RichardHerring.com - Warming Up

8690/21609Trying to get the kids (and me) away from screens we used my English Heritage membership for about the 4th time in 5 years and went to Wrest Park. Even though it's only half an hour away from our house I had never heard of it before. But it was half an hour away from our house and that was the clincher for me.The kids were very reluctant to go, just as I was very reluctant to do anything like this as a kid, just like you were very reluctant to do stuff like this as a kid. But then…

8689/21608Despite feeling a bit under the weather I forced myself into doing a Park Run (Phoebe's kick off time was late enough this morning) and until the 5th km I felt pretty good and was even at pace to get sub 30 minutes. In the end it was 30 mins and 36 seconds, which is still 3 minutes faster than my last effort. At this rate, by Christmas, I will have finished before I started. It feels good to be getting round, though I'm still a long way off my PB and even over a minute slower than I…

8688/21607Thanks for the suggestions about what to do with my cables (and someone has claimed the thing with the pink wires- see Substack), so this story has a happy ending. My point was really that even with a tidy up I still hung on to an unrealistic number of leads that I will never use, but maybe I forgot to say that. As you know I loved my dog, but I am not very fond of our current cats (why couldn't they have died in Wolfie's place?). I am not cattist. I loved my first cat, Oscar and I…

8687/21606As the planet Earth spins ever closer to the welcome extinction of the human race (no point in having this blog preserved in the British Library now), I have been trying to tidy up my frankly disgustingly dirty and jumbled office space. It's been going quite well and today I decided to go through my drawers of cables and old bits of podcast tech and work out which, if any of them, I actually needed.

8686/21605After a game of tennis where I suddenly seemed to be playing zinging well-placed shots like a proper grown-up, I headed to the supermarket to pick up some milk and potatoes. I fancied that this would all fit in the carrier bag I keep the tennis stuff in, but inevitably I bought a few extra bits and so needed a bag.Being a brilliant thief of the inconsequential (in spite of my many pick n mix appropriations I have never been caught), I made the decision to claim at self-service check…

8685/21604I remain, I assume, immuno-compromised and I do seem to be readily picking up annoying bugs. Also though I am 59 and so a full 4 hour working day does exhaust me. I was under the weather and decided I should have a rest day. After doing the kids' breakfasts I tried to go back to sleep, but to no avail and then spent quite a lot of time trying to work out why our electric car charger keeps cutting out after about 5 minutes. Not sure I solved that, but I did at least manage to charge…

8684/21603I hadn't slept well again and had a pretty intense day of podcasting ahead of me, with the studio booked for four hours and four lots of interviews to do. This has worked well the last few times, but it's very much dependent on guests arriving on time. My first guests were Penn Jillette and Piff the Magic Dragon who were heading over from the Chris Evans (that one) show.

8683/21602The first episode of "The Great Celebrity Pottery Throwdown" finally aired tonight. I will be discussing what happened now, so if you haven't seen the episode, then please watch it before continuing. I had to keep my various travels to Stoke and back last November secret from you blog hungry fools. It was a very demanding schedule and often very embarrassing and frustrating to be trying something out for the first time whilst being filmed for national TV.

8682/21601A super busy day of parenting today, which leaves me in awe of anyone who is doing this job alone or with more than two kids. Phoebe has made the football team and will be playing matches pretty much every Saturday, roundly torpedoing my chance of getting back into Park Run. Ernie has started a drama group on Saturday mornings too - which gets him out of our hair for three hours, but he needed to be dropped off at the same time as Phoebe. So divide and conquer for Catie and me.I took…

8681/21600An early morning trip into the capital city to talk to Chris Moyles about Celebrity Pottery Throwdown which starts on Channel 4 on Sunday (don't miss it if you want to see how good I am at making pots). Moyles has a couple of new members of his posse (they go out on horseback if any crime is committed during broadcast hours) who I hadn't met before. We had been shown up to the Green Room by a nice lady who got me some water and then I went to meet the team.

