Answer Me This! - Answer Us Back: Fridge Magnet Rotator

Starting point is 00:00:00 Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know, the same way you can skip an ad? I get it. I'm Siaiaa and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today, I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll.

Starting point is 00:00:22 So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. Can we just kick off this edition? of answer us back by saying RIP Tim Curry. Yes. We could do that every episode, but it would have been very, very inappropriate until episode 421, which we recorded the day before the death of Tim Curry, and therefore we were maybe a bit critical of two of Tim Curry's most beloved films. Yes, we didn't know when we were slacking off both Rocky Horror Picture Show and

Starting point is 00:00:56 clue that he was going to pop his clogs on the day of release. We didn't say he was bad at them. We didn't, because he isn't. In the context that we were discussing, which is Camp Movies, let's acknowledge now that he is king of camp movies. And he elevates the material very often when he's in an absolute piece of shit. I don't know if you've seen Christmas in Wonderland. It's literally unwatchable. But, you know, he elevates the material.

Starting point is 00:01:19 It's probably the worst movie of all time. It's shot in the West Edmonton Mall and is as gripping as you might expect that to be. Edmonton in London or Edmonton in Canada. Edmonton Canada, yes. They put up the budget. They bought Patrick Swayze and Tim Curry and Carmen Elections. of memory serves. Gosh.

Starting point is 00:01:36 And then ran out of money for the CGI. But who needs it when you have that three-pronged charisma going on? Exactly. Anyway, he's great in it.

Starting point is 00:01:47 Always brought a performance. So no disrespect to Tim Curry, even if he was in some shit films. We're both fans of his attitude and his work. So anyway, thank you to everyone who got in touch saying, great timing guys.

Starting point is 00:01:59 You killed Tim Curry. Yeah, I think people assume that a podcast is recorded seconds before they listen to it, but practically that's simply impossible. Good thing we cut out that stuff calling Dolly Partner, cunt. No, we'd never.

Starting point is 00:02:17 I met Dolly Parton. I mean, that's not true. That's not true. I shouldn't be on the public records saying I met Dolly Parton when I didn't meet her. I was in a room that she put her head round and said, well, hi, y'all. Close enough, Olly, close enough. Where? When? How? Very much in the kind of place you'd expect to meet Dolly Parton, to be fair. It was in the green room at ITV's Lorraine.

Starting point is 00:02:34 Okay. Yes. Yeah. Was she in full Dolly front of house regalia? She was there to talk about the imagination library which she was launching in the UK, but she was dressed as if she was about to give a concert nonetheless. I blagged a ticket there and then from her PR to go to,

Starting point is 00:02:50 I think it was the Savoy Ballroom where she launched it. Even though she was launching the imagination library, she'd come on and mime to nine to five as well. So what a way to make a living? There you are. I mean, you know, she's living and breathing it. She knows what the crowds want. And it isn't her talking about literacy.

Starting point is 00:03:06 When are you going to write your memoir, Ollie, of all the times that you were technically in the same room as celebrities? It's the autobiography the world's waiting for, isn't it? I'm waiting for it. 50 feet from fame. The Ollie Mann story. Close enough for a book. Yeah. Come on.

Starting point is 00:03:27 Give us what we want. Anyway, Ollie, since episode 421, we have had some good news from Sally who says, Ollie, you can cut the Samsung washing machine music short. We also have a Samsung washing machine and tumble dryer, so are all too familiar with the joyful, inverted commas, music at the end of the program. That's a famous piece of classical music, as we said, it's just rendered in a terrible sort of eight-bit way. Sally says, if you open the machine door,

Starting point is 00:03:54 as soon as the doorlock is released, then it stops playing the music and instead plays a very short sequence of notes and turns itself off. It's a blessed relief. Now, I did wonder if opening the door would, it, but that relies on you scooting to the washing machine within 30 seconds and maybe you've got something else to do. We discussed that in the episode.

Starting point is 00:04:11 And in fact, my concern is having to drop everything to run across the house to get there in time. Is it self-stressful? Yes. If I start allowing myself to know that that's a possibility, I'll do my ankle in at some point. It's just not worth it. Not worth it.

