Hi listeners! Are you looking to get rid of any household items, or are you looking for something that Freecycle cannot supply? We ask because it seems in Answer Me This! Episode 299, the show has become the audio equivalent of Loot. It’s been a long time coming.
Plus: Olly has a HUGE…collection of tea towels; Helen doesn’t want to ride in your helicopter, unless it’s too embarrassing to say no; and can anyone explain what Martin the Sound Man meant by ‘Godwin Filter’? We pretended we knew what he was talking about, but really were shrugging inside.
In case you’ve been anxious for the past two months to find out how Helen is faring in her mission to learn to love The Great British Bake Off, you can end that anxiety by listening to today’s Bit of Crap on the App, which is available for iDevices old and new, Android or Windows playthings.
If you’re anxious about how to build a super-nice website, relax! Visit Squarespace.com, have a fiddle with their easy web-building tools, and while you’re at it get 10% off their services for a whole year by using the code Answer.
It can’t have escaped your notice that if today is Episode 299, the next episode is AMT300!!!!111!!!ZOMG!!!!! We wouldn’t have got past one episode without your questions, so please keep sending them in: call the Question Line on 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And do let us know what is the best thing you’ve learned from Answer Me This! over the years (interpret ‘best’ and ‘learned’ as you will) in a comment here or over on facebook.com/answermethis or twitter.com/HelenAndOlly.
We will return on 16th October with AMT300 (aka #AMT300)! Be sure to join us!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT299 Child-Friendly Rating: 64%. Quite a few cusswords but little vulgar content until the very end, when Olly shoots his load. •••
Got any great tips for gaming a hotel breakfast buffet? Do share in the comments; but first, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 297 to learn from the master (ie Olly Mann):
In today’s buffet of audio delights, we’re serving:
Sea Monkey refills
second hand wedding dresses
green peppers vs red peppers
Bob Dylan vs grapefruit juice Steve Wright in the Afternoon vs heroin Harold Von Braunhut
the Pizza Hut salad bar
Oxford divorces
cryptobiosis
spying on your children
and
gobbing in the pot.
Plus: if you see Olly roving towards you armed with a Tupperware tub, he’s either going to take advantage of your buffet or imprison you with fatal consequence; Helen will be survived by a sackful of raw gingerbread; and Martin the Sound Man is a masochist for grapefruit juice.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App, we tackle another Great British Bake Off question from Katherine from Sheffield. To find out how we go from that to the Sword of Gondor in just four short minutes, fire up the app on your iDevices, Android or Windows playthings. As a happy by-product of buying the app, you’re funding the show – likewise if you splash out on any of our albums or vintage episodes at answermethisstore.com. So you know that along with your purchase you’ll receive a free dose of our eternal gratitude.
And because we’re simply brimful of gratitude today, let’s throw a bucketful over Squarespace.com, for sponsoring this episode, for allowing people to build and host websites easily and beautifully, and for offering you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer.
By the way, if you’re keen to start your own podcast, book a ticket for this Guardian Masterclass and on 20th September, Helen and a host of other podcasting mavens will teach you all you need to know, and then some.
We will return with AMT298 on 18th September, and we hope you do too. Cheerio!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT297 Child-Friendly Rating: 88%. Light on profane language. Unfortunate TMI about Olly and Martin’s bodily fluids. Question from a parent running surveillance ops on their teenager, which may instill trust issues in your own offspring. •••
10 Downing Streetview
Macunian capers
bowling shoes
streaming Number 1 singles
band t-shirts band coffins
Marlon Brando Bastille
The Grateful Dead
port
pole vault
penile sunburn
and
loom bands.
Plus: Olly’s recipe for romance involves half a bottle of ketchup; Helen wasted the opportunity to do a funny joke for the Google Streetview car; and Martin the Sound Man does a spot on impression of Jameela Jamil. No wonder the passport inspectors barely recognise him.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android or Windows gadgetry), we consider such novelties as revolving restaurants and hotels that make your late-night toilet trip into a terrifying mission.
It’s not a terrifying mission to build a website thanks to this week’s episode sponsors Squarespace.com, because you can use their easy drag-and-drop templates to spruce up your online empire. And when you do, enter the code Answer for 10% off their services for a whole year.
If you feel like soundtracking your holiday with the AMT Holiday album, or the Commonwealth Games with the AMT Sports Day album, both are available now at answermethisstore.com, along with AMT1-170 if you’re really planning to go for it. After that AMTglut, you’ll surely still have an insatiable appetite for more, so please rejoin us on Thursday 7th August for AMT295.
