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The lift in our hotel in Cardiff has music playing in it. It’s not the radio or actual commercial music, but the kind of stuff that’s referred to as elevator music. I’ve not heard music in a lift for a long time. When I was a child I remember music in lifts, but nowadays it is rare that lifts have music. It seems a bit pointless. In most cases you are in the lift for no longer than thirty seconds. And a good amount of that time is punctuated by a voice announcing, “doors opening,” “doors closing,” “lift going up,” “first floor,” “second floor.” The music is only really audible for about ten seconds of your time in the lift. The music wasn’t particularly loud. It was only audible if there was no conversation going on. So really it does seem like a completely pointless feature.

I wonder who makes elevator music, and who created the piece of music that was playing barely audibly in the lifts of this particular hotel in Cardiff? Are they proud of their work? Maybe they deliberately bring their family to holiday at this specific hotel in order to impress them. Maybe he/she doesn’t tell their family beforehand, wanting it to be a nice surprise for them, relishing the look on their faces when the children realise that their parent is responsible for the music that is played on loop in the lift.

The family check into their hotel, and the dad (the lift music composer) is trembling slightly with the excitement. They will be so proud of him when they realise that he is the man behind the lift ambient music.

“OK everyone, to the lift,” he says, trying to sound nonchalant, not wanting to bely his excitement. He marches towards the lift, but then deliberately slows down his pace, realising that he’s in danger of losing the nonchalance. He turns his brisk walk into a casual stroll.

“Excuse me sir,” calls the receptionist, “your room is on this floor. There’s no need to take the lift.”

Damn, why hadn’t he checked which floor his room was on when he booked the hotel? Now he would have no reason to take the lift, as looking around he could see that all the hotel’s facilities – the pool, the gym, the restaurant and their room – were all located on the ground floor. Well that was it. The game was up. This entire holiday was a pointless waste. They’d travelled all the way from Edinburgh to come here. His wife had been furious with him. “Why have you booked a hotel in Cardiff, when there’s so many options closer to home that would be much less stressful to get to, and wouldn’t involve hours in the car with moaning restless children?” But he had tried to placate her by showing her all the things they could do once they got to their destination. Obviously it hadn’t been about that for him. All he wanted was for his wife and children to understand what he’d been doing with his life for the last two years.

His wife knew he was a composer, but she hadn’t seen much money come in, and had never been invited to see any of the works he’d composed being performed in any theatres or music halls. That was because he didn’t compose for the theatres or the music halls. That wasn’t his thing. He was a lift music composer, and proud of it.

He’d dreamed of being a lift music composer since he was a small boy. He remembered his career advisor and teachers at school laughing at him when he told them. “You might have to rethink your dreams a bit,” they told him. “I mean, I really don’t think you can make a living simply from composing music for lifts. You’d probably have to branch out into ambient music for shopping centres, airport lounges, hospital waiting rooms and the like too.” But he was adamant. He didn’t want his music to be played in hospital waiting areas, airport lounges or shopping centres. The music that he could hear buzzing around his febrile brain all day everyday was clearly music designed ultimately and exclusively for lifts. And one day he’d prove them all wrong.

Then one day, ten years ago, he met the love of his life. They started dating and he fell head over heels for her. He’d never ffelt this excited about anyone before. The only thing he’d ever cared about was his lift music. Then one day, six months into their courtship, he finally revealed to her his dream, that one day his music would be featured in a lift. And she laughed. She laughed! He had been crushed by her laugh, but he vowed to himself that one day he would prove her wrong and that she would hear his music played in a lift and she would be so overcome with emotion and love him all the more. He hadn’t quite imagined it would take another ten years for his dream to come true. He kept sending out demos to thotels, but he never heard anything back. He didn’t know how to go about advertising himself and his music. How did people get their music in lifts? He knew that it was possible, for he had heard music in lifts before. It always filled him with anger and loathing whenever he was in a lift and he heard lift music. It was never right. It lacked the spirit and the commitment that his music had. He could tell that it had merely been churned out half-heartedly by someone who was obviously not remotely interested in how it sounded. How could someone be awarded such a coveted and esteemed role, to compose music that would be played in a lift, and then waste the opportunity by producing this kind of nondescript, redundant bilge? It made him sick, it made him angry, but it also made him even more determined. One day, he kept telling himself, one day!

“I thought we’d go to the top floor and appreciate the view,” he said to the receptionist and to his family, who had wondered why their dad was marching to the lift, when their room was on the floor they were currently standing on.

“It’s been a long journey,” said his wife, exasperatedly. “Let’s go straight to our room and freshen up before heading off to the restaurant over there for something to eat.”

“There isn’t really a view to admire from in here sir,” explained the receptionist. “there are no windows in the corridors.
You’d get to see a really nice view if you went outside the hotel and walked up the steps.”

Steps?! Bloody steps?! Damn them all. He was starting to get fidgety. He didn’t give two hoots for the sodding view, he wanted to take the lift and show his wife and his children what he’d been painstakingly working on for the last two years. He wanted to vindicate himself to them, and demonstrate why he’d been so detached from them all for the last two years. He’d essentially kept himself cooped up in his studio, experimenting with musical ideas and perfecting his composition. He’d not made much money from that venture, but it wasn’t the money that was important to him. But of course his wife and children could never understand that. But if they only heard his music in that lift, then they would see, surely then they would see?

“Is there another restaurant to eat in on another floor by any chance,” he asked, praying that they would be.

“No sir, all the facilities are on your floor sir, so it’ll be really convenient for you, you won’t have to get the lift at all sir.”

Her words pierced him, and he had to fight to stop himself flying into a rage.

“Perfect,” said his wife, and started heading in the direction of their room, and the kids followed. But he just stood there. He couldn’t believe it. They’d travelled all this way, and for nothing.

His wife turned back to him and irritatedly enquired as to why he wasn’t following. He told her that he’d be with them soon, and to go ahead without him. His wife, reaching the end of her tether, having seen the man she’d once loved become more and more detached from her and the children, turned away and walked with the kids to the room, and disappeared inside.

He turned to the receptionist. “Would you do me a big favour,” he said to her.

“What’s that sir?”

“I need you to change our room to one on the top floor.”

The receptionist was nonplussed.

“Could you pretend that there’s something wrong with our room booking and that there’s been a mistake, and say that we have to move to a room on the top floor?”

