When you woke up this morning, listeners, did you realise this would be the day that Olly revealed how he is in possession of the local equivalent of one of John Wayne Gacy’s prison paintings?
Well, it is that day. Assuming you go ahead and listen to Answer Me This! Episode 225 rather than choose to continue living in ignorance:
Wherein we contemplate:
Danny Boyle
morality in musicals
shouting at children
Ramadan for Olympians
masks
hippie housemates
Maroon 5 vs. pole vaulters
Chicago vs. Bury St Edmunds
Outer Mongolia vs. Darkest Peru Mrs Lovett vs. Wagamama
the Phantom of the Opera vs. The Collector
Timbuktu
what Mein Kampf is missing (aside from a GSOH of course)
ostentatious eccentricity nooks and crannies Coinstar
Hitler’s watercolours
and
Sesame Snaps.
Plus: climbing upon Nelson’s Column, Olly almost exposes his own column; Helen misses the cupboard in which she hid from childhood; and Martin the Sound Man discovers his spirit flower.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available on iDevices and Android) includes the next episode in the series begun by Lauren from Brooklyn in AMT224, ‘Is it OK to steal?’ In today’s thrilling installment, Mike from Crofton Park asks whether he’s allowed to steal his broadband package. How can it be stealing when you can’t even SEE it, right?
If, like Mike and Lauren, you’re tussling with your moral compass – or any other query is bothering you – allow us to solve your problems for you: send your QUESTIONS as voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
You should click here if you’re in the market for a hippie-proof AMT mug, which must be nigh indestructable if it’s survived five years in our company. If you want to survive 59 minutes 33 seconds more of our company, please invest in the AMT Sports Day too, because on the eve of the Olympics, it would be impolite not to.
This week, we hint at the reason behind one of the most pressing mysteries of the 1990s. Not what happened to Princess Di, nor what became of Richey Edwards, but why Mick Hucknall decided to hack off his dreadlocks. Discover all in Answer Me This! Episode 224:
We also consider:
stage kissing
business kissing
The WI in WWI Great British cheeses
Whoopi Goldberg The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo vs. Men Who Hate Women
fabric conditioner vs. towels
going cold turkey on caffeine
Adelaide Hoodless
feta
and
dead landladies.
Plus: Olly wishes to replace his happy childhood with a lot of bonking; Helen launches her campaign for more Wigmore cheese to be made (WigMORE! WigMORE!); and think carefully before accepting Martin the Sound Man’s handshake, because you may be getting a whole lot more physical contact than you bargained for.
We’d love to hear more from you, in the form of QUESTIONS sent as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Happy wedding anniversary, Henry VIII! Verily on this day in 1543, he married Catherine Parr, and as they say, sixth time’s the charm. According to the Big Book of Weddings, the traditional gift for the 469th anniversary is ‘MP3’, so here’s Answer Me This! Episode 223 for you, you loved-up kids:
Today we contemplate:
speciation
bloody Mary
pub lighting Def Leppard videos vs. Duran Duran videos
Bieber vs. dopamine
pride vs. prizes
curry house atmosphere
crisp etiquette (US translation: potato chip etiquette)
farm-themed restaurants
sepulchral Hollister
and
that bitch Tinkerbell.
Plus: Olly is mistaken for someone even lower on the celebrity ladder than he is; Helen breaks the bad news that Cain and Abel were motherjeffers; and Martin the Sound Man has something in common with the Queen, other than his fondness for shiny jewels and waving.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available on iDevices and Android) demonstrates how Martin paid a woman to write his name on her body. For ‘charity fundraising’, allegedly. Good ruse!
Another good ruse is to send us your QUESTIONS by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). More questions, more podcasts, see?
And don’t forget to click here to check out our latest album, the Answer Me This! Sports Day – the best 59 minutes and 33 seconds of all-new sporty-talk we have ever produced.
OK listeners, lots of admin to get through this morning, so pay attention:
1. We have a new album out! Click here to learn more about/buy The Answer Me This! Sports Day. Clue: it’s all about the Olympics sport.
