Hello, listeners! Answer us this: how would you define ‘Afternoon Delight’?
1. Settling down to watch Countdown with a nice cup of tea (not Lipton) and a nice biscuit (not one that gives you a 20-year-long health fear)? 2. Bit of post-lunch pre-dinner nookie? 3. Listening to Answer Me This! Episode 351, admittedly a delight at any hour of the day?
Today we speak of:
smelly books
the Twitter blue verified tick Olly Mann vs his more successful and accomplished friend Tom Price
the Intervision Song Contest
artificial Oval Offices
articifical Houses of Commons
medieval dragons
stoned dads
Lipton tea
‘Afternoon Delight‘ in Anchorman, Glee, Good Will Hunting…
and
The Beatles in The Jungle Book?
Plus: Olly has a great tip for maximising your chances of competing in Eurovision; Helen recounts her life’s proudest achievement, no thanks to Lipton; and Martin the Sound Man is a WINNER. Whether you enjoy the works of Tom Waits or not, listen to Martin’s award-winning podcast Song By Song at songbysongpodcast.com.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – Helen gets thrown out of a nightspot for not having the right ID. That’s 37-year-old teetotaller Helen.
Want to hear more from us? There’s the retro AMT episode we throw into your feed mid-month; to get it, subscribe to AMT on your podcatcher of choice. All of our back catalogue is available from answermethisstore.com, along with our special albums including the AMT Sports Day.
Thanks to our sponsor Squarespace.com. After putting off building herself a website, AT LAST listener Anna swept aside her inner resistance/fear/laziness, went ahead and created karakalou.com to showcase her artwork (here’s her portrait of The Zaltzwoman). She got 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘. Be smart like Anna! Do it! Now! Or in a few minutes! But do it then! What are you waiting for – a free lollipop? Maybe Squarespace will give you one if you stop procrastinating.
We’ll be back with AMT352 on 6 July 2017, and with a Retro AMT on 22 June.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT351 Child-Friendly Rating: 48%. Some swears, sex and drug references; endorsement of non-essential teabag theft, which may send your offspring down the wrong path. •••
We speculated about the best way for a parent to handle the Administration System of Christmas in AMT328 and 329, but how do you actual child-rearers do it? Brian from Montana writes:
My oldest daughter came to the truth about Christmas’s “Administrative details” on her own.
But when she asked, “So were you lying to me?” I channeled my inner Obi-Wan and said, “That depends on your point of view. Is there a magical man that can break the known laws of time and space to deliver presents each year to kids around the world? Of course not. But, did a man dressed in a red suit stop by our house the past 4 Christmas Eve’s to bring you and your siblings gifts? Yes. (We know a guy.) Are there hundreds of thousands of such men around the world who love kids so much that they put on a big red suit and bring them happiness? Yes. So, in a way, Santa is VERY real, he just isn’t magical, but why is that so important? And now that you’re in on the secret, you can be a part of it.”
She was elated at such a prospect, and I dislocated my arm patting myself on the back for avoiding what was, for me, a traumatic revelation when I found out.
We’ve been treating The Administration System of Christmas quite flippantly in the past couple of episodes, but perhaps we should be more careful if the revelation is traumatic for people. I recall a particularly traumatised Administration System of Christmas victim in chapter 1 of the Lights, Camera, Christmas episode of This American Life. Can any of you outdo the parental deception efforts there?
In Answer Me This! Episode 329, one questioneer wrestles with the ethics of breeding Christmas-truther children who ruin everything for the other kiddos; another introduces us to the Catalan Christmas tradition we now desperately need to appropriate. Listen to find out about those, and also these:
Plus: Olly rode the carousel we all dream of riding; at primary school, Helen reined in her Junior Richard Dawkins; and Martin the Sound Man manages to ruin Oral-B for everyone, thanks Martin.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, the talk of free coffee fraud turns to a far graver offence: Toys R Us fraud. To hear, fire up the app on your iThings, Android and Windows devices.
Thanks very much to today’s sponsor Squarespace.com, who’ll give you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you invoke the code ANSWER.
Thanks also to everyone who has supported the show by buying the Answer Me This! Christmas album. If you haven’t yet, this is really the time of year to do so. April, not so much. It’s available at answermethisstore.com, as well as some of the online retail behemoths – links and further details of the contents are available at answermethispodcast.com/christmas.
