Archive for the ‘frippery’ Category

therapist.com

June 15, 2010

** Click here for Episode 139 **

Morg from Dublin flags up a very 21st-century problem:

Why do people who set up websites not sit back and have a think about the URL first….:

www.muffdivingclub.ie
(don’t worry it’s safe for work).

Is this not a case of false advertising?

What are the worst URLs you have seen?

Readers, head to the comments and amuse us with your own sightings of unfortunate URLs. Ones that link to actual muff-diving do not count.

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

Don’t mind her, she’s got the vampires in

April 14, 2010

** Click here for Episode 130 **

Looks like someone other than Martin the Sound Man was bored watching Twilight, because Elle from Leeds was sufficiently unswept-away by the Grand Romance to ponder upon the following:

I’m not being deliberately disgusting but please answer me this… If the whole tragedy about Twilight is that Edward wants to drink Bella’s blood, couldn’t he just wait for her to get her period? This would result in an immediate happy ending and everyone wins.

Couldn’t all vampires just do this? They wouldn’t be as terrifying but perhaps a little creepy…

Apart from Edward going hungry for most of the month – which would only make him even more vapid – this does seem like a halfway sensible plan to us. So what is the catch? We’re not experts/interested in the whole vampire mythology, but if any of you are, head right for the comments and tell us whether this could solve both the problem of vampirical nutrition and landfill caused by feminine hygiene products.

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

Vajazzled!

April 14, 2010

** Click here for Episode 130 **

Some questions we receive are too visual to cover in the medium of podcast. Such as this one from Hannah in Bridgnorth:

Why when I type ‘listen’ into Google Images does it come up with wot looks like a jewelled fanny!!?!?!?!?!?

Readers. Don’t just take Hannah’s word for it; go to Google Images and see for yourself. The result is sort of NSFW, unless you work for Charles Saatchi.

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

Every cloud…

March 31, 2010

** Click here for Episode 128 **

There’s not a great deal of cuteness here at Answer Me This!, so thanks very much to Heather from Manchester for supplying some:

Do you have a mascot? If not, my guinea pig Cloud would like to apply. She has had no previous mascot-training; however she is very enthusiastic and will work for free! She even has her own yellow Answer Me This! jacket. Here is a picture of Cloud posing in her uniform for you to look at.

All together now, awwwwww! And also, doesn’t Cloud look a bit pissed off to be forced into a yellow garment? Or is that just her modelling face?

We’re not sure what mascot duties would include, but certainly couldn’t discount having one just yet; so if any of the rest of you want to send us nice pictures of your pets dressed up in home-made Answer Me This! merch, then we can audition them for such mascot-necessary qualities as…er…looking good in yellow and not shitting on the job? Anyway, send in your photos to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and we can have some sort of X Factor-style contest, only without that infernal singing.

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

Get your summer beach reads sorted early!

March 24, 2010

Following on from Episode 127, let’s enjoy some horrible scenes from books! Many of you have left a marvellous selection yon, and here are a few more:

Shannon: Allow me to add to your collection of scenes in literature that make one doubt man’s humanity:
1. Trimalchio’s feast in
The Satyricon by Petronius: Who doesn’t love an excrement fight with their gang rape? And the dis-memberable poetry reading in the last chapters is inspired.
2.
Blindness by José Saramago: More gang rape and excrement, topped off with a scene in which a man is brutally stabbed through the neck while engaged in an act that leaves an unusual mixed aftermath on his partner’s face.

Kate from Corfe Mullen: The most gruesome scene from a book that I have ever read was from David Mitchell’s Number9dream. Part of the book was set in the criminal underworld in Japan and a torture method was to place people in a cavity at the end of a ten pin bowling alley so that their heads were sticking out. The gang members would then bowl ten pin bowling balls at them.

