The great man of American letters and "blue-collar laureate" Raymond Carver is one of my favourite writers. The fact that a new book of his is - posthumously of course - being published in two weeks' time, grabs my attention. It's called Beginners and is in fact the original draft of what became his 1981 short story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - the scoop being, his editor Gordon Lish cut and changed the work so much, the substantial edit itself has become a chattering point. This story ran exclusively in the New Yorker two years ago, with the original and the published versions of his stories going public for the first time*. Now it's a book you can buy. Anyway, Carver was covered twice, at great length, in two broadsheets this weekend.

In the Times on Saturday, Toby Litt began his piece:

"On July 8, 1980, at 8am, Raymond Carver began a letter to Gordon Lish, his editor. Carver, at that moment, was far from the revered literary figure that he would be at the time of his death, eight years later. He had published several books of poetry and one of short stories. At best, he was a respected figure within limited circles ..."

In the Observer on Sunday, Gaby Wood began her piece:

"At 8am on 8 July 1980, Raymond Carver sat down to write a letter to his editor, Gordon Lish. He'd been up all night worrying about the book they were working on together, and by the time Carver had finished writing there were more words in the letter than there were in many of the short stories for which he was known. 'Dearest Gordon,' it began ... "

I find it fascinating that in both, lengthy pieces (both excellent, by the way - go for Litt's if you want closer analysis of the "saintly" Carver from an academic perspective - he teaches at Birkbeck - and Wood's if you want an interview with Carver's widow Tess Gallagher) the writers began with exactly the same conceit, and exactly the same sentence. I wonder, if you'd sat me down with the same material in isolation, I'd have done the same. Actually, no, I would have started with, "Raymond Carver is one of the only authors I can quote, from memory ... blah, blah, blah, me, me, me ... "

*Incidentally, the New Yorker piece, from 2007, began:

"On the morning of July 8, 1980, Raymond Carver wrote an impassioned letter to Gordon Lish, his friend and editor at Alfred A. Knopf, begging his forgiveness but insisting that Lish 'stop production' of Carver's forthcoming collection of stories ... "

Maybe sometimes, there really is only one way to start a story. Although I suspect Gordon Lish would have had a few suggestions.

Thanks to Steve Brown and Steve Newman, the men who created our iTunes ident (Steve Brown takes the photos, Steve Newman does the designs), we are now able to offer a whole stupid range of Collings & Herrin t-shirts, via this fantastic site MySoti, who basically print them to order using DTG - Direct To Garment - printing, so no overheads, and no warehouses full of unsold t-shirts with NYUM NYUM NYUM on them. Other slogans include ANDREW COLLINGS IS A FUCKING IDIOT, RICHARD HERRING IS A FUCKING IDIOT, ASK ME ABOUT THE MITFORD SISTERS, MAH FAVOURITE T-SHIRT and I'M SECRET DANCING RIGHT NOW, but keep refreshing the special "shopfront" page for collingsherrin designs. I think Richard and I stand to make pence from this venture, but since it's no-risk, what the hell?



Personally, I wouldn't be seen dead in a t-shirt with either my face or Richard Herring's face on it, but if you are mentally ill, knock yourself out.

Ever since Friday, when I saw the fascinating Futurism exhibition at the Tate Modern (now finished, sadly), I've been meaning to do this: above, The Rock Drill, a Vorticist sculpture by Jacob Epstein, created in 1914; below, a Cylon, from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, created in 2003 and designed I believe by Pierre Drolet. (I'm currenly working my way through BSG, as the kids call it, and I think it's possibly one of the greatest US TV series ever made.) Anybody else see any similarities in these two striking images, taken from the best part of a century apart?

You too can be as happy as these people. There are now three, non-Scottish live C&H podcast dates to put in your diary, albeit two in the same town, which is greedy of Brighton, but hey, it's a great comedy town and it's where all our gay fans live.

Tickets for our full variety spectacular (podcast, Q&A, plus solo stand-up, inc. Secret Dancing, merchandise buying/signing love-in) at the Lincoln Comedy Festival on Friday October 2 are selling fast, but go here if you wish to join in. (This will, in fact, be Podcast 84 - sorry about the longish gap between today's and the next one, but Richard is taking a well-earned holiday between then and now, and I'm not.)