The conversation went on for nearly half an hour. The receptionist explained that all the rooms were fully booked out on the top floor, and on all the other floors, and as there was actually nothing wrong with their room, there was no grounds for moving them. Eventually after much remonstrating, he resorted to bribing the receptionist to do his bidding, giving her all of his money that he’d earned from the lift composition work. All the money for two years work had just been spent bribing a receptionist, but the money wasn’t what was important here; he needed to get his wife and children in that lift so that they could hear his music and finally understand. And this was the only way of achieving that. The receptionist agreed to call the customers staying in one of the rooms on the top floor, and tell them that there’d been a mistake with their booking, and that they were actually meant to be staying in a room on the bottom floor, and then he and his wife and children could move to the room at the top floor. He thanked her profusely. He was so excited he nearly kissed her.

He hurried to his family room on the bottom floor and broke the news to them, trying to keep his excitement hidden. His wife was not particularly pleased, as she had literally just got undressed to get in the shower. But she put her clothes back on and she and the kids followed her husband out of their room and towards the lift. Fiannly!

The lift seemed to take an age to arrive. The kids were growing restless, and one of them started making for the stairs and shouted to his brother, “I’ll race you to the top.” His dad’s heart sank, as his children disappeared from view and began to run up the stairs. He tried shouting them back, but his wife told him to leave it, the exercise would be good for them. Damn! He’d wanted his children to share in this special moment, and to understand why their dad had been so distant and cold for the last two years. But at least he still had his wife with him. The moment wasn’t entirely ruined.

“Actually, I think I could do with the exercise too, plus it’ll beat standing here like a lemon waiting for the slowest lift in the world to grace us with its presence.” She began to make for the stairs. He grabbed her arm.

“No,” he shouted. His wife was stunned. It had come out more aggressively than he’d wanted. “Darling,” he added, a bit softer, hoping that that would help placate her. “The lift will be here soon.” His wife protested against his arm grabbing and aggressive shouting. Their children would be at the top floor now waiting for them. She began to head for the stairs again, but at that moment the lift arrived.

“The lift!” he cried, his voice an octave higher than usual. “Look darling, the lift!” She was still heading for the stairs. He ran towards her, and almost rugby tackled her, then grabbed her arm again, and dragged her, as nonchalantly as he could, into the lift. She was both flummoxed and fuming at this, and spent the first two floors berating him for his strange and aggressive behaviour. He wasn’t listening to her, for underneath her words he could hear the faint sound of music, music which he knew only too well, for it was his music, his composition, his pride and joy. This is the moment he’d been waiting for all his life, the moment that he’d been desperate to share with his wife, and she was just shouting over it, completely oblivious. Whenever he’d dreamt about this moment, it had always been romantic, beautiful and poignant. As his music played in the lift, he would softly and tenderly tell her and his children why he’d been so cold and detached all these years. He’d explain that he’d been busy in his studio all day, creating the very music that was emanating from this lift, music that he had fixated on and pawed over in immense detail, considering every nuance, every chord, every intricate melodic motif, to create the best possible lift music experience that he could. He would watch his wife and children’s faces glow with emotion, tears welling up in all their eyes, as they finally realised what kind of a man he was. And finally, they would understand him, and he’d feel at peace, at last.

But it was all going horribly wrong. They were now at the third floor of ten, and his wife’s barrage of words hadn’t abated. He made to press his hands to her lips to stop her noise, desperate to make her hear. This was driving him insane. But then the doors opened and two people got in. Excellent, he thought. He knew that his wife would be too embarrassed to shout at him now that there were others in the lift. He’d not counted on there being others in the lift. It wasn’t ideal. This was to be a hugely emotional and poignant moment for him, and he didn’t really want other people present. But then, on the plus side they were keeping his wife from shouting at him, so in a way he was glad of their intrusion.

“Doors closing,” said the lift. Damn, he’d not accounted for the fact that his beautiful music would be ruined by the sounds of an automated voice. It did nothing to add to the beauty of his creation. He made a mental note to ask the hotel if they could remove the automated voice from the lift, as it was getting in the way of the lift music listening experience. He’d mention it to the receptionist later that …

“Lift going up.” Bloody hell, there it was again. And that was a really good bit of the piece as well, a crucial part of the composition that tied the whole thing together , and it had been completely desecrated by that stupid voice. He’d definitely say something when he …

“Lovely day?” came a big, brash, confident sounding American voice. It was the man who had just entered the lift on the second floor.

“Yes, very nice,” replied his wife. He couldn’t believe it. His music was playing in their midst, and they had seemingly not been affected by it in the slightest. It was those bloody announcements. They had completely obscured his masterpiece and …

“So, how long are you staying for?” asked the man’s partner. There must be a volume control on this lift somewhere. He needed to discretely get the music louder. It was far too quiet. You could barely hear it above the announcements and the sound of the lift’s motor.

My goodness, I have written over 2500 words. As much as I am enjoying myself, we have unfortunately arrived at our gig in London. When I started writing this Dollop, I hadn’t intended to write a story about a harased and misunderstood lift music composer. I was merely intending to muse for a bit about how much a lift music composer gest paid, and whether they take pride in their compositions or just churn them out with scant regard for artistic merit. Do they bemoan the fact that there isn’t a lift music programme on BBC Radio 3, or that they never get asked to feature their creations at posh arts centre evenings? But I’m sure you’ll agree that my lift music composer drama has massively exceeded all your expectations.

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We walked onto the stage at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury, and as the applause died down I could hear what sounded like a jet engine from behind us. I was momentarily thrown into panic. Had the last three weeks been a dream? Was I about to wake up and find myself back on that bloody plane heading back from Australia, and realise that I’d dreamt the last three weeks and still have another twenty hours of flying to go? Would I wake up and realise that I’m still only at Dollop … But surely not? The dream had gone on far too long for it to really be a dream. If it was a dream, there was no way that it could have lasted for this long without something weird happening like Michael turning into a chicken.

As we reached the front of the stage, the next thing I noticed was that there were plumes of smoke heading towards me. I could also see a big white light spreading out ahead of me. Had something gone wrong with the plane, and I was now being ushered from this earthly realm to the afterlife? But I couldn’t die yet, I still had so much to achieve. I hadn’t yet completed my 366 consecutive daily blogging challenge, nor had I succeeded in putting Hartlepool back on top of the teenage pregnancy league, nor had I yet taken the comedy world by storm with my award winning sell-out run of standup shows all about my kettle, which would then be turned into an OSCAR winning film. There were so many things still left to achieve. I couldn’t die yet.

But fortunately, the only thing that was dying was the applause from the Shrewsbury crowd. The blinding light and shrouding smoke remained, and the roar of the jet engine continued from behind me, and Sean began to speak. The gig was under way, and I hadn’t woken up on a gruellingly long plane journey, or found myself dead and heading for the afterlife. The first comment that Sean made was to observe our strange environment, and the fact that there was a jet engine like roar coming from behind us, a blinding light in our faces and a smoke machine pelting out smoke.

