Welcome to Answer Me This! Episode 201: the first episode of the year, and the first since the podcast turned five years old. Helen’s niece Matilda turned five the other day too; she celebrated by eating a plate of spaghetti with her hands, and we’re only moderately more civilised:
Wherein we consider:
cake pops
Al Capone
moon plots The Gun Seller (or should we say Le Gun Seller?)
pease pudding Catch-22
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie
supermarket trolleys Ready Steady Cook
pushy parents
the North Wales Police
and
Anthony Worrall Thompson.
Plus: Olly harks back to when he won an election – he claims democratically, but then so did Putin; one day, Helen dreamed a dream of becoming Brian Turner, but never did it come to pass; and after twelve and a half years in the dark, Martin the Sound Man finally hears the sad news that the Two Fat Ladies will not be returning to his television screen.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) concerns the only thing we don’t like about Mexican restaurants: the unwelcome phenomenon we like to call ‘Guac Tax’.
Well, that’s the new series begun, but please help us make it an absolute corker by sending us your exquisitely finely-honed QUESTIONS, as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
And although our birthday has passed, we’re stuck with the PO Box for another four months, so do please send us a token of esteem if you are so moved:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
Also, if you want to be moved to tears of derision like John, the final caller in the episode, scroll down to the bottom of this post to see the pictures of our parents (oh alright, Olly’s lovely mum).
In the spirit of you supplying us with questions upon which to deliberate in each podcast, you have been so kind as to send us all sorts of treats with which to celebrate our fifth birthday. Take a look at the first batch of user-generated bounty we found in our PO Box, and we will share more over the next few days.
When I say ‘share’, I’m sorry to say we won’t literally be sharing them, because they are piled high on the AMT Towers banqueting table and you’ll have to fight the three of us to get any.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Here are some excerpts of the sweet messages which accompanied the ultra-sweet gifts:
Don from St Paul, Minnesota [figs 1&2]:Please find an assortment of American candies and sweets. I hope you enjoy them as I have enjoyed your sweet, sweet podcast… I included the nut goodies as they are made in my hometown of St Paul, and I drive by the factory every day to and from work. I hope you like peanuts. Remember, they are a good source of protein.
Protein! Healthy! Our new Nut Goodies addiction is healthy, phew. (Lordy, those things are tasty. Well done, St Paul.)
Lofty from Manor House [fig 3]:I thought that as for the last four and a half years (I missed the first six months and listen retrospectively) you have filled my Thursday evening gym session with fun, laughter and knowledge, I would fill your bellies with crisps and snacks!
Seems a fair exchange – our podcast is snack-for-the-brain. IE not nutritious and no replacement for a proper wholesome meal.
Kate from Newcastle upon Tyne [fig 4]: I realise that you might be slightly wary of food sent to you by strangers, and quite right too, but I hope it is of some comfort that I can boast a Level 2 NVQ in Food Hygiene and a rigorous understanding of the Food Standards Agency guidelines. Basically, I’m saying there aren’t any bogeys in them.
This seemed to be the case; so if you would like to buy someone a yummy gift of cute animal heads on sticks, you would do well to hie over to cakepoppins.co.uk.
Moz from Milton Keynes [fig 5]:Thankyou for making these five years a little bit more bearable.
It is our pleasure – nay, our duty! Really, we should be thanking Moz, for being one of the handful of brave souls who have managed to stick with the podcast from its timid Bambi-steps back in 2007.
Duane from Boulder, Colorado [fig 6]: I thought about including sweets more appropriate to Boulder – a town known in the US as “crunchy” – such as carob-covered tofu drops of jellied seaweed.
NAAAAH!
You get the good stuff in exchange for the great stuff you put in my iPod.
Duane evidently hasn’t yet discovered the jellied seaweed drops we secreted in his iPod, has he?
Hikma from Brooklyn, New York City [fig 7]:Congrats and thanks for 200 great shows (give or take).
The banana Laffy Taffy from Hikma has jokes on the wrapper (hence ‘laffy’), here you go:
– Knock knock.
– Who’s there?
– Max.
– Max who?
– Max no difference, just open the door please.
And with laughter ringing in our ears, we’re off to have a lie-down. We can feel the sugar crash about to dive-bomb; plus, we need to call the dentist.
