Posts Tagged ‘hot weather’

AMT415: Better Call Ball

February 26, 2026

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Hold onto your butts, AMT415 contains some SHOCKING and EXTRAORDINARY facts about:

Wee Willie Winkie vs Wicked Willie
Zambonis
the Wingdings conspiracy theory
the Clown Egg Registry
the invention of Cluedo (translation: Clue)
the green parakeets of London and beyond
taking the London transport boats
sandwiches that go by their initials
BLT day
BLT month
mayonnaise
and
donating your organs to someone who turns out to be a wanker.

AMT416 will be out 26 March 2026, so send your questions in writing or voice note to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or call 0208 123 5877 like the old days. Remember to include the formula “Helen and/or Olly, answer me this”, and let us know a name (pseudonyms are fine) and pronouns to use for you.

Mid-March, there will also be an episode of our new feature Answer Us Back, where you answer us back about questions from our recent and distant back catalogue.

Become a patron at patreon.com/answermethis and you not only help the continuing existence of AMT, you also receive an ad-free version of the episode, plus bonus material each month, and our live video series Petty Problems. If you sign up at one of the higher tiers, you get access to an RSS feed with ALL the AMT stuff EVER, including our entire back catalogue, our six themed albums, the retro AMTs, and every Bit of Crapp from the AMT App. So much AMT stuff!

Check out our other work:

Olly‘s daily history series Today in History with the Retrospectors includes a show about Grimaldi he refers to in this episode. Elsewhere, in the February edition of his monthly magazine show The Modern Mann you’ll find the interview he mentions with Robbie Greatrex, who survived six hours buried in the rubble of an earthquake.

Helen makes the entertainment podcast about language, The Allusionist, and with Jenny Owen Youngs recapped all of Veronica Mars (including the titular character’s many crimes) in Veronica Mars Investigations. You can also hear her and Martin guesting on a recent episode of Material Girls podcast about the word ‘daddy’, speaking of which…

Martin‘s song therein, ‘Daddy Really Cares’, is available to buy from his Bandcamp. All proceeds go to organisations helping trans youth in the UK and Canada. And we insist you check out the video he made, featuring the robot named Bobot he also made:

This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, the all in one platform for creating and running your online empire. Go to squarespace.com/answer, have a play around during the two-week free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, get a 10% discount on your first purchase of a website or domain with the code ANSWER.

more Australian Christmas

December 11, 2012

CLICK HERE FOR AMT240

Thanks to you people, I now feel more prepared for an Antipodean Christmas than a Northern Hemispherical one! Rohan writes:

Growing up in the outback, Christmas was a mixtures of both the old and the new. We have the traditional Christmas stuff but also Australian Christmas stuff such as kangaroos with Santa hats etc. Also there are Australian carols such as Rolf Harris’s ‘Six White Boomers’ (boomers is slang for large kangaroos).

Rob adds:

I laughed when you were discussing the celebration of Christmas in Oz and whether snow scenes etc were suitable ways of marking the “occasion”. I have lived in Noosa, Queensland for 5 years, previously Sydney and London for 20 years.

The snow scene here is very much the norm despite there being no resemblance to a northern hemisphere weather pattern in Dec/Jan or ever.

Below is a snap taken from Friday’s Noosa Lights switch on depicting Santa riding on a beach buggy surf life saving vehicle accompanied by four saucily dressed female helpers. Noosa is sub-tropical unlike Sydney, Melbourne or Tasmania where it does get chilly. It was 6pm and about 30c and Santa would have been sweating the proverbial weight off dressed in his garb.

About 50 metres away there is golden beach with waves rolling in, as you can see most of the public are dressed in beach gear, the entire Christmas narrative of snow, sleighs and reindeer is ridiculous in this climate but routinely appears in shop window displays.

-3

At least in his line of work, Santa can pinch some toiletries to conceal his sweaty stench.

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