Frequently asked questions, at the end as usual, but now...... The New Answers

Ian Coleman asked if Somerset is "a hotbed of rural violence" as he had heard it was.
Well, I don't really know as I now live in London. The Cantonese takeaway incident is true. I don't think it is as violent as London - Rich

James Delap wrote to remind me of an incident where a naked woman's bottom appeared in a window when I was in Cheddar. Sadly I do not recall it. Apparently it was Debbie Paige's bottom. You do not win 5 pounds James as you ask, as the information you sent was in no way requested or sought by me, although I found it interesting - Rich.

Thank you also from Rich to whoever it is in Cheddar who is e-mailing and writing to me pretending to be Malcom Litten my English teacher and or Brian Bancroft's solicitor. It is funny, although obviously a lie. Would Malcom Litten send me pornography? Only very hard core stuff, not the pathetic rubbish you sent.

Peter wrote about Richard's shirts. They belong to the BBC, I can not answer your queries. He is in a band too but I can't work out what it's called... "Dog in the Wax"? Can't mention it on the telly now despite your offer of drugs and Wham Bars. Sorry.

Dave Haddock (yeah like that;'s a real name) e-mailed to say he thought we were hit and miss (yes but the bits you don't like someone else does, can't you even see that). He won Pete's set in Rich's show in Edinburgh last week, but couldn't get it home. If anyone has a film of it from a camcorder could they let us know.

Ben Moor will be back in Edinburgh this year in a show called "The smallest Cinema in the World" so look out for that. scindh wrote to say he had seen the jarred man joke 2.5 times as it had been on the radio and in our Edinburgh show. Yes, as we've explained before, that Edinburgh show was seen by maybe 1000 people, the radio show maybe a few thousand more. The TV show is watched by up to 2 million people, leaving a good 1.99 million who have never seen it before. Do you see why it is OK to use it? Plus it is different when you can see it, isn't it? So that leaves only those people in Edinburgh and most of them would have forgotten it by now. Thanks for being our fan though. You also ask how my dad got to be a headmaster if he is pickled in a jar. Well he is now a retired headmaster. He used to be fully healthy but then due to an accident, that I do not wish to discuss, his life could only be saved by Somerset's top onion pickler and surgeon and thus he was put in the jar only recently. He struggled on being a headmaster for a couple of years but then the govenors felt that even in Somerset children could not be taught by a jarred man so he retired. And also he could be a headmaster because the jarred man idea is just a joke - Rich.

Ben Smith complained about the treatment of Shipham. It doesn't just have a war memorial he says, but also a red telephone box and TWO benches, so Shipham isn't boring. He has answered his own complaint.

HEA Fulton. The "cute" presenter is Rich Herring. He does not have a fan club as yet. Perhaps you'd like to start one. We have a mailing list. The address is in here somewhere.

m-lobley mailed in to ask why we spell "hamster" "hampster". We spell it "hampster" because that is better. He also said he heckled Patrick Marber at the Woolwich tramshed years ago during a radio recording, but that the heckle was edited out.

MR JR Rogers asked why we were in the "On The Hour" writing team and not in the team for "The Day Today" on telly. I think we must have answered this somewhere else on here but here goes... For the last time, it's because we wanted a co-ownership deal on the TV show rather than just a straight weekly comission, as we felt like we'd created or co-created lots of characters that were successful in the radio show, i.e Patrick Marber's Brian O'hanrahanrahan which we made up, and had influenced the style/tone of the show more than we'd originally envisaged.
They didn't agree and did a Stalinist re-write of hsitory which erased us from the annals. c

en noted that the Eel workshop host, Ken Zetty, was obviously based on the real person Kendrick Zetie, who has a funnier name. True. We met him 6 years ago, and once when me and Rich were doing a medieveal play called The Weakefield Second Shepherd's play we used to change the middle english line "There is none that knows nor trows a war than ken I nightly" to "There is none that knows nor trows a war than ken zettie" just to amuse ourselves - Stew.

