Got any great tips for gaming a hotel breakfast buffet? Do share in the comments; but first, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 297 to learn from the master (ie Olly Mann):
In today’s buffet of audio delights, we’re serving:
Sea Monkey refills
second hand wedding dresses
green peppers vs red peppers
Bob Dylan vs grapefruit juice Steve Wright in the Afternoon vs heroin Harold Von Braunhut
the Pizza Hut salad bar
Oxford divorces
cryptobiosis
spying on your children
and
gobbing in the pot.
Plus: if you see Olly roving towards you armed with a Tupperware tub, he’s either going to take advantage of your buffet or imprison you with fatal consequence; Helen will be survived by a sackful of raw gingerbread; and Martin the Sound Man is a masochist for grapefruit juice.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we tackle another Great British Bake Off question from Katherine from Sheffield. To find out how we go from that to the Sword of Gondor in just four short minutes, fire up the app on your iDevices, Android or Windows playthings. As a happy by-product of buying the app, you’re funding the show – likewise if you splash out on any of our albums or vintage episodes at answermethisstore.com. So you know that along with your purchase you’ll receive a free dose of our eternal gratitude.
And because we’re simply brimful of gratitude today, let’s throw a bucketful over Squarespace.com, for sponsoring this episode, for allowing people to build and host websites easily and beautifully, and for offering you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer.
By the way, if you’re keen to start your own podcast, book a ticket for this Guardian Masterclass and on 20th September, Helen and a host of other podcasting mavens will teach you all you need to know, and then some.
We will return with AMT298 on 18th September, and we hope you do too. Cheerio!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT297 Child-Friendly Rating: 88%. Light on profane language. Unfortunate TMI about Olly and Martin’s bodily fluids. Question from a parent running surveillance ops on their teenager, which may instill trust issues in your own offspring. •••
Cor, get a load of those stems, listeners! This week, the men of AMT (that’s Olly and Martin the Sound Man, in case you couldn’t work it out) show off their shapely pins – but whose pins are shapelier? Cast your vote in the comments for the left or right pair of legs. Self-esteems depend upon it. Why? Find out in Answer Me This! Episode 295:
We also find out about:
OS maps
Freshers’ Week
the price of buses
Kent vs France
psoriasis vs Parkinson’s
Helen’s dad’s genes vs Helen’s dad’s jeans
bat detectors
human meat
William Seabrook
Andy Serkis
auctioneers’ patter
mature students
existential questions at Buckler’s Hard
bereavement
corporate tangrams
and
Helen’s first teapot.
We also wonder whether Martin the Sound Man has gone completely batshit, as he tries to converse with bats, thinks jackets = character, and yet again airs his obsession with Holly Hunter. Turn off the lights and pretend you’re not home, Holly!
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android or Windows gadgetry), we tackle a question from Tori about rumours about teachers that swirled around school. In our cases, most of those rumours were cleaner than the reality.
Thanks very much to our benevolent sponsers Squarespace.com for supporting both this episode and your website-building endeavours: enter the code Answer for 10% off their website-hosting, -designing and -troubleshooting services for a whole year and build, build, build!
We shall return with AMT296 on 21st August, unless this leg rivalry means Olly and Martin will no longer agree to be in the same room as each other. It’s pretty serious.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT295 Child-Friendly Rating: 86%. A couple of swears, but no lascivious content. •••
Listeners, who is the bigger idiot: the questioneer who is too big an idiot to make toast, or the podcasters who talk about that big idiot for nearly ten minutes?
The only way to decide is to listen to Answer Me This! Episode 292:
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we delve deeper into the grotesque and terrifying world of novelty toasters. Join us if you dare on your iDevice, Android or Windows toy.
If you’ve invented your own amazing multi-functional toaster (“Guys! It can heat soup at the same time as cutting the toast into perfectly equal croutons!”) then build yourself a snazzy online store through our benevolent sponsors Squarespace.com, deploying the code Answer for 10% off their services for a whole year.
We shall return on Thursday 3rd July with AMT293 – but we’ll also be appearing on this Radio Academy panel about podcasting on 25th June; and as we mentioned, we’re also available at our side project podcasts The Media Podcast, Sound Women and Brain Train. Furthermore, to accompany all the SPOOOOOORT that seems to be happening at the moment, you can hear us talking as sportily as we are able on the AMT Sports Day album, available now at answermethisstore.com.