Coming up tomorrow: some of the fantastic home-made gifts you have sent us.
Hey! We haven’t just been sitting on our arses since the last dose of AMT; we’ve been sitting on our arses talking into microphones, and if you happen to be interested, here are links to the various results:
• In our regular slot on BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition, we ran through the highlights of 2011 online with Chris Warburton. In the unlikely event you did not spend New Year’s Eve nestled up to your radio listening to it, you may instead click here to download the podcast.
• We joined John Plunkett, Vicky Frost and Dan Sabbagh to contemplate the year in media on Guardian Media Talk, which you can download here.
• And we considered what we managed to learn in 2011 on MacAulay and Co on BBC Radio Scotland, which until the morning of Friday 6th January you can hear here. We and comedian Chris Ramsey pipe up from the 59-minute mark.
We’d like to wish a very happy birthday to ourselves! For on 2nd January 2007, the very first episode of Answer Me This! hit the nets. And we would like to take this opportunity to apologise to everybody who sat through it.*
It has been a pleasure to have you join us over the years, and especial thanks go to all of you generous lot who have been filling our Big Birthday Box with cards and treats. We’ll be posting a gallery of those from tomorrow, but it’s still not too late to send us a missive (we’ll be milking this birthday for WEEKS if we can get away with it, as any self-respecting 5-year-old should). Here’s our postal address:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just £1.99 at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Wherein we revisit such golden moments as:
Jon Ronson’s breakfast with Pocahontas
butternut squash
Tate & Lyle’s decomposing lion
Lulu Going for Gold
‘Imagine’
the theme from Requiem for a Dream
claret jugs
character M&Ms
Martin’s wedding pants
the Fat Controller’s wife
Owl City
Reg Grundy nepotism
staplenuts
Avril Lavigne fans
Anna Paquin
and
sexy Jews.
Plus some more Previously Unheard Bits from the bin.
Help us concoct more podcast for you to hear in 2012 by sending us your QUESTIONS: fill our inbox by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and deluge our Question Line with voicemails (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
And you can also fill our big empty box – our PO Box, what did you think we meant? – with some 5th birthday goodies:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
We’ll be back with episode 201 on January 19th 2012, so it merely remains for us to wish you all a very happy Christmas/atheist substitute and New Year, and to thank you very sincerely for listening to us in 2011.
My favourite jingle starts ‘I’m an Answer Me This! fan, I listen with my nan’.
I too want to be like Olly Mann – so answer me this Helen: is it true that you should never meet your heroes?
Perhaps you have had an encounter with someone you held in high esteem that was everything you expected it would be or was a crushing disappointment.
Well, if you should happen to meet Olly – perhaps browsing in John Lewis, or in the jacuzzi at a spa, or queuing at the local courthouse to contest a parking ticket – you definitely would not be disappointed (unless you have completely unrealistic expectations. He’s not really gold-plated, you know).
However, in all other cases, I counsel that you steer clear of these encounters. Even in the cases where your hero turns out to be just as delightful as you had hoped, you cannot escape the inequality of your situation: you know them, but they do not know you, and your only common ground for chitchat is how much you love them. This subject, by the way, will make for an awkward one-sided blithering conversation, which will make you cringe forever after – unless, of course, your celebrity crush is in fact very vain and adores talking about how amazing they are. In which case you might be able to indulge in a lengthy discourse, but it will result in the second scenario: disappointment, as you discover all too plainly that your idol is an arrogant twat.
So, in either case, you’re better off keeping your mental image of the person and not tarnishing it with horrible old reality. Our next questioneer Sophie did learn the hard way:
I recently went to a book signing, where I just quickly mumbled a question at Jarvis Cocker’s face. I now have a signed copy of his book, and a horrifically embarrassing memory to cherish.
To avoid such instances in the future, I was just wondering what is the correct etiquette for book signing events?
