Answer Me This! - AMT380: Candy Canes, Family Pranks and Talking Dogs

Episode Date: December 5, 2019

Well Spotify just named AMT one of the top podcasts of the decade, so let's conclude the 2010s with a bumper episode of festive questions. In AMT380 we learn how the canine actors in the festive film Santa Buddies look like they're talking; how to stop your well-meaning friends interfering with your plan to enjoy Christmas alone; and what artificial Christmas trees have in common with toilet-cleaning. 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 and Veronica Mars Investigations at , Olly Mann's five podcasts including and The Media Podcast at , and Martin Austwick's music at and his Tom Waits podcast 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. Content warning, there will be some Santa truthing this episode. So yes, if you have youngsters with you, unless you want them to have access to certain information by the end of this broadcast, Cut out now. Listen to something else. Is Noddy Holder one of the three wise men? Will Frozen 2 make more sense if I watch it again? Well, I'm already thoroughly in the Christmas spirit, Ollie, because the other day Martin and I went to the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. Of course you did.

A top-notch Spam Museum, I must say. It's the best one I've been to, I think. Yep. I mean, what else in the TripAdvisor list happens in Austin, Minnesota for you to get to the Spam Museum? Oh, there's a really big sculpture of a cow. Right. I can see why you went to the Spam Museum now.

Yep. We went to both. They had a very good gift shop and they also had their christmas tree up and it was decorated with little plush spams and spam branded fly swats my favorite exhibit was this plaque that said there are over 13 flavors of spam and yet didn't say there are 14 flavors of spam so what happened between the 13th and the 14th i posted that the number the number of flavors of spam is the transcendental number like pi like you in order to list it you have to go to like an infinite number of digits i know exactly what happened there it's the same as when you know if we were writing a press release for our show and we're like over a thousand five star reviews on itunes when you write it you don't know what's

going to happen in the future d so they know that when they wrote the plaque they were 13 what if there are 17 now they don't want to look hopelessly out of date by saying there are 13 or maybe they have like seasonal flavors which they like only have for a couple of months and then it goes so they're like well sometimes we've got 15 sometimes there's 14 but then you say there are at least 13 flavors of spam fine but they may not have the budget to employ someone with your degree of linguistic flair, Helen, to write the plaque for them. But they did sell 12 packs of different flavours of Spam. Oh, they did? Okay.

And if I hadn't lived out of a suitcase, someone would be getting one for Christmas. Here is a question for those of you who get excited by Starbucks having a fucking red cup. It's from Matt, who says, As I was snacking on some Christmas chocolate, I began to wonder why it was so many Christmas treats are peppermint flavoured. Helen, answer me this. Is peppermint simply a flavour that caught on over the winter holiday season, or is there a deeper connection to the holidays?

Does the cool sensation of peppermint bring winter to mind? Or is there a different symbolic connection? Not that I could find, but I did find that there's an amazing amount of bullshit around about the origins of peppermint candy canes. And that is people have retconned the classic red and white candy cane with the little bent top. And they're saying, no, it's a J for Jesus. And the white represents the purity of Jesus. And the red represents the blood he shed.

And the peppermint represents the hyssop plant that was used for purifying in the Bible. Right. But actually, I'm imagining it was like a gift given away by FAO Schwartz as a promotional item. Am I close? I'm sorry to say it's really not that interesting. And it is American as well, because I think in Britain, peppermint is not a festive flavor. I think orangey chocolate is our festive flavor, or just the whole mince pie, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, fruity splodge. Or the mulled wine.

Mulled wine, that's the biggie, isn't it? Flush your toilet with some mulled wine mulled wine that's the biggie isn't it flush your toilet with some mulled wine to get into the festive spirit yeah candy canes have been around for a really long time like the history of that is quite fuzzy which is why people were probably like well in 1670 bishop christmas food uh made a jesus shaped sugar stick but um people used to give babies sticks of sugar to suck on to kind of soothe their gums and they were originally just nothing flavor that's actually not so crazy because they still do that when we had toby the midwife came around she needed to make him cry to see whether he could cry okay can he he can congratulations a genius um but then you know once she'd done that to soothe him she had

some sugar water which she gave him which is the only thing I guess they give babies apart from milk. So, yeah, it's hard to pinpoint where it came about and where the stripes came in, because also seaside rock. It's basically seaside rock, isn't it? Except commercialised for Christmas. Yeah, but also the cane shape. I mean, I've never done this, but I suspect people do or used to hang them on Christmas trees, right? So it's bespoke for Christmas, whereas rock, you couldn't put that on a Christmas tree, really, without causing the whole thing to fall down.

It is heavy. There is a Swedish sweet called polka kris, which was invented in the mid-19th century, which is a mint-flavored candy cane. So maybe that ended up in the US because there's quite a lot of Swedish immigration to there and Swedish stuff in the Christmas elements. But like there are a couple of people that get a lot of the credit for the modern day stripy curved candy cane dominance.

One of them is a guy called Bob McCormack. He had a company that in the first half of the 20th century was one of the world's largest peppermint candy cane producers selling half a million candy canes per day at their peak. So he either invented the stripes or just popularized them. And so then everyone was like, we must put stripes on, we must put mint in. And then the hook, again, it's hard to find who originated the hook because there's so much bullshit and it's definitely not a hook for Jesus or to represent a shepherd's staff in the nativity but no one was that great at doing the hooks without them breaking until father Gregory Keller who invented something called the Keller machine

that put crooks in candy canes and he was the brother-in-law of Bob McCormack the popularizer of candy canes but Bob McCormack the popularizer of candy canes. But Bob McCormack, the populariser of candy canes, had been trying to bend the candy canes, but about 22% of them broke and had to be thrown away. And so his brother-in-law, Father Gregory Keller, automated that process with the Keller machine. And thus candy canes were perfectly candy cane shaped every time. So I think it is just like, once that becomes an emblem of Christmas, everyone is going to jump on it, aren't they? Because they were like, well, that's Christmas and we must make money from it too. One thing I would say for candy canes is if I found one from last Christmas at the back of the cupboard,

