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.
With Olly’s baby poised to make his entrance into this world, Answer Me This! Episode 331 is our last episode before our three-month paternity leave, while Olly adjusts to fatherhood and Helen adjusts to going outside occasionally. Savour answers about:
lads’ mags
cereal toys
spotting the stars of tomorrow as they toil at the Disney parks
‘For He’s as dead as a herring a Jolly Good Fellow’
swimming rabbits
cafes vs brasseries vs bistros
Jane Eyre vs Thelma and Louise
The Lord of the Rings road trips
Jo Guest Tutti Frutti in 3D
ceramic babies
blue rinses
Bulgarian food
Skyrim
Kevin Costner
and
Titcoin.
A question from AMT Love went astray and ended up as today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iThings, Android and Windows devices). It’s from long-time AMT listener Ace: if you’re young, poor and in Oxford, and you want to go on a Tinder date but you don’t want it to be “Drink?” or “Coffee?”, what do you do instead? Why, you date AMT-style of course! Meet you by the singing cockroaches.
During our three months off, why not amuse yourself by starting a podcast/online store/website using today’s sponsor Squarespace.com? You can have 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year, plus a free domain thrown in, if you invoke the code ANSWER at checkout.
We will return in May, but keep in touch in the meantime at twitter.com/helenandolly and facebook.com/answermethis – which is where we will let you know the due date of AMT332 a couple of weeks ahead of time, AND where we will also post news of Baby Mann once he appears (and has been through hair and makeup, had a spray tan, and undergone intensive media training).
All together now: “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good herring…WHICH NOBODY CAN DENY.”
Helen & Olly
••• AMT331 Child-Friendly Rating: 42%
Some swears, but pretty clean until the last ten minutes, when there’s a question about lads’ mags and top shelf publications. YOU KNOW THE ONES WE MEAN. The ones your kids are too short to reach/don’t need to reach because they can view all the proclivities of humanity on your phone that they swiped from you. •••
Victoria Beckham’s jumpsuit, from listener Bee’s collection
Hi listeners,
Above is a sacred relic from the 90s: Victoria Beckham’s jumpsuit, from the post-Geri era of the Spice Girls. It’s also a sacred relic of the 90s, in that it’s from Answer Me This! Episode 290, which is here:
Plus: Olly teaches a child empathy, through Robbie Williams; Helen comes up with a strong concept for the Spice Girls’ fourth album; and Martin the Sound Man reckons going up Anish Kapoor’s Olympic Meccano-crash would be cheap at a third of the price. What IS a bargain is Squarespace.com, who are offering you 10% off for a whole year if you use the code Answer when plumping for their website-building and -hosting services. And the great thing about the 90% you pay is that some of it ends up supporting independent podcasts like this one! Hurrah all round.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, Olly voices his disappointment over the ubiquity of Emeli Sandé. Our app is almost as readily available for your iDevices, Android or Windows gadgets.
••• AMT290 Child-Friendly Rating: 95%. Pretty clean – possibly even entirely free of swears – although there is a fleeting reference to a Wenlock and Mandeville sex toy towards the end. •••
You wouldn’t throw an original Hockney into a swimming pool, but is body art more washable? Gemma asks:
How long do I have to wait after getting a tattoo to go swimming?
We’re not experts on tattoo preservation, but surely some of you readers have practical experience which can answer this question. Do so in the comments. The future blurriness of Gemma’s ink is down to you.
Presumably the reason why so many people have dolphin tatts is because they’re water-compatible. Right?
This week, we learn a few very important lessons about sheep: not to underestimate them intellectually and emotionally; what they have in common with Margaret Thatcher; and what they also have in common with Helen’s mum. Discover these things right now in Answer Me This! Episode 261:
In which we also learn about:
emogothpunk style Casper the Suicidal Ghost
small-talk with accountants
the losers’ cafe in The Apprentice
BHS Dr Martens
free sunglasses
pony-drawn rollers
the Cabinet vs. the Divine Right of Kings
iced coffee vs. cold coffee Olly’s face vs. Richard Gere’s face
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club
hair-blindness
and
advice from Paul Ross.
Plus: Olly had to go cold turkey on the brown, by which we mean Mr Brown drinks, not heroin; Helen sounds and looks and smells like an old fart; and Martin the Sound Man’s emotional needs are not going to be met by sheep. Let’s not even contemplate whether they can meet his sexual needs, please. But you can meet Martin’s needs by going to his website or YouTube to watch his spectacular new music video (/visual evidence of his nervous breakdown).
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) Helen expresses her ever-unrealised desire for unusual-coloured hair. She may have wimped out of having an experimental phase in her teens, but when she’s a geriatric she WILL go full-bore Marge Simpson. Promise.
Promise us to send us your QUESTIONS for our next series: leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We’ll be back with AMT262 on 11th July, so please join us then; in the meantime, check back here for our imminent album, the Answer Me This! Holiday, our all-new follow-up to our Top 20 (no really!) albums Jubilee and Sports Day, available for your delectation at answermethispodcast.com/albums.
Byeeee!
Helen & Olly
AMT261 Child-Friendly Rating: 90%.
References to hiding pornographic magazines; very mild profanity.
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.
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.
OK listeners, lots of admin to get through this morning, so pay attention:
1. We have a new album out! Click here to learn more about/buy The Answer Me This! Sports Day. Clue: it’s all about the Olympics sport.
