Answer Me This! - AMT357: Band Aid, Home Alone 2 and Self-Love in Someone Else's House

Episode Date: December 7, 2017

Where does all the money go from the Band Aid song? When you're someone's house guest, how long before you can have a wank? And what's a penguin doing in a nativity scene? The answers to all these mysteries are in AMT357. Find out more about this episode at http://answermethispodcast.com/episode357. Send us questions for future episodes: email [e-mail], call 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis. Tweet us http://twitter.com/helenandolly Facebook http://facebook.com/answermethis Subscribe on iTunes http://iTunes.com/AnswerMeThis Buy old episodes, albums and our Best Of compilations at http://answermethisstore.com Hear Helen Zaltzman's podcast The Allusionist at http://theallusionist.org, Olly Mann's The Modern Mann at http://modernmann.co.uk, and Martin Austwick's Song By Song at http://songbysongpodcast.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is Santa's workshop insured against melting ice caps? Answer me this, answer me this Can you say to a baker, you've got really nice paps? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Ollie, answer me this The world has many severe problems, so let's talk about the most trivial non-problem that anyone has ever contended with. Oh, I could write a book of those. No, this one is honestly the least problematic problem anyone has had.

Has someone written in with this because you're demeaning them? No, this is mine. You've got your own problem. My own. I remember a few months ago on this show, I talked about why I did not want to get verified on Twitter. I do remember that conversation, yes. And I disagree with you because I'm verified and it's great.

I still disagree with you, Ollie. And I still agree with myself. Because one day, without me having requested it, my Helen Zaltzman account and my Illusionist Show account both suddenly became verified. Wow. Yeah. You were verified against your will.

Against my will. And I thought, firstly, what would the Answer Me This listeners think? They're going to think I'm a hypocrite. They're going to think I didn't mean it. And all I wanted was that blue tick glory, which I didn't. But I thought when I had those ticks, what if it turns me? What if I go against everything I said?

But it didn't. And in fact, it was worse than I thought, because as well as all the crap that you talked about, about having this like secret celebrity hangout VIP thing that I didn't want. Also, I suddenly got loads of followers who are venture capitalists who follow and are followed by a quarter of a million people this explains why people who are verified have a lot of followers because you suddenly get followed by all the people that are just trying to get loads and loads of followers yeah but it's all empty following and also i was followed by a lot of bots and i had to figure out how to unverify

myself oh wow no one ever asks for that so how do you get unverified you change your handle and then you're unverified and then you change it back so that's what i did too briefly i just took a letter out crisis over i've just been followed by katie price wow yeah i don't know why i don't know what about my career in any way appealed to her we both have children called harvey that is the only thing we have in common probably Probably it. We're both white. Does she follow all the white people, though? No, she doesn't. There's only about 1,700 people.

Well, that could be all the people that have had a son named Harvey in the last 15 years. It's quite exciting to think that I could theoretically DM Katie Price, but I just don't know what I'd say. We have a question of Christmas from Anna, who says, This morning I went to an exhibition of nativity scenes from around the world. That would be quite interesting, This morning I went to an exhibition of nativity scenes from around the world. Hmm. That would be quite interesting actually.

I think so. Like when you see chess sets from around the world. Yes, exactly. It's one of those things that is greater than the sum of its parts. She says, We didn't see any figures taking a shit. Oh. Remind us what she means. When I was in Spain in 2000, just before Christmas, they had whole market stalls selling

different little figures taking a shit or having a piss and you're supposed to sneak them into your nativity scene for fun right and that's different to the catalonian shitting log which we discussed a few years they just love shitting things at christmas okay this is the shitting things at christmas section for this year and she says uh we did notice that in a number of the scenes, especially the ones from Central America, the three wise men didn't bring gold, frankincense and myrrh. Instead, they appeared to have brought poultry. Well, Christmas, you eat a lot of poultry.

It's practical. Because baby can't eat it, can it? But it's better to bring a gift for the parents, isn't it, usually? Yeah, well, the wise men may have arrived up to two years after Jesus' birth, so by that point it would be on solids. Oh.

Carry on. She says that it looked like they were bringing a cockerel, a goose, and in one of the nativities, something that I can only describe as a penguin. Is that the Antarctic nativity scene? I suppose so. That'd be cool. She says, gold, frankincense and myrrh always struck me as odd gifts for a newborn anyway.

So Helen answered me this. Do the Central Americans have a different nativity story where the baby Jesus gets some birds? Well the story is quite flexible because in the Gospels it's only in two of them for a start it's only in Matthew and Luke and they kind of report different things

so Luke talks about the shepherds but not the wise men and Matthew talks about the wise men but not the shepherds but not the wise men and Matthew talks about the wise men but not the shepherds it's fair enough isn't it because like the main thing they're recording is Jesus son of God was born there was a star yeah that's the big stuff what people brought who visited yeah do you remember who visited after Harvey was born no exactly yeah who sent the muffin basket doesn't matter well how are you gonna do the thank you cards if you don't know who brought them up well that's why you have to do it quickly

yes right and I do remember who brought me the muffin basket it was LBC then they fired me oh not nice and Matthew

doesn't even mention the number of wise men I'm going to call them wise men just for convenience kings magi whatever

doesn't say the number just mentions the gold frankincense and myrrh so people infer that there were

three people because there are three gifts. Could have been fuck loads. It could have been 20 wise men. Could have been one. Splitting the three gifts or one person that's very generous. Yeah, absolutely.

So there's lots of room for different interpretations. Which is not indicated by the word gospel. And there's a lot of different symbolism that is worked into it. So the gifts themselves are symbolic of Jesus's life, death and resurrection. They're all gifts you would give to royalty. They're not popular now. And I know we've discussed that before, but in all seriousness, I'm surprised that like Debenhams...

Don't do... Doesn't do like a... Myrrh flavoured baby balm. Well, yeah, no, actually just like for the granny who's vaguely religious and you don't know what to get her, instead of a packet of Quality Street, £9.99, gold leaf, little jar of frankincense and some myrrh. Well, I think because myrrh was used in funerals, that was to symbolise Jesus's death. So that would be a bit of a morbid gift to give to a baby.

