Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

So, I am now over two thirds of the way through this daily blogging challenge. A part of me is wondering weather I should start preparing for next year by implementing a fazed retirement scheme, meaning that these blog posts would get progressively shorter, in order to acquaint me with my new life next year away from the rigours of daily blogging. Of course, there was a time that retired bloggers could rely on their state pension, but sadly those days are gone, so I might have to do a few odd jobs to keep the wolf from the door, such as washing neighbour’s cars or a bit of prostitution. Or I suppose I could start up a zoo in my garden and charge people for entry. Obviously I’d make sure that my zoo contained a few lions, tigers and coyotes which should prove a formidable defence in the event that the wolf did come to my door. I could do a special deal whereby you can come and look at the animals while I wash your car, and then we have sex. What a quality deal. Obviously I’d charge extra if you wanted to involve any of the animals in the sex. Hmm, I’m getting a good business model together here I think. So that’s my retirement plan all sorted then.

When I got in today’s taxi, the driver was playing a song on the car stereo. The only words I caught were “so don’t talk to me about Muhammad.” The rest of the song was cut off by an incoming phone call. I couldn’t understand the phone conversation because he wasn’t speaking English, so my mind began to wonder back to the song. I assumed there was more to the song, although I suppose he might have had a special feature installed in his car that plays a little jingle/song whenever the passenger opens the door to get in. And for some reason, this particular driver had chosen “so don’t talk to me about Muhammad.” Maybe this was an instruction to his passengers. The passengers would get in the taxi, here the little jingle and then know that this particular driver doesn’t want to have a conversation about Muhammad, which as we all know is a common conversation topic among passengers and drivers of taxis. Maybe other taxi drivers have their own chosen jingles installed, such as, “so don’t ask me whether it’s been a busy one, or what time I’m on til. Do you really think I want to spend my life answering the same inane questions over and over again?”

To be honest, I was glad that this driver spent the entire journey on the phone, because I wasn’t sure what I’d talk to him about, given that he didn’t want to talk about Muhammad, which is generally my go-to conversation topic with taxi drivers. While the driver chatted away, presumably about something none-Muhammad related – I hope his friend knew the rule – , I did an Internet search on my phone for “so don’t talk to me about Muhammad song lyrics,” and discovered the words to a song by an artist called Dawud Wharnsby. As well as the lyrics, there was a link to the song on Youtube, and when the chorus kicked in I knew that it was the same song that I’d heard a few minutes earlier over the car speakers. So it seems as if it was just chance that I happened to get into the car, just as an impassioned voice warned me not to talk about Muhammad, before being cut off by a phone call. So it wasn’t a custom-made jingle designed to warn passenger’s of taboo conversation topics; that cleared that up then. But then, as I looked further down the webpage, I noticed the title of another of Dawud Wharnsby’s songs: “So Don’t Ask Me If It’s Been a busy One Or What Time I’m On Til.”

The song Don’t Talk To Me About Muhammad has some rather interesting lyrics.

“It would be such a pleasure to have you come along with me,
I accept your gracious offer of kindness and company.
But as we walk along young man and as you help me with my load,
I’ve only one request as we travel down this road,
Don’t talk to me about Muhammad.
Because of him there is no peace and I have trouble in my mind,
so don’t talk to me about Muhammad
and as we walk along together we will get along just fine.”

So this person has made it pretty clear to his companion that he doesn’t want to talk about Muhammad, but rather than just simply saying, “oh by the way, I know it’s a bit of a strange request, but while we walk together I’d appreciate it if we’d avoid talking about Muhammad if that’s OK with you?” The companion might be a bit taken aback by this odd request, but would probably oblige and they’d spend a pleasant walk together chatting about none-Muhammad related stuff. But I would argue that this man has gone a very unusual roundabout way of asking someone not to talk to him about Muhammad. He’s asked his companion not to talk to him about Muhammad, before proceeding to go off on a bit of a rant about Muhammad. Still, he’s made his point very clear, and presumably now they can get on with their walk and chat about the weather or something. But no. The man continues blabbering on about the very thing he doesn’t want his companion to talk to him about. It’s becoming clear that this person doesn’t have a problem talking about Muhammad himself, he just seemingly doesn’t want someone else to talk about Muhammad to him.

“That man upsets me so, and so much more than you could know,
I hear of his name and reputation everywhere I go.
Though his family and his clan once knew him as an honest man,
he’s dividing everyone with his claim that “God is One”
So don’t talk to me about Muhammad.”

