Answer Me This! - AMT365: Sweet Caroline, Bible Minigolf and Beaver Bums

Episode Date: September 6, 2018

Which should you choose: working abroad, or romance at home? Dyson hairdryer, or a classic Duck'n'Dry? Vanilla pods, or beaver anuses? So many tricky decisions in AMT365! There's more about this episode at . Send us questions for future episodes: email words or voice memos to [e-mail]. 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 . 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 . Squarespace! Want to build a website? Go to , and get a 10% discount on your first purchase of a website or domain with the code 'answer'. The Bluffers' Guides are back! Rapidly become well-informed in subjects from cats to fishing to chocolate at . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

is a blimp in the sky the new toilet graffiti do you pronounce it warren baity or bt we have finally reached episode 365 one for every day of the year if anyone does try listening to an episode every day in 2019, let us know how it goes. Starting on January the 1st, power right the way through. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're going to have a great summer. I can't vouch for your spring. Patchy. January is, I mean, January is a rough month. January is a rough month, isn't it? Take what you can get. But it's nice to feel like we are with the listeners every day of your lives. So

remember Ryan from Melbourne who wrote to us a few episodes ago saying he was growing out his own hair. Should he turn it into a wig while he still has his youthful opulent mop? What was our general conclusion on that? No. But he says, apropos of my previous email about growing my hair out, I've been looking at upgrading my hairdryer. Ollie, answer me this. Does the Dyson hairdryer look worth it? Wow. That is an expensive hairdryer, Ollie, answer me this. Does the Dyson hairdryer look worth it? Wow.

That is an expensive hairdryer. It's like 300 pounds. It is. It isn't like 300 pounds. It is 300 pounds. So about 500 Australian dollars. Yeah. Although you can now pay an extra $100 US to get one with a gold face.

I know there's genuine engineering prowess at play, but that is a serious factor above what the top-end hair dryers used to be. They've got, what, 70 million worth of research and development to pay back hair dryer by hair dryer? Sure. It's a laudable way to run a commercial business to say we're going to find a completely unglamorous portion of the market in air convection and charge five times more than everyone else because we make it look a bit like an apple product i think it's clever because i mean listeners who are younger than us may not realize but in the past the bit where you dry your hands after taking a shit wasn't cool and then dyson came along and turned it into this thing that's like it's like a rapid toaster for your hands yeah well something the vacuum cleaner right so uh i admire them commercially but i i can't really genuinely

think that you're getting your money's worth put it this way if someone said um you can have a decent remington hair dryer which is worth about 40 quid and i'll give you 260 pounds i think i'd take the arm make dyson hair dryers are notorious for less arm make that's the appeal yeah the engines in the handle engines in the handle why is that less arm make because it's better balanced so the heavy bits lifting the yeah okay and also you're using it for less long because apparently it's so magnificently blow dry i mean i think it depends how bonded you are to your hair drying routine at the moment Ryan anyway. I'm not a hair dryer user. Nor I. So perhaps we are bad people to consult. And the other thing is personally I just feel I hit my hair dryer peak when I was about 10 because I had a duck and dry.

Oh wow. What's a duck and dry? It was it was I think the apex of 80s Cindy Lauper video style hair dryers really. It was it was a hair dryer apex of 80s cindy lauper video style hair dryers really it was it was a hair dryer like a cheap kid's hair dryer really but in the shape of a duck so you put it in the stand and the stand was its webbed feet and then the nozzle was a duck's beak ryan you could get yourself a duck hair dryer it'd probably be what 15 quid on ebay uh about 35 i think okay i mean that's cheaper and you'd have the joy of something that looks like a duck i wouldn't buy a secondhand hairdryer no i don't think i would because that like it's the heating element that will burn out and if it's 30 years old it might catch fire to

your house yeah still worth it to have a cool hairdryer though ryan huh this could bring them back like the film juno brought back burger phones totally like that here's a question from chris in hedge end southampton who says in the neil diamond song sweet caroline there is a lyric that has my group of friends split down the middle in the second i think it's a bridge neil appears to sing warm touching warm or is it one, touching one? Many lyric searches later, there is still a 50-50 split in our group. I really fail to see how there could possibly be that split. Because the many lyric searches I did are very consistent. Oh, now that's interesting because not in my case.

Oh, interesting. Okay. Maybe we've got different Googles. Maybe. So Helen, answer me this, which is it? Does is it does the first option warm touching warm even make any sense please settle this soon to be long running debate okay i think it's the second option one touching one but i think you could make sense of warm touching warm because you could think that that is a genitals reference couldn't you martin can i hear it in context because the line on it and

so it makes no sense sing it. Maybe just don't sing it. Sing it. So it's the bit just before the chorus, as the bridge is. Second chorus, the first time around, it's hands touching hands. The way he sings it is ambiguous, I agree with Chris. He doesn't clearly say one or warm. He kind of goes, one, touching one. Classic Lens singer.

Right, so then the context says, out touching you either makes a moderate amount of no sense either of them is about intimate touching isn't it yes exactly okay so you plump down on the side helen of one touching one because what what's your evidence uh because every different lyrics sheet that i saw and i did look at five uh said one okay so if you click google images i mean on my google because google is personalized isn't it yours goes for warmth and mine goes for impersonal pronouns when i type sweet into google it does prompt me potato fries the point is when you click google imagesages on my search of Sweet Caroline lyrics, you can see sheet music where it is written as Warm Touching Warm.

