Perhaps unsurprisingly my book reading in Banbury tonight was cancelled due to lack of interest.
I must admit I had thought that Banbury was a somewhat unlikely and weird town for me to go to. Partly because I don't think I am well known enough to attract an audience in a town that size, partly because I am also doing a reading in Oxford in a couple of weeks, which isn't far enough away, but mainly because (and maybe I'm being judgemental) I can't imagine that the citizens of a respectable place like Banbury would be interested in hearing about cocks. Cock horses, perhaps. They love a cock horse in Banbury. But horse's cocks, no thank you.
But I think the people of Banbury have made a mistake in spurning me in such an open and humiliating fashion. One day, if my plans go to plan (as I plan them to) I will be the sole leader and dictator of this fair country (by which I mean England. My first decree will be to have the countries of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall declared independent, to be ruled by, respectively, wee Jimmy Krankie- not the actress, the character- Gaz Top, Brian from Big Brother and Jethro).
Then I will take revenge on the foolish middle class Banbury residents, by gathering them all together at Banbury Cross and having my army of grey shirted men beat them to death with the dismembered cocks of all the cock horses in the area. Their cocks are particularly big and thus effecitive coshes, hence them being known as cock horses.
"Why didn't you come and see Herr Herring's book reading?" my jack booted minions will cry.
"Because we didn't really see any publicity for it, and in any case we didn't really know who Richard Herring was," the people of Banbury will protest.
"You must have done, he was on Fist of Fun in 1995," they shall be told.
"It doesn't ring any bells," they will reply almost as one. But one bloke will say, "Oh yeah, I used to quite like that. It wasn't as good as the Fast Show, but it was better than Punt and Dennis. I hadn't realised that Richard Herring was the same bloke as from that. If I had, I'd say there would have been a fifty-fifty chance of me turning up."
"Ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law," my brainless boot boys will chant as they stuff the horse genitalia down his fickle gullet. I will have taught them various phrases parrot fashion, whilst forcing them to watch films of violence with their eye-lids kept open throughout.
"It seems unfair for Herring to blame us for his own lack of profile," the still living, but mortally wounded, cock beaten Banbury residents will cry,"surely we can be forgiven for not having heard of him and for initially assuming that a book called "Talking Cock" would have been juvenile toilet humour, rather than the well thought out (though still hilarious) disquisition of the history of the penis that we now realise it was."
"Too late," my Greyshirts would yell, "It doesn't matter that you are blameless, you must be made an example of. Just as Hitler had his Jews to use as scapegoats for society's ills- er not that Herr Herring is like Hitler, of course... no - Herring has his "anyone who has ever lived in or near Banbury or has visited it for a holiday or has relatives living there". Maybe if you'd been to his book signing things might have been different."
At which the last Banbury residents skull would be crushed with a cock horse's rubbery cock and my thugs would set to burning down the town and erecting a forty foot statue of my penis (not to scale) on the top of Banbury Cross or Banbury Cock as it is now known. Or actually Cock as it is now known, as Banbury will have ceased to exist as a concept.
And the people of Carlisle better turn up to my rearranged gig on the 23rd November, or their town will be similarly dealt with.
The things I have said will come to pass and you would all do well not to anger me any further. Treat me with the respect that someone who has co-presented two series about the Montreal Comedy Festival for Channel 5 deserves.
As it happens I was quite pleased not to have to go to Banbury. Instead I stayed in and watched Adaptation of DVD. It was very good.
But still, don't let this warning from history go unheeded. Based on pre-sales I would say that the people of Guildford and Morecambe also should be starting to worry.
And remember, it's THEIR fault that they aren't coming to see me. Not MINE.