8680/21599A somewhat less glamorous book club record today as I talked to David Quantick (I regret making David my laminated shag card now, but I reckon it is at least a realistic possibility) and Chris Barker about their impossibly enjoyable book "The Lost Films of Hollywood". It's such a simple idea of imagining that successful modern films are remakes of older ones and giving you the poster of the "original" but they do it SO well.

8679/21598That final RHLSTP isI sold out as I write (may be a handful more tickets released and always worth joining the waiting list). I've realised that I can make this thing a success again if I just SAY every show is the last ever show. What a brilliant con! Thanks for the money suckers.

8678/21597They mysterious Richard D Herring died today. Is it just me or are Richard Herrings dying at a much quicker rate than you'd expect for people with a relatively obscure name.He won't be forgotten. Mainly because we have no info to remember him by (though since I last looked a picture has been added). Please plant a tree in his name. So the news broke about my decision to end RHLSTP. I mean, I broke the news, so I probably should have expected it.

8677/21596So the real reason I am giving up RHLSTP is because I am now a huge film star. I got the train down to Brighton this morning for the first day of filming on Zak The Ripper. I have the first and last line in the film and so I am guessing I am the star of it, which means I no longer have time for scum like you and will soon be on an island with all the other celebrities making some dubious moral choices. My favourite kind of choices.I won't let it go to my head yet. Let's wait for Oscar…

8676/21595There are three more live RHLSTPs this year at the Leicester Square Theatre. The first one on 28th September has a pretty strong line-up: James Acaster and Isy Suttie. I am working on getting guests of that calibre for the other two so it's worth booking now.But you might also want to come because I am pretty certain that these will be the last three live RHLSTP shows I do. At the very least I am going to take a break from it, but I think it's probably time to move on to do something…

8675/21594If you want to get a mattress the Dreams in Stevenage doesn't give a fuck about making sure you've tried it out four times or thought about what kind of base it goes on or really anything apart from wanting to sell you a mattress. They'll just ask how firm you want it to be, show you a really cheap one on sale and then a less cheap one (but cheap compared to the guy who doesn't want to sell his beloved sexy mattresses) and then you'll be out of there in 30 minutes.

8674/21593A little skylight on our landing got cracked (we think) in the recent hail storm. At least it was during that storm that the window started to leak and we realised there was a big crack in it. I thought it would be a relatively easy task to call out someone to replace the glass, but so far all the Hitchin glaziers have turned me down, without saying why.You'd think glaziers would want to fix any window they could get their hands on. It's a job. They get paid for their time.

8673/21592First day of secondary school for Phoebe and she was picked up by a friend and they walked there without any grown-ups. What a delightful and horrifying moment. My heart swelled like a balloon that was somehow also brittle and cracked. How is it possible? I was driving her to reception yesterday. Literally. But they wouldn't let us in because the school wasn't open yet and Phoebe was clearly too old.Ernie goes back to school tomorrow, so we did some last minute errands for him.Two…

8672/21591I am recording five RHLSTP Book Clubs in the next fortnight and have a lot of reading to do. I've been very much enjoying Reece Shearsmith's forthcoming "Things I Took From The Dark", his look back at his childhood and the monsters and stories that inspired his comedy. In all honesty if you were told this was a book about the inspirations of a future serial killer you would probably believe it. So all in all it's good that Reece chose to go into comedy, rather than murder. Unless he's…

8671/21590My legs were pretty shaky after yesterday's tennis marathon, but somehow we managed a set of singles this morning, before my defeated opponent could go no further. I then had to dash through town to get my annual GP blood test (because as I've noted, they can't use any of the 20 or so blood tests I've had this year already) and then picked up a couple of bags of groceries at the supermarket.

