Answer Me This! - AMT374: Jellyfish, Green Screens and Sea Monkey Soup

Episode Date: June 6, 2019

Greetings, listeners! If you've ever wondered how jellyfish eat, shit and bonk, we've taken the hit to our search histories to illuminate you in AMT374. Plus: post-chemo hair; green screens; microwave mug cakes; and Ryvita. 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 Australia for the next few weeks - 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

Did Trump go to Love Island on his state visit? Answer me this, answer me this Who is more powerful, Gandalf or Wispit? Answer me this, answer me this Helen and Molly, answer me this Last episode we had a question about whether the Queen has her own cinema. What a world of change Answer Me This has undergone, Helen. We did,

would the Queen spit or swallow in year one? No, it's does she have a private cinema? Got very highbrow. Anyway, I got a message after that from a friend of mine

who I'll keep anonymous in case this is compromising their source. But they have seen the Queen's cinema and been in it and watched a film in it. Yes.

They said, we went to Buckingham Palace once as one of the staff's friends and family movie screening evenings. We saw The Adjustment Bureau. Never heard of it. It's a Matt Damon film. Calfcrest science fiction. We were told that the projector they were using belonged to Prince Philip and had been given to him as a gift at some point. It wasn't digital, so they must have access to film versions of films. That is so British royal family, isn't it?

Like every other country's royal family would have one made of gold, wouldn't they? My friend says, what was a bit odd about the projection was that for some of the scenes, the footage seemed to be from a rough cut, or at least not the finished film. Film crews, lights and microphones were all well within view for a couple of scenes.

It was confusing because the movie has a conspiratory theme to it throughout. And when we first saw it, we thought these visible artifacts of recording and directing were some clever joke within the movie about surveillance of the main characters. I watched the scenes elsewhere. They weren't jokes. It's not that clever a film. Yeah, that's like when you watch the airplane version of a film. Sometimes it's not important.

And sometimes you just think, am I getting the whole picture here? Yeah. I saw Bohemian Rhapsody on the way back from New York the other day with no swearing and no sex bits. And it just, I got it, but it just felt a bit like I was watching the trailer. But isn't that weird? You would think living in a palace, what luxury? And you're not even

getting a finished cut of the film i wonder if the sound's even been mixed sure but getting a sneak preview of a film that is a kind of luxury in and of itself i know what you mean i'd prefer to see the finished thing personally it's a nice invitation to receive isn't it even if the film is shit if if if my mate worked in a very old woman's house and said would you like to come here and watch an unfinished film i'd normally say no but in this instance you can see it was a nice evening out are there any films that you were so reluctant to see that you wouldn't accept an invitation to watch them at the buckingham palace in our cinema good question i made a promise to myself never to watch another star wars movie ever after which one

one where they walk around talking shit in the desert. You watched one Star Wars film and were like, I won't watch another Star Wars film. No, I've had to watch all of them. Like at that point I'd watched at least six. I was like, I definitely don't like this and have never liked this and this has been already 15 hours of my life. So you watched the first trilogy and the sequels, or the prequels.

That's quite a lot. That's as many as many Star Wars films. I gave it a crack of the whip. I think it was the middle prequel where I drew the line. I don't think I saw the third prequel. Attack of the Clones? Yeah, I don't think I saw Attack of Seth Rogen or whatever it was called. But anyway, when I made that decision, I was like, I'm going to stick to this through thick and thin.

So even an invitation to watch it at Buckingham Palace, I think I'd possibly say no. I think I'd probably be like, no, if it was a film starring Gerard Butler. Right, that's very specific. Why? I'd possibly say no I think I'd probably be like no if it was a film starring Gerard Butler right that's very specific why rather stay in why is he your guide to terrible films I mean mine's Eddie Izzard he's the cat's meows quite a good film yeah quite good is as good as it gets isn't it basically we're all agreeing that like your friend we'd all rather go and see a 7 out of 10 matt damon movie oh yeah at buckingham palace than many other choices so this was a good choice actually and

in fact like if it was a really good film i might be too absorbed to pay attention to the unusual surroundings if it was a sitcom i don't mean the screening i mean if in a sitcom the characters got invited to buckingham palace by friends who work there for a screening then what they'd do is they'd wander off wouldn't they and they'd inadvertently meet the Queen? Of course. Or if it was like Naked Gun, maybe hump the Queen? I think it was... Is it The Wiz, where Fred Savage is on a Universal Studios tour

and then ends up on a film set? I still have never seen The Wiz. Oh, we're talking about different Whizzes. I've not seen any Whizzes. Fine. Which Whizz are you talking about? Is that the kind of like solver remake of the Wizard of Oz you're talking about

I mean just this conversation sounds like a song from the whiz which whiz is whiz which whiz is whiz okay so I'm not talking about the Motown remake of the Wizard of Oz with Michael Jackson and Diana Ross I'm talking about Fred Savage plays video games in the 1980s

and enters like a Nintendo tournament somehow and there's a sequence where he's at Universal Studios and ends up in a film. I haven't seen it for 30 years but that's the outline. Sounds fun. It may have been called The Wizard. I'm now doubting myself. I think it was called The Wizard. So there's no confusion.

It's fine. I've also not seen it. Yeah, fine. It was called The Wizard. Anyway, you may remember as well from episode 373 the dilemma of sean and sean a lady and a gentleman who are in a relationship but have the same name yes or at least phonetically the same name spelt differently but that's that's not the issue hard to indicate it sounds like they've got the same name well yana in st louis miss Missouri has been in touch to say, 30 years ago, I worked in a warehouse with four Michaels. That doesn't surprise me because Michael was the most popular name in the United States for six decades. And it's a very levelling name,

isn't it? It's not a surprise to hear that there were four people working in a warehouse called Michael. It also wouldn't be a surprise if there were four CEOs at a convention called Michael. Jana says, Wow, I thought Mick was still an available option. Lou went off-piste. Yeah, well, Jana says that this particular Michael, Lou, really went for it. He had a warehouse tape gun and a box cutter with Lou on a sticker written on it. But then what if there are other people working at the warehouse who were called Lou, as in Louie?