2. We’re interviewed on the latest episode of the marvellous podcast Getting Better Acquainted, which you can hear here.
3. We’re also on Answer Me This! Episode 222, as you might expect.
4. If we sound a bit maniacal to you in the episode, it’s because of the sugar rushes provided by the AMTfans at Roly’s Fudge. Sooooo many sweeties… We’ll have a little lie-down while you listen:
Today we consider:
the definitive version of ‘Hallelujah‘ Brighton Pavilion
campfire guitar war
the Cornwall vs. Devon clotted cream war
universally compulsory therapy
Disneyland Battersea Giraffe
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
Dr Richard Russell’s seawater cure
energy drinks
Emily Woof A Handful of Dust
afternoon tea strategy Muse phoning it in
and
an extremely traumatising image of calamari.
Plus: Olly almost allowed Lynda La Plante to steer his destiny; Helen shares her psyche with the ship from Dark Star; and we discover Martin the Sound Man find crumbs deeply upsetting. He’s really too delicate for this cruel world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App takes the episode’s prevailing theme of afternoon tea and heads straight for the cucumber sandwiches. Fire up the iDevices or Android to hear, and if you try the Cucumber Supercrunch Megasandwich, let us know if it is pleasant.
It is definitely pleasant to send us QUESTIONS; please do so by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
We’re as surprised as you to discover that Answer Me This! Episode 221 opens with a heated discussion upon the topic, ‘What is art?’ Check us out with our high brows!
Naturally our brows don’t stay high for long; in decreasing order of highfalutingness, we talk about:
Edward Lear
double-ended ice cream
Tracey Emin Jeremy Deller‘s teenage parties
the Marquis de Sade
firefighters
bridesmaids
pole dancing
Charlie Chaplin drowning horribly
the pull-out method
and Annabel Chong.
Plus: Olly is horrified to discover that there’s a boarding school-style communal wanking game that he’d never heard of; Helen knows how to make anything unsexy, using ham; and Martin the Sound Man would like to remind you that you only have a couple of weeks left to enter his Science Songwriter of the Future competition, so make the old man happy because he’s got a bad ear this week.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App Helen gives you a great tip for making new friends on late-night public transport, based on her recent encounter with a stranger’s pelvis on the Victoria Line. That stranger’s pelvis could be all yours, if you avail yourself of the app on iDevices or Android! Don’t worry if you’re married; the pelvis won’t be worrying about that either.
We don’t want your pelvises, but we do want your QUESTIONS, so thrust them our way by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). As a reward, you may watch the video below of Eleanor from Norwich’s pole dancing team going about their totally sexless business.
As AMT devotees, you know that we don’t shy away from the most serious questions the human mind can concoct. Remember AMT198 last year, when we boldly tackled “What makes a pie a pie?” Today, in Answer Me This! Episode 220, we broach another foodstuff with an identity crisis – salad:
Seriously though, how can this and this and this and this be even nominally related? Pffft.
Anyway, tossed into the conversational salad this week are:
facts about Eugene, Oregon
Hamlet, the Madonna of his time
Madonna, the sexual bully of her time
alternating current vs. direct current
dentist chair vs. electric chair
Natalie Portman Hershlag
French Freemasons William Kemmler
Pizza Express
rainbow parties Rory Gallagher’s guitar
and
Spin the Bottle.
Plus: Olly impresses the ladies with his great big throbbing veins; Helen discovers that Thomas Edison was a right cnut; and Martin the Sound Man plays coy about his age. Don’t worry Martin, you don’t look a day under 55.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is more crap-related than usual, as it features a question from Stephy from Bristol about the point of patterned toilet paper. Along the way we learn upon what Simon Cowell and the Queen probably wipe their bottoms. The rich educational resource that is the Answer Me This! app is available for iDevices or Android, you’ll be relieved to know. Relieved. Ho ho ho.
Enough japery for one week; but if you want to listen to more of our japery next week, you are obliged to send us a QUESTION: emails go to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
We’re picking up good vibrations (good, good, good, good vibrations, oooh bop bop, good vibrations) in Answer Me This! Episode 219, thanks to one of our listeners sending us a Groupon offer for Power Plate sessions.
