Helen Zaltzman

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the secrets of the Build A Bear workshop

April 8, 2009

evilteddybear

Following her missive in Episode 89, Kat from Edinburgh has lifted the lid on Build a Bear. Prepare yourself for Shock! Scandal! Bears filled with drugs! Teddies with nine limbs! Or:

To answer your questions about Build a Bear, it’s only in America that you can actually get messages sewn onto them. If people change their mind, we take the bears into surgery, cut the thread at the back then take the stuffing out to put back into other bears. We then can re-stitch it and sell it again. You can record voice messages to put in them but there’s a button to delete them. You could most certainly put AMT messages into them. You would have to take a recording to the shop and play it into the Build a Sound which would then be put in the bear. Not sure if the quality would be that great though. And we personally don’t kiss the hearts. That would just be sad. The customer does it. If you are feeling mean you can get them to rub it on your tummy so it never gets hungry, rub it on your heart so it has lots of love, rub it on your head so its clever etc etc. The kids love it! As for the Uranium, I most definitely do not earn enough to buy any and I don’t think it would go down too well with the boss!

Huh. It sounds quite cute and civilised actually. Dammit.

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Births, Deaths, but no marriages

April 8, 2009

** Click here for Episode 89 **

A few announcements:

Firstly, happy birthday to Jon from Bath, who turned 14 yesterday! Well done, sir.

But let’s turn to sadder news. A few months ago Celeste from France named her guppy fish after Martin the Sound Man. Joy abounded in Martin’s dainty heart. But this week Celeste emailed again, with tidings that he may find devastating:

I’m afraid I have bad news, Martin has Disappeared! The poor fish has gone missing with his auntie, I fear the red-tailed shark malso in the aquarium may have eaten them. 😦

so my question is more of a request: may we take a small moment of respect for poor Martin and his auntie? RIP.

Readers, light a candle and remember Martin the guppy. Remember his auntie. Remember Olly the late guinea pig. Wow, pets named after the AMT!P team really don’t seem to have a good record for staying alive very long…

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We’d like to thank our parents, our friends, our drama teachers, our podiatrists…

April 7, 2009

** Click here for EPISODE 89 **

Olly at the Sony nominations

Scenes of hangover and rejoicing at Answer Me This! this morning, for last night we were nominated for a Sony Award! Unbelievable? We know! But head over to the Sony Radio Academy Awards website, scroll down the list of nominees until your arm gets tired, and there we are, in the Internet Programme Award category.

The Sony Awards are proper stuff, people, so we are thoroughly chuffed. Now, if any of you know people on the judging panel, please give them some cupcakes or a lapdance on our behalf…

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Questions for Michael from Hertfordshire

April 5, 2009

Michael from Hertfordshire from Episode 89, your ship has come in! Anastazia has furnished you with enough questions to keep your relationship going forever (or until your girlfriend gets sick of being interrogated all the time. Anastazia says:

My partner and I have used more than a few of these and whilst some are strange most are quite good. Michael is sure not to run out of questions before his gf.

(more…)

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EPISODE 89 – prunes

April 2, 2009

Morning campers,

Put down those pranks, because April Fool’s Day is over for another year – and so, alas, is our Photoshop Challenge! You can still pop over to photobucket.com/answermethis to comment on the entries, and the winner will be announced on this very website next week. Until then, there’s Episode 89:

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:

the world’s first branch of Do-It-All
Rubik’s Magic
Jack Vettriano
how to stop the Barenaked Ladies revival
Classics degrees
mescal vs. tequila
urology vs. colo-rectal surgery
the Olsens vs. the Mitfords
career advice from car journalists
man-thongs
and
uranium.

Furthermore, Olly conceives of a cunning marketing campaign for the under-fives; Helen practices her photo-face; and Martin the Sound Man rolls out a special version of ‘Human’ by the Killers. If that is Your Song, then for pete’s sake switch off the podcast for a few seconds at the 16 minutes mark, else it will be ruined forever.

As we beseech you at the end of the show, please comment below with questions for Michael from Hertfordshire to put to his lady love. But don’t give Michael all your questions; save some for us! Send them to Skype ID answermethis, our Question Line 0208 123 5877, or answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Thanks in anticipation.

See you next week!

Helen and Olly

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Vampires – part of the Troubles?

April 1, 2009

In Episode 88 we found a lot of conflicting stories about where vampires came from, then got sidetracked before working out the answer. So thankyou, Ray from Belfast, who has stepped forward to claim that vampires are a home team:

The whole Vampires mythology actually comes from Ireland. The O’Caithan legend (Pronounced Oh Ka-han) is the earliest known legend about blood eaters. Apparently in Dungiven, County Derry, there was a local baddy/boogie man who demanded to eat the blood of one person of every family in the town in retribution for wrongly convicting him of a crime.

So O’Caithan (the local hero) was summoned to kill the baddy, and therefore became the first vampire slayer.

There are lots of legends like this in Irish mythology, especially surrounding the Irish famine when cannibalism was rife, although this isn’t the most politically correct thing to broadcast!