I'd still eat it. I wouldn't be concerned about the best before date on a candy cane. I'd probably eat one that's 10 years old. Yeah, they don't really go off. There are a couple of uses. Like you could stir a festive coffee with one or a festive hot chocolate that could be quite nice i'm very fond of peppermint bark which is just chocolate with a smashed up candy cane in it i looked for a really long time i think an abnormally long time

to find why mint specifically and there's no solid explanation that i was satisfied with i think matt might be right when he says does the cool sensation of peppermint bring winter to mind? I think for some people that might be it. But it's an evergreen herb, is it? Or no more so than like basil? Mint is quite hardy, but also you can make mint oil as a flavouring and that's quite stable. So I wonder whether it was partly just, it's a very reliable flavouring. The world's most popular essential oil, Helen, Helen I read peppermint oil. Also maybe it cuts through the richness a bit if you're having a time of rich foods and sweetness maybe it helps you eat more of those things. This isn't related but in the course of

researching this I learned that artificial Christmas trees were popularised in the 1930s by a toilet brush factory that was making them on its spare machines. That is absolutely brilliant. Right. Because you always wonder, don't you, what do you do with the Christmas tree when it's finished? Scrub the bog. I guess the idea of an artificial tree is that you do recycle it and actually use it again the following year. But at some point when you're like, well, it's looking a bit ropey now, yeah,

turn it into Christmas toilet brushes for all the family lovely back whence it came hello helen and ollie it's daryl here in the broads of norfolkshire i haven't eaten my christmas pudding yet but i will do and i've uh just looked at the top of tasty brandy sauce. Contains real brandy. Just wondering, how much brandy sauce would I need to drink to get drunk? It is an interesting subject, this, because, you know, the assumption that I'd always made, and the myth that is spread around, is that you can't get drunk from alcohol in food because the heat burns the alcohol off.

But is brandy sauce cooked? Well, you put your finger on the issue. It's true that alcohol gets burned off if, for example, you leave it for two hours baking. Then yes, after two hours of baking, only 10% of the alcohol is left behind. But a study published in the Journal of American Dietetic Association reported that adding alcohol to a hot liquid for a short time before serving, as you do in the case of brandy sauce, could leave as much as 85% of the alcohol in the finished dish,

which is why I got hammered on the ratatouille I made last night. Oh, how much brandy was in your ratatouille? It was red wine, but I just, I'd started cooking it, and I added like, you know, know a decent amount a glass full maybe and then i did we got delayed my wife was changing the baby and it was beginning to you know when the tomato store starts reducing too much and the chunks start looking a bit chunky i was like i don't want to put more tinned tomatoes on this now because it's going to be a bit watery ah go on stick some more wine on it i put another glass of wine on and i honestly i think i got drunk on the rest of it it was great it really pokes out your vegetables yeah so here for example is a

typical recipe this is from the bbc food website for brandy sauce it's only two parts one melt the butter and stir in the flour cook for two minutes then stir in the milk bring to the boil stirring all the time simmer gently for 10 minutes so it's like a white sauce with brandy in it to stir in the brandy and serve with christmas pudding that's it it's hardly been cooked at all so of course you can get pissed on it so basically i reckon you could get drunk on one glass of brandy sauce although would you want to well the issue is could you drink a glass of butter and flour if it didn't have brandy in it and And I would say, no, no thanks. You don't want to just drink a load of white sauce. What is wrong with you?

Ideally not. Hi, Helen and Ollie. This is Marianne and I live in Crewe in Cheshire. And I have a question relating to my eldest son. He still believes in Father Christmas, which is all very lovely, but he is in his first year of high school. And I don't know what the best thing to do is. Should I tell him that Santa is made up,

potentially spoiling his Christmas, or should I leave him with his belief that Santa is real, potentially opening up to be laughed at by his schoolmates who probably realise that Santa isn't real? I don't know what to do. I don't want to kill the magic of Christmas for him, but I don't want him to come across as being immature at school. What should I do? Helen and Ollie, help me, please. Aww.

So her son, if he's in his first year at high school he's 11, 12? Yeah that's the age that I took it to mean yeah beginning secondary school as as I called it when I started and I'd say that roughly is the I mean it's awful isn't it to have a hard line in the sand on of should but I'd say roughly at the point where you might be about to develop pubes that is the point at which you should probably not believe in Santa anymore. And it is true that most of his contemporaries will have twigged. Is he a true believer? Because you would think he had been spoiled by friends of his at that point.

Or does he just realise that there's some benefit to him in maintaining the belief? Does he just think that his parents won't buy him presents if he doesn't pretend to believe in santa that's the fear or maybe he just chooses to believe like people who go to watch a band performing and they're terrible but because they're fans they say it was a great gig and it sounded great and if you looked at it objectively you'd say no it sounded awful i'd imagine that's the case if anyone goes to see bob dylan live in the last 30 odd years exactly but they'd already decided they wanted to be in the same room as him, so they've enjoyed it. And I just wonder if, like, you know, if you love Santa, maybe your son, Marianne, just loves Santa, loves the idea of Christmas, the way Christmas makes him feel.

And so he's choosing to believe, which is a subtly different thing to actually believing. I think if he is a true believer, it's kind of sweet in a way, because there's so much to contradict the fantastical in this world and it feels quite innocent but on the other hand i very much understand marianne's concern that her son will be destroyed at school it is sort of sweet if we lived in a world where other people weren't going to bully him for this but i think we have to be honest and say it might cause an issue there and and the reason for that it's not to do actually i don't think with the kind of a sense of it being kind of wimpish that you still believe in

in lovely things i don't think it's that from your 11 year old contemporaries i think it's that the process of reasoning that father christmas doesn't exist is about your brain developing rationality and realizing your parents lied to you yes and so what he's signaling to his contemporaries is i'm not as smart as you that's what you want to avoid because i'm sure he is very smart marianne but you know if he's going to exhibit this tendency that is what they're going to think what are you doing now that you have a child that is old enough to understand christmas how are you playing it are you doing the santa thing are you like staunchly rational what's your plan yeah i don't really see that it's something that i could opt out of i just like

it too much and i know that it didn't damage me and i know that it's really fun for my son so yeah we're doing the santa thing in fact uh harvey met father christmas for the first time last week oh yeah did they hit it off they didn didn't. Well, Santa was keen. Harvey was terrified, I think would be the word that I'd use. That is terrifying. Being there as the parent, coercing your child to go and sit on an old man's knee did make me realise that so much about the experience

is completely turning on its head everything we tell our children not to do. What about stranger danger and things? Yeah. Approach this strange old man, let him give you a sweet, sit on his knee and whisper a secret into his ear. That's what we were telling him to do. And he quite rightly was like, what the fuck's this?

