Answer Me This! - AMT351: Stoned Dads, Dragons, and Getting Verified on Twitter

Episode Date: June 1, 2017

Answer us this: how would you define 'Afternoon Delight'? 1. Settling down to watch Countdown with a nice cup of tea (not Lipton) and a nice biscuit (not one that gives you a 20-year-long health fear)? 2. Bit of post-lunch pre-dinner nookie? 3. Listening to AMT351, admittedly a delight at any hour of the day? Find out more about this episode at . Tweet us http://twitter.com/helenandolly Facebook 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

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Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash theiporter to learn more. Now that Sergeant Pepper is 50, does he get a promotion? Where does Melanie see flow into Billy Ocean. Well, so much has happened in the last month or so, it is time to get up day Ted. Oh God. Huh? Oh God. So much has happened, including you did a comedy class.

Helen went to, what do you call it? Do you call it the Ted Festival? The Ted. You call it Ted. Anyway, Helen went to this big conference that's for billionaires. I went straight for stealing the tea bags despite the fact you're speaking at ted yeah you're still someone who steals tea bags keeping it real i don't know how rich i would have to be before i stopped stealing stuff like tea bags what brand did they have there uh it varied oh god that's fine so long as it's not lipton i do not steal lipton international hotels what is that with what have they done what cartel have they organised to get Lipton everywhere?

What do they have on everybody? It's the least exciting. It's the most generic tea bag. It just doesn't even taste of tea. That's how generic it is. No, but I mean, one of my proudest achievements, Ollie, of the TED week was because I travel quite a lot. I travel with a stash of tea bags I've stolen from hotel breakfast buffets because they're all individually wrapped. You can get a selection. So if someone's coming coming to visit they can have a choice of 20 different teas and it got so big thanks to my ted week tea bag thefts that i had to upgrade from a ziploc to a hotel laundry bag that's good because despite the fact it was a conference for billionaires you know

what i did with that story helen with that anecdote i relay ted oh kapow did you meet anyone famous i hung out with friend of answering this john ronson a lot that was really nice and it was the funniest thing that had ever happened well it was a bit because um he went to this dinner that he'd signed up for where you hang with the billionaires and then about 10 minutes in we got these messages from john ronson going save me, save me from this horrible dinner so we went and we got him and went out to dinner with him and he's like you'll save me

and we're like well all you did was exit a room of your own volition we were also hanging out with Roman Mars who can now do a great John Ronson impression so we have a spare hey stay off my patch Mars so that was delightful okay so that's a celebrity hangout

I didn't befriend any billionaires so I feel like I haven't had the full TED experience, but I met an asteroid hunter and a woman who studies black holes because people are wearing lanyards with their jobs on and when you see jobs like asteroid hunter, you're like, is that real? So I was pretty excited to meet those people.

But Martin has also had an exciting time while I was away. Yes. Not quite TED. What have you been up to, Martin? I got presented an award. while I was away. Yes. Not quite Ted. What have you been up to, Martin? I got presented an award. Yes, you did. By one of the most excellent podcast award hosts

I think I've ever come across. You are talking about the British Podcast Awards, which took place towards the end of April. That's correct. Yeah, we won an award for best review show. By we? Yeah, not this one. We didn't.

Not this one, no, no. The podcast I do with Sam Pei, Song by Song, in which we talk about every Tom Waits song in chronological order. And you're the best. The best. Best review, yeah. The best.

Best show about Tom Waits. It was really bold for the first British podcast to have a Tom Waits category, wasn't it? The judges said that they liked it even though they weren't that interested in Tom Waits. So that's a lesson for all you listeners out there who are like, well, I don't really know that I asked about Tom Waits.

But have a listen to the show. Songbysongpodcast.com, right? Yeah, yeah. There you go. You've had a plug in the first five minutes. That's it now. Thanks, Tim. Remember that.

That's what happens when you're a winner. Get special treatment. Well, someone else who is a winner is Che from Chester. Following on from our discussion about how one would be distributed a year's supply of Weetabix, he's been in touch to say a few years ago, my wife won a new kettle. It's good already. He's married to greatness. But there's more. And

a year's supply of Yorkshire tea. Quite good. That is good. Is Yorkshire tea one that you would steal from a hotel room, Helen? Yes. Any but Lipton's. Any but Lipton's. It is the not-in-my-name of teas, isn't it? I could just scrape some dirt off the floor. Right, year's supply. How many tea bags could I get through in a year?

I'm thinking six cups a day. That's about 2,000 tea bags a year. Well, that's prescient because Chase says the tea did arrive all at once. Wow. It wasn't in vouchers. A big amount of cubic footage of Yorkshire tea. A year's supply of tea turned out to be 2400 tea bags. That is good

going. Which equates to 6-7 cups of tea a day. Now, you just said that you'd happily get through 6. I think 6 is a lot for most people. However, for a family of 4, which is how these things are usually calculated, as I said last time we discussed this, that's less than 2 per day. It's not that generous of the yorkshire tea people if i'm quite restrained

isn't it yeah but yorkshire tea is a strong tea so you could use a couple of bags in a pot and refill the pot at least once yes oh that's a proper brew as they'd say on brand jay says we gave a few boxes away but as my wife is the only one in the household who drinks tea the remainder still ended up lasting nearly two years yeah you double winners he says we stored them on top of the wardrobe for months which made our bedroom feel a bit like a cash and carry what could be sexier in a marriage yeah that's romance someone else has been in touch with feedback to answer me this episode 349 anonymous says i thought i'd write to you anonymously about the naming of north Greenwich Station. Ah yes, now this is because I said it should have been called Dome Station. A good idea, I thought.

But shoulda, woulda, coulda means you're out of time. Shoulda, woulda, coulda means you changed your mind. Exactly. Anonymous says, in the run-up to the millennium, I was working at LUL, London Underground Loveliness? It's the company that runs the Underground. And the company gossip at the time was that the government minister, Peter Mandelson, was trying to persuade LUL to name the station Millennium Dome, as the dome was then called. Yes.

