Answer Me This! - AMT372: Cummerbunds, Mummified Monarchs, and Mr Motivator

Episode Date: April 4, 2019

Whatever happened to aerobics on morning telly, the corpse of Henry VIII, and cummerbunds? We crack these mysteries and more in AMT372. Find out more about this episode at . Send us questions for future episodes: email written words or voice memos to [e-mail]. Tweet us Facebook Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Hear AMT episodes 1-200, all five of our special albums, and our Best Of compilations at . Hear Helen Zaltzman's podcast The Allusionist at , Olly Mann's The Modern Mann at , and Martin Austwick's Song By Song at . Helen and Martin are touring New Zealand and Australia for the next three months - see their gig listings at . This episode is sponsored by 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'. Also! Get free audiobooks and half-price Audible subscriptions at - and while you're browsing around Audible, be sure to download Olly's new series . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does anyone know of a lawful impediment to this holy union? Has to be this, has to be this. Is the wheel of fortune just a big lazy Susan? Has to be this, has to be this. Heaven and all the has to be this. Hello to Michael in Seattle who listens to the show whilst driving for Uber. As an Uber driver, I usually try not to play anything too controversial, usually public radio news or light jazz.

Light jazz, I think, is controversial in its blandness. Let me be very clear, actually. If you're listening to this in Britain, I don't know the scene in Seattle, but if you're listening in Britain and you're using an FM radio and you're driving for Uber right now, Magic or Smooth?

That's it. Those are the only two appropriate stations. Yeah, I agree for Uber right now, Magic or Smooth? That's it. Those are the only two appropriate stations. Yeah, I agree with you, Ollie. Magic or Smooth? Never LBC. No offence to your old employer, but that is a very inflammatory station that makes me feel stressed,

and I do not want to hear it. It's raison d'etre is to stir shit up, and that's not what you want in a cab, is it? No, I want to hear Roxette's ballads. I want to hear You're gonna save the best till last I want to hear Roxette's ballads. I want to hear, you're gonna save the best till last. I want to hear Hazard by Richard Marks. And I want to hear,

I'm not in love. Anyway, he says, Helen, answer me this. How should I handle it if when listening to your show, as so often happens, the subject of your podcast suddenly turns from, for example, red velvet cake

to small man parts or nude sun bathers. Thus far, my method has been to express sudden shock, forgetting how racy the show can be and making a move to change the station. Oh, modest Michael. Too hot for radio, answer me this. But to date, all of the passengers in my car have instructed me to leave the podcast on. Yes. What is the best method? I mean, as far as we're concerned, this is the good method because they all want to listen to it. I think it is polite, though, of you to have given your passengers the sense of control over their earscape. Because I would be reluctant as a passenger to ask someone to change the channel.

I'd feel a bit guilty about it. But I think any show that revolves around talking is a bit of an imposition on someone else. It's really nice when you're in the car by yourself. But if you're picking someone up who's paying you money for that, you're sort of, they can't avoid but hear it. The flip side of it, though, is that if you're in the Uber and there's talking going on, you might feel less of a social pressure to converse with your Uber driver. And if you just want to get to where you're going that's quite nice because you don't often you don't always feel chatty from the back of a cab d i agree but also i i say this is not just to do

with speech this is to do with music as well because um some radio stations capital are like weaponized noise you haven't been to a soft play in Watford recently. That is right. It's not appropriate for me to go to a soft play in Watford. It isn't. As a childless woman. But let me tell you, in that environment, that plus capital equals hell on earth. It's not soft on the ears, is it?

I do think actually us being, I was going to use a clever word there, like anglophonic, but I don't want to confuse people. Do you mean British? Us having the British accent, as they like to call it in America. Yeah, probably means that our show being racy and a bit sweary on occasion might seem to that passenger who's just stumbled across our content to be more of an amusing novelty. It's very cute, isn't it?

All these cute Brits saying things about penises. And I think actually, conversely, in the UK, if I was an Uber driver, I've just said I wouldn't play a podcast but I'd be less concerned listening to Mark Maron than Richard Herring for example for the same reason. I just think if it's American you're like oh it's one of those filthy Americans that's fun. And also black cab drivers is an interesting one because there's the screen isn't there between the passenger and the driver so they can be listening to whatever they like and the passengers don't necessarily hear it. Are there lots of black cub drivers that listen to us i the one once gave me a free ride but didn't reveal that he knew who i was until i got there

which i thought was nice do you know how he revealed that he knew as well which was amazing like literally amazing did you say i heard you talking about wanking with a condom on as a teenager? Oi, posh wank man! No, what he did is he happened to have a copy of our book on the passenger seat. He was reading it at the time. What? So he held it up and he said, I know who you are, mate. Take it for free. You give me lots of entertainment.

What are the odds of that? Was this just a cab that you hailed? Yeah. The odds of that are like very, very close to zero. I know. Here this just a cab that you hailed? Yeah. The odds of that are like very, very close to zero. I know. Here's another question of broadcasting from Emma from Devon, who says, Ollie, answer me this. Why doesn't the BBC do exercise programs?