You know? Yeah. When we went in there, he was scared because it was a big celebrity. I mean, that's the thing. You can't underestimate the power of Santa as a star. So the idea that you know behind this wall of the marquee at the uh hatfield rotary club would be sitting an international celebrity was daunting for him but then when he saw him it was genuine terror not because he was famous but

because the whole experience was just like this is weird it's a lot of pressure. He ran for the exit, but we dragged him back and made him comply. Oh, God. Sounds festive. Remember when we went to visit Helen's brother when her niece was... I think just under two. And I dressed as Santa for fun, and she saw me, ran away, hid in a separate room and cried for like two hours. It was very sad was it just though but you were shitting on all her dreams of what father christmas was i mean i like to think she i was

massively exceeding her dreams of what santa could be maybe that's what she just blew her mind i think her problem was him having a fake beard over his real beard that's a weird look it's a weird look yes well this actually the hatfield rotary club s Santa had an excellent real beard. And he was a very nice man as well. And I almost felt bad that my child was scared of him, but he was. He must get it all the time there. Yeah. And also we went on a Friday. So we had the time to slowly pacify Harvey.

And actually by the end of like 15 minutes, they were chatting. And it was useful because we got to know what harvey really wanted for christmas because obviously he asked father christmas for a thing and what he asked for was a yellow train and then he realized to his panic after we'd left that he hadn't specified he wanted a yellow train that drives itself with yellow buttons oh well santa will know that yeah well this is it so i was in a difficult position i was like do i push this too far and say like santa knows everything and turning me to this weird godlike thing or you know do i use it as a sort of get out clause if i can't find a yellow train that drives itself with yellow buttons so so what i said was because i'm fairly sure i've seen this

in a smith's catalog i said oh yeah i'm sure santa knew that you meant one that drives itself but um he may not have understood that you wanted the yellow buttons. We'll have to see. Communicate more clearly, Harvey. So, you know, I think if Santa delivers a yellow train that drives itself with black buttons, I think I still haven't shattered the illusion there. Maybe he'll have forgotten about the button specifics by the time of Christmas. What do you think Marianne should do, though?

I was wondering whether she should get her son to watch some Christmas films. What, Bad Santa? Or even Gremlins. There's sort of a good age for Gremlins anyway, if he's not too scared of things. I was watching it from about seven, I think. Then he can kind of come to it in his own time and also not feel too embarrassed because he's been by himself watching films and the realization may have slowly dawned on him if you want to sit down and have a chat

with him something that went viral on facebook a few years ago but i don't know how wise this is and moms in america love this thing i don't know if this is a good idea or not but what one woman said she did with her son who was a believer and a little bit too old is she sat down in a booth at a coffee shop and in a kind of conspiratorial tone to her child said you know how you're always saying how can santa be in all these places all at once because we see him at the shopping mall and we see him when we go to the theme park and we see him in the library well the truth is there are lots of santas and i think you are now old enough and smart enough to be a santa yourself an 11 year old santa what yeah yeah but she doesn't say put on a silly beard and go and have children sit on your knee what she says being a santa is is basically

selflessly buying a gift for someone else without them realizing it came from you so you then turn it's it's it's all tied in but you can see why this went viral in the states because it's all tied in with the kind of christian message basically but the example she gave was they had a neighbor who was like this really aggressive lady who really hated children and she came out every day to get her newspaper and was really rude to all the kids but she never had any shoes on so her son decided that what she really needed was a pair of slippers so he bought her a pair of slippers left it on her doorstep she never knew where they were from the next time they went past she was wearing the slippers

and he got the sensation of being a santa like doing good for the community and slowly broke down the myth of what santa was in his own way isn't the simple way to say yeah there is this magic santa but he only comes to really little kids and when you get a bit older you get too old for it right is the cut off age 10 yeah yeah thereabouts you're too old for santa to visit you this year because he's only really interested in helping little children primary school only only. Yeah, I think so. I mean, you might need to punch it up a bit, but I think that's a pretty good message. Well, what you shouldn't do is what Chris did.

He's written in to say, on Christmas Eve, when I was nine and my sister was five, I told her that I'd heard on the news that Father Christmas had died. Oh! God, it sucks being the younger sibling helen answer me this what's the worst joke you've ever played on a member of your family i fucking wish remember i was the youngest by quite some way which means i was the most vulnerable in most danger of pranks when i was young which is why i

grew up cynical just as a form of self-protection. Trust no one. So I don't think I was particularly good at jokes because of this. You can't become great when you're just in defensive mode all the time. One thing that I did enjoy, though, we had kind of prank gifts in my family. And for years, different people would get given this box of pastels, like art chalks. So they'd be wrapped up and you'd think you got through Christmas and then Dad would open the oven door and pull out this wrapped box of pastels like art chalks so they'd be wrapped up and like you'd think you got through christmas and then like dad would open the oven door and pull out this wrapped box of pastels but it wasn't

the actual christmas present they gave young helen right you did get a real christmas present too yeah this was like it would go to different members of the family as well you had to kind of palm it off onto someone else and also there was one year where um my dad used to hide a brick in my brother's school bag because he had to walk up a big hill to get to school and um so my brother painted a face on it and wrapped it up and gave it to my dad and then it lived under one of the stereo speakers very happily for years propping it up did you get pranked my eldest brother did tell me that the world was going to end in 1992 so i spent like the three years preceding 1992 just like shit scared about it

that's horrible now was that a prank or was that just kind of like filling a Sunday afternoon like let's just convince Helen of something it's not really a prank is it probably they probably just organically started chatting to you and they're like oh my god she's so vulnerable she's gonna go for this let's embellish yeah my mum taught me some of her boarding school pranks and she got me to do one where you sew up the legs of someone's pajamas i chose my brother andy um you sew up their legs at the knee and then fill them with talcum powder so when they put their legs into their pajamas they're like wait it won't go in and then this

cloud of talcum powder comes up it's not a great prank though it sounds like a really sweet prank it's a bit shit yeah i i agree i went to boarding school and if you really wanted to victimize someone you do a shit in their bed do you want to talk about it well no I didn't but I you know if you really wanted to make an impact if you wanted everyone to see a kid struggling that's what you do children are absolutely merciless one thing that I do remember that we did was um we took a friend of mine who was very gullible and always trying to impress everybody by kind of acquiescing to stuff and told him that um we were really into theme park rides at the time we were like 11 years old told him that we'd built a simulator in the bedroom and um you know it was like a load of

dressing gown cords uh that he had to hold on to his straps and various different things he had to put his fingers in so it was different sensations and. And it all led up to him being put into a cupboard so that we could move the cupboard around and simulate him being on a plane or whatever it was. But anyway, after a few minutes of that, we just put the cupboard down so that the door that opened out was face down into the ground,

so he couldn't get out. And then there were three little breathing holes on the back of the cupboard, and Lewis Flexer came in and farted through them. That's monstrous. Yeah. British public school's saying shit. Pranks just, I find them hard to enjoy.

They're really bollocks. My family wasn't a pranky family. I once gave my dad, my dad asked for a glass of red wine and I gave him a glass of water with some red food colouring in. And he was like, what's this? Can I have some wine? And so I went and got him some wine.

