Plus: with his usual acumen, Olly proposes how to transform a psychotic neighbour problem into a business opportunity; Helen’s parents are being very thrifty with the internet, so that the IP addresses don’t all run out on their account; and we should clarify that Martin the Sound Man’s former job, which he describes as ‘making a man with a tube up his penis laugh’, was in the field of medical physics, not stand-up comedy for catheter fetishists.
Because one pot is never enough, there’s also more about Müller Yogurt on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), including their contribution to West Midlands athleticism, and their retrograde marketing wheezes. They might be 116 years old, but they’ve still got it.
If you haven’t already, please do take a punt on our Top 20 (!!) album, The Answer Me This! Jubilee, comprised of fifty-seven minutes of all-new material in anticipation of the Queen’s jubblies. You can also hear us on the latest episode of Ewan Spence’s ESC Insight podcast – no, that’s not ESC as in the Electrical Safety Council or the Essex Skating Club, but the Eurovision Song Contest. Click here to listen, and hear how we rated some of the songs vying for Eurovisionary Glory this year.
After all that, do remember to send us your QUESTIONS with which we will fuel this new series of AMT: aim voicemails at the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Time for a laugh/”I don’t get it. Oh! Ha” thanks to Tom in Glasgow:
When I was around eight years old, I overheard my mum telling her pal a quirky little joke that made them snigger a lot. The joke was:
Q: what do you do if an elephant comes through your window?
A: Swim.
I didn’t get the joke at all, but I always remembered it, and even told it to other people several times!
I am now in my thirties and actually have children of my own. I am ashamed to say that I have just reminisced in my brain about that puzzling day when I was eight and have just ‘GOT THE JOKE’ (hehehe snigger).
Answer me this: have you ever heard a joke and taken a long, or as in my case, a very fucking long time to get the punchline?
Oh, plenty! But luckily, in the podcast we can edit out the twenty-year pause.
Readers, please give us all a chuckle today by going to the comments and telling us a joke that we might not get for a couple of decades, or unless our mums explain it to us.
I am shortly going to be best man at a wedding in which my ex-girlfriend will be attending. When we broke up she took it upon herself to ‘borrow’ £200 off me and not pay it back, as she claims she can’t pay what she hasn’t got. Should I use my best man’s speech to name and shame the thieving b@£$h in an attempt to get her to pay up?
NO. Unless the ongoing friendship of the groom is worth less to you than £200.
Instead, keep under cover. Start by slipping a threatening note into the little box of sugared almonds or whatever wedding favour they have laid at her place setting. Ramp up the menace by slipping a dead bird under her napkin. Then wait for her outside the Posh Portaloos with a crowbar.
Break-ups and revenge: two topics which frequently collide. And here are two questions upon those two topics, so help us out by offering your own advice to our lovelorn questioneers, the first of whom is Dave in Halstead, Kent:
The lady that I was dating for five years, and engaged to for two of those years, decided that we had grown apart. This was after a period of stressful months where we both had job worries and problems finding somewhere to live. The feeling was not the same and I tried everything (within reason) to win her back, and failed. I’m 23 and this is the first proper long-term relationship I have had.
So I decided to go to New York and blow all the money I saved for our wedding on a 5* hotel for a week to get over it, as a start. So answer me this: how would you recommend getting over a difficult break-up, and when is it acceptable to start dating again? And also what cool stuff in New York would you recommend?
I have only ever spent two days in New York, and I’m not sure the Museum of Jewish Heritage will lift your spirits; but as aforementioned, readers, go to the comments and pen a potted travel guide for Dave. And while you’re at it, counsel him upon ways to recover from the emotional fall-out, because while it is excellent that he is spending the wedding pot on a luxury trip for one, we don’t want him to be attacked by melancholia and loneliness while he’s there. Particularly not on top of the jetlag, which only compounds misery.
Next on the subject, Sean from Cheltenham keeps it quick and painful:
My boyfriend of six months was cheating on me with another boy. I want revenge. What should I do?
Though David above is trying the ‘Living well is the best revenge’ tack, Sean might need something a little less dignified. Readers, you bitter and shameless bunch, unleash your inner Glenn Closes in the comments.
Just two days after release, The Answer Me This! Jubilee is TOP 20 in the iTunes album chart!* So thankyou very much indeed to everybody who has bought it already; and if you feel moved to do the same, click here to buy it off iTunes. UPDATE: it’s now available on Amazon too, and even better, at our own AMT Store.
In return for your £2.49 outlay (or equivalent in your native currency), you receive 57 minutes and 55 seconds of all-new Answer Me This!, themed around Her Maj’s upcoming Diamond Jubilee.
