Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I checked my emails. I was still in bed. This was another of my delaying tactics to gain me a bit longer before I got up. I’ve already checked Twitter, Facebook, The Guardian and the Huffington post, replied to Dollop comments from my adoring fans – hello by the way. I also checked my emails when I originally woke up, but that was over an hour ago, so I should really give the inbox another quick check, and then I’ll definitely get up, I reasoned

I opened my new email. “Morning David, Alex here, just to let you know that we are ready to implement faze two. Details below. I look forward to your response, plus any news you have about the villa.” Ah, that’s nice, excellent news, good old Alex. Hang on, who is Alex? And what does he mean by “faze two?” Is he referring to my Dollop from a few days ago entitled Eaglebot Faze One, where I suggested that there are so many recordings on the Internet of me speaking – with this daily blog and such – that if I ever found myself in a similar situation to Steven Hawking then I could have a specially programmed voice which would be my actual voice, rather than the synthetic Steven Hawking voice. This would also be rather practical, especially when I’m communicating with any of my blind friends, as they would know that it was me talking, rather than getting confused and thinking that they were chatting to Steven Hawking. Maybe Alex was a computer programmer who had gotten to work on this project, uploading recordings of my voice saying various words into the database, and now he’d reached the stage where he was ready to implement faze two, what ever that was, but it sounded exciting, almost as exciting as an anecdote about socks (see yesterday’s Dollop).

I was a bit puzzled by the line, “I look forward to your response, plus any news about the villa.” If this computer programmer had managed to create a prototype of the Eaglebot and send me an email about it, then presumably he was able to use the Internet, so why couldn’t he get his own football news – I assumed he was referring to aston Villa football club. Perhaps he was emailing from somewhere like China, and the government for some reason had blocked the Googling of Aston Villa, and this poor computer programmer was bereft of news about his chosen English football club. I don’t know why the Chinese government would be concerned with their citizens finding information about aston Villa, but I am merely a British folk singer and blogger; I am not clued up about Chinese Government policy, and to be honest, it wasn’t an area I wanted to be interfering in. I was unsure of how to proceed. Obviously I wanted to know more about his work on the Eaglebot, but was it worth making an enemy of the Chinese Government over?

I read the rest of the email, wondering what the “details below” would reveal. It soon became clear that the email was not intended for me, but for the other David Eagle. The other David Eagle runs something called a Design Consultancy company in stoke. It’s something to do with the design of buildings. So the reference in this email to “the villa,” was about an actual villa, as opposed to Aston Villa.

I’ve been getting lots of this David Eagle’s emails since the start of last year. It started with an email from one of David Eagle’s clients, wanting his input on some attached floor plan drawings. I emailed back to let him know that I was very ill qualified to help him in this regard, given my lack of knowledge regarding floor plans, and due to being unable to see the drawings because of being blind. I got an email back apologising, saying that he must have taken down the email address incorecctly.

But the seed had now been planted, for there were about another fifty people copied into his first email to me, and their computer had presumably saved the email address, meaning that every time someone went to email David Eagle, they got me instead. Over the next few weeks I replied to so many emails , requesting advice about various attached drawings and documents and I received a whole host of questions, and often there would be other people copied into the message, and so the chain grew, and I got more and more emails. As the weeks went on, I amassed quite the collection of confidential documents, invoices, contact details, information about business deals. I considered getting in touch with a rival design consultancy team, and seeing how much money they’d cough up for access to all this information about their competition. I kept replying to them and explaining that they’d got the wrong email address, but the emails kept coming and coming.

Then, after a couple of months of this, I finally got an email from the other David Eagle. What the email said is something I shall divulge to you tomorrow. Oh yes my friends, a cliffhanger, although to be honest, the cliffhanger is born more out of the fact that I am falling asleep at the computer, rather than it signifying anything of dramatic value to come.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

This is probably going to be a really short Dollop, because I am out and have no time to write anything. My plan was to spend the train journey writing, but when I got on the train all the seats were taken – you’ll have to take my word for it, in lieu of CCTV footage. I know that Corbyn traingate jokes are a bit old hat, but I haven’t got the time to think of anything more original or clever – sorry.

Last week I managed to write a Dollop on a train with no free seats by finding some space underneath the luggage wrack and sitting on the floor with my laptop on my crossed legs, but this train was too packed to even afford me any floor-sitting space, so I had to stand whilst people jostled for space, rubbing themselves against me (so it wasn’t all bad).

