Today’s Dollop is an experimental (with emphasis on the mental) 3 dimensional audio Dollop.

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Download the audio version here

While browsing Twitter today, I noticed that a few people were tweeting with the hashtag, RemoveALetterSpoilABook. I don’t know where this hashtag came from, but nevertheless, it set my mind thinking, and here are some ideas of books that would have a very different feel if just one letter was removed from its title.

The Holy Bile

A heavily abridged version of the Holy Bible, edited to only include those passages that reference bodily discharge in some way. Here are a few example passages. These are genuine biblical quotes.

“Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out.”

“Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother. But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD; so He took his life also.”

“Yet she increased her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth when she engaged in prostitution in the land of Egypt. She lusted after their genitals – as large as those of donkeys, and their seminal emission was as strong as that of stallions.”

““When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening.”

“’If there is a man who lies with a menstruous woman and uncovers her nakedness, he has laid bare her flow, and she has exposed the flow of her blood; thus both of them shall be cut off from among their people.”

These are passages that you probably won’t come across too often if you go to church, as it’s not the kind of subject that a vicar would want to do their Sunday sermon on, just before he and his congregation head home for a lovely Sunday roast. But this book is the ideal gift for anyone who loves reading about blood, gore and shit, but wouldn’t read the bible because they hate all that boring stuff about being nice to one another.

The Da Vinci Cod

While away on business, the controversial and widely contested fish communicator, Turbot Lingdon, receives an urgent late-night phone call. Ling ling, ling ling, goes his phone; it’s Mr Lingdon’s idea of a hilarious joke. But this phone call is certainly no joke, for his good friend, dilettante fish communicator and owner of one of the world’s largest fisheries, has been murdered.

A couple of days later, Mr Lingdon receives a letter, written to him by his recently murdered friend, which predicts his own murder and outlines the reason for it. Accompanying the letter is a computer disc which features a series of fish communication recordings. Mr Lingdon and his friend claim to be able to interpret what fish are saying by analysing the pattern of their swim. The letter had intimated that he was receiving some highly interesting messages from the fish, in particular the cod, yet he had been unable to fully understand what they meant. But recently he had been sent a death threat that warned him that, unless he stopped meddling in things he didn’t understand, and quit his job at the fishery, he would be killed.

After days of painstakingly analysing the fish messages on the disc, Mr Lingdon finally uncovered that the messages were spelling out the name’s of paintings by Da Vinci. After weeks spent Consulting these paintings, and constantly rereading the fish messages, he begins to slowly decipher hidden clues within the paintings, which seem to be referring to the location of a vastly important religious relic, hidden for centuries. But he needs more information from the fish. The person who murdered his friend must have discovered what he was doing and therefore killed him in an attempt to keep the location of this ancient artefact hidden, or possibly to discover it for himself first.

So, under the cover of darkness, Lingdon breaks into the fishery, in order to have a clandestine conversation with the fish. But Mr Lingdon is not alone. He reels in horror at the sight before him: hundreds of fish are being tortured by a man, who is shrieking at the fish to swim and to reveal their secrets about the hidden relic. But the fish, despite their interrogation, are refusing to comply. One of the fish, a cod, is being slowly cooked by the evil man. The fish is still alive , but his seconds are numbered. The man has a pike fish in a tank and he is screaming at it to reveal where the location is, or his friend will be cooked to death. But the tortured cod being cooked in the pan begins to swim an impassioned, defiant swim, and when the man looks around, he is horrified to see that the cod’s dying words to his fish friend are, “don’t tell him pike.”

What will happen? Who will uncover the ancient religious relic first? And how many fish will die in the process? Find out by reading, the epic, Da Vinci Cod.

My other offering is, The Lion The itch and The Wardrobe, but if I start going off on a long ramble about what that could consist of, then I’ll never get anything done today.

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I’ve spent the day looking for some samples and songs I need for The Young’uns In The Mix. I knew I had them on a CD somewhere, which I was convinced would be housed in the shoe box full of old CDs that resided underneath my bed. So I got the old shoe box out and began to search through the cDs. Hours later, and I still haven’t finished my rifle through the shoe box, because I got distracted by the contents of each CD.

On one of the CDs was a load of diary entries from when I was at University. Even though these were personal diaries, I still wrote them in proper sentences, and used some rather flowery language and big words at times. I also included jokes and even gave each entry a title. I’ve wasted an entire day looking through these old entries, and as it’s getting late and I’ve still not finished today’s Dollop or done anything else, I thought I’d share one of the entries with you.

7th April 2006. When The Chips Are down

We went out this evening. We started in Wetherspoons. We all wanted food and so were intending to take advantage of Wetherspoons’ beer and burger deal for £3,99, which as well as comprising a beer and a burger, also comes with chips. However, not today, because they had ran out of chips! So we attempted to haggle with the man at the bar and asked if he would supplement the chips for onion rings, but he refused to acquiesce. Perhaps we should have punished this man’s unjust intractability by going elsewhere, but we’d already bought drinks and were very hungry, and so, despite our collective disinclination, we paid an additional sixty pence on top of the £3,99 in order to get onion rings. So Wetherspoons were well up on the deal, given that they’d got more money out of us and didn’t have to provide chips. And to add salt to our wounds, the obstinate barman will probably get rewarded for his unscrupulousness. His seniors will likely see this as a job well done.

