Straight back in with the pizza issues after last month’s pizza-cutting questions, Answer Me This! Episode 389 considers:
pizza scissors
banana pizza banana curry
watermelon rind
state-run casinos
Monaco bin collection
speaking through a mask
sewing machines
‘Band on the Run’
snazzing up a small dorm room
and
a skyscraper full of penthouses.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – there is literal crap, as Olly throws a bag of shit at his wife. It was an accident, he swears!
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.
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Week Unwrapped.
• Martin makes music 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 every song by Tom Waits Tom Waits in Song By Song, and he produced and composed the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers, hosted by Maddie Moate.
This episode is sponsored by:
• The Great Courses Plus, the streaming library of courses on topics from yoga to mystery fiction to formal logic to dog training. AMT listeners get a free month at thegreatcoursesplus.com/answer.
• 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 six special albums including the all new Home Entertainment, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.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‘.
Tom has cast light upon the question about human beatboxers’ hands from AMT307:
I do a bit of beatboxing and I find that the hand movements are pretty involuntary – I’d have to concentrate not to do them.
I think it’s just a natural impulse that helps keep time. I find that I do the same whenever I’m playing music and have a free hand, for example when playing a one-handed piano part, the free hand starts waving up and down or tapping on something of its own accord.
I know a couple of other beatboxers who say the same thing. No doubt there is some amount of people doing it on purpose for the reasons you mentioned, but I don’t even realise I’m doing it – every time I see a video of myself beatboxing it looks like I’m having some sort of episode.
Seems sensible enough, Tom. Now, can you account for Martin the Sound Man’s air drumming nearly everywhere he goes?
ARE YOU READY for your AUDIO TROLLEY DASH? On your marks: you’ve got precisely 43 minutes and 46 seconds to listen to Answer Me This! Episode 302. GO GO GO GO GO!!!
Topics thrown into the trolley of our discourse include:
paperboys Paperboy
David Bowie’s palms
TLC’s ‘busters’
decaffeinated Bob Geldof
sushi grass
the courtship of Cheryl & Ashley Cole
BB cream
trolley dashes
hamster funerals
sushi vs sashimi
hyperemesis gravidarum vs ginger biscuits Twin Peaks vs Supermarket Sweep Fire Walk With Me fanfic
Mario Mario
rice
and
the problem with Dale Winton.
Plus: Olly regrets doing this podcast instead of YouTube beauty tutorials; hypocrite Helen is shamed by her inability to pronounce American names correctly; and Martin the Sound Man would rather be sick than drink peppermint cordial to cure the sicks.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets), Olly relishes funny fail videos along the following guidelines: being hit in the balls IS a funny fail, car crashes are NOT funny fails.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘answer’. So use the code ‘answer’. Why wouldn’t you? Don’t you want to treat yourself nicely? Of course you do!
We’ll be back with AMT303 on 27th November 2014; stay strong,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT302 Child-Friendly Rating: 76%. Just a couple of second-tier swears. Small amount of light bawdy content. Pet death may be cause for concern. •••
I had no idea there was something amiss until I was 14, when my friends loudly pointed out the freakishness. I’m the only one in my family with them, and I’ve met only one other person with little thumbs.
After years of hating them, I’ve come to accept them. However, recently my stepsister (rudely) mentioned that she’s always found my thumbs creepy and was glad we aren’t related by blood. Apparently, she was horrified at the possibility of her future kids having them. This had never occurred to me! If I do have children, how likely is it that they will have my thumbs? And how many people have these squat little nubbins? Surely I’m not alone!
Toe thumbs!
Lorelei, you’re definitely not alone; Megan Fox has them; these people on Facebook have them; readers, raise your hands proudly if YOU have them too! Indeed, there are enough people with Brachydactyly type D (BDD) that there are several nicknames for the condition, eg ‘club thumb’, ‘Dutch thumb’ (?), ‘potter’s thumb’, ‘hammer thumb’, ‘murderer’s thumb’… OK, the nicknames could be more complimentary, but they’re still nicer than your stepsister.
