MISSING: 35-year-old man, answers to the name ‘Nelly’. Last seen wearing a backwards cap and a T-shirt 5 sizes too big for him. If anyone has information leading to the safe return of Nelly, please call 0800-555-RECENTWORKDIDNOTMAKEANIMPACTINTHEUKCHARTS.
Then, while you wait anxiously for news, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 167:
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)
It’s not just Nelly missing. Where’s Wally? Where’s Waldo? Where’s Walter? It’s an epidemic of missing men… But not missing podcast-topics, which this week include:
electoral register unfairness
fake tan lines
John Krasinski
D-locks Martin Handford
Lake Havasu City
TK Maxx vs. TJ Maxx
Walkers Crisps vs. the American War of Independence
the kingdom of Mercia vs. the kingdom of Wessex
Roger Federer vs. William Tell
Harry Potter vs. Queen Victoria
inappropriate poetry corner
massivesnouts.com passive-aggressive chairs
Soulwax the wrong London Bridge
the Ponte Vecchio
and
Mark Foster (whoooooo?).
Plus: Olly touches himself up – just in Photoshop, of course; Helen enjoys her own smutty courtroom drama; and Martin the Sound Man tells you what is cool – this is. So that’s 70s revival and spindly bridges on the style list for spring/summer 2011, OK?
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android) is a question from Ken in Brooklyn about the pickelhaube, one of the few headgear-styles yet to be revived by hipsters. Give them a few more weeks.
Now rack your brains for QUESTIONS, then send them to us in voicemail form to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Then we can weave more podcasts out of them. Score!
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.
It seems this week, every human celebrity with a working womb has declared herself pregnant. Since we blindly follow celebrities in all our actions, allow us to take this opportunity to announce that we, too, have a bun in the oven. Our due date is 13th January 2011 and we’ve already picked a name for the new arrival, Answer Me This! Episode 162. Ooohowowowow – we think the blighter’s on its way….:
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’s episode is accompanied by a token amount of afterbirth and a sizable amount of the following:
Reebok Runtone Trainers
white-collar boxing ‘Heart and Soul’ Love and Other Drugs
Richard Branson
greedy Jet Li
Peter Pan, master builder
Babycham ivy-covered halls
Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’
Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love
Sidney Paget
witches’ hats
bullet time*
the MTV Generation
the greatest album Meat Loaf never made
and
deep-fried eggs.
Plus: Olly has a horrific DIY suggestion for replacing a lost eye; Helen brings down London, one neighbourhood at a time; and Martin the Sound Man recommends that if you only read one book in your life, it should be this one.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (get it for your shiny iPhone or your shiny Android – those of you with non-shiny phones, forget it) is a question from Mark who’s been thinking the unthinkable: if Wills’n’Kate don’t make it to the altar on April 29th, what will happen to our promised national holiday? Panic! (Don’t panic.)
You’ll also note that, at the end of the episode, we appeal for your suggestions to guide listener Karen gently into the magnificent world of book-reading. Please leave those in the comments below; then please leave your QUESTIONS for future episodes as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Great! Now we’re off to stand on the front steps of the Portland Hospital holding a wadded-up pale blue blanket so that maybe someone takes our picture. We’re over the moon! Etc etc.
Helen & Olly
* In case you couldn’t remember what that is, here’s a refresher:
Today, 6th January, is of course Epiphany, the day on which the Three Wise Men called round to see the baby Jesus. It is also the day that the Three Unwise Men’n’Women unleashed Answer Me This! Episode 161, which is only slightly less suitable a baby-gift than a jarful of myrrh.
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)
In this first podcast of the new year, we contemplate:
soup-straws
American military acronyms In Bruges
Waterfit
water-avoiding ‘Gay Bar’ by Electric Six
muscular veiny crotches
Winnie-the-Pooh
Paul Merton
the Pet Shop Boys vs. Half-Life 2
children’s stories vs. beat poets
the best Christmas films ever – see what Team AMT opted for here
the least bad bits of Love Actually (that was quick)
and
Slash’s unusual tureen.
Plus: Olly vows to kick off his New Year’s fitness drive – motivated partly by vanity and health, but more by recouping wasted gym money; Helen anticipates the timely death of the Zaltzman family dog; and virus-laden Martin the Sound Man grits his teeth and tries to survive the episode without exploding with a big gush of gutwater. Cheer up the poor man by listening to some of his music here.
Today’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone and Android, app-fans) is all about Frank Bruno’s penis. Clue: it’s a whopper.
Can you believe we have now entered the FIFTH year of Answer Me This!? It would have been zero years had it not been for your QUESTIONS, so please keep supplying them: leave voicemails on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Remember a few days ago, when Britain was still capable of having conversations about things that aren’t SNOW? Me neither, but SNOW-free Episode 159 is a throwback to those clement times:
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)
Topics on this week’s crib-sheet include:
SNOW
litigious Times New Roman
Shetland ponies
the Mildenhall treasure Jacob’s Ladder
the Crusades
zebra piss
londonollypics.com
flattering spectacles Kramer vs. Kramer
the BBC vs. Boston Business Computing
laser eye surgery vs. A Clockwork Orange
Las Vegas vs. Trafalgar Square
pet griffins
the Crystal Palace water-towers
the penalty for banging Prince Philip
cybersquatting
Stanmore the Monkfish
the MGM lion
and
Martin the Sound Man’s favourite fountain.
