Election Day! The Media Podcast election special, hosted by Olly, will be out tomorrow on themediapodcast.com.
Meanwhile, I sought solace in etymology for the new Allusionist and found out the origins of lots of political words – visit theallusionist.org/electionlexicon to hear about hairy polls and ballsy ballots.
Election-unrelated: I was recently a guest on one of my favourite podcasts, The Sporkful! And I discovered that host Dan Pashman is possibly even more of a pedant than I am. Hear here.
In AMT313, we search for a foodstuff older than a questioneer and get stuck in poogatory. Catch up in time for AMT314 next Thursday.
A few shows I’ve enjoyed this week:
Radiotopia sibling Benjamen Walker just completed New York After Rent, a three-part series within his podcast Theory of Everything, and it’s a very interesting take on the gentrification of New York through the prism of rent, Rent and Airbnb. Hear at toe.prx.org. (On the subject of Radiotopia – if you’re in Dublin and free this evening, come along to the Radiotopia party and hang out with me and Nick van der Kolk from Love+Radio. Click here for details.)
I started listening to Millennial, in which recentish graduate Megan Tan negotiates the upward struggle that is so many of our twenties. (And thirties. And forties. Etc etc, up until one’s hundred-and-teens, at which point one probably has stopped worrying so much.) The show is pretty new, but is off to a very strong start. I had to check on this chart to find out whether I’m a Millennial, Generation Y, Generation X, Baby Boomer or Greatest Generation. Treat for Gen X-ers – Parker Posey was on WTF this week.
If you’re in need of some first person true stories that will punch you right in the emotional gut, let me steer you towards This Is Actually Happening.
What’s been in your ears this week? Share your recommendations in the comments.
Fire up your podblasters; Answer Me This! Episode 306 has arrived:
Today we consider:
Ainsley Harriott
Extreme Wink Murder
standing desks
Britney Spears’s haircare range
Barry Norman’s pickled onions Paul Simon’s chicken and eggs
yellow dusters
skateboarding and similar activities
having ‘a bit of fun’ on Tinder
and
Chicken Kiev.
Plus: Olly’s madeleine is the Bernard Matthews Mini Kiev; Helen is sitting all the way to skating glory; and Martin the Sound Man preaches discretion when encountering colleagues on Tinder. Got something to confess, Martin?
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App is another Stanley Mann Special, this time how he’s way ahead of his time with fashion trends. Full of surprises, that Mann. Hear on your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets.
We welcome your questions with open arms and legs. Ask them by leaving voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or sending emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Do not bother to ask them via facebook.com/answermethis and twitter.com/HelenAndOlly, because we might forget about them when it comes to the fortnightly question-harvest; but we do love to hear from you there nonetheless.
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’. WHERE’S THE ALL THE SHIT HIDING??? WHERE IS IT, I ASK YOU? Nowhere! No shit there at all! If only all of life were more like shitless Squarespace…
We’ll be back with AMT307 on 5th February, return then.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT306 Child-Friendly Rating: 47%. Quite a few swears. Some crudity towards the end, involving One Direction’s bodily fluids, polishing wood, and Tinder. •••
On an etymological tip, I listened to this episode of Slate Working interviewing a lexicographer about her job, and it really made me quite relieved that in 2003 the OED rejected me for my dream job as a lexicographer so I had to become a podcaster instead. Seems like a lot of admin.
Also, if you are fans of The Conspiracy Theories of Olly Mann, you may well enjoy this episode of Reply Allabout One Direction conspiracy theorists. That’s a next level hobby…
Remember to update your Media Podcast feeds tomorrow, for Olly will be back hosting a fresh new episode.
• Catch up on AMT305, in which we contemplate a questioneer’s unusual lITerature-inspired tattoo, argue about olive-theft, and reflect upon our lack of audiobook-reading jobs. •AMT episodes 1-170 and the special AMT albums are all available at answermethisstore.com, and if you buy any of them you’re bankrolling the podcast, for which we are extremely grateful. •Olly’s on LBC every weekday 1am-4am. Chug that caffeine to join him. • I host the monthly Sound Women podcast. • 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.
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!
Plus: Olly is on equal celebrity footing with Jason Donovan; Helen would LOVE it if you could chip in for the Radiotopia Kickstarter (read why here); and Martin the Sound Man brings physics into coin design, because anything and everything can be made less fun with physics.
Along with every episode, there’s a Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, so get it for your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets. And if you want to get 10% off our benevolent sponsors Squarespace.com for a year, deploy the code ‘answer’.
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:
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