If you've got a question then email your question If you've got a question then email your question Do you want to tell me this? podcast at

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

We discuss this and more on Today in History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday, wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a question from Mitch in Portland, Oregon, who says, The traditional Thanksgiving dinner in America is a turkey with gravy, stuffing, stuffing, potatoes, sides of vegetables and cranberry sauce. From what I've read, that sounds a lot like a British Christmas dinner. Yeah. I would add the revoltingly euphemistic pigs in blankets, and then yes. I'm especially surprised, continues Mitch, that both dinners have cranberry sauce, which is otherwise rarely eaten, at least in America.

There are some differences, though. For example, Americans tend to mash our potatoes for Thanksgiving and serve them with gravy, whilst Britons appear more likely to roast their potatoes. Can you imagine mashed potato at Christmas, Helen? I'd torch the place. Different families add different foods, but desserts appear to be the biggest distinction. Americans have pumpkin pie and pecan pie, whilst Britains have christmas pudding and mince meat pie i mean equally disgusting to be fair yeah i like mince pie that's a good pie mitch helpfully then does our job for us in the following sentence americans won't know what those are so contrary to what americans

called pudding christmas pudding appears to be a fruit dessert that is aged spice and liquored while mince pie is a sweet pie with a fruit filling thanks for that, Mitch. Don't mince-plain to us. But, he says, the staple components of American Thanksgiving and British Christmas dinners, turkey, gravy, stuffing, potatoes, veggie and cranberry sauce,

can't just be coincidentally identical. Can they? Particularly the cranberry sauce. Can it? I know that turkeys are American. They were introduced to the US from, I think, Central America. But they may have become popular in British Christmas dinners before they became Thanksgiving staples.

Correct. Helen, answer me this. Did one of us rip off our dinner from the other? A little bit, but it is sort of related that both of these dinners are based on what food is available at those times a year yeah things like christmas ham in america came from britain although america i think reasonably rejected christmas pudding and associated things given the opportunity for it not to be your tradition you would reject that food i could be wrong in this but i feel like cranberries although they they were not unknown

in britain i feel like they weren't really big in britain until like the mid to late 90s when delia made them trend and they sold out and that got cranberries a lot of press i don't know i remember cranberry sauce being part of our christmas dinner my whole life but that was cranberries were a thing that came in a jar from ocean spray yeah a fresh cranberry being used in any way no but like sour fruit sauces that is like a very old thing to have with meat so i remember having like red current jelly or quince there's lots of fruity sauces that we had with meat so i think cranberry was just like oh there's another one turkey wasn't super common as the christmas meat in britain until the 1950s because it was really really expensive and also in the 1950s refrigeration

was a lot more common so people could have these birds that would putress whereas before if they had goose or game you could hang it but apparently the first person in the UK to eat a turkey for Christmas was Henry VIII so that's going back to the 16th century that's not a massive surprise because when you say he ate a turkey for christmas one of every animal exactly yeah the entire animal kingdom throughout december one of those happened to be a turkey on christmas day a regular noah's ark in his bowels and so turkeys were around um because they had been brought to europe by um the spanish who had been over to central america and brought a load of things back in the 16th century but the more common meats for people to eat in that period in Britain were like ham, goose, wild boar, game, venison, or the poor would eat humble pie, which is a pie made

out of venison entrails, because that was what the rich people discarded. Whereas turkey was uncommon as a Thanksgiving meat until after 1800. It wasn't unknown, but people were just like, well, we killed what birds were around and had some fish and stuff. So it wasn't really a traditional thing until the 1850s, apparently, in Thanksgiving. So there. It's an odd bird to focus on, really, when I understand the goose and the duck and that kind of stuff, not just because you can hang them up but because they are so fatty and like full-on strong flavors that you think if you're having a treat like that's what it is isn't it it's a feast right you're getting everyone round why go for literally the blandest poultry i think the reason why is because it's big yes it is big goose doesn't have that

much meat on it it's got a very big cavity and then a lot of fat and not actually much meat. People did used to eat capons, which are castrated roosters, because those are big. But the person who made turkey fashionable in the UK was Edward VII. So I think that was the late 19th, early 20th century. And apparently before that, the big bird on the tables of the royal court was peacock. Hmm. Chewy, but tasteless i should think i'd imagine peacock is not the tastiest meat so after that people copied the royals but it was still like kind of unobtainably expensive uh for the first half of the 20th century apparently

whereas now a turkey costs average the 1.7 hours of people's wages in 1930s it cost a week's wages so most households would still have eaten a goose or rabbit or possibly beef and actually it's also about the tradition of doing it every year and making the things every year so when i so i grew up as an only child but when i go back to my wife's family now there's three sisters their pigs in blankets production line is really quite incredible i admire that it's because they've been doing for 25 years so like they know each other's it is like watching mcdonald's training people into an assembly line uh it's extraordinary can you film it i should this year although they do have to refer to delia smith's christmas which is in the corner and they're

making four recipes on the same day from that one book and it's covered in gravy and they have to keep flicking between the pages making it more covered in gravy and they have to keep flicking between the pages, making it more covered in gravy. As Delia would want to be anointed. I don't know if you've ever helped your mum build a website. It is the kind of torment from which there is no respite. If she asks, what's a widget again? I will kill her with a rusty spike or a brick or a spade or a chainsaw

But Squarespace is so easy Even your mum can use it She can drag and drop and cut and paste That's all there is to it So Helen, put that spike down I beg you, for Christ's sake, don't do it Sorry, Mum Thank you very much to Squarespace for sponsoring

Thank you very much, very, very, very, very much. Why not buy all your family a box of Squarespace this Christmas? No one wants the green one. All the Squarespace's are the same. None of them is the peanut crackle. I also think it can be quite nice to buy someone a website for Christmas or make them a website, even if like a fun little joke website or I made a website for my dad's birthday with his sculptures on. for his marketing campaign that i think he's yet to initiate but he talks about it frequently

and uh it's a present that's not going to end up in landfill and something i noticed is that squarespace are sponsors of the hella mega tour it's kind of like you know when um busted went on tour with mcfly mcbusted yeah it's like that but for college rock bands um so uh green day weezer and fallout boy are doing a tour together and what was really impressive about that announcement i thought is that all three of those bands have squarespace websites really if you said what's the thing that we's a fallout boy and green day have in common you'd say okay, okay, three chords, hair, I don't know. No, they all have Squarespace websites. Wow.

