Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

This train is certainly making its presence felt, shaking my hands up and down even more than the Sheffield buses, meaning that I am constantly typing misplaced letters. I’m heading back from Manchester, where I’ve just had a brush with the law. Granted, it wasn’t a particularly harsh, bristly or wiry brush, more of a very soft, fluffy, gentle kind of brush; but it was a brush nonetheless.

I arrived at the tram stop just as the tram was approaching. I got straight on the tram and settled into my seat, basking in my good fortune, as now I would make the earlier train, which had a shorter journey time and would shave an hour off my return home to Sheffield. I was in my own little world, unaware of my surroundings, probably thinking about what to write for today’s Dollop, when I was jolted back to my physical setting by a lady standing by me.

“Ticket please.”

I had completely forgotten about getting a ticket. When I used to live in Manchester I had a pass that meant that I didn’t need to buy a ticket. So I’d just arrived at the tram stop, noticed that the tram was there and got on it.

I asked the lady if I could buy a ticket on the tram, but she said no. So then I asked her if I could buy one when I got off the tram. I appreciate now that this was a bit of an odd question. How would they know that I would actually be true to my word? But I’d made the suggestion in complete innocence, as if it was perfectly plausible that I should be able to purchase a ticket once I’d got off the tram. I think the lady was a bit taken aback by this question, because in stead of explaining the ridiculousness of my proposal, she said, sounding surprised, “Well, er, OK, but make sure you do.” As she walked away she muttered, “that’s a new one.”

Then she got off the tram, and I heard her laughing with the member of staff at the station. “He says he’s going to buy one when he gets off the tram.” The other member of staff laughed. I still hadn’t realised the oddness of my suggestion, and so felt a bit put out by the laughing, so I muttered something under my breath about them both being condescending idiots, which obviously wasn’t anywhere near loud enough for them to hear, but it made me feel better.

Then a thought struck me. It was the same thought that had obviously immediately crossed the two staff members’ heads, but it had only just emerged in my brain. I realised that I could get away with not buying a ticket. In fact, if I was going to make the earlier train then I wouldn’t have time to buy a ticket. It was going to be a close call whether I managed to make that train, and it would save me an hour of travel and waiting around in the station. So I had a moral quandary: I could buy a ticket for a journey I’d already done and had gotten away with taking for free and consequently get home an hour later, or not buy a ticket and be rewarded for my dishonesty by getting home an hour earlier.

I decided that I would go straight for the train, and not buy the tram ticket. I could always buy an extra ticket the next time I took a tram. The prices would have probably risen by then, so they’d be getting more money, which would kind of be like paying interest. I would view it as a loan. I felt as if I’d vindicated myself morally, and that now I could get on the earlier train guilt free.

When the tram arrived at the station I got off and headed for the train platform. I knew that there were other people on the tram who had heard my declaration about buying a ticket when I got off the tram. I might be the recipient of a citizen’s arrest. I would obviously explain my loan hypothesis to them, but that would take up valuable time that I didn’t have, and I would miss my train. So I made a run for it, a run befitting of the criminal that I was.

I ran up the stairs and towards the platform. But my path was prevented by a man. I had no choice but to stop, as my access had been blocked. There were a group of people in front of me, all stopping me from reaching the platform, and in front of them was a bareer. I had reached the ticket checks. I had to stand in a cue of people getting their train tickets checked. Eventually the man checked my ticket and let me pass, but I knew that it was too late. I knew that I’d been thwarted. I arrived at the platform just as my train was departing. The sound of the train chugging down the plattform was like a knife in my heart. But then the next sound I heard was like a machete to the head.

“The 1618 service to Sheffield will be delayed by approximately twenty-five minutes.” Another twenty-five minutes had just been added to my journey, meaning that missing the earlier train had now cost me an hour and twenty-five minutes.

Annoyance bristled through me. I now had an hour to waste at the train station. A thought fleetingly presented itself: I now had time to go back to the tram ticket office and buy my ticket. I turned to walk in the direction of the tram ticket office, but then I stopped. I was too angry at the world to do the right thing. I turned back around and slumped into one of the seats. I decided that missing the train was punishment enough without feeling guilty about not buying a tram ticket. I would just sit here and sulk and sod the tram network.

But it was as if a greater power had read my thoughts and issued further punishment accordingly, the announcement came to inform me that my train would be delayed by a further ten minutes.

Worried that there might be some connection between my failure to buy a tram ticket and the success of my journey, I got up from my seat and headed to the tram ticket office. I bought a ticket. Obviously I couldn’t buy a ticket retrospectively, so I had to just buy one going in the opposite direction, which was the same price as the one I should have bought. I then put the ticket straight in the bin, meaning that there was no chance of me using it at a later date.

