It’s Answer Me This Episode 399 which means next episode will be Answer Me This Episode 400, so we not only want your QUESTIONS, we want you to send us your AMT memories. Did our answers to your questions helped or hurt your life? Did you made any friends through the podcast? Did you start your own podcast? What’s the weirdest place or oddest thing you were doing while listening to the show. Tell us all! Record yourself or write it down and deliver it to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Today we learn about:
ball pits
pickled onion pits
the quantum mechanical reading of The Famous Five
secret filming when cameras were still enormous
learning to knit
tuning a church bell
knobbing
being lost in SeaWorld
cheetahs’ pet dogs
and lashings of ginger beer.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – we check in on the latest in celebrity ballpits, courtesy of Cara Delevingne (check out the video below).
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 halfway through season 4 hurtling towards completion.
• Martin makes music – including a new EP – which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. His brand new podcast Neutrino Watch is different every time you download it. 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:
• Wondrium, née the Great Courses Plus, a huge library of tutorials, documentaries, travel, how-to videos and much more! AMT listeners get a 14-day trial of unlimited access at wondrium.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 Sports Day for these ballsporty times, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
One last time: send us your QUESTIONS, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com for us to answer in our final episode. And don’t forget to send us your AMT memories. Deadline for both is the end of July 2021.
We’ll be back with a retro AMT in your feed (except for if you listen on Google Podcasts for some unfathomable reason) on 22 July and then AMT400 lands on 5 August 2021. Hankies ready, for crying, waving, or cleaning up after yourself.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT399 Child-Friendly Rating: 73%. A handful of swears. Discussion of balls, Dicks, Fannies and bells, but NOT LIKE THAT! •••
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‘.
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.
This week, we face a big, big question: should Singin’ In The Rain be BANNED, for flouting the hosepipe ban as the rest of southern England shrivels under drought conditions? Start drafting your petitions whilst you listen to AMT217:
Today we talk of:
child beauty pageants
impressing Jeremy Paxman
reverse cat psychology
sunburnt tattoos
Prince Philip’s barbecue
theatre curtains
mortar boards
chinos for hipsters
milky special effects
and the managing director of Little Chef.
Plus: one of Olly’s early theatrical productions nearly brought the house down – literally, with fire; Helen recaps her late granny’s theory about what really happened to Princess Diana after that fateful night in Paris; and Martin the Sound Man is dissed by Olly for being a professional cleverclogs. Bullying doesn’t stop after school, you guys.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Tony from Worksop about whether we’ve ever killed or maimed a celebrity. Look, Tony, the evidence is purely circumstantial. They’ll never be able to convict us on it.
While, as a precaution, we book our passage to Rio under false identities, you should get on with sending us your QUESTIONS: send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Before we go, here are a couple of other things for your entertainment: Helen just appeared on Charlie Brooker’s So Wrong It’s Right, with Graham Linehan and Matthew Crosby; and Olly’s cat Coco should imminently be appearing on Channel 5’s Live With Fern Britton. Click here to read the extraordinary correspondence which ensued after last week’s show. And since we’ve almost arrived at Jubilee weekend, treat yourself to the Answer Me This! Jubilee, which is better than the Jubilee proper because you don’t have to sit through a whole solo set by Gary Barlow or be jostled for eight hours whilst you wait on the banks of the Thames for a glimpse of the Queen on a boat. Which might be worthwhile, if she does this.
Answer Me This! Podcast 