Answer Me This! Podcast

ghost cavemen

August 28, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

Following Matthew from Colchester‘s question in Episode 68 about why white heterosexual ghosts seem to have a monopoly in the spirit world, Matt from Barnehurst has noticed another Shocking Inequity from Beyond the Grave:

I have always wondered why are all the ghosts that people claim to see from the Victorian age, why are there no cavemen ghosts walking about the place? Plus if there were such things as ghosts, wouldn’t there be over 30,000 years worth of them, rather then from a small period in time?

The plot thickens! Where are all the ghosts of 400BC or the 1980s? If any of you have connections with the Afterlife, be a dear and ask a spectre to come and explain it to us, preferably via the medium of whispering in an unnecessarily sinister way or making the toaster levitate.
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Holiday reading

August 28, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

Betsy asks:

Given that is is August and rainy, and university has not deigned to tell me what I should be reading (yet), Helen, Olly and Martin, answer me this, what books would make good reading material while resting my brain before university begins again?

Well, let’s face it: once your degree has kicked in, it may be several years before you can actually read for pleasure again. So here are a handful of our recent Fun Reads for you to peruse before your brain learns to puke at the mere sight of a dustjacket:

Olly likes:
The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe
The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas

Helen likes:
The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann (avoid the film, though! The film is shit! However Beyond the Valley of the Dolls does have some excellent boobs in it)
Jude: Level 1 by Julian Gough

Martin the Sound Man likes:
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
V For Vendetta by Alan Moore

Please leave your own recommendations for Fun Books For Betsy Before Academia Ruins Reading in the comments below!

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EPISODE 68 – ghost hedgehog

August 21, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

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)

Greetings, chums!

We hope you have a super-duper bank holiday weekend (or just weekend, if you’re reading this from Abroad). If you can find a window between the traditional bank holiday activities of sitting on a rain-soaked beach, punching your beloved over your half-assembled Ikea wardrobe, or wondering why the mayor in The Dark Knight is wearing SO much eyeliner, have a listen to Episode 68.

And with what sort of guff are we filling the time this week? Well:

Chaka Demus and Pliers
Most Gay Haunted
Candyman
Khan’s Bargain Superstore
Christina Aguilera vs untidy bedrooms
salad dressing
gay dads
Hulk merch
platonic soulmates
and
the grimmest breakfast in Christendom (apart from the guy on Come Dine With Me who made a Full English Breakfast curry. Heeeeeave!!!!).

Plus: Olly shares the secret of undintable happiness; Helen reveals the hidden perils of marrying a non-Jew; and Martin the Sound Man shows how Guns’n’Roses made him the man he is today – although that seems up for some debate.

Now the last episode of this series of Answer Me This! is only a week away (or considerably less away than that if you factor in that it is all pre-recorded), so hurry hurry HURRY and send in your questions to our phone line 0208 123 5877, Skype account answermethis or answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Last one there’s a curried egg!

But during the podcast’s month of vacation, we’ll be leaving you with an Exciting Challenge – so make sure you check in next week to find out what it is!

See you then, then,

Helen and Olly

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the true face of Martin the Sound Man

August 20, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

** Click here for EPISODE 67 **

Turns out Edward from Borneo isn’t the only listener who thought Martin the Sound Man is not a living jungle of a man. Patrick from near Oxford writes:

I too thought the same thing; in fact I imagined his face (in much detail) completely wrongly. I have painted a picture of what I thought Martin looked like based on his voice and words.

How intriguing that Martin apparently has a bald (and quite old) voice! If anyone else fancies sending us a picture of how Martin appears in their minds (without looking at the photos elsewhere on this site – cheating!) then email your daubings to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and we’ll post them on here in a Hart Beat-style gallery of the imagination. Not much point doing pictures of me and Olly, though; everyone knows we both look like this:

but which is it - Helen or Olly?

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Posted in Answer Us Back! Your time to opine, frippery | 4 Comments »

EPISODE 67 – Stratford Upon A-Zone

August 14, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

Dear listeners,

We hope you are enjoying the grouse season. If not, then you might as well listen to Episode 67. Lurking like lead shot in the gravy are topics including:

snakebite
Graham from Canada = the Leigh Bowery of Canada?
slant rhymes
Cheese Inspector Wexford
Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day
Sue Barker
Stratford vs. Stratford
Eeyore vs. Esau
Barry Norman vs. Paul Newman in the battle of the condiments
recessive genes
Shirley Manson
and
leotards.