We’ll return with the Best of AMT 2015 on 24th December 2015.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT329 Child-Friendly Rating: 5%. Some swears; some bawdy references; and the greatest peril of all: THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS OF CHRISTMAS GIFTS IF YOU KNOW WHAT WE MEAN AND WE THINK YOU DO. So, beware! Also, Olly encourages your children to break the airport rules, which will probably get them tasered. •••
However, at the time of posting, the creature hasn’t actually been born, so try to keep a lid on that ROYAL BABY EXCITEMENT for long enough to listen to Answer Me This! Episode 263:
Plus: Olly’s money-based conjuring tricks weren’t fooling anyone; if Helen’s guess is correct and the ROYAL BABY receives the same middle name as Diana, Frances (Francis for a boy), then everybody has to give her £10 in congratulation; and Martin the Sound Man knows where to go in the event of nuclear apocalypse in the middle of Europe.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android, we harp on about Royal Baby Krispy Kreme. No, we haven’t had a heads-up that the baby will be named Krispy Kreme Kambridge (but if it IS, you definitely have to give us all £10); we’re talking about this shit.
But…if you are absolutely desperate to piss away money on some spurious tie-in with the ROYAL BABY, then the AMT Jubilee is obviously the best direction in which to piss. And we have no qualms about recommending our SMASH HIT TOP 15 ALBUM Answer Me This! Holiday.
Also, please do send us your QUESTIONS for the new series: leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT263 Child-Friendly Rating: 90%. Minimal swearing and a fair amount of educational content, but one question about a listener’s sexual dalliances and the psychologically damaging actions of his girlfriend’s parents, which some children may find troubling.
What a surprise the publishers of our book decided not to use this picture! Granted, their usual style of authorial portrait is usually a little more contemplative, a tad more restrained. But they probably thought that to print an image of such timeless, exquisite beauty on the cover of our book would be unfair on all the other books.
Yes. That must have been the reasoning.
To find out why we have unleashed this aesthetics gamechanger, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 247:
Today we discuss:
forked tongues
Liv Tyler’s tits
holiday snaps
smoking vs. self-pleasuring
Pot Noodles vs. aquariums Armageddon vs. Les Miserables
menageries vs. mono-nageries corgis’ Christmas Lion Tower
Bruce Willis in a space suit
and
bedroom antics.
Plus: Olly reveals how the Queen helped Kate and Willsher dogs to mate; Helen’s holiday photo albums all look like this; and Martin the Sound Man ejaculates through his tear ducts, apparently.
As an extension of the final questioneer’s bath masturbation query, this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) considers what else you can do in a bath, if said bath is in Las Vegas. Clue: cleanliness is unlikely to be the most immediate concern.
Our immediate concern is, of course, gathering your QUESTIONS: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
What are the smells that trigger certain feelings or memories for you? Does the scent of a rose transport you back to eating Turkish Delight with your gran? Do exhaust fumes remind you of that trip to Rome where you lost your wallet but gained some minor STDs? Does cider bring back all too vividly that time you puked into your dad’s slippers?
Whatever the flavour of your nasal nostalgia, take a big sniff and listen to Answer Me This! Episode 245:
Today we speak of:
Annie Lennox
bouquet tossing uniformdating.com
the grapevine
the cheesy moon
the Earl of Grantham’s house before he moved into Downton Abbey Arrested Development vs. Arrested Development Phenom
sexy dill
wedding suits
Marvin Gaye: phone engineer
DVD/Blu-ray ordering
and
the lies of David Sneddon.
Also: Olly’s not a bad driver, it’s just his cursed jumper; Helen is abusing her magnificent brain, by filling it with shitcoms then hitting it with beer bottles; and Martin the Sound Man’s impression of Gregg Wallace is uncannilly shitty.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is a question from Ellen in North Carolina about the Tim Tam Explosion. If you’re not sure what that is, imagine the Australian version of the Soggy Biscuit Game.
On the subject of sweet things, see the proof of Thorntons icing HERE. But this innocentish fun has a dark side, and we don’t just mean 70% cocoa solids dark. As you’ll find out in the episode, Thorntons are striking back! Ulp…
Assuming Thorntons haven’t shut us down by next week, send us your QUESTIONS: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
Yeah! We’re celebrating big-style, because against all our expectations (and common sense), we bloody well made it to Answer Me This! Episode 200. As befits such a landmark, today’s podcast is a bumper edition, featuring some of our favourite people in the world. 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)
On the agenda of this special edition are subjects including:
World of Warcraft
bro code Toadie from Neighbours
glühwein
giant peppermills
Dean Martin: boob man
La Roux: lazy
Pamela Anderson the Beavis and Butthead reboot A Child Called It
AMTfans vs. puberty
paramedic studies vs. media studies
Lassie vs. Bagpuss
Olly’s junior business cards
Switzerland 4eva Armand Assante
Cadbury’s Chocolate Eclairs
Malibu’n’barbecue sauce The Three Musketeers panto
and
hot tubs.
