How do you tell your mum that she is a STUPID WOMAN who is RUINING CHRISTMAS by buying you the WRONG GIFT? Plus other polite and classy problems compose Answer Me This! Episode 328, in which we contemplate:
Plus: Olly plans never to get married, but maybe he’ll change his mind purely to have the themed wedding of his Jennifer Connelly-starring dreams; Helen turns her profound laziness into creative tips; and Martin the Sound Man puts the beats into his favourite Christmas carol.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App, available for iThings, Android and Windows devices, Olly reveals the surprise hair inspiration of his mid-1980s barnet: Princess Diana.
Feeling festive yet? Click here to read about and then buy the Answer Me This! Christmas album; and click here to get the delightful Christmas podcasts from today’s sponsor Dobbies Garden Centres – and there’re plenty of Christmas tips and decorations to buy at dobbies.com and in store.
••• AMT328 Child-Friendly Rating: 60%. No bawdy content, but there are a few swears, and the possible demystification of the machinations behind Christmas presents IF YOU KNOW WHAT WE MEAN. •••
At the time of recording Answer Me This! Episode 270dicksmack.org*, the domain name bandied around in last week’s episode, was still available. But within minutes of today’s episode becoming available, it seems one enterprising listener snapped it up. If it’s any comfort, dicksmack.com is still available…
* Apologies to any listener called Dick S. Mack for any upset all this may have caused
On today’s agenda:
ostrich eggs
symmetrical balls
gorilla balls
the ‘guess the price of the scarves’ game
book blurbs
jam vs conserve
supernatural forces vs scientific forces Zara vs Liberty
Rick Stein’s signature vs George Orwell’s signature
Frankenstein’s monster’s education
celebrity community service the LingerieLegends Football League
the We’re the Millers trailer
and
zombies.
Plus: Olly’s binders full of women are very well organised; Helen insists on having a Pocket full of articles to keep her diverted during boring shopping trips; and Martin the Sound Man finally reveals what his PhD was in. Wait – he didn’t just buy it off the internet?
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) includes Olly’s impression of every Stephen King film ever. Has to be heard to be believed.
Please be so kind as to send us your QUESTIONS (unless they’re about zombies, in which case don’t): leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Oh, and if you want to buy a signed copy of the AMT book, and to support a terrific independent bookshop by doing so, ask Bookseller Crow for one.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT270 Child-Friendly Rating: 36%. F-bomb detonates within first minute of the show, followed by discussion about dicksmack.org, and the dick-related things that site could potentially contain. Several swears. Early question about testicles. Safe waters in the middle of the show, but ends with a question about a sport that is essentially fap-material.
Questioneer Liz has lopped off her head-top femininity, and people are going apeshit about it even though we’ve seen the same many times over, from Audrey Hepburn/Michelle Williams/Halle Berry/Demi Moore/Miley Cyrus/’Stop’-era Posh Spice/bad-era Britney, right through to Joan of Arc.
She writes:
I recently decided to cut my hair into a short crop style (I am a 29 year old female doctor), and ever since have been astonished at the deluge of rude, inappropriate and frankly outright mean things that people have said to me. When I say ‘people’, I am mostly referring to men. One male friend’s first response was “Are you a lesbian now?” whilst another stated “I don’t like short hair on girls, you look like a boy”. I have been ordered to grow it long again, asked “What went wrong at the hairdressers?” and told “You will never get a boyfriend now”. In contrast my female friends have been highly supportive, stating it looks great.
So, answer me this: Why do men think it is OK to be mean to women with short hair? And are my female friends lying in saying it looks great? (which surely is the safe and socially accepted way to go – to be honest I’d appreciate more men taking this route!)
I’m not a man, but reader, if you are one, go to the comments and explain to Liz why her haircut might be causing upset. Since we don’t have photo evidence that the style doesn’t make Liz look like Jimmy Krankie rather than Winona Ryder, let’s assume that she does look nice with it. Let’s also assume that Liz’s primary purpose is not to look attractive to her male friends.
Today we discuss the world’s greatest audio format apart from this one: Desert Island Discs. What would your luxury be? (If you’re a cheating cheater who wants to take a fully-stocked iPod, throw yourself into the sea.) Find out ours, along with myriad other important nuggets of information, in Answer Me This! Episode 259:
In which we also consider:
condoms vs. opera gloves
knits vs. nits
Tim Burton vs. Faust
Olly vs. Ollie vs. Olleigh
cherry-pickers gentlemen’s clubs (nb not ‘gentlemen’s clubs’) The Reform Act This Life
personalised Coke bottles
Simon Cowell’s reflection
mayonnaise spa treatments
retro-live-tweeting
and
Russ Abbott.
