Well Spotify just named AMT one of the top podcasts of the decade, so let’s conclude the 2010s as we began them: by answering your questions! Answer Me This! Episode 380 features a feast of such festive treats as:
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows – we belatedly celebrate Martinmas! Which has more to do with geese and vintners than echoey-voiced Sound Men, but he’ll take it nonetheless.
How about some more AMT festive-related material? In AMT329, we have a Santa truther child, and the Catalan tradition of the Shitting Log; in AMT357 there’s the filming secrets of Home Alone 2, what happened to the three wise men’s gifts, and what the “new old-fashioned way” is that people are dancing in ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’; in AMT364 we talk about how cranberries are farmed; and in AMT368 we learn about Saint Nicholas’s sidekicks, department store Santas, Jesus and Mary’s relationship, and gift snobbery.
And of course, there’s a whole hour of festive AMT funtertainment in the AMT Christmas album, available at answermethisstore.com for a tiny price. Also there are AMTs 1-200; if you’re looking for a place to start, episodes 160 and 200 sit nicely at this time of year.
Martin is releasing four albums of new music this year! Hear them at 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‘.
We’ll be back with more AMT in 2020 – the podcast turns 13 (!!) in January, and as our birthday gift we want your QUESTIONS: send them, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
After much speculation about the owners of the legs in The Bill in AMT366, and then MORE speculation in AMT367, in Answer Me This! Episode 368 we can at last consider the mystery SOLVED! As solved as if Hercule Poirot himself had gathered us all in the drawing room and explained every detail from knee to sole for twenty minutes. What a capper to 2018!
Also, Martin wonders about the existence of a Lou Reed Christmas song. Does ‘Xmas in February‘ count? It’s more of a namecheck of festivity than festive itself.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – there are two kinds of fake eggs: Kinder, and aquafaba (as seen in the most recent series of GBBO). You’ve never heard someone so excited about vegan egg replacements as Martin here.
Check in with our other work: Helen makes the entertainment show about language The Allusionist; Olly hosts the magazine show The Modern Mann; and Martin the Sound Man examines the entire Tom Waits discography on Song By Song.
Thanks to today’s sponsors:
• Squarespace makes it easy to set up a good-looking website for your projects. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
• Haynes publishing is running a Secret Santa deal on its books: get Bluffer’s Guides on a multitude of subjects or the parody Haynes Explains books for £5 each at haynes.com/santa
We’ll return in the new year with new episodes, so send us your QUESTIONS: any time, deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
With a spring in your step and a scent in your nostrils and a freshly cleaned undercarriage and Answer Me This! Episode 361 in your ears, join us to consider:
Smell-O-Vision
reclaiming skipping for the adult man
museum buddies the Dalí museum
bidet chat
baby equipment the perfect baby bottle warmer
getting aboard Michael Palin
crystal prawn cocktail glasses
and
Trainy McTrainface.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we have a bonus question from prolific questioneer Lindon from Huddersfield about how to cut off the ex-housemate who’s still a parasite upon Lindon’s Spotify account.
Want to see Helen and Martin live on stage? (NB that’s ‘live’ in an adverbial sense, not a verbal sense. Although they will be alive on stage. They just don’t live on one. Why do you have to make everything so complicated?) They’ll be touring with Radiotopia in the eastern USA in May and the Allusionist in Australia in June, and you can check where and when and how at theallusionist.org/events. And hear all about Olly’s grandmother’s amazing piss-based beauty routine on The Modern Mann at modernmann.co.uk.
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the show, and for making it so easy to set up a good-looking website for your projects. Visit squarespace.com/answer; play around during the two-week free trial; then when you’re ready to buy your website or domain, you can have get 10% off your first purchase with the discount code ‘answer‘.
You can also get two free Audible audiobooks if you go to answermethispodcast.com/audible. Why don’t you listen along with Olly to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s memoir? He turned TS Eliot’s poetry into a hit musical and Thomas the Tank Engine into what looks like a load of off-brand Power Rangers on roller skates – what ISN’T he capable of?
You are capable of sending us your QUESTIONS: deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You can still use the old ways of calling the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, but a lot of those messages haven’t been reaching us lately or are coming out sounding like you’ve just been eaten by a robot. So emailing a voice memo is the safer bet.
Wow. It took more than eleven years and 360 episodes, but it has at last happened:
Our first ever question about the Bowling for Soup.
(Who? (No, that’s not the actual question.))
