With just days to go until Hallowe’en, many of you have been writing to ask what costume you should opt for. Here’s our one-size-fits-all solution:
1. Wrap yourself in a duvet;
2. Go to bed until November 1st.
While you’re there, drown out the sound of trick or treaters ringing your doorbell by listening to Answer Me This! Episode 234:
Today we consider:
Citizen Kane
the classic Charlie’s Angels remake Green Jelly (nee Jello)
doughnuts vs. douchebags
strumpets vs. crumpets
Brian May’s badger sanctuary
William of Orange’s pet pugs
tribute bands
hipster combovers
psychoanalysis of Agatha Christie
Fratzos: matzos for frat boys
Leonardo DiCaprio lookalikes
the hard lives of fake Posh’n’Becks
Ann Widdecombe
the mystery of the Rolling Stones’ hair
and
The Mystery of Hercule Poirot’s Pants.
Plus: Olly finally finds a TV show to enjoy when he’s alone in business hotels; Helen does not think this is cute, at all; and Martin the Sound Man won’t think much of Django Reinhardt impersonators unless they burn off their fingers.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Olly digs up a big mistake Universal made, back in the day when Mickey Mouse was still just a rabbit, and Norman Bates was still just a motelier.
Make no mistake: we want your QUESTIONS so we can make more episodes of AMT. So email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
We’re really, really sorry, but after listening to Answer Me This! Episode 215, there’s a strong chance you will have an LMFAO song stuck in your brain, and it will make you want to stick a straw in your ear, suck that brain out of your head then spit it down the drain. But, hopefully the rest of the podcast doesn’t have that effect on you.
Today we mention:
Annie Hall
Joey Barton
the future of pubic hairstyles
Jessie J vs. indifferent radio professionals eating dinner
Will.I.Am vs. Simon and Garfunkel
‘Party Rock Anthem’ vs. ‘The Birdie Song’ Quentin Crisp Olly’s uncle
frigid North Hertfordshire
the scary Dalai Lama
the sexual misuse of animals
and the man with the box on his head.
Plus: Olly theorises upon why footballers sport such ridiculous barnets; Helen does not like her toast done on one side; and sadly we don’t have video footage of Martin the Sound Man’s first ever viewing of ‘Sexy and I Know It‘, but if we did, it would be right up there in the video commentary canon alongside this.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a two-course feast of questions: firstly one from Hannah about currywurst, then for pudding a question from Sammy in Falkirk about pineapple. We hope this combination does not give your ears indigestion.
If you want more ear-food next week, please send us a QUESTION: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
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.
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.
In cities the world over, people are staging sit-ins; so naturally we followed suit, and sat in AMT Towers to produce Answer Me This! Episode 194. Yeah, we’re sticking it to The Man!
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)
This week, we talk of:
naughty nuns Going for Gold The Lion King 3D
fancy dress pitfalls
AFoLs (Adult Fans of Lego)
standard deviation in men’s haircuts
Cornish separatists
Victorian vaginas
Hans Zimmer
high tea
L7
the pink British Empire
impersonating a police officer John Suchet (NOT David Suchet)
the true meaning of ‘fascinating’
ALF the Alien vs. nipple tassels
and Southall’s antique jamrags.
Plus: Olly’s suspicions are proven correct that the perennially awful Rosemary Daniels did not get into Neighbours on merit; Helen’s not going to allow someone else to have the pleasure of waving sharp blades close to her head, thankyou very much; and Martin the Sound Man fleetingly refers to ‘The Bill Callahan Effect’. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of this phenomenon: it is familiar to precisely one person, and that person is Martin. Well done, Martin, for tapping into the popular consciousness so very effectively.
On this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices) you can find out what costume you need to be sexy, smart AND snug on Halloween. Clue: it involves tweed and elbow patches. Ring-a-ding-ding!
Like the greedy greedy bankers, we are greedy – for your QUESTIONS! Leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and don’t worry about the consequences: us having a big coffer full of questions will not mean that 99% of the populace has to struggle on without questions at all. Especially as we’ll be giving those questions BACK in next week’s episode, plus interest (answers). In the AMT economy, nobody has to suffer.
Well, listeners, this is it. The last episode for a month – Answer Me This! Episode 191:
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)
In our last yaps before shutting up for a month, we speak of:
Gossip Girl‘s out-of-character choice of search engine
Tate & Lyle
Envirofone
Jon Snow’s laptop
cinder toffee Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Samson speed-dating
iPhones vs. traditional toilet reading
bio vs. non-bio
blue plastic champagne flutes vs. classiness
Rihanna’s Navy vs. Bruno Mars’s Hooligans vs. K£sha’s Animals
female magnets
and
paediatric brine.