Even though all of them, I think, predate the prime of the Squarespace website. Yes, but then that might be why they needed updating. That's the other thing, isn't it? If you've got an old as fuck website that had some webmaster design it for you and now you've lost touch with them, just get yourself a Squarespace website. You can have it up and running in days. I'm really happy to think of Pete Wentz choosing which template to do on Squarespace and putting a tag cloud in the sidebar and stuff.

Yeah. If you're in a band or even if you're not in a band and you want to use Squarespace and you want to get a 10% discount off your first purchase of a website or domain, then you can do that by going to squarespace.com slash answer and using our discount code answer. Here's a question from Rob who says, I'm watching the film Santa Buddies. Ollie, answer me this.

How on earth did they get the dogs to move their mouths as if talking? I've not seen Santa Buddies. I'd never heard of it until this question, but I feel just from this brief question, I've got a fairly full picture of what it is. It was a 2009 straight to DVD Disney movie. It has a Rotten rotten tomato score of 20 percent and it is the ninth film in the airbud franchise which is about a sports play in golden retriever of course pretty cute cover art and the strapline is here comes santa paul's well this film looks

fucking appalling i watched the trailer and it's just like a sort of moving Hallmark card in the trailer. There is zero action and it's not even really cute. They don't say anything funny. They just say, quick, go over there. I'll rescue you. Stuff like that. Anyway, to answer Rob's question, they made the animals mouths move the same way. Basically, the filmmakers have made animals mouths move

ever since roughly babe which was uh i mean they won a special effects oscar for that film which astonishingly was 1995 but was all cgi um so what they did with babe what they pioneered there is they filmed real animals um but then they used a computer modeled version of a scan of the sculptures that they'd used to create the animatronics because as well as having animal actors they had animatronic versions of those animals to do complex things and so they had a really lifelike detailed computer model which they could then merge with the real footage and even though it was 1995 and they didn't have a lot of computer power because they were using windows 95 to make babe you imagine how awful

that would have been imagine clippy popping up it looks like you're trying to make an animated film um what they did is they just used like the snout or the dog's mouth or the eyes the eyebrows they take a little piece of it and superimpose the computer imagery on top of the real thing so it was the real animal apart from the mouth which they could manipulate and essentially that they haven't really changed technology since then that's what they use in all these movies so they're real dogs they're trained animal actors so they can get them to look sad or irritated or happy or you know whatever i think possibly they get lots of shots of them barking and chewing and manipulate

some of those but basically they they use a computer model to make their mouth move that's it right i could have predicted that really like how you make it look like an animal's talking in a film like you probably could have predicted all of santa buddies if you watched it um although i think the thing that maybe you couldn't predict is what happened on the set of the predecessor of that film snow buddies it's really horrible oh no did a dog die not one helen five oh shit yeah they managed that this is sad but i had an entertaining hour looking at the website of the American Humane Association for the answer to this question. So,

you know, the group they put on the end of the film, No Animal Was Harmed in the making of this film. Right. That disclaimer, you only get if the American Humane Association come to your film set, supervise the action, and indeed decree that no animal has been harmed.

In the case of snow buddies they couldn't put that it simply says american humane monitored the animal action and if you go to the website you find out why it's that five of the puppies were killed on set because there was a virus which they noticed too late it was february in british columbia when they were filming it so it spread quickly amongst all the puppies who had traveled to the set by plane for over 3,000 miles, then by car, a trip of longer than 12 hours and in cold weather as well because Canada. And then it turned out that they were younger than they should have been.

They were six-week-old puppies rather than eight-week-old puppies. Which the makers blamed on the breeder and the breeder blamed on the makers. But essentially, yeah, dead dogs in that franchise. Not nice. Oh my God. Did they just replace them with other puppies? Yeah, of course.

I mean, they have like, you know, 60 puppies on set. But still, to lose five in a kids' film, not good. Now that would get a lot more attention, I think. I think, yeah, well, this is just ever so slightly pre-internet, I guess, in terms of people following up on this stuff. But as far as we know, the death count santa buddies is zero okay good although i did enjoy this sentence from the american humane association's devastating critique of snow buddies uh b-dog and puppy paws break dancing and spinning near a boom box was achieved using cgi oh good news yeah just in case you were worried that all

that break dancing they made the puppies do might have been bad for their spine. But I guess, you know, the history of animals being used in films, like the reason that they have the American Humane Association monitoring the action is because lots of animals did die. Like Ben-Hur famously killed a hundred horses, I think it was, making that film. All of those westerns where horses went over cliffs, you know, that wasn't trick photography then. They killed the horse because there was no way to, there was no special effects. That's what they had to do to get that shot. Or they could have written a different plot. There are some recent animal atrocities as well that I've been reading about. Oh great, Merry Christmas. These

are accidents, but have a think about this in case you're going to watch any of these light-hearted movies this Christmas time. According to the Hollywoodwood reporter uncontested as far as i can see by the studios concerned a chipmunk was fatally squashed in the 2006 matthew mcconaughey sarah jessica parker romantic comedy failure to launch i have not seen it and therefore do not know what the chipmunk's role in the film was i assume just a joke shot but um it was on set the handler was playing with the chipmunk it was on their shoulder and then it got squashed i think someone stepped on it in 2003 over four days during the filming of disney's pirates of the caribbean the curse of the black pearl crew members had taken no precautions to protect marine life when they set off special effects explosions in the ocean killing dozens of fish and squid it's hard to care about squid i feel they're mesmerizing

creatures i mean this is where the american human association has an issue i suppose everyone wants to make sure the puppies are looked after i'm not sure people care about the squid i guess if you have a human association they have to represent all animals the one i was worried about uh was mr red because i was thinking okay so if animals moving their mouths basically started with babe what about the decades of films before where animals moved their mouths you know uh Dr Doolittle and then I thought what about Mr Ed like one of the biggest stars of tv in the 60s a horse that could talk how did they make Mr Ed's mouth move well horses are quite intelligent animals there's that famous uh horse that could count but obviously it couldn't count it was just taking cues from its owner and also like i've seen mr ed it's not very convincing mr ed is saying like

oh i'd like some some hay and the mouth is going like it's not a very close lip sync nonetheless the mouth is moving in days when we know the technology didn't exist to manipulate that frame by frame so how did they do it they probably just trained him to like move his mouth when he got a sugar cube or something you'll be reassured to know martin that indeed in later seasons he had learned to wag his lips whenever his hoof was touched because he was mr s that was his day job so they did find a way to get him to do that but for the first season it was a wire they tied a wire to his gums oh no and then you think god it's a sitcom like he's not happy in this sitcom he's matthew perry are you suggesting matthew perry's mouth

was moved by a wire i wouldn't be surprised some of those later episodes i mean he's dead behind the eyes but the mouth is still moving he had a very rough time during the filming of Friends. He did. But it was probably rougher for Mr. Ed, to be fair. Helen? Oliver? Though life is full of questions, there are answers you must know. One. No, it will not fall off, but moderation in all things too.