Starting point is 00:04:24 No. And anyway, it's in my head. It's like, you know, when Golden Brown, for whatever reason, I fucking hate that song and always have. Just something about. The stranglers. Yeah. And I know people love it.

Starting point is 00:04:34 I just find it really irritating. I find evening the opening bars of it really irritating. But because the opening bars are so iconic immediately that harpsie called it doesn't matter. Even two seconds in, if I run over to the radio and turn it off, it's in my head. It won't go. You know, a problem I've had for the last few days since I went to a Weird Al-Yankovic concert is he did his song, which is based on blurred lines.

Starting point is 00:04:58 Oh, yeah. But it's about grammar. And it just means I've had blurred lines on the brain for days, and I do not want it there. Do not want. It was catchy at the time. I haven't sung blurred lines since then. Don't.

Starting point is 00:05:09 Don't. There's some bad stuff in there, Holly. Do you know, Roy Chubby Brown is playing my local theatre in about six months time. What year is it? How long have I been asleep? I noticed this today because I was booking tickets for the Panto. And I was like, what else will I chuck in that basket there? Which was a strategy that worked very well last year when I went to see both the Buddy Holly story and Stuart Lee on tour by that mechanism.

Starting point is 00:05:32 by that mechanism. You are the middle of that Venn diagram. Exactly. Anyway, I looked through it and I wasn't really interested in most of it. But I did think, I'm sure that I wouldn't find any of his jokes funny. And yet, there's something in me that is curious to see how a comic has lasted that long. What, 60 years doing the same material? There's got to be something in it.

Starting point is 00:05:54 I wonder what a Roy Chubby Brown concert is like. You're right. Seeing someone who was doing comedy 60 years ago would be like, Going to a museum and the dinosaur skeletons come to life. But you wouldn't say that necessarily about someone who was more of a hero to us, right? I mean, you wouldn't have said that necessarily about Joan Rivers, but she'd been around just as long. Because Roy Chubby Brown had always set his humour against political correctness

Starting point is 00:06:17 and because he'd been seen to be courting people, in fact, who were, well, racist. I feel like, oh, well, that won't be for me. But that probably isn't his act anymore. He might be doing something interesting and I'd never know. He might be doing Stuart Lee-style comedy. Exactly. And it's not far. I could get to that particular theatre that he's playing in 10 minutes. How much they? Oh, I don't know. Affordable. £19 maybe. Oh, okay. I mean £19. If you're not enjoying it, you can walk out after 10 minutes and you can waste the rest.

Starting point is 00:06:44 Yeah. But the thing is, you will be a person who's at a Roy Chubby Brown gig. I know. And do you want to be him? I don't. And also, just puts you in that awkward position, doesn't it? Because probably what he does now is he probably tells bad taste jokes, but kind of knowingly, knowing or we can't really say this anymore. and then what do you do if you find it funny and or what do you do if you don't find it funny? Like do you want to me?

Starting point is 00:07:07 If you find it funny and then just laugh, but then you don't feel good about yourself because the laugh is something that you're laughing at something you don't like. That's going to make me feel bad. Equally, if I don't laugh and everyone else in the room is laughing, I feel like a party pooper.

Starting point is 00:07:20 Like, I bought the ticket, you know? Anyway, I am curious what a Roy Chubby Brown gig is like. I would watch a documentary about Roy Chubby Brown. Let's put it that way. From a distance, I'd like to know. Someone has probably written a substack from Inside a Roy Jubby Brown gig that you can read. Okay. More washing machine music news, Olly, from Helena in New Zealand.

Starting point is 00:07:39 Also, Darren from New Zealand sent in the same information, but Helena did it first. Helena says, older Fisher and Paycle washing machines have been programmed to play the national anthems of New Zealand, Australia, the UK and USA. And apparently also the crazy frog song, but my wife. one isn't a model that does this, so I couldn't check for you. They're not played at the end of the wash, but instead, as the result of some specific button pushes, so you can impress friends who don't know the secret and force them to listen to a very beepy version of God-Defend New Zealand.

