Author Archive
July 19, 2011
** Click here for Episode 183 **
I am most impressed by the solution James in Nottingham came up with to his own problem:
This is in response to my question last week about what I should do about this online paramour coming to visit me. Well I actually like this guy and he is a bit fragile so I didn’t want to disown him, so I resigned myself to give man up and give him a blow job as Olly suggested (actually I think Olly suggested a handjob – but does anyone who has actually had sex like a handjob? why not just wank yourself?).
However, on the night I had instead arranged a far more attractive mate of mine to constantly hit on this guy at the pub. After a few drinks, my visiting friend succumbed and kissed my mate; I acted highly offended and stormed off in a huff. The next day I met up with my visiting friend and said I was highly offended by his actions the night before and it was obvious that he was just looking for a quick shag whereas I was looking for a relationship (I’m not). He agreed and we parted on good terms and he had the ego boost of having my attractive friend hit on him.
Now I was quite please at how things had turned out: I managed to not sleep with someone I don’t fancy and he left with his ego increased and not hurt. But some of my friends think I should be ashamed of myself for my Machiavellian manipulations. Have I broken some moral code or should I congratulate myself for a job well done?
It looks like you manufactured a win for you AND a win for your visiting friend, so that’s certainly a job well done. You did, however, force your attractive friend to prostitute himself, which does present a moral conundrum for you and him. Readers, let us know what you think – and also if you’ve ever come up with as cunning a method as this to let someone down gently.
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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, User-generated answers | 5 Comments »
July 19, 2011
** Click here for Episode 183 **
Hey! Remember that guy in AMT181 who called in having stapled his testicles to a copy of the Keith and the Girl book
and claimed he had video evidence?
He has provided us with the video evidence.
Before you watch it, let us remind you that it is a video of a man stapling his testicles to a book, so prepare yourselves for the sight of a man stapling his testicles to a book. Click through to view the rest of this post if that is something you actually wish to see, but think carefully about your decision beforehand, because once seen, it cannot be unseen. (more…)
Posted in visuals | 17 Comments »
July 14, 2011
We, you, and everyone else in the world with functioning ears should be celebrating following the joyful news this week that the Black Eyed Peas are cancelling their subscription to What Sample? magazine, hanging up whatever contraption it is that makes their oeuvre so appealing to people who enjoy shit parties, and taking an indefinite leave of absence from generating that infernal racket.
Yes.
But if, for some reason, you start to miss the sound of puerile nonsense, simply fire up Answer Me This! Episode 183:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p 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)
No booms, pows or lumps, we promise; just conversation upon the following:
Christmas in July
BBC1’s Coast
Shakespeare in Love
Queen Middleton’s off games excuse
sample groups
substitute swears
baseball
Caroline Quentin
Annabel Chong
Anna Paquin
Neal Street
Canadian cricket
verticals
and
Danny Baker’s Dozen.
Plus: had he not been thwarted by the onset of puberty, THIS could have been Olly; Helen gives Tesco some much-needed advice to raise their game or lose their festive glove market share; and Martin the Sound Man blackmails petrol stations with his bowel movements. Concede to his demands, or face the direst consequences on the forecourt.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone and iPad, or Android) is a question from Simon from Beddington, who has one problematic nipple. But which one? You have a 50% chance of guessing it correctly!
You have a 100% chance of sending us a QUESTION if you properly employ the usual means, which are leaving voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or emailing to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Our new intern Apl.de.Ap looks forward to sifting through them all.
See you next week!
Helen & Olly
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Posted in PODCASTS | Leave a Comment »
July 14, 2011
** Click here for Episode 182 **
Nige from Sohar, Oman has some feedback on last week’s episode:
Pockets being sewn up dates back to the IRA planting small incendiary devices in Oxford Street in the ’80s.
