#37 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (24th July 2018)

Hello and welcome to Jason Newland dot com. My name is Jason Newland. This is going to be another let me bore you to sleep.

I've done a few of these. I think this is number 37. And I just never get bored of doing them.

I just, it's weird, isn't it? So just to let you know before we start, only listen to this boring session. You can safely close your eyes. And also to let you know that Andre is on the prowl.

He's just ran underneath my chair so I'm not quite sure what he's up to. But about a minute ago he was scratching at something, making a bit of noise. So there's a chance there may be some background sounds.

Also I've got all my windows open. Because it's rather warm at the moment. I'm not sure what the date is but it's about the 23rd, 24th of July, something like that.

I'm losing track of the days. But it is a Tuesday. And yeah, that's it really.

So I thought I'd bore you with a story. A nice summer evening story. Some of it may be true.

Some of it may be made up. I really don't know yet. Because I have no idea what I'm going to say.

So ideally, as I crack my toes, it's weird the way they crack. I'm quite tired. I might try and have an early night tonight.

I'd like to maybe get in bed by four. Three or four. Maybe even earlier.

And hopefully, I won't be yawning through the entirety of this recording. So probably the best way to listen to this, apart from with your ears, is to maybe get yourself comfortable in a chair or on a bed or somewhere where you can safely drift off into a boring slumber. That's what I would say.

Just get yourself prepared. And what you may notice as time goes by, not necessarily just with this particular individual session, but also the more you listen to me, the more of these let me bore you to sleep sessions that you listen to, the quicker you may find that you actually drift off to sleep. So you may have been listening to the last three or four, for example, and already you may find yourself just feeling incredibly tired.

As if my voice is some kind of a trigger to let go and to relax your body and your mind completely. Or you may just enjoy, you may enjoy the feeling of just listening to my voice and being bored. I mean, maybe there's a, there may be like an ASMR tingling connection with listening to me talking about nothing for however long I talk for.

Although usually they last about an hour, roughly. What is the most of yawning ages when making recordings such as this, such as these. Now sniffing, that's nice, isn't it? What a lovely, lovely sound.

Nothing nicer than hearing someone pull back the snot back into their nose. Oh, it's lovely, isn't it? So what should I tell you about? Oh, I could tell you about my karate. Let me tell you about the first time I went to, or should I do that or should I do? Yeah, I'll tell you about that.

So when I was about 13, I was at school with my friend and I didn't, if I'm honest, I didn't pay much attention to the actual schoolwork to the extent that I really didn't do anything. It was always bare minimum because nothing really at school interested me. None of the subjects really, perhaps religion, religious studies did, or RA, we used to call it religious education.

I was kind of interested in that. As I suppose if I'd have studied philosophy or psychology, I would have been interested in that as well, but we didn't at my school. As far as social sciences go, or sciences, it was more chemistry and biology and that kind of stuff.

It was like the base subjects, like history, geography, maths, of course, English, just those general subjects. Every year that I started in high school, every year, when the new year was coming up in September, I always had this little bit of positivity and determination to this year, give it a go. It was a little bit like eating the hottest curry, something that I'd eaten it and I'd forgotten.

Tried it before, didn't like it, couldn't eat it, I had to avoid it. Then the next year, I forgot how much I disliked it, and I thought I'd give it a go again, I'll have a little taste. Then I found, I was reminded very quickly that I didn't like it.

Or another analogy would be maybe giving birth. Not that I've done that very often, but the body and the mind is quite good at allowing people to forget any of the suffering that went on and to remember the pleasure, the pleasure of holding that baby for the first time or whatever happens there. So going to school was very much like having given birth and forgotten about the pain and going to give birth again and being reminded, oh, this is why I decided never to have any more kids, and here I am again.

This is why I decided never to let my husband go anywhere near me again. But I forgot, and here we are. Not a good analogy, but I'm trying to think of any other analogies that would be similar.

I suppose it'd be like stepping on the... No, I mean, all my analogies about going to school seemed quite painful. It was not. I didn't enjoy being at school, to be fair.

But that's not what this is about. This session is not about that. It's not a therapy session for me.

I was a bit naughty at school. I played up and I just messed about pretty much the whole time. And that's all I did.

