There’s MAGIC! all over Answer Me This! Episode 354: how to MAGICALLY transform a banana into a sliced banana, how to MAGICALLY turn an egg into an egg IN A BOTTLE, and how to MAGICALLY turn an adolescent boy into a hit with the ladies. We also learn about:
Plus: Olly recaps the origins of his lifelong feud with Wales; Helen does not want to learn magic tricks to break the ice at parties (also does not want to go to parties); and Martin the Sound Man can be found behind a veil of steam rising from a Szechuan hotpot.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App – available for iPadPhones, Android and Windows devices – we learn what it takes to make Olly crack up on air: hepatitis.
Want to hear more from us? There’s the retro AMT episode we lob into your feed mid-month – right now you can hear the crowd favourite AMT186, containing the last known sighting of Owl City; to get it, subscribe to AMT on your podcatcher of choice. All of our back catalogue is available from answermethisstore.com, along with our special albums.
Thank you very much, thank you very very very much to Squarespace for sponsoring this episode, and for making spiffy websites so easy to build. Do as Martin did: play around during the two-week free trial, then get 10% off Squarespace’s website-hosting and -designing services for a whole year with the discount code ‘answer‘.
And, do not forget, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 249 as well:
Today we discuss:
tweed
Michael Jackson’s umbrella
chopsticks
Gaelic warlords
pipe-smoking
tax trends
The Fugitive vs. fairytales
Harold Wilson vs. Gandalf
lockers
the goddess Ériu
Toronto, Kansas
chopsticks
and
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
Plus: teenage Olly was the lovelorn Bard of txtspk; Helen is going to spend the AMTbreak in Scotland investigating The Mystery of the Missing Sweet and Sour Pork Balls; and Martin the Sound Man won’t sacrifice choice for convenience when it comes to the specific heat capaity of his toast toppings.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android), we delve further into Chris from Lewes’s question about combining butter with other spreadable substances. Perhaps he’s just ahead of his time! Or perhaps he really is just unbelievably lazy.
You, however, ought not be so lazy that you fail to send us your QUESTIONS for the next series. Leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis; or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Give us something great with which to celebrate AMT250, because we can’t afford a marching band.
What a surprise the publishers of our book decided not to use this picture! Granted, their usual style of authorial portrait is usually a little more contemplative, a tad more restrained. But they probably thought that to print an image of such timeless, exquisite beauty on the cover of our book would be unfair on all the other books.
Yes. That must have been the reasoning.
To find out why we have unleashed this aesthetics gamechanger, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 247:
Today we discuss:
forked tongues
Liv Tyler’s tits
holiday snaps
smoking vs. self-pleasuring
Pot Noodles vs. aquariums Armageddon vs. Les Miserables
menageries vs. mono-nageries corgis’ Christmas Lion Tower
Bruce Willis in a space suit
and
bedroom antics.
Plus: Olly reveals how the Queen helped Kate and Willsher dogs to mate; Helen’s holiday photo albums all look like this; and Martin the Sound Man ejaculates through his tear ducts, apparently.
As an extension of the final questioneer’s bath masturbation query, this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) considers what else you can do in a bath, if said bath is in Las Vegas. Clue: cleanliness is unlikely to be the most immediate concern.
Our immediate concern is, of course, gathering your QUESTIONS: email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
Hello listeners! Refreshed by a month off, we return with an episode bursting with fresh new questions. Well, fresh except for the one about the Spice Girls, which we maintain IS fresh as long as you fell into a coma in the summer of 1996 and only just woke up. If that is your situation, we’ll help you catch up on what you missed. We hate to be the ones to break it to you, but Kate Moss and Johnny Depp split up. And things have been awfully quiet on the Meg Mathews front lately.
Everyone else, put Answer Me This! Episode 229 into your ears:
Plus: Olly is terrified of his own pubes (until they start paying rent for their residence upon his body); Helen’s attempt to trick the Tooth Fairy backfired right into her bank balance; and Martin the Sound Man dreams about how, in an alternate universe, Simon and Garfunkel would have replaced ‘The Sound of Silence’ with the sound of cartoon hammers.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) is a question from Ginger Paul about toilet attendants, bog butlers, lavatory landlords, ablution assistants – whatever you want to call them, the principle is the same, but what’s with all the lollipops? Loo-lipops? Lolli-poops?
