Answer Me This! - AMT375: Scratchcards, Pincushions, and Sherlock Holmes on coke

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

In AMT375, mysteries abound: is there a murder plot in Jane Austen's Emma? Why don't newsagents get rich off scratchcards? Can you really make eggs benedict in a microwave? And how the blazes do you get a sieve clean??? 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 . 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'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Terms and conditions apply. Visit bmo.com slash theiporter to learn more. If there's live action fantasia, who'll play the broom? Should I put a tenor on Orlando Bloom. Before we begin formal proceedings, Helen, I have a quick Disney World clarification to make of the kind that you will really struggle to pretend you give a shit about. Are you sure it's going to be quick? Because from what I gather, people are very, very steamed up in extreme detail about the issue you're about to raise the feedback has been extensive but i think it can be dealt with quickly uh you will recall in the last episode matt from austin asked me about a ride at epcot that featured animatronic scenes depicting farming

in the future he thought it was spaceship earth and indeed it might have been for reasons i dealt with in the episode but anyway as you suggest helen literally dozens of you have been in touch with quite detailed emails quite details a lot of detail to say that matt might have actually been remembering the now permanently closed ride horizons which opened in 1983 closed in 1994, and amazingly, was originally called Future Probe. What? When did its name change in its short lifespan? That was at the drawing board stage, but I think they were quite far into the build before they decided that it might be problematic to have a family attraction called anything probe.

Especially in the 90s when people were so into the idea of being probed by aliens. In the bum usually. Yes, Martin, in the bum. Thanks. It closed in 1994, but it opened in 1983. So I don't know if probing was so big then. But Matt said he went to Disney World in 1996. So how could he be remembering future probe horizons?

Ah, well, okay. I don't want to, I really don't want to return to this feedback again. But I mean, as I say, No, absolutely not. I did deal in the episode with the fact that it might have been spaceship Earth he was remembering and it might have been. But equally, if he got his dates wrong,

then as all of you say, it might also have been horizons. Can we leave it at that? Because it's the memories of one man. We can't really validate it. We've never even met him. And even when we were reading his question, you had to mark Matt as an unreliable narrator of his own life quite right

some of the facts already didn't check out so all we know is there's a guy called matt who's been to disney world at least twice yeah and went on some rides anyway in much more serious feedback we have this in from meredith in canberra who has a microwave cookery suggestion for georgianne in washington dc oh yes georgianne who only has a microwave and a fridge at her disposal in her rental room for the next two months yes uh meredith says there is hope yes i like to get into work we all need hope his name is jesus praise be to god how do you cook Jesus in a microwave? That's not nice. I've been through a lot already. I like to get into work early, she says, and I can do wonders cooking breakfast in our office kitchen. Meredith, you nightmare. Everyone comes into the office and it stinks of egg because of you.

In the office kitchen, they have a microwave, a toaster and a sandwich press. All you need. Last year, a few of us did an office breakfast on the last working day before christmas and i made eggs benedict for eight of us using the microwave that's impressive also that is high summer in australia the last working day before christmas i guess the butter will just melt itself uh she, I have a foolproof microwave hollandaise sauce. And then she sent us the link, Helen. I've looked and it does involve a handheld electric whisk.

So I'm not sure, again, that that really is something that Georgianne has access to. Eggs Benedict are really a tricky thing to get right because you have to have the hollandaise ready at exactly the right moment and the poached eggs ready at exactly the right moment. So whatever appliances you have, it's a tough dish meredith continues you can poach eggs in the microwave using either a purpose-built poacher or just by cracking an egg in a mug of boiling water and microwaving it now is that true i'm very impressed if so especially if she manages to get eight done for the same serving time i cooked baby spinach she says by putting it in a

colander and pouring boiling water over it. Now that's just... I mean, of all the ingredients in her eggs Benedict, surely the spinach is the easiest one to microwave. The microwave's busy with the eggs and the hollandaise. Couldn't you line a small cup or bowl with spinach and then crack an egg into it and poach it that way and then cook the spinach at the same time?

Very watery. Oh, that's a good point alternative foolproof recipe buy a bag of crisps and eat those i don't know if you can get eggs benedict flavor crisps you probably can somewhere in the world oh probably martin bought spaghetti bolognese crisps the other week and uh you wouldn't think that that could be powerfully disgusting and yet. They're sweeping the nation in New Zealand. The smell filled the room so it probably is sweeping the nation. I thought it was quite good.

Nasty. Hello Helen and Ollie and Martin the sound man. My name's also Helen and I have a mate called Ollie but not one called Martin. I was wondering about scratch cards. See I just bought a scratch card in the newsagent and I was thinking they have all these reels of scratch cards. See, I just bought a scratch card in the newsagent. And I was thinking,

they have all these reels of scratch cards. How do the newsagents pay for them? And what stops them just going through and scratching all the scratch cards, and then taking a scratch card that wins like a million pounds to the neighbouring newsagent? And saying they were just a customer? I mean, do they pay for them one by one? Or do they just sort of get? How does it work? If you could cover the cost of multiple scratch card purchases by simply scratching them all, then no one would work for a living. That's what everyone would do. And the National Lottery wouldn't have a business. So clearly, despite the fact you might win small prizes along the way, and you've got a small chance of winning the big prize, the whole process is designed so that overall you would make a loss so that they make a profit that's how it works also does it not cost the news agents to have these items yeah they've paid for the scratch

