Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

In yesterday’s Dollop I mentioned my friend trying an unsuccessful prank call on me, which involved him playing the sounds of howling and telling me that he was in a forest being chased by wolves. He had just downloaded a phone app that could play various background sounds to the caller. This prank however failed for a number of reasons. Firstly, the sound effects might have been realistic, but he hadn’t thought to pant or run, so it was clear that he wasn’t being chased. Secondly, it seemed ridiculous that if he was in a forest being chased by wolves, he would choose to ring me. There are few phone calls that are going to help you if you’re being chased through a forest by wolves, but I’d imagine that the emergency services might be of more practical use than me. If he was calling to declare his last words, then, again, I seemed like an unlikely choice; surely he’d be more likely to ring his parents. Plus, it was in the middle of the day, and I’d only just seen him a couple of hours ago. Where the bloody hell had he managed to travel to in that short space of time, where there are wolves roaming around the place? When I’d last seen him a couple of hours ago, he was on a train to Newcastle. I mean, that’s one hell of a diversion.

So, as phone pranks go, that one was very poor. I was doing better pranks than that when I was at school. For instance, I once successfully impersonated one of our teachers, and rang up a student. I say “successfully,” it was essentially its very success that lead to its failure.

My voice had just broken. It happened in a rather spectacular fashion. It wasn’t a fluctuating thing, like with a lot of my classmates, where their voices would vacillate sporadically between Barry White and Barry Gibb. Oh no, mine seemed to just go, and then stay gone. You might think that this is preferable and less awkward than all those weird vocal fluctuations experienced by my peers, except my moment happened at a rather inopportune moment.

I was standing in front of hundreds of people, children, teachers and parents, in the school hall. It was the Christmas concert, and I had been chosen as the person to be the chorister who opened the proceedings with the traditional solo verse of Once In Royal David’s City. Up until the point where I began to sing on that fateful evening, there was, so far as I can recall, no indication of what was about to happen. A hush descended, and I began to sing. Well, I’m not sure if “sing” is at all an accurate word to use. IN fairness, the first line wasn’t too bad. It was a little croaky but at least it was in tune. But then, my voice suddenly, and very surprisingly, plummeted in pitch. So, rather than singing the line, “stood a Lowly cattle shed,” it sounded as if I’d chosen instead to do an impression of the cattle inside said lowly cattle shed. And “lowly” was very much the operative word, given my dramatic drop through the octaves. Despite the children’s stifled giggles, the teachers shushing the children, and the parents awkward and uncertain throat-clears and embarrassed, mild, murmurous laughs, I continued, before the rest of the choir eventually took over the second verse, with the rather fitting words, “he came down …”

Sean thinks that I’ve ripped this story off from the Simpsons, and reckons that this exact scenario occurred with Bart. I am convinced that I have never seen this particular Simpsons episode, however I suppose there is a chance that I’ve somehow got confused and saw this Simpsons episode and misremembered it as an event that happened in my own life. If this is the case then I am sorry for wasting your time. D’oh! However, I suppose there is another explanation. Maybe there was a member of the writing team on the Simpsons who just so happened, for some reason, to be present at a Middlesbrough primary school’s Christmas Concert, witnessed my embarrassing performance, and incorporated it into the Simpsons. I should be worth millions now, and never have to work again, and thus I’d have no reason to hang around with Michael and Sean. But alas, I’ve been ripped off!

One positive thing about my new-found voice was that I discovered that I could now do impressions of certain adults. There were a few other blind people in our school, and one day when one of the younger blind students were walking through the corridor, I hollered at him in the voice of Mr Smith. “Tuck your shirt in Jonathan,” and Jonathan was jooped, and said “sorry sir.” I was rather surprised and pleased by my newly acquired skill.

A few days later, a plan formulated itself, and I executed a phone prank, pretending to be Mr Smith. But, it is getting rather late, so I shall regale you with that story in tomorrow’s Dollop. Until then …

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Whilst walking to sainsbury’s today (don’t get your hopes up, this isn’t another one of my highly popular Sainsbury’s anecdotes, sorry) I got a phone call from a woman asking me if I’d had an accident that wasn’t my fault or if I was looking to claim compensation for anything. Alas, she wasn’t keen to explore damages for loss of time and potential earnings, due to rogue messages for the other David Eagle. Nor was she interested in helping me get compensation from the man on the train who had drenched me in his spit. That spit might be riddled with all sorts of germs that could potentially give me some disease; but she wasn’t willing to represent me in such matters.

