Answer Me This! - AMT408: Tiaras, Private Investigators, and the King’s Mucky Gloves

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

Today’s questioneers want to know, among other things, what private investigators actually do, what happened to Deely Boppers (Deely Bobbers?), how to greet your spouse when you’re attending the same business meeting, how to steer someone to not want to work for you, and how to persuade someone to GTFO of the massage chair at the airport that they’re not getting massaged in. For more information about this episode, visit answermethispodcast.com/episode408. 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 28 August 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, the next edition of which is happening 23 August 2025. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should I dress as Beyoncé for the Renaissance Fair? Has to be this, Has to be there. It's me, Margaret, God, are you there? Has to be this, heaven and only, I'm to be this. If you found this podcast due to a little video clip about lobsters pissing out of their faces as part of their sexy times, welcome. Unfortunately, we're not going to guarantee that we'll be doing different animals mating rituals in every episode. So I'm so pleased that the biggest video I've ever been on was me recording myself on my laptop balanced under my chin. So flattering.

Actually, Helen, on the subject of last episode, I want to thank you personally. I want to thank her. Because no sooner had we discussed MLMs, me not even knowing what one was until we recorded the last episode, that I then actually found myself approached to join one and I knew what to say to the woman. trying to get me to sign up. Oh. Obviously, I didn't say those things because I felt to him polite. I sat there and took it for half an hour and then said, oh, I'm not sure my listeners would like that.

We also talked about Stock Cube variety packs last month. It's the next Biscoff, I tell you. Savory Biscop spread. Yum, Yum, Stock Cube. Actually, come to think of it. What's that stuff you used, Bovril? That is basically the Biskof spread of stock, isn't it? They were there decades before.

Yep. Chris has been in touch. He says, My wife is an executive in the food industry. She says the production of stock cubes in mixed boxes would increase the final product cost because you would have to change the production line. Unlike Willie Wonka, you have to make one product in one zone. Two zones do not mix.

I love the idea of Charlie in the stock cube factory. Play your cards, right, kids, and you two can be owner of Bertie Buntas beef cubes. dip your tubs in all the stock you can drink. Oh no, Augustus Gloop has gone down the chicken river. Anyway, Chris's wife says that it could have cross-contamination, basically, if you had a stock-cube production line. Okay, so one's own one flavour. But then how come any variety packs exist?

Because cross-contamination is always going to be a problem, isn't it? I bet that's right. I mean, you could have a nut allergy, and yet crunchy nut corn flakes is in the same packet as the cocoa pops, isn't it? I think when you're making a premium product for the stock connoisseur, which is what we were suggesting, I think then cross-contamination isn't really a concern because... You'll risk death for stock. No, honestly, you could assemble the stock at the end of the line.

So they could still be made in separate zones, fish over here, beef over here, halal, vegetarian, whatever. But then at the end, for the premium connoisseur product, someone manually puts the things together in a box collection for you. That's not doing any contamination. It's just an extra person's work, isn't it? I couldn't possibly say. Chris, please ask your wife. Thank you. Hello, Helen, Ollie, and Martin the sound man. This is Michael. I recently moved from Minnesota to Montana with my family, and you kept me company with your back catalog as we packed our entire house. We were excited to have relocated to Western Montana

and even more excited to have a guest bedroom. We'd love to have our friends and family come visit us, but I want to make sure that they feel at home. So answer me this. What kinds of things should we do to make sure our guests feel like they're at home and like they can have a good visit? Make sure there is ample toilet roll. Yes, absolutely. They never have to ask, and they never have to go hunting. Twice as much as you think any human could possibly need.

You know what's also quite fun is if you put like some entertaining reading matter by the bed or in the bathroom if you have a specific bathroom for them. We've got a little picture book of different bins of the world. That's great. bathroom. Yes, I do like a novelty toilet book as well, actually. The Loubery. I think that's good to furnish, isn't it? What is nice to do when you're receiving guests is to ask beforehand to say, are there any snacks or beverages or breakfast items that you like to have in? For instance, Martin and I never use milk, so we only get it for guests. Okay, yeah, I would need milk,

but also if you ask me that question, I'd think, what a generous question and I wouldn't answer milk because I would assume that was there anyway. That's an essential. In Britain, you assume milk and tea bags, even over toilet paper. Definitely can't assume tea bags outside of Britain. Yeah, no, I know. I've learnt full well. We've got guests coming in a few days, and one of them said, do you have some little packs of Harabo because they have diabetes, and they're like,

if I have a hypo, then those are really useful. Decent coffee would be the deal breaker for me. If you've got coffee drinkers staying and you're not a coffee drinker, get some decent coffee in, because it will make a substantial difference to whether or not they have a pleasant day. When you say decent coffee, do you mean just not instant? Not instant of any description, not that supposedly posh, Neslae barista shit. Actually coffee, like ground coffee.

Grand coffee, yeah. I had to get instant coffee and sweetener pellets when my mum came to stay because that is what she likes. That's her preference. She will drink a proper coffee, but that's her preference. I always ask them as well if there are any allergies they want us to be aware of because if someone has celiac, then you want to make sure there's not wheat crumbs everywhere. I hate to be too hot, like when the heating is on too high, I can't sleep.

So that might be a considerate thing to ask your guests about, the temperature comfort. But also, I think, and I haven't really done this, but I think everyone should do it if they can, sleep in your guest room first to check if the bed's comfortable. That's Alex Politsi level tip. Well, I've stayed in a lot of people's places and a lot of like whole daylets and stuff. don't even have lamps. Yes. And they don't have bins.

