Answer Me This! - AMT410: Unwanted Tattoos, Cherry Wine and Sexy Old Men

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

In a piggyback ride, who is the piggy? WHO IS THE PIGGY??? A questioneer simply must know! We also learn about cleaning swimming pools pre-chlorine, fruit wine in song lyrics, TV character crossovers, and telling fibs in a wedding speech. For more information about this episode visit answermethispodcast.com/episode410. Got questions for us to answer? Send them in writing or as a voice note to [e-mail], OR - thanks to Adam of SocialComms.uk who has revived our phone number - you can call 0208 123 5877. Next episode will be in your podfeed 30 October 2025 so get your Halloween questions in, or hang onto them for a full year. 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 each month, 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are there any crimes left without their own show on Netflix? Is that the Blair Witch or just a bunch of wet sticks? Ollie, our previous episode caused quite a tizzy for Charlotte, who writes to say, I was shocked to hear Ollie say that Kenneth Branner isn't anybody's fantasy when he was, in fact, my sexual awakening. Goodness. We watched the 1996 Hamlet in my GCSE English lit class. Oh, okay.

It wasn't his Poirot then. It wasn't his, what else he'd done? Volander? Dead again. Peter's friends. Everyone wanted to fuck him in Peter's friends. Charlotte says, I was absolutely taken by Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet's intensity

and his tiny triangular beard. So much so that it prompted me to write a list of I quote, sexy old men that I still have today. Apparently, this is who my 16-year-old self was into in 2011. And she's an attached an image of the notebook that she wrote in 2011. Yep, Sunday 22nd of January. Yes, yeah. What I love about it is, and we'll put it on the website as well,

answer me this podcast.com. So you can read along, if you like, is that it's got the names of the gentleman on the left, David's Hewless, Alan Rickman, Kenneth Branagh, Vigo Mortensen. But on the right, the years of their birth. She actually done the calculations. She's probably got a different list for sexy young men and sexy neither old nor young men.

Ewan McGregor, 1971. So in 2011, he was 40. I don't think he'd have appreciated being on this list with actually old people. Darren Brown's on the list, also 1971. Jason Isaac's, 1963. And as of season three of White Lotus, he's probably a lot of people's sexy man.

Some of the people on this list are basically from Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. She's got a type. That would explain the inclusion of David Wenham, an otherwise rogue choice, Faramir, from Lord of the Rings. Sexy Wizards would have covered it, honestly. I guess it's interesting, isn't it, bearing in mind that Charlotte's A had a thing of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and B, for old men, that neither Ian McKellon nor Michael Gambon are on this list. So she still has a cutoff, doesn't she?

Maybe that's what the year of birth is about. Maybe anything that has a three in it, she's like, well. Well, also, she's writing this list in 2011, but she's talking about Kenneth Branagh in a film from 15 years earlier than that. So she's got their entire age span to choose from. Yeah, yeah. You know, so it's quite a pragmatic choice in a way. Yeah, but it's sort of, but it's kind of like saying, oh, I'd choose Clint Eastwood,

well, you know, from Dirty Harry or Clint Eastwood from... Talking to a chair viral video. I also wonder whether because Kenneth Branagh is playing Hamlet, the titular role his appearance unfilled your loins Charlotte because he was Hamlet I think if he was Rosencrantz you wouldn't have looked twice at him

I'm pleased that the triangular beard did it for you though with Branagh because if you are going to be a Brenaniac you have to acknowledge I'd go as far to say of all middle age British actors he's the one who shows an incredible willingness to experiment with odd facial hair across his career

it's always shit though isn't it It's always just completely unconvincing, yeah. It's always like over the top, over quaffords. Well, it depends whether he's being serious Kenneth Branagh like in Hamlet or whether he's doing the, you know, I'm in a kid's film now so I'm going to do this stupid Russian accent and my facial hair is going to match. That's the other mode, isn't it, that he does?

Is it because like everyone in the 90s spent all their time talking about how thin his lips were? And he was like, I don't want people talking about my tiny lips. I'm going to cover it with facial hair. Then everyone will be focused on that instead. A compellingly simple question now from Nick from Lester, who says, Helen answer me this, in a piggyback scenario, who is the piggy? Hmm.

Prepare for disappointment. Neither. Oh, sorry. Not disappointment. I'm so titillated. Oh, no, it's one of those rubbish things, Ollie, where it's like, well, people say piggyback, but that's just a corruption of the etymology, which could have been pickpac or pick a back, which meant carrying a burden on your back.

Is it something racist from colonial Africa? No, no, it's not. It's not. But the origin of the words do not include pigs. If you do want an etymology that surprisingly is about pigs. Sure. You've got a bunch of options. Porpoise, which means pig fish, which is inaccurate because it's not a pig or a fish.

Yeah. Socket, which meant spearhead, but came from the ancient term for a pig snout. Okay. And porcelain. Yes, that sounds porky, so that doesn't surprise me. Yeah. Like smooth like a pig's what? No, but it was smooth like a cowrie shell and sort of translucent.

And a cowrie shell's name in Italian was from the Italian word for a young pig, Porcellus. Yes, yes. And some people are like, well, maybe that was because the shell looks like the outer genitals of a pig. And I was like, who's what? See, we're not in the 21st century living in urban areas or even suburb, ones as familiar with the outer genitals of a pig but I feel like that would be a reference back then that the common person

could relate to. It's something you'd see every day like oh yeah like a pig's crotum so I don't think that is weird or a pig's vulva like I feel something based around a cat's bottom is something that I would relate to very easily because I see my cat's assholes all the time so I just feel like if you kept

pigs if people kept pigs if pigs were around it's kind of piggy place it wouldn't be such a weird thing to compare okay you've convinced me I had assumed before you rubbish the whole thing. Rubbish? I'm just bringing the truth. It's not my fault. Okay. Before you informed me with your truths, my misinformation-addled brain had imagined that the piggy would be the bottom

because I've seen in real life a pig give a joyride to a monkey. What? Where did you see that? Just like going down Borehamwood High Street? Whipsnade Zoo So actually not too far really Dunstable They keep wild hogs and a type of monkey They've got loads of types of monkeys there Like almost too many

