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Tuesday 2nd May 2017

5272/18192
Waiting to pick up a friend at Heathrow Airport. Coming through those sliding doors between the world of aeroplanes and the real world is an exciting moment. From both perspectives. I was there for an hour hoping that the next person through would be the person I was waiting for. So every time it slid open was full of the exciting possibility of not having to wait any more.
And the people coming through get to feel what it’s like to be a movie star. Or maybe someone who looks a bit like a move star, but then turns out not to be them. They get a proper entrance like a  superstar and a rapt audience looking at them… then admittedly the crowd mainly realises that they’re not the person they wanted to see (though occasionally someone will get cheers and excitement when a group is waiting for them). But for that moment between the door opening and the crowd working out who they are… superstar.
If you know no one is waiting for you then there’s the look down and the embarrassed shuffle of the nobody. If you think there might be a relative or a taxi driver there, the expectant look around and the overwhelming sea of faces.
Like some kind of Richard Curtis I enjoyed watching the reunions of friends, families and lovers, the involuntary yelps of joy, the bunches of flowers, the children hugging they parents. If it wasn’t for the clagging sweat and funk of hours of air travel it might be the loveliest place to be. I might come up every day just to watch the reactions.
Someone was doing horrible farts as I waited. I wondered why people talked about stale farts as a bad thing, as if fresh farts would be any better. Fresh farts are, if anything, much worse than stale farts. It’s not like a fart goes off. It mildly improves with time. Staleness in farts, whilst not being great, is still better than freshness. An airport is a place where no one cares about keeping a fart in. If you can’t fart at the beginning or end of a long journey or in a massive room full of people you will never see again, then when can you fart? 
But I decided on a scale of farts that stale farts were nearly at the top of the table, after totally dispersed farts. I don’t know why some farts hang around more than others, like they are stuck to the farter (and his victims) like napalm. A gas should not stick.
I may have done some farts too. No one is innocent here. It was an airport. It’s what it’s there for.

Only a couple of days left in this week's RHLSTP ebay auction - some really cool things on offer. You can help us by making a bid, in the likely hope that someone else will come in and beat you. And it won't cost you a penny. Unless no one comes in.

And in Norwich on Wednesday and Thursday this week, then Dorking on Friday(very nearly sold out), Belfast on Saturday (sold out, but check with venue for returns) and Dublin on Sunday (also sold out). All remaining tour dates here.


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