Peter from Chicago: The most terrifying thing I ever read was a work of non-fiction by William Bradford Huie, Three Lives for Mississippi. The book tells the story of the murder of three civil-rights workers in Mississippi during “Freedom Summer” of 1964. Huie begins the book by re-telling the story of what happened in Birmingham, Alabama in 1957. Six men from a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan gathered to decide who deserved a promotion to a higher rank within the group. One of them wanted the promotion, and to prove he deserved it, he was willing to get “blood on his hands.” They kidnapped a local Negro man, castrate him, and dumped him by the side of road.

The first time I read that section my knees slammed together and I kept my legs pressed together for almost ten minutes.

Thank god for a little palate cleanser from Colin from Newton Aycliffe, County Durham:

The song that was number one on the day I was born was Elvis Presley’s ‘Are you lonesome tonight’, which I think is quite ironic for a twice-divorced Singleton.

Just be glad your birthsong was not ‘Psycho Killer’ then, Colin.

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

Snog Marry Avoid

March 15, 2010

...or perhaps you would prefer to join a seminary instead.

** Click here for Episode 126 **

We should have guessed this question would come up one day. And we question the wisdom of submitting it to the public forum that is You. If this produces unwholesome rifts within Team AMT, we can all blame Josh from Arkansas, who emailed the following:

Dear Helen and Olly,

This isn’t a question for you. This is for your listeners.

To the query of Answer Me This listeners,

Marry, Boff, Kill: Helen, Olly, or Martin the Sound Man?



Sigh. Go on then. And be kind.

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

No, YOU’re a massive ball

March 2, 2010

** Click here for our Jingle Challenge **

On his recent trip to California, Martin the Sound Man came face to face with one of his own catchphrases:

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

Now, That’s What I Call Music. And Cheese.

February 9, 2010
* New series starts March 4th – click here for our most recent episodes *
*** And click here for our Jingle Challenge ***

So, how’s our Jingle Challenge going, then?

The first five entries are in, fighting it out for viewers on YouTube to win a very special prize. Shriek!

First out the traps was James S from Lincolnshire, who took our Question Line number and made it sound a bit like the Hollyoaks theme:

Then came this catchy effort from merbs42, which lingered a little too long on Martin the Sound Man for Olly’s liking, but was otherwise very charming, and achieved the rare feat of making leprosy seem in any way desirable:

If we were going to get all wanky about it, the third video response we received, from eucharyst, is more of an ‘ident’ than a jingle, seeing as it’s essentially a spoken-word sketch and not a song. But since it so excellently approximates the House Style of early Answer Me This!, (the rock n’roll years) we will most definitely let him have it:

There was a bluesy-folk feel to entry No.4, which came from a young man by the name of thethickisplottened:

(We confess to being rather partial to this. Though that is largely because we also like this video he made about cheese):

The fifth and final entry so far is from Matt1046: a knees-up, Los Colorados-style Soviet singalong with some accomplished animated visuals:

So, there you have it.

A strong start to what is shaping up, as always, to be a tremendous competition. And it’s certainly not too late to give it a go: remember, Brad and Josh’s victorious ‘double entry’ to our 2008 Camcorder Challenge wasn’t submitted until quite late into the process, and there’s still weeks to go – so it’s all to play for. Literally.

Best of luck!

Enter our 2010 Jingle Challenge here

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

Listeners, you make us so proud

January 11, 2010

Martin the Sound Man just wishes he’d thought to use Britain’s current cold snap to reinvent snowballs. But alas for him, Mark in Grimsby and friends have beaten him to it:

College was closed so me and my friends put the day to good use and made a giant dick on a hill next to a footpath 🙂

Can a pile of snow be NSFW? If not, click on the thumbnails to see the full-sized snowcock and balls!

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

Now here is a hoot!

January 4, 2010

** Click here for The Best of Answer Me This! 2009 – Part II **

Thanks so much everyone for all your lovely comments about our first proper radio show, Web 2009 with Helen and Olly. And thanks even more to the renegade YouTuber, who took one of our favourite bits of the show and did this with it:


Vocals by Joanna Neary. Videos by show-offs everywhere.

