It’s been a long holiday, but huzzah, we have returned intact. Since last we spoke, Olly has entered his thirties, and Helen and Martin entered the matrimonial institution (with each other, don’t worry!), so as you will hear,Answer Me This! Episode 176 is all mature and responsible right from the off:
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)
Conversation-nuggets in today’s gold-pan include:
divine disapproval of Helen’n’Martin’s legalised union
Gordon Ramsey’s Cambodian eggy treat
phallic salad
the Pringles saddle
Madonna as Cruella de Vil
Pamela Anderson as cola bottle the tragic life of Mr E Forever Plaid
freedom of the city
aldermen
grungers vs. lumberjacks
caviar vs. frogspawn
and
Peppa Pig.
Plus! If you’re looking to pull, just take Olly out on the town with you; Helen bemoans the public interest in whether her womb is available to let on a nine-month contract; and Martin the Sound Man does not want to sound Dickensian. Spoilsport! This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone or Android) is about the only meme to involve high-end millinery (that we know of): Princess Beatrice’s fancy hat.
It may have been a while, but you still know what to do: ask us QUESTIONS, in the form of voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. As a reward for your diligence, you can have free audiobooks and half-price Audible membership at answermethispodcast.com/audible until June 5th. Lazy people who don’t bother asking us questions are allowed those too, as an incentive. Carrot not stick, right? And carrot sticks best of all. Blend a metaphor, get a crudite, as our great-grandmothers used to say.
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.
We hope you are all safe and sound wherever you are in the world, and that this year’s trend for End of Days-style disasters has left you unscathed. We can’t stave off the apocalypse, but we can offer you 29 minutes of distraction while you wait, in the form of Answer Me This! Episode 171:
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)
On today’s conversational dance-card are topics including:
Brian Wilson
broken teapots
Kafka
5ive vs. Jesus Lizard
Dorothy Wordsworth vs. Macaulay Culkin
William Wordsworth vs. Jade Goody stupid shoe-shaped planters
fairy codmothers
Kate Middleton’s genetically modified footmen
Harold Wilson’s lying wife Pandaemonium
Fifteen to One
Christ’s comeback tour
and
flesh-trampolining.
Plus: Olly suggests that Cinderella be a bit more nonconformist in her eveningwear style if she wants to make a splash in society; Helen’s green brogues make her an outcast in the Apple Store; and Martin the Sound Man’s dainty guts could bring in the win if any of us decided to go on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Major Charles Ingram, eat your heartfart out!
Today’s Bit of Crap on the App is a discussion upon whether sentimental idiots like Olly should cook peas for their cats, or whether said beasts should learn to tough it out. You can get that app for iPhone or Android for mere pence; but remember, it costs nothing to send us your QUESTIONS, so squander a load of no-money by leaving voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. We may not be rich, but a wealth of questions is all the wealth we need. (Well, it isn’t, but that’s hardly your problem, is it? And as soon as we get our Playdate with the Stars agency off the ground, we’ll be rolling in the good stuff.)
In this special commemorative plate of podcasts, Answer Me This! Episode 158, we join in with the national celebrations of the romance of our age. For finally, after years of waiting, years of frustration, years of public speculation…Pudsey Bear is finally getting his end away.
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 mention:
Wills’n’Kate (o jubilate deo!)
Marilyn Monroe
humanure
the US Weather Bureau
Dolce’n’Gabbana
Audrey Horne
augmented reality vs. unaugmented reality
Jean Paul Gaultier vs. dog saliva
Dexter’s bloody cologne
pox patches
the true meaning of eau de toilette
the Queen’s blingy carriage
and
the unsung beauty that is Robert De Niro.
Plus: Olly surmises that the West Country is boozed up to the eyeballs 24/7; Helen gives tips for turning your unsightly syphilitic blemishes into a join-the-dots game on your face; and Martin the Sound Man manages to compare the Gospels to Rashomon and the other religious texts of the world to something far worse. This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Curtis from Guildford about what we’d call a games console if we were to invent one. Luckily that day is far, far off.
We also have a bit of a disagreement about which of the Queen’s speeches is actually the Queen’s Speech; help us settle it once and for all:
You can send us QUESTIONS for future shows by leaving a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis, or emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. And if you’re a student, unemployed, or have an unusually generous lunch hour, please pop down to Rough Trade East at noon on Friday 26th, which is where and when we’ll be doing a reading from our book and signing copies. We are also available for signing wedding certificates, will forms, decrees nisi, blank cheques…
In honour of the Answer Me This! book being officially (well, close) declared ‘one of the greatest pieces of toilet literature of all time‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
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 amuse ourselves with:
the Mann Booker prize
Nightmare on Hygiene Street The Piano: The Musical
Gibson vs. Fender T3 vs. 3T
tarts vs. tarts
salesmanship vs. psoriasis
The Guardian Bedside Reader
martini-making machines
Autoglym
David McAlmont and Michael Nyman
the Nissan of the guitar world
the Captain Corelli’s Mandolin-branded backgammon set
hairy oil spills
No More Nails
bezoar
nut hamper
the Alcor Life Extension Foundation
parallel parking
and
the Strawberry Strumpet.