Starting point is 00:08:13 Although, the company has phased this out in newer models, for shame. I wonder what she means by the crazy frog song. Does she mean da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dding-ding, ding, ding. Or does she just mean... ding ding ding ding ding the first one whatever it was how many hits did the crazy frog have those two that I'm aware of

Starting point is 00:08:35 and as I say them out loud I think it must be the Beverly Hills cop one mustn't it? Because that's the only one with the tune that a washing machine could render yeah the other one just sounds like a washing machine coming to the end of a vigorous cycle when they all play crazy frog in that sense I don't think I'd want a nationalistic washing machine

Starting point is 00:08:51 I want it not to give a shit about borders what it sounds like this is though is like an Easter egg isn't it This is an additionally pointless feature that you can opt into. That I'm kind of here for because the memory chip has the space to program it to do all kinds of things. Why not something a bit weird? That's like the Tesla Light Show. I don't know if you've ever seen the Tesla do the Light Show.

Starting point is 00:09:13 Again, you know, you can park Elon Musk with Roy Chubby Brown, but I have to hand it to him for the Tesla Light Show, which is objectively hilarious. It's just this button you can press on the car. And then it does a full-on, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, you. Smoke's going to come out of the boot. You know, stuff lifts and goes down again. It all gets very Doctor Who. I'm not super impressed because in the late 90s I had a stereo that had a button you could press and it would do a little light show.

Starting point is 00:09:39 Right. I had a keyboard that had a secret version of she'll be coming around the mountain when she comes on it. You had to know which keys to press to make it play it. Oh, the Easter egg is. I've actually, in other laundry news, just bitten the bullet and spaffed £170 pounds on a plug-in era. Oh, what, like the Lakeland ones that heat. It is, yes, it is the Drysoon Deluxe three-tier heated clothes era from Lakeland, yes. People say they're life-changing, but also cats like to roost on them in winter.

Starting point is 00:10:09 Well, I can test both those things very well in my house. The thing is, I know people listening overseas are like, why do you just put it in the dryer? And the answer is because we just, that's not our culture. Our culture is hang stuff on radiators. Yes. And then it makes the room kind of damp and the clothes kind of crispy. Yep. For three days, because it takes a long time for the clothes to dry out between or

Starting point is 00:10:27 October and March in Britain. Yes, and the room temperature is too cold to dry things properly. Well, I'm very happy for you and I hope you'll be dry. Well, maybe this is how everyone feels when they buy a dry soon, deluxe three-to-heated clothes era. This better be life-changing. Maybe people want to believe it, you know, and that's why you've seen people say that it is.

Starting point is 00:10:48 Oh, so it's the fervour that dries the clothes. Exactly, yeah. Speaking of cleansing accessories, Molly in London, apropos our last. answer us back, has just bought herself a B-Day accessory. She says, I've just purchased a rinse mate, aka a bum gun that isn't plumbed in. Okay.

Starting point is 00:11:08 I wish they'd actually called it Bum Gun. I once chose a cesspit drainage company purely because they were called the brown wagon and I didn't regret it. She says, instead of it being plumbed in, you just refill it with water every so often. I am very excited for it to arrive. Okay, so it's basically like a squirt gun B-day. Yes, exactly that. She says, I also have a dehumidifier.

Starting point is 00:11:28 With the drought this summer, I was thinking of how to reduce the impact of this purchase. Could I have the water collected by the dehumidifier and use that in the rinse mate? I would not advise that because dehumidifier water has not been distilled or purified. So it can contain moulds and bacteria and other contaminants from within the dehumidifier itself as well, like heavy metals come off the coils. If the dehumidifier water hits broken skin or your open a hole, then that's risky. It can cause like skin infections and respiratory trouble. And they're like, well, you know, if you clean your dehumidifier regularly, then maybe it'd be okay to wash with. But what they mean by regularly is you take the thing apart every fucking day.