But there was further insult to be added to injury. When our meals arrived, we had each been given a mere three and a half tiny onion rings. This was hardly a worthy substitute for a portion of chips. This meant that one onion ring cost about 18 pence. And a half?! A bloody half?! They actually had the cheek to snap the fourth onion ring in half. Tick tick woof woof, I hear the sound of watchdog!

After our night out, we were feeling hungry, due to our miserly meal earlier. While many of the less street-smart students were no doubt concluding their nights out with a takeaway, we craftily took advantage of the newly opened casino deal, where, in a bid to seduce you into gambling, they furnish you with complimentary sandwiches and chips. As long as you don’t actually gamble, but look as if you might gamble at any minute now, then a plentiful prevision of sandwiches and chips will be yours, for free. And all you have to do to avail yourself of this deal, is to be a member. And it costs nothing to become a member. So it’s completely free. But, you can get even more food for free out of the casino, as long as you are shrewd. If you order sandwiches and chips together, then you get just that, but if you order sandwiches first, and then once they have arrived, get chips, you get crisps with the sandwiches as well. Sandwiches, crisps, and chips! All for free!

Sadly, it seems as if this isn’t a very good week for chips, as the casino had also run out. We considered asking for onion rings as a substitute, but we thought it might be prudent to avoid bringing too much attention to us, lest they cotton onto our scam.

There was a group of girls on the next table who got chatting to us. I think they were impressed by our rebellious ways, noting how one of us would periodically sidle over to one of the machines, pretend to gamble for a minute and then come back, protesting loudly about how the casino had won again and taken more of our money, and saying things like, “Oh well, I guess there’s no such thing as a free lunch.” This was designed to convince the casino staff that we kept coming back here time and time again, and keep getting seduced by the free food into gambling and losing. This meant that we’d be heartily welcomed back next time.

A few of my friends were getting on really well with some of the girls, and a number of them left together. It was now just me and my flatmate, who is in a relationship, sitting at the table. Everyone else had left with the girls. I might have gone into a deep brooding depression that, yet again, I had been completely ignored and dismissed by the girls, while my friends had been successful. I might have felt sad, unattractive and lonely, were it not for the fact that they had all, in their haste to leave and have sex with each other, left most of their sandwiches on their plates, the idiots. I ate my way through them, imagining how pissed off and jealous my friends will be when I tell them about all the free sandwiches I ate last night, which they could have enjoyed if they hadn’t been so foolish as to leave with those girls. How they will rue their reckless decision. And so, I left the casino, in the knowledge that, in the great game of life, I am clearly a winner!

Baring in mind that this is a diary entry, I am very much writing as if to someone else, as if I have an audience. After all, why did I bother to explain the whole casino scam in great detail, given that I’d already knew about it, because I was the person writing about it? Perhaps a subconscious psychic part of me knew that one day I’d be embroiled in a challenge to write a blog everyday for a year, and that some days I’d be stuck for ideas or waste the day looking for things on old CDs, and so I wrote the diary entries as if I was addressing an audience, so that I could paste it straight into my blog years later. Well done me. I’m sure that I also had the foresight to realise that failing with those girls would be funnier than if I succeeded, and so deliberately sabotaged my success with them. It is a little bit disconcerting to note that, just like in these Dollops, I spent quite a lot of my diary making jokes about being unpopular with women. Maybe nothing much has really changed in those years. Maybe I’ll discover other similar subjects cropping up in my diaries that I’ve talked about regularly in these Dollops. Perhaps I wrote an entry about kettles. I’ll keep you posted as I continue reading.

I also like the pertinance of this diary entry’s title: When the chips are down. It works on a number of levels. Wetherspoons doesn’t have any chips, and neither does the casino. Also there is the subject of gambling, which gives another meaning to the word chips. And then there is the fact that I fail to get with any of the girls, and so the chips are down in that respect too. I’m amazed at how much thought went into these diary entries, baring in mind that they weren’t intended for anyone else to read. I probably put more effort into writing them than I do these Dollops. Maybe from now on I should simply release a university diary entry for these daily Dollops. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this excursion into my uni years

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I think the prize for Dollop comment of the year so far has to go to Chastity Payne, who responded to my plea yesterday to get a Dollop-related tattoo: “OK, I’ve done it. I’ve just gone out and had, “Lie back and think of Hartlepool” tattooed around my left nipple…..in Braille.”

If you are not a Dollop regular then you may be a bit confused. A reminder that in order to get the most value and enjoyment from these Dollops, you should really read or listen to all of them. Preferably, you would read and listen to them, in order to allow your brain to engage with the content on a deeper level. But in case you are not a Dollop regular, then “lie back and think of Hartlepool” is the title of Dollop 102, where I bemoan that Hartlepool has been knocked off the top of the teenage pregnancy league by Burnley. I then reveal my plans to sleep with as many Hartlepool-based teenage girls of legal age that I can in order to correct this, as I am a proud Hartlepudlian and want to get my home town back to the top where we belong.

However, as virile as I might be, I cannot be expected to be the only male who answers to this noble calling. I will need other impregnaters to lend a hand, or if we’re being literal, lend a penis. Sorry if you find all this a bit too smutty, but it’s an important task, and there’s no point mincing my words, as I want the men and teenage girls of Hartlepool to fully comprehend what I’m driving at. So there is no point beating about the bush; although, in a literal sense that is exactly what I’m asking you men to do.