Yes, there probably is, but we won't find out in our lifetimes. Three, most people prefer connery, but my personal favorite is Dalton. Four, if you try and slip a one, it would ruin your friendship. Yes. It would ruin your friendship Yes If you're enjoying this episode of Festive Questions and you want to hear even more such as how to salvage the situation if your partners bought you a brilliant present and you got them something shit

then do check out the Answer Me This Christmas album Yes, it's one hour of very interesting festive questions. It's evergreen, like the Toilet Brush Trees. Or the Will Young song. Not his best. Wasn't that a Westlife cover? I think it was, yes. It's No Leave Right Now.

Damn right. If you're talking about evergreen Will Young songs, or that one with the video directed by Baz Luhrmann, Your Game, that's it. Oh yeah, that's quite good, yeah. Yeah, but still, No Leave Right Now. I mean, Leave Right Now was the peak, wasn't it? But anyway, back to the Answer Me This it. Oh yeah, that's quite good. Yeah, yeah. But still, no leave right now. I mean, leave right now was the peak, wasn't it? But anyway, back to the Answer Me This Christmas.

Oh yeah. Which is an hour of relevant every year festive questions. And it's yours for under three pounds when you buy it directly from us at answermethisstore.com. Although if you do buy it from Amazon for an extra 49 pence, which we'll never see. That's how Jeff Bezos got so rich. You might nonetheless help boost our place in the album charts.

I did check it out today. Previously a top 10 smash, the Answer Me This Christmas album. We are currently at number 17,151. That's the desired spot. We're culty, like we don't need to be in the top 17,000. We like to keep it cool. Here's a question from Aaron from Suffolkolk he says being a frugal sort i've been planning my christmas purchases for my close family very carefully but in some more extended cases i am going to resort to making or creating presents rather than buying

yeah not a last resort in your view helen love it my brother used to stay up late on christmas eve making cassette tapes for everyone in the family because inevitably he had not been to the shops. So Helen, answer me this. What is the best non-bought present you've ever received from someone? I've got a few handmade Christmas decorations that people have given me. And I love those because you also get to see them once a year. So they keep their novelty value. And I'm like, oh, a friend. And it's just part of a fun collection so some of my favorites there my brother made me a bunch of christmas decorations out of cigarette cards with

injuries on like different bandaging techniques and uh my friend ellie made me some baubles with different podcasters on wow yes like who uh glenn washington for snap judgments on there erin mankey from law caitlin pressed that was a hell of a present that sounds like a business on etsy that Glyn Washington from Snap Judgments on there. Erin Mankey from Law. Caitlin Prest. That was a hell of a present. That sounds like a business on Etsy. That could be her sideline if she weren't already quite busy with her real job. I don't think anyone close to me has ever given me a handmade present, really.

Have I not given you some bullshit that I made? No. And in fact, I've dropped subtle hints to you previously that I'd like you to make me a handmade thing. I'm sorry. I'd very much love to have, when you were going through that phase of doing your Robert Plant puppets and stuff, I was like, yeah, I'll have me some of that. Yeah, although Robert Plant did take like a week. Yeah, that's what I wanted, Helen. I wanted a week of your time.

Okay, did you want meatloaf? I mean, yes, obviously. Yeah, that would be great. But people that I don't know that well have. Bizarrely, Jenny Jones, the Green Party member of the House of Lords. She used to be a guest on my radio show. Yeah, I've been on a radio show with Jenny Jones. Have you?

She's very nice. She bought me a pot of homemade jam. My friend Marie found a George Orwell's recipe for marmalade and gave me a jar of it and I kept it because it felt like something I shouldn't open and use because then I wouldn't have it anymore so that's a problem with giving me jam but I think that is quite a good present particularly if you can make a nice label for things like jams or homemade biscuits or something my interests tend to the savoury as you know yeah and um it makes me feel like it's an inappropriate present I don't feel like I could even if I put it in a nice jar with a ribbon really give someone some of my garam

masala or pesto it just doesn't feel right what about if you were like making slow gin or blackberry gin or something like that where there was effort implied because you would have had to plan it several months ahead but it's fairly low cost yeah stuck some blackberries in a bottle of gin right and then make a pretty label yeah here's Here's a question from Maria in Manchester, who says, Ollie, answer me this. How does Post get to people on ships, specifically in the Merchant Navy? I want to send my friend an advent calendar as he's offshore for months at a time. A while ago, he gave me the address of the company's HQ in the UK,

so I can send it via them. But then how does it get to him? And am I allowed to send a chocolate advent calendar is there anything i can't send or is it just the usual royal mail restrictions that is categorically not the usual royal mail restrictions no okay and how does the post get to people on ships i mean the answer is plain basically plain and then loaded on at ports right but you are right that to get a parcel to your friend of any kind you'd need to go through his company's hq in the first instance so you need to know what ship he's on from them

which shipping company to contact from them then you'll need to find the address and or phone number to contact them and ask their protocols because each shipping company is going to have different uh regulations about what is allowed on board and you'll need to find out about port dates to be able to actually get the post onto the ship well like i was saying earlier maybe do a website for an advent calendar instead because that's more likely to get to him well no i think it's possible there's just a bit of planning and i should say actually for those of you who don't know like the difference between the merchant navy and the royal navy which is part of the armed forces so the merchant navy is a network of private shipping companies so they're transporting

goods and food and stuff like that to and from britain they're basically commercial operations but technically they could be called upon in the event of war to support the royal navy so that's why they're the merchant navy right otherwise they're just privately run ships so it depending on what company he works for it should be fairly straightforward to find out what you can send. However, if it were the Royal Navy, you'd need to send it via the BFPO, the British Forces Post Office. And they, unsurprisingly, since they have people on board with guns and who need to be available in an emergency, they have many restrictions. I asked my friend Laura, who works for the british forces broadcasting service about this and she forwarded us a 10 page pdf about what is restricted wow examples are

jazz mags by which i mean porn not saxophones um also banned and that's that's actually not because they don't want you to masturbate it's because they don't want to offend the cultural values of a nation you might be sailing through you can't have aerosols you can have alcohol which is 24 by volume or less you can't have guns including imitations antiques or toy guns okay uh this is not a surprise when i say it but you wouldn't necessarily think about it and send it innocently can't have christmas crackers or party poppers this time of year right so explosives basically yeah fine not allowed to send dry ice i think it's amazing they have to specify that can you imagine saying you know i'm really missing you uh can you please send me enough equipment so i can film my own meatloaf video on board i mean why would you

now i'm imagining it yes that would be fucking incredible also i note you're not allowed to send medical waste or contaminated needles. So don't send one of those medical waste advent calendars, whatever you do. But there are no restrictions on chocolate or advent calendars. Great. So I figure if you can do that with the Royal Navy via the BFPO, which is more restrictive, then yes, you will certainly be able to send a chocolate advent calendar to your friend in the Merchant Navy.