cards and they make a profit on the sale of each one but only six percent oh really well that's sensible because if the the wholesale price was a lot cheaper than the retail price they could go like oh well okay like it doesn't make sense for punters to buy a thousand scratch cards but it does make sense for a news agent who's getting like a 50 discount to buy a thousand scratch cards yeah i think they pay a pound for the scratch card that they sell for a pound and then later they claim six percent back from camelot at the end of the year for all the cards they've sold for that reason i did though see a blog in which someone did buy 500 scratch cards just to see what would happen wow she actually won 301 pounds oh so she lost 199 that's gambling which is about the ratio that i'd expect that's

gambling because the chance of winning a prize is usually about one in four and obviously that is what's advertised but clearly the one in four is not the chance of winning the jackpot. They don't advertise what the odds are on winning the jackpot. Even if you go on the Camelot website, you don't find the odds on winning the jackpot. You find out how many jackpot prizes there are and you have to do the calculations yourself. Right. And it's really hard to work it out. And it could well be that the jackpot has already been won because

there's not an electronic display in the newsagent is there so you're you're still chasing something that was won two months ago that's quite possible i think that is on their website but who the fuck checks the website okay that's another question how long can the newsagents keep a particular kind of scratch card can they sell ones that are like eight years old yeah i believe so because yeah the jackpot hasn't changed has it it's a it's a analog mechanic um so i don't see what the issue with that would be but like i say you'd be wise to check online to see whether the prize has been claimed and now of course they're trying to get people to do the online scratch cards which removes surely the only

pleasure in scratching a card which is getting the little silver dust all over you yes outrageous how does that work then do you scratch your phone screen with your thumbnail probably just tap it don't you but isn't it funny like even though it's exactly the same company offering exactly the same product somehow when it's the card version there's an authenticity to it like if you trust them that there are five million pound prizes you genuinely don't know until you scratch it off and it's physically in your hand it was made in the factory it's the willy wonka thing isn't it you could have the golden ticket and yet when you're on the internet it's exactly the same there's just the same odds that they're going to give that one to you randomly on the computer but you don't trust it as much do you i think that's the

thing with physical objects there's a presence and automatically you trust that more than something that is virtual yeah and also there's a limited supply of the physical object whereas the online version could be infinite uh here's a question from amelia who says helen asked me this who first designed those little round pin cushions you know what i'm talking about helen oh yeah what she's talking about round pin cushions they're usually about the size and shape of a satsuma with brightly colored little people arranged all around the edge and i think they're filled with sawdust or something i do know the things she's talking about you keep pins for sewing and stuff in them do you is that the idea yeah because when you're sewing you often don't have time to take a pin and put it in a box or something you need to stab it into a cushion and also some of them have um sand or um sawdust in and you put the pin in and it gets sharpened by that so there's a function

as well as cushionality that's clever i wish they did something similar like that for diy well like a screwdriver cushion yeah because very often when you're like trying to nail something into the wall like well I say when you as if this is everyone's experience I'm terrible at DIY so when I try and hammer something into the wall I get through five nails that all bend and break and make a bigger hole in my wall than I was intending to and those are the ones that I then have to do something with and I've got kids so I don't want to put them on the floor I've got the kitten wandering around now so I have to like put it in And I've got kids, so I don't want to put them on the floor. I've got the kitten wandering around now. So I have to put it in my back pocket

and then I might sit on it and get it in my arse. I would like a DIY pin cushion for those nails. What about a blob of Blu-Tack? Yeah, I suppose so. Although then it looks like a voodoo doll, doesn't it? That's a useful secondary function. Oh, you can get magnetic pin cushions, which is just, it's not really a cushion.

It's just a pin cushion size magnet. And you could get one of those for your nails until you have time to safely dispose of them so amelia says who makes these weird little things and why has something so surreal and specific and complicated endured i've got really awful news and it is that i spent hours hours trying to find the answers to these questions and i couldn't it i am devastated i know that these pin cushions go back to at least the 30s because i saw them being sold on antique sites with that attribution and there are some which where they're saying it's chinese babies holding hands and somewhere it's like this is from japan and it's sumo wrestlers holding hands okay well just before you go any further do they because i can't quite visualize this

do they look asian do they look like they could be chinese or japanese the characters well it's their faces are pointing inwards and they're sort of done on a stereotype so the sumo wrestlers will have the high hair so yeah sure but also the fabric is like asian silk okay so it's legit that it might come from that part of the world then oh yeah i think it does come from that part of the world but i can't find out why that design is a thing it's a very common pin cushion shape because um it lacks weak spots and also you can pack it like really dense so another very common pin cushion design is a tomato that has a little strawberry dangling off it. And people on the internet are up in arms.

