In a special Antiques Roadshow edition of the Collings & Herrin podcast, Richard sorts through a load of his old shit from the past, including coins, posters, Youth Hosteling badges, railcards, a Post Office Savings book and - at last! something interesting! - an early book of stories, mostly about Tarzan, ghosts and specific numbers of policemen and other men being killed. There is barely time to consider the papers, but we do offer a cursory glance at the world of Jordan, the fruity Australian couple having it off in a bell tower in Sydney in the afternoon [pictured], those worms that swim up your wee into the urethra like tiny salmon leaping upstream, and the idea of sipping cava through some cured meat. We might just carry on doing this.

Surely this needs no explanation. I've been playing clips from it all week on 6 Music and I need to get it out of my system.

An amazing exhibition at the Royal Academy in London: Wild Thing. This collates the work of three sculptors working in London at the beginning of the 20th century: Englishman Eric Gill, Frenchman Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, and American Jacob Epstein, whose striking, prescient bust Rock Drill had piqued our interest at Tate Modern's recent Futurism show. The original, full-length version of Rock Drill is the defining image of Wild Thing, or at least a 1970s reconstruction of the 1915 original, a nightmarish, baboon-like robot who seems to be a part of the actual quarry drill he mounts - and of course predates the design of various robots in 20th and 21st century sci-fi, including the Battlestar Galactica Centurian. This apparition dominates the third room of the exhibition - each artists gets a room - but there is much stimulus to be had from the smaller pieces. (I must admit, I usually gravitate towards 2D art exhibitions, but seeing one that was all 3D was superb.) I've long admired the work of Gill, thanks to his carvings that adorn Broadcasting House, but it was good to see Ecstasy, finished in 1910 and carved out of his favourite Portland Stone, and the entirely charming Golden Calf. Of the three, Gaudier-Brzeska was the least known to me, but what striking abstracts he produced from animal and bird forms - Birds Erect, 1914, is a fantastic extrapolation in limestone. His Red Stone Dancer, carved from Red Mansfield stone but looking almost wooden, is a key work in the middle room, only 60cm high but with boldly abstacted breasts (one circular, one oblong) and a triangle for a face. You have to admire his huge portrait of Ezra Pound, too (Pound called Gaudier-Brzeska a "wild thing"), and Bird Swallowing A Fish, whose titanic struggle is said to have presaged the mechanised stalemate of World War One, in whose trenches the artist perished, aged just 23. Epstein was no critics' darling before the war; indeed, they called Rock Drill "indescribably revolting", and his frank nudes with their dangling bits shocked polite society, most notably by the two English ladies who used umbrellas to knock the cock off the angel on The Tomb Of Oscar Wilde (a monument I am happy to say I have seen in situ in Pere Lachaise - see: below - where is it smothered in lipstick kisses - a footnote you hope Epstein would have enjoyed). The big, ahead-of-its-time Centurion overshadows the whole room, but you'd be mad to overlook the series of gorgeous, plump copulating doves, even though whoever decided to make the exhibition's postcards did. Incidentally, they were also selling a reprint of the Vorticist manifesto, BLAST, in the shop (as featured in the Futurism exhibition). I succumbed. I love going round art exhibitions, but it would seem wrong to come away without stuff. (By the way, I haven't seen the Anish Kapoor at the Royal Academy yet, but it was intriguing to hear his paint-cannon going off somewhere else in the building. It's calling me, I tell you.)

Hey, nerds! Forget the arcane, impenetrable, new-subscription-skewed iTunes charts. Check out these recent stats. They reveal how many people download all the BBC podcasts, accurate as of September 2009 - that is, those podcasts comprising mostly bits of existing radio shows on the BBC, advertised by the BBC, and with the backing of the mighty international BBC brand. Not indie ones like ours made up of original material every week even when Richard is in a bad mood. Still, numbers like Adam and Joe's monthly figure of 275,401 rather put into the shade the 23,000 who we have this week discovered regularly download the Collings & Herrin Podcast - which, of course, would make 92,000 a month. Still, we love every single one of those 23,000 people, and don't mind competing on the mezzanine floor of popularity with R1's Mini-Mix and R4's Excess Baggage.