Amongst the many questions royally addressed are:
• Could the Queen get away with murder? • What’s the deal with all those 21-gun salutes? • Does the Queen have a mobile phone? • Are you really supposed to pronounce ‘regina’ like ‘vagina’? • Who has seen the Queen’s tits? • Where can I run into Prince Philip on an average day? • What’s the point of the monarchy, anyway? • And what the bloody hell is going on with those nearly nude guys in the Danish monarchy’s coat of arms?
We hope you enjoy it. If you don’t, blame Prince Andrew, like everybody else does.
*Information correct at time of writing. At time of reading, it might have dropped so far out of the iTunes chart that it is outside by the recycling bins.
Although we’ve come
To the end of the road current series,
Still we can’t let go – because we’ll be back on 19th April with yet more Answer Me This!. So long and adieu, here is Episode 210:
Today we ponder:
the Angel of the North Pet Sounds
sham marriage a different type of big bird Tom Jones
Mel Blanc
emotions vs. money
Matt Willis vs. televisions
Alice Cooper vs. vending machines
Jesus vs. Spongebob Squarepants
Father Christmas on film
Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth
and
Abraham Lincoln.
Plus: we learn the one place where Olly actually keeps quiet; Helen whips ’em out for SPRIIIIIINNNG BREEEEAAAK!; and Martin the Sound Man puts a price on his hand in marriage. But you might as well barter him down to something more realistic, like £20 and a Chocolate Orange.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Celeste from Elephant and Castle about whether you can sell your house without the intervention of an estate agent. Of course you can! But, before you ask, you are probably better off not performing your own laser eye surgery.
There is more to listen to during our absence, because by royal appointment (not really) we’ve released the Answer Me This! Jubilee, a 57-minute romp through the massive numbers of questions you lot send us about Her Maj and the like. Click here to get it.
Don’t forget us while we’re away: keep sending your QUESTIONS, as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Hands up who thinks that in movies, there ought to be more time dedicated to the mundanity of living? Tim Burton ought to spend less time on the fantastical elements of storytelling, and more time satisfying the curiosity of Ryan in Melbourne, who asks:
How does Edward Scissorhands pee?
How does Edward Scissorhands do ANYTHING? Apart from cut hair and sculpt ice, he’s ill-equipped to do anything without serious damage! Anyway, we know that Vincent Price didn’t finish off Edward Scissorhands – hence his death-hands and emo style – so I bet he doesn’t have a bladder, let alone conventional urine-evacuating equipment.* Even if he did, he would have sliced it off at some point during his lonely years in the castle.
But if, for the sake of argument, he does have the usual human formation, I reckon Dianne Wiest would help him. She wouldn’t let him get piss on his hands, because they’d rust up.
*It has been a while since I’ve seen the film, so there might be a comical “Look, Edward’s doing a piss in the garden!” scene which I’ve forgotten.
We all prefer our partners to be shallow, unevolved and un-selfactualised (whatever that is). Don’t we? Well, Sean does:
My girfriend has spent the last six months volunteering as a vet for a donkey and horse charity in Luxor, Egypt. As her trip comes to an end she seems to keep reflecting on how much she has changed and learned about herself.
So answer me this: how do I go about undoing all this personal growth and turning her back into the girlfriend who left for Egypt last September?
Readers, over to you: in the comments, please tell Sean how to transform this spiritually blossomed woman back into a selfish, short-sighted bint. Sorry, donkeys, but you’ve had it good for far too long.
Here’s the latest entry in our apparently weekly new series, ‘Facebook’s fucking up my family‘. It’s from Dave from Plymouth:
Like most technology savvy 34-year-old men, I have a Facebook page, and like many others side the rise of Twitter, I don’t really bother using it anymore.
However, in the last couple of weeks I’ve had two new friend requests. The first was from my mother and the second was from my 9-year-old daughter.
I’m happy to allow my mum to view my page, as she’s unlikely to be too upset by the occasional swearword or drunken photo which may get posted; on the other hand, I’d like to prevent my daughter from having her wonderful image of me crushed, as well as learning that alcohol and rude words are to be in some way encouraged.
Would I be right in refusing my daughter’s friend request, or am I condemned to a lifetime of intricate security and viewing settings as well as constant censorship of my own Facebook page?
You know you can customise your posts so they only get sent to a selection of your friends, right? Try it, it’s easy! You could even set up a ratings system: PG for those which are suitable for the under-12s, 18 for everyone else.
I’m not sure you’ve fully grasped the peril that approaches from the other direction, however. Are you sure you want to be privy to pictures of your mum falling over drunk, her flirty wall conversations with your friends, or her colourful swearbombs being detonated all over your news feed?
