I have a job. It’s maternity cover, but I might be offered a permanent position even if the formerly-pregnant woman comes back. I don’t know for sure, so I’ve been looking into other jobs. If I get an interview for a job, how can I take the day off work, without anyone finding out it’s for an interview?
Tell them you’ve got a doctor’s appointment? That you’re going to a funeral (also explaining away your uncharacteristically smart attire)?
I’m not well-placed to answer this since it’s been many, many years since I had a job where anyone would have noticed my absence. So readers, step in and tell Phil in the comments how to dodge office scrutiny in this matter.
We are delighted to announce that our book is out TODAY. As is, similarly delightfully, Answer Me This! Episode 155:
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)
This week we mention such things as:
premature poppies
‘Barwick Green’
Abi Titmuss Essential Modern Classics – The Phantom Tollbooth
Banana Skins Slippage Committee
herrings
the edible Fleshlight
hostess trolleys
spinning cakestands
marrowfat peas
ten pin bowling, North London Jew-style
British population density vs. Canadian population density
and
Vince Neil’s eggy crotch.
Plus: Olly laughs and laughs and laughs at poor dead squirrels, because he is a Bad Mann; Helen wishes she still had the rushes of her unofficial audiobook of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret; and Marti(a)n the Sound Man lays down the law about lasers, which is roughly the same law that Perseus observed when taking on the Gorgons.
This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Becky from Westerham about the TP button in her car. What the blazes is the TP button? Toilet paper? Telepathic powers? Total paralysis? Find out only on the app! (Or your own car.)
If you require a bigger dose of our voices than today’s episode provides, then you can hear us on the Guardian’s Media Talk podcast on Friday 5th, the Shaun Keaveny Show on BBC 6 Music at 9am on Monday 8th, and the Late Show with Ian Collins on TalkSPORT at midnight on Tuesday 9th. That enough for you? Hmmm?
There are only fifty shopping days until Christmas*, and seven more shopping days until next week’s episode, so hesitate not to pose your QUESTIONS, by leaving a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or by firing off an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. We look forward to them immensely.
See you next week!
Helen and Olly
*but you don’t even need those, because the Answer Me This! book is the perfect gift for everyone in your life! So thanks to us, you’ve a spare seven weeks to fill with hobbycrafts or waterskiing rather than schlepping round John Lewis. You’re welcome. Don’t say we never do anything nice for you.
…we’ve turned the podcast into a book, and it is out TODAY!
And lo, we have made our own advert for it:
Answer Me This! The Book is now available from allsome good bookshops, as well as online emporiae – click HERE for links to those, and to read a few sample pages.
In summation:
if you have accrued any affection for us at all over the past almost-four years of podcast, pleeeeeeeease buy a copy!
Don your mufti, gather your packed lunches and board the coach for a question from Andrew from Leeds:
My sister (13), has just come back from a school trip to lean about water usage and recycling – to a sewage works. Yes – it was as unpleasant and foul-smelling as it sounds, and after lunch, over half the kids refused to get off the coach. I think the smell was worse then my school trip to a Camembert factory a few years back.
You’re forgetting, Andrew, that school trips aren’t supposed to be fun. Even the ones that are supposed to be fun are not fun, because you’re there to learn, which of course is mutually exclusive to fun. Hence during my school trip to Chessington World of Adventures, we were forbidden to go on any rides because we had to fill in a questionnaire about wildlife. What did I learn from that? Some useful facts about wildlife? NO; we learnt the more important lesson that adults are cruel and life isn’t all fun and games, just as your sister learnt that life can be a big vat of shit.
So, answer me this – what’s the worst school trip you’ve been on when at school?
Readers, we sense you’ve suffered far worse than us during our adventures to the power stations and wildfowl centres of southern England. Take a trip to the comments to tell us about your dumbest, dreariest, or downright dangerous school trips. Best one gets to sit up front next to Teacher on the ride home.
Esau was a hairy man. Jacob was a smooth man. And Michael from Leeds can’t decide whether he’s an Esau or a Jacob:
I am a very keen cyclist, and am a member of one of the local cycling clubs. On our weekly club ride a lot of cyclist from various local clubs take part, and they all have shaved legs. I know this is a common practice among cyclists, but I am unsure whether to take part in it my myself. My wife is especially against it.
So answer me this: should I shave my legs to fit in with the rest of the group, or should I keep my hairy legs as they are?
Well, cyclists obviously aren’t a vain bunch. Hence their ready acceptance of patches of arse-sweat, their willingness to wear cameltoe-inducing shiny leggings, and their adoption of helmets that make them look like Willem Dafoe in Spider-Man. All these fashion no-nos are milestones upon the road to optimal aerodynamics, as is the leg-shaving. All that air resistance dragging against your leg-hair could add ruinous numbers of milliseconds to your ride-time.
