Prepare yourself, because there’s a moment of extreme eldritch in AMT417. We weren’t ready. Can we truly be ready?
We also discuss:
massage products for bees fish-shaped soy sauce (here’s that 13-second vacuum video btw, comment if you find a full version) the oldest ballet dancers (hey listen to A Dancer Dies Twice) Stacey Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out shotgun knobstick weddings three line whips zero percent proof drinks what to do with 52 very similar baby photos what to do with 52 baby teeth?!?!!?* spuriously rebranding Bloomsbury our fave classic misbegotten hashtag and older names for AMT’s original home, the southeast London neighbourhood Crystal Palace.
That time we gussied up George Ezra’s song ‘Budapest’ was AMT373 by the way.
Send us your questions for new episodes, and your feedback on old ones for Answer Us Back, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com in writing or voice note, or leave a voicemail at 0208 123 5877 like the old days. Remember to include the formula “Helen and/or Olly, answer me this”, and let us know a name (pseudonyms are fine) and pronouns to use for you. AMT418 will be out 28 May 2026 and Answer Us Back on 14 May.
Become a patron at patreon.com/answermethis to get an ad-free version of AMT417 and a batch of Bonus Bits each month, plus our video livestreams Petty Problems. If you sign up at one of the higher Patreon tiers, you get access to an RSS feed with ALL the AMT stuff EVER, including our entire back catalogue, our six themed albums, the retro AMTs, and every Bit of Crapp from the AMT App. AND you’re keeping this show going!
Helen makes the entertainment podcast about language, The Allusionist, and she just made an appearance on the episode Word Wrangling of the science fiction sitcom podcast We Fix Space Junk.
Martin makes the weird experimental podcast Neutrino Watch, where each episode is a little different each day you download it. He also has a new album coming out soon, so get hyped for that by digging into the back catalogue of his songs, available via his Bandcamp.
This episode is sponsored by:
Saily, flexible eSIM data roaming plans for when you’re abroad. Download SAILY in your app store and use our code amt15 at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase. For further details go to saily.com/amt15.
The London Review of Books, the twice-monthly literary mag full of essays, reviews and more by excellent writers. Get a 6 month print and digital subscription for just £12 at LRB.me/answer.
Squarespace, the all in one platform for creating and running your online empire. Go to squarespace.com/answer, play around with the two-week free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, get a 10% discount on your first purchase of a website or domain with the code ANSWER.
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)
Join us for a jaunt through The Best of Answer Me This! 2015, where we revisit such bright spots from the year as:
And, as every year, there are the Previously Unheard Bits of AMT, plus our favourite: the Melancholy Voicemail Parade.
Haven’t heard the Best Of AMT collections from previous years? Get them at answermethisstore.com/best. All the hits, none of the shits!
Also while you’re at the AMT store, you can buy our classic episodes, albums and apps. By doing so, you’re supporting the show – and obliterating the howling silence, right?
Why are we leering over an inaccurate drawing of Her Maj? Find out in Answer Me This! Episode 310:
Today we consider:
Brownies
bacon
Hamlet cigars
cleaning your stovetop cleaning like Robocop
the redundancy of toothpaste
the ethics of Tesco Clubcard vouchers
Jurassic Park: The Ballet
Home Alone: The Ballet
Miss Saigon: The Helicopter
post-coital smoking
post-coital tristesse
and
chicken-flavoured crisps.
Plus: Olly is ready to join a Cub Pack for adults; Helen campaigns for Cheetos to be sold in the UK; and the latest victim of Martin the Sound Man’s uncanny impersonations is Jeff Goldblum. What did Goldblum ever do to you, Martin? We also hear back from AMT308 questioneer Lizzie, whose life is getting more Sliding Doors with every passing episode.
For further beanery following AMT309, peruse the listener-submitted Bean Gallery, and listen to today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows gadgets) in which listener Nick describes his recent experience of sitting in a baked bean bath for 27 HOURS. For charity. Not for his own fun.
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‘. Go forth and create the website of your dreams! (The good dreams, not the ones where you’re being chased by a terrifying headless monk with the claws of a bear.)
we’ll return on 2nd April 2015 with AMT311. Join us!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT310 Child-Friendly Rating: 77%. Only a couple of swears. Content is pretty clean, even a question about post-coital smoking. •••
Are you ready to hear who’s the winner of AMT295‘s beauty pageant in which the only entrants are the knee-to-ankle portions of Olly and Martin? You ARE? Then waste no time – listen to Answer Me This! Episode 296 (which some would argue IS wasting time. Those people can shut their damn cake-holes):
Today we discuss:
having a kip
Kendal Mint Cake The Great British Bake Off leftovers
Louis XIV
ballet vs gymnastics
Bill Callahan vs Barry Manilow
Catherine de Medici
Matthew Bourne Barnoon Cemetery Prague’s Old Jewish Cemetery A Chorus Line‘s sweaty gussets
Mary Berry’s Lemon Curd Surge
extra nipples
and
Gromit.