She seemed a bit down about the fact that I hadn’t been in any serious accidents, so I asked her whether a car crash might count, and she suddenly perked up, which was charming of her. She gleefully asked me to tell her about the crash. I told her that I hadn’t had one yet, but said that I might be willing to, if there was a good chance of getting compensation. We could keep it hush hush, just between me, her, and the wall; literally.

At that exact moment, with uncanny timing, two cars sped past each other, sounding their horns. I think it might have freaked out the woman from the solicitors because when the noise of the horns dissipated and I was able to hear the phone again, she had gone. Perhaps she thought I had actually decided to crash into a wall in order to get compensation.

My friend used to have an app on his phone that could play background sounds to the caller, meaning that you could pretend to be in a different location to the one that you were actually in. I remember he called me up once and told me that he was in a forest being chased by wolves. Sure enough, there were the sounds of wolves in the background, although his prank wasn’t at all convincing because he’d forgotten to do any panting or running.

I suppose this app could have some useful, practical purposes. You should be at work, but you fancy a lie in, so you could call your boss and say you were running late due to being stuck in a really massive traffic jam. You could play the sounds of beeping car horns to make it seem as if you actually were in a traffic jam, when in fact you are still in bed. Similarly you could have a background soundtrack that sounds like you’re in a really brutal crash, which would be useful in freaking out annoying cold callers asking you if you’ve had an accident. Of course, you need to be wary when using such an app, in case your finger slips and you accidentally choose the wrong sound, meaning that you suddenly have to improvise a scenario to your boss in which you’re being chased through a forest by wolves.

Another feature that I think should come with phones is a button that when pressed will sound your ringtone, so that you can get out of awkward or annoying conversations with people. This would have come in really handy yesterday with the talkative man on the train spitting at me. I could have subtly reached into my pocket, pressed the button on my phone, the phone would ring and I would have a way of getting out of conversing with him.

Obviously this might get a bit awkward if you’re in the middle of talking, pretending to be on the phone, and then someone actually does call you and the phone rings, meaning that your cover is blown. But you could easily circumvent such an issue by having a feature that warns you that an incoming call is happening, only there is a delay of five seconds before the phone begins to ring. This would then give you enough time to wrap up your pretend conversation, say goodbye, go to put your phone back in your pocket, only for it to start ringing again. You could then get your phone out of your pocket and act all surprised, saying something like, “what a coincidence, I’ve literally just this second got off the phone to Nigel.” Notice how I invented a name there, just to give my pretext even more credibility.

Maybe Apple should think about doing something useful like that, rather than messing around with headphone sockets. There are so many occasions when such a feature would rescue me from awkward situations. Still, I suppose if I didn’t have strange garrulous men on trains spitting at me, then I wouldn’t have anything to write about, so maybe it’s for the best that such a feature does not exist on my phone.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I got chatting to another stranger on the train today. He was a nice man, but whenever he said a word that was particularly sibilant, he would spit at me. The first time he did this, a rather sizeable globule of spit landed on my face, between my eyes. It hit me with quite an impressive amount of force, so much so that it caused me to make an exclamation of shock. I didn’t want to make the man feel uncomfortable, and didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he’d just spat on me. So to avoid the embarrassment, I quickly adapted my noise of surprise, and tried to manoeuvre it into a sound that might be more akin to a noise denoting great interest in what he was saying.

I’m not sure I pulled it off very effectively, given that what he was saying didn’t really warrant such an enthusiastic noise. He was telling me that he was heading to see his sister in Surrey, hence the sibilance. Then he spat on me and I shouted out in shock and then tried to change it into a noise of enthusiasm. I would have to invent a reason that would justify my effusive exclamation.

“Woe! My sister is also in Surrey. What a coincidence.” I’m not sure whether this really warranted such a passionate noise of excitement, but it was the first thing that came to mind, so it would have to do. Of course, he then asked me which part of Surrey she came from. Michael’s family live in Redhill in Reigate, so I plucked for that. It turned out that this is also where his sister happened to live, and so he asked me for her name, saying that he might know her. I decided to go for a name that didn’t contain any P’s T’s or S’s, in case he should use it in our conversation, and rain down more spit upon me. I went for Mary; a safe choice, I thought.

He asked me where she worked. I’d hoped that my invention of a sibling would have just been an expedient way of vindicating my weird enthusiastic noise, but it was requiring more and more elaboration.

“In a florists,” I said, and immediately regretted my choice of shop: florists has both an S and a T in it. I braced myself for the spit to hit.

“A florists?” he said, and sure enough, the spit came and landed on my forehead, joining its predecessors. But this time I was ready for it, and so fortunately I didn’t make a weird noise. I didn’t want to have to invent any more siblings. One was proving quite enough.

