Well this is it, listeners. After 14 years and 8 months and many thousands of questions, AMT400 is the last episode of the show. Sob!! But we’re surfing out of here on a wave of your lovely, lovely messages – as well as a British Podcast Award for hanging in there for so damn long – and some excellent questions about such things as:
sky dining – no not sky diving, sky dining
the difference between shepherding and nursing
the unreasonable popularity of Fiji Water
saving Joni Mitchell’s childhood home
destroying William Shakespeare’s final home
Barbie vs Lilli
Anish Kapoor’s expensive sculpture vs Anish Kapoor’s expensive sculpture
Swiss Barbie
the real Sherlock Holmes?!
homing pigeons
and
arsenic girl.
The songs you hear were sent in by MJ Fouldes and Hannah Ventisei. Thanks so much to all of you who sent in lovely messages – and songs! – with your AMT-related emotions and memories. We could only include a tiny fraction of your affection in the episode, but know that we read/listened to everything. And maybe wept over it all a bit, too.
You’ll hear a few more of your AMT memories, plus bonus questions and answers about reheating McDonald’s cheeseburgers, the pleasantness of trans-Atlantic crossings 250 years ago, regretting the person you chose to bequeath your children to, life drawing classes, and ruined birthdays (we’re so sorry, Beth!), in today’s Bumper Bonus Bit of Crap on the App. As it’s a special occasion, you can listen to even if you don’t own the app, by downloading here or clicking on this player:
Thanks to our sponsors:
• Manscaped, a full range of grooming products for your furry parts. Get 20% off plus free shipping with the code ANSWER at Manscaped.com.
• 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’.
Admin time:
We won’t be taking emails or phonecalls, but this website will remain up for as long as we keep remembering to renew the domain! And episodes 201-400 will sit pretty on the free feed in the pod places. Plus all our other stuff will still be available at answermethisstore.com: episodes 1-200, our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015, and our six special albums – Home Entertainment, Love, Holiday, Sports Day, Jubilee and Christmas.
Stay subscribed, because you never know what the future holds…
Good grief! Can this really be it?? THANK YOU for sending questions and feedback, commuting/exercising/falling asleep with us, and letting us be your pod friends.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT400 Child-Friendly Rating: 68%. Low-bawd but several swears. Plus an ad for ball-shavers. •••
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. •••
Plus: Olly’s pub quiz victory strategy is ruined by cocks; Helen would rather swear on the dictionary than the Bible; and Martin the Sound Man is vanilla-blind. Quick, throw a benefit gala for him!
There’s bonus Jews for Jesus jazz in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, available for iThings, Android and Windows gadgets.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘ANSWER‘.
We’ll return on 30th April 2015 with AMT313, please return too!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT312 Child-Friendly Rating: 21%. Martin the Sound Man deploys the word ‘cunty’ in the first couple of minutes, but in protest at poor provision of services for the visually impaired, which is a cause your children ought to support. Shortly followed by a discussion of crude cock’n’balls drawings, with which the average child will already be more than familiar. Question about penis size at the end of the show. While the content is clean in between the penis references at either end of the show, there are a few swears sprinkled throughout. In sum: not an episode to enjoy on the school run.•••
Plus: for Olly, giving is better than receiving (when it comes to picture messages); Helen does not belong on wheels; and Martin the Sound Man searches for logic in cartoon characters off adverts, which is really the wrong place to look.
All we want for Christmas are your QUESTIONS, so shove them into our stockings, by which we mean leave a message on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Also, forge the bounds of internet friendship at facebook.com/answermethis and twitter.com/HelenAndOlly. Not LinkedIn, NEVER LinkedIn.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘answer’. That’s got to be better than anything you win in a cracker. (Except for the set of tiny screwdrivers or a bottle-opener shaped like an animal; both of these come in surprisingly useful. But, you know, the miniature pack of cards or tiny plastic comb or annoying puzzle made out of metal rings.)
The Best of AMT 2014 will be out next Thursday, 18th December. Return then!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT304 Child-Friendly Rating: 74%. Opens with further discussion of AMT303‘s cheese handjobs, but once the first couple of minutes are over, the rest of the episode’s topics are clean aside from two or three strong swears. •••
Hey! Listeners! What are you doing here? Throw your internet devices to the floor and sprint to Chelmsford in order to be second in the queue (behind this week’s questioneer Melanie) at the new Dunkin’ Donuts opening tomorrow in Chelmsford!
Or if you don’t give many shits about that, sit tight and listen to Answer Me This! Episode 283 instead:
Today we speak of:
coffee beans
giving people ‘the tour’
Terry’s Chocolate Orange
Bruno Mars
sushi vinegar
C3P(ost)O(ffice)
close-up Christopher Lee
Red Hot Chili Peppers
red hot chilli peppers IHOP vs NASA
the Duracell Bunny vs the Energizer Bunny
Barbie vs Bratz
sad second-rate Sindy
and
the politics of Polly Pocket.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (install it on your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets), we wonder why Heston Blumenthal has not yet mass-produced a meat-filled chocolate orange. Not that we want one.
