Listeners, who is the bigger idiot: the questioneer who is too big an idiot to make toast, or the podcasters who talk about that big idiot for nearly ten minutes?
The only way to decide is to listen to Answer Me This! Episode 292:
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we delve deeper into the grotesque and terrifying world of novelty toasters. Join us if you dare on your iDevice, Android or Windows toy.
If you’ve invented your own amazing multi-functional toaster (“Guys! It can heat soup at the same time as cutting the toast into perfectly equal croutons!”) then build yourself a snazzy online store through our benevolent sponsors Squarespace.com, deploying the code Answer for 10% off their services for a whole year.
We shall return on Thursday 3rd July with AMT293 – but we’ll also be appearing on this Radio Academy panel about podcasting on 25th June; and as we mentioned, we’re also available at our side project podcasts The Media Podcast, Sound Women and Brain Train. Furthermore, to accompany all the SPOOOOOORT that seems to be happening at the moment, you can hear us talking as sportily as we are able on the AMT Sports Day album, available now at answermethisstore.com.
That’s it! We’re off to make some toast. We could be gone for some time.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT292 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. Swears. Cartoon phallic noses. Kicks off with feedback about parental sex, the very notion of which can be traumatic for your progeny. •••
Apologies to Gina G for the theme in Answer Me This! Episode 289. YOU WERE ROBBED, GINA! The injustice smarts as much now as it did in 1996! Neva 4get!*
On today’s agenda:
Pret a Manger
ladies ‘freshening up’
homecoming queen
wood-panelled station wagons
red Solo cups 60 Minute Makeover
the Mosquito Alarm vs turds
stealing leftovers
Olly’s schoolboy politics Marlene from Neighbours Four Weddings and a Funeral vs The Inbetweeners vs Trainspotting
Skype calls with your parents
pebbledash (again!)
the cloakroom
Peter Andre’s career
and
Nigella Lawson’s handbag condiments.
Plus: abandoned milkshakes bring all the Olly Manns to the yard; Helen tries to become the Barbara Woodhouse of effusive emailers; and please excuse Martin the Sound Man, he’s just off for a ‘bio-break’.
We’re talking brown sludge in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, albeit not the same kind of brown sludge as covering the lawns at the beginning of this episode, or being emitted by ladies under the cover of Euphemisms. The tide of not-effluent is available for iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
There’s also a shitload more bonus material here – the full-length interviews we did with podcasters including Marc Maron, Roman Mars, Night Vale, Keith and the Girl, Dan Savage and the Bugle for our Radio 4 documentary Podcasting: The First Ten Years. So head over there if you’re interested in hearing Helen talk shop with other podcasters; Olly’s interviews will be added to the playlist shortly.
Many thanks to Squarespace.com, who have not only funded today’s podcast, but also offer you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer when making your website-building dreams become reality.
Make our question-answering dreams become reality for the 290th time: call the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And you are of course welcome to join us at facebook.com/answermethis and/or twitter.com/HelenAndOlly to discuss your findings following this episode.
Until AMT290 on 22nd May, farewell,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT289 Child-Friendly Rating: 68%. Early scatchat. A few strong swears. Largely harmless overall. •••
*We’re sure Gina G is reading this from the secret clubhouse where she, Sonia and Love City Groove retreat to shoot spitballs at a cardboard cutout of Katrina and the Waves.
The time has come, dear listeners, for us to pack up our microphones for a month and head off on holiday. But before we go, we tackle some very important questions indeed:
• Should one allow one’s allergies interrupt the loss of one’s virginity?
• What counts as a museum, once and for all?
• What IS R Kelly on about?
Discover those answers and more in Answer Me This! Episode 228:
Plus: Olly explains a ‘reverse American Pie‘, and no, you won’t find it in More! Magazine’s ‘Position of the Fortnight’ archives; Helen’s toilet is like Kanye West, and not because he has a pottymouth; and Martin the Sound Man had just about recovered from the disappointment that was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness when Prometheus came along and crushed his expectations all over again.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Jennifer from Pittsburgh about whether being struck by lightning affects your ability to use technology; assuming the after-effects of that old lightning strike allow it, use your iDevices and Android to peruse the app.
