Helen Zaltzman

Author Archive

Eleven days remain…

September 15, 2008

…of our CAMCORDER CHALLENGE, so get yourself in front of your webcam, handycam, PD150 or CCTV and post an entry with all speed!

Competition is fierce, with questions ranging from the pithy to downright baffling; but we felt the following entry particularly deserved your viewing attention as it is not so much a question for the competition as a pilot for a show Channel 4 really ought to commission:

Although how dare they say the messenger bags are ugly! The bags are as pretty as an Afhgan hound in a party dress!

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the coolification of Bowls

September 11, 2008

** There are still two weeks to go in our CAMCORDER CHALLENGE – get your entries in! **

Bowls: can it get cooler than this?

In response to Amy from Aberdare’s lament in Episode 69 that her schoolfriends were mocking her excellent at bowls, Luke from Brisbane has the following words of comfort and advice:

In Australia now Bowls has been turned into a kinda cool, trendy thing to do on a Sunday afternoon, after the advent of barefoot bowls (where you play barefoot, and wear casual clothes). This is mostly because of the cheap beer that they serve at bowls clubs and that it’s easy to learn; they normally do a good BBQ as well. Most of the old folk love it when you come down because most of the members are dying and they need to get young people playing.

So maybe try that, get her friends down and have a couple of drinks and give it a go. (I’m assuming that she is over 18, or maybe wait till that day.)

Not a bad idea, Amy – bribery with food and booze! Or set up a nude bowls club. Although it might be a bit like Cocoon crossed with a Carry On film, at least it would have intrigue.

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pretty as a picture – because it is a picture

September 8, 2008

* Craving some AMT!P magic? Click here to listen to some vintage episodes *

Have you entered our CAMCORDER CHALLENGE yet?
If you have no idea what this is, click here to be availed!

What does it take to melt our hearts, listeners? Flowers? Puppies? Sulphuric acid?

Well, each of those things in their own way – but also some good old arting! Not for the first time, we’ve been reduced to little pools of joy by a listener sending us a pictorial adaptation of the podcast. Today’s delight-bringer is Amelia from London, who sent us the following:

I was just listening to some old episodes and was inspired to create this…well either that or I was just really bored.

Thank you, Amelia! Especially for giving us all such nice hair.

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EPISODE 69 – boules is fucking cool!

August 28, 2008

This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p, through 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.)

Phew, it has been a LONG series of Answer Me This!; at this point we’re no more capable of answering a question informatively than we are of running 100 metres in under a minute and a half. But we’ll be back recharged on October 1st, and in the meantime you MUST have a go at Helen and Olly’s Camcorder Challenge! You must also listen to Episode 69, wherein lie such topics as:

IMPORTANT LAVA LAMP ADVICE
the instant garlicinator
bouquets vs. Burtons
dogs vs. the various things they can tear apart
Demi Moore
Spin the Bottle
evil tactics of the Girl Guides
the wrongness of conducting relationships via MSN
inappropriate things to do with mashed potato
biological clocks
Buddhism for Kids
and
George Clooney.

And as for other entertainments:
• On Wednesday 27th Olly was guesting on the Richard Bacon show on BBC Radio Five Live – click here to listen to it!
• Martin the Sound Man has a new EP and for a limited time only you can download it for FREE via his website – do that!
• On Thursday 28th, Channel 4 broadcast a Comedy Lab starring friends-of-the-podcast Pappy’s Fun Club – you have until 4th September to watch it online!
• And if you want to torture yourself by listening to Olly’s favourite Billy Joel song, ‘All for Leyna’, click here! (Although we really can’t recommend it.)

We’ve still got an enormous heap of questions that didn’t make it onto the podcast, and we’ll be trying to answer some of those in written form on here during our month off, so check back here often! And of course please do keep adding to our question pile so that we’ve got a festival of excitement to come back to in the new series: send questions to our phone line 0208 123 5877, Skype account answermethis or answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

Stay in touch! We’ll be back before you know it!

Helen and Olly
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ghost cavemen

August 28, 2008

Following Matthew from Colchester‘s question in Episode 68 about why white heterosexual ghosts seem to have a monopoly in the spirit world, Matt from Barnehurst has noticed another Shocking Inequity from Beyond the Grave:

I have always wondered why are all the ghosts that people claim to see from the Victorian age, why are there no cavemen ghosts walking about the place? Plus if there were such things as ghosts, wouldn’t there be over 30,000 years worth of them, rather then from a small period in time?

