Sad to hear of the death of Geoffrey Perkins, former boss of comedy at the BBC. (It's always more shocking when it's an accident - he seems to have been hit by a van yesterday morning at 9.30, presumably on his way to work at Tiger Aspect.) I met him only once. When Simon Day and I were working Grass up into a pilot script back in 2001, he was still Head of Comedy and we went to see him. This is what I wrote in my subsequent sitcom diary for Radio Times:

Wednesday September 5
Meeting with the headmaster: BBC comedy supremo Geoffrey Perkins. He's read the new script and likes the first half, which is encouraging, but we have work to do. (Perkins will announce that he is leaving the BBC about a week later, which is a blow, but par for the course in television's constant game of musical swivel chairs.)

He was my first Head of Comedy, and it really was quite nerve-wracking, especially as I knew him from off of the telly. In the event, as he'd left for the private sector, as they all do, he wasn't the man who commissioned Grass, or even steered it towards commission, but thinking about it, he must have signed off on us writing a pilot script, so I owe him a lot. Looking at his vast CV, it seems we all do.

Happy birthday to me.



Yesterday marked my one-year anniversary deputising for Mark Kermode on News 24 (which is no longer called News 24, it's just BBC News, but, like Word magazine and Opal Fruits and the Hammersmith Odeon, its old name will linger in popular memory). It is very helpful of the BBC to log my appearances, all ten of them since August 2007: so many different seating arrangements, so many different news anchors (Julian Worricker the most frequent), so many floor managers, so many "floats"* and incorrectly loaded clips and stills, so much foundation powder-puffed on to stop my forehead from shining. It's cool to hang out at BBC News, which, of course, is like a duck: calm on the surface, but paddling away like mad under the water. Even though I have a BBC pass it does not grant me access to the hallowed newsroom, so I have to call somebody and hang around outside to be let in; this puts me in my place. Yesterday, they were all watching the John McCain/Sarah Palin speeches. I even saw John Simpson wander by. I'm just a small cog in their 24-hour world - one who has to borrow a producer or assistant's pass in order to go to the toilet - but they let me log on and loiter, and the Film 24 slot (still called despite the re-branding), which goes out at 5.45 on a Friday, had to be pushed back to 6.45 due to the Republican convention yesterday, so I had even longer to hang around in my suit and red shirt. Long may Mark Kermode take occasional holidays. And you can download me pretending to be him with Simon Mayo on 5 Live here.





* A "float" is a clip that plays under what I'm saying, rather than a clip that I stop talking for.

Hello. Hello. After a full 22 days off (more than I state on the podcast itself, but I've since done the maths), Collings & Herrin Podcast 27 is up. It was fun to discuss so many burning issues of the day after so much time apart, including whether Gary Glitter's sunglasses should be tagged, whether the Falkland Islands really need protecting and whether BBC News website reporters are actually working hard enough. (The latter came up because they are so lazy that Richard Herring is now making the news, as seen on the BBC News website: Spirit of Fringe award "cop-out". It's on the screen above.)

A big thank you to Nathan* for supplying us with our first ever jingles. We are so close to selling out.



* Nathan's album is on iTunes. Unlike our podcast, it costs money.

One of the most moving pieces of television for a long time: Jerry Springer in Who Do You Think You Are, visiting this simple but haunting holocaust memorial in Lodz in Poland, the ghetto from which his maternal grandmother was transported to a concentration camp by the Nazis in 1942. Marie Kallman was sent to the Chelmno camp in May of that year, where she was killed, one of the first victims of the Final Solution. Springer was left alone to contemplate all this, but his mic was still on and we heard his sobs. There was a lot of history in this moment. It is thought that 153,000 Jews, Gypsies and Soviet prisoners of war were killed at Chelmno. I'm currently reading a biography of Diana Mosley, the Hitler-loving Fascist Mitford sister. It all fits together.