But LUL refused, as their policy was that tube stations were names of localities, not tie-ins with here today, gone tomorrow commercial enterprises nearby. Well, that's evidently disprovable by where you used to live, isn't it? Crystal Palace was named after the palace because of the exhibition. It's exactly the same. It took a while to stick though. It was up in Norwood officially for a long time. Even when the great exhibition happened though?

Oh yeah, it was decades after that. Oh really? It was Crystal Palace. So I think it does work because in the run up to the millennium, most people thought the Millennium Dome was dog shit. Yes. And it's only after it stopped being the Millennium Dome

and started being a venue that people warmed to it. Yes, and actually now it would be difficult because it's actually called the O2. You can't name it after a sponsor. You could still call it the Dome. It's still a dome. It should, as I maintain the station, should be called Dome.

One day, Ollyman. That said, I suppose Waterloo isn't called Festival Hall, but to be fair, Waterloo had some pretty good brand name recognition already. Waterloo station has a number of landmarks around it, so I don't think singling one out works there. But I'm talking about national exhibitions. So Crystal Palace, Festival Hall, Millennium Dome.

Well, then it could happen. You just have to wait. Yes, just have to wait for the Festival Hall first, which is still another 50 years away. And then eventually when we're all dead, it'll be called Millennium Dome. Great. Adam in Yorkshire has been in touch because he's bought a book.

Congratulations, Adam. Well done, Adam. Like a real book or an e-book? Like bought a book. Congratulations, Adam. Well done, Adam. Like a real book or an e-book? Like a real book. He did buy it off eBay, though. I thought it was an e-book, technically. He says, when I bought it off eBay, the seller neglected to mention the fact that it was coming from a smoke-filled house. Now that's, I have to be honest, not something that I would ever think to ask. No, and yet when you get it, you think, why didn't I ask?

Yeah, interesting. He says the smell isn't overpowering, but it is there, and you can smell it when you open the book. Yeah, that'll happen for years. Now, Helen, as you've worked in an antiquarian bookshop, answer me this. Is there any way to get this smell out? I'm sure you've dealt with smoky smelling books before when people left them with you. Oh my God, so many.

Really? What, in the bookshop? Because I worked there in the 90s when smoking was a lot more prevalent. Yeah, so I would have thought you wouldn't even be able to identify it because everything smelled of smoke, including all our hair and skin. And people smoked in the bookshop as well.

Yeah. But I remember we got this book in which had a business card sticking out of it. And the bit that was sticking out was dark brown and the other half protected by the book was white. That a very powerful anti-smoking device yeah what was the book i don't remember just remember the anti-smokingness of it wasn't like roy castle's memoirs or something just to drive the point home but yeah things did really stink and um the techniques they used were to leave them out in the sun for as long as you can so that is

something that people do quite often to try and get rid of smells. Hold on. He's in Yorkshire, I know what you're going to say. Yeah, it's going to rain. Wait for a sunny time, Adam, and then leave the book out in the sun, open as long as possible. How long is as long as possible, ideally?

I think probably, I mean, all day, but maybe for a few days. Okay. Bring it in at night because of the dew. The other thing is they used to put them in a box with menthol. All right. I can't remember how long for again i would just leave it a few days well like a shot glass full i guess or maybe crystals i

can't remember whether it was just an open jar of vapor rub brilliant you might have a book that smells of menthol just depends what you prefer that's the thing i don't think i'd want my book to smell of vapor rub here's a question of music from ewan in Aberdeen, who says, Helen, answer me this. In the song Afternoon Delight by the Starland vocal band... Sky rockets in flight. What is Afternoon Delight? Burning in the day. Yeah, I mean, it's not even a subtle analogy. It's not subtle.

There's a whole minor plot in Series 2 of Glee where the celibacy club misinterprets this song as being about dessert confession i'd as far as i was aware never heard this song before and then we received this question and i heard it as if for the first time and thought it was amazing so thank you for the question you it's a big part of anchorman it's also a notable scene in goodwill hunting but i've seen both those films and you don't i don't remember that being the thing i'd forgotten the goodwill hunting thing what happens in Good Will Hunting it's a way that he

sings the song to tease one of these therapists he's sort of toying with in the early parts of the film oh does he pretend to be hypnotised

and then they know that he isn't because he starts singing Afternoon Delight yes and then the fact that it's in Glee

as well because I must have seen that and I don't remember it it's been in the Simpsons it's referenced a lot it was a number one

in the USA in 1976 and it's the 20th sexiest song of all time according to billboard yeah but you listen i bet it wasn't a big hit here 1976 is before our time anyway i've become aware of it and thank you ewan but it's clearly about boffing it's very obviously about that and there's no other interpretation unless you think it is about rockets which it isn't it's about fucking rubbing sticks and stones together makes the sparks ignite penis and vagina or whatever you know whatever organs yeah and the thought of loving you is getting so exciting i

mean that's fairly unequivocal isn't it yes it is yeah the starland vocal band are thought of as a one-hit wonder but the husband and wife team who were the foundation of it had had four albums i think before and they'd written for john devva they wrote um take me back country roads do you know that one yes i know that one yeah i thought you would and they worked on the robert altman film nashville so they did quite well here is a not at all fun fact about the title of the song apparently afternoon delights was written on the happy hour menu at a restaurant in dc where bill danoff who was one of the founding members was eating with one of the other band members while his wife was undergoing surgery for cervical cancer and he looked at that board of afternoon delights and

thought that sounds like a song about afternoon sex right inspiration really is everywhere but you mentioned his wife being ill as if that was somehow disrespectful to her but maybe he was thinking about you know he wished that he was having sex with her rather than her being ill so okay so i listened to it by downloading accidentally i just meant to get the single but i downloaded the whole album on spotify oh wow how is it it's it's great it's like all harmony not melody in a way like you listen to using this sounds lovely and then you think about what you've heard and you think actually i couldn't hum that tune but it just sounds nice because of the harmony is it like mamas and the papas if they had carried on until 1976 it's basically mamas and papas meet elton john and i you know

i like those things so So yeah, thanks. Perfect. Well, I'm glad that this album found its way to you. Yeah. And I like afternoon sex. Didn't want to know that. Did not. Who doesn't?

