Ah the value of a good comedy prop. For my "Heads Up With Richard Herring" (Or HUWRH as all the kids are calling it) show I was talking about psyching out your opponent and how in professional games this mainly seems to consist of putting on different sunglasses (Greg Raymer has his lizard eye specs and Jac-a-Rama keeps changing his sunglasses during a torunament) so I came up with the ultimate psyching out tactic, five pairs of sunglasses stuck on top of each other which would cover your entire face when worn. Someone (probably my producer Ray) had had to go to the trouble of making this prop for me and he did a great job. It looked funny.
After the show Ray asked me if I would like to keep the sunglasses, and of course I wanted to. You never know when you might need five pairs of sunglasses all stuck together. At the very least I might be able to wear them in a tournament and scare the bejesus out of my opponents.
But I was going straight on to a gig after the recording and didn't have a bag with me and also had to cart around a massive case of chips that had kindly been given to me on the show by Barny Boatman of the Hendon Mob. This in itself was cumbersome and intriguing. It was a big and long sliver case with "The Hendon Mob" written on it and looked like the kind of thing that a professional assassin carries his self-assembly rifle in when he's going to kill the French President or whatever. Given I was also carrying a pair of sunglasses that would cover my entire face (useful for an assassin who wished to remain incognito - who'd give him a second look?), I was not surprised that I got a few suspicious and confused glances from passersby.
After my gig (lovely one at Monkey Business in Camden, where I really started ad-libbing and making stuff up. It's a direction I am increasingly keen to explore and most of it worked a treat tonight - felt very relaxed and the crowd went with it) I was down in the bar drinking and various people (some of whom hadn't been at the gig) were asking me what the glasses and the case were about. If you are a single person looking to pull I suggest you invest in a big case and a stack of sunglasses and a glue gun as it's a great conversation starter.
But alas I put my sunglasses down on a table as I was talking to one couple and perhaps forgetting their size knocked someone's red wine all over the floor with a smash. This is the downside of my conversation starting idea. The props were cumbersome and could have led to more problems than plus points.
The bar was closed by now, but I asked the barman if he could possibly give me some more red wine to make up for my clumsiness and he kindly agreed and gave me half a glass for nothing. So whilst I will never buy jackets from that boutique in Brighton I would come and drink at this bar again, because that is customer service. I had also rectified my mistake and appeared clumsy, but considerate, which is in my opinion the most attractive combination of factors in a man.
As I walked out into the streets looking for a cab, my sunglasses fell apart. It seemed somehow symbolic of something. But I was drunk then and it made sense and I am sober now and it doesn't.