But also these were gifts for kings and not everyone has a baby king. So that's what Debenhams doesn't want to get on board with. Maybe. It knows that its core market is not people giving baby gifts to kings. That is true. But I suppose what I'm saying is they would sell an Emma Bridgewater teapot that had gold, frankincense and metal written on it at Christmas time. So why not sell the real thing?

That's all I'm saying. So the gifts are symbolic, but also often the three wise men are symbolic. So sometimes they're symbolized as being the different ages of adult man. So 20, 40 and 60. They're sometimes symbolized being from the different ages of adult man so 20 40 and 60 they're sometimes symbolized being from the different parts of the world that they knew about at the times there's an asian one an african one usually from ethiopia and a middle eastern one i think this is probably quite a caucasian centric view of the nativity because otherwise the middle eastern one would be local right yeah and then the animals have a symbolic value as well so

there's pretty much always an ox and an ass yeah calm yourself the ox is a symbol of patience and strength and it and the donkey i'm gonna say donkey breathed on jesus to keep the baby warm what symbolizing new life it's warm there anyway in bethlehem i mean maybe at night it gets a bit cold but having an ass breathe on you is not going to help so you usually have an ox and an ass in the scene sometimes also you get the sheep because you put the shepherds in and then sometimes the wise men ride in on different animals horses or camels or elephants sometimes the wise men ride in on a chicken why not they've struck one to each foot and then sometimes there's a cat sometimes there's a lion right sometimes there's a cat sometimes there's

a lion right sometimes there's a dog symbolizes loyalty i read that in the korean nativity scenes they put a magpie in okay um so maybe that's the significance of that magpies like gold don't they they love shiny so maybe they came after the wise man's gold so she said that one of them had a cockerel cockerel is often there because uh legend said that the cockerel crowed at midnight to announce the arrival of the Messiah and thus is a symbol of vigilance and watchfulness and of renewal and the resurrection of Christ.

Wow! Imagine getting a symbol of your own resurrection just moments after you've been born. I wouldn't be ready for it. I would not, even as the parent. It's not the news you want to hear at that moment, is it? I mean, it's very nice he's not just going to straightforwardly die, but I don't want to know he's going to be born again. He's just been born.

She says they also brought a goose. I think maybe the goose was a large dove, because there's often a dove in the nativity scene. It represents purity and peace and the human soul or the Holy Ghost. How are you going to confuse a dove and a goose? Big white birds. Nativity scene figures tend to be small, Martin. It might be hard to make a really small dove.

So you might have to make a bigger dove, and it looks a bit like a goose proportionally right yeah and then the next the next one okay well sometimes there's a swan and the swan is sort of a protective spirit so she may have seen like a fucking zoo isn't it i don't have any cleanliness there's a baby there is this noah's ark or the nativity and then you've got this really left field bird which might have been a peacock because they often have peacocks in nativities because they signify immortality and resurrection because they used to think that peacock's flesh did not decay and therefore they symbolized Christ.

And also the peacock's eyes on its tail represent the all-seeing church or the omniscient God. So take your pick. It's impressive the amount of symbolism in there, actually. think if you're not religious which i'm not and if you haven't read the new testament in great detail which i haven't i just sort of assume that some of it's a bit like a fairy story that people choose to believe rather than every single element has been i don't want to get into the theological debate about you know designed or you know had been decreed but in any case has been chosen tailored to create symbolism yeah so to create interpretation and discussion oh they really put the effort in yeah but it's just it makes it in a

way less authentic doesn't it because you're like well why is this why is a symbolic animal there like this actually happened i think what it does is it kind of covers their back so if you can't interpret it as literal history you can interpret it as allegory and therefore it works whether it's true or not so she might have seen a peacock a peacock, a cockerel and a dove but probably not a penguin

unless she saw the Korean one with the magpie which is also black on my bird you just said penguin well done I'm sorry I don't mean to celebrate your conformity but get fucked i've never heard you say it before i've also had a nice look at different countries nativity sets on google images and some of them are pretty cool but they're also playing around with the convention so the arctic one has an igloo and a polar bear a zulu land one had zebras and giraffes

so there's room for fun alongside the interpretive bird language symbolism thing that um they might be playing with i'll tell you what it makes the school nativity costumes a bit more fun doesn't it well if you can turn up as a peacock yeah exactly just re-suck your halloween costume basically you know why you dress as freddy krue Well, it's an interpretation. It's an interpretation of the slaughter of the innocents. Actually, that works. It does, yeah. This shit's easy. Here's a question from Katie, who says,

Ollie, answer me this. What is this new old-fashioned way that people are dancing in, as mentioned in the lyrics of Jingle Bell Rock? What on earth kind of dancing are they talking about? It sounds so specific and great. That's not Jingle Bell Rock. That's Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.

Yeah. Very similar. I can see how they are very similar. You can easily conflate them if you start singing one. Rocking around the Christmas tree. The Christmas party hop. That's the Jingle Bell Rock. Yeah, I suppose you kind of can.

But anyway, Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. That's what she means, isn't it? New old-fashioned. Is it just that everything new at some point becomes old-fashioned, which means the current old-fashioned thing might be the new old-fashioned thing? You know, like there's a new retro trend rather than one of the old retro trends. Well, I think it's a rock and roll song, isn't it? So isn't it an older person saying, like,

oh, these kids think they invented rock and roll, but we were doing this years ago? No, it isn't that. Because it was sung by Brenda Lee and she was 13 in 1957. Whoa! So it definitely isn't an older person. But did she write it? She didn't write it. Probably an old white guy.

Sure, but I still don't think it was... I think the opposite, actually. I think what it's saying is, this is a Christmas song. We know it's a Christmas song and Christmas is a time full of nostalgia and looking back and history. And in fact, the lyrics have sentimentality in them, don't they? You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear. So it's signposting.

