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Yesterday was spent in a bit of an odd haze. We didn’t get much sleep on Wednesday night, because we had to be up early to get to the airport. We then waited at the airport for three hours, before sitting on a plane for eleven hours. When we got to the hotel in Vancouver we were starving, so we went out for something to eat. We’d arranged to meet up with a friend based in Vancouver. The three of us were so tired that we were worried we were just going to fall asleep in the restaurant, which I think would make us come across a tad anti-social. So we ordered some beers in the hope that it might chemically alter our brains enough to get through the next couple of hours. This sort of worked and we managed to stay awake. Eventually bedtime came, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was asleep.

The next thing I was aware of was an almighty explosion of noise. It sounded like bombs were going off, there were what sounded like gun shots, the sound of cars screeching to a halt, and strange voices shouting unintelligibly. Three of the voices shouting belonged to Sean, Michael and me, but there were other shouts, screams, gun shots and explosions. We jumped out of bed. I then heard another crash and a shout. It was Michael, who had crashed into the wall, in the act of desperately trying to locate the light. My brain was now in a much more alert state, and I was beginning to grasp what the voices were shouting. “Gangsters! Gangsters!” Where were the gangsters? Should we run? Should we hide?

I remember being warned at school in English lessons and creative writing classes, that the most pathetic way to end any story is by saying something along the lines of, “and then I woke up,” or, “and it was all a dream.” But there was still a part of my brain that assumed that this was all a crazy dream that I was having. I was jet lagged, I’d had a bit to drink, so weird dreams were to be expected. Except I was pretty convinced this wasn’t a dream. My brain began to become more and more alert.

Further clarity was gained when Michael managed to get the light swithched on, making our eyes hurt to match the pain in our ears and our throbbing heads from being woken up from a drunken jet lagged state by such an arresting and confusing series of sounds.

“Gangsters! Gangsters!” Gun shots, explosions, shouting, screaming.

We forced our eyes open in spite of the pain, which revealed the source of all the commotion. It was a radio alarm clock. As we reached for the switch to turn it off, we heard a voice shouting, “hip hop! Hip hop!” and then a beat kicked in, and then kicked out as the off switch was activated. And the room fell quiet. The threat of gangsters was gone.

We checked the time. It was 330 in the morning. I wonder whether someone had set the alarm to go off at this time the day before, maybe to catch an early flight, not realising that they’d set the alarm to recur at the same time the next day, thus nearly giving heart attacks to three folk singers from England. Or was this deliberate? Had someone done it as a joke, although this was a joke that they wouldn’t see the punchline to, which makes it a bit weird. Maybe they just take satisfaction in the prospect of what might happen, rather than needing to see the effects for themselves. Unless they’ve bugged our rooms with cameras. Fortunately we were all too tired to have sex that particular night, so at least they didn’t get that on their camera.

If you were going to deliberately do this as some kind of weird prank, then 330 is surely the perfect time. It’s late enough to mean that most people will definitely be in bed asleep, even if they were staying out late, but it’s unlikely that anyone will be getting up and leaving that early. So it’s an optimum time for the prank. Then there’s the fact that the radio’s volume was set as high as it would go. Surely if you were setting the alarm for the more conventional reason of waking yourself up, you wouldn’t want to put the radio as loud as that, as it would risk causing you a heart attack. Then there’s the choice of radio station. The person had chosen the loudest, most abrasive and most terrifying soundscape to be woken up to. No classical music or soothing bird song, but guns, bombs, shouts and screams.

Our brains were too confused and alert to be able to relax again, and it was hours before we eventually got back to sleep. I hope every night in Canada isn’t going to be this terrifying, but it has been a rather confusing trip for us so far.

One enjoyable factor of Canadian festivals, as with Australian festivals, is that we get to do what they call workshops, where a number of performers share the stage, go down the line and take turns at doing a song. This also leads to lots of interesting collaborative moments with everyone just chipping in on each other’s songs.

This morning we did a workshop with Geoff Berner, a political comedy songwriter. His songs had quite a lot of swearing in them, and it seemed strange to be on an outdoor stage at 10in the morning with children around, while a man periodically swore, and then got people to join in with the sweary choruses, which everyone happily did, including the children. This wouldn’t really happen at a British folk festival. Now that we know that Vancouver folk audiences are a lot less sensitive and genteel than British folk audiences, we’ll come prepared for our return visit to Canada. I’m thinking we could do some great unaccompanied harmony versions of some hiphop classics; I reccon we could do a great version of NWA’s Fuck The Police. If the daily Hive website thought we were genre-bending before, just imagine their reaction when we break into our harmony hiphop set. I think NWA’s first album came out in 1989, which was obviously when we first started. It was a really exciting year for music.

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It’s happened again. When we were gigging in Australia earlier this year, one of the venues we played was a jazz club, and described itself as the home of jazz in Melbourne. Upon arriving, the venue had a big poster outside, listing all the performers who’d appeared at the place, and they were all names from the jazz world. Upon entering the venue we saw a programme for the week’s events. For our bit, the writer explained that they were departing from jazz for one night, because it was Saint Patrick’s day, and so they’d decided to have a traditional Irish folk night instead, which was why they’d booked The Young’uns, who are a folk group from Ireland. Except, we aren’t. Fortunately, despite the confusion, our none-Irishness didn’t seem to dampen the night too much, and it was a really good gig. See this Dollop for more on that.

