Answer Me This! - AMT348: Fruit Machines, Caesar Salads and Jelly

Episode Date: March 2, 2017

Jelly in your pipes, Jelly in your pipes, Wibbly wobbly wibbly wobbly Jelly in your pipes! Seriously, people, don't pour jelly into your pipes. It will prove a trifle problematic. Further valuable lessons in AMT348: what to do if you lose your passport at the airport; how to deal with your kangaroo-killing neighbour; why you shouldn't brush your teeth with barbecue charcoal. Find out more about the episode at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode348. 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

Did Faye Dunaway leave her reading glasses at home? Answer me this, answer me this Why would anyone walk around Broadchurch alone? Answer me this, answer me this Heaven and only answer me this Previously on Answer Me This 347 People gonna die? We're all gonna laugh at you!

It's a bomb! America's next top model. The winner of Pop Idol 2007 is... I don't remember that episode of Ants Me This being that exciting. It was a big one, 347. It was, yeah. Mainly because we were talking about vampire bats and how they were named after literary vampires.

In this world, that's a cliffhanger. And Ollie, you speculated that there were other creatures named after contemporary literature such as harry potter yeah that's right i said i wonder whether there's anything in the contemporary literary canon that is so well known that you could name a new species of animal after it and we both speculate i can't remember who said we both speculated it probably harry pot is that famous. Correct, Ollie. Correct. Bad Medicine says, have you seen the Sorting Hat Spider? I have now. Personally, I'm not convinced it looks like the Sorting Hat,

but it doesn't look like a spider, so that's nice. It actually does look a bit like the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter. The picture that I'm seeing, it looks a bit like a 1970s pottery pigeon that's slightly abstract that my parents have as an ornament. That's not a literary reference though you can see why they went with the rounding. I can I can but I think it's a little tenuous to think it looks like the sorting hat it's sort of a cone that is bent at the pointy bit I guess that is quite like the sorting hat isn't it but it doesn't have a brim. Point is if you're an Indian spider biologist I think this is probably a good way to broaden your media coverage.

You know, you stumble across a new species. It happens to look a bit like something from the most famous children's book of the last century. Good thing for them. And also maybe they thought Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is recently out. Maybe we'll get some press out of this. Yeah, yeah. Actually, although I should say it's not actually officially, by the way, called the Sorting Hat Spider. It is called the Eryovixia Gryffindori. Gryffindori.

So it's got its name from Godric Gryffindor, the owner of the Sorting Hat. Ten points to Gryffindor. But it's got a classy Latinate transliteration of that. Well, it is not the only Harry Potter beast. Sian says they've named a crab after a combo of Harry Potter characters. Now, perhaps you can explain this it's a rather beautiful white crab with a baleful expression although maybe that's common to crabs that's a pap shot it's an upscale shot but the the crab that you're referring to is called the

harry plaques now i've seen people say, so they've named it after Harry Potter. But actually, the Harry bit is actually named after Harry Conley, who was the biologist who discovered it, apparently. It's the Harry Plax Severus. So it's named after both Harry and Severus Snape. But it isn't, because it's named after Harry Conley. So they've...

Okay, so the Severus is the Snape reference. That's the only Harry Potter reference. It just happened... It's a coincidence that the guy who discovered it is also called Harry. Yes, it is. But again, you don't get much media attention if you go around discovering crabs for a living, so you might as well capitalise on it.

Yeah, it's the Harry Potter crab. You just haven't made the cultural impact if you're a crab discoverer. If until you've been portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe in eight films, you're just tailing behind. You're a secondary Harry when it comes to the Harry Plax Everest. Crab Discoverer, the dating app no one wants to join.

I also have been researching into... It's appropriate because crabs can only move right and left. So when you're swiping it, you'd see it's got love in it. Good point, Martin. Lovely job. Well done, Martin. That's right, yes. Good to have you here. I've also discovered that Michael Crichton had a dinosaur named after him. Oh, did he?

In tribute to Jurassic Park, I guess. I presume, not Westworld. The Crichton-saurus. And what is it? Is it a dinosaur that was brought back to life? No, but it is a dinosaur that's been discovered post-Jurassic Park, therefore, I suppose, more likely to be brought back to life. I guess they know more about the DNA from when they discovered it.

In order to reanimate dinosaurs, they the dna of a living creature now um with which they can splice so you remember a couple of weeks ago woolly mammoths were in the news because they were like we're a couple of years away from producing a woolly mammoth embryo because the asian elephant is a fairly close relative of the woolly mammoth however then when you looked at the story it was a bit more like well it'll be more like an elephant with some woolly mammoth characteristics right it's just a hairy elephant slightly hairy elephant but in the articles i read about that they were saying the reason we can do this is because the asian elephant exists so you can get its dna and mess around with it whereas dinosaurs that's a lot more challenging given that what is there that's related to a dinosaur

birds and hedgehogs well lizards reptiles, reptiles, stuff like that. Not close enough. Really not close enough at all. I quite like the idea of producing little mini dinosaurs, though. Adorable. Wouldn't it be great? Better than Jurassic Park. Not better. Less dramatic.

Different. Different. But better for humanity, as in fewer people would die, probably, if you just had like a petting zoo where things got out of control. You know, it's only because they went as far as the T-Rex that things were so bad. I like the idea that the film could be called jurassic petting zoo i think you're wrong ollie because how big were the gremlins about a foot high good point they wiped out a town that's right and they would have they would have gone further if they hadn't been fucking around in the bar we've got

a question from maya from london who says i've just made a dessert i've never made before containing jelly an ingredient i've not eaten for circa 20 years wow i wonder what convinced you suddenly to take a step into the unknown and a step into the past. I bet it's trifle. She don't use jelly. She don't use cheese. She uses other wobbly things. She says, I soon discovered that I'd made too much of said jelly still in its

liquid form for my pudding and I intended to throw the rest away. However, as I stood stranded in my kitchen between the sink and the bin, I was a trifle concerned. She's put trifle in all caps. She knows what she's doing.

