Embedded Files
Chapter twenty: The Ditch yat ftopped brexit
Chapter twenty: The Ditch yat ftopped brexit
A remarkably sexy episode considering it's essentially a man on his own, picking up stones and doing everything he can to avoid even the briefest human contact.
He mentions that he is a time traveller, but sensibly doesn't give us any information about the future other than the ecological disaster that's coming. I suspect that he might have buried a Sports Almanac, and if we could somehow discern the location of the field we could find it and become millionaires. Mind you, being organic, it wouldn't even be worth picking up.
Richard is briefly downhearted that no one is trying to have secret sex with him, but then comes to his senses and realises that the stones are his mistress. Which is just as well. If a time traveller wants to have secret sex, there's only one place he should go.
Richard rounds off the episode by throwing a stone into the ditch, this preventing Brexit until at least October. He apologises to any Leaveophiles that might be listening.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/stone_clearing_with_richard_herring/chapter_20/
Date: April 2019Weather: Bright sunshineGround Quality: Dry, warm stonesEncounters with locals: 22 / 4 stones hit the post
Chapter Nineteen: midwitch cuckoof
Chapter Nineteen: midwitch cuckoof
Richard continues to use his trowel unashamedly, citing the hard ground as reasonable justification for this controversial piece of equipment. He claimed that Malcolm X was in favour of using "any means necessary" to clear a field of stones.
This may be true. I wasn't aware that Mr X was concerned with stone clearing, but to be fair he could have had a lot of hobbies that aren't recorded in the annals of history.
I do know that Martin Luther King was vehemently opposed to the use of tools when stone clearing, whereas Gandhi was probably best known for using a Brigsworth Industrial Stone Clearing Machine.
"I fucking love it" - Gandhi
https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/stone_clearing_with_richard_herring/chapter_19/
Date: April 2019Weather: Clear eveningGround Quality: Dry and clampingEncounters with locals: 43 / 7 stones hit the post
Chapter eighteen: Acroff the fky are fcudding cloudf
Chapter eighteen: Acroff the fky are fcudding cloudf
Richard crows about his new archaeological trowel, which is making the process of clearing the field too easy if you ask me.
Through his evocative language, he also conjures the mental image of Darth Vader using his lightsaber to truncate Hermione's hand at the knuckles. I started to photoshop this hypothetical event, but then I managed to catch hold of myself and reconsider my life choices.
Looking at the growing crops on the field, Richard suggests that, if the field was a giant's head, the crop would be a "number 2" in height, referring to the hairdresser's clipper setting. A "number 2" is a quarter of an inch of hair on an average size head. If the field was 100 metres in diameter, this would equate to the crops being ten feet tall. I'm sure the field is much bigger than that. Richard was clearly talking nonsense, or he doesn't know much about hairdressi.... ah.
At the end, Richard briefly considers making a new podcast involving the removing of dog food from inconvenient places. Now, if you'll excuse me I am off to see if boneclearing.com is still available.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/stone_clearing_with_richard_herring/chapter_18/
Date: April 2019Weather: Sunny & quite warm. Whispering winds.Ground Quality: Some moisture, but drying outEncounters with locals: 22 / 5 stones hit the post
Chapter Seventeen: What's her name?
Chapter Seventeen: What's her name?
For much of this podcast, Richard struggled to remember the name of a character from the Terminator. He urged us not to Google it. Personally, I very much enjoy times when I have forgotten something trivial, like this. We are so accustomed to being able to search for facts whenever a question pops into our heads, that the experience of wracking your brain for a lost fact is one we rarely get to enjoy. Relish it. Keep it precious.
Meanwhile, Richard has still not located his trowel and worries that someone in the local village might have stolen it. A cursory search on eBay located this item:
It might be worth informing the police.
Richard was also worried that The Terminator might be trying to kill him and his dog. He has reason to be worried. It wouldn't be the first "Wolfie" that a terminator has murdered.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/stone_clearing_with_richard_herring/chapter_17/
Date: March 2019Weather: Grey, still & chillyGround Quality: UnspecifiedEncounters with locals: 22 / 5 stones hit the post
Chapter Sixteen: The rattle of the Wind
Chapter Sixteen: The rattle of the Wind
Another podcast plagued by audio troubles, at least to the untrained ear. Personally, I listen to every episode multiple times in my purpose-built listening suite, so I am able to discern more detail than most. For example, at one point in this chapter, Richard reveals the exact GPS coordinates of his central cairn, thus exposing his entire endeavour. Luckily it's almost inaudible due to the intense wind noise, so he is safe from the Stone Stasi and the nighthawks for the time being.
Richard talks about his rival: Brian Bramble and his stone-clearing podcast. I'm not going to link to that podcast, because it's shit.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/stone_clearing_with_richard_herring/chapter_16/
Date: March 2019Weather: Very windyGround Quality: UnspecifiedEncounters with locals: 12 /4 stones hit the post
My listening suite, exclusively for stone-clearing podcast purposes.
Chapter fifteen: From Inside a Clearer's Pocket
Chapter fifteen: From Inside a Clearer's Pocket
This chapter starts with Richard singing "I've got my stone clearing gloves on, and everything is going to be all right."
How wrong can you be? He didn't realise his earbuds were not connected, so the rest of the podcast was almost inaudible.
