Answer Me This! - AMT401: Danielle Steel, kebab awards and detestable birds

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Welcome back AMT for one special new episode! So much has changed since we retired nearly two years ago, but what remains is our desire to answer your questions. Today, questioneers wonder about what to say about working in a world-famous place, romantic bacon competitions, unromantic but important kebab competitions, Danielle Steel's sleeping habits, and looking at their own semen through a microscope. Find out more about this episode at answermethispodcast.com/episode401. We don't know whether/when we will pop up in your feed again, so stay subscribed! And follow us on facebook.com/answermethis and twitter.com/helenandolly. Hear our other work: Olly Mann has a daily podcast, Today in History with the Retrospectors, and his monthly magazine show The Modern Mann, both of which you can find along with his other work at ollymann.com. Helen Zaltzman makes the The Allusionist, an entertainment podcast about language, which you can find at the podplaces and at theallusionist.org. Martin Austwick's music is available at palebirdmusic.com, his Tom Waits podcast Song By Song at songbysongpodcast.com, and his experimental fiction podcast Neutrino Watch at neutrinowatch.org. This episode is sponsored by: • Wondrium, the streaming library of tutorials, lectures, documentaries, how-to videos, travel, craft and much more! AMT listeners get a month of free access to the whole library at wondrium.com/answer. • 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'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How much would Elon Musk pay for my dustbin? How silly it is, how silly it is. Are the rest of NSYNC still pissed off with Justin? How silly it is, how silly it is. Helen and Molly, how silly it is. Hello again, dears, hello. That two years went quickly. Hi, hi. It's been amazing to hear from you again and hear what you've been up to

in the intervening years since we last convened, where some of you are like, oh, I used to be a zookeeper, but now I'm training to be emperor of the world. Yeah, there is a lot of that, isn't there? It's lovely. I used to work in ASDA and now I'm an anthropologist doing a PhD. Lyndon from Huddersfield updated us. He now has a hummus shop called hummus fields oh my heart my heart nearly exploded with joy when i read that well done linden i feel like yorkshire craft hummus are three glorious words to see written down together oh it's just like a kind of dream destination for you it is i'm actually going to yorkshire for um may half term we haven't decided

where yet well obviously hud Huddersfield. Well, there's been a lot of, you know, Happy Valley tourism recently, hasn't there? So we've, you know, we've been thinking we might go to the murdery bits, you know, the murdery arty bits. But I might make it down to Huddersfield. If I do, Lyndon, I will be in touch. I expect a free pot of chickpeas. Whoa, demanding things already. We've only been back a minute. We should say, actually, for those of you who haven't heard the trailer that came out before this, this is just a one-off special. So don't get too excited. We're not back, you know, on a weekly or fortnightly or monthly basis.

Get appropriately excited. Don't get unexcited. Get excited about the here and now. Exactly. And don't think about the future because who knows what it will hold. It will not hold regular Answer Me This. My favourite tweet about that was from Peter who said, I always thought that rather than cancelling the show, you should just keep extending the interval between episodes each time. It would have been amazing to hear you announcing it was a now decadally podcast. Yeah, I'm into it.

This rate, biannual, we could probably safely assume that that's possible. I mean, what would be great actually is if we could do what Benny and Bjorn have done and just create Answer Me This voyage in a hangar in East London. And you could just go and see us performing as holograms with some AI-powered question answering abilities behind the scenes. I'm already a hologram. The most popular question that was asked is one that I feel the answer would be the same for in about five or 10 years time, which is, where is Dave from Smethwick? If he's not in Smethwick, then we do not know. But we haven't heard from him for, what, a decade?

Yeah. People care about him more than they care about us, which... That's fair. Yeah, so we can't answer that most commonly asked question. But these are some questions we are going to answer. The first one is from Lauren, who says, I am relatively new to the UK, having grown up in South Africa. I lived in Canada until very recently.

Needless to say, I'm still figuring out British shopping. To me, South African and Canadian shops are not that different to their British equivalents. I'm curious what happens next. Two weeks ago, says Lauren, I tried to order a bunch of bananas through an online grocery delivery. When it arrived, I was somewhat bemused to receive only a single banana. Not deterred, this week when placing my order, I diligently updated the quantity to five and lo and behold, I received five bunches of bananas. Five bunches is too many.

Agree. So Ollie, answer me this. How does one order only one bunch of bananas online? And the short shelf life here is the crucial issue, I feel. You know, if you accidentally were delivered five packets

of dried banana, for example, that would be irritating, but not insurmountable. Five bags of onions, just put them in a dark cupboard and they'll sit there for weeks. Might even grow their own. Aw, little children.

To answer the question directly, obviously it depends which online supermarket you're using, and Lauren has not supplied us with a brand. So I looked first at Ocado, and I must say there, it is very clear in both pictures and words that you are getting a bunch of bananas. And it says very clearly how many are in the bunch, you know, five per pack, six per pack. You actually can't order a single banana from mikado what if that is the one and it just the packers went wrong well it may have been a charity banana do you know it may have been like sorry we've run

out of bananas you know when they like substitute stuff oh yeah but like oh here's a but just toss her in a banana let her have a banana she wanted a bunch of bananas but we've just got one but just give her that be kind we won't charge you for it it. That's possible. But on Tesco, Britain's most popular supermarket, loose bananas are listed as bananas loose. Bananas gone wild. And they cost 16 pence each. So for me, that's the clue really, Lauren. If it's under 20 pence, then you're talking about a loose banana. If it's over a pound, then it's obviously a bunch. I guess where the issue may be is when the price falls between those two stools. Because if you're looking at 60p, is that a good value bunch of bananas

or is it an expensive single banana? I guess just be really diligent about it, Lauren, and read the small print. Yes, I suppose two orders is not enough orders to get a proper trend noted mathematically. Now I feel it is unfortunate that this show is only coming out every several years because otherwise Lauren could update us what happens on her next couple of shops and then we would get a clearer picture as to how this banana system is well i wonder if to be fair maybe the loose word isn't applied in canada or south africa because as recently as last month a commenter on the tesco website has clarified in a comment for other users on the loose bananas page quote loose means when you choose one you get one banana smiley face

so picture shows a bunch ensure you change to the number needed. So there obviously is confusion for some international users there. Wait, I'm just going to look up on a Canadian grocery delivery system what their banana vocabulary is. What is a loose banana called? Yeah. We should say at this point, I mean, this is the weirdest way to segue into this fact, but you're in Canada now. I'm still in Hertfordshire.

Yeah, this is a way to say that we recently moved to Canada. Okay, organic bananas, six bananas, it says on spuds.ca see that's clear isn't it organic bananas overripe slash imperfect for baking and smoothies nine dollars in what quantity 10 pounds or 4.5 kilograms okay so it just could be this kind of translation issue where indeed, you know, here in Britain, it's that word loose you need to know. Not even seeing an option to buy just a banana. It's six or 4.5 kilos. Right. That's it. Those are the increments. I mean, actually, to be fair, Tesco are offering a service there that maybe, you know, other online supermarkets wouldn't. Can you order just one banana? Yeah, but there's a minimum order. So you'd be paying a delivery charge if you did that.