Your next chance to come and be part of the magic and maybe appear in a blurry photo taken on my Mac is in Brighton, part of the excellent Brighton Comedy Fringe (a kind of modest but worth-supporting alternative to the Brighton Comedy Festival, with which it crosses paths): it's Friday October 16, at 7pm, and will be just the hour-long podcast show. It's Upstairs at the Three and Ten, 10 Steine Street, Brighton BN2 1TE (box office: 07800 983 290, or book online here). Smaller venue, so book early.

Our next concrete date is also in Brighton (although not yet booking, but go there to see a film in the meantime anyway) is at the magnificent Duke Of York's Picturehouse. We return to the scene of May's triumphant first ever full show (with podcast, Q&A, plus stand-up, Secret Dancing, full English), for more of the same on Tuesday December 8.

We'll try to book some more dates in other towns and cities over the next few months, as they are fun for us to do, and it seems that those not in attendance are happy to download them. If you run a venue, can attract enough people who might get what the podcast is all about and would like to book us, get in touch.

In a first for Collings & Herrin - if not a first for Robert Llewellyn, but we're not in competition with him - we present our first ever on-the-road podcast, recorded in Richard's car on the M4 yesterday morning, heading West to his parents' house in Cheddar. We've not established whether this is illegal or ever dangerous, but it does mean that we don't specifically refer to anything in the newspapers, as Richard is driving a car on a motorway, and I can't read in a car without feeling travel sick. This is among the points of discussion, as well as 21-year-old Alesha Dixon versus 102-year-old Arlene Philips, the shocking amount of Cheddar cheese we import from other EU countries, Battlestar Galactica (the 1978 one) and the "Suicide Bummer" (as seen in the Sun, and headlined as such). You will also hear points of interest noted along our journey, such as certain junctions, a sign saying "LOG HOTLINE", something on fire just outside Reading, and a Herman Miller office furniture lorry. Don't want to give too much away!

Alright, my theory is shot to hell. I was seriously thinking about writing a book called The One Show, in which my pathetic TV career stretches to appearing as a guest on every programme on television but only once - Newsnight Review, The Wright Stuff, Richard & Judy, What The Dickens on Sky Arts 2 - but BBC1's dastardly The One Show have ruined everything. I have only ever been asked to present an item once, but now I have contributed to two further items, the latest being one on Dan Brown, which aired yesterday. This was a lot of fun, despite me not feeling very well (the adrenalin of TV usually perks me up when I'm required to shine - I'm sure this is not good for long-term recovery, but it's a medical reality), and Gyles Brandreth and I mucked about a bit in Waterstone's on Piccadilly, with one bit of business about the Masonic handshake actually being left in the edit. Anyway, it's just a few moments in the limelight in a too-low chair, but it's traditional now for me to present a few screengrabs, and it will annoy Richard Herring, so here goes.