I can't work out whether Season Five of The Wire is unravelling or coming together! In what is, officially, Episode 56 (titled, brilliantly, The Dickensian Aspect), McNulty's spectral serial killer is now a fiction that's taking over from fact, to the point that Carcetti is preaching to the national news media about finding him and bringing him to justice. Templeton's on TV, being grilled on some sensationalist news show (perhaps real?) about what it's like to be this serial killer's "Jimmy Breslin" - the New York reporter tied into the Son Of Sam case in the late 70s. It's getting out of hand, and that's the point, I'm starting to think. All the pieces fit together. Lester, the very definition of a fine, upstanding police, is now flaunting his illegal wiretap to Sydnor ("If you have a problem with this, I understand completely"). If it means nailing Marlo, so be it. Meanwhile, after Prop Joe, the indestructible Omar - a real serial killer, you might say, and equally spectral - is bent on near-Biblical revenge. (As Slim Charles commented to Avon on the subject of war*: once you in it, you in it.) He survived a jump from a fifth-floor window - literally disappearing from the rosebed beneath, like Michael Myers in Halloween - and is now hobbling round Baltimore on a broom, leaving messages for Marlo. If these are the last days - and with Prop Joe gone, Marlo's effectively disbanded the Co-Op meetings at what looks like the Thistle, Baltimore - then the apocalypse is close at hand. Even Bunk, against all procedural odds, is making headway with the vacants. He's working those cases. As he himself pointed out to the now toughened-up Randy, when he visited him at the children's home where he was deposited so cruelly at the end of Season Four, unsolved murder cases never go away. They come back. And homelessness becomes the burning issue in Baltimore, for no real concrete reason. It's fucking thrilling, isn't it?

*Corrected since original post, thanks to those below who put me right.

I don't know if you'd picked up on this, but the Olympics are going to be held in London in 2012. As part of the "handover" today they threw a "party" in front of Buckingham Palace. (If you look at the branding it's a "Visa Party", so it's nice to know that it's an advert for a credit card company too.) Some bands and singers are coming on to do one or two songs, which, according to host Claudia Winkelman, are on the theme of sport and winning - hence, We Are The Champions by the cast of We Will Rock You to open, followed by a tremulous Sophie Ellis Bextor doing Nobody Does It Better. I understand. I don't want to get involved but I understand.

Tragically, I turned on Radio 2 in the car and heard third on the bill, Scouting For Girls, who have to be the worst of the hollow new indie bands by a country mile. They bashed through their big hit, the truly gormless She's So Lovely, and I managed not to deliberately crash the car. Then ...

The man who either sings for Scouting For Girls or wandered onto the stage from a nearby Student Union bar and thought he might as well pick up the mic announced that they were going to play that well-known sporting/winning song, London Calling. [a pause while you take that in.] Needless to day, Scouting For Girls proceeded to murder what is one of the greatest rock songs of all time, removing every ounce of its fury and macabre poetry and urban paranoia and turning it into a singalong party anthem. (Sorry, a singalong Visa party anthem.) Except that nobody sang along because they were either a) unfamiliar with the song, b) too young to have ever heard it, or c) embarrassed. I saw the whole thing on TV when I got back, and it was even worse in vision than it had been on the radio. The massed holidaymakers having a nice day out were all waving flags, some of the Olympics ones, others Union Jacks, like it was the Jubilee, and they were doing so to a Clash song about a nuclear attack on London (clues in the lyrics: "the ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in, meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin etc.). On the screens behind the band, touristy images of the London Underground logo, Big Ben and the London Eye flashed past. No mushrooms clouds, or thin wheat, oddly.

I honestly don't think I have witnessed anything more cringe-making and tragic in all my life. The man from the Student Union bar even changed some of the words. Instead of singing the line, "I have no fear, 'cos London is drowning and I live by the river," he carefully removed the potential downer, "drowning", and sang, "London is calling and I have no fear." Very clever. And worse, the man from the Student Union even had a go at giving the song an Olympic twist. Instead of singing:

London calling, see we ain't got no highs
Except for that one with the yellowy eyes

He sang [wait for it] ...

London calling, see we ain't got no highs
Except for that one with the 19 gold eyes

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the 19 gold eyes. Because Team GB won 19 gold medals at the Olympics. He'd removed the unsavoury reference to "yellowy" eyes and replaced with one about something or someone with 19 eyes. Luckily, not a single person in the audience heard his reference to our sporting heroes due to his unprofessional microphone technique and poor singing style.

