As AMT devotees, you know that we don’t shy away from the most serious questions the human mind can concoct. Remember AMT198 last year, when we boldly tackled “What makes a pie a pie?” Today, in Answer Me This! Episode 220, we broach another foodstuff with an identity crisis – salad:
Seriously though, how can this and this and this and this be even nominally related? Pffft.
Anyway, tossed into the conversational salad this week are:
facts about Eugene, Oregon
Hamlet, the Madonna of his time
Madonna, the sexual bully of her time
alternating current vs. direct current
dentist chair vs. electric chair
Natalie Portman Hershlag
French Freemasons William Kemmler
Pizza Express
rainbow parties Rory Gallagher’s guitar
and
Spin the Bottle.
Plus: Olly impresses the ladies with his great big throbbing veins; Helen discovers that Thomas Edison was a right cnut; and Martin the Sound Man plays coy about his age. Don’t worry Martin, you don’t look a day under 55.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is more crap-related than usual, as it features a question from Stephy from Bristol about the point of patterned toilet paper. Along the way we learn upon what Simon Cowell and the Queen probably wipe their bottoms. The rich educational resource that is the Answer Me This! app is available for iDevices or Android, you’ll be relieved to know. Relieved. Ho ho ho.
Enough japery for one week; but if you want to listen to more of our japery next week, you are obliged to send us a QUESTION: emails go to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
This week, we wonder at the morals of fairy tales. You know, the stupid underlying ‘meaning’ that spoils the fun of a far-out fictional confection, and ensures that kiddies absorb some very dubious life lessons. There are probably some very dubious life lessons in AMT216, but at least we’re not pretending we have any morals.
Plus: Olly would like Aesop’s Fables to be more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book; Helen is the Sookie Stackhouse of AMT; and Martin the Sound Man gets quite emotional about the tale of the Elves and the Shoemaker. Thankfully he recovered sufficiently to launch a contest for under-18 songwriters, which you can find out about by clicking here.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from a couple of chaps on their way to Alton Towers. Cue a blast of Mann Rage directed at theme park rides that blatantly used to be other theme park rides. Oh God, why dost thou torment him thus?
What is not a torment is asking us a QUESTION! (Though reading some of them is a torment for us.) Send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
And assuming the elves will step in to finish off our chores, we will see you again next week for AMT217.
This week, we learn that AMT is the name of a legal high. Seeing as legal highs are usually just brain-liquifying chemical syntheses that haven’t been made illegal yet, we cannot recommend trying it. We can, however, recommend AMT214, which is fully legal and will only have mildly detrimental effects upon your brain:
Today we contemplate:
facial fuzz as feminist issue The Beggar’s Opera Ziggy Stardust
‘club dancing’
crowd control
Häagen-Dazs vs. Cadbury’s Flake
death by tinned peaches
Kodak’s adventures in weapon development Forgetting Sarah Marshall transposed to Durham
stuffed vine leaves
a night of creamy indulgence
and
watching Alien stoned.
Plus: Olly doesn’t think Mila Kunis should be doing a desk job, even in these times of scarce employment; Helen wonders what Kim Kardashian would look like without the intervention of depilators; and Martin the Sound Man can pronounce ‘cyanoacrylate’, because he speaks industrial adhesive fluently.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) goes further than today’s question about Downing Street and wonders what is behind the famous door of Number 10. According to Olly, it is our nation’s leaders attending to their itchy arses.
If your own itchy arse ever allows you to use your hands for something else for a moment, use them to send us a QUESTION, either by writing an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or picking up the phone and leaving a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
And finally: if we’ve ever made anyone puke through the podcast, we would like to take this opportunity to apologise.
There’s been a lot of talk of Mexican food lately on Answer Me This!. We make no apologies for this. It is a magnificent cuisine. Episode 213 continues the theme, as we chomp on the history of nachos; click below to chomp on the episode:
Plus: Olly apparently spends a lot of time looking at horses’ privates; Helen concocts an unusual analogy for Oliver Cromwell and the, er, Roundheads; and Martin the Sound Man somehow enjoys the company of this dickhead, who is likely to be cited as the co-respondent when Helen files the divorce papers.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Harriet in York, concerning the self-replicating Magnum Infinity. Soon to be rebranded the Magnum Metaphor after an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority.
There is additional noise for you to enjoy this week courtesy of Martin and the FIFTIETH episode of his Sound of the Ladies podcast. It’s a song about bears or Creation Records or something – click here to check it out.
