Abracadabra! Alacazam! Bippity Boppity Boo! Hey Presto! And other words stage magicians probably don’t use any more! But as if by magic, out of the false-bottomed top hat Answer Me This! Episode 279 appears:
In which we speak of:
hangovers in London
The Breakfast Club burrito
card tricks
great grandparents (not great-grandparents)
the Masked Magician’s spoilers
Simon Callow’s Vegas spectacular Olly’s fantastic grandma
grumpy old men
and
shutting children up.
Plus: Olly is bewitched by David Copperfield’s hair more than his illusions; Helen got lost on a school trip, which was probably better than being on the fun-drained trip itself; and Martin the Sound Man illustrates why the romance of (500) Days of Summer wouldn’t have worked so well if the action had been transplanted to Croydon.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android and Windows) we consider what wisdom our grandparents passed on. Did yours bequeath any sage homilies or sensible advice? Let us know in the comments.
If you’re as excited as we are about the all-new AMT Christmas album, click HERE to find out more about it and to buy. Your money keeps this podcast going, which hopefully is a good thing in your minds as well as ours.
Also keeping this podcast going are squarespace.com, who are also keeping easy website-building going. For 10% off their services, use the code Answer11; they’re also offering you the chance to win a free YEAR of the service if you send us a link to your Squarespacetacular website – if tweeting said link, deploy the hashtag #AMTsquarespace. Come on, you competitive-spirited web-builders! PLAY TO WIN!
Finally, please 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.
Vanishing in a puff of smoke, but really behind a curtain,
Helen & Olly
AMT279 Child-Friendly Rating: 68%. Some swears. Discussion of hangovers, which may corrupt the youth. Deconstruction of some stage magic tricks, which may prove disillusioning to the credulous young mind.
Apologies for our absence last week; normal service resumes today with Answer Me This! Episode 278:
In which we discuss:
pissing with Clint Eastwood Annie Hall
Action Man
Kinder Eggs vs the law
ginger ale vs ginger beer
romcoms vs heartbreak
fake tan
sexy scars
GI Joe’s thumb
the golden era of Richard Curtis
and
Peter Stringfellow’s Marmitey penis.
Today’s episode was sponsored by squarespace.com, who are not only offering you 10% off their wonderful website-building services if you use the code Answer11, but also the chance to win a free YEAR of the service if you send us a link to your Squarespacetacular website – if tweeting said link, deploy the hashtag #AMTsquarespace.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android and Windows) we wonder whether Peter Stringfellow is a nice (string)fellow. If you can confirm or deny, do let us know.
And, more importantly, do 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.
If like this week’s questioneer Maz you want to salve your broken heart with unlimited streaming of films and TV, get yourself a month’s free LoveFilm trial at answermethispodcast.com/LoveFilm. You can also block out some white noise by listening to Helen’s other podcast Sound Women, available here.
Our final demand: join us next Thursday, please,
Helen & Olly
AMT278 Child-Friendly Rating: 88%. Celebripissing chat and mention of Peter Stringfellow’s stringfellow, but low swearage and kid-appropriate topics such as Action Man, Kinder Surprise and soft drinks.
We’ve received this question many times before at AMT – eg here and here – but it is one of THE big questions, so here it is again in its latest form from “a very sad and confused” Emily from Aberdeen:
What’s the best way to deal with a break up when the person is your first love? I love my boyfriend a lot but I’m not his first love like he is mine, meaning he doesn’t feel quite the same way I do and it’s just too hard so breaking up seems the best thing to do.
However I have no idea how to cope with it (as pathetic as that sounds) and would really appreciate suggestions of how to move on. I’m 18 and just started university and this just seems like the best thing to do.
Aw, Emily, we feel your pain. Luckily, you’re off to university, where everything will be new and different. Though this alone won’t entirely obliterate the pangs of love, it will provide a massive distraction. Throw yourself into all the new activities presented to you; make new friends; cop off with boys (that you then feel you have to avoid for the rest of your degree).
Readers, please go to the comments to offer any further salves to Emily’s pain. While she awaits your advice, she can take the classic route of cranking up the break-up songs and having a good cathartic wail. AMT listeners have already provided a starter playlist, and there’s a near endless supply of suitable soundtracks to Lovelorn Feelings.
OK listeners, lots of admin to get through this morning, so pay attention:
1. We have a new album out! Click here to learn more about/buy The Answer Me This! Sports Day. Clue: it’s all about the Olympics sport.
2. We’re interviewed on the latest episode of the marvellous podcast Getting Better Acquainted, which you can hear here.
3. We’re also on Answer Me This! Episode 222, as you might expect.
4. If we sound a bit maniacal to you in the episode, it’s because of the sugar rushes provided by the AMTfans at Roly’s Fudge. Sooooo many sweeties… We’ll have a little lie-down while you listen:
Today we consider:
the definitive version of ‘Hallelujah‘ Brighton Pavilion
campfire guitar war
the Cornwall vs. Devon clotted cream war
universally compulsory therapy
Disneyland Battersea Giraffe
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
Dr Richard Russell’s seawater cure
energy drinks
Emily Woof A Handful of Dust
afternoon tea strategy Muse phoning it in
and
an extremely traumatising image of calamari.
