I am reunited with my wires, and so the 110th Young’uns Podcast has arrived. Featuring special guests Megson; A new story from Sean Cooney; some synchronised phoneme delivery; hip-hop jingles; obscure details about the Basten folk Club toilets; a recording from an incendiary Young’uns performance; Terrible Mike Harding impressions; a cold call; details about the Young’uns’ formative years; and a track from the Young’uns new album. It’s the 110th Young’uns Podcast, with a Yohoho and, of course, a pompompom. Listen to be enlightened.
Download here.

For previous Young’uns Podcasts and subscription options go to the Young’uns Podcast page.

Firstly, apologies if you are an ornithologist who has clicked onto this page hoping for an article on the subject of the eagle and bird calls. I am planning on writing such an article at some point in the future, but this particular blog post concerns itself with advertising the fact that I have a twitter page. Not only that, but at the time of writing this post, I have posted one tweet. I obviously plan on doing more tweets, hence why I am drawing your attention to my presence on Twitter.

Follow me on Twitter @thedavideagle.

Currently I have twelve followers, which is the same number as the disciples of Jesus, so I’m feeling pretty smug; although, my followers have only had to click a button, where as Jesus’ followers left their families and friends and actually followed him around, which shows a little bit more commitment. I’m not particularly keen on the idea of you doing that though; I’m happy simply for you to follow me on Twitter. And don’t expect me to wash your feet or anything. In fact, stop going on, comparing me to Jesus.

I’m a little uncertain as to how well me and Twitter will get on. As you may have noticed from my blog posts, I am not particularly well versed when it comes to brevity, and Twitter insists that tweets must be 140 characters or less. I hate imposed maximum word counts. I was also asked by the BBC today to send a biog, no more than fifty words long. Damn them, they had found my Achilles’ heel. To add further insult to this outrageous request, the brief about what the biog should contain was 54 words long. They were patently gloating, rubbing their unfettered pros in my face. No one rubs their unfettered prose in my face and gets away with it; I’ve always said that. I’ll get my own back one day. But to add further insult, they asked me to write the biog in the third person, meaning that I would have to write “David Eagle” rather than “I”, robbing me of a precious word – 2% of my total allowance. But Twitter and the BBC will not grind me down with their word embargoes. I have done my first tweet and I intend to tweet more.

the 110th Young’uns Podcast will definitely be released next week. I left my bag with my wires in Sean’s car after a Young’uns gig, and he has taken it to Manchester. So when I am reunited with my wires this weekend, I will release the podcast.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @thedavideagle. I’ll be practising at being concise and brief on my Twitter page; but I don’t think there’s any chance of that brevity and conciseness making its way over to this blog. Perish the thought.

Just over a week ago I was checking my emails, hoping for more nose rubbing videos. As I mentioned in my last blog post, videos were coming in much less quickly now, and it seemed as if they had almost dried up. I hadn’t received a nose rubbing video for a couple of days. I don’t know what I was expecting. I’ve only told the readers of this blog about it, and yes, there is a good number who read this, but I surely couldn’t expect that that alone would be enough publicity in order to get the quantity and quality of videos that I’d require to create a smash hit viral video. How many nose rubbing clips does it take to make a smash hit viral video? That’s the trouble with our education system; they just don’t teach you important stuff like this. But what ever the answer to that question is, I would definitely need to spread the message about the Eskimo Kissing song a lot wider.

I scrolled down my emails. “You won’t satisfy girls with that. Get a much bigger manhood”. Bloody X-girlfriend again; she just won’t stop. I don’t care about penises; it’s noses I’m interested in. An email from EBay. Damn. One from Papal. Bugger. One from a university friend. No attachment, no links to videos. Damn again. Where were the nose rubbing videos? The Olympics had finished now. What were people doing that was so much more interesting than recording and sending me a nose rubbing video?

I continued to scroll down my emails. Some more spam. A load of emails from Facebook; none of them relating to nose rubbing. An email from Youtube. Ahar! This could be one. But no, it was informing me that someone had subscribed to my Youtube channel. Damn them. An Email from the BBC; something about some possible radio work, and a meeting with the new director general. Why weren’t people sending me their nose rubbing … hang on. The BBC? Some possible radio work? Meeting the director general? OK, this wasn’t a nose rubbing video but it was pretty special.

