Today, we set you some coursework. We need you to conduct practical experiments into Thorntons‘ personalised icing policies, and report the results with illustrative materials. Your challenge is fully explained in Answer Me This! Episode 243:
Wherein we contemplate:
Roland Wank
elephant gelatine Frankel
Milky Way
Percy Pig and Pals confectionery counterfeits Game On
cutlery rules
bow tie rules
Monopoly real estate
dishwasher doors
Rizla+
Bill Bottrell
Mr Mars
Olympics keyrings Brent Dixon’s keychains
the mystery of ‘Black or White’
and
onesies.
Plus: Olly admits that he likes to be infantilised, to the surprise of nobody; Helen finds out where to pass ‘Go’, but nobody gives her £200; and capitalist Martin the Sound Man gets trumped playing Socialist Monopoly.
In this week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices and Android) we discuss Channel 4′s Wank Week, which never aired because it was too classy for their schedules.
Don’t think you’re too classy to send us your QUESTIONS: all are welcome, so email them to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, or leave a voicemail on the Question Line 0208 123 5877 or Skype ID answermethis.
See you next Thursday,
Helen & Olly
PS Remember, every week you can receive an extra shot of us talking if you listen to BBC 5 Live’s Let’s Talk About Tech podcast. PPS You can receive numerous extra shots of Martin the Sound Man by seeking out his myriad other podcasts: The Sound of the Ladies podcast, the Brain Train podcast, the Global Lab podcast…
It’s odd that in his ode ‘To Autumn‘, Keats never mentioned amongst the swelling gourds and clammy cells that it is also the time of year where the images of schoolchildren are harvested for posterity in the annual school photos. See above, then while your eyes recover, hear Answer Me This! Episode 230:
In which we speak of:
sharing a bedroom
Dorian Gray Liz Jones
the Meg Ryan Game
glamping Olly’s friend Chay in a Britney video
sleeping arrangements
dehumidifiers
the Titanic Memorial Cruise
grey water vs. black water
big baggy clothes vs. Joseph Gordon-Levitt Aaron Paul vs. Aaron Paul
court artists
Ocean Colour Scene
and
relationship advice via Neil LaBute.
Plus: Olly has had enough of these mother-fighting snakesDaily Mails on this monkey-liking plane; Helen’s Kentish childhood was nothing like the latest Wand Erection video (see below); and Martin the Sound Man did not do a William Hague, honest.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (get it for iDevices and Android) involves further discussion of cruises, namely why haven’t hipsters taken them up yet. Surely it’s only a matter of time, though – after all, nobody ever thought bowler hats or the A10 would ever make a comeback, and look at them both now.
As we said in the show, do share your most memorable birthday in the comments; and as always, share your QUESTIONS by leaving voicemails on the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or sending emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Also go here if you want your own Answer Me This! mug. It’s so big, you could probably go for a week-long cruise in it.
The time has come, dear listeners, for us to pack up our microphones for a month and head off on holiday. But before we go, we tackle some very important questions indeed:
• Should one allow one’s allergies interrupt the loss of one’s virginity?
• What counts as a museum, once and for all?
• What IS R Kelly on about?
Discover those answers and more in Answer Me This! Episode 228:
Plus: Olly explains a ‘reverse American Pie‘, and no, you won’t find it in More! Magazine’s ‘Position of the Fortnight’ archives; Helen’s toilet is like Kanye West, and not because he has a pottymouth; and Martin the Sound Man had just about recovered from the disappointment that was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness when Prometheus came along and crushed his expectations all over again.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App is a question from Jennifer from Pittsburgh about whether being struck by lightning affects your ability to use technology; assuming the after-effects of that old lightning strike allow it, use your iDevices and Android to peruse the app.
Until we return on Thursday 20th September, here are some means of busying yourself:
1. Listen to us on BBC 5 Live, 1-4pm on Monday 27th August, talking about all sorts of fun and diverse listening materials in our special bank holiday show Required Listening. 2. Tune in to Olly on LBC, 20th-24th August between 1-4am. That’s right, am. Unless you live in a different time zone and it’s a perfectly civilised hour there. 3.Vote for Helen to go to SXSW next year, on a podcasting panel with Jesse Thorn and Roman Mars. 4. Listen to Martin’s music. It is much less obscene than him talking. 5. Have a go on our albums, our first 120 episodes, and some other nice podcasts. 6. Concoct QUESTIONS for our next series: leave voicemails on the Question Line (Skype answermethis or dial 0208 123 5877) or send emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
Have a delightful month, and we look forward to reuniting on 20th September.
Helen & Olly
PS Sadly, the Cars of the Stars museum in Keswick closed down last year. But it still lives forever here:
We’re really, really sorry, but after listening to Answer Me This! Episode 215, there’s a strong chance you will have an LMFAO song stuck in your brain, and it will make you want to stick a straw in your ear, suck that brain out of your head then spit it down the drain. But, hopefully the rest of the podcast doesn’t have that effect on you.
