Answer Me This! - AMT407: Cartoon Anvils, Dating Semi-Celebs, and Lobster Piss

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Today’s questioneers want to know why a coffee shop will have either good coffee or good chairs but not both, WTF Judi Dench’s voice is doing at Disney World, how to stop their coworkers pushing MLMs onto them, how to get their wife to like their malepolish, and why Phoebe from Friends would say lobsters mate for life when actually lobsters just want a quick hot fling and no commitment.  For more information about this episode, visit answermethispodcast.com/episode407. Got question for us to answer? Send them in writing or as a voice note to [e-mail]. Next episode will be in your podfeed 31 July 2025. Become a patron at patreon.com/answermethis to help with the continuing existence of AMT, and to get an ad-free version of the episode, plus bonus material culled from the show, and our live video question-answering session Petty Problems. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, the all in one platform for creating and running your online empire. Go to squarespace.com/answer, have a play around during the two-week free trial, and when you're ready to launch, get a 10% discount on your first purchase of a website or domain with the code ANSWER. 🎧 Olly's new BBC Sounds series about the building of a new Universal Studios theme park in Bedfordshire is here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We start with some very sad news. We have a death to announce and that is our phone number. Uh, pour one out for 020812358777. We did pay for the rest of the year, thank you Skype. Fuckers. But then Skype, as you may have noticed, has closed its services forever. And so if you call our phone number, which we used to take questions on, it says we're sorry but the number you called is incorrect. Please hang up and try again. Oh, it doesn't even play you a clip of John Hanna reading W.H. Auden at a funeral.

And the amount of people who have approached me in real life, I reckon we're in double figures now, and told me that that was the only landline number they knew apart from their dead man's number, is off the charts. That and my childhood phone number, those are the only two phone numbers I remember. But the good news is, you can still send us a question with your voice by attaching a voice note to an email. It's simply not the same, is it, as drunk dialing us from a place with no reception? That's the thing. Where are we going to get all the questions to like,

who are you calling? Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, who going to miss those. No, we're not going to transition our number to Microsoft Teams. We're not a bunch of accountants here. We're creative professionals. I was wondering if we could have the phone number still and if someone calls it drunk at 3 in the morning, it just plays them a random bit of answer me this. Can someone set that up for us? That would be nice. Now, the following question from Chloe is going to shatter illusions, possibly break hearts. So get ready. Chloe says, In the TV show Friends, Phoebe tells Rachel that lobsters find their soulmates and mate for life. I have spent 20 years believing this and idealizing lobster romance only to recently discover that this is not true.

Lobsters don't mate for life at all. In real life, the alcoholics in Cheers would be less witty. You know, I'm not sure sitcoms are the best place to gather factual information. Especially from Phoebe. She's an unreliable narrator, isn't she? She's fanciful. Whimsical. Yes.

She's vibes-based. She'd be anti-vaxxer. She totally would. She also said that lobsters walk around their tanks holding claws, which is obvious bullshit, so why would the rest of the statement ring true? Olly answer me this. Why did they say that lobsters make for life? Why didn't they pick an animal that actually does, rather than spreading this misinformation?

Because Phoebe is, as we're alluding to, quirky, unusual, eccentric. She's kooky, isn't she? That is the cadence of every joke that comes out of Lisa Kudrow's mouth in that series. She's not a marine biologist. Exactly. You're not supposed to take what she's saying seriously. And if you remember the scene, she's describing Ross's relationship with Rachel to Ross. And she's saying that in her perception, a parallel in the animal kingdom between Ross and Rachel's relationship is

Lobster's humate for life. So it's funnier to get it a bit wrong, isn't it? Like she then embellishes it, as you're saying, by talking about Lobster's holding claws walking down the beach. If she said something that was accurate, then that would be less funny than the word lobster, which is intrinsically amusing. Although having looked into it, because I was thinking like they had a big writers room on friends, like they'd have had this idea and they would have settled on lobster after like a half hour discussion.

Were there other animals they could have used? And actually I think beavers would be funnier. Oh yeah. Ross, she's your beaver, right? And actually beavers do or sometimes do mate for life. So that would have been accurate and funny. They couldn't have got it through standards and practice. I think that's right. I mean, we're not Hays Code era, but you know,

inappropriate for NBC family programming in 1997, I think. So that's why she talks about lobsters. Some penguins form a pair bond for life, don't they? Penguins do bond for life, that's right. Yes. Some, again, some. Like they all bond for a season, but some then go off a serial monogamy route after that. I had to search this because we did a song for a friend's wedding recently that was animal based. Oh right. But there's quite a few.

I imagine Phoebe did a song about this too. Maybe you're the Phoebe of this group. Oh, that is absolutely true. Except Martin does have a science background. Martin, can you sing us a bit of the song? Oh, um. Please. Which bit do you want me to sing?

The bit that's about animals that mate for life, obviously. You know how slogs at adult time Twist around each other, that's how our lives entwine And that might sound gross, but it's really nice Like vultures, beavers, gibbons, flatworms, wolves and mice They have sweet hearts for a long time too, but none of them are quite as lucky as you. And that was service. That was for our friend's wedding. That's a really nice song, Martin. You did a really good job.

And also quite Phoebe-ish. Yeah, a little bit. People remember Smelly Cat because they lingered on that as a trope in the show. Actually, I was looking back through some of her other songs from the series to remind myself. These, I think, stand up as jokes as funny song titles. Ode to a pubic hair. Again, that's I think, Racy, for, you know, prime time NBC at the time.

Ballad of the circumcised man and the food here will kill you. That's really good. If Phoebe had been 20 years younger, she would have had such a big career on YouTube and TikTok. Yes, exactly. I wonder whether this misconception arose because lobsters don't lose fertility with age. So they can go through their whole decades long lives staying just as fertile. That's the opposite of mating for life.

Right. That's shagging around till you die, isn't it? Well, that's the lobster way. Lobsters don't mate for life. They have many short-term partners. In a mating season, the male lobster might mate with up to ten females. The female lobster will mate with one male per season if she gets what she needs from him, which is enough sperm to birth a load of little baby lobsters. And the whole lobster mating ritual is competitive.

It is brutal. The female lobsters want to mate with a big masked lobster, so the male lobsters will fight for dominance. First, they hit or slap each other with closed claws for an hour, and then the fight amps up. They pull off each other's antennae or limbs. Ooh! Sorry, these are the boy lobsters in competition.

Yeah. Then the losing lobster will back away. Then the female lobsters line up outside the winning male lobster's burrow to be chosen by the male lobster to mate. How they do that is they all shoot urine out of their faces. Wow. God, I wish I could do that. What a skill. It travels up to seven times the length of their bodies. It contains pheromones. So that's how the male lobster decides also apparently the she urine calms him down after the fight.

Then, he ready for some romance. The winning lady lobster goes into the male lobster's burrow and sheds her exoskeleton, gets fully naked. Then they play fight, and then they mate. The male lobster flips her onto her back, uses his swimmerets, which are sort of like the little frondy mini legs along the tail, to puncture her abdomen and deposit sperm packets into her sperm receptacles, which takes eight seconds. Then, they Netflix and chill.

