Richard Herring appeared on a couple of JAMS. He is a very hard working commedian who has live shows, 2 weekly podcasts with Andrew Collins (one from Radio 6, the other recorded in their attic or at live shows) and another podcast As It Occurs To Me (AIOTM) (both free). His humour can be confrontational and extremely rude, so may not appeal to JAMMERS. However he has a BBC4 series coming up Richard Herring's Objective which could well be worth a listen (possibly something like Jeremy Hardy's ones) and I would be interested if anyone happens to download/upload it.
But back onto topic, he has a daily blog which included this in the most recent (
http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/warmingup.php?id=2897)
I was tired enough without the stress and exercise though and worried that I might not be on top form for the recording. We headed out to do some vox pops to find out if English people knew when St George's Day was. On the way out we bumped into Nicholas Parsons who was at the Beeb doing some interviews for his new book. Coincidentally I had just that morning watched a clip of Nicholas on The Arthur Haynes show and yet here he was forty or fifty years later, still on the go. He is 87 next week and yet has a work ethic and a schedule that seems to put even me to shame. But he remembered me (asking about my moustache) and asked me what I was up to. I told him about the series and that we'd already done the moustache and the hoodie. "What did you do about the Goodies?" he asked. I wished I had been trying to reclaim the Goodies, but corrected his mishearing. He slightly sadly recalled that the Goodies (amongst many others) had joked about him in their series. "I am sure it was affectionate," I said.
"Oh no, it wasn't!" replied Mr Parsons.
I laughed, because he was almost certainly correct, but said "Yes, but where are the Goodies now, Nicholas? And you're still going strong."
He is a remarkable man and although he has certainly had his knockers if you listen to him on Just a Minute or are lucky enough to get a chance to have a chat with him, you will know how lively his mind is. Even though he had been complaining mildly about all the interviews his publisher was putting him through, he had a lot to say on the subject of Englishness and pretty much insisted that we interview him about it. In the end we couldn't use this in the show, but he made some good points about how he saw himself as British - despite seeming like the epitome of the Englishman he also has Scottish heritage. His book, if you're interested, is available here.
Jeremy