Plus: Olly wonders why the Black Eyed Peas are so keen to shut things down; Helen hates children who have far better business sense than she has, or ever will have; and Martin the Sound Man thinks an ornamental fence is no obstacle to ardour.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we go more bananas for bananas, except for bananas that are a year old.
We go bananas for your QUESTIONS, so email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line by calling 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
We’re as surprised as you to discover that Answer Me This! Episode 221 opens with a heated discussion upon the topic, ‘What is art?’ Check us out with our high brows!
Naturally our brows don’t stay high for long; in decreasing order of highfalutingness, we talk about:
Edward Lear
double-ended ice cream
Tracey Emin Jeremy Deller‘s teenage parties
the Marquis de Sade
firefighters
bridesmaids
pole dancing
Charlie Chaplin drowning horribly
the pull-out method
and Annabel Chong.
Plus: Olly is horrified to discover that there’s a boarding school-style communal wanking game that he’d never heard of; Helen knows how to make anything unsexy, using ham; and Martin the Sound Man would like to remind you that you only have a couple of weeks left to enter his Science Songwriter of the Future competition, so make the old man happy because he’s got a bad ear this week.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App Helen gives you a great tip for making new friends on late-night public transport, based on her recent encounter with a stranger’s pelvis on the Victoria Line. That stranger’s pelvis could be all yours, if you avail yourself of the app on iDevices or Android! Don’t worry if you’re married; the pelvis won’t be worrying about that either.
We don’t want your pelvises, but we do want your QUESTIONS, so thrust them our way by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leaving voicemails to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis). As a reward, you may watch the video below of Eleanor from Norwich’s pole dancing team going about their totally sexless business.
…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:
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.
The Secret Diary of Billie Piper concluded this week, so I guess it’s up to us to bring the sexy henceforth. So, bloated from too much Chinese takeaway, we belchingly waddle forth to present you with Answer Me This! Episode 172. Ring-a-ding-ding! Phwoar! Boinnnnngggg! Etc.
Just like Billie’s character, we love variety; but instead of keeping ourselves amused with multiple hairstyles and myriad sexual partners, we merely talk a lot. About such diverse things as:
hiding the afikomen the Giant Koala
Leonardo DiCaprio
offensive T-shirts
bad taste vs. good taste
After Eights vs. Ferrero Rocher The Moldy Peaches vs. The Secret History vs. What Women Want
Ginger Spice vs. Scary Spice
moths vs. moobs
Stonehenge vs. the Easter Island moai
Digbeth Coach Station
Camden Market
the new Starbucks logo Time Team alternative endings Maria Teresa de Filippis
Slash in the Attic
and
the Jonathan Dimbleby octopus.
Plus: Olly’s habitual goodwill to all mankind finally shatters, all because of those godforsaken people with strong bladders; Helen reveals another fashion misfire from her youth (let’s face it, her youth was fashion misfire: 1000000, fashion fire: nil); and Martin the Sound Man gives Kylie Minogue the nod should she ever find herself in a dry spell. What an altruist that man is. This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for the iPhone or Android, appfans) is an insight into what Olly’s wearing. It’s pink! It involves trompe l’oeil! No, he’s not wearing Buffalo Bill’s skin-suit from The Silence of the Lambs…
We warn you that next week’s podcast will be a few hours late, because Olly’s going for a spa mini-break. But he’ll be thinking about your QUESTIONS the whole time he’s steaming his mannparts, so do ask them via voicemail on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or email answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Then after you’ve done that, anoint yourself in unguents, wrap yourself in a bathrobe which has been worn by hundreds of people before you, lie back and relax.
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:
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.)
MISSING: 35-year-old man, answers to the name ‘Nelly’. Last seen wearing a backwards cap and a T-shirt 5 sizes too big for him. If anyone has information leading to the safe return of Nelly, please call 0800-555-RECENTWORKDIDNOTMAKEANIMPACTINTHEUKCHARTS.
