Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Apologies if there is anyone who religiously waits for these Dollops to be released everyday, only to be disappointed when a Dollop comes in a couple of hours late. The reason for today’s late arrival is due to Katherine, who has read every single Dollop and has commented on a great deal of them. She was at Sidmouth Festival, where we perfomrered today, and we got chatting, and before I knew it, it was half past twelve. I felt that, given that she has listened or read, or even apparently often listened and read every single Dollop, this should excuse me from feeling too guilty that the Dollop was late. I suppose in a way, she was getting her own personal Dollop, although a part of me was wondering whether she was disappointed with the physically present me, maybe thinking, “he’s not as interesting when you actually meet him in real-life; in fact, he’s rather dull. He hasn’t even mentioned his kettle once” I wondered if she was constantly comparing me to the other David Eagle, David Eagle the Dolloper. “What is he going on about? The Dolloping David Eagle wouldn’t have said something so stupid.”

Currently, the physically present me is an absolute wreck. I have had approximately 7 hours sleep in the last 80 hours. I WAS feel tired but I am just unable to sleep. Eventually I managed to fall asleep at 6am, but at 8 my alarm was going off. It was time to set off for Sidmouth Festival. Even though I knew it wouldn’t serve any purpose at all, my brain was screaming out for me to hit the snooze button, giving me an extra six minutes in bed. If I didn’t hit snooze then I would have to get up immediately, as I knew that staying in bed for another six minutes would result in me falling asleep again. I’d spent 6 hours lying in bed, praying for sleep to come, and now, ironically – and yes Alanis , this is the correct use of the term “ironic” – my body and brain was desperate to go back to sleep, the prospect of getting up made me want to cry. My head was aching and everything felt heavy. There was no time to snooze, I needed to get up now, and so I chose not to use the snooze option.

The next thing I was aware of was the sound of my phone ring tone. Shit! I should have pressed the snooze button. I had presumably lost the fight to get out of bed, and without the snooze alarm waking me, I had been allowed to fall into a deep sleep. How long had I been asleep for? This was clearly Sean calling to find out where I was.

I answered the phone, putting it on speaker so as to quickly get dressed while he spoke, in order to try and get out of the house as quickly as possible. Just how late was I. I jumped out of bed and threw a shirt over my head. I heard Sean’s voice coming over the phone’s speaker. Unfortunately I couldn’t make out what he was saying because of the sound of my shirt rustling against my ears as I desperately tried to quickly pull it on, which resulted in me getting the sleeves tangled, and taking mic taking longer than the second it should have taken. I was clearly ridiculously tired, because I was really struggling to get this shirt on. My arms were now poking through a gap in between the buttons. And all the while, Sean was talking, probably wondering where I an. I was in a massive tangle inside the shirt, and if I kept trying to get out of this fabric maze, I would completely miss what Sean was saying, which would make him even more annoyed than he surely already was, for I dreaded to think how long I’d overslept for. So I left the shirt to dangle abserdly over my head while I tried to make out what Sean was saying.

He had received a call from someone from Gatwick airport saying that the accordion and the guitar had been found, and that they could get them to Sheffield for 930. The original plan had been to allow plenty of time to get to Sidmouth, perhaps managing to cram in a couple of hours of sleep when we got there – Sean had hardly slept the day before either – but now we had to wait for the missing instruments to be delivered. It appeared that I hadn’t really gone back to sleep, because it was only five minutes past eight. After condluding the call with Sean, I untangled the shirt and tried to wake myself up with a cold shower. I was so tired that I felt as if I was going to be physically sick. I chose a cold shower because I feared that I’d fall asleep if it was a hot shower.

Even though today’s Dollop is clearly unfinished and very shambolically written, I am going to leave it here, as I keep falling asleep at the computer and then waking up a few seconds later,. I shall continue from where we left off tomorrow. I will have to publish this now, before I completely crash out, slump over the computer and properly fall asleep.

David’s Daily Digital Dollop: Dollop 217 – Everything, Including The Kitchen Sink

Today’s Dollop has everything, including the kitchen sink: there’s an epic drama involving watery mash potato, an anecdote about my trip to the shops earlier today, and a tiny preview of The upcoming Young’uns In The Mix taking place at this year’s Folk East festival on 20th August. Come join me in the kitchen my friends.

Download the Dollop here

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

The lady from Canmore would be disappointed in me today, as due to having gone 24 hours without sleep and my brain being rather addled as a result, I made loads of typos just typing the title of today’s Dollop.

