Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here
Last week I wrote about the issues booking into our hotel in Melbourne, and tonight we’ve just discovered that our tour management company given us the wrong information for our flight. In our information booklet it says that we are meant to be flying tomorrow, however we’ve just found out that our flight was actually today. We only found this out by chance, because we needed to book on an extra item of luggage, and when we typed in our flight number, we were informed that the flight had actually departed earlier that day.
In fairness to the tour management company, they were probably too busy making sure that we were armed with facts such as how to refer to female breasts and erections in Australian slang, and the incidental stuff like getting from A to B and having somewhere to stay kind of got a bit forgotten, which is understandable. Presumably next time around they’ll be able to concentrate on those little incidental things, safe in the knowledge that we’ve already been primed with the requisite list of phrases to be able to survive in such a vastly different country as Australia. Unless they decide to advance our Australian knowledge further by maybe providing a list of handy facts about the country, or maybe an instructional section on how to play the Didgeridoo, throw a boomerang, 101 essential Neighbours facts, 101 essential Home And Away facts, in which case we might run into similar problems next year. I would maybe start off with sorting out the flights and hotels, and then maybe if there’s time, compile the facts sections afterwards. But I suppose we’re in the Southern Hemisphere, and so it’s only natural that things should be done upside down.
Having said all this, if anyone from the tour management company is reading this, please don’t take any of this to heart and consequently refuse to work with us again, thus eliminating our folk career in Australia. I am gibing at you merely for mildly comic effect, and because nothing much else has happened today and I need to write about something for a daily blog that I’m doing for free for a few hundred people. I would delete what I’ve written, but it’s getting late, I am falling asleep as I write this, and so I really can’t afford to start this Dollop again. Please accept this as justification, and don’t pull the plug on our Australian folk career. I wonder though, if they did pull the plug, would our Australian folk career travel down the plughole in the opposite direction to how it would if we were in England? Actually, that’s an interesting thought, maybe the tour management company can answer that question in their next booklet.
I’m writing this part of the Dollop in bed at 6am in the morning. I can smell toast, which I assume is because breakfast is being cooked in the hotel. However, I remember hearing from someone that apparently one of the warnings that you’re about to have a stroke is being able to smell burnt toast. At the moment the toast doesn’t smell burnt, although I am now lying here paranoid, in case the toast does start smelling like it’s burning. I am pretty sure that breakfast isn’t served until 630 in this hotel, so is it a bit premature for me to be smelling toast? If you’re about to have a stroke then do you immediately smell burnt toast, or do you smell the toast cooking first and then burning? Any doctors reading this? I mean, it’s quite an intellectual blog I’m running here, so it’s likely.
If I smell burnt toast and I know that there is definitely no toast cooking in the vicinity, then that might suggest that I’m about to have a stroke. But if I smell toast that isn’t burnt, and there is no toast cooking in the vicinity, does that just mean that I’ve been given even more warning time, and that I should probably seek medical help before the toast starts to burn? Plus, it’s unlikely that I’ll know for certain that there is definitely no toast cooking going on anywhere near where I am. Perhaps I should keep my neighbours numbers to hand, so that any time I start smelling toast I can give them a quick call just to establish whether they’re making toast or not, or whether I should maybe start worrying.
“Hello Mrs Wilson, sorry to bother you at 3 in the morning, but I was just wondering whether you are making toast? No, I didn’t think it was likely at this time, but you never know do you, and what with the whole burnt-toast-smelling thing being an early indicator of a stroke, I thought I best check. Well, thank you Mrs Wilson, sorry to bother you for the third day running. Goodbye.”
“Hello Mrs Wilson, sorry to bother you again. I just thought I’d let you know that as soon as I put the phone down after talking to you, I sneezed, and a bit of toast flew out of my nose. Not sure how it got up there, but I did have toast three days ago. So I suppose that explains the toast smelling phenomena for the last three days. Sorry for all the phone calls Mrs Wilson, but you can’t be too careful can you? I thought I’d act while the toast was still smelling nicely cooked, just in case it started to burn. I mean I’d be a fool to wait until the toast started smelling like it was burning befor I did anything about it. Those extra few minutes might make all the difference. Best to be overcautious with these things, I’m sure you’ll agree Mrs Wilson. OK, well I’ll hang up now and let you get back to sleep. Goodbye Mrs … Hang on, I don’t seem to be able to move my left arm to put the phone down. Oh well, never mind, I must just have pins and needles, I’ll just use my right hand. I’m sure the pins and needles will be gone by the morning. I mean they don’t tend to last very long do they? But at least we figured out the toast smell, and I can rest easy tonight. Goodbye Mrs Wilson.”
Well, that was a rather haphazard Dollop. But I really must go now, as we have to be out of this hotel in the next hour and I still need to record the audio version. Thanks for reading.
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