1. Did the organisers not check the lyrics of London Calling before OK-ing it? (Don't tell me at a militarily-organised event like this that the band just decided to sing it on the spur of the moment.)
2. Are Scouting For Girls really so witless as to think singing a song about a nuclear attack on London would be appropriate for what is a celebration of London ideally not being attacked? (Were they trying to be punk rock and dangerous? If so, then why change the words?)
3. Did Joe Strummer die so that thousands of flag-waving tourists could wave them to one of his finest songs?

When this fucking fiasco arrives on the iPlayer (it's ongoing as I type), please go and watch it, and remember it when we all actually arrive in hell in a handcart.

And you don't have to, as I have made these evocative grabs of the day the music actually died:











Altogether now: "The wheat is growing thin . . . "

And I am on it. How can that be? You can visit my page here, even though I do not endorse it, or Facebook, as I hate Facebook. You can even join my Facebook page, but I do not endorse you doing that. In fact, I urge you not to do it. These "6 of 7" people have already defied me.



(Incidentally, I don't hate you if you are on Facebook, I just hate Facebook.)

Paul Garner, the man half of talented comedy-puppet-horror-freakshow-art-cabaret troupe Gawkagogo, has made a new set of art prints, Monsters Of Comedy, available to buy. They're very good. You can buy them here (and find out about all the other ker-azy stuff that goes on beneath the Gawkagogo banner). He's very good. And what's more, he was my Best Friend at school circa the early 80s. We used to draw cartoons together in his bedroom and listen to his Rowan Atkinson LP and Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy. This was before he turned into a lycanthrope and went to college. We were occasionally photographed by the Chronicle & Echo newspaper in Northampton during those salad days, and I was once described in a caption as his "schoolchum", as if perhaps we were in the Beano.

This is us holding the Benson & Hedges cup (which is for winning at cricket) with Northants ace Sarfraz Nawaz, after we had drawn schoolchum caricatures for the newspaper of all the players, in 1980. Don't we look wide-eyed at meeting our first celebrity! (And look, you can see Paul's drawing on the right. I don't think you can buy a print of it on his website though.) This was the reception that the Chronicle & Echo held for the Northamptonshire team when they beat Gloucestershire to the title, and we were called upon to hand out the caricatures to all the players. All were delighted - we were, after all, schoolboys. Except Alan Lamb, who said to Paul, in a sinister voice, "You've gone too far this time." What a bastard. (Perhaps it wasn't meant to be sinister, it may just have been his normal speaking voice. Anyway, now he's a cartoon in real life, advertising meat.)

As previously specified, there is no Collings & Herrin Podcast today. It is our first week off ever. We have recorded over a day's worth of free podcasts so far - 26 hours in total - and even when Richard went on holiday to Sicily, there was still a podcast, as there was last week when I was on holiday. He's back from Edinburgh next week and normal service will be resumed.

This week though, let's just imagine what the podcast would be like.

