Tonight, we Step into the night club of the future, where records and CDs are things of the distant past, and the DJs prefer to whip the crowd into a frenzy by using the yamaha keyboard.

Download today’s audio Dollop here.

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

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

My sleeping patterns are all over the place since I got back from Australia. I’ve been falling asleep at about 10pm and waking up at about 3 or 4 in the morning, unable to get back to sleep. Today I woke up at 3, and I did the egotist’s equivalent of the counting sheep exercise. I decided to go through all 92 episodes of David’s Daily Digital Dollop and tot up how many hours of audio the podcast version amounted to. Obviously I didn’t listen to them all one after another, I simply looked at the file, which had the length shown after the title. This game did not yield the soporific effect that I was hoping for, therefore I can tell you that the amount of hours this project has provided so far is just over twelve hours. I can’t remember the exact amount of time, probably due to the severe lack of sleep impacting detrimentally on my memory, but only the most pedantic of people could care about the exact amount of time. Sorry Jools. Only joking Jools, I love you really. Probably a bit too much. Stay away from me for your own safety.

We’re just over a quarter of the way through the project and I’ve already produced over half a day’s worth of audio. If the Dollops continue to be of a similar length, then by the end of the year I will have produced two days’ worth of audio.

It would take you two days’ of uninterrupted listening to listen to David’s Daily Digital Dollop from start to finish. I wonder what psychological effects that would have on someone if they did decide to do that, although, to be honest, if they have made the decision to do such a thing then they are clearly already psychologically damaged. Having said that, does anyone fancy giving it a go? You could maybe do it as a sponsored event for charity. Two days of uninterrupted listening. You’re not allowed to sleep, but you are allowed to eat and go to the toilet, so long as you keep your headphones on at all times. I think the psychological damage caused by this endeavour would be severe enough without compounding it by the fact that you’re also sitting in your own waste matter, because you didn’t have the foresight to stipulate the rules about toilet visits.

“So, tell me, how did the charity Dollopathon for the British Deaf Association go, mate?”

“I got six hours in and I was already starting to hallucinate and think terrible dark thoughts. Then he started talking about watery cat faeces, and I couldn’t take it any more.”

“But what about the money? What about those poor deaf people?”

“Sod the deaf people! At least they’ll never have to suffer the harrowing experience of listening to David talking about his kettle for hours and hours. Those deaf people will never have to experience that, the lucky bastards.”

Perversely, I think the only person that has any chance of ever considering doing the two day Dollopathon, tragically, is me, probably while masturbating as well. Obviously that was a joke, because I wouldn’t be the only person, as I’m sure Chloe would be well up for that sort of thing. Perhaps we could do it together Chloe? For charity you understand, obviously, not for our own perverted enjoyment, clearly for charity.

At some point though, I probably am going to have to go through these Dollops, because the idea is that I want to take some of the content generated by this project and turn it into standup routines. I have been very lapsed with standup, having only ever done four gigs in the space of a three year period. I’ve written about those experiences in previous blogs. If you’re interested then go here to access the standup category of my blog, which will provide you with all the blogs I’ve written about my incipient standup experiences.

The last standup spot I did was in February 2015. at Manchester’s Comedy Store at an event called the King Gong, where each act gets a maximum of five minutes to perform. However, audience members are issued with red cards, and if three red cards are held up then you are dismissed. I won’t reveal what happened in this blog post, in case you want to read all about it, which you can do by accessing the above links, however I will divulge the fact that I didn’t make the full five minutes. In fairness, the comedians who did make the full five minutes were in the minority – the atmosphere was rather gladiatorial, with audience members seemingly enjoying the power that having the cards afforded them – and those comedians had clearly performed their routine many times before, whereas I was doing the material for the first time.

I’d really like to go back and do the King Gong night again at some point, but I’m not sure how valuable it is for me to be trying out ideas for the first time in such a setting. I think it would be better for me to go to non-competitive nights first and build up the routine a bit before throwing it on the mercy of a load of drunken people who enjoy having the power to dismiss you if you haven’t made a joke about cocks within the first thirty seconds. Maybe that’s a bit unfair on the audience and the night, but I’m sure you get my point. If I had to write these Dollops in a room full of drunk people looking at what I’d written and loudly berating me, then I doubt that I’d have written very much. I think, even the fact that I’d have some fans in the room with me wouldn’t offer much in the way of comfort: Jools would be shouting out grammatical corrections, while Chloe would be feverishly masturbating, which would both be highly off-putting for very different reasons.

if I can get some experience of doing non-competitive spots in a more friendly environment, then I can really develop and work things out, so that I am then ready to return to the King Gong more prepared. That is my logic anyway. Perhaps it’s just an excuse born out of fear, but I think it makes sense.

I know it would be more interesting for this blog if I did go an do the King Gong nights, but I don’t want to obliterate my confidence about doing comedy altogether, just for the sake of entertaining a few hundred blog readers and podcast listeners. The only reason I am trying out standup comedy anyway is because I’ve had lots of people saying that I should do it, and eventually they have ground me down, so it’s not as if I’ve made this decision based on my own self-assuredness and have lots of confidence about my abilities. At one point I was having meetings with a massive agent who represents loads of A-list entertainers (I won’t reveal who it is and how it happened, as I’m saving that for the book. That is a joke, just in case you took that literally and branded me an arrogant idiot), who was interested in my comedy career, but I managed to let that slip due to my lack of confidence and thus in turn my lack of commitment. Chances are though that these opportunities are all still out there, and I might be able to pick them back up once I start doing some gigs. It’s good to have spoken with so many people, including big-time high profile agents, who have faith in my abilities, even if I don’t really have much faith in them and am riddled with, at time,s crippling self-doubt.