Yeah. And if you're shouting it across a warehouse, Lou is not going to sound distinct enough. But I love it as a fun and practical solution. Solution. Here's a question from David, who says, I'm watching the Game of Thrones finale and it got me wondering, Ollie, answer me this.

What is it about the colour green that makes green screens work? Why are they not blue, for example? Or red, blood red. Well, you did used to get blue screens. I mean, you still do get blue screens used by the film industry. Yeah. But green screen's more common now david's correct is it easier to cut around the the green than the blue like does green show up a bit less because it's

more recessive well prince philip might be interested in this answer helen because it's to do with the transition to digital photography oh so in the old days well not in the old days the 70s and the 80s, when they used to do blue screen, what they used to literally do after filming is run the film through a device that stripped the blue bit of the image away from the film, but kept the red and green in place. But with digital photography, green is easier to light and you do see every detail, don't you, when you're filming in 4K or hd and digital cameras respond better to green wait a sec when you say that the old technology stripped out the blue what if there was some blue

in the scene like someone was wearing a blue jumper would that also disappear yes so um that's why they also sometimes used to use yellow um in the 60s disney used a process called sodium vapor so that's what's in the parent trap mary pop Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks. With that, it's more like a yellow and white background. And that's what they stripped out. It's a slightly different process. But theoretically, you could use pretty much, and you could use red.

If you wanted to have a red screen behind and then separate out the red and turn it into a background of New York or whatever, you could do that. But not with white human subjects because we have red skin tones in us. Most people's faces are not green. Exactly. background of New York or whatever you could do that but not with white human subjects because we have red skin tones in us most people's faces are not green exactly good choice well where you run into problems is when the character is green and the other character is blue which sounds

ridiculous but of course in superhero movies not that uncommon so spider-man versus the green goblin is a problem ah because if they're both in the same frame you have to have spidey in front of a green screen green goblin in front of a blue screen um so you know that's a logistical challenge but obviously digital technology makes it slightly easier than it used to be yeah like how much are they actually doing the green goblins mask and stuff in post nowadays a lot of it is all those funny bobbles they wear on their faces, isn't they, that get turned into computer imagery. But the Sam Raimi Spider-Man was, what, 2002? So I'm not sure if it was CGI, all of it.

I think there probably were quite a lot of shots where they literally needed the two men in costumes looking at each other. So it would have been difficult. There was definitely a lot of CGI when he's swinging through New York on some web. Yes. I believe Tobey Maguire hadn't actually evolved to be able to do that himself. I'd never seen a green screen being used until sort of the turn of the century. I remember when I used to go to the Museum of Moving Image,

which was a big hangout for eight-year-old Olly Mann. There was this bit where you used to pretend you were being interviewed by Trevor McDonald. Every eight-year-old's dream. And that was all blue screen. And you could pretend, I mean, obviously this was all blue screen. And you could pretend, I mean, obviously this was secondary to me, but you could pretend to be Superman as well.

So that was like, you'd lie on a kind of pyramid-shaped blue plank and pretend to be Christopher Reeve. So those were both blue screens then. So I didn't even know green screen was a thing, but it seems to be predominant now. And now also you go to like an aquarium or something and they do that thing where they try to take your photo oh i hate that and it's often in front of a

green screen and then they superimpose a picture of the aquarium in the background yeah it just seems like a really bollocks use of green screen because you're at the aquarium anyway you're at the fucking aquarium at least take a picture with like a big cuddly shark or something yeah because otherwise you could take your picture anytime and superimpose it on the aquarium i absolutely agree. They do it at the London Eye as well, which is even more ridiculous because you're literally there for the view. It's almost like the photos aren't meant to capture a genuine memory.

The weirdest one that I've seen in a professional context is if you ever go and guest on BBC News, like if you're down the line from London, you're in Broadcasting House, which is the BBC London newsroom, which is what people see on their tellies at home. And you are on the balcony at Broadcasting House doing an interview, just like it seems to be on the telly. But there's a green screen behind you with a picture of the balcony. And I think the reason is they can film interviews at any time of day.

It doesn't have to be live. Oh, that makes and it looks good for a breakfast morning news program it looks like you were there in the morning and i think it's always going to show people dress smartly and it being busy you know rather than empty or full of people in like clumsy looking t-shirts office christmas party and i guess the light is constant but it's just really weird when you think but i'm here why am i pretending to be here could they put a green screen on your body so that if you turn up looking a bit dishevelled,

they can put you in a suit or something? Yeah, theoretically, they absolutely could. That might be a bit of a stretch for the news graphics team, but you never know. Do they specify when they're booking you that you're not allowed to wear green? No. Like they say, don't wear close stripes and things.

No, and they should. Because often you can just sort of see in your hairline as well because i've got curly hair it's quite hard to delineate sometimes you get a bit of light coming off the screen that you're on you see you see all like reflection of green in someone's glasses you see stuff like that as well or that little cutout edge yeah but i guess probably if the director is looking at that as you're actually on the telly they just minimize you don't they into one of those tiny boxes so people can't really see you anyway here's a question from siobhan who says helen answer me this how do they make rye vitae i was looking at the packet on the

table the other day and i noticed the ingredients list only rye flour and salt with no liquid ingredients to bind them at all magic presumably though Presumably, though, you don't have to list water if you use water in the manufacturing process, do you? You don't if the water is removed by the cooking process, which it is in the case of Ravita because it is a dry food. There we go, Siobhan. So yes, there is water in the recipe, but it evaporates. Fine. Solved then, isn't it?

