RichardHerring.com - Warming Up

Sunday 5th October 2008

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I was up early to get a taxi back to Brussels and the Eurostar home. I think when I accepted this gig I imagined it might almost serve as a mini-break away on the continent, but it became just like a regular gig - arriving in a town in the dwindling light and leaving in the morning before anything is open.

Saturday 4th October 2008

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I was gigging in Belgium tonight, at a mini comedy festival in a town called Geel, a place I have never heard of before. In fact, to be honest, beyond knowing that I had to get the Eurostar to Brussels and was then getting picked up in a taxi, I had no idea where I was going. I'd been too busy to do any research, and thought it was likely that I'd be on somewhere in the capital, or at least its suburbs, but it was a good hour's drive away.

Friday 3rd October 2008

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I think I might have worked harder this week than at pretty much any point since about 2002. Certainly in terms of variety of what I've been up to, but I have successfully written a treatment for a TV comedy drama, written links for two episodes of "Batteries Not Included", made some serious adjustments to the script I have been script-editing and done 3 interviews for the radio 4 show about bad habits, which I today discovered is to be called "Bad Habits".

Thursday 2nd October 2008

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I had been making good progress on getting my diet back on track, but all that may have been ruined today. Because on Sunday I'd had a couple of beers when I wrote my entry on Victory Vs and in the course of my research had come across this website selling old time sweets. In my slightly inebriated state (and this is a good advert for the much-vaunted idea that there should be breathalyzers on computers) I for some reason thought it would be a good idea to bulk buy a load of sweeties to have in my house.

Wednesday 1st October 2008

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Andrew Collings and a few other people have drawn attention to this embarrassing interview in which Les Ross puts both his own feet and a few other people's feet in his mouth chatting to Hardeep Singh Kohli. Hardeep, perhaps, takes offence rather quickly at Les's line of enquiry, but Les does come in rather rudely right from the start, thinking he's funny with his rubbish and cliched opinions. And then gets himself into all sorts of problems with ethnic issues and becomes properly offensive.

Tuesday 30th September 2008

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Forget about plastic bags and turning down the thermostat - the real cause of global warming is, as you may have heard before, cow farts(don't tell them, but I don't think it's just the cows - I might be partially responsible). Basically it seems (from my skim reading of this piece) that the profligate luxurious living of our generation is taking down the environment, and unless we all cut back on meat and milk and go back to the ways of our grandparents.
Good luck persuading people about this one.

Monday 29th September 2008

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Call me the troubleshooter!
I cycled up to BBC TV Centre this afternoon to do some script editing work on a sit-com pilot. I still get a little frisson of excitement when I go into this building, for the teenage me who would not believe that I would ever be working in this iconic place (when even the W12 postcode given out on the address for Swap Shop and the like seemed glamorous - now I have my own W12 postcode I know the truth). It's tempered a little these days with the disappointment of past failures.