But yes, I think theoretically you can from Tesco just order one banana to be delivered to your home. It's probably the kind of thing billionaires do, just to make a point. Here is a question from Anonymous in Washington, DC, who says, I'm about to start a job at the White House. I'm very excited. But Olly, answer me this. What do I say when people ask what I do for a living? Is there a way to say I work at the

White House and not sound like a jerk? But being vague about I work for the government then makes people dig and that seems worse. So how do i talk about a fancy job without sounding like a dick when you're in washington dc quite a lot of people are going to have fancy jobs and just be fine like sounding like a bit of a dick i mean basically doesn't everybody in washington dc work in some government adjacent job i mean even if you're working as a cleaner or a domestic you're doing it for people who work in government essentially aren't you that's why they're there if you're talking to people back home i guess if you're working as a cleaner or a domestic, you're doing it for people who work in government, essentially, aren't you? That's why they're there. If you're talking to people back home, I guess, if you're from a different place where it seems swish that you've even just moved to Washington, DC, or if you're online dating or something like that, then I guess

you could say something like, I don't know if this will translate into American, but the equivalent in Britain would be like, I work in the Westminster bubble, right? I'm part of the London media elite, something that sounds self-deprecating, like you know that it's being a bit wanky. So I work in the Westminster bubble, right? I'm part of the London media elite. Something that sounds self-deprecating, like you know that it's being a bit wanky. So I work in the Washington politics bubble might work. Or you could just say, I work in the White House in such a sarcastic way that they think you're lying,

but you're actually telling the truth. I think the only gracious way is to be enthusiastic, isn't it? Is to be like, I work at the White House. I'm sorry, I can't tell you more. It's top secret. There you go, conversation ended. I think being sarcastic about something that other people think is really amazing just makes you seem like a bit of a dick exactly like when i was on radio four and you you meet someone who says uh or are you on the radio these days i would never say oh

yeah i do a radio show because then it does it the next question is oh what station are you on and then you have to say, Radio 4. Like, you know, I don't know if you've ever heard of it. You know, the biggest speech station in the UK. It's easier to say proudly, oh, yeah, I'm on BBC Radio 4 and I do this show called this. I've known some people that have worked in similar fancy places. I think one way when you work somewhere like that

is just to immediately tell them something kind of weird and mundane about it. Yes. Like, you wouldn't believe there's only one toilet in the whole White House. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You look at the other options. Yes, I work for the US government is too vague. I work for the executive branch of the government is wanky. And I work for the President of the United States feels a bit Watergate-y. So I think all in all, I work at the White House is the best compromise and you've already arrived at it. I think so. I think see how these conversations go once you're working there. Maybe that will be your guide to where you want to steer them. But I

don't think you sound like a jerk just by saying that. I think people will be so curious if they aren't already working at the White House themselves. It does lead to follow on questions, though, doesn't it? Of course. If the place where you work is world famous, you then have to brace yourself for 10 questions about it. Afraid so, and that's just the tax you pay for working there as well as the actual tax I hope you pay. Here's a question from Nick in Leicester who says, driving down the A120 to visit my parents in the north of Essex, I always pass the road sign for Great Dunmow. This sign proudly declares that Great Dunmow is an, quote, ancient flitch town, as if this is something we should all implicitly understand to be noteworthy.

So, Helen, answer me this. On the hour of your great unretirement, could you please help me finally discern what is an ancient flitch town and why is that important? This is fun. Okay. Great Dunmo is famous in the flitching circles for having a ritual every four years called the flitch trials. It used to be annual, but now it's only every four years. I think maybe because the flitch trials is quite intense. Okay. Can I just say before you reveal what flitching is, obviously it sounds a bit like falching and that's funny. The other thing I'm thinking is, is it a type of wood? Is it something to do with timber?

That's the only vague association I'm making with that word. You know what? I had that association too. I thought, is it something to do with a bundle of sticks or something? Right. You know, a broom that they use to whip people through the streets. That kind of medieval English bullshit. No. Well, no, I just thought flitch town would be like you know the place the wood comes from that they build the homes from or something well it makes more sense than the reality ollie

in a flitch trial couples must convince a jury of six local bachelors and six local maidens, just give me a second to wretch at the word maidens, that those couples have in a year and a day never wished themselves to be unwed. So they've never thought, God, I wish I wasn't in this relationship, or they've never been interested in someone else. And if they are successful at convincing the jury of that, because there are also litigators employed on behalf of the flitch to try to persuade the jury that they should not win the flitch but if they do win the flitch what happens is they receive half a pig the flitch is a side of a pig wow and they're paraded through the town so it's just like a medieval version of mr and mrs basically yes and i was like how does the jury know nick please go to these flitch trials next time they happen in whatever part of the four-year cycle we're in.

Because what are the couples saying to them to convince them? It's not something that the jury can test. Although apparently couples have had actual fistfights in front of the jury, which I think would be a giveaway that they are not flitch winners. See, that sounds fun that they still do it. But the problem with any kind of historical reenactment thing, I think, is that the kind of people who gravitate to participating in that are not representative in the way that the initial flitch trial would have been. Right, right. Especially if it was young couples, you know, that means probably back then in their like

teens, 14, 15, 16. Whereas now, it's going to be like 50 and 60 somethings with an interest in history who do battle reenactments, you know, they do crafts. And I just feel like that's fun, but it's self-aware and it's going to feel like you're watching something being filmed for the one show. Yeah, but you still get half a pig. So for a lot of people, the motivation would be that.

But this is what shocked me. The Flitch Trials started probably in the 12th or 13th century. for a lot of people the motivation would be that but this is what shocked me the flitch trials started probably in the 12th or 13th century it's it's old enough and well known enough around england to have been mentioned in chaucer's wife of bath tale and piers plowman by william langland in the late 1300s so by then enough people must have known about it that readers or people listening to those poems wouldn't have been like, wait, what's a flitch? Where's the footnote? And then it ran until the 1800s before being revived. But in that time, so like several centuries, only six couples ever won. And it was annual then, annual. And then in 1854, there was a very popular novel called

The Flitch of Bacon by William Harrison Ainsworth and the next year the flitch trials were revived and he donated two flitches for the occasion. And the story is that the leading character is marrying different women in order to have the best chance of winning the flitch at Dunmo. So interesting. It's got to be easier just to slaughter a pig yourself than get married several times. It's not unique to Dunmo either. There have been quite a lot of pork winning competitions nationally and internationally. Also, it wasn't even in Great Dunmo that anciently. It was in Little Dunmo until the 1830s. Ah, what? And then they moved it to Great Dunmo.

What a pretender you are, Great Dunmo. Do you know, you could moved it to great dunmo what a pretender you are great dunmo do you know you could probably go to great dunmo nick rather than just driving past it yeah treat yourself and actually see some relics from the golden era of flitching yeah i imagine they're proud of it because i was in fishguard uh last weekend on holiday regular listeners to today in history with the retrospectives will know that fishguard was the location of the last invasion of britain in 1797 wow and uh we went to the pub it's called the royal oak which is where the peace treaty was signed between britain and france like this it's a one-story town fishguard like there's nothing else going on there tourist wise like everything is named after the woman who saw off the um the

french as they came over like you can buy a beer and put her name on it and you know there's a tapestry that's supposed to be like a homage to the the bio tapestry that they've done in the local library and you can see that nice but despite the fact that the history is known and locals talk to you about it nonetheless when we went to the pub it's just a normal pub like we just had you know fish and chips and there was welsh rugby playing on the screens in the background and yet at the back of the conservatory at the back of the room where the sort of overflow seating was with some condiments on it was the table where they signed the treaty in 1797 and it was just everyone was just ignoring it if that was

in the states it would cost 20 to see that table and it would be behind a velvet rope and you'd get your picture taken in front of it and here it's literally being used to hold ketchup maybe people have had enough of gazing at the table yeah yeah and if you're exactly we were there off season like maybe if you go in the summer the tour guides probably do give you a little stop by the table but you know wet weekend in march just the locals there mainly they're just like yeah we've seen the table we know the story done we're in an amazing country well you're not anymore i'm in an amazing country where there is just history everywhere and it just it's amazing how like everyone will have driven past that town and not known what a flitch town is and it doesn't matter because you go on to the next town and there's some other mad history involving it if

you only look for it oh last year as part of our moving to canada experience martin and i had to do these english tests um where there was like reading comprehension and stuff and i thought if i had not been already fluent in english from the point where I acquired language, this would be a horrific exam. It would just be so impossible because the reading comprehension was an article about this. I can't remember which town it is. I think it's in East Anglia as well. The straw bear, where a local young man is basically put in a more mobile wicker man type of deal. Right. Looks like a series of straw mops and paraded through the

town and then i think the suit is symbolically burnt without the man in it and it was to me like reading a surreal fever dream if i hadn't been an english speaker and from britain so i knew what we're capable of yes i probably would have failed because i would have thought there's no way this reading comprehension can be comprehended hello hello and martin hi i'm so glad you're all back even if it is only for one special pass over uh episode great to have you back it's shack from london so thrilled that you're back welcome back hello lo Hello, Ollie. Welcome back. And can you save me? It's Tyler from London.

