To all our listeners in the Northern Hemisphere: hope you enjoyed the summer solstice! Only 185 sleeps to go until Christmas! Wooooo!
Southern Hemispherical listeners: happy mid-winter’s day! Now roll on summer! Woo woooo!
Equatorial listeners: as you were.
One thing that is the same the world over is Answer Me This! Episode 180:
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)
In it, we speak of such things as:
Gunther from Friends
seaside rock
the Wailing Wall
chocolate mousse
Claridge’s tea
mango lassi Face/Off
disappointing fudge
hypnotherapy vs. stage hypnosis
British postboxes vs. French postboxes
Lady Godiva vs. Ed Balls
and
wanking in the Ritz.
Plus: Olly is made of stronger stuff than Carrie Bradshaw; Helen was hypnotised for love; and Martin the Sound Man admits to a few awkward moments in his honeymoon. He likes to live life like an Ashton Kutcher film, he does. Accordingly, before any and every decision, Mr Kutcher thinks, “What would Martin the Sound Man Do [WWMTSMD]?” And Demi Moore sighs, and thinks that if only she’d stayed with Bruce Willis, she wouldn’t ever have to talk about sound cards over breakfast.
This week, we’re popping up on a couple of other podcasts: Pappy’s Flatshare Slamdown, the new comedy quiz show from the AMT37 alumni; and Radio 4Xtra’s What’s So Funny?, wherein we talk in a not-so-funny way about podcasting.
Despite flirting with other podcasts, AMT will always be our (audio)boo, so keep the love alive by sending your QUESTIONS – leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com – that we may magically create next week’s episode with them.
Thankyou for waiting patiently for Answer Me This! Episode 173 while Olly disports himself on a spa break. You’ll be pleased to know he is now fully refreshed, like a man half his age, albeit one with the hobbies of a woman twice his age. Anyway, without further ado, on to the episode:
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)
Ruining the serene majesty of silence is chitchat about:
the 2011 census mystery
Nigerian spammers
the All Seeing I
Rapa Nui pissing contests
c@fes
the 1872 Licensing Act
Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain
self-proclaimed Jedis
Mr Punch vs. fruit punch
prehistoric vs. historic
Buffy vs. rabbits
jujitsu vs. bridge
Pyramid Pool vs. Life Pool
i- vs. e- 2001 – A Space Odyssey vs. Snog Marry Avoid Kane Kramer
self-defence in Ikea
mobility scooters
outside toilets
and
the old man’s coconut.
Plus: if Olly ever decides to take a wife, the lucky lady in question must gird herself for a truly alarming musical interlude on their wedding day; Helen debases herself to try to wangle a replacement iPod; and Martin the Sound Man gives the worst advice we’ve ever heard about saving yourself being savaged by a dangerous dog. Barbara Woodhouse will be spinning in her grave. Happily, however, she’ll be jiving in her grave when she hears the song Martin has dropped on his latest podcast – go along to thesoundoftheladies.com then to listen to it! And go along to your own iPhone or Android device for this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, in which we go from snooker legend Robbie O’Sullivan to Hanson in two easy steps (those steps being the Searchers and the Zombies).
Now take a deep breath and enjoy some good news week – not only this latest addition to our wall of certificates, but also the recommencement of our Audible freebie offer! Go to answermethispodcast.com/audible to get yourself free and half-price audiobooks, because Audible seem quite keen for you to drain them dry. Ours not to reason why.
Having done that, please send us your QUESTIONSfor next week: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Then take a refresher course in snooker ballshideous novelty songs of the 1980s:
The Secret Diary of Billie Piper concluded this week, so I guess it’s up to us to bring the sexy henceforth. So, bloated from too much Chinese takeaway, we belchingly waddle forth to present you with Answer Me This! Episode 172. Ring-a-ding-ding! Phwoar! Boinnnnngggg! Etc.
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)
Just like Billie’s character, we love variety; but instead of keeping ourselves amused with multiple hairstyles and myriad sexual partners, we merely talk a lot. About such diverse things as:
hiding the afikomen the Giant Koala
Leonardo DiCaprio
offensive T-shirts
bad taste vs. good taste
After Eights vs. Ferrero Rocher The Moldy Peaches vs. The Secret History vs. What Women Want
Ginger Spice vs. Scary Spice
moths vs. moobs
Stonehenge vs. the Easter Island moai
Digbeth Coach Station
Camden Market
the new Starbucks logo Time Team alternative endings Maria Teresa de Filippis
Slash in the Attic
and
the Jonathan Dimbleby octopus.