“Flowers 77?” He asked. Trust him to know a bloody florists in Redhill, and how bloody typical that the name of the florists in Redhill has three S’s and a T in it. Another spit globule met my forehead. I pretended not to remember the name of the place she worked at. Knowing my luck I’d say “yes,” only to find that his sister is the boss of the florists.

“My sister lives within spitting distance,” he said. I started to wonder whether he was doing this on purpose. Maybe he gets a kick from spitting at people, and watching them be too British and awkward to say anything. Maybe the “spitting distance” line is him toying with me, spitting at me while he says the word “spitting,” sort of goading me.

He was talking but my concentration had lapsed, as I could feel his spit on my face, and it was uncomfortable, wet and itchy. I was wondering whether I could wipe it off without him noticing and it becoming embarrassing. He’d clearly just asked me a question. I could tell by the fact that his voice had risen at the end of the sentence, but I had no idea what the question was. I had to ask him to repeat what he’d just said, which was an annoyance, because whatever it was he had said involved quite a bit of spitting, and now I was inviting more spit to come my way.

“So, to where are you bound?” he asked. NO, he didn’t, that was a little in-joke for the Dollop regulars. He actually said, “So where are you off to?” At that moment, the man on the PA announced the next stop. I took this as my get-out opportunity, and pretended that this was my stop.

As I pulled my coat over my head, I took the opportunity to wipe away the spit, given that he couldn’t see me. I said goodbye to the man, and made a prompt exit, just in case he opted for a “ta ta,” and drench me once more in spit.

I scurried down the carriage, hoping that I could get lost in the mass of people heading for the door. I tucked myself in front of a rather tall man, hoping that this would block my view from the spitter, and darted into the other cariage, hoping that he didn’t see me. I then spent the rest of the journey huddled low down in my seat, fearing that he might walk through the carriage on the way to the toilet, and spot me still on the train. All this palaver because I was too polite and embarrassed to draw the man’s attention to the fact that he was spitting at me. Manners cost nothing? They bloody do. I was a nervous wreck on that train, huddled in my seat, dreading being seen.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I bit my lip today, oh boy. “Please, tell us more, David!” Well don’t you worry your pretty little head, I very much intend to.

I seem to bite my lip about once every six weeks. I wonder why. I wonder what happens in my brain to somehow, once in every six weeks or so of chewing, miscalculate the chew and chomp right threw my lip. I have no idea how many chews an average meal consists of, but I would imagine that within 6 weeks I will have clocked up tens of thousands of chews. My brain clearly knows how to chew, yet after thousands and thousands of consecutive successful chews, it’ll make an error of judgement and I’ll bite my lip.

I had a discussion with my friends around the table about this, and they too estimated that they bite into their lip about once every six weeks. Obviously this is just an approximate guess by everyone. We’re not weird and sad enough to keep a diary of these malmastications (how’s that for a term? Malmastication. I just made that up just then, check me out!). We are however weird and sad enough to have a protracted conversation in which we spend our entire meal swapping anecdotes about times when we’ve bit into our lips. Then again, you can’t exactly judge us, baring in mind that you are now reading this blog all about this very subject, and be honest, you’re really enjoying it, aren’t you?

So it seems as if it’s a congenital human trait for the brain to very occasionally miscalculate the chew, even though it manages fine thousands upon thousands of times. I wonder whether our subconsciouses just get a bit complacent. Maybe after six weeks of successful chewing, it starts to get a bit cocky and thinks, “this is a piece of cake; and chewing this piece of cake is easy. It’s a bit boring though. I think my mouth should be aware of what to do without me for a bit. I think I might take a walk and see what’s going on in the rest of the brain and maybe help out with a more interesting autonomic function, maybe have a dabble with the respiratory system. Just for a bit of a change … ouch, shit, the lip! Oh damn, the sympathetic nervous system is going to be furious with me.” I’m not sure if that joke was particularly scientifically accurate, but what it might have lacked in scientific validity, it more than made up for in hilarity, as I’m sure you’ll all agree.

Tonight’s gig was supporting Richard Hauley at The Unthanks’ festival in Newcastle. With just ten days to go until the festival, the Unthanks were informed that their intended venue was going to be out of action due to emergency construction work. So the venue was changed at the last minute. The new venue used to be a factory, and I think it must have only recently been converted, because while the venue was perfectly acceptable from the audience’s perspective, there wasn’t yet a properly established backstage area. Our dressing room therefore was more or less a dark dingy shed, and access to the stage was somewhat inhibited by a series of obstacles, including pipes, metal bolts stuck out of the floor, and very low beams on the roof. Either this place was still in the process of being converted, or it had been very poorly designed.