“The 1618 service to Sheffield is delayed by fifteen minutes.”

My delay time had been significantly cut down, I had learnt my lesson, and the universe was realigning itself accordingly. Or at the very least, I felt slightly better about myself and less guilty.

I’m looking forward to being contacted about the film rights for this particular Dollop. Maybe we need a few more plot twists and story development, but I think I’ve got the hallmarks of a great drama. Perhaps there could be a love interest. Maybe she works at the tram ticket office and we first meet when I eventually buy my ticket. We initiate a date, fall in love, get married and have children. Obviously none of that would have happened if I hadn’t missed my train and done the right thing by purchasing a ticket. It would be like a modern day fable, promoting honest living and doing the right thing, as if I hadn’t bought that ticket then I might have lived a loveless lonely life and died all alone, unloved. And maybe as I drew my final breath I would have a hallucination that showed me the kind of life that I could have been living if I’d only bought a ticket. I see my children, and my beautiful wife, I see myself growing old contentedly with my true love always by my side. So many happy memories of a life well lived. And then I’m back in my bed all alone, dying, with nothing, and I hear the voice of God saying, “but at least you took that tram ride for free, didn’t you? At least you saved yourself a £2,30 tram fare.

I suppose the moral of the story is somewhat spewed by the fact that if I’d have bought the tram ticket originally then I wouldn’t have met my true love. So the moral of the story could actually be seen as really being: don’t do the right thing the first time, but make sure you do the right thing the second or third time. But we can take a closer look at the script and story ark and work out the flaws. But firstly, you need to name your price. Let’s talk about the money and then we’ll take it from there.

Who do you think we should get to play me in the film?

11””Back tomorrow.

Download today’s Dollop in audio form here

I’ve just come back from Sainsbury’s. Oh yes, fasten your seat belts folks, it’s going to be one hell of a Dollop; I’ve really hooked you in with that opening sentence, haven’t I.

“Damn! I’ve got a mountain of things to do before bed, and I really don’t have time to read this, but the opening sentence caught my eye and now I’m suckered in. Although, I am rather freaked out that I’m now reading my exact thought process word for word, meaning that David has somehow predicted what I was going to think before I thought it, including this bit. How can this be? Now, I’ve got some spaghetti bolognaise from a couple of nights ago in the fridge, so I might have that for tea. That’ll be quick and means I can get on with the things I … hang on, my mind drifted off for a few seconds there and yet, David has somehow predicted that I would do that and think about Spaghetti Bolognaise. How is this possible? I’m sure that everyone else reading this just assumes that this is a bit of a joke that has gone on rather too long, but they’re not the ones caught in the middle of it, having their thoughts read before they’ve even happened. When will this end? How long will this weird thought reading routine go on for? Does this prove that everything I think and do is predestined, and that David is God? I must break the spell. Maybe if I switch off the computer, somehow I’ll be free from this weirdness, and my thoughts will be mine once again. OK, I must force myself to stop reading this, despite its strange hypnotising power, as I see my own thoughts being presented as text on a blog. But I must be strong if I am to break this spell. I must shut down the computer. OK: start menu, shut down. OK, windows is shutting dow…”

Anyway, sorry, as I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted by my own weirdness. I’ve just come back from Sainsbury’s. Being blind I ask someone working at the shop to help me get the various things. Today’s lady had seemingly never seen a vegetable before, nor most of the food I was buying. She’d never heard of spring onions before, had no idea what a courgette was. Cherry tomatoes seemed to be a concept that completely bewildered her. “I’ve heard of cherries, and I know about tomatoes, but I didn’t know that you could buy them as one. I wouldn’t imagine that it would taste very nice.”

She also had an unusual way of conversing. Even if she didn’t really have anything to bring to the table about whatever subject had come up, she’d nevertheless valiantly and enthusiastically try to join in. She asked me if I was going anywhere nice this year. I told her that I was going to Australia soon and Canada later in the year. At which point she enthusiastically declared, “really?! Wow! Well I actually used to know someone who went to Canada once, and said it was very nice.” There was a bit of a pause, before she added, “so, yes.” Granted, her “so yes,” wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as her opening line about the person she once knew going to Canada once, as if she’d realised that actually her fact wasn’t really that interesting or unusual to warrant the amount of excitement she’d supplied it with.

However, in fairness, you could argue that I’m now spending my time writing about what the woman said, in a bid to try and impart a reasonably entertaining anecdote for a blog, which is arguably worse. At least this woman probably knew that her comment and our conversation was just throw-away and unimportant, whereas I am analysing it and writing about it in a blog. So who’s really the weird one here? The answer is her, definitely her.

