Welcome to Answer Me This Episode 396! Nearly 400 episodes in and several thousand questions answered, and you’re still sending us ones we have never covered before. In today’s episode, “Do voodoo dolls work, and specifically, did mine work too well?” Plus:
Calvin Klein’s Obsession for lions vegan black pudding
dijonnaise
snooping houseguests
The Addams Family
crabs eating crab babies
and
shouting ‘geronimo!’
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – Olly divulges the other disproportionately-expensive-for-an-everyday-item import purchase he would make, in an ideal world. Until that time, he’ll console himself with a bashful of dijonnaise.
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 – now past the movie and heading straight onto the novels.
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including his monthly magazine show The Modern Mann and weekly under-the-radar-news show, The Week Unwrapped.
• 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 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 piano-playing to yoga to ancient history to dog training. AMT listeners get a free fortnight 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 six special albums including the Valentines-appropriate AMT Love, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
Apologies for the unscheduled absence of a fresh episode in July, listeners: Helen’s neck had other plans for the past few weeks. But hooray, Helen is out of hospital and all new Answer Me This! Episode 364 is here! WARNING: there’s a bit of Medical Stuff in the first few minutes of this episode, so if you’re sensitive to that, skip to the 4-minute mark, after which you can hear about:
Paw Patrol vs the football World Cup
post-swim communal shower etiquette
cosmetology Cast Away
jesters’ staffs
cranberry farming
lost birthday presents Bram Stoker’s Dracula
and
an inflated bladder on a stick.
There is more cranberry-chat in today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices. We discover a previous, more ferocious name for the fruit, and reminisce about The Delia Effect (not a euphemism for a UTI or the soothing thereof with cranberry juice).
Check in with our other work: Olly hosts The Modern Mann; and Helen and Martin are performing the Allusionist live show on stages in the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada this autumn – check where and when at theallusionist.org/events.
Thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring the show, and for making it so easy to set up a good-looking website for your projects. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
The Bluffers’ Guides are back! Rapidly become passingly well-informed in subjects from cats to fishing to social media to wine 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.
The last AMT recording in the show’s birthplace and home (also Helen and Martin’s home)
Well, this is it: the final episode to be recorded at the Zaltzwick homestead, at the housewarming party of which Olly came up to Helen and asked her to do a podcast. You know what happened next…
If you DON’T know what happened next: a shitload of episodes. Including the latest, Answer Me This! Episode 337, in which we discuss:
tandems
Native American food
fingerprints
coconut oil
what to drink with your kebab The Beef and Dairy Network
celebrity soap opera cameos breaking down the fourth wall
planting evidence
oil pulling
and
reading mum’s diary.
Plus: how The Archers affects Olly’s libido; how soup repels Helen more than a plateful of brains; how Martin the Sound Man ruins/elevates a future episode of Miss Marple.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Kirsty from Edinburgh about The Casket and Sunnyside magazine, formerly the number 1 toilet read for the funeral industry. Get the app on your Apple, Android and Windows devices. For further audio, treat yourself to a free audiobook at answermethispodcast.com/audible.
We forgot to mention that today’s intermission is from AMT121; get it, or any of AMTs 1-200, from answermethisstore.com. You’ll find our albums there as well; the Olympic Times are also the AMT Sports Day Times, and Summer Holiday Times are also the Answer Me This! Holiday Times. But both of those albums still work if you shun the Olympics and/or holidays.
To send us questions for future episodes, email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, call the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, and leave us a voicemail by Skyping answermethis or calling 0208 123 5877. Did you recognise the songs in Thom from Pennsylvania’s supercut of the phone jingle? They were:
0 – Maneater by Hall and Oates
2 – Another One Bites the Dust by Queen
0 – Wake Up by Arcade Fire
8 – Too Late by Carole King
1 – One by Three Dog Night
2 – Just the Two of Us by Bill Withers
3 – Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad by Meatloaf
5 – 8675309 by Tommy Tutone
double – Double Trouble by Lynyrd Skynyrd
7 – Seven by Prince
••• AMT337 Child-Friendly Rating: 70%. Are there any swears in this episode at all? There is a non-graphic question about sex, that may tip a child off to the fact that their parent may have had it. But they have to acknowledge this sooner or later. •••
After seven years of this show, IT HAS FINALLY HAPPENED.
