Helen Zaltzman

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A thimble of sweet sherry

October 21, 2009

Here’s a question from Sarah:

I’m hoping that you guys are booze connoisseurs…

Sarah has evidently not heard the episode in which the AMT! Team’s favourite grown-up drink is a mug of hot Ribena with brandy.

…because I need some help. In a couple weeks my friend is turning 17, and she’s never had anything other than church wine [LAME], so my best friend Tyler and I are planning on getting her mildly trashed.

Tyler and I aren’t sure what to give her that won’t feel like a kick in the face when she wakes up the next morning. Tyler drinks vodka straight and I got drunk for the first time at new year in Edinburgh and nearly died, so our first drinking experiences aren’t helping us out.

What can we buy that’s fun, tastes okay [enough so that it wont scare her away from drinking forever], but will get the job done?

Obviously we cannot answer this question because underage drinking is of course ILLEGAL. But if you have a suggestion for what refreshment the young lady might enjoy in a year’s time, then please put it in a comment below!

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Tags:booze, drinks
Posted in extracurricular questions, User-generated answers | 17 Comments »

EPISODE 113 – cheese on ice

October 15, 2009

Hello listeners,

Don your special silly-specs, because now, in INCREDIBLE 3D and GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOUR, it’s Answer Me This! Episode 113:

This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p, through iTunes or a secure PayPal server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Oh alright, it doesn’t look any different to our other episodes, but it definitely sounds different, for unlike all those other weeks, this week we’re talking about:

Veronica Mars
Sylvia Plath
musical chairs
Almost Famous
Priscilla Presley
Shakespeare’s Globe
Sharon Osbourne vs. Robert Mugabe
Time Out vs. the rest of the world
a ‘Janet Jackson-style mic’
Granny’s Garden
and
Rebecca Ritters.

Plus: Olly takes a trip down Memory Lane to the days of Lycos and Geocities; Helen proves to be not very ladylike in the bedroom; and Martin the Sound Man uses an expression that should probably get him put on some sort of register. We also reveal just how rock’n’roll we really are. Although I think you know already. More Horlicks than Hendrix, alas.

Now, like squirrels gathering a large supply of hazelnuts to get through the winter, we want to stuff a tree-trunk full of your QUESTIONS to see us right through to spring. So please email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on Skype ID answermethis or the question line 0208 123 5877.

And do chip in with your suggestions as to the best party games: leave a comment below, and in due course this blog post will become Party Central. Minus the Twiglets.

See you next week!

Helen and Olly

PS: A madly-skilled young lady disproves Olly’s statement that you can’t play a pop song on a ukulele without sounding like you’re taking the piss:

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Tags:bands, bed, Cher, children, crime, decor, eggs, food, Halloween, hotels, journalism, movies, music, showbiz, theatre, vandalism
Posted in PODCASTS | 8 Comments »

Creepy fun!

October 15, 2009

** Click here for Episode 112 **

It’s Halloween soonish, and AMT! pal Brendy from Pappy’s Fun Club is putting on a special scary show which we thought you might enjoy. It’s called The Institute, and will be on at the Pleasance Islington 29th October – 1st November; it’s one of those Modern theatrical jobbies where you follow the actors around while all sorts of Things happen. Totally meta, yeah? A bit like The Man Who Knew Too Little or something.

It stars comedy princelings The Penny Dreadfuls, and you might even catch sight of Helen or Martin, who are helping out! Terrifying! Etc.

Click HERE to find out more about it, and to get tickets.

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Tags:plugs
Posted in friends of the show | 2 Comments »

sweary child

October 14, 2009

** Click here for Episode 112 **

Oh, the shame of it.

We have caused a little problem for ‘Luxembourg’s Hottest Hausfrau’, Vanessa from Luxembourg from Episode 77, regarding her son Tom from Luxembourg, from whom we also heard in Episode 72:

As you know, my son Tom of Luxembourg fame and his dad listen to your show, however Tom has been swearing quite a lot and I fear you guys may have contributed to this.

I am struggling to find a suitable punishment, other than ban him from listening to your show but then his dad would let him listen anyway so that’s pointless. I could shove a bar of soap in his mouth, squirt washing up liquid down his throat. I have thought of having a swear box and fining him but he has no money.

