Download the audio version here

Being home after three weeks away on tour is a bit of a culture shock. I’ve got used to having constant stimulus and things being busy and hectic all the time: travelling, performing, doing free community events, while also writing, recording and publishing these Dollops; then socialising after the gigs. For the last three weeks I’ve more or less constantly been around people, with barely any time to myself.

My housemates Ben and Elsa are away, so since getting home yesterday afternoon, the only people I’ve spoken to are the delivery man who brought me my curry last night, and the girl from Sainsburies. I assume you read that properly, and realised by the way I’d punctuated that last sentence, that the delivery man only came to my house to deliver the curry; he didn’t deliver a girl from Sainsbury’s to my door as well. Other than a couple of texts and a few online conversations, that is all the contact I’ve had.

You might be hoping that the girl in Sainsbury’s was our friend from previous Dollops with the scant vegetable knowledge, but alas it wasn’t, although this particular girl didn’t know what Bulgur wheat was, but I don’t feel inspired to write a lengthy blog merely based on that single grain-based ignorance. To be honest, I think I’ve maybe milked all the comic potential from Sainsbury’s shop assistants. After all, I am not the kind of writer who gets stuck in a rut. I must move onto explore new comic pastures. Maybe the shop assistants at Tesco will provide me with some material.

Today I have been sifting through the hours of audio I’ve accumulated so far this year from last month’s tour and our time in Australia in March. There is just under 100 hours of audio on my hard drive to tackle. For the other two Young’uns, they can go home and unwind after a tour, whereas I have to experience the whole thing again, sifting through recordings for the Young’uns Podcast. For the last seven hours, the only voices I’ve heard are mine, Sean’s and Michael’s, with the occasional interjection from an audience member. If you come to any of our gigs this summer, please heckle, just to keep me sane, as it’ll mean I’ll have at least one other voice to listen to other than me Sean and Michael, even if it’s just a fleeting interjection. That one heckle could be what stops me from having a mental breakdown.

The other problem is, given that all I’ve done since getting back is listen to the sound of me and my other two bandmates’ voices, there is nothing really new to write about. I can’t write about the things that happened at the gigs, because I’ve either written about them, or I’m saving them for The Young’uns Podcast.

Despite the fact that I’ve spent the whole day sifting through hours of Young’uns gigs for the next Young’uns Podcast, I think that I might have to put back the release of the next Young’uns Podcast to the end of may, rather than releasing it this week, as planned. This is because I really need to spend the time that I’m at home working on another special project, which I can’t really do when I’m away on tour, whereas I can record and release The Young’uns Podcast from on tour.

The special project I am referring to is The Young’uns In The Mix. Young’uns Podcast listeners may remember The Young’uns In The Mix. In August, at the Folk East festival in Suffolk, I’ll be doing The Young’uns In The Mix live.

Here’s the blurb I wrote yesterday for the Folk east website and Programme.

Prepare to enter a world where folk music and pop music collide. Where Seth Lakeman is collaborating with the Spice Girls, Greg Russell & Ciaran Algar join forces with Daft Punk, The Watersons share the stage with Van-halen, and the Prodigy embrace sea shanties.

David Eagle from The Young’uns takes to the decks to DJ, exclusively for Folk East, as the two disparate worlds of folk and pop join together in unholy musical matrimony. Come and hear folk music like you’ve never heard it before. Come and dance the night away in the company of The Young’uns, armed with disco lights, samplers and DJ decks, and joined by the amazing MC Squared. What do you get when you cross The Unthanks with Queen? All shall be revealed!

I don’t want to worry Becky and John, the organisers of Folk East, who read these Dollops, but I haven’t made a start on this project yet. I’ve written the blurb, and I can hear everything in my head, but I need to use the very short amount of time that I have to get all this prepared. It’s not a case of just turning up with a few records and DJing. I am effectively going to be wrestling with music, trying to force two very different musical styles to work together. Sea shanties for instance don’t conform to a strict key or beat; the key can often drift during the song, and the beat is not strictly constant, as they’re not performed to a metronome and it’s more free-form. I am not a DJ. I’ve never really DJed live. So for all the bravado of the blurb, I have no idea what I’m doing or how the ideas in my head will actually translate into reality, if indeed they even will. So I need to get cracking, and I only have a few weeks, as I’m busy with The Young’uns at the end of May, during June and in Canada and doing festivals for most of July. And then we’re into August, the month of the Folk East festival. I have just a few weeks to learn how to DJ live and also to experiment with the ideas I have in my head.

It could all go horribly wrong. Of course, there is a possibility that it going horribly wrong might actually be really funny, in which case it will still be entertaining, and could therefore be seen as it all going right. If you fancy witnessing this first, and possibly last, Young’uns In The Mix experiment, then get yourself some Folk East festival tickets for the Saturday. I will also release it as a Young’uns Podcast.

Of course, if it’s really going horribly wrong, then I could always get the Yamaha keyboard out, as I’ve already proved myself to be an amazing DJ with the old Yamaha keyboard, ensuring that the party will well and truly be swinging. So, if Becky and John from Folk East are reading this, there is nothing to worry about.

I am not entirely new to mixing disparate styles of music. I’ve done two David Eagle’s Pick and Mix episodes, which mixed things like The Darkness and Basement Jaxx with the grandstand Television theme, and the Chemical Brothers with Flanders and swann. I am happy with the way those two mixes turned out (and I want to get around to doing another one at some point), although they weren’t DJed live in front of an audience. I will also be MCing under the nom de plume, MC Squared.

