Welcome back AMT for one special new episode! So much has changed since we retired nearly two years ago, but what remains is our desire to answer YOUR QUESTIONS. Thanks so much for sending them, we loved hearing from you again.
Content notes/child-friendly ratings: discussion of alcoholic drinks with mention of drunkenness. A handful of swears. A question at the end about looking at your own sperm through microscopes.
• Wondrium, the streaming library of tutorials, lectures, documentaries, how-to videos, travel, craft and much more! AMT listeners get a month of free access to the whole library at wondrium.com/answer. • 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’.
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. •••
Welcome to Answer Me This Episode 396! Nearly 400 episodes in and several thousand questions answered, and you’re still sending us ones we have never covered before. In today’s episode, “Do voodoo dolls work, and specifically, did mine work too well?” Plus:
Calvin Klein’s Obsession for lions vegan black pudding
dijonnaise
snooping houseguests
The Addams Family
crabs eating crab babies
and
shouting ‘geronimo!’
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – Olly divulges the other disproportionately-expensive-for-an-everyday-item import purchase he would make, in an ideal world. Until that time, he’ll console himself with a bashful of dijonnaise.
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 – now past the movie and heading straight onto the novels.
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including his monthly magazine show The Modern Mann and weekly under-the-radar-news show, The Week Unwrapped.
• Martin makes music – including a new EP – 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 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 piano-playing to yoga to ancient history to dog training. AMT listeners get a free fortnight 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 Valentines-appropriate AMT Love, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
Pop in your prosthetic fangs, spritz yourself with fake blood and turn off all the lights except for that annoying one that flickers – it’s the Answer Me This Halloween Special! (Known by day as AMT390.) Featuring SCARY plays, GIANT gourds, MONSTER Mash and BESHAT trousers. And also:
pumpkin boats SPAM® suits
sexy Halloween costumes
actors playing dead
sweet Fanny Adams
the lack of Halloween pop songs (except ‘Monster Mash’)
the lack of scary plays (except The Woman In Black) Ghostwatch
and
vampire injuries.
CW: suicide, child murder, death.
Send all your Sexy Martin the Sound Man costume pics to us at twitter.com/HelenAndOlly and facebook.com/answermethis! And also tell us how much time you had to spend explaining who you’re dressed as.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – is a question from Seren about the origins of ‘hocus pocus’.
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 – currently the very stressful end of season 2 is nigh!
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Modern Mann and 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:
• Manscaped, precision-engineered grooming for your danglers. Get 20% off plus free shipping with the code ANSWER at Manscaped.com
• Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Like our previous albums – AMT Jubilee, Sports Day, Holiday, Love and Christmas – AMT Home Entertainment is an hourish of all-new AMT material that has never been on the podcast.
All the questions are about how you might homelily entertain yourself, with telly, music, films, food and some YouTube deep cuts. We discover:
🌴 What IS a wonderwall?
🎥 What was the first movie to have a director’s cut?
🐘 What’s with the big wooden elephants in Les Miserables and Moulin Rouge?
🅾️ What’s with blood groups in The Simpsons?
📺 Are TED speakers allowed teleprompters?
🍔 When did Justin Timberlake stop singing ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ at the end of the McDonald’s ads?
🍳 Why doesn’t Cathy eat breakfast in this, er, thought-provoking educational film/Dairy Council propaganda from the 1970s??
AND MORE!
AMT Home Entertainment is out now at the Answer Me This! Store or (but we make less money this way – just saying) from iTunes (UK / USA )
The album art is by the excellent Joe List, whom you can find at joelist.co.uk and on Instagram and Twitter @joelist. (You may recall that, way back when, Joe illustrated the AMT book after his magnificent entry to our 2009 Photoshop Challenge!)
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‘.
In Answer Me This! Episode 371 we learn about letting a cat out of the bag and getting a peacock INTO the bag. Both sound very painful. We also consider:
Thanks to listener Edward for the cover of the AMT email jingle! Hear more of his music under the name Ban Summers.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we do not love jiggly foods.
Exciting news: Olly has made a series about diets and body image, Tip the Scales, and it’s ready and waiting for you if you’re an Audible subscriber. Usefully, 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. What a super plan, eh?
Listen to Helen’s entertainment show about language The Allusionist, recently featuring a very funny prank from the grunge era, and you can also see her talking at TED about the dot on an i HERE. And 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.
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.
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‘.
If you win a year’s supply of Weetabix, how much Weetabix do you actually get? And where will you keep it?
(And why would you want it?)