Plus, all those bald-legged cyclists will mock you if you don’t join in their depilation games. You’ll look much better when wearing fishnet tights. And if leg-shaving’s good enough for David Beckham…
On the other hand, if you do decide to depilate, it’ll add ruinous minutes to your shower-time. Cactus-like prickliness will characterise your shins. Does it stop at the legs, or are you supposed to deforest your body from top floor to basement? Your non-cyclist friends will mock you, and your wife will be angry at you for clogging up her Ladyshave. And if David Beckham jumped off a cliff, would you?
There’s so much compelling evidence on both sides that we’re throwing this dilemma out to you lot.
We thought that anything goes in the Netherlands, but Bo from the Netherlands debunks that national stereotype:
I turned 21 a few days ago and my aunt decided to take me to the sauna for my birthday. Now this was clearly more an excuse for her to visit the sauna because if she knows me at all, she would have known that I wouldn’t find any joy in a sauna.
But not wanting to be rude I got over my fear of sweaty wrinkles and accepted the present gracefully.
When I was in the sauna I tried not to look at people to much and I was doing fine, until I heard my Literature professor saying my name!!!
And there he was… more naked than I thought possible… With EVERYTHING just hanging out… It was awful, I was naked… he was naked… my aunt was naked.. And the man sat down next to me and talked to me for 10 minutes, all the while looking me over…
It was horrible and I really don’t want to go back to that class…so what the fuck do I do ?
It’s always upsetting to realise that the authority figures in your life are actual humans, with actual human genitals and everything. Try to put his danglers out of your mind by concentrating on the literature; and the next time you find yourself going to the sauna, protect your modesty with a towel and protect your academic overlords by wearing a blindfold.
Happy halloween to you! Here’s not-at-all-reflective-of-the-festival Episode 154, but you can decide where it falls on the Trick Or Treat spectrum, 1 being a nice lollipop and 10 being a dog turd through your letterbox. Squelch! DAMN YOU PESKY KIDS.
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, we contemplate subjects including:
Scream IV
Ken Kirzinger
Rentokil
Ebenezer Howard
Robert De Niro’s patchwork face
Nigella’s fishy keyboard
the amazing voice of Red Pepper
Welwyn Garden City vs. Letchworth Garden City
Don LaFontaine vs. Alfred Hitchcock Shutter Island
vegetable oil fountains
sweetcorn fajitas
wigs Strictly Come Dancing demystified
and
a brief history of refrigeration.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Emma about whether lentils can kill. If they can, the Ban Lentils campaign starts right here!
Elsewhere: Olly recoils at the idea of dunking fruit into a festive torrent of vegetable oil, despite his total lack of qualms about smearing absolutely everything in mayonnaise which is effectively the same thing; Helen reinterprets the Pied Piper as a cautionary tale preaching socialism; and Martin the Sound Man is uncharacteristically restrained during an entire discussion based around the word ‘shuttlecock’. We think he was sidetracked by a piece of junk mail he’d received in the post from a chocolate company, trying to sell him half-price nut hampers. Fnarrr!
While Martin sniggers like a man half his age, you can get on with sending us QUESTIONS! Leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; and if you had your question answered in this week’s show, email us your address that we may dispatch your free copy of the Answer Me This! book. Next week there are no free books, but you will be able to get a not-free copy from a bookshop or The Internet, because the delightful volume will be available for sale from November 4th. As will next week’s podcast, so we’ll see you back here then! Toodles.
Tom from Brighton only looks at those mags for the articles and only watches those films for the dialogue:
As a man, and a hideous looking one at that, I am no stranger too the delights of internet naked lady fun.
In one of these recent naughty adventures I came across a particularly clunky piece of dialogue. The female protagonist (who has known the man she is about to sleep with since birth), upon seeing his no doubt extended penis, exclaims:
“Your cock certainly has grown into that of a man’s cock!”
So my question is: what is the likelihood this line was scripted and, if not, have you every come across a worse example of improvisation?
Yes. Every single improvised comedy show I saw at university. You know what’s good for a performance? SCRIPTS. Suffice to say, I have blocked out every line; but readers, if you’ve got a good one, quote it to us in the comments. Even better, if you were the screenwriter on this particular cinematic masterpiece, please inform us whether this line was honed by you, or a genuine reaction by an actress so deeply in character that her sentence structure becomes distinctly obtuse.
