Download audio dollop here

Well that’s our first Australian festival done. Our final gig was in front of 5000 people and they gave us an amazing reception throughout, and a standing ovation at the end. The Australian audience does seem to be much more prone to applauding things that other audiences wouldn’t. Our song A Lovely Cup Of Tea – about York’s Islamic community’s response to an English Defence League protest outside their mosque, inviting the protesters in for tea and biscuits, and a game of football – took three times longer to sing than usual because they were applauding every single line. When I got to the line, “we play football for planet earth united, because that’s how we all should be,” the entire audience erupted into raucous applause that lasted for nearly a minute. Then again, they also applauded our sound checks, so I’m not sure if I can really be too big-headed about their enthusiasm for my song. Although, in fairness, we did do a bloody good sound check. My “testing testing, one two one two,” brought the house down.

The festival MCs have also been interesting and different to the MCs at English festivals. They spend about ten minutes with us before we go on stage, asking us loads of questions about who we are, where we’re from and what we do. Some of them have also asked us to impart a funny story about something that’s happened to us, or something interesting that they can talk about in their introduction, before we come on stage. This over-zealousness doesn’t really happen at British festivals. The MC usually just has a few facts gleaned from the band’s biog, and they do a quick introduction to announce you onto the stage. Or, if they know you and are fans of what you do, then they will speak from the heart rather than just memorising facts.

Often, the MCs at this Australian festival have spent so long chatting to us and garnering information, writing down things that they might want to include in our intro, that they haven’t had time to memorise any of it. This means that many of the MC’s introductions have consisted of them reading from some hastily written scrawls, unconvincingly trying to recount a midly humorous tale which we’ve been forced to dredge up just seconds before, which has been feverishly transcribed into a hastily cobbled together shorthand that the MC then has to try and decipher and recall with conviction.

So our introductions have been very interesting. It’s also a bit awkward for us, as often we are stood on the stage at the microphones, ready to launch straight in, and we have to stand there while the MC attempts to read from a piece of paper that contains a semi-funny story that he’s completely got confused and incongruously frantically written down just seconds earlier. I tried to help out by joking along with the MC on the microphone, hoping to spice up the intro a bit and to make it seem a bit less formal, but that didn’t work, largely because the sound men hadn’t switched my microphone on yet. The microphone level was however coming out of our monitors, and so I could hear it and the MC could hear, but the audience couldn’t. This caused the MC to confusedly halt his speech, and then just continue, a bit flummoxed, and of course the audience had no idea what the heck was going on.

Another odd thing that happened was that the MC invited us up onto the stage individually, calling out Sean first. Sean then awkwardly stood there while the MC told the audience that he sang and wrote songs, and that he was a history graduate. The audience then gave Sean a round of applause, before Michael was invited to join Sean on the stage. The audience were then informed that Michael was also a singer, played guitar, and had recently been to New Zealand on holiday. The audience then applauded Michael, and I was invited to join the other two on stage. I was then individually introduced to the audience, who were informed that I also sang, and played the accordion and piano, and then, oddly, they were told that I have been blind since nine months old due to cancer, which was something that he asked me in conversation, although I had no idea that this would form part of my introduction. I was then given a round of applause, which was louder than the applause that the other two received. I’d like to think that this was because the audience found me the most attractive and interesting, bit ut was probably just out of sympathy after hearing the blind cancer story. And then we were eventually allowed to start.

It will be interesting to see whether this is a thing with Australian festivals on the whole, or if it’s just specific to those particular festival MCs.

I’m writing this at 10pm. We have to be away by 630, meaning that I need to have gotten today’s Dollop released before then. If you’re reading this and it’s Monday then you know I’ve done it. This means I’ll have to get up at about 4 tomorrow morning, to make sure that this gets recorded and uploaded in time. I’ve had solid WIFI for the last few days, but I’ve no idea what the WIFI situation will be like after tomorrow, as we’re heading to a new destination. Might this Dollop be the last of the consecutive daily Dollops? Find out tomorrow.

Download today’s Dollop in its audio form here

So yesterday I wrote about a lady called Pony, and today I’m writing abouto a lady we encountered who was pretending to be a dog. I’m not sure whether this lady is also part of the woofer movement and pretends to be a dog to ingratiate herself with organic farmers (see yesterday’s Dollop if you’re completely conufused).

The dog-lady was running around the festival site entertaining the children. She would lie on the ground, roll over, allow people to tickle her tummy (Sean and I had to hold Michael back, who finds that kind of thing kinky and highly arousing). All the while she would bark and howl. The dog-lady’s owner was a man on stilts playing the bagpipes. The man would play and she would howl and bark along. As the bagpipes crescendo to its ear-splitting finale, the dog-lady let out one final long and loud howl whilst lying on her back and pissing into the air. It was a water pistol filled with water which she had positioned between her legs. The pissing finale did nothing to pacify Michael’s state of sexual arousal.

We’ve been at the festival now for two days, and we’ve seen this stilted bagpipe player and pissing howling dog-lady around the place for most of that time. I am fascinated to know what makes these people tick. Are they doing this for money, or just because they really enjoy it? If they’re doing it for money, do they work with an agency who haggles and touts on their behalf? Maybe this is bigger business than I think.

“They’re not going out for any less than £500.”

“We can only do £400.”

“Fine, but you won’t get the pissing for £400.”

“Oh no, we must have the pissing.”

“She won’t piss for any less than £500.”

“What about £450?”

“Well, OK, but she’ll be howling much quieter than usual. If you want the full pissing and howling experience, it’s £500. Take it or leave it.”

