Answer Me This! - AMT379: Fly Spray, Dogs vs Children, and Garlic Breath

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

Is it OK to steal someone else's discarded room service jam? Is it OK to let friends take me on an all-expenses-paid holiday? Is it OK that my sister-in-law has given her dog the same name as my child? And is whatever the heck is going on in the video for 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' OK? We deal with all these questions and more in AMT379 - and, following last month's consideration of the mathematical riddle 'As I Was Going To St Ives', we receive clarification from the actual mayor of St Ives! 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

When they dissolve Parliament, does it feel like Baraka? How silly it is, how silly it is Why is my newsfeed clogged up with soccer? How silly it is, how silly it is Heaven and all the how silly it is When I was going to St Ives, I stopped at a branch of Welcome Break and visited a branch of Tost Oh, what did you order? I think it was called a George Clooney.

Oh, no, it wasn't. It was like a Chicken Caesar, but on the receipt they put George Clooney because that's how they identify who you are. Because of George Clooney's role in Hail Caesar by the Coen brothers? That must be it. But for the layman, I think it's just that because it's a Welcome Break, they don't get to own the table numbers. So you could just as easily have gone to the Burger King, you see.

So the way they call you, it's a little funny thing, because they'll go, Ellen DeGeneres! And then you have to stand up and get your chicken Caesar salad. This is surprisingly charming for a service station. When we were growing up, you couldn't have even thought of a time in the future when they sold salad at a service station. No, exactly. The very concept of halloumi would have felt like it would have landed from outer space.

People complain about what rotten times we're living in, but just focus on the positive sometimes. You can get Halloumi off a motorway. You can get a fish finger wrap

in Swindon. Well, anyway, I mentioned going to St Ives, Helen, because last episode you might recall you challenged

listener Pete's and mine, actually, assertion that it would be St Ives in Cornwall that was the destination in contention in that famous nursery rhyme. And just saying we can't presume there are other St Ives's. There's probably a St Ives themed hotel off the Vegas strip. It's just overrun by cats. Well, no less than the mayor of St Ives in Cambridgeshire has been in touch. What? His name is Daniel Rowe, and he says this.

I am the mayor of St Ives in Cambridgeshire, Daniel Rowe. You fucking legend. And I've come across your podcast regarding our famous riddle. Do you think that he and the mayor of the other St Ives in Cornwall get along, or do they have beef? Oh, I wonder if there of the other St Ives in Cornwall get along or do they have beef oh I wonder if there's like a St Ives convention maybe Helen they meet in the middle you know because it's a long drive from Cambridgeshire to Cornwall maybe they go to the welcome break and one of them's George Clooney and one of them's Ellen DeGeneres yeah maybe

perfect in answer to your question he says as to why the rhyme would be about our St Ives I think it was you who said why would they be going to the St Ives in Cambridgeshire? I think it's a legitimate question like yeah it's a less famous St Ives than the one in Cornwall so why would you be going there? I've not been to either St Ives so I can't speak for either their qualities or otherwise. I have been to both and the one in Cornwall's better. Okay. He says it's thought to be because at the time St Ives in Cambridgeshire had one of the largest markets and fairs in the country which the man in the rhyme would be trying to reach. Also he says that would explain why the many-wived man had all the sacks of cats. Either they were going to the

market to sell cats or they were coming from the market having bought up a load of cats. I was thinking maybe they were like prizes in the fair, you know, like goldfish in the modern day. So now you might win one cuddly toy, but then you would win hundreds of kittens. A sack of cats. Yours to kill in whichever way you choose. As for why anyone would visit us, considers Daniel Rowe, the Mayor of St Ives in Cambridgeshire, well, to name just three things. One, our bridge is one of the very few remaining inhabited bridges in the country, i.e. that has a building on it. Oh, cool.

In this case, the Chapel of St Leger, quite a charming building with great history. Yeah, that is unusual because I think a lot of the London bridges used to be lined with buildings and obviously now aren't. But the Ponte Vecchio in Florence is Florence's most famous bridge because it has buildings on it. So St Ives, therefore, is the Florence of Cambridgeshire, if not Britain. Sort of, but there's nothing else around it. It's just you get to the middle of the bridge and there's a chapel. I'm not sure that's that useful.

Oh no, it's like a massive bridge post that is a chapel. Exactly, a bridge post. That's exactly what it is. It's quite cool. It looks like a bridge that I would enjoy if I was crossing it or if I could see it in view and think, well, I'd enjoy crossing that.

Or if you were a troll that wanted a snack. Well, then I'd have to be under it. If I was a goat, I would think, I feel confident that I can get across this thing. I don't know if they obey the rule about being able to take shelter in places of worship. Trolls or goats? Neither. They're both anarchists.

Apparently, one of the reasons they used to have chapels on bridges was as toll houses. Oh. Which I think is quite clever in a way as spin. Because they'd say, oh, it's so that you can kind of pray for having had a safe journey or something but really what it is is you're not going to try and avoid your taxes when you're in church do you know what i mean like they've disguised it as something that's somehow endorsed by god this thing where we're asking you for money to cross into our town right here's uh reason number two that uh the the guy in the nursery room might be going to st ives in cambridgeshire Our Norris Museum has a fascinating insight into the historic county of Huntingdonshire

from the prehistoric to the present day. Great. I mean, even reading that sentence makes me bored, I'm afraid. Well, who knows what happened in Huntingdonshire in the prehistoric era. Visitors to the Norris Museum, that's who. Because recently we learned about the fossilised uh monkey remains in east anglia so maybe huntingdonshire got some of that action and then mayor daniel concludes another third reason is that we in st ives and cambridgeshire put on many great events such as our jazz and blues

festival our markets and our many performances of the arts lovely somewhere for us to tour to perhaps in the future helen yes please we're art aren't we we really stretch the definition and then he continues somewhat self-promotionally i feel uh why not try one of these by coming to the free church on december the 6th where the magnificent raf whiten band will be playing my charity christmas concert i love a brass band and if what he's talking about is brass band playing Christmas hits, then yes, I would absolutely enjoy that. But unfortunately, I will be in Utah where I think they are lower on RAF brass bands. Actually, I did do my due diligence. I found the RAF Whiten band on YouTube.