We're doing a bit of a retro thing here. We're doing a Christmas song. But, hey kids, we're teenagers. We're doing it rock style-y. So it's the new old-fashioned way. So we're doing a new take on an old-fashioned trend. So we're flipping the tables on Christmas. We're cooler than Bing Crosby. That's basically what she means.

Whereas I don't associate Christmas with dancing. I think if the lyrics were truthful, it would be, Everyone sitting very full and farting all the day. I don't dance on Christmas Day, it's true. You're usually covering for someone's radio show on Christmas Day. I'm usually doing a phone-in about you kip but i don't think you have to relate to every part of the lyric i know because there's the pumpkin pie lyric as well and that's not a comestible britsy christmas it's not a british song i admit yet that has not stopped its progress in this

country well i think because uh mel smith and kim wilde's cover that's a banger yeah that's lovely uh you're being ironic oh it's a it's a reallyanger. Yeah. That's lovely. You're being ironic. It's a really fun song. It's shit, isn't it? No, it's not worse than the original. It is worse than the original. It's not worse than the original. I don't think anyone's topped the Brenda Lee version.

Can we do a Twitter poll on this? No, can I just, for the record, no one's topped the Brenda Lee version of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. I mean, you can, I get what you're doing. You're sort of ironising and like, oh, Mel and Kim, that was funny.

It was shit. It's a novelty song. No, it was shit. Yeah, it was shit in the first place. Okay, the things are not mutually Kim that was funny it was shit it's a novelty song no it was shit yeah it's a novelty it was shit in the first place okay the things are not mutually exclusive you're right it was both a

novelty song and it was shit but it was shit that's the only writing thing it's Christmas please don't fight this is like the video I won't have it put it to listeners let's find

out what they think definitive version Brenda Lee Mel Smith and Kim Wilde I'm sure anyone is a comic titan anyone listening to this under 25, we're just like having...

Oh, God, yeah. We're like choosing between Gladstone and Israel. It was probably the song that was playing while you were being born. I've got a question. Email your question.

To answer me this podcast at googlemail.com To answer me this podcast at googlemail.com To answer me this podcast at googlemail.com To answer me this podcast at googlemail.com Here's a question. So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's round 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. From Tom in Derby, who says, Helen, answer me this. How and when did they film Home Alone 2's New York street scenes?

In the streets of New York. In Elf and Love Actually, none of the cast appear in establishing shots so that they can film the cast in the summer and insert christmas shots home alone 2 however literally shows macaulay at rockefeller was this a giant set or did they film a full year in advance well they really filmed it i don't think it was a full year in advance i couldn't get the exact dates of when they filmed the rockefeller center but i know that the pigeon attack sequence not seen home alone 2 um well if you haven't seen it it's the last hour of the film everyone gets killed everyone gets mauled by pigeons it's the bit where macaulay culkin plays tippy hedrin it's harrowing anyway

the pigeon attack sequence whatever that is was filmed on march 25th 1992 and the film was released in november 1992 so i'm assuming that the film was mostly filmed in early 1992 yes I think that's right so I mean I have seen the film the pigeon attack sequence is in Central Park so all they would have had to have done is put some fake snow down well they they got a load of fake snow ready and then there was a blizzard so they wasted all that money what are you gonna do so I imagine yes that if they were filming Central Park in March then why wouldn't they be filming Macaulay at Rockefeller Centre the Christmas before? Also, he ain't getting any younger.

Oh, so you've got to rush it out before he hits puberty. You know, and they'd need that shot for the publicity as well. Get him looking as childish as possible. And it was so cold, in fact, that some of the cameras froze during production. Good fact. Thank you. Someone's been on IMDb. They have. There's a lot of trivia about Home Alone 2.

I think, secretly, it might be a better film than Home Alone. Oh. Obviously, Home Alone's better as a complete piece of entertainment because Home Alone 2 stretches plausibility even in the sort of comic book way it's framed. It's got a bigger landscape upon which to do it as well. Yeah, well, you just wouldn't lose your eight-year-old child twice. It just wouldn't happen.

Maybe they really just wanted to lose him. The subplot is they actually wanted him dead um but in many ways it's better because unlike with most films when there's a sequel and the budget's bigger and the ambition is bigger and it loses some of its integrity with home alone because the budget's bigger the slapstick's better like right you know they don't just fall through a building they fall off a skyscraper do you know what i mean it's like big and the skyscraper is the rockefeller center i actually i've made that up but it's that kind of thing i see it's it's pretty full like the the bit you watch home alone four and i don't mean the film home alone four which is obviously i mean the reason they made four i think they made six is it when macaulay culkin is is an adult

doesn't want to be an actor anymore he's like i'm home alone and it's fine i don't need a parent or guardian he has wisely managed to stay out of all of the remakes even like a nostalgic cameo so well done him he's got his band the reason you watch Home Alone is for the slapstick sequence and I'd argue

that's better in Home Alone 2 plus Tim Curry's in it is he? yeah and it's good Tim Curry not like weird family film Tim Curry

the only thing that's a bit suspect about it is they have all the same ingredients as the plot in the first one which is fine when it comes to the burglars, because that's what you want. Yeah.

But the pigeon thing... Who's getting attacked by pigeons? So he sort of does, but he doesn't really. Macaulay? Yeah, sort of. Does he outrun them? Basically, there's a weird pigeon lady. See, you've already got it, right?

So she's in Central Park. She's exactly like the weird snow shoveling guy in the first one. Okay. And so it's exactly the same moral. She saves his bacon at the end of the film. She turns out to be a really good woman who's had a really hard life and now she's homeless. But it's like, we've seen that.

I mean, if you're going to learn anything from the first experience of being home alone and not judging a book by its cover, then don't think that the scary woman is scary. What does the weird snow shovel guy do in the first one? He saves the day with his snow shovel. I don't remember the film, but that seems like quite a stretch to save the day with a snow shovel. But the point is, learn your fucking lesson.

