Last week we spoke of Pulse and Cocktails, that salubrious-looking Adult Shop at the side of the A1. No doubt it has stimulated many people in its time, and now it has stimulated Mark from St Neots to write in with a little bit of backstory:
It was originally built as one of the first generation McDonald’s with a larger twin site opposite. And there were plans for a bridge across the road so you could visit either site. Along with many other food sites on the A1, they were closed down as the market changed, and if you drive up and down the A1 today you will still see many empty restaurants (there are better ways to spend your time however).
McDonald’s were looking for a new occupier for the property, but whilst the property was set up as a restaurant and still had some equipment in it they wouldn’t allow any new occupier to sell chips or burgers, the staples of a motorway services, so there was little interest.
Then the property got broken into, the copper wiring stolen and the insides trashed. Walking through a pitch black former McDonald’s with a slightly stale smell of fried cooking and then your torch picks up a picture of Ronald McDonald on the wall makes you feel like you’re in a scene from Stephen King’s IT, I can tell you.
So Pulse and Cocktails actually used to be even LESS salubrious than it is now. Imagine!
Nonetheless, the site does figure in some of your misty water-coloured memories. Bryn writes:
I have to say it was a bit of a shock to hear you talk about Boothby Pagnell in your last show, as my family and I used to live there. What’s more, the A1 adult store you referenced in your show used to be a McDonald’s.
As it was just down the road, therefore easier to get to than Grantham, this was the McDonald’s our dad used to drive us to on special occasions (i.e. when mum was away and we needed tea). So you can imagine our the dismay on my and my brother’s faces when it was transformed into something rather different.
This however was nothing compared to the sheer terror and panic on my dad’s face when forced to explain to my inquisitive younger brother what had become of our local McDonald’s.
And THAT was the exact moment your brother’s childhood ended.
Happy Special Guest Episode day, listeners! For today, in Answer Me This! Episode 252, we are delighted to be joined by Isy Suttie:
With Isy we discuss:
allowable celebrity shags
A Level revision tips (caution: may not work)
buying condoms
slapping your thighs with mirth
emu pasta
Twitter by osmosis
clean-up dogs
neighbourly mysteries
the curious habits of Seann Walsh Dans le Noir
cheese vs. butter
online bingo vs. offline bingo
otters vs. bears vs. gummy bears
the ‘Roseanne Barr type’ beetle drives
and
Roald Dahl’s Magic Finger.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we learn more about the pitfalls of fantasy crushes – especially when they’re on Isy – then address a question from James about why girls wear school ties when adult women rarely wear ties (Diane Keaton and Janelle Monae notwithstanding).
If this episode makes you wish for more Isy, her new series Love Letters is on Radio 4 Extra and will be on Radio 4 at the end of April; the latest and last series of Shameless is airing on Channel 4; her recent Sky Living musical comedy Miss Wright is still available on your Skyboxes; and Peep Show is always worth a rewatch.
It’s always worth sending us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Furnished with those, we shall return next Thursday with AMT253.
Hey, you! Yes, you – the man with the insecurity about your penis size! How would you like a new app that tells you how yours is the smallest wang in the world, and your ideal condom size is ‘Mouse Tail’? Well, colour yourself lucky – because today we tell you how to slim down your self-esteem by up to 100% in Answer Me This! Episode 244:
We also speak of:
carb crimes in Costco
gherkins
gurkhas
Bieber vs. Prince
Simon vs. Garfunkel
homemade peanut butter
dating disappointments
life disappointments
judgy mums
gushers
immigration officials
the green ink brigade
and
two thousand and late.
Plus: Olly wants to reclaim the red pen from censorious teachers and proofreaders; Helen makes good bread with her rough unfeminine hands; and Martin the Sound Man is all about the bell curve, laydeez.
Furthermore, if you’ve ever longed to hear Olly and Martin percussing their way through ‘The Boxer’ and ‘Born To Run’, you’re quids in! That is, you’re willing to expend two quids to get the AMTapp and thus this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android).
Finally! Please send us your QUESTIONS: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
PS For revision purposes, here’s that Bieber-wets-himself video for ‘Beauty and the Beat’:
Brace yourselves, listeners: in Answer Me This! Episode 240, those two titans of the Northern Hemisphere, Russia and Canada, face off for the bout you’ve all been waiting for. KABOOM!!!!
Sort of.
This week we speak of:
Andy Warhol’s wig
podcatchers
Russell Brand’s dad
penis pasta
Guinness World Record adjudicators
mean mean mother-in-law
pleasing your partner’s parents
the death of Borders
holidays with Paul Daniels
and
poutine vs. Putin.
Plus: you may be surprised to hear that Olly is a one-doughnut Mann; Helen’s ex-boyfriend moved the earth for her, literally; and Martin the Sound Man unleashes his inner Sarah Palin. Watch out, world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is a question from Sam about Gems TV, that 24/7 diamond of entertainment.