“Well, er, it’s a lot of money, we’ve not got a very big budget. I mean, we’ve been offered other pissing dog acts for £300, so …””

“Listen my friend. This dog-lady has barked, howled and pissed for celebrities. She barked, howled and pissed for Kerry Katona’s house warming party. So you can go for a lesser established pissing, barking howling dog act, or you can go for my client with all her years of experience in the field. It’s up to you. It’s a highly competitive industry, the pissing howling dog-lady world, but my client has risen to the top.

Let me get some testimonials up for you. “Proper good like,” Kerry Katona. “Oh my god innit, dat pissin dog was well wicked man,” Dappy from N-Dubz. “I’ve seen a lot of pissing howling dog acts in my time, but this one was truly the best. Piss be with you always,” the pope, AKA God’s representative on Earth, so technically that’s an endorsement from God as well.”

“Hang on, did you say Dappy from N-Dubz? OK, £500 it is.”

I wonder what’s going on in the lady’s head when she’s on her sixth hour of pretending to be a dog, rolling around the floor, growling, howling barking and pissing. It would be fascinating to have access to her inner-monologue whilst she’s in the process of rolling on the ground, howling and barking. Is she thinking about what she’s going to have for tea when she eventually gets home? Is she having depressed thoughts, as she wonders “where did it all go wrong?” Does she think back to when she was young and her dreams of being a famous actress, and how her younger self would be appalled that she’s ended up acting the part of a howling pissing dog? Or perhaps her mind is constantly on the job, always thinking up ways in which she can improve her act. “I think I might try pissing at more of an acute angle next time. I think that might look more impressive. And maybe just a little longer on the howl the next time.”

I am also curious to know about the relationship of the dog-lady and the bagpipe playing stilt walker. Are they in a relationship? Or just friends? Or maybe they’re just colleagues, and they don’t really socialise out of work hours. If they’re in a relationship then I wonder whether they were together first and then they decided one day to leave their jobs and create a pissing dog stilt walking bagpipe playing act. I mean, how does a conversation like that even happen?

“Oh god, here we go again. Another day at work. Same old same old. God, I’m depressed darling.”

“I know, me too. International diplomacy is just not doing it for me any more.”

“If only there was something we could do together, and earn a living from doing something that we both love.”

“Hang on, maybe there is. We’ve got some stilts, we’ve got some bagpipes, we’ve got a dog costume, we’ve got a water pistol.”

“Why, of course we have. Why didn’t we think of this before. It’s so obvious. I’ll call work and tell them I quit.”

“Me too. It’s time to live our dreams!”

Or maybe they met through work. Maybe they were both appearing at the same festival and they met and fell in love. She was rolling around on the ground and she looked up and saw him there on his stilts. She always did have a thing for men on stilts. And then she became seduced by his beautiful bagpipe playing. Meanwhile, he couldn’t help but be drawn to the dog lady rolling around on the ground, letting out howls that stirred a passion deep within his loins. And then, when she pissed, he nearly toppled off his stilts in excitement. Now this was his kind of woman. He’d always had a thing for ladies who dressed as dogs, rolled around howling and pissing. They were a perfect match, although it was a bit awkward for them both the first time they saw each other out of their costumes.

If they are in a relationship then it would be fascinating to hear their conversation just before and after their day’s work. If they’re having domestic problems, does it affect their act? Maybe she tries to trip him up by rolling into him, and he deliberately plays her least favourite tunes on the bagpipes, and maybe gives her a little kick when no one is looking.

So, I’ve come all the way to Australia, and of all the things I could possibly tell you about, I’ve chosen to write about a lady pretending to be a dog. I never claimed to be a travel writer.

Download the Dollop in audio form here

Pony, our hitch hiker friend from yesterday’s Dollop, declared herself to us as a woofer. We started to wonder just what kind of person we’d picked up. Was she actually a hitch hiker? Or is a woofer the Australian word for a dogger? She’d seen our car and stuck her thumb out, which we assumed to be the universal sign of the hitch hiker, but perhaps in Australia it’s the symbol of the dogger. Actually, that would explain why she’d kept her seat belt unfastened and smiled so broadly when I told her to belt up or feel the pain. Was everything about to unravel like a chaotic scene in a slapstick comedy? But no. Sadly Chloe, this is not a blog post about our dogging experience.

It turned out that a woofer was not a dogger, but a name given to someone who takes part in a scheme called Workers On Organic Farms. It’s an initiative that gives bag packers free accommodation on an organic farm, in exchange for a few hours of work on the farm for five days of the week. I’m not sure if the farmer who took Pony on realised that she was a bag packer taking part in the woofer scheme, or maybe he got confused by her name and assumed that she was actually a pony. After all, he had put a post on a website saying that he was looking for a work horse for his farm. He then heard back from the website saying that he could have a pony for free who would work for five days a week simply for free accommodation. He was a bit surprised that the pony came with such terms and conditions – had they started up a horses’ union now? – but it was a free pony and you couldn’t say fairer than that. Maybe this is the real reason she calls herself pony, in order to dupe hapless farmers into giving her a place to live for free.

Maybe woofing isn’t actually a real scheme, but is just a group of people who con farmers into taking them on by pretending to be farmyard animals. By the time they’ve realised their mistake, they’ve already signed the contract, plus if these crazy people don’t mind living in a stable and helping out on the farm, then maybe it’s not such a bad deal after all.

Later on in the conversation, we discovered that, while she may have been a Woofer, she was not a Doofer. A doofer is an Australian word that apparently referrs to someone who enjoys going to raves, and partying to to loud bass heavy dance music. The name Doofer is due to the kind of music they listen to, and relates to the sound of the bass going “doof doof doof doof.” Apparently it makes her ears hurt and feel nauseous. The doof, she can’t handle the doof! I know, can you believe I’m giving this away for free?