Plus: Olly reveals the secret to his Oxford success – York Notes; Helen has worrying plans to become a major soak over the break; and Martin the Sound Man will be jetting off to space on the back of the Philips Man Iron. Brrrrm brrm!
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App is about newsreader Kay Burley’s eggs, which are available exclusively to denizens of the Sky News make-up room – unlike the AMT app, which is available to any old chump with an iPhone, iPad or Android device.
Though we are off-air for a month, we’ll still be updating this site, and more importantly collecting QUESTIONS for the new series. So send them along, by leaving voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and sending emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We hope you have a smashing month, and we’ll you on October 13th, bright and early!
Look! Photographic evidence that journalist, writer, broadcaster and jolly nice chap Jon Ronson performed his special guestular duties! More importantly, here’s the audio evidence, namely Answer Me This! Episode 190:
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)
Things we learn from Jon:
i) that to be cast on reality telly, you only need to wave your Prozac prescription in front of the producers’ eyes;
ii) how he could have been Captain Birdseye – no, really!
iii) how the 21st-century KKK are getting rusty;
iv) how you have to speak up when you’re on Conan. We’ll remember that, as it’s bound to come in handy soon in our lives.
We also talk of:
psychopathy (unsurprisingly)
conspiracy theories (ditto) Pleasurewood Hills
Disney character breakfast
Mr Blobby vs. Woody Bear
Noel Edmonds’s Winnebago vs. Les Dennis’s Winnebago
James Middleton’s arse vs. Pippa Middleton’s arse George Galloway’s milky mortification
David Icke
the name ‘Beryl’
traffic cops
the Little Mermaid’s mobility issues
and
pigtails.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone, iPad and Android) is Jon venting his wrath at his archenemy Yo! Sushi. If that whets your appetite for more Jon Ronson, do read his latest book The Psychopath Test, visit jonronson.com, follow @jonronson on Twitter, and buy the Guardian on Saturdays just in case he’s in it that week.
Next week’s episode is the last till October 13th, so get your QUESTIONS in: send voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Harness your very finest question-composing abilities, so together we may endeavour to send off this series in style.
This week, we learn how to arm yourself in the event of the outbreak of cyber-warfare. Start digging a hole in your virtual back garden for your Javascript Anderson shelter; lay down supplies of canned goods, water, batteries, masking tape and binbags (because even in an emergency you need to be able to cobble together a rudimentary fancy-dress costume), and load up your rifle with Answer Me This! Episode 168:
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)
Conversational shrapnel includes:
Steamboat Willie True Grit
Alan Turing
Nicole Kidman News in Briefs
topless Kelvin MacKenzie
Sharon Stone’s dress-down Oscar-day
puntits
Victorinox
the Colosseum vs the O2 Arena
perfectly controllable semis
John Virgo
Marchesa
and
swim-gimps.
Plus: Olly’s not going to fall for your elaborate apple-tasting double-bluff, wiseguy; Helen will take out your unwanted small pets, no questions asked; and Martin the Sound Man swims like a middle-aged woman. This is almost as good a show as the Geekpop show he’s playing on 10th March, for which you can and should get tickets via geekpop.co.uk. There’ll be a taster of his new album, Songs from the Scientific Cabaret, at the end of the show next week, so let that be the bright point of light at the end of the tunnel that is the next seven days.
You can also enliven the next seven days by sending us QUESTIONS, which you can then pose to us in a voicemail to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And if you still find yourself with time to spare, you could squander a few more seconds on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android), which contains further musing upon what the whole deal is with Snow White. What’s with them apples? Eh?
Director David Cronenberg welcomes you to Answer Me This! Episode 165, AKA the Body Horror episode. In it, we take a close look at Prince Alberts, alkaline vaginas and the arse of Jo O’Meara from S Club 73. Cross your legs and here we go: 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)
Come back! There’s good clean fun as well, in the shape of:
nativity plays
pyjama trousers
candyfloss
Bellowhead
whisky mac
Hardy Amies
Damian Lewis
Nuramol Looxcie
the Polyphonic Spree Legally Blonde the Musical
Joan Holloway/Harris
Jessica Rabbit vs. Geri Halliwell
Barack Obama vs. babies Doug Malloy
King Herod Stephanie Seymour & Son
security tits Saturday Toilet
and
Benito Mussolini’s bell-end.