Yes. And you know that they're aspiring for that five-star rating on Airbnb. And yet you're right. No one who owns the property has slept in that bed and thought, oh, you can't reach a light bulb from this bed. Like sometimes you get there

and there's one pillow for two people. Have enough pillows. I'd say two per person and maybe different textures. Yes, yes. I'm not saying full hotel pillow menu, but it's nice if you can do it. I feel guilty because we've had quite a lot of shit pillows

in the past to give to people on a shit inflatable bed that I didn't sleep in per my own advice Yeah Sorry Ollie For all the times You stayed over and off

I mean I didn't want to say I mean it was a different It was a different world Wasn't it was a different life It was a different era I was a proper bed now I was in my 20s I was okay sleeping on a knackered sofa bed

That was also actually your sofa And covered in crumbs from our dinner Hey I did enjoy it Didn't bother me In fact if anything as a guest I was like I don't want to leave any of my night time

Detritus on their like sheets that they use as their sofa sheets. I was always anxious that I was like, what if you can smell my body odor on here? The other night I had a little nap in our spare room bed and discovered that there's an annoying light from outside coming in. Even though I don't mind outside light, I was still irritated by this. And I hadn't been at pillow level with the window before. So I was like, okay, you've got to make a curtain before the guests come. Write the Wi-Fi on a piece of paper and put it in their bedroom. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You have done that. You don't want to wake them up at

midnight because you're checking an email. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Also, if you can have like an extension lead with the multiple plug outlets available, maybe even a plug that they can put their charging cable in to you. I think also offer them a lift even if they are saying that they're quite prepared to take public transport. I realize that in Montana

there's probably not that much public transport anyway. But if you're in a city where there is some, don't just assume because they're saying, oh yeah, we'll get this bus, we'll get this train, that that's what they want. Often if you're traveling with luggage and family, it's really nice to be off of the lift, isn't it? What I quite like if I am sleeping on the sofa bed in someone's living room is if they treat me as just a regular part of the furniture.

I used to stay on my friend Jen and Aaron's sofa bed in Chicago. And for some reason, I slept on it really well every time, even though objectively it was a bad bed and was on an angle, so it always felt like the sofa was going to swallow you. But one day their toddler came in and just sat on me and watched Bluey. And I was like, oh, it's nice. Oh, the dog came. You know, I've really enjoyed that.

Feeling like the people around you aren't standing on ceremony for you, even though they may have constructed a special pillow menu beforehand, is important too, isn't it? I mean, I think as well, think about what you do as hosts that's part of your usual routine that might be weird for someone else. For example, do you need to walk through their bedroom to have a shower in the morning? Maybe warn them of that. Do you go around turning off all the lights at night to be, quote-unquote green, as my father-in-law does. Like, laudable effort, but when you're staying in his house,

you will die by falling down the stairs because you can see nothing at all. Yeah, a little plug-in nightlight is really useful, I think. And we lived there for six months whilst our house was being refurbished about eight years ago. And during that six months, there was this completely unspoken Battle of the Lights. Because it's like, I sort of knew the layout of the house, but they're all short. and they had low-hanging lamps. So it's like, if there isn't a lamp on, I'm going to bang my head

as I try and get to the toilet every night. Yeah, that's relatable. So I'm going to leave one lamp on downstairs when I go to bed so I can see when I go for a piss. And also, I wear contact lenses, so I might be sort of minus 7.5 plus astigmatism blind, right? So I'd leave the lamp on. And then even at 2 a.m.,

I know when he did it, after I went to bed, my father-in-law would get up. he had like a long pole that he goes around turning off all of the plug sockets like under all the tables and everything including my phone charger which I could never raise with him

because accepting his free hospitality so annoying I get up in the middle of the night bang my head on the lamp piss all over the floor and then go down and says my phone was dead great guest

yeah mailing it okay here's a question from Eli who has recorded a voice note for us which you can too by the way dear Martin and Ollie. I've taken to flying a lot because I work in one city and live in another.

And I think that comes up pretty often is that airports these days tend to have these massage chairs that you can put in five bucks and they'll poke at you awkwardly for 15 minutes. And that's a good way of killing the time before my flight as any. But what tends to happen is they fill up with these people just sitting there, digging around on their phones, not actually getting the massages. I would like to pay the chair for a massage, please, but I don't really know how I can broach the subject without seeming like a dick.

I've just been sort of standing awkwardly near the row of them by my gate for the last 10 minutes or so, hoping to imply that there's a line. Other than avoiding eye contact with me fastidiously, no one seems to have noticed. So any advice would be great. I wonder if this is more a lack of chairs in airports issue than an Eli issue or a massage chair issue.

When I've sat on those massage chairs, it's for lack of anywhere else to sit. If someone came along and said, I want an actual massage, could you get up? Would you get up? I suppose I'd have to defer to the person who wants the massage, but it's like, if there's nowhere else to sit, I sort of get why people are sitting there,

and that's why they're pretending to ignore him. But then it is okay to ask, isn't it? Instead of standing awkwardly by a row of them, because people in airports are deliberately trying to not acknowledge the presence of other people in airports because other people in airports is what makes airports bad. I think you have to say, excuse me

I was hoping to get a massage is it okay but he's the massage chair for 10 minutes I mean you just got me jumping out the chair I wonder whether Eli is a parent because I've got a lot of experience doing this in the form of when a couple of older kids are climbing all over the Thomas the tank engine machine and my younger son wants

a go on Thomas the tank engine like it's the sort of unwritten rule of parenting that the younger children at whom those things are aimed get priority so you get to kick the nine year old off and I've never been questioned. What do you do? March up and go, beat it, kid.

Yeah, basically. And I still think that all the practice of doing that, what I tend to is turn up with the coin in my hand. Like, your presence is stopping me from entering this coin into that slot is the implication of my physicality at that point. And then that just scares them off. So I feel like, although that's children, I feel like with grown-ups,

I'd be able to exude the same natural authority that would translate in this situation. Yeah. If Eli isn't apparent and hasn't had the scary scaring kids off the Thomas the tank engine on ramp by saying to someone you just want the massage and then they can resume the chair maybe that will take some of the awkwardness out of it

but I think I would still not feel that relaxed getting a massage in a chair with someone waiting to sit in it again. That's all so true. I think I know what I would do in the situation it might be a little specific to me I do like to go into a deep squat and I would go into a deep squat right in front of them

and then if they looked at me like they were upset, I'd be like, oh, I'm just checking out the action on this. Looks like it's got a really good suspension. How is it feeling for you until they got creeped out and fucked off? Yeah, they'd get creeped out immediately, yeah. If you're facing them. Straight away. Although even if you're reverse cowgirling it, I think they'd still be pretty scared.

Yeah, that would be weird because I'd like to make eye contact. I didn't realize you were such a creep. How have you not realized that? If you've got a question, email your question, to answer me this podcast. to Googlemail.com Answer me, this podcast at Googlemail.com So retrospectors, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of today in history? On Monday, how Gone with the Wind was a massive blockbuster, even when it was just a book.

