will, is send someone to pick up the award in your place in the marlon brando style yes or indeed in the ollie man style because helen you might recall that i sent helen zaltzman to pick up my guardian student media award in 2002 you did i believe i was presented it by lauren laverne and dave gorman

oh wow what a dream it would have been a dream but it was a little bit of a nightmare because i thought i hope he doesn't win so I don't have to go up there and it's all awkward. Yeah, and was it? I did. It was awkward, but I think it was the first award of the night.

So I just said thanks and left the stage. And so the precedent hadn't been set yet that people were giving speeches. What happened after you? Did people give longer speeches? Do you recall? They did give longer speeches than zero speech. So they didn't follow your lead.

Sometimes people see that first speech and they're like oh okay we're not doing long speeches which in a way can be quite helpful it was another suggestion will i would say make sure you speak to the person who might win first and tell them to set that short precedent although i've been at award ceremonies where speeches are not allowed and there is something missing about that i agree that the train of thanks that is boring everyone agrees it but still it's just just watching someone holding a trophy you could just look at a flick book of that i agree the train of thanks that is boring everyone agrees it but still it's just just watching someone holding a trophy you could just look at a flick book of that i agree and i think you need uh the option of 10 seconds of boring so that when the sixth person stands up and says

free the dolphins everyone's like ruffled yeah they need the place to say free the dolphins if they just stand up and shake a hand it won't happen or someone getting up and slagging off whoever it was that was employing them at the time when they did the work that has got them the award yeah the too many drinks award i've got an idea for will though i think it's a step beyond doing what you did because you were busy weren't you you're in a play the night that you won an award how is a student busy when they go and pick up a student media award but i was in a student play i had to choose it was really difficult this is the highlight of my life thus far age 21 is i remember i got the call on my birthday wow my 21st birthday and i

got the call saying um you've been cast in west side story at the oxford playhouse big show big venue in a student production very nice but i knew that that meant i couldn't go to the guardian student media awards which i was also very excited about not because i thought i'd win just because i'd be in the same room as Mark Lawson. And James Brown, former editor of Loaded. Oh, really? Who I met, and I thought he was a student, even though he must have been 45 at the time.

I had a Twitter spat with him since. I've never met him. Well. It was about the price of sandwiches in Clissold Park. He thought they were unacceptably high. I was like, that's gentrification, mate. Get used to it. You live in N5.

Anyway. I think we know who won there. You're not part of the problem, you're part of the solution James Brown because you didn't supply me with a speech and when this show

won a Sony award in 2011 when Martin and I were on Honeymoon I gave you a speech and you didn't read it I didn't read it even though it was

basically a one liner what did it say I think it said because the awards were on Ollie's birthday again another event on my birthday it just said

is this the right time to tell you I haven't got your birthday present which is really funny. Yeah. And I should have trusted Helen to have written something funny. Of course, after all that time.

I know. And as a gold award winning entertainment podcaster, you still didn't trust me. So he didn't. He bottled it. Yeah. Because I thought, Oli can deliver that and it's short

and it's representing me being there, whereas actually we were on honeymoon in Montana at the time. So my idea for you, Will, is get somebody to be your speech buddy. being there whereas actually we were on honeymoon in montana at the time so my idea for you will is get somebody to be your speech buddy so you both go up on stage together and they recite some words that you have told them and you can do facial expressions maybe some hand gestures so you can explain that you can't talk at the moment because you're having your jaw realigned and that will

automatically add some humor to your speech which will be very necessary yes and then if your jaw's fine you've got the speech written already i once did a pre-radio interview so this is so listeners if you're ever called to be on a big national station they often do a little bit of research with you on the phone first to check you're going to say something sensible sometimes for longer than the show is yeah sometimes you're clearly just satisfying the whims of the uh production assistant who just wants to speak to you anyway there's nothing to do with the show yes um do you get that a lot this happened to me the other week i was on late night woman's hour which was super fun yeah also with lauren laverne it was great did you remind her of when you met playing me 10 years previously i i didn't i didn't uh i thought that would be worse than

not bringing that up but it was a very interesting late night women's hour and we were talking about the concept of home which has been on my mind recently

since you don't have one since I don't have one but not in a tragic Calais jungle way no we're not recording from a cardboard box but on the phone they'd said

oh it's going to be about crafting and the percentage of Instagram users that are female and whether that influences you know whether craft is is alienating to men yeah it's going to be about crafting and the percentage of instagram users that are female and uh whether that influences you know whether craft is is alienating to men yeah none of that but we talked about that for an hour how many users on pinterest are female on the phones of the producer beforehand and you've got to bullshit it haven't you because you've got to get through that stage so you can be