Like you get excited to go into the monkeys And you're like oh another one And then there's one type of monkey That they keep in a cage Doesn't really get to roam around But it's in a caged area With some wild hogs I always find it interesting anyway

Like the animals that get on with each other socially When you think Well how did that like where did they meet And I don't know if this is a zoo conditions thing Perhaps someone out there can tell me or whether this happens in the wild. But what was really interesting about this was the monkeys at Whipsonade Zoo

in this particular cage had got used to the idea that if they waited on a particular branch for a pig to like reverse back into a slot, they could jump down onto the pig and the pig would give them a ride to their next destination

and they were riding the pigs an actual piggyback. So I was like, that must be the answer. That must be where it comes from like a horseback. That's a delightful scene because it is not advised

for humans to ride pigs because anatomically very damaging to a pig. But probably a monkey, if small, be okay. But what about a child? Still, like, they're relatively heavy for a pig's back and a pig's legs can't bear all that much extra weight. What about a small person pretending to be Tom Thumb in a turn of a century freak show?

Could he ride a pig? He did, whether he should have or not. I was once in an absolutely atrocious stage production of Tom Thumb and no one rode a pig, but I would have loved to have ridden a pig straight out of there, never to return. Now, who wrote Tom Thumb as performed by young Helen Zaltzman?

Oh, God, it was Henry Fielding, but he'd written several versions, and the director had cobbled them together into one version that did not make sense and was not entertaining. I can't remember if I've told this story before, but the real Nadir of performing this play at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2001.

Shout out to everyone who came to see it, all three of you. Yeah, all nine people enduring that misery. Luckily, it was not popular. You're kidding me. Tom Fum, household name! Towards the end of the first act, my character is lying asleep on a sofa or passed out drunk or whatever. And there was another character on stage played by someone called David.

And as I was lying on the sofa, I heard David break character and say to the audience, you're supposed to laugh at the funny bits and then left the stage with just me on it. Oh, good Lord. Horrifying. But you stayed in character. I did. I'm a professional. I was a student actor, an amateur. What? Did you discuss it with him afterwards? The five cast members were all sharing this one bedroom flat in Edinburgh, which had like carpets nailed over the windows.

The walls were like this streaky red, like there'd been a masquer in there and someone had tried to make it look like Linda Barker's paint effects. So I think we all just didn't talk to David after that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was unfair to blame the audience for not laughing. Yes. Because it was a real feat to find something to laugh at. Yeah. I mean, I've only ever once seen that done.

It wasn't in a play. It was a stand-up comedian who is a well-regarded stand-up comedian. Like if I said his name, you'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, he's really good. Tell me his name and I'll cut it out. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And I went to see him because everyone said, oh, he's really funny, he's really interesting, he's really unusual, you'll like him. And it was at Edinburgh. It was fine.

The show was fine. It was lightly humorous and a bit weird. so it wasn't laugh out loud funny really and then about half an hour into it he just like completely like because he was a character comedian dropped character completely like slumped his shoulders and just looked out into the audience and said

this isn't really working is it I mean this just isn't working I feel like I don't know why yesterday people were laughing at this bit but it isn't really working and honestly what's interesting is people always say don't they to comedians oh it must be really embarrassing when you die but it's much more embarrassing for the audience like for us

watching that's like the comedians already made the choice to expose themselves and then can forget about it but for me and the I still remember how awkward that was because like suddenly he's inviting interactivity about how it's not working when it was and what can you say apart from trying to reassure him but then then all the pretence has gone like he's lost it that's the thing you cannot bring a gig back after telling the audience it's not working and I've seen comedians shoot down some perfectly okay gigs or salvageable gigs and then they become awkward to hostile. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because everyone wants it to be over but can't say. You just get that vibe. Yeah, and terrible to say, but one of the comedians I saw deal with it best was Russell Brand. Oh, really? How so? Yeah. This many years ago. So it was when he was like somewhat TV famous for presenting Big Brother's Big Mouth, but not yet super tabloid famous because he hadn't yet had sex with Kate Moss that made him a tabloid figure.

And my brother used to do this political stand-up night called Political Annal. and comedians would come and do political material. And there was one comedian on who had a decent career doing clubs around the country. And halfway through his set, he left because he was like, sorry, the audience is too small, I can't do it. It was like 15, 20 people. So he said those words on stage? The audience is too small.

I can't do it. And walked out during his set. So fucking rude. Yeah. You're there. I mean, think it. And walk out at the beginning. Don't start the act and tell the audience.

They're too small. What are they supposed to do it? That was avoidable pain. Yeah, that's an unforced hero. But it's just like so unprofessional. So then Russell Brand is next on and he's like, this is a pretty good crowd for me. Definitely couldn't have been true. Yeah. If you get everyone on side, straight away. Yeah. And then he did a very good set of political stand-up, because it was before he went messianic and truly terrible. Anyway, we got onto this because of talking about pig, right? If you want there to be a pig in this scenario, it'd be more polite of the human to give the pig a piggyback? Yes. I think a

human could give a small pig a piggyback ride. I don't know. I'd be worried about splitting their legs. Maybe you could get a special harness. Oh, pig harness? Yeah, sure. Like a baby Bjorn for a pig. Yes. That would be fine. Yeah. Good. Great. What a journey.

Solved. Next. Here's a question from Grace from Portland, Oregon, who says, I got married last weekend. Congratulations. And my sister has made of honour gave a speech during dinner. It was full of the usual sisterly loved niceties.

Oh, I love you so much. Blah, blah, blah. But... Boring. But... But... Yeah. There was one bit that caused me

to really pause. She told a story about how early in our relationship my now husband was such a good sport to go cross-country skiing with me about how he fell down lots

but kept getting back up proving both his love and resilience. The thing is, he is an excellent skier and always has been. He is a lifelong skier and was even on the ski team in high school. It's actually me who can't ski, who falls down a lot, but strapped on those skis to prove my dedication to him. The truth gets funnier, though.