It was a bit weird having a smoke machine as part of the gig. We were trying to sing, but we kept swallowing the smoke, and our throats were getting drier than normal. At the interval we asked the tech people about the blinding lights, the smoke and the jet engine noise. Apparently the jet engine noise was being caused by the generators used to power the blinding lights. They informed us that they could turn it off, but that this would mean having to lose the big lights. They didn’t seem too keen on this idea, but it seemed like a no-brainer for us, after all, we’d lose the blinding lights and the jet engine to boot. They would still have plenty of lighting options, just not the one that resulted in blinding the performers. We also mentioned the smoke machine, butt the technicians seemed even more reluctant to turn this off than they had been about the jet engine inducing blinding lights, Apparently it added atmosphere, which might be jeopardised if there was no smoke. They didn’t seem convinced by our argument that we’d been gigging for ten years, and we’d seemed to have managed pretty fine without smoke in all that time, but perhaps they had a point. Maybe we’d have won the folk award a lot earlier if we’d have only had the foresight and the vision to have incorporated smoke into our gigs. But I got the feeling that the technicians had just been bought some new techy toys to play with by the venue, and we were spoiling there fun by asking them for a more minimal approach, and so we let them have their smoke machine.

Upon walking out onto the stage for the second half, the jet engine had gone, as had the blinding lights, and I think the three of us and the audience all felt much more relaxed and it was a really enjoyable second half. Although, in fairness, maybe none of it had much to do with us; maybe the amazing atmosphere was down to the techies and their smoke-based antics. Thanks lads. I think the techies really enjoyed our performance though. They didn’t tell us that themselves in words, but as we turned to leave the stage, they were blowing smoke up our arses.

At the gig I spoke to lots of people who listen or read these Dollops. No one shouted out “pissing dog-lady” or any other dollop-related heckles though. Either my Dollop listeners are just too refined and polite to shout out, or they want to keep me for themselves as their little secret, perhaps worrying that if I get too popular, I might sell out and start doing more mainstream jokes, ditching the groundbreaking stuff about kettles in favour of more proffetable subject matter. This would also explain why none of you are bothering to write my Wikipedia article. Although, actually, I got a comment from Chastity Payne, who hasn’t published the Wikipedia article yet, but has made a start. This is what she has written thus-far.

“David Eagle, Popular Flogger (that’s Folk Blogger) and self-styled Prince of Hartlepool charms folk audiences and podcast readers alike with gravelly-voiced bass vibrations.”

Even though she may end up publishing this on Wikipedia, I think she knows that it will be only a matter of seconds until it’s deleted by the editors. She has deliberately left out any factual detail and instead gone for jokes, knowing that it’ll never get passed the editors. Her hope is clearly that I will still view her as my favourite Dollop reader/listener for putting the effort in, yet she will still have managed to keep me a secret from the general public by deliberately writing an article that will immediately be removed. You are not fooling me, Chastity Payne, in fact I’d even go so far as to suggest that that’s not even your real name. You can’t fool me.

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As well as stories from on tour, hilarious anecdotes about domestic appliances, and campaigns to impregnate eighteen-year-old Hartlepool-based girls, David’s Daily Digital Dollop is also your portal for news relating to the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, a new brand of religion that is growing in popularity. This week saw the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster conduct its first legally recognised wedding in the UK. The fact that the news articles state “first legally recognised wedding ceremony,” it suggests that the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster have previously been carrying out none-legally recognised wedding ceremonies, and I wonder whether, now that they have got legal approval, they have abandoned the none-legally recognised option. I hope they haven’t. I think it would be quite fun to have a Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster wedding ceremony – the first one was onboard a pirate ship, which is much more fun than a church or registery office – without having to worry about actually being wed to anyone.

Also, I could maybe dupe some hapless girl into thinking that it’s a none-legally recognised wedding ceremony we’re having, when in fact it’s actually a real, legally valid marriage. I’d convince her that we should do the fake one for a bit of fun, and she’d agree in a spirit of joie de vivre, none-the-wiser to her true fate. I might try this on the next girl I fancy. If you blog readers could keep this to yourselves, as I don’t want word getting out and ruining my master plan. In return for your silence on this matter, I will reward you by podcasting the entire wedding ceremony; not the wedding night though, sorry Chloe.

I’d also appreciate it if you didn’t let on to Sean about the news that the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster has started doing legally recognised weddings. He has already booked his wedding, and he would be massively disappointed to note that if he’d just held out a little longer, he could be having a Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster wedding ceremony onboard a pirate ship. I dare not tell him, lest he should cancel his already booked wedding ceremony. I really don’t want to have to go to another wedding fair and try and pretend I know about flowers and table decorations again; although, having said that, I imagine a Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster wedding fair would be a lot more exciting than a boring normal one. Presumably us lads would also go out on a spag party the night before. It would be much more fun. Damn Sean and his impulsiveness.

Fear not Young’uns Podcast fans, our two Sheffield gigs yesterday were really good and so I’ve got loads of material for you. For the afternoon gig, we invited some people from the Asylum seekers’ charity Assist to come and do a brief talk to the audience during our gig, and also to do a raffle to raise money for the charity. It was uplifting to note that the asylum seekers who came along to the gig were clearly enjoying the performance, properly belly-laughing at the jokes and having a good time. The principle point of them being there was so that they could speak about their experiences as asylum seekers and spread the word about the charity, but the fact that they stayed for the entirety of the gig and were laughing along and having a really good time with everyone else was really gratifying. It’s another visible reminder that we are all essentially just the same, only our circumstances are so vastly different. This small group of people had come to our gig, laughed heartily along and really enjoyed it, despite the fact that they had come from a place, unimaginably starker to ours, with the fear of having to go back looming over them. No, I’m not talking about the asylum seekers any more, I’m referring to the party of people who travelled to see us from Hull.

Might that be the cheapest and the most obvious and worst joke of David’s daily Digital Dollop thus-far? Sorry, but I felt that the Dollop was running a bit light on jokes, so I just shoehorned something in. In my defence, I’ve been up for quite awhile, haven’t had much sleep on this tour, and am currently in the van, desperate for the toilet and feeling very hungry, having had nothing to eat yet. We are heading to a school in Shrewsbury for our next community event, before we head to tonight’s gig, also in Shrewsbury.

We are pulling up to school now so I am going to have to leave this Dollop here. Perhaps I’ll have time to write a bit more and make this Dollop a little more interesting than it has been so far. Something might happen in the school that I can comment on, after all, children say the funniest things, apparently, although you’ll notice that none of the best comedians are under sixteen, so I’m not sure how much stock we can really put in that statement.

