Jingle those bells, it’s festive Answer Me This episode 392, and, as the episode contains Jesus porn, Christmas parental deceit/logistics, and swears, we’re just going to put this right here:
AMT392 Child-Friendly Rating: 1%.
Today’s inquiries include:
The Elf on the Shelf™
Christmas decorations made out of hospital supplies
the White House turkey pardon
swanky advent calendars
pen advent calendars
dog advent calendars (of and for)
the health impact of glitter
too many photo-based gifts
and
12x Jesus’s foreskin.
For more AMT festive content, there’s our Christmas album, with questions about Kwanzaa, kissing under mistletoe, and Rudolph’s red nose; and on the free feed check out AMT329 for our favourite festive friend the Shitting Log; AMT380 for candy canes, the history of eating turkey at Christmas, and artificial trees being invented in a bog brush factory; Zwarte Piet and other Santa/Father Christmas/St Nick sidekicks turn up in AMT368, and AMT328 whether you ever see pictures of Mary pregnant with Jesus; in AMT357 the fake or real snow in Home Alone 2…there’s a lot! Enough to keep you going till Twelfth Night.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – we have the Tale of Two Christmas Trees.
Hear our other work:
• Helen makes The Allusionist entertainment show about language – hear the festive episodes here and the swearalong quiz here – and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning – season 3 has begun!
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Week Unwrapped and The Modern Mann – hear the festive episodes here.
• Martin makes music – including a new EP – which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of every song by Tom Waits Tom Waits in Song By Song, and he produced and composed the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers, hosted by Maddie Moate.
This episode is sponsored by:
• The Great Courses Plus, the streaming library of courses on topics from yoga to mystery fiction to formal logic to dog training. AMT listeners get a free month at thegreatcoursesplus.com/answer.
• Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Send us your QUESTIONS, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com for us to answer in 2021! We’ll be back with AMT393 on 7 January, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 17 December.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT392 Child-Friendly Rating: 1%. As aforementioned: questions about Jesus porn, and the secret mechanics of festive mythmaking etc. •••
Glad to tell you that following on from last episode’s toaster problem, another listener writes that they have actually MET some of the toasters, proving that all of you AMT listeners are connected. And have been everywhere and seen everything. Answer Me This! Episode 385 also contains:
Gloria Hunniford
Tetris lamps
the price of lava lamps these days
Shirley Temple’s teeth
stars on flags feat. Roman Mars
Pukka Pies vs Pukka Pads vs Pukka Teas
the etymology of ‘doolally’ and ‘pundit’
oil on raisins
bumhole bleaching
aristocratic cold toast
and
rickrolling as measurement of time.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows – is an extra question from Lindon from Huddersfield about what you’re supposed to do with that cracker in the box that looks like a loaf of bread. Well, what cheese you’re supposed to pair with it. If you want to wear it as a hat or skip it like a stone, that’s up to you. Don’t let the serving suggestion illustrations push you around!
Hear our other work!
• Helen makes The Allusionist, an entertainment show about language, and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning. Season two just begun.
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Week Unwrapped, The Media Podcast and The Modern Mann.
• Martin makes music which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of every song by Tom Waits Tom Waits in Song By Song.
This episode is sponsored by:
• The Great Courses Plus, the streaming library of courses on topics from yoga to mystery fiction to formal logic to dog training. AMT listeners get a free month at thegreatcoursesplus.com/answer.
• Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Buy AMT episodes 1-200, our five special albums, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
How do you pronounce ‘patent’? ‘Pay-tent’? ‘Pattent’?
That’s not one of the questions we are asked in Answer Me This! Episode 333, just a matter we wrestle with. As well as:
key party logistics
kestrel welfare Antiques Road Trip
vibrator disposal Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
The Angel of the North
The Chronicles of Pornia
the Mary Poppins sequel
and
The Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices), we workshop the Netflix revival of Frasier that is bound to come along at some point, given that everything old is becoming new again. So look out for Niles Goes Miles in a year or two.
Also: click here for tickets for Allusionist Live; click here to hear the season finale of Modern Mann; click here to celebrate Martin the Sound Man’s podcast centenary.
••• AMT333 Child-Friendly Rating: 25%. Several swears. Questions about vibrators and key parties, and suggestions that the Queen has shagged all the way round Buckingham Palace. •••
With Olly’s baby poised to make his entrance into this world, Answer Me This! Episode 331 is our last episode before our three-month paternity leave, while Olly adjusts to fatherhood and Helen adjusts to going outside occasionally. Savour answers about:
lads’ mags
cereal toys
spotting the stars of tomorrow as they toil at the Disney parks
‘For He’s as dead as a herring a Jolly Good Fellow’
swimming rabbits
cafes vs brasseries vs bistros
Jane Eyre vs Thelma and Louise
The Lord of the Rings road trips
Jo Guest Tutti Frutti in 3D
ceramic babies
blue rinses
Bulgarian food
Skyrim
Kevin Costner
and
Titcoin.