We do want your QUESTIONS, though: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Thanks to Squarespace.com for funding this episode; use the code answer2 to snag a 10% discount off their services for a whole year.
We’ll be back on 27th February; in the meantime, listen to Olly on the now-national LBC and Helen on the international-despite-the-name Spark London podcast and Martin on his intergalactic noise-platform.
Byeeee!
Helen & Olly
AMT283 Child-Friendly Rating: 38%. Some swears. Olly talks about his burning genitalia. Speculation about Mrs Pepperpot’s sex life, but in terms a child hopefully won’t fully understand. Intermission features colourful semen. Reference to a Prince Albert that you may have trouble explaining to your youngling.
Today’s questioneer Beth has chosen the AMT Holiday album to be the soundtrack to her child’s birth. If you have ever given birth whilst listening to Answer Me This!, we’d be curious to know. Although we refuse to accept responsibility for any psychological problems your child develops as a result.
Anyway, welcome to the world, babies born during Answer Me This! Episode 272:
Their tiny little damp ears would be caressed by such topics as:
Plus: Olly expects all aliens to keep it sexy; Helen has a box set ready to get herself through any occasion; and Martin the Sound Man has gender issues, if his predilection for Bounty Bars is any indicator. And if you’re a non-Brit wondering what a Bounty Bar is, we translate for you in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android): it’s the same thing as Mounds. Great name, guys!
We’re taking next week off, so you have ample time to send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
And don’t forget to check out squarespace.com, who have kindly sponsored today’s episode of AMT, and are even more kindly offering you two weeks’ free play with all their website-building tools and then 10% off their service if you use the code Answer9. There are myriad design templates and hosting options, and 24/7 support if you need a hand. So go forth and build beautiful websites! And do let us know about them when you’re done. As long as they’re not the kind of site that would traumatise your child if they accidentally found them whilst snooping in your browser history.
See you Thursday after next,
Helen & Olly
AMT272 Child-Friendly Rating: 34%. Quite a lot of swearing. Question from a child about a parent’s possible extra-curricular sexual activities, inc explanation of ‘dogging’.
On this week’s hot topic of aliens, here’s Martin the Sound Man just outside Area 51
However, at the time of posting, the creature hasn’t actually been born, so try to keep a lid on that ROYAL BABY EXCITEMENT for long enough to listen to Answer Me This! Episode 263:
Plus: Olly’s money-based conjuring tricks weren’t fooling anyone; if Helen’s guess is correct and the ROYAL BABY receives the same middle name as Diana, Frances (Francis for a boy), then everybody has to give her £10 in congratulation; and Martin the Sound Man knows where to go in the event of nuclear apocalypse in the middle of Europe.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android, we harp on about Royal Baby Krispy Kreme. No, we haven’t had a heads-up that the baby will be named Krispy Kreme Kambridge (but if it IS, you definitely have to give us all £10); we’re talking about this shit.
But…if you are absolutely desperate to piss away money on some spurious tie-in with the ROYAL BABY, then the AMT Jubilee is obviously the best direction in which to piss. And we have no qualms about recommending our SMASH HIT TOP 15 ALBUM Answer Me This! Holiday.
Also, please do send us your QUESTIONS for the new series: leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT263 Child-Friendly Rating: 90%. Minimal swearing and a fair amount of educational content, but one question about a listener’s sexual dalliances and the psychologically damaging actions of his girlfriend’s parents, which some children may find troubling.
Today we discuss the world’s greatest audio format apart from this one: Desert Island Discs. What would your luxury be? (If you’re a cheating cheater who wants to take a fully-stocked iPod, throw yourself into the sea.) Find out ours, along with myriad other important nuggets of information, in Answer Me This! Episode 259:
In which we also consider:
condoms vs. opera gloves
knits vs. nits
Tim Burton vs. Faust
Olly vs. Ollie vs. Olleigh
cherry-pickers gentlemen’s clubs (nb not ‘gentlemen’s clubs’) The Reform Act This Life
personalised Coke bottles
Simon Cowell’s reflection
mayonnaise spa treatments
retro-live-tweeting
and
Russ Abbott.
Plus: Olly is nostalgic for an infestation of headlice; Helen WOULD with the person who changes the lights in supermarkets; and Martin the Sound Man doesn’t want to swallow himself. Just reflect on that quietly.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Olly rhapsodises about the Coca-Cola Freestyle Machine. All the different types of sugar water – in one machine! A miracle of modern life.
