Last month we spoke at Next Radio, an event all about radio attended by the great and good of the radio industry.
“What the heck can you two chancer hobbyists have to teach the radio industry about radio?” you ask.
Fair point. We went for a kind of This is Your Life trot through our podcasting experiences, and here is the video footage. Warning: contains some gross images.
With just days to go until Hallowe’en, many of you have been writing to ask what costume you should opt for. Here’s our one-size-fits-all solution:
1. Wrap yourself in a duvet;
2. Go to bed until November 1st.
While you’re there, drown out the sound of trick or treaters ringing your doorbell by listening to Answer Me This! Episode 234:
Today we consider:
Citizen Kane
the classic Charlie’s Angels remake Green Jelly (nee Jello)
doughnuts vs. douchebags
strumpets vs. crumpets
Brian May’s badger sanctuary
William of Orange’s pet pugs
tribute bands
hipster combovers
psychoanalysis of Agatha Christie
Fratzos: matzos for frat boys
Leonardo DiCaprio lookalikes
the hard lives of fake Posh’n’Becks
Ann Widdecombe
the mystery of the Rolling Stones’ hair
and
The Mystery of Hercule Poirot’s Pants.
Plus: Olly finally finds a TV show to enjoy when he’s alone in business hotels; Helen does not think this is cute, at all; and Martin the Sound Man won’t think much of Django Reinhardt impersonators unless they burn off their fingers.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Olly digs up a big mistake Universal made, back in the day when Mickey Mouse was still just a rabbit, and Norman Bates was still just a motelier.
Make no mistake: we want your QUESTIONS so we can make more episodes of AMT. So email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
The bowels of Andrew from County Down have been suffering from stage fright:
To continue with the bathroom lock talk from AMT232, I have a similar problem.
When visiting my friend who still lives with his parents, I went to use the bathroom facilities. Having closed the door, I noticed that there was no lock but, oddly, a clock above the door. Needless to say, once I sat down with my trousers round the ankles, my friend’s mum walked in.
Answer me this! Should I introduce the family to an open and closed door system, insist they get a lock put in, or insist they remove the clock so that I’m not caught in a daydream staring at the clock when various family members walk in on me taking a shit?
No, no and no!
1. It’s not your house, so you can’t waltz in there and boss them into changing their customs.
2. It’s not your house, so you can’t waltz in there and expect them to add door-furniture.
3a. It’s not your house, so you can’t waltz in there and demand they remove the clock that presumably they keep there for a reason (eg to monitor time for the annual family competition: the person who has spent the longest time in the loo over the year wins a kilo of prunes at Christmas).
3b. Getting rid of the clock won’t stop the door from opening when you don’t want it to.
3c. Your fear is that they might catch you mid-daydream, rather than mid-shit?
3d. If you find clocks so enrapturing, this is far from your most pressing problem.
Here’s a simple solution: take a door wedge with you when you visit, which will keep the door shut long enough for you to alert the loo-invader about your presence. Alternatively, buy them one of these, but don’t be surprised if they decide not to use it, because if they haven’t already got a lock it suggests they actively enjoy the risk of a lavatorial interruption.
Not everyone would want to claim it, so it’s nice of Gareth to pipe up:
While listening to you discussing the birthplace of the industrial revolution in Episode 233, Olly asked in passing where the first world war started. Well I am pleased to tell you that it was started in my home town of Bad Ischl in Austria. Everyone round here is very proud of the imperial history of the town. The Kaisers came to Bad Ischl for generations to take the waters and relax.
You can have guided tour of the Kaiser Villa and they glow with excitement as they show you the desk at which Kaiser Franz Joseph wrote the letter declaring war on Serbia. This on its own is not odd, but they also every year have the ‘Kaiser Bummel’ where they cover every street in the town with red carpet and have food stalls, beer and live music. All while a man and woman dressed as the Kaiser and Sissy his wife ‘bummel’ (walk slowly) around town.
If you ask me, this seem a bit over the top for a man that started the First World War. I don’t recall any yearly street parades in Ranshofen with people dressing as Hitler.
Julia from London has a tip for the poor young fellow in AMT232:
I empathised with Steve and his friend’s deleted photos of Paris – I deleted everything off my camera’s memory card AS I was backing it up! But then I found out there is a free programme you can use to “undelete” them and get them back! It’s called Pandora Recovery.
Apparently it will work better if you use it quite quickly so that you haven’t saved new photos over the old ghost files – but it worked perfectly for me and I got about 50 photos back!
Hurry Steve, there is not a moment to lose! You may yet be able to recover that photo where you’ve used perspective to make it look like your friend is wearing the Eiffel Tower like a hat.
We have so much for which to thank the Industrial Revolution. Without it, there would be no devices upon which to listen to podcasts, no podcasts either, and certainly not several minutes of this particular podcast – Answer Me This! Episode 233:
Today’s lessons cover such subjects as:
wave machines
Kanye West’s insecurities
grog
Emma Watson’s accent in The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Britain’s first cast iron bridge vs. Britain’s first roundabout Baywatch vs. Fruit-Pickers
Salopians vs. fallopians Biggie vs. TupacElliott vs. Jeff
Priscilla Presley vs. an extended cookery segment on This Morning
sporks vs. foons
Pamela Anderson covered in sticky juice
Roman Facebook
Hypno-Lipo
radio drama’s special stationery
divas and divos (dive and divi if we’re being proper about it)
hook-handjobs
what happened after the Stolen Soy Milk Scandal of AMT231
and
knorks.