The plot thickens! Where are all the ghosts of 400BC or the 1980s? If any of you have connections with the Afterlife, be a dear and ask a spectre to come and explain it to us, preferably via the medium of whispering in an unnecessarily sinister way or making the toaster levitate.
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Holiday reading

August 28, 2008

Betsy asks:

Given that is is August and rainy, and university has not deigned to tell me what I should be reading (yet), Helen, Olly and Martin, answer me this, what books would make good reading material while resting my brain before university begins again?

Well, let’s face it: once your degree has kicked in, it may be several years before you can actually read for pleasure again. So here are a handful of our recent Fun Reads for you to peruse before your brain learns to puke at the mere sight of a dustjacket:

Olly likes:
The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe
The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas

Helen likes:
The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (avoid the film, though! The film is shit! However Beyond the Valley of the Dolls does have some excellent boobs in it)
Jude: Level 1 by Julian Gough

Martin the Sound Man likes:
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
V For Vendetta by Alan Moore

Please leave your own recommendations for Fun Books For Betsy Before Academia Ruins Reading in the comments below!

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EPISODE 68 – ghost hedgehog

August 21, 2008

Greetings, chums!

We hope you have a super-duper bank holiday weekend (or just weekend, if you’re reading this from Abroad). If you can find a window between the traditional bank holiday activities of sitting on a rain-soaked beach, punching your beloved over your half-assembled Ikea wardrobe, or wondering why the mayor in The Dark Knight is wearing SO much eyeliner, have a listen to Episode 68.

And with what sort of guff are we filling the time this week? Well:

Chaka Demus and Pliers
Most Gay Haunted
Candyman
Khan’s Bargain Superstore
Christina Aguilera vs untidy bedrooms
salad dressing
gay dads
Hulk merch
platonic soulmates
and
the grimmest breakfast in Christendom (apart from the guy on Come Dine With Me who made a Full English Breakfast curry. Heeeeeave!!!!).

Plus: Olly shares the secret of undintable happiness; Helen reveals the hidden perils of marrying a non-Jew; and Martin the Sound Man shows how Guns’n’Roses made him the man he is today – although that seems up for some debate.

Now the last episode of this series of Answer Me This! is only a week away (or considerably less away than that if you factor in that it is all pre-recorded), so hurry hurry HURRY and send in your questions to our phone line 0208 123 5877, Skype account answermethis or answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Last one there’s a curried egg!

But during the podcast’s month of vacation, we’ll be leaving you with an Exciting Challenge – so make sure you check in next week to find out what it is!

See you then, then,

Helen and Olly

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the true face of Martin the Sound Man

August 20, 2008

** Click here for EPISODE 67 **

Turns out Edward from Borneo isn’t the only listener who thought Martin the Sound Man is not a living jungle of a man. Patrick from near Oxford writes:

I too thought the same thing; in fact I imagined his face (in much detail) completely wrongly. I have painted a picture of what I thought Martin looked like based on his voice and words.

How intriguing that Martin apparently has a bald (and quite old) voice! If anyone else fancies sending us a picture of how Martin appears in their minds (without looking at the photos elsewhere on this site – cheating!) then email your daubings to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and we’ll post them on here in a Hart Beat-style gallery of the imagination. Not much point doing pictures of me and Olly, though; everyone knows we both look like this:

but which is it - Helen or Olly?

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EPISODE 67 – Stratford Upon A-Zone

August 14, 2008

Dear listeners,

We hope you are enjoying the grouse season. If not, then you might as well listen to Episode 67. Lurking like lead shot in the gravy are topics including:

snakebite
Graham from Canada = the Leigh Bowery of Canada?
slant rhymes
Cheese Inspector Wexford
Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day
Sue Barker
Stratford vs. Stratford
Eeyore vs. Esau
Barry Norman vs. Paul Newman in the battle of the condiments
recessive genes
Shirley Manson
and
leotards.

Yum.

As there are only two more episodes left of the current series of Answer Me This!, get your questions in! Phone 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and we’ll endeavour to apply our weary wits to them before we toddle off for a month’s recuperation. This podcasting stuff really takes it out of you…even though all it actually involves is sitting on a chair and talking until your lower jaw has to be tied back on with a bungee cord.