Then, while you wait anxiously for news, listen to Answer Me This! Episode 167:
It’s not just Nelly missing. Where’s Wally? Where’s Waldo? Where’s Walter? It’s an epidemic of missing men… But not missing podcast-topics, which this week include:
electoral register unfairness
fake tan lines
John Krasinski
D-locks Martin Handford
Lake Havasu City
TK Maxx vs. TJ Maxx
Walkers Crisps vs. the American War of Independence
the kingdom of Mercia vs. the kingdom of Wessex
Roger Federer vs. William Tell
Harry Potter vs. Queen Victoria
inappropriate poetry corner
massivesnouts.com passive-aggressive chairs
Soulwax the wrong London Bridge
the Ponte Vecchio
and
Mark Foster (whoooooo?).
Plus: Olly touches himself up – just in Photoshop, of course; Helen enjoys her own smutty courtroom drama; and Martin the Sound Man tells you what is cool – this is. So that’s 70s revival and spindly bridges on the style list for spring/summer 2011, OK?
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iPhone or Android) is a question from Ken in Brooklyn about the pickelhaube, one of the few headgear-styles yet to be revived by hipsters. Give them a few more weeks.
Now rack your brains for QUESTIONS, then send them to us in voicemail form to the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or findanswermethis on Skype) or as emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Then we can weave more podcasts out of them. Score!
To follow the mood of this week, we must announce that we’ve decided to cut Answer Me This! Episode 153 by eight per cent. However we reassure you that we will be freezing the length of this episode at 27 minutes 37 seconds for the next two years, or until the apocalypse, whichever is sooner. Here you go:
Today’s time-of-austerity topics include:
non-alcoholic beer
Jim Henson’s fake rats
shadduck
Michael Apted
Lidl
Johnny Depp vs. Danny Dyer Center Stage
Olly’s favourite condoms (surprisingly not these ones) The Witches
Stephen Jones, milliner
isopropanol
Rowan Atkinson’s ‘early’ work
Bonnie Prince Billy’s hometown
Nicolas Roeg
identical twins
Michael Palin in drag
and
losing your virginity to a chair.
Plus: Olly has been repelled from his favourite snack by Gok Wan; Helen suggests a high school Joseph Mengele; and Martin the Sound Man plays off Gene Wilder and Spike Milligan against each other. WHO WILL WIN? We will, alas, never know.
What we do know is that next week is the last episode in which we’ll be handing out free books to questioneers, so send us your most brilliant QUESTIONS right now! Leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype IDanswermethis, or email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, to which you should send your postal address if you are one of this week’s featured questioneers and want to claim your freebie.
If you want to claim your not-quite-free-but-really-not-too-pricey copy of Answer Me This!: Collected Juvenilia, then investigate answermethispodcast.com/book, whereat you will find not only links to a few online bookshops, but also some sample pages to induce you to preorder itmake you decide to order Booky Wook 2 instead.
Helen and Olly
PS Forgot to mention: this week’s bonus bit on the app is Olly’s account of his recent debut trip to a branch of Hooters. It was all in the name of post-feminist irony, alright?
This week Andrew asked what sort of chairs we sit on to do the podcast. Well, see above. Then click below for what happened when we sat on them to make Answer Me This! Episode 120:
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)
In which we speak of:
living rooms vs. front rooms
the voice of Jennifer Jason Leigh
the Flying Pickets
Rihanna
John Spilsbury
‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’
the Regent Street Lights, sponsored by A Christmas Carol
child brides
old man attire
and
Hamburg Port.
Plus: Olly defends the Citroen Pluriel against accusations of shitness; Helen decodes the Roman Catholics; and Martin the Sound Man preaches armchair socialism from a chair without arms. To make up for it, he has a new EP for all you chaps to download absolutely free – visit his Sound of the Ladies website for the complimentary goods.
Then, before you settle into your straw-lined cardboard box for three months’ hibernation, send us YOUR QUESTIONS, via answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, Skype IDanswermethis or the question line 0208 123 5877.
See you next week, for the Best of Answer Me This! 2009 Part 1!
RT @theollymann: On my way to @lbc973 for a week of overnight shows - can’t wait. Join me from 1am (or, as insomniacs call it, primetime). 11 hours ago
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