It's a pun. Good woman. If I disposed of said jelly in its liquid form by pouring it down the sink, would my pipes become a horrible jelly-y mess in these cold winter months? I decided to be prudent and store the rest of the jelly in the fridge, wait for it to set, and then dispose of it in the bin with a clear conscience. Heaven forfend I eat it. Yeah, exactly.

So, Helen, answer me this. If my dessert is a success, she's self-doubting but i think that's cute i wish she'd followed up with telling us whether it was or not uh and i decide to make jelly again can i pour it down the sink in its liquid form or will my plumbing be destroyed forever uh not forever but it can really mess up your plumbing can it yeah they they advise not putting any gelatine products down your pipes and also there are some liquid medicines that you shouldn't put down there because some of them are designed to turn into a kind of hard gel once they're in you i think that slows down the absorption and so once they're in your pipes that can also happen then you've got a blockage so if you have poured jelly down your sink you can pour a lot of boiling water down there to

melt it and flush it through i suppose what you could do is crack open your pipes and have a pipe shaped jelly for your pudding it'd be full of full of old tea leaves and stuff see as you know i think jeopardy in baking is bullshit but millions of people disagree with me why isn't there a great british jelly off millions of people are prepared to wait and see whether someone's dough has risen. Why haven't they done a jelly-based competition? Oh, my word. I am so into the Great British pottery throwdown at the moment. If you need a show, listeners, to soothe your frazzled soul in these difficult times,

this is the show because it is a bunch of people making pottery, which takes ages. And also, I mean, with Bake Off now, you know, the show because it is a bunch of people making pottery which takes ages and also so good i mean with bake off now you know um a bit like this is what happened with the singing competitions isn't it you know that even if you don't win there's a chance you can become a tv chef or a writer for the times or get a cookbook you could be the potter for the time exactly what possible prize is there in winning the pottery apart from you say you got to win the pottery well you might get to take some of your cups home someone who comes runner up in the great british pottery throwdown is not going to be able to live off that is my guess i think even current famous potters might struggle to generate a significant income i do like the idea though that if whoever wins

they get taken aside by sony and given a date. I've like BMG got a pottery on. I don't know. Here's 200 grand. Go and make the best sugar bowl you can. What is the best thing about this show though, is the male judge, the Paul Hollywood figure. He is so moved by the beauty of some of the pots that he cries several times an episode.

Right, okay. It's a joy. Yeah, it just takes your mind off the stuff that otherwise makes people cry in the world. Exactly, exactly. It's so rare that you see that display on primetime tv a man crying because a glaze is fantastic uh here's a question from nikki who says i've been listening to your podcast for a while now and as i am a soldier in the army i'm away from home more often than not wow i want you to know you've brought a feeling of home and comfort to me via your podcast for as long as I can remember, so thank you.

It's exciting, isn't it? I think we're entertaining the troops, Helen. We're the new Jim Davidson. I was going to say Bob Hope. Or Vera Lynn. Why did you have to go and ruin it with Jim Davidson? That is the most contemporary example. Recently, says Nikki, I've seen this hype around using charcoal

to whiten teeth, and I'm considering trying it myself. Though I am always on the lookout for a teeth whitening fad as I spent a lot of last year oil pulling with coconut oil to try and improve the colour of my teeth. I unfortunately saw no result there. It's not scientifically proven. So Helen, answer me this. Am I just being a sucker for a trend or is there some truth behind what these beauty articles are trying to sell me? Well, kind of both. You are a sucker for a trend. But the truth in what they're trying to sell you is that charcoal, and specifically activated charcoal,

this won't work with barbecue charcoal or drawing charcoal, activated charcoal has been purified for health use. Is it still black, though? Yes, very much so. So whoever first thought that you should try putting it anywhere near your face al jolson well they they used to they used to um clean teeth with with black powders before toothpaste yeah what i mean it is counterintuitive no well what happens is charcoal is attracted to tannins the charcoal uh will effectively stick to a tannin if you've been

drinking wine or tea your teeth might get a bit discoloured. And so it will get rid of that. But if your teeth were already permanently discoloured, it won't bleach them. And it may stain them more. So you might end up with worse tooth discolouration than you had at the start. I was thinking about the colouring of stained vanishes the other day, which is something I think about very much. Such an interesting interior life. Specifically, this was on Valentine's Day.

I suppose you do want to know that you've got a path for stain removal after Valentine's Day. No, what happened is I opened a good bottle of wine. It's like, hey, it's one of those special evenings. I think it was probably like a £25 bottle that someone maybe gave us when our son was born. It's posh. Maybe like a seven, eight-year-old bottle of wine. So I opened it, I let it £25 bottle that someone maybe gave us when our son was born. It's posh. Maybe like a seven, eight year old bottle of wine.

