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.
Brace yourselves to witness a crushing defeat: in Answer Me This! Episode 375, Helen is stumped by a question. What could be the topic to outwit her and her googling powers? Must be something pretty major, right?
Riiight.
We also consider:
microwaveable eggs benedict
spaghetti bolognese crisps
online scratchcards
political pincushions
lucky tomatoes
Sherlock Holmes’s cocaine habit Vin Mariani
the Blue Peter appeal vs Kickstarter Emma‘s maybe murder vs Drew in Neighbours
noses vs penises
dryer balls vs drier balls
Future Probe
and
cleaning a sieve.
This month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – is a quick update on the Zaltzparents’ microwave situation. It’s hot stuff! Literally.
In The Modern Mann, Olly’s learning how to bust a fake psychic; in the Allusionist, there’s the surprising history of the word bisexual; and Martin the Sound Man’s 2018 diary of songs The Year of the Bird has reached the point where he’s relieved Helen didn’t die last year.
Helen and Martin will also be on at the London Podcast Festival, performing the new live Allusionist show No Title on 14 September and, earlier that day, a recording of the film podcast 90 Minutes or Less, including a screening of a film! Ticket links for all the fixtures are at theallusionist.org/events
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, with which you can easily and quickly set up a good-looking website for your projects eg your Oscar-nominated documentary. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Happy National Bagel Day Eve Eve! How are you planning to celebrate? By covering yourself in seeds and filling yourself with cream cheese? Probably just a normal day for you. Anyway, get into the NBD mood by listening to Answer Me This! Episode 370, wherein we discuss:
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we hear about Olly’s pet fish Mr Reverend Fish.
Check in with our other work: Helen makes the entertainment show about language The Allusionist, recently featuring Susie Dent off Countdown; Olly’s show The Week Unwrapped deals with the news stories you haven’t been hearing about; and Martin the Sound Man is releasing a new song a week as part of his new 40-track mega album The Year of the Bird, complete with illustrations and diaries about each song. Get it from palebirdmusic.com.
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, with which you can easily and quickly set up a good-looking website for your projects. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
As for every episode so far and for every episode yet to come, we want your QUESTIONS: send them, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Apologies for the unscheduled absence of a fresh episode in July, listeners: Helen’s neck had other plans for the past few weeks. But hooray, Helen is out of hospital and all new Answer Me This! Episode 364 is here! WARNING: there’s a bit of Medical Stuff in the first few minutes of this episode, so if you’re sensitive to that, skip to the 4-minute mark, after which you can hear about:
Paw Patrol vs the football World Cup
post-swim communal shower etiquette
cosmetology Cast Away
jesters’ staffs
cranberry farming
lost birthday presents Bram Stoker’s Dracula
and
an inflated bladder on a stick.
There is more cranberry-chat in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices. We discover a previous, more ferocious name for the fruit, and reminisce about The Delia Effect (not a euphemism for a UTI or the soothing thereof with cranberry juice).
Check in with our other work: Olly hosts The Modern Mann; and Helen and Martin are performing the Allusionist live show on stages in the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada this autumn – check where and when at theallusionist.org/events.
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 and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
The Bluffers’ Guides are back! Rapidly become passingly well-informed in subjects from cats to fishing to social media to wine at bluffers.com.
Send 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.
With a spring in your step and a scent in your nostrils and a freshly cleaned undercarriage and Answer Me This! Episode 361 in your ears, join us to consider:
Smell-O-Vision
reclaiming skipping for the adult man
museum buddies the Dalí museum
bidet chat
baby equipment the perfect baby bottle warmer
getting aboard Michael Palin
crystal prawn cocktail glasses
and
Trainy McTrainface.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we have a bonus question from prolific questioneer Lindon from Huddersfield about how to cut off the ex-housemate who’s still a parasite upon Lindon’s Spotify account.
Want to see Helen and Martin live on stage? (NB that’s ‘live’ in an adverbial sense, not a verbal sense. Although they will be alive on stage. They just don’t live on one. Why do you have to make everything so complicated?) They’ll be touring with Radiotopia in the eastern USA in May and the Allusionist in Australia in June, and you can check where and when and how at theallusionist.org/events. And hear all about Olly’s grandmother’s amazing piss-based beauty routine 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‘.
You can also get two free Audible audiobooks if you go to answermethispodcast.com/audible. Why don’t you listen along with Olly to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s memoir? He turned TS Eliot’s poetry into a hit musical and Thomas the Tank Engine into what looks like a load of off-brand Power Rangers on roller skates – what ISN’T he capable of?