They did a version of the theme from Family Guy, like a classic 40s big band thing. It did sound awesome. So I'd enjoy that too. So well done, Mayor Daniel. The third reason you have me hello uh this is Alexia from not in France uh this is going to sound like a very cliche French question but I absolutely love garlic and my favorite thing is having raw garlic on pasta the problem is my husband hates it because he can smell the smell of garlic in my breath for about 48 hours after I've had some. So Helen and Ollie, answer me this,

what can I eat after I've had garlic so it doesn't stay in my breath and around me? A little raw garlic does go a long way. So some people advise that when you're preparing garlic to be eaten raw, you take out that little green stem from the middle and discard it before adding your garlic to the dish. I don't know how much that is going to help. Apparently, the thing that really stinks is not necessarily the garlic in your mouth. So brushing your teeth after won't necessarily do anything with it. It's the garlic in your mouth so brushing your teeth after won't necessarily do anything but it's the garlic in your stomach so what you could do soon after eating like before it's really taken hold in your stomach is to chew on mint or parsley

leaves or maybe both just to double your chances of reducing the stink or eat raw apples or raw lettuce well done what about just chewing gum i mean, doesn't that do the same thing? That goes down to your stomach, doesn't it? And it's less weird than sitting there chewing on raw parsley? Chewing gum will just make your mouth a bit mintier, but it won't actually address the stomach garlic at all. Whereas there are certain compounds and enzymes in apple, raw lettuce and mint leaves that react with the chemicals that create garlic breath. So they will help to neutralise the odour.

So if you eat those quickly enough after having the garlic, then that will prevent the garlic compounds from making it into your bloodstream. And then you'll be breathing them out through your lungs every time you breathe at your husband. So do it quick. You know, at the heart of this question it's about her relationship actually it's not about garlic well you know what she's basically saying is i'm imposing something my husband finds physically repellent onto him i mean it's not someone it's not someone who can really avoid your physical space it's your husband i presume you live with

him right you know you're effectively using garlic as a contraceptive you could sleep in a separate bedroom oh another another thing that is said to help is if you drink green tea after you've eaten the garlic or if you drink full fat milk i suppose you could combine them to make a matcha latte for the ultimate anti-garlic potion but the thing is as well like some of these things you're describing will remove the taste in her mouth and one of the things that she clearly enjoys you know she doesn't like stinking of garlic but she enjoyed the truth is if you if you're the kind of person who enjoys eating raw garlic on pasta you probably quite enjoy that kind of lingering garlicky feel in your mouth as well yeah well tough shit like this is the compromise isn't it she would have to sacrifice the pleasure of her own garlic breath after eating

the garlic meal but she could still eat the garlic meal. It's actually what Elton John was singing about in Sacrifice. Little known fact. Here's another question of food from Elizabeth, who says, Ollie, answer me this. Is it acceptable to take unopened food, for example, small jars of jam, left on a hotel breakfast tray in a corridor outside someone's room? I justified doing this once, thinking that the hotel might otherwise be throwing it away. Super relatable, this. Absolutely. And sometimes even thinking,

well, they haven't really touched those chips and we haven't had any dinner. What do you do? Just to clarify, I haven't. They haven't slept in this bed. They haven't eaten his porridge. My answer to this is yes, it is acceptable to take unopened small jars of jam, to take that particular example from a hotel corridor. And I shall tell you, Helen, for why. Can't wait. Although it is true that one shouldn't go around swiping unopened jams from a restaurant or like even the breakfast buffet at the very same hotel with the very same little jam jars. It wouldn't really be cool to put those in your pocket i would say the reason is those are clearly intended to be eaten at breakfast they're clearly intended to be eaten in a specific

way at the point of requirement however a couple of jars on a tray in a room service order that's a finite portion which has been attributed to and paid for by a guest who now doesn't want them. They've paid over the odds for them. So they have paid for them. And the hotel isn't going to throw them away like Elizabeth is suggesting. I mean, that is a bogus justification. But the hotel does consider them spent. The hotel cares not whether that jam gets eaten or not.

They have been accounted for. Also, the hotel might throw them away. They might throw away everything that has been on that tray just in case someone has pissed all over the jam jar. I mean, I've spoken to people who've worked in hotels and I doubt it, but maybe. But I think it is actually not your job to consider the circulation of jam in the hotel.

It is your job to consider, has that jam been paid for? Does the recipient want it? Is it reasonable for me to take it? And I would say in that specific example, it is. Give it a good life with you, Elizabeth. But here's the thing that I would say to you. When you take it home, you know, months later,

and you get it out the fridge, it doesn't feel like the naughty, delicious treat that you thought it would when you stole it. It never does. It's just tiny jam, isn't it? It's just a small amount of jam. It's not. Because you feel when you take it, you feel like, oh, this will be a treat.

I won't be eating any of that large bottle jam from the supermarket anymore. What a grift. Look at me with my individually wrapped artisanal jam. No. When you actually get out of the fridge, you just think, oh, this is like when I steal the sachet of ketchup from McDonald's. It's in a needlessly small portion

and I feel cheap. I feel like Elizabeth is asking the right people though, because if Elizabeth has listened to not even many episodes of Answer Me This, some Answer Me This, she knows that we are grifters. It gives us pleasure to run off with a small jar of jam

yes whether we need it or not maybe we've got a bigger better jar of jam at home but it's partly just the principle of having that jar of jam but on the other hand yeah i damn grifting less from hotels because i don't want like the little tiny body lotion things anymore i feel bad about the container pleasure's gone out of it a bit. And also because I live out of a suitcase, I don't want to fill that suitcase with tiny jars of jam that I'll never eat. You've probably stayed in 50 hotels over the last two years, right? Teach us, what have you learned to be the thing that is genuinely worth pocketing and keeping because you'll need it? I have got a folding comb from a hotel in Taiwan that I use every day. Wow.

