Download today’s Dollop in its audio form here

After my blogging marathon on the Wednesday, we headed to our Melbourne gig, which was taking place in a jazz club. There were signs on the building declaring itself to be the home of jazz in Melbourne. Looking down the list of other acts who had appeared at the place seemed to indicate that we were the first folk group to have played there. Had they gotten us confused with another group with a similar name? Maybe there’s an experimental jazz trio called The Young Nuns, and the poor dyslexic secretary is going to get fired tomorrow morning when her mistake is realised.

Are we going to have to pretend to be an experimental jazz trio called the Young Nuns in order to save a dyslexic secretary’s job? I suppose you might think that this would be far too difficult a task, given that we sing unaccompanied folk songs, but surely we could just throw in a few discords and do a bit of scatting. After all, I know a thing or two about the art of scatting, having read one of the most popular tomes on the subject, The Dooby Do’s And Dooby Don’ts Of Scatting. If anyone contests that what we’re singing is experimental jazz, we could simply argue that the fact that they don’t recognise it as experimental jazz proves just how experimental it actually is, so much so that they’ve heard nothing like this in the experimental jazz world before. A watertight argument.

But it wasn’t the fact that we weren’t a jazz group that we needed to worry about, there was another surprise for us. Five minutes before we were due to go on, we saw one of the programmes. It turned out that they knew we weren’t a jazz group, as the programme described us as a folk group. We breathed a sigh of relief, although I think we were all a little disappointed that we wouldn’t get to our flailing acapella jazz solos that we’d spent the last two hours practising. But just because we weren’t expected to play jazz, it didn’t mean that we were out of the woods yet. Closer inspection of the programme highlighted another area for concern. The programme didn’t just describe us as a folk group, but said in big bold letters that we were an Irish folk group singing Irish songs. This is completely untrue; we don’t sing any Irish songs. There was no time to practise a completely new repertoire in under five minutes; we’d need at least ten minutes to pull that off.

Our MC in Melbourne was completely the opposite to the Port Fairy MCs, who spent twenty minutes chatting to us before our gig, writing down as much information about us as they could for their introduction. Our MC tonight had only popped in fleetingly an hour before we were due to start, and hadn’t asked us any questions at all. We’d just been instructed to listen out for the MC’s intro and then come onto the stage directly from our green room. There wasn’t anyone around to correct them about the fact that we weren’t an Irish folk group and that we wouldn’t be singing any traditional Irish songs, and even if there had been someone to tell, we were due on in three minutes so there wasn’t anything anyone could really do. It’s not as if they’d pull the plug on the gig due to the revelation.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid the gig tonight has been cansilled. We were going to fire our secretary who was meant to book the experimental jazz trio, The Young Nuns, but then we let her off the hook when she informed us that the group she’d accidentallly booked were in fact an Irish folk group, and that it would be the day before Saint Patrick’s day. So we went ahead with the gig. But now we’ve just learnt that they’re not even Irish, they’re English. I know, I can completely understand why your booing. Believe me, I am just as livid as you, and I’ll fire the secretary first thing in the morning. Now I could let the Young’uns come out and play for you, but none of us want that do we? We’re not having this place polluted by English folk.”

Surely, the MC would have read our biog and has realised that we’re not an Irish band?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” came the voice of the MC, “please welcome, all the way from Ireland, The Young’uns!”

Fortunately, it turned out that most of the audience knew more than our MC and the gig organisers, and were aware that we were English. We asked how many people in the audience were expecting an Irish band singing Irish songs, and no one said yes. In fact, most of the audience knew we were from Teesside, and there were quite a few people who originally came from North East England at the gig. It felt like we were playing to an audience who’d seen us many times before, even though none of them had. Quite a few people had seen us at the Port Fairy festival last weekend, and others had heard us on the radio or read about us. People were shouting out requests for songs, and gratifyingly they were songs that we actually sang, so it was evident that we were known by the people there. It was really heartening to note that we’d travelled thousands of miles to the other side of the world, yet eighty people had turned up at a week day gig to see us, and clearly knew who we were.

There was no mention from the MC about the Irish thing, even though we frequently joked about it on stage. His intro to our second half was simply, “ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back to the stage, The Young’uns.” I thought that he might have made a jocular reference to the error, and maybe introduced us by saying something like, “ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, all the way from Brazil, The Young’uns!” But alas not.

Having said all this, it was a great gig and a really good venue. Everyone at the venue was really friendly and accommodating, and fed us the most delicious food before the gig. The mix-up in the programme and with the MC didn’t impact negatively on the gig at all, in fact if anything it gave us something to talk about and served to get the audience on our side straight away. I mention this in case there’s someone from the venue reading, who has taken this blog as a complaint. It’s not. However, it’s more interesting to write about mix-ups and oddities than it is for me to write about nice food and friendly staff. But, if you do want me to blog about how brilliant a venue you run, then we can discuss a fee. I am also open to bribes if there are things that people wanted me not to blog about, to protect their reputation. For instance, if the MC didn’t want me to mention him then he could have bought my silence. It’s already worked for Jools. Notice that I’ve not said anything about her for a couple of weeks. Ah, damn, I shouldn’t have mentioned that, sorry Jools. I’ll issue you a refund.

Download today’s Dollop in its audio form here

The absolute ridiculousness of this 366 consecutive daily blogs project has really become apparent over the last twenty-four hours. The other two went straight to sleep after getting back from our evening out in Melbourne. I thought that I would quickly check tomorrow’s Dollop before going to sleep, so I sat on the bed with the laptop. The next thing I was aware of was waking up at 7am, lying on the bed with the laptop on top of my stomach. In fact, I’m not even sure at first if I realised that I’d been asleep, for as soon as I was back into consciousness I immediately began reading the Dollop from the point that I’d gone out of consciousness a few hours earlier. It appeared that I’d fallen asleep halfway through writing a sentence. Seconds after waking, I had completed the sentence, although, there were still another 290 days to go before I’d truly finished my sentence. You see what I’ve done there? Using the word sentence in two different contexts in order to create a bit of wordplay. You’re in safe hands my friends; as you can see, I know what I’m doing.

I’d written just over 700 words. It wasn’t the most interesting or funny blog that I’d done, but it wasn’t bad. I didn’t really have time to do any more work on it, it was now 7am, and we’d planned to go out at 9 to do some touristy things in Melbourne, which we’d planned to do yesterday, but then all the shenanigans happened. I had less than two ours to tidy what I’d written up, record the audio version, edit out all my mistakes caused by my inept Braille reading, upload the audio and written versions, promote it on Facebook and Twitter, and code the RSS feed to update the podcast. This was the 75th Dollop, featuring the peculiar sounds that my nostrils were making, which I hadn’t yet edited down from the half an hour I recorded. It would be madness to think that anyone would want to listen to half an hour of nose noises; although a minute would clearly be completely sane, normal and fine.

