It’s time for another walk. Along the way we meet a dead dog called Fido, a dead goldfish called Dred and Frank Sinatra makes an appearance. Plus there’s more unflattering David Eagle based Google searches to contend with.
Another audio Dollop, continuing from where we left off yesterday, with some new startling revelations.
Today’s audio-only Dollop is a light-hearted romp through the world of copyright infringement. It’s about time we had a light-hearted romp; I’m sure you’ll agree.
Firstly, a correction regarding yesterday’s Dollop: the Johnny Cash song I was referring to was of course Folsom Prison Blues, not I Heard That Lonesome Whistle, although both of those songs are about jail, and both of them refer to whistles, hence my confusion. I thought I better clarify that, because obviously I take journalistic accuracy very seriously in these Dollops, as you regular Dollop readers will attest. I challenge you to find a crumb of fabrication or inaccuracy in these Dollops. Go on, you can look but you won’t find it.
Today, The Young’uns went to prison. I know we’ve never revealed this before, but the real reason we’re in a folk band is because eleven years ago, we committed a spate of petty crimes, and were given a choice of two sentences by a radical judge who presided over our case: either to spend a year in prison, or do five years community service, performing as a folk band. But then, mere months later, our sentence was significantly increased, due to us being charged with murder. We didn’t actually kill anyone, but we were charged for massacring hundreds of traditional folk songs, and were thus sentenced to serve another ten years community service, performing in a folk band. This is basically the real reason The Young’uns began singing folk songs together.
We were meant to keep all this quiet, which is why we haven’t mentioned anything before, but we went to prison today to have our review, and we were told that we were finally allowed to disclose the truth. Given that, as I earlier intimated, these Dollops are a bastion of truth, I think it’s fitting that I should reveal this news on David’s daily Digital Dollop. In fact, the only reason I’m doing this daily blogging project is because I have to report my whereabouts and my activities to the authorities on a daily basis. This blog is basically a way of facilitating that, and means I don’t have to pop back into prison everyday to show my face. I just got a bit carried away with the whole blogging thing, which was simply meant to be a brief and basic diary of my daily activities, purely for the benefit of the prison wardens. But I thought I’d spice it up a bit and throw in a few jokes. I thought the wardens might appreciate it, as it can get a bit dull looking after a jail, especially on a boring none-rioting day. I also decided to make the blog public. That’s because I am an egomaniac.
While we were in the prison, we also had a chat with the governer about possibly doing something with the prisoners. Apparently there are quite a few people serving sentences who have become keen songwriters since they went inside. In fact, while we were there, we heard a song that one of the prisoners had written. He strummed a guitar and sang a song all about his fellow inmates. The prisoners found the verses hilarious, and laughed heartily at what seemed to be good natured fun-poking at his fellow prisoners. I was a little bit tense, nervously waiting for the one line about one of the prisoners that someone takes a disliking to, which might instigate a full-scale brawl, but fortunately, everyone seemed to enjoy their names being mentioned in a song , and laughed along and the playful micky taking.
It also crossed my mind that this might not simply be the harmless, fun song that it appeared to be on the surface, and that the staff all believed it was. It might in fact be a highly complex and elaborate secret form of communication between the prisoners. Perhaps the songwriter was communicating a coded message to his fellow inmates, and rather than the song consisting of funny jibes about his fellow prisoners, it was actually a coded message , detailing an escape plan. That would explain why he was naming prisoners individually; he was giving them instructions. One of the lines was something like, “now let me tell you about tubby Tim, he works out all day but he never gets slim.” Maybe this isn’t merely a little joke at prisoner Tim’s expense, but is instead a message to Tim, detailing his part in the great escape plan. Maybe, “he works out everyday,” isn’t simply a joke about Tim trying to lose wait by exercising everyday, but is actually a coded message instructing Tim that he should dig a tunnel, hence the line, “he works out everyday.” He’s being told to slowly but surely, day by day, work his way out of the prison by digging a tunnel to the outside. It all makes perfect sense now. Let’s just hope the prison wardens read this Dollop in time to thwart the escape attempt. Yet another example of how this Dollop is providing a public service.
I need to get this dollop released immediately. If there’s more typos and spelling mistakes than usual, it’s because I’m in a rush to get this Dollop released, before all hell breaks loose. Let’s just hope I’m not too late!
Some people take a lot longer than others to get over the breakup of a relationship. When I broke up with my last girlfriend, naturally I was upset. Friends and family were also a bit saddened, but naturally, we moved on, as you do. However, there are some people who have seemingly been unable to get over us breaking up, even though it’s been over sixtteen months now. I’m talking about the people at City Taxis in Sheffield.