on the radio and talk about the interesting thing and it's like a test isn't it it's like sitting an exam i was doing a pre-radio interview once for the jeremy vine show which is particularly difficult because you know they're always looking for one side of a debate oh yeah so like researcher called me up and said something like um hi yeah so we're doing this item about whether or not you think all dogs should be banned from parks or something and you know that the researchers heard me like rant about dogs and how I prefer cats and therefore wants me at that point spontaneously to be able to do 10 minutes on why all dogs are terrible which of course I don't believe

but you think well I've got to ramp this up otherwise they're not going to put me on the radio so I was in that position but I had whitening strips on my teeth and I'd picked up the phone because it was an unknown number I didn't think it would be a researcher yeah dog

go over the wall kill the dog the thing is when you're in the park and you just want to go for a walk it can be very distracting and i had to take the whitening strips off during the conversation i don't think they heard me but it was that thing like when you go for a wee during a phone call and you're not 100 sure you've covered it up don't you mute on your phone no i don't do that no i'm just pouring myself a really big glass of water hang on i suppose i'm always talking too much to allow enough of a pause for me to mute.

And did you get on the show to talk about dogs? I think I did on that occasion, it wasn't dogs. I can't remember what it was, but you know, should there be more leaves in autumn or whatever the fuck it was? No! Ban them! How do you feel about the saying of things you don't really believe in to get on the radio? I suppose you've already endorsed that practice.

I never do it when I'm on the radio. I only do it in the pre-research chat. I tell them what they want believe in to get on the radio i suppose you've already endorsed that practice i never do it when i'm on the radio i only do it in the pre-research chat i tell them what they want to hear to get through the gate and then when i'm on the radio i tell the truth yeah very good and then afterwards are they like you traitor fade his mic down fade it quick quick he's saying dogs are fine no because i've filled seven minutes minutes of airtime about leaves or dogs or whatever it is, and no one's dead. That's all they want, really. Hi, this is John from Portsmouth. I've just eaten a banana,

and I'm looking at the skin, which I haven't thrown out the window of the car, because I'm going to put it in my bin when I get home. Now, I eat the skin of an apple, and obviously you can use the rind of an orange. I've never tried eating a banana skin but is there any value in eating the skin of a banana? Should we be eating it and if we shouldn't eat it why don't we eat it? I think the why we don't eat it is partly because it's quite tough. It's quite difficult to eat and it tastes bitter and

often that's a warning that you shouldn't be eating that thing does it do anything to your digestive tract if you attempt it though i think if you can get it down apparently it has um even higher levels of nutrients than a banana as a lot of fruit peel does um so it has uh fiber soluble and insoluble yes that's good for the old bowel um it has potassium and tryptophan which increases serotonin release so sort of an antidepressant but whether you can absorb those nutrients as well from the banana peel as you can from the banana or other sources not something that has been studied that much and also of course there are places in the world as well where they eat the stuff

that we habitually throw away here because we waste a lot of food here. But apparently nowhere in the world has a great banana skin eating habit. Even monkeys throw the skin away. I've seen them. But monkeys will also eat the skin. Will they?

I've not seen it. I imagine they use it for wiping the bum with or something. Or for pranks. Yeah, wiping your bum with it then throwing it at a tourist or a cage. Shining the silver. Does that mean wanking?

It doesn't mean wanking, Martin, but I suppose it could be. The way that you said it was just to add a little glint in there. Yeah, I agree, and I think it's quite good. Shining the silver. Polishing the silver would be better. So there are quite a lot of banana skin health fads, but none of them have really caught on. However, pranking banana skin is a good filter for heavy metals in water

can use it for up to 11 times if you're a survivalist say okay and you need to use so bear grills once he's shat in a box and drunk it he should be using a banana skin to make himself feel better or something wants to get the mercury out of his water filter it with banana skins it's funny how many desserts involve zest and how many desserts involve bananas and yet I've never heard of putting banana zest in anything. Because it doesn't taste nice. And it doesn't, lemon zest tastes lemony. Banana peel doesn't taste

banana-y. It's just got more nutrients. It might have a lot of pesticides on it too. There's also that. Have you seen that clip of Richard Blackwood on Sunday Brunch not knowing what lemon zest is? No! It's great. I'd recommend it. Wow! How does that go? Well the presenter, you know, one of the lads,, not knowing what lemon zest is. No, it's great. I'd recommend it. Wow. How does that go? Um,

well, the presenter, you know, one of the lads can't remember what his name is. Uh, he says, anyway, just said zest a lemon,

Richard. And you know, he's doing that bit whilst he's talking about his career at the same time. So he's like, yeah, I mean, he's tenders now and he starts cutting the lemon in half. And then the presenter says,

no, no, no zest. Add the zest to it. He goes, yeah, I'm just going to cut it in half. And then the presenter says,

no, we need the zest and gives him a greater. And, yeah, I'm just going to cut it in half. And then the presenter says, no, we need the zest and gives him a grater. And Blackwood clearly doesn't know what zest means but doesn't want to say on national television so just proceeds anyway thinking he can get away with it. Does he start grating the lemon's flesh? I can't remember.

