Prepare yourself, because there’s a moment of extreme eldritch in AMT417. We weren’t ready. Can we truly be ready?
We also discuss:
massage products for bees fish-shaped soy sauce (here’s that 13-second vacuum video btw, comment if you find a full version) the oldest ballet dancers (hey listen to A Dancer Dies Twice) Stacey Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out shotgun knobstick weddings three line whips zero percent proof drinks what to do with 52 very similar baby photos what to do with 52 baby teeth?!?!!?* spuriously rebranding Bloomsbury our fave classic misbegotten hashtag and older names for AMT’s original home, the southeast London neighbourhood Crystal Palace.
That time we gussied up George Ezra’s song ‘Budapest’ was AMT373 by the way.
Send us your questions for new episodes, and your feedback on old ones for Answer Us Back, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com in writing or voice note, or leave a voicemail at 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. AMT418 will be out 28 May 2026 and Answer Us Back on 14 May.
Become a patron at patreon.com/answermethis to get an ad-free version of AMT417 and a batch of Bonus Bits each month, plus our video livestreams Petty Problems. If you sign up at one of the higher Patreon tiers, you 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 you’re keeping this show going!
Helen makes the entertainment podcast about language, The Allusionist, and she just made an appearance on the episode Word Wrangling of the science fiction sitcom podcast We Fix Space Junk.
Martin makes the weird experimental podcast Neutrino Watch, where each episode is a little different each day you download it. He also has a new album coming out soon, so get hyped for that by digging into the back catalogue of his songs, available via his Bandcamp.
This episode is sponsored by:
Saily, flexible eSIM data roaming plans for when you’re abroad. Download SAILY in your app store and use our code amt15 at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase. For further details go to saily.com/amt15.
The London Review of Books, the twice-monthly literary mag full of essays, reviews and more by excellent writers. Get a 6 month print and digital subscription for just £12 at LRB.me/answer.
Squarespace, the all in one platform for creating and running your online empire. Go to squarespace.com/answer, play around with 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.
In Answer Me This! Episode 316, we have two very different questions concerning overpreparation for death. We also have:
cobbler problems
quinoa
wedding +1s
retirement climates
free salad vs free prawn crackers
cat shit vs cat sick
Mike Oldfield
Metallica Monopoly
soiled lost property
and
popular onions.
Plus: Olly will go on a cruise, as long as it’s free; Helen’s first musical memory is of a cool saboteur; and Martin the Sound Man wants you to slice your own apples and peel your own bananas, you big babies.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iStuff, Android and Windows devices), we continue AMT315‘s discussion of facial hair, and at long last hit on the format that’ll make Olly and Martin into YouTube stars. Or might have, ten years ago.
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‘. If you’ve ever wanted to launch your own website/podcast/blog/online gallery, deploy the code and GET ON WITH IT.
Plus: with his usual acumen, Olly proposes how to transform a psychotic neighbour problem into a business opportunity; Helen’s parents are being very thrifty with the internet, so that the IP addresses don’t all run out on their account; and we should clarify that Martin the Sound Man’s former job, which he describes as ‘making a man with a tube up his penis laugh’, was in the field of medical physics, not stand-up comedy for catheter fetishists.
Because one pot is never enough, there’s also more about Müller Yogurt on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), including their contribution to West Midlands athleticism, and their retrograde marketing wheezes. They might be 116 years old, but they’ve still got it.
If you haven’t already, please do take a punt on our Top 20 (!!) album, The Answer Me This! Jubilee, comprised of fifty-seven minutes of all-new material in anticipation of the Queen’s jubblies. You can also hear us on the latest episode of Ewan Spence’s ESC Insight podcast – no, that’s not ESC as in the Electrical Safety Council or the Essex Skating Club, but the Eurovision Song Contest. Click here to listen, and hear how we rated some of the songs vying for Eurovisionary Glory this year.
After all that, do remember to send us your QUESTIONS with which we will fuel this new series of AMT: aim voicemails at the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
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!
Answer Me This! Podcast 