Our 74th podcast is dedicated to Tina Wiseman [pictured], who - as you know - suddenly died last week, and was a great supporter of our work and an example to all comedy fans. Having promised to honour her memory with this week's podcast, we have been assured by her family and friends that she would have wanted us to stick to the usual podcast style - rude, puerile, pathetic, Daily Mail-baiting (down the comedy barometer we go!). So we have, in her honour. It's been a big week, with lots of misinformation and hate flying around, but also lots of love and support. But we manage to talk about the weather, organic food and the human chain around the former RAF Locking. In many ways, it's our own "Comedy Special", except we do actually care about comedy. As did Tina.

Alright, a plug for Robin Ince's next night of academic jollity: the entercational/edutaining School For Gifted Children returns for two nights as part of the Camden Fringe in fashionable North London, at the iconic Roundhouse venue (not the main bit, although one day, one day): Monday Aug 3 and Tuesday Aug 4. The bill for both nights is Robin (almost belittled by this week's Guardian for having a go at the Daily Mail when that's apparently passe - which is why it's handy that his current show has a go at the Guardian); me; the ever-droll Natalie Haynes; science writer and now free speech martyr who hopes he never gets a bad back Simon Singh, New Scientist's stand-up cosmologist Martin Chown and civil, soft-shoed ex-nemesis Ben Goldacre, whom I know has a large and dedicated following. Tickets here.

As I have confirmed elsewhere, I will be countering the intellectualism around me by presenting a lesson in Secret Dancing. You know you want to.

Oh, and don't be misled by the listing pictured above on the heavyweight London Paper's website, which states that the show lasts 0hr 0min. It actually last 1hr 30min.

OK, here's the good news: the Collings & Herrin Podcast is, once again, riding high in the iTunes charts, peaking at 15 in the all-podcast chart, which includes Harry Potter. (When I last looked, we were above Bruno and Adam & Joe.) Why the surge? Because a man called Leo Benedictus named it as one of the Top Ten best comedy podcasts in daily newspaper the Guardian yesterday, in a "Comedy Special" edition of its tiny G2 supplement. (We were at number 7 in this list, but only three podcasts were stamped with a red "highly recommended" star - ours, Adam and Joe and Marsha's comedy interviews for XFM - so in fact we must have been in the top three.) This is what Leo Benedictus wrote about us:

Comedian Richard Herring and jobbing journo Andrew Collins meet once a week to quarrel obscenely about the contents of newspapers and their flagging careers. A gathering cult.

This is essentially flattering, and not especially misleading - it certainly suggests he has heard it, to get the "flagging careers" angle - and the "gathering cult" is nice. I think it's funny that a man who really is a "jobbing journo" has labelled me one, even though journalism is now only a small part of what I do, and "comedy scriptwriter" might have been nice, or even "broadcaster" or, as one wag put it, "ex-EastEnders scriptwriter", in the style of Celebrity Masterchef schadenfreude. Still, it was good of him to include us.

This, though, was not the problem with the "Comedy Special", which also included some vox pops with comedians, an interview with Ruby Wax, a column by Charlie Brooker, some "tips" on how to attend a comedy gig, and - its centrepiece - an article by comedy critic Brian Logan about what he christened "The New Offenders". This is the piece in full, but I'm going to fillet bits from it, in the same way that Brian Logan filleted bits from what Richard Herring said to him.

This is the basic thesis: that comedians are moving away from the "political correctness" laid down by alternative comedy in the 1980s and attempting to inject some spice into their acts by actively seeking to offend. Brian Logan has interviewed Scott Capurro, Jim Jeffries, Brendan Burns, Jo Brand, Alexei Sayle and Richard Herring, and used what they have said to illustrate his point. However, because I know Richard Herring, and know what his new show Hitler Moustache is about, having watched it take shape before my very eyes and been involved in many of the discussions that shaped it on our gathering cult of a podcast, I also know that this gives a very misleading impression of it:

This year, veteran comic Richard Herring is sporting a Hitler moustache for his show, Hitler Moustache, in which he argues "that racists have a point".