However, as I was reading through what I’d written, I was struck with inspiration, and before I could stop myself I’d written another thousand words on top of the 700 I’d written yesterday. By this point the other two were up and getting ready to go out. I now had an hour to do everything I needed to do, plus it was going to take me even longer to read and edit now, because I’d increased the Dollop by 150 %. While the other two were brushing teeth, showering and readying themselves to go out, I had only just finished writing the Dollop, the length of which could have sufficed for two or three blog posts.

The other two said that they would wait until I’d finished, but I knew that it was going to be another two hours before I was done, so I told them to go into the city without me. I had come all the way to Australia, and rather than going out and experiencing the place, I had chosen to sit in a hotel, editing “highlights” of a half an hour recording of my nose making weird sounds. To be honest, I think the word “highlights” might be stretching it a bit. It was essentially just someone’s nose making odd noises when he breathed out, nothing to write home about, which is precisely what I was doing, only instead of writing home, I was writing to hundreds of people on the Internet, and I wasn’t just writing, I was recording it as audio as well.

The plan had been to set off for Melbourne early, spend the day in Melbourne and then come back at about 4pm ready for that night’s gig. As the other two pointed out to me, not only would I be passing up the opportunity to go out and do something in a country I’d never been in before, but also I had no way of really going anywhere or doing anything once I’d finished the Dollop. We didn’t have any cash on us, as we are using The Young’uns card, so I wouldn’t be able to get any food. But the prospect of sitting in a room alone and hungry for hours while the other two went out exploring Melbourne was still better than the notion that my nasal noises wouldn’t be released in time, meaning that I’d fail the David’s Daily Digital Dollop challenge, only a fifth of the way through.

I finished the Dollop, had a shower and then replied to people’s comments on the last few Dollops. My day had so far consisted purely of Dollop-related matters.

Here’s another example to demonstrate how obsessive a project this has become. I realised that I hadn’t added the correct tag to the start of the nasal noises audio file, meaning that it wouldn’t show up in stats and I would have no idea how many listeners it had gained. I was genuinely annoyed at myself for forgetting to add the file to the stats service. I swore out loud and called myself some insulting words, before I realised what an idiot I was for caring about any of this, and that my life priorities and sense of perspective had clearly gone spectacularly and worryingly out of kilter. This realisation caused me to burst into a fit of laughter at how ridiculous I and this whole thing was. I’m not sure whether the realisation of my insanity helps make me more sane, although the fact that I was in a room by myself giggling might redress that; also, does the fact that I’m aware of my insanity, but that I keep doing the insane thing anyway, make me more or less sane? The answer is less, clearly, less.

I thought that I should maybe have a little relax and do something none-dollop-related for a couple of hours, otherwise I would definitely be driven mad by the whole thing. But then a message appeared on my laptop that filled me with horror: The WIFI would only last for another three hours. I couldn’t be certain that the venue we were playing at tonight would have WIFI. There was nothing for it but to quickly make another Dollop. I’d literally just finished writing and recording Dollop 75, and now I was about to immediately start writing Dollop 76. I had three hours to write, record and publish the Dollop, as it was a race against the WIFI time bomb.

It would have to be a short Dollop, as I couldn’t afford to spend too long writing it, as then I wouldn’t have time to record, edit and publish. But my insanity proved itself to be alive and kicking once again, as I ended up writing what may well have been my lengthiest Dollop yet, over 2000 words. When I’d finished typing, I checked the time, and realised that I now only had an hour before the WIFI would be disconnected. For some reason, I had made my task even more difficult than it already was going to be, by writing the longest blog post that I’d ever written, when I was meant to write one of the shortest.

I powered through the recording and the editing, and managed to get the Dollop published a minute before the WIFI was lost. Success! Well, I suppose it depends on your definition of the word success, but I had done it.

The previous Dollop had only been posted at 11pm the day before, UK time, and now, because of the WIFI time bomb, I’d released another Dollop a mere six hours later. In less than 24 hours I’d written and published over 3500 words. Most people would have probably gone to bed by the time I’d released Dollop 75. By the time they’d woken up there were now two more Dollops.

I need to stop typing today’s Dollop now, because we need to go out at 430, and it’s just gone 3, and I still need to tidy it up, record, edit and do all the other publishing bits and bobbs before we head out. It’s another race against time. If you’re reading this on the Thursday, then you know I’ve succeeded.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Yesterday was meant to be fairly relaxed. We didn’t have a gig, and so we planned to have a nice leisurely day in Melbourne, seeing some sights and being tourists, which we don’t get much chance to do as we’re performing so much whenever we go abroad. I didn’t write any of the Dollop in the car on the way to Melbourne, for the reasons mentioned in yesterday’s Dollop: I’d only just finished the last one and didn’t have the energy or inspiration to start writing another one straight away. But we should be in Melbourne by 11am, and once we’d had some food and experienced some of the city, I’d probably have something to write about, and also possess the energy to be able to do it. But when we got to Melbourne airport, things took an unexpected course.

We needed to take a particular shuttle bus service to the car hire place, to pick up our car. However, the information about what service we needed and where we needed to go was in Michael’s email inbox. He’d thought that the email had saved onto his phone so that he could view it offline, but it hadn’t. Never mind, we’d could just connect to the airport’s free WIFI and access the details from Michael’s inbox. However, the WIFI network appeared to be down, and was telling us that there was currently no connection available to the Internet, and to please try again soon, which we did, repeatedly for about an hour. Eventually, Michael managed to get online and access the email.

We found the information we needed and then walked around the airport trying to locate where our specific shuttle bus picks up from. After half an hour of walking around, we still hadn’t found it. Michael went off to try and find someone who worked in the airport to ask them where we needed to go, while Sean and I stood with the trolley loaded with instruments, bags and suitcases.

As soon as Michael rounded the corner, Sean saw the shuttle bus we wanted across the road. Fantastic. Except Michael had gone, and we couldn’t get a hold of him because none of us were able to make phone calls in Australia. I tried to connect to the WIFI again, whilst Sean ran across the road to talk to the driver, and see if we could stall him a bit while I tried to get in contact with Michael, or at least find out how long we’d have to wait for the next bus. A minute later, Sean came running back over the road and said that the driver couldn’t wait for another minute while we tried to get in touch with Michael, as there were others on the bus who needed to be dropped off, but the good news was that the buses were every five minutes. But the bad news was that the WIFI was playing up again, and we were unable to contact Michael to tell him to come back.

An hour passed, and with it went twelve buses, which we were unable to get on because we were still waiting for Michael. No sooner had bus twelve pulled away, Michael rounded the corner. The reason for his delay had been because there had been more dramatic developments.

He had been stood in a queue for about fifteen minutes, waiting to speak to someone about where to get the shuttle bus from, when his phone vibrated, announcing an email. The email was from the car hire company, and was headed, “confirmation of your cancellation.” The message said that they had received and processed our cancellation, and that our money would be refunded, minus the admin fee for dealing with our booking. But we hadn’t cancelled the booking.

