That’s right – the time has come for us to shout ‘Wooooo!’, whip our tops off, and throw up all over a beach resort in Mexico while Joe Francis captures our shame on video. Answer Me This! is off on its hols for a few weeks, but before we go, here’s Episode 175:
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)
Furthermore! Olly is like a smack-head, but for Percy Pigs; Helen shuns a potential money-making scheme; and Martin the Sound Man provides the key to safe toaster cookery. This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (a worthy addition to your iPhone or Android) is the true question of Lil Wayne: what possessed him to go for this?
We hope you don’t forget us while we’re away; please keep sending us your QUESTIONS for the new series: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Plus, don’t hesitate to sign up for your free and half-price audiobooks at answermethispodcast.com/audible – you get a bargain, we get paid, everyone’s happy!
There will be bits and pieces popping up on this site during the break, but we’ll see you back here bright and early on 26th May for AMT176. Until then, behave yourselves.
This week, we learn how to arm yourself in the event of the outbreak of cyber-warfare. Start digging a hole in your virtual back garden for your Javascript Anderson shelter; lay down supplies of canned goods, water, batteries, masking tape and binbags (because even in an emergency you need to be able to cobble together a rudimentary fancy-dress costume), and load up your rifle with Answer Me This! Episode 168:
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)
Conversational shrapnel includes:
Steamboat Willie True Grit
Alan Turing
Nicole Kidman News in Briefs
topless Kelvin MacKenzie
Sharon Stone’s dress-down Oscar-day
puntits
Victorinox
the Colosseum vs the O2 Arena
perfectly controllable semis
John Virgo
Marchesa
and
swim-gimps.
Plus: Olly’s not going to fall for your elaborate apple-tasting double-bluff, wiseguy; Helen will take out your unwanted small pets, no questions asked; and Martin the Sound Man swims like a middle-aged woman. This is almost as good a show as the Geekpop show he’s playing on 10th March, for which you can and should get tickets via geekpop.co.uk. There’ll be a taster of his new album, Songs from the Scientific Cabaret, at the end of the show next week, so let that be the bright point of light at the end of the tunnel that is the next seven days.
You can also enliven the next seven days by sending us QUESTIONS, which you can then pose to us in a voicemail to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And if you still find yourself with time to spare, you could squander a few more seconds on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android), which contains further musing upon what the whole deal is with Snow White. What’s with them apples? Eh?
Have you ever had selective amnesia? I, for instance, have blocked out every memory of looking into a mirror before my childhood fringe grew out. And in Answer Me This! Episode 163, we discover the event that must have been so traumatic, Olly Mann’s mind banished it…until now:
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)
Things we have not banished from our minds this episode are:
ordnance survey
mouse mats
Lesley Garrett The Ring and the Book
Jesus Christ: gap year student
Karl Pilkington vs. Aeschylus Thunderbirds vs. Sex and the City
gastroenteritis – the pleasant kind
Saint Princess Diana
Marie Carmargo
MI1-19 Alexei Sayle’s Stuff
pick-up sticks
the Pope’s posthumous Parkinson’s panacea
and
natural selection through cock-size.
Plus: Olly retracts what he said about Love Actually in Episode 161; Helen invents the portable carpal tunnel preventative gel wristlet; and Martin the Sound Man reveals his ghost pelvis, although luckily just to Helen rather than the entire world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android; not available for landlines) is a question from Lois, who wants to know the truth about the mythical place whose name everybody knows but whose nature few understand: the Watford Gap.
This January, we’re on a detox diet: nothing but cottage cheese and your QUESTIONS. So feed us! Leave your voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Because we HATE cottage cheese, and we’re hungry.
In honour of the Answer Me This! book being officially (well, close) declared ‘one of the greatest pieces of toilet literature of all time‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
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)
This week, we amuse ourselves with:
the Mann Booker prize
Nightmare on Hygiene Street The Piano: The Musical
Gibson vs. Fender T3 vs. 3T
tarts vs. tarts
salesmanship vs. psoriasis
The Guardian Bedside Reader
martini-making machines
Autoglym
David McAlmont and Michael Nyman
the Nissan of the guitar world
the Captain Corelli’s Mandolin-branded backgammon set
hairy oil spills
No More Nails
bezoar
nut hamper
the Alcor Life Extension Foundation
parallel parking
and
the Strawberry Strumpet.
Plus: Olly has some dodgy plans for death row prisoners; Helen revolutionises bridal traditions with the help of Stilton; and Martin the Sound Man sold off his glorious ponytail for far less than its current market value. This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Jack, the 21-year-old undertaker in Uckfield, who feels uncomfortable with atheism in front of mourners and wanking in front of his cat. What a shy soul!