This is a complex, hour-long show, which I know goes in many different directions, but is ultimately about the reclamation of a certain type of moustache for non-racist ends from its current, abiding Nazi associations. If Richard argues that racists "have a point" it is within the contexts of an ongoing comedic discussion about racism. The way Brian Logan has written it, if you hadn't seen the show, or heard the podcasts, which most people reading the paper wouldn't have, you might assume that ... hmmmm ... Richard Herring thinks racists have a point. Logan's boxing-gloved summation of his show is not expanded upon further in this section of the article.

Here, for balance, is a thing that Richard Herring did say in the interview, and which reflects what he thinks: "In the 1970s, black and Asian people were getting shit put through their letterboxes ... But the world has moved on. Now we accept the [anti-racist, anti-sexist] tenets of alternative comedy as true, and don't need to patronise audiences any more." There are other quotes along these lines from other comedians. But soon, Brian Logan goes back to Hitler Moustache (whose poster image has proved a very handy one for the Guardian picture editor and website editors), and has this pretty unequivocal thing to say about Richard's racism:

Herring now does most of his work on the web. His weekly podcast, presented with Andrew Collins, makes a point of "pushing back boundaries and saying anything we want". One recent episode aired Herring's purported hatred of Pakistanis, a routine that he expands on in his new standup set. In another routine, he claims to support the BNP's policy to deport all black people from the UK.

Now, if you are familiar with Richard's work, you will know that the issues mentioned will be discussed in both comedic and challenging ways in his show. If you are not familiar with it, you might once again assume his show is racist. If he did "purport" to hate Pakistanis it was within the improvised context of a heated and ridiculous discussion about racism, one of many over the weeks. He doesn't hate Pakistanis, any more than he hates any ethnic or racial group. Richard Herring hates racists. And he hates the BNP. But who wants to hear a comedian say that for an hour? That's not challenging anything. I am troubled on Richard's behalf that he has been portrayed as a racist in the Guardian newspaper. I am troubled on my own behalf that our podcast - which is a "highly recommended" Guardian comedy podcast - is being partly tarred with the same brush. The same toothbrush, you could say.

It is not for me to seek redress. But I hope that anybody reading the article in yesterday's Guardian, or online, will join me in spreading the word that Richard Herring is not only not racist, he is anti-racist. It would be deeply offensive if the way his words have been chopped up to fit a thesis in a national newspaper had any unpleasant knock-on effect, either at his coming shows, or in the street. I wonder if the people who write these pieces think about the actions of their words? I am a "jobbing journo" - sometimes - so I am one of those people, and I hope I would never misrepresent an interviewee on a such a serious subject to suit my own ends.

It is no laughing matter. Looking forward to the podcast this Thursday.

110 minutes is the longest of the three films I saw today in the name of duty (the other two were, coincidentally, 101 apiece). I have a lot of films to see over the next month in order to become Mark Kermode on television and radio. Today, which is always a big day for the proper film critics as it's National Press Screening day for all the nationals and Sundays, I saw the following (which I won't review in depth as there may be embargoes):

Land Of The Lost (curious mix of knowing rubber-monster nostalgia for 1970s TV show we never saw and state-of-the-art Jurassic Park CGI with Will Ferrell in front of it, caught between a number of stools but essentially the teenage boy audience - look, a lady with tits in a vest, dude! - and the older, grown-up, saw-the-original audience - funny acid trip sequence, man! - which makes for an uneven ride, levened by scene-stealing performance by Danny McBride), Coco Avant Chanel (tasteful but largely uneventful French biopic with Audrey Tatou as the quite grumpy, and dull, dressmaker), and Adam (another Brit goes to Hollywood and does a decent American accent - Hugh Dancy - in rather superficial but touching and wholly predictable Asperger's-based love story). That's my day. No screenings tomorrow, but Orphan on Wednesday, and both parts of Mesrine on Thursday. As holiday cover, Kermode is much higher maintenance than doing Lauren Laverne on 6 Music, but I like a challenge.