Plus: Olly’s habitual goodwill to all mankind finally shatters, all because of those godforsaken people with strong bladders; Helen reveals another fashion misfire from her youth (let’s face it, her youth was fashion misfire: 1000000, fashion fire: nil); and Martin the Sound Man gives Kylie Minogue the nod should she ever find herself in a dry spell. What an altruist that man is. This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for the iPhone or Android, appfans) is an insight into what Olly’s wearing. It’s pink! It involves trompe l’oeil! No, he’s not wearing Buffalo Bill’s skin-suit from The Silence of the Lambs…
We warn you that next week’s podcast will be a few hours late, because Olly’s going for a spa mini-break. But he’ll be thinking about your QUESTIONS the whole time he’s steaming his mannparts, so do ask them via voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Then after you’ve done that, anoint yourself in unguents, wrap yourself in a bathrobe which has been worn by hundreds of people before you, lie back and relax.
This week, listeners, we go on a journey. Don’t worry – it’s not an emotional one like they have on reality shows! We go from Great Yarmouth to Gibraltar, California to Celebration, and end up in Utopia. It must be good if Cliff Richard is skating around it. Anyway, strap in and travel along with us in Answer Me This! Episode 169 (dudes):
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)
We also consider:
Sam Cooke vs. Claire Tully
razor clams
dirty sexy waxworks
carp
Visalia
dusky pink
Alisha’s Attic
cork floors
sorghum
creative management tips from Jeffrey Archer
bathroom predictions from Sarah Beeny
dried apple
pork six-pack
and
Aberystwyth.
Plus: Olly wonders why toilet seat vendors have missed the opportunity to part this fool and his money; Helen fails to reap the full entertainment offered by a bowel movement; and Martin the Sound Man wishes* that the whole world could be as democratic where men’s crotches are concerned as Madame Tussaud’s is. If that’s not enough crotch for you for one week, today’s Bit of Crap on the App is us reminiscing about that 90s TV trend to line naked men up behind a screen then leer at their genitals. Relive those glory days of The Word with us on iPhone or Android.
It’s Lent next week, but we’re not going to give up answering QUESTIONS, so send them as voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Not that Lent holds much sway with atheist Jews, mind.
See you next week, for AMT170!
Helen & Olly
* He also wishes that you stick around till the very end of the episode to hear one of the songs off his new album ‘Songs from the Scientific Cabaret’. Make his wish come true, do. And come to see him play at the Geekpop festival on 10th March, why not? Because you’ll have given up geeky pursuits for Lent? Liar!
MISSING: 35-year-old man, answers to the name ‘Nelly’. Last seen wearing a backwards cap and a T-shirt 5 sizes too big for him. If anyone has information leading to the safe return of Nelly, please call 0800-555-RECENTWORKDIDNOTMAKEANIMPACTINTHEUKCHARTS.
Then, while you wait anxiously for news, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 167:
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)
It’s not just Nelly missing. Where’s Wally? Where’s Waldo? Where’s Walter? It’s an epidemic of missing men… But not missing podcast-topics, which this week include:
electoral register unfairness
fake tan lines
John Krasinski
D-locks Martin Handford
Lake Havasu City
TK Maxx vs. TJ Maxx
Walkers Crisps vs. the American War of Independence
the kingdom of Mercia vs. the kingdom of Wessex
Roger Federer vs. William Tell
Harry Potter vs. Queen Victoria
inappropriate poetry corner
massivesnouts.com passive-aggressive chairs
Soulwax the wrong London Bridge
the Ponte Vecchio
and
Mark Foster (whoooooo?).
Plus: Olly touches himself up – just in Photoshop, of course; Helen enjoys her own smutty courtroom drama; and Martin the Sound Man tells you what is cool – this is. So that’s 70s revival and spindly bridges on the style list for spring/summer 2011, OK?
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android) is a question from Ken in Brooklyn about the pickelhaube, one of the few headgear-styles yet to be revived by hipsters. Give them a few more weeks.
Now rack your brains for QUESTIONS, then send them to us in voicemail form to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Then we can weave more podcasts out of them. Score!