Plus: Olly is nostalgic for an infestation of headlice; Helen WOULD with the person who changes the lights in supermarkets; and Martin the Sound Man doesn’t want to swallow himself. Just reflect on that quietly.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Olly rhapsodises about the Coca-Cola Freestyle Machine. All the different types of sugar water – in one machine! A miracle of modern life.
Another miracle of modern life is to be able to watch thousands of hours of entertainment for FREE thanks to our LoveFilm offer – which, equally miraculously, helps pay for future Answer Me Thises.
As well as free money, we can only sustain the podcast with your QUESTIONS, so send them along in the form of voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Sound the sirens – today, in Answer Me This! Episode 258, we address a VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION. One of those questions that completely reshapes your neural pathways, redirects your chi, repapers the hallways of your spiritual palace. Get ready:
What is a dickbag?
A bag OF dicks, a bag FOR dicks, or a ballbag?
Yup. One of the greats.
We also discuss:
cinema intervals
sleeping in parks
the not-circular Circle Line
silly cows
presidential perishables
gifts for Sophie Raworth
Dumbo vs. DUMBO
exes vs. economics
potplant-murder vs. potplant-suicide
the White House postal address cartoon crows
and
coffee in the loo.
Plus: young Olly wanted value even more than he wanted Disney cartoons; Helen is a lady; and you don’t want to be hot-desking at Martin the Sound Man’s office, you really don’t.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we feel the threat of the new Greatest Show On Earth: Radio 4’s Tweet of the Day.
If birdsong isn’t your thing, how about a month of free film/TV/games instead? Deprive yourself no longer; sign up to our free LoveFilm offer right now. You’d not only be delighting yourself with all the free entertainment of LoveFilm, you’d also be helping maintain the free entertainment of AMT, because we get money if you take up the trial.
There’s another way you can help keep this show going: send us your QUESTIONS! Leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We know some of you like to listen to the podcast with your little children, so just to warn you, Answer Me This! Episode 256 contains some bawdy-talk. But by all means go ahead and listen if you’re happy to field such subsequent questions from your progeny as, “Mummy, what’s a sex party?” and “Where’s a clitoris?” They were bound to find out at some point anyway, most likely from the school library’s copy of Meg and Mog go Swinging.
Today we discuss:
crunching on the quiet carriage
black tie and board shorts
seals vs. sea lions
holes vs. flaps
owls vs. Bruce Springsteen
fat Fred Flintstone
hot tub ming machine
pants sandwiches
swinging seven days a week
LinkedIn fashion fails
and
the etiquette of revealing your genital piercings.
Plus: Olly’s very happy to be the only man in a jacuzzi, unless it’s at his local sex party house or crawling with children; Helen retroactively destroys your childhood, one bloated dead duck at a time; and Martin the Sound Man would cast Holly Hunter as Harry Potter, Gandalf, Katniss, Edward AND Bella AND Jacob, Luke Skywalker, and his wife in the film of his own life. (Holly Hunter: “Er…sorry Martin, I’m busy.” (Busy changing her locks.))
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we worry further about the Flintstones’ health, what with the imbalanced diet and the smoking. They’re like a bunch of prehistoric cartoon Don Drapers, aren’t they?
We invite your ears to bend around more podcasts this week: Helen’s new venture Sound Women; the newest pony in Martin the Sound Man’s stable of podcasts, Brain Train; our weekly excursion on 5 Live’s Let’s Talk About Tech; and our recent guest appearance on episode 56 of Ian Collins Wants a Word.
And as ever, we invite you to send us your QUESTIONS for forthcoming episodes: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
What a surprise the publishers of our book decided not to use this picture! Granted, their usual style of authorial portrait is usually a little more contemplative, a tad more restrained. But they probably thought that to print an image of such timeless, exquisite beauty on the cover of our book would be unfair on all the other books.
Yes. That must have been the reasoning.
To find out why we have unleashed this aesthetics gamechanger, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 247:
Today we discuss:
forked tongues
Liv Tyler’s tits
holiday snaps
smoking vs. self-pleasuring
Pot Noodles vs. aquariums Armageddon vs. Les Miserables
menageries vs. mono-nageries corgis’ Christmas Lion Tower
Bruce Willis in a space suit
and
bedroom antics.