I just remember it being very cringy. You can imagine yourself in both positions. As the presenter not wanting to assume that he didn't know what zest was and as him not wanting to admit that he didn't know what zest was and as him not wanting to admit that he didn't know what zest was and just think he could write it out. If you weren't much of a cook, then I think it's quite feasible you wouldn't know what zest was.

Exactly. There's lots of words I've got to be an adult and not know what they mean. I don't know if this is a word I've learned recently, but I'm sure even in my 40s I've... No! Friendship! I've got a question! Then email your question to

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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 Amy from Hackney who says, I was fortunate enough to enjoy a lovely evening at Casper's Restaurant at London's famous Savoy Hotel last week. Lucky you. I enjoyed a meal at Casper's Restaurant at London's famous Savoy Hotel last week. Oh, lucky you.

I enjoyed a meal at Casper's Restaurant at London's famous Savoy Hotel three years ago and then I vomited all night. Yeah, you've not been a fan ever since. Well, because I've had three experiences of the Savoy and all of them have been negative. So, but you've never had the tea or the steak, which are the things that the Savoy is arguably famous for.

Okay, I'll save those. And the room is very beautiful that Casper's in. So the three Savoy experiences I've had, that, the puking night, hosting the Women in Sales Awards, which was a real low point. Not the Savoy's fault. It's not the Savoy's fault, but they didn't help.

And going to a matinee of Legally Blonde, a musical with you. Which surely made up for everything. It was adequate. I think we both agreed it was adequate. Okay. Well Amy enjoyed herself and says

as a side dish we had creamed Savoy cabbage. Which seemed fitting since we were indeed at the Savoy. Cabbage hotel. Since the Savoy smells of cabbage. So, Helen, answer me this. Is Savoy cabbage actually anything to do

with the Savoy, or are they just messing with us? Well, they're not messing with you, are they? They're giving you the cabbage. No, but... What's the problem? The problem is, if the Savoy served up a side dish named after it, if it wasn't named after it, it would seem a coincidence. Too extreme to countenance.

Well, it is somewhat a coincidence. Don't believe it. It's too extreme to countenance, Helen. You don't look like you're countenance. I will not countenance it. Maybe they would have served a different cabbage if it hadn't been called Savoy. Well, I think that qualifies as messing with us.

But it's not really. It's serving you a very good cabbage out of the cabbages. I still think they've chosen it because it's called Savoy. Well, I think that qualifies as messing with us. But it's not really. It's serving you a very good cabbage out of the cabbages. I still think they've chosen it because it's called Savoy cabbage. But anyway, tell us the origins of the Savoy cabbage. So the Savoy cabbage is named after the Savoy region, which is on the border of Italy, France and Switzerland, or was. So is that what the Savoy Hotel is also named after? Yes, because there was a ruling family of Savoy.

The Savoy stands on what used to be their land. In 1246, Count Peter of Savoy built the Savoy Palace on that site. And then it burned to the ground during the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. And then Henry VII bequeathed money for there to be a hospital for the poor built on that site, which after a couple of hundred years stopped running really as a hospital. Bits of it became a prison. And then what remained burnt down right

and then what's this got to do with cabbage I'm just telling the story of what stands on the Savoy site today right okay I mean I'm enjoying it I was just we're learning it's nothing to do with cabbage

both the cabbage and the ownership of the Savoy land originated in the Savoy region right in 1880 Doily Cart bought the site

to build the Savoy theatre I didn't know that Doily Cart bought the site to build the Savoy Theatre. I didn't know that Doily Cart owned the hotel as well as the theatre. The hotel was built to provide accommodation for all the people coming to see the operas

at the Savoy Theatre because it was so popular. Right, okay, I didn't know that. And to cash in on people coming to visit London but that was one of the reasons to build the hotel.

It's actually a bit like, you know, the Holiday Inn in Stratford. Is it? Yeah, because that was built for the Olympics basically, wasn't it? Right. But here, the theatre existed before the hotel it's actually a bit like you know the holiday inn in stratford is it yeah because that was built for the olympics basically wasn't it right but here the theater existed before the hotel which surprised me because i assumed they built the hotel and then thought yes massive basement yeah but silly me of course you wouldn't just build a massive basement think oh what are we going to put in this massive basement uh fun fact i didn't know about the savoy is that you

know bob dylan's subterranean homesick blues video where he's dropping the placards with the words on. That was filmed in an alleyway by the Savoy. No. And they filmed two other versions one on the embankment by the Savoy and one on the Savoy roof. But I guess they chose the one in the alleyway because then he didn't look posh. They didn't want him to look posh. Yeah, it doesn't look posh.