Don't judge by appearances. That is the only moral of the first one. Maybe the lesson is eight-year-olds just don't learn that quickly. They need a couple of repetitions. They need the message reinforced. Hammer it into them. It's like in Pitch Perfect where there's a scene where someone pukes and then everyone else pukes and falls over in the puke. And then the second one,

there's like Matt's diarrhea. What are they going to do in the third one? Like everyone's going to drown in their own piss. Both at once. That was effectively what happened in American Pie,

I think. American Pie, boy fucks a pie. American Pie 2, boy gets caught masturbating publicly. Up an apple tree? Yes.

It was basically that. I've heard apple trees are just like a woman's fudge. And then American Pie 3, boy fucks a pie but gets caught publicly and his pubes go on the cake. Because it's in grapes.

I was just like, that wouldn't happen. Again, even within its own universe, that stretches plausibility. You're assuming that people are supposed to learn and you're not assuming

that they're serial offenders. Sure. Yeah. I guess that's it. Can people change? That's what all these films are asking. Evidently not. Evidently not. People are irredeemable. I know that my baby is the absolute best. I put Facebook photos up daily and my friends

are impressed. Apart from ones who block me because they're jealous. Because their babies are so ugly well why not build a gallery of your kid on squarespace with special pages for its cute feet and cute hands and cute face so my facebook feed won't have your kid all over the place he looks like a scrotum thank you squarespace for sponsoring this episode of answer me this this year of answer me this looks like a scrotum. Thank you, Squarespace, for sponsoring this episode

of Answer Me This. This year of Answer Me This, indeed. You have really kept this boat afloat. Squarespace are a constant companion to podcasts and to you listeners if you want to design

and host a website. Yeah, but if designing a website sounds a bit like, I don't want to do that, I don't know how to do that. Oh, I'm scared. Don't be scared. Leave me alone.

Stop telling me to design things. I'm just a guy who runs a cafe. That's fine. Is your menu online? Is it? Is it? Get it online. It's so easy with Squarespace.

It's so easy. They make you feel like a designer, even though you're still technically useless. You're still a barista. All you're doing is clicking. That's all you're doing. Yeah. You don't even have to photocopy your menu

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Or if you want to do a podcast or have a portfolio up of your art. Yeah. Or sell the trinkets that you make, the Christmas ornaments you make out of your own shed hair. Or have a music page, palebirdmusic.com. And whatever you choose to build, you get a two-week free trial by going to squarespace.com. Yes, and then if you want to purchase a website or domain, then you get a 10% discount if you use the code ANSWER.

Here's a question from Levi in Edmonton, Canada, who says, Ollie, answer me this. Why is it that some people, like my mother, despise photos of family members eating, while others, like my father, will take countless photos at extended family dinners and seem to think they are good portraits should i avoid said photos of my own gatherings well do you have to like make hard and fast rules about this to answer your first question i think it might be that your mother despises photos of your family members eating because that's all your father incessantly takes i mean if that's his favorite kind of portrait you would hate it wouldn't you

i was thinking it could be a generational thing because my grandmother had a lot of eating rules that i think people who are younger than her didn't and i think she would have found photos of people eating to be a bit vulgar yes but then levi's father who presumably is of at least of a generation above levi as is his mother seems comfortable comfortable with it. What were her eating rules? Oh, don't eat in the street for a start. I think that was a pretty common one. That's a common one that that's our generation that ruined that. Don't talk with your mouth full.

Always. Elbows on the table, was she into that? Yeah, I think it probably depended on the kind of food. Finger sandwiches, fine. But also taking a picture back in her day would have involved, you know. Expense. Exactly. Expense, set up, a a flash gun no one looks good

while eating so save the picture until another time ed milliband bacon sandwich i think you're forgetting about but i feel like i've got this sort of strong visual of what these pictures like in my mind when it's a table full of people you can't see everyone because someone is always stretching to let someone else interview and thus inadvertently blocking the face of someone else you don't get a good view of anybody i suppose you do get the atmosphere of the scene. It depends. I mean, we're at that time of year now where I think about, you know, the festive portraits.

And aside from three-year-olds opening Christmas presents with delight across their faces, I think my favourite Christmas pictures are the ones of the whole family round the table. There's something, you know, symbolic about that. It's all the details that you, at the time, you complete. I mean, it's all photos, I think. It's the things that you take for granted and don't care about at the time and then you look back and go but that dress that my grandmother wore that i

used to wear that all the time and you just you know those are the things that like a gothic female yeah that's true i come from a family where we don't really have photos of family occasions of any kind is that because your dad turned them into sculptures instead? No, that would have taken... He might still be working on them, but no. Somewhere in his cupboard, there's one of young Helen Zaltzman reaching for a gherkin. I think we just didn't take pictures of people.

And even though now we have smartphones, we still don't take pictures of the family having meals. My favourite family portraits of those, because my family are very different and took pictures all the time of us eating, were my grandfather's my mother's father's photos which he double exposed uh so it was half of a skiing holiday to banff and half of uh people eating in stanmore wow so you'd have like my aunt sitting in the garden tucking into a cucumber sandwich in june and behind her a bloke on skis waiting to do to go up the mountain. Did he do it deliberately? No, no, no.

As it wasn't like an art project? No, but some of them were spectacular. There was one, in fact, where my grandfather and grandmother are standing in their front room of their masonette in Stanmore and out the window is Whistler Mountain. I mean, it's extraordinary. It's lined up perfectly, so it looks like the view. So, Levi, I think maybe you should take photos, but think of an imaginative way to splice them with something else. You're in Canada already,ative way to splice them with something else. You're in Canada already, so you could splice them with photos of Banff easier than some other people could. Do you know what?

I think the thing that's happened actually recently is that people have started taking pictures of their food because that trend's better on social media than the people eating the food. And that's a shame, isn't it? You know, our grandchildren are going to look back and all they'll see is... Eggs Benedict. Pulled pork, yeah. Pulled pork, not photogenic. Not who ate ate the pulled pork but then no one looks good eating so you are sparing people

that displeasure but then refried beans don't look good in any context of people taking pictures of those that looks like a filled nappy uh here's another question of food it's from betty in london who says i'm currently eating some dates congratulations that's brilliant isn't it it's the small thing sometimes this is like the podcast version of a food photo. These dates are I don't even know how to pronounce it. Deglet Noir. Is that it? Deglet Noir? It could be. Deglet Noir? I don't know.