So I opened it. I let it breathe. All that shit. Wow. And then on my way to show my wife the cake that I bought her from Selfridge's food hall, I was trying to be classy. That's very nice. I managed to knock the bottle of red wine all over the carpet,

which ended up with her screaming and hitting me. Oh. So anyway, at that point, I had to get the Vanish out. And I remember thinking thinking it's interesting that it's a white creamy product because interesting you just mean it is a white creamy product most notable thing in my brain at the moment that this is a white creamy product and yet i wonder whether it really needs to be like probably chemically this could be blue or green but they they'd make it white wouldn't they so that as a consumer you're like oh yeah but i use this to make things white therefore it should look white see i wonder if charcoal

actually could do the same thing for my white carpet but then i wouldn't buy that you definitely get black carpet if you rub charcoal into it that's what i'm asking so did you manage to get the stain out of your relationship and the carpet uh no oh i've i've damaged our carpet forever oh no and your own valentines day. And reduced my own sexual prowess in the process. Oh, I'm sorry. But to return to the charcoal, like so many of these folk remedies that we mention on the show, like apple cider vinegar, it's not necessarily a hard no so much as there isn't really a big body of research and most of the evidence is anecdotal.

I'm pleased that there isn't a wide body of research on that because I'd rather my scientists were doing other things. But dentists do say it can abrade your teeth and therefore it's best avoided because what people do is they split open these capsules of activated charcoal. It can just really erode your teeth because it's gritty. When did the word activated become so bandied around? Was it like activated garlic or...?

Yeah. Whole Foods is like activated kale crisps. What does that mean? Because no one wants lazy, passive kale crisps. No one wants to eat a raw vegetable if they're buying a processed food. So you assume that it's been

through some sort of process. Come on, parsnips, self-actualise. If you've got a question, then email your question to answer me at this podcast at googlemail.com Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com

Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's 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. The question from a lady called Peter, which I'm not going to comment on because I have met women called Peter before. It's a thing. Yeah, it's not a big deal. Why are you making it into a big deal? Well, because it's not a British thing. And I know that old me before he'd met women called Petereter would be like but it's a thing is that a danish name i don't know p-e-t-a like the people's ethical treatment of animals charity yeah the first time

i was aware of the name peter as a female name was uh the actress who played i think the third incarnation of cody willis on neighbors right p-e-t-a well it's just as well that you make reference to the greatest austral artefact of all time, because this is a question from Down Under. She says, I don't know what tree changed means, do you? I've never heard it used before as a verb either. Anyway, she means we've moved house, basically.

I get that. We've tree changed. We work as a verb either. Anyway, she means we've moved house, basically. We've up sticks. We've tree changed. Whilst the first few months went by in a sublime haze of farm animals, mountain sunsets, evening kangaroo watching and summertime skinny dipping, we have encountered our first bump in the road. Our nearest neighbour, who lives half a mile up the lane, should be there for one another knocked on our door a few weeks ago

shotgun in hand to let us know he would be doing a spot of roo-shooting and not to panic when we heard close-range gunfire over our evening meal. The screams of kangaroos. So easy not to panic when you hear a gun firing.

As we thought this was a one-off event, we didn't object, so as to avoid creating friction amongst our new neighbours. Okay. Also, I can imagine, you know, however you feel about kangaroo culling, the very presence of a gun, it's quite exotic, isn't it? It's quite country if you've moved from Sydney and you want something different.

Or the very presence of a gun might just make you agree to whatever the person holding the gun is saying. However, continues Peter, this spot of shooting has turned into a twice weekly event. We now find ourselves covered in a malodorous curtain of decaying national emblem flesh

in the 40 degree Australian summer. Oh no, and how wasteful because you can eat kangaroo. I was just reading a historical cookbook today that was recommending recipes to cook kangaroo with. That reminds me, I still haven't given you your Christmas present, which is a seven volume historical cookbook.

Okay. I bought it from Oxfam. It's good. You'll like it. You don't have to keep it, but it's seven volumes. So I can't bring it to you unless I'm driving to you. Could you hang on to it until we've got a home?

Well, it's in my garage at the moment, but it's got the old cat litter box on top of it. I'm a bit worried now it smells of damp and cat shit. Still, you'll like it one day. I'll like it more if it didn't smell of cat shit. Yeah, yeah, I know. If it does smell of cat shit, just pretend you never bought it. Yeah, okay, fine. I've now committed it to record.

Yeah. Anyway. But thank you for the thought. No, no, I think you'll like it. Anyway, yes, you were reading a historical cookbook. Yeah, and it has many kangaroo recipes, so it seems a shame to waste the meat. It's muscular, so it's probably quite good.

Peter continues. Helen, answer me this. Do we confront this gun-toting neighbour and politely request a reprieve, or... I feel like there's more than two options here, but she's only given us two. Do we need to tolerate the tangy aroma

of rotting national treasures and avoid confrontation in the interest of self-preservation? P.S. His gun is obscenely large. Of course it is. What is he overcompensating for? I think we all know. I think without fear of getting shot, because just because he has a gun doesn't mean he wants to fire it into you.

He did come and ask if it was okay exactly that he didn't have to i think you could say we're having a bit of a problem with these putrescing kangaroos that you've killed could you pick them up once you've done it and dispose of them responsibly i'm not sure that someone who uses the term roo shooting would respond well to the term putrescing translate it into your Hunter Valley vernacular, Peter. Stinks around here, mate. Clean up your shit. Something like that. In some parts of Australia, there are apparently plague proportions of

kangaroos. You read some of the animal rights blogs, which are named after you, Peter, and they say that in other parts of Australia, there's no issue at all and when you kill a kangaroo, you also end up killing the joey as well because the joey needs to suckle off the mother for six months then you bash its

head it's all very horrible but it's quite hard to know because i don't know the kangaroo population where you live whether actually the farmer is just doing what needs to be done although the smell might not be very nice maybe it is better than having kangaroos sort of romping around eating all the grasslands doesn't say he's a, so he could just be a hobbyist. You're not allowed in Australia to have a gun going around killing kangaroos for the hunt. Are you not? So he's breaking the law if he's not a farmer. Okay, so maybe you need to research whether or not he's a farmer