I assumed that was shot in New York or something. And there's also the other fun Savoy fact which is the little road, the Savoy Court, that goes into the front by the theatre entrance is the only right-hand drive public road in Britain. I knew that fact. Anyway, nothing to do with cabbages. So both the cabbage and the hotel have their origins

in an area that's nothing to do with where the Savoy is now. Indeed. Right. And the Savoy Hotel is not named after the cabbage. It's just that the cabbage and the hotel are both named after the same region in which they have some origin. Okay.

Are you happy with that? Oh, to be honest, it wasn't that satisfying. Like a meal of Savoy cabbages. Like the meal I had at the Savoy that made me puke. Yeah, no, it's not that bad. There was something wrong with that chopped salad. No, it was as satisfying as an adequate matinee of Legally Blonde with an understudy playing the part.

That's exactly how satisfying it was. Right, that seems fair. Well, here's a question from Samantha from Enniskillen in Northern Ireland. It's about an institution that is, I suppose, tonally a bit different to the Savoy Hotel. Samantha says, well, he answered me this. What is the most expensive item in the Argos catalogue? Right.

You see, now you say different to the Savoy, and I don't think anyone would argue that there's many fixtures and fittings in that institution which is now owned by Fairmont. It is, yeah. Which you can buy at Argos. But I think there's a bit of inverse snobbery about Argos. I'm fully on board with Argos. I'm fully on board.

Like, I do choose generally John Lewis over Argos, because the longer guarantee and the nice men in suits serving you. And women. By all means. I was just painting a picture with words, Helen. I wasn't discriminating. I happened to choose a man in that example. But it is a fact that 70% of UK households shop at Argos. And so

this business about, like, Elizabeth Duke jewellery, more like Elizabeth Puke, it's like, well, don't shop there then. But you do because they generally sell reasonable goods at reasonable prices. It's just they also have some cheap shit. And if you want hinged clown earrings, where else are you supposed to get them? We're doing it.

We're doing the snobbery. That's the best place. I know. They also do own Alba Bush as well. The budget range of now smartphones as well as radios and tellies. You can buy a Bush smartphone. Okay. Which ain't going to be that smart, leties, you can buy a Bush smartphone. Okay. Which ain't going to be that smart, let's be honest.

Oh, ouch, wow. Well, I used to work in the returns department for Alba Bush and let me tell you, it was a busy department. But nonetheless, there are some quality items on sale in Argos. Well, because everything's on sale in Argos. Exactly. Inanimate things. I'm a fan of Argos.

So anyway, I found this quite an interesting question, what's the most expensive item? Because actually, to be fair, as I say, they have a fan of Argos. So anyway, I found this quite an interesting question. What's the most expensive item? Because actually, to be fair, as I say, they have a spread of goods. Yes. So I went looking on the website and you can't search all products by price. So I had to search by category. Okay. And there are quite a lot of categories.

The Argos catalogue is over a thousand pages. There are. It has like computational goods. It has garden furniture. TVs. Towels. Sofas. That might be quite an expensive item yeah beds i'm thinking something electrical or maybe a really expensive lego set i went through anything that could plausibly be the most expensive category

god you are diligent for this show if you if you work for argos or you're a regular shopper there and you know that i've missed the thing then do get in touch but i think i've covered it right right because i looked at what is the most expensive product in the uh wedding jewelry category what is the most expensive product in the garden furniture and lawnmower category what is the most expensive product in the tv category and what is the most expensive product in the designer men's watch category so i think that's covered the expensive bits. Did you go for wedding jewellery because everything with wedding on it, the price is amplified by at least 50%? I did, indeed.

Did you contemplate buying your new wedding rings from Argos? I'm going to say something snobby. It's not fair, Argos. It's not fair on you. But of course I didn't. So I've got the four answers here okay so we're going to play uh play your argos right uh i'll name a product and you can tell me whether you think this is the most expensive thing in argos or whether the next category of product was more expensive okay okay

so which one would you like to start with so you've got the men's watches you've got the wedding jewelry you've got the lawnmower lawnmower've got the lawnmower. Lawnmower. Or you've got the TV. The lawnmower. Yes. Okay, good choice. Thanks. MTDDCRN145. Catchily named. Great product. Tractor lawnmower. Ooh.

It's like a sit-on lawnmower. Ooh. How much? Ooh. Ooh. I've no idea how much any lawnmower costs. So I'm going to guess. This is top of the range.

