Pack your flippers, sunblock and emergency stomach medicine, because our new album The Answer Me This! Holiday is ready to depart!
It’s 58 minutes 3 seconds of all-new material – right down to the jingles – all about holidays, vacations, minibreaks, staycations, jaunts, sojourns, escapes; whatever you like to call them. In the usual AMT style, we tackle questions about such holidayish topics as:
things to do in New York City
summer reading lists
artificial insemination for pandas
dads’ embarrassing holiday-wear
what lies behind – or, more accurately, beneath – the scenes at Disney
Legoland sculptors
why the Spanish Steps in Rome aren’t Spanish
what to expect from a Chinese breakfast
stag parties abroad
and
why the Brits are lagging behind in competitive eating contests.
• A full range of holidaywear: clip-on sunglasses, short shorts, convertible trousers, Speedos, gilets, electroejaculators; • Classic tourist attractions: the Staten Island Ferry, Downton Abbey, Disney’s utilidors, Burghley House, the Winchester Mystery House, Flambards and A Day at the Wells; • Delicious holiday grub: satirical breakfasts, ‘world famous’ foods, congee, Sex on the Beach, the Heart Attack Grill, pork and its tasty friends, Economy Candy; • Delightful holiday companions: Cara Delevingne, Eugene Levy, Nancy Mitford, Adam Richman, naked mole rats, Spagna; • Fun holiday activities: the ‘bollocks’ game at festivals, drinking games, humiliating your fellow diners, being assaulted by Mexican shots girls, trying to remember your one-night-stand’s name.
Big thanks to Amy Smith and Sam Pay for the jingles and Jenny Robertshaw for the cover – and speculatively to you for buying it, because your outlay helps fund Answer Me This! (and our actual holidays).
This week, we learn a few very important lessons about sheep: not to underestimate them intellectually and emotionally; what they have in common with Margaret Thatcher; and what they also have in common with Helen’s mum. Discover these things right now in Answer Me This! Episode 261:
In which we also learn about:
emogothpunk style Casper the Suicidal Ghost
small-talk with accountants
the losers’ cafe in The Apprentice
BHS Dr Martens
free sunglasses
pony-drawn rollers
the Cabinet vs. the Divine Right of Kings
iced coffee vs. cold coffee Olly’s face vs. Richard Gere’s face
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club
hair-blindness
and
advice from Paul Ross.
Plus: Olly had to go cold turkey on the brown, by which we mean Mr Brown drinks, not heroin; Helen sounds and looks and smells like an old fart; and Martin the Sound Man’s emotional needs are not going to be met by sheep. Let’s not even contemplate whether they can meet his sexual needs, please. But you can meet Martin’s needs by going to his website or YouTube to watch his spectacular new music video (/visual evidence of his nervous breakdown).
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Helen expresses her ever-unrealised desire for unusual-coloured hair. She may have wimped out of having an experimental phase in her teens, but when she’s a geriatric she WILL go full-bore Marge Simpson. Promise.
Promise us to send us your QUESTIONS for our next series: leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We’ll be back with AMT262 on 11th July, so please join us then; in the meantime, check back here for our imminent album, the Answer Me This! Holiday, our all-new follow-up to our Top 20 (no really!) albums Jubilee and Sports Day, available for your delectation at answermethispodcast.com/albums.
Byeeee!
Helen & Olly
AMT261 Child-Friendly Rating: 90%.
References to hiding pornographic magazines; very mild profanity.
A couple of friends and I are going on a “lads’ holiday” this summer. We have started talking about where we want to go and the consensus is an 18-30s all-inclusive with the sort of alcohol fuelled street of bars and clubs one sees on BBC3 doumentaries involving a teenager vomiting in the street and flashing various bodily parts at passing emergency service vehicles.
I am all for the idea of a lad’s holiday and would even like to double the laddiness of my holiday by seducing men. So, answer me this, do any of the famous libidinous holiday towns of “wahey lads” fame (suggestions currently being made are Ayia Napa and Magaluf) also have reasonable gay scenes?
I am ambivalent about chosing a holiday location on such a basis but having seen the BBC3 documentaries I am lead to believe that my two friends will spend the week endlessly tickling one lady’s tonsils after another’s. After such apparitions, I imagine I would want us to have a night or two somewhere I can experience the same cocktail of germs and STDs. Is this an achievable goal? Am I doomed to resent my friends or to go cottaging in Cyprus?
