Richard Herring
Who has special needs?
Posted by Richard Herring - 30 January 2009 13:01
It was one of those gigs where I decided to leave behind the safety net and just launch into stuff and see where it went - Richard Herring's life on Mars...
I had a gig in Barking last week. I couldn’t work out if I’d been there before or if it just reminded me of the 1970s. Is the whole place a Heritage site where it’s illegal to update the shopping centre? And, if so, do they insist that all the people who live there are forbidden to update their hairstyles too? I felt like I was in “Life on Mars”....
The kiss that spanned 200 years
Posted by Richard Herring - 16 January 2009 10:25
If you're into being kissed by people from the 19th Century and you haven't done it yet, then you'd better pull your finger out. There's only a few of them left
Winter comes and takes its toll on the elderly. I was sad to read this week of the death of William Stone, one of our last remaining World War One veterans.
Yet it’s incredible to think that anyone who was involved in that conflict is still around almost a century later, when so many perished before they had had the chance to live.
Closer to home, my Great ...
Muntadar al-Zaidi my hero
Posted by Richard Herring - 19 December 2008 09:25
If only that shoe had hit Bush. It wouldn’t have compensated for the hundreds of thousands of people who have died in Iraq, but it would have been a good start
The US president narrowly dodged a shoe in the face during a visit to Iraq
I am in love with the guy who threw his shoes at George W Bush.
He is my hero. I love you Muntadar al-Zaidi and I hope that you are not punished for your brave and wonderful shoe based act. This is a protest. Shooting someone or blowing someone up is not way to go about making a point. By killing someone you only prove yourself as bad ...
My Tommy Cooper moment...
Posted by Richard Herring - 05 December 2008 08:59
Maybe the credit crunch is good for comedians, but I've barely had time to sit down and rest at all. I really need a holiday ... that's if I live that long
I am suffering from a medical condition that doesn’t get much written about it in the press – mainly because it’s a bit of a minor and rubbish problem. But tens of people around the UK are affected by it and I think they and I deserve some publicity and maybe a medal.
I have Benign Positional Vertigo, which affects the inner ear and can make the sufferer ...
And the real filthmongers?
Posted by Richard Herring - 21 November 2008 09:48
How does the print media manage to remain above criticism when they often do much more harm than the things they are criticising, wonders Richard Herring
Last week this pathetic non-story broke in the tabloid newspapers, a new flood of self-righteous disgust, as if we hadn’t already been deluged with that enough already. Basically 42 kids who’d been round the supermarket on a school trip (and is it just me or the credit crunch, but haven’t the quality of school trips declined a bit of late? At least we got to go to the Welsh ...
Racism and Lewis Hamilton
Posted by Richard Herring - 06 November 2008 11:22
It's hard to think of any racists who aren't pathetic physical and mental specimens, proving beyond doubt that the idea of white supremacy is bogus
Lewis Hamilton, Formula One world champion, hugs members of his family
There has been some more furore about Spanish racism towards Lewis Hamilton. I hate racism and everyone in Spain is racist and so I hate them all. Which isn't racist, because the Spanish are not a race. What I am is xenophobic and generalising and wrong.
But not as stupid and wrong as ALL Spanish people. All right, let’s be fair – SOME Spanish people.
The recent Spanish stupidity has ...
Not getting laid
Posted by Richard Herring - 23 October 2008 10:17
"Contrast the unrealistic hopefulness of the schoolboys with the resigned weariness of the beer drinking adults"
I took the train to Brighton for a performance of my retrospective on my adolescence, “The Headmaster’s Son” last Friday. The carriage was predictably packed and it was standing room only. Despite being hot and bothered and having chubby businessmen rubbing up against me, getting their frottaging kicks, I got my cheap thrills by observing my fellow commuters. It was faintly surprising to see the number of smartly dressed men ...
Pantomime punk
Posted by Richard Herring - 08 October 2008 10:02
How the godfather of punk turned into a pantomime figure advertising butter. Herring tries to reconcile the death of the image of a childhood hero with the Rotten older self
So how do I feel about my boyhood hero, Johnny “Rotten” Lydon, appearing in an advert for Country Life butter?