Starting point is 00:12:17 That's, I think, too much effort. I did stumble upon a forum where people were talking about washing their hair with dehumidify. firewater and they're like that's been such a game changer, but they were also rinsing it with kombucha if you want to know what kind of forum this was. Yeah. I know for many years of discussing sex toy recycling with Alex Fox on the modern man that you definitely want to avoid putting grey water on your sensitive bits in particular. As you say, like mould spores, bacteria.

Starting point is 00:12:47 It would be bad washing your hair with it, I suspect, but it's probably not going to give you a UTI because it's a different end of your body. But this does sound bad. It could go in your eyes. You use it for watering your plants or something. That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? Yeah, non-edible plants. You can also use it to fill your steam iron.

Starting point is 00:13:03 And apparently it's very good for cleaning windows and cars if you want a streak-free finish because it's mineral-free. If George Formby was alive now. It'd be very hard to scan dehumidifier. You could also put it into your toilet system. Yeah. If you can be bothered. I mean, the garden thing's interesting.

Starting point is 00:13:23 because it's still, like you say, non-edible, you've got to be careful with that. We've got one of those dryers, back to dryers again, where instead of it being plumbed in, it's got like a shelf at the top that you detach and empty occasionally. Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar. And for a long time because the dryer originally had been in our garage, sort of in the garden, I had to basically leave the house, go into the garden, walk into the garage to use the dryer. That's why Brits don't want to use dryers.

Starting point is 00:13:50 Our houses aren't big enough. I had to, I didn't have to, but the most convenient thing to do with that water was just empty all over the garden. And I thought, well, that's doing my garden good. And then one day my wife was like, I'm growing vegetables there. And she's like, that's got detergent in it. It's all the chemicals that have come off the clothes. You're then emptying onto the soil that I'm then growing the vegetables in that we eat, dickhead. And I thought, I mean, both she's got a point and she hasn't.

Starting point is 00:14:18 I was like, the cat shit's there. So what's the difference there, really? Ro. Most of the detergent will have been rinsed out. Yeah, but it made me think, which is rare. But some people will plumb that to go straight into their toilet system, or same with the dehumidifier, if they're somewhere very soggy. When I was in Japan, the little flat where I was staying, had this toilet with a tap on top of the system.

Starting point is 00:14:39 So you'd wash your hands, and your hand-washing water, then went into the system for the next flush. Lovely stuff. Well, we've had this question in from Annie. Hi, Helen and Ollie. we were just listening to answer us back and Ollie was relaying his adventures in obtaining a magnet at O'Hare Airport

Starting point is 00:14:55 but given the quantity of magnets you've collected over your years of travel what I'm really curious about is what you do with them I don't think they could possibly all fit on your fridge or do they? And then if they don't do you have them in rotation? I'd love to know more about your magnet situation. So I've just counted this afternoon

Starting point is 00:15:13 just for you and I have 116 fridge magnets. Well done. Now those are just the ones that I would call location-based, so they have the name of a place that I visited on them. If you include the other miscellaneous magnets on the fridge, not including the ones that are basically like thumb-tacks, but the ones that are decorative, then that number rises to 127. Gosh. So is that all the magnets you've accrued, or are those just the magnets you are willing to put on display? They are all the magnets that I've accrued. There are no magnets that I own that aren't there. apart from some that I got in Camden Market,

Starting point is 00:15:52 which I've got on my filing cabinet in my office, and that's because their album covers, and they just seem a bit mid. Thematically wrong for the travel fridge. I just thought they were cool when I saw them, and then I got them home and I was like, this is a bit tourist tat kind of stuff. I don't really want that at my fridge.

Starting point is 00:16:07 Whereas on my filing cabinet in my office, cheers up and otherwise dull. I'm leaning back to see the brand. Bissley, of course, Bisley. So anyway, on the fridge, yes, they are organised. in a way that won't be obvious to visitors, but is to me. It's an American-style fridge freezer, so you've got to imagine the opening is halfway down the middle, so you can open the doors outwards on both sides, fridge and freezer.