On Tuesday, the anniversary of the day the West first met the Walkman. On Wednesday, Cecil the Lion versus the Minnesota dentist, has it really been 10 years? On Thursday, the day David Bowie killed off his most famous alter ego. And on Friday, the boxing match that sparked race riots across the USA. 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 Katie in Texas, who says, I'm hoping you can help with a problem I've struggled with for years.

Fingers crossed. My husband and I live in a smallish city and work in related fields. We often find ourselves in professional meetings together. Helen answered me this. How should I greet my husband in a business meeting? When I'm introducing myself and shaking hands with the meeting attendees, I'm always stumped when I get to him, because if I shake his hand, that seems funny to the people at the meeting that know we're a couple.

If I give him a more familiar greeting or skip shaking his hand, then that seems weird to the people who don't know we're a couple. We don't share a last name, so there isn't an obvious clue for those folks that we are married. She needs to put the wedding photo on the mantelpiece, doesn't she? Just go around with her. Just pop it on her front with her lanyard. Like most other couples, our ordinary greeting is a kiss on the lips, but that seems way out of line for a business meeting.

Also, I am a regulator and my husband is in the private sector. I don't want to give the impression that he gets preferential treatment. Interesting. Yeah. Genuinely, this is multifaceted and awkward, I think. This actually comes up quite a lot for me and Martin, because we do live shows together. so we'll be doing the load in

and like the tech rehearsal and the tech people usually don't know that we're married so things can probably seem a bit personal but also don't want to be like we're married because it's such a cringe thing to say sure so do you think they're gossiping behind your back like oh my god she's such a bitch to him

she was just bossing him around no I think they probably don't give a shit they probably just want to get their jobs done yeah they don't care but that's different to the scenario that Katie's painting but I'm just saying I have encountered some of it, because we also have

different last names. I was thinking instead of a handshake, how about like a little pat on the shoulder, like the front shoulder, patting a part of their body that is not a sexual part, upper chest, is more familiar than a handshake. You wouldn't do it with most colleagues, but it's not inappropriately intimate for a work setting. I'll tell you, actually, the facet that makes this particularly

awkward is the business about some people in the room know and some people don't. That's the thing. Because as you was talking then, I was just spooling through my brain remembering if I've ever been in a situation like this before. And actually, I haven't with my wife, but I have with my mum. I directed a play at Edinburgh Festival in 2006, in which she was a complete NEPO mum and got the part as one of the female leads. She was great, though. Thank you. And I didn't want to undermine her place in the cast, by telling the other actors that, A, I'd cast my mum, or B, make them feel

like they couldn't be honest about me as a director with my mum as an actor. But also I didn't want to hold back that information and be like, oh, this is a secret. So I was just like, I'll treat her like everyone else. I literally just won't mention it. I feel like your mum would blab it within about four seconds. She didn't. Oh, my God.

It helped that the play was a series of interconnected monologues. So most rehearsals until the last week were with them as individuals. They weren't all together in the same room. Were you then thinking, or maybe I will get through the whole month of the Edinburgh Festival without anyone realizing. I'm not sure I've got relevant experience, but I relate to that anxiety. It only worked because nobody knew.

It wouldn't have worked if some people in the room knew and some didn't. I think in that situation, and with your specific mum and the contrast between your personal presentation and your characters, I would be so excited to learn that if I was in that cast

and I hadn't realized I'd be beside myself. Where Katie mentions that she's a regulator and her husband is in the private sector, that feels like more of a complication for HR, the industry? I don't know. Well, no, it's just straightforward conflict of interest stuff, isn't it? If it was someone who wasn't your husband, but you knew because you'd worked together on

previous projects, you wouldn't be worried about that. It's the specific thing that there could be some kind of, you know, family put-up job. You could still be discussing this afterwards. You could have discussed this at home that morning. Therefore, is it really fair? Would it be shit to do like a little bit of fake domestic stuff in front of them, just be like, oh, sorry to bring this into professional lives, but I just wanted to ask you, did you remember to turn the oven off this morning?

Did you remember to take the kids to school? That kind of shit. Yeah, just so it's implied, but it doesn't have to be explicitly said. Yeah, I feel like that would help people catch up very quickly. However awkward it is for the nepotism thing, it's probably the lesser of two evils to just say he's my husband

as you greet you just every time have to do the performative awkward kiss on the cheeks turn to everyone else he's my husband and then get on with it do it with everyone in the room

hello not my husband not my husband yes my husband not my husband there you go let us know how that turns out here is another workplace question from Anonymous

who says if you have to give me a name Can it be Raphael? Okay, Raphael? Done. Raphael says, My wife and I live in the US and run a couple of art galleries

for an artist of some renown. He's being evasive, it must be Banksy. We just opened up our second location a few months ago and while it has entailed long hours, hard work and plenty of stress, all early signs point to it being a success for which we are very grateful. There you are,

husband and wife working together can often be for the good. There you go. One of our regular collectors came to see our new location a couple of weeks ago. He's spent a few thousand dollars with us over the years, and he's a nice guy. We've never been for drinks or dinner with him,

but he is someone with whom I have a friendly professional relationship. I mentioned it had been a lot of hard work getting everything set up, and we were eventually going to be looking for staff to help us out. He texted me a couple of days later, saying he had been thinking about what I'd said, and he'd love to help us out. Oh dear, that's not what you wanted, is it? Hmm. He offered to catch a one-hour flight to our location one weekend a month and stay with friends so he could work the gallery and to help us get some time off.

Okay. I mean, that's generous, sort of. I mean, it is. It is generous. It is generous. While I appreciated his offer, I politely turned him down. I'm only interested in you for the money, I said. I said that my wife and I have to invest a lot of time in training people, and we'd need someone to be able to do more hours for it to be really worth our time. I also said that going from being a customer to a co-worker would be a somewhat tricky dynamic. Yes. All of this is true, but he runs his own business and I get the distinct impression that he thinks our job is easy

when there is actually a lot of work going on behind the scenes too. I think he would be telling us what to do despite our years of experience in this arena and being consummate professionals. Also, weekends, fuck off, mate. That's when I make the most commission. Come to a fucking Tuesday, you bell-end. I think your language betrays your expat status there, Raphael. You're not as anonymous as you think.

Yeah, I haven't heard an American news bell-end. No. But I love that you are. Anyway, Raphael says, he sent me a long email saying that he wasn't going to, quote, let us get away that easily, end quote, kind of forward considering you think you're talking to your potential manager. He said that he was burned out in his current job. Not my fault. and he'd even be up for a career switch.

