Archive for January, 2012

EPISODE 202 – this is a rock’n’roll gig, not some sort of egg party

January 26, 2012

Hello chums,

You’ll be relieved to hear that according to (not very respected) scientists, January 23rd was officially the most depressing day of 2012 – which means it’s onwards and upwards from here! Hooray. We’re not sure where Answer Me This! Episode 202 fits on that graph, but here you go anyway:

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Today we consider:

novelty flavoured Coke
presumptuous Baptists
St Patrick’n’St Bridget
Britney’n’Kevin
Teddy Boys
oshiburi
the Elgin Marbles
Andy McNab
white tie and tails
the stork
Jack Nicholson
and
@.

Plus: Olly is a staunch traditionalist when it comes to marriage (despite being, at the same time, staunchly anti-marriage); Helen guesses what Andy McNab’s mysterious face really looks like; and Martin the Sound Man mounts an impassioned defence of the underscore.

This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) finds Olly SHOCKED and APPALLED by his beloved Disney, because he discovered Mickey Mouse is a secret smoker. Call the tabloids!

Once you’ve done that, please call/email/Skype us, with your QUESTIONS: answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; Question Line 0208 123 5877; Skype answermethis. You must know what to do by now.

If you’re also inclined to send us something more substantial than a question, our postal address is:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ

And if you’re free next Tuesday evening, please come along to this! Otherwise, we’ll see you back here next Thursday, as ever.

Helen & Olly

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Babybird

January 25, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT201

Don’t be fooled – this question from Ciaran in Liverpool is new, not from the mid-late 1990s:

My band is supporting Babybird next month (2nd February at the Liverpool O2).

Answer me this: do Babybird have any songs other than ‘You’re Gorgeous’?

Don’t say that to Stephen ‘Not at all like a baby nor a bird’ Jones himself on the 2nd, Ciaran; he’ll spit feathers! Especially as he was famously(ish) prolific, having churned out four albums in a year before ‘You’re Gorgeous’ made him into a slightly-more-than-one-hit wonder. How could you forget the follow-up single ‘Candy Girl’?

Or that single off the next album, which happens to be one of Olly’s all-time favourite songs?

Or that recent one where Johnny Depp directed the video?

To be fair to you, Ciaran, almost everyone forgot them. Probably even Stephen Jones forgot them. Let us know how the gig goes, and whether he just plays ‘You’re Gorgeous’ ten times to give the crowd what they want.

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Free entertainment!

January 25, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT201

We know you love free entertainment, because you listen to podcasts. If you also like it in the form of sitting in a pub and watching actual people saying things in front of you, then you are in luck:

On Tuesday 31st January, we will be recording a radio pilot for a comedy quiz at the Phoenix Cavendish Square, and we need YOU to be in the Live Studio Audience. We will be joined by some of our favourite raconteurs, Ian Collins, Tom Parry and Bridget Christie, and as if that were not temptation enough, the pub serves very pleasing-looking food. And the price is a very recession-friendly £0.*

So please do come along; doors open at 7pm for a punctual 7.30 commencement, but remember, early arrivers get the good seats. It should all be concluded by about 9pm. Please bring a pen and paper, as -SPOILER!- you may need one.

*SMALL PRINT: since it is a pilot, quality cannot be guaranteed. But if it does turn out to be rubbish, remind yourself that it cost you nothing. Financially speaking.
MORE SMALL PRINT: it is taking place in a pub, so the usual pub age restrictions apply.
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up yours!

January 24, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT201

I admit, I did a full-body wince upon reading this email from Hannah:

After listening to some of your back episodes, episode 101 caught my ear. In it you recommend, to get over a relationship, you should do things that you couldn’t when you were with the other person.

When with my ex, we had a long-standing joke about various piercings, him being pretty horrified, and me enjoying winding him up. So, when things ended a few months ago, I decided to take your advice: I got myself a clitoris piercing!

Answer me this – what is the most extreme thing you’ve done to spite/get over someone?

