I did a pre-record for XFM Manchester's Breakfast Show this morning (I don't know when it goes out) needlessly publicising my gigs at the Frog and Bucket which apparently are close to selling out anyway (
BOOK NOW Manchester - the Salford ones are selling well too). It was the usual run of the mill stuff, enjoyable enough, with ebullient presenters. But at the end they threw me a bit of a curve ball, revealing that they have a tradition of getting each day's interviewee to ask the next day's interviewee a question (although apparently they had forgotten to ask Mark Thomas to ask me one the day before). And they wanted me to ask a question for Noel Gallagher. Now had I know about this in advance I might have prepared something amazing and clever - it was a rare opportunity to put a poser to a musician who I find intriguing and slightly scary. But off the top of my head I couldn't think of anything that great and all I could think about was how the "What's The Story Morning Glory" album had been the most played CD on the Lee and Herring tour bus back in the mid-90s. When we weren't watching the X Files on the video and singing "The X Files is on now" over the theme tune (Or "The X Files is o-ver" over the closing titles) we were listening to Oasis and singing the Beatles songs that they had ripped off over the top of their song. But despite the plagarism/tribute to the favoutite band of Kevin Eldon and myself, (though not Stewart Lee who despite - or because of - his obsession with music -he only really liked stuff that was obscure and only he had heard of- didn't own a single album by the Beatles amongst the shelf upon shelf of LPs and CDs that he possessed) we really enjoyed the music of Oasis and whenever I hear anything from that album I am transported back to the inside of our tour minibus.
To bring up the Beatles connection in this question would have been too hack and obvious so instead I pointed out that one of their songs had sampled the tune from the seminal children's TV show "You and Me" and asked him if he planned to use any more kids TV themes in his future work, suggesting that there are some excellent tunes in "Big Cook, Little Cook". God only knows what he will make of that, but it was fun being slightly cheeky to a dangerous looking man from the safety of a different town on a different day in a pre recorded format.
I criss-crossed town, going for a swim and then for a meeting and then back home again to record
Collings and Herrin podcast 148. This is pretty much our 3rd anniversary podcast, which is very hard to believe and we tackled the difficult subject of middle-aged men being sexist in the media, doing a pretty good job of being sexist ourselves and ensuring that, despite me getting a tweet into the Guardian sports section today, we will probably never get asked to become football commentators on Sky Sports. Which is a shame, cos 3 years ago I was hoping that our podcast might lead us to that. Also as exasperated middle aged men we expressed consternation about the new fashion trend of the vajazzle, wondering why anyone would stick bits of diamente to their sexual organs. I sensed a Hitler Moustache style show might be in the making, where I got a pejazzle and noted the reactions of people to it. Though it would be a little less noticeable that the moustache to everyone except my girlfriend and nosey men with no sense of personal space at urinals and in the gym changing room. As much as I like the idea of having a jewel encrusted penis, I can't imagine anyone would want it inside them. Though to be honest that's pretty much true of my non jewel encrusted penis.
But does anyone want to put their penis into an orifice surrounded by pretend diamonds. Diamonds can cut glass, so I am not sure I want to risk the chafing involved. But maybe the vajazzle is the modern day chastity belt. I was convinced as a child that women had teeth down there that they could bite you with, that scared me away for a while - maybe that's the next step - Vagnashers.
Ah, the modern world bamboozling middle-aged men, as it always has and always will.