I did a little dance around the room; sort of between a foxtrot and a tango in case you’re interested. I was just considering a cheeky little cancan when a thought struck me. Hey! Maybe the director general would do a nose rubbing video.

“But isn’t the term Eskimo racist?” said Sean, on the way to aYoung’uns gig.

“Racist?” I replied.

“Yes, I’m sure it’s not politically correct to say Eskimo” said Mike, “; they’re called Inuits”. He did an Internet search and read me an article about how the word Eskimo was deemed a pejorative term by certain Inuit people of Greenland and Canada.

“OK, well I’ll just have to keep it quiet from the Inuit people of Greenland and Canada then. I’ll just make sure not to tell any of them”. For some reason, they didn’t find this to be a convincing solution.

“So you’ve created a racist song. And you want other people to join in and support your racist endeavours. You want to get people involved in creating a racist video that goes viral”.

“That’s not the idea at all” I protested. “I want to unite the world through the power of the nose rub”.

“We can’t have a racist in the group”.

“Racist is an adjective. You can’t say I’m a racist. That’s like saying I’m a disabled”. It’s important to have a sense of perspective about these things. “I may be racist but at least I can speak English”. Again, I don’t think that argument was winning them round. I was starting to get a bit worried. What if I am racist? I’m not sure I’d like myself very much if I was racist.

I got my phone out. This would be a difficult moment, but it had to be done. There was no point putting it off. I called my friend Aisha. I’ve known her since I was six. Being blind, I’d never even realised that she wasn’t white until I was in secondary school. I’d never even given it a moment’s thought.

She answered the phone cheerily. “Aisha,” I began, “I think I’m a racist. So I was thinking, maybe it’s best if we don’t talk for a bit, until I’m sure about …”.

“David”, she interrupted. She always interrupts me; I think it’s because she’s Asian. “Racist is an adjective, not a noun”.

“Yes I know that, but that’s hardly the point.
The point is … hang on, how dare you correct my use of English. You’re not even originally from here”.

“That was a bit racist David. As was that thought about me interrupting you” she responded. How did she know about my racist thought? Ah yes of course, she’s Asian; they can read your mind … or something.

That was a difficult phone call. We’d not managed to say a proper goodbye because her phone had cut off. Maybe the call had been intercepted by the government who had started monitoring it due to its racist nature.

As I began to talk to more people about the Eskimo Kissing song, more people were posing that same question: “but isn’t the word Eskimo racist”. I began to become deflated. I could hardly go ahead with this project if people were going to think it was racist. But as I mentioned in a previous blog post, it didn’t feel like I’d done any of the creating. The song just seemed to pour into my head. Perhaps I had a racist subconscious. But I could hardly use that as an excuse. 80 % of the brain is subconscious, so that would make me 80 % racist. I think I’d rather be consciously racist; at least that would only make me 20 % racist. And the subconscious part of the brain also works on autopilot, meaning that I am being automatically racist, without even having to think about it or even knowing that I am being racist. Goodness knows what racist things I’m doing on a daily basis; what racist things I might be subconsciously thinking now as I write this blog post.There is of course another explanation, perhaps a more logical one: maybe I’d been possessed by a racist spirit. That would just be bloody typical. Why does this kind of thing always seem to happen to me?

Then I had a terrible thought. What if someone from the BBC had been reading all of this? I checked my emails to see whether they had contacted me to say that the director general had changed his mind about meeting me, because he’d read my blog posts and heard my song, and couldn’t be seen to be holding Meetings with someone who was racist. “The BBC has a very strong policy on people with racist subconscious minds. And anyway, the BBC has changed their mind and recruited Ricky Gervais instead. We just can’t afford to take risks like we used to do”. That’s an idea: maybe if the word Eskimo is racist, I could just do a Gervais and say I’m reclaiming it – brilliant. As a sidenote, Ricky Gervais’ website isn’t particularly accessible for blind users with screen readers. An accident?

There were no further emails from the BBC. There were also no nose rubbing videos. Obviously all my racist readers had sent their videos in early. I was impressed; they might be racist but they were very efficient.