But it’s happened again. One of the venues on our Canadian tour claims to host the best in Country music. What are we to do? The gig is a week away. Should we spend the next few days learning a Country music set to try and avoid embarrassment? It might be a bit of an ask. Maybe it would be more conducive to rework some of our actual songs, singing them in American accents and changing certain words, putting in references to pick-up trucks and cowboys.

Unfortunately, even this might not be enough to save us, because the venue also describes The Young’uns as Celtic. So it’s not just Country music they’re expecting from us, but Celtic Country. We’ve got less than a week to invent a genre of music, learn an entire repertoire of songs in that as-of-yet non-existent gentre, and somehow pull it off. I need to get my hands on a harp from somewhere, learn how to play it, and Michael is going to have to learn the slide guitar.

But Canada manages to trump Australia in the weirdness stakes. This is a write-up about us for the Vancoover Festival, which we play today:

“Though the Young’Uns have been around since 1989, this may well be the first introduction to the genre-bending English trio for a more recent generation (or, ahem, young’uns).”

According to this write-up, we’ve been a band since we were four-years-old. I have no idea where they’ve got this information from. Google The Young’uns and there are loads of websites that will tell you that we started in 2005. So it’s not as if this is even a typo; none of the numbers are the same. I like the fact that they then make a little joke based on their massive mistake: ““Though the Young’Uns have been around since 1989, this may well be the first introduction to the genre-bending English trio for a more recent generation (or, ahem, young’uns).”

Maybe the person who wrote this realised after writing it that they’d got the facts completely wrong, but was so proud of their joke that they decided to sacrifice the facts for the sake of being able to keep in the hilarious joke.

And they describe us as a “genre-bending English trio.” Today’s gig is just going to be our normal stuff. If they came and saw us next week doing our Celtic Country set, then they’d see a band that is truly worthy of the label “genre-bending.” But today we’re just going to do our usual stuff, maybe throw in a few of our old hits from the eighties. I can’t remember what they were; probably an unaccompanied medley of nursery rhymes or something.

This particular write-up comes from the Daily Hive, and the title of the piece is 5 emerging artists to watch at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. So we’ve been around since 1989, but we’re also emerging? The blurb at the start of the article says: “The Vancouver Folk Music Festival, with a diverse lineup that includes many up-and-comers whose stars are rising. Here are five.” And we are one of those five. The Rolling Stones are also on the list.

All this confusion and weirdness does nothing to temper the strange feelings that are naturally occurring due to Jet lag. Anyway, must dash, I’ve got harp practising to do.

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After the success of my Dollop from two weeks ago, entitled Dolloping From A Plane To Belgium, I’m sure you’ll all be excited at the prospect of reading another plane-based Dollop, although this time, as you’ve hopefully already worked out (otherwise I’m a bit worried about your basic level of education) I’m Dolloping from a plane heading to Canada. It’s going to be difficult to rival my Dollop from a plane heading to Belgium, given how fantastic it was, as I’m sure you’ll all remember – so many memories. It’s going to be quite an ask to create something even better, especially since that particular Dollop was on the subject of kettles, and today I have nothing kettle based to give you, but I’ll do my best regardless. Now this is what I call cabin pressure. Oh yes, and we’re off!

From the moment we arrived at the airport, we were being shouted at. Not by a member of staff, or a harassed traveller, but by the escalator. “Please take extra care when using this escalator,” it repeatedly instructed at considerable volume. This was my first escalator of the day, it was rather early in the morning and I hadn’t had much sleep. I was therefore finding it difficult to imagine the usual level of care that I would take on an escalator. I’ve never really given my escalator travel much consideration. I usually just get on, stay on until it’s done escalating me and then get off. It’s always just been an instinctive thing. I wouldn’t really say that I take particular care when using escalators, but now I was being asked to consider my usual care and then add extra care on top of that.

The people behind me were getting impatient. Seemingly they weren’t as vexed or concerned by this automated announcement and were just keen to get on the escalator, and didn’t appreciate my deliberations. Either that or they had managed to quickly do the maths in their head and had already calculated the amount of care that they were about to take. There was nothing for it but to just step on, and hope for the best. It was time to take what might potentially be my most exhilarating escalator journey of my life.

I stepped onto the escalator, and braced myself. I clung onto the rail tightly – surely that was an example of taking extra care. But nothing momentous happened. It was just like all the escalators I’d ever used before. I was a little disappointed to be honest, and no doubt, so are you. The announcement had built my expectations. I was expecting maybe a bit more speed, maybe some twists and turns, but it was just your standard escalator.

Between entering the airport and boarding the plane, we went on loads of escalators, all of them as standard as the first, yet the first escalator at the entrance was the only one that came with a warning. The others didn’t even warn us to simply “take care when using the escalator. We’d gone from insistent over-zealousness to “couldn’t give a damn” all in a few paces.