You are capable of sending 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 emailing a voice memo is the safer bet.
Upon the last Winter Olympics in 2014, we fair shat ourselves with surprise and delight when Lizzy Yarnold, who won gold for Team GB in the skeleton, listens to AMT! She’s competing again this time, so GOOD LUCK, Lizzy. Do it for all of us who get most of our exercise running for the ice cream van.
People of all athletic abilities, Olympian or not: get ready to race through Answer Me This! Episode 359, to learn about:
pope tropes
hotel toothpaste
chewing toothpicks
your auntie’s Facebook pic Dave Claus The Santa Dave
Defence Against the Dark Arts
Dumbledore’s aptitude for HR
the Center Parcs trees
the Center Parcs dome
the Center Parcs soft play that’s located in the bar/the Center Parcs bar that’s located in the soft play
karakia
cocktail swords
buttermilk
butterfat
and
globules.
Plus: we hear the latest in Olly’s gold pen nightmare scenario #OllyMannProblems; Martin figures out his title for when, as a Son of Santa, he inevitably takes up Santa duties; and Helen is already running down the beach to go swimming with some snazzy fish, so SEE YA.
The conversation about advance ticket-buying continues in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – as Olly wonders whether his son, aged 2, will be too sophisticated to enjoy the Teletubbies live on the stages of Hertfordshire..
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the show, and for making it so easy to set up a good-looking website for your business, store, restaurant, art portfolio, band, podcast, smug travel wankery, etc. Have a go 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‘.
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.
It’s AMT’s 11th birthday! To celebrate, we can’t replicate how Olly spent his own 11th birthday, at Cody’s Tex-Mex restaurant in Stevenage, because it closed down. So instead we’ve made some mild-to-moderate life changes – hear all about them Answer Me This! Episode 358, in which we also consider:
Nicole Scherzinger’s rancid yoghurt-nose
chutney WHY WHY WHY
goldfish as gifts
glass coffins
dairy for ditzes
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Forty Dragons
Goldilocks and the Three Bears Scant Plot
the price of gold pens
jamnesty
kalettes
piranha ribs
hot tubs vs hot pot
and
Olly Mannhood.
Should we be flattered that some of you have named your sexy body parts after us? Is it some kind of ultra-effective contraceptive? Because if you need a libido-killer, you’ve really invented a great one.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – contains some listener suggestions for David who complained in episode 355 that strangers won’t leave him alone because his dog is too cute. David should have looked for tips in the documentary about the making of Moonwalker! It’s OBVIOUS!
You still have a couple of weeks to get our most recent Retro AMT, the Best of 2010 part 1 – a good year! For AMT japes, anyway. All our Best Of compilations, as well as episodes 1-200 and our five special albums, are available to buy from the AMT store.
Thanks to today’s sponsors: first direct, whose online banking services you can find at firstdirect.com; and those stalwarts of podcast support Squarespace. Have a go 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 for AMT in 2018: send us 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, and we hate to think of your intriguing witty questions being lost to us.
We’ll be back with AMT359 on 1 February 2018, and with a Retro AMT episode on 18 January. And if you’re in or near San Francisco on 12 January, get a ticket HERE to see Helen and Martin at SF Sketchfest.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT358 Child-Friendly Rating: 38%. Mostly ok, but the question about naming your genitals after us might traumatise your innocent offspring forever. •••
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. •••
Today’s questioneers have family troubles: troubles with their parents’ TMI; troubles with being an egg-peeling mother; troubles with having spawned a kid who’s a bit of an arsehole. Oh, the truth hurts.
You know what else hurts? Being a chicken at an 18th century fairground. Find out why in Answer Me This! Episode 324, in which we also discuss:
Disney jail
clock memes
peanuts vs monkey nuts
coconut shy vs cock shy
lard Oreos
omelette stations
oversharing parents
Yankee Doodle vs Pretty Fly For A White Guy
historical hipsters The Eggstractor (approach with caution)
boners
and
BONGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!
Plus: Olly delivers TMI about both breakfast buffets and boners (separately, not together, although we wouldn’t put it past him); even after 30 years, Helen is still in the grip of the Brownies’ indoctrination; and Martin the Sound Man has a new podcast, and the whole first series is OUT NOW at songbysongpodcast.com, so go and listen to it (after you’ve finished AMT324 first, of course).
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iThings, Android and Windows devices – we wonder where all the diabolical pop covers of Yankee Doodle are. And before you say, “Careful what you wish for,” NB we are NOT wishing for this. Stand down, Pitbull. Zip it, Rednex.