My favourite line of hers was when we were looking for peas. “Well, you know what they say about peas,” she said. I didn’t know what they said about peas, nor did I know who “they” were who doing the saying. But when I pressed her for more information , she just giggled and said, “no no, it’s OK, never mind.” I continued to press her on the issue. She’d peaked my curiosity. But she just giggled and said that she didn’t want to say.

But I couldn’t let it go. I told her that she couldn’t just come out with an incongruous line about peas and then refuse to supply further information. Why did she mention the peas thing in the first place if she wasn’t prepared to talk about it? Was this some secret code? Maybe she was part of a secret society who demonstrate they’re a part of the secret society with the line, “well you know what they say about peas.” At which point, if the other person responds with the second half of the sentence then they prove that they are also in the secret society. Maybe “are you going anywhere nice this year?” was also meant as a demonstration of secret society identity. Perhaps I’d inadvertently answered correctly by telling her that I’m going to Australia and Canada, and she had given the appropriate response in return, which would explain why what she’d said didn’t really make much conversational sense, and seemed odd to someone who wasn’t part of the secret society. Then I asked for food that she’d never heard of before, and maybe this started her to doubt that I actually was one of her own, and so added the comment about the peas as a test.

I put all of this to the shop assistant, but to be honest, I think I’d lost her at about the time that I said “incongruous.” If she’d never heard of cherry tomatoes or spring onions then a none-colloquial four syllable word probably wasn’t in her lexicon either.

I began to realise that I was now probably at the point that I should just let the whole peas thing go. She clearly didn’t want to tell me, and I think she might have been a bit intimidated by my insistence that she told me. I was also getting a bit irritated, because I really wanted to know what the bloody hell she was going on about. I think I was letting my irritation visibly manifest itself in the form of me twirling my cane around in front of me, which might have looked a bit threatening.

She just kept nervously giggling and refusing to tell me. “I don’t want to say, it’s rude,” she said. At this point I thought that I might have cottoned onto what she was referring to.

“Are you suggesting that peas make you fart? Is that what you’re driving at?”

I think I was sounding a bit like an austere father, berating her immaturity. The actual reason for my annoyance and incredulity was because I was disappointed if this was all that the last two minutes of interrogation had been leading to.

“Yes,” she giggled. “Peas peas, good for your heart, the more you eat them, the more you
…” and then she giggled some more, in place of the word “fart.”

“I’ve heard that little poem being said about beans,but not peas,” I replied.

There was a pause, her giggling stopped, and then she said, “oh yes, it’s beans isn’t it? Not peas.”

After all that. Although, in fairness, peas do have similar fart-inducing properties as well, so her variant on the traditional poem does technically work.

Later on, she asked me what I was making for tea “with all these exotic vegetables.” I told her that I’m roasting them with chicken, fresh herbs and spices. She sounded impressed. I asked her what she was eating tonight, and she said that she normally ate fish fingers or sausages, “so probably that.”

“Well you know what they say about fish fingers and sausages?” I said, and began to nervously giggle.

“no, what? What do they say?”

“No no, I can’t say.” I increased my nervous giggling.

“No, come on, I want to know.”

“OK, OK. Fish fingers and sausages, you really are a chancer, as eating them significantly increases your risk of cancer. Fish fingers and sausages are bad for your heart, but at least on the plus side they don’t make you fart, although, actually, they probably do.”

I didn’t say that last bit, obviously. I am a nice person, or at least in person I am nice; I am rather judgemental when I’m writing about people for a blog.

In March I will regale you with tales from my exploits in Australia, but for now, it’s stories about shopping in Sainsburys.

Back tomorrow.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Well I was massively impressed/concerned about Sean’s aptitude when it came to discussing flowers and decorations with the staff at the wedding fair. I tried to look as if I understood all the different options that we were being presented with. I just kept nodding away when she was talking, in what I hoped would appear to resemble nodding sagely, but then I realised that being blind, I have no idea what it looks like when someone nods sagely, and so gave it up in case I just looked like a weird compulsively nodding idiot.

But Sean seemed rather self-assured and aware of the right questions to ask. Granted, he’d probably been well primed by his fiancée Emily beforehand, who was unable to attend due to a work commitment. But he ably managed to have a cohesive conversation about table decorations and seat covers, which all flew straight over my compulsively nodding head.

Sean’s head was clearly so stuffed full of questions and wedding-related jargon, that his brain was seemingly unable to hold any other bits of information or thoughts that weren’t flowers or decorations relevant. This became clear when Sean was asked by the lady to spell his name, and he spelt it incorrectly. His mind was so awash with comments and questions about backdrops, drapes, sashes and goodness knows what else he was spouting on about, that this had resulted in all other thoughts about anything else being deleted. Fortunately, I was at hand and stepped into spell Sean’s name for him, which I think proves why I am the correct choice to be his best man.