Perhaps I should be using this blog as a way of committing myself to action. Perhaps my goal for the end of the year should be to have done some gigs, then gone to the last King Gong of the year and last the full five minutes. Hopefully, this blog post will prove to be the catalyst for taking positive action. The main purpose of doing these Dollops was to help create material for standup, and I think it’s succeeded in that. I mean, the crowd are going to go wild for my ninety minute standup show all about kettles. Chloe: if you decide to come to the show, could you please make sure to sit at the back? Thanks.

I hope you appreciate the amazing cleverness of today’s Dollop title: Stand Up And Be Counted. I am talking about standup, and this blog is about holding myself to account. But also, the first part of this blog post was all about me counting the amount of hours this project comprises. Not funny, but very clever. Are you having that, Jools?

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

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I’m now over a quarter of the way through this project. Only 274 consecutive daily blog posts to go, easy beansy. Hang on, no, that’s not right, it’s easy peasy, isn’t it? I got peas and beans confused there. I’ve clearly been spending too much time with my lady friend from Sainsbury’s. +Oh yes, yet another hilarious joke courtesy of David’s Daily Digital Dollop. What are you going to do with your lives when this project is over and you’re not treated to jokes like that on a daily basis any more?

My frequent references to sainsbury’s has caused a little bit of disgruntlement with one Michael Wackington, who commented on Dollop 90 saying, “Sainsbury’s … why not your local Co-op,?) The first time I mentioned that I’d gone to Sainsbury’s in these Dollops, I was sure that someone would question my shopping habits, suggesting that I shouldn’t be using supermarkets.

This is the problem with going around the world singing all these songs of social conscience: people expect you to actually really have those values, rather than the fact that I obviously just do it for financial gain, conning the gullible lefty idiots out of their money. We tell them all sorts of nonsense, and they just lap it up, the feckless fools: our CDS are made out of bio degradable material and contain 100 % organic music, recorded in a studio which is powered purely by the sun. Actually, this statement isn’t entirely false, although, what the gullible lefty idiots don’t know is that when I say the sun, I am not referring to solar power, but the fact that our albums are funded by Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid newspaper. In fact, if you listen to our albums in reverse, you’ll discover that it’s littered with subliminal sensationalist, factually inaccurate right-wing propaganda. The only reason none of the folk magazines or radio stations have outed us is because our connections with Murdoch means that we’ve got access to everyone’s personal phone calls and data, and we’ve amassed a large archive of incriminating evidence which we’re ready to unleash on the public if word gets out. One false move from Mark Radcliffe and we’ll reveal what he got up to in Soho in July 2010. One tiny remark from Mike Harding and you’ll all get to hear about that thing with the goat in August 2012. There is a reason why we won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award last year; you didn’t think it was talent did you? Of course it wasn’t. We’re hardly going to win a Folk Award on merit, at least not until we ditch Michael Hughes. And we’ll win it this year as well, unless one of the other nominated bands have done a similar deal with a disreputable tabloid publication.

Anyway, the reason I shop at Sainsbury’s, Michael Wackington, is because it is only a five minutes walk away from where I live. Plus it is well staffed, meaning that it’s easy for me to get help from someone, because being blind I need someone to get the things for me. My nearest co-op is over a mile away, and is nowhere near as big or as well staffed, meaning that it would probably be more difficult to get someone to go around the shop with me.

In my defence, when I was living in Manchester, I used to shop at the independent shops that were on my street. Also, at that time I was in a relationship with a girl who lived right next to a co-op. I know check me out. In fact, that was the reason we started going out. She mentioned her proximity to the co-op and I instantly became sexually aroused. She’d inadvertently discovered my sexual Achilles heal, and I just couldn’t resist. The next thing I knew we were both naked. Let’s just say that the shop wasn’t the only thing in her street that night that was cooperative. (I’m suggesting that we had sex, just in case the joke was too subtle for you.) Let’s just say that the shop wasn’t the only thing in her street that night that was doing special offers. (I’m referring to sex again there; I wouldn’t want you to miss the jokes because they’re too clever for your unsophisticated mind.) Let’s just say that it wasn’t just the prices in the shop in her street that were dropping that night. (That’s a joke about her dropping her knickers, because we had sex, so naturally her knickers had to come down to facilitate the sex. OK, are you catching on to what’s going on now? Right, OK, well let’s see if you can spot the jokes without my help from now on.) Let’s just say that the shop wasn’t the only thing in her street that night that was hosting a blowout sale. (no, are you still struggling? That’s a reference to oral sex. ,Keep trying, you’ll get there. I know I’m very quick and very clever with the comedy. Don’t beat yourself up about it.) Let’s just say that the shop wasn’t the only thing in her street that was open all night. (haha, yes, you got that one? Well done.) Let’s just say that the shop wasn’t the only thing in her street that night that was experiencing unexpected items in the bagging area. (What? You’re struggling with that one are you? OK, that’s fine, let’s work through it slowly together. So you know how those self-service checkouts often say “unexpected items in the bagging area?” yes? Good, OK, well I’m taking that well-known phrase and reappropriating it in a sexual context, which could be interpreted as suggesting that we were engaging in anal sex, or alternatively that I was inserting various objects into her. It’s open to individual interpretation. It’s an open-ended punchline that allows the joke’s recipient to create their own meaning.) Let’s just say that the shop wasn’t the only thing in her street that night that … er … I think I’ve run out. Even a comedy genius such as me has his limits. Feel free to insert your own – which come to think of it was one of the things she said to me that night. Hahahaha, I’m unstoppable!

