In Answer Me This! Episode 371 we learn about letting a cat out of the bag and getting a peacock INTO the bag. Both sound very painful. We also consider:
Thanks to listener Edward for the cover of the AMT email jingle! Hear more of his music under the name Ban Summers.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we do not love jiggly foods.
Exciting news: Olly has made a series about diets and body image, Tip the Scales, and it’s ready and waiting for you if you’re an Audible subscriber. Usefully, you AMT listeners in the UK can get a free trial of Audible for a month at answermethispodcast.com/audible – or, if you’ve had such a thing before, you can get a spell of half price membership! And remember: 1. for each of you that takes up the trial, Audible gives us a little bit of money, even when you cancel without paying a thing; 2. you can keep your free audiobooks forever. Hear a sample of Tip the Scales HERE, then get your free Audible trial HERE then hear the whole series HERE. What a super plan, eh?
Listen to Helen’s entertainment show about language The Allusionist, recently featuring a very funny prank from the grunge era, and you can also see her talking at TED about the dot on an i HERE. And sing along to Martin the Sound Man’s gap year diary of songs: his new 40-track mega album The Year of the Bird, complete with illustrations and diaries about each song, is being released at palebirdmusic.com.
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, with which you can easily and quickly set up a good-looking website for your projects eg your Oscar-nominated documentary. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Have you been collecting your own hair since your bushy-headed youth, in order to make a wig* to wear during your sparsely furred later years? If so, could you let questioneer Ryan know asap if that was a good plan or not? Find out why in Answer Me This! Episode 363, in which we also consider:
Kylie’s 50th birthday
in flight magazines
House of Commons fisticuffs
James Cameron, keeping busy the Queen a stick
razor blade disposal units
racing against your mum
the Cosmic Liquidator
cat turd sculptures
and
up in the air with Karen Gillan.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we have a question from Emma from Sweden about the false image we all carry in our minds of Mickey Mouse. Get the app to HEAR THE TRUTH!
Check in with our other work: Olly hosts The Week Unwrapped, the podcast that keeps you up to date with all the news stories that haven’t been drilling into your skull constantly. And Helen and Martin are performing the Allusionist live show on stages in Australia and New Zealand in the next few weeks; you can check where and when at theallusionist.org/events.
The Bluffers’ Guides are back! Rapidly become well-informed in subjects from jazz to management to fishing to dogs at bluffers.com.
Send us your QUESTIONS: any time, deliver a voice memo or a written question by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. You can still use the old ways of calling the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, but a lot of those messages haven’t been reaching us lately. So emailing a voice memo is the safer bet.
We’ll be back with AMT364 on 5 July 2018, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 21 June.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT363 Child-Friendly Rating: 74%. It’s not blue, but the episode does contain some parliamentary fighting, and no kid needs that in their life. •••
Hello, listeners! Answer us this: how would you define ‘Afternoon Delight’?
1. Settling down to watch Countdown with a nice cup of tea (not Lipton) and a nice biscuit (not one that gives you a 20-year-long health fear)? 2. Bit of post-lunch pre-dinner nookie? 3. Listening to Answer Me This! Episode 351, admittedly a delight at any hour of the day?
Today we speak of:
smelly books
the Twitter blue verified tick Olly Mann vs his more successful and accomplished friend Tom Price
the Intervision Song Contest
artificial Oval Offices
articifical Houses of Commons
medieval dragons
stoned dads
Lipton tea
‘Afternoon Delight‘ in Anchorman, Glee, Good Will Hunting…
and
The Beatles in The Jungle Book?
Plus: Olly has a great tip for maximising your chances of competing in Eurovision; Helen recounts her life’s proudest achievement, no thanks to Lipton; and Martin the Sound Man is a WINNER. Whether you enjoy the works of Tom Waits or not, listen to Martin’s award-winning podcast Song By Song at songbysongpodcast.com.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – Helen gets thrown out of a nightspot for not having the right ID. That’s 37-year-old teetotaller Helen.