Is it official sheet music? Well, I would agree with you that probably as far as there is an official version, you know Google does that thing where they bring up the copyrighted lyrics and it says at the bottom, copyright Universal Music Publishing Group. On that version, it does say one touching one there you go but i do think the song is quite poetic uh as in it doesn't make a lot of sense the first lyric where it began i can't begin to knowing makes no bloody sense when you say it out loud so i think it could be warm touching warm because it's leading to the almost quasi-sexual climax, isn't it, of the chorus, which is one of those joyous choruses from popular music.

There is a frisson to it. And warm touching warm is that little bit sexier. I could imagine that actually the lyrics are warm touching warm, but perhaps in the 60s when they printed it in sheet music, they didn't want to write that because it was a bit racy. Do you think warm touching warm is really sexual? Well, it's not like vaginal fluid. It could be two people wetting themselves. Like, it's not a very... Of course, Martin.

But one touching one is the 50s version, isn't it? It's the safe version. Well, he wrote it in, what, 69, I think. Yeah. Which was quite a saucy time in the world. It's quite a sexual year. So I reckon he could have got away with... Got my first six string.

I don't think that's a particularly weird lyric in this song, as the song goes. So there is uh when I hurt hurting runs off my shoulder which just reminded me of when you dislocated your shoulder yeah that's what I was singing at go ape that time when I was hanging in there there there are two uh explanations Neil Diamond has given for how he wrote this song and the first is that he wrote it for the then 11 year old Caroline Kennedy which uh then puts a lot of the lyrics into question

what was the other explanation the other explanation which is a bit later he'd come up with this song and he needed a three-syllable name yeah that's more convincing and his wife at the time was called marcia which didn't fit lyrically so he just put the name caroline yeah but you could just put another syllable in somewhere else couldn't you instead of sweet you could have lovely mar Marsha Without stretching out love Fuck you, Marsha Soon to be my ex-wife

Do you know, my absolute nightmare round on Popmaster would be name three top ten songs by Neil Diamond I can't name one more Did you do Love on the Rocks? I did Sour Caroline Funny Caroline Savory Caroline I really like your Mommy Caroline Did he do Love on the Rocks? He did Sour Caroline, Funny Caroline and Savoury Caroline.

I really like your Mummy Caroline. Yeah, but not everyone can taste your Mummy Caroline. It's the Caroline that remains after all the other Carolines have left. What's astonishing is he had ten number one singles in America, none of which is Sweet Caroline. What are they? I don't know. It wasn't number one in England either.

Yeah, isn't it weird how the big hit that lasts forever afterwards none of which is Sweet Caroline. What are they? I don't know. It wasn't number one in England either. There's songs that I don't recognise the names of. Yeah, isn't it weird how the big hit that lasts forever afterwards isn't necessarily the one at the time that anyone remembers? It's like I discovered the other week that the number one album of all time in America, if you can call it an album, is The Best of the Eagles. Yeah, great story. No way! Do you not know that? Except, no, but this is the more extraordinary thing.

It doesn't have Hotel California on it. What? How's that possible? No. I don't believe that. If I had to name three, I mean, I could do it now, just. Take it easy. Take it easy.

Right, name another Eagle song, quick. What's that really sleazy one? Take it to the limit. Is that a different one? Yeah. Fine. There's a walking around for a baby i've got seven women oh that's taken you haven't won the mug on popmaster but yeah it's tough right it's not

as tough as neil diamond but it's tough popmaster is one of the toughest quizzes in the world it really is but i mean yeah but if they said name three songs off happy nation by asa base i'd be on home turf the point is you know i can't believe that i that that's the case the most popular like you'd think if the eagles have the best-selling album of all time and it's a great as hits, it would include their greatest hit, but it doesn't. Do you think a good proportion of those people that bought that Eagles album assumed it would have Hotel California on it? And they were really disappointed.

So take it easy as all right, but I really wanted Desperado. Desperado, that's a good Eagles song. Desperado. That's a real... You just said there's a good Eagles song. Desperado is a good Eagles... I mean, it's not a good version song. Desperado. You just said there's a good Eagles song. Desperado is a good Eagles. I mean, it's not a good version because the Eagles did it. Okay, so for listeners who aren't familiar with the Austwick canon,

I should say that he's basically a pop music snob. I don't discuss pop music with Martin in the same way a lot of people don't discuss Brexit and Trump. I don't want to get into this conversation. But are you going to tell me that Sweet Caroline is a piece of shit written by a hack? Because I'd feel physically ill if you say that. It's such a great song. It's a really great song to get pissed off and sing with your uncle at a wedding.

And that's difficult. You'd admit that's difficult to write a song that catchy and anthemic over five decades. If that's how you want to interpret what I just said. You can't admit that it's a good pop song. I mean, it's no Margaritaville, is it? But what is it that makes some songs drinking anthems like Sweet Caroline and Come on Eileen? Is it shoutability?