Toodles!
Helen & Olly
••• AMT294 Child-Friendly Rating: 86%. No bawdy content; even a question about nude sunbathing remains innocent. There are two F-bombs, but face it, it’s hardly the first time your child has heard that profane word. •••
Hey! Listeners! What are you doing here? Throw your internet devices to the floor and sprint to Chelmsford in order to be second in the queue (behind this week’s questioneer Melanie) at the new Dunkin’ Donuts opening tomorrow in Chelmsford!
Or if you don’t give many shits about that, sit tight and listen to Answer Me This! Episode 283 instead:
Today we speak of:
coffee beans
giving people ‘the tour’
Terry’s Chocolate Orange
Bruno Mars
sushi vinegar
C3P(ost)O(ffice)
close-up Christopher Lee
Red Hot Chili Peppers
red hot chilli peppers IHOP vs NASA
the Duracell Bunny vs the Energizer Bunny
Barbie vs Bratz
sad second-rate Sindy
and
the politics of Polly Pocket.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (install it on your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets), we wonder why Heston Blumenthal has not yet mass-produced a meat-filled chocolate orange. Not that we want one.
We do want your QUESTIONS, though: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Thanks to Squarespace.com for funding this episode; use the code answer2 to snag a 10% discount off their services for a whole year.
We’ll be back on 27th February; in the meantime, listen to Olly on the now-national LBC and Helen on the international-despite-the-name Spark London podcast and Martin on his intergalactic noise-platform.
Byeeee!
Helen & Olly
AMT283 Child-Friendly Rating: 38%. Some swears. Olly talks about his burning genitalia. Speculation about Mrs Pepperpot’s sex life, but in terms a child hopefully won’t fully understand. Intermission features colourful semen. Reference to a Prince Albert that you may have trouble explaining to your youngling.
What would YOU like to be buried in, listeners? A solid gold sarcophagus? A Zorb ball? A burlap sack? Contemplate this issue whilst listening to Answer Me This! Episode 282:
In which we discuss:
coffins vs caskets
coriander* vs carbonara
statues vs sculptures**
Leonardo DiCaprio vs Norman Lamont
sweaty sportswear
Americano coffee
Lincoln Logs
film soundtracks
sexy parrots
jamoke Jesse Honey vs flags of the world
the price of Lego Ron Mueck
and
an update to the Mastermind chair?
Plus: Olly probably doesn’t want to be served up as a snack at his own wake; Helen will be a posthumous pedant, OF COURSE; and Martin the Sound Man, MPhys, DPhil, doesn’t have a specialist subject on Mastermind, unless you can spin a whole round out of turning One Direction into physics references. Which seems quite possible, actually.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, Olly invents a new game, even better than Lego, even better than Lincoln Logs. What, what, what incredible passtime can this be? Find out on your iDevices, Android and Windows.
We invite you to aid questioneer Brian by naming this tune:
We also invite you to give Squarespace.com a whirl, and if you enjoy that whirl you give it, use the code answer1 to snag a 10% discount for a whole year.
We also also invite you to send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We finally invite you to rejoin us in a fortnight for AMT283,
AMT282 Child-Friendly Rating: 76%. A couple of F-bombs, but other than that, fairly clear of saucy language. Elevated discussions of sculpture, coffins and Mastermind. Less elevated discussions of sweaty sports bras. Remember, parents: light and shade, light and shade.
If you take the plunge and purchase it, you’re not only funding the podcast, you also get one hour of all-new Christmas chat about such festive topics as:
✯ FOOD!✯
Audio is entirely calorie-free, so feast your ears on mince pies, trifle, Brussels sprouts, poisoned turkey, lutefisk, Sandra Lee’s Kwanzaa Cake and what Christmas pudding can teach you about atomic physics (which is better than eating it).
✯ENTERTAINMENT!✯
Christmas titans Eric’n’Ernie face off against Mike Yarwood; Olly fails to be swept away by ‘Fairytale of New York’ (and don’t even get him started on ‘Christmas Wrapping’); and the Grinch stole Dr Seuss’s doctorate.
✯CUSTOMS!✯
How the Norse deities Frigga and Baldur got you to snog people under a bunch of a poisonous parasitic plant; why Rudolph’s got a red nose; how the first ever Christmas card managed to be offensive; why Kwanzaa was invented; and Santa on waterskiis.