Plus: Olly salves his wounds from losing last week’s Queen’s Speech debate by triumphing in his other specialist subject: Macaulay Culkin’s uncredited early work; tedious stories thwart Helen’s attempts to compose the Zaltzman family tree; and Martin will sort out your myopia for a fiver and a bucket of chicken wings, no questions asked. Also, this week’s Bit of Crap on the App describes an inappropriate use for a lovely dollshouse (clue: it’s not this).
In the event that you too have things to say that aren’t about SNOW – preferably QUESTIONS – then please get in touch by leaving a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
If you can make it through the SNOW, then please come along to one of our imminent book readings and signings – there’s one in London this weekend, 3.30pm on Saturday 4th at The Social on Little Portland Street, then there’s another in Brighton, 7.30pm on Wednesday 8th at Waterstone’s Clocktower.
Happy halloween to you! Here’s not-at-all-reflective-of-the-festival Episode 154, but you can decide where it falls on the Trick Or Treat spectrum, 1 being a nice lollipop and 10 being a dog turd through your letterbox. Squelch! DAMN YOU PESKY KIDS.
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 contemplate subjects including:
Scream IV
Ken Kirzinger
Rentokil
Ebenezer Howard
Robert De Niro’s patchwork face
Nigella’s fishy keyboard
the amazing voice of Red Pepper
Welwyn Garden City vs. Letchworth Garden City
Don LaFontaine vs. Alfred Hitchcock Shutter Island
vegetable oil fountains
sweetcorn fajitas
wigs Strictly Come Dancing demystified
and
a brief history of refrigeration.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Emma about whether lentils can kill. If they can, the Ban Lentils campaign starts right here!
Elsewhere: Olly recoils at the idea of dunking fruit into a festive torrent of vegetable oil, despite his total lack of qualms about smearing absolutely everything in mayonnaise which is effectively the same thing; Helen reinterprets the Pied Piper as a cautionary tale preaching socialism; and Martin the Sound Man is uncharacteristically restrained during an entire discussion based around the word ‘shuttlecock’. We think he was sidetracked by a piece of junk mail he’d received in the post from a chocolate company, trying to sell him half-price nut hampers. Fnarrr!
While Martin sniggers like a man half his age, you can get on with sending us QUESTIONS! Leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; and if you had your question answered in this week’s show, email us your address that we may dispatch your free copy of the Answer Me This! book. Next week there are no free books, but you will be able to get a not-free copy from a bookshop or The Internet, because the delightful volume will be available for sale from November 4th. As will next week’s podcast, so we’ll see you back here then! Toodles.
Rejoice! We’ve at last reached not-especially-impressive-numerical-landmark-when-you-think-about-it Episode 150:
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)
And duly we celebrate this really-not-at-all-momentous occasion with such topics as:
Caddyshack Caddyshack II
Craig Phillips
Collins academic diaries
Adolf Hitler’s great-nephew
Gillian McKeith
Curiously Cinnamon
knickers full of coins
Paperchase medical supplies
doner kebabs = engineering feats
Postman Pat’s new job
floaters
Opal Fruits
canine panniers
boarding school trains
wretched funk
clockwise Usain Bolt Platform 9 3/4
and
the end of days.
Plus: Olly gives you the insider knowledge that guarantees to get you on telly; Helen does not want her Everyman’s Library books despoiled by cover illustrations; and Martin the Sound Man has a top tip for stingy people who wish to be kind to the sensitive skin of strippers. Tuck a copy of his album into their garter, that’ll make them happy! This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Simon from Wimbledon wondering why people say Inception is confusing. Because that’s what you’re supposed to say about it, durrr.
This is the last episode of the series, but we won’t be away for long: we’ll be returning with Episode 151 on 7th October, which gives you plenty time to get your bargainous audiobooks (and we will be superlatively grateful to you if you do) as well as send us QUESTIONS for the new series: ask them with your voice on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or with your written words by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Because you’ve furnished us with far more questions than we can squeeze into the podcast this series, we’ll be tackling some of them here on the website during our break – and check back here anon if you’re curious about this world record attempt that we’re abetting on September 30th.
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen and goodbye, until October 7th!
Welcome to September, fellows; and right there along with that back-to-school feeling, blackberries and the looming return of Strictly Come Dancing, isAnswer Me This! Episode 148:
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)
In which we consider:
serving suggestions
Kris Marshall’s erection
hot nuts
booze calories
Andrew Lansley
Panini sticker distribution Ruddles
overripe Bounty Bars
dodgems vs. bumper cars
natural light vs. unnatural flickery light
Olly’s grandma vs. black chandeliers
Britain’s Most Wanted Man
salted slugs
and
Amanda Seyfried’s jugs
Furthermore, Olly suggests that Brutus might not have been a murderer but a midwife; Helen wishes death upon the loathsome Adam’n’Jane; and Martin the Sound Man explains the hydrodynamics of a log flume. See? Science CAN be fun!