As popular as this dollop is, we are also going to have to reach a wider audience, meaning that we’ll need a proper concerted advertising campaign, to get the people of Hartlepool onboard. We will need posters and leaflets, and I am hoping that Chastity Payne will allow me to use her nipple on those posters and leaflets. I think it is just the thing to galvanise people and inspire them to get involved.

I am impressed that there is a tattoo parlour in Chastity Payne’s local area that can offer such a specialist tattoo. I wonder whether the tattooist did her tattoo in grade one Braille, which requires a lot more dots than grade two. A grade one Braille tattoo would mean that she has paid more than necessary, and gone through more pain than she technically needed to go through. If she’d gone for grade two Braille, it would have been half the price and half the pain, as it is essentially a form of shorthand. If there’s anyone else thinking of getting a Braille tattoo then bare this in mind. Also, she could have saved extra money by incorporating her areola as a Braille dot. It would have served as the perfect letter A. Still, never mind, I’m sure the pain and the cost was worth it, baring in mind that it has made her Dollop commenter of the year so far, and that her nipple will be used to further the cause of Hartlepool.

On Sunday morning, the newly married Sean and Emily went on their Honeymoon to Mauritius. I joked in the best man’s speech that Sean spends most of his life in the company of me and Michael, and that, so rare is it for Sean to spend more than a week away from me, he will probably be all miserable in Mauritius without me and start getting withdrawal symptoms. I imagine he will spend most of his honeymoon dreaming of being back with me in that cramped van, trekking the roads of Britain, then sharing a cramped dressing room in an arts centre with me, before standing around a microphone with me on stage for ninety minutes, and then rounding the day off nicely by us falling asleep in the same bedroom, or sometimes the same bed if someone at the venue messed up the room booking (or if Sean begged the person booking the room to put us both in the same bed and then pretend that it was an accident – I’m on to you Mr cooney; sometimes literally, if it’s a small bed and we both roll over at the same time).

It seems though as if my joke wasn’t that far off the mark, for when checking my web stats yesterday, I noticed that there was one visiter to my site from Mauritius. It is clear that, despite the beautiful senary, the hot climate, and the company of his new bride, he is nevertheless pining for me, as is illustrated by his visit to my website. This is very touching. Fear not, Mr Cooney, we shall be back in that van soon. In the meantime, I will keep you company with my blogs about tattooed nipples, and other miscellaneous bunkum.

Maybe I should have kept quiet about this, as perhaps Sean keeps the fact that he is listening to my Dollops a secret, fearing that Emily will get jealous. After all, I already spend most of my life with him, so she probably longs to have him all to herself for once, without me getting in the way. But she’s already started growing suspicious. She’s noticed that while they’ve been away, he will lock himself in the bathroom for ten minutes every day, wherein she hears the sound of his stifled laughter. She is growing suspicious that the laughter is being caused by the hilarious content he is hearing from David’s Daily Digital Dollop.

So, if you could all just keep quiet about Sean’s clandestine Dollop listening, and refrain from mentioning it to Emily, then that would be very much appreciated.

Of course, there is a chance that it’s actually Emily who is listening to or reading these Dollops. Or maybe both Sean and Emily listen to them in bed, like Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman. I hope they aren’t using these Dollops as an audio aphrodisiac like Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman do. That would be a bit disconcerting, although … actually … hmm … strangely arousing. OK, I don’t know what’s got into me. I’m off for a cold shower and to listen to some hymns. That should put me right.

Well, I’m back, and I can report that it didn’t work. What can I say, the Lord Is My Shepherd … gets me in the mood every time. Let’s just hope Abide With Me doesn’t come on this playlist next, otherwise I might lose control. No, I don’t know where this bit is going either. Bye-bye.

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Another annoying thing about winning a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award – on top of the fact that it results in a poor quality Dollop the following day due to tiredness after partying – is that it leads to some really bland and uninspiring interviews. In the pre Folk Award days, we would be asked interesting questions that could generate stories and entertaining answers, but now that we’ve won the Folk Award, most journalists or radio presenters will immediately pluck for, “so how does it feel to win the Best Group prize at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards?” And what is there to say in response to that? It was great, fantastic, brilliant, excellent … I find myself just reeling off loads of superlatives and adjectives that all essentially say the same thing. Because, really, what else is their to say?

Recently I did an interview with someone who asked me this question. I responded with my usual selection of superlatives, there was a pause, and then she asked, “and then you won it again, for the second year running. How did that feel?” Again, what can I say that is interesting, other than just think up some more positive adjectives.

After I’d tried to come up with as interesting an answer as I could about winning for the second year running, she then proceeded to read a list of other awards that we’d won, and then asked me how it felt to win those. I’d completely exhausted my superlatives supplies, plus what did she expect me to say, other than what I’d said in answer to the last two, more or less identical questions? I thought about making a joke about the fact that one of the frustrating things about winning all these awards is that it then leads to really dull interviews where I have to essentially bore everyone about how it felt winning the award. In fact, people will probably get so sick of me blabbering on about the award that they’ll start hating The Young’uns, complaining that all we ever talk about nowadays is the bloody awards. I also thought about making a joke that at least she’d stopped short of naming all the awards individually and then asking me to comment on how it felt to win each one. But I thought that this might make me come across as a bit brash and up-myself, so I just repeated some of my earlier list of superlatives, knowing that I was almost certainly irritating and boring everyone listening.

