RichardHerring.com - Warming Up

9719/21638Finally writing a blog every day for almost 24 years has paid off. The people behind Horrible Histories liked my blog about Ernie and me enjoying the show and invited us to go to the studios.Not since I wrote about wanting to have sex with Funella from the Furchester Hotel in the Metro and then slightly weirdly being invited to Salford to meet her and Mr Tumble (I signed an NDA so can't tell you about everything we got up to), have I ever got anything from writing this crap.W

9718/21637I love a good mystery as much as anyone and the crazy straws that some mystery hunters grab at. Occasionally the crazy straws prove to be correct, like when Richard III was found buried in a car park with an R painted above where he lay (though Turi King who was on that dig told me that that bit isn't true). Hey, it's great if someone finally solves something in that way and I remain excited by that whole tale.

8717/21636It's Catie's birthday this week and so to celebrate that and because we thought it would be fun for the family we went to the Petit Chef interactive restaurant experience in London.It's a neat idea which involves your table and plates being projector screens and a tiny French chef (maybe the little cook from Big Cook, Little Cook who hasn't been on TV for a while) who runs around the table and tells you the history of the tomato.

8716/21635This morning there was a ghost in our kitchen. I put a milk bottle on the counter and didn't properly put the lid on. And then about every 20 seconds a ghost tried (and failed) to take the lid off. I filmed it, so no one can deny it happened. Explain that science. (see Substack for video evidence) I have a couple of social media pet peeves to talk about today. Sorry, make that three. I also hate it when people refer to something they don't like as a pet peeve.They are more social…

8715/21634I am trying to get myself into some kind of routine so that I don't waste my remaining day/days (somewhere between 1 and 10,000) and I nailed this morning. I did my daily puzzles whilst making breakfasts for the kids and me and then got on with making lunch (all before 8am), then took the boy to school, came back finished off preparing my lunchtime pie, wrote my blog, prepped for my podcast, realised I had half an hour to slot in a Newsround and then interviewed the incredible Matt…

8714/21633More thoughts on Twitter�€s part in my downfall, after my initial decision to stop using it.Good on the British Comedy Guide for picking up on the sea change in podcasting. Sad to see Pappys and All Killa go, though understand the reasoning I've also noticed a few great stand ups posting about low ticket sales on their tours, which might be part of the same basic trend. The bigger name comics have always commanded the audiences, but perhaps it's skewing even further that way now.

8713/21632Ernie had the day off school today. The lurgy hanging over the house had hit him (and me). It's not too bad, just making us all a bit snotty and tired. I had to go into town for a meeting and it seemed that everyone on the train was struggling too. Lurgy and fruit flies are the two plagues hitting our house and the UK right now. Oh, and soon, the actual plague.

8712/21631Threads continues to be a gobsmacking pool of stupidity. Not only does everyone on there seem convinced the world is flat and that we've discovered Noah's Ark, but there's a lot of predictions about the imminent Rapture too.Someone even had a very convincing video about the good being sucked off to Heaven (been there) and the rest of us staying on a planet with no religious people on it. Wait, is this meant to scare us or have us crossing our fingers that it's real?Imagine a world…

8711/21630I hadn't touched clay since last November until this weekend. Ernie had been using air-dry clay at school and wanted to do more at home, so I bought a bag online and we had a play I showed them how to make a pinch pot and my efforts were as rough as fuck. Phoebe then made a really lovely beaker to keep pencils in, which was far better than mine.As with everything I do, I am not the best at it even in my own house.

8710/21629The final of Celebrity Pottery Throwdown today. If you haven't yet seen it then watch it before you read this blog. It was rather lovely watching this again - not for the pottery or the competition but to be reminded of how intensely emotional things got amongst the potters and how Fatiha and me really connected.I had not met Fatiha before this, though had seen her on TV and thought she was very funny but might be a bit intimidating or that her faith and my atheism might put us at…

8709/21628The oddest thing about being 59 (apart from it being impossible that you're 59) is the awareness that you might die any second OR you might live another 30 or 40 years. It makes it very difficult to plan anything.Should I be winding stuff down now and getting my affairs in order? Or do I have to keep this thing running until 2067? Be nice to get some indication at least.I guess two cancers is a little bit of a clue as to which way it's going.