She was a folk fan, volunteering at the Port Fairy festival, which was where we were heading. We spent the car journey having a lovely conversation about doofers, woofers and also the fact that she was a keen rainbow girl, which has nothing to do with the brownies, but is a community of people who get together for a month in a forest and live in the wild without electricity and general modern amenities, cooking and eating vegan food together, singing and dancing and sharing stories. She also played a couple of tunes on her penny whistle. It was nice to spend time in the company of someone who was living such an interesting and vastly different sort of life. She was a free spirit, with no plans and often no idea where she’ll be from one day to the next. It’s so easy to get pigeon-holed and to become molded to a set identity, living the kind of life that you feel is expected of you, doing a predictable job, getting married, seeing the same friends, drinking in the same pubs, eating at the same places. It’s refreshing to be reminded that this is not necessarily the only way to live life, and that it is possible to experience the world for very little.

Yesterday we swam in the ocean, and walked on the beach. As I walked along the sand, I recalled how I would yearn to go to Australia as a child. The concept that there was a world below my feet was thrilling as a kid, as my dad instructed me and my brothers to go and dig as big a hole as we could to see if we could reach Australia. Obviously, this was simply a ruse to keep us occupied and for my parents to get some peace, but I was obsessed with the idea of being able to dig a hole deep enough to take me into this exciting magical world called Australia. And now here I was, walking on the beach, but not on English, but Australian sand. One day I grew up and realised that it wasn’t possible to dig a hole to reach Australia. At some point in my life the dream fizzled and died.

As I walked along the beach I remembered all this and felt a connection with my childhood self, and imagined how excited and happy he would be to know that he had made it. If I could only reach into the past and tell him to keep on digging. Obviously my five-year-old self would hear these words and simly just keep on slamming his spade into the sand, with a naive intransigence.

“What are you doing you idiot? When I said keep digging, I was speaking metaphorically. I was using digging as an analogy for ploughing away at life, for keeping going in the face of adversity.”

“What’s metaphor? What’s allegory? What’s adversity?”

“Bloody hell, was I really such an idiot. Oh just keep digging. You’ll get it one day.”

The gigs are going really well. We’ll be featuring our Australian exploits on a Young’uns Podcast in April, but I’ll share a few stories in these Dollops too. Back tomorrow.

Download the Dollop in its audio form here

‘Belt up or feel the pain’ was the message written on a road sign which we saw while driving through Melbourne, warning people about the importance of fastening your seat belt. We didn’t see any further road signs instructing us whether we had to leave our seat belts unfastened if we were re-fuelling. Maybe they have those in the petrol stations, or perhaps the whole seat belt re-fuelling thing is based on a weird Australian superstition, or maybe it’s just a rule specific to that particular Australian airline company.

So, we’re only three days into this trip and already there’s been a bit of a hitch. But there’s no need for concern (no worries, as the Australians say at least twice a minute; It’s probably one of the most commonly used phrases in Australia). As we passed the ‘belt up or feel the pain’ sign, we noticed a hitch hiker at the side of the road. The three of us decided to pull over and see if we could offer a lift. Sean and Michael’s motives were purely altruistic, whereas I made the choice hoping that it might provide something interesting to write about for the Dollop.

We pulled over and asked her where she was going, which turned out to be the same place as us. So She got in our car, whilst thanking us profusely, we answered by instructing her to belt up or feel the pain. Unfortunately, it turns out that the roadside slogan isn’t particularly common throughout Australia. Panicked, she attempted to escape the car, but the doors have an automatic locking system, and before she could decipher how to unlock the door, Michael had pulled away and was now speeding down the motorway. We tried to placate her by saying “no worries,” but it doesn’t sound as friendly in a Teesside accent, in fact it sounded almost sarcastic and threatening, which only heightened her distress.

OK, I might have exaggerated the story a little there, although I’m sure you’d gathered that. It wasn’t actually a motorway, it was in fact an A-road. I thought motorway made it sound more dramatic.

Our hitch hiker was twenty-two, originally from Germany, who apparently went by the name Pony. We enquired whether that was her actual name.

“My real name is Annie but everyone just calls me Pony.” I assume that everyone called her Pony because she asked to be called Pony, unless people just randomly started calling her it, and she decided that life would be a lot easier if she just went along with it. She seemed to be using the argument that everyone called her Pony as a reason for why she was called Pony, but surely this was an active decision on her part. So we asked her why she was called Pony.

“I used to have a Pony when I was a child.”

Again this didn’t really offer much in the way of illumination. I mean, I used to have a train set when I was a child, but I don’t call myself it. OK, train set is two words, so that really doesn’t work very well as an example. I suppose I could always hyphenate it and be double-barrelled, which might also have the advantage of bolstering my social status, although actually I don’t think Train-Set Eagle would really ingratiate myself with the posh upper-class types. It sounds more like a name befitting an experimental jazz musician than an aristocrat.

Who could forget Train-Set Eagle’s legendary festival gig in which he spent the first half an hour playing everything out of time. Still, in fairness, he did apologise for the delay, and the performance started to pick up from there. But then Train-Set and his band started miming playing their instruments, and after a couple of minutes of this the audience started complaining that they couldn’t hear anything. Train-set Eagle rebuked the restless crowd, telling them that they were in the designated quiet zone. The gig continued for another five minutes, but then, halfway through a flailing whistle solo, he stopped the gig and refused to continue because a leaf had fallen on to the stage.