We arrived back in England earlier today, and more or less as soon as I stepped off the plane I was greeted by Jeremy Corbyn. It was a text message. Perhaps he’d started reading the Dollops and was texting to share his views on kettles maybe. But no, it was just a standard public message, asking whether I’d vote for him. I haven’t really checked the news much while I’ve been in Canada, and have largely enjoyed three weeks of blissful ignorance, but now I’d only just stepped off the plane in England, and already I was being jolted back into reality, instantly reminded about my country’s political situation.

The reality jolt was also helped along by the surly and abrupt nature of the airport staff. The Canadian airport staff had seemed very friendly and hospitable, but the English airport staff were much more austere and loudly barked instructions at us. A Canadian man, presumably a bit groggy after the flight, accidentally went in the wrong queue and was barked at by one of the women supervising the line. He apologised to the lady for the mistake, but she merely responded with, “quick, you’re holding up the queue, move into the other queue sir.” He meekly apologised again and joined the correct queue, lining up behind me. “Welcome to England,” I said to him, smiling. The man chuckled. I think it was a reassured chuckle, although if I got my smile wrong and did the constipated psycho killer instead, then it might have been a nervous chuckle, and in actuality, I’d only served to make things worse for the poor man. I never got the chance to properly find out, because I was being barked at to come forward to get my passport checked.

Our passports were verified, and we were welcomed into the country with a bark of “next,” to indicate that I should move on and let the next person have a turn at being scowled and barked at. We then waited by the luggage carousel for the Accordion and guitar. One hour later and we were still waiting. There was no sign of the instruments. The carousel had deposited all the cases, but there was still no accordion or guitar. Sean went to find a member of staff to see what might have happened. An announcement came over the PA reminding us to keep all our personal belongings with us at all times, otherwise they might be removed or destroyed. But we had no idea where our personal belongings were. There was a part of me worried that they might have gone missing for good. But then there was another part of me that realised that I didn’t really have anything to write about today, and imagined how good it would be if I could write a Dollop about my Accordion in its hard case being mistaken for a suspicious item and blown up. Yes, that would be a good dramatic story for the Dollop, and would probably get me a lot of extra visitors to my website, and maybe even media attention. I began to think up jokes, just in case Sean came back and reported on the destruction of my accordion. Maybe I’d could make a joke about the member of staff at the fragile items desk asking me whether I was checking anything in of significant value, and how maybe I could have found a better choice of words than, “oh yes, this is worth a bomb.”

Eventually Sean returned. They’d said that the instruments might not have been checked on the plane and were maybe still in Canada. We then had to sign a long form, detailing what was in the case, the dimensions and colour of the case, and the estimated value of the items; I decided that now wasn’t a good time to do the “it’s worth a bomb” joke, and so just wrote the price of the instrument. We also had to provide our flight details, and our names, phone numbers and addresses to send the items to, should they be found.

“We’ll do our best,” said the man, which didn’t sound particularly reassuring. They’d somehow already failed to simply put the instruments on a plane and then take them back off again when it landed, and now they were charged with the job of trying to locate the cases somewhere in Vancouver airport, put them on another plane, take them off the plane and get it delivered to our address, which was a lot more complicated than the first easy bit that they managed to mess up.

. As we walked out of the airport, I noticed that the escalator was no longer telling us to take extra care when using it. Perhaps someone high up at Gatwick Airport reads these Dollops and made a note of my escalator observations and dealt with it ready for my return. If you’re reading today’s Dollop, my friend, then maybe you could do something about the barking, surly staff, and try and ensure my accordion doesn’t get blown up. Although, Michael’s guitar on the other hand … feel free; do us a favour.

I apologise if this Dollop hasn’t been up to the usual high standard, but I haven’t slept for over 36 hours and I’ve drfited off quite a few times while trying to write it. Back tomorrow.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I got another surprise comment in my inbox yesterday. It was from someone based in Canmore, where we were playing over the weekend, responding to yesterday’s Dollop about the woman who was intrigued by me being able to type without looking at the keyboard or screen.

“This is an outrage,” said the commenter, “I shall complain to the festival and make sure you are never booked again.”

I then spent the next half an hour trying to work out why this person had got so annoyed. I reread the blog and didn’t think I’d said anything particularly offensive. I called the woman “bloody weird,” but that was a playful, jocular statement; I didn’t think it warranted this kind of outraged reaction. I then spent some more time pacing around the room, mentally composing responses to this person. Maybe I would just be all contrite and apologise for any offence caused and state that it wasn’t my intention to offend. Or maybe I would pick them up on their use of the word “outrage,” and then include a load of news headlines about terrible events that have happened this week. Maybe I’d include a load of quotes from Trump, and ask the person what word they’d use to describe those statements, given that they’d used the word “outrage” to describe my innocuous blog. Surely they’d lost their sense of perspective.