Plus: Olly has some dodgy plans for death row prisoners; Helen revolutionises bridal traditions with the help of Stilton; and Martin the Sound Man sold off his glorious ponytail for far less than its current market value. This week’s bonus bit on the app is a question from Jack, the 21-year-old undertaker in Uckfield, who feels uncomfortable with atheism in front of mourners and wanking in front of his cat. What a shy soul!
Now, if you’ve got time this evening (that is, Thursday 18th November), please do pop along to see us read bits from our book at Waterstone’s Gower Street. We kick off at 6pm sharp, but if you can’t make that, how about a rerun at noon on 26th November at Rough Trade East, huh? Come and have a little pre-lunch fun with us. There are some excellent bagel-shops a mere gherkin’s throw away.
Happy halloween to you! Here’s not-at-all-reflective-of-the-festival Episode 154, but you can decide where it falls on the Trick Or Treat spectrum, 1 being a nice lollipop and 10 being a dog turd through your letterbox. Squelch! DAMN YOU PESKY KIDS.
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 contemplate subjects including:
Scream IV
Ken Kirzinger
Rentokil
Ebenezer Howard
Robert De Niro’s patchwork face
Nigella’s fishy keyboard
the amazing voice of Red Pepper
Welwyn Garden City vs. Letchworth Garden City
Don LaFontaine vs. Alfred Hitchcock Shutter Island
vegetable oil fountains
sweetcorn fajitas
wigs Strictly Come Dancing demystified
and
a brief history of refrigeration.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Emma about whether lentils can kill. If they can, the Ban Lentils campaign starts right here!
Elsewhere: Olly recoils at the idea of dunking fruit into a festive torrent of vegetable oil, despite his total lack of qualms about smearing absolutely everything in mayonnaise which is effectively the same thing; Helen reinterprets the Pied Piper as a cautionary tale preaching socialism; and Martin the Sound Man is uncharacteristically restrained during an entire discussion based around the word ‘shuttlecock’. We think he was sidetracked by a piece of junk mail he’d received in the post from a chocolate company, trying to sell him half-price nut hampers. Fnarrr!
While Martin sniggers like a man half his age, you can get on with sending us QUESTIONS! Leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com; and if you had your question answered in this week’s show, email us your address that we may dispatch your free copy of the Answer Me This! book. Next week there are no free books, but you will be able to get a not-free copy from a bookshop or The Internet, because the delightful volume will be available for sale from November 4th. As will next week’s podcast, so we’ll see you back here then! Toodles.
Of course, you’re already used to getting good advice from us. (Shut up!) But this week, we have some even better advice from broadcasting stalwart Paul Ross, which was instrumental in making Olly Mann the broadcasting stalwart he himself is today. Hear what it was here and here only, in Answer Me This! Episode 152:
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 address subjects including:
90s collars
Benson & Hedges
The Saturdays
butterbear
Carr’s water biscuits
yuppie kids
evil spirits
Ciro Citterio
the Queen vs. Pixie Lott
Batman’s wedding
Hong Kong tailors
trangias
Terry’s Chocolate Lemons
ligatures
Warhorse
Ben Stiller’s workwear
the musical cleft
Luciano Pavarotti outstaying his welcome
ball-handlers
the Isle of Arran
and
&.
Furthermore: Olly is a staunch conservative when it comes to the appropriate composition of orange-flavoured foodstuffs; Helen’s innate scruffiness has dashed her telemarketing dreams; and Martin the Sound Man stands up for Tom Stoppard. Meanwhile, over on the app, Gaz from Jedburgh has a question about a problem we’re sure is common to a great many of you: nepotism in the forestry business.
Everyone who got a question answered in today’s episode needs to email us their postal address sharpish, so we can send along a free copy of the Answer Me This! book; everyone else needs to send us a QUESTION to be in with a chance to win a free book, along with an answer, of course. You know what to do: leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
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.
Dry those tears, untie those yellow ribbons round the ole oak trees, because we are, as promised a month ago, BACK. We’ve had a lovely sort-of-holiday (which you can find out more about next Tuesday!), and are raring to go with Answer Me This! Episode 141:
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)
It’s a corker of an episode for fans of older ladies, with appearances from vintage hotties Merle Oberon (phwoar!), Marguerite Patten (schwing!), Joan Hickson (hubba hubba!) and Angela Lansbury (fapfapfapfapfap), along with unrelated topics of conversation including:
Sea World
the brains of Tostao
Brad Meldhau vs. jazzercise, Jazzles and Jazz apples
Cantona vs. Sartre Polar Bear vs. music for polar bears Gone with the Wind vs. Bollywood the Azerbaijan Film Institute’s top 100 movies? Being Erica
the Big E agricultural festival
kiiking
kiwi fruit
and
the best Miss Marple.
