Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I bit my lip today, oh boy. “Please, tell us more, David!” Well don’t you worry your pretty little head, I very much intend to.

I seem to bite my lip about once every six weeks. I wonder why. I wonder what happens in my brain to somehow, once in every six weeks or so of chewing, miscalculate the chew and chomp right threw my lip. I have no idea how many chews an average meal consists of, but I would imagine that within 6 weeks I will have clocked up tens of thousands of chews. My brain clearly knows how to chew, yet after thousands and thousands of consecutive successful chews, it’ll make an error of judgement and I’ll bite my lip.

I had a discussion with my friends around the table about this, and they too estimated that they bite into their lip about once every six weeks. Obviously this is just an approximate guess by everyone. We’re not weird and sad enough to keep a diary of these malmastications (how’s that for a term? Malmastication. I just made that up just then, check me out!). We are however weird and sad enough to have a protracted conversation in which we spend our entire meal swapping anecdotes about times when we’ve bit into our lips. Then again, you can’t exactly judge us, baring in mind that you are now reading this blog all about this very subject, and be honest, you’re really enjoying it, aren’t you?

So it seems as if it’s a congenital human trait for the brain to very occasionally miscalculate the chew, even though it manages fine thousands upon thousands of times. I wonder whether our subconsciouses just get a bit complacent. Maybe after six weeks of successful chewing, it starts to get a bit cocky and thinks, “this is a piece of cake; and chewing this piece of cake is easy. It’s a bit boring though. I think my mouth should be aware of what to do without me for a bit. I think I might take a walk and see what’s going on in the rest of the brain and maybe help out with a more interesting autonomic function, maybe have a dabble with the respiratory system. Just for a bit of a change … ouch, shit, the lip! Oh damn, the sympathetic nervous system is going to be furious with me.” I’m not sure if that joke was particularly scientifically accurate, but what it might have lacked in scientific validity, it more than made up for in hilarity, as I’m sure you’ll all agree.

Tonight’s gig was supporting Richard Hauley at The Unthanks’ festival in Newcastle. With just ten days to go until the festival, the Unthanks were informed that their intended venue was going to be out of action due to emergency construction work. So the venue was changed at the last minute. The new venue used to be a factory, and I think it must have only recently been converted, because while the venue was perfectly acceptable from the audience’s perspective, there wasn’t yet a properly established backstage area. Our dressing room therefore was more or less a dark dingy shed, and access to the stage was somewhat inhibited by a series of obstacles, including pipes, metal bolts stuck out of the floor, and very low beams on the roof. Either this place was still in the process of being converted, or it had been very poorly designed.

I hope that this wasn’t down to poor design consultancy work from David Eagle and his cronies. That man has already caused me enough problems, taking up hours of my life forwarding his rogue messages onto him, without him almost killing me with his low hanging beams and his jutting out pipes and sharp metal bolts. It might have also been David Eagle and friends who were responsible for the original venue having to undergo emergency construction work. Maybe me and this David Eagle have history, maybe we are sworn enemies from a past life. Well, if that is the case then I am clearly winning this karmic battle, given that I diligently forward on his many stray emails, whereas he can’t even be bothered to thank me. Keep going the way you’re going David, and in the next life I’ll be a wealthy prince, and you will be my domestic servant, and I will make you spend your days forwarding emails to people, just to teach you a lesson.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

We’re back in The Young’uns van, heading to a gig. Sean is on the phone to his parents. He’s been on the phone to his parents for most of the journey. Sean’s phone calls to his parents take double the time that they really should take. This is because his parents don’t seem to have invested in a phone with a speaker. Sean’s conversations with his parents therefore consist of him telling the same stories and generally answering exactly the same questions twice. And if Grandmar’s with them …

I think Sean really needs to buy his parents a phone with a hands-free speaker setting, for the sake of his own sanity. It’s only going to get worse the older his parents get, once their memories start to go. He’ll talk to his mum, she’ll then pass him onto his dad, and by the time Sean’s repeated the same conversation with his dad, Sean’s mum will be back on the phone, both parents having completely forgotten that they’ve already talked to him, meaning that Sean will be in line to tell the story to both of them separately for a second time.

