We hope you enjoyed the Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part I last week. If you did, you’ll also enjoy The Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part II, and if you didn’t, maybe you’ll prefer The Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part II. Either way, you should listen to The Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part II:
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)
Wherein we meet again our auld acquaintances:
Phantom of the Opera
Hamlet Hamlet
Prince Philip’s bladder Killer Net
Angela Lansbury fantasies
R Kelly’s fancy parties
the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution
Devon vs Cornwall scone wars
sex Jenga
the Owl and the Pussycat
the 21st-century Sweeney Todd
Olly’s solo sex tape
Helen taking an off-brand fruit into the Apple store
and
Charlie’s Angles.
And there are more previously unheard bits of AMT, which you can have more of every week if you posess the AMT App, available for iDevices and Android – on which you also get our Best Of episodes from the past five years, if you trawl through diligently enough.
Please be generous with your QUESTIONS for AMT in 2013: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
We’ll be back on 10th January 2013, but you can still hear plenty of us before then:
• We’ll be running through the year’s biggest online events on Saturday Edition, BBC 5 Live 8pm 29th December or available shortly after as the Let’s Talk About Tech podcast.
• Olly will be Manning the microphone on LBC 97.3 FM, 1-4am most nights from Xmas Eve to Jan 3rd – check lbc.co.uk for the schedule, and rouse yourself from your festive stupor to give him a call and keep him company.
• Helen will crop up on BBC 5 Live’s Radio Review of 2012, hosted by Jane Garvey and Mike Sweeney, which will be broadcast on at 11pm on Christmas Eve, repeated 4pm on Christmas Day, or, if you want to listen at a more sensible time, it’ll be available on the 5 Live website straight after.
• You can hear us discussing Christmas gadgets and songs on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 2 on 20th December. UPDATE: Here’s the link to the item on iPlayer.
• And we wrote some bits for the Celebrity Juice Christmas Specials; part one is already on ITV Player and part two will follow on tonight.
We hope you have very happy festivities, and we’ll see you next year!
Helen & Olly
PS if you need more noise to drown out the sound of sleighbells and Wizzard, direct yourself to our Jubilee and Sports Day albums, as well as AMT1-120.
Plus: even a customised Segway won’t bring back Olly’s childhood joy; Helen will consider being your late mother’s marketing consultant, but only for actual MONEY not some old shoes; and click here to see the picture of Martin the Sound Man that brought all the boys to the yard – however do bear in mind that it IS just a picture of a 34-year-old man drinking a strawberry milkshake, nothing special. Martin’s new album, on the other hand, is very special – it comes out next week so preorder your copy HERE.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Helen complains about one of her legion linguistic bugbears: the word ‘umami’. Then turns it into a song, in an effort to make her like it better.
You know what we do like a very great deal? No, NOT pig sex; your QUESTIONS. Email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
YES. There are still a few days left till the polls, so America, put all your support behind one AMTfan’s campaign to get Helen’s mum to be your president.
Also, everybody everywhere, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 235:
Plus: Olly looks into his political crystal ball and sees Condi there; Helen broke a letter chain as a child, so little wonder she is a lonely layabout now; and Martin the Sound Man needs to delete his search history before we all find out why he knows such a lot about horse fluffers.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we examine how the scandal raging around Jimmy Savile could have devastating effects…upon the cement industry.
If you’d like to see us hold forth about podcasting in front of a very yellow Powerpoint presentation, click here to view the video of our talk at Next Radio. And/or if you would like us to return next week with more AMT, send us QUESTIONS: email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
Holed up in the Holiday Inn in Salford Quays, we contemplated holding a Bed-In for Peace. But then we realised that if we did, the already oversubscribed lifts would become clogged up with press and peaceniks, leaving all the other hotel guests feeling far from peaceful. So, sorry, peace; we made Answer Me This! Episode 232 instead:
Today we consider:
the Virgin Trains slow reveal
personal massagers
naughty Amazon
animal blood donation
magic oily fish
Les Rosbifs
immature students
maths vs. emotion
cottaging
Ping (who?)
and
the Holiday Inn pillow menu.
Plus: Olly would like to reverse decades of progress in gay rights just so he’s got something to read when he’s on the loo; Helen is unlikely to renew her wedding vows, unless the magazine deal is lucrative enough; and Martin the Sound Man goes off to have a rest in the rest room. He’s a very well-rested man.
Check out this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) if you’ve been wondering what happened next in the tale of vengeance from AMT231 and/or why your pineapple jelly won’t set.
We’re relieved to tell you that our Skype problem seems to be fixed, but if you used Skype to ask us a question in August or September, we never got it, so please ask it again by dialling up answermethis. You don’t need to worry if you sent a QUESTION via email (answermethispodcast@googlemail.com) or the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877); it’s safely swimming around with all the other questions in our question tank.