Andrew Collings: ... Right.
Richard Herrin: Has it started?
Andrew Collings: Yes.
Richard Herrin: Hello.
Andrew Collings: Here we are again. Gary Glitter's back.
Richard Herrin: Is it good to be back, good to be back, do you think?
Andrew Collings: Well, he's probably sick of being at airports, which is the worst part of going on holiday, isn't it?
Rustling of newspapers
Richard Herrin: Was that supposed to be a joke?
Andrew Collings: No. I was just saying.
Richard Herrin: Good, because it wasn't very funny.
Andrew Collings: I didn't want it to be funny. I'm not funny. You're funny. I'm not. If I ever say anything funny it's an accident.
Richard Herrin: [adopts Cornish accent] Oi'm Mister Bean and Oi'm from Northaaaampton and if Oi say anything funny it's an aaaaccident!
Andrew Collings: [laughs] Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Richard Herrin: I'd like to hide behind a curtain and wank off Gary Glitter with my tiny hands and then reveal myself to actually be a 41-year-old man - that would show him.
Andrew Collings: That's fucking disgusting.
Richard Herrin: Don't swear. I don't like it when you swear. It upsets the precarious balance between our two personas.
Andrew Collings: Can I talk about the Mitford sisters?
Richard Herrin: No. Nobody's interested. They want to hear me repeat stories from the week that I've already written out in Warming Up.
Andrew Collings: You look all wet. Have you just been swimming.
Richard Herrin: Why, does it turn you on?
Andrew Collings: What? A 41-year-old man who smells of chlorine? Not really, no. I like Jessica Mitford the best. She was a Communist.
Richard Herrin: You're a Communist.
Andrew Collings: You're a fucking idiot.
Richard Herrin: Don't swear. I don't like it when you swear. My rib hurts.
Andrew Collings: I'd better not say anything that makes you laugh then.
Richard Herrin: That seems unlikely.
Andrew Collings: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Richard Herrin: Come and see my show, The Headmaster's Son, at the White Belly at the Underbelly, some tickets left.
Andrew Collings: I see the Danny Wallace and Dom Joly Cobra Beer Pubcast has finished. They only did six. And they were getting paid. Lightweights. I would hate to get paid.
Richard Herrin: So would I.
Rustling of newspapers
Andrew Collings: Have you read this story about the economic downturn?
Richard Herrin: No, I don't read the newspapers.
Andrew Collings: I do.
Rustling of newspapers
Richard Herrin: That's what makes us different. I used to be in a double act with Stewart Lee.
Andrew Collings: And I used to be in one with Stuart Maconie.
Richard Herrin: Stuart Maconie is now in a double act with Mark Radcliffe, who used to be in one with Marc Riley, who was in a band, and that's why I've never heard of him.
Andrew Collings: Remember when we used to be on the radio?
Richard Herrin: They were great days.
Andrew Collings: Let's do a two-hour podcast today!
Richard Herrin: No, I'm too tired and hungover even though I never drink.
Rustling of Waitrose dried fruit
Andrew Collings: Shall I turn it off?
Richard Herrin: Wait until I'm in the middle of a

Now all you have to do is read this out with a friend, record it, and play it back on your MP3 player on your way to work. The week will fly by.

So, episode two of Maestro and quite, quite different from the feature-length, getting-to-know-you "Baton Camp" episode one, which turns out to have been something of a smokescreen. This was an hour long, in a concert hall and live! I hadn't seen this coming. Clive Anderson is now installed as quip-making on-camera host rather than affable point man and it's presented as a concert, with seven all-too-brief filmed inserts of the week's huffing and puffing between performances. I was worried that it would lose some of its appeal but actually, watching all seven amateur stick-wielders conducting the BBC Concert Orchestra, in full, with an audience, was still compelling. It's even less about their personalities now, and not at all about interaction - unless you count sitting in a box together, which I don't. This makes Maestro quite pure, as reality formats go. (There's far more backstage footage on Strictly Come Dancing, for instance.) I won't mention who got the least number of points or who was voted out by the orchestra on their keypads for this movie-and-TV-theme-themed round, but I enjoyed Sue Perkins' spirited effort the most and Bradley Walsh's the least (what a tragedy his face falls so naturally into that oafish grin when he's concentrating, and that he can't resist monkeying around when there's an audience in the room). I will definitely see this series through to the end, even though I can't quite believe I am simply watching some people conducting an orchestra for entertainment. I feel a little hoodwinked by the alluring narrative nature of the first show, which has now gone, replaced by awkward bowing and judgment, but it's too late, the hooks are in.

It was only half an hour long, but Being Maxine Carr on More4 was fascinating (I think it's already been on C4): a short film about women who have been attacked and victimised when wrongly identified as being Ian Huntley's ex-girlfriend since her release from prison. It goes without saying that none of them looked like Maxine Carr, but then again, Carr has apparently been given a "new identity", so frankly, any woman moving into a new area among vengeful, confused idiots with pack mentality is fair game. All it made me think was: what a lot of thick people there are in this country. (Nicci Gerrard, who reported on the trial of Huntley and Carr asked a pertinent question: why were they tried together? They weren't charged with the same crime, and yet they appeared in court at the same time.)

The Script. Have you heard them? Out of nowhere, this characterless, odourless, colourless rock trio* from Dublin via America seem to have been ordained as the next big thing (huge initial support on Radio 2; open-and-shut-case). This week, they are number one in the album chart, and numbers three and 33 in the singles chart.

