Put your arm out, palms up, now touch your biceps, cradle the back of your head, hand on hip, other hand on other hip, pat each buttock and JUMP because yes, in Answer Me This Episode 395, we’re learning about the Macarena dance! As well as:
luxury car raffles at airports
pompoms on hats
Rita Ora’s millinery
sleeping in tents vs bears
the Hollywood sign
Viking statues with boners
fly-pasts at the Super Bowl
wearing sports merch for a team you don’t support
and
Michael Caine and a Thermos flask full of plague-carrying eggs.
After a harried questioneer raised the problem of dealing with the mediocrity of children in AMT394, in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – listener Elly has some suggestions. And Olly has a more bold/less tactful suggestion.
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 powering to the end of season 3!
• 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.
When you’re trying to make new friends, what’s the best icebreaker? One of today’s questioneers thinks talking about death is the way to go. See if you agree in Answer Me This! Episode 293:
We also consider less morbid topics, such as:
Viagra calorie content I Love Lucy
Wayne Rooney’s new hair vs Kyle Beckerman’s old hair
Vancouver vs Pinner
chocolate vs chocolate flavoured chocolate-esque solids
fire hazard fiances
Jason Biggs
jetlagged hamsters Crystal Creams
Russian Roulette
giving references
borrowing a cup of sugar
and
fucking a pork pie.
Plus: Olly explains the difference between Jewish front gardens and gentile front gardens; Helen will be hibernating all summer (correct term: ‘aestivating‘); and Martin the Sound Man has a restaurant ratings system that will render Michelin stars obsolete.
Since this episode kicks off (yes I went there) with football, one of our least favourite topics, we address another in today’s Bit of Crap on the App: zombies. We could scarcely feel more ambivalent, but since so many of you love them, do your special zombie walk over to the app store in order to listen on your iDevice, Android or Windows toy.
••• AMT293 Child-Friendly Rating: Squeaky-clean first third, then a question about Viagra. This is alright, until around 19 minutes into the episode the conversation turns to American Pie, whence it degenerates horribly. The rest of the episode is fine aside from a few swears, but realistically you’ll already have had to switch over to Fun Kids, so overall we have to rate this episode as 27%. •••
If you take the plunge and purchase it, you’re not only funding the podcast, you also get one hour of all-new Christmas chat about such festive topics as:
✯ FOOD!✯
Audio is entirely calorie-free, so feast your ears on mince pies, trifle, Brussels sprouts, poisoned turkey, lutefisk, Sandra Lee’s Kwanzaa Cake and what Christmas pudding can teach you about atomic physics (which is better than eating it).
✯ENTERTAINMENT!✯
Christmas titans Eric’n’Ernie face off against Mike Yarwood; Olly fails to be swept away by ‘Fairytale of New York’ (and don’t even get him started on ‘Christmas Wrapping’); and the Grinch stole Dr Seuss’s doctorate.
✯CUSTOMS!✯
How the Norse deities Frigga and Baldur got you to snog people under a bunch of a poisonous parasitic plant; why Rudolph’s got a red nose; how the first ever Christmas card managed to be offensive; why Kwanzaa was invented; and Santa on waterskiis.
✯CRISIS MANAGEMENT! ✯
How to salvage the situation if your partner’s bought you a brilliant present and you got them something shit; what to do if you dread staying at your in-laws’ house; how to uninvite people from your party; and why you’re more likely to end up getting a divorce at Christmas. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
✯DECORATIONS! ✯
Let us deck the halls of your ears with Christmas jumpers, Christmas crackers, double beards, and paper hats, even though everyone looks like a dick in the paper hats. Especially because everyone looks like a dick in the paper hats.
The Answer Me This! Christmas Album is fun for all the family – no, it really is, because we don’t even swear. So Great-Grandma Gladys and Tiny Tim can listen happily together while you sneak off and neck the cooking brandy.
We kept the picture of this monster small, but click on it to see the big version. But BEWARE, it may make you spit out your breakfast. But, believe it or not, someone wishes to own this bear SO MUCH that it has caused a rift in a friendship. Hear all about it in Answer Me This! Episode 253:
Today we discuss:
summer jobs
summer camp
rat poison
Australia’s bush capital
Helen vs. Michael Jackson Refreshers vs. Refreshers Crash vs. Crash dying and decaying alone
handmade cheques
funfair capitalism
the sword in Disney’s stone
and
lobster hunting.
Plus: Olly is all about the winning, not the taking part; from humble childhood aspirations, Helen grew up into this (warning: disturbing); and Martin the Sound Man seems upset that Kids These Days prefer Nemo to Pinocchio. Nobody likes a fibber, Martin.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android), Olly describes how the late Margaret Thatcher out-Beadled the late Jeremy Beadle. Maybe he pranked her back in the 80s and this was her comeback. What a pair!
As usual, we invite you to send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. From those, more AMT will be begotten.
Guys. Why are you bothering with the London Olympics, when you need to preserve your energy for the year’s most important contest? That’s right – the British Firework Championships are only days away! And at least one of Team AMT should be looking to start a new career there, as we discover in Answer Me This! Episode 226. Prepare to detonate:
Also going off in the episode:
Mass Market Muesli
clutch bags for the Third World
immersive theatre
psychic jurors
hipster aprons
teacher sadism by proxy
Routemaster buses
the Penguin Shwopping vs. consumerism
Captain Hook vs. Gordon Ramsay us vs. Bob Dylan
and
‘London’s Best Scare Experience 2008-2011’.
Plus: Olly has a damp stinky manbag; Helen errs by bringing actual fruit to the Apple store; and Martin the Sound Man recommends not trying to multitask during sexual activity if you’re a novice.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Kenny, about whether he was wrong to fuck over his work buddy in order to score a promotion. Is it a fair case of survival of the fittest, or survival of the fuckiest? Find out on iDevices and Android.
You can also find out a whole lot if you listen to the AMT Sports Day. Most of that lot will be about sport, but since the Olympics is currently in full swing, you’d only be having to listen to sports commentators rabbiting on anyway whenever you turn on the television. Us or them, US OR THEM???
It only remains for us to ask you to ask us something: send your QUESTIONS as voicemails to the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
After a refreshing month in the Podcasters’ Rehabilitation Facility, we’re back with springs in our step, twinkles in our eyes, and most importantly (as far as you’re concerned), Answer Me This! Episode 125:
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)
Into which vessel we pour such conversational juices as:
Jason Orange
henbane
Carl Perkins
the Sugababes
John Steinbeck
psoriasis vs. cirrhosis Voodoo Doughnut fail
Boney M x4
Columbia Law School
Duffy by proxy
the truth and Alan Titchmarsh
Rickrolling
deuce (not the band!)
and
the sex life of E.M. Forster.
Plus: Olly opens up a can of whup-ass on a listener who is an even more massive pedant than Helen; Helen yearns one day to be given the sack; and Martin the Sound Man has a practical solution for all you flatulent yoga-practicing types out there.
For more solutions, practical or impractical, to YOUR QUESTIONS, send us an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, or leave a voicemail on Skype IDanswermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877. If you do that, we can come back next week to answer yet more of your questions, see? How splendid! See you then!
Helen and Olly
PS. Help yourself to a bit of Olly’s birth-song ‘Stand and Deliver’, why don’t you? And head to the comments to tell us what was the Number 1 song on the day you were born, too!
Answer Me This! Podcast 