Entertainment For Lively Minds
Andrew Collins, the holiday cover they ask for by name, guests on our podcast
Posted by David Hepworth on 31 July 2009 - 11:27am.
Andrew Collins dropped in to visit us on this week's Podcast, ahead of his trip to Edinburgh where he's appearing with Richard Herring. We've been chewing over your TV crushes, the things that happen in the Beano but not in real life, the difficulties of disposing of expensive electronic kit and our approach to reading on holiday.
The podcast
Good one, as usual. Good to hear Andrew Collins speak without being called a f**king idiot by Richard Herring. I'll listen to Collings & Herrin on the way home, to get back to normal service.
Have a great break. I look forward to your return.
The one time I listened to
The one time I listened to the Collins and Herring podcast, all they seemed to do was call each other f***ing idiots, so I never bothered with it again. I'm not saying swearing isn't funny, but it isn't when they do it (and frankly, wearing a hitler moustache strikes me as a bit desperate as well).
Hitler Moustache
Kit, if Richard's new Edinburgh show, which is a thoughtful but provocative examination of our attitudes to race strikes you as "a bit desperate", I fear you may be judging it from a glance at the poster image, which seems a bit unfair. (Your assessment of our podcast is at least based upon listening to one, so fair enough.)
Actually I was judging it
Actually I was judging it from his interview on the Simon Mayo show the other week. I remain unconvinced but there you go.
Preaching to the converted
"a thoughtful but provocative examination of our attitudes to race"
Yes, because liberal, Word-reading, Edinburgh Festival-attending types are unsure about their views on race, aren't they?
Look-at-me controversialism, pure and simple. Still, he'll enjoy the ticket sales.
Having listened to the
Having listened to the Collings and Herrin podcasts but not yet seen Hitler Moustache, I think its a wee bit unfair to say this is look at me controversialism and it is possible for wooly lefties to have their views on race challenged and examined.
I hope he does enjoy the ticket sales, i think he deserves it.
Controversialist, moi?
You don't see it as a logical follow-on from one of his previous shows, about the penis?
It's related to Al Murray's blithe unconcern about his audience's reaction to his xenophobic Pub Landlord act. In the style of Mrs Merton, the question I'd pose is 'so what attracted you to the idea of getting thousands of people to pay good money to see you do an apparently racist performance'?
Al Murray and his ilk will no doubt use the same justification as that used for Alf Garnett, that 'we're not sticking it to the nig-nogs, we're sticking it to you', but I don't see it. I think it's just laughing at the French. End of story.
My point is not that there's anything necessarily wrong with this (they're big and ugly enough - they can take it) but, as highlighted in a different thread, it's the dishonesty that rankles.
I like Al Murray
Just wanted to say that.
Saw Al Murray, with German
Saw Al Murray, with German comic Henning Wehn opening for him. The audience do not get the irony.
Ticket sales
Pardon the multiple comments, but I've not been reading this thread during the week:
Dougie, it's a lovely, Utopian notion that everybody who reads Word and attends the Edinburgh festival is a liberal, but a) liberalism comes in many stripes, and b) what if they're not all liberal? Even people who start out in the idealistic teens and twenties with left-leaning views can find themselves becoming more right wing as they get older, and have kids. I've seen this happen, and I'm sure you have. The Fringe is so big, it simply couldn't be 100% liberal. You get all sorts up there.
In his defence (as he's not here), Richard's shows have been on various themes and subjects over the years, from Christianity and Greek myth to midlife crisis and the male member - last year's was simply about growing up as a headmaster's son - and it feels a bit unfair to accuse him of "look-at-me controversialism". Of course he's looking to sell tickets! Selling tickets is his job. It's how he makes his living. So yes, he'll enjoy the ticket sales - but not if they've been purchased under the misleading impression that his show supports racism or repatriation, which was the impression given by the Guardian piece in question, from whence this discussion arose.
In the Hitler Moustache show, Richard berates sections of his audience. I have seen it. He isn't preaching to the converted, I can assure you.
Racism is not “right wing”
So let me get this straight. There’s a political spectrum with nice cuddly liberal lefties at one end and nasty “right wing“ conservatives at the other. And the racists are at the “far” end of the conservative territory.
So how come the racist party, the BNP, is also the most “left-wing”? The BNP supports high taxation, nationalisation and economic protectionism. It promises “to give workers a stake in the success and prosperity of the enterprises whose profits their labour creates by encouraging worker shareholder and co-operative schemes”.It also has strong Republican leanings. It fares best in traditionally left (i.e. Labour) constituencies and its voters are former Labour voters.
Racism is not “right wing”.
Race
Sorry, who are you angry at, Richard? Left-wing people who vote for the BNP? Left-wing people who think there's something intrinsically wrong with voting for the BNP even though they share some views about taxation? Or left-wing people who don't realise that left-wing people vote for the BNP?
