In cities the world over, people are staging sit-ins; so naturally we followed suit, and sat in AMT Towers to produce Answer Me This! Episode 194. Yeah, we’re sticking it to The Man!
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)
This week, we talk of:
naughty nuns Going for Gold The Lion King 3D
fancy dress pitfalls
AFoLs (Adult Fans of Lego)
standard deviation in men’s haircuts
Cornish separatists
Victorian vaginas
Hans Zimmer
high tea
L7
the pink British Empire
impersonating a police officer John Suchet (NOT David Suchet)
the true meaning of ‘fascinating’
ALF the Alien vs. nipple tassels
and Southall’s antique jamrags.
Plus: Olly’s suspicions are proven correct that the perennially awful Rosemary Daniels did not get into Neighbours on merit; Helen’s not going to allow someone else to have the pleasure of waving sharp blades close to her head, thankyou very much; and Martin the Sound Man fleetingly refers to ‘The Bill Callahan Effect’. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of this phenomenon: it is familiar to precisely one person, and that person is Martin. Well done, Martin, for tapping into the popular consciousness so very effectively.
On this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices) you can find out what costume you need to be sexy, smart AND snug on Halloween. Clue: it involves tweed and elbow patches. Ring-a-ding-ding!
Like the greedy greedy bankers, we are greedy – for your QUESTIONS! Leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and don’t worry about the consequences: us having a big coffer full of questions will not mean that 99% of the populace has to struggle on without questions at all. Especially as we’ll be giving those questions BACK in next week’s episode, plus interest (answers). In the AMT economy, nobody has to suffer.
Episode 194 requires a visual aid, to illustrate Andrew from Southampton‘s rejoinder regarding Lego. He argues convincingly against Will from Haddenham’s assertion in AMT193 that Lego’s for the kiddies, and presents us with photographic evidence of his own Lego creation in action:
Well he’s definitely won me over to the dark side.
Bobby from Sheffield has a problem in the bedroom:
What can I do to make my woman initiate sex? We’ve been going out for 4 years and not once has she made the first move unprompted.
I’ve tried waiting for a couple of weeks but I caved in, asking her about it but she says she’s scared to get it wrong.
From what I gather it’s her insecurity (I am considerably more athletic than she) and sheltered upbringing (she was a daddy’s little princess) that prevents her from taking the lead. She’s always on bottom yet it would be nicer to feel desired once in a while.
Apparently this is a common problem with guys I’ve spoken to.
Even though we’re all supposed to be sexual stormtroopers in the wake of SATC and whatnot, it is indeed a common problem, and Team AMT members will have undoubtedly encountered it; so I appeal to them to find their inner Dan Savage, then go to the comments to offer sensible and sensitive advice for Bobby and his unconfident lady.
Luckily for us all, James from Oxford has spent much of the past two decades in deep cover, just to provide the inside scoop following last week’s question concerning I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter:
I used to work with Unilever in the mid 90s on various projects, including the development of their delicious-sounding ‘yellow fats’ strategy for Asia.
Ever fond of an acronym, ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ was shortened to ICBINB within the company. My team had to regularly feign excitement about the prospects for ICBINB and other yellow fats.
Eventually as our fake excitement for fake butter wore thin we further shortened the name internally to FMIM, or ‘Fuck Me It’s Marg’.
This small act of childish subversion somehow gave us the morale boost necessary to soldier on with our meaningless lives.
Meaningless? You brought yellow fats to Asia! A continent that didn’t even know it needed them! Hold your head high, conquering hero.
Insubordination in the AMT ranks! Dave from Bournemouth has the gall to cast aspersions upon our unerring advice:
I just listened to this week’s podcast and thought your answers to the contact lens question were rubbish!
What the person needs to do is get glow-in-the-dark paint and write “Take out lenses” in tiny letters on the ceiling above her bed. She’ll only be able to read the note with the lenses in, and no-one else will know (unless she gets lucky with someone who has 20/20 vision).
[Slow handclaps] Bravo, Dave! Of COURSE Harriet from Oxford will read the TINY letters several feet away on her ceiling, an INFALLIBLE plan especially when she passes out FACE DOWN after a night on the lash. (From her email we did infer quite a lot about her dissolute lifestyle.)
I don’t know if Josh from Bournemouth‘s suggestion would be any more effective, but I do like his style:
I too like Harriet wear contact lenses. For the first few months I was always forgetting to take my lenses out and so I made a poster full of insults and stuck it to the roof above my bed.
This meant that when ever I went to bed and could read the insults calling me a variety of horrible things, I knew I had to take my lenses out, but if I had already taken them out I was blessed with the ignorance of being able to stare at my ceiling and not be called a cunt that night.