It's just a white plastic folding comb. And why? Because you presumably brought a comb with you when you first left Britain. Yeah, I think I couldn't find it because combs are always disappearing. Did you comb through your luggage trying to find it? That's why I had to open the hotel comb to comb my luggage to find my old comb. But yeah, it's a good comb. If you've got a question, email your question. To unsubmit this podcast, give them a mail.com.

Unsubmit this podcast, give them a mail.com. Unsubmit it. Unsubmit it. So retrospective, 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. It's a question from Ryan in Melbourne who says, Helen, answer me this. What is the story behind Bonnie Tyler's you get your podcasts it's a question from ryan in melbourne who says helen answer me this what is the story behind bonnie tyler's total eclipse of the heart music video it appears he says to

be set in a boy's boarding school but is she staff a parent a trapped spirit three interesting interpretations there i love the idea she's a trapped spirit. I think we're going to have to audio describe the music video in some detail before analysing it. Oh, what a shame! What a shame! Otherwise people will be in the dark. They won't know what to do. They need to have bright eyes to understand. In 1983, when this song was released, it must have still been kind of a novelty to make a big narrative video like this. Yes. Like it wasn't a given. True. Although the word narrative that you use there is interesting because, I mean, it's the very lack of a coherent plot, which is causing Ryan's concern here, isn't it? I mean, it's kind of a series of odd dance sequences, really.

I think there is some narrative progression whilst not being a coherent plot. Okay. So it starts in a kind of gothic mansion in the Jim Steinman style. It's a Victorian hospital in Surrey. That's where it was shot. It plays a boys' school, but it is a hospital. And very much in the Jim Steinman style because there are flapping bits of gauzy fabric,

there are candles, there are white doves, there are swinging light fittings, there are gothic windows, there's a wind machine. Which are things you shouldn't ever have in combination free-flowing robes and candles very dangerous and then we've got Bonnie Tyler with a kind of Princess Diana haircut

and white dress which is low cut and high cut and then enter schoolboys with glowing eyes there's a very literal interpretation of but there's loads of different school boys uh there's school boys wearing swimming goggles with water chucked at them there's some dancing ninjas some gymnasts and fences some wearing american football shoulder

pads but no shirts some of them are dancing like t-birds yes some are toasting each other at a dinner party or like secret drinking sotty yeah sort of bullingdon club type thing going on like they all smash the shit out the table after they've had a black tie dinner gotta hand it to or like secret drinking sotty yeah sort of bullingdon club type thing going on like they all smash the shit out the table after they've had a black tie dinner gotta hand it to this school the extracurriculars are very varied there don't seem to be many lessons no well bonnie's the only teacher some of them have got normal eyes as well actually most of them have got normal eyes yeah it's only occasional they've got the funny eyes and then then bonnie runs outside her dress flapping she runs up a corridor all the

doors burst open there's red gauze blowing the tablecloth is yanked from the dinner party set the fencing mask comes off and then there's a whole white rope choir with the neon eyes one of whom then flies to bonnie of course that's my favorite bit is that your favorite bit i can't don't make me choose i mean my i think my favorite bit is just after that because then you've got muscly guys running around in just pants harnesses and really thick socks. And they stand around Bonnie doing high kicks and pirouettes, but there's also a ring of choir boys doing a ring around Bonnie. And then she's embraced by someone wearing angel wings.

That's all the nighttime portion of the video. Then a weird thing happens. Oh, just, oh, then a weird thing happens oh just oh then a weird thing happens because you think it's going to all be set in that sort of odd supernatural like ryan says there's a supernatural feel to it but then it's daylight and and that sort of indicates doesn't it in the language of cinema ah was it all a dream is this reality and indeed she seems to be behaving in a more ordinary prim and proper way during the daytime yeah i mean she's wearing sharp black tailoring for a start it's a strong visual contrast to

her earlier flowing white quite revealing dress it's definitely restrained there's multiple layers there's no flesh on display apart from her face and hands she's with who appears to be a male teacher wearing a mortarboard and black cave and waistcoat and they inspect a line of fully clothed schoolboys. They're shaking hands and then there's one schoolboy where she can't let go of his hand. There's a freeze on and then he gives her the pride eyes and he also starts mouthing

turn around bright eyes. And then all the boys run in, leaving Bonnie alone on the school steps. That's what happens. This video was directed by Russell Mulcahy, the Australian director who also made the videos for Video Killed the Radio Star,

Turning Japanese, Rio, I'm Still Standing, True, Kind of Magic, Betty Davis Eyes and Wonderful Christmas Time. A lot of hits. So in other words,

he was familiar with the palette of what the fuck. Also, he directed Highlander and Highlander 2. He did disown Highlander 2 and he directed a bunch of episodes of Queer as Folk. in Nice, isn't it? In this video, it's less obvious, I suppose, to a kind of mainstream straight audience in the 1980s. But looked out now, it's fairly clearly homoerotic, isn't it? The schoolboy stuff. The implication seems to be maybe if there's a sexual element here,

it's like, these are boys that I want that I can't have. There's quite a lot of interpretations that it is about being in an environment where you can't act on your urges. I suppose this would work for Bonnie if she's a teacher at a school, but also the boys, like where is there more pent-up sexual frustration than with a load of teen and preteen boys?

