Hello listeners! Refreshed by a month off, we return with an episode bursting with fresh new questions. Well, fresh except for the one about the Spice Girls, which we maintain IS fresh as long as you fell into a coma in the summer of 1996 and only just woke up. If that is your situation, we’ll help you catch up on what you missed. We hate to be the ones to break it to you, but Kate Moss and Johnny Depp split up. And things have been awfully quiet on the Meg Mathews front lately.
Everyone else, put Answer Me This! Episode 229 into your ears:
Plus: Olly is terrified of his own pubes (until they start paying rent for their residence upon his body); Helen’s attempt to trick the Tooth Fairy backfired right into her bank balance; and Martin the Sound Man dreams about how, in an alternate universe, Simon and Garfunkel would have replaced ‘The Sound of Silence’ with the sound of cartoon hammers.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is a question from Ginger Paul about toilet attendants, bog butlers, lavatory landlords, ablution assistants – whatever you want to call them, the principle is the same, but what’s with all the lollipops? Loo-lipops? Lolli-poops?
Our new series will be running all the way to Christmas, but only if you send us QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
A lot of artists suffer from Difficult Second Album syndrome, but not us. Following our Top 20 smash hit longplayer The Answer Me This! Jubilee, we are delighted to bring you…
The Answer Me This! Sports Day
59 minutes and 33 seconds of all-new material in celebration of the glorious sporting event that will be wreaking havoc with London’s transport system this summer. Buy it now through the AMT Store, iTunes or Amazon.
Join us for a jog through such Olympian questions as what would happen if Boris Johnson dropped the torch, how you can become an Olympic competitor whilst remaining a lazy bastard, how the Ancient Greek athletes prevented their glistening nude flesh from getting sunburn, whether Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony is going to be like this, and why Jewish athletes might be buying haggis shortly before the competition.
We also learn why the men’s Wimbledon trophy is so fruity, how David Attenborough can be blamed for the popularity of snooker, what the chess queen has in common with the Alien queen, what Jack Broughton has in common with Alan Ayckbourn, and what bookies have in common with Abraham Lincoln.
We check in on such record breakers as James Cameron and Lee Redmond, and face the biggest sports question of all: what IS a sport? And do you actually have to get out of your chair to do one?
We must offer big thanks to Sam Pythagoras Pay and Amy Smith for the jingles, which alone are worth the £2.49 RRP. Eg:
NB The Answer Me This! Sports Day is in no way officially affiliated with the London Olympics. They looked at our waist measurements and said there’s no way they could endorse that.
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).
Although we’ve come
To the end of the road current series,
Still we can’t let go – because we’ll be back on 19th April with yet more Answer Me This!. So long and adieu, here is Episode 210:
Today we ponder:
the Angel of the North Pet Sounds
sham marriage a different type of big bird Tom Jones
Mel Blanc
emotions vs. money
Matt Willis vs. televisions
Alice Cooper vs. vending machines
Jesus vs. Spongebob Squarepants
Father Christmas on film
Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth
and
Abraham Lincoln.
Plus: we learn the one place where Olly actually keeps quiet; Helen whips ’em out for SPRIIIIIINNNG BREEEEAAAK!; and Martin the Sound Man puts a price on his hand in marriage. But you might as well barter him down to something more realistic, like £20 and a Chocolate Orange.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Celeste from Elephant and Castle about whether you can sell your house without the intervention of an estate agent. Of course you can! But, before you ask, you are probably better off not performing your own laser eye surgery.
There is more to listen to during our absence, because by royal appointment (not really) we’ve released the Answer Me This! Jubilee, a 57-minute romp through the massive numbers of questions you lot send us about Her Maj and the like. Click here to get it.
Don’t forget us while we’re away: keep sending your QUESTIONS, as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Batten down the hatches, Team AMT; today Planet Earth is being lashed by the most violent solar storm in years. Unlike the usual sort of storm, it won’t knock the flowerpots off the windowsill or ruin your laundry on the line, but it MIGHT interfere with communications systems, including the internet. So hurry hurry hurry to download Answer Me This! Episode 208, then listen to it whilst you board up your windows and dust off your emergency canned foods:
This week we consider:
mermaid menstruation
ladybird literature
the Cranberries’ comeback
partying at Heathrow Airport
the Earl of Sandwich and the Earl of Sandwich
joint bank accounts The Wizard of Oz vs. Return to Oz
Muppets vs. puppets
Soo vs. Anne Robinson
Catholics vs. farmers
grease-free cribbage
Tik-Tok (the character, NOT the K€sha song)
toothpaste
kitsch
Big Bird busybody
and
ET’s hands.
Plus: Olly would like the USA to know that burgers≠sandwiches; Helen’s unlikely to be going on a dirty weekend to Blackpool, and not just because when the wife’s away, Martin the Sound Man will play. With toilet paper.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) concerns Olly’s gorgeous teeth, both real and artificial. You’d never guess which are which!