Michael needed to talk to the car hire company, but none of us had anyway of making phone calls.

He tried making a call with Skype, but the Internet was very patchy and the first few attempts failed. Eventually, he got through to someone and explained the situation. The man at the car hire company informed him that the cancellation had occurred as part of an automated process carried out by their computer system. This was because they didn’t actually have any cars available. Apparently the reason the booking went through fine yesterday was because the company outsource their online booking to a third-party IT company who had allowed the booking to occur, not realising that they were fully booked. Apparently this happened because this is also an automated computer process. It was only when someone from the car hire company got into the office that they realised what had happened. Rather than sending an email explaining the issue, they simply sent a generic cancillation email, which is an automated email that is sent whenever a cancillation is processed.

So as a result we were now stuck in an airport, with no means of getting to where we needed to go. Michael tried remonstrating with the person on the phone, but the man said he could only apologise, but on the plus side, he said that he would reimburse us the admin fees – how very kind, that’ll console us while we’re aimlessly wondering the streets of Melbourne trying to get to our hotel, an hour’s drive away.

Michael was just about to hang up, defeated, when the man announced that he’d just heard that there actually was a car available, which he hadn’t realised before because it hadn’t yet been registered back onto the computer system. Brilliant, so it should be straight forward from here. Well, not quite. When the cancellation is processed, the purchaser’s details are gone. This meant that Michael had to go through loads of information on the phone, re-providing his insurance details and so on. Eventually it was all sorted, and Michael returned to us.

The three of us then stood waiting for the next shuttle bus. Five minutes later it arrived, but when we tried to get on it, we were told that there wasn’t enough room with our instruments and luggage, and that we’d have to wait for the next one. The same thing happened for the next three buses. It was only when we were aboutt to be turned down for a fourth time that I suddenly realised that Michael could go on the bus by himself, pick up the hire car and drive back to pick us up. It was such an obvious solution, but the three of us were so drained, hungry and stressed that we hadn’t thought of it before.

Fifty minutes later, Michael was back at the airport in the hire car to pick us up, except there was another snag. The hire company, although managing to locate a car, had apparently got no satnavs left. We were in a major city, with no clue of where to go and no Internet in order to get a map. We drove through the city, following signs, but this got us hopelessly lost. After an hour of driving, we had no idea where we were. We were so hungry that we had to stop and get something to eat. Fortunately, as well as providing sustenance, the cafe also supplied us with WIFI, which meant we were able to get a map and see where the heck we were and where to go. Consulting the map provided us with two bits of knowledge: firstly, that we’d been all of two minutes away at one point in the journey, but unfortunately the second thing we discovered was that we were now forty minutes away.

Eventually, we found the hotel, and breathed a sigh of relief. But that sigh was premature, for the saga hadn’t ended yet. When we tried to check into the hotel, they didn’t have our names on record. The booking hadn’t been done through us, but by the people organising our tour. We assumed that the rooms had been booked in our names, which had been the case for the last two hotels on this tour. But they couldn’t find those names on the computer. We then tried a few more names, giving the names of various people working for the tour company, just in case the booking had been made in their names.

“I’m afraid we don’t have anything on our computer for Cooney, Eagle or Hughes sir.”

“Er, try Hawthorn.”

“No sir, nothing for Hawthorn.”

“Try Crawford.”

“No, I’m sorry sir, nothing.”

“Er, er, try Simpson.”

It must have seemed like an elaborate scam, just going into a hotel and trying to guess the name of someone who might have made a booking, in a bid to have a free night in a hotel, pretending to be the person who’s name you’d managed to hijack.

“ah yes, here we go again, the old “we’re in a folk band and the rooms were booked by our tour company” routine. We’ve seen it all before. I’m surprised they haven’t said Smith yet. I mean surely if you’re going to pull off this scam and try and find a name of someone who has booked to stay, Smith has got to be your first and most obvious choice, the idiots. And they’re not fooling anyone with those mock English accents. Terrible acting.”

None of the names we tried worked. We’d have to get in touch with someone at the tour company and see what was going on. In order to do that we would need WIFI, so we asked the man at the check-in desk if we could access WIFI, but he said that we had to be checked in before they could give us the WIFI details. At this point, Michael, who had already been the recipient of a booking problem that day, snapped at the receptionist that this was ridiculous. Surely they could make an exception, baring in mind that we were trying to check in, but were unable to, and needed WIFI in order to do so. We couldn’t check in without the WIFI, and yet we were being told that we couldn’t have the WIFI because we hadn’t checked in.

Apparently the reason he couldn’t give us WIFI access wasn’t because he was being churlish and sticking rigidly to company policy, but because the system was all automated, and the WIFI could only be accessed as a guest by entering the name that we’d booked with, which obviously we didn’t know. So we had to use the reception computer to sign into Michael’s emails and get the information we needed.

There then followed about an hour’s worth of phone calls. We couldn’t speak to the main person responsible for organising the tour because he was currently on a plane, and other people were unsure of what the situation was. Eventually the issue was resolved, and two hours after arriving at the hotel we were granted access to our rooms.

It was now 6pm. We’d set off at 630 in the morning, and had assumed we should be at the hotel for about 11am. Seven hours after the estimated time of arrival, we were finally in our rooms.

We were all really hungry and needed a drink or two after the riggers of the day. The other two had an hour’s rest, and I typed up that day’s Dollop. I didn’t have time to write, record and upload it in that time, that would have to wait until tomorrow, still today in Britain. By the time we got back from our evening out in Melbourne, we were all really tired. I might have had the staying power to record and release the Dollop before heading to bed, but the other two were clearly tired, and I didn’t think it would be very fair to force them to listen to me rambling about my nostrils, which was the exciting subject covered in yesterday’s Dollop. So I went to bed. What happened the next day will be told to you, should you choose to find out, in tomorrow’s Dollop, but it is a story that clearly demonstrates just how ridiculous this crazy 366 consecutive daily blogs project has got. But I’ll divulge tomorrow.

Download today’s Dollop in audio form here

Just because I’m at the other side of the world it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll be blessed with amazing tales of adventure to impart everyday. Unfortunately the mundane, and logistics are all concepts that still exist in Australia, and today has been a logistical one, essentially consisting of getting from A to B.

At 4am I got out of bed, finished yesterday’s Dollop, recorded it and then published it. At 630 we began our journey to Melbourne to take the hire car back to the airport and pick up another one for the next part of our trip.

I’d planned to spend the car journey writing today’s Dollop, but given that I’d only just written a Dollop a few hours earlier, I didn’t feel as if I had anything new to write about. All that had happened since 10pm last night, which was when I finished writing yesterday’s Dollop, was that I went to bed, woke up, tidied up the written Dollop, recorded it, uploaded it and got in a car.