Perhaps the real reason the Folk Awards voters have given us the award twice in a row is because they actually hate us, and think that the best way of getting us off the folk scene is to keep giving us awards, in the knowledge that it will then result in us having to talk about the awards non-stop on the radio to journalists and presenters, and thus eventually lead to everyone getting bored and pissed off with us. Oh yes, Folk Awards judges, I am onto you, I know your game. You are truly evil bastards!

We got a message on Facebook this week from someone saying: “Loved what you said at folk awards so much I’ve had it tattooed on my chest.” Not being able to see the photo, I had no idea what it was. Had he tattooed the entire speech on his chest? I mean, that would have to be a big chest, plus it would be pretty expensive; we spoke for over two minutes. In actuality, that it was a line from Sean: “Folk could easily be translated into one word, and that word is welcome.”

While I am thrilled that someone has been so moved by those words that they have it tattooed on their chest, I am a little aggrieved that I have written over 100000 words so far with these Dollops, and yet no one has found a sentence from all of that content that has inspired them to have some of my wise words tattooed on their body. I think a good one would be “I wouldn’t imagine it would taste very nice.” Where you have it tattooed is down to you, although, clearly for extra hilarity, you should have it on your genitals. Then, if you happened to meet a fellow Dollop fan who you were attracted to, you could use the Dollop-based tattoo as a way in, helping you take things to the next level.

“I actually love the Dollops so much, I got one of David’s hilarious catchphrases as a tattoo.”

“Really? Wow! Can I see.”

You would then have essentially been given permission to pull down your pants, and you don’t have to feel awkward about it, because they asked you to show it to them. Then, when your love interest saw your genitals emblazoned with the words “I wouldn’t imagine it would taste very nice,” they would obviously find it hilarious, but also potentially arousing. You could then both have a bit of a giggle about it, before you said something like, “I mean there’s only one way to find out.”

“What?” your love interest would reply.

“Whether it tastes very nice or not. There’s only one way to find out.”

You would both continue to nervously laugh at the absurdity of this situation, but it wouldn’t be long before you seduced them into giving you oral sex.

Et Voila, a Dollop-based sex tip for you there.

If you’re a man, you could get a tattoo on your testicles reading, “David’s Daily Digital Bollock.” Obviously it might be quite painful to get your testicles tattooed. It would require a hardcore Dollop fan, and it would certainly require some balls. Hahaha! I am so funny. Come on, I am well worth a tattoo.

I’ll try and get the photo added to tomorrow’s Dollop. I mean, the photo of the chest tattoo; I don’t have any photos of genital tattoos yet, but when I do …

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To say that yesterday’s wedding went without a hitch wouldn’t be entirely accurate. For a start, Sean and Emily were married. Sorry, should I maybe have built a bit more suspense? But that wasn’t the only hitch of the day. One of the guests, an eccentric seventy-nine-year-old, decided to attend the ceremony in a kilt. Forty-five minutes before the wedding, he realised that he’d left it at home in Rotherham. He decided that he would have time to drive back home, get his kilt, and return to the venue in time for the ceremony. He didn’t tell anyone about this. I think, if he had, then they would have pointed out that it was unlikely to take him only forty minutes to drive from Sheffield to Rotherham and back.

At 3 o’clock, everyone was in their seat ready for the wedding to start, which it was due to do at 3 o’clock. However, someone was missing. It was Ian, the man who’d gone home for his kilt; except, no one knew this. As far as we were aware he was at the venue, as we’d seen him only an hour ago. We searched around the venue grounds, went to his room, which was in the venue that the wedding was taking place, but he was nowhere to be found. The registrars had to be at another wedding in the next hour, and so they couldn’t afford to wait around. So the wedding started without him.

He did make some of the wedding ceremony, but just not the wedding part, for by the time he made it back, Sean and Emily had already been married. But at least he got to see Sean and Emily signing some legal documents. Although, no one else was really looking at the legal documents signing, because they were all staring at the man who’d just come crashing into the wedding, out of breath, desperately trying to finish fastening his kilt. He then whispered to the woman next to him – although it was a very loud whisper, probably as a result of his deafness – “Would you give me a hand with ‘me sporran, love?” As she awkwardly tried to help him with his sporran, he loudly whispered, “have I missed much?” I’m not sure if he’d realised tht he’d missed the actual wedding bit of the ceremony, which might explain why he proceeded to get out a massive, unwieldy, antiquated video camera and start filming. At which point the registrar thanked us for coming, we applauded the newly weds and the ceremony ended.

In the best man speech, I told the story about when Sean and I went hitch hiking around the country together in 2005. I documented our hitch hiking experiences on cassette tape, and I’ll probably dig them out for The Young’uns Podcast, and play some bits and intersperse it with some retrospective detail and anecdotes.

This particular incident I mentioned in my speech was about the day when Sean and I had spent an entire day waiting for a lift. We were so convinced that success was just around the corner, and that if we moved to go to the toilet or get some food then that would mean that we’d miss the one person who’d have picked us up, and we’d then have to wait for hours before another ride presented itself. So we resolutely stood at the roadside, convinced that, any minute now … And so we waited … and waited. Eventually, at some point late evening, someone offered us a lift. We managed to get a hundred miles or so further South. So all in all, it had been a really great day, unless you take into account the fact that we’d spent most of it at the side of the same road with our bladders agonisingly bursting and our stomachs painfully rumbling out of starvation. But apart from that …

By the time we got out of the car, it was about ten o’clock. Everywhere seemed pretty deserted. The only place that was around and open was a McDonald’s. We went into mcDonalds and immediately visited the toilet, for a much needed urinate. We were both starving, and given that there didn’t seem to be anywhere else around, I suggested that we got something from McDonald’s. At this suggestion, Sean went off on a massive rant about global corporations and capitalism. He proudly declared that, starving though he may be, he was not prepared to eat at McDonald’s; instead he would seek out a local independent place to eat. I didn’t hold out muchhope of finding anywhere, but given Sean’s adamance, I accomponied him on a search for a local independent eatery.