In other automated announcement news, the computerised voice that constantly blurted out over the airport’s PA system was a bit lacklustre. I’d have thought, baring in mind that there are going to be lots of people of different nationalities waiting, it’s rather important that the announcements about flight information and so on, are slow and clear. But the computerised voice spoke at a very irregular meeter, often speeding up when it came to salient information such as the flight number. The voice was also rather robotic, and it pronounced certain words and phrases incorrectly, such as: “you aircraft is ready for boarding.” Every single time it said, “you aircraft” rather than “your aircraft.” I wonder how long this quirk has existed, and how long it will be before anyone gets around to changing it. If there’s anyone working in customer service at Gatwick Airport, might I suggest that it might be a good idea to get this fixed? Thank your.

My favourite mistake that the computerised voice made – and it happened frequently – was: “can all of the passenger please board flight …” I assume that this was meant to say “can all passengers board,” unless this was the computer’s idea of a joke about the amount of physically damaged passengers who board these planes, due to having bits of themselves dismembered by the incendiary escalator. Maybe me and the other two Young’uns are just a lot tougher than some of the other customers, because we didn’t find anything particularly dangerous about the escalator. Although, come to think of it, there were quite a lot of people boarding our plane with missing limbs. Maybe the escalator is an initiative set up by the airline companies to reduce the amount of weight on the plane, by amputating passengers, thus saving fuel costs. It brings a slightly different meaning to the notion of travelling light.

There were a few people asking the stewards if they could bring their dismembered legs onboard the plane with them, but they were told that they wouldn’t be able to bring them into Canada, as there’s a customs rule about bringing foreign meat into the country.
Understandably, The passengers were hopping mad.

So far, I have managed to keep this 366 consecutive daily blogging challenge alive, even during my three weeks in Australia. In a couple of hours I land in Vancouver for three weeks in Canada. We have gone over the halfway point, but for the next three weeks I am at the mercy of Canadian WIFI. Back tomorrow, hopefully.

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Yesterday’s Dollop about Angela Eagle’s Office window being smashed with a brick recieved the following comment from Bill

“Brilliant, David! I think you missed a trick there though. You should have called it Angela Eagle’s Brick-xit.”

Excellent Bill, I hereby appoint you chief Dollop title creator. Obviously that’s a bit of a crap job title, but your first job can be thinking of a better job title for yourself.. I’m assembling quite the team with these Dollops: I’ve now got two detectives and a job title creator. Jools seems to have long ago abandoned her position as grammar and spellchecker, so there’s a position there up for grabs if anyone fancies it. Over the next few eeks I’ll be thinking of other dollop-based positions for people, so watch this space for announcements, which let’s be honest is a lot more interesting and even more newsworthy than Theresa May’s cabinet

In contrast, Mavis Crumble’s comment was simply, “sheeeeep!” and a broad smiling face emoticon. It’s nice to see that these Dollops can cater for a broad range of interests. Some people appreciate the politics, others enjoy the sounds of bleating sheep in the country. However, no one as of yet has commented on the most exciting part of yesterday’s Dollop which was my fascinating conversation with some dogs. I assume this is because we don’t have any listeners who are animal communicators, which is a shame because you’re missing out on some really gripping stuff.

Sean and I had a lovely day together yesterday, and not just because we finally got to spend a day together as just the two of us, without bloody Michael getting in the way and spoiling things. The reason for our lovely day was because we spent it in the company of a husband and wife in their eighties, who invited us to their home and provided us with delicious food and great conversation, songs and stories. Donn’t worry, we’re not doing so badly financially from folk music that we’ve become homeless and reliant on people taking us in and feeding us.

If you’ve come to any of our gigs over the last year, you will have no doubt heard us talk about the late Mary Duffy, an amazingly inspiring Teesside lady who we became acquainted with thanks to the chance acquiring of an old reel-to-reel tape recording that someone gave us. The tape was recorded in the eighties and contains stories of her life mixed with songs. Just like with the 1960s reel-to-reel tape recording that I played and investigated in these Dollops a couple of weeks ago, we found ourselves getting drawn into the lives of these people and feeling a real sense of connection with and warmth towards Mary. You can spend years working in an office with someone, exchange small talk or office banter with them on a daily basis, but never really get a true sense of who they are, but somehow you can feel so connected with and drawn to someone in the space of one half an hour recording, a mere solitary snapshot of their existence. With both these reel-to-reel recordings we are given very intimate access into people’s lives. We are essentially brought into their home, hearing their jokes, their stories, their songs, their conversations. And strangely, we are able to capture and savour that moment and get to know it and own it, more than the actual people involved, because we can rewind it and play it again, and analyse it and know it inside out. We can travel back through that particular small moment of time over and over again; the fleeting is made concrete and permanent, preserved for strangers from the future to listen to, and in doing so, feel as if they are no longer strangers, but are now friends.