I then had to wait at the station for my connecting train. I searched for a seat, but they were all taken. I needed somewhere to sit so that I could get my laptop out and hurriedly write today’s Dollop. I found a narrow metal bar. It wasn’t very comfortable, and it was angled so that I kept nearly falling off it, but, bloggers can’t be choosers. That’s a good line, I thought (something which I’m sure you also have just thought) I must remember to write it in today’s Dollop. I got out my laptop to make a note of my hilarious play on words and to make a start on the blog, but it was impossible; the bar was too angled, and the laptop kept falling off my lap. I would have to wait until I got on the next train, where I would have just half an hour to write something.

The next train did have seats free, but when I sat down, a new problem presented itself. There were no double seats free, only seats next to someone or shared table seats. I opted for one of the table seats, and was just about to pull out my laptop when …

“Lovely day for it,” came the elderly posh sounding voice of the man on the seat opposite me. I wasn’t sure what exactly the “it” was that it was a lovely day for, but I didn’t have time to get into a discussion about “it,” so I muttered my agreement as politely as I could. The trouble is that I am too polite and self-conscious to snub someone’s invitation for a conversation. Despite needing to get immediately to work on the Dollop, I nevertheless was unable to merely give a non-committed grunt, indicating to the man my disinterest in talking to him. Instantly I felt awkward and guilty about my lacklustre response to his friendly, “lovely day for it,” and my next course of action was to do all I could to redress my initial weak offering. Even though I knew that if I didn’t get this Dollop written on the train then I would have to do it while I was out, and thus be extremely antisocial, at least I’d be being anti-social with close friends, and that, for some reason, didn’t make me feel as uncomfortable as ignoring a stranger’s small talk. My brain was sending me messages that this man and everyone in the carriage was looking at me and judging me as a dull, anti-social misery. It was now up to me to save the situation, turn it around, and show them that I was no such thing.

“Yes my friend,” I said with piles of enthusiasm, “it certainly is? So,” I clapped my hands, “To where are you bound, my friend?” I jovially intoned. No, now I’d gone too far the other way. I was sounding far too energetic and excitable for a casual bit of small talk with a stranger on a train. I’d tried to compensate for my earlier taciturn response, but had clearly overcompensated. I’d been far too loud and energetic, called him my friend twice, which was a bit desperate, and clapped my hands. Why had I clapped my hands? And why did I say, “to where are you bound?” Who says, “to where are you bound?” “Where are you off to then?” would have been more conventional, rather than loudly enquiring, “to where are you bound, my friend?” with great relish. I’d also employed a weird singsong posh accent; I have no idea why – maybe I thought it gave me a more cheery, friendly manner, but actually it just made me sound odd.

The man told me to where he was bound, and we fell into conversation. I instantly decided to ditch the weird posh singsong voice, assuming that he’d soon forget about it once he’d become distracted by my scintillating conversation.

Scintillating it wasn’t. My mind was on the Dollop and the fact that I was going to have to somehow write it while I was out, and ignore my friends. I have no idea how we got onto the topic, but he was talking about the fact that he had to buy a new pair of socks because when he woke up this morning he discovered that there was a hole in one of them. I then became aware of the sound of my own voice saying, “I always get holes in my socks. I don’t know how it happens. I don’t remember them having a hole in when I take them off, but when I put them back on again, there’s a hole.” What the hell was I blabbering on about? Both me and the man gave almost identical timid, joyless laughs. I’m not sure why we laughed, it wasn’t very funny, but I suppose it just felt like the right thing to do. If he’d said the thing about waking up to find a hole in his sock, and I’d have countered with, “oh, darn it,” then that would have been very different, then we’d have had good reason to laugh, but I was being altogether too dull for that kind of hilarious wordplay. I wondered what the other people near must think of us. They must think we were the most boring people on the planet. I expect that you are thinking the same thing right now, having just read this Dollop. Sorry. Anyway, I must go, before my friends disown me.

Today’s Dollop might rankle the Dollop purists and cause them to cry Judas, for today I hand over the reins to Niall Boylan, a radio talk show host on Northern Ireland radio station 4FM.

Download today’s audio Dollop here

In today’s audio Dollop, I conduct an experiement to try and make jokes using the articles generated by Wikipedia’s Random Article feature.

Download it here

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Today I have been working on the final part of The Young’uns In The Mix, which I shall release on The Young’uns Podcast and David Eagle’s Pick And Mix in the next couple of weeks. Thanks to one of Youtube’s recommended videos last night, I came across a tutorial that gave tips for removing unwanted noise from recordings. This video surfaced at an opportune time because it may come in useful for the bit of The Young’uns In The Mix that I am currently working on. I am taking samples from a variety of old radio recordings and records, and there is quite a lot of crackle and hiss on the various samples. But I’ve been able to strip a lot of that extranious noise away, thanks to this tutorial video. Basically, you play the programme a sample of the noise you want to remove, it then analyses it and removes that specific noise from the recording.