and then call the police, if not? Yeah, although, I mean, the truth is, even though you have to have a permit to be able to do it, no one polices that because it happens at night. So even if he was a farmer and he had the have to have a permit to be able to do it uh no one polices that because it happens at night so even if he was a farmer and he had the right to have the gun and he had the right to call kangaroos no one's actually seeing how he's doing it because it's midnight or whatever okay but if he is not supposed to be killing the kangaroos then you've got something you've got material material so you can say if you're going to do this thing clean up afterwards

and if he does have the right to kill the kangaroos you would probably think he doesn't want rotten kangaroos on his land so i think you could still make the case that everyone is suffering because of the rotten kangaroos yeah but it is difficult isn't it i mean disputes with neighbors are the thing you legendarily want to avoid but this neighbor is at least half a mile up the road and so it's not like you have to see them all the time and he can be making a lot of noise on the other side of your party wall. That's true, but it might be, for example, that the access road is, you know, essentially going past his house. Yeah, or your sewer is going through there and he punctures it.

So, a cursory search suggests that there is a large, large number of kangaroos in Hunter Valley. There's an article here from 2015. Hunter farmers face kangaroo nightmare. Oh, there we go. Another one from more recently, last year. Woman's breast implants ruptured in kangaroo attack. Ooh. So I think he's doing women a service. You're protecting other women's tits, Peter.

Yeah, thanks, Peter. By enduring the smell. There's got to be a way to protect the tits and not have the smell. Hashtag protect the tits and not have the smell hashtag protect the tits that sounds like the most answer me this hashtag ever um i'm trying to find a link to the intermission but there isn't one take a break from shooting stuff to listen to a clip from an old episode of answer me this how about that fine that'll do uh all of our old episodes are available on our special website,

answermethisstore.com. They're also available on iTunes and Amazon, but if you buy them from our special bespoke website, then we get more of the money. So do do that if you can. But just to make the counter argument, could be a little more difficult to get onto your iPad or phone. If you're a committed Apple user, then it is easier to buy it from iTunes.

We get that. You're not a bad person. You just want convenience. It just depends whether your commitment is greater to us or to your apple device that is the decision you have to make anyway point is i'm getting apple device lots of our old stuff is available on the internet and what we do in every episode of this is we play you some of it what are we playing this this time helen for today's intermission here is a clip of answer me this episode 196 here's a question from alex from birmingham who says will he answer me this did one of the members of the 90s boy band 9-1-1 my specialist area already

have a glass eye wow i think it was the one called jimmy i swear i remember reading it in one of my younger sister's smash hits magazines But I can't find proof of it anywhere And I have been looking for 15 years That is niche You could probably track down The members of 911 and ask them Directly, they're probably doing plumbing or something

Well actually I did google Jimmy Constable From 911, he is in price Category C on a corporate entertainment Website, which means you can book him for between £500 and £5,000 a night. I don't mean to be rude, Jimmy, if you're listening but I imagine he's more at the £500 end of the market there. For as long as Apps From 5 is available

you're never going to get booked. Exactly. We are still getting far more hang-ups on our voicemail than we used to when Skype allowed us to have a a voicemail message they don't think about the little guy do they and we're probably literally the only people in the world that are that bothered that skype doesn't let you have a voicemail anymore yeah but it used to be really helpful because people would know that they'd called the podcast exactly and uh and

they would know that you have to say your name before you ask a question yeah and if they had been pranked and given our number instead of a legit number, they would know that something had gone awry. So we just really want you to know that if you Skype answer me this, or if you call the following number... And that is how you get your voice onto this show. Although you can voice memo us these days. You can just send us a voice memo with your question it's fine yeah hello ollie answer me this when did fruit machines first enter public houses and why are they fruit the 1960s oh and why fruit

is more interesting than when okay is there a particular reason why in the 1960s pubs suddenly got into the fruit machine game? Yes. It's about health for you two. Have a pint. Why not eat a little bowl of cherries? Rationing's been over for a few years now. Let's make merry with our fruit. In the 1800s in America where else?

Oh, so when you said the 60s, you didn't mean the swinging 60s. No, it was the 1960s. Okay. I'm just taking you back. Right, you really are. Yeah, we're all nostalgic for that period in the 19th century. I'm not because I'm a woman and my rights were not great then. You probably wouldn't have had a good time in a saloon, I'll be honest.

Not with my booze allergy. But anyway, in the saloons at that time a couple of guys invented uh the one-armed bandit you know the mechanical pre-electric slot machine the ones where you pull a lever and things move yes and they based that around card symbols because that's what they were all playing poker and blackjack so originally all it was is you pulled a lever and then it gave you some symbols like jack diamond king ace whatever and then that would translate into you winning a particular kind of prize but it didn't actually dispense the prize because that was too advanced it just displayed

a different randomized card and then if you won it gave you some cherries you're close am i yeah but you're jumping ahead by some time can i can ask a question? So it was the same thing, you'd have three spinny things, and you'd have to get the same spin? No, you wouldn't necessarily have to get the same ones. It was a way of randomly producing a hand. So instead of a dealer giving you a hand, the machine gave you a hand, and they based a game around it. So it's like playing cards by yourself.

Yeah, exactly. Just you and your robot card buddy. Yeah, so that was the original incarnation of the slot machine. But the guy who sort of turned it into, and I'll get onto the fruit bit in a minute, but the guy who sort of turned slot machines into a real thing was a guy called Charles Fay from California. He simplified the machine into the three reels that we know now, and he put the symbols on it. And the symbols did correspond to what you would win. So the cherries and the melons was you would actually win fruit-flavoured chewing gum corresponding to those flavours. Oh, not a whole melon?