Now, if you’ve got time this evening (that is, Thursday 18th November), please do pop along to see us read bits from our book at Waterstone’s Gower Street. We kick off at 6pm sharp, but if you can’t make that, how about a rerun at noon on 26th November at Rough Trade East, huh? Come and have a little pre-lunch fun with us. There are some excellent bagel-shops a mere gherkin’s throw away.
As promised, we’re back from our little break – Olly at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Helen at the Wizarding World of her own living room – and without further ado, it’s time for Answer Me This! Episode 151:
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)
Rusty from our hiatus, we try to remember what that ‘conversation’ thingy is that we used to do, and harness the following subjects in the hopes that they’ll cumulatively become one:
dental floss sticks
inflated pig bladders
Mark Lawson
sexy Humpty Dumpty
minstrels Porn: The Musical vs. Les Mis
truth vs. not lies Tycoon with Peter Jones Terri Hall (not to be confused with Terry Hall) the Spitting Image Chicken Song
unequal phone relationships
crows
Stewart Lee
Paul Daniels
stoned assassins
the sack of Troy
the Hogwarts Express conductor
invisible dog leads
and
Brian Krakow.
Plus: Olly finally understands why he’s booked in for so many appointments at the GUM clinic; Helen wants praise for her more obscure career avenues, thanks; and Martin the Sound Man wants to see a bit more of Ian Holm. Quite a lot more, in fact. But if he can’t get Holm’s pants off, Caitlin Moran’s would be a welcome consolation prize.
This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Catherine about why a kitty is called a kitty. As in a financial kitty, not a cute wickle cat, though just the linguistic similarity is enough for Olly in his now inevitable slide into becoming one of these.
We crave your QUESTIONS for the new series, so deliver them to us in the form of a voice mail left on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis; alternatively you can deliver them emailwise to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And, as we announced on today’s show: everyone who gets their question into an episode this month wins a copy of the Answer Me This! book! Yes, we’ve bloody well written a book. It comes out on 4th November. You can read a sample of it here where there are also links for pre-ordering it, if you are inclined to be an early adopter.
See you next week,
Helen and Olly
PS Here’s a family-friendly(ish) clip of Alice in Wonderland – An X-Rated Musical Fantasy. If you can make it past the actors speaking in rhyming couplets to anything even faintly stimulating, we salute you.
This week, in Answer Me This! Episode 146, we turn to prayer. Don’t worry though; we counterbalance that with computer-game sadism.
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)
Appearing this week in our speech are:
exploding Anthea Turner (don’t worry, she survived!) The Daily Bra (a bit NSFW)
‘Whistle While You Work’ vs. ‘Girls and Boys Come Out To Play’ vs. ‘Greensleeves’
Theme Park
Katamari Damacy
you singular vs. you plural
young Mann’s evil marketing ruses
Skype at a wedding
the Siemens TJ 10500 Dressman Spaced
busy Henry VIII
the JFK death-film
and
Queen Victoria’s forbidden thunderbox
Plus: windy Olly has to choose between his girlfriend and his trouser-press; Helen is going to Hell for what she did to the Lord’s Prayer; and Martin the Sound Man says something sensible about balls for once. We’re also delighted to hear that love blooms between you listeners in even the unlikeliest of places (namely facebook.com/answermethis)
Meanwhile, over on the AMT app, there’s a very curious question from Kiki in Manchester about the Amelie-ish discovery of a mysterious photo of a baby surrounded by matchsticks. Have any of you mislaid such a thing? And in this week’s episode of Great British Questions, our toilet humour knows no bounds. The series is now finished, but come back next week for our Great British Outtakes reel.
Next week, in episode 147, we’ll be joined by special guest Ian Collins of the Late Show on talkSPORT; so send your QUESTIONS for Ian (and us) by leaving a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or firing off an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
This week, there’s no finer entertainment than the live footage of Charles Taylor’s trial at the Hague. But second in the chart, and hopefully less upsetting to Mia Farrow, is Answer Me This! Episode 145:
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 evidence we disclose are such exhibits as:
Bombalurina
kopi luwak
Brixton
Gwen Stefani’s stockings
sewer gas lamps vs. energy-saving lightbulbs
Nice biscuits vs. nice biscuits vs. no biscuits
Morrison’s sausages Inside Nature’s Giants
Ben de Lisi’s new gig
interspecies romance
crotch branding
steam power
and
the frozen pea goldfish detox
Plus: Olly teaches the etiquette demanded of an interaction with the police (1. curtsey; 2. hold your kid gloves in your left hand at all times; 3. turn widdershins only); Helen prioritises which side to expose to a wardfull of patients; and Martin the Sound Man takes a big bubbly bath in listener love for his new album (out now on iTunes, Amazon and in pretty physical form, Martyfans! Go on, make an old man very happy).
