Hello pets! This month is the British Podcast Awards, and you can vote for AMT in the Listeners’ Choice category, you know, if you choose to. Click here to do it. If you need to remember why you love us, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 362. Today we consider:
Meghan Markle’s citizenship post-marriage
My Dad Ate A Pringle
baked bean hummus
celebs in specs
labyrinths vs mazes
atheism vs romance
God Save The Queen vs My Country ‘Tis Of Thee vs every other bloody country’s anthem with the same tune
dangerous beans King Minos’s palace Princess Michael’s brooch El Parador (try the broad bean paste!)
and
a life-sized cutout of Kylie Minogue.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we continue our Beanchat, and learn about keeping deer out of your flowerbeds, deflating a swollen scrotum, and this predicament that Helen’s eyelid got itself into.
Check in with our other work: Helen and Martin are on stage in the next few weeks, with Radiotopia in the eastern USA, the Bugle in the western USA, and the Allusionist in Australia in June. You can check where and when and how at theallusionist.org/events. Hear the modern Olly Mann on The Modern Mann at modernmann.co.uk.
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the show, and for making it so easy to set up a good-looking website for your projects. Visit squarespace.com/answer; play around during the two-week free trial; then when you’re ready to buy your website or domain, you can have get 10% off your first purchase with the discount code ‘answer‘.
If you are in the UK, you can also get two free Audible audiobooks if you go to answermethispodcast.com/audible. Remember to set a calendar alert for 29 June so you get this done before the 30 June 2018 deadline!
There’s no deadline for sending us your QUESTIONS: any time, deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You can still use the old ways of calling the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, but a lot of those messages haven’t been reaching us lately. So emailing a voice memo is the safer bet.
Wow. It took more than eleven years and 360 episodes, but it has at last happened:
Our first ever question about the Bowling for Soup.
(Who? (No, that’s not the actual question.))
Try to contain yourselves on this landmark occasion as you listen to Answer Me This! Episode 360, in which we also learn about:
astronauts’ dirty underwear
Sushidoku™
bears
the biggest ever cruise ship
sleeping in your grandpa’s old bed sploofs
skunks vs skunk
seeing a rocket launch
and
the Blockbusters Hand Jive.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – Helen craves more information from behind the scenes at the Hanoi water puppet show. (Someone please tell us: how do the performers cope with the water and the boredom, HOW?)
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the show, and for making it so easy to set up a good-looking website for your projects. 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‘. Is it safe? Of course it’s safe!
You can also get two free Audible audiobooks if you go to answermethispodcast.com/audible. Two free audiobooks are better than one free audiobook which is better than no free audiobooks, so get yourself free audiobooks!
Send us your QUESTIONS: deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You can still use the old ways of calling the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, but a lot of those messages haven’t been reaching us lately or are coming out sounding like you’ve just been eaten by a robot. So a voice memo is a safer bet.
We’ll be back with AMT361 on 5 April 2018, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 22 March.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT360 Child-Friendly Rating: 71%. Not very bawdy or sweary, but does include a question about weed-smoking, and also reflections upon one’s parents’ mortality. •••
Jelly in your pipes,
Jelly in your pipes,
Wibbly wobbly wibbly wobbly
Jelly in your pipes!
Seriously, people, don’t pour jelly into your pipes. It will prove a trifle problematic.
Other matters considered in Answer Me This! Episode 348:
the sorting hat spider
the Harry Potter crab
the Michael Crichtonsaurus
The Great British Bake Off/Pottery Throwdown/Jelly-Off
charcoal vs teeth
the Liberty Bell vs Big Ben (WHICH IS A BELL (and you’re a bell if you point this out, matey))
your neighbour vs kangaroos
kangaroos vs breast implants
Caesar salads
passports: i) front cover of; ii) losing at airports
and
a slightly hairy elephant.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – there’s a counter-claim as to the inventor of the Caesar salad, and Olly purloins a posh example of the dish.
Occupy your ears with our other audio projects: Olly hosts The Week Unwrapped and has returned with a new season of The Modern Mann; Helen’s Allusionist has more eponyms for your consumption; and Martin’s Song By Song currently features Helen’s brother Andy Zaltzman and his wife Miranda, making her podcasting debut.
You can also hear all the AMT special albums and episodes 1-200 if you shop at answermethisstore.com. Don’t forget: to receive one retro episode every month in your feed, subscribe to AMT on your podcatcher of choice!