I mean, she's basically saying, how do they make Ravita? Go on. Okay, well, they mix those things together and then they put the Ravita dough through a big mangle. It gets rolled over by a pair of spiked dockering rollers and that's what creates the little dimples in it, which are for, firstly, making them extra crispy by increasing the surface area

and secondly, acting like a kind of pin so that the top and bottom of the rye-vita stay pegged together and don't split. And also so that you can fill them with butter. So your semi-healthy crisp bread becomes anything but. I was surprised that rye beta was founded in Birmingham in 1925. Because I thought that they had an ad campaign with Ulrika Johnson going on about how it was Swedish. But was that just me conflating shooting stars doing Jesus Christ

it's Ulrika, the Swedish inventor of Rive Eater. Well, well remembered. That's weird what stays in this noggin. It's very much like those gigantic mill wheels of crisp bread you get from Ikea, isn't it? I think it was just inspired by

a Scandinavian recipe? For the first seven years they imported crispbreads from Sweden, but then built a bakery in Birmingham. And then that was destroyed in a World War II bombing, so then they built a new bakery in Poole, which was expanded in 1974 to become the largest single-span building in Europe at that time. So architecturally, a very significant crispbread bakery. So Scandi-inspired, but then developed in the UK like Conran Furniture. Do you know what I don't dislike Ravita I think it's quite hard to hate Ravita but

equally if you ask me pick a branded product that you would never get to eat again ever in your life I can't think of one that I'd be more ambivalent about than Ravita like if you told me now I'm gonna die and never again have Ravita I'm fine with that oh i love rye vitae i'd prefer to keep rye vitae than cabri's chocolate what jesus just go straight for a whole category i mean i was going to pick a particular one like double decker i'm ambivalent about double decker as well how we like double decker yeah but i did or i know dairy lee i could happily never eat dairy lee ever again but i don't hate it oh dairy lee can go fuck itself yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas Babybel, I'd be a bit upset if I never again got to taste Babybel,

even though I also don't really like that. That's a useful backup snack on a long walk. Tell you what, on your deathbed, I'll make sure that I bring a Babybel to you. One last hurrah. Oh my god. The last thing I'm going to see is Helen turning up with a bag of red discs going, ba-ba-ba-ba-Babybel. Horrific.

Now I can lose some peace. The death siren is a-calling! And then I shove it down your gullet, still wrapped, and that's how you die. Very sad. But I was just trying to go with your wishes. What I would have wanted. Whilst Martin sits in the corner

munching on a double-decker. If you've got a question then email your question to answer me this podcast at googlemail.com answer me this podcast

at googlemail.com answer me this podcast at googlemail.com 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. 10 minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Time for a question from Sue in California, who says, I've recently gone back to work after taking six months of medical leave because I was diagnosed with leukemia. Oof.

She says things were very tough during chemo. Well, fuck, I bet. Yeah, it's not known as it for being a fun period but i responded well to treatment went into remission yay and by the time i went back to work i'd put back on the weight that i'd lost and i looked basically healthy in the same as before except i have very short hair now after having it shaved at the start of treatment not everybody at work knows i was severely ill. Because I work at a large place that's open 24-7 with multiple locations, I wish Sue had specified, when somebody

disappears you assume they've gone to a different shift or a different location. Is it Scientology? Oh Sue's just gone to Sea Org for a bit. My hair has now grown back enough that people who don't know that I had cancer assume it's a style choice that I made. And so sometimes they'll compliment me or they'll ask me why I cut my hair so short or did I cut it myself or did I have it done at a salon? I never know what to say. The last time somebody asked, I said a nurse had done it and dipped before they could say

anything else. If you're behind a customer service desk, that's amazing in itself. A nurse did it, bye. Just go down into the cellar now. I love your very literal interpretation of the current slang, dipped. Sue continues, I don't mind talking about having had cancer, but I also don't want to talk about it all the time. Or indeed, let it define my identity. And I imagine that the people who assumed that I'd made a bold fashion choice might then feel bad if they found out that they'd made the wrong assumption. But I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't sick. So, Helen, answer me this.

What is the best way to navigate this conversation? What should Sue say when people say why have you cut your hair so short i think it depends case by case on whether you want the person to feel awkward for asking or whether you want them to feel compassion for you or whether you just want to get the interaction over with because if you just want to get it over with you can lie no she says she doesn't want to pretend she wasn't sick specific about that okay would it work if you said well i lost my hair during chemo and then now it's growing back i thought i'd try out an audrey hepburn crop or

something so you've mentioned that you have cancer but you've already moved on the emphasis before they've had a chance to respond i mean that's very clever because that encourages a response like oh yes it looks great rather than oh start talking about chemo i wonder whether this gets easier as well once you've had a couple of haircuts because it's been growing back enough that it's maybe dissociated a bit from the first time you had to shave it. Yeah.

I mean, it's not something anyone wants to think about, but if you were faced by this decision, if you knew your hair was likely to fall out or that you should shave it so that it's consistent, do you think you'd want to have a short haircut or do you think you'd go wig shopping? Well, I already have quite short hair. I can't imagine what it's consistent do you think you'd want to have a short haircut or do you think you'd go wig shopping um well i already have quite short hair i can't imagine what it's like when you're in that situation so you know i might think i would be fine with it and actually find that i wasn't but i've never worn wigs and i'm kind of curious just to try out things that at the moment i never would

try out yeah like a bright green one right exactly just to see how that went or maybe i'd try painting my head i mean if i had cancer maybe i would have zero energy for any of this experimenting yeah sure and maybe it would also be uncomfortably hot and itchy but also helen you don't have to pay vat on a wig if your hair loss is caused by cancer treatment god finally a tax advantage how do they check oh i suppose maybe a lot of that is like mail order or maybe they're companies that used to dealing with the cancer patients you probably need a doctor's note don't you those cancer tax scrounges otherwise it'd just be a really awkward conversation wouldn't it or can i get the uh vat free version you can get a wig

for like 30 quid but a human hair wig or a custom wig, that's thousands. So getting the VAT back would be quite a significant chunk of money. Yeah, as we've covered before, very expensive. I've not been through anything comparable with Sue, but as someone who's got a visible large scar on my neck, it meant that people were inclined to ask me about it because I wasn't hiding it with a Santa beard or anything. And I don't mind because it's not a particularly difficult illness to talk about. But when it's total strangers who don't really care, I don't really want to have to get into it. And I don't really want their sympathy because it's not like that. Or, you know, their presumptions about what it's like,

because they don't know me and they don't care. And also, it's your psychological effort to be positive about it, isn't it? Yes. Like it might trigger something in you that isn't a pleasant memory and to make them feel better you have to present it as if it's a positive thing which we both agree is a solution for sue but that takes a tax on you yeah also i'd love there to be an interesting or funny story and there isn't really so i know that my answer is going to be a letdown. But the other week I was in a supermarket in New Zealand and the cashier went, you've got a gash. You've got a gash. And it was like she was so transfixed that these words were coming out of her mouth

and not fully under control. So, yeah, I do have a gash, but the story is only going to slow down your exit from this situation. So why do you even really want it? I suppose in a way, though, that's a pure reaction, at least. Yes, very pure. Very unfiltered. Like, she should have thought about what she was saying, but at least she hadn't.