In honour of the Answer Me This! book being officially (well, close) declared ‘one of the greatest pieces of toilet literature of all time‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
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 amuse ourselves with:
the Mann Booker prize
Nightmare on Hygiene Street The Piano: The Musical
Gibson vs. Fender T3 vs. 3T
tarts vs. tarts
salesmanship vs. psoriasis
The Guardian Bedside Reader
martini-making machines
Autoglym
David McAlmont and Michael Nyman
the Nissan of the guitar world
the Captain Corelli’s Mandolin-branded backgammon set
hairy oil spills
No More Nails
bezoar
nut hamper
the Alcor Life Extension Foundation
parallel parking
and
the Strawberry Strumpet.
Plus: Olly has some dodgy plans for death row prisoners; Helen revolutionises bridal traditions with the help of Stilton; and Martin the Sound Man sold off his glorious ponytail for far less than its current market value. This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Jack, the 21-year-old undertaker in Uckfield, who feels uncomfortable with atheism in front of mourners and wanking in front of his cat. What a shy soul!
Now, if you’ve got time this evening (that is, Thursday 18th November), please do pop along to see us read bits from our book at Waterstone’s Gower Street. We kick off at 6pm sharp, but if you can’t make that, how about a rerun at noon on 26th November at Rough Trade East, huh? Come and have a little pre-lunch fun with us. There are some excellent bagel-shops a mere gherkin’s throw away.
To follow the mood of this week, we must announce that we’ve decided to cut Answer Me This! Episode 153 by eight per cent. However we reassure you that we will be freezing the length of this episode at 27 minutes 37 seconds for the next two years, or until the apocalypse, whichever is sooner. Here you go:
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)
Today’s time-of-austerity topics include:
non-alcoholic beer
Jim Henson’s fake rats
shadduck
Michael Apted
Lidl
Johnny Depp vs. Danny Dyer Center Stage
Olly’s favourite condoms (surprisingly not these ones) The Witches
Stephen Jones, milliner
isopropanol
Rowan Atkinson’s ‘early’ work
Bonnie Prince Billy’s hometown
Nicolas Roeg
identical twins
Michael Palin in drag
and
losing your virginity to a chair.
Plus: Olly has been repelled from his favourite snack by Gok Wan; Helen suggests a high school Joseph Mengele; and Martin the Sound Man plays off Gene Wilder and Spike Milligan against each other. WHO WILL WIN? We will, alas, never know.
What we do know is that next week is the last episode in which we’ll be handing out free books to questioneers, so send us your most brilliant QUESTIONS right now! Leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, to which you should send your postal address if you are one of this week’s featured questioneers and want to claim your freebie.
If you want to claim your not-quite-free-but-really-not-too-pricey copy of Answer Me This!: Collected Juvenilia, then investigate answermethispodcast.com/book, whereat you will find not only links to a few online bookshops, but also some sample pages to induce you to preorder itmake you decide to order Booky Wook 2 instead.
Helen and Olly
PS Forgot to mention: this week’s bonus bit on the app is Olly’s account of his recent debut trip to a branch of Hooters. It was all in the name of post-feminist irony, alright?
Here it is folks, the final Answer Me This! of the second quarter – Episode 140:
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)
As we clear out our desks for the break, we give the following topics an airing:
Wills’n’Harry
eggnog
Anjou
the new Mentos + Coke
Duncan Goodhew vs. Dizzy Gillespie
Leonard Cohen vs. Magnetic Fields
Siberian husky dogs vs. Paula Radcliffe
wedding pyromania
hotel breakfast buffets
goat dowry
Freecycle surprise party
revolving restaurants
and
Narnia in Canada.
Plus: it turns out Olly can multitask after all, but only in hotel bathrooms; Helen manages to make prunes even more boring than you already thought they were; and Martin the Sound Man gives a line reading of The Human Centipede, which is as close as we ever want to get to actually seeing that film.
We hereby bid you adieu for a month, but we’ll be popping back here every week to post up some choice words – and to display the results of the Berocca Challenge that we set you this episode, should any of you choose to rise to it! You can also keep in touch with us via Twitter and Facebook, but more importantly by sending us your QUESTIONS – call 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Parting is such sweet sorrow. We’ll be back on 15th July. Have a smashing month!
Cover your kiddies’ ears during Answer Me This! Episode 139. Not just because of the usual effing and blinding (although that can’t be wholesome for them, surely?), but because this week, we talk about [whisper] Where Babies Come From [/whisper]. Shudder!