Now don’t just sit there, bursting with pent-up QUESTIONS; send them to us instead! We like them in the form of a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. They will come in really handy for Episode 146, which you can hear next Thursday; and on Tuesday, come back for the final episode of Great British Questions, in which we take toilet humour to new levels.
Thanks for sticking with us, considering that, as one of you has pointed out, Vanity Fair is encroaching on our turf. As is National Rail Enquiries! You can ask their question-bot anything, but she is far too judgemental in her responses. So we’re continuing regular service for now (unlike the East Coast Main Line, ber-boom), with Answer Me This! Episode 143:
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)
Today we speak of:
casual voyeurism
John Mayer vs. Stevie Ray Vaughan
AMT party vs. Elton John
spermaceti
moisturisers for men
English Heritage
John P. Charlton
Mr T in pieces
aloe vera
saucy postcards
Camille Pissarro
whaling
fake blue plaques
Boris Karloff’s bedroom
and
Buddhists’ favourite film (NB it’s not Multiplicity).
Plus: Olly reluctantly glows; Helen’s bitesize history revision is for far too big a mouth; and Harry Potter almost prevented Martin the Sound Man from achieving his doctorate. You think Voldemort’s a bastard? You do not want to get in the way of Martin with four years’ hard quantum physics in his hands. Thwarted on the very brink of escape, the man’s wrath could melt trees.
We also reminisce about the public humiliation which attended almost every step of Great British Questions Episode Two: Film, which you can see HERE. Meanwhile, over on the app, this week’s bonus noise concerns how we’d use our spare time if trapped in a Groundhog Day-style situation (clue: heroin, and serial killing).
Videos and apps notwithstanding, we still want your QUESTIONS. So please sate us with a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday for Episode 144, and on the preceding Tuesday for Episode Three of Great British Questions, in which we get all romantical. It’s ACTING, alright? Bleugh! The very idea.
We see a dark blot on the horizon. A dark, sports-shaped blot. Wimbledon AND the World Cup football in the next month? It’s too much for our sensibilities. We can’t stop it; we can’t pretend to like it; but we can prepare ourselves, so we try to limber up with a bit of tangentially sportif chitterchatter in Answer Me This! Episode 138:
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)
Don’t worry, the majority of the content is non-sportular, including:
Project Runway
Jacques Chirac G8 Fail
Hobbycraft
Wenlock and Mandeville vs. Banksy and David Shrigley
Ped Egg vs. fungal nail infection in the Battle of the Turned Stomachs
Yoshiaki Shiraishi
massage
sitting shivah
the obscure early life of Jools Holland
NASA entry requirements
and
bacon bras.
Plus: Olly finds the present day to be lagging behind in meeting targets set in The Terminator; Helen reveals the secret that made Neil Armstrong the first man on the moon; and Martin the Sound Man is quite quiet and well-behaved because he’s really thinking about getting back to playing Red Dead Redemption. A podcast cannot come between the man and his PS3. Harrumph.
We’re looking to you to keep our spirits up in these tryingly footbally times, so please send us QUESTIONS with which to distract ourselves, in the form of a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Ta for that.
There are some very big issues in Answer Me This! Episode 131. The link between artistry and depression. The baffling denouement of the video of ‘November Rain’ (see below for a refresher). How to emasculate stones. Hear:
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)
As side orders to that big plateful of Important Issues, we mention:
Mary Pickford
Stephanie Seymour
bicarbonate of soda
Fernand Pitoit
Scissors Paper Stone
film myths
safety myths
creativity vs. crack
Fargo vs. chipped beef
crochet vs. stones
the boringest action figurines in toy history
cannibalistic tomatoes
and
Phillip Schofield’s big tart.
Plus: Olly conflates coitus and cultural colonialism; Helen is disgusted that all of the internet can’t come up with a believable explanation for why the Bloody Mary is called a Bloody Mary; and Martin the Sound Man comes up with a new word to express the apathy of the Web 2.0 generation. Feel free to use it in a sentence today. Also vengeful Ky from Harrogate seeks your help once more, to sponsor him on his 40-mile jog: make up for his recent Paypal fraud pain by throwing him a couple of pence at http://justgiving.com/kyle-addyman. Or you could just stand by the jogging route and throw pennies AT him, but I don’t think he or the British Heart Foundation would appreciate that as much.
Get your excitement on the boil in anticipation of next week’s Special Guestisode, featuring Andy Zaltzman out of the Bugle podcast and Helen’s gene pool; then send him some QUESTIONS. Preface them with ‘Andy, answer me this’ – email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on Skype IDanswermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877; or if you’re absolutely horrified at a stranger responding to your problem, the usual question-posing format will be perfectly fine.
See you next week, for family fun day!
Helen and Olly
PS if any of the rest of you are superfans of Dr Brian Cox, treat yourself to one of THESE.