And therefore you can interpret it as that. I mean, it wasn't maliciously intended, clearly. But at the same time, you do wonder if someone came in in a wheelchair, she would go like, You're in a wheelchair! You've got no arms! It hadn't occurred to them you know gosh yeah yeah lovely gosh i think the thing is there's there's an absence of easy and productive ways to talk about health situations and possibly traumatic events and people are curious and other people maybe want their illness or their trauma to be understood by others. But it's so hard to approach it in a way that is open enough and yet polite enough, isn't it?

I suppose the thing is with hair, particularly with ladies, it is an accepted thing that you talk to women about. Yeah. So I think if men suddenly go bald, you don't say, oh, you're losing your hair, do you? But if a woman turns up with short hair, it is deemed acceptable in society to say, oh, you've done your hair. Oh, it looks different. And I suppose that's what makes it different to having a scar on your neck. Or actually, even if you suspect someone's pregnant, like it's now kind of pretty much established that you don't comment on a woman's weight, partly because it's objectifying, but also partly because it's a possibility that she either is or isn't pregnant and would respond to that whereas with hair they're just there isn't that ground rule in the person asking the question that everyone understands that's not something you ask and i think

unfortunately it's probably too much to expect people to think about that before they ask but it's interesting isn't it how sue kind of does and doesn't want to talk about it yeah yeah yeah you can either have them know or not have them know i think basically say as economically and as positively as you can whilst not lying unfortunately is the best you're gonna get yeah well after i had chemo my hair wasn't looking so good so i'm trying out this new style yeah but so it sounds like it's in the past so they don't have to worry about you or just enjoy weaponizing it right you might as well get something out of it yeah someone isn't going to complain about your customer service then are they right be like oh that woman with cancer she was really rude to me yeah well let me carry this heavy box for you sue

i'm trying to build a website to bring tourists to rad lit but when i open it up on my smartphone or tablet something goes wrong and it just looks a bit shit unlike Hertfordshire itself well try building that website using Squarespace on desktop and devices it will look simply ace as well designed as Hertfordshire

with all that lovely green space County of Opportunity and Stevenage Thank you very much to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode of Answer Me This and making all of your websites more beautiful than they otherwise would be if you just tried to create a website from nothing with no experience of web design. Yeah, if you're like, oh, well, I drew my friend a birthday card once that I thought was quite cool. Yeah.

I can do this from scratch myself. The thing is, you might have all the talent you need and that talent might not be applicable to building a functional and good looking website but then on that website you can exhibit the talent as it deserves that's right because you can put up a gallery there of the birthday cards you've made for your friends you can put a menu up for the uh novelty tacos that you make by the way yesterday i saw a chicken schnitzel topped with nachos go past me in a restaurant. So if you're thinking of fusion food, there's still so much exciting things that are being done.

And they have plenty of support to help you out if for whatever reason you get stuck. And they've recently, I'm going to have to ask you, Helen, to park your hatred of the word webinar just for a minute. They've recently announced a series of webinars as well. So you can actually speak to their community team face-to-face. You can see them talking to you, showing you how to use Squarespace if you get stuck.

So that's the kind of support you get for free once you are signed up and building your website using Squarespace. But also, if you can't stand the word webinar or the concept of webinars, they do have 24-7 customer support where it's just messaging. Yeah. Which is my favourite kind of customer customer support you can go and try it out go to squarespace.com answer use the two-week free trial and then when you sign up you can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using our code answer hi ellen and ali this is george and i left indian britain living in new y, but preparing to go to DC for two and a half months. Finding affordable housing in DC, especially when you're an academic and an academic stipend is horrifically difficult,

but I managed to find a place within budget, a within 30 minutes commute from the office. There's one catch though. I am not allowed to use anything in the kitchen to cook but i will have access to the microwave and the fridge i'm planning on bringing a small kettle with me for tea but helen only answered me this how can i survive as someone who loves to cook and loves food for two and a half months with only access to a microwave refrigerator. I mean, it's summer, you could just have salads. It's very hot in DC as well, so cold foods might be just the thing. You can make gazpacho, you can make summer rolls without needing cooking equipment.

Although I wonder, if they're being like this about cooking appliances, do you think she gets enough fridge space to buy a significant amount of ingredients? I don't quite know why they wouldn't let you cook. What do you think the reason might be? Just speculating based on the information she's given us, either they've had tenants who fucked up the oven or something and they don't trust her, or maybe that's the cooking equipment

they will allow her to have in her room or her part of the house. So it's not a proper kitchen. It's just they bunged a microwave in next to the bed or whatever. Yeah. I mean, it would be fine, wouldn't it, for a week? But I do understand where she's coming from.

Two and a half months with only a microwave to make hot things. Maybe there's a barbecue outside or room for her to get a barbecue and cook on it outside. That would be all right. Or if there's a local park that you can barbecue in. I realise this is a time-consuming option.