We walked for over an hour, with barely any energy to do so, given that we hadn’t eaten for hours. There was nothing else open. We ended up walking in a massive circle, and came back to the McDonald’s that we’d left over an hour earlier. I assumed that, given that we’d done all we could, surely our only option now was to eat at this McDonald’s. But Sean wholeheartedly refused, and proceeded to give me another lecture about global corporations, and proudly declared that he would wait until the morning and then support the local bakery by eating there. We were both ravenous, and this didn’t help our mood, and so we stood in the doorway of McDonald’s, loudly arguing with each other about whether to eat there. I said that I said that if there was a local bakery open, then I’d be happy to eat there, but the fact that there wasn’t meant that we might as well eat at McDonald’s. We didn’t have a choice. But then he retorted by saying that we always have a choice. Our voices were getting louder as our argument got more heated. I tried to reason with him by stating that the people who work at McDonald’s are local, ordinary people, and that by eating at Macdonalds we would be supporting these local workers. I suggested that he should focus on this aspect. Sean countered this by bemoaning the low wages that these people would be getting, and how he didn’t want to support such an infrastructure. I responded by pointing out that he had no idea how much the staff at his precious local bakery were getting paid. The argument went on for quite some time, growing louder and more intense.

In the end, I stormed into McDonald’s and ordered some food, because I felt as if I would pass out if I didn’t get something. Sean stormed in behind me. We both sat at the table, while I ate, and Sean seethed. I offered to share my food with him, reasoning that this would mean that only one of us would have bought a meal, yet he would at least get something to eat. But Sean refused to accept any food, and so we just sat in silence while I hurriedly ate.

We then pitched the tent in silence, by the gates of the McDonald’s, and went straight to bed. I lay there awake for hours, listening to the sound of Sean’s stomach violently rumbling, while he tossed and turned, clearly too hungry to sleep. In the morning he got up early and returned to the tent whistling, for he had been to the local bakery and bought loads of food.

Nowadays, Sean will happily eat at a McDonald’s. I would prefer not to, if there are other options, but there have been times when there are other options and Sean has plucked for the McDonald’s. I mentioned this in my speech and bemoaned the fact that as Sean grew older, he let his principles slip, and lowered his very high ideals and standards. He became jaded and warn down by life, and became happy to settle for less. At which point I hilariously said, “which neatly brings me to the subject of Emily.” I believe it is customary for the best man to insult the bride in his speech.

However, my hilarious joke worked on two levels,because I then tied it into the story of Emily and Sean’s first date, which was at Nando’s, a global chain. I then pulled off another amazing bit of comedy, when I turned to Emily, and said, “it was Nando’s, wasn’t it?” After she had said yes, I responded with, “yes, nando’s. Just chickin.” As you would imagine, the audience went wild, I was lifted into the air and did a crowd-surfed lap of honour.

The other hitch was related to the DJ. The venue said that if they wanted a DJ then they would have to use the venue’s in-house DJ. If this was the Sean of eleven years ago then he would have put his foot down and ranted about wanting to support an independent local DJ, but the modern day Sean simply agreed to this rule.

The DJ didn’t get off to the best start. We all stood around Sean and Emily, ready to watch their first dance.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for the happy couple, Sean and Emma,” he shouted. Some people laughed, some people pulled a face at the DJ, others shouted “Emily, she’s called Emily.” I think that, being quite drunk, I found it massively hilarious, and I raised my glass and loudly shouted, “to Sean and Emma.”

“Come on,” the DJ continued, “that was terrible. I can’t hear you. Let’s try again. Raise your glasses to the happy couple, Sean and Emma.”

“To Sean and Emma!” I shouted again, raising my glass and drunkenly cackling. Someone went up to the DJ and told him that it was Emily. He eventually got it right the third time.

“And now, the first dance,” he announced. A hush descended over the room, followed by a loud, cacophonous series of crackles and pops. At first, I wasn’t sure whether this was deliberate, and perhaps Sean and Emily had chosen some John Cage for their first dance, but then I noticed that they weren’t dancing. After about thirty seconds, before the DJ tried to announce that he was having a few technical problems, except the mic wasn’t working, so he tried to loudly shout above the din. The crackling continued, and he nervously started fiddling with wires, while testing the microphone by shouting “one two one two,” and then loudly shouting things at us off the mic in order to desperately stall for time. “OK, while I try and sort this out, let’s have a rendition of For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow, for Sean and Emma.” In his flusterment – I know that’s not actually a word, but it should be – he’d obviously forgotten the Emma/Emily debacle from just a couple of minutes earlier. He’d also failed to realise the absurdity of singing For He’s A Jolly Good fellow to two people, one of whom was a woman, and thus not a fellow. Plus their jolliness was being somewhat tempered by the fact that the DJ kept calling the bride the wrong name, and didn’t seem able to get the music on. He valiantly attempted to get everyone singing the song by singing it himself, while he desperately started wrenching wires out of the back of his equipment which made a series of loud banging sounds to add to the din that was already occurring. A few of us loudly joined in with For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow, finding the ridiculousness of it all immensely funny.