Over on the app, we deal with a question from David about how cavemen cut umbilical cords. Although Olly doesn’t deal that well, thanks to his curious belly button phobia. Was he flogged with a dessicated placenta as a young boy? The mystery persists…
Now don’t forget to net yourself some free audioliterature courtesy of Audible.co.uk – click here to find out about their splendid offers for AMTfans, and we can all revel in their largesse together. Then, you might send us a QUESTION, in the form of a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Then we’ll all be happy, hiphiphip hooray!
See you next week; and we might be seeing Ian Collins as well. Who knows? Tune in to Episode 149 to find out!
Are we harbouring some pent-up aggression or something? Because Answer Me This! Episode 142 is quite the pugnacious little beast, as we parry questions on how to sock someone in the face, and how to have a good old bloody battle. Bam! Splat! Wallop! Here it is:
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)
In between blows, we talk about:
comediennes
Byker Grove vs. Pin Oak Court, Melbourne Dreamgirls vs. Showgirls
Nicole Lawrence out of the X Factor The Killer Inside Me
Eldorado
pocket watches
the YMCA
semicolons
Paul Robinson: panto villain
Michel Gondry
that little pocket in jeans
a famous mouse
and
rheum.
Furthermore: Olly disobeys all the Village People’s instructions; Helen tells you all you need to do to become a Somerset celebrity; and Martin the Sound Man cheers up a military history lesson with a burst of Tim Rice.
We also give the behind-the-scenes commentary on our latest video adventure, Great British Questions Episode One: Cheese; if you haven’t already, please take a look at it HERE. Meanwhile, over on the app, this week’s bonus snippet is some incredible insight into those soap opera characters who are written out just as you’re getting used to them. Like Guy Pearce in Home and Away, who knocked up a teenager, promptly died in a car crash, then turned up in Memento denying all knowledge. DID SOPHIE MEAN NOTHING TO YOU, GUY???
As always we yearn for your QUESTIONS with every particle of our being, so submit them to us in the form of a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday for Episode 143, and on the preceding Tuesday for Episode Two of Great British Questions, starring Tower Bridge, James Bond’s big dome, and the Flintstones’ car. YES. Contain your excitement, please; you’ll damage yourselves!
For reasons outlined therein, we’re yawning and stretching during Answer Me This! Episode 136; but we sincerely hope you don’t:
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 call sheet are topics including:
iron ore
Hereford Cathedral’s record-breaking library
abseiling
Jo Whiley’s washing tips
fishy Ashton Kutcher
chopsticks vs. cutlery
stripey horses vs. horned horses
communion wafers vs. transubstantiated flesh
Mel Gibson vs. Bob Dylan’s Planet Waves
pox vs. coma
weather houses
whitebait
Martika
grey hair
and
blue movies.
Furthermore: Olly only publicly relieves himself the classiest way; Helen shuns bridesmaids; and Martin the Sound Man is a silver fox, although hopefully not the same one that pissed in Olly’s trainers, or fisticuffs will ensue.
We also contemplate what makes us feel aged; proceed to the comments on this post to share your own. Although if you are only half our age, don’t. You are mere saplings, so enjoy that while we wheeze and wobble along the path of physical and mental decline.
Old or young, you are all very welcome to send us a QUESTION, so please do that by leaving a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis or by sending an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
ELECTION ELECTION WINEHOUSE’SBROKENBOOBS ELECTION ELECTION ELECTION KATONA. That’s all we’re hearing about this week, and frankly it’s wearing us down. Listeners, perhaps you feel the same; or perhaps you don’t live in Britain and therefore didn’t even know there was an election on. And now that you do, you couldn’t give a tortoise’s bra about it. But hopefully we can all agree to settle down and listen toAnswer Me This! Episode 133, before returning to deface Tory pamphlets/whatever the hell you non-Brit-residents were up to:
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 speak of:
Tory tax breaks
Smith Kendon travel sweets
Kenneth Tynan
Scotney Castle
Birmingham Selfridges
Tate Modern
satnav wipes
sphygmomanometers
sexting vs. proper infidelity
Facebook vs. Friends Reunited
syntax vs. inflections
souvenir pencils
the Paris Expo
James Citizen Kane
Sarah Kane Hamlet II In the Night Garden
and
Ozwald Boateng.
Plus: Olly yearns for the rural life, tilling the soil and raising livestock; Helen is shocked by the potty-mouth affecting Woman’s Hour; and Martin the Sound Man seems to know more about blood pressure than the average district nurse. And some news that might be more exciting to us than to you, and more exciting to our mums than anyone else.
You know what’s definitely exciting all round, though? Your QUESTIONS! So give us a thrill by sending them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, Skype IDanswermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877. Our timbers are shivering in anticipation.
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.
