If you found us thanks to the lobster face-piss that featured in the last episode, welcome! There is no crustacean face-piss in AMT408, but there is:
Willy Wonka’s factory but for stock cubes airport massage chair hogs business meetings with your spouse what the art industry has in common with podcasts Deely Boppers Bobbers King Charles’s mucky gloves tiara rules private investigators the Spy Store and the downside of being Lil Nas X.
Plus: Olly just needs either his father-in-law to allow him a nightlight, or to buy night vision goggles (prescription obv); Helen will go to the Tower before claiming King Charles is well dressed; and if you see Martin advancing towards you in your airport chair, preemptively get up and RUN.
Got questions for us? Send them in writing or voice note to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com – 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. Next new episode will land in your podfeed Thursday 28 August 2025.
Paying patrons hear from us before then, though: not only will you receive a compilation of Bonus Bits halfway through the month, and an ad-free version of the episode, but you also get to join us for our live video question-answering featurette Petty Problems on 23rd August at 22:00 UK time (check your timezone). The previous edition was a very fun hangout, and we all got to weigh in on some not so serious problems – good neighbours, bad neighbours, a veterinarian finding some perhaps incriminating items inside a pet…
That video is still available to watch, and you should join us for the next one, by becoming an AMT donor at patreon.com/answermethis.
Check out our other work:
Helen and Martin just had a one-off piece on BBC Radio 4: Souvenirs, a tragicomic factual essay/musical thing, which you can listen to via BBC sounds if you’re in the UK, and if you’re not in the UK, here. You can also hang out with them IRL on the beach in Vancouver on 13 August at the Allusionist meetup. And, the latest in the Allusionist’s Four Letter Word season is a collab with Hannah McGregor about the word dino.
Olly handily lists most of his work at ollymann.com, where as well as checking out the many podcasts he makes and stars in, you can peruse the guest appearances he does, most recently a walking tour around Letchworth Garden City with The Story Pilgrim.
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.
Can you bloody well believe it? New AMT in your ears in the year 2025?? Well, it’s real! In AMT402, we discuss:
roller derby names pirate ships tall ships art that is EVEN BETTER IRL than it is printed on the tea towels in the gallery gift shop beach powder negging/sycophantic book dedications ear protectors for dogs Branston Pickle Loyd Grossman biopic WHEN the Baked Bean Museum of Excellence and the medical dangers of bagpipes.
Thanks to all of you who submitted questions! To supply one for upcoming episodes, send them in writing or voice note to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com – 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. New episodes will appear on the last Thursday of the month, so check back in with us on 27 February 2025.
You know who will be hearing from us well before then, though? Our sweet patrons. You already are one? Great job, you! Prepare yourself for some bonus material. Want to become one? Join at patreon.com/answermethis.
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. To build an online home for your side hustle, or front hustle, or underhustle, 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.
Helen is on a break from the The Allusionist, her entertainment podcast about language, but there’s a ten-year archive which you can find at the podplaces and at theallusionist.org – including this episode about roller derby names.
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’.
In Answer Me This! Episode 377, we go looking for jokes in the Bible. It’s…a mixed bag. Plus, these informative amusements:
bull and bear Quality Street vs Quality Street
job applications vs typos
the Old Testament vs Wes Anderson
secret Jesus vs secret Adele
drying your hands
macaque fossils in NORFOLK
musical morse code clues
evil paper towels Jonah Man Jazz Swingin’ Samson
and
tucking a press pass into your hatband.
For more on the whole dead-lion-filled-with-a-beehive story, listen to Episode 191 where we talk about why Tate & Lyle’s Golden Syrup’s spokesmodel is the lion from Samson’s riddle.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we hear about another TV theme with Morse code secrets: to our surprise, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.
Listen to Olly’s podcast The Modern Mann, to hear about porn-induced erectile dysfunction and other fascinating human tales! It’s at modernmann.co.uk.
See Helen and Martin on stage! The Allusionist live tour is coming to London this month and then North America. Check theallusionist.org/events for listings; more dates will be added soon.
Also! Helen just started a new podcast: Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the start. Get it in your podding app and at VMIpod.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‘.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – listener Ben in Bolivia calls up suffering from altitude sickness. Luckily, there’s a cure! Just not a particularly useful cure when you’re stuck at high altitude. Hope you’re OK, Ben!
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.
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.
Changes are afoot as the approaches its TENTH BIRTHDAY next month. But it’s mostly business as usual in Answer Me This! Episode 345, to whit:
Bat Out Of Hell: The Musical the Angel of the North
cheese juice
getting Discovered for a glittering showbiz career
amateur theatre vs professional theatre
Orange Marys vs Filthy Martinis
Samantha Janus Womack
Boots the Chemist
Plato’s Symposium
the platonic ideal of being a bed
and
a cat called Anus.
Plus: Olly petitions for the musical role of a lifetime, or at the very least a guest spot when Song By Song podcast does a Jim Steinman season; Helen actually read some trade publications about steel for this episode, lest her commitment to AMT be in doubt; and Martin the Sound Man doing an impression of Olly’s cat Coco will one day be Exhibit A in Helen’s murder trial.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we take a trip to Winter Wonderland. Or rather winterwonderland.com, the perfect Christmas gift for only £500,000.
The perfect Christmas gift for only £2.49 is, of course, the AMT Christmas album – find out more about its contents at answermethispodcast.com/christmas, then tell Santa to buy it for you from the AMT store, iTunes or Amazon.