As aforementioned, there is no overcoming the fact that your relationship is unequal, and regardless of which well-chosen bon mots you deploy, you’re not going to emerge from the brief encounter as Jarvis Cocker’s new best friend. To minimise the awkwardness, prior preparation is essential: decide on ONE thing to praise out of Jarvis Cocker’s achievements – perhaps one of the less obvious highlights of his oeuvre? – and maybe throw in a compliment about his tie or suchlike. Give him a little guidance about what to inscribe in your book. Then LEAVE. Your dignity will thank you for eternity if you’re the one who breaks off the meeting (because you yourself are BUSY and IMPORTANT, and the world doesn’t stop turning just so everyone can worship you, JARVIS).
We will all be entertained if you, reader, would deign to share in the comments the tales of when you did not observe these guidelines and found yourself somewhere on the scale between mortified and slapped with a restraining order.
Andrew from Doncaster has a quandary about what to do in nine days’ time:
Last night I had a discussion with my other half about arrangements for New Year’s Eve, the problem being that he works in a pub and will be at work, and he wants me to sit and wait while he finishes, probably around 3am.
I can’t stand New Year’s Eve! So, answer me this: do I just go along with what he wants, so ending up bored and drunk sat waiting while he serves his customers, or do I just say that I will pick him up when he is finished?
The latter. If you go to his pub for the evening, he will be busy and ignoring you, while you prop up the bar with your simmering resentment.
But readers, what would YOU do? And, moreover, what WILL you be doing for New Year’s Eve? Climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge wearing a sequinned jumpsuit? Popping two Valium and sleeping right through it? Sitting in a prayer circle with your Mayan friends welcoming the end times? Let us know in the comments!
A few days ago we told you about Jason’s charity Christmas single, and as it turns out, another AMT listener is trying to raise funds with a song. Says Pete from Somerset:
A boy, Dave Hart, at my college recently committed suicide.
In memorial of him the “Do it For Dave” campaign was launched. His brother Steve Hart launched a song written by Dave for his GCSE music project, hoping to get it into the UK top 100. The song is titled “Home” and all profits are going to Papyrus UK, a charity that supports families of teenage suicides and also helps raise awareness in the hope that tragedies like this can become few and far between. The song is only 69p and will go towards a great cause. It is available on Amazon and iTunes.
What an eventful year 2011 has been. Earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear terror! Sit-ins, protests, riots! So many revolutions, we can’t even choose a favourite! Charlie Sheen being a messed-up addict – but funny, so it’s fine! Osama Bin Laden’s dramatic exit! Pippa Middleton’s bottom!
Plenty has happened here at Answer Me This! too, so take a jaunt with us into the vale of the recent past: here is The Best of AMT2011, part 1.
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just £1.99 at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
What a lot we learnt this year! About such things as:
space tourism
coloured bathroom suites
William’n’Dorothy Wordsworth
celebrity cock-shots
ornamental jellyfish The Apprentice
Dodgy
‘Like a G6’
Dane Bowers’n’Jordan’s sex tape
John Travolta’s face vs. Nicolas Cage’s face
glass slippers
impulse bags
fake tan
undone flies Saturday Toilet
Olly’s lost night of Chico
doll hospital
phallic salad
phallic statues
phallic celebrity waxworks
phallic phalluses
and
Adult Milkybar.
There’s plenty more to come next week; but if you want plenty more AMT next year, then send us your QUESTIONS: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
We have to say a huge thanks to everybody who has sent us something to celebrate our impending 5th birthday – we’ve already received many glorious cards, some rather exciting little presents, and enough sugary treats to push us over to the wrong side the Type 2 Diabetes fence! If you want to propel us into hyperglycaemic hyperdrive, or you want to show off your best penmanship, please dispatch a missive to:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
Thankyou for delighting us by post, listeners. You really are a tiptop bunch.
See you next Thursday, for the Best of AMT2011 part 2!
Young people today, they’re such hedonists! Check out the laaaaaaarge life of 22-year-old Chris from Basingstoke:
The Magic Faraway Tree is my favourite childhood book.
I mentioned this to my girlfriend (now fiancée) Sarah and I discovered that The Magic Faraway Tree was also her favourite childhood book! We spent all night talking about our love for all things Enid Blyton. One thing led to another… and I ended up reading it to her before we went to sleep that very night.
This has now turned into a regular occurrence for us, and I have been reading her Enid Blyton bedtime stories for over two years now.
So answer me this: is it weird for two adults to read children’s bedtime stories to each other before bed?
Answer Me This! Podcast 