The man is seemingly unaware of the irony of what he’s doing, chattering away ten to the dozen to his companion about the very thing he’s telling his companion not to talk to him about. But as I say, he’s clearly not appreciated the irony of his behaviour, because he continues to whitter away about Muhammad some more.

“He’s misled all the weak ones and the poor ones and the slaves,
They think they’ve all found wealth and freedom following his ways.
He’s corrupted all the youth with his twisted brand of truth
convinced them they all are strong, given them somewhere to belong.
So don’t talk to me about Muhammad.”

I’m not even sure that there was any indication that this man’s companion even had any plans or desire to talk about Muhammad. The man is clearly mad. By this point the companion is presumably trying to interrupt the insane man’s Muhammad-based blabber, but he is having none of it. He continues.

“Let me give you some advice, since you’ve been so very nice,
From Muhammad stay away, don’t heed his words or emulate his way.
And don’t talk about Muhammad.”

By this point the man’s companion is probably losing the will to live. He had no intention of talking about Muhammad, although he’s now so sick of this weird man’s incessant chatter about not talking about Muhammad, that he’s tempted to start talking to him about Muhammad, just to antagonise the deranged idiot. Eventually the man stops his Muhammad-based diatribe and says to his companion, “Now before we part and go, if it’s alright just the same,
may I ask, my dear young man, who you are? What is your name?”

This man has presumably talked about Mohammed for so long that they’ve reached the end of their walk and he hasn’t even managed to let his companion introduce himself. The last few lines of the song are, “It is truly rather funny, though I’m sure I must be wrong,
but I thought I heard you said that your name is Muhammad……
Muhammad? Oh talk to me Muhammad!
Upon you I pray for peace for you have eased my troubled mind!
Oh talk to me Muhammad
and as we walk along together we will get along just fine,
and as I travel down life’s road I will get along just fine.”

What the bloody hell has just happened there. The companion has presumably told the man that he is called Muhammad, either that or the man is so deranged and so completely Muhammad obsessed that he has just misheard the man’s name as Muhammad, even though the man clearly said that it was John. Or maybe the companion has said he is called Muhammad in order to wined the man up, although surprisingly we discover that, rather than being annoyed or upset at this revelation, the man instead is jubilant and then jumps to the wild conclusion that the companion is actually The Muhammad, the very Muhammad that he has been ranting about all this time. He then begins profusely praising him

So, it seems as if Islamic music is just as stupid and risible as Christian music. Religions really do have more in common than they have in contrast. If only more religious people thought, “look, our music is nonsensical claptrap, yours is clearly incongruous bilge. We essentially like the same thing, only you’re lyrics are frequently peppered with the word Muhammad and ours with Jesus, but essentially it’s the same shit. Let’s be friends.” This realisation could save our planet and increase tolerance amongst the religions. You see, there was a kind of moral to this blog, wasn’t there. Oh, these Dollops work on so many levels.

The Young’uns Podcast is back! Our first podcast of 2016 comes live from the Folk East Festival in Suffolk, where we are joined by an enthusiastic audience, guests John Spiers, O’hooley & Tidow, and Sam Kelly. As well as songs and tunes, we play a game of Jenga, have a competition to see who can do the best impression of the characters from the children’s TV show Rainbow, play a geordie drinking game, and discuss all manner of miscellaneous claptrap. And even more exciting than all of that … It’s the return of Herbal Tea Of The week!!!

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You can freely subscribe to the podcast to recieve episodes automatically in your chosen podcasts programme, and download previous episodes at the Young’uns Podcast page here

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I opened the taxi door, and asked the driver whether the car was a taxi. This isn’t some kind of weird smart-arse philosophical question about the nature of vehicular identity: can this car really be said to be a taxi, or should we really be saying that the car is merely serving the function of being a taxi? For what is the taxi when it is not taxiing? Is it then still a taxi? But I was not trying to make a philosophical statement, I was merely enquiring as to whether the car door I had just opened was in fact a taxi, because, being blind, there have been times that I have made an assumption about a car being a taxi, opened the door, got in and sat on a bewildered passenger’s knee. Still, I ended up in a two year relationship with one of those bewildered passengers, so it’s not always a bad thing.

The driver responded to my question with a “yes,” but it was such a world-weary yes. I was genuinely taken aback by his “yes,” by the “fact that he’d somehow managed to convey so much misery in just one single syllable. The despairing nature of his “yes” was so intense that it caught me completely off-guard and I gave an involuntary chuckle.