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‘. What a gift!
FREE festive fun for all the family is the Argos Game: we challenge you to find a product in the Argos catalogue that is more expensive than this £32,000 20ft swim tub (but be careful not to get too sexy in it, for your teeth’s sake).
BUT ALSO please send us affectionate voicemails – or email us voice memos – for our tenth birthday episode. Deadline is New Year’s Eve, and the episode, AMT346, will appear on 4 January 2017. Join us! Without you, we are nothing! Etc!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT345 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. F-words R Us. •••
In AMT312, the mysterious S asked about getting jobs in Antarctica, despite not being much use to Antarctica. However, Claudia supplies hope:
You mentioned tourism in Antarctica, but you forgot the corollary – someone must take the tourists!
There are several cruise ships that operate in the area of Antarctic Peninsula, most of them leave from Ushuaia. There are all sort of jobs on board the ships, ranging from cabin stewards, restaurant stewards, chefs, deck hands, boat handlers to ship officers. On the cruise department there are naturalists and guides that give lectures and guide passengers ashore.
Because most ships work other itineraries, this probably does not appear on a search for work in Antarctica.
The advantages of working on ships on relation to work on stations: we travel around and visit many sites. Bonus: we only work during summer!!!
Here are a list of crewing agencies that crew ships that work in Antarctica:
FleetPro, V-Ships and SeaChefs.
Good luck, S. If you hurry, you might be able to spend the imminent Southern Hemispherical summer living your Antarctic dream!
Go to the comments because I really want to read your answers to this question from Johan:
I work at the Swedish equivalent to UK’s Royal Mail. As a terminal worker at one of the biggest post terminals in the country my job is really boring and sometimes stressful. I sort packages big and small and unload lorries filled to the brim with packages, but it is allowed to have headphones at work and your podcast keeps me from dying of boredom.
So answer me this: what is the most boring job you have had?
That is a GOOD question, Johan. Now, as a freelancer with a very messy career path, I’ve had a LOT of jobs – so many that I can only remember about 30% of them. Which is probably for the best.
I’ve had jobs that plunged me into greater despair and discomfort, but for pure brain-chewing boringness, I nominate the job I once had compiling the index for a book about the Queen’s stamp collection. It was not only dullllllllll, but fiendish – I had to make sure there were different entries for, say, King George V the person and King George V the stamp, subdivided by country…Oh god, sorry; merely typing that sentence reopened the vortex of tedium, and this time YOU’RE ALL COMING DOWN WITH ME.
Here’s some relief for questioneers from the past couple of episodes.
E-J writes:
In AMT313 you had a letter from a vet student who is allergic to animals and is concerned about whether or not she should continue training.
I’ve been a registered veterinary Nurse for over 10 years and have worked with many vets who are allergic to animals – it is a very common problem and they just take antihistamines daily and are ok. One vet I worked with was so allergic he had to wear gloves all the time as well, but he was an extreme case.
I have also worked with vets who are phobic about certain animals, and we have had to lock them in their consulting rooms until the animal of their phobia has left the building so it can’t get to them!
Seems like an imprudent choice of profession for an animal-phobe, but maybe they were trying immersion therapy.
Jon writes:
For the lady in AMT314 who encouraged her colleague to join her in training for a cycling event what she should do use a tip used by runners with a similar challenge.
Both (or more) cyclists start from the same point on an agreed route. After a set amount of time, they all turn around wherever they are on the route and head back to the start point. Assuming an even pace, all participants should finish at the start point at the same time. The challenge for participants is to cycle further on the outward leg and still win the return leg.
If done correctly, the final stages of the training session will always be exciting for all participants.
Exciting? To zoom back from the halfway point only to be stuck behind all the slowpokes for the triumphal final straight? Blood will be spilt.
Trying times today, as a questioneer faces a choice between her dream job as a vet, and her debilitating allergy to animals. What to do? Listen to Answer Me This! Episode 313, of course!
In which we discuss:
food that is older than you
political posters
cleaning with booze
yearning Boudin Bakery bread bacteria
Olly’s mum’s rack – spice rack, that is!
photographic memory Jill Price
escalator speed
tortoise vets
licorice root
and
poogatory.
Plus: young Olly’s wish was to become Billy Baldwin in Sliver; Helen is desperate for someone – ANYone! – to invent a hoverbag; and Martin the Sound Man headbutted an escalator whilst still in utero, setting a precedent for a lifetime of clumsiness.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, there’s a question from Christine in Philadelphia whose Fitbit is bullying her into physical exertion. March on the spot as you listen via your iThings, Android and Windows phones.
Having literally just got back today from two and a half years working on a British Antarctic Survey base I was excited when I updated my podcasts to find AMT had a question on just this.
Firstly, there are plenty of non-scientist jobs on the British bases; builders and technicians, computer and communications specialists, boat teams, mountaineers, chefs and cleaning and maintenance crews.
Secondly, I had no psychological profiling before heading south and I’m fine.
Thirdly, am I weird for wanting to see penguins, albatrosses, whales and icesheets? I always laughed at the fact that Olly is a grown man who is into Disney, show tunes and a cat. Or are we two ends of some sort of interest bell-curve, pushed to the side by the sport and Top Gear-dominated middle ground?
But how did you get your job, Mr Sexhammer? That’s what questioneer S needs to know!
As for your bell curve: you and Olly can probably meet in the middle at the dancing penguins from Mary Poppins.
Answer Me This! Podcast 