I mean, at one point she looks at the boys and their shirts blow open. There's no interpretation on that other than some sort of sexual freeson. Or she's a sewing teacher. Yeah, or yeah or swimming teacher they do show the swimmers um i don't think they show young boys in a state of undress they seem to be older boys and men but it's still just the situation i think now you wouldn't make a video about sexual urges that was set here, would you? You wouldn't, but then you totally would in the 80s,

especially with the gender roles reversed. You totally would do sexy schoolgirls in the 80s if they were 16. You would do that then and no one would think that was weird. It's only now where you're like, well, it doesn't matter how old they actually are. The implication is they're too young and you're abusing your position of power. That just was not part of the conversation in the 80s, to be fair. And I think that is what's happening here, isn't it? agenda rolls reverse centrinians isn't it there's not that much i could find out about people who actually made the video saying this is what we meant but there's quite a

lot of people who were doing a literary reading on it saying it was influenced by things like tom of finland and that's why you've got those kind of bondage harnesses on the dancers towards the end and it received two nominations at the billboard video music awards in 1983 one for best performance by a female the other for the most effective use of symbolism does that award still exist i'd love that award to still exist at the mtv teen choice awards but my guess is no but is it effective use of symbolism if we are a little unclear as to what it symbolises? Unless it's just obvious as to what it symbolises and that is the thing that you don't want it to symbolise because it implies inappropriate sexual frisson slash contact between an adult, specifically a teacher and a school pupil. Well, exactly. It implies it. It doesn't expressly go there. And that's why it's symbolism, isn't it? That's what it is inferred. But there are other interpretations too. And I don't think that it's a problem with the video that there's no one defining interpreter.

I think it's helpful that you can read it lots of different ways. That doesn't make it bad. I mean, that makes it, you know, that's what Shakespeare does, isn't it? To take a ridiculous comparison. You know, there are lots of different ways to read this seminal text. Jim Steinman said it was originally written to be a vampire love song. Its original title was Vampires in Love because he was

working on a musical of Nosferatu. Yes, I think when we talked before about how the musical existed, about how in my dream world I'd like there to be a musical of Jim Steinman songs, a German listener wrote to us and said there is such a musical and it's about vampires

and it's one of the most famous musicals in Germany and he sent me a trailer on YouTube and Total Eclipse of the Heart is in it. Yeah, it was Jim Steinman's 1997 Broadway remake of Roman Polanski's 1967 film Dance of the Vampires and he was trying to write a song for it a love song and then he thought oh i've actually already written a vampire love

song right and i'm gonna reuse it for this musical it's a fucking great song i don't know i've ever knowingly turned off total eclipse of the heart how could you how would you and it's five minutes long like you know you'd have ample opportunity three and a half minutes in to think, well, I've heard enough now. Never happens. Well, it was originally seven minutes, but they thought they should shorten it to get it on the radio. Really unusual thing about this song,

like for a number one record credited to Bonnie Tyler, is the first voice you hear isn't Bonnie Tyler. It's effectively the backing singer. Yes, there are like three credited backing singers on it. Yeah, but specifically it's Rory Dodd, who was also the main voice in the Hungry Hippos commercial in the 90s. Turn around and throw things in their mouth. Every now and then I'm just a little bit hungry and the hippos coming round.

I do think another way of reading it, a bit like the I'm Still Standing video actually, is that, you know, we have the weekend to film in this big old Victorian-era mental institute. We have 10 backing dancers. We have a case of costumes. Let's piss about. Because at the time, it was a big budget. But looked at now, you could make that kind of video if, like, a PTA association had some fun

for a Christmas video, couldn't you? Apart from the bit where the boy flies over. Apart from that, like, you could do the rest of it, literally, with a box of dress-up in any old old church so it's just kind of like here are some sequences of so let's have a laugh let's have some costumes let's do this fun video i i wonder if the the drama of the the music makes it feel like it's about more than it really is i think this song could probably make just library footage of someone going around Asda seem more epic than it is. In the 90s, I hired a 12-person web team

to build and run my websites and realise my tech dream. Then the dot-com bubble burst and I had to drown them in a stream. Why didn't I just sack them? But now, thanks to Squarespace you can do it alone and build a lovely website for tablet or smartphone enjoy it now cause in 10 years you'll be replaced

by a drone just like Terminator 3 thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring answer me this their current campaign slogan I don't know if you've seen this, is a website makes it real. That is true. Yeah, I know what they're getting at because I basically don't trust anyone now

who's running a business and doesn't have a website. Right, when you're looking up a restaurant and at best it's got a Facebook page. Yeah. No. Might as well not exist. It was actually when Toby was born, he was tongue-tied, which was a first for anyone in my family um but um the uh the nhs waiting list to get rid of tongue tie is eight

weeks so we went privately and we looked on this list of midwives from a list of about 20 i went for the one who had a website because i was just thinking you are not going to come around to my house and charge me 200 pounds to put scissors into the mouth of my three-day-old son unless i can bitch about you on twitter afterwards if there's a problem with a link that's my qualification did it work out okay oh yeah it was absolutely fine although what they do is they they any parents who have children with tongue tie will know this uh what they do to justify the 200 pounds that you're paying them for a private consultation is they talk to you for an hour and a half first about what tongue tie means

and they show you pictures of it and they talk about breastfeeding. Like the actual operation takes about six seconds, like as long as it would take to cut open a packet. And he recovered okay? Yeah, absolutely fine. Like literally, snip, it's fine. But anyway, if I was a midwife

and I did private tongue tie operations, I would certainly get a Squarespace website to promote my operation. And I would monitor my sales from the beach using their wonderful apps. Or even if you were doing something a little less serious than helping babies mouths. I think they're right that a website does make something real. Because you're like, oh, my idea is just floating around in my head. Then do a website. Like, okay, it has some kind of ties to reality it can be very validating for an idea yeah and actually like using one of their basic templates and just saying

okay can i explain this idea in five pages actually probably helps you understand what proposition you have and also just trying to think okay well if i'm a stranger coming upon this website what are the first things that i need to see? Oh, this would be a better way to present them. Oh, so you can just fiddle around with Squarespace and figure all that out without even paying. You can use the two-week free trial at squarespace.com slash answer. And then when you're ready to launch, get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using our code answer. Here's a question from Erica who says, I have a three and a half year old kid named Poppy

and I just discovered that my sister-in-law, who lives in a different country and who I've only met twice, got a dog about a year ago whom she also named Poppy. She didn't tell us she was doing it. Sister-in-law just this week has started sharing pictures of this dog on our family Facebook group. Holly, answer me this. Do I say something about how weird this is?