I hope that this wasn’t down to poor design consultancy work from David Eagle and his cronies. That man has already caused me enough problems, taking up hours of my life forwarding his rogue messages onto him, without him almost killing me with his low hanging beams and his jutting out pipes and sharp metal bolts. It might have also been David Eagle and friends who were responsible for the original venue having to undergo emergency construction work. Maybe me and this David Eagle have history, maybe we are sworn enemies from a past life. Well, if that is the case then I am clearly winning this karmic battle, given that I diligently forward on his many stray emails, whereas he can’t even be bothered to thank me. Keep going the way you’re going David, and in the next life I’ll be a wealthy prince, and you will be my domestic servant, and I will make you spend your days forwarding emails to people, just to teach you a lesson.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

We’re back in The Young’uns van, heading to a gig. Sean is on the phone to his parents. He’s been on the phone to his parents for most of the journey. Sean’s phone calls to his parents take double the time that they really should take. This is because his parents don’t seem to have invested in a phone with a speaker. Sean’s conversations with his parents therefore consist of him telling the same stories and generally answering exactly the same questions twice. And if Grandmar’s with them …

I think Sean really needs to buy his parents a phone with a hands-free speaker setting, for the sake of his own sanity. It’s only going to get worse the older his parents get, once their memories start to go. He’ll talk to his mum, she’ll then pass him onto his dad, and by the time Sean’s repeated the same conversation with his dad, Sean’s mum will be back on the phone, both parents having completely forgotten that they’ve already talked to him, meaning that Sean will be in line to tell the story to both of them separately for a second time.

My dad has had a speaker phone for years. On the plus side, this means that I don’t have to repeat myself over and over again to different family members, however it does have its setbacks. When I call home, I am immediately put on speaker, and my news is broadcast to whoever is present. And everyone will just chip in. There’ll be no advanced mention as to who’s in the room. I’ll be in the middle of telling a story to my dad, with no idea there is anyone else around, and then my brother will suddenly chime in, my dad’s fiancée Irene, one of my nieces or nephews, or the postman, if he happens to be passing. There’s no such thing as privacy in our family, which is very difficult for me, because as you all know, I am ordinarily a very private man; It’s not like I want to broadcast my life to all and sundry.

It took my dad awhile to get used to operating this newfangled phone with the hands-free speaker setting. For the first year or so, rather than pressing the button to terminate the call after the conversation, he would press the button that transfers the phone from the hands-free speaker setting to the hands-in receiver setting. This meant that after I’d said goodbye, I’d then get the post phone call discussion, as dad and whoever else was in the room had a conversation about what I’d just been talking about.

“Well he seems to be doing all right, or at least he says he is,” says dad.

“Yes, good to hear the gigs are going well. He sounds busy,” says my dad’s fiancée Irene.

“I hope the ointment works on that embarrassing growth he was talking about. It sounded quite nasty,” says the postman.

I’d try and shout down the phone to let them know that I could still hear them and that they hadn’t hung up properly, but it was no use; I could hear them, but they couldn’t hear me, and they’d just keep chatting away about me, and I’d listen, hoping that my dad wouldn’t say something awkward for me to hear like, “I know it’s a bad thing for a father to say, but I can’t help feeling disappointed in him.”

“Well I know it’s not really my place to say this, but I know what you mean,” says the milkman.

Or things could get really awkward.

“Well, I thought he’d never get off the phone. But now he’s gone, and it’s just me and you, do you fancy a bit of fun? Let’s get you out of that dress.” Oh no dad, I don’t want to be privy to you and Irene getting physical. Definitely time for me to hang up.

“Oh yes, come here big boy,” says … the postman?

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

If today’s Dollop is a bit rubbish then you have the royal mail to blame. My microphones that I’ve been using to record the walking Dollops with broke a couple of weeks ago. Naturally, I Immediately sought to replace them, given how keen I knew you would all be to be back out with me, chatting to various eccentric Sheffielders. A couple of days ago I received an email from the Royal Mail informing me that the microphones would be delivered today. I decided to celebrate the microphones’ arrival with a much-anticipated walking Dollop, but alas, the microphones were not delivered. I then had to go out this evening, and have only just got back, at 1130, and I’m now having to quickly write a Dollop instead of releasing an audio one, as was my original plan. And so, if today’s Dollop is a bit rubbish (and if this first paragraph is anything to go by, it will be) then blame the Royal Mail.