“That’s it, I’m never playing an outdoor festival again. It’s just too much of a chewchew,” he screamed at the baffled audience. He gets a stutter whenever he’s angry, hence the repetition of the word chew. You were probably assuming it was a typo. The audience hadn’t seen Train-Set this angry since the time when someone heckled him for going electric. This was in the 80s and signified a highly controversial move, with many of his fans disowning his music. Before that time, his music was always totally run by steam. He grabbed hold of the heckling audience member and hauled him over the coals. Fortunately, the coals weren’t remotely hot, because he was doing an electric set, in fact, I’m not even sure why he brought the coals on stage with him; probably just out of habit.

Train-Set Eagle sarcastically apologised to the audience for any inconvenience caused, and then stormed off stage. That was the last time he ever performed. He became an alcoholic and a drug addict, completely going off the rails, until finally he terminated in London Kings Cross, where he’d been living rough on the streets. His band valiantly tried to go on without him, but it didn’t last long, and they eventually split in Sheffield, with one half going down to London and the other half going up to York.

Well, I was planning on this Dollop being principally about the hitch hiker, but I’ve spent most of it going off on a tangential meander about a fictional aggressive experimental jazz musician. I know a few of you had placed a bet on that happening at some point in this consecutive daily blogging challenge, so well done to you. Anyway, I must leave this Dollop here, as we’re now setting off to play our first Australian gig, at the Port Fairy Festival. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow. I am confient that I will at least make it up to Dollop 73, because we’re staying in the same hotel for the next few nights and it has free, working WIFI. So back tomorrow.

Download today’s Dollop in its audio form here

Whilst waiting in the customs queue at Melbourne Airport, there was a sign informing us that Channel 7 were currently filming for their Airport-based reality TV show. I was a bit concerned that this might mean the customs staff were going to be even more officious than usual, knowing that they are being filmed. After all, they’d want to be seen doing their jobs properly.

I also thought that having a film crew present would mean that some of the staff might decide to act up their role a bit, wishing to be seen in a certain way by the viewers. Surely, having your actions filmed is going to affect your behaviour on some level, with people acting in a way that best suits the person they want to be seen as being. You might decide that you want to be likeable and come across as a kind person, always willing to help. Or maybe you’d like to be viewed as the joker, ready with a witty line that will find you favour with the people watching. Or you might elect to be seen as the hard-nosed, no nonsense, no bull shit guy, who provides the show with an element of drama and intensity. Hopefully we wouldn’t get thi latter character. Not because we had anything to hide, but simply because we’d both hardly had any sleep over the last thirty hours, and didn’t fancy concluding our day with a confrontational encounter by someone who is hamming up their hostility for some saddo on a sofa.

Might my international career hang in the balance of an amateur actor, attempting to find favour with a film crew and a TV audience? Might I be refused into Australia purely to create the pivotal plot of a humdrum drama? It would have been distressing enough to be refused entry to the country, without having the added ignominy of the whole thing being broadcast on TV.

Perhaps I needed to see this as an opportunity. Maybe if I was compelling as a character then this could launch me into the hearts and minds of the Australian public. I might have to sell-out a bit and exploit my blindness to engender sympathy with the audience. That should help to create a compelling story and gain me a considerable bit of air time. I would have to be alert and at my best, even though I was massively tired and drained, and my mind was rather foggy – I’m probably suffering from deep brain thrombosis. Haha, now that’s a good line for the TV. I’m going to be a hit in Australia. The audience are going to love me, and channel 7 are going to be so impressed that they give me my own TV show.

“Have you got any grain on you madam?” said the lady at customs to the person in front of me at the customs desk. OK, so they’re going to ask me about grain, I thought. Maybe I should prepare a witty one liner, a clever comedic comeback to reel the viewers in. She’d say, “have you got any grain on you sir?” And I could say, “sorry, no, besides I thought it was against the rules for you to smoke on duty.” Would that work? Does that even make sense? I’m too jet-lagged to know. I think it works, and if I said it nonchalantly and really quickly, then the audience would be impressed by my ability to think of jokes quickly. So that’s the deep brain thrombosis line, and now the grain comeback. I can keep listening to the conversation in front of me, which might give me some more ideas for jokes.

The lady in front of me was a bit confused by the question, I don’t think English was her first language, and she might have also been a bit deaf. The film crew would be loving this, having got a disability angle. They had no idea that there was even better to come. They were about to meet their best character yet, the English blind man. Perhaps the film crew would engineer a situation in which me and this deaf lady were detained in a room together, perhaps due to a grain-based complication. The deaf lady didn’t seem to understand the question, and I had made a jocular comment which hadn’t been taken well by the woman at customs. The scene in which the non-English speaking deaf woman and the English blind man try and communicate in detention would be one of the most popular moments of Australian TV in 2016, going viral worldwide.

I don’t know whether the scene with the customs officer and deaf lady will make it onto the Channel 7 show, but just in case you are planning on watching it and don’t want any spoilers, skip straight to the next paragraph. After a bit of confusion, where the deaf lady didn’t seem to understand the question, the customs person named various examples of what she meant by the term grain, and the lady then seemed to understand. “No, no grain,” she replied, and she was allowed to proceed. Presumably if they do show this scene on the TV, they will create a bit of a cliffhanger around it, in which the grain story’s big conclusion will follow the commercial break. It would be a shame to squander such a moment by not building adequate suspense. Although sadly they had missed the opportunity to do the deaf-blind communication scene.

Then it was my turn to be interrogated. This was my moment to shine. It was time to introduce the Australian TV audience to David Eagle, the quick-witted English blind man.

“Good morning,” said the customs lady.

“Good morning,” I replied. Not the most memorable or amazing first line, I admit, but wait until she asks me about grain, and I’d be ready to deliver comedy gold.