I know they're all over YouTube, but why aren't there Pilates or aerobics classes on TV? I mean, she sort of answered her own question really in the phrasing, hasn't she? That exercise videos are all over YouTube. And in a way way that is the best format for it isn't it because when you're ready to do your exercise at your own pace when you can press pause when you need to that's the ultimate place to find it isn't it really you can find the video that suits your level when you've got your clothes on you can stop when the phone rings doing it on telly doesn't really make sense anymore but where i do sympathize with where she's coming from is that those exercise gurus who were on breakfast telly in the 80s and 90s you're mr motivators and you're crazy lizzie or whatever she was called rosemary conley green goddess they weren't really about keeping fit they were about

entertainment i mean the equivalent i think was kind of ed balls on strictly come, you know, Mr. Motivator would be in the studio, wouldn't he? And GMTV would have the Prime Minister in. And by the end of the slot, you know, Tony Blair would be doing aerobics or whatever. And that was the entertainment for most people having their cornflakes. It wasn't that they were actually doing the fitness. And I do think some of that fun and spontaneity is missing now from breakfast television. Yeah, it was a good fun time. It reminded you that exercise existed and you got to watch people hopping around in shiny spandex.

I do actually like the idea of a sort of daily prod as well to do your exercise, even if you don't. Do you know what I mean? Like being reminded that it's something you should do. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it, that the obesity crisis has accelerated as the TV aerobics evangelists have decreased, and as TV chefs have become more popular. Yes, although that might also be the other way around, that food became more popular, so they put more food things on the telly. True. And of course,

it might be a completely false data set. But it was nonetheless an observation that I was prepared to make in a public forum. So I'm trying to think because when I was a child, you had the morning exercise routines every day. And then it feels like mid 90s, you had like home video exercise tapes, and then DVDs becoming pretty big. And then the internet. Did you know how Mr. Motivator was discovered? He was Eamon Holmes's personal trainer, wasn't he? That's right. Just off the top of my head. Yeah, I'm assuming you've read the same Guardian long reads

by a woman who read his self-published autobiography that I have. I've read the self-published autobiography cover to cover. What I find weird is the way he got onto GMTV wasn't Eamon Holmes introducing him to the boss. He went along to GMTV's HQ to pick up Eamon Holmes after a morning TV session to do some personal training with him, spotted a slightly portly overweight man in a suit in the lift, went up to him and ribbed him in the stomach.

I thought that was a rather over-the-top gesture to poke him in the stomach. But then he sent him an exercise bike, which is also an over-the-top gesture. So Mr Motivator is like the exercise version of the over-keen male love interest in a rom-com. Exactly. But it worked for him.

And the guy was like, you're a dickhead, but you're a lovable dickhead. I'm going to put you on the telly. If you've persuaded me to get on this exercise bike by buying me one, goddammit, you can persuade all these lazy lomocks eating their breakfasts. Yeah, exactly. Here's another question about something a bit retro that is also current from Clarity in Sunderland, who says, I have recently bought tickets to see the Spice Girls at the Stadium of Light. Hashtag friendship never ends. Except for posh. And I thought it would be a good idea to scrub up on my lyrical knowledge by listening to a mix of songs on YouTube. I'm assuming they're referring to Spice Girls songs.

Ollie, answer me this. Which bits of the video for Mama are real? I'm assuming the children who could be the young Spice Girls playing together aren't actually them, but are the other home video style clips real? If so, which ones? Specifically then, are the home video style clips in the video for Mama real? Yes. As opposed video style clips in the video for mama real yes as opposed to which bits of the video for mama are real as in it's not like uh automaton sitting

around singing is the genuine spice girls yeah i'll summarize the video for those who can't remember it as i couldn't because i'm not sure i ever saw it at the time because it was released as a double a side with who do you think you are which is a much more fun song and therefore that was the one that got played on top of the pops and is indeed i think what I think, what saved the song. I don't think Mama, I mean, of course Mama would have charted because the Spice Girls were massive at the time. Fourth consecutive number one, I think. But if it hadn't been on a double A with Who Do You Think You Are, and if it hadn't been the comic relief single, I think Mama would have gone number three. It's very syrupy. Yeah. In the video, the Spice Girls are sitting on high stools because it's a

ballad and they're in a room full of girls and each of their mums is there or people playing their mums but i assume real mums real mums i can clarify yes they're real mum and that is intercut with photos and video clips of the spice girls as kids and there's a big scrapbook called spice memories that they're all looking at and there's 80s looking footage of the spice girls aged i don't know like seven or ten and they're dressed a bit like their current selves and they're dancing i mean that's the clue isn't it the fact that they're dressed like their current selves that's not a thing that happens in anyone's childhood footage is it yeah that's a bit of a gag but i don't see why you would falsify the other childhood footage where it's just like

emma bunton peddling around in a pedal car or Mel B getting a Christmas present I can't remember specifically because you don't need it like you would just play more of them sitting on stools smiling at the mums wouldn't you if you didn't have it I know that Victoria Adams as she was then is wearing what she wore back in those days but it's um it's a bikini top basically isn't it and i think that's a bit odd i mean the other four of them are fully clothed in the video she's wearing you know what looks from a distance like a bra do you think now she's a fashionista she looks back at that and is a bit embarrassed by it i don't know you got to own it really i think if you were in the spice

girls in the 90s at the time we all know that i came close first reserve you were after that person michelle that was in the spice girls and then wasn't was there was there a pete best style person for the spice girls yes michelle if i had been a spice girl then there would be two problems for me with this video concept one there is no video of me from childhood at all i don't think i was on video until my 20s the other problem i would have if i had been a Spice Girl is that there's no way that my mother would participate in a video like this. She'd be like, well, of course I love you, but there's no need to go on about it, dear.