Get your tickets for Folk East festival, and come and watch the magic, or the tragic, unfold.

David’s Daily Digital Dollop is available as an audio podcast. You can subscribe with Itunes here
or view the RSS feed here

Download audio version

So, I am now over a third of the way through this project. I’ve managed to release a blog everyday for 122 days. The audio blog has flagged a little bit, due to bad WIFI at certain venues, but for the most part it’s kept up with the written version. I’m pleased that the audience for this project has steadily increased over the weeks. The folk award win seems to have bolstered the numbers quite a bit. The audio version is way more popular than the written version. I like to think this is because you all find my voice massively arousing, but it might just be because you’re all just really lazy and can’t be arsed reading. Either way, thanks so much for taking an interest. There are hundreds of you who keep coming back on a daily basis, and the fact that the figures don’t seem to have dropped off but are increasing either means I am doing something right, or that you’re all just really easily pleased; or maybe you just all feel sorry for me and are listening/reading out of sympathy.

Thanks as well to all of you who’ve left comments on these blogs. There are quite a few comments I’ve still got to approve for publishing onto the site, and I’m very behind on replying too, as I’ve been so busy over the last few weeks, but I’ll get around to it over the next few days, as I’m now heading back home after three weeks on the road.

I am a little taken aback to discover that certain people who I’d perhaps rather didn’t read/listen, do READ/LISTEN TO these Dollops. My dad now and again tells me that he’s been keeping up with what I’ve been doing by reading the Dollops. Whenever he mentions this I always immediately try and change the subject, dreading to think what kind of things he might have read, as they could lead to some rather uncomfortable conversations. If dad is reading this and is wondering why I suddenly became interested in talking about the new wallpaper in the living room, then it was simply to avoid us having a conversation that involved us talking about eligible teenage girls who I could impregnate in order to get my home town of Hartlepool back to the top of the teenage pregnancy league. My dad is a very proud Hartlipudlian, so maybe the awkwardness of a father scouting for girls for his son to impregnate might be tempered by his pride for his town.

My housemate Ben’s parents also listen/read these Dollops. In fact, when Ben called home recently, his parents already knew about his new sofa, because of the blog I wrote about it. I don’t mind them reading about sofas and kettles, but I’m a little uncomfortable with the notion that they are reading some of the more profane and salacious content.

After our massively enjoyable homecoming gig in Durham last Saturday, I travelled back with my dad, my dad’s fiancée Irene and my aunty Linda, who is not really my aunty but a surrogate aunty who I’ve known all my life. Linda informed me that she’d started reading my Dollops. There was a bit of a pause while I desperately searched for another conversation topic.

“How’s the wallpaper in the living room?” I asked. But sadly, my wallpaper gambit failed, due to the fact that she hadn’t had the wallpaper changed in the living room for years.

“I read the one about the old people’s home today,” she said.

“What about the carpet?” I was conscious of the fact that the Dollop about the old people’s home consisted of me postulating on the subject of me having sex with women in their nineties. I appreciate if you didn’t read this you might be a little troubled. Out of context this might seem highly disturbing, but be reassured that in context it is only mildly disturbing. But context be damned, I really didn’t fancy discussing the notion of me having sex with women in their nineties with aunty Linda and my dad.

Ideally, there would be a way of having a family friendly version of these Dollops, and a way to direct family, surrogate aunties and friends’ parents to this tamer, sanatised content, therefore avoiding any potential embarrassment when I meet them. So on a day when I might be joking about having sex with women in their nineties or impregnating teenage girls, these family members and friends’ parents will be directed to an alternative Dollop all about how I’ve been doing a spot of gardening over the weekend. Unfortunately, I fear that this would be far too cumbersome and complex to set up, plus it’s also probably a bit too late for that, given some of the things they’ve already read.

At yesterday’s gig in Cumbria I talked about the unflattering David Eagle related Google searches that have been leading people to my website, such as ‘Is David Eagle autistic?’ I was pleased that the audience found it funny, and it was gratifying to note that the jokes from the previous two days’ blogs got good laughs. As much as I enjoy writing these Dollops, I don’t get instant audience feedback from them like I do when performing stuff in front of a live audience, so it’s nice to note that what I’m writing is actually funny.

There’ll be more clips of me talking about this subject at various gigs on The Young’uns podcast at some point soon. A new Young’uns Podcast featuring our Australian adventures will be released this week. In the meantime you can listen to and download all past episodes, plus subscribe for free to receive the podcast automatically through Itunes and other podcast programmes. For all that, go to The Young’uns Podccast page.

And you can also freely subscribe to, listen to and download the audio podcast version of David’s Daily Digital Dollop with Itunes here, or point your favourite podcast subscription service to this RSS feed. Plus you can search for the podcasts on Itunes, the Podcasts app on your Apple devices or any other podcast programme. Or if all this is confusing you, just keep doing what you’re doing, and read/listen that way, and don’t worry your pretty little head about it.