My brain didn’t feel at all alert. I’d had nothing to eat yet, and I’d hardly slept, as I kept waking myself up by the sound of my nose, which was making some very odd noises when I breathed. For some reason, rather than simply blowing my nose and then going back to sleep, I decided that it would be a good idea to record the peculiar sounds my nose was generating, reasoning that I could include it in the audio Dollop. Now that I am awake, the notion that people would want to listen to the sound of my nose, or anyone’s knows for that matter, making a series of odd squeaking noises is an absurd one. But at in the morning, after only two hours of sleep, it seemed like a good idea.

So I got out of bed, and stumbled around my room, a bit dazed and confused due to the dark and sleep deprivation. It took me a couple of minutes to remember where I’d put the recorder, yet that wasn’t enough time for my brain to suddenly think, “hang on a minute, you’ve got to be up early tomorrow. You’ve hardly had any sleep at all this week, and you’re patently in need of it, as is being clearly illustrated by the fact that you’re out of bed, searching for a digital recorder to record the sound of your nose.”

Eventually I found the recorder and got back into bed to record the strange nasal sounds. Rather than quickly recording the noises, then blowing my nose and falling back asleep, I turned into a bit of a director, experimenting with different techniques to create different sounds. I played around with applying pressure to certain parts of my nose, in order to change the air flow and thus alter the timbre. I was rather proud of my seagull impression, until I realised that I was a thirty-year-old man recording himself trying to do animal impersonations with his mucus-filled nostrils, and that I then planned on sharing these noises with other people, and that realisation took the edge off my ‘achievement’ somewhat.

However, I’ve recorded it now, so I’ll put it at the end of this Dollop, in case you fancy giving it a listen. I doubt that many of you will click on it, but I might be wrong. This might turn out to be my biggest hit yet. Sometimes there is just no knowing, although I think in this case there probably is. But I’ll keep an eye on my web stats, just in case this does turn out to be my most popular Dollop yet.

Perhaps the Dollop will go viral, or maybe it’s just my nose that will go viral, due to my relentless prodding and poking, as I try and emulate more and more animals that my now millions of fans are requesting to hear. And I feel obliged to continue despite my nasal virus, especially given that I’ve been asked to appear on the Children In Need TV programme and take part in a telethon whereby people donate money to hear me do impressions of things with my nose. I don’t have it in my heart to say no, when I do have it in my nose to say yes, and save lives. The fate of so many disabled children rests upon my shoulders, or more accurately, my nose. I desperately need some medical intervention to stop my nose from eventually falling off, but ironically I can’t afford the treatment because I’m spending all my time and energy saving lives for free. And when I do get a couple of hours to rest I just don’t have the energy to do any more nose noises in order to raise funds for my much needed treatment.

But then one day my career ends in an epic fashion. I am asked to perform for the queen. There is much head scratching, partly because I am not at all a monarchist and don’t want to be seen as supporting a system which I see as a pointless totem of inequality and unjustness, but also because one of the side effects of my virus is a ridiculously itchy head. In the end I decide to accept the offer, as it would provide me with enough money to fund my medical treatment.

Before I get to actually meet the queen, I have to listen to a lecture from a member of palace staff, who tells me about proper protocol for my discourse with her. Apparently this is a thing that always happens before people are allowed to meet the Queen, according to a few people I know who’ve been to Buckingham Palace. Charity workers who have seen some of the most harrowing things, helping refugees, orphans and disabled children, heroes of World War II, pioneering scientists who’s work is saving lives, all have to receive a lecture about proper protocol for addressing the queen. What an absolute insult. As if any of that matters. The only reason the queen isn’t an orphan or a refugee is purely because of chance. She happened to pop out of the right hole at the right time. Whereas the people she’s meeting have popped out of much less lucrative holes and yet succeeded in doing remarkable things that provide value and benefit others’ lives, yet it is they who get patronised by a lecture telling them how to bow properly, and that you say “mam, as in jam,” not “marm, as in arm,” which is apparently one of the points of the lecture. You also get told that you should call her “your majesty” the first time you address her, but after that you are OK to call her mam, but don’t you dare say “marm as in arm.” Have you got all that, peasant?

“I’m afraid we have a problem. This man refuses to bow. He is therefore not permitted to meet our gracious queen.”

“But he’s Professor Stephen Hawking, one of our planet’s leading thinkers and scientists.”

“Yes, but that’s hardly the point is it? He won’t bow.”

“He’s paralysed!”

“And he won’t say mam, as in jam, he keeps saying marm, as in arm. The sheer impertinence.”

“Well that’s hardly his fault, he’s using a speech synthesiser.”

“Look, he’s clearly a flagrant anti-monarchist. He refuses to bow, uses the wrong phonemes to refer to the queen, and what’s more, he’s clearly never stood up and sang the National Anthem. People like him make me sick.”

It was me, however, who was responsible for making the queen sick, for at the moment that I met the queen, I did something that I hadn’t allowed myself to do for twenty years, since I discovered my nasal-based talent. It’s important to keep the nose full of mucus, in order to get the best performance, and I soon discovered that the more mucus the nose has, the better the performance. I’ve therefore been vigilant about keeping the precious mucus inside my nose. I have therefore not blown my nose for twenty years, and take to wearing a clothes peg fixed on my nose when I am not performing. However, I was told that I couldn’t wear a peg on my nose to meet the queen, and so I was forced to take it off. But my nose was not used to being unpegged for so long, and in my efforts to concentrate on saying the right thing to her majesty, I let my guard down. Which is why when I met the queen, I sneezed all over her, drenching her in twenty years of mucus. Then to make matters even worse, when the queen had wiped the snot from her eyes, she saw my dismembered nose, lying on the floor – the virus had finally taken its toll. This caused the queen to throw-up, creating even more mess.

Of course, many people saw this as a deliberate act of descent. There were mass protests, calling for me to be tried for treason. The term “sneezin treason” became ubiquitous, being frequently used by broadcasters and journalists. People in the government were voicing their opinion that my motives needed to be investigated, leading to “sneezegate” becoming the most commonly used word in the media that year. The sneeze also acted as a rallying cry for an anti-monarchist movement, and there were calls for a revolution, starting with an overthrowing of the monarchy. David Cameron was livid, and did a YouTube video wearing one of his finest suits and ties, in order to condemn me and my ilk. Russell Brand set up a new YouTube channel called the a-choos, quoted some spiritual philosophers, used some big words and called for revolution.

Sadly, as much as I’m sure you’d love to hear more of this story, I have to go now, as we’ve arrived at our destination. However, don’t despair, because I’ll leave you with a minute of edited highlights from my nasal noises recording. I think you might also enjoy this Chloe because you can hear me breathing directly into the recorder.