I've got a question. Then email your question. To 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. Here's a question from Marcus who says, Ollie, answer me this. Why does Alan Carr not have a little blue verified tick on Twitter? If we're being technical, it's not a blue tick, is it?

It's a white tick. Everyone calls it a blue tick. Oh, dear God, Ollie. It's actually a white on blue tick. I'm surprised this is coming from you. It isn't a blue tick. This dear god, Ollie. It's actually a white-on-blue tick. I'm surprised this is coming from you. It isn't a blue tick. This is Alan Carr, the comedian. There's a smoking guru

or anti-smoking guru called Alan Carr, right? I think he's dead. Okay. But yes, Alan Carr, the comedian. The British comedian. The Channel 4 comedian. Marcus says,

Twitter seems to give out these little ticks to basically anyone. Of course, I'm not talking about you, Ollie. So why doesn't Alan Carr have one? I noticed that his show Chatty Man has an official

account that has one. But does the man himself not deserve recognition? Has he not done enough? He's also got about 5 million followers. He has, yeah, which is enough to tell you that it is the real Alan Carr, really. If there were a high profile parody Alan Carr account, then I suspect that in the years since Alan Carr decided not to get one because it made him look vain, he would have actually relented and got one. But there isn't. Right. So clearly, by the fact that he has 5 million followers, the official Alan Carr is the official Alan Carr.

And by not seeking out a verified tick, he's made himself look a bit more down with the kids and like, hey, I don't need one, don't need one. That's how I feel though. I'm like, I could get one, but it's cooler not to have one. Well, I was fuming when I saw that Tom Price had one. Comedian Tom Price. My friend,

comedian and actor and radio presenter Tom Price. And occasional appraiser in Answer Me This Jingles. Yes. Who isn't that much more talented than me and isn't that much more good looking than me and isn't that much better on magic than me,

but it's all of those things. Uh-oh. I see. I didn't realise he was your secret rival, are they? You know, he's a contemporary that I keep an eye on. Right.

And he has a, I'm going to call it a blue tick, but it isn't a blue tick, it's a white tick. You don't want to die on this hill. He has a tick on Twitter. And so one day he asked me for some advice on something technical, I can't remember what it was, and I thought, right, I'm going to seize the opportunity. I texted him back, how did you get your blue tick?

Try to play it cool. Yeah, that's how you play it cool. He was like, what you do is you follow at verified on Twitter, that's how you play it cool he was like what you do is you follow at verified on twitter that's how you do it and then there's a link on the app verified account and yeah it is true that in the old days they used to dish them out to high profile baseball stars or whatever but now you can request it and basically if you work in politics or journalism or the media or anything that can define itself as in the public eye yeah you can get one people with a few dozen followers have one now yeah there's very little danger that they'll be mistaken for alan carr that's right you do have to fill in a

form and explain why you want one that would be another reason why i would not go forth and get one because firstly i want to be above it all and secondly i hate form filling well i put because i'm a radio presenter and it would satisfy my ego but three days later i had my blue tick did you feel better than tom price no no i want to i want to talk you through what happens when you get your blue tick because it surprised me did you feel better than tom price i felt on the same level as tom price which was the goal and then he leveled up by having another baby and you're like damn you tom price always one step ahead um but you don't get

an email saying congratulations you've been verified it just happens but you get notified because suddenly you notice that celebrities start following you and i hadn't been prepared for that because i really just wanted it for my ego and to compete with tom price i didn't think that i would actually you know suddenly end up attracting any more followers or anything. But a whole range of things happen. The app you use to access Twitter changes. At the bottom, instead of having at, which is where you can see your notifications,

and messages, which is where you can see your DM, and home, which is where you can see your feed, there's also a tab that says verified. And that only happens when you're verified. And what it means is it filters out only mentions of you by other verified people. So obviously it's completely useless for me because not that many verified people are talking about me. But I guess the idea is if you're Adele,

you can see what Chris Martin said about you, but you don't have to see the thousand fuckers that retweeted it. That's the idea, I guess. It makes you feel like you're in a privileged club suddenly. You're in the groucho. Yeah, exactly you're not keith allen but this is it so the way i found out that i'd been verified is within two minutes david walliams and gordon ramsey both started following me and i at first i was excited because i thought wow david walliams i was a

massive fan of david walliams sort of when we were at university i still like him but you know i was a huge fan of rock profile and the first series of little britain and i was like my god this is so exciting david williams is following me uh he knows who i am i've achieved something and then i realized oh no it's just an algorithm isn't it like he's personally with his thumb clicked on my face but that's because his special privilege groucho club version of the twitter app has recommended me as someone to follow. It's probably not, I mean, maybe he vaguely knows who I am, but it's not because he sought me out. And then suddenly all these celebrities started following me. And I was like, on the one hand,

thinking this is against the like democratic spirit of Twitter, which was anyone can talk to anyone. But at the same time, you do feel suddenly like you're in this privileged world. And then another thing happened. When you're verified this privileged world and then another thing happened when you're verified people start whatsapp style conversations with you only between verified people so a famous pop singer created one of these secret direct messages between loads of famous people and i was on it as well like matt ford was on it and matt lucas and me and i don't know why i was on it or why he followed me but i was there were like 25 of us and basically he was saying i've written this article about my mental health would you guys like to talk about it on your radio shows or put it out on your newspapers and people were writing back saying hey great article

and i just thought wow this is like obviously if you want to be on a big chat show you just dm the host now are you even just you just put you just put a group together with graham norton and jonathan ross and say i'm available on friday who wants me you don't need any of these people working in these offices anymore it sounds like these are functions that i don't particularly want so i'm going to carry on not having a tick for a while well they're functions that made me feel a bit uncomfortable yeah i've got them but i've got them now so they're not but it's interesting isn't it no one ever talks about that. I didn't know

that. I didn't know there were secret cabals of famous people talking to each other. Do you think you get blocked now that you've told the limited secrets to the populace? Do you think that's why Alan Carr doesn't have the tick? Because he doesn't want loads of people going, Alan, can I come on your show? Alan, I want to be on Chatty Man. Alan, Alan, Alan. Quite possibly. Yeah.