Plus: all Olly wants is to read a proper thick issue of Time Out whilst chewing a stick of Orbit; Helen knows all about your fantasy fort made of cardboard boxes; and Martin the Sound Man knows how to keep himself amused when there’s only fruit to talk to.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) suggests a money-making scheme for Jon Snow if/when Channel 4 News goes tits-up. We’re registering Celebri-Ties now, just in case.
Register your QUESTIONS with us by emailing them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leaving voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
Uh wella wella wella uh – Leon from Portsmouth is having the time of his life, and he’s never felt this way before:
I’m forty in a month’s time, and I’ve found myself becoming increasingly nostalgic. This is less of a worry than I first feared. I’m actually embracing it, but I am displaying some O.C.D. tendencies.
I downloaded the entire Bond catalogue the other night, stopped wearing my quirky flat-cap (on a rakish angle), have little desire for liaisons with younger females, and yearn for a quieter life.
This could mean – GAME OVER!
I do think about my earlier days of courting, and after a discussion with fellows of the same age, we realised that we ALL had to endure a selection of films (with prospective girlfriends).
We are agreed on the top three (in no particular order):
What girly movies did you have to tolerate, for the possibility of touching a lady bits?
Hang on just one minute, Leon – firstly, those are Olly’s favourite films. Any lady who wants to get with him needs to resign herself to a triple bill.
Secondly, I am a lady and have never forced anybody to sit through those films with me! In fact I haven’t even seen one of them. SO THERE. (My top three would be Heathers, Clueless and Strictly Ballroom, if you insist.)
Readers, go to the comments and list the films you have endured in pursuit of romance. It’s not just men putting up with it, you know – I’ve sat through Aliens more times than I care to remember. Fuck off, Newt. Just fuck off.
We’ve heard of sock monkeys, but not shocked monkeys, until we received this email from Larry:
While driving around with my teenage son, Peter Gabriel’s “Shock the Monkey” came on the radio. After 4 minutes of being told over and over to shock the monkey, we’re not quite sure what he wants us to do. Is this an expression with some other meaning? Or is Mr. Gabriel suggesting that we toss a plugged-in toaster into the tub the next time a chimp takes a bath???
I’ve tried reading through the lyrics, but all I can gather is that Peter Gabriel has probably dropped a lot of acid in his lifetime.
Firstly, Larry, thankyou for directing our attention to this song which we’d never encountered before. The video looks like Peter Gabriel is starring in a Matthew Bourne ballet alongside the Pixar lamp.
Holed up in the Holiday Inn in Salford Quays, we contemplated holding a Bed-In for Peace. But then we realised that if we did, the already oversubscribed lifts would become clogged up with press and peaceniks, leaving all the other hotel guests feeling far from peaceful. So, sorry, peace; we made Answer Me This! Episode 232 instead:
Today we consider:
the Virgin Trains slow reveal
personal massagers
naughty Amazon
animal blood donation
magic oily fish
Les Rosbifs
immature students
maths vs. emotion
cottaging
Ping (who?)
and
the Holiday Inn pillow menu.
Plus: Olly would like to reverse decades of progress in gay rights just so he’s got something to read when he’s on the loo; Helen is unlikely to renew her wedding vows, unless the magazine deal is lucrative enough; and Martin the Sound Man goes off to have a rest in the rest room. He’s a very well-rested man.
Check out this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) if you’ve been wondering what happened next in the tale of vengeance from AMT231 and/or why your pineapple jelly won’t set.
We’re relieved to tell you that our Skype problem seems to be fixed, but if you used Skype to ask us a question in August or September, we never got it, so please ask it again by dialling up answermethis. You don’t need to worry if you sent a QUESTION via email (answermethispodcast@googlemail.com) or the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877); it’s safely swimming around with all the other questions in our question tank.
See you next Thursday!
Helen & Olly
Martin the Sound Man has a little alone time with the personal massager in the Holiday Inn.
Of course we love being right. Even when we’re right at the expense of somebody else’s happiness. So we were delighted to have the correctness of our answer confirmed by questioneer Fiona from Busan, South Korea (formerly from Golden, Colorado):
I wrote in a few months ago asking for advice on what to wear to my friend’s Renaissance Pirate-themed wedding.
After I had picked out my awesome pirate wedding attire I have to say you were right. One of them turned out to be a massive twat and left the other a few weeks before the wedding. Unfortunately, it was the one who had originally been my friend.
She now is married (to a different man) and is pregnant now with his child.
Good grief; Fiona’s query was featured in AMT211. Her friend sure works fast. I wonder how she even managed to decide a new wedding theme and seek out an appropriate costume in such a short space of time.
I like almost all museums, and frankly I would have enjoyed this holiday excursion which has left Baggsie so aggrieved:
On a family holiday we were starting our long journey home. We had to leave the caravan site at Lago Maggiore in Northern Italy at 10am and our train from Milan to Calais motorail was not leaving till late in the afternoon. So in a country of such supreme culture, where did Mum and Dad decide to take us to cap off a fantastic holiday???? The Umbrella and Parisol Museum.
It was as exciting as the website appears… particularly if like us you do not speak Italian. None of their info was translated!!
Answer me this: what is the worst museum you have ever been to?
It certainly wasn’t boring, Baggsie, but my stomach nearly flew out of my mouth when I visited the Pathological Museum in Vienna last year. Like the Umbrella and Parasol Museum, the information was not translated, but my ignorance of the German language wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle: I recognise a pickled conjoined twin foetus when I see one, in between waxworks of syphilitic genitals.
Readers, do let rip in the comments about the museums which have left you underwhelmed or, like me, swallowing down the bile as you dash for the exit.
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