You just need to get all of your ducks in a row. And also probably do it sometime before this podcast comes out in December. Actually, not necessarily. So again, look at the deadlines for the BFPO, which are probably comparable with the Merchant Navy. Some destinations have been, so like Sierra Leone was the 25th of November, but some are the 6th of December. So like most places in the world,

you can get a package to the Royal Navy on the 6th of December. So I most places in the world, you can get a package to the Royal Navy on the 6th of December. So I reckon Merchant Navy, you could just about do it. Well, Advent has already begun though. That's true. There is that. Although it's a good time to get a cut price

Advent calendar, isn't it? Good point. Really thinking of you. It's a discounted Advent calendar. When your other sources are no help calendar Right, time for a question from Layla in Australia. She's got me on my knees, etc. She says, I will be spending Christmas alone this year.

My husband passed away last year and I've chosen not to go to the bother of visiting family. I'm looking forward to spending the day alone with just my dog for company. And some would argue that would mean, of course, that you're not alone, really. Alone human-wise. I will enjoy relaxing and indulging in some nice food, etc. Sounds pretty great.

So Helen, answer me this. When people say, what are you doing for Christmas? How do I tell them, without sounding lonely and pathetic and then getting invites to other people's Christmases, that I have no wish to attend? I am not lonely or pathetic, and I will enjoy my Christmas day very much. I bet a lot of listeners can identify with this. I think you could preempt it with your tone and just be like oh my god I'm really looking forward to it it's just gonna be me and the dog and this is the thing I'm gonna eat and this is the thing I'm gonna watch. Yes. And what are you gonna do? Like flip the question back to them as quickly as possible but I think if you

preface whatever you're doing with your enthusiasm for that and if you make it sound like there's a solid plan and that loneliness is not part of that plan then they have fewer directions to go with it that will annoy you agree they can't really be like oh are you okay yeah i'm worried about you alone blah blah what are you blah. What are you doing this year? I bet you're looking forward to not being burdened by any widows. That's the thing, isn't it? When other people try to express sympathy for losing your husband, but they open up a situation where you have to kind of manage their emotions, even though it's your emotions that are the important ones. And I understand that maybe they're like, I want to be a good friend and I don't want Leila to be

on her own, but maybe she's too shy to ask. But if you're being a good friend, I think you can say, well, if you change your mind, you're very welcome to ask, but I'll just leave that open there and like not mention it again. I think that's right.

I think actually this is a useful question, not really for Leila, although Leila, thank you for writing in. I'm sorry to hear about your husband. I actually think this is a really useful question to hear for everyone else who might be in the situation of someone who's lost someone talking to them because I think it would be the wrong conclusion

to conclude from this, by the way, that you shouldn't invite them over because I'm sure for every Leila, there's someone else who really would love an invite. Yeah, and doesn't want to have to ask because they worry that they're a burden or something. Right. Or that no one loves them.

But I think it's really important to just consider they may be a Leila underneath. And in your answers, listen really carefully when you offer them. I mean, by all means offer. Say, of course, there's always a place at our house, but don't labour the point. Yeah, open invitations. The other options are telling a lie. So saying that you're going on vacation, maybe, or that you're volunteering somewhere.

I do understand that it can be quite tasteless to lie about something like volunteering or i asked my friend jean because jean writes a lot about grief and how to handle it and how to deal with that situation where other people kind of dump their fucking emotions on you when you're just trying to deal with your own and she suggested inventing someone that you're going to spend the day with so you can be like oh well i'm going to be with my friend petunia and they'll be like i don't well, I'm going to be with my friend Petunia. And they'll be like, I don't know Petunia, I don't want to invite Petunia. And I reckon you could have some fun inventing this massive backstory for Petunia. Yeah, I quite like the volunteering idea, because if you're someone

who's not a mad fantasist, I think people will think in response to that, like if you say, I'm going to a soup kitchen, so they'll say, oh oh good leila's got something to do she's not alone but she's doing a thing that's recognized as a thing you do on christmas day and that's the thing isn't it there's a burden of like in the press and in films and in songs and in just in general conversation the idea that christmas day is a day of family and a day of community and a day of you know company if you give them an alternative that means their minds's at rest, that you have been sated, it doesn't matter how you actually feel about it, does it? You have to anticipate how they think you feel. Here's another question about what to do on Christmas Day. It's from Josh from Chicago, Illinois, who says, my wife and I are taking my mother and sister on a

trip to London for Christmas. Both my mother and sister are not the world travellers and go-getters that my wife and I are, so this trip's a big deal. And we're trying to fill our days up with great experiences in food, music, art and culture. No pressure then? It's going to be fine. We will be there over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. As we're staying in a hotel and not visiting friends or family, we don't have any plans for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. So Ollie, answer me this. Will anything even be open on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve? What sort of fun things can we do? Christmas things would be fun, but they don't have to be Christmas related.

I'm half Jewish, so I'm no stranger to Chinese restaurants on Christmas Day. Please help. That's an American trope, isn't it? The Jewish people always order Chinese food on Christmas Day. Yeah, it comes from the Lower East Side of New York and the Jews and Chinese people living in close proximity. proximity right because that is also where chinatown is yes manhattan and uh obviously chinese restaurants be open on christmas day over there and catering kosher because there were lots of jewish clientele so that doesn't really happen in london

although there are there are literally like two kosher chinese restaurants in london but it's not a thing um and there's a lot more stuff open in the usa on christmas day i would say than in britain as well yes although actually i mean uh leaving aside the the jewish bit chinatown is not a bad shout because chinatown is open on christmas day or a lot of it so if you are staying in the center of london uh chinatown might be a good place to go for dinner um but for during the day i've actually been in london every christmas day for the last six years because i've been covering radio shows for people oh yeah the parking is amazing but that probably won't appeal to you but that is the thing though if you do have a car driving around london this

is the day to do it no other day is the day to do it that's right yeah if you have hired a car knock yourself out but actually even if if you want to take a cab i mean obviously the black cabs are more expensive because there's no public transport that day yeah um but they they are still on the road and you can go a lot further so for 50 quid in a black cab on christmas day you're going to see a lot of the city um so that's obviously a fun thing to do for a tourist that's never been a black cab before um but one thing i have observed is uh all the parks are open. Yes.

