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Because I am insane I have a Google alert set up in my own name. I also have a constant search on my name on Twitter. Some consider such a move to be an act of vain self-obsession (I know because I have seen them saying it during my vanity searches), but it is one of the rare things in my life where that is not the impetus. It's more of a reality search, because you'll see stuff that would damage the ego of the truly vain. I don't mind criticism so much anymore (most of the time - on occasion it can still provoke ire) and being a relatively low-key figure I don't get that much of it. Most of the people who are bothered about me like what I do and I don't really drift too much into the lives of those who find me irksome. Searching my name is usually a good way to find out what the other Richard Herrings in the world are up to (economists, businessmen and the occasional criminal one - of which I am one, of course, but I have never been caught for my crimes).
But occasionally it will throw up something weird and wonderful. Today the only google alert involving me threw up this item on Amazon.
I am not so vain (like I said, this is about reality) to think that anyone actively decided to make this T shirt and selected me as the best possible comedian in the world to exemplify this odd attempt to cash in on a bastardisation of the “Keep Calm and Carry On†franchise (my wife informs me that this war time poster was actually the third in a series of three and never got used - maybe she will one day blog at length on this, but I am sure you can google it - or set up a google search). Even if the page on amazon did not have underneath it a huge selection of other identical T shirts but with the names of random comics on them including Les Dennis, Laurence Clark, Henry Naylor and Peter Sellers. I mean I think you'd have to be pretty stupid to think that Peter Sellers was in any position to handle any crisis, but there you go. It's all part of that algorithm that occasionally throws up those ads on your Facebook page saying “You wouldn't understand, it's a <your surname> thing†or other such guff. But the manufacturers of this T shirt - the bizarrely named, The Whitest Kids U'Know for President Comedian Stand Up Funny Comedy T Shirt (or TITWKUKFPCSUFCT as the whitest kids call them) have cast their net wide. Presumably it costs nothing and takes not time, to just add the same T shirt using a list of comedians from some website and just hope one of them hits big.
I would have liked to order one as a gift for my wife, who does not have the same laid back attitude to life as me and for whom this T shirt would serve as a valuable reminder to her about how brilliant I a, (maybe better if I got one for myself which I wore at all times), but bizarrely these T shirts do not ship to the UK. I do have some US based fans, but the chances of them looking for a T shirt and deciding to buy one based on a never used at the time but subsequently overused WWII slogan seem slight.
It doesn't matter of course as this product does not exist and would just be printed on demand (as much as I love the idea of someone taking a punt and printing up 10,000 Richard Herring and Henry Naylor T shirts and then being disappointed when no North American was interested) and equally I could just get the T shirt printed up myself here if I wanted to (and I might do - I don't think I can break the copyright of someone who is already sort of breaking another copyright and appropriating the names of comedians without any consent). I don't think The Whitest Kids U'Know for President Comedian Stand Up Funny Comedy are going to make a fortune from this weird idea. But I wish them good luck even so.