A complete switch that involves relocating his young family on retail wages. I don't think so. I understand his frustrations. But he's essentially applying for a job that doesn't exist and that he wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance of getting even if it did. So, Olly and Martin the Soundbag, love that that is stuck with some listeners. Answer me this.

How do I tell this collector and his midlife crisis to politely fuck off, while not affecting his love of the art and presumably his expenditure upon the art I'm getting from this. Like if he became a poorly paid staff member he would not be spending several thousand dollars on the art. Indeed. You can't have it all, Raphael. Like if you've groomed this person as a customer

to the extent that they enjoy your company and your whole setup so much they want to come and work for you and then you're going to say, no, I don't want you to do that. Then possibly you are going to ruin that relationship a bit. And so in a sense, it is a commercial decision that you're making here. Like you may have to lose him as a client by broaching the fact a bit more explicitly that you do not want him to help you with this. But, you know, if you think of it in those terms as a commercial decision, then I feel like there is actually an equation you can do here. He is, to be fair, offering you some assistance.

He's offering you some assistance for not very much money. You're being very dismissive, I would say, in this email of his entrepreneurial skills, given that you feel you know more about the subject area that you work in. but maybe he would have something to offer and so it would be worth trying it out for a month and seeing what happened. But if in your head, I think you know the answer really is no. If in your head you think,

no, it's not worth that and I'd rather lose him as a client, then to be honest, you've just got to treat this conversation like you would with any awkward client. The fact that you've had a good relationship in the past, you don't have to be a dick about it, but I think you just have to be like,

well, that's a shame. He's done these things that mean that actually we're not going to be able to carry on the relationship as it was before, but we definitely don't want him hanging around of being weird. So, yeah, however you say it, that's the conclusion, isn't it? What I didn't like in the email was this guy saying that he wasn't going to let us get away that easily. I imagine he meant that to be playful, but because he's asking you for something

that felt very coercive. Yes, yeah, yeah. But maybe he's Billy Big Dick in his world. Yeah, sounds it. Yeah, so that way of talking, it like rubs you up the wrong way, but actually, yeah he thinks it's such a great offer that he's making you to give you part of his time that it wouldn't occur to him that that would be coercive yeah i mean sorry to repeat myself but as with the mLM's question we had before i think you have to be firm and say like that's very generous of you to offer i'm afraid we can't make it work and we're not in a position to hire at the moment if you want to scare him off properly just tell him what the money would be but what this seems to be is like a fantasy of escape for him right like the reality is not

not what he imagines, obviously makes no sense with him financially or practically. So if you are friendly, I know he's irritated you because you feel like he's not respecting what goes into your work. But I wonder if you wouldn't mind having a conversation with him where you essentially play job therapist, just like get him to spill about his current work frustrations. You don't need to offer solutions. Just listen. What a therapist would say is something like, what I'm hearing is and then repeat back a summary of what they said. Is that right? There's more to therapy than that. Helen's just cut through three years of trading right there. I'm just saying that is a technique you can use. Maybe that will make him feel someone is being sympathetic. Maybe it will

help clarify what he does want. You could also just if he can to take some time off so that he defrazzles a bit and get some space to think of next steps. So maybe that would make him think about other things he could do that would be an escape from this situation that he's not enjoying. There aren't this one, which is not a solution, really. It just creates different problems, including for you. You could also say, when I felt this way about work, I found getting therapy really helpful. Implied, take your midlife crisis to a professional. Or you could actually create the opportunity that he really wants, that he's fishing around for, but isn't the reality of what you and your wife have set up working in a gallery. So what he

wants, you reckon, is basically to invest a little bit of his time, maybe money, but then have some fun and some job satisfaction in return. You could, I mean, it's extra work for you, but it could bring in some money. You could create a side hustle, couldn't you, like an art fair, where he gets to talk to members of the public about his enthusiasm for the art. And he gets a commission on whatever he sells, but it's not your business. It's not your main thing. It's an event that you create specially for him to participate in that could end up with him managing to buy and manage some inventory that otherwise you would have to be doing yourself. So wait, that is time-consuming for Raphael. Raphael's not getting commission and essentially setting up a rival business for this guy.

This seems like a terrible solution, Ollie. Well, I'll tell you what it's based on. It's based on what worked for my dad. So one of his customers who bought a vintage Bentley from him, so similar sort of thing, you know, expensive purchase. Yeah, wealthy guy. Rich clientele, exactly clientele that were wealthier than the actual proprietor, he basically, the guy who I'm talking about, wanted to buy the car not because he wanted the asset, because he already had lots of assets because he was a wealthy person. What he really wanted was to buy a social life that went around the car. What he wanted was to have a ticket to turn up to Silverstone effectively every weekend they ran a vintage race and chat to other vintage car enthusiasts. And by buying the car, so my dad made money out of that,

he then did open up that world of other enthusiasts and ultimately ended up actually investing in my dad's business and it worked really well. Like he was a silent partner for 20 years. He did not offer my dad's business advice in particular. The only time as far as I could work out that they had sort of regular conference calls was when they were going to make a big purchase. Like my dad would be like, I need to take a punt on this thing

that's going to cost half a million pounds. Obviously he'd be part of that conversation. But on a daily basis, like, you know, what should we be selling this for? Should we employ this person? and he wasn't involved in any of that. And it worked really well for both of them. Like he did it for a sort of social thing for him

as a business to invest in and they actually ended up being friends. So I have seen this work. But that's with the context of car. Like there is already a community around. What in the art market exactly is equivalent where you can invite him into a community because that's what he really wants

without encroaching on your actual business. The other thing that I suggest, based on my own experience, where I get people asking me to hire them to do what I'm not sure, is just leave it quite a long time to write back to them so that their ardour has cooled

a couple of weeks minimum should do it well I suppose the comparison there between art and what we do is we are doing something that other people do as a hobby and actually making money at it is harder than it looks that's the that's the corollary isn't it and people don't think that work is involved yeah maybe you could just start moaning at him loads

about what hell your job is. Like, oh my God, it's so hard, so hard. And hard in a way that's not to be solved by hiring other people, of course. Just put him off. Also, weirdly, it strikes me that the sort of instinct that you might have of like, well, the job to give this guy

is cleaning the broom cupboard. That'll sort him out. Would be wrong. Because it sounds like he'd probably enjoy that. He probably wants a break from the executive world that he's part of. But I think actually, like, if you made him your bookkeeper for a week,

then he'd run a mile. Do you know what to be? Like, if you actually had to be involved in the under the hood, of the kind of job he does, but at a much lower level, completely separated from the art, then he might think, actually, this isn't so different and it's worse. I don't know. In the American market particularly, you might get people who are like, sure, this is shit now, but I can use this to work my way up to the top rather than, oh,

this is terminally shit. I think maybe better to misdirect him into aspiring to other careers, like wind surfing instructor. There's wind surfing instructors listening to this being like, it's a profession. I know. We haven't got time for these people just thinking. it's a summer job. But that would make it someone else's problem. In the 90s, I hired a 12-person web team to build and run my websites and I realize my tech dream.