Next week is the first half of the Best of Answer Me This! 2012, but for your chance to appear in the Best of Answer Me This! 2013, send us QUESTIONS for the new year. Email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
Also please do try out our other weekly podcasting exploit The Joy of Tech from BBC 5 Live, in which we talk about the week’s internet events alongside experts in tech, cars, gaming and other highlights of modern existence.
YES. There are still a few days left till the polls, so America, put all your support behind one AMTfan’s campaign to get Helen’s mum to be your president.
Also, everybody everywhere, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 235:
Plus: Olly looks into his political crystal ball and sees Condi there; Helen broke a letter chain as a child, so little wonder she is a lonely layabout now; and Martin the Sound Man needs to delete his search history before we all find out why he knows such a lot about horse fluffers.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we examine how the scandal raging around Jimmy Savile could have devastating effects…upon the cement industry.
If you’d like to see us hold forth about podcasting in front of a very yellow Powerpoint presentation, click here to view the video of our talk at Next Radio. And/or if you would like us to return next week with more AMT, send us QUESTIONS: email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
Guys. Why are you bothering with the London Olympics, when you need to preserve your energy for the year’s most important contest? That’s right – the British Firework Championships are only days away! And at least one of Team AMT should be looking to start a new career there, as we discover in Answer Me This! Episode 226. Prepare to detonate:
Also going off in the episode:
Mass Market Muesli
clutch bags for the Third World
immersive theatre
psychic jurors
hipster aprons
teacher sadism by proxy
Routemaster buses
the Penguin Shwopping vs. consumerism
Captain Hook vs. Gordon Ramsay us vs. Bob Dylan
and
‘London’s Best Scare Experience 2008-2011’.
Plus: Olly has a damp stinky manbag; Helen errs by bringing actual fruit to the Apple store; and Martin the Sound Man recommends not trying to multitask during sexual activity if you’re a novice.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Kenny, about whether he was wrong to fuck over his work buddy in order to score a promotion. Is it a fair case of survival of the fittest, or survival of the fuckiest? Find out on iDevices and Android.
You can also find out a whole lot if you listen to the AMT Sports Day. Most of that lot will be about sport, but since the Olympics is currently in full swing, you’d only be having to listen to sports commentators rabbiting on anyway whenever you turn on the television. Us or them, US OR THEM???
It only remains for us to ask you to ask us something: send your QUESTIONS as voicemails to the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
This week, we hint at the reason behind one of the most pressing mysteries of the 1990s. Not what happened to Princess Di, nor what became of Richey Edwards, but why Mick Hucknall decided to hack off his dreadlocks. Discover all in Answer Me This! Episode 224:
We also consider:
stage kissing
business kissing
The WI in WWI Great British cheeses
Whoopi Goldberg The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo vs. Men Who Hate Women
fabric conditioner vs. towels
going cold turkey on caffeine
Adelaide Hoodless
feta
and
dead landladies.
Plus: Olly wishes to replace his happy childhood with a lot of bonking; Helen launches her campaign for more Wigmore cheese to be made (WigMORE! WigMORE!); and think carefully before accepting Martin the Sound Man’s handshake, because you may be getting a whole lot more physical contact than you bargained for.
We’d love to hear more from you, in the form of QUESTIONS sent as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Happy wedding anniversary, Henry VIII! Verily on this day in 1543, he married Catherine Parr, and as they say, sixth time’s the charm. According to the Big Book of Weddings, the traditional gift for the 469th anniversary is ‘MP3’, so here’s Answer Me This! Episode 223 for you, you loved-up kids:
Today we contemplate:
speciation
bloody Mary
pub lighting Def Leppard videos vs. Duran Duran videos
Bieber vs. dopamine
pride vs. prizes
curry house atmosphere
crisp etiquette (US translation: potato chip etiquette)
farm-themed restaurants
sepulchral Hollister
and
that bitch Tinkerbell.
Plus: Olly is mistaken for someone even lower on the celebrity ladder than he is; Helen breaks the bad news that Cain and Abel were motherjeffers; and Martin the Sound Man has something in common with the Queen, other than his fondness for shiny jewels and waving.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available on iDevices and Android) demonstrates how Martin paid a woman to write his name on her body. For ‘charity fundraising’, allegedly. Good ruse!
Another good ruse is to send us your QUESTIONS by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). More questions, more podcasts, see?
And don’t forget to click here to check out our latest album, the Answer Me This! Sports Day – the best 59 minutes and 33 seconds of all-new sporty-talk we have ever produced.
We’re picking up good vibrations (good, good, good, good vibrations, oooh bop bop, good vibrations) in Answer Me This! Episode 219, thanks to one of our listeners sending us a Groupon offer for Power Plate sessions.
This week we consider:
gratuitous nudity
sexy playing cards
bomb shelters Sliding Doors, alternative version
abetting child criminals
Joseph ‘Giuseppe’ Pinetti
Apple Paltrow Martin
subtitles Slendertone vs. exercise for cosmonauts
and
Ceefax.
