The 109th Young’uns Podcast is available to download.

This week: We play a track from the Young’uns new album ‘When our Grandfathers Said No’, which is released in September on Navigator Records. We also give an insight into the recording of the album. Our special guest is Rebekah Findlay; two songs from her new album and a chat on the phone. We commemorate the Jubilee celebrations in our own unique style. We tell about how our folk music nearly killed a couple of children. Sean Cooney teaches us some primary school songs. It’s the first instalment in a new drama series exclusive to the Young’uns Podcast: we present the story of Iggy-Jiggy-Barbar the dancing sheep. And a Young’uns Podcast wouldn’t be a Young’uns Podcast without a few puns thrown in for good measure; this week it’s salad and pig puns – now we’ve got your attention.

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“Hey, I’ve just met you and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me maybe”, declared Carly Rae Jepsen, just before I hastily retuned the radio. What exactly is so crazy? If I’ve understood her correctly: she’s just met a man who she finds attractive; on the basis of this she gives him her phone number and suggests that he calls her. This kind of thing happens to people all the time; even to people like me sometimes. I don’t see why she believes what she is doing is so radical.

Thinking that I might be doing miss Jepsen (I assume she’s a “miss” if she’s giving her phone number out to men) a disservice by dismissing her song based purely on a chorus, I went on the Internet and listened to the whole thing. Perhaps this wasn’t simply another one of those trite girl-meets-boy songs. A girl giving her phone number to a boy could hardly be described as “crazy”. But Carly had quite clearly stated that “this is crazy”, and so perhaps I should give her the benefit of the doubt and listen to her tale.

Maybe the man she’d just met was the groom at a wedding, and she had been the photographer taking the wedding photos. After she’d spent half an hour photographing the happy couple, she then realised how attractive the man was. Rather than simply ignoring her desire, like surely most people would do in such a situation, she decided instead to proposition him by delivering those now famous lines. “Hey I’ve just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me maybe”. Well she’s right; that is crazy.

If this was the actual story, and the man decided to call and something happened between them, then I think that it’s more than a little insensitive of Carly to then go crowing about what has happened in a song. Hasn’t she done enough damage? I think it’s also a bit insensitive of the public to support, even reward, Carly’s actions by buying the single, causing it to go to number one.

But as expected, this wasn’t the scenario that Carly was singing about; she was merely, as I assumed, telling us that she’d met a man who’d she’d given her phone number to and then suggested that he called her – crazy!

While we’re on the subject of crap song lyrics: the other pop song that riles me is ‘Hot and Cold’ by Katy Perry.

The first line of the song says, “you change your mind like a girl changes clothes”, presumably intimating that this particular person changes quite a bit. You with me? Good. As the song progresses, the listener is left in no doubt that this is precisely what Katy is insinuating. The whole sentiment of the song is that this guy is always changing: “you’re hot then your cold, your yes then you’re no, you’re in then you’re out, you’re up then you’re down”. The choruses and verses both reiterate this one fact throughout the song. “We used to be Just like twins, so in sync, The same energy, Now’s a dead battery, Used to laugh about nothing, Now you’re plain boring …”. OK, so she’s ramming the point home that this person is always changing. You still with me? Excellent. OK then. So imagine my surprise when in the final verse, after everything she’s just sang, Katy then declares: “I should know that you’re not going to change”.

What!? What are you going on about Katy? You’ve just spent the last 3 minutes bemoaning that the person in the song is always changing. You can’t then, by way of a conclusion, summarise the situation by saying, “I should know that you’re not going to change”.
No, that is completely in direct opposition to everything that you’ve just said. But then, even more absurdly, she attempts to back up this contradictory conclusion by saying: “coz you’re hot then you’re cold, you’re yes then you’re no, you’re in then your out, you’re up then you’re down” etc. So she’s contradicted herself twice. How can she be so thick? And anyway, the demo version of the song was much better than the released recording; it had a flailing Russell Brand recorder solo.

For a moment, I began to doubt the credibility of Katy Perry as a sincere and authentic artist. I was beginning to think that she might be just in it for the money and the fame rather than trying to express anything poetic or profound. But then she released firework with that ore-inspiring, apposite line, “do you ever feel like a plastic bag?” and immediately my heart screamed: “yes, Katy, yes, I do! All the time. Finally, someone who understands exactly how I feel. Oh Katy, you have connected with me on a level that no one else has done before”. And so all was forgiven.

There is further evidence of Katy’s tendency to contradict herself. In ‘I kissed a girl’ she sings the line, “it felt so wrong, it felt so right”. So maybe Katy is just generally a very confused woman.

Now, some advice: if you’re a pop singer struggling for something interesting to sing about, then you can always borrow some ideas from this blog. I think my last blog post about my printer at work would make for an excellent 3 and a half minute pop song, especially if we can get some Russell Brand recorder playing on it.

In other news: the 109th Young’uns podcast is just around the corner. BUT please don’t strain your neck in an attempt to see it; you’ll only do yourself an injury. We should be exhibiting some tracks from the Young’uns’ new album, which has just been mastered and is now in duplication. Perhaps when it’s released, Katy Perry or Carly Rae Jepsen will write a blog about it, picking holes in all the lyrics. There are no songs about my printer at work on it unfortunately, but it’s worth you buying it anyway. You’ll have to wait and see whether or not Russell Brand makes an appearance with his recorder. Oh, what the hell, the news will be out there sooner or later anyway: there’s a version of his Andrew Sachs song on it, with Russell doing his lead part and the Young’uns doing a specially arranged version of Jonathan Ross’s backing vocals. No recorder though; we couldn’t afford it.

I woke up in the morning with a spring in my step. At least, I’m assuming that the spring in my step was there when I first woke up; I obviously didn’t discover it until I was out of bed and engaged in the act of stepping. To be honest, the precise moment that the spring in my step was first present isn’t really the salient point here; all you really need to know is that, at the moment when it mattered, i.e. when I was stepping, the spring was definitely there.
But why was it there? Don’t look so worried, I’m not expecting you to have an answer; it is a rhetorical question. It is just another one of my many ingenious dramatic devices that I employ from time-toTime in order to create a certain amount of tension. But is it really necessary at this particularly early stage in the story to build tension? Come on, answer me! I said, is it really necessary? What’s wrong with you? Can’t you tell the difference between a rhetorical question and a genuine one? No, obviously not, shut up, that was a rhetorical question you fool, I don’t need you to answer! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lose my temper. Join me in the next paragraph where I promise to be the perfect gentleman.

I made the journey to work, past the infamous Pelican crossing – yes, the very same. It now has a commemorative plaque on it incidentally, that is inscribed with: “as made famous by David Eagle”, and then the URL of the blog post in gold lettering, https://www.davideagle.co.uk/from-chickens-to-pelicans.OK, I’m exaggerating, as you may have suspected. It wasn’t the full Url; it didn’t have the “HTTP://www.” prefix. Well you can’t expect the council to fritter away money willy-nilly, especially in this current climate.

I entered my office. The spring was still very much apparent in my step by the way, just in case you were wondering. I would have told you if it had gone. What kind of a writer do you take me for? That was a rhetorical question.

My spring-loaded step transported me to my computer. I switched it on. Opened the document. Entered the print menu. Selected my printer from the list of networked printers. Hit the print button. Sat back in my chair, and waited. And then, that message appeared on the screen. That same-old message making that all-too-familiar proclamation: “sorry, the device cannot be reached”. The device cannot be reached? But you are less than a metre away from the “device”, you stupid computer! You are practically touching each other. In fact I am pretty sure I can sense the sexual tension in the room between the two of you, you are that close.