I got in the taxi, feeling embarrassed by my inappropriate chuckle. I felt guilty that I’d responded to his misery-laden “yes” in such a way. I decided to try and redeem the situation, to attempt to take back my chuckle and disguise it as something else, maybe a cough. I began to venture a chuckly cough. I’ve never tried a chuckly cough before, and I wasn’t at all convinced by it. I think it just sounded like a very weird chuckle, almost as if I was trying to make a statement with the chuckle, a statement like, “yes, that’s right my friend, I am chuckling at your misery, and I want you to know it.” I needed to employ more cough and less chuckle. But my next attempt was even worse. I abandoned the chucle altogether, and just opted for the coughing. Normally when I cough, it’s because I feel a need to cough. I’ve never really coughed before deliberately. I assumed that it would be easy and sound perfectly natural, just like a regular cough, but I was surprised by how unusual it sounded. To me, it sounded like a man deliberately coughing in the most ridicullous way he could muster. It’s difficult to explain the sound in writing – perhaps in the audio version I will attempt the cough – but it sounded like someone with a really bad sore throat having very noisy sex. I am using artistic licence here, choosing to use this description in order to give you an effective comparison, rather than drawing on my lexicon of sounds.

I stopped my absurd coughing, and then said “sorry.” I’m not sure what I was saying sorry for, nor what he would assume I was apologising about. I was sorry that I had laughed at his despairing yes, but I also was apologising out of embarrassment for the weird chuckly coughing charade, although I couldn’t be sure that he’d registered my chuckle, or had been aware of my subsequent attempts of a cover-up. The taxi driver did not respond, and I too fell quiet.

As the journey went on, the only sound he made was very heavy sighing. I didn’t know whether his sighs were a sort of cry for help, as if begging me to ask him if he was OK, so that he could unburden himself to someone. Not being able to see his facial expressions, I wasn’t able to get any visual clues about what he might be thinking. Plus, after my odd behaviour earlier, I didn’t really trust myself to speak, as I’d probably say something embarrassing that would make the situation worse. I’d probably saysomething like, “what’s wrong with you?” intending for it to come across as caring and friendly, but it would probably come out sounding like an accusation, as if I was telling him to shut up with the bloody heavy sighing. So I continued keeping quiet. But then I became aware of my breathing, and started to worry that I might be breathing a bit too deeply, and that it might sound as if I am imitating his sighing. Normally I wouldn’t be so self-conscious – well, OK I do overthink a lot – but because of my chuckle earlier, I was concerned that he might be thinking that I am taking the piss out of him, chuckling at his misery and then mimicking his sighing.

“sorry,” I said again. Why the bloody hell had I just apologised? I’d overthought my breathing so much, that I’d convinced myself that he thought I was taking the piss, and so I apologised. It was an involuntary apology. I began to feel even more self-conscious. I sighed in exasperation at my stupid self-conscious behaviour. Oh for goodness sake, I’d just sighed. I resisted the urge to apologise.

Eventually, the journey ended, the driver muttered the price, sounding utterly depressed, and I handed over the money, tipping him heavily out of guilt.

It may be the case that all of this was in my imagination. It is unlikely that he thought I was taking the piss out of him; he was probably too caught up in his own doom-ridden world to be aware or care about what I was doing, but my brain had gone into a weird self-conscious fluster. I shouldn’t be admitting my stupid weirdness in these blogs so readily, but I need to publish today’s blog in the next hour, and this is the first subject that sprung to mind. This is the problem of doing a daily blog; I end up revealing a lot of stuff. If I’m not careful I’m going to have psychology students basing their PHDs on these blogs. Or maybe I’m just being a bit too self-conscious, again.

Today’s audio Dollop is usurped by a Japanese film crew. We also get up-close with a horse, and we meet some angry workmen.

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Today’s audio Dollop contains an anecdote from Towersey Festival which we played this evening, where we received an unusual request.

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Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

If you listened to yesterday’s Dollop including the phone conversation with my friend about plumbs, I want to point out that I don’t normally record my phone conversations and archive them, the recording only existed because I was recording the Dollop when she called. I don’t record every conversation I have just in case it comes in handy for a Dollop. If I did do that then it would be a bit tragic that in the space of 240 days, I have only deemed a single three minute conversation about plumbs worthy of inclusion in these Dollops, although, let’s be honest, it was a quality three minutes.