I'm so happy you guys are back together. I've been listening since 2013. I'm so happy to hear that you're back, Helen, Ollie and Martin, even for one show. Hi, Helen and Ollie. This is Peter from California. Why do I still have your phone number in my head? It's the only British number I have in my head despite having lived there for a year. Simon from Southampton and can you answer me this?

What episode of Answer Me This is this? Can I suggest season two, episode one? So retrospectives, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's round of Today in History? On Monday, we bring you the real story of the mutiny on the bounty. On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day somebody invented the meatball, but who? On Wednesday, the iconic British car that ripped off an iconic American car. On Thursday, how American airlines invented air miles. And on Friday, the UFO sighting that gripped colonial America. We discuss this and more on Today in

History with The Retrospectors. Ten minutes each weekday wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a question from David from Melbourne, Australia, who says, Ollie, answer me this. Why don't Christians keep kosher? As I understand it, the dietary rules are in the Old Testament. Many Christians are keen to point out the rules from the Old Testament about homosexuality, for instance, but not so keen to point out the rules from the Old Testament about homosexuality, for instance, but not so keen to leave bacon off the menu. Basically, the reason that Christians don't keep kosher was because the cohort that made up the original Christians weren't all ex-Jews, were they? Some were Jews, or Israelites as they called themselves then, who accepted Jesus as the Messiah. But most Jews stayed Jews. That's

why they're still Jews. So the Christians were converting people from other traditions, Gentiles, who didn't keep kosher in the first place. Yeah, and you're really going to lose some points if you're like, yeah, you have to come over to Christianity and also stop the bacons. No prawns. No prawns. Exactly. I mean, we were talking earlier about entire medieval villages kept alive by a pig being offered as a prize. Part of the sell was, hey, guys, we've got this new, it's like New Labour, basically, isn't it? We've got new Jewishness. You still do the Ten Commandments. You still do the Bible stories. You still do the monotheism, although we're a bit sketchy, you know, whether Jesus is sort of a second God. But here's what we haven't got. We haven't got

the dietary laws. We haven't got the weird festivals. We haven't got the circumcision. Come on over. So that's really what happened. But there is, of course, tedious blogs explaining why in the Bible there's some clause around this. Briefly, and I've spent too long down this rabbit hole, the biblical explanation in the New Testament is from Acts 10. There is a passage where St. Peter is invited into the home of the Roman centurion Cornelius. And he assures the apostles that they can go into the home of a Gentile because Gentiles are no longer considered unclean. Convenient. Aha, says the modern day priest. Aha.

So there's the inference. If Gentiles are clean, according to the New Testament at this point, then prawns must be fine too. Because prawns are Gentiles. That's basically it. There's no bit where God says that, but it's like a contract, isn't it? It's like a contract where over time people have added clauses, you know, like the landlord originally says, clause 10 says the tenant must keep the roof watertight. But then years later, five paragraphs down, clause 12, the watertightness does not apply keep the roof watertight but then years later five paragraphs down clause 12 the water tightness does not apply to the roof you know it's like that where a

contract confusingly says both things so technically christians are supposed to obey the old testament and the ten commandments but what jesus is doing is saying look guys too long don't read yeah just go for like there's one god love each other. Cut to the Messiah. And then go to church. Everything else you can ignore. Yeah, but it wasn't like he did the fishes and loaves of bread and it was actually sausage sandwiches that he fed the 5,000 with, was it? Exactly. There's no indication that Jesus didn't keep kosher.

He'd only read the Old Testament. Right, precisely. Or that any of his disciples didn't keep kosher. And actually, I've never't keep kosher and actually i've never read the kosher laws before but so it's been quite interesting researching this because i obviously i know what they are because i'm a jew but i didn't actually i've never read them in their source material before have you ever read them no so this is what it says in leviticus right leviticus is full of shit by the way they're like no beards homosexuality is wrong stuff that like people really get carried away with that particular book of the bible is full of shit, by the way. They're like, no beards, homosexuality is wrong stuff that people really get carried away with.

That particular book of the Bible is full of shit. Carry on. It's this passage, right? The Lord speaks to Moses and Aaron, and he says to them, speak to the people of Israel, the Israelites, the Jews, saying, these are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. And then there's a long list that just doesn't seem

like the kind of thing a god would say. Curly-whirlies. Exactly. Nobody is like that. Tatoe waffles. It's very specific. Whatever parts the hoof and is cloven-footed and chews the cud among the animals, you may eat.

So, you know, that's why you're allowed to do... Beaves. Beaves. Exactly. Nevertheless, among those that chew the cud or part the hoof, you shall not eat these, colon, the camel, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof is unclean to you. And the rock badger, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof is unclean to you. What is a rock badger? It sounds like there was a general rule like if you choose the curd

and parts the hoof you're fine yeah and then someone had to say can you stop eating badgers why are you eating camels that's a really useful animal i mean i had no idea that god would mention the rock badger before the pig do you know what i mean like the pig seems to be the one that divides people these days no one wants to eat the rock badger. I have found it quite easy to stay off the rock badgers, despite my family being very lapsed. Is that a picture of a rock badger you brought up? Yeah, they're sort of like big hamsters.

I've seen some on Table Mountain in Cape Town. They're also called dussies. They've got lots of names. And then it goes on, you know, don't touch the carcasses of pigs. Well, someone's got to move them out the way after the flitching. The Gentiles. You can eat everything in the water that has fins and scales, but not the stuff that doesn't. It's basically, I mean, exactly as you expect,

you know, with a common sense interpretation of why all these things, you know, like circumcision are in the Bible. It's hygiene at a time when people lived in the desert, isn't it? Don't eat rotting fish. Don't touch a pig's carcass that's basically what god's saying here don't it's three week old seafood don't do things that might that might hurt you yeah um but not necessarily relevant now but again it's the detail of the list you know i knew that you know you can't eat prawns but it's like here's the list

of birds detestable birds right the list of detestable birds the eagle the bearded vulture the black vulture the kite the falcon of any kind every raven of any kind the ostrich south african delicacy one of my jewish cousins was an ostrich farmer betraying god's instructions explicitly the night hawk the seagull the hawk of any kind these are mainly birds of prey who are these people who are like oh you know what i could eat a chicken but i'm gonna go after like an eagle owl because it's a bit more of a challenge same amount of meat but comes with injuries uh the little owl the cormorant the short-eared owl the barn owl the tawny owl the carrion vulture i mean fair enough so there are owls you can eat was leviticus paid by the word?

He was just like, what can I think of that I wouldn't eat anyway? Pop it down. Here's a question from Robin from Chinore in Oxfordshire, who says, I am lucky enough to live near a kebab van that has won kebab van of the year on multiple occasions, most recently in 2022. Atalay's kebab van in tame Oxfordshire, in case you're ever in the area. My partner and I often treat ourselves at the weekend after a tough week at work, and it never disappoints. But they close at 11pm.

I don't know what the nightlife is like in Tame. It's tame. But in my life, I've tended to visit kebab vans only between the hours of about 11pm and 2am, I'd say. I suppose you've got to plan ahead if you want to go to this multiple award-winning kebab van. It's not just an incidental food stop on your drunken way home. It is the focus of your evening. It's a destination in and of itself, yeah.

Robin says, while their wares seem worthy of this accolade, Ollie answered me this, is this just some bullshit award? And there are multiple others like it in the UK, perhaps even making it up and awarding it to themselves. Wow, that's quite an allegation, isn't it? Or is there some form of kebab guild all kebab van owners have to be part of, and they're truly considered one of the best kebab vans in the country? If so, what kinds of things do the judges look for? Right, okay. Well, the awards that they won Kebab Van of the

year at was the British Kebab Awards. The big one. It is the big one. I mean, I think to address your very concerns, the organisers have gone out of their way to get some celebrity endorsements on their website so that you can see, you know, that this has some prestige. And I don't know, when I was thinking, like, who would you get to endorse the British Kebab Awards? I was thinking maybe the Hairy Bikers, maybe Stavros Flatley. No, Rishi Sunak. What?

