Stone Clearing With Richard Herring

Chapter 35: Ashes to Ashes. It's about 5.30pm on 10th September 2019 and the village is still buzzing with talk of the fire. And whilst people count the financial cost of the damage, Richard is fairly jigging round the field as he finds stone after stone, each huger and more stony that the last. The plough has not made its official visit to the field yet, but what a harvest there is to come if this is anything to go by. The Brexit Ditch has its work cut out for it today, plus more emails from you, the listeners. We do read all the emails, but sorry, we can only read out the best ones.

Chapter 34: Fire and Rim Stones. It's 2nd September 2019 and as the world burns, so incredibly does my field and quite a lot of stuff around it. Not the stones though. They are impervious. It's an action packed stone clearing, only slightly spoiled by the first 20 minutes of the podcast failing to record again. After so many hallucinations on the field can it be true that there were firemen, a fire engine and burned decking? And is it inappropriate that Richard is jocular about the devastation and delighted that a small amount of ploughing designed to stop the out of control flames has thrown up a bumper crop of stones? You will never have heard such an eventful stone clearing podcast, even if you've listened to every episode of every stone clearing podcast in the world. I expect the mouse got cremated too.

Chapter 33: Dead Mouse. It's about twenty past six on the 29th August 2019 and even though it's just two days since the last one, Richard is out for another stone clearing podcast, to make up for the truncated one (but maybe he'll test your resolve by making this daily). It starts philosophically but then becomes more so as Richard comes face to face with mortality. But he also is forced to question whether the stones have been making a Great Escape in his absence and what his role in history will be. Is he one of the baddies? There's another fish to wrestle in at almost the exact same spot as last time and a Brexit reckoning to be had. Plus your emails. Do keep those coming in.

Stone Clearing Chapter 32 (partial) Rust and Dust - It's an evening do walk on 27th August 2019 and Rich is trying to remember how to stone clear, but also wondering how the field and cairns will have changed in the four weeks he's been away. It turns out it's a lot. But also the effort required in landing a huge stone clinging to the stocean with all its might causes something to go terribly wrong and for this to become another legendary podcast beset by technical difficulties, which will make Herring question what he is even doing here.

Chapter Thirty-One: When Ye Bee Meeteth Ye Thiftle, Then Who Will Be Ftung? - It's 6.35pm on 23rd July and Hertfordshire is baking under a heat wave, but there are stones in the shape of buns and dog genitalia to find and computer game characters melded with tennis players to avoid. And a bee on a thistle. And the possibility of a Boris Johnson funded pro-Brexit ditch. Let us all be thankful that this podcast is fronted by the one stone-clearer not to be driven mad by the immensity of the challenge he has set himself. And one who has such clear respect for the army of listeners who email him each week. Happy Birthday Kevin Franklin.

Chapter 30: Judy Murray Assignation. It's approaching 5pm on 8th July 2019 and Richard Herring has hurt his big toe, but nothing can stop him stone clearing, not even the prickly plants that are threatening to take him down like the Triffids they dream of being. Richard has to get home to take over childcare and is also risking a curse by making his first harvest of stones to take off the field for (un)lucky kickstarters, so maybe he is a little distracted. But he also wants to risk a major daylight transgression, but will the mother of Andy and Jamie Murray turn up to thwart him? And is Prince Andrew going to start stone-clearing soon? Before this episode you would have said that was unlikely. But with stone clearing anything can happen.

Chapter 29: Don't Be Distracted By Botany. It's 8.10am on 1st July 2019 and the big news is that Richard has misplaced his trowel. Will the last minute substitute that he found in his garage suffice? There's only one way to find out. It's very much a first day back at work after the holidays, but includes some excellent long lobs, a major and flagrant transgression into the Whocean, bare legs and a terrifying new surveillance technique from the Stone Stasi which could capture even the most rat-like stone clearer. Plus further lessons in Anglo-Faxon and a flirtation with a sexy listener via the medium of cat-sick. This podcast really has everything.

Fummertime Fpecial. Richard is in Devon and it's the Fummer Folftice, the holiest of days for a stone clearer. And he has discovered a cairn that could only have been built by giants or Merlin or a giant Merlin. Will he fall to his death from the mountain he has climbed or will his secret from his wife remain? Also why stones are better than sewage.

Chapter 28: Bramble (Not Bryan) Protector. It's around 7.50am on 13th June 2019 and the Stocean has been replaced by a still, yet wet lake of wheat which will have any stone clearer wetting their britches and questioning the role of the foreskin. Not many stones are cleared as the podcast diverts into some unnecessary areas and a shape-shifting member of the stone-stasi is bearing down on Richard and not in the way that he secretly hopes for. Plus some emails. See the Voice of the Ftones, Michael Fheen live on stage, talking about what this job means to him at King's Place on 17th June: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/comedy/richard-herring-podcast-17-jun/

Chapter Twenty-Feven - Poppy Leaf - It's about 7.45am on the 5th June 2019 and yet some disgusting inhabitants of the village still have their minds filled with sex, when there is good, moral, purifying and distracting stone clearing to be done. Richard talks at length about how he is not interested in the sordid lives of the perverts he lives amongst and also finds some surprising stones. A heavy-dugged posh woman sends him scuttling down a different path and the post-Brexit (which clearly can't happen as long as the stones go in the ditch) stone-clearing world is discussed. Your emails and a clarification on one of the rules and the beauty of nature that must be crushed by stones.

To see the Voice of the Ftones, Michael Fheen talk about the difference the stone clearing job has made to his career, please come to see him on RHLSTP at King's Place, London on 17th June - https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/comedy/richard-herring-podcast-17-jun/

Sorry I was moving the bins back into the house at the beginning, but thought you'd like to hear that. It's not all stones, stones, stones.