Yeah, that's interesting. What about with the peer pressure of the other four of your colleagues' mothers turning up? Oh yeah, she wouldn't give a shit about that. Really? She knows her own mind. Here's another question of music from Charlie from Leeds who says, Ollie, answer me this.

How did the well-known song, You'll Never Walk Alone from the musical Carousel become a football anthem? Surely it can't have stemmed from football hooligans sipping cups of tea and watching Carousel on their day off.

Not every football fan's a hooligan. The answer to this question, basically, is Jerry and the Pacemakers. They covered the song You'll Never Walk Alone in the 1960s because Jerry, you can't remember his surname, but the front man... Jerry Peamaker. ...was a massive fan of the song.

Number one, and a Liverpool crowd famed then as now for being very supportive of their own local heroes. So it started getting played in the stadium at half time and the crowd started singing along and that's basically how it became a football anthem. But what's more amazing to me is how it became a pop song in the first place. I imagine a lot of people

there don't even know that it was in the musical carousel at all but one thing i have noticed is that in musical terms like as in musical theater terms another thing that makes this song unique amongst anthems well not unique but like less common is that it is speaking essentially to the audience it's about if you stay true to your values you're a good person and I think that gives it a bit more mass appeal. But I'm faintly curious as to what gets a particular song to catch on at football like how do you introduce it is there like some kind of newsletter where you're like okay I'm thinking of trying Hey Jude in the second half because otherwise it's just going to be you singing the verse by yourself for a bit.

Like I'd imagine the chorus, like enough people would catch onto it and start singing it. And that might spread to the rest of the stadium. But that's still like a verse and a chorus. But I suppose if you go to the same football match every Saturday and you go with the same people and someone sings it every week, eventually it becomes contagious. Maybe it's just groups are so incredibly receptive to songs like it's kind of easier to get people to do things in song like buy things from a jingle or say the words of god in a hymn yes uh or you know put affection into words in a way that might sound a bit pretentious or soppy in speech. Particularly amongst potentially emotionally frustrated men who are all together in a place.

And the song is all about bonding. But anyway, I think this song, it just traverses everything. And I suppose that's the power of a simply written, powerful, emotional ballad, isn't it? It's a bit like The Impossible dream from man of la mancha i'll take your word for it i mean okay so that is again a song that everyone knows but no one knows the musical so and it's quite interesting because they're putting it on at the coliseum this summer and there's posters for it on the underground at the moment and the way they

advertise a new production of man of la mancha well there's three ways actually to be fair kelsey grammar's in it so it's got a picture of him um then there's some cleavage i don't mean to objectify the lady but all i'm saying is she's not a particularly well-known singer to me but it's noticeable that she's wearing a low-cut dress and then underneath it says featuring the song the impossible dream like that is how you get bums on seats even though no one knows the subject of the show anymore like it's been years since it's been on so it's like the number one hit that you then get to sell the album on the back of. Yeah, and maybe from that point of view, it's not so weird that it was covered by Jerry and the Pacemakers, actually,

because I suppose in the old days, musicals did have number one hits from them, didn't they? In the way that I suppose The Greatest Showman does now. Like, all musicals were like that, weren't they? They were all popular music, I suppose. It's a bit like Mac the Knife in Threepenny Opera. Most people hearing Robbie Williams sing that have absolutely no idea

that it's about a guy going around murdering prostitutes. I've got a question! Then email your question to AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com AnswerMeThisPodcast

at GoogleMail.com AnswerMeThisPodcast at GoogleMail.com. Answer me this podcast at Googlemail.com. Answer me this podcast at Googlemail.com. Answer me this podcast at Googlemail.com. So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of Today in History? On Monday, we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car that ripped off an iconic American car. On Thursday, how American airlines invented air miles. And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America.