That’s it! We’re off to make some toast. We could be gone for some time.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT292 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. Swears. Cartoon phallic noses. Kicks off with feedback about parental sex, the very notion of which can be traumatic for your progeny. •••
More weddings, more problems. Firstly for Ricki from Hamilton, Canada:
I’m getting married next year to my lovely boyfriend. We got engaged on holiday a few months ago and are both happily looking forward to getting married.
When I let certain people in my social group know that we were engaged, they expressed extreme shock that he hadn’t asked my parents for permission before proposing. When I told them I intended to walk myself down the aisle (I’ve got legs and I’m not chattel!) and it won’t be in a church, they were extremely judgmental. They also seem to think that, in spite of all of my other actual accomplishments (IE university degree, handicraft ability and cat-rearing skills), getting married will be the MOST IMPORTANT THING I EVER DO. Now, whenever they bring it up – which is frequently – they ask if I’ve considered getting married ‘the right way’ since our engagement wasn’t done ‘properly’.
Answer me this – how do I politely ask them to back up the crazy-train and let us enjoy our wedding the way we want it to be?
Politely? Fuck that: you need to dump all these rude friends! And/or elope immediately, because otherwise you’ve got months of this bollo to endure.
If you absolutely have no choice but to invite them to the wedding as planned, amp up the convention-defying to the max. Say your vows at an abandoned theme park, attended by tiger bridesmaids, wearing a welding mask as a veil. It is ‘the right way’.
Eurgh, why do people become such dicks about someone else’s wedding? At least Oli from Egham‘s dad is making a fuss about his own wedding:
My dad was due to get married in February, but has been pushing the date back ever since. I’m a full time travelling street musician and I’ve been putting off a long-awaited trip to south east Asia for months now, waiting for the wedding, which is now set, finally, for the 11th of July.
The nature of my work means its much harder to support myself in England; street performers do far better in the tourist areas of mainland Europe. I’ve saved enough money for my Asia trip, and now I’m just trying to keep my head above water, but my funds are dwindling.
My dad informed me today that he wants me to buy a new suit foir his wedding, even though I have a perfectly good one from when I used to work as an estate agent. My dad knows that the lifestyle I’ve chosen means a cetain amount of frugality, and although I can sometimes do very well, a suit would probably be the same price as my flights (with concessions).
So answer me this: is it unreasonable for my dad to ask me to spend this money on a suit, when I already have one? He’s very accepting of my lifestyle, even though I know it’s probably not what he wanted for me.
Also, he voted UKIP, so I’m mad at him for that.
That is hard to swallow, Oli, but as you’ve said he’s been accepting of your lifestyle, so I suppose you have to extend him the same courtesy.
Go suit-browsing. Tell your dad you’ve found a good one, but you can’t afford it, and perhaps he’ll splash out for you. If not, for the charity shop. I would have said it’s fine to wear your old suit, until you mentioned it’s an estate agent suit. Few people want to be reminded of estate agents on what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives.
Today, one poor tired questioneer asks how to stop being kept awake by their mum’s sex noise. Any advice for them? Apart from cranking up Answer Me This! Episode 291 for forty-three minutes of respite?
We speak of:
hat world records
rodeo clowns
bank robbery
converting to Judaism
baht vs Bitcoin Craig David’s Toffee Crisps vs Busta Rhymes’ Courvoisier
Papal holidays
presidential golf Castel Gandolfo
Chequers
webuyanycar.com
the pronunciation of ‘niche’
shaking like a Polaroid picture
and
$.
Plus: Olly will SEE YOU IN HELL if you use Shazam during the pub quiz music round; Helen has a terrible confession to make about Pitbull; and Martin the Sound Man is panicking about what to talk about if he is ever invited on a lads’ holiday with the Pope. We smell an odd couple sitcom…
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we contemplate the wellbeing of the boys brought together as McBusted, and of Jason Orange’s tearducts. Hear it and not-weep on your iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
It only remains for us to thank Squarespace.com for supporting this episode. They’re also supporting your own website-building enterprises by offering you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer. Gawd bless’em.
