Glad to tell you that following on from last episode’s toaster problem, another listener writes that they have actually MET some of the toasters, proving that all of you AMT listeners are connected. And have been everywhere and seen everything. Answer Me This! Episode 385 also contains:
Gloria Hunniford
Tetris lamps
the price of lava lamps these days
Shirley Temple’s teeth
stars on flags feat. Roman Mars
Pukka Pies vs Pukka Pads vs Pukka Teas
the etymology of ‘doolally’ and ‘pundit’
oil on raisins
bumhole bleaching
aristocratic cold toast
and
rickrolling as measurement of time.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows – is an extra question from Lindon from Huddersfield about what you’re supposed to do with that cracker in the box that looks like a loaf of bread. Well, what cheese you’re supposed to pair with it. If you want to wear it as a hat or skip it like a stone, that’s up to you. Don’t let the serving suggestion illustrations push you around!
Hear our other work!
• Helen makes The Allusionist, an entertainment show about language, and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning. Season two just begun.
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Week Unwrapped, The Media Podcast and The Modern Mann.
• Martin makes music which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of every song by Tom Waits Tom Waits in Song By Song.
This episode is sponsored by:
• The Great Courses Plus, the streaming library of courses on topics from yoga to mystery fiction to formal logic to dog training. AMT listeners get a free month at thegreatcoursesplus.com/answer.
• Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Buy AMT episodes 1-200, our five special albums, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
Welcome! We hope you’re doing OK. We’re keeping AMT a pandemic-free pod, so if you’re looking for content to take your mind off things for a bit, Answer Me This! Episode 384 can provide, with topics such as:
shitty spinach
Tamworth (again)
speaking slower
ghostwriters
badger repellent
young person repellent
leopard print
lion poo
that old mining town your dad bought
a fortress of toasters
and
getting your head stuck.
Hear more about Macaronis in AMT324, and if you want to try making crumpets using discarded sourdough starter, here’s the recipe Helen and Martin used.
This month there is a double dose of Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows – where we discuss the most famous ghostwriter AND the most expensive toaster.
Hear our other work!
• Helen makes The Allusionist, an entertainment show about language, and Veronica Mars Investigations, recapping every episode of Veronica Mars from the beginning. Season two just begun.
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Week Unwrapped, The Media Podcast and The Modern Mann.
• Martin recently released a bumper new album, which you can hear palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc. You can also join him in contemplating the work of Tom Waits in Song By Song, which has just got to the end of Black Rider.
This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
Buy AMT episodes 1-200, our five special albums, and our Best Of compilations from 2007-2015 at answermethisstore.com.
Listeners, thank you so much for contributing your attention, questions and eartime to us this year. What a year it has been! Relisten to the highlights – and lowlights, including such annual delights as the Parade of Melancholy Calls and the blooper reel – in The Best of Answer Me This! 2014:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just £1.99 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)
So many precious moments… Create more of them in 2015 by sending us your QUESTIONS: leave a message on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
By the way, if you have the AMT app on your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets, you have access to all the previous AMT Best Ofs. For those of you who are app-less, you can obtain these joyous compilations from answermethisstore.com/best. Also at the AMT store, iTunes and Amazon, you can buy our albums and old episodes – the perfect festive gift for the AMT fan, ie you, and the perfect gift for us, ie money to continue making the show next year.
Another Christmas gift we would love is for you to tell a friend about the show! There are still a few billion people in the world who are yet to hear it, so do your bit to remedy this sad situation.
It gives us such a glow to learn that our advice has changed a listener’s life. Given our usual schtick, this happens extremely rarely. But thanks to us, AMT292‘s lovable toast-moron Tyler from Manchester has triumphed over (self-inflicted) adversity:
Thank you for reading out my letter about my toaster trouble and for correctly identifying that I am a bit of a mooncalf when it comes to toasting bread.
I just wanted to thank you for alerting me to the fact that toasters come in different sizes – I had always blithely assumed that they all had the same standard-sized slots, and had never shopped around for toasters with the room to accommodate a slice of Warburtons, crusts and all.