Give all of us something to chew on by sending in your QUESTIONS: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). Chomp chomp chomp.
Saint David, you’ve been lucky to have your own Day for so long, but it’s time to move over, because you know what March 1st is? JUSTIN BIEBER’S 18th BIRTHDAY! His song has more than 700m views on YouTube; how many people saw your ‘greatest’ miracle? Which was what, again? Oh, yes – you created a new hill. In Wales. You managed to find the only bit of Wales that wasn’t already a hill, and turned it into a sodding HILL! Now the monks don’t have a flat cricket pitch! Thanks a bloody bunch. Sit the heck down, and don’t even dare complain while they turn your charming cathedral into a bouncy castle for Justin to play in on his Bieberthday.
Also happening today: Answer Me This! Episode 207.
Plus: Olly has a Celebrity Row over the controversial revamped Clissold Park cafe; Helen has a split personality, if the Myers-Briggs test is anything to go by; and Martin the Sound Man is the Voice of the Yoof, much to the sorrow of the Yoof themselves.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is concerned with the plight of Ben from Durham, who has lost an eyebrow. Wax in haste, repent at leisure, as my grandmother never had to say because nobody would EVER have been so foolish in her day.
We always want your QUESTIONS, and this week is no different: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Welcome to Answer Me This! Episode 201: the first episode of the year, and the first since the podcast turned five years old. Helen’s niece Matilda turned five the other day too; she celebrated by eating a plate of spaghetti with her hands, and we’re only moderately more civilised:
Wherein we consider:
cake pops
Al Capone
moon plots The Gun Seller (or should we say Le Gun Seller?)
pease pudding Catch-22
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie
supermarket trolleys Ready Steady Cook
pushy parents
the North Wales Police
and
Anthony Worrall Thompson.
Plus: Olly harks back to when he won an election – he claims democratically, but then so did Putin; one day, Helen dreamed a dream of becoming Brian Turner, but never did it come to pass; and after twelve and a half years in the dark, Martin the Sound Man finally hears the sad news that the Two Fat Ladies will not be returning to his television screen.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) concerns the only thing we don’t like about Mexican restaurants: the unwelcome phenomenon we like to call ‘Guac Tax’.
Well, that’s the new series begun, but please help us make it an absolute corker by sending us your exquisitely finely-honed QUESTIONS, as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
And although our birthday has passed, we’re stuck with the PO Box for another four months, so do please send us a token of esteem if you are so moved:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
Also, if you want to be moved to tears of derision like John, the final caller in the episode, scroll down to the bottom of this post to see the pictures of our parents (oh alright, Olly’s lovely mum).
Kaboom! Bangbangbang! Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Sizzle! It’s Bonfire Night this Saturday, but we’re letting off a rocket a couple of days early, in the form of Answer Me This! Episode 195:
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)
Plus, in this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, Olly recounts a bad-taste wedding-day prank with tragic consequences. So if you want to ruin an upcoming wedding, fire up your iPhone, iPad or Android device to learn how. At least you won’t have to sit through the bride and groom’s honeymoon photo slides, since they’ll never speak to you again.
We will never speak to YOU again if you don’t send us your QUESTIONS, so you had better leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Don’t make us send you to Coventry, OK?
It was a race against time to complete this week’s episode and make it to London Road before curtain up. “But it’s the National Theatre!” you wail. “They don’t DO curtains.” You’re right. We’re talking metaphorical curtains. But we’re not talking metaphorical curtains in Answer Me This! Episode 185:
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 are, instead, talking about:
marriage certificates
prize belts
toy guard dogs
claret jugs
meat feast pizza
Ian Huntley vs. Poirot
killer whales vs. sharks
spiders vs. bananas
The Shamen, Bob Dylan and Lulu vs. the BBC Jerry Sadowitz ‘Je T’aime’ Slinky Dog
how Noel Edmonds’s Multi-Coloured Swap Shop begat Live & Kicking Orcus Rodney Alcala
tall geriatrics
and
krill.
Plus: Olly lays waste to Percy Pig and Pals; Helen tells you how to liven up a TV gameshow; and Martin the Sound Man thinks the Strokes and Primal Scream are a bunch of wusses. This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone and iPad, or Android) tackles Olly’s golfing future. Will he? Won’t he? Will his shoulder pop out of its socket yet again? That’s not something anyone wants to see as they tee off.
We can’t tee off next week’s episode without your QUESTIONS, so deliver them as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Fooooore!
This week, listeners, we go on a journey. Don’t worry – it’s not an emotional one like they have on reality shows! We go from Great Yarmouth to Gibraltar, California to Celebration, and end up in Utopia. It must be good if Cliff Richard is skating around it. Anyway, strap in and travel along with us in Answer Me This! Episode 169 (dudes):
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 also consider:
Sam Cooke vs. Claire Tully
razor clams
dirty sexy waxworks
carp
Visalia
dusky pink
Alisha’s Attic
cork floors
sorghum
creative management tips from Jeffrey Archer
bathroom predictions from Sarah Beeny
dried apple
pork six-pack
and
Aberystwyth.