They're like, why is it a strawberry? You never see a strawberry growing out of a tomato. And the strawberry contains the emery for sharpening the needles. There is no place for whimsy in my very serious world of sewing. But then there's this very pervasive myth that I can't really get confirmation on. That the reason why the tomato ones exist is because in the mid-1800s it was considered good luck to put a tomato on a mantelpiece in your house to ward off evil spirits or something. Okay. But a lot of people didn't have access to real tomatoes

or they would rot so they would make them out of red fabric but that sounds like bollocks to me. I think it's just a tomato is an easy shape to make out of red fabric and put pins in do you think that's where the squeezy ketchup bottle came from as well not just a fun plastic shape in a 50s diner but to keep away evil spirits well now i do so okay so all right you've got far enough to say maybe it's from asia yes i think it's actually from asia but i wonder whether it is catering to a westernised taste for orientalist knickknacks. So that would explain the sort of boom in popularity in the early 20th century. I just wonder in all of your hours of Googling whether at least you've managed to determine a name for this object rather than just thing, pincushion thing.

Not even. Sometimes it's like Chinese baby pincushion, sometimes Japanese sumo wrestler pincushion. And there wasn't even like a subreddit about pincushions where people discuss this in detail. There's a lot of pincushion chat about the tomato pincushions, let me tell you. I went deep cushion that day. I also found ads for a 1940s pincushion, which is like a little statuette of Adolf Hitler with a pincushion for his bum. Apparently President Roosevelt had one because he thought it was so amusing.

Where are all the comedy pin cushions now, eh? I bet there's Donald Trump ones. Oh yeah, you're right. I bet there are, especially on Etsy. I bet that's someone's livelihood, making Donald Trump pin cushions. I don't even need to Google it. I know it is. I know it to be true.

I got a question. 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 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 Jonathan from Exeter who says, Ollie, answer me this. Is the yearly Blue Peter Appeal still a thing? And what is the highest amount it ever raised? The annual Blue Peter Appeal is no longer an annual event, no. Although it was revived last year for the 60th anniversary of Blue Peter.

But the Blue Peter Appeal, it's hugely influential amongst fundraisers today because it did a lot of things for the first time. It started in 1958, like a good 20 years before anyone had really seen a telethon before. And it also, looked at now, seems quite ahead of its time because it was very democratising. It wasn't just about kids contributing money to the show to help other children in need around the world. you could contribute things like bottle tops or stamps which feels to me very 2019 like the whole concept of a recycling and b sort of everyone democratically being able to participate in the same way in some small way to contribute towards a target so they're on board with the idea even if in reality it's going to be you know a handful of big donors that are going to make the difference that's exactly

how fundraising happens now isn't it but also it's very powerful to get children involved because children can pester their parents and also every time they see a bottle top they can be thinking about a charitable cause yeah it came out of biddy baxter this legendary producer of blue peter who was on it for like 40 years looking one christmas at all the toys lying dejected and unused around the studio one year because they used to do you know it's a children's magazine show so come christmas time they basically do here are the toys you can pester your parents for this christmas yeah and she looked around in 1958 at the toys they had lying around and just thought why don't we give these toys to poor children instead of telling our middle class children who are watching what they should get for

christmas and that was where the concept came from was like next christmas let's do a campaign where we get everyone involved in giving and try and spread that message also the totalizer again something that you're really used to seeing on telly now the idea of having a goal that you're aiming at like kickstarter as well because really influential you've got this chart and you can see at the top what they're aiming for so that's like the big thermometer where they would color in a bit more for all the money that came in blue peter essentially invented that and also invented the idea that the target at the top isn't the real target so they'd have a target at the top of like by the 1980s let's say at the top it said 100 grand yeah but then when they got to 100 grand there'd be a second totalizer that went up to 500

000 and it's because kids you know don't want to hang on for two months to reach the target but the psychology remains whatever age you are doesn't it like you want to reach the top and you're only going to reach the top if you feel it's got momentum yeah and also people are more inclined to give money to a thing that's already demonstrated that people want to give money to it. Yeah, exactly. Classic Kickstarter techniques. But anyway, to answer Jonathan's question directly as to what is the highest amount it ever raised,

that information is quite hard to come by. I have even contacted the BBC Children's Press Office for an answer on this. And basically they said they've got a live show today they haven't got time to answer your question unbelievable but the press officers gave me some information about the history of the blue peter appeal so this is all they have ready to hand they don't know the answer as to what's been the most successful appeal ever but they do know that across the 49 blue peter appeals they've raised the equivalent of £100 million in today's money.

But that's a bit of a fudge stat, isn't it? Because obviously, what does today's money mean? They've obviously worked out with inflation and everything else. And it's kind of complicated. So the only fact that I can find from a charity's website online, and obviously some of the charities Blue Peter was supporting in 1958 no longer exist. But from an individual charity online boasting about how much they raised through the Blue Petereter appeal the best example i can find is sight savers in fact so successful was the blue peter appeal for sight saver in 1986 that the charity that had previously been called the royal commonwealth society for the blind actually changed its name to the name of the appeal sight savers they raised two million pounds in 1986 wow from bring and buy sales wow yeah original target of 100 grand and then they did

32 000 bring and buy sales around the country i suppose bring and buy sales though the overheads are low because you're not paying anything for the product and you're outsourcing it aren't you it's not like the bbc had to pay to rent the village hall like you're sayingourcing it, aren't you? It's not like the BBC had to pay to rent the village hall. Like you're saying to kids, ask your teacher if you can use the space, then bring along all your old shit. So it costs the BBC nothing. They just get the income. But there's no outlay for the products either.