Do I ask her why she chose the same name? Do I just not mention it in the hopes to avoid family drama? Am I wrong in thinking this is really fucking weird? You are not wrong. But, you know, she's just found out that this dog that the sister-in-law has had for a year has this name. And she says they've only met twice. They're clearly not very close. Doesn't matter. Maybe the human Poppy was not on the sister-in-law has had for a year has this name. And she says they've only met twice. They're clearly not very close. Doesn't matter. Maybe the human poppy was not on the sister-in-law's

radar at all. Yeah, and that's a shame. But that's in itself a fault of the sister. Here's the way round I think it is when you're naming a child. I think you think, is there anyone in our family who's previously named an animal this? I think that's something you have to consider. And I think it should apply in the other direction. I think, albeit a dog named in tribute to a human is less demeaning than a human named after a dog, arguably. Nonetheless, when you're naming a pet, you should think, are there humans in my family named this? And just do a bit of a search around. Like, this is her sister-in-law. It's not a hugely distant relation, even if they do live in different countries and don't know each other. She should have remembered that her daughter

was called Poppy. I think this is poor form. You also think that the spouse of the sister-in-law, being a sibling of a parent of the kid Poppy, might have piped up. Yes. Don't you think? I do, yeah. Also, has no one else in the family mentioned that this is weird? What's up with this family?

Well, maybe they have, but they thought the person who's going to be the most offended and weirded out by it is Erica. And so they haven't told Erica that they know. Yeah, but Erica's got prior claim to the name. Exactly. So I think she's in a stronger position. So maybe they don't want to upset the sister-in-law as a relative newcomer to the name Poppy.

That said, I mean, all of that said, on the line between human names and dog names, Poppy's in the middle, I would say. You know, it's not Buster or Fido, but it's not, you know, James or Gemma, is it? It's's in the middle, I would say. You know, it's not Buster or Fido, but it's not, you know, James or Gemma, is it? It's somewhere in the middle. So I think if you choose that name for your child, there's always a risk that someone's going to call a dog Poppy. Find me anyone this century who's named a dog Fido.

But the point is, there's very few children called that. The thing is, Erica clearly has some grievances she wants to vent. What is the best way for her to vent those grievances? And I would also say that these grievances are probably only going to be relevant for, say, the next 15 years due to the usual lifespan of dogs. With humour, I would say. I think if you come out and ask from the position of having been offended, then immediately your sister-in-law, who you hardly see or know, is going to be on the defensive. And inevitably, the argument that she'll turn to in her defence

will be that she hardly sees or knows you, which in itself could lead to a much larger argument. What about this as a fun game then? She posts a picture of canine Poppy on the Facebook group, and you reply with a photo comment of human Poppy posed to mimic that photo. Well, that's really endorsing her sister-in-law's decision, which she doesn't approve of. Well, she's not going to rename the dog now, is she? Sure. But I mean, she doesn't have to start a game in which she's directly comparing her child to the dog, Helen.

I'm not sure that's going to resolve her issues with it. But you know how people get viral success with like recreating baby photos when they're adults or something like that. I know it well. I think this could be one of those as a benefit. But also it's just a kind of fun game. And then maybe your sister-in-law will be like, okay, well, here's something that would be amusing to see human Poppy replicate. Maybe it'll be a bonding thing.

Again, to quote from her email, am I wrong in thinking this is really fucking weird? No, we've said you're not wrong. Yeah, right. So this doesn't sound like someone who wants to start a viral game based around the comparison. Just giving her options. We've endorsed her feelings of wrongness, but it's very hard to turn back time.

And she seems reluctant to make a scene given that she's asking for our permission to make a scene. I agree. So I'm giving another option. That's why I'm saying one well-placed, humorous, bitchy comment. Just let it linger for 10 years. You can't't do anything about it but you'll make your feelings known

without provoking a full-fledged argument yeah although people do rename dogs do they yeah like if you uh acquire a dog that is not a puppy that has previously you might segue into it a different name well in fact coco that is not her name uh our cat coco was from battersea dog and cat home and originally was uh adopted by my friend who couldn't pronounce the name that she was given so he just called her coco but we kept it but that's a bit different having a different owner but i mean if she's keeping poppy it's a bit weird is it weird for the animal for the same owner to be calling you a different name, isn't it? Meg Ryan renamed her daughter when her daughter was a baby.

Meg Ryan just said that her daughter didn't look like a Charlotte, she looked like a Daisy. So at a year old, she changed her name to Daisy. A year? I feel like a Charlotte and a Daisy are pretty similar people. Yeah, I can see overlap, but maybe Meg Ryan can't. Hello, Helen and Ollie. people yeah i can see overlap but maybe meg ryan can't hello helen and ollie this is rachel in Hertfordshire and i am in a real dilemma we've just got back from being with friends

and having a rather boozy night and and they have just come into quite a large inheritance with a sum of about 20 grand and they want to use it to take me and my partner on an all expenses paid road trip around the west coast of america it's something beyond our wildest dreams i mean we're totally and utterly gobsmacked and I've drunk quite a lot of gin. So please answer me this. Is it okay to let friends spend their inheritance on us? Please Helen and Ollie, answer us this. Is this even ethical? Sure. answer us this is this even ethical sure is ethics an issue here it's not like you have been stringing these friends along in the hope that they will come into money and then spend it