Can you answer me this: How would you two stop an 11-year-old boy swearing?

Well, evidently we can only cause the opposite effect; so readers, any ideas?

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, extracurricular questions, help! | 12 Comments »

EPISODE 112 – big doughnut abacus

October 8, 2009

Goodness gracious great balls of fire, Team AMT, it’s time for Answer Me This! Episode 112:

[
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p, through iTunes or a secure PayPal server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)

In which we ponder:

Agatha Christie vs. depression
the regional Kriss Kross revival
modern scurvy
So I Married An Axe Murderer
fake Berocca
first date fault-finding
Theseus
Birds of a Feather
David Beckham’s squeaky voice
Gwyneth Paltrow’s greasy legs
and
calcium oxide.

Plus: Olly’s cat is a miracle cure; Helen’s got some fancy knobs (fnarr!); and Martin the Sound Man smooth-talks himself into the affections of the in-laws. NB that was in the days before he peppered his sentences with terms like ‘cunnyhouse’ and ‘jizzflappers’. We miss those innocent times.

Anyway, if you have any QUESTIONS with which to delight our foolish hearts and foolish minds, you can email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave them in voicemail form on Skype ID answermethis or the question line 0208 123 5877. We look forward to them like we look forward to a cup of tea and a bun. That is, A LOT. Don’t you know us at all by now?

See you next week,

Helen and Olly

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Tags:beer, blindness, cake, cookery, dating, depression, etymology, food, marketing, marriage, sex, space, theatre
Posted in PODCASTS | Leave a Comment »

When stag nights go bad

October 7, 2009

** Click here for Episode 111 **

Back in Episode 110 we asked you to share your grisly stag or hen night stories, since none of us have been on a particularly rotten one. Nor has Matthew from South Africa, but he sure has heard of a good one:

A close friend of mine, we’ll call him Bob, recently told me the full reason why his uncle wasn’t invited to his stag night.

It turns out that at a stag night many moons ago, Bob’s uncle tied the groom, naked, to a lamp post. A fairly normal and harmless gag in most circumstances.
However, it was the middle of Cape Town’s winter which, although not as cold as England, does mean rather low temperatures.

The combination of copious amounts of alcohol, being unclothed and a freezing wind caused the groom to suffer a heart attack. Bad enough.

However, for some unknown reason, when the ambulance arrived to cart the groom off to hospital, Bob’s uncle thought it would be a great idea to steal the ambulance and drive around town. He awoke the next morning at the wheel of the ambulance, parked many miles away, with his friend lying in the back of the ambulance on a stretcher.

They rushed to hospital and luckily the groom survived the incident, although he spent some time in a coma and the wedding never took place.
I’m unaware of whether or not the uncle faced charges, but I would imagine so!

Um…lordy. Well, if the Prague or Dublin tourist boards ever want to return their town centres to stag-free historical pleasantness, then they should definitely give Bob’s uncle a call…

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine | Leave a Comment »

Cinema armrests: Falkland Islands 2.0?

October 7, 2009

** Click here for Episode 111 **

Call the UN – borders are being disputed! A great many of you have written to us with the following question, so it is evidently very very important:

Which armrest is yours at the cinema?

We ~~couldn’t be arsed to devote even a second of thought to this problem~~ have decided to throw this one out to you:

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Tags:movies
Posted in extracurricular questions, Rock the Vote, User-generated answers | 8 Comments »

ladybits

October 7, 2009

** Click here for Episode 111 **

Here’s a bawdy tale courtesy of Rachael from Clerkenwell:

After a work trip to Amsterdam a female colleague described to my boyfriend a live sex show that she’d seen.

Having embarked upon the anecdote, she faltered on realising that their working relationship was relatively formal such as to preclude the use of “sexual swearwords” and the story culminated in describing her boss pulling a long ribbon out the performer’s vagina.

After a moment’s pause to consider the full spectrum of possible euphemisms, she went with ‘flower’, perhaps the most incongruous word she might have picked to describe the lurid act.

Answer me this: have you heard any more ludicrous words used to describe a lady’s furry front bottom than a ‘flower’?