Fuck.

Me.




*Correction: I've just checked their website and in fact they play a whole new brand of Celtic Soul, blending hip hop lyrical flow with pop melodiousness, state-of-the-art R&B production with anthemic rock dynamics, classic song construction with gritty contemporary narratives.

Oh, the joy. Having only caught up with Ep 4 last night, I was able to watch Ep 5 tonight. It was just like the old box-set days. The Wire: it is a miniature of an entire city. You follow Templeton into a soup kitchen to get some "react quotes" for McNulty's Scotch-mist serial killer ("he bites"), and the guy who runs the place goes into the kitchen, muttering something about the reporter being "no Bob Woodward" (ouch! after the failed trip to Washington, that hurts!) and who's cleaning pots and pans in there? Only Bubs, who we'd almost forgotten about. But no, like all the other living, breathing inhabitants of this miniature city, his life goes on. Next, he's talking to Steve Earle about taking a test for "the bug" and we learn just that bit more about Bubs' fears of leaving the junkie's life behind. He's got to keep the devil down in the hole. Meanwhile, up top, where the air is thin, Senator Clay Davis - so very nearly a comic creation and yet not - delivers one of his best "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyit"s to date - he didn't even cross the "t", it just faded out. I don't know about you, but I'm on the edge of my seat about the way this Zodiac-like serial killer is getting out of hand, with both McNulty and Templeton - for different reasons - slapping mud on the fiction. (I saw Zodiac on TV again the other week - one of the best American films of last year - and it reminded me of The Wire: lots of men in shirt sleeves talking to each other on phones and in offices and all glued together with the laborious nature of policework.) I'll be honest, it took me a few goes before I worked out who Omar and the soul-singing Donnie were staking out, but the gun battle snapped me out of that. So many shots fired by so many black people at other black people. And didn't we all get up on our feet and cheer when McNulty landed a wire for Lester! It's like the good old days again. Somebody else will have to explain to me why Marlo accepted the cell from the Greek on the bench. Is it some kind of cover? To wrongfoot the likes of Lester? The yellow Post-It with his number on became a terrific McGuffin as it travelled from Levy's Rolodex, via Herc, to Carver, and then to Lester. And they gave us Cutty back! He looked different somehow, but the gym and his big barrel chest and slow delivery were unmistakable. We had emotional content too, this week, with McNulty's ex-wife's pleas about Beadie, and Beadie tapping up Bunk for love advice. Never overplayed, these scenes. And how sweet the irony that Clay Davis was bumped from the Sun's front page by a non-existent serial killer.

Click. Hiss. Now what?

My girl has gone, and said goodbye

Don't you cry, hold your head up high

Don't give up, give love one more try,

'Cause there's a right girl for every guy

Now we're into our stride as we walk through the garden. I can't go into too much detail but I wasn't expecting that in Episode 4 of The Wire. (Those who watched it, or have seen the whole of Season Five will know what I'm talkin' about: "Close your eyes, it won't hurt none.") I've been away, which is why I'm so late with this, but this show never ceases to lower my jaw. How about a simple scene like the one in which Michael is bailed out by his crack mom after being rounded up after the Colicchio/dogshit-in-a-bag incident and she asks him for money and he declines. It's short, it's to the point, it's subtly rooted in other storylines, but it's mostly just a quick dip into that particular subplot, and then out again. These are the touches that make this programme what 38,000 people think it is. More serial killer shenanigans with McNulty and now Freamon and what seems like last orders for McNulty's relationship with Beadie - another short, one-off scene just to keep the plate spinning. (If these actors are on a retainer for the whole season, this must be a pretty expensive show to run, with so many regular castmembers and such brief appearances in many cases.) A nice nod back to previous seasons when Greggs went back to visit her son - I can't imagine what this show must feel like if you haven't seen the previous four seasons. In fact, it wouldn't play. It was great to see Herc in two scenes, unconnected, one at Levy's office with Prop Joe and Marlo ("did you ever find your camera?"), and one at the station with Carver. That's really using a character. And the multiple links are what makes this show so rich. We see Herc and Carver in their new roles, but reunited on the bonnet of a police car, clinking cans, and digging into their previous on-patrol partnership ("Everything matters" - which could be a tagline for The Wire). I love the musical chairs between Burrell and Rawls and Daniels, and the way it hooks back in to the Sun. It was cool to get out of Baltimore, briefly, when Templeton ventured up to the Washington Post (so familiar since All The President's Men!), hoping for an escape ladder - but it was equally good to be back among Marlo and Omar and Chris and Prop Joe and Cheese. I'll be surprised if Cheese (Method Man!) sees this season out. And who knew that Prop Joe went to the same school as Burrell (he was "stone stupid", apparently). This is not a TV programme, it's a way of life.