Yum.

As there are only two more episodes left of the current series of Answer Me This!, get your questions in! Phone 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and we’ll endeavour to apply our weary wits to them before we toddle off for a month’s recuperation. This podcasting stuff really takes it out of you…even though all it actually involves is sitting on a chair and talking until your lower jaw has to be tied back on with a bungee cord.

Peace out!

Helen and Olly

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confusion and repulsion

August 13, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

After Maurice’s question in Episode 65 regarding people one confuses with other people, Will has sent us this corker of a celebrity mix-up:

Like your listener who used to get Billy Bragg and Melvyn Bragg confused, I used to get George Orwell, Orson Welles and H. G. Wells confused.

Easily done, Will – after all, have you ever seen them in a room together?

Meanwhile, Wade has been in touch following Sarah from Gaytown‘s plea in Episode 64 for methods of cooling the ardour of an unwanted suitor:

I’m 16, and i managed to use a foolproof way of ridding attention from females who are about my age.

I met this girl on the internet who took an interest in me, and as I have a girlfriend (Ana), whilst we were talking on msn, I posted a picture of myself holding my baby cousin as my display picture.

When she asked jokingly if the baby was mine, I swiftly replied “Yes”

But I thought I may as well go the whole way, and when she asked the baby was Ana’s, I told her, “No, it was “Katie” some girl I met last year, but she wasn’t sure it was mine, so we went for a DNA test to find out and it turned out it was mine.”

This is all NOT TRUE. But she fell for it =)

A smiley well-earnt, Wade! Creative lying at its finest.

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baldness and hairiness

August 13, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

Despite our frequent allusions on the podcast to Martin the Sound Man‘s hirsuteness, we’ve received the following question from Edward in Borneo:

Martin sounds bald. Is he?

Far from it.

'lovely head of hair': Martin the Sound Man

From collar to cuffs, here’s a delightful little tale courtesy of Peter from Atherton, following Rich from Fareham’s question about pubes in Episode 65:

Following your man from Fareham’s query regarding pubic topiary, I offer this anecdote…

While at university, I had a friend of the female variety who was rather sexually adventurous and keen to share her exploits with me. Many a night she would come knocking on my door in halls to inform me that her boyfriend had managed to coax 5 or so orgasms from her quivering body… I wouldn’t have minded so much if I weren’t busy working on just the one myself, but that’s another story.

While living in halls in our final year, my friend found herself at a loose end and in need of something to do, so came knocking on my door asking for advice on how to amuse herself that afternoon. I suggested that she should shave her muff. She required surprisingly little persuasion to proceed with this course of action, and returned a while later to announce that she was now clean-shaven.

So, she goes off to see her boyfriend that evening and to surprise him with her shaven haven and he is… utterly underwhelmed. Seriously not at all impressed in any way. He agreed with the assessment that it’s slightly paedo-y and he just didn’t find it attractive. The whole saga ended with a week of itchy crotch as her pubes grew out again, and I was given much grief as the whole thing had been my idea in the first place. Oh, how I laughed. Great days.

Rich from Fareham, I hope that this woman’s bitter experience is useful to you in your quest for the perfect undercarriage coif.

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EPISODE 66 – proper weblebrity

August 7, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

Hello there, old timers,

Wave your walking sticks, it’s Episode 66! Then turn up your hearing-aids to 11 and listen to Episode 66. And, sprinkled therein, like digestive biscuit crumbs down the front of your cardigan, are such topics as:

AMT as the basis of the post-Julian calendar system
Cornwall in April
Jewish matchmakers
Cheese! The Musical
the attractions of York
sugared almonds
‘Radio Gaga’
Henry Clay Work
medical emoticons
drunk-dialling
crumpets
serrano ham
the hazards of deviating from wedding traditions
and
the Creaky Buttocks.

Plus! Helen gets herself into a crossword; Olly gets himself into the Condescenders’ Club with an octogenarian matchmaker; and Martin the Sound Man does a pun that almost slips under the radar, but instead splatters the radar with Category 4 wordplay. Furthermore, we attempt to help with the love-lives of various young listeners, as if they shouldn’t be saving all that romantic stuff until they’re at least thirty-five. However if YOU have a love-life (or issue of any other kind) that you wish us to go sticking our oars into, please send us an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com
or leave a message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis. We might just have the answer you’ve been hoping for all these years! Although we’ll probably disguise it behind a curtain of stupid banter as ever. What. A. Service.