on you unless you have it's a long game also it's not enough inheritance for them to like radically change their lives right like 20 grand yes is a non-trivial amount of money but it's not like they're suddenly going to go and live in a mansion right it is precisely trip of a lifetime money yeah but it's not house of a lifetime money so they're using it in the right way probably aren't they aside from you know putting someone through university so i think if they've thought what would we like to do travel who would we like to travel with these people how would we like to convert this money into pleasure this way i think it's okay to let them unless you feel like it would leave you with this sense of obligation that you could never really discharge well even if it does though i think you have to acknowledge that's in your own head like if they want to invite you

i mean essentially they are buying themselves a holiday extra aren't they they could have chosen to fly first class yeah they could have opted for valet parking at the airport i mean maybe they have done those things but the point is they have chosen to take you rachel as their kind of captive entertainment like that's something they want to make their holiday better so you should be flattered but you don't i don't think there's an obligation there they obviously have decided they're going to have a better time with you there. They wouldn't offer it if they weren't okay with offering it, I think. They have the freedom not to offer this. You having the amount of qualms you have about it

suggests that you're not the kind of person that railroaded them into offering it. But if the question that sort of lies behind this question is how can we repay them for this in a way we actually can afford i think you're not under obligation but it would be nice of you to volunteer to do some of the tedious shit that you have to do when you're traveling like volunteer to do the spreadsheet you're a pa roadship spreadsheet oh yes oh this will be a tedious task oh so tedious i'm happy to take this tedious spreadsheet task off your hands oh dear let me choose your madonna in room for you no no but there are boring things buying the maps downloading the sat nav booking the car rental that kind of

thing they could do that be a pa be like a virtual pa for your friends so they they don't have to do the boring stuff and also probably just acknowledge you're gonna have to go to their choice of restaurant you know you're gonna have to let them kind of choose the hotels. You can't really complain when they're paying for everything. That is the slightly awkward thing. Yeah. Is that a problem that you will feel like you are just their chattels? Because like when I was 18, I went to an Italian school in Florence for a few weeks and I had two good friends there, one of whom is still a friend called Suze, who's an american who is about

10 years older than me and another was a swiss banker who was super super nice but it's just like suze was a student and i was 18 and um had been working for 25 pounds a day so we didn't have loads of money whereas the swiss banker wanted to go to quite posh places and she really didn't care about the money because she was good for it and she was like i'd like to go to quite posh places and she really didn't care about the money because she was good for it and she was like i'd like to go to these places i don't want to go on my own i'd like the company of these people and it doesn't really mean anything to me to pay whereas we felt a little bit like kind of meal concubines yes that you felt like that but you still went yeah because like she was super nice and i wanted to spend time with her yeah i'll have the soul and the cheese

plate then i'll discuss how i feel there is something lovely about getting to share a travel experience with your friends and maybe this is why these friends are like we want to share our largesse. Last year we went to Japan and by coincidence I think three different groups of friends were in Japan at the same time and it was so great partly because some of those friends had been before and so they could kind of be like this is a good thing to do here's where we go and partly others were discovering it at the same time as us and also done research that i'm too lazy to do that kind of stuff so it was really great it's just you've got to have this agreement with your friends that like if you want to go off and do your own thing some days that's okay yes you don't

have to spend every minute together or have every meal together. Just work that out before. Yeah, and maybe that's a good point, Rachel. Maybe you should actually put that forward as if you're being nice to them rather than benefiting yourself. Maybe say, it's so generous of you to take us away with you,

but please don't feel you have to entertain us all the time. In fact, why don't we allocate a couple of afternoons where we do our own thing so that we're not ruining your special trip? Tactful. But also, don't follow me around all the time because I of afternoons where we do our own thing so that we're not ruining your special trip? Tactful. But also, like, don't follow me around all the time because I'll find it claustrophobic and straggling. Don't follow me around throwing dollar bills at my feet. Give me the upgrade and then fuck off, moneybags. Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com But you haven't got a school

Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com Or if you really have the phone [phone] Double seven You're up with the time Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com So ask your question to Ellen and Ali The money, the sound, the shit, all the derrington pieces

Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com Halloween has just passed, which means we are now jogging at full speed towards Christmas. Damn right. I'm in the States where a lot of people have fully decorated already, trees up. It's happening in Britain now as well. Halloween is as big a thing. No, it's not as big as it is in the States, obviously, but it's a halfway house from what it used to be.

Yeah, people have got the decoration urge. And the seasonal aisle does literally, November the first go from witches to santa like it has happened christmas is here it's like the easter eggs go out on boxing day yeah so if you are feeling in the christmas spirit what better soundtrack could there be uh not now that's what i call christmas what better soundtrack could there be than the answer me this christmas album oh a festive classic a perennial favorite isn't it that's right yeah it's like the snowman but with more swear words i do love it when we hear from people who say i always listen to your christmas album when i'm like making the christmas

cake or something oh and listen to it with my kids so it's like you know people were dismissive of the muppet christmas carol when it came out what now established part of people's families christmas routines isn't it? So yeah, the Answer Me This Christmas album, it's an hour of us retelling Charles Dickens' classic story, but using questions from the audience. But crucially, like our other four exclusive albums

available from AnswerMeThisStore.com, Amazon and Apple, we will never distribute them for free here on the podcast feed. You can only get them if you give us money in return for the entertainment not much money though three quid three well 2.99 actually think we could do that extra penny so answer me this store.com slash albums while you're there you could have a look

at our first 200 episodes as well it's quite a lot of christmas content in those usually in the ones that are from late november december rather than the ones that are from may yeah that's the giveaway isn't it yeah we tend not to do stuff about stockings and candy canes in July. Here's a question from Adam who says, Helen, answer me this, how does fly spray work? You spray it on a fly, it looks like it starts itching them, then they go crazy for 30 seconds, then they're dead! These sprays contain insecticides,

most commonly organophosphates which act as nerve agents and specifically they inhibit an enzyme that i struggle to pronounce acetylcholine esterase acetylcholine is a nerve transmitter substance that stimulates muscle contraction and then the acetylcholine esterase interrupts that stimulation so you've got the insect kind of expanding and contracting itself so that it can do things like fly and breathe. So then when you remove the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, the insect is left in a continuous state of contraction,

meaning they can't fly or breathe anymore. And the reason that they move frantically shortly before they die is because their muscles are overstimulated without the contraction being interrupted by this enzyme. And then they suffocate. So that's what's happening. It's not great. It made me feel quite sorry for flies.