All this and Train In Vain by The Clash in McNulty's bar, too.

I had a feeling BBC1's Maestro might turn out to be appointment television. Never mind that it's about classical music (reality TV goes upmarket, yes, yes), it's about eight non-conductors learning to be a conductor, as simple as that. Call them "celebrities" if you must - and the BBC and listings magazines must - but it's really just about non-conductors who happen to bring with them some baggage ie. we have heard of some of them and have perhaps followed their work in other fields. Their "celebrity" is unimportant, just as it is in Celebrity Masterchef. They're not artificially locked in a house together, or a jungle, or whatever it is they're locked in in Fame Academy (an academy?); they interact, but only just before and after the event.

What's great about Maestro, for me, is that I know very little about classical music, and have seen conductors conducting orchestras on very few occasions, so it's a learning curve for me as a viewer. Good. Alex James and Goldie and Sue Perkins have probably been "cast" in order to get me to watch, just as Peter Snow is there for the old ladies, but I'm just as interested in seeing how, say, Katie Derham (whom I care little about) or Bradley Walsh (who I have actively disliked), fare. Anyway, some key points about the format which is very much in the otherwise familiar Ten Little Indians tradition - start with eight, reduce to seven, reduce to six etc. - first of all, Clive Anderson's hosting is very low key; it's not about him, he's just there as a BBC corridor monitor, at which he's very good. Second, although a vote is required at the end of each episode (of course it is), this is not handed over to the public, or even a studio audience, but to the members of the BBC Concert Orchestra who've just been conducted by a newsreader and a baker and Hutch. What an excellent system. In other words, although these musicians might well be swayed somewhat by the contestant's personality, they're not going to vote for the underdog (which is how the bad dancer Julian Clary went so far in Strictly Come Dancing, for instance). I won't mention who got voted out of the first round.

Anyway, I was late seeing the first episode, so forgive me for some old news just in, but Goldie's performance was one of the most thrilling pieces of British television I've seen for some time. It's still on the iPlayer. Go there.











Go there now. And try to watch it just the once. You won't be able to.

Imran Ahmed is a nice man. I have never met him, but I know he is a nice man because we fell into regular email correspondence a couple of years ago after his publishers, at his behest, kindly sent me a proof copy of his "Muslim memoir" (there's always room for a sub-genre!), Unimagined. I really enjoyed it and happily provided a quote for the book jacket. It came out in hardback, not that I was jealous, in March 2007. My quote didn't make it onto the front cover, edged out by Sue Townsend and John Pienaar (fair enough), but his publisher was decent enough to have my words on the back, which was flattering enough. Ever since Where Did It All Go Right?, I have been sent a number of "ordinary life" memoirs to read upfront, in the hope of supplying a quote for the cover. I don't mind this. It's nice of them to ask. However, I am not a quote whore, as I only very rarely provide one. If the book doesn't do it for me, I'll politely decline. I could list all the memoirs I haven't provided a quote for, but it would be mean. When the first copies of mine came out, I had to rely on Stuart Maconie and Mark Radcliffe for mine - in other words, two of my friends. (And since I stopped being a successful author, I'm back to relying on famous friends, hence Simon Pegg's quote on the paperback of That's Me In The Corner - this is in lieu of actual reviews in newspapers, something I used to get for my books, but sadly no longer!)

