•Pitch is a newish podcast about the minutiae of music and other noises, and it’s very good indeed. Hear Pitch at hearpitch.org.
•Last month I mentionedRobin Ince‘s excellent series Heal Thyself, and he has since presented the similarly top-notch Radio 4 documentary Tears of a Clown, about the link between comedy and mental health.
•And for all of you whose Serial fever is growing worse by the episode – and to help you through next week because they’re taking Thanksgiving off – your equivalent of nicotine gum is Slate’s Serial Spoiler Specials, the AV Club’s new Serial Serial, these weekly conversations with Rabia Chaudry who brought the case to Sarah Koenig in the first place, the parodies… To be honest, I’m enjoying the fervid commentary around the show more than the show itself.
For more true crime stories, do check out the ever-absorbing Criminal (my new Radiotopia sibling!), and I’ve been told I must listen to Sword and Scale, so I’m off to do that right now. What else would you recommend I hear, dears?
Here’s a little thing for all you rabid fans of Serial: parodies! The Mailchimp plug at the beginning is my favourite.
Now, if you’re interested in the science of food, hightail to this recent Food Programme interview with Harold McGee, author of the seminal food science tome On Food and Cooking which fired the molecular gastronomy neurones in Heston Blumenthal’s brain. And what inspired McGee to write the thing? Blazing Saddles. O…kay.
Finally: if you pick up a copy of the Guardian this Saturday (8th November 2014), peruse the Do Something supplement, wherein you’ll find the AMT guide to starting a podcast plus photos of us looking like twats in our home studio. (I assume. I haven’t seen the pictures yet, but we usually look like twats every time somebody points a camera at us, so it’s a safe bet.)
Gimme more stuff to listen to: recommend shows in the comments, please!
My new show will be all about those precious moments of AMT that we know as “Why is [a thing] called [a thing]?” ie odd phrases and etymology and all sorts of linguistic fun. I’ve been wanting to make it for years, and now is my chance, if…
For my show – along with The Heart and the brilliant Criminal – is what is known as a ‘stretch goal’. They’ve already reached their target to keep the current Radiotopians afloat for another year, but need to raise more in order to greenlight further projects: because making podcasts costs, and to read me wanging on about that particular matter, click here.
So, if you like podcasts and you want to support independent audio creators so they can keep making them, please do chip in. Even $1 (£0.62) is good! $5 (£3.10) is even more good. I could go on.
(And if you spaffed money donating to that that bloody potato salad Kickstarter, you have no excuse not to give a little to something that will result in a year’s worth of top-notch audio entertainment, rather than a forkful of a prosaic foodstuff that goes rancid after two days.)
NOTE 1: This show is not instead of AMT; I’ll be making both! But I’ll be able to be a FULL-TIME PODCASTER, after eight years of trying to fit it around enough paid work to survive. Joe Richman of Radiotopia’s Radio Diaries puts it: “Most people work to get paid, we get paid to work.”
NOTE 2: If you donate, you’ll be funding me making a new show; you’re not funding Answer Me This!. If you feel particularly stirred to contribute to the AMT coffers, then buy some of our albums and classic episodes from answermethisstore.com, or pay a pal through PayPal.
As a stereotypical Brit, I find directly addressing money matters to be excruciating; therefore I will now wrap up the cashchat so I can curl up into a ball and rock back and forth in a dark room.
– HZ
PS Here’s an interview I did with Roman earlier this year, shortly after he launched Radiotopia, in which he talks about the ethos of the enterprise and why podcasting is so super:
I am giddy with excitement about AMT300! I hope you like it as much as/even more than I do. I guess we’ll all find out next week.
Until then, alternative entertainments.
From home:
Earlier this year, I spoke at the Boring Conference. Martin’s talk about eggs was on the playlist at a previous Thursday Listening Party; now, here’s mine, about the disgusting and depressing contents of cookery books:
Something else which alternately delights and horrifies me is being a freelancer. I’ve been one for nearly ten years, and I still haven’t figured out how to even up the boom-or-bust cycle. So for this month’s Sound Women podcast, I gathered together with some excellent freelancers to discover their secrets (one of them used to work as an official Mrs Potato Head!), and to consolegratulate each other:
To accompany his question about the demise of hitchhiking in AMT299, questioneer Toby in Cheshire alerted us to this episode of Four Thought from Radio 4, in defence of hitchhiking. It’s refreshing to hear someone speaking positively about the MOBILE MURDER NETWORK.
