Histor's Eye

[EggsLikeABird]

Apparently, it was Stewart's reluctance to get involved in the purchase from BBC and subsequent release of TMWRNJ, despite the fact he could afford it comfortably and would have recouped that AND profited, that led to their falling out.

You can tell on the Fist of Fun extras that Stew is really uncomfortable looking back at all that stuff. I can understand that someone would just straight up not be interested in doing something like that, regardless if it was an easy payday, but I would love an official release with the level of bonus stuff FoF got.

Listening to the Fist of Fun commentary and how much he cringes throughout some of the material, I cant imagine him sitting down to watch those rants on Gail Porter. They were so mean spirited and unlike him. There's a lot of Mark Lamarr/Buzzcocks style punching down on it, which was the order of the day. He tends to be a lot more clever than "wear more clothes, you skinny bint."

[Pranet]

I egg-ree. Lee's clearly moved on from that persona and style and seems to heavily curate his image by staying away from social media and panel shows, for example. Watching old episodes of TMWRNJ, Herring barely seems to have changed much (in fact I think he's still peddling that fucking Lord of the Dance Settee line) whereas Lee is completely different, and quite unlikeable. I watched a few episodes yesterday and there are some pretty vicious tirades against women daring to appear in Loaded or FHM which probably made more sense at the time but just seem nasty now.

I found myself really enjoying The Organ Gang. Some great lines in there - "the cheeky vestigial wormlike pouch!".

I am not sure what "still peddling" means, but it was the title of his Edinburgh show in 2014 which I assume  is what you thinking of.

[Gregory Torso]

I am not sure what "still peddling" means, but it was the title of his Edinburgh show in 2014 which I assume  is what you thinking of.

I do apologise. Perhaps he has stopped saying it now. Just I knew a recent(ish) show of his was called that, and he made the same joke on TMWRNJ in 1998, and it's not even that good of a joke. Pretty sure he mentioned it in AIOTM as well. I do like Richard Herring, but he seems to cling to the past and recycle things quite a lot.

[Pranet]

Sorry for being grumpy.

[Magnum Valentino]

I do apologise. Perhaps he has stopped saying it now. Just I knew a recent(ish) show of his was called that, and he made the same joke on TMWRNJ in 1998, and it's not even that good of a joke. Pretty sure he mentioned it in AIOTM as well. I do like Richard Herring, but he seems to cling to the past and recycle things quite a lot.

Stew mentions in the FoF extras that right from the start Rich was interested in preserving his own mythology, hence the scrap books of old reviews, scripts etc.

[Cold Meat Platter]

I love the 'unusual priest' (but Eldon so obv. great) and the Jesus and disciples bits. I can see how scriptural percussionists might have been taken aback by that on a Sunday morning/afternoon.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!"
"No, not aah! Listen!"

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

I do apologise. Perhaps he has stopped saying it now. Just I knew a recent(ish) show of his was called that, and he made the same joke on TMWRNJ in 1998, and it's not even that good of a joke.

Yeah, the joke kind of relies on Stew yelling "NO! Don't laugh or applaud! Rich has managed to mine nearly six minutes' worth of material out of a chance mishearing of a simple hymn at the age of four!"

[Ferris]

I might be thinking of Ince - was it the one he did on RHLSTP (rhlstp)? I remember a guest doing an absolutely spot-on one that really made me laugh because I just wasn't expecting it.

This is the one I'm thinking of. It's very good for a 30 second throwaway bit:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nTQ9Jetwuv4

[king_tubby]

That is actually really funny.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I watched a few episodes yesterday and there are some pretty vicious tirades against women daring to appear in Loaded or FHM which probably made more sense at the time but just seem nasty now.

Rediscovering reactionary or un-PC shit in stuff I used to like usually doesn't phase me at all. I'm not bragging or saying that's a good thing, I just have a high tolerance. I haven't stopped listening to the Smiths and I can suffer through Spike Milligan broadcasts like a trooper. But this was a rare exception for me. I loved re-watching This Morning..., especially showing it to my partner so she could see where a lot of funny stuff I'd quote came from, but these bits are awful. I had the idea that Rich's wanking shrines would be excruciating to revisit but Lee would come off well but these are far worse than any of the knowingly un-PC humour from the time. They're extremely close to "centrist male feminist castigating insta thots/corbyn supporting women on twitter" level shit in tone.