Although it pains me to say it, I think Richard has already put this across in a more eloquent way than I will on his blog ... Tina Wiseman, a friendly, enthusiastic, funny, positive, energetic but above all sensible fan of ours has suddenly died, aged 37. We met her on a number of occasions, as she was an avid comedy gig-goer and podcast-listener, as well as a regular contributor to Richard's Guestbook and my blog comments section, and sender of photographs. Richard knows better than me that comedy fans can cross the line, either by email, or in person, in a possibly subsconsciously passive-aggressive way. I've had to learn to deal with this this since hitching my ride to Richard's comedy talent two years ago. It comes with the territory.

But Tina was different. We have found out more about her since the terrible and unexpected news of her death yesterday, just after we had recorded Podcast 73, but we did know that she was a skydiver and that she knew a lot about recording and acoustics (she was an acoustician, actually). We met her at one of Richard's Headmaster's Son gigs at the Leicester Square Theatre in March, which is where the above photo was taken. We will dedicate next Thursday's podcast, No.74, to Tina, and use this picture.

We joked that Tina was a stalker because we knew she wasn't. Richard even mentioned her onstage in the Brighton podcast, where, reliably, she was in the audience. What makes the news of her death even worse for us is that she went to see Richard on Monday night, wearing a Virgilio Anderson t-shirt, and he published a photograph of her after the gig on his blog. (She died the next morning, it seems, or overnight - the details are sketchy.) And the last Tweet she posted on Twitter was to me. As TinaHighflier, she wrote, in reference to a comment I had made about my pencil being stolen at the British Library in King's Cross: @CollingsA You should'a bin over the road at @Herring1967 brill show instead of looking for your pencil. However, at least you found it :-)

Whether we deserved her loyalty and admiration or not, we appreciated it. And it seems all wrong and depressing that she won't hear Podcast 73, or any thereafter. So raise a glass to Tina, even if you didn't know her. People shouldn't die at 37, especially not ones who enjoy laughing so much, and defy death by jumping out of planes. God bless.

Where to find me on your radio and television - and live! - over the next few weeks, mainly due to people being on holiday:

• Saturday July 25, 6 Music, 1400-1800 (filling in for Jon Holmes and Lauren Laverne, to make one big four-hour radio pie - guest: Michael Legge)
• Thursday, July 30, LBC, 0700-0830 (reviewing the papers with whoever is filling in for Nick Ferrari at breakfast)
• Friday, July 31, BBC News, Film 24, 1745-1800 approx (reviewing the films as Mark Kermode)
• Saturday, August 1, 6 Music, 1400-1800 (filling in for Jon and Lauren again - guest: Robin Ince)
• Monday-Tuesday, Aug 3-4, Roundhouse, Camden, London (School For Gifted Children night, hosted by Robin Ince; other guests TBC)
• Friday, August 7, 1500-1600, Five Live (filling in for Mark Kermode); 1745-1800 approx, BBC News, Film 24 (ditto)
• Friday, August 14, 1745-1800 approx, BBC News, Film 24
• Wednesday-Sunday, August 19-23, Underbelly, Edinburgh, 1220-1320 (Collings & Herrin Podcast Live!)
• Friday, August 28, Five Live, 1500-1600 (as Mark Kermode again)
• Sunday, August 30, Edinburgh TV Festival, 1330 (I think - Q&A with Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin)

Am I going on holiday? That is my holiday. Join me!

In Podcast No. 73, we pay tribute to Sandi Toksvig, Neil Buchanan and Andrea Arnold as our weekly bulletin from the frontline of current affairs and cysts reaches the same number as their fictional early-to-mid-80s house. In it, we fail to discuss Michael Jackson's fourth child or swine flu, preferring instead to talk about Mr and Mrs Herring's Golden Wedding, the stupid Steve Redgrave/Jonathan Edwards Aquavision advert, the stupid Chris Hoy Bran Flakes advert on the inside of my gym locker door, the shadowy figure of Orange Mark, giraffes looking through the window, the delights of the Edinburgh Fringe catalogue, taking 40 minutes to put on a special swimsuit using unguent, the man-lady ratio in Nottingham, and the fate of Richard's pus-baby. Don't forget to support your local festival by visiting http://www.rhythmfestival.net, our worthy sponsors (who are generously giving money to our chosen charities, Scope and Thomas's Fund, for every ticket they sell because of us)