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

Just like Terminator 3 Yeah Thank you to Squarespace For sponsoring this episode of Answer Me This Legends upon this earth They are It sounds sardonic but the emotions are true That's so true

Absolutely yeah I'm British Can't make it not sound sardonic But I've got a Squarespace website myself Ollyman.com Me too Theillusionist.org I've laid out mine with graphics tiles and you know replacing one of those tiles like a real tile in a bathroom imagine how difficult

that would be like there's grouting involved you want a professional terrible with square space changing a tile is so easy you just double click the gallery icon you upload a new image and a URL for it to link to i use it basically like one of those social media biog landing pages but it looks so much more professional it is so easy to use oh if only all bathroom refurbs were so easy Right. Changing the tiles means if I want to, I can just pivot my career in seconds. I could become a bicyclist. Really? Anything. Doesn't matter. I think there'd be other work involved. But the website could look immediately toward a France level. That's what I'm saying. Go to squarespace.com slash answer. Have a play around during the two-week free trial and

when you're ready to launch. Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using our code answer. Here's a question from Charlie from Leeds, who says, simply, Helen, answer me this. What the fuck was up with Dili Boppers? Now, was this like I Love 1980 TV clip show? What was done about? I actually didn't know what a Dili Bopper was.

Helen has explained to me off, Mike. Dili Boppers are those headbands that have like two antennae, sort of springy antennae with things on top like maybe a little furry gongs or little mirror balls or like a cartoon character on each one. Yes. Did you know what they were but didn't know the name? I'm distantly aware of headwear shaped like that, but not really as a trend. What Charlie says is, I recall wearing them to parties as a child in the late 90s and early noughties.

But how long had they been around for? Were they just a fad? Why did they disappear? I'd forgotten all about them till just now. 4 a.m., exclamation mark, exclamation mark, and I can't stop thinking about them help. Oh my God, this is such an evocative email. Thank you, Charlie. I love it. Where do you want me to start? In 1981, when the Dili Bopper was in. invented by Stephen Askin. I mean, James Earl Jones doesn't ask where you want him to start. He just evocatively takes you back to the very beginning of the story

and delivers with Gravitas, Helen. The year, 1981. The man, Stephen Askin, a marketer of novelties like giant foam cowboy hats and, at the height of the Iranian Revolution, a dartboard featuring a picture of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Sounds like my kind of guy. I like a novelty purchase. Inspiration struck one.

One day, as he watched the Killer Bees sketches on SNL, where cast members will be costumes with bouncy antennae on their heads. Right, I see. So actually, it's the props department of NBC, really, that created Dili Boppers. He thought, I could market this shit and put different things on the antennae. And he tried them out at various gift shows and fairs in L.A. in 1981. First time out, he sold 800 of these at $5 each, and they were so successful that he took them to the Ace Novelty Company, which began selling them in the US in April

1982, and they sold like tens of thousands straight away. And people were even wearing several pairs at once. It's interesting that something that started with John Belushi so quickly skipped into children's wear. Do you know what I mean? Because he was quite edgy, really. Yeah. Well, I suppose you wouldn't necessarily look at a dolybopper and think John Belushi because there's a couple of steps in between. The thing is, it was a very big fad and then very very quickly imitators sprang up, and so they hadn't patented these things. And then the fad just stopped. They do still exist. It's just you only wear them at places where you'd expect

someone to wear novelty headgear, such as a Halloween party. The only times I can remember wearing them is at Christmas parties or a stag do I wore some with little penises on. We didn't have those at my stagdue, but at my wife's kind of sort of Quasi Hendo, my grandmother at the age of 92, did drink through a cock straw, and that's one of my most treasured photographs of her. Oh, good for you, Terry. I didn't know, until today, thanks to Charlie, that these things are actually called Deely Bobbers. Oh, that makes much more sense. It does make more sense. Why? Because they bob. Because they bob up and down. They bob up and down, yes, but also people bop at dance things, and you're dancing in them.

But it's not the Dealey that bobs. It's the person. Yes. It gives you the opportunity to do different things in them other than bop. Right, yeah. You could just walk and they'd still bob. The name was originally a patent for some building blocks sold by Parker Brothers, manufactured from 1969 to 1973. So I suppose once Ace Novelties got hold of it, they were like, well, those bricks are long in the rearview mirror.

In the UK, there were definitely Dili Boppers already in 1982 because I saw the sun reporting on this craze under the headline, Bons Bounces and then talking about them called Bons Boppers, I thought, are they doing this to launch their own to get around the trademark of the name? Because Ace Novelties are trademarked Deely Bobbers. Forehead flappers. It was on the front page of the sun. Not front page, it was page nine. With Linda Loussardie wearing a pair. It's just an excuse to run a photo of Linda Lusardy wearing party hat. Well, here's another question of fancy things you put on your head. It's from Madeline in Ely, Cambridgeshire, who says, Helen, answer me this. When and where,

were tiaras usually worn? Are they ever worn these days other than as part of children's dresser? We're all wearing one right now. That would be. Aren't you, Madeline? I mean, I think it would improve the recording by 5% if we were all wearing tiaras.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've really seen one in the wild apart from little girls pretending to be Anna and Elsa. New Year's Eve? Yeah. With the Happy New Year. Yeah.

Is that a tiara? I guess it's a type of tiara. It's tiara adjacent. Yeah. Pagents, some brides and bridesmaids. According to Tatler, tiaras are only supposed to be worn by brides on their wedding day or by married women. This is because of the tiara's roots in classical antiquity. It was seen as the emblem of the loss of innocence to the crowning of love.