Because, you know, if I'm getting that, then isn't it weird to imagine getting harassed by celebrities but i imagine that's what it's like yeah if you run a popular chat show then that is exactly what's going to happen isn't it it's awkward on a one-on-one basis personally to say oh it's not my decision talk to my producer yeah so i suspect that might be the reason all right marcus happy to speculate that that's the reason well we don't need to speculate because people have tweeted him to ask, why haven't you done it?

Okay. And he's basically responded, I never will. I don't like the idea of it. But he hasn't explained why he doesn't like the idea of it, which is the interesting part of the answer. Well, the implication is because it's unnecessary and tasteless and I'm famous enough without it. It's a two-lane Twitter.

Yeah. Well, now it's time for our intermission. Let's take a little break. Today, with wimbledon coming up this month how about a little snippet of the answer me this sports day yes this is one of our five top 20 albums top 20 comedy albums yeah so this is an hour of us talking just about sport they said it couldn't be done but we did and we were pleasantly surprised by how it turned out. And like all of our classic content, you can buy it from iTunes and Amazon or AnswerMeThisStore.com. Okay, here's a question from Anna from Whanganui in New Zealand, who says,

it seems as if the ancient Greek Olympians were all naked. So Helen, answer me this. Is this true or is it just an artist's impression? It's obviously an artist's impression. Oh, come on. So if you look at all the statues in the British Museum, you can deduce that all Greeks had chipped penises as well. Surely if there were naked athletes, they weren't

all naked. It's symbolic. Nope. Because there are also written records of it. To be naked doing sport was somewhat of an offering to the gods, like an aesthetic offering to them. So that was one of the reasons why they were both represented as naked and they did compete naked. It's a practical thing as well. Grease is hot.

And if you're doing hot activities like sport and your clothes are made of kind of rough woven fabrics that don't really fasten on you. It's not that practical to wear them. Isn't it a bit impractical to have your penis flapping around there, especially in something like Shot Put, where it's sort of angular momentum based? Yeah, I would think so.

It's far off your centre of gravity. Listeners, please call up and leave us questions in your voice. You can Skype answer me this, or you can dial the following number. Let's see who has done that today. It's Eddie from Portia. I'm watching the Eurovision Song Contest right now. Answer me this. How close have we ever come to having an international song contest?

There have been a few attempts and some of them have really happened. World Idol happened, didn't it? World Idol? It was a spin-off of when Pop Idol was at its peak. Although bizarrely American Idol wasn't yet. They did a version of Pop Idol but with countries from all over the world including America, Canada. Norway won, if I recall. So that was the

closest that I would say. It was basically Eurovision but including North Americans. Okay, I've got a few for you there is the abu song festival that happens at the moment it's run by the asia pacific broadcasting union so any country that has a full or additional full abu membership which is dozens of countries can submit a song to be performed in front of a live audience so that is basically like asia australasia but a few other countries dotted around like a lot of countries really are affiliated with the abu but britain entered that britain i don't believe can enter that doesn't matter we wouldn't win but the competition part happens on the radio and judges determine the top five and then the tv part is non-competitive it's just a showcase really that's better for

actually choosing a song people like probably yeah but i think the best global style eurovision thing was the intervision song contest which was kind of set up by eastern bloc states in 1977 because they couldn't be in eurovision right Right. And so it was them and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. So it's basically Eastern Bloc countries and then other communist countries from around the world like China and Cuba. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then a handful of other European countries took part. And it happened from 1977 to 1980 in Poland. Is it on YouTube? I haven't looked. I imagine it's a substantially less glamorous affair than the current. I don't know about that because it evolved out of an already popular music festival that was set up by the pianist Władysław Spielman, who is the person that the Roman Polanski

film The Pianist is about. So he'd set up this music festival. Eastern Bloc states thought we want our own Eurovision. And so the director of Polish television decided to nab this thing that was already doing well. It's a bit different to Eurovision. And so the director of Polish television decided to nab this thing that was already doing well. It's a bit different to Eurovision. There was no time limit on songs. There was one girl that just went on for 45 minutes. No. And I can't verify this, but apparently the way they voted wasn't by phone and wasn't by judges.

The viewers at home had to turn off their lights and then they would see the data from the electricity network and use that to allocate points to each song i do not believe that that's incredible if true but anyway it ran until 1980 and they were like this is better than eurovision and then poland declared martial law so the contest stopped happening but vladimir putin has tried to revive it it was supposed to happen in 2014 but didn't right because Russia's been putting a lot of effort haven't they into their Eurovision entries of late and then they were barred from this year's competition for doping did you you didn't see it this year presumably you were in America I was I don't watch it that

much even when I'm here I feel like the older I get it seems to spoil every single one of my birthdays it's on very close to Martin's birthday. It's always on on the Saturday after my birthday. So our birthdays are a week apart. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, so growing up, I never saw it because I was always out on the Saturday after my birthday. But then, yeah, in my 30s,

every single Saturday after my birthday, I've been watching Eurovision. Yeah, Eurovision birthday. And this year, I can't remember what country it was, but it was a guy who was wearing a jacket split down the middle so he could play one character by turning his shoulder to the camera on the right, one character to the left, and he sang in falsetto for one character, baritone for the other.

What? I mean, it was entertainment with a capital E. It was absolutely extraordinary. Did he win? No. Oh. Yeah, no. Good ones never win.

Well, the guy who won was, like, the most vulnerable, talented singer-songwriter he won. So in a way that was quite refreshing. But not what Eurovision's about. You want the entertainer to win, don't you? Yeah, or a banging Euro disco number. Yeah, exactly. There's another Eurovisional question on the phone line. Excellent.

It's that time of year. It sure is. Hello, Helen and Ollie. It's Beth from Sheffield here. I love the Eurovision Songvision song contest i'm not ashamed to admit it and i've decided that my greatest ambition in life is to now be the british entry for the eurovision song contest i'm not a professional musician or a dancer or anything like that i'm the primary school teacher. Is this an impossible dream?