Top of the range. Well, maybe 15 grand? 1,200. Oh, really? Wow. Tractor. Very different answer. It's a tiny tractor, Martin. I was going to say 1, maybe £15,000? Oh, really? Wow. Retractor! Very different answer. It's a tiny tractor, Martin.

£1200. Martin says £1200. Helen says £15,000. You said top of the range. I was going to go for £5,500. You could buy a car for that. I was going to go for £5,500, but you said top of the range. But it's Argos. It's not top of the range at Harrods. £5,500 then. £5,500. Okay. You could buy a car for £5,500,

Martin, but this is a top of the range domestic tractor so the most expensive tractor at argos 2439 so i was a bit closer you were closer martin yeah um so okay so there you go so that's a benchmark for you 2439.99 okay now are the other product categories more or less expensive than that choose another category uh tvs tv okay are you going product categories more or less expensive than that? Choose another category. TVs. TV, okay. Are you going to say higher or lower than the Traktor,

the most expensive television in Argos? Is it more or less than £2,439.99? Are we talking just a TV on its own, or are you talking like full entertainment system, so TV with speakers and other shit? It does come with a free soundbar, but that is a promotional offer. It's not free. It is free because the price it's at now previously was advertised

without the free sound bar. Okay. I think there's easily a TV in the Argos catalogue which costs £5,000 or £6,000. So you're going to say more? Yeah, definitely. Okay. And you're going to say, Helen? Oh, now I'm torn. I was going to go for about £2,000. Martin, what are you going to go for?

I'm going to go for £5 grand. Martin, what are you going to go for? I'm going to go for five. Okay. You're still sticking at two? Why not? Okay. I haven't got any real skin in this game. No. Unless I win the television if I get it right.

You're not going to win the television because you're shit at this. Martin was much better. It is the LG 75UH77V 75-inch supersized UHD 4K smart LED TV. Yeah. And the price is £4,299. I think it's fine that I'm shit at this. I'm not often buying high-end goods. That's absolutely fine.

But people never said that on Sale of the Century, did they? Right. It's fine that I'm not good at this. You've got to play the game. I think it shows my anti-materialistic side. So more expensive than the lawnmower. Right, two categories left. You've got the Everlasting Love 18 carat W gold 1.00 CT diamond solitaire ring. Uh-huh.

Or the Belova men's precisionist Champlain chronograph watch. That is the most expensive man's designer watch in Argos. Bearing in mind I've never heard of Belova as a brand. That gives you some clue. I think those are both less than five grand so you think the telly is the most expensive item yeah i think so i think the watch is more than the ring no you're wrong so the cheapest item out of the four plausibly most expensive uh is the man's watch 299 pounds is the most expensive watch in august which actually that surprises me because

i think even you can really hose men, they're idiots. Yeah, well, but even mid-market man, I think He's like your brother. Who shops at Argos and wants a treat for Christmas from Argos, I think he would look at the spread of prices and say, well, that one.

So I think I'm surprised Argos doesn't have, you know, a £550 Tommy Hilfiger watch so that middle market man can say oh, well, I'll go for the one that's £300. Well, also £300 for a brand that maybe it's because we're not watch aficionados that we weren't familiar with. Like £300 is quite expensive for a watch. Yes. But it's not expensive for an expensive watch because those run into the thousands and tens of thousands. Yeah. for an expensive watch because those run into the thousands and tens of thousands yeah so probably

people would be more willing to spend 300 quid on on a tommy hill figure watch or a brand that they'd heard of right yeah yeah if you're buying an expensive watch in argos i'm just surprised you can't get a posh timex in argos like obviously you're not gonna get a rolex okay so therefore all that's left is the engagement ring diamond solitaire ring is that i've told you it's more than the watch how many carats was the diamond again one one carat it says 18 ctw gold right 1.00 ct diamond solitaire ring so the diamond is one carat i'm not up on current gold yeah yeah so is that going to be the most expensive item in argos or is the tv still going to be the most expensive that's not going to be more than a couple of thousand pounds a couple of thousand pounds. A couple of thousand pounds? Maybe £2,500 at a push.

Yeah, I was going to go for similar. Okay, well, Martin's really good at this. You've been reading the Argos catalogue, haven't you, Martin? I used to love reading the Argos catalogue as a kid around September. Like, oh, I've got to get it for Christmas. That's what happens when you grow up in the Midlands. Hey, I used to do that too. The engagement ring is £2,999, so three grand.

A bit more than I thought, yeah. So it is pretty much the most expensive thing in Argos, but it is £2,999 so three grand. A bit more. A bit more than I thought. It is pretty much the most expensive thing in Argos but it is beaten by the four grand telly. Okay, well that's good to know.