I tried to grapple with how this person had come to this conclusion. Presumably they had seen us at the festival, liked us enough to Google us, and then found my blog, and decided that they were interested enough to give it a read. But then, somehow, they had gone from being a fan to being a foe, due to these few hundred words I’d written, and they were so incensed that they messaged me to say that what I’d said was an outrage and that they’d complain to the festival so that we were never booked again. I read the blog again. Was it just that one line that had offended them: “thanks? but you are bloody weird.” Was that it? If I hadn’t written those few words would this person be angry? Or was it the whole thing? I was feeling rather down that someone had managed to get offended by this.

Why is it that the only time we ever get a complaint is when we’re performing outside of Europe? When we were in Australia, one woman complained to the festival that I was sexist, because of a comment I made on stage (see this Dollop for more on that) and now we’re in Canada, and someone is going to make a complaint to the festival because of a little blog I’d written.

I decided to wait until the morning to respond, but then, unable to sleep due to this person’s comment, I decided to go into the web stats and see where the comment had been sent from. There was something niggling away at me about this comment. I was starting to doubt its authenticity. And then I saw it, and my niggling suspicion was confirmed. The web stats tells me the email address of the person’s comment, and I now knew that the comment had been sent from the UK, not Canada. And I knew who it was: it was regular Dollop contributor Katherine. Relief flooded my body. It was quite a messy business, but once I’d got cleaned up I was able to sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that the comment had been a wined up and wasn’t genuine.

My sound sleeping didn’t last long because I was disturbed my a disconcerting dream. I’ve dreamt this same kind of dream for years, and I’ve spoken to other people who have this sort of dream as well. I get a letter in the post or a phone call telling me to come into school next week to sit my exams. At first I am totally confused. I am thirty-one, why would I be going into school to do exams? But then, slowly, I begin to remember. How could I have forgotten? I knew I had exams when I was thirty-one. I’d had all this time to revise, and now the day of the exam was almost upon me and I’ve done nothing towards it. I look at my life. What the hell have I been doing with my time? I’ve been wasting it writing blogs, travelling the world doing gigs. I am an idiot? But then I get a feeling of indignation. Surely I am doing well. I have created a life for myself, and I don’t need exams to validate me, because I am living my life perfectly fine without them. There must be a get-out option. I try calling the school and explaining to them that I work for a living, that I’ve got gigs in the diary, that I’ve got commitments and important things to do, and that surely I don’t need to do exams in school when I’m clearly doing fine. But they are resolute and inssistant that I have to take these exams. I am thrown into a mad panic. I am a failure, I’ve been wasting my time, frittering it away with gigs, blogs and podcasts. I thought I was doing well. I’d moved away from home, to a different city, I travel the world performing, we’ve won awards, I have loads of friends all over the world, I am making enough money to live. But now my life has been thrown into disaray, because I have to go back to school in Hartlepool to sit some exams. I try bargaining with them, telling them that surely I don’t need to sit the English exam. After all, I write a blog everyday. But they just laugh derisively and tell me that I’m hardly helping my cause with that argument.

I hate this dream, and I always wake up feeling really down. It seems to me as if this dream is a way of highlighting my vulnerability and fragility. I’ve built up this construct on which I prop up my feeling of self-worth and identity. I do what I can to give myself the feeling of having choice, of being individual, but this dream taps into my fears and insecurities that my life could crumble at any moment, that the facade could come collapsing down at any time, and I am forced to confront that other part of me, the scared child who is back at school sitting his exams, waiting to be judged and compared to everyone else. That small scared child who never really went away. I’d pushed him to the back of my mind. I’d forgotten he was there. But then I have the dream, and I am reminded of his presence.

Sometimes our own brains can be our greatest enemy. Why couldn’t I have had a nice dream about flying, or sex? Or even better, a dream about having sex while flying? But no, my brain would seemingly rather remind me of the fragility of my existence instead. Thanks brain, you are bloody weird.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

I was writing yesterday’s Dollop backstage at Canmore Festival. While I was writing, a woman came up to me and enthusiastically enquired about how I am managing to use my laptop, given that I am blind. I explained to her that there is a voice that is telling me what’s on the screen. “Great, that’s great,” she excitedly replied, “so does it tell you what to type and then you type it?” I assumed she was joking, but when I laughed, she said, “no, I’m serious, is that not how it works?”

If the voice was telling me what to type, then why would I need to type it? Presumably if the voice knows what I should be typing, then it could surely just put that text on the screen itself? If the computer did tell me what to type and all I had to do was just follow its instructions then it would certainly make writing these Dollops a lot easier. But no, I have to do all the thinking and typing, and the computer merely reads it back to me.