After discovering this recording of Mary Duffy, we tried to get in touch with Mary’s daughter Pat. We tried Facebook which didn’t yield a direct contact, but we did manage to get her address from someone. So we wrote a letter explaining who we were and how we had come by the recording of her mother, who’s songs we’d started singing and stories we’d started telling in our gigs, and we also included our CDs. And Pat wrote back to us with more stories about her mother, who was a truly amazing, inspiring and fascinating woman. I won’t go into detail about those stories and about Mary here, because we’ll be talking a lot more about her at gigs, plus it’s getting late and I need to get some sleep before our early start tomorrow. Y

So yesterday Sean and I went to Pat’s house in Durham and she regaled us with more stories and songs, and lots of food and drink, including home-made quiche, a variety of salads and chicken (real chicken as opposed to Vegan chicken that we wouldn’t be able to believe wasn’t chicken), followed by Apple stroodle with ice cream, and then a selection of cheeses and crackers. We’d never met these people before. We only knew them because of an old tape recording of her mother from the eighties, yet here we were in their home and made to feel as if we were best of friends. As I said a few Dollops ago, we are so lucky to live the kind of lives that brings us into contact with so many interesting people, and we have made so many friends through folk music, people of all ages, which all stems from an accidental discovery of our local folk club as teenagers. And tomorrow that accidental teenage discovery takes us to Canada for three weeks. So don’t worry, from tomorrow I’ll be telling you about our Canadian exploits, as opposed to boring you with this kind of sentimental tosh.

Fancy joining me on a leisurely stroll through rural Sheffield? As long as you don’t mind me blabbering on to you about Angela Eagle and Jeremy Corbyn. On the plus side, there’s lots of lovely nature sounds, and, you’ll be pleased to hear, Mavis Crumble, some bleating sheep.

Download today’s audio walking dollop here

Download the audio version here

I was at a restaurant last night. One of the things on the menu was, Vegan Chicken Nuggets. This is a pretty confusing name for a meal. Putting the word “vegan” at the start suggests that the food is suitable for vegans.; but then adding the word “chicken” somewhat muddles things. Are these chicken nuggets suitable for vegans? Or are they in fact nuggets made from chickens who were fed on a vegan diet.?

Puzzled vegans reading this menu would no doubt then turn their attention to the description for the dish, hoping to get some clarity as to what the heck it actually is. However, in my opinion, the description does nothing to explain things but rather confuses things even more.

“Vegan Chicken Nuggets: you won’t believe it’s not chicken.”

What does that mean? That’s not saying that it isn’t chicken, is it? It’s just saying that you won’t believe that it’s not chicken. Maybe the reason you won’t believe it’s not chicken is because upon tasting it, it’s patently obvious that it is.

I’m very doubtful that many vegans would choose this meal, given the name and description. Even if it wasn’t chicken, it seems a bit weird, if you’re a vegan, to want to have the experience of eating a dead animal, but not actually eating a dead animal. “You won’t believe it’s not chicken”, is that meant to be a good thing? Surely the idea of eating a dead animal is abhorrent to the vegan? So why would they want to eat a meal that constantly puts them on edge, and makes them constantly question whether they really are eating a vegan substitute that tastes uncannily of chicken, or whether they have actually been given chicken by an unscrupulous restaurant? I imagine it would be pretty difficult to relax and enjoy the meal if all the while you are in constant disbelief about its veganness.

. Maybe just to blur things even further, the restaurant have chosen to form the nuggets into the shape of little chickens. Perhaps the plate has a photo of a battery farm on it, and maybe also has a sensor in it that emits the sound of clucking every time it detects a nugget being taken from the plate, meaning that the vegan diner is constantly recoiling at the thought of what they are eating, causing them to join the chicken in the borking. Maybe this is a meal designed for vegan masochists.

This same restaurant also does Vegan toad in the whole. “Vegan Toad In The Hole: you won’t believe it’s not real toad. That’s because it isn’t; it’s just very substandard pork sausage. You know, I really don’t think we’ve got the hang of this vegan lark. Talking of vegan larks, you should try our vegan game pie.”

I was tempted to order the vegan chicken nuggets in order to see how they were presented and what they were. I’m sure you’ll agree, that the fascinating nature of this topic completely justifies a special Dollop from the restaurant, in order to investigate this dish. Unfortunately I’m busy all tomorrow and then we’re heading to Canada for three weeks, so I’m afraid there’ll be a bit of a wait for the exciting sequel to today’s Dollop. In the meantime you’ll just have to make do with reading about my Canadian exploits, which clearly won’t be quite as exciting but still … I suppose the other option is that I could recruit Steven Mainprize or Michael Wackington (the Dollop’s budding detectives) and they could investigate on my behalf.

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As the name of today’s Dollop suggests, I have an update regarding our van break-in, as talked about in Dollop 190. The Young’uns van was broken into, and the burglar chose to ignore the instruments, the Satnav, and the £50 note, and instead took a gamble on the mystery box, which unfortunately for him/her, was full of Young’uns CDs.

I suggested in Dollop 190 that perhaps I could launch another investigative journalism project, after my previous efforts with the mysterious Reel-To-Reel Recording (see Dollop 182) in which I attempt to deduce who the burglar might be and then track them down. I called up Steven Mainprize last week to thank him for all his help playing detective with the reel-to-reel recording, and while he was happy that the project had come to a successful conclusion, he admitted to being a bit sad that we’d solved the mystery so soon, as he was really enjoying the adventure. I’m sure that Mr Mainprize would be only too happy to take on detective duties again, this time utilising his skills to track down the burglar and the stolen box. However, the mystery has kind of already been solved, or at least half solved anyway.