8708/21627I don't feel so bad for stealing a bag from Sainsburys now. Yesterday I popped in and bought a few things. Yes I stole another bag, what of it? One of the things was a four pack of tinned tomatoes. I checked out on the self-service machines, but when I put the tomatoes down on the weighing bit it wouldn't let me carry on as it wanted the correct item in the bagging area. But I had put the correct item in. You stupid idiot machine.

8707/21626When will there be a Nobel Prize for Podcasting? What a great town Hitchin is. For well over a month now there has been a sign in the middle of a small roundabout that we walk past on the way to town which says "Iced Coffee. Add Vanilla, Hazelnut or Caramel."You might think that it's an advertisement for a nearby cafe, but no, there is no cafe named on either side of the sign. If it is an advert it's just one for the concept of Iced Coffee and a recommendation of what you can add to…

8707/21626I've had two dreams in the last two nights that I've woken up from, but that have then continued from where I left them when I fall asleep again. I don't know what that means.In the first one I was appearing on SNL US and in rehearsals, but everyone was very insistent that I was not allowed the script. I had, apparently seen it once and everyone was telling me that I couldn't have a look, however much I told them that I needed to see the script if I was going to be in the sketch.

8705/21624If present day examples are anything to go by, Jesus going all-in on Christianity in his 30s makes me wonder what the Hell he'd been getting up to in his 20s. There may be a reason that none of the Gospels talk about it. Over to Hertford this evening to do a Q and A for Alistair Barrie's renowned stand-up comedy course. It must be a while since I was last at Hertford Theatre because it's now called BEAM and has had a major refit.

8704/21623My crazy, funny, (usually) incredibly sweet boy turned 9 today. He was incredibly excited to receive a plastic flintlock pistol, a viking shield, some fossils and a couple of solid gold (maybe) necklaces. I don't know if he will grow up to be an archaeologist, a pirate or a pimp (or the job that combines all three- a comedian), but it was lovely to see him so thrilled. It is rare as an adult that you squeal with joy when opening a present. That's a shame.

8703/21622The semi-final of The Great Celebrity Pottery Throwdown tonight  and Twitch of Fun/Craven Newsround fans will enjoy this one as it features Richard Ison's Tiny Dick puppet and me building some garden gnomes based on Ally and me. Spoilers incoming so watch the show first.My main memory of this show is being frustrated and for the first time the show chose to highlight a tiny amount of that. Layton even calls me a misery guts, which made me laugh, but would be a lot more fair…

8702/21621I am delighted that my kids have very good comedy taste - where did they get that from? Oh their mum.Because kids love to repeat view/listen to stuff, which means you have to ingest it too and so if something they like is bad then (I imagine) that makes your life Hell.Phoebe loves Flo and Joan, as you may recall and I think I may have heard some of those songs more than Flo and Joan have. But they stand repeated listens.

8701/21620Coming up with a joke about or a reimagining of old kids TV shows for every Newsround might become a bit of a chore, but so far I've managed to come up with over 100 of them. My favourites are the ones that unite two very obscure ideas meaning they are likely only to be understood by a handful of my fairly small audience.Today it struck me how weird that Noel Edmond's Saturday morning show as called The Multicoloured Swap Shop. It was hardly any of those things.

