We love to hear back from questioneers we have answered in previous episodes, so what a treat to receive a new problem from Andrew from Melbourne, whose mother’s creepy collection of dolls popped up in AMTs 360 and 361! Hear his new difficulty in Answer Me This! Episode 382, as well as:
hotel bed stains
hotel bed graffiti
other uses for the cardboard Kylie cutout albatross experiences
Ngorongoro Conservation Area
figure skating music
armpit fart music
a spare Book of Mormon
monks’ hairstyles
life coaching
and
fake wild animals.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows – we choose the songs for our Olympic ice skating routine, and yes, Martin the Sound Man is 100% That Wanker.
Valentine’s Day strikes next week, so get yourself in the mood with the AMT Love album: one hour of questions about sex and love and problems therewith, such as squirting, sexy clothes for your mum, and multiple penis holes. It, and all our special albums, and AMT episodes 1-200 are all available at answermethisstore.com.
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‘.
What do we learn about in Answer Me This! Episode 376 dit dit dah dah dit dit
We learn about Morse code! As well as:
swears in films
the macaques of Gibraltar
Minerva in utero
Olly’s new button jar visible mending
Scampi Fries the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme
sunning your bare torso in your neighbours’ eyeline BBFC ratings
auditioning your hairdresser
and
pickled eggs.
This month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – contains another Incredible Olly Mann Business Idea. It’s yours if you want it, get ready to rake in the…pennies.
Helen and Martin will also be on at the London Podcast Festival, performing the new live Allusionist show No Title on 14 September and, earlier that day, a recording of the film podcast 90 Minutes or Less, including a screening of a film! Ticket links for all the fixtures are at theallusionist.org/events
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, with which you can easily and quickly set up a good-looking website for your peanut appreciation society. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Greetings, listeners! If you’ve ever wondered how jellyfish eat, shit and fuck, we’ve taken the hit to our search histories to illuminate you in Answer Me This! Episode 374. We also discuss:
microwave cookery
confirmation of the Buckingham Palace in-house (in-palace?) cinema
post-chemo hairdos
Eddie Izzard vs Gerard Butler
many Michaels
green screens vs blue screens vs yellow screens
death by Babybel
sea monkey soup mug cakes
brownie points
Helen’s gash
Disney’s Spaceship Earth
and
the contents of Ryvita.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – Olly expresses his wish for an in-house jellyquarium. As long as the jellyfish don’t watch him sleep.
Olly’s other podcast The Modern Mann is back with a new series, and an episode containing New York japes and aerial gymnastics. Find it at modernmann.co.uk – and catch up on the news that you haven’t heard much about on his other other podcast The Week Unwrapped.
Helen and Martin are on tour of Australia with an all new Allusionist live extravaganza! Visit theallusionist.org/events for listings – extra dates have just been added in Adelaide and Melbourne. And wherever you are in the world, 100 – one hundred!! – episodes of The Allusionist await at theallusionist.org for your listening pleasure.
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 terrifying experiments in fusion food. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
And go behind the money curtain to get AMT episodes 1-200 and our special albums, Sports Day, Holiday, Jubilee, Love and Christmas. OK, maybe wait a few months for Christmas. But this month, Sports Day goes well with the Wimblesport.
For the rest of this month, AMT listeners in the UK can get a free trial of Audible 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.
As ever, we want your QUESTIONS: send them, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. (Also the email address to which you can send your requests for us to do the voiceovers on the theme park rides you’re building.)
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – listener Ben in Bolivia calls up suffering from altitude sickness. Luckily, there’s a cure! Just not a particularly useful cure when you’re stuck at high altitude. Hope you’re OK, Ben!
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.
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.
Have you been collecting your own hair since your bushy-headed youth, in order to make a wig* to wear during your sparsely furred later years? If so, could you let questioneer Ryan know asap if that was a good plan or not? Find out why in Answer Me This! Episode 363, in which we also consider:
Kylie’s 50th birthday
in flight magazines
House of Commons fisticuffs
James Cameron, keeping busy the Queen a stick
razor blade disposal units
racing against your mum
the Cosmic Liquidator
cat turd sculptures
and
up in the air with Karen Gillan.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we have a question from Emma from Sweden about the false image we all carry in our minds of Mickey Mouse. Get the app to HEAR THE TRUTH!