There were a few bits that could just about be discerned. Richard seemed to be proposing a new scale for sizing stones, based on the size of pieces of Play-doh. I think we can reject this without giving it too much consideration. To move to a Play-doh-based system would be ridiculous, rather like when the Eurocrats tried to force their outlandish and unworkable "metric" system on the rest of the world (and we all know how that turned out).
No, I think that with Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party on the scene, and sure to win every election for the foreseeable future, we should be able to march into our local greengrocer's and ask for a "Hermione's handful of plums" without feeling ashamed.
Richard did hit the stone on the first attempt, but then went on to miss three times. Should have quit while he was ahead.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/stone_clearing_with_richard_herring/chapter_15/
Date: March 2019Weather: Dark & warm (inside pocket)Ground Quality: Who knows?Encounters with locals: None audible1 /4 stones hit the post
Chapter Fourteen: Stone jesus
Chapter Fourteen: Stone jesus
The Stone Gods were in vengeful mood this week. Right out of the gate, Richard tempted them by foreseeing his own death. This did not come to pass but he did lose his trowel, which is possibly as bad (even if it was just a "dog shit trowel"). Now he will need to buy a new trowel. Possibly a superior one*
Richard was preoccupied with his legacy as Stone Jesus, which is like normal Jesus but much better, as Jesus never built a wall. There is the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, but this seems to belong to either the Jews or the Muslims. No one seems to agree, and I'm sure adding Jesus into the mix isn't going to calm matters.
Anyway, Richard throws stones into the ditch to pacify the gods and, as a result, isn't murdered on his walk. Maybe next week.
* This is what writers call foreshadowing
Date: February 2019Weather: SunnyGround Quality: MoistEncounters with locals: 21 / 3 stones hit the post
Chapter thirteen: conquistadors
Chapter thirteen: conquistadors
We've seen a few explanations for the continual appearance of stones in previously-cleared areas. So far, this has been attributed to:
the Stone Gods
outsiders bringing stones onto the field
the stones growing
But this week Richard suggested that the stones are actually sentient, and wish to be found.
In his 1983 book, The Meaning of Liff, Douglas Adams proposed the existence of a mineral called Crail:
CRAIL (n. mineral)
Crail is a common kind of rock or gravel found widely across the British Isles.
Each individual stone (due to an as yet undiscovered gravtitaional property) is charged with 'negative buoyancy'.
This means that no matter how much crail you remove from the garden, more of it will rise to the surface.
Crail is much employed by the Royal Navy for making the paperweights and ashtrays used inside submarines.
However, I would like to propose that granular convection (otherwise known as the Brazil Nut effect) might be responsible.
For whatever reason, Richard finds a good crop today and suggests that it might be better to clear less frequently, to allow the stones time to re-appear. He seems to have forgotten that the aim of this exercise is to clear them off the field, not to encourage more of them.
He suggested that there might be 10 billion stones, and he would clear 500 a week. Unfortunately, no one has made a computer which can calculate how long this will take, so we'll have to stick with his earlier estimate of 273 years.
Calculating.. calculating...
Richard is watched by a hawk (a day hawk, rather than the night variety), and ponders the value of gold.
Date: February 2019Weather: Grey, but beautifulGround Quality: ColdEncounters with locals: 22 / 4 stones hit the post
Chapter twelve: Chess
Chapter twelve: Chess
What started as a depressing death-march through a foggy field soon became a joyous jaunt, as Richard found remarkable stocks of stones.
>> ERROR! EXCESS ALLITERATION DETECTED <<
The fog allowed a degree of stealth and, given that this was the first stone clear after a two week hiatus, the Stone Gods had been at work, providing a great bounty. How many stones? I'm not sure. Richard suggested that someone might create some sort of app to count the number of stones as he clears them. Can you imagine the sort of person who would waste their lives counting such a thing? Fucking losers.
Richard mentioned Father Stone and the annual celebration of Stone Day, which we are anticipating with excitement. He didn't mention the exact date, but I'm sure we all know it. I'll never forget last year, when my son was so excited to receive his stone under his pillow. He carried that around in his pocket for a month, the idiot.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/stone_clearing_with_richard_herring/chapter_12/
Date: February 2019 - Valentine's Day Weather: FoggyGround Quality: ColdEncounters with locals: 21 / 4 stones hit the post
He's been!
Chapter Eleven: Frozen Stocean
Chapter Eleven: Frozen Stocean
As Jeff Goldblum once said "Uh.. you are going to clear some stones in your stone clearing podcast, right?"
Perhaps not. The layer of snow on the field effectively masked the stones from Richard's view, with only the peaks of possibly peas poking through.
Richard felt self-conscious and, even though he only cleared a couple of Hermione-handfuls of stones, he feared being observed. The snow meant that any covert trips into the stocean would provide footprint evidence.
Richard also clarified two rules (even though there are no rules) involving stones crossing the boundaries. He spoke of stones in the past being used to cool drinks. I am ashamed to admit that I have in my possession some Swedish rocks for this purpose. I now realise that I have broken the rules, and deprived an unknown Swedish stone clearer of his carefully harvested stones. Maybe it was Sven Signpost. Possibly his cairns are structurally unstable as a result. This afternoon I am packaging them up and sending them back to the King of Sweden.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/stone_clearing_with_richard_herring/chapter_11/
Date: February 2019Weather: SnowingGround Quality: Snow-coveredEncounters with locals: 31 / 2 stones hit the post
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