Greetings listeners, and thanks for joining us in 2021. Here’s Answer Me This Episode 393, featuring vital questions about:
spinach and ricotta pasta
Pringles-induced sweat
cocktail, performative preparation thereof
cocktail, prawn (crisps flavour)
walking the plank
glow sticks
smelling salts
and
Ronald Raven.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – is a big one, featuring the world’s most expensive advent calendar, and the World’s Strongest Man contest.
Hear our other work:
• Helen makes The Allusionist entertainment show about language – hear the festive episodes here and the swearalong quiz here – and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning – season 3 has begun!
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Week Unwrapped and The Modern Mann – hear the festive episodes here.
• Martin makes music – including a new EP – 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, and he produced and composed the kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers, hosted by Maddie Moate.
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‘.
Send us your QUESTIONS, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com for us to answer in 2021! We’ll be back with AMT394 on 4 February, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 21 January.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT393 Child-Friendly Rating: 89%. Maybe only one swear? And pretty family-friendly content. •••
Happy thirteenth birthday to this show! But it’s question-answering business as usual in Answer Me This! Episode 381, with problems including:
public nudity laws
lost/stolen jewels
friendly grinding
death in Thomas the Tank Engine
casserole in your pubes
museum lasers
dry ice
slapstick
trains’ souls
your naked dad
the true meaning of Frubes
and
eggy smell.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows – there’s more about Thomas the Tank Engine, plus Rod Stewart’s train set and Mr Frosty. Did you have one? Should we get one now to fulfil our childhood dreams, or would it only crush those dreams like the ice in its belly?
If you want to hear AMT episodes 1-200, they’re all available at answermethisstore.com, along with our five special albums. In the run-up to Valentine’s Day, how about the AMT Love album for an hour of questions about sex and love and problems therewith?
Martin just released a bumper new album, 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 Tom Waits in Song By Song, which has just got to the end of Black Rider.
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‘.
Listeners, who is the bigger idiot: the questioneer who is too big an idiot to make toast, or the podcasters who talk about that big idiot for nearly ten minutes?
The only way to decide is to listen to Answer Me This! Episode 292:
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we delve deeper into the grotesque and terrifying world of novelty toasters. Join us if you dare on your iDevice, Android or Windows toy.
If you’ve invented your own amazing multi-functional toaster (“Guys! It can heat soup at the same time as cutting the toast into perfectly equal croutons!”) then build yourself a snazzy online store through our benevolent sponsors Squarespace.com, deploying the code Answer for 10% off their services for a whole year.
We shall return on Thursday 3rd July with AMT293 – but we’ll also be appearing on this Radio Academy panel about podcasting on 25th June; and as we mentioned, we’re also available at our side project podcasts The Media Podcast, Sound Women and Brain Train. Furthermore, to accompany all the SPOOOOOORT that seems to be happening at the moment, you can hear us talking as sportily as we are able on the AMT Sports Day album, available now at answermethisstore.com.
That’s it! We’re off to make some toast. We could be gone for some time.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT292 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. Swears. Cartoon phallic noses. Kicks off with feedback about parental sex, the very notion of which can be traumatic for your progeny. •••
With just days to go until Hallowe’en, many of you have been writing to ask what costume you should opt for. Here’s our one-size-fits-all solution:
1. Wrap yourself in a duvet;
2. Go to bed until November 1st.
While you’re there, drown out the sound of trick or treaters ringing your doorbell by listening to Answer Me This! Episode 234:
Today we consider:
Citizen Kane
the classic Charlie’s Angels remake Green Jelly (nee Jello)
doughnuts vs. douchebags
strumpets vs. crumpets
Brian May’s badger sanctuary
William of Orange’s pet pugs
tribute bands
hipster combovers
psychoanalysis of Agatha Christie
Fratzos: matzos for frat boys
Leonardo DiCaprio lookalikes
the hard lives of fake Posh’n’Becks
Ann Widdecombe
the mystery of the Rolling Stones’ hair
and
The Mystery of Hercule Poirot’s Pants.