I think it's the fact that however pissed you are, if you're already literally on the floor, you can join in with... You can still do Angels by Robbie Williams. Here's a weird Neil Diamond fact. He played Woburn Abbey in the 70s and it was filmed

by William Friedkin. Is it a terrifying performance? Isn't that amazing? Where's Woburn Abbey? Where Woburn Safari Park is in the... I don't know

where Woburn Village is, Martin. It's in Bedfordshire. Right, okay. The director of The Exorcist and the French Connection filmed a Neil Diamond

concert in Woburn Abbey. That's not that weird. That is weird. No, it's not Scorsese. Well, the Woburn Abbey. That's not that weird. That is weird. No, it's not Scorsese. Well, the Woburn Abbey thing's a bit weird. But Scorsese filmed the band and Dylan and stuff, didn't he? Yeah, that's not weird. Because the Scorsese...

He was coming up Scorsese when he did that. But William Friedkin, I just... It seems strange to me that Neil Diamond would be credible in that way. That if you won an Oscar or got nominated for an Oscar for best film, then you'd go on to direct that. But then Morgan Spurlock did the One Direction movie, didn didn't he which i've heard is quite good it is quite good i've seen it i saw an airplane is that there's a nice bit where liam payne's mum shows you around his childhood home their house and in his bedroom she's got a cardboard cutout of liam payne that

she nicked out of hmv and she says you says, you know, sometimes we go up here and we just have a chat to lay them. Oh, that's so sweet. It is quite sweet, yeah. And yet, he probably wasn't her favourite member of One Direction. No offence. If you've got a question Then email your question

To want to be this podcast at googlemail.com To want to be this podcast at googlemail.com To want to be this podcast at googlemail.com. We want to be this podcast at googlemail.com. We want to be 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. Regular listeners of the show will know that we always pause at this point for Bible study. And in this episode, it comes thanks to Richard from Birmingham, who says, Helen, answer me this. If Noah did take two of all the living creatures onto the ark, how big would the ark actually have to be well according to reports

what like moses the ark was 300 cubits in length 50 cubits is a measurement from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger so it varies a bit it means that the actual dimensions of the ark slightly vary due to the variable length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, but is usually 15 to 18 inches. Okay, so how many cubits? 300 in length. So about 500 feet. 450 feet.

300 men's arms. 50 cubits in width, so 75 feet. 30 cubits in height, 45. Or 137 metres times 22.9 times 13.7. A third of the size of the titanic yeah it's not big enough is it well it's apparently big enough for 1300 shipping containers wow and big enough to fill a costco oh yeah yeah and some estimate that it's big enough for a hundred thousand square feet and that you could fit two million sheep in it comfortably i'm not sure i think

they might have been going on the cubic footage of the ark in which case you're stacking sheep high and that seems unfair we have decks three decks fairness didn't really come into it though did it i mean this was an era of animal sacrifice i mean they should be grateful for their survival really you know he probably didn't have animal welfare at his heart he just wanted to get him through it but also did he take every kind of every animal was he like i'm just going to take two cows that i like the look of not every kind of cow yeah we're about subspecies yeah what about subspecies well i presume biblical scholars have been debating this for centuries right from what i've read they really have so what is their answer to that so like when you say oh but there's 500 types of spider do they say he took every subspecies uh

no i think they don't and also they can't speculate on species that would have died out or species that have kind of developed since when this was but it wasn't that long ago in the life cycle of animal evolution was it that's the complication also animal evolution shut up it doesn't enter into these bible stories but i think they say like most mammals are quite small so you've got the elephants and the giraffes and stuff and they're always pictured like hanging over the top deck but most of them would be a sheep size or smaller so you could fit a lot in if you could play noah for the day helen we've all thought about this yeah which animal would you say i'm gonna let you drown like if you just actually i mean i know

you'd think sort of ethically, yeah, I've been asked by God, you know, I should probably do everyone. But like if you had the chance just to quietly kick a rhino overboard. No one likes wasps. Yeah, parasitic wasps. Yes, I think it would be some sort of flying insect. Is it a wasp or like a caterpillar that does that thing where it like spikes creatures' brains and then they kind of become like slaves?

Was that in the William Friedkin directed version of Neil Diamond's concert? That's at the Woburn Safari Park. If I had been Noah Olley, the problem would be this. God gave Noah 120 years warning of the flood. Did he? Yeah, so Noah could get on with building the boat. I would have just left it till the night before because you know what I'm like. You sure? Yeah.

I use the word boat there, but that's controversial in itself, isn't it? Is it? Well, I know that the type of wood is debated. Go for wood. And no one knows what that is. So they've guessed Cyprus because that is a good wood for not rotting in water. Isn't that mad? I mean, you'd think you'd reverse engineer it, wouldn't you?