So if it’s any consolation for Michael Wackington, when I was going out with my girlfriend, we would often shop at the co-op. If you feel as if me shopping at Sainsbury’s is in some way unethical, Michael, blame it on my ex for breaking up with me. If we were still together then I’d still be shopping at the co-op. In fact, we’d probably be buying even more food than before, because we’d be comfort eating in order to take our minds off our miserable, failing relationship. I’ll text her and suggest we get back together. After all, we owe it to the planet!

My ex-girlfriend reads this and comments from time-to-time (I know, she’s clearly regretting her decision, now that she’s seen just how funny I am in these daily Dollops) so perhaps she will get in touch and we can restart our previously failed relationship, simply in order to save the world. And obviously we’ll have to have lots of sex, not because we want to, or in anyway still have feelings for each other, but because the more sex we have, the more condoms we buy from the co-op, making our ethical cause all the more stronger. In fact, why don’t we go the whole hog (which come to think of it was another one of the things she said to me that night) and get married. We could have a co-operative wedding, with everything sourced from the co-op: all the food, the confetti, we could have one of the DJs on the co-op’s instore radio station doing the wedding disco. And then it probably wouldn’t be too long before we end up getting on each other’s tits again, due to us being essentially utterly incompatible, meaning that we drive each other insane and end up killing each other. Of course this would be great news for the co-operative, because we’d have already given instructions to our families that in the event of our deaths we want to have a lavish funeral, provided of course by co-operative Funeral Care. A perfect, flawless, ethical, world-saving plan, I’m sure you’ll agree, Michael Wackington. As long as I don’t die before my 366th consecutive daily blog post, I am more than happy to marry my ex, with a view to us killing each other at the start of 2017. I await her comment with interest.

Michael also goes onto ask me if I tasted the Australian fruit the fingerlime while I was Down Under, which sadly I didn’t, as I was unaware of its existence until now.

“If Peter Kay wants the Finger Lime line, I can split the royalties with you,” writes Michael. Excellent thinking Michael, although I think that perhaps it would be too much of a niche fruit for his English fans, but would go down a treat in Australia, assuming that the Australian audiences have sophisticated enough comedy pallets to appreciate the joke.

“I also want to buy a fingerlime.”

“What? A What?! Fingerlime.” Pause, to heighten the tension; make the audience wait for the big laugh that they’re teetering on the brink of. “Finger?! Lime?!” Another pause, to create further anticipation. “Lime?! Finger? Finger Lime?! As in … like, a lime that tastes of a finger? No thank you. I mean, I wouldn’t imagine it would taste very nice!” Huge eruption of laughter and thirty minutes of WILD applause. Obviously I don’t have the skills of delivery to do the joke justice, but Peter Kay would tear the place apart with that one. Well done Michael Wackington, it’s good to have you onboard.

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

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I woke up this morning to the sound of birds. Just to be clear, I am referring to the feathered creatures, just in case you thought that, being the sexist chauvinist that I apparently am, I had decided to employ a harem of women to sleep in my bed, who were chatting away with each other, as women are of course prone to doing, on and on relentlessly. Obviously if this harem of chatty women did exist, then presumably they’d be talking about shopping or make-up, right men? And before any women write to me about me being sexist, I want to reiterate again that I am not sexist, I am merely just stating a fact, which as I’ve said before, is very different. You are just being over-sensitive, which is only natural because you are a woman, and women tend to get a bit over-sensitive; it’s probably your time of the month or something. if this is your first Dollop that you’ve read then you might be wondering what the heck is going on. See yesterday’s Dollop if you’re confused, which to be honest, if you’re a woman, you probably will be anyway even if you have read yesterday’s Dollop. But don’t worry your pretty little heads about it.

Anyway, I woke up at 530 in the morning to the sounds of the birds outside. It was a really beautiful experience. The bird sounds of Australia are very different. I think the birds in England are much more melodic. Perhaps if the over-sensitive Australian woman from the Blue Mountains Festival is reading this, she will now be seething at this comment, seeing it as proof that as well as being sexist, I am also racist, and my preferences for the bird sounds of England is proof of my anti-antipodean opinions. I think it’s the familiarity of the sounds that I appreciated, and after 30 hours of sitting in a metal box, emitting the same annoying droning wining sounds (that’s the plane that’s doing that, not me), I found the sounds of bird song was quite emotional, joyous and life affirming.

I just lay there, basking in the beautiful sounds, until I noticed that there was another sound lurking below the birds. It was the noise of the aeroplane’s persistent drone and wine. For a brief moment I was filled with horror. Had I been dreaming? Had I dreamt that my journey had ended and that I was at home in bed with the sounds of birds outside? Was I about to wake up and realise that I was still on the plane, with another 15 hours still to go?

Apparently, the brain constructs our reality partly around what sensory information it expects to receive, rather than simply what it’s actually receiving, so that we can get the information transmitted to us quicker. Therefore, even though there wasn’t actually a droning wining plane sound occurring, my brain had presumably processed that sound for so long that it was still presenting it to me, assuming it to still be present. Similarly, I could also feel sensations of movement, even though I was lying motionless on the bed. It felt as if I was still on a plane experiencing turbulence. I could feel myself rising and falling. I focused with more intensity on my actual surroundings, the feel of the bed beneath me and the birds outside, and after a few minutes the droning and wining and sensations of movement began to dissipate. But it was an odd experience while it lasted.

