Listener Mark kindly alerted us to a strange gap near the end of Episode 86. We thought that 27 minutes into the podcast, you’d need a little rest, ok? Of course it wasn’t a cock-up! However, if you’d prefer the gapless megamix of Episode 86, then it’s now available from iTunes and all the normal places.
Rogue hiatus
March 13, 2009EPISODE 86 – tame dreams
March 12, 2009Hello champs!
And happy birthday to AMT!P fan Andrew from Southampton, who turns 17 today! We’ve got you a present. It is Episode 86; hope you haven’t already got one:
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This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p, through iTunes or 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)
Wherein we ponder:
Teenage Mutant Slasher Deviant Turtles
smear tests
David Lynch
Are You Being Served?
moisturiser
Arrested Development
spouses
southpaws
Jared Leto
farty Marty
and
Boris Yeltsin.
Plus: Olly reveals his secret wish for an in-house make-up artist; Helen wonders whatever happened to the word ‘shevelled’; and Martin the Sound Man finally tells how he bagged Helen – literally! Also, last year’s Camcorder Challenge winners Brad and Josh from Huddersfield entreat you to join this Facebook group and bring it down from within. No-one disses Answer Me This! bags, ok? NO-ONE.
Thanks to you, our Photoshop Challenge is going super-strongly; head over to photobucket.com/answermethis to add more entries and marvel at the Photoshop fun.
All that remains is to ask you to send us your QUESTIONS, to Skype ID answermethis, our Question Line 0208 123 5877, or answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Or come and see us at Webstock at the London Word Festival on 22nd March and ask us to our faces.
See you next week,
Helen and Olly
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do-gooding
March 11, 2009
Since we are lazy bastards who don’t do much for the good of the world, we are in great admiration of those that do. Like Jason from Liverpool here:
I am doing this thing called World Challenge, where I go to South Africa for a month to help a few villages. But the problem is raising the money – I have got to earn £2800 for it. How will I possibly earn that much? I’m only 15!
Given that we spend most of our working hours on an unpaid hobby, it’s fair to say that we are the wrong people to ask about fundraising – but perhaps you lot are full of fine ideas, that are both suitable and possible for a 15-year-old? Please do the right thing and comment below!
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Whipped cream, wedding photography and the tower of beasts
March 11, 2009Thanks to all of you who’ve been in touch with feedback about the contents of Episode 85. Firstly, regarding the ‘club sandwich of the animal world’ which we spotted in San Francisco, Cuthbert spotted the very same pet-stack in this Youtube video, and Fran from Suffolk in her dad’s holiday photos! So, we’re just going to pretend we took this picture ourselves:
Since we’re still on the subject of our recent jaunt to California, here’s an email from our transatlantic food consultant Jim in New Jersey:
I’m writing to disavow you folks of the notion that all Americans like whipped cream (or even syrup) with bacon for breakfast. That is a West Coast/Middle American aberration. The East coast/Mid-Atlantic/Southern norm is eggs, bacon or sausage, oatmeal or grits, and some kind of toast or “English” muffin. Whipped cream for breakfast is part of a whole fantasy dynamic that America occasionally leans toward, with dubious results. (Disneyland, superhero movies, Sarah Palin, etc.)
Don’t get us started on grits though, Jim! Remember how upset you Americans got last time that thorny subject arose.
Finally, here are some handy hints for candid photography fan Mike from Belfast. Firstly, professional advice from Kelly from Great Dunmow, Essex:
To the guy in episode 85 that wanted to take unposed photos without looking dodgy, he should learn to take photos ‘from the hip’, as my photography teacher told us.
I love taking photos of people without them knowing. I hate posed photos; I used to photograph weddings and every time people saw the camera they would pose, so with loads of practice I learnt to take photos from the camera resting at waist height, or from my hips and even with my arms crossed with the camera tucked under my arm. It also helps if you take the photos in places where there are lots of tourists, with attractions around; that way you can make it look like you’re taking photos of the attractions, not the people.
Jack from Tunbridge Wells runs with a similar theme:
Here’s a clever tip:
Get a friend to come along with you and get him to stand in front of you, between you and the person you want to take a candid picture of.