It seems a large number of you have ridden in hearses, despite being still alive! Apropos of our discussion of the funereal vehicles in AMT209, we’ve heard from Stephen from Greenock:
I play the bagpipes and in my student days made a good side-business piping at funerals. The one problem is I don’t drive. At one particular funeral, I asked the funeral director if I could hitch a lift in the hearse, as I’ve been known to do.
Most hearses are two drivers’ seats plus three behind, then the area for the coffin…but not this one. This has the two front seats (taken by the funeral director and priest) and a seat behind each of these. And instead of the third middle seat, the top end of the coffin went there. I therefore spent a very uncomfortable ten minutes sitting alone in this hearse at the church with the coffin (and within, the head-end of the deceased) right at my shoulder while the priest and funeral director chatted with mourners!
That, I would say, is an occupational hazard.
As we suspected, there’s a lively market for second-hand hearses, confirmed by Kevin:
During the summers my father was in college/university, he worked for a harpsichord builder who loved used hearses. You get them incredibly cheap because no one wants to be buried in a used one, they have very good suspension, and they already have rollers in the back for moving boxy wooden things about the size of a coffin or a harpsichord.
Very sensible! Far more so than the pre-owned hearse of Celeste from Elephant and Castle‘s acquaintance:
My uncle used to drive a hearse, in the 1970s or earlier. He is a bit of an eccentric, been a professional violinist since the age of nineteen, and has an interesting history of weird cars and motoring in general – buying a car without a reverse gear; leaving a jar of pickled gherkins in an old car of his, and having not screwed the lid on properly it leaked vinegar everywhere so he had to sell the car; and buying a gold-coloured Mercedes (to the horror of my aunt), as well as losing his license pretty much every year.
Back in his hearse days, I believe he was involved in a car crash (not his fault) and he, his now ex-girlfriend and her daughter suffered relatively few injuries because he was driving a hearse at the time, which was especially well padded/armoured/hardcore. So hearses are very safe – which seems a bit pointless as normally the people in the back are already dead.
Yes, but they are also in a big heavy wooden box, which could cause very comprehensive damage if it shot straight through an inadequate crumple zone. In a way, the death industry is foolishly protecting itself against getting extra work.
It is the 75th birthday of Maltesers, so in Answer Me This! Episode 209 we’re celebrating by berating their current advertising campaign for being sexist. Although we similarly spent Grandad’s 75th birthday party berating him for his unreconstructed chauvinism. Can’t trust these septuagenarians to say the right things.
On the agenda this week:
Trojans
buskers
aerated foods
Debra Winger
Stephen Fry’s cab
organ donation
pink newspapers
Boots
Christian barbecues Arne Jacobsen‘s arse
and
hearses.
Plus: Olly lets yet another brilliant enterprise go to waste, but there’s nothing stopping any one of you future billionaires taking it onto Dragon’s Den; Helen finds the world’s best busker – catch him before he goes up in flames; and Martin the Sound Man may be a science whiz, but even he can’t get his macaro(o)ns to work.
It’s quite a literal Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) this week, as we address a question from Volker from Germany who likes to enjoy himself in the workplace lavvies after lights out. And if this, plus the final question of the episode about WCs, has ramped up your curiosity about matters lavatorial, our video masterwork upon the subject can be viewed at the bottom of this post.
We’re also moonlighting on episode 7 of Ian Collins Wants a Word , the new podcast by star of AMT149 Ian Collins. Click here to get a dose of it.
Next week will be our last episode before we go on a little holiday, so hurry to send in your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. We’ve got a bit of a treat for you while we’re on our break, though, so be sure to join us for AMT210 to discover what that is. A packet of Maltesers each? NO. Not until those tasty little bastards start treating us all as EQUALS.
Lawyers! You’ve already done the booklearning, so please go to the comments and answer this question from Stuart from the Isle of Wight:
My girlfriend recently broke her little toe by stubbing it on the sofa (ouch!), and tried to convince me I should cut her toe off as it would be less painful.
I felt a bit uneasy about this and the possible legal situation it could put me in, so declined her offer.
But, answer me this: if I had gone ahead with said request, would I have been doing anything illegal? Even thought it would have been an act between two consenting adults?
And if it was legal, at what point would the law intervene? The ankle? Knee? Thigh?
By the way I think I should clarify this is only a theoretical question. Her little toe has healed nicely now, and anyway I’m not a psychopath!
Thank goodness for that. I thought you’d lost your mind – what would be the point of amputating her toe, anyway, without a good Big Lebowski-type scheme in mind for the detached digit?
Answer Me This! Podcast 