Not a whole melon. But it's interesting, isn't it, that even in the 1800s, American chewing gum had cool flavours and we still only have mint. That's not true. We have juicy fruit. Fucking hell. What's that about? So how did it work then? So you pull pull the lever you got your three things yes was there literally someone stood behind you going oh i'll have some chewing gum yeah well just the same as a casino now where you'd say well i've got this receipt that says i've won 100 pounds can i have my 100 pounds piece you'd have to go to the teller but it wouldn't have printed out a piece of paper no no but it

was a novelty so everyone was crowded around it okay so you know there'd be no mystery you couldn't fake it exactly yeah okay um so that's what that was and actually the bar symbol which you still see in slot machines now was there it wasn't trademarked because it was the 1800s but that was an early logo of the gum company that you'd win so it's a really weird thing that's become a thing that still says bar but it might as well be like the dairy milk logo that's what it is anyway fast forward like 100 years and slot machines have become a big deal in america and they want to import them to britain but it's the 1960s and in the 1960s casino gambling was only permitted in casinos that was later tragically reversed by gordon brown and now you can do casino gaming on

the high street literally on the street just on the pavement just Get your roulette wheel out and just have at it. Well, you know, the fixed odds betting terminals in all the bookies. But yeah, that's another story, kids, for another shit day of gambling addiction. In the 1960s, you couldn't gamble in a pub. It wasn't allowed. But you could play a game with skill. You had to prove an element of skill this is the same weird thinking that led until very recently to andy peters on breakfast television giving you a multiple choice

question to win the quiz when clearly everyone knew that the answer was shakespeare because what skill is there in a fruit machine except for pulling a lever and then waiting for something uncontrollable by you to happen. Well, thanks to Trevor Carter, co-founder of Carfield Engineers Limited, Helen, there's the nudge button. Sorry to have underestimated you, Trevor Carter. Thus, therefore, apparently, making it a game of skill. It was no longer just chance,

because it's chance plus whether or not you nudged at the right time that makes you win. It's bullshit, but it's just enough skill for them to say it's not gambling so that's how we ended up with the fruit machine so that the because in america they still don't really have fruit machines and such they have slots and some of them have fruit on but actually they like if you go to vegas there's like pictures of michael jackson and stuff like that on it but in britain still traditionally we like the fruit based ones even if uh it's automatically generated and it's automatically generated

and it's not a real real under there at all but also our fruit machines will still have the liberty bell on which isn't our bell it's America's bell yes so that again is a reference to Charles Fay's company that was called liberty bell so again that's a bit of branding from a company that ceased to exist hundreds of years ago. Did you win a bell? I don't know. Maybe you won your liberty. I'm really popular in prison with these games. That should be Big Ben in a British fruit machine.

It should, yeah. I don't know, we don't seem to have the innovatory skill around it. I think the aspect ratio of Big Ben is wrong, isn't it? He'd look very skinny on those little pictures. Technically, Martin, as any boring pedant will tell you, Big Ben is just the bell and not the tower. Correct. But no one would recognise it if it was just the picture of the bell. Well, that's the problem, isn't it? boring pedant will tell you, Big Ben is just the bell and not the tower. Correct. But no one would recognise it if it was just the picture of the bell. Well, that's the problem, isn't it? Maybe it is. That's why Big Ben needs

the tower, and that's why the tower is generally called Big Ben, because then people know what you're talking about. Maybe you could have a fruit machine that, instead of fruit, had different British symbols, so you could have the bell of Big Ben, you could have Nelson's Column, you could have the Angel of the North, and could have Nelson's Column, you could have the Angel of the North and

York Minster. London Eye. Or sweet treats that aren't fruit flavoured chewing gum that are more British somehow. Spotted Dick, Jam Roly Poly. Yes, absolutely. They all just look beige and they're covered in custard. You never know whether you've won because the delineation is so subtle.

More appropriate in a pub though, isn't it? They're going to have that on tap, aren't they? With rhubarb crumble. More appropriate in a pub though isn't it? I mean they're going to have that on tap aren't they? Rhubarb crumble. I mean... It doesn't come out the tap. Really? Are you sure? Talk about jelly clogging the pipes but rhubarb crumble is a nightmare. I'd be more inclined to play a fruit machine these days if the prizes were what you saw on

screen rather than a sort of unsatisfactory amount of cash. Love cherries. I love cherries. If it spat cherries out at you I'd be well up for it i've never really understood the nudge thing actually i mean we're mocking the fact that it added a level of skill but actually in all seriousness that's the thing that i got caught whenever i've tried a fruit machine i thought it was just a randomized game of luck and then i've realized oh shit there's this button that says nudge what does that mean what does that do why

do i have to press keep what's that about i mean most people don't ever learn that skill because it's sort of meaningless isn't it but it's but it's not because it's a skill the other reason why they're in pubs apart from that they bring in lucrative returns i mean more than selling beer sadly oh really yeah whoa is that because it's a fixed you know 30 return yeah um the other reason that there is i mean no one will ever tell you this officially but it is kind of to introduce children to gambling really like if you're 16 17 going to the pub pretending to be 18 or 19 have your first drink you're going to want to play the the fun fruit machine because that's what the grown-ups do as well you can play with your pocket money and then your brain starts getting trained into the sort of metrics that might lead you to play roulette and spending more

of your cash i think there's a real um delineation i remember like i used to when i used to go swimming i used to play video game like arcade machines yeah yeah and i remember people just being absolutely baffled that i would put money into a machine where i had no chance of winning money yeah me being absolutely baffled that you put money into a machine which wasn't remotely fun i know well this is the thing i think there's like a divergence that happens maybe in people's minds at that age i'm actually up for the gambling legislation to change so that it makes it harder to gamble sort of hardcore serious amounts of money

on something that's no fun, but actually would make it easier to gamble on video. Like if you could play Super Mario and win money, that would be great, wouldn't it? Yeah, that would be nice. Like, you know, to a moderate level where I wasn't addicted, if I could win £10 by playing Pac-Man that would be fucking great. This summer I'm getting wed to my sweetheart. We've got the cake, the dress, the band.