Using the zoom function on your camera, take a picture over his shoulder of the person, and there you have it!
This technique came in quite handy when taking pics in London for GCSE art.
I hope these suggestions have inspired all you aspiring paparazzi and voyeurs. If stealth is not one of your natural qualities, perhaps you should invest in one of these.
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Sunday fun
March 8, 2009** Click here for Episode 85 **
We hope you are all having a marvellous Sunday afternoon. If not, here are some things which might perk you up:
1. An Answer Me This! quiz by Gareth from Glasgow. Click HERE to take it, and see if you can best our scores: Olly and I each got 19 out of 20, but dafty old Martin the Sound Man only got 15.
2. The first episode of Martin the Sound Man’s new musical videocast The Sound of the Ladies Lounge. It’ll certainly cheer him up if you watch it!
3. Helen and Olly’s Photoshop Challenge. Entries have been coming in thick and fast, and it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that nothing has ever made us happier. View and comment on the pictures at photobucket.com/answermethis.
Cheers dears!
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EPISODE 85 – liver yogurt
March 5, 2009Wahey, listeners! We’re back! Waheyyyyyyy!
Formalities over, let’s get down to business. There’s a new series of Answer Me This!, and accordingly a new episode. So without further ado, here is Answer Me This! Episode 85:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p, through iTunes or 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)
We’re limbering up with such topics as:
Visalia, CA
syllabub
the four corners of the globe
Antonin Artaud
the life of bivalves
The Little Mermaid
garlic bread
Johnny Onion
this pungent place
Diane Arbus
Past Times
Walkman iPod covers
little red Dansette
Plus! Olly offers some top-notch economising tips for you cat litter users; Helen says the word ‘syllabub’; and Martin the Sound Man explains the difference between corpses and dogs. Thankyou, Martin. Should make walkies a bit less sinister.
As usual we are wanting your QUESTIONS, which you can submit orally to to Skype ID answermethis or our Question Line 0208 123 5877, or emailly to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; BUT we also want more from you this week because we are greedy. Firstly, we would like you to come and see us at Webstock at the London Word Festival on 22nd March – click HERE for more about it – and secondly, we would like your entries for our fun new Photoshop Challenge, for details of which click HERE. Thirdly, we’ve now got one of those Twitter things that everyone’s going on about, so come and follow us at twitter.com/helenandolly. No doubt over the coming weeks and months we shall provide some very insightful Twits or Twats or whatever the hell the kids call it now. Fourthly, Martin the Sound Man has a new musical video project which he beseeches you all to watch, here or here.
Ok, that’s all the neediness out of the way. Now get back to work!
Oxes,
Helen and Olly
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cootie catchers?
March 4, 2009I know we’re on the eve of a new series, but cast your minds back to the last episode of Answer Me This!, listeners, which was number 84, in which we quizzed special guest Josie Long about these nameless things. Well, Jenn from Santa Cruz has emailed in to tell us what is possibly their actual name:
I can’t speak for all of the United States of course, but where I grew up they were called ‘cootie catchers’. Why? I don’t know.
What an attractive term. It sounds like it should denote something they use to mop up at the STD clinic, not an innocent origami toy popular with 8-year-old girls. Anyway, on the same subject, Amy writes:
After listening to your most recent podcast with the question about the little paper origami devices used to precariously predict one’s destiny, I found them for sale (!) in the shop Paperchase. They called them Fortune Pickers. They were part of a Valentine’s gift range. What a perfect way of telling someone that not only are you a cheapskate, but you are a lazy, uncreative cheapskate.
Thoroughly lame indeed. If you’re too lazy even to make something that a tiny child could make with just one sheet of A4, then you ought not have someone to whom to give such a pisspoor Valentine’s present. If you desperately want one of these paper prognosticators but you’re genuinely too busy and important to fold it yourself, send this link to your secretary and instruct him/her to manufacture one on your behalf out of a discarded fax or £50 note.
UPDATE: Clarrie from London adds:
My french family all call it a “cocotte” – which incidentally also means a prostitute or promiscuous woman. NOT SO INNOCENT NOW THEN!!!
