Huge news! Skip over to Patreon.com/answermethis, sign up for the Sound Bag top tier, and you can 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. AND, all tiers get an ad-free version of the new episodes, bonus material each month, and our live video trivial-question-answering session Petty Problems. Oh, and most delightfully of all, you patrons are funding the continuing existence of AMT, due to keep going through 2026, hooray. Patreonage is also available to give as a gift for the AMT lover or liker or tolerator in your life.
Plus: Olly finds the opposite of porn; Helen’s marriage motivation becomes apparent at long last; and Martin chats with the other Martin Austwick, who is a sword man not a sound man.
AMT413 will be out on Christmas Eve and halfway through the month, there’ll be an episode our new feature Answer Us Back in your podfeed, full of your contributions to AMT questions recent and ancient.
No Skip Christmas; Allusionist reading Xmas carol
Got questions for us? Send them 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. Next new episode will land in your podfeed on Christmas Eve so if you have festive questions, send them in now, or hang on for another year.
Helen makes the entertainment podcast about language, The Allusionist, and also recently was a guest talking about the British Christmas pop music canon on Arnie ‘Hello from the Magic Tavern’ Niekamp’s new podcast No Skip Christmas. And, you can watch her read the whole of A Christmas Carol with musical accompaniment from Martin on the Allusionist YouTube channel.
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.
Thanks to Naked Wines for sponsoring AMT, and for providing bottles straight from world-class winemakers, cutting out the middleman, delivered to your door. Head to nakedwines.co.uk/answer to get a £30 voucher on your first 6 pack, including free delivery.
With Olly’s baby poised to make his entrance into this world, Answer Me This! Episode 331 is our last episode before our three-month paternity leave, while Olly adjusts to fatherhood and Helen adjusts to going outside occasionally. Savour answers about:
lads’ mags
cereal toys
spotting the stars of tomorrow as they toil at the Disney parks
‘For He’s as dead as a herring a Jolly Good Fellow’
swimming rabbits
cafes vs brasseries vs bistros
Jane Eyre vs Thelma and Louise
The Lord of the Rings road trips
Jo Guest Tutti Frutti in 3D
ceramic babies
blue rinses
Bulgarian food
Skyrim
Kevin Costner
and
Titcoin.
A question from AMT Love went astray and ended up as today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices). It’s from long-time AMT listener Ace: if you’re young, poor and in Oxford, and you want to go on a Tinder date but you don’t want it to be “Drink?” or “Coffee?”, what do you do instead? Why, you date AMT-style of course! Meet you by the singing cockroaches.
During our three months off, why not amuse yourself by starting a podcast/online store/website using today’s sponsor Squarespace.com? You can have 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year, plus a free domain thrown in, if you invoke the code ANSWER at checkout.
We will return in May, but keep in touch in the meantime at twitter.com/helenandolly and facebook.com/answermethis – which is where we will let you know the due date of AMT332 a couple of weeks ahead of time, AND where we will also post news of Baby Mann once he appears (and has been through hair and makeup, had a spray tan, and undergone intensive media training).
All together now: “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good herring…WHICH NOBODY CAN DENY.”
Helen & Olly
••• AMT331 Child-Friendly Rating: 42%
Some swears, but pretty clean until the last ten minutes, when there’s a question about lads’ mags and top shelf publications. YOU KNOW THE ONES WE MEAN. The ones your kids are too short to reach/don’t need to reach because they can view all the proclivities of humanity on your phone that they swiped from you. •••
Look. We don’t want to point fingers or anything, but if you are the person who rifled through Olly’s desk and stole the gold jacket he bought at the Strictly Come Dancing costume auction, GIVE IT BACK. It may have been years ago now, but as you can hear in Answer Me This! Episode 181, the pain is still all too raw:
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 also contemplate:
stagnant white scabs
fluorotrousers Rhydian
grievous misuse of the Keith and the Girl book
black pudding
Black Eyed Peas
manuka honey
Henry Holland aquarium pimp-shoes
Fruit and Fibre
Napoleon-compatible party themes
psychiatric facility reading matter
fish sausages
Baci
bees vs. babies
ice cream vs. ice lollies
globalisation vs. jokes
Seth Rogen vs. Olly Mann
our pitch for Wonderland
and
Elliott Gould.
Also – Olly’s not going to be inviting Mark Ronson on a trip to Topman anytime soon; Helen wonders about the secret life of Russell Brand and Katy Perry; and Martin the Sound Man finds the thing that keeps our conflict-strewn crazy world together: sausages. If only the UN would hurry up and realise.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone or Android) explains how Olly’s youthful ambition to be the next Christopher Pike was derailed by his innocence. Which is why he’s slumming it at AMT now rather than living in the gothy house that childish horror built.
You can be part of the childish horror that is next week’s episode by sending us your QUESTIONS – leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Of course we will struggle to emulate this childish horror, but it’s good to have goals in life.
was derailed by his innocence. Which is why he’s slumming it at AMT now rather than living in the gothy house that childish horror built.
Answer Me This! Podcast 