More C&H stats courtesy of Orange Mark:

Around 19,500 very keen listeners download a new podcast in the first couple of days. Considering it's nominally "topical", we enjoy quite a "long tail" ... for example, Podcast 10, recorded way back in April 2008, has been downloaded 513 times this month! Podcast 74, the pre-Edinburgh one, is the most downloaded to date, with nearly 30,000 listeners. Podcast 69, the Virgillio Anderson one, is close behind with 28,000. Meanwhile, 21,000 idiots ignored the warning and listened to the post-Edinburgh one in the hotel room.

In total, our podcasts combined together have been downloaded over 2 million times. So fuck you, Mini-Mix!

Sorry about the further self-promotion (and our failure to disable the "noise gate function"), but in what could be our last ever podcast, depending on whether or not Richard's ravaged, overworked, overfed, overwhelmed, overoccurred body holds out for another week after what transpires, according to Orange Mark's stats, to be a cumulative four solid days of podcasting or 5,881 minutes since February 2008, we consider the impact of Calvin Harris's "protest" against Jed and Ward on The X Factor, discuss whether Bill Clinton or David Milliband would make a better lover, give Ben Elton the benefit of the doubt over his Frankie Boyle-style remarks about the Royal Family and - +++++SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! NOT THAT RICHARD CARES!+++++ - review the new disaster movie 2012 in way too much detail, and reveal the ending of a film about the end of the world. No, it's not actually 1992, despite the misleading Sun cover and I am no longer in the Labour party either.

The White Ribbon, or Das weisse band, is a quite remarkable film. (What's also remarkable is that, without any planning or foreknowledge, I arrived at the Curzon Mayfair and bought a single ticket to the 1.3o showing, and who should appear behind me, but my old showbiz friend The Fast Show's Simon Day, also about to purchase a single ticket for The White Ribbon. So we sat together. At one stage, I saved his seat for him, which means that if anybody had sat down next to me, I could have said, "There's someone sitting there, mate.") If anything, The White Ribbon could be retitled The Slow Show. Set in a Bavarian village in 1913, it is like a severe, black-and-white Heimat, except it takes place across just the one year rather than 81, and plays out in two hours rather than 53. Two is long enough.

Directed with incredible control and poise by Michael Haneke, whose interest seems to be in the repressive, prurient nature of a tight-knit community, especially one governed by feudal hierarchy and fear of God and the flesh, it is still something of a departure from the contemporary settings of his best known work, Hidden, Funny Games and The Piano Teacher. But such is the sense of isolation in this tiny, rural barony, it might almost be said to be timeless were it not for the narrator's references to the gathering storm clouds of war and the eventual flashpoint of Archduke Ferdinand's assassination. I guess it's about old certainties being eroded by outside events, or, in the case of the seemingly unexplained bursts of violence and sadism in this village of the damned, inside events. It begins with the death of a horse and ends with the death of an Archduke, which will, in turn, lead to millions more dead, including horses. You can't help but see the innocence and peace of this pre-war era in the silent fields of wheat and other crops, the very fields that will soon be torn up in France. When one character takes his revenge on the baron by destroying a field of cabbages, portent is in every swipe of the scythe. (Good lord, he's even using death's own gardening implement.)

The crisp monochrome makes it look like a 1950s European film (I was reminded of Ingmar Bergman's Summer With Monkia and Smiles Of A Summer Night, which I love), and it's only halfway through that you start to notice the lack of music. The titles are silent, which is unnerving enough, but the lack of a score isn't immediately apparent - well, it wasn't to me. How strange to see a film where the only sound comes from what's on the screen. After Hidden, which was quite a perplexing puzzle with a fairly open ending, White Ribbon is far more linear, with clear narration to move the action along with the perspective of time having passed, and a mystery that actually gets solved.