Lawks!
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Should Marc do it?
March 4, 2009
Here’s a question which we hadn’t had before, courtesy of Marc:
I’m 18, male and have been given the chance to be in a straight, professionally done porno. Should I take it, or will it hang over my head until one day my mates stumble across it and say “Hey…. He looks familiar….” The money’s not too bad. 🙂
Now, you may be surprised to hear that none of us has ever had a professional porn career (not counting Martin the Sound Man’s 8-page spread in November 1997’s Hot Teen Physicists – he was TOLD it was EDUCATIONAL, OK???), but as such is the case, we don’t really feel qualified to advise Marc in an informed and responsible manner. However, chances are that one of you smut-monkeys has had a racier life than all of us put together, and has more pertinent advice to give. If so, please comment below, or vote in this poll:
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He’s not a toy – he’s a toy fox terrier
February 26, 2009** We’re back on 5th March; in the meantime click here to listen to previous episodes **
What a week! First this nice thing, then at long last the culmination of our merch dreams, courtesy of Remy from Seattle:
Remy from Seattle: the sharpest dog in the west
If you want your own dog to look just as amusingstylish as young Remy here, then visit our merchandise store where you can buy one of these not in the least dignity-compromising dog t-shirts in THREE SIZES. As well as good shit like bags to carry your dog around in, mugs for your dog to drink tea from, or maternity tops to wear while you…gestate your dog?
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This month: ‘Q’. Next month: ‘Reader’s Wives’
February 26, 2009** We’re back on 5th March; in the meantime click here to listen to previous episodes **
Ooh, what’s this?
It’s a photo of Lily Allen and some panthers.
She appears to have spent a lot of time getting her hair straightened, but has then forgotten to put a top on. Silly girl!
Or, perhaps she’s in a relationship with these murderous beasts and intends to deconstruct their failings in a future ska-influenced pop hit.
Either way, you’d buy the magazine, right?
Good! Because once you’d read the Lily interview (she wants to be President, apparently), you might stumble across THIS on page 151, in the ‘recommended podcasts’ section:
Thanks, Q!
We are very excited because:
a) we actually read Q and enjoy it,
b) you are the first journalists ever to spell BOTH our names correctly in an article,
c) we probably don’t have too many Stone Roses fans amongst our listenership at the moment, and it’s about time we cracked the lucrative ‘£50 man’ market.
Anyway, Q, if you require some cover stars for the April issue, you know where to come: Martin the Sound Man is more than happy to pose with his top off, whilst we two sit on the floor and growl.
** Read more reviews and articles about us in our PRESS OFFICE **
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All of the Planet’s Wonders
February 19, 2009** We’re back on 5th March; in the meantime click here to listen to previous episodes **
the other J.Lo: comedian Josie Long
We know we’ve been slacking off our audio-entertainment duties this month, but here’s some noise to fill the whistling silence: the new Radio 4 series from Episode 84 guest star Josie Long. Episode 1 is on the BBC website until Wednesday 25th February, so click HERE to listen to it!
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London Word Festival
February 18, 2009** We’re back on 5th March; in the meantime click here to listen to previous episodes **
Aside from “Why don’t you see white dog poo any more?”, one of the questions we’re most often asked is whether we’re doing any live shows.
Usually, the answer is “No”, as the prospect of doing what we do without the benefits of editing and invisibility sends us scuttling off to bed with the vapours. But presently, it is in fact “Yes!” On March 22nd we will be appearing at the London Word Festival’s ‘Webstock’, an afternoon mini-fest devoted to internetty stuff at the Vibe Bar on Brick Lane. The show is hosted by friend-and-flatmate-of-the-show Matthew Crosby and will feature comedians Tim Key and Idiots of Ants, This is a Knife vodcaster Donal Coonan, poet Luke Wright, blogger Karen McCarthy and, well, us. And Martin the Sound Man doing live AMT jingles, so let the Beatlemania 2.0 commence!
If you’re still not sure, then remember that Brick Lane also has excellent bagel shops and vintage clothes warehouses, so your Sunday entertainment would be fairly complete.
There’s more information HERE. We hope to see your little faces there!
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