It's Captain Beefheart. And we'll both drive down the aisle in a pair of matching go-karts. The photos will be epic. We use squarespace.com to build our wedding website. So our friends can RSVP and see our our plans for the night and we'll link to our gift list we don't want any old shite seriously guys a hundred quid minimum squarespace have bankrolled this episode for which we are very grateful oh we love their money but we also love their amazing website creation platform thank goodness for their drag and drop tools and their award-winning templates because then i can build a website without having to know how

building websites work because my brain is full of other stuff that's right you can create your own store like you did with answer me this store you can create your own gallery you can put a podcast up there doesn't really matter they make it so easy you can have a go yourself there's a two-week free trial so you can mess around build the website you have always wanted to build but were too afraid before and then remember if you like what you see if you're enjoying your free trial you're thinking this two weeks in many ways has been the best of my life i want it to continue then what you need to do is use our code to get 10 off a year subscription and that code is answer. This is Len in Spain.

And I have a burning question that I'm hoping Helen and the rest of the crew can help me with. I would like to know if you can clear up for me the origin of the Caesar salad. I have heard what I think are misinformed opinions on the internet attributing it to Julius Caesar, but I think that isn't true. So hopefully you can clear it up for me. Oh, this is the bane of my life, this thing, because a few months ago, I made a quip about the Caesar salad on The Illusionist.

Helen's other podcast, The Illusionist. The other one. I had Roman Mars on. We were talking about eponyms. I'll just play the clip, all right? Okay. Last night, i was eating dinner with my kids and my wife and we were talking about childbirth and mentioned the cesarean

section the way that these two babies you know my twin boys came into this world and it caused us to talk about caesar and was caesar really the first person to have to be the result of a caesarean section in which case i i have no actual knowledge of this but i said probably not it's hard to imagine that the first person to be born through this procedure also became one of the most famous people in all of history and invented one of the most famous salads i'm obviously joking there right that's obviously me just making a little quip right i think that is obviously a joke and if you missed it it's signaled by the man that you're talking to then clearly laughing yes you just did a funny thing no a lot of people did miss it because i got so many tweets where people like um actually i, actually, I think the Caesar salad was invented by Caesar Cardini in 1924. And I was like, ah, it's just post-truth.

You don't get to do jokes anymore. We're post-jokes. That's so unfair. What am I supposed to do in a post-jokes world, Ollie? Okay, I understand your frustration. So was this Caesar in 1924, was he an emperor? Well, he presumably became a salad dressing empire owner. Did he?

Did he get to see the fruits of his labour? He was already doing pretty well. There's no fruit in a Caesar salad. That is true. Don't even dare put fruit in a Caesar salad. I saw one with strawberries on a menu. That is appalling. No, Caesar Cardini, he was doing pretty well in 1924.

He was an Italian guy who ran a restaurant in tijuana and in 1924 the restaurants in tijuana were doing great because it was prohibition so americans would come over the border to have a good night out to drink a lot of salad dressing yeah so the story goes that there was a group of Hollywood people in the Caesar Cardini's restaurant and they were detained from leaving to go home by rain. And it was the 4th of July weekend, so he was pretty cleaned out of ingredients. He's like, fuck, what am I going to give him?

And so he invented the salad where it was just lettuce leaves and egg and a few other bits and pieces. No anchovies at the time. Some fried bread. And it was meant to be a finger food, so he laid out whole romaine lettuce leaves on a plate. Oh, that's odd.

It is odd. I mean, nowadays it's so drenched in the dressing, typically, that you couldn't really eat it with your fingers. Yeah, no. Unless you wanted your fingers to smell of parmesan. Big diabolical. But I assume then you picked up the lettuce leaf and then nibbled the dressing-laced end.

And he made it table-side, so it was theatrical. They like that in mexican border town still they like that they do that with the guacamole for the american tourists yeah they like that in posh american restaurants that sell caesar salads even now like steakhouses yes they make it for you in front of you yeah but there's no mystery there like we all know how the salad's made you assume it's relatively fresh in a quality restaurant but you're still supposed to be like, ooh. It's not like Tom Cruise and cocktails.

They're mixing the dressing in front of you. They're not just putting a bottle dressing onto some lettuce leaves, to be fair. Look, it's Paul Newman. So allegedly that is how it went down. And whether the Hollywood stars were really there or not is unknown. But there weren't anchovies in it then. His brother, Alex Cardini, is supposedly the one who added the anchovies in it then. His brother, Alex Cardini, is supposedly the one who added the anchovies a couple of years later and called it the Aviator, but the salad came to be named after Caesar Cardini

because I think he was a bit celebby. And people came from far and wide to eat his salad. Wallace Simpson used to spend a lot of time in. She loved a bit of Tawana. Celebrity salad fan, Wallace Simpson. Who's Wallace Simpson? Is that the woman that... Mrs Simpson, pinstar king.