So I suspect the most expensive thing in the Argos catalogue at the moment is the LG 75UH775V 75 inch Super UHD 4K smart LED TV

with free soundbar. But I could be wrong because I couldn't be bothered to check every category. It is possible there's a child's underwear selection that is more than that. But it seemed unlikely to me. 50,000 pairs of underpants.

Anyway, which clip are we playing this week, Helen, for our intermission? I thought it'd be fun to hear a little bit of episode 190 because that was the day that John Ronson came to visit bearing anecdotes. And then a man pulled up in a car and he said the funniest thing I'd ever heard. We never found out what that thing was.

Yeah, so the first 200 episodes of Answer Me This are available through our bespoke website AnswerMeThisStore.com and they include special guest appearances, but this probably, I think it's fair to say it's our favourite, isn't it? Apart from our families,

as I was talking about the other week. Yeah. This one. He rose to the occasion brilliantly. Oh my God. He's excellent. Strongly recommend John Ronson on your comedy podcast.

And here he is. It's a question from Luke from Norfolk who says, Answer me this, John. Are Helen and or Ollie psychopaths? Based on what you've learned today. Do you want to know a couple of the traits to look out for? Go on.

Please. Lack of empathy. I can't imagine what you're talking about. I have no embarrassment about that. What else? Grandiose sense of self-worth. Aye. Anyone who does a podcast

has a certain amount of grandiose sense of self-worth. And vanity. Hey, we don't make you listen to it, John. Unless, of course, you know, like a lot of other people, your need for, you know, podcasting comes from a place of social anxiety. No, no, no. It comes from the fact that God spoke to me in my sleep

and told me it was the right thing to do for the world. Well, you've got Glibner's Superficial Charm. Ah, brilliant. We've established that. Winning. You've got glibness, superficial charm. Ah, brilliant. We've established that. The one I've got in spades is a need for stimulation, proneness to boredom. That's surely common to people that aren't psychopaths. You have to have 15 of the 20 of these things.

Okay. Poor behavioural controls. Are you likely to just jump out and attack someone? Well, as Ollie said to you, John, before we started recording, that if you hadn't been here, we would have just farted right in front of everybody. Yeah, that's very poor. No, but that showed control,

because I said I didn't do it because John's here. But then you also said, if you fuck up, I'll kill you. Hi, Helen and Ollie. This is Joe from New York City. I've just realised that every verse of the Bee Gees song Stayin' Alive ends with the phrase, you know it's all right, it's okay, I'll live to see another day. We can try to understand the New York Times' effect on man. Hal and Ali, answer me this. What does that thing about the New York Times mean? Okay, so a lot of people have, over the years,

wondered what the Brothers Gibb were asking about the New York Times, the newspaper. I'd never observed this lyric before. No. And I think they weren't asking anything about a newspaper. The movie Saturday Night Fever is about an epoch, if I may use an upper-class word to describe an era, a generation, a time shift. Couldn't you just say era? I could have.

Since you've used epoch as a synonym it's a sound posh no but i suppose what i mean is they were trying to write the soundtrack to the film that would prove defining of the decade yeah disco and its whole movement and so the phrase the new york times effect on man is a pun on the fact that there is a newspaper called the new york times but they do mean the times in which we live in new york and their effect upon mankind it's just that doesn't scan very well travolta can't dance to that so in those three little words they are just alluding to the cultural influence of new york at the time globally yeah or just in fact um you know here's a story about someone living in new york let's see what the effects of that are upon him i don't think it

actually means anything more than that. It's just that because they use that clever phrase, you know, it's a bit like, to pick a less celebrated example, it's a bit like that Lily Allen song where she says, I look in the sun and I look at the mirror. Yeah.

You know, and she's talking about the sun in the sky and the mirror on the wall, but it's obvious that she's talking about Tableau. I never realised that, what she was talking about in the fear. God, I'm an idiot. But then I didn't realise that Aslan was a metaphor for Christ until I was 20. Did you really not realise until just now?

That has a double meaning. You've really enlightened me, thank you. Good Lord. What else don't I know? It's a comment on celebrity culture, Helen. It's a comment on puns about newspapers in songs. I'm just oblivious to them. Well, because people have wondered this for years,

there are inevitably, with a film of that status status theses that have been written about this um and there is um a writer who has academically written about the fact that throughout the film you see lots of shots of the new york times each morning appearing on the doorstep of stephanie the character right now she lives in new york so i don't think that really means anything. I think it just happens to be that she gets a newspaper because it's 1977. And also, it's just reiterating the New Yorkiness of it all, isn't it? Yeah. Because I read an interview with Barry Gibb in Q this month,

because he's got a new album out, and he was talking about, obviously, the old stuff, because that's what people are interested in. And he said that they hadn't even watched the movie when they wrote the songs. Even though it's an iconic soundtrack, they roughly knew that it was a film about John Travolta dancing, but they didn't know the story.