Eventually he managed to get the equipment to work, and he once again announced that it was time for the first dance. He pressed play and music began to emanate from the speakers. Sean and Emily looked around nervously. It was clearly the wrong song. But Sean and Emily are both in their thirties now, and as already discussed earlier in this Dollop, they have had to start accepting things and compromising, lowering their ideals and standards, which is probably why, after a few seconds of standing there and not dancing, they began to awkwardly move to the music, which was something that I didn’t recognise, and nor did they. So they danced their first dance to the wrong song, and we all stood and watched and applauded at the end, even though we all knew that it clearly wasn’t the right song. In fact, the only person who didn’t know was the DJ, who continued to call Emily Emma throughout the night.

Still, despite a disorganised unpunctual eccentric kilt-wearing old man and the world’s worst DJ, everything else went perfectly, and most importantly of all, they got married, which was the main point really. So, wherever you are, whether your reading or listening, let’s raise a real or imaginary glass and let’s toast the happy couple. To Sean and Emma! For he’s a jolly good fellow!

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Well, I went out with Sean last night, and there didn’t seem to be any suggestion that he was getting cold feet. So it looks like the wedding is still on, meaning that I am having to quickly type up this Dollop before leaving for the registry office.

I had a quick look on Twitter for inspiration, and discovered that one of my friends has cut open his thumb. This particular person is one of these people who seems compelled to constantly broadcast the minutiae of his life. Unlike me, he doesn’t have the decency to package it in one easy to manage daily blog, but instead opts to constantly tweet throughout the day. So obsessed is this person with keeping us up-to-date with every bit of ephemeral detail of his life, that it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d literally just cut his thumb open, and then immediately took to Twitter. I think this person has reached the point where he has a thought and then feels compelled to instantly broadcast that thought to his friends. Where as most people would cut their thumb open and get a plaster, his first thought was more likely to have been, “ow, damn, I’ve cut my thumb open, it’s bleeding. Best tweet about it and then get a plaster.”

The tweet read: “just cut my thumb open while gardening. Ow!”

I like the fact that he included, “ow” at the end. I imagine him writing this tweet, blood drenching the phone screen. He’s just about to press the tweet button before he passes out with the pain, but then he has the “ow” idea. His bloody thumb hovers over the tweet button. He can barely move it, yet he valiantly adds those additional two letters. He can feel himself keeling over due to the pain and loss of blood, yet he still bravely soldiers on, and adds the exclamation mark. He begins to faint and falls to the floor. He can’t move his thumb, it has been rendered immobile, But he just manages to hit the tweet button with his nose, before he hits the floor and passes out. Honestly, this person is such an obsessive tweeter, that it wouldn’t surprise me if that actually happened.

This is the kind of person who will tweet every meal he has had. I have never felt compelled to tweet about that sort of thing, although, admittedly, I did bore my friends rigid when I discovered almond milk. I remember calling up my girlfriend and passionately telling her about how I’d discovered almond milk. I don’t rmember anything else about our conversation. To be honest, I wasn’t really listening to her, as I was too excited by the almond milk discovery. I then remember her calling me later that day, and the first thing I did was to tell her that I’d discovered almond milk and how amazing it was. I was so excited about it that I’d forgotten that I’d already bored her with that particular topic earlier that day. She tried to interrupt several times to tell me that I’d already told her, but I was too caught up in my own world of effusively enthusing about almond milk. Now I think about it, I reckon that the almond milk episode might have been one of the moments that made her seriously evaluate what the hell she was doing in a relationship with me. We did break up shortly after this. If only I hadn’t talked about almond milk so much then things might have been so different. Although, in fairness, sleeping with her best friend probably didn’t help either. Anyway, I think, if there’s anything that you should take away from this story, it’s that almond milk is amazing; you should try it.

Interesting that he should mention that the thumb injury was caused by gardening. I wonder whether it is in anyway linked to the fact that it’s World Naked Gardening Day today. This is only something I’m aware of because of a message I received from regular Dollop contributor Katherine, who wrote: “I have a potential subject for tomorrow’s dollop – given that you are not going to have much time to think of anything. I have just come in from doing a spot of gardening in the warm Spring sunshine to discover that tomorrow is World Naked Gardening Day. I am still considering whether or not to take part. To date, I have a good relationship with my neighbours. And I’m concerned about potential skin hazards. So there you are – a challenge, and a way to get out all those un-family-friendly jokes before you make your Best Man’s Speech!”

Thanks for that Katherine, and thanks for adding a hundred words or so to today’s Dollop. You know, I might make the registry office on time after all.

Perhaps the thumb injury was caused by him becoming distracted by his naked neighbours. Maybe he didn’t realise it was World Naked Gardening day, and so, startled by the nudeness all around him, he lost concentration and sliced his thumb open. Or maybe he was taking in part in World Naked Gardening Day, in which case he should count himself lucky that it was only his thumb that he sliced. There might be a few worse gardening injuries than that taking place today.