There were signs all over the hotel in which the fair was being held, urging people to get hands-on and try everything. I considered putting on one of the wedding dresses and getting a photo for the blog, but thought that this might not be the kind of responsible behaviour expected of a best man. When we got up to the bridal suite, fortunately no one had taken the invitation to get hands on and try everything literally.

“Right, up on the four poster bed love, let’s give this a good try. Give us half an hour, and then we’ll let you know our thoughts. Oh, and then we need to ask you a few questions about your range of decorative seat covers.” “OK, yes, very good, we’ll take it.”

“I think one of you has done that already. Also, is this even your bride to b?e”

“Well, you told us to get hands-on and try everything. My bride to be is with this girl’s bloke, trying out the showering facilities. We’ve been coming to wedding fairs for years. A lovely way to spend a weekend. Now, talk to me about seat covers. I always find a lovely bit o seat cover chat helps me unwind after sex”.

While the three of us resisted the urge to partake in test driving the bed, we did however sample quite a lot of free canapés and Prosecco, purely for research purposes you understand; after all, I take my responsibilities as best man very seriously.

Unfortunately, all this imbibing means that I now feel very tired, and can barely keep my eyes open, let alone write a blog post. Annoyingly, I had a fifty minute train journey this morning which I could have spent writing today’s Dollop, but I wanted to wait until after the wedding fair in order to regale you with tales from the afternoon, but alas, nothing really happened of note. There was some very nice Prosecco and lots of canapés, which I drank and ate whilst listening to a lady talking about flowers and decorations. And that’s all really.

Perhaps I should have asked her if she had any amusing flower or decoration-related anecdotes that I could include in today’s Dollop, or maybe a witty story about canapés, but the drink and food had made me all slovenly and tired and I lacked the foresight to ask her. And now I’ve missed out, and some other blogger at the fair, who was completely sober and alert, has probably filled their blog with the LADY’S humorous flowers, decorations and canapé stories that should have been mine. And now I am paying the price, because I am completely defficient in ideas to write about, and I am too tired to think of anything myself. If I was more awake, I could have manufactured a hilarious story about canapés, and any other day I’d be the perfect man for such a job, but alas, not today.

If anyone reading/listening to this has any amusing canapé anecdotes, then feel free to leave a comment.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

In the taxi on the way to the train station, the driver was listening to BBC Radio 2, and the show was being presented by Tony Blackburn. I can’t believe he still talks in that voice. Fair enough, when he first started in broadcasting over fifty years ago, that was maybe thought of as a good radio voice, but it soon became parodied and ridiculed by the likes of smashie and Nicey. But, regardless, he’s resolutely stuck to that voice throughout his entire career. He sounds exactly the same now as he did fifty years ago. I wonder if he’s ever considered just talking normally on the radio. Has he never woke up and just thought, “you know what? I’m going to drop the whole nasal shtick.”

I wonder how he talks when he’s not on the radio or in public. How does he talk when he’s just at home with his friends and family? I’m sure it would make top story in the national news if he decided to go on air and drop the weird voice, giving him loads of free PR. Maybe he could do it for charity.

“We need to raise another £500000 for comic relief and then Tony Blackburn will do a radio show in his normal voice. That’s right, he’s going to blow his nose, which is apparently something he’s not done for fifty-five years, and he’s going to inflect and intonate like a normal person, not constantly going up and down, and he’s not going to do that weird shakey laughing thing when he’s talking either. If he does fall back into his usual style, then we’ll give him an electric shock, which ironically will make him do that weird shakey up and down intonation thing even more, resulting in more and more electric shocks. Oh what fun. Dig deep and give generously.”

Or he could get himself a lucrative TV advertising deal for a cold relief product. You see Tony Blackburn through the years, desperately searching the shelves of countless chemist stores, trying to find a mucus-freeing solution that will work. You see Tony as a young man in the radio studio, feverishly blowing his nose. He opens the mic fader and starts his show.

“Welcome to the exciting new sound of Radio One.”

He puts his head in his hands while a record plays. This sequence repeats a few more times, only Tony is visibly ageing. He tries tablets, nazel sprays, potions, lotions, all sorts of things, and each time he opens up the mic fader and still he sounds like a cheesy radio presenter. He tries to hang out with John Peel and all the cool alternative presenters, but none of them want to talk to him because they see him as a cheesy pop DJ. You see Tony sitting at home crying, while a Smashy and nicey sketch plays on the TV, parodying Tony’s broadcasting style. Then you see him in the studio once again, only now it’s 2016. He goes through his usual pill taking routine, and opens the mic fader. Only this time, he sounds normal, he doesn’t sound cheesy. A broad smile plays across his face, and he proudly declares in his new, sonorous, mucus-free voice, “Welcome to the exciting new sound of Tony Blackburn, brought to you by …” Insert name of cold relief product. Perhaps he then spontainiously bursts into impressive operatic rendition.

