Welcome to Answer Me This Episode 396! Nearly 400 episodes in and several thousand questions answered, and you’re still sending us ones we have never covered before. In today’s episode, “Do voodoo dolls work, and specifically, did mine work too well?” Plus:
Calvin Klein’s Obsession for lions vegan black pudding
dijonnaise
snooping houseguests
The Addams Family
crabs eating crab babies
and
shouting ‘geronimo!’
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – Olly divulges the other disproportionately-expensive-for-an-everyday-item import purchase he would make, in an ideal world. Until that time, he’ll console himself with a bashful of dijonnaise.
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 – now past the movie and heading straight onto the novels.
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including his monthly magazine show The Modern Mann and weekly under-the-radar-news show, The Week Unwrapped.
• 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 piano-playing to yoga to ancient history to dog training. AMT listeners get a free fortnight 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 Valentines-appropriate AMT Love, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
Cuddle up, listeners. Recorded on the day of the US election before the result came in, Answer Me This! Episode 344 is a relic of the pre-Trump era, in which we blithely speak of:
Plus: Olly will lie through his artificially whitened teeth to get on the radio; Helen was lured onto Late Night Womanʼs Hour under false pretences; and Martin the Sound Man used to love a good read of the Argos Catalogue.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, Olly describes his happy place. Yes, it is Disney-related. Get the app for your iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices.
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‘.
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?
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.
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. •••
We’re as surprised as you to discover that Answer Me This! Episode 221 opens with a heated discussion upon the topic, ‘What is art?’ Check us out with our high brows!
Naturally our brows don’t stay high for long; in decreasing order of highfalutingness, we talk about:
Edward Lear
double-ended ice cream
Tracey Emin Jeremy Deller‘s teenage parties
the Marquis de Sade
firefighters
bridesmaids
pole dancing
Charlie Chaplin drowning horribly
the pull-out method
and Annabel Chong.
Plus: Olly is horrified to discover that there’s a boarding school-style communal wanking game that he’d never heard of; Helen knows how to make anything unsexy, using ham; and Martin the Sound Man would like to remind you that you only have a couple of weeks left to enter his Science Songwriter of the Future competition, so make the old man happy because he’s got a bad ear this week.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App Helen gives you a great tip for making new friends on late-night public transport, based on her recent encounter with a stranger’s pelvis on the Victoria Line. That stranger’s pelvis could be all yours, if you avail yourself of the app on iDevices or Android! Don’t worry if you’re married; the pelvis won’t be worrying about that either.
We don’t want your pelvises, but we do want your QUESTIONS, so thrust them our way by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). As a reward, you may watch the video below of Eleanor from Norwich’s pole dancing team going about their totally sexless business.
Brush your teeth extra-assiduously before bed tonight, because Answer Me This! Episode 198 is super-chocolatey. We learn about literal death by chocolate (not carob, as if!), wonder at the untold stories of Oh Henry! bars, and invoke the name of chocolate behemoth Helge Rubinstein, again. Hear here:
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)
Amongst the subjects tumbling out of our mouths this week are:
Plus: Olly wants to take down Annie Lennox, gently; Helen declines ‘pie’ (in the linguistic sense, rather than in the sense of turning down pie); and Martin the Sound Man teaches us an important lesson about diversity in evolution. We also recommend you check out the illustration which accompanies the final question in the episode, which can be found HERE.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App recounts where Olly had the Time of His Liiiiife – at his bar mitzvah in 1994. Have the time of your lives by firing up your iDevices or Android to get it.
We implore you to send your QUESTIONS to us, by leaving voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) and emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; but we also yearn for your hard-copy, old-fashioned postal correspondence to celebrate our forthcoming 5th BIRTHDAY! So please do send us something celebratory, to the following address:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
We really will be beside ourselves with joy to receive something from you, with which to festoon AMT Towers for our birthday extravaganza.
Thanks to everyone who has already bought our book and/or reviewed it on Amazon. And thanks to all of you in advance for listening to Answer Me This! Episode 156:
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)
Amongst many other things, we consider:
the Augean stables
Green Shield Stamps
Miami Fried Chicken Gavin Bryars
home economics vs. cookery class
cowardice vs. gullibility
Sperm Wars
Littlewoods Index
Cerberus
The Shadows
peppermint creams
Gauls
Take your Child To Work Day
Jerry Yang and David Filo
scaredy chickens Hercules played by Mel Gibson
Richard Tompkins
Jules Leotard
Sarah Harding
and
heaven on Earth in Canada.
If that’s not enough, this week’s nugget of bonus content on the app, we marvel at the young Olly Mann’s love of theatrical PR. A wickle Cameron Mackintosh, how cuuuute! His parents must have been so proudconfused.
You know what would make us happy? YOUR QUESTIONS! Deliver them to us via the Question Line (0208 123 5877), Skype (our handle is answermethis), or email (answermethispodcast@googlemail.com). You know what else would make us happy? If you can pop along to one of our forthcoming book events, the first of which is 6pm Thursday 18th November at Waterstone’s Gower Street. You know what else would make us happy? A nice cup of tea. We’ll sort that out, while you work on the other two happiness-makers.
. And thanks to all of you in advance for listening to Answer Me This! Episode 156:
Answer Me This! Podcast 