There’s been a lot of talk of Mexican food lately on Answer Me This!. We make no apologies for this. It is a magnificent cuisine. Episode 213 continues the theme, as we chomp on the history of nachos; click below to chomp on the episode:
Plus: Olly apparently spends a lot of time looking at horses’ privates; Helen concocts an unusual analogy for Oliver Cromwell and the, er, Roundheads; and Martin the Sound Man somehow enjoys the company of this dickhead, who is likely to be cited as the co-respondent when Helen files the divorce papers.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Harriet in York, concerning the self-replicating Magnum Infinity. Soon to be rebranded the Magnum Metaphor after an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority.
There is additional noise for you to enjoy this week courtesy of Martin and the FIFTIETH episode of his Sound of the Ladies podcast. It’s a song about bears or Creation Records or something – click here to check it out.
Then, formulate a QUESTION and send it to us, as a voicemail to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
The unofficial theme of Answer Me This! Episode 212 is arousal. The arousal of certain men (it is usually men) by Viagra. The arousal of certain women (it is usually women) by Agas. The arousal of passers-by by joggers’ firm buttocks. Prepare for frissons aplenty:
Plus: Olly pretends he’s glad he spent his teenage years yearning after girls rather than actually getting to touch one; Helen manages to draw parallels between School of Rock and Before Sunrise; and after hearing the Aga was invented by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Martin the Sound Man sharpens his pencil and begins designing the next aspirational kitchen machine. Start saving up for his £3000 cast iron dishwasher, available soon in a range of Boden-compatible colours.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) concerns the distinction between The Hunger Games and Man Versus Food. It’s pretty simple, really: Adam Richman is Katniss Everdeen, and the giant burritos and twenty-egg omelettes represent the tributes from the other districts. It’s all very deep and meaningful, actually.
Don’t neglect to send us all your deep and/or meaningful QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Plus: with his usual acumen, Olly proposes how to transform a psychotic neighbour problem into a business opportunity; Helen’s parents are being very thrifty with the internet, so that the IP addresses don’t all run out on their account; and we should clarify that Martin the Sound Man’s former job, which he describes as ‘making a man with a tube up his penis laugh’, was in the field of medical physics, not stand-up comedy for catheter fetishists.
Because one pot is never enough, there’s also more about Müller Yogurt on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), including their contribution to West Midlands athleticism, and their retrograde marketing wheezes. They might be 116 years old, but they’ve still got it.
If you haven’t already, please do take a punt on our Top 20 (!!) album, The Answer Me This! Jubilee, comprised of fifty-seven minutes of all-new material in anticipation of the Queen’s jubblies. You can also hear us on the latest episode of Ewan Spence’s ESC Insight podcast – no, that’s not ESC as in the Electrical Safety Council or the Essex Skating Club, but the Eurovision Song Contest. Click here to listen, and hear how we rated some of the songs vying for Eurovisionary Glory this year.
After all that, do remember to send us your QUESTIONS with which we will fuel this new series of AMT: aim voicemails at the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Although we’ve come
To the end of the road current series,
Still we can’t let go – because we’ll be back on 19th April with yet more Answer Me This!. So long and adieu, here is Episode 210:
Today we ponder:
the Angel of the North Pet Sounds
sham marriage a different type of big bird Tom Jones
Mel Blanc
emotions vs. money
Matt Willis vs. televisions
Alice Cooper vs. vending machines
Jesus vs. Spongebob Squarepants
Father Christmas on film
Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth
and
Abraham Lincoln.
Plus: we learn the one place where Olly actually keeps quiet; Helen whips ’em out for SPRIIIIIINNNG BREEEEAAAK!; and Martin the Sound Man puts a price on his hand in marriage. But you might as well barter him down to something more realistic, like £20 and a Chocolate Orange.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Celeste from Elephant and Castle about whether you can sell your house without the intervention of an estate agent. Of course you can! But, before you ask, you are probably better off not performing your own laser eye surgery.
There is more to listen to during our absence, because by royal appointment (not really) we’ve released the Answer Me This! Jubilee, a 57-minute romp through the massive numbers of questions you lot send us about Her Maj and the like. Click here to get it.
Don’t forget us while we’re away: keep sending your QUESTIONS, as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
It is the 75th birthday of Maltesers, so in Answer Me This! Episode 209 we’re celebrating by berating their current advertising campaign for being sexist. Although we similarly spent Grandad’s 75th birthday party berating him for his unreconstructed chauvinism. Can’t trust these septuagenarians to say the right things.
On the agenda this week:
Trojans
buskers
aerated foods
Debra Winger
Stephen Fry’s cab
organ donation
pink newspapers
Boots
Christian barbecues Arne Jacobsen‘s arse
and
hearses.