Every time I call the taxi company, I get an automated voice presenting me with a list of three possible addresses that I might want to be picked up from. This is meant to be based on my recent pick-up points, except I haven’t been picked up from my ex’s house, since we broke up. That would have been at the start of February 2015. Yet, despite the amount of time that has elapsed, and in spite of the fact that I’ve been picked up by that taxi company from a load of different addresses, that weren’t my ex’s, the machine still offers her address first on the list.
But today, I called City Taxis, and her address was gone from the list. It’s taken them sixteen months, but City Taxis has finally accepted that we are no longer in a relationship. Well done City Taxis, I am proud of you. Be strong.
When we broke up, we had no idea how it would affect the taxi company. Once it became clear how badly they were taking it, we did have some tentative talks about trying to stay together, just for the sake of City Taxis, but we knew it would never really work. It was better that we went our separate ways now, than cause more prolonged pain for City Taxis in the future, as we would have got their hopes up, only to dash them again at a later date.
I’m sure that there were some people in the office, the more pragmatic and less sentamental ones, who were suggesting that they should remove her address from the top of my recently visited list on the automated telephone system, but then presumably there must have been others who would say, “no, no, just give it a bit longer.” But the weeks turned to months, and the address was still top of the list, yet still remained unused. December came, and the suggestion was made to delete the address, but the staff decided that they should wait until the new year. Maybe there would be a Christmas reconciliation. But Christmas and the new year came and went, and yet there was still no journey booked from or to my ex’s address. Yet, the staff at City Taxis still kept the address at the top of the list, in feeble hope, deciding to wait until the spring before they did anything about it. After all, winter is depressing enough, they reasoned, and the hope of a reunion was at least a small comfort to hang on to. But the winter came and went …
Tomorrow we’re having a meeting with someone who works at Stockton prison, interested in getting us in to do a gig. Hopefully we can recreate the effusive atmosphere of Johnny Cash’s epic prison gig. Maybe we should do a modify version of When I Heard That Lonesome Whistle, perhaps giving it a more local bent, and see how much of a cheer we get when we sing, “I stabbed a man in Belingham, just to watch him die. Well I mean, in fairness, there’s very little else to do in Billingham, so we have to make our own entertainment. Granted, there’s the skating rink, but there’s only so much skating a man can do before he gets bored and ends up killing someone just for something to do.” I might have to jiggle the words around a bit in order to make it scan, but I think that’ll go down very well with the Teesside prisoners.
I just hope the paedophiles of the prison aren’t too disappointed when they realise that The much anticipated Young’uns night isn’t quite what they’d hoped for. Hopefully there’ll be a few folk fans among the paedophiles to at least offer some small consolation. Hey, come on, it’s my 160th Dollop, surely I’ve earned the right to do a teensy-weensy paedophile joke?
I shall leave today’s Dollop here, as over the last four days I’ve produced over an hour’s worth of Dolloping, and while I know there are many of you who centre your lives around me and my Dollops, I appreciate that you’re spending quite a lot of time listening to me blabbering on everyday. I am however bewildered at the number of you who’ve listened to the lastfew Dollops. Although, I can’t help thinking that, from a PR and marketing perspective, I’ve maybe not taken advantage of the opportunity of keeping the hundreds of new people I gained last week as a result of Springwatch. I could have produced a few, short blogs, to ease people in, but instead I released 20 minute long audio Dollops consisting of me walking to the shops and washing the dishes. And now I’ve probably just killed the last few newbe stragglers off with a paedophile joke. Oh well, to be honest, the fame wasn’t really for me anyway. It’ll be nice to be able to walk down the street again, without having children trying to crowd-surf me down the road. A hilarious reference to Dollop 157 there. There’ll be a hundred or so of you who’ll have got that; the rest of you will have to listen if you want to know what I’m talking about. Or you could just bugger off, like all those other fickle idiots, who were only interested in visiting my website because they’d seen me on Springwatch and just wanted to know whether or not I was blind. Just remember this, you won’t be laughing when you’re farmed for meat on the David’s Daily Digital Dollop commune. And that’s a hilarious reference to Dollop 159. If you want to get the most from these Dollops then you’ve really got to do the leg work, and listen to or read them all. But be warned, if you should start putting in the leg work, and then decide to stop listening to or reading these Dollops, you will nevertheless at the time of reckoning be judged as an outsider, and thus the Dollop commune will farm you for your meat, which thanks to all that leg work you put in before, will be all the more plentiful. You have been warned.