This doesn't mean it's an easy film. It's not. It's stiff and awkward and evasive and its true horror is concealed beneath propriety and tradition and routine, reflecting the airs and graces of the world it portrays; all the more thrilling, then, when the truth comes out, as when the doctor reveals his true, world-weary, patriarchal feelings to his lover, which are not nice feelings at all. Such cruelty merely serves to underscore the emotional purity of the relationship between the starchy pastor and his youngest son, embodied by the injured bird he nurses back to health. (Warning, there are two incidents of animal cruelty, one of them already mentioned, but neither is graphic or dwelt upon. The thought is enough.)

I am still thinking about this film, days later. That is the mark of a great film for me. By comparison, I really enjoyed An Education a couple of weeks ago - well-acted, well-scripted - but I barely thought about it again, beyond pondering how they could let a character in 1962 drop two individual teabags into two mugs. The White Ribbon needs to be seen. Just don't go in with the fidgets.

Set the controls for the heart of Torchwood! Tickets are now available for the first ever Collings & Herring Live Podcast in Wales: Cardiff St David's Hall, January 21, 2010. It's a full evening of adult entertainment, with podcast, stand-up, Q&A etc.



The other two key dates for your diary:

TUESDAY December 8, 2009
Duke Of York's Picturehouse, Brighton
The Collings & Herrin Christmas Podcast Party: an evening of stand-up, interaction, prizes, secret dancing, an exclusive Q&A, the chance to pick up a perfect Christmas gift and, of course, the one hour, 6 minute and 35 second podcast itself. After May's near sell-out, we hope to repeat the feat, and celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus a couple of weeks early. With you. Tickets available here.

MONDAY February 1, 2010
Leicester Square Theatre, London
The 100th Collings & Herrin Podcast: the 100th C&H podcast, seasonally adjusted, recorded in front of a baying audience of nerds, 7.00-8.30 then you can buy us a drink somewhere quiet. Tickets already available here.

In our 90th podcast, we spend the £45 million we didn't win on the Euromillions lottery, in detail, and devise a variation on the two-minute silence if Richard was in charge. We also prune my wallet, defend Gordon Brown after his bad-eyed felt tip spelling mistakes, uncover how the printing presses are powered on the Mail, Sun and Mirror, compare the potential for jungle romance of all the I'm A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here contestants (Lucy Benjamin, married to an oil businessman with one child: "Slim to none"), and, oh yes, plug our various gigs, at length, one by one, and brainstorm a couple of controversial ideas for the Brighton one on 8 December at the Duke Of York's, which may have health and safety implications. There is also a joke about dolphins that I borrowed from the leftovers of a radio pilot I have been working on - so listen out for that.

So, they allowed Collings and Herrin back onto the actual radio on Saturday morning, filling in for the hallowed Adam and Joe show, 9am-midday, albeit not trying to be them - that would be a fool's errand and we are too similar in height anyway. Earwax, Johnny Ball, trumpet cleaning, Gene Hackman, Noah - it's like a podcast, except with music and no swearing - and it has been calculated that we actually spoke for about one hour and six minutes in total. How about that? I liked it when someone on Twitter suggested we sounded like an old married couple arguing. Maybe we did. It's on iPlayer here. I hope you find it as much fun to listen to as we were obviously having in the grabs shown here. (I like the pic in the middle where Richard is very busy checking his iPhone.) And, on a related note, you can listen to me doing the Entertainment Guide on Dame Michael Ball's Sunday Brunch on Radio 2 from this morning. It begins at approximately 0.50 and ends with me reviewing How David Hasselhoff Brought Down The Berlin Wall, a documentary written and presented by ... Richard Herring (which is itself on Radio 2 on Tuesday, 10.30 and I describe, dispassionately, as "a great hour of radio").