Surely, on the whole, racism tends to be found quite a long way from the left on the political spectrum? There are always variables and anomalies and grey areas, but *on the whole* it remains a fairly accurate sweeping generalisation.
Not “angry at” anyone Andrew old prune
Just making the point that your belief that “on the whole, racism tends to be found quite a long way from the left on the political spectrum” flies in the face of the facts. The only real racists I’ve ever known were militant trade union types up in Liverpool who were anti immigration etc. on the “British jobs for British workers” ticket.
I maintain that there’s nothing “right wing“ about racism. If anything it’s a form of social engineering: very much a lefty trait. Racism is stupid and wrong but it’s not just nice cuddly lefties who think so. But then the lefties do so treasure their monopoly on virtue.
Unexamined attitudes
are the key issue.
You know where you are with a skinhead with a Swastika tattooed on his head - harder to discern or identify the more insidious racism that can lie buried inside those who consider themselves liberal or of the left.
I thought some of these attitudes were unwittingly revealed in the recent Eric Clapton/Enoch thread
There is a reflex Anti-Americanism prevalent too - but it strikes me we are a very long way away from having a non-white party leader, let alone Prime Minister in the UK.
Yes,
and anti-Semitism (sometimes cloaked as 'anti-Zionism') has become worryingly prevalent on the 'left' in recent years.
Suppose I see the political 'line'...
... as circular. That is, the further right-wing you go, the traits become similar with those on the far-left (state control / dictator)that they become indistinguishable.
Just a thought. Never did political science - so just an opinion.
Yup - Andrew's a knee-jerk lefty ...
and as a result, his output sometimes has me literally howling with rage. But his cultural comment is great - put them together (along with a truly admirable work-ethic) and you get a successful journalist I like to read.
On left-right racism - I like the approach at http://www.poliicalcompass.org - bascially you have an economic view (free enterprise vs socialist) and a social view (control vs liberty).
I simply cannot see how racism maps intrinsically on to even this more complicated model i.e. there is no fundamental reason why a free-market authoritarian should be a racist (my mum would be a good example - she's a Daily Mail reading multiculturalist), or why an authoritarian socialist should not be (Stalin, anyone).
Summary -
1. Racism's a poison anyone can ingest.
2. Politically Andrew can be a complete arse.
3. Long may he continue.
and once more Andrew Collins comments
on the blog only when the discussion is about him or his work :-)
Feel free to join in on other threads Andrew.
I htought he was good
on this one actually - quite jolly and on the ball. The podcast with Herrin is dismal though.
I've really tried to like the Collins & Herring podcasts
I really have. Gritted my teeth through the early ones with the duff sound quality and waited for it to find it's feet. But to me it never got beyond limping. Apart from the occasional segment - for example when Richard talked about being on the same TV show as Carol Thatcher - I found Mr H's off the cuff humour painfully juvenile. Which is a shame because I enjoy his stand up, whatever facial hair he has.
He's a very busy man...
film critic for the Radio Times...fills in for Mark Kermode on Five Live...he's obviously reading the blog though.
What?
AC comments every month in the Mag. And he comments most days on his own blog.
At least when he does comment he doesn't have the luxury of hiding behind a pseudonym like the rest of us. Get off his back.
Ian
What?
I've not criticised him at all - I like him - get off my back.
Sorry
This wasn't a comment on your comment. It was on Stimpy's above, I should have made that clear. Again I am sorry.
Ian
Apology accepted...
but I don't think Stimpy's comment is made with any maliciousness - he's put a smiley face on it.
Your reply to Stimpy
Is in precisely the right place - I'm not sure why you're apologising, or why Formbyman is accepting the apology. But it's nice to see such gentlemanly behaviour nonetheless.
I'm just...
in a really good mood (it won't last).
Dear God
Richard Herring has wobble about his new show and every website I go to has some nonsense about enough already he must have sold enough tickets by now.
It's a public service, Stimpy.
When Mr. Collins joins a thread I know it's time I tested my smoke alarm. And when someone here quotes Talbot Rothwell I do a bit of dusting. My home is spotless. I am sure that other readers cling to similar drills.
I'm with you Stimpy
The end of the podcast:
DH: "And keep commenting on those threads"
AC: "yeah" (..but I'll contribute to only those that mention me or are started by Word staffers).
Other threads
See previous comment, which for some reason has appeared at the bottom. My, some of you can be touchy. I spend half my life following threads on forums; I don't always comment.
No worries...saw other comment...
...feel free to stick your oar in now and again; you'd be very welcome (despite what you may think of what we may think).
I'm sorry Andrew. I was only pulling your pigtails because
I'm too shy to ask you out. The joke is, of course, from "Frasier". Daphne comments on Frasier's intermittent love life by saying, "That reminds me, I must change the water filter." Thanks for saving my life.
