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.
Ten years. Ten years! TEN. YEARS. Ten years we’ve been doing this show. TEN.
In that time, technologies have waxed and waned; world leaders have come and gone; yet here we still are, answering the questions that you supply, just as we did in episode 1 all the way back in January 2007, and in every episode in between.
To celebrate the show’s birthday, in Answer Me This! Episode 346 we provide a thrilling glimpse into the AMT Process, receive a gift from a musical hero, and tackle a question on Olly’s favourite third favourite subject. We also discuss:
Mickey Mouse
sentimental dehydrators
rubber fetishes
grown-up purchases
Helen’s lost engagement ring vs Helen’s lost copy of Heathers
Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans vs Campbell’s actual soup cans
graphic design vs fine art vs graphic design
file-in-cake-based prison breaks
British bears
British beavers
and
why you should never lend things to friends if you ever want to get those things back.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we consider another problem for a Mickey Mouse reboot: the voice. Disney, if you’re listening, we have a suggestion for who should play Mickey. Go on, give it a go…
You should give our album AMT Love a go, if you want to hear an hour of us talking about sex and relationships. It’s available from the AMT store – you can also get it from iTunes and Amazon, if you prefer – along with our other albums and our classic episodes. We can’t pretend that listening back to the first episode today didn’t make us wince, but for just 79.9p it’s a good price for a wince.
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‘.
Bigger thanks to YOU for listening and sending in questions and supplying kind messages and buying our stuff and generally supporting us during the past decade.
And, BELIEVE IT OR NOT:
Olly felt some emotions – hear more about Olly’s family’s gain and loss on The Modern Mann; there’s some dispute over the shape of Helen’s head; and Martin the Sound Man is busy with his biggest abacus, trying to count up the exact number of episodes in which Kelsey Grammer played Frasier. Frasier + Cheers = ?
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices) is literal crap: a little trick that baby Harvey Mann likes to play, called ‘The Coda’.
In case you missed it while we were away, we released our latest album Answer Me This! Love, about love and sex and suchlike. And why not feed your ears further with a FREE AUDIOBOOK thanks to our pals at Audible? You can have one even if you’ve suckled at Audible’s teat before. Go to answermethispodcast.com/audible.
Sorry if you left us a voicemail between New Year and late April: we didn’t get it. If your question has not been solved in the meantime, or if you’ve brewed a new one, call the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis. As ever, send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And be our interfriend at twitter.com/helenandolly and facebook.com/answermethis.
AMT333 will be here in a fortnight, so you better had be too.
Helen & Olly
PS Today’s rousing rendition of our email address is played by the Hackney Colliery Band.
••• AMT332 Child-Friendly Rating: 50%.
Several strong swears. Mostly clean content, although the intermission is talking about boners. •••
Have you ever nicked a little something to remind you of a holiday? We’ve got a nice china cup pinched from a plane and YOU’LL NEVER TAKE US ALIVE, BRITISH AIRWAYS. What’s yours? One listener’s stolen souvenir came with fond memories and twenty years of guilt. Find out what and why in Answer Me This! Episode 314:
Today we tackle:
tinfoil hats
dumping your training-buddy
same-sex kisses
concierges Kendal Mint Cake vs transubstantiation royal tins of travel sweets vs the unstoppable march of time
stealing from castles vs pissing in a stream
the silent film Wings
a Milton Keynes-themed bar
heritage crime The Grand Budapest Hotel IRL
mummy and daddy
1995
and
giraffe heads.
Plus: though Olly prefers men to machines, he would prefer men to act like machines; Helen wouldn’t tune into a livestream of Princess Middleton giving birth; and Martin the Sound Man doesn’t have high hopes for his fellow academics on the ski slopes, unless the hopes are for a mild sprain rather than a broken arm.
As an addendum to the question about same sex kisses in films, today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices) concerns the lost lesbians of Love Actually. Yes, they actually left material OUT of that sprawling collage of human emotions.
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‘. Generous!
We’ll return on 28th May 2015 with AMT315, prepare your tinfoil headphones.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT314 Child-Friendly Rating: 85%. Content clean. Swearing inventory: 2x ‘fuck’, 1x ‘shit’. 5% is deducted for each. •••
Martin the Sound Man sports a tinfoil hat at AMT100
In AMT272, Beth of Leighton Buzzard told us she had prepared for the birth of her child by downloading the AMT Holiday to accompany the agonies of labour. Surprisingly, the sound of our voices didn’t compel the baby to stay in the womb forever, because Beth writes:
I just wanted to say thank you. Not only did I enjoy your holiday album during early labour, but I also listened to your 19 September podcast whilst in the delivery room, 40 hours into (induced) labour and just 2 hours before my baby girl was born.
I didn’t have an epidural so the distraction was very welcome. No bad reviews from me!
As a doting new mum, I couldn’t resist including a picture of your youngest fan, Jennifer, who was born at 3.22am on Friday 20 September:
All together now: awwwwwwwwwwwww. And, in sympathy with Beth’s 42-hour labour, owwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Does a place make a man, or in this case a Mann? If today’s questioneer decides to move his young family to Stanmore, will he find himself raising his own curly-haired cat-obsessed musicals lover? Or will he just benefit from convenient Jubilee Line access and a nice Lebanese restaurant? We consider the benefits of the burb that birthed Olly in Answer Me This! Episode 251:
Today we ponder upon:
morning sickness
Pimms
poisonous plaster
flirting
the Wiki Wiki Shuttle
wiki wiki Ward Cunningham
phone sex vs. sex
carpenter-style jeans
Nupedia
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
human chorionic gonadotropin
the only non-singing, non-dancing part in West Side Story
and
the sanitary iPad.