A question from AMT Love went astray and ended up as today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices). It’s from long-time AMT listener Ace: if you’re young, poor and in Oxford, and you want to go on a Tinder date but you don’t want it to be “Drink?” or “Coffee?”, what do you do instead? Why, you date AMT-style of course! Meet you by the singing cockroaches.
During our three months off, why not amuse yourself by starting a podcast/online store/website using today’s sponsor Squarespace.com? You can have 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year, plus a free domain thrown in, if you invoke the code ANSWER at checkout.
We will return in May, but keep in touch in the meantime at twitter.com/helenandolly and facebook.com/answermethis – which is where we will let you know the due date of AMT332 a couple of weeks ahead of time, AND where we will also post news of Baby Mann once he appears (and has been through hair and makeup, had a spray tan, and undergone intensive media training).
All together now: “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good herring…WHICH NOBODY CAN DENY.”
Helen & Olly
••• AMT331 Child-Friendly Rating: 42%
Some swears, but pretty clean until the last ten minutes, when there’s a question about lads’ mags and top shelf publications. YOU KNOW THE ONES WE MEAN. The ones your kids are too short to reach/don’t need to reach because they can view all the proclivities of humanity on your phone that they swiped from you. •••
The album features a whole hour of love, sex, dating and genitals, and it’s all completely new AMT material that has never appeared on the podcast. Such as:
♥ Is it appropriate to buy sexy clothes for your mum? ♥ How do you make putting on a condom fun? ♥ Just what is in that liquid squirting out of your girlfriend? ♥ When you’ve lost your engagement ring, how best to style it out? ♥ Is your partner’s schoolgirl fetish something you should worry about? It’s not like he’s a teacher – oh, he is? Oh. ♥ How do you set up a blind date when you’re a blind dater? ♥ How can anyone feel horny at the prospect of a vagina bristling with sharp, spiky horns? ♥ What’s the best point of a wedding ceremony to call it off? ♥ How do they come up with all those lines on Take Me Out? ♥ What is your exhibitionist housemate really trying to show you? ♥ How many holes should there be in a penis?
Here’s a little preview:
Any further questions?
♥ Is this album suitable for me if I’m not at all in the mood for love, sex, or interacting with humanity at all? YES. If all these people were having such a great time, they wouldn’t be writing to us, would they?
♥ Is this album child-friendly? HELL NO.
♥ Will this album teach me what it’s like to have the Olly Mann Valentine’s Experience? YES.
♥ Will Helen say the word ‘urethra’ so many times, I will feel a bit sick? MAYBE.
You can get it from iTunes and Amazon, but if you want all of your money to go to us and none to Megacorp, buy it directly from the AMT Store.
In Answer Me This! Episode 329, one questioneer wrestles with the ethics of breeding Christmas-truther children who ruin everything for the other kiddos; another introduces us to the Catalan Christmas tradition we now desperately need to appropriate. Listen to find out about those, and also these:
Plus: Olly rode the carousel we all dream of riding; at primary school, Helen reined in her Junior Richard Dawkins; and Martin the Sound Man manages to ruin Oral-B for everyone, thanks Martin.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, the talk of free coffee fraud turns to a far graver offence: Toys R Us fraud. To hear, fire up the app on your iThings, Android and Windows devices.
Thanks very much to today’s sponsor Squarespace.com, who’ll give you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you invoke the code ANSWER.
Thanks also to everyone who has supported the show by buying the Answer Me This! Christmas album. If you haven’t yet, this is really the time of year to do so. April, not so much. It’s available at answermethisstore.com, as well as some of the online retail behemoths – links and further details of the contents are available at answermethispodcast.com/christmas.
We’ll return with the Best of AMT 2015 on 24th December 2015.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT329 Child-Friendly Rating: 5%. Some swears; some bawdy references; and the greatest peril of all: THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS OF CHRISTMAS GIFTS IF YOU KNOW WHAT WE MEAN AND WE THINK YOU DO. So, beware! Also, Olly encourages your children to break the airport rules, which will probably get them tasered. •••
Answer Me This! Episode 321‘s questioneers are concerned about networking, Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood‘, and what they’ve found on their parents’ hard drives, as well as:
Mars 2112
confirmation names
butchers’ curtains
business cards
hiding XXX photos
the perils of Windows 10
the Mann school of networking vs the Zaltzman school of networking the ‘Bad Blood’ galaxy of stars
flies
Picabo Street
Andre Rieu
Polari
and
adult colouring books.