On the subject of journeys, I’m working my way through the winners of the 2014Third Coast Audio Festival, and thanks to Linda Lutton’s Chicago to Mexico – By Bus, I’m having flashbacks to a 36-hour coach journey I endured in 2002 – a mere blink of an eye compared to hers!
The new podcast in everyone’s ears this week is Serial, the long-form investigation of a murder case by This American Life producers Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder. I chained the first three episodes and now I NEED MORE.
And finally: early this morning I received an email from Olly saying, “It’s 5:43am. Just watched all of this.”
Fill your boots.
Tune in to our various other gigs:
• After four delightful years, my gig on <a href="BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition” target=”_blank”>BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition just came to an end. Listen to the podcast of the final episode here. •Olly’s on LBC every weekday 1am-4am. Keep pinching yourself to stay awake and join him. • Martin the Sound Man makes numerous other podcasts, including Brain Train about clever things, The Global Lab about cities and stuff, and The Sound of the Ladies music podcast. •AMT episodes 1-170 and the special AMT albums are all available for a piddling little price at answermethisstore.com, and if you buy any of them you’re bankrolling the podcast, for which we are extremely grateful. • Catch up on AMT299 and the episodes preceding it.
This week, a lot of you will want to hear the 2010 episode of WTF where Marc Maron talks to Robin Williams. Here it is, with a new intro from a choked-up Marc. Get your hankie ready.
You might also want to hear Lauren Bacall tearing it up on Desert Island Discs from 1984, here. Now please excuse me while I get lost in the Desert Island Discs 60-year archive. Again.
Not a million miles from Desert Island Discs is BBC 6 Music’s The First Time With…, in which musicians talk about the songs that made them. Sorry if you were expecting a show in which famous people discuss losing their virginities. (Does such a show exist? Aside from this one?)
I’m intrigued to listen to this programme about the politics of Dr Seuss: Dr Seuss and the Butter Battle. And if you’re intrigued to hear the AMT take on Dr Seuss, you can find it in the Answer Me This! Christmas album. You may think it’s unseasonal to listen to a Christmas show in the middle of August, but there’re only 132 days to go! (‘Only’. That’s still more than a third of a year. But it doesn’t stop a film called Santa With Muscles being played on one of the more remote Freeview channels every damn day.)
Finally: if you’re keen to start making your own podcasts, you can learn everything you need to know at the Essentials of Podcasting Guardian Masterclass on 20th September. I’ll be there to share all my podcasting knowledge, which should take around five minutes; luckily you’ll also be taught all about hardware, software, editing, production, formatting, publicity etc from the likes of Bugle producer Chris Skinner, Guardian podcast producer Jason Phipps, and software inventor Drew White. Book your place here.
PS: if you’re at Green Man festival this weekend, say hi to me and Martin! I’ll be doing Pappy’s Flatshare Slamdown at 1am on Saturday night/Sunday morning. Martin will be playing songs on the Solar Stage on Friday and Sunday, and demonstrating 3D printing in Einstein’s Garden every day. 3D printing at a folk festival? Apparently so.
Which shows have been delighting you lately? Recommend some in the comments.
Announcement the First: You know that Olly-hosted Media Podcast I’ve harped on about during the last couple of Thursday Listening Parties? The campaign to kickstart it for a year ends TOMORROW, so reallocate your potato salad budget and click here to fund Olly’s dream hosting job. (Also listen out for me on this week’s show, guest hosted by Miranda Sawyer, which will be out imminently.)
• I’ll bet there are a few of you who are keen to hear from Zaltzman family associate John Oliver, so here’s a thorough interview with him on Fresh Air.
• As you may have deduced from all these Thursday Listening Parties, I am always keen on a podcast in which people recount their true stories, so this week I’m guzzling Here Be Monsters.
• And of course, there’s the AMT Sports Day album for all the sportytalk you need before/during/after the big Shirts vs Skins game.
Two weeks remain to fund Olly’s new hosting gig on the Media Podcast, so if you’re feeling generous with your cash, kick in to their Kickstarter, and if you’re feeling generous with your time, listen to the show at themediapodcast.com.