We were in a curry house this evening. We were sitting on a corner table, and we noticed that tucked behind us was a laptop, and on the screen was Spotify, and the name of the playlist where the Asian music was being taken from. The playlist was called curry House Classics, and it was a public playlist that Spotify had curated. I’d have hoped that if you were running a curry house, you might have some ideas of appropriate music that you could play in your establishment, rather than lazily using a public Spotify playlist called Curry House Classics.

I also wondered how many other Indian restaurants on the planet were currently playing Curry House Classics. And are these songs truly curry house classics, or are they just popular Asian songs that have merely been thrown into a playlist? I might be doing the people at Spotify a disservice though, I suppose there might have been an extensive survey done of thousands of curry houses all over the world, in regards to the music they play, and the results were compiled into the Curry House Classics playlist. And to be fair to Spotify, they have picked some classics. They start things off with Maine Soch Liya from Tumsa Nahin Dekha, an excellent opener, I’m sure you’ll all agree Then follow it up with Sisile Mulaqaton Ke from Bardaasht – which let’s face it, was bound to be included – before hitting us hard with Agar Tum Mil Jao, from Zeher, of course. There’s a few curve balls on the list though: they opted for Tera Mera Rista from Awarapan, which I personally think is a somewhat weak choice, and Aye Bekhabar from Zeher, which would be all very well and good, but for some insane reason they plucked for the Lounge Remix, which is very uninspiring.

I wonder if Spotify have created playlists for other kinds of restaurants. ‘Now That’s What I Call Greasy Spoon Cafe,’ ‘Late Night Kebab House Hits,’ ‘Chippy Anthems.’

Here are my suggestions for a curry house playlist:

Tikka Chance On Me, by Akbar (Akbar, as in the Indian restaurant chain).
Korma Chameleon, by Kulcha Club (Kulcha is an Indian bread).
Tiny Dhansak, by Elton John, from the album, Mad Naan Accross The Water (Tiny Dancer is from the album Madman Accross The Water. I personally think jokes are much funnier when you have to explain them).
She’s a Naan Eater, by Delhi Furtado.
Get Chapati Started, by Pink (you might be wondering why Pink is a pun; it’s because a lot of curry houses often use quite a bit of food colouring, so that clearly works).
This Is The Closest Thing To Jalfrasy I Have Ever Seen, by Katie Me’lahoer.

Unfortunately, it’s coming up to midnight, so I need to publish this Dollop, meaning that we’ll have to terminate the fun here I’m afraid. Feel free to exercise your creative muscles and suggest some additions to my curry house playlist. Back tomorrow. Another day, another Dollop.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Dollop stalwart Mavis Crumble commented on yesterday’s Dollop, saying, “Go on……send it to Ainsley. I dare you!” By “it,” she is referring to my fictional reply to the email that I was sent, which was intended for the other David Eagle, the design consultant from Stoke. Alas Mavis, I had already responded to Ainsley, alerting him to the fact that he’d emailed the wrong David Eagle, so I’m afraid I can’t pretend to be the other dAvid Eagle and email him my review.

It appears that when Ainsley asked for a review of his site layout plan, he was perhaps looking for quite a lot more technical detail than my reply would have offered. Today I received a reply from Mark, who was also copied into Ainsley’s email. I’ll tell you what Mark had to say in a moment, (I know, I’m such a tease) but first, I thought you might like to cast your critical eye over Ainsley’s site layout plan, and have a think about any possible areas for improvement. I’ll then present you with Mark’s evaluation, and you can compare your findings to his. If you have any ideas to improve this plan then feel free to send them to me and I’ll happily pass them onto Ainsley. Wouldn’t that be a lovely, benevolent thing to do? You never know, If we come up with some good suggestions then maybe Ainsley might choose to work with us on a regular basis, and ditch the services of the other David Eagle. Let’s be honest, the other David Eagle doesn’t seem to be the quickest at responding, whereas I’m sure you Dollop readers would be much more proactive.

Perhaps this could be away for you to support these Dollops financially. Rather than adopting the more traditional model of asking for donations, you could offer support by commenting on various preliminary site layout plans. Obviously this is something that I couldn’t feesibly do myself due to being blind. Then, Ainsley would financially remunerate me for the design consultancy work. A perfect plan.

So, cast your critical eyes over this, and let me know if you have any thoughts. Remember, the scale is 1:500@ A3 size0.

So, what do you think? Why not make a few notes, and then you can compare your ideas to Mark’s. This is kind of like a training exercise for you, because we can use Mark’s appraisal as an example of the kind of thing to look out for and comment on in the future. Here is what Mark had to say about Ainsley’s site layout plan. See if you spotted any of these.

