I was worried that we might have permanently broken the podcast after the dreary and diseased Saturday extra one last week. In fact that one felt very similar to the dream I had about a word that couldn't be spelled or pronounced, surreal and fantastical and as if it took place deep in the Marianas Trench, where only the Coelacanth play.
I felt significantly better after a reasonable sleep with no confusing dreams to speak of, but still it was hard to be sure that we could get the old "magic" back. Perhaps, after 80 goes it was all over.
Or perhaps we needed a bad one to remind us of how good we really are.
To be honest it's more remarkable that we don't have ones like 79.5 every single week.
As it turned out I think it was a return to form (even if mediocrity is our meat and adequacy the highest we can aim for) and my brain and mouth were combining to come up with stuff on the spur of a moment, before I had any chance to work out what was being said. I suppose in a sense, that's a bit like a dream state too, but one where your imagination is sparking like a loose and live electric cable. It seems the best and worst comedy reside in the subconscious mind. I wasn't as unpleasant to Collings as I was in my grumpy funk on Saturday, but he was probably more sensitive, clearly a little hurt that I had called him a "div" off air. Giving the listener the impression that all the unpleasant stuff I say in the podcast is merely for show. One day, I know, he will snap and crash an old fashioned typewriter down on my head, like the Kenneth Halliwell he most certainly is, but for now he just looked like he might cry. Had I been the real Richard Herring I would have taken him in my arms and have held him like a baby, but I was the podcast Richard Herring and so had to twist the knife in further. He should take comfort in the fact that I am horrible to everyone I like. But also to everyone one I hate. So he might not be off the hook. He is a bit of a div though.
As usual you can hear our efforts here. Of course I have no intention of stopping the podcasts and will continue them (so long as there isn't a typewriter lodged in my brain) whilst I do my wonderful un-Collings infected podcast
As It Occurs To Me.
Do I complain when he prannies off to do his 6Music shows with a host of other comedians as his sidekicks? Yes I do. Maybe I will be the one wielding the typewriter. All that is sure is that one of us shall die at the hand of the other. Unless there is a homeopathic remedy for typewriters. In which case Collings might survive.
In the picture we attempt to illustrate the concept that in our relationship I am a gigantic iron man robot and he is a tiny legless puppy with cancer and I am continually trying to crush him with my huge iron feet, like an Angel of the North come to life. It is true that many people might pity the puppy, even prefer it to the evil robot, and want it to survive. But in our hearts most of us would quite like to see that puppy splatted into the pavement. You would at least watch as it happened. And who is the real sick one. The automaton who has been built to stamp on cheerful, yet diseased puppies, or the people tuning in week after week to see if he'll finally leave puppy goop all over the floor?
It is you.
Do tune in again next week.