In Answer Me This! Episode 349, we speculate about that as well as:
deconstructed coffee
citizen’s arrest The Shipping Forecast
catching Tony Blair red-handed
photos of babies vs portraits of babies
tree changes vs sea changes vs ski changes vs gear changes
the Bank of England
Wookey Hole EastcheapMonument
North Greenwich for the Millennium Dome O2 Arena
cheddar cheese vs Cheddar cheese
Olly’s bourgeois nightmare
the Richard Madeley Prevention Device axolotl-sitting
and
a year’s supply of Weetabix.
If a year’s supply of Weetabix delivered to you is not a convenient enough way to consume Weetabix, glug down a bottle of the LIQUID FORM OF WEETABIX. We try to stomach the idea of this breakfast of lazy champions in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices.
Don’t forget: to receive one retro episode every month in your feed, 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.
If you’re the fledgling superhero Frying-Pan-Man looking to increase your web presence, build your site using our friendly neighbourhood sponsors Squarespace.com. Get 10% off their website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Jelly in your pipes,
Jelly in your pipes,
Wibbly wobbly wibbly wobbly
Jelly in your pipes!
Seriously, people, don’t pour jelly into your pipes. It will prove a trifle problematic.
Other matters considered in Answer Me This! Episode 348:
the sorting hat spider
the Harry Potter crab
the Michael Crichtonsaurus
The Great British Bake Off/Pottery Throwdown/Jelly-Off
charcoal vs teeth
the Liberty Bell vs Big Ben (WHICH IS A BELL (and you’re a bell if you point this out, matey))
your neighbour vs kangaroos
kangaroos vs breast implants
Caesar salads
passports: i) front cover of; ii) losing at airports
and
a slightly hairy elephant.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – there’s a counter-claim as to the inventor of the Caesar salad, and Olly purloins a posh example of the dish.
Occupy your ears with our other audio projects: Olly hosts The Week Unwrapped and has returned with a new season of The Modern Mann; Helen’s Allusionist has more eponyms for your consumption; and Martin’s Song By Song currently features Helen’s brother Andy Zaltzman and his wife Miranda, making her podcasting debut.
You can also hear all the AMT special albums and episodes 1-200 if you shop at answermethisstore.com. Don’t forget: to receive one retro episode every month in your feed, subscribe to AMT on your podcatcher of choice!
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‘.
Answer Me This! Podcast 
EPISODE 371: Gladiator shortages
March 7, 2019In Answer Me This! Episode 371 we learn about letting a cat out of the bag and getting a peacock INTO the bag. Both sound very painful. We also consider:
letting wine breathe
Gladiators vs dystopias
‘Go West‘ vs ‘Give Thanks‘ vs Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D Major‘
America’s Next Top Ninja (and before you tell us: yes, yes, originally a Japanese TV show)
i dots at TED
Old Testament = UPPER CASE
New Testament = lower case
Under the Net
Memento Mori
Keeper of the King’s Conscience
pets at university
and
swinging a snake.
Thanks to listener Edward for the cover of the AMT email jingle! Hear more of his music under the name Ban Summers.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we do not love jiggly foods.
Exciting news: Olly has made a series about diets and body image, Tip the Scales, and it’s ready and waiting for you if you’re an Audible subscriber. Usefully, 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. What a super plan, eh?
Listen to Helen’s entertainment show about language The Allusionist, recently featuring a very funny prank from the grunge era, and you can also see her talking at TED about the dot on an i HERE. And 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‘.
As ever, we want your QUESTIONS: send them, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Be our interfriend at twitter.com/HelenAndOlly and facebook.com/answermethis.
We’ll be back with AMT372 on 4 April, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 21 March.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT371 Child-Friendly Rating: 87%. One or two swears, nothing else unsuitable. •••
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Tags:24 hour, all night, American Gladiators, American Ninja Warrior, Arnold Schwarzenegger, avian, birds, Bobby Bragg, Canon in D Major, cat o' nine tails, cats, catsitting, commenters, comments, corporal punishment, Danny the Champion of the World, decanters, decanting, diacritics, dog-walking, dogs, dogsitting, Don Moen, etymology, expressions, flogging, Give Thanks, gladiators, Go West, Hansard, history, i, Iris Murdoch, Johann Pachelbel, John Fashanu, John Ferraro, kittens, Leicester Square, letters, London, melodies, Memento Mori, minims, Muriel Spark, music, Pachelbel's Canon, Parliament, peacocks, peafowl, pens, Pet Shop Boys, pets, petsitting, phrases, post, Post Office Tower, post offices, Postmaster General, punishment, Roald Dahl, Rope, sayings, scribes, snakes, songs, TED, telly, The Running Man, tittle, Total Wipeout, Trafalgar Square, tug-of-war, TV, TV formats, Ulrika Jonsson, Under the Net, university, Village People, walkies, weapons, whipping, whips, wine, words, writing, YouTube
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