I'm Norwegian, aka born with skis on my feet. actually I am 37 and taking lessons I'm puzzled as to where her backward story came from So Ollie answered me this What is the protocol for correcting the record from an inaccurate wedding speech Do I tell her the truth and risk embarrassing her Or allow her to hold the incorrect version in her memory forever Add subtitles to the wedding video seems to be the best way to do it

Are you going to send out a list of corrections to all the guests because I would. Well, there's a lot going on here. Just to directly answer the question, though, actually, Russell Brand comes up in this as well, who'd have thought? Oh, no. Recently, I met up with someone

who I hadn't seen for 20 years, and the last time we saw each other was when we were working with Russell Brand for the day. Oh, I remember that job for you, yeah. Yeah. Both of us had the experience of it being an exciting and glamorous opportunity, and also the worst day of our professional lives. And we shared that about it.

But what was really interesting was, I've been telling a version of that story from my personal experience for the last 20 years, haven't seen her for 20 years. She wanted to share with me everything that she was like, oh my God, wasn't it so weird when this, this and this? And all the things she picked out were totally different to mine. And half the things that I was like,

yeah, but then this happened and this happened. She was like, no, that wasn't like how it happened at all. Really? Like we could both agree. he was a massive bell-end and it was horrendously stressful. But we couldn't agree on the actual timeline of events that had made it so awful. And so I feel like very often people's perceptions genuinely skew around. It's not a false memory.

No. It's maybe like imposing a narrative afterwards to make sense of something so that it's satisfying. Because this is a speech she's given. So in her mind she's made this arc of a speech. and has actually forgotten that that's not what happened. I honestly think that's probably the case here. Yeah, maybe she was like, someone was shit at skiing. Yeah.

And it was more likely him because my sister's Norwegian. She was born with skis on her feet. Hell of a birth story. But memories are so fallible, aren't there? And then you fill in the gaps with things to make the little shreds stick together better. Well, also, if it's an anecdote, like with my Russell Brown thing, if you spent two decades telling everyone this story,

yeah. It's your version of the truth. You've forgotten which bits you embellished and which bits have come from the source material. And I've had that before as well when I've interviewed people because I talk to people about their life stories on The Modern Man, and I've had people that know that person say, well, that's not what happened.

And I've definitely not felt that the person I'm interviewing as a fantasist in any way. And I'm not sure that the person who's telling me that it's not how it happened is right either. I think the truth's probably somewhere between the two. And people just misremember things. I'm saying all this because I feel like, don't tell her directly like you've told us that she just got it completely wrong.

because she probably won't think that's funny. She'll probably think, oh, shit, that's the thing that you're hung up about from your wedding and there's nothing I can do about it now as in the past. But, by all means, do keep mentioning in real life that you're taking your skiing lessons so that slowly over time she corrects the version. Because what happened is she'll forget that she told that story and she'll misremember the wedding speech as the other way around if you inject her with enough truth serum.

And the other thing that I thought you could do is a humorous way to deal with this in the future. perhaps is if she is not yet married but might be in the future and therefore reciprocally you become her maid of honour. Oh, revenge. Your whole speech can be this. In the roasting bit of her before you get to the lovey-dovey bit, you can then reveal that she completely fucked up her wedding speech to you. And that's then funny in that context because she just made up a load of shit about you, but you love her.

That's okay. You've got to be very careful with your fact-checking if that's the approach you choose because you need to be unimpeachable. Oh, wow, yeah. If you've got a question, then email your question. If you've got a question, then email your question. To answer me this podcast at Googlemail.com. Answer me this podcast at Googlemail.com.

To answer me this podcast at Googlemail. So retrospectors, what historical events are we ticking off on this week's run of today in history? On Monday, the story of how one American airman dropped not bombs, but sweets on Berlin. On Tuesday, how the launch of C-Facts helped Britain's TV viewers to C-Facts. On Wednesday, the day a former GI became America's first transgender. celebrity. On Thursday, the anniversary of England and Scotland deciding who got what. And on Friday, the eccentric Swiss aviator who jetpacked across the channel. We discuss this and more on today in history with the retrospectors. 10 minutes, each weekday, wherever you get your

podcasts. Here's a question from Peter, who says, I've been listening to a lot of pop and disco music, and I've noticed many mentions of a drink called Cherry Wine. Ollie, answer me this. I've never seen or tasted cherry wine. Is this an American thing? Something from the 70s or 80s that's fallen out of fashion or just a combination of words that sounds good being sung

by Prince or Janet Jackson. Well, and Jermaine Stewart. Don't forget Jermaine Stewart. You don't have to take your clothes off. You can leave them on and rub one out into some cherry wine. Oh, that's what those lyrics are. Thank you for finally enlightening me.

I mean, that's a classic. And actually I assumed from that, context, by the way, before I did this research, because what he's saying in that song, of course, is, it's all right, chill out. We don't have to go straight to fourth base, right? We can just keep our clothes on and have fun. It was also written in 1985, so there was a lot of fear about transmission of AIDS. So it was a song in response to that. Interesting. Okay, fine. But the point is, anyway, what he's saying is, let's not, we don't have to get it on Marvin Gaye Style. I thought in that context, cherry wine must be non-alcoholic, like ginger beer. Because what he's

say, like, let's do it decuff, is kind of what he's saying, right? But actually, surprisingly to me, so thank you for asking, because I've learned something, and I like cherries, and I like wine. It is wine made of fermented cherries rather than grapes. It's strong as well. It's a strong wine. And it's also, like, very commonly made in Michigan. I think they have a lot of cherries and they're not afraid to whine them. This is interesting, yes. When he says, is it an American thing, I mean, it isn't, it isn't. All around the world, people have traditions for making cherry wine. You can make it in England. You make it anywhere there are cherries. Although I grew up in a major cherry-producing region

and a booze-producing reason and I never saw cherry wine. Because it's not that great, right? Oh, okay. But the reason it is popular in America and therefore sort of is an American thing is because of prohibition. Because obviously what happened in prohibition,

people got into home brews. So you can either have like toilet hooch like they're making prison. Or if you're in a part of the States where it's easier to get your hands on some cherries than it is to get your hands on some grapes, you're making cherry wine, aren't you? Because your loophole booze

Yeah. And actually, cherries are maybe an easier crop than grapes through a lot of climates. It's rarer than grape wine because it doesn't taste as nice. And also, it doesn't age. It's not just a case of like it doesn't age as well as grape wine. It like does not age. Oh, okay. You want to drink it within a few years. Otherwise it gets too fermented and spoils. Right. So therefore, like even if you're a cherry wine producer, you deliberately make less than you think you're going to sell so that you sell them all because they can't sit on a shelf. Oh, that's very interesting. I mean, I have a number of theories about why this particular form of booze would be so popular in lyrics. I texted Charlie Harding, who hosts Switched on Pop. He thought maybe it's nostalgia for earlier songs mentioning it.