The paucity of nose rubbing videos coupled with some people’s negative perception Of the word Eskimo had somewhat dampened my enthusiasm. I also realised that if anyone from the BBC had recently started reading my blog then they would probably be a bit bemused by the fact that all I seemed to ever write about is nose rubbing. “Well there might be a one off show on the subject of nose rubbing, but he’s hardly going to sustain a whole career with us out of it”.

I decided that I should probably do some research about the term Eskimo and see how I felt after that. Naturally, I did what all of us would do in such a situation and went on Wikipedia. Wikipedia would tell me definitively and indisputably whether I was racist or not. I found very little to substantiate the argument that the term Eskimo is racist. Yes, it is seen as a pejorative term by certain parts of the Inuit community because there is a school of thought that the word translated means “roar meat eater”; but I don’t think this is considered as definite fact, as it is a translation of an extinct language. However, the word Eskimo does not solely refer to the Inuit people. The word Eskimo also encompasses the Yupik people, and therefore it would be wrong to suggest that Eskimos are simply Inuit people. The word can also refer to other groups of people. So I think the word Eskimo is fine in this case, certainly the term “Eskimo kissing” which is a western colloquialism and a westernised concept. And I can hardly sing “We’re Inuit and Yupik kissing tonight”. It would somewhat ruin the song’s catchiness, and probably be detrimental to its success as a novelty hit. Then there’s another problem: what about the Aleut, hey? Did you think about that? No, I bet you didn’t even give them a second’s thought. You could perhaps say that I should include the Aleut people. “We’re Inuit, Yupik and Aleut kissing tonight”. And there are all sorts of other people we’d be discriminating against if I didn’t mention them.

So, now who’s racist? Perhaps Mike and Sean are racist. After all if it was up to them, they would have me discriminate against the Yupik and Aleut people, something which I condemn very heavily indeed. I’ll let you – the discerning reader – be the judge of that. Perhaps I should eject them from the Young’uns and replace them with band members who are less racist. Maybe I could audition some Inuit, Yupik or Aleut band members. I’ve always wanted some throat singing in the group. Mike had a go once but it didn’t really have the desired effect.

Anyway, I have decided to keep the Eskimo Kissing project going, but to let it develop over a longer period of time. This will mean I can concentrate writing about other things other than nose rubbing. I think we’ve probably missed the boat for this year’s Christmas number one anyway, so we can take our time a bit.

I am in Germany this coming weekend with the Young’uns, so I might be able to get some international nose rubbing videos. In the meantime, Email me your nose rubbing videos to david@davideagle.co.uk. If you don’t then you are clearly making a racist statement. Maybe I can start an antiracism campaign: I’m a rubber not a racist.

In other none nose rubbing news: the 110th Young’uns podcast will be released next week.

Download the Eskimo Kissing Song here.

“I could pull your Adam’s apple out in less than a second with just two fingers” declared the man sitting next to me on the bus. His hand was clutching the front of my neck. Suddenly, the cat obsessed old ladies didn’t seem like such bad company after all.

The man with his hand around my neck is called Rob. He retired from the army just this week, having served for thirty years, and he was now exhibiting some of the knowledge he’d picked up during that time. I was the lucky recipient of his demonstrations. I had already been jabbed in the ribs, and had my arm twisted, and now he’d moved on to my neck, which he gripped with his hand, and shook slightly to the meter of his words.

I’d only known Rob for fifteen minutes. He’d sat next to me on the bus, and after a minute or so initiated some small talk about the whether.

“Lovely day mate” he said.

“Yes it is” I replied. And from there, the conversation naturally developed; if you can class a man with his hands around your neck announcing that he could tear your Adam’s apple out as a natural development from the weather.

After a couple of seconds, Rob released his grip on my neck, and began to tell me about some other ways he could inflict pain on people.

“Yes, as you were saying fifteen minutes ago when you first spoke to me Rob, it certainly is a lovely day”. I thought I’d try and get us back on to the weather talk, just in case he planned to act out anything else on me.

“I can kill a man in less than a second Dave” he continued, clearly ignoring my attempts to move the conversation back to safer territory.

“Could be as high as 30 degrees out there Rob”.

“it’s all about pressure points Dave. If you know exactly where to press, and I do, you can kill a man, no problem”. “No problem for you perhaps. I’m not sure if the other person would share that view”, I thought. Obviously I didn’t vocalise this to Rob; I wanted to stay alive with my Adam’s apple safely in tact.