Our new series will be running all the way to Christmas, but only if you send us QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Although we’ve come
To the end of the road current series,
Still we can’t let go – because we’ll be back on 19th April with yet more Answer Me This!. So long and adieu, here is Episode 210:
Today we ponder:
the Angel of the North Pet Sounds
sham marriage a different type of big bird Tom Jones
Mel Blanc
emotions vs. money
Matt Willis vs. televisions
Alice Cooper vs. vending machines
Jesus vs. Spongebob Squarepants
Father Christmas on film
Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth
and
Abraham Lincoln.
Plus: we learn the one place where Olly actually keeps quiet; Helen whips ’em out for SPRIIIIIINNNG BREEEEAAAK!; and Martin the Sound Man puts a price on his hand in marriage. But you might as well barter him down to something more realistic, like £20 and a Chocolate Orange.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a question from Celeste from Elephant and Castle about whether you can sell your house without the intervention of an estate agent. Of course you can! But, before you ask, you are probably better off not performing your own laser eye surgery.
There is more to listen to during our absence, because by royal appointment (not really) we’ve released the Answer Me This! Jubilee, a 57-minute romp through the massive numbers of questions you lot send us about Her Maj and the like. Click here to get it.
Don’t forget us while we’re away: keep sending your QUESTIONS, as voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) and emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
So many wangs in Answer Me This! Episode 205. Big ones. Little ones. Extended ones. Stone ones. Religious ones. Cold ones. Coal-fired ones…
We also consider:
Cillian Murphy in Batman
Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert
cemetery etiquette
snowman conformity
scarecrows
steam-power
phallus-power
naked shame
vibrators for health
Akzidenz-Grotesk
prudes vs. exhibitionists
traffic lights vs. policemen
and
pirated story tapes.
Plus: Olly doesn’t pull in Pret A Manger; Helen explains why Death By Vagina was a pretty unavoidable option for the sexually active Victorian lady; and Martin the Sound Man strips off at festivals, because he likes to evoke the bacchanalia of Burning Man all over the place. Or, rather, because he wants to go on the waterslides.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android), Olly explains how he could have prevented a decade of war, had the pull of literature not been too strong.
Next week, all going according to plan, we will be joined by a special guest: legendary comedian Jackie Mason! So send us QUESTIONS for him, marked ‘For Jackie’: email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
It’s pretty unusual for us podcasters to venture out of our comfortable armchairs, let alone venture into the great not-indoors. Last weekend, however, we donned our cagoules, stocked up on wet-wipes, and took in a lungful of folk-laced fresh air at the Green Man festival – where we had such a smashing time, we decided to record Answer Me This! Episode 189 right there:
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 fears the revenge of Kris Marshall; Helen discovers a sport she IS interested in: topless frisbee; and Martin the Sound Man sees a future where Batman and Catwoman give birth to Dustin Hoffman.
As you’ll hear, we were joined this week by some unexpected guests in the shape of wasps. (They weren’t just shaped like wasps; they were wasps.) Next week, we should be joined by a much less stingy and stripy special guest in the shape of Jon Ronson. (He’s not just shaped like Jon Ronson, he is Jon Ronson.) So concoct some QUESTIONS for the fan of psychopaths, goat-starers and Robbie Williams, and send them in the form of voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
We do hope that Jon remembers to turn up, but whether he does or not, we’ll deffers see you next Thursday,
Look. We don’t want to point fingers or anything, but if you are the person who rifled through Olly’s desk and stole the gold jacket he bought at the Strictly Come Dancing costume auction, GIVE IT BACK. It may have been years ago now, but as you can hear in Answer Me This! Episode 181, the pain is still all too raw:
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 also contemplate:
stagnant white scabs
fluorotrousers Rhydian
grievous misuse of the Keith and the Girl book
black pudding
Black Eyed Peas
manuka honey
Henry Holland aquarium pimp-shoes
Fruit and Fibre
Napoleon-compatible party themes
psychiatric facility reading matter
fish sausages
Baci
bees vs. babies
ice cream vs. ice lollies
globalisation vs. jokes
Seth Rogen vs. Olly Mann
our pitch for Wonderland
and
Elliott Gould.
Also – Olly’s not going to be inviting Mark Ronson on a trip to Topman anytime soon; Helen wonders about the secret life of Russell Brand and Katy Perry; and Martin the Sound Man finds the thing that keeps our conflict-strewn crazy world together: sausages. If only the UN would hurry up and realise.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone or Android) explains how Olly’s youthful ambition to be the next Christopher Pike was derailed by his innocence. Which is why he’s slumming it at AMT now rather than living in the gothy house that childish horror built.