Want to hear more from us? There’s the retro AMT episode we throw into your feed mid-month; to get it, subscribe to AMT on your podcatcher of choice. All of our back catalogue is available from answermethisstore.com, along with our special albums including the AMT Sports Day.
Thanks to our sponsor Squarespace.com. After putting off building herself a website, AT LAST listener Anna swept aside her inner resistance/fear/laziness, went ahead and created karakalou.com to showcase her artwork (here’s her portrait of The Zaltzwoman). She got 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘. Be smart like Anna! Do it! Now! Or in a few minutes! But do it then! What are you waiting for – a free lollipop? Maybe Squarespace will give you one if you stop procrastinating.
We’ll be back with AMT352 on 6 July 2017, and with a Retro AMT on 22 June.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT351 Child-Friendly Rating: 48%. Some swears, sex and drug references; endorsement of non-essential teabag theft, which may send your offspring down the wrong path. •••
What is the greatest sorrow of being let go from a job? The loss of income? The blow to the self-esteem? The fear for the future? Or not even having tried the macho peas???
In Answer Me This! Episode 323, listeners wrestle with this problem and many more, such as:
Venetian gondolas
bendy straws
cheapskate dinner party cheats
the Queen’s Privy Council
snail-purging
Nando’s in the USA
Right Honourable Friends
coming out parties
the cola rankings
and
ironed underwear.
Plus: prepare to be FASCINATED as Olly shares his laundry workflow; Helen’s dad has failed to capitalise on Nando’s art collection; and Martin the Sound Man stops flirting and cuts to the chase – he’s starting a new podcast so prepare for launch.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iThings, Android and Windows devices – Martin recreates the Wicker Man out of straws and Helen inadvertently causes future mental scarring in her niece.
We are very grateful to Squarespace.com for supporting today’s show. Use the code ANSWER to get 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year, which include a URL, loads of storage and 24/7 support. That’s you covered.
We’ll return on 1st October 2015 with AMT324. Sprinkle yourself in spice mix and join us then.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT323 Child-Friendly Rating: 81%. Couple of swears, no other hazards. •••
Make the following amendments to your MP3 of AMT312. Jonathan writes:
I wanted to comment on your discussion of the word “yogurt”. The word indeed comes from Turkish, and is spelled “yoğurt” there, with the root of the word being the verb “yoğur”, which means “to create [something] by adding water to a condensed fermenting agent”. The suffix “-t” transforms this root to give it the meaning “a product of”. Thus the final word, i.e. yoğur + t, means “a foodstuff that is the product of curdling/condensing”.
In terms of the pronunciation, I’m afraid you were a little off. The accented g, i.e. “ğ”, which the Turks refer to as “soft g”, isn’t really a “g” sound at all, nor is it the harsh, throaty “chhh” sound (similar to the “ch” in “challah”) you made in the episode, which wouldn’t be a sound found naturally in the Turkish language (except in maybe a tiny handful of imported foreign words, and even then, in significantly softened down form).
Instead, the Turkish “soft g” is not at all assertive. In fact, it’s barely a sound. The closest approximation of “ğ” is like a soft throat “w” but without the lip-rounding. Often times, most foreigners pronouncing a “soft g” can away with simply lengthening the vowel that precedes it.
So the Turkish pronunciation of yogurt is simply yo-urt. You can hear this yourself at this link. Of the three pronunciations available, the best and most accurate one is the first, recorded by user “zlvrzz”.
Lee in London comments:
I felt the need to correct Olly on some of the things he said regarding the books/props in the House of Commons.
The books on display in the front are not bibles but are in fact the books listing the orders for the house, and the procedures that need to be followed for all debates and discussions in the chamber. Though he was correct that MPs do need to swear an oath on a bible which are also available in that massive central bit.
The burnt bible Olly referred to as having been damaged by WW2 bombs in actually in the dispatch box for the opposition side, and a fresh new bible is in the dispatch box for the Government side. This is I was told similar to the swearing to tell the truth as you would on a bible in court but on a simpler scale.
