Answer Me This Episode 397 is an unofficial animals special! We’ve got:
meerkats
dog mayors
goat mayors
crawfish presidential candidates
and
albatrosses around your neck
And also:
coffee berries
hot-but-not-boiling water
caffeine twitches
playing presidents
your friends mocking you for being a penny-pincher
and
Mary Shelley having sex on her mother’s grave.
And if one probably-useless coffee gadget wasn’t enough, you can get your fill of a second, in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android.
Hear our other work:
• Olly hosts several podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com. Subscribe to his all new daily show The Retrospectors!
• Helen makes The Allusionist, an entertainment show about language, and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning – now digging into season 4.
• Martin makes music – including a new EP – which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of every song by Tom Waits Tom Waits in Song By Song, and he produced and composed the kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers, hosted by Maddie Moate.
This episode is sponsored by:
• The Great Courses Plus, the streaming library of courses on topics from piano-playing to yoga to ancient history to dog training. AMT listeners get a free fortnight at thegreatcoursesplus.com/answer.
• Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Buy AMT episodes 1-200, our six special albums including AMT Holiday for your summer staycation, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
Pop in your prosthetic fangs, spritz yourself with fake blood and turn off all the lights except for that annoying one that flickers – it’s the Answer Me This Halloween Special! (Known by day as AMT390.) Featuring SCARY plays, GIANT gourds, MONSTER Mash and BESHAT trousers. And also:
pumpkin boats SPAM® suits
sexy Halloween costumes
actors playing dead
sweet Fanny Adams
the lack of Halloween pop songs (except ‘Monster Mash’)
the lack of scary plays (except The Woman In Black) Ghostwatch
and
vampire injuries.
CW: suicide, child murder, death.
Send all your Sexy Martin the Sound Man costume pics to us at twitter.com/HelenAndOlly and facebook.com/answermethis! And also tell us how much time you had to spend explaining who you’re dressed as.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – is a question from Seren about the origins of ‘hocus pocus’.
Hear our other work:
• Helen makes The Allusionist, an entertainment show about language, and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning – currently the very stressful end of season 2 is nigh!
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Modern Mann and The Week Unwrapped.
• Martin makes music which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of every song by Tom Waits Tom Waits in Song By Song, and he produced and composed the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers, hosted by Maddie Moate.
This episode is sponsored by:
• Manscaped, precision-engineered grooming for your danglers. Get 20% off plus free shipping with the code ANSWER at Manscaped.com
• Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
At last, the AMT animal nipples special! How many do bears have? How long are an opossum’s? Where do solenodons keep theirs? Did you already learn all this from David Attenborough?? If not, you will in Answer Me This! Episode 387, along with information about:
salmon vending machines
amnesia etiquette
Easy-Bake Ovens
American flapjacks
British flapjacks
Shakespearean flapjacks
blue flashing lights
how pregnancy tests work
and
the landlord’s mystery cupboard in the basement.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – Olly makes his first attempts at no-bake cakes. And survives! A triumph!
Hear our other work:
• Helen makes The Allusionist, an entertainment show about language, and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning.
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, as well as his recent appearance on BBC Radio 4’s My Teenage Diary.
• Martin makes music which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of every song by Tom Waits Tom Waits in Song By Song.
This episode is sponsored by:
• The Great Courses Plus, the streaming library of courses on topics from yoga to mystery fiction to formal logic to dog training. AMT listeners get a free month at thegreatcoursesplus.com/answer.
• Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Buy AMT episodes 1-200, our six special albums including the all new Home Entertainment, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
NOTE: Answer Me This! Episode 353 was recorded BEFORE Justin Bieber announced he was cancelling the rest of his tour. We didn’t mean to add to your grief with mild Bieb-teasing. Because today, we tackle the meaning of ‘Despacito‘, along with other phenomena like:
fake holiday resort booze Competitive Dad
Tube emergencies worthy of sounding the alarm
wedding bloodshed vs your journalistic instincts
your body = manuscript
understudies
beating your kids at board games
apples for teacher
and
your mum’s glory hole.