Josh hasn't said which area of London he's staying in, which would be instructive for us, because then we could suggest where they could walk to on Christmas Day. But basically any of the parks will be pretty good, and there'll be people around. Any of the parks? So you can be like, Merry Christmas. In fact, the one to do,

although you have to be there at nine in the morning, so it depends whether your jet lag has bitten, is to go to the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park because at 9am every Christmas Day morning, the members of the Serpentine Swimming Club do the Peter Pan Cup Race. Oh my god! Which is a 100-yard swim. It's been running since 1864 and the waters are somewhere below four degrees centigrade. I would love to watch that you can't dive in and join in you have to be a member of the serpentine swimming club and qualify because

otherwise you might die but you can go and watch right anyone can go and watch spectators are welcome yes uh it's just next to the serpentine cafe that sounds fun also there is a christmas day lunch cruise happening uh it is 167 pounds a ticket but again if you're i imagine you're spending 500 a night in your hotel room in central london on christmas day so that's going to be pretty memorable it's something to do you get a christmas lunch as well think about that great way to see london from the river i would imagine that that food is not going to be great because i'd say london boat food doesn't have the best reputation i i think that's fair you would be better to buy yourself some sandwiches

and eat them in a taxi that's going around London. That would be a lot cheaper. I can't really disagree, but imagine yourself as his mother from Illinois, seeing St Paul's from the river on Christmas Day. That would be quite special, wouldn't it? I would suggest that whatever you decide to do about food, you will have to reserve meals ahead. And they're all going to be basically the same. So just go for what's convenient and the

room is pretty well the thing is you're staying in a hotel and that's what's open hotels so yeah if you don't like the restaurant that is in your hotel look into other hotels and their restaurants because they will be open i would also do a nice walk around like all the christmas lights and the christmas windows like the fortnum windows that kind of stuff now i'd go to a carol service or a midnight mass or something yeah i've done that a bunch and i'm a not religious person but it's just uh pretty fun and the buildings are cool tourist stuff uh the body worlds exhibition at piccadilly circus is open um on christmas day on christmas day it's open 365 days a year and also because jews if you go to the ice rink at

jw3 which is the Jewish centre in North London, so from central London, probably £20 in a taxi, that ice rink is open on Christmas Day. I would front load the treats for Christmas Eve, like maybe book a fancy tea, because I feel like that's a great way to win over mother and sister, particularly if they're jet lagged. Yeah, clarages, I'd say. Oh, I mean, that's the fanciest. And best Christmas tree in London often.

And possibly also go to Sadler's Wells, because you can get some really cheap tickets there so it doesn't matter if you didn't enjoy it if it's 12 quid each and they've got the snowman or matthew bourne's the red shoes also talking about theater i mean he hasn't mentioned uh the 26th of december but possibly that's because he's not in london or possibly it's because he's an american he doesn't see the significance of mentioning the 26th of December. But the 26th of December is Boxing Day, which is a national holiday here. Everything is also closed on the 26th

and most of the transport doesn't run. But also specifically and historically, the day Victorians went to the theatre, that's a big thing. So most of the theatres doingmas shows are open on boxing day and i if i was an american tourist i would definitely go and see a panto because if you want a big box of what the fuck a pantomime is you will not understand what is going on it's like the equivalent of going to a baseball match basically for a brit isn't it i would just direct you to the implication in his question that he wants his mother and sister to have a

good time no i think you have a good time at a panto mother and sister to have a good time no i think you have a good time at panto i think you definitely have a good time it's so it's so british yes you know it will be a memory that you will you will keep because you won't understand what's just happened to you and there are tickets uh at the moment on boxing day evening to go and see paula grady and julian clary doing goldilocks at the Palladium. I mean, I think anyone from Chicago will be completely mystified by that. Well, I hope that this episode was a big Christmas present for you listeners. I hope so. And that it wasn't a dry old turkey.

Or shit in the bed. Please send us questions for the new year of Answer Me This. The 14th year of Answer Me This. Fuck. Fuck. God. the new year of answer me this the 14th year of answer me this fuck fuck god i was thinking back to when we did episode 200 which was also our fifth anniversary and i was like five years we kept the podcast going for five years and i was like yeah and it's been going for 13 years now fucking hell we're gonna be an adolescent next year oh moody oh same old but some things never change with the podcast we need your questions so email

us record voice memos you can call us it's a little more unreliable than the voice memos but all of our contact details are on our website answer me this podcast.com and particularly over the christmas periods you might want to check out our other material. Yes, because you need stuff to drown out the sound of your family arguments, right? Absolutely. I do five podcasts. You can discover them all at ollyman.com. But actually, the one that I would like to highlight for a second month's running is the media podcast. Because after I plugged it in the November episode, somewhat sheepishly saying, look, this is probably only for you if you work in media in the UK and if you're a bit of a geek. Listener D got in touch with me via Instagram to say, Ollie, I'm Australian. I have nothing professionally to do with any kind of

media, but I find it really interesting and I never miss an episode. That's a good accolade. There you go. So there are people out there. You could be one in the future. If you are interested in things like gossip about the newspapers going digital and Disney competing with Netflix and the royal family suing the tabloids, that's the sort of stuff we talk about. Every fortnight, there's a new episode at themediapodcast.com. Helen, your podcast. The Illusionist is an entertainment show about language.

It's very fun. There's also a bunch of good Christmas episodes in the back catalogue. There's one about why Dickens became the kind of emblem of christmas oh wow there's a thesis you could write about that i had someone on the show that has written that thesis there's one about why we send christmas cards and how the earliest christmas cards had like slabs of bacon stuck to them there's one about winterville that fun festive fuck up of the 90s but all of those are at the illusionist.org and also i do uh the veronica mars recap podcast veronica mars

investigations which is very funny and also you can watch the tv show veronica mars and then listen to the podcast thus taking care of a lot of the festive period without having to interact with anyone that's at vmipod.com there's some excellent martin orswick content for you as well yeah there is i'm coming to the end of year of the bird and last year i recorded 40 songs where we're traveling around the world and i've been releasing them this year and by christmas they will all be out 40 songs you don't have to get them all you can listen to the podcast and you know get the songs for free and then if you decide you like them go to palebirdmusic.com and buy them and in the meantime remember our first 200 episodes and all five of

our exclusive albums including answer me this christmas are out now at apple amazon and answer me this store.com halfway through this month we will have a retro answer me this that lands in your feed and then we'll be back with the first new answer me this of 2020 on the 9th of january i don't there's anything left to say apart from Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and Winterville and whatever you're celebrating. Have a good one.

And to you. Bye!