Plus: Olly needs to learn to speak Bloke; morning sickness won’t put Helen off having a baby, but everything else will; and Martin the Sound Man is a big hairy flowerpot, and no returns.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we continue our discussion about equine actors; it moves on to child actors, then somehow to Olly having sex with a Battenburg cake. Which is the inevitable end of any discussion if you continue it long enough.
Next week will be a Special Guest Episode, and if you haven’t listened to the episode yet to find out who it will be, here’s your SPECIAL GUEST SPOILER:
That’s right, Dobby from Peep Show/Esther from Shameless/Isy Suttie from Isy Suttie’s comedy shows will be joining us to answer your QUESTIONS. So send them to us: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Happy new year, listeners! Behold the first podcast of 2013, Answer Me This! Episode 241:
Today we talk of:
Paul Merton
manatee poo
summer lovin’
Jools Holland’s personal Portmeirion
gingerbread houses vs. Grand Designs
the Brand New Heavies
birth days
car calorie counting Tweet
Kate Middleton’s trendsetting womb
Tulisa’s titillating tape
Anne Hathaway’s minge
New Year’s purges
and
timberrrrrrrrr!
Plus: Olly is a bit disappointed by a big fake clock; Helen does not want your gifts, nor does she deserve them; and Martin the Sound Man sets Jay Kay a parsimonious budget so that he can stretch his acid jazz fortune a little further without skimping on treats.
Further to our royal foetus discussion, in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we deliberate over which royal we’d choose to have a baby with – because if and when that opportunity rises, you do want to have given it proper consideration beforehand. Otherwise you might end up co-parenting with Prince Michael of Kent. Nobody wants that.
What we DO want are QUESTIONS for the new year. Email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
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.
It’s lovely to see you listeners help each other. Nicole from Santa Barbara, California has written with reassurance for Concerned from Hebden Bridge from AMT238, who was worried that he would faint at the sight of a new human being worming its way out of his wife. Nicole says:
My husband is also notoriously squeamish: when he was younger, he fainted putting eye drops in his eyes, and also nearly fainted during our first ultrasound too–it was the swing inside me and the word “yolk sac” that did it.
We went to the labour classes and he had to walk out of the room during almost all of the videos for fear of fainting. I knew it was going to be tough for him during the actual labour, so we planned ahead of time that he’d be sitting at my head, facing the computer screen that showed my heartbeat and contractions.
The doctors made him leave the room when it was time for my epidural (because a lot of fathers-to-be faint then), and walked out twice during the actual labour, but he was able to be next to me for the important part. Our arrangement worked well, he didn’t see anything except my face and a beeping line on a computer until the doctors handed him our son (all cleaned up). No fainting!
Hooray! So plan ahead, Concerned, and if you think that your wife’s pained screaming face might trigger your swooning switch, ask her to wear a mask – you can get a classic old Spitting Image one of John Major on eBay.
Happy Thanksgiving, American chums! While you bust a gut on deep-fried turkey and marshmallow-topped yams, perverts that you are, everyone else can get on with listening to Answer Me This! Episode 238:
In which we give thanks for such traditional American foods as onion loaf and Big Mac special sauce. We also talk of:
Plus: Olly’s lack of confidence (and grade D in GCSE French) held him back from pursuing his dream career at Disney; Helen’s grammatical tips encourage solipsism; and Martin the Sound Man won’t give you any of his blood because he’s a wuss when it comes to needles. But not when it comes to albums – his lovely new longplayer The City of Gold and Lead is out tomorrow, so click HERE to obtain your copy, in digital format or fancy hand-made papercut CD package.
There’s more food in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android), as questioneer Ollie asks whether he can gorge himself on raw biscuit batter. And survive.
We would like to gorge ourselves (and survive) on your QUESTIONS, so please email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
You’ll be relieved to hear that according to (not very respected) scientists, January 23rd was officially the most depressing day of 2012 – which means it’s onwards and upwards from here! Hooray. We’re not sure where Answer Me This! Episode 202 fits on that graph, but here you go anyway:
Today we consider:
novelty flavoured Coke
presumptuous Baptists
St Patrick’n’St Bridget
Britney’n’Kevin
Teddy Boys
oshiburi
the Elgin Marbles
Andy McNab
white tie and tails
the stork
Jack Nicholson
and
@.
Plus: Olly is a staunch traditionalist when it comes to marriage (despite being, at the same time, staunchly anti-marriage); Helen guesses what Andy McNab’s mysterious face really looks like; and Martin the Sound Man mounts an impassioned defence of the underscore.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) finds Olly SHOCKED and APPALLED by his beloved Disney, because he discovered Mickey Mouse is a secret smoker. Call the tabloids!
Once you’ve done that, please call/email/Skype us, with your QUESTIONS: answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; Question Line 0208 123 5877; Skype answermethis. You must know what to do by now.
If you’re also inclined to send us something more substantial than a question, our postal address is: Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
And if you’re free next Tuesday evening, please come along to this! Otherwise, we’ll see you back here next Thursday, as ever.
Kaboom! Bangbangbang! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Sizzle! It’s Bonfire Night this Saturday, but we’re letting off a rocket a couple of days early, in the form of Answer Me This! Episode 195:
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, in this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, Olly recounts a bad-taste wedding-day prank with tragic consequences. So if you want to ruin an upcoming wedding, fire up your iPhone, iPad or Android device to learn how. At least you won’t have to sit through the bride and groom’s honeymoon photo slides, since they’ll never speak to you again.
We will never speak to YOU again if you don’t send us your QUESTIONS, so you had better leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Don’t make us send you to Coventry, OK?
Answer Me This! Podcast 