Answer Me This! - AMT400: Sky Dining, Swiss Barbie, and Homing Pigeons

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

Well this is it, listeners. After 14 years and 8 months and many thousands of questions, AMT400 is the last episode of the show. But we go out on some terrific inquiries, about pigeon navigation, saving Joni Mitchell's childhood home/destroying Shakespeare's final home, the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, diamond skulls, and eating brunch dangling 150 feet up in the air. Huge thanks to all of you who sent in lovely messages - and songs! - with your AMT-related emotions and memories. We only included a tiny fraction of your affection in the episode, but know that we read/listened to everything. And maybe wept over it a bit too. Find more about this episode, including a mega bonus episode of all the extra answers we didn't have room for, at answermethispodcast.com/episode400. Keep in touch! Here's how to find the three of us: Olly Mann is @ollymann on Twitter. His podcasts include The Retrospectors and The Modern Mann, and you can find all of his shows at ollymann.com. Helen Zaltzman is @helenzaltzman on Twitter and Instagram. Her podcasts include The Allusionist and Veronica Mars Investigations. Martin The Sound Man Austwick is @martinaustwick on Twitter and Instagram. His podcasts include Song By Song, Neutrino Watch and Maddie's Sound Explorers - and you can hear his songs via palebirdmusic.com. This episode is sponsored by: • Manscaped, a full range of grooming products for your furry parts. Get 20% off plus free shipping with the code ANSWER at Manscaped.com. • Squarespace. Want to build a website? Go to squarespace.com/answer, and get a 10% discount on your first purchase of a website or domain with the code 'ANSWER'. Stay subscribed to this feed, cos you never know what the future holds. Until the unknown future happens: bye!!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you ready to ride into our final furlong? After 400 episodes, can I sing the theme song? Like it or not, I guess you just did. I can't believe we've written 400 of those theme tunes. Written. Composed. I don't know, Julia. Wrought. Crafted. I still remember like the really really old ones like should i audition for x factor 3 why are my kids banned from visiting me that's the pretty

cold isn't it that's quite mean yeah i think the best one i can remember is um why are stools called stools as in bowel movement stools that's the classic and the one where ollie sings kiss from a rose oh i like the one about the artist but I can't remember what the joke is. I know the second half is silent. That's the joke, Martin. So here we are, the final episode. Yeah. We've really appreciated all of the lovely emails you've been sending us

about your Answer Me List feelings and experiences. It's great to hear how we have changed your lives in even very small ways. Oh, yeah. Bex has written in to say every single time i make a carbonara i hear martin's voice saying lots of black pepper lots and lots of black pepper wow what a legacy martin that's true that's true yeah i mean it's better than your brother's recipe for carbonara which is like peas and sherry and random crap probably pepperami in there yeah I still sing sweet potato fries

every time I make potato fries. Do you? I do. I think everyone who has ever heard this show who walks past a branch of giraffe goes, branch of giraffe. Yeah. I still, whenever I apply talcum powder

to my genitals, I also think of Helen's ghost penis story. Oh, God. Harrowing stuff. Something that Martin quotes quite a lot is something that you said, Ollie,

in the early days when we were asked about the difference between flammable and inflammable. And you said, it's certainly terresting. Yeah.

I also, since we did that research into paper towels and hand dryers and stuff, I no longer use any of those. Just wipe my wet hands on my clothes. Well, that's a positive change, isn't it? I mean, not necessarily for anyone who has to shake hands with you, but for the world.

Also, whenever I see people in a park throwing bread to the ducks, I don't, but I want to shout out, no, don't do it. It's not good for them. It's going to blow up in their stomachs. Yeah. I've also enjoyed hearing your feedback about what has happened since we answered one of your questions rachel from birmingham says i called in about 12 years ago asking if there was still a calling for shepherds as that was my childhood dream job i am now a nurse so i suppose not too far off realizing that dream just looking after a different species of flock yeah okay my wife watches the yorkshire vet a lot so i walk often when i walk through the sitting room there's a flock. Yeah. Okay. My wife watches the Yorkshire Vet a lot.

So I walk, often when I walk through the sitting room, there's a prolapsed sheep's anus on my TV. And the two jobs don't look too similar. Like I would want my nurse to look after me more sympathetically than that. Here's a beautiful bit of feedback from Gary in Amsterdam who says, I'm gutted that it's finishing, but what a ride.

I introduced your podcast to a girl I was dating once. She was quite upset by the phrase, babies can go fuck themselves. Which I think came out of your mouth, Ollie. Wow. That was one of mine, yeah. You said, I don't like babies. Babies can go fuck themselves.

Although you seem to have really enjoyed becoming a parent in the intervening years. Yeah, to be fair, I never said, I will hate having children. I was just like, other people's babies are really annoying why are they in the pub on my Facebook feed in my face like you know now now I've got some it's different I think also you were thinking when I have children I'll probably enjoy them when they're like eight but not when they're babies yes that was the context yes exactly babies are boring

babies don't do anything it's harder to love a baby I can actually say now that Toby is just about to turn two his first year I found it a bit hard to love him not because I don't but because there's less to love like there is just less like now he's got a personality now I know who he is you know Gary says I'm not gonna blame you for the breakup uh but it definitely didn't help I'm happier being single anyway oh um good I guess thanks thank you Gary I'm gonna miss this I'm gonna really miss that kind of feedback hi helen ollie and martin the sound man it's carla from bambri thank you so much for the podcast over the years all your hard work you've put into it i've listened every single day for about seven years so you're a huge part of my life thank goodness for your back catalog answer me this if you could have 400 of something what would it be? Ooh, surprisingly difficult question because I love Daxons, but I would want maximum two.

There's something about getting old that I'm thinking differently about this question to how I would have answered this in the days. When we started out, I'd have said, oh, I'd like 400 bottles of wine. I'd like a big wine cellar, or I'd like 400 cars or whatever the thing would be. Whereas now genuinely- 400 jars of mayonnaise. Well, it is more like that. I'm thinking practical terms i'm thinking well i would like a lifetime supply of mayonnaise because i would definitely get through it but i would like to be posted one jar a month that's what i would like i wouldn't like to be given a delivery of 400 of anything um apart from possibly i was thinking contact lenses so i do wear daily contact lenses

so i guess i could confidently order 400 contact lenses and i'd have space to store them that's quite boring isn't it you could just buy those i've got an answer for this oh yeah and it's a callback to something we've talked about in the show i would take 400 assorted buttons you know someone else's button jar that they've accumulated over years you've got a great variety of buttons because you can't just buy that in most places unless you spend a lot of time poking around old markets and things, which are fewer and fewer. Yes. Decorations generally, you know, adornments. 400 though.

Yeah. 400 ornaments. Okay. What about 400 Christmas decorations? Like really nice. Too many. Like Harvey Nichols standard Christmas decorations. Yeah, but you could give half away.

I think the rule is you can't give half away i'd take 20 of those decorations 400 i think they would all just end up looking like crap in the context of being adjacent to one another i did inherit from my father 400 plastic toothpicks which was too many i didn't know what to do with them um but they're small, so I did try keeping them, and then they all went in the bin. I just felt bad because, obviously, landfill. Your kids can't really play with those, can they, without spiking their eyes out.

And it just felt a bit weird to put on Facebook, like, who wants 400 plastic toothpicks left to me by my dead father? It's just a weird... Two inheritance. I didn't want someone coming up and negotiating over the toothpicks. And then the other one was, I haven't counted them. It's probably more like 2,000, but about 2,000 paperclips. Wow.

Which is fine because they do all fit in a drawer. And they don't go off. But it's more than a lifetime supply for a home office worker. You need to get into making paperclip necklaces. That'll take up a few hundred at least. Yeah. Get the kids into it. Be the new loom bands in your household.

Hello, Helen, Ollie, and Martin the sound man. This is Hannah from Glasgow. Thank you because Answer Me This was the first podcast that I ever really loved. It's been my favourite for so, so long. Literally like 10 years. Before I ask my question, I just want to say I love you guys so much. Thank you so much for so, so, so many hours of fun. I've loved it so, so much and I don't want to cry so helen and ollie

answer me this how does sky dining work um i saw maura higgins from previous love island seasons on our instagram stories doing sky dining how do they get the food to them is there there's not a sky kitchen is there and what happens if you like drop stuff so hel Helen and Ollie, answer me this. Okay, love you, bye. Sky dining. I was not familiar with that until this question. Thank you, Hannah. No, I'd never heard of it either. No.