Download audio version here

Yesterday’s David Eagle related Google searches included ‘David Eagle disability’ and ‘David Eagle arm.’ I’m not entirely sure what the latter search query was all about, but it might be related to the fact that apparently I have a tendency to hold my arm out in a slightly idiosyncratic way. I can’t really describe what it is, as I am not conscious of it. The only time it’s ever mentioned to me is by boisterous drunk men, normally in a slightly threatening, accusatory manner, and it normally coincides with them mentioning my lack of eye contact, telling me that I’m not looking at them properly, and then aggressively asking what’s wrong with me. If I explain to them that I’m blind then they are immediately contrite, but it’s interesting how hostile certain people are to me before they realise this, assuming that I’m being deliberately anti-social or insulting to them. Most people are too polite to say anything, and most people certainly wouldn’t call me a freak to my face or act with hostility towards me, just a drunken minority. But, nonetheless, I assume that people do register these differences: the wobbling eyes, the lack of eye contact, the slightly bent hand, which, for the benefit of anyone Googling ‘David Eagle arm,’ is probably a subconscious defence posture, developed over years of having to protect myself from walking into things by putting my hand out, but I don’t know, maybe it’s something else. The wobbling eyes is probably related to my malfunctioning optic nerve, searching for types of visual stimulus that it’s not getting. But this is all just conjecture.

I wasn’t going to publish this until The Young’uns Podcast came out, but in light of the numbers of people searching for ‘David Eagle blind,’ ‘David Eagle disability’ and ‘is David Eagle autistic?’ maybe it would be apposite to publish this now. It’s a story taken from one of our gigs on tour, which addresses the subject of people’s reaction to me and my blindness. It’s been really fun and also therapeutic telling this story. I am not at all confident about myself in a visual, physical sense, nor do I have any reason to be, given that I can’t see myself and that I have no real way of assimilating normal, sighted physical behaviour, such as eye contact. Fortunately I have the ability to talk about it publicly and in a hopefully humorous way, meaning that I have a cathartic release valve that doesn’t involve getting too depressed or feeling isolated about it.

Bloody hell, I feel as if this Dollop has maybe been a little more introspective and revealing than I perhaps would have wanted, but hopefully it’s been an interesting read, and hopefully the following audio clip will be entertaining and lift the mood a bit.

Download the story here

Back tomorrow.

Download audio version here

In Dollop 25 I wrote about how one of the most searched for terms that brings people to my website is, ‘David Eagle blind,’ or ‘The Young’uns blind.’ When we were gigging in Australia, this search query made a massive resurgence, as people were seeing us for the first time and presumably were curious to know. It then died out a bit after our Australian tour, but then picked back up as we started our UK tour. But then, after the Folk Awards this week, the amount of people searching for ‘David Eagle blind,’ and ‘The Young’uns blind’ has reached a new high.

Today, my website stats showed me a new search query which I’d never seen before. Someone had typed into Google, ‘is David Eagle autistic?’ The person who typed this was directed to my website, which they clicked on. I have not mentioned being autistic on my website, but then again, I haven’t said I’m not, so I wonder if they’ve maybe read some of these Dollops and tried to solve the mystery for themselves, in which case, I wonder what conclusion they reached. If you are reading this Dollop, my friend, I can reveal to you now that … I am … not autistic.

I wonder whether you’ll stay and read the rest of this Dollop or whether, now that your curiosity has been satisfied, you will click off this page, never to return again. Maybe this is what this person does for a hobby: thinks of a name and then asks Google whether they are autistic. Maybe they are collecting a list of autistic people, and mine is just one on a long list of names that they’ve asked Google whether they are autistic. So maybe I shouldn’t feel so self-conscious about this. But, being tagged by one disability that I actually have is one thing, but being identified with a disability that I don’t have is something else altogether. I wonder when and where they saw me, and what it was about me and what I was doing that prompted their question. If you are still reading this then perhaps you can let me know.

At the moment, I am only aware of which searches people have done when it elicits a click onto my website. I haven’t checked Google’s stats, which would also show me all the searches relating to my name that didn’t result in people clicking on my website. If I checked Google’s stats services then I might discover that there are hundreds of people asking whether I am autistic, and who knows what other questions: ‘Is David Eagle really a man?’ ‘Is David Eagle suffering from Halitosis?’ ‘Is David Eagle brain damaged?’ I dare not look, in fear of the array of confidence crushing questions I might find.

Why has no one searched for: ‘Is David Eagle single? I mean, I know he probably isn’t because he’s massively attractive, and anyway, even if he was he probably wouldn’t be interested in me because he’s way out of my league, but a girl can dream?’ ‘Is David Eagle a member of Mensa? He seems so clever, and funny.’ ‘Is David Eagle doing any solo gigging? He’s so talented, and I’d like to see more of him, without the other two dragging him down.’ But no, nothing like that.

There is a story I’ve been telling on this tour which ties into this subject. I won’t tell it here, as it will be on a Young’uns Podcast at some point soon. We’ll be releasing a podcast at the start of May, detailing our Australian exploits.

In the meantime, you can catch up with all of the past Young’uns Podcasts here. Although, why am I even bothering to tell you. Most of you are probably only here because of some unflattering question about me that you put into Google, and are not interested in any actual content, unless it relates to your question asking whether I have a certain disability or disease. If anyone has any questions about me, then feel free to leave a comment on this blog. Maybe if I get enough, or if I pluck up the courage to check Google’s stats for other David Eagle related search queries, I will put up a Frequently Asked Questions page.

Download audio version here

We’ve just done one of our free community events, performing at an old people’s home in Liverpool. It was a lovely gig and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. But then at the end, chaos occurred.