Prime Minister at the time of recording. Famously down to earth, Rishi Sunak. Who says, on the website of the British Kebab Awards, I am delighted to extend my best wishes for the 11th British Kebab Awards. I am delighted to extend my best wishes for the 11th British Kebab Awards. Hospitality in all its forms plays a critical role in supporting our economy, yada, yada, yada.

Kebabs are as much part of our culture and heritage as fish and chips and curries, reflecting our broad diversity and our nation's love of food. When was ChatGPT invented? Did he just... I know it has been a very difficult few years, but I'm confident the sector can and will play a leading role in the UK's recovery.

I'm not sure kebab vans will really play a leading role in the UK's recovery, but I know what he means. That does sound like the words of a man who has never frequented a kebab van. How can I make this sound like I'm a man of the people, but also a primo-economist? Well, in the interest of political balance, I should say, Helen, that Sir Keir Starmer has also endorsed the British Kebab Awards. So he goes a bit further. He says, I want to thank the tens of thousands of restauranteurs contributing greatly to their local community in the fabric of British society. What I find interesting is that lower down the political rankings you go,

they're more explicit about their love of kebabs uh so um ed davy leader of the liberal democrats has also sent a letter to the british kebab awards in which he's he's prepared to be bold enough to say that he that he eats a kebab uh he says um i feel incredibly fortunate to have so many brilliant kebab shops in my constituency of kingston and surbiton where i can pick up one of my favorite donna kebabs but he doesn't say which no he doesn't want to pit them against each other. Whereas the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has also sent a letter to the British Kebab Awards in which he's much more explicit. Yeah.

So he says, kebabs are not just tasty, my favourites being char-grilled chicken or lamb shish. They can also be one of the healthier late-night snacks you can eat. True. Many people listening may not be aware of the mobile kebab culture in a lot of British towns. Because when we were at university, at dusk, the streets would fill with dozens of kebab vans. Everyone had their preferred one.

Sometimes there were two kebab vans parked next to each other and people still had loyalty to one. I mean, it's a particularly Oxford thing that, because a lot of students in Oxford live in rooms without kitchens. Yeah. Because it's based on the idea that you go to the posh formal dinner every night, but people don't want to feel like they're at Hogwarts every night. You know, you might want to do that two or three times a week.

But also a lot of that food is dreadful. And fast food, as Mr Speaker says, is unhealthier generally, isn't it? Like you can't go to McDonald's or KFC every night either. So like a kebab van, you don't have to have chips. You can have char-grilled chicken and that feels relatively healthy for fast food and not posh. So I was thinking, because this question comes from Oxfordshire, whether the trend within the city of Oxford

had spilled out throughout the county. I think so, yeah. Creating excellence in tame. The judging panel this year, to answer the question about how it's judged, included James O'Brien, Adil Ray and Nadeem Zahawi. Seems like a pretty classy awards. I wonder how many kebabs they had to eat. So the way it works is the members of the public nominate kebab shops so there are actually 5 000 on the long list now there's no way that adil ray went

around eating 5 000 kebabs topped out like 3 000 the short list was 153 based on public votes so i think from the short list and it'd be but bear in mind you've got like 20 categories that's probably an average of seven kebabs to eat in each category that's manageable isn't it if you've got two months to judge if you've got a celebrity kebab judge i guess they've only got to go to like five kebab joints across two evenings that's a fun evening isn't it it's nice to have a project for sure i wonder if there's a point at which a restaurant is too posh to enter this. No, I don't think so. I think, if anything, the British Kebab Awards would like the fact of having some blue chip entries, right?

Well, if the chips are blue, there's something wrong. Hello, this is Joe from Seattle. Over the years, you answered at least a couple questions I had that were at least vaguely dating related. And I figured I'd give you a report back after all these years. Yeah, I'm single. This is Will from Durban, South Africa. Hello, Nonoli, answer me this.

How do circumcisions work for babies? And is it true that some foreskins are used for like stem cell face creams helen and ollie this is elissa in hawaii and i have been homesick for days i need some help i keep finding bees in my bedroom they're not appearing anywhere else in my house where are they coming from it's not time it's not time for the bees helen and ollie answer me this. I'm 42 years old and I make fountain pens for a living. And ballpoints. Is this something I can expect to do until social security kicks in? Or should I try to find a real job?

Here's a question from Madeline from Ely in Cambridgeshire who says, The first novel that I truly loved as a pre-teen was Danielle Steele's The Ghost. So, on a whim, I downloaded it for my Kindle recently. Although the characters are very oversimplified to my 34-year-old brain, it still holds a lot of charm for me to this day, just without the magical sheen of being 11 years old i'm really glad that it held up though a lot of things don't yeah they don't when you have to do bedtime stories for kids and you think i know what i'll do i'll revisit this book that i loved

when i was seven so many of them i'm looking at you oscar and the ice pick by judy corballis you read it and you think oh why did i love this so hard it's just disappointing oh let me tell you one that totally holds up and indeed opens up more dimensions when you read it as an adult. When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Carr. Okay. Who also did The Tiger Who Came to Tea.

Yes, yes, yes. I reread it last year because I was on a podcast hosted by Janet Ellis of Blue Peter, where you- Oh, what a dream. You choose a book from your childhood and then you both read it. And it was brilliant.

It's great strong recommend janet ellis loved it she's a class act she really is uh helen answer me this how the hell has danielle steel written so many books yeah does she have a ghost writer or several apparently not there are snippets on the internet saying she claims to write 20 to 22 hours per day what but this seems unsustainable it does doesn't it seems unsustainable to you madeline from There are snippets on the internet saying she claims to write 20 to 22 hours per day. What? But this seems unsustainable. It does, doesn't it? Seems unsustainable to you, Madeleine from Ely,

Cambridgeshire, but you haven't written 200 books, have you? Genuinely, from what I've understood from my research, Helen, and I think you probably agree from your intervention when I was reading the question, she doesn't seem to use ghostwriters. I mean, genuinely, none of them have come out and said, I've ghostwritten a book and there would be a story in so doing. Yeah. And often you do know that like, Francine Pascal, who did the Sweet Valley High series has a load of people. And is it James Patterson? Who's the guy who writes the Jack Ryan stuff? That's even cited as an example in self help entrepreneurial books that I've listened to. Tom Clancy. Tom Clancy, yeah. Do what Tom Clancy did. Build yourself a brand and then you don't

have to write the books. It's like, you know, it's supposed to be a model you can imitate. Yeah. Well, another thing that Danielle Steele does not do is sequels. She only writes like fresh novels. Like some of them apparently have thematic overlap. And to be fair, you've written more than 190 books. That seems like how many spins on human life are there after a point? So she was born in 1947. She first published in 1973. She's written over 190 books. She has also raised nine children.

She's someone who gets a lot done. Yeah, I mean, genuinely the business about not needing much sleep. She says that she only needs four hours sleep per night again why would she lie about that if that is the case then that does make sense like you can get a lot done but it's not good for you i think people lie about it because there's considered this virtue in overwork yeah part of some work ethic there is a genetic mutation in the gene that regulates circadian rhythms which apparently fewer than 1% of people have, but it's possible she has it.

