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).
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just £1.99 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)
Wherein we revisit such golden moments as:
Jon Ronson’s breakfast with Pocahontas
butternut squash
Tate & Lyle’s decomposing lion
Lulu Going for Gold
‘Imagine’
the theme from Requiem for a Dream
claret jugs
character M&Ms
Martin’s wedding pants
the Fat Controller’s wife
Owl City
Reg Grundy nepotism
staplenuts
Avril Lavigne fans
Anna Paquin
and
sexy Jews.
Plus some more Previously Unheard Bits from the bin.
Help us concoct more podcast for you to hear in 2012 by sending us your QUESTIONS: fill our inbox by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and deluge our Question Line with voicemails (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
And you can also fill our big empty box – our PO Box, what did you think we meant? – with some 5th birthday goodies:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
We’ll be back with episode 201 on January 19th 2012, so it merely remains for us to wish you all a very happy Christmas/atheist substitute and New Year, and to thank you very sincerely for listening to us in 2011.
What an eventful year 2011 has been. Earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear terror! Sit-ins, protests, riots! So many revolutions, we can’t even choose a favourite! Charlie Sheen being a messed-up addict – but funny, so it’s fine! Osama Bin Laden’s dramatic exit! Pippa Middleton’s bottom!
Plenty has happened here at Answer Me This! too, so take a jaunt with us into the vale of the recent past: here is The Best of AMT2011, part 1.
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just £1.99 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)
What a lot we learnt this year! About such things as:
space tourism
coloured bathroom suites
William’n’Dorothy Wordsworth
celebrity cock-shots
ornamental jellyfish The Apprentice
Dodgy
‘Like a G6’
Dane Bowers’n’Jordan’s sex tape
John Travolta’s face vs. Nicolas Cage’s face
glass slippers
impulse bags
fake tan
undone flies Saturday Toilet
Olly’s lost night of Chico
doll hospital
phallic salad
phallic statues
phallic celebrity waxworks
phallic phalluses
and
Adult Milkybar.
There’s plenty more to come next week; but if you want plenty more AMT next year, then send us your QUESTIONS: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
We have to say a huge thanks to everybody who has sent us something to celebrate our impending 5th birthday – we’ve already received many glorious cards, some rather exciting little presents, and enough sugary treats to push us over to the wrong side the Type 2 Diabetes fence! If you want to propel us into hyperglycaemic hyperdrive, or you want to show off your best penmanship, please dispatch a missive to:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
Thankyou for delighting us by post, listeners. You really are a tiptop bunch.
See you next Thursday, for the Best of AMT2011 part 2!
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:
Brush your teeth extra-assiduously before bed tonight, because Answer Me This! Episode 198 is super-chocolatey. We learn about literal death by chocolate (not carob, as if!), wonder at the untold stories of Oh Henry! bars, and invoke the name of chocolate behemoth Helge Rubinstein, again. Hear here:
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)
Amongst the subjects tumbling out of our mouths this week are:
Plus: Olly wants to take down Annie Lennox, gently; Helen declines ‘pie’ (in the linguistic sense, rather than in the sense of turning down pie); and Martin the Sound Man teaches us an important lesson about diversity in evolution. We also recommend you check out the illustration which accompanies the final question in the episode, which can be found HERE.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App recounts where Olly had the Time of His Liiiiife – at his bar mitzvah in 1994. Have the time of your lives by firing up your iDevices or Android to get it.
We implore you to send your QUESTIONS to us, by leaving voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) and emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; but we also yearn for your hard-copy, old-fashioned postal correspondence to celebrate our forthcoming 5th BIRTHDAY! So please do send us something celebratory, to the following address:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
We really will be beside ourselves with joy to receive something from you, with which to festoon AMT Towers for our birthday extravaganza.
You guys are probably already camping on the pavement outside the cinema waiting for Twilight IVa: They Finally Boff. However, if you have a little room left for things other than Bella’n’Edward, allow it to be filled by Answer Me This! Episode 196:
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)
There are no babies chewing their way out of wombs in the episode, but there is talk of:
Frozen Planet Riverdance
fun with magnesium
Scooby Doo: talk show host
Sammy Davis Jr vs. Jimmy Constable from 911
Akon vs. Shakespeare
flapjacks vs. fun cakes Scrappy Doo vs. Scampi
candles vs. ‘wax-filled tins’ Sophie Wilcox
scaring off the Mongol army The Works
Mario Balotelli
the scent of Jelly Belly
and
medical circumcision.
Plus: [Olly] Mann cannot live on raw cake-mix alone; Helen did not spend her childhood in the back of the wardrobe with Aslan; and Martin the Sound Man wishes the whole world was scented with synthetic rhubarb.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone, iPad or Android) is a treatise on Movember, starting with Martin’s recent facial deforestation, and ending up at Craig David’s current career choice, via Robert Mugabe and Halle Berry, because where else could such a discussion possibly go?
Next week’s episode is going nowhere without your QUESTIONS, so send them in: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or write emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
…actually, not ‘not’. See what a pain in the arse that joke is? Leave it in the 90s, people! This is our plea in Answer Me This! Episode 193:
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 ponder upon:
Indian cows
Utterly Butterly
beluga whales vs. beluga caviar
holy salt
claiming sanctuary
charity shop returns policies
cloud computing
flyers milk.com
contact lenses
Teri Hatcher in Swedish
shoe mnemonics
breastfeeding men
transubstantiation
and
the irony of Google Chrome.
Plus: Olly is jealous of you people who’ve had milkmen (oo-er, missus!); Helen will be hiding in plain sight when she goes on the lam; and Martin the Sound Man is happy to be the theme of your stag/hen parties. L-plates and fake veils do look great against a tweed jacket and facial hair.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices) is about the books that wind up in charity shops before they are even dog-eared. Not this book, though! Perish the thought.
Do NOT, however, perish thoughts of sending us your QUESTIONS. Pose them to us as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or fire up the Skype and look for answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. In the Age of Austerity, it’s one thing you needn’t stint upon.
(or should we say Le Gun Seller?)
