Ever since Friday’s childish podcast, the true and limited might of the Collings & Herrin Nerd Army has been quantified. During a discussion about Jesus, I asked Richard the Bible expert what Barabbas’s crime had been and we decided to look the Biblical figure up on Wikipedia, “on-air”. Overcome, as he tells it, with hysteria, Richard suggested that our listeners exploit the democratic nature of Wikipedia and update the Barabbas entry by erroneously adding that his crime was being “a bummer.” (If you’ve listened to our podcasts, you’ll know that our pathetic glee at this 1970s playground epithet rests entirely outside any latent homophobia. It’s just a funny word, and we hope to reclaim it from the haters.) Anyway, judging from various communiques over the weekend, the Army have indeed been attempting to “update” the Barabbas page, with varying degrees of success. It turns out that information bereft of a [citation] is weeded out pretty quickly by the Wikipedia police, so no sooner is Barabbas revealed as a “bummer” than the more humdrum truth is restored. If only we could harness the power of our Nerd Army for the forces of good.
This latest attempt has probably been “cleaned up” by now, so I made a few grabs for posterity.
Forgive us, father, for we know not what we do.
Never Knowingly Underwhelmed 
Richard Herrin also deals in the world of bumming according to his page:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Herring&oldid=229421049
You really should be careful what you ask your subscribers to do. Today it’s changing entries on Wiki, tomorrow…I believe that’s how Hitler started. Well, according to his Wikipedia entry anyway.By the way, are you aware that The Hairy Bikers are back Back BACK on BBC2 on August 18th?Have a fun time in Edinburgh.
Love the caption under the picture – “”Give us Barabbas the Bummer!”, from The Bible and its Story Taught by One Thousand Picture Lessons, 1910″. Kacie
As I said earlier, I was bored!
The podcast, the wikipedia “updates” and the new thread over at imdb have been cracking me up all weekend.I was so looking forward to another miserable weekend and you two go and bloody spoil it. How dare you. With your oat milk and your ruddy baked potatoes.Incidentally, the random “singers”/screamers outside may be the sound of young Bush, but to an out of townie like me sounded pretty damned scary. How about inviting them in again next time?
Hilarious! Normally the false Wikipedia ones aren’t much good (although my nephew once put in an article for the year 1067 which stated “The Normans turned up late”), but this is perfect. The caption to the picture in the article stated “Give Us Barabbas The Bummer”.
Made my first ever Wikipedia edit tonight. Edits, as it turned out. They stood for all of six minutes. But I see changes to the page are kept in the page’s history, for a short while anyway – so not a wasted effort. Thanks for the introduction to this highly amusing form of vandalism.
I’m starting to wonder if perhaps “childish” and “pathetic” are in fact the most valid response to the doomed and corrupted world in which we live . . .
You could have at least done it to David Milliband.
I asked a question in the discussion asking them if they had any documentary proof that Barabbas wasn’t a bummer.I feel childish, but good.
“You could have at least done it to David Milliband.” Why? Is he a bummer too? His Wikipedia entry doesn’t say so …
No, David Milliband is not a homosexual. Say what you like about characters out of the Bible, but not living public figures. The libel laws do apply to my blog, you know.
I just clicked on the link to Richard's blog on your page while at work, Andrew. My request was denied by the company server due to the site's containing "Adult / Mature" content. Mature? They've obviously never heard the podcast…(A propos of nothing, Sons & Daughters' version of Seal / Adamski's "Killer" just shuffled onto my iPod. What a fantastic track!)David, Liverpool