Thank you to Dollop regular (we’re over halfway through this project, and I still haven’t got a collective name for you Dollop listeners/readers) Michael Wackington, who I have appointed head of the David’s Daily Digital Dollop Detective Agency’s Cyber department. He has been checking Ebay, in case the burglar decided to sell all the stolen CDs online.

“No suspicious activity,” he reports. “However, I was amazed at the range of prices that the CDs were on sale for. For instance the Never Forget CD – is on sale from a low of £8.86 to a high of £13.45, a massive range of £4.59. over 50%!! wow. And there was I thinking that ebay would exhibit the characteristics of a free market and prices would coalesce around the most competitive price. If the woman ( or man) who stole your CDs does start off loading them, I expect the price to plummet. I shall track the prices in the next few days and report any unusual trading patterns.”

Thank you Michael, excellent work, and I shall keep you on a retainer in case the daily Dollop Detective Agency needs your services in the future; however, on this occasion, the mystery is solved, or at least half solved. But I’ll come to that soon. I’m building suspense, because that’s the kind of skilled writer that you’re dealing with here. You’re hooked, aren’t you? Unless you read The Young’uns Facebook status, in which case you’ll already know the outcome, and you’ll be wishing I’d therefore move on to writing about something more interesting, like revisiting yesterday’s subject of having sex with my dead mother. “I thought he’d reached his Dolloping zenith with his kettle material, but then he managed to take it to a whole new level of genius with the incest stuff.”

I find it odd that our albums are on sale on Ebay for £13,45, baring in mind that you can buy it from us for £10 and actually give some money to the people who made the album. Who would choose to buy an album for more money and deliberately rip off the artist in the process? Perhaps this Ebay seller is catering for a very special niche market, comprising people who like an artist’s music, but don’t like the artist’s on a personal level and therefore don’t want to support the artist financially, and are happy to pay a premium in order to get their music without giving the people who made the music any money. I can see how this might work for someone who wanted to buy a Gary Glitter album, perhaps really wanting to listen to his music, but not really wanting to give money to a paedophile. But I’m not sure why this would apply to our band. I am tempted to contact the Ebay seller and try and get their logic for selling an album for a higher price than the artist is selling it for.

We got a message on Facebook last night, detailing the whereabouts of our stolen box. The message was from James, at the music shop Elegance Music in Sheffield, who found the box dumped outside his shop. The burglar had seemingly got a little way down the street, opened the box, saw the disappointing contents, and dumped it in the street. I assume it was a coincidence that they left it outside a music shop, unless the burglar happens to be a fan of The Young’uns and upon discovering that he’d broken into our van and stolen our box, felt guilty and decided to try and make amends by leaving the box outside somewhere where a music fan might discover it and get in contact with us.

Unless of course the burglar was James from Elegance Music, who pretended that he’d found the Cds, knowing that it was likely to give him some free positive publicity for his shop, assuming that we would mention it on Facebook. Also we gave him a couple of free CDs and a bottle of wine to say thanks. Maybe he was counting on this too. Come to think of it, the music shop is next-door to Sean’s local garage, which is where he got the van window fixed. Maybe James and the owner of the garage are in on this together. James’s shop would get free publicity, and the garage would get paid for fixing the window. My goodness, I think we might be onto something here. Get me Mr Wackington and Mr Mainprize, there’s detective work to be done!

Maybe James’s initial plan was to also steal the instruments, knowing that he could make even more money from us because we’d need to buy new instruments to replace the stolen ones. Maybe he intended to steal the instruments as well as the CD box, and then get in contact with us to say that he’d found our box; obviously this would ingratiate him to us. We’d then enquire as to whether the instruments had also been dumped outside his shop, but he’d of course answer with a no. We’d obviously need to buy new instruments, and James would kindly offer to supply us with the replacement instruments at a discount price, by way of a commiserative gesture. We would feel so grateful for his help with the CD box and his kindness regarding the discount, that we would naturally buy the new musical instruments from his shop. He’d ask us exactly what instruments had been stolen, and when we told him, he’d say, “well, it just so happens we have those exact same instruments stocked in our shop.” He would then sell our own instruments back to us, and we’d be so grateful for his generosity that we’d give him even more free publicity.

Maybe this was the original plan, but then he got a bit worried and so decided just to steal the CDs and thus bag the free wine, free CDs and free publicity, which, let’s face it, is still a pretty good deal, an a lot less risky for James. My goodness, I think I’ve cracked it. In all likelihood, James is reading this Dollop, presumably because he knows that I’m going to be giving him free publicity. But now he’ll be quaking in his boots, boots which he’s probably stolen from some van somewhere in another of his dastardly criminal escapades. I’m on to you James. I expect Steven Mainprize and Michael Wackington will be paying you a visit before too long in order to do some sniffing around, so be careful what you say James, because we’re on to you!