I got back home last night about 8pm. The first thing I did was go upstairs to the bathroom in order to brush my teeth. I hadn’t brushed them for 44 hours. I’d brushed them upon waking up on Tuesday morning, before checking out of the hotel. In my rush to leave the hotel I left my toothpaste behind. I suppose I could have bought a mini tooth paste at the airport, but with all the hassle making sure that we were in the right place at the right time, I never got around to it. So as soon as I got into my house I went upstairs to give my teeth a good brush, which I’d been looking forward to doing, as my teeth were hurting due to the lack of cleaning. I rinsed the tooth brush under the tap, and reached out for the tooth paste, but it wasn’t there.

Ben and Elsa had decided to go on a mini-break to Spain for five days, and had seemingly taken the toothpaste with them. I appreciate that the way that I’ve structured that last sentence makes it seem as if I’m suggesting they’d brought the tooth paste along on the holiday as a companion, rather than merely as an item of luggage. Perhaps you read that sentence and jumped to that assumption, maybe thinking that this was just another quirky thing that the French do. So there was no tooth paste. I’d only just got back home after over 30 hours of traveling, and I really needed a shower and to brush my teeth before I went to the shops. It’s not as if I could just walk into a shop, pick up the toothpaste and leave without exchanging a word with anyone. Being blind I’d need to interact with the people in sainsbury’s (the nearest shop to me) in order to get help finding the toothpaste. I dreaded to think what my teeth must look like and how my breath must smell after almost two days without being brushed, plus I hadn’t had a shower for about 60 hours, two and a half days. I’d planned on getting in the shower when I woke up on the Tuesday morning, but I didn’t wake until five minutes before we had to check out of the hotel, and I still needed to pack, so I just hurridly brushed my teeth, packed and left. I really didn’t like the idea of going to my local shop and interacting with the staff, who know me, without first having a good wash and brushing my teeth. But I couldn’t brush my teeth until I went to sainsbury’s and got some tooth paste.

I considered my options. I wondered whether I should put a bit of soap or shower jell on the tooth brush, give my teeth a quick brush, before spitting and thoroughly rincing. Was that better than not brushing them at all? I didn’t know how safe it was to stick shower jell in my mouth. I figured it would be absolutely fine, so long as I didn’t swallow it, and I’d only use a little bit. But would that even make a difference? In theory it should, I reasoned. If there are any dentists reading, or dilettante teeth enthusiasts, let me know your thoughts on this. In the end I just used the tooth brush and water, and did as thorough a brush as I could without tooth paste. I then checked Sainsbury’s opening times and realised that by the time I’d had a shower and got out, the shop would be closed, so I’d have to go tomorrow morning, meaning that by that point I’d have gone for 60 hours without having given my teeth a proper brush.

I’m sure many of you who are reading this are now getting quite excited at the prospect that finally, after weeks of waiting, I’m about to impart another story from Sainsbury’s, but unfortunately I knew that I was going to have to minimise my interaction as much as possible, as I really didn’t want anyone to smell my breath. Before heading out, I gave my teeth another toothpasteless brush. I searched the house for mints, but there was nothing to be found.

I went into Sainsbury’s and asked for assistance, only to be greeted enthusiastically by my usual lady, now infamous to David’s Daily Digital Dollop regulars. This was the very thing I was dreading.

“Hi, welcome back, how was Australia? You’ll have to tell me all about it,” she excitedly declared. I tried to answer her many questions as succinctly as I could, while also making sure not to face her or open my mouth too much. On the plus side, this meant that she wouldn’t be able to smell my breath or see my discoloured teeth, but it probably made me seem very weird, not facing her and speaking with my mouth barely open. I’ve made this woman out to be a bit eccentric and odd, maybe even a bit unintelligent and ignorant about a lot of things, but to her, I probably seemed really unusual with my weird way of talking and my refusal to face her. For all I know, she might have her own blog, where readers are being treated to stories about the weird halitosis-ridden blind man who comes into the shop, buying pretentious vegetables that no one has ever heard of before, who’s not clever enough to have realised that one of the key principles of talking is to open your mouth.

I got the toothpaste, jogged back home and had the best teeth brushing experience of my life, and that’s really saying something, because I’ve had some bloody incredible teeth brushing experiences in my time. But I’ll save those stories for another day and another blog, or possibly I’ll wait until the book comes out and make you pay for them. It would be a shame to give them away for free and squander the financial potential of those brilliant stories. I’ll have a chat with my branding and marketing team about all that when I’ve recovered from the jetlag.

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

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Within two minutes of disembarking the plane, it was patently clear that we were in London. In the customs queue, waiting to get our passports checked to allow us back into the country, I heard the following sentence from a very posh upper-class sounding man: “yo Charles, would you pop into Waitrose and pick up a Quinoa salad for Victoria? Yeah, great, chau.”

There were written notices and audio announcements instructing us not to use our phones until we were out of the customs area. However, I’ve just done some Googling, and it appears that there is a caveat in the rules that states that it’s OK to use your phone if you’re a posh upper-class hipster who’s simply trying to procure some South American food from an upmarket outlet. So that’s fine then.