I know this little tidbits of information as I use to work in said building and knew people who had worked there for decades who imparted this knowledge to me as I impart it to 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.•••
Why even bother listening to Answer Me This! Episode 274 when you can book PAT SHARP AND THE TWINS to come and do Fun House with you????
Once the disappointment has faded that they don’t actually bring the house with them, they just conjure it in words, then you might as well hear today’s episode:
In which we discuss:
Leonard Cohen’s party anthems
parliamentary mutterings
winking
Anne Robinson vs Doris Day
Bourbon biscuits vs Bourbon boozes Breaking Bad vs Streetmate
Bud Lite Platinum vs Old Speckled Hen Platinum Scandal
Justin Timberlake’s part-time jobs
spare American presidents
and six degradations of Kevin Bacon.
Plus: Olly is NOT a winker, whatever you’ve heard; Helen will waive all usual constitutional structure for Michelle Obama; and Martin the Sound Man is happier than you’ve ever heard him. Possibly happier than he’s ever been. Including his wedding day.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android and Windows) Olly worries about being out-butched by a baby. Accept what you cannot change, Olly.
You can change AMT by sending in your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And you could also change the education of young people by helping Martin raise funds for the charity Arts Emergency: they’ll receive all proceeds of his concept album with Mark Burrows, Kill It With Fire.
You can also give us a bit of money without actually giving us your own money: just take our free LoveFilm trial. With it, you can stream The Perks of Being a Wallflower (as well as thousands of other films and televisuals) then tell us whether you concur with our opinion voiced in AMT233.
Even if you can’t be arsed to do any of those fairly low-stress things, please join us again next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT274 Child-Friendly Rating: 95%. Bit of mid-level swearing right off the mark, but otherwise an episode largely free of ribaldry and profanity. Child-appropriate topics including Fun House, biscuits and Doris Day. The kids are fairly likely to zone out during the politics stuff.
Today we learn why all those people believe Elvis to be alive, whereas they don’t feign such confidence over the likes of, say, Janis Joplin, Robert Johnson, Mozart… Put on your white jumpsuit and conspiracy theorising hat, and get stuck into Answer Me This! Episode 271:
In which we also ponder:
office nemeses
servants
panpipes
table tennis bats
cupcake wars (interpersonal ones, not the tv show of the same name) Red Or Black vs Ant Or Dec
the parliamentary mace vs Geoff Hoon
The Flaming Et Cetera
and
the National Enquirer.
Furthermore! Of course Olly loves the sound of his own voice, but only in solitude; sure, Helen can bake, but it’s nothing really (on the other hand, talking shit every week is high art); and Martin the Sound Man posits that not only is Elvis not alive now, he was also not alive during most of his life. You still following?
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) Helen wonders how a duck foetus ends up in a glass of champagne on a tasting menu – and moreover why anybody would think that is a suitable first date drink.
Also not suitable for a first date, but perfectly suitable for most other times, is sending us your QUESTIONS: 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
AMT271 Child-Friendly Rating: 88%. Opens with an email about Consenting Adults’ Bedsports, but other than that, very clean, even swear-wise.
In the words of Neely O’Hara, Answer Me This! Episode 266 is all ‘Boobies boobies boobies’: surgically enhanced ones, natural ones, milky ones, Kelly Brook’s ones…
Plus: Olly specifies where his ashes are to be scattered; Helen doesn’t care if her craft legacy dies with her; and despite all his singing skills, Martin the Sound Man doesn’t have the range to sing in Aspects of Love. He’ll never get to be Michael Ball (ball!).
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android, a revival of Olly’s beloved Hunting of the Snark might become a reality? Come on, Mike Batt – make a young Mann’s lifelong dream come true!
And you – make our combined dream come true by sending us QUESTIONS: 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
AMT266 Child-Friendly Rating: 70%. References to the songs of Peaches. Question about dead bodies. Discussion of boobs, natural and cosmetically altered. Very little swearing aside from an f-bomb.