Plus: Olly believes china shops should tolerate, nay welcome, his unapologetic vandalism; fun-hating Helen eschews murder mystery parties, entertainment at weddings, and jiggling in public; and Martin the Sound Man is still imploring you to enter his competition to be the Science Songwriter of the Future, which sounds a bit like being the artist-in-residence on the International Space Station, but is in fact much more straightforward and does not require you to urinate into a funnel. Although, the prize includes a trip to the Green Man festival, so a funnel might prove more hygienic than a Portaloo.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) recounts some incredible facts about jubilees, such as how they used to lead to famine, and how the Queen was probably wasted on hers. This seems a suitable point to mention that the Answer Me This! Jubilee is at last available to buy on Amazon. You may think it a bit late for Jubilee Fever now, but we’ve got a £50 bet on the Queen reaching her Platinum Jubilee, so consider the album 15 years ahead of its time rather than two weeks behind.
If you want more AMT next week, send us a QUESTION: emails should be sent to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and voicemails left on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
There are a lot of really weird stories in the news at the moment – cannibals, dismembered bodies, Octomom doing a porno – but fortunately this week, AMT218 is a largely horror-free zone:
Today we talk of:
marriage licences
the Pitcher and Piano
expensive clothes
actors’ motivation Fifty Shades of Grey vs. The White Hotel vs. Wuthering Heights
Mario vs. Lazarus
moist Jo Whiley
Tinky Winky, live in Luxembourg
outlet stores
death by giant snail
and
#.
Plus: Olly doesn’t want to get married in Vegas; Helen doesn’t want to have to watch embarrassing bodies on Embarrassing Bodies; but Martin the Sound Man DOES want you to enter his science songwriting competition, so click here to find out how to enter before you dash off to your zither-room to compose.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) involves Claudia from Melbourne asking whether you can text the police rather than calling them. With all the cuts to public services, unfortunately the police have had to lay off their full-time team of interpreters waiting to figure out what you mean by HLP pls sum1 tryn2 mrdr me non-LOL srsly >:-O
If you still have proper command over vowels, send us a QUESTION for next week: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and/or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Also, if you’re especially interested in what goes on around here, you can hear us being interviewed on the latest episode of Podcast Squared. We hope that the demystification of our Process doesn’t spoil AMT for you. If not, we’ll see you back here next Thursday.
Since last we met, both Silvio Berlusconi and Justin Bieber’s not-babymomma have forsaken their respective meal tickets. They’ve got lots in common – dishonesty; revolting-sounding sexual encounters with minors – so maybe, now they’ve got all this free time on their hands, they should team up and make a podcast! There’s plenty room for another mixed-gender odd couple podcasting duo other than us.
But until they take the plunge, here’s Answer Me This! Episode 197 to keep you amused, although it is entirely lacking in bunga bunga and Bieber-boffing:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
On today’s slate are topics including:
garra rufa fish
Malcolm McLaren
the Boomtown Rats
hungover squash vs. hungover luge
Martin Scorcese vs. Caravaggio Jim Davis vs. Michelangelo
Sydney vs. Melbourne
New York City vs. Welwyn Garden City
the American Cinema Editors’ Union
chef’s chequered trousers
the Thames beach
Philip Green
existential angst in the H&M fitting rooms
and The Naughtiest Girl in the School.
Plus: Olly taps into the goldmine that is writing Garfield strips; Helen recalls the time when, for one night only, she was Oliver Reed; and Martin the Sound Man refutes the notion that the Sex Pistols were little more than four vomit-spattered Gareth Gateses.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App concerns the Scarlet Pimpernel of fast food: that damned elusive McDonald’s McRib. They seek it here, they seek it there, but you may seek it on iDevices or Android.
Meanwhile, we seek your QUESTIONS: please deposit your inquisitive voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) and email queries to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We love you, you big diverse bunch. We love the fact that, in the space of Answer Me This! Episode 186, we go from a wannabe Olympian to a sexual Olympian (with a gold medal in Making Shit Up). With a meat-loving Aussie, an excitable pair in Harrods, and a crispy Dave from Smethwick in between:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p at the Answer Me This! Store, through a secure server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Plus: Olly admits to having watched Eurosport without his eyes throwing up, but only because it reminded him of Jake Gyllenhaal films; young Helen was dazzled by Wingdings; and Martin the Sound Man is a pioneer of the Banjo Slap Bass Afrobeat genre – if you want to know what the hell that sounds like, click here to listen to the latest episode of his musical podcast. This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone and iPad, or Android) is a question from 16-year-old Joe from London. Despite his tender age, he has a very adult romantic problem: he can’t remember his new girlfriend’s birthday, but he knows it’s approaching fast, along with a ton of trouble if he forgets it. Pray for him.
We’re fully aware that the rest of you have problems of your own, so please send them to us and we’ll try to make light entertainment out of your pain. Leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis), or send emails answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
vs. exercise for cosmonauts
vs. 
vs. 
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Answer Me This! Podcast 