Try to contain yourselves on this landmark occasion as you listen to Answer Me This! Episode 360, in which we also learn about:
astronauts’ dirty underwear
Sushidoku™
bears
the biggest ever cruise ship
sleeping in your grandpa’s old bed sploofs
skunks vs skunk
seeing a rocket launch
and
the Blockbusters Hand Jive.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – Helen craves more information from behind the scenes at the Hanoi water puppet show. (Someone please tell us: how do the performers cope with the water and the boredom, HOW?)
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the show, and for making it so easy to set up a good-looking website for your projects. Play around during the two-week free trial, then get 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘. Is it safe? Of course it’s safe!
You can also get two free Audible audiobooks if you go to answermethispodcast.com/audible. Two free audiobooks are better than one free audiobook which is better than no free audiobooks, so get yourself free audiobooks!
Send us your QUESTIONS: deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You can still use the old ways of calling the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, but a lot of those messages haven’t been reaching us lately or are coming out sounding like you’ve just been eaten by a robot. So a voice memo is a safer bet.
We’ll be back with AMT361 on 5 April 2018, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 22 March.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT360 Child-Friendly Rating: 71%. Not very bawdy or sweary, but does include a question about weed-smoking, and also reflections upon one’s parents’ mortality. •••
Upon the last Winter Olympics in 2014, we fair shat ourselves with surprise and delight when Lizzy Yarnold, who won gold for Team GB in the skeleton, listens to AMT! She’s competing again this time, so GOOD LUCK, Lizzy. Do it for all of us who get most of our exercise running for the ice cream van.
People of all athletic abilities, Olympian or not: get ready to race through Answer Me This! Episode 359, to learn about:
pope tropes
hotel toothpaste
chewing toothpicks
your auntie’s Facebook pic Dave Claus The Santa Dave
Defence Against the Dark Arts
Dumbledore’s aptitude for HR
the Center Parcs trees
the Center Parcs dome
the Center Parcs soft play that’s located in the bar/the Center Parcs bar that’s located in the soft play
karakia
cocktail swords
buttermilk
butterfat
and
globules.
Plus: we hear the latest in Olly’s gold pen nightmare scenario #OllyMannProblems; Martin figures out his title for when, as a Son of Santa, he inevitably takes up Santa duties; and Helen is already running down the beach to go swimming with some snazzy fish, so SEE YA.
The conversation about advance ticket-buying continues in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – as Olly wonders whether his son, aged 2, will be too sophisticated to enjoy the Teletubbies live on the stages of Hertfordshire..
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the show, and for making it so easy to set up a good-looking website for your business, store, restaurant, art portfolio, band, podcast, smug travel wankery, etc. Have a go during the two-week free trial, then get 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘.
You can also get two free Audible audiobooks if you go to answermethispodcast.com/audible. Two free audiobooks are better than one free audiobook which is better than no free audiobooks, so get yourself free audiobooks!
Send us your QUESTIONS: deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You can still use the old ways of calling the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, but a lot of those messages haven’t been reaching us lately or are coming out sounding like you’ve just been eaten by a robot. So a voice memo is a safer bet.
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. •••
Plus, can we get your input on: i. Michael Parkinson’s height? Is he 5’10” or over 7′ tall? ii. Alumni of Olly’s school who are more famous than Olly (and thus also more famous than George Lamb and Sonia Friedman)? iii. Chocolate fondants looking like parted legs, all sexy-like?
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – there’s a warning about which films to go to see at the cinema if you want to sit next to Olly frigging himself raw. Or which ones to avoid if you don’t.
Do NOT avoid our album AMT Love, in which we talk for an hour about sex and relationships (with some phenomenal musical work by Martin, exclusive to this). 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.
BTW, if mention of ‘November Rain’ made you want to hear more, we talk about it in AMT131, so try that one. And don’t forget to subscribe to AMT if you don’t already to receive a monthly Retro AMT episode in your feed!
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‘.
The last AMT recording in the show’s birthplace and home (also Helen and Martin’s home)
Well, this is it: the final episode to be recorded at the Zaltzwick homestead, at the housewarming party of which Olly came up to Helen and asked her to do a podcast. You know what happened next…
If you DON’T know what happened next: a shitload of episodes. Including the latest, Answer Me This! Episode 337, in which we discuss:
tandems
Native American food
fingerprints
coconut oil
what to drink with your kebab The Beef and Dairy Network
celebrity soap opera cameos breaking down the fourth wall
planting evidence
oil pulling
and
reading mum’s diary.