As we bid everyone goodbye and made to leave, we heard a kerfuffle from behind us, and a cry of “wait” from one of the ladies. Looking round, we saw that some of the residents had started getting money out of their purses. We tried to stop them, but they were resolutely thrusting it into our hands. It was impossible to stop them and hand their money back, as more and more hands kept going, until everyone started joining in. As the enthusiasm for this exercise increased among the residents, the amounts of money that were being presented to us were getting larger and larger, with some people handing over notes. If we’d have accepted all the money that was being thrust at us then we’d probably have come away from this short afternoon performance in an old people’s home with more money than we’d made on any of our actual gigs. We kept trying to hand people their money back, but it was becoming increasingly difficult as more and more people pushed their hands at us and dropped their offering on the table. The table was now covered with coins and notes. Plus, we had no idea who had given what. If we tried asking people what they’d given, so that we could give it back, they either refused to tell us or said they couldn’t remember, which may have been true – after all they are ninety and their memories are probably not brilliant – or just an excuse to stop us returning the money to them.

The staff attempted to step in and reissue the money to people, but they had no idea who’d given what. The place was in chaos. Some people had gone to their rooms, realising that they hadn’t got any money, and were now coming back to give us money, not realising that we’d actively been avoiding taking it for the last five minutes. Some people were pursuing us out of the place, still trying to give us money.

The staff are clearly not going to be able to give the right amount of money to the people who gave it, and so maybe we should have accepted. But it seemed wrong to offer a gig for free and then end up coming away with hundreds of pounds. But is it patronising of us to refuse their money just because they are in their nineties? We refused the money as soon as it was offered. Had we accepted, would staff have stepped into intervene? Regardless, it just seemed inappropriate for us to accept.

But maybe we are going about our performance career in the wrong way here. Maybe we should be using the money from benevolent old people to subsidise our gigs for everyone else. The beauty of this scheme is that the old people don’t have to travel anywhere, because they live in the venue we’d be performing in, as it’s sheltered accommodation. Therefore, with the money they’re saving on travel, they can afford to pay a healthy amount to us. Also, the fact that these people are reaching the end of their lives means that they’ll be able to afford to be extra benevolent.

The three of us wouldn’t need to bother paying for a hotel, because we’d be able to stay in the residential home, either sharing a bed with a benevolent old lady, or taking advantage of any beds that have recently become free due to a resident dying. The bonus of this scheme is that there’ll be some lucky ladies in their nineties who get to have a night of passion with a man in his thirties, which we’d be offering as a free extra. Or maybe we should be charging. After all, I doubt that any of these ladies in their nineties would have ever thought they’d get the chance to spend another night with anyone ever again, never mind someone so young and attractive. I mean, obviously there’s a chance that they might be lumped with Michael or Sean, but at least they’d still be getting someone young. Then, with all this money we’re making and saving from gigging to and sleeping with old people, we’ll be able to lower the fees on our main gigs. I cannot see a problem with this scenario, and I intend to forward this Dollop onto our agent immediately.

I think it’s very doubtful that the staff at today’s home are going to be able to give the right amount of money back to the right people. Perhaps the residents will just decide to split the money between them equally. They may even elect to put all their money on the table and split all of it equally between them, and start a new utopian life where everyone is equal. This idea might then spread into other old people’s homes, and this might eventually filter down to the rest of society. Sadly, this would eventually invariably lead to people being put to death, as yet another communist attempt fails to effectively get off the ground. We thought it would be nice to do some free gigs for people in the community, but we may have ended up accidentally launching a bloody communist revolution, resulting in the possible death of millions. Lesson well and truly learnt. We’ll be sure to only do gigs for lots of money in the future, and hope that the people in the residential home in Liverpool either die or have a collective memory laps before they can set their communist plans to action.

Sorry if you were hoping for some showbiz stories from the folk awards and conversations with celebrities, but I find all of that massively daunting and intimidating. I am much more secure and content being in my own little bubble, writing blogs about having sex with ninety-year-old women. But come on, let’s be honest, you would clearly rather read about fictional communist revolutions brought about by ninety-year-olds in a residential home than listen to me having a conversation with Martin Freeman, wouldn’t you? What? Really? Oh, well, sorry.

The title of this Dollop, Money From Old Folk, is meant to be a sort of pun on Money For Old Rope, but I’m not sure if it works and was maybe a bit too subtle. That’s the trouble with me: I am just too subtle. I’m sick of people constantly telling me that, time and time again. “Oh you’re so subtle David,” they say. I would tell them to fuck off, but I’m far too subtle to do that.

Download the audio version here

This is going to be another hastily written Dollop, as
on stage at Warwick Arts Centre in an hour. I’ve spent the day doing loads of interviews, plus we did another of our free community events today in a primary school in Coventry. So if this Dollop appears rushed and a bit uninspired then don’t blame me, blame the BBC Radio 2 awards panel for having the temerity to vote us best group again. As a result, I was up partying all night, only got three hours sleep and have spent the day doing interviews. Plus there’s been loads of Facebook comments, tweets and messages to wade through. Whereas if we hadn’t won I’d have probably gone to bed a lot earlier, got a lot more sleep and wouldn’t have had all the congratulatory comments to plough through, nor would I have had to do any interviews, meaning my brain would be a lot less frazzled and I’d have time to actually write something decent. The Folk Awards judges really have no consideration. What were they thinking?

While it was great to win the award for the second year running, the true highlight was that the Dollop got a shout out. We were standing on stage, and just before our acceptance speech, as the applause died down, there was a shout from the audience of “give us a Dollop David.” I didn’t notice at the time, but listening to it back on the radio, it is clearly audible. The shouter is Irish Mythen, who’s supporting us on tour at the moment. I mean she’s probably just angling for a bit more money from us and thought that a Dollop-related shout out would soften me up.

