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!
Today, 6th January, is of course Epiphany, the day on which the Three Wise Men called round to see the baby Jesus. It is also the day that the Three Unwise Men’n’Women unleashed Answer Me This! Episode 161, which is only slightly less suitable a baby-gift than a jarful of myrrh.
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 this first podcast of the new year, we contemplate:
soup-straws
American military acronyms In Bruges
Waterfit
water-avoiding ‘Gay Bar’ by Electric Six
muscular veiny crotches
Winnie-the-Pooh
Paul Merton
the Pet Shop Boys vs. Half-Life 2
children’s stories vs. beat poets
the best Christmas films ever – see what Team AMT opted for here
the least bad bits of Love Actually (that was quick)
and
Slash’s unusual tureen.
Plus: Olly vows to kick off his New Year’s fitness drive – motivated partly by vanity and health, but more by recouping wasted gym money; Helen anticipates the timely death of the Zaltzman family dog; and virus-laden Martin the Sound Man grits his teeth and tries to survive the episode without exploding with a big gush of gutwater. Cheer up the poor man by listening to some of his music here.
Today’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone and Android, app-fans) is all about Frank Bruno’s penis. Clue: it’s a whopper.
Can you believe we have now entered the FIFTH year of Answer Me This!? It would have been zero years had it not been for your QUESTIONS, so please keep supplying them: leave voicemails on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Woo-hoo, it’s time for our special guest episode! Sorry campers, Ian Collins forgot to turn up this week (although with any luck he will be on the show in a couple of weeks. (If he remembers.)), so you’ll just have to make do with the three of us in Answer Me This! Episode 147, as per. Here we are:
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 speak this week of:
speed of sound vs. speed of light Cats vs. pigs vs. puppets
Keanu Reeves vs. Martin’s dad
steak and kidney pudding
newspapers for Christmas
blue-screening Neighbours
hare The Sheep-pig by Dick King-Smith
artichoke liqueurs
builders’ tea
allergens Countdown for foreigners St John
and
eel.
Olly depends upon Twitter to make even the most banal decisions for him; Helen explains Deal or No Deal in a nutshell; and Martin the Sound Man calms everyone down with some maths before they crap themselves in a scary thunderstorm.
Over on the AMT app, there’s the extended coverage of the balls’n’Marmite issue; and we bid farewell to our Great British Questions series with a blooper reel, which is the only way we know how to say goodbye. Which will make our funerals interesting.
There’s good news too, folks: once again we’ve teamed up with Audible.co.uk to give freeeeeee audiobooks to AMT-listeners! Those of you who signed up before, do not feel left out, for there is also a very special offer for you too: dirt-cheap Audible membership for months of audiobook joy. Click here to find out how to claim your audiofreebies!
You know what else is free? Asking us QUESTIONS. Leave a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or dispatch an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You’ll be none the poorer, and our lives will be the richer. RESULT.
This week, in Answer Me This! Episode 146, we turn to prayer. Don’t worry though; we counterbalance that with computer-game sadism.
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)
Appearing this week in our speech are:
exploding Anthea Turner (don’t worry, she survived!) The Daily Bra (a bit NSFW)
‘Whistle While You Work’ vs. ‘Girls and Boys Come Out To Play’ vs. ‘Greensleeves’
Theme Park
Katamari Damacy
you singular vs. you plural
young Mann’s evil marketing ruses
Skype at a wedding
the Siemens TJ 10500 Dressman Spaced
busy Henry VIII
the JFK death-film
and
Queen Victoria’s forbidden thunderbox
Plus: windy Olly has to choose between his girlfriend and his trouser-press; Helen is going to Hell for what she did to the Lord’s Prayer; and Martin the Sound Man says something sensible about balls for once. We’re also delighted to hear that love blooms between you listeners in even the unlikeliest of places (namely facebook.com/answermethis)
Meanwhile, over on the AMT app, there’s a very curious question from Kiki in Manchester about the Amelie-ish discovery of a mysterious photo of a baby surrounded by matchsticks. Have any of you mislaid such a thing? And in this week’s episode of Great British Questions, our toilet humour knows no bounds. The series is now finished, but come back next week for our Great British Outtakes reel.