See you next Thursday!
Helen & Olly
Martin the Sound Man has a little alone time with the personal massager in the Holiday Inn.
Of course we love hearing about your lives; also when you sendusstuff. But this may have gone too far in Answer Me This! Episode 227:
Wherein we consider:
Zooey Deschanel
holiday money
Worcestershire Sauce
wanking off vs. jacking off
Olympics vs. Eurovision
Baron Pierre de Coubertin
the sporty Vatican
flying horses
pasta sauce
and
a table covered in ice cream.
Plus: Olly doesn’t like the look of Joey Potter’s chalice nowadays, but back in the 90s he did get a bit Dawson Leary (Dawson Leery, more like); Helen was a financially responsible child – yet another way in which she peaked too early; and Martin the Sound Man recommends keeping your pasta carbonara minimalist, even if you really need a little nipper of booze to get you through.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the AppiDevices and Android is a question from Joss which reveals Olly’s Napoleon Complex. This is concerning trees, not height, seeing as Olly is 6’3″ when he stands up straight.
Next week is our last episode before we take a month-long hiatus, so hurry and send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Happy Advent, Team AMT! Let’s open the first door of our advent calendar……..oh. It’s a bloody Robin Redbreast, like it is every bloody year. Better luck tomorrow, eh? At least there is the consolation of today’s other new surprise, Answer Me This! Episode 199:
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)
Plus: Olly warns against handling screwdrivers with your buttocks when attempting DIY tasks; Helen says NO to Grandpa Joe; and Martin the Sound Man plans the toast-based timelapse video that will be going viral shortly after he’s finished his breakfast.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Katherine about how to compile the perfect mixtape with which to woo her new boyfriend. We also learn how not to woo Olly’s mum, and how many Strangelove songs it is permissible to add to one compilation (clue: either one, or none).
We are VERY VERY EXCITED about next week’s episode, because it is of course going to be AMT200! It’s a milestone we never imagined we would reach, but by crikey, here we (almost) are. It will be a rather different affair to AMT100 – the party whistles are still ringing in our ears – but it’ll definitely be a bit special. And like every single one of the episodes preceding it, it will be based upon your QUESTIONS, so send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
As we’ve also mentioned, another AMT landmark lurks around the corner, namely our 5th BIRTHDAY, so help us celebrate by sending something suitable to the following address:
Brush your teeth extra-assiduously before bed tonight, because Answer Me This! Episode 198 is super-chocolatey. We learn about literal death by chocolate (not carob, as if!), wonder at the untold stories of Oh Henry! bars, and invoke the name of chocolate behemoth Helge Rubinstein, again. Hear here:
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)
Amongst the subjects tumbling out of our mouths this week are:
Plus: Olly wants to take down Annie Lennox, gently; Helen declines ‘pie’ (in the linguistic sense, rather than in the sense of turning down pie); and Martin the Sound Man teaches us an important lesson about diversity in evolution. We also recommend you check out the illustration which accompanies the final question in the episode, which can be found HERE.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App recounts where Olly had the Time of His Liiiiife – at his bar mitzvah in 1994. Have the time of your lives by firing up your iDevices or Android to get it.
We implore you to send your QUESTIONS to us, by leaving voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) and emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; but we also yearn for your hard-copy, old-fashioned postal correspondence to celebrate our forthcoming 5th BIRTHDAY! So please do send us something celebratory, to the following address:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
We really will be beside ourselves with joy to receive something from you, with which to festoon AMT Towers for our birthday extravaganza.
Well, listeners, this is it. The last episode for a month – Answer Me This! Episode 191:
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 our last yaps before shutting up for a month, we speak of:
Gossip Girl‘s out-of-character choice of search engine
Tate & Lyle
Envirofone
Jon Snow’s laptop
cinder toffee Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Samson speed-dating
iPhones vs. traditional toilet reading
bio vs. non-bio
blue plastic champagne flutes vs. classiness
Rihanna’s Navy vs. Bruno Mars’s Hooligans vs. K£sha’s Animals
female magnets
and
paediatric brine.
Plus: Olly reveals the secret to his Oxford success – York Notes; Helen has worrying plans to become a major soak over the break; and Martin the Sound Man will be jetting off to space on the back of the Philips Man Iron. Brrrrm brrm!
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App is about newsreader Kay Burley’s eggs, which are available exclusively to denizens of the Sky News make-up room – unlike the AMT app, which is available to any old chump with an iPhone, iPad or Android device.
Though we are off-air for a month, we’ll still be updating this site, and more importantly collecting QUESTIONS for the new series. So send them along, by leaving voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and sending emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We hope you have a smashing month, and we’ll you on October 13th, bright and early!