Rob, despite the picture I may have painted, was actually a very inspiring person and seemed to be very positive , despite all the terrible things he had witnessed. He said that his favourite part of the army was learning about and experiencing different cultures. He’d learnt a number of languages, and was fluent in Pakistani. He proved this to me by speaking a couple of sentences in Pakistani, and it sounded pretty good, so I believed him.
He told me some very harrowing tales, and demonstrated that even in the most negative and bleakest of situations, positivity and friendship can still exist.

“When you leave the army you have to sign the official secrets act”, Rob informed me. “;There’s so much I can’t say. There’s so much I can’t talk about”. He then took hold of my neck again, and pulled me towards him. “But we’re on the back of a bus with a really loud engine, so I think we’ll be fine”. I’m sure that there isn’t a caveat in the official secrets act that said that he was OK to divulge secret information if he happened to be on the back of a bus that had a really loud engine. Sadly, I didn’t get to hear what he had to say because the bus was nearing my stop.

“Well, in a couple of minutes we’ll be reaching my stop Rob, so maybe another time. It’s been a pleasure though. Oh and thanks for the tips about how to kill people”.

“Oh well if you’re getting off soon then I better quickly tell you this funny story about my cat. I meant to tell you it sooner, but I got distracted chatting about top military secrets and how to kill people”. No, he didn’t say that. What he actually did was grabbed hold of my neck again and pulled me towards him. Thank goodness this wasn’t the mega bus from Newcastle to London, otherwise I might not be here to tell this tale.

“Promise me something Dave” he whispered with great intensity. “Promise me that you’ll never give up. I see the fight in your eyes. You’ve got ambition son. You’ve got a purpose, and you know what it is. You go out there and make it happen. Promise me, you won’t give up. Promise me”. He gave me a little shake. I promised him, and he let go of me. I stood up, and put my bag on my back and turned to shake his hand and bid him goodbye, as if all of this had been perfectly normal.

As I walked off the bus and waited at the stop for my next bus, I mused on what had just happened, what the man had just said. He asked me to promise him that I would never give up. And I was hardly going to refuse; he had his hands around my neck, and he knew killing techniques. He also said that he knew that I had a purpose, and that I knew what it was. Well, he was right. But how could he have known about the Eskimo Kissing song?

Rob’s message came at an opportune moment. When I returned home I checked my emails, hoping for some more nose rubbing videos. But there was nothing. I had been so heartened by the initial response from people, that I just assumed that the weekend would bring me more. Why wouldn’t it? What could possibly be stopping people? Did people prefer to watch the Olympics on TV rather than emailing videos of themselves rubbing noses with people to some deluded fool? Surely not. But it seemed as if that might be the case.

But I would not be despondent. I must heed Rob’s words. I would not give up. I had fight in me, passion, and a purpose. Rob had seen it in my eyes, and he knew what he was talking about. And he had also clearly illustrated he could be a formidable enemy. So I wasn’t going to back down on that promise, just in case.

I received one nose rubbing video this weekend. I have decided that I really need to renew my efforts and strengthen my attempts. I will post on Internet forums, comment on relevant blogs, speak to people on Skype, mention it at gigs, and even try and get the press involved at some point.

Anyway, on Friday I mentioned that in Google, my website came third for the search term “Eskimo Kissing Song”. The first two spots are occupied by the Kooks who have a song called Eskimo Kiss. I asked you all on Friday to please Google the term “Eskimo Kissing song” and then click on my website. If enough people did this then perhaps I could get my website at number one and beat the Kooks. Well, today, we appear to have risen to number two. I’m sure by the end of the week we will be number one. So keep Googling.

I’ll be back later this week with another blog. If you haven’t sent me a video of you nose rubbing yet then please do. Email them to david@davideagle.co.uk And let’s beat The Kooks! I’d strongly advise you to get involved. After all, I’ve learnt a thing or two about killing people since we last spoke. So, get involved. You nose it makes sense!

As the title of this blog post suggests, I want to get the Eskimo Kissing song to number one by the end of this weekend. It would obviously be nice if the song itself could attain a number one chart position, but I think realistically we’ll have to wait a few months before that’s going to happen. However, there is another chart topping position that I would like us to focus our immediate attention on.