My dad has had a speaker phone for years. On the plus side, this means that I don’t have to repeat myself over and over again to different family members, however it does have its setbacks. When I call home, I am immediately put on speaker, and my news is broadcast to whoever is present. And everyone will just chip in. There’ll be no advanced mention as to who’s in the room. I’ll be in the middle of telling a story to my dad, with no idea there is anyone else around, and then my brother will suddenly chime in, my dad’s fiancée Irene, one of my nieces or nephews, or the postman, if he happens to be passing. There’s no such thing as privacy in our family, which is very difficult for me, because as you all know, I am ordinarily a very private man; It’s not like I want to broadcast my life to all and sundry.

It took my dad awhile to get used to operating this newfangled phone with the hands-free speaker setting. For the first year or so, rather than pressing the button to terminate the call after the conversation, he would press the button that transfers the phone from the hands-free speaker setting to the hands-in receiver setting. This meant that after I’d said goodbye, I’d then get the post phone call discussion, as dad and whoever else was in the room had a conversation about what I’d just been talking about.

“Well he seems to be doing all right, or at least he says he is,” says dad.

“Yes, good to hear the gigs are going well. He sounds busy,” says my dad’s fiancée Irene.

“I hope the ointment works on that embarrassing growth he was talking about. It sounded quite nasty,” says the postman.

I’d try and shout down the phone to let them know that I could still hear them and that they hadn’t hung up properly, but it was no use; I could hear them, but they couldn’t hear me, and they’d just keep chatting away about me, and I’d listen, hoping that my dad wouldn’t say something awkward for me to hear like, “I know it’s a bad thing for a father to say, but I can’t help feeling disappointed in him.”

“Well I know it’s not really my place to say this, but I know what you mean,” says the milkman.

Or things could get really awkward.

“Well, I thought he’d never get off the phone. But now he’s gone, and it’s just me and you, do you fancy a bit of fun? Let’s get you out of that dress.” Oh no dad, I don’t want to be privy to you and Irene getting physical. Definitely time for me to hang up.

“Oh yes, come here big boy,” says … the postman?

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

If today’s Dollop is a bit rubbish then you have the royal mail to blame. My microphones that I’ve been using to record the walking Dollops with broke a couple of weeks ago. Naturally, I Immediately sought to replace them, given how keen I knew you would all be to be back out with me, chatting to various eccentric Sheffielders. A couple of days ago I received an email from the Royal Mail informing me that the microphones would be delivered today. I decided to celebrate the microphones’ arrival with a much-anticipated walking Dollop, but alas, the microphones were not delivered. I then had to go out this evening, and have only just got back, at 1130, and I’m now having to quickly write a Dollop instead of releasing an audio one, as was my original plan. And so, if today’s Dollop is a bit rubbish (and if this first paragraph is anything to go by, it will be) then blame the Royal Mail.

We were in a curry house this evening. We were sitting on a corner table, and we noticed that tucked behind us was a laptop, and on the screen was Spotify, and the name of the playlist where the Asian music was being taken from. The playlist was called curry House Classics, and it was a public playlist that Spotify had curated. I’d have hoped that if you were running a curry house, you might have some ideas of appropriate music that you could play in your establishment, rather than lazily using a public Spotify playlist called Curry House Classics.

I also wondered how many other Indian restaurants on the planet were currently playing Curry House Classics. And are these songs truly curry house classics, or are they just popular Asian songs that have merely been thrown into a playlist? I might be doing the people at Spotify a disservice though, I suppose there might have been an extensive survey done of thousands of curry houses all over the world, in regards to the music they play, and the results were compiled into the Curry House Classics playlist. And to be fair to Spotify, they have picked some classics. They start things off with Maine Soch Liya from Tumsa Nahin Dekha, an excellent opener, I’m sure you’ll all agree Then follow it up with Sisile Mulaqaton Ke from Bardaasht – which let’s face it, was bound to be included – before hitting us hard with Agar Tum Mil Jao, from Zeher, of course. There’s a few curve balls on the list though: they opted for Tera Mera Rista from Awarapan, which I personally think is a somewhat weak choice, and Aye Bekhabar from Zeher, which would be all very well and good, but for some insane reason they plucked for the Lounge Remix, which is very uninspiring.