That's basically how nerve gas works on humans. Exactly, yeah. It's a war crime, isn't it, in another context? These sprays aren't particularly good for humans and other creatures, particularly bad for fish. But I suppose the concentrations aren't enough to shut us down yeah as much as a fly i wonder if you could though i wonder if you could i mean you can kill someone with anything can't you but could you kill someone by spraying enough fly spray down their throat that they die

like a whole canister that googling but uh probably yeah i mean it's poison isn't it basically and like all these things are poison and then they're not good for anybody but yeah I suppose it's about quantities to do with the size of the animal you're trying to poison. kill time for instance because sometimes you'll get a creature that can digest the stuff before it is fatal so that's that's the distinction really between these ones that are for different types of insects and arachnids i like which i've seen a lot of this summer just gone the wasp traps that basically just lure them in with sugar have you seen those no but i feel like i can imagine i've had a slug trap that suddenly lured them with beer yeah Yeah. What's good about it is you can make your own. You don't have to buy one. You sort of invert like a squash bottle so that the spout then is large enough for a wasp to enter

but not large enough for them to get out somehow. I can't remember how you do it. And then once they're in the liquid at the bottom, they drink a load of sugar and then drown in that. So at least they die happy. What a way to go. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I read something as well about wasps

that made me a little more sympathetic to them even though they are the worst the worst which is just a lot of them are basically the worker wasps and all through their lives they're gathering food to feed the wasp queen and the baby wasps or something and then at a certain point in the wasp's lifespan that function is no longer necessary so you've got all these worker wasps who are like what do i do now uh when i'm not working to keep these other wasps alive and when they're flying about really annoying you it's because they're really hungry and about to die so just give them a bit of sugar water and uh ease them on their way ease them on their way yeah but if you could i would like if if you were sitting outside having a barbecue in the summer

and it was possible to make a little plate at the end for the wasp and they'd just go there rather than flying all over your stuff, fine. But they're just unreasonable, aren't they? Yeah, exactly. Like, if there was a sugar cube that we could all agree human and wasp was for the wasp, fine. But just fuck out my face. They just won't listen.

No. And like my dad said, you know, you kill one and they all come to the shiver. There's just no way to get them to go away. My name's Karen. I'm from Sheffield originally, but I live in the Chiltern Hills, which is nice. on and they all come to the shiver there's just no way to get them to go away my name is karen i'm from sheffield originally but i live in the chilton hills which is nice i've got several questions about spiders why am i so frightened of spiders i know they're not going to hurt me but i'm really frightened of them the next question is how can I kill a spider? The quickest and most efficient way from a distance. So ideally with something that I can spray at it.

And finally, I'm considering getting hypnotherapy to try and get over my fear of spiders. Is that a good idea? Thank you very much. I think you'll be doing a public service to many people if you answer this, because I don't think I'm the only person who's very frightened of spiders thank you no you're not yeah and apparently it could actually be in our dna to be very wary of spiders there was this study at columbia university testing how quickly people were able to identify a spider dealing with a large range of other stimuli at the same time and spiders the reaction to spiders was much

faster that people were able to pick out spider shapes uniquely quickly and they reckoned that the reason for that would be to do with our ancestors in africa trying to deal with black widow basically and be like being programmed to just see a spider get the fuck out of there so there is actually some evidence that perhaps we are programmed to be scared of spiders. But I must say, I'm not at all. Are you? I used to not exactly be phobic, but I didn't like them very much. And I think for me, it was the idea that they could kind of crawl into my mouth or something without me really being able to do much about it while I slept.

Why would they have any interest in doing that, though? That's the thing. People's phobias are not rational. I think it's just the idea that they're small and they can be invasive. Like sometimes you find a spider like on your head or something. You think, how the fuck, how long have you been there? But then I was at Green Man Festival a few years ago and I saw a talk by Jim Bell, who is a science communicator. And he used to have a pretty fun blog called bugexplorers.blogspot.com. And he had brought his spider pets with him, including his tarantula Tallulah. And he just talked about really what spiders are up to when they come into your home,

particularly at this time of year. Like Karen might be seeing a lot of spiders because they're seeking shelter or seeking a mate. So like in the autumn when we used to have a flat, we used to get loads of enormous spiders coming in. And after seeing Jim's talk, which made me have sympathy for the spiders, I am really not bothered by them anymore because they were just looking for shelter. And also they're quite a useful occupant of a house. Yeah, because they kill the flies. So I would say instead of looking for ways to kill them, although you can kill them with the aforementioned fly spray or spider variants or a mixture of white vinegar and water in a spray bottle, or by trying to hit them with a broom handle, I would suggest if you really don't like

them, just try and make your house a bit more spider repellent. Oh, excellent. Go on. So apparently peppermint oil spiders don't like or eucalyptus oil so just spray that around cracks and corners which is spiders fave places but what if karen also doesn't like peppermint oil well does she like it more or less than spiders yeah that's the question isn't it it's like a folk remedy to spiders which is putting conkers in the corner of your room uh-huh i don't know if that works i don't think they've done studies into whether or why conkers work. Well, Harvey currently has a box of about 200 conkers in our sitting room and we have