✯CRISIS MANAGEMENT! ✯
How to salvage the situation if your partner’s bought you a brilliant present and you got them something shit; what to do if you dread staying at your in-laws’ house; how to uninvite people from your party; and why you’re more likely to end up getting a divorce at Christmas. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
✯DECORATIONS! ✯
Let us deck the halls of your ears with Christmas jumpers, Christmas crackers, double beards, and paper hats, even though everyone looks like a dick in the paper hats. Especially because everyone looks like a dick in the paper hats.
The Answer Me This! Christmas Album is fun for all the family – no, it really is, because we don’t even swear. So Great-Grandma Gladys and Tiny Tim can listen happily together while you sneak off and neck the cooking brandy.
Apologies for our absence last week; normal service resumes today with Answer Me This! Episode 278:
In which we discuss:
pissing with Clint Eastwood Annie Hall
Action Man
Kinder Eggs vs the law
ginger ale vs ginger beer
romcoms vs heartbreak
fake tan
sexy scars
GI Joe’s thumb
the golden era of Richard Curtis
and
Peter Stringfellow’s Marmitey penis.
Today’s episode was sponsored by squarespace.com, who are not only offering you 10% off their wonderful website-building services if you use the code Answer11, but also the chance to win a free YEAR of the service if you send us a link to your Squarespacetacular website – if tweeting said link, deploy the hashtag #AMTsquarespace.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android and Windows) we wonder whether Peter Stringfellow is a nice (string)fellow. If you can confirm or deny, do let us know.
And, more importantly, do send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
If like this week’s questioneer Maz you want to salve your broken heart with unlimited streaming of films and TV, get yourself a month’s free LoveFilm trial at answermethispodcast.com/LoveFilm. You can also block out some white noise by listening to Helen’s other podcast Sound Women, available here.
Our final demand: join us next Thursday, please,
Helen & Olly
AMT278 Child-Friendly Rating: 88%. Celebripissing chat and mention of Peter Stringfellow’s stringfellow, but low swearage and kid-appropriate topics such as Action Man, Kinder Surprise and soft drinks.
Trolls have been in the news a lot lately – the online tormentor kind, but not the toys that used to be so popular. Why is that? Did people finally take a clear-eyed look at those dinky little plastic haemorrhoids and realise that they disobeyed William Morris’s dictum regarding beauty/usefulness? Has there been a worldwide shortage of neon hair?
No. Find out the true reason for trolls’ recent retirement from the limelight in Answer Me This! Episode 269:
In which we also learn about:
wicker furniture
family holidays
murder houses
Ray Winstone vs. June Whitfield
indoor-outdoor space
the Lindbergh baby
the seven generic top-level domains
pianists’ page-turners Thomas Dam
and
Yoshi.
Plus: Olly gets to talk about cats, and their glands, and their necks, and their cheeks, and their adorable bums; if Helen were the subject of a Thomas Harris novel, it’d be The Silence of the Chairs; and Martin the Sound Man is indignant at the idea of a male dinosaur laying an egg through his urethra.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App features a humdinger of a tale: Olly has alphabeticised his spice rack. For reals! Hear all about it, and how Helen has organised her spice rack, on your iDevice or Android.
Also, if you want to have a holiday that is more enjoyable than questioneer Pat from Canada’s, try the AMT Holiday album – no family rows or screaming kids, just one hour of us jabbering on into your ear. What could be more paradisial and relaxing than that?
Don’t be so relaxed that you forget to send us your QUESTIONS, though. Leave voicemails on the Question Line (call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis) and send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
AMT269 Child-Friendly Rating: 78%. Some swearing, one attributable to Olly channelling Ray Winstone. References to feline sexual delight. Detraction of possibly beloved-by-children Troll dolls.
PS Oh, HERE’s where all the Trolls disappeared to. (Aside from all the ones that have been hiding out here.)
We kept the picture of this monster small, but click on it to see the big version. But BEWARE, it may make you spit out your breakfast. But, believe it or not, someone wishes to own this bear SO MUCH that it has caused a rift in a friendship. Hear all about it in Answer Me This! Episode 253:
Today we discuss:
summer jobs
summer camp
rat poison
Australia’s bush capital
Helen vs. Michael Jackson Refreshers vs. Refreshers Crash vs. Crash dying and decaying alone
handmade cheques
funfair capitalism
the sword in Disney’s stone
and
lobster hunting.