But what had gone wrong? I thought today was meant to be a new beginning? Yesterday, for the first time, having worked in this place for a year and a half, the printer had finally worked. After 1 and a half years of this same message telling me that my “device can not be reached”, it had finally capitulated and had started working. When I first started working here I was a much less cynical and more optimistic person. I suggested to the IT people that the problem might easily be fixed if we connected the printer to the computer via a cable; but my suggestion was immediately dismissed. The response from IT was that this would only add “unnecessary complications”. In fact, it seemed to appear that any intervention at all from the IT department would have added “unnecessary complications”, since the IT department’s solution had been to simply ignore the problem and do absolutely nothing. But then yesterday, completely unexpectedly, an IT man had ventured into my office.

“ah, hello, I think you must be lost” I gently told the man. I made sure to adopt a calm and collected approach with him, after all it must have been terrifying for him to have found himself outside the confines of the IT department. Goodness knows how he had got here. In all the time I’d been working here I’d hardly ever seen anyone from the IT department. But when on the rare occasion that they did respond to a call, they had always come in pairs. In all my time in this job, I had never seen a lone IT man. But now here he was, standing in my office, this living, breathing paradox, this lone IT man. This needed to be handled with tact, I thought. Perhaps he had set off with his companion, but somehow they had got separated, and now he’s come wondering aimlessly into my office. I could mention my printer problem to him, but this was hardly the time or the place. It must be distressing enough for him – bracing this unfamiliar territory alone, unable to reach his IT friend – without adding further trauma by suggesting that he tries to fix an IT problem. Hmm, perhaps they should have connected themselves together with a cable.

The man’s response to my gentle greeting took me by surprise. He did not seem dazed, confused or afraid. He informed me, in a very jolly tone, that he was here to fix my printer. Well, now it was me who was feeling dazed and confused. I asked him to repeat what he’d just said, which he duly did, and yes, I had heard him correctly, he had said that he had come to fix my printer. I stood there shocked. And then I flung myself at him and embraced him, which was a bad move because I got tangled up in a cable. What was he doing with a cable? Maybe he was connected to his friend after all. I extracated myself and apologised, explaining to him that his statement had come as a bit of a shock to me. He chuckled and made his way to my computer. Hang on a minute. He chuckled? An IT man with a sense of humour?! In all my time working here I had never seen anything quite like it. He then did something that completely knocked me for six. He reached behind the computer, and connected a cable. My goodness, so that’s what the cable was for. He then moved over to the printer and connected the other end of the cable to the back of the printer. He then went into the print menu, selected the printer and hit the print button. And the printer burst into life. It started to print!

“”There you go” he declared cheerfully, “just needed a cable connecting. This particular printer isn’t really compatible with the network, you see”. I stared at him in amazement, not only because he had just fixed my printer by attaching a cable (which I had posited as a solution to the problem over a year ago), but also because he had actually spoken to me in clear English, rather than just muttering incomprehensibly and then slumping out of the room.

“What a brilliant end to the working day” I thought. “This would be a new beginning!” But as we’ve already established, it wasn’t. Because here I was, the very next day after this miraculous event had occured, and the printer was not working. But the IT man had fixed it. He had connected it with a cable.

And then it came to me: perhaps he had done the job surreptitiously. Perhaps he is a rebel IT man. After all, he was working alone. Perhaps he is an IT insurgent, on a mission to do good in the world, to go against the grain and … fix IT problems. I should have known that these orders couldn’t have possibly come from official channels. He was jolly, he was working alone, he fixed my IT problem in a matter of seconds without any fuss and without the usual literny of nonsensical excuses – the deluge of IT jargon. He had spoken in plain English. He had used a simple logical solution. He had used a cable. He had a sense of humour! Of course he was a rebel.

O no, he had probably been found out. He was probably being reprogrammed at this very moment, screaming in torment as management signed him up for yet another pointless NVQ with endless amounts of theory work; that would keep him away from interfering with any real IT problems for a good while. Yes, the IT department had obviously found him out, and then under the cover of darkness had come into my office, wrenched out the offending cable and burned it.

I checked the back of the computer. There was no cable. I checked the back of the printer, just in case it had somehow merely become disconnected. But the cable was gone.

But how did they find him out? I thought back. Had I said anything about it to anyone? Yes, unfortunately I very much had. I had spent the remaining half an hour of the working day celebrating this extraordinary event by printing out letters to all of my colleagues, apologising for the times that I had hijacked their printers and thanking them for their patients and understanding over the last year and a half. I then shared with them my excellent news that an IT man – of all people – had come into my office and fixed my printer. Therefore, I would no longer be annoying them on a daily basis; well, at least, I wouldn’t be annoying them about printing, I could now focus my efforts on devising more creative and entertaining ways of annoying them. I printed all these letters out and then hand delivered them to all of my colleagues.

So basically I had told everyone. Someone must have been a whistle-blower, and reported what had happened to IT. I should have known, there was bound to be someone who sympathised with the enemy. And now that poor IT man had been found out. And it was all my fault.

I picked up the phone and dialled a colleague. I was sure that this particular person would not have been the whistleblower; I was positive that I was safe confiding in him. I explained that my printer was once again none-functional. He seemed nonplused. “But it’s never worked” he replied. How could he have forgotten? “It was fixed yesterday, remember?” But he didn’t remember. “We chatted about it at length. I was over-the-moon. I gave you a hand delivered letter that I printed on my printer, telling you all about it”. “I didn’t receive a hand delivered letter, I certainly didn’t have a conversation anywhere near as dull as that, and anyway, yesterday was Sunday”.

Yesterday was Sunday? Of course it was. But I don’t work Sundays, and I was off the previous week, and it certainly hadn’t been more than a week ago when it had happened. It was yesterday. I was sure of it. That’s the reason why I had woken up with a spring in my step, because it was my first day at work with a functioning printer. This meant that I would no longer have to annoy my colleagues. I might finally be liked. I might even be popular. I had sown the seeds of peace the day before with my personally printed, hand delivered letters. Today was going to be the new beginning.

I cast my mind back to last night. Now I came to think about it, I wasn’t particularly enthused about anything before I went to bed. It was when I woke up that I felt the excitement and had that spring in my step. O no, it must have been a dream. My colleague laughed at me. I hung up.

I must have dreamt the whole thing. Of course it wasn’t real. It was too unbelievable to be real: the jolly IT man who actually fixed computer problems, who spoke in plain English, had a sense of humour. Of course it wasn’t real. Of course it was a dream! It was obvious.
But then the worst part about the whole thing hit me. What kind of man in his twenties has a long and detailed dream about his printer at work? But not only that. What kind of man in his twenties has a long and detailed dream about his printer at work and then wakes up that morning feeling elated because his printer is fixed, and then runs to work in excitement, impatient to print out some documents? Certainly not the kind of man that I wanted to associate myself with. Has my life really become this dull? Evidently yes.
I decided that this incident would serve as a wake up call. I thought I was a man of excitement, adventure and ambition. But my dream and then my real-life response to it had shown me what kind of person I had become. What ever happened to all that ambition? All those ideas? What happened to those dreams? I was going to bring the adult chicken comedy movement into the 21st century for goodness sake. I used to think big. Well from now on things would be different! I would heed this wake up call. It would be a catalyst for change. From now on I would live a more exciting and adventurous life. I would once again be that man of ambition and energy that I used to be. I would recapture my youthfulness. It hadn’t disappeared entirely, it was just lying dormant, in need of being reawakened.
Well, from this moment onwards, things, would, be, different!

But first I had to get these documents printed. I walked down the corridor and asked one of my colleagues whether he would mind me using his printer for a bit. OK, well maybe I’d have to wait until the end of the working day before I could start thinking about reawakening my youthfulness. But I bloody well would do it. Just as soon as the working day was over. And I’d had tea. And done the ironing. And finished my tax return. And … O fuck!

Dear Madam, I imagine that it is very unlikely that this blog post will actually reach your attention, but I will write this anyway in the hope that it might and so that I can offer you an explanation about the traumatic experience you faced in the Park last week. My intentions however are not entirely pure as I am also writing about this incident because I believe that the general readership will find it funny, although there is also a good chance that many will be horrified. And so with that hopefully tantalising introductory paragraph, let me attempt to explain myself.