By God, it looks terrifying. Not for you. Not one of the adventure experiences you're going to be trying. The idea is you are 40 metres above ground level in a big suspended platform with 21 other people seated around a table secured in place by aircraft standard safety belts on comfortable seats they say comfortable seats whilst the whole table rotates 180 degrees in the wind no it looks like those um you know those theme park rides where you're harnessed into a seat but your legs are dangling yes nemesis eg but instead of like

getting the instant thrill that your body then requires when you feel that lurching feeling in your stomach you're then supposed to eat for an hour my stomach would be just playing absolute havoc in that situation well you can't go to the toilet from up there no well you can but you wouldn't want to stand underneath i noticed on flydining.com one of the practitioners of sky dining that they are also looking for people who want to franchise it yes it says you can call it a white money making machine what does that mean i suppose that's like uh white labeling is the idea so like it is a franchise but you can put it anywhere in the world and it's it's mostly used for events so although there is um i'm not

sure if it ever actually permanently opened because of COVID and everything, although you'd imagine it's quite a COVID safe way to eat. But there is a permanent one in Las Vegas, as you might expect. And I think Dubai, I mean, in both those places, that's not surprising. But everywhere else in the world where it's popped up, Paris and London and Tel Aviv and whatever, in all those places, it's been a temporary thing really as a kind of marketing, social media thing, which is probably why, Hannah, you saw maura from love island on it as an influencer it says best selfie and photo session potential i don't want to drop my phone 150 feet and kill someone or just smash my phone i don't want to smash someone's brain or my phone yeah so when when hannah says what would happen if you drop stuff yeah you could kill someone that's what

that's why we don't have restaurants suspended from platforms in the sky. But in terms of how it works in terms of the food, I mean, it's the same as actually when you're eating, you know, a business class cabin of an aeroplane, like all the food is prepared on the ground, and then it's taken up. How do they serve it to you? Because they can't walk around the table. So the two waiters are strapped into the middle of the platform. Everyone's got a bungee jump cord on in case it all goes horrifically wrong and they can sort of circumnavigate their way around the table because they're in the middle they're like in the in the hole in the middle of the o so they can go around serving everyone it's actually quite good from a service point of view you don't need to worry

about attracting their attention they're right there all the fucking time i am looking at the menus uh they do uh breakfast brunch lunch afternoon tea cocktails and dinner and for the breakfast which is um 79 pounds per person for 45 minutes which isn't bad are you paid i mean i wouldn't but one would pay 50 quid to go up on a platform 40 meters into the air so i sort of i think it's a reasonable price plus breakfast would you want to eat shakshuka drop a bit of cold poached egg 150 feet on some unsuspecting person just trying to go about their morning it says that sky dining is a fusion of two most favorite components food and adventure now just because you like two things a lot doesn't

necessarily mean you want to combine them as i think we've mentioned before when we had food and sex questions real life isn't nine and a half weeks yeah i think adrenaline for me is not necessarily the accompaniment to eating that i enjoy but a view is like i understand the thing of going to a restaurant on the top of a skyscraper it's just i just don't need the the thrill what i found really hilarious is i found um from 2009 the first time that they applied to have a permanent site in las vegas steve winn the hotelier opposed it on the basis that it was quote a carnival attraction unsuited to the strip oh wow like what you know people in m&m costumes is fine you know a roller coaster hotel that's fine not a platform where people eat a michelin starred meal what's wrong with you what i wouldn't like is not being able to leave so not being able to pop to the loo not being able to get away from a

tedious dining companion i'd feel very much like i was part of the experience in a way that i wouldn't be comfortable with and actually that thing of the service staff being there all the time as well i know that some people who are drunk enough or from a certain class of society feel very comfortable with that you know i don't like that always makes me awkward like i just feel like i need to keep engaging them even though i'm paying them even though they're there to service me i feel like i can't relax till they fuck off i don't want them there the whole time i just want to be politely neglected by service yeah exactly come and check in me every 15 minutes yeah check i'm still breathing yeah which of course you might not be be on skydiving platforms.

And I don't know what happens then either. Like, how quickly can they get it to the ground if someone, you know, has a coronary or someone needs the Heimlich maneuver applied? You know, what do you do? Maybe just tighten the bungee string. You have to get a bird to do it. That would be cool, actually. If they trained a homing pigeon to come to the skydiving platform and deliver your dessert, that would be a nice finale, I feel, for this evening of magic in the sky. That would be cool enough on the ground.

Probably right. Hello, Helen, Ollie and Martin. This is David, originally from the Scottish Borders, now living in East Dulwich in London via Edinburgh. So yesterday we went on a wonderful march, and then afterwards we went to this newsagent to get drinks before sitting in Soho Square and listening to some speeches. But when I went to the newsagents, one of the only bottles of water that they had was Fiji water. So I bought it. I'd never had it before. And I tried it. It wasn't anything

particularly special. But Helen Ollier-Martin answer me this. How did Fiji Water become this massive, like, fashion statement? Because all the celebrities that I have seen have had Fiji Water at some point. Well, it became a massive fashion statement with a very targeted plan to make it thus. Because I think Fiji water doesn't really do conventional advertising. That's right. I've never seen a TV ad for Fiji water, but I've seen plenty of it at high profile events. Right, exactly. So the brand was born in the early 90s when a businessman called David Gilmour, not the Pink Floyd David Gilmour, made a deal with the Fijian government, which meant for 99 years, he was allowed to tap this deep aquifer

full of delicious Fiji water and market it under the Fiji water brand name. By the way, they have copyrighted the word Fiji in a lot of countries, which seems a bit fucked up, given that that is the name of a place. Also, if it was such a good idea, why weren't the Fijian government doing this themselves

in the first place, since they own the water? Well, it's like a pretty corrupt place. This is the sad thing. So there's a large proportion of Fijians who do not have access to safe water. And yet you've got this prick with his aquifer. This guy, David Gilmour, one of his businesses was hotels. So he could use those connections to make sure that Fiji water was in the rooms of all of the luxury hotels and being handed out in all of them with like that little thing hanging around its neck telling you it's like $12 if you want to drink it.

And also resorts and spas. So it had this reputation of like being luxury, being very pure. They did a lot of product placement in films and at events so like fashion weeks and red carpets i remember in 2019 fiji water girl went viral at the golden globes because she was standing on the red carpet with a tray of fiji water behind all the celebs getting their photos taken right so that's the kind of shit they pull and they also created this myth that like oh look at this water so pure from fiji oh paradise untouched paradise even though it's somewhere that had been colonized repeatedly and now exploited by a businessman and then in 2004 a rich couple called linda and stewart resnick

bought the brand they like own a lot of shit like teleflora apparently they're also amongst the largest tree nut farmers in the usa and then they marketed the fuck out of it to make it even more ubiquitous and the thing is also like they've come up on a on a wave of bottled water in the us particularly like bottled water is such a huge industry and such a fucking terrible one like i don't want to harp on about it too much so unnecessary isn't it i know it's really unnecessary because drinking water except flint being a high profile example of where it's not drinkable, generally the water in the US that comes out of your taps is drinkable.

And this is an environmentally disastrous industry. Yeah. But also like even, even in the UK, like David talked about it being the only one left in the newsagents. But I was thinking when I heard his accent, when he said where he was from, I was thinking,

well, Highland Spring, like if you're going to buy mineral water, at least Highland Spring, for my money, much tastier than all the other ones in the UK that you can get. mineral water at least highland spring for my money much tastier than all the other ones in the in the uk that you can get and is at least from here like the idea of shipping it over from fiji never mind the environmental cost of the bottle just that just

the air miles as opposed to one brought down from scotland like buxton the plastic for the bottles has come to fiji from china so when fiji water like look at us we're creating jobs in fiji the economy is stimulated uh and we're using jobs in Fiji. The economy is stimulated and we're using local materials. They're not. Everything is shipped in and they have not kept up their environmental promises within Fiji and recycling

stuff. Also, quite a high although legal level of arsenic in the water. 6.31 micrograms per litre. Apparently a safe level is 10 micrograms but that's still a lot of arsenic for what is advertised as such pure water yeah i imagine justin timberlake wouldn't be as pleased to pose with arsenic girl at the golden globes red carpet i don't know i think there's a certain kind of uh gothic uh menace with arsenic girl yeah

helena bonham carter would be all over it. Don't get me wrong, there's a market. Answer me, this podcast has really gone. Answer me, this podcast has really gone. Answer me, this podcast has really gone. What's with this podcast has really gone. Goodbye. Goodbye. Hey guys, this is Jay from London.

I've been listening to you for about 10 years now, and you kind of helped me learn how to speak English and feel better in the bad times. And I just wanted to say thank you for the laughs. Hi, Helen, Ollie, and Martin the Soundman. This is Dave in Massachusetts, United States, just calling to congratulate you on a successful run and graceful end to answer me this podcast. And to let you know that I am disappointed that without you answering questions, public librarians like me will have to answer more questions. But I'm prepared to take that on.

Your telephone number is the only telephone number I know off by heart. Ollie, I know more about cats and Disneyland than I thought I ever would need to and I think I share all of your complete lack of love for field sports. At least the legacy continues because you've still got AMT coffee stands and every time I see one as I pass through a train station, I'll be thinking of you guys.

Very sad to hear that the podcast is closing but all good things come to an end. I'm so sad you're coming to an end. It means we're all growing up, and that's sad in itself. Look, I'm in stage three of grief, which is bargaining. What will it take? What will it take?