Yeah, outside is the crucial word there because if they are resistant to you cooking inside, don't bring a grill into the house. I'm someone who used to cook a lot and I haven't had a kitchen for nearly two years. And before that, we were cooking in my brother's kitchen. It was a terrifying place. So a kitchen for nearly two years and before that we were cooking my brother's kitchen was a terrifying place so let's say nearly three years yeah but hold on you're you're staying sometimes aren't you at the moment in your uh insane midlife road

trip oasis uh in people's um homes that you know you're staying sometimes in airbnbs are you honestly telling me you haven't cooked for three you must have had access to an oven or a hob so when we're in airbnbs it's often that there's nothing else in the kitchen so if you're in somewhere for like three days you don't even want to have to buy a bottle of cooking oil yeah or or salt you don't want to have to restock from scratch i mean sometimes we have but it's quite a big faff but uh yeah sometimes when i'm staying at a friend's place then absolutely go to down it's like like full Christmas dinner three times a day. My aunt though, the bad one who buried my grandmother

without telling anyone. I remember that she went for years with just a microwave after she moved house. And then she enjoyed just having the microwave so much. She didn't install further cookery appliances for a long time. And she was big on doing green vegetables in it because it kept them quite crunchy.

And salmon. There are loads of microwave cookery books, aren't there? There might be myriad ways to cook fun things in a microwave that I don't know about because I've never really done much microwave cookery. There aren't as many cookbooks about microwaves as you'd expect though. I mean, you're right, there are some, obviously,

but they tend to be from the 80s when microwaves seemed like an exciting thing. A lot of them are in charity shops, yes. I'll grant. But, you know, what there isn't is kind of Jamie's microwave meals, you know. And I was speculating about why that might be. When I did that Audible show about weight loss, I went to interview Jack Monroe.

And they said the reason they weren't on TV with a cooking show, and this isn't the whole truth, I'm sure, but they felt one of the reasons they weren't on TV was because cooking show, and this isn't the whole truth, I'm sure, but they felt one of the reasons they weren't on TV was because their whole thing is cook on the cheap. Ah, so it's not aspirational. The issue was, they said, no one wants to sponsor that on Channel 4. Like, you know, Waitrose sponsor Jamie Oliver.

No one wants to sponsor here's what you can do with a 7p tin of beans. Put Jack Monroe on BBC. They should do, like, the Great British low-budget cookery of. I think I agree with you. I think that would be genuinely interesting, the 7p tinned beans put jack monroe on bbc they should do like the great british low budget cookery off i think i agree with you i think that would be genuinely interesting especially given how uh austerity has uh fucked a lot of people but if you're a cook author obviously you want to you know you want to make money out of your career so i think it might be a similar thing

with the microwave cookbooks like apart from the microwave manufacturers who's going to want to associate themselves with what is seen as quite low rent cooking that we all know generally doesn't taste as nice do you think there are any dishes that work as well or better in the microwave as opposed to cooking them i think probably things like mange tout yeah not better not better as well yeah as well sure rice is is the one that i had a look at good food magazine's website and their top 10 microwave recipes, I couldn't help noticing most of them essentially were rice. They've got a recipe for risotto primavera, which shocked me a bit,

because even though that is basically rice, you do think, don't you, about the sort of slowly oozing cheese. That's not in it. What you do is you basically put a load of wine and stock and rice into a microwavable bowl, cover it, and do it for 10 minutes in the microwave, then add frozen vegetables, and recover it for another 7 minutes, and then at the end you stir in a bit of cheese and mint.

Sounds rank, but reviews on the website said, yeah, this is nice. A lot of the critical characteristic of a risotto is the texture it gets from the starch slowly exiting the rice grains. Yeah, yeah. And in a microwave, is that going to happen?

But maybe it is, yeah. Maybe it slowly absorbs in the microwave just as it does in a hob and we're all just food snobs. Or we've all been sold, you know, the image through the way Italian cookery is presented to us as it's a lifestyle thing where you take all day making it and the smells fill the kitchen. But actually, maybe it does taste fine in the microwave, you know know what i think would be really missing if you only had a microwave would be the maillard reaction because that makes things tasty the browning process yeah but the opposite

as well slow slow cooking you can't do like a simmering casserole for six hours and get the lovely tender flavor meats and flavors i wonder if this would be an option for for georgiana whether it would be a problem if she got like a plug-in kitchen appliance, like a slow cooker, or even a George Foreman grill type thing and kept that in her room. But I do think if you know anyone else in town,

whether you could just get them to let you take over their kitchen for an afternoon on the weekend and you batch cook stuff that you can then eat during the week that is delicious. Have you ever made one of those microwave cakes in a mug no i haven't but i'm quite impressed by them what happens it's like a souffle isn't it in a mug essentially yeah yeah exactly it looks like one of the melt in the middle chocolate puddings except it doesn't

melt in the middle because it's just full of air and chocolate powder i've never been brave enough to make it from scratch but if you spend long enough on buzzfeed there are recipes on how to do that but i've done the thing where when i'm in the states i bought it in the supermarket as a powder brought it back here and tried it and it's kind of magic like it's great with kids because you you pour in some powder and then two minutes later there's a cake in your mug i mean that's quite exciting but it tastes just like everything from a microwave it tastes fine it's just a bit bland like it's absolutely fine it tastes like if you paid 50p at a summer fate for it from a child you'd be like yeah that's a

chocolate cake but it's not a nice chocolate cake you know okay but she could make fridge cake because she could melt chocolate using the microwave and then she can crush up the biscuits and and she could do that just eat a lot of fridge cake but there is something magic about watching and that's the only thing that i think slightly undervalued fridge cake but there is something magic about watching and that's the only thing that i think slightly undervalued about microwave cooking there is something magic about taking a ready meal and it becoming a thing like not the ones where you're just reheating something but so like for example i get from costco these wonton soups which i sometimes have for lunch you take the lid off you fill it with cold water and then you put the lid back on and when you put

it in it just looks like some powder and some cold water and five minutes later it is wonton soup with fully formed wontons with bronze in i don't know how it works it's insane so like sea monkeys yeah yeah exactly they have they hatch out when you put a little bit of heat and i think that magic is why children in particular like microwave cooking like i i learned to cook using a microwave and I wouldn't now make anything that I made when I was seven but it was nice to have this thing that I could do as a seven-year-old without hurting myself well also because you can look through the window at it turning round and round yeah so that's part of the appeal isn't it the microwave miracle that I remember is when I was young my mum's friend lent her a microwave because my mum was not into microwaves but we had this thing.