Today’s Dollop is another audio-only Dollop. Download or stream below to find out what I’ve cooked up for you today.
I’ve Dolloped from the Royal Albert Hall, I’ve Dolloped From The BBC Springwatch Studios, But Now, finally, The Moment You’ve All Been waiting For … Today, I’m Dolloping From The Coop shop!
Today is the day you’ve all been waiting for, and don’t even try and pretend you haven’t. Springwatch was a mere distraction from the main event, which is finally upon us. It’s time to give the people what they want – or at least give one person what he wants. That person being Dollop regular Michael Wackington, ardent proponent of the cooperative. As promised, today is the day that I visit the Coop. Find out how I got on by listening to today’s audio Dollop. Needless to say, it will be full of excitement and incredible drama. Hopefully you can control your shaking hands enough to click the download link.
We go on another walk together, upon which you’ll notice that, as a result of my appearance on Springwatch last week, I’m unable to walk down the street with the same kind of anonymity as before.
Download the audio version here
Very rarely, I get a notification from my webstats app informing me that my “website traffic is booming!” Last night, my stats were seemingly booming so much, that I received two notifications yesterday, one which came an hour or so after Springwatch, and another that came a couple of hours later. Normally I get numbers in the low hundreds, but yesterday, it was over a thousand. I’m quite surprised by how many people clicked onto my website, baring in mind I only spoke a couple of sentences, one of which I stuttered, and the other you couldn’t really hear.
Granted, a lot of those extra views were due to people Googling things like ‘The Young’uns blind,’ or ‘is one of the young’uns blind?’ So it’s likely that most of these new visiters will simply click on my website, find the answer about whether I’m blind or not, and then click off, never to return again. But there might be a few new people who click onto my site in order to find out whether I can see or not, and end up getting sucked into the amazing drama and comedic brilliance that Dollop regulars have come to no and love. For the benefit of anyone Googling to find out whether I am blind, the answer is: well, not really, but I pretend to be in order to garner more interest from people and lure them to my website; it’s basically a clever marketing ploy.
Of course, there is a chance that the number of views is due to Michaela Strachan. I assumed she was just humouring me when I drunkenly told her about the Daily Dollops, and she said she would check them out. Maybe she enjoyed our conversation a lot more than I thought. I thought that in the main, it was just small talk, but perhaps I was much more interesting than I remember being. I suppose the problem could be that I am just so naturally gifted at being interesting and entertaining, that I don’t appreciate the fact that even my small talk is highly illuminating and riveting. Perhaps, the first thing she did when she got home that night was to visit my website and start reading or listening to the Dollops. Maybe that was the reason why she promptly left the pub after our conversation. I assumed she was just desperate to get away from me, as I drunkenly blabbered on about my Dollops, but perhaps it was actually because she just couldn’t contain her excitement and wanted to start reading and listening to my genius creations straight away. Maybe, Michaela has decided to spend the weekend having a binge Dollop listening/reading session, perhaps going through every Dollop from episode 1 to 155. If you see her on Springwatch on Monday, and she’s cracking jokes about her kettle, or talking about her encounters with supermarket staff, then we’ll know that she’s obviously been inspired by my Dollops.
On the way back from Suffolk last night, we decided to post a status on Facebook immediately affter our Springwatch broadcast, including the links to the programme, and attach a few photos. We decided that we should incorporate as many wildlife puns as we could into the post.
Sean was using Michael’s phone to make the post, because Sean’s phone doesn’t let him atttach photoes, and Michael was driving so couldn’t do it himself. But it soon became very clearly that Sean had no idea about how to use Michael’s phone, and the post ended up taking about three hours to write. We more or less spent the entire journey back from Suffolk writing the Facebook post, meaning that by the time we eventually published it, we’d completely lost the immediacy aspect, as the programme had finished over three hours ago. It was taking ages for Sean to type on the phone, plus one of us would keep thinking of another pun, which meant that Sean would then have to try and make edits, delete certain bits, and change the order of things to make it fit.
When we first started writing the punning post, we were having a great time, but as the minutes turned to hours, we began to regret trying to do such a long and involved post on a phone. The phone also kept trying to predict what Sean was typing, and correct things that were puns, because they weren’t real words but wildlife-based modifications of words. At one point we needed to paste a link into the post, so Sean switched to the Internet app, only to realise, upon trying to return to Facebook, that he’d accidentally closed the Facebook app, meaning that our post was lost. We then spent another 90 minutes trying to joylessly remember all our puns, in the order we’d done them. But Sean would get halfway through, before one of us would remember that we’d missed one, causing Sean to have to try and re-jiggle everything around time and time again, which was proving very stressful for Sean. Then there came a point where the whole thing became massively hysterical, as the realisation dawned on us that we’d spent three hours trying to write one Facebook post, which we’d wanted to publish immediately after the Springwatch broadcast, but had still not posted over three hours after the show had been aired, because we’d spent all the time trying to write loads of puns.