On Wednesday, I Googled the search term ‘Eskimo Kissing song’. The top results for this search query indicated that the band The Kooks have released a song called ‘Eskimo Kiss’. I was however pleased to note that my blog posts about the song occupied position 15. Not bad, I thought, especially since I’d only blogged about the song a week ago. I was even more pleased the following day to note that I had moved up the results to position 10. I have just checked today, and the Eskimo Kissing Song is now 3rd, with the Kooks still occupying the first two spots. But that is all about to change, because it’s time for all of you to take action.

You can make a difference. All you need to do is go to Google and search for ‘the Eskimo Kissing Song’. Then when you find my blog post in the search results, click on the page. That’s all you have to do. If you like, you can tackle Yahoo, bing and the other search engines, but let’s primarily concentrate our efforts on Google.

I’ll be back on Monday. I hope to have received more nose rubbing videos by then. Email me david@davideagle.co.uk

Download the Eskimo Kissing Song here.

I am please to report that I have already started receiving nose rubbing videos from people. Thank you to everyone who has emailed me so far. I didn’t expect such a positive response in the first 24 hours of making the request.

Since posting my blog yesterday, I have been contacted by someone who has offered to do a dance remix of the Eskimo kissing song. I have since communicated with him and have suggested that he tries and creates a mainstream sounding pop dance track that we could use as the real version of the song. As I said in my first blog post about the song, this current version will probably only serve as the demo song. It was an expedient recording made in under 8 hours. It probably won’t capture the mainstream pop market. The current version sounds quite sixties; we need something modern and poppy so that it will translate to the masses. I was sent some clips of this person’s previous work, and I am confident that he will be able to produce a really good dance track.

Another thing I think we need in order to capture people’s interest is a catchy band name. David Eagle doesn’t sound novelty enough I don’t think. So I’ve decided that the name of the group who sing the Eskimo Kissing Song is called the Kisser Chiefs. It’s OK, I know I’m a genius; you don’t have to worry about letting me know.

I have also bought the domain names eskimokissing.co.uk and thekisserchiefs.co.uk. I think this will come in useful at a later date.

I have also designed a Tee-shirt promoting the Eskimo Kissing song which I intend to frequently wear. I have ordered loads of blank CDs, and I have plans for utilising these to spread the message about the Eskimo Kissing Song. We also need flyers and leaflets.

So that’s a brief progress report. I just wanted you to understand that the momentum is well and truly building, just in case you were doing something stupid like not taking this whole thing seriously. Don’t doubt it people. I’m 100 % serious. So get involved. You nose it makes sense!

Please continue to send me your nose rubbing videos and “nosey nosey” audio recordings. My email address is david@davideagle.co.uk

I’ll be back tomorrow with more. Till then, get rubbing those noses.

Forget rubbing shoulders; it’s all about rubbing noses now. I’m assuming that you all have a nose, though I apologise if you don’t and this whole Eskimo Kissing thing is causing you distress. For those of you who do have these aforementioned facial appendages, I’d like you to utilise them in the creation of the Eskimo Kissing music video, which (as I said in my last blog post) I want to go viral (the video that is; I’m not saying that I’d like your noses to go viral).

My idea for the video is a collage of very short video clips consisting of people rubbing their noses together. I want nose rubbing videos recorded from all sorts of locations: on trains, busses, boats, in forests, in church, factories, shops, restaurants, pubs, up a tree, in the sea, in a tent, on a bloody bouncy castle – wherever, anywhere will do. I want people of all ages. We might even get some animal nose rubbing action sent in. Imagine that. Wherever, whoever and whatever; as long as it’s nose rubbing, I want it.

You can send me videos or still photos. Either upload them to somewhere and email me the link, or
send them to me as an attachment via email. My email address is: david@davideagle.co.uk
Or you can comment on this blog post and send me the link that way.

Just a short video of you rubbing your nose with someone or something. That’s all we need. If you do fancy doing something more creative that you think will work then feel free. This is your song just as much as mine. You don’t expect me to take full responsibility for all this nonsense do you?