My French isn't great. I've got to dig. It's spelled Deglet Noir. Yeah, Deglet Noir. They are not the posher medjool variety. On the side of the packet, they are described as, quote, glove box Deglet Noir dates. The packaging also states that they should be kept refrigerated. on the side of the packet they are described as quote glove box deglet nor dates the packaging also states that they should be kept refrigerated so i clearly can't keep them in my glove box for on the move day and snacking how many people keep gloves in their glove box now anyway apart from

killers i suppose the issue is that cars used to be very very cold whereas now they heat up quicker and also they have windows and roofs yeah so you don't need special gloves for driving in the way that you used to. And glove storage. I remember my dad having driving gloves and a steering wheel cover when I was a kid. Oh, wow. He was really dibble-bagging that. Was the steering wheel cover to keep your hands warm as well?

I always assumed both were about grip rather than comfort. Anyway, Betty says, Helen, answer me this. Why is there a reference to glove boxes on dates? Well, I really tried. Harder than you'll ever truly know, listeners. betty says helen answer me this why is there a reference to glove boxes on dates well i really tried harder than you'll ever truly know listeners the number of 60 page pdfs about the date industry that i plowed through right to try to find out why this particular kind of date is packed in this long slender box that is called a glove box date and i mean is it that it fits in a car glove box i'm

not sure it's to do with car glove boxes at all actually is it roughly the same size as a box you would put a pair of gloves i think that's what it is i think this kind of packing originated in marseille where i think they're also called what marseillaise rather than glove boxes what the gump um and i think it was just these wooden boxes as they were packaged in there, now more likely plastic. Looked like the boxes gloves used to come in. So what was the distinction? The fact that they've got this sort of bevelled... They're long and slender

and the other dates came in square and round boxes. I don't actually know what a glove box looks like. Well, because you don't wear gloves, you don't buy gloves and you don't keep gloves. You're not a fancy lady of the 1920s, Martin. I mean, where do you keep your gloves, Mike? I just have a pair that are in each coat that I have. It's a lucky dip, really, when I put the coat on,

which pair of gloves are in there. Mine are in my scarves. Hi, Helen, Ollie and Martin, the sound man. This is Kate from Bristol. As a parent to a toddler, I spend a lot of time making and playing with Play-Doh. So answer me this. Was Play-Doh invented by a company

and then I make it myself? Was it something that people were always making at home and then a company came up with branding and sell it in shops? Well, Kate, you'll be pleased to know that Play-Doh started life as a product from a soap company called Kootol. Why will she be pleased to know that? And it was originally manufactured not as a toy, but to clean coal off of wallpaper that's what you're letting your children play with so that's great if you've given them a lump of coal to play with at christmas and then get them to clean up afterwards under the guise of fun uh but crucially it's not toxic don't worry it's fine um it is now a toy i think there's a lot of rules about how children's toys

have to be edible even if you're not supposed to eat them i always wondered about that because clearly you know if there are any three-year-olds listening, don't eat your Play-Doh. But you probably could, couldn't you? You could probably get away with eating like a good few mouthfuls before anything happened. I think it's pretty much inert, isn't it? You just poop it out the other end. Maybe get a bit mixed in with your regular vegetable matter. I mean, that's kind of amazing, isn't

it? Well, to have a table with luminescent trunks in it. Well, that too. But the fact that you can manufacture a children's toy that is neon-coloured and, you know, completely harmless. Passed from child to child in all their

fickle hand matter and nonetheless actually probably wouldn't kill them if they ate it. But this Play-Doh, I suppose it's like a flexible eraser then.

You rub it against the wall to get the coal dust off back in, what was it, the 1930s you said? Yes. And then washable vinyl wallpaper came out

and suddenly their whole business went to fuck town. But it's okay because the parent company, although they were very vulnerable at that stage of evolution, luckily within the company the wife of one of the employees was a nursery school teacher.

And she, as I suppose you did back then, because perhaps they didn't have many toys in the nursery had been bringing in the uh wallpaper cleaning product to her nursery class and allowing the children to play with it and she said they love it you should market this as a toy so it's like she was doing a consumer test yes exactly market research without being paid for that yeah and so she persuaded the the guys who were running the company to market it as a toy and she came up with the name play-doh and that's d-o-h isn't yeah which i've never really understood why but i would assume it's a brand yeah you can

copyright it whereas the word dough is more public domain and also more difficult for children to spell apparently the the guys who invented it when it was um designed for cleaning coal off wallpaper wanted to call the product Rainbow Modeling Compound. That's not fun. Compound's not a fun word. It's certainly less fun. I mean, it has got rainbow in it, which is fun. Yeah, but it starts off fun and gets less fun.

So by the end of the phrase, you don't want to play with it anymore. Exactly. Anyway, by 1958, they'd achieved $3 million worth of sales, been stocked in Macy's, advertised on TV, rest is history, da-da-da-da-da. I was wondering,

why is it that this creative toy, which appeals to children's imagination and has legacy going back decades, why has that not been made into a hipster movie? Like Lego. Oh no. Do you write that could be done? But answer is,

it is being done. Oh! Paul Feig is directing it. No! What? Or at least in the Wikipedia article has said that he might. If the money's right.

Exactly. Well, I just hope they remain true to the spirit of the toy, because if you actually buy Play-Doh now for your kids, if you get the premium pots, which cost about 40 quid for the latest sort of weird platform that they sit on to shape them on, you're supposed to take a picture on your smartphone. And then it's quite cool, I suppose.