Pretty much. She hangs out in the burrow for a week or two because she needs to grow a new exoskeleton. Otherwise very dangerous for her to go outside with predators. She and the male lobster might eat her old one for nutrition. They can eat their own exoskeleton. That's good as well. She shoots out more facepissed so that other female lobsters outside the burrow know that she's been mating and not to come in. This is what you don't hear in the David Attenborough version, isn't it?

Left alone, she shoots out more facepissed. And then she can hang on to the sperm packets for a year or two years until she wants them. Oh, like a sperm bank. And then she releases 3000 to 100,000 eggs, which take nine to 12 months to hatch and become more baby lobsters. But then they drift in the ocean on their own. She's not an active parent after that point. Right.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she's done a lot to get there. So she only mates with one male per season, unless his sperm packet is insufficient, in which case she crawls out of his burrow, presumably still naked of exoskeleton and goes to find another male lobster. Oh, it's a walk of shame, isn't it? Oh, shed my exoskeleton.

Shedding the exoskeleton is so exhausting that 10 to 15% of lobsters die doing it, and the reason that lobsters die of old age is that they're too exhausted to molt their exoskeletons anymore. Well, that's fascinating. Relatable. It's as funny as Phoebe's line. It's just less quick, isn't it? They just needed a nine second joke.

And actually Ross and Rachel are each other's lobster because they're an on and off couple with several other partners. They were on a break. On a break. And also Ross and Rachel did have a very brief fling which did result in a child. And they did piss on each other's faces in that famous episode, the one where Rachel

pisses in Ross's face. The one where Ross pisses seven times his body length. They could shoot that naked guy from across the road. Yeah, the answer to me, this cut of Friends, I think, could be surprisingly popular. Here's a question from Katie who says, I'm so glad you're back. I was always hoping you'd make a reappearance on my feed. We sensed that Katie. We sensed it. Since you left my ears, I've had a son who's just at an age that he is starting to watch cartoons. And so naturally I end up watching along with him. So Helen, answer me this. What on earth is an anvil? I don't think

I've ever seen one in real life. And who decided this would be the weapon of choice in the cartoon world? I suppose actually it is possible in this day and age to go through life never seeing an anvil. Yes. I saw an anvil. My dad for some reason had two, a big one and a little one. Need a spare? Yeah. It's like he had three sledgehammers. I don't know why you need three. Maybe they have subtle differences like how Martin's guitars have different pickups or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So was this just because he liked doing things with his hands that he wanted an anvil or is it an essential part of

the process for being a sculptor? Well, if you are doing metal work, that is what an anvil is for. An anvil is a heavy steel, now made of steel, they have been made of stone, bronze and iron in the past, implement. It's usually got two protruding ends, sometimes pointy, sometimes not, and they are this heavy because they need to absorb a lot of impact because they are used for hammering hot metal into shapes. Like if you want it flat, you hammer it on the top. If you want it curved, like a horseshoe, you put it around the curvy end. Oh right, so it's not just like a hot plate equivalent, you are using the shape of the anvil to shape the metal.

You bend the metal around it. So because you're hammering it really hard and you've got this red hot metal, the anvil needs to be a pretty solid piece of kit. So a lot of them are 300 pounds, 160 kilos in weight. As a cartoon weapon, a number of reasons for this choice I think. It's not a gun. Yes. Guns aren't fun.

Although, in the 1940s when animated anvils came around, I'm not sure guns weren't fun. I mean, you had Elm of Fad and that sort of thing. It is a very distinctive shape that is easy to draw. Yes. Other heavy things like a piano are much more complicated to draw from all the different angles. Anvils are really heavy, obviously, so they're gonna fall, they're gonna hurt, they're gonna make a big impact noise, and in the cartoons they are almost always appearing in an inappropriate, unexpected place, which is funny.

Sam – Yes, it's also, this maybe relies on people having experience of seeing anvils in RL, but nonetheless, I've never seen one in real life, but I still know this, because of Home Alone 2, actually, specifically what I'm about to say, but it's obviously in Home Alone 2 because cartoon. It's that thing of, you know that if you pull the rope that's tied to an anvil that's on a beam or a rooftop above you, it's not gonna immediately fall on your head.

So then you get the joke, don't you? Joe Pesci looks at Daniel Stem, ah, ah, ah, he thinks he's got me, but this rope is solid. And then as they climb up it, then the anvil falls down. They fall down, and then as they fall, bang, bang! Hits them straight in the noggin. Yeah.

Yank once, doesn't fall. Yank twice, doesn't fall. Put your whole weight on it. And Tweedypie has fucked Sylvester in the face. Also, when it plunges to the ground, catching the personal creature in its wake, it can make an anvil shaped hole in the ground. And then someone pulls it out the ground and you've got a flat silvester plastered on it

and someone gets to peel them off and then like shake them out so they become three dimensional again. Also, as you're talking, I just remembered the alternative to this. They sometimes do that thing in Looney Tunes where instead of the anvil, they've just got like a triangular box and they write 10,000 tons on the box? Yes. It's a weight. It's a weight. It's not an empty box.

Fine. That's not as funny. It's not as funny. No. Because you have to do that connection, don't you? You have to be like 10,000 tons. Oh, so that's heavy. Oh, so that's going to hurt. Whereas like anvil is comic shorthand, isn't it? Immediately. Yeah. Oh, so that's going to hurt. Whereas Anvil is comic shorthand, isn't it? Immediately. Through the lineage of people actually doing it. It sort of doesn't matter who did it first. The point is someone did it first, once you've done it, it's shorthand. Yeah, exactly. And because of that, kids grow up with an acquaintance with Anvil's light landline telephones with the curly cord that they may never have seen in real life.

But it's a trope. Here's a question from an anonymous questionnaire who says, I'm a straight man and I've been happily married to my wife for over a decade. Recently, I started to experiment with painting my nails, brackets, fingers and toes. Nice. My wife doesn't like this, Helen.

She doesn't think it's nice. She says that it's quote, not manly for a man to paint his nails. For now, I only paint them when she goes away for work and remove all signs of having paint them when she goes away for work and remove all signs of having painted them before she comes home. Oh, I'm sorry, Anonymous. I love my wife very much and I won't do anything to upset her, but I do quite like painting

my nails. Helen answered me this. How can I persuade my wife that there's nothing wrong with a man painting their nails? To be fair, she hasn't said wrong. She said not manly. It isn't manly. It is a traditionally feminine thing to do. I mean, that's a fact. Incorrect. It's not a fact. Really? Go on. Tell me about the history of nail painting. If it goes back pre-women, I'm interested in that. If it goes back pre-women. Well, it's like a lot of things like eyeliner. That was a real kind of male power move. Yes. Nail painting is an ancient practice for men. Babylonian warriors were doing it. OK. 3,500 BC to intimidate their enemies. It was common in Egypt, China.

