I just had my first shave (I’m 14). Olly and Martin, answer me this: do you prefer a dry or wet shave?
Olly prefers 80s-style designer stubble, kept at the perfect length by a beard trimmer; while Martin only shaves once a quarter, for which he uses an industrial sander. So, readers, it’s over to you to tell Callum in Penrith how you keep your face bald:
Enjoy, if you will, the coif conundrum faced by Sophie from Middlesborough:
My mother won’t let me dye my hair bright blue, but at 17 years of age and willing to pay for it myself I think I am well within my rights to dye my hair whatever colour I wish.
She tried telling me I would get fired, but the lady I work for say she was fine with it.
She tried telling me that it would look awful. I pointed out that she says that every time I get my hair done and then a week later she runs off to get the same style.
If what you say is true, maybe she is trying to insinuate that she doesn’t want to have to dye her hair blue next week.
Now she is telling me that the bleach will ruin my hair.
So Helen, answer me this, when I bleach my hair how long should I wait before dying it?
You’re asking the wrong person, dear; the nearest I’ve had to blue hair is when I was bored at school and used to colour strands in with my fountain pen. But I’m sure some of you readers are far more follicularly adventurous, so please go to the comments and tell Sophie the optimal timings for the bleaching and dying so that her scalp doesn’t fall off.
Hey! Guys! WAIT A MINUTE! Before you all scuttle off to form your own Fight Club-style fight clubs, inspired by last week’s episode, check out the legal ramifications of such, as summarised by Ian:
A ‘real’ Fight Club would still be illegal even if the participants signed some kind of waiver because an individual is prosecuted by the state not by an individual. Imagine if Helen smashed me round the face with some kind of beautifully macraméed cosh.
For a similar example, look up the Spanner case, but preferably not on an employer’s computer. Lots of men doing things to each other with full consent and repeated participation, but they all got prosecuted for it.
This is an important principal in things like domestic violence cases where once an allegation is made, it has to be followed through (so that a violent partner cannot coerce the other to drop charges).
Huw has done the experiments we’re too afraid to do (not being all that keen on heart attacks, or third-degree burns on our arms):
Further to your discussion in Episode 162, I thought you’d like to know that you CAN deep-fry an egg. My parents used to do it all the time; crack an egg into the chip pan – magic!
It’s a bit different to a shallow-fried egg: a bit more crispy around the outside, and because it floats, it allows the egg to become a bit more three-dimensional, with the yolk almost ending up spherical.
You paint a beautiful romantic picture, Huw, of the balletic egg dancing in its death-bath of oil, and of your childhood with your maverick parents and their eggsperiments.
No such romance from Bruce in Paauilo, Hawaii, but I am regretting not having asked him how he came to know the following information:
I listened to that episode the other week that talked about the etymology of the phrase “Pissing like a race horse”. There is an important bit you didn’t find in your research that is germane to that expression. Have you ever done a course of steroids? Race horses have a long association with them… and they make you piss like a race horse.
It seems this week, every human celebrity with a working womb has declared herself pregnant. Since we blindly follow celebrities in all our actions, allow us to take this opportunity to announce that we, too, have a bun in the oven. Our due date is 13th January 2011 and we’ve already picked a name for the new arrival, Answer Me This! Episode 162. Ooohowowowow – we think the blighter’s on its way….:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p 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)
Today’s episode is accompanied by a token amount of afterbirth and a sizable amount of the following:
Reebok Runtone Trainers
white-collar boxing ‘Heart and Soul’ Love and Other Drugs
Richard Branson
greedy Jet Li
Peter Pan, master builder
Babycham ivy-covered halls
Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’
Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love
Sidney Paget
witches’ hats
bullet time*
the MTV Generation
the greatest album Meat Loaf never made
and
deep-fried eggs.
Plus: Olly has a horrific DIY suggestion for replacing a lost eye; Helen brings down London, one neighbourhood at a time; and Martin the Sound Man recommends that if you only read one book in your life, it should be this one.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (get it for your shiny iPhone or your shiny Android – those of you with non-shiny phones, forget it) is a question from Mark who’s been thinking the unthinkable: if Wills’n’Kate don’t make it to the altar on April 29th, what will happen to our promised national holiday? Panic! (Don’t panic.)
You’ll also note that, at the end of the episode, we appeal for your suggestions to guide listener Karen gently into the magnificent world of book-reading. Please leave those in the comments below; then please leave your QUESTIONS for future episodes as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Great! Now we’re off to stand on the front steps of the Portland Hospital holding a wadded-up pale blue blanket so that maybe someone takes our picture. We’re over the moon! Etc etc.
Helen & Olly
* In case you couldn’t remember what that is, here’s a refresher:
It hasn’t been a happy New Year for all of TeamAMT, for instance poor old Anon:
I’ve just told the love of my life that I am happy being her friend, and that I’m OK with her dating another guy simply because I want her to be happy. It didn’t end like in the movies where she finds new feelings for me and I carry her off into the sunset for a good shagging; she’s in fact telling him that she would love to go out with him as I write this.
I’ve tried to take solace in my decision saying it was the nicest thing to do and that I’ll be able to look back on this and be proud, but right now that isn’t cheering me up. I started popping a load of bubble wrap to take my mind off it, but I’ve run out.
So answer me this: how can I make the soul-crushing pain go away and cheer myself up in the process?