This extra, bonus, doesn't-really-count Collings & Herrin Podcast 72a is actually an exclusive, free chapter from my new audiobook - not sure if I've mentioned it - Where Did It All Go Right?, exclusively and supportively introduced by Richard Herring. If you like the extract, the audiobook is available to buy from Go Faster Stripe.

In the 72nd Collings & Herrin podcast, there is tension in the air, as Richard's cyst continues to grow like a David Cronenberg-style alien on his Bob Hoskins-style back [pictured], threatening at any moment to explode and fill the attic with foul effluent and bottled-up anger at Virgilio Anderson. Honestly, it's like an episode of Channel 4's Embarrassing Bodies, except with current affairs: this week, ageism at Radio 1, David Shayler's new life as Christ [also pictured] and Shane Ritchie's unlikely tale of locking his swine flu-victim son in his bedroom. And a happy golden wedding to Mr and Mrs Herring, who must be very proud at how their son has turned out.

The New Yorker is always a good source of behind-the-lines war reporting. In the July 6-13 issue, Raffi Khatchadourian writes about Operation Iron Triangle, a "vast air-assault mission" in Iraq in 2006, where eight Iraqi men, apparently unarmed, were shot dead by soldiers under the command of Colonel Michael Dane Steele, forcing comparisons with the 2005 massacre at Haditha (brilliantly dramatised by Nick Broomfield in his film Battle For Haditha). The Iron Triangle killings "suggested a grave problem within the chain of command." Steele stands accused of "cultivating reckless agressiveness in his soldiers, and by interpreting the rules of engagement in a way that made the killing of noncombatants likely." Khatchadourian's piece - which I'm still in the middle of reading (this is the New Yorker), is a close-up chronicle of events leading up to the killings in 2006, and a vivid portrait of Steele.

I was particularly interested to read, in great detail, about the briefing/pep talk he gave to his brigade before they left for Iraq in September 2005, in which he mocked the "soft knock" approach of some of the other commanders, and readied the troops for "the moment of truth, when you're about to kill the other son of a bitch." A folded American flag was on a lecturn at the back of the stage. Steele explained that it had been recovered from Building No. 7 at the World Trade Center, and that he had vowed to take it with him into combat in Iraq. "Men, it is time to go hunting," he concluded. "You're the hunter, you're the predator. You're looking for the prey."

Well, by September 2005, as far as I'm aware, two years into the occupation of Iraq, it was well known that the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center had nothing to do with Iraq. (And shame on Oliver Stone for implying the link in his disaster movie World Trade Center - in 2006.) And yet, here was a commander making that link explicit with his symbolic flag. What this illustrates, I think, is the disconnect between the real world and the unreal world of military combat - or, if you prefer, the real world of military combat and the unreal world that the rest of us safely live in. In many ways, although he is a bellicose hawk whose career was ended by the Iron Triangle affair, Steele was simply geeing his men up for what would be a gruelling, extraordinary and probably deadly tour of duty in the desert. So, the World Trade Center flag was misleading, stupid and inflammatory. But it probably did the trick on the day of uniting and inspiring his men. We can sit at home and wring our hands about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we don't have to actually fight them. I'm full of opinions about our involvement in these American adventures and always have been, having marched to lend my voice to the anti-war movement before we invaded Iraq. But it's gone beyond US imperialism and oil now, into a vast grey quagmire; however, that British operations are underfunded and poorly equipped seems pretty unequivocal, and a real cause for concern. (Generation Kill made explicit the link between bad hardware and mortal danger, even on the American side.) But why would a man like Colonel Steele listen to my namby-pamby opinions about making love, not war? (At the base of 101st Airbourne in Tikrit in 2005, somebody posted signs above, respectively, the wing devoted to practical, military, operational matters, and the wing devoted to administrative, civil and legal affairs: "Carnivores" and "Herbivores.")