The story starts fairly innocuously, certainly not as excitingly as my previous blog post which saw me standing at a Pelican crossing. My friend Phill and I decided to toast the gloriously sunny day with a visit to the park. Phill brought his guide dog but I didn’t see any point in taking a cane since the park is only a minute’s walk away. Had I taken a symbol of sight loss then the whole sorry affair would have been avoided.

As soon as the guide dog gets a whiff of the park he always speeds up. There was also a strong glare from the sun on this particular day and so I made sure that I was keeping up close to Phill and the dog so as not to lose them.

So the dog tares off as expected and I run after them, making sure that I am right behind. We turn a few lefts and rights and then the dog slows down to a much more leisurely pace. Thank goodness, this is a much more suitable speed for a hot day. I am aware though that the dog will probably speed up again at any moment and so I make sure that I am hot on their heals.

As we progress we start to make a few more turns. We gradually increase speed. We are suddenly making a lot of sporadic turns, left then right, left right, right, left (I’m sure you get the general idea; I probably don’t need to elaborate on the nature of turning, you’re presumably all reasonably familiar with the concept). Then the dog increases the speed even more. We are running again. The turns become more and more sporadic. I manage to keep up though.

Eventually after another minute of running and frantic turning we came to a stop.
(Apologies to any grammar pedants reading this by the way. I am aware that I was using the present tense to describe events that took place in the past. I was doing it to heighten the drama, and I’m sure the none grammar pedant readers were appreciating the thrilling narrative that I was creating and were on the edge of their seats, with me all the way, feeling my every turn and speed change. But I will revert back to the past tense for the time being so that the grammar pedants don’t take umbrage, stop reading and seek refuge in the solace of their Lynne Truss book.(Incidentally, A word of advice: you can buy a used copy of Lynne Truss’s exposition on English grammar and language “eats, shoots and leaves” from Amazon very cheep, but be warned, some pedants take a strangely perverse pleasure in grammar and there are a number of rather dirty pedants out there who may have been reading the book while engaging in certain activities. My advice is to play it safe and buy it new. There is a rare sexually transmitted disease going around among English grammar pedants that experts believe is being passed on through used copies of “eats, shoots and leaves”. The NHS tried warning these people by sending a leaflet about the disease to everyone on the government’s database listed as an English grammar pedant, but unfortunately the message never reached them due to an ill-conceived comma in the first sentence which meant that the leaflets ended up in the bin, unread and unheeded. So yes, my advice is place it safe and buy it new, or make sure you sterilise it before reading. Or on the other hand, you could just stop being so pedantic about grammar and continue reading badly written drivel like this blog).

I was sweating and panting due to the last few minutes of exercise. In fact I was sweating and panting like a peverted pedant with a Lynne Trus book. As I got my breath back I turned towards Phill and the guide dog. I bent down to stroke the dog, and as I did so I gave a contented sigh. “aaaah, excellent” I sighed.

But my sigh, exclamation and broad smile quickly evaporated as soon as I realised in horror that I wasn’t stroking a dog. I was stroking a child who was sitting in a pram. The woman who was holding the pram gasped and pulled the pram away. The pram struck my leg as she reeled it round. As soon as I realised what I was doing I also pulled away, but the woman wasn’t going to be tempered by that, after all, let’s face it, it was the tinniest of consolatory gestures after what she’d just been through.

Presumably I must have lost Phill and the dog almost as soon as we entered the park gates. They must have ran off somewhere and I – my sight being even more impaired than usual due to the glare of the sun – mistook the woman pushing a baby in a pram to be Phill and the dog. So I made sure that I followed right behind them, a lot closer than any innocent man would ever dream of following a woman pushing a baby. I suppose this explains the increases in speed and the sporadic turns. I thought it was a bit of an odd course we were taking. She was obviously trying to shake me off and check whether I was definitely following her, hoping that I would relent and leave them alone. But I had no intention of relenting and leaving them alone. I was hot on their heals, and, as it transpires, hot on their wheels. Every turn, every increase and decrease in speed, I matched. Eventually she came to a stop, presumably in the desperate hope that I would overtake her. “Surely he won’t be so bold as to stop right by me and try something? Not in a public park in broad daylight?” she would have thought. But of course she was wrong. I stopped immediately after she did. I stood right next to the pram. I was panting and sweating; that probably didn’t help. Then the worst part: I bent down, reached into the pram and stroked the thigh of her child while sighing contentedly and intoning in a low slow voice, “excellent”.

I barely had time to register what had just happened. The woman rapidly turned the pram around and made to head in the opposite direction. But I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let the poor woman think that I was a child molester who had been following her for over five minutes in order to stroke her child. I was desperate to justify my actions, to explain that all of this was a misunderstanding. Then we could both go on our way, both of us feeling better about the situation. The woman’s mind would be put at ease. Perhaps she would even laugh about it once she realised the ludicrous mistake. Perhaps she would be so relieved that she would embrace me. She would burst into tears and in her relieved and impassioned state she would tell me about how she has been so scared and worried of late since the child’s father had left her. How would she manage to bring the baby up all by herself? I would be so relieved that I’d survived the whole ordeal without being physicaly abused, and in the heat of such an unlikely and emotion-fuelled moment we would fall in love.
I would pull her close, kiss her softly, and tenderly tell her that I would stay by her side forever, that I would be there to comfort her and cherish her, that I would take it as a personal responsibility to rear her child. Perhaps “rear” would be the wrong word to use given the circumstances.

Anyway, none of that happened … surprisingly. I got a bit carried away. I suppose I’m just a bit lonely at the moment, and someone has stolen my copy of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” so I’ve had very little relief, if you know what I mean. Sorry, back to the story.

In my desperation to qualify my actions I intercepted the woman’s path, standing in front of the pram and halting it with my foot. Now was my chance. I would have to say something immediately otherwise she would think that I was stopping her from leaving and that I hadn’t finished with her and the child yet. This would obviously freak her out even more. O my god, I was now stopping her from leaving. This is exactly what she’d be thinking! She was definitely starting to panic now. She didn’t say anything; she just gasped and tried to pull her pram around me again. I really had to say something quickly, otherwise she would leave thinking that she had been followed by a child molester and would probably be afraid to venture out again. I moved around so that her path was once again blocked. I opened my mouth to speak, looked into her eyes and then … “come on David, speak! Say it is all a misunderstanding, tell her that I am blind. You can make everything OK just by those few words”. But where to start? It seems so simple now, with the benefit of hindsight, but in the pressure of that moment I became completely lost for words.

I thought about the ridiculousness of what was happening. I could sense the woman’s panic increasing. I had now blocked her path twice. The whole crazy, farcical situation suddenly hit me. How had I got myself into this incomprehensible fix?

So what did I do? What did I say? I did what I often do – like many people do, not that I want to excuse myself – in overwhelmingly embarrassing and awkward situations. I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. It just happened. Waves of uncontrollable laughter came over me. I tried to stop myself. I coughed, I spluttered as I tried to stop the laughter, I slapped myself in the face in the vain hope that I would come to my senses in time to redeem the situation. Obviously this display did nothing to quell the woman’s fear. She was being confronted by a man who had just followed her for 5 minutes, stroked her child and who was now spluttering, laughing, and slapping himself in the face. She turned the pram around again. I was too busy doubled over laughing, tears rolling down my face to stop her. She broke into a run. I desperately, and with a great effort, pulled myself straight, stopped my laughing and shouted “sorry” in her general direction as she tore across the park. So at least I got the sorry out in the end; I’m sure that made everything better and she’ll be fine.

It is difficult to know quite what to offer by way of a conclusion to this tale. The moral of the story is? Hmmmm. I’ve not heard any reports of a child molester on the loose, and believe me I would know, I like to keep my finger on the pulse about that sort of thing. O dear, I think I’ll go before I dig myself into an even deeper hole, although the hole might come in handy if I need to hide from her very angry husband who may be searching for me.