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)
Aside from the role of birds in the human reproductive process, we speak of:
Sauron’s bird feeders
Billy Kennedy’s fluffy dice
posset
turkey farming
‘shimmering apricot mould’
bloodworm
Kia-Ora
the Virgin Mary vs. pelicans
Ted Heath vs. Hugh Grant
chum salmon vs. chambermates
Chambourcy Hippopotamousse
and
the correct classification of pasta salad.
Plus: Olly turns his fishbowl into a scene from Cannibal Holocaust; Helen busts out another member of her Nauseating Cookery Book collection; and Martin the Sound Man seems to know more than the average sound man about clinical trials, although he was born and raised in a petri dish in a GlaxoSmithKline laboratory…
Now don’t get upset, but after next week’s episode, we’ll be taking a month off to rest our voices. So get your QUESTIONS in, quick! Call 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. See you next Thursday, and we’ll make that precious time together count, ok?
We see a dark blot on the horizon. A dark, sports-shaped blot. Wimbledon AND the World Cup football in the next month? It’s too much for our sensibilities. We can’t stop it; we can’t pretend to like it; but we can prepare ourselves, so we try to limber up with a bit of tangentially sportif chitterchatter in Answer Me This! Episode 138:
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)
Don’t worry, the majority of the content is non-sportular, including:
Project Runway
Jacques Chirac G8 Fail
Hobbycraft
Wenlock and Mandeville vs. Banksy and David Shrigley
Ped Egg vs. fungal nail infection in the Battle of the Turned Stomachs
Yoshiaki Shiraishi
massage
sitting shivah
the obscure early life of Jools Holland
NASA entry requirements
and
bacon bras.
Plus: Olly finds the present day to be lagging behind in meeting targets set in The Terminator; Helen reveals the secret that made Neil Armstrong the first man on the moon; and Martin the Sound Man is quite quiet and well-behaved because he’s really thinking about getting back to playing Red Dead Redemption. A podcast cannot come between the man and his PS3. Harrumph.
We’re looking to you to keep our spirits up in these tryingly footbally times, so please send us QUESTIONS with which to distract ourselves, in the form of a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Ta for that.
It’s all very unsettling, this regime change and Conservacrat coalitions and so on; so let’s stick with things that are comforting and familiar. Corduroy, say, or those sweetie prawns you only get as part of pick’n’mix, or the face of Richard Madeley. All that and more things which aren’t the sour tang of political discomfort in Answer Me This! Episode 135:
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)
Within we speak of:
the Dyson fan
gummy bears
onion cocaine
irresponsible science teachers
concentrated pigments
Mike Patton’s travel wash
Common’s dry hands
Daphne and Celeste
survival vs. the Red Hot Chili Peppers
FishMac
Heinz
the Whigs
Gideon Sundback
the mischief of tailors
Katie Melua
and
Hot Pittites.
Plus: Olly hates jelly babies despite their brilliant capacity for mischief; Helen finds an unlikely way for widowers to assuage their grief; and Martin the Sound Man violates Olly at the Sony Awards. Cheeky chappie. You can see and hear him being much better behaved on this educational video and the Bright Club podcast.
Since this is an interactive podcast, please interact with us by asking your QUESTIONS: do that with your voices, by leaving a message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis; or do that with your words by emailing them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Looks like someone other than Martin the Sound Man was bored watching Twilight, because Elle from Leeds was sufficiently unswept-away by the Grand Romance to ponder upon the following:
I’m not being deliberately disgusting but please answer me this… If the whole tragedy about Twilight is that Edward wants to drink Bella’s blood, couldn’t he just wait for her to get her period? This would result in an immediate happy ending and everyone wins.
Couldn’t all vampires just do this? They wouldn’t be as terrifying but perhaps a little creepy…
Apart from Edward going hungry for most of the month – which would only make him even more vapid – this does seem like a halfway sensible plan to us. So what is the catch? We’re not experts/interested in the whole vampire mythology, but if any of you are, head right for the comments and tell us whether this could solve both the problem of vampirical nutrition and landfill caused by feminine hygiene products.
vs. 
vs. 
‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
; and Martin the Sound Man seems to know more than the average sound man about clinical trials, although he was born and raised in a petri dish in a GlaxoSmithKline laboratory…
Answer Me This! Podcast 