I also had lots of lovely conversations with people at the folk awards who are Dollop listeners. There were quite a lot of people who were telling me that they listen everyday before going to sleep. I find it’s strange to think that there are people who hear my voice and enter my mind on a daily basis, and also that for some people, mine is the last voice they hear before they go to sleep. There were quite a few women who told me this, although none of them accepted my half-joking invitation to have my none-recorded voice lulling them to sleep, for the very reasonable price of their body, by which I am referring to their live body in a sexual capacity, in case you were worried that I meant that I intended to kill them, which would probably be a bit much, even for such an amazing experience as the one I was offering. But no, I am not a psycho; just a slightly creepy sexually repressed idiot.

I didn’t feel too rejected though, as it’s obvious that the only reason these female Dollop listeners didn’t take me up on my semi-jocular offer was because they didn’t want to distract me from recording the audio versions of the Dollops, which I was two days behind on. So they gallantly decided to sacrifice their night of unbridled pleasure with me for the greater good, knowing how bereft they and all the other Dollop listeners would be if they had to go any longer without hearing the latest audio Dollop. I would like to thank you all for being strong enough to resist, what must have been, the overpowering urge to succumb to the pleasures of the flesh, and thus allowing me to leave the party at 3am in order to record the two pending audio Dollops. You are truly amazing and inspirational women. I take my hat off to you; though sadly not my pants.

I also spoke to the winners of Best Duo at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman. You may remember from Dollop 22 that I mentioned that they’d put a thing on Twitter declaring their favourite artists. Included on the list was Maddy Prior and other big names in folk. But right at the top of the list was my name, not The Young’uns, but just me, and they had linked to my twitter account. Naturally I’d assumed that they’d meant to write The Young’uns and somehow accidentally just tagged me instead, however I spoke to them both yesterday, and they said that they had deliberately meant to mention me, because they listened to these Dollops everyday in bed before they go to sleep. Well, at least, I assume they listen to it and then fall asleep. They just told me that they listened every night in bed. Whether they find the Dollops an audio aphrodisiac or not is none of my business, and to be honest I wouldn’t want to know. After all, it would be a bit of a kick in the teeth to discover that I was responsible for two people getting it on on a nightly basis, when me and my female followers are sacrificing our pleasure so that they can have their daily dose of audio arousal.

While it was really nice to hear that they were big fans of the Dollops, they sadly did not thank me in their awards speech. I’m sure they will next year, now they’ve listened to this Dollop and can appreciate the sacrifices that I and others make for them.

I have to go now, as I’m due on stage in two minutes.

You can listen/watch the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards here Our speech is in the last half an hour. See if you can hear the Dollop shout out before we start talking.

Download audio version

This is going to have to be a very hastily written Dollop, as the Folk Awards are about to commence in the next hour, and I doubt I’d get away with typing up a Dollop while sitting in the ceremony. However, if you see me on the TV typing on my laptop, or even worse, muttering the audio Dollop into a digital recorder, then you know that this project has really driven me insane, to the point where I’m willing to sabotage a BBC awards ceremony and in the process ensure that we’ll never be invited back again. So apologies if this Dollop is a bit short and not very interesting or entertaining. At least I provided you with an amazing stream of consciousness blog yesterday all about sandwiches, which will clearly more than make up for any shortfall today.

I am sitting at the bottom of a staircase in one of the bars in the Royal Albert Hall. Everyone else is drinking around me, but I am resolutely keeping this challenge going. You see Dad, there’s no need to worry about my mental health, and that I’m spending all my life preoccupied about blogging. The good news is that these Dollops are stopping me from drinking, thus being good for both my mental and physical health. I mean, chances are that this challenge will eventually end up driving me to drink and becoming a full-blown alcoholic, but the good news is that, at least for now, it’s resulting in me drinking a lot less.

We arrived at the Royal Albert Hall with about ten minutes to spare. We then had to go through security checks before they believed who we were and that we were actually meant to be on the Simon Mayo show. They asked us lots of questions. It seemed like we were going to end up missing our spot as a result of being held up by the security staff. I did try suggesting to the security staff that they could verify that we were The Young’uns by locating our website, which would surely take a lot less time than all of the phoning through to different departments, which was what was currently happening. I thought that this made perfect sense, but it probably just made me sound arrogant. To be honest, I was probably looking rather suspicious, as I was carrying a big bag containing my laptop and other electronic equipment in order to do the Dollop.

Eventually we were allowed through with just five minutes to spare. We were ushered into a waiting room where we saw our good friends The Unthanks, who had just been on the show. We loudly and enthusiastically greeted each other, at which point a harassed producer came running in waving her hands at us and whispering for us to keep the noise down. It took us a few seconds to realise this as we were too busy chattering away and hugging each other, plus she was whispering, so we didn’t really hear her. The reason for her whispering and waving was because she was trying to get us to keep the noise down. The three of us hadn’t realised that the studio was literally next door, and apparently, according to the whispering producer, we could be heard in the studio and would be able to be heard on the radio. In fairness to the three of us, we didn’t know that the studio was so close to where we were, but The Unthanks were aware of this because they’d just been on the show, so if there is anyone from the Simon Mayo team reading this, I hope you can see that the fault clearly lies with the Unthanks and not us.