Then, formulate a QUESTION and send it to us, as a voicemail to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
The unofficial theme of Answer Me This! Episode 212 is arousal. The arousal of certain men (it is usually men) by Viagra. The arousal of certain women (it is usually women) by Agas. The arousal of passers-by by joggers’ firm buttocks. Prepare for frissons aplenty:
Plus: Olly pretends he’s glad he spent his teenage years yearning after girls rather than actually getting to touch one; Helen manages to draw parallels between School of Rock and Before Sunrise; and after hearing the Aga was invented by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Martin the Sound Man sharpens his pencil and begins designing the next aspirational kitchen machine. Start saving up for his £3000 cast iron dishwasher, available soon in a range of Boden-compatible colours.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) concerns the distinction between The Hunger Games and Man Versus Food. It’s pretty simple, really: Adam Richman is Katniss Everdeen, and the giant burritos and twenty-egg omelettes represent the tributes from the other districts. It’s all very deep and meaningful, actually.
Don’t neglect to send us all your deep and/or meaningful QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Plus: with his usual acumen, Olly proposes how to transform a psychotic neighbour problem into a business opportunity; Helen’s parents are being very thrifty with the internet, so that the IP addresses don’t all run out on their account; and we should clarify that Martin the Sound Man’s former job, which he describes as ‘making a man with a tube up his penis laugh’, was in the field of medical physics, not stand-up comedy for catheter fetishists.
Because one pot is never enough, there’s also more about Müller Yogurt on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), including their contribution to West Midlands athleticism, and their retrograde marketing wheezes. They might be 116 years old, but they’ve still got it.
If you haven’t already, please do take a punt on our Top 20 (!!) album, The Answer Me This! Jubilee, comprised of fifty-seven minutes of all-new material in anticipation of the Queen’s jubblies. You can also hear us on the latest episode of Ewan Spence’s ESC Insight podcast – no, that’s not ESC as in the Electrical Safety Council or the Essex Skating Club, but the Eurovision Song Contest. Click here to listen, and hear how we rated some of the songs vying for Eurovisionary Glory this year.
After all that, do remember to send us your QUESTIONS with which we will fuel this new series of AMT: aim voicemails at the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
It is the 75th birthday of Maltesers, so in Answer Me This! Episode 209 we’re celebrating by berating their current advertising campaign for being sexist. Although we similarly spent Grandad’s 75th birthday party berating him for his unreconstructed chauvinism. Can’t trust these septuagenarians to say the right things.
On the agenda this week:
Trojans
buskers
aerated foods
Debra Winger
Stephen Fry’s cab
organ donation
pink newspapers
Boots
Christian barbecues Arne Jacobsen‘s arse
and
hearses.
Plus: Olly lets yet another brilliant enterprise go to waste, but there’s nothing stopping any one of you future billionaires taking it onto Dragon’s Den; Helen finds the world’s best busker – catch him before he goes up in flames; and Martin the Sound Man may be a science whiz, but even he can’t get his macaro(o)ns to work.
It’s quite a literal Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) this week, as we address a question from Volker from Germany who likes to enjoy himself in the workplace lavvies after lights out. And if this, plus the final question of the episode about WCs, has ramped up your curiosity about matters lavatorial, our video masterwork upon the subject can be viewed at the bottom of this post.
We’re also moonlighting on episode 7 of Ian Collins Wants a Word , the new podcast by star of AMT149 Ian Collins. Click here to get a dose of it.
Next week will be our last episode before we go on a little holiday, so hurry to send in your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. We’ve got a bit of a treat for you while we’re on our break, though, so be sure to join us for AMT210 to discover what that is. A packet of Maltesers each? NO. Not until those tasty little bastards start treating us all as EQUALS.
Batten down the hatches, Team AMT; today Planet Earth is being lashed by the most violent solar storm in years. Unlike the usual sort of storm, it won’t knock the flowerpots off the windowsill or ruin your laundry on the line, but it MIGHT interfere with communications systems, including the internet. So hurry hurry hurry to download Answer Me This! Episode 208, then listen to it whilst you board up your windows and dust off your emergency canned foods:
This week we consider:
mermaid menstruation
ladybird literature
the Cranberries’ comeback
partying at Heathrow Airport
the Earl of Sandwich and the Earl of Sandwich
joint bank accounts The Wizard of Oz vs. Return to Oz
Muppets vs. puppets
Soo vs. Anne Robinson
Catholics vs. farmers
grease-free cribbage
Tik-Tok (the character, NOT the K€sha song)
toothpaste
kitsch
Big Bird busybody
and
ET’s hands.
Plus: Olly would like the USA to know that burgers≠sandwiches; Helen’s unlikely to be going on a dirty weekend to Blackpool, and not just because when the wife’s away, Martin the Sound Man will play. With toilet paper.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) concerns Olly’s gorgeous teeth, both real and artificial. You’d never guess which are which!
Give all of us something to chew on by sending in your QUESTIONS: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). Chomp chomp chomp.
Answer Me This! Episode 206 is an exciting one, because we’re joined by legendary comedian and erstwhile rabbi Jackie Mason!
