Two podcasts today.
The first was a special Christmas one that will be released next week in which we teamed up with Phil Wilding and Phill Jupitus from The Perfect Ten for a fourway podclash. They record their podcast in a posh studio in central London, with actual technical dudes helping them and the ability to play in stings! It is some way away from our macbook in the attic. You'll have to wait to find out what we talked about, but Collings, like the idiot he is, took along his macbook to record the exchange in full muffled glory. So we'll be releasing that version as our podcast and they'll be putting out the crisper, more professional version. Ours does have an extra ten or so minutes at the beginning and the end, but won't have the jingles - though Collings did attempt to get some of them on to his computer by putting his headphones up against the microphone!
It was a lot of fun and I think you'll enjoy it.
We went out for a couple of Christmas lunchtime pints once we were done, in one of the Samuel Smith pubs that seem to only exist in central London and nowhere else and do all their own beers and spirits and no one else's. Back in the early 90s I used to go to the Yorkshire Grey near Broadcasting House when we were working on various radio shows. It was there
that I got my head kicked by a drunk. But that pub also only served Samuel Smith beers. I was taken back in time by association. After talking loudly and disturbing the quiet solitude of most of the other drinkers we headed our separate ways. Andrew and me went to grab some lunch in the hope of negating the effects of the two pints that we'd just quickly consumed. We went to this terrific little place called
Abokado which did sushi and noodles and wraps. It was all very healthy and delicious. I heartily recommend it - as I did so a couple of hours later in podcast 2 (actually though chronologically the first one). In fact without knowing it Mark and Lindsay Lilley were the sponsors of podcast 43. Even though they haven't paid us anything or asked us to publicise them. I prefer that kind of sponsorship. Surely it's better if people advertise things they like for free rather than take money to pretend to like something. It's even better than taking money for something they really like, because if no money (or sushi) is changing hands then you can trust that people really mean it. I hope to bring capitalism down by promoting it without payment. You know if capitalism doesn't bring itself down by having people embezzling billions of pounds - how much money does one man need?
I had bought Andrew Collings a little Christmas present - though really it was for both of us. It was
this podcast studio kit (don't look Andrew or you will see how much I paid! It was loads!). It is a step up from the internal mike of the macbook, but compared to the studio we'd been to it did seem a little like a tonka toy. We haven't tried it out yet mainly because I gave it to him "live" "on air" and I think it will take us til the New Year to get into gear. But for those of you upset by the sound quality, then hopefully this will help. So in a way it's a Christmas present to all our listeners. I suspect it won't work though and we'll carry on with our comparatively Luddite ways.
A couple of pints and some Teryaki Chicken Udon Noodles (only 290 calories) inside me was all the fuel I needed for a disjointed and strange podcast, in which I particularly enjoyed satirising the people who are complaining about the voting system of Strictly Come Dancing. The podcast will be up < ahref="http://www.comedy.org.uk/podcasts/collingsherrin/">in the usual place some time on Wednesday. Hope you enjoy it. Relish the poor sound quality. We're about to go high tech!