Starting point is 00:16:29 And does that mean also that it is large? Therefore, you've got a lot of real estate for magnets. 127 magnets, Helen, of course it's large. Because, you know, I live in North America, so I have a large North American fridge, although not one that opens like a double door, but it looks like it's made of metal, but you cannot get a magnet on the front. Right. What a waste.

Starting point is 00:16:49 What is the point of a fridge you can't put a magnet on? I mean, it's more important than the foods myself every day. In fact, I've thrown away all the food and the fridge is just full of magnets. Well, the top half, the fridge bit, is where I put the magnets that I want my visitors to see because I've noticed that in general people don't look at the bottom half. No, because their knees don't have eyes. Exactly. So the more exotic places go up top, places that make me seem like a more interesting person.

Starting point is 00:17:14 Oh, I didn't know you'd been there. Those go on the top. The ones that are just a bit more like rides at Chessington, they go at the bottom. But then also there's some practical considerations as well. So the more breakable ones are away from the edges. Because when the doors are open, the edges are more vulnerable to being knocked off by the adjacent cupboard. Terrifying. Then there are also rules which I think I might have hinted out in the episode when I was discussing the Chicago fridge magnet situation.

Starting point is 00:17:41 Which is, I have a rule that I don't like having a magnet for a place I haven't been. Yes, I think that's a good rule. It defeats the whole object as far as I'm concerned. I'm disgusted when people bring me, people like, oh, he likes fridge magnets. We'll bring him a fridge magnet from where we've been on holiday. Fuck off. I don't want that. I haven't been there.

Starting point is 00:17:57 You've ruined my system. What do you do with those ones? Do you just throw them at them and they run off crying? I suppose if I got one now, it would go on the filing cabinet along with the Camden Town album cover fridge magnets. I've permitted one from Peru because it's quite cool. But I still hate myself a bit for having it on the fridge because I haven't been. Well, you have to go to Peru just to cheer yourself up about that. Exactly, yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:21 I even have a whole system for car stickers as well. I've been getting the vehicle stickers now, which show the different towns that you've driven the vehicle into. So I've got an SUV which has space on the back for, we went to a town in the Doordaigne called Dom in France, very picturesque town, went to St. Marlowe, so we got one there. And then this summer when I was in Montana, they had a vehicle sticker for the Lewis and Clark Caverns,

Starting point is 00:18:45 which we went to, which was cool. so I bought it. And then I've just, even though I've been to that place, I was like, but this car, this car has not been to that place. I'm defiling St. Marlowe and Dom by adding this. Well, you know what you can do is you can just affix that sticker to your filing cabinet using your come-to-market magnets. Well, the good news, Helen, is I have a second car, the run-around, the CIA on.

Starting point is 00:19:09 Okay, for all the inconsequential stickers. And it went on there. It's the obvious solution to this problem. I'm not breaking a rule there because, you know, that car is for the places that I have been but not in any car that I own, whereas the other car is for places I've been in that car. Like I say, none of this matters to anyone else in the world. It's a real insight. And are you allowed? Okay, so sometimes people come and stay with us in Vancouver because it's quite a nice place for a holiday. And there are also holiday magnet people. And they are like,

Starting point is 00:19:39 okay, I've bought what I thought would be the magnet, but now I've seen this other one with a bear on. Oh, man. Am I allowed two magnets? No, you're not. No, you're not. You are allowed. I'll tell you what you're allowed. You're allowed one that says Vancouver, one that says British Columbia and one that says Canada. They can all be from the same shop. That's fine. Lavish, lavish amount of magnitude. You're not allowed three magnets that say Vancouver, no. So if I go back to the same place, I mean, I've been to Dubai twice. The first time I got myself an Atlantis magnet for the Atlantis Hotel, which is that big sort of vacancy thing with a hole in the middle of it. But then the second time I went, I was like, oh my God, they've got this blingy gold one that is like hilariously Dubai in every. way. I want that. Thank God it says Dubai and not Atlantis. Imagine if it said Atlantis. I couldn't have two that said Atlantis. Well, can you just decide at home after which of the two magnets for the same place you're going to display? Yes, I suppose that is the reserve option. You wouldn't allow it because it would be really breaching the law. Well, again, I've been to South End multiple times because we have relatives in South End. I've got one that says South End. I've got one that

Starting point is 00:20:44 says, what's the she-she place that's next to South End called? I've got out of my head. Leoncy? Thank you. I've got one that says Leon C. I've got one that says Essex, but I will not permit myself to have two from South End, which is good, because the one I've got from South End is the magnet.