Plus: Olly’s rock’n’roll dreams came true at the Meat Loaf jukebox musical he has been waiting for all his life; Helen favours drama over romance in wedding photos; and Martin the Sound Man goes on about ducks’ vaginas as if that’s a normal thing to do.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – the seven-year-old Olly Mann attempts to invent the new Monopoly, only to be thwarted by his unintentionally saucy choice of name.
Want to hear more from us? There’s the retro AMT episode we throw into your feed mid-month, which right now is the landmark AMT100; to get it, subscribe to AMT on your podcatcher of choice. All of our back catalogue is available from answermethisstore.com, along with our special albums including the AMT Holiday – the real soundtrack to your summer, shut up ‘Despacito’.
Want to SEE us, or at least two of the three of us? Come to the London Podcast Festival next month: tickets are on sale now for Helen’s live Allusionist and Martin’s Song By Song, featuring Helen and John Hodgman. And Helen will appear with her brother Andy on the live Bugle, so give yourself a very Zaltzman weekend of entertainment.
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode, and for making spiffy websites so easy to build. Try for yourself: play around during the two-week free trial, then get 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Send us your QUESTIONS: call the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis. Our voicemail greeting has been removed thanks to Technological Advances, but that’s still the way to reach us. Or, if you prefer, you can send us a voice memo or a written question or one of your rogue wedding photos (oh go on, pleeeease): email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Be our interfriend at twitter.com/HelenAndOlly and facebook.com/answermethis.
We’ll be back with AMT354 on 7 September 2017, and with a Retro AMT episode on 24 August.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT353 Child-Friendly Rating: 17%. In the first few minutes, there are contemplations of innuendo-laden song lyrics, glory holes and duck vaginas. And the discussion of letting your kids win at boardgames may tip off your children to the possibility that you’re playing them. •••
Changes are afoot as the approaches its TENTH BIRTHDAY next month. But it’s mostly business as usual in Answer Me This! Episode 345, to whit:
Bat Out Of Hell: The Musical the Angel of the North
cheese juice
getting Discovered for a glittering showbiz career
amateur theatre vs professional theatre
Orange Marys vs Filthy Martinis
Samantha Janus Womack
Boots the Chemist
Plato’s Symposium
the platonic ideal of being a bed
and
a cat called Anus.
Plus: Olly petitions for the musical role of a lifetime, or at the very least a guest spot when Song By Song podcast does a Jim Steinman season; Helen actually read some trade publications about steel for this episode, lest her commitment to AMT be in doubt; and Martin the Sound Man doing an impression of Olly’s cat Coco will one day be Exhibit A in Helen’s murder trial.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we take a trip to Winter Wonderland. Or rather winterwonderland.com, the perfect Christmas gift for only £500,000.
The perfect Christmas gift for only £2.49 is, of course, the AMT Christmas album – find out more about its contents at answermethispodcast.com/christmas, then tell Santa to buy it for you from the AMT store, iTunes or Amazon.
Thanks to our friends at Squarespace.com for sponsoring this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year if you use the discount code ‘answer‘. What a gift!
FREE festive fun for all the family is the Argos Game: we challenge you to find a product in the Argos catalogue that is more expensive than this £32,000 20ft swim tub (but be careful not to get too sexy in it, for your teeth’s sake).
BUT ALSO please send us affectionate voicemails – or email us voice memos – for our tenth birthday episode. Deadline is New Year’s Eve, and the episode, AMT346, will appear on 4 January 2017. Join us! Without you, we are nothing! Etc!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT345 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. F-words R Us. •••
What do you do when your friend has fallen for a pathological liar? Do you a) confront the fibber with evidence of their deceit, or b) write to a comedy podcast? It’s fairly easy for you to find out: just listen to Answer Me This! Episode 342, in which we also discuss:
dining with babies
dining with strangers’ shitty babies
the Oscars Curse Jenny Beavan’s red carpet look
supergroups on superyachts
gregarious egregious Gregs
and
the advantage of the cupcake
Plus: Olly betrayed his former self by not doing his wedding dance to ‘The Snooker Song‘ from The Hunting of the Snark; Helen is giving away a dead good podcast idea; and Dave Stewart is not welcome to shit up Martin the Sound Man’s supergroup.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App is about a bit of crap on a lot of kitchen worktops: spiralisers, the existence of which is irking Gemma from Cannock (yes, yes, Martin; the town in the West Midlands to which 80s popstar Tiffany moved after her heyday). Get the app for your iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices.