Plus: Olly measures himself on the Frasier yardstick; Helen impeded her mother’s career (look, she never ASKED to be born, OK?); and at last we discover multitalented Martin the Sound Man’s weak spot – deficiency at Warhammer.
This week there’s an especially Big Bit of Crap on the App, wherein we learn: how to make a fake G&T; where dolls store their Christmas decorations; at what age you should not accept gifts of pants from your mother; what the hell DFS stands for; the benefits of child labour for a wedding reception; finding love at the kosher butcher’s; the perils of a brown rice diet; and seeing the PG Tips chimps live.
The app is available for iDevices or Android, but on this occasion, the Bonus Bit is available to all of you, smartphone or not; click here to download the MP3, or play this player:
There’s more! If you require some borderline-horrific visuals to accompany this episode, check out the Gallery of Munt.
We couldn’t have made it to 200 episodes without the affection and support of you listeners, so please give yourselves a pat on the back from us, especially if you are one of the legion who supplied us with QUESTIONS. If you aren’t, what are you waiting for? Send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
We’ll be back next week with the Best of AMT2011, part 1,
Happy Advent, Team AMT! Let’s open the first door of our advent calendar……..oh. It’s a bloody Robin Redbreast, like it is every bloody year. Better luck tomorrow, eh? At least there is the consolation of today’s other new surprise, Answer Me This! Episode 199:
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 warns against handling screwdrivers with your buttocks when attempting DIY tasks; Helen says NO to Grandpa Joe; and Martin the Sound Man plans the toast-based timelapse video that will be going viral shortly after he’s finished his breakfast.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Katherine about how to compile the perfect mixtape with which to woo her new boyfriend. We also learn how not to woo Olly’s mum, and how many Strangelove songs it is permissible to add to one compilation (clue: either one, or none).
We are VERY VERY EXCITED about next week’s episode, because it is of course going to be AMT200! It’s a milestone we never imagined we would reach, but by crikey, here we (almost) are. It will be a rather different affair to AMT100 – the party whistles are still ringing in our ears – but it’ll definitely be a bit special. And like every single one of the episodes preceding it, it will be based upon your QUESTIONS, so send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
As we’ve also mentioned, another AMT landmark lurks around the corner, namely our 5th BIRTHDAY, so help us celebrate by sending something suitable to the following address:
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.
Prepare for the scoop of the century, listeners! For inAnswer Me This! Episode 126, we reveal what Bill Murray whispered in Scarlett Johansson’s ear at the end of Lost In Translation that Elvis and Lord Lucan have actually been living together quietly in the ‘burbs all these years, and riding Shergar to the shops the secret to non-collapsing souffles how old we are.
Yes.
Yes!
Brace yourselves:
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)
But since we suspect that virtually none of you care about that (unless you work for the Young Person’s Railcard Fraud Squad), we’ve also included:
Fry’s Turkish Delight
body language ‘experts’
the goddess Athene ‘Babe’ by Take That
Legoland Windsor
‘The Gift’ by the Velvet Underground vs. Flat Stanley
Richard Burton vs. chuck-out songs
the Post Office
and
Mr Blobby.
Plus: Olly reveals that if you ever need to get rid of him, just play ‘Hip To Be Square’; Helen uses buttons to prove the veracity of her answers; and Martin the Sound Man tells the 1950s to Eff Off. Next week: sticking it to the 1700s!
Lest that is not enough to fill a whole episode, please be so kind as to pose YOUR QUESTIONS, via email – answermethispodcast@googlemail.com – or voicemail on Skype IDanswermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877. If you still have kindness to spare, leave your tips for Tom from Windsor to get rid of barflies in the comments; and augment and enjoy last week’s list of AMT listeners’ birth songs.
RT @HelenAndOlly: 🎵I gotta question
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Our inbox closes TODAY for our Easter special. If you've been sitting on a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…1 week ago
‘, 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:
Answer Me This! Podcast 