I would also like any recordings, either audio or video, of you saying, shouting, or whispering, “nosey nosey”. I don’t care how you say it, or how many of you are saying it, I just need clips of people saying “nosey nosey”.

So please, get to work. Send me your nose rubbing videos and photos, and your “nosey nosey” recordings . Upload them somewhere or
email them straight to me.
Let me know that you’ve made a video and where I can find it.

OK team, it’s time for you to get to work. Make a blind man very happy. Get involved. You nose it makes sense!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a progress report.

Mr Blobby, the Crazy Frog, Barbie Girl, the Cheeky Girls, Bob the Builder, ScatMan John, the Fast-food Rockers, and me. What a party that was!

I list these names because they have all been involved in novelty hit songs. I have created (in my not so humble opinion) a novelty hit song, and in the future I hope that this song will earn me as much respect and reverence as is afforded to these other aforementioned esteemed luminaries of the novelty hit song world. Well you’ve got to dream big.

Yesterday I explained (as best as I could) how this song came about. Today I do not intend to write a great deal, because I want you all to listen to my song. I will then give you the weekend to digest what you’ve heard, and then I shall be back early next week to discuss how we progress from here. As I said yesterday, we need a video that will go viral and I want you all involved.

Download the Eskimo Kissing Song here.

Lyrics

Some couples they like to French kiss,
But me and my girl we’d rather give all that a miss,
We’d rather kiss the Eskimo way,
Rubbing our noses is the perfect foreplay.

Because we’re Eskimo kissing tonight,
We’re Eskimo kissing tonight,
You’re my Eskimo girl, I’m your Eskimo guy,
Touch my nose, don’t be shy,
Nosey Nosey!

I’ve been with so many girls who’ve rubbed me up the wrong way,
But the way that you rub me, you know I’m always gonna stay,
We’re gonna demonstrate our love like the Eskimos do,
We’re gonna stick together just like igloo.

Because we’re Eskimo kissing tonight,
We’re Eskimo kissing tonight,
You’re my Eskimo girl, I’m your Eskimo guy,
Touch my nose, don’t be shy,
Nosey Nosey!

Well it’s been such a long time because you’ve had a bad cold,
But now you say it’s cleared up and so are passion takes its hold,
We’re rubbing our noses, girl you know how to please,
The moment is so magical until you start to sneeze.

She said she loved me, and then she sneezed; well that was mucus to my ears.

we’re Eskimo kissing tonight,
We’re Eskimo kissing tonight,
You’re my Eskimo girl, I’m your Eskimo guy,
Touch my nose, don’t be shy,
Nosey Nosey!

I look around me. My palace is festooned with gold discs and trophies. A myriad of photographs adorn the walls. They comprise people of all ages, from all of earth’s countries. And all these people are engaged in the same activity.

There are thousands of celebrity faces: Hollywood stars, pop singers, politicians, sports stars. There are photographs of royalty; our very own queen of Britain even features, obviously not wanting to be exempt from this craze that has pervaded the planet.

I turn around and focus my attention on the large collection of photographs of beautiful women that fill this particular section of the room. They’re all smiling great big smiles. I recognise that smile all-too-well; that’s the smile of a lady who has spent some quality time with David Eagle. How many beautiful women have graced my life over the last year? I lost count after the first month.

As my eyes move around the room, I observe the immense magnitude of what I have created. All these people: politicians, pop stars, footballers, actors, beautiful ladies, children, animals – even the extra-terrestrial life form that we dramatically became acquainted with at the end of 2012 – all looking back at me, wearing wide smiles. And of course, everyone of them is engaged in that same ubiquitous activity: nose rubbing. Because 2013 is the year of the Eskimo kiss. And it’s all thanks to me!

A year ago today was when it all began; July 21st 2012. Who would have thought that this day would have been the catalyst for all the fame, all the awards, all the celebrity parties, all those women? Certainly not I, as I took my seat for what I assumed would be an innocuous and uneventful train journey. But as the train pulled away from Newcastle station and made its course to York, I was starting an altogether different journey, one which would prove to be much more significant and life changing.