I have now done so, and am the proud owner of a large red one, with ample bread-browning docking areas. In honour of you guys, I have christened it Olly. I hope you don’t feel left out, Helen, but this toaster is definitely masculine. Which might make you wonder why I called it Olly. The simple answer is that calling a toaster Martin the Soundman is just a bit too nutty.
Of course, naming a toaster ‘Olly’ is not nutty at all. Keep on keeping on, Tyler.
It’s the news you’ve all been waiting for! OK, some of you have been waiting for. Not like you wait for an exciting parcel to arrive, or for you tea to be ready; more how you might wait for a dental appointment, just to get it out of the way, or you wait for someone to hurry up in the loo because SERIOUSLY WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING IN THERE FOR 40 MINUTES?
Yep, that’s how to feel about feedback about the toaster latching mechanism as considered in AMT292. Sean from Waiheke Island, New Zealand appears to be qualified to explain it:
In a previous life I spent several years traipsing around toaster factories in China, inspecting their wares and production methods, helping them improve their quality and designs, and buying them, quite literally, by the truckload for the eager British public.
In this capacity, I can advise you with some confidence, that the reason a toaster won’t latch when it’s not plugged in is because the mechanism is held in the down position by an electro-magnet. And as the term suggests, electromagnets need the “electro” component in order to work.
Basically, there’s a small electronic timer (a chip on a circuit board) which powers the electromagnet for the period set by the “browning control”. While the electromagnet is powered on, it holds on to a small metal plate attached to the lever and the bread carriage. When the time’s up, the power to the electromagnet is cut, the magnetism stops, and the whole mechanism is released, with springs bringing the bread carriage back to the up position.
In the “olden” days, all of this was done much more mechanically using latches and bimetallic strips, which was a great system, but with varied results. But because it was purely mechanical, you could latch the bread carriage down without the power being switched on. The fancy new electromagnetic timers are cheaper and more reliable, and the reason why the toaster needs power before the mechanism can be latched in the down position.
So there you go… mystery solved.
Thanks, Detective Sean! And for all of you still wondering whyyyyy this is necessary, here’s a cautionary tale to illustrate the vital role the toaster-latch plays in our lives. Josh from New York writes:
When I was in high school, my parents had an older toaster with a latching mechanism that allowed you to push in the bread even when the toaster was not plugged in.
One fateful Fourth of July, I was in the mood for some toast. I put some bread in the toaster, pushed the bread down, and waited five minutes before realizing toast was not being made because the toaster was not plugged in. (Yes, like your original questioner, I was apparently too stupid to make toast.) Without pushing the bread back up, I reached to plug in the toaster. As soon as the plug was in the socket, the toaster short circuited and lit on fire.
I was burned badly enough that I had to go to the emergency room, where I waited two hours so a doctor could tell me he did not believe my story and insisted that I had probably been playing with fireworks for American Independence Day. And on top of that, I NEVER GOT MY TOAST.
In short, if you’re as bad at making toast as I am – and the original question asker apparently is – you should probably just eat your bread cold.
There we go. Those electromagnets are just looking after us, knowing that we’re too stupid to be trusted. I’m going to delegate all my life admin to electromagnets.
PS Star Wars fans, I have found THE toaster for you. HERE. No need to thank me.
PPS If your tastes fall more on the Olly Mann end of the spectrum, I also have the toaster for you.
Listeners, who is the bigger idiot: the questioneer who is too big an idiot to make toast, or the podcasters who talk about that big idiot for nearly ten minutes?
The only way to decide is to listen to Answer Me This! Episode 292:
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we delve deeper into the grotesque and terrifying world of novelty toasters. Join us if you dare on your iDevice, Android or Windows toy.
If you’ve invented your own amazing multi-functional toaster (“Guys! It can heat soup at the same time as cutting the toast into perfectly equal croutons!”) then build yourself a snazzy online store through our benevolent sponsors Squarespace.com, deploying the code Answer for 10% off their services for a whole year.
