Is poverty the enemy of love? Let’s hope not, for Pete from Somerset‘s sake:
I’m 16, and next Monday is my 1st anniversary with my girlfriend. I figure that it is only my duty as a gentleman to buy her a present AND take her out for something special. But the fact is that I am 16, and therefore I have no pissing money. So, answer me this: how can I take my girlfriend out somewhere special, but still save money to buy her a gift?
Readers, go to the comments right away and give Pete some useful suggestions for romance on a budget. Now! Next Monday is not far away! But Pete, if they don’t come up with anything workable, then tell your girlfriend that you’ve forsworn your ‘duty as a gentleman’ as you felt it a relic from a more sexist age, and moreover, she should learn not to be such a filthy materialist. No doubt many more happy years together will follow.
I declare Ben from Italy to be a man with too many pencils:
In the last episode you were talking about Ikea pencils and it prompted a few questions as I have over 500 pencils myself:
1. Is it morally wrong to go to Ikea for the sole purpose of filling my pencil-case?
No. It’s not morally wrong; it’s unbelievably stupid. There are far more convenient places to get pencils than an out-of-town superstore, and moreover, one should never, NEVER go to Ikea unless one is in the direst need of furnishings.
2. After the checkout in Ikea there is a box where you put the pencils you’ve used. Do they then sharpen them and put them back? Surely that would mean that they were even shorter.
Now that I do not know. But surely there must be an Ikea employee amongst the AMT listenership: reader, if that is you, please tell us what happens to the little pencils that aren’t stolen by people like us. Do they find a good home, or are they ground down and reconstituted into Malm headboards?
Time for some raunch, thanks to John from Edinburgh:
I was just listening to podcast 148, and you discussed slug mating. I thought you might appreciate these links showing Leopard slugs having sex. It is one of the freakiest most amazing things you will ever see.
He’s right! Not to mention romantic. Skip forward to the 1min40 mark if you want to go straight to the hot slug-on-slug action with no flirtation beforehand:
If that’s got you in the mood for more X-rated mini-fauna, click here. You perv.
At last, the special guestisode featuring Ian Collins off TalkSPORT has arrived! In it we find out a great deal about the great man: his life in pencils, his close relationship with the Home Office, his special form of vigilante justice, and his position as the only man in the world who thinks Cheryl Cole is ‘a bit of a munter’.
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 it, Ian talks to us about such matters as:
Cleethorpes
Morrissey Rugrats
Ikea pencils vs. Ikea meatballs
pub quiz machines vs. rightness
bubble vs. chewing in the battle of the gums
parliament vs. coconuts
Larry David
courtroom quizzes
the gravy and mini apple pies diet
Boots the Chemist Spitting Image‘s legal defence
Henry Frankenstein?
and
Wall’s sausage ice-cream
Plus: Olly has beef with the Wood Green branch of Harvester; Helen has beef with infantilised adults; and Ian has beef with PC Stamp from The Bill. Martin the Sound Man does not have beef with anyone this episode, but he will have beef with you if you don’t buy his album; so you’d better do that unless you want to feel his wrath.
This week’s slice of bonus fun on the app is a question from Daniel from Wakefield’s question about Darth Vader’s heavy breathing. He has more in common with Beverley Craven and Helen’s family dog than previously thought.
Now don’t be cross, but next week is the last episode of the series, so get your QUESTIONS in, quick! Leave a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of stuff to listen to during our VERY BRIEF break, because of all the free or cheap-as-chips audiobooks which Audible.co.uk wish to bestow upon you – click here to get yours!
My fiancee and I have just moved to Leamington Spa. While the area is very nice and the people are lovely, there is very little to do as we have no friends (hence me writing this email)! This is compounded by the fact that we are very skint at the moment, having been fleeced by the removal company to move our stuff from Sheffield!
So answer me this: what can we do for free that is very very fun in Leamington Spa that would also make us some friends? (We are nice people!)
Who here knows how to make one’s way in Leamington Spa society? Go to the comments and help a man make some new buddies!
I was in a Gourmet Burger Kitchen today, and I noticed they were selling an imported drink with a small little factoid that stated, hilariously, ‘World famous in New Zealand.’
So, answer me this: what weird factoids have you seen appear on products, or at least stupid ones?
‘World famous’ on most food products, or especially on the awnings of cafes, does tend to be optimism triumphing over truth (although in a rather less harmful way than certain products like Activia yoghurt pretending to be health foods when they’re sugarier than Barbara Cartland’s tea table). Readers, share the most ridiculous products boasts you have seen!
Why can I not buy different-coloured tyres for my car? I can get coloured tyres for bicycles. I want fucking blue tyres on my car!!
I’m counting on your help to solve his query, because I can’t even remember the last time I bought any tyres. Actually I don’t think I’ve ever bought tyres. I don’t own a car, bike, trike, moped or wheelbarrow, so what the jigger would I need tyres for? Hanging one off a tree to swing about in? I don’t even have my own tree, so I’m entirely counted out of the tyre market. So go to the comments and tell the man how to spruce up his boring-coloured wheels.
Happy birthday to you, Leah from Somerset! We have no further message for you, unlike some other birthday well-wishers of your acquaintance:
Answer me this; what the fuck do you say to your best friend when he gives you a three-page letter telling you he loves you in your 17th birthday card?!