If, like today’s questioneer Paul, you want to allow a cool breeze to circulate around your nethers, but without the hazard of being charged with indecent exposure, we recommend you wear one of these around the house. The pockets are really useful too, for carrying cooling ice-packs and emergency underpants lest you receive an unexpected guest.
Also useful, though providing no modesty coverage, is Answer Me This! Episode 265:
Today we discuss:
Amazon
Amazons’ boobs
Amazon’s Eye
penile hygiene
straitjackets
Dire Straits
(ham)burgers
tartar vs. tartare sauce vs. the Tatars
chips and gravy vs. poutine
political speech spoilers The Bridge
Jeff Bezos
and
the Midlands swing vote.
Plus: Olly thinks one of the world’s biggest online retailers caters especially to his ego; Helen improves upon Ed Miliband’s cigarette packet zingers; and Martin the Sound Man explains why Sylvia Plath ate her mince raw.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices and Android, we come up with a more fitting name for the Shakespeare play that so nettled Olly in last week’s episode. Look out for a production of Much Ado About Vagina at an outdoor theatre near you.
Our podcast would be much ado about nothing without your QUESTIONS, so please send them to us: 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
AMT265 Child-Friendly Rating: 30%. Mention of ripe topics including boobs, suicide, politics, fellatio. A few swear-bombs.
This week, we learn a few very important lessons about sheep: not to underestimate them intellectually and emotionally; what they have in common with Margaret Thatcher; and what they also have in common with Helen’s mum. Discover these things right now in Answer Me This! Episode 261:
In which we also learn about:
emogothpunk style Casper the Suicidal Ghost
small-talk with accountants
the losers’ cafe in The Apprentice
BHS Dr Martens
free sunglasses
pony-drawn rollers
the Cabinet vs. the Divine Right of Kings
iced coffee vs. cold coffee Olly’s face vs. Richard Gere’s face
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club
hair-blindness
and
advice from Paul Ross.
Plus: Olly had to go cold turkey on the brown, by which we mean Mr Brown drinks, not heroin; Helen sounds and looks and smells like an old fart; and Martin the Sound Man’s emotional needs are not going to be met by sheep. Let’s not even contemplate whether they can meet his sexual needs, please. But you can meet Martin’s needs by going to his website or YouTube to watch his spectacular new music video (/visual evidence of his nervous breakdown).
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Helen expresses her ever-unrealised desire for unusual-coloured hair. She may have wimped out of having an experimental phase in her teens, but when she’s a geriatric she WILL go full-bore Marge Simpson. Promise.
Promise us to send us your QUESTIONS for our next series: leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We’ll be back with AMT262 on 11th July, so please join us then; in the meantime, check back here for our imminent album, the Answer Me This! Holiday, our all-new follow-up to our Top 20 (no really!) albums Jubilee and Sports Day, available for your delectation at answermethispodcast.com/albums.
Byeeee!
Helen & Olly
AMT261 Child-Friendly Rating: 90%.
References to hiding pornographic magazines; very mild profanity.
What would you do if you had the run of the Houses of Parliament? Rifle through all the documents with TOP SECRET stamped on them? Leave a drawing pin on the Speaker’s chair? Try on all of Theresa May’s shoes? Or use their wifi to listen to Answer Me This! Episode 177?
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)
In this episode we contemplate that matter, and others:
Shutter Island
anti-gravity
Dodgy
art vs. law
parliamentary privilege vs. podcasting privilege
the BBFC vs. the Mull of Kintyre test
accredited space agents
conspiracy theorists
school play smoking
reprobate Mel Smith
Princess Michael
‘Governor’ Palin
‘Cape Canaveral’
and
squid rings.