Name your price. Our only question is, what on earth do we do without you guys now? So, Retrospectus, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's do without you guys now? 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 Jamie in Saskatoon in Canada, which is the home of Joni Mitchell. And Jamie says, My wife and I have owned and lived in the actual childhood home of Joni Mitchell. And Jamie says, my wife and I have owned and lived in the actual childhood home of

Joni Mitchell since 2005 when we bought it from her parents who were then in their 90s. Wow. Yes. It's been a great place to live, but my wife and I are ready to move on. However, we worry about what will happen to the house should we sell it. It would be ironic if you put a parking lot on it, wouldn't it? Oh, we can't prevent new owners from making big changes trashing the place or even bulldozing it to build something new we want to do right by history but we don't have the means to keep the house and buy a new one and we don't really want

to become the proprietors of a live-in joanie museum take joanie's house put it in a joanie museum are there any other joanie songs you can work into this i don't have the knowledge no i've, I've been a presenter on Magic Helen. Of course, that's the only Joni Mitchell song I know. Ollie, answer me this. What can we do to preserve Joni Mitchell's childhood home for posterity? Or is it even important enough to try? You can, Jamie, apply to the Saskatchewan Register of Heritage Property. Ah! They say any building structure or site may be designated as a provincial heritage property. Ah! They say, any building structure or site may be designated as a provincial heritage property

when it is of architectural, historical, cultural, environmental, archaeological, paleontological, aesthetic or scientific value. So, assuming there aren't dinosaur bones under it that you don't know about,

you would be arguing for cultural and historic, I guess. Then what would happen to it? Well, this is the issue, isn't it? What I'd be concerned about is you say you want to sell it. I think once you've slapped a preservation order on it, that could be tricky. Now, obviously, the Saskatchewan Register of Heritage property

played that down because they don't want to put people off from registering their historic properties for preservation. But the truth is, obviously, once you've said this is of significance, they can't force your hand on restoration because it remains privately owned and they haven't put any money into it. But they can say in the future, you know, no, you can't build a parking lot on it. But also, no, you can't put a skylight in it. And no, you can't, I don't know, widen the postbox or whatever.

And that might be something that you would applaud as someone who wants to preserve Joni Mitchell's childhood home. But it might not be something that a buyer wants to see when they're looking around the property. So I think it's something that you should applaud as someone who wants to preserve jenny mitchell's childhood home but it might not be something that a buyer wants to see when they're looking around the property so i think it's something that you should suggest to the buyer they might want to do but maybe not something that you should register to do before you've sold it since that is your intention you could do it quietly i don't think you can i don't think well you'd have a pretty poor estate agent if they didn't notice that the property was of national historic interest when they're looking through your paperwork.

That is the kind of thing you can keep on the down low. But do you have to be, I mean, this would be a real dick move, but like, do you have to be the property owner to register it as a significant place? Could you sell the house and then, you know, once the completion is done or whatever, then just quietly be like, I'm going to just register this. That's an interesting point. To fill in the PDF on their website, you do have to be the property owner okay but the final decision is made by the minister of parks culture and sport so i don't see what would stop you working out their email address and dropping them a cheeky note telling them about it like you know that's who makes the decision like they're the ones who pulls the strings so you don't have to fill out the pdf

you can just nudge nudge but personally i think in general it's really great i mean i always do this when i'm on holiday in a place i always look around if i can buildings of significance where people lived who i'm interested in but i'm interested in the buildings they lived in when they did their important work and you know joni mitchell's childhood home really what's the significance well she started smoking when she was nine but you can't go in there and look at it unless it is a sort of museum like Graceland can you so it's I mean it's nice to go past it and be like oh that was the house where but you could do that if it was just a McDonald's right I don't think you'd be like that's the McDonald's that Joni Mitchell grew up in the same airspace as no you would because it's like you're gonna

go past a suburban home and be like get Jonenny mitchell grew up in that house and like well so what like they it would probably look the same as all the other suburban homes on the street right actually i can i can prove you're wrong with a recent example from my holiday okay we were in stratford-upon-avon last week and we did the open bus tour um because my two-year-old is not that interested in for example the birthplace of shakespeare's mother fair enough um but could be lured upon an open-top bus. We passed, Martin, what was the site of Shakespeare's final home where he died in 1616. It's where he wrote The Tempest, and there's nothing there. I mean, there's another house there that isn't his house. And the guide, as you're going around, says that what happened is, obviously, Shakespeare was famous in his own lifetime his legend grew after he died and about 130 years after he died the bloke who

owned the house then uh the reverend francis gastrell got irritated with tourists wanting to see it so he demolished the house that's a that is a real dick move yeah i know in 1759 like 150 years after shakespeare so it's not like you know he knew what he was doing he was like no nation you will not have shakespeare's home if you won't leave me alone no one can see it and so now you go past him what you hear is this anecdote about this guy behaving like a massive cock but you're just looking at a house that was built post 1750 it's not the same i think um a blue plaque would be a great option for joni mitchell's house i don't know whether um saskatoon has its own version of that,

but I think in London, when you're going around, you're like, oh, cool. It's where Boris Karloff was born, just above a shop on a rope. But you can't do that once the place has been knocked down and it's just a site. And so, yes, I agree with you, Wally, that there is a difference. You could put a commemorative plaque saying Joni Mitchell grew up on this piece of land, but it isn't the same. I just think if it's not part of their origin myth, it's not that important. Like Paul McCartney's childhood home is a tourist attraction in Liverpool. And that's important because Paul and John went to school together

and hang out together there. But like Michael Jackson's childhood home, I would understand. Look, Mozart's, you know, they were doing important work when they were five, but Joni Mitchell wasn't. They were producing a lot of Jackson talent in that home. Exactly. But I just think I would, if it was open as a tourist attraction, for example, go and see Mark Zuckerberg's dorm room at Harvard.

I'd find that quite interesting, like where Facebook was programmed. I would not be interested in Mark Zuckerberg's childhood home. That's just not interesting, is it? Joni Mitchell is still alive. I wonder whether you could get in touch with Joni Mitchell's people and ask what they think about it. Well, I think that's the ultimate answer, isn't it? Like, she's not that bothered, so why are you?

You know, she's not made any moves to preserve this. Well, yeah, maybe. I mean, you could film a digital tour. I know that sounds really weird, but it isn't, because you're going to empty the house of your belongings, right? So you could then make a YouTube video of you doing a guided tour of the house. Yeah. And you could upload it after you've left.

So it's not got any of the new people's possessions in it. Yeah, though empty houses always look a little rubbish, don't they? Yeah, well, that's why Homes Under the Hammer needs all the pop music licensing to spruce it up. Well, they could play Joni Mitchell over this video. Nonetheless, you know, that would satisfy your urge to preserve for posterity what it looked like, you know, in your view when she was a child, even if the new people change it.

It's there on the internet then, isn't it? Do you think the house having the fame by association increases its value or decreases it because of what you were saying about the potential added difficulty to renovating i think increases its value ultimately but to the right buyer i think it limits the amount of people who want it that's the problem right okay then advertise this house very heavily at joni fans exactly that's that's actually not a bad marketing sell yeah i mean people do forget about childhood homes like even jenny mitchell's probably forgotten that it could be a possibility that

someone would know that that was how she grew up in and turn it into a thing i was talking to tabloid journalists once who'd got a scoop just by going to adele's childhood home and asking the current tenant if he could go and look in the attic and in the attic was a whole load of stuff that adele's mum had left behind of like Adele's school reports and stuff like that. It was just there. That's all he did. But no other journalist had thought to ask. Like people forget about them.

That is odd. If you went to my childhood home, which my parents had from when I was two till 25, it's changed so much inside that like the people who bought it after them basically ripped everything out, like completely reconfigured the garden. So the land looks different even.

So it wouldn't feel like my childhood home, even though the exterior walls are those of my childhood home well it wouldn't to you but obviously to the legions of uh answer me this fans it would be a shrine but i wouldn't want them to think that i grew up with a place that had more than one bathroom and it wasn't freezing cold all the time it would be not representative this is the jar of sweets that helen was allowed one from every decade as if i've been listening to answer me this for more than 10 years i've since got married bought a house undertaken a gender transition had children and survived a pandemic you've been constant companions and i'm sad that we won't continue to grow old together. You guys were my first. I found you when I was in grade 11 in Canada. I was a small boy and I figured out what podcasts were and I listened to you guys all the time while I played Call of Duty up in my bedroom alone. When I was younger I shared a room with my sister

and she would listen to answer me this every night before bed and I would listen in I was too young to know what was going on and being said and that's probably for the best because going back through the old episodes some of the subject matter was not appropriate for like a five-year-old thank you for so many amazing hours and years for teaching me information like how those guys spritz themselves with old jizz before going on the pool which I can't forget no matter how hard I try when everyone else in our year was obsessed with Justin Bieber and had him plastered all over their walls um for us that was you and I actually had a clock that my friend Tom sent to you to get signed and then you sent it back to me for my birthday so thank you very much for that. It's been a wonderful, wonderful time

growing up having you in my ears. In 2012, I founded the Facebook group, the campaign to get you two to commentate the 2012 Olympics. My iPod Touch was called Martin the Sound Pod. I started listening to Answer Me This as a young student on endless bus journeys to Aberdeen to keep a long-distance relationship going. The result of that is that I now listen to Answer Me This driving our two young children to nursery. Your frolics, facts and dulcet tones have cradled me through difficult times and have been my constant ever since.