How exactly do you enter the Eurovision Song Contest? How is it decided? It's not as unlikely, Beth, as you might expect. Oh, really? By which I mean in the old days to be selected as Britain's entry for Eurovision. The BBC used to choose the British entry, both the songwriters and the singers

who could perform the track and it was a closed shop and there was nothing that the fans could do about it. However for the past two years the BBC has been choosing Britain's entry via an open call for submissions so the page to watch is

bbc.co.uk slash Eurovision. Is it open for next year already? It isn't. All of this information comes from our friend Ewan Spence. Oh, he knows. He does the ESC Insight podcast. Eurovision Song Contest Insight, if you can't crack that initialism. And he does that all year.

He does it, yes. So right now he's doing shows about next year's Eurovision. Or debriefing on the one we just had still. But that is the level of dedication some people have to Eurovision. He knows his stuff. Year round. And he says that if you, he would say this, wouldn't he? But he says if you listen to his podcast, they'll say when the submissions are open.

Now then what happens is once you've submitted your entry. And how many people are you going to be up against though with that? One would imagine thousands. I think once people have heard this, every listener is going to submit. So they are going to be swamped. Also, I'm not clear whether you can only enter as a songwriting partnership, you know, because it always seems that the artists that they choose have been... Now, I know that pretty much every amateur singer has been on X Factor.

And if they're any good, they'll have got through to the semifinals. So maybe there's no conspiracy there. But it does seem like everyone they choose has been on x factor or the voice before and has a fan base already so i wonder whether if as a performer you enter whether you've got much chance but certainly as a songwriting partnership you do so if you're the songwriter then i guess like stallone writing rocky you can force yourself through to the front and say i've written this song for me right and then they draft in jessica garlic to sing it yeah well i see yeah but yeah no but what i'm saying is if you wrote it you can say fuck garlic in the face i'm doing this wow is jessica garlic a real person yeah she did your original

entry some years ago i believe okay yeah oh she was i can't remember pop idol or something like that she was pop idol yeah they'll get the song and then they'll decide who's going to sing it rather than give it to garlic what i mean is if you have the song that you've written you don't necessarily have to find your own jessica garlic and submit with her in place i think if you put in a very professional bid and you're the winning entry and you're singing it then you've got a good chance of making the campaign it should be you doing the performance so what happens next is because they've tried to make this inclusive now because there used to be a bit of a backlash that this was all being chosen by shadowy figures what they do now yeah what they do now is the entries are assessed by members of the eurovision uk fan club ogae uk i've no idea what that stands for they then present a short list of entries to

the bbc the short list is then discussed by the bbc and one or more of the entries are included in the BBC's shortlist. So there's still shadowy goings on. There's still, well, we want Blue to do it this year. So, you know, sod the people that have entered. I don't like this. Theoretically, there's a chance that if you get through the process and you're chosen by the fan club,

you'll be on a shortlist that's presented to a shadowy cabal of BBC executives that might then choose you as the song. Well,bc executives that might then choose you as the song well that's nice not even choose you as a song choose you to be on the short list choose you to be the token fan entry on the short list the panel then advises on the songs that are to be chosen for the uk national final yeah but then only after the uk national final is there a vote involving the public but the public only get a 50 vote and the uk jury the shadowy cabal again they get the other 50 so basically it's an inside job with uh token uh references to democracy oh initially it sounded like beth's dream was possible and then

with every piece of information you imparted it ebbed away no it is possible i think it's that sounds doable she just needs to become high up in the bbc and then start wrangling from within but instead of choosing to represent britain have you considered choosing to represent belarus more likely to win you're more likely to win because of eastern block yeah and so just by way of reference, Sweden had 2,478 submissions this year. Wow. Germany, 2,493. Belarus, 67. Oh, brilliant.

And there's no rule about the nationality of the singer. Katrina and the Waves. Exactly. Gina G. So you can basically say, well, I feel a real emotional attachment to Belarus and I've spent the last six months living here and I'd love to represent them. That's fine. You can do that.

That's a great idea. Yeah, so go and represent Belarus. I mean, you've got a 167th chance. That is a great tip. And presumably their system's even more corrupt than the BBC so you just have to bribe someone. And you've got a 20% chance of getting on the telly in Belarus because they put 13 acts through to the televised

final. So that gives you a 1.5% chance of singing at Eurovision just by entering. This is great. Yeah. Go Belarus. That's cheered me up again. Yeah. We're opening a cafe that serves only jelly.

The markup is immense and then we'll get on the telly. We want a brand ambassador. We're in talks with Nelly. But also Cisco is keen. the telly we want a brand ambassador we're in talks with nelly but also cisco is key we've put the full menu on squarespace.com you can choose from raspberry strawberry lemon or the green one and our website will look great even when we're bankrupt after year one they're not ready for our jelly thank you very much to squarespace for sponsoring this episode of Answer Me This. And I was very excited to receive the following email from listener Anna. She says,

Recently I was feeling down and did not want to spend time listening to my own thoughts, so I filled my head with yours instead. I usually listen to this podcast. And I was reminded of Squarespace. After years of procrastination, I finally sat down and made myself the artist website I've always of Squarespace. After years of procrastination, I finally sat down and made myself the artist website I've always dreamed of having. She's the artist, by the way.

I was overwhelmed with the idea. I'm an illustrator, painter, scenic artist and singer. So it was a challenge to organise all that into something pretty and straightforward. Well, I finally did it. Well done, Anna. And there's a portrait of the Zaltz woman in there too. What? You're the Zaltz woman. I need to find this done Anna and there's a portrait of the Zaltz woman in there too what

you're the Zaltz woman I need to find this Anna amazing I used the promo code answer to help you guys out a bit thank you Anna good for you

and it's karakalu.com that's her surname I presume I believe so I'll link to it on our website answermeinthispodcast.com

okay well well done Anna and she reached a point where she's like I can't put this off any longer and then found out it was all together quite an easy thing to do it is good for you Anna well done, Anna. And she reached a point where she's like, I can't put this off any longer. And then found out it was all together quite an easy thing to do.