If it’s any consolation I did feel bad about it, but look on the bright side, I may have managed to reach the poor lady somehow through this blog post and offered her some blessed relief. At the very least I have probably given entertainment to a few of you with a warped sense of humour, and repelled and appalled a good many more of you. I bet you wish you’d gone for the Lynne Truss book after all?

I have been patronised by a pelican twice in the space of a week. “Say no more David, we know exactly what you mean, we’ve all been there”; only I doubt you do know what I mean. You are probably thinking that I am referring to an animal. But no, this is not your everyday story about a condescending Pelican; these tales occurred at a pelican crossing and it was two humans that did the patronising. “Aaah, well that’s much more exciting and much less predictable and commonplace. Pray, do continue”. Thank you. I do miss our little chats by the way.

OK, so now we’ve established that my story is a great deal more exciting than you thought it was going to be, let’s begin. But where to start. “How about the Pelican crossing?” Ah yes.

Imagine if you will in your mind’s eye – I assume that you do have one, and that you’ve done the proper upgrade and everything, otherwise you might feel a little dizzy – that I am standing at a pelican crossing. This is nothing out of the ordinary; I have to cross this crossing everyday too and from work. I am currently standing at the Pelican crossing, waiting for the green man, having already pressed the button – I hope you’re following this OK. I have been waiting for about half a minute; sorry I can’t be more specific than that, I didn’t realise I’d be recounting this incident back to you in a blog so I wasn’t really taking much notice. I was just standing, waiting for the green man. I’d like to think that I looked nonchalant and at ease, like this whole standing-at-a-pelican-crossing-waiting-for-the-green-man thing was no big deal, that it wasn’t phasing me in the slightest. Because it wasn’t. It really wasn’t. But I obviously wasn’t convincing the woman fifty metres or so down the road, on the opposite side, who was now running towards the Pelican crossing shrieking, “Don’t move, don’t worry, it’s all right, I’m coming! It’s OK, I’ll help you, stay there son, I’ll get the button for you”.

“please,”, I thought, “come on, green man. This woman obviously thinks that I don’t know how to operate a Pelican crossing. Beep now and show that just because I’m blind, I am not completely deficient in the comprehension of the basic rudiments of Pelican crossing operation”. That is exactly what I thought, word for word; I was starting to take note now, as I realised that this situation wasn’t your average humdrum pelican crossing incident and that I’d probably write about this in a blog – I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to write something about Pelican crossings since I started this blog, so any excuse would be graciously seized.

But the green man did not answer my prayers; I was starting to doubt his existence – I know, I should have faith, happy are those who have not seen etc. The Pelican crossing did not beep and so I stood there as she ran and shouted at me to be still and be calm and that she would be with me in a few seconds. She then reached the Pelican crossing box at the other side of the road. She pressed the button and shouted across to me “I’ve pressed the button for you, it will beep now, and you can cross”. I prayed once more to the green man that the Pelican crossing wouldn’t beep at that exact moment. At least if she had to stand there and wait a few seconds before it beeped then she might entertain the notion that I might have actually pressed it myself.

Unfortunately, yet again the green man failed to heed my prayer. Well that’s it, I won’t be making any more child sacrifices to him; he’s had it. No sooner had she spoken these words, the beeping commenced and I crossed the road while the woman offered words of encouragement and reassurance. “That’s it son, take your time, you’re doing well, I’m here”.

I reached the other side of the road. I turned to the woman and paused. I wanted to remonstrate with her and explain that I was aware of the basic principle of pelican crossings, and that in fact I had pressed the button awhile ago and was merely waiting for the green man to do his thing. In fact, it is she who seems confused as to how the whole Pelican crossing thing works, as she intimated that the Pelican crossing would beep immediately after she pressed the button, and this is not the case, most times you have to wait a bit. Granted she was correct on this occasion and the green man did beep straight away, but that was just coincidence, unless she have some psychic connection – a special relationship – with the Green Man; I’ve read about the existence of such people, the chosen few, perhaps she’s made more child sacrifices than I have. I wanted to let her know how embarrassing it was for me and how she had obviously just assumed, because I was blind, that I would be unable to operate the pelican crossing by myself. I wanted to rant at her about stereotyping, labelling people with disabilities, making sweeping, ill-founded assumptions etc etc. But in the end I just said thank you and walked off.

The next day on my way home from work I was presented with the opportunity to gain my revenge on such patronising members of society.

I walked up to the Pelican crossing, pressed the button, and waited. You see, I wasn’t lying about knowing how to use a Pelican crossing. As I waited, I could hear the conversation between a man and his child who were at the other side of the road. The little boy was messing around trying to clamber up on to the pelican crossing pole. The father was doing his best to stop him but to no avail. But then the father must have noticed me, and an idea hit him. “Son, look” he said, “you see that man at the other side of the road?”. The boy stopped his clambering. “Yes daddy” he replied. “Well, that man is a blind man”. The father was obviously very pleased with himself, having found a good distraction from the pole. “That means he can’t see”. “wow!” gasped his son. Evidently this fact had impressed him. “Now, we people, you and I, know when to cross because of the green man, but a blind man cannot see the green man”. The little boy made a noise of understanding. “He will wait and listen for the beeping. The blind man will only cross when he hears the beep”.

The father was talking kind of in the style of David Attenborough.
He was discussing me as if I was a fascinating creature, “the blind man” and talking about me crossing a road as if it was some interesting ritual.

“You see now,” he continued, “there are no cars in sight. We could cross the road now because we can see that it is safe. But the blind man will stay until he hears the beep”. “O no he bloody well won’t” I thought. The child made another impressed noise. He was obviously taken by his father’s knowledge. I stepped out into the road and strode purposefully to the other side. When I reached the pavement, I turned to the father and his son and gave a cheery wave, then walked off into the distance.

Behind me I heard the child shouting “Daddy! You were wrong. He crossed before the beep. Look, he’s there. Daddy! You were wrong”.

“Hah, yes little child, your daddy was wrong. He thought he understood the workings of “the blind man”. But he quite clearly didn’t. In fact, he was “the blind man” in this little tale. Let this be a lesson little child. Tell it to your friends at school. Let this parable spread throughout the playground like wildfire. Let it journey through cyberspace, through Facebook and Twitter. May it set the heart’s of a generation ablaze and give life to a more enlightened breed, one which refuses to countenance ignorance, stereotyping, labelling, assumptions, social ills that have held human evolution back by centuries. Let this action create piece, harmony, equality.”

To be honest, I wasn’t thinking any of that, I was still smarting after yesterday’s incident and I simply saw this as sweet revenge. But I am sure that all of the above- peace, harmony, equality, a more excepting society, a new enlightened generation, a glorious utopia – will all be a by-product of my actions. So well done me.

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Finally, in other news, I am trying to create a website for myself rather than just a blog, and shortly there will be dedicated pages for The Young’uns Podcast, David Eagle’s Pick and Mix and other projects.
Davideagle.co.uk
is the web address, so if you’re visiting the old blogger page, the one that’s listed at the top of Google searches for David Eagle, then you should stop doing that and go to davideagle.co.uk
instead, because the old page will be leaving us soon. There are lots of other exciting things happening that I’ll hopefully be able to tell you about really soon.

Thanks for reading.

Download the audio version of this blog post here.

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This weekend saw me sitting in a pub with some friends hypothesising the etymology of the “why did the chicken cross the road” joke. There was a group of us, all men, and we had, before this particular conversation, been discussing proper men’s topics like sport and women. I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea and think I am in any way ponsey and not a propper man, o no, it was just that somehow the conversation had temporarily strayed from sports and women on to the etymology of the “why did the chicken cross the road joke”. We would of course get back on to sport and women in due course, but we decided it would be OK to discuss the etymology of the “Why did the chicken cross the road” joke, just for a little while, it wouldn’t compromise our statuses as red blooded males.