I wonder if Spotify have created playlists for other kinds of restaurants. ‘Now That’s What I Call Greasy Spoon Cafe,’ ‘Late Night Kebab House Hits,’ ‘Chippy Anthems.’

Here are my suggestions for a curry house playlist:

Tikka Chance On Me, by Akbar (Akbar, as in the Indian restaurant chain).
Korma Chameleon, by Kulcha Club (Kulcha is an Indian bread).
Tiny Dhansak, by Elton John, from the album, Mad Naan Accross The Water (Tiny Dancer is from the album Madman Accross The Water. I personally think jokes are much funnier when you have to explain them).
She’s a Naan Eater, by Delhi Furtado.
Get Chapati Started, by Pink (you might be wondering why Pink is a pun; it’s because a lot of curry houses often use quite a bit of food colouring, so that clearly works).
This Is The Closest Thing To Jalfrasy I Have Ever Seen, by Katie Me’lahoer.

Unfortunately, it’s coming up to midnight, so I need to publish this Dollop, meaning that we’ll have to terminate the fun here I’m afraid. Feel free to exercise your creative muscles and suggest some additions to my curry house playlist. Back tomorrow. Another day, another Dollop.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Dollop stalwart Mavis Crumble commented on yesterday’s Dollop, saying, “Go on……send it to Ainsley. I dare you!” By “it,” she is referring to my fictional reply to the email that I was sent, which was intended for the other David Eagle, the design consultant from Stoke. Alas Mavis, I had already responded to Ainsley, alerting him to the fact that he’d emailed the wrong David Eagle, so I’m afraid I can’t pretend to be the other dAvid Eagle and email him my review.

It appears that when Ainsley asked for a review of his site layout plan, he was perhaps looking for quite a lot more technical detail than my reply would have offered. Today I received a reply from Mark, who was also copied into Ainsley’s email. I’ll tell you what Mark had to say in a moment, (I know, I’m such a tease) but first, I thought you might like to cast your critical eye over Ainsley’s site layout plan, and have a think about any possible areas for improvement. I’ll then present you with Mark’s evaluation, and you can compare your findings to his. If you have any ideas to improve this plan then feel free to send them to me and I’ll happily pass them onto Ainsley. Wouldn’t that be a lovely, benevolent thing to do? You never know, If we come up with some good suggestions then maybe Ainsley might choose to work with us on a regular basis, and ditch the services of the other David Eagle. Let’s be honest, the other David Eagle doesn’t seem to be the quickest at responding, whereas I’m sure you Dollop readers would be much more proactive.

Perhaps this could be away for you to support these Dollops financially. Rather than adopting the more traditional model of asking for donations, you could offer support by commenting on various preliminary site layout plans. Obviously this is something that I couldn’t feesibly do myself due to being blind. Then, Ainsley would financially remunerate me for the design consultancy work. A perfect plan.

So, cast your critical eyes over this, and let me know if you have any thoughts. Remember, the scale is 1:500@ A3 size0.

So, what do you think? Why not make a few notes, and then you can compare your ideas to Mark’s. This is kind of like a training exercise for you, because we can use Mark’s appraisal as an example of the kind of thing to look out for and comment on in the future. Here is what Mark had to say about Ainsley’s site layout plan. See if you spotted any of these.

“Hi Ainsley,
We will need to show a temporary footway usable by wheelchairs. The foot way should be slab surfaced and allow the residents of the bungalow to access the bungalow from the rear door of the existing laundry. It needs to come around by the plant room and around the footprint of the new activity room allowing a space for scaffold and for services to be redirected around the new extension and link to the existing path to the bungalow. Can you show this on the plan?
Alex we will need to amend the PCIP to show this requirement. We need to highlight that site access for spoil removal will cross this temporary footway so staff will need to escort the residents to and from the bungalow each morning and night and when they return to the bungalow. The temporary footway will need plating to protect the footway.
Regards
Mark.”

So, now you’ve read Mark’s opinions, what do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Send me your thoughts, and I’ll pass them onto Ainsley. This could be a great initiative to financially support these Dollops.

You might have noticed that Mark mentioned an Alex. This is the same Alex who emailed me about the completion of faze one of the villa, which I wrote about in Dollop 253 – just in case you were wondering.

