Archive for the ‘sneezing’ Category

Well, have YOU ever seen a penguin with hiccups?

June 30, 2008

** Click here for EPISODE 60 **

Hiccup cures are still a hot topic, even though Episode 58 is but a distant memory (yeah, I know it was less than three weeks ago, but these days my mind is as retentive as a crocheted teapot). Amy has written in with the following fun-sounding hiccup cure:

when i have hiccups i stand up and pull my arms behind my back and pretend I’m a penguin, it pulls your diaphragm back.
and it works! (plus is quite entertaining if you tell someone who’s doing it that they have to make a penguin noise)

Yikes! Isn’t that also how they tell you to kill a dog that’s attacking you?

On the tandem subject of sneeze prevention, Olly himself piped up to say that talking about an oncoming sneeze often makes it dissipate. Rather like discussing that novel you say you’re going to write one day, or the names of the children you’re planning to have with the partner you’ve only known a week…

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, sneezing | 1 Comment »

Whoopee! More Google fun!!!

June 26, 2008

Can you believe that the summer larkarama of our Top 10 Funny Google Searches Which Resulted In Answer Me This! Rather Than Anything Like What They Were Hoping To Find was a whole year ago? Can you? No? Yes? Not sure?

Well, you would be stupid to do anything other than believe it, because it is actually true, to the very day. But even though the number of people actually searching for us is now almost equal to those seeking ‘sex chairs’ or ‘cock’, the past year has yielded even more Curious, Funny or Massively Inappropriate Things Which A Search Engine Took To Mean They Were Really Hoping To Be Directed To A Question-Answering Weekly Podcast. In Episode 60 we unveil the ones which ghasted our flabbers to the greatest extent; but they are merely the tip of the iceberg, the heart of the artichoke, the Dangermouse pencil case in the middle of a particularly competitive game of Pass the Parcel. So below are some of the others which tickled, baffled or shocked us. Imagine a jolly little tune as you read them!

The Sneeze-Related Category
still a ridiculously competitive round even after all this time

Most romantic: ‘smell of her sneeze’
Most likely to make Google wonder why it doesn’t ditch its boring friends for some better ones: ‘joss sneezes’
The ‘what were they expecting Google to do about it?’ cup: ‘I am going to sneeze’
The ‘what was the internet like when you were a girl, grandma?’ rosette: ‘ladylike sneezing’
The Titmuss award for most curious mix of Amnesty International, objectification of women, and hayfever: ‘free busty sneezers’
Only ten syllables away from a haiku: ‘sinus sneeze stand up morning’

The Rude Category
yes, we know that’s what the internet’s for, so we shouldn’t have been so surprised…

Strongest proof that too much wanking ruins your spelling: ‘bals’
Cockiest (tie): ‘cock’, ‘nude cock’, ‘cock and balls’, ‘cock coming’, ‘dirty cock’, ‘cock a poo’, ‘cock in a sock’, ‘Mario Italian big cock’, ‘weird cock’, ‘weirdest cock’, ‘cock nose’ (perhaps that’s the answer to the previous two searches?), ‘cock smashing’, ‘cock porn gammy’
Most likely to end in erotic disappointment when the search results in Answer Me This! rather than something titillating: ‘ITUNES SEXY BUSTY PODCASTS’ tied with ‘the podcast you can wank to’
Podcast that people should not be seeking: ‘incest podcast’
Most unexpected perversions: ‘clandestine necrophilia’, ‘piss drinking exciting’, ‘clitoris nose’, ‘Christmas cake nude’ (bleurgh!! Christmas cake is bad enough with all its clothes on!)
Most generous invitation: ‘wank with me’

Questions the internet probably can’t answer satisfactorily because it isn’t actually human:

‘why does my girlfriend smells like onions?’
‘why are you such a cock?’
‘how can i stop curry having a laxative effect?’
‘why do charity adverts make you feel guilty?’
‘how do spaceships keep from hitting comets?’
‘where did luke have to sit for breakfast?’
‘do women prefer large girth for anal sex?’
‘why did you choose to invent vegemite?’
‘why didn’t you answer me Peter?’
Peter! Stop being such a dickhead and come clean about the vegemite, for fuck’s sake.