She seemed impressed by the fact that I could type without the screen being on, and she asked me how I knew where the keys were. I explained that I could touch type and therefore didn’t need to be able to see the keyboard, but she didn’t seem to believe me. She asked me to prove it, which involved me facing the other way while she shouted out letters which I then had to press. She seemed delighted by the fact that I got every letter spot on, and she applauded and whooped, as if I was an illusionist pulling off some impressive trick, rather than simply someone who was accurately hitting letters on a keyboard without looking, which in fairness is something that secretaries have been doing for years.

She called a couple of her friends over to take a look. I was beginning to feel a bit embarrassed, given that I was now gaining more of an audience to demonstrate something that, in my opinion, wasn’t at all impressive. Her friends didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic by my ability to accurately hit letters on a keyboard, but did a good job of pretending that they were. I don’t know who they thought they were humouring, me or their friend. She continued to shout out letters, and I continued to press them.

“You have a go?” she said to one of her friends, “shout out a letter, and boy, he’ll get it.” I’m not sure what her thought process was here. Was she getting her friends to shout out letters because she was worried that they might think that the whole thing had been planned in advance, and that me and her had agreed on a sequence of keyboard presses, rather than me actually knowing the letters I was pressing. Maybe she’d misunderstood her friends’ lack of enthusiasm to be due to scepticism about my authenticity. Her friends half-heartedly said some letters, and I typed said letter, until eventually her friends just toddled off.

The woman asked me what I was writing. I lied and said I was doing some boring accounting stuff. After all, I didn’t want her knowing about this blog, as I knew I’d probably end up writing about this incident, and wanted to avoid her reading it, in case she took um bridge with my portrayal of her, even though I think I’ve actually been quite nice and have been accurate in the retelling.

When I’d said, “boring accounting stuff,” I assumed that this would dampen her interest, but I should have realised that if this woman could get excited by a man pressing letters accurately on a keyboard, then maybe the mention of “boring accounting stuff” might also tickle her fancy.

“Can I have a look?” she said, with an unsettling level of excitement in her voice.

Not having any boring accounting stuff on my computer, I would either have to make an excuse about having to leave, or explain about the blog. Ideally, I needed to stay back stage, as it was reaching the end of the day in the UK, meaning that I needed to quickly finish writing the blog and upload it using the backstage WIFI. So I pretended that I’d now just moved on from boring accounting stuff in order to upload my daily blog, which I needed to do in the next fifteen minutes before midnight UK time. But she didn’t take the hint.

“Can I see it?” she said, ramping up the excitement levels even further. She’d been pretty excited before about looking at boring accounting stuff, and now she was nearly orgasmic at the thought of looking at a blog. I needed to get this blog uploaded now, as it was a few minutes to midnight in the UK and we had a gig in half an hour, so I felt I had no choice but to try and hurry this conversation along. So I gave her my website address. She very enthusiastically declared that she would definitely give it a read. Hopefully she just read yesterday’s blog post, and doesn’t come back to check out today’s. But just in case you are reading this: thanks, but you are bloody weird. By the way, that’s not me saying this, that’s my computer telling me to type it. Obviously, I think you are perfectly sane and normal, but I have no choice but to type what this damn computer voice tells me to type.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

There’s been yet another ill-researched and confusing write-up about our group. In the Canmore Festival programme, which we are playing this weekend, they get all the details about us right, and describe our sound as “largely unaccompanied with occasional minimal accompaniment.” But then, somehow, despite having managed to get all this information correct, they then include a photo of the wrong band. Have a guess which band’s photo they’ve used. Its The other Young’uns, the Canadian wedding covers band.

There they are, with drums, bass, and electric guitar. You’d have thought that they might have realised, given that our write-up states that we are a largely unaccompanied band, but seemingly not. I wonder if us turning up in Canada and performing on the other Young’uns home patch is going to cause more logistical problems for them. Are they going to get confused people booking the wedding covers band, thinking that it’s us, only to get a shock when they turn up with their drums and amps. They better start learning some Irish Celtic Country songs just in case, as what the people who booked the band expect will very much depend on what write-up they’d read.

We’re learning a few wedding classics just to be on the safe side, songs like Cliff Richard and Congratulations, which would actually be a good choice of song because our publisher also looks after the royalties for Cliff Richard, meaning that he’d get paid by the venue every time we sung that song, and he could then give us some of that money. What a brilliant plan. So maybe all this confusion is a good thing, and might prove rather lucrative. After all, I think it’s doubtful that we could maintain our credibility as a folk group singing Cliff Richard songs, but it would be perfect for a wedding covers band.