It's just a bit sad that this is how all toys have to go now. You take a picture on your smartphone and then it's quite cool i suppose it's just a bit sad that this is how all toys have to go now you take a picture on your smartphone and then your creation plays in a video game app that's cool yeah kind of like an augmented reality kind of thing yeah but then your kids are just playing with their phones and not with the play-doh but i i bet that kate's right that people were making dough for their kids to play with before the play-doh coal eraser exists it's just flour water and oil and then varying degrees of salt or or colouring go on give us a recipe then right here's a recipe i think i've got it off the bbc website eight tablespoons of plain flour two tablespoons of table salt 60 milliliters of warm water food colouring one tablespoon of vegetable oil mix the flour and salt in a bowl mix together the water and food colouring

and oil separately and then mix them together with a spoon and knead The thing is... Keep it in the fridge for freshness. You know when you make hummus at home? Yep. It lasts two days, right? Like, first day quite nice. There's not as much preservative in it Yeah, exactly. Second day it just like

sticks to the bowl and goes crusty and there's a layer of oil on the top and that's when I put cling film on it and put it at the back of the fridge yeah wouldn't play-doh go like that like homemade play-doh it's not going to be like the stuff you buy in the shop that lasts for two years that's going to last for a day and then it's going to stink there are different recipes some where you cook it and i think maybe the cooking ones last a bit longer i think my favorite play-doh related thing was the controversy that it attracted in christmas 2014 uh when the company that makes play-doh related thing was the controversy that it attracted in Christmas 2014 when the company that makes Play-Doh

which is now Hasbro had to offer to replace a part. It was the Play-Doh cake mountain extruder tool because it looked exactly like a cock. It's extraordinary. You have to Google it. Google it now. Play-Doh cake mountain extruder tool. It looks

like a veiny circumcised cock with a head that the Play-Doh cake mountain extruder tool it looks like a veiny circumcised cock with a head that the play-doh comes out of at the top it's even like got sort of spirals around it like exactly and isn't that amazing how did that get manufactured no one noticed it's got a kind of pearlescent frenulum you know even if it's like made in china and you know culture is different it looks like a cock doesn't it under any it does look like a cock oh wow yeah

and there's a sort of a syringe mechanism going on as well want to make it jizz out the end it's got little balls it looks like a dildo doesn't it

now you want to watch the Play-Doh movie but it's got a weird sort of star shaped head so it's not quite anatomically accurate well they weren't aiming to make an anatomically

accurate penis, were they? How many social networks are you on? Be both friends the path you pawn MySpace, Ping and Google Buzz If you want to be our pal

go to this URL facebook facebook.com answer me this or twitter.com slash helen and dolly but please don't follow us in real life thanks very much to first direct for sponsoring this episode of answer me this yeah so if you bank with them then remember next time you use your first direct debit card or credit card to buy yourself a sandwich you'd be like those guys sponsoring podcast pretty cool eh those guys they not only help me buy this sandwich which is delicious i assume you've got great taste in sandwiches they helped us buy sandwiches exactly they also support the same podcast that i like yes well done them and they have the number one customer service in the uk they do yeah they won

an award which is best brand and money saving experts best bank for customer service that is a good effort wouldn't argue with the money saving expert that guy's great see him on lorraine i'm like yes i'm gonna switch my gas account now at firstdirect.com and also on the phone, you can get customer support 24-7. So you can call them anytime, day or night, and they will help you if you lose your credit card. Or you're just thinking, how can I fiddle things around so that my money is better protected? Benefiting me. Benefiting me more. Tell me all about a cash ISA.

That's what I want to talk about at three in the morning. They'll help you with that. Anyway, First Direct are sponsoring questions of finance on the show and this episode they have asked us this helen are you ready yeah with christmas approaching helen answer me this does giving actually make you feel better um yes uh it makes me feel richer for a start i think because for so many years i didn't have any money that being able to give money away really reinforced to me that I had some money now. But last year in particular,

the bit between Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, I found rather stressful and joyless. And when I was unable to sleep because of political misery, I would often just give away quite significant amounts of money to charity, I think, as a way of channeling my anxiety into something that wasn't entirely useless. It's interesting, you look at the studies on this, and there have been a few that show that people who spend money on others identify as happier than people who spend more on themselves. Yeah, I suppose because when you're spending money on yourself you might be trying to buy happiness you may have started

off in a more unhappy state than the other people anyway well possibly but it could just be that if you don't feel you need to buy stuff for yourself then you probably are happier anyway yeah you know people who buy lots of things for themselves they feel they need that to make up the hole in their life that they're not feeling happy yeah no this isn't necessarily about your income level but the other thing about what you need the other thing that i would do when i was trying to deal with this anxious miserable insomnia was spend a lot of time on the internet looking at different luggage and packing cubes and i think it was a way to think i could create order in a terrifying, uncontrollable world. And then I was like, but if you're thinking of buying a 400 quid suitcase,

then you can give a load of money to charity. Yeah, but if you then give the money to charity, you can't afford the 400 pound suitcase. Who needs a 400 quid suitcase? Didn't buy one, gave the money away. Right. Have you got a good suitcase now? Yeah, but it was like 100 quid. Okay, good.

All right. So long as you're happy. I mean, I would want the 400 pound suitcase, I'm being honest. Yeah, but i suppose it was my inclination to spend something to make myself feel better and i was like no i'll give it to the trussell trust do you ask each other what you want for christmas we don't we haven't done gifts for christmas or birthday no but do you do a gesture of something like what a finger up or something like that no i don't know i just mean um do you say happy christmas and kiss each other on christmas day yes right okay fine we say that every day fine well every day is like christmas when you're with hello what there's a family argument somebody's drunk someone's asleep i mean

my wife asked me this morning what i want for christmas and i wasn't prepared for the question but i knew what the answer was i just thought well i can't tell her the real answer is it a telescope no it's a it's a b Bose multi-rim sound system but I feel like although it's true that by its very definition that's a series of different individual speakers that link together so she could afford to buy me one or two she's not going to be buying me the whole set

so then it becomes like a crowdfunded Christmas present I'd be like you get me the one for the bathroom mum can get me the one for the sitting room and although that's sensible and practical it's not very romantic and I acknowledge not very personal even though it is actually what i personally want so i said oh i don't know let me have a think hello and i'll probably say a sweater and here's

another question of charity from shell who says now it's december the radio is wall-to-wall christmas songs it is in heavy rotation is the band-aid song feed the world which i'm happy about and you're probably not. I hate it. Yeah. I think we've discussed this before. I love that song. It's awful.