Errrrm…got on with my life? Boring, I know.

However, readers, you are much less boring than I, with my unpierced genitalia. So please flounce towards the comments and tell us your best stories of recovery/retaliation.

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Send us a birthday card! Click here for the postal address

And wine not

January 24, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT201

You sure can read a lot into those curved wine bottle bottoms. After last week’s speculation upon their reason/purpose, Dan tells us:

I have a sommelier mate, and according to her the curve in the bottom of the bottle is to help keep sediment in the bottom of the bottle.

It certainly sounds plausible. Meanwhile, nobody has been in touch to refute my assertion that a flat bottle bottom is as reliable an indicator of a rubbish wine as a picture of a high heeled shoe on the label.

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EPISODE 201 – House is called ‘Maison’ in France

January 19, 2012

Hello listeners!

Welcome to Answer Me This! Episode 201: the first episode of the year, and the first since the podcast turned five years old. Helen’s niece Matilda turned five the other day too; she celebrated by eating a plate of spaghetti with her hands, and we’re only moderately more civilised:

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Wherein we consider:

cake pops
Al Capone
moon plots
The Gun Seller (or should we say Le Gun Seller?)
pease pudding
Catch-22
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie
supermarket trolleys
Ready Steady Cook
pushy parents
the North Wales Police
and
Anthony Worrall Thompson.

Plus: Olly harks back to when he won an election – he claims democratically, but then so did Putin; one day, Helen dreamed a dream of becoming Brian Turner, but never did it come to pass; and after twelve and a half years in the dark, Martin the Sound Man finally hears the sad news that the Two Fat Ladies will not be returning to his television screen.

This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) concerns the only thing we don’t like about Mexican restaurants: the unwelcome phenomenon we like to call ‘Guac Tax’.

Well, that’s the new series begun, but please help us make it an absolute corker by sending us your exquisitely finely-honed QUESTIONS, as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).

And although our birthday has passed, we’re stuck with the PO Box for another four months, so do please send us a token of esteem if you are so moved:

Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ

Also, if you want to be moved to tears of derision like John, the final caller in the episode, scroll down to the bottom of this post to see the pictures of our parents (oh alright, Olly’s lovely mum).

See you next Thursday,

Helen & Olly

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Birthday treats 3: virtual mantelpiece

January 9, 2012

ANSWER ME THIS! RETURNS ON THURSDAY 19th JANUARY; MEANWHILE, CLICK HERE TO CATCH UP ON PREVIOUS EPISODES

There is not an actual mantelpiece in the AMT Cabinet Office, but thanks to you guys, our mantelpiece-substitute is bristling with cards:

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birthday treats part 2: getting crafty

January 6, 2012

ANSWER ME THIS! RETURNS ON THURSDAY 19th JANUARY; MEANWHILE, CLICK HERE TO CATCH UP ON PREVIOUS EPISODES

So you’ve already seen the user-generated sugar mountain; now take a look at these items which Team AMT lovingly handcrafted.

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Next up: cards!

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birthday treats part 1: sugar high

January 5, 2012

ANSWER ME THIS! RETURNS ON THURSDAY 19th JANUARY; MEANWHILE, CLICK HERE TO CATCH UP ON PREVIOUS EPISODES

In the spirit of you supplying us with questions upon which to deliberate in each podcast, you have been so kind as to send us all sorts of treats with which to celebrate our fifth birthday. Take a look at the first batch of user-generated bounty we found in our PO Box, and we will share more over the next few days.

When I say ‘share’, I’m sorry to say we won’t literally be sharing them, because they are piled high on the AMT Towers banqueting table and you’ll have to fight the three of us to get any.

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Here are some excerpts of the sweet messages which accompanied the ultra-sweet gifts:

Don from St Paul, Minnesota [figs 1&2]: Please find an assortment of American candies and sweets. I hope you enjoy them as I have enjoyed your sweet, sweet podcast… I included the nut goodies as they are made in my hometown of St Paul, and I drive by the factory every day to and from work. I hope you like peanuts. Remember, they are a good source of protein.
Protein! Healthy! Our new Nut Goodies addiction is healthy, phew. (Lordy, those things are tasty. Well done, St Paul.)