Plus: Olly reveals how the Queen helped Kate and Willsher dogs to mate; Helen’s holiday photo albums all look like this; and Martin the Sound Man ejaculates through his tear ducts, apparently.
As an extension of the final questioneer’s bath masturbation query, this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) considers what else you can do in a bath, if said bath is in Las Vegas. Clue: cleanliness is unlikely to be the most immediate concern.
Our immediate concern is, of course, gathering your QUESTIONS: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
So that unfeasibly rich child from Two and a Half Men says you should not watch Two and a Half Men because it is pisspoor FILTH and THE ENEMY’S PLAN.
As usual there’s some mild FILTH in Answer Me This! Episode 239. Can’t disclose the enemy’s plans; you’ll have to interpret them yourself when you listen:
Plus: Olly blows bubbles out of his bum; Helen calls for tougher gum laws; and Martin the Sound Man is pleased you all seem to like his package.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is more hot air from Olly, as he recounts how he burped into a stranger’s face. Luckily, because Olly couldn’t hear it at the time, it DID NOT COUNT.
Your QUESTIONS definitely do count, so please email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
We have so much for which to thank the Industrial Revolution. Without it, there would be no devices upon which to listen to podcasts, no podcasts either, and certainly not several minutes of this particular podcast – Answer Me This! Episode 233:
Today’s lessons cover such subjects as:
wave machines
Kanye West’s insecurities
grog
Emma Watson’s accent in The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Britain’s first cast iron bridge vs. Britain’s first roundabout Baywatch vs. Fruit-Pickers
Salopians vs. fallopians Biggie vs. TupacElliott vs. Jeff
Priscilla Presley vs. an extended cookery segment on This Morning
sporks vs. foons
Pamela Anderson covered in sticky juice
Roman Facebook
Hypno-Lipo
radio drama’s special stationery
divas and divos (dive and divi if we’re being proper about it)
hook-handjobs
what happened after the Stolen Soy Milk Scandal of AMT231
and
knorks.
Plus: all Olly wants is to read a proper thick issue of Time Out whilst chewing a stick of Orbit; Helen knows all about your fantasy fort made of cardboard boxes; and Martin the Sound Man knows how to keep himself amused when there’s only fruit to talk to.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) suggests a money-making scheme for Jon Snow if/when Channel 4 News goes tits-up. We’re registering Celebri-Ties now, just in case.
Register your QUESTIONS with us by emailing them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leaving voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
A lot of artists suffer from Difficult Second Album syndrome, but not us. Following our Top 20 smash hit longplayer The Answer Me This! Jubilee, we are delighted to bring you…
The Answer Me This! Sports Day
59 minutes and 33 seconds of all-new material in celebration of the glorious sporting event that will be wreaking havoc with London’s transport system this summer. Buy it now through the AMT Store, iTunes or Amazon.
Join us for a jog through such Olympian questions as what would happen if Boris Johnson dropped the torch, how you can become an Olympic competitor whilst remaining a lazy bastard, how the Ancient Greek athletes prevented their glistening nude flesh from getting sunburn, whether Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony is going to be like this, and why Jewish athletes might be buying haggis shortly before the competition.
We also learn why the men’s Wimbledon trophy is so fruity, how David Attenborough can be blamed for the popularity of snooker, what the chess queen has in common with the Alien queen, what Jack Broughton has in common with Alan Ayckbourn, and what bookies have in common with Abraham Lincoln.
We check in on such record breakers as James Cameron and Lee Redmond, and face the biggest sports question of all: what IS a sport? And do you actually have to get out of your chair to do one?
We must offer big thanks to Sam Pythagoras Pay and Amy Smith for the jingles, which alone are worth the £2.49 RRP. Eg:
NB The Answer Me This! Sports Day is in no way officially affiliated with the London Olympics. They looked at our waist measurements and said there’s no way they could endorse that.
As AMT devotees, you know that we don’t shy away from the most serious questions the human mind can concoct. Remember AMT198 last year, when we boldly tackled “What makes a pie a pie?” Today, in Answer Me This! Episode 220, we broach another foodstuff with an identity crisis – salad:
Seriously though, how can this and this and this and this be even nominally related? Pffft.
Anyway, tossed into the conversational salad this week are:
facts about Eugene, Oregon
Hamlet, the Madonna of his time
Madonna, the sexual bully of her time
alternating current vs. direct current
dentist chair vs. electric chair
Natalie Portman Hershlag
French Freemasons William Kemmler
Pizza Express
rainbow parties Rory Gallagher’s guitar
and
Spin the Bottle.