In fact, there's so many things that are considered manly, or really recent. Like people being like, oh, pink's a girl's colour. It used to be considered such a powerful colour. It was a mask colour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like even 20 years ago, people were like, oh, my god, you're a man carrying a bag.

Oh, you're not a man. The ideas are so fragile. There's a couple of things anonymous correspondent that I think are important. It's quite complicated, because I think not manly is a concept that really needs to be interrogated. So what would happen if you have a conversation with your wife, where she tries to articulate what she means by that? What is manliness to her? Why is that important? And why, in her opinion, is nail paint not it? She might just be finding the immediate word that comes to mind to mean, this isn't what

I was attracted to in you. And I do understand that. Like you're in a straight relationship, you've never painted your nails before. When she says it's not manly, the manly things she might list might be things that she thinks are attractive to her and that wouldn't include what she sees as being feminine in this way. I think it's a big conversation because it is about gendered ideas and I think a lot of people have still not thought about what constitutes gender and what is the performance of gender, but better late than never for her to do that. And then I wonder if you could also have a gentle conversation with her to get her to think how would she feel if you were imposing your preferences on her about

how she dressed, assuming you don't do that. Yeah, so she started doing a thing that she saw as manly. And you said, no, I like feminine things. Right, if she was wearing trousers. Yeah. The thing is, there is a practical answer to this. That's the thing. If she genuinely doesn't like it, for whatever reason, like you can interrogate intellectually and culturally why she doesn't like it. But if she genuinely doesn't, and you are trying to be considerate and not get on her nerves, you don't have to paint all your nails. I mean, of course it's your autonomy in the

end, but actually like you could just start by painting your little pinky, right? I think that is a good tip. Paint your pinkies, maybe another nail on each hand. I think also what colors are you using? Other colors that she would think were manly enough that she might be able to get behind like olive green, black, being very common on a lot of rock stars. The goth palette. Yes. Yeah. Teal, brown, slate.

Could you paint tiny monster trucks on your nails? Oh yeah. Or joints of meat or anvils. Anvils would be so nice. That's a good suggestion. Or is there a sports team that she loves? Paint your nails in the sports team colours. Cause some people, that shit really works on sports lovers.

I'm not into painting my nails, but because of what we do for a living, I do need to buy makeup. And because I don't know what I'm doing, I've involved my wife in the purchasing process to kind of get on top of that thing of if there was any awkwardness about me having a makeup bag in the bathroom. She comes to Superdrug with me. She helps me choose my shade, in case you're interested. Oli Mann uses Maybelline Anti-Age Eraser Concealer. I'm saying that as much as anything for the transcripts. If I forget next time I'm in Superdrug, I can just search an Apple podcast. But she helped me pick out that shade and it was actually quite fun. She was actually clearly enjoying making me up in that scenario. And it sort of diffused any awkwardness around it for

both of us, I think. That's cool. So a way maybe is to have her with you choosing the shade. Yes. And let her be part of it rather than doing it and saying, what do you think? Well, also, maybe you could go for a manicure together as a couple and she could choose the colour for you. Like I wonder to what extent this is in her mind is like, oh, this is something that he does that I'm not involved in that has made my mind go down all these paths about what if he's gay? What if he's trans? Whereas for you, it is part of your expression as a cis het man, but she

doesn't understand that. There are a lot of famous cis men that have their own nail polish signs, like Harry Styles, AJ from the Backstreet Boys, Machine Gun Kelly, Tyler the Creator. Are any of these men ones that your wife fancies and would be pleased for you to copy? I do think discussing it is the way forward, is basically what we're both saying. You need to communicate about it more. It's something you want to do. It's something she doesn't want you to do. So you need to discuss how you can make it work. Yeah. And you're absolutely not alone, questionnaire. There is the lovely subreddit r slash male polish

for a start. It's nice. I'm sure it is. It's always people showing the colours they've chosen. I would say always use a base coat so you don't stain your nails. Right. Here is a question from Taryn from the land down under who says, I have been doing some re-listening to old episodes, and in episode 374 you mentioned that Judi Dench had been the narrator on Spaceship Earth at Epcot since 2008, and then you pondered about who it would be after the reopening in 2022. I couldn't rest until I found out who was the current narrator. Unbelievably, Google tells me it's still Judy Dench!

It is, can confirm. I remain oblivious to exactly what this ride is all about, but Oli answered me this. Does this mean that the current narration is the original one from 2008, or did they do a refresh and get a new record from her because she's just that good. Okay. Well, thank you, Taryn, for giving me an opportunity to talk about my Easter family holiday to Orlando. Pull up a chair. Spaceship Earth at Epcot was scheduled for refurbishment, but the refurbishment was due to commence almost exactly when COVID hit. So obviously Disney then had other priorities like rescuing the theme park division from going into administration with no visitors in it. So when Epcot reopened, they hadn't refurbished Spaceship Earth despite the fact they trailed it for years in advance.

Because it takes the Imagineers years obviously to do a new design on an old building. It's difficult to reverse engineer a new concept for not just an existing structure, but like a world renowned architectural structure. So for people who don't remember Spaceship Earth is what you're, even if you don't care about Disney at all, right? When I say the word Epcot, the image you've got, the big ball, the spherical dome. Big ball? That's Spaceship Earth. And it's an issue because the ride is shit.

Oh. And it's the symbol of the park. And it's shit in a sort of nostalgic way. It's been shit for so long that people who are now my age remember it being shit when they were 10. And they want their children to have a shit time when they go on it too. That's some old-worlded shit.

So they can keep that generational experience going. And it's sort of, because of the whole creation of Epcot was all about, you know, Walt's idea of the prototype city city of tomorrow but then he died and he never got to see it and they've made everything else in their sort of Disney IP you know there's a Guardians of the Galaxy ride where there used to be stuff about science you sort of think it's sweet in a way that they've kept the original attraction but it is well out of date now like it is just I mean you know you say I don't understand what this ride is about having never been on it.

I've been on this ride at least three times in my life. I went to Epcot in, I think 1989, the first time. And then again in probably 2002 ish. And then again in 2025. And I have no idea what it's about either. When you come off, I remember saying to my kids, because they were asking me like, what was that about? And I said, I'm not really sure. Some history and science. But what they have done is maintained the dome, I can say.