Plus: Olly is all about the winning, not the taking part; from humble childhood aspirations, Helen grew up into this (warning: disturbing); and Martin the Sound Man seems upset that Kids These Days prefer Nemo to Pinocchio. Nobody likes a fibber, Martin.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android), Olly describes how the late Margaret Thatcher out-Beadled the late Jeremy Beadle. Maybe he pranked her back in the 80s and this was her comeback. What a pair!
As usual, we invite you to send us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. From those, more AMT will be begotten.
In cities the world over, people are staging sit-ins; so naturally we followed suit, and sat in AMT Towers to produce Answer Me This! Episode 194. Yeah, we’re sticking it to The Man!
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)
This week, we talk of:
naughty nuns Going for Gold The Lion King 3D
fancy dress pitfalls
AFoLs (Adult Fans of Lego)
standard deviation in men’s haircuts
Cornish separatists
Victorian vaginas
Hans Zimmer
high tea
L7
the pink British Empire
impersonating a police officer John Suchet (NOT David Suchet)
the true meaning of ‘fascinating’
ALF the Alien vs. nipple tassels
and Southall’s antique jamrags.
Plus: Olly’s suspicions are proven correct that the perennially awful Rosemary Daniels did not get into Neighbours on merit; Helen’s not going to allow someone else to have the pleasure of waving sharp blades close to her head, thankyou very much; and Martin the Sound Man fleetingly refers to ‘The Bill Callahan Effect’. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of this phenomenon: it is familiar to precisely one person, and that person is Martin. Well done, Martin, for tapping into the popular consciousness so very effectively.
On this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices) you can find out what costume you need to be sexy, smart AND snug on Halloween. Clue: it involves tweed and elbow patches. Ring-a-ding-ding!
Like the greedy greedy bankers, we are greedy – for your QUESTIONS! Leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and don’t worry about the consequences: us having a big coffer full of questions will not mean that 99% of the populace has to struggle on without questions at all. Especially as we’ll be giving those questions BACK in next week’s episode, plus interest (answers). In the AMT economy, nobody has to suffer.
…actually, not ‘not’. See what a pain in the arse that joke is? Leave it in the 90s, people! This is our plea in Answer Me This! Episode 193:
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)
Today we ponder upon:
Indian cows
Utterly Butterly
beluga whales vs. beluga caviar
holy salt
claiming sanctuary
charity shop returns policies
cloud computing
flyers milk.com
contact lenses
Teri Hatcher in Swedish
shoe mnemonics
breastfeeding men
transubstantiation
and
the irony of Google Chrome.
Plus: Olly is jealous of you people who’ve had milkmen (oo-er, missus!); Helen will be hiding in plain sight when she goes on the lam; and Martin the Sound Man is happy to be the theme of your stag/hen parties. L-plates and fake veils do look great against a tweed jacket and facial hair.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices) is about the books that wind up in charity shops before they are even dog-eared. Not this book, though! Perish the thought.
Do NOT, however, perish thoughts of sending us your QUESTIONS. Pose them to us as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or fire up the Skype and look for answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. In the Age of Austerity, it’s one thing you needn’t stint upon.
It was a race against time to complete this week’s episode and make it to London Road before curtain up. “But it’s the National Theatre!” you wail. “They don’t DO curtains.” You’re right. We’re talking metaphorical curtains. But we’re not talking metaphorical curtains in Answer Me This! Episode 185:
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)
We are, instead, talking about:
marriage certificates
prize belts
toy guard dogs
claret jugs
meat feast pizza
Ian Huntley vs. Poirot
killer whales vs. sharks
spiders vs. bananas
The Shamen, Bob Dylan and Lulu vs. the BBC Jerry Sadowitz ‘Je T’aime’ Slinky Dog
how Noel Edmonds’s Multi-Coloured Swap Shop begat Live & Kicking Orcus Rodney Alcala
tall geriatrics
and
krill.
Plus: Olly lays waste to Percy Pig and Pals; Helen tells you how to liven up a TV gameshow; and Martin the Sound Man thinks the Strokes and Primal Scream are a bunch of wusses. This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone and iPad, or Android) tackles Olly’s golfing future. Will he? Won’t he? Will his shoulder pop out of its socket yet again? That’s not something anyone wants to see as they tee off.
We can’t tee off next week’s episode without your QUESTIONS, so deliver them as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Fooooore!
Answer Me This! Podcast 