Obviously I suppose there’s a chance that James is just a nice guy who did genuinely just find the CDs outside his shop, in which case thanks James.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

We are so lucky to be doing something that results in us making friends with people throughout Britain and the world. Obviously, I’m aware that Britain is in the world (we’ve not had a referendum about that yet, although I dread to think of the result if we did; it already feels like we’re living on another planet.)

Folk music has brought us into contact with so many incredible people. I remember one particular time I was struck by the magnificent absurdity of our lives. We were walking through a small town in the Netherlands, which played host to a shanty festival that we had done for the last few years. As we walked through this little Dutch town, we were constantly bumping into people we recognised and who recognised us. People from all over Europe, who were also performing at the festival and who had become friends over the years. We were also frequently stopped by people who were local to the town and wanted to say hello, because they recognised us from previous years. I’ve lived in Hartlepool for the majority of my life, but I can easily walk through the town without meeting someone I know, but here we were in a town in Holland, being constantly approached by people.

Nowadays, folk festivals in Britain are like this too. It’s difficult for us to get anywhere on time at a folk festival, because we are constantly being stopped by people, who are either friends or fans who want to chat or just say hello. We’re late for so many soundchecks because of this. Obviously we can’t really use this as an excuse for our lateness. It’s probably not the wisest thing when you arrive at a soundcheck late, to greet the harassed sound team with the excuse that your lateness is down to being stopped to chat by hoards of fans. It may be true, but the idea of an apology is to show a modicum of humility, and this excuse doesn’t really help in that regard. “Sorry for keeping you waiting, but we’re just so damn popular.” So we normally just awkwardly apologise without giving an excuse. However, if there are any folk festival sound engineers reading this, then honestly, you don’t understand what it’s like. You might feel put out by us turning up late to our soundcheck, but you should try taking a walk in our shoes, and you’d soon find that your walk is periodically halted by people wanting to chat; and then you’d understand.

Most of the contact we have with a lot of these people is just very brief chats, because we are trying to get somewhere, and are already running late. Michael and Sean are able to see someone, know who they are, say hello, have a bit of relevant chat to that specific person or group of people and then move on. But for me, not being able to see, it’s a complete cavalcade of confusion.

What normally happens is that someone will stop us, Sean and Michael will say hello, there’ll be a bit of chat, and then we’ll have moved on, which normally coincides with me having just worked out who the person is. But it’s too late to engage in conversation because we’ve moved onto someone else. And everyone probably just assumes that I’m really rude and uninterested. And so it goes, sometimes for a whole hour – a whole hour of meting people, trying desperately to work out who they are, and then, just as I’ve racked my brains and pieced together the clues revealing who it is, they’ve gone and we’re on to someone else.

In fairness to Sean and Michael, they do try and tell me who people are, but often they don’t know their name, but just know who they are in terms of where we met and how we know them, which is enough to engage in conversation. But Sean and Michael don’t want to reveal to the other person that they don’t know their name, and so they can’t really, in earshot of the person, start saying to me, “it’s the really drunk bloke that we met in Huddersfield in 2014, who told us the anecdote about the goldfish.” Incidentally, there is no really drunk man from Huddersfield who told us an anecdote about a goldfish; I just made that up as an example. I’m not sure why goldfish was the first random thing that popped into my head. Any psychologists reading, feel free to interpret and leave your conclusions in a comment on this blog. But don’t go all Freudian on me, and tell me it means I want to have sex with my mother, because that is completely ridiculous and untrue. My mother is dead. If she were still alive than yes, you might be on to something. Oh, I’m sorry, I was trying to make a serious point about my social awkwardness and hang-ups, and I’ve ended up talking about incest.

The other confusing element is that because we are a band who have performed for years at folk festivals, we are known by a lot of people who we’ve never actually met before. The problem is that sometimes we are walking around the festival, constantly being stopped by friends and acquaintances, and there is a lot of hugging going on. I often don’t know who the person is, but I don’t want people to think I’m being rude and reclusive, and so I have to just join in with all the embracing, even if I’ve no idea who the person is. But because I don’t know who the person is that I’m speaking to, I’m not really sure on the appropriate level of enthusiasm to give them. And it’s not as if I can always take my lead from Sean and Michael, because there are so many people, that I can’t be entirely sure who they’ve just hugged, or who they’ve just shaken the hand of. So often I am prone to getting confused, and assuming that the person who’s just said hello to me is an old friend, when actually we’ve never met before and they are just someone who knows who we are because they watched our gig. So if you’ve ever been to one of our gigs, came up to say hello, and ended up getting a massive enthusiastic hug from me, then you know why?

To avoid this common embarrassment, the three of us have tried out a solution whereby if we know the person really well and it’s appropriate to go in for the hug then they will greet the person with a “hi,” but if it’s someone we don’t know so well or at all, and thus the appropriate response would be a hand shake, then they say “hello.” The trouble is that they often forget, and so there are still many times when I’ve heard one of them say “hi” to the person, causing me to enthusiastically pounce upon them and effusively embrace them.

