Well this is it, listeners. After 14 years and 8 months and many thousands of questions, AMT400 is the last episode of the show. Sob!! But we’re surfing out of here on a wave of your lovely, lovely messages – as well as a British Podcast Award for hanging in there for so damn long – and some excellent questions about such things as:
sky dining – no not sky diving, sky dining
the difference between shepherding and nursing
the unreasonable popularity of Fiji Water
saving Joni Mitchell’s childhood home
destroying William Shakespeare’s final home
Barbie vs Lilli
Anish Kapoor’s expensive sculpture vs Anish Kapoor’s expensive sculpture
Swiss Barbie
the real Sherlock Holmes?!
homing pigeons
and
arsenic girl.
The songs you hear were sent in by MJ Fouldes and Hannah Ventisei. Thanks so much to all of you who sent in lovely messages – and songs! – with your AMT-related emotions and memories. We could only include a tiny fraction of your affection in the episode, but know that we read/listened to everything. And maybe wept over it all a bit, too.
You’ll hear a few more of your AMT memories, plus bonus questions and answers about reheating McDonald’s cheeseburgers, the pleasantness of trans-Atlantic crossings 250 years ago, regretting the person you chose to bequeath your children to, life drawing classes, and ruined birthdays (we’re so sorry, Beth!), in today’s Bumper Bonus Bit of Crap on the App. As it’s a special occasion, you can listen to even if you don’t own the app, by downloading here or clicking on this player:
Thanks to our sponsors:
• Manscaped, a full range of grooming products for your furry parts. Get 20% off plus free shipping with the code ANSWER at Manscaped.com.
• Squarespace. Want to build a website? Go to squarespace.com/answer, and get a 10% discount on your first purchase of a website or domain with the code ‘ANSWER’.
Admin time:
We won’t be taking emails or phonecalls, but this website will remain up for as long as we keep remembering to renew the domain! And episodes 201-400 will sit pretty on the free feed in the pod places. Plus all our other stuff will still be available at answermethisstore.com: episodes 1-200, our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015, and our six special albums – Home Entertainment, Love, Holiday, Sports Day, Jubilee and Christmas.
Stay subscribed, because you never know what the future holds…
Good grief! Can this really be it?? THANK YOU for sending questions and feedback, commuting/exercising/falling asleep with us, and letting us be your pod friends.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT400 Child-Friendly Rating: 68%. Low-bawd but several swears. Plus an ad for ball-shavers. •••
Filled with lights, portraits, seaside photo boards and, er, dead bodies on display, Answer Me This! Episode 383 is a very visual episode. Of audio. Rifle through your mental Google Images as you hear about topics including:
BOB the Box of Bibles
missing cats
not-missing cats
warring cats
posthumous pants
Las Vegas lights
comic foregrounds/face-in-hole boards/kaohame
portraits’ eyes
and
Jeremy Bentham’s corpse.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows – we learn which shop was the first to offer gift vouchers. And ibuprofen! And gift certificates for ibuprofen?
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. They just completed season one.
Martin just released a bumper new album, 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 Tom Waits in Song By Song, which has just got to the end of Black Rider.
This episode is sponsored by 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 five special albums, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
We’ll be back with AMT384 on 2 April 2020, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 19 March.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT383 Child-Friendly Rating: 60%. Low in swears, but the final question in the episode is about how to say goodbye to casual hookups so, while the content itself is not explicit, it may raise some awkward queries. •••
Well Spotify just named AMT one of the top podcasts of the decade, so let’s conclude the 2010s as we began them: by answering your questions! Answer Me This! Episode 380 features a feast of such festive treats as:
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows – we belatedly celebrate Martinmas! Which has more to do with geese and vintners than echoey-voiced Sound Men, but he’ll take it nonetheless.
How about some more AMT festive-related material? In AMT329, we have a Santa truther child, and the Catalan tradition of the Shitting Log; in AMT357 there’s the filming secrets of Home Alone 2, what happened to the three wise men’s gifts, and what the “new old-fashioned way” is that people are dancing in ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’; in AMT364 we talk about how cranberries are farmed; and in AMT368 we learn about Saint Nicholas’s sidekicks, department store Santas, Jesus and Mary’s relationship, and gift snobbery.