Entertaining podcast
Bit of feedback - call me old fashioned but I think the podcasts recorded with 3 or more people in the same room (like this one) generally add up to more than the sum of the parts, as opposed to the 'skyped in' versions. Perhaps the banter flows more easily that way. I'll be happy to provide more fingers of fudge if that's what's required (hoping that's not some ghastly euphemism I've missed).
Great podcast....
and I still the love the Collings and Herrin podcasts too.
So there.
Mrs Pete Waterman
I'm sure the brunette became Pete Waterman's wife!
The thing about being a 70s adolescent
as I recall (dimly) is that I was as likely to be stirred by this crew [here seen modelling a kind of Jungle meets broad bean look]:
as Kate Nelligan in Therese Raquin (I think this was the version)
http://www.amazon.com/Therese-Raquin-Kate-Nelligan/dp/B00005N5R2
or Baccara doing "yes sir I can boogie" (of which no Youtube version seems to survive that isn't diabolical),
or Felicity Kendal ...
My brother even then had rather better taste, Cheryl Campbell and Cheri Lunghi if I'm not very much mistaken ...
But really, no wonder I was confused ...
Should probably have said better taste
in *fantasy* football manageresses etc. Can't quite figure out what the Campbell appearance must have been, maybe it was this one, which so appealed to Pauline Kael:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shooting_Party
However I think I must be partly confusing Campbell with Carol Royle, an enduring presence in the Cedar Tree-I think I was pretty keen on her myself ...
http://www.carolroyle.co.uk/
You'll be missed, Word Podcast
Have a good summer.
It will come back nice and refreshed...
after two weeks on a sun lounger in Benidorm reading Jackie Collins.
Is she
heavily tattooed then?
It's a small world after all
I was listening to the podcast here in NZ, feeling a little jaded after a hard night (baby twins). And then y'all started talking about my Beano thread! It put a spring in my step and also made me ache a little for my homeland. Thanks and enjoy the summer break.
You've been away too long
We no longer have summers in the UK, unless you mean that nice day between spring and autumn. Blame the government.
Waste not want not
Funnily enough, I listened to the podcast shortly before a colleague told me the story of what he had to do to fix a "Waste ink absorber error" on his Canon printer.
Was rather delighted that a figure he described as sounding like the young Lou Reed had trod the path before him ...
(I think this is the vid:
)
Takes real effort to make a part that inaccessible ...
Tried changing the headlamp on a Volvo S40 drivers side?
You pretty much have to dismantle the damn car.
No shared experience with modern comedy?
I think the podcasters got this one wrong, saying that old comedy had characters and catchphrases that were common currency, whilst now we no longer have those shared experiences. Just two examples from the last few years:
"I'm the only gay in this village"
"This is a local shop for local people"
...I think those should ring a bell with most people.
Catchphrases yes....
...but isn't that *all* we've got now?
What we don't have now is the sort of context that informed and filled out the catchphrases - the Home Guard, the dodgy seaside hotel, the prison - the 'situation' bit of comedy, if you will.
Just listened to the podcast...
... and I get a mention!!!!!!
*dances a happy little jig*
I shall now spend the rest of today feeling pathetically grateful to all concerned....
Hat in the off position
Well done, Sir. I always listen in the rather vain hope I get a mention.
It might actually help if I write something particualry pithy or interesting, mind...
Funny that
I had a similar experience when I emailed a letter in. The response from Mr Ellen said that it got actual applause in the office when it was read. My little heart swelled with pride and I felt great for the whole of that day. It shrank just a little, though, when I saw the published version, which had been expurgated slightly. Sigh.
[oops, this is actually replying to ganglesprocket.]
Hard work means something
I finally got a mention too, I was listening to it on the way home from a particularly taxing day at work that had dampened what was my birthday. The clouds parted, the sun shone, the traffic lights all turned green as my heart swelled with pride.
It felt good to be alive.
simple pleasures
Me too .....
.... only for fancying Angharad Rees mind, but you know, I feel that same level of gratitude, and bluebird on shoulder happiness. Made me forget that I had just shook hands with the administrator here at work and will possibly be out of a job by the end of the week.
Wow!
Andrew Collins used the words 'Paul', 'Waring' and 'genius' in the same breath.
My life is now complete.
Other threads
I tend to read the other threads (as, I hope, evidenced by my enthusiastic quoting of them on the podcast). Who needs Word staff muscling in on boards that are already healthily, wittily and enthusiastically tended? I do tend to answer criticisms to myself and my work. Why wouldn't I? I haven't been on this one for a week, so it's been growing organically without me. Which is why I weigh back in - ironically, answering a dig about me not contributing to other threads!
At which point, I presumably disappear up something.
Oooh
you dirty filthy lurker you. Isn't this a sort of forum-based kerb-crawling? :)
Andy Kollins
c'mon, admit you don't reply on other threads because you are saving your ammo for part 4 of the autobiogs. :D
meant to actually say..
...Have got to ask - how did you feel your 10 minute stand-up routine on the Mitford Sisters went?
(damn the faulty edit feature on this site)
What faulty edit feature?