I think it's a great piece of pop songwriting. I think it's a bad piece of pop songwriting. No, I think, look, it's... I think it's a mediocre piece of pop songwriting. All right, well, we're representing all the views. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what we think about it. It's not what Shell is asking, is it good?

Shell is saying, this song was written 30 years ago for a charity. Yes. Ollie, answer me this. Does that charity still exist if not where does the money go from the song being played well it does still exist sort of but it's a trust not a charity right so what's the difference the difference is that the band-aid trust doesn't have a building or an employee it's basically just a bank account and then once a year they divvy up the money now between various different charities that are doing the kind of work that they were

doing in the first place. So it goes to organizations like Oxfam and WaterAid now and gets split between different charities so that they're not paying to duplicate administrative costs that those charities are already paying for. It still supports Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Eritrea, Somalia and Nigeria. And I've just been looking through their accounts. Thanks for the question, Shell. This is a fun half an hour on the Charities Commission website. How can you look at their accounts? Because their charity's all public.

You can see how much they've made. And last year they took in about £700,000. So I'm guessing that since there isn't any mainstream fundraising that they're doing at the moment, i.e. they haven't done a Band-Aid 34 yet or whatever it is. That's just from that single. It must just be from royalties, mustn't it? Or from sales of the DVD and stuff. there's was there an album from the live

show i don't know if there's an album but there's a dvd and you know if ever a clip of the concert gets shown on television presumably you get to pay because it's charity so you know no one's gonna skimp on paying that so yeah they still are making money every year and the government waves the vat on that as well, which is something that at the time, Bob Geldof very publicly challenged Margaret Thatcher to do. To begin with, the government was taking that. I think it was the first song that the government ever waved VAT on. And now, like any charity single,

it's just taken as a given that you won't get charged VAT. So I've often wondered how much a charity single actually makes. And the first one did legitimately raise a lot of money right 150 million pounds yeah which was a lot in 1985 and they're still making almost a million pounds a year even today yeah although that's from the subsequent versions as well although i can't imagine the pete waterman version is contributing much shame on you doesn't get much airplay these days does it which is a shame because it's got big fun in it who is the least credible artist you think in a band-aid single they've been four now wow i'd have to look at the list yeah i mean

i seem i'm gonna go right out there and say technotronic but i mean you can try and beat me if you like i seem to remember mid-year being part of the first one and he was one of the rotors he was big at the time but like he knows who he is now everyone knows he's like barry and george michael sure and you know bono well i guess it turned out, Ultravox were more of a pop act than a lasting legacy act. But I mean, he did write that song, which, as I say, I think is quite good. I know it's a bit patronising and flawed.

I know it does sometimes snow in Africa and Africa is a continent, not a country. And some people there are Christian and they celebrate Christmas in January. I know all of that. But still, I think it is catchy and I never turn it off. Wow.

Both Bedingfields were in the 2004 one. Yes. And Kat Deely. She's rarely providing vocals, is she? Is she hosting the vocal experience? Yeah, no, I think that was because Ant and Dec are in it as well, aren't they? Yes. I think that must have been some tie-in with their TV show of the time.

2004? Are they still performing together? Dido performed separately from a studio in melbourne why not i think you've really got to turn up for this because you've got to be in the big group photo yeah no but robbie williams was the first to mess with that wasn't he because in the first one boy george flew in from the states and got there at six o'clock famously after everyone else had recorded their bit put in the effort put in the effort whereas robbie did his down the line i guess technology makes that possible now,

but it's just not quite the same. Is it a charity single where everyone Skyped in a line? It sold over 3 million copies the first time round, which was later beaten by the Princess Diana Candle in the Wind tribute as the biggest selling single. But do you know which single it beat? What was the previous record? Do you know which single it beat? What was the previous record? Do you know which single it beat?

Bamey and Rhapsody? No, that's a good guess. It's too late for that. It's less credible than that. It would be something like Take On Me. No. 1984, the first one came out. Yeah, that sounds about right. So what was the biggest song before 1984? Biggest song of all time. There's no one quite like Grandma.

It was the biggest song of all time before that no one quite like grandma it was the biggest song of all time before that biggest selling signal in the uk is it michael jackson

no it's something that you just i mean the artist is very well known but the song really like no one's favorite is it like a

cilla black song or something you're you're close by association but for chorus you're really close now it is mccartney

is it wings yeah it's mull of kintyre yeah ohre yeah mull of kintyre was the biggest selling song before band-aid i can't even picture that song yeah isn't that astonishing yeah because like band-aid you know as shell points out is still on the radio every year albeit it's a christmas song so it's got that built in mull of kintyre i mean i work for magic i've never heard it's just never on is it i think though band-aid would also get played and played and played year on year because people feel virtuous playing it whereas some of

the more rubbish songs i think they feel okay with slipping them out of rotation i think based on solely musical merits this one wouldn't be an a-list christmas song but i'm prepared to go that far but if flying pickets was also a charity single that would get the airplay it deserves if Mariah Carey was a Christmas charity single that song would never ever be on the radio it would be played twice at the same time it would be the only song in the world it would be like a cult

it would be like we're living in 1984 and everyone every day has to hear All I Want For Christmas Is You twice that is how Mariah lives she seems okay with it it does make you think though doesn't it if Band-Aid on an annual basis is making £700,000

Mariah Carey is probably making a similar amount and she doesn't have to give it to charity. Does she have to pay a fair tier though? She does, yes, that's true. I mean, at least in the UK. Well, you've really cut her down to size. By 20%. I found a place where all true love lasts.

