Author Archive

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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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:

Subscribe to AMT! on iTunes listen to the MP3 through your computer our podcast feed on Libsyn Share with Facebook

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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The Best of AMT2011 part 2

December 22, 2011

We hope you enjoyed last week’s rattle through the first half of the AMT year. If not, here’s more stuff that you won’t enjoy, in The Best of AMT2011, part 2:

This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just £1.99 at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)

Wherein we revisit such golden moments as:

Jon Ronson’s breakfast with Pocahontas
butternut squash
Tate & Lyle’s decomposing lion
Lulu
Going for Gold
‘Imagine’
the theme from Requiem for a Dream
claret jugs
character M&Ms
Martin’s wedding pants
the Fat Controller’s wife
Owl City
Reg Grundy nepotism
staplenuts
Avril Lavigne fans
Anna Paquin
and
sexy Jews.

Plus some more Previously Unheard Bits from the bin.

Help us concoct more podcast for you to hear in 2012 by sending us your QUESTIONS: fill our inbox by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and deluge our Question Line with voicemails (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).

And you can also fill our big empty box – our PO Box, what did you think we meant? – with some 5th birthday goodies:

Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ

We’ll be back with episode 201 on January 19th 2012, so it merely remains for us to wish you all a very happy Christmas/atheist substitute and New Year, and to thank you very sincerely for listening to us in 2011.

Helen & Olly

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meeting your idols

December 22, 2011

CLICK HERE FOR THE BEST OF AMT2011 Part 1

Here’s a jolly old question from Pete in Devon:

My favourite jingle starts ‘I’m an Answer Me This! fan, I listen with my nan’.

I too want to be like Olly Mann – so answer me this Helen: is it true that you should never meet your heroes?

Perhaps you have had an encounter with someone you held in high esteem that was everything you expected it would be or was a crushing disappointment.

Well, if you should happen to meet Olly – perhaps browsing in John Lewis, or in the jacuzzi at a spa, or queuing at the local courthouse to contest a parking ticket – you definitely would not be disappointed (unless you have completely unrealistic expectations. He’s not really gold-plated, you know).

However, in all other cases, I counsel that you steer clear of these encounters. Even in the cases where your hero turns out to be just as delightful as you had hoped, you cannot escape the inequality of your situation: you know them, but they do not know you, and your only common ground for chitchat is how much you love them. This subject, by the way, will make for an awkward one-sided blithering conversation, which will make you cringe forever after – unless, of course, your celebrity crush is in fact very vain and adores talking about how amazing they are. In which case you might be able to indulge in a lengthy discourse, but it will result in the second scenario: disappointment, as you discover all too plainly that your idol is an arrogant twat.

So, in either case, you’re better off keeping your mental image of the person and not tarnishing it with horrible old reality. Our next questioneer Sophie did learn the hard way:

I recently went to a book signing, where I just quickly mumbled a question at Jarvis Cocker’s face. I now have a signed copy of his book, and a horrifically embarrassing memory to cherish.

To avoid such instances in the future, I was just wondering what is the correct etiquette for book signing events?

As aforementioned, there is no overcoming the fact that your relationship is unequal, and regardless of which well-chosen bon mots you deploy, you’re not going to emerge from the brief encounter as Jarvis Cocker’s new best friend. To minimise the awkwardness, prior preparation is essential: decide on ONE thing to praise out of Jarvis Cocker’s achievements – perhaps one of the less obvious highlights of his oeuvre? – and maybe throw in a compliment about his tie or suchlike. Give him a little guidance about what to inscribe in your book. Then LEAVE. Your dignity will thank you for eternity if you’re the one who breaks off the meeting (because you yourself are BUSY and IMPORTANT, and the world doesn’t stop turning just so everyone can worship you, JARVIS).

We will all be entertained if you, reader, would deign to share in the comments the tales of when you did not observe these guidelines and found yourself somewhere on the scale between mortified and slapped with a restraining order.

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New Year’s Eve

December 21, 2011

CLICK HERE FOR THE BEST OF AMT2011 Part 1

Andrew from Doncaster has a quandary about what to do in nine days’ time:

Last night I had a discussion with my other half about arrangements for New Year’s Eve, the problem being that he works in a pub and will be at work, and he wants me to sit and wait while he finishes, probably around 3am.

I can’t stand New Year’s Eve! So, answer me this: do I just go along with what he wants, so ending up bored and drunk sat waiting while he serves his customers, or do I just say that I will pick him up when he is finished?

The latter. If you go to his pub for the evening, he will be busy and ignoring you, while you prop up the bar with your simmering resentment.

But readers, what would YOU do? And, moreover, what WILL you be doing for New Year’s Eve? Climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge wearing a sequinned jumpsuit? Popping two Valium and sleeping right through it? Sitting in a prayer circle with your Mayan friends welcoming the end times? Let us know in the comments!

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