Plus: Olly lets yet another brilliant enterprise go to waste, but there’s nothing stopping any one of you future billionaires taking it onto Dragon’s Den; Helen finds the world’s best busker – catch him before he goes up in flames; and Martin the Sound Man may be a science whiz, but even he can’t get his macaro(o)ns to work.
It’s quite a literal Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) this week, as we address a question from Volker from Germany who likes to enjoy himself in the workplace lavvies after lights out. And if this, plus the final question of the episode about WCs, has ramped up your curiosity about matters lavatorial, our video masterwork upon the subject can be viewed at the bottom of this post.
We’re also moonlighting on episode 7 of Ian Collins Wants a Word , the new podcast by star of AMT149 Ian Collins. Click here to get a dose of it.
Next week will be our last episode before we go on a little holiday, so hurry to send in your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. We’ve got a bit of a treat for you while we’re on our break, though, so be sure to join us for AMT210 to discover what that is. A packet of Maltesers each? NO. Not until those tasty little bastards start treating us all as EQUALS.
Batten down the hatches, Team AMT; today Planet Earth is being lashed by the most violent solar storm in years. Unlike the usual sort of storm, it won’t knock the flowerpots off the windowsill or ruin your laundry on the line, but it MIGHT interfere with communications systems, including the internet. So hurry hurry hurry to download Answer Me This! Episode 208, then listen to it whilst you board up your windows and dust off your emergency canned foods:
This week we consider:
mermaid menstruation
ladybird literature
the Cranberries’ comeback
partying at Heathrow Airport
the Earl of Sandwich and the Earl of Sandwich
joint bank accounts The Wizard of Oz vs. Return to Oz
Muppets vs. puppets
Soo vs. Anne Robinson
Catholics vs. farmers
grease-free cribbage
Tik-Tok (the character, NOT the K€sha song)
toothpaste
kitsch
Big Bird busybody
and
ET’s hands.
Plus: Olly would like the USA to know that burgers≠sandwiches; Helen’s unlikely to be going on a dirty weekend to Blackpool, and not just because when the wife’s away, Martin the Sound Man will play. With toilet paper.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) concerns Olly’s gorgeous teeth, both real and artificial. You’d never guess which are which!
Give all of us something to chew on by sending in your QUESTIONS: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). Chomp chomp chomp.
Saint David, you’ve been lucky to have your own Day for so long, but it’s time to move over, because you know what March 1st is? JUSTIN BIEBER’S 18th BIRTHDAY! His song has more than 700m views on YouTube; how many people saw your ‘greatest’ miracle? Which was what, again? Oh, yes – you created a new hill. In Wales. You managed to find the only bit of Wales that wasn’t already a hill, and turned it into a sodding HILL! Now the monks don’t have a flat cricket pitch! Thanks a bloody bunch. Sit the heck down, and don’t even dare complain while they turn your charming cathedral into a bouncy castle for Justin to play in on his Bieberthday.
Also happening today: Answer Me This! Episode 207.
Plus: Olly has a Celebrity Row over the controversial revamped Clissold Park cafe; Helen has a split personality, if the Myers-Briggs test is anything to go by; and Martin the Sound Man is the Voice of the Yoof, much to the sorrow of the Yoof themselves.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is concerned with the plight of Ben from Durham, who has lost an eyebrow. Wax in haste, repent at leisure, as my grandmother never had to say because nobody would EVER have been so foolish in her day.
We always want your QUESTIONS, and this week is no different: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Answer Me This! Episode 206 is an exciting one, because we’re joined by legendary comedian and erstwhile rabbi Jackie Mason!
We snuck backstage to talk to him at the Wyndhams Theatre, where he’s performing his farewell show Fearless – click here to find out more about it and buy tickets – and we learned many things: real people are better to watch than Caddyshack II; Lucozade has yet to break America; and Madonna is a sick person (well, we did have an inkling of that already).
For more wisdom, listen:
Before you get to hear Jackie, though, you have to listen to us waffling on as usual, about such matters as:
legless frogs
the legal smoking age limit
litotes
sex vs. Buckaroo
Roman numerals Snog Marry Avoid?
proxy servers
and
heirloom gobstoppers.
Plus: Olly exposes The Artist complainers as FRAUDS; Helen’s inner Russell Brand is unleashed; and before you ask, the reason Martin the Sound Man didn’t come with us to meet Jackie Mason is NOT because no goys were allowed, but because he had to go to work! Science waits for no man.
There’s more Jackie in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, where he holds forth upon the upcoming US election and Harry Redknapp’s dog, so fire up your iDevices or Android.