Lofty from Manor House [fig 3]: I thought that as for the last four and a half years (I missed the first six months and listen retrospectively) you have filled my Thursday evening gym session with fun, laughter and knowledge, I would fill your bellies with crisps and snacks!
Seems a fair exchange – our podcast is snack-for-the-brain. IE not nutritious and no replacement for a proper wholesome meal.

Kate from Newcastle upon Tyne [fig 4]: I realise that you might be slightly wary of food sent to you by strangers, and quite right too, but I hope it is of some comfort that I can boast a Level 2 NVQ in Food Hygiene and a rigorous understanding of the Food Standards Agency guidelines. Basically, I’m saying there aren’t any bogeys in them.
This seemed to be the case; so if you would like to buy someone a yummy gift of cute animal heads on sticks, you would do well to hie over to cakepoppins.co.uk.

Moz from Milton Keynes [fig 5]: Thankyou for making these five years a little bit more bearable.
It is our pleasure – nay, our duty! Really, we should be thanking Moz, for being one of the handful of brave souls who have managed to stick with the podcast from its timid Bambi-steps back in 2007.

Duane from Boulder, Colorado [fig 6]: I thought about including sweets more appropriate to Boulder – a town known in the US as “crunchy” – such as carob-covered tofu drops of jellied seaweed.
NAAAAH!
You get the good stuff in exchange for the great stuff you put in my iPod.

Duane evidently hasn’t yet discovered the jellied seaweed drops we secreted in his iPod, has he?

Hikma from Brooklyn, New York City [fig 7]: Congrats and thanks for 200 great shows (give or take).
The banana Laffy Taffy from Hikma has jokes on the wrapper (hence ‘laffy’), here you go:
– Knock knock.
– Who’s there?
– Max.
– Max who?
– Max no difference, just open the door please.

And with laughter ringing in our ears, we’re off to have a lie-down. We can feel the sugar crash about to dive-bomb; plus, we need to call the dentist.

Coming up tomorrow: some of the fantastic home-made gifts you have sent us.

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extracurricular engagements

January 3, 2012

Hey! We haven’t just been sitting on our arses since the last dose of AMT; we’ve been sitting on our arses talking into microphones, and if you happen to be interested, here are links to the various results:

• In our regular slot on BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition, we ran through the highlights of 2011 online with Chris Warburton. In the unlikely event you did not spend New Year’s Eve nestled up to your radio listening to it, you may instead click here to download the podcast.
• We joined John Plunkett, Vicky Frost and Dan Sabbagh to contemplate the year in media on Guardian Media Talk, which you can download here.
• And we considered what we managed to learn in 2011 on MacAulay and Co on BBC Radio Scotland, which until the morning of Friday 6th January you can hear here. We and comedian Chris Ramsey pipe up from the 59-minute mark.

Lest that is insufficient noise to divert you until our return on 19th January, you might click here to catch up on our latest podcasts, and if you are still not sated, click here to buy AMT2007-2008 for 79p a shot.

Send us a birthday card! Click here for the postal address

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Five years young

January 2, 2012

We’d like to wish a very happy birthday to ourselves! For on 2nd January 2007, the very first episode of Answer Me This! hit the nets. And we would like to take this opportunity to apologise to everybody who sat through it.*

It has been a pleasure to have you join us over the years, and especial thanks go to all of you generous lot who have been filling our Big Birthday Box with cards and treats. We’ll be posting a gallery of those from tomorrow, but it’s still not too late to send us a missive (we’ll be milking this birthday for WEEKS if we can get away with it, as any self-respecting 5-year-old should). Here’s our postal address:

Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ

*Although if you think you do want to do that, it will only cost you £0.79.

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