The Sphere is an amazing architectural feat. When you get close up, it's flawless and clean. I don't know how they've managed to keep it still looking like it's brand new when it was built in 1982. It's partly apparently because it's got built-in gutters in it. So it doesn't get manky with rain, because obviously in Florida when you get a storm, that's quite a big deal. The rain goes straight through it. So if you think about like if you held a ball up in the rain, what would happen to everyone standing underneath Epcot queuing to get into Spatial Bird, they'd get drenched. But they thought about that and it channels the water through it. So it's not manky. That's impressive because also geodesic domes and notoriously leaky

as structures for buildings. They have not been super successful. The history of it is that Ray Bradbury actually helped the Disney company create it. It's the story of human communication with the metaphor of the Earth as a spaceship. It's a ride that sort of begins with caveman goes through the Romans and Greeks and says, look, NASA, that's the through line. Okay. But it's, it's weird. And then what happens is the last five minutes, because it's a 15 minute long ride. The last five minutes you go backwards. That sounds fun, but it's not fun because it's going at two miles an hour. You go backwards down from the top of the dome to get you back to the beginning where you started. And there is nothing happening at all. Apparently on the most recent design in 2005 or whatever it was when they put Judy Dench on it, they

did have scenes that they've since like tarped over with cloth. And so you're just looking at nothing. And then they've got a screen in the car, which takes your picture and puts it on things. It's the sort of thing that now you'd see in your local shopping centre. Like it was so unimpressive to all of the children that we brought with us this technology. I mean, they can do it on my phone. Maybe they don't give you anything to do because they want you to think about all that you've learnt in the course of the ride about human invention. I mean, I love Epcot. So having said everything I've just said, I went there on holiday because

I love Epcot. Do you love it in've just said, I went there on holiday because I love Epcot. Do you love it in an ironised way or just a straightforward love way? No, I love the optimism of, you know, the human race is constantly progressing and let's celebrate that. It's a shame when the World Expo closes, let's have a permanent one around a lake. Let's have a big fuck off fireworks display about how wonderful all the countries of the world are. I love the whole park, but it just needs a bit of a brush up that ride. But actually, this is my hot take. For those of you who are thinking of travelling to Florida, I think it might have been my favourite or second favourite Disney park. The food and drink is actually good.

You can get pissed at Epcot, you can walk around drinking, which is great. The topiary is incredible. Who doesn't appreciate a good topiary? They had a Kermit and Miss Piggy topiary, which was just superb. So the Judi Dench commentary is the 2008 recording? No, it is just the same. They have not updated the ride, yes. Does it still work?

Does the power of the Dench transcend the datedness of the ride in the decades? It's a classy performance. Of course. And to be fair, she was replacing Jeremy Irons, which I'm sure was an equally classy performance. So, I mean, and actually he was replacing Walter Conkite. So, I mean, they've always had good narrators, to be fair. I don't know who they're going to get.

Who has that trust these days? We're available. We both do voice work. Yeah. Yeah, I do it. Definitely. I wonder if she even knew what she was doing the narration for if it was just like, oh, yeah, sure. It's an hour's recording in London and I don't care. Yeah, I think it's so easy to get caught out with that sort of thing as a voiceover artist, actually, isn't it?

Like, you don't know how your voice is going to get used. You do a thing and then you give someone the rights to use it They can chop it up. They can move it around. They can choose different bits of it Yeah, they can take out all the negatives. So it sounds like you're being positive. Do you do socky voiceover? I've never been asked to do one of those. Oh, yeah Try this product. It's really good. Oh, yeah, you're gonna love it You know, some of us can't help the fact that we come across as very sarcastic Even Martin sometimes doesn't know that I'm being sincere That's my curse. What I found in voiceover is that so long as the last two words sound like you're smiling

Then it sounds like a voiceover. Wow Even Martin doesn't know that I'm not being sincere You know what I mean? It's just just smile on the last word. Sounds like voiceover. That's an incredible tip. Eugenics, let's create a better race. Just take the last words. Yeah, someone's gonna click that and use it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're gonna be the spokes throat for Eugenics.

Well done. If you've got a question, then email your question to AnswerMeThisPodcast at Googlemail.com AnswerMeThisPodcast at Googlemail.com AnswerMeThisPodcast at Googlemail.com Answer me this podcast at Googlemail.com Whether it's a family member, friend or furry companion joining your summer road trip, enjoy the peace of mind that comes with Volvo's legendary safety. During Volvo Discover Days, enjoy limited time savings as you make plans to cruise through

Muskoka or down Toronto's bustling streets. From now until June 30th, lease a 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Condition supply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. Here's a question from Kristin who says, at every single job I've worked at in the last 15 years, I will have at least one coworker try to rope me into either buying their MLM bullshit or recruiting me to sell it to quick definition, please. MLM is multi-level marketing similar to a pyramid scheme, but different in that pyramid schemes are illegal. Some MLMs are also illegal and some territories have banned them and

I think Islam as well is like pretty not on board with them. But a lot of them are legal because technically they are selling products on Night Pyramid schemes, even though the real product is in recruiting more people to the scheme and selling products to them rather than to customers. Yes. So in some of these, it's not even about making money by recruiting people. It's making money by selling the product to people you've recruited to sell it to other people.

That's right. Yes. So you're like, oh, okay, to start as a sales operative, or whatever the fuck they're called in the different MLMs, you have to buy a starter pack that costs you like $1,500. And then you just sell those things to people and then you can buy more, but it's very difficult to actually sell that product on in most cases. So people are like, well, I need to make my $1,500 back first. And then right, then they become the kind of unbearable co-worker that Kristin's describing here. She says, they could be selling tears from a literal deity and I wouldn't care. I don't want

to buy and I definitely don't want to sell. Very sensible, Kristin, very sensible. Side note, I've worked in different educational capacities in the US where teachers are underpaid. So that explains all the side hustles. Yeah, it's a painful reality of many people's economic circumstance that has allowed MLMs to proliferate and make things even worse. So, Helen, answer me this. What can I do so that people know that one, I am not now and never will be interested, and two, the harder they try, the more resentful I will become? Well, here's the issue. You and they have opposite goals. Sounds like it. Your goal is to end the interaction as soon as possible. Yeah.

Theirs is to prolong it because the longer you interact, the more likely it is that you will do what they want. They've been prepped by their organisation to deal with this conversation. Absolutely. MLMs teach MLM practitioners. Martin, can you remember what they're called? We listened to the podcast, The Dream, a few years ago, which was a very interesting season about how MLMs work. Oh, so you from Mism is it consultant, advocate, ambassador? Something like that. Yeah, like sales partner. Businesspreneur. They teach them no isn't no. it's just a not right now. Yeah. Because if the people in the MLMs aren't recruiting, they're not making money.

So they are constantly hustling and they have been taught how to deal with nearly every kind of rebuff. So what you need to do is you have to be very firm and you cannot be subtle. It has to be overt rejection of this and you cannot give them anything to go on. Don't give them information. Don't give them excuses. Don't give them anything to work with. Oh, wow. Okay.

So don't say, oh, I don't have time. Sorry. Or I wouldn't be good at it because then they can say, oh, here's how you can have time or here's how you'd be good at it. But you can sell whenever and wherever you want. You can be your own boss with products that have a lifetime guarantee. So you got to say like, no, I'm not interested. Do not ask me again.

And just repeat that every fucking time. The repetition might feel really rude, but you have to establish this firm boundary. You've got to just keep saying no. But I think there's a nice way to say that. Well, you cannot be too nice. No, but firm, I agree with you. Assertive. But isn't there a way to say just basically, I've been approached for this kind of thing before, and I have a policy that I don't get involved with any, you don't want to say it's an MLM scheme because they'll say it isn't.