I got a nice surprise last night when a comment came in on Dollop 209, about our rather uneventful wildlife tour and hike, which was actually more like a lollop.

“Hi David, We have just been crying with laughter at your description of the wildlife tour. Jonathan and I were on the tour too, a couple of the decrepit pensioners you mentioned! Do you remember the ones from Leeds? We too were somewhat disappointed in the tour which had been sold to us as a wildlife tour, but we very much enjoyed your company and Sean’s company” (but presumably not Michael’s company, which is perfectly understandable) “and coming across that black bear very much saved the day. I’m glad I looked up your website, I read out your description of the tour, whilst crying with laughter, and Jonathan said , That sounded like our tour. I told him that it was the self same tour and that it was you who had written it. Thanks for the Laugh! Hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Canada.”

There are lots of people who ask me whether I make up the things that I blog about, so hopefully this has proved the veracity of my anecdotes. I suppose you could argue that I might have made up the character of Dianne and her husband and then left that comment myself, pretending to be two people who were on the tour with us, but do you really think I’ve got nothing better to do with my time? OK, granted, I write and record a load of nonsense and then publish it on the Internet on a daily basis, so maybe I’m not helping my argument there. But Jonathan and Dianne are definitely real people who came on the tour, and then subsequently managed to find my blog and the account of our trip. I’m not sure how they found it because I didn’t mention my blog to them. After all, we’d only just met, and it’s not the kind of thing that comes up in conversation. It’s not as if I announced to everyone as we said goodbye, “well it’s been nice meeting you, and if you’d like to read up on my thoughts about this afternoon then you can visit my daily blog at davideagle.co.uk.” But they somehow managed to find it. I’d like to think that they started reading the account of the wildlife trip, and have now been hooked in and are going through the back catalogue. There’s a lot to look forward to, including some really funny stuff about kettles.

The odd thing about writing a public blog is that the people I am writing about might read it. I just want to clarify, Jonathan and Dianne, that when I referred to “unfit pensioners,” that obviously didn’t innclude you. In fact, I originally wrote a couple of hundred words in the blog about how impressed I was by your physique, fitness and agility, but Michael and Sean advised me to take it out, as apparently I was coming across a bit creepy and full-on.

Let’s just hope Mr Fat Man or Alanis Morissette don’t read Dollop 210. If you ever get chatting to either of them, could you please refrain from mentioning my blog; I know that might be hard because it’s obviously your natural conversation starter, but please try on this occasion.

Back tomorrow, which will be our final day in Canada before heading back home to England.

Our Canadian adventure continues with a horse ride through the woods of Banff. On our journey, we hear local tales, including a story about a cursed mountain, there’s some interesting mule facts, and there’s some lovely authentic horse-based ambience, including horses pissing and farting. Oh yes, that’s right, pissing and farting horses; these Dollops just get better and better!

Download today’s audio Dollop here

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

We’ve just been to the bank. This is the first Canadian bank I’ve ever been in, so I don’t know if this is common in Canada, but upon entering the place we were handed a free cup cake. Then we were brought to a desk with a big wheel at the centre which we were told to spin. Michael spun it, and won 10 dollars, Sean spun it and won 10 dollars, I spun it and also won 10 dollars. We’d only been in this bank for a minute and already we were thirty dollars and three cup cakes richer. What would happen next? Would we get the option to either simply pay our money in or take a gamble: if it lands on red they pay double your money into your account, but if it lands on black you lose it all. The bank also had a drive through.

We stayed in another youth hostel last night. The beds all had name tags on with the names of the people who were staying in the hostel. I had been chosen as the person to sleep underneath Simon Mack. Sleeping underneath Simon Mack was a lot less fart-filled and painful than the drunken, well-built, French Vegetarian I lay underneath at the hostel in England (see Dollop 205). Simon was on the thin side, and I mean this in the literal sense of the word thin, not the confusing Canadian Country singer’s definition of the word (see yesterday’s Dollop). And so when he got into bed, he nimbly sprung into it, without a single groan or fart. Comparatively speaking, it was a pleasure to be lying underneath Simon Mack. Again, this is just comparatively speaking; if I had a choice not to lie underneath any men than obviously I’d choose that, but given that I had to lie underneath someone, Simon Mack was a good man to be lying underneath.