Potential Band-Names category:

Toothbrush Fuck
Policewoman Striptease
Babypisshorse
Fibby Lovely Dancer
Heart Shaped Bruise
The future Alanis Morrissette Album Title medal: ‘salami tactic shawshank redemption’

Celebrity round:

‘Jean Sarkozy fanclub’
‘Jean-Claude Juncker funny facts’ (There aren’t any. He’s the head of the Christian Social People’s Party in Luxembourg.)
‘Rupert Grint a hit with the ladies’
‘Nigella Lawson fat ass’
‘Lisa Riley Camden’

The Enemy of the State category for revealing the lives of others:
ordered from sordid to poignant

‘Sasha Grey drinks own piss’
‘dangers of piss drinking’ (this one goes out to the memory of Sasha Grey…)
‘brown stain on your penis’ (Google, have you been stirring the tea with your penis again?)
‘am I a lesbian? i want to have sex with’ (sadly the end of this was cut off. The implications of the search are quite different if it is ‘women’ or ‘men’. Even more so if it’s something else entirely)
‘is David the one for me answer me please’ (if you don’t know, how is Google to know?)
‘secret condoms in my boyfriend’s pocket’ (uh-oh… But it’s not like Google can help you with this one, or comfort you as you cry and rip up the photo collage)

The kind of search where Answer Me This! might serendipitously turn out to be to the liking of the searcher:

‘I love After Eights at Christmas’
‘images of topiary and front doors’
‘how to eat seductively ferrero rocher’
‘words often mispronounced by ladies’
‘Helen Zaltzman popcast’ (hee hee hee! Just imagine it!)
‘free eggery lessons’ (don’t even know what they are! But don’t they sound delightful? (If ‘eggery’ is in fact the name of some depraved practice, then please keep it to yourself and let us enjoy this moment))

So, that concludes today’s Search-Engine fun; but if YOU found this podcast by accident when you were searching for something completely different, leave a comment below and tell us what the unlikely word combination was. Hilarity will doubtless ensue!

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Posted in frippery, sneezing | Leave a Comment »

hiccups and sneezes

June 26, 2008

** Click here for EPISODE 59 **

Beth has more advice regarding sneeze/hiccup prevention tactics as raised in Episode 58:

I cure hiccups by drinking out of the wrong side of the glass like Helen’s family. It does actually work and if you are fully capable adult it is easy to do without spilling. It essentially means you are drinking upside down, whether that’s concentration or something to do with the diaphragm I have no idea.

As for sneezing, I tell everybody who has problems getting sneezes out (‘better out than in’, Helen, your tongue method may work but I believe that you should aim to sneeze, not hold it in) that they should look at something light/bright, then to something dark and repeat every few seconds. I think this is because by switching between the two your pupils contract and dilate, and as all things are connected this messes about with your sinuses (and other general sneezy bits), causing you to sneeze out that annoying tickle. I can’t remember if I read this somewhere or made it up, but it definitely works.

Ain’t sinuses crazy? Anyway, a whole NEW question has emerged from this hiccupping debate, thanks to Klaus:

What do you say to someone when they hiccup? With sneezes, it is customary to ‘bless’ the sneezee… when someone coughs, they might say ‘cough up’ or something similar. With a burp, one pardons oneself or is pardoned. But what of hiccups? Why are they are they just forced to linger awkwardly in the air until such a time as someone suggests a dubious hiccup remedy? Please advise!

Hmm, a fine point! In the event that one can refrain from saying ‘Try drinking a glass of water! Hold your breath! Throw yourself down the stairs! Have you tried holding your breath?’ then the usual thing to do is look at the hiccupper in a manner both sympathetic and condescending, if you can manage it; but any more gracious suggestions would be welcomed.

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, extracurricular questions, sneezing, User-generated answers | 5 Comments »

Google me this!

June 26, 2007

* Click HERE to listen to Episode 20 *

One of the many pleasures of running this website is being able to see what Google searches have sent people here. We have mentioned before how our casual mention of the fact that Olly’s sneezes smell bad daily draws in numerous similar sufferers, who assail the World’s Favourite Search engine with such combinations as ‘sneezes that have an odor’, ‘her sneezes smell’, ‘why do sneezes smell OR stink’ or ‘sneezes smell musty’ in the hope of finding a cure for this mysterious ailment, and instead find a question-answering comedy podcast. In fact, smelly sneezers probably account for about 60% of our listenership.

However some people’s approach to answermethispodcast.com has been yet more oblique. And duly it tickles us to present you with our Top 10 Funny Google Searches Which Resulted In Answer Me This! Rather Than Anything Like What They Were Hoping To Find. Just imagine the surprise! the confusion! the disappointment! of the people who fetched up here when they Googled these:

10. Dogtanian streaming episodes
9. why would a goldfish enlarge
8. Jude Law
7. high street honeys mp3
6. auto fellation
5. where i can bye armani jeans in london
4. is it halal to give money to Comic Relief?
3. do pomegranates make you constipated?
2. KNOCK A BUZZARD OFF A TURD WAGON
and…
1. my husband says i smell like garlic.