Apologies if you’re listening to the audio version of this Dollop. I suppose this probably hasn’t been all that entertaining for you. If one of the readers would like to provide some audio description of the site layout plan drawing, then I will happily include this in the audio version.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

“Hi David, please find attached a preliminary site layout plan (scale 1:500@ A3 size0) We would be grateful if you could review this regarding the site compound, parking prevision and site access. Many thanks and we look forward to hearing from you in due course, prior to issuing this formally as part of the tender documentation. Kind regards, Ainsley.”

This is yet another email, which came to me today, intended for the other David Eagle, the unresponsive design consultant from Stoke. I’ve forwarded him loads of emails over the last few months and haven’t received a single “thank you” or acknowledgement back. I have a good mind to reply to this email and pretend to be the David Eagle that he thinks I am. Would I be able to get away with it? When the email states, “We would be grateful if you could review this,” how much information do they require? If by “review” they mean a detailed, considered analysis, then obviously I’d be out of my depth, but if they’re just looking for a simple yes or no, then I could surely easily pull off the pretence.

“Hi Ainsley, thanks for the attached drawings. Good choice of scale by the way, 1:500@ A3 size0 is my personal favourite; you’re a man after my own heart. But hey, you’re probably married, and it’s unprofessional to flirt on the job. Anyway, everything looks tickety-boo (as we say in the trade). No quibbles from my end. But hey, enough about my end; I promised not to flirt, didn’t I? In regards to the site compound, it’s a big fat yes from me; I love it. Parking prevision is more than ample. As for the site access … you’re well and truly barking up the right tree, a tree that no doubt you’ve conscientiously fitted with a ramp, allowing for easy wheelchair access, because that’s the kind of man you are. Normally I’d write extremely lengthy and detailed reviews, full of all sorts of complicated and clever technical design consultancy speak, but in this case there’s no need for any of that, because everything is ship shape (not literally, obviously, because if you’d actually opted to make the site ship shaped, then I’d be telling you in no uncertain terms what a stupid idea that is). Full steam ahead. In fact, I wouldn’t trouble yourself with all that formal tender documentation nonsense you refer to in your email. If I were you, I’d just crack on. No time like the present.

P.S. My bank details have changed. Please send my consultancy fee payment to the following bank account …”

But of course, I didn’t send such a reply; I merely forwarded the email to the correct David Eagle, who will presumably fail to respond, as usual.

“Hi again Ainsley, just to let you know that I have recently been contacted by the cyber police, who have informed me that there is a fraudster who is emailing my clients, pretending to be me. If you should receive an email from david@davidmeagle.co.uk, please delete the email and do not reply. I am warning you in case he should ask you for money. I would hate to think that one of my clients was swindled by this unscrupulous cyber fraud. Many thanks.

P.S. “How many design consultants does it take to change a light bulb?”

Answer: “It is not within a design consultants remit to administer practical installations. A design consultant is qualified to give advice on the most suitable place to install said light bulb. He may also offer advice about the optimum type of light bulb and light fitting, in order to maximise aesthetic value whilst providing a solution that is most energy efficient and cost effective. The design consultant however would not be expected or licensed to offer practical assistance on a site or property, therefore it would not be the responsibility or function of a design consultant to change the light bulb.”

A design consultant friend recently told this joke in a speech for a colleague’s retirement party, and it brought the house down; not literally, obviously, we are building design consultants, and therefore would hardly book an unstable structure to hold one of our parties in. I thought I’d share this joke with my clients, because I know there’s a myth that we design consultants don’t have much of a sense of humour, but as you can see, that’s just nonsense.””

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I’m writing this after our gig at Bromyard folk festival. We’d been warned by some of the other performers who’d played over the weekend that the stage had an infestation of spiders. A few singers had apparently inhaled a few spiders. This was done accidentally, obviously, because they were singing and the spiders were crawling over the microphone. I don’t want you thinking that There’s some weird craze amongst folk performers to get high by snorting insects. I want to make it clear that neither I or the other two Young’uns have ever tried to get high by snorting insects. Sticking insects up our bottoms, maybe, but certainly not snorting. So I’m glad we cleared that up.