8670/21589I got my first taste of defeat on the tennis courts this lunchtime... well recently anyway. Don't worry, my useless tennis partner hasn't suddenly become good. Far from it. We had actually teamed up for doubles and found ourselves playing two people who actually knew how to play tennis. We almost went 3-2 up in the first set (after going 2-0 down) and I thought we'd got the hang of it. But it turned out we lost 6-2, 6-1. And to be fair my partner played a lot better than I did.

8669/21588Phoebe has been given homework for her new school, which seems a bit mean since she hasn't even got there yet. So after the kids had had a fair share of ipads and TV, I said it was time to get off screens and for her to have a crack at her summer holiday schoolwork.Phoebe put down her phone, but Ernie was still on his iPad. She went into adult mode and told him to get off his screen."Who put you in charge?" I asked. "Was it mum going upstairs?""Yes,"Phoebe agreed without laughing at…

8668/21587Off to a wedding today and one that began at the unusually inconvenient time of 8am. Luckily it wasn't too far away from our house and also it was a Sri Lankan wedding, so the breakfast (and lunch) were made up of amazing food. Also you have to respect the traditions of other cultures, but still. Come on guys. You can have breakfast at midday on a Saturday.It wasn't just the kids who were reluctant for such an early start, but we somehow got everyone into their best clothes and the…

8667/21586Now King Harald V and Ratko Mladic are gone? Another part of my childhood gone. It's like 2016 all over again. The parts of Hitchin that had turned to ponds were largely restored to dryness today. I returned to the tennis court and it wasn't even slippy. So I only had the excuse of a month off for my relatively poor play.Catie was our with a friend (hello Kim) so I had to drag my reluctant and squabbling children out to the supermarket. My daughter was adamant that she wasn't coming…

8666/21585Back home today and Catie and I had a date tonight. We were going to the Hitchin Priory to see the Human League, Toyah and Roland Gift on an outdoor stage.I don't go to many music gigs, but this one was right on our doorstep and I thought it would be fun to see these musical artists from my youth, even if I could only recall about one of each of their songs.

8665/21584Goodbye Cornwall, hello Somerset. Another flying visit to the aged Ps before returning home tomorrow.My dad has recently celebrated his 90th birthday and proudly told us that the local MP had unexpectedly turned up on the day to personally give him his birthday card. He is a man who has done much for Cheddar and the surrounding area in the last 51 years and there should probably be a statue to the man in the town centre or a Keith Herring world at the end of Cox's Cave.I discovered…

8664/21583We decided to have a lazy day in for the last day of the holiday. I was the only one who left the house, when I popped out for some milk and bread from the local Post Office.I was glad to have a relatively quiet day as I was feeling pretty crappy after eating too much at the pub last night. You know you are old when food gives you a hangover. Not because the food was bad (it was really good) but because you had too much of it. I am sad to report that all the weight I lost on chemo has…

8663/21582Dragged the reluctant kids to the Lost Gardens of Heligan, (I bet I made the joke about finding them on my last visit, but am not going to check or repeat it here) but managed to keep them there for over four hours, even though they largely claimed not to be enjoying themselves.We went on our second rope bridge of the holiday, but this one was more sturdy and the kids kindly didn't try to shake it and I got across without any vertigo or pant-wetting (I didn't wet my pants on the first…

8662/21581To Porthpean Beach today for a proper day by the sea, which to be fair is all the kids want. It was busy but there was space for us. Ernie quickly made friends with some kids with a dinghy and attempted to take it out to sea, before their mum intervened and they all came back to navigate the small river. I had wanted my parents to get me a blow up dinghy when I was a kid and they had wisely refused. No way would I let Ernie have one of these either, so I was impressed that he'd…

8661/21580We drove across to Newquay today, a town that I'd holidayed in in the 90s and Catie had spent a bit of time in in the Noughties. I didn't recognise much.After a tricky couple of months where I haven't got to spend so much time with the family, due to recovering from treatment and being in Edinburgh I am loving spending lots of time with everyone. I am a very patient parent and though occasionally even my patience is tested (whose idea was ti to buy Ernie a recorder at the Eden…