Download the recording here

Download audio dollop here

Well that’s our first Australian festival done. Our final gig was in front of 5000 people and they gave us an amazing reception throughout, and a standing ovation at the end. The Australian audience does seem to be much more prone to applauding things that other audiences wouldn’t. Our song A Lovely Cup Of Tea – about York’s Islamic community’s response to an English Defence League protest outside their mosque, inviting the protesters in for tea and biscuits, and a game of football – took three times longer to sing than usual because they were applauding every single line. When I got to the line, “we play football for planet earth united, because that’s how we all should be,” the entire audience erupted into raucous applause that lasted for nearly a minute. Then again, they also applauded our sound checks, so I’m not sure if I can really be too big-headed about their enthusiasm for my song. Although, in fairness, we did do a bloody good sound check. My “testing testing, one two one two,” brought the house down.

The festival MCs have also been interesting and different to the MCs at English festivals. They spend about ten minutes with us before we go on stage, asking us loads of questions about who we are, where we’re from and what we do. Some of them have also asked us to impart a funny story about something that’s happened to us, or something interesting that they can talk about in their introduction, before we come on stage. This over-zealousness doesn’t really happen at British festivals. The MC usually just has a few facts gleaned from the band’s biog, and they do a quick introduction to announce you onto the stage. Or, if they know you and are fans of what you do, then they will speak from the heart rather than just memorising facts.

Often, the MCs at this Australian festival have spent so long chatting to us and garnering information, writing down things that they might want to include in our intro, that they haven’t had time to memorise any of it. This means that many of the MC’s introductions have consisted of them reading from some hastily written scrawls, unconvincingly trying to recount a midly humorous tale which we’ve been forced to dredge up just seconds before, which has been feverishly transcribed into a hastily cobbled together shorthand that the MC then has to try and decipher and recall with conviction.

So our introductions have been very interesting. It’s also a bit awkward for us, as often we are stood on the stage at the microphones, ready to launch straight in, and we have to stand there while the MC attempts to read from a piece of paper that contains a semi-funny story that he’s completely got confused and incongruously frantically written down just seconds earlier. I tried to help out by joking along with the MC on the microphone, hoping to spice up the intro a bit and to make it seem a bit less formal, but that didn’t work, largely because the sound men hadn’t switched my microphone on yet. The microphone level was however coming out of our monitors, and so I could hear it and the MC could hear, but the audience couldn’t. This caused the MC to confusedly halt his speech, and then just continue, a bit flummoxed, and of course the audience had no idea what the heck was going on.

Another odd thing that happened was that the MC invited us up onto the stage individually, calling out Sean first. Sean then awkwardly stood there while the MC told the audience that he sang and wrote songs, and that he was a history graduate. The audience then gave Sean a round of applause, before Michael was invited to join Sean on the stage. The audience were then informed that Michael was also a singer, played guitar, and had recently been to New Zealand on holiday. The audience then applauded Michael, and I was invited to join the other two on stage. I was then individually introduced to the audience, who were informed that I also sang, and played the accordion and piano, and then, oddly, they were told that I have been blind since nine months old due to cancer, which was something that he asked me in conversation, although I had no idea that this would form part of my introduction. I was then given a round of applause, which was louder than the applause that the other two received. I’d like to think that this was because the audience found me the most attractive and interesting, bit ut was probably just out of sympathy after hearing the blind cancer story. And then we were eventually allowed to start.

It will be interesting to see whether this is a thing with Australian festivals on the whole, or if it’s just specific to those particular festival MCs.

I’m writing this at 10pm. We have to be away by 630, meaning that I need to have gotten today’s Dollop released before then. If you’re reading this and it’s Monday then you know I’ve done it. This means I’ll have to get up at about 4 tomorrow morning, to make sure that this gets recorded and uploaded in time. I’ve had solid WIFI for the last few days, but I’ve no idea what the WIFI situation will be like after tomorrow, as we’re heading to a new destination. Might this Dollop be the last of the consecutive daily Dollops? Find out tomorrow.

Download today’s Dollop in its audio form here

So yesterday I wrote about a lady called Pony, and today I’m writing abouto a lady we encountered who was pretending to be a dog. I’m not sure whether this lady is also part of the woofer movement and pretends to be a dog to ingratiate herself with organic farmers (see yesterday’s Dollop if you’re completely conufused).

The dog-lady was running around the festival site entertaining the children. She would lie on the ground, roll over, allow people to tickle her tummy (Sean and I had to hold Michael back, who finds that kind of thing kinky and highly arousing). All the while she would bark and howl. The dog-lady’s owner was a man on stilts playing the bagpipes. The man would play and she would howl and bark along. As the bagpipes crescendo to its ear-splitting finale, the dog-lady let out one final long and loud howl whilst lying on her back and pissing into the air. It was a water pistol filled with water which she had positioned between her legs. The pissing finale did nothing to pacify Michael’s state of sexual arousal.

We’ve been at the festival now for two days, and we’ve seen this stilted bagpipe player and pissing howling dog-lady around the place for most of that time. I am fascinated to know what makes these people tick. Are they doing this for money, or just because they really enjoy it? If they’re doing it for money, do they work with an agency who haggles and touts on their behalf? Maybe this is bigger business than I think.

“They’re not going out for any less than £500.”

“We can only do £400.”

“Fine, but you won’t get the pissing for £400.”

“Oh no, we must have the pissing.”

“She won’t piss for any less than £500.”

“What about £450?”

“Well, OK, but she’ll be howling much quieter than usual. If you want the full pissing and howling experience, it’s £500. Take it or leave it.”

“Well, er, it’s a lot of money, we’ve not got a very big budget. I mean, we’ve been offered other pissing dog acts for £300, so …””

“Listen my friend. This dog-lady has barked, howled and pissed for celebrities. She barked, howled and pissed for Kerry Katona’s house warming party. So you can go for a lesser established pissing, barking howling dog act, or you can go for my client with all her years of experience in the field. It’s up to you. It’s a highly competitive industry, the pissing howling dog-lady world, but my client has risen to the top.

Let me get some testimonials up for you. “Proper good like,” Kerry Katona. “Oh my god innit, dat pissin dog was well wicked man,” Dappy from N-Dubz. “I’ve seen a lot of pissing howling dog acts in my time, but this one was truly the best. Piss be with you always,” the pope, AKA God’s representative on Earth, so technically that’s an endorsement from God as well.”

“Hang on, did you say Dappy from N-Dubz? OK, £500 it is.”

I wonder what’s going on in the lady’s head when she’s on her sixth hour of pretending to be a dog, rolling around the floor, growling, howling barking and pissing. It would be fascinating to have access to her inner-monologue whilst she’s in the process of rolling on the ground, howling and barking. Is she thinking about what she’s going to have for tea when she eventually gets home? Is she having depressed thoughts, as she wonders “where did it all go wrong?” Does she think back to when she was young and her dreams of being a famous actress, and how her younger self would be appalled that she’s ended up acting the part of a howling pissing dog? Or perhaps her mind is constantly on the job, always thinking up ways in which she can improve her act. “I think I might try pissing at more of an acute angle next time. I think that might look more impressive. And maybe just a little longer on the howl the next time.”