If you were a religious person at some point over the past few hundred years, you'd say, aha, we've discovered this country. This grows near Israel. This must be go for wood but they haven't so was the idea do you think that noah cut down all the trees made of gopher to build the ark right and thus they were extinct because they were all dead on the ship it seems plausible to me in which case if it was his favorite kind of wood he should have brought some gopher seeds with him. Or, is it that like a lot of things in the Bible,

maybe the translation is problematic? That's what they think. Because Muslims think it's teak. That's a lovely word. Yeah, I mean, if I was Allah, I would request a boat made of teak. Why not? There's a lot. With gold handles. Do you think someone said, what are you going to make your boat out of? And Noah said,

I'm going to go for wood. And they misunderstood him. Go for wood? Wow invited jimmy talbuck in here thank you i'm here are we the ark was the longest wooden boat until the 19th century because the ark only really held together with these dimensions because it was god building it sure but it was built to the one to six ratio which apparently is the most stable for ocean going vessels meaning it would have had to tip 90 degrees in order to capsize okay one to six ratio talk me through that so like the length is six times the width which apparently ideal for a boat that's not gonna capsize because you know if you're interested in this you can go and tour a tourist attraction that is supposed to be a life model of

noah's ark where's that uh it is specifically in williamstown kentucky halfway between cincinnati and lexington and right off the i-75 according to the directions of the website um it's called ark encounter their ark is 510 feet long 85 feet wide and 51 feet high how many animals are on it uh no animals but they do have zip lines no animals then it's not the fucking ark experience is it well it's a museum about how the ark was created and how god did talk to noah with three zip lines with zip lines and the logistics of how that happened i was actually browsing on that yesterday on wikipedia and i stumbled across a page called searches for no's Ark and for a moment I genuinely thought hold on they didn't have Google in 353 and then I realized it was people looking for Noah's Ark itself. I stumbled

upon the list of unusual deaths on Wikipedia and that was a very absorbing half hours read I strongly recommend. What was the most exciting? Well I mean it starts off with someone getting smothered by hats thrown at him by an enthusiastic theatrical crowd and it just gets more intense. There's a guy who owns a woolen mill. He falls into a machine and gets swaddled by several hundred yards of wool. It's a really good page. But what I was going to say is when we were in,

I think it was either Kentucky or Indiana, and we had seen that there was a Bible-themed mini golf. And obviously I really wanted to go. And I was absolutely crushed that when we got there, it was shut. So we just peered through the fence and they had like an arc one. What else? They have Jonah and the whale. I'm guessing not a crucifixion. I couldn't see the full course, but that might have been...

Balls pop out of his mouth as a cow goes up the cross. You have to get them through the stigmata. Sure. Isn't it weird, though, that the pain of Jesus somehow is more immediate to Christians than the pain of Jewish ancestors is in the Old Testament to Jews? Do you know what I mean? You don't read about the plagues. I guess you read about Exodus and the slaves come from Egypt.

You're supposed to feel sympathetic. But it's a bit more fun, isn't it, the destruction of the people and the burning and the leprosy and stuff than the crucifixion is i think because it's god's son so you feel like a family affiliation don't do it to him mate yeah come on god seriously to the slaves i know you're a bit cruel to the carpenters i think also because jesus is so nice about it yes he is yeah i think crucifixion is quite rough as well it's i've heard don't get me wrong i'm not saying it's great i'm just saying drowning is also not a barrel of laughs. Being turned into a bit of salt.

Yeah. Some people also, of course, believe the location of the Ark is being suppressed by the Russian and American governments working together. Why would there be a conspiracy about that? Why is there a conspiracy that Avril Lavigne died years ago and was replaced by a lookalike called Melissa? I can't answer that. People love conspiracies.

It's all connected. But the suggestion, I guess, that you'd cover up the Avril Lavigne thing would be that perhaps, you know, music moguls could still be making money out of her. Yeah, but someone dying tragically young sells more records than virtually anybody. Absolutely, yeah.

Provably so. If anything, they missed a trick not killing Avril Lavigne yeah why does it have to be so complicated oh I'm an influencer

you want to be who I am you envy everything on my Instagram but it's all stock photos my life's a

total sham I can't even do yoga but I'm a real health expert i use squarespace all my photos and advice are all in the one place and i built a store so you can buy into my taste eight dollar smoothies thank you very much to squarespace for sponsoring this episode of answer me this yes thank you kindly sir we appreciate everything you do for us it's all of the genders a thing that squarespace have just introduced is shoppable posts on instagram hello so what that

is is you take a photo of a product that you're selling on your store and then you can tag it on instagram with a squarespace link so then people can then click through from instagram without leaving Instagram and buy something off your Squarespace site. That's good because Instagram doesn't normally let you put links in, does it? They do for Squarespace. They're special friends with Squarespace.

Oh, wow. If you have a store, but if you choose not to have a store, if you just choose to promote your personal brand, whatever that means, remember you can do that by building yourself a website. Or if you want to do things that sound less wanky than promoting a personal brand.

And you're like, I'm a photographer. I just want to show people my work. I just want people to see my photos and employ me if they fancy. I've got a podcast. I want it easy for people to find my show. Sure. I don't want to keep the same legacy website

I've had for 12 years. It was the best available at the time and then they couldn't bother to change it. Then all you need to do if you want to take out the free trial is visit squarespace.com slash answer. You can build build your website you can try squarespace's drag and drop tools and award-winning templates and then if you like it and you want to sign up for a year you can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using our code answer here's an email from sean

who lives in marlow in south buckinghamshire and is 47 years old. He says, there is a pub near me called the Three Horseshoes. As I drove past today, I wondered, why three? Horses generally have four legs. Well spotted, Sean. So Ollie, answer me this. Why are pubs called the Three Horseshoes? You are correct that horses normally do have four legs.