Next week, in episode 147, we’ll be joined by special guest Ian Collins of the Late Show on talkSPORT; so send your QUESTIONS for Ian (and us) by leaving a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or firing off an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
In order of appearance, here’s where we go during our Great British love-in (in which we play a couple FOR DEMONSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY):
• the Cerne Abbas giant, Dorset – the earliest known NSFW field in Britain! • Brighton, to hang out with drunkards. It’s a pretty sexy place – after all, George IV built his amazing personal shag-palace there. • The Assembly Rooms in Stamford, Lincolnshire. Didn’t score ourselves any husbands, though; the only man there was the old chap superintending the Saturday afternoon book sale. • The Heartwood School of Woodcarving in Port Talbot, Wales. If you want to carve your own spoon of love, or get someone else to do it for you, you can email spoon-carver extraordinaire Sharon LittleyHERE, or find out more about the traditional Welsh lovespoons in her book. • Boat trip up the River Thames, a very pleasant way to travel through central London if you’re not in a hurry. • Picnic at Penrith Castle, Cumbria – an unlikely thing to find in the middle of an ordinary-looking housing estate! • The Cumberland Pencil Museum in Keswick, Cumbria. Don’t go there if your pencil collection has an inferiority complex already. • The Museum of Surgery in Edinburgh, after which you’ll see we didn’t walk up Arthur’s Seat. • Punting in Oxford, thanks to the Magdalen Bridge Boathouse – who also very kindly lent us hats with which to accessorise this beautiful scene. • Grasmere in the Lake District. William Wordsworth’s signature restaurant can be found here. Apparently they only serve daffodils. • The Jane Austen Centre in Bath, where they hold the annual Mr Darcy Wet Shirt Contest. Ok, well we maintain that they should. • Chesil Beach, Dorset out of On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. We hope this scene doesn’t give you nightmares. • The Eden Project, Cornwall, inspiration for Nelly’s hit ‘Hot in Herre’. • The London-Edinburgh sleeper train, which is a bit like North By Northwest only with a complimentary sponge-bag rather than Eva Marie Saint. • Glastonbury, Somerset, where we met the marvellous Jacqui Winn of the Witchcraft Emporium, approximately a cross between a herbalist’s and a branch of Ann Summers. If you’re keen to follow Jacqui’s advice, damiana is the herb you’re after, although we have yet to try it so can’t vouch for its effectiveness. Still, it’s a lot cheaper than fake Viagra off the internet! • And finally, we wind up in the Westmoreland Hotel, Cumbria, which is the first motorway services hotel we’ve ever been to where you could even contemplate having a romantic night.
We also need to bestow affection upon: Chay Allen for propelling our punt, because we sure as hell couldn’t have done it ourselves without injury; Jill Collinge, for showing us Stamford then standing politely by as Helen did stupid impressions of Beyonce;
and the loves of our lives, Tess Longfield and Rachel Aked of VisitBritain. If you love the UK as much as VisitBritain do, join the online love-in at their Facebook page at facebook.com/LoveUK.
Please return next Tuesday for Great British Questions Episode Four: Tea; and for more scenes from our romantic mini-break, peruse the photos below.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
“Of randy stroppy teenagers;
“Ant queens; the term ‘left wing’…”
Believe that Walrus, because there’s all that and yet more talk of many things in Answer Me This! Episode 137:
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)
Including:
Top of the Pops
Dorian Gray
Next t-shirts
the golddigging DVLA
Freddie Windsor
blackberries
‘Turning Japanese’
electronic vs. paper voting
aristocrats vs. bohos
Shirley Valentine vs. the Wailing Wall
Russell Grant
and Knightmare.