2. We’re interviewed on the latest episode of the marvellous podcast Getting Better Acquainted, which you can hear here.
3. We’re also on Answer Me This! Episode 222, as you might expect.
4. If we sound a bit maniacal to you in the episode, it’s because of the sugar rushes provided by the AMTfans at Roly’s Fudge. Sooooo many sweeties… We’ll have a little lie-down while you listen:
Today we consider:
the definitive version of ‘Hallelujah‘ Brighton Pavilion
campfire guitar war
the Cornwall vs. Devon clotted cream war
universally compulsory therapy
Disneyland Battersea Giraffe
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
Dr Richard Russell’s seawater cure
energy drinks
Emily Woof A Handful of Dust
afternoon tea strategy Muse phoning it in
and
an extremely traumatising image of calamari.
Plus: Olly almost allowed Lynda La Plante to steer his destiny; Helen shares her psyche with the ship from Dark Star; and we discover Martin the Sound Man find crumbs deeply upsetting. He’s really too delicate for this cruel world.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App takes the episode’s prevailing theme of afternoon tea and heads straight for the cucumber sandwiches. Fire up the iDevices or Android to hear, and if you try the Cucumber Supercrunch Megasandwich, let us know if it is pleasant.
It is definitely pleasant to send us QUESTIONS; please do so by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype 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.
Well, listeners, this is it. The last episode for a month – Answer Me This! Episode 191:
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)
In our last yaps before shutting up for a month, we speak of:
Gossip Girl‘s out-of-character choice of search engine
Tate & Lyle
Envirofone
Jon Snow’s laptop
cinder toffee Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Samson speed-dating
iPhones vs. traditional toilet reading
bio vs. non-bio
blue plastic champagne flutes vs. classiness
Rihanna’s Navy vs. Bruno Mars’s Hooligans vs. K£sha’s Animals
female magnets
and
paediatric brine.
Plus: Olly reveals the secret to his Oxford success – York Notes; Helen has worrying plans to become a major soak over the break; and Martin the Sound Man will be jetting off to space on the back of the Philips Man Iron. Brrrrm brrm!
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App is about newsreader Kay Burley’s eggs, which are available exclusively to denizens of the Sky News make-up room – unlike the AMT app, which is available to any old chump with an iPhone, iPad or Android device.
Though we are off-air for a month, we’ll still be updating this site, and more importantly collecting QUESTIONS for the new series. So send them along, by leaving voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and sending emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We hope you have a smashing month, and we’ll you on October 13th, bright and early!
This week, we learn how to arm yourself in the event of the outbreak of cyber-warfare. Start digging a hole in your virtual back garden for your Javascript Anderson shelter; lay down supplies of canned goods, water, batteries, masking tape and binbags (because even in an emergency you need to be able to cobble together a rudimentary fancy-dress costume), and load up your rifle with Answer Me This! Episode 168:
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)
Conversational shrapnel includes:
Steamboat Willie True Grit
Alan Turing
Nicole Kidman News in Briefs
topless Kelvin MacKenzie
Sharon Stone’s dress-down Oscar-day
puntits
Victorinox
the Colosseum vs the O2 Arena
perfectly controllable semis
John Virgo
Marchesa
and
swim-gimps.
Plus: Olly’s not going to fall for your elaborate apple-tasting double-bluff, wiseguy; Helen will take out your unwanted small pets, no questions asked; and Martin the Sound Man swims like a middle-aged woman. This is almost as good a show as the Geekpop show he’s playing on 10th March, for which you can and should get tickets via geekpop.co.uk. There’ll be a taster of his new album, Songs from the Scientific Cabaret, at the end of the show next week, so let that be the bright point of light at the end of the tunnel that is the next seven days.
You can also enliven the next seven days by sending us QUESTIONS, which you can then pose to us in a voicemail to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And if you still find yourself with time to spare, you could squander a few more seconds on this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android), which contains further musing upon what the whole deal is with Snow White. What’s with them apples? Eh?
Today, 6th January, is of course Epiphany, the day on which the Three Wise Men called round to see the baby Jesus. It is also the day that the Three Unwise Men’n’Women unleashed Answer Me This! Episode 161, which is only slightly less suitable a baby-gift than a jarful of myrrh.
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)
In this first podcast of the new year, we contemplate:
soup-straws
American military acronyms In Bruges
Waterfit
water-avoiding ‘Gay Bar’ by Electric Six
muscular veiny crotches
Winnie-the-Pooh
Paul Merton
the Pet Shop Boys vs. Half-Life 2
children’s stories vs. beat poets
the best Christmas films ever – see what Team AMT opted for here
the least bad bits of Love Actually (that was quick)
and
Slash’s unusual tureen.
Plus: Olly vows to kick off his New Year’s fitness drive – motivated partly by vanity and health, but more by recouping wasted gym money; Helen anticipates the timely death of the Zaltzman family dog; and virus-laden Martin the Sound Man grits his teeth and tries to survive the episode without exploding with a big gush of gutwater. Cheer up the poor man by listening to some of his music here.
Today’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone and Android, app-fans) is all about Frank Bruno’s penis. Clue: it’s a whopper.
Can you believe we have now entered the FIFTH year of Answer Me This!? It would have been zero years had it not been for your QUESTIONS, so please keep supplying them: leave voicemails on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
RT @HelenAndOlly: 🎵I gotta question
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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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