And gawd bless you, listeners! We shall return on Thursday 19th June with AMT292, barring terrifying and unforseeable acts of gawd.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT291 Child-Friendly Rating: 54%. A few F-bombs. A clip about the clap. Question about parent’s sex life, the very notion of which may traumatise your child. •••
Abracadabra! Alacazam! Bippity Boppity Boo! Hey Presto! And other words stage magicians probably don’t use any more! But as if by magic, out of the false-bottomed top hat Answer Me This! Episode 279 appears:
In which we speak of:
hangovers in London
The Breakfast Club burrito
card tricks
great grandparents (not great-grandparents)
the Masked Magician’s spoilers
Simon Callow’s Vegas spectacular Olly’s fantastic grandma
grumpy old men
and
shutting children up.
Plus: Olly is bewitched by David Copperfield’s hair more than his illusions; Helen got lost on a school trip, which was probably better than being on the fun-drained trip itself; and Martin the Sound Man illustrates why the romance of (500) Days of Summer wouldn’t have worked so well if the action had been transplanted to Croydon.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android and Windows) we consider what wisdom our grandparents passed on. Did yours bequeath any sage homilies or sensible advice? Let us know in the comments.
If you’re as excited as we are about the all-new AMT Christmas album, click HERE to find out more about it and to buy. Your money keeps this podcast going, which hopefully is a good thing in your minds as well as ours.
Also keeping this podcast going are squarespace.com, who are also keeping easy website-building going. For 10% off their services, use the code Answer11; they’re also offering you the chance to win a free YEAR of the service if you send us a link to your Squarespacetacular website – if tweeting said link, deploy the hashtag #AMTsquarespace. Come on, you competitive-spirited web-builders! PLAY TO WIN!
Finally, please 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.
Vanishing in a puff of smoke, but really behind a curtain,
Helen & Olly
AMT279 Child-Friendly Rating: 68%. Some swears. Discussion of hangovers, which may corrupt the youth. Deconstruction of some stage magic tricks, which may prove disillusioning to the credulous young mind.
If you take the plunge and purchase it, you’re not only funding the podcast, you also get one hour of all-new Christmas chat about such festive topics as:
✯ FOOD!✯
Audio is entirely calorie-free, so feast your ears on mince pies, trifle, Brussels sprouts, poisoned turkey, lutefisk, Sandra Lee’s Kwanzaa Cake and what Christmas pudding can teach you about atomic physics (which is better than eating it).
✯ENTERTAINMENT!✯
Christmas titans Eric’n’Ernie face off against Mike Yarwood; Olly fails to be swept away by ‘Fairytale of New York’ (and don’t even get him started on ‘Christmas Wrapping’); and the Grinch stole Dr Seuss’s doctorate.
✯CUSTOMS!✯
How the Norse deities Frigga and Baldur got you to snog people under a bunch of a poisonous parasitic plant; why Rudolph’s got a red nose; how the first ever Christmas card managed to be offensive; why Kwanzaa was invented; and Santa on waterskiis.
✯CRISIS MANAGEMENT! ✯
How to salvage the situation if your partner’s bought you a brilliant present and you got them something shit; what to do if you dread staying at your in-laws’ house; how to uninvite people from your party; and why you’re more likely to end up getting a divorce at Christmas. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
✯DECORATIONS! ✯
Let us deck the halls of your ears with Christmas jumpers, Christmas crackers, double beards, and paper hats, even though everyone looks like a dick in the paper hats. Especially because everyone looks like a dick in the paper hats.
The Answer Me This! Christmas Album is fun for all the family – no, it really is, because we don’t even swear. So Great-Grandma Gladys and Tiny Tim can listen happily together while you sneak off and neck the cooking brandy.
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
Trolls have been in the news a lot lately – the online tormentor kind, but not the toys that used to be so popular. Why is that? Did people finally take a clear-eyed look at those dinky little plastic haemorrhoids and realise that they disobeyed William Morris’s dictum regarding beauty/usefulness? Has there been a worldwide shortage of neon hair?
No. Find out the true reason for trolls’ recent retirement from the limelight in Answer Me This! Episode 269:
In which we also learn about:
wicker furniture
family holidays
murder houses
Ray Winstone vs. June Whitfield
indoor-outdoor space
the Lindbergh baby
the seven generic top-level domains
pianists’ page-turners Thomas Dam
and
Yoshi.