Oh dear, I thought that I was alone in this room. Sean has gone for a walk, Michael has gone for a helicopter ride, and I thought I heard Simon leave quite early. The room was very quiet, so I just assumed I was by myself. So I didn’t bother to put headphones on, and so everything I’ve been typing has been read out loud to me by the screen reader. Then I heard a movement above me, as Simon Mack hurriedly got out of bed, put his clothes on and very quickly left the room. I suppose you could say that he left in a bit of a Mack Flurry. Hmm, I think that might have to be a contender for the worst joke of this entire Dollop series so far. It’s pretty likely that he’s just heard everything I’ve written about him. I imagine that it would be rather harrowing to wake up and hear your name repeatedly spoken by a robotic voice, saying about how much of a pleasure it was to lie underneath you.

We all went out last night, and after a few drinks decided that it would be a fun idea to welcome Simon Mack to our dorm by playing the 90’s pop song by Mark Morrison, Return Of The Mack, when he entered the room. When we got back to the hostel, Simon Mack still hadn’t returned to the room. We sat up talking for an hour or so, my finger poised over the button, ready to play the chorus of the song at the moment that he arrived.

“Return of the mack,
It is,
Return of the mack,
Come on,
Return of the mack,
Oh, my god,
Here I am.”

We would play the song and sing along, and he would laugh, and we would laugh, and we would chat until the early hours of the morning, thanks to our perfect icebreaker. He might even join with thhe song, singing the “here I am” bit himself. Wouldn’t that be brilliant? But then, as time ticked on, we got more and more tired, and the effects of the alcohol began to wear off, and the idea seemed less of a good one. We began to talk ourselves out of it. He might find it rather intimidating and weird to enter his room and immediately be greeted by three people singing “return of the Mack” to him. So we turned off the light and just went to sleep instead. It was another couple of hours before he entered the room and lightly sprung into bed, so it’s a good job we didn’t wait up for him.

I intend to try and catch up on the week’s worth of audio Dollops today, and I also think that tomorrow’s Dollop will be an audio only Dollop. So far in this trip we’ve audio Dolloped from a hot tub and a jet ski. Tomorrow will be another audio Dollop first. Join me tomorrow to find out where and what I’m Dolloping from.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Last night’s gig was really good. It turns out that the reason it was called a Celtic Country night was because there was a band on before us who played Country. It seems as if in Canada and America, the word Celtic is used as a very broad term simply to encompass the none country side of folk.

The Country act was a duo, which included a man who went by the name Fat Man. This seemed an odd choice of name because he wasn’t at all fat, in fact he was rather thin. When I asked him why he was called Fat Man, he said that it was because he was thin. There was a pause while I waited for the rest of the explanation, but none came, so I made what I thought would come across as a puzzled face.

Given that I’ve never seen a puzzled face before, I’m not sure what one looks like and so I’m not really sure how to make one. I assume that if I am puzzled then my face will probably make the gesture automatically, without the need for any thought or effort on my part, but I can’t be sure. Obviously my face will automatically form into a smile when I’m happy, even though I’ve never seen a smile, or at least I’ve never been conscious of seeing one – perhaps my brain has somehow registered it subconsciously. This suggests that smiling is an automatic thing that happens, rather than it being a learnt thing from seeing it and then mirroring it. I know how to smile regardless of having never received that information from the external world. It’s presumably an automatic, instinctive, in-built thing, hardwired into us from birth.

I think the thing that gets me the most about being blind is not being able to communicate visually. It’s frustrating whenever I hear phrases like, “our eyes met across the crowded room,” or “I knew by her eyes what she was thinking.” Really? I have to rely on people telling me what they’re thinking to know what they’re thinking. “Her eyes said it all.” No they bloody didn’t, if you want to say it all, I’m afraid you’re going to have to say it all, or at the very least, say some of it. I’ve heard loads of stories of how two people met and fell in love because they saw each other from across the room and smiled. Then they’ll say something like, “it took us ages to finally get the courage to talk to each other.” Yet when they do speak to each other, they are not strangers. They have a history, a connection. They are talking to each other long before they talk to each other. But this is completely alien and impossible for me.

I think that this makes relationships really difficult for me, because where do you start? On a few occasions I’ve been in a bar and a friend has said that a girl is smiling at me from across the room. Brilliant, but what am I meant to do with that information? I can’t smile back at her because I don’t know who she is. If I did ask my friend to turn me in the direction of where she is so that I could try a smile at her, then I’m doubtful that this would have positive results. I’d constantly need a commentary on what was going on. This would mean that my friend would also have to be looking at her which might make her feel a bit anxious. She’s just smiled at me, and now the man next to me is swivelling my head around, pointing and whispering in my ear every time she smiles. I think it’s safe to say that the smiling wouldn’t last for long. Plus, how do I know how long to smile for? What kind of smile to do? I don’t know how to smile? It just happens automatically. But I need the right smile. I don’t want to grin at her, or smirk; it needs to just be a little smile of acknowledgement, a friendly “hello” smile, a smile that says just enough. And that can’t be learnt, because it involves interacting with what the other person is communicating. I ccan’t do a smile of acknowledgement, because I haven’t acknowledged.