It’s a shock tactic, with the additional bonus of providing a conversation point should Josh ever bring a Special Friend home for a sleepover.
It’s time for a question of art from Danbo from Surrey:
I have recently started a digital film course at my local arts university (Farnham for those who may wish to know) and in one of our lectures we were shown a film which, well which I can’t make heads nor tails of. It’s called “Balkan erotic epic” by Marina Abramović.
Answer me this: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS PIECE OF CRAP! Why would someone want to shove a fish up their snatch?! Or expose themselves to the sky?
We’re trading at the fartier end of art here, but it’s certainly pretty funny. It’s also thoroughly NSFW, so view with caution: (more…)
…actually, not ‘not’. See what a pain in the arse that joke is? Leave it in the 90s, people! This is our plea in Answer Me This! Episode 193:
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)
Today we ponder upon:
Indian cows
Utterly Butterly
beluga whales vs. beluga caviar
holy salt
claiming sanctuary
charity shop returns policies
cloud computing
flyers milk.com
contact lenses
Teri Hatcher in Swedish
shoe mnemonics
breastfeeding men
transubstantiation
and
the irony of Google Chrome.
Plus: Olly is jealous of you people who’ve had milkmen (oo-er, missus!); Helen will be hiding in plain sight when she goes on the lam; and Martin the Sound Man is happy to be the theme of your stag/hen parties. L-plates and fake veils do look great against a tweed jacket and facial hair.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices) is about the books that wind up in charity shops before they are even dog-eared. Not this book, though! Perish the thought.
Do NOT, however, perish thoughts of sending us your QUESTIONS. Pose them to us as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or fire up the Skype and look for answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. In the Age of Austerity, it’s one thing you needn’t stint upon.
Here’s a second question of cash for today, this time from Will from Oxford :
I am being made redundant on 31st December. While the prospect of my forthcoming unemployment is a bit depressing, but on the bright side it does mean I will be receiving a redundancy payment of £6500 on 1st January. So…
Assuming I am not going to do anything boring and sensible like invest it wisely in a savings account, how should I spend my redundancy pay so as to get the maximum amount of pleasure out of it? I’m open to any suggestions except going ‘travelling’ around Asia to ‘find myself’ or similar, as I am not a complete douchebag.
Readers! Race to the comments to tell Will how to squander his nest egg, seeing as he’s so determined not to stow it away safely under the mattress.
A question of cash now, from Nick from Manchester:
There is a girl who I really like but she owes me money. I’m not sure what to do, I don’t want to over-push the fact she hasn’t paid me back otherwise she may think I’m too aggressive and care too much about money, but I don’t want her to use me for money and also I would really like my money back.
Answer me this..
What do I do?!!!
That’s a tough one to answer, Nick, seeing as we don’t know why she has your money, nor how much it is. If you think there’s a possibility of her using you for your money, that suggests at least thousands of pounds, not a fiver. And you don’t want it to look like you are paying her for her company, because as romantic comedies go, Pretty Woman is, when you think about the facts, not at all romantic, and also quite dark.
You could give her a hint in a Gentle and Humorous Way by playing her this:
But she might just counter with this:
However, if it all goes really badly, at least you’ve got this up your sleeve:
Here’s a mystery from the not-so-distant past, courtesy of Nigel from Dublin:
Many years ago (c1990), as a young man, I was in Majorca with some male friends and I was sending postcards home to everyone I knew.
For one particularly debauched friend, I chose a card with a photo on the front of a nude woman diving into a pool (taken from the rear, so it was pretty rude). When I next saw him, I asked if he’d appreciated the card, to which he replied with a puzzled, “Erm… yeah, thanks!”
Surprised by his lack of enthusiasm for the subject, I enquired further and was amazed when he claimed that the card was just a normal one. He then produced the card, and sure enough, he was right. On close inspection, it was clear that another picture – one of those stock montages with several shots of the local scenery on it – had been glued over the original card!
So, answer me this: who the hell was employed to censor postcards from Spain in this way? Does it still happen? Does it happen from any other countries?
Readers, you have such diverse pasts and chequered careers. Have any of you ever been in the postcard-censoring business? Tell us all about it in the comments! I look forward to your stories of when you had a bad day so you stamped ‘REDACTED’ in thick black ink over an innocent ‘Happy 5th Birthday!’ message.
Also, can we be sure that it was the Spanish who were doing the censoring? It seems to me that if either side was displeased by nude women diving into pools, it is more likely to be the Irish. I suppose the clue would be whether the superimposed picture was of sunny Spain, or rain-lashed sheep.
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