Pop in your prosthetic fangs, spritz yourself with fake blood and turn off all the lights except for that annoying one that flickers – it’s the Answer Me This Halloween Special! (Known by day as AMT390.) Featuring SCARY plays, GIANT gourds, MONSTER Mash and BESHAT trousers. And also:
pumpkin boats SPAM® suits
sexy Halloween costumes
actors playing dead
sweet Fanny Adams
the lack of Halloween pop songs (except ‘Monster Mash’)
the lack of scary plays (except The Woman In Black) Ghostwatch
and
vampire injuries.
CW: suicide, child murder, death.
Send all your Sexy Martin the Sound Man costume pics to us at twitter.com/HelenAndOlly and facebook.com/answermethis! And also tell us how much time you had to spend explaining who you’re dressed as.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for Apple and Android – is a question from Seren about the origins of ‘hocus pocus’.
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 – currently the very stressful end of season 2 is nigh!
• Olly hosts many podcasts, and you can find them all at ollymann.com, including The Modern Mann and The Week Unwrapped.
• 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, and he produced and composed the new kids’ science podcast Maddie’s Sound Explorers, hosted by Maddie Moate.
This episode is sponsored by:
• Manscaped, precision-engineered grooming for your danglers. Get 20% off plus free shipping with the code ANSWER at Manscaped.com
• Squarespace. Visit squarespace.com/answer and get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with the discount code ‘answer‘.
fly killing
spider killing redemption
dogs vs children
Cornwall vs Cambridgeshire
the ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ video vs Shakespeare
the ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ video vs Hungry Hungry Hippos
the Chapel of St Leger
garlic breath
tiny stolen jams
empathy for wasps
and
the Billboard Video Music Award for the Most Effective Use of Symbolism.
In this month’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – Olly pinpoints the one thing he likes about travelling alone.
Also! ‘Tis the season (or, close enough) to fire up the AMT Christmas special album, which is one hour of festive fun only available from answermethisstore.com/Apple/Amazon. While you’re there, treat yourself to some of our classic episodes, why don’t you?
For more ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ content, listen to Helen’s Allusionist episode Eclipse, which includes some beautiful TEOTH-inspired music by Martin. (Content warning: medical stuff.) The Allusionist is also on tour in North America RIGHT NOW, gig listings are at theallusionist.org/events.
Martin is releasing four albums of new music this year! Hear them at palebirdmusic.com, on the Pale Bird podcast, and on Spotify etc.
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‘.
As ever, we want your QUESTIONS: send them, in writing or as voice recordings, to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. If you’ve got questions about Christmas, send them to us NOW and not on Boxing Day.
We’ll be back with AMT380 on 5 December 2019, and there’ll be a Retro AMT episode in your feeds on 20 November.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT379 Child-Friendly Rating: 78%. Pretty clean – couple of slight swears – but the dynamics of whatever’s happening in the ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ video may give you pause. •••
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!
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‘.
Listeners, in your opinions, what is appropriate first date chat? The weather? Stocks and shares? How many kgs you can bench-press? Ugh, no – but surely not dental work or having sex in paint, as contended with by questioneers in Answer Me This! Episode 288:
Also on today’s agenda:
Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere
nerdy Jewish vampires
cat toothbrushes
Facebook culls
sex pickles The 64,000 Sixpence Question
washing up
communion wafers
fangs
and
the Clam Van Damme.
Plus: Olly tempts terribly fate by ignoring chain letters; Helen needs to learn to love ‘visually striking cerebral foreign dramas’, whatever Netflix thinks those are; and Martin the Sound Man studies human behaviour via the greasy spoon breakfast.
Many thanks to Squarespace.com for supporting today’s podcast, and for supporting your website-building ambitions by giving you 10% off their services for a whole year if you use the code Answer.
That’s it until a fortnight hence – unless we fall prey to questioneer Scott from Long Island’s knack for podcast-scuppering, in which case, so long and nice knowing you.
Helen & Olly
AMT288 Child-Friendly Rating: 47%.
A long question about the bawdy requests of Australians. A handful of cuss-words.
Looks like someone other than Martin the Sound Man was bored watching Twilight, because Elle from Leeds was sufficiently unswept-away by the Grand Romance to ponder upon the following:
I’m not being deliberately disgusting but please answer me this… If the whole tragedy about Twilight is that Edward wants to drink Bella’s blood, couldn’t he just wait for her to get her period? This would result in an immediate happy ending and everyone wins.
Couldn’t all vampires just do this? They wouldn’t be as terrifying but perhaps a little creepy…
Apart from Edward going hungry for most of the month – which would only make him even more vapid – this does seem like a halfway sensible plan to us. So what is the catch? We’re not experts/interested in the whole vampire mythology, but if any of you are, head right for the comments and tell us whether this could solve both the problem of vampirical nutrition and landfill caused by feminine hygiene products.
We may have had some jolly good news yesterday, but by gum, even though we should be taking a celebratory bath in fizzy booze or something, we are not slacking off on our podcasting duties. Heavens no. It’s business as usual, so here is Answer Me This! Episode 130:
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’s award-nominated trash talk includes:
bodysnatchers
the lamb of God
Galen
Norsical languages
Arawak Little Shop of Horrors The Game The Game
giant Bearded Fig Trees
sex homeopathy
retort cooking
Justin Bieber
zombies
antifreeze
and
the 1832 Anatomy Act.
Plus: Olly can only dream of being as innovative/stupid as the inventor of the Revolution Grill’N’Chill; Helen’s late granny ensures she’ll never be able to enjoy a nice blue china pig; and as well as featuring a questioneer’s tip to make you a proper hit with the Ladies, we come up with an ingenious scheme to entertain the pedestrians of central London AND rid the streets of the litter of freesheets. Get on it, Westminster Council!
Also, if you haven’t already, go to Martin the Sound Man’s website to download his latest Sound of the Ladies podcast to hear his smashing new song ‘What We Did With Our Lives’, as well as hear what he had to say in interviews with a few other podcasts. Yes, he cheated on AMT! Eh, who can blame him.
As always, please do ask us QUESTIONS for future episodes, by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving a voicemail on Skype IDanswermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877. That would be luvverly.
Today’s podcast comes to you in association with Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Or rather, through a mulch of Krispy Kreme doughnuts; if only we had heeded our grandmothers’ insistence upon not talking with our mouths full. So we suppose Answer Me This! Episode 103 is a bit like dancing on granny’s grave, only without the danger of stubbing our toes on a headstone:
This classic episode is available to BUY NOW for just 79p, through iTunes or a secure PayPal server, without DRM restriction. CLICK HERE to find out more and support our podcast. (This helps keep our most recent episodes free)
Plus: Olly tries to get by in Spanish; Helen’s childhood hobbies are some Benjamin Buttons shit; and Martin the Sound Man was, by the sound of it, abducted by aliens and forced to participate in some giant scat pool party. We also warn off the other Oliver Mann and the other Answer Me This.
Moreover! If you stick around till the end of the episode you will hear how Luke from Cambridge set us the challenge to find an apt collective noun for Answer Me This! listeners; if you have any good ideas for such (keep it clean, now!), please comment below; and as ever, do send us your QUESTIONS by sending an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving a voice message via Skype IDanswermethis or the question line 0208 123 5877.