No one has officially checked, I don't think. People with that mutation wake up after three to four hours sleep feeling fully refreshed. But she said that when she was raising her children when they were small, she would often work at night because that was the only time she had. And she had to really do as much as possible with that time and that's why she got used to not having much sleep and then the publishers were

like can you write more books she was already writing about four a year so she upped it to seven and they all sold really well i think uh every one of her books has been in the best seller list extraordinary but she works on up to seven books at the same time. She releases several a year, and each book takes two and a half years. So she's working on a lot of them at the same time, and researching one while editing another. And she just talks a lot about how she has a lot of energy. She doesn't have any hobbies. So she'll just sit at her desk with her typewriter, just hammering out books, and that's all she wants to do. And she'll be like, meals are brought to my desk. My nails often bleed from all the typing. I sometimes don't comb my hair for weeks. And I

start the book and I don't leave the desk until the first draft is finished. She just seems to be very into writing all the time. And she said, when I was first starting out, I had the same agent as Agatha Christie. I was about 19 years old and she was in her nineties. I met her once. And I remember she said, I want to die face first in my typewriter. And I feel that way. I mean, I want to go on forever just writing. Wow. Lucky agent, huh? Who gets Agatha Christie and then Danielle Steele coming up as a teenager? That's ridiculous. Holy shit. I'm not sure she's with that same agent now. It sounds like she had a few shitty agents at the beginning that don't believe in her, but then she's been with the same one for decades. And also her mentor at the beginning was Alex Haley, who wrote Roots. And he used to call

her at three in the morning, asking her if she was working. And she'd be like, yep. And he'd be like, good for you and then hang up. I was reading about this idea of being asleep for just four hours per night and what that might do to your brain about this idea of being asleep for just four hours per night and what that might do to your brain. And one of the things it might do is just make you feel a bit spaced out, a bit drunk, which I recognised from when I worked overnights. And honestly, I've never read any Danielle Steele before,

but it does read a bit like someone was a bit drunk when they wrote them. Thanks to Google Books, obviously, now you can just dip in in preview mode just to see what the writing's like. So I randomly chose two titles, Big Girl and The Affair. And check this out, because in my mind, Big Girl sounds a lot like The Affair. So here's the first sentences of Big Girl, right? Jim Dawson was handsome from the day he was born.

He was an only child, tall for his age, had a perfect physique, and was an exceptional athlete as he grew older, and the hub of his parents' world. I mean, for me, the use of the word hub there is already a bit weird. But also, like, this doesn't feel that compelling. It sounds like a round robin to me, but it's easy to read. They were both in their 40s when he was born, and he was a blessing and surprise after years of trying to have a child. They'd given up hope. It's very detached, isn't it? And then their perfect baby boy appeared. His mother looked at him adorably as she held him in her arms.

His father loved to play ball with him, right? Okay, he was the star of the little league team. That's the opening sentences of Big Girl. Here's the opening of the affair. Heads always turned when Rose McCarthy walked into a room. Yeah, hotties only in daniel steel's books described in this third party detached way nearly six feet tall she was ramrod straight and impeccably put together with faultless style long graceful legs and her snow white hair cut into a chin length rounded cap her piercing blue eyes miss nothing yeah but to be fair you've only read two of the 190 books there could be plenty where it's like sharon jones was a bit scruffy she was five foot five and there was egg down her old old jumper

that got misshapen over too many washes her parents said sharon was always a bit of a disappointment never lived up to her potential i think you could consider this more like a soap opera almost just this amount of content because like people are down on soap operas too but producing an episode of fictional television every day is so hard and she's producing about that same amount of story per year and I guess it's like if you if readers are reading all of them I don't know how many Danielle's still completists there are but if you want to enter that world then you want to enter it a lot and probably what you do want is some kind of familiarity rather than her suddenly only writing in iambic pentameter or

whatever she's on instagram now isn't she and she has some boss outfits oh i bloody bet like gold trim jumpsuits she reminds me a bit of my grandma, actually, who wears gold trim New Balance sneakers like a hip hopper. Good for her. I want to see a bit of that senior glam. It is glam. And she's got, surprisingly to me, because you tipped me off to her desk. Yes. Do yourself a favour, people, and look up her desk online. It's great. Maybe I won't even say what her desk is because it's just worth you looking. But behind the amazing desk, I don't know if you noticed, she's got a framed Mickey Mouse Everything's

Fucked poster, which I wasn't expecting from Danielle Steele. I don't know if you've ever helped your mum build a website. It is the kind of torment from which there is no respite. If she asks, what's a widget again i will kill her with a rusty spike or a brick or a spade or a chainsaw squarespace is so easy even

your mum can use it she can drag and drop and cut and paste that's all there is to it so helen put that spike down i beg you for christ's sake, don't do it. Sorry, mum. Thanks very much to Squarespace for sponsoring this surprise reappearance of Answer Me This. And most episodes that we've put out for the last decade. Squarespace truly are patrons of the arts, but that's not why you should use them. You should use Squarespace because they make it super easy for you to create a delightful website that plays nicely on tablet smartphone desktop wherever you want oh and do not underestimate the fact that it does automatically sort things out for tablet and smartphone not just desktop I don't I don't underestimate that I was trying to pay my mobile phone bill the other day so a

telecommunications company's website does not work on mobile right half the page is cut off yeah squarespace would never squarespace knows how to do it and they have other cool features as well which mean that for the price of your squarespace website you get stuff that otherwise you'd be paying other companies to do so like they have member areas for example yes which means you can sell access to gated content you know if you want to do so like they have member areas for example yes which means you can sell access to gated content you know if you want to do a video or an online course or a newsletter premium content premium yes they offer an integrated version of that again saves you time having to go to different providers for that kind of service and also if you want to do mail outs, do that through Squarespace. And also the prices are

significantly cheaper than the arrivals providing that service. They connect your social media accounts as well, which obviously is a basic thing. But it's actually a real lifesaver if like me, you build a website and then you just can't be asked to update it. You can sync up your Twitter and then it looks like you're always posting news. Wow, Olly man's website is always so fresh exactly um don't take it from us though head to squarespace.com answer for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use the offer code answer to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain helen and ollie this is stew from l London. I want to know what's in a can of Four Loko.

It's like some spirit drink that's sold around the USA, but it was banned in a load of places. I don't know why. But basically, me and my friends had one can each in a hotel room in Miami, and it just sent us so loopy we didn't even leave the place we ended up rewriting the bible and crying with laughter so much that we couldn't even breathe and my other friend had four cans of it which i warned him not to um and he ran out the hotel

completely nude came back with a giant lamp but yeah what is four loco and why does it make people go nuts thank you bye four loco is one of those drinks that i see americans reference as if we're all supposed to know what it is right well until very recently you couldn't get it in the uk you now can kind of in a reformulated version but only online two and a half loco yeah yeah exactly and you'd need to know what you were buying and you need to order it to your home so i mean that's not quite the same as being being able to pick it up in a convenience store it's a premium malt beverage with natural and artificial flavors it's like the ryanair of alco pops so it's like like ryanair like yeah we're gonna give you a fucking terrible experience we don't care because that's our selling point is we're cheap like for loco is you're buying this

to get hammered so it's not healthy we won't tell you what's in it, but you will hit the floor when you drink it. That's what Four Loko is. But are basically really highly alcoholic, spirit-based alco-pops. What they call a hard soda or hard seltzer or sometimes canned cocktail. Yeah.

The cans certainly do not have the graphic design that suggests they're trying to reach the, like cocktail in a can market no it's like the money jacinto from the good place market isn't it they're going for yes so like for uk listeners the closest thing we have here would be like a pre-mixed g and t that's a bit like i'm going to a picnic concert at kenwood and i want to pop to waitrose and have something on the Thameslink before I get there. That's not this. This is College Bros. Yeah, that's the look, isn't it? Yeah. And it was in fact, the company was founded by four friends, I think, or three friends at university. And it was designed to mimic Red Bull and vodka, which was their favourite drink in a can, but it was double the strength of that so the original recipe of four loco

it's vodka basically it's vodka and sugar and carbonated water but the original recipe of malt liquor and caffeine was apparently the equivalent of four to six beers an espresso shot and a red bull in a can they say that it no longer contains caffeine guarana or taurine but it had all of those things and its original formulation until basically the fda stepped in that's it yeah so what happened is basically teenagers were obviously drinking these because they appeal to kind of 15 year olds 16 year olds who get their hands on it because it tastes like a soft drink and then the caffeine in it was preventing them from passing out so So normally what happens is if you drink too much at that age, you pass out and that's your body's way of trying to save your life.