We snuck backstage to talk to him at the Wyndhams Theatre, where he’s performing his farewell show Fearless – click here to find out more about it and buy tickets – and we learned many things: real people are better to watch than Caddyshack II; Lucozade has yet to break America; and Madonna is a sick person (well, we did have an inkling of that already).
For more wisdom, listen:
Before you get to hear Jackie, though, you have to listen to us waffling on as usual, about such matters as:
legless frogs
the legal smoking age limit
litotes
sex vs. Buckaroo
Roman numerals Snog Marry Avoid?
proxy servers
and
heirloom gobstoppers.
Plus: Olly exposes The Artist complainers as FRAUDS; Helen’s inner Russell Brand is unleashed; and before you ask, the reason Martin the Sound Man didn’t come with us to meet Jackie Mason is NOT because no goys were allowed, but because he had to go to work! Science waits for no man.
There’s more Jackie in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, where he holds forth upon the upcoming US election and Harry Redknapp’s dog, so fire up your iDevices or Android.
AMT is back to its normal guestless state next week, but we’re not alone so long as we have your QUESTIONS; so leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Happy 200th birthday, Charles Dickens! We hope you had a super party at the Retirement Home for Victorian Novelists. William Thackeray ordered in the cupcakes, Anthony Trollope bought a keg, and Henry James cooked up a batch of his Special Brownies. We’ll just leave Answer Me This! Episode 204 on the gift table:
Plus: Olly narrowly escapes Death by Chicken Kiev; Helen had peculiar taste in men for a 13-year-old; and Martin the Sound Man compares feminine sexual moisture to Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Women don’t have YOLKS, Martin!
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), Olly explains that as a teenager, he didn’t get a fake ID: he invented a whole fake identity. Will the real Olly Mann please stand up? OK, sit down, you look exactly like the fake one.
As every week, we want your QUESTIONS: deliver them as voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
PS: for all of you who, like our final questioneer of the day, have ever mis-sent a text or email:
Hey, it’s Groundhog Day! The day where a large rodent prognosticates the weather, and also the day when Answer Me This! Episode 203 enters the world.
Hey, it’s Groundhog Day! The day where a large rodent prognosticates the weather, and also the day when Answer Me This! Episode 203 enters the world.
Hey, it’s Groundhog Day! The day where a large rodent prognosticates the weather, and also the day when Answer Me This! Episode 203 enters the w- OK, I’m bored of this joke now. On with the show:
Today we talk about:
cats up trees
hemp seeds iTunes Ping (anyone? Anyone?)
‘Affirmation‘ vs. Baz Luhrmann vs. ‘If‘
gamekeepers
too much texting
Mark Zuckerberg’s businesswear Cowboys and Aliens
national stereotypes
lessons in love from Sleepless in Seattle
and
the hat that won the West.
Plus: Olly explains the reason for the famous British emotional stuntednessstiff upper lip; Helen says “Nooooooooooo!” to apple eugenics; and Martin the Sound Man generously doles out songwriting tips to Savage Garden. If you want to hear what makes Martin such an authority on the topic, direct yourself to his latest music output HERE.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Alex from Northampton about calorie-counting bores. Talking about calorie-counting makes you put ON weight, dullards!
Thankfully you lot are the opposite of dullards, if your QUESTIONS are anything to go by: send those to us as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. No questions, no show! We’re not too polite to resort to blackmail.
Welcome to Answer Me This! Episode 201: the first episode of the year, and the first since the podcast turned five years old. Helen’s niece Matilda turned five the other day too; she celebrated by eating a plate of spaghetti with her hands, and we’re only moderately more civilised:
Wherein we consider:
cake pops
Al Capone
moon plots The Gun Seller (or should we say Le Gun Seller?)
pease pudding Catch-22
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie
supermarket trolleys Ready Steady Cook
pushy parents
the North Wales Police
and
Anthony Worrall Thompson.
Plus: Olly harks back to when he won an election – he claims democratically, but then so did Putin; one day, Helen dreamed a dream of becoming Brian Turner, but never did it come to pass; and after twelve and a half years in the dark, Martin the Sound Man finally hears the sad news that the Two Fat Ladies will not be returning to his television screen.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) concerns the only thing we don’t like about Mexican restaurants: the unwelcome phenomenon we like to call ‘Guac Tax’.
Well, that’s the new series begun, but please help us make it an absolute corker by sending us your exquisitely finely-honed QUESTIONS, as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
And although our birthday has passed, we’re stuck with the PO Box for another four months, so do please send us a token of esteem if you are so moved:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
Also, if you want to be moved to tears of derision like John, the final caller in the episode, scroll down to the bottom of this post to see the pictures of our parents (oh alright, Olly’s lovely mum).
stoned.
(or should we say Le Gun Seller?)
Answer Me This! Podcast 