I handed her my passport. She scanned it and then mere seconds later, she said, “that’s all fine, you can go through.” Apparently, because we’d filled out a number of forms before travelling, all the information they needed was on their screen. So that was it. No questions about grain. My fleeting hopes of fame and fortune were gone. Unless … There might still be an opportunity to salvage a spot on the TV. I could try and shoehorn in my deep brain thrombosis line.

“Well, I must say, that’s a relief because my brain …”

“Good morning sir,” she said to Sean behind me, completely riding roughshod over my attempts to get the deep brain thrombosis joke out. It was useless, she had talked over the start of the joke and ruined it. And so I walked away, having been granted admition into Australia, but denied my place on Australian TV.

We arrived at the hotel at 11pm Australian time, 12 noon British time. Sean went straight to bed. I sat on the toilet seat and recorded that day’s Dollop in the bathroom. The hotel had WIFI, but you had to pay for it. I was planning on going to go to sleep straight after uploading the Dollop, and then we’d be leaving the hotel first thing in the morning, meaning that I’d have to pay for twenty-four hours of WIFI in order to use it for just ten minutes. But it had to be done. I imagined all your frantic and forlorn faces as the realisation dawned that there was no 69th Dollop. So I connected to the network. Upon connecting, a message popped up, offering a very generous free five minutes of Internet, presumably to suck you in to buying. Five minutes was going to be a challenge. I had to publish the written version, log into the server to upload the audio version, mention the Dollop’s release on Facebook and Twitter, and then edit and upload the RSS feed for podcast providers. It was a race against time, but I won it, with hardly a second to spare.

So now we’re in Australia. Tomorrow we do our first gig. Given the time lag, I already have quite a bit to tell you about things that have happened today, which I will write about in tomorrow’s Dollop. In the meantime, thanks for reading, and feel free to leave a comment, which I will read and reply to when I get more than five minutes of WIFI access.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Listeners to yesterday’s audio Dollop will already know that there was no anal cavity search. But, fear not Chloe, the journey is not yet over. There’s always Australian customs. In fact, I don’t think I’d mind an Australian anal cavity search as much, as I might find it a little more exotic. Also, every single Australian person I’ve spoken to so far over the last 24 hours has been delightfully friendly and very easy-going, and so I might find the experience a little less disconcerting than an English probe. You see what being nice to me gets you? All you have to do is be friendly towards me, and you’re already one step closer to me voluntarily parting my buttocks for you and allowing you access. Unfortunately Jools, you’ve rather messed up in that regard, and so there’ll be no arse fingering for you. I bet you’re ruing the day now Jools. The rest of you: I’ll send out application forms soon to allow you to apply for the privileged.

Apologies for the rather smutty opening to today’s Dollop. Perhaps it is the altitude, or the dehydration, or lack of sleep. I am writing this at 9am British time, whilst on the lane. We started this journey from Sheffield at 5am. We should arrive at Melbourne Airport by 1030, and then there is customs to deal with. They are going to judge whether or not I should be allowed into their country, based on my answers to their questions. Given that I haven’t really slept for about thirty hours, then that could be an interesting experience. I should be fine though. As long as I remember that my name is … er … shit. Oh well, we’ll see what happens.

Hopefully we should be in our hotel by 12 noon British time, 11pm Australian time. Providing that the hotel has WIFI, I should be able to get this published before heading to bed to finally get some sleep. I think that as long as I can get some sleep when I get to the hotel, I should feel fine and not really affected by jet-lag.

I find it a bit disconcerting that I am essentially in a metal box in the sky with no control over anything that is happening. I am at the mercy of others, and to be honest, I’m not sure if I can really trust them, yet I have no choice but to trust them, and to unquestioningly accept their requests of me, even if they seem a bit nebulous and weird. For instance, I got on the plane, sat in my seat and put on my seat belt, only to be asked by one of the stewards to please take it off, as they were currently in the process of re-fuelling. I have no idea why me having my seat belt on would impact on the re-fuelling process. I could have asked for a reason, but this was the start of a long flight, and the stewards were busy moving through the plane, and so I merely accepted their request and unfastened my seat belt until we were asked to fasten them. This was definitely not an anomalous, one-off request, because the same thing happened on the next flight. So what’s that all about? If anyone knows, feel free to leave a comment and educate me. I might even bump you up the list of arse fingerers, as a way of saying thanks.

Before you take off, you are asked to listen and watch the “important” safety video which details what to do in the event of an emergency, which apparently doesn’t include exiting with your laptop and recording equipment so that you can eject the plane and produce a Dollop from the middle of the Ocean. You get told that this information is of paramount importance and to give it your full attention. You are told how to brace, how to inflate your life jacket, how to use the oxygen mask. You are told that is vitally important that you memorise where your nearest emergency exit is located. They tell you all this, and then you take off. Then mere minutes after take off they spend the rest of your flight trying to force alcholol down your neck. This seems rather at odds with the insistance messages at the start that we take our safety seriously.

Anyway, my battery is running very low, and so I can’t write any more. Hopefully there will be WIFI for me to publish this, but then if you’re reading this, and it’s Wednesday, then you’ll already know that I’vve succeeded. And hopefully I shall also succeed tomorrow.

Download today’s Dollop in audio form

It’s 5 O’clock in the morning and Sean and I are in The Young’uns van, heading to Heathrow Airport. I always get mounting paranoia towards flight departure time regarding my passport. I definitely have it, I have checked multiple times, yet this doesn’t seem to temper the feeling of unease for long, and I have to check my bag again. This paranoia is most likely due to previous passport-related dramas that I’ve either experienced or know about.