Thanks to our friends at Squarespace.com for sponsoring this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year if you use the discount code ‘answer‘.
We’re open for business at answermethisstore.com if you want to buy our first 200 episodes or our albums. You can also give us money without having to give us any of your own money if you get yourself a FREE AUDIOBOOK for you at answermethispodcast.com/audible.
Who let the dogs out? And who got the dogs stoned? We address these very important canine questions in Answer Me This! Episode 335, along with others more about:
Lego love, lost
wedding gambling
Soda Stream vs Nutribullet
pissing dolls vs pissing Elmo
theatre-adjacent Italian restaurants
the Crystal Palace pizza district
Tony Awards for Tonys
Oscar Isaac
Oscar Hammerstein II
and
Oscar seatfillers.
Plus: Olly is DONE with Star Wars, so don’t even bother; Helen is waiting for the Emmys to introduce a podcasting category; and Martin the Sound Man could improve his gifting game.
Need something to ease you off the thrill of the Wimblesport, or hype you up for the imminent Olympics? Try the AMT Sports Day album from answermethisstore.com, where you can also purchase our other albums and episodes 1-200 – including AMTs 186 and 187 for the full Owl City experience by proxy. And remember to get your free audiobook at answermethispodcast.com/audible.
With Olly’s baby poised to make his entrance into this world, Answer Me This! Episode 331 is our last episode before our three-month paternity leave, while Olly adjusts to fatherhood and Helen adjusts to going outside occasionally. Savour answers about:
lads’ mags
cereal toys
spotting the stars of tomorrow as they toil at the Disney parks
‘For He’s as dead as a herring a Jolly Good Fellow’
swimming rabbits
cafes vs brasseries vs bistros
Jane Eyre vs Thelma and Louise
The Lord of the Rings road trips
Jo Guest Tutti Frutti in 3D
ceramic babies
blue rinses
Bulgarian food
Skyrim
Kevin Costner
and
Titcoin.
A question from AMT Love went astray and ended up as today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices). It’s from long-time AMT listener Ace: if you’re young, poor and in Oxford, and you want to go on a Tinder date but you don’t want it to be “Drink?” or “Coffee?”, what do you do instead? Why, you date AMT-style of course! Meet you by the singing cockroaches.
During our three months off, why not amuse yourself by starting a podcast/online store/website using today’s sponsor Squarespace.com? You can have 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year, plus a free domain thrown in, if you invoke the code ANSWER at checkout.
We will return in May, but keep in touch in the meantime at twitter.com/helenandolly and facebook.com/answermethis – which is where we will let you know the due date of AMT332 a couple of weeks ahead of time, AND where we will also post news of Baby Mann once he appears (and has been through hair and makeup, had a spray tan, and undergone intensive media training).
All together now: “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good herring…WHICH NOBODY CAN DENY.”
Helen & Olly
••• AMT331 Child-Friendly Rating: 42%
Some swears, but pretty clean until the last ten minutes, when there’s a question about lads’ mags and top shelf publications. YOU KNOW THE ONES WE MEAN. The ones your kids are too short to reach/don’t need to reach because they can view all the proclivities of humanity on your phone that they swiped from you. •••
Would you rather feel The Weeknd’s face or see Andy McNab’s face? Actually, you don’t have to choose; you’re probably equally capable of doing both/neither. But it’s something to think about while you listen to Answer Me This! Episode 327, in which we also deal with questions about:
party poppers
piercings vs mum’s disapproval
Sixpence None The Richer vs drug references
Olly vs his own feelings about Tom Cruise
being struck by lightning
vegetarian weddings
envious actors
humiliating ham
the moment Dr Martens ceased to be the footwear of rebels
and
Greek wine.
