Thanks for sticking with us, considering that, as one of you has pointed out, Vanity Fair is encroaching on our turf. As is National Rail Enquiries! You can ask their question-bot anything, but she is far too judgemental in her responses. So we’re continuing regular service for now (unlike the East Coast Main Line, ber-boom), with Answer Me This! Episode 143:
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)
Today we speak of:
casual voyeurism
John Mayer vs. Stevie Ray Vaughan
AMT party vs. Elton John
spermaceti
moisturisers for men
English Heritage
John P. Charlton
Mr T in pieces
aloe vera
saucy postcards
Camille Pissarro
whaling
fake blue plaques
Boris Karloff’s bedroom
and
Buddhists’ favourite film (NB it’s not Multiplicity).
Plus: Olly reluctantly glows; Helen’s bitesize history revision is for far too big a mouth; and Harry Potter almost prevented Martin the Sound Man from achieving his doctorate. You think Voldemort’s a bastard? You do not want to get in the way of Martin with four years’ hard quantum physics in his hands. Thwarted on the very brink of escape, the man’s wrath could melt trees.
We also reminisce about the public humiliation which attended almost every step of Great British Questions Episode Two: Film, which you can see HERE. Meanwhile, over on the app, this week’s bonus noise concerns how we’d use our spare time if trapped in a Groundhog Day-style situation (clue: heroin, and serial killing).
Videos and apps notwithstanding, we still want your QUESTIONS. So please sate us with a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday for Episode 144, and on the preceding Tuesday for Episode Three of Great British Questions, in which we get all romantical. It’s ACTING, alright? Bleugh! The very idea.
In response to last week’s question about walloping someone, Mark from Glasgow advises:
Hi guys 😀
I do lots of martial arts and just to let you know, the best place to hit someone is the chorotic nerve. It’s situated on the left hand side of the neck behind the ‘big muscly, tendon thingy’.
Thanks, Mark, for both the lessons in violence and in anatomical terminology.
• Princes Street, Edinburgh, where in 1995 the iconic opening sequence to Trainspotting was filmed, and in 2010 our iconic looking-like-total-dicks sequence was filmed. • Crystal Palace Park – come for the Victorian dinosaurs and the biggest maze in London; stay for the swimming pool which is 20cm too short to be used in the Olympics. • Stonehenge, where the banshees live and they do live well. • Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire, where Sir Anthony Hopkins lived in Remains of the Day – before he got into chewing off human faces. • Antony House, Cornwall. Too bad that, blinded by giant plastic mushrooms, we missed its ‘national collection of daylilies’. • Burghley House, Lincolnshire – home to a herd of deer, the horse trials, and Queen Victoria’s marital bed. • The Cars of the Stars Museum, Keswick – not the average Lake District attraction. • Carnforth station, Lancashire. They play Brief Encounter on a loop in the waiting room, which would be a pleasant distraction when your train is running 40 minutes late because there’s a cow on the tracks. • Oxford, including Christ Church College and the Bodleian Library. Not including kebab vans or getting run over by drunk students on bikes. • London, playing multiple roles:
• Platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross;
• Postman’s Park out of Closer. The Julia Roberts’n’Jude Law film, not the telly thing starring Kyra Sedgwick.
• The church of St Bartholomew the Great – oy, no need to brag, Bartholomew!
• Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, which star on the BBC Parliament channel all day, every day.
• also, nominated for the award for best supporting location: St Paul’s Cathedral, the O2 Arena, the London Underground, Notting Hill, County Hall, and Tower Bridge (out of that Fergie video about a different bridge entirely).
But let’s not forget all the behind-the-scenes crew: the cinematographer, the craft services, the key grip…OK, it was just me and Olly with two camcorders. But we couldn’t have made this film without the invaluable assistance of: Jill Collinge – if ever you want to spend a very entertaining and interesting afternoon looking around the beautiful historic town of Stamford in Lincolnshire, Jill is your woman. Philip Gompertz, for showing us around Burghley House. It’s really not too shabby. Chay Allen, for allowing Olly to nestle his head in his crotch. Shalini Jadeja, for risking life and limb running backwards with a camera through Edinburgh – and before breakfast, too!
And the Weinsteins of this operation: Tess Longfield and Rachel Aked at VisitBritain.
Please return next Tuesday for Great British Questions Episode Three: Romance.
For more VisitBritain finery, join their Facebook page; and for more of our tomfoolery, peruse the photos below.
Breaking up is hard to do, particularly when the emotional pain is coupled by the threat of modern technology. Rhiane writes to us:
I am in quite a pickle.
I broke up with my boyfriend of 4 years last week, 3 of those years our relationship was long distance while we were both at university, and he has several pictures of me which are of an intimate nature.