It came with a recipe booklet, which included meringues. And my mum was like, hmm, can't really believe that, but let's try it. And so we worked up some meringue, put it in the microwave and it kind of puffs up like a magic cloud. And we're like, whoa, fuck. And then it suddenly like deflates into like a tiny little wizened black thing. All it is is the appearance of a meringue it's like a balloon made of meringue with no innards and then if you leave it a second too long it just goes black yeah i mean i think what we're basically saying georgianne is unfortunately you're right microwaves are good if you're making a nickelodeon science show

not so good if you actually want to live with nutritious food in your life so i sympathize yeah so i think either cheat get really into vietnamese summer rolls or find a friend with a great kitchen so that you've got some outlet hello i'm wilson the ball from castaway and here Castaway. And here is my song about my favourite balls. Football, rugby ball, volleyball ball, tennis ball, zoe ball, basketball, netball, handball, debutante ball, bowling ball baseball big sweaty ball answer me this sports day a marathon of fun and games out now at answer me this podcast.com slash albums may we take the opportunity to remind you listeners that if you have exhausted the more than 100 hours of free podcasting we have available on our feed there is roughly the same amounting we have available on our feed. There is roughly the same amount again.

We have waffled that much in our lives. Available behind what you might unkindly call a paywall, but I would like to call a... A money curtain. At answermethisstore.com. Right, that's our first 200 episodes. All of those are on there, as well as our exclusive albums. Which we'll never put on the free feed. That's our first 200 episodes. All of those are on there as well as our exclusive albums which we'll never put on the free feed.

That is our promise to you. But they're all a very reasonable price. And Ollie's got a new kitten to buy shoes for, so he needs some contributions. Yeah, that's big news, isn't it, the kitten? So his name's Alvin. He is absolutely delightful. Even Helen with her heart of stone when it comes to kittens would probably

find it semi-melted. I don't have a heart of stone when it comes to kittens would probably find it semi-melted i don't have a heart of stone when it comes to kittens just when they become adult cats oh okay fine um so the opposite of how you feel about children yeah true how weird yeah but anyway um he is very cute uh but there are just some annoying things about having kittens which i'd forgotten because i was eight the last time i had one boundless energy so he just and pointless you know responding to changes in light and shit like that so he'll just run into the room and then jump up on you and then jump down again and then run out again and that is pissing coco off something rotten oh it's just preparing her for another home invasion that you have imminent oh yeah yeah my wife. My wife's pregnant and we're having another child,

but that's much less exciting than the kitten, obviously. The child won't be able to run around for at least a year. So kittens, very advanced. And congratulations on both, by the way. Thank you very much. Here's a question from Kelly in Las Vegas, who's asking something I've always wondered, but have never bothered to articulate in my head or on paper.

Helen, answer me this. What is the origin of brownie points? I was surprised to find that this is one of those things where there's a ton of bullshit explanations. So I'm just going to filter through to the two most plausible to me. Okay. Firstly, that it's to do with brown nosing. Ah.

So it's kind of a sardonic expression because it often means that you're being a bit of a goody-goody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brownie points with the wife because I've got her favourite flowers. I can see that. Yeah. Or it's to do with the brownies. Right.

Or Girl Scouts, as I believe they're called in the USA. And then there's a lot of explanations like, oh, well, during rationing, rationing points were required to buy food and meat was designated by brown points. So you might say brownie points, but it's probably older than that. And also it doesn't really show the transition from brown to brownie. And it's not really a kind of thing where you've like put in some work to get extra points as it is like you've got your state mandated rationing. And then some things about like box brownie cameras and children could submit photos to competitions to win cash prizes. Again, it's not points.

Some publishing company was like blah, blah, blah. It's sort of like Green Shield stamps, but brown. So it sounds like the most likely explanation is what you'd always assumed, what I'd always assumed, it is linked to the Girl Scouts. That's what I think. And I had never really thought, despite having been a brownie and avidly having read my rather elderly copy of the Brownie Guide handbook, which was written at a time when children probably still believed in pixies and whatnot. But I'd never really thought

about brownies themselves. And they are folklore, helpful creatures in scottish and northern english folklore they would come out at night and do house or farm chores like elves yeah like elves but elves that are pricks because um they seem like they were really really easy to piss off and if you piss them off they would just leave forever but then if you try to do something nice for them like if you paid them they would leave if you gave them a name they would leave if you gave them clothing they leave and i thought oh is that sort of like releasing the brownies from servitude no apparently they found it very insulting to have any of those things happen i mean some people are very difficult to buy clothes for that's true i mean i can identify with that but apparently the brownies were ugly,

usually naked or dressed in rags, and very hairy. Well, that's probably why they haven't got their own Netflix Kids series then. I mean, that's presumably why buying clothes is insulting, because it's saying, cover up your disgusting bodies. It's a sort of, like, body shaming act. I prefer to hang loose. I'm a brownie. Yeah, right. And apparently the brownies in the

Scottish Lowlands did not have noses, but instead just had a single hole in the centre of their face. And are they brown? Well, I don't know, because they're covered in hair. So I think the hair was brown. And then I read this interesting interpretation that said, belief in brownies could be exploited by both masters and servants. The servants could blame the brownie for messes, breakages,

and strange noises heard at night. Meanwhile, the masters of the house who employed them could use stories of the brownie to convince their servants to behave by telling them that the brownie would punish servants who were idle and reward those who perform their duties vigilantly. So that's interesting, isn't it?

It's like the brownies are this kind of offsite intermediary to keep the servile relationships cordial. I thought J.K. Rowling kind of pinched the idea of giving a helpful creature clothing and that liberates them with Dobby the House Elf. I'll take your word for it. I don't dislike Harry Potter like I do Star Wars, but I can't say I was paying attention.