Unlike any of us here at AMT, Ciorstan has the luxury of dumping someone over a completely spurious difference of opinion:
I recently stopped seeing someone after he told me he hadn’t read all the Harry Potter books because they were boring. Some of my friends think this was the right decision, others say I’m an idiot.
Answer me this: do you think this was a good reason to break up with someone?
Erm – no. Although if you’re willing to give someone the heave-ho over that, then you really weren’t in it for the long term anyway.
And what is the strangest reason any of you have ever dumped someone?
Um – because we didn’t love them any more? Because the prospect of spending any more time with them was unappealing? MADNESS.
But readers, go forth to the comments and tell us all about your arbitrary reasons for ending a relationship. You cruel, cruel people.
A seasonal question now from David from Dagenham, a man who might have inspired this, and definitely finds untimely death a hoot!
With halloween coming up I was thinking of costume ideas and was talking to some guys at work about it, as we are encouraged to dress up for the event every year.
This got me reminiscing about my first Halloween at my current job. I’d only been in the job a couple of months and went in dressed as Steve Irwin complete with stingray barb sticking out of my chest. This was only a month or 2 after he’d died and there were a lot of complaints about me.
Answer me this: what has been your best or worst costume idea?
Readers. You strike me as a bunch with truly spectacular records in fancy dress, and probably with similarly lax taste boundaries as David from Dagenham. So make haste to the comments and tell us – preferably including links to photographic evidence – of your zenith and/or nadir of novelty costuming. Can any of you compete with this guy?
To follow the mood of this week, we must announce that we’ve decided to cut Answer Me This! Episode 153 by eight per cent. However we reassure you that we will be freezing the length of this episode at 27 minutes 37 seconds for the next two years, or until the apocalypse, whichever is sooner. Here you go:
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 time-of-austerity topics include:
non-alcoholic beer
Jim Henson’s fake rats
shadduck
Michael Apted
Lidl
Johnny Depp vs. Danny Dyer Center Stage
Olly’s favourite condoms (surprisingly not these ones) The Witches
Stephen Jones, milliner
isopropanol
Rowan Atkinson’s ‘early’ work
Bonnie Prince Billy’s hometown
Nicolas Roeg
identical twins
Michael Palin in drag
and
losing your virginity to a chair.
Plus: Olly has been repelled from his favourite snack by Gok Wan; Helen suggests a high school Joseph Mengele; and Martin the Sound Man plays off Gene Wilder and Spike Milligan against each other. WHO WILL WIN? We will, alas, never know.
What we do know is that next week is the last episode in which we’ll be handing out free books to questioneers, so send us your most brilliant QUESTIONS right now! Leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, to which you should send your postal address if you are one of this week’s featured questioneers and want to claim your freebie.
If you want to claim your not-quite-free-but-really-not-too-pricey copy of Answer Me This!: Collected Juvenilia, then investigate answermethispodcast.com/book, whereat you will find not only links to a few online bookshops, but also some sample pages to induce you to preorder itmake you decide to order Booky Wook 2 instead.
Helen and Olly
PS Forgot to mention: this week’s bonus bit on the app is Olly’s account of his recent debut trip to a branch of Hooters. It was all in the name of post-feminist irony, alright?
Tsch, women! Bloody women! I say that on behalf of Tom, who has emailed us with some girl trouble of the unromantic kind:
Basic Summary – I’ve known a girl for about 4 years and we have been pretty close friends. Going to the cinema and for meals together (don’t worry this isn’t some silly teenage romance question).
The summer holidays have finished and she is at a new school and she has met up with another group of people. I don’t have a problem with this but she is having a pool party around her house (she’s rich) and after 4 years of being very close friends she hasn’t invited me, but all these people she has just met are invited as well as some people who we both used to hang about together with, so this isn’t just for new people. Admittedly I’m not the biggest party person but I have a good time, I don’t go over the top or anything or cause a problem.
I was talking to some of her friends who I’m close to and who have been invited. They say she only has a certain amount of people that can come, but that’s complete shit her house is massive and it’s only one more person. These friends think its ridiculous I’m not invited but I don’t even care anymore (as you can tell from this angry email).
I want to know what I should do????
Confront her? Ignore her? Try to maintain a friendship (not that I particularly want to now). I’m so confused.
Understandably so, Tom. Even if she ever gives you an explanation, it’s unlikely to be one which makes you any happier; so we recommend you cut your losses and fraternise with rather more inclusive friends. Even if they don’t have their own pools.
But readers, what would you recommend? Tell Tom your comforts or conspiracy theories in the comments.
; and Marti(a)n the Sound Man lays down the law about lasers, which is roughly the same law that Perseus observed when taking on the Gorgons.
Answer Me This! Podcast 