We shall return on Thursday 3rd July with AMT293 – but we’ll also be appearing on this Radio Academy panel about podcasting on 25th June; and as we mentioned, we’re also available at our side project podcasts The Media Podcast, Sound Women and Brain Train. Furthermore, to accompany all the SPOOOOOORT that seems to be happening at the moment, you can hear us talking as sportily as we are able on the AMT Sports Day album, available now at answermethisstore.com.
That’s it! We’re off to make some toast. We could be gone for some time.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT292 Child-Friendly Rating: 40%. Swears. Cartoon phallic noses. Kicks off with feedback about parental sex, the very notion of which can be traumatic for your progeny. •••
We’re really, really sorry, but after listening to Answer Me This! Episode 215, there’s a strong chance you will have an LMFAO song stuck in your brain, and it will make you want to stick a straw in your ear, suck that brain out of your head then spit it down the drain. But, hopefully the rest of the podcast doesn’t have that effect on you.
Today we mention:
Annie Hall
Joey Barton
the future of pubic hairstyles
Jessie J vs. indifferent radio professionals eating dinner
Will.I.Am vs. Simon and Garfunkel
‘Party Rock Anthem’ vs. ‘The Birdie Song’ Quentin Crisp Olly’s uncle
frigid North Hertfordshire
the scary Dalai Lama
the sexual misuse of animals
and the man with the box on his head.
Plus: Olly theorises upon why footballers sport such ridiculous barnets; Helen does not like her toast done on one side; and sadly we don’t have video footage of Martin the Sound Man’s first ever viewing of ‘Sexy and I Know It‘, but if we did, it would be right up there in the video commentary canon alongside this.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a two-course feast of questions: firstly one from Hannah about currywurst, then for pudding a question from Sammy in Falkirk about pineapple. We hope this combination does not give your ears indigestion.
If you want more ear-food next week, please send us a QUESTION: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Happy Advent, Team AMT! Let’s open the first door of our advent calendar……..oh. It’s a bloody Robin Redbreast, like it is every bloody year. Better luck tomorrow, eh? At least there is the consolation of today’s other new surprise, Answer Me This! Episode 199:
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 warns against handling screwdrivers with your buttocks when attempting DIY tasks; Helen says NO to Grandpa Joe; and Martin the Sound Man plans the toast-based timelapse video that will be going viral shortly after he’s finished his breakfast.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Katherine about how to compile the perfect mixtape with which to woo her new boyfriend. We also learn how not to woo Olly’s mum, and how many Strangelove songs it is permissible to add to one compilation (clue: either one, or none).
We are VERY VERY EXCITED about next week’s episode, because it is of course going to be AMT200! It’s a milestone we never imagined we would reach, but by crikey, here we (almost) are. It will be a rather different affair to AMT100 – the party whistles are still ringing in our ears – but it’ll definitely be a bit special. And like every single one of the episodes preceding it, it will be based upon your QUESTIONS, so send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com and leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
As we’ve also mentioned, another AMT landmark lurks around the corner, namely our 5th BIRTHDAY, so help us celebrate by sending something suitable to the following address:
That’s right – the time has come for us to shout ‘Wooooo!’, whip our tops off, and throw up all over a beach resort in Mexico while Joe Francis captures our shame on video. Answer Me This! is off on its hols for a few weeks, but before we go, here’s Episode 175:
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)
Furthermore! Olly is like a smack-head, but for Percy Pigs; Helen shuns a potential money-making scheme; and Martin the Sound Man provides the key to safe toaster cookery. This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (a worthy addition to your iPhone or Android) is the true question of Lil Wayne: what possessed him to go for this?
We hope you don’t forget us while we’re away; please keep sending us your QUESTIONS for the new series: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Plus, don’t hesitate to sign up for your free and half-price audiobooks at answermethispodcast.com/audible – you get a bargain, we get paid, everyone’s happy!
There will be bits and pieces popping up on this site during the break, but we’ll see you back here bright and early on 26th May for AMT176. Until then, behave yourselves.
Answer Me This! Podcast 