However, even more beneficial and exciting than removing unwanted noise from old recordings, is the notion that theoretically I can now use this tool on The Young’uns Podcast to automatically remove Michael Hughes and his various inane comments. This will save me a hell of a lot of editing time.

It will also come in useful when I release Now That’s What I Call David Eagle, Volume One, which is the much anticipated compilation album of songs made by me between the age of seven and ten. I will now be able to use this noise removal tool to delete all the tape hiss in order to create remastered versions of the songs. This is very exciting, as imagine how incredible it will be to hear Daniel Wet Himself Today in Crystal clear sound. There was also a video that autoplayed on Youtube, as I began to fall asleep, about a tool that creates stereo or surround sound tracks from mono files, using some kind of clever audio trickery. So I will be able to release a special enhanced version of Now That’s What I Call David Eagle, Volume One, meaning that you can listen to Daniel Wet Himself Today in 7.1 surround sound. This will be especially useful for when some big budget film company wants to turn my life into a blockbuster movie; they will be able to incorporate my childhood recordings into the film in immersive 3D audio.

Also, when I was a child I recorded everything, meaning that I have so many cassette tapes of me talking. This means that I probably won’t need to have a voice actor playing the part of my seven-year-old self, because I could cobble together my dialogue using samples of my actual seven-year-old voice.

I suppose this is also a benefit of recording so many Dollops and Podcasts. If I ended up having a trgic accident or had a condition that meant I was unable to speak and had to communicate using a device like Stephen Hawking, I could probably still speak with my old voice rather than using the Stephen Hawking style voice. I’ve recorded so many hours of me talking, that I most likely have a recording of me saying nearly every word in the dictionary, or at least every word that I’d be likely to want to say. I could then put all these words into the machine and thus, despite not being able to use my mouth, I could still speak with my own voice. Granted, it would take a rather long time to go through every single word I’d ever spoken and add them to the computer, but I’m paralysed for goodness sake, so I’d have plenty of time on my hands. Plus, nowadays, I could probably get people to help me over the Internet. All they would need to do is download the speech programme, sift through all the Dollops and Podcasts and add the words to the speech programme’s database. I’m sure I’d have plenty of Dollop listeners who’d be happy to help out with such a project.

Once all the possible words have been added to the database, we can then role out Eaglebot faze 2. If there happens to be a word that I want to use that I don’t seem to have ever recorded me saying, then my team of helpers can start taking syllable from other words and editing them together to form the missing word. So for instance, let’s say that there is no recording of me saying the word “infrastructure,” but there is a recording of the word “infrared” and the word “structure,” we can take the “infra” from “infrared” and place it before the word “structure,” to create the word “infrastructure.” Obviously, there will now be lots of instances of me saying the word “infrastructure,” because I’ll have said the word quite a few times when I come to record the audio version of this Dollop, unless of course something terrible happens to me overnight before I get a chance to make the recording, but I am confident that regardless, I will still have enough words recorded to make the word “infrastructure,” so I’m not overly concerned.

I suppose there is also commercial viability in this project, as people will be able to download my voice onto their computers, tablets, phones
and satnavs, and have my voice reading their text messages and emails, and giving them directions. Maybe I’ll setup a kickstarter campaign to get this off the ground. Get in touch if you’re a programmer who fancies helping out.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I have started adding a few of these Dollops to Youtube. The reason for this is to give people who might not have heard of me, and therefore would not hear any of my work, the opportunity to experience what I do. What a benevolent man I am; it’s kind of like missionary work. Ordinarily, the only people who would read or listen to these blogs/podcasts are people who have deliberately come to my website because they have some idea of who I am. Sometimes there are a few people who accidentally stumble onto my website when searching for things like, “fat gay Hungarian plumbers,” (see this Dollop if you’re confused) but these people are unlikely to stay on my website for long once they’ve realised that I’m not offering what they want. I mean, I suppose there might be someone out there who now regularly reads and listens to these Dollops after accidentally finding me by searching for something like “fat gay Hungarian Plumbers,” and for some reason continued reading, even though it wasn’t at all what they were initially looking for, and now they come back everyday to read each dollop. But it’s doubtful that there are many people reading this who fit that description. Most people who read and listen to these Dollops know who I am.