So I’m back in England after a really successful Australian tour, where we only managed to anger one person; or at least that’s all we know about. Last week I mentioned the woman who had a go at us for being sexist. This was because when the sound technician bounded onto the stage in order to change a cable mid-gig, I joked that she could have waited until I’d got off stage after the gig if she wanted to ask me on a date. A lady then approached us after the gig and accused us of being sexist and making chauvinistic comments towards the sound technician, as well as telling us that we wouldn’t have said that if it was a male sound technician. We tried to point out to her that we may well have said the same thing if it was a man, which is true, but this line of defence seemed to anger her more. Apologising for any offence caused ddidn’t really placate her either.

The complaining woman was obviously so incensed by this comment towards the sound technician that she’s made a complaint to the festival, meaning that we received an email from the festival organiser informing us that a complaint has been made against us on the grounds of us being sexist. I’m not sure how seriously the complaint will be taken, and hopefully it will be dismissed pretty swiftly, baring in mind that the rest of the audience were laughing and were very effusive in their applause at the end of the gig, as well as being very complimentary to us when we met many of them afterwards.

Surely one woman’s complaint can’t jeopardise our future festival attendance, baring in mind the tremendously positive reaction we received across the board? It’s one woman for goodness sake. I’m assuming that the festival adopts a points system for feedback, whereby men’s comments are worth double points to that of women’s, which is clearly just basic common sense. I am not being sexist here, for I am in no way sexist; I am just being logical, and there is a fundamental difference. If the festival is using this logical points system, then one woman’s voice is worth practically nothing.

If the festival does decide to ban us from appearing in subsequent years on the grounds that we are sexist, then they should also ban their audience, given that they all seemed to laugh loudly after I made the sexist comment. In fact, they should also fire the stage manager, and all the staff who were working during our gig, because they all said how much they’d enjoyed the show, the bunch of sexists. If you’re one of the festival organisers reading this, you might be thinking, “ah, but David, the stage manager is a woman, so we can’t fire her on the grounds that she was complicit in supporting your sexism, when she’s a woman.” But you have clearly fallen into the trap of being sexist yourselves. If you only fire men on the grounds of sexism towards women, whilst refusing to fire ladies who support sexism against their own gender, then you yourselves are being sexist. In fact, why don’t you fire yourselves while you’re at it? You sexist pigs!

I feel as if I have so much more I could write about. I was running through today’s Dollop in my head on the plane and I had some really good ideas, but that was before the deep-brain thrombosis set in and addled my mind. I’m writing this in the car on the very last leg of what’s going to amount to a 30 hour journey. Now let’s just hope I don’t get back home and discover that the WIFI is down. It would be ridiculous if I’ve managed to keep this challenge going in spite of the fact that I’ve been in Australia for three weeks, only to then discover that I can’t get on the Internet in my own house to release the 90th Dollop.

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

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I’m writing today’s Dollop in the eating area of the hotel. Our flight isn’t until 9pm, and although we had to check out of our rooms by 10am, they have allowed me to stay in this area until we need to leave. I’m not sure whether that invitation will still stand once I start reading out the audio version of the Dollop. There are people eating around me, and so I’m going to have to make sure that this Dollop is completely family friendly, as I don’t want to be turfed out onto the streets by the hotel staff for putting all their customers off eating because I’m audibly discussing vegan porn stars or pissing dog-ladies. Oops. OK, from now on I’ll keep it family friendly. I’m going to have to read those words out now. There is a devilish part of me that wants to write something really inappropriate, knowing that I’ll then be forced to read it out loud, but I must control the demon inside me. Wanker. No, stop it! Arsehole. No, don’t make me say these things, there are people eating! Shit, cock. No, demon, begone! I am an idiot. I am going to have to read that out now. I could delete it and start this Dollop again, but if I do that then I might get halfway through, only for my laptop battery to run out, thus making me fail the challenge.

The song currently playing in the hotel seems to entirely consist of a man singing, “you’ve got to take your medicine, we’ve got to take our medicine, I’ve got to take my medicine,” repeated over and over again, with the occasional “yeah yeah yeah.” I wonder how songs such as this ever get made.

“So, thanks for popping into the radio station and talking with me today. Now, I’ve got to ask you this. Your song about the medicine. How do you possibly come up with such powerful lyrics?”

“Well, there’s quite a story attached to that song. I was visiting my father in hospital and a nurse came to him and said, “you’ve got to take your medicine, Bob.” Bob is my father’s name you see, hence why she said Bob. Anyway, I turned to the nurse and I said, “what did you just say?” and she said, “I said, you’ve got to take your medicine Bob.” At which point I sprang to my feet and embraced the nurse, thanking her for providing me with the inspiration for my next sure-fire hit. I then immediately wrote it down. “You’ve got to take your medicine Bob,” I wrote. I excitedly passed the piece of paper to the nurse, and watched her as she read those words: “you’ve got to take your medicine Bob.” She didn’t seem as moved or as interested as I was expecting, but I guess she’d had a long shift and was just feeling really tired. She passed the paper back to me and walked off, seeming nonplussed, baring what had just happened.

Unfortunately, all of this had completely distracted the nurse from her originally intended reason for coming to us in the first place, which of course was to give my dad his medicine. Sadly this resulted in him dying later that day. However, before he slipped away we had an emotional moment where I sang him the first draft of my song. “You’ve got to take your medicine Bob, you’ve got to take your medicine bob, you’ve got to take your medicine Bob.” The nurse overheard my song and came sprinting towards my dad’s bed. “Shit,” she said, “I forgot to give him his medicine.” But it was too late, for in that moment he died.

Two really amazing things happened as a result of that incident. I was able to sou the nurse for negligence, and my dad left me a small fortune in his will. I was able to use the money from the nurse and my dad in order to buy a recording studio in which I recorded my sure-fire hit all about my dad needing to take his medicine. Looking back on that moment, it’s as if it was meant to be, you know? As if fate had predestined that event to happen.