Plus: Olly wonders why toilet seat vendors have missed the opportunity to part this fool and his money; Helen fails to reap the full entertainment offered by a bowel movement; and Martin the Sound Man wishes* that the whole world could be as democratic where men’s crotches are concerned as Madame Tussaud’s is. If that’s not enough crotch for you for one week, today’s Bit of Crap on the App is us reminiscing about that 90s TV trend to line naked men up behind a screen then leer at their genitals. Relive those glory days of The Word with us on iPhone or Android.
It’s Lent next week, but we’re not going to give up answering QUESTIONS, so send them as voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Not that Lent holds much sway with atheist Jews, mind.
See you next week, for AMT170!
Helen & Olly
* He also wishes that you stick around till the very end of the episode to hear one of the songs off his new album ‘Songs from the Scientific Cabaret’. Make his wish come true, do. And come to see him play at the Geekpop festival on 10th March, why not? Because you’ll have given up geeky pursuits for Lent? Liar!
There have been three times in his life where Olly Mann couldn’t speak French, so he let the funky music do the talking: 1) his GCSE French oral exam, which is why he received a D grade; 2) one mad, hot night at the Bruni-Sarkozy holiday bungalow; and 3) in Answer Me This! Episode 166:
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)
En Anglais, we talk of:
Blu-Tack sunblock
J.Lo’s nipple tweaker the tragic end of Bobby in Home and Away
Bernard of Chartres
John Scurlock
Pyramus and Thisbe
Oasis
the Tower of London
James Bond: babyfather the oldest underwater foot-tunnel (with some qualification)
disgruntled Beefeaters Pretty Woman, Kate Middleton-style
bouncy bungalows
bouncy Roulette
Mike Flowers Pops
the Sea Life Centre vs. the Chunnel
sexy salad servers
Coventry
and
Teri Hatcher.
Plus: mainstream Olly prefers vaginas when a baby isn’t being shunted out of them; Helen discovers her new favourite TV channel; and Martin the Sound Man claims that when his dad said he was just “off to the glory hole”, there was a perfectly innocent explanation. Keep drinking the kool-aid, Martin!
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android, yessir) is a question from Gareth about what’s the oldest thing still in use today. My dad’s underpants. HA. (Seriously: 40+ years’ service and still going strong.)
Please keep bombarding us with your QUESTIONS, by leaving us a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or sending us an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Have you ever had selective amnesia? I, for instance, have blocked out every memory of looking into a mirror before my childhood fringe grew out. And in Answer Me This! Episode 163, we discover the event that must have been so traumatic, Olly Mann’s mind banished it…until now:
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)
Things we have not banished from our minds this episode are:
ordnance survey
mouse mats
Lesley Garrett The Ring and the Book
Jesus Christ: gap year student
Karl Pilkington vs. Aeschylus Thunderbirds vs. Sex and the City
gastroenteritis – the pleasant kind
Saint Princess Diana
Marie Carmargo
MI1-19 Alexei Sayle’s Stuff
pick-up sticks
the Pope’s posthumous Parkinson’s panacea
and
natural selection through cock-size.
Plus: Olly retracts what he said about Love Actually in Episode 161; Helen invents the portable carpal tunnel preventative gel wristlet; and Martin the Sound Man reveals his ghost pelvis, although luckily just to Helen rather than the entire world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android; not available for landlines) is a question from Lois, who wants to know the truth about the mythical place whose name everybody knows but whose nature few understand: the Watford Gap.
This January, we’re on a detox diet: nothing but cottage cheese and your QUESTIONS. So feed us! Leave your voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Because we HATE cottage cheese, and we’re hungry.
(or should we say Le Gun Seller?)
Answer Me This! Podcast 
The Answer Me This! Sports Day
July 2, 2012A lot of artists suffer from Difficult Second Album syndrome, but not us. Following our Top 20 smash hit longplayer The Answer Me This! Jubilee, we are delighted to bring you…
The Answer Me This! Sports Day
59 minutes and 33 seconds of all-new material in celebration of the glorious sporting event that will be wreaking havoc with London’s transport system this summer. Buy it now through the AMT Store, iTunes or Amazon.
We also learn why the men’s Wimbledon trophy is so fruity, how David Attenborough can be blamed for the popularity of snooker, what the chess queen has in common with the Alien queen, what Jack Broughton has in common with Alan Ayckbourn, and what bookies have in common with Abraham Lincoln.
We check in on such record breakers as James Cameron and Lee Redmond, and face the biggest sports question of all: what IS a sport? And do you actually have to get out of your chair to do one?
We must offer big thanks to Sam Pythagoras Pay and Amy Smith for the jingles, which alone are worth the £2.49 RRP. Eg:
NB The Answer Me This! Sports Day is in no way officially affiliated with the London Olympics. They looked at our waist measurements and said there’s no way they could endorse that.
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