So much so that I even listened to your home entertainment album whilst in labour with my son last year. You got my oxytocin flowing so nicely that I only had time to listen to the first half. I haven't quite brought myself to hit play on the second half just yet. Jack has been in touch to say, I'd like to say a massive thank you for all the years of laughter, excellent facts and companionship. I still sing to myself the first half of the jingle from the episode immediately after the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. What have we done? Whenever I've made the slightest mistake. Very useful. A tune you can use. Jack also says, I was hoping you might be able to dedicate a jingle or a question

or even an advert for Squarespace to my girlfriend, Rosha. Pound for pound, I bet you'll be pressed to dedicate a jingle or a question or even an advert for squarespace to my girlfriend rosa pound for pound i bet you'll be pressed to find a listener who spent quite so much time with your show for all of the six years that i've known her listening to answer me this has been part of her daily routine it's her show of choice to listen to while falling asleep i mean that in the most complimentary way possible yeah thanks that again keep hearing this don't we people are napping through this thing this usually means that she gets through about five minutes of each episode at a time it works uh so here is roshas ad for squarespace your one-stop shop for creating your own website that's right rosh you must be so honored to have this most prestigious of places in the podcast

put it on the mantelpiece do you know i I look back through our emails to see when Squarespace first got in touch. It was the 7th of August, 2013. I still have the email. Hey there, my name is Ilyas. I'm emailing you on behalf of squarespace.com, a company based out of New York City. We're interested in sponsoring your program. Please let me know if this is something

that might interest you best. Imagine if we'd never written back to Ilyas, Helen. This is how we pay our rent uh Ilyas no longer works for Squarespace according to his LinkedIn um but uh Ilyas if you are still listening thank you for hooking us up with Squarespace yes partly because genuinely um you know it's made a difference to our lives having a sponsor on the show huge difference and they've never ever pushed back about what we've said or how we say it or even the medium of song so they've been delightful every time we've sent in the clips of what we've said or how we say it or even the medium of song so they've been

delightful every time we've sent in the clips of what we've done thinking they're not going to like this and we've pushed it too far and then they'll just write back saying we did enjoy sharing this around the office yeah so sometimes wonder whether they're just sponsoring us for their own shits and giggles but thank you whatever the motivation it's great because it's much nicer being paid to do this podcast than not being paid to do it. Yes. So that's lovely.

So thank you, Squarespace, for all your years of patronage. But also it's been lovely working with Squarespace because genuinely they're a great product. I mean, it is actually nice to hear from you

and all of the different people out there who now have Squarespace websites that exist because you got our link on this show, squarespace.com slash answer, and went and created yourself a website because you heard it here. Because genuinely, they are the best platform to build yourself an easy website. Love an easy website. There's no learning code. There's no flicking between HTML.

Yeah. There's no formatting things. It just all works. If you want to try it out for yourself, maybe if you're starting a podcast to fill the hole in all these people's lives who have nothing to sleep to now go to squarespace.com slash answer use the free trial and when you're ready to launch you can get 10 discount off your first purchase of a website or domain if you use our code answer here's a question from barbie and it's a question that i could have sworn we'd done but apparently we never have we never have barbie says my name is barbara a very common name for women at my age in switzerland in swiss german the word for doll is barbie b a with the umlaut on top b i which is

a rather old-fashioned nickname for barbara barbie also a nickname for barbara is one of the most famous dolls in the world one of the i'd go as far to say the most just go for it like i don't know but i can't think of a more famous doll than barbie i mean she shits all over woody chucky ali answer me this why is barbie the doll called barbie and is this connection between my name and dolls a coincidence or were there any sw Swiss connections in the doll developing centre of Mattel 60 years ago? So Barbie is called Barbie because they are named after the 15-year-old at the time, Barbara Handler, who was the daughter of Ruth Handler, who is the woman who first saw a doll and decided to make a version for children.

The doll that she saw, though, does have a Swiss connection. Because they were on holiday in Switzerland when they saw it. Oh, wow. And what they saw was, in fact, a German doll, which was called Lily. Now, Lily was first made in 1952. Lily was a cool girl. Oh, and a doll. Yes, she was deliberately sexually suggestive, sort of wisecracking, kind of Betty Boop vibes, basically.

Imagine that, but in a footlong adult novelty toy. That is what Ruth Handler saw on her holiday to Switzerland in 1956. Hmm. Surprising. Lily herself was a bit of spin-off merch from a successful comic strip from the newspaper Build. Sample joke would be a policeman telling Lily two-piece swimsuits are illegal, and she says in return, in your opinion, which part should I take off? So you get the vibe. Oh, Lord.

And they were sold basically for stag do's. What? So stag do's would play with dolls? Well, it was just exactly the same as now where you see hen parties walking around with giant cogs. Like it was a funny bachelor party gift to have like a buxom, taboo breaking,

sexually suggestive doll. Or men might give it to their female partners as a sexually suggestive gift. But it was an adult novelty. But inevitably, they were appealing to children as well, increasingly. And Ruth Handler just appealing to children as well, increasingly. And Ruth Handler just managed to spot them at exactly the right time.

She had Barbara with her, who was 15, and was intrigued by them. And she thought, hmm, what would a seven-year-old make of this? And the sort of breakthrough idea that she had was taking this idea of a doll that had an adult female figure and put it on a doll for children. That hadn't been done before. All dolls for children until that point that had been mass marketed in the USA were babies or toddlers, whereas this was a woman for little girls to play with. Okay. It's uncanny how much Barbie looks like Lily.

It's a pretty close rip-off. I suppose at the time, if something was popular in Europe, Americans might not know about it unless it had been marketed over there. But you were probably a lot safer to rip off something from abroad than you would be now. Well, absolutely. And the get out clause was, this is different to Lily because this is being marketed at kids. Lily's for adults. You know, the fact that children were playing with Lily was sort of put to one side.

This was specifically marketed at kids. And it was kind of controversial. Toy buyers at the toy fair were sceptical that children would want one. And the original RRP was $3 to get parents to buy it, which was cheap. Like, they weren't making a lot of money per Barbie. But the idea, the kind of real revolutionary idea, was what the co-founder of Mattel, Elliot Handler, called the razor and razor blade technique,

which is the money's in the clothes. So you buy the item, then you have to keep accessorizing. It's like the money in Soda Stream is the canisters. Printer cartridges. Yeah, printer cartridges is a classic one, exactly. So the Barbie was always cheap and still is quite cheap. It's like $20, but then it's $20 for the clothes. You have to buy a new set of clothes every two months. So how did they choose the nickname for Barbara? Just because Ruth Handler's daughter was called Barbara? Yeah, simple as that. And Ruth Handler's son was called Ken,

so they didn't look too far for that name either. That's a bit weird though, because Barbie and Ken are not siblings, even though they do have a sexless sibling vibe. They do. They did do a Swiss Barbie, by the way, an actual explicitly Swiss Barbie inbie in their dolls of the world series in 1984 what did that look like a bit of a hodgepodge of european influences exactly

as you would expect some american executives to create if they've never been to switzerland they say she's got the influences of many countries including germany austria france and italy now albeit switzerland is in the middle of those places. But yeah, she doesn't look that Swiss. So the top half of her dress is a fitted bodice of blue and white with puffy sleeves. Her skirt is red with a flower print. She also wears white socks and black shoes and her braided blonde hair is topped with a wide brimmed sun hat

with blue ribbon and a red flower. Don't know if that screams Swiss. Well, what would read Swiss to you, Ollie, if she was covered in fondue and wearing lots of watches? This is the thing, isn't it? Yeah. Or yodelling. Like you end up in cliches that are worse than what they did. Yeah. If she was a banker. We have a question of another fictional character now from David, who says, my dad always told me that his granddad was a friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Our family name back then

was Holmes. I know this is true. My dad's mum's maiden name was Iris Holmes. And my dad, not the most academic or literate of people, told me the legend that one day Doyle came for dinner and was telling my great grandad about the idea he had for a new detective character, but wanted a name and a distinctive appearance for him. The Holmes family, so the legend goes, had a plaster bust with a hook, nose, pipe and deer stalker that the family had nicknamed Sherlock. So Helen answered me this.

Is it possible that this is where Doyle came up with the distinctive look and name of his most famous creation? I'm fairly convinced my dad wouldn't have made all of this up, but maybe he was told the tale by a relative who had made it up. Well, how much is Sherlock Holmes' look created by Conan Doyle rather than the screen adaptations thereof? Right. Well, the Deerstalker only came about when the stories were illustrated in The Strand magazine, which was 1891. So, I mean, it is an iconic look,

but Holmes was only drawn wearing the Deerstalker hat because it was a mystery where he was visiting a country house. Right. And solving a mystery that involved going on a shoot. It's not like he... People think Sherlock Holmes wears the Deerstalker hat all the time, but he doesn't. Just when appropriate, a hattage.

Yeah, it's a bit like, you know, last episode when I was saying Enid Blyton never wrote Lashings of Ginger Beer, but everyone thinks you do because the parody yeah everyone thinks that he's in the deerstalker but he isn't also elementary my dear watson he never says he says things like it but that is a parody by pg woodhouse oh what the hell oh wow but anyway yeah the look of sherlock holmes yeah it's um something that was probably solidified by the film and tv adaptations but only really took root after the stories had been pictured and that was probably solidified by the film and TV adaptations, but only really took root after the stories had been pictured, and that was after they'd been published.