AMT is back to its normal guestless state next week, but we’re not alone so long as we have your QUESTIONS; so leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
So many wangs in Answer Me This! Episode 205. Big ones. Little ones. Extended ones. Stone ones. Religious ones. Cold ones. Coal-fired ones…
We also consider:
Cillian Murphy in Batman
Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert
cemetery etiquette
snowman conformity
scarecrows
steam-power
phallus-power
naked shame
vibrators for health
Akzidenz-Grotesk
prudes vs. exhibitionists
traffic lights vs. policemen
and
pirated story tapes.
Plus: Olly doesn’t pull in Pret A Manger; Helen explains why Death By Vagina was a pretty unavoidable option for the sexually active Victorian lady; and Martin the Sound Man strips off at festivals, because he likes to evoke the bacchanalia of Burning Man all over the place. Or, rather, because he wants to go on the waterslides.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), Olly explains how he could have prevented a decade of war, had the pull of literature not been too strong.
Next week, all going according to plan, we will be joined by a special guest: legendary comedian Jackie Mason! So send us QUESTIONS for him, marked ‘For Jackie’: email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Happy 200th birthday, Charles Dickens! We hope you had a super party at the Retirement Home for Victorian Novelists. William Thackeray ordered in the cupcakes, Anthony Trollope bought a keg, and Henry James cooked up a batch of his Special Brownies. We’ll just leave Answer Me This! Episode 204 on the gift table:
Plus: Olly narrowly escapes Death by Chicken Kiev; Helen had peculiar taste in men for a 13-year-old; and Martin the Sound Man compares feminine sexual moisture to Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Women don’t have YOLKS, Martin!
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), Olly explains that as a teenager, he didn’t get a fake ID: he invented a whole fake identity. Will the real Olly Mann please stand up? OK, sit down, you look exactly like the fake one.
As every week, we want your QUESTIONS: deliver them as voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
PS: for all of you who, like our final questioneer of the day, have ever mis-sent a text or email:
Hey, it’s Groundhog Day! The day where a large rodent prognosticates the weather, and also the day when Answer Me This! Episode 203 enters the world.
Hey, it’s Groundhog Day! The day where a large rodent prognosticates the weather, and also the day when Answer Me This! Episode 203 enters the world.
Hey, it’s Groundhog Day! The day where a large rodent prognosticates the weather, and also the day when Answer Me This! Episode 203 enters the w- OK, I’m bored of this joke now. On with the show:
Today we talk about:
cats up trees
hemp seeds iTunes Ping (anyone? Anyone?)
‘Affirmation‘ vs. Baz Luhrmann vs. ‘If‘
gamekeepers
too much texting
Mark Zuckerberg’s businesswear Cowboys and Aliens
national stereotypes
lessons in love from Sleepless in Seattle
and
the hat that won the West.
Plus: Olly explains the reason for the famous British emotional stuntednessstiff upper lip; Helen says “Nooooooooooo!” to apple eugenics; and Martin the Sound Man generously doles out songwriting tips to Savage Garden. If you want to hear what makes Martin such an authority on the topic, direct yourself to his latest music output HERE.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Alex from Northampton about calorie-counting bores. Talking about calorie-counting makes you put ON weight, dullards!
Thankfully you lot are the opposite of dullards, if your QUESTIONS are anything to go by: send those to us as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. No questions, no show! We’re not too polite to resort to blackmail.
You’ll be relieved to hear that according to (not very respected) scientists, January 23rd was officially the most depressing day of 2012 – which means it’s onwards and upwards from here! Hooray. We’re not sure where Answer Me This! Episode 202 fits on that graph, but here you go anyway:
Today we consider:
novelty flavoured Coke
presumptuous Baptists
St Patrick’n’St Bridget
Britney’n’Kevin
Teddy Boys
oshiburi
the Elgin Marbles
Andy McNab
white tie and tails
the stork
Jack Nicholson
and
@.
Plus: Olly is a staunch traditionalist when it comes to marriage (despite being, at the same time, staunchly anti-marriage); Helen guesses what Andy McNab’s mysterious face really looks like; and Martin the Sound Man mounts an impassioned defence of the underscore.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) finds Olly SHOCKED and APPALLED by his beloved Disney, because he discovered Mickey Mouse is a secret smoker. Call the tabloids!
Once you’ve done that, please call/email/Skype us, with your QUESTIONS: answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; Question Line 0208 123 5877; Skype answermethis. You must know what to do by now.
If you’re also inclined to send us something more substantial than a question, our postal address is: Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
And if you’re free next Tuesday evening, please come along to this! Otherwise, we’ll see you back here next Thursday, as ever.
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