The pictures are on his phone and computer, so if I ask him to delete them he could just lie and tell me they have been deleted and I wouldn’t know! He’s not the type of guy to show them to all of his friends (which is the main reason I agreed to send him the pictures!), but I’m a bit worried he might put them on Facebook or something in a rage (as I was the one who broke up with him).
So answer me this: should I just leave it and hope that he keeps them to himself? Or ask him to delete them when he could just lie about it?
We’ve all had to try to persuade our exes to burn the charcoal portraits they did of us sans cardigans, haven’t we? Guys?
Alright then, none of us have actually suffered a break-up since the advent of Facebook, so our qualifications are out of date upon this matter. But you people seem a saucy bunch, so please repair to the comments to advise Rhiane of the most tactful means of ensuring her naked parts are not disseminated around cyberspace at this already sensitive time.
Nearly a year has passed since we gave advice to Ahmed from Leicester, but at last we’ve heard the outcome:
Hi! Way back in episode 108, you helped me decide if I should let my flaky friend Rav be joint best man at my wedding.
Well, I’m pleased to let you know that I got married a couple of weeks ago and Rav did his job admirably! I think that his public humiliation made him step up his game a notch, and “New Rav” has been (relatively) reliable ever since.
I did, however, start my speech by thanking “My best men – Darren, Joe and to a lesser extent Rav”, which everyone in on the joke enjoyed.
A person redeemed, a friendship saved, and a happy ending at a wedding! How pleasing.
Are we harbouring some pent-up aggression or something? Because Answer Me This! Episode 142 is quite the pugnacious little beast, as we parry questions on how to sock someone in the face, and how to have a good old bloody battle. Bam! Splat! Wallop! Here it is:
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)
In between blows, we talk about:
comediennes
Byker Grove vs. Pin Oak Court, Melbourne Dreamgirls vs. Showgirls
Nicole Lawrence out of the X Factor The Killer Inside Me
Eldorado
pocket watches
the YMCA
semicolons
Paul Robinson: panto villain
Michel Gondry
that little pocket in jeans
a famous mouse
and
rheum.
Furthermore: Olly disobeys all the Village People’s instructions; Helen tells you all you need to do to become a Somerset celebrity; and Martin the Sound Man cheers up a military history lesson with a burst of Tim Rice.
We also give the behind-the-scenes commentary on our latest video adventure, Great British Questions Episode One: Cheese; if you haven’t already, please take a look at it HERE. Meanwhile, over on the app, this week’s bonus snippet is some incredible insight into those soap opera characters who are written out just as you’re getting used to them. Like Guy Pearce in Home and Away, who knocked up a teenager, promptly died in a car crash, then turned up in Memento denying all knowledge. DID SOPHIE MEAN NOTHING TO YOU, GUY???
As always we yearn for your QUESTIONS with every particle of our being, so submit them to us in the form of a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday for Episode 143, and on the preceding Tuesday for Episode Two of Great British Questions, starring Tower Bridge, James Bond’s big dome, and the Flintstones’ car. YES. Contain your excitement, please; you’ll damage yourselves!
While recently checking through the Internet history on my 12-year-old son’s laptop, I found he had been searching for “willy in pussy” and other various lewd entries…
He has completed his sex education class at school, so as a responsible father do I need to go through the whole “birds and the bees” malarky again? Also how old were you when you found about how babies are made and did your parents bring up the subject?
Determined listeners may, if they so wish, piece together the history of our sex education through the podcasts; so instead, readers, please tell us instead about your own enlightenment in the comments. Perhaps Dave in Doncaster can borrow some of your parents’ chosen techniques when he gets round to giving his son a birds’n’bees refresher course, because he’s not ready to be a grandfather just yet.
Recently, VisitBritain sent me and Olly on a trip around Britain in order to answer the nation’s most pressing questions in the form of five short videos.
So prepare yourself for Episode One of Helen and Olly’s Great British Questions:
Here’s where we went in our pursuit of cheesiness:
• Paxton and Whitfield cheesemongers in Bath, part of a 200-year-old cheese-purveying business. • Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, where you can take a tour of the cheese caves, ride an open-topped bus through the gorge, visit the museum of prehistoric cheese, and of course, eat a whole load of cheese. • The Leagram Organic Dairy near Chipping, Lancashire, where you can not only buy some classic Lancastrian cheeses, but also be taught to make cheese by cheesemaker extraordinaire Bob Kitching. He can turn milk into cheese in the blink of an eye, and also has more naughty jokes about cheese than you ever imagined possible. • The annual Stilton cheese-rolling. Get your entry forms in now to compete in the 2011 roll!
We enthusiastically recommend all those places. See below for photos of our antics; and please tune in next Tuesday for Episode Two: Film. For more VisitBritain finery, join their Facebook page.