So that, I suppose, is people's contribution as well, isn't it? I told Martin something the other day that really upset him, which is when I was about five, I went to a bring and buy sale in the local village hall and i found one of my toys for sale there and i said to my mom how did this get here and she said i thought you didn't want it anymore but she hadn't asked devastating what was the toy a soft toy of a tortoise made out of like brown canvas it wasn't very soft and cuddly it's just a big round tortoise i think it was on for 50p do you now credit her with telling you the truth uh well i don't think she had any other

option because she could have just said oh that's not your one you've got one a bit like that but it's not that one yeah the thing is it definitely was that one because it was an unusual creature wasn't the kind of thing where all of your friends had one it was a brown canvas toy tortoise probably with some 70s patterns on the shell i sort of secretly take some of harvey's toys to the hospice shop when i drop him at nursery on a weekly basis and he hasn't noticed yet don't take him in there to buy toys then although if i did i would just say oh yeah you've got one of those but i guess it wouldn't be a canvas tortoise it's things like an early learning center plastic telephone yeah which in itself is a telephone box which we don't really have anymore so he doesn't even know what the object is supposed to be mimicking that doesn't work because i couldn't change the batteries

because the screws rusted and so you think he's not enjoying this but actually like a baby who's not bothered about whether or not it makes a noise when you press it and doesn't know what the object is it's just a shiny lump of plastic for 50p would probably be distracted by that it's things like that but if he knew that i was giving it away i mean we wouldn't be able to leave the house you know i suppose what you could do is you could have a kind of halfway house for the toys so the ones that you think he doesn't care about you remove from his room but if he asks about it then you've ones that you think he doesn't care about, you remove from his room. But if he asks about it, then you've still got them. So he doesn't feel like you've betrayed him

because you haven't taken it away permanently. A kind of purgatory. Right, exactly. And if he hasn't requested one of the toys in purgatory for a month, then you can take it. Purgatory. Purgatory. This is a plan. The 14 bring and buy sales have raised the equivalent of an estimated 57 million pounds uh other items collected by the appeal include over 948 million stamps wow 19 million

aluminium cans what do they do with the cans and over 1.4 million pairs of shoes wow including david beckham's boots i presume that was a celebrity donation rather than child david beckham sending them in and then bothering to recognize that years later uh between 1962 and 2010 the appeals raised money to buy amongst others two guide dogs 25 lifeboats eight flats for homeless people 32 ponies 57 lorries three caravans two day centers six bungalows 12 houses in romania three schools and 8 350 what helen 8 350 mosquito nets oh that's such a good guess wells i mean it's not actually close but that's oh my god your guess you're on fire toilets oh brilliant but you were really close i think with mosquito nets and wells like I mean, it's not actually close, but that's... Oh my God, you're on fire. Toilets.

Oh, brilliant. But you were really close, I think, with mosquito nets and wells. Like, toilets is in the middle of that Venn diagram, isn't it? I just went a little too far. That's very impressive. How many stamps to build a Romanian school? Yeah, that's the bit I don't understand. How did they convert the stamps into cash? I know the stamps have a cash value.

I mean, it's not very efficient, really, is it? No. And the bottle tops, when they were doing that, collect bottle tops or ring pulls or whatever the fuck it was. Yeah. Did they melt that down? I don't know. I don't know.

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nothing they haven't made easy and so if you have an idea for a website but you've been dragging your heels despite listening to us talking about squarespace since you were born go to squ squarespace.com slash answer, have a go on the two-week free trial, and then when you sign up, you can get a 10% discount off your first purchase of a website or domain using our code ANSWER. And to the person who wrote to us saying, oh, I've been listening to Answer Me This for ages, and now I'm going to get a Squarespace website, but should I be using your code?

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Yes, use our code. I get people saying, should I use the Answer Me This code or the Illusionist code? I can't answer that question for you. Follow your heart. Here's a question from Mike from Jersey, who says, I love the character Sherlock holmes but it flabbergasts me that some of arthur conan

doyle's stories describe him as a regular user of cocaine ollie answer me this was this considered normal in the 1890s yes was cocaine different or less potent a century ago no or would holmes's drug use be as scandalous to the original readers no What's the deal with Sherlock Holmes and the cocaine? It was pretty normal, yes. I mean, Victorians took cocaine for toothache and common cold, and that's because medicine was expensive and there weren't regulations, and they didn't realise how addictive cocaine was. They only discovered it in that era, didn't they?

There's a fairly short window of them discovering it in the late 1800s and then the 1900s realizing it caused a lot of psychosis but it was in the coca-cola wasn't it famously yeah basically what happened is it comes from the coca plant right but importing cocaine then was tricky because the plant didn't travel well right they hadn't worked out to mix it and preserve it so what happened in the middle of the 19th century a french chemist called angelo mariani invented a wine called vin mariani which he sold as a tonic wine they sold it as a health supplement it's there's hilarious like posters with angelic children on it and stuff for this wine and vin mariani was 11 alcohol and 6.5 milligrams of coke in every ounce that's like uppers and downers in one

it's basically a jagermeister and red bull isn't it that's what it is and uh that is what sir arthur conan doyle was personally on he was into vin mariani um not just him but uh ibsen zola uh jules verne alexander dumas uh robert lou Robert Louis Stevenson supposedly wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde during a six-day cocaine binge. They were all drinking and snorting Vin Mariani. And actually not just authors and artists, but like Queen Victoria and the Pope at the time were into this. And then what happened is in America, they had prohibition. And so Coca-Cola came out of a version of a kind of American tonic wine that was developed in response to prohibition.