All of a sudden, whether carnivore or herbivore, we are supposed to care more about our troops dying in Afghanistan; in that our media has decided to make Afghanistan front page news now that Jacko is in the ground. We've been there for eight years. British troops have been getting blown up and shot since 2004. But what seems to have flicked the public concern switch is that the number killed has now topped the number killed in Iraq. This strikes me as a bit random in terms of sympathy, but the papers do like to number crunch. Clearly, whatever your views on the war - and if you're anti-war, you're presumably pro-compassion - it's an appalling thing to know that a family have lost a son/daughter/husband/father/brother/mother/sister in a foreign war before their time. Some of the soldiers killed last week in Afghanistan, when we were instructed to start caring, were as young as 18. The difficulty for the newspapers reporting casualties is this: one dead soldier is easier to personalise (he was a "great bloke", say, or a "loving dad", or a "proper London geezer" as I saw one described in one of our rubbish London freesheets the other day), but a large number is better for shock value: eight killed in one day, or whatever it is. This conflict is being fought on the other side of the world. Most people in Britain don't really know what the troops are even fighting for - oh yes, to defeat the Taliban and win the war on terror, I forgot; not quite defeating fascism and stopping Hitler invading our shores, is it? But only the most hard-hearted wouldn't feel sad for the bereaved families of mostly young men.

My brother was in the army - he joined at 16 - and did tours of Northern Ireland when British soldiers were among those being killed in that ugly and unpredictable civil war. (Much closer to home, of course.) I know what it's like to have a family member in the armed services, abroad in a potentially fatal situation, although because he is my brother, I never for one moment thought he was going to die. I'm sure the families of the latest Afghanistan casualties felt the same. However, a pacifist I may be, but I have always tried to seek out the truth about army life, via films initially, although these are often limited in their proximity to the truth. I have read plenty of books and articles about combat, especially since 9/11, when "peacetime" ended from where I was sitting. The New Yorker continues to provide vivid insight. And now, we have The Junior Officers' Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars by Patrick Hennessey, which I intend to buy after listening to David Hepworth's fascinating interview with the 30-year-old British officer on the latest Word podcast. Highly recommended if you have fixed ideas about "our boys" in the desert. I know he's an officer, and all middle class, but that does not come with an invisibility shield in a war zone, so his account of life on tour is highly relevant.

Talking at the weekend to my brother (who left the army about 15 years ago), and thinking about Hennessey's evocative and revealing memoirs; the fatal misadventures of Colonel Steele; Kathryn Bigelow's forthcoming film The Hurt Locker; and the untrustworthy and quite insulting way the newspapers have decided to promote Afghanistan to a lead because of a number, I am currently preoccupied with war, and in particular our civilian relationship with those who - in Afghanistan's case - volunteered to go out and fight for their country. As my brother says, combat is what they join for. It's more true than ever with regard those who have joined since 2003. The adrenaline of combat is something I will never know, preferring the adrenaline of standing on stage or sitting in front of a radio microphone and talking, but it's real.

These boys, and it is still mostly boys, live for the kind of action that could send them home in a bag. They are braver, and maybe more misguided, than you or I, but they deserve respect. I actually think it is important to try and understand why they do it, and what they actually do, rather than to just take the kneejerk liberal stance and dismiss them as political cannon fodder, or take the kneejerk right-wing, patriotic stance and elevate them to instant hero status, like the Sun does. The truth is much more complicated. We're not all carnivores or herbivores.

You have to give this a spin. If you're on Twitter, you can use this engine supplied by Stockholm Pride (July 27-Aug 1) to calculate how heterosexual you are. It analyses your Twitter feed. Words on mine that appear to lower my heterosexuality include "karaoke", "fame" and "cottaging". Also, "Northampton", more bafflingly. Still, 34%, not a bad score. Do it. It's fun.