Philip Mallard observed that the show is "completely lacking in intelligence and is based on only a few weak jokes, but is very good and a welcome change."

rc 1:
i) We'd love to do another series for Radio 1 but it's not up to us.
ii)In Edinburgh this year Rich is doing "Richard Herring is All Man", Stew's doing "Cluuub Zarathustra" with some other guys, and we're all doing a live show of Fist of Fun
iii) You can get the choc t-shirt in San Francisco.

Nice Guy Pauls asks if we've ever got into a fight with other comedians, re: Lee Hurst punching Geoff Boyz at the Comedy Store and says "is it only rough non-Oxbridge comedians who do this?" Well, me and Rich have had fights with each other, Rich's friend was fought by Keith Allen at Edinburgh in 1988, Stew once broke up a fight between Mark Lamaar and a man, but the fight King of fights is Simon Munnery aka Alan Parker, who punished Jeremy Hardy for his churlishness by fighting him at E Fest in 1988 resulting in the aged satirist being taken off by the police.

Mark LT Baker. We put stuff on the net because we've both enjoyed zipping about on it in the company of our more computer-literate friends, namely Danny O'Brien and Dave Green of Wired magazine, and cut and paste techno info exchange is all part of the Fist of Fun world view. Plus it helps to create a false air of subversion and interestingness amongst all you lot of net-divs and space-mongs.

Andy - there probably will be a repeat at some stupid late night useless time that the BBC wrongly thinks is appropriate as they have ghettoised us as cult youth TV that only 13 year olds could possibly like.

Sarah E Morgan - send your cv to the producer, Sarah Smith, via post, not us via internet. Good Luck. Did you know that the dead singer and guitar genius Nick Drake went to your school. I once drove to Marlborough at night when I was on acid - Stew.

James D O'Brien asks for transcripts of the subliminal texts and asks .... "When I didn't have a transcript of a humorous subliminal message were you there, were you there." No James, we aren't there. Tuff luk!

Tim Bentley asks if our dislike of Somerset extends to Cornwall. No. It doesn't. Cornwall has its own language, culture and food (pasties and ice cream) and is cool, and I know Cona Tevithen Jenkin the Cornish (not "cornish", Cornish) youth activist - Stew.

Scott Kay writes "Stewart - underneath that fringe is pure baldness." Scott.

Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the show called Fist of Fun?
It is because the phrase conveys the feeling of the twin worlds of delight and aggression that characterise our writing. Also, we wanted to see if we could get a reference to an anal sex technique into the Radio Times, and we have!

What is the address to send stuff in for The Gallery?
It's: The Gallery
Fist of Fun
Room 3301
BBC TV Centre
Wood Lane
London
W12 [NOTE: This address is out of date now, so ignore it! It was probably only relevant for the first TV series]
Pleeeeease send lots of stuff in, pleeeeeeease.

Are the subliminal messages just a shallow ploy to make sure that everyone wears out the video tape they've taped the show on so they then have to buy a deluxe boxed set later?
On the contrary. It's to make you tape the shows so you aren't tempted by corporate merchandising... and to use up all the hours of shit we've written over the years.

Why are you using mainly old material?
It is because our radio stuff has been heard by only a few thousand people, and our TV show is seen by 2 million plus, so it would be a shame to see all that old stuff wasted. Also, there is loads of new stuff anyway, and all the old stuff is changed for telly anyway, so even people who know all our stuff off by heart should find something to delight them in every show. Also, if you think we've done 5 years work in radio for sod all money just to have to start from scratch again for the telly then you are mistaken. And loads of people write in specifically asking for old stuff. Fair's fair, eh?

My video is crap and the pause control isn't any good. Can the events diary be put on the web pages?
Yes they can, plus all the other fast text stuff from the programme. All in good time. Be patient.