THE question!
To whom is it being popped? To YOU? Find out immediately on Answer Me This! Episode 284:
[Wiping tears from eyes] Today we discuss:
Winter Olympics
Summer Olympics
Septuagenarian Olympics
Andrew Lloyd Webber vs classical music
Blenheim, Oxfordshire vs Blenheim, New Zealand
love vs drugs
Mo Farah vs Jamaican bobsleighers
car handles vs car wheels
men’s pants vs ladies’ pants
billowing shirts and billowing trousers
Darren Aronofsky’s Noah’s Ark film
Grand Theft Auto
Russell Crowe
balaclavas
Cinderella’s shoe
ice skating FlashForward ‘Kiss from a Rose’
and
Lion-ardo DiCaprio.
Plus: you’ll be relieved Olly isn’t allowed to fly planes, that Helen isn’t likely to bring out a live stage production of One Born Every Minute, and that Martin the Sound Man isn’t allowed to spice up the Winter Olympics biathlon.
This week there are twoBits of Crap on the App: the dazzling charisma of Torvill and Dean, and the suppressed opening of Disney’s Cinderella. Double-treat yourself via your iDevices, Android and Windows devices.
Treat us to your QUESTIONS, please: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Thanks to Squarespace.com for funding this episode; use the code answer2 to snag a 10% discount off their services for a whole year.
See you in a fortnight!
Helen & Olly
AMT284 Child-Friendly Rating: 45%. Some swears. Some speculation about Seal’s drug references. Discussions of driving may prove tremendously boring for the under-10s.
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.
Holed up in the Holiday Inn in Salford Quays, we contemplated holding a Bed-In for Peace. But then we realised that if we did, the already oversubscribed lifts would become clogged up with press and peaceniks, leaving all the other hotel guests feeling far from peaceful. So, sorry, peace; we made Answer Me This! Episode 232 instead:
Today we consider:
the Virgin Trains slow reveal
personal massagers
naughty Amazon
animal blood donation
magic oily fish
Les Rosbifs
immature students
maths vs. emotion
cottaging
Ping (who?)
and
the Holiday Inn pillow menu.
Plus: Olly would like to reverse decades of progress in gay rights just so he’s got something to read when he’s on the loo; Helen is unlikely to renew her wedding vows, unless the magazine deal is lucrative enough; and Martin the Sound Man goes off to have a rest in the rest room. He’s a very well-rested man.
Check out this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) if you’ve been wondering what happened next in the tale of vengeance from AMT231 and/or why your pineapple jelly won’t set.
We’re relieved to tell you that our Skype problem seems to be fixed, but if you used Skype to ask us a question in August or September, we never got it, so please ask it again by dialling up answermethis. You don’t need to worry if you sent a QUESTION via email (answermethispodcast@googlemail.com) or the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877); it’s safely swimming around with all the other questions in our question tank.
See you next Thursday!
Helen & Olly
Martin the Sound Man has a little alone time with the personal massager in the Holiday Inn.
Although we’ve come
To the end of the road current series,
Still we can’t let go – because we’ll be back on 19th April with yet more Answer Me This!. So long and adieu, here is Episode 210:
Today we ponder:
the Angel of the North Pet Sounds
sham marriage a different type of big bird Tom Jones
Mel Blanc
emotions vs. money
Matt Willis vs. televisions
Alice Cooper vs. vending machines
Jesus vs. Spongebob Squarepants
Father Christmas on film
Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth
and
Abraham Lincoln.
Plus: we learn the one place where Olly actually keeps quiet; Helen whips ’em out for SPRIIIIIINNNG BREEEEAAAK!; and Martin the Sound Man puts a price on his hand in marriage. But you might as well barter him down to something more realistic, like £20 and a Chocolate Orange.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Celeste from Elephant and Castle about whether you can sell your house without the intervention of an estate agent. Of course you can! But, before you ask, you are probably better off not performing your own laser eye surgery.
There is more to listen to during our absence, because by royal appointment (not really) we’ve released the Answer Me This! Jubilee, a 57-minute romp through the massive numbers of questions you lot send us about Her Maj and the like. Click here to get it.
Don’t forget us while we’re away: keep sending your QUESTIONS, as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Answer Me This! Podcast 