The pop group Take That and fascism are two of the subjects covered in an interview I did recently for the folk website Folk Witness, which discusses the Young’uns’ new album which came out last week. You can read the interview here.

I’ve decided, due to popular demand, to post a sample from my Eagle is Candid night online this week. It’ll show up on the audio podcast version of my blog tomorrow. I will of course link to it on here too.

Incidentally, if you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to the podcast with ITunes here,
or View the RSS feed here.

Until tomorrow …

Firstly, thank you to everyone who came to my Eagle Is Candid night at English Martyrs School in Hartlepool. I was quite taken aback by how many students were in attendance, which I hadn’t really expected. I was slightly concerned that some of the subject matter might be a little risqué for such an audience, but there was no time to sensor what I’d planned and so references to lesbian sex and bare breasts remained.

I’ve had a few people ask me if I’ll be putting the recording online. My intention is to develop some of the ideas from the night into a fully formed standup set, and so I don’t intend to put this fledging incarnation online. I put a lot of the comedy bits from gigs on Young’uns podcasts, and often this means that an idea only gets tried out once before I bung it straight online, meaning that it doesn’t get a chance to develop into something better and more elaborate. Although this does have its advantages; it means I have the challenge of generating enough new material at gigs to fill a podcast, which is exciting.

Talking of the Young’uns podcast, we should have a new podcast uploaded this month. I’ve been touring for the last fortnight and so we’ve got loads of clips.

Anyway, the primary purpose of this blog is to alert you to some articles that we’ve written for the folk website Spiral Earth. The final two articles were written by me and chronicle ten years of the Young’uns, with some insights and anecdotes that you’ll hopefully find amusing. The articles can be read here.

Enjoy. Back soon.

English Martyrs Catholic School and Sixth Form College in Hartlepool hosts an annual lecture which is now in it’s twenty-fourth year. Previous speakers include politicians Peter Mandelson and ann Widdecombe. Presumably the economic climate has caught up with the school, because this year they’ve asked me.

It’s quite interesting that the invitation came just a few days after my blog about the catholic church. Perhaps if they had read that particular blog then things might have been different. Fortunately for them, I do not intend to use my lecture to rant about the catholic church, as I have decided instead to talk about a much more interesting and important subject: myself.

My title for my lecture is The Eagle Is Candid! Here is the publicity blurb:

David Eagle is a 28-year-old blind man. This lecture is dedicated to all those people who have stopped David in the street, to all the shopkeepers and checkout workers who have happily held up queues, to all the taxi drivers who have taken the slowest and most circuitous route possible in order to ask him a litany of questions about what it’s like being blind, or simply to tell him how brave he is.

David has been late for countless business appointments, dates, and meetings with friends as a result of people holding him up with questions about his blindness, or just to talk endlessly about how brave they think he is for managing to survive without sight.

Therefore, he has decided to dedicate this lecture to answering some of the most common questions asked to him by the general public, in the hope that it might help facilitate him to actually get to where he is planning to go without being stopped by complete strangers intent on talking about blindness. Join David as he dispels myths, untangles untruths and picks apart: common conceptions and assumptions about blindness and disability, delivered in a humorous and light-hearted style. In addition, he will tell stories from his life, including how he has had to fight prejudices, stereotypes and barriers to realise his ambitions and dreams. He’ll also tell about how he has recently been talents spotted at the BBC by a top TV, radio and stand up comedy agent, and explain how he has ended up working as a professional musician in a folk group who have featured in an Aadman animations film starring Miranda Hart, Catherine Tate, Vick Reeves and David Walliams.

After the talk there will be a chance to ask any questions you might have, such as: “how do you eat. I mean … how do you know where your mouth is? I mean… You’re blind?!” Or to simply tell him how brave you think he is.

The lecture is due to start at 7pm Although it may start a little late if David is stopped in the street or is taken on an extended route by an overly inquisitive taxi driver.

The lecture is on Thursday 13th March. The lecture starts at 7pm, but you are advised to get there a little earlier. After all, you don’t want to miss my opening gag about the two nuns in the bath. No, don’t worry, if there’s anyone official from the school reading this, that was a joke.

Tickets are completely free. If you fancy it, email admin.ems.hartlepool.sch.uk or call 01429273790.

Hope to see you there.

Our final Out With The Old Young’uns Podcast sees David threatening to murder the telephone operator; we have songs and poetry from David at the age of eight; there’s an anecdote about poo; plus, what do nuts, herbal tea, facts about art and walking all have in common?

Download it here.

We’ll be back later this month with new Young’uns Podcasts.

Our penultimate Out With The Old podcast features terrible poetry, anecdotes about hitch hiking, and a rather odd interview with some eccentric amiture radio operators. Plus, we mercilessly ridicule another folk radio show.

Download it here.

In our fifth Out With The Old podcast: David has an unusual experience inside his backside, and embarrasses himself in front of Mike waterson; long before Britain’s Got talent featured them, the Young’uns Podcast was talking about dancing dogs; we attempt to introduce another feature to the Young’uns Podcast, which results in nearly giving a man a nervous breakdown; David gets very confused and loses his temper over a radio advert, and we present a mini radio drama, courtesy of the folk forum Mudcat.

Download it here.

In our fourth Out With the Old podcast: the Young’uns are facing an identity crisis; Trevor returns with a poem about dogs; we’ve got another shambollic jingle attempt; find out why Andrew Lloyd Webber is indebted to a Dutch clock manufacturer; we play a very bad and very early Young’uns recording; plus, we discuss Jesus, bad MCs, mormons and Nursery Rhymes.

Download it here.

Our third Out With the Old podcast features a ramshackle game of word association, an old dithery man and an orgasming lady. Sean Cooney is a film star; we recount a traumatic Young’uns performance; The YOung’uns In The Mix returns, mixing a sea shanty with the Prodigy, and we abuse call centre staff in the name of entertainment.

Download it here.

Today’s selection of highlights from our first 100 podcasts, 2006 to 2008, include The YOung’uns In The Mix, David Eagle has a harrowing experience in an old people’s home, plus he is attacked by a mad dog, , Sean Cooney talks about his exploits in Greece, Michael Hughes’s intellectual prowess comes under scrutiny, and we play a game of guess the gargled folk song.

Download it here.

Back tomorrow with the third in the series.

It’s a new year, and as the saying goes: “out with the old, in with the new”. Later this month, a new series of Young’uns podcasts will be released, but before we welcome in the new, it’s time to heed the first part of that saying and clear out the old.

Between August 2006 and August 2008, the Young’uns Podcast ran for 100 consecutive weeks. Given that these podcasts were released in the Young’uns’ infancy, and also given the lack of our presenting experience, some of the material in the podcasts were, quite frankly, ill-conceived, shoddy and shambolic; nothing like the quality content you get in the newer podcast episodes. Our Out With The Old series will salvage some of the more bare able sections of these podcasts and package them together over the next few days of episodes, before we then purge the Young’uns website of those first 100 podcasts. This is an opportunity to hear the Young’uns like you’ve never heard them before, and get to observe how we developed as a group and as podcasters over those two years.

In the first episode of the series, we find out why in 2006 Sean Cooney was the enigmatic YOung’un; We confuse drunk men and intimidate a Chinese girl; We arrogantly slag off a folk club organiser: there’s a unique quiz; we receive a message from beyond the grave; and we play a very embarrassing early Young’uns performance from 2005.

download it here.