In Answer Me This! Episode 317, one questioneer is risking the beauty of his bottom for a bet; one appears to be too close to his sister; and another has an inferiority complex over his local multiplex (an inferiority multicomplex?). We also deal with:
Cornwall vs Greggs
Milton Keynes vs Merseyside
the Mercedes logo vs the peace symbol
Victoria, British Columbia
John Lahr’s remote working practices
dinner party gifts for the booze-free
unwanted text messages D-BOX seats, not to be confused with these d-box seats (link NSFW)
movie premiere attendees
Leningrad
bridegrooms
and
Matthew McConaughey’s norge.
There’s a double bill of childhood nostalgia-themed Bonus Bits of Crap on the App (available for iStuff, Android and Windows devices): Olly reminisces about another junior marketing exercise, and Helen about the Tunbridge Wells cinema now apparently known as a ‘grot spot’.
••• AMT317 Child-Friendly Rating: 62%. To be honest, we can’t remember the swear-situation in this episode, so we’ll be cautious and assume there are some. No bawdy-talk, though. •••
It’s the annual appearance for the following wedding-related question, this time posed by Jamie in Rugby:
I was at a wedding recently, and this reminded me of the thing I always wonder at weddings, which is: has anyone EVER come forward at that point where the registrar/priest asks if anyone knows of a reason why these two may not be wed?
It seems like a bastardly thing to do – you would have thought if someone had inside knowledge, they might have piped up sooner – but has it ever actually happened?
Readers, have you ever witnessed this mythical event? Part of me would love to see such a spectacle, but in reality I’m usually fonder of the couple than I am of emotional cataclysms.
Jake in London concurs with Olly’s advice in the last episode about the lineup in wedding photos:
Following the discussions in AMT316 about having couples in the official wedding photos who broke up shortly after, I thought I’d share the now comical story of the latter happening at my dad’s wedding a few years ago.
At the wedding me and my brother were asked to be joint best men, which we were pretty pleased with. Our girlfriends were also invited along: I will point out here that whilst me and my partner had been together for several years (and still are), my brother and his girlfriend had only been together a couple of months.
As they have loads of photos taken on the day, me and my brother were naturally in the majority of them. Some of the nicest ones were taken right outside the wedding venue, with my dad and his wife, me and my girlfriend and my brother and his girlfriend. As my brother’s girlfriend was the smallest person in this group of six she was naturally placed front and centre, she was also placed front and centre in all photographs she was in on the day – fucking loads!!!
Within a couple days of the wedding, my dad and his wife had decided on the photos that they liked the best and that they were going to get enlarged portraits of, the biggest of which being one of the photos of the six of us. In the time in between them ordering this blowup and getting it back, my brother and his girlfriend split up. As she was front and centre there was no way of cropping her out and there were no photos of just the 4 or 5 of us. As a result, the massive canvas print hangs proudly on my dads sitting room wall, with all six of us smiling out.
The final irony of this is that my brother has subsequently been in a long-term relationship for the past few years, and his new girlfriend has regularly frequented my dad’s house, meaning she’s always greeted with the smiling face of his ex-girlfriend eyeballing her in the sitting room.
The lesson is, if you are going to have people’s new partners come to your wedding, make sure they’re on the fringes of the photographs and not front and centre.
Also on the wedding tip, an anonymous lady from London writes:
I was just listening to AMT316 and I feel compelled to provide an alternative view on behalf of myself and other ‘expensive randoms’ who plague the existence of listeners like Elizabeth.
I am facing a summer of successive weddings with my boyfriend and I have barely met ANY of the couples whose nuptials I have been invited to celebrate. I do appreciate being thought of, but I haven’t really been given the option to turn the invites down (one of them my mother-out-law RSPVed to on my behalf before I was given the invitation, which doesn’t even have my last name on it because neither of the marriers knows who I am).
So answer me this: what can I do to entertain myself in a hotel in the middle of nowhere all day before I am required to turn up at these numerous receptions at 8pm (after my boyfriend and everyone else involved has spent all day drinking)?