OK, just got back in the van after our school event, but sadly none of the children said anything amusing that would warrant inclusion in this Dollop. We give up our time for free and go into their school, and yet they can’t even give something back and come up with a joke for my blog, the ungrateful bastards. I had a conversation with one child who I thought had comic potential, but he just advised me to make a derogatory remark about Hull. But I told him I’d already resorted to that, and sadly he couldn’t come up with anything else.

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The audio part of this challenge has failed, thanks to the Edinburgh Pleasance Theatre’s woeful Internet speed. I left my laptop running for the entirety of yesterday’s gig, but when I came back to it after the gig, the audio still hadn’t uploaded. I did manage to get the written version published though, so I’ve still managed to publish a blog every day of this year.

Technology also failed me during the gig. As we came on the stage for the second half, I placed my digital recorder down on the stage in front of me, but it toppled over and the memory card came out. While Sean was introducing the next song, I tried to restart the recording, but the recorder had completely stopped working. I tried the on/off switch repeatedly, but nothing happened. Taking the batteries out didn’t help either, neither did taking out the memory card. I thought about trying to record on my mobile phone, but I’d already spent five minutes of the gig faffing around with the digital recorder to no avail, and I didn’t really want to faff around any more and impair the gig, which was going exceptionally well. The gig was certainly the best of the tour so far, and there would have been quite a lot of material for the podcast. I did explain to the audience that the recorder had stopped working, and joked that I hoped the gig would be rubbish and boring, as it would be a waste if only 130 people got to hear it. While this was a joke, there was a small part of me who actually meant it. Every time something funny or interesting happened in the gig, I was filled with a mixture of gladness that the gig was going so well, but annoyance that the gig was going so well and that it wouldn’t be going on the podcast. I hoped that someone in the audience would record it, but no one came up to me after the gig to say that they had. Again, it’s all take take take with The Young’uns fans. So unfortunately, you will never get to hear what happened when Michael took off all his clothes, or when that lion suddenly bounded onto the stage and Sean heroically wrestled it to the floor and then we pacified it with a ballad. But, never mind.

Towards the end of the gig, Irish brought the three of us a beer onto the stage. Apparently, this angered the bar staff, because we were drinking beer that wasn’t sold at the bar, but was the complimentary beer provided by the people who organised the gig. The organiser of the gig came to us after our performance and apologetically asked us if we could leave our beers in the dressing room and not take it into the theatre when we go and meet people, because the bar staff had been giving him quite a bit of grief.

Apparently, one of the people running the bar was so annoyed that he was considering coming onto the stage and taking the beers from us, but someone talked him out of it. If he had come onto the stage then I would be pretty annoyed, not because of the barman’s attitude, but because it would have been hilarious and I’d be massively pissed off if it happened and we didn’t get a recording of it for the podcast.

It seemed a bit odd though to be churlish about three people on stage drinking beer that wasn’t bought at the bar, considering that we’d brought 130 people to their venue, who were buying drink from them. I doubt that the barman would have been very popular if he marched onto the stage and took the drinks off us. It’s not as if it could happen without us making reference to it. We’d probably have gotten him to explain himself over the microphone, which would have probably been rather awkward, and I don’t think he’d ingratiate himself to anyone. I think though, not wanting to create a hostile atmosphere, I’d probably get him to join in with one of our songs, which I think he’d find even more awkward. If he refused then he’d look like a massive party pooper and it would consolidate his position as a bit of a nob, whereas if he joined in, it would be difficult for him to simultaneously be singing while being angry, and it would make a mockery out of his annoyance. So I think he made the wise decision to moan in relative privacy.

Despite the recorder malfunction, I was in a good mood. The gig had gone really well, and also Jenny, the girl with health problems who featured in my positivity experiment Dollop, came to the gig. She did not, however, shout out any Dollop-related heckles or attempt to start any Dollop-based chants, but perhaps she was intending to, but then realised that if she had done it then I would be annoyed that the incident hadn’t been recorded. I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt. However, the recorder seems to have started working now, so there’s no excuse for any of you coming to Sheffield.

We’re doing two gigs in Sheffield today, because the first one sold out so quickly. So we’re doing two full 90 minute performances in the same venue, one in the afternoon and another in the evening. We drove to Hartlepool after the gig last night, as it was the halfway point between Edinburgh and Sheffield, and we didn’t fancy a six hour drive late at night straight after our gig. We didn’t get to sleep until about 3am, and we were up at 830. So it’s going to be a long day with two 90 minute gigs. Hopefully we can recreate the magic of Edinburgh, and you free loaders can then enjoy it on The Young’uns Podcast at some point soon.

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It’s finally happened. Someone who saw us for the first time at our short free afternoon gig at the Robert Gillow pub in Lancaster has contacted us to say that they have set up a Young’uns Wikipedia page. She enjoyed the gig so much that she immediately went on the Internet to find our Wikipedia page, keen to learn more about us. But, because none of our so-called fans have been committed enough to set one up, she was unable to read about us on Wikipedia. So she decided to set one up herself. When I got this message I was a bit unsure of how accurate her article would be, given that she’d absolutely no idea about us, hence why she’d searched for us on Wikipedia. But she had clearly done her research. It’s quite a short article, with just the basic facts, but she has cited quite a few references, included some quotes, added all the links to the various things she’s cited, and included a discography. Hopefully her efforts will be the catalyst for others to join in and add more. You can find the article here.

When I searched for the Young’uns article, one of the related searches that popped up on Wikipedia’s results was, David Eagle. Upon entering on this it brought up a list of David Eagle’s. I was listed at the very top, described as “David Eagle, English singer with The Young’uns.” I didn’t actually have a Wikipedia page, but for some reason I am still recognised by Wikipedia, and am listed above the David Eagles who do have actual Wikipedia articles. So if you haven’t bought a ticket for a gig on our tour and are feeling a bit guilty, you can make amends by adding to the Young’uns recently added Wikipedia -page, and/or create one about me. Come on, I don’t ask you for much do I? All I’ve ever asked of you is to shout out dollop-related chants at Young’uns gigs in order to force me into pretending to be all embarrassed about having to explain David’s Daily Digital Dollop to the audience, giving me free promotion, without it seeming like I’ve been arrogant enough to talk about it on my own volition. And if you happen to know any eighteen-year-old girls from Hartlepool that I can impregnate in order to help get my home town back to the top of the teenage pregnancy league, knocking Burnley off the top spot, then you can help me out with that too. And I’d like you to create a David Eagle Wikipedia page. Those three things are all I want from you. Oh, and your body.