The warnings proved accurate, for on a few occasions, I had to wipe cobwebs from the mic. There are times in various songs where I put my mouth right onto the microphone in order to amplify the bass notes. Despite the fact that I was potentially going to be inhaling spiders, I still put my mouth right onto the microphone. This is the mark of a true professional. I was willing to risk choking on spiders for the good of the performance. And I am such a professional, that even if I was choking to death on spiders, I would of course choke to my death in rhythm, possibly even adding some rasping in the correct key.

This incident reminded me of the song, I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly. The song is flawed on so many levels. He says that he knows an old lady, which suggests that the lady is still alive. He also says, “perhaps she’ll die,” which denotes that the lady is still alive at the time of the song’s inception. Presumably then, the person writing this song is with the lady while she is swallowing this crazy cocktail of animals, yet rather than intervening and saving this woman’s life, he instead chooses to write a song about the unfolding insanity. This old woman is clearly a congenitally woeful decision maker: she makes a series of massively ill-informed choices, which essentially leads to her inevitable death, and she’s chosen a friend, who stands idly by, writing a song, while she dies.

I’m also confused by her friend’s reasoning. He doesn’t know why she swallowed the fly. Presumably it was an accident, unless he knows that she deliberately swallowed the fly. But even so, I don’t think the swallowing of the fly is the major incident here. But despite the old lady’s decision to swallow a spider to catch the fly, swallow a bird to catch the spider, swallow a cat to catch the bird etc, and despite observing the old lady’s great discomfort, and mind boggling stupid actions in a desperate attempt to remedy her situation, he nevertheless keeps going back to the fact that he doesn’t know why she swallowed the fly. Forget the bloody fly, she’s just swallowed a dog to catch the cat. Do something, you idiot. Don’t just sit there, pontificating about why she swallowed the fly. The fly is inconsequential.

This old lady’s friend seems to have a severely warped sense of perspective. She swallows the fly, which causes him to remark that “perhaps she’ll die.” Why would she die? It’s only a fly. But then, when the old lady swallows the spider, is reaction is exactly the same. He expresses his confusion as to why she swallowed the fly, and then restates that “perhaps she’ll die.” He retains the same level of concern throughout the entire ordeal, even though she starts swallowing cats and dogs.

The lady is clearly getting more and more desperate as the situation progresses. Even though her first few ingestions were ill-advised, at least they made some sort of sense: spiders eat flies, birds eat spiders, cats eat birds. But then she clearly goes all to pot, and makes increasingly weird choices. She swallows a dog; but dogs don’t eat cats? She swallows a goat? Then a cow? A horse?! There is now no semblance of logic. She is presumably hysterical, desperate, and growing increasingly mentally impaired, as a result of ingesting all these live animals.

The other odd part of the man’s account of this event is at the end, when she swallows a horse. “She’s dead, of course,” he writes. He doesn’t seem overly surprised that she’s managed to survive swallowing a cat, a dog, a goat and a cow. If I saw an old lady swallow a cow, a goat, a dog and a cat, I’d be astounded that she was somehow still alive. But if it was me, I’d have intervened at the swallowing of the spider. This man has just seen an old lady swallow a horse, a cow, a goat, a dog and a cat, and watched the resultant carnage and subsequent death of this old lady, and yet he still remains impassive. This man is in a way guilty of murder. This old lady has clearly got mental health problems, and this man has failed to intervene, despite the fact that he clearly knew what was going to happen if she kept swallowing all those animals.

The only explanation as to the man’s behaviour is to assume that he too has serious mental health problems. This would explain his compulsive journaling, his absurdly apathetic nature, his complete lack of perspective, and inability to offer rational and practical assistance to his friend.

So, this begs the question, why were these two severely mentally ill people unsupervised. This raises many concerns about their local social services, as these two people clearly needed special attention. I am also confused as to why this old lady had such easy access to so many animals. Presumably she was on a farm. Maybe this is why social services hadn’t intervened, because they were living in a remote area, away from local resources. Given that she was able to get access to all these farm animals, I assume they must be on a farm, because surely all of this was happening in a fairly short space of time. Surely this scenario occurred because of a series of increasingly desperate attempts to remedy her plight. Surely this wasn’t a premeditated series of thought-out solutions, that involved her driving across town to find a cow and a goat. I am doutful whetehr she would have the time or the ability to drive across town to find these animals, with a dog and a cat inside her. I think we can safely assume therefore that these two people were seriously mentally ill, and living on a remote farm.