“Hi Ainsley,
We will need to show a temporary footway usable by wheelchairs. The foot way should be slab surfaced and allow the residents of the bungalow to access the bungalow from the rear door of the existing laundry. It needs to come around by the plant room and around the footprint of the new activity room allowing a space for scaffold and for services to be redirected around the new extension and link to the existing path to the bungalow. Can you show this on the plan?
Alex we will need to amend the PCIP to show this requirement. We need to highlight that site access for spoil removal will cross this temporary footway so staff will need to escort the residents to and from the bungalow each morning and night and when they return to the bungalow. The temporary footway will need plating to protect the footway.
Regards
Mark.”

So, now you’ve read Mark’s opinions, what do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Send me your thoughts, and I’ll pass them onto Ainsley. This could be a great initiative to financially support these Dollops.

You might have noticed that Mark mentioned an Alex. This is the same Alex who emailed me about the completion of faze one of the villa, which I wrote about in Dollop 253 – just in case you were wondering.

Apologies if you’re listening to the audio version of this Dollop. I suppose this probably hasn’t been all that entertaining for you. If one of the readers would like to provide some audio description of the site layout plan drawing, then I will happily include this in the audio version.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

“Hi David, please find attached a preliminary site layout plan (scale 1:500@ A3 size0) We would be grateful if you could review this regarding the site compound, parking prevision and site access. Many thanks and we look forward to hearing from you in due course, prior to issuing this formally as part of the tender documentation. Kind regards, Ainsley.”

This is yet another email, which came to me today, intended for the other David Eagle, the unresponsive design consultant from Stoke. I’ve forwarded him loads of emails over the last few months and haven’t received a single “thank you” or acknowledgement back. I have a good mind to reply to this email and pretend to be the David Eagle that he thinks I am. Would I be able to get away with it? When the email states, “We would be grateful if you could review this,” how much information do they require? If by “review” they mean a detailed, considered analysis, then obviously I’d be out of my depth, but if they’re just looking for a simple yes or no, then I could surely easily pull off the pretence.

“Hi Ainsley, thanks for the attached drawings. Good choice of scale by the way, 1:500@ A3 size0 is my personal favourite; you’re a man after my own heart. But hey, you’re probably married, and it’s unprofessional to flirt on the job. Anyway, everything looks tickety-boo (as we say in the trade). No quibbles from my end. But hey, enough about my end; I promised not to flirt, didn’t I? In regards to the site compound, it’s a big fat yes from me; I love it. Parking prevision is more than ample. As for the site access … you’re well and truly barking up the right tree, a tree that no doubt you’ve conscientiously fitted with a ramp, allowing for easy wheelchair access, because that’s the kind of man you are. Normally I’d write extremely lengthy and detailed reviews, full of all sorts of complicated and clever technical design consultancy speak, but in this case there’s no need for any of that, because everything is ship shape (not literally, obviously, because if you’d actually opted to make the site ship shaped, then I’d be telling you in no uncertain terms what a stupid idea that is). Full steam ahead. In fact, I wouldn’t trouble yourself with all that formal tender documentation nonsense you refer to in your email. If I were you, I’d just crack on. No time like the present.

P.S. My bank details have changed. Please send my consultancy fee payment to the following bank account …”

But of course, I didn’t send such a reply; I merely forwarded the email to the correct David Eagle, who will presumably fail to respond, as usual.

“Hi again Ainsley, just to let you know that I have recently been contacted by the cyber police, who have informed me that there is a fraudster who is emailing my clients, pretending to be me. If you should receive an email from david@davidmeagle.co.uk, please delete the email and do not reply. I am warning you in case he should ask you for money. I would hate to think that one of my clients was swindled by this unscrupulous cyber fraud. Many thanks.

P.S. “How many design consultants does it take to change a light bulb?”

Answer: “It is not within a design consultants remit to administer practical installations. A design consultant is qualified to give advice on the most suitable place to install said light bulb. He may also offer advice about the optimum type of light bulb and light fitting, in order to maximise aesthetic value whilst providing a solution that is most energy efficient and cost effective. The design consultant however would not be expected or licensed to offer practical assistance on a site or property, therefore it would not be the responsibility or function of a design consultant to change the light bulb.”

A design consultant friend recently told this joke in a speech for a colleague’s retirement party, and it brought the house down; not literally, obviously, we are building design consultants, and therefore would hardly book an unstable structure to hold one of our parties in. I thought I’d share this joke with my clients, because I know there’s a myth that we design consultants don’t have much of a sense of humour, but as you can see, that’s just nonsense.””