Our 82nd podcast comes in the form of a Dan Brown-style mystery - we call it The Da Versity Code. What governmental/church conspiracy is afoot? At around 52 minutes into the podcast, a perfectly harmless section about Britain's Got Talent-winning dance troupe Diversity visiting Gordon Brown at number 10, Downing Street causes the laptop to stop recording - thus, all trace of this two or three-minute routine is lost forever. Still, the rest of it will compensate. This podcast is not sponsored the Beatles Rock Band video game, as Richard paid the full price for his. We just happen to be playing on it before and after the recording, and in the accompanying photograph, with the combined age of 86. Elsewhere, it's the mystery rapist, the thrill of Great Yarmouth, the death of Keith Allen, Andrew's asthma, a mistaken "nyum nyum" signal from Guardian TV writer Sarah Dempster and some plugs for the Lyric gig at Hammersmith, still some tickets left.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown was released to the media at midnight, ready to be snapped up by the book-buying public from whatever time the shops opened this morning. A hardback copy was dispatched from the publisher Transworld (where, it is said, only four people had read it) by motorcycle courier, to my house. I signed for it at approximately 1.15am, having already been asleep, in preparation. I started reading what is a 510-page novel at approximately 1.18am. I reached about a third of the way through before requiring a nap. I had a nap. I woke up and carried on reading, aware that the Times required a 600-word review by "as soon as I could do it" today - chiefly because they wanted to beat their competitors to a full review on their website. I took the book on public transport as I travelled in to the Robert Langdon-style British Library to write my 600 words. I speed-read bits of it, in order to reach the end before making my judgement. I delivered my review, at just over 600 words (unprofessional, but it will be edited for the page; this was for the website), at just before midday. I had completed my quest in under 11 hours. The review is now online - although a frustrating 90 minutes passed between delivery and publication, during which some rapid-fire sub-editing made a nonsense of two sentences, but most of what I wrote survived intact. I am very proud to have written the review of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol for the Times. I'm not quite sure how it happened, and I only found out I was doing it at 5pm yesterday in Caffe Nero. If it doesn't make me a proper journalist, I think it makes me a proper book reviewer. You can read my review if you want to know what I thought of The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, but in precis: it's not as good as The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, even though it follows an identical pattern. I am a bit tired.

So, two charity books I have selflessly and magnanimously contributed to are just about to be published with an eye on the Christmas gift market, and the least I can do is point you in their direction. Both launched in London on Thursday - although I only managed to attend one of the launches, because it was at Number 10, Downing Street and I am shallow like that.

One of the nice things about being a published author is that you are often asked to write things for no money. You are flattered to be asked; the shrill inner voice of egotism and the baritone of realism combine to convince you that seeing your words printed in someone else's book is suddenly far likelier than seeing them printed in your own, and that seeing your words printed anywhere is a pleasant, if fleeting thrill. Which is why I agreed to contribute to Modern Delight, published exclusively through Waterstone's (Faber, £9.99), and with all proceeds going to Dyslexia Action, and the London Library; and Grandparents (Ebury, £9.99), the third book, followings Mums and Dads, compiled by and intended to make money for Piggy Bank Kids, Sarah Brown's charity.

The former is a modern update of Delight by JB Priestley, published in 1949, which sought out 114 instances of simple pleasure (the Marx Brothers; a walk in the woods) at a time when Britain was beset by bombed, postwar gloom and the author was having some teeth out. The Waterstone's edition collects mini-essays on the same from writers as various and crowd-pleasing as Stephen Fry, Nick Hornby, India Knight, Jeremy Paxman and Clive James. I wrote 400 words on the Pied Wagtail, which begins, "They say that the Devil is in the details. If so, then surely God is in the wagtails." (Beat that for a forced pun, Clive James!)

The latter is a far cosier anthology of pieces about, yes, one's grandparents, penned for no money by a broad sweep of contributors, from Martha Kearney, Alan Titchmarsh and the Archbishop of Canterbury to Jimmy Carr, Lorraine Kelly and Paul Dacre. Bill Bryson's in there too, but it's an appropriate extract from his memoir, not a newly-written piece. Still, kudos to him for turning up - and adding considerable literary weight and star power - to the launch.

You may recall that, by contributing to Piggy Bank Kids' previous book, Dads, I was invited to its launch, last Valentine's Day, at Sarah Brown's house: Number 10, Downing Street. This was an evening affair, and star-studded (click here for a full guest list) - all party politics aside, a memorable event with champagne flowing and Joanna Lumley. My second visit was to be an afternoon-tea kind of affair, so less glamorous and boozy, although I had rather hoped for a better celebrity turnout, if only for the sake of my Dad. You might say I should have taken my Dad to the Dads launch, but he was there in spirit - in my essay for the book - and anyway, I had no idea that a nonchalant walk up Downing Street would become an annual occasion. (Charlie Higson took his dad to the Dads launch, by the way, but most took their spouses and partners, as did I.) No matter! It was great to be able to spread the Downing Street love around this year, and my Dad came down to London especially. Even though I was an old hand at walking up Downing Street, it was exciting again to push past the stupid public and be allowed through the big gates to wander up the most famous non-fictional street in Britain, having put our bags through the police X-ray machine.