Yes we have, but we have used more than enough whimsical genitalia euphemisms in the podcast, so it seems to me that this is one for you, readers. Got anything stranger than mimsy, flange or botticelli? Comment below!

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Posted in extracurricular questions | 18 Comments »

Ben vs. Ben

October 7, 2009

** Click here for Episode 111 **

Dearie me, we made a blunder in Episode 111, in which we answered a pair of questions from Ben from Oxford. Or so we thought, until we received the following complaint from Ben from Oxford:

After many weeks of sending questions to you, I finally heard the words ‘Ben from Oxford’ read out on the podcast. But after my brief glimpse of cyber-ecstasy, it was revealed that the question was not mine, but of another ‘Ben from Oxford’.

You read the other Ben from Oxford’s question [about doctorates], before going on to state that HE had a doctorate in question-asking, and reading out MY QUESTION about why ‘X’ means sex. But what really annoys me is that you gave him the credit!

Let us take this opportunity to apologise to Ben from Oxford for robbing him of his due questioneer glory, and to clarify that the doctorates question was asked by Ben from Oxford, whereas the X-rating question was in fact asked by Ben from Oxford. I hope we’re cool now, Bens.

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Posted in contrition | Leave a Comment »

EPISODE 111 – shaving your legs for Jesus

October 1, 2009

Salut, podcast-fans!

We must warn you, Answer Me This! Episode 111 is a wee bit smutty. We face questions about onanism, X-rated films and naughty nuns; plus Olly demonstrates why you will never want to invite him to scatter seeds in your flowerbeds. Hear it now:

Mars Attacks! vs. Big Fish
crossbar vs. no crossbar
poor old Jessica Simpson
H.H. Suplee
fly-tipping
sad scenes at Streatham Station
the University of Bologna
the intergalactic Gillian McKeith
endohedrofullerines
and
Castlemaine XXXX.

Furthermore: one of Helen’s rare displays of good manners lands her in hot water; Olly reveals himself to have yet another feminine side; and Martin the Sound Man posits that being able to do stuff with teeny weeny bits of carbon is better than being able to save lives. Don’t you dare disagree with him though, or he’ll make you read his doctoral thesis from cover to cover. We gave it a go, but it wasn’t fun. However we definitely love to read your QUESTIONS, which you can ask us via answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, Skype ID answermethis or the question line 0208 123 5877. Please please us by doing that!

See you next week,

Helen and Olly

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Tags:bicycles, fancy dress, medical, movies, parties, prawn, racism, tertiary education
Posted in PODCASTS | 2 Comments »

“Congratulations on cheating death for another year”

October 1, 2009

** Click here for Episode 110 **

Melvyn in Brighton has a problem which we certainly share, so we’re all hoping that some of you have the solution. Melvyn writes:

Please could you answer me this: do you have any funny/witty suggestions that I could write in birthday cards that are circulated around the office? I get on with everybody but not great mates. I’m getting fed up writing the same thing, Happy Birthday, have a good one or Happy Birthday, have a great day! Etc etc.

We’ve all been there, right? It’s upsetting how flimsy one’s imagination proves to be when faced with a blank corner of a workplace card. So please comment below with suggestions that everyone can recycle. And if you don’t come up with the goods, we suggest Melvyn takes to signing the cards in his own blood; even the blandest sentiment can be jazzed up in this manner.

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Posted in extracurricular questions | 13 Comments »

Party on in Svalbard

October 1, 2009

** Click here for Episode 110 **

Hey readers! Are any of you Arctic party animals? I don’t mean polar bears, but the kind that frequent night-spots and beatle-drives and whatever. If you are, could you help out Ryan from Woodland Park Co with his homework?

This a really random question but here goes. What is the name of the night club In Longyearbyen Svalbard?

My friend and I are doing a project for school for a brochure for any destination so we decided to do Svalbard. There’s a night club and three pubs said to be in Longyearbyen, but we can’t find their names anywhere so can you help us out please?

If you happen to know the name of any of these places, comment below – although frankly Ryan, the chances of your teacher being able/arsed to corroborate the evidence you present are so slim that you might just as well make them up. They will probably assume you invented Svalbard anyway.

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Posted in extracurricular questions | 7 Comments »