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AMT414: we’re under your mouse mat

January 29, 2026

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26 years late, questioneers want to know why there weren’t more songs about Y2K. We ancient historians consider that, as well as:

wax seals
paper p/reviews
Past Times
civil servant by day vs comedian by night
Silverchair vs fascism
listening to podcasts in the bath
Ian Dury’s last vocal recording
Mary Roberts Rinehard inspiring Batman
S.S. Van Dine’s 20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories
dodging dreary lunch companions
peppercup
and
Martin meeting his alt.

Also: huge thanks to Caroline Crampton of Shedunnit podcast for illuminating us about “The butler did it” and the servant problem. Check out the show at shedunnitshow.com!

AMT415 will be out 26 February 2026, so send your questions in writing or voice note to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or call 0208 123 5877 like the old days. Remember to include the formula “Helen and/or Olly, answer me this”, and let us know a name (pseudonyms are fine) and pronouns to use for you.

Mid-February, there will also be an episode of our new feature Answer Us Back, where you answer us back about questions from our recent and distant back catalogue.

Become a patron at patreon.com/answermethis and you not only help the continuing existence of AMT, you also receive an ad-free version of the episode, plus bonus material each month, and our live video series Petty Problems. If you sign up at one of the higher tiers, you get access to an RSS feed with ALL the AMT stuff EVER, including our entire back catalogue, our six themed albums, the retro AMTs, and every Bit of Crapp from the AMT App. It’s a lot!

Check out our other work:

Olly lists his work at ollymann.com, where you’ll find his several podcasts including his daily history show Today in History with the Retrospectors and his monthly magazine show The Modern Mann.

Helen makes the entertainment podcast about language, The Allusionist, and with Jenny Owen Youngs recapped all of Veronica Mars (including the titular character’s many crimes) in Veronica Mars Investigations.

Martin is a singer and composer; check out his songs via palebirdmusic.com or his Bandcamp. His very mainstream totally normal podcast is Neutrino Watch. And keep up with his pivot to video at instagram.com/MartinAustwick.

This episode is sponsored by Squarespace, the all in one platform for creating and running your online empire. Go to squarespace.com/answer, have a play around during the two-week free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, get a 10% discount on your first purchase of a website or domain with the code ANSWER.

Tags:accidental swearing, Agatha Christie, alter egos, awkward, Backstreet Boys, Batman, BBC, books, Busted, civil servants, cliches, Cliff Richard, comedians, correspondence, distraction, double life, Elton John, Eras Tour, fart noises, fiction, Frank Sidebottom, Harry Hill, Hercule Poirot, history, Ian Dury, initials, Jim Bob, letters, literature, mail, Mary Roberts Rinehart, media, Millennium, Millennium Bug, murder mysteries, music, names, newspapers, nicknames, novels, paper reviews, peppers, PG Wodehouse, Poirot, pop, press, radio, Robbie Williams, seals, Silverchair, social cues, socialising, songs, stagewear, Taylor Swift, television, The White Lotus, Tricky, tropes, TV, vegetables, wax, wax seals, whoopee cushion, Will Smith, Willennium, Y2K, Year 3000
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EPISODE 347: half an eyebrow

February 2, 2017

Today we mourn. We mourn questioneer Calum’s half-eyebrow, taken from him too soon. Our deepest sympathies, Calum.

Also in Answer Me This! Episode 347, we consider:

getting lucky at potlucks
mugshots
Letchworth Garden City
bread crusts
Ebenezer Howard
Concretopia
the Spirella Building
the ~~Cheap Cottages Exhibition~~ Ideal Home Show
glittery puddings
dead dogs
draining cats
and
vampire bats.

Plus, can we get your input on:
i. Michael Parkinson’s height? Is he 5’10” or over 7′ tall?
ii. Alumni of Olly’s school who are more famous than Olly (and thus also more famous than George Lamb and Sonia Friedman)?
iii. Chocolate fondants looking like parted legs, all sexy-like?

In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – there’s a warning about which films to go to see at the cinema if you want to sit next to Olly frigging himself raw. Or which ones to avoid if you don’t.

Do NOT avoid our album AMT Love, in which we talk for an hour about sex and relationships (with some phenomenal musical work by Martin, exclusive to this). It’s available from the AMT store – you can also get it from iTunes and Amazon, if you prefer – along with our other albums and our classic episodes.

BTW, if mention of ‘November Rain’ made you want to hear more, we talk about it in AMT131, so try that one. And don’t forget to subscribe to AMT if you don’t already to receive a monthly Retro AMT episode in your feed!

Keep your ears busy with our other audio projects: Olly has a new one, The Week Unwrapped; Helen’s Allusionist is about to unleash new episodes about romance; and Martin’s Song By Song has reached that Tom Waits song that he had to sue Levi’s over.

Thanks to our friends at Squarespace.com for sponsoring this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year if you use the discount code ‘answer‘.

Send us your QUESTIONS (not your fart noises): call the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, and email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Be our interfriend at twitter.com/helenandolly and facebook.com/answermethis.

We’ll be back with AMT348 on 2 March 2017, and with a Retro AMT on 16 February.

Helen & Olly

••• AMT347 Child-Friendly Rating: 30%. A bit vulgar. •••