We may have had some jolly good news yesterday, but by gum, even though we should be taking a celebratory bath in fizzy booze or something, we are not slacking off on our podcasting duties. Heavens no. It’s business as usual, so here is Answer Me This! Episode 130:
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)
This week’s award-nominated trash talk includes:
bodysnatchers
the lamb of God
Galen
Norsical languages
Arawak Little Shop of Horrors The Game The Game
giant Bearded Fig Trees
sex homeopathy
retort cooking
Justin Bieber
zombies
antifreeze
and
the 1832 Anatomy Act.
Plus: Olly can only dream of being as innovative/stupid as the inventor of the Revolution Grill’N’Chill; Helen’s late granny ensures she’ll never be able to enjoy a nice blue china pig; and as well as featuring a questioneer’s tip to make you a proper hit with the Ladies, we come up with an ingenious scheme to entertain the pedestrians of central London AND rid the streets of the litter of freesheets. Get on it, Westminster Council!
Also, if you haven’t already, go to Martin the Sound Man’s website to download his latest Sound of the Ladies podcast to hear his smashing new song ‘What We Did With Our Lives’, as well as hear what he had to say in interviews with a few other podcasts. Yes, he cheated on AMT! Eh, who can blame him.
As always, please do ask us QUESTIONS for future episodes, by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving a voicemail on Skype IDanswermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877. That would be luvverly.
Praise be for the forthcoming long weekend (even though it’s all thanks to Jesus having copped the death penalty, and we’re not usually fans of capital punishment)! Anyway, if you can find the time between Easter egg hunts, drawing a comedy moustache on the Turin Shroud, or mopping up your stigmata, have a listen to Answer Me This! Episode 129:
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)
On today’s dance-card are:
Mensa
waxed toilet paper
Harefield
Wario
Sharon Stone’s clever fanny
Supergrass’s supersideburns
pubic papercuts
Alex James and Betty Boo Love Never Dies
annatto
Andre the Giant
Glenn Miller
Mr Darcy
the defilement of Jo Guest
Hymn-Singing for Dummies.
and
‘Bugger’s grips’.
Plus: Olly proves that putting him in charge of the 2009-10 Swan and Duck Census was not a wise decision; Helen looks like she has emotions, but it’s just a bad case of pins-and-needles; while Martin the Sound Man would never got his DPhil in walking along in a straight line without incident. Crash! Thwomp! Oh, Martin… Anyway, while he’s falling over nonexistant obstacles, you can listen to him doing an interview on the Rewind Podcast in which he talks about the time he banged Tiger Woods his music and stuff.
This week, we would like your ideas for a responsible revenge for Ky from Harrogate to wreak upon his Paypal fraudster; please take yourself to the comments on this post and chip in on the matter. Then, as per, please do ask us QUESTIONS, by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving a voicemail on Skype IDanswermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877. That would be even more super-sweet than a Creme Egg with a sugar-lump shoved into the fondant.
See you next Thursday!
Helen and Olly
PS This week’s jingle challenge entries is one of Olly’s favourites, despite it featuring an enthusiastic rendition of an email address which we don’t actually possess. Nonetheless, take it away, Krista and Heather:
‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
; Helen’s late granny ensures she’ll never be able to enjoy a nice blue china pig; and as well as featuring a questioneer’s tip to make you a proper hit with the Ladies, we come up with an ingenious scheme to entertain the pedestrians of central London AND rid the streets of the litter of freesheets. Get on it, Westminster Council!
Answer Me This! Podcast 
EPISODE 163 – 80 years of failure
January 20, 2011Dear friends,
Have you ever had selective amnesia? I, for instance, have blocked out every memory of looking into a mirror before my childhood fringe grew out. And in Answer Me This! Episode 163, we discover the event that must have been so traumatic, Olly Mann’s mind banished it…until now:
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)
Things we have not banished from our minds this episode are:
ordnance survey
mouse mats
Lesley Garrett
The Ring and the Book
Jesus Christ: gap year student
Karl Pilkington vs. Aeschylus
Thunderbirds vs. Sex and the City
gastroenteritis – the pleasant kind
Saint Princess Diana
Marie Carmargo
MI1-19
Alexei Sayle’s Stuff
pick-up sticks
the Pope’s posthumous Parkinson’s panacea
and
natural selection through cock-size.
Plus: Olly retracts what he said about Love Actually in Episode 161; Helen invents the portable carpal tunnel preventative gel wristlet; and Martin the Sound Man reveals his ghost pelvis, although luckily just to Helen rather than the entire world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android; not available for landlines) is a question from Lois, who wants to know the truth about the mythical place whose name everybody knows but whose nature few understand: the Watford Gap.
This January, we’re on a detox diet: nothing but cottage cheese and your QUESTIONS. So feed us! Leave your voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Because we HATE cottage cheese, and we’re hungry.
oxes,
Helen and Olly
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