I wonder what happened to the man, and if his diaries are still in existence. He has unusually repetitive way of writing, but it would be interesting to know more about the people behind this tragic story.

I might do some digging and see what I can unearth. If anyone has any ideas then feel free to get in touch. I know I’ve hit you hard with a lot of thought provoking ideas about this famous story. It’s a lot to swallow, isn’t it?

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Yesterday I mentioned that I frequently receive emails intended for another David Eagle, a design consultant from Stoke. I try to email everyone back, explaining that they’ve got the wrong David Eagle, and this is quite an undertaking, because David Eagle the design consultant from stoke gets a hell of a lot of emails. But my efforts don’t seem to do anything to stem the flood, and more and more emails keep coming in. But then a few months ago, I finally received an email from the other David Eagle.

His email address was the same as mine, except for one letter. He said that he’d heard that a few emails intended for him had come to me, and wondered whether I could forward them on to him. A few emails? There were hundreds of the bloody things. He also asked if I could forward any future emails straight to him, and he would respond to them letting them know that they’d emailed the wrong person. I don’t think the other David Eagle was prepared for the amount of emails I forwarded him. I trawled my inbox for the emails and began forwarding them onto him. It took me hours. There was no shortcut that I could think of. I had to click on each email in turn, and then forward that email to him. I was potentially saving his business here. Each email was potentially rescuing thousands of pounds worth of work, which might never have been gained if it wasn’t for my act of altruism. If I’d have been more savvy, I would have done a bit of haggling and tried to wangle a fee for my half day’s work. But I am far too soft and nice, and so I forwarded him every single email and agreed to forward him all future miss sent messages.

The other David Eagle replied with his thanks, his apologies and expressed surprise by the sheer volume of emails. Over the coming weeks the emails kept pouring in, and I would forward each one to the other David Eagle. At the start he would respond with a “thanks,” but after awhile he stopped responding. I received a couple of emails over Christmas and I forwarded them onto him with a little friendly Christmas message, telling him that these were his Christmas presents from me. I didn’t get anything back. I got another email for him a few days later, which I forwarded to him and told him that because he’d been good, I was giving him two Christmas presents this year. He clearly wasn’t interested in my attempts to engage in such idle banter. I continue to forward his emails to him regardless, in spite of his lack of gratitude or even acknowledgement , because that’s the kind of nice person I am.

Without me, he might never know that his villa project was ready to have faze two implemented, and he might be sat at his desk, twiddling his thumbs, wondering why faze one was taking so damn long. Recently I got an email for the other David Eagle from a company who had booked a rather posh hotel for him with breakfast included and it was all paid for by the company. All the information about the booking reference and the people who had booked it was included in the email. I could have gone to the hotel, handed over the dails, pretended to be the other dAvid Eagle, and had a free stay and a breakfast. But, because I am nice, I forwarded the details to the intended David Eagle. And did I get a thank you? No.

If this ungrateful silence from the other David Eagle continues, then I may be inclined to ask you all who are reading this to email david@davidmeagle.co.uk and make loads of Dollop related references, as if you thought you were emailing me. And we’ll see how he likes it? And we’ll see if he forwards the emails to me. I don’t think this David Eagle realises who he might be potentially making an enemy of. I have the power to instruct my army of readers to never use David Eagle from Stoke’s design consultancy services, and this could have disastrous consequences for David Eagle’s business. After all , I have at least 200 people reading this, David, and there’s a chance that maybe one or two of those people might have needed some design consultancy doing, and maybe they might have come to you, but not now. So as you can see, David, you don’t want to be messing with me. A thank you costs nothing, but a lack of a thank you could end up costing you dearly. It’s a shame to war with my own namesake, but you are forcing my hand, David Eagle. I’ve stopped putting little jocular messages in the forwards now, because it’s clear that you’re not up for bantering, and that’s fine. But a thank you would be nice. And I don’t even require a thank you for every email; just once in a while would be nice. We David Eagles have a reputation to uphold, and this lack of common curtisy is not doing the David Eagle name any favours.