"It's the Celebrity Masterchef Final ... I have put absolutely everything into this competition - everything ... THESE CELEBRITIES ARE ALL PASSIONATE ABOUT FOOD! ... I'm not going to give up; I will fight to the very end for this ... WE'RE LOOKING FOR THAT EXCEPTIONAL COOKING STYLE! ... SOMEONE WHO'S MORE THAN JUST A GOOD HOME COOK! ... SOMEONE WITH THAT EXTRA SOMETHING SPECIAL! ... This is it: winner takes all! ... It's Judgement Day!"






It's been a thrilling competition, shot through, as ever, with the usual cliches: going on a journey, of course, but this year, an awful lot of being out of your comfort zone too. Iwan Thomas, the runner, was the most irritating of the three finalists, in that his brazen sportsperson's desire to win - and to state that aim, over and over again ("I'm here to win, did I mention that? You're either a winner or a loser, and I am not a loser") - strayed into psychopathy. (He was "gutted" to lose, of course, and - certainly in the edit - had nothing congratulatory to say about Jayne Middlemiss, no "the best woman won", no "I was beaten by a better cook, and I did, after all, fall to cook all of my Mediterranean vegetables properly." But hey, that's sportspeople and their inhuman drive.)

Wendi Peters, previously a Battersby on Coronation Street, was a much more human, mumsy finalist, although seemed to enjoy the glamorous Moroccan stage of the tournament less than the others, with her downturned mouth fixed into that position. I must admit, I was gunning for Jayne all week, as the final three were "put through their paces" and made to cook in gruelling conditions, including a van in a car park - maybe because she's the only contestant I have met and talked to (when she was on 6 Music), and liked. Also, I felt sorry for her to initially be captioned "Ex-Top Of The Pops presenter" - that was about ten years ago! Why not just put "presenter"? (Also, since Top Of The Pops no longer exists, Tony Blackburn and Noel Edmonds are ex-Top Of The Pops presenters. They all are. Everybody's an ex something if you want to imply that they're in some way washed up. Not very nice.) Anyway, Jayne and Iwan came the furthest over the weeks, whereas Wendi was an accomplished "pudding cook" (to use John's words) from the start. It's good to see people improve their licks.

Downsides of the programme? Too much repetition of footage throughout (it's on on consecutive nights, we can remember what just happened!), and far too much "throwing ahead", requiring judicious fast-forwarding if you don't wish to see the best bits before the programme starts - but these are not crimes exclusive to Masterchef. Clearly, there's too much SHOUTING by Greg and John, but I'm afraid they are locked into these caricatures now, and we can never go back. The editing of their judgely conversations is still done with a blunt spatula - a disjointed collage of statement and reaction, with even the interaction with contestants clearly shot afterwards - it makes you wonder if these two ever have a normal chat. It would be disarming to witness. And you might argue that flying everybody out to North Africa to cook a tagine was a profligate use of the licence fee, but thinking about it, they probably got put up in Richard Branson's posh hotel for nothing.

Also, I'm not sure why they still get contestants back from previous series to have another attempt (this year including: Tony Hadley, Rowland Rivron, Linda Barker, Jeff Green, a scary-looking Marie Helvin, and, yes, Wendi) - surely they must be able to recruit some new "celebrities" if they're prepared to call an actor off Hotel Babylon one. As ever, I wished I was on the programme, and spent too long wondering how I would cope in the heat of the professional kitchen and what I would do with the random aubergine, seabass and cherries. And then wondering if I would be comfortable being captioned, "Ex-features editor of magazine." (And what if I accidentally spoke of leaving my comfort zone?)

This time last year, when I expressed my unconfined joy about Celebrity Masterchef, one bright spark was moved to comment, "Who cares?" Well, clearly, if you didn't care then, you won't suddenly start caring now. I still find it a compelling format: 24 amateur cooks from all walks of the media and sport having a bash at some cooking, with two men on hand to bark timings at them ("15 MINUTES LEFT, PEOPLE!") and then tell them that their dish is well seasoned, well flavoured and that the duck is cooked to perfection (if you're lucky).



And, lest we forget ...

