/// MISSION BRIEFING

Richard Herring is getting desperate. At 39 years old, he's still making jokes about monkey semen, is wilfully nose-diving into middle-aged pedantry and what's more the love stakes are looking decidedly low. The makings of a midlife crisis? Yes, we thought so too, but - well you don't like to say do you? Still, a life of misanthropic singledom doesn't have to be all doom and gloom - at least his misogyny is postmodern and ironic, unlike Bernard Manning's (actually, is that a good thing?). And he can always take heart in his experience with the carwash company rather carelessly name 'The hand job centre'...