Hmm, not sure you’d have super holiday fun in Cyprus right now whatever your sexual orientation. Other than that, I have no knowledge at my disposal with which to help you; even back when I was a member of the 18-30 age group, a booze-fuelled week in Camp Chlamydia was the opposite of my idea of fun.
Fortunately for you though, Chris, Team AMT contains far more hedonistic members; so readers, travel to the comments and let Chris know whether there’s a destination that will provide myriad sexual targets for him and his friends, or whether Chris would be better off saving up to go to Fire Island or Sydney Mardi Gras while his heterofriends terrorise the Med.
We hope you enjoyed the Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part I last week. If you did, you’ll also enjoy The Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part II, and if you didn’t, maybe you’ll prefer The Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part II. Either way, you should listen to The Best of Answer Me This! 2012 – Part II:
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 meet again our auld acquaintances:
Phantom of the Opera
Hamlet Hamlet
Prince Philip’s bladder Killer Net
Angela Lansbury fantasies
R Kelly’s fancy parties
the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution
Devon vs Cornwall scone wars
sex Jenga
the Owl and the Pussycat
the 21st-century Sweeney Todd
Olly’s solo sex tape
Helen taking an off-brand fruit into the Apple store
and
Charlie’s Angles.
And there are more previously unheard bits of AMT, which you can have more of every week if you posess the AMT App, available for iDevices and Android – on which you also get our Best Of episodes from the past five years, if you trawl through diligently enough.
Please be generous with your QUESTIONS for AMT in 2013: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
We’ll be back on 10th January 2013, but you can still hear plenty of us before then:
• We’ll be running through the year’s biggest online events on Saturday Edition, BBC 5 Live 8pm 29th December or available shortly after as the Let’s Talk About Tech podcast.
• Olly will be Manning the microphone on LBC 97.3 FM, 1-4am most nights from Xmas Eve to Jan 3rd – check lbc.co.uk for the schedule, and rouse yourself from your festive stupor to give him a call and keep him company.
• Helen will crop up on BBC 5 Live’s Radio Review of 2012, hosted by Jane Garvey and Mike Sweeney, which will be broadcast on at 11pm on Christmas Eve, repeated 4pm on Christmas Day, or, if you want to listen at a more sensible time, it’ll be available on the 5 Live website straight after.
• You can hear us discussing Christmas gadgets and songs on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 2 on 20th December. UPDATE: Here’s the link to the item on iPlayer.
• And we wrote some bits for the Celebrity Juice Christmas Specials; part one is already on ITV Player and part two will follow on tonight.
We hope you have very happy festivities, and we’ll see you next year!
Helen & Olly
PS if you need more noise to drown out the sound of sleighbells and Wizzard, direct yourself to our Jubilee and Sports Day albums, as well as AMT1-120.
Following bossy Paul‘s Toronto vs. Vancouver holiday destination question in AMT240, we’ve received quite a few defences of Toronto, several recommendations for Montreal, and very little regarding Vancouver. This suggests that Vancouverites either think Vancouver is not as good as Toronto and/or Montreal, or they’re so laid back they don’t feel the need to spring to the defence of their splendid hometown. And/or they like Vancouver so much they don’t want Paul in it.
Vancouverites, if you’re reading this, by all means go to the comments to clarify the reason for your silence. Meanwhile, the Torontonians have spoken up. Andrew from Toronto sums up the qualities of the cities:
I live in Toronto, but love to visit montreal. They are all very different cities. If I were your listener, I would go to Toronto (not boring Olly!), and take an overnight trip to montreal.
Toronto is: ancient streetcars; hilarious fired mayors; grubby, wonderful, diverse Kensington market; TV trucks smashed through walls; 3 hours from Algonquin and 5 hours from Montreal; Honest Ed’s; art festivals; delicious St Lawrence market; a “little” ethni-copia: Little India, Little Italy, Little Portugal, Little Chinatown, Chinatown, Greektown; Church Street; FOOD, so much good food (just stay away from the financial district and the distillery district for it); Burgers Priest.
Montreal is: authentic bagels; Celine Dion’s smoked meat; sour Francophones who pretend not to understand English, and won’t give directions to bakeries because they feel culturally oppressed; jazz festivals; beautiful old Montreal; corrupt corrupt politians, like, Chicago corrupt; tam tam.