So it's not something Conan Doyle would have brainstormed with your great-grandad. Which is a shame, because it is fun to have these family myths. The inspiration for the character was Conan Doyle's medical school professor, Dr Joseph Bell. He said, I thought of my old teacher, Joe Bell, of his eagle face, of his curious ways and his eerie trick of spotting details. So apparently he used to do these demonstrations where he would cold read people and figure out their professions and all sorts of personal details just from their appearance. And apparently it was uncanny. And so Conan Doyle thought, well, that would be interesting to make a detective.

But he acknowledged that. So I reckon that if he had also come up with the visual presentation, he might have acknowledged that too in documented ways. That's it. I don't see why he would have withheld from history the conversation that he'd had with your great-grandad if it had happened. He did talk about the inspiration for his characters. It's not like he didn't live long enough to see his characters be successful. He wrote dozens of these stories. And also, I don't know, it just seems a bit much, doesn't it? That they had a bust that was wearing

a pipe and a deer stalker and had been nicknamed Sherlock. I mean, I could believe the first bit, but surely they nicknamed it Sherlock after the book was published. It's too much, isn't it? They just took the whole look and the name. Yeah, that sounds like backwards engineering, doesn't it? Too much, right? Sorry. I'm sorry. Either you have this family joke that Arthur Conan Doyle had based Sherlock Holmes on you, you would name something in your home after that,

or just because your surname is Holmes, you would be like, oh, let's call the dog Sherlock, something like that, right? Yeah. You would. Exactly. I can believe that Conan Doyle was in your great-granddad's house. You had a plaster... Your family had a plaster bust with, say, a pipe. And he remembered the pipe and your surname

and that informed part of the character. I can believe that. Yeah. The rest of it sounds like bullshit. My first boss, she said her dad was the inspiration for James Bond. He was a journalist and did a lot of dangerous foreign missions. And he was also Ian Fleming's secretary. And I thought, well, that sounds nice. But then I looked it up and it turns out, yeah, Ian Fleming did base bits of Casino

Royale on him because he was also his commander. Ian Fleming was this guy, Ralph Izzard's commander. And apparently there was a notorious card game where he had to play poker against covert Nazi intelligent agents in Brazil. Wow. I mean, if someone told you that, you could see how it would make its way into your fiction, can't you? Yeah. It's quite exotic. Certainly. But the truth is that any final character is a composite of lots of these different influences, aren't they?

I mean, that's the inevitability of it. Yeah. You'd be pretty bold to just lift someone's entire personality, whether they're a plaster bust or someone you've actually worked with and put it into a story. Yes, I think also the character's been going since, what, the 1880s. Do the ages even line up? Well, maybe that's got a bit lost in translation. Maybe it was the great-grandfather's grandfather.

Maybe. Even just the name Sherlock itself. It's, like, really frustrating how many different origin stories there are for that. You know, some people say it was named after the famous violinist Alfred Sherlock. Some say from a cricketer called Sherlock because Conan Doyle was a cricket fan. Right. Some point to the Chief Inspector William

Sherlock of the Metropolitan Police who was often mentioned in British newspapers. I mean, if they don't even know where the Sherlock comes from, I think you can claim the Holmes. But like you said, literary influences are there to be assimilated into a new work. So the origins ought to be less interesting, really, than what they become. Elementary, my dear Helen. Hello, Martin, Helen and Ollie.

This is Dominic, and I just feel really close to all three of you. You all deal with some really heavy shit, some really deep, heavy shit sometimes, but you don't run from it and you make it funny in the right places. And when you do stuff in the wrong places, you admit it. And I appreciate that.

It's got me through bereavements, breakups, new jobs, bouts of real sort of depression and loneliness. And it has been the soundtrack to my life and at many points i just wanted to send a quick thank you for being my imaginary best friends in my ears for the last 10 years uh you've got me through a lot i've been listening to your show for i don't know like half my life when i was much younger and still figuring out that i was queer and feeling very isolated the fact that you answered questions from lg LGBT plus people and talked about them really gave me hope.

I had some traumatic years of mental illness and family deaths. I didn't get out of the house much for years, but I took your podcast with me on trips that I did take, and you've been there to calm me down from panic attacks and make me laugh in the darkest of times. You really helped me get through the last year and a half. I lost my mom a few months ago, and I've been having trouble sleeping because my mind's racing at night. So I invested in your early episodes and listen to those as I fall asleep.

That way, even if I can't sleep, at least I'm having a laugh. And it's honestly been a lifeline. So thank you. I started listening to your show when I was 15, and I'm now almost 30. I have used your podcast as my nighttime podcast to put me to sleep for that long. So I may never sleep again. I first started listening in 2008 when my twins were born,

and you used to keep me sane and awake through the night when I had to feed them. Twins are 13, I've got another one who's 11 and you're just great. I'm going to miss you so much and really, really good luck with whatever you guys do. That's a complicated one. Social conundrums from roommates to weddings. Neighbor washing your car and cupcake ladies revenge. And many, many more that wouldn't fit into this song. When you copy us to Google and there's no right or wrong. Here's a wealth of knowledge and the banter game is strong. Thanks for answering us thanks for your show.

Back in 2013, when I was in grad school, I was having a really shitty time trying to get through a series of experiments uh martin can identify with this as four-year phd of pissing around with the carbon nanotubes and just not wanting to get out of bed each day jane says basically i was sitting in a room for eight hours a day with a bunch of rats this sounds fake but it's just neuroscience research i had just talked to a therapist about how this was affecting me and she told me to find ways to escape even for just a moment amongst a couple of books i could bring into the lab i also listened to a ton of answer me this which served as an oasis for me that's nice an oasis in a sea of rats it is amazing when people

say and hundreds of you have i mean we don't want to discount this just because our default mode is humour. Like we genuinely are staggered. And one of the motivational reasons that we've carried on doing this show for so long is hundreds of you have emailed to say, we have, like it can be like helped you through a difficult moment, helped you through anxiety, helped you through your sexuality or whatever it is. But it can just be escape, as Jane says, from the rest of the world, from the news, from your family.

And if we provide that, it's a genuinely brilliant thing that we never really expected to do. No, absolutely not. And it is the best part of the job. Yeah. This is another one. Joe says, I discovered your podcast when I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2013 with the British Army. I'm pretty sure i've listened to all your episodes and your podcast

gave me so much comfort at a time that was sometimes really really shit with military precision there putting a point on the feeling that he was going through uh i mean again i'm not saying we're the modern day viruline but i am saying that we're the modern day viruline well leah says uh i have loved listening to answer me this over the years started listening in 2014 your podcast never fails to make me feel better oh it is nice isn't it when i was in berlin i heard about the wrapped reichstag an art installation that cost 15 million dollars to make is that is that literally like a wrapped car but around the reichstag there were these artists cristo and john claude whose uh mode of art was wrapping things like uh massive

buildings art de triomphe trees yeah oh yeah i did read a like a sunday times magazine article about them once and i was ringing a bell yeah and they wrapped the reichstag and it took them like a lot of regimes to get to be allowed to do it because a lot of the german governance at the time was uh not into it yeah it's one of those i mean like a lot of regimes to get to be allowed to do it because a lot of the German governance at the time was not into it. Yeah, it's one of those, I mean, like a lot of modern art. It's one of those things that's simultaneously spectacular and kind of defining and also completely unnecessary, isn't it? Like you could imagine it without seeing it, but then seeing it is a different dimension because it's so ridiculous. I was reading someone who was living in Berlin at the time and they were like, I was really sniffy about it.

And then I went and it was so magical that I ended up going lots of times. Yeah, it's like people say about the poppies at the Tower of London, isn't it? Helen, answer me this. What is the most expensive piece of art ever made? Not based on how much it was sold for, but how much it actually cost to make, e.g. the materials, the wages of people working on it and any other costs. That is a really interesting question and quite hard to find in the Googling because they just want to tell you how much Leonardo da Vinci painting sold for.

But then I also do wonder what you factor into the expense. Like apparently most galleries take a 50% cut of sales proceeds. So is that part of the expense to the artist? And then I was thinking of the upkeep of pieces in public. So you've been to Chicago, right? Do you remember the big silver bean by Anish Kapoor? It's called Cloud Gate. It's in a park i do that was um apparently the most expensive piece of public art to be commissioned it cost 23 million dollars but i don't know whether that counts in the fact

that they have to clean it every day they have to clean the the lowest six feet twice a day by hand yeah and then twice a year they clean the whole thing with liquid detergent i don't know how you adjust for inflation because the raft ragnstad cost 15 million dollars in 1995 chicago bean cost 23 million in like 2004 i think they commissioned it the other anish kapoor you know the the one that's like a sort of twisty roller coaster track that's in the Olympic Park in Stratford. Yes. The ArcelorMittal Orbit. Yes.