As the sound and picture fades, you see Tony hanging out with Zane Lowe and Steve Lamacq, and then you see him in the radio studio, only this time he’s on Radio one, and he’s banging out the latest dubstep tunes, and you see students outside the studio dancing, wearing T-Shirts with Tony Blackburn’s face on it.

Just a thought.

If there are any people working in advertising reading this and they fancy working with me on any ideas then I’d be happy to discuss terms. Obviously, as you’d imagine, I’m not cheep, but as you can clearly see, I’ll be worth your investment. I mean, this idea was just very quickly thrashed out on a fifty minute train journey, and already you can see the amazing potential. We could also do spin-off adverts with other nasal-voiced people, such as Chris Tarrant.

“I’ve tried everything to make me sound normal. I’ve tried mucus-clearing products from all over the world, but I can definitively say then When it comes to permanent cold relief, this is clearly my final answer.”

Must dash, otherwise I’ll miss my stop. Work in progress. Get in touch, and we’ll talk through some ideas.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

My housemate Ben works as a music technology teacher. He is currently at home as it’s half term, and is marking the student’s work, which is a rock & roll pastiche of Happy by Pharrell Williams. For the last two days I’ve heard hours and hours of rock – roll versions of this one song. The students aren’t allowed to use real instruments, as it’s testing their keyboard arranging skills, and so I’ve been listening to what essentially sounds like polyphonic ringtone rock & roll versions of the same song, which I think ramps up the torture levels even further. And even when Ben isn’t listening to his students’ work, I’ve still got the sound reverberating in my ears, and the three of us keep catching ourselves milling around the house singing the song.

“Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof,” sings Pharrell. I think trying to imagine how inanimate objects feel is a massively flawed concept. Obviously there is no way of satisfactorily being able to answer how a room without a roof might feel, however, I think it’s safe to say that in most circumstances you’d feel pretty pissed off if you lived in a house that contained rooms that didn’t possess roofs. Pharrell’s initial dream was to be an estate agent, but that didn’t turn out too well, as you’d imagine, so he became a songwriter and recording artist, although, you could argue that his song writing also leaves a lot to be desired. Let’s just say it’s no Rebecca Slater.

“Bring me down, can’t nothing bring me down, My level’s too high.” He’s clearly not referring to his level of understanding about grammar and sentence structure.

I like the fact that he starts the song with the warning, “it might sound crazy what I’m about to say.” I’m not really sure though that he really lives up to that statement, given that his next line is, “Sunshine she’s here, you can take a break.” That’s not really that crazy. If Pharrell had said, “It might sound crazy what I’m about to say,” and then followed it up with something like, “I like stripping naked and rolling around in custard whilst singing the national anthem of Azerbaijan,” then that would be different.

There seems to be a tendency for pop artists to misuse the term crazy. Carly Rae Jepsen seems to think that giving someone her phone number is crazy, “Hey, I’ve just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me maybe,” but there’s nothing crazy about that situation at all; it’s perfectly normal to give your phone number to someone you like. Where’s Carly been living all her life? In a nunnery?

Still, it’s nice to know that in spite of Pharrell William’s basic lack of English grammar comprehension, and inability to understand the most rudimentary facets of building a house, he is nevertheless happy.

I am also happy, as yesterday I received some rather happy news, as The Young’uns’ Michael Hughes and I have been asked to be The Young’uns’ Sean Cooney’s best man at his wedding in May. I have been asked to be best man twice already, and both those weddings have fallen through, with the relationship completely breaking up. Sean doesn’t seem to have let superstition get the better of him, unless that’s the reason why he’s also asked Michael to be the best man too, as Michael has successfully been best man at two weddings, and both couples are still together. So maybe Michael is simply there to help dilute the curse, whereas I am the real best man.

One of the weddings I was meant to be best man for was Michael’s wedding. Me and Sean were asked to be the best men, but unfortunately they broke up meaning that I never got to do any of my jokes that I’d prepared for the occasion, which arguably was the greatest tragedy.

Michael decided to propose to his then girlfriend Becky at the top of the Eiffel Tower, whilst on their romantic weekend in Paris. Unfortunately Michael is afraid of heights and was unable to make it to the top, so instead decided that he’d just propose to her halfway up the tower.

“Still, in fairness, Becky’s more than used to Michael only managing to get halfway up.”

Cue roars of laughter.