Thank you.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I checked my emails. I was still in bed. This was another of my delaying tactics to gain me a bit longer before I got up. I’ve already checked Twitter, Facebook, The Guardian and the Huffington post, replied to Dollop comments from my adoring fans – hello by the way. I also checked my emails when I originally woke up, but that was over an hour ago, so I should really give the inbox another quick check, and then I’ll definitely get up, I reasoned

I opened my new email. “Morning David, Alex here, just to let you know that we are ready to implement faze two. Details below. I look forward to your response, plus any news you have about the villa.” Ah, that’s nice, excellent news, good old Alex. Hang on, who is Alex? And what does he mean by “faze two?” Is he referring to my Dollop from a few days ago entitled Eaglebot Faze One, where I suggested that there are so many recordings on the Internet of me speaking – with this daily blog and such – that if I ever found myself in a similar situation to Steven Hawking then I could have a specially programmed voice which would be my actual voice, rather than the synthetic Steven Hawking voice. This would also be rather practical, especially when I’m communicating with any of my blind friends, as they would know that it was me talking, rather than getting confused and thinking that they were chatting to Steven Hawking. Maybe Alex was a computer programmer who had gotten to work on this project, uploading recordings of my voice saying various words into the database, and now he’d reached the stage where he was ready to implement faze two, what ever that was, but it sounded exciting, almost as exciting as an anecdote about socks (see yesterday’s Dollop).

I was a bit puzzled by the line, “I look forward to your response, plus any news about the villa.” If this computer programmer had managed to create a prototype of the Eaglebot and send me an email about it, then presumably he was able to use the Internet, so why couldn’t he get his own football news – I assumed he was referring to aston Villa football club. Perhaps he was emailing from somewhere like China, and the government for some reason had blocked the Googling of Aston Villa, and this poor computer programmer was bereft of news about his chosen English football club. I don’t know why the Chinese government would be concerned with their citizens finding information about aston Villa, but I am merely a British folk singer and blogger; I am not clued up about Chinese Government policy, and to be honest, it wasn’t an area I wanted to be interfering in. I was unsure of how to proceed. Obviously I wanted to know more about his work on the Eaglebot, but was it worth making an enemy of the Chinese Government over?

I read the rest of the email, wondering what the “details below” would reveal. It soon became clear that the email was not intended for me, but for the other David Eagle. The other David Eagle runs something called a Design Consultancy company in stoke. It’s something to do with the design of buildings. So the reference in this email to “the villa,” was about an actual villa, as opposed to Aston Villa.

I’ve been getting lots of this David Eagle’s emails since the start of last year. It started with an email from one of David Eagle’s clients, wanting his input on some attached floor plan drawings. I emailed back to let him know that I was very ill qualified to help him in this regard, given my lack of knowledge regarding floor plans, and due to being unable to see the drawings because of being blind. I got an email back apologising, saying that he must have taken down the email address incorecctly.

But the seed had now been planted, for there were about another fifty people copied into his first email to me, and their computer had presumably saved the email address, meaning that every time someone went to email David Eagle, they got me instead. Over the next few weeks I replied to so many emails , requesting advice about various attached drawings and documents and I received a whole host of questions, and often there would be other people copied into the message, and so the chain grew, and I got more and more emails. As the weeks went on, I amassed quite the collection of confidential documents, invoices, contact details, information about business deals. I considered getting in touch with a rival design consultancy team, and seeing how much money they’d cough up for access to all this information about their competition. I kept replying to them and explaining that they’d got the wrong email address, but the emails kept coming and coming.

Then, after a couple of months of this, I finally got an email from the other David Eagle. What the email said is something I shall divulge to you tomorrow. Oh yes my friends, a cliffhanger, although to be honest, the cliffhanger is born more out of the fact that I am falling asleep at the computer, rather than it signifying anything of dramatic value to come.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

This is probably going to be a really short Dollop, because I am out and have no time to write anything. My plan was to spend the train journey writing, but when I got on the train all the seats were taken – you’ll have to take my word for it, in lieu of CCTV footage. I know that Corbyn traingate jokes are a bit old hat, but I haven’t got the time to think of anything more original or clever – sorry.

Last week I managed to write a Dollop on a train with no free seats by finding some space underneath the luggage wrack and sitting on the floor with my laptop on my crossed legs, but this train was too packed to even afford me any floor-sitting space, so I had to stand whilst people jostled for space, rubbing themselves against me (so it wasn’t all bad).