Plus: Olly needs to spend more private time with the Victoria’s Secret catalogue; rather than giving Helen your business card, just put it straight into the recycling bin; and Martin the Sound Man wants you to preserve your parents’ sexual memories, and does NOT want any froyo.
There’s additional Bad Blood Chat in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App. When Olly went for an MRI recently, did he wear a white rubber bikini like Taylor Swift does in the video? To find out, fire up the app on your iThings, Android and Windows devices.
If, like Martin, you’re about to build a new website, do it using Squarespace.com, who sponsor today’s episode. 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.
We’ll return on 3rd September 2015 with AMT322. Until then, colour within the lines.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT321 Child-Friendly Rating: 47%. A couple of strong swears, and we don’t know which will be more appalling to your children: the conversation about parents’ saucy photos, or the conversation about networking. •••
Good news! Well, good news for Olly and everyone worried that his nocturnal job was causing him to collapse in on himself like a dying star: he’s got a new job on LBC, presenting a show 8-10pm Fridays and 6.30-10pm Saturdays. The first one is tomorrow, so tune in! Meantime, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 311:
Therein:
the Queen of Starbucks (scroll down to the bottom of the post for the NSFW original Starbucks logo)
the Hollywood Walk of Fame (apply here for a star)
a bowling alley in your home
the dangers of being a stock photo the other Michael Jackson the other Harrison Ford
the real struggle in Moby-Dick
Buddha vs Budai Night Nurse vs Night Nurse
lazy Barbra Streisand critiquing your dick pics (link extremely NSFW)
and
the first known waterbed.
Plus: Olly would rather that rats do not accompany his sexytimes; Helen is still laughing about the typo on her grandmother’s gravestone; and and Martin the Sound Man enjoys his own parallel version of AMT.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows gadgets) we realise why it’s probably for the best that we don’t have a spare £200,000 to install a home bowling alley. Just imagine the bloodshed…
We’ll return on 16nd April 2015 with AMT312, joiiiiiiin ussssssssss,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT311 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. Strong swear word very near the beginning. 10 minutes in, there’s a question about nudie photos that you may wish your younglings to avoid. But after that, it’s pretty safe. If you start listening around 15 minutes in, it’d be at least 80% child friendly. •••
Happy Thanksgiving to AMT’s American pals! Today’s episode is thematically appropriate for you, since it involves a question about Disney’s turkey legs; so don your turkey boxer shorts and turkey tops, strap on your turkey watch, inhale the delicious scent of turkey, plug in your turkey headphones and listen to Answer Me This! Episode 303*:
We also speak of such non-turkey topics as:
mirrors in the gym
sexy cheese
a pat from Paul Daniels
the Dewey Decimal System
Meville Dewey vs Melvil Dui
McDonald’s bagels
wanking into bagels
ripping off Starbucks
hidden Mickeys Fifty Shades of Grey-based pranks
and
cat scat chat.
Plus: Olly favours almond milk over animal milk (maybe the question about cheesy handjobs put him off); size matters to Helen, when it comes to shelving second-hand books; and Martin the Sound Man is never going to be a serial TV quiz contestant
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets) is stuffed full of praise for the bountiful foods of Manchester. If you like the sound of the Answer Me This! Christmas – and even Scrooge can get behind it – then you can buy it and episodes 1-170 as an early prezzie for yourself at answermethisstore.com. You’re funding the future of AMT with your purchases, so Thank You from the future!
We’ll be back with AMT304 on 11th December 2014; stay out of trouble in the meantime,
Helen & Olly
••• AMT303 Child-Friendly Rating: 30%. Sweary from the off. Obscene question about cheese ten minutes in, followed by a Fifty Shades of Grey-based prank, then the possibly non-consensual and definitely unprotected sex in Phantom of the Opera. Overall, not an episode to listen to on the school run. •••
* And here is Helen sporting one of your traditional Thanksgiving hats:
THE DAY HAS ARRIVED! Answer Me This! Episode 300 is here, in all its tricentennial glory!
You’ve deluged us with questions about AMT300, for example:
“Will it be your last episode?”
“Is it going to feature Gerard Butler and be directed by Zack Snyder?”
“Did you guys ever…you know…?”
“Is it possible to polish a turd?”
“Yeah but seriously guys, is it going to be your last episode?”
Discover all these answers, and many more surprises, by listening to the episode right now via one or all of the following methods:
Don’t read below this point if you don’t want spoilers! Listen to the episode first, then come back here and revise its contents.
Alright??