a lot of spiders as well. So I'm not sure that does work. Right. You could make sure the sealant around your windows is complete. Move plants away from near your house if you've got a lot of plants outside because those are often places that spiders hide and also spiders might be looking for other insects to eat so if you've got bright lights outside your house that are attracting insects they don't attract spiders in themselves but the spiders are there to eat the other insects so apparently if you switch your lights to yellow sodium vapor lights those are less appealing but i think maybe hypnotherapy wouldn't hurt you know as the son of a hypnotherapist i am duty bound to say that yes probably your idea karen of getting

hypnotherapy would be effective because it usually is basically cbt in this context you change the thoughts that occur when you see a spider from negative ones to positive ones right well at least diffuse yeah how you feel um but to be honest that's quite extreme like i would say that really you know hypnotherapy costs a couple hundred quid of course if you're the kind of person who has a panic attack when you see a spider maybe other forms of therapy aren't for you but if you're not that kind of person um i saw quite an interesting article about exposure therapy that's brave what the article said you should do is basically delegate about an hour a week if you're serious about this about an hour a week to over time

nullify your fear of spiders it's never going to go away completely get a friend who's supportive and can help you and what you do first is um you do what they call an exposure hierarchy so you make a list of the 10 things that scare you most about spiders but in order in escalating order so like number one might be um holding a spider toy. And number two might be seeing a spider on the TV, right the way through up to, you know, number 10 would be tarantula on the face kind of thing. And then what you do is you work your way through the list. So you're not getting to tarantula on the face until you've been doing this for 10 weeks, you just slowly get to the stage where you can be in the same room as a spider, and then you can possibly touch a spider or be in the same room as a spider in a cage with the lid off.

And actually, you can kind of cure yourself if you're not in the proper full-on anxiety panic mode when you see a spider. It is just a case of spending a bit of time with them. Also, very few spiders are harmful to humans, and in Britain, basically none of them are. I used to have a mild phobia of spiders. And the way that I kind of overcame it, I'm not sure this is a good recommendation or not, but it was to, like, kill them with my bare hands. Like, say if I saw a spider,

I would, like, blat it with the palm of my hand, which at once, like, meant that it was dead and it wasn't in my, you know, environment and also that I touched it. And after doing that a few times actually i was like i felt like i could i could kill a spider very easily if i wanted to so i wasn't as frightened about it yeah people tell you psychologically to be thinking well the animal has more to fear from me than i have to fear from it i showed it i proved that by exactly repeatedly killing dozens

of them then yeah i wouldn't say it was dozens of spiders and i guess what i would say that those spiders that I did kill sort of sacrificed themselves to all the spiders subsequently that I didn't kill or I put in a glass and put outside or just left alone. Okay, that brings us to the end of this episode of Answer Me This.

But if you want there to be future episodes of Answer Me This, we need your questions. So please email them or record a voice memo and send that via email. All we want for christmas is your questions so please uh use the contact details that are on our website answer me this podcast.com and actually as aforementioned this is the time of year where we tend to do christmas questions so if you do have a question about christmas don't wait until christmas day to send it to us

because we won't get around to it until 2021 yeah Yeah. Do it now. We've been saving up all the questions that you sent us in early January about Christmas because I feel like early to mid-January is not the time when most people want their Christmas content. And we have plenty other content for you to discover online. Helen. I've got The Illusionist and Veronica Mars Investigations, which you can find at vmipod.com.

The Illusionist is on tour of North America till mid-December. You can find the dates at theillusionist.org slash events. It's been really fun to meet Answer Me This listeners. A lot of them have sent their love to you, Wally, via me, I'm just telling you now, as their conduit. There's also an episode of The Illusionist, which is kind of based around Total Eclipse of the Heart,

since we were talking about that earlier. Martin wrote an incredible score for it based on Total Eclipse of the Heart. That's called's called eclipse it's from a couple of years ago so just borrow down the feed to the i think it's episode 58 59 it's very good would recommend ollie what are you up to i do five podcasts you can discover them all at ollie man.com slash fuck but this month i would like to highlight one that i hardly ever plug on the show actually it's the one that i mentioned the least because it's industry focused and that is the media podcast um it is intended for uk-based media professionals um but i think it also applies

to anyone who has an interest in uk media news in general so it might be that you are um a journalist or a graphic designer or a tv producer and but So it might be that you are a journalist or a graphic designer or a TV producer, but it might just be that you are the kind of person who hears about Channel 4 moving to Leeds or the BBC's battles to win young audiences and you think, yes, I would like to hear three people gossiping to Olly Mann about that. If you're that person, do check us out.

New episodes every fortnight at themediapodcast.com i would also say that the way the media operates affects us all whether we think it does or not and therefore being more informed about it is pretty valuable i think yeah that's right i mean when i started hosting the show because it used to be the guardians media talk podcast we would do a lot of stuff about kind of you know executives moving from whatever channel 5 to bbc2 and it was very very industry but nowadays like all the stuff about like fake news and social media it is actually basically the news so it is a subject that's worth knowing more about yes how the news works on top of the news yes martin well i'm nearly at the end of year of the bird where i've been releasing 40 songs this year all

of them good some of them excellent so you if you go to palebirdmusic.com you can hear all those songs there's a blog post for each song so you can you know figure out what it's about there's a there's a podcast episode for every song so you can hear me talking about the songs or you can just listen to the songs and if all you want is more of this kind of thing then you are going to have to wait until the first thursday of december but but there will be a retro episode of answer me this in your feed halfway through the month you have to subscribe to get it those are episodes from our back catalogue with a little commentary from us expressing remorse for our past selves or just thinking wow i'd forgotten all about that there's some very interesting questions in the back catalogue.

Lots of them. So make sure you subscribe to Get Retro Answer Me This or if you want to buy the back catalogue, that is available at answermethisstore.com along with our albums, including Answer Me This Christmas. Couldn't have put it any better myself. Or if I could have, I didn't take the opportunity to. So that will do. That's about it. Until next time.

Bye!