“There’s a girl across the room who’s just smiled at you.”

“Right, OK, position my head to where she is and tell me when she’s looking.”

“OK, keep your head there mate. OK, she’s looking, quick, smile!”

“Shh, keep your voice down. She’ll hear you. What kind of smile?”

“You missed your chance. She’s talking to her friends again now. That would have been the perfect moment.”

“But I don’t know what kind of smile to do. Let me try a few on you and you can let me know which is best. I want a smile that basically says a casual, friendly hello. Nothing over-the-top or arrogant, just a friendly hello.”

“OK, face me and try some out.”

“OK, how about this one.”

“No, you look like you’re constipated.”

“OK, what about this?”

“No, you look like a psycho killer.”

“OK, how about this?”

“That’s more like it.”

“How long should I do that for, do you think?”

“Well it depends on her response. I’ll look over your shoulder at her to see how she reacts, and we’ll judge it from there.”

“Won’t that look a bit weird? You looking over my shoulder?”

“Well, what choice do we have. OK, now this is going to be fast-moving. Eye contact is very quick-paced and involves instinctive responses based on what the other person is doing. I’ll be shouting out instructions to you as we go. Ready?”

“Er, OK.”

“Right, tilt your head up and to he left, right a bit, left a bit, right, stop, OK, she’s looking, quick, smile, stop smiling, look down, she’s looking down at the ground coyly, do the same, now, head up again and smile, a slightly wider smile, stop, look down again.”

“What’s happening now?”

“Er, she’s just walked out of the pub very quickly. What smile did you do?”

“Er, I don’t know, it was all so fast. I think I did this.”

“Bloody hell mate, you look like a constipated psycho killer.”

I suppose the only other option is to get my friend to smile at her on my behalf, a smile via proxy, but I’m not sure that would really help. And I can’t go up to her and say, “hi, I’m sorry, apparently you were smiling at me. But I can’t see you smiling at me, so I thought maybe we could cut out the whole smiling at each other from across the room bit, and just skip straight to a conversation. Oh, and by the way, if you are interested in me then would you please make it clear to me with words, because I won’t be able to read your subtle facial expressions. In fact I won’t even be able to read your unsubtle facial expressions. So rather than your eyes saying it all, if you could just say it with your voice instead, that would be great. So, now we’ve got that established, let’s have a conversation and see where it goes. HI, I’m David …”

I’m doubtful how effective that would prove.

Anyway, as I was saying, before that lengthy inadvertent sidetrack, apparently Fat Man is called that because he is actually thin. I made a puzzled face, and then he said, “are you OK? You look constipated.” No, he didn’t, I was just being hilarious there. He said that it was an ironic name, like when people say “bad” to mean good, he was called Fat Man because he was actually a thin man. I pretended to understand out of politeness. So I didn’t point out his misuse of the word ironic. The Canadians seem to have difficulty understanding the word ironic. Alanis Morissette is a prime example.

“It’s like rain on your wedding day.”

“No it’s not. It was raining the day before when it wasn’t your wedding day. It’s annoying, but it’s not ironic. It’s just the weather.”

“It’s a no smoking sign on your cigarette break.”

“No it’s not, Alanis. If the no smoking sign only materialised whenever you had a cigarette break, then you might have a point. But that no smoking sign was there when you didn’t have a cigarette break. Just walk a little further and then you’ll be fine to smoke. That’s called mild inconvenience, not irony.”

“It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid.”

“Well, not really. That’s just weird. I mean, You paid for something that’s free, then surely you just ask for the money back. After all, it’s a free ride. Or maybe you just say that they can keep the money as a donation towards the fuel. I suppose you could argue that the concept of a free ride that you’ve paid for is a good definition of an oxymoron. But let’s not add another linguistic term to the mix, given that you seem to be still struggling with the notion of irony. If you’d written a song called, Isn’t It An Oxymoron, then a free ride when you’ve already paid might be a good lyric.”

“It’s like meeting the man of your dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife.”

“No it’s not. Because if he’s the man of your dreams, then chances are he’s the man of someone else’s dreams, and it’s highly likely that lots of other people will also find him attractive, and it’s very likely that he’ll therefore have a beautiful wife. It’s not ironic, it’s basic probability. If you’d written a song called, Isn’t It Just Basic Probability, then you you could use that lyric and it would make sense.”

After the show, I went up to Fat Man to congratulate him on a really good performance.