Since it’s that sporty time of year with all the footsport and the Wimblesport, treat yourself to the AMT Sports Day, which you can read about here (prosthetic foreskins! Nude athletes! David Attenborough!) and buy here. From it, here’s the most classy song about tennis ever written:
Oscillating my eardrums:
In recent weeks several different people recommended I listen to the Deadline Podcast, so I’m listening to it. I’m listening to it right now! It’s on iTunes and SoundCloud, and in it, the Telegraph’s obituarists discuss the lives of the freshly dead. I realise I have mentioned deathy podcasts at the lasttwo Thursday Listening Parties. Don’t read too much into this.
Take a look at the ‘Most prevalent tags’ graphic in the sidebar of this website, and you’ll see ‘food’ is twice as big as the rest. It’s not much surprise therefore that we’re devotees of Radio 4’s The Food Programme. 18 months ago I went on a waistline-terrorising road trip around the southeastern US, so I particularly enjoyed the recent episode featuring Sean Brock talking about food revivals in South Carolina, although I enjoy even more the fact that in the feed there’s an episode simply called ‘Knives’.
Usually when I write these Thursday Listening Party posts, I’ve been appearing on and listening to several different shows; but I don’t have many to report this time as it’s been a quiet fortnight for me on both counts. I went on a silent retreat to spend time in meditation and self-actualising contemplat- OK FINE I didn’t, I binge-watched both series of Orange is the New Black. Now that important task is out of the way, what should I be listening to? Please recommend some podcasts in the comments!
If you can hear heaving sobs issuing from the AMT bunker, it’s because one of our favourite podcasts, the Guardian’s Media Talk, is coming to an end. (Unless one of you is a generous benefactor and fancies having Media Talk in your own entertainment stable? Save Media Talk!) I was on the last episode. But, in a ‘Clap if you believe in fairies’ moment, there may be a glimmer of hope for its future… Read here to find out.
As one podcast ends, another begins: Leila Johnston from Shift Run Stop has launched a new podcast, Hack Circus, and for its inaugural episode she and I (and her dog) met up in a pub and had a big old chat, which you can hear on iTunes or not-iTunes. Or right here:
Further audiotainment:
I love a bit of true crime, so I’ve been blasting through the newish podcast Criminal. Counterfeiters! Murderous owls! Polygraphs! Flytrap thieves! The production is classy and the show is very interesting and fun (funteresting?).
Remaining on the crimey theme: Unfictional is perennially excellent but the ‘Murder In Jersey’ episode was particularly excellent. It involves two brothers looking into their grandfather’s murder, unsolved since 1970. The episode is no longer on the main feed, but you can still find it elsewhere eg here and here.
Frankly, I haven’t felt this bereft since I watched Dear Zachary (which you can watch here if you are in the mood for Devastating Emotions).
After all that sorrow and tragedy, I’m hitting RISK! for a bawdy pick-me-up, and I suggest you do too.
Ibiza club anthems are NOT welcome at the Thursday Listening Party, but your spoken word entertainment recommendations ARE welcome. Please share them in the comments.
Apologies to Gina G for the theme in Answer Me This! Episode 289. YOU WERE ROBBED, GINA! The injustice smarts as much now as it did in 1996! Neva 4get!*
On today’s agenda:
Pret a Manger
ladies ‘freshening up’
homecoming queen
wood-panelled station wagons
red Solo cups 60 Minute Makeover
the Mosquito Alarm vs turds
stealing leftovers
Olly’s schoolboy politics Marlene from Neighbours Four Weddings and a Funeral vs The Inbetweeners vs Trainspotting
Skype calls with your parents
pebbledash (again!)
the cloakroom
Peter Andre’s career
and
Nigella Lawson’s handbag condiments.
Plus: abandoned milkshakes bring all the Olly Manns to the yard; Helen tries to become the Barbara Woodhouse of effusive emailers; and please excuse Martin the Sound Man, he’s just off for a ‘bio-break’.
We’re talking brown sludge in this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, albeit not the same kind of brown sludge as covering the lawns at the beginning of this episode, or being emitted by ladies under the cover of Euphemisms. The tide of not-effluent is available for iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
There’s also a shitload more bonus material here – the full-length interviews we did with podcasters including Marc Maron, Roman Mars, Night Vale, Keith and the Girl, Dan Savage and the Bugle for our Radio 4 documentary Podcasting: The First Ten Years. So head over there if you’re interested in hearing Helen talk shop with other podcasters; Olly’s interviews will be added to the playlist shortly.
Many thanks to Squarespace.com, who have not only funded today’s podcast, but also offer you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer when making your website-building dreams become reality.
