I have two days off from the show and Edinburgh ahead of me, so I decided to take it easy and treat today like a mini-holiday. Alas my wife was not so lucky and was gigging in Norwich, so with time to myself and Mrs Herring out of town I could return to my old single ways - wandering around in a daze on my own, watching Challenge TV and crying.
But luckily because solitude is a novelty rather than the norm these days I was able to enjoy it in a way I didn't really used to. I had to take the car in for a service this morning and walked back from Chiswick in the sunshine. I can't remember the last time a man asked me for a cigarette, but today two men in the space of 30 seconds (on a fairly deserted street) both made the request and a bit further on another man asked me if I had a light. Had the sun befuddled them and they'd come out without their smoking paraphernalia or did I suddenly look like a smoker?
I had lunch with my ambassador friend (who had delivered the Ferrero Rocher at my wedding) and then tried to do a bit of writing in a cafe, but wasn't getting anywhere, so did a bit of shopping and then went to see Batman, treating myself to a beer. This was like being on holiday. One of those holidays I had on my own. But I was enjoying it.
Afterwards I passed time dicking around on Twitter, trying to make script improvements to the film and revealing the spoiler that in the end it turns out that Batman was Bruce Wayne all along. It was clear that without my wife around I was a lost soul, but for one night only it was kind of fun and I never had Twitter to fill the void when I was experiencing the less enjoyable parts of being alone.
I popped to the loo before heading out of the cinema. As I got to the urinal, unbuttoned my fly and had just got my penis out, a man emerged from the cubicle and said, "I'm a big fan". I was surprised. He can only have caught the briefest of glimpses. But I don't blame him. It's an impressive sight.
I then went for a pizza and had another big beer and read a book. But I couldn't keep away from the internet for long. I am foolish/vain/masochistic enough to have a Google alert set up in my name and the latest email came through. There was a just giving page for Richard Herring and I was a bit confused as it didn't look like one of mine. It turned out to be for another Richard Herring
who is doing a trek to Macchu Picchu in a year's time. He had only set the page up a few days ago but had no donations so far and in my mild inebriation and in the spirit of mischief I thought it might be funny to ask my Twitter followers to donate to the page in the hope that he'd check it in the morning and discover a couple of hundred quid had suddenly appeared and none of the names of the donors would be familiar. It was a silly prank but one where everyone won. And it was something that enough of my silly followers took to heart to turn into something genuinely heart-warming. A few people picked up the ball and soon the total was at £85. Enough to give the other Richard Herring a pleasant surprise, but then the thing started to snowball a bit and even with most people just chipping in a fiver or less the total was quickly heading towards a thousand pounds and people were retweeting my encouragements. It reminded me of my early days on Twitter when people were largely positive and you could try something silly and if it struck a chord it would grow. This was a bit like those heady days of "Who is Virgilio Anderson?" but with the nice twist that the stupidity was also doing some good.
Richard Herring had set himself the target of £3000, but within an hour or so it looked entirely feasible that a group of 500 or so strangers could get that for him, whilst laughing at the silliness of it all. This was all unplanned and random and yet deeply satisfying to anyone taking part. We were all imagining the reaction and confusion of the victim, something that none of us would get to see (but that didn't matter). I had no idea who this other Richard Herring was or what he was like - he had been chosen for no good reason. I hoped that he might hate me and my comedy to add to his confusion, or even, more amusingly that he might have no idea who I was. That in all his years no one had ever said, "You've got the same name as a comedian." It was entirely plausible that that might be the case.
It was a joke, but one that didn't mock a celebrity desperate for attention or a hapless innocent member of the public. It was just funny and if anything we were mocking the idea of money having any value, whilst showing in a sense that randomly giving it away (even if we might have needed it ourselves) can perversely increase it's worth. In a world where rich people greedily hoard and hide their money away it was fantastic to see people so willing just to chuck another quid or two away just for the fun of it and the thrill of it. Maybe I was drunk, or still high on my not-LSD experience of last night, but I loved that this stupid little idea was showing that most people are good and kind and funny. And perhaps it shone a tiny light on where capitalism is going wrong and what money is for. I think money is a very useful tool and I don't have a problem with people trying to accrue some for the future or to give themselves a nicer lifestyle. But when people start earning millions upon millions, more than they could ever really spend and try to find ways to keep it to themselves, even if that means them storing it in a secret bank somewhere, then they have lost track of what money is for. But the people tonight who so willingly gave probably don't have millions stored away and pay the correct amount of tax, but they understood that money is for spending, for making fun things happen, for helpig others, even if they are helping them to freak out a stranger. Think what Jimmy Carr could do with the couple of million of pounds he didn't give to the taxman last year, or Gary Barlow, or any of those other businessmen squirrelling their fortunes away. The value of money is in using it. What if the bankers all decided to forego their bonuses and give it to Richard Herring's charity (it doesn't just have to be him)? What if the rich people hiding trillions of dollars away from the tax man thought, hey wouldn't this money be more useful if it was doing something for someone else, rather than sitting around in a bank until I die. It seems to me that the people who have the power to get us out of this recession are the rich - they just have to start spending. If they don't spend then there's always a chance that things will get so bad that someone will start to question the whole system and it will get smashed to pieces. So even if they are mercenary it's in their interests to spend their way out. But they're holding on to it and not paying tax on it and may be dancing into the abyss like the people I am writing about in pre-revolutionary Russia.
I have certainly been doing my level best to spend all my money (and then some more) and I wonder what would happen if others did the same.
I know this is crazy nonsense, but tonight's slightly drunken idiocy did bring it home to me that money only has value when you're spending it - especially when you're spending it on the right things or saving it for the right things. Spend your money people. It's going to be worthless soon enough as it is.
By the time I went to bed the total had topped £2000. Just extraordinary that silliness can have such instant effects.
But in the mean time let's see if we can get Richard Herring to £3000
donate here. If it's this easy to do something nice then it actually makes me quite respect people who put in all that effort to do something horrible.
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