Obviously, being a professional songwriter, I knew that the song needed to involve more than just “you’ve got to take your medicine Bob.” It took days of painstaking work to get the song perfect, in fact, I had to miss my dad’s funeral because I was just too busy writing. The first thing I thought was, “we need to lose the Bob, because it’s not scanning properly.” I then thought that just singing “you’ve got to take your medicine” over and over again was a bit bland. I was at a complete loss over what to do. These things take time and concentration to make happen. But then, I had a dream, and it came to me: “you’ve got to take your medicine, we’ve got to take our medicine, I’ve got to take my medicine.” I woke up in a cold sweat. I needed to write it down before I forgot it. I jumped out of bed and searched feverishly for a pen, all the while singing, “you’ve got to take your medicine, we’ve got to take our medicine, I’ve got to take my medicine” over and over again, fearing that I might forget this moment of divine inspiration. Eventually I found a pen and wrote it down. But I felt there was still something missing. But what? The song was almost there, so nearly perfect. But there was something.

It took another couple of weeks for inspiration to reach me. Again, it came in the form of a dream. “you’ve got to take your medicine, we’ve got to take our medicine, I’ve got to take my medicine, yeah yeah yeah.” Again, I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart racing. I jumped out of bed. Where was the damn pen. Eventually I found it, and added the final bit to the song: “yeah yeah yeah” I wrote, my hands shaking with excitement. I read it through, over and over again. It was perfect. I immediately went into my recording studio and laid down a vocal track. I listened to it back on loop, over and over again, sobbing, just so overcome with emotion. And that, my friends, is the story of that song that we all know and love today, and I want to dedicate it to my dad, who’s death made the song possible. His death brought that song to life, and in many ways, my dad lives on through that song.”

The song seems to literally just consist of a man singing those same words over and over again. Then again, I’ve kind of done a similar thing with today’s Dollop, essentially stretching out the same single point for over a thousand words, except I haven’t made any money from it. On the other hand, at least I haven’t killed anyone or got them the sack by writing this Dollop, unless the hotel receptionist who let me stay, is fired because I’ve scared away all of their potential diners by talking to myself, and calling myself a wanker and an arsehole. Oops.

This is my final Dollop from Australia, not that I’ve really mentioned anything about Australia in this Dollop. Tomorrow I shall be back home. As an extra special treat for putting up with my ramblings from Australia, I’ll head straight to Sainsbury’s as soon as I get home and have a conversation with the shop assistant. That’s what you want from these Dollops, isn’t it?

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Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Our final gig in Australia turned out to actually not be our final gig, because we’ve been asked to appear at the final concert. This is apparently when four of the highlight acts finish off the festival with a concluding concert. So basically, our reward for being brilliant is to play for an extra thirty minutes for no extra money, while all the other less brilliant performers get to have the night off and drink the free beer that’s been laid on by the festival. I am of course being facetious, and we are really thirilled to have been chosen to feature as one of the four acts. It’s incredible that to observe how well the Australian audiences’ have taken to us. Of course, playing this final concert means that we have been given another opportunity to bugger everything up. I might accidentally insult the audience with a joke, and get booed off stage, undoing all of our work over the last three weeks, and never be allowed back into Australia again.

Tomorrow might pose yet another challenge to this 366 consecutive daily blogging project. So far I have managed 88 days in a row, and have blogged everyday that I’ve been in Australia, even though one of them had to be recorded and uploaded from the airport. Our outward flight took 22 hours. Our return flight is 26 hours.

Our transport to the airport leaves the hotel by 10am tomorrow, which will be 12am British time, so I might be able to hurriedly publish the blog post bang on 10am, just as the bus pulls away from the hotel, and out of WIFI range. Although this would mean writing another Dollop when I got back to the hotel tonight, and then having to record it before 10am the next day, which is doable, but I’d be writing two Dollops within just a few hours of each other. Also, I’m not even sure when I’ll get a chance to record this Dollop. It might not be until I get back from the hotel later tonight. I don’t really want to have to record and publish today’s Dollop, then immediately start writing the next one during the night, and then get up early the next day to record and publish tomorrow’s in time for when we leave for the airport, but this might be the safest option to ensure that the challenge remains intact.

We’ve got quite a lot of time to kill in Canberra Airport, so I’d probably have a few hours to write it there, and providing there’s free WIFI then I could release it from the airport. I’ll be back home by about 7pm on the Wednesday, and I could publish Wednesday’s Dollop then, which I’d have had loads of time to write on the excruciatingly long plane journey.

I appreciate that this isn’t particularly entertaining to read, but this challenge is just as much a logistical one as it is creative. Plus, there’s bound to be someone reading who is turned on whenever I write about the logistical aspect of these Dollops, and they just grin and bare all the nonsense in between the occasional bit of logistical talk, impatiently wading through all the tedious blabber about kettles and vegan porn stars and women dressed as dogs, in the hope that a bit of logistics will be around the corner. So that last two paragraphs was for them.

Apparently there’s a national airport strike on Wednesday, meaning that the airports of Australia will be understaffed. I don’t know which elements of the airport staff are going to be striking. I hope it’s not the pilot. The strike doesn’t commence until Wednesday, meaning that he’ll still be working on the Tuesday, when our flight takes off. It would be more than a little harrowing to be thousands of feet above the Indian ocean and suddenly hear the pilot’s voice over the plane saying: “Hello ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. Just to let you know that it’s now 12am on Wednesday, Australian time, which means I am now technically on strike. Therefore, unless I hear from my union that there has been a settlement reached, I shall be relinquishing control of this plane. I’d like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.” He then sings “you won’t get me I’m part of the union, til the day I die,” as our plane begins to spiral out of control and rapidly descend, making the “til the day I die” line of the song especially pertinent.