I guess you had to be there. But many were. Martin White and Danielle Ward's Karaoke Circus came to the legendary 100 Club on London's busy Oxford Street last night. For those not acquainted with the franchise, this is an all-star karaoke evening with live band - Martin, Danielle, David Reed, Foz Foster. This riotous, good-natured conveyor belt of song, on which assorted comics and performers test the very limits of their vocal abilities in the name of unpretentious musical entertainment, also allows members of the audience to try their hand too, and the whole thing is judged, Britain's Got Talent-style, by the cruel-but-fair Dan Maier (TV Burp) and The Baron (catchphrase: "utterly brilliaaant!"); and only two clowns are involved. Usually to be found in the club-like subterranean confines of the Albany on Great Portland Street, or in festival tents, the Circus went up two gears last night: a much bigger venue, plus a full orchestra (arranged and conducted by Martin, who really is a dynamo), and, on acoustic for Rock'n'Roll Suicide, Mikey from David Devant & His Spirit Wife. (There are Devant threads running through the whole operation, actually. And I went to art school with him, too.)

Thus were we treated to the likes of actor Kevin Eldon belting out Elbow's One Day Like This, poet John Hegley scat-singing Sunny Side Of The Street, Bridget Christie actually dressed as Kate Bush for Wuthering Heights, Isy Suttie (Peep Show) giving it loads to Piano Man, the Penny Dreadfuls gamely attacking Under Pressure, Waen Shepherd (most recently scene as the paedophile teacher in The Inbetweeners) taking the roof off with the aforementioned Rock'n'Roll Suicide, Miles Jupp being drowned out by the audience for Come On Eileen, and utterly brilliaaant, or certainly brave renditions of Nobody Does It Better, Sabotage and Living On A Prayer. And, yes, me, doing the theme from The Wire aka Tom Waits' Way Down In The Hole, for which I borrowed Foz's trilby and wore a pretend "soul tooth" beard under my lip, which fell off, theatrically, before the third verse, where I forgot the lines, "and they'll protect you with their wings/and keep you close to the Lord", but hardly anybody noticed and even less cared. No, it wasn't recorded, unless somebody was bootlegging the evening, so you'll just have to imagine it, and look at Paul Bailey's nice pictures, the full set of which can be found here.








Which means I have been onstage at the 100 Club, with a clown playing a saw behind me. What a ridiculous life. (A special tip of the hat to bassoonist Caroline Mabey and saxophonist Arec Koundarjian, who accompanied me as Tom Waits.)

Crimewatch! (Or Crimelisten!) We devote most of the 71st Collings & Herrin podcast to the story of Richard's iPhone being snatched in West London by an opportunistic tearaway and smooth criminal with brilliant cycling skills and the desire to make us ask the question: who is the real thief? (It's him.) This is clearly more important than Michael Jackson's "macabre circus" of a funeral, the mystery of the Human Shrub and anything I have done. Anyway, back to Richard's iPhone ... which came in the now-empty box pictured, and went - just like that - in a blur of colours and replaceable nuts and bolts and a photo of Richard in an uncompromising moustache which we hope at least gave the thief a fright. (Download here, or via iTunes.)

I seem to be allowing time to pass without pushing sales for our Edinburgh live podcasts, so here's a brazen plug: we - that is, Collings & Herrin - will be appearing at the Underbelly between August 19-23 (that's Wednesday to Sunday) at 12.20, lunchtime, at a cost of just £6 (£5 conc). Why not book your tickets now, as there are only about 100 places for each show and they are already flying out of the door. (We must tell the box office to actually sell some of them, rather than let them fly out of the door.) And if you're in Edinburgh, you would be insane not to book to see what promises to be Richard Herring's best Edinburgh show ever: Look I've Got A Moustache Like Hitler! He's on for the whole festival, 6-30 August, also at the Underbelly, but at the more reasonable hour of 20.40. Come! And! See! Us!