No mobile phones or cameras were allowed inside Number 10, so I was unable to Tweet or surreptitiously snap the inside of the Downing Street toilets, and since no press photographers were granted access either, it actually felt, once again, like a private do. Sarah Brown spoke eloquently about the charity, we all stood around and held cups and saucers in the rooms where so many world statesmen have also stood around holding cups and saucers, and everybody craned their necks to subtly check out who else was there. I was disappointed that so many of the book's bigger names didn't bother to turn up (Kelly, Titchmarsh, Alex Ferguson, Fiona Bruce, Annie Lennox, Rowan Williams) - perhaps some of them are blase about going up the famous stairs and looking at all the former Prime Ministers? Perhaps they had better things to do on a Thursday afternoon? I certainly didn't, and nor did my Dad. It was surreal to be in that famous house, nibbling tiny meringues and wondering who the very elderly lady in the wheelchair was. (We have since decided it must have been Denis Healey's wife Edna.)

Of course, last time, it being an evening do, Gordon Brown turned up, without fanfare, and had an after-work beer among us. I expect he was working on Thursday afternoon, trying to think up ways of taxing the middle classes and allowing the bankers to give themselves obscene bonuses. Dad and I had a pleasant two hours at Number 10, chatting with my actor friends Michael Simkins and his wife Julia Deakin (yes, Marsha off of Spaced!), and regaling them with what Jimmy Carr had said to us when we first walked in. Ever the comedy imp, he shook my Dad's hand and said, "Have you got the drugs? Because Andrew says you're usually holding." My Dad took this in good spirit and I enjoyed the risque nature of Jimmy's opening gambit.

Just as we were leaving, we bumped into the genius British filmmaker Paul Greengrass, he of the best two Bourne films and instantly recognisable long hair. Dad and I had been enthusing about United 93 in Costa beforehand, which we had both watched on TV, so I introduced us to Paul Greengrass and we were able to enthuse about it to his face. He seemed grateful for our praise at the top of the stairs. I certainly liked the idea that my Dad could come down to London from Northampton for the afternoon and wind up shaking hands with the man who had written and directed the very film he had seen on TV two nights before. Dreams can come true, as long as they are sensible and achievable dreams based on being introduced to a man most people wouldn't even recognise in the street.

Modern Delight was being launched at the London Library directly after our Downing Street experience, but Dad is not a serial ligger - and nor, frankly, am I any more - so we had some Italian food and he took the train home.

As I said, there is no photographic evidence that the Downing Street event ever took place (they didn't even send out posh invites this year - credit crunch). I could be making the whole thing up, like Derren Brown Mind Control, but I am not. Jimmy Carr really did accuse my Dad of carrying cocaine and I really did see Trevor Beattie, Patti Boulaye, Bill Bryson, Emma Freud and Kathy Lette in the same room.

At last, the 15-minute film I made for Bafta about Lost when its creators Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and Jack Bender were in town in July is online (along with six other clips from the Bafta masterclass; they're all on YouTube too). It's nice to see the finished little film and to pretend to be a TV presenter again, for a bit. If you don't have the time to watch it, here are the presenting highlights: me standing outside a cinema; me standing on a roof; me standing on a roof, but shot from the ground; me leaning over the back of a cinema seat to interview a man; me pulling a funny face and walking into a cinema. What a pro.

In this, the 81st Collings & Herrin podcast, we attempt the impossible: to make it even better than last week's absolute classic. Along the way, we discuss popular boys' names from Jack to Mohammed; the etiquette of going along to see Calendar Girls onstage in the West End; the etiquette of half falling asleep during a massage; the dangers of being the Radio Times Film Editor; and the likelihood of Derren Brown Mind Control picking the winning Lottery numbers TONIGHT without first buying all the Lottery tickets. We also manfully resist the urge to pack the podcast in early and go and play with Richard's Beatles Rock Band game, just to see if John Lennon would really like it were it explained to him on the steps of the Dakota Building in 1980. We also suggest a potentially funny scene that any future filmmaker dramatising the life of Josef Fritzl can use if they want to. Alright, I do. I am a div.