There’s a part of this story missing. It will have to stay missing I’m afraid as I have no idea what it is. I am not aware of the event that caused what happened to happen. I assume that there must be some reason why my brain would suddenly become super-active and start rapidly churning out the lyrics to a song about Eskimo kissing. But I cannot imagine what possibly made such a thing occur. I had no plans whatsoever to write a song, and I had not been conscious of thinking about or hearing anything relating to Eskimo kissing, yet here was my brain spontaneously composing a whole song on that very subject.

I spent the first half of the train journey typing profusely on my laptop as I try to keep up with my crazed brain’s lyrical deluge. By the time the train had reached Darlington I had a document with pages of lyrics. At this point my brain eventually capitulated its relentless spewing, and I was able to look back over what the heck I’d actually written. I liked it; but I couldn’t possibly use all these words, there was too much.

Half an hour later, the train pulled into York. I closed my laptop, satisfied that I had managed to redact the reams of words down to a three verse song.

As I walked out of the station and down the street, I ran through the song in my head. I knew it off-by-heart; it was as if I’d known it for years. I felt fully alive and energised by this odd event. But what to do about it? Surely I am too busy to spend time recording a silly song about Eskimo kissing. But I couldn’t get the song out of my head, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to ignore its hold over me. This whole experience had been too potent for me to simply ignore and do nothing about.

I arrived at my friend Ben’s house. We were meant to be going out in York for my birthday, but when I arrived at his house and he asked me what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go, I instantly replied, without any deliberation “I want to record my novelty hit song, and I want to go to number one”. And so, instead of celebrating my birthday by going out drinking, we spent the night and early morning recording the song that a few hours ago hadn’t even been conceived. And Ben no doubt mused on why he couldn’t have opted for a normal friend who was happy to just go out on a Saturday night and drink himself almost to oblivion.

So that’s the first part of my plans kind of achieved. The song is recorded. Getting to number one will probably be a little more tricky, and take a little bit longer. I say that I have “kind of” achieved the first part of my plan, because the recording of this song is probably only going to be the demo version, as it was recorded in a bedroom in 8 hours. But it’s a good place to start. If I’m going to get to number one though, we’ll have to make a professionally produced pop recording with an accompanying music video.

On Thursday evening I will upload the song and release another blog post. Then I will await your thoughts. Then we’ll take it from there. I have got ideas for the video and I want you all involved. I shall explain more when you have heard the song.

In the meantime, enjoy your final day of sanity before you are thrown into the brave new world – a world that is united by the Eskimo kiss. Mark my words: in 2013, the Eskimo kissing song will be everywhere. But tomorrow, it will be hear, for the first time. So, until tomorrow friends …

We’re Eskimo kissing tonight,
We’re Eskimo kissing tonight,
You’re my Eskimo girl, I’m your Eskimo guy,
Touch my nose, don’t be shy.

I had barely arrived at the bus stop before an old lady approached me and began to talk to me about her cat. This seems to be what old ladies at bus stops do, or at least the old ladies at bus stops in Billingham anyway. I used to travel this bus route on a daily basis for a year, and rarely would a week go by without an old lady talking to me about her cat.

I’m convinced that some of these old ladies don’t actually ever get on any buses; they just wonder over to their local bus stop of a morning if the weather’s nice, to spend a few hours chatting (generally about their cats). They have seemingly researched all the bus numbers and time tables, but I don’t think they’ve done this for the conventional reason; I think they’ve armed themselves with this knowledge purely as a means of providing them with a suitable conversation opener. All they have to do is wait for a moment of weakness from someone, such as a glance at the time table, a puzzled look, or a person quietly musing about when their next bus is due, and they’ll be straight in there. They’ll give you the information you were looking for, but you’ll get it at a price, that price being a litany of superfluous trivia about an old lady’s cat.

Being blind, I am perfect prey for these old ladies. As soon as I approach the bus stop, they are on to me. They want to help me apparently, but I know their game. “Which bus are you wanting?” they ask, affecting interest. I tell them. “O dear, you’ve just missed one”, they gleefully inform me, “which means you’ve got plenty of time to listen to a couple of anecdotes about our cats”.