As Richard stares unemployment in the face and I realise that it was my broken earphones that led to a fleeting, erroneous feeling of punk rock cool on a train this morning, our 89th podcast soldiers on, featuring a whole load of genuine laughter at the twin Daily Mail "imagined nostalgia" attack of

a) AN Wilson for the time "a few years" ago when there was no Halloween and no 200 yard queue outside his local joke-cum-fancy-dress emporium, and
b) Quentin Letts for the time, before 1970, when urchins would demand a penny for the guy

Plus: the varying levels of pictorial hypocrisy over the iconic photo of weeing student Phil Laing [see: self-defeating Guardian crop above]; the inappropriate casting of Kelly Brook in the West End Calendar Girls, which will only lead to confusion at the box office; and the over-35 joy, for Richard, of meeting Johnny Ball and Maggie Philbin. For the record: we do not repeat the Rebecca Adlington joke like all the newspapers who claim to be offended by it.

By the way, we are number two in this discerning Dave channel comedy podcast chart. Only Adam and Joe are better than that

To the Barbican in the City of London last night for an extraordinary evening of modern ballet, courtesy of the Michael Clark Company. An ugly building that houses such beauty! This was my first time through the Barbican's doors. Once past the brutalist concrete pillars and almost sadistic lack of decent seating in the bar areas (three quid for a bottle of beer, par for the course in such establishments), the Theatre itself was a revelation: wide, comfy seats that don't flip up, a clear view of the huge, widescreen stage, dazzlingly simple access to each row by way of individual entry points through doors that automatically close when the houselights dim, a superb sound system - it put the South Bank into the shade; if only they could excavate it from the Barbican, lift it up and put it, well, at the South Bank!

Having begun to enjoy mostly traditional ballet these past couple of years, and having been wowed by Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker at Sadler's Wells, I felt ready to appreciate what Clark has clearly done for the form, and his New Work 2009 - that is, Swamp and the two-part Come, Been and Gone - seemed a perfect place to hop aboard, based as it is on the work of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and David Bowie (and Wire, as it transpired). Premiered at Edinburgh, it now comes home to the Barbican, where Clark is an Artistic Associate. Among the arts-based celebs we spotted in the audience were Mark Moore, formerly of S'Express, and Sam Taylor-Wood with her boyish new boyfriend, the actor Aaron Johnson (they snogged during the interval, which was a bit much, but that's young love, I guess). The sell-out audience seemed to be of "a certain age", that is, Clark's age, Taylor-Wood's age and pretty much my age: the very people to be excited by hearing White Light/White Heat and Jean Genie through a big sound system and being interpreted through dance. I'm afraid I went in with this preconception: I'm going to bloody love this.

And I bloody loved it. The first section, Swamp, based on Feeling Called Love by Wire, followed by two, lengthy ambient pieces by Wire's Bruce Gilbert from his album This Way, involved eight dancers - three men, five women - bending their lithe bodies in simple leotards on an empty stage against a floor-to-rafters white screen which a single strip of white light occasionally traversed, as if it were a long, thin, moving doorway, or the vertical band on an old-fashioned radio dial. When you haven't been to live dance for a while, you forget just how insanely athletic and poised great dancers are, and these were no exception: hair simply tied or greased back, with black strips across the eyes, the Clark style has them almost never in complete synchronisaton - rather, they do their own thing, sometimes in pairs, forever dancing off into the wings and reappearing, sometimes on the opposite side, as if the stage frames our view of a much larger dance and we are looking through a cinemascopic viewfinder. The sheer simplicity and strength of these tactile routines, based on slow-marching, foot-dragging, puffed-out chests and surgically controlled slow movement, is mesmerising.