We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a question from Tyler in in melbourne australia who says people sometimes give me books as gifts classic gift easy to wrap yeah this is nice of them since i do quite like a good book but i have a problem so sorry to hear that it's a relevant problem it's not like a medical diagnosis or something yeah i've got scabby armpits and they chafe when i turn the pages i want people to know i appreciate their gifts and i took the time to read them but the only way to prove this of course i promise i think i disagree with helen but anyway i'm just reading

the email is to have something intelligent to say about the book's contents and if i'm going to that much effort of pre-planning, I might as well just type the thing up and complete the full middle school throwback. So Helen asked me this, how do I stop myself from giving an unwanted book report to my gift givers? Well, I would say you don't need to refer at all to the contents of the book, or maybe like one or two things. I think you could talk about where you read it like if you're on holiday or when you're in bed with a cold or something or you could report your emotional response to the book or the other thing you could do is if you really enjoy it you could do a social media post tagging in your friend going oh i love this

book that um that johnny friend gave to me that's clever and if you want that to really go you just ask for other recommendations don't you yeah exactly so i read this in a deck chair in barcelona what else should i read on my next holiday i'll pile in on facebook on that won't they people love that question absolutely love that holiday reads everyone has a view holiday read sorry do you feel uncomfortable with people judging you for the book you're reading in a particular place i'm always very conscious i once took the um book about jimmy savel's crimes on holiday with me and i just thought it just looks weird me sitting around the pool reading reading a book about that but i am interested that is a benefit of electronic books isn't it

other people can't tell yeah yeah i think i probably would be a little embarrassed depending on what i was reading and i was reading an alan hollinghurst in dubai as well that sounds like a classy read oh is it because it's like about um gay relationships and dubai is not traditionally huge fan of those great piece of literature but a few furtive handjobs in it yeah and i was like is this like you probably i don't even know if they'd sell this in Dubai, and here I am bringing it into the country. But it is clearly literary work.

If they wouldn't sell it, then maybe they wouldn't know what's likely to be in it and therefore not object. Yeah, well, anyway, I did read it. It's good. The Strangest Child. I'd highly recommend it. In fact, the first chapter is set about a mile away from where I was brought up, which I didn't even know when I bought it. Really weird. Like, they go to my local church in it. I remember one such instance of this,

but it's not a book I'm particularly embarrassed by, but we went to Savannah in Georgia and the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was a big book about Savannah. And it's a very interesting book because it's kind of about history. It's also about a local murder case and a lot of weird local characters

and about town planning. I thought, wow, that's a really interesting book because it's kind of about history it's also about a local murder case and a lot of weird local characters and about town planning i thought wow that's a really interesting book about town planning but i felt like such a cliche reading it um in savannah that i i had to wait and read it after we'd left which is a bit of a shame because uh could have used uh some of the intel whilst there yeah anyway all of this is a tangent what tyler's basically saying is you know he's worried about harassing people with too much information about the book that they gave him i just don't think that is an issue if someone's read the book that they've gifted you and they gifted it to you because it's of significance then they probably want to talk to you about it i do anyway when i finished a book i want to i like hunt down podcasts about that book or you know try and ask people

that i'm meeting oh have you read this or you know try and ask people that i'm meeting oh have you read this because i've just finished it right so i suppose the thing tyler could do instead of doing a book report is say oh what did you think of the bit where this happened or what do you think of this character yeah i had this experience last year when i was in hospital in australia i received books from a number of friends and it was a really interesting experience for them to send me books that they thought i would enjoy so i read a bunch of things that I'd never heard of or never would have thought to read there's one I haven't read yet which was sent to me by our podcasting friend Roman Mars who sent me a number of good books that I wouldn't have thought to read like The Blind Side I actually

enjoyed a book about American football and who'd have thought that would be possible and he was like I know it's about sport but you have to read it it was really good you were really changed by your time in hospital I was probably heavily medicated still but i didn't really enjoy it but he also sent me a book um called stiff by mary roach because he was like what kind of stuff do you want and i thought well i'd like something that's factual but as fun as a novel and i'd heard mary roach is really good at that but i'd never read any of her stuff and so i said well send me your favorite mary roach book because i knew he was a fan and he sent me this one that was about things that happened to corpses after death like the use in medical testing i i don't know much about it because i only read the first chapter

which was about like people practicing to do facial surgery on on heads corpse heads jesus that does not sound like something i would want to read in hospital well exactly i was feeling a little too fresh from being a medical pincushion to do with that book. Yeah. This summer I'm getting wed to my sweetheart. We've got the cake, the dress, the band. It's Captain Beefheart. And we'll both drive down the aisle in a pair of matching go-karts.

The photos will be epic. We use squarespace.com to build our wedding website. So our friends can RSVP and see our plans for the night. And we'll link to our gift list. We don't want any old shite. Seriously, guys, a hundred quid minimum. Fancy designing a website today? Oh, don't mind if I do.

Well, have you chosen the right moment, Helen? May we suggest Squarespace as the platform to do that? You can just be some absolute knucklehead and it doesn't matter. You can still get your website done very easily. You don't have to understand how it works. You can just look at it working and be like, hmm, I did that. I mean, you didn't. You did it with the assistance of Squarespace, but you were there. You were an instrument in this

orchestra. But Helen, when people go to my online knucklehead store to buy their knuckleheads... And hats for the knuckleheads. Knuckleheads. Are they going to be able to easily read my website across their mobile devices, for example, Android or iPhone? You know, Wally, they are. Because you can look at the website as it will appear on desktop as it will appear on a phone as it will appear on a tablet and then you can be like oh geez this is a right mess better fix that easy or this looks charming lots of white space and some cool hipster graphics well done me if you would like to give it a go you don't need to pay for that you go to squarespacecom slash answer for your two-week free trial. And then to get a 10% discount off your first purchase of a website or domain,

use our code ANSWER. Now, listeners, we really enjoy hearing your voices asking us questions through the channels of this show, not just like shouting at us in the street. But a better way, in fact, I think currently the optimal way to ask us a question in your voice is to go to the voicemail app in your phone or to the full recording studio you have in the cellar of your house and record yourself and then just send it to our email address. And here is a question from Emily. Hello, Helen and Ollie and Martin.