This week we consider:
gratuitous nudity
sexy playing cards
bomb shelters Sliding Doors, alternative version
abetting child criminals
Joseph ‘Giuseppe’ Pinetti
Apple Paltrow Martin
subtitles Slendertone vs. exercise for cosmonauts
and
Ceefax.
Plus: Olly believes china shops should tolerate, nay welcome, his unapologetic vandalism; fun-hating Helen eschews murder mystery parties, entertainment at weddings, and jiggling in public; and Martin the Sound Man is still imploring you to enter his competition to be the Science Songwriter of the Future, which sounds a bit like being the artist-in-residence on the International Space Station, but is in fact much more straightforward and does not require you to urinate into a funnel. Although, the prize includes a trip to the Green Man festival, so a funnel might prove more hygienic than a Portaloo.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) recounts some incredible facts about jubilees, such as how they used to lead to famine, and how the Queen was probably wasted on hers. This seems a suitable point to mention that the Answer Me This! Jubilee is at last available to buy on Amazon. You may think it a bit late for Jubilee Fever now, but we’ve got a £50 bet on the Queen reaching her Platinum Jubilee, so consider the album 15 years ahead of its time rather than two weeks behind.
If you want more AMT next week, send us a QUESTION: emails should be sent to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and voicemails left on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
There are a lot of really weird stories in the news at the moment – cannibals, dismembered bodies, Octomom doing a porno – but fortunately this week, AMT218 is a largely horror-free zone:
Today we talk of:
marriage licences
the Pitcher and Piano
expensive clothes
actors’ motivation Fifty Shades of Grey vs. The White Hotel vs. Wuthering Heights
Mario vs. Lazarus
moist Jo Whiley
Tinky Winky, live in Luxembourg
outlet stores
death by giant snail
and
#.
Plus: Olly doesn’t want to get married in Vegas; Helen doesn’t want to have to watch embarrassing bodies on Embarrassing Bodies; but Martin the Sound Man DOES want you to enter his science songwriting competition, so click here to find out how to enter before you dash off to your zither-room to compose.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) involves Claudia from Melbourne asking whether you can text the police rather than calling them. With all the cuts to public services, unfortunately the police have had to lay off their full-time team of interpreters waiting to figure out what you mean by HLP pls sum1 tryn2 mrdr me non-LOL srsly >:-O
If you still have proper command over vowels, send us a QUESTION for next week: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Also, if you’re especially interested in what goes on around here, you can hear us being interviewed on the latest episode of Podcast Squared. We hope that the demystification of our Process doesn’t spoil AMT for you. If not, we’ll see you back here next Thursday.
This week, we face a big, big question: should Singin’ In The Rain be BANNED, for flouting the hosepipe ban as the rest of southern England shrivels under drought conditions? Start drafting your petitions whilst you listen to AMT217:
Today we talk of:
child beauty pageants
impressing Jeremy Paxman
reverse cat psychology
sunburnt tattoos
Prince Philip’s barbecue
theatre curtains
mortar boards
chinos for hipsters
milky special effects
and the managing director of Little Chef.
Plus: one of Olly’s early theatrical productions nearly brought the house down – literally, with fire; Helen recaps her late granny’s theory about what really happened to Princess Diana after that fateful night in Paris; and Martin the Sound Man is dissed by Olly for being a professional cleverclogs. Bullying doesn’t stop after school, you guys.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Tony from Worksop about whether we’ve ever killed or maimed a celebrity. Look, Tony, the evidence is purely circumstantial. They’ll never be able to convict us on it.