That cost £22.7 million. So in conversion, that's more than the bean. Yeah, it's tricky to define because, I mean, that is public art, obviously, in that it sort of doesn't have a use apart from to be visually impactful. But then it does have a second life as a big slide. Fairground ride, basically, yeah. Yeah, and it was the centerpiece of britain's olympic site so it's like i mean yes that's art but also it's like the anchor for the

whole like do you factor that into the costs of the whole olympic park really also you can pay to go up it and and so not only is it a viewing platform like you know the space needle although obviously not as tall it's also you can charge entry whereas most public art that's not really the case so i don't know whether you have to defray the costs of people paying to buy tickets so are there any other runners and riders though i mean are those the ones to choose from whatever the caveats are yeah i think those are the the most persuasive ones i found i did think of that damien hirst real skull that is covered in diamonds including some really big diamonds it's called for the love of god yeah but that only cost 14 million quid only in 2007

allegedly allegedly sold that year for 50 million but to an anonymous consortium so people were like is the anonymous consortium damien hirst and he's just done this for the story i mean that's an impressive one because it's a private piece of art you can't slide down it's small i'm not saying that the art itself is any more impressive or not impressive because it is or isn't publicly funded but obviously when it comes to public funding it's a little bit easier to find 20 million dollars to put on a big statue isn't it but i mean if you actually manage to create a skull covered in diamonds and sell it that's impressive something that i found interesting was that like you've got these anish kapoor pieces that uh tens of millions

and the whole like acquisition budget of the louvre per year i think is like seven million and yet this art that we've pumped into your ears it's free it's worthless wait we could NFT it, Ollie. 145 million for one episode. You've got to think big. To own the first episode of Answer Me This, yeah, how much would you pay? Yeah. Well, 79 pence is all you need to pay. You've answered some of my questions. Ollie actually gave me a nickname, unfortunately.

I asked why so many English counties have sex as a suffix and he called me smarty smarty Catherine Sex Brain it was one of the episodes that a friend listened to so that stuck about for a while I asked a question about a book of Mormon and what to do to get rid of them I ended up getting rid of it at a recycling day that was for kind of like odds and ends and things that you wouldn't normally put out. It's like batteries and books, so I put it out on the curb then. When I heard the answer to my question, I was in a gym and I got so flustered that you answered my question that I dropped my deadlift. I stuck with it despite listening to my first episode while suffering from the flu and spending an entire night lying awake with your opening theme stuck in my head providing the soundtrack to my hallucinations you've answered

my questions on genital nicknames creepy dolls and interior decoration your advice on what degree of trespassing was acceptable for scattering grandpa's ashes at his old house was quite helpful as it stopped my mum spiraling into ever more elaborate plans to sneak in and persuaded her to just go and ask the new residents if she could back in 2017 I sent in a question anonymously about whether or not I should tell my mother before I climbed a mountain. Well, to my surprise, you guys answered it, and on the same day the episode was released, I got a message from my sister asking if the question was for me. She ended up playing the episode in front of the whole family, including my mother, at Thanksgiving dinner. So much for it being anonymous. I did end up climbing

that mountain that year and yes I listened to Answer Me This at the top of Pyramid Mountain in Jasper, Alberta, Canada. It's Freya in France. I was previously on your podcast asking about how to stop people throwing their litter into my bike basket. I got into Answer Me This in 2013 when a friend told me about Cupcake Lady and I've loved it ever since. This opened the world of podcasts to me. Hello everyone, this is Jenny from Vancouver here, aka the anonymous Cupcake Lady from many, many moons ago. I've been listening to Answer Me This for so many years and one of the biggest thrills of my life was when you guys answered my question in episode 271.

I was fully famous for five minutes on the internet and it was joyous. You might also remember me from another episode where I described my extremely careless boyfriend and his various attempts at burning our house down. I married that careless boyfriend and not only is he still extremely careless with fire, but he's also tried to kill me with water, this time by flooding our garden. Don't ask. I want to thank you for one question you answered in, I think, 2011 or 2012, where one listener had written in to say how much they

hated people saying nothing and something. At that time, I was going out with a lady who said the same thing and it used to grind my nuts. However, Helen's advice was just get over it. And so I did. And I ended up marrying this lovely lady and we've been happily married for the last six years. And I don't think I would have been able to have such a happy marriage if I didn't constantly think, just get over it. I asked a question at some point about how to get people to leave my parties. And Helen suggested putting an end time on the invitation, and now I do it every time, and it's amazing, and everybody leaves, and I don't have to deal with them after a few hours.

We now interrupt this broadcast with a pubic service announcement from our sponsors, Manscaped. The Lawnmower 4.0 trimmer is now available for purchase in the eu and uk wow don't trim your balls with the lawnmower 3.0 anymore you retrograde or just a lawnmower definitely don't use a fly mow use the lawnmower 4.0 which is i mean the 3.0 genuinely is a great product that Manscaped make for trimming your balls. The Lawn Mower 4.0, they have improved upon it. It's extraordinary what they've done, Helen.

Okay, well, reluctant as I am to know about your lawn, Ollie. How did you mow it? Like the youngest child at a Seder night dinner, you're asking, what makes this trimmer different from any other? Well, it has a travel lock, so it won't vibrate in your wash bag. That is, I gather, a frequent embarrassment for people taking electrical goods on planes. These are genuinely useful innovations, Helen, yes. It has an LED spotlight that you can now turn on and off. So it always had lights.

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arse hair, like unsightly shoulder hair. I have shoulder hair that's like two inches long and revolting. It's great for that. Oh that little wings like a cherub and it has wireless charging now finally a ball trimmer with wireless charging they've done it that does sound handy and balling and you can get 20 off and free shipping when you use the code answer at manscape.com that is 20 off with free shipping at manscaped.com and use the code answer unlock your confidence and always use the right tools for the job with manscaped here's a question from joe in san francisco who says i'm a little behind the times but i just started watching game of thrones congratulations and the characters keep sending each other messages by raven i've never heard of

a carrier raven but i have heard of a carrier pigeon that's a real thing right yes it is a real thing is brutus was using them in 44 bc before even game of thrones was on hbo anyway says joe answer me this how do carrier pigeons know where they're going i'm pretty sure they don't understand postal codes a pigeon's a lot smarter than they seem? Well, they're about as smart as they seem, I'd say, which, you know, if you're paying attention, is quite smart for a bird with a small brain. Yeah, they get by. The crucial thing, obviously, is that they're homing pigeons. That's a better phrase than carrier pigeons. I mean, I know they're carrying a message in a wartime scenario that you're referring to, but the point is they only go one way. You don't give them a destination and then they go to a different place.

They go back to their home. That's what they instinctively do. So that's what you're utilising. And yeah, they have been known with certain breeds. I mean, your standard street pigeon, if you pick one up in Trafalgar Square and tried to turn it into a carrier pigeon, you can sort of groom it to do that,

but it's only going to fly a few miles probably. But if you buy the special breed of homing pigeon that is best used for this kind of thing uh unflown squeakers i've seen recommended as the stock you need that's like when you're holding a fart in if you buy yourself some uh unflown squeakers you can theoretically train them to fly their way home from as many as 1100 miles away which is amazing i haven't that take and how do you train them to do that they do it instinctively but you know you maybe start with smaller journeys basically what is interesting about it is and i saw one scientist saying like i understand why we don't understand everything about quantum physics but how do we not understand how birds work still what's amazing is that scientists don't agree really on how they do it

there are three theories and they all have some legitimacy and they probably overlap and the truth is somewhere on the venn diagram but either it's sense of smell and or they're using magnetic fields and they think it's magnetism because even when it's cloudy and they can't see where the sun is they still have a sense of direction so that can only really be magnetism and or it's infrasounds don't ask me to explain what those are but you know very very low sound thanks martin yeah so a combination of those things is what helps them sort of track their way but when they track them digitally and they put a gps chip on them and they see what they've done what's interesting is like if you fly a homing pigeon across the same route 10 times,

the first two or three times they'll go a bit wrong. They might go as many as like 25 miles out of their way whilst they're trying to find their way back home. But then what happens is they like hit upon a route, but they start using objects to navigate clearly. So their brain is developed enough that they're like yeah i go to that church steeple then i go to that branch of burger king but they are actually looking at things on the ground i mean probably more like trees and lakes and stuff but they're using all of their senses to navigate the exact same route every time so they refine it so that by the sort of sixth journey they've now found their route and they'll always do it a to b every

time as quickly as possible wow i think there's quite a lot of creatures where they have what seem to us humans extraordinary powers of navigation like eels knowing how to get to the sargasso sea to breed even though they've not been there before and once they've been they die so they can't really transmit the information intergenerationally maybe it's just that humans are pretty shit at this especially now that we have like google maps in our phones do you think pigeons are just like these basic bitch humans they can just about manage to navigate a couple of miles with a map in front of them my favorite moment of answering this uh was when i proposed to my husband and you were there because you did it for me.

Thanks for taking that pressure off and thank you for starting the best chapter of my life. You guys don't know me, but you've been companions of mine for the last, I don't actually know how many years now. You both know this, but you guys helped me get through my traumatic master's degree. You were there at 7 o'clock in the morning with me when I was having my coffee and early morning cry and helped cheer me up.