The great thing about Youtube is that it allows people to accidentally discover things. It recommends videos that you might like, based on what you’ve previously watched. It also has an autoplay feature, meaning that once you’re chosen video has finished, another one will automatically start playing. And it could be anything, especially if you’re like me and you fall asleep halfway through your chosen video, meaning that the autoplay feature keeps moving onto video after video, until you wake up to find yourself listening to a documentary on a man who claims to have travelled to the year 3000. I’ve done the whole falling-asleep-while-on-Youtube thing so many times that my recommended videos section is very weird and unrelated.

I’ve just opened the Youtube app on my phone. Here is a list of the videos that come up for me to watch. Consciousness Is A Mathematical Pattern. A documentary about Near Death Experiences. What If The Middle East’s Borders Were Redrawn, by the American Enterprise Institute. Richard Whiteley Countdown Gotcha. The song Bird In The Bush by folk singer Anne Briggs. Jeremy Corbyn’s tridant renewal speech. Bohemium Rhapsody for Symphony Orchestra and Solo Viola. The Coming Quantum Computer Revolution. Amazing Beat Boxing Girl. Inside The Weird World Of An Islamic Feminist Cult. The Nature Of Space And Time From A Biocentrist Perspective. The Economic Argument Against Neoliberalism. An interview with George Formby. An interview with George Galloway. This Is Why The Zionist’s Want Jeremy Corbyn Out!!! Talking With Hookers Over A Cb Radio. Tom Hanks: America Will be Fine If Trump becomes President.

Perhaps now you have an explanation for why I’m so unhinged, and why these Dollops are often so odd; because this is the collage of craziness that I am drifting in and out of consciousness to every night. And the more Youtube is allowed to use its autoplay feature without human intervention, the more absurd and disperate the video choices become.

So I am putting my stuff on Youtube on the off chance that someone might fall asleep while watching a documentary about 18th Century Russia, and then wake up, completely bewildered to hear me talking about fat gay Hungarian Plumbers, or going on a surreal flight of fancy about the Microsoft Office Paperclip becoming sentient and beating up some MP3 files (see yesterday’s Dollop).

I’m also interested to find out which videos Youtube deems appropriate to play after one of my videos. For instance, if you listen to the aforementioned Dollop entitled Fat Gay Hungarian Plumbers, then the next video to play is entitled beautiful muscle man, which was uploaded by the police Gay Channel.

So far, I don’t think my move on to Youtube has really been successful, given that most of the videos haven’t even gained a single view. I haven’t advertised the fact that the Dollops are on Youtube, but I hoped that some people might accidentally stumble onto me, but alas it hasn’t happened yet. Also, despite being the number one search result for the term “David Eagle” in Google, when it comes to Youtube I am not doing anywhere near as well. I am trailing behind a David Eagle who does Martial Arts, and David Eagle the professional Ping Pong player. So, if you want to help my noble cause to get unsuspecting Youtube viewers to stumble across me and my Dollops, then go to Youtube, do a search for David Eagle and click on the videos that are mine. This is a truly noble task, for one day, with your help, someone masturbating to a video of a beautiful muscly gay policeman might be wiping himself clean to the sounds of my voice, as I read out a lengthy blog all about my kettle. So act now, my friends, and together we can make this happen, and bring these Dollops to the masses.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Some days are harder than others when it comes to writing the daily Dollop. Today is one of those annoying ones where I feel really tired and devoid of any creative thought. I’ve been sitting at the computer for ages, having not written a single word.

Although I wasn’t feeling at all creatively inspired to write anything, my brain was having no problem being creative when it came to procrastination exercises. I think I must be one of the most creative procrastinators out there. Seriously. At one point I became aware that I was absent-mindedly reading my computer’s desktop icons and counting them. There were eleven. I decided that some of these weren’t necessary and so I went through them again and got rid of three of them. Then I decided to see how many files were in my various folders on the computer. In order to give this exercise a bit of added spice, I pretended that each folder was taking part in a competition, and the winning folder would be the one containing the most files.

First up, Documents vs Downloads – what an epic battle this was going to be between these two heavy -weight folders. As I clicked on to the computer icon, the proud roared excitedly as the list of folders presented themselves and the Downloads and Documents folders came into view. I clicked onto the documents folder, and a hush descended over the crowd as the counting commenced. 118 files.

“Well, it’s a good number, but is it enough,” intoned the commentator.

“Yes, Well, it’s very much a game of two folders, and we’ve currently only seen the one, so it’s not over yet,” added one of the expert pundits, who used to compete as a My Music folder in the days of Windows XP.

The roar of the crowd once again died down as the Downloads folder was opened and the counting commenced. It was evident that it was going to be close. The crowd held their breath. 110 files. The downloads folder lost out to the Documents folder by just eight files. The Documents folder’s supporters went wild.