Generally, yes. Generally, yes. Generally, yes. The idea of the three horseshoes as a sign came about because blacksmiths used to use it as their kind of logo. So it's the equivalent of the barbershop spinny thing that we've talked about before for blacksmiths. Nonetheless, why not four? Why not a complete set? Because the idea is the farrier is working on one of them at the time the image is drawn. Right. So the horse has four legs, but one of them is being worked on at the moment by a blacksmith hence three so then that leads to the

question okay so did blacksmiths used to own pubs or something why would there be pubs for blacksmiths and the answer to that i think as far as i can work out although some people online do seem to believe that the worshipful company of farriers did own pubs at one stage they've been the uh sort of union for craft farriers since 1356 wow um some people think they did own pubs i don't think they did i think it's just that everybody used to drink so like a pub needed a usp because there was a pub every 100 meters along the street so there would be one that blacksmiths go to and those were the ones that became the three horseshoes also we've talked before about the evolution of pubs from essentially being people's living rooms.

So maybe the blacksmith was like, yeah, come in and while I anvil stuff, you can get pissed. Yeah. Could be the blacksmith's wife. Go on. Well, the blacksmith is doing the ironwork and the wife's brewing the beer. Tending bar. Yeah. Putting out peanuts.

That's quite a progressive view. I don't know if... Were women doing that in British pubs, do we think, in the 1300s? But then you could still call the pub the horseshoe. That's quite a progressive view. I don't know if... Were women doing that in British pubs, do we think, in the 1300s? But then you could still call the pub the horseshoe. And that would really bypass all these problems that are really plaguing, Sean. Then it's like the concept of horseshoes rather than an incomplete set of horseshoes. I mean, you could just call it for people what work on horses.

Booze house. But what's quite interesting when you look into it is all of these British pub names names which hadn't really thought about before all have these kinds of historic connections to the people who drank there so like the rose and crown that's an obvious one that's sort of the tudor rose and the monarchy you know so that's for your english patriot basically originally yeah um but then things like okay the black horse any ideas well it seems like it would be something to do with a black horse but is it a metaphor no it well sort of it's a legend it's a tribute to dick turpin's horse black bess so for the highwayman that one the white horse you will not guess is it like some drugs reference kind of it was the equine symbol of the house of hanover so when george the first became king and

he was elector of hanover publicans displayed that as if to say, all right, George, we're on your side. Tribute to you. I see. So I suppose that would be like when Prince Charles becomes king, everyone putting Welsh references into their pub names. So it's quite political. Or it's like when a pub has a lot of England flags around it, you know that there's a very particular political slant to being in that pub.

Here's something that I did not know. The Bull and Bush, you'll enjoy this one, is basically a play on words. Really? I remember there was a music hall

song that was like going to get drunk down at the old Bull and Bush. That's right, yeah. Come, come, come drink port wine with me down at the old

Bull and Bush. I could stop you, but I'm enjoying it. It's quite nice. I can't remember the rest. It's interesting, isn't it, to think whether Helen could have been a musical star back in the day. My voice is gone now.

What would your catchphrase be? Got surgical damage. That's not my catchphrase. The queen of surgical damage, Helen Zaltzman. Intubation scarred my vocal cords down at the old larynx. Anyway, the reason the musical song exists is because there are a lot of British pubs called the Bull and Bush. The reason there's a lot of British pubs called the Bull and Bush

is because it's from the British pronunciation, the mistaken pronunciation of Bullon Bush. There's a French port in Boulogne where Henry VIII was victorious in battle. What? So it's a tribute to Henry VIII, but people couldn't say Bullon. Well, I can't now even. think ballon exactly so they're trying to say uh ballon bush and it came out as bull and bush sounds a little bit abstract even so i read it in a book helen

this was internet research someone printed this my parents met at a club called the beggars bush there's a pub and it was a folk club and i never worked out why you'd call a pub the beggar's bush no i mean if that was a facebook group these days i definitely would not join hi helen and ollie and martin the sound guy this is katie from the coast salish territories is it true that artificial vanilla flavoring is made from a gland in a beaver's anus katie your delivery sounds like the beginning of an investigative journalism podcast, which is going to run for months. Just need some kooky music on that. I wonder whether this is more common in Canada due to the presence of beavers. And presumably not natural growing vanilla. Yeah, good point. Probably easier to access a beaver's

anal glands in Canada than vanilla growing. Wrong climate. I mean, look, basically I'm saying not WTF, because I know, and we've discussed it before, animal pheromones have played a part in fragrances that humans consume or put on their smells. Still do, yeah. But I would be surprised if the artificial vanilla flavouring that I now buy in Sainsbury's is made from a gland from a beaver's anus. Would that surprise be well placed?