You've been there with me on buses throughout Asia. You've been with me cycling through Europe. And most recently, you helped get me through a very long quarantine and isolation period in North America. So thank you very much for all the laughs and all the cheers over the years. My name is Kirk Pearson. I'm a composer and sound designer originally from New York. And I owe you guys a deep debt of gratitude. So I started listening to Answer Me This in around 2009, when I was a really manic depressive high school student studying music. I found myself becoming a more compassionate and curious person earnestly the more I listened to

you. So I actually composed a jingle for you, but I didn't submit it under my own name. I submitted it under anonymous because I was too scared of anyone actually hearing my name and knowing that I worked on something creative. After my commute, when I find the time, I can always send a question to the question line. Inquiries are wanted as a part of the plan. I'll have Helen or Holly or Martin, a sound man. I actually do that professionally. I write music for film, for podcasts, for television. Sometimes I invent my own musical instruments today. And it all kind of started from the jingle I wrote for you. So to all three of you, thank you. Thank you so much. You've gotten me through some incredibly

hard times over the last decade plus, and you've helped me become a better person it's nearly the end of the show that's something that pops into my mind quite a lot yeah me too actually oh i thought of another thing that is your legacy ollie from answer me this every time that i make myself a booze free bloody mary all right i add the juice of half a lemon and it's great and every time I think I'm really glad Ollie gave me that tip because it really makes the drink. But I mean, how would you make a Virgin Mary without lemon? I don't understand. Well, just be tomato. Yeah. I mean, that's not a Virgin Mary, is it? It's the spice and the lemon surely that makes it the Virgin Mary. I mean, I suppose what you're doing is you're crediting me with Marian technique.

Well, I think a lot of people would make it with the tomato, the hot sauce, maybe some Worcestershire sauce, maybe a celery stick. But not everyone would do the lemon. I mean, I often do the lemon and a bit of the brine from the olive jar because I put some spicy olives in there as well. Oh, good. Well, that's obviously very much a Manian technique as well. Yeah, I remember you talking about putting olive juice in a martini.

Yes, yeah. Because of Sophie Dowell's advice. That's my dirty martini, yeah. Preserved lemon juice goes in a dirty martini now too if you get the posh preserved lemons delicious and i mean if i leave you with anything uh i think i've said this before but i want to say i want to commit this to posterity yeah vegan pesto made fresh it's as good as uh as pesto with parmesan in it yeah do you put anything in to get that sort of cheesy taste or not no like it's absolutely fine i mean obviously you can double up on the herbs you don't have to just have basil make sure there's lots of garlic whatever but i mean you do not need the parmesan always make sure there's lots of garlic exactly in everything i was just i was so amazed to realize cheese is gratuitous

to pesto like i know italians are upset at me as i say it but it's true you just try setting foot in their country again with that we transition into the final ever question on Answer Me This. Oh, wow. It is from Rosie from Kent. Uh-huh. As you are, Helen. From Kent, that's right. Previously living in Sardinia, now living in Cambridgeshire.

She says, My friend Liz and I have been fans of the podcast since the beginning, and one of my proudest moments has been becoming a questionnaire back in 2013. I've always wanted to ask something else. And now nearly eight years later, a quandary worthy of your attention has finally arisen. Yesterday, a package arrived for me. And inside it was a present from Liz. A beautiful knitted woolen replica of my VW camper van.

Wow. That sounds cool. She says, I know you get a lot of what do you do with a terrible present I don't want. We do. Yeah, throw it away. But I would like your advice on how to best show off slash use slash make the most of this amazing item which took her so long to make and brings me such joy. That is a nice one to finish with so

helen answer me this other than proudly displaying the item on our shelf what could i do with this woolen masterpiece p.s coincidentally i seem to be making babies at a similar rate to ollie shop shop shut there uh and have um two boys age five and, which might help you answer the question. Although I'm sure they would destroy the camper van if they were allowed to actually play with it. Yes. Well, just in case, first of all, I would take a lot of photos of the camper van

and it might be extra cute if you can do that like in front of a poster of somewhere you'd take the camper van, like the seaside or a forest. So you've got a definite reminder just in case a child does something destructive to it or sets it on fire the good thing about a knitted thing is that it's hard to smash agree and they're often quite durable but i think until they're old enough that you can

leave it at child height and they're going to ignore it you could put it like in a box frame on the wall so it's safe but you can look at it every day yes or even i mean if you want to be extravagant like a box window i mean i know adding an architectural feature to your home may be out of your pocket but if you really wanted to make a thing of it you could stick it right there for people to see as they pass wow so you're suggesting like make a new hole in your wall yeah and glaze the camper van into it or you know the cheap version would be take the window that faces the street and light the camper van into it or you know the cheap version would be take the window that faces the street and light the camper van in a way that can be seen depending on the

fibers it might fade the colors a little bit fair you could also just put it somewhere where it's too high for children to reach unless they're climbers and they're able to scramble up the bookshelves but i wonder whether you can make like a cool diorama of other camper van appropriate surroundings like getting some little fake pine trees to go around it and like a little campfire and doll's house stuff. That's nice because the danger is that people might think I'm going to get a kind of campervan collection. Yes.

You know, I'll get a campervan teapot. I'll get a campervan plushie. Yeah, salt cellars. And actually what you're doing then, I think, is you're minimising the value of the knitted campervan rather than adding to it. So, but a diorama says this is the context in which this item should be properly enjoyed you could change it with the season so like you could do a full christmas thing summer would be different to

autumn i think maybe that would be a fun thing because then it's also reinventing it each time and you could post pictures for liz of each iteration of the camper van also if the real life camper van is still alive and kicking and part of your life and beloved to you you could put it on the dash in the camper van. Because camper vans get a lot of attention. I know because my five-year-old is fascinated by them and shouts and points at them whenever we see one. Too right.

Apart from like the modern style ones that Andy Peters gives away on ITV. But like, you know, the old ones. If you had a knitted camper van on a dashboard of that, and my son saw that in a car park, it would be an event. Like he'd want a photo in front of it. It'd be like a fractal of camper vans. Yeah. So for the camper van fan, that would be a nice way to contextualise the knitted camper van, albeit it could get a bit dirty. The fan-per-van. A what? Fan-per-van. Yeah. Fan-per-van. Not too late to invent new words.

Amazing. In the last minute, snatched it from the jaws of defeat. Well, it's not my best. It's really not my best. Oh, you found out something interesting about the word questionnaire, Ollie, which we've been using since, I think, the start of the podcast, meaning people who send in questions. Yeah, that's right. I'm not sure when exactly we first started using the phrase questionnaire, but it's in the Answer Me, this book, which is 2010. I think we probably started using it in 2008.

It is a Helen Saltzman coinage. Is it? Well done, me. It's definitely not one of mine, yeah. I know I did Hertfordshire, County of Opportunity and Stevenage, but I don't think I came up with a question in. But I went to the Fat Duck for lunch, not because I got loads of money, because it was my 40th birthday.

That's a treat. It was a once in a lifetime thing, although I have been once before, so twice in a lifetime. And they give you, when you go to the Fat Duck, to make up for the fact that you've just spunked the price

of a mini break on lunch, a brochure that has in it like from heston blumenthal an explanation of all of the dishes and um embellished on the front was a question mark and a crest on like his personal family crest or whatever and he said um the reason uh that i have a question mark on my crest is because i invented the word questionnaire oy heston yeah i invented the word questionnaire and it means to question everything and to eat in my restaurant is to question the origin of everything. That just means you're inquisitive.

That word already existed. I believe he thinks he invented it, but I'm not saying we did, but definitely we had it before him. So just saying. When they're putting words in the dictionary, they need written instances of a word imprint or like demonstrable use.

And I think we have demonstrable prior use unless he did use that word in the fat duck like 20 years ago anyway we're not going to take you to court heston if you want to just give us uh lunch in the mandarin oriental we'll take that that would be an appropriate place for our wrap party yeah take one of your free meat fruits as compensation yeah not one of the waitrose range though and not one of your weird barbecues actual lunch by chef please okay yeah i'll take it yeah wow gosh couldn't this really be it i thought i was ready for this moment i don't think i can ever be ready for this moment where we've come to the end yeah of the final episode of

answer me this well can we just do some listener admin at this point please don't email us anymore or if you do know that you will be getting an out of office and we will almost certainly never read that email i suppose oftentimes you've emailed us because you needed to write things down, not because you needed someone to read it. And I suppose our inbox still exists for that function. Yeah. I have turned off our voicemail, though. So the question line will just ring and ring and ring. But thanks so much to everybody who emailed us and recorded themselves and said such wonderful things.

And also for everyone who's just been around for the 14 and two thirds years of this podcast and submitted jingles and sent us stuff and like just been so incredibly kind and lovely. Well, this is, I mean, it's of course a terrible humble brag to mention this, but we were given an award at the British podcast awards a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah. Just basically a being old award. They invented a new award for Answer Me This just because we're going for a fucking age. It's sort of like a lifetime achievement, Oscar. Yeah, it was like at the World Music Awards where they just invented an award for Michael Jackson every year so you'd show up.