I then had to wait at the station for my connecting train. I searched for a seat, but they were all taken. I needed somewhere to sit so that I could get my laptop out and hurriedly write today’s Dollop. I found a narrow metal bar. It wasn’t very comfortable, and it was angled so that I kept nearly falling off it, but, bloggers can’t be choosers. That’s a good line, I thought (something which I’m sure you also have just thought) I must remember to write it in today’s Dollop. I got out my laptop to make a note of my hilarious play on words and to make a start on the blog, but it was impossible; the bar was too angled, and the laptop kept falling off my lap. I would have to wait until I got on the next train, where I would have just half an hour to write something.

The next train did have seats free, but when I sat down, a new problem presented itself. There were no double seats free, only seats next to someone or shared table seats. I opted for one of the table seats, and was just about to pull out my laptop when …

“Lovely day for it,” came the elderly posh sounding voice of the man on the seat opposite me. I wasn’t sure what exactly the “it” was that it was a lovely day for, but I didn’t have time to get into a discussion about “it,” so I muttered my agreement as politely as I could. The trouble is that I am too polite and self-conscious to snub someone’s invitation for a conversation. Despite needing to get immediately to work on the Dollop, I nevertheless was unable to merely give a non-committed grunt, indicating to the man my disinterest in talking to him. Instantly I felt awkward and guilty about my lacklustre response to his friendly, “lovely day for it,” and my next course of action was to do all I could to redress my initial weak offering. Even though I knew that if I didn’t get this Dollop written on the train then I would have to do it while I was out, and thus be extremely antisocial, at least I’d be being anti-social with close friends, and that, for some reason, didn’t make me feel as uncomfortable as ignoring a stranger’s small talk. My brain was sending me messages that this man and everyone in the carriage was looking at me and judging me as a dull, anti-social misery. It was now up to me to save the situation, turn it around, and show them that I was no such thing.

“Yes my friend,” I said with piles of enthusiasm, “it certainly is? So,” I clapped my hands, “To where are you bound, my friend?” I jovially intoned. No, now I’d gone too far the other way. I was sounding far too energetic and excitable for a casual bit of small talk with a stranger on a train. I’d tried to compensate for my earlier taciturn response, but had clearly overcompensated. I’d been far too loud and energetic, called him my friend twice, which was a bit desperate, and clapped my hands. Why had I clapped my hands? And why did I say, “to where are you bound?” Who says, “to where are you bound?” “Where are you off to then?” would have been more conventional, rather than loudly enquiring, “to where are you bound, my friend?” with great relish. I’d also employed a weird singsong posh accent; I have no idea why – maybe I thought it gave me a more cheery, friendly manner, but actually it just made me sound odd.

The man told me to where he was bound, and we fell into conversation. I instantly decided to ditch the weird posh singsong voice, assuming that he’d soon forget about it once he’d become distracted by my scintillating conversation.

Scintillating it wasn’t. My mind was on the Dollop and the fact that I was going to have to somehow write it while I was out, and ignore my friends. I have no idea how we got onto the topic, but he was talking about the fact that he had to buy a new pair of socks because when he woke up this morning he discovered that there was a hole in one of them. I then became aware of the sound of my own voice saying, “I always get holes in my socks. I don’t know how it happens. I don’t remember them having a hole in when I take them off, but when I put them back on again, there’s a hole.” What the hell was I blabbering on about? Both me and the man gave almost identical timid, joyless laughs. I’m not sure why we laughed, it wasn’t very funny, but I suppose it just felt like the right thing to do. If he’d said the thing about waking up to find a hole in his sock, and I’d have countered with, “oh, darn it,” then that would have been very different, then we’d have had good reason to laugh, but I was being altogether too dull for that kind of hilarious wordplay. I wondered what the other people near must think of us. They must think we were the most boring people on the planet. I expect that you are thinking the same thing right now, having just read this Dollop. Sorry. Anyway, I must go, before my friends disown me.

Today’s Dollop might rankle the Dollop purists and cause them to cry Judas, for today I hand over the reins to Niall Boylan, a radio talk show host on Northern Ireland radio station 4FM.

Download today’s audio Dollop here