They took the alcohol out, but they kept the Coke in until 1904. Right, and then they replaced the Coke with caffeine, didn't they? But in any case, in terms of Sherlock, it wouldn't have been shocking because it's, A, something that the audience understood, and B, it's a way of accounting for his obsessive genius, isn't it? He's a little overstimulated, seeming, sure. It explains why he keeps working through the night, why he keeps persistently and doggedly uncovering the same clue that everyone else has missed and finding something new in it.

Because even though they didn't understand the addictive qualities of cocaine then they knew that cocaine i mean i've never taken it but essentially seems to keep you feeling like you haven't taken anything even though everyone can see that you have and you go a bit manic and you just keep going and going and going that's what sherlock's doing isn't it i suppose if you were writing it now you might have him on adderall yeah something like that i think conversely it's hard for us to understand in the modern day how things like um absinthe then yeah they were considered to be destroying society what so was gin wasn't it i mean just the availability of cheap spirits but absinthe in particular was like a really trippy uh we have another question of

literature from becky in ilkley uh who, I recently reread Jane Austen's Emma. Have you recently reread Jane Austen's Emma? I haven't read it for quite some time because it was never a book I hugely enjoyed because I found it, I have read it a few times, but I found it increasingly nihilist. I think because Emma is so privileged, she has nothing really to fill her time except for making everything worse and I found that hard to return to with pleasure Well I have recently re-not read it

I've watched Clueless many times over the years so you know I feel like I've still got the plot fresh in my memory Beckett continues It struck me for the first time reading it this time that Mr Frank Churchill's aunt seems to die at an awfully convenient moment and beckett continues uh it struck me for the first time reading it this time that mr frank churchill's aunt seems to die at an awfully convenient moment and quite unexpectedly this is how austin writes her death in the novel though her nephew had had no particular reason to hasten back on her account she had not lived above six and thirty hours after his return.

Six and thirty hours, that's a day and a half, isn't it, in posh words? A sudden seizure of a different nature from anything foreboded by her general state had carried her off after a short struggle. Becky says, this sounds to me highly suspicious. Moreover, Mr Frank Churchill is at that time in a pretty desperate position as regards his engagement to Jane Fairfax. She has threatened to end their engagement. I sound like one of the Radio 4 announcers introducing the Archers. She has threatened to end their engagement and go away to become a governess. He receives this news on the day of his aunt's death. The death of his aunt means it's all back on. Is that a coincidence helen answer me this is mr frank churchill a murderer this is like when you see one of those youtube videos that has taken like the trailer

to a classic rom-com and put a menacing soundtrack over it you're like oh my god it is a horror film yeah just really cast the book in a different light um i should recap what is happening with these characters or just cap right because in clueless there's not a direct analog for these people sure frank is sort of christian the guy she fancies but he's gay but there's no jane fairfax and dead aunt business happening so what it is right frank churchill is emma's friend stepson but it was brought up by his aunt which was pretty common in jane austen's time so if one of your siblings was rich but childless you'd send one of your children to live with them and be raised as their own child. So he's back in town to visit his father. Jane Fairfax is an orphan,

also in town, visiting her aunts. And she's not rich. So now that she is of adult age, she is soon going to have to either get married or become a governess which she doesn't really want to do which in in austin world means stakes are high right stakes are high for jane jane and frank are secretly engaged and it's secret because frank's aunt wouldn't approve of him marrying a poor person uh the aunt is in bad health so they are waiting for her to die so they can marry. So this is what the quotation means when it says, of a different nature from anything foreboded by her general state. It's saying she was ill anyway, but what killed her doesn't seem to have been related. And then to throw people off the scent of the secret engagement,

Frank keeps flirting with Emma and sort of teases Jane about crushes Jane doesn't actually have on other characters. And Frank talks about going abroad for two years. So Jane is upset. And then there's this scene where everyone goes on a picnic and it's all very shameful and Emma really fucks up. After that, Jane ends the engagement. She's got this governess post.

Frank goes home to visit his aunt. And three days after the breakup his aunt dies so he has motive and he has opportunity or did jane austen just really need to wrap the plot up and so just remove the obstacle to frank and jane marrying so taking frank out the picture as a potential suitor for emma so that emma realizes she's meant to marry someone else well you see the thing is because of the lightness of touch in her writing, because, as you suggested, this is essentially a romantic comedy,

like it's the equivalent of if Bill Pullman's character suddenly died in Sleepless in Seattle, isn't it? We're not supposed to care about this character, it doesn't matter. I think both of the things you said are not mutually exclusive, like both things can be going on. She needs to wrap up the plot,

but also Frank Churchill could be a murderer and it's deliberately left as light because that's not the point of the book. It's a comedy, so who cares? So actually I think it's not a straightforward answer. The point is, yes, it is possibly implied, but through such a lightness of touch that we're deliberately not meant to care about it.