Peace out!

Helen and Olly

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confusion and repulsion

August 13, 2008

After Maurice’s question in Episode 65 regarding people one confuses with other people, Will has sent us this corker of a celebrity mix-up:

Like your listener who used to get Billy Bragg and Melvyn Bragg confused, I used to get George Orwell, Orson Welles and H. G. Wells confused.

Easily done, Will – after all, have you ever seen them in a room together?

Meanwhile, Wade has been in touch following Sarah from Gaytown‘s plea in Episode 64 for methods of cooling the ardour of an unwanted suitor:

I’m 16, and i managed to use a foolproof way of ridding attention from females who are about my age.

I met this girl on the internet who took an interest in me, and as I have a girlfriend (Ana), whilst we were talking on msn, I posted a picture of myself holding my baby cousin as my display picture.

When she asked jokingly if the baby was mine, I swiftly replied “Yes”

But I thought I may as well go the whole way, and when she asked the baby was Ana’s, I told her, “No, it was “Katie” some girl I met last year, but she wasn’t sure it was mine, so we went for a DNA test to find out and it turned out it was mine.”

This is all NOT TRUE. But she fell for it =)

A smiley well-earnt, Wade! Creative lying at its finest.

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baldness and hairiness

August 13, 2008

Despite our frequent allusions on the podcast to Martin the Sound Man‘s hirsuteness, we’ve received the following question from Edward in Borneo:

Martin sounds bald. Is he?

Far from it.

'lovely head of hair': Martin the Sound Man

From collar to cuffs, here’s a delightful little tale courtesy of Peter from Atherton, following Rich from Fareham’s question about pubes in Episode 65:

Following your man from Fareham’s query regarding pubic topiary, I offer this anecdote…

While at university, I had a friend of the female variety who was rather sexually adventurous and keen to share her exploits with me. Many a night she would come knocking on my door in halls to inform me that her boyfriend had managed to coax 5 or so orgasms from her quivering body… I wouldn’t have minded so much if I weren’t busy working on just the one myself, but that’s another story.

While living in halls in our final year, my friend found herself at a loose end and in need of something to do, so came knocking on my door asking for advice on how to amuse herself that afternoon. I suggested that she should shave her muff. She required surprisingly little persuasion to proceed with this course of action, and returned a while later to announce that she was now clean-shaven.

So, she goes off to see her boyfriend that evening and to surprise him with her shaven haven and he is… utterly underwhelmed. Seriously not at all impressed in any way. He agreed with the assessment that it’s slightly paedo-y and he just didn’t find it attractive. The whole saga ended with a week of itchy crotch as her pubes grew out again, and I was given much grief as the whole thing had been my idea in the first place. Oh, how I laughed. Great days.

Rich from Fareham, I hope that this woman’s bitter experience is useful to you in your quest for the perfect undercarriage coif.

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EPISODE 66 – proper weblebrity

August 7, 2008

Hello there, old timers,

Wave your walking sticks, it’s Episode 66! Then turn up your hearing-aids to 11 and listen to Episode 66. And, sprinkled therein, like digestive biscuit crumbs down the front of your cardigan, are such topics as:

AMT as the basis of the post-Julian calendar system
Cornwall in April
Jewish matchmakers
Cheese! The Musical
the attractions of York
sugared almonds
‘Radio Gaga’
Henry Clay Work
medical emoticons
drunk-dialling
crumpets
serrano ham
the hazards of deviating from wedding traditions
and
the Creaky Buttocks.

Plus! Helen gets herself into a crossword; Olly gets himself into the Condescenders’ Club with an octogenarian matchmaker; and Martin the Sound Man does a pun that almost slips under the radar, but instead splatters the radar with Category 4 wordplay. Furthermore, we attempt to help with the love-lives of various young listeners, as if they shouldn’t be saving all that romantic stuff until they’re at least thirty-five. However if YOU have a love-life (or issue of any other kind) that you wish us to go sticking our oars into, please send us an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com
or leave a message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis. We might just have the answer you’ve been hoping for all these years! Although we’ll probably disguise it behind a curtain of stupid banter as ever. What. A. Service.

Helen and Olly

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