Hello chums,
This week, in Answer Me This! Episode 146, we turn to prayer. Don’t worry though; we counterbalance that with computer-game sadism.
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Appearing this week in our speech are:
exploding Anthea Turner (don’t worry, she survived!)
The Daily Bra (a bit NSFW)
‘Whistle While You Work’ vs. ‘Girls and Boys Come Out To Play’ vs. ‘Greensleeves’
Theme Park
Katamari Damacy
you singular vs. you plural
young Mann’s evil marketing ruses
Skype at a wedding
the Siemens TJ 10500 Dressman
Spaced
busy Henry VIII
the JFK death-film
and
Queen Victoria’s forbidden thunderbox
Plus: windy Olly has to choose between his girlfriend and his trouser-press; Helen is going to Hell for what she did to the Lord’s Prayer; and Martin the Sound Man says something sensible about balls for once. We’re also delighted to hear that love blooms between you listeners in even the unlikeliest of places (namely facebook.com/answermethis)
Meanwhile, over on the AMT app, there’s a very curious question from Kiki in Manchester about the Amelie-ish discovery of a mysterious photo of a baby surrounded by matchsticks. Have any of you mislaid such a thing? And in this week’s episode of Great British Questions, our toilet humour knows no bounds. The series is now finished, but come back next week for our Great British Outtakes reel.
Next week, in episode 147, we’ll be joined by special guest Ian Collins of the Late Show on talkSPORT; so send your QUESTIONS for Ian (and us) by leaving a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or firing off an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
That’s all!
Helen and Olly
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Answer Me This! Podcast 
December 15, 2011 at 4:05 am |
The ice cream vans around here play Nelly the Elephant. Never heard anything else from ’em aside from during Christmas time, which is something I imagine is a thing that happens throughout the whole country.
September 6, 2010 at 11:55 pm |
The explanation for the loss of the distinction of you-singular and you-plural is indeed the first one – any linguist would be incredibly hesitant to say that the written form of ‘thou’ (which would have indeed gone þou -> you in old handwriting like the word “ye” to mean the) would actually have an effect of its own on the spoken form, but it may have reinforced what was already occurring. And if that was the case, we’d have lost the word “thou” altogether… which we haven’t – I just wrote it right there with “th”!
It just sounds ridiculous because the reason given, “the British were too polite”, is probably not true. The thing is, it has actually happened elsewhere too; Argentinian Spanish has the same dichotomy now between “vos” to mean ordinary “you” and “tu” to mean an archaic/formal “you”, just like our “thou”. Other dialects of Spanish have “vos” as plural, “tu” as singular, and a third pronoun, “usted”, for the formal.
(On that note, I did hear another story that “thou” fell out of fashion because the Quakers of the time (C18 I think) insisted on using “thou” because that’s how they talk to God, and everyone else started using “you” exclusively because they didn’t want to be mistaken for a Quaker. Again, probably apocryphal, but interesting!)
August 20, 2010 at 11:51 pm |
Its more fun to lock sims in an undoored room with several fireplaces and lots of rugs and no smoke alarms. Massive inferno ensues, all sims get set alight and die. Fun for everyone… except the sims…
August 21, 2010 at 6:59 pm |
And I used to lock the butler in the freezer on Tomb Raider. Does this make me a bad person?
August 24, 2010 at 10:46 am |
Haha, It was great locking the butler in the Freezer! He always managed to escape as soon as you turned the corner though!
August 20, 2010 at 10:18 pm |
The talk on The Sims, Katamari Damacy (nice name-drop!), and Theme Park brought back some fond memories. When a friend and I would play Theme Park our favorite money-maker was to fill the entire park with a giant water raft ride and roller coaster. Since the costs were based on length, and the game allowed some blatant unrealism (like the salt content Olly mentioned), the water ride would take over a week to get through. Those poor patrons!
Also, you could delete a section of the roller coaster when it was in motion and send the cart hurtling to a fiery explosion. I think there were some digitized screams too. What a great game.
August 20, 2010 at 10:19 pm |
Oh, and your Britain videos were great. Olly’s tea-spitting extravaganza was much funnier than it should have been; good show!
August 19, 2010 at 9:27 pm |
Just to add my two cents on the ‘praying for atheists’ issue. I’m an athiest who has been in a relationship with a Romanian Orthodox Christian for two years (we’re just waiting for our own 1970s-style ‘opposites attract’-themed sitcom). We never really discuss his prayer habits that much, but over the past couple of years, whenever something quite bad or upsetting has happened to me, and he’s off-handedly mentioned ‘I said a prayer for you, by the way’, I’ve always actually found it quite sweet and reassuring. I see it as just another way of him saying ‘I’m thinking of you, I’m here for you and I’m hoping it all works out for you.’
So, to the lady worried about offending her ill athiest friend, I doubt very much that she will be upset to hear that you’ve prayed for them and probably be quite pleased to know that you’re thinking of them and wishing for the best possible outcome.