I read a lot about George IV as I work in a historic house. I recently read that in 1813 he and his physician opened the coffins of Charles I and Henry VIII. Henry was just a skeleton, as you might expect, but according to the doctor, Charles was recognisable with no nose, but a mostly complete face, hair, beard and one ear. Apparently he had been wrapped in some sort of oily cloth. So answer me this, could Charles I really have been recognisable 164 years after he died and how and why? Was he mummified? Henry VIII and Charles I were put in the same tomb and then the tomb was lost for a while and then when they found it again, which is what Emily's referring to in 1813. Well hold on. When you say it was lost for a while... It just mislaid some kings, mislaid a vault.

Did they deliberately forget though? Like, you know, we're not having the monarchy anymore, so let's pretend we don't know where this is, but then one day we'll bring it back and all their corpses will still be there? No, I don't think it was deliberate. I think Charles II was supposed to build a really fancy new mausoleum

that was supposed to be in Hyde Park, but didn't. He kept the money. Right. So maybe it was something to do with thatde Park, but didn't. He kept the money. So maybe it was something to do with that. But anyway, they opened up the tomb and the kings were usually buried in a lead coffin to preserve their bodies. And Charles I's head had been stitched back on after he was executed and then he was embalmed and he was put in his lead coffin.

That sounds like the most dignified approach. Even though he he was executed it would have been wrong to have him like holding his head between his legs or something or a separate coffin for his head yeah exactly there's a lot of apocryphal sounding stuff about henry the eighth's uh posthumous existence yes it's like oh his legs exploded because he was so fat or he had the pox and his stomach went it's like yeah really his putrescence dripped onto the floor and dogs licked it up. What happened with Henry VIII? Firstly, his death was a secret for a few days after he died while people were trying to vie for power.

And so embalmers weren't let in for a few days after which he was already a little bit off. Yeah, makes sense. And then he was a very tall man as well very big as we see with jonathan reese mayers playing him in the uh apparently he was well fit when he was young uh with a 35 inch waist and 42 inch chest people say the lead coffin couldn't really handle his weight so the lead was stressed so the lead coffin might have got some fissures in it that let damp air in but also his coffin was damaged when they found it like um something had fallen on it or it had fallen on something so it was cracked so the air had got in his flesh

had rotted away and it was just a skeleton whereas charles like basically mummification can be done with embalming or with like dehydration so um he would have been kept dry in the lead coffin so his body ought to have been pretty well preserved okay so that answers potentially how he was mummified but not really why i mean why bother i mean i know they're kings so maybe you just think let's err on the side of preservation yeah exactly i think that is basically it you know it's a sign of respect as well, isn't it, to the monarch? Well, sort of, but it's toying with the body. But I think what it is, is that their bodies belong to the state.

Yeah. They're figureheads and they belong to God because they've been selected by God to set up their new church for their inconvenience. Why did they mummify Lenin? Why did they mummify Ho Chi Minh? Well, yeah, but the answers to those are slightly different. I mean, it was to put them on display

so that the public could continue to live under their cult. Charles I was, when he was beheaded, brought in an area of the Republic, didn't he? Maybe the British were just like, well, maybe we want to get the monarchy back at some point, and probably the best way to do that would be to attach Charles' head to his body and revivify him. It's a slightly gothy way of reviving monarchy.

Time for a question from Pat in New Jersey who says, Helen, answer me this. When fish are caught in a net by a fishing vessel, what is their cause of death? Do they suffer much? Yeah, probably because none of these are great. I learned at the Sydney Fish market when I went there in 2002 for a very enjoyable demonstration of cookery that a lot of Japanese fishers would brain spike the fish

because it meant they died quickly and without fear. So the flesh wasn't flooded with adrenaline that makes it taste worse. But then if you get it in the wrong place then the fish is just dying horribly with a hole in its head rather than quickly from a brain spike i mean i guess if someone was going to try and kill me humanely then the best way would be bullet in the brain as i walked away but it's still pretty nasty yeah i don't think any of the ways out are great. But the most frequent way for a fish to die is suffocation, either because they're on deck and in the air or they're still in the water, but their gills are trapped on nets so they can't breathe. But is there any attempt when you catch in a net on an industrial basis to stun the fish or anything like that oh yeah other other methods they use do include electrical stunning or a blow to the head or they stun them by putting them in water that has extra carbon dioxide in

which causes brain damage uh to help them die or you can put them in an ice bath so i think they kind of sleep themselves to death or they die when they're gutted like some of them are still yeah it's bad isn't it the brain spikes obviously the best but the problem is like if you've got a huge net full of fish you can't spike them all that's the thing i think brain spiking tends to work on bigger fish and um it's kind of a bespoke service yeah yeah because there's this growing body of opinion that fish are smarter than we used to think they are i think even if they're not all of these are pretty harsh ways to die because while there are guidelines now for the humane slaughter of animals, and I know a lot of people think that that is not a possible thing to do anyway, there are no such guidelines for the humane slaughter of fish.