We realise that that list gets less clean as it goes on, but no less fun. Further fun: Olly’s Machiavellian side thrusts itself to the fore as he wishes to distort the telly-watchers of the UK into a massive army of Olly Manns; Helen nags you to eat breakfast, else you’ll be all cranky by 11am AND you’ll never conceive a girl-baby; and Martin the Sound Man would like you to know that if your name’s not down, you’re not coming in. At least not until he’s finished his bag of foam shrimps.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (appless? Then hurry up and get it for your iPhone or Android device) is a little nugget of showbiz slang. Ever heard of a ‘kinell’? No? Well, you’re not showbiz, are you? Unlike this week’s app bonus footage.
In honour of the Answer Me This! book being officially (well, close) declared ‘one of the greatest pieces of toilet literature of all time‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
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)
This week, we amuse ourselves with:
the Mann Booker prize
Nightmare on Hygiene Street The Piano: The Musical
Gibson vs. Fender T3 vs. 3T
tarts vs. tarts
salesmanship vs. psoriasis
The Guardian Bedside Reader
martini-making machines
Autoglym
David McAlmont and Michael Nyman
the Nissan of the guitar world
the Captain Corelli’s Mandolin-branded backgammon set
hairy oil spills
No More Nails
bezoar
nut hamper
the Alcor Life Extension Foundation
parallel parking
and
the Strawberry Strumpet.
Plus: Olly has some dodgy plans for death row prisoners; Helen revolutionises bridal traditions with the help of Stilton; and Martin the Sound Man sold off his glorious ponytail for far less than its current market value. This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Jack, the 21-year-old undertaker in Uckfield, who feels uncomfortable with atheism in front of mourners and wanking in front of his cat. What a shy soul!
Now, if you’ve got time this evening (that is, Thursday 18th November), please do pop along to see us read bits from our book at Waterstone’s Gower Street. We kick off at 6pm sharp, but if you can’t make that, how about a rerun at noon on 26th November at Rough Trade East, huh? Come and have a little pre-lunch fun with us. There are some excellent bagel-shops a mere gherkin’s throw away.
Are we harbouring some pent-up aggression or something? Because Answer Me This! Episode 142 is quite the pugnacious little beast, as we parry questions on how to sock someone in the face, and how to have a good old bloody battle. Bam! Splat! Wallop! Here it is:
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)
In between blows, we talk about:
comediennes
Byker Grove vs. Pin Oak Court, Melbourne Dreamgirls vs. Showgirls
Nicole Lawrence out of the X Factor The Killer Inside Me
Eldorado
pocket watches
the YMCA
semicolons
Paul Robinson: panto villain
Michel Gondry
that little pocket in jeans
a famous mouse
and
rheum.
Furthermore: Olly disobeys all the Village People’s instructions; Helen tells you all you need to do to become a Somerset celebrity; and Martin the Sound Man cheers up a military history lesson with a burst of Tim Rice.
We also give the behind-the-scenes commentary on our latest video adventure, Great British Questions Episode One: Cheese; if you haven’t already, please take a look at it HERE. Meanwhile, over on the app, this week’s bonus snippet is some incredible insight into those soap opera characters who are written out just as you’re getting used to them. Like Guy Pearce in Home and Away, who knocked up a teenager, promptly died in a car crash, then turned up in Memento denying all knowledge. DID SOPHIE MEAN NOTHING TO YOU, GUY???
As always we yearn for your QUESTIONS with every particle of our being, so submit them to us in the form of a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday for Episode 143, and on the preceding Tuesday for Episode Two of Great British Questions, starring Tower Bridge, James Bond’s big dome, and the Flintstones’ car. YES. Contain your excitement, please; you’ll damage yourselves!
At the time of writing, two urban foxes are noisily copulating outside AMT Towers. It really is the most unheavenly sound. Hopefully Answer Me This! Episode 117 is rather kinder to the ear:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p, through iTunes or a secure PayPal server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Today we talk of:
the Ban The Bang campaign
book tokens
war memorials
Subway flouting ancient Jewish food laws
bananas The Shadow Of The Wind
FOOTBALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL
Sir Walter Scott
coloured bow ties
poor nervy birds
and
pineapples up the arse.
Plus: Olly offends Andrew Lincoln but stands up for the meerkats; Helen exposes her brother’s audacious present-recycling tricks; and Martin the Sound Man tries out his common touch, but fails to convince. C-, Martin!
As ever, we want YOUR QUESTIONS via answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, Skype IDanswermethis or the question line 0208 123 5877; and this week we would also like you to comment upon this post with your top tips for godparents (are you one? Do you have one? And aside from the obligatory birthday tenner, have you ever actually been deployed in active godparental service?). Alternatively, you can share stories of the worst present you have ever given, in an attempt to amuse us whilst assuaging the guilt that will NEVER LEAVE YOU. Win-win.
stoned.
, visit 
‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
Answer Me This! Podcast 