We also owe massive thanks to Bob Smart at the Cheddar Caves, cheese enthusiast Warwick Davis, Uncle Henry’s for the cheese and treats, Tebay Services for not minding when Olly threw a pot of lime cheese everywhere, and, most of all, Tess Longfield and Rachel Aked at VisitBritain.
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Click here for the other episodes of Helen and Olly’s Great British Questions
Dry those tears, untie those yellow ribbons round the ole oak trees, because we are, as promised a month ago, BACK. We’ve had a lovely sort-of-holiday (which you can find out more about next Tuesday!), and are raring to go with Answer Me This! Episode 141:
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)
It’s a corker of an episode for fans of older ladies, with appearances from vintage hotties Merle Oberon (phwoar!), Marguerite Patten (schwing!), Joan Hickson (hubba hubba!) and Angela Lansbury (fapfapfapfapfap), along with unrelated topics of conversation including:
Sea World
the brains of Tostao
Brad Meldhau vs. jazzercise, Jazzles and Jazz apples
Cantona vs. Sartre Polar Bear vs. music for polar bears Gone with the Wind vs. Bollywood the Azerbaijan Film Institute’s top 100 movies? Being Erica
the Big E agricultural festival
kiiking
kiwi fruit
and
the best Miss Marple.
Plus: Olly reenacts The Wrong Trousers at a posh wedding (say, do any of you want to bid on a pair of 38″ Hugo Boss trousers, worn once?); Helen is a philistine when it comes to Citizen Kane and ball ponds; and Martin the Sound Man must have grown up a bit over the break because he manages not to cackle at the phrase ‘ball pond’. Meanwhile, over on our new app, this week’s extra content is a merry tale of gazpacho. Soup-er!
New York’s one of the top cities about which to ask questions this week, because here’s another New York-related query. This time it’s from the lovely Sarah, formerly from Gayton, now from Norman, but imminently to be from New York:
I’m moving to New York to go to acting school. So, what are some GREAT places to eat? I’ve never been in my life, but I am a total foodie and am up for trying almost anything.
BUT, I’m also a student, so I don’t want to go broke after one great meal. Suggestions?
I doubt my vantage point from Crystal Palace, some 3465 miles away from the nosh-houses of New York, is optimal for answering this question; but we know many of you are New York-savvy, so go to the comments and avail Sarah of your feeding tips.
Here’s a long, sad story from Andreas in Sweden, but it’s a good one, so strap in:
Last week, while doing my job involving making food colouring, aromas and being cooked alive because it’s 30 cunting degrees in Sweden, you destroyed my phone and made my day shit overall.
I was going to produce something called “Vanilla Extract” to be sent off to a ice cream company for them to make vanilla ice cream. To get the obvious flavour of this concoction I needed to, through a tap mechanism, pour a undiluted mixture of ethanol and vanilla seeds into a bucket as an ingredient. This ingredient is kept in a big, cylindrical tank that holds 200 litres of the shit. To check if there was enough left in the tank for me to finish my assignment, I took the lid off of it and put it aside. Pleased with what I saw, I knocked off for lunch.
Upon my return I did what I always do when my boss is on a business trip (he’s a right shit, by the way): I got out my phone and put on some Answer Me This! To hear it better I put it on top of the tank. Instead of your funny banter streaming into my ears, I heard a splash, a gurgle and my phone hitting the bottom of the tank.
I hurried to find something to stand on. I got up on an empty cardboard box and from there climbed onto the tank and shoved my entire arm into the alcohol and vanilla. Having a bunch of tiny cuts on my hand did not make this a more pleasant experience.
I finally got the phone out of the tank and had by now sort of lost my footing on the side of the tank. I quickly put one foot on the box I had used to get up there. I had forgotten it was empty and put my big, fat foot right in the center of it. I fell onto my knee, hitting the shitting corner of the rig the tank rests on.
Long story short, you destroyed my phone and ruined my day.
We’re terribly sorry, Andreas, that your phone died in the effort to manufacture the most boring ice cream flavour. But we don’t feel directly responsible for your calamity, therefore will not be buying you a new phone. Or knee. Also, worse things have happened in the name of vanilla, viz:
Our sexual education lesson coming up at school, so answer me this:
What HILARIOUS sex-related questions should I post in the Q & A box for my poor teacher to read to the year?
Izzy! It would be highly irresponsible of us to encourage a sex ed class to descend into mirth, given the shocking teen pregnancy and STD rates in this country; and the average secondary school teacher has surely suffered more than enough.
However, we’re not above passing the buck of irresponsibility to you guys! Go to the comments and post the question you hope will make a roomful of embarrassed people even more embarrassed. Anything to help the students forget the horrific realisation that their teacher has probably Done It at some point.
Answer Me This! Podcast 