I am also curious to know about the relationship of the dog-lady and the bagpipe playing stilt walker. Are they in a relationship? Or just friends? Or maybe they’re just colleagues, and they don’t really socialise out of work hours. If they’re in a relationship then I wonder whether they were together first and then they decided one day to leave their jobs and create a pissing dog stilt walking bagpipe playing act. I mean, how does a conversation like that even happen?

“Oh god, here we go again. Another day at work. Same old same old. God, I’m depressed darling.”

“I know, me too. International diplomacy is just not doing it for me any more.”

“If only there was something we could do together, and earn a living from doing something that we both love.”

“Hang on, maybe there is. We’ve got some stilts, we’ve got some bagpipes, we’ve got a dog costume, we’ve got a water pistol.”

“Why, of course we have. Why didn’t we think of this before. It’s so obvious. I’ll call work and tell them I quit.”

“Me too. It’s time to live our dreams!”

Or maybe they met through work. Maybe they were both appearing at the same festival and they met and fell in love. She was rolling around on the ground and she looked up and saw him there on his stilts. She always did have a thing for men on stilts. And then she became seduced by his beautiful bagpipe playing. Meanwhile, he couldn’t help but be drawn to the dog lady rolling around on the ground, letting out howls that stirred a passion deep within his loins. And then, when she pissed, he nearly toppled off his stilts in excitement. Now this was his kind of woman. He’d always had a thing for ladies who dressed as dogs, rolled around howling and pissing. They were a perfect match, although it was a bit awkward for them both the first time they saw each other out of their costumes.

If they are in a relationship then it would be fascinating to hear their conversation just before and after their day’s work. If they’re having domestic problems, does it affect their act? Maybe she tries to trip him up by rolling into him, and he deliberately plays her least favourite tunes on the bagpipes, and maybe gives her a little kick when no one is looking.

So, I’ve come all the way to Australia, and of all the things I could possibly tell you about, I’ve chosen to write about a lady pretending to be a dog. I never claimed to be a travel writer.

Download the Dollop in audio form here

Pony, our hitch hiker friend from yesterday’s Dollop, declared herself to us as a woofer. We started to wonder just what kind of person we’d picked up. Was she actually a hitch hiker? Or is a woofer the Australian word for a dogger? She’d seen our car and stuck her thumb out, which we assumed to be the universal sign of the hitch hiker, but perhaps in Australia it’s the symbol of the dogger. Actually, that would explain why she’d kept her seat belt unfastened and smiled so broadly when I told her to belt up or feel the pain. Was everything about to unravel like a chaotic scene in a slapstick comedy? But no. Sadly Chloe, this is not a blog post about our dogging experience.

It turned out that a woofer was not a dogger, but a name given to someone who takes part in a scheme called Workers On Organic Farms. It’s an initiative that gives bag packers free accommodation on an organic farm, in exchange for a few hours of work on the farm for five days of the week. I’m not sure if the farmer who took Pony on realised that she was a bag packer taking part in the woofer scheme, or maybe he got confused by her name and assumed that she was actually a pony. After all, he had put a post on a website saying that he was looking for a work horse for his farm. He then heard back from the website saying that he could have a pony for free who would work for five days a week simply for free accommodation. He was a bit surprised that the pony came with such terms and conditions – had they started up a horses’ union now? – but it was a free pony and you couldn’t say fairer than that. Maybe this is the real reason she calls herself pony, in order to dupe hapless farmers into giving her a place to live for free.

Maybe woofing isn’t actually a real scheme, but is just a group of people who con farmers into taking them on by pretending to be farmyard animals. By the time they’ve realised their mistake, they’ve already signed the contract, plus if these crazy people don’t mind living in a stable and helping out on the farm, then maybe it’s not such a bad deal after all.

Later on in the conversation, we discovered that, while she may have been a Woofer, she was not a Doofer. A doofer is an Australian word that apparently referrs to someone who enjoys going to raves, and partying to to loud bass heavy dance music. The name Doofer is due to the kind of music they listen to, and relates to the sound of the bass going “doof doof doof doof.” Apparently it makes her ears hurt and feel nauseous. The doof, she can’t handle the doof! I know, can you believe I’m giving this away for free?

She was a folk fan, volunteering at the Port Fairy festival, which was where we were heading. We spent the car journey having a lovely conversation about doofers, woofers and also the fact that she was a keen rainbow girl, which has nothing to do with the brownies, but is a community of people who get together for a month in a forest and live in the wild without electricity and general modern amenities, cooking and eating vegan food together, singing and dancing and sharing stories. She also played a couple of tunes on her penny whistle. It was nice to spend time in the company of someone who was living such an interesting and vastly different sort of life. She was a free spirit, with no plans and often no idea where she’ll be from one day to the next. It’s so easy to get pigeon-holed and to become molded to a set identity, living the kind of life that you feel is expected of you, doing a predictable job, getting married, seeing the same friends, drinking in the same pubs, eating at the same places. It’s refreshing to be reminded that this is not necessarily the only way to live life, and that it is possible to experience the world for very little.

Yesterday we swam in the ocean, and walked on the beach. As I walked along the sand, I recalled how I would yearn to go to Australia as a child. The concept that there was a world below my feet was thrilling as a kid, as my dad instructed me and my brothers to go and dig as big a hole as we could to see if we could reach Australia. Obviously, this was simply a ruse to keep us occupied and for my parents to get some peace, but I was obsessed with the idea of being able to dig a hole deep enough to take me into this exciting magical world called Australia. And now here I was, walking on the beach, but not on English, but Australian sand. One day I grew up and realised that it wasn’t possible to dig a hole to reach Australia. At some point in my life the dream fizzled and died.

As I walked along the beach I remembered all this and felt a connection with my childhood self, and imagined how excited and happy he would be to know that he had made it. If I could only reach into the past and tell him to keep on digging. Obviously my five-year-old self would hear these words and simly just keep on slamming his spade into the sand, with a naive intransigence.

“What are you doing you idiot? When I said keep digging, I was speaking metaphorically. I was using digging as an analogy for ploughing away at life, for keeping going in the face of adversity.”

“What’s metaphor? What’s allegory? What’s adversity?”

“Bloody hell, was I really such an idiot. Oh just keep digging. You’ll get it one day.”

The gigs are going really well. We’ll be featuring our Australian exploits on a Young’uns Podcast in April, but I’ll share a few stories in these Dollops too. Back tomorrow.

Download the Dollop in its audio form here

‘Belt up or feel the pain’ was the message written on a road sign which we saw while driving through Melbourne, warning people about the importance of fastening your seat belt. We didn’t see any further road signs instructing us whether we had to leave our seat belts unfastened if we were re-fuelling. Maybe they have those in the petrol stations, or perhaps the whole seat belt re-fuelling thing is based on a weird Australian superstition, or maybe it’s just a rule specific to that particular Australian airline company.

