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.
Ten years. Ten years! TEN. YEARS. Ten years we’ve been doing this show. TEN.
In that time, technologies have waxed and waned; world leaders have come and gone; yet here we still are, answering the questions that you supply, just as we did in episode 1 all the way back in January 2007, and in every episode in between.
To celebrate the show’s birthday, in Answer Me This! Episode 346 we provide a thrilling glimpse into the AMT Process, receive a gift from a musical hero, and tackle a question on Olly’s favourite third favourite subject. We also discuss:
Mickey Mouse
sentimental dehydrators
rubber fetishes
grown-up purchases
Helen’s lost engagement ring vs Helen’s lost copy of Heathers
Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans vs Campbell’s actual soup cans
graphic design vs fine art vs graphic design
file-in-cake-based prison breaks
British bears
British beavers
and
why you should never lend things to friends if you ever want to get those things back.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we consider another problem for a Mickey Mouse reboot: the voice. Disney, if you’re listening, we have a suggestion for who should play Mickey. Go on, give it a go…
You should give our album AMT Love a go, if you want to hear an hour of us talking about sex and relationships. It’s available from the AMT store – you can also get it from iTunes and Amazon, if you prefer – along with our other albums and our classic episodes. We can’t pretend that listening back to the first episode today didn’t make us wince, but for just 79.9p it’s a good price for a wince.
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‘.
Bigger thanks to YOU for listening and sending in questions and supplying kind messages and buying our stuff and generally supporting us during the past decade.
How do you pronounce ‘patent’? ‘Pay-tent’? ‘Pattent’?
That’s not one of the questions we are asked in Answer Me This! Episode 333, just a matter we wrestle with. As well as:
key party logistics
kestrel welfare Antiques Road Trip
vibrator disposal Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
The Angel of the North
The Chronicles of Pornia
the Mary Poppins sequel
and
The Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices), we workshop the Netflix revival of Frasier that is bound to come along at some point, given that everything old is becoming new again. So look out for Niles Goes Miles in a year or two.
Also: click here for tickets for Allusionist Live; click here to hear the season finale of Modern Mann; click here to celebrate Martin the Sound Man’s podcast centenary.
••• AMT333 Child-Friendly Rating: 25%. Several swears. Questions about vibrators and key parties, and suggestions that the Queen has shagged all the way round Buckingham Palace. •••
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.
With just days to go until Hallowe’en, many of you have been writing to ask what costume you should opt for. Here’s our one-size-fits-all solution:
1. Wrap yourself in a duvet;
2. Go to bed until November 1st.
While you’re there, drown out the sound of trick or treaters ringing your doorbell by listening to Answer Me This! Episode 234:
Today we consider:
Citizen Kane
the classic Charlie’s Angels remake Green Jelly (nee Jello)
doughnuts vs. douchebags
strumpets vs. crumpets
Brian May’s badger sanctuary
William of Orange’s pet pugs
tribute bands
hipster combovers
psychoanalysis of Agatha Christie
Fratzos: matzos for frat boys
Leonardo DiCaprio lookalikes
the hard lives of fake Posh’n’Becks
Ann Widdecombe
the mystery of the Rolling Stones’ hair
and
The Mystery of Hercule Poirot’s Pants.
Plus: Olly finally finds a TV show to enjoy when he’s alone in business hotels; Helen does not think this is cute, at all; and Martin the Sound Man won’t think much of Django Reinhardt impersonators unless they burn off their fingers.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Olly digs up a big mistake Universal made, back in the day when Mickey Mouse was still just a rabbit, and Norman Bates was still just a motelier.
Make no mistake: we want your QUESTIONS so we can make more episodes of AMT. So email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
This week, we learn how to arm yourself in the event of the outbreak of cyber-warfare. Start digging a hole in your virtual back garden for your Javascript Anderson shelter; lay down supplies of canned goods, water, batteries, masking tape and binbags (because even in an emergency you need to be able to cobble together a rudimentary fancy-dress costume), and load up your rifle with Answer Me This! Episode 168:
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)
Conversational shrapnel includes:
Steamboat Willie True Grit
Alan Turing
Nicole Kidman News in Briefs
topless Kelvin MacKenzie
Sharon Stone’s dress-down Oscar-day
puntits
Victorinox
the Colosseum vs the O2 Arena
perfectly controllable semis
John Virgo
Marchesa
and
swim-gimps.
Plus: Olly’s not going to fall for your elaborate apple-tasting double-bluff, wiseguy; Helen will take out your unwanted small pets, no questions asked; and Martin the Sound Man swims like a middle-aged woman. This is almost as good a show as the Geekpop show he’s playing on 10th March, for which you can and should get tickets via geekpop.co.uk. There’ll be a taster of his new album, Songs from the Scientific Cabaret, at the end of the show next week, so let that be the bright point of light at the end of the tunnel that is the next seven days.
You can also enliven the next seven days by sending us QUESTIONS, which you can then pose to us in a voicemail to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And if you still find yourself with time to spare, you could squander a few more seconds on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android), which contains further musing upon what the whole deal is with Snow White. What’s with them apples? Eh?
Of course, you’re already used to getting good advice from us. (Shut up!) But this week, we have some even better advice from broadcasting stalwart Paul Ross, which was instrumental in making Olly Mann the broadcasting stalwart he himself is today. Hear what it was here and here only, in Answer Me This! Episode 152:
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 address subjects including:
90s collars
Benson & Hedges
The Saturdays
butterbear
Carr’s water biscuits
yuppie kids
evil spirits
Ciro Citterio
the Queen vs. Pixie Lott
Batman’s wedding
Hong Kong tailors
trangias
Terry’s Chocolate Lemons
ligatures
Warhorse
Ben Stiller’s workwear
the musical cleft
Luciano Pavarotti outstaying his welcome
ball-handlers
the Isle of Arran
and
&.
Furthermore: Olly is a staunch conservative when it comes to the appropriate composition of orange-flavoured foodstuffs; Helen’s innate scruffiness has dashed her telemarketing dreams; and Martin the Sound Man stands up for Tom Stoppard. Meanwhile, over on the app, Gaz from Jedburgh has a question about a problem we’re sure is common to a great many of you: nepotism in the forestry business.
Everyone who got a question answered in today’s episode needs to email us their postal address sharpish, so we can send along a free copy of the Answer Me This! book; everyone else needs to send us a QUESTION to be in with a chance to win a free book, along with an answer, of course. You know what to do: leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Answer Me This! Podcast 