“Well it was a close game, but at the end of the day, the Downloads folder just didn’t have enough files in it to win,” remarked the other expert pundit, a retired My Received Files folder from the days of MSN Messenger.

“Next up, ladies and gentlemen, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” came the voice over the PA, “it’s the battle of the file types. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing two heavy-weight contenders, it’s word documents versus MP3s.” Naturally, the crowd went crazy. Then came the walk-on music, which played as the two opposing file types came out into the ring. There was a bit of jiving from the MP3 supporters, who mocked the Word documents for the fact that their chosen walk-on music, which was playing over the PA, was an MP3 file. The MP3 brigade all thought that this was very funny indeed, and there was much taunting. This riled the supporters of the Word Documents, and a bit of a fight broke out among some of the fans. The Stewards waded in, and the fighting soon stopped. After all, no one wanted to be escorted off the premises, and miss such an epic battle as the great head-to-head between the MP3s and the word documents.

First up, MP3s. A hush descended over the crowd as the count commenced. The count took some time, due to the number of files, but then the results were in. 316.

“It’s a nice high number, but will it be enough? If there are more Word Documents, then the Word documents will win. It’s very much a game of two file types, so it’s not over yet” said the retired My Music folder.

Then came the count for the Word documents. 145. The MP3 supporters went wild, but there was dissension amongst the Word Documents, who were remonstrating with the officials about the rules of the game. The officials had only counted .doc and .docx files, and had failed to include .txt (plain text files) and .rtf (rich text files). The Word Document team were arguing that these were valid Word Documents, given that they are files that can be saved and read by Microsoft Word. But the officials weren’t having any of it, and refused to back down.

A massive fight began to break out between the Word documents and, the MP3 files and the officials. The Word Documents were coming off much worse in the fracas, until the Microsoft Office paperclip waded into the fray and began laying waste to all who came in its way. The MP3s and the officials lay sprawled on the floor, flat out and defeated. The Office paperclip then triumphantly popped up onto the stadium’s big screen, displaying the results of the game, which just so happened to be in a Word Document. The paperclip replaced the MP3 files’ score of 316 with a zero, put the word “winner” in a big bold font next to the Word Documents’ column, and then riled the MP3s’ supporters even more by writing “hahaha,” in a massive evil looking font. It then saved the file as a read-only document, to avoid the result being changed.

And then Ben walked in my room, handed me a cup of tea and asked me what I was doing, whichbrought me back to reality. I checked the time. I really needed to stop this ridiculous procrastinating exercise, and get on with actually writing something for this Dollop. So I did, and you’ve just read it. Whether you’ve enjoyed it is another matter altogether, but in fairness, this challenge was merely that I did a blog every day for this year; I never stipulated in the rules that what I wrote had to be any good, so I am still a winner.

If there is anyone who works in film and TV who is interested in turning my epic file types battle into a film or TV drama, then feel free to get in touch. Naturally, I don’t come cheep, but it’ll be worth it. I have some great ideas for a showdown between XL and PDF files. Let the bidding war commence.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

At the end of yesterday’s Dollop there was a reference to Christian rock. This reminded me of the first concert I ever went to. I was brought up a Catholic and the church youth group organised a trip to see a Christian rock concert. I was about ten-year-old, but even so I found the whole experience unsettling and cringe worthy.

We all travelled to the concert on a coach, and spent the journey singing happy clappy Jesus songs. I hated it. I used to really enjoy the music at church. We had the luxury of a talented organist in our congregation, and a sizeable, good quality church organ. He was able to play the organ properly, including all the pedals, and the sound was incredible. I used to go to church as a child making no fuss whatsoever, because I was spellbound by the music: the power of the organ, the soaring voices of the choir, complete with descants and layers of harmony. Our priest, Father Kennedy, was also a really good singer, and where other priests might have chosen to just say most of the mass with a dry delivery, he would take any opportunity possible to sing the various elements of the service, such as the offertory, and the bit where he tells you all to shake hands and wish each other peace.

But I wasn’t a fan of this kind of happy clappy stuff that we were singing on the coach. Someone had a guitar which they could play in a mediocre fashion, and there was nothing beautiful, mysterious or powerful about the music. No lingering discords, no low, resonant pedal notes, no soaring counter-melodies or spine-tingling choral harmonies; just clumsy guitar thrashing, people lacklustrely clapping their hands and belting out twee lyrics like, “rise and shine and give God his glory glory,” or “he’s got the whole world in his hands,” sang out-of-tune in slight American accents over dull and repetitious three chord guitar strumming.