You can be part of the childish horror that is next week’s episode by sending us your QUESTIONS – leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Of course we will struggle to emulate this childish horror, but it’s good to have goals in life.
Thankyou for waiting patiently for Answer Me This! Episode 173 while Olly disports himself on a spa break. You’ll be pleased to know he is now fully refreshed, like a man half his age, albeit one with the hobbies of a woman twice his age. Anyway, without further ado, on to the episode:
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)
Ruining the serene majesty of silence is chitchat about:
the 2011 census mystery
Nigerian spammers
the All Seeing I
Rapa Nui pissing contests
c@fes
the 1872 Licensing Act
Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain
self-proclaimed Jedis
Mr Punch vs. fruit punch
prehistoric vs. historic
Buffy vs. rabbits
jujitsu vs. bridge
Pyramid Pool vs. Life Pool
i- vs. e- 2001 – A Space Odyssey vs. Snog Marry Avoid Kane Kramer
self-defence in Ikea
mobility scooters
outside toilets
and
the old man’s coconut.
Plus: if Olly ever decides to take a wife, the lucky lady in question must gird herself for a truly alarming musical interlude on their wedding day; Helen debases herself to try to wangle a replacement iPod; and Martin the Sound Man gives the worst advice we’ve ever heard about saving yourself being savaged by a dangerous dog. Barbara Woodhouse will be spinning in her grave. Happily, however, she’ll be jiving in her grave when she hears the song Martin has dropped on his latest podcast – go along to thesoundoftheladies.com then to listen to it! And go along to your own iPhone or Android device for this week’s Bit of Crap on the App, in which we go from snooker legend Robbie O’Sullivan to Hanson in two easy steps (those steps being the Searchers and the Zombies).
Now take a deep breath and enjoy some good news week – not only this latest addition to our wall of certificates, but also the recommencement of our Audible freebie offer! Go to answermethispodcast.com/audible to get yourself free and half-price audiobooks, because Audible seem quite keen for you to drain them dry. Ours not to reason why.
Having done that, please send us your QUESTIONSfor next week: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Then take a refresher course in snooker ballshideous novelty songs of the 1980s:
This week, listeners, we go on a journey. Don’t worry – it’s not an emotional one like they have on reality shows! We go from Great Yarmouth to Gibraltar, California to Celebration, and end up in Utopia. It must be good if Cliff Richard is skating around it. Anyway, strap in and travel along with us in Answer Me This! Episode 169 (dudes):
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 also consider:
Sam Cooke vs. Claire Tully
razor clams
dirty sexy waxworks
carp
Visalia
dusky pink
Alisha’s Attic
cork floors
sorghum
creative management tips from Jeffrey Archer
bathroom predictions from Sarah Beeny
dried apple
pork six-pack
and
Aberystwyth.
Plus: Olly wonders why toilet seat vendors have missed the opportunity to part this fool and his money; Helen fails to reap the full entertainment offered by a bowel movement; and Martin the Sound Man wishes* that the whole world could be as democratic where men’s crotches are concerned as Madame Tussaud’s is. If that’s not enough crotch for you for one week, today’s Bit of Crap on the App is us reminiscing about that 90s TV trend to line naked men up behind a screen then leer at their genitals. Relive those glory days of The Word with us on iPhone or Android.
It’s Lent next week, but we’re not going to give up answering QUESTIONS, so send them as voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Not that Lent holds much sway with atheist Jews, mind.
See you next week, for AMT170!
Helen & Olly
* He also wishes that you stick around till the very end of the episode to hear one of the songs off his new album ‘Songs from the Scientific Cabaret’. Make his wish come true, do. And come to see him play at the Geekpop festival on 10th March, why not? Because you’ll have given up geeky pursuits for Lent? Liar!