Plus: how The Archers affects Olly’s libido; how soup repels Helen more than a plateful of brains; how Martin the Sound Man ruins/elevates a future episode of Miss Marple.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Kirsty from Edinburgh about The Casket and Sunnyside magazine, formerly the number 1 toilet read for the funeral industry. Get the app on your Apple, Android and Windows devices. For further audio, treat yourself to a free audiobook at answermethispodcast.com/audible.
We forgot to mention that today’s intermission is from AMT121; get it, or any of AMTs 1-200, from answermethisstore.com. You’ll find our albums there as well; the Olympic Times are also the AMT Sports Day Times, and Summer Holiday Times are also the Answer Me This! Holiday Times. But both of those albums still work if you shun the Olympics and/or holidays.
To send us questions for future episodes, email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, call the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, and leave us a voicemail by Skyping answermethis or calling 0208 123 5877. Did you recognise the songs in Thom from Pennsylvania’s supercut of the phone jingle? They were:
0 – Maneater by Hall and Oates
2 – Another One Bites the Dust by Queen
0 – Wake Up by Arcade Fire
8 – Too Late by Carole King
1 – One by Three Dog Night
2 – Just the Two of Us by Bill Withers
3 – Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad by Meatloaf
5 – 8675309 by Tommy Tutone
double – Double Trouble by Lynyrd Skynyrd
7 – Seven by Prince
••• AMT337 Child-Friendly Rating: 70%. Are there any swears in this episode at all? There is a non-graphic question about sex, that may tip a child off to the fact that their parent may have had it. But they have to acknowledge this sooner or later. •••
The album features a whole hour of love, sex, dating and genitals, and it’s all completely new AMT material that has never appeared on the podcast. Such as:
♥ Is it appropriate to buy sexy clothes for your mum? ♥ How do you make putting on a condom fun? ♥ Just what is in that liquid squirting out of your girlfriend? ♥ When you’ve lost your engagement ring, how best to style it out? ♥ Is your partner’s schoolgirl fetish something you should worry about? It’s not like he’s a teacher – oh, he is? Oh. ♥ How do you set up a blind date when you’re a blind dater? ♥ How can anyone feel horny at the prospect of a vagina bristling with sharp, spiky horns? ♥ What’s the best point of a wedding ceremony to call it off? ♥ How do they come up with all those lines on Take Me Out? ♥ What is your exhibitionist housemate really trying to show you? ♥ How many holes should there be in a penis?
Here’s a little preview:
Any further questions?
♥ Is this album suitable for me if I’m not at all in the mood for love, sex, or interacting with humanity at all? YES. If all these people were having such a great time, they wouldn’t be writing to us, would they?
♥ Is this album child-friendly? HELL NO.
♥ Will this album teach me what it’s like to have the Olly Mann Valentine’s Experience? YES.
♥ Will Helen say the word ‘urethra’ so many times, I will feel a bit sick? MAYBE.
You can get it from iTunes and Amazon, but if you want all of your money to go to us and none to Megacorp, buy it directly from the AMT Store.
Happy new year to you, listeners, and here’s your first dose of AMT for 2016. In Answer Me This! Episode 330, we ponder upon:
All Saints – not the band, the shop
Della Duck
Air Force One
boxing belts
remembering people’s names
Tom Cribb vs Tom Molyneux vs George Foreman Grills
Carson vs Alfred vs Jeeves
the psychology of Hampton Court
presidential decoys
and
Jacuzzi bubbles.
Plus: Olly dreams of being like Kathy Bates (in About Schmidt, not in Misery); in the Battle of the Butlers, Jeeves is Helen’s man – even if he’s a ‘gentleman’s gentleman’ rather than a butler; and Martin the Sound Man makes a new friend in the jacuzzi.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iThings, Android and Windows devices – we consider a sporting event that appeals to fans of both board games and blood sports: chessboxing.
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. And if you do so, you’re showing Squarespace that they should continue supporting this show, so we all win. Unlike chessboxing, which we’d probably all lose.
SCHEDULING ANNOUNCEMENT: Olly’s baby is due out imminently. AMT331 will land on 28th January 2015, and after that, we’ll be taking three months off for paternity leave. We’ll let you know any news about the Mannbaby as soon as it/he arrives!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT330 Child-Friendly Rating: 85%. Maybe a couple of swears? Low on bawdy content. Overall: pretty respectable. •••
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. •••
Answer Me This! Podcast 