Right, so you can't drink more. Yeah, but the caffeine was masking the effect of the alcohol. So you drink more than you otherwise would. You don't black out and you end up in hospital. And that's where it got its nickname, blackout in a can from. Oh dear. That's really gross. But yeah, the FDA did step in in 2010.

So what you can buy even in the States now, even this thing that Sue has had, is within legal limits. It's just a particularly hard one. So it's 12% alcohol. Oh, the one I'm looking at is 14%. I'm looking up their website because the way they describe the flavours is intriguing.

I'm looking at the can of red, which is 14%. And they say, we're not going to tell you what red tastes like. You'll just have to try it yourself and see but you've definitely tasted this flavour before that's it

that's what you get like when you vomited up last night's curry when you accidentally bit your tongue as you hit the garter what's 14%? is that the equivalent

of like a strong glass of wine? I can't quite figure it out no it is if you down the whole thing which let's be honest that's what it's designed to do yeah it's the same booze quotient of a bottle of average wine shit right gold flavor tastes

like gold not much more we can say it's like brooklyn beckham's photo book captions do you remember though in the i think late 90s when they started marketing alka pops yeah hooch bacardi breezes yeah bacardi breezer was my order when I was 16, yeah. And people really outraged, whereas those were probably quite a low percentage compared to Four Loko. Yes, and actually those products have stuck around, haven't they? And one of the reasons for it, I think,

is that you can measure how much alcohol you are drinking. It's quite difficult if you're getting measures of cocktails, but if it's a pre-bottled thing, you know, it used to be only beer, could you see exactly what the alcohol content was because it's in a bottle. But actually, if it's a bottled Bacardi or martini or whatever, you can actually see exactly what it is. It actually, it can be more responsible drinking rather than irresponsible. Okay, kids, make sure you drink a four loco rather than water because you can't be too careful. That's definitely our advice. Here's a question from Anonymous in Texas. Another anonymous question. So this has got to be some dangerous stuff. It's so juicy that it cannot have a human name on it. Ollie, answer me this.

Why is it called a hoedown? Is it because farmers put their hoes down to dance or sing? What even is a hoedown? I mean, actually put their hoes down to dance or sing? What even is a hoedown? I mean, actually, it's interesting because I remember thinking the exact same question when I was last riding Tristan the Tractor. Who's he? He's a children's attraction here in Hertfordshire, which I've been on literally dozens of times because it's about 20 minutes from my house. And it goes around in a circle around a farm at Willow's Activity Farm and it plays at you if you're happy and you know it that sort of thing and one of the songs it plays is a farmer's hoedown and i was listening to that in the sideways rain sort of pretending to my children that i was enjoying it and i was thinking what is that connection because they've

obviously gone for like a farm vibe at this activity farm yeah um country and western music originally comes from rural communities where were they literally wielding hoes when they were dancing is that what it is but no but sort of yes so the reason it's called a hoe down is because the dance style mimics hoeing corns and potatoes which you'd think would be a bit of a busman's holiday when you're a farmer to go on the dance floor and then do what you've been doing all day. Maybe you want to do what you know. Well, I suspect it's more like a polite way in the 1800s to be like,

he's shaking his ass, you know what I mean? Like, he's doing a ho dance, but that's what he's doing. It looks like you're digging potatoes where you're shuffling your bum in a lady's face, that's what you're doing. And then it just later came more broadly to mean a party featuring lively dancing to folk music. An illustrated history of Monroe County, Iowa, published in 1896, states, and I quote, Hoedown, such is the name commonly applied to the free-for-all public dance.

While those who participate in the hoedown are by no means rude or scantily civilised, yet at the public dance house they come in in contact and for the time being at least are placed on the same social level with persons of both sexes whom they would not recognise on the street or in the home. Ah, so it was sort of like a great leveller.

It was a nightclub, wasn't it? Everyone levelled by dance. I feel like I'd enjoy a hoedown. Yes, it sounds good. So no actual hoes present? No hoes present, but people that had, you know, in very recent times been holding hoes.

Possibly just let go of their hoe to come to the hoedown, but they didn't bring the hoe with them. Leave your hoes outside. Put your hoes down to come to the hoedown. Helen and Ollie answer me this. Why is it when people speak over a tannoy in a supermarket or an airplane they have to speak with this cadence? Thank you.

I have a cat named The Other, and numerous people have asserted recently that The Other is a genuinely bad name for a cat, or maybe for anything. So, Helen and Ollie, answer me this. Is The Other a bad name for a cat? If so, I will rename this cat Gowron. This is Miriam and her son in Edinburgh. Yes, because I'm Edward. I was a big kid maid. You know why a big kid can bust their teeth on herself? Oh, Edward.

Yes. Thank you. Time for a question from Zoran in Washington. Strong name, strong state. They say, last year around this time, I lost my father. Very sorry to hear that. During my bereavement leave from work, one of the managers threw out all the plants I had cultivated and grown into the trash. She then lied to my face about it when I asked her why. They're not saying why they suspect that she did it, so I don't know what the lie was, but anyway.

Insult upon insult. And faced no consequences for her actions. Zoran continues. In some ways, this was a good thing as it caused me to reassess my priorities and I left that job for a new career. Wow. Things are going well for me all around.

Glad to hear it. Yeah, very glad to hear it. However, I've not been able to really let go of my anger towards this person and her cruelty for throwing away something I'd worked on for years while I was on leave for losing my dad. And then they put parenthetically, it was a retail job and the general manager of the store wanted the plants displayed. Okay, so it wasn't coming down from the general manager. It was just this one person acting alone with malice. So Helen, answer me this. How do I get over this? How do I simply

let this go? Every time I think about it, my jaw clenches and I get quietly and softly angry. I'm really upset for you. This really sucks. On top of the grief that you already had is just another completely avoidable source of hurt and disrespect. Unlikely though, isn't it that the manager thought about that? I mean, she may indeed have been taking advantage of the fact you were on bereavement leave from work to do this, but not because you're grieving, but because you're on leave. I mean, if you'd been on holiday, she probably would have done the same thing. She probably didn't think this will compound their emotions. Yeah. When I was on bereavement leave for my dad dying, LBC replaced

me with Nigel Farage. Classy. I felt that more because I thought, God, they took the opportunity when I wasn't there to have him, of all people, sit in on my show. But I mean, broad brush, that was probably an inevitable thing that would have happened anyway. And they were just, they weren't thinking, oh, well, his dad's dead, so let's do it now. They were just thinking, we've got a spare slot on Saturday, let's do that.

Do you think the grief at the plants that Zoran is feeling is just wrapped up in the grief at losing a parent? And that's why it feels more intense than maybe grief at just plants would be on its own. Yes. I'd put that back to you because we should share with the listeners

that since we last recorded, sadly, your father's passed away as well. Yeah. No, I mean, it was less sad than the couple of years preceding his death. His death was actually not sad. It was quite lovely. But yeah, what emotions do i have

that are wrapped up with the well that's why i want to put it back on you because i feel i can identify those things from 2016 when it happened to me yeah but i don't know whether you're in the midst of it you can't identify it but i'm prepared to bet that right now you are getting angry about stuff that previously you wouldn't have or you are feeling things more deeply and it is a kind of channeling of emotion that happens yeah well there was a really shitty week a few months before he died and it was a week that ended with me and my brother rick having to put my dad into a home and him really not wanting to go it was just a temporary one that time but um it made everything else that happened in that week there was some like awful audio industry stuff that i was like tangled with yeah two

different kinds of awful audio industry stuff that made me really angry and then i was like tangled with. Yeah, two different kinds of awful audio industry stuff that made me really angry. And then I was like, oh, good. And then on Friday, I get to go and put dad in a home. So it's just a real lump of shit that week. Zoran may be still grieving for their father, they may be feeling that grief for the rest of their life. And if the plant grief is connected to that because of the confluence of events, then that might last longer. But on the other hand, just shit that people do that doesn't make sense does stick with you for a really long time. It is a weird thing to do as well because plants are living things. I think it's quite hard to just throw them away unless they're dead because usually you pass them on to someone else who

might enjoy them or give people cuttings and stuff. It just seems very unmotivated. Who's angry about plants in the first place? Plants are a weird thing to be angry about. It's not a divisive collection like sex toys or trolls. It's just a thing that lives and breathes and makes people happy. And she's angry at that. So something else is going on in her head. But it's probably nothing to do with your bereavement.