Plus: Olly is a man with a tiny car and a less tiny waist; Helen should have gnawed off her bad leg rather than sit through the Scooby Doo movie; and Martin the Sound Man comes up with a plan to oust the National Lottery’s Voice of the Balls, probably because he must be jealous that there is someone whose job title is ‘the Voice of the Balls’. Even more gallingly, the guy is a multi-millionaire. Watch out, Mr Ball-voice, there’s a sound man out for your blood…
…Meanwhile, the rest of us are out for your QUESTIONS, so bestow them upon us by leaving a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis and by sending an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
This week we caught not one but two Maypole dances! After the sight of a team of hail-lashed eight-year-olds cavorting around a giant phallic symbol, then a second helping of the same, anything’s going to seem anticlimactic. Except, perhaps, for Answer Me This! Episode 134:
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)
Wherein we speak of:
Peppy the polar bear
Mint Imperials
ostrich meat
Claude Garamond
Roald Dahl
Microsoft whimsy
the Empire State Building
Australian superlatives
British teen pregnancy rates WIN
the Burj Al Arab
phone cake
Stanley Morison
the Mr Bean Diary
and
Kidderminster.
Plus: Olly emphasises the importance of proper hydration during hot hungover Hellenic hikes; Helen recalls her days as the Nadia Comaneci of Tunbridge Wells; and Martin the Sound Man poaches an old Pappy’s Fun Club joke, With Hilarious Results. Or similar. We also implore you to help out Ian from Florida with his dating profile; click here to see it and comment politely thereupon.
Apologies to any of you who couldn’t get through to our Question Line last week; it’s up and running as normal now, so don’t hesitate to leave your QUESTIONS on it by dialling 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis; or, of course, emailing them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, in the classical style.
If you enjoy staying up all night listening to the radio, tonight you can hear us assisting Iain Dale on LBC from midnight-6am as the election results roll in; tune in on 97.3FM, Sky Channel 0124 or online via lbc.co.uk.
Everyone, thankyou so much for your lovely messages regarding my betrothal to Martin the Sound Man. And apologies for taking him off the market.
We’ve no idea when or where the nuptials will take place as yet, but we’ve currently no plans for the cynical scheme suggested by Ben from Stafford:
When you get married could you guys have a MASSIVE wedding party somewhere in the country and invite all the Answer Me This! fans to wish you a happy life and charge people to get in to ease on your cost?
No chance, Ben; I’m not Jordan!
Naomi from France also has a suggestion:
At Helen and Martin’s wedding, you could play ALL the stuff they’ve ever said about marriage on AMTP, and then have a Big Brother type voice saying: ‘And look at them now!’
Again: NO.
Happily, we’re not the only new engagement; congratulations are in order for young CJ from Wales:
On the 23rd March I proposed to my now fiancee Emma-Lea who I love and would do anything in the world for! I love her so much and I trust her with my life, to prove this I have told her more about me than ANYONE else will ever know, I told her EVERYTHING I can think of and remember and then told her my facebook password because I love and trust her so much! She has told me everything and her facebook password too! We’re now in the position where we can tell each other everything and we have each other’s passwords to facebook which our lives are virtually on so Helen and Martin answer me this, do you or would you tell one another everything and share your passwords where by you could destroy the others life if you so wished but love and trust each other enough to know neither of you would ever do that?
Aaah CJ, when you get to our age it’s enough of a struggle just to remember your own password.
ELECTION ELECTION WINEHOUSE’SBROKENBOOBS ELECTION ELECTION ELECTION KATONA. That’s all we’re hearing about this week, and frankly it’s wearing us down. Listeners, perhaps you feel the same; or perhaps you don’t live in Britain and therefore didn’t even know there was an election on. And now that you do, you couldn’t give a tortoise’s bra about it. But hopefully we can all agree to settle down and listen toAnswer Me This! Episode 133, before returning to deface Tory pamphlets/whatever the hell you non-Brit-residents were up to:
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 speak of:
Tory tax breaks
Smith Kendon travel sweets
Kenneth Tynan
Scotney Castle
Birmingham Selfridges
Tate Modern
satnav wipes
sphygmomanometers
sexting vs. proper infidelity
Facebook vs. Friends Reunited
syntax vs. inflections
souvenir pencils
the Paris Expo
James Citizen Kane
Sarah Kane Hamlet II In the Night Garden
and
Ozwald Boateng.
Plus: Olly yearns for the rural life, tilling the soil and raising livestock; Helen is shocked by the potty-mouth affecting Woman’s Hour; and Martin the Sound Man seems to know more about blood pressure than the average district nurse. And some news that might be more exciting to us than to you, and more exciting to our mums than anyone else.