It is. Good for you, Anna. Well done. Very pleased. Slightly proud even. It's a nice website too. It looks cool. If you would like to take up the offer as well,

be like Anna. Be like Anna. It's free to play around for two weeks in the sandbox like a child. I hate sand. If you want to graduate to the high school of internet and make your site real and people can see it yes then uh then you have to pay but at that point you get 10 off by using that code answer hello helen and ollie uh i'm reese from south wales

back in the 60s there were talks of the beatles starring in the animated classic the jungle book but what i want to know is why didn't this happen uh did someone in the animated classic The Jungle Book. But what I want to know is, why didn't this happen? Did someone in the Beatles refuse to do it, or did Disney decide it was a bad idea in case they'd upstaged the film? If you could answer that for me, that would be great. Thank you. To me, it's always been obvious that it was supposed to be the Beatles. These are the vultures on the tree, you know, with the sort of Fab Four-type haircuts. Okay, I haven't seen it since I was three years old. Well, they sing in a

barbershop style, not a fab four style, but they're clearly modelled after the Beatles. So it's not a surprise to find out that, yeah, Disney had originally approached the Beatles and asked would they like to play the vultures because they obviously influenced it. In the same way that, you know, the monkey, whatever he's called, is obviously influenced by Louis Armstrong. It was clearly intended to be a Beatles-esque song. And then rumor is john said no i don't know what the others said but uh it doesn't surprise me that either does it that john took himself a bit seriously didn't the jungle book kind of hit at a point where the beatles weren't even getting on that well anyway so maybe they didn't really want to have to do the job together well i think actually

more to the point it hit at a point where they were established themselves as more of a sort of arty studio band it's yoko's fault again so i think it's just pre-yoko but you know sergeant pepper revolver all of that and moving away from the boy band image so i wonder if that's their thinking they've just decided to not tour anymore and not have screaming girls throwing themselves at them and not be a pop band but to to be, you know, a rock and roll, the first ever rock and roll art band, basically. And that doesn't really, in brand terms, go very well with doing a Disney soundtrack. Well, weirdly, it does now.

Yes, absolutely. Now there's been absolutely no contradiction, which is why Randy Newman does Toy Story and that's fine. But also now you would know that the Jungle Book had endured for 50 years and was still a popular thing and cartoons didn't damage your credibility in that way and it was an afternoon's work for 50 years of kids being a popular thing and cartoons didn't damage your credibility in that way and it was an afternoon's work for 50 years of kids being into you yeah exactly so you would but then but then that was exactly yeah then the only example that was even remotely like

that would be like dick van dyke being in mary poppins which was very cringe and still is if you're john lennon you can see yeah it's not just just not the image we're going for yeah actually talking about mary poppins this is an interesting Jungle Book fact. And forgive me for saying so, Rhys, but arguably more interesting than your Beatles fact. Level up next time, Rhys. The song that Car the Snake sings in the Jungle Book, trust in me, you know. Well, like I said, I was three. Right.

Can't remember a thing. Sinister Snake. Okay. That was originally written for Mary Poppins. Wow. you know well like i said i was three right can't remember a thing sinister snake okay that was originally written for mary poppins wow it was called land of sand and who was supposed to sing it in mary poppins uh i think it was mary but i suppose it wasn't supposed to be sinister then it was supposed to be vaguely sort of aztec and exotic uh there was a sequence that got acts from the film where the kids travel around the world right um but it's just funny to think of the the song in the jungle book that's clearly saying to kids beware the sinister slimy characters that you meet out in the jungle because they're not all your friends um it's funny that that would ever

have been sung by the goddess of child care yeah but it but it was going to be that is interesting yeah sherman brothers versatile uh Jon Favreau asked the remaining Beatles whether they would like to be in the remake. But I think they wisely said no, that ship's sailed. Also with just two of them. It might just be too sad remembering

there were four of them and now there are only two. It doesn't feel like Ringo and Paul get on, does it? I thought you were going to say it doesn't feel like they need the money. Also that. Ringo and Paul get on does it I thought you were gonna say it doesn't feel like they need the money also that Ringo might I think the truth is again I mean it wouldn't surprise me if now it was Paul that said no Ringo would say yes to that wouldn't he I mean Ringo plays any gig that you'll pay him enough to do Thomas the Tank Engine hasn't he stopped doing autographs yeah that was a whole yeah that was a whole thing it was a whole thing and I think for that reason he's probably going out of his way to not be a dick. He handled it in a very graceless way.

Yeah. But he did do The Simpsons. So maybe he has a taste for voicing animated characters. This is the thing. I mean, now, and Paul's done The Simpsons too, hasn't he, actually, with Linda. Right, but not together. Now it's become absolutely just part of the cultural conversation

that anyone with a serious career, it doesn't matter if you're a philosopher, would, of course, you'd do animated stuff because that's fun. But have the remaining beetles done anything together since the re-releases in the late 90s when they did free as a bird and all of that i don't know if they've done anything recently but i know that since the anthology they have yeah because they worked with cirque de soleil on the vegas show didn't they right okay i know i weirdly sat next to one of the technicians from cirque de soleil on an airplane from vegas to n Vegas to Nashville and he told me that he'd

met the Beatles and that was in like what 2009 so yeah they'd both gone and been part of the creative process that we would be wouldn't you but they haven't been public facingly together I think they were both on the red carpet on the opening night yeah but what I mean is they haven't done a piece of work that is public facing they were all like consulting on work they'd previously done with the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show but they haven't put out a new thing with the two of them them doing something new together it would really have to be the right thing because it would be such a big deal it's been 20 years yes it would there's so much emotional weight to it i just don't think they would spaff it on john favreau's jungle book i see what you mean another jungle book fact great

apparently rudyard kipling's daughter was furious that in the disney version they pronounced the who's Jungle Book. I see what you mean. Another Jungle Book fact. Great. Apparently, Rudyard Kipling's daughter was furious that in the Disney version they pronounced the name of the boy Mowgli because her father used to say Mowgli.