Maybe there were a load of Audrey 2s. She's like, I'm withered and dry, I've got no blood left. Is what is keeping you in this angry state, is it that you want an apology and you want some acknowledgement from that person of your feelings and that this was a shitty thing that they did and it hurt you? Yeah.

Because unfortunately, it sounds like you're unlikely ever to get that. I think what happens is that just over time, you learn how to live without having got that kind of closure or that kind of recognition of wrongdoing. But it can take years. When my dad moved out of his parental home, his mother threw away all of his records

without asking she was like i thought you didn't want them anymore and he's like no constant like why do you think that and they'd meant so much to him because in south africa it'd been quite hard to get much up-to-date anything at the time and um i don't think he ever got over that whereas do you think she was just thinking i'm not really a bob dylan kind of girl i don't know whether it was malevolent or just thoughtless or what. I think it's right that Zoran has said in the question, at least, how do I let this go? Yeah. Recognising that it is up to you.

I think, you know, my mum's a hypnotherapist. She'd say something like, what you need to do is imagine this person who's made you so angry and imagine them getting smaller and smaller and smaller until they're insignificant and then they float up like a balloon into the sky, things like that. So they're eaten by a flesh-eating plant. Well, that's it. I'd probably go a bit harder than that and write an awesome vengeance story about stabbing her to death, but don't do it. Just get those emotions out in your head and then feel like you've had that moment. It's happened. It's done, you know?

Do you think, actually, that this former colleague took all the plants and they're now all in her house? Oh, wow. She was like, those are some real nice plants. I'm going to take this opportunity and then I'll tell Zora and I threw them away. Here's a question from Jane in New Zealand who says, I have an 11-year labradoodle and ever since he was a puppy he has loved to gobble up my snotty tissues fortunately for him i have allergies and a leaky sinus so there is a ready supply

he will go to such lengths to procure these snotties she's put that in inverted commas that's what she calls them uh that i've ended up just handing them to him rather than risking him injure himself trying to extract them from the rubbish bin a couple of years ago we got a second dog a shih tzu initially she showed no interest in my used tissues fancy that but suddenly she's almost as keen as him so helen answered me this why do my dogs want to eat my wet snot? Will they figure out it's inside me and try to eat me too? And is it as gross as my family tell me it is that I've let them have my sodden tissues? I think sodden tissues are gross inside and outside of a dog's digestive system. Right. They're just a gross item, which is one reason

why I do appreciate handkerchiefs because they are less gross as well as reusable. My dad used to carry a clean hankie every day. He also used to wear his trousers very low slung. So he'd come home from work in the evening with a handkerchief dangling out of his very low slung back pocket, and one of the dogs would steal it. And when she was a puppy, she used to swallow them whole, which is quite a large amount of her puppy body filled with handkerchief but then she would just shit them out whole i suppose that's the advantage of a cotton hanky rather than a kleenex you get it back you get it back

i don't think it's great we've talked on the show before about dogs eating bras and socks and things and it's not ideal but they they will do it because they they do love to eat things that smell or taste of you, their beloved human. Is that what that is? It's one of the reasons why. There's actually lots of reasons. I think also the grossness to dogs. Dogs are very comfortable with eating excretions like fox shit and stuff. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

It's also the softness of the tissues, apparently. It's not the flashy visuals that you just mentioned. It's that it's sort of stoking that you just mentioned it's that it's sort of stoking their hunting instinct where there's a little soft thing that they can rip to shreds and then eat but if dogs crave paper it may mean that they have some kind of nutritional need that is not being met there's a medical condition called pica which makes people as well not just dogs crave um substances that we don't consider edible like you hear about people that been eating earth or metal things like that and

it might be a symptom of anemia or zinc deficiency or in dogs it could be that they have some kind of digestive problem maybe they have worms or diabetes or something that's making them really hungry. Or it could be anxiety. Really? Yeah. But excitingly to me particularly, since we last podcasted together, Ollie, big event in your life. Yeah, it tells you how parochial my life is. Hey.

But yes, we've got a puppy. We've got a puppy in our house. What's his name? His is buzz yes it is it took a while to get to the right name but i feel like that's cross-generational appeal you know grandparents think aldrin kids think light year yep um indicates some sense of energy which you want from a from an eager puppy he's a black tan poodle crossed with some sort of terrier i was about to say he's exactly what i feared but i do love him and he is cute but i mean i've never been a dog person because for me they're just a bit stupid and that's what he is like he's super great about them learn something yeah but he just there's no discernment

helen like he doesn't he's not choosing to be with me because he likes me. He just is programmed to like me. And regardless of what I do, like feeding my snotty tissues, he'd continue to be there. And I just find that a bit much. Someone doesn't want unconditional love. I don't. I want to earn it. Hi guys, this is Nick from Surrey calling.

About five or six years ago, my family decided to take my grandparents to see Burt Bacharach and his band in concert at a prestigious London concert venue that shall remain nameless, but which apparently has amazing acoustics. When we got there, it was quite clear that it was going to be filmed for television, even though we'd had no notification that it was going to be. Burt Bacharach came on. He was introduced by Michael Grade, who decided to warm up the crowd by spending about 15 minutes talking about himself and how his life was supposedly steeped in show business. When the

music started playing the music was really really loud and the singers kind of struggled to be heard over the band but when Burt Bacharach and Michael Grade had their conversations in between the songs we couldn't hear them essentially. Small ripples of laughter went up from each anecdote but only in the first five rows of this giant concert venue. We were pretty close to them and we couldn't hear what they were saying at all. And song after song happened and in between it kept coming back to them and yeah no one could hear what was being talked about. And slowly there were signs of dissent in the room you could see people leaving

their seats and going up to kind of ushers into the big giant tech desk and they were just literally being ignored and people were very patient and it got to the second half and we just assumed that they were going to fix this and when it came back for the second half it carried on again until people started shouting out and they said sorry we can't hear you we can't hear you and eventually Burt Bacharach stopped talking and the lady said sorry we haven't heard anything you've said so far tonight and Burt Bacharach made a kind of weak joke he said oh you know that's a shame because it's been good stuff and that got some applause but again only in the first five or six rows apparently they chalked it up to

Michael Grade old Mr Show Business not turning the mics on before they went on but I don't think that's true at all I think it's entirely down to the fact that the BBC were there filming it when this show finally turned up on iPlayer none of the dissent the people kind of leaving their seats they're shouting out the general faces of audience members looking fucked off. None of that made the edit, funnily enough. So, Helen and Ollie, answer me this. Is this what happens every time a music show is filmed for TV? Because it was fucking awful.

Now, if we know anything about You Answer Me This, listeners, it is that you like fact-based entertainment and you like it for free. So how does a free month of unlimited access to educational platform Wondrium sound? Doesn't sound shit to me. Sounds wonderful. So there are over 8,000 hours of entertaining

but also educational things. I mean, these are genuine. These are like academics and professors teaching you about stuff they know. I just noticed that they have a 29-minute thing about treating your poisoned pet, which I thought might be useful given the dog tissue ingestion chat. How to keep your pet safe from certain foods, plants, common household items that can be dangerous. That would be useful.

Yes. So I recommend that because, as we said, you get common household items that can be dangerous. That would be useful. Yes. So I recommend that because as we said, you get to watch Wondrum for free thanks to our magnificent offer. And then when you're there, you can be like, well, I've now know how to stop my dog from ingesting poisons around the home.

Maybe I'll go and watch Wondrum's new series about black inventors, which I've been watching. There's only two episodes so far, so I hope they're going to add more. One is about Madam CJ Walker, who was the first female self-made millionaire, apparently, but she basically kind of founded modern black hair care as companies. And like, even now at Sephora, there are products named after her, the Madam range.