An Internet search yielded the website whydidthechickencrosstheroad.com which, although not offering any information regarding the joke’s provenance, did nevertheless prove to be an interesting find. The website boasts an impressive collection of chicken jokes; impressive in terms of volume that is, not necessarily quality. The jokes are sorted into various categories, the first of which being “adult chicken jokes”. How could we not click that link? What red blooded male when offered the opportunity to read an adult chicken joke wouldn’t say yes? Exactly. And red blooded males is most definitely what we are.

Upon clicking the link we were presented with a disclaimer which warned us that these adult chicken jokes were of an adult nature; presumably these adult chicken jokes were also of a chicken nature—just hazarding a guess. We were prompted to click a button to confirm that we were aged eighteen or over. We clicked to confirm that we were and waited in anticipation for the page to load. If ever there was a reason for the pub to have free wifi, this was surely it.

We sat further forward in our seats, leaning in conspiratorially, testosterone levels rising at the prospect of what we were about to read. We tentatively glanced around the pub to check that there were no minors who might unwittingly overhear what was about to be read. None of us wanted to be responsible for giving a child their first sex education lesson courtesy of an adult orientated chicken website. That’s the very kind of thing I’ve been determined to avoid all my life, and so far I’d managed to avoid it pretty successfully, and I was keen to keep it that way.

The page loaded. In contrast with all the other categories—the celebrity chicken jokes, historical chicken jokes, religious chicken jokes, political chicken jokes—which all have a surprisingly expansive selection, the adult section only contains two jokes. This seems to suggest that adult chicken jokes are a bit of a niche market, whereas there is a lot more of a demand for political or religious chicken jokes. But surely there must be a demand for adult chicken humour. There was a whole group of red blooded mails all sat in a pub, craning forward in anticipation for such a form of comedy. Maybe this genre is simply undiscovered, an as of yet untapped gold mine. Just remember that I was one of the first people to expose the genre. Just remember that when you’re sitting in front of the telly watching Michael Macintyre’s Adult Chicken Comedy Road Show.

I will now include these two jokes in this blog, saving you the need to visit the adult chicken website yourself and sparing you the possible embarrassment and incrimination that might be caused if your wife or girlfriend should find the site in your history. I know it’s only natural, you’re a red blooded male for goodness sake; but unfortunately your partner just won’t understand. Trust me.

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Joke 1. The Chicken and the Egg.

A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette with a satisfied smile on its face. The egg, looking a bit ticked off, grabs the sheet, rolls over and says … Well, I guess we finally answered “THAT question!”

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Once upon a time there was a horse and a chicken who were good friends. They lived on a farmyard with lots of other animals and were very happy. One day, while they were playing near the farm’s pond, the horse stepped into a hole of quicksand. The horse rapidly sank and was yelling for his friend, the chicken, to save him. The chicken thought for a minute, then ran back to the farmhouse, and jumped into the farmer’s 735csi BMW. Luckily, the keys were in the ignition, and the chicken managed to start the car, and put it in gear. It raced over to the sinkhole, where the horse had almost disappeared by now. The smart chicken tied a rope around the back of the BMW and threw the other end around the front legs of the horse. The chicken hopped back in the driver’s seat and stepped on the gas. Ever so slowly, the horse eased out of the quicksand and jumped to safety. The horse, still on shaky legs, stuttered: “You just saved my life. Thank you!” The chicken just said, “Don’t mention it – That’s what friends are for!!” They returned the BMW and went out to dinner together in the barn yard.
A few days later, the horse got up from a good night’s rest, and heard some muffled cries for help coming from the backyard. The horse followed the sounds and came upon a terrible scene. There was his best friend, the chicken, stuck in a hole of quicksand! The sand was already up to its neck-feathers and the cries for help had almost stopped. The horse took a quick look around: No rope in sight And the farmer had gone to town with his BMW. What to do? The horse took a deep breath and spread his body and legs out over the hole. His member was dangling down right above the poor chicken. “Here, my friend, grab my thingie and I will pull you to safety!”. With its last bit of energy, the chicken grabbed a hold of the big horse-thingie and the horse straightened its body, pulling the chicken from its trap. With one big step, both were on solid ground and safe. The chicken slumped down on the ground, exhausted: “Now You saved my life, my friend!!” The horse just smiled. And what is the moral of this story? … If you’re hung like a horse, you don’t need a BMW to pick up chicks.

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Obviously again we all burst into raucous laughter. My goodness, what fun. We were real men, telling adult jokes with rude words, like “Thingy”. I hope my family aren’t reading this; they probably don’t even think I know such naughty words as “thingy”.

The barman looked over at our group once again, inquisitive to know what we were laughing about. “I can’t believe that footballer missed that penalty, the bleeding … nincompoop!” I shouted. There, that would fool him, he would just think we were having a typical conversation that typical red blooded males would have about sport, laughing at a bleeding nincompoop of a footballer who’d missed a penalty. He really did look too innocent to hear an adult chicken joke, especially ones about horse’s thingies. It could scar him for life.

“Who’s that?” asked the barman, coming over to our table to collect our glasses.

“What?” I replied, trying to think of a footballer who might have missed a penalty who would deserve to be branded a bleeding nincompoop.

“Who are you talking about”? enquired the innocent barman.

“o, er, o, you mean that footballer who we were just talking about?” I asked, deliberately stalling for time while I desperately tried to think of a name.

“Yes” he immediately replied, somewhat thwarting my stalling efforts, the little swine.

“You mean the footballer who missed the penalty? The one I called a bleeding nincompoop”? Damn! That was two questions in one. I could have stalled for longer by asking them separately. I am losing my composure and thus my ability to stall effectively. Perhaps I should develop a slight stutter the next time I respond; but he’d heard me talking fine before that, so that wouldn’t work. Why weren’t my friends helping me here? Surely one of them must know the name of a footballer who missed a penalty recently, someone who we could all laugh at and call a bleeding nincompoop and thus resolve this awkward situation? But no, I knew it wasn’t going to happen because none of my friends are actually true red blooded males, and they don’t really like sport. And I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but I’m not really a proper sports loving red blooded male either. I know, I lied to you because I was embarrassed that you might think I am a bit ponsey and not a real man for discussing the etymology of the “Why did the chicken cross the road” joke. I knew I’d get found out eventually. And I was being found out right now by a young barman intent on knowing which footballer I was referring to. There was nothing for it but to come clean.

“I don’t know. We weren’t really talking about football,” I admitted, “we were checking out an adult chicken website. Here, look”. I thrust the phone towards him. This would teach him for being to inquisitive. He was about to get an unexpected education, a rude awakening. He was about to read words like “horse’s thingy” for the very first time.

“Get the man a stiff drink” I whispered to my friend, “he’s going to need one. We might have to give him … the talk”. But the barman didn’t read the adult chicken jokes. He looked very concerned and immediately withdrew.

I am obviously being sarcastic about the graphic nature of these two jokes. There is next to nothing adult about these adult chicken jokes, certainly nothing that warrants a disclaimer and a button you have to click to confirm you are eighteen or over. To be frank, I don’t really think the Adult Chicken genre has properly developed yet. For a start there only seems to be two jokes in existence, and those jokes are far too timid and safe to satiate people’s appetite for Adult Chicken humour; if indeed there is actually much of an appetite in need of being satiated. Something needs to be done, someone needs to stand up and be responsible for taking the Adult Chicken comedy movement to the next stage. I will be that man!

Well, I did the standing up part almost immediately after we informed the barman that we weren’t interested in sport but rather amused ourselves looking at adult chicken websites. A group of men had overheard our declaration and were looking at us a bit disconcertingly. They looked like proper red blooded males and didn’t seem to be too approving of our unusual pastime and so we promptly stood up and left.

So the standing up part had been accomplished, that was fairly easy; but what about the other bit: being the man responsible for the development of the adult chicken comedy movement? That might be a bit more tricky. I had stood up many times in my life before, but I don’t mind admitting to you that I had never once before been responsible for developing the adult chicken comedy movement and taking it into the 21st century. This was something new to me.