Readers, can you go to the comments and give her some suggestions? Try to come up with something more ingenious than ‘masturbation’, ‘minibar’ and ‘reruns of Columbo‘, even though those are all decent ways to while away her time.
In Answer Me This! Episode 316, we have two very different questions concerning overpreparation for death. We also have:
cobbler problems
quinoa
wedding +1s
retirement climates
free salad vs free prawn crackers
cat shit vs cat sick
Mike Oldfield
Metallica Monopoly
soiled lost property
and
popular onions.
Plus: Olly will go on a cruise, as long as it’s free; Helen’s first musical memory is of a cool saboteur; and Martin the Sound Man wants you to slice your own apples and peel your own bananas, you big babies.
In today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available for iStuff, Android and Windows devices), we continue AMT315‘s discussion of facial hair, and at long last hit on the format that’ll make Olly and Martin into YouTube stars. Or might have, ten years ago.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘ANSWER‘. If you’ve ever wanted to launch your own website/podcast/blog/online gallery, deploy the code and GET ON WITH IT.
We are pleased to hear back from Matri-Money Troubles from Kent and also AMT306:
Thanks very much for your advice. Your chat raised some good points and ultimately you were right: the groom is a good friend, it’s one day (hopefully) and I shouldn’t be such an arse about it. In the end I stuffed an envelope with a wad of cash, put it in his hand and wished them a happy honeymoon.
And boy was I glad I took your advice when, during the speeches, he thanked me for all I had done, all my help, and for being such a good friend, before giving me a rather expensive thank you gift in front of everyone.
Had I not followed your advice I would’ve:
a) felt like a dick; and
b) looked like a dick.
Thanks for saving my arse.
You’re welcome, MMT. Don’t think of it as a wedding gift; think of it as an investment in the future of your friendship. Cheap at twice the price!
This questioneer asked to remain anonymous, but you’ll know who she is when she turns up wearing a 12-week scan as a fascinator:
We just found out we are having a baby, we want to tell people but you have to wait three months and in calculating when that is, it turns out it’s on our friend’s wedding day…
Answer me this… should we wait until after the wedding or do we do it then, will that be totally stealing thunder?
If I found that out on my wedding day (i.e. if it were the other way around) I would be really happy for them and I think it would add to the day. But obviously that’s me.
Even if it is not just you, Expectant Attention-Embezzler, the odds aren’t great that the newlyweds are eager for you to ‘add to the day’. But you know you don’t have to make your announcement bang on the three-month mark, right? It’s not like if you don’t tell people then, you can’t mention the child again until its 25th birthday.
Readers, what do you think? Tell people the day before? Tell people the day after? Or on the wedding day, stand around with one hand on your stomach and the other batting away glasses of champagne and let Dame Rumour do the rest of the work for you?
I had to email when I came across Munters in episode 16. While my wife Michelle turned up to our wedding in the fancy car, I arrived in my friend’s Munters Van!
Overshadowed by a special guest appearance from Missy Elliott*, here’s Answer Me This! Episode 307:
*Not really. She refuses to respond to our postcards.
On today’s question-answering slate:
female strippers
male strippers
drupes
Grumpy Cat beckoning cats Cats Lil Bub: the Chris Martin of cats
Ben Lashes
fast food delivery
wedding diplomacy
Happy Meal toys
Ronald McDonald vs Carol Vorderman
human beatboxing
coconuts
and
Femidoms.
Plus: Olly’s brain or his wang can be stimulated, but never at the same time; Helen could have been the late-90s Beanie Baby trading magnate of Tunbridge Wells; and Martin the Sound Man exercises uncharacteristic restraint in the face of a question about beatboxing. Though he still manages to sound like he’s polishing a window with his own spit.
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App contains further contemplation of memes and cats and the internet’s favourite/Helen’s least favourite, cat memes. Hear on your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘ANSWER‘. Use it use it use it!