Starting point is 00:20:59 It is shaped like a plate of fish and chips. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Although not a patch on My Pride and Joy, which is the one from Marbea, which is a studdingly recreated scale model of a bubbling paella pan. Oh, wonderful. Yellow rice, googly-eyed shrimp.

Starting point is 00:21:15 But what if you don't get a magnet from a place you have been to where you don't get a sticker that your car deserves? Yes. What happens to the system then? Will I permit someone to buy me one retrospectively or buy one online or something? Or just nothing? Is nothing acceptable? Oh, nothing. No, no, nothing's totally acceptable, yes. Okay, just checking, just checking.

Starting point is 00:21:36 But it does itch at me. So, for example, when I first got a job at Radio 4 and I was proud to work in the building, I noticed that the BBC shop was selling BBC Radio 4 magnets. And there was a part of me that was like, I know those are for the tourists that are doing the tour, but they're never going to give me a Radio 4 magnet. I want a Radio 4 magnet. I'm just going to have to buy a Radio 4 magnet.

Starting point is 00:22:00 And this is like that battle with yourself of like, I know I don't need it, but there's a part of me that wants it now, so I'm going to have to buy it. You're allowed to have things. Yeah. We talked in Ansming, this episode 421 about conductor plinths and whether there is a guardrail to stop conductors toppling off and we have heard this. Hello, Helen and Ollie. It's Laura calling from Ottawa.

Starting point is 00:22:30 I am a professional violinist and I played in orchestras for many years and I have not ever seen a conductor fall off the podium, although some have come close, but once when I was in youth orchestra. I went to Amph, Alberta for a big youth orchestra festival, and the composer conducted us. He had very beautiful, longish, straight, red hair that fell in front of his face, and he would use his baton to move his hair out of his face. And I was so nervous that he was going to stab himself in the eye

Starting point is 00:23:08 with his baton. It was very distracting. Another time, this was not an orchestra I was in, but this is an orchestra in In Ottawa, many of the musicians in the orchestra sit on risers, so not exactly as high as the podium, but that's just to improve the sight lines, in particular if they're in the back, so the back of the strings and the brass might be on risers. And in this particular case, the trombones were on a riser, and one of the trombone players fell backwards. There was no guardrail. There was, I think, just like a little lip for the chair, and he fell backwards, and he was very seriously injured as a result of this fall. And I believe some changes were made to the risers

Starting point is 00:23:50 after that. So there are lots of perils with being a performer and being elevated. I never thought about a conductor maybe poking their eye out. No. Also, if you're a trombonist, people probably think you're a bit of a diva if you like belt yourself in. Do you what I mean? like you're not the star usually and you're at the back. You know, make you big thing about, oh, I might fall backwards. You make you sound precious. And yet, very serious injury could happen. Well, more likely to result from your trombone, particularly if you strap a knife to the slidy bit.

Starting point is 00:24:26 Ian McKellen fell off stage last year, didn't he? Oh, gosh. Ouch, because a fall at his age can really do so much damage. Yeah, so apparently when he fell off, he doesn't remember saying this. But it was reported that when he fell off the stage, he shouted out to the stage. he shouted out to the audience, my neck is broken, I'm dying. Was that in character? Was that the next line in the plane?

Starting point is 00:24:44 He's such a professional. He just kept going. No, no. In fact, very amateurish to abandon the role at that point, Sir Ian. Disgusting. I expect the show must go on to be in your blood. You want your money back and you weren't even there. Prospero doesn't fall over at this point.