I have decided that the best way to advance the genre is to firstly add some more jokes. The genre isn’t really going to get much attention if it only boasts two jokes, especially jokes of such a mild nature.

At the bottom of the website there is an option that lets you submit your own chicken joke. It is time that someone answered to that noble calling and advanced the genre beyond the paltry (and yes that was a deliberate hilarious pun) couplet that so far exists. I am that man! I will compose another adult chicken joke, a proper adult chicken joke, with proper rude words and scenarios that will cause you to completely re-evaluate the way you have always thought of chickens. You will never be able to think of a chicken as a sweet innocent creature again. I will taint your outlook on chickens forever.

Someone last week asked me if there would be another David Eagle’s Pick and Mix. At the time I said yes, but perhaps now I will never get the time due to my commitments to furthering the Adult Chicken Comedy movement. I may even have to give up The Young’uns. I’ll keep you posted.

The Young’uns Podcast 108 (Super Waffle):The season of peace and good will is well and truly over; this episode of the Young’uns Podcast features street brawls, battering rams, police arrests and dead cow exploitation. Other themes include Martians, wombles, singing vans and jungle adventures. Ruth Notman tells a “joke”, a Dutch folk group steal all of the Young’uns songs, we attempt to get down with the youth (or yoof, depending on your school of thought). Plus there’s more recordings of the Young’uns performing over the summer festival season, including a couple of weary drunken late night gigs. Click here to download.the current podcast channel will be being replaced in the next month or two because the people who design the website have seemingly decided they don’t want blind people using it and have therefore made it massively inaccessible. So I’m afraid you’ll have to do things the old-fashioned way. I know it’s a laborious, arduous task having to manually click a download link, I’m sorry. There is also currently no link to stream the podcast or archived download link because that website has also decided they don’t like blind people. What did we poor blind folk do to upset the Internet?I’ll be back soon with a blog about chickens.

I woke up this morning (feel free to insert your own blues rif at this point) and decided that today was going to be a productive one. I needed to record a Voice Over and I had decided that today was the perfect day to do it. I was in the bathroom washing my face and brushing my teeth (two activities which dramatically improve the quality of a Voice Over. You can always tell when a Voice Over has been recorded by a man who hasn’t first washed his face and brushed his teeth. That bloke who does the voice on XFactor and Come Dine with Me: he obviously hasn’t washed and brushed before hand; you can just tell. They should sack him and employ me instead; I am evidently a more hygienic Voice Over artist and would set a much better example to the kids). Anyway, I am still in the bathroom washing my face and brushing my teeth.

Don’t worry, you haven’t missed any action while you were reading that aside. I am wondering about how to deliver the third “and” in the second sentence: should it be strong and forceful? cheeky and playful? exuberant? or deep and resonant? My musings are disturbed by a loud bang and a yell. I turn off the tap and listen, but I hear nothing and so I turn the tap back on and once more consider that fundamental question: how should I say that “and?” I decide to go for strong and forceful. Then I hear another bang and another yell that also just so happens to be both strong and forceful; surely a sign from the Voice Over gods that I have made the correct decision. Again I turn off the tap to listen, but again there is quiet. The sound seems to be coming from one of the attached flats. I have moved to Gateshead incidentally as of October so that I do not have to do four hours of bus travel everyday. I live near some rather interesting people, as you shall soon discover. I walk to the kitchen to get some water and practise that all important “and”. “and, and! aaand! aaaaaaaand! annnnnd!” My musing is again interrupted by a couple more bangs. There is something strange going on next door, but then again, the neighbours at the other side of me are probably thinking the same about their neighbour who is repeating a single conjunction at various volumes and pitches. I listen a bit longer but quiet has returned once more. I decide to say the word “and” like “aaaaaaaand!” with both forcefulness and strength; a wise decision I’m sure you’ll agree. I position myself at the microphone and start recording. As the first syllable passes my lips there is an all mighty bang, and then I hear a woman shout something like “Don’t you dare hit me!” Damn those neighbours, damn that stupid woman and her protestations towards being assaulted. she has just ruined my first syllable, and it was a bloody amazing first syllable too; perfectly executed. “I’ll call the police” the woman continues. The door to their flat flew open and the voices spilt out on to the street. I gallantly tried to continue recording the Voice Over but the argument was far too loud to be disguised by my voice. So instead I politely waited for them to finish their contretemps.

so, the computer kept recording and I maintained my position at the microphone waiting for the dispute to cease. But it didn’t, the argument got louder and more people joined in. The window was closed, but the argument was still very audible and the microphone was having no difficulty in picking everything up. Well, they had completely ruined my voice over, but perhaps there was something useful to be salvaged from this event. I edged the microphone closer to the window and decided to postpone my voice over attempts in place of some unexpected Saturday morning street entertainment. I could elaborate more about the argument but what’s the point when I’ve got the actual recording to offer. You can download it as an MP3. Half way through the recording I managed to set up the digital recorder and so you get the rest of the argument (including when the police turned up) in stereo, which is, let’s face it, how all street-based arguments should be enjoyed.

Warning: this audio clip does contain a lot of swearing, as does the rest of this blog post.) (The whole argument is ridiculous. It has seemingly resulted in a woman being hit, which is of course a very serious issue. But I lose all sympathy for either character when it becomes clear how the argument started and the infantile way that both of them deal with things. we discover as we listen that the couple have been together for eight years, but that this particular incident has apparently been the catalyst for the relationship’s demise. It transpires that the whole sorry affair started because the woman wouldn’t get out of bed and help the man clean up the dog shit. This, and subsequent events that morning, led to him hitting her which she understandably seemed pretty upset about. however the seriousness of the situation is somehow distilled by her infantile comments about her man, such as: “you look like Stig of the Dump; you need to get some new clothes, you tramp”, although the actual quotes are enhanced by a few additional swear words. When the woman chastises the man for hitting her, he offers the following, seemingly as some kind of vindication for his actions: “well, you need to shave your fuckin fanny”.

Also listen out for another of my favourite lines from the very same gentlemen which goes something like : “you know that 3 grand I owe ya? Well you’ll get it all back, every single penny, I’ll pay it all off. And you know why I will?” This question is followed by a dramatic pause while he considers his next statement, and then he adds, “because, I fuckin will!” Also, who is “Shitty Pants Shaun” who apparently the woman’s dad is scared of? And there are so many other quotes that come direct from the school playground: comments along the lines of “my dad’s bigger than your dad”. All these classic lines and more can grace your ear drums if you download the following MP3 file. Click here to download. Ha! That’ll teach them for ruining my voice over! The world may never get to hear that “and”, which is a big shame because it was amazing: it was forceful and it was strong. But hey ho. Finally, what I find ridiculous about this whole recording is how this tiny transient moment has been preserved in stereo, has been equalised and compressed, has had hiss reduction applied and has been edited so that the silences have been removed. I’ve spent more time and effort in postproduction for this than I ever do for a Young’uns podcast. O, incidentally, the next Young’uns podcast will be out by the end of the month providing I haven’t been beaten up by stig of the dump and a woman with unruly genitalia. God forbid Shitty Pants Sean gets involved; he’s pretty scary apparently. Wish me luck.

I’ve written before about the people who sit on the back of busses playing music loudly on their mobile phones. I wonder what thought process these people have which makes them think that it is acceptable and normal behaviour to play their music to everyone on the bus. Do they believe that they are doing us a favour: that their musical taste is
somehow superior to ours and that by playing their music they are educating and enlightening us? But since the music played by this type of person seems to generally be generic pop music, I don’t think that they consider any such noble cause. It is more likely that these people don’t even think about the rest of us and are doing it simply because they are ignorant. It is ignorance isn’t it? I’m not getting old surely? Perhaps I’m spending too much time hanging around old incontinent people with Senile dementia. But surely not. I mean, is it even possible to spend too much time with old incontinent people with senile dementia?
Surely that’s a paradox.