Is it against the principles of punk rock? Is it the ultimate sell out? It's not exactly cash from chaos, unless you count the chaos of the milk churn. Is he, as Bill Hicks would contend, removed from the artistic world for all eternity?
I ...
Spending less time with your family...
Posted by Richard Herring - 26 September 2008 14:53
Wouldn't we like our politicians more if they didn't treat us like children? Wouldn't we like them more if they were candid?
I hate politicians. They are idiots. Pretty much without exception. One has a vague feeling that there might have been some more honourable ones, in some bygone era, but in reality those George Washingtons and Mahatma Gandhis and William Gladstones were probably as hollow and rotten and transparent (not a good combination, as their festering emptiness is on full view to the world) as the ones we've got now.
As ...
What would Rasputin do?
Posted by Richard Herring - 10 September 2008 12:01
Comedian Richard Herring on Lee Hurst, clashing with hecklers, how he smashed a ringing mobile phone to smithereens and kicked someone in the head. Sort of...
I am back in the news again. Just a casual mention in an Independent article about Lee Hurst breaking a punter's phone.
The relevant bit reads "In 2005, the comedian Richard Herring smashed an audience member's mobile. When the owner went on stage to demand £70 for the phone, Herring quipped: "I'm not giving you £70 for that. It's broken.""
The story was picked up (and slightly twisted ...
Spirit of the Fringe? You must be joking...
Posted by Richard Herring - 28 August 2008 17:52
You can't capture the essence of Edinburgh in a corporate-sponsored perspex award and musicals about Pot Noodles
I have been blogging every day for nearly six years now, sounding off in the comfort of my house, often forgetting that all the crap I am spewing out can be read by anyone in the world who has a computer and the inclination to find it.
As Edinburgh drew to a close I blogged about my dissatisfaction with the if.comedy panel. Basically I said it was a bit ...
Dancing in the rain
Posted by Richard Herring - 14 August 2008 16:11
There was something rawly sexual about this gaggle of half-drowned young people cavorting and hugging and splashing in the mud. And not in an obvious and cheap way.
I have been in Edinburgh for over a fortnight now and am half way through the run of my latest stand up show, The Headmaster’s Son. It’s going rather well this year, thanks for asking (oh you didn’t), although I have just nearly crippled myself by trying to leap frog on to a high stool on stage, forgetting I am 41 years old and twatting myself in the ribs.
...Jumping off the scaffold
Posted by Richard Herring - 29 July 2008 09:51
Herring on the dangers of having an annoying child and whether it would be worth it for tax purposes. Plus history and news Guy Fawkes jumped before he was dropped
On my way up to the Edinburgh Fringe (The Headmaster’s Son – Underbelly, 7.30pm) I stopped off for a gig in Newcastle and stayed with my friend Jeremy. He has two children, an inquisitive seven year old boy and his shy younger sister, who wasn't quite sure about me. At breakfast she made herself a small hide out of cereal boxes which blocked me out or her in ...
Herring is getting old
Posted by Richard Herring - 14 July 2008 14:53
As he turns 41, Herring moans about men who leave their towels lying around in the locker room.
I have just turned 41 years old. It’s the start of my 42nd year on this planet. I am experiencing every date of the year for the 42nd time – apart from February 29th which I’ve done a mere eleven times, which means I am not as jaded with it as I am with all the others. Forty two July 16ths! I think once you’ve lived through twenty-five July 16ths ...
Judgemental force of nerds
Posted by Richard Herring - 30 June 2008 15:31
Herring thanks you, his audience, for ensuring he sticks to the path of righteousness and refrains from fleecing the elderly...
I sat on the bench outside WH Smiths in Hammersmith to drink the warm bottle of diet coke that I had just bought from the store. "Sorry the fridge isn't working," said the lady at the check out. She seemed genuinely sorry for the refrigerator malfunction. I didn't really mind. It was going to get warm in my stomach in any case. I just needed the liquid and the caffeine ...