Often another thing that can happen is that I’ll notice Michael and Sean hugging someone, and then I’ll see that person approach me, I’ll give them a massive hug and start chatting to them, only to realise that my lack of vision has meant I’ve got the wrong person, and have ended up hugging someone completely different who we’ve never met before and has no idea who I am. This would be fine if it was someone I might want to be intimately involved with, but sod’s law always seems to prevail in these instances, and I always end up pouncing on eighty-year-old men, and I’m not interested in eighty-year-old men; seventy-year-old men on the other hand … now you’re talking – although I’m not sure who’s talking, if I know you, and whether you’re expecting a hand shake or a hug. What the hell, I’m going in for the hug. Open up your loving arms, watch out, here I come!

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

A few nights ago, The Young’uns van was broken into. They had smashed one of the windows. It seems as if the only thing that has been taken is one box, which is full of Young’uns CDs. This seems like a very strange thing to take. The burglar broke into the van and was presented with two guitars worth over £1000, an accordion, worth over £2000, and a piano worth over £1000. In the glove compartment was a satnav and £50. yet none of that was taken. This burglar presumably saw all that, yet, for some inexplicable reason, decided to take a gamble on the mystery box. I mean, I assume it was a mystery box. I’m assuming that they didn’t open it, see all the Young’uns CDs, and think, “my god, I’ve struck the jackpot. There must be at least fifty CDs! Oh my goodness, it just gets better and better, they’re all
Young’uns CDS. This is incredible. Let’s have a look. Oh yes, fantastic, there’s Another Man’s Ground, Never Forget, and even when Our Grandfather’s Said No. Incredible, that’s all three albums, in one box. I can hardly believe my luck. Well I best dash. I don’t want to risk getting caught and losing this amazing bounty.”

I’m assuming that the burglar saw the box, realised that it was portable and inconspicuous enough to run with, and decided to take a gamble on the fact that it might contain money or something of value. Just imagine his disappointment when he opened it, his hands trembling at the prospect of what wealth might be revealed, only to see fifty CDs from some band he’s never heard of before. I wonder if he gives any of them a listen, out of curiosity. With a bit of luck, he might give our albums a play, really love the music, feel guilty for breaking into our van and stealing our CDs, and make amends by buying loads of tickets to our gigs for him and his friends, thus recouping our financial loss.

Maybe this should be my next Dollop-based detective project, after my investigative work with the old reel-to-reel tape recording (see Dollop 182). I imagine that tracking down the burglar will be a bit more of a challenge, but perhaps there are some clues left inside the van. I’ll have a scout round, and see if there’s anything to go on. I’ll also keep checking Ebay to see whether someone has put a load of our albums on sale for a knock-off price. Presumably if this does happen, then we’ll have our man. I say man, I apologise for being so unfeminist and assuming that the burgular is a man. I am ashamed of my sexist attitude, and I hope I haven’t offended anyone with my sexist assumptions. Just to clarify, women can be dense, thieving scum too, however, I appreciate that there is still a long way to go for female burglars to be properly recognised and accepted in the same way that men are. I’m also aware of the difficulties that women burglars have in order to progress up the career ladder. I encourage all aspiring female burglars to ignore the societal stigmas, and give that career ladder a bloody good climb, perhaps stopping periodically in order to access an open upstairs window. I encourage all aspiring female burglars to ignore the glass ceiling, smash right through it, thus giving you access to whatever might be of value in the loft.

So, what a week it’s been dollopwise: a fictional mugger, and a real-life burglar. What next?

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

After my encounter with the “homeless” man in Huddersfield, which I told you about in Dollop 181, I was approached by another homeless person in Sheffield, later that same day. I heard him asking people for money before he came to me, and no one seemed to be responding positively. Unlike the man in Huddersfield, this man’s story remained constant, and didn’t change with every new person he met. I was proud of my home town of Sheffield, for sporting a better class of beggar than those of Huddersfield. If I gave the Huddersfield man some money, and he couldn’t even stick to a plausible story about why he wanted the money, then surely I would have to give something to this seemingly more genuine man. So I also gave him a pound. He thanked me and went on his way.

A minute later, I was approached by another man, who told me he was homeless and asked me if I could spare any change. What was going on? Is there a homeless network where fellow homeless people tip others off about good prospective givers. I didn’t even hear this one ask anyone else before me. It was as if he’d just gone straight to me, as if he knew who I was. Perhaps the man at Huddersfield had alerted the homeless community of Sheffield.

“Hello Sheffield, this is John from Huddersfield. I’ve got a tip off for you. There’s a blind man with blonde hair and blue eyes heading in your direction. He’s just got on the train. He should be at the train station in just over an hour. Oh, and a word to the wise: make sure you get your story straight. I nearly botched it. It seems as if his going rate is a pound, although you might get more if you get your story straight first.”

This man also got a pound. What the hell, I thought, I’m a folk singer for goodness sake, I can obviously afford it. He thanked me and we went our separate ways.

A couple of minutes later, I got lost while trying to find the bus stop, and I was stopped by a man who asked me if I needed some help. I told him where I was trying to get to and he offered to walk me there. As we walked we got chatting. I asked him what he was up to today, and he told me that he wasn’t really doing much, as he was currently living on the streets. Damn, I’d fallen into his trap. He’d obviously been tipped off by Huddersfield and possibly also his other homeless friends in Sheffield, and had deliberately offered to help me, knowing that I would surely have to give him money, perhaps counting on the fact that I’d give him even more than a pound if he did something for me in return. Each homeless person I was meeting today was getting progressively more adept. I reached into my bag and pulled out a pound, which I gave to him. He thanked me, and then informed me that he was lost and he wasn’t sure on the way from here. He then walked off, leaving me more lost than I was before he’d come along.