And of course, there’s a whole hour of festive AMT funtertainment in the AMT Christmas album, available at answermethisstore.com for a tiny price. Also there are AMTs 1-200; if you’re looking for a place to start, episodes 160 and 200 sit nicely at this time of year.
Martin is releasing four albums of new music this year! Hear them at palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of Tom Waits in Song By Song, which has just got to the end of Black Rider.
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
We’ll be back with more AMT in 2020 – the podcast turns 13 (!!) in January, and as our birthday gift we want your QUESTIONS: send them, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
In Answer Me This! Episode 377, we go looking for jokes in the Bible. It’s…a mixed bag. Plus, these informative amusements:
bull and bear Quality Street vs Quality Street
job applications vs typos
the Old Testament vs Wes Anderson
secret Jesus vs secret Adele
drying your hands
macaque fossils in NORFOLK
musical morse code clues
evil paper towels Jonah Man Jazz Swingin’ Samson
and
tucking a press pass into your hatband.
For more on the whole dead-lion-filled-with-a-beehive story, listen to Episode 191 where we talk about why Tate & Lyle’s Golden Syrup’s spokesmodel is the lion from Samson’s riddle.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we hear about another TV theme with Morse code secrets: to our surprise, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.
Listen to Olly’s podcast The Modern Mann, to hear about porn-induced erectile dysfunction and other fascinating human tales! It’s at modernmann.co.uk.
See Helen and Martin on stage! The Allusionist live tour is coming to London this month and then North America. Check theallusionist.org/events for listings; more dates will be added soon.
Also! Helen just started a new podcast: Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the start. Get it in your podding app and at VMIpod.com.
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, with which you can easily and quickly set up a good-looking website for your projects eg your Oscar-nominated documentary. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Whatever happened to aerobics on morning telly, the corpse of Henry VIII, and cummerbunds? In Answer Me This! Episode 372, we crack these mysteries and more, including:
the Pete Best of the Spice Girls the Magic Castle dress code
fish death
taxi radio
Mr Motivator
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ at the football Man of La Mancha
books as gifts
mummified monarchs
borrowing clothes from Switched On Pop
and
cummerbunds.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – our conversation about kings’ corpses turns to a surprisingly thoughtful contemplation of burial and shivah. And then away from that to Scooby-Doo.
Prepare yourselves, New Zealand and Australia, for an influx of Helen and Martin: the Allusionist live tour is coming to you. Check theallusionist.org/events for shows in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide; more dates will be added soon.
Also! Listen to Olly’s new series about diets and body image, Tip the Scales, and it’s ready and waiting for you if you’re an Audible subscriber in the UK and a handful of other countries (commiserations, USA). You AMT listeners in the UK can get a free trial of Audible for a month at answermethispodcast.com/audible – or, if you’ve had such a thing before, you can get a spell of half price membership! And remember: 1. for each of you that takes up the trial, Audible gives us a little bit of money, even when you cancel without paying a thing; 2. you can keep your free audiobooks forever. Hear a sample of Tip the Scales HERE, then get your free Audible trial HERE then hear the whole series HERE.
Sing along to Martin the Sound Man’s gap year diary of songs: his new 40-track mega album The Year of the Bird, complete with illustrations and diaries about each song, is being released at palebirdmusic.com.
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, with which you can easily and quickly set up a good-looking website for your projects eg your Oscar-nominated documentary. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Happy National Bagel Day Eve Eve! How are you planning to celebrate? By covering yourself in seeds and filling yourself with cream cheese? Probably just a normal day for you. Anyway, get into the NBD mood by listening to Answer Me This! Episode 370, wherein we discuss:
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we hear about Olly’s pet fish Mr Reverend Fish.
Check in with our other work: Helen makes the entertainment show about language The Allusionist, recently featuring Susie Dent off Countdown; Olly’s show The Week Unwrapped deals with the news stories you haven’t been hearing about; and Martin the Sound Man is releasing a new song a week as part of his new 40-track mega album The Year of the Bird, complete with illustrations and diaries about each song. Get it from palebirdmusic.com.