Yeah, but the thing is you put art out in the world you don't get to control it anymore. Hear, hear. I agree. I think you can't obsess about that kind of thing. All you can do is say

Dad said it Mowgli. And then he sold the rights to you and so you get to say it Mowgli. Yeah, exactly. You get to use the same voice as they used for Winnie the Pooh to play the snake. And A.A. Milne's estate sold that. Yeah, and they put a T-shirt on Winnie the Pooh. Exactly.

And they've had to learn to live with it. That's right. Here's a question from Kelly in Las Vegas, who says, Helen, answer me this. Where did medieval European dragon mythology come from? Where did it who says, Helen, answer me this, where did medieval European dragon mythology come from? Where did it come from, Helen? It's not like they had crocodiles or such to confuse for them. No, but they

had things like lizards and snakes and large sea beasts and fossils and worms. Yeah. Dragon mythology is very common in cultures around the world. It's in Chinese culture a lot, isn't it? It's in Chinese culture a lot, but it's in a lot of cultures and then the dragons weren't necessarily huge and fire breathing and flying until quite late on i think until medieval but there were still dragons that were like scary fish or scary snakes or scary worms and so in answer where did it come from it's a sort of

amalgamation of lots of animals but also an amalgamation of cultures. So Britain might not have had crocodiles, but Britain did have contact with other cultures which had different and more strange and frightening creatures. So a lot of dragon mythology in Western Europe came from ancient Greek mythology, which was heavily influenced by Middle Eastern and Asian mythology. Yeah, and you can sort of tell the influence of oral tradition as well kind of because it's so exaggerated it is literally like lizard meets snake it's like imagine your grandpa telling a story and then it was massive and then

it was all green and then it was slimy and then it breathed fire and then it hoarded all the gold and then you know it's like yeah you're just adding detail yeah because you know you're not writing it down and also you, you had less artificial light, so things in the dark were probably more terrifying, and you couldn't necessarily see things as well as you can now where you've got a lot of photography. So maybe if you had a passing glimpse of a well, you'd freak the fuck out.

Yes. Because you wouldn't necessarily know what it was. Here's a question from John from Pyrna who says, I'm a big fan of the West Wing, and I've also been watching a lot of Designated Survivor. What's that? Is that the one with, what's it called? Jack Barrow? Kiefer Sutherland. Is it one of these stories where he's

the Secretary of Agriculture and everyone dies and then he has to be the President? Right, well that makes sense bearing in mind the question that's about to follow. Okay, Designated Sutherland, got it. John says, it struck me that a ton of TV shows are based around the White House and the Oval Office in particular.

They all require something pretty detailed and realistic as people are very aware of what the real place looks like. So Helen answered me this. Is there a ready-to-go White House set for shows to use and share, making small adjustments as they need, or do they all build new sets each time a bit of both john i got some information from my friend rishi case hereway who makes the west wing weekly podcast oh great which is episode by episode discussions with josh melina who was in it from i think series four and then other people who were in the west wing or in production of the

west wing and he said the West Wing was shot at Warner Brothers and they still have the set there on the lot. You can visit it. That set was actually originally constructed for the Rob Reiner, Aaron Sorkin film, The American President. Oh, good movie that. I mean, I haven't seen it for a long time, but yeah.

I've never seen it. But, says Rishi, other Oval Offices are separate sets in separate lots. So presumably some of them you would get someone else's set and other times probably easier just to build one from scratch which makes sense because there's rival film studios and why should they let each other use their sets and they might have different technical requirements as well as they would need something built without a particular wall or whatever yeah except the answer is money if it's going to cost half as much to use the

warner brothers one as build your own then you would rent the warner brothers one wouldn't you i bet i bet there are examples of rival studios sharing oval office set do you think it's just cheaper to build your own rather than ship a whole all of your crew over yeah and release it and modify the set and lighting and return it intact as well because I was reading about um set dressing the other day and they were saying they would have to hire stuff this is for key and peel so they would have lots of sketches per series they would have to hire stuff this is for key and peel uh so they would have lots of sketches per series they would have to have locations for each and everything that they hired had to go back in immaculate condition and that was hundreds or thousands of pieces of furniture and props and

walls and stuff so it seems like real pain in the ass actually well my friend tom price i can't believe i'm mentioning him again he's gonna get more followers than me uh was in um victoria you know the itv show about the queen who was he playing uh oh don't know i didn't watch it sorry tom he was lord someone or other right i saw enough of it to see the kind of thing he did in it in the scenes that i saw that he was in he was in the house of commons um because he was a politician and they were talking about something to do with the royals obviously and it was lots of shots i mean lots like maybe 10 sequences that i saw in an episode, which lasted 10 seconds each,

where there was a swoop of a camera through the House of Commons and he was just standing going, and so I thought that's interesting because they filmed in what looks like the House of Commons. So I asked him, was that the House of Commons they filmed in or is there? Basically, I asked this question about the House of Commons. Is there a permanent House of Commons set somewhere? Exactly.

They film Prime Minister's questions on it. And the answer was that they filmed that apparently in York Library. What? And they had built for Victoria a version of the palace because they knew that obviously they'd used the palace set a lot. But it wasn't worth their time building a House of Commons set because it was only going to be in the first series. So they just recreated it in York Library.

And that blew my mind because I thought, same thing. There are so many sequences set in the House of Commons set because it was only going to be in the first series. So they just recreated it in York Library. And that blew my mind because I thought, same thing. There are so many sequences set in the House of Commons. Why isn't there a House of Commons set? So I looked into it. And when they made The Iron Lady, because that was a Hollywood budget, they did build a really decent House of Commons set. In Britain or in Hollywood?