Helen and Olly

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EPISODE 65 – an elephant’s hymen

July 31, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

This clownfish is saving itself for marriage

So, Answer Me This! has this week reached its sixty-fifth episode; altogether there’s more than thirty hours of it, which is about the same as the working week of a lazy person; and yet it’s only now that clownfishes’ vaginas have been alluded to. What the hell have we been doing all this time?

Whatever it is, here’s some more of it. And though we were almost passing out in the boiling-hot studio, we remembered to include such important points of order as:

President Schwarzenegger
Richard Attenborough’s Ghandi vs. Richard Attenborough as Ghandi
virgin slugs
Ouranos
Letchworth swimming pool
the cast of Hollyoaks
old men’s scrotums
The Pier
the Cincinnati Foreskins
the declining stamina of Craig David
and
the greatest pun of the New Romantic era.

Plus: Olly has the waist of a girl; Helen makes some spooky noises; and Martin the Sound Man attempts a rap. Cover your ears.

This week’s simmering weather is somewhat blunting our question-answering skills, but if you have some questions for us to attempt in – hopefully colder – future episodes, then please send them to 0208 123 5877, Skype ID answermethis or answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.

Flipmode!

Helen and Olly

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More feedback!

July 30, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

If you’re reading this, Mark from Minnesota, we hope your quest for a suitable wife is going well. As well as our cast-iron advice in Episode 63 you might like to take into account these tips from Richard:

Among my friends we have developed a simple 4-point checklist to determine the suitability of a potential girlfriend. These are in approximate order of consideration, and she shouldn’t fail more than one of them at any rate, but failing (1) is much worse than failing (4).

1) Not mental
2) Not frigid
3) Not stupid
4) Not minging

Hope that helps your listeners find love.

Keep us posted regarding your progress towards marital happiness, Mark.

We’ve also received a little tip for Sarah from Gaytown in Episode 64 from Sarah from Cornwall:

I thought I’d share my own unique way of dealing with unwanted male attention. During a conversation, suddenly affect a pained expression and say ‘would you excuse me a second, I have to go to the bathroom…my balls have got caught up in my thong.’ Works every time!

So coy, Sarah.

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EPISODE 64 – the most irritating geriatric ever committed to film

July 24, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

‘Fiddlededee, biddlededee, will you still need us, will you still feed us, when it’s Episode 64?’

Jeez, stop being so needy! And stop running around after us with a hearty bowlful of porridge, alright? Just settle the heck down and listen to the episode instead!

Drifting forth from our weary mouths this week are such conversational wisps as:

Moses
buffalo wings
Lemsip
DIY haircuts
boozy Sikhs
the Guinness Factory
the Ironbridge rubber duck race
whisky
Brits abroad
Scottish cheese
the interrogative voice
speeding
widows’ curtains
and
Grams from Dawson’s Creek.

Meanwhile, Olly takes a brief break from upsetting the Welsh by setting his sights upon the Scots and the Irish; Helen reveals why drummers count enthusiastically before songs; and Martin the Sound Man shirks his student loan. Did you really think you could get your degree from the Sound Man Academy for free, Martin?

“No, Martin!” cries Grams. “You cannot expect the taxpayer to shoulder the burden for your eight years of tertiary education! Now, how about a slice of pie?”

Shut it, Grams! Your sanctimonious homespun wisdom has no place at Answer Me This!, so get sardonic or get out!

Anyway, if you want some proper AMT-style homespun wisdom, please deliver YOUR QUESTIONS for future episodes to 0208 123 5877, Skype ID answermethis or answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and hopefully we can wallop them right back at you with the kind of advice that Grams would be as horrified by as she is by fun, urban life and spiders.

See you next week!

Helen and Olly
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Olly’s face is proving a popular choice amongst minor public figures

July 23, 2008 by Helen Zaltzman

After last month’s Alphabeat shenanigans, here’s some more looky-likey fun courtesy of Sophie:

So I’m sat bored out of my brain watching Daily Cooks Challenge on ITV when the camera moves to Ed Baines, one of the chefs, and I can’t help but think that he looks a lot like Olly – good or bad thing I’m not quite sure! So answer me this. does anyone else see the resemblance? Or is it just my brain’s defence mechanism kicking in to give me something to focus my attention on to save me from the boredom?

Let’s look at the evidence!