Plugs: Al Murray, Al McGowan, Wilson Dixon, Naz Osmanoglu and Richard Herring at the Lyric, Hammersmith, September 20: book here. Collings & Herrin Live Podcast at the Lincoln Comedy Festival, October 2: book here. Collings & Herrin Live Podcast at the Duke Of York's cinema, Brighton. December 8: tickets don't appear to be available yet. Richard Herring's As It Occurs To Me traitor podcast shows, Leicester Square Theatre, every Monday from October 12: book here if you want the Collings & Herrin Podcast to end

Deck the halls with boughs of atheism. The ironically godlike Robin Ince is once again curating a run of gigs at London's splendid Bloomsbury Theatre in December: The Return of Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People. Except this year, it runs for five nights: 15-19 December. Tickets are now on sale, even though the bill is not finalised. Buy them anyway. It's like Glastonbury: the bill is of secondary importance. Robin will definitely be on. Last year, I was honoured to be placed on the bill alongside ... that's physically alongside if not comedically or musically or professionally ... the likes of Tim Minchin, Stewart Lee, Josie Long, Phill Jupitus, Ricky Gervais, Luke Haines, Robyn Hitchcock and many, many more (and Richard Herring), and enjoyed every greasepaint-smelling minute of both nights, onstage and off. I took it on the chin that I was not chosen to play the added date at what I still call the Hammersmith Odeon - I think it would have been a bit surreal anyway, and I may have suffered from the live performance bends: too much, too fast, too soon. (Although I had played the Bloomsbury before, when David Quantick, Stuart Maconie and I supported Lloyd Cole in 2003: a surreal moment in all our lives, and one which laid to rest the preposterous notion that Lloyd has no sense of humour.)

Robin is still in the process of putting the bill together, and put the call out on 6 Music yesterday for suggestions for musical guests, but he has confirmed that I will be appearing on Thursday December 17, and possibly other nights, too, if they don't get too crowded. But these bills are not about individuals - even last year's surprise star guest, Ricky Gervais - they are about the cumulative effect of atheistic joy and song. You don't have to be one of them there militant atheists to get in, either. I'm certainly not one. And proceeds go to the Rationalist Association, who put out New Humanist magazine, which, unlike many militant atheists, has a sense of humour. And a sense of human.

Thanks to Sophie and to Andrew Browne (who made the grab) for drawing my attention to this strange caption, which appeared on BBC1 on Friday night. First of all, can't BBC caption writers place apostrophes? And second, what is Andrew Collin's Film Of The Week? It appears to be coming up after Pulp Fiction, which, oddly, I did make Film Of The Week in that week's Radio Times. Can the two be connected? And if so, why is my Film Of The Week coming up "later"? Or, is there a man called Andrew Collin, and does he have a Film Of The Week slot on BBC1? If anyone can explain, I'd be enormously grateful

After Saturday's "dummy" podcast (and we must have been dummies to actually release it), today's can rejoin the numbering system and call itself Collings & Herrin Podcast 80. We haven't split up, Oasis style, and we're back in West London, under the Velux window in Richard's attic, firing on a number of cylinders. Actually, it's just alright, but you will get to hear Richard having a go at many comedians and writers more famous than himself - and at one stage wishing four of them dead, Stewart Lee/Richard Hammond style! - and the unveiling of a new, defining metaphor for our comedic podcast relationship, but I won't spoil it. Among the big news stories: Kelvin McKenzie's sick, Libyan bomber-based bet at William Hill, the fate of the mysterious "Chloe", the tiny roll of flab that's taking over the world, and Jamie Oliver's accidental Mexican drug rampage. We're really sorry for last week.

I received a certain amount of stick on the live podcasts for drawing attention to the fact that, according to the media, only pretty girls got their A-level results two weeks ago. It's a little bit after the event, but I've only just found this - so thanks to the Guardian for pictorially collating the newspaper coverage, proving without a doubt that I was correct. Mostly blonde girls, too.