Plus: we learn who is Olly’s 47th favourite film star; Helen’s imaginary boyfriend didn’t even spring from her own imagination; and Martin the Teenage Physics Weirdo thinks people should express themselves through their appearance and through their weddings.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, Olly reveals: 1. what he thinks of ‘Golden Brown’ by The Stranglers; 2. which songs make him want to piss. We know you’ve been desperate to learn these two things, so rush to the app, which is available for iThings, Android and Windows devices.
Thanks very much to today’s sponsor Squarespace.com, who’ll give you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year (and with which you get a URL, loads of storage and 24/7 support) if you stand in front of the bathroom mirror and say five times use the code ANSWER.
••• AMT327 Child-Friendly Rating: 55%. Some swears, sex and drug references, and discussions that may encourage your offspring to modify their bodies with piercings or party poppers. •••
Good news! Well, good news for Olly and everyone worried that his nocturnal job was causing him to collapse in on himself like a dying star: he’s got a new job on LBC, presenting a show 8-10pm Fridays and 6.30-10pm Saturdays. The first one is tomorrow, so tune in! Meantime, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 311:
Therein:
the Queen of Starbucks (scroll down to the bottom of the post for the NSFW original Starbucks logo)
the Hollywood Walk of Fame (apply here for a star)
a bowling alley in your home
the dangers of being a stock photo the other Michael Jackson the other Harrison Ford
the real struggle in Moby-Dick
Buddha vs Budai Night Nurse vs Night Nurse
lazy Barbra Streisand critiquing your dick pics (link extremely NSFW)
and
the first known waterbed.
Plus: Olly would rather that rats do not accompany his sexytimes; Helen is still laughing about the typo on her grandmother’s gravestone; and and Martin the Sound Man enjoys his own parallel version of AMT.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows gadgets) we realise why it’s probably for the best that we don’t have a spare £200,000 to install a home bowling alley. Just imagine the bloodshed…
We’ll return on 16nd April 2015 with AMT312, joiiiiiiin ussssssssss,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT311 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. Strong swear word very near the beginning. 10 minutes in, there’s a question about nudie photos that you may wish your younglings to avoid. But after that, it’s pretty safe. If you start listening around 15 minutes in, it’d be at least 80% child friendly. •••
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (get it for iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets) there’s a little more about the history of Gotham. We think we’ve triangulated where Catwoman is pursuing her postgrad education.
Happy Scottish Referendum Day, everyone! To commemorate, in Answer Me This! Episode 298 we decipher what Scotland’s finest non-whisky exports the Proclaimers were going on about. Vote YES to listening:
We also contemplate:
actors’ posthumous endorsements
Jacob Frank
godparenting
James Brown’s bridge vs Robbie Williams’s bridge Henry Hoover
tubby Ryan Gosling vs Peter Jackson
tubby Jared Leto vs gout
tubby Christian Bale vs emaciated Christian Bale vs tubby Christian Bale vs emaciated Christian Bale
being shot in the shoulder vs being shot in the ball
and
‘Uptown Girl’.
Plus: Olly’s pet Roomba hates not hiding under the sofa; Helen hates disco; and Martin the Sound Man hates the ethics of the contracts for Baywatch, which is bad news for anybody hoping of a revival of that show starring Martin. Him running in slowmo down a beach, haversack full of microphones swaying seductively, will have to remain only in your imagination.
Ahem.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices old and new, Android or Windows playthings, we continue Cathy’s question about godparenting, and whether you’re obliged to buy a silver spoon for a baby. Because what says ‘Welcome to the world!’ as much as a spoon that tastes weird? Maybe we should start putting around the rumour that the traditional christening gift for godchildren is one of our albums or vintage episodes from answermethisstore.com. They’ll probably grow into it.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com, for sponsoring this episode, for allowing people to build and host websites easily and beautifully, and for offering you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer.
And joy of all joys, Martin the Sound Man has a delightful new album out, available now HERE. Make an old Sound Man happy by downloading those sounds.
We will return with AMT299 (TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY FRICKING NINE!!!!) on 2nd October, and we hope you do too.
Yours haveringly,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT298 Child-Friendly Rating: 52%. A few medium-ranking swears and an F-level swear. Discussion of dick-shaped vacuum cleaners and Barry Manilow’s penis, which latter may prove traumatic for all ages. •••
Answer Me This! Podcast 