I think it so was disappointing because Stewart Lee was one of the few people who got through my teenage irony armour and made me think he was cool, and right on. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they're a contributing reason why the DVD was shelved, and I think Lee would be right to shelve it for that reason. His silent cringe reaction when Paul Putner recalled the "shrinkwrapped chickens" line on the Herring podcast speaks volumes. The man's moved on so I can't blame him for no feeling nostalgia for it. Can't remember him doing anything else like this there's probably people out there who think it was his peak, before he got cowed by the pc liberal left.

[EggsLikeABird]

I think it so was disappointing because Stewart Lee was one of the few people who got through my teenage irony armour and made me think he was cool, and right on. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they're a contributing reason why the DVD was shelved, and I think Lee would be right to shelve it for that reason. His silent cringe reaction when Paul Putner recalled the "shrinkwrapped chickens" line on the Herring podcast speaks volumes.

Rich: "Some nasty things in retrospect about Gail Porter"

Stew: "Well we'll see if that makes the final edit"

Rich: "You sort of have to because its the whole way through"

Paul: "... shrinkwrapped chickens ..."

Stew: "...."

*DVD is shelved*

[Video Game Fan 2000]

It must be really fucking weird if something you're disinterested/vaguely ashamed about is a totem of magical nostalgia for a large number of people.

TMWRNJ is an unparalleled nostalgia object for me. We did "ahhh...." and "like a birds egg" at school. Stewart Lee was an atheist and feminist, he dressed like a cool lecturer and he liked the Fall. A cool guy to emulate and reply "saying it in a silly voice doesn't make it true" to people you're arguing with. And it was on in the AM so you could watch it without your dad going What's all this rubbish? and turning it off.

[Mobius]

This is the one I'm thinking of. It's very good for a 30 second throwaway bit:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nTQ9Jetwuv4

That's a bloody brilliant impression

[Twonty Gostelow]

I suppose Lee's lucky the BBC did want an unreasonable amount for the TMWRNJ DVD rights so now he doesn't have to be cross-examined in promotional interviews about the dodgy attitudes (although I think he was just thoughtlessly lumping Gail Porter in with the lad mags that exploited her as equally complicit, rather than misogynistically attacking her specifically).
It's the precious attempts to separate his old double act from what he's doing today that annoys me. You're still a silly clown acting daft Stew, even if you do have a column in a grown-ups newspaper.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Its so out of character for the persona in hindsight maybe it was an attempt at a Bill Hicks "fuck New Kids On The Block!!" style rant that fell completely flat because he was mentioning someone by name.

Nowt else that bad on TMWRNJ, unless you take the Small Faced Boy stuff at face value as 90s bullying humour.

[Cold Meat Platter]

I sort of thought that Lee's views were kind of an exaggerated rebuttal of celebrity culture in partnership to Herring's ironic celebration of it.

EDIT: repetition

[jamiefairlie]

It was standard feminist critique to see nude models as collaborators in the 70s and 80s, he's just reflecting his right-on credentials there. I suspect there is perhaps some misunderstanding how much the current wave of feminism differs from that of the past.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

who can forget Shulamith Firestone's era defining polemic Put Some Bloody Clothes On

[Catalogue Trousers]

Some interesting polemic -

POLE, like the South Pole, where penguins live, EGG, like an egg, CHICK, like a HEN's chick! - I HATE hens!

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Stew should have just responded to Paul by saying CHICKEN LIKE A HEN YOU EAT I HATE HENS and got huge nostalgia laughs, then kissed Rich on the mouth and said its okay everyone we're still in the years before 9/11, we were only joking that time passed, and the future is full of hope and I will be a double act comedian forever, in fact I am changing my name to Stewart Bone so we can be Herring and Bone. And the BBC instantly take them back. BBC1. The UK never leaves the EU. Paul Putner is thrilled to discover that Tizer AND Tango are still popular drinks and gets lots of money to be a face again. The shockwaves are mostly felt in Florida, where the refreshing taste of Tizer encourages tired election workers do another check of the voting machines. And Rich does the Lord of the Dance Setee bit at Wembley with president Gore in attendence.