So, we’re only three days into this trip and already there’s been a bit of a hitch. But there’s no need for concern (no worries, as the Australians say at least twice a minute; It’s probably one of the most commonly used phrases in Australia). As we passed the ‘belt up or feel the pain’ sign, we noticed a hitch hiker at the side of the road. The three of us decided to pull over and see if we could offer a lift. Sean and Michael’s motives were purely altruistic, whereas I made the choice hoping that it might provide something interesting to write about for the Dollop.

We pulled over and asked her where she was going, which turned out to be the same place as us. So She got in our car, whilst thanking us profusely, we answered by instructing her to belt up or feel the pain. Unfortunately, it turns out that the roadside slogan isn’t particularly common throughout Australia. Panicked, she attempted to escape the car, but the doors have an automatic locking system, and before she could decipher how to unlock the door, Michael had pulled away and was now speeding down the motorway. We tried to placate her by saying “no worries,” but it doesn’t sound as friendly in a Teesside accent, in fact it sounded almost sarcastic and threatening, which only heightened her distress.

OK, I might have exaggerated the story a little there, although I’m sure you’d gathered that. It wasn’t actually a motorway, it was in fact an A-road. I thought motorway made it sound more dramatic.

Our hitch hiker was twenty-two, originally from Germany, who apparently went by the name Pony. We enquired whether that was her actual name.

“My real name is Annie but everyone just calls me Pony.” I assume that everyone called her Pony because she asked to be called Pony, unless people just randomly started calling her it, and she decided that life would be a lot easier if she just went along with it. She seemed to be using the argument that everyone called her Pony as a reason for why she was called Pony, but surely this was an active decision on her part. So we asked her why she was called Pony.

“I used to have a Pony when I was a child.”

Again this didn’t really offer much in the way of illumination. I mean, I used to have a train set when I was a child, but I don’t call myself it. OK, train set is two words, so that really doesn’t work very well as an example. I suppose I could always hyphenate it and be double-barrelled, which might also have the advantage of bolstering my social status, although actually I don’t think Train-Set Eagle would really ingratiate myself with the posh upper-class types. It sounds more like a name befitting an experimental jazz musician than an aristocrat.

Who could forget Train-Set Eagle’s legendary festival gig in which he spent the first half an hour playing everything out of time. Still, in fairness, he did apologise for the delay, and the performance started to pick up from there. But then Train-Set and his band started miming playing their instruments, and after a couple of minutes of this the audience started complaining that they couldn’t hear anything. Train-set Eagle rebuked the restless crowd, telling them that they were in the designated quiet zone. The gig continued for another five minutes, but then, halfway through a flailing whistle solo, he stopped the gig and refused to continue because a leaf had fallen on to the stage.

“That’s it, I’m never playing an outdoor festival again. It’s just too much of a chewchew,” he screamed at the baffled audience. He gets a stutter whenever he’s angry, hence the repetition of the word chew. You were probably assuming it was a typo. The audience hadn’t seen Train-Set this angry since the time when someone heckled him for going electric. This was in the 80s and signified a highly controversial move, with many of his fans disowning his music. Before that time, his music was always totally run by steam. He grabbed hold of the heckling audience member and hauled him over the coals. Fortunately, the coals weren’t remotely hot, because he was doing an electric set, in fact, I’m not even sure why he brought the coals on stage with him; probably just out of habit.

Train-Set Eagle sarcastically apologised to the audience for any inconvenience caused, and then stormed off stage. That was the last time he ever performed. He became an alcoholic and a drug addict, completely going off the rails, until finally he terminated in London Kings Cross, where he’d been living rough on the streets. His band valiantly tried to go on without him, but it didn’t last long, and they eventually split in Sheffield, with one half going down to London and the other half going up to York.

Well, I was planning on this Dollop being principally about the hitch hiker, but I’ve spent most of it going off on a tangential meander about a fictional aggressive experimental jazz musician. I know a few of you had placed a bet on that happening at some point in this consecutive daily blogging challenge, so well done to you. Anyway, I must leave this Dollop here, as we’re now setting off to play our first Australian gig, at the Port Fairy Festival. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow. I am confient that I will at least make it up to Dollop 73, because we’re staying in the same hotel for the next few nights and it has free, working WIFI. So back tomorrow.

Download today’s Dollop in its audio form here

Whilst waiting in the customs queue at Melbourne Airport, there was a sign informing us that Channel 7 were currently filming for their Airport-based reality TV show. I was a bit concerned that this might mean the customs staff were going to be even more officious than usual, knowing that they are being filmed. After all, they’d want to be seen doing their jobs properly.

I also thought that having a film crew present would mean that some of the staff might decide to act up their role a bit, wishing to be seen in a certain way by the viewers. Surely, having your actions filmed is going to affect your behaviour on some level, with people acting in a way that best suits the person they want to be seen as being. You might decide that you want to be likeable and come across as a kind person, always willing to help. Or maybe you’d like to be viewed as the joker, ready with a witty line that will find you favour with the people watching. Or you might elect to be seen as the hard-nosed, no nonsense, no bull shit guy, who provides the show with an element of drama and intensity. Hopefully we wouldn’t get thi latter character. Not because we had anything to hide, but simply because we’d both hardly had any sleep over the last thirty hours, and didn’t fancy concluding our day with a confrontational encounter by someone who is hamming up their hostility for some saddo on a sofa.

Might my international career hang in the balance of an amateur actor, attempting to find favour with a film crew and a TV audience? Might I be refused into Australia purely to create the pivotal plot of a humdrum drama? It would have been distressing enough to be refused entry to the country, without having the added ignominy of the whole thing being broadcast on TV.

Perhaps I needed to see this as an opportunity. Maybe if I was compelling as a character then this could launch me into the hearts and minds of the Australian public. I might have to sell-out a bit and exploit my blindness to engender sympathy with the audience. That should help to create a compelling story and gain me a considerable bit of air time. I would have to be alert and at my best, even though I was massively tired and drained, and my mind was rather foggy – I’m probably suffering from deep brain thrombosis. Haha, now that’s a good line for the TV. I’m going to be a hit in Australia. The audience are going to love me, and channel 7 are going to be so impressed that they give me my own TV show.

“Have you got any grain on you madam?” said the lady at customs to the person in front of me at the customs desk. OK, so they’re going to ask me about grain, I thought. Maybe I should prepare a witty one liner, a clever comedic comeback to reel the viewers in. She’d say, “have you got any grain on you sir?” And I could say, “sorry, no, besides I thought it was against the rules for you to smoke on duty.” Would that work? Does that even make sense? I’m too jet-lagged to know. I think it works, and if I said it nonchalantly and really quickly, then the audience would be impressed by my ability to think of jokes quickly. So that’s the deep brain thrombosis line, and now the grain comeback. I can keep listening to the conversation in front of me, which might give me some more ideas for jokes.