Now I’m no bomb scholar, but I’m going to hazard a guess that this is a little nugget of Horseshit History. Firstly, because I suspect the pocket-sewing practice is older than that; secondly, because by extension of that logic, clothing emporiums would also have had to sew up every shoe, sock, trouser-leg, Speedo and shirt cuff, glue down every pile of T-shirts, and seal all manbags in protective concrete shells. It would have been easier to shut up shop completely.
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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine | 1 Comment »
July 12, 2011
** Click here for Episode 182 **
“Why Miss Figgins…y-y-you’re beautiful!” people far and wide have stammered at Alec, as he took off his spectacles and shook out his prim bun (or similar):
I am a 28 year old shop supervisor, working in Oxford.
Until very recently my sartorial preference could be described as “windswept extra in a Nirvana video”. I wear beaten up old jeans, converse boots and a variety of black t-shirts and open shirts. Moreover, I had a massive mop of extremely curly, shoulder length, blondish-brown hair.
Last Wednesday, however, I finally got sick of the effort required in keeping my hair clean and tangle-free. I went to my local hairdresser and I was given a much more trendy short back and sides. Upon arrival at work on Thursday, there was a collective intake of breath of surprise at the change. Additionally some very regular customers asked me if I had just started (I’ve been there for nearly 3 years).
General consensus on my new look is that I now “look cool”. Given that I am still tall and lanky and still dress like 1992 never ended, I am somewhat sceptical of this new opinion.
So, please answer me this:
My whole life, have I only ever been a £25 haircut away from looking cool? Really? Is that all it took?
Yes! In fact, sometimes it only takes a careful blow-dry and a dressing-up montage – have you never seen any Hollywood films ever, Alec? But never forget that you’re still the same old dorky Alec beneath the hair, so even though Freddie Prinze Jr is now proudly taking you to the dance, to the shock of the In Crowd, you want to make sure that he’ll love the ugly duckling you really are.
The morals of the story are a) people are shallow, b) a decent haircut CAN be a passage to a new improved life, c) the 90s revival is only going to work with 21st-century styling.
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Posted in extracurricular questions | 1 Comment »
July 12, 2011
** Click here for Episode 182 **
Seeing as covert surveillance on unsuspecting targets seems such a hot topic in the British media lately, let’s address the following question from Melissa from Kansas:
Recently my ex-boyfriend came back on leave from being injured like a ridiculous idiot tripping like a lunatic in the middle of a flipping war.
Anyway, I saw him in the parking lot of a local store and wondered what he was up to so I tried to check out his Facebook page, but he had blocked me. So my question is, would it be creepy if I made a separate Facebook profile just to keep tabs on the asswipe?
Of course it would be creepy! That is, if he’d even agree accept the friend request of someone he’s never heard of who has zero other friends (unless you were planning to track several other estranged acquaintances too). Casting yourself in a Psycho Ex-Girlfriend role would hardly reflect well on you either; nor would the decision to such lengths to spy upon somebody whom you believe to be an ‘asswipe’, rather than moving the hell on and avoiding psychological attrition at your own hand. Lastly, you do NOT want to be like any of the people in this story, you really don’t.
Sanctimonious lecturing over, let’s look at Melissa’s supplementary question:
Have any of you ever felt the impulse to check up on an ex?
Of course! Who hasn’t? We like to make sure that our former paramours are mere shells of human beings after we’ve finished with them, drifting through their drab wretched half-lives, ever bereft without us…or we at least like to know that they are aging prematurely. However we never stooped to such schemes as Melissa’s; we prefer to use flying monkeys for those dirty jobs.
Anyway, readers, have you ever in the past yielded to your inner Glenn Mulcaire and found out anything exciting about your ex? And how far did you go in the endeavour? Moving in next door would count as ‘far’. This would count as ‘definitely too far’.