You could almost say that Dobby the House Elf, particularly in the first point where he appears, is the Jar Jar Binks of the Potter franchise but it does get better later but he's he's sort of like a servant house elf and then Harry gives him a sock and he's free spoiler for a 20 year old but hey talking of brownies something else that comes along with looking after Alvin is uh kittens have to shit indoors oh we've got a litter tray again for the first time in five years and uh i mean he's living in my office because that's a way that we can keep him apart from coco who's living in the kitchen

but that means i'm now literally recording now talking to you now with the smell of cat poo in the air um and so oh great what i have to do periodically is shovel out the latest deposit and it's like the the sickest egg and spoon race ever i have to take the poo out the house as quickly as possible and to the end of the garden where i chuck it into the field it's like its own weird commonwealth game this is what it took to get you into sport after my commute when i find the time i can always send a question to the question line inquiries are wanted it's all part of the plan. I'll a Helen, or Ollie, or Martin, a sound man.

Answer me this podcast, podcast at GoogleMail.com Answer me this podcast, podcast at GoogleMail.com Podcast at GoogleMail.com Here's a question from Matt in Austin who says, I've just returned home from a trip with my family to Walt Disney World. The magic of Walt Disney World. Where do they play that? Is that when you walk in and then all the time you're in there?

I remember it from the fireworks in the 80s. I haven't heard it since, but it stuck with me. Walt Disney World's the one in Orlando. Is that correct? It is. Thank you for clarifying before you made the kind of mistake that makes me very angry inside, but I feel pedantic to keep correcting. I know it does.

I'm really sorry that I don't understand or care. Matt says, I hadn't been back there since 1996 and it was amazing to see what had and had not changed from my memories of the Magic Kingdom from 20 plus years ago. Something I had vivid memories of seems to be completely missing. I remember going on a ride at Epcot Centre. Well, that's not part of the Magic Kingdom,

so already he's made a mistake, but fine. So Matt's an unreliable narrator, we think. He remembers going on this ride at Epcot Centre, which all these years I thought was Spaceship Earth. Is that a thing from 90s Walt Disney World Epcot Centre? Yes. So when you think of Epcot as someone who's never been, what do you think of?

Epcot, isn't that the one that looks like a big golf ball? Right. So that golf ball that you're talking about is a geodespic sphere. Inside that is the ride Spaceship Earth. So it's not just like, oh, a ride that is Epcot. It's like, it's the iconic ride at Epcot. Okay. Matt says the ride showed what living in the future would be like. It's the iconic ride at Epcot. Okay. Yeah. Matt says,

the ride showed what living in the future would be like. I know, I've been on it. It was a dark ride with animatronic scenes depicting farming and families living in underwater habitats and in space. It was super cool in 1996, but even then a little dated. Well, that describes all of Epcot.

Matt says, I went on Spaceship Earth again last week and this portion of the ride was missing. Ollie answered me this, was it removed? Am I confusing it with another ride or something at another park? What did I see back then? It's been driving me bananas. Spaceship Earth is refreshed periodically because, as you suggest, it's kind of like the history of the human race told in little tableaus it's pretty appalling but you do get to sit down for 15 minutes so that's good and the the final scene obviously gets dated very

quickly because the final scene is about imagine what the future might be like and also it tends to be sponsored so you know at&t presents the internet or you know siemens presents the house of tomorrow and so they do periodically refresh it when sponsors drop out or when the technology that they're showcasing looks already hopelessly outdated um so yeah so the bit that you would have seen in 1996 would have been from the refresh in 1994 with jeremy irons doing the narration oh it's interesting that you say it looked dated in 1996 because obviously it was only two years old then it didn't get refreshed until 2008 wow and then uh with judy dench doing the narration they changed the final scene in 2008 and that's still the version you're seeing now why is the narration

with these brit actors not that i'm complaining it's just an odd choice because americans are deferential to receive pronunciation simple as that okay they did used to have walter cronkite doing it so it did used to be an american voice i think if i if i was in charge of imagineering disney world i'd get obama to do it now um but um anyway they are refreshing it now they haven't announced who the narrator is going to be but you've got one summer left to see the 2008 version because then it is closing for two years from 2020 and will reopen again in 2022 with a new final scene okay if it was jeremy lyons before and then judy denture i cannot be emma thompson next if they're

following this trend olivia coleman surely you've got a future proof lovely choice i'm not sure she'd do it i mean we're probably in the running oh yeah probably if they're listing brits with rp accents we'd be in the top 500 that they'd be considering i mean inexplicably I'm not offered many voiceover jobs and I think Epcot would be a real surprise. Obviously I would do it. Yeah. With a tiny note of sarcasm. Seriously I mean I don't do that many voiceover jobs either. I do do about half a dozen a year but the idea of actually being the narrator on a Disney ride. Actually I would happily die then. Then I'd be done. If any of you are planning a theme park voiceover, please consider the Answer Me This team. Here's a question from Adam in Yorkshire, who says, Helen, answer me this. Do jellyfish really

not have organs? No heart? No brain? What do they eat? How do they eat? And how do they reproduce? How do jellyfish think, eat, shit and fuck? Yeah. Okay. Right, the main preoccupations of living creatures. I think you just ruled yourself out of the Epcot voiceover job. Look, I've just really cut to the chase and maybe they would appreciate that. Jellyfish don't have organs in the way that a mammal has organs, but let's not be mammal normative about the jellyfish they have two major cell layers the external epidermis and the internal gastrodermis so the

gastrodermis that's the sort of inside of the cup of the jellyfish's body that's like a kind of all-purpose gut and that's how they take in nutrients through the cell walls and they've also got a network of nerves in the dermises, which apparently is the most basic nervous system known in a multicellular animal. Hold on, what kind of nutrients can they take? Because presumably they eat things like plankton. We'll get on to the sinisec, Ollie. What do jellyfish eat?