In 2007, a sea shanty group from Teesside which Sean and I were in at the time, were booked to perform at a festival in Norway. The journey began with Sean and I getting on the first bus from Hartlepool to Middlesbrough, at 6am, a journey that would take less than twenty minutes in a car but takes just over an hour on bus. At 7am we arrived at Middlesbrough where we were picked up by one of the other group members. We got in their car and drove to a couple more destinations in Middlesbrough where we picked up some more people. We then began our journey to Manchester airport.

Five minutes into the journey someone jokingly said, “just to make sure we’ve all remembered our passports?” I was 100 % convinced that I had remembered, after all, I am not an idiot. But since everyone was getting their passports out and checking, I got mine out too. And indeed, as I already knew, it was there. As I said, I’m not an idiot, or in other words I’m not a Michael Hughes. But I’ll recount that story later.

I pulled out my passport, which opened onto one of the pages. It was then that it all unravelled. Sean noticed the expiry date written on the passport. My passport was over a year out off date. There was no point me continuing my journey. I was driven back to Middlesbrough bus station, said goodbye to the others who recommenced their trip to Norway without me, while I waited at the bus stand for nearly half an hour for the next 36 bus to take me back to Hartlepool. I then got back on the same bus that I’d been on an hour earlier, and when I say the same bus, that is precisely what I me, because I also had the exact same driver who had taken me the opposite direction an hour before, and was rather amused to see me back on his bus with my suitcase and to hear of my plight.

I arrived back home just over an hour later. I’d set off from my house just before 6am, and rather than it being a journey to Norway, it was a round trip taking in such sights as the 36 bus, and Middlesbrough’s bus station, and I was back home just after 9am.

I then had some breakfast and headed to the post office, where I’d gone to less than twenty-four hours earlier in order to change some British money into euros. Less than twenty-four hours later they were back into pounds, although with a few pounds lost due to exchange rates.

But at least I didn’t forget my passport. Only an idiot would do that. In 2008, The Young’uns very own Michael Hughes was at Heathrow Airport, heading to Singapore for a couple of weeks, a much more lengthy and expensive journey than three days in Norway. Upon arriving at the airport check-in area, he realised that he’d forgotten his passport. In fairness, at least he then had the presence of mind to formulate a plan.

He called his mother and arranged for her to fly from Teesside to Heathrow Airport. If she was going to make it in time, she would have to leave the house immediately and time every traffic light perfectly. So out of the house she figuratively flew, and then into Heathrow Airport she literally flew. She didn’t actually see Michael, because he’d already been whisked into a special area where he was being held, and his mother was unable to pass through that way for security reasons. So she had to hand the passport to a member of airport security. Michael’s mother then got straight back on the next plane to Teesside. The member of security staff brought the passport to Michael, who hastily went through the rest of the checks in order to board the plane just in the nick of time. Except, then they found the drugs …

I hope my ability to influence events with this blog don’t prove true today, given that yesterday I wrote about crashing into the Indian Ocean. But my main concern is that my airport anal cavity search dream I wrote about in January comes true. If it does come true, then maybe I could get Sean to film the experience and I could do a Digital dollop whilst someone has their hand up my arse. I don’t know whether that would be a ratings booster or a crippler. I suppose it dpends how many friends you can bring to the table Chloe.

So, we should arrive at the airport at about 830. We then have to go through all the various checks, which hopefully doesn’t involve my anal cavity. Our flight is at 12, and so I am counting on having an hour to record and publish the audio version, providing there is WIFI. I will then be on a plane for twenty-two hours. Tomorrow’s Dollop will probably be written and maybe even recorded on the plane. It’s all very unpredictable and hopefully exciting, rather than just coming across to you as boring logistical talk. I think it will be more interesting for the listeners to the audio Dollops, given the variety of locations I am going to have to try and record from. I’m not sure how practical it’s going to be recording from an airport, and I think a plane might be rather awkward.

Don’t worry, I’ll be home from Australia in a month’s time, and we can get back to covering your favourite subjects, such as my trips to Sainsberry’s and anecdotes about my kettle. But for now, you’ll just have to put up with hearing about my adventures down under, adventures which most certainly don’t involve inappropriate vegetable-based activity.

Onwards and upwards, and then hopefully downwards and onwards again.

Download today’s Dollop in its audio form here

The vast majority of these Dollops have been written with me sitting on my bed in my house in Sheffield. Tomorrow’s Dollop will be written in the car on the way to Heathrow Airport, and then … Who knows what will happen after that. I will be in Australia with my folk group The Young’uns for nearly a month.

The majority of people access these Dollops in their audio form, and I think it is going to be the audio aspect of the Dollops that will pose the greatest challenge. For a start, there is the issue of finding somewhere to record the audio. Tomorrow for instance, I will be in a car, at an airport and then on a plane. There are no other locations that I will be tomorrow other than those three, unless something has gone awry, in which case the Digital Dollop will be the least of my concerns, while I am stranded in the middle of an ocean amongst the wreckage. Although, if I somehow manage to pull off a Dollop from the middle of an ocean then that would be incredible, and would get me great publicity.

Not only would I have to record the Dollop whilst treading water or clinging on to a bit of plane, but then I’d also have to somehow utilise my laptop in order to edit and upload the audio. Actually, I think I could probably get away with not editing the audio on this occasion. I don’t think anyone is going to think, “well, I’m impressed that he’s managed to still do a Dollop after an emergency exit into the middle of an ocean, but his editing skills are rather under par, in fact, I’d go so far as to say he’s not done any editing at all. There are loads of mistakes in this, especially those bits when he gets water in his mouth, which ideally would have been edited out, as they’re completely unfathomable.”