I stood there for a few seconds, trying to decide how I felt about what had just happened. I felt a mix of emotions. I felt sympathy for the man, assuming that he really was homeless. I also felt a bit angry though that he had taken advantage of my situation, seemingly just to guilt trip me into giving him money, which, when given, he buggered off to leave me to fend for myself. My annoyance began to build, usurping my feelings of sympathy and goodwill. I considered the first homeless man, who didn’t seem to really be homeless, with his changing reasons for needing money. My frustration caused me to start doubting the authenticity of the first Sheffield homeless man, and I began to feel even more irked. After all, in a sea of people refusing to give any of these people money, I had now given money to four homeless people, the first of which had lied to me and then not thanked me, and the last of which had led me down some alley somewhere, making me completely lost.

“Are you lost mate? Where are you trying to get to mate?” A man approached me. I told him where I was trying to head, the man took my arm and we began to walk. I thanked him for his help, and then, for want of anything else to say, and thinking that it might do me some good to get what had just happened off my chest, I said, “you’re not homeless are you?” It was a sort of jocular conversation opener. Basically, he would say no, I’d have piqued his curiosity about why I was asking, and it would mean that I could vent my spleen about what had just happened. Except my plan backfired.

“Yes, I am mate. I am.”

Bloody hell, this was getting ridiculous. What was I going to do? I’d asked as a kind of joke in order to facilitate a conversation topic, but now I’d inadvertently put my foot in it. I’d have to give him some money, surely? I began to reach into my bag, but then I stopped. What if this man was part of the homeless network, and had received all the tip-offs from the previous three homeless men, including the last one about the pretending-to-help-the-blind-man-find-the-bus-stop scam? I can’t keep falling for this. If I gave him money, then he would probably just toddle off, tip off another “homeless” man and then it would happen all over again. When would it end? My hand remained poised at my bag while I deliberated on my course of action. I decided that I wouldn’t give him money until he got me to the bus stop, and then, if he got me there, I’d give him some money before getting on the bus and leaving this madness behind. Otherwise, I might never get home, and would end up broke after spending days being approached by homeless men offering assistance, only to disappear as soon as I gave them money. Ironically, all of this would result in me having no money myself, and therefore having to live on the streets and relying on the money making tactics that I’d picked up from all the homeless men I’d met over the last few days, except I’d be at a distinct disadvantage, as not being able to see, I’d be a bit useless helping blind people find their way to bus stops.

I shuddered at the thought of what would surely happen if I didn’t take control. I’d wait until we got to the bus stop before I gave him any money. Yes, the decision had been made. Except, I realised that as soon as he’d said that he was homeless, I immediately halted my walk, put my hand in my bag, and we were both now standing there, while I had my hand in my bag, clearly deliberating about whether to give him money or not. It would be too awkward to pull my hand out of my bag and not give him anything now. Damn. I pulled out a pound and gave it to him. But the man refused it.

“No no, it’s fine mate, you’ve already given me a quid mate. I saw you ten minutes ago.”

It was the first man who asked me for money at the train station. I apologised for not realising it was him. He said that he thought it was a bit weird when I said, “you’re not homeless are you?” He’d assumed that I had decided for some reason to challenge him about his homelessness, when in fact I’d had no idea it was the same person. I felt as if I really needed to explain why I’d asked him whether he was homeless, and so I told him about the man who’d offered to help me get to the bus stop, but then, as soon as I gave him money, toddled off. We then had a bit of a laugh about our misunderstanding, he took hold of my arm again, and we began to walk.

But then a man jogged up to us. “Sorry mate, that took longer than I thought, but I’ve got directions from someone and I know where to go now.”

It was the man from earlier. It turned out he hadn’t just buggered off, but he’d gone to ask someone for directions. Suddenly everything felt good again, and I began to feel a restored sense of faith in humanity.

I introduced the two men to each other and the three of us walked together to the bus stop, chatting. The two men seemed to be getting on really well, and as they chatted away to each other, I began to daydream about them becoming best of friends, and perhaps they would help each other to get off the streets, maybe moving into a flat together. Maybe they would be each other’s best men, and godfathers to their respective children …

I realised just how all over the place my emotions were today. One minute I was really angry at the homeless people I’d met, thinking that they’d been duplicitous, and now I was getting all excited about the prospect of a fairytale scenario involving these two homeless men in which they both live happily ever after. I was so overcome with emotion tht I gave the pair a twenty pound note. They accepted it, then shouted “so long sucker,” and walked away laughing, leaving me even more lost than before. No, don’t worry, that last bit didn’t happen. They got me to the bus stop, and I got the bus home, feeling as if I’d learnt a valuable life lesson. I hope that you have also learnt a thing or two in this blog, even if that thing you’ve learnt is simply never to read another very lengthy badly written blog post by David Eagle ever again.