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‘.
Cuddle up, listeners. Recorded on the day of the US election before the result came in, Answer Me This! Episode 344 is a relic of the pre-Trump era, in which we blithely speak of:
Plus: Olly will lie through his artificially whitened teeth to get on the radio; Helen was lured onto Late Night Womanʼs Hour under false pretences; and Martin the Sound Man used to love a good read of the Argos Catalogue.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, Olly describes his happy place. Yes, it is Disney-related. 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‘.
Ever worried that if you donate blood, someone might have it transfused into their body then incriminate you in their crime? No, us neither, but one questioneer is concerned. Hear his fear in Answer Me This! Episode 343, as well as:
Plus: Olly concocts a brilliant/ridiculous Jonathan Creek plot;
Helen misses working as a barmaidbartender, even if she was effectively a parody of the role; and Martin the Sound Man would like you to bring him flowers, please.
The Mann family firearm features in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App. 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‘.
The last AMT recording in the show’s birthplace and home (also Helen and Martin’s home)
Well, this is it: the final episode to be recorded at the Zaltzwick homestead, at the housewarming party of which Olly came up to Helen and asked her to do a podcast. You know what happened next…
If you DON’T know what happened next: a shitload of episodes. Including the latest, Answer Me This! Episode 337, in which we discuss:
tandems
Native American food
fingerprints
coconut oil
what to drink with your kebab The Beef and Dairy Network
celebrity soap opera cameos breaking down the fourth wall
planting evidence
oil pulling
and
reading mum’s diary.
Plus: how The Archers affects Olly’s libido; how soup repels Helen more than a plateful of brains; how Martin the Sound Man ruins/elevates a future episode of Miss Marple.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Kirsty from Edinburgh about The Casket and Sunnyside magazine, formerly the number 1 toilet read for the funeral industry. Get the app on your Apple, Android and Windows devices. For further audio, treat yourself to a free audiobook at answermethispodcast.com/audible.
We forgot to mention that today’s intermission is from AMT121; get it, or any of AMTs 1-200, from answermethisstore.com. You’ll find our albums there as well; the Olympic Times are also the AMT Sports Day Times, and Summer Holiday Times are also the Answer Me This! Holiday Times. But both of those albums still work if you shun the Olympics and/or holidays.
To send us questions for future episodes, email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, call the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, and leave us a voicemail by Skyping answermethis or calling 0208 123 5877. Did you recognise the songs in Thom from Pennsylvania’s supercut of the phone jingle? They were:
0 – Maneater by Hall and Oates
2 – Another One Bites the Dust by Queen
0 – Wake Up by Arcade Fire
8 – Too Late by Carole King
1 – One by Three Dog Night
2 – Just the Two of Us by Bill Withers
3 – Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad by Meatloaf
5 – 8675309 by Tommy Tutone
double – Double Trouble by Lynyrd Skynyrd
7 – Seven by Prince
••• AMT337 Child-Friendly Rating: 70%. Are there any swears in this episode at all? There is a non-graphic question about sex, that may tip a child off to the fact that their parent may have had it. But they have to acknowledge this sooner or later. •••
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. •••
Happy new year to you, listeners, and here’s your first dose of AMT for 2016. In Answer Me This! Episode 330, we ponder upon:
All Saints – not the band, the shop
Della Duck
Air Force One
boxing belts
remembering people’s names
Tom Cribb vs Tom Molyneux vs George Foreman Grills
Carson vs Alfred vs Jeeves
the psychology of Hampton Court
presidential decoys
and
Jacuzzi bubbles.
Plus: Olly dreams of being like Kathy Bates (in About Schmidt, not in Misery); in the Battle of the Butlers, Jeeves is Helen’s man – even if he’s a ‘gentleman’s gentleman’ rather than a butler; and Martin the Sound Man makes a new friend in the jacuzzi.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iThings, Android and Windows devices – we consider a sporting event that appeals to fans of both board games and blood sports: chessboxing.
Thanks very much to today’s sponsor Squarespace.com, who’ll give you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you invoke the code ANSWER. And if you do so, you’re showing Squarespace that they should continue supporting this show, so we all win. Unlike chessboxing, which we’d probably all lose.