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July 12, 2011
** Click here for Episode 182 **
Have you lost the key to your padlocked shed and desperately need to get your lawnmower out? Are you yearning to break out of a very spindly prison cell? Or do you just like threatening-looking tools? If so, call on Brigade for assistance:
Last Friday I parked my bike at a quiet train station, before taking the train to see my parents in the countryside. When I returned Sunday afternoon, I unlocked it, packed my stuff onto it, and then spent a few minutes not understanding why it wouldn’t move. It turned out that somebody else had locked it to the bike stand (why, oh why? My boyfriend suggests some teenagers having fun, but what kind of fun is that? In my days, we vandalised bikes, we did not make them
extra-unstealable).
The next day, I shelled out the equivalent of £37 to buy a bolt cutter (since no-one I knew had one I could borrow), and went back to regain control over my bike. Amazingly, no-one seemed to find anything remarkable about a 30ish woman cutting a wire lock in plain view at midday.
I went home with my bike and my bolt cutter, wondering if I would ever use this tool again. However, spending £37 just to retrieve a bike seems a bit on the expensive side, and I would like to get a bit more out of my purchase, if at all possible. So, answer me this: What (non-criminal) uses for a bolt cutter can you think of?
Easy: insinuate yourself with the band of vagabonds who did this to your bike, and linger at the bike stands with which they’ve recently interfered with. When the owners of the shackled bikes turn up, offer to cut the locks for them for a small fee. You’ll recoup the £37 in no time!
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Posted in extracurricular questions | 1 Comment »
July 7, 2011
This week we, like you and every other breathing humanoid on this planet and the next, are transfixed by Wills’n’Kate’s working holiday in Canada. WHOSE HAND WILL THEY SHAKE NEXT? The suspense! Yet somehow we have torn ourselves away from the 24-hour royalwatch Jumbotron long enough to bring you Answer Me This! Episode 182:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p 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)
On our tour of topics, we respectfully nod at the following:
literal popcorn entertainment
Latin puns
orgiastic decor
the Leaning Tower of Pisa vs. the Windsor Crooked House
Jaws vs. Jurassic Park
Frank Gehry
top-down social change
moviedeaths.com
careless fingering
pocket fraud
and
Wetherspoons trainer snobs.
Plus: Olly doesn’t care what he looks like from behind, so hairdressers, let your imaginations run riot; Helen feels the full benefit of Olly’s wonderful manners; and Martin the Sound Man tells you how to customise your underpants for free. This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone or Android) is a treatise on why James Cameron’s forthcoming Titanic 3D must be stopped, and not just because nobody needs to see “I’m the king of the wooooooorld!” any more vividly realised.
We’re keen to collect as many QUESTIONS as Queen Middleton has bouquets from Canadian children – and to present them to us, you don’t even need to line the streets waving! You merely need to leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. But by all means imagine us clutching the questions affectionately to our bosoms, asking you a polite question about your charitable works, then moving on to the next prole.
See you next week!
Helen & Olly
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Posted in PODCASTS | 7 Comments »
July 7, 2011
** Click here for Episode 181 **
Do you ever look in the mirror and see a stranger staring back? Or even, like Terri from Stockwell, found yourself in the midst of a getaway or near-death experience? Terri writes:
What’s the most inexplicable or out of character thing you’ve ever done? Earlier this year I tried to run out of a fish and chip shop without paying for my haddock and got chased down the street by the shop owner… I’d never previously stolen anything apart from stationery, and have to put it down to having broken up with my girlfriend two days previously and being a bit temporarily unhinged. Also, I once tried to climb a massive cliff with no safety equipment and almost died. But that was when I was 13.
Once I threw a newspaper in the bin rather than recycle it… Thankfully, readers, you seem an erratic bunch, with lives full of personal folly. So go forth to the comments and tell us your tales, which I’m sure will cheer up Terri as she awaits her trial for haddock theft.
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Posted in extracurricular questions | 1 Comment »
July 7, 2011
** Click here for Episode 181 **
Our next correspondent asked that their name and address be redacted, so they will henceforth be known as Captain Scammington:
I have hit on a way to get anything you want for what you want to pay – yes really, and this isn’t junk mail I promise.