They gave us the gold award, which is, yeah, sort of like you've been around for ages. They added a G to old. And I was speaking to Matt from the Podcast Awards about why they'd done that. And he said that what he thought was different about our show, what was important about our show, was that until we started, because I think a lot of people think we kind of invented podcasting. We didn't.

Like, podcasting's been around for years before we did it. There were British podcasts before us. There were independent British podcasts before us. But he said what we did in 2007 is we created a show based around interactivity. And he thought until then, the view was probably from radio people especially. Radio is for interactivity because it's live.

Podcasts aren't because podcasts are on demand. And you can't have interactivity because how can you listen to something that's happening as if it's live when it happened potentially months ago? And we showed that it is possible to involve the audience. And I thought there was something very true about that. Like this show has always been about you, your thoughts, your questions.

People have said lots of nice things about what we've contributed to the world of podcasting. But I think actually that might be it. Like we did create a place where people could come and talk to us as if it was live and listen to it when they needed it. Before Web 2.0. Right. Exactly. Before social media. Because social media was in such a different place.

Yeah. So it wasn't just the nature of every program to invite interaction. It was uncommon at the time. But also to me, like a lot of what podcasting is about is the community. Yes. And I've met so many great people through this show. Like really changed my life through this show. And podcasting itself has changed a lot, particularly in the last couple of years,

where it's just become gentrified. And there's a lot of like money people coming in. And I think they're just like, oh, this is some territory we can exploit for money. And they don't realise that the best thing that it's about is community, I think. Yeah, I agree. It's been lovely to be able to create a place where that can happen and also to create a place i mean it's weird saying this uh just on a personal level to create a place that in some way immortalized our friendship i mean it's different now because we're older and we've we've grown i mean as in you've grown and i'm exactly the same. But we're slightly different people in that sense

to how we were when we were 25. But like, you know, the show came out of our friendship to begin with. Like I wanted to do a podcast with you because I thought we had some sort of chemistry or X factor or whatever you want to call it when we were talking to each other. And like we did get that on tape in a way that you just, most people don't, you know. And that's a lovely thing for me to be able to listen back to you oh and it's a horrible thing for me to listen back

to because i hate myself so much but you sound good i'm delighted to have played any part in bringing helen zaltzman to the world as a broadcaster but you know i don't i don't know to what extent you'd be the person you are now if you hadn't been making this show and honestly i that was a great thing to be able to to do for you never mind me thank you i mean i learned so much from you through doing it not just about the lemons and the bloody mary ollie yeah but that was important what did you learn chutzpah yeah i guess yeah a sort of gradual unfurling of confidence like a little curled up piece of bracken becoming a piece of bracken and martin i know that you gave up a load of your free time as well you have a great role on the show to provide scientific data and a useful editing point but also you gave up loads

of your time back in the day when we were recording this once a week you had a weekday job and you know you didn't really want me in your house that much and also i know that it frustrated you that evidently so much of your brilliant musical work was in uh comedy jingles for this show that you tossed off at the time but they are good like they're really good yeah yeah i think you learned some stuff through doing those you're like well i don't know if i can do like electro pop or pixies parody but now i've learned i can yeah yes completely i mean i can't imagine what my life would be like without and to me to see that like when we started i was what was i doing i was probably a struggling postdoc and uh i've since had and been an academic career for the life of an itinerant podcaster and i don't think i know that wouldn't have been possible without

doing answer me this we shouldn't do it by name because there's too many but we should thank everybody who's ever contributed a jingle or an ident uh or come along yeah or been a guest you know who you are if you were in helen mart Martin's house circa 2010 and got a chicken dinner, thanks. So we just want to reassure you, because a lot of you have been asking, the show will stay up as is. So episodes 201 to 400 will still be there on our feed. AnswerMeThisPodcast.com will still be there. Yes.

And episodes 1 to 200 and our six albums of bonus content will also remain at AnswerMe this store dot com the future you is listening to this now and you've completed 201 to 400 that's the free content done you can listen to the first 200 episodes and our six exclusive albums at answer me this store dot com where you will also find a donate button that still works too oh yeah i still don't have a pension um so um it is worth mentioning that obviously you are no longer contributing to the show in the sense that you're supporting the show being made in the future if you donate to us via stripe or paypal using that button but what you are doing is still mainlining money to our bank account

and supporting our work as independent podcasters and all the things we do so i guess think of that now as a tip jar if you have listened for the last 15 years and never paid us a penny and had we done this as a live extravaganza you would have paid 25 pound for a ticket and bought a beer and a t-shirt send us that money we'd really appreciate it yeah or if you were thinking well i'll pay 50 million for damien hearst diamond skull but you know what i'll throw it towards you instead doesn't have to be 50 million no and it doesn't have to be 50 quid it could be a fiver anything's welcome and yeah we really appreciate it but also keep subscribed to the podcast just in case you know in 17 years time hbo might pay us each two million quid to do

a reunion show with james corden yes and um also i guess our twitter feed at helen and ollie is our joint twitter feed um so if helen and i ever do a project again together that isn't even a podcast i suppose that's the first place we'd tell people about it so stay following that and then you can follow us all individually uh using our names i suppose all of them a bit of liability to spell but uh all of the information about how to follow us is on our website. AnswerMeThisPodcast.com. God, that was my last opportunity to join in and I fucked it. But I quite like that.

You're like, I'm already out. See you, the limo's at the door. I'm off. In fact, let's talk about our exit strategies. So we all have other shows online. Yes. I do five other shows. They're all listed at oliman.com.

But the one you will have noticed that really is my exit strategy, I can sort of talk about this in honest terms now, because obviously when we decided behind the scenes that episode 400 would be the last one, I deliberately set about creating a new show where I could entertain you if you like factual entertainment. So if you like hearing me chatting to two friends, digging around in pop culture and trivia, which I imagine you do if you're hearing me chatting to two friends digging around in pop

culture and trivia which i imagine you do if you're still listening to this now then you will enjoy the retrospectors it is for you um so please do check it out the retrospectors uh it's 10 minutes a day and you can find it wherever you get your podcasts and there are now 75 episodes for you to listen to brilliant so people can just get stuck in. So as if this bumper answer me this wasn't enough, that's a lot of minutes. That's 750 minutes of free more content for you. Yeah, that's your new sleepy podcast. 10 minutes and then out like a light.

Very nice. I'll take it. A download's a download. Helen. I currently have two other podcasts, but shortly just to be one because at Veronica Mars Investigations, we have completed recapping all of Veronica Mars and now we are just trying to tidy up at the messy end uh so that would just

leave me with the illusionist which is an entertainment show about language which is really very good it is it is it changes what you think about language there's a lot of entertaining stuff there was recently an episode about the word dude for instance there's a load of stuff about ladybird names it's a good time and that is at the illusionist.org and then the podcast places and then i don't know what i'm going to do i need to uh i need to build my exit strategy but i was too busy producing this show which everyone thinks martin produces just because he switched on the fucking mics once 14 and a half years ago.

I mean, to be fair, I've never claimed that I had an answer to this. I switched on the mics. But if you want to hear more of Martin on podcasts that he has produced... There's a podcast I make about the music of Tom Waits, which is called Song by Song. There's a podcast which is a fiction podcast which changes every day. There's a few episodes, but each episode sort of morphs subtly each day. That's called Neutrino Watch. that's sort of an experimental fiction podcast and i also make a made a podcast last year called maddie sound explorer so if you're a parent it's a musical science podcast for kids but it's designed to be not completely unbearable to the parent listening

along with their child that's called maddie sound explorers just look for all of those in your in your podcatcher but we will always live listeners in your brains and hearts and other organs i thought you're gonna say we will always love you there i thought you were gonna do the full quivering voice i hope life treats your kind um uh there's there's no way to end this so we better just end it um thanks very much yeah thank you very much here's a fact i've got one final fact for you that you may not know the british library once wrote to me and asked me if they could have a copy of every episode of answer me this on an sd card for their archive of uh important works wow so i can't remember what episode we were up to when i sent them it at the time but obviously this one won't be in it

um or maybe it is in the future if you're listening in the british library um so uh you can take comfort in the fact if you feel like maybe you've wasted your time listening to 400 episodes of this waffle, that someone at the British Library thought it was of cultural significance. So you're not alone. And maybe in a few hundred years time, your great, great, great, great, great grandchildren will be looking at that SD card in a museum. Yeah, and claiming that they invented podcasting because they went round to your house and you had a bust of Sherlock Holmes. Well, it's been a hell of a ride. Now it's time to get off.

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for the questions. Thanks for the memories. Thanks for the answers, Ollie. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Love you guys.

Bye-bye. Cheers. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Take care. Bye. Miss you guys already Bye-bye. Cheers. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Take care.

Bye. Miss you guys already. Bye. Take care. Thanks again. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.

Goodbye. Stay well. Love you. Bye. Goodbye. Where am I going to find out the answer to things now? I don't know what to do. Help.

Bye for now. Thank you very much and goodbye. Okay. I'm out. We'll miss you very much and goodbye okay I'm out we'll miss you very much bye love you all brilliant bye bye bye

can I come out now? Where's everybody gone? Helen? Ollie?