Anyway, Unimagined did really well. It sold, it picked up good reviews and was shortlisted for awards. And because it's Imran's first book - he's got a boring day job and everything - you can't help but be delighted for him as it's taken off. He's already been invited to bigger and more glamorous book festivals than I ever did, and he's even been flown to Australia for one, where his book is about to be published. He's an international author, and he wears it with admirable humility and self-deprecating humour. His website is here. The reason I mention it now is that he's written a very long and detailed, but funny account of his trip to this year's Edinburgh Book Festival, with fellow "Asian memoirist" Sathnam Sangera, on his blog. (Thanks to VegAnne below for pointing out that Sangera is not a Muslim, and thus cannot be conveniently added to my "Muslim memoir" subgenre. Perhaps, as she says, "Asian memoir" will cover it.)

There's nothing worse than writers moaning about being writers. Imran is a tonic in this regard. (I know I moan about being one - it's most unbecoming.)

I am on holiday. Richard is still in Edinburgh. We recorded Collings & Herrin Podcast Number 26 last Wednesday when I was up there for the live one. We recorded it directly afterwards and were somewhat sluggish, mainly due to the Tempting Tatties we had just eaten. However, we love you, so we didn't want you to have to go through a whole week without the sound of two grown men rambling for under an hour. Luckily, I had just finished Jon Gaunt's autobiography, Undaunted, and was able to read aloud from it, Radio 4's Book Of The Week style. I actually have a new found respect for him, if not his strident but flawed views on fox hunting, having read about his up-and-down life, and discovered that he really did give Richard Herring his big break by putting him on at his Coventry comedy club.

So, number 26 will l appear in the usual place today, on August 15. [I auto-published this - let's hope it works.]

Then it's an official week off. You owe us that. We shall return on August 28, full of beans.

This was the White Belly at the Underbelly in Edinburgh at around 10am this morning.

So is this. And this is Chris, our tech man.

And this is me and Richard, at 10.20am, before the audience turned up, wondering if, indeed, they would. This was, after all, a free event (apart from the 80p handling fee if you booked online); it was at 10.30am, on a week day, in Scotland, and it was pouring with rain outside. Would anyone really beat those insurmountable odds and turn up to see two grown men ramble into an Apple Mac laptop for an hour?

Yes! What's more, it went surprisingly well. This is surely the very hardest of our hardcore. And we rambled at them for an hour, and almost ran out of things from the newspapers to talk about, until Richard riffed on the subject of the Tempting Tattie baked potato shop, which he has been to every year of his Edinburgh Fringe life. His evil plan was to get everybody to come with us after the show - that's about 80 people who genuinely could not think of anything better to be doing at 10.30 on a Wednesday morning, not even stay inside, in the dry - and to clean the Tempting Tattie out of potatoes and orange cheese and mango chutney. Although the audience promised to help fulfil his Andy Kaufman-style performance-art prank, actually only about a dozen people trudged after us across half of Edinburgh, in the rain. But these people deserve your respect. It would have been so easy for them to slip away while Richard and I weren't looking, but they didn't. Well, one of them did. But most of them didn't, and dutifully queued up for a tattie. I love these people.

The podcast, number 25, will be up in the usual place later on today. Whether you were part of this historic moment in podcast history or not, have a listen. The wankers who complain about our sound quality will notice that we are actually using professional microphones, albeit put through a PA and then recorded on the in-built microphone on my Mac.

Stop Press. Here are some nice onstage pics taken by Vik Peek (the last one is of me taking the photo of the audience with my MacBook at the end of the gig - you can actually see them on the screen - it's a mediaquake!):

We are in Edinburgh. Tomorrow, we record our first ever live podcast. So far, we have "sold" 90 tickets. Even if half that number actually come to the venue at 10.30am, we will have fun. So watch this space for news of the podcast, as it goes up. Sssshhh, don't tell Richard, for fear of it interfering with our power base, but I went to see his show The Headmaster's Son at the Underbelly tonight - book here - and it was very good indeed, especially the very funny line about ... no, I won't ruin it for you. I paid for my ticket, by the way, because that's how I operate. And because we are colleagues, not friends. Now I am going to sleep in the same house as him, for the first time ever. (This is a picture of us in the kitchen, where, as is the law in Edinburgh, the ceilings are incredibly high.) It's a bit like we have come on holiday together, by mistake. We are getting an early night. My pockets are overflowing with flyers. I love the Fringe. If only I was here for longer than two nights.

