Can you believe it, Answer Me This! is rapidly approaching its fifth birthday? So please help us celebrate by sending us a card! Here is our postal address:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
We will be thrilled to receive your missives, and are sharpening the paper-knives in expectation.
A soon-to-be familiar scene at the AMT letterbox
** Click here for Episode 183 **
If this isn’t all too Inception for you… perhaps you would like to hear a podcast about podcasting?
It’s a special edition of The Radio Academy‘s weekly podcast RadioTalk. The show is usually presented by benign Brummie overlord Trevor Dann, and is typically about Important Issues relating to the world of radio, such as, ‘DAB’s a bit of a mixed blessing, isn’t it?’ and ‘Where is Salford, anyway?’
But this episode is presented by us, and we took our opportunity at the reins to talk all about podcasting, and ignore radio almost entirely. On a show called RadioTalk! Hahahahahhaha! Hear for yourself:
You can also download it from the Radio Academy’s website here, or subscribe to it on iTunes.
We were very lucky to be joined by some awesome guests from the world of British podcasting: The Guardian‘s Francesca Panetta (producer of the Sony Award-winning Hackney Podcast); Luke Moore from the wildly popular Football Ramble; Andrew Collins out of Collings and Herrin and BBC 6 Music; and James Stirling, producer of our beloved Adam and Joe Show. We even managed to grab a few words with The Bugle’s Andy Zaltzman. How DID we manage to blag that?
P.S. If you enjoyed this, you can also hear us on the panel of the BBC’s College of Production podcast about podcasting, which you can find here.
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Our NEW SERIES starts on 26th May.
Click HERE for some lovely free audiobooks
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We’ve only gone and bloody done it.
After years of being the Sony Awards’ equivalent of Todd Martin, last night we were properly sodding thrilled to win the GOLD Radio Academy Award for Best Internet Programme.
Well, I was thrilled. Helen and Martin were still on honeymoon, driving through Montana. Martin had food poisoning from eating some bison, apparently. But then they heard the news. And they were thrilled too.
Here I am getting the award from renowned podcast fanatic Kelly Hoppen. Rumour has it she once listened to Stephen Fry’s Podgrams, and thought it was adequate.
You can sometimes tell if you’ve won by assessing how far your table is from the stage (there are actually ALCOVES UNDER THE STAIRS for real losers). This year we were about two-thirds of the way back, so no clues there. We were seated with some very lovely people from Central FM Scotland, and they won a Gold Station of the Year award, so there was a lot of champagne flowing.
What with us producing the show in the Zaltzwick sitting room – and thus not having a Station Manager, Event Co-Ordinator, Publicist and that kind of thing – I was sitting with my girlfriend, mum, dad and grandma. I think I am the only person to ever bring my family to the Sony’s, apart from Ashley Tabor. (That’s a radio industry joke, hark at me!)
I don’t remember much about going to collect the award from Kelly and Chris Evans, because it was all over very quickly indeed. Helen had written me a speech to read out on her behalf, which she’d sealed in an envelope on the day of her wedding. The idea of opening it on stage for the first time petrified me, because obviously I assumed she would casually employ a clever word I would fail to pronounce or understand, so I couldn’t help but open it at home yesterday afternoon. It simply said, ‘IS NOW A GOOD TIME TO TELL YOU I HAVEN’T GOT YOU A BIRTHDAY PRESENT?’.
Yes, Helen. Now is a very good time.
Here’s what I actually said:
The Judges statement said: “The presenters of this podcast demonstrate a strong rapport that sometimes traditional radio struggles to replicate. The judges found this podcast engaging, warm and funny; with creative imaging and a strong connection to the community of listeners.” Which was jolly nice of them.
There are, I think, two groups of amazing people we need to thank.
First: our hugely talented group of friends who have supplied us with brilliant jingles, idents and sketches over the years (that would be the ‘creative imaging’ the Judges are referring to).