And when I was looking it up, there's a song from 1931 by Jimmy Rogers, Country Music Pioneer and Railroad Man. The lyric was, I'm going where the water drinks like cherry wine because the Georgia water tastes like turpentine. Okay, so that doesn't rhyme any better than just wine, does it? Well, okay, but this feeds into my theory. You've got like three syllables to play with. You're ending on like, I've forgotten the terms for Scantianolly, but where you like end on it. It's sometimes called male and female rhymes where it's da-da or da-da.

Cheryl Crow rhymes cherry wine with Valentine. So. It needs to have the three. You can't do Merlot wine or... Well, no one calls it that, do they? No one calls it chardonnay wine. They don't call it that. They just call it chardonnay.

Yeah. Exactly. So if you're just using the word wine, I was thinking that word could quite easily get lost, whereas cherry wine, you've got a two-syllable lead-up to the word wine. And then there's other things that make it quite a useful word. It implies redness. Whereas other wines, you're like, red, white, rosé, orange, fizzy. It's pretty strong, but quite sweet, as is Port, but Port doesn't yell romance. But when you think about the artist that he's mentioning here, Prince and Janet Jackson, I don't know, but I reckon they're rosé drinkers. They're not drinking cherry wine. Did Prince drink because of his religion? If he's going to drink, it's rosé, that's what I say. Rosemary Roseau. The kind you buy in a fruit wine store.

I thought, was cherry wine something that underage drinkers drank because it was a bit sweeter than other boozes? And therefore is it giving this like lyrical evocation of heady, teenage, activities. But it's a dessert wine. Ultimately, it's a dessert wine. That therefore is something middle-aged people pair with cheese.

Oh, and it's got anti-inflammatory properties. So for the middle-aged joint, maybe that's why it appears in so many so... So in all seriousness, I was thinking about... So I think I've mentioned on this show before that I suffer from gout. Cherries are known to be anti-inflammatory

and they are recommended when you have an inflammation of gout and you don't want to take drugs. And like my first thing that I turned to when I've got an inflammation of gout, like I leave it a week before I take the hard stuff and just see if I can deal with it myself is like distilled cherry juice

fresh cherries obviously sour cherry pills like cherry cherry cherry the thing that causes gout I mean of course mine is caused by excess consumption of spinach but one of the things that causes gout is wine and beer

and so I wondered like is this the ultimate gout proof drink like it's wine but the cherries like counterbalance the alcohol you could get into market this to the gout afflicted. Do you think that another reason for cherry wine to be a lyrically popular drink

is because of the metaphorical usage of cherry? As in Pop-Mai? Yeah, suggestion of like youth. That is probably what Jermain Stewart's going for, isn't it? Well, that's contrary to the rest of the message of the song. Yeah, well, no, because he's saying, we're worried about having sex, but therefore it's a sex reference, isn't it? But then there's a hosier song from 2014 Cherry Wine,

and that's about intimate partner violence. Well, who knew that a fruit wine could have so many meanings in so many songs? I know, right. But then, of course, like, if you looked for the same things for champagne or beer, there would be thousands of songs. So maybe it's not that weird. Maybe people just like to write about alcohol. And actually it's actually unusual in that there's only a handful of songs about it because it is cherry wine.

There's quite a lot considering it's cherry wine. Exactly. There's quite a lot considering, but I mean, you know, proportionally, how many songs are there about drinking beer? It's probably about right, isn't it? I think it's been quite restrained of us to talk about fruit wine for several minutes without trying to do a Moira Rose and Schitts Creek impression. Oh, that's so good. If you're making it yourself, by the way, remove the pips first. They contain cyanide. Oh. Useful piece of information for you.

Well, that adds a whole new level to these lyrics. Yeah. You don't have to take your clothes off. I'm going to kill you with alcohol. And then dump you in the canal. My uncle built my website. He did his best. It's pixily and spammy and nobody's impressed.

To be fair, he died 12 years ago. He can't update it whilst he's at rest. Not that he would of any way. Well, with Squarespace, there is nothing to upgrade ever. Their sites update themselves. Isn't that clever? I wish my uncle could see it. Now he's gone forever.

Manny loved websites. We would have died twice. Thank you very much to Squarespace for sponsoring Answer Me This. And making it easy for you to design beautiful websites, yada, yada, yada. Classic Squarespace stuff, you know it. Amazing how many things there are to say about Squarespace, but it is worth saying this. They do sell domains, yes, as you'll know from our spiel. However, if you have in a previous less well-informed life made the mistake of buying a domain from one of their inferior competitors and now want the ability to design with Squarespace is super easy and beautiful templates, you can just port your domain over.

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and then when you're ready to launch you can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain if you use our code Answer. Here's a question from Colin who says, I am an expat, born Eastcoat Middlesex, living in Florida for the past 26 years

cleaning pools. From East Coat to Florida, the Collin story. Ollie, answer me this. How did they clean pools before the arrival of chlorine? Did people just swim until it got dirty and then they emptied the pool and refilled it? Yeah, that's the one. It was a pretty gungy and gross process

when you did empty a pool then, like scrubbing all the algae off the side as well because it hadn't been kind of chemically broken down, so it was like a pond. In ancient Roman times, they had acid. aqueducts to bring fresh water through the pools because also bathing was like such a culturally important thing. Yeah, and pumps. I remember from our visits, Helen, paid for by Visit Britain 15 years ago, to the Roman baths in Bath. There is a big pump. It's called the pump room. This is actually now a place where you get afternoon tea and it's got a chandelier in it. But

I presume that's what originally that was. It was replenishing the water with a pump because in that case they built it near the natural springs. As you say, if they weren't natural springs, they put it by an aqueduct. So yes, you'd have the water replenishing. itself, if possible, in the ancient baths, but still, even then, a full empty and refill would be required to thoroughly clean it because it was. And if you read historic accounts of people who went to the Roman baths full of oil and sweat and body fluid, which is why, when you think about it, that thing of private baths at home, you know, you see sort of depicted on urns and stuff of Romans having private parties at home and sometimes more than that when the cherry

mine comes out. That's because it was the height of sophistication to be able to afford a private bath so that you could invite your friends to share only your mutual body scum. Like, you didn't have anyone else's bodies come in there. Mega wealth, which now, like, Gwyneth Paltrow has her own spa, and it does look very nice, but again, it is like I don't want to have to mix sweat with the commoners. It's interesting, isn't it? Colin works in Florida cleaning pools.