Now it starts. Episode 3 of Season 5 started to simmer - and not just because we finally got Omar back. I pity anyone who started to watch The Wire three weeks ago, bludgeoned into submission by the media hype. Nick James in his editorial in the new Sight & Sound calls it the "weakest" opening to any of the five series (he's making a wider point about the spinelessness of British broadcasters, not having a go at The Wire), and I'd agree that it was the quietest opening, but that doesn't make it weak. Ep 3 made sense of the slow start; all the threads thus far laid down started to intertwine. We have lift-off. McNulty's seemingly harebrained scheme to cook up a serial killer now becomes a matter of honour, backed by Freemon. They all want Marlo, but need back-up. Marlo, meanwhile, is earning so much money he needs it laundering figuratively and literally. (For me, great to see Method Man again as Prop Joe's slippery nephew Cheese - once again a minor player, but the link between Marlo and the exiled Omar, leading to a truly unpleasant scene with Butchie. I loved Prop Joe's despair at "civilising" Marlo, sending him to the Caribbean so he could actually see the money Joe had diverted to an offshore account.) We're talking about under an hour of drama and yet marvel at the amount of plates now spinning: "buyouts" at the Sun, little Michael taking his eye off the ball (or his corner), the Grand Jury investigation into Clay Davis, McNulty's last stand with the "Ripper", the bounty on Omar's head, Daniels' grooming/Burrell's downfall, Templeton vs. Twigg (Twigg being David Simon, one must assume?), Bubs' rehabilitation (not even touched on in Ep 3 - be patient, as always), the Greeks, the Russians ... and yet the "news hole" is shrinking.

Written a pop music-based blog for the Guardian. Must get them to change that photo though.

Ever since Friday's childish podcast, the true and limited might of the Collings & Herrin Nerd Army has been quantified. During a discussion about Jesus, I asked Richard the Bible expert what Barabbas's crime had been and we decided to look the Biblical figure up on Wikipedia, "on-air". Overcome, as he tells it, with hysteria, Richard suggested that our listeners exploit the democratic nature of Wikipedia and update the Barabbas entry by erroneously adding that his crime was being "a bummer." (If you've listened to our podcasts, you'll know that our pathetic glee at this 1970s playground epithet rests entirely outside any latent homophobia. It's just a funny word, and we hope to reclaim it from the haters.) Anyway, judging from various communiques over the weekend, the Army have indeed been attempting to "update" the Barabbas page, with varying degrees of success. It turns out that information bereft of a [citation] is weeded out pretty quickly by the Wikipedia police, so no sooner is Barabbas revealed as a "bummer" than the more humdrum truth is restored. If only we could harness the power of our Nerd Army for the forces of good.

This latest attempt has probably been "cleaned up" by now, so I made a few grabs for posterity.





Forgive us, father, for we know not what we do.

Hey, kids! Apparently tickets for the first ever live Collings & Herrin podcast at the Underbelly in Edinburgh on Wednesday are not flying out of the door of the box office, even though they're "free". It will still be a lot of fun, recording it with a few loyal friends, but the more the merrier! Go here to join the gang. (I realise this presupposes you are in Edinburgh on Wednesday morning, which is a "big ask", but if you are, where better to be than in a cellar with Mark Steel and Ewan McGregor's useless mate at 10.30 in the morning? Incidentally, we aim to get the podcast itself up by Wednesday afternoon for everybody who isn't in Edinburgh.)

In the twenty-fourth Collings & Herrin podcast, Richard is in Edinburgh (as evinced by his Loch Ness monster hat and local drink) and I am in London, but miraculously, we have made a podcast anyway*. In it, rather than get worked up about topical matters, we discuss the wider issues of Giles Coren, Barabbas, Argentina Brunetti, the "quite surreal" nature of Un Chien Andalou and the precarious nature of the Collings & Herrin Podcast Wikipedia entry. Don't forget, if you're in Edinburgh, we're recording the next podcast in front of an audience at the Underbelly, Wed August 6, at 10.30am. Come along.

* By recording it last week. We work hard for you.