Oh, how sad a picture the winning entry paints – a lonely wife, pouring out her troubles to Google night after night, in the vague hope that one day, ONE DAY, it will pat her on the back and make everything better. “Is he having an affair?” she types. “Did my parents love my sister more?” And: “I’m so alone.” “Did you mean I’m Al Capone?” barks heartless Google back.

Stick with us, lovely garlicky lady! We’ll be your shoulder to cry on when the marriage goes tits-up because you just could not stay off the aioli.

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Will the real EPISODE 11 please stand up, please stand up?

March 22, 2007


This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p, through a secure PayPal server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)

Would you Adam and Eve it, it’s already time for Answer Me This! Episode 11? We wouldn’t either, had we not heard the evidence!

Conversational rafts in our whitewater chitchat include:

the Playboy Mansion
dimwitted drivers
the fall of the British Empire, one emoticon at a time
Michael Caine (bah)
Joss Stone (double bah)
Nicolas Cage (bah unto infinity)
nasal douching
Martin the Sound Man’s cricket box
naughty nutmeg
and
things that make you go
“aaarrrghhhohmygodtheshameIcan’tbearitggghhhh”.

We’re also delighted that Answer Me This! is becoming a something of safe haven for those of you who, like Olly, do sneezes that smell like a donkey’s colon. Judging by the numerous hits we get each day from people googling ‘smelly sneezes’, ‘why do my sneezes smell so bad’ and ‘metallic sneezes’, Olly’s rancid schnozz is just the tip of a honking great iceberg: who knew so many of you suffered from this curious ailment? Hail to you, whiffy-sinused ones: you’re not alone! Join our gang! Although you’re still likely to get ostracised if you emit one of your Special sneezes in the clubhouse.

Thanks to everyone who has written in regarding their sneezes, or about their peculiar food reactions; if you’re similarly inclined to share, leave a comment on the website for us all to enjoy. Plus, as ever, send us loads of questions to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And encourage your friends and relations to do likewise! Because without your questions, we’d probably just loaf around watching the Neighbours: Defining Moments DVD, and being confronted with that number of perms in one go sure can’t be healthy.

Love,

Helen and Olly
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Posted in PODCASTS, sneezing | 1 Comment »

What do you mean, porridge gives you a rash?

February 23, 2007

* Click here to listen to EPISODE 7 *

It’s time for another audience question!

Jamie Madge’s question in episode 7, “Why do you get a runny nose when eating spicy food?”, was certainly thought-provoking. It caused shrinking violet Olly to reveal on air that, while his nose remains continent during spicy meals, he is a member of the My Poo Turns Blue When I Eat Beetroot club; this seems to be quite a mainstream condition, but later he shyly muttered that he also gets very sneezy when he eats pear-drops. Martin the Sound Man has also outed himself as someone who sneezes when he eats strong mints. And Helen gets faint when she ingests monosodium glutamate.

So we thought it would be jolly interesting to ask you:

Have you got a weird physical reaction to eating or drinking a product?

Not the common or garden ones like getting the runs from a vindaloo or becoming hyperactive after too many Chupa Chups; or anything scary and serious like “I need an adrenaline shot to the heart when I eat nuts” or “My brain goes bendy when I eat naughty mushrooms”: we want to hear from you if, say, gravy gives you a squint or Scotch eggs make your hands turn magenta.

So please reveal your digestive anomalies by leaving us a comment on this site, or if that seems a bit steep then drop us an email at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

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Posted in sneezing, User-generated answers | 8 Comments »

Olly’s sneeze affliction

February 22, 2007

* Click here to listen to Episode 6 *

In Episode 6 of Answer Me This!, Olly sensationally revealed that his sneezes reek beyond the limits of human endurance. Despite being in the business of answering questions, we failed to discover a reason for this stinkiness, and a week on, the mystery continues.

However, though a cure remains frustratingly elusive, we were overjoyed to discover Olly ‘Freaknostrils’ Mann is not alone, when the following email from listener Geri leapt into our inbox this morning:

Not a question, more of a plea…

I heard Olly confess that his sneezes smell terrible on a recent
show and I suffer from this too. My husband even rolls the window
down when I sneeze in the car. He calls it my death sneeze ‘cos it
literally smells of death!

Please please please Olly, i look to you to find the cause of our
affliction.

You are not alone.

Geri *achhhooooo*

Wow! So even dainty ladylike sneezes can smell like a llama’s toilet!

But how many smelly-sneezers are still in the (pongy) closet? Show yourselves, and Answer Me This! will provide haven for you. Together we can beat this thing, people! Although we’ll not take you all on a picnic in hayfever season.

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, sneezing | 112 Comments »