“oh, I haven’t seen you at this bus stop for a while” said today’s old lady. I explained to her that I now live close to where I work and so generally I don’t need to make the bus journey any more. “Oh, OK”, she said, and then, without a moment’s pause, began, “Well, you’ll remember my cat bobby of course”. This was not a question; it was a statement. She seemed to have no doubt in her mind that I would remember her cat Bobby, and that I would obviously be looking forward to receiving an update on him. Incidentally, if you should find yourself in a similar situation to the one I’m describing, here is some advice that you would be wise to heed (take note, I am not a novice in this matter): do not ask questions, or offer thoughts; just let the cat-talk wash over you while you think about something more interesting, and believe me, thinking of something more interesting will not be a challenge. The old bus stop cat ladies are not interested in your opinions; they simply see you as a transient passive recipient for their cat anecdotes. If you half listen to what their saying and simply smile, nod or frown depending on the nature of their tale, then you should get away relatively mentally unscathed.

I hope you are not going to be disappointed by my exclusion of the old lady’s cat update. I was not really listening. It had something to do with a trip to the vets, but I’m assuming by the lady’s tone that the cat survived this experience, which is a pitty because this means she’ll have future cat anecdotes to impart. If you are interested to hear the story though, then I’m sure you’ll be enlightened if you hang around the bus stop opposite Asda in Billingham. Just go up to the old ladies congregating around the bus stop and ask if any of them are the owner of Bobby the cat. You’re bound to find her. Perhaps if Dave Gorman still reads this blog (because he definitely used to) then he may take it as a challenge to find this lady. Going around the country to track down characters that he reads about in blogs is the kind of thing he would probably do. I would advise him to put this particular episode somewhere in the middle of his book; it’s hardly the big opener or grand finale.

During the woman’s lengthy disquisition on her cat, my bus pulled up.

“Well, it was good seeing you again, and thanks for telling me about Bobby. Give him my best”, I said as I moved towards the bus. “Oh yes, I’ll tell him you were asking after him” replied the old lady, without a trace of humour in her voice.
“I’m glad to see you’re still doing well” she said as I reached the front of the bus queue, “we were wondering what had happened to you”. “Well don’t worry, I’m fine, as you can see I’m not dead”, I heartily responded as I stepped on to the bus. And fell face first on to the ground. I had my accordion with me, as well as my laptop and other stuff for work, and I had forgotten how much weight I was carrying. In my haste to get away from the old cat lady, I made a clumsy step on to the bus. As I stepped up my bags slipped. I tried to straighten my bags and somehow got my cane caught in between my legs. The cane tripped me up and the combine weight of my bags sent me down.

I tried to rise as gracefully as possible, then turned to face where I had just come from and shouted, “Don’t tell Bobby about this. I wouldn’t want to become a figure of fun amongst the cat community”. I thought a bit of humour might alleviate people’s concerns, but all it seemed to do was cause confusion and further concern among the passengers, especially the passengers behind me who had just heard me shout something about cats in their faces. The woman had probably already gone, running home to tell Bobby the good news that I was still alive. The passengers probably assumed that I had knocked my head during the fall, and that I’d started spouting nonsense about cats in my semi-concussed state.

As I settled in to my seat, I began to chuckle to myself. This probably helped confirm people’s suspicions about my sanity. The reason for my chuckling however was due to me imagining the irony of the situation, had my fall been fatal and resulted in my death. It would have been a pretty ironic way to die. I had just pronounced with a grin on my face to the old cat lady, “as you can see I’m not dead”. I then promptly fell face first on to the ground. Had this fall resulted in the end of my life, these haunting words would have been my last.

“Can you tell us what happened just before he fell please madam?” the policeman would enquire of the old cat lady, who would have been sighted as a key witness.

“He said … he said … as you can see I’m not dead. Then he fell on the ground, dead”.

“Haha .. ahem. Well, thank you Madam. We will be in touch if we require your further assistance in this matter. Thank you, you’re free to leave”.

“Thank you inspector. But before I leave, you’ll want to be hearing about Bobby of course. Well he’s been to the vet, just for a checkup you understand, and …”.

Obviously I didn’t die, as you’ve presumably realised, given that I’m writing this blog. So I suppose the incident was a bit of a none-story really. If I had died then this blog post would have been much more exciting, because there would have actually been something of note to have told you. But I wouldn’t have been able to have written the blog had I actually died, so I’m in a no-win situation with this post. Still, this blog entry could have been a lot worse; at least you didn’t have to read all about Bobby the cat and his trip to the vet.