On, shall we say, certain well-known online retail outlets, as well as buying new tat, you can sell your old tat. On certain well-known online retail outlets you will find a few big timers, using clever software, will always undercut your price by a penny – several times a day.
So you simply decide what it is you want to buy and the price you would like to pay for it. Check to see if big timer has the item (one doesn’t want to shit on one’s peers) and then tell a tiny fib that you have one already and put it up for sale. They will then lower the price of theirs to a penny under the price you’d like to pay for it – at which point you buy it. It’s very unlikely that someone will buy the one you ‘have’ in the meantime and if they do it’s very easy task to cancel the transaction. I ‘reckon’ you could get away with this maybe a half dozen times a year.
Now answer me this: is it so terribly wrong to fraudulently offer something for sale you don’t have (big business would never do that, would it?)? Or is it sticking it to the man and to be applauded?
Readers, you sit on all points of the moral compass. Is there something noble about sticking it to Big Business with a bit of petty crime? Is one foolish not to use the mildly naughty means at your disposal to bag yourself a bargain? Or is wrongdoing just plain wrong?
Whatever you say, though, I’m sure Captain Scammington will continue their cheapskate ruse until either they cook up an even better one, or they get struck by lightening.
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Posted in extracurricular questions, User-generated answers | 6 Comments »
July 6, 2011
** Click here for Episode 181 **
If you’ve ever wondered what Martin the Sound Man does in his day job of “physicist”, take a look at this video here, and try not to get as much of a shock as Krish did:
Looking at the technology section on the BBC website, I clicked on the video link called ‘data visualisation’, being a 3D visualiser myself.
I paid half attention to the video, just seeing a chap being interviewed by a journalist, and saw the name Martin come up. I recognised the voice, it was the Sound Man. I saw the hairy scarf wrapped round his neck and that confirmed it for me. It’s well known to AMT listeners Martin is a hairy man.
How often does he appear on TV? Will he knock Brian Cox off his mantle by appearing on more TV shows?
I thought he did very well. I would be glad to see more TV appearances from Martin.
Wouldn’t we all! We’re still waiting to hear back from the casting director of BBC3’s Help! Everyone Keeps Mistaking Me For a Bear, but if any of the rest of you want to employ Martin on the TV networks that you run, do get in touch. Surely Professor Cox must be feeling a bit weary of sitting on the edge of cliffs explaining about atoms by now.
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Posted in frippery, Martin the Sound Man, videos | 6 Comments »
July 6, 2011
** Click here for Episode 181 **
Craig from Louisville, Kentucky has some feedback which sounds like bollo to me:
US Sailors’ asymmetric ear-piercing is determined by which ocean they are deployed from. Left ear Atlantic, right ear Pacific. The right ear being for gays is due to US east coast bias that gays come from California.
Of course, there’s not a single gay on the east coast. Not in New York, Fire Island, Cape Cod, no!
Mark in Portland, Oregon also writes to us concerning something which sounds like bullshit (and in this case looks a bit like it too):
Recently a conversation came up about chocolate milk and a couple of my friends told me that chocolate milk is the pus and blood-tainted milk which is then covered up with the chocolatey color and smell so we don’t know it is, well, pus and blood. I half believe them and half hope that this is either no longer the case or simply myth. Please, for the sake of children everywhere, let us know!
I’d heard that most intensively-produced milk contains a few shots of pus, but now I’ll start looking out for a delicate pinkish tinge as well. If any of you readers work in the chocolate milk industry – or, better yet, are disgruntled former employees of the chocolate milk industry with an axe to grind – go to the comments to tell Mark whether or not he’s drinking pus and blood. Frankly a glass of that doesn’t sound much worse than flavoured milk to me.
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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, extracurricular questions | Leave a Comment »
Answer Me This! Podcast 