The free Robert Gillow pub gig also yielded another interesting result. We were contacted by someone who writes and records grime music, a UK variant of hiphop. He was really taken with the subjects covered in our songs, talking about social issues and our local area, telling real people’s stories. These are the things that he portrays in his music, and this is true with the Grime scene in general. He writes and raps about the same things as we do, only we have chosen different genres of music to express these ideas. He was so inspired by our performance in the pub that he immediately started writing a new song, inspired by our song You Won’t Find Me On Benefits Street, about Stockton’s defiant opposition to being negatively stigmatised by the Channel 4 reality TV show. He wants to use a sample of it in his song, and he sent us the lyrics he wrote after our gig. It’s a very different approach to the way we structure a song, for a start there’s a lot more swearing, but the lyrics were really good. It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this, and hopefully he’ll get it recorded and we can play it and chat with him on The Young’uns Podcast. We’ve only done one free community event so far on this tour, but it’s already brought us into contact with people who wouldn’t ordinarily access our music, and who we wouldn’t ordinarily meet in an arts centre or folk club.

Perhaps our Grime friend will find these Dollops and become inspired to create a Grime concept album around the subject matter covered in these blogs. I think he could do a really good hiphop, profanity laden take on my malfunctioning kettle. I’m sure the kids will love that. He might also be able to help me reach a younger audience, meaning that more legal aged teenage girls from Hartlepool will become aware of who I am, and thus it will further my noble impregnation cause. It’s all fitting into place. Perhaps this is yet another sign from God. I am being given a second chance after my failure to take the opportunity that was presented to me earlier in the week when I was speaking to a load of Hartlepool college students. I dare not fritter away this new opportunity, lest I should properly anger God this time. Of course, there is a chance that if I did squander this opportunity then God would forgive me again, but there is an equal chance that he might be angered so much that he decides to smite me. There is just no knowing with God. He is clearly a complex character. At one point in the bible, he’s telling us that he’s an all-loving, forgiving God, and then mere pages later he tells us that he’s a jealous and vengeful God. I think God is probably bipolar, after all, he did create a planet that’s bipolar, and perhaps his idea to incorporate both a North and South pole on his planet was a kind of subtle cry for help. You might think that this is the most ridiculous, and feebly contrived idea, but then I’d counter that view by reminding you that God works in mysterious ways, which surely just makes the ridiculousness work to give the idea more plausibility? Think on that, unless you’ve got something better to be doing, in which case you should probably go and do that.

Download the audio version here

Support for this tour comes from Irish Mythen, who Young’uns Podcast listeners may remember from the interview and session we did with her in Kansas last year. She was due to fly in to Manchester from Canada on Monday, a couple of days before the start of the tour, but then she got a blood clot in her kidneys which meant she couldn’t fly until Wednesday. To be honest, I think she just fancied a couple of days off her relentless touring schedule and so dredged up the old all-too-familiar blood clot in the kidneys excuse; we’ve all done it at least once. I don’t know just how gullible she thinks we are.

This meant that she missed Wednesday’s Grantham gig. She’d probably got wind of the fact that she wouldn’t be allowed to drink on stage, which Irish always does, and so decided to wheel out the old trusty kidney blood clot line. She’s also got a thing about covering light shades, so it might have been that as well. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, Irish. Oh yes, she also has a thing for covering eyes as well as light shades; not sure what that’s all about, she is weird.

Her new flight was due to arrive in Manchester at 11am yesterday. The plan was for Michael to pick up the hire car from Manchester airport, pick Irish up from the airport and take her to the Robert Gillow pub in Lancaster, which was where our first community event of the tour was taking place.

We dropped Michael off at the Sheffield train station, and then drove The Young’uns van back to Sean’s, while Michael took a train to Manchester Airport. However, no sooner had the train pulled away, he got a call from Irish informing him that she had missed her flight to Manchester because her flight to Heathrow had been delayed. The next possible flight she could get to Manchester would get her in at 5pm. Michael was due to arrive at the airport for 11am. So Michael was now heading to the airport to pick someone up who wasn’t going to be there for another six hours. He couldn’t just wait at the airport until 5pm, as he had to be at the pub in Lancaster for 1pm. He had no choice but to pick up the hire car, which Irish had paid for but was unable to drive for insurance reasons, and drive to Lancaster. But that didn’t solve the problem of how we were going to get Irish to the gig.

Mark, the landlord of the Robert Gillow Pub is an inspirational man. He is one of these people who makes the pub the heart of the local community, so much more than just a place that sells lager, has a fruit machine and Sky Sports. It serves quality ale and food and has music and entertainment on everyday, including hosting the local folk club and lots of other music nights supporting local performers. But this is just one factor that makes his pub the heart of the local community, because serving quality beer and food and putting on music nights is what a good pub does. When the floods hit the area last year, he opened up his pub to everyone and served free non-alcoholic drinks and food to people, and created sleeping spaces for people who’s homes had been flooded. His pub continues to serve free food and non-alcoholic drinks to anyone who wants it, and works on a trust basis whereby those who can afford it will pay, but those who can’t can have something to eat and drink and somewhere warm to go.

It was a great way to start our run of community events. The pub was full of people, and there was a nice mix of pub regulars who’d not heard of us before, and people who’d come especially because they knew we were on. The event also seemed to fit with the ethos of the landlord and his pub, as we were doing a gig for free, possibly playing to some people who might not feel they have the money to spend on going to an arts centre to watch a gig.

The atmosphere was really friendly and everyone seemed to really enjoy us. We’d been a bit on edge at our Grantham gigs because of the new songs and it being the first day of the tour, but the friendly atmosphere of the pub meant that we were able to fully relax and just let rip and have lots of fun. They’d set up a PA for us, but we decided to just do it unplugged and unaccompanied, as the acoustics were great and it would feel much more intimate than standing on the stage area in front of mics. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, and people weren’t afraid to shout out and join in, in a good and friendly way I mean.

We played for about twenty-five minutes. I’m mentioning this in case there is anyone reading who is getting annoyed that they paid £14 to see us in an arts centre, when they could have just seen us in a pub for free. It was only twenty-five minutes, and we didn’t do any songs with instruments, plus we deliberately made a couple of mistakes in every song, to make sure that these none-paying listeners weren’t getting as polished an experience as you. We also spat at them as well, so don’t worry about being cheated out of your money. I hope that has eased your troubled mind.

After the pub gig, Michael rushed off to get Irish from Manchester Airport. It was a gamble, because we were on stage in Kendal at 830 and Irish started at 8. Irish’s flight was due at 5, but then she’d have to get her luggage and get out of the airport, which could easily take half an hour. Michael would then have to drive from Manchester Airport, through rush hour Manchester traffic to Kendal in time for our gig. It should be easily doable, unless the traffic was really bad. One traffic jam though, and the whole evening could potentially go up in smoke, like a light shade in a pyromaniac’s dressing room in Grantham. The other option was for Irish to get the train. But this would mean that she would definitely miss another gig, as the train wouldn’t get in until 8.