With every fibre of our being, we yearn for your QUESTIONS. Leave voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Fire up your podblasters; Answer Me This! Episode 306 has arrived:
Today we consider:
Ainsley Harriott
Extreme Wink Murder
standing desks
Britney Spears’s haircare range
Barry Norman’s pickled onions Paul Simon’s chicken and eggs
yellow dusters
skateboarding and similar activities
having ‘a bit of fun’ on Tinder
and
Chicken Kiev.
Plus: Olly’s madeleine is the Bernard Matthews Mini Kiev; Helen is sitting all the way to skating glory; and Martin the Sound Man preaches discretion when encountering colleagues on Tinder. Got something to confess, Martin?
Today’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App is another Stanley Mann Special, this time how he’s way ahead of his time with fashion trends. Full of surprises, that Mann. Hear on your iDevices, Android and Windows gadgets.
We welcome your questions with open arms and legs. Ask them by leaving voicemails on the Question Line – call 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis – or sending emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Do not bother to ask them via facebook.com/answermethis and twitter.com/HelenAndOlly, because we might forget about them when it comes to the fortnightly question-harvest; but we do love to hear from you there nonetheless.
Thanks very much to Squarespace.com for supporting this episode, and for giving you 10% off their website-building and -hosting services for a year if you use the code ‘answer’. WHERE’S THE ALL THE SHIT HIDING??? WHERE IS IT, I ASK YOU? Nowhere! No shit there at all! If only all of life were more like shitless Squarespace…
We’ll be back with AMT307 on 5th February, return then.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT306 Child-Friendly Rating: 47%. Quite a few swears. Some crudity towards the end, involving One Direction’s bodily fluids, polishing wood, and Tinder. •••
Wedding questions are still being flung at us like a barrage of confetti. George and Jackie from Indianapolis write:
We are planning a wedding and like the idea of a unity ritual. However, we think the candle lighting and sand mixing is sort of silly. Do you have any suggestions?
Er, a wedding IS a unity ritual. Do you need to have a unity ritual within a unity ritual? You do? OK, OK… I’m a bad person to ask about this, because even the standard procedures at a wedding are too ritualistic for me. But readers, go to the comments and recommend or invent something delightful for George and Jackie to do, stopping short of humping in front of the congregation.
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. •••
Are you ready to hear who’s the winner of AMT295‘s beauty pageant in which the only entrants are the knee-to-ankle portions of Olly and Martin? You ARE? Then waste no time – listen to Answer Me This! Episode 296 (which some would argue IS wasting time. Those people can shut their damn cake-holes):
Today we discuss:
having a kip
Kendal Mint Cake The Great British Bake Off leftovers
Louis XIV
ballet vs gymnastics
Bill Callahan vs Barry Manilow
Catherine de Medici
Matthew Bourne Barnoon Cemetery Prague’s Old Jewish Cemetery A Chorus Line‘s sweaty gussets
Mary Berry’s Lemon Curd Surge
extra nipples
and
Gromit.
Plus: Olly’s not taking trip advice from Tripadvisor; Helen admits to being a philistine about ballet; and Martin the Sound Man recommends a lovely holiday touring London’s most beautiful burial grounds.
In today’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices, Android or Windows gadgetry), we continue workshopping our Cynical Statistician Catches The Bride’s Bouquet film, with a little stop to revist Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. (Fun fact: they got married on the very same day as Helen’s brother Andy. Sadly, there’s no shitty reality show about Andy’s nuptuals.)
And finally, big thanks to this episode’s sponsors Squarespace.com, without whom website-building would be a far uglier business. For 10% off their services for a whole year, enter the code Answer.
We will return with AMT297 on 4th September, and we hope you do too.
Helen & Olly
••• AMT296 Child-Friendly Rating: 42%. Several swears. Intermission concerns waxen genitalia, but at least we use some long words in it. Saucy remarks about Mary Berry. •••
Answer Me This! Podcast 