Most of the time I am not recording, including right now, unless you’re listening to the audio version in which case obviously I am recording, but only the sound of my own voice reading this out, which doesn’t count. What I mean is that I’m not recording what is going on as I write this Dollop, which is a discussion about van insurance. I am in The Young’uns van, and we need to renew the insurance in a couple of weeks. Sorry, I’ve reeled you in and got you all interested, haven’t I? But alas, you shall never get to hear the conversation, because I’m not recording it. Anyway, I won’t cruelly keep you in suspense any longer; we are going to renew it with the same insurance company we’re currently using. You can rest easy now.

Tomorrow we play Towersey Festival. I am looking forward to finding out whether they published my contribution to their festival programme. If you remember from Dollop 188 a couple of months ago (what am I saying? of course you remember) I was asked by the person putting the written programme together for Towersey festival to write something “quirky” for the programme. So I wrote them a very lengthy and elaborate pun laden joke about computer fonts, which I included in Dollop 188. For some unfathomable reason, I did not receive an email back from them. If they haven’t included it in the programme, then I have a good mind to get my own back on the festival by taking up a considerable amount of our performance delivering an extra long version of the joke. If, for some incomprehensible reason, the font routine fails to get the hysterical reaction it warrants, then I can just read out Ben’s text about plumbs on top of the fridge which seems to be a sure-fire hit.

Last week, I received another unusual request from a folk festival. The person responsible for compiling the written programme for Bromyard festival emailed some questions for me to answer. Normally, questions are along the lines of “how did you meet?” “How did you get into folk music?” questions about our festival appearance, upcoming tour or album, or they try to be quirky, “if you could be any animal, what animal would you be?” although they don’t like it when I out-quirk them with a lengthy and elaborate joke about computer fonts. I’m coming to you, Towersey festival, and there will be repercussions if my amazing font joke isn’t in your programme.

The person compiling the programme for Bromyard festival however has managed to enter uncharted territory with his line of questioning. Although he’s putting his questions to The Young’uns, I don’t think he’s particularly bothered about us; I think he’d much rather be interviewing Mumford And Sons. Here are the list of questions he’s sent me to answer for the programme.

1. Between 2012-14, the likes of Mumford and Sons brought folk stylings right into the middle of popular culture. Why do you think that this happened, and what was the impression among traditional folk musicians and fans?

2. Do you like the Mumfords?

3. Did you notice a change in the people who were interested in your music, due to the rise of the Mumfords?

4. The mumfords seemed to assume the role of pop/rock poster boys during that period on both sides of the Atlantic. Their 2015 follow-up seemed to fall flat, but pop music seemed to have moved on as quickly as it had adopted them and pop folk. Why do you think this happened? And why do you think it happened so quickly?

5. Do you look back on that time as a period that you miss? Or one that was always destined to come and go?

6. What has that brief window of popularity had on the folk scene?

7. If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?

Obviously that last question wasn’t genuine; it was yet another example of my amazing comedy skills. Their last question was actually: “what’s next for folk music?”

I don’t know who this person thinks I am. It’s as if he really wanted to get an interview with Mumford and Sons but wasn’t able to, so he just asked us the Mumford and Sons’ questions instead.

Or it’s as if he thinks I’m some kind of musicologist or cultural soothsayer, asking such broad questions as “what’s next for folk music.” He also seems to be under the impression that I owe my folk music career to Mumford and Sons, as it’s clearly thanks to them that I have an audience.

He also seems to imagine that me, and all the other folk artists on the scene, all look back wistfully at 2012 to 2014, nostalgically remembering those glory years of folk, where we all got helicoptered into gigs, and every folk artist had at least three groupies each every gig; before the Mumfords, we generally had to settle with just one groupy a night. But, even while we were in the middle of it all – eating caviar, having sex with beautiful fans who, let’s face it, only slept with us because they thought it might bring them closer to Mr Mumford or one of his sexy sons – we knew that it could never last. When we heard the Mumfords follow-up album, we knew the fun was over. The fans began to lose interest in the Mumfords and consequently us, the caviar ran out, the helicopters stopped coming and we had to go back to travel around in vans,, and we were back where we started, playing to old men with beards once again. Oh, how we yearn for those years.

Something tells me that I’m probably not going to be in the Bromyard festival programme either.