I mean, a ring is easier, isn't it? I think peak tiara was white tie events for very rich people in the late 1800s until World War I. And then after that, there was a bit of a resurgence in between the wars, but such ostentatious signs of wealth were not seeming quite as tactful by that point, but also women's hairstyles were shorter and cleaner. So tiaras didn't have enough hair dirt to grip onto. And you know, like when you see historical photos of women from the late 19th, early 20th century, there's an amazing kind of nest of hair

and you can plonk a tiara on top of it. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's also the fact that those people were getting dressed, weren't they? As in like they had a dresser. I mean, that must have made a difference. It's like putting a tiara on yourself so that it's perfectly balanced and perfectly in the centre of your head is probably harder than having your maid do it for you.

I think it is pretty hard because also they're really heavy being made of jewels. And they often had like ribbons to attach them and stuff, but it was still like they could start slipping down onto your face or off the back of your head. They were also very big in 19th century Russia, in both senses, like height and popularity, but not going to seem cool once the revolution comes. So 20th century, not such a tiara-ish time, except.

for like grunge era. I remember like Courtney love wearing them in the 90s. But that's not the style in which Kate Middleton wears them now. I was thinking about that thing the late queen used to say, isn't it? Being seen to be believed. I suppose for famous princesses, it helps you to be seen. Like it draws the attention of the eyes of the public to a big sparkly thing on your head, like a crown, but not a crown.

Yeah. In that context. Well, also, I think the difference between tiaras and crowns, which is very important to make in this day and age for everyone, right? You don't have to be a royal to wear a tiara. but you do basically have to be a royal to wear a crown. Yes. They are one of the two women's accessories

that I enjoy putting on when I'm at a wedding after party. You know, that kind of like 1am, everyone's like unloosened the top button of their shirt and take the cumber band off type time. If there's a tiara lying around on a bar, I will wear the tiara or I'll wear the fascinator either. Tiara's evolved from pangender glorifying headgear. You know, like metal or bejurial.

dueled bands. That's like from the ancient world, right, conferring status. I was reading an interview recently with Lil Nas X, talking about how he loves to wear like flower crowns and tiaras and stuff that he gets from Party City. And he had one that says, mum, to be on it. But then he had to get some other ones because people just kept being like, are you going to be a mother? He was like, no, I just like the look of wearing this thing. He was like, now I have to get other people to buy them for me, because I can't just go and browse for, like, plastic crowns in Party City anymore. Well, here's another question of shit that the royals wear from Imogen, who says, I've been watching trooping the colour.

Ollie, answer me this. Why do King Charles's gloves look so grubby compared to everyone else's pristine white ones? I've noticed them on other occasions. It looks like he couldn't find his best ones, so he just grabbed a manky old pair from the washing basket on his way out of the palace. maybe he stopped to do some gardening and he was like oh dear I can't hold people up

not everything is just about being shiny you know otherwise you'd be like why is he in that shitty barouche carriage why isn't he in a Ferrari I mean there is a reason for almost everything in royal ceremonies see he got gloves made out of ancestral leather from 400 years ago

oh really I'm sure I'm sure that almost certainly I mean I have tried to look by the way and this detail has not surfaced in an article just speculation on Reddit and Mumsnet That was a commonly observed thing It's commonly observed that he had slightly dirty gloves this year

Almost certainly I would say the reason will be There is historical provenance to them Because for example there are other many other articles About other gloves that King Josh has worn For example, it is coronation that was quite a big deal Like which Savile Row suit maker got to design his gloves Or is he going to use the gloves that Queen Victoria wore And all this kind of thing

Obviously coronation is slightly more important than trooping the colour But still big stately event Thought will have gone into it But I do think possibly the dirt on the gloves, like the gloves looking a bit below par, that is an accident. And I think that does come from the fact that he's the king. So I think they will be old gloves and they will be gloves with provenance and there'll be a reason why he's wearing those gloves.

But you're not supposed to notice they're dirty. And I do think that actually is basically due to the fact that trooping the colour is all about being ceremonial to him, right? It's his birthday parade. Everyone else has to be perfectly turned out. All the troops get dusted down for it. But actually, like, who's telling the king? Like, I can see a spot on your gloves.

No one's having that conversation. They're just dealing with the big stuff. But then I think the queen would have had someone checking that everything looked perfect. The queen was always very well turned out. Charles, I know that he's ascended to the job at retirement age, basically, and he's also had cancer. You know, a lot has been going on for him, but his suits are not great. Little rumpled, not sharp like the queen's garb was. Well, you say that, Helen.

He's frequently named, I can't remember if it's GQ or Esquire, but best-dressed man of the year or is in those top tens. It's fucking propaganda. His suits, they look cheaper than they almost certainly are. What else are he wearing it trooping the colour, though? Is it like the ceremonial military wear with all the gold robes? Yeah. And actually, in 2024, he was criticised for wearing the wrong ceremonial military wear.

Apparently he was wearing the sash of a general officer rather than the appropriate colonel sash for the regiment. An upgrade or a downgrade that he gave himself. The palace said afterwards, oh, well, he was wearing the sash that is appropriate for the military regime that he wanted to pay tribute to, and that means something to him. But, I mean, that's not how it's supposed to work. Like, he is supposed to be wearing the sash that's on parade that day. I do think that if you are picking up on the wrong sash that the king is wearing at trooping the colour, you're missing the true problems in this whole scenario. Go on. I'll let you outline them briefly.

Well, king? The monarchy is corrupt and should not exist Monarchy, fancy military shit I'll leave it there I think even if you support the monarchy though you can say that actually trooping the colour there's a lot of rationale behind everything that you're seeing What's it for? I truly have never given a shit

So it's his birthday but it's not his birthday He like the original king who had the first trooping the colour George III was born in November So they were like Let's not have your birthday party then everyone's going to get wet Let's do it in June. And since 1760, for that reason, they've been having the King or Queen's birthday party in June,

regardless of when their actual birthday was. Even though the Queen was in late April. Yeah, but by that point, they've been doing it for 200 years in June. And the original purpose was actually, I mean, it's interesting. The original purpose was to teach the soldiers to recognise the different flags. Trooping the colour means like these are all the different regiments, right, that you might see out in the field.