Yes, because although castoreum, which is what this is called, is still used to flavour things, there's about 300 pounds of it produced a year. In the USA, if you compare the amount of beaver anus castoreum to vanilla pods, vanilla pods are doing about 100,000 times the business of the castoreum. Why is beaver anus so unpopular? Well, I think beaver anus is unpopular because it comes out of a beaver's anus. The thing is, it doesn't count as an artificial flavouring. So if you were looking for it in a list of ingredients it might not be listed with all the e-numbers because it's classified as natural so you might not even know if you have beaver anus in your food ah so classified as natural

but unsuitable for vegans but castoreum has been used for millennia as a substance not only for flavoring things because it has this sort of gentle, vanilla-y, slightly fruity fragrance, but also in perfumes, which I think is where most of it is still used. And also in medicine. So the ancient Romans thought that it could induce abortions and that it could be a treatment for epilepsy and as a painkiller. Wow. How would you find out that the anal gland excretions of a beaver would do all these things? Like if they'd hunted an animal and killed it,

I suppose every single bit of it, you're going to see what you can make out of it. Give those glands a bit of a squeeze. Give them a squeeze, see what it smells like, I suppose, is how that happened. Apparently it might also be used still in flavoring cigarettes and booze that in sweden there's a kind of schnapps that is called beaver shout wow because it has castoreum as a flavoring see they should put that as a warning on the cigarette package shouldn't they like you don't need blackened lungs you could just have like a beaver's arsehole this is what

you're smoking presumably beavers survive having their anal glands drained by flavorings hunters oh could you battery farm beavers just for their anal glands so you had to anesthetize beavers survive having their anal glands drained by flavorings hunters oh could you battery farm beavers just for their anal glands so you had to anesthetize beavers to extract it and then a human would have to milk their anus glands to get it out milk that's the verb that seems to be the verb used by beaver anus industry insiders but it was so expensive to get it like even though vanilla is expensive it was so expensive to sedate beavers and milk their anuses that yeah vanilla took over sure here's an email from michael who says i'm british but i live in wankheim germany get out of here it is a real place and i really live there michael has been binge listening to answer me this haven't we all

made he says uh i never really get tired of it well there was a point around the 220 mark where you seem to get touchy with the listeners and i took a break for only about three days okay i'll take your word for it uh sorry listeners michael says perhaps as a result of my answer me this binge euphoria slash delirium i've decided that a black metal style jingle would be a good idea oh sort of in the style of wolves in the throne room what's that Martin? Do you know what that is? No idea. No? It's a snob about Neil Diamond but he doesn't know his black metal either.

Michael recorded it himself playing and programming all the instruments in 24 hours. Wow. Thank you very much Michael for this black metal jingle. Thank you Michael. I'm looking forward to hearing this. The way my neck was down! I'm looking forward to hearing this of past and the world of art

Well, that really woke me up. It certainly did me. Thank you, Michael. I enjoyed it. Thank you, Michael. Thank you all the people of Wankhank

for supporting you in your journey. And thank you too to the folks at Bluffer's Guides for sponsoring this episode of Answer Me This. There is a range of many books that will help you become adequately well-informed in a subject in a very short amount of time.

So that you can blag your way through a pub conversation, for example, looking like you know more about a subject than you actually do, having learnt about it in a humorous way. Yes, I've been reading the Bluffer's Guide to Chocolate, which is very, very informative. Good, what did you learn? I've learnt all about the process of manufacturing chocolate, which sounds like a very informative. Good. What did you learn? I've learned all about the process of manufacturing chocolate, which sounds like a huge pain. Very complicated and difficult. What was the most surprising detail?

Well, in the Ferrero Rocher ads with the ambassador's reception. Don't tell me it wasn't a real ambassador. People don't say, ambassador, you're really spoiling us. Like everyone quotes. No. They say, monsieur, you're really spoiling us. Do they? God, it's like play it again, Sam, isn't it?

And you know, the other one of those is the end of We we are the champions by queen how does we are the champions by queen end i'm asking music snob we are the champions of the world no wrong fucked it mate helen how does it end not gonna i'm not going into this it's a trap it just ends we are the champions and then the guitar goes wrong doesn't say off the world that's the end of the second chorus but everyone goes of the world doesn't that's the best fucking doesn't that's the best i want resolution um i've been reading the bluffer's guide to opera oh how's that going i'm now an expert um the best thing that i learned did you know that the chicago opera house barred luciano pavarotti after his 26th cancellation of a performance in 1989 oh my god if're going to bar anyone and you're an opera house, don't sack off Pavarotti.

26 cancellations though. That's the point where it's like, he's never going to perform here. But it's worth making an exception for Pavarotti, surely. It depends on whether he's ever going to turn up. Yeah, well, they made 25 exceptions. Widely believed to be the best opera singer of our lifetime. No, but they gave him 25 chances.

And they're like, 26 times the Pav, you've taken the piss. 26 is not going to be the charm. There are loads of great Bluffer's Guide titles to choose from and there are going to be four more published next month. Oh, yeah? From October, you can get the Bluffer's Guide to the Quantum Universe. Wow, I would like to bluff my way through that. I'd like to read that. Yeah, waste of time doing your PhD, mate.

You can get Bluffer's Guide to Skiing, Football and Rugby. No, don't bluff your way through skiing because that's how injuries happen. That's exactly how I ended up a physical wreck. You can get them in print or an e-book. You can get them at bluffers.com. Time for a question from James who says, I need some life advice. It boils down to choosing between romance and career.