The second section and first act of Come, Been and Gone (there were two intervals, of which the second seemed unnecessary and broke the mood), featured four Velvet Underground songs - Venus In Furs, the aforementioned, Heroin and Ocean - each with its own visual theme and formation, such as a solo performance for Heroin in a bodysuit with syringes sticking out of it, while the others involved a full company of six (two men, four women) plus Clark himself, usually in humorous cameos. This followed through to the climax, beginning with Iggy's Bowie-like Mass Production, then into a Bowie suite: the doomily ambient Sense Of Doubt, "Heroes" (during which the screen bore giant footage from the video and Bowie seemed to join the company, all wearing that boxy jacket he wore), After All (a great, quirky little song from Man Who Sold The World), Future Legend and Chant of The Ever Circling Skeletal Family from Diamond Dogs, Aladdin Sane (during which one of the male dancers responded to every plink of Mike Garson's insane piano solo - genius!), and Jean Genie, an upbeat finale, with more jackets adapted from the Bowie original. These songs, recorded almost 40 years ago, sounded big, full and contemporary coming out of those speakers. Modern music really should be ashamed of itself.

Clark's reputation as an iconoclastic genius is already written. I'm fully aware that I'm coming pretty late to the party - how I wish I'd seen I Am Curious Orange with the Fall in '88, from which I saw intriguing clips on a South Bank Show, I think - but I can concur: he is an amazing, singular choreographer. His young company are like putty in his hands - it's like watching gymnasts without the accent on points, glory and competition (they dance most of the show barefoot). When watching dance you find yourself fixating on certain individuals - one of the female dancers was noticeably taller and less skinny than the others and so stood out, and she moved with such incredible precision; all three of the men/boys were also captivating, not built up like bodybuilders or Hollywood actors but taut and graceful. You begin to take their skills for granted, but my God, they move their entire bodies around while standing on one foot and it's as if they are on a rotating turntable.

Clark, although too old for all this apparently, was also impressive when he appeared, and utterly self-effacing: at one point he emerged from the wings holding a cricket bat and immediately departed again; at another, in a Victorian bathing suit, he spurted water out of his mouth like a bendy whale. (During Aladdin Sane, three of the dancers appeared nude, facing the back, and bumped bare arses in time to the music - such comedy was refreshing.)

A memorable night. I feel ill-equipped to describe dance, having seen so little of it, relatively speaking, but I hope I have conveyed my delight and awe.

First of all, here is a link to the Royal British Legion website, where you can donate money to their cause, which is to support the families of British service men and women injured or killed in armed conflict around the world. These are the stated values of the British Legion:

• Reflection - through Remembrance of past sacrifice in the cause of freedom
• Hope - by remembering the past, a younger generation has the chance of a better future
• Comradeship - through shared experience and mutual support
• Selflessness - by putting others first
• Service - to those in need and in support of the whole community

Now, forgive me if I spell this one out, but in foolishly attempting to state my case on Twitter yesterday, I have caused a minority to call me names, and I wish to clear the air in more than 140 characters: one way of showing your support to the work of the British Legion, and to publicly remember those British service personnel who have been killed since the First World War, is to wear a red poppy. Should you wish to donate money to the British Legion, either in person or via their website, and not wear a poppy, is up to you; it's your choice. Is it, some might say, the very freedom of choice that servicemen and women fought for in the Second World War. (It is also your choice whether or not to donate, but that is a different matter.)

As I stated on Twitter, my views on war and servicemen and women are too complex to reduce to the wearing or not wearing of a paper flower, so I choose not to. This is not a stance, or a boycott, if anything it is an absence - the absence of a need to display my feelings in the street. The only reason I mentioned this on Twitter in the first place is that I am already feeling peer pressure and emotional pressure to wear one. Fortunately, I have not been on television during the run-up to Remembrance Sunday, so have not been in a position where it has been broadcaster policy and thus been coerced into doing so. (NB: See Chris Treece's comment about BBC poppy policy below.)