But, Irish’s flight arrived on time, there was no traffic jam, and so they got to the gig with about an hour to spare. Michael seemed surprisingly fresh and lively, considering he’d been driving so much today. Normally he gets quite tired after long driving sessions. Could it be that it might be sharing a van with me and Sean that’s grinding him down, rather than the actual driving? No, of course not.

Last night’s gig in Kendal was really enjoyable. The new songs felt familiar and I was much more relaxed than last night. There was more audience interaction than Grantham too, with people feeling relaxed enough to join in, shout out, sing along and heckle.

Talking of heckling, the other two were a bit nervous at the start of the tour that these Dollops might result in people shouting out odd Dollop-related heckles, which would confuse the general Young’uns fans, who aren’t clever enough to have started reading or listening to these daily blogs. But this hasn’t happened yet. If you are coming to any of the gigs on this tour, then please feel free to randomly shout out Dollop-related phrases, such as, “pissing dog-lady,” “I wouldn’t imagine it would taste very nice,” or maybe try and get a chant of “kettles, kettles, kettles” going. It will amuse me, annoy the other two, confuse a lot of the stupid none-dollop readers, and also I will be forced into a situation where I’ll have to pretend to be all embarrassed and talk about the David’s Daily Digital Dollop project, thus giving me free promotion.

We’re in York today. Sadly, there is no community event taking place in the afternoon. We tried to get in touch with Bull Lane Mosque, which is where the biscuits, tea and football gesture to the English Defence League Protesters occurred. They are fund raising to build a proper mosque, because they are currently worshipping in a community centre. We thought that we could maybe do a short performance as part of one of their fund raising events, and also this would give the people responsible for the biscuits and tea incident to hear the song we’d written about it. We tried phoning, emailing and sending a letter with a copy of the cD featuring the song, but we heard nothing back. I suggested maybe trying to get their attention by pretending to be English defence League members. Then we could turn up at the community centre at worship time, and we’d be immediately invited in for tea and biscuits. Then we could reveal our true identity, sing them a few songs and help them raise some money. It’s a fool proof plan, but for some reason the other two didn’t agree.

The good news is that this has given me more free time today, meaning that I’ve been able to spend a couple of hours perfecting this amazing Dollop that you’re currently reading. If you’ve enjoyed this Dollop, then you have the Islamic community of York to thank. Conversely, if you’ve found this Dollop too lengthy and long-winded, complain to the people at the Bull Lane Mosque, although, chances are they won’t reply, unless you’re prepared to stand outside there posing as an English defence League member, in which case expect a hearty welcome.

Download the audio version here

The tyranny of Thatcher seems to still loom large over her home town of Grantham, or at least at the Guildhall Arts Centre anyway. There were signs up all over the place listing various venue rules. There were a number of notices on display in our dressing room. One of them told us not to hang things on the light shades. Presumably this was because it could be a fire hazard, although it didn’t specify this, so maybe it was purely for aesthetic reasons. Perhaps the venue is run by someone with obsessive complsive disorder, and covered light shades might sent them into an uncontrolable rage.

Another sign said that alcohol is not permitted on or around the stage. Again, there is no reason given for this. Also, it doesn’t specify what it means by “on or around,” which seems quite vague. Often the venue will provide a few complimentary bottles of beer or someone from the venue will ask us if we want a drink from the bar, but this didn’t happen last night. So maybe alcohol is not even allowed in the dressing room, as it falls under the remit of “around the stage.” We don’t drink alcohol on stage anyway, but there are many performers who do, especially in the folk world. Would the venue relax the rule for these performers? After all, it might negatively impact on the gig.

If the rule was in place for health and safety reasons then it seems a bit strange that other venues don’t seem to have this restriction in place. If they are worried about liquid being spilled and damaging equipment then surely they should ban all liquid from the stage, including water, although this would be ridiculous. It could just be that the place is run by puritanical oddballs who also have strict views on appropriate light shade dressing. But the actual staff at the venue were very friendly, and didn’t seem to be the kind of people who would be bothered about such trivial nonsense. Maybe they’ve had a traumatic experience with a performer who has pyromania, who hung a highly flammable fabric over the light shades and then doused it with alcohol. In which case I understand their fears, but I am willing to bet that as long as they didn’t invite that particular performer back again, then this shouldn’t ever be an issue in the future. If they did invite the arsonist back again, then I think it’s safe to say that his fire fetish is probably going to manifest itself in a similar disastrous outcome, and I doubt that a written notice is going to stop him.

I could have questioned the venue staff about this, but I wasn’t really that bothered, given that I didn’t want any alcohol, nor was I particularly fussed about hanging things from light shades. Also, I didn’t want to come across as an arrogant prat. And I was preoccupied with the evening’s gig, as it was the first of our UK tour and there were a lot of new songs that we’d never performed in public before. We were all a bit on edge because of the unfamiliar repertoire, plus it’s been awhile since we’ve done a UK gig. However, the gig seemed to go really well.

Hopefully I’ll be able to still maintain the David’s Daily Digital Dollop challenge during this tour. I managed to succeed while in Australia, in spite of patchy Internet and busyness. This tour is going to be a lot busier than Australia. Last year we put a post on our Facebook and Twitter accounts, asking people to come up with names for this tour. The winning name was Three For All, which we thought fitted what we do quite well, given that our songs are about equality and acceptance, and the name also seemed to make a statement about our music being for everyone. We then had the idea to live up to the tour’s name a bit more by bringing our music out to people beyond the venue setting. So we are going to be doing loads of community events during the day time, which will see us playing to people who probably would never come across our music, whilst also helping some really worthwhile causes.

Usually we spend most of the day on tour driving and killing time until the gig, but we’re going to be really busy during the days with these various events. And then on top of that I’ll be writing and recording these Dollops. It’s a hard life and you should feel sorry for me. To be honest, I don’t know what these junior doctors are making such a fuss about; they should try being a folk singer who does charitable community events in the day time, gigs at night, whilst maintaining a daily blog and podcast on the Internet. Yeah, exactly, suck on that, junior doctors. Actually, best not, sucking on it will probably result in you getting a nasty infection, although I suppose with your medical knowledge you’d probably be able to treat yourselves, that’s if you’re not too lazy to do so of course. Right Mr Hunt? How’s that for biting satire? Don’t worry, you can probably get some ointment to treat any satire-related bites. Ask your Doctor, who might help you, if they can be arsed.

Today has been another day of logistical craziness and upheaval. But I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Download audio version here

While waiting in the barbers a couple of days ago I received a phone call from a number I didn’t recognise.