However, there is no need to exercise such restraint when it comes to trying out today’s sponsor Squarespace.com. Use the code ANSWER to get 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year, which include a URL, loads of storage and 24/7 support. Go on, stop talking about it and start making the website of your dreams.
We’ll return on 15th October 2015 with AMT325. BONGGGGGGGG!!!!!!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT324 Child-Friendly Rating: 70%. We weren’t being especially vigilant about swears, but nor were we being particularly sweary. There is talk of boners, but in an educational more than XXX manner. •••
I recently offered to look after my aunt and uncle’s dog while they are away on holiday. I’m a student, and my timetable for that week is really quiet, so I thought I’d be nice and offer to do it.
I had assumed, although it wasn’t discussed, that they would give me some payment in return for me taking a week of my time to do this. It would cost them at least £150 to put him in kennels, but they would never do that as they would be worried he’d get upset in kennels. They earn a decent wage, could easily afford to pay me something, and without me doing this they wouldn’t be able to go on holiday.
It has however became apparent that they don’t intend on paying me for this. My gran spoke to them and asked if I was getting paid, to which the response was, “Oh no, he offered to do it, why would we give him anything?” She feels I should be getting paid, but that it would be rude for her to suggest they paid me something. I feel that although money wasn’t discussed up front, a week of my time is at least worth something, and I shouldn’t need to ask about it.
So answer me this: am I being unreasonable to expect that I should be at least getting something for my time, and is there any way in which I can tactfully ask for them to pay me? My dad would probably do it, but I don’t really want to put him in an awkward situation. Or am I just being greedy?
This is why you always negotiate the finances up front!
It’s too bad your gran didn’t push a little further, since she’d already made some inroads. See if she’ll act as your agent, in return for a cut of the resulting fee. Maybe she can play hardball and not only push up the money, but also persuade them to throw in some deluxe snacks.
But it is awkward to talk about money and even more awkward to have the awkward money conversation with family members, since any unresolved awkwardness now will return with interest at Christmas. Readers, what would you do? Advise Anonymous Man in the comments.
MISSING PERSON ALERT! If you are the elusive J formerly of Portland – or you know him (identifying features: tattooed; can make coffee; listens to AMT) – please, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 322 to hear a J-aimed plea, as well as:
selfie stick casualties
Morris merch
Desperate Dan
Aussie Man and Van vs A Nice Man With a Van
Disney Parks vs American National Parks
spa breaks
fear of holidays
phone a friend PopMaster
stag do fun
and
hair transplants.
Plus: if Olly’s head is looking a bit red, that’s just his hair deciding to grow back; Helen will need an activity break to recover from the stress of a spa relaxation break; and Martin the Sound Man recommends a nice relaxing tour of the castles of Wales.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iThings, Android and Windows devices – Olly rejects the original Dennis the Menace for a foreign imposter.
Do not make the mistake of rejecting today’s sponsor Squarespace.com. Use the code ANSWER to get 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year, which include a URL, loads of storage and 24/7 support. Nowt wrong with that.
in AMT315, Olly and I disagreed over procedure for questioneer C who, after some incriminating messages popped up on the iPad she’d borrowed, discovered that her boyfriend’s dad had been pursuing some extramarital interests. You lot seem to disagree too; DP writes:
I side with Olly re the inadvertent viewing of a private email on an iPad. If the dad-in-law is having a bit on the side that’s his affair (geddit?).
If the inadvertent email viewer is so shocked and feels she must blow the whistle she could torpedo what may be an otherwise happy marriage. Does she want that responsibility? If she shuts up nobody gets hurt. If she talks, she’s doing it out of a sense of moral outrage, pushing her values on other people.
And what if the in laws have an open marriage? She will look pretty silly. Adultery is a lot more common than people think. Isn’t there a saying: “What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over”?
Whereas, from my corner, Andy from Littlehampton writes:
Surely the only option she has is to speak to her partner about it. I can’t understand why you would suggest brushing it under the carpet and lying about it to her other half. It is only going to eat away at her, and if or when it does come out, which it probably will, and she hasn’t told anyone, she’d feel dreadful.
It is her partner’s decision to speak to his father, and find out if there is an innocent explanation.
My dad had an affair with another woman and if I found out that my wife had known earlier and hadn’t said anything, it would have caused serious problems in our relationship.
You don’t solve one lie, by telling another.
What do you think? Seems to me there’s no right answer – but perhaps you can come up with one in the comments.
Answer Me This! Podcast 