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I’m writing this after our gig at Bromyard folk festival. We’d been warned by some of the other performers who’d played over the weekend that the stage had an infestation of spiders. A few singers had apparently inhaled a few spiders. This was done accidentally, obviously, because they were singing and the spiders were crawling over the microphone. I don’t want you thinking that There’s some weird craze amongst folk performers to get high by snorting insects. I want to make it clear that neither I or the other two Young’uns have ever tried to get high by snorting insects. Sticking insects up our bottoms, maybe, but certainly not snorting. So I’m glad we cleared that up.

The warnings proved accurate, for on a few occasions, I had to wipe cobwebs from the mic. There are times in various songs where I put my mouth right onto the microphone in order to amplify the bass notes. Despite the fact that I was potentially going to be inhaling spiders, I still put my mouth right onto the microphone. This is the mark of a true professional. I was willing to risk choking on spiders for the good of the performance. And I am such a professional, that even if I was choking to death on spiders, I would of course choke to my death in rhythm, possibly even adding some rasping in the correct key.

This incident reminded me of the song, I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly. The song is flawed on so many levels. He says that he knows an old lady, which suggests that the lady is still alive. He also says, “perhaps she’ll die,” which denotes that the lady is still alive at the time of the song’s inception. Presumably then, the person writing this song is with the lady while she is swallowing this crazy cocktail of animals, yet rather than intervening and saving this woman’s life, he instead chooses to write a song about the unfolding insanity. This old woman is clearly a congenitally woeful decision maker: she makes a series of massively ill-informed choices, which essentially leads to her inevitable death, and she’s chosen a friend, who stands idly by, writing a song, while she dies.

I’m also confused by her friend’s reasoning. He doesn’t know why she swallowed the fly. Presumably it was an accident, unless he knows that she deliberately swallowed the fly. But even so, I don’t think the swallowing of the fly is the major incident here. But despite the old lady’s decision to swallow a spider to catch the fly, swallow a bird to catch the spider, swallow a cat to catch the bird etc, and despite observing the old lady’s great discomfort, and mind boggling stupid actions in a desperate attempt to remedy her situation, he nevertheless keeps going back to the fact that he doesn’t know why she swallowed the fly. Forget the bloody fly, she’s just swallowed a dog to catch the cat. Do something, you idiot. Don’t just sit there, pontificating about why she swallowed the fly. The fly is inconsequential.

This old lady’s friend seems to have a severely warped sense of perspective. She swallows the fly, which causes him to remark that “perhaps she’ll die.” Why would she die? It’s only a fly. But then, when the old lady swallows the spider, is reaction is exactly the same. He expresses his confusion as to why she swallowed the fly, and then restates that “perhaps she’ll die.” He retains the same level of concern throughout the entire ordeal, even though she starts swallowing cats and dogs.

The lady is clearly getting more and more desperate as the situation progresses. Even though her first few ingestions were ill-advised, at least they made some sort of sense: spiders eat flies, birds eat spiders, cats eat birds. But then she clearly goes all to pot, and makes increasingly weird choices. She swallows a dog; but dogs don’t eat cats? She swallows a goat? Then a cow? A horse?! There is now no semblance of logic. She is presumably hysterical, desperate, and growing increasingly mentally impaired, as a result of ingesting all these live animals.

The other odd part of the man’s account of this event is at the end, when she swallows a horse. “She’s dead, of course,” he writes. He doesn’t seem overly surprised that she’s managed to survive swallowing a cat, a dog, a goat and a cow. If I saw an old lady swallow a cow, a goat, a dog and a cat, I’d be astounded that she was somehow still alive. But if it was me, I’d have intervened at the swallowing of the spider. This man has just seen an old lady swallow a horse, a cow, a goat, a dog and a cat, and watched the resultant carnage and subsequent death of this old lady, and yet he still remains impassive. This man is in a way guilty of murder. This old lady has clearly got mental health problems, and this man has failed to intervene, despite the fact that he clearly knew what was going to happen if she kept swallowing all those animals.

The only explanation as to the man’s behaviour is to assume that he too has serious mental health problems. This would explain his compulsive journaling, his absurdly apathetic nature, his complete lack of perspective, and inability to offer rational and practical assistance to his friend.