I especially hated those happy clappy Jesus songs that were meant to be funny. Songs that tried desperately to say, “hey, look, we believe in Jesus but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a sense of humour,” although in actuality, they proved the very opposite point. I can’t remember any of these songs. I’ve racked my brain to try and dredge up an example of one of these songs, but I must have repressed the memories; that’s how hideously bad and painfully nauseating they were. I would try and wrack my brain harder, but I’m on a train, and I don’t want to have some kind of psychotic episode or breakdown by resurfacing such horrors.

Little did I know that the worst part of the evening was still yet to come, and that the happy clappy songs on the bus were nothing, compared to the misery that I was about to suffer. The concert was horrendous. I know I might be depicting myself as a really snobbish, pretentious child, but I don’t care. I loved music, music was my world. I loved the sound of the church organ and the choir. I also loved my dad’s record collection: Mike Oldfield, Cat Stevens, Leonard Cohen, Al Stewart, Harry Chapin, King Crimson … I loved listening to John Peel at night and the incredible array of sounds and styles. But this concert was the most middle-of-the-road, uninspiring drivel I’d ever heard. I don’t remember any of the songs obviously, but they were essentially three chords all the way through, electric guitar, bass, a keyboard playing an uninspiring string pad, and very simplistic drum accompaniment, while the frontman sang things like, “Jesus is great, yeah yeah yeah, Jesus is great , yeah yeah yeah yeah,” and got everyone in the audience to join in and clap along. In fact, three quarters of every song seemed to be him getting the audience to join in with the mind-numbingly repetitious hook, while clapping along. There was nothing of interest or substance at all.

Towards the end of the concert, the frontman shouted to the audience, “OK, are you ready to show Jesus that you love him?” There was a loud and enthusiastic “yeah” from the audience. “OK, everybody stand up. Stand up for Jesus. Let’s show Jesus just how much we love him.”

I was confused by the logic of this idea. Did the man really think that Jesus would be watching and would be thrilled that some people in a concert hall in Newcastle were standing up for him. Baring in mind that Jesus’ father is all-knowing, surely his dad already knew if you really loved his son, and could easily pass the knowledge on to his son. So I think the act of standing up is a bit redundant, but I might be wrong, maybe God and Jesus are up in heaven looking down and getting all excited by what’s happening.

“Oo, Come over here Jesus, there’s a few hundred people in a concert hall in Newcastle who are about to stand up to show their love for us.”

“Oh great. Tell me more father. Who have we got?”

“well there’s Brian Jackson, the welder from Sunderland, he’s just stood up.”

“Good old Brian. He’s a pretty solid candidate for heaven.”

“Yep, and we’ve got Joan Taylor, the baker from Billingham. She’s just stood up. Er, Cliff Bailey, the landlord in Darlington…”

“Ah, so old Cliff’s finally come around to believing in us, has he? Interesting.”

“Well he’s got a lot of catching up to do if he wants to get into heaven, after the whole adultery episode, not to mention that time I caught him coveting his neighbours’ oxen. And you know that’s one of my pet hates, the ox coveting. I’ll be reminding him about that when he gets to the gates.”

I very much doubt Jesus or God are in the least bit bothered whether a few hundred people stand up in a middle-of-the-road Christian rock concert in Newcastle to clap, sway and sing, “Jesus we love you, yeah yeah yeah yeah,” over and over again.

Off course I stood up. Everyone else around me was standing up. So I stood and I half-heartedly swayed and clapped. After another thirty repeats of the “Jesus we love you, yeah yeah yeah yeah” hook, the frontman once again addressed the audience.

“OK, There are a small handful of people in this hall tonight, just a small handful of people, who are not standing up. Now, don’t look round, we don’t want to embarrass them. But I want to repeat my invitation to stand up. Join us, stand up, and show the Lord Jesus that you love him. Come on, stand up for Jesus.”

He then recommenced his singing. “Jesus we love you, yeah yeah yeah yeah,” over and over again, and the audience all joined in, whilst no doubt trying to subtly turn their heads to take a peak at the remaining few people who hadn’t stood up. After another minute of “Jesus we love you, yeah yeah yeah yeah,” the front man’s voice came again.