It was these legends that inspired Bram Stoker to write his now world famous Dracula stories. To avoid domestic criticism, he set the stories in Eastern Europe.

I think you’ll find that there was no history of blood eaters in Eastern Europe before this.

Now. It seems perfectly convincing, but so did the Irishman who told me that there are no snakes, homosexuals or feminists in Ireland because St Patrick got rid of them all. So if anyone else wants to pipe up and tell us that in fact all vampire myths are based on Surrey commuters, comment below!

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Time’s up!

April 1, 2009

Dinnnng! The Photoshop Challenge is now closed. So put your electronic pens down, and come back here next week to find out who won.

** Click here for EPISODE 88 **

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Music Mondays

March 30, 2009

** Click here for EPISODE 88 **

Listeners, you are probably well aware that we at Answer Me This! hate to waste energy, to the extent that we don’t even get off the sofa most days. However we might be persuaded to haul ourselves into an upright position by the Mega Dance Power of this jaunty song some of you have forwarded us:

‘Polar Bears, Who Cares?’ – Dan Power

Once you have finished shaking your hairy arses, you can bogle on over to www.energywastingday.com to find out how to stalk Dan Power or buy one of the frankly awesome t-shirts. Then you can go off and Do Your Bit in time for Energy Wasting Day on April 1st by setting fire to some tyres or something.

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EPISODE 88 – there’s nothing hornier than a narwhal

March 26, 2009

Look here, chums,

Only six days to go until our amazing Photoshop Challenge closes, so here’s a checklist:
1) Have you uploaded your entries to photobucket.com/answermethis?
2) Have you visited the same photobucket.com/answermethis to view the entries, comment upon their finery, and slyly download them for our birthday cards?

If yes to both, good. You may now proceed to Answer Me This! Episode 88:

This week we ponder:
historic Brighton
Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares
notable people from Stanmore
dead fish vs. live fish
vampires vs. vegans
the Barenaked Ladies vs. the Sound of the Ladies
synaesthesia
the Norman invasion
two fat ladies
the Dicks and the Balls
and
Last of the Summer Wine.

Plus! Helen wheels out her etymological dictionary without putting everyone to sleep; Martin the Sound Man contracts porphyria; and has Olly found his real dad on Google Streetview?

If that’s not enough for you, don’t forget to sign up for Martin’s spring music sale, and tune in to TalkSport tonight between midnight and 1am to hear us on the Late Show with Ian Collins. Then please send us your QUESTIONS, to Skype ID answermethis, our Question Line 0208 123 5877, or answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Oh, and here’s the tooting video we chuckle about in the podcast:

Parp!

Helen and Olly

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Excursions on other podcasts

March 25, 2009

** Click here for EPISODE 87 **

Shortly before we did our live song-and-dance extravaganza at the London Word Festival last Sunday, we were interviewed by Jamillah Knowles for BBC Radio 5 Live’s Pods and Blogs podcast. You can download it HERE if you would like to hear us waffling on, and some of the other fine acts from the day including the smashing Donal Coonan.

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Is that a protractor in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

March 25, 2009

** Click here for EPISODE 87 **

Here’s a curio from David from Sheffield:

One of my friends and I were having discussion a while back in a particularly boring maths lesson where we attempted to come up with the nerdiest pick-up lines we could. The best ones we got were “I’ll balance your equation…” and “Wait till you see my hypotenuse…” What are the best ones you can come up with?

As none of us are allowed to chat people up, lest we ruin our long-term relationships, we’re going to throw this out to YOU. If you have an irresistible geeky chat-up line that you don’t mind sharing, “Nice pair…of compasses” or the like, then please avail us all of it in a comment below!

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EPISODE 87 – shark wedding party

March 19, 2009

Hello dears,

Don’t forget that it’s Mother’s Day this Sunday. Obviously a trip to THIS would be the Best Present Ever (certainly better than this bollo) but if you’re a big lazy cheapskate then just put a bow on Episode 87 and pray that none of your siblings have got her a spa day.

Wherein we consider:
paedomorphosis
muted girlbands
our new Twitter account
yellow tomatoes
Sarah Beeny
iced eyebrows
Rentakil
the ocean sunfish
toy chicken escalopes
pandas
tumeric
Jamie Oliver’s plates
stainless fasteners
and
the wrong way to do Ramadan.

Plus: Olly gives dance tips; Helen suggests lying on your CV; and Martin the Sound Man is giving away his music for free! Spring madness! Click here to get it. And for further audio fun, you can Listen Again to us on yesterday’s Nemone show on BBC 6Music. It’s available here on the BBC iPlayer until Wednesday 25th. We’re on around the 2hr10 mark.

Twelve days remain of our Photoshop Challenge, so keep uploading your entries to photobucket.com/answermethis, which is where you also need to go to admire the dazzling display that you wonderful people have supplied thus far. Also we know your curiosity is undauntable, so please send us your QUESTIONS, to Skype ID answermethis, our Question Line 0208 123 5877, or answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

Byeeeee!

Helen and Olly

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