8700/21619Celebrity Traitor spoilers incoming. Who would have thought Richard E Grant would have turned out to be a fucking idiot?To think he wouldn't let his RHLSTP go out, but he's happy for this to air on national TV. What's his problem?I guess we'll never know. But he seems set to become an even greater national treasure, so I'd better get on board the bus and say he's great (I did actually think he was great in the podcast- still one of my top 10 and he was hilarious, but as you may have…

8699/21618My last day of filming on Zak The Ripper with a call time of 8am. I had fancied that I could make this if I had stayed in Htichin and got a very early train, but the production had wanted me there for sure, hence my night of haute cuisine in the Premier Inn.I was picked up and taken to a remote cottage. As I was being driven up the track to the location I wondered if this whole project had been an elaborate plan to kidnap me and maybe/hopefully turn me into some kind of sex slave.

8698/21617Last week I got to spend a Monday night in Newhaven and this week it's a Tuesday night in Hastings. Anyone who thinks making a movie is glamorous should hang around with me. Because all their suspicions will be confirmed!If you are expecting to see loads of Normans with their willies out in Hastings, then I am afraid the Bayeaux Tapestry lied to you. The Battle of Hastings took place in Battle, a place specifically chosen for the battle, because of its name, Battle. Stupid thing to…

8697/21616Back to the Leicester Square Theatre and it felt like ages since I'd been here or done a podcast in front of an audience (Edinburgh is just a distant dream that I am not sure even happened).I had two fantastic guests lined up and the show was sold out and so I wasn't too worried. And turned out that I didn't need to be. When this place is full the atmosphere is already amazing and tonight had the added excitement of this being one of the last chances to see this.

8696/21615Round at the in-laws for lunch. They've been donated a big garden trampoline (to replace the smaller one that their neighbours had also given them) and a goal so I played football with the kids and Catie then bounced on the trampoline with them.As fun as these garden trampolines are, they seem like an accident waiting to happen. It's a lot of fun playing on the train tracks until a train comes along . Luckily there were no serious injuries today, but it's only a matter of time.

8695/21614Threads continues to be a source of human stupidity for me (and I am not adding any intelligence to the mix). At the moment about 25% of the posts I am seeing (and this might be because I keep responding to dumb religious content) is about how Noah's Ark has been discovered. Some people think Noah's Arc has been discovered, which I would be even more interested to see. No one yet has claimed Joan of Arc has been discovered or done the Who was Noah's wife? joke.

8694/21613A reminder to everyone planning to make a cumpkin this Halloween: Please use appropriate protection to ensure you don�€t create any human/pumpkin chimeras.Look at this poor child. Shunned by humans, shunned by pumpkins, living in a pumpkin patch and living off the pumpkin corpses of her family.Making a cumpkin is for life, not just for Halloween. I am entering the period of my life where I am just a full time, unpaid taxi driver for my children.

8693/21612The positive thing about ending the main RHLSTP show is I will have a bit more time to work on other projects. Maybe.But I don't know which projects I am going to focus on - there are a few things that I want to do. Also most days just thinking of something to write about in Warming Up and choosing a news story to riff on in Newsround seems to take up most of the day.Have I made a mistake ending my one project that actually makes me some money in order to concentrate on esoteric stuff…

8692/21611Threads is now my goto social media spot if I want to leave a sarcastic comment about the stupid crap people say in there. It's not an open sewer like Twitter, it's not full of people taking jokes at face value like Bluesky, but it seems to have a lot of people/bots expressing opinions, probably solely so that people will RT them and they will get more views and maybe more money. Which would be a sad way to make money, but then who am I to talk?

8692/21611My second day of filming on Zak The Ripper, though the crew and some of the cast have been working pretty solidly since our first day on the 7th September. They were in good spirits, not quite as perky and excited as day one, with a few people suffering with exhaustion and bugs. But still laughing together and it sounds like filming has been going really well.

8691/21610I've always dreamed of coming to Newhaven ever since I heard it existed, yesterday. And today my 24 hour long dreams came true. I came to Newhaven, as we're filming Zak the Ripper here tomorrow. It was a wearying journey. I was still a bit under the weather with my low key man flu and my high key man cancer. I'd hoped to record a Newsround before Ieft this afternoon, but my brain was fuzzy and none of the news seemed that funny, so Newshounds will have to wait until Wednesday for the…