Martin, did you send this question disguising yourself as James? I chose romance. I recently took a six-month summer job, which could lead to a full-time job at an international development consultancy. I think this is the career part, not the romance. Getting these sorts of roles is pretty rare, and since leaving university in 2016,

I've struggled to find jobs I'm interested in. The thing is, the job is in Dubai, says James, and since arriving a week ago, I've discovered a few things. Firstly, Dubai is an awful place, which holds literally no interest or attraction for me. Right. Shame you could not have deduced that before. I mean, I would say a cursory Google would have revealed whether it held any interest or attraction for you. You don't have to go, surely, to determine that. Well, you can't google is dubai interesting or attractive and get results that are pertinent to what james is finding i don't think yeah but that's a that's a very literal interpretation of

what i'm saying that's what google does dubai and click google images and decide uh he says i also don't know anyone here that's not such an issue i don't think i mean he can work on that right i mean that's that's how making friends works and that would be the same wherever he went in the world probably yeah exactly james could get a job in a town 50 miles away from where he recently graduated and still don't know anyone yeah uh secondly he says though whilst the work is overall fairly interesting fairly okay so that could have been worse a lot of it is very time consuming and dreary checking legal contracts etc a lot of work is dreary like even a job you love there's dreary

elements i sort of do the job that i love i talk for a living so do you that still involves at least one day a month of basically admin and accounts like you can't ever get out of that i think at least 30 of my working week is stuff that's quite dreary anyway james continues uh most importantly my hours are insane i'm sorry my first work day the morning after i landed was 19 hours long to be fair that is a very that is very long but then if he doesn't like dubai then it means he's spending less time interacting with it i'm regularly emailed work after 8 p.m for completion that same evening that's shit and my weekends are functionally non-existent now that is a shame because one good thing that even people who don't like dubai like about dubai is the brunch culture

right there is some amazing brunching going on on a sunday in dubai so if you're missing that you are basically missing the best bit about dubai in theory, says James, I should get to travel a lot, but I haven't done any yet. No time. But he says that he doesn't like the area. So why does he want to travel? There are lots of different cultures within a short flight from Dubai. On the other side, says James, this is where he's going to start talking about the romance, everyone. About a month and a half before I left, I began dating someone. We'd only been on four dates when I got the job offer. But in the two weeks between getting the offer and me leaving, we spent more and more time together. Well, that was a good idea, wasn't it?

Of course it's going to happen though. And then the last night before I left, she told me she was halfway towards falling in love with me i feel exactly the same way half half since leaving she has been constantly on my mind not not half on his mind constantly yeah so helen asked me this should i stay or should i go i face the choice between pursuing a career with a cool company that allows for almost no time completely free of work and no chance of working from Britain or ditching it to return to family, friends, nice surroundings and the potential for a wonderful relationship. So I reckon stick out the six months and then look for a job in britain because now you've got some experience at a good place behind you yes but it doesn't sound like you like this job and this life enough to stay in it even if you hadn't fallen in love with someone at home i imagine it's very difficult

to live in a country that you dislike when you have the option not to do that that's exactly right like the first half of the email before you even got onto the romance bit, if you'd said, I'm working 19 hour days, I'm in a place that I hate and the job is reasonably satisfying, I'd have said leave. Yeah. And then you throw in this romance element,

it's like leave. But I agree, it's only for six months anyway. So use that six months to research a different job and maybe work on building that 50% up to 60% so you know you've got someone waiting for you when you get back. Maybe 65%. Also one thing I do know about Dubai is that the people who work there get very well paid generally. I'm not talking about the people who build the hotels, I'm talking about the people who go and live in the complexes and work for the western companies that are based out there. Right. So if you are that person, it

sounds like you are even though you're working in international development why not use some of that money you're being paid to fly your girlfriend out there or the person who is nearly your girlfriend like if she can take just a week's holiday that could be an amazing time that you'd have together you do all the things that you find unattractive and hideous with someone else and suddenly it could be an experience that you enjoy together. Yeah, I guess though if he is working 19 hours a day, then he might not get to see her. Although she could come out and maybe she'll really fall for Dubai and it will make him like it more, which would at least improve the rest of his six months tenure, even if he doesn't want to stay longer than that. I wish I could fill in now with lots of personal anecdotes of my time in Dubai,

because I did technically fly into Dubai and out of Dubai a week later in February. But we went straight to a resort and sat on a beach and didn't see anything other than a shopping mall. And when I've said that to a lot of people, they say, yeah, well, that's Dubai. You saw a shopping mall and a beach. But still, had I not had a two-year-old, I would have done a bit more of looking at the the markets and trying out the spices didn't do any

of that so I can't I can't tell you that there's more to Dubai than what you've seen because all I saw as well was the skyscrapers where people like you work and then the resort that I went to yeah okay I had a lovely time there's more to Dubai than what you Olly Mann have seen but possibly not more than what James has seen yeah exactly I mean I could tell you what buffet night was good in the hotel but that doesn't sound like it's directly relevant to you but I think it's pretty natural to feel like you hate a place when you've only been in it a week and you don't know anybody and you're probably absolutely knackered because you're working these crazy hours I don't think now is the time to make this decision when I've been abroad often I've been hating it and then after a few days I've turned a corner I've been abroad, often I've been hating it. And then after a few

days, I've turned a corner. I cannot relate to that because I love travelling to new places. I don't like being on planes. I don't like the process of it. But when I get to a new place, I always love it. And I've been to places that other people think are shitholes. And I found something in it that I find really interesting or that I really like. And I actually, I'd almost go as far to say, you know, that thing of people kind of browsing property sites just to imagine what it would be like living in that property. Wherever I am, whether it's business or pleasure, I can't help the part of my brain that's like,