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, with which you can easily and quickly set up a good-looking website for your projects. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
As for every episode so far and for every episode yet to come, we want your QUESTIONS: send them, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
After much speculation about the owners of the legs in The Bill in AMT366, and then MORE speculation in AMT367, in Answer Me This! Episode 368 we can at last consider the mystery SOLVED! As solved as if Hercule Poirot himself had gathered us all in the drawing room and explained every detail from knee to sole for twenty minutes. What a capper to 2018!
Also, Martin wonders about the existence of a Lou Reed Christmas song. Does ‘Xmas in February‘ count? It’s more of a namecheck of festivity than festive itself.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – there are two kinds of fake eggs: Kinder, and aquafaba (as seen in the most recent series of GBBO). You’ve never heard someone so excited about vegan egg replacements as Martin here.
Check in with our other work: Helen makes the entertainment show about language The Allusionist; Olly hosts the magazine show The Modern Mann; and Martin the Sound Man examines the entire Tom Waits discography on Song By Song.
Thanks to today’s sponsors:
• Squarespace makes it easy to set up a good-looking website for your projects. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
• Haynes publishing is running a Secret Santa deal on its books: get Bluffer’s Guides on a multitude of subjects or the parody Haynes Explains books for £5 each at haynes.com/santa
We’ll return in the new year with new episodes, so send us your QUESTIONS: any time, deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Apologies for the unscheduled absence of a fresh episode in July, listeners: Helen’s neck had other plans for the past few weeks. But hooray, Helen is out of hospital and all new Answer Me This! Episode 364 is here! WARNING: there’s a bit of Medical Stuff in the first few minutes of this episode, so if you’re sensitive to that, skip to the 4-minute mark, after which you can hear about:
Paw Patrol vs the football World Cup
post-swim communal shower etiquette
cosmetology Cast Away
jesters’ staffs
cranberry farming
lost birthday presents Bram Stoker’s Dracula
and
an inflated bladder on a stick.
There is more cranberry-chat in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices. We discover a previous, more ferocious name for the fruit, and reminisce about The Delia Effect (not a euphemism for a UTI or the soothing thereof with cranberry juice).
Check in with our other work: Olly hosts The Modern Mann; and Helen and Martin are performing the Allusionist live show on stages in the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada this autumn – check where and when at theallusionist.org/events.
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the show, and for making it so easy to set up a good-looking website for your projects. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
The Bluffers’ Guides are back! Rapidly become passingly well-informed in subjects from cats to fishing to social media to wine at bluffers.com.
Send us your QUESTIONS: any time, deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You can still use the old ways of calling the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, but a lot of those messages haven’t been reaching us lately. So emailing a voice memo is the safer bet.
Upon the last Winter Olympics in 2014, we fair shat ourselves with surprise and delight when Lizzy Yarnold, who won gold for Team GB in the skeleton, listens to AMT! She’s competing again this time, so GOOD LUCK, Lizzy. Do it for all of us who get most of our exercise running for the ice cream van.
People of all athletic abilities, Olympian or not: get ready to race through Answer Me This! Episode 359, to learn about:
pope tropes
hotel toothpaste
chewing toothpicks
your auntie’s Facebook pic Dave Claus The Santa Dave
Defence Against the Dark Arts
Dumbledore’s aptitude for HR
the Center Parcs trees
the Center Parcs dome
the Center Parcs soft play that’s located in the bar/the Center Parcs bar that’s located in the soft play
karakia
cocktail swords
buttermilk
butterfat
and
globules.
Plus: we hear the latest in Olly’s gold pen nightmare scenario #OllyMannProblems; Martin figures out his title for when, as a Son of Santa, he inevitably takes up Santa duties; and Helen is already running down the beach to go swimming with some snazzy fish, so SEE YA.
The conversation about advance ticket-buying continues in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – as Olly wonders whether his son, aged 2, will be too sophisticated to enjoy the Teletubbies live on the stages of Hertfordshire..
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the show, and for making it so easy to set up a good-looking website for your business, store, restaurant, art portfolio, band, podcast, smug travel wankery, etc. Have a go during the two-week free trial, then get 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘.
You can also get two free Audible audiobooks if you go to answermethispodcast.com/audible. Two free audiobooks are better than one free audiobook which is better than no free audiobooks, so get yourself free audiobooks!
Send us your QUESTIONS: deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You can still use the old ways of calling the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, but a lot of those messages haven’t been reaching us lately or are coming out sounding like you’ve just been eaten by a robot. So a voice memo is a safer bet.