Yeah. No, I've seen that. I've read a couple of things, sort of essentially, you know, people saying, I'm a scientist and I've been looking into the feelings of fish and there's this huge gap for yeah exactly for humane treatment because and they use examples like the reason i said smarter rather than emotional or whatever is because they do the things that are the benchmark by which we say other animals are intelligent fish do apparently act collaboratively and they do use tools and their cortisol levels go up when

you transport them. And all of those are indicators that they're not stupid. Yeah, so they feel stress. Yeah, exactly. I feel bad about it. But I don't feel that bad about eating bivalves. Because to me, a bivalve doesn't really seem to have the same capacity for thoughts and emotions as a fish. Yeah, I mean, where is the brain? Can you tell that a clam is suffering from elevated stress the way that you can as a fish. Yeah, I mean, where is the brain?

Can you tell that a clam is suffering from elevated stress the way that you can with a fish? Well, I can't, but I'm sure a scientist can who's measuring the cortisol in a clam. I just bet no one's ever paid for that research before. Do clams have hormones? Got some questions about clams. Radio 4 is on 24-7, but that's not enough recorded speech for me So I'll trot off to answer me This podcast.com slash audible

And download more for free Like Lord of the Rings starring Sir Michael Horden And Michelin Web series 1 to 4 Just a minute, Alan Bennett down the line Ross Noble and the best of bbc news sounds awesome if you need something to listen to between episodes of answer me this then how about free audiobooks courtesy of audible uk and you'll note that helen uses the plural there audiobooks because whilst every other

podcast in Christendom offers you a free audiobook trial on Audible, our offer with Audible UK is that you get two free audiobooks. So that means if you want, you can take my recommendation of what I've been listening to recently, Balancing Acts by Nicholas Heitner, his autobiography of running the National Theatre, and even if you're not interested in that, you've still got an audiobook credit to spend. If you're only interested in Nicholas Heitner's directing of Centre Stage,

will you be well catered for by this audiobook choice? You will never let that go, will you, Helen? No! You will not forgive him. I will not hear a word said against that film, but I am curious to know what it's like being an acclaimed theatrical and film director who then does a fairly conventional dance film. I'm about hours in i haven't heard the end yet he hasn't

got onto that yet but what there is is a lot about working with alan bennett who you know has an interesting creative process which it is fascinating to hear about good okay so height net and you've then you've still got another one so that's useful yes and and in addition to that you get access to all of the audible original audio shows as well just by being a member of audible now that in any case includes exclusives by people you might like like stephen fry or ollie man and esther perrell and me that's right helen uh so a reminder that right now my six-part series about weight loss i say my i'm using shorthand it was produced by a production company i'm just the co-host but anyway an entertaining skeptical show about weight loss

tip the scales starring ollie man co-hosted by me uh is available for free as part of this promotion as well only to audible users in britain yeah that's a bit irritating apologies to everyone who's written in since the last episode to say oh i really wanted to download it after you talked about it on the show but i I can't because I'm American. Sorry. I didn't know that they were only going to make it available. It's not even, frustratingly, the message is even not that simple because I've had South African listeners say they can listen to it.

I don't know. It's in some territories and not others. I don't know why. I don't know why it's not in the USA. Like, we made the show in an international style. There are American guests. It's not as if obesity is a subject unpalatable to american ears i don't know why they haven't made it available there but

anyway if you're in the uk you can get it and if you're in the us why don't you send a friendly request to amazon asking them to make this series available to you as well or actually and this is a ridiculous workaround and i'm not suggesting that you do this just to get my content but if you want to give us the referral fee you could always use a vpn and sign up to audible uk interesting interesting just saying anyway uh the uh two free audiobooks promotion and also our special half price deal three months of audible membership for just 3.99 a month if you've been a member before either of those we still get a referral fee from you they're both available via our website answer me this podcast.com slash audible here's a question from george who says

ollie answer me this does he declare that much drama in in the way he's yes oh yeah i feel so ollie answer me this yeah what is the point of a cummerbund oh well that is pretty serious stuff right i have several that have come free with bow ties and never known what to do with them well you wrap them around your head of course does anyone even use them anymore or is it just people over 75 i think people use them still if if you're the kind of person that wears a bow tie uh for a formal occasion why not bust out the cummerbund? When else are you going to use it? I mean, if you're the kind of person who uses a bow tie on an informal occasion,

then you definitely are a cummerbund customer. I don't know. You might be more of a contrasting braces kind of person, which doesn't go with a cummerbund. Or a dentist. Oh, because of the dangling. It's hard to find hard data on cummerbund sales. But I think broadly, as we have recently seen, Gareth Southgate, etc., rise of the waistcoat,

we have correspondingly seen a decline of the cummerbund because the two are and always were mutually exclusive. You don't wear a waistcoat and a cummerbund. Right. I mean, you do if you don't know what you're doing. But the whole origin story of the cummerbund was as a replacement for the waistcoat. Huh. So what it came from was the British Empire,