So, this begs the question, why were these two severely mentally ill people unsupervised. This raises many concerns about their local social services, as these two people clearly needed special attention. I am also confused as to why this old lady had such easy access to so many animals. Presumably she was on a farm. Maybe this is why social services hadn’t intervened, because they were living in a remote area, away from local resources. Given that she was able to get access to all these farm animals, I assume they must be on a farm, because surely all of this was happening in a fairly short space of time. Surely this scenario occurred because of a series of increasingly desperate attempts to remedy her plight. Surely this wasn’t a premeditated series of thought-out solutions, that involved her driving across town to find a cow and a goat. I am doutful whetehr she would have the time or the ability to drive across town to find these animals, with a dog and a cat inside her. I think we can safely assume therefore that these two people were seriously mentally ill, and living on a remote farm.

I wonder what happened to the man, and if his diaries are still in existence. He has unusually repetitive way of writing, but it would be interesting to know more about the people behind this tragic story.

I might do some digging and see what I can unearth. If anyone has any ideas then feel free to get in touch. I know I’ve hit you hard with a lot of thought provoking ideas about this famous story. It’s a lot to swallow, isn’t it?

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Yesterday I mentioned that I frequently receive emails intended for another David Eagle, a design consultant from Stoke. I try to email everyone back, explaining that they’ve got the wrong David Eagle, and this is quite an undertaking, because David Eagle the design consultant from stoke gets a hell of a lot of emails. But my efforts don’t seem to do anything to stem the flood, and more and more emails keep coming in. But then a few months ago, I finally received an email from the other David Eagle.

His email address was the same as mine, except for one letter. He said that he’d heard that a few emails intended for him had come to me, and wondered whether I could forward them on to him. A few emails? There were hundreds of the bloody things. He also asked if I could forward any future emails straight to him, and he would respond to them letting them know that they’d emailed the wrong person. I don’t think the other David Eagle was prepared for the amount of emails I forwarded him. I trawled my inbox for the emails and began forwarding them onto him. It took me hours. There was no shortcut that I could think of. I had to click on each email in turn, and then forward that email to him. I was potentially saving his business here. Each email was potentially rescuing thousands of pounds worth of work, which might never have been gained if it wasn’t for my act of altruism. If I’d have been more savvy, I would have done a bit of haggling and tried to wangle a fee for my half day’s work. But I am far too soft and nice, and so I forwarded him every single email and agreed to forward him all future miss sent messages.

The other David Eagle replied with his thanks, his apologies and expressed surprise by the sheer volume of emails. Over the coming weeks the emails kept pouring in, and I would forward each one to the other David Eagle. At the start he would respond with a “thanks,” but after awhile he stopped responding. I received a couple of emails over Christmas and I forwarded them onto him with a little friendly Christmas message, telling him that these were his Christmas presents from me. I didn’t get anything back. I got another email for him a few days later, which I forwarded to him and told him that because he’d been good, I was giving him two Christmas presents this year. He clearly wasn’t interested in my attempts to engage in such idle banter. I continue to forward his emails to him regardless, in spite of his lack of gratitude or even acknowledgement , because that’s the kind of nice person I am.

Without me, he might never know that his villa project was ready to have faze two implemented, and he might be sat at his desk, twiddling his thumbs, wondering why faze one was taking so damn long. Recently I got an email for the other David Eagle from a company who had booked a rather posh hotel for him with breakfast included and it was all paid for by the company. All the information about the booking reference and the people who had booked it was included in the email. I could have gone to the hotel, handed over the dails, pretended to be the other dAvid Eagle, and had a free stay and a breakfast. But, because I am nice, I forwarded the details to the intended David Eagle. And did I get a thank you? No.

If this ungrateful silence from the other David Eagle continues, then I may be inclined to ask you all who are reading this to email david@davidmeagle.co.uk and make loads of Dollop related references, as if you thought you were emailing me. And we’ll see how he likes it? And we’ll see if he forwards the emails to me. I don’t think this David Eagle realises who he might be potentially making an enemy of. I have the power to instruct my army of readers to never use David Eagle from Stoke’s design consultancy services, and this could have disastrous consequences for David Eagle’s business. After all , I have at least 200 people reading this, David, and there’s a chance that maybe one or two of those people might have needed some design consultancy doing, and maybe they might have come to you, but not now. So as you can see, David, you don’t want to be messing with me. A thank you costs nothing, but a lack of a thank you could end up costing you dearly. It’s a shame to war with my own namesake, but you are forcing my hand, David Eagle. I’ve stopped putting little jocular messages in the forwards now, because it’s clear that you’re not up for bantering, and that’s fine. But a thank you would be nice. And I don’t even require a thank you for every email; just once in a while would be nice. We David Eagles have a reputation to uphold, and this lack of common curtisy is not doing the David Eagle name any favours.

Thank you.