You know what’s definitely exciting all round, though? Your QUESTIONS! So give us a thrill by sending them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, Skype IDanswermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877. Our timbers are shivering in anticipation.
My girlfriend and I have been going out for a good while now, and it looks like it’s getting thoroughly serious.
We talked a little about the future one time, and since then, I haven’t been able to get the idea out of my head.
So, High/Secondary school romances, can they actually work after school is over?
Well. Judging by our various friends (because of course, we only keep up our various acquaintances to use them as specimens in our studies of human behaviour), yes, they can: many of our contemporary school couples are still going strong a decade and a half later. In other cases, however, circumstance/the inexorable march of time/inconvenient geography/Growing Apart/other people/boredom intervened; but frankly, all parties were probably better off as a result.
Just as you might no longer adore Ivor the Engine quite as much as you did when you were six, what you want from a relationship is likely to be quite different when you’re forty than when you’re fourteen. So the best scheme is really just to enjoy what you have right now and see how it pans out, because you will get to spend more than enough of the rest of your life worrying about the future. There’s something to look forward to, young man!
But readers, please do recourse to the comments to chip in with your opinions as to what Bob in Lincoln should do, or if you would like to satisfy our nosiness by spilling the beans about your own school romances. Lest you care, our own experiences of such went thus: Olly is now shacked up with the lucky lady whom he first dated when they were at school, although she did get a few years’ respite in between; Helen jettisoned her long-term boyfriend a week before going to university, which proved to be a thoroughly good idea; and Martin the Sound Man never even saw a girl till he was nearly twenty.
Even though all three of us are spinsters (sob!), we enjoy you asking us about weddings. We were, however, very surprised when Xavier sent us one such question, seeing as he has more matrimonial experience than all of us combined. He asks:
I have been married 4 times already despite never ever asking anyone to marry me, and ending up with some really evil fuckers. I have finally met someone really special and am thinking of asking her to marry me,
I have previously been married in a church, a registry office, on a beach in a foreign country and at Gretna Green, my questions is this where do i get married now that would be different?
I see you haven’t done a Vegas wedding yet, but seeing as they all seem to have a fairly short time limit, we think it’s best avoided. We also note that you’ve done church, but not synagogue; perhaps it’s time to explore some other faiths, just to add cultural variety to your nuptual history.
Between us we’ve been to some very jolly weddings beneath a waterfall, on top of a hill, in museums and in a zoo; and we do enjoy those pictures in the tabloids when couples get married underwater with scuba gear, or jumping out of planes, or in the joinery aisle of B&Q. But as we don’t know whether the future Mrs Xavier V is aquatic/adrenaline-chasing/Handy Andy, we can’t give you a solid plan. But perhaps YOU can, readers? Head to the comments and tell Xavier where to have his fifth wedding! The person with the best suggestion gets to be a bridesmaid.
Wade back in your memory through the mists of time, around the bog of forgetfulness, and over the stile of reminiscence, right the way to the end of the last series of Answer Me This!, then append the following observations supplied by our beloved listeners. Firstly, Jim in New Jersey:
You may have strongly doubted the origins of the wedding kiss in an actual ritual consummation, but how about this for a dramatic touch? Margaret Mead documented a primitive wedding ceremony performed by a tribe in New Guinea in which the newly wedded couple copulated on a wooden platform in front of all the villagers. At the moment of climax, a huge pile of lumber was released from above them, crushing them to death. One would think this ritual might have a negative effect on population growth.
Not only that, it would really decimate the honeymoon industry. If this came back in vogue, Sandals resorts would close overnight!
On a related note, Matt, who calls himself ‘Moo’ (each to their own), suggests we all have a little paddle in the following pool of schadenfreude:
In Episode 123 you were discussing proposals in public and how shameful it would be – well have a look at this for the ultimate humiliation, and the amazing premonition-like commentators:
Don’t cry, she’s probably just popped off to the loo for a sec. Right? Right?
by Dick King-Smith
by Ian McEwan. We hope this scene doesn’t give you nightmares.
Answer Me This! Podcast 