I didn't learn. I must have learned how to read and write and basic maths and just general stuff, general knowledge I gained and also how much of that was gained from television and reading papers and reading magazines and conversations and stuff. I don't know, but clearly I must have learned something at school because I was there for a long time.

In high school, I was five years, five whole years. That's a long time. So when I was 13, I think I was sitting in the science room, the science lab, and I think I was supposed to be doing something and I didn't.

I don't know what kind of some experiment. I mean, in all fairness, the teacher generally kept me away from the Bunsen burners after a couple of incidents. So yeah, that's a good example.

Touching, I don't know if anyone, if you're old, I don't know if you're old enough, if you still have Bunsen burners at school. You know the tripods that used to be, the Bunsen burner would be underneath the tripod and there'd be a metal dish or whatever on top. The amount of times I forget that the tripod would still be hot and the amount of times I've burned myself, that's a little bit like the beginning of each year.

I was very optimistic about holding that and grasping that tripod and giving it a good go, a good hold as I was with school. I used to go in there the first day of school and I had pencils and pens. I'd be all quite positive, quite excited and it didn't last long.

It was like, oh, the Bunsen burner's hot. I forgot that. Anyway, I'm in the science lab with my friend.

We were just talking. That's all I really did. When I was at school, I did a lot of talking, just chatted and he started talking about his brother.

I said, what? He said, his brother's doing karate at the other high school, because there's two high schools in my town where I lived. He said that he was going there to see what it was like. He wasn't going to actually participate, but he was going to go and watch his brother and maybe join.

I said, can I come along with you? He said, yeah. So I went along and I remember going in there for the first time. It was a much bigger school than the one that I was going to and probably the same size gym, because most of the gyms at schools are generally the same size.

That's based on the two gyms that I've ever seen. So that might not be right. It was kind of the same size gym.

They might have had more though, more gyms than just one. We had one. By gym, I mean a person, I mean gymnasium.

And what do they call it in Germany? Gymnasium. Isn't that a school though? An actual school, like an education. Andre's so hot.

He can't get comfortable because of the heat. I thought about shaving him. Nothing to do with him being hot.

I just thought it'd be funny. Take a few funny pictures. Maybe dye his hair pink and green and blue.

Anyway, I remember going to the gym, to the school. Went in there with my friend. I'm not sure if I met him there or if I knocked on his door and we walked up.

I really don't remember. We may have gone up in a car because maybe he got a lift with his brother and I don't remember. Anyway, we were there and the, I don't know how many people were in the class.

So it was probably, what, one, two, three, four, five, probably at least 16 to 20 people, I'd say. Maybe less, but you know about that. And they were all young, mainly apart from a couple of adults.

And then, but the ages of the young people varied. So from being 13, 12, 13, up to, you know, school leaving age, like 16, 17, 18. And then there was a couple of adults, a few, probably about three or four adults there, including the instructor, who is this really big, tall, muscly man.

He was big and he was really good as well. He was the local champion, the local karate champion. He used to do competitions and stuff like that, contests and win.

He used to win. So I went along and me and my friend sat on the side on some, I always remember it because there was these long wooden benches, the types that you have in gymnasiums. And there was lots of them, but they were all stacked up to one side of the gym.

And we just sat on them. I don't recall whether there was anybody else there watching. I think we might have been the only ones.

So the instructor came over and said hello to us and said we were welcome to watch, which is what we did. And I think what surprised me is the noise, because there's a lot of shouting. A lot of the, I'm not going to shout now because that wouldn't really be very good for those that have nodded off, but there's a lot of shouting and a lot of oy, ay.

And also Korean words, Korean words were being used. I don't know why I said Korean twice, but there's a different language to what I was used to. And I don't think I ever really got the hang of it.

I just, it just became second nature, I suppose. But at that point, I thought, ooh, because, you know, I'd been sitting quite uncomfortably on the chair and one of my buttocks had gone a bit numb. So it was quite good.

I quite liked it. The age group were quite good because there was a few people mainly older than me. But there was a few that were kind of similar age.

And I think what was interesting is the, the, like the toughest kid in, one of the toughest kids in the school was there as well. And he was just starting. So that was interesting to see.

But he, he dropped out. He didn't stay after that lesson, I don't think. And the lessons were on Tuesdays and Thursday evenings, from seven till nine or something like that.