There is a line that people tend to wheel out whenever someone is doing something annoying and socially agitating like this. A passenger sitting a few seats away from me is talking to the person next to her about the ignorant man playing his music, and has just come out with this line. “what if we all did that?”

This is actually quite a fun theme to explore if you’ve nothing better to do, and since you’re reading this blog then chances are that you haven’t got anything better to do. So what are we waiting for? Let’s explore this theme!

The passenger who is complaining about the man with the phone has a bottle of nail varnish open which she is applying to her nails. Presumably she thinks her behaviour is harmless, but what if everyone on the bus did that? Well, we’d all be high I suppose and perhaps we’d have a big party and our friend at the back of the bus with the musical phone would no longer be an annoyance but instead would be the party’s DJ. So perhaps it would be a good thing if we all had a bottle of nail varnish open as we travel on the bus. Plus, we’d all have great nails. But on the other hand (a figurative hand, but one which also happens to sport great nails) perhaps it would not be such a good thing because we might all throw up as a result of the fumes of the nail varnish.

So next time something annoys you and you jump straight for that cliché line, “what if we all did “?that” perhaps consider the possible positive consequences that could occur if indeed we all did decide to do that thing, and maybe you’ll actually realise that it might not be such a bad thing after all. Or, consider what activity you might be engaged in, and what possible ramifications might exist if everyone else emulated your actions. (This really is classic Thought for the Day material. Come on radio 4, what are you playing at? Commission me!)

So, what if everyone on the bus decided to play their music to the rest of the bus? Maybe this could be a new social experiment for me to conduct. I could sit one row forward from the person with the music and whisper to the person next to me to start playing music loudly on their phone, but firstly to pass the message on to the row in front. This message could then be disseminated in whispers to everyone on the bus and in time the whole bus would be filled with conflicting loud music. How would the original person playing music on his phone react? Perhaps by doing this we will make the person at the back of the bus think about what he is doing and this defiant collective act from all the passengers might mean he never does it again. Or perhaps we will all enjoy the experience so much that we’ll all go on busses in the future, play our music really loudly and try and coerce other passengers to join in.

The other thing I could perhaps do is sit at the back of the bus, wait for the song on the person’s phone to finish playing and then turn to the person playing the music and say, “well thank you for showing me that song; it has really challenged all my preconceptions of generic pop music. How about I return the favour and play you a song now? This is a lovely up-tempo number, I really hope you like it. It’s the perfect track to play loudly on a mobile phone above the roar of a bus engine in front of loads of stressed commuters on their way home from work”, and then play the person a song. What if we all decided to do that: to diligently listen to each other’s musical offering and then offer a musical suggestion of our own? Well, we would be sharing and learning from each other. Surely this would be the truest form of community radio. Wouldn’t that be a lovely bonding moment? So perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Perhaps I will try these two social experiments and video them for this blog, but feel free to attempt it yourself first and let me know how you got on and if you’ve still got all your teeth.

My friend works at an ,old people’s home. She is responsible for organising activities for the residents. I was chatting to her at the start of December and she was musing about what activities she could do over the Christmas period. Later in the conversation, she was telling me about some of her residents who had senile dementia. “Some of them pretend to be different characters” she told me. “there’s one who thinks she’s a princess, and another one keeps going on about how he’s going to get out of this place one day and travel to London to make his fortune.”

“Sounds like you should do a pantomime with them” I responded. “You’ve already got a princess and a Dick Whittington. You don’t happen to have anyone who believes they’re an Arabian prince, or a wicked witch, or a man who likes to dress up as a woman do you? Old people shrink, so you’d probably have enough people to play dwarves if you decided to do Snow White”. I laughed loud and hard at my hilarious quip. Sadly she didn’t join in with the laughing. I can’t think why because what I said was evidently hilarious and I’m sure you’re all engulfed by hysterical laughter right now.
take a few deep breaths and then join
me in the next paragraph.

Rather than laughing hysterically, like any normal person would, she replied by enthusiastically declaring, “what a great idea. I’ll do a pantomime with them! We’ll invite their children, their sons and daughters and family along to watch them!”.

“But some of them can’t even remember their own names” I reasoned. “Half of them need to be ferried to the toilet every ten minutes. You can’t have sleeping beauty getting out of bed every ten minutes to go to the toilet. It wouldn’t be very believable would it? unless you modified the script so that the wicked witch’s curse had an unusual caveat whereby sleeping Beauty would be allowed to periodically wake from her hundred year long deep sleep to go to the bathroom. But that would probably inhibit the dramatic tension somewhat”

“Ah yes, good point” she said. “So it would have to be something other than sleeping beauty then”. I don’t think she quite got my point. Surely a Christmas pantomime starring a cast of incontinent people with Senile Dementia would be a total disaster. It wouldn’t work at all. It would be chaos. But it would be hilarious. I know it’s not really the done thing to laugh at incontinent people with Senile Dementia, but come on, it’s Christmas.

“Yes, it’s a great idea” I said.

“You think?” she asked.

“Yes, you should definitely get a load of incontinent old people with senile dementia to act in a pantomime. It would be such a laugh. For them, I mean. Not for me. For them. They’ll have such a laugh”.

“Yes, they would” she responded cheerily.

“In fact, I could come along on the day to offer support if you like? I could be one of the audience members. Some of them won’t have sons or daughters to watch them. I could fill out the audience a bit, be a surrogate family member.”

“Oh, that’s really sweet of you” she replied. I can’t believe she fell for that.

So I had managed to wangle my way into an old people’s home to watch a load of old incontinent people with Senile Dementia acting in a pantomime. What a great way to start Christmas.

A week or so later I got a call from my friend. She was worrying that the pantomime idea might not have been as good as she had first thought. The old people kept forgetting their lines, reading each other’s lines and falling asleep during important scenes. “Maybe I should forget the idea” she said.

What? This couldn’t happen. Of course it was a crazy idea, of course it wasn’t going to work. But that’s the point. It would be hilarious. She couldn’t quit now, I’d been looking forward to the old incontinent people with Senile Dementia all week. She can’t go and ruin Christmas for me. I must reason with her.
“don’t be silly, it’ll be fine” I said. “you’ve still got another week to rehearse, plus, it’s not like the audience are coming to
see an award winning performance; its just something nice for their families”.

“Yes, you’re right” she replied. “Thank you, you’re so sweet”. Ha, fooled her again.

When I left University I was doing occasional Freelance radio work but it wasn’t really getting me much money, so I played music and sang in a few old people’s homes which paid me even less money. I know I have made light of Senile Dementia and age related illness in this blog post, but I of course understand that this is a very serious, debilitating condition that is very sad to witness. I witnessed it in many people during my time performing in the homes; and that was just the staff, hahaha. Some people would act like different characters every single week and they would tell me completely made-up stories about their lives. They would tell me about things that they had done in the outside world earlier that day even though in reality they hadn’t left the home. I got very friendly with a lovely old lady (not like that you perverted animals. She wasn’t my type of lovely old lady). We used to chat every week. I used to look forward to our conversations. In spite of her mental condition, it was evident that in her prime she would have been a very intelligent and independent woman. She was very kind and was very interested in hearing about my life. But one week she took a complete disliking to me for seemingly no apparent reason. Perhaps she was upset that she wasn’t my type of lovely old lady. The fact was that I had done nothing to warrant her disliking me. The week before she’d told me I was a lovely young man (probably the exact type of lovely young man she liked. Awkward) and gave me a kiss on the cheek. The next week I went over to say hi and have a chat, and she told me to piss off and slapped me in the face. Actually I did find the slap rather arousing so perhaps she just knew what she needed to do to get me interested. I came back to the home the next week, and she was back to her usual sweet self again. She seemed to have remembered nothing of last week’s outburst, and so I said nothing of it and we chatted about the war over a cup of tea.