Must dash, there’s a wedding about to start. Maybe I should have spent this morning thinking up a best man’s speech, rather than writing about naked gardening and almond milk. It’s OK, I’ll think of something during the ceremony. It’s not like I really need to pay much attention. It’ll be the usual “I take you to be my lawful wedded husband,” “I do” shtick. I’ll think of something while all that’s going on. I am a great best man. I’m sure the happy couple are going to love my gift. Who wouldn’t appreciate almond milk?

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Today is The Young’uns’ very own Sean Cooney’s last day as an unmarried man; well, hopefully. I’ve been asked to be best man twice before, and both of those weddings never happened. Sean is aware of this,but still, The prospect of me being cursed as a best man was not enough to deter Sean from wanting me as best man. Fortunately, Sean had the idea of attempting to dilute the curse by asking fellow Young’un, Michael Hughes, to be best man as well. I suppose this was also a good move in terms of band politics. However, I am not the kind of person to get all high and mighty about this, and I will let Michael harbour the notion that he has been asked on merit, although, deep down he must know the truth.

One of my duties as best man is to make a speech. I haven’t planned or written anything; to be honest, I’m relying on Michael to do that bit, as if you’ve ever seen us perform live, you’ll know that once Michael gets going … I’d like to think that I no Sean pretty well and, given that I spend over half my life with him, I should be able to come up with a couple of stories.

I don’t think Sean will have any problem adapting to marriage. After all, he has managed to spend half of his life in the company of me and Michael. I’m sure marriage will be a picnic in comparison. It’ll be very similar, only he’ll be in the company of someone he actually doesn’t mind having sex with; whereas with me and Michael it takes him at least three pints before he’s interested in us.

If Sean is reading this, fear not, I will not be saying that in my speech It will be a family friendly speech, given that there will be children present. I will therefore be avoiding some of the more salacious stories. I’ll save all that for the book.

The last time I did a speech was last week at the BBC radio 2 Folk Awards. I wonder whether someone will follow the example of the Folk Awards audience, and shout out something Dollop-related for this speech. Maybe someone will shout “pissing dog-lady,” and I can say, “that’s no way to talk about the bride.” Or maybe, just before the wedding cake is served, someone could shout, “I wouldn’t imagine it would taste very nice?” I know that Sean was hoping for a David’s Daily Digital Dollop themed wedding, but his partner wasn’t so keen. I think she was a bit concerned that it would make Michael feel a bit left out. I mean, he’s already having to bravely soldier on with the day knowing that he’s only there out of tokenism and to counter a probably non-existent curse. He could do without having the extra insult of my popularity and genius being rubbed in his face, as people shout out my various hilarious Dollop catchphrases. If there’s anyone reading this though who wants to book a Dollop themed wedding, then get in touch with me, and we’ll discuss the best package based on your budget.

I’m probably going to have to write tomorrow’s Dollop first thing in the morning before setting off for the wedding, as the wedding celebrations will be lasting all day. I’m not saying I want something to go wrong with the wedding, but at least it would mean that I’d have something interesting to write about, and also I’d have the time to write about it, because there wouldn’t be a wedding happening. But I think it would be reckless of me to turn up at the wedding having not done that day’s Dollop, only for the wedding to take place, leaving me with the very tough decision of whether to let the 366 daily blogs challenge fail, or to quickly go home, type up that day’s Dollop, and then leg it back to the wedding again, and hope that no one notices. It’s not like I’ll be missed. I mean there are two best men for goodness sake, so I’m sure Michael can manage on his own for a couple of hours.

So I’ll have to do the Dollop before the wedding, which means that you’ll have to wait until Sunday to find out whether the marriage took place, unless something happens tonight. What suspense.

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Given that all I’ve done today is work on ideas for The Young’uns In The Mix (which you can experience if you buy tickets for Folk East festival in Suffolk – it’s happening Saturday night) I haven’t really done anything that I can write about. So I had a brief look on Twitter for inspiration, and found a BBC news article about “the building site of the future.”

Apparently, building sites of the future will involve robotic builders, usurping the need for human builders. Apparently these robotic builders are very advanced and efficient, and they are entirely fuelled by strong cups of tea, which they must be given every twenty minutes. The robotic builders project is very much in its early faze at the moment, but already huge progress has been made. The robots have been programmed to carry out common basic builders’ tasks. They can wolf-whistle, shout sexist remarks at young women, such as “get your tits out for the lads,” plus they also have a variety of common phrases at their disposal, such as, “it’ll cost ya,” and, “how’s about another cuppa?” They have also been programmed with an impressive, state-of-the-art excuses chip, which boasts thousands of vindications for not turning up, project delays, accidental damage, and sloppy workmanship. Unfortunately, they haven’t yet managed to move the project on to the second faze, which will be to teach the robots how to build. So currently the robot builders are only capable of the wolf whistling, the sexism, drinking tea and coming up with excuses. So basically they’ve already reached the level of some actual human builders. The robots are coming for their jobs, and the word on the street is that the builders are bricking it.

As exciting as the prospect of robot builders might seem, the trouble with replacing every human worker with a machine is that there won’t be any people who can actually afford to live, as everyone is out of work. We will have machines that are capable of building us houses, cooking us food, driving us to and from work, but we won’t have a job for the robot cars to take us to, and we won’t have any money to buy a house for the robots to build us. Of course, the danger is that governments and big corporations will realise that it’s much easier to control robots than it is humans, and so we’ll reach a situation where we are turfed out of our houses, and the robots move in. As robotic technology improves and the robots get more intelligent, their demands and needs are going to expand. Eventually it will be the humans who are the slaves of the robots, expected to carry out the robots’ bidding. We will be forced to spend entire days just repeatedly refuelling robotic builders with strong tea, while they build their palaces of gold. And the robot builders will look down on us, point, laugh, and say, “I told you it would cost you?”