On the slate for AMT300 are such topics as:
our alternate realities if AMT had never existed evidence of our life of crime
long-term relationships
bumhole problems
mashed potato vs nutmeg
Peter Jackson vs Raymond Carver
bases
nasal honking
hiding your rubber fetish gear
and
garnish.
And the wonderful special guest answerers bending their wisdom to your questions are:
✮Adam Buxton, the man who made us want to do this podcast. He doles out excellent advice on giving your children The Talk, ridding your kitchen of mouse turds, and changing your whole life to avoid minor annoyances. Enjoy more of Adam’s work on YouTube, on Twitter, and at live shows including BUG.
✮Sarah Millican, who even manages to make questions about anal fissures sound charming and wholesome. It’s a gift! Her new DVD Home Bird is available for pre-order; she’s writing for the new online magazine Standard Issue, and she dispenses Sarahmillicandour at twitter.com/SarahMillican75.
✮Jesse and Theresa Thorn, the first couple of podcasting, the power behind the Maximum Fun throne (at MaxFun, they record everything sitting on thrones). Tackling questions upon Americana and parental embarrassment, it’s a rare treat to hear them on a podcast together – but it’s a regular treat to hear them on their own podcasts, which include One Bad Mother, Bullseye, Jordan, Jesse, Go!, Judge John Hodgman… Yeah, it took us nearly eight years to churn out 300 podcasts; they probably do more than that a month. And just in case you needed even more podcast-related excitement on top of this, it’s MaxFunWeek right now, so you can have maximum fun with other podcast aficionados around the world.
✮Josie Long, who delighted you in AMT84 and returns to do the same, on such matters as losing your virginity, beating procrastination and Lord of the Rings – the latter with the help of her boyfriend Simon of the Picturehouse Podcast. We hope this important matter doesn’t come between them… As well as seeing Josie on stage, you can hear her on her Lost Treasures of the Black Heart podcast, and the new series of Radio 4’s Short Cuts.
✮Tony Blackburn. TONY. BLACKBURN! Answering YOUR questions and sounding off about wandering eyes, Hobbits and nutmeg! He was the first voice on Radio 1 in 1967, and he currently has shows on Radio 2, BBC Berkshire, BBC London, BBC Three Counties, KMFM, Magic…phew! Switch on a radio, and Blackburn will probably be talking on it. You can also read him at twitter.com/tonyblackburn.
✮ Today’s new email jingle is by the Hackney Colliery Band – because there are few things more stirring than a brass band. To see them live and listen to their records, including their new EP Common Decency, visit hackneycollieryband.co.uk.
Our special guest answerers supplied such a lot of marvellous material, there’s a bumper tricentennial Bit of Crap on the App today – extra questions about tattoos, pineapples, balloon animals, taramasalata, adventures, wedgies, and there’s even a cameo from AMT190 superstar Jon Ronson. The app is available for your iDevices, Android or Windows playthings, but since it’s an ‘appy day, you appless can also stream or download it via SoundCloud. Or just play it here:
We could not have done these 300 episodes without you, listeners: without your attention; without your support, financial and emotional; and particularly without your questions. Please keep sending those in: call the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And do celebrate with us at facebook.com/answermethis or twitter.com/HelenAndOlly.
Thanks so much for joining us today! We’ll be back with business-as-usual non-landmark AMT301 on 30th October 2014.
Amid all this talk of other things to listen to, don’t forget to apply yourself to Answer Me This! Episode 286:
In which we discuss:
castles
Oktoberfest
chilled red wine
velvet ropes
decorative sticks
babysitting vs kitten-sitting
Mardi Gras vs Pancake Day
Navajo rugs vs dreamcatchers
Glastonbury scheduling EcuadorPanama hats London’s cat cafe
mythical bestiality
and
the first ever porn film.
Plus: Olly was all business, no pleasure at his school leavers’ ball; Helen prefers the pong of garlic breath to perfume; and Martin the Sound Man worries about worldly souvenirs making him into a bellend. Don’t worry Martin, you were already a bellend! JK. (Or is it?)
Today’s Bit of Crap on the App contains more perfume-chat, in which Olly sabotages any future he had as a department store perfume salesperson. Pinch your nose and spray the app into your ears from your iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
Here’s something that doesn’t stink: today’s episode-funders Squarespace.com offering you a 10% discount off their services for a whole year if you use the code answer3. What a breath of fresh air!
And finally, we ask that you take a deep breath and send us your QUESTIONS: call the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Back in a fortnight!
Helen & Olly
AMT286 Child-Friendly Rating: 42%. First three quarters are clean, apart from a couple of questioneer-led swears. The episode ends on a question about porn films, but by then your children will probably have fallen asleep during the earlier question about road signs.
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.
Answer Me This! Podcast 