While, as a precaution, we book our passage to Rio under false identities, you should get on with sending us your QUESTIONS: send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Before we go, here are a couple of other things for your entertainment: Helen just appeared on Charlie Brooker’s So Wrong It’s Right, with Graham Linehan and Matthew Crosby; and Olly’s cat Coco should imminently be appearing on Channel 5’s Live With Fern Britton. Click here to read the extraordinary correspondence which ensued after last week’s show. And since we’ve almost arrived at Jubilee weekend, treat yourself to the Answer Me This! Jubilee, which is better than the Jubilee proper because you don’t have to sit through a whole solo set by Gary Barlow or be jostled for eight hours whilst you wait on the banks of the Thames for a glimpse of the Queen on a boat. Which might be worthwhile, if she does this.
This week, we wonder at the morals of fairy tales. You know, the stupid underlying ‘meaning’ that spoils the fun of a far-out fictional confection, and ensures that kiddies absorb some very dubious life lessons. There are probably some very dubious life lessons in AMT216, but at least we’re not pretending we have any morals.
Plus: Olly would like Aesop’s Fables to be more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book; Helen is the Sookie Stackhouse of AMT; and Martin the Sound Man gets quite emotional about the tale of the Elves and the Shoemaker. Thankfully he recovered sufficiently to launch a contest for under-18 songwriters, which you can find out about by clicking here.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from a couple of chaps on their way to Alton Towers. Cue a blast of Mann Rage directed at theme park rides that blatantly used to be other theme park rides. Oh God, why dost thou torment him thus?
What is not a torment is asking us a QUESTION! (Though reading some of them is a torment for us.) Send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
And assuming the elves will step in to finish off our chores, we will see you again next week for AMT217.
We’re really, really sorry, but after listening to Answer Me This! Episode 215, there’s a strong chance you will have an LMFAO song stuck in your brain, and it will make you want to stick a straw in your ear, suck that brain out of your head then spit it down the drain. But, hopefully the rest of the podcast doesn’t have that effect on you.
Today we mention:
Annie Hall
Joey Barton
the future of pubic hairstyles
Jessie J vs. indifferent radio professionals eating dinner
Will.I.Am vs. Simon and Garfunkel
‘Party Rock Anthem’ vs. ‘The Birdie Song’ Quentin Crisp Olly’s uncle
frigid North Hertfordshire
the scary Dalai Lama
the sexual misuse of animals
and the man with the box on his head.
Plus: Olly theorises upon why footballers sport such ridiculous barnets; Helen does not like her toast done on one side; and sadly we don’t have video footage of Martin the Sound Man’s first ever viewing of ‘Sexy and I Know It‘, but if we did, it would be right up there in the video commentary canon alongside this.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a two-course feast of questions: firstly one from Hannah about currywurst, then for pudding a question from Sammy in Falkirk about pineapple. We hope this combination does not give your ears indigestion.
If you want more ear-food next week, please send us a QUESTION: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
This week, we learn that AMT is the name of a legal high. Seeing as legal highs are usually just brain-liquifying chemical syntheses that haven’t been made illegal yet, we cannot recommend trying it. We can, however, recommend AMT214, which is fully legal and will only have mildly detrimental effects upon your brain:
Today we contemplate:
facial fuzz as feminist issue The Beggar’s Opera Ziggy Stardust
‘club dancing’
crowd control
Häagen-Dazs vs. Cadbury’s Flake
death by tinned peaches
Kodak’s adventures in weapon development Forgetting Sarah Marshall transposed to Durham
stuffed vine leaves
a night of creamy indulgence
and
watching Alien stoned.
Plus: Olly doesn’t think Mila Kunis should be doing a desk job, even in these times of scarce employment; Helen wonders what Kim Kardashian would look like without the intervention of depilators; and Martin the Sound Man can pronounce ‘cyanoacrylate’, because he speaks industrial adhesive fluently.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) goes further than today’s question about Downing Street and wonders what is behind the famous door of Number 10. According to Olly, it is our nation’s leaders attending to their itchy arses.
If your own itchy arse ever allows you to use your hands for something else for a moment, use them to send us a QUESTION, either by writing an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or picking up the phone and leaving a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
And finally: if we’ve ever made anyone puke through the podcast, we would like to take this opportunity to apologise.
vs. exercise for cosmonauts
vs. 
vs. 
stoned.
Answer Me This! Podcast 