“OK, bless you my friends for choosing to join us in standing up to show the Lord Jesus that we love him. But, there are still three people in this hall tonight – and please don’t look round, we don’t want them to be embarrassed – but I want to extend my invitation to them one more time. Come, join us, stand up, and show the Lord Jesus that you love him tonight. Come on. Let’s encourage them everybody, clap your hands, raise your voices and let’s sing: Stand up for Jesus, yeah yeah yeah yeah, stand up for Jesus, yeah yeah yeah yeah …”

A minute or so later, the front man shouted to the audience that there were now only two people who weren’t standing up to show the Lord Jesus that they loved him. After another two minutes of this weird and pointless hectoring, the two remaining people stood up. The front man was triumphant and the audience whooped and cheered this apparent victory, and everyone sang over and over again, with even more vigour: “Jesus we love you, yeah yeah yeah yeah …”

My dad also thought it was a bit much and fortunately he never took me to another Christian rock concert. I continued going to church, until the organist left the church to become a priest. They never did manage to replace the organist; instead, they just had someone who would play the starting note, and we would lacklustrely join in, drifting more and more out of tune as the song progressed. But then, a couple of weeks later, the priest announced the good news that we would shortly be getting a replacement musician to accompany the singing. “I am happy to say that as of next week, we will have guitar accompaniment from a member of the church youth team.” I knew it was time to leave, and I had to break the news to my dad that I wouldn’t be going to church any more.

“Jesus, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news son. We’ve lost David Eagle.”

“What?! Really?! Damn! But he stood up for me in Newcastle only a couple of years ago. Oh, that is a disappointment.”

“And I’m afraid we’ve lost Cliff Bailey, the pub landlord from Darlington. He’s just coveted his neighbour’s oxen again. I won’t tolerate it Jesus.”

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

So, I am now over two thirds of the way through this daily blogging challenge. A part of me is wondering weather I should start preparing for next year by implementing a fazed retirement scheme, meaning that these blog posts would get progressively shorter, in order to acquaint me with my new life next year away from the rigours of daily blogging. Of course, there was a time that retired bloggers could rely on their state pension, but sadly those days are gone, so I might have to do a few odd jobs to keep the wolf from the door, such as washing neighbour’s cars or a bit of prostitution. Or I suppose I could start up a zoo in my garden and charge people for entry. Obviously I’d make sure that my zoo contained a few lions, tigers and coyotes which should prove a formidable defence in the event that the wolf did come to my door. I could do a special deal whereby you can come and look at the animals while I wash your car, and then we have sex. What a quality deal. Obviously I’d charge extra if you wanted to involve any of the animals in the sex. Hmm, I’m getting a good business model together here I think. So that’s my retirement plan all sorted then.

When I got in today’s taxi, the driver was playing a song on the car stereo. The only words I caught were “so don’t talk to me about Muhammad.” The rest of the song was cut off by an incoming phone call. I couldn’t understand the phone conversation because he wasn’t speaking English, so my mind began to wonder back to the song. I assumed there was more to the song, although I suppose he might have had a special feature installed in his car that plays a little jingle/song whenever the passenger opens the door to get in. And for some reason, this particular driver had chosen “so don’t talk to me about Muhammad.” Maybe this was an instruction to his passengers. The passengers would get in the taxi, here the little jingle and then know that this particular driver doesn’t want to have a conversation about Muhammad, which as we all know is a common conversation topic among passengers and drivers of taxis. Maybe other taxi drivers have their own chosen jingles installed, such as, “so don’t ask me whether it’s been a busy one, or what time I’m on til. Do you really think I want to spend my life answering the same inane questions over and over again?”

To be honest, I was glad that this driver spent the entire journey on the phone, because I wasn’t sure what I’d talk to him about, given that he didn’t want to talk about Muhammad, which is generally my go-to conversation topic with taxi drivers. While the driver chatted away, presumably about something none-Muhammad related – I hope his friend knew the rule – , I did an Internet search on my phone for “so don’t talk to me about Muhammad song lyrics,” and discovered the words to a song by an artist called Dawud Wharnsby. As well as the lyrics, there was a link to the song on Youtube, and when the chorus kicked in I knew that it was the same song that I’d heard a few minutes earlier over the car speakers. So it seems as if it was just chance that I happened to get into the car, just as an impassioned voice warned me not to talk about Muhammad, before being cut off by a phone call. So it wasn’t a custom-made jingle designed to warn passenger’s of taboo conversation topics; that cleared that up then. But then, as I looked further down the webpage, I noticed the title of another of Dawud Wharnsby’s songs: “So Don’t Ask Me If It’s Been a busy One Or What Time I’m On Til.”

The song Don’t Talk To Me About Muhammad has some rather interesting lyrics.

“It would be such a pleasure to have you come along with me,
I accept your gracious offer of kindness and company.
But as we walk along young man and as you help me with my load,
I’ve only one request as we travel down this road,
Don’t talk to me about Muhammad.
Because of him there is no peace and I have trouble in my mind,
so don’t talk to me about Muhammad
and as we walk along together we will get along just fine.”