Let’s just hope it’s those useless people at the entrance to the plane who are striking, with their random, pointless, arbitrary questions about whether we have anything dangerous in our bags, as if someone is going to get to the door of the plane and suddenly say, “do you know what, you’ve just reminded me that I actually do have an AK47 in my bag. I can’t believe I forgot about that, and goodness knows how it got through security. Thank goodness you’re here and you said something, otherwise I might have had one of my funny turns and killed some people.”

There’s been warnings that due to the strike, our journey time may be increased.
I’m a folk singer, so naturally I support people’s right to strike, but if they dare increase my journey time to the point that I don’t get Wednesday’s Dollop released, then my sympathy for them will be destroyed. I just hope that everyone can come to some sort of agreement, so that this 366 consecutive daily blogs project doesn’t come to an end because of striking airport staff, or death-inducing pilots.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

One of our sets yesterday was a kids workshop. There’s an entire area at the festival for children. The person on before us was impressively lively for 930 in the morning. At the end of his spot he threw a bucket of custard over himself and the children roared and squealed with laughter. I was wrestling with whether I admired this man’s commitment to entertaining children, that he would seemingly happily douse himself in custard for their amusement, or whether I pitted him for his life choices. Still, I suppose there are some people who feel ground down by the monotony of their dead-end jobs, and they are considered to be “normal”, well-adjusted adults, whereas this man spends a couple of hours a day making silly noises and throwing custard over himself and gets the reward of seeing and hearing joyous, ecstatic children. So who’s really the mad one? Arguabley this man is more liberated than the majority of us.

I wonder whether he gets sad though knowing that one day the very children who once found him hilarious eventually turn their backs on him, finding him too immature and simplistic for their tastes. Or maybe he’s happy in the knowledge that there will always be children to entertain and impress, and he’s not in it to gain a long-term fan base.

I certainly wouldn’t be able to do his job. There’s no way I’m getting covered in gloopy liquid for anyone, unless maybe there’s an orgasm at the end of it. And even then, obviously the context would have to be very different, and certainly wouldn’t involve being stood on stage in front of lots of children; I thought I’d better make that clear.

Again, like with the pissing dog-lady, how do you get into a job like that? Did he wake up one day and think, “I’m fed-up with being a banker. Everyone hates me, and I’m feeling depressed. But what else can I do? Banking is all I know.” Perhaps he was grappling with this dilemma whilst eating dessert with his family, and being so distracted in his thoughts, he accidentally knocked over the custard bowl, which drenched him. His instant reaction was annoyance, but then he looked up, and through his custard spattered eyes he saw his children laughing hysterically at what had just happened. He hadn’t seen them this happy for months; he’d been such a miserable bore to live with.

So shocked and moved was he by their reaction that he refilled the custard bowl and proceeded to pour it over his head. His children howled with laughter. He felt so good. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt this happy. Come to think of it, it was probably the last time he’d been covered in custard, but let’s not go into that here.

He opened some more custard tins and poured them into the bowl, which he dramatically poured over his head, this time adding a series of silly noises. His kids fell to the floor clutching their chests in fits of hysterical laughter. His wife was so moved by her husband’s sudden and surprising transformation that she didn’t even mind the fact that there was custard covering her new carpet. She couldn’t remember when she’d last seen him this happy. Come to think of it, it was probably the last time she’d seen him covered in custard, but as I said before, let’s not go there; I wish you’d stop trying to make me talk about that, you dirty animals.

He continued to experiment with different pouring techniques, and noises, until he’d entirely exhausted his custard supplies, at which point he went to the shop, and bought a vat of custard. His kids had told all their friends about their hilarious dad and the custard routine, and consequently he found himself being hounded by children, asking him to perform it for them. And he was only too happy to oblige. Of course the kids loved him, but their parents weren’t too sure. When they heard about the man who covered himself in custard and entertained children, they were more than a bit suspicious. After all, the man in question was a high-flying banker. He was the reason why they’d all had to pinch the pennies for the last few years, and now he was luring their children to him for highly circumspect reasons. But when the parent’s saw what was actually going on, and saw that it was merely a harmless bit of kid’s theatre, they immediately forgave him for his financial transgressions. They booked him to do children’s parties. The banker quit his job and spent all his life savings on custard.

Sorry, I got a bit carried away there, and have essentially spent over 500 words writing a fictional story based solely on the final minute of a children’s entertainer’s act. I think it’s safe to say that I’m definitely in no position to call anyone else mad.

Observing the children’s uproarious reaction to the man’s custard-covering finale, we were a bit nervous about having to follow such a clearly successful performance. We didn’t have any custard or any props with us at all. We were just planning on singing a few funny folk songs and telling a few stories, which let’s face it, isn’t anywhere near as exciting for kids as a man covering himself in custard. There wasn’t any time to change course now though, as we were straight on, and we didn’t have time to go out and get emergency custard supplies. The children did seem to enjoy our act, and a few of my jokes got some laughs from the kids, but I’d be a fool to think I could rival the custard routine. Still, we probably got paid the same as he did, and we didn’t have to cover ourselves in custard, so who’s the real winner?