Yeah, what if it was Dick in the Monarch? Apparently, she met the Prince of Wales in Tawana. Over a Caesar salad. And apparently, it was because of Wallis Simpson

that the Caesar salad became popularised in Europe. And it's apparently because of Wallis Simpson that the Caesar salad is now chopped and covered in dressing because she did not

do finger food. On the one hand, that sounds ridiculous. But on the other hand, when you talk about being popularized as a posh salad there has to be a reason that the caesar became the go-to dish in upmarket chain hotel room service because it's always cheeseburger and caesar salad isn't it wherever you are in the world any room service cheeseburger and caesar salad do you it wherever you are in the world any room service cheeseburger and caesar salad do you think that is a similar principle to why caesar cardini allegedly invented

it in the first place that he was pretty much out of supplies at the restaurant so he had some romaine and he had some hard cheese romaine and hard cheese were the two options on the referendum i believe here is a question from jonathan from exeter Who has not invented any salads of note We don't know Jonathan says Ollie answer me this Do you remember when the internet was sometimes referred to as

the information superhighway I do because it was only the 90s I remember the 90s Remember the Spice Girls Remember Nirvana I think that is just a rhetorical introduction to Jonathan's real question Oh okay

Ollie answer me this Where did that phrase come from? Who was the first person to use it? Al Gore. Woo! That's good. That's a good one, isn't it? A famous person came up with it.

So, Al Gore came up with the phrase information superhighway in 1978. Wow! Yeah, in a speech he was giving about a proposed highway of cables, literally a highway of cables to rival a giant motorway that they were planning to put in the ground between Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. So they were planning in government a 776 mile system of cables on

the East Coast that would be used for information. But they didn't know what they didn't know whether that would be cable TV or whether that would be... Exactly. Yeah. It became applied to the Internet after the world wide web became a thing but the reason he called it the information superhighway was in tribute to his dad al gore senior who had spearheaded the legislation creating the interstate highway system no quite good isn't it that's a better answer than i thought it would be much better i thought it would just be like a made-up bullshit thing yeah can't trace it original no yeah exactly no but actually like specifically Famous politician you've heard of paying tribute

To their own father for a thing that they've done that you've heard of Hope you're happy Jonathan from Exeter Yeah, that's a good answer Excellent service, well done Ollie I listen with my nan She is not so keen She finds it too obscene I follow them on Twitter Though Ashton Kutcher's fitter I want to take things further Just one step short of murder

I want to look like Olly Mann I want to smell like Olly Mann I want to feel like Olly Mann I want to taste like Olly Mann I want to look like Olly Mann I want to taste like Olly Mann I want to be like my darling man. I want to chase my darling man. I want to be like my darling man. Here's a question from Anna from London who says, Helen, answer me this.

What does the Latin on the front of the British passport say? It's French. It says, Dieu est mon droit. And also, On y soit qui mal y pense. And is this kind of like the school motto of Britain? Dieu est mon droit and also On y soit qui mal y pense. Huh. And is this kind of like the school motto of Britain? It's the royal coat of arms on the front of the passport! So yes, in a way.

It kind of is, yeah. If we all had to wear blazers, it would say that on it. Pretty much. She says, does it appear anywhere else? But I have an obvious question before that, which is what does it mean? Dieu est mon droit means God and my right. On y soit qui and my right is the motto of the order of the garter which means shame upon him who thinks evil of it okay god and my right is probably the royal family going put here by god to fuck you peasants and the order of the garter is like and shame upon you as well if you think me telling you

to fuck off peasants is bad but interestingly uh especially since you know either post-brexit or pre-brexit depending on where you see us politically people have been saying that uh the british passport is the thing that we're reclaiming it's not gonna be a european union passport it would be a british passport but they always say it'll still have the same thing on the front of it and that's in french and passport is a french word yes it is isn't it yeah that's quite funny it's almost like there's lots of french words in english language isn't it in english there's not a lot that isn't from french or latin or the norse invasions or germanic

invasions and if you go back before all of those things britain basically doesn't exist so yes the royal coat of arms does appear everywhere else that there is a royal coat of arms. It's the same one you see on a jar of pilchards or whatever. Yeah, on the royal pilchards, yes. It's the same one you see tattooed on the Queen's bicep. Here is another question of passports from Lizzie from London who says, I've been doing some long-haul travel recently and while flying itself doesn't bother me, I do have one quite crippling fear. I'm terrified I'm going to drop my passport somewhere, for example, while going up the stairs into the plane That's a very specific concern.

I get that, though. Air travel makes me more paranoid that I've got my belongings in the right place. Lizzie says, Lose their passport whilst in mid-air or on the stairs on the way up to the plane. place lizzie says ollie answer me this what would happen if someone lizzie were to do this lose their passport whilst in midair or on the stairs on the way up to the plane some sometime between going through the last security check at the outbound leg and at the arrivals well it depends where you're flying into obviously i'm sure the rules are different for you know saudi arabia or france um but i happen to know exactly what would happen if you did this en route to your grandson's wedding in Malaga.

Oh, fancy that. This is exactly what happened to Grandma Terry when she was flying out for our wedding. So I went to the airport to collect her. And I was nervous because she's, I shouldn't say her age, but it begins with an N. She's nine. And I was nervous. I was thinking, thinking you know she's flying not by herself she's with her partner but he's in his 80s brian just you know i'm responsible for them flying out here for my wedding i want everything to be okay it's quite a big busy airport as well i even said this to my mate on the way to the airport to pick her up i said if you

were to ask me at this point what's the worst thing that could happen it would be something happening like to her like if she collapsed on the plane or something like that would ruin the whole wedding that would be like because it would be our fault that she was out there right um and so we were waiting for her to arrive and everyone came in from the flight from luton and she wasn't there and i thought okay well she's got special assistance because um you know she doesn't need a wheelchair but she does when she's at airports because they're big places maybe they're just a bit delayed wait another 20 minutes nothing she's cool they probably just wanted to hang out with her for a while then i glanced down at my phone and there was a message there from her a text message and the text message said oliver i'm so devastated

brian that's what it said in the little ghost bit that you read before you read the whole thing so like actually then my mind was like you know has collapsed on the plane and is dead was basically what i was worried about clicked open the message and actually i was relieved when i saw that it just said brian is looking everywhere for my passport and can't find it um but basically exactly what you describe lizzie uh my grandma had somehow uh between luton airport and arriving in malaga lost her passport so i was thinking then shit because she's in the country, but it was Friday and we were getting married on the Monday in Gibraltar, for which you need your passport. You can't go from Spain to Gibraltar without your passport. So I thought even if she gets in this stage, she's not going to then get into Gibraltar.