Also, the book is full of kind of riddles and puzzles and allusions and she wouldn't really be overt about it and also apparently at the time murder literature was not such a thing either like there's no violence really in her books overtly also frank churchill is a bit of a dick so maybe she doesn't want to be like god this guy is a real dick but she does want to imply that he's a shady dickhead. Okay, nonetheless, Helen, you know, we have been asked specifically, not is Mr. Frank Churchill a dick, but is he a murderer? I mean, you know, pick a side.

Okay, well, I read a very interesting academic paper by Leland Monk, published in 1990, where the murder theory apparently was first put forward. And he makes a very persuasive case, and he kind of puts together a courtroom scene as if someone is cross-examining frank and then quoting frank from the book in that context wow i also read another theory from someone else on the internet suggesting that frank kills his aunt because jane's pregnant and so they need to hurry up and get the marriage happening and in conclusion i think if I were going to reread the book now, it would be because I thought it would be a bit more interesting

to look out for clues of Frank being a murderer. But do you think he's a murderer? So yeah, sure, why not? Yes, okay, fine. Yes, yes, why not? I mean, no, not really. Is that good enough for you? Yes, but not really.

Brilliant. Okay. I think either he's a murderer or Jane Austen really can't be arsed with this plot. It's like when D.H. Lawrence has just had it with a character and he's like oh they were sat on by a bear you know some really abrupt bullshit death yeah like drew in neighbors yes exactly frank churchill's on is drew in neighbors but off screen yep fire star hotel it hadelette station, a multitude of pools, but 30 quid for parking. WTF.

Four Star Hotel. There's ethernet, not wifi like it's 1998, but there was a swim up bar in the rooftop pool. Three Star Hotel, a bit more down to earth, they did still have a pool but it was full of kids Two Star

Hotel, a lot more down to earth, they also had a pool but it was full of dogs One Star Hotel there's a body in the pool answer me this holiday all the fun of traveling with none of the stinky toilets or frightening food out now at answer me this podcast.com slash albums if you want more fantastic answer me this related content then you can go to answer me this store.com and

you can buy episodes 1 to 200 each for a very reasonable price and you can buy our five exclusive albums content of which you will not hear elsewhere and those are one hour of answer me this content about a theme so at this point of the year you might want answer me this sports day for all the wimble sport and foot sport and that sport and athletic sport and all the sporty sport that tends to happen in these months. Also, you can support the show financially if you so choose to do. There is a button that just says donate. I mean, I'm just saying.

It's better than sending your bottle tops. We do not know how to convert those into money. Hi, it's Alex from Sheffield here. Dear Helen and Ollie, please answer me this how do you clean a sieve i have one of these metal mesh sieves whenever i try to clean it there's bits of rice and food and whatever it might be stuck in between the tiny little holes i've tried going over it with a brush, hot water directly onto it, cloth, billow pad thing. None of it seems to really properly work. I'm very familiar with this problem.

Say if you're sifting flour for a cake. Yes. And there's any kind of dampness on the sieve, then that flour is going to set and stay and stay. But then, you know, you think, oh, it's just a bit of sieve seasoning. Maybe that can stay around. Is that so bad? This is my philosophy with barbecue, certainly. Yeah, scorch off the dirt.

It's fine. Yeah, I mean, I do. I've got a barbecue cleaning brush. But even so, once I've given it a very cursory brush, I do leave lumps of meat hanging off the grill because i think well that'll add flavor won't it bit of a snack for next time yeah exactly um and i think really it's it's almost the same isn't it with the sieve i mean what it depends what you're sieving i suppose if you're using it instead of a colander then you could be in dangerous territory because you get a bit of

pee stuck in it or something it's probably not good but if you're using it as intended for things like sugar and flour what's the problem get over it wow harsh words there harsh but fair i've done the googling that alex fears to do and i'm not sure that any of these solutions are gonna revolutionize his sieve cleanliness solutions as in answers rather than liquids dissolved in liquids yeah well possibly i suppose he could put something in so powerful that it rots the wires of the sieve and that would solve the problem in a way. This seems to be a pretty common tip. Wash it immediately. Don't leave the stuff to get hard and grow crusty. Sure. Some say boil it in a big pan of water. Others say simmer it. Don't bring it to the boil, but simmer it in water for half an hour with detergent. Others say pour boiling

water through it to loosen the stuff and then scrub it. So just sticking it in water for half an hour with detergent others say pour boiling water through it to loosen the stuff and then scrub it so just sticking it in water as if you're sterilizing it doesn't itself dislodge the stuff it just loosens it yeah what do you then need to dislodge because because alex says he uses a brush i would say to alex what brush well you apparently you can get a special sieve brush there you go you want one with quite tough bristles or some people suggest a toothbrush like a firm bristle toothbrush that's what i've used in the past wow it's really got i would say that desperate uh to be honest it's just not it's never concerned me i found the answer within myself i was like i've got bits of things stuck in the mesh right toothbrush it's a bit like teeth it's important to wash it upside down first So convex side up first

To not further Embed the stuff into the sieve You can use a power hose You can get an ultrasonic cleaner Hold on What's an ultrasonic cleaner? That's something I'd have to get from NASA It's like a water bath that Vibrates and the vibrations

