This week, a lot of you will want to hear the 2010 episode of WTF where Marc Maron talks to Robin Williams. Here it is, with a new intro from a choked-up Marc. Get your hankie ready.
You might also want to hear Lauren Bacall tearing it up on Desert Island Discs from 1984, here. Now please excuse me while I get lost in the Desert Island Discs 60-year archive. Again.
Not a million miles from Desert Island Discs is BBC 6 Music’s The First Time With…, in which musicians talk about the songs that made them. Sorry if you were expecting a show in which famous people discuss losing their virginities. (Does such a show exist? Aside from this one?)
I’m intrigued to listen to this programme about the politics of Dr Seuss: Dr Seuss and the Butter Battle. And if you’re intrigued to hear the AMT take on Dr Seuss, you can find it in the Answer Me This! Christmas album. You may think it’s unseasonal to listen to a Christmas show in the middle of August, but there’re only 132 days to go! (‘Only’. That’s still more than a third of a year. But it doesn’t stop a film called Santa With Muscles being played on one of the more remote Freeview channels every damn day.)
Finally: if you’re keen to start making your own podcasts, you can learn everything you need to know at the Essentials of Podcasting Guardian Masterclass on 20th September. I’ll be there to share all my podcasting knowledge, which should take around five minutes; luckily you’ll also be taught all about hardware, software, editing, production, formatting, publicity etc from the likes of Bugle producer Chris Skinner, Guardian podcast producer Jason Phipps, and software inventor Drew White. Book your place here.
PS: if you’re at Green Man festival this weekend, say hi to me and Martin! I’ll be doing Pappy’s Flatshare Slamdown at 1am on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Martin will be playing songs on the Solar Stage on Friday and Sunday, and demonstrating 3D printing in Einstein’s Garden every day. 3D printing at a folk festival? Apparently so.
Which shows have been delighting you lately? Recommend some in the comments.
As AMT devotees, you know that we don’t shy away from the most serious questions the human mind can concoct. Remember AMT198 last year, when we boldly tackled “What makes a pie a pie?” Today, in Answer Me This! Episode 220, we broach another foodstuff with an identity crisis – salad:
Seriously though, how can this and this and this and this be even nominally related? Pffft.
Anyway, tossed into the conversational salad this week are:
facts about Eugene, Oregon
Hamlet, the Madonna of his time
Madonna, the sexual bully of her time
alternating current vs. direct current
dentist chair vs. electric chair
Natalie Portman Hershlag
French Freemasons William Kemmler
Pizza Express
rainbow parties Rory Gallagher’s guitar
and
Spin the Bottle.
Plus: Olly impresses the ladies with his great big throbbing veins; Helen discovers that Thomas Edison was a right cnut; and Martin the Sound Man plays coy about his age. Don’t worry Martin, you don’t look a day under 55.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is more crap-related than usual, as it features a question from Stephy from Bristol about the point of patterned toilet paper. Along the way we learn upon what Simon Cowell and the Queen probably wipe their bottoms. The rich educational resource that is the Answer Me This! app is available for iDevices or Android, you’ll be relieved to know. Relieved. Ho ho ho.
Enough japery for one week; but if you want to listen to more of our japery next week, you are obliged to send us a QUESTION: emails go to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