So this person has made it pretty clear to his companion that he doesn’t want to talk about Muhammad, but rather than just simply saying, “oh by the way, I know it’s a bit of a strange request, but while we walk together I’d appreciate it if we’d avoid talking about Muhammad if that’s OK with you?” The companion might be a bit taken aback by this odd request, but would probably oblige and they’d spend a pleasant walk together chatting about none-Muhammad related stuff. But I would argue that this man has gone a very unusual roundabout way of asking someone not to talk to him about Muhammad. He’s asked his companion not to talk to him about Muhammad, before proceeding to go off on a bit of a rant about Muhammad. Still, he’s made his point very clear, and presumably now they can get on with their walk and chat about the weather or something. But no. The man continues blabbering on about the very thing he doesn’t want his companion to talk to him about. It’s becoming clear that this person doesn’t have a problem talking about Muhammad himself, he just seemingly doesn’t want someone else to talk about Muhammad to him.

“That man upsets me so, and so much more than you could know,
I hear of his name and reputation everywhere I go.
Though his family and his clan once knew him as an honest man,
he’s dividing everyone with his claim that “God is One”
So don’t talk to me about Muhammad.”

The man is seemingly unaware of the irony of what he’s doing, chattering away ten to the dozen to his companion about the very thing he’s telling his companion not to talk to him about. But as I say, he’s clearly not appreciated the irony of his behaviour, because he continues to whitter away about Muhammad some more.

“He’s misled all the weak ones and the poor ones and the slaves,
They think they’ve all found wealth and freedom following his ways.
He’s corrupted all the youth with his twisted brand of truth
convinced them they all are strong, given them somewhere to belong.
So don’t talk to me about Muhammad.”

I’m not even sure that there was any indication that this man’s companion even had any plans or desire to talk about Muhammad. The man is clearly mad. By this point the companion is presumably trying to interrupt the insane man’s Muhammad-based blabber, but he is having none of it. He continues.

“Let me give you some advice, since you’ve been so very nice,
From Muhammad stay away, don’t heed his words or emulate his way.
And don’t talk about Muhammad.”

By this point the man’s companion is probably losing the will to live. He had no intention of talking about Muhammad, although he’s now so sick of this weird man’s incessant chatter about not talking about Muhammad, that he’s tempted to start talking to him about Muhammad, just to antagonise the deranged idiot. Eventually the man stops his Muhammad-based diatribe and says to his companion, “Now before we part and go, if it’s alright just the same,
may I ask, my dear young man, who you are? What is your name?”

This man has presumably talked about Mohammed for so long that they’ve reached the end of their walk and he hasn’t even managed to let his companion introduce himself. The last few lines of the song are, “It is truly rather funny, though I’m sure I must be wrong,
but I thought I heard you said that your name is Muhammad……
Muhammad? Oh talk to me Muhammad!
Upon you I pray for peace for you have eased my troubled mind!
Oh talk to me Muhammad
and as we walk along together we will get along just fine,
and as I travel down life’s road I will get along just fine.”

What the bloody hell has just happened there. The companion has presumably told the man that he is called Muhammad, either that or the man is so deranged and so completely Muhammad obsessed that he has just misheard the man’s name as Muhammad, even though the man clearly said that it was John. Or maybe the companion has said he is called Muhammad in order to wined the man up, although surprisingly we discover that, rather than being annoyed or upset at this revelation, the man instead is jubilant and then jumps to the wild conclusion that the companion is actually The Muhammad, the very Muhammad that he has been ranting about all this time. He then begins profusely praising him

So, it seems as if Islamic music is just as stupid and risible as Christian music. Religions really do have more in common than they have in contrast. If only more religious people thought, “look, our music is nonsensical claptrap, yours is clearly incongruous bilge. We essentially like the same thing, only you’re lyrics are frequently peppered with the word Muhammad and ours with Jesus, but essentially it’s the same shit. Let’s be friends.” This realisation could save our planet and increase tolerance amongst the religions. You see, there was a kind of moral to this blog, wasn’t there. Oh, these Dollops work on so many levels.

The Young’uns Podcast is back! Our first podcast of 2016 comes live from the Folk East Festival in Suffolk, where we are joined by an enthusiastic audience, guests John Spiers, O’hooley & Tidow, and Sam Kelly. As well as songs and tunes, we play a game of Jenga, have a competition to see who can do the best impression of the characters from the children’s TV show Rainbow, play a geordie drinking game, and discuss all manner of miscellaneous claptrap. And even more exciting than all of that … It’s the return of Herbal Tea Of The week!!!

Download it here

You can freely subscribe to the podcast to recieve episodes automatically in your chosen podcasts programme, and download previous episodes at the Young’uns Podcast page here