Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I am pleased to report that today I received my first ever Dollop-based heckle. The first question at our Chance To Meet Young’uns event was, “How long have you been without eyes?” Ideally the entire hour would have been taken up with dollop-based questions, and the other two would just have to stand there awkwardly, while I answered question after question about the Dollops, take requests for the French Potato Potarto song, and answer people’s queries like, “was the water feature man genuinely real or a very talented actor playing an incredibly written character?” But on this occasion, it was just the one dollop-based question; still, it’s a start.

Yesterday I was chatting to a fellow accordionist, who told me that he had also booked a seat for his instrument. When I was at the airport and doing the bit where you have to go through security and get your carry-on luggage checked, they seemed very interested in and uncertain about my Accordion, and they spent a good few minutes scanning it, with more and more staff joining in the inspection. But eventually it got OKayed. However, the person I was talking to yesterday said that they were interrogated for quite awhile about what it was, and then made him play it to prove that it was a musical instrument. So he stood in a busy airport, and played his accordion in front of

an assemblage of serious-looking security staff. Fortunately his performance passed muster and he was cleared to go through with his accordion.

I appreciate that nowadays airport security has to be extra vigilant, but it seems very unlikely that a terrorist would go for an accordion as their weapon of choice. But I might be wrong, and maybe there have been a number of occasions where terrorists posing as accordionists have been thwarted by being asked to play the instrument. Not being a terrorist, I have no idea how effective an accordion would be for housing explosives, but it may be that the accordion can be turned into the perfect weapon of destruction, and airport security are starting to cotton onto this, hence the reason for them getting accordionists to play, to prove their musical credentials and thus prove themselves to not have terroristic motives.

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before a terrorist organisation pays for one of their members to have accordion lessons. With a bit of luck though this plan will backfire, and the terrorist will enjoy learning the accordion so much that he begins to find himself becoming more and more disenfranchised with the terrorist group, as he discovers a new sense of purpose and makes new friends in the folk world. However, the terrorist group have paid for the accordion and the lessons, and they are starting to ask questions about how his lessons are going and when he will be ready. Meanwhile, the terrorist has started playing the accordion for a local morris dance group and is now well and truly a part of the folk community. He is now completely uninterested in bringing death to the western world, having completely transitioned from Islamic extremist to prominent figure in his local folk community. All he wants to do is play folk music and drink real ale at his local folk club and various festivals and village fates. But he doesn’t have the courage to tell the terrorist organisation, who are mounting pressure on him to exercise their strategy. Then one night, he gets very drunk and in desperation, confides to his Morris team, who then take it upon themselves to try and come up with a plan to get him out of his predicament.

I think this scenario would make for a great film, all about what happens when a group of local Morris dancers and folk singers take on a bunch of Islamic extremists, and try and thwart a terrorist plot. It’ll have everything, this film: an action packed dark comic drama including lots of violence, guns, explosions, espionage, dramatic car chases … and morris dancing. What’s not to like?

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