She'll be trapped in Spain. Yeah. And also she would have to leave Spain to go home at some point. Yes, exactly. go home at some point yes exactly so what happened kind of fortunately slash unfortunately is when she got to the ground staff there in malaga she was explaining the situation to them they said well i'm sorry you haven't got any id so we can't let you through and she said oh i do actually have a photocopy 15 years before my grandfather had said to her always keep a photocopy of your passport in your handbag and she always had and never used it

before good tip but he'd said that so she had a photocopy of her old passport but that was enough to prove who she was to their satisfaction so they said okay well we can see you are who you say you are what you need to do is we'll let you through and then how long are you here for and she said oh i'm here for a week she hadn't thought that she then needed to technically go to a different country the next day i'm here for a week they said fine just go to the british embassy and get yourself a new passport whilst you're here an emergency travel document so she came out saying oh it's fine i just need to get an emergency travel document i was like uh you don't because we need to go to gibraltar for our wedding and how did you get her an emergency travel

document to get into gibraltar because i'm assuming you did I tried my best to be as charming as possible and explain that it was all in the interest of love oh um went to the British embassy it's a bit like a Richard Curtis movie but long and shit it's a bit like the boat that rocks I went to uh I went to the British embassy which luckily as it happens is in Malaga that's the British embassy for the whole of the south of Spain whoa like if this had been Ibiza we would have to have got a boat to malaga to go to the embassy which just happened to be near where we were um went to the british embassy probably because of the proximity to gibraltar right yeah i guess so and the number of brits in the area yeah and of

course it's very common that a senior citizen mislays their passport and needs an emergency travel document or someone who's gone to southern spain to go out on the lash um yeah they were very understanding about that but i had to explain the situation and basically they just made they just cheated the rules for us they were really nice wow so what you do is you pay 50 quid for an emergency travel document that gets you back into the uk but what we needed was a document that would get her into gibraltar out of gibraltar and then back to the uk before she applied for her passport so they wrote one up that suggested that she was on a flight back to the uk a week later that somehow traveled via gibraltar so they wrote it down at this

complete fictional journey as if she was catching a boat or a plane from gibraltar and that's why she needed entrance and exit from it so yeah they did us a favor basically but it worked so thanks embassy guys my grandma was at my wedding because of you. Wow. So Lizzie, the top tip is... Charm the embassy. Do a bit of dithery English person. Carry the photocopy. I always have a photo of my passport on my phone. I wonder if they'd accept that.

I probably wouldn't. Well, it depends on the country and how frosty their border control is. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, Costa del Sol is just subterritorious, isn't it? I think if you were flying into a slightly more prickly place, it might be a little bit more wary. And with that, we've reached the end of our journey on episode 348. And we've stepped off the plane and arrived at our destination,

which is the sound of nothing when this podcast stops. But who knows when this sentence will end? It might go on for a couple more hours yet. But if you would like to have a question in a future edition of Answer Me This, then you know what you have to do. You have to email it or phone it and all our contact details are on our website. AnswerMeThisPodcast.com

We have our own individual projects that you can listen to as well. The Modern Man is back for season four. Oh, you have seasons. We have seasons. Oh, this is spring 2017 spring 2017 what are people wearing for spring um in audio they are wearing the usual mix helen of sex trends and amazing life stories that sounds very becoming uh so far this season i've met a fashion icon and a man who raised one

million dollars in startup funding whilst he was still at university oh and i've learned how to moisten an overly dry vagina. That and more. Is it with Caesar salad dressing? It is, yes. In the current series of The Modern Man. Modernmanwith2ends.co.uk. The Illusionist is back as well.

Doesn't have seasons. I just take January off. That's very wise. I wish I could just take January off from life. I really recommend taking January off, people. Just stay in bed. Do not just go to bed in january stay in bed do not get out of bed in january um and um i've been doing stuff about romance novels and words for vagina that don't make you want to curl up and die inside so we've both got a vagina themed

section to our recent output we have synergy are you uh commenting on Tom Waits' forgotten album, The Vagina? No, we're talking about Heart Attack and Vine. It's implicitly vaginal. Which is his very sort of bluesy R&B album featuring... It doesn't sound very much like that at all. Featuring Andy and Miranda Zaltzman for the next few episodes. It's my sister-in-law's podcast debut. She's one of the only Zaltzmans never

to have been on a podcast. And you can find that at songbysongpodcast.com Correct. Oh, you can find The Illusionist at theillusionist.org. And we built all those websites on Squarespace. Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode of Answer Me This. Yes, and if you would like to make a financial contribution to us, that's easy.

Just go to paypal.me slash answermethis. And we will be back on the first Thursday ofpal.me slash answer me this we will be back on the first thursday of april with a new episode but we will be back in three weeks time because it's a long month with the next retro episode of answer me this and our commentary thereupon so join us for those bye