Plus: Olly impresses the ladies with his great big throbbing veins; Helen discovers that Thomas Edison was a right cnut; and Martin the Sound Man plays coy about his age. Don’t worry Martin, you don’t look a day under 55.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is more crap-related than usual, as it features a question from Stephy from Bristol about the point of patterned toilet paper. Along the way we learn upon what Simon Cowell and the Queen probably wipe their bottoms. The rich educational resource that is the Answer Me This! app is available for iDevices or Android, you’ll be relieved to know. Relieved. Ho ho ho.
Enough japery for one week; but if you want to listen to more of our japery next week, you are obliged to send us a QUESTION: emails go to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
We sure do receive a lot of wedding questions here, so if you’d like to relieve us of some of the responsibility of answering them properly, take yourself to the comments and advise our next two correspondents. First, we hear from Ben from Britain:
I am a man and in the summer my female friend is getting married. At this wedding I am to be a ‘bridesmaid’.
I have already rejected the idea of carrying a bouquet, which she wasn’t that amused by.
My first question is, am I wrong to not want to be instantly labelled as ‘the gay one’? As it’s pretty obvious already, me being referred to as bridesmaid.
My second question is, she has raised the issue of suit hire and said to me ‘We will leave your fitting for last in case you want to lose weight.’ I am 6ft and have a 38 inch waist. Am I within my social right to not go at all or should I instead intensively eat nothing but chips until the suit fitting?
1. Of course you’re not wrong. Why should your sexuality and/or gender be the defining factor about you? However, when you agreed to be in the bride’s band of indentured slaves, you were effectively signing up for whatever degradation and subjugation the bride wishes. And that includes carrying flowers, wearing a dress, participating in the choreographed dance down the aisle for YouTube, assisting with the bride’s pre-show colonic irrigation…
2. Stuff a pillow down your shirt for the fitting. And, for funsies, a cucumber down your trousers.
All too often, people who are getting married think they have free rein to treat their loved ones like crap, don’t they? (Coincidentally, since my wedding day, my friends now regard me with a mixture of terror and disgust! They’re probably just jealous, right?) However, our next questioneer Laura from Australia seems to be trapped in a cycle of mutual consideration:
As a single lady, if I get invited to a wedding could I take a friend along as my ‘plus one’? Or is it poor form as I know weddings cost a lot and they probably don’t want to pay for an extra meal for my friend. Making small talk to a bunch of people I don’t know over dinner fills me with genuine anxiety and having a friend there would make things less awkward as I’m not great at that sort of thing. Your thoughts?
Well, if the couple actually stated on your invitation that you were welcome to bring a cohort, then they are acquiescing to the possibility of paying to feed someone they don’t know in exchange for your contentment (or bulking up their audience). But if they didn’t, then I don’t think you can bring along a freeloader – and if you yourself don’t know anyone at the wedding, then the person who is only going along because you’re making them is unlikely to have a particularly good time in a roomful of strangers and salmon en croute.
It’s fine to fly solo, and if you really expect that there will be no mutual friends at the event, allay your worries by asking the couple if they can seat you amongst nice people who are easy to talk to. Hopefully they will be considerate of their friends’ social requirements, but as per my point above, it’s far from a given. So maybe take a good book along, as back-up.
Answer Me This! Podcast 
The Answer Me This! Sports Day
July 2, 2012A lot of artists suffer from Difficult Second Album syndrome, but not us. Following our Top 20 smash hit longplayer The Answer Me This! Jubilee, we are delighted to bring you…
The Answer Me This! Sports Day
59 minutes and 33 seconds of all-new material in celebration of the glorious sporting event that will be wreaking havoc with London’s transport system this summer. Buy it now through the AMT Store, iTunes or Amazon.
We also learn why the men’s Wimbledon trophy is so fruity, how David Attenborough can be blamed for the popularity of snooker, what the chess queen has in common with the Alien queen, what Jack Broughton has in common with Alan Ayckbourn, and what bookies have in common with Abraham Lincoln.
We check in on such record breakers as James Cameron and Lee Redmond, and face the biggest sports question of all: what IS a sport? And do you actually have to get out of your chair to do one?
We must offer big thanks to Sam Pythagoras Pay and Amy Smith for the jingles, which alone are worth the £2.49 RRP. Eg:
NB The Answer Me This! Sports Day is in no way officially affiliated with the London Olympics. They looked at our waist measurements and said there’s no way they could endorse that.
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