User:Freekymunky/Collins and Herring (6 music show)

The Collins and Herring is a radio show on the BBC 6 Music digital radio station hosted by Andrew Collins and Richard Herring. The show runs from 10am to 1pm on a Saturday, taking the slot normally held by Adam and Joe. Officially, the duo were short term stand in replacements for Adam and Joe whilst the latter pair took a break, but they have been doing the show since January 2010. An Adam Buxton blog entry suggests that he and Joe Cornish should return 'around November' but this has yet to be confirmed.

History
Andrew Collins has been a regular presenter on 6 Music since 2002 and until 2007 was a regular host on varying slots, since then primarily deputising for other DJson holiday or, as noted by Herring,, on maternity leave. Between 2005 and 2007, Richard Herring appeared as a regular guest on his Sunday afternoon show(later switching to Saturday) when they reviewed the papers. The last show was on 31st March 2007. In February 2008, the pair reformed to start recording the Collings and Herrin podcast, purportedly to 'get back on the radio'. This ploy seems to have worked as the podcast has grown in popularity and in January 2010 they were asked to stand in for Adam and Joe on 6 Music, who were taking a 'short break' to work on other things.

Show Features
As the duo originally thought they'd only be standing in for a few weeks, a number of the show's original features were thinly veiled copies of the existing Adam and Joe features. Thus, 'Text the Nation' became 'Text the Station', 'Song Wars' became 'Diary Wars' and the 'Black Squadron' became the 'Nerd Army'. As their incumbency has grown longer, they've introduced newer features such as 'Poetry Smackdown' and 'The History of Collins and Herring in 100 Objects'.

Text the Station
As is normal practice for radio shows, each week a theme will be suggested for listeners to contact the show with stories/ideas around that theme. Despite the feature's name, listeners are encouraged to contact the show via email and twitter as well as by text message. Themes are usually inspired by something that has happened to either Collins or Herring, or by something that has featured in the recent news.

Diary Wars and Poetry Smackdown
Adam and Joe ran a feature called Song Wars, in which each would write a song during the week and listeners would vote for their favourite. When Collins and Herring took over the show, they admitted to not being talented enough to do this, and instead read pages from their old diaries in a 'competitive' format. Traditionally Collins would read his entry first (being interrupted and derided by Herring) and Herring would read his second. When they ran out of old diaries to read, they switched to Poetry Smackdown, where they read old poems from their youth in much the same way.

Herring Rules
Initially, Richard Herring was required to come up with a rule that he would instigate if he were running the country. Rules covered such mundane topics as insisting gym members shouldn't fill their water bottles at the drinking water fountain. As this was only conceived as a short term feature, Herring soon started to struggle to think of suitable rules and the feature was dropped.

I Love 1983
Collins previously featured in a number of list shows, such as I Love The 1980s. Herring frequently refers to this in their partnership and talks about Collins being in I Love 1983, although he never actually featured in that particular show. In reference to this, Collins instigated a feature of the same name, where he picked something he remembered from 1983 and reminisced about it before playing a song from that year. The 'bed' for this feature was an instrumental version of Karma Chameleon, which was released in that year. This feature was stopped at the same time as Herring Rules was stopped. When the two features were stopped, the presenters swapped roles for their last outing, so Herring did I Love 1983, whilst Herring Rules became Collins Rules.

The Nerd Army
The Nerd Army is the name for the show's regular listeners. The Nerd Army are encouraged to take photos relating to s specific theme (different to the theme of Text the Station) and submit the photos by email so they can be added to the 6 music website. The theme is often unusual, with one being '2.5 Kilos' where photos of items weighing this amount were requested, as that was the amount of weight Herring had lost that week due to illness.

Listener Jingles
Adam and Joe had created their own jingles whilst running their show. Collins and Herring said they weren't talented enough for this and immediately requested The Nerd Army to provide jingles. All the jingles during the show are therefore provided by their listeners, ranging from the professional and impressive to the bizarre and hilarious.

The History of Collins and Herring in 100 Objects
Directly inspired by the BBC Radio 4 show A History of the World in 100 Objects, this feature was described by Collins as an effort to ensure their future in the slot for at least another 50 weeks. Each week, both presenters bring in a personal item that relates to a story from their past. The item is described, and the story related, by its owner following an (often derogatory) introduction and description from the other presenter. It seems the ploy to secure their long-term future may fail, though, as rumours abound that Adam and Joe are set to return in the near future.