So therefore, the people that are paying him are rich enough to, A, have a swimming pool, and B, pay someone else to clean it. But there's been a shift, hasn't there? There are 10.4 million residential pools in the USA. Wow. Whereas back then, the maths was Paltrow level. Like, if you could own a pool, then you would employ lots of staff to clean it for you because they'd be cleaning everything, if you were that rich in the first place.

So the owner never had to be bothered with what happened, like, what did we do before Chloria? They don't care. Just had a slave out there. Like, it's fine. People cleaning it constantly. And the replenishing water that we're discussing. yes was part of it, you'd also allow periods of allowing the water to sit so that these scummy

sediments would sink to the bottom and you could fish them out like you would now with a with a net. Well also, you know, a lot of the time people would have been swimming in rivers, lakes and the sea anyway rather than pools. And then when municipal pools became a thing in 1800s, they had filters. They had sand to be a filter and the bottoms of pools was sandy for a fairly long time. And then I think chlorine was brought in, what, like early 1900s? The first pool in the United States to be disinfected with chlorine was at Brown University around 1910, and then liquid chlorine was developed in the 1920s.

But earlier than that, germ theory in the 1800s, Pasteur and all of that, you get the idea that we should introduce chlorine to drinking water. So that happened all around the world, consequent reduction in cholera and typhoid, and then, let's try adding it to swimming pools and now it's still not really been replaced like the paltrow types will often have a copper

lining to their pool or they'll use salt water because they'll say we're trying to use more natural stuff and we're trying to filter it using different things that aren't so harmful as chlorine but actually well A they're using salt in the first place because like sodium chloride right it's got chlorine in it anyway that breaks

down and B they add a little bit of chlorine like It is just not advised not to have any chlorine in your pool because people can die. Not many people, like six people a year, but people can die by having sort of weird fungal infections and stuff that have been heated up in there. So even if you have a natural modern posh pool, you tend to put a little bit of chlorine in there. So well done, Colin, for finding a growth industry. Here's a question from Kyle from Stansted, formerly Edinburgh. And he's in the Stansted Airport at the time of writing this email.

I am currently in purgatory, he says. That's how we know he's there. Sorry. And I've spent so long delayed that I've finished the book that I plan to read on my flight while eating far too many bowls of lounge crisps. You've got to make the most of the lounge crisps.

I've just come to W.H. Smith to pick up a new book and I am shocked that they are all massive. I mean, just short of A4 size. Well, it doesn't take much to knock us off our axes, does it? They're all marked airport exclusive. But I know that the same books are on sale outside of this captivity in usual book size. So, Helen answered me this. Does this exclusive refer to the size of the pages in the books?

I have some books in my bag of a range of ages and publishers, and they're all what I thought of as normal size books. Not this airport expansive version. You can really tell that he's got the time to write this email, haven't you? Because it's a two-sentence email that he's expanded across five paragraphs. And he's got raids bubbling up from other sources. that you can channel through to this. If that's the case, he continues,

why would airport exclusives be bigger? Surely a tighter print in a smaller book suits the traveller more. Hoping that you can shed some light and reassure me I'm not just losing my grip on reality. Steady on. I too want the convenience, Carl, of a book that is less huge,

won't trip my carpal tunnel. So there's two major sizes of paperbacks, A and B. A is the sort of regular ones that are quite small. B is trade paperbacks in British publishing parlance, which are the ones that are basically the size of a hardback, but in paperback. And they're often produced on better quality paper than the A paperbacks, but they're a bit less bulky than a hardback.

And there's also some publishing industry, blah, blah, whereby effectively, like, different entities of a publishing company will release the hardback versus the paperback. So, like, the paperback might be released by a completely different imprint but the trade paperback same one as the hardback it is dull if they have done the hardback edition they don't have to reset it to fit a different format they can just like print it onto uh this book the same way that they did the hardback whereas for a little paperback you have to redo it isn't it just the case that you're getting a paperback edition of any size

where in a civilian shop that wasn't on an airport it would only be available in hardback so it is a more convenient travel-friendly version of that book than you could get anywhere else but obviously an actual paperback would be more convenient but that may not come out for another year. Is that, isn't it? It is basically that. In the UK and Ireland,

I don't think this pertains to all airports everywhere and some places don't release trade paperbacks at all. Also, there's something to do with like taxation at airports whereby they get to sell this thing early whereas other bookshops outside of airports are stuck with just hardbacks. Imagine if they did that with Maggie's, magazines. Like you've got like an A3 broadsheet version of okay. Do you know what I mean? Because

you're in the airport. Oh yeah, just to intrude on the on the space of the person sitting next to you on the plane. Yeah, that's true. I read FT weekend, but I will not take it on the train. I just can't. That's very considerate. In the gust of wind, you're fucked. What about if you cut it into small pieces and put it on a clipboard or in a binder? Yeah, that wouldn't make me look weird. Yeah. That would make me look like I was about to make a ransom note. It's good to be ready. Yeah. I do think The book situation in British airports tends to be a bit more tawdry than in other ones because, like, in British ones, it's sort of celebrity memoirs or whoever's the Andy McNab of

now, that kind of book. Yeah, exactly. It's whatever's in fashion. So if that's misery memoirs, it's those. If it's celebrity memoirs, it's those. If it's parody books, it's those. Whereas other airports I've been to, you can get quite a classy selection. I bought the Memory Palace book in an airport.

Unthinkable in Britain. Regardless, Kyle, you should treasure the opportunity. you've had to visit a W.H. Smith of any kind because... Oh, what's happened since I left the country? Of course you don't know about this, do you? No, my God.