“That was awful,” I happily told him.

“Oh, really. I thought it went OK.” he sounded a bit upset with my praise. This whole Canadian irony thing is very confusing.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

We’ve had quite a few days off on this tour. This is because most of our bookings are at festivals which take place on the weekends, with the occasional gig in between. Obviously it doesn’t really make sense to keep popping home, given that home is 5000 miles away. I think the only band that might do something as crazy as that are the Proclaimers, who seem to have a different perspective on making crazy long distance journeys for odd and spurious reasons.

So, he’s going to walk 1000 miles, and the only reason is seemingly so that he can fall down at someone’s door. If he’s managed to walk all that way, you’d have thought that he might give the door bell a ring, rather than just slumping down by the door, waiting for the person to open it and get the shock of their life when they see a Delirious man lying on the ground, staring back up at them. This man has clearly got a mental illness and needs help. He’s walked 1000 miles just to lie down at a person’s door, and then, when the door is opened, he declares that he’s going to constantly be with this person, waking up with them, getting drunk with them, growing old with them. This poor person has only just woken up, and only opened the door to see if the milkman had been, and now this was happening: a man declaring that he’s going to spend the rest of his life with this person, in between making a series of weird noises: “Da lat da (Da lat da), da lat da (Da lat da)
Da-da-da dun-diddle un-diddle un-diddle uh da-da.” This person clearly has issues and needs medical help.

Yesterday’s day off consisted of us going on what was described as a wildlife tour and hike. Our original plan was to drive somewhere and go for a walk , but we were informed by someone working for a tourism company, that there wouldn’t be anywhere to park the car and so we would have to go on an organised outing. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s clear that this person was just trying to sell us something in order to make money, because when we got to the place, there wwere loads of parking spaces. But instead, we paid a tour company to take us and a load of other people on a bus, which spent the first forty minutes ambling through the town, picking up various passengers. We then dawdled down the road, stopping every couple of minutes to look at wildlife. Jasper apparently has bears, elks, deer and caribou. We stopped three times in fifteen minutes to look at some sheep, and another couple of times to see some squirrels.

Everyone else on the bus was seventy or older and didn’t look cut out for hiking. One minute into the walk, and it was clear that the word hike had been very missleading, and had probably been deliberately used by the tour company to make it sound more appealing and sellable to us. Unless it was going to be a hike, in which case, we’d probably be killing off a load of unfit pensioners. We lolloped around a park for about half an hour. We stopped to look at the lake, not that we needed to really stop because the speed that we were walking was practically akin to stopping anyway. Then we started again. Then, a couple of minutes later we stopped again and looked at the lake from about 50 metres from where we’d looked at it previously. We did this for half an hour. Then we got back on the bus and began the slow journey home, while the tour guide told us stories of bears, elk and deer, in between us periodically stopping to look at another sheep, squirrel or stretch of lake.

The whole thing took six hours; if we’d have done that journey by ourselves, we could have done it in one hour. One of the other reasons for the length of time the journey took, in addition to the fact that we spent 90 minutes of it picking-up and dropping-off people, half an hour to look at sheep, squirrels and stretches of lake, and then walking at a painfully slow speed, was because we also made toilet stops every half an hour. /The day was quite fun though, if not for the intended reasons. The people we were with were very friendly and interesting and we had a good time chatting and joking with them. Being in folk music we are used to hanging around with pensioners. And then, right at the end of the tour, a bear came out onto the road side.

“We shouldn’t stop for too long because we’re running a bit late,” said the tour guide when everyone had got all excited about seeing the bear and naturally wanted to stop. The reason we were running a bit late was because we’d stopped for half an hour to look at sheep. We stopped for a few minutes while people took photos. Even I managed to see the bear through the bus window, although, to be honest, I couldn’t realy tell much of a difference between it and the sheep; obviously that’s because I’m blind, in case you were starting to question my level of basic intelligence.

Today is the gig I talked about in Dollop 197, which describes our music as Celtic Country. I’ve been in this band for eleven years, since it started, and I’m pretty sure it’s not Celtic Country, in fact I have no idea what Celtic Country even is. Here is the write-up for our gig:.

“Celtic or country? Which one to choose? Well this week you don’t have to choose, because we’ve got both, with The Young’uns.”

Alas we never managed to procure a harp or slide guitar and learn a whole new repertoire based on this strange unknown genre which we’re apparently part of. There is a chance though that we might be saved the awkwardness of performing English folk music to an expectant crowd of Celtic Country aficionados, because it’s an outdoor gig and currently there is a massive thunder storm happening, and the metrological Office have issued severe storm warnings. We might just get away with this yet.