Starting point is 00:25:00 Might brighten up my A-level English if he had. You know, I might have enjoyed the film Tar more if it'd been Cape Blanchet and fall off plints. I know that's interesting because we watched the first five minutes of that and my wife was like, yeah, not for me. Can we watch something else? And I was like, really? Are you sure?

Starting point is 00:25:18 It's supposed to be great. She's nominated for an Oscar. Yeah, I just don't like it. And I've never gone back myself to watch it. In my opinion, which I know many do not share, it was a not very good film masquerading as a good film, like duping people into thinking it was a good film. So I think you're fine not watching it.

Starting point is 00:25:36 But also I think if she didn't enjoy the first five minutes, she probably won't start enjoying it at a later point. Whereas you might. Now, remember when I said I couldn't bear my father's snoring? Yes, you were sharing a room somewhere on a trip. Yes, this was in a recent episode, but an anecdote from some time ago, yes. And I said that I sort of focused on the fact that the sound of his snoring made me realize that he was very much alive and in the room, and that somehow got me through it.

Starting point is 00:26:02 That was very sweet, I thought. Well, Lola in Seattle says Ollie's story about how he overcame his frustration. with his father snoring, was both touching and recognizable to me. Mm-hmm. Since childhood, I've sometimes felt a sudden and visceral feeling of rage when hearing the sound of someone eating. Yeah, that's misophonia. I have since early childhood often felt a deliciously tingly and pleasurable sleepiness when

Starting point is 00:26:26 hearing certain soft sounds, especially the pop of consonants when hearing people speaking a language I can't hear well or don't understand, and other soft sounds like the scratch of a pencil on paper or someone quietly telling the page of a book. This is ASMR stuff, isn't it? Yeah. I've since learned, she says, that my negative reactions to eating sounds were a mild form of what people refer to as misophonia and my positive reactions to other sounds constitute what is known as ASMR.

Starting point is 00:26:50 The reason I mention all this is because, she says, I was able to overcome my mild misophonia using the very technique that Ollie describes. Oh, cool. By focusing on feeling love for the person making the sounds, whether because they are a beloved friend or family member, or simply because they are, after all, a human, inner body, eating food, and that's a beautiful thing, really. Um, I mean, steady on. It's a thing.

Starting point is 00:27:18 It's okay. It probably sounds polyana-ish, but if I do that little mental exercise when I'm having a negative misophonic reaction, my sensation literally flips to a sense of pleasure. Wow, what a turnaround. That never happened to me. I never had pleasure. Seriously, it's just endurance. It's as if I can magically change.

Starting point is 00:27:35 my misophonia into an ASMR response just by thinking about it differently. That is fascinating. Helen, are you aware of other examples of people who can turn negative responses to positive ones? And has this ever been used as a part of therapy for misophonia? Yes, because my friend Jane Gregory is a therapist and an expert on misophonia, which she has. And she's written a very useful book about it called Sounds Like Misophonia, How to Stop Small Noises, from Causing Extreme Reactions. I do recommend that book if you have misophonia, but also if live with someone or spend a lot of time with someone who has misophonia, so you understand they're not being perniquity at you for having eating sounds.

Starting point is 00:28:14 It's kind of more than that. And I interviewed her about it for the illusionist a few years ago. And she did talk about how she would do this thing called opposite action, where you'd feel the reaction coming along, like this outsized reaction to the noises. But if you know that is not what was required by the situation, you do the exact opposite. it. So she was like, I knew my husband wasn't making eating sounds deliberately to make me angry or upset, and I knew that he couldn't help it. So I would just gaze lovingly at him. And it didn't make me enjoy the sound, but I stopped acting like he was doing it deliberately to hurt me, because

Starting point is 00:28:49 obviously he wasn't. And it was like similar with her children as well. She was like, one of them kept eating with their mouth open. And I was like, oh, table manners means you shut your mouth, but really it was for me. And then they were like stressed by my reaction to their meeting. And they were like, I'm really sorry, but it's really uncomfortable for me to eat with my mouth closed. And she was like, that made me reframe my responses to their noises because it's not, again, not their fault. Yeah, but to make yourself reprogram to the extent where you actually enjoy a thing that you actively hate is very difficult, isn't it? It's one thing to kind of minimise it, like I say, to endure it, but to actually completely change the way you perceive it is you're sort of playing a trick on yourself. That's very impressive.