Plus: Olly almost allowed Lynda La Plante to steer his destiny; Helen shares her psyche with the ship from Dark Star; and we discover Martin the Sound Man find crumbs deeply upsetting. He’s really too delicate for this cruel world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App takes the episode’s prevailing theme of afternoon tea and heads straight for the cucumber sandwiches. Fire up the iDevices or Android to hear, and if you try the Cucumber Supercrunch Megasandwich, let us know if it is pleasant.
It is definitely pleasant to send us QUESTIONS; please do so by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
We’re as surprised as you to discover that Answer Me This! Episode 221 opens with a heated discussion upon the topic, ‘What is art?’ Check us out with our high brows!
Naturally our brows don’t stay high for long; in decreasing order of highfalutingness, we talk about:
Edward Lear
double-ended ice cream
Tracey Emin Jeremy Deller‘s teenage parties
the Marquis de Sade
firefighters
bridesmaids
pole dancing
Charlie Chaplin drowning horribly
the pull-out method
and Annabel Chong.
Plus: Olly is horrified to discover that there’s a boarding school-style communal wanking game that he’d never heard of; Helen knows how to make anything unsexy, using ham; and Martin the Sound Man would like to remind you that you only have a couple of weeks left to enter his Science Songwriter of the Future competition, so make the old man happy because he’s got a bad ear this week.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App Helen gives you a great tip for making new friends on late-night public transport, based on her recent encounter with a stranger’s pelvis on the Victoria Line. That stranger’s pelvis could be all yours, if you avail yourself of the app on iDevices or Android! Don’t worry if you’re married; the pelvis won’t be worrying about that either.
We don’t want your pelvises, but we do want your QUESTIONS, so thrust them our way by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). As a reward, you may watch the video below of Eleanor from Norwich’s pole dancing team going about their totally sexless business.
Time for our weekly wedding-related question, which today issues from Nick from Colorado:
During a wedding ceremony, the question is asked, “If anyone knows any reason these two should not be joined in matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.” What the hell could somebody say that would make everybody stop what they’re doing and leave?
Say for instance, it is revealed that the groom has cheated on the bride; does the bride not have the right to say, “Go on with the wedding”? What kind of system is in place to proceed ceremoniously after such an interruption?
Nick has omitted some important words: ‘lawful impediment’ (/modern-language equivalent). Though of course poor form, the groom cheating on the bride is not actually unlawful. Remember one of literature’s greatest examples of someone not forever holding their peace: in Jane Eyre, when [SPOILER!] the heroine and Mr Rochester’s wedding ceremony is scuppered by Mr Mason turning up and mentioning that Mr Rochester already has a wife up in the attic, and their marriage is still legally binding even though she’s a bit nutty and no longer good-looking.
Aside from bigamy, lawful impediments might include the bride and/or groom being underage, or too closely blood-related; although in Britain at least, these possibilities have to be discounted beforehand else you will be denied a marriage licence. I assume that our registrars have nonetheless kept the phrase in the script because the audience would be disappointed to be denied the famous moment of tension, followed by either OMGOMGOMG SCREAMING TEARS WEDDING CATACLYSM or relieved nervous giggling.
Actually, let’s push aside Nick’s questions for a more interesting one: readers, have you ever attended a wedding where this happened? Or where the bride and groom split up at any point during the proceedings of the day? Speak now (in the comments) or forever hold your peace (until our next call for your responses).
Of course I don’t wish misery upon any of the people I know, but I do think it would be a bit amazing to see, and admit it – so do you. You’re tired of all these weddings where everyone’s happy and well-behaved and no relationships go down in flames, aren’t you? AREN’T YOU?
It’s been 40 years since the moon landings, can you believe! Well, we’re sure you can; those things were bloody AGES ago. But can you even believe it’s been a whole week since AMT100? Not as impressive a quantity of time as has elapsed since men got space-dust on their shoes, to be sure; but it’s somewhat relevant here because it means it’s time for Episode 101:
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)
In this episode we wag our chins about:
Fanny Hill
Waitrose
Juicy Couture
the cakewalk
Paul Merton vs. George Orwell
Mr Kipling and his maverick ‘Like This, Try This’ feature Animal Cops Houston
Adrian Mole’s diet
shell suits
Manor House
nuptual napery
Crocs
and
omelette.
Plus, Olly explains fusion food for plebs; handicrafty Helen offers tips for DIY contraceptives; and Martin the Sound Man turns out to be the only sentient being under the age of 70 to enjoy a dry fruitcake. Of all the cakes in all the world, he just has to go for the crap ones.
You know what we would ALL like more than inedibly dry fruitcake though? Your questions! Thwack them at top speed into our question-basket by sending an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving a voice message by Skypeing answermethis or calling 0208 123 5877. Furthermore, please leave a comment below if you can name the album cover that Callum is so keen to identify.
If you are all worn out after that and crave some musical compilations to listen to as you recuperate on your chaise longue, you could check out our inaptly named Celebrity Playlist on iTunes. It works even if you don’t actually have a chaise longue. Fancy! While you’re reclining you can also listen to Helen on the Richard Bacon Show on BBC Live tonight from 11pm-1am, discussing the most pressing topics of the day and trying to stay awake past her bedtime.
That is all for now, so we shall see you next week!
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