Plus: Olly would have got more action at university had it not been for his inner gameshow; Helen gives a lesson on basic squid anatomy; and Martin the Sound Man swears that with bog-standard telescopes, you could read a copy of yesterday’s Evening Standard that someone had left on Uranus as clearly as gawking at it over the shoulder of your fellow commuter. This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone or Android) sees Olly point the finger at the real villains of the 21st century: anyone who puts one of these in their mouth. You monsters!
You have until June 5th to snap up free audiobooks and half-price Audible membership at answermethispodcast.com/audible, but you have all the time you need to ask us QUESTIONS, in the form of voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Although don’t take too long over it, because we’ve got to be back here next week with a new episode, and without your questions in it, it’d be like we’d turned time back to Web 1.0. Which is just too awful to contemplate.
RT @HelenAndOlly: 🎵I gotta question
📧Email your question
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Answer Me This! Podcast 
EPISODE 371: Gladiator shortages
March 7, 2019In Answer Me This! Episode 371 we learn about letting a cat out of the bag and getting a peacock INTO the bag. Both sound very painful. We also consider:
letting wine breathe
Gladiators vs dystopias
‘Go West‘ vs ‘Give Thanks‘ vs Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D Major‘
America’s Next Top Ninja (and before you tell us: yes, yes, originally a Japanese TV show)
i dots at TED
Old Testament = UPPER CASE
New Testament = lower case
Under the Net
Memento Mori
Keeper of the King’s Conscience
pets at university
and
swinging a snake.
Thanks to listener Edward for the cover of the AMT email jingle! Hear more of his music under the name Ban Summers.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we do not love jiggly foods.
Exciting news: Olly has made a series about diets and body image, Tip the Scales, and it’s ready and waiting for you if you’re an Audible subscriber. Usefully, you AMT listeners in the UK can get a free trial of Audible for a month at answermethispodcast.com/audible – or, if you’ve had such a thing before, you can get a spell of half price membership! And remember: 1. for each of you that takes up the trial, Audible gives us a little bit of money, even when you cancel without paying a thing; 2. you can keep your free audiobooks forever. Hear a sample of Tip the Scales HERE, then get your free Audible trial HERE then hear the whole series HERE. What a super plan, eh?
Listen to Helen’s entertainment show about language The Allusionist, recently featuring a very funny prank from the grunge era, and you can also see her talking at TED about the dot on an i HERE. And sing along to Martin the Sound Man’s gap year diary of songs: his new 40-track mega album The Year of the Bird, complete with illustrations and diaries about each song, is being released at palebirdmusic.com.
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, with which you can easily and quickly set up a good-looking website for your projects eg your Oscar-nominated documentary. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
As ever, we want your QUESTIONS: send them, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Be our interfriend at twitter.com/HelenAndOlly and facebook.com/answermethis.
We’ll be back with AMT372 on 4 April, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 21 March.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT371 Child-Friendly Rating: 87%. One or two swears, nothing else unsuitable. •••
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Tags:24 hour, all night, American Gladiators, American Ninja Warrior, Arnold Schwarzenegger, avian, birds, Bobby Bragg, Canon in D Major, cat o' nine tails, cats, catsitting, commenters, comments, corporal punishment, Danny the Champion of the World, decanters, decanting, diacritics, dog-walking, dogs, dogsitting, Don Moen, etymology, expressions, flogging, Give Thanks, gladiators, Go West, Hansard, history, i, Iris Murdoch, Johann Pachelbel, John Fashanu, John Ferraro, kittens, Leicester Square, letters, London, melodies, Memento Mori, minims, Muriel Spark, music, Pachelbel's Canon, Parliament, peacocks, peafowl, pens, Pet Shop Boys, pets, petsitting, phrases, post, Post Office Tower, post offices, Postmaster General, punishment, Roald Dahl, Rope, sayings, scribes, snakes, songs, TED, telly, The Running Man, tittle, Total Wipeout, Trafalgar Square, tug-of-war, TV, TV formats, Ulrika Jonsson, Under the Net, university, Village People, walkies, weapons, whipping, whips, wine, words, writing, YouTube
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