“Hello David Eagle, before you say anything, please do not swear, you are on loud speaker and there is a class of college students listening.”

I was rather taken aback. Firstly I had no idea why I’d be on loud speaker with a class of college students listening. Secondly, I was a bit freaked out by the timing of this phone call, as I’d just been thinking about ideas for that day’s Dollop and had literally just come up with my idea to get Hartlepool back to top of the teenage pregnancy league by having sex with as many legal aged teenage girls as I could. And no sooner had I had this thought, I was receiving a phone call from a voice I didn’t recognise, telling me that I was now on the phone to a class full of college students, which would contain the exact demographic I’d just been thinking about having sex with. Could this be a sign from the beyond? An instance of divine intervention? God really does work in mysterious ways.

As the person on the phone continued to talk, I realised who it was. It was my friend Matthew from school, who I’ve not spoken to for about a year. He works as a music teacher in a college in Teesside. He went on to explain that the class were talking about having a career in music, and he’d decided on a whim, with no prior warning given to me, that he would call me up to talk to his class over the phone.

He asked me if I was free to say a few words to his class. There were still quite a few people before me to get their hair cut, so I had the time, although I had no idea what I was meant to say. My mind wasn’t really focused on talking to students, given that only seconds earlier I’d been musing about having sex with the very kind of people I was now about to talk to in an educational capacity. This now made such thoughts seem improper, as I would be abusing my position as a teacher, even though I’d never asked to be put in this position and had no idea that this was going to occur.

I spent about ten minutes on the phone, answering questions about being a professional musician, while I sat in the barbers. Goodness knows what the other people in the barbers must have thought. I probably sounded very pretentious, especially when one of them asked me what it was like to be famous. She seemed to sound genuine, but I couldn’t believe that she actually was. Rather than answering the question in a slightly self-deprecating manner, correcting her about the notion that I was in anyway famous, which I am not, I asked her if she had heard of me and if she really knew who I was. I asked this because I was surprised that she seemed to view me as someone who was famous, but to anyone else overhearing me in the barbers, it must have made me sound even more pretentious and up myself, asking, “do you know who I am? Have you heard of me?” The girl said that she had heard of me, and that she’d been at our sage gig last year. I was intrigued to know how many of the other students I was talking to had heard of me, and was just about to ask. “Give me a cheer if you’ve heard of me.” But then I came to my senses and realised how arrogant and pompous that would sound, both to the students and the other customers in the barbers. So I refrained from letting my curiosity get the better of me.

After about ten minutes, my old school friend who I very rarely speak to and haven’t seen for about five years, thanked me for my time and I got a thank you and a round of applause from the students. A few minutes later I got a message from him thanking me again for chatting to his students without advanced warning. “I owe you one,” he said. I thought about messaging him back and explaining my teenage pregnancy campaign, and to enquire whether his “one” that he owed me could possibly come in the form of a teenage girl from Hartlepool, as there was bound to be one of them in his class. But I stopped myself. I hope that God or whatever divine power is wanting me to do this isn’t too angry with me.

I’m writing this Dollop in the Young’uns van. Our UK tour starts today. We’ve just been to BBC Radio Lincolnshire to do a show, before we head to Grantham to do our first gig of the tour. If you haven’t got tickets yet for one of the gigs then there are still a few left for most of the gigs on the tour. It would be good to be able to sell all the venues out, both to satisfy my ego and also to get me a bit more money which I’ll be needing in order to pay my exorbitant child maintenance fees.

Download audio version of today’s Dollop here

I called the bank yesterday in order to transfer some money to someone. When the man on the phone had done my transfer, he asked me why I’d chosen to use telephone banking today, instead of doing it online, which, he pointed out, can often be more convenient and quicker? I told him that I didn’t have my card reader with me as I was in Hartlepool, not Sheffield. He said that he could send me another card reader in the post to my Hartlepool address, so I could have a reserve one if I ever wanted to transfer money while I was at my dad’s house, and this would mean that I wouldn’t need to use telephone banking. I thanked him for his concern, but informed him that I much prefer speaking to a human, as it is often less stressful than doing it online. “Well just to let you know sir that we have made improvements to our online banking facilities and many of our customers do prefer the service, finding it much more efficient and quicker than telephone banking.”

I found this quite an odd conversation to be having, baring in mind he worked in telephone banking. He was essentially talking down his service, and talking his way out of a job. Fair enough, he might be required to mention the online banking option, but it seemed a bit strange to be bigging it up so much, whilst dissing his own job. I’m not sure why I’ve just started talking street. Perhaps I am subconsciously trying to sound more like a yoof in order to be able to interact more effectively with all these eighteen-year-old girls I’m going to be meeting next month, not that I’ll have much time to waste talking with them; idle chit chatting time will eat in to the time that I could be having sex, which is, after all, the fundamental purpose of the exercise. (see yesterday’s Dollop if you’re confused. You really should try and keep up though.)

Or maybe this wasn’t an edict from management, and he actually just had massive self-esteem issues. At the end of the call he asked if I would be willing to take part in an anonymous customer service survey to rate his call with me today. Apparently it would only take about five minutes of my time. He’d just told me that people prefer to do online banking because it’s quicker, and now here he was suggesting that I spent another five minutes voluntarily on the phone to the bank. Was this yet another ploy from management to annoy people so much with their telephone banking service that they decided to do it online in future? My telephone banking experience had been completely stress-free, quick and highly efficient; it had taken less than five minutes to make my transfer. But then I’d spent an extra two minutes on the phone with the man, justifying why I’d chosen to use his service above another one which would essentially one day make him redundant. And now I was being asked to spend another five minutes on the phone, answering questions about the last five minutes.

I was worried that I might never get off the phone, as I might be connected to the person conducting the customer service survey, who then asks me why I’d chosen not to take the survey online, before inviting me to do another survey rating her call. I might spend the entire day being put through to people at the bank in order to rate the last person’s conversation with me, until eventually there are no more staff left to take my call and I end up being connected to the first person I was talking to who’d originally done my bank transfer all those hours ago.

“Aren’t you the person I was talking to right at the start who did my transfer?”

Yes, I’ve just been moved over to the survey side of the telephone banking operation, as I’ve been made redundant from the actual proper banking part of the telephone banking service due to everyone choosing to do their banking online. Anyway sir, I just need to ask you a few questions about the last call you had with my colleague who was asking you to rate the call with my colleague who you were talking to before that, and then I’ll pass you onto my other colleague who’ll ask you to rate your call with me.”

“But I’ve already rated your call?!”

“Yes but that was you rating my service earlier when I was doing your transfer. You haven’t yet rated my administering of the customer service survey.”