I remember Becky at the time happily relating Michael’s proposal speech, in which he told her that together they could achieve anything. Fortunately, she seemed far too lovestruck in that moment to realise the irony of this statement, baring in mind that they’d just failed to get to the top of a tower together. But, as they say, love is blind, which means that technically I should be an expert on the subject, so think on that ladies.

This morning I received a text from Sean, inviting me to attend a wedding fair with him to look at things for the wedding such as flowers and decorations. I know nothing of these things, and to make me even more useless when it comes to this subject, I can’t even see them, so I don’t think I’ll be much of a help. Still, at least it’ll get me out of the house and away from the bloody constant rock & roll versions of Pharrell Williams’ Happy. Unfortunately, Sean’s fiancée Emily is not able to attend the fair because she has something on with work, so it’ll just be three clueless blokes wondering around, one of whom is extra clueless by the fact that he can’t actually look at any of the things we’re there to look at and make decisions about.

I am completely out of my depth about this sort of thing. Perhaps you can help me out a bit: are there any questions about flowers or decorations I should be asking the stall holders, simply in a bid to look a tiny bit knowledgable? What are the buzz words when it comes to decorations and flowers? Are there any terms I can casually drop in? Perhaps I should just go in all confident, bold and brash, and maybe that’ll help fool the stall holders that I know what I’m talking about.

“OK, let’s get down to the nitty gritty, and talk technical. What kind of soil have you been using to grow these flowers?”

“Right, first things first. There’s one thing you need to know about me before we get started: when it comes to decorations, I’m not the kind of guy who minces his words. I don’t want any bullshit. Right, so now we’ve established that, to business. Doilies: talk to me about your range of doilies, and leave no stone unturned. Hang on, I’ll just get my laptop out and make some comprehensive notes.”

Well, fifty Dollops in. Back tomorrow. Another day, another Dollop.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Today, I came across an old memory stick with a load of random things on, including a number of songs that I recorded between 2000 and 2006, age 15 to 21. Most of them will never see the light of day, and for good reason, but there are a few that I listened to that I actually quite liked. I think I will post some of them up as Dollops over the next couple of weeks.

The first song is called Rebecca Slater, which is about a University student’s infatuation with a girl who attends his debating classes. I’m not sure what inspired it. I was at University at the time, but I never attended debating society. I quite like the arrangement, and it was one of the few songs that didn’t make me cringe. My accent is a bit strange, but I think it’s because I’m trying to take on the persona of a posh Oxford/Cambridge University student.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I have another song about a maths student facing relationship troubles, which I wrote six years ago. It is entirely recorded apart from the vocal, which granted, is a rather important aspect of the song. Hopefully I’ll get time to finish that before heading to Australia in March. I think it’s pretty good, and it would be a bit of a waste not to ever complete it. But for now, here’s a song from my twenty-year-old self.

Download it here

Back tomorrow with my usual ramblings about something or other.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Last night I received a message from God. “I’m glad you’ve learnt your lesson,” he/she/it wrote. Well God probably didn’t actually write it himself, he probably just barks instructions to an angel or something. Maybe that’s why the bible is full of odd contradictions and weirdness, because the angel is deaf, what with all the blasting trumpets, constant harp playing, and having the voice of the almighty ringing in your ears all day long. The most famous example of God being too lazy to write was the ten commandments, which Moses wrote on God’s behalf on tablets, by which I mean tablets of stone rather than Ipads, which would have been a lot more impressive and helped convert a lot more people.

“I am the god of Kindle Fire, and I bring you … the ten commandments. Oh, and I’ve also installed the Angry Birds game for you too, for I am a benevolent God. And don’t worry about the killing. I know I said thou shalt not kill, but that doesn’t include virtual fictitious birds killing virtual fictitious pigs. However, if I catch any of you coveting any virtual fictitious oxen, I’ll smite you down. For as well as being a benevolent God, I am also a weird and confusing God.”

At first, I was rather taken aback by what I was reading: an actual message from God. But after a good half an hour of thinking, a thought began to niggle me: how did I know it was really God? Granted, the name of the commenter was God, but doubt was starting to creep into my head. Perhaps it was an imposter. They could have just typed God in the name field.

I was in a bit of a quandary, unsure of how to react. If I replied to this message by challenging the identity of the sender, then if it was God he might fly up in anger and smite me. But if I responded to the message piously and it turned out not to be God, then he’d have me for worshipping false idols, thus breaking one of his commandments. I couldn’t ignore the message and not respond, because as God admits in the ten commandments, “I am a jealous God”, which seems a bit ridiculous really, given that he lists envy as one of the seven deadly sins. So not replying wouldn’t work, as God would see that I was replying to other people and ignoring him, incurring his jealousy.