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

Web 2009 with Helen and Olly

January 1, 2010

** Click here for The Best of Answer Me This! 2009 – Part II **

Happy New Year, chums!

We saw out 2009 in pleasing and civilised fashion, and we hope you did too. But, thanks to pre-recording, on New Year’s Eve we also presented a radio show, Web 2009 with Helen and Olly. It was our first ever proper radio programme, and we would be ever so happy if you would listen to it; it’ll be available until Thursday 7th January, so CLICK HERE to do so via BBC iplayer, or download it as a podcast from the BBC website.

And if you wouldn’t mind telling your radio-and-internet-loving friends about it, tweeting it, or posting it up on Facebook, then we owe you a lollipop the next time we see you. Which, if you go to the same gym as Olly, is probably quite soon.

Links to all the nominees and winners are below – and another good link is THIS ONE to Martin the Sound Man’s free EP of songs about space. Give it a whirl!

Helen and Olly’s 2009 Web Awards went to:

David Schneider after winning our 'Tweeter of the Year' award

PUBLIC SERVICE OF THE YEAR
Our award for the sites that have become entirely essential this year. We never leave the house without them.
* Spotify *
– Google Streetview
– The Arts Desk
– Nicecritic
– DeathSwitch

WEB FEUD OF THE YEAR
Our celebration of the best online scraps of the year – the unfolding dramas of real, raw arguments that, thanks to the global public forum that is the internet, we can all enjoy.
* Megan Fox vs. the Transformers crew *
– Guido Fawkes vs. Derek Draper
– Stephen Fry vs. @BrumPlum
– Michael Chopra vs. Heather Swan
– Perez Hilton vs. Carrie Prejean

TWEETER OF THE YEAR
Our favourite short-form communicators of the past twelve months.
* David Schneider *
– John Prescott
– Phillip Schofield
– Richard Bacon
– Mrs Stephen Fry

TIME-WASTER OF THE YEAR
Useful as the internet can be, let’s not forget its primary function: frittering your time away. What has been the major enemy of productivity in 2009?
* My Very Worst Date *
– ’25 Random Things About Me’
– Cake Wrecks
– Letters of Note
– AnaFace

EPIC FAIL OF THE YEAR
Our award for those embarrassing moments that went viral in 2009.
* Gordon Brown on YouTube *
– The Baby Shaker iPhone App
– Kimberley Swann is fired
– John X from Cornell Business School
– Christian Bale’s on-set rant

ONLINE JAPE OF THE YEAR
In the olden days, pranks involved propping a bucket of water on the top of a door, or thrusting stinging nettles down someone’s pants. But the internet has opened up a whole new world of mischief…
* Ross Noble’s Twitterbomb Tuesday *
– upside-down YouTube
– Computertan.com
– renegade reviewers on Amazon
– Classic songs reinterpreted by Microsoft Songsmith

INTERNET SONG OF THE YEAR
Who was our Joe McElderry, and who will be our Rage Against The Machine?
* ‘United Breaks Guitars’ by Dave Carroll *
– ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by the Muppets
– ‘Goodbye Twitter’ by Miley Cyrus
– ‘Hot and Cold’ by Los Colorados
– ‘Poker Face’ by Walt Ribeiro

WEBLEBRITY OF THE YEAR
The award for the internet star to have shot furthest in the online firmament this year
* Jill and Kevin *
– Susan Boyle
– Tavi Gevinson
– Little Boots
– ‘Poo Girl’

And finally, the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD went to 104-year-old Ivy Bean, the oldest person on Twitter and, quite possibly, the whole of the internet…

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel

AMT Colonies

December 14, 2009

** Click here for the Best of AMT 2009 – Part 1 **

It’s almost exactly two years since we cracked Luxembourg, and therefore high time we set our sights on another country. But which one do you think we should go for? Andorra? Djibouti? Vatican City?

Subscribe with iTunesListen to episodesQuestion ArchiveFAQ
FacebookTwitterMerch SuperstoreYouTube Channel