I have learned nothing.
Even though the sun shone through most of the day I stayed sat on my sofa inside, failing to work, watching the tennis. I am an idiot. You may have noticed this already.
I have discovered I have an enemy though. His name is Jeff Leeson-Cox. He has named his facebook page www.facebook.com/andrewcollinsandrichardherringaredicks. Which is a big commitment to being our enemy. He is stuck with that address forever. It's like tattooing the name of someone you hate on to your own face. It's odd to attach your own identity to those of some people you think are dicks. If I think someone is a dick I would usually just let them get on with it. Although I think there's a good chance that Jeff Leeson-Cox is a bit of a dick and here I am writing about him. But I am not planning on naming my first child Jeff Leeson-Cox Herring.
I have to say I think there's a good chance that he doesn't really hate us, or he is the invention of someone, who is well aware of the fact that I would eventually be told about the page and knowing me would definitely write about it. Jeff Leeson-Cox looks a bit too smug in his picture and his name is verging on the made up comedy name (like I can talk). Would someone who hated me really go to this bother, or is this a podcast fan who's jumping on the Virgilio Anderson Band Wagon (the Virg-And Wagon)?
I don't really care. It's all a fun way to help me avoid doing any work or going out in the sunshine.
But Jeff Leeson-Cox isn't content with just naming his page after us (and I actually feel quite honoured that he did even that - it's nice to make an impression), Samantha Carter messaged me to let me know that he's also set up this page -
Richard Herring is a publicity seeking twat. Jeff Leeson-Cox had written "I've listened to his podcast and all he ever does is try to get people incited to either vandilise wikipedia or graffiti phrases everywhere.
You're a relic Herring......deal with it."
That seems a bit of an unfair precis of my work. It sounds like he has listened to one podcast in which I may have done those things, but I also talk about bumming and nyumming and having sex with tortoises and ginger beer. And that's all. But it seems unfair to miss those things out.
If it's a joke then that's one thing, but if Jeff Leeson-Cox is really furious with me and my podcast that you actively have to seek out that only a few thousand people listen to, then I think he's missed the point. If my desire to get people to put graffiti on toilet walls or alter wikipedia pages was really in the cause of self-publicity then my horizons would be very small. My message would reach literally dozens of people. Most of whom were doing a shit.
When I found it yesterday the group had only one member Jeff Leeson-Cox. I felt a bit sorry for him, all on his own there with this page of hate towards a figure that most people would not have heard of. Chances are if you know my name you probably quite like me. Jeff Leeson-Cox was on a hiding to nothing. So I decided to join the page to give him some company, so he wasn't up there on his own, looking all smug and having a silly name. I also thought it would be amusing if I used his page to publicise myself, so added my Edinburgh dates to the wall.
In the next few hours a couple of other people joined, who both joined in with the game of using the "Richard Herring is a publicity seeking twat" page to publicise something I was doing. You might like to join up and do the same thing. Then it can be a useful first stop for anyone who hates me and wants to avoid me to find out what I am up to so they don't have to watch it or listen to it.
I love Jeff Leeson-Cox. I believe it is important to love your enemies. I am not saying I am Jesus. Perhaps someone would like to set up a page celebrating him and his life. He could be the new Virgilio Anderson. Man Virg-An is so last week. Maybe we should have some "I love Jeff Leeson-Cox" T-shirts made up.
And don't bother trying to out trump him so you'll get a mention on my webpage or podcast. This is the last time I'll do this. Jeff Leeson-Cox has managed to get the publicity he sought out of this, just as Virgilio Anderson has achieved a sort of demi-semi fame entirely by accident. It won't work again.
Let's just try and be nice to each other, hey?
And Virg-An, in reality will live forever, whilst Johnny-come-latelys like Jeff Leeson-Cox will be forgotten in a month or so. Proof of Virgilio's fame?
Check out Nathan Jay's new video for his
"Who is Virgilio Anderson?" track and why not buy it and see if you can get Virgilio Anderson in the charts -
You can get it here- only 79p.
If Virgilio Anderson searches for himself and starts seeing the things that are slowly building around him, I wonder what he will think. I worry that I might inadvertently propel him into international fame and he'll be unable to cope with the pressure, like Susan Boyle. But it would be an amazing satire of the cult of fame to make someone famous literally for nothing. And without them even attempting to become famous. It will be worth the destruction of an innocent man's sanity for that satire to work.
I should really stop publicising other people all the time and try and publicise myself some of the time!
OK here goes.
You can also preorder "An Atheist's Guide to Christmas" which I have contributed to along with a plethora of amazing writers
here. All the money from this goes to the Terrence Higgins Trust.
I watched an episode of "Pulling" on the way home from my gig last night. It was the one where one of the characters is shaving with a blunt razor which then breaks and goes down the toilet, leaving him with a Hitler moustache. He goes out and everyone gives him a hard time, shopkeepers stare at him appalled and a man who runs him over punches him in the face. Although I enjoyed the episode I can let the writers know that having a Hitler moustache does not really cause this kind of mayhem. In three weeks I have not been punched and shop keepers have served me. A few people have stared, some looking horrified, most amused. Generally people tend to laugh behind my back when they think I can't hear.
I still live every second in fear that someone will hit me or worse pat me on the back and congratulate me, but people are either more easy going or more scared of me than you would imagine.