Vancouver is: beautiful mountains; indecipherable highway system; Stanley Park; rainy; Battlestar Galactica; pot; ridiculously expensive real estate; Skid Row; relaxed; Vij’s.
There’s a Chinatown AND a Little Chinatown? I’m booking a two-week dim sum tour in the January sales.
Next, Dani presents a considered case:
I was born and raised in Toronto, but moved to Vancouver at 19 and lived there for four years.
While in general I’m inclined to agree with Olly that Vancouver is an overall ‘nicer’ place to visit than Toronto, remember that Paul was looking for an interesting cold-weather destination. Vancouver in the winter is probably not dissimilar to the UK, with generally cold but not below freezing temperatures, lots of drizzle, and weeks on end without sunlight. (After typing all this, I realize that he might be thinking of skiing/wintersports that one might enjoy in Whistler, etc. Of course there is that. I just tend to think of the city proper when I think Vancouver)
Toronto in the winter is plenty cold, but if you plan on staying in the middle of the city, you’ll find yourself in a sea of brown, salty slush. Many of the nicer things to do in Toronto (there are some beautiful parks and great shopping districts) would frankly be kind of a downer in the middle of winter (and this coming from someone who loves the city and considers it home.)
I think if he is set on a Canadian vacation in winter, Helen’s suggestion of Montreal would be a better option. And you’d have a chance to try some real poutine! (Shut it, it’s delicious, and vastly superior to Putin on pretty much every count.)
It’s true. Poutine is corrupted by curds and gravy, whilst Putin – well, it’s difficult even to know where to start.
Brace yourselves, listeners: in Answer Me This! Episode 240, those two titans of the Northern Hemisphere, Russia and Canada, face off for the bout you’ve all been waiting for. KABOOM!!!!
Sort of.
This week we speak of:
Andy Warhol’s wig
podcatchers
Russell Brand’s dad
penis pasta
Guinness World Record adjudicators
mean mean mother-in-law
pleasing your partner’s parents
the death of Borders
holidays with Paul Daniels
and
poutine vs. Putin.
Plus: you may be surprised to hear that Olly is a one-doughnut Mann; Helen’s ex-boyfriend moved the earth for her, literally; and Martin the Sound Man unleashes his inner Sarah Palin. Watch out, world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is a question from Sam about Gems TV, that 24/7 diamond of entertainment.
Next week is the first half of the Best of Answer Me This! 2012, but for your chance to appear in the Best of Answer Me This! 2013, send us QUESTIONS for the new year. Email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
Also please do try out our other weekly podcasting exploit The Joy of Tech from BBC 5 Live, in which we talk about the week’s internet events alongside experts in tech, cars, gaming and other highlights of modern existence.
I like almost all museums, and frankly I would have enjoyed this holiday excursion which has left Baggsie so aggrieved:
On a family holiday we were starting our long journey home. We had to leave the caravan site at Lago Maggiore in Northern Italy at 10am and our train from Milan to Calais motorail was not leaving till late in the afternoon. So in a country of such supreme culture, where did Mum and Dad decide to take us to cap off a fantastic holiday???? The Umbrella and Parisol Museum.
It was as exciting as the website appears… particularly if like us you do not speak Italian. None of their info was translated!!
Answer me this: what is the worst museum you have ever been to?
It certainly wasn’t boring, Baggsie, but my stomach nearly flew out of my mouth when I visited the Pathological Museum in Vienna last year. Like the Umbrella and Parasol Museum, the information was not translated, but my ignorance of the German language wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle: I recognise a pickled conjoined twin foetus when I see one, in between waxworks of syphilitic genitals.
Readers, do let rip in the comments about the museums which have left you underwhelmed or, like me, swallowing down the bile as you dash for the exit.
Hello listeners! Refreshed by a month off, we return with an episode bursting with fresh new questions. Well, fresh except for the one about the Spice Girls, which we maintain IS fresh as long as you fell into a coma in the summer of 1996 and only just woke up. If that is your situation, we’ll help you catch up on what you missed. We hate to be the ones to break it to you, but Kate Moss and Johnny Depp split up. And things have been awfully quiet on the Meg Mathews front lately.