SCHEDULING ANNOUNCEMENT: Olly’s baby is due out imminently. AMT331 will land on 28th January 2015, and after that, we’ll be taking three months off for paternity leave. We’ll let you know any news about the Mannbaby as soon as it/he arrives!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT330 Child-Friendly Rating: 85%. Maybe a couple of swears? Low on bawdy content. Overall: pretty respectable. •••
Answer Me This! Episode 308 is a surprisingly jobs-themed episode, with questions about whether your tertiary education should prepare you for one, to how your hair can affect your ability to get one, to what you do when you lose one.
On today’s roster are such topics as:
cat-cleaning
pink hair
green hair
vocations
FDR’s hot dog banquet Bill Clinton’s night out with the lads
redundancy
sleeping naked
fainting at Elvis
and
throwing knickers at Tom Jones.
Plus: a typo made Olly a lot more popular in 90s chatrooms; if you’ve been made redundant, join Helen at the Daytime Cinema Club; and Martin the Sound Man manages to make a big pile of underwear sound like the grossest, most unappealing, least sexy thing possible.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – which you can get for your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets – we continue to contemplate the question about how our nightwear-averse questioneer could dress for slumber. There must be a compromise between a tutu and a full suit of armour.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘ANSWER‘. Which you should, to demonstrate your devotion to this podcast.
Since we are devoted to providing you with this podcast, we’ll return on 5th March 2015 with AMT309.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT308 Child-Friendly Rating: 64%. A few swears, though the strongest are right at the end, so you could cut out before then. Very mild bawdiness in the question about naked sleeping, but nothing that would startle a nun. •••
Listeners, thank you so much for contributing your attention, questions and eartime to us this year. What a year it has been! Relisten to the highlights – and lowlights, including such annual delights as the Parade of Melancholy Calls and the blooper reel – in The Best of Answer Me This! 2014:
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)
So many precious moments… Create more of them in 2015 by sending us your QUESTIONS: leave a message on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
By the way, if you have the AMT app on your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets, you have access to all the previous AMT Best Ofs. For those of you who are app-less, you can obtain these joyous compilations from answermethisstore.com/best. Also at the AMT store, iTunes and Amazon, you can buy our albums and old episodes – the perfect festive gift for the AMT fan, ie you, and the perfect gift for us, ie money to continue making the show next year.
Another Christmas gift we would love is for you to tell a friend about the show! There are still a few billion people in the world who are yet to hear it, so do your bit to remedy this sad situation.
Happy Thanksgiving to AMT’s American pals! Today’s episode is thematically appropriate for you, since it involves a question about Disney’s turkey legs; so don your turkey boxer shorts and turkey tops, strap on your turkey watch, inhale the delicious scent of turkey, plug in your turkey headphones and listen to Answer Me This! Episode 303*:
We also speak of such non-turkey topics as:
mirrors in the gym
sexy cheese
a pat from Paul Daniels
the Dewey Decimal System
Meville Dewey vs Melvil Dui
McDonald’s bagels
wanking into bagels
ripping off Starbucks
hidden Mickeys Fifty Shades of Grey-based pranks
and
cat scat chat.
Plus: Olly favours almond milk over animal milk (maybe the question about cheesy handjobs put him off); size matters to Helen, when it comes to shelving second-hand books; and Martin the Sound Man is never going to be a serial TV quiz contestant
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets) is stuffed full of praise for the bountiful foods of Manchester. If you like the sound of the Answer Me This! Christmas – and even Scrooge can get behind it – then you can buy it and episodes 1-170 as an early prezzie for yourself at answermethisstore.com. You’re funding the future of AMT with your purchases, so Thank You from the future!
We’ll be back with AMT304 on 11th December 2014; stay out of trouble in the meantime,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT303 Child-Friendly Rating: 30%. Sweary from the off. Obscene question about cheese ten minutes in, followed by a Fifty Shades of Grey-based prank, then the possibly non-consensual and definitely unprotected sex in Phantom of the Opera. Overall, not an episode to listen to on the school run. •••
* And here is Helen sporting one of your traditional Thanksgiving hats:
Plus: Olly is on equal celebrity footing with Jason Donovan; Helen would LOVE it if you could chip in for the Radiotopia Kickstarter (read why here); and Martin the Sound Man brings physics into coin design, because anything and everything can be made less fun with physics.
Along with every episode, there’s a Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, so get it for your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets. And if you want to get 10% off our benevolent sponsors Squarespace.com for a year, deploy the code ‘answer’.
Answer Me This! Podcast 