Get carried through the water so anything you put in it Gets vibrated as well by this high frequency. Are you shitting me? We used to use them in the lab all the time. I keep getting adverts for them on Facebook. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop talking about this like this is a normal thing. Are you honestly saying people get

the kind of scientific equipment you would expect to see in a laboratory to clean a sev? What's wrong with people? What do you mean, what's right with people? it means you're not putting detergent in the water supply but how much does it cost for an ultrasonic cleaner bearing in mind a sieve costs a pound like 20 quid but if you bought a new sieve every time your sieve got dirty then it would add up to more than 20 quid fine i'd still say a three pound sieve every five years is not that wasteful and might be better than buying

a laboratory piece of equipment that's my view well you can use it on other things like what so like it's it's quite useful for washing things when you're traveling and you don't have a washing machine what but what how big is it small it's something like the size of a coffee cup that you put into a sink full of water and it does the vibrations. Ah. You don't put things in it. So it's a gadget that brings the power of ultrasonic cleaning to any bowl of water. There you go. You love gadgets.

Now it's in language you can understand. Yeah. It's a bit weird, but it's a bit like dryer balls. You know, those things you put in a dryer that make the clothes drier, allegedly. Two plastic balls with spikes on. Yeah, but the way you said it was, you didn't say dryer balls, you said dryer balls, which those things you put in a dryer that make the clothes dryer allegedly two plastic balls with spikes on yeah but the way you said it was you didn't say dryer balls you said dryer balls which is a different thing that's right i've deliberately so right nonetheless the product is called dryer balls here's a question from andy from birmingham who says ollie answer me this for as long as i can remember i have sneezed every time i get an erection

only ever one or two sneezes and then I go back to behaving normally. Very different, of course, to my experience, which is every time I sneeze, someone else gets an erection. Andy says, this has never made any sense to me, as surely my penis and nose can't be connected in any way. Yeah, there's just a space between Andy's chin and his pelvis. Your nose and your penis, Andy, get ready to have your mind blown. Not your nose blown.

No, it's too dangerous for him. Both contain erectile tissue. Wow. And there is a link. It is a medical quirk known as sexually induced sneezing. And it is a phenomenon that was noted as early as 1897 i'm sure people noted it earlier than that but didn't quite dare explain what was going on and it was written about in the 1901 publication anomalies and curiosities of medicine right when

i was at school i'd guess about the age of 13 there was a boy in my class called ian and his fun fact was that when you sneeze you have one-eighth of an orgasm yeah everyone heard that fun fact right but um i'd firstly i don't know how you would measure the fractions how's that quantified but secondly maybe it was physically a little more relevant than i'd assumed yeah now there is uh some serious scientific endeavor to look into this i know this by the way because we've covered it on The Modern Man. It's not because I suffer from this particular complaint. There is nothing less horny than me sneezing.

I did see reference to a study in 2008 when a bloke who contributed to the study, his marriage ended because he kept sneezing at dinner parties, which indicated to his wife that he fancied the participants. Oh, wow. That's a very Roald Dahl adult story kind of thing. Exactly. It kind of makes sense why you've got erectile tissue in your nose, because it does need to engorge, doesn't it,

when you've got a cold and you need to expel fluid, which is a similar function. Does it need to? It doesn't feel more turgid in the way that an erect penis does. There's a less obvious alteration in state. Fine, but I suppose what I'm saying is, blowing your nose hard is a bit like an ejaculation of snot, isn't it? But I'm not sure that's comparable,

given that you're more conscious of the muscular process that is leading you to expel the snot than i assume the um jism okay well i i did just compare it helen i did it i went there okay there you go i'll take your word for it then there's a link so don't worry andy you are uh you are experiencing a medically documented phenomenon martin uh sneezes when he eats an extra strong mint. I do. Martin, do you also cum? I don't want to say, because then when people see me eating mints and sneezing, they're going to judge me, aren't they? Only if I crunch them.

If I just suck a mint, it's fine, but if I crunch the mint, I immediately sneeze. My niece, Isabel, sneezes when she eats chocolate. What a thing the human body is, eh? I'm an answer me this fan. I listen with my nan. She is not so keen. She finds it too obscene. I follow them on Twitter, though Ashton

Kutcher's fitter. I want to take things further, just one step short of murder. I want to look like Olly Mann. I want to smell like Olly Mann. I want to feel like Olly Mann. I want to chase like Olly Mann. I want to look like Olly Mann. I want to smell like Olly Mann. I want to feel like Olly Mann. I want to chase like Olly Mann. I want to look like Olly Mann.

I want to touch like Olly Mann. I want to call my own name. Here's a question from Millie in Twickenham who says my husband baby daughter and i are currently house sitting for a lady called sarah who's currently in australia she has a very old dog who we're also looking after so you could say if you were being more efficient you are house and dog sitting right okay i'll read that again my husband baby daughter and i are currently house and dog sitting for sarah who's currently in Australia. Yeah, that was quicker.