Everyone else, put Answer Me This! Episode 229 into your ears:
Plus: Olly is terrified of his own pubes (until they start paying rent for their residence upon his body); Helen’s attempt to trick the Tooth Fairy backfired right into her bank balance; and Martin the Sound Man dreams about how, in an alternate universe, Simon and Garfunkel would have replaced ‘The Sound of Silence’ with the sound of cartoon hammers.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is a question from Ginger Paul about toilet attendants, bog butlers, lavatory landlords, ablution assistants – whatever you want to call them, the principle is the same, but what’s with all the lollipops? Loo-lipops? Lolli-poops?
Our new series will be running all the way to Christmas, but only if you send us QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
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:
Of course we love hearing about your lives; also when you sendusstuff. But this may have gone too far in Answer Me This! Episode 227:
Wherein we consider:
Zooey Deschanel
holiday money
Worcestershire Sauce
wanking off vs. jacking off
Olympics vs. Eurovision
Baron Pierre de Coubertin
the sporty Vatican
flying horses
pasta sauce
and
a table covered in ice cream.
Plus: Olly doesn’t like the look of Joey Potter’s chalice nowadays, but back in the 90s he did get a bit Dawson Leary (Dawson Leery, more like); Helen was a financially responsible child – yet another way in which she peaked too early; and Martin the Sound Man recommends keeping your pasta carbonara minimalist, even if you really need a little nipper of booze to get you through.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the AppiDevices and Android is a question from Joss which reveals Olly’s Napoleon Complex. This is concerning trees, not height, seeing as Olly is 6’3″ when he stands up straight.
Next week is our last episode before we take a month-long hiatus, so hurry and send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
This week, we face a big, big question: should Singin’ In The Rain be BANNED, for flouting the hosepipe ban as the rest of southern England shrivels under drought conditions? Start drafting your petitions whilst you listen to AMT217:
Today we talk of:
child beauty pageants
impressing Jeremy Paxman
reverse cat psychology
sunburnt tattoos
Prince Philip’s barbecue
theatre curtains
mortar boards
chinos for hipsters
milky special effects
and the managing director of Little Chef.
Plus: one of Olly’s early theatrical productions nearly brought the house down – literally, with fire; Helen recaps her late granny’s theory about what really happened to Princess Diana after that fateful night in Paris; and Martin the Sound Man is dissed by Olly for being a professional cleverclogs. Bullying doesn’t stop after school, you guys.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Tony from Worksop about whether we’ve ever killed or maimed a celebrity. Look, Tony, the evidence is purely circumstantial. They’ll never be able to convict us on it.
While, as a precaution, we book our passage to Rio under false identities, you should get on with sending us your QUESTIONS: send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Before we go, here are a couple of other things for your entertainment: Helen just appeared on Charlie Brooker’s So Wrong It’s Right, with Graham Linehan and Matthew Crosby; and Olly’s cat Coco should imminently be appearing on Channel 5’s Live With Fern Britton. Click here to read the extraordinary correspondence which ensued after last week’s show. And since we’ve almost arrived at Jubilee weekend, treat yourself to the Answer Me This! Jubilee, which is better than the Jubilee proper because you don’t have to sit through a whole solo set by Gary Barlow or be jostled for eight hours whilst you wait on the banks of the Thames for a glimpse of the Queen on a boat. Which might be worthwhile, if she does this.
Plus: with his usual acumen, Olly proposes how to transform a psychotic neighbour problem into a business opportunity; Helen’s parents are being very thrifty with the internet, so that the IP addresses don’t all run out on their account; and we should clarify that Martin the Sound Man’s former job, which he describes as ‘making a man with a tube up his penis laugh’, was in the field of medical physics, not stand-up comedy for catheter fetishists.
Because one pot is never enough, there’s also more about Müller Yogurt on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), including their contribution to West Midlands athleticism, and their retrograde marketing wheezes. They might be 116 years old, but they’ve still got it.
If you haven’t already, please do take a punt on our Top 20 (!!) album, The Answer Me This! Jubilee, comprised of fifty-seven minutes of all-new material in anticipation of the Queen’s jubblies. You can also hear us on the latest episode of Ewan Spence’s ESC Insight podcast – no, that’s not ESC as in the Electrical Safety Council or the Essex Skating Club, but the Eurovision Song Contest. Click here to listen, and hear how we rated some of the songs vying for Eurovisionary Glory this year.
After all that, do remember to send us your QUESTIONS with which we will fuel this new series of AMT: aim voicemails at the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Answer Me This! Podcast 