Title: Paternal Sunflower Plagiarist

acast Time: 1:17:50
Youtube Time: 1:27:57

Original Record Date: April 15, 2020
acast Publication Date: June 3, 2020
Youtube Publication Date: June 3, 2020

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Acronym Modification
Richard Herring’s Lonely Self-Isolating Twat Podcast

Cool Kids
I was hanging around in Joe Wicks’s lounge the other day. I was hiding just to one side of the fireplace. He said, “What are you doing in here? You’re meant to be self-isolating.” I said, “Get out. Shut up.” He said he calls it…

Guest Best Known
For his performance in The Last Seven Days of Quant.

Audience

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Emergency Questions

Over the last few months, I’ve watched every episode of How I Met Your Mother. What is the most degrading thing you’ve done to yourself for no apparent reason?

Okay, well along those lines I bought – purely for my own only nostalgic reasons – I bought all of Quantum Leap. Yeah. I watched all of them. And they’re just – oh, they’re just so bad, Rich. They’re just so bad. But the concept just really spoke to me; it still does. Love the concept. If you – anything that comes out of Dean Stockwell’s mouth now, it’s very MeToo-y. So his character’s over. *RH notes that the show is problematic because changing one thing in the past changes many other aspects of history, so the show should really be about correcting changes the main character has just caused.* The reason I laugh is I had exactly the same thought. When Al wasn’t using his holographic image to spy on young women he would say, at the end, “Well done, Sam. This person and that person they get married and they have three kids. Off you go.” But it doesn’t say what happens to those three kids. One of those kids might have caused a terrible bus crash.

If you were in hospital, would you prefer to die than meet Patch Adams?

Crikey. I haven’t seen – I’m aware of Patch Adams. Would it mean Robin Williams himself, or is it… *RH advises that this may mean bringing Robin Williams back to life, but with unintended knock-on consequences.* Ask Al the hologram. He’d currently in a ladies’ changing room.

What do you think is the enduring appeal of dressing up as the 118 running men from those old 118 adverts? That still happens. If you go to a marathon people still dress as those guys, even now. It’s an easy costume, I guess, but is it as funny as anyone who does it thinks it is?

Well, this is interesting actually. I won’t reveal the person but I do know one of the original 118. And it’s very, very lucrative. So I can see why he would want to come back and keep doing it. I would agree; I don’t think there’s anything enduring about it, but I also – I’m not sure there’s anything enduring about any kind of dressing up in that respect, is there? That wouldn’t require much imagination. I suppose it’s a bit like Reservoir Dogs, in that if you wear the same thing nobody knows which one you are. Do you know what I mean? You’re dressed the same, it’s a group embarrassment.

If you had to have sex with either Zippy, Bungle, George, Geoffrey, or Rod from Rainbow, whilst Jane and Freddy at sex with each other next to you – but they’re married, that’s allowed, but can’t join in – which of the people from Rainbow would you have sex with?

Okay, give me a minute. George. He had beautiful blue eyes. Were they children? I thought they were just…

If you didn’t have to have sex with Zippy, Bungle, George, Geoffrey, or Rod, but not Jane or Freddy, who would now be asleep, but they said they were up for it if you fancied it, but not an orgy situation, it would have to be one-on-one, would you have sex with one of them, and which one?

No, I think I’d probably give it a miss.

Do you ever get confused with *another person with the same name as guest*?

No.

Do you ever get confused with *another person with the same name as guest*?

Yes. I’m often mistaken for him. And what’s very spooky about that is he died and then exactly one month later I did my first Room Next Door. It’s like the universe could only deal with one famous person named Michael Spicer. *RH asks whether it’s possible that the deceased MS’s spirit was transferred to the interviewee.* Uh, no, because in many ways we’re polar opposite Michael Spicers. He founded the ERG, you know. And he set up the whole path to UKIP and modern bigotry as we know it now. And I’m on the other side. Not changing the political landscape at all, but making [unclear].

Would you rather date a man who was a 6-foot tall penis with a face like Mark Reckless or a man who instead of having a penis had a tiny man growing out of there?

*RH describes the 6-foot tall penis.* No, the other one. It’s just such an absolutely grotesque thing to think about. And I suppose the reason why you persist with that question is because you can’t visualize it, can you? *RH confirms that he cannot.* It’s absolutely disgusting. So, that’s why.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

These are all the great legendary questions I was hoping would be asked. No.

Have any of your siblings ever seen a ghost?

No, they haven’t. I’m sure they would have told me. The only thing I can think of is Vic Reeves wrote about, actually, meeting a ghost – in his autobiography. It always stayed with me. It always stayed with me, that, because it’s the only serious part of the book. He was deadly serious about some sort of flash when he was young. And he describes it in vivid detail and he keeps reiterating how genuinely it happened and he isn’t joking. So you might want to talk to him about that next time. No, I don’t believe in them, but I like a good ghost story.

Who’s the most surprising famous person you’ve been in a lift with? And which I mean, you can’t have gotten into the lift with them; they had to be in the lift you were in.

I did work at ITV Sport and they used to be on the eighteenth floor of the – what’s it called – London Studios. I always call it the old WT building. So yeah, I was always in elevators with famous people. *RH requests the name of a specific famous person that MS has shared a lift with.* Try Floella Benjamin. She was so nice because it was packed, this lift. She did her utmost to create room. *RH asks whether Benjamin is now a Dame.* No, she’s a Lady in the House of Lords. She might even be a baroness; I’m not sure.

If you could take one item from any museum or art gallery – and you’re allowed to take it home with you – in the world, what would you take?

Sunflowers. I’d take Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. I’d pick the one my dad has spent his entire life recreating. *RH asks whether MS’s father has been recreating it with paint or with sunflowers.* I didn’t… Yes, no. He paints. He basically paints perfect recreations of Van Gogh pictures and the Sunflowers is, like, up there. *RH points out that MS could have just taken one of his father’s reproductions.* Yeah, but I feel like… I feel like, uh – He’s a very moral, upstanding man, but I’m sure that I’ve got the real one [unclear]. Would you like to come and see it? He’d probably go “Oh, yeah.”

Notes

This episode was live-streamed via Twitch, with RH and guest in each of their own homes due to COVID-19/coronavirus.

Previous guest Tim Brooke-Taylor passed away the week this episode was recorded.

RH relates how he wrote to Terry Wogan suggesting he write a spot on his show regarding the difficulty for youths in finding employment.

MS reveals that he wrote to Fist of Fun suggesting he could participate in the show somehow.

RH shows his Chortle award statues.