You think you're going to come back to Britain and see W.H. Smith. Fucking think again. It's gone. It's gone. It's been replaced. I can't believe they did this, like overnight. Oh, I'm excited to tell you about this, if you don't know. It's such a bad rebrand.

It's like AI did it. I don't know if they thought people wouldn't notice, But overnight, W.H. Smith on the High Street, and for international issues, I shall explain, this is a High Street brand in the UK that's been on British High Streets for 233 years. And also is incredibly ubiquitous and has very high name recognition. Yeah. And you're saying they've just, like, trashed all this. Overnight, they have rebranded as T.J. Jones.

What? Yeah. This is even worse than the HBO, HBO Max, Max, back to HBO. Yeah. Oh, it's like if the Cracker Barrel thing had the guy. for lating a fee. What happened was the business of WWH Smith for a long time has been dependent on the airport part of the business

and the railway station part of the business to make profit. The ones on the high street for like 20 years haven't made money. That's why they say, oh, you're buying a copy of the Daily Telegraph. Would you like 20 whole nuts? Because they have to do these weird promotions. And, you know, that's why they were chaotic and like the lighting was on full max like a sunbed

and the carpet was blue and disgusting. because they couldn't rebrand them and they couldn't put any money into them because the only profitable bit of the business was the airports and train stations. Well, if they turned the lights down a bit, then they would have saved a bit of money. Tell me about it.

What they did is they sold the high street business to like a financial conglomerate who want to milk it for what it's worth and shut down a load of stores, presumably, and then kept for themselves the profitable part of the business, which I guess makes sense. But the bit that doesn't make sense is why didn't they rebrand the ones in the airport?

Like, as Kyle is expressing, when you're in the airport, you are the captive audience. In any case, they're called the bookseller by W.H. Smith, right? When you're in ETHRO, they could just call it the bookseller. No one would give a shit. No one's like, I'm going to go to W.H. Smith, when you're in the airport. You just go to the one of the five shops, and the one that sells books is the one that you go to. Why didn't they sell the brand on the high street with the shops? Give it a fighting chance.

I cannot believe that they just changed it to T.J. Jones over. night. It's such an insult. Yeah, but capitalism makes a lot of terrible decisions, Ollie. If you Google T.J. Jones books, right? And again, international listeners should be aware, half of what W.H. Smith does is sell books. You get the website of an author called T.J. Jones. They didn't even fucking Google it. They didn't even see that someone called T.J. Jones who writes books. And that T.J. Jones is not the one who's bought W.H. Smith's? No. Unrelated. It's, of course, a completely fictional names. You see what they've done. Like Smith, popular British surname, Jones is the other one you think of, two initials

in front of it. What an incredible own goal? Unbelievable. Probably the most terrible thing that's been happening in Britain lately. I think that's right. Helen, Oliver, though life is full of questions, there are answers you must know. One. No, it will not fall off but moderation. in all things too

Yes, there probably is But we won't find out in our lifetimes three Most people prefer Connery But my personal favourite is Dalton for If you try and slip a one It would ruin your friendship Yes Here's a question from Laura from Leeds who says

I was out shopping with my sister the other day and we came across a lot of homeware that had star signs on it While neither of us believe in astrology We both enjoy that kind of aesthetic So I started to look for stuff with Capricorn on That's how they get you into astrology Aesthetic First and then you're like

Oh I can't buy electrical goods this month Because my horoscope told me not to you Yeah yeah starts with scatter cushions then dump your boyfriend While I was looking My sister told me that she feels uncomfortable displaying just her own star sign in her home. She had to get all 12. Why?

As a cancer, she said, it felt a bit weird and distasteful to have anything like that on display. Is it because it has the word cancer? It's not just pretty pictures of stars. You just have a crab. It's a crab. Am I wrong?

It's a crab, right? It's a crab. Right, but nothing distasteful about a crab. Depends what it's doing. Could be picking its nose. This got me wondering why we use this same word, cancer, in astrology and in medicine.

So Helen answered me this. Oh, it's like an episode of The Simpsons, this, isn't it? It starts one way and something completely different. What is the link between cancer, the star sign and cancer the disease? Is one named after the other, or do the words originate from different places? The word crab in English originates from like a Germanic root, but crab, the creature in Greek is the word for cancer, the disease and the star sign. The word in Greek is carcinos.

It sort of meant hard originally, and then it meant crab. And cancer was named after crabs. You can hear that origin word as well in like carcinoma and canker. And canker was the word for cancer in English for hundreds of years. And now it's the word for ulcer in American, isn't it? But is there a direct visual connection? Like I get that there's a linguistic one, but were people thinking crab when they thought cancer?

They were thinking crab. Hippocrates, the often called Father of Modern Medicine, gets the credit for calling cancer after crabs, either because of the aggressiveness, like a crab, or because they thought that the profile of tumours kind of resembled crab, or it could have been because of the tenacity of a crab to cling on to things, seize on things, because at the time it was rare to be able to cure cancers. Although they did misdiagnose quite a lot of things as cancer at the time, to be fair, because it was like two and a half thousand years ago.

So yes, they saw crabness in the disease And often they do see animals in disease Like alopecia is from the word for fox Because foxes often get hair loss I've never seen a bald fox to my knowledge Maybe they've got two peys That would make sense they are London foxes The particular crab in the constellation

Supposedly is Carcinos the giant crab Who features in some but not all versions of the second of the 12 labours of Heracles. While he was busy trying to kill the hydra, the crab attacked his feet. And so Heracles stamped on it, and as a reward to the crab for dying, the goddess Hera put the crab into the sky.

The Greeks are good like that, aren't they, like having stories for everything that you can see? And yet they didn't have a fun song that the crab sings like they do in The Little Mermaid. That's what it's missing. Well, maybe they did, and it just hasn't lasted. Under the feet of Hercules, Yeah, it could have been an Hercules, couldn't it?

There was after the Little Mermaid though, so maybe they felt that the crab ship had sailed. Well, Ricardito in Brighton has sent us question. Ollie, answer me this. Why can't characters cross over to different TV series sometimes? Wouldn't it be great if a character from Coronation Street had a cousin in Walford and appeared in a few episodes of EastEnders? The only example I can think of was when Tanya Turner in Footballers' Wives got banged up in HMP Lark Hall in the series Bad Girls.