The lady in front of me was a bit confused by the question, I don’t think English was her first language, and she might have also been a bit deaf. The film crew would be loving this, having got a disability angle. They had no idea that there was even better to come. They were about to meet their best character yet, the English blind man. Perhaps the film crew would engineer a situation in which me and this deaf lady were detained in a room together, perhaps due to a grain-based complication. The deaf lady didn’t seem to understand the question, and I had made a jocular comment which hadn’t been taken well by the woman at customs. The scene in which the non-English speaking deaf woman and the English blind man try and communicate in detention would be one of the most popular moments of Australian TV in 2016, going viral worldwide.

I don’t know whether the scene with the customs officer and deaf lady will make it onto the Channel 7 show, but just in case you are planning on watching it and don’t want any spoilers, skip straight to the next paragraph. After a bit of confusion, where the deaf lady didn’t seem to understand the question, the customs person named various examples of what she meant by the term grain, and the lady then seemed to understand. “No, no grain,” she replied, and she was allowed to proceed. Presumably if they do show this scene on the TV, they will create a bit of a cliffhanger around it, in which the grain story’s big conclusion will follow the commercial break. It would be a shame to squander such a moment by not building adequate suspense. Although sadly they had missed the opportunity to do the deaf-blind communication scene.

Then it was my turn to be interrogated. This was my moment to shine. It was time to introduce the Australian TV audience to David Eagle, the quick-witted English blind man.

“Good morning,” said the customs lady.

“Good morning,” I replied. Not the most memorable or amazing first line, I admit, but wait until she asks me about grain, and I’d be ready to deliver comedy gold.

I handed her my passport. She scanned it and then mere seconds later, she said, “that’s all fine, you can go through.” Apparently, because we’d filled out a number of forms before travelling, all the information they needed was on their screen. So that was it. No questions about grain. My fleeting hopes of fame and fortune were gone. Unless … There might still be an opportunity to salvage a spot on the TV. I could try and shoehorn in my deep brain thrombosis line.

“Well, I must say, that’s a relief because my brain …”

“Good morning sir,” she said to Sean behind me, completely riding roughshod over my attempts to get the deep brain thrombosis joke out. It was useless, she had talked over the start of the joke and ruined it. And so I walked away, having been granted admition into Australia, but denied my place on Australian TV.

We arrived at the hotel at 11pm Australian time, 12 noon British time. Sean went straight to bed. I sat on the toilet seat and recorded that day’s Dollop in the bathroom. The hotel had WIFI, but you had to pay for it. I was planning on going to go to sleep straight after uploading the Dollop, and then we’d be leaving the hotel first thing in the morning, meaning that I’d have to pay for twenty-four hours of WIFI in order to use it for just ten minutes. But it had to be done. I imagined all your frantic and forlorn faces as the realisation dawned that there was no 69th Dollop. So I connected to the network. Upon connecting, a message popped up, offering a very generous free five minutes of Internet, presumably to suck you in to buying. Five minutes was going to be a challenge. I had to publish the written version, log into the server to upload the audio version, mention the Dollop’s release on Facebook and Twitter, and then edit and upload the RSS feed for podcast providers. It was a race against time, but I won it, with hardly a second to spare.

So now we’re in Australia. Tomorrow we do our first gig. Given the time lag, I already have quite a bit to tell you about things that have happened today, which I will write about in tomorrow’s Dollop. In the meantime, thanks for reading, and feel free to leave a comment, which I will read and reply to when I get more than five minutes of WIFI access.

Download the audio version of today’s Dollop here

Listeners to yesterday’s audio Dollop will already know that there was no anal cavity search. But, fear not Chloe, the journey is not yet over. There’s always Australian customs. In fact, I don’t think I’d mind an Australian anal cavity search as much, as I might find it a little more exotic. Also, every single Australian person I’ve spoken to so far over the last 24 hours has been delightfully friendly and very easy-going, and so I might find the experience a little less disconcerting than an English probe. You see what being nice to me gets you? All you have to do is be friendly towards me, and you’re already one step closer to me voluntarily parting my buttocks for you and allowing you access. Unfortunately Jools, you’ve rather messed up in that regard, and so there’ll be no arse fingering for you. I bet you’re ruing the day now Jools. The rest of you: I’ll send out application forms soon to allow you to apply for the privileged.

Apologies for the rather smutty opening to today’s Dollop. Perhaps it is the altitude, or the dehydration, or lack of sleep. I am writing this at 9am British time, whilst on the lane. We started this journey from Sheffield at 5am. We should arrive at Melbourne Airport by 1030, and then there is customs to deal with. They are going to judge whether or not I should be allowed into their country, based on my answers to their questions. Given that I haven’t really slept for about thirty hours, then that could be an interesting experience. I should be fine though. As long as I remember that my name is … er … shit. Oh well, we’ll see what happens.

Hopefully we should be in our hotel by 12 noon British time, 11pm Australian time. Providing that the hotel has WIFI, I should be able to get this published before heading to bed to finally get some sleep. I think that as long as I can get some sleep when I get to the hotel, I should feel fine and not really affected by jet-lag.

I find it a bit disconcerting that I am essentially in a metal box in the sky with no control over anything that is happening. I am at the mercy of others, and to be honest, I’m not sure if I can really trust them, yet I have no choice but to trust them, and to unquestioningly accept their requests of me, even if they seem a bit nebulous and weird. For instance, I got on the plane, sat in my seat and put on my seat belt, only to be asked by one of the stewards to please take it off, as they were currently in the process of re-fuelling. I have no idea why me having my seat belt on would impact on the re-fuelling process. I could have asked for a reason, but this was the start of a long flight, and the stewards were busy moving through the plane, and so I merely accepted their request and unfastened my seat belt until we were asked to fasten them. This was definitely not an anomalous, one-off request, because the same thing happened on the next flight. So what’s that all about? If anyone knows, feel free to leave a comment and educate me. I might even bump you up the list of arse fingerers, as a way of saying thanks.

Before you take off, you are asked to listen and watch the “important” safety video which details what to do in the event of an emergency, which apparently doesn’t include exiting with your laptop and recording equipment so that you can eject the plane and produce a Dollop from the middle of the Ocean. You get told that this information is of paramount importance and to give it your full attention. You are told how to brace, how to inflate your life jacket, how to use the oxygen mask. You are told that is vitally important that you memorise where your nearest emergency exit is located. They tell you all this, and then you take off. Then mere minutes after take off they spend the rest of your flight trying to force alcholol down your neck. This seems rather at odds with the insistance messages at the start that we take our safety seriously.

Anyway, my battery is running very low, and so I can’t write any more. Hopefully there will be WIFI for me to publish this, but then if you’re reading this, and it’s Wednesday, then you’ll already know that I’vve succeeded. And hopefully I shall also succeed tomorrow.