round about middle of the 19th century, gents stationed abroad observed the Indian style for sashes and thought, we'll nick that. We want to look smart, but in a hot climate, we'll do a version of that for our local dress i.e black tie evening wear and because you don't want to wear a waistcoat in a hot country basically you get sweaty but by wearing the cummerbund around your way i should say what a cummerbund is actually for younger listeners who genuinely don't know it's like an

outside girdle for men yeah that's basically it. And the idea is it lengthens your legs, it suppresses your waist, it emphasises the shoulders, so you get the classic black tie dinner suit shape, not a ruffled shirt, but you haven't got the added heat layer of wearing a waistcoat. So that was the idea, and in the 1800s this was a great fashion. Over the years it's become less fashionable, and as waistcoats have come back, as I say, you will see a corresponding drop in people buying cummerbunds. So I think they'll come around again.

But, you know, we do live here in a relatively cold country, so you might as well wear a waistcoat, basically. But also, do you think that styles of tuxedo-related wear have become a little more varied than they used to be? So now you might see someone wearing a long tie

rather than a bow tie. They might be wearing one that is purple. The cuts are different. It seems like there's a little shake-up happening in the men's formal evening wear department. Well, the general trend is sport wear, isn't it, actually? Or what do they call it? Athleisure.

Sports casual. It's basically people wearing their pants to work, isn't it? Essentially, whatever you call it. Who's wearing a cummerbund to work apart from magicians and people hosting the Oscars? But yes, you're right that as trends have become increasingly casual, that's affected smart wear as well. And now even people who sell formal clothes

say that cummerbunds are less demanded than, for example, a CEO who wants to look like mark zuckerberg so wants like a cut tailored suit but wants to wear it with box fresh trainers and no tie at all and you can't wear a cummerbund with no tie do you think part of the use of the cummerbund as well was to cover up the waistband and the shirt tuck so it took out the worry of like whether you were supposed to wear a belt and whether your shirt was supposed to be tucked in and what if that was unbecoming to your stomach lines? Yes. Well, okay, I'll tell you the other reason

that I think they may be less popular than they used to be. And I'll put it like this to you, Helen. I'm going to put you in the position of someone who is buying a father-in-law present for Father's Day. Okay? Right? You're in M&S, okay? I'm picturing it.

I know you like to think more creatively than this, but just imagine yourself in this, you know, relatable situation. You're in Mark&S, okay? I'm picturing it. I know you like to think more creatively than this, but just imagine yourself in this, you know, relatable situation. You're in Marks and Sparks. You've got £10. Do you buy the bow tie and cufflinks set or do you buy the bow tie and cummerbund set? Or do you just buy a ready meal of fish cakes? Don't complicate things.

I'm giving you multiple choice. I think we all know that you buy the bowtie and cufflinks because for some reason that feels blingier to our generation. You definitely buy the cufflinks. I think not even the bowtie, you just get the nicest pair of cufflinks, even though they probably won't wear them, but they are smaller to store

and a bit more fun to look at. You can't help yourself, can you? You are answering a different question to the one I'm posing. Well, I object to the terms. I'm just saying, if you're the kind of person who's uncreative enough that you just buy the set you can see why the cummerbund has declined isn't there something mildly insulting when you buy someone a cummerbund are you saying like oh you could do with polynugotate a bit no i disagree

with that i actually think you are saying you're posh enough to go to ascot or whatever it's actually it's a more complimentary thing than just giving them a bow tie and cufflink i think either way you're saying here's something you're never going to use yeah and do not need because you probably got one from 50 years ago that still works because it's a cummerbund like they really haven't been updated referring to magicians and their garments a few months ago martin and i went to the magic castle in los angeles please explain explain what's the magic castle in los angeles please explain explain what's the magic castle it's a kind of a club for magicians um but they also do sort of performances for for the public so you can go and have dinner you have to dress smartly and then

there's uh various different shows and close-up magic happening around this sort of castle yeah okay so it's the magic circle but with sunshine there's no sunshine in the building because it's like it's one of those la buildings that is deliberately built to be very dark and seeming like uh you could plop it in scotland and it would seem normal so it's like all stained glass windows velvet curtains that kind of thing and there's a really strict dress code so it's like evening wear martin because we're traveling he didn't have dress shoes with him you're not allowed in in trainers or walking boots which is what he had and he had to borrow a load of formal wear from charlie harding off switched on pop podcast big fan of the show it's having podcaster friends

is really handy and like we saw a guy get ejected from the theater because he'd taken off his jacket you're only allowed to take off your jacket to put around a chilly lady but the magicians themselves were dressed like shit they were wearing like old black t-shirts and rubbish trousers they weren't even wearing like the the red bow tie that you would expect and black jacket well i think there was a reason for that i think especially the close-up magicians wearing a t-shirt rather than a shirt and a suit where you could easily conceal things in the sleeves was their way of going like, I'm really good at this I don't even need to have stuff around my hands to secrete cards

and balls and whatever. Or they're just doing an act, aren't they? They're saying look, I'm part of a cool generation of millennial magicians that doesn't dress like the old guard. I'm just a schlub, but look at me. It's their show wear. Yeah, I think that's alright. I think it's also part of the misdirection. There's one performer in particular, he was this very good Spanish performer,

but had a very sort of schlubby, like informal demeanour. He looked like comic book guy from The Simpsons. But was an incredibly adept, obviously an incredibly adept close-up magician. I rarely find magic exciting, because you know what's going to happen. I thought that too.

