Toast, ham, baked beans, Worcester Sauce, grated cheese, chicken and mushroom pie and the Word podcast. What an enjoyable lunch hour I've just had, many thanks fellas!

If so, beautifully and thoughtfully put together. Especially the Worcs Sauce - trust it was L&P?

...just before a rather tedious English lecture- the metal anecdotes were great fun.

Did Andrew spot the Russian lark?

A few years ago there was a very tame Robin who would hang around on our doorstep and eat digestive biscuits. I used to see him almost everyday and eventually we formed rather a close bond. I would sit on the bench in our open front porch. He would perch on the armrest and we would natter incomprehensibly to each other.

My fondest memory of him is the time I was walking up the road towards my house with my bags of shopping. This red blur dropped down from one of the trees, shot past me at head height and recomposed itself on our front garden wall, where he waited for me to catch up to him.

were Roger McGuinn fans until I discovered the Word podcast.

Andrew was quite right, there was an Elvis film starring Kurt Russell, called Elvis The Movie (would've liked to be in on that brain-storming session).
I remember seeing it at the Commodore Orpington (now a McDonalds of course) in about 1979. The only things I remember from it are a) twin brother dies, b) hair dyed black, c) shoots the tv. Oddly, I can't remember how it ends, although I'm pretty sure that the closing scene was not our hero slumped on the toilet.
Alex

No Russian lark, but we did see a shore lark, which was a first time spot for both me and my more experienced birding companion Dave. For a full list of all 49 species we saw, go here.

...is there anyone who talks about himself more than Andrew Collins?

... I've always had about personal "BLOGS". I mean is it simply just talking (writing) about what you do in your life as if it'll be interesting to other people.

Maybe I'm a bit Irish (you can insert British here, if you agree) about this; but this self-importance just sits uncomfortably with me; but, of course, I'm sure that's my own insecurity.

Anyway, I'll slink off now.....

...it's not the same without the iron fist in a velvet glove of Mr Ellen.

...if it keeps me amused, that's all it has to do.
Frankly I refuse to take any notice of what people want the podcast to be. If you go up that route it ends up being something produced according to a formula. You don't go home from a night down the pub saying, I wish so-and-so had talked more about such-and-such and less about such-and-such.

I don't understand the obsession with blogging either. Why people think their thoughts and lives are worthy of public record and attention is beyond me. It's treating people as an audience rather than as an equal.

thats most of publishing, and a few multi billion pound online businesses up the swanny then...

Blogs are the ultimate democratic medium. Let's not forget, many people blog as an outlet for their thoughts or to flex their writing fingers, regardless of an audience. Other blogs find, by organic means, a small crowd, and links are made from one blog to another. I read about a dozen regularly and those that comment on mine tend to come from a certain pool, with others dipping in. The ones I worry about are those that get listed in newspapers as being "important" or for "influencing" the national debate. At the end of the day, beyond the pretty available graphics, they're just individuals with the spare time to type. If you don't like them, they're easily avoided.

But there's no difference between giving yourself a pseudonym and posting your thoughts on, say, the merits of Andrew Collins for all to read and writing your own blog. We're all part of the problem, if indeed it is a problem.

For my part, I prefer talking to people in real life, but these forums can be stimulating, once you get over the fact that irony doesn't work on the page/screen, and realise that a few taps of the keyboard can actually be quite hurtful.

...who are quite happy to listen to Andrew Collins talk at length on any subject he chooses.

I think people who discount blogging purely as self-indulgent soap-boxing ignore the fact that, as well writing their own blog, the majority of bloggers will read what their fellow online diarists have to say. Like most things on the internet, it's about communication, often with someone from a completely different background to your own, who you could never hope to come into contact with if you were to limit your social interactions to the offline world.

I have been reading some personal blogs for years. I know their writers well and I've watched their circumstances change: Some have got married, some have separated from their partners, some now have children, some have fallen ill. I expect that one day, one of them will die and I will grieve them as I would any close friend.

It would be complete nonsense to say that these online relationships are somehow of a lower quality than my friendships with those people who I interact with in the flesh. Was the twenty year written correspondence between the American author Helene Hanff and the English bookseller Frank Doel (documented by Hanff in her book 84 Charing Cross Road) any less of a friendship because the pair never laid eyes on one another?

Isn't all blogging, in fact a pretty good proportion of all communication, "self-absorbed" in that you're projecting your own opinions, observations, enthusiasms etc. in the hope that other people might be interested in them? You could accuse Andrew Collins of being "self-absorbed" in that he's written three books of memoir. But they're not so much about him personally. They're intended to be vivid snaphots of the spheres of life they describe: a humdrum Midlands childhhood in the '70s; student life in the '80s; working in various branches of the media. They're entertaining and interesting. Don't agree with Andrew about much but he's always worth reading.
Haven't heard the 'cast. Never get round to it. But there's something rather wonderful about a media operation, ostensibly about rock'n'roll, that has enough hinterland to encompass someone's account of a bird-watching holiday.

and I like blogging: It's faintly ludicrous to attack a guest on a broadcast medium who answers questions from their own perpective that's why you get guests on. The today programme would be crap if David Cameron was allowed to answer in general terms, Supergrass are interviewed because they are supergrass etc.
The thing I like about Podcasts and blogs is that by large it's about doing not about passive consuming. With the aid of a computer ( I found one in the street) anybody can broadcast or publish, most of it will be poor (but has any one read Metro lately, or watched ITV) but some of it is as illuminating as other more formal media.
Lastly the ease/joy of blogs (you can have one up and running in five minutes) is that they destroy once and for all the most tedious of critisism that we seen in this post ie complaining that an Elephant isn't more like a fish, if you like your elephants more piscine get your microphone out (£4.95 from Maplin) and record you own podcast so we can have listen, but attacking something for not being exactly how you wish it were never gets anybody anywhere interesting.
On a positive note more bird watching please, more interesting guests with stuff to say. keep up the good work and keep doing what you like.

Trivial question - why is AC's podcast called The Collings and Herrin Podcast? Is there an in joke I have missed or is it a typo?

Incidentally Collings is a particularly fine brand of acoustic guitar.