oh yeah, I could have quite a nice life if I lived here in this particular way. So I don't think I'd feel like that at all. I can't relate to that. So you're saying there are some places you go to and immediately you think, I want to get out of here. I hate it. I remember when I spent a couple of months in florence when i was 18 and it was my

first time really away from home and i didn't mind that so much but i didn't know anyone for two weeks and i wasn't staying in a particularly interesting or enjoyable part of town and so i just felt very isolated and very alienated but then i made friends two weeks in and it totally changed everything so maybe that would help james so traveling alone yes i get lonely sometimes especially if i'm traveling for work so yeah and i've only ever done it for like three or four days at a time and by day two you know in the evening when you're having your second meal by yourself you kind of think oh this isn't as good as being with someone i do get that but as you say and as he says he doesn't

know anyone there he will know people there very soon and i think that will help enormously also with the internet now it's not like he's in a place where he can't use social media like he can find other people that are in exactly the same boat as him and meet up with them in a way being an expat makes it easier to make friends than being a citizen yeah because people are so desperate to make other friends don't even need anything in common it's just the fact you're there if i if i meet someone in a bar in london and they're like oh you're from hertfordshire i'm from luton that isn't interesting well you know i don't think oh well we're going to be friends but if that happens in dubai then it's like oh luton i've been to

luton like it is suddenly you have connections that you know matter more because they're out of context i mean heaven forbid that james should befriend anyone who's not also an expat who's the same as him yeah come on don't be ridiculous you're not going to start talking to the locals you know any suggestions we might have though of making friends and going out and seeking like-minded people and having a brunch and maybe engaging in the city and its surroundings if he is working all of the time maybe he's just thinking i can't do that but then he's also not going to really get that much out of the job except for hating it more and more and more so I think life first job second in James's case I think we're agreeing with the same strategy which is stick out the job but only for the

initial six months so know that you're going use the end of the job to try and set up this relationship and a nicer life for yourself somewhere else in the world at the end of it and try and make some friends whilst you're there to make it more bearable i think that is basically what we're saying isn't it job done you're welcome james but but what i would say is do that because it's the right thing to do based on everything else in your story don't do it because of the girl because although she may have felt halfway towards falling in love with you when you left she may not feel like that anymore and you don't want to resent giving up job opportunities or turning your back on a glamorous part of the world because of the girl like don't turn that into the story when you get back to britain because that is your fucking

fault it's nothing to do with her you didn't like the job they were working you too hard you went to a country that you had no affection or interest in all your fault you know it's a glimmer of hope that she liked you and you've got to cling on to that. But if it doesn't work out when you get home, not her fault. Yeah, although I get why you're saying that, Ollie. But in a romance film, would they say,

I came back for you or I came back because the working hours were shit? What's going to sweep someone off their feet? And with that, we have reached the end of this episode of Answer Me This. But cheer up, kids, because there will be of this episode of answer me this but cheer up kids because there will be another fresh episode of answer me this on the first thursday of next month and we would like you to send us your questions we would featuring it please imagine

if people haven't got to grips with that part of the concept by now we would have other jobs an episode a day for a whole year and you still don't know we want your questions if you want to email us if you want to send us a voice memo if you want to get in touch all the details are on the website answer me this podcast dot com we have separate podcasting projects as well that you might be interested in stuffing into your ears helen is the presenter of the illusionist and the illusionist is going on tour so this month of september 2018 we are in glasgow london bristol and dublin and then october and november we are touring the us and canada it's like mark goodier doing the advert isn't it oh i am excited good i'm also slightly worried that my voice is going to conk out

completely on stage but you could come for the risk but is she going to make it then this is she going to have to complete it using only dance? But all listings are at theillusionist.org slash events. And if you've enjoyed Martin's views on popular music in this podcast... Then get away with you. You might want to check out Song by Song. Yeah, we talk about every Tom White song in chronological order. We've just started big time. And you can hear that at songbysongpodcast.com.

And congratulations, Oliver, for just completing another series of The Modern Man. Thank you. Yes, season eight has wrapped. And you can listen back, including the most recent episode in which I interview Britain's most prolific private sperm donor. Wow. It's a hell of a ride. Seriously fascinating conversation. Not because of anything I'm doing, just because, wow.

You did it in a lake of spunk. What a life. And you can hear that show plus my interviews with YouTuber Hannah Witton and others at modernmanwith2ends.co.uk. Remember as well that our first 200 episodes are available for you to buy through answermethisstore.com,

iTunes and Amazon. And halfway through the month we put out one of our paywalled episodes as the Retro Answer Me This available for one month only but you have to subscribe to get it. You have to subscribe. If you don't subscribe... subscribe rss wise no retro episode for you yeah nothing emptiness i mean you might still feel empty we can't solve every existential problem with these

but we can just blot out the noise with our past selves for a little while uh right well that's it it's been i should say we've been sharing um a room for the first time in a year for this episode for the first time in a year it's been nice to physically see you it has been nice yeah yes and Martin I'll speak to you next time

Martin has also been here I'm right here and we'll see you next time too bye