And then what they shit and what they fuck. So between the epidermis on the outside and the internal gastrodermis, there's a gelatinous material. Appropriately enough. Called mesoglia, which makes up most of their bodies and they are 95% water. So they have a nerve net and they have this sort of gut layer and that's all they need. And then they've got a hole, a single hole, like in the middle of the jelly cup, let's say like the jellyfish made of a cup with some tendrils you get that image right you can visualize the jellyfish i guess and right in

the middle there's this hole and so through that hole they eat and they shit through the same hole they eat and shit through the same hole yes i'm sorry to just dumb down everything you just said into that one fact but that's what i'm taking away with me yeah but a lot of the oldest creatures in the world had a single hole for eating and shitting and i read a theory that having separate holes evolved so that you could eat and shit at the same time which was so much more efficient rather than having to eat and then wait to eat more while you had a shit i can't believe human beings don't take advantage of that more i mean there does seem to be a bit of a taboo in human society against simultaneously eating and shitting which seems to run according to this run in the face of millions of years of evolution they've got that toilet restaurant in japan which isn't an appealing

concept to me but maybe they're more highly evolved so jellyfish are carnivores and they will eat pretty much what they can get their jellyfish tendrils on. It's often plankton and small fish. Yeah. But they might kill a big fish. And the limiting factor is whether they can stuff it through their hole or not. Yeah, so they just sort of suck a few scales through or something. Or if they can somehow get a piece off it and put that through their holes. It's quite interesting, isn't it?

Because most carnivores, I imagine, kill animals that are the appropriate size to fit in their eating holes it's probably quite unusual to have an animal that's capable of jellyfish working together can kill a human can't they but then they're only just going to suck off your nipples or whatever there's a kind of jellyfish called comb jellyfish which is a bit more like a deflated balloon and apparently um there's been a scientific revelation where they've got video of them shitting out of tiny sphincter-like pores. And previously they thought they shat out of their mouths like the other kinds of jellyfish. But now they think that might actually have been them puking if they're shitting out of these tiny little sphinctery things.

Jellyfish shit looks like a kind of slime that covers their bodies. Okay. And so no organs no heart or brain that's true then well yeah i suppose it's like if that's how you define an organ yes but if you define uh skin as an organ then they have that kind of organ okay then that only leaves adam's how do they fuck question don't tell me it's through the same hole they reproduce both sexually and asexually they reproduce reproduce sexually first. So there are male jellyfish, which release sperm,

and female jellyfish that have eggs. And sometimes the female jellyfish will receive sperm through their holes to fertilise the eggs in their body cavity. Same hole. Same hole. They've only got the one hole. That is the most multi-purpose hole I've heard of.

It is a really hard-working hole. That is the hole to end all holes. One hole to rule them all. But sometimes the male jellyfish will just spunk into the water and the female jellyfish will swim through it that's hot um and then the fertilized eggs are released and they float to the bed of the sea they'll float for up to six days until they attach themselves to something like a rock or a shell and then they develop polyps, which might sit there for up to five years or more. Five years? And they'll catch shrimp and little fish.

And it'll look like almost like just a tree branch sticking out of a rock with maybe some frilly little bits at the end. And then when they reproduce asexually is when the polyp kind of divides into lots of little jellyfish. And I watched a video of it and it's amazing. It's like, imagine a stack of plates.

It's like you take the top plate off the stack and that's a new jellyfish well that is it for this episode of answer me this but we need your questions for the next episode and our contact details are emblazoned upon our website answer me this podcast.com and also if you want to send us a question in your voice the most reliable way is to record yourself on voice memo and just email it to us. And there'll be a fresh new Answer Me This on the first Thursday of July. There will be a retro Answer Me This in the middle of the month. But also we have all this other audio work that you can enjoy in between the AMT times. Olly, what have you recently put into people's ears? Well, as you you know i have a podcast called the modern

man m-a-double-n it is a monthly magazine show about amazing stories sex advice and testing out trends and uh in this month's episode which we've just put out it's called airborne uh well three things happen one i go to new york city to test out citizen which is an app that lets you monitor crime in real time it It's fucking nuts. Two, Alex Fox answers the question how do you organise a voyeuristic anonymised MMF threesome in the Isle of Man? And three, I meet this

inspirational woman. She's called Jen Bricker. She's an aerialist. So she's one of those people that dangles from silks in a circus. Oh, that's amazing. Very impressive. But she was born without legs. So she's really blazing a trail for disabled performers. And that's amazing. Very impressive. But she was born without legs. So she's really blazing a trail for disabled performers. And that's interesting anyway. But there's something properly gobsmacking in her family history,

which I won't reveal here because it's part of the interview. But it's really interesting. So have a listen to that. You can find it at modernmanwith2ends.co.uk. Helen, what's coming up on The Illusionist? Well, The Illusionist just passed its 100th episode, and I am tired! My birthday!

Thank you. Happy birthday. Yeah, it's ridiculous, isn't it? Because it hasn't been this past its 100th episode like a fucking decade ago. But The Illusionist, it's kind of a slog to produce in a good way. And then the next episode will be about

the difficult lifespan of the word bisexual. It's had such a rough time, as words go. Interesting. Okay, I look forward to hearing that. And you're also touring at the moment, are you still? Oh, yes. We just added an extra gig in Melbourne later this month and Adelaide. Check theillusionist.org slash events to see me and Martin doing a performance.

And Martin, your voice is available in other projects too. Indeed, you can listen to our weekly podcast about the songs of Tom Waits, a song at a time, it's called Song by Song, the songbysongpodcast.com. And I'm also releasing a song a week of my own music under the name Year of the Bird, and that's at palebirdmusic.com. There we go, plenty to stuff in your ears.

And as we mentioned earlier, as if that weren't enough, there's also our entire archive and our exclusive albums available at answermethisstore.com where you can also donate to the show. Do you think jellyfish listen to podcasts through their holes? If you're a jellyfish and you're listening to this, let us know once you've finished doing the shit and

call the voice line please. Oh yeah. I'd love to know what jellyfish sounds like. this let us know once you finish doing a shit and um call the voice line please oh yeah super and uh please uh join us again next time