It was brilliant. So, are there more examples of this? What are the barriers that stop this happening more? I suppose the barriers between different fictional universes. Well, and the creatives and executives that control the IP. I mean, you can't just take a character from someone else's thing and put them in your thing. Probably the copyright lawyers are the most significant in that equation. Yeah, exactly.

I assume also expense, the schedules of different actions. actors, I think it would take the audience out of the fiction quite a lot by seeming too much like a gag too self-conscious. Exactly. It's saying to the audience, we too are a work of fiction, isn't it? Whereas the whole point of universe building is that you buy into the reality of what you're watching. I mean, when you think about it, the way that Rick Ardito set up this question, I realise in 2025, soap operas aren't as big as they used to be, but nonetheless, think about it in the history of Coronation Street. You've never shown a family sitting down at 8pm to watch EastEnders. I mean, that's completely implausible, isn't it? But, you know, in Corrie, EastEnders doesn't

exist. So I suppose you could have a character who was in EastEnders because in both worlds neither show can be there. Otherwise, they'd be watching it in a slice of life kitchen sink drama set in Britain. We were talking about Phoebe and friends. She, as in Lisa Cudrow playing Phoebe, was Ursula's twin sister from Mad About You. And that's basically because Mad About You was made by the same team. They liked what Lisa Cudrow was doing and Mad About You. They wanted basically the character she was playing in that, which was a waitress at Riffs to be Phoebe but then thought well mad about you is a massive NBC sitcom

so it's odd to cast the same actor and we don't want that exact character so suddenly she had a twin sister so Phoebe buffet had a twin sister also played by Lisa Kudrow who was in Mad About You and went on according to the last episode to be the governor of New York Speaking and friends they also had a visit

from a couple of doctors from ER fairly early on Oh right yeah that makes it So I wonder if they're just all like filming on the same lot or something No it's NBC cross-promotion isn't it This is 90s, this is peak mussy TV era. Well, that happened really recently as well because there was a crossover episode between Abbott Elementary

and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, both of which Philadelphia set. Are you too familiar with the St Elsewhere cinematic universe? I'm not. St. Elsewhere was a medical drama in the 80s, and spoilers. In the final episode, we learned that the whole series is happening in the mind of an autistic boy.

And this has led various people to note that there's crossovers with all. the series, right? So there's direct connections with like MASH, uh, Cheers, DeGrasi Junior High. In what sense is their connection? Well, in different ways. So like the St. Elsewhere characters go to the Cheers bottom in one of the episodes, for example. So those exist in the same universe. Right. Does anyone from Cheers have to go to St. Elsewhere to have their stomach pumped? I don't think so. That would happen a lot more than was permissible in a family sitcom, the amount they drank. In homicide life on the street, there's a character from St. Elsewhere

that is investigated for murder. So there's crossover with characters. And actually, these series also have crossovers with other TV series and sometimes cinematic properties. So if you go down the rabbit hole, as it were, there is a huge amount of fiction that exists in the elsewhere universe and therefore in the mind of this autistic kid. Well, of course, in a sitcom though, it's a heightened reality anyway, isn't it?

So it doesn't really matter because weird things happen in sitcoms anyway, like actors change, even though they're playing the same character. Well, the quintessential one is Robin Williams as Mork. that originated in Happy Days, which is just mind-blowing to think about that they had an alien character. But like I say, heightened reality. I'll say left field for that TV series.

But the point is that Mork and Happy Days couldn't then be really the same Mork in Mork and Mindy because Happy Days is set 30 years earlier, except he's an alien, so maybe he could. Time works differently. Like when Mork and Mindy have a child and he ages backwards. Speaking of Cheers,

you have all these characters from Cheers who go and visit Frasier on Frasier, But that's within the same universe, so it doesn't... But it's still novelty enough to be a bit of a, like, removal from the fiction of the normal show. Yeah, so that's like Law and Order characters, I believe. I've never seen an episode of Law and Order, turn up in other spin-offs of Law and Order. Because in that universe, they're all cops, but in different states. Del Boy turned up in the Green Greengrass, which was the Boise spin-off from Only Fools and Horses.

You make that face now, Helen, it ran for four seasons. I'm sure there are as well examples of celebrities who went on to play parts in Muppet films who had previously guested as themselves in a Muppet TV show. If Kermit has previously met John Cleese and been excited

to have John Cleese on as a guest, bit weird that he turns up as a hotelier in Britain 10 years later in a film and he doesn't recognise him. But what's the working memory for a frog? Is it like a goldfish? Right. Yeah, I suppose that explains everything. Here's a question from Tom,

who could be from Rotterdam or anywhere, Liverpool or Rome, but he is in Rotterdam. I bet he gets that a lot. And he says, Many years ago, I visited a buddy of mine who had moved to Canada. We had a great time together, and one night, after a couple of beers and a bottle of whiskey, we decided to get matching tattoos to cement our friendship. I don't think that they cement a friendship matching tattoos.

They document a night where you both thought it was a good idea to have a tattoo, and that is it. They are a moment in time that is then there on your body for a long time. I think they no longer will tattoo people who are drunk here, by the way. Since we were in Canada, we thought it would be a good idea to have maple leaves tattooed on our shoulders. Not very imaginative. I suppose you were tipsy. I mean, design-wise for Canada. Is that or Justin Trudeau, isn't it?

Hey, there's Carly Ray Jepson. And all-dressed crisps, Hawaiian pizza? Yeah. It's a lot. A lot of options. John Candy? Yeah, Eugene Levy. Nice.

Oh, Lord. Now, Ollie's salt. If I come to Canada, let us get drunk and get Eugene Levy tattoos altogether, please. But, says Tom, because our blood was still very thin from all the drinking, the tattoo artist had a hard time distinguishing the red tattoo ink from the blood oozing out of our skin. Oh my God, that's so eldritch. It's really disgusting. As a result, after healing, the maple leaves turned out.

pretty faint and patchy. Yeah. I didn't care too much at the time because my buddy and I thought it made for a good story. It is a good story. We've just recounted all these years. It's still a good story. You've told it really well, Tom, as well.