I don't want to get involved with any kind of side hustle or selling products in my workplace. No, because then they'll just, they'll be like, well, it wouldn't be in the workplace. No, no, no, sorry, no, I don't want to. I do not. I do not. That's what I'm trying to say. No, that's not- I don't do that. If you say in my workplace, that is a qualifier and they can work with that. You have to be more firm than that. I don't do that then. I don't do that. That's better than- Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You've got to say no. And I think saying,

I don't do that full stop is not particularly softer than what I said. I think you might also need to throw in, I understand what this means to you, but I cannot help you. Yeah. Or I cannot participate. And if they keep going, you might have to say, if you're going to talk about this, I will have to leave the room. And I've already told you no, the fact that you refuse to stop asking shows that you think of me as a revenue stream, not a friend. If you respect me, stop asking. If you don't respect me, don't talk to me again. I think we discussed this on the show before, but there was a very committed Christian who lived in the same staircase, they called it in our college, but basically block, right? Block of the halls of residence that I did. And she was lovely. And I really liked her in

every other way. But she believed that Jesus was going to save everyone's souls from eternal damnation. So she took every opportunity to convert people. And that's sort of like being hustled into someone's MLM, isn't it? A lot of the same techniques and characteristics. She's more likely to get into heaven if she gets me into heaven. I'm going to get into heaven, everyone's a winner. That's how she sees it. And like, I couldn't find these words.

I said so many times, I was like, stop inviting me to those things, because I'm not going to go to those things. I appreciate that you're a Christian and you enjoy it. It sounds great, but I won't be coming because I'm not a Christian. And she just wouldn't start. And it got to the point where you might remember we all had pin boards on our doors because this is sort of pre social networking.

And she was putting invites onto my pin board the outside of my door so that people could see it when they walk past that I was invited to her thing. And I just found it really, it was getting to the point where I just felt really like she was in my personal space with it. And there was no I'd said no, there was nothing left to say apart from be rude. And I didn't want to be rude. Because she was a really sweet Christian girl who was like really nice. And I didn't want to be rude to it was really difficult. I mean,

there was there was no way to say no. The fact is you did say no, I did say no, but it didn't work. Yeah, you said there's no way so no, you did say no. And they didn't respect that. And that is them being very impolite. Yes, yeah, sure. But I guess the point is, if they believe it that much, if they've been sold so much, there is a cult-like atmosphere to some of this pyramid selling stuff, isn't there? Whatever you say, they won't understand. And I don't think it's down to you to convince them that what they're doing is a scam, because they probably don't want to hear it. But I think you can say,

can I see the the financial records of the business for the past two years? I want to see the profits and losses. Because often when you get down to like, real numbers, they fuck off because they don't want to have to deal with that reality. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. That suggests that you're interested, though. I mean, I guess it depends what the product is, though. So like if it's skincare, simple thing you can say is, I've got sensitive skin. I can't use that. No, because like they don't care whether you can use it because they're like, well, you're selling it onto other people. Yeah, I've got something. Don't give them anything. Don't give them any excuses. Excuses are things to work with. It's

like when you're telling a lie and you want it to be convincing, don't add too much detail. The detail is the tell. I know that even when it's not about like you joining the company to sell yourself initially, when it's just about, would you like to buy this product? That can be awkward when you know that there's that grooming business model going on behind the scenes, even if the product is good. And I've been in that situation. So like as a parent, there's a particular brand that offers sort

of expensive face creams for newborn moms and stuff. Newborn moms? Yeah, moms who've just had a newborn baby. Moms when they're born. There was a lady in our NCT class who was selling it, and it is a good product. But you know that she's selling it so that you then might end up selling it yourself one day. And it's kind of difficult because you almost don't want to give her the false hope. It's almost kind of not to.

Correct. It is kind of not to. But yes, but you don't think that when you go to shop, do you? You don't think, oh, I'm not going to buy a face cream for 40 pounds from John Lewis because John Lewis are going to think that I'm going to buy a 40 pound face cream every day. You know, I'm only going to buy one once a year. And that's their problem if they think that. Whereas when it's someone in your house, someone that you know, you feel like, oh, you've given them this sense of loyalty and optimism. And now I'm letting them down. But I think what hurts about it when it's friends, from the question, it's unclear whether

they are her friends or just colleagues. But when it's your friends in particular, feeling like you are just being tapped as a revenue stream that can really damage a friendship. Yeah. It's to Kristin's advantage. If she's like, these are just coworkers and I don't really care whether they talk to me or not again. Right. Like it feels very inappropriate to the workplace that they're in any way that

they're using it for their business. I imagine that their employers would be quite pissed off that they like using the workforce as a sales opportunity. A resource. You know, if you're pissing people off, it means that they're going to work less well with that co-worker. Yeah. Because you don't want to talk to them. I guess you could maybe offer them an exchange, sell them your MLM in return. Oh. Yeah, why don't you sing this as a sales opportunity? 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. Thank you very much to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode of Answer Me This. We appreciate it so much...

That... It fills us... With... Joy, I was thinking. Great. Okay. Just checking. Yeah. We heard from some listeners Archie and Abigail, wedding photographers who shot a wedding in Denmark last year. Oh yes, because we were talking about the weird traditions. And they said, oh yes, we saw all those weird traditions you talked about in the last episode. And I was like, yeah, yeah. But I was looking at their website, bowlofcorks.co.uk. I was like, I bet this is a Squarespace website.

As I clicked from exquisite photo to exquisite photo with the clear layout, I could easily find everything I needed. Yes. Yeah, I know it. That's Squarespace all over this. There is no finer way to showcase your offerings. And it's easy to start with as well. Like I think sometimes when you see a Finnish website like that it can be a bit daunting. I could never, you could ever! You

could, you could. If you want to try out for yourself with whatever you're doing, whether it be photographing Danish weddings or something else, head to squarespace.com slash answer to use the two-week free trial, have a play around play around build yourself something and when you're ready to launch use the offer code Answer to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hello, Helen and Ollie It's Martin from Leicester. There are approximately 10 cafes and coffee shops in Leicester and Leicestershire, England Which I visit over the course of a few months I have just noticed that the ones which serve the nicest coffee have the least comfortable chairs, and the places with the most comfortable chairs are the ones that serve the least delicious coffee.

Perhaps this has something to do with the places with good chairs and mediocre coffee being part of large chains and vice versa, though this isn't always the case, and I don't know why that would be either. I choose cafes and coffee shops for their coffee and for somewhere nice to sit. I don't often work at one, but neither do I often take my coffee away with me. I try to choose independent shops, but about a third of the places I frequent are parts of larger chains. Ollie, answer me this. Why is the level of comfort of chairs at a café inversely related to the quality of the coffee served by that café? And is this a trend elsewhere?

We faced this exact issue, didn't we Helen, on our recent excursion to London? We wanted to support decent coffee shops, independent or not, but if I want to sit on a bench, I would go to a fucking bus stop. Wow. It's so objectionable, isn't it? We kept choosing coffee shops and be like, oh yes, that looks like a place that would do a good, your ice mocha, wasn't it? Your order. Yeah, ice mocha. Yeah. Oh, sit on a sharp spike while I drink it. No thanks. You'd get close and you'd be like, oh, they've got exactly what we want, but look, we have to sit over a sewer. I don't want to do that. Same time when you're evacuating the coffee.