Check in with our other work: Olly hosts The Week Unwrapped, the podcast that keeps you up to date with all the news stories that haven’t been drilling into your skull constantly. And Helen and Martin are performing the Allusionist live show on stages in Australia and New Zealand in the next few weeks; you can check where and when at theallusionist.org/events.
The Bluffers’ Guides are back! Rapidly become well-informed in subjects from jazz to management to fishing to dogs 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.
We’ll be back with AMT364 on 5 July 2018, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 21 June.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT363 Child-Friendly Rating: 74%. It’s not blue, but the episode does contain some parliamentary fighting, and no kid needs that in their life. •••
Ever run over a fox and thought, “Mmm, maybe I could cook that up for dinner – but how?” No? Well, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 350 anyway. You never know when survivalist recipes might come in handy.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – cats square off against their greatest adversaries: cucumbers.
Thanks jolly much to today’s sponsors Squarespace.com. Get 10% off their website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Martin just won a BRITISH PODCAST AWARD for his Tom Waits podcast Waits Waits Don’t Tell MeBut Waits There’s MoreSong By Song! Well done Martin!
You can also hear our past selves in the retro AMT episode we throw into your feed mid-month; to get it, subscribe to AMT on your podcatcher of choice. Or if you want more of them at the time of your choosing, they’re all available at answermethisstore.com, along with our special albums.
Plus, can we get your input on: i. Michael Parkinson’s height? Is he 5’10” or over 7′ tall? ii. Alumni of Olly’s school who are more famous than Olly (and thus also more famous than George Lamb and Sonia Friedman)? iii. Chocolate fondants looking like parted legs, all sexy-like?
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – there’s a warning about which films to go to see at the cinema if you want to sit next to Olly frigging himself raw. Or which ones to avoid if you don’t.
Do NOT avoid our album AMT Love, in which we talk for an hour about sex and relationships (with some phenomenal musical work by Martin, exclusive to this). It’s available from the AMT store – you can also get it from iTunes and Amazon, if you prefer – along with our other albums and our classic episodes.
BTW, if mention of ‘November Rain’ made you want to hear more, we talk about it in AMT131, so try that one. And don’t forget to subscribe to AMT if you don’t already to receive a monthly Retro AMT episode in your feed!
Thanks to our friends at Squarespace.com for sponsoring this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year if you use the discount code ‘answer‘.
There are many refreshments in Answer Me This! Episode 336: tea, milk, and a drink Olly describes as ‘mashed-up urinal cake in a glass’. Mmmm! It’s the new hipster cocktail!
We also consider such topics as:
‘Roses are Red’
getting an upgrade at the airport
honeymoon bowel trouble
hush puppies
Hush Puppies
Slush Puppies this famous policeman’s helmet
flowery emoji
things to do in Peterborough
signatures
and
streaking.
Plus: Olly would like it to be known that he is not a geek (except for musical theatre and Disney); forget going naked, Helen won’t even take her cardigan off for money; and Martin the Sound Man believes in bowel karma.
Sorry for forgetting the Bonus Bit of Crap on the App for AMT335, but this one contains further contemplation of streaking and public nudity. Get the app on your iThings, Android and Windows devices.
There are links to the apps at answermethisstore.com, where you’ll also find AMTs 1-200, plus our special albums. The Answer Me This! Holiday is the (or at least a) soundtrack to your summer, and there’s also AMT Sports Day to get you pumped for the Olympics. And remember to get your free audiobook at answermethispodcast.com/audible. By doing any or all of these things, you’re supporting the show.