Thanks. Since Sarah has been away, the dog has become quite ill and Sarah has put us in contact with Rebecca, the dog's previous owner. Why would you do that? The dog's ill? Does it get in touch with the previous owner of the dog? I assume it's so that you have someone who knows the dog and might be able to understand more about what's wrong with the dog or how to comfort the dog when the dog's distressed that kind of thing okay has experience of the dog's

health and well-being rebecca came to collect the dog the other day and my husband answered the door rebecca mistook him for sarah's son hugo and was chatting to him about when his mum was coming back etc my husband's quite shy and so didn't correct her, thinking that he wouldn't see her again, so it was harmless. Oh sure, it's just harmless, isn't it? Fraudulently behaving as if you're someone you're not. This is how farces begin and then go for five acts. However, says Millie, the dog has got worse, which means a lot more contact between Rebecca and inverted commas, Hugo, who she now thinks is married with a young baby when the real hugo is actually in his last year of university with no current offspring as far as we know or a partner rebecca also happens to be in contact with the real hugo via a group whatsapp

that's weird well you would think she would know a bit more about hugo therefore if she's on whatsapp terms exactly group whatsapp terms like what he looks like well he's roughly the age bracket but what's the group we all know this dog ollie answer me this how does my husband tell her who he is without making it awkward what does he have to live his life as hugo now what not awkward scenario is this it's already awkward yeah yeah i appreciate that this has come to her head now because i do sort of say it seems ridiculous to say when she knocked on the door and mistook him for someone that it was harmless to carry on and pretend to be that person in retrospect but at the time i do

sort of see particularly because she may have been distressed because the dog was ill i can sort of see how you just don't want to get into it and you think this is the only time i'm going to see each other but now that it's escalated no you cannot continue your life being the person that she's I can sort of see how you just don't want to get into it. And you think this is the only time I'm going to see each other. But now that it's escalated, no, you cannot continue your life being the person that she's actually in contact with on WhatsApp separately. That's just really, really weird. So, yes, of course you have to say something. And I wonder if using the context of the distressing situation of the deteriorating dog is the context that will help you here. So rather than fronting up to what actually happened, which is that you were too shy slash embarrassed to say anything, you pretend that the reason you didn't say anything was because you thought she might be confused because

she was distressed about the dog and you didn't want to disrespect her feelings. Or you could say, oh sorry I misheard when you said are you hugo and i thought you said are you peter or whatever his real name is yeah but when she says when's your mum coming back what then what did you miss here then like they had a five minute conversation in which the context was clear as to who she thought he was she might even suspect there's a piece of the puzzle missing but she won't be able to say for sure and it kind of holds up as a story doesn't it would it be possible for millie to handle interactions with this person and then when rebecca says oh where's hugo you say oh uh well he's at university oh did you mean my husband oh no that's uh that's not

hugo that's john and so the woman will think it's her error rather than the husband's error perhaps do you remember years ago we had a question from a guy who used to take his kid to nursery school and he was the only male parent who was doing the drop off and people were all saying oh where's your wife today where's your wife and he was like she's dead just because he didn't want to answer the questions and now his wife is like why hasn't anyone contacted me recently i'm guessing they're not still married. I feel like this is one of those situations where I realise that Millie's husband was trying to be polite, but his falsehood is sort of inexcusable. Yeah. I suppose it is funny that it was the direction he chose to go in.

But I feel like it would almost be easier for him just to pretend not to be alive than to actually address it or pile on the extra lie and say that actually your name is hugo so that's where the confusion arose from then what about his mother when when you said are you hugo i yeah exactly and then i thought you were asking about my mother who coincidentally is also in australia yeah well listeners this brings us to the end of another episode of answer me this and for there to be future episodes please deliver your questions to us in the form of emails or voice recordings and our contact details are on our website answer me this podcast.com and in the meantime why not make space in your ears for our other projects my podcast the modern man tests out

trends and offers sex advice and has a middle feature interview each month and this month i went to new york city to meet a private investigator who specializes in busting fraudulent psychics that's like shooting fish in a barrel if you can't prove psychics are real how can you prove that they're frauds i i go i go into all that i asked him why is it any different to like being an evangelical church who's you know preying on people's vulnerabilities it's based on a belief system right so what's the problem um and his answer actually like he was absolutely straight down the line his answer was if the church spends it say they're going to raise the money for the roof and they spend the money on

the roof that's not fraud it doesn't matter whether or not Jesus exists. The issue with the psychics is what they're saying is, give me £50,000 and I will cure your cursed womb. And they go and spend it on their house extension. So that's the thing. You can see that what they say they're doing with it isn't what they're doing with it. That's why it's fraud. That's why it's illegal.

And yeah, it's absolutely fascinating. And you can find that at modernmanwith2ends.co.uk. Martin, you have a podcast too called Song by Song. I'm also doing a musical project called Pale Bird. And I'm putting a podcast every week called Year of the Bird in which there's a new song. I wrote 40 songs in 2018 and I'm releasing them roughly one a week in 2019.

For one moment, Martin, when you said you're doing a musical project, I dared to believe you'd written something for Broadway. There's 40 songs. That's a hell of a jukebox musical Helen's excellent podcast is called The Illusionist And it's available at theillusionist.org And if you're listening to this on time

Then you might just be able to catch us on tour In Australia, the last couple of shows And as we previously mentioned We have a wealth of content For you to spunk your wealth upon You can download our first 200 episodes and our exclusive albums at answermethisstore.com. There will be a retro Answer Me This

taken from the vaults in your feeds halfway through the month, but there will be a fresh new Answer Me This on the first Thursday of next month. So please return then. Bye!