Plus: Olly reenacts The Wrong Trousers at a posh wedding (say, do any of you want to bid on a pair of 38″ Hugo Boss trousers, worn once?); Helen is a philistine when it comes to Citizen Kane and ball ponds; and Martin the Sound Man must have grown up a bit over the break because he manages not to cackle at the phrase ‘ball pond’. Meanwhile, over on our new app, this week’s extra content is a merry tale of gazpacho. Soup-er!
For reasons outlined therein, we’re yawning and stretching during Answer Me This! Episode 136; but we sincerely hope you don’t:
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)
On today’s call sheet are topics including:
iron ore
Hereford Cathedral’s record-breaking library
abseiling
Jo Whiley’s washing tips
fishy Ashton Kutcher
chopsticks vs. cutlery
stripey horses vs. horned horses
communion wafers vs. transubstantiated flesh
Mel Gibson vs. Bob Dylan’s Planet Waves
pox vs. coma
weather houses
whitebait
Martika
grey hair
and
blue movies.
Furthermore: Olly only publicly relieves himself the classiest way; Helen shuns bridesmaids; and Martin the Sound Man is a silver fox, although hopefully not the same one that pissed in Olly’s trainers, or fisticuffs will ensue.
We also contemplate what makes us feel aged; proceed to the comments on this post to share your own. Although if you are only half our age, don’t. You are mere saplings, so enjoy that while we wheeze and wobble along the path of physical and mental decline.
Old or young, you are all very welcome to send us a QUESTION, so please do that by leaving a voice message on 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis or by sending an email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Everyone, thankyou so much for your lovely messages regarding my betrothal to Martin the Sound Man. And apologies for taking him off the market.
We’ve no idea when or where the nuptials will take place as yet, but we’ve currently no plans for the cynical scheme suggested by Ben from Stafford:
When you get married could you guys have a MASSIVE wedding party somewhere in the country and invite all the Answer Me This! fans to wish you a happy life and charge people to get in to ease on your cost?
No chance, Ben; I’m not Jordan!
Naomi from France also has a suggestion:
At Helen and Martin’s wedding, you could play ALL the stuff they’ve ever said about marriage on AMTP, and then have a Big Brother type voice saying: ‘And look at them now!’
Again: NO.
Happily, we’re not the only new engagement; congratulations are in order for young CJ from Wales:
On the 23rd March I proposed to my now fiancee Emma-Lea who I love and would do anything in the world for! I love her so much and I trust her with my life, to prove this I have told her more about me than ANYONE else will ever know, I told her EVERYTHING I can think of and remember and then told her my facebook password because I love and trust her so much! She has told me everything and her facebook password too! We’re now in the position where we can tell each other everything and we have each other’s passwords to facebook which our lives are virtually on so Helen and Martin answer me this, do you or would you tell one another everything and share your passwords where by you could destroy the others life if you so wished but love and trust each other enough to know neither of you would ever do that?
Aaah CJ, when you get to our age it’s enough of a struggle just to remember your own password.
There are some very big issues in Answer Me This! Episode 131. The link between artistry and depression. The baffling denouement of the video of ‘November Rain’ (see below for a refresher). How to emasculate stones. Hear:
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)
As side orders to that big plateful of Important Issues, we mention:
Mary Pickford
Stephanie Seymour
bicarbonate of soda
Fernand Pitoit
Scissors Paper Stone
film myths
safety myths
creativity vs. crack
Fargo vs. chipped beef
crochet vs. stones
the boringest action figurines in toy history
cannibalistic tomatoes
and
Phillip Schofield’s big tart.
Plus: Olly conflates coitus and cultural colonialism; Helen is disgusted that all of the internet can’t come up with a believable explanation for why the Bloody Mary is called a Bloody Mary; and Martin the Sound Man comes up with a new word to express the apathy of the Web 2.0 generation. Feel free to use it in a sentence today. Also vengeful Ky from Harrogate seeks your help once more, to sponsor him on his 40-mile jog: make up for his recent Paypal fraud pain by throwing him a couple of pence at http://justgiving.com/kyle-addyman. Or you could just stand by the jogging route and throw pennies AT him, but I don’t think he or the British Heart Foundation would appreciate that as much.
Get your excitement on the boil in anticipation of next week’s Special Guestisode, featuring Andy Zaltzman out of the Bugle podcast and Helen’s gene pool; then send him some QUESTIONS. Preface them with ‘Andy, answer me this’ – email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave a voicemail on Skype IDanswermethis or our question line 0208 123 5877; or if you’re absolutely horrified at a stranger responding to your problem, the usual question-posing format will be perfectly fine.
See you next week, for family fun day!
Helen and Olly
PS if any of the rest of you are superfans of Dr Brian Cox, treat yourself to one of THESE.
‘, we’ve got an accidental toilet-reading theme running through Answer Me This! Episode 157. What does Jack Bauer read on the bog? Is Timmy Mallett’s How to be Utterly Brilliant or Kenny Everett’s Ultimate Loo Book the biggest star in the loobrary firmament? Why does Martin the Sound Man dream sweet dreams of lavatories? Find out all:
by Ian McEwan. We hope this scene doesn’t give you nightmares.
Answer Me This! Podcast 