There was a heart stopping moment when we eventually hit publish, and breathed a sigh of relief, only to see an error flash up on the screen telling us that the post could not be published due to no Internet connection. Fortunately, there was a retry button, and the post sent on the second attempt.
Here is the result of our three hours’ work: “I know we’ve been chirping on about this but just in case you haven’t yet bird the news we’ve just been on Springwatch Unsprung. We dunnock know how it happened maybe it’s because we’re very cheep and we wouldn’t eat into their budgiet. What a real badger of honour although let’s just hope we didn’t make tits of ourselves. You can watch the whole thing here And watch the full version of our song Lapwings (featuring Frank Gardiner) here
Hope you pike it. The whole thing has been a bream come true (sorry the last two puns were a bit fishy).”
I’m sure you’ll agree, it was well worth the effort, and you new readers of these Dollops will be coming back for more, time and time again.
David’s Daily Digital Dollop is available as an audio podcast. You can subscribe with Itunes here
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Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here
The majority of yesterday’s Dollop was very hastily written, and was frantically typed up on my laptop, precariously perched on my knee as I sat on the dodgy swivel chair with the wheel missing in the BBC Springwatch production studio.
After we’d recorded our show, we went to the pub with the Springwatch team, as we did the week before. The recording didn’t finish until just before 10, and so we didn’t get to the pub until 1030. I still hadn’t finished the Dollop, and the fact that I’d been typing it whilst spinning and wobbling around on a broken swivel chair, meant that I had made loads of typos. It was standing room only in the pub, so I had to be very anti-social and sit on a bench outside the pub with my laptop.
I sat there for about an hour, and in that time a couple of people from the production team came out to bring me beer, which while very kind of them, resulted in making me feel guilty and rather stupid for not joining them in the pub. But, as I warned you at the start of this project, I have the kind of obsessive personality that means I would rather sit in the cold and the dark on a bench, ignoring my friends in the pub, than allow this consecutive daily blogging challenge to fail. Nearly half way through!
I was also feeling a bit self-conscious. Because we’d come to Springwatch straight from the project we’ve been working on this week, I had my big bag with me which contained all the bits of equipment I needed. I probably looked to people like a very eccentric homeless person, sitting on a bench outside a pub, with all my worldly possessions in a bag by my feet, drinking beer that was being brought to me by benevolent and sympathetic customers, while I typed on a laptop computer, which, because I am blind, didn’t have the monitor turned on. So it would have looked to people as if I was typing on a laptop that wasn’t even switched on. Perhaps people assumed I was a struggling writer, who was struggling so much that he didn’t have a home and spent his days sitting on a bench outside a pub, hoping that someone would buy him a beer out of sympathy, while he drunkenly typed on a broken laptop, perhaps too drunk to even realise it wasn’t switched on or working.
Eventually, I got the Dollop uploaded, and made my way back into the pub. But the pub was so packed that I couldn’t get through or work out where anyone was. Fortunately, Someone came to my rescue and guided me through. It was quite a long walk into the room where my fellow Young’uns and the Springwatch team were sitting, so I had quite a long chat, consisting of trivial small talk, with the person guiding me. It was only after she’d gone that I discovered that my rescuer had been Michaela Strachan, who we’d not met on the Springwatch Unsprung set, because she only does the main Springwatch programme. So I had a five minute bout of small talk, and walked hand in hand with Michaela Strachan, without having any idea who she was.
I did however speak to her for another five minutes later that evening, and she asked me what I was doing outside, by myself, on the bench with my laptop, so I told her about the Dollop. I drunkenly told her that she should give it a listen or a read, and, presumably just humouring me, she said that she would. So, just in case she is reading or listening, hello, I hope you’re enjoying this, you are very welcome. Feel free by the way, Michaela, to send me an ASMR audio comment, maybe comprising you imparting wildlife facts in a sensual whisper. Feel free also if you want to get Chris Packham involved too.