Then I had an incredibly clever plan. I called my dad and asked him what he thought I should do. Whatever my dad suggested, I would accept implicitly, without question. I figured that this might help protect me against God’s wrath if he saw that I was making an effort to live by his rules, even if I had to break one of them by my response. I’d honoured my father, which I hoped might count in my favour if I upset God by my reply. It’s useful to have points in the bag, just in case.

My dad’s suggestion was to challenge God in order to make sure it was definitely him. I thanked him for his time (I hope you took note of that God) and proceeded to type my response to the message sender who claimed to be God.

I asked the sender to prove that they were really God by telling me what I was about to eat for tea, something which an omnipotent and omnipresent God would have no trouble whatsoever in answering. But no response came. And so I think I’ve proved that the message was in fact sent by an imposter.

So I think I handled that whole situation very well indeed. But then I went and buggered everything up. I couldn’t help myself. I was just taking the rubbish out, when I saw my neighbour’s wife, and before I could stop myself, I started to covet her. I’m extra concerned because my neighbour is a bit of a lazy slob who gets his wife to do all the work around the house, while he just sits on his arse all day. So you could argue that as well as being my neighbour’s wife, she’s also my neighbour’s female servant, which means I’ve broken two commandments in one coveting session. Fortunately, my neighbour’s donkey is really smelly and so there’s no chance of me coveting that, which avoids me scoring a coveting hat-trick. Don’t worry, my neighbour won’t be reading or listening to this, as he’s far too lazy.

Apparently, in order to signify God’s ten commandments being delivered, God brought about a series of earthquakes, sent plumes of smoke into the sky and gave a blast on a trumpet, which seems like a lot of hard work for very little reward. How are people meant to know what the earthquakes, smoke and trumpeting is all about? And what the heck was the point in a trumpet? Most people would be too busy running away from the fire and falling rocks to stop and listen to a trumpet solo, even if it is a trumpet solo from the almighty. Far better for God to have had the foresight to introduce social networking to the planet a few thousand years earlier, which would have also made the tablets a lot more useful.

It also seems a bit rich and stupid to set things ablaze and cause deathly earthquakes as the precursor to instructing people that they shouldn’t kill. I think God could have done with attending a leadership course.

“OK guys, so we’re looking at effective leadership and how best to get your message across to people, and make them want to follow you. So come on guys, stick your ideas key in the engine of potential, start the ignition of innovation as we fly this aeroplane of success into blue sky thinking. Hmm, I like that, I’ll have to write that down; that’s a good one for my book. So come on guys, what do we think? Ideas. Ah, it’s God. What have you got for us God.”

“Stop taking my name in vain.”

“I’m not, I’m just saying your name. So what’s your thoughts.”

“If you want to get your message across, I find the best way is to precede your message with a series of earthquakes, a generous helping of smoke, and a little bit of a blast on the old trumpet.”

“Well, that’s certainly a novel approach God.”

“Stop taking my name in vain.”

“I’m not, I’m just saying your name.”

“You’re saying it far too casually, suggesting a level of vainness.”

“Well, I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you, for I am a forgiving God.”

“Good. Interesting suggestions, but I was thinking more along the lines of having a solid social networking presence. Are you on Twitter or Facebook, God?”

“I am omnipresent, so I am within all Twitter and Facebook accounts.”

“Well, that’s as may be, but do you have a Twitter or Facebook account of your own,God/”

“No, I prefer to communicate through the medium of stone.”

“Stone?! You mean you don’t have a social network presence at all?”

“Well, no. Never saw the point in it myself, when there’s plenty of stone around, and I’ve got the old trusty trumpet. Oh, actually, Mary did get me set up on Bebo.”

“Good god. Right, let’s take a break.”

“You definitely took my name in vain that time.”

Anyway, the good news is that there is no God news, as it was not God who commented on yesterday’s Dollop, meaning that I shall continue with this project. And so I will be back tomorrow for Dollop 49.

Download the audio version of Today’s Dollop

Last Sunday I had planned to do some stand-up. One of the reasons for doing David’s Daily Digital Dollop is to help create ideas that I could then use for stand-up comedy. I decided to perform my Richard Dawkins’ death material from Dollop 7 as a piece of stand-up. I’d linked all the various elements together and came up with some new ideas. I was pretty happy with what I’d got. I thought it had the potential to be funny, although I was massively nervous and unsure about how it would go down, being very new and unconfident about stand-up.

