Collings and Herrin (podcast) - Themes and Running Jokes

Themes and Running Jokes

• Humour is mainly derived from the week's media coverage, particularly that of the tabloid newspapers. A favourite source of comedy has been the right-wing writing of Sun columnist Jon Gaunt and Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn.

• Aside from media commentary, there are interpersonal running jokes. There is an ongoing parody of sexual tension as a plot device: Herring often suggests that he harbours amorous feelings for his co-presenter and discusses situations in which a seduction (or even a rape) might occur. Despite this layer of their relationship, a further running joke is that Collins and Herring are categorically colleagues and not friends.

• While on the podcast, Herring describes himself as the "Podcast Richard Herring": an alter-ego of the real Richard Herring afflicted with a Tourettes-like tendency to take jokes too far. Given that Herring often doesn't listen to the podcast and immediately forgets what took place during the recording, he has said that "maybe malign spirits possess me for 66 minutes and 36 seconds, meaning I have little to no memory of anything we talked about."

• For several early episodes, Collins reported a fascination with various examples of cottaging graffiti that he was finding between the tiles of the British Library toilets. Subsequently, encouraged by Herring, the words "Collings is a Bummer" became a widespread toilet-wall meme, and fans can still find them scrawled in grouting across the country.

• In one episode, Herring describes the act of facial ejaculation, including the appreciative sound one might make while on the receiving end: "nyum nyum nyum". This joke has subsequently been incorporated as a catchphrase in the podcast but also leaked into other work, such as their BBC 6 Music show. Another catchphrase from Herring: "Andrew Collings is a fucking idiot," has appeared several times in the BBC 6 Music show as the toned-down "Andrew Collins is a fricking idiot", and is the only catchphrase to be have been included and then withdrawn from their collection of T-shirt designs.

• Following a controversy in the sixth season of Strictly Come Dancing and the telephone voting irregularities of later shows both Collins and Herring have employed the shrill exclamation "I paid a pound" (and variants thereof) to decry the false sense of entitlement felt by members of the public who have paid a meagre amount of money to register their opinions.

• Andrew Collins often mentions his real-life pet subject, the Mitford Sisters, which Herring denounces as boring and of no comedic value. Collins has produced a special solo podcast in which he delivers a lecture on this subject to a live audience.

• Wikipedia has played a part in some episodes of the podcast: listeners would subtly or blatantly alter Wikipedia entries when both Collins and Herring suggested they do so. As a consequence, Duncan Norvelle's page was temporarily locked to prevent people from adding various absurdities to his list of catchphrases.