Geneticists, are Lorelei’s future offspring likely to have murderers’ magic thumbs? Should she be searching for knitting patterns for mittens with short thumbs?
This week’s episode comes from AMT’s rural outpost: Olly’s new house in the countraayyyyyy. And you know who else lives there? Of course it’s Olly’s beloved cat COCO! Listen carefully for her special guest appearance in Answer Me This! Episode 277:
Plus: Olly prefers silence and privacy during lavatory-time; Helen does not endorse the Divine Right of Kings; and Martin the Sound Man destroys Olly by winning Coco’s affections (and eating all the chocolate buttons). Look at him, brazenly wooing her away from the Mann who loves her most.
Martin steals Olly’s cat’s love
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android and Windows) Olly betrays his younger self by not bothering to meet Jason Donovan.
Please do bother to send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Thanks to listener Gil8ert for the jingle, to pod-colleague Roman Mars for calling in, and to squarespace.com for bringing you this episode. To get 10% off their myriad wonderful website-building services, remember to use the code Answer10.
In the words of Atomic Kitten, see ya!
Helen & Olly
AMT277 Child-Friendly Rating: 76%. A handful of swears. Reference to a blowie. Discussion of weeing adjacent to famous people. Could be a lot worse.
If, like today’s questioneer Paul, you want to allow a cool breeze to circulate around your nethers, but without the hazard of being charged with indecent exposure, we recommend you wear one of these around the house. The pockets are really useful too, for carrying cooling ice-packs and emergency underpants lest you receive an unexpected guest.
Also useful, though providing no modesty coverage, is Answer Me This! Episode 265:
Today we discuss:
Amazon
Amazons’ boobs
Amazon’s Eye
penile hygiene
straitjackets
Dire Straits
(ham)burgers
tartar vs. tartare sauce vs. the Tatars
chips and gravy vs. poutine
political speech spoilers The Bridge
Jeff Bezos
and
the Midlands swing vote.
Plus: Olly thinks one of the world’s biggest online retailers caters especially to his ego; Helen improves upon Ed Miliband’s cigarette packet zingers; and Martin the Sound Man explains why Sylvia Plath ate her mince raw.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android, we come up with a more fitting name for the Shakespeare play that so nettled Olly in last week’s episode. Look out for a production of Much Ado About Vagina at an outdoor theatre near you.
Our podcast would be much ado about nothing without your QUESTIONS, so please send them to us: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT265 Child-Friendly Rating: 30%. Mention of ripe topics including boobs, suicide, politics, fellatio. A few swear-bombs.
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:
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?
Of course, you’re already used to getting good advice from us. (Shut up!) But this week, we have some even better advice from broadcasting stalwart Paul Ross, which was instrumental in making Olly Mann the broadcasting stalwart he himself is today. Hear what it was here and here only, in Answer Me This! Episode 152:
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 address subjects including:
90s collars
Benson & Hedges
The Saturdays
butterbear
Carr’s water biscuits
yuppie kids
evil spirits
Ciro Citterio
the Queen vs. Pixie Lott
Batman’s wedding
Hong Kong tailors
trangias
Terry’s Chocolate Lemons
ligatures
Warhorse
Ben Stiller’s workwear
the musical cleft
Luciano Pavarotti outstaying his welcome
ball-handlers
the Isle of Arran
and
&.
Furthermore: Olly is a staunch conservative when it comes to the appropriate composition of orange-flavoured foodstuffs; Helen’s innate scruffiness has dashed her telemarketing dreams; and Martin the Sound Man stands up for Tom Stoppard. Meanwhile, over on the app, Gaz from Jedburgh has a question about a problem we’re sure is common to a great many of you: nepotism in the forestry business.
Everyone who got a question answered in today’s episode needs to email us their postal address sharpish, so we can send along a free copy of the Answer Me This! book; everyone else needs to send us a QUESTION to be in with a chance to win a free book, along with an answer, of course. You know what to do: leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
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