Today we mention:
Annie Hall
Joey Barton
the future of pubic hairstyles
Jessie J vs. indifferent radio professionals eating dinner
Will.I.Am vs. Simon and Garfunkel
‘Party Rock Anthem’ vs. ‘The Birdie Song’ Quentin Crisp Olly’s uncle
frigid North Hertfordshire
the scary Dalai Lama
the sexual misuse of animals
and the man with the box on his head.
Plus: Olly theorises upon why footballers sport such ridiculous barnets; Helen does not like her toast done on one side; and sadly we don’t have video footage of Martin the Sound Man’s first ever viewing of ‘Sexy and I Know It‘, but if we did, it would be right up there in the video commentary canon alongside this.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (available for iDevices or Android) is a two-course feast of questions: firstly one from Hannah about currywurst, then for pudding a question from Sammy in Falkirk about pineapple. We hope this combination does not give your ears indigestion.
If you want more ear-food next week, please send us a QUESTION: deliver emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com or leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis).
Jon Ronson’s breakfast with Pocahontas
butternut squash
Tate & Lyle’s decomposing lion
Lulu Going for Gold
‘Imagine’
the theme from Requiem for a Dream
claret jugs
character M&Ms
Martin’s wedding pants
the Fat Controller’s wife
Owl City
Reg Grundy nepotism
staplenuts
Avril Lavigne fans
Anna Paquin
and
sexy Jews.
Plus some more Previously Unheard Bits from the bin.
Help us concoct more podcast for you to hear in 2012 by sending us your QUESTIONS: fill our inbox by emailing answermethispodcast@googlemail.com, and deluge our Question Line with voicemails (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis).
And you can also fill our big empty box – our PO Box, what did you think we meant? – with some 5th birthday goodies:
Answer Me This!
PO Box 53587
London
SE19 9BQ
We’ll be back with episode 201 on January 19th 2012, so it merely remains for us to wish you all a very happy Christmas/atheist substitute and New Year, and to thank you very sincerely for listening to us in 2011.
You guys are probably already camping on the pavement outside the cinema waiting for Twilight IVa: They Finally Boff. However, if you have a little room left for things other than Bella’n'Edward, allow it to be filled by Answer Me This! Episode 196:
There are no babies chewing their way out of wombs in the episode, but there is talk of:
Frozen Planet Riverdance
fun with magnesium
Scooby Doo: talk show host
Sammy Davis Jr vs. Jimmy Constable from 911
Akon vs. Shakespeare
flapjacks vs. fun cakes Scrappy Doo vs. Scampi
candles vs. ‘wax-filled tins’ Sophie Wilcox
scaring off the Mongol army The Works
Mario Balotelli
the scent of Jelly Belly
and
medical circumcision.
Plus: [Olly] Mann cannot live on raw cake-mix alone; Helen did not spend her childhood in the back of the wardrobe with Aslan; and Martin the Sound Man wishes the whole world was scented with synthetic rhubarb.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone, iPad or Android) is a treatise on Movember, starting with Martin’s recent facial deforestation, and ending up at Craig David’s current career choice, via Robert Mugabe and Halle Berry, because where else could such a discussion possibly go?
Next week’s episode is going nowhere without your QUESTIONS, so send them in: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877, Skype answermethis) or write emails to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
This week, listeners, we delve deep into one of the darkest mysteries of our age: the T&C of Pizza Hut’s ‘Don’t Open Me‘ wheeze. So tantalising! What could possibly be within the mystery envelope? Without even looking, we can guess a) heart attack b) disappointment c) spelling mistakes. Find out what else in Answer Me This! Episode 188:
Today’s conversation features:
GCHQ
autotuned ocarina
diet and fitness messiahs
Winchester James Morrison vs. Radiohead
pseudo-hedonistic parties vs. Butlins Spy
the Milky Bar Kid
Ibiza
Pinkberry
loggers
Chuck Jackson
and
a frozen shark’s head.
Plus: Olly prefers M&Ms to be faceless, voiceless, nameless and unopinionated about film; Helen challenges you to match the member of The Wanted to her descriptions (ideally without having to expose yourself to their current single); and Martin the Sound Man doesn’t want to win a year’s supply of anything, thanks, although we suspect that if you offer him a new guitar every day, he wouldn’t kick you in the box.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App includes some precautionary advice from Ashley from Atlanta regarding last week‘s questioneer who was intent on having sex atop a washing machine. Try to guess how this results in a story about Rome Police Station, Olly’s arse, and a leaking Nissan Micra. You can’t! So you’d better fire up your iPhone, iPad or Android to string this tale together.
So that we may string next week’s podcast together, you should send us your QUESTIONS: voicemails go on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis), and aim your emails at answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Or, if you bump into us at Green Man or Edinburgh over the next week, you could questions in person! That’s a less reliable method than the usual phoning and emailing, but hey, we’re feeling risky.