They're like, oh, it's your card. You're like, yes, it is. That's what I thought would happen. I mean, okay, you've put the card in an interesting place, but it's, yes, it's the card. Well done. I thought card magic. They're like, oh, it's your card. You're like, yes, it is. That's what I thought would happen. I mean, okay, you've put the card in an interesting place, but it's, yes, it's the card. Well done. I thought card magic would be the least interesting and it was very, how the fuck?

So to be fair to it, like they were doing some very impressive and non-cheesy things, but I just felt put a better t-shirt on at the very least. When you're against a black velvet curtain, a black washed out t-shirt on at the very least when you're against a black velvet curtain a black washed out t-shirt doesn't read and we will be weaving more magic with your questions in the next episode of answer me this you like the way i did that i mean i'm leaving it in whether you liked it or not

there it was like watching conjuring in front of my face but with my ears and to contribute those all our contact details are listed upon our website AnswerMeThisPodcast.com AnswerMeThisPodcast.com Halfway through the month there will be a retro Answer Me This in your feed, one from the vaults which are usually just available at AnswerMeThisStore.com

where you can buy episodes 1-200 and our special albums and our best of compilations Yes, but to get the free retro episode you have to subscribe to the show Search for Answer Me This on your podcast app of choice. Yes. In the meantime, there is plenty more Helen, Olly and Martin content online

for you to wrap your ears around. What's the latest in Olly Mann? Because you have many projects on the go at all times. Which should I prioritise this month? Right now, I'm going to do one extra plug for Tip the Scales because I probably won't mention it again. So there you go. It is part of the Audible audible promotion but you can listen to it if you're an audible uk member anyway and it is a six-week deep dive about the world of weight loss and the diet

industry uh helen you uh have the excellent podcast the illusionist for people to enjoy yeah and i think because this month of april 2019 is the return of game of Thrones, a show that we've all confessed to not really being into before. But a couple of episodes ago, I had a guy on called David Peterson, who invents the languages for Game of Thrones, so Dothraki and Valyrian. And it was intense. When you're doing that, you have to think about how every word functions. It's a lot of bother. There's a whole invented etymology that he's come up with for this language that other people probably

just aren't paying attention to at all. They're just watching the subtitles. I mean, people who are into Game of Thrones will not take for an answer that you are not interested in Game of Thrones. I had a PR person call me yesterday. I think she had my details because I present a podcast for The Week magazine.

So she thought that I write about TV for The Week magazine. I don't know I write about TV for The Week magazine. I don't know how. And she called and she was like, hey, I'm sure you're all on top of this already, but I was wondering if you guys, as soon as a PR person says that, I'm like, okay, she doesn't know who I am.

You guys would be interested in featuring our latest Game of Thrones products. And I was like, actually, I don't know what you think it is that I do, but I don't actually, I've never seen Game of Thrones. And then she said, oh, right. So you wouldn, I've never seen Game of Thrones and then she said oh right so you wouldn't be interested in a Game of Thrones shaped sofa then

How is that, is that shaped like the whole programme or is it shaped like the throne of Game of Thrones? I imagine yes a throne, yeah, like a sofa I don't know, I mean I said I said you're correct, I wouldn't, I'm sorry I don't know I don't know, maybe I should have found out a little bit more

didn't have Eames furniture in the Game of Thrones realm I was just like yeah I don't know there's enough white people talking bollocks on TV without me watching Game of Thrones what can I say I'm not interested I'm not interested in Game of Thrones but I would

recommend this episode because you're interested in the bollocks, clearly. It is. Dothraki sounds very interesting. It's some, like, heavy-duty nerdery. It's fascinating. And, Martin, you have a podcast, too. I have a podcast in which I talk about every Tom Waits song

in Chronological Order. Where are you at now? It's about to start Bone Machine. Get it at songbysongpodcast.com. Also, I'm releasing pretty much the song a week this year it's like a song diary we travelled last year and I wrote a song pretty much every week 40 songs

there's some very entertaining written posts that go with each song as well yeah and you can find that at palebirdmusic.wordpress.com or just palebirdmusic.com if you just want to listen to the tunes and we're going to be on tour with the Illusionist oh fuck yeah, Illusionist is going to be on tour with The Illusionist. Oh, fuck, yeah.

Illusionist is going to be doing shows in New Zealand and Australia starting this month of April 2019 and going till July 2019. Come and see us if you're in Australia or New Zealand. Come and have a look. I'll try and not get hospitalised this time. Thank you. That's my plan. Good.

Well, I think we've covered absolutely everything that people might want to do do my laundry tangentially to our show yeah exactly and yeah keep the questions coming in and we'll see you next time

bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye