Creeeeeak! What’s behind today’s advent calendar door? Is it a lovely picture of a robin? A verse of the nativity story? A little chocolate that tastes of solidified moisturiser? Let’s see……ooh, what a surprise! It is, instead, Answer Me This! Episode 160:
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)
And what surprises are therein? Well:
Ali Baba
JJB Sports
Princess Mary of Denmark
dead dogs
Halle Berry’s bum
Tina Turner’s legs
Sega Master System
the Thompson Twins
terrifying pores
Facebashing
British Home Stores
naval recruitment ‘The Night Before Christmas’
Rudolf the Red-Nosed Heidi Range-deer scary cartoon Weetabix
an abundance of allen keys The Silver Spoon
and Plopp.
Plus: Olly is cockblocked by a statue of his newborn self; Helen tells you how not to throw like a girl; and Martin the Sound Man tells you how to make your Christmas protracted and boring. Whoopee! Also, don’t forget this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (which is now available on Android, huzzah!), which shows how a bunch of adults can dissolve into childish mirth during an upright discussion about advent calendars as soon as the word ‘flaps’ shows up. Flaps! Snigger.
You can send us QUESTIONS in the form of voicemails on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and we’ll stack them under the tree to open at Christmas. BUT! Next Thursday sees the first installment of the annual treat (debatably) that is our Best Of episodes, so if you have a favourite bit of AMT2010, please tell us about it on our Facebook wall or, if you forswear social networking, in the comments right here.
See you next week for the visit of the Ghosts of Podcasts Past,
Remember a few days ago, when Britain was still capable of having conversations about things that aren’t SNOW? Me neither, but SNOW-free Episode 159 is a throwback to those clement times:
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)
Topics on this week’s crib-sheet include:
SNOW
litigious Times New Roman
Shetland ponies
the Mildenhall treasure Jacob’s Ladder
the Crusades
zebra piss
londonollypics.com
flattering spectacles Kramer vs. Kramer
the BBC vs. Boston Business Computing
laser eye surgery vs. A Clockwork Orange
Las Vegas vs. Trafalgar Square
pet griffins
the Crystal Palace water-towers
the penalty for banging Prince Philip
cybersquatting
Stanmore the Monkfish
the MGM lion
and
Martin the Sound Man’s favourite fountain.
Plus: Olly salves his wounds from losing last week’s Queen’s Speech debate by triumphing in his other specialist subject: Macaulay Culkin’s uncredited early work; tedious stories thwart Helen’s attempts to compose the Zaltzman family tree; and Martin will sort out your myopia for a fiver and a bucket of chicken wings, no questions asked. Also, this week’s Bit of Crap on the App describes an inappropriate use for a lovely dollshouse (clue: it’s not this).
In the event that you too have things to say that aren’t about SNOW – preferably QUESTIONS – then please get in touch by leaving a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
If you can make it through the SNOW, then please come along to one of our imminent book readings and signings – there’s one in London this weekend, 3.30pm on Saturday 4th at The Social on Little Portland Street, then there’s another in Brighton, 7.30pm on Wednesday 8th at Waterstone’s Clocktower.
In this special commemorative plate of podcasts, Answer Me This! Episode 158, we join in with the national celebrations of the romance of our age. For finally, after years of waiting, years of frustration, years of public speculation…Pudsey Bear is finally getting his end away.
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)
We also mention:
Wills’n’Kate (o jubilate deo!)
Marilyn Monroe
humanure
the US Weather Bureau
Dolce’n’Gabbana
Audrey Horne
augmented reality vs. unaugmented reality
Jean Paul Gaultier vs. dog saliva
Dexter’s bloody cologne
pox patches
the true meaning of eau de toilette
the Queen’s blingy carriage
and
the unsung beauty that is Robert De Niro.
Plus: Olly surmises that the West Country is boozed up to the eyeballs 24/7; Helen gives tips for turning your unsightly syphilitic blemishes into a join-the-dots game on your face; and Martin the Sound Man manages to compare the Gospels to Rashomon and the other religious texts of the world to something far worse. This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Curtis from Guildford about what we’d call a games console if we were to invent one. Luckily that day is far, far off.
We also have a bit of a disagreement about which of the Queen’s speeches is actually the Queen’s Speech; help us settle it once and for all:
You can send us QUESTIONS for future shows by leaving a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And if you’re a student, unemployed, or have an unusually generous lunch hour, please pop down to Rough Trade East at noon on Friday 26th, which is where and when we’ll be doing a reading from our book and signing copies. We are also available for signing wedding certificates, will forms, decrees nisi, blank cheques…
In honour of the Answer Me This! book being officially (well, close) declared ‘one of the greatest pieces of toilet literature of all time‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
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)
This week, we amuse ourselves with:
the Mann Booker prize
Nightmare on Hygiene Street The Piano: The Musical
Gibson vs. Fender T3 vs. 3T
tarts vs. tarts
salesmanship vs. psoriasis
The Guardian Bedside Reader
martini-making machines
Autoglym
David McAlmont and Michael Nyman
the Nissan of the guitar world
the Captain Corelli’s Mandolin-branded backgammon set
hairy oil spills
No More Nails
bezoar
nut hamper
the Alcor Life Extension Foundation
parallel parking
and
the Strawberry Strumpet.
Plus: Olly has some dodgy plans for death row prisoners; Helen revolutionises bridal traditions with the help of Stilton; and Martin the Sound Man sold off his glorious ponytail for far less than its current market value. This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Jack, the 21-year-old undertaker in Uckfield, who feels uncomfortable with atheism in front of mourners and wanking in front of his cat. What a shy soul!
Now, if you’ve got time this evening (that is, Thursday 18th November), please do pop along to see us read bits from our book at Waterstone’s Gower Street. We kick off at 6pm sharp, but if you can’t make that, how about a rerun at noon on 26th November at Rough Trade East, huh? Come and have a little pre-lunch fun with us. There are some excellent bagel-shops a mere gherkin’s throw away.
Thanks to everyone who has already bought our book and/or reviewed it on Amazon. And thanks to all of you in advance for listening to Answer Me This! Episode 156:
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)
Amongst many other things, we consider:
the Augean stables
Green Shield Stamps
Miami Fried Chicken Gavin Bryars
home economics vs. cookery class
cowardice vs. gullibility
Sperm Wars
Littlewoods Index
Cerberus
The Shadows
peppermint creams
Gauls
Take your Child To Work Day
Jerry Yang and David Filo
scaredy chickens Hercules played by Mel Gibson
Richard Tompkins
Jules Leotard
Sarah Harding
and
heaven on Earth in Canada.
If that’s not enough, this week’s nugget of bonus content on the app, we marvel at the young Olly Mann’s love of theatrical PR. A wickle Cameron Mackintosh, how cuuuute! His parents must have been so proudconfused.
You know what would make us happy? YOUR QUESTIONS! Deliver them to us via the Question Line (0208 123 5877), Skype (our handle is answermethis), or email (answermethispodcast@googlemail.com). You know what else would make us happy? If you can pop along to one of our forthcoming book events, the first of which is 6pm Thursday 18th November at Waterstone’s Gower Street. You know what else would make us happy? A nice cup of tea. We’ll sort that out, while you work on the other two happiness-makers.
We are delighted to announce that our book is out TODAY. As is, similarly delightfully, Answer Me This! Episode 155:
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)
This week we mention such things as:
premature poppies
‘Barwick Green’
Abi Titmuss Essential Modern Classics – The Phantom Tollbooth
Banana Skins Slippage Committee
herrings
the edible Fleshlight
hostess trolleys
spinning cakestands
marrowfat peas
ten pin bowling, North London Jew-style
British population density vs. Canadian population density
and
Vince Neil’s eggy crotch.
Plus: Olly laughs and laughs and laughs at poor dead squirrels, because he is a Bad Mann; Helen wishes she still had the rushes of her unofficial audiobook of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret; and Marti(a)n the Sound Man lays down the law about lasers, which is roughly the same law that Perseus observed when taking on the Gorgons.
This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Becky from Westerham about the TP button in her car. What the blazes is the TP button? Toilet paper? Telepathic powers? Total paralysis? Find out only on the app! (Or your own car.)
If you require a bigger dose of our voices than today’s episode provides, then you can hear us on the Guardian’s Media Talk podcast on Friday 5th, the Shaun Keaveny Show on BBC 6 Music at 9am on Monday 8th, and the Late Show with Ian Collins on TalkSPORT at midnight on Tuesday 9th. That enough for you? Hmmm?
There are only fifty shopping days until Christmas*, and seven more shopping days until next week’s episode, so hesitate not to pose your QUESTIONS, by leaving a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or by firing off an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. We look forward to them immensely.
See you next week!
Helen and Olly
*but you don’t even need those, because the Answer Me This! book is the perfect gift for everyone in your life! So thanks to us, you’ve a spare seven weeks to fill with hobbycrafts or waterskiing rather than schlepping round John Lewis. You’re welcome. Don’t say we never do anything nice for you.
Happy halloween to you! Here’s not-at-all-reflective-of-the-festival Episode 154, but you can decide where it falls on the Trick Or Treat spectrum, 1 being a nice lollipop and 10 being a dog turd through your letterbox. Squelch! DAMN YOU PESKY KIDS.
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 contemplate subjects including:
Scream IV
Ken Kirzinger
Rentokil
Ebenezer Howard
Robert De Niro’s patchwork face
Nigella’s fishy keyboard
the amazing voice of Red Pepper
Welwyn Garden City vs. Letchworth Garden City
Don LaFontaine vs. Alfred Hitchcock Shutter Island
vegetable oil fountains
sweetcorn fajitas
wigs Strictly Come Dancing demystified
and
a brief history of refrigeration.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Emma about whether lentils can kill. If they can, the Ban Lentils campaign starts right here!
Elsewhere: Olly recoils at the idea of dunking fruit into a festive torrent of vegetable oil, despite his total lack of qualms about smearing absolutely everything in mayonnaise which is effectively the same thing; Helen reinterprets the Pied Piper as a cautionary tale preaching socialism; and Martin the Sound Man is uncharacteristically restrained during an entire discussion based around the word ‘shuttlecock’. We think he was sidetracked by a piece of junk mail he’d received in the post from a chocolate company, trying to sell him half-price nut hampers. Fnarrr!
While Martin sniggers like a man half his age, you can get on with sending us QUESTIONS! Leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; and if you had your question answered in this week’s show, email us your address that we may dispatch your free copy of the Answer Me This! book. Next week there are no free books, but you will be able to get a not-free copy from a bookshop or The Internet, because the delightful volume will be available for sale from November 4th. As will next week’s podcast, so we’ll see you back here then! Toodles.
To follow the mood of this week, we must announce that we’ve decided to cut Answer Me This! Episode 153 by eight per cent. However we reassure you that we will be freezing the length of this episode at 27 minutes 37 seconds for the next two years, or until the apocalypse, whichever is sooner. Here you go:
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’s time-of-austerity topics include:
non-alcoholic beer
Jim Henson’s fake rats
shadduck
Michael Apted
Lidl
Johnny Depp vs. Danny Dyer Center Stage
Olly’s favourite condoms (surprisingly not these ones) The Witches
Stephen Jones, milliner
isopropanol
Rowan Atkinson’s ‘early’ work
Bonnie Prince Billy’s hometown
Nicolas Roeg
identical twins
Michael Palin in drag
and
losing your virginity to a chair.
Plus: Olly has been repelled from his favourite snack by Gok Wan; Helen suggests a high school Joseph Mengele; and Martin the Sound Man plays off Gene Wilder and Spike Milligan against each other. WHO WILL WIN? We will, alas, never know.
What we do know is that next week is the last episode in which we’ll be handing out free books to questioneers, so send us your most brilliant QUESTIONS right now! Leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, to which you should send your postal address if you are one of this week’s featured questioneers and want to claim your freebie.
If you want to claim your not-quite-free-but-really-not-too-pricey copy of Answer Me This!: Collected Juvenilia, then investigate answermethispodcast.com/book, whereat you will find not only links to a few online bookshops, but also some sample pages to induce you to preorder itmake you decide to order Booky Wook 2 instead.
Helen and Olly
PS Forgot to mention: this week’s bonus bit on the app is Olly’s account of his recent debut trip to a branch of Hooters. It was all in the name of post-feminist irony, alright?
Of course, you’re already used to getting good advice from us. (Shut up!) But this week, we have some even better advice from broadcasting stalwart Paul Ross, which was instrumental in making Olly Mann the broadcasting stalwart he himself is today. Hear what it was here and here only, in Answer Me This! Episode 152:
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)
This week, we address subjects including:
90s collars
Benson & Hedges
The Saturdays
butterbear
Carr’s water biscuits
yuppie kids
evil spirits
Ciro Citterio
the Queen vs. Pixie Lott
Batman’s wedding
Hong Kong tailors
trangias
Terry’s Chocolate Lemons
ligatures
Warhorse
Ben Stiller’s workwear
the musical cleft
Luciano Pavarotti outstaying his welcome
ball-handlers
the Isle of Arran
and
&.
Furthermore: Olly is a staunch conservative when it comes to the appropriate composition of orange-flavoured foodstuffs; Helen’s innate scruffiness has dashed her telemarketing dreams; and Martin the Sound Man stands up for Tom Stoppard. Meanwhile, over on the app, Gaz from Jedburgh has a question about a problem we’re sure is common to a great many of you: nepotism in the forestry business.
Everyone who got a question answered in today’s episode needs to email us their postal address sharpish, so we can send along a free copy of the Answer Me This! book; everyone else needs to send us a QUESTION to be in with a chance to win a free book, along with an answer, of course. You know what to do: leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
As promised, we’re back from our little break – Olly at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Helen at the Wizarding World of her own living room – and without further ado, it’s time for Answer Me This! Episode 151:
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)
Rusty from our hiatus, we try to remember what that ‘conversation’ thingy is that we used to do, and harness the following subjects in the hopes that they’ll cumulatively become one:
dental floss sticks
inflated pig bladders
Mark Lawson
sexy Humpty Dumpty
minstrels Porn: The Musical vs. Les Mis
truth vs. not lies Tycoon with Peter Jones Terri Hall (not to be confused with Terry Hall) the Spitting Image Chicken Song
unequal phone relationships
crows
Stewart Lee
Paul Daniels
stoned assassins
the sack of Troy
the Hogwarts Express conductor
invisible dog leads
and
Brian Krakow.
Plus: Olly finally understands why he’s booked in for so many appointments at the GUM clinic; Helen wants praise for her more obscure career avenues, thanks; and Martin the Sound Man wants to see a bit more of Ian Holm. Quite a lot more, in fact. But if he can’t get Holm’s pants off, Caitlin Moran’s would be a welcome consolation prize.
This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Catherine about why a kitty is called a kitty. As in a financial kitty, not a cute wickle cat, though just the linguistic similarity is enough for Olly in his now inevitable slide into becoming one of these.
We crave your QUESTIONS for the new series, so deliver them to us in the form of a voice mail left on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis; alternatively you can deliver them emailwise to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And, as we announced on today’s show: everyone who gets their question into an episode this month wins a copy of the Answer Me This! book! Yes, we’ve bloody well written a book. It comes out on 4th November. You can read a sample of it here where there are also links for pre-ordering it, if you are inclined to be an early adopter.
See you next week,
Helen and Olly
PS Here’s a family-friendly(ish) clip of Alice in Wonderland – An X-Rated Musical Fantasy. If you can make it past the actors speaking in rhyming couplets to anything even faintly stimulating, we salute you.
Rejoice! We’ve at last reached not-especially-impressive-numerical-landmark-when-you-think-about-it Episode 150:
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)
And duly we celebrate this really-not-at-all-momentous occasion with such topics as:
Caddyshack Caddyshack II
Craig Phillips
Collins academic diaries
Adolf Hitler’s great-nephew
Gillian McKeith
Curiously Cinnamon
knickers full of coins
Paperchase medical supplies
doner kebabs = engineering feats
Postman Pat’s new job
floaters
Opal Fruits
canine panniers
boarding school trains
wretched funk
clockwise Usain Bolt Platform 9 3/4
and
the end of days.
Plus: Olly gives you the insider knowledge that guarantees to get you on telly; Helen does not want her Everyman’s Library books despoiled by cover illustrations; and Martin the Sound Man has a top tip for stingy people who wish to be kind to the sensitive skin of strippers. Tuck a copy of his album into their garter, that’ll make them happy! This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Simon from Wimbledon wondering why people say Inception is confusing. Because that’s what you’re supposed to say about it, durrr.
This is the last episode of the series, but we won’t be away for long: we’ll be returning with Episode 151 on 7th October, which gives you plenty time to get your bargainous audiobooks (and we will be superlatively grateful to you if you do) as well as send us QUESTIONS for the new series: ask them with your voice on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or with your written words by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Because you’ve furnished us with far more questions than we can squeeze into the podcast this series, we’ll be tackling some of them here on the website during our break – and check back here anon if you’re curious about this world record attempt that we’re abetting on September 30th.
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen and goodbye, until October 7th!
At last, the special guestisode featuring Ian Collins off TalkSPORT has arrived! In it we find out a great deal about the great man: his life in pencils, his close relationship with the Home Office, his special form of vigilante justice, and his position as the only man in the world who thinks Cheryl Cole is ‘a bit of a munter’.
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 it, Ian talks to us about such matters as:
Cleethorpes
Morrissey Rugrats
Ikea pencils vs. Ikea meatballs
pub quiz machines vs. rightness
bubble vs. chewing in the battle of the gums
parliament vs. coconuts
Larry David
courtroom quizzes
the gravy and mini apple pies diet
Boots the Chemist Spitting Image‘s legal defence
Henry Frankenstein?
and
Wall’s sausage ice-cream
Plus: Olly has beef with the Wood Green branch of Harvester; Helen has beef with infantilised adults; and Ian has beef with PC Stamp from The Bill. Martin the Sound Man does not have beef with anyone this episode, but he will have beef with you if you don’t buy his album; so you’d better do that unless you want to feel his wrath.
This week’s slice of bonus fun on the app is a question from Daniel from Wakefield’s question about Darth Vader’s heavy breathing. He has more in common with Beverley Craven and Helen’s family dog than previously thought.
Now don’t be cross, but next week is the last episode of the series, so get your QUESTIONS in, quick! Leave a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of stuff to listen to during our VERY BRIEF break, because of all the free or cheap-as-chips audiobooks which Audible.co.uk wish to bestow upon you – click here to get yours!
‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
; and Marti(a)n the Sound Man lays down the law about lasers, which is roughly the same law that Perseus observed when taking on the Gorgons.
Answer Me This! Podcast 