And then the kind of parading it before the king thing was, obviously another bit of military paraphernalia to show that you're fighting for God and country and stuff but actually it was just like England good France bad not everyone there was that educated so it's like an elaborate pub quiz where they're like which country's flag is this

yeah but just like again in a world before imagery beyond you know what you'd see in a church or a gallery it was a way of making sure everyone had seen the full regalia of the army that they were supposed to be fighting for nowadays its main purpose is to give Giles Brandreth commentary gig. Wow, that's a lot of money to spend on

Charles Brandreth. A PowerPoint is available. But it is, I think, a great vibe. If you like that sort of thing, I mean, my son sat and watched it this year, and it was interesting. I was watching it with him and trying to explain it all to him. I suppose it's literally still that, isn't it? It was an explainer to the soldiers in the 18th century.

It's still sort of an explainer now, because it comes with all these weird questions. Why is he wearing that? Why is he doing that? And then you sort of, you inevitably start explaining the royal family whilst you're watching it, which is, you know, what the royal family want you to do. Well, they've been doing this for 400 years and, well, he's the head of the army, but, you know, that's the point of it. Although it's strange that it's believed by anyone still that that's the best birthday

present you can give the king. And like you say, he's been in the public eye his whole life, he's got cancer. Clearly the best present for him would be to be left the fuck alone. Let him go and play Twister with Camilla. Just stick him one of those massage chairs and leave, give him 10 minutes a piece of quiet. Exactly. Take his gloves to Timpsons for him. and bring them to him and leave him the fuck alone. Speaking of gifts,

we would like to give one to Rupert who says, I'm so glad you're back. Could you play the jingle that begins if you don't really know what a question is, then you're probably in the wrong place. Ah, the Godcast jingle, as we call it in the trade. By Gavin Osborne.

Yes. Rupert says, it's my favourite and I sing it to myself at least once a week. Much obliged. Oh, that's not. How could we resist such a request? If you don't even know what a question is, then you're probably at the wrong place.

Because religion's on godcasts, dogs are on dogcasts, fish are on rodcasts, but we don't do fish, because on this podcast you answer me this. Okay. Here's a question from Anonymous who says, Olly answer me this. What do private investigators actually do in the UK? If someone hired them to dig into a sprawling story with serious allegations

and they did find something, what happens then? Are they obligated to go to the police? Or like in the movies, could their findings be quietly swept under the rug by whoever's footing the bill? Well, their evidence can be presented to the police. to help get somebody convicted or indeed to a defence team to get somebody exonerated,

but evidence that's been procured by a private investigator in the UK can only be using a court if it wasn't obtained illegally. Yes, fruit of the poison tree that's called when evidence is inadmissible because of how it was got. Right.

Although there is that classic thing of like if you're actually in a court scenario and the jury are made aware that evidence exists even if then it's not like officially submitted that's that thing if they can't unhear it. I do wonder sometimes whether there's a bit of a grey area there.

But in general terms, the PI who's obtained the evidence would have to stand there in court to defend how they'd got it legally. And so therefore, a lot of reputable PIs are never going to, in the first place, do stuff that's illegal because they might have to go to court and stand up and be questioned about his accuracy and how it was obtained and risk a prison sentence themselves if they've done something illegal. Well, also, if they've done something illegal,

they can lose their licences. So in reality, it's often sort of background research, and then someone else has to go and duplicate the research or whatever in ways that they can absolutely be sure it's not going to be torn apart in court. Although, of course, there are lots of things you can do legally, like searching record. I mean, being a PI sounds sexy and exciting,

and you all think about the 1930s kind of version of it through the films, but it's often just like knowing how to use Facebook URLs so that you can check whether people's friends of friends have said this or that, and it's all on the public record if you know where to look, but it's just doing the training so that you know how to do that kind of investigation. and that's why a lot of them are X-Coppers. They know exactly where the line is and they know what the techniques are.

Well, also, they do have access to some information that other people don't. Like, PIs are allowed to run number plates and things. They can't look into people's financial records, but I think a lot of jobs that PIs do is financial work like checking on insurance fraud type stuff, chasing up tax payments, doing bailiff work, and then finding people.

Yeah, and how they go about collecting that information might be dressing up as a homeless person and camping in a doorway to fool everybody in the building to see who lets you in. Or it might be dressing up as a businessman to get just close enough to the target that you can rip the contents of their phone. But that's 10 seconds of the day. The rest of the day is sitting in that doorway all day on the cold hot floor waiting for a thing to happen. It's actually just really boring. And the gig is just like being the guy or the lady who will drive hundreds of miles to track somebody or who will sit outside a hotel for a week.

And in that sense, it's a bit like being an investigative journalist. It's a bit like being a police officer. There's a lot of waiting around. As one of the foremost experts on the TV show, Veronica Mars, that's about daughter-daddy private investigators. And some of the work as depicted in that is obviously very unrealistic. Like, they break the law so many times per episode. They use bugs and things, which is not legal.

But a lot of the time, it is just like sitting outside a place for hours during the night waiting to see someone to come in or out and getting a picture of them doing that. Because they're also not allowed, I think, to take pictures through windows and doors. Like if you're trying to prove an infidelity or something. Yeah, I was reading an interview with French private investigator in The Guardian who was saying that she's obsessed with all of the gadgets that you can get, like the stuff I used to look at in the spy store near selfridges when I was a kid, the pen recorders and the button cameras. We live pretty near a spy store now.

Do you? Yeah, it's just got a sign that says in huge letters. the spy store, so it's not trying to be subtle. Not that subtle, yeah. No. But she was saying that as a result of using that stuff, I'm sure in entirely legal settings, she is now paranoid.

So she was saying when she travels, she sweeps her hotel room or Airbnbs for surveillance devices left by voyeurs, because there are more of them than you think there are? I have heard that. Sheesh. You hear about the odd person getting arrested for it. Not to the extent that I'd think I'm going to have

a quick sweep around. What would I do if I found something? Like, ugh. But the important thing is to have a specialism, Bitcoin transactions, or forensic genealogy, or there was even I read an expert on animal nose prints. If you've got your thing, then you're more likely to be able to get the work, because lots of people set themselves up as a private investigator is an unregulated industry. You've also got to have some discretion about who's hiring you and why. I think a lot of them end up doing corporate stuff because the paper trail is a bit more kosher, right? There's NDAs and there's lawyers and they can say, well, this is clearly what I was brief to do and it was all for a company, not an individual. There's also going to be

more of that kind of work, I think, than individuals. You also now in the UK could be at threat of the National Security Act, which came into force a year ago. Oh, yeah. Which means you can now face 14 years in jail if you're working inadvertently even for a hostile state, like China or Russia or Iran. Because what was happening was Iran, there have been examples of paying PIs to stalk dissidents or journalists. So, Iranians that now live in the UK, who publish nasty things on their blogs about their country, and they're asking PIs to tell them where they live so that they can then use that information, probably just to intimidate them or blackmail them, but obviously potentially murder them. And PIs were being employed to do that work and just saying they didn't understand who it was for.