I want you to take credit for your work in this story. Now, 17 years later, he continues. I haven't been in touch with my friend for quite some time and as I've grown older, I look at my tattoos differently. Yeah. You can't really look at one on your shoulder, though, to be fair. I'm not sure I want or need them anymore Right, okay, that's fair

You know, things change With advances in technology tattoos can now be removed Fairly easily though still painfully Yeah, I've heard very painful Quite expensive too Helen, answer me this Would it be unethical of me

To get laser removal For my patchy maple leaf tattoo Without informing my buddy I have no hard feelings towards him It's just that I'm not that into tattoos anymore It's not an actual blood pact, is it? I'm not sure that ethics are a huge consideration. So I don't have any tattoos,

but I had some instinctual thoughts about this that I then asked a number of friends who do have friendship tattoos and they were in agreement with me that, of course, you can get it removed, it's your body and you don't really have an obligation to someone you no longer see or speak to. It doesn't sound like there's any hostility there, just, you know, the passage of time. Correct.

Why not? Yeah. if your friend got theirs removed would you want to know if so why Tom that's exactly the question to ask exactly and if you would want to know and you'd feel somehow he's not taken your feelings into consideration then that says more about an issue

you have with the fact that you're no longer friends and also perhaps guides you towards the answer so in either case that's a useful question to ask because if you really would feel like you'd be upset then you probably should tell him unless you want to get back in touch with him just for old times sake or something exactly if you've drifted apart

like, you know, as people, then actually this is a good WhatsApp conversation, isn't it? Picture of the tattoo as it looks now with the caption, oh God, this looks awful, I'm thinking of getting it removed. Ha, ha, I can't believe we did that. Might actually open up a fun conversation. Then you've told him, and also you might actually have a chat about it. Yeah. He's not going to be hurt. He's also got a shit tattoo. Well, maybe we don't know. He might have got rid of it years ago. He might have got a cover up, which would also, I think, be a good option if you felt bad about getting rid of it completely, but you wanted it to be in a, in a better form, but it sounds like Tom is just like, I've had it with all my tattoos now.

I mean, I've had the opposite trajectory to Tom in Rotterdam, which is that probably when I was the age that he was, 17 years ago, I was very anti-tattoo. I regret saying some very uncharitable things about tattoos on the show in the past. I don't feel that way about them anymore, but I still don't have any for the reasons Tom is outlining, which is I think I wouldn't want them forever. I guess it's just like when you're younger, I suppose you're more concerned about ruining your body, I now just feel like my body is largely a trash bag and I'm not so bothered about protecting it. It's not going to make me less happy about my body if I have a tattoo. It's just a fun novelty

thing. Maybe the difference between me and a lot of people with tattoos is I seem keen to not be able to remember my many past selves and maybe they are more comfortable with those. I'm sure there are listeners who have tattoos who might have a view on this and we would like to hear that view. I really would. I think people's tattoo stories are so interesting. Yeah. And what would you cover up a splotchy maple leaf with, even though it sounds like Tom's not going to do that. Our next episode, AMT 411, will be out on the 30th of October 2025. The day before Halloween. So if you have spooky questions, get them in, in writing or in voice note attached to an email. Our contact details are on our website. Answer me to podcast.com.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and dropped inside a corpses shell also remember that you can follow us at patreon.com slash answer me this and support the show financially and hello to Hannah who is our 1,000th Patreon release those big money balls ding ding ding what does Hannah win? She wins this shoutout which is priceless She wins the continuation of this podcast.

Exactly. Wow. When we relaunched the show, our target was 1,000 paid members. I think we're at 1,0003 now. That means that this show is financially sustainable, even if the money that we get from advertising or sponsorship dries up entirely. Because podcasting is very financially unpredictable these days. Correct.

So that means we are, A, paid for our time, and B, paid in lieu for the first 18 years you listen to us for free. He never forgets a grudge. So if you are one of those 1003 people keeping us going Thank you This Monthly Dose of Answer Me This in your pod box Is for you And if you're not, it's not too late

Patreon.com slash answer me this No, it's never too late really Unless the show stops again Exactly, yeah If we stop because we haven't got enough supporters Then it will literally be too late Yeah, okay, yeah, put the pressure on But what I'm saying is that's not happening

So thank you Yes And also Patrions are in for a bunch of treats, including such things as bonus material every month, add free version of the podcast, and coming soon, an absolute fucking abundance of extra stuff. Ollie's been working hard to set it up and it's just a fiddle. But once he's finished fiddling, it'll be well worth it.

I'm doing a lot of fiddling in my spare time, yeah. And, Ollie, have you been doing any podcasting you want to tell our dear listeners about here? Oh, yes, I suppose I should mention the fact that October is the 10th anniversary, of The Modern Man. Wow. The show that is named after me, yes, the modern M-A-W-N. Thank you. How are you celebrating?

Every edition of The Modern Man, my co-host, Oli-Piott, is challenged by the audience to test out a trend that is zeitgeisty and cool. So what we thought we'd do for our 10th birthday is test out birthday trends. We're going to go to various cool venues and eat and drink stupid trendy things. Oh, that sounds great. It will be fun. I mean, I'm trying to remember what I did on my 10th birthday. Oh, I can't remember any of my childhood birthdays.

I think I went to Cody's in Stevenage. Oh. It was great, actually. It was the only place in Hertfordshire where you'd get a singing waiter that would come sing happy birthday and take a Polaroid of you with the cake. Oh, my goodness. Yes, that's right. Helen, what's happening in Zaltzman podcast world?

I recently released an episode called Terisk. It's a joke that will become clear when you listen to the episode that is about a technological problem in the present that I discover. when I was watching Legally Blonde with the subtitles on that I managed to trace back for nearly a thousand years to one man in Scantthorpe. Martin, what have you been doing? Oh, well, actually I contributed to an Illusionist episode, another Illusionist episode about a month ago.

That's right. But Bain, Bain, Bath. And it featured a new song that I wrote about Poisoned Gardens. You can hear it on that illusionist episode or you can go to palebird.bondcamp.com, which is where I keep my music. Or you can do none of those things. Don't support us financially.

Don't check out our other work. Don't send us a question. And we'll still have a new episode for you next month. Yeah, we're quite a low-maintenance relationship in that way. Bye!