I’ve no idea how I’d manage to read my Braille display whilst treading water. I’d have to rest my laptop and Braille display on top of some plane debris, or maybe Sean would volunteer his head, after all, it’s a very noble cause. Although, I think that if the plane did crash land in an ocean, and I somehow managed to survive the crash and keep my recording equipment in tact, then I don’t think I’d actually be bothering to read the Dollop that I had written an hour or so before this whole episode occurred. I think it’s safe to say I’d probably go off script for that day’s Dollop. It’s not as if I’m going to start the recording as normal: “David’s Daily Digital Dollop, Dollop 68 … oh, if you’re wondering what that noise is, our plane has crashed into the Indian Ocean, but that hadn’t happened when I wrote this Dollop, so we won’t be talking about that today. Must stick to the script, ever the professional. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow when I’ve properly written it up on my laptop, but right now, here’s today’s Dollop all about a rather amusing conversation I had with one of the airline stewards.”

Even if I somehow did manage to record that day’s Dollop from the ocean, I would still then need to upload it to the Internet, and I bet the Indian Ocean has really crap WIFI. And these are the kinds of problems I am no doubt going to face whilst in Australia, because not only do I need to find the time and space to write the Dollop, but then I need to find somewhere to read the Dollop out for the audio version, edit out all my mistakes because my Braille reading is terrible, and then find somewhere that has WIFI. I can’t use my mobile phone internet connection because I’m in Australia and that would cost hundreds of pounds, plus I can’t upload the podcast over a 3G or 4G connection, due to the way my web servers are setup.

I was thinking of writing and recording some emergency Dollops tonight, that I could schedule to publish in case I don’t manage to release one, but that would require me doing them tonight, and I still need to pack, so that’s not going to happen, plus I like the idea of the uncertainty aspect.

I should have no issue uploading the written version of tomorrow’s Dollop from the airport, as I could use my mobile Internet connection if necessary, but I will need WIFI in order to upload the audio. So, this is a warning to Dollop listeners that tomorrow could well be the first day I fail to get the audio Dollop released.

I know that the original premise of this challenge was to release a daily blog post for everyday of this year, and currently that challenge still stands, however I think that even if I logistically can’t do that, I will still write a Dollop everyday, and I might just have to release them retrospectively. But we shall see how it all pans out.

Until tomorrow … hopefully.

Download today’s Dollop in its audio form here

The Young’uns very own Sean Cooney came around to my house today. I know, check me out, a real-life genuine celebrity, in my house. You pretend not to be jealous, but I know you are. He popped in with his fiancée Emily because they wanted my housemate Ben to provide a witness signature on some paperwork relating to their upcoming Marriage.

Sean decided that Ben would be better placed to sign the document than me because he wasn’t sure on the validity of a blind person acting as a witness, testifying that both Emily and sean have signed the paperwork. I’m not sure whether claiming that I heard them both sign would really hold much weight.

However, despite Ben’s apparent better suitability, I am personally still not entirely convinced that the paperwork is truly valid, because Ben has been throwing-up all day and is feeling disorientated and weak; therefore, I am not sure that he was really in a fit state to have signed the paper saying that he had witnessed Sean and Emily’s signatures being added. It could have been a hallucination for all he knows.

If there is anyone reading this who is responsible for monitoring such legal matters, then I am presenting the facts to you as they stand, as I believe is my legal obligation. Sean and Emily definitely came to my house this afternoon, or at least two people who sounded like Sean and Emily came around this afternoon. I admit though, at the time, I did not think to interrogate them both in order to be sure. Then both Sean and Emily signed the legal document, or at least I heard a sound that resembled pen on paper, but I cannot say for certain that it definitely was. Ben, who, by his own admission, had been feeling dizzy and sick all day, then appeared to sign the document as well, attesting that he had witnessed Sean and Emily’s signature. I cannot offer any more information than that. I will leave it in your hands to decide how to proceed.

As best man, it gives me no pleasure at all to pour doubt on the validity of my friends’ upcoming matromony, but I feel that it is my legal duty to point all this out. I have gotten into enough trouble with the law this year, so I feel as if I really can’t afford to hide such truths from the authorities.

I then had a feel of Sean and Emily’s ring, by which I am referring to their metal token of marriage, in case you were confused and thought that they had got both me and Ben to fondle their backsides, claiming that it was a legal requirement as stated in the paperwork. Me being blind, and Ben being ill, we would be easy targets for such a kinky fabrication. But again, let me stress, in case the legal powers are reading this: I am referring to their piece of jewellery. It was definitely not their backsides, unless their backsides are made out of metal. Oh, hang on, maybe they weren’t the real Sean and Emily, maybe they were robot versions, hence the metal arses. Come to think of it, when I asked them both if they were well, they answered with “affirmative.” I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

I held Sean’s ring in my hand. This is the closest to Young’uns-based erotica that we’re ever gooing to get. I don’t think there is any Young’uns erotic fan fiction on the Internet, although I haven’t checked, so feel free to let us know if I’m wrong Chloe. Our fans aren’t even good enough to have set up a Wikipedia page about us, and so it would be a bit odd if someone had created a fan fiction site before we got a Wikipedia page. Feel free to start one by the way you ungrateful disloyal good-for-nothings. I am suggesting that you do a Wikipedia page for us, rather than a fan fiction site, just in case you were unsure. Other folk groups have Wikipedia pages. Bellowhead has one, Lau has one. What’s wrong with our fans? Why are you all so lazy? And while you’re at it, what about a Wikipedia page for me? Jools: don’t even think about it; but the rest of you … Come on.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I was fondling Sean’s ring. As I’ve mentioned previously in these Dollops, I am not really good at this whole marriage thing. I don’t have any sage words of advice to offer about table decorations and flowers, as became patently clear at the wedding fair, and similarly, I don’t feel like I’m in a good position to be able to offer anything by way of an adequate comment about rings. To me, it just felt like a round bit of metal. But, “it’s a round bit of metal” didn’t really seem like a particularly suitable comment. So I just went “aaaaaah,” in what I thought sounded like a nice, sentimental sort of sound, and hoped that that would suffice as a reasonable reaction.