Plus: Olly gets to talk about cats, and their glands, and their necks, and their cheeks, and their adorable bums; if Helen were the subject of a Thomas Harris novel, it’d be The Silence of the Chairs; and Martin the Sound Man is indignant at the idea of a male dinosaur laying an egg through his urethra.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App features a humdinger of a tale: Olly has alphabeticised his spice rack. For reals! Hear all about it, and how Helen has organised her spice rack, on your iDevice or Android.
Also, if you want to have a holiday that is more enjoyable than questioneer Pat from Canada’s, try the AMT Holiday album – no family rows or screaming kids, just one hour of us jabbering on into your ear. What could be more paradisial and relaxing than that?
Don’t be so relaxed that you forget to send us your QUESTIONS, though. Leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT269 Child-Friendly Rating: 78%. Some swearing, one attributable to Olly channelling Ray Winstone. References to feline sexual delight. Detraction of possibly beloved-by-children Troll dolls.
PS Oh, HERE’s where all the Trolls disappeared to. (Aside from all the ones that have been hiding out here.)
Although August is coming to a close, and with it the Edinburgh Fringe, there’s still just enough time to incorporate our grade-A publicity techniques into your show. Learn from the masters in Answer Me This! Episode 268:
In which we also consider:
SeaWorld
ark logistics
glacier cherries
Peter Nichols’ Passion Play
Noah’s flood vs. the great flood of Edgware
transporting whales
E number 127
aeroplane seat-reclining etiquette
endless Chorus Line
war poetry
and
Barry Scott.
Plus: Olly warns you not to sit behind him on a flight, as he provides his own, er, jet propulsion; Helen still regrets inadvertently reviving the Al Jolson look for Edinburgh Fringe punters; and Martin the Sound Man fails the ‘name the artificial colourant in the glacé cherries’ game.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android, Helen tells you the magic trick with which you can WOW your friends (or thoroughly disappoint them if all they wanted was a nice refreshing orange).
Don’t disappoint us: send us your nice refreshing QUESTIONS. Leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. If we answer them, as Barry Scott would say: bang, and the doubt is gone.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT268 Child-Friendly Rating: 75%. In the aftermath of AMT267, this episode opens with further discussion of virginity loss, with concomitant references to genitalia and sexual practices. However the rest of the episode is clean beans, aside from a couple of swears.
PS Because we’d never leave you with an endless Chorus Line:
Good morning, you lazy bastards! One listener called Martin has been up and at ’em since earlytimes, because before this post even went up, he tweeted us with a solution to one of the problems discussed in Answer Me This! Episode 267: Josh, who is trying to watch racy HBO shows on his iPad at the gym without feeling ashamed, needs to get one of these. Wallop! Problem solved.* And what have you done lately, eh?
Don’t worry, you don’t really need to do very much at all, except listen to the episode, of course:
We also consider:
spiders Victor David Brenner
SculptureShop
Thomas Jefferson vs. Mariah Carey
Olly’s dad vs. DVDs
corrupt bakers
Theresa May: monarchical midwife À la recherche du temps perdu
madeleines
Farter’s Day
the definition of virginity
and
Richard Nixon.
Plus, each of us is ready for combat this week: Olly provokes a rematch of the Battle of Agincourt, but this time over French cakes versus English cakes; Helen wages war against cliché; and Martin the Sound Man takes a shoot-to-kill policy on spiders and whelks.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android, learn how to decorate your home in the Olly Mann style: with squashed moths. Or, if you prefer slightly less morbid things on your walls, you could get the AMT clock that he mentions in the show. That’s right: Olly Mann’s clockface is his own face. We’re still working on turning Helen’s face into a sundial.
While we do that, you should work on sending us your QUESTIONS. It’s easy: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Bam. Job done.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT267 Child-Friendly Rating: 50%. Just a couple of swears. Question about sex scenes in HBO shows. Graphic mental image of Jack Straw staring up a royal birth canal. Question about virginity at the end of the show with, naturally, references to sexual practices, albeit thoughtful rather than lairy in tone.
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.
Answer Me This! Podcast 