Plus: Olly’s not taking trip advice from Tripadvisor; Helen admits to being a philistine about ballet; and Martin the Sound Man recommends a lovely holiday touring London’s most beautiful burial grounds.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android or Windows gadgetry), we continue workshopping our Cynical Statistician Catches The Bride’s Bouquet film, with a little stop to revist Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. (Fun fact: they got married on the very same day as Helen’s brother Andy. Sadly, there’s no shitty reality show about Andy’s nuptuals.)
And finally, big thanks to this episode’s sponsors Squarespace.com, without whom website-building would be a far uglier business. For 10% off their services for a whole year, enter the code Answer.
We will return with AMT297 on 4th September, and we hope you do too.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT296 Child-Friendly Rating: 42%. Several swears. Intermission concerns waxen genitalia, but at least we use some long words in it. Saucy remarks about Mary Berry. •••
Have you ever had selective amnesia? I, for instance, have blocked out every memory of looking into a mirror before my childhood fringe grew out. And in Answer Me This! Episode 163, we discover the event that must have been so traumatic, Olly Mann’s mind banished it…until now:
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)
Things we have not banished from our minds this episode are:
ordnance survey
mouse mats
Lesley Garrett The Ring and the Book
Jesus Christ: gap year student
Karl Pilkington vs. Aeschylus Thunderbirds vs. Sex and the City
gastroenteritis – the pleasant kind
Saint Princess Diana
Marie Carmargo
MI1-19 Alexei Sayle’s Stuff
pick-up sticks
the Pope’s posthumous Parkinson’s panacea
and
natural selection through cock-size.
Plus: Olly retracts what he said about Love Actually in Episode 161; Helen invents the portable carpal tunnel preventative gel wristlet; and Martin the Sound Man reveals his ghost pelvis, although luckily just to Helen rather than the entire world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android; not available for landlines) is a question from Lois, who wants to know the truth about the mythical place whose name everybody knows but whose nature few understand: the Watford Gap.
This January, we’re on a detox diet: nothing but cottage cheese and your QUESTIONS. So feed us! Leave your voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Because we HATE cottage cheese, and we’re hungry.
Answer Me This! Podcast 
EPISODE 163 – 80 years of failure
January 20, 2011Dear friends,
Have you ever had selective amnesia? I, for instance, have blocked out every memory of looking into a mirror before my childhood fringe grew out. And in Answer Me This! Episode 163, we discover the event that must have been so traumatic, Olly Mann’s mind banished it…until now:
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)
Things we have not banished from our minds this episode are:
ordnance survey
mouse mats
Lesley Garrett
The Ring and the Book
Jesus Christ: gap year student
Karl Pilkington vs. Aeschylus
Thunderbirds vs. Sex and the City
gastroenteritis – the pleasant kind
Saint Princess Diana
Marie Carmargo
MI1-19
Alexei Sayle’s Stuff
pick-up sticks
the Pope’s posthumous Parkinson’s panacea
and
natural selection through cock-size.
Plus: Olly retracts what he said about Love Actually in Episode 161; Helen invents the portable carpal tunnel preventative gel wristlet; and Martin the Sound Man reveals his ghost pelvis, although luckily just to Helen rather than the entire world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android; not available for landlines) is a question from Lois, who wants to know the truth about the mythical place whose name everybody knows but whose nature few understand: the Watford Gap.
This January, we’re on a detox diet: nothing but cottage cheese and your QUESTIONS. So feed us! Leave your voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Because we HATE cottage cheese, and we’re hungry.
oxes,
Helen and Olly
Subscribe with iTunes • Book • Question Archive • Episodes • Merch
• iPhone App • Android App • Facebook • Twitter • YouTube • FAQ
Tags:1960s, Action Man, apostles, art, ballerinas, ballet, Black Swan, bodily fluids, bodily functions, Chico, Christ, Christianity, Christmas presents, classical civilisation, classics, computers, death, director's commentaries, disciples, Enduring Love, English literature, espionage, FAB, fabulous, games, genitalia, Gerry Anderson, god, Greeks, hemlock, Ian McEwan, illness, intelligence, Jesus, Judas, Ken, Last Night of the Proms, Lesley Garrett, lift, literature, mercury poisoning, MI5, MI6, mice, military intelligence, money, mono, Monopoly, Monopoly money, Mother Teresa, mouse, mouses, movie cliches, music, myths, outdated technology, penises, philosophers, piss, Plato, poetry, presents, rebranding failure, religion, Robert Browning, sainthood, SATC, sculpture, Socrates, statues, Stephen Fry, students, talc, talcum powder, the 60s, the Bible, Thunderbirds, tutus, university, Warwick, Who's Line is it Anyway?
Posted in PODCASTS | 7 Comments »