Then I had a fondle of Emily’s ring. It was a bit thicker than Sean’s with an indent in it, but again, it just felt like a round bit of metal. I went for the “aaaaaah” gambit again. I mean, if the two of them were in fact robots, then they are probably struggling to assimilate appropriate human emotion just as much as I am.

Well, I think that my tale there was probably the most exciting, dramatic and gripping story about a ring that has ever been written. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you’ll struggle to name a better one.

I said yesterday that today would be my penultimate Dollop from England before I head to Australia, but actually tomorrow will probably be the penultimate Dollop from England, as I’ll probably write and record Tuesday’s Dollop on the way to Heathrow Airport. There are going to be some challenges ahead of me in regards to the Daily Digital Dollop project. Finding a location to record the audio versions is probably going to pose some challenges. I’ll probably have to try and record Tuesday’s Dollop in the waiting area of Heathrow Airport, which hopefully has WIFI. Does anyone know about the Internet facilities of Heathrow? If I manage to continue releasing daily Dollops for the entire month I am in Australia, then it will be an incredible feat. But more ruminations on that tomorrow. In the meantime, get cracking on with a Wikipedia article about me, and do one for The Young’uns as well, you lazy slobs.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

[Well, here we go again folks, today sees Sheffield embroiled in yet another age-old vehement rivalry. In January I wrote about my harrowing experience of being caught up in warfare between Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds United supporters. Today there is an even greater tribal rivalry than that showing its face, as Sheffield Wednesday are playing Rotherham, who are a distance of ten miles from each other, three times closer than Leeds, meaning their hatred for one another is naturally even greater than that of Leeds.

There are therefore quite a lot of police patrolling the streets of Sheffield. I’ve decided to stay in the house out of trouble, partly because of my encounter with the rioters in January in which I could arguably be seen as one of the key inciters, but mainly because I am acutely aware that if I accidentally get caught up in the fighting then the police will most likely target me as one of the main culprits. After all, I am probably already on their radar after my criminal behaviour on the tram.

I can hear the chanting from my window, with both tribes coming out with the usual jibes to taunt each other, leading to the inevitable violence after the match. It started out with Sheffield goading the proud men of Rotherham with a chant of: “our life expectancy is rising faster than yours! Our life expectancy is rising faster than yours.” A chant that has been a staple in the Sheffielder’s repertoire since 2008, when the most recent set of public health statistics came out, citing dramatic improvements in quality of life in Sheffield. This report struck right at the heart of the proud men of Rotherham, a heart that is statistically more likely to suffer disease and impairment compared to a Sheffielder’s.

The Sheffielders then move onto a chant about the severe Rotherham floods of 2007. The proud tribesmen of Rotherham respond with a chant of their own: “Centenary Washlands! Centenary Washlands!” they sing, referring to Rotherham’s recently installed wetland and flood storage and defence facilities.

But then the Sheffielders launch into an uproarious chant all about the Rotherham child abuse scandal, and then start waving flags baring the 2012 Times newspaper article which first brought the incident to the public’s attention. There is little that the proud men of Rotherham can offer as means of adequate retaliation. A few Rotherham tribesmen continue shouting “Centenary Washlands, Centenary Washlands,” but they soon realise that it sounds utterly pathetic and feeble against the sea of Sheffielders’ flags and child abuse chants.

I wonder how football chants become adopted. Does one man have the idea for a chant and then just starts singing it, in the hope that everyone else will join in? The reason chants work is because they are a collective experience, and it would be a bit embarrassing to start off a chant you’ve made up, only to realise that no one else seems to be interested in joining in, resulting in you awkwardly just petering out, feeling a bit humiliated. On the other hand, it must be a wonderful feeling to come up with an idea for a chant, launch into it and gradually hear more and more voices joining in and taking up the song, until eventually there are thousands of voices singing it.

I can understand how some chants easily catch on, like just chanting the name of the football team to a two-note tune, but I’m amazed at the complexity of some of the chants, and how they ever become adopted.

When I used to go to Hartlepool matches as a child – by which I mean I was a child, I didn’t go to the matches in fancydress, pretending to be a child – the crowd would all sing, “I’m pooly til I die, I’m pooly til I die.” Baring in mind that people from Teesside pronounce the word poorly as pooly, this chant just sounded like we were making an observation about the low life expectancy and overall weak health of our town.

The other odd chant was “there’s only one Hartlepool,” which as far as boasts go isn’t really up to much. We’re essentially just saying that there is only one town that has the name Hartlepool. There are only one of most towns in the country, and I’m doubtful wether the exceptions to the rule would really be too put out by the fact that they have to share their name with somewhere else. It’s not as if a load of Newcastle United supporters are going to hear us chanting “there’s only one Hartlepool,” and think, “shit, they’ve got a point, where as we have to share our name with sodding Newcastle-Under-Lyme. Man, I feel depressed now, and the fact that we’re in the premiership offers nothing in the way of comfort. Bloody Hartlepool, they have all the luck.”

Back tomorrow with my penultimate blog before I head to Australia. If you’re a new reader to these Dollops then I’m off to Australia with my folk band The Young’uns; I’m not being transported because of my tram ticket dodging crimes.