Team AMT! Please line up at the assembly points and let us check you’re all present and correct. Everyone OK? Nobody hurt? Good. Here’s Answer Me This! Episode 187, which as it happens was recorded before our home country irreparably damaged its international reputation for decorous manners.
Today we talk of:
fruit machines
the holy iPad
moneysupermarket.com vs. Swingers
the distinctive Requiem for a Dream soundtrack Edo in Crystal Palace
David Beckham’s pants
buttery John Lydon
Paddy McGuinness’s penile pain
scaring The Hoosiers Girl From Rio
the King James Bible
skip-diving
whale fellatio the Edinburgh festival
and
the biggest testicles in the world.
Plus: Olly finds that his musical tastes have not matured at all when it comes to classic New Kids on the Block; Helen’s love of a) free food and b) sushi is severely tested; and Martin the Sound Man will be multitasking at the Green Man Festival next weekend. Watch him transform from a nerdy scientist to a nerdy musician in the blink of an eye! We’ll also be there too, reading extracts from the AMT Book, so please come to see us all at the Solar Stage in Einstein’s Garden, if you can make time between the folk bands and the crumpet-eating.
Make more time for this week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone and iPad, or Android), which is a question from Chrissie from Cheltenham about whether can-can dancers cover their nether regions properly. Additionally, please make time to ask us some QUESTIONS as well: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or Skype answermethis), or send emails answermethispodcast@googlemail.com.
See you next week, assuming civilisation still exists by then,
Not to blow our own trumpets, readers, but we really solve a SHITLOAD of mysteries this week. What’s with carriage clocks? What’s Cher Lloyd on about? Why do people bother toiling away to earn money through honest means when they could just throw themselves in front of a moving car and rake in the compensation? Find out all in Answer Me This! Episode 184:
We also speak of:
Facebook for babies
the great lost Arctic Monkeys single
the Golden Arches theory of conflict prevention
Parky’s Parker pens ‘Swagger Jagger’ vs. This is England The Simpsons Movie – X-rated
David Cronenberg’s Crash, reimagined
bears’ pre-hibernation precautions
compensation culture
Prince Edward
bulk-buying Tampax
and
the Hairy Moment award.
Plus: Olly is already preparing for the minutiae of his life to be immortalised in a museum; heretical Helen sees the World Cup as a prosaic, nay ugly, object; and Martin the Sound Man at last clears up the common History exam question about what was the primary trigger for the Second World War.
This week’s Bonus Bit of Crap on the App (available on iPhone and iPad, or Android) is a question from Naomi about bathtime luxury, which unfortunately leads Helen to recall a magazine’s truly misbegotten sex tip involving pasta. Try it, then let us know whether we’re all missing out thanks to our reluctance to add spaghetti to our sexytime.
Hold up, we’re still not done! We recently guest-hosted an episode of the RadioTalk podcast; click here to hear it and find out more. And in high contrast to that serious podcast about podcasting, we also have the following: video evidence of the anonymous caller in AMT181 who thought his testicles, a stapler and the Keith and the Girl book would be a happy combination. If your curiosity really can’t resist, click here to watch. But we absolve ourselves from any responsibility for the consequences upon your psyche if you choose do so.
Something which has few negative consequences is sending us your QUESTIONS: leave voicemails on the Question Line (dial 0208 123 5877 or find answermethis on Skype) or email to answermethispodcast@googlemail.com. Come back next week to see what we’ve done with them in AMT185. We promise we won’t staple them to our testicles.
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 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.
Director David Cronenberg welcomes you to Answer Me This! Episode 165, AKA the Body Horror episode. In it, we take a close look at Prince Alberts, alkaline vaginas and the arse of Jo O’Meara from S Club 73. Cross your legs and here we go:
Come back! There’s good clean fun as well, in the shape of:
nativity plays
pyjama trousers
candyfloss
Bellowhead
whisky mac
Hardy Amies
Damian Lewis
Nuramol Looxcie
the Polyphonic Spree Legally Blonde the Musical
Joan Holloway/Harris
Jessica Rabbit vs. Geri Halliwell
Barack Obama vs. babies Doug Malloy
King Herod Stephanie Seymour & Son
security tits Saturday Toilet
and
Benito Mussolini’s bell-end.
We realise that that list gets less clean as it goes on, but no less fun. Further fun: Olly’s Machiavellian side thrusts itself to the fore as he wishes to distort the telly-watchers of the UK into a massive army of Olly Manns; Helen nags you to eat breakfast, else you’ll be all cranky by 11am AND you’ll never conceive a girl-baby; and Martin the Sound Man would like you to know that if your name’s not down, you’re not coming in. At least not until he’s finished his bag of foam shrimps.
This week’s Bit of Crap on the App (appless? Then hurry up and get it for your iPhone or Android device) is a little nugget of showbiz slang. Ever heard of a ‘kinell’? No? Well, you’re not showbiz, are you? Unlike this week’s app bonus footage.
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:
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.
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.