Thing is sometimes I like him, for example he has good music taste (Rolling Stones and Black Keys rather than this JLS rubbish) but sometimes he can also be an annoying twat who is usually 3 hours late.
Please help, I start college tomorrow and I can’t sleep because of this veritable bombshell.
Well we can’t have you turning up sleepy to college, so let’s not delay in considering a vital but unknown component of this equation: your feelings towards this fellow. If you actually like him In That Way, what’s to stop you going for it? Bar the fact that, judging by your email, you don’t even seem particularly fond of him as a friend, since the bedrock of your relationship is the fact that he cares not for JLS.
Readers, go to the comments and decide for Leah, will you? She needs to get back to class.
Welcome to September, fellows; and right there along with that back-to-school feeling, blackberries and the looming return of Strictly Come Dancing, isAnswer Me This! Episode 148:
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 which we consider:
serving suggestions
Kris Marshall’s erection
hot nuts
booze calories
Andrew Lansley
Panini sticker distribution Ruddles
overripe Bounty Bars
dodgems vs. bumper cars
natural light vs. unnatural flickery light
Olly’s grandma vs. black chandeliers
Britain’s Most Wanted Man
salted slugs
and
Amanda Seyfried’s jugs
Furthermore, Olly suggests that Brutus might not have been a murderer but a midwife; Helen wishes death upon the loathsome Adam’n’Jane; and Martin the Sound Man explains the hydrodynamics of a log flume. See? Science CAN be fun!
Over on the app, we deal with a question from David about how cavemen cut umbilical cords. Although Olly doesn’t deal that well, thanks to his curious belly button phobia. Was he flogged with a dessicated placenta as a young boy? The mystery persists…
Now don’t forget to net yourself some free audioliterature courtesy of Audible.co.uk – click here to find out about their splendid offers for AMTfans, and we can all revel in their largesse together. Then, you might send us a QUESTION, in the form of a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Then we’ll all be happy, hiphiphip hooray!
See you next week; and we might be seeing Ian Collins as well. Who knows? Tune in to Episode 149 to find out!
Poor ‘Anonymous’ is having lady trouble. No, I don’t mean period pains – the other kind of lady trouble. He says:
Right, here’s the situation:
I went to the USA for two weeks, leaving my girlfriend and (male) best friend (or ex best friend…) in Wales. They, whilst being close to me, are also very close to each other, but I’m pretty sure there is nothing sexual about their relationship, even though I have taken jokes about them having ‘an affair’ for the entire year and a half she and I have been together. However, I learnt when I returned from the US that they had spent a lot of time together. And I mean A LOT. I also found out they’d been getting drunk (and stoned or whatever) together, going to London together, and sharing a bed (which was at one point a double bed in their own flat in London), “just as friends”. She also ended up sharing a bed with three other guys.
I am apparently entirely at fault for finding any problem with this, but everyone I’ve spoken to that ISN’T her (or him; we haven’t spoken since I got back) completely sees where I can find problems with this. So here is the question that I pose to thee:
WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO?
Start keeping an assortment of girls in your bed. If that doesn’t invoke her jealousy, at least it’ll cheer you up. Anyway, count yourself lucky, compared to our next emailer:
I have just got back from reading festival, and while the music was amazing I can’t help but feel a little bit put out about the behaviour of my girlfriend over the weekend.
On the first night while I was watching Guns’N’Roses she said she felt tired and went back the tent. It later turned out that she in fact went back and had sex with my best friend in my own tent. However she was pretty drunk that night so I forgave her, but just two nights later I came back to my tent and found her having a threesome with two random people she had met at the festival.
This leads me to my question: answer me this… should I forgive my girlfriend again?
Don’t bother. She’ll be too busy banging to notice.
Alright food cowards, you win. You don’t have to try to be more adventurous and try cucumber or sandwiches or liquids or any of the other things you haven’t tried, not after this extremely cautionary tale from Lucy from Brighton:
After hearing about what common foods some people surprisingly hadn’t tried I thought I’d pitch in the following anecdote:
At the age of 17 I had never tried peanut butter, but sitting in the sixth form centre I suddenly had a MASSIVE craving for it. So a friend who was already on the way to the corner shop decided to buy some for me. I had about a teaspoonful before, lo and behold, my lips started to tingle, and my throat closed up.
It turns out I am woefully allergic to peanuts.
So, answer me this: Why, If they could kill me, was my body craving them??
Readers? Any ideas why Lucy’s body hates her thus?
We’re thoroughly enjoying hearing about the mainstream foodstuffs you’ve never tried; here are some of your contributions, and below are some more:
Justin from Gloucester, Massachusetts:there are many things I have never eaten, including fish, apple pie, pickles and baked beans.
English Richard living in France: the mainstream food I have never tried is Walker’s Ready Salted crisps, due to my dislike of ready salted flavour.
Amy: I’m 17 and I’ve never had ANY fizzy drinks or coffee or tea – how unnatural is it to drink bubbles? blurghhhh and I wouldn’t like to be topped up with caffeine all day.
Jed in Glasgow: I have never tried poached egg or any kind of Caesar salad.
Eilidh from Dingwall, Scotland: apart from a little bit of haddock and fish fingers, I’ve not had fish! Another thing I’ve never had is a steak; I’ve no interest 🙂
Answer Me This! Podcast 