At Wimbledon Studios. And after that, they they did for a few times hire it out to other productions because that was a film i guess so there was no rivalry there it was just an empty set i suppose the different studios might be like no build your own yeah well i suppose exactly yeah but anyway so the one at wimbledon did get used a few times i can't remember for what but they then tried to auction it off and no one bought it it's a lot of space you would need to house your own fake house of commons i would think well i i guess they were hoping that someone like warner brothers would buy it and just have it for when they need a house of commons because it's incredibly detailed and looks

exactly like the house of commons you'd think even maybe a news network might buy it so that they could do recreations. Oh god, I walked straight into that one. Or a public school would buy it to train up their students for their inevitable careers. Answer me this podcast podcast question to the question line inquiries are wanted as a part of the plan here's a question from katherine in melbourne australia who says i have a dilemma that has been gnawing away at my conscience for over 20 years wow very excited even longer than the podcast has been going when we started that dilemma had only been gnawing her conscience for 10 years she says when i was in my late teens and still living with my parents my boyfriend and i made a rather delicious batch of chocolate

chip dope cookies this is a good setup we left them to cool in the oven and went downstairs to my room about 30 minutes later my mum who knew what we were up to but decided to ignore it came rushing in and said my dad had gotten home and accidentally eaten half a tray of cookies and is unknowingly stoned out of his brain oh Oh, see, there's a delay as well, isn't there? We've talked about that before, but you know, you've got to wait probably three or four hours for that to really kick in. Uh-oh. Well, the dad doesn't even know.

Catherine says, we thought it served him right for being a pig and eating cookies straight out of the oven. Sort of served him right. Sort of. Full-on paranoid delusion is maybe didn't serve him right for eating a baked good. When we went back upstairs, my dad was walking around in circles in the kitchen, hopelessly trying to make a cup of tea. It was actually quite hilarious at the time,

but we knew we were probably going to be in big trouble, so hid downstairs. That's the grown-up reaction. About an hour later, mum came back downstairs and said that dad thinks he's having a heart attack and wants to call an ambulance. Wow. Somehow I convinced her he would be fine and just needed to sleep it off, so she tucked him into bed and hoped for the best. Wow. Oh, shit.

Don't justify this afterwards. He's actually been living a more healthy life since then. We did a really good thing? Yeah, definitely, yeah. Ever since we threatened him with a knife, he's lived every day as if it was his life. So Ollie answered me this. Do I keep letting my dad believe he had a heart attack or do I tell him that he was actually completely wasted

for the only time in his life as he is very, very anti-drugs and risk him probably writing me out of any inheritance? I feel like he should know the truth but then again please help i mean the lie's been going on so long that the easiest option is to continue it yeah totally so you are actually making an active decision by deciding to tell him the truth whereas probably in the first decade of this lie you were making an active decision to keep up the lie because he was coming to you saying he thought he had a heart problem but he's happier and healthier because of your lie right i don't know if your mom is still around to discuss this with you because she already knows so she could be your confident as to whether you should tell him i wonder if in fact she's already told him oh and they're making you if

he's very very anti-drugs your quote you know And they're making you, if he's very, very anti-drugs, your quote, you know, maybe they're making you suffer with guilt by continuing the charade that he thinks he had a heart attack. Because he would have discussed that a lot with his wife,

I should imagine. The heart attack. Yeah. And she knows the trees. Surely she's told him at some point in the last 20 years. But also now, what's he really gonna do he's not

gonna ground you because you're not a teenager anymore no but i'm really pissed off yeah i mean she says write me out of the inheritance which is probably a you know she's probably saying that to be funny but it probably hints at she's probably concerned that it would change fundamentally her relationship with him i'm trying to think of what this would be like in my family but i think the thing is i'm squarer than my parents who are pretty square so it's an achievement on my part this is really sad like because i know it was like happened accidentally but effectively you've spiked your dad yeah i know it was it was by accident but you should never do that to anyone like it you know if that if i'd been the dad i'd just be like oh i had a psychotic episode so i'm

going to spend the rest of my life worrying about having a psychotic... Even if I didn't think I had a heart attack, I'd just be like, well, I guess the best case scenario is I had a panic attack. And I was just like, oh, you spend the next 10 years going like, I need to keep an eye on my mental health and maybe I should go and have two psychotics. What is the benefit to telling him now? Is it just to stop her feeling the weight of the guilt?

I mean, she might think in some distant way that he'll find it amusing. Yeah, but I mean, his health seems to be better because he thinks it did happen. Yeah. So actually there are some ways in which it's better for him that you don't tell him. Well, I don't think if you told him

he would then stop doing things that are really unhealthy. He'd eat some cheeseburgers and he'd die. Oh, he might go full midlife crisis then. Might do though, yeah, yeah. So really, what is the reason to do it? It's just for her, isn't it? Yeah, it's for her but it's about feeling that you've always been

totally honest with your next of kin. So is that just for her? I mean, once he knows that this deception's been going on for 20 years, he'll probably ultimately be somewhat glad that he knows. But his wife's complicit. Yeah, that's true. Or his wife at the time don't know if they're still together maybe the secrecy tore them apart i mean the positive spin on this is you've you've i mean i know he's anti drugs anyway but you've definitely made it so that he wouldn't be tempted now maybe he would

retroactively realize he had a great time on it and want to revisit well if you have a similar experience of accidentally getting your parents stoned please tell us please there was someone who wrote in a little while ago where her mum wanted to get stoned and she was like should i supply my mum should i be a dealer for my mum but i don't think we've had spiking parents before so it's good isn't it to have the variety even after all this time i enjoy this email very much i enjoy these weird little family dilemmas yeah 20 years 20 years of secrets if you can shed light on this at all then all our contact details as ever are listed on our website

answer me this podcast.com and use them to send us a question as well yes and on our website we link to our twitter and facebook so you can befriend us there yes and to the answer me this store where you can buy our first 200 episodes. Now, in the back catalogue is episode 190 which featured guest John Ronson. And when I saw him at TED, he said, there's an anecdote I told on there that I've never told anywhere else.

Which one was it? Pocahontas. That's a good story. It's a good story. Yeah, and so I thoroughly recommend that episode. It's great. It is a great episode. It is a treat. And Yeah. And so I thoroughly recommend that episode. It's great. It is a great episode. It is a treat.

And we'll be back with a retro episode of Answer Me This the middle of this month and a fresh new one on the first Thursday of July. And if you fancy giving us some money, we wouldn't say no. Paypal.me slash Answer Me This. It'd be rude to say no. It would.

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