Do you want to see/hear Martin the Sound Man talking about eggs? Of course you do! Here he is at this year’s Boring Conference – and would you believe, he drew all his slides himself? Yes. When you see them, you will easily believe that.
I know a lot of you are champing at the bit for The Bugle‘s sabbatical to end, so to keep you going, here’s brother mine Andy Zaltzman on The Comedian’s Comedian, being interviewed at length about his comedy by AMT jingle alum Stuart Goldsmith. Here’s the episode on Soundcloud, and if you’re a comedy fan you should do yourself a favour and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.
Offering frank advice before Dan Savage was even born was Dr Mahinder Watsa, India’s 90-year-old sex columnist. This interview is well worth a read, and here he is on Outlook from the World Service (and if you can resist the episode entitled ‘My Father Was A Serial Killer’, you are made of stronger stuff than I).
10 Downing Streetview
Macunian capers
bowling shoes
streaming Number 1 singles
band t-shirts band coffins
Marlon Brando Bastille
The Grateful Dead
port
pole vault
penile sunburn
and
loom bands.
Plus: Olly’s recipe for romance involves half a bottle of ketchup; Helen wasted the opportunity to do a funny joke for the Google Streetview car; and Martin the Sound Man does a spot on impression of Jameela Jamil. No wonder the passport inspectors barely recognise him.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android or Windows gadgetry), we consider such novelties as revolving restaurants and hotels that make your late-night toilet trip into a terrifying mission.
It’s not a terrifying mission to build a website thanks to this week’s episode sponsors Squarespace.com, because you can use their easy drag-and-drop templates to spruce up your online empire. And when you do, enter the code Answer for 10% off their services for a whole year.
If you feel like soundtracking your holiday with the AMT Holiday album, or the Commonwealth Games with the AMT Sports Day album, both are available now at answermethisstore.com, along with AMT1-170 if you’re really planning to go for it. After that AMTglut, you’ll surely still have an insatiable appetite for more, so please rejoin us on Thursday 7th August for AMT295.
Toodles!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT294 Child-Friendly Rating: 86%. No bawdy content; even a question about nude sunbathing remains innocent. There are two F-bombs, but face it, it’s hardly the first time your child has heard that profane word. •••
Another listener has found herself in a sex pickle. Inger writes:
When my last relationship ended after two years, I decided to do some proper dating (following an acceptable period of “grief”, of course) and a few weeks into the dating life I found myself dating two men regularly at the same time. One of these men was around 25 years older than me and the other my own age, and as I am a honest person I told both men that I was dating the other.
After about 6 weeks I went to the older man’s house for dinner, and as I arrived he was still cooking (a fantastic three-course meal) so I wandered around in his house looking at pictures and trinkets he had in his shelves. I reached a shelf with photos of him and a little boy, I figured it was his son (whom I did not know about) and as I moved along the shelf the little boy grew older and to my horror I realized (about mid-shelf) that it was the other man I was dating.
I sat through the whole dinner knowing that I was dating his son as well and then came up with the fastest excuse to get me out of there. So, Helen and Olly, answer me this: what is the hell do I do now?
Firstly, Inger, check you’re not starring in a sitcom.
Secondly, find some other people to date and discard both of these men immediately. Unless you want your life to turn into an actual farce, you don’t want to keep seeing one of them in case the relationship becomes serious and you have to endure a hideous meeting-the-family scenario – and all the subsequent meetings with the family forever after. And really, would you be able to cavort sexually with either of them again without being beset by such thoughts as, “Hey, my other lover came out of those very nuts!” or, “That’s not as big as his dad’s”?
Don’t worry about them too much, they can comfort each other.
Readers, what would you do? Become celibate? Keep this set-up going? Sell your story to Chat magazine? Elaborate in the comments.
Now now, I did warn you last week that AMT294 won’t appear till Thursday 24th. Please don’t give me the puppy eyes… NOT THE PUPPY EYES! Look, here’s a picture of Martin the Sound Man enjoying his holiday on a lava field.
Stuff to stuff into your earholes instead:
A couple of weeks ago, we gathered at the Regent Street Apple Store with Bugle producer Chris Skinner and Football Rambler Pete Donaldson to talk about our podcasting lives. Audio and video of the event is now available here.