Another thing the article mentions is that houses will be built using a 3D printer. This sounds unbelievably fantastical. Have we even mastered the actual ink/laser printer yet? When I used to do an office job, I had endless problems with the printer. It would sometimes take up whole days just trying to get the bloody thing to work. And now we’re moving onto printing houses? One of the common problems with the printer at work was that someone using the printer before me would have set it to print multiple times, and I, not knowing that someone had been using the computer, would end up accidentally printing off ten copies. Often I would set the printer going and then leave the office to go to the toilet while I waited for it to print, and when I came back there would be loads of paper strewn over the floor, as it duplicated the thing I wanted to print over and over again. Is this going to happen in the 3D printing world as well? Are we going to set our printers going in the morning to print us a house, only to return back from work, ready to move in and find absolute mayhem, as the street is awash with houses which have been built on top of p people’s cars and entirely blocked up the road? Not the best way to ingratiate you with your new neighbours. and

The other article I read was a bout a new museum exhibition about the history of underwear, but to be honest I stopped reading it after the first paragraph because it sounded like a complete load of pants. So, there you go, another classic Dollop. I thank you.

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Thanks to those of you who have tried to counter the unflattering David Eagle related Google searches I’ve recently been getting, such as ‘Is David Eagle autistic?’ by making some more positive searches. Here are some of the Google searches that people have done relating to my name over the last couple of days: “David Eagle The Young’uns fit,’ ‘David Eagle The Young’uns sexy,’ ‘how can I ask David eagle from The Young’uns out?’ Even though these searches have been made as a result of me complaining about the amount of searches I’ve been getting for things like “David Eagle blind,’ and ‘David Eagle disability,’ it still made me feel quite good about myself. After all, there is a tiny chance that someone actually genuinely made these searches on their own volition, having not read my Dollops. Although, for the person who Googled ‘how can I ask David eagle from The Young’uns out?’ I must unfortunately tell you that it’s unlikely that there’ll be any relationship between the two of us.

Firstly, you do not score well on basic intelligence. You seem to be unaware of how Google works. It is a search engine, designed to bring up results based on the keywords you’ve typed. It’s not able to subjectively give you answers to emotive questions, although perhaps it’s only a matter of time before this happens. I suppose that it’s technically possible. Given the amount of data Google probably has about me, it could probably tell you my favourite foods, favourite films and music, which might help you choose a gift for me, in order to soften me up and make me more amenable for your proposition, and also to act as a token of your love for me. Although, given that I’ve written blogs about buying vegetables from Sainsbury’s, Google might incorrectly suggest that a great gift idea for me is a courgette. Sadly, if you came to me declaring your love for me and then handed me a courgette, I would be both confused and disturbed. I’d be wondering what the courgette was all about, and might think you were propositioning me to join you in some kinky vegetable-based exploits, which I think is a bit premature, considering we haven’t even had a first date; I don’t do kinky things with vegetables until the third date – that’s my rule.

If this Google search query was genuine, then I’m afraid they have already turned me off by their lack of basic intelligence, as they obviously don’t understand how Google works, unless they assumed that I am so amazingly popular and fanciable that there is a guide on the Internet about how to ask me out. If this guide does exist, then it begs the question, who the heck has written it? Have my ex-girlfriends all teamed up together, to collectively pool their experiences of dating me, in order to altruistically assist other girls in having the best chance of getting into a relationship with me? Maybe the reason they broke up with me was because they felt selfish to be keeping me for themselves, and so selflessly sacrificed their happiness so that other women could have the chance of experiencing the ineffable joy of a relationship with David Eagle.

Or maybe this is a money-making exercise for my exes, and perhaps they are selling this information to hundreds of girls, all desperate for some tips about how to improve their chances of wooing me. Perhaps the guide book advises them on important information like to wait until the third date before handing me a courgette. I wondered why my relationships never worked out; it’s because my girlfriends were contacted by my exes and seduced to leave me and make their fortune by helping to write a guide to going out with me. It all makes sense now.

All I would say to these unscrupulous women is that you will rue your unconscionable decision. Yes, you may make a small fortune by conning some poor lovestruck women out of their money, but there will come a time when you’ll all look back on what you’ve done and realise that no amount of money is worth the loneliness and emptiness you feel, now that I am no longer in your life.

But, I expect that the truth is simply that these Google searches were not genuine, but were made by Dollop readers/listeners as a joke. But at least I feel a bit more confident in myself now, as there is still a tiny possibility that these were actual genuine search queries, , and it’s only a matter of time before I am contacted by the girl of my dreams. Unfortunately, I’m not sure whether I can afford to allow anyone special into my life at the moment, as they will destract me from this Daily Dollops challenge. I would imagine that sitting in my bedroom by myself writing about trips to the supermarket will suddenly seem pointless and unappealing, if I there is a woman trying to seduce me into enjoying the pleasures of the flesh. So, this is a serious plea to the girl of my dreams: could you please just try and contain yourself until the end of the year, and this challenge has been accomplished? To reward you for your patience, I will accept a courgette on our very first date. I mean, it’s clear that you are the one, so why waste time being all coy about it?,