A minute later we were whisked into the studio, which was literally next-door, so it’s likely that the producer wasn’t exaggerating about us being audible on the radio. We were warned by the producer that we literally would only have two minutes in which to do the briefest of chats and then sing. Baring in mind that the song was 1 minute 40, the chat would have to be very brief. However, when at 557, Simon went to the traffic news, the line wasn’t working, meaning that they came to us earlier than planned. Whether this had anything to do with me or not I cannot say. Whether I happened to use one of the electronic bits of equipment housed in my bag in order to jam the studio line and thus buy us more radio time, I cannot say. But it worked a treat, and we ended up getting 2 minutes thirty seconds on the air as a result, which was well worth the days of electronic research and tinkering, or, I mean, it would have been worth it, if I had actually been responsible for the traffic being curtailed; which I am not divulging.

If you want to know how our Simon Mayo appearance went, then give it a listen. We’re on at 557. Or have a listen from 550, and see if you can hear the sounds of us and The Unthanks shouting away in the background.

At the time of writing, we are currently the holders of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for best group. What will the next few hours bring? Tune in to BBC radio 2 from 7pm today to find out.

Download audio version here

The amount of bread we have eaten on this tour is ridiculous. We get up and leave first thing in the morning, and there isn’t really time to sit down and eat anywhere, and so we just grab a sandwich. Getting a salad would be more preferable and healthier, but the three of us eating salads in the van isn’t particularly practical. It can be rather messy, with those tubs of sauce that often come with them, and it’s hard for us all to eat at the same time, as there isn’t enough room for the three of us to wield our forks; we end up just elbowing each other in the face. Then we get to the venue, and the people have provided sandwiches for us. After the gig we are hungry, but often everywhere is closed apart from the take away places which serve burgers, pizzas or kebabs, which all have a bread element.

This morning, I had a ploughman’s sandwich. I mean, that was the name of the sandwich, in case you were thinking that I’d stolen food from a ploughman, perhaps waiting until he started ploughing and had his back turned to me, allowing me to make off with his butties without him realising.

The ploughman’s sandwich consisted of ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce and pickle, which are obviously the five top things that a ploughman likes to have in his sandwich. I assume they did a survey of lots of ploughmen, asking them what they liked in their sandwich, and then collated that information to create a bespoke sandwich tailored to the ploughman community. The ploughmen would no doubt have been immensely grateful that someone had bothered to put the effort in, perhaps wondering why they had been given such special treatment.

I enjoyed my ploughman’s sandwich, or at least as much as a man who is fed up to the back teeth – both literally and figuratively – with bread could be expected to enjoy a sandwich. But as I ate it I wondered why the ploughmen get a bespoke sandwich made for them, and why no one has thought to branch out and cater for people working in other fields (by which I am referring to jobs, jobs that don’t involve working in fields; I probably could have chosen a better word there).

What about the Data Annalist’s sandwich? or the IT Consultant’s sandwich? These people continue to be completely unrepresented in sandwich form, yet these are very common jobs. How many ploughmen do you know? But I bet you know at least one person who works in IT? The sandwich industry has clearly failed to move with the times, and doesn’t seem to have recognised the huge decline in ploughmen, and the many new jobs that have emerged as a result of the industrial and communications age. The sandwich makers are clearly out of touch with the real world.

I’m not saying that the ploughmen can’t still have their special bespoke sandwich. I am suggesting that the sandwich makers should also be reaching out to other professions and survey them about what they would like in their sandwich, and then cater for that community with their own special bespoke sandwich. I am happy to start the ball rolling and help the sandwich makers get started with this venture. So, if you could leave a comment on this blog telling me what your ideal sandwich would consist of, and then let me know your profession, I will collate the results and send them to the people working in sandwich production.

I suggest the first group of workers we target are the sandwich makers themselves. I mean, they are clearly the experts, the people who make sandwiches for a living, who have tried many and varied combinations of ingredients. Surely they of all people should know what it takes to make the perfect sandwich. If I wanted to buy a sandwich, I’d rather by a sandwich that has been specially designed for the highly discerning and skilled sandwich maker than a sandwich that’s been made for a man working on a field. No disrespect to ploughmen, but all I’m saying is that if I want a sandwich, I’d rather have a sandwich that’s been designed by and for the sandwich making community, just as if I wanted my field ploughing (and that reminds me, I really must get on the phone to someone about that) I would choose to get it done by a ploughman, and not a sandwich maker.

It would be interesting to see whether there is any correlation with the results. Will there even be a perfect sandwich that’s agreed on by the majority of people who just so happen to work in the same Job? Or will we discover that sandwich preference is not at all dependant on the job you do? Might it be that the only workers who agree on the perfect sandwich are ploughman? Maybe this is why none of the other jobs have sandwiches designed especially for them, as ploughmen are the only ones who have a collective opinion on sandwiches. Perhaps someone has already tried to do this work before, and found that asking people working in the same job to give their favourite sandwich yielded completely different results, with some people hating the very foods that other people said they loved. Maybe the sandwich makers got so confused and beaten down by their attempts to make bespoke sandwiches for these people that they eventually gave it up as a lost cause. If anyone knows then please get in touch.

If you’ve found this Dollop uninteresting or weird then blame it on the bread; it’s gone to my head.

Oh, I’ve just remembered that I haven’t even mentioned the original subject I was going to write about. We are doing the Simon Mayo BBC Radio 2 show tomorrow. We’re on just before the 6 O’clock news, and when I say “just before,” that is exactly what I mean. Apparently we only have about two minutes. That will be barely enough time for us to sing a song. There probably won’t be any time to talk about sandwiches unfortunately, as this would give me the perfect platform to start collating people’s professions and sandwich preferences. We might have to scrap the song.

Tomorrow we are at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards at the Albert Hall. After tomorrow we may no longer be the Best folk group. I hope you won’t dessert these Dollops if the result goes against us.