Here’s a new episode of the Sound Women podcast, in which the first female DJ ever on Radio 1 (and still going strong there, 44 years on!) Annie Nightingale is an absolute bloody legend:
I popped up on last week’s Media Podcast*, with Newsbeat’s Alex Hudson and guest host Miranda Sawyer:
*And if you chipped in some cash to save the show, thanks! After a Kickstarter win, the show is galloping on for the next year.
• Fans of barbed wire are generally neglected by radio, but Radio 4 has thrown you a bone with ‘The Devil’s Rope’.
• This week I discovered a cache of three-year-old Adam and Joe podcasts still lurking on my phone. God I miss those guys… Have any of you found a worthwhile substitute yet?
Forget Led Zep’s Immigrant Song; often the real immigrant song is a plaintive wail about how you can’t get proper teabags and the bacon’s different and your mum has to send you parcels of Marmite. Newly Canadian Alexis writes:
I recently moved from Australia to Canada. On the whole, it’s be a rad move and I’m having a great time. BUT the range of chocolate that’s available is very lacking. There’s barely anything fruity, it’s all just in the nuts, caramel and biscuit range of flavours. Not only that, but their Cadbury range is very limited. No Topdeck, no Cherry Ripes, and no Freddos! (Just to name a few.)
So answer me this! Why is the chocolate range here so crap? Where has all the Cadbury gone? Why don’t Canadians like fruity chocolate more?
Readers, can you assist with Alexis’s query in the comments, summoning all your expertise upon Canadian tastebuds/trade patterns/commerce? And is it not the case that the particular confectionaries Alexis cites – Cherry Ripes etc – are exclusive to the Australian market? Perhaps our Northern Hemispherical mouths are not adapted for such taste sensations.
This morning, I stumbled upon a relic from before Answer Me This! was born. A terrifying relic that shows how different everything could have been.
In November 2006, Olly and I met up in a long gone basement bar in Covent Garden, and over a plate of mezze brainstormed our plan to start a podcast. Here’s the list of names we came up with:
Announcement the First: You know that Olly-hosted Media Podcast I’ve harped on about during the last couple of Thursday Listening Parties? The campaign to kickstart it for a year ends TOMORROW, so reallocate your potato salad budget and click here to fund Olly’s dream hosting job. (Also listen out for me on this week’s show, guest hosted by Miranda Sawyer, which will be out imminently.)
• I’ll bet there are a few of you who are keen to hear from Zaltzman family associate John Oliver, so here’s a thorough interview with him on Fresh Air.
• As you may have deduced from all these Thursday Listening Parties, I am always keen on a podcast in which people recount their true stories, so this week I’m guzzling Here Be Monsters.
• And of course, there’s the AMT Sports Day album for all the sportytalk you need before/during/after the big Shirts vs Skins game.
I went to look at a house as I have recently broken up with my now ex-boyfriend and I need to move out of our currently shared house.
I have found a perfect place, huge bedroom, en suite bathroom, private balcony looking over the river, close to my current work and the three girls that currently occupy this 5-bed house are all really lovely people.
The best part is no rent!!
Yes, you heard me right, no rent. In return for all this amazing lifestyle, I would have to take a shower once a week with an audience, an online audience at least of around 300 paying customers. I would also have to put on a sorta show.
Porn has never bothered me I enjoy the idea of being watched but… Answer me this: does this make me a sorta prostitute?
Please help!! What if someone I know sees me? I have a couple of quite unique tattoos and I’m worried that through the steam and bubbles I will be noticed by someone I know…
Here are some questions to ask yourself, Terry:
• Is this a Carling ad?
• Is this My Little Eye?
• Is this We Live In Public?
• Is this something the other three girls are doing, or is this a special set-up for you?
• I know rents are expensive at the moment, but if 300 customers are paying to watch you in the shower every week, wouldn’t it be more profitable for you to pay to live somewhere and run your own webcam-showering racket?
Readers, what do you reckon? Go to the comments to shower Terry with advice.
Also, since we’re on this topic: five years on, I wonder whether this questioneer decided to go for it.
*Which, if you have to ask, and it’s not a profession you wish to pursue, it’s probably best not.
It gives us such a glow to learn that our advice has changed a listener’s life. Given our usual schtick, this happens extremely rarely. But thanks to us, AMT292‘s lovable toast-moron Tyler from Manchester has triumphed over (self-inflicted) adversity:
Thank you for reading out my letter about my toaster trouble and for correctly identifying that I am a bit of a mooncalf when it comes to toasting bread.