In order of appearance, here’s where we go during our Great British love-in (in which we play a couple FOR DEMONSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY):
• the Cerne Abbas giant, Dorset – the earliest known NSFW field in Britain! • Brighton, to hang out with drunkards. It’s a pretty sexy place – after all, George IV built his amazing personal shag-palace there. • The Assembly Rooms in Stamford, Lincolnshire. Didn’t score ourselves any husbands, though; the only man there was the old chap superintending the Saturday afternoon book sale. • The Heartwood School of Woodcarving in Port Talbot, Wales. If you want to carve your own spoon of love, or get someone else to do it for you, you can email spoon-carver extraordinaire Sharon LittleyHERE, or find out more about the traditional Welsh lovespoons in her book. • Boat trip up the River Thames, a very pleasant way to travel through central London if you’re not in a hurry. • Picnic at Penrith Castle, Cumbria – an unlikely thing to find in the middle of an ordinary-looking housing estate! • The Cumberland Pencil Museum in Keswick, Cumbria. Don’t go there if your pencil collection has an inferiority complex already. • The Museum of Surgery in Edinburgh, after which you’ll see we didn’t walk up Arthur’s Seat. • Punting in Oxford, thanks to the Magdalen Bridge Boathouse – who also very kindly lent us hats with which to accessorise this beautiful scene. • Grasmere in the Lake District. William Wordsworth’s signature restaurant can be found here. Apparently they only serve daffodils. • The Jane Austen Centre in Bath, where they hold the annual Mr Darcy Wet Shirt Contest. Ok, well we maintain that they should. • Chesil Beach, Dorset out of On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. We hope this scene doesn’t give you nightmares. • The Eden Project, Cornwall, inspiration for Nelly’s hit ‘Hot in Herre’. • The London-Edinburgh sleeper train, which is a bit like North By Northwest only with a complimentary sponge-bag rather than Eva Marie Saint. • Glastonbury, Somerset, where we met the marvellous Jacqui Winn of the Witchcraft Emporium, approximately a cross between a herbalist’s and a branch of Ann Summers. If you’re keen to follow Jacqui’s advice, damiana is the herb you’re after, although we have yet to try it so can’t vouch for its effectiveness. Still, it’s a lot cheaper than fake Viagra off the internet! • And finally, we wind up in the Westmoreland Hotel, Cumbria, which is the first motorway services hotel we’ve ever been to where you could even contemplate having a romantic night.
We also need to bestow affection upon: Chay Allen for propelling our punt, because we sure as hell couldn’t have done it ourselves without injury; Jill Collinge, for showing us Stamford then standing politely by as Helen did stupid impressions of Beyonce;
and the loves of our lives, Tess Longfield and Rachel Aked of VisitBritain. If you love the UK as much as VisitBritain do, join the online love-in at their Facebook page at facebook.com/LoveUK.
Please return next Tuesday for Great British Questions Episode Four: Tea; and for more scenes from our romantic mini-break, peruse the photos below.
Cover your kiddies’ ears during Answer Me This! Episode 139. Not just because of the usual effing and blinding (although that can’t be wholesome for them, surely?), but because this week, we talk about [whisper] Where Babies Come From [/whisper]. Shudder!
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)
Aside from the role of birds in the human reproductive process, we speak of:
Sauron’s bird feeders
Billy Kennedy’s fluffy dice
posset
turkey farming
‘shimmering apricot mould’
bloodworm
Kia-Ora
the Virgin Mary vs. pelicans
Ted Heath vs. Hugh Grant
chum salmon vs. chambermates
Chambourcy Hippopotamousse
and
the correct classification of pasta salad.
Plus: Olly turns his fishbowl into a scene from Cannibal Holocaust; Helen busts out another member of her Nauseating Cookery Book collection; and Martin the Sound Man seems to know more than the average sound man about clinical trials, although he was born and raised in a petri dish in a GlaxoSmithKline laboratory…
Now don’t get upset, but after next week’s episode, we’ll be taking a month off to rest our voices. So get your QUESTIONS in, quick! Call 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. See you next Thursday, and we’ll make that precious time together count, ok?
RT @suddenlyjoseph: Yay! This week's @HelenAndOlly contains my favourite intro song ever. Still makes me giggle just as much as it did back… 4 hours ago
RT @domrisk: @HelenAndOlly I once asked, and you answered, about writing a new book set in Narnia and the legalities of it. Think you were… 1 day ago
If you’re into Game of Thrones, and/or the extreme detail in fantasy and science fiction TV adaptations, check out… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…1 week ago
fridge
was derailed by his innocence. Which is why he’s slumming it at AMT now rather than living in the gothy house that childish horror built.
by Ian McEwan. We hope this scene doesn’t give you nightmares.
; and Martin the Sound Man seems to know more than the average sound man about clinical trials, although he was born and raised in a petri dish in a GlaxoSmithKline laboratory…