Download audio version

A few days ago, Boris Johnson made some risible remarks in the Sun Newspaper about Obama getting rid of the bust of Sir Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.

“Something mysterious happened when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office in 2009.
Something vanished from that room, and no one could quite explain why.
It was a bust of Winston Churchill – the great British war time leader. It had sat there for almost ten years. But on day one of the Obama administration it was returned, without ceremony, to the British embassy in Washington.
No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision.
Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

This seems like a very weak, shoehorned attempt to suggest that Obama is in some way anti-British, presumably in an effort to discredit his motives and his position about Britian staying in the EU. Otherwise why reference it? This is the opening paragraph of his article, so Boris has clearly deemed it an important point on which to hang the rest of the argument.

His manner of writing engenders a feeling of conspiracy: “Something mysterious happened when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office in 2009 …” “Something vanished from that room …” Boris does his best to keep the atmosphere of conspiracy alive, by writing: “No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision.
Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire …” Clearly this is just vague conjecture then, as Boris is tacitly admitting, only veiling it in the cloak of conspiracy and intrigue.

I’m sure many Sun readers will be sucked into Boris’s style of writing, and will already be horrified by Obama’s Anti-British audacity, to remove a bust of this “great British war time leader.” He clearly added that description of Churchill to stir up patriotic emotion within readers, unless he honestly thought that the people reading might not know who Churchill is.

Perhaps he was worried that some people might get confused and imagine that Obama removed a bust of the nodding dog from the insurance TV adverts. I suppose that would put a different spin on Obama’s decision. Boris wouldn’t want to discredit his entire article by having his readers completely miss the point and assume that Obama had spotted a bust of a dog from a British TV advert, and decided to remove it. Boris’s readers would be confused as to why Boris was making such a big thing of this. After all, it seems like a perfectly logical thing for Obama to do. I mean, this was a bust of a dog from an advert that wasn’t even on American television. Of all the iconic things that could possibly be hanging from the Ovel Office, surely a bust of a talking dog from a British TV advert was a highly odd and dubious choice.

Boris had said that it had been hanging there for almost ten years, since 1999. The Churchill dog only started appearing on British television in 2004, so there would have been five years when even British people visiting the Ovel Office wouldn’t recognise the bust. Perhaps the bust went largely ignored for the first five years. No one quite understood what the heck it was and why it was there, but it was harmless enough and so it was just left to hang. But then 2004 came and the TV adverts started appearing on British screens and every time someone from Britain entered the Ovel Office, they would mysteriously turn towards the dog and say “oh yes” in an odd voice, before laughing. Obama might have heard about this strange British quirk and the mysterious and parculiar affect that the dog bust had on British people.

He’d been told how Gordon Brown found it all highly amusing, sometimes spending minutes lost in his own world having a conversation with the dog, then replying to his questions in the dog’s voice. “Will I still be PM after the election?” “Oh yes,” “Should we keep spending?” “Oh yes.” Obama consequently had the dog bust removed both for his sanity and the sanity of Gordon Brown and all the other weird British people who took up hours of precious presidential time talking to the dog and saying “oh yes” and then laughing, rather than concentrating on the important reason for their visit.

Despite Boris’s best efforts to make his Sun article opener sound like an interesting, worthy conspiracy theory, all he really does is highlight how much of a none story this is: “No one was sure whether the President had himself been involved in the decision.” And surely that’s the point Boris; no one was sure. You’ve chosen to hang your argument on this weakest of threads, and you yourself have had to admit that the decision to remove the bust might not have had anything to do with Obama anyway. So you can dress it up as an interesting conspiracy theory if you want, but essentially it’s a none-story, which has subsequently been debunked as complete bollocks. Apparently the bust was removed before Obama entered office, although, in fairness to Boris, no one was sure that Obama didn’t employ a psychic to send telepathic messages to people in the white house to have the bust removed before he became president, in order to make it appear that the decision had nothing to do with him.

The fact that he also writes, “some people said …” is also very vague, and is extra indication that this theory of Boris’s is just that, a theory, a very weak conspiracy theory on which he pins his argument, clearly as a way to try and get the idea across that Obama is in some way anti-British.

Fortunately, the leave campaign has much more credible people behind it, and doesn’t solely consist of Boris Johnson and his peculiar fatuous conspiracy theories, otherwise they might be in trouble. The good news for the leave team is that they have Nigel farage onboard, who’s much more level headed and wouldn’t waste time concocting peculiar, spurious theories about Obama.

Nigel Farage was dismissive of Obama’s comments about Britain leaving the EU. Obama said that Britain could face being pushed to the back of the queue when it came to drawing up trade agreements with the US. But Nigel Farage wasn’t having any of it, accusing Obama of merely parroting the British PM. But as you’d expect, Farage wasn’t going to make such a statement glibly, he hadn’t merely jumped to this conclusion on next to no hard or real evidence. Obama might have got away with merely parroting the PM, were it not for Farage’s impressive intellect and powers of deduction. This is what he said to Sky news:

“”He said ‘We’d be at the back of the queue’. “Interesting, isn’t it? Americans don’t use the word ‘queue’. They use the word ‘line’ … So he’s clearly just parroting Cameron.”