-sent from my bbcmicro phone

[MrsWarboysLover]

This is the one I'm thinking of. It's very good for a 30 second throwaway bit:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nTQ9Jetwuv4

Robin Ince made me laugh! There's a first for everything I guess

[Gurke and Hare]

Wasn't one of the things that kiboshed the TMWRNJ DVDs also that SLee objected to the number of cuts that the BBC wanted them to make?

[DrGreggles]

Wasn't one of the things that kiboshed the TMWRNJ DVDs also that SLee objected to the number of cuts that the BBC wanted them to make?

I think the BBC would have final approval over the release, so they would essentially get to pick and choose what made the cut.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

It's funny how you reflect on these things differently with hindsight. At the time I would've said the joke was on Stew's character being puritanical to the point of absurdity, demanding Porter wear a yashmak etc, but looking back now it does feel uncomfortably like slut-shaming.

Amazingly, leeandherring.com is still online in all it's late nineties website design glory, so we can still read Rich's comments on each episode from near the time of broadcast. Here's what he had to say about the GP bit:

5) Gail Porter - We're truly fed up with this latest trend of TV presenters acting like soft porn stars. Why should they do it and what message is it sending out? Porter is the worst of these, and I think the audience reaction showed that many of you feel the same way. Really it was just a way into having Stu as a puritan (we wrote this bit Tuesday and then the Porter pictures came out on Wednesday and it just fitted so well it was spooky - for once the news acting in our favour). And that's as much about puritan's being repressed as the question of what Porter and co are up to.

I think whatever the intent was though, it just doesn't come off well now at all. After the passage of twenty odd years, someone getting their bum out in a magazine photoshoot hardly seems worthy of so much approbation

[Old Thrashbarg]

I liked that Pliny account on twitter that would just relentlessly reply to every single one of Richard Herring's "International Men's Day" posts with appropriate bird puns.

Which reminds me, a number of years ago I made a Pliny Harris bot on Twitter to reply "Egg! Like a bird's egg!" to posts it found containing the word 'egg'. Hilarious. It lasted a few days before being banned for spam. Now, I'm pretty sure that account was https://twitter.com/plinybird, though the code for it hasn't survived on any of my machines. But then looking at https://twitter.com/plinybird/with_replies there are a number of posts that have been hand-typed which weren't me. Those from post-March 2014 are probably someone taking over the inactive account, but I'm very confused about those others from during the active bot-posting period.

Anyway, bit of a tangent. I was just happy to see Pliny Harris was still there.

[Gurke and Hare]

Which reminds me, a number of years ago I made a Pliny Harris bot on Twitter to reply "Egg! Like a bird's egg!" to posts it found containing the word 'egg'. Hilarious. It lasted a few days before being banned for spam. Now, I'm pretty sure that account was https://twitter.com/plinybird, though the code for it hasn't survived on any of my machines. But then looking at https://twitter.com/plinybird/with_replies there are a number of posts that have been hand-typed which weren't me. Those from post-March 2014 are probably someone taking over the inactive account, but I'm very confused about those others from during the active bot-posting period.

Ha ha! That one is actually me - I did write some code which posted the early replies on there (and I might even have it somewhere) but I never got as far as automating it fully, and now I just use it very occasionally to retweet egg related stuff and do silly stuff.

[Old Thrashbarg]

Ha, well that clears up that confusion then! Now I just need to remember what the account was I used for the exact same joke.

[EggsLikeABird]

Ha, well that clears up that confusion then!

Confus-hen.

[Replies From View]

Yeah, the joke kind of relies on Stew yelling "NO! Don't laugh or applaud! Rich has managed to mine nearly six minutes' worth of material out of a chance mishearing of a simple hymn at the age of four!"

And it was a common mishearing as well.  All he's done is taken our shared mishearing and added the words "he's jumping on a settee saying 'NO I AM THE LORD OF THE DANCE SETTEE' and he is kicking everyone else away".

I've never understood why he felt it deserved eking out over 50 years.  Maybe nobody has ever had the heart to tell him it's not unique, or maybe he is just that stubborn.  Who knows.

[Scrapey Fish]

This is the man who does a podcast of himself clearing stones. He likes driving apparently weak concepts on and on, presumably either for his own entertainment or to see if they will reach an amusing point of absurdity