The Where Did It All Go Right? audiobook has arrived! (Well, I haven't actually seen one yet, as I left the house before the postman came, but this is what it looks like - photographed we may assume on the kitchen table of Chris from Go Faster Stripe, without whom etc. etc.) I can't believe we've finally made Where Did It All Go Right? into an audiobook, six years after its original publication. And better than that, we've done it via the indie route, cutting out any number of middlemen in the process and sticking it to The Man. (A-booooo! to The Man.)

It's available to buy on the Go Faster Stripe website - along with many other fine comedy DVDs (and one book, one CD and one 10-inch single), some of them not by Richard Herring. Before you ask, we were unable to get it out as a downloadable audibook on iTunes, as it seems that they are something of a closed shop to new, indie audiobook publishers. It will also be available on Amazon although it's not up there yet, and anyway, I'd recommend you buy it at source. In case you're not up to speed, it is a book about my uneventful childhood in Northampton. You knew that, didn't you? And instead of reading it, you get to hear my mangled voice saying it out loud. (The diary chapters are accessed as MP3s on the Go Faster Stripe website, but you need the secret password from the inner packaging of the audiobook to find them. How exciting.)

A talented artist called Darren Lacy, whose Big Brother-related artwork can be seen here, has drawn this funny cartoon of me and Richard. It sort of makes me wish I was a cartoonist again. But I'm not. I am this. Whatever this is. (Richard had his iPhone snatched today on the streets of Shepherd's Bush. I hope this picture cheers him up. Now we both have an exciting story to tell about our touch-screen phones: his was stolen by a tearaway who evaded police capture despite a Sweeney-style high-speed pursuit with sirens wailing; I broke the screen on mine while purchasing a spinach and cheese crepe at a rock festival. Whose story is more exciting? Anyway, we are both using rubbish spare phones - although I'm sticking to mine, and Richard has already ordered a new, and flashier, iPhone because he is a slave to the machines, and I am not. Ha ha.)

Oh, here's another one.

I sat in for Adam and Joe on Saturday on 6 Music, a long held ambition as a fan of their show, except I wasn't supposed to be them, I was there to hold the musical fort on another 6 Music "themed" day, Independents Day, in which we focused on music from independent labels. The one concession we made to Adam and Joe was to create our own indie Song War song, my first ever attempt as using GarageBand for something other than as a big tape recorder for podcasts: we looped one drum track and one guitar track, wrote some daft lyrics and sang the song, I Quite Like Indie, live. It is quite silly, but if you wish, you can hear it at the 46 minute mark on iPlayer, all this week.

Adam and Joe have embarked upon a long, well-earned summer break, and will be covered from next week by their natural dep, Danny Wallace, who will keep the spirit of the show alive. I was amazed by how many Tweets and messages I got that basically said, You're alright, but you're no Adam and Joe. Ouch! That hurt! Especially when I made it clear that I was not attempting to be. One gentleman called me "another John Peel wannabe," which is an odd insult, in that wanting to be John Peel strikes me as a worthy ambition. That said, I don't want to be him. I have no interest in listening to loads and loads of new bands in the hope of finding a good one. The lot of the "dep" is always to fill in without threatening the authority of the person you're filling in for. I'm pretty sure Adam and Joe are safe in their jobs, unless they plan to jettison all the features and funny stuff and just play records on independent labels in the future. (It's amazing how possessive fans can be.)

Anyway, it was fun to do. I seem to be well and truly back on the 6 Music subs bench. Long may that continue. And one day, maybe I can be John Peel.

In this special Michael Jackson Podcast (number 70), we talk about the life of Michael Jackson, the death of Michael Jackson, the Mickey Mouse-style voice of Michael Jackson, the legend of Michael Jackson, the response to Michael Jackson's death, the response of Uri Geller, the response of Debbie Rowe, the response from Glastonbury, the unsuccessful remodelling of Andy Murray, the allure of Flamingo Land, how to keep a baby tapir cool, and why girls kissing girls will disturb EVERY parent. (And for the first time, I actually say the same thing twice on the same podcast, not realising I'd already said it - so listen out for that!) And it's all sponsored by the Rhythm Festival in Bedford, which you should go to, so you can be in a tent when a famous person on the outside dies.