Help a heartbroken chap out, readers: go to the comments and tell the man what to do when the bubble wrap runs out.
Katie also has problems in the romance department:
I may have done something truly terrible.
So Nick has been my best friend since we were 12, we’re both 20 now and 3 nights ago we had sex. It wasn’t horrifically awkward but it wasn’t the most incredible event of my life. We’ve pseudo-casually talked about it and made awkwardly amusing compliments about each other’s ‘prowess’ but I can’t help but worry that I’ve ruined everything.
I know that When Harry Met Sallydealt with this before I was born and that it probably wasn’t the best post-pub home for Christmas idea but what’s done is done and now I need someone to tell me that everything will be ok.
I don’t really understand why the following is a matter of urgency – or even a question at all – but it is causing Chris from Cardiff, Australia some concern, so let’s have it:
To be considered to have your name in the newspaper, does your name actually have to be mentioned in an article, or is it sufficient to be captioned in a picture?
Oh don’t worry, Chris – if there’s a picture of your mugshot captioned ‘Chris from Cardiff: awaiting trial for murder’, it definitely counts! So your mum can go out and buy ten copies to show all her friends.
Anyway, the matter I’m more interested in is the times you people have had your names/captioned pictures in the newspaper. Tell me in the comments, please! I wish at this point I could post the picture of me which appeared in the Tunbridge Wells Courier when my guinea pig came first in the Langton Green pet show, but unfortunately I think mother burnt my junior media archive scrapbook.
Here is a question from a questioneer who does not identify him/herself, perhaps because of their shame over their following revelation:
What word or phrase did you totally misunderstand as a child (or embarrassingly far into adulthood…)?
I always wondered what ‘Roman board’ was…
…later I realized it was ‘room and board’.
Also, I just got to tell my flatmate that ‘for all intensive purposes’ is actually ‘for all intents and purposes’ – he’s 23…
23! My eldest brother earned the nickname ‘Fernie Splodgings’ thanks to his misapprehension of the term ‘Furnished Lodgings’, but he was only three at the time. Share your own long-held mondegreens in the comments and we can all have a jolly good laugh at you.
PS Slightly off-topic, but since we’re in the slips-of-the-tongue ballpark…
Today, 6th January, is of course Epiphany, the day on which the Three Wise Men called round to see the baby Jesus. It is also the day that the Three Unwise Men’n’Women unleashed Answer Me This! Episode 161, which is only slightly less suitable a baby-gift than a jarful of myrrh.
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p 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)
In this first podcast of the new year, we contemplate:
soup-straws
American military acronyms In Bruges
Waterfit
water-avoiding ‘Gay Bar’ by Electric Six
muscular veiny crotches
Winnie-the-Pooh
Paul Merton
the Pet Shop Boys vs. Half-Life 2
children’s stories vs. beat poets
the best Christmas films ever – see what Team AMT opted for here
the least bad bits of Love Actually (that was quick)
and
Slash’s unusual tureen.
Plus: Olly vows to kick off his New Year’s fitness drive – motivated partly by vanity and health, but more by recouping wasted gym money; Helen anticipates the timely death of the Zaltzman family dog; and virus-laden Martin the Sound Man grits his teeth and tries to survive the episode without exploding with a big gush of gutwater. Cheer up the poor man by listening to some of his music here.
Today’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone and Android, app-fans) is all about Frank Bruno’s penis. Clue: it’s a whopper.
Can you believe we have now entered the FIFTH year of Answer Me This!? It would have been zero years had it not been for your QUESTIONS, so please keep supplying them: leave voicemails on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Hello dears! We said we’d back with a new episode on January 6th 2011, and we will be, we promise – it’ll just be coming out a few hours later than usual, because that bloody Martin the Sound Man has messed up our recording schedule by selfishly and maliciously suffering from some vile gastric bug.
So please don’t get all hot and bothered and start sending us messages alternately abusing us then begging for a fresh hit. The episode will be right here a little later. If you’re struggling to cope, stare at the following for a few hours.
In a desperate attempt to make stats revision bearable I’ve been listening to old Answer Me This! episodes. In episode 148 Olly suggested they should kill one of the BT family off.
Olly, I want you to know you’re not far away from the thinking of the advertisers. My dad works for BT and on ‘take your daughter to work day’ I ended up in an advertising meeting with the company who make the adverts. They also wanted to ‘add drama’ to the ads with ideas like Adam leaving Jane or one of the kids becoming ill or running away. So well done Olly!
However, those who do like the family need not worry as the BT people seem to think this was a bad direction for some reason. Indeed, when I mentioned Olly’s idea to my father who just looked at me like I was mental and told me not to go into advertising.
However if BT do produce a campaign involving terminal illness I would suggest that Olly immediately write to BT suggesting he gets royalties or something like that.
It’d be hardly worth his while, seeing as he’d be splitting his royalties with all of the millions of people who’ve watched those adverts over the years and willed the characters to die horribly and painfully.
Incidentally, in the inconceivable event that you like the BT family – so much that you have actually written some fanfic about their interminable domestic life – then please, please share it with us in the comments. You sicko.
dealt with this before I was born and that it probably wasn’t the best post-pub home for Christmas idea but what’s done is done and now I need someone to tell me that everything will be ok.
Answer Me This! Podcast 