It does make you wonder whether there is a conspiracy here in exactly the proportions that you suggest that it's like good coffee equals bad seating and why would that be? I suppose it's two things, isn't it? You are signalling as the coffee shop. We have shit chairs because we care most about the coffee. Like over your comfort, over your desire to hang out here. Our coffee is so good. You have to suffer the greatness. Yeah. You will sit on this tire and you will fucking love it. Tired with luxury.

The other reason, I suppose, is it gets you out of there, doesn't it? That's the other point. It shouldn't be so flagrantly obvious, but I suppose that's the thing, isn't it? They make more money by moving you on. And I mean, that's what Starbucks did, isn't it? That's the other point. It shouldn't be so flagrantly obvious, but I suppose that's the thing, isn't it? They make more money by moving you on. And I mean, that's what Starbucks did, isn't it? They're the totemic coffee shop. And you can sort of see the origins of both of what I've said in their story. The original Starbucks, after all, was just a shop selling beans. It was about going in, get your coffee and then go away because it's not about sitting around. Did you just describe Starbucks as the totemic coffee shop?

I did. That's very mythical. Well, it does have a mythical creature on its logo, as we've discussed before, Martin. That's true. Yeah, with a splayed tail. You know, also in Starbucks, you've seen that journey, haven't you?

From the sort of central perk style thing where you'd have a sofa that would get covered in body odor and grease, to over the time, it becoming a place where they put in such utilitarian furniture that people don't want to be in there anymore. And I feel like there should be a happy medium. I think we all agree on this. Yes, move me along. Yes, signal that the coffee is important. But let me sit on a chair. Let me sit on an actual chair with a padded back.

Yeah. It hurts to sit on just a plank. Exactly. Is it that the bad coffee shops are like, hey, but at least we've got comfy chairs. What is your priority? I fear that. Exactly. Is it that the bad coffee shops are like, hey, but at least we've got comfy chairs. What is your priority? I fear that. I don't think it's that. I think it's like a small independent coffee chain is trying to project a certain kind of urban chic, isn't it? And that very often translates to like hard surfaces and hard seating. That sort of bare brick,

bare pipe work kind of vibe, which still seems to be the dominant, you know, vibe for an independent artisanal coffee shop. Bare filament bulbs. Bare filament bulbs. Nothing wrong with lampshades. Also good. I mean, this is the thing. So like, we've been podcasting for long enough that when we...

Long enough, I'll say. Too long, some would say. When I used to go and do interviews, I'd suggest going to a coffee shop because soft furnishings, right? I'd excuse the background noise of the audience by saying we were recording in a coffee shop and that would be kind of like a nice background hum. But you'd know that they'd be sitting on a soft seat, that there would be like say lampshades. Whereas now the acoustics are appalling because it is all those hards. It sounds like you're in an aircraft hangar. Also there's the, here's a reference for long time listeners,

there's the branch of giraffe aesthetic, isn't there? Which is also a sort of global ubiquity to all the designs of coffee shops. It's the same with Airbnbs, it's the same with all kinds of contemporary stores where it's designed to be Instagram friendly, isn't it? It's designed to look good on social media. But that means actually, it's particularly unoriginal and tedious because it looks the same as everywhere. I was reading a little interview with Stuart Murdoch of Bal and Sebastian recently in which he was recommending a sort of rubberised seating pad he takes everywhere with him. So then you can sit on an uncomfortable chair and be on a comfortable chair. Yeah.

Yeah. But then I suppose you're back to then why do you just have a coffee at home, in a sense? Like if you're bringing your own furniture with you, what are you actually buying? What's enjoyable about the experience you're paying for, really? What you're paying for is the renewed sense of appreciation of your own home when you get back. Here's a question from Lewis who says, it's summertime. This means sunscreen is necessary even where I live in the usual grey and cold Scotland. Cue a lot of people shouting, you have to wear it year round anyway or even if it's

grey because of UVA. When I apply sunscreen, says Lewis, the smell takes me back to holidays as a child, which made me realise that the smell of sunscreen seemingly hasn't changed for decades. Ollie, answer me this, What gives sunscreen its characteristic smell? Why can't I easily buy sunscreen with different scents? And how hard is it to get sunscreen that smells different or indeed, which has no smell at all? Okay, it isn't difficult to get sunscreen

that smells different. I mean, you can pretty much do the obvious things and type into search engines and say what you want it to smell. The one I use is Ultrasun. I'm a fan of that, which is the sort of neutral, efficient Swiss one that smells of nothing at all. But if you like the sort of vacation vibes that you're describing, there is a brand called Vacation, which I found, according to them, combines notes of

coconut, banana, pool water, pool toy and swimsuit lycra. Wow, that's what the sunscreen smell is. Yeah. Lycra. So, okay. The whole panoply seriously of fragrances are available, there is. Check them out. Really? Onion? Yeah. Inevitably. That's what I want for my summer smell. In all seriousness, Tommy Bahama do a cucumber one. So it's like cucumber eye mask smell. That's nice. But I know what you mean. Like in a Tesco in Scotland, can you easily buy a sunscreen that doesn't smell of sunscreen? And the answer to that, perhaps with the exception of Hawaiian Tropic, being the only sort of mainstream brand that at least smells pungently of a particular,

like you know that's Hawaiian Tropic, that smell, don't you? It's either that or Malibu being bathed up. You're right, that they do basically all smell of coconut, cocoa butter, jasmine and essential oils. And that's because that's what they have in them. Oh okay for any reason other than just scent? No. Presumably they're not sun filtering? No, it's beach vibes and it is nostalgia but in sunscreen in particular there are fewer masking ingredients because that might stop the active ingredient from

working. And so they don't put loads of extra chemicals in it. You're basically smelling the ingredients more than you do in other products. I sort of interpreted this question as Lewis asking not can I buy sunscreen that smells different once but why isn't there a range where it's like lavender flavour, apple flavour? Well again I think because people would be suspicious of it You know, that's not what sun cream is so that so no one's done it She links us well into the next question, which is all about variety and it's from Lindsay who says Helen answer me this why do manufacturers only sell stock cubes in single varieties?

Mmm, no one needs 24 cubes of beef stock Well, they sell them in like little boxes with like six or eight cubes Yeah, also like a professional kitchen making beef soup would need 24 cubes of beef stock. Well, they sell them in little boxes with six or eight cubes. Yeah, also like a professional kitchen making beef soup would need 24 cubes of beef stock. Also some people use a lot more stock cubes than you'd imagine. They'll sprinkle them on food like seasoning. Why don't they make a sort of stock selection box so that you can have a variety of stock cubes? Is it just to make more money by forcing you to buy hundreds of stock cubes?

Hundreds! Hundreds! Hundreds! Well, across a lifetime. Like I said, they come in boxes of eight. I mean, are you yearning for a pick and mix counter that is just stock cubes? I can already see the issue with a variety box of stock cubes. Go on. Well, it's dietary concerns, isn't it?