Just two more days and two more gigs to go before we head back home. It’s been a really amazing tour. Let’s just hope we don’t manage to bugger it up right at the end. I’ll keep some tins of custard in my accordion bag just in case our final performances start to flounder and need redeeming by an emergency custard routine. Michael’s got a dog costume, which he can put in his guitar case. He had it long before he saw the pissing dog-lady, but it might turn out to come in handy for a different reason to its originally intended purpose, which I’m not going to divulge now, as much as you might want me to, Chloe. If you see a YouTube video of Michael rolling around the floor in a dog costume, spraying a water pistol between his legs to recreate a pissing effect, while me and Sean pour custard over ourselves, then at least you’ll now know why. Fortunately, we haven’t had to resort to any of that yet, and the audiences have been seemingly very enthused by what we do. And I’m also getting quite a few more Dollop readers and listeners from Australia since we’ve started gigging here, although that might not still be the case once they realised that my blogs are about pissing dog-ladies, vegan porn stars and fictional stories about bankers covering themselves in custard.

From Vegan porn stars we swiftly move to another composition from my eighteen-year-old self, only this time it’s not just a song, it’s an entire concept album. Return To Lender is the name of my melodramatic concept album that is set inside my University library, and it tells the story of what happens when I realise that the book I borrowed is overdue. Don’t worry, the album never got made, only one track got recorded. In this audio Dollop I will play that track for your amusement, or possibly more accurately, your bemusement. I’ll also read out some of the other ideas and lyrics for other songs featured on this unrecorded concept album.

Download today’s Dollop here.

Download the audio version here

Just three days to go before we head back to England. We’re staying at the same hotel for those three days, and we have WIFI, which means that the Dollops challenge should live to see at least another three days. However, we do only have an allowance of 1 gb of data, and there are three of us sharing the WIFI, so if the challenge fails and a Dollop isn’t released, then it’s probably because Sean or Michael have been using all the bandwidth up watching porn. Perhaps I’ll have to go out and buy some porn DVDs in order to keep them off the Internet and thus save this project. The trouble is it’s so difficult to find something that they’ve both not seen before. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, Chloe.

Knowing my luck, I’ll probably be spotted in the shop buying porn by the lady who accused me of being sexist at our gig last weekend. She’d get another incriminating photo of me to create yet another newspaper article, which shows me holding a porn DVD aloft, no doubt baring a highly misogynistic title. I might have to buy a gay male porn DVD as well, simply as a strategic measure to guard against the bigoted chauvinist claims.

We saw the pissing dog-lady for a third weekend running. In case you’re not a David’s Daily Digital Dollop regular, (yes, apparently they do exist) the Pissing Dog-Lady isn’t the title of a porn film, we’ve moved on from that subject now, although to be honest, that’s the kind of film that Sean and Mike would go for. It’s a lady who dresses up as a dog, howls, barks, rolls around on the floor, and squirts a water pistol into the air to represent pissing. We saw her at the last two Australian festivals we’ve done, and now she’s back again. Sadly we only saw her from a distance, so still no interview, but there’s still time.

The Pissing-Dog Lady isn’t the only Dollop title that sounds like a potential porn DVD, many of my blog’s titles could easily form the name of a porn film. If there are any people who work in the porn industry reading, then you are welcome to use any of these Dollop titles for a percentage of the DVD’s profits.

Young Hungarian Gay Plumbers; Lock Up Your Virgins. There’s a blog post called I’ve Got A Habit, which could be about a nun with a sex addiction, possibly an acted re-creation of the Sister Abbey song from Dollop 82. Dollop 51 is called A Proposition For Tony Blackburn. It’s a an innocent blog post, but I’m sure a porn film director would be brimming with ideas after seeing a title like that. And the upside is that Tony Blackburn is probably looking for another job, and porn might be it. Although, on second thoughts, he might be keen to stay away from that side of things, given the dubious reasons behind his sacking. Let’s put that idea on the maybe list.

Dollop 64’s title could make for a porn/horror cross-over film: Psychos, Murderers, And Vegans. My favourite scene in that film is when one of the vegans faces an ethical dilemma. She is sucking on a man’s penis, but then she begins to wonder whether, being a vegan, is she allowed to swallow the man’s ejaculate, as then she would be consuming an animal product. You can hear her inner monologue playing out as she carries out her pleasuring. Has she already broken the rules, given that she’s currently got his meat in her mouth? I don’t just want these porn films to be all about sex and smut; they need to have other dimensions to them as well, and I think that the vegan’s ethical dilemma scene is a good example of creating thought provoking pornography. I won’t tell you what she decides to do, because I don’t want to spoil the ending for you.

Dollop 79 – Time Warping, Mind-Reading, And More Pissing Dog-Ladies. This is the sequel to the highly popular Pissing Dog-Lady film. So successful was it that A-list celebrities are queuing up to be a part of this follow-up. This film features David Tennant, reprising his role as Dr Who, which takes care of the Time Warping element; Derren Brown features, as the mind reader; and Joanna Lumley plays the role of head of the Pissing Dog-Lady pack.

Granted, that might have made for very odd, disturbing and possibly uninteresting reading for many of you, but there’ll hopefully be a porn director out there who sees this blog post and wants to work with me, and make me my millions. I’ve conquored the folk music world, been there done that; now it’s time to move on and take the porn industry by storm.

P.S. The last few Dollops have been written partly while being drunk, partly while being hungover, and I am very much sleep deprived. Less than a week to go before we’re back to me blogging about my trip to Sainsbury’s. Hang on in there.