And Second? YOU. More than almost any other show I can think of, Answer Me This! is all about our listeners, and the incredible feedback and questions you supply us which makes up our content. If it weren’t for people like you, downloading our show every week, telling your friends and spreading the word, we’d have given up long ago.
So, thanks so much for sticking with us for the past four years. This Award is dedicated to you.
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Dear Team AMT,
We are very delighted to tell you that for the third year running, Answer Me This! has been nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award! You’re right to think that this is inconceivable, so here’s the proof. Thankyou very much. Here’s how we did it:
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Hello dears! We said we’d back with a new episode on January 6th 2011, and we will be, we promise – it’ll just be coming out a few hours later than usual, because that bloody Martin the Sound Man has messed up our recording schedule by selfishly and maliciously suffering from some vile gastric bug.
So please don’t get all hot and bothered and start sending us messages alternately abusing us then begging for a fresh hit. The episode will be right here a little later. If you’re struggling to cope, stare at the following for a few hours.
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For those of you who were clamouring to find out when we were going to get an Android app to join our iPhone app in the app canon, the answer is…NOW!
Much like the iPhone app, for $2.99 it brings you all the episodes as well as the ability to send us questions at the touch of a button, AND exclusive bonus content – the Best Of Answer Me This! 2007, 2008 and 2009 (all incredible years, I think you’ll agree), plus a special little extra nugget of fun every week. Click here to download it, if that is your fondest wish.
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** Click here for Episode 157 **
Believe it or not, many of you have been asking where you can buy defacedsigned copies of our new book. Bless you, dears, with your inexplicable desires!
Well, now said desires can be vanquished by our favourite local bookshop, Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace; where you can now buy copies signed by all three of us for £9.99 including free UK P&P.
You can buy copies via this page on their website, or call them on 020 8771 8831, or just walk into their shop (as long as you don’t walk out again without paying).
You can still buy unsigned copies from everywhere else, of course, and graffiti-tag them yourself.
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And lo, we have made our own advert for it:
Answer Me This! The Book is now available from allsome good bookshops, as well as online emporiae – click HERE for links to those, and to read a few sample pages.
if you have accrued any affection for us at all over the past almost-four years of podcast, pleeeeeeeease buy a copy!
Video thanks: Ian the bar trainer, Jalin Patel.
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** We’ll be back on July 15th; meanwhile click here
to listen to past episodes of Answer Me This! **
Hello chums! If you’ve missed the sound of our various voices during our month off, solace is at hand.
1. Following our New Year’s Eve web awards extravaganza, BBC 5 Live were kind enough to ask us to do another show about all the latest japery online. Click here to listen to it.
Web 2010 with Helen and Olly includes interviews with writer and documentary-maker Jon Ronson, fashionista Trinny Woodall, and fellow podcasters Stephen Brook of the Guardian’s Media Talk and Luke Moore of The Football Ramble.
We sure hope you enjoy the show! It’s available on BBC iPlayer until 7pm Sunday 11th July; if you’re interested in the websites and things we talk about, there’s a list of links HERE.
2. Very good news for those of you who’ve been missing the voice of Martin the Sound Man: he has released his first album! Ten spiffing tracks by his musical alter ego The Sound of the Ladies are available to download HERE; you decide the price you want to pay for them. Neato!
So, we hope those things tide you over, and that you’ve been keeping well in our absence. See you on 15th July for Answer Me This! Episode 141.
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** Click here for Episode 134 **
Look, we went and won a prize!
That’s right, it was a prize for best photo.
Here’s what the Sony Radio Academy Awards judges had to say about AMT, if you’re interested (and don’t mind a few grammatical errors on your screen). Unfortunately we don’t get a big silver trophy in the shape of a Sony Walkman, but fingers crossed for next year.
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Marvellous news today – for we just heard that Answer Me This! is nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award – for the second year in a row!
Since this is an interactive show, you all get a slice of the pie, so congratulations, guys! Drinks are on you, yeah?
Photo used with kind permission of LD Communications
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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
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