Round here, we thought there’s no way the opening ceremony of next year’s London Olympics could be anything but a damp squib. Given our Glorious Nation’s inherent shyness, we assumed we’d be lucky if the expected pageantry ascended such heights as the whole squad doing the David Brent dance, with commentary from Myleene Klass wearing a low-cut dress and speaking only in adjectives. But au contraire, we were much mistaken! Here, in Answer Me This! Episode 170, we discover what’s going to make the Olympics go with a bang:
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)
Accompanying the episode, like a flock of primary schoolkids wearing national dress, are topics including:
Booze Britain Ibiza Uncovered
Winston Churchill
coffee stirrers Jaws
dog trends
Wiesbaden Danger UXB
monkeys in clothes
fancy-dress football
the abandoned bomb register
Jonathan Creek’s downtime
illegal snoods
the other Martin Austwick the real-life Miss Marple
dihydroxyacetone
and the Maillard Reaction.
Plus: Olly is silenced by booze; Helen’s not going to be winning a car anytime soon; and Martin the Sound Man intimates that the dinosaurs might have survived, if only someone had bought them little pink coats with diamante on. Martin would also like you to know that his latest album is out today, which is sadly diamante-free but not without other compensations – download or buy a special edition physical copy here.
Today’s Bit of Crap on the App is the Deleted Scenes from our chat about amateur detectives. How does one get from the FBI to Paul Ross in five easy steps? Find out for yourself on iPhone or Android.
We be wanting your QUESTIONS for next week, so send them as voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And you know what else is next week? Red Nose Day! So if you fancy a bit of pain-free fundraising (ie no climbing mountains or digging latrines or songs involving Bob Geldof), please come along to Literary Death Match on Friday 18th March, in which Helen joins Spaced alumna Jessica StevensonHynes to judge the bookish equivalent of sumo wrestling.
This week, we learn how to arm yourself in the event of the outbreak of cyber-warfare. Start digging a hole in your virtual back garden for your Javascript Anderson shelter; lay down supplies of canned goods, water, batteries, masking tape and binbags (because even in an emergency you need to be able to cobble together a rudimentary fancy-dress costume), and load up your rifle with Answer Me This! Episode 168:
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)
Conversational shrapnel includes:
Steamboat Willie True Grit
Alan Turing
Nicole Kidman News in Briefs
topless Kelvin MacKenzie
Sharon Stone’s dress-down Oscar-day
puntits
Victorinox
the Colosseum vs the O2 Arena
perfectly controllable semis
John Virgo
Marchesa
and
swim-gimps.
Plus: Olly’s not going to fall for your elaborate apple-tasting double-bluff, wiseguy; Helen will take out your unwanted small pets, no questions asked; and Martin the Sound Man swims like a middle-aged woman. This is almost as good a show as the Geekpop show he’s playing on 10th March, for which you can and should get tickets via geekpop.co.uk. There’ll be a taster of his new album, Songs from the Scientific Cabaret, at the end of the show next week, so let that be the bright point of light at the end of the tunnel that is the next seven days.
You can also enliven the next seven days by sending us QUESTIONS, which you can then pose to us in a voicemail to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And if you still find yourself with time to spare, you could squander a few more seconds on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android), which contains further musing upon what the whole deal is with Snow White. What’s with them apples? Eh?
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.
Remember a few days ago, when Britain was still capable of having conversations about things that aren’t SNOW? Me neither, but SNOW-free Episode 159 is a throwback to those clement times:
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)
Topics on this week’s crib-sheet include:
SNOW
litigious Times New Roman
Shetland ponies
the Mildenhall treasure Jacob’s Ladder
the Crusades
zebra piss
londonollypics.com
flattering spectacles Kramer vs. Kramer
the BBC vs. Boston Business Computing
laser eye surgery vs. A Clockwork Orange
Las Vegas vs. Trafalgar Square
pet griffins
the Crystal Palace water-towers
the penalty for banging Prince Philip
cybersquatting
Stanmore the Monkfish
the MGM lion
and
Martin the Sound Man’s favourite fountain.
Plus: Olly salves his wounds from losing last week’s Queen’s Speech debate by triumphing in his other specialist subject: Macaulay Culkin’s uncredited early work; tedious stories thwart Helen’s attempts to compose the Zaltzman family tree; and Martin will sort out your myopia for a fiver and a bucket of chicken wings, no questions asked. Also, this week’s Bit of Crap on the App describes an inappropriate use for a lovely dollshouse (clue: it’s not this).
In the event that you too have things to say that aren’t about SNOW – preferably QUESTIONS – then please get in touch by leaving a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
If you can make it through the SNOW, then please come along to one of our imminent book readings and signings – there’s one in London this weekend, 3.30pm on Saturday 4th at The Social on Little Portland Street, then there’s another in Brighton, 7.30pm on Wednesday 8th at Waterstone’s Clocktower.
Answer Me This! Podcast 