Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

An element of the reincarnation concept is the notion of soul groups, where the same souls live out many lives together, but taking on different guises and living in different environments. So my brother in this life might be my dad in the last one, or my girlfriend in my current life might have been my sister in a previous life. Urgh, I know, it’s a bit of a disgusting notion really, isn’t it? It certainly makes me feel a bit squeamish about Me having sex with my brother, knowing that, in a roundabout way, I might have been having sex with my dad. Well I won’t be doing that again, I can tell you.

When I say, “in a roundabout way,” this is not a description of a sex position, in case you were confused and were trying to imagine what having sex in a roundabout way might involve. When the book version of David’s Daily Digital Dollop is published, I will of course be providing supplementary diagrams when necessary, and a special pop-up book version for the blind, and of course small children… Anyway, sorry, I was trying to make a philosophical point on reincarnation, but have ended up finding myself knee deep in bile (which incidentally is something that can easily happen if you try having sex in the Roundabout Way position).

The idea of soul groups is apparently so that we learn our karmic lessons together, so as time passes and as we live more lives together, we experience a broad range of situations, and through the course of our many lives together, we go from murdering each other and generally behaving like bastards, to being bezzy mates. If all this is true, then I think it’s safe to say that me, Sean and Michael are definitely in the same soul group, given that I probably spend about 90 % of my time with them.

I am writing today’s Dollop in the Young’uns van, squashed up tightly against the other two, stuck in none-moving traffic, having just spent the last eight hours with them singing the same songs hour after hour with a load of children, just like the day before, and the day before that, and last week and the week before that. In the last month I’ve only had two days where I haven’t seen Sean and Michael. I dread to think what we did in a past life, but it was clearly something dastardly evil to deserve this fate.

I wonder what other lives we might have lived, and who we were in relation to one another. I wonder if we are currently passing our karmic test this time around, or whether we’re going to have to experience yet another life together. Sometimes Michael and Sean really piss me off, but I desperately try not to react to it and snap at them, just in case the past-lives-soul-groups theory is valid, as I don’t want to fail my karmic lesson and then find myself stuck in another life with these two idiots again; possibly living a life in which we go into business together running a solicitors firm or an estate agents’ or something. So I try to be as nice as I can to them. and if they get to me I just take deep breaths and bite my tongue. Obviously this tongue biting is deliberate, and so would not register on my database of mouth biting episodes – the next one still being expected in about forty-five days (as if you needed telling, I’m sure you’re all diligently following along on your mouth biting calendars).

Download today’s audio Dollop here

Download today’s audio Dollop here

The blog from 2012 referred to in today’s Dollop can be found here.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

My computer is being especially needy today. As soon as I opened a blank document ready to type today’s Dollop, a notification popped up on my screen declaring that windows had successfully updated. Great news, I thought, what a fantastic start to the day. Boyd up by this knowledge, I began to type today’s Dollop, but before I’d got halfway through the first sentence, I was interrupted again by another notification. This time it was telling me that Intel had successfully installed an update. My goodness, this day just gets better and better. I attempted to finish my first sentence, but my concentration was broken once again by another notification, suggesting that I might like to tell Windows what my favourite football team is, so that I can receive updates about them throughout the day.

I don’t have much time to write today’s Dollop, as we are about to start one of our singing weekends, and I could do without these interruptions. I’m not sure if it’s really all that necessary for me to know that Windows and Intel have been updated. I never notice an actual improvement whenever these updates are installed, the computer doesn’t seem to run any quicker. In fact, the only noticeable difference seems to be that, with each update, I get more pointless notifications. And now I’m getting unwanted notifications asking me to provide it with information so that it can essentially give my computer permission to bug me with even more notifications. All I want to do is write the creative masterpiece that I was just about to write, before I was railroaded by my computer, which has completely distractied me from my original genius idea, meaning that you’ve now got to read this drivel instead.

These constant computer interruptions are probably responsible for thousands of unwritten or incomplete literary and artistic masterpieces that will never see the light of day, all because the writer’s concentration has been broken by Windows asking them to choose what their favourite breakfast cereals are, so that they can be instantly notified whenever a supermarket has a special offer on one of them. If Windows had been around a few hundred years ago, I wonder how many of our most celebrated literary works would have been affected. Imagine how different things might have been if Wordsworth had to put up with flashing Windows notifications while he was trying to write his poetry.

“Right, OK, to work. Oo, I’ve got it. I wondered lonely as a …”

Bing-bong!

“What the hell?!”

“The current temperature in Cockamouth is 54 degrees Fahrenheit.”

“Go away you bloody thing, I’m trying to write. OK, so, where was I. I wondered lonely as a … er … Oh, now what was it? Er … Hmm … Well, it’ll just have to be I wondered lonely as a lonely person. That’ll do I suppose. So … I wondered lonely as a lonely person, that …”

Bing-bong!

“What now?”

“You are currently using the default screensaver. Why not choose your own from our extensive list, here?”

“Because I’m trying to … Oh what the hell. Oo, I like that one with the clouds and the hills and the daffodils. Very nice. Hang on, that’s it. I wondered lonely as a cloud that floats on …”

“Bing-bong!

“Oh for goodness sake, what is it now?”

“Here at Microsoft, we want your Windows experience to feel uniquely You, which is why we’re always looking for ways of personalising your computer. Fun Suggestion: we could rename your Microsoft Word desktop icon to say, Microsoft Wordsworth. Would you like me to make the change for you?”

“No I bloody well wouldn’t! Now, just let me write this bloody poem! I wondered lonely as a …”

“Facebook notification: Samuel Coleridge has updated his mood status to “Romantic.”

Our technology is apparently getting smarter, yet I would argue that as it does so, it gets more and more needy, demanding more and more information from us, like an insistent child incessantly asking “why?” And nowadays these notifications are much more difficult to ignore, as Windows no longer delivers it’s messages in its former clinical, computer-speak, it’s gone all matey now, and there’s a female voice calling herself Cortana who’s asking all these questions and delivering all these messages. With Cortana on Windows and Siri on Apple, it’s getting harder to ignore these various notifications, as it now feels as if your ignoring is a personal snub. There have been times when I’ve been a bit tired and one of these voices has suddenly started chatting to me, and I’ve felt obliged to engage in conversation with it, not wanting to be impolite, before remembering that it doesn’t have feelings. But Apple and Microsoft and all these other companies are making it progressively difficult as they drag you into their crazy world: these human sounding personal assistants have jokey responses to questions programmed into them, and at times give sarcastic remarks; they refer to themselves as “I” and “me”; they take mock offence if you insult them; they keep calling you by your name; they use phrases like, “let me think about that,” and, “I’m sorry,” if it can’t find what you’re asking for straight away.

Anyway, must dash. Cortana has just told me about an exciting offer on Muesli at Sainsbury’s. I take it all back; this technology is great.

Download today’s audio Dollop here

Download today’s audio Dollop here

Download today’s audio Dollop here

Download today’s audio Dollop here

Download today’s audio Dollop here