Another miracle of modern life is to be able to watch thousands of hours of entertainment for FREE thanks to our LoveFilm offer – which, equally miraculously, helps pay for future Answer Me Thises.
As well as free money, we can only sustain the podcast with your QUESTIONS, so send them along in the form of voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Holed up in the Holiday Inn in Salford Quays, we contemplated holding a Bed-In for Peace. But then we realised that if we did, the already oversubscribed lifts would become clogged up with press and peaceniks, leaving all the other hotel guests feeling far from peaceful. So, sorry, peace; we made Answer Me This! Episode 232 instead:
Today we consider:
the Virgin Trains slow reveal
personal massagers
naughty Amazon
animal blood donation
magic oily fish
Les Rosbifs
immature students
maths vs. emotion
cottaging
Ping (who?)
and
the Holiday Inn pillow menu.
Plus: Olly would like to reverse decades of progress in gay rights just so he’s got something to read when he’s on the loo; Helen is unlikely to renew her wedding vows, unless the magazine deal is lucrative enough; and Martin the Sound Man goes off to have a rest in the rest room. He’s a very well-rested man.
Check out this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) if you’ve been wondering what happened next in the tale of vengeance from AMT231 and/or why your pineapple jelly won’t set.
We’re relieved to tell you that our Skype problem seems to be fixed, but if you used Skype to ask us a question in August or September, we never got it, so please ask it again by dialling up answermethis. You don’t need to worry if you sent a QUESTION via email (answermethispodcast@googlemail.com) or the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877); it’s safely swimming around with all the other questions in our question tank.
See you next Thursday!
Helen & Olly
Martin the Sound Man has a little alone time with the personal massager in the Holiday Inn.
This week, we hint at the reason behind one of the most pressing mysteries of the 1990s. Not what happened to Princess Di, nor what became of Richey Edwards, but why Mick Hucknall decided to hack off his dreadlocks. Discover all in Answer Me This! Episode 224:
We also consider:
stage kissing
business kissing
The WI in WWI Great British cheeses
Whoopi Goldberg The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo vs. Men Who Hate Women
fabric conditioner vs. towels
going cold turkey on caffeine
Adelaide Hoodless
feta
and
dead landladies.
Plus: Olly wishes to replace his happy childhood with a lot of bonking; Helen launches her campaign for more Wigmore cheese to be made (WigMORE! WigMORE!); and think carefully before accepting Martin the Sound Man’s handshake, because you may be getting a whole lot more physical contact than you bargained for.
We’d love to hear more from you, in the form of QUESTIONS sent as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
This week, we learn that AMT is the name of a legal high. Seeing as legal highs are usually just brain-liquifying chemical syntheses that haven’t been made illegal yet, we cannot recommend trying it. We can, however, recommend AMT214, which is fully legal and will only have mildly detrimental effects upon your brain:
Today we contemplate:
facial fuzz as feminist issue The Beggar’s Opera Ziggy Stardust
‘club dancing’
crowd control
Häagen-Dazs vs. Cadbury’s Flake
death by tinned peaches
Kodak’s adventures in weapon development Forgetting Sarah Marshall transposed to Durham
stuffed vine leaves
a night of creamy indulgence
and
watching Alien stoned.
Plus: Olly doesn’t think Mila Kunis should be doing a desk job, even in these times of scarce employment; Helen wonders what Kim Kardashian would look like without the intervention of depilators; and Martin the Sound Man can pronounce ‘cyanoacrylate’, because he speaks industrial adhesive fluently.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) goes further than today’s question about Downing Street and wonders what is behind the famous door of Number 10. According to Olly, it is our nation’s leaders attending to their itchy arses.
If your own itchy arse ever allows you to use your hands for something else for a moment, use them to send us a QUESTION, either by writing an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or picking up the phone and leaving a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
And finally: if we’ve ever made anyone puke through the podcast, we would like to take this opportunity to apologise.
There’s been a lot of talk of Mexican food lately on Answer Me This!. We make no apologies for this. It is a magnificent cuisine. Episode 213 continues the theme, as we chomp on the history of nachos; click below to chomp on the episode:
Plus: Olly apparently spends a lot of time looking at horses’ privates; Helen concocts an unusual analogy for Oliver Cromwell and the, er, Roundheads; and Martin the Sound Man somehow enjoys the company of this dickhead, who is likely to be cited as the co-respondent when Helen files the divorce papers.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Harriet in York, concerning the self-replicating Magnum Infinity. Soon to be rebranded the Magnum Metaphor after an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority.
There is additional noise for you to enjoy this week courtesy of Martin and the FIFTIETH episode of his Sound of the Ladies podcast. It’s a song about bears or Creation Records or something – click here to check it out.
Then, formulate a QUESTION and send it to us, as a voicemail to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
stoned.
Answer Me This! Podcast 