Hindus don't eat beef. You know, what's halal? What's kosher? Allergens infecting the other cubes. So like, you know, you could sell just the vegetarian ones, but that's not what she wants. She wants what I imagine most people would want, which is beef and chicken and vegetable and fish, but then you've got a product that doesn't appeal to everybody. Yeah, or maybe doesn't appeal to anybody. I have a couple of thoughts. One is, do the different flavours really taste that different to each other?

Because the main point of them is like saltiness and savoriness. Okay. So are people like, well, I'll buy beef, but if you made me taste that or vegetable with my eyes shut, I couldn't really tell you what I was having. Do most people only really want one flavor? And also if you had the multi-pack and you're getting like two cubes each of flavors, you're probably not using the flavors at the same pace. So then one will start piling up. Like lamb stock. How often are you going to do that?

If you do want multiple flavors, you probably do want separate boxes and replenish them at the rate you use them. And it's a small cheap purchase and they last forever. So like shelf instability is not really an issue. I was trying to think why is this different to other variety packs of like crisps or kelogs variety packs of little cereals. Don't just chuck in the kelogs one like that's just a random example. I mean, that's the king of all variety packs. It is. That's the variety pack we all grew up wanting and loving. Yeah. And even the ones that no one wanted and were left behind, you still ate them. Yeah. Is the difference that there think, well, I'll buy a full-size pack of crunchy

nut cornflakes. Whereas with stock, you're not scaling up to anything. I did so much web browsing to try to find a palpable answer or variety packs of stock. And I thought I had found variety packs from Knorr, but what it is, is a three pack with like a box each of chicken, beef and tomato plus chicken. So you could assemble that yourself. They're not together. So Lindsay is right. They don't have they don't have stock selection boxes. I quite like the idea of a stock advent calendar. Wow. But there's only like four flavors. No, there aren't. I've already named five.

I reckon there must be a pork one as well. That's six. Or like some exotic, you know, Swedish herring stock. Do you know what I mean? Like if you're a stock fan and you're getting a stock advent calendar, you'd want some weird stocks. And they could even actually, because I get the fever tree advent calendar each year and you get a gin alternating with the tonic. They could do what they do with that and they could alternate a flavor pairing with the stock cube. So like a little recipe on alternate days that tells you how to use it. All right. I think that's an OK idea with a very limited customer base.

You know what would make more sense is a stock stocking. Yes, I see what you've done. Yeah, that's got a natural pun built in. Yep. Add it to our merch store in time for Christmas. If you've got a question, answer me this podcast at GoogleMail.com But you haven't got a scoop, answer me this podcast at GoogleMail.com So ask your question to Helen and Ali, the party, the sound man, the tip of the ship, all the terry to pieces Answer me this podcast at googlemail.com

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more. This episode is brought to you by DZONE. For the first time ever, the 32 best soccer clubs from across the world are coming together to decide who the undisputed champions of the world are in the FIFA Club World Cup. The world's best players, Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can watch every match for free on Dazone, starting on June 14th and running until July 13th. Sign up now at Dazzon.com slash FIFA. That's D-A-Z-N dot com slash FIFA. Here's a question from Andrew from Melbourne who says, I've recently gone back wading into the dating pool.

Ooh, splish splosh. Dipping a toe into the various apps. For context, I'm a cis man looking for women. On one such app, I have recognised a few women who are not quite celebrities, but people with public profiles whose work I am aware of. Gotcha. It's got me thinking, what is the etiquette of dating app flirtation with someone who's

got a public profile? Where on the spectrum between I've never heard of your work and OMG I know everything about your work and OMG I know everything about your work and love it all, do you think is the optimum position? Is it just best to acknowledge that they're someone who's well known and then move past it and actually get to know them as a person? Answer me this, please. Well, since you said please. The last sentence of your question, yes, acknowledge them, then move past it and get to know them. Don't be creepy and say, well, I know all about what you've been doing. You could say,

so what were you working on today or this week? And then see what they want to talk about. Yeah, let them lead. Maybe. Although I suppose if they don't, then okay, let's, let's, I'm trying to think of a famous person this could plausibly be. Carol Vorderman, right? It's Carol Vorderman. Right. Now, imagine you know it's Carol Vorderman. Carol Vorderman, right? It's Carol Vorderman. Oh, yeah. Right. Now, imagine you know it's Carol Vorderman. She doesn't know that you know it's Carol Vorderman.

You've decided to let Carol Vorderman lead, because why wouldn't you? And Carol doesn't say at any point, when you say what you've been working on, you know, how's life, she's not mentioned anything at all about science, technology, I'm a broadcaster, I'm interested in left-wing politics. She said nothing, right? You're giving her agency not to say, I am Carol Vorderman. That could be a second date thing to say that you're Carol Vorderman. At some point then, you've made it more awkward by leaving her the opportunity to raise it by not

raising it because it's then an unspoken thing. Whereas if you'd said right off the bat, oh, you're Carol Vorderman. Nice to meet you. I'm Andrew from Melbourne and this is about me. That might have negated it ever being an issue in your own head, you know? We have interactions with people who know who we are and we don't know who they are. They know us via podcast. Yes. And I always try to like equalise the interaction as quickly as I can by asking them questions about them because they know stuff about me and I don't know about them. Yeah. And that tends to be fairly cool very quickly. But I haven't done dating because I've been with Martin for 20 odd years.

20 odd years. So I asked a friend of mine, Andrea Salenzzi, who used to make a podcast called YOY, which recounted her dating adventures. She sent some advice. She says, one, connect over something completely unrelated to her career. We are all rich, multi-dimensional humans outside of our professional personas, so focus on getting to know her first.

Agree, yeah. So you might need to figure out what is involved in getting to know her and what they choose to tell you is things that you can then ask follow-up questions. That's good, but it doesn't negate my, hey, Carol Vorderman, nice to meet you, and then talk about other things. That's still a possible approach. Point two. If there is mutual interest, banter, etc. share revealing details about yourself,

your full name, what you do for work, not pin number. This helps balance the fact that she's already somewhat exposed while you're relatively anonymous. Okay, but it's an element of pretend, isn't there? Pretend you don't know who this person is. That's all. I think all first dates are kind of that, aren't they? Yeah, that's a really good point. Of course they are. You're all playing versions of yourselves and also having to test whether you're safe, whether they feel safe. Like there's a lot going on. I think a difficulty with that tip

is just not talking too much about yourself and the other person thinking this guy is so boring, he's just talking about himself. So be mindful of that. Andrea's point three, only then you can mention that you recognize her work with a genuine compliment, but don't dwell on it. Yeah. Don't be like, you were great on countdown, but when you used to host loose women, I found it kind of patchy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Don't be like you were great on countdown, but when you used to host loose women, I found it kind of patchy. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Don't be like, I need to prove that I'm better than you. Like, oh, I bet I'm better at maths than you. I think when people say something to you like, I really enjoy your work and I particularly liked this episode of the modern man that you did say. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a nice compliment, right? To be like, I have paid attention to it and I respect it. I have thoughts on what you just said, but I want you to get to the end of the list. Is that the end of the list?