We travel even further back in time today as I introduce you to my seven-year-old self. I taste cashew nut milk for the very first time. We discover some rather unusual names for ladies genitals, and there’s much merriment over the subject of plumbs.

Download it all here

Today’s audio Dollop comes from my kitchen, where I chat whilst creating a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel, about Jeremy Corbyn, trains, and the media, plus I tell my own train story from a couple of days ago.

Download it here.

Fancy a bath? Come and join me for a bit of a soak and a bit of a joke, although you’re sitting at the tap end. We chat about Dr Who themed condoms and a variety of other highly erudite topics, plus we meet a couple of new Dollop characters.

Download today’s audio Dollop here

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I can’t get the song Daniel Wet Himself Today out of my head. If you didn’t listen to the Dollop from a couple of days ago, then you won’t have heard this epic composition by me at the age of nine. I’ve caught myself singing it under my breath on a number of occasions throughout the day.

We’ve been to Whitby Folk festival today. At one point I was chatting to Becky Unthank and during the conversation she received a text. We momentarily stopped talking As she checked the message. As I waited, I absnt mindedly began to sing Daniel Wet Himself Today under my breath. I didn’t think she heard me, but then a few minutes later I heard her humming something to herself which sounded a bit like Daniel Wet Himself Today. It might not have been Daniel Wet Himself Today. To be honest, I think I’ve got the song so firmly stuck in my head, that all other songs have also started to sound like Daniel Wet Himself Today. If there are any songs about incontinence on the next Unthanks album, then you know who and what inspired it.

I was about to remark that if I travelled back in time to visit my nine-year-old self and tell him that his song would still be being sung by me twenty-two years later, then I would be massively surprised; but actually, I was the kind of child who’d probably find that perfectly understandable and would see no reason why a song of such magnitude shouldn’t stand the test of time. I might also be a bit disappointed in my future self, that I was wasting the ability to time travel on visiting my nine-year-old self to point out the bleeding obvious. Of course “Daniel Wet Himself Today” was still going to be sun twenty-two years in the future. I suppose I might be a tad impressed that I’d discovered how to time travel, but when you’re the kind of kid who’s got the creative genius to think up a masterpiece like “Daniel Wet Himself Today,” then it’s very difficult to be impressed by mere time travel. I think I’d still consider “Daniel Wet Himself Today” to be my most noteworthy achievement.

I’ve just had my first Macdonalds for a very long time. We stopped off at a service station which didn’t really have anything else open. There are certain places that are easily identifiable without the use of sight. The sandwich shop Subway, for instance, is very blind-friendly, because it has a very distinct smell which pervades through the street, making it easy to locate. There have been times when I’ve been in an unfamiliar town, feeling hungry, then smelt the familiar smell of Subway, and was able to literally follow my nose to get me there. Although there was one rather embarrassing time that I smelt the smell, followed my nose, and ended up inadvertently essentially stalking a poor woman all the way home, simply because she was eating a Subway; well, that’s the story I told the police, and I’m sticking to it.

The thing that helps McDonald’s be identifiable to blind people is the sound it makes. McDonald’s is one of the only eateries I’ve been to that has this particular ambient sound. There is constant beeping. Every appliance seems to beep. When you walk into that place, from the sound alone you know that you are either in McDonalds, or an intensive care unit of a hospital. Although I suppose if you are eating in McDonald’s, then chances are it won’t be too long before you actually are in a hospital’s intensive care unit. Perhaps McDonalds has all that beeping so as to help diners get used to where they’re going. Maybe this is also why the food is so appallingly bad; it’s to get you used to the hospital food; only McDonald’s have the generosity to make their food even worse, so that you’ll actually stand a chance of sort of enjoying the food in the hospital. Ronald and his cronies are such lovely philanthropic souls.

Throughout the entirety of ourstay in McDonald’s, there was constant beeping, and not just one solitary kind of beeping, but a whole host of different beeps. Everything beeps: there is beeping when the burger is cooked, beeping when the chips are ready, beeping from the tills, beeping from the card machines, beeping from the tray washer, beeping from the old guy’s heart monitor as his salt and fat intake goes through the roof.

I am at home now, lying in bed, writing this while drifting off to sleep. My brain has seemingly absorbed all that hideous beeping for so long that I can still hear it in my head. It’s driving me insane. I need to think of something else quickly, in order to replace the bloody beeping, otherrwise I’m going to go mad. “Daniel wet himself today, Daniel wet himself today …” Ah, that’s much better. Goodnight.