It is of course very sad to think that these people were once children, teenagers and young adults, falling in and out of love, going to work, raising children and grand children and living independent lives; and now they are dependant on carers and often can’t remember their own identity and family.
But despite my sadness about all that, I had some really fun experiences and there were some really funny moments. One week I had been informed by a member of staff that there was to be a test of the
fire alarm system. This wouldn’t necessitate a need for any of the residents to leave the building and I was told to just keep playing. During a rendition of We’ll Meet Again the alarm went off. I continued playing and singing as instructed. One woman started to shout “it’s the Germans. The Germans are bombing!” and dived for cover under a table. A few of the other residents joined her. A man started to do an impression of an air raid siren. accompanying the sound of the fire alarm. A few more people shouted and scrambled for cover. I stopped playing, a bit concerned. “Keep playing” shouted one of the women, “keep singing, it takes our minds off the bombing”. There didn’t seem to be any staff around to offer assistance in this matter and I knew it was fruitless trying to explain that it wasn’t the war, so I started to play and sing again and everyone joined in from under the table. I tell you, that was true wartime spirit.
Eventually the alarm stopped, as did the man making the air raid siren noises, and everyone got up from under the table and sat back down, breathing sighs of relief.

“Can you play the Lambeth Walk love?” asked one of the women, and normality was resumed.

So, now that I’ve hopefully assured you that I’m not a complete bastard who is totally insensitive about people with senile dementia, perhaps I can get back to the task at hand, which is taking the piss out of old people with senile dementia. Excellent.

I am glad to report that the incontinent old people with senile dementia did not disappoint. It was brilliant. They forgot their lines, got into arguments with each other, got very confused, and the play was split into about 20 parts due to the actors’ bladder issues.

The pantomime was Cinderella. All the cast comprised the residents of the home apart from the prince who was played by the home’s cook.

It was odd from the very start. It commenced with some opening music which was a version of Rihanna’s umbrella, only the word “umbrella” was replaced with the word “Cinderella”. This is actually a commercially available version of the song that Rihana has released; it wasn’t a specially commissioned piece just for this pantomime. “I can be your Cinderella, ella, ella, ay, ay, ay” sang Rihana and all the old folks joined in
too. Unfortunately the music faded out before the chorus ended which is a shame because I was hoping one of the old men would have joined in with Jay-Z’s rap. I was looking forward to some
geriatric hip-hop (or geriatric hop as it is actually called because the hip has been replaced, hahaha). Anyway, the music faded, and then there was quiet. Followed by some more quiet. Cinderella had obviously found the Rihanna song to be particularly soporific because she’d fallen asleep. There were a few murmurs from the staff and residents as they realised the situation, and then one of the ladies, playing an ugly sister, nudged Cinderella awake.

“Wake up you silly cow” cried the ugly sister, which apparently wasn’t part of the script. “Wake up and do the house work” she shouted. A pretty good adlib I thought. Cinderella woke from her slumber – perhaps sleeping beauty would have been a better choice after all – and declared that she needed the toilet. The ugly sister continued to improvise brilliantly, remonstrated with Cinderella, but Cinderella was insistent that she was escorted to the toilet, leaving the audience with an unexpected cliff-hanger only one minute into the proceedings.

There was some quiet, awkward murmurs of conversation from the audience and then after a few minutes Cinderella returned.

“where’ve you been” shrieked the ugly sister at Cinderella.
“I’ve been to the toilet” replied Cinderella.

“Well get on with the house work” demanded the ugly sister. The ugly sister was doing an excellent job of keeping the story going, but Cinderella was not playing ball (haha, I’m so funny, you see what I did? Ball). She had seemingly forgotten that she was in fact playing a role in a pantomime.

“I’m not the cleaner” she snapped back at the ugly sister, “that’s Jody’s job”. She pointed at Jody, the home’s cleaner, who was suddenly and unexpectedly brought into the performance.

The ugly sister gallantly continued while a member of staff helpfully handed Cinderella her script and pointed to her next line.

“No” retorted the ugly sister, “you are the cleaner, and you will have this house cleaned from top to bottom”, there was a pause, and then she added, “by the time I come back from the toilet”.

And so the second interlude commenced and the audience resumed their conversations while the ugly sister was escorted by a member of staff to the bathroom.

The pantomime recommenced and for a time it went fairly smoothly. But then, in part 13, things took an unexpected turn. Cinderella seemed to be having a wale of a time at the Ball. She was dancing with the Prince, holding him very close and wearing a very broad smile. She was really starting to get into the play; a little too much as it turned out. The prince declared his love for Cinderella and asked her to kiss him. Cinderella didn’t need asking twice. She flung her arms around the prince and began to give him a very passionate snog. At first the audience laughed, assuming that it was all planned to happen like this, but the Prince’s horrified expression soon alerted them to the fact that it was very much a moment of enthusiastic improvisation on the part of Cinderella.

“It was meant to just be a peck on the cheek” my friend told me later. but this was much more than just a peck on the cheek. The prince was certainly getting more than he’d bargained for. The other old women were starting to get more and more excited by the unfolding scene and they encouraged Cinderella ever onwards. Even the ugly sisters forgot their loathing of their stepsister and joined in the chants of support. The prince could do nothing. He could hardly use force against a frail old woman, and so he had no choice but to grin and bare it. She eventually broke off. The prince took a few hasty steps back just in case she had plans to resume the kiss.
But Cinderella had moved on from the kiss and had her mind set on other important matters. “I need the toilet” she declared and was once again escorted to the bathroom while the Prince raided the mulled wine.

My friend was a bit concerned that Cinderella may want to take things from where they’d left off once she returned from the toilet, and so she hastily made an alteration to the scene. She announced to the audience that Cinderella had made a dash to the toilet on the stroke of midnight and was unable to return to the ball as the magic spell would have worn off. She instructed the actors to start the performance from the slipper scene.

The prince did his monologue about how much he loved the lady at the ball and how he wished he knew who she was so that he could kiss her lips again and be with her forever. There were a few titters from the old women
who were evidently up for some more action between Cinderella and the prince. The prince then produced the slipper from his pocket. Cinderella rose to her feet and indignantly declared
“That’s my slipper!” somewhat ruining the dramatic tension created by the prince’s monologue which intimated that if only he could discover the owner of the slipper then he would know the identity of his true love. The prince pretended not to hear Cinderella’s comment, but Cinderella would not be ignored. “That’s my slipper” she shouted. “I want it, my foot is getting cold!” A member of staff went to Cinderella and tried to explain that she would have her slipper back shortly but that she would have to wait a bit until the moment of the pantomime came where she could try on the slipper, then the prince would fall in love with her and she could marry him. This seemed to placate Cinderella, who I think was tempered by the notion that she might get to snog the prince again.

Eventually, once the ugly sisters had tried to force their feet into the slipper to no avail, Cinderella was reunited with her item of footwear and the prince, very hesitantly and nervously announced that he and Cinderella were to be wed. The audience applauded. But there was to be no wedding ceremony. My friend decided that we’d all had enough fun for one Christmas pantomime, and chose to skip the wedding scene entirely in fear of a repeat of earlier events. Rihanna sang out the pantomime, the audience stood and applauded the actors and the cast sang the “ella ella ays” and all of them looked very pleased with themselves, apart from Cinderella who looked a bit crestfallen.

“That was a disaster” my friend said afterwards as she downed another glass of wine.

“Oh no it wasn’t” I said, and I laughed loud and hard because I’d just done a hilarious pantomime pun. I can’t think why no one else seems to have come up with that joke before. “everyone loved it” I replied “and had a great time”, which was true. Everyone had loved it. We’d all enjoyed the whole weird
episode. Despite the fact that the surrealism was because of the effects of age related illness, no one in the audience seemed sad. The residents’ family members were able to laugh and enjoy the whole crazy experience. All the actors had had a great time. The only person who hadn’t enjoyed himself was the poor Prince, who incidentally is no longer working at the home. Coincidence?