December 5, 2019





Well Spotify just named AMT one of the top podcasts of the decade, so let’s conclude the 2010s as we began them: by answering your questions! Answer Me This! Episode 380 features a feast of such festive treats as:
candy canes
boarding school pranks
turkey trends
Christmas Day in London
artificial Christmas trees vs toilet brushes
Thanksgiving dinner vs Christmas dinner
Pirates of the Caribbean vs squid
getting drunk on brandy sauce
the Snow Buddies puppy tragedy
Mister Ed’s mouth
podcaster baubles
the Serpentine Christmas Day swimming race
fake wine
and
the SPAM Museum.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows – we belatedly celebrate Martinmas! Which has more to do with geese and vintners than echoey-voiced Sound Men, but he’ll take it nonetheless.
How about some more AMT festive-related material? In AMT329, we have a Santa truther child, and the Catalan tradition of the Shitting Log; in AMT357 there’s the filming secrets of Home Alone 2, what happened to the three wise men’s gifts, and what the “new old-fashioned way” is that people are dancing in ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’; in AMT364 we talk about how cranberries are farmed; and in AMT368 we learn about Saint Nicholas’s sidekicks, department store Santas, Jesus and Mary’s relationship, and gift snobbery.
And of course, there’s a whole hour of festive AMT funtertainment in the AMT Christmas album, available at answermethisstore.com for a tiny price. Also there are AMTs 1-200; if you’re looking for a place to start, episodes 160 and 200 sit nicely at this time of year.
Hear our other work!
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
We’ll be back with more AMT in 2020 – the podcast turns 13 (!!) in January, and as our birthday gift we want your QUESTIONS: send them, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Be our interfriend at twitter.com/HelenAndOlly and facebook.com/answermethis.
We’ll be back with AMT381 on 9 January 2020, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 18 December.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT380 Child-Friendly Rating: 78%. Some Santa Truth business. Discussion of puppy death. Couple of swears.
•••

Tags:advent calendars, Airbud, alcohol, American Humane Association, animal actors, animal cruelty, animals, animals in film, armed forces, artificial Christmas trees, Babe, belief, Ben-Hur, BFPO, Bob McCormack, Body Worlds, booze, brandy, brandy butter, brandy sauce, bullshit, candy, candy canes, CGI, children, chipmunks, Christmas, Christmas films, Christmas food, Christmas gifts, Christmas movies, Christmas trees, credulity, cruelty, dogs, drink, drunkenness, dry ice, Edward VII, Evergreen, factories, Failure to Launch, families, family, Father Christmas, Father Gregory Keller, festive, festivities, films, flavor, flavourings, food, gag gifts, gifts, handmade, Henry VIII, homemade, homemade gifts, inebriation, inventions, japes, Jesus, jokes, Keller machine, kids, kings, Leave Right Now, London, London 2012, mail, Martinmas, Matthew Perry, merchant navy, mint, Mister Ed, monarchs, movies, Mr Ed, offspring, parks, peppermint, Pirates of the Caribbean, post, poultry, pranks, presemts, puppies, religious symbolism, rock, royal assent, sailors, Santa, Santa Buddies, Santa Claus, Santa spoilers, Serpentine, SFX, ships, Snow Buddies, solitude, special effects, squid, sugar, sweets, symbolism, talking animals, talking dogs, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving dinner, the administrative process of Christmas, toilet brush factory, toilet brushes, turkey, umble pie, VFX, widowhood, Will Young, Winterval, Xmas
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April 10, 2014
Hello! You still have one day to catch the first half of our Radio 4 documentary to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the word ‘podcast’. The second episode airs 11am tomorrow, Friday 11th April, and features money-making from Roman Mars, baby-making from Theresa Thorn, and something absolutely puke-making from Keith and the Girl. UPDATE: here’s Part 2.
So please do listen to that, and also to Answer Me This! Episode 287:


Today we contemplate such topics as:
the Man from Del Monte
Tony Benn’s chair
catnip
human statues
snooze buttons
kissing gates
Miffy vs Hello Kitty
Telford vs Jamaica
CTRL+V vs CTRL+C
pedantry with partners
Artbox
netiquette
The Pageant of the Masters
and
listener Jessy’s missing colon, part II
Plus: Olly details the specifications for choosing his new alarm clock, so set your own alarm clock to jolt you back into consciousness afterwards; Helen comes up with a Doctor Who reboot for Matt Smith and an amazing sit- for a sitcom, so TV commissioners, prepare a bucket of cash and call her in for a meeting; and Martin the Sound Man won’t let you through a gate until you give him a little somethin-somethin. APPROACH WITH CAUTION.
Today’s Bit of Crap on the App, Helen gets doorbell envy. To hear all about that grievous condition, push the button on your iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
No need to envy other people’s nice websites – now you can build your own through Squarespace.com, who not only kindly funded today’s show, but are also offering you a 10% discount off their services for a whole year if you use the code answer. We used Squarespace to build answermethisstore.com and it was even easier to set up shop than it is to set up this shop.
Keep us in business by sending in your questions: call the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Back in a fortnight,
Helen & Olly
PS Get well soon, Dave from Smethwick!
AMT287 Child-Friendly Rating: 95%.
No unsuitable content, aside from the demystification of Hello Kitty. An F-bomb is detonated during the discussion of keyboard shortcuts, but thanks to the subject matter, there’s no way your kids will be paying attention.
Tags:alarm clocks, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Are You Being Served, autocorrect, Ben-Hur, bowel movements, brands, catnip, cats, chairs, Chesney Hawkes, chitchat, clocks, Coco, colons, computation, computers, CTRL+C, CTRL+V, CTRL+X, cut and paste, Dave from Smethwick, Doctor Who, emails, English, etiquette, exclamation marks, fez, fruit, gates, George Osborne, grammer, guts, hatchat, hats, Hello Kitty, helmets, human interaction, human statues, inventions, IT, Jamaica, Japan, Japanese, keyboard shortcuts, keyboards, kids, kissing, kissing gates, language, levitation, Lew Wallace, Man from Del Monte, manners, marriage, Matt Smith, Miffy, motorbikes, motorcycling, neighbors, neighbours, nerds, netiquette, New York, Noah, Olly's cat, Olympians, Olympics, origins of phrases, Orkney, Paddington Bear, Pageant of the Masters, pedantry, pets, phrases, politeness, pronunciation, punctuation, relationships, Russell Crowe, shortcuts, slang, snooze button, social media, speech, spoken English, spouses, Squarespace, street performers, superheroes, Switzerland, tech, Telford, terms, Tessa Sanderson, the Beatles, Tony Benn, Twitter, urgent bowel movements, waking up, West Midlands, wine, Yiddish, Yoda
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