It’s AMT’s 11th birthday! To celebrate, we can’t replicate how Olly spent his own 11th birthday, at Cody’s Tex-Mex restaurant in Stevenage, because it closed down. So instead we’ve made some mild-to-moderate life changes – hear all about them Answer Me This! Episode 358, in which we also consider:
Nicole Scherzinger’s rancid yoghurt-nose
chutney WHY WHY WHY
goldfish as gifts
glass coffins
dairy for ditzes
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Forty Dragons
Goldilocks and the Three Bears Scant Plot
the price of gold pens
jamnesty
kalettes
piranha ribs
hot tubs vs hot pot
and
Olly Mannhood.
Should we be flattered that some of you have named your sexy body parts after us? Is it some kind of ultra-effective contraceptive? Because if you need a libido-killer, you’ve really invented a great one.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – contains some listener suggestions for David who complained in episode 355 that strangers won’t leave him alone because his dog is too cute. David should have looked for tips in the documentary about the making of Moonwalker! It’s OBVIOUS!
You still have a couple of weeks to get our most recent Retro AMT, the Best of 2010 part 1 – a good year! For AMT japes, anyway. All our Best Of compilations, as well as episodes 1-200 and our five special albums, are available to buy from the AMT store.
Thanks to today’s sponsors: first direct, whose online banking services you can find at firstdirect.com; and those stalwarts of podcast support Squarespace. Have a go during the two-week free trial, then get 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Send us your QUESTIONS for AMT in 2018: send us a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You can still use the old ways of calling the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, but a lot of those messages haven’t been reaching us lately, and we hate to think of your intriguing witty questions being lost to us.
We’ll be back with AMT359 on 1 February 2018, and with a Retro AMT episode on 18 January. And if you’re in or near San Francisco on 12 January, get a ticket HERE to see Helen and Martin at SF Sketchfest.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT358 Child-Friendly Rating: 38%. Mostly ok, but the question about naming your genitals after us might traumatise your innocent offspring forever. •••
Where does all the money go from the Band Aid song? When you’re someone’s house guest, how long before you can have a wank? And what’s a penguin doing in a nativity scene? The answers to all these mysteries are in Answer Me This! Episode 357, as well as:
For the section about nativity scenes, listen to episode 329 to remind yourself of the shitting log tradition. And in episode 80, we talk more about the three wise men and the gifts they bring that no baby would want. This episode is usually only available from the answermethisstore.com, but RIGHT NOW for the next couple of weeks, it’s free on our feed as the current retro AMT! Subscribe to get it!
If you missed the retro episode, all of our back catalogue is available to buy from the AMT store, as are our special albums. If you’re not popping open the AMT Christmas album at least once this month, then you’re fucking up your December. Just get it. It’s holly jolly good. (And contains not just Christmas: there are also sections about Kwanzaa, Norse deities, reindeer nasal mucus, and ruined relationships.)
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – concerns The One* That Got Away**
* bit of film merch
** from Olly.
Thanks to today’s sponsors: first direct, whose online banking services you can find at firstdirect.com; and those stalwarts of podcast support Squarespace. Have a go during the two-week free trial, then get 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘.
There’s MAGIC! all over Answer Me This! Episode 354: how to MAGICALLY transform a banana into a sliced banana, how to MAGICALLY turn an egg into an egg IN A BOTTLE, and how to MAGICALLY turn an adolescent boy into a hit with the ladies. We also learn about:
Plus: Olly recaps the origins of his lifelong feud with Wales; Helen does not want to learn magic tricks to break the ice at parties (also does not want to go to parties); and Martin the Sound Man can be found behind a veil of steam rising from a Szechuan hotpot.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we learn what it takes to make Olly crack up on air: hepatitis.
Want to hear more from us? There’s the retro AMT episode we lob into your feed mid-month – right now you can hear the crowd favourite AMT186, containing the last known sighting of Owl City; to get it, subscribe to AMT on your podcatcher of choice. All of our back catalogue is available from answermethisstore.com, along with our special albums.
Thank you very much, thank you very very very much to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode, and for making spiffy websites so easy to build. Do as Martin did: play around during the two-week free trial, then get 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Answer Me This! Podcast 