“You know what, I think I will bank online after all. Goodbye.”

“We knew you’d see sense in the end sir.”

But fortunately that didn’t happen, as it was an automated machine voice doing the survey. However, this was just as annoying as the scario I invented in the last paragraph, because the automated machine voice wanted me to speak in full sentences to it, even though it didn’t seem intelligent enough to actually understand them. I didn’t want to crush the man’s self-esteem even more by declining the offer to do the customer service survey, so I agreed, but after five minutes of trying to talk to a stupid, annoying machine about how stress-free my telephone banking experience was, I ironically began to get very stressed. The phone conversation with the human had been fine, but this was beginning to drive me insane. I gave up and put the phone down.

I then went to get my hair cut. The barber asked me how long it had been since I’d last been to the barbers. I told her that it was about two months, to which she told me that two months was far too long a time to go without having a hair cut, and that people should be going to the barbers every fortnight in order to keep their hairstyle as good as it was when they first got it cut. This is a woman who knows how to talk up her job. The man from telephone banking could learn from this lady; although there is absolutely no way I am going to get my hair cut every fortnight. I will be far too busy impregnating eighteen-year-old girls for that, and to be honest, With the amount of stress that my marathon impregnation sessions are no doubt going to cause me, I will probably start losing my hair pretty swiftly anyway.

Download audio version here

I’ve just checked Google, and it turns out I was wrong when I said yesterday that Hartlepool was the teenage pregnancy capital of Britain. I believe that this used to be the case, but we seem to have now been beaten by Burnly. Damn! We are no longer the champions.

I feel a sudden urge to do my bit to get us back to the top of the league once again. I am a proud Hartlepool lad, and I refuse to stand idly by while Burnly take the prize that is rightfully ours. And thus, I have no choice but to sleep with lots of teenage girls; they have to be of legal age obviously, I’m not a paedophile, just a pervert, albeit a pervert attempting to masquerade his perversion under the veneer of town-based patriotism. No, I am joking, obviously I’ll be doing this to put Hartlepool back to the top of the teenage pregnancy league where we truly belong.

To massively bastardise the words of Chumbawamba: we got knocked down, but we’ll be up again, and we’ll get up again by getting lots of teenage girls knocked up, coz we ain’t gonna be kept down … below Burnly. In fact, I think this should be Hartlepool’s anthem, designed to galvanise men and teenage girls of legal age to have sex for the honour and the glory of their home town. I will be seeing Neil from Chumbawamba on Wednesday, and so I will ask him whether the band would be interested in recording my song for this noble cause. I can’t see why they’d say no.

Sadly I have to leave Hartlepool in a couple of hours, and I doubt that’s really enough time to make any notable progress. I would need to find a teenage girl, check and then double check that she was of legal age, and then have sex with her. I doubt that two hours would yield any more than one teenage girl. And even that single bit of sex doesn’t necessarily mean that a pregnancy will occur, we’d still have to rely on the sperm making contact with the egg and fertilising it, which even for someone as virile as me, is still not a certainty. It would be a shame if I’d ended up having sex with a eighteen-year-old girl, only to find that it had been a complete waste of my time. Naturally, I’d be pretty pissed off about that, as I’ve got better things to be doing with my life than wasting it having sex with eighteen-year-old girls. I’ll be back in Hartlepool in May though, so I’ll make a concerted effort then. In the meantime, if there are any Hartlepool-based teenage girls listening or reading this who fancy joining me in doing their bit for their home town, get in touch with me. Again, I want to stress that I am only interested in girls of legal age, and I’d prefer it if you were closer to eighteen than sixteen, to avoid me possibly getting into trouble over any Gray areas. Although, if you’re sixteen and you have a Gray area, then you’ve probably got other things on your mind, and you might want to get some medical advice on that.

Just because I’m not able to do my bit for the cause until May, it doesn’t mean that the men and teenage girls of legal age can’t start without me. What are you waiting for? Come on! Lie back and think of Hartlepool!

Death was very much still the main theme of the day back at my family home in Hartlepool. Dad has been trying to tell me about his will, and to talk me through its various elements. I put up quite a bit of resistance, as I really didn’t fancy having this conversation. I told him that I am satisfied with just knowing what he’s written in his will once he’s died. After all, it would be a shame to ruin the moment by providing spoilers.

Dad has also just emailed me a copy of his diaries from thirty years ago that he and my mum wrote when I had cancer and became blind, as well as the diary he wrote just after mum died when I was twelve. He explained that he’d done this so that I had them to read when he’d gone. I have asked him if there’s something he’s not telling me, but apparently there isn’t. He is absolutely fine. He just seems to have acquired a new unusual hobby that involves him fixating on his own death and chatting about it to his increasingly concerned sons. I really think it’s his new hobby, as he doesn’t sound downbeat when he talks about it; he genuinely sounds jolly, as if he’s merely chatting about going to the shops or something.

I am of course relieved that my dad’s death doesn’t seem to be imminent, mainly because I’d be hugely sad, but also because it would be a shame if he never got to see all his hundreds of grand-children that he’s probably going to end up with if I do decide to go ahead with my campaign to get Hartlepool back to the top of the teenage pregnancy league table. Although, the stress and mayhem caused by all those grand-children will probably end up prematurely killing him. Actually, it’s likely that it will kill me first, as I’ll probably end up dying of exhaustion due to my none-stop impregnation marathons, meaning that I’ll probably end up dying before I get to see any of the children I’ve spawned; although, there’ll be so many that I wouldn’t be able to get personally attached to them anyway, and would probably simply just view each child as a point which brings us closer to teenage pregnancy capital reclamation and glory.

I think my dad’s matter-of-fact attitude about his own death is influenced by his fiancée Irene, who is very much a hardened, down-to-earth, no nonsense Yorkshire woman. She is certainly not abashed about discussing biological matters. The first time she cooked a meal for my dad (which was a delicious curry, beautifully and diligently prepared) she carried the plate over to the table, plonked it down in front of dad, and proudly declared, “there you are, now that’ll make you go in the morning.” Not “Bon Appétit” or anything pretentious like that. She’d spent hours in the kitchen making this meal, but before he’d even taken a mouthful of it, she was already commenting on its exit from him the next day.

So I think that Irene’s unashamed frankness about stark biological inevitabilities has rubbed off on dad, at least I hope that’s all it is, otherwise these Dollops are about to get rather depressing and introspective. I’d still throw in a few jokes for you though, don’t worry. In fact, I’m wondering if my dad put any jokes into his diary entries. Maybe he’s not sending me them because he’s thinking that he might die soon, but actually because he thinks they’re hilarious and might provide me with an award-winning standup show.