They were just given a job, not my fault mate. And now there's actually a law that says, no, you cannot work for a hostile state. Does that count if it's coming through an intermediary so you generally didn't know? It's not good enough, yeah, you need to know. Yeah, right, you're still on the hook. Yeah. That's due diligence, that's impossible to do though, isn't it?

Yeah, but if you're a private investigator, you've probably got a better bet of doing it the most people. I mean, I guess so, but then you've got to do the work of, like, you've got to do two jobs then. I guess, but you couldn't really argue in court. Look, I just had no way of knowing who this person was. Anyway, listeners, we would love to have your questions for future episodes. Send them via voice note attached to an email or write an email. But please don't get chat GPT to write your email because we don't like that. And we can tell because they've got those long dashes.

Yeah. You were on it right away the other day, Ollie, when we're going through our inbox. I was like, this feels weird. It's got an uncanny feel to it. Oh, and it's got the long dashes. I know what's going on here. Yeah, you clocked it right away. But send us your human wrought questions to the contact details that are on our website.

Answer me thispodcast.com. And also on there, all of our other episodes from the last 1,000 years. If you are looking for our first 200 episodes, you can buy them at AnswerMe This Store.com, along with our special albums. Also, we are doing another edition of Petty Problems, our live video streaming series, especially for our paid for members, on the 23rd of August at 10pm. now that is bank holiday weekend here in the UK so you can remember you know when it's Reading Festival time when it's the Notting Hill Carnival time don't do that watch the Answer Me This live stream instead

all you need to do is join us at patreon.com slash answer me this for an hour of live streamed entertainment. It was great time last time because also lovely for answering this listeners to get to interact with each other in the sidebar chat while we were talking and to give us feedback straight away about the problems of theirs that we were talking talking about. You can actually watch that if you missed it. Again, if you join our Patreon,

patreon. patreon.com slash answer me this and then just click on collections. There's a collection called Petty Problems. It's only got one video in there now, but all our future episodes of that will go in there and you can watch them at leisure. If you have a petty problem, something unsurious, something trivial, can be still very annoying. Send it to us in an email entitled Petty Problems. If you are patronising us at patreon.com slash answer me this, you can message us there to If you want. If you'd like to listen to other stuff that we've made, it's all over the internet. Mine is at Ollyman.com.

I wanted to tell you actually this month about a guest slot that I've done, because we love to guest on other people's shows. Absolutely. If you head to Ollyman.com and click guest appearances on my website, then you'll see that I've been on my mate, bought a toaster with Tom Price. I've done my teenage diary with Rufus Hounds, scummy mummies, many more. This month, and answer me, this fan actually reached out to me. He's called Darren Hill.

he does a show called the Story Pilgrim where he walks around different cities around the world and he asked me, would I like to go for a walk with him and where would be significant to walk around for me? So of course, I took him to Letchworth Garden City for the day. Oh, had he been there already? He hadn't been there, no. He's been to places like Singapore and Riyadh.

Because I essentially did a version of welcome to the places of my life with Alan Partridge. We went to the Broadway cinema, we went to the world's first roundabout and many more places of interest. But as we walked around Letchworth, we talked about my childhood and my career, including meeting you both at university. But if you're interested in me as a guest, talking about my life for an hour, then you will probably enjoy that interview.

You can find it by going to ollieman.com and clicking guest appearances. Fun. Helen, you've been on Radio 4. Yes, Martin and I. And therefore, I'm sure, on BBC sounds, am I wrong? Oh, God, I don't know, because they've changed how you can access BBC stuff outside of the UK. Right, okay. Maybe. But Martin and I made a very beautiful one-off piece called Souvenirs, which is the story of a friendship torn asunder by typefaces and some very petty shit happening as a result.

And my mum called me at 1.45 in the morning her time to tell me how much she enjoyed it, which I thought was an incredible accolade because my family doesn't really dole out compliments. Yeah, I feel like in most cases it's saying my mum liked it or my mum was at the gig is like a bit of a burn. Yeah, that's the low-hanging fruit. But in this case... In Helen's case, 45 years it took for that. It's the first time she's got more attention than the dog. Well, the dog's dead. The dog's been dead since 2013.

That's the first time we've had more attention. Thanks. That's available on the BBC website to listen to, depending on where you are in the world. British people just type souvenirs into BBC sounds. Yeah, but it's not John Finnamor's souvenir program. Okay, fine. And I'll also link to it at the illusionist.org. And on there as well, I've had this four-letter word season going for the last few weeks.

And the most recent word is Dino, as a... in Dinosaur and Hannah McGregor from Material Girls podcast and long term answer me this listener was on it because she's written a book about Jurassic Park so it's very entertaining Martin what have you been up to oh tons lots of exciting things yeah I mean maybe just keep it pertinent to things that people can find on the internet with your voice in if that's okay listen to souvenirs I would say Martin sings some beautiful refrains in it about the spice girls and yeah if you want to find other music that I've done you can go to palebird bandcamp.com that's pale bird like a kind of like a goose oh we got such a nice email from

and answer me this listener saying how much they love, one of your old songs, 10,000 letters of love. 10,000 letters of love. I'm going to release in the album, hopefully this year, but that's not ready yet. So until then you've got the old shit. You can also hang out with me and Martin. In real life, there's an illusionist meetup in August. Oh, is that? Yes, we're going to the beach. Are we? And usually there's some answer me this listeners at illusionist events. Anyway, I can't remember what the date is, but it's theelusionist.org and it's in Vancouver, BC. And wherever you are in the world for free

You can listen to the next episode of Answer Me This That'll be out in the last Thursday of August We'll see you then Unless of course you pay us money at patreon.com slash answer me this And we'll see you for petty problems on the 23rd of August Bye