And you can listen on The Move as well, by the way. So it is a video site, but if you're more of a podcast type person, you can download the episodes and then listen in the app as a podcast. So whilst you're multitasking, walking the dog, whatever, you can learn like I did the everyday guide to wine. So I don't feel like a fool in the supermarket. Learn about what you love and love learning about it with Wondrium. Do what we did. Sign up for Wondrium now. They are offering you a free month of unlimited access. Yes, so go to wondrium.com slash answer. That's W-O-N-D-R-I-U-M dot com slash answer. Here's a question that I feel is very much in the vein of a classic answer me this question. It's from Brandon who says, answer me this, Ollie.

Can you check your own semen for sperm with a home microscope? What, now whilst I'm on the air? Brandon says, I have five children, which is many children. And so about two years ago, I had a vasectomy, which as a whole is fantastic. But occasionally my wife will worry that it is healed and she is pregnant again. That can happen. I don't think it she is pregnant again. That can happen. I don't think it's too common, but it can happen. It's pretty rare.

We'll get on to that. We bought our oldest child a pretty good microscope up to a thousand times one Christmas, and it usually sits unused. I mean, to be fair, most microscopes usually sit unused, including in labs. The other day we were worried and decided to see if we could see anything. I rather enjoyed the experience as it involved collecting a sample and then smearing it on my child's Christmas present. Yeah, exactly.

But we weren't able to see anything in particular on the microscope. I would love for us to figure out how to check it at home for both the peace of mind and the frequency of testing. Do we need special dyes or slides or something first up let me just question the nature of your need in the first place um because as you were saying helen that this sort of phantom healing vasectomy i mean this is from the nhs website right in most cases vasectomy is more than 99 effective out of 2 000 men who are sterilized, one will get a woman pregnant

during the rest of his lifetime. Male sterilization is considered permanent. Once it's done, you don't have to think about contraception again. So you've got a one in 2,000 chance of being that man. So odds are low, if you really want belt and braces,

there's a simpler solution than just jizzing into your child's toy. And that's barrier contraception. Like you can carry on using a condom and then the risk is zero. But I guess if you're the kind of person who wanted a vasectomy in the first place, maybe you didn't want to use a condom and that's why you had one. Or a copper IUD. They're 99% effective. You can leave them in for 10 years. Right. Please don't mind. Okay. But on the question of whether you can do this ick factor aside

no you don't need special slides um although obviously for hygiene you may want a special semen slide to be put aside what you do need to do is wait five minutes for the semen to liquefy before you put it on the slide so it might be that you didn't do that and then you know that that was a false result that you were looking at oh so you don't deliver it directly onto the slide don't deliver it on the side wait five minutes and then you want a droplet basically but as far as it goes uh yes you can view sperm at 400 times magnification wow martin why are you looking at microscopes on your computer well i i was i was googling it and uh if you go to microscope world they advertise a basic semen microscope yes and there's an intermediate sperm microscope and an advanced semen microscope

all the different levels of modification the advancement if you fancy the splurge um yeah yes it's about 200 quid isn't it you can get a biological microscope which is what they have in school science classrooms so actually if you are someone who needs to investigate your sperm because you're trying to conceive for example that would be the more traditional reason like you actually want to see sperm there then yes you could order your own microscope that's of lower power even than your child's one you don't need one as powerful as a thousand times magnification and yes you could do this isn't part of the issue that if you're looking for no sperm and you see no sperm,

you don't know whether that's because there aren't any sperm or because you haven't done the microscope right? I did learn through this research, though, that when you do the mandatory semen test in most countries, which is around 12 weeks after you have the SNP so that the doctor can see whether it's worked, you need to have had 20 ejaculations since the vasectomy gosh oh and the reason for that is to make sure there is no sperm

remaining in your tubes all right so you're clearing it out seems like a lot that is a very determined sperm that is still clinging on 19 ejaculations later i I felt. Yeah, but there's so many sperms in each ejaculation. There's more than a million. So I guess it does take some effort to get all of them to vacate the premises. Also, presumably, if you see like one or two sperm, that's still probably not enough sperm for the impregnation to happen statistically. Oh, sure. But enough to make you buy your own jizz microscope,

especially for the purpose and carry on doing this obsessively. There's an alarm going off outside. I think maybe they heard us saying sperm too many times and now the Canadian police are coming to shut down this vulgarity. I think about time. I think that is our happy climax. I don't think we're going to go anywhere after this. I know we usually sign off the episodes by inviting you to send us your questions, but we don't know whether or when we're coming back. Just stay alert forever. Stay subscribed forever, just in case.

Yeah. I'll let you know. I mean, this has worked well, hasn't it? If we do do an annual or biannual special like this, then we will probably do the same thing and release a trailer in advance. So stay subscribed to our feed. Also worth bearing in mind that on that feed, there are 200 episodes of answer me this that are still

on there for free for you to enjoy yeah that's a lot and if you get through all of those then there's 200 more at answer me this store.com and also at answer me this store.com our six themed specials home entertainment is only three years old. So in relative terms in our room, that is recent and it's a cracker. That's a real treat. Do buy those because we still get the money and we like money. It's useful. It is useful. You know, those microscopes don't buy themselves. And there's no corporate overlords here. We're paid to do this by the adverts that you've heard

and that. So if you'd like to contribute answer me this store.com and please listen to our other work if you've missed us we're still available in pod land we are i make the entertainment show about language the illusionist and it's a rollicking good time as well as uh got a lot of that information you like delivered in the entertainment style. Yes. So you can hear that at theillusionist.org and in the pod places. And also I do live streams and stuff for the Illusionist patrons. So you can get on board that if you want at patreon.com slash illusionist.

Oh, if you like listening to me and Martin on podcast together, you could listen to the recent episode of The Illusionist that we did called The Box. Oh, yeah. Which is about Erwin Schrodinger of cat fame. What's Olly Mann up to in the large catalogue of Olly Mann work? Yeah, I suppose I'll just focus it down to the two that I'd most like you to check out. If you like Answer Me This because you like pub quiz type trivia, then do check out my daily show, Today in History with the Retrospectors. It's just 10 minutes a day.

And every day on that show, we uncover a curious moment from that day in history yeah you've got some brilliant uh topics thank you yeah recently we've uh told the story of the only woman who was queen of france and then queen of england uh we've done um that moment that jarvis cocker invaded michael jackson set at the brit awards and we're good as us i can't believe that's history now. I know. It's proper old though. Actually, if you like the history of brands, if that's another thing that you like here on Answer Me This, we've done the history of bird's eye frozen foods.

We've done how Hitler created the Volkswagen Beetle. Oh, geez. What a broad portfolio he had. It's a fun show. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. Just search Today in history with the retrospectors it has a bright orange logo please follow us and then the other one is the modern man which i've been making since 2015 so most of you probably do will know about that m-a-double-n it's upon my

name we test out trends submitted by our audience we take a listener sex question each episode um there's over 100 episodes of that show to catch up on just search for the modern man m-a-double-n martin well i make a podcast called neutrino watch which is sort of experimental fiction that regenerates every day thanks to computer code uh and there's music and there's stories and monologues and all sorts of things made by me and jeff etman i'm in the final year of a podcast called song by song which is about the music of Tom Waits. So final year because you've gone through all of Tom Waits' back catalogue? Yeah

we've got a couple of films then we've got his final album so far from 2011 and that's going to happen this summer and then we're finished. We've had some really great guests on recently like Geoffrey Cranor from Welcome to Night Vale and musician Kropher chore and

poet tim clare so do do yeah listening at song by song podcast.com yeah don't forget about us but do come back if answer me this ever reappears in your feed again five years from now 50 years from now when we're ghosts in 300 years and we always used to end by saying our website in tandem so i feel we should do that there is still stuff on there you might be interested in like links to all the things we've just said and some words oh yeah loads of stuff um so that website is answer me this podcast.com sounded just as delightful as ever as did your questions thank you for those and see you again one day on the internet i hope so it's been fun it has been fun bye