Make our question-answering dreams become reality for the 290th time: call the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And you are of course welcome to join us at facebook.com/answermethis and/or twitter.com/HelenAndOlly to discuss your findings following this episode.
Until AMT290 on 22nd May, farewell,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT289 Child-Friendly Rating: 68%. Early scatchat. A few strong swears. Largely harmless overall. •••
*We’re sure Gina G is reading this from the secret clubhouse where she, Sonia and Love City Groove retreat to shoot spitballs at a cardboard cutout of Katrina and the Waves.
Listeners, in your opinions, what is appropriate first date chat? The weather? Stocks and shares? How many kgs you can bench-press? Ugh, no – but surely not dental work or having sex in paint, as contended with by questioneers in Answer Me This! Episode 288:
Also on today’s agenda:
Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere
nerdy Jewish vampires
cat toothbrushes
Facebook culls
sex pickles The 64,000 Sixpence Question
washing up
communion wafers
fangs
and
the Clam Van Damme.
Plus: Olly tempts terribly fate by ignoring chain letters; Helen needs to learn to love ‘visually striking cerebral foreign dramas’, whatever Netflix thinks those are; and Martin the Sound Man studies human behaviour via the greasy spoon breakfast.
Many thanks to Squarespace.com for supporting today’s podcast, and for supporting your website-building ambitions by giving you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer.
That’s it until a fortnight hence – unless we fall prey to questioneer Scott from Long Island’s knack for podcast-scuppering, in which case, so long and nice knowing you.
Helen & Olly
AMT288 Child-Friendly Rating: 47%.
A long question about the bawdy requests of Australians. A handful of cuss-words.
•Roman Mars Kickstarts an extraordinary pile of dosh to fund 99% Invisible (which is worth every penny). •Richard Herring talks about Stephen Fry using his podcast to drop the bombshell about his suicide attempt. •Theresa Thorn of One Bad Mother talks dirty (diapers). •Welcome to Night Vale fans show their devotion by expanding the weird world of the podcast. •Keith and the Girl fans show their devotion through HORRIFIC FLESH WOUNDS. Warning: seriously gross.
Requests are welcome at the Thursday Listening Party. No need to dance sexily next to the DJ booth hoping to be noticed, just recommend shows in the comments.
•Little Atoms always makes me feel cleverer after listening, like I’ve read a good book. It was a particular treat to hear AMTpal John Grindrod on there discussing his recent book Concretopia, which makes mid-20th century town planning a thousand times more interesting than you thought it could be.
Fun fact: I fainted at John Grindrod’s book launch. Concretopia = the new Beatlemania! Luckily I did not faint whilst listening to the podcast, but I have decided not to attend any more book launches immediately after donating blood.
• Little Atoms presenter Neil Denny also tells a true story on the new Best of Spark London. (And if you didn’t hear me talking about my dead grandparents on another recent episode, I encourage you to click here to do so.)
• Congratulations to the Picturehouse podcast for reaching 200 episodes! The Picturehouse, Brixton Ritzy flavour, is my favourite cinema; don’t make me choose a favourite film podcast between Sam and Simon here and Mark and Simon. NB to make a great film podcast, at least one of you must be called Simon.
• Our friends at Maximum Fun have launched their annual donation drive. If you want to support independent creators of entertainment – and/or you enjoy such shows as Bullseye, One Bad Mother, Sawbones, Jordan, Jesse, Go!, Judge John Hodgman, International Waters and more – do chip in.
Listen to our regular gigs too:
• Catch up on AMT285 if you still haven’t heard whether Nora in Malawi accepted Greg in Baghdad’s proposal of marriage, or why AMT is only one step removed from Olympic gold medal glory (admittedly, that step is quite significant). • There’re all the retro AMT episodes (nos.1-170), plus our albums, available for a trifling price at answermethisstore.com. •Olly’s on LBC every weekday 1am-4am. If you’re an insomniac, a night worker, or in a time zone where those hours are compatible with waking life, tune in. • Every Saturday evening I’m on BBC 5 Live’s Saturday Edition, available subsequently as the podcast Let’s Talk About Tech. • Martin the Sound Man makes numerous other podcasts, including Brain Train, The Global Lab and The Sound of the Ladies.
No need to shout “Hey Mr DJ! Play my motherjeffing song!” like a twat; if you want to recommend a podcast for the Thursday Listening Party, do so in the comments.
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