Plus: Olly finally finds a TV show to enjoy when he’s alone in business hotels; Helen does not think this is cute, at all; and Martin the Sound Man won’t think much of Django Reinhardt impersonators unless they burn off their fingers.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Olly digs up a big mistake Universal made, back in the day when Mickey Mouse was still just a rabbit, and Norman Bates was still just a motelier.
Make no mistake: we want your QUESTIONS so we can make more episodes of AMT. So email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
There are a lot of really weird stories in the news at the moment – cannibals, dismembered bodies, Octomom doing a porno – but fortunately this week, AMT218 is a largely horror-free zone:
Today we talk of:
marriage licences
the Pitcher and Piano
expensive clothes
actors’ motivation Fifty Shades of Grey vs. The White Hotel vs. Wuthering Heights
Mario vs. Lazarus
moist Jo Whiley
Tinky Winky, live in Luxembourg
outlet stores
death by giant snail
and
#.
Plus: Olly doesn’t want to get married in Vegas; Helen doesn’t want to have to watch embarrassing bodies on Embarrassing Bodies; but Martin the Sound Man DOES want you to enter his science songwriting competition, so click here to find out how to enter before you dash off to your zither-room to compose.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) involves Claudia from Melbourne asking whether you can text the police rather than calling them. With all the cuts to public services, unfortunately the police have had to lay off their full-time team of interpreters waiting to figure out what you mean by HLP pls sum1 tryn2 mrdr me non-LOL srsly >:-O
If you still have proper command over vowels, send us a QUESTION for next week: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Also, if you’re especially interested in what goes on around here, you can hear us being interviewed on the latest episode of Podcast Squared. We hope that the demystification of our Process doesn’t spoil AMT for you. If not, we’ll see you back here next Thursday.
It’s pretty unusual for us podcasters to venture out of our comfortable armchairs, let alone venture into the great not-indoors. Last weekend, however, we donned our cagoules, stocked up on wet-wipes, and took in a lungful of folk-laced fresh air at the Green Man festival – where we had such a smashing time, we decided to record Answer Me This! Episode 189 right there:
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: Olly fears the revenge of Kris Marshall; Helen discovers a sport she IS interested in: topless frisbee; and Martin the Sound Man sees a future where Batman and Catwoman give birth to Dustin Hoffman.
As you’ll hear, we were joined this week by some unexpected guests in the shape of wasps. (They weren’t just shaped like wasps; they were wasps.) Next week, we should be joined by a much less stingy and stripy special guest in the shape of Jon Ronson. (He’s not just shaped like Jon Ronson, he is Jon Ronson.) So concoct some QUESTIONS for the fan of psychopaths, goat-starers and Robbie Williams, and send them in the form of voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We do hope that Jon remembers to turn up, but whether he does or not, we’ll deffers see you next Thursday,
There have been three times in his life where Olly Mann couldn’t speak French, so he let the funky music do the talking: 1) his GCSE French oral exam, which is why he received a D grade; 2) one mad, hot night at the Bruni-Sarkozy holiday bungalow; and 3) in Answer Me This! Episode 166:
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)
En Anglais, we talk of:
Blu-Tack sunblock
J.Lo’s nipple tweaker the tragic end of Bobby in Home and Away
Bernard of Chartres
John Scurlock
Pyramus and Thisbe
Oasis
the Tower of London
James Bond: babyfather the oldest underwater foot-tunnel (with some qualification)
disgruntled Beefeaters Pretty Woman, Kate Middleton-style
bouncy bungalows
bouncy Roulette
Mike Flowers Pops
the Sea Life Centre vs. the Chunnel
sexy salad servers
Coventry
and
Teri Hatcher.
Plus: mainstream Olly prefers vaginas when a baby isn’t being shunted out of them; Helen discovers her new favourite TV channel; and Martin the Sound Man claims that when his dad said he was just “off to the glory hole”, there was a perfectly innocent explanation. Keep drinking the kool-aid, Martin!
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android, yessir) is a question from Gareth about what’s the oldest thing still in use today. My dad’s underpants. HA. (Seriously: 40+ years’ service and still going strong.)
Please keep bombarding us with your QUESTIONS, by leaving us a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or sending us an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
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vs. 
fridge
Answer Me This! Podcast 