Until we return on Thursday 20th September, here are some means of busying yourself:
1. Listen to us on BBC 5 Live, 1-4pm on Monday 27th August, talking about all sorts of fun and diverse listening materials in our special bank holiday show Required Listening. 2. Tune in to Olly on LBC, 20th-24th August between 1-4am. That’s right, am. Unless you live in a different time zone and it’s a perfectly civilised hour there. 3.Vote for Helen to go to SXSW next year, on a podcasting panel with Jesse Thorn and Roman Mars. 4. Listen to Martin’s music. It is much less obscene than him talking. 5. Have a go on our albums, our first 120 episodes, and some other nice podcasts. 6. Concoct QUESTIONS for our next series: leave voicemails on the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Have a delightful month, and we look forward to reuniting on 20th September.
Helen & Olly
PS Sadly, the Cars of the Stars museum in Keswick closed down last year. But it still lives forever here:
Although we’ve come
To the end of the road current series,
Still we can’t let go – because we’ll be back on 19th April with yet more Answer Me This!. So long and adieu, here is Episode 210:
Today we ponder:
the Angel of the North Pet Sounds
sham marriage a different type of big bird Tom Jones
Mel Blanc
emotions vs. money
Matt Willis vs. televisions
Alice Cooper vs. vending machines
Jesus vs. Spongebob Squarepants
Father Christmas on film
Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth
and
Abraham Lincoln.
Plus: we learn the one place where Olly actually keeps quiet; Helen whips ’em out for SPRIIIIIINNNG BREEEEAAAK!; and Martin the Sound Man puts a price on his hand in marriage. But you might as well barter him down to something more realistic, like £20 and a Chocolate Orange.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Celeste from Elephant and Castle about whether you can sell your house without the intervention of an estate agent. Of course you can! But, before you ask, you are probably better off not performing your own laser eye surgery.
There is more to listen to during our absence, because by royal appointment (not really) we’ve released the Answer Me This! Jubilee, a 57-minute romp through the massive numbers of questions you lot send us about Her Maj and the like. Click here to get it.
Don’t forget us while we’re away: keep sending your QUESTIONS, as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails 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:
Not to blow our own trumpets, readers, but we really solve a SHITLOAD of mysteries this week. What’s with carriage clocks? What’s Cher Lloyd on about? Why do people bother toiling away to earn money through honest means when they could just throw themselves in front of a moving car and rake in the compensation? Find out all in Answer Me This! Episode 184:
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)
We also speak of:
Facebook for babies
the great lost Arctic Monkeys single
the Golden Arches theory of conflict prevention
Parky’s Parker pens ‘Swagger Jagger’ vs. This is England The Simpsons Movie – X-rated
David Cronenberg’s Crash, reimagined
bears’ pre-hibernation precautions
compensation culture
Prince Edward
bulk-buying Tampax
and
the Hairy Moment award.
Plus: Olly is already preparing for the minutiae of his life to be immortalised in a museum; heretical Helen sees the World Cup as a prosaic, nay ugly, object; and Martin the Sound Man at last clears up the common History exam question about what was the primary trigger for the Second World War.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone and iPad, or Android) is a question from Naomi about bathtime luxury, which unfortunately leads Helen to recall a magazine’s truly misbegotten sex tip involving pasta. Try it, then let us know whether we’re all missing out thanks to our reluctance to add spaghetti to our sexytime.
Hold up, we’re still not done! We recently guest-hosted an episode of the RadioTalk podcast; click here to hear it and find out more. And in high contrast to that serious podcast about podcasting, we also have the following: video evidence of the anonymous caller in AMT181 who thought his testicles, a stapler and the Keith and the Girl book would be a happy combination. If your curiosity really can’t resist, click here to watch. But we absolve ourselves from any responsibility for the consequences upon your psyche if you choose do so.
Something which has few negative consequences is sending us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Come back next week to see what we’ve done with them in AMT185. We promise we won’t staple them to our testicles.