It's barely about that. I haven't watched it since I was a teenager, but I remember watching it and thinking there wasn't that much dancing and it seemed very bleak. It is quite bleak. I mean, it's a bit thin, being honest. I mean, I think if you took the soundtrack away from it, it loses a lot.

Is the dancing good? There's not loads of it is there uh there's kind of two or three key scenes where there's some quite good dancing yeah i mean i'm certainly not in a position to slag off joshua walters dance work um but i'm not really generally a fan of dancing anyway the in-laws have tried to get me to watch strictly this series and i've i've sat there and i've i've had the screen in front of me like with any sport but it just doesn't really go in. I think that's fair because that's a very particular thing that they want you to opt into. Yeah but they always say to me like oh but you love theatre Ollie. You love going to musicals so this is like that. No it isn't because it doesn't have a plot. And also when I'm sitting

in a theatre I just get overwhelmed by the spectacle of it and carried away with the story. I'm not actually analysing each lift and turn and marking it out of ten. Have you seen Napoleon Dynamite? I love Napoleon Dynamite. Well, how do you feel about the climactic dance sequence in that? Okay, being honest, I felt it was trying a little bit hard to be culty.

I thought the rest of the movie was absolutely pitch perfect and that I found a little bit try-hard. But it still is an amazing film. Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's great. But I didn't love it for the dancing, let pitch perfect and that i found a little bit try hard but still yeah yeah it's good it's great but i didn't love it for the dancing let's put it that way what about black swan that's a good dance movie no it isn't it's not a good film it's not really a dance it's like a chorus line with lesbians black swan is like center stage which is a cheesy dance film uh but with body horror i actually liked black swan a lot did you like the dancing no right I'm consistent on this point. I think you just want people to move

practically, not expressively. That's the Olly Man way. I got in the sack with my boss, now my boss wants to sack me. So I need a place online to put up my CV. I don't want to use LinkedIn, that's so unattractively

needy. No, I don't want to use LinkedIn. That's so unattractively needy. No, I don't want your invitation. Use squarespace.com to build your personal brand. Show off your achievements to every firm in the land. And while you're at it, inflate your salary by a few grand. You've bought your boss's silence. Who's gonna check? Thanks very much to squarespace for sponsoring answer me this today yes squarespace make it easy for you to design beautiful websites even if you've got a crap business and no aesthetic sense it's all drag and drop and templates and stuff like that and it looks beautiful on ipad and uh whatever you want to look at the internet on i don't know a

mirror with an embedded screen on it whatever you got oh that Oh, that's probably the next thing, isn't it? It probably, I'm sure it exists. Go to squarespace.com, take out a free trial. And if you like what you see, you can get 10% off by using our code. Answer. Here's a question from Lee who says, I recently had the unfortunate accident

of beheading a rogue cockroach in my apartment yesterday. The shampoo bottle used to assail the offending insect lopped its head clean off and to my horror the headless body kept walking right along how can a shampoo bottle knock anything clean off a body the headless body kept walking right along indefinitely as in it may still actually be walking around in the dumpster i threw it in i love it when americans use the word dumpster yeah it's good it's so much better than just big bin isn't it i met a chinese person the other day who uh who's called ben introduced themselves uh it's like the bin

like i i've heard the name bin before well i suppose it's a better reference than you know like a sama you know uh anyway lee continues helen answer me this is this normal behaviour for a beheaded cockroach or will I somehow regret having thrown out the first observed zombie roach well there are actually an awful lot of headless cockroaches that have been observed and filmed for YouTube oh right

and in fact there have been scientific studies of headless cockroaches I think going back 1962 and possibly even further and the head happenstance can survive for several hours on its own as well. How do they know that the head, I wonder if he can tell the body continues after life

but what about the head, do they ask it questions? It's still waving around its feelers antennae. The head only lasts a few hours according to experiments whereas the body can last for weeks until it dries up or starves or thirst to death does it have a nervous system does it have a brain yes it doesn't need its head because it has um nerve tissue in all of its different segments it's it's apparently worse at remembering stuff and it's

amazing to me they can test the memory of cockroaches at all um and it's a lot more docile without the head um but it can still react to touch it can still stand and walk around as as lee has found cockroaches spend 75 of their time resting so being headless it's not affecting their dominant activity and they don't breathe out of their mouths either. Each of those segments that has the nervous tissue in as well is able to respire. Wow. And they don't need much food. Insects can survive for weeks without a meal.