Upon being ushered into the TV studio, I was immediately set upon by a couple of people, one of whom, a woman, whispered something to me, and then began to stroke my face with a soft brush. In fact, it was kind of like a physical manifestation of my sensually whispering feathered friend on the ASMR podcast we listened to on Dollop 150. The other person was a man, who was pulling up the front of my shirt, and fondling my lower back. I thought the BBC were trying to stamp out the whole molestation in the studio thing, yet here I was being touched up by two people in full view of everyone else. But I soon realised that the whispering woman stroking my face was actually applying makeup, which needs to be added so that the cameras pick faces up properly. The man with one hand up the front of my shirt, and the other hand grappling around the back of my trousers, was attaching a mic to me, the wire of which went up the inside of my shirt in order to be inconspicuous on the cameras, and a small power unit was being attached to the inside of the back of my trousers. The reason for their whispering was because Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan were just metres away finishing off that day’s live broadcast of Springwatch. Both the man’s and woman’s hands were rather cold, and so the viewers of yesterday’s Springwatch were very nearly treated to me shouting out in shock, possibly exclaiming something profane, but fortunately I managed to stop myself reacting to the sudden surprise of cold hands being thrust onto my skin.
The whole TV studio experience was quite odd for me. I didn’t really feel able to say anything, as I didn’t know where the camera was pointing and who it was focused on. There were cameras darting around the place, and people with cameras shuffling low down on the floor. There was a point when I was going to say something, but this was when Chris Packham was at the other side of the studio looking at Sean’s drawing that he’d been challenged to do by the Springwatch team, and I wasn’t sure whether if I said something, it might have resulted in a mad scrum of cameramen to have to come quickly crawling along the floor in order to get me in the shot and properly focus on my face. The other two could see where the cameras were pointing and react accordingly. It’s also very fast paced, and there isn’t really the time or opportunities for interjection, especially from someone who doesn’t have a clue where to face, so I left it to the other two who did a fine job without me, and it was a really good interview with Packham.
I found the whole studio applause thing a bit weird. As I mentioned yesterday, the audience were made to practise their applause beforehand, and coached about how to do it properly. During the show, there is someone who directs the audience when to applaude. The opening music will play, and he’ll count the audience down from ten, and then they applaud. It almost makes the act of applauding seem a bit ridiculous and redundant, as surely the idea of applause is to denote audience appreciation? But in this case the audience were being told how to applaud, when to applaud and for how long; Yes, he was even directing the length of the applause, and the audience were instructed to stop when he gave the sign. It basically makes the applause meaningless in any real sense, and it’s simply just a studio gimmick. At least they didn’t tell the audience when and where to laugh, and didn’t coached them beforehand about the sign given to indicate a hahaha laugh, as opposed to heeheehee or hohoho. It wasn’t quite that regimented.
I also found it a bit odd when it came to some of the things the audience were being instructed to applaud; the kinds of things that don’t really warrant applause. The audience were directed to applaud things like the various little videos, such as the video near the start, where they reviewed what had been on the show during that week. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that you would naturally applaud. When you watch the TV at home, or go to the cinema, no one gets the urge to applaud the ”previously” section, but for some reason, the audience in the studio are instructed to applaud every little incidental thing.
Before we sang our song, Chris Packham read an extract from a World War I soldier’s diary, which inspired our song, Lapwings. It’s a very moving an evocative entry which reads:
“Following the geese, came a couple of lapwings, and then about half a dozen more. It was the call of spring. In a few hours time those same lapwings might be wheeling over English fields. I watched them go by, in scattered pairs, small parties, and larger flocks. All were journeying in the same direction. My thoughts went with them, to the level fens of East Anglia, and the North country mosses that I knew so well. I was still watching the lapwings passing when the relieving sentry appeared. It seemed barely possible that two hours could have slipped by so quickly. Back once more in the dugout, I dozed off to sleep. My dreams were of English fields, horses at work ploughing, and the spring cries of the Peawits.”
When we perform this song at gigs, we read this extract out before hand, and there’s never applause, because applause is an odd and inappropriate response. Often the audience respond to it with a plaintive sigh, and sometimes there are tears; it’s quite an emotional moment. But, in the peculiar TV studio environment, when Packham had finished beautifully reading the diary entry, the director immediately indicated for the audience to applaud, and they duly did, which doesn’t at all fit with the mood of the piece. But this is a world where everything, from a short introductory video clips montage to the musings of a dead soldier, fearing for his life and desperately longing for home, is met with the exact same response: effusive applause.
But regardless, it was a great opportunity for us, and we had a great time with the Springwatch team, both in the studio, and especially afterwards in the pub, or at least once I’d eventually joined them after an hour of being anti-social and sitting by myself on a bench outside the pub. And thus, hear ends today’s Dollop. Cue applause.
David’s Daily Digital Dollop is available as an audio podcast. You can subscribe with Itunes here
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