Starting point is 00:29:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe those parts of the brain, the misophonia part and the ESMR part are very close and you just like manage to form a different neural pathway. Well, I think what's fascinating about people generally being more open about their kind of mental quirks, I guess, in our lifetimes is that, you know, makes you look back on your own behaviour, doesn't it? And it, and it's so many things that I did that I thought were unique to me in some way or rare are just like common as muck. I had a lot of OCD tendencies as a child.

Starting point is 00:29:59 I did do the thing and never spoke of it ever of like prophesizing doom if I didn't do a specific sequence of actions you know, flicking the light off, that sort of thing which again, like very, very common amongst children but at the time I was like, I'm the only person who thinks this one. I'm the only person who thinks

Starting point is 00:30:14 unless I make this noise now, someone's going to die. And then you realize like, oh, that's the thing that loads of people's brains do. And it's amazing. Some people just completely grow out of it and some people have to go through therapy to change the way they perceive the world. but it's innate in so many of us, you know.

Starting point is 00:30:30 Yeah. Also, on snoring. I was speaking to a guy who's on Monjaro the other day, and he said that that has stopped him snoring, according to his wife. Is that because his body has changed size or something else? It's the something else that I found interesting. Like, if it was just that he'd lost weight,

Starting point is 00:30:46 I was like, okay, well, we know that if you lose weight, or less likely to snore. But apparently it happened instantly. Like, he'd take him a jar at once, and he'd stop snoring. And, you know, he looked into it because, like, that can't be, I haven't lost any weight, so why is it doing that? And it's, he presumes, but, you know, other people have documented this, that it's because it's anti-inflammatory and it kind of immediately goes to the tongue. And so your airways change before anything else, before you start losing weight.

Starting point is 00:31:10 And like, immediately he stopped snoring. Anyway, I deliberately didn't tell my wife because I don't want her to have another reason to start secretly injecting me with Monjaro whilst asleep. Into the eye. Apparently also, misophonia is more likely to happen depending on who's doing it. Like, if you hear the sound of someone eating in a way you find disgusting and you turn around and it's not your partner, but it's your baby. You're like, oh, that's fine. I feel fine about it now. Or it's your dog or a tortoise. So it's often, like, really attached to certain people. Yes, smells. Totally, I relate there. I know that smells and not sounds.

Starting point is 00:31:44 But, again, when it's the dog, I'm like, oh, it's the dog. You walk in, you're like, oh, God, this room stinks. What the fuck's happened here? Yeah, oh, it's you. Fine. Okay. I know what that is. Thank you so much for your feedback on previous episodes of Answer Me This. Yes, there will be another edition of Answer Us back in a month's time, and we need to fill it with your feedback. And thank you, by the way, to Tom, who got in touch to say that if you just search for ROL on BBC Sounds, then you get back my podcast, Rollercoaster, Universal's, Bedfordshire Journey. I was speculating last episode whether you actually had to type in the whole of that cumbersome title. But apparently not, ROL will do it.

Starting point is 00:32:20 So thank you, Tom. You know, I've never tried typing AMT into a podcatcher, where I wonder if it would return our show as the top. result. The acronym, yeah. I can do that right now if you want to do some live, yeah, gonzow journalism. Why not? Here it homes. It does. It's in the titles. Because it's in the show titles, isn't it? You're absolutely right. That's the reason, yeah. There we go. Anyway, yes, supply some questions for the next edition of Answer Me This as well. Otherwise, it will just be the sound of Helen and I Googling ourselves to see what happens. Oh my God. The next episode of Answer Me This with your new questions to be 24th of September, 2026. So join us again for that.

Starting point is 00:32:57 Bye.

Answer Me This! - Answer Us Back: Fridge Magnet Rotator

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