And they don't need water at all, do the insects, because they get water from food and they produce it by respiration. So if you want to actually kill a cockroach yeah you know sorry for being so cruel but sometimes i just really don't want to kind of just nudge that thing along i want it to die is it best to squash it you probably have to absolutely pulverize it yeah yeah here's a question from meg hannah and sally from north powis ollie answer me this is there a concord 2 in the making because concord 1 ended on a high yeah well there are various reasons why concord 1 as i suppose we're now calling it if there might be a sequel um was withdrawn from service and and the one that

sticks in the mind was the one that crashed killing everyone on board um but um it was also the fact that bookings kind of dried up after 9-11 there's kind of a commercial reason um and also that people were complaining about the noise levels because of sonic boom so they could only really ever use it from london to new york because you're not flying over much property um so it's not as simple as just they're dangerous that they pulled it there were a range of factors there so there have been people saying well let's bring back concord um you know it was after all quite cool how did it take to fly from london to new york um i think theoretically an hour but actually it was never that it was it was more like three hours rather than six or whatever but a commutable

time almost yeah yeah exactly of course the truth is especially in london and new york the airports are not particularly convenient. It's not the kind of thing we can just sort of walk in. I think with Concorde, they did try and make it. Because obviously you had very high-worth clients. They did try and make it. They'd come and pick up your baggage from the hotel and all that kind of thing. But even so, you've still got to be there at least an hour before, haven't you?

So that kind of immediately diminishes the advantage of the speed. But it's just cool to travel on it, isn't it? To think this is the fastest vehicle on earth. I don't know i've never been um well well neither have i just getting into the character of someone who goes on the concord yeah um but anyway the answer is sort of yes really there may be a concord too wow last year airbus filed a patent for a concord like sup. Gosh. But Airbus tend to make humongous planes. Yeah, and actually this one couldn't be more different

because it only carries up to 20 passengers. Okay. Whereas Concorde actually used to take 120. Right. So it's almost like they're inventing a private jet that goes really fast. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I think you can't really call it Concorde 2.

No, because Concorde's a passenger jet. They were, exactly. They were operated by British Airways in a passenger jet they were exactly they were operated by british airways in this country and they were ludicrously expensive but you know something like three or four times the price of first class not out of the reach of an ordinary person whereas this one sounds like 20 passenger private jet gonna be costly and it's basically going into space like if you look at the patent that they've put together um i'm still not decided whether it's patent or patent listeners no one ever told us for sure it operates by going up onto the edge of space so

you're high above conventional aircraft and therefore it can go even faster than concord used to and they say now this time it really will be an hour from london to new york but it sounds terrifying yeah it doesn't fit i think if yeah if you can't watch more than the first episode of a box set what's the point of going on a plane? Might as well take a boat Is that another factor if BA used to run Concord And then they haven't been so flush with money In more recent times

Yes and it's a risk Because you don't know you're going to get the clients And you have to operate a regular service I mean actually The more budget version than just waiting for Airbus To create a new vehicle which will take 10 years by the time it's all authorized and everything um is to get together a concord club of enthusiasts you know like you would with the classic ferrari club or

whatever and say look here we are we are whatever a thousand members of this club we're all prepared to spend five thousand pounds for a ticket on Concorde why don't we privately hire out old Concorde and see it fly again and there is a club that reckons it's now in a position to do that gosh but they would have to hire off BA the old Concorde plane and fly it themselves

so they're chartering a particular yeah exactly they're chartering for private use effectively and with that we have reached the end of this episode of Answer Me This that was me breathing out kind of relaxation of reaching the end. It was contentment, wasn't it? It wasn't a frustrated kind of, oh, when is this going to end?

It was like, oh, I've achieved something today. It wasn't all pointless, my life. No, it has, well, almost all of it has been pointless. Just not this bit. This has been an enclave of Pointful for me Please do supply questions For the next enclave of Pointful And all of our contact details are on our website

AnswerMeThisPodcast.com Whereupon you can also find links To follow us on social media And down to the Answer Me This store Where you can buy Classic episodes of Answer Me This And our five unique albums. Christmas is coming. It is, yeah.

The album's already there waiting for you. Answer Me This Christmas. It's a modern classic. We'll keep saying it until it's true. Remember that we have other work on the internet as well. You can find Helen's podcast, The Allusionist, if you look hard and you know how to spell allusionist. Yeah, or Zaltzman. I mean, that's enough of a sticking point for a lot

of people. And you can find the modern man. Man with two N's. And Martin has a podcast too. Song by Song. And thank you to Squarespace again. Thanks, Squarespace. Thank you, Squarespace. Thank you. And thank you, listeners, for paying attention. Please do join us again in a fortnight. Bye!