Yes, very interesting Nigel. An observation that both shows off your amazing detective skills and also clearly showcases your abilities as a worthy contributor on Countdown’s Dictionary Corner. The Pro leave people were jubilant, ecstatic that Obama had been found out by Nigel’s incredible powers of deduction. If he’d have only said “line” then presumably Farage and the leave campaigners would have been more accepting of Obama’s words, but he said “queue,” didn’t he? He did, he said “queue,” and American’s don’t say “queue,” so he was obviously merely parroting the PM. In fact, no one was sure that David Cameron didn’t have Obama hypnotised to repeat that phrase whenever someone asked about how leaving the EU would affect Britain drawing up trade agreements with the US. No one was sure that that didn’t happen. If only they’d hypnotised him to say “line” instead of queue, then Cameron and the pro EU team would have gotten away with it, but they didn’t, did they? He was programmed to say “queue,” not “line,” and of course, Americans don’t say “queue,” they say “line,” don’t they? What a bunch of mind-manipulating idiots Cameron and the Pro EU brigade are. If only they’d said “queue” not “line,” then it would have all been fine.

Except … Americans do say queue. It’s in the American Dictionaries. I’ve checked. It took me less than two minutes to find the definition of queue in five different American dictionaries. You’d have thought maybe Farage could have spared a couple of minutes to do some cursory linguistic research before he presented his theory to the media. But in fairness to farage, it sounds like a really good theory, and it would be a shame to have it ruined just because it doesn’t happen to be factually accurate.

Granted, the word queue is less common in America than it is in England, but it’s not as if the word is never used and would be completely alien to Obama. Also, Obama does tend to travel quite a bit, and has been to Britain before, so it’s not unlikely that he’s picked up some of our lingo. After all, Farage is married to a German woman, who presumably speaks English, but I assume that Farage is happy to accept this and doesn’t accuse her of merely being his parrot? But I might be wrong. After all, no one is sure that Farage doesn’t force his wife to put on a costume made of feathers, flap her arms about, squawk and then repeat everything that Nigel says, only in the voice of a parrot. Some people say that he does this because he finds it sexually arousing. Some people say that he does this because he is an oddball with a weird power complex. No one is sure.

Download audio version

Another really enjoyable and very long day yesterday. We were in the van by 8am to drive to Bristol in time for a BBC Radio Bristol interview with Doctor and comedian Phil Hammond. It was great to meet him, as I am a big fan of his work; I’m not too fussed with his comedy, but his administering of prescriptive medical drugs is very efficient and always on-the-money.

After the gig, we went to an Indian restaurant with some friends. Everyone’s meals arrived at the same time, apart from mine. I noticed that everyone was waiting for mine to arrive before they started. I instructed them to start eating, but they said that they would wait. Five minutes elapsed and still my meal hadn’t arrived. Upon enquiring, the waiter said he would go and investigate. Five minutes later he returned. The others still hadn’t started their meals, despite my repeated protestations that they really should.

The waiter enthusiastically informed me that the reason my meal was taking slightly longer was because they were preparing something very special for me, It was clear that they’d simply forgotten my order and he was trying to cover up their mistake. After all, Sean had ordered the exact same meal and his had arrived with everyone else’s. If my meal was more special than Sean’s, even though he had ordered the same thing, it would be a bit of a slap in the face for Sean and everyone else, baring in mind that they’d had to wait for mine to arrive, meaning that I got an hot extra special meal while everyone else ate an inferior cold meal. There seemed no reason or logic why I would be given an extra special meal, unless the waiter was a fan of David’s Daily Digital Dollop, in which case I suppose that’s perfectly understandable.

I tried again to insist that the others started their meals. Michael and Sean had already started, as they knew that I’d genuinely prefer it if they did, but everyone else in our party refused to start until my meal arrived. I tried explaining that it was more polite of them to start than to wait, as waiting was merely making me feel guilty and awkward. But they politely just kept saying, “no, it’s OK, we don’t mind, we’ll wait.”

How annoyingly stupidly British these people were being. My nan bread had already arrived, and I was eating that, which I was perfectly happy to have as a starter, in fact I normally eat the nan first anyway, so the wait wasn’t really inconveniencing me at all. I was happy to drink my pint, eat some nan and chat while the others ate. But still they refused to eat. It got to the point where I was begging people to eat, but they still refused, out of some warped version of politeness which they were mercilessly battering me with.

Eventually my meal arrived. Sean and I did a comparison. They both tasted exactly the same, only mine was hot. I wonder who’s meal was more enjoyable. I had a freshly cooked hot meal, but was unable to properly enjoy it as I was aware that everyone was now eating cold food that had been sat there for fifteen minutes, and thus I felt massively guilty, even though I’d tried to convince them to eat. However, they might have been eating cold food, but they were no doubt doing so while basking in their self-satisfied smugness.

After the meal, the waiter came back and asked us how everything was. I decided to pretend that I’d believed his story about my meal being more special than the others. I profusely thanked him for the extra effort he’d put in. Unless he was prepared to admit that he’d been lying before about the special meal, he’d be forced to keep up the pretence. I enthusiastically asked him to tell me more about my meal, and how it differed to Sean’s. I could tell that he was starting to regret his dishonesty. I don’t think he was quite sure whether I knew he was lying and that I was winding him up. I asked him loads of questions about how the meal differed. He said that he’d used some special spices. I then asked him why he’d chosen me as the special one. His energy, composure and enthusiasm was starting to falter. I wanted to keep going to see if I could make him crack and admit that he’d been lying, but some of the people around the table were starting to get uncomfortable, so I left it. Yet again, politeness had spoiled the fun.

This Dollop has been the most rushed and difficult one to write so far. But if it’s a bit rubbish, hopefully you will be too polite to say so.