Hooray! At www.answermethispodcast.com Here's a question from Catherine from Boston. She says, Ollie, answer me this. If you're a guest at someone's home for multiple days, is it okay to masturbate in private at some point during your stay? Or is it unacceptable? Additionally, how many at some point during your stay or is it unacceptable additionally how many days into your visit does it become acceptable it's not good etiquette if

you're there for one night you should control yourself and if you're really horny she says multiple days she does i'm addressing her scale okay if equally if you're there for a whole year it's inevitable so it is right to say isn't it that there therefore must be an unspoken scale at work there is therefore a time at which it's no longer generally considered to be unacceptable and i personally would probably put that figure at about five days i wasn't saying 24 hours really well two yeah sure well depends, doesn't it? I mean... On what? Well, if you've prepared adequately, you should go into a guest situation without pent-up sexual desires.

You'd like to have a wank on the bus on the way there, just in case. On the doorstep while you're waiting for someone to answer the door. But not through the letterbox. Yes, exactly. You've learnt the hard way. Because that technically would be in their home

and that's not there. Yeah, sure. You should be able to prepare for that sort of event. Helen? You've often had guests staying in your home. I don't think about how much they're wanking in there into my yarn collection. I don't mind. I'm asking now.

I'll tell you how I played it at your house. Oh, no. Never on the sofa. Never. I occasionally slept on the sofa. Wow. Okay. Is that because you felt like you were in a public place we could walk in, even though you would be able to hear us coming

so we would have to come up the stairs? I don't even like to masturbate in my own sitting room. But I don't think you've ever stayed at our flat for more than about 36 hours, have you? That's true. So you've broken your own rule? I didn't say that. You implied it.

I certainly implied it, but I did not say it. So where did you do it? In the kitchen? At Martin's computer desk? In your bed. In our wardrobe. Whilst you were sleeping. I think that was Nick Vandercourt's strategy.

I'm happier not knowing with the guests. I don't mind. I wouldn't mind you working in our house. Well, I'll tell you what it is. It's things like, because a couple of times I shared some linen with your previous guests. You more than a couple. You hadn't changed the... So if I thought

that the previous guest had been masturbating into the sheets, that wouldn't be very nice for me and I wanted to return that favour. Into the sheets? Well, like, using them as a... They're in the sheets and they're masturbating.

Exactly. That's different, though. Yes, yes, I'm not saying that they deliberately ejaculate onto... Shot it into the sheets. No, I'm just saying that some of their bodily fluids may have made their way into the sheets.

You know, I never thought about this and if I had, I probably would have changed the guest sheets more. And you'd never use Airbnb. You know, we were staying in an Airbnb a few months ago. And during our stay, they changed the bed. Oh, yes. That was weird. You mean actually changed the actual bed?

She messaged me like an hour before saying, Oh, we're going to come in and we're going to take your bed and leave a different bed. Wow, now that's service. Even a five-star hotel, they just changed the sheets. I was like, couldn't you have waited until we'd left or done it before we arrived? What did they change it from and to?

They changed it from a bed into a different bed that was clearly not a new bed because it was chipped and the mattress had clearly been used. Do you think the previous Airbnb tenant had been murdered in their sleep? No, I think they probably just got given this bed, and they didn't have anywhere to put it, so they were like, we'll get rid of this slightly worse bed. But that doesn't help, they've still got a bed to dispose of.

Yeah, it was a load of rubbish. I wouldn't recommend it. I didn't leave a review on that Airbnb, which shows that. There was also the place where Martin turned a tap on and a spider fell out. Oh, God, yeah. It's really guppy. That's not their fault. Really? Well, no water came out. Right, oh, I see, and a spider fell out. Oh, God, yeah. It's really guppy. That's not their fault. Really?

Well, no water came out. Right, oh, I see, just a spider. It was one spider, not a perpetual stream of spiders. Otherwise I might have left a negative rating. But this is relevant to people staying at their family's house for Christmas. Yeah. Would you masturbate in your familial home? It's too cold.

You couldn't. I think the reason why it doesn't particularly bother me that people might have been doing it when they stayed in our spare room is that I wanted them to feel at home and relaxed

and there's just a lot of built up sexual tension in your house always it's because it's the next church just as soon as people walk in

it's like maybe they saw my fabric collection they're like that's a good fabric collection pretty horny Martin's microphones anyway

look at that big stiff one please do send us your questions for next year's answer me this yes we will return on the first thursday of january yes with your questions so supply them via email phone skype voice memos that you have sent via email and all of our contact details are on our website answer me this podcast.com so that is our last new episode for the year but as you know if you subscribe to the show on the podcast feed itself you do receive our little deposit every month of a retro trip through the archives there will still be one of those this year there's another one uh in a couple of weeks time so keep an eye on your feed for that and also do listen out for our other

audio projects to drown out the sound of other people throughout the festive period yes the modern man is my weekly magazine show about sex trends and amazing life stories uh this season we've had cabin crew confessions and a man who survived 36 hours lost at sea a lot of people at christmas would be like i envy that guy if you you want to hear that uh it's modern man with two n's dot co dot uk 36 hours there's a doris day film where she's been lost at sea for like 12 years yes and she still doesn't have roots growing into her dyed blonde hair when they find her this guy didn't have a boat or any food oh he got attacked by a shark fair enough yeah uh the illusionist is my podcast about language there are a couple of episodes at a time now actually there's one about what they used to call uh father christmas and how they send christmas cards with dead mice stapled to the front and there's one

about the term winterville that 90s festive fuck up yes strongly recommend okay interesting story that's at the illusionist.org and uh what more festive soundtrack to than the noises that come out of martin ostwick here yeah my band pale bird by band i mean mainly me uh has a new album it's called 10 things which aren't love you can get it on spotify itunes or palebird.bandcamp.com and if you want to buy us a christmas, there's nothing we'd love more than money. You can do that at paypal.me slash answer me this. Ho ho ho.

Thank you very much for joining us this year. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. The show would be nothing without you. 11 years old. Yeah. 11. He's ready for secondary school.

Absolutely outrageous. I know. See you next year. Bye!