I had a few hours before I needed to set off, and so I thought I’d just do a quick look on the Internet to see if I could find anything else about Richard Dawkins that I could maybe add to what I’d already got. Something I read might spark an idea.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

After my Dollop from last Thursday in which I talked about the challenges of writing daily while on the road, Jools commented saying, “would it help if the Dollops were smaller?” This, incidentally, is the very same Jools who upset my poltergeist friend, who had kindly started writing some of these Dollops for me, helping to lighten the load, and so I think it’s a bit rich of her to try and offer solutions.

Also her suggestion tapped into my paranoia. Was this her anti-encore? The equivalent of the audience shouting “less, less!”? If these Dollops were shorter, then it would probably mean that I’d write the same amount, but just have to think about which bits to edit out, which would take even more time. I do edit things out, but I don’t really want to be too harsh with the editing, as I might end up deleting something that will maybe fuel an idea somewhere down the line. This exercise is as much about me learning and getting better and more creative, and also having the resilience and staying power to write everyday, regardless of obstacles. But this is not just about my resilience and staying power, it’s about yours as well. The question is: can you hadle it, Jools?

Also, if I started out with a view to writing less, most of the ideas that are generated wouldn’t ever occur because I’d reach 600 words and just stop. This would mean that I’d have to decide on a subject before writing, which often doesn’t happen. I quite like the fact that I can start out writing about one subject, but then the subject will completely change during the writing process, or by discovering something on the Internet while fact checking what I’ve written. Because when it comes to David’s Daily Digital Dollop, factual accuracy is paramount; and that’s a fact.

The Dollop about the Beastie Boys forum is a good example of when an Internet search mid-Dollop-writing can completely change the subject. One minute I was writing about the search results that come up when you type “David Eagle blind”, into Google, and then I became interested in one of the search results which was a post on the Beastie Boys forum, and so I started writing about that, which then led to a discussion of arse wiping. If I made the Dollops smaller then that kind of thing would never happen. And you surely wouldn’t want to be deprived of that kind of quality subject matter, Jools?

However, if you are concerned about the amount of time it’s taking you to digest these Dollops (and this reply won’t be helping you there, sorry), then you could probably find a tool on the Internet that will strip out all the conjunctions, and maybe reduce any longer words into their shorter equivalents. You’d probably still be able to understand what I was writing, and it would save you about thirty seconds a Dollop, which may not seem like much, but over time would accumulate and save you quite a bit.

There’s an auto-summarising tool online here that will allow you to paste in any text and choose how much you want the summariser to cut out. The default is 50 %, but you can change this number depending on how pressed for time you are. Unfortunately, it tends to ruin any jokes, because it often seems to take out the first part of the joke and just leaves the punchline. But you could then play a fun game of trying to guess the first part of the joke on the basis of the punchline, which would add an extra level of entertainment to the Dollops, without having to read 50 % of them, saving you time and improving your level of creativity in the process. Perhaps you’ll discover that you’ve thought of better openers to the jokes than I have, and you’ll eventually start your own blog which will be inspired by your guesses on my blog posts based on only reading 50 % of them. Unfortunately, if you’ve already started using the auto-summariser to read the rest of this Dollop, then there’s a 50 % chance that you won’t be reading any of this bit.

Most people seem to access the Dollops in their audio form, presumably because they find my voice arousing, plus I’m taking them into some rather exciting locations; yesterday I recorded from the Unthanks dressing room and a disabled toilet, reading the Dollop while sat on the loo. The blog posts take me about five to ten minutes to read. I think that is quite a good amount of time to explore an idea.

The archers is about twelve minutes a day, and that’s one of the most popular daily podcasts out there. And that’s full of padding; a lot of it is just farmyard ambience. I’m sure that if Archers listeners had a tool that could remove the bits in the soap where there’s just the sound of a cow mooing or a sheep bleating, then they would get back quite a lot of their lives.

If you are a Dollops podcast listener then you could save yourself up to 75 % of your listening time by using an App such as the Podcasts App on Apple Devices, which has a function to speed up the podcast up to 75 % faster. Unfortunately, I don’t think it has a tool to take out the sound of cows mooing, which is a shame because that would save you even more time, although, what that cow was doing in the disabled toilet is anyone’s guess. Still, it came in handy; well, we all have our ways to relax after a hard day’s work..

Anyway, thank you to Jools and everyone who reads and listens to these Dollops. The numbers have not dropped off, and are steadily increasing, so hopefully that’s an indication that the project is working. Tomorrow I will write something less self-referential. Today’s Dollop was just going to be a four line limerick, until I saw Jools’ comment, so if you found this too long then address your complaints to Jools. A couple of weeks ago she insulted my dead friend, and now she’s making snide remarks about the size of my Dollop – insert your own smutty punchline here, if you feel that way inclined.

This Dollop consists of a couple of songs, especially for Valentine’s day.

Download here

Happy Valentine’s day. Back tomorrow.