While Britain Brexits, the rest of us brick it. Well, one listener certainly does, as the proud owner of a single brick. Congratulations, that man! We’re glad one listener in Answer Me This! Episode 334 is happy, at least. Others have trouble with:
public sex
haircuts in space
Apple Store geniuses
buttercups
the Pilton Glastonbury Festival
gravity vs hair-washing
wind chimes
ambient noise apps queening Eiffel Towering Jeff Lynne
and
the price of clay.
Plus: Olly attends a Barry Manilow rally; Helen makes clear the relationship between her and podcast listeners; and Martin the Sound Man manages to sully both sexy role play and the Apple Store in one line.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices), Olly is perplexed by the logistics of ‘queening’, and we wonder about the admin of having a particularly thrilling sex life.
For an easier-to-organise thrill, get the AMT Sports Day album from answermethisstore.com, where you can also purchase our other albums and episodes 1-200. And treat yourself to a free audiobook at answermethispodcast.com/audible, to drown out the sound of Britain sticking its hand into the toaster and screaming with surprise when it hurts.
You can also spot a bit of Glastonbury in the Romance instalment of our Great* British Questions series of videos from a few years ago.
With Olly’s baby poised to make his entrance into this world, Answer Me This! Episode 331 is our last episode before our three-month paternity leave, while Olly adjusts to fatherhood and Helen adjusts to going outside occasionally. Savour answers about:
lads’ mags
cereal toys
spotting the stars of tomorrow as they toil at the Disney parks
‘For He’s as dead as a herring a Jolly Good Fellow’
swimming rabbits
cafes vs brasseries vs bistros
Jane Eyre vs Thelma and Louise
The Lord of the Rings road trips
Jo Guest Tutti Frutti in 3D
ceramic babies
blue rinses
Bulgarian food
Skyrim
Kevin Costner
and
Titcoin.
A question from AMT Love went astray and ended up as today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices). It’s from long-time AMT listener Ace: if you’re young, poor and in Oxford, and you want to go on a Tinder date but you don’t want it to be “Drink?” or “Coffee?”, what do you do instead? Why, you date AMT-style of course! Meet you by the singing cockroaches.
During our three months off, why not amuse yourself by starting a podcast/online store/website using today’s sponsor Squarespace.com? You can have 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year, plus a free domain thrown in, if you invoke the code ANSWER at checkout.
We will return in May, but keep in touch in the meantime at twitter.com/helenandolly and facebook.com/answermethis – which is where we will let you know the due date of AMT332 a couple of weeks ahead of time, AND where we will also post news of Baby Mann once he appears (and has been through hair and makeup, had a spray tan, and undergone intensive media training).
All together now: “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good herring…WHICH NOBODY CAN DENY.”
Helen & Olly
••• AMT331 Child-Friendly Rating: 42%
Some swears, but pretty clean until the last ten minutes, when there’s a question about lads’ mags and top shelf publications. YOU KNOW THE ONES WE MEAN. The ones your kids are too short to reach/don’t need to reach because they can view all the proclivities of humanity on your phone that they swiped from you. •••
If there are any hairdressers, trichologists or mythbusters reading this, please go to the comments ASAP to answer this question from Hollie in Reading:
My boyfriend is adamant that hairdressers never wear flip flops because if they get cut hair on their feet it can attach itself and grow!
Is this true?
We have been arguing about it for 5 years and he is wearing me down. It sounds so ridiculous but he is certain and even got a hairdresser friend to tell me ‘the truth’ and she agreed with him! Is he right? Can hair attach itself to other people’s skin?
I would imagine that hair trimmings, particularly short ones, could stick like a splinter into a hairdresser’s foot, hence them choosing more protective footwear. But, just as a splinter in your foot won’t grow into a sapling, NO OF COURSE SOMEONE ELSE’S HAIR TRIMMINGS CANNOT TAKE ROOT AND GROW OUT OF A HAIRDRESSER’S FOOT.
I’m not a scientist, so maybe I’m wrong. But cut hair is dead, so surely I’m not.
Next question: if someone has particularly sweaty feet, could you grow cress inside their damp trainers?
Answer Me This! Podcast 