The poppy is good. Its original meaning is sound: poppies grew in Flanders fields (as captured in John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields) and elsewhere after the First World War and so represents rebirth and positivity, and - for me, anyway - something natural and not man-made reclaiming the earth after the earth has been scorched and muddied and associated with death by something unnatural and very man-made ie. war. The poppy, introduced here in 1921, is worn for essentially good reasons: to remember the dead. I have no problem with it, or anybody who wears one. The outward display of a personal belief - that the dead should be remembered - is not a bad thing. It is just not for me. I would hope that anyone who knows me knows that I have a great deal of compassion for people and animals, and this is borne out in my worldview - and in the charities I support. For those who don't know me, why should I worry about what they think? If they pass me in the street, see my lack of poppy (which, by the way, is not that uncommon - I must have passed 150 people between Tube station and the BBC yesterday and I counted four, two of which were worn by security staff; and only one today between Tube and library) do they come to conclusion, "Oh, he must be glad that men and women have died in wars"? I sincerely hope not.

I don't wear badges or wristbands or ribbons or flags that denote which charities and causes I support, because I am happy just supporting them. I am at peace with myself, and with those that wear such things. I do not judge others for wearing a wristband or a ribbon. I might assume that they support a particular charity or cause, but that is their choice. I don't think they are more compassionate than me because they tell me that they are in a coded way, but I assume that they are compassionate. But I assume people are compassionate unless given evidence to the contrary. I certainly don't assume that anyone not wearing a Lance Armstrong wristband is pleased that people have died of cancer. So why should anyone seeing my lapel think anything negative about me?

Feelings clearly run high on this issue. Someone called Lisa posted a message here on the end of an unrelated entry calling me "a disgrace," and effectively ordering me to wear one. (Someone on Twitter who felt passionately about the subject suggested I wear one and "do the decent thing.") I really do object to being ordered to do something - this is one step away from bullying. It's emotionally charged and unnecessary. Call me names for bad things I have done, not for supposedly virtuous things I have not done. I accept that, on a very modest scale, I am a public figure. Anyone who writes books and appears on radio or telly is. But that does not mean I have to set an example. I would rather influence people by airing my views on serious matters when the time is right and when the forum allows me to explain myself. I am usually caricatured as a woolly liberal, and to be honest, I am happy enough with that. It doesn't cover all my views, or reflect all my opinions, but it's a start. Certainly, I don't feel like "a disgrace." (I am hoping Lisa will engage in a debate under this entry, but I also hope she will withdraw her accusation of me being a "disgrace". I save that word up for people who have done something to harm others.)

Please donate to the British Legion if you believe they are worthy of support, and please do not feel any self-consciousness about wearing or not wearing a poppy. Do what you please. I read an interesting blog yesterday from an ex-serviceman who said he chose not to wear a poppy because he couldn't bear the hypocrisy of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown wearing one when they actually sent soldiers to their deaths under false pretenses. That's a fairly extreme view, but one that he is entitled to. (Certainly, for politicians, it is an opportunity for them to appear to commune with the nation on an issue they consider beyond party politics, even though war is completely political, especially the wars we are currently engaged in.)

My brother was in the British Army for 15 years and put his life at risk, like many soldiers do. I admit, this colours my otherwise woolly liberal views, as do the numerous books I have read about the hard realities of war, from Waterloo to Iraq. I have not, nor will I ever, put myself willingly in an armed conflict, because I am a coward. That, thus far, has been my choice. Many who were conscripted from 1914 onwards in this country were probably also cowards, but stepped up when the situation required it. I respect them as much as I respect anyone who volunteers. Why? Because they are human beings. I happen not to believe in killing other human beings, which is why my stance on the military is complicated. I do not believe in the death penalty. Others do. I do not think they are a "disgrace" for believing in it. I just disagree with them.

In many ways, yesterday's debate on Twitter was stimulating, but it was also, for me, infuriating, as I kept having to reiterate the same arguments, in 140 characters. I would much rather debate it here. Equally, I hope I have made my case clear enough, so that there is nothing else to debate, although I am happy to publish any views that do not cross the line of decency, and are posted under a name, even if it's a made up one.

Please do not judge anyone by their poppy or their lack of poppy. We live in a free country, where feelings about war are complicated and full of grey areas, and where our service men and women are currently being killed and injured on a daily basis. It is possible to support them, and the families they leave behind, without supporting the wars they are fighting. It is also possible to support them without telling everybody.