I just wanted to thank you for alerting me to the fact that toasters come in different sizes – I had always blithely assumed that they all had the same standard-sized slots, and had never shopped around for toasters with the room to accommodate a slice of Warburtons, crusts and all.
I have now done so, and am the proud owner of a large red one, with ample bread-browning docking areas. In honour of you guys, I have christened it Olly. I hope you don’t feel left out, Helen, but this toaster is definitely masculine. Which might make you wonder why I called it Olly. The simple answer is that calling a toaster Martin the Soundman is just a bit too nutty.
Of course, naming a toaster ‘Olly’ is not nutty at all. Keep on keeping on, Tyler.
When you’re trying to make new friends, what’s the best icebreaker? One of today’s questioneers thinks talking about death is the way to go. See if you agree in Answer Me This! Episode 293:
We also consider less morbid topics, such as:
Viagra calorie content I Love Lucy
Wayne Rooney’s new hair vs Kyle Beckerman’s old hair
Vancouver vs Pinner
chocolate vs chocolate flavoured chocolate-esque solids
fire hazard fiances
Jason Biggs
jetlagged hamsters Crystal Creams
Russian Roulette
giving references
borrowing a cup of sugar
and
fucking a pork pie.
Plus: Olly explains the difference between Jewish front gardens and gentile front gardens; Helen will be hibernating all summer (correct term: ‘aestivating‘); and Martin the Sound Man has a restaurant ratings system that will render Michelin stars obsolete.
Since this episode kicks off (yes I went there) with football, one of our least favourite topics, we address another in today’s Bit of Crap on the App: zombies. We could scarcely feel more ambivalent, but since so many of you love them, do your special zombie walk over to the app store in order to listen on your iDevice, Android or Windows toy.
••• AMT293 Child-Friendly Rating: Squeaky-clean first third, then a question about Viagra. This is alright, until around 19 minutes into the episode the conversation turns to American Pie, whence it degenerates horribly. The rest of the episode is fine aside from a few swears, but realistically you’ll already have had to switch over to Fun Kids, so overall we have to rate this episode as 27%. •••
Here’s a question from an anonymous 22-year-old lady from Boston:
I am a bisexual young lady who has just moved to Boston. As is unremarkable for someone of my generation and sexual appetite, I have an online dating profile on OKCupid.
To put it bluntly, I fulfil societal standards of beauty. I modelled for some years. I get asked out on this website multiple times a day – and usually decline because of disinterest (more often then not because a lot of men here fetishise my race).
Here’s the kicker. I am a dedicated to animal welfare and also the promotion of sex education – in a land where the Republicans have slapped their sexually suppressed balls all over the school system.
Answer me this: should I start accepting dates from people I’d usually be disinterested in if the man/woman sends me a screenshot of a donation to the ASPCA/Planned Parenthood? e.g. ’50 bucks to support birth control for poor women, and let’s go for drinks!’
I am a broke graduate without much money to support these organisations myself, but I can help in other ways than volunteering, right? Does this count as prostitution?
What do you reckon, readers? Would our anonymous hottie exchanging her company for charitable donations be smart altruistic leverage of the current situation, or would the people paying for the dates merely think they’re getting an escort for an unusually good price? Express your opinions in the comments (£10 to Marie Curie Cancer Care per comment).
At the very least, if she does do this, the questioneer would be guaranteed to be featured in an article on Jezebel. They can’t get enough of datingexperimentstories.
Here’s a question of SPOOOOOORT from Arj from Canterbury:
I’ve been watching a lot of the World Cup recently, and I don’t really get the point of the coin toss at the start of the match to decide which end the winner chooses to shoot from. Is there some tactical advantage to be gained from choosing one goal over another? In cricket, at least, the coin toss makes sense: bowl or bat. But in football, all that really changes is the direction you’re running in…
Maybe that’s not all, Arj. Maybe it’s so you can’t blame the pitch for anything that went wrong and put you at a disadvantage, because we all know how footballers love to whinge about the slightest thing. Maybe the sun is blinding at one end. Maybe you don’t want to start/finish the game with all the opposing team’s fans standing behind the goal flipping you off. Maybe the pitch is on a 15 degree gradient. Maybe half the pitch is cursed because it is laid on top of an old burial ground.
Help Arj out, readers: explain this in the comments. I know I could look it up, but I…can’t be arsed because it’s football.
Answer Me This! Podcast 