Point four. Do not use this new connection to try to network or advance your own interests beyond the chance to date her. My mum's always wanted to go to the BAFTAs. Don't say that. Yeah, that's more of a third date chat. Point five. Do not allow yourself to believe that any of her brilliance has rubbed off on you simply because she engaged with you on a dating app. Don't claim you dated her unless you actually, you know, date her. Don't mention this at a dinner party. Although Andrea said, I did this on the other side. I dated a few well-known men and I love name dropping them.

That's the thing, isn't it? This is the thing about human nature. However well you're behaving on an app with them, until you're actually in a relationship with them, it is just amazing to tell your mates. I think when you raise people at our level, I think it is a different thing because obviously there are exceptions that prove the rule, but generally speaking, I find people who make work in the public space do so because they quite like to some degree the attention they get from it from the public, right? And so in my personal experience, it happens rarely

that someone comes up to me and says, Oh my God, you're Olly man. I love answering this. It happens, I'd say every, I don't know, six weeks. If that happens every six weeks, it's really nice. It makes me feel good. If it happened every week, it would probably make me feel good. If it happened to the extent where I'm aware every time I get on the train that everyone's thinking, oh my God, that's Olly Mann, that's a completely different kettle of fish, right? And I think the dividing line therefore comes on the level of celebrity you're talking about. If you're Madonna or Paul McCartney. If I am.

Then I can imagine that you would genuinely find it a relief if someone didn't know who you were. But I think that has to be a genuine, you can't fake that, like either you do or don't know who they are. It might be that the perfect match for them initially is someone who doesn't come with all the baggage about who they are. Well, I think it's probably that you date other celebrities with an equal amount of baggage. Possibly, because that's the only way to deal with it. But I think for most people

that are just like known but not famous, I think it's kind of fine to just deal with it head on with a compliment as you say. It makes sense why like big celebrities are using Raya so that the expectations are just more explicit already because that's the app that you're meeting on. Genuine issue though I think is if you're a super fan it's just honest isn't it? To not just give one compliment to be like oh, oh my God, I loved your third album, and I loved the Christmas special, and I loved that bit where you did a cameo in the office. Save it.

Save it. Hold onto it. Hold onto it. Yeah, OK. But every time you say those things, you do make people more awkward. Again, I could only imagine through magnification, but even at our level, there's that thing of,

if someone's just outed themselves as someone who listens to this show and has done for 18 years, I am then thinking, as I'm talking at a party, I'm thinking, oh, do they know this anecdote? Have we told that on the show? Do they want to collect a lock of my hair? And or like, is this different to what they think I am based on what they've heard of me? And so that does put like a performance pressure on you, which they wouldn't have wanted to do.

Listeners, I'm sure that many of you have been on either side of this interaction. Yes. We would appreciate your input since all of us are inexperienced in this area. So send us your feedback to the same place you send us your questions in the form of writing or voice note. Our contact details are on our website, AnswerMeThisPodcast.com. And if you go there, you can see the balloon portrait

that Rob the Balloon Artist has made of us since we spoke of him last. He has come through magnificently. Thank you, Rob. Absolutely. Remember as well that you can support this show at patreon.com slash AnswerMeThis. You can listen to bonus bits from every episode which hit the cutting room floor.

What's a more charitable way of saying that? Too good to put in the main show. You can hear an ad free version of the show on the Patreon wall and you can watch back Petty Problems, our live video stream thing. Yes, where we dealt with your trivial concerns. And who knows what else is coming down the pipeline for you valiant patrons. Patreonise us at patreon.com slash answer me this. And you can also check out our other work. What's the latest in Olly Mann verse? I do multiple podcasts. You can discover them all at Ollymanne.com. But the one I want to highlight this month, Helen, is a four part series that I'm hosting for the BBC, all about the massive theme park

that Universal Studios are going to be building in Bedfordshire 25 minutes from my house. Oh, fuck yeah. It's a big story in my life. I bet this is a perfect Ollyman project. Yeah. If you've enjoyed hearing me talk about theme parks in this episode, then you can enjoy four hours of me talking about theme parks to fellow theme park nerds. I find out what we're going to see in this new theme park, how one goes about building and designing a theme park. And we asked whether Bedford could plausibly be the next Orlando. That

sounds ridiculous, but you'll find out why it isn't. If you like the sound of that, then you can find it on BBC sounds. What you need to search for is a bit cumbersome this. I'll put a link in the show notes as well. What you need to search for is Rollercoaster Universal's Bedfordshire Journey. That's what the show's called. You'll find it on BBC Sounds. Helen. The Illusionist is back with four letter word season, including an episode about bleep and

an episode about bleep and a quiz of four letter words that don't need to be bleeped. And also got some events coming up. Martin and I are participating in a live show collaboration with the podcast Material Girls, used to be known as Witch Please. That's on the 3rd of July in Vancouver and tickets are also on sale for an event I'm doing in October with Samin Nosrat, who's got a new cookbook coming out and I get to interview her about it on stage in Vancouver. So go to the illusionist.org events for tickets to those things. We're both living our lives, aren't we? You're interviewing a woman about a cookbook on stage. I am interviewing theme park nerds about a theme park in Bedfordshire. I think

whoever wrote our school reports could have predicted this. Oh, and Martin and I have a piece that is going to go out on Radio 4 at 4pm British time on the 22nd of July 2025. It's called Souvenirs, which is a really beautiful story about two friends in the late 19th, early 20th century, who set up a printing press together and then almost immediately their friendship fell apart. and then they spent 15 years fighting over the custody of their in-house typeface. And it's this like very cool music-y piece that Martin scored and it's very funny but also very emotional, even though it's about typefaces. It's a roller coaster. That sounds great. Martin, what are you doing? I've been working a lot on other people's podcasts. I've been doing the music for the new movie season. Cool, that's a very good podcast.

Really good. And I've been doing the mix on Slapped, which is a new series from Drilled about this Greenpeace and the standing protests. Slightly more serious in tone. Cerebral, actually intelligent podcast series. Yeah, if you need a dose of politics and protest and environmentalism. Also if you enjoyed Martin's little song earlier about animal love, where can they find more

music? You can go to my website, martinaustwick.com or search for Pale Bird Music. And if you want more Answer Me This, there are 200 episodes more, which we have pay walled for your convenience at AnswerMeThisStore.com, along with our exclusive albums and best ofs. There's also more than 200 free episodes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Show it to Carol Vorderman, she'll love it. She can count them all, she can count up to 407 so that should be enough i think to put in your ears until we return on the last thursday of next month 31st of july bye hi it's matt here this week on the slow news cast from the observer how to disappear if you want to be found now is now is the best time in history to be found. I was saying earlier, I had a sneaky feeling it might be dead.

The only way I could then pursue them is fire, door to door, knocking. The story of how people go missing without even realising. The people who find them. Listen to the slow news cast wherever you get your podcasts.