So I went along, you know, I was sitting there. I thought, yeah, I'll give this a go. Because I always wanted to do martial arts from a very, very early age.

I'll give you an example. When, okay, when I moved out of the children's home, I went and lived with my dad and his wife. Initially, we'd moved into this little town.

Initially, we lived with him and his mother-in-law and his wife in a house that wasn't big enough for us all. But, you know, we were only little so it didn't really matter. But eventually, we moved, me, my brothers and my dad and his wife moved into a council house, which had three bedrooms.

So I slept in the little room on my own. And the other two shared bunk beds, but didn't share bunk beds. So they had a bunk each in the bigger room and my parents had their own room.

And on the wall of this, where my bed was, there was a picture of Bruce Lee. It was a poster from End of the Dragon. So this was back in 1978.

And I'm not sure when End of the Dragon came out, but it was about, it was around that time, 77, maybe a bit earlier. Maybe it was 78. So from that age, I was always interested in watching martial art films.

And there used to be a TV show called Monkey that was on. I don't know if you ever saw it. And it was lots of martial arts and it was silly.

It was funny. And I watched it for years. It was used to, you know, I just absolutely loved it.

But it's all, you know, I just loved anything to do with martial arts, that kind of flamboyant, jumping around, acrobatic fighting and stuff like that. And I remember when I was about 10, I did ask my dad if I could go to do karate and he said no. And so I had to wait till I was sort of old enough to just do it on my own, you know, to pay my own way because I had a part-time job, so I just paid it myself.

But I just longed to do it for years. And here I was sitting on this big bunch of benches, wooden benches with my friend, watching kind of like a scene out of End of the Dragon where they're always wearing those white suits, practicing their punches. And I was like, wow, it's like a movie, except instead of being on a tropical island, it's inside a school, a smelly gym.

But I didn't judge the smelly gym because I know that I contributed to that smell. So it was all well. And I thought, oh, I think I'll give this a go.

I was concerned because I didn't feel very confident about just the public-ness of it, you know, being there and being watched and, you know, didn't appeal to me that side of it. But I pushed myself and I went there the next lesson. So I think it was the next Tuesday evening, I went along and I think I probably had a pair of shorts on or tracksuit bottoms and absolutely loved it.

Loved it, loved it completely. In fact, I'd probably say it's the first thing in my life that, the first time I really felt that I'd found a purpose, you know, kind of really found something that was right for me, something that I should be doing. From the sound of this story, then I ended up going on and doing karate for the Olympics, representing my country, but that didn't happen.

But I did continue for a few years, basically till I left school. And then I got a full-time job and I was working evenings and gradually, bit by bit, I just stopped going altogether. And that was it.

Never went back to the karate, although I did do other martial arts and boxing and things later in life. But for that period, that was it. But for the time I did do it, I loved it.

And after probably a couple of weeks, the instructor got me to pay for insurance, got me to pay for a gi, which is the costume, the uniform, whatever you want to call it, for the karate. I got given a white belt and she meant I was a total beginner. And I think the first thing I noticed is my toes were hurting because I was basically doing a lot of standing on my toes and also doing press-ups on my knuckles, which I'd never done before.

But really, I think what it was is because I was spending so much time at school, so much of my time during the day not doing anything that I enjoyed. So when I did actually find something that I enjoyed doing, I kind of gripped it, kind of really grabbed it and made the most of it. And I did.

I practiced and practiced and practiced every day, morning, night. I was practicing at school. I was sparring with my friend because he came back and we were doing it together for a while.

Then he stopped doing it after a while. But I became good friends with his brother that was still doing it. And also other people that were there.

And it was really good. It was so, so enjoyable just to feel part of something. I don't know if I felt accepted, but I did.

I kind of did a little bit. Another thing that I really liked about it was the sparring because from day one, we were sparring with each other. We'd take turns and do a couple of minutes, three minutes or whatever with each person and then move down the line to the next person.

And as I got better at it, I found that I'd be trying not to hurt the person who was maybe more of a beginner and then moving up the ranks and then coming against someone that was perhaps trying not to hurt me. So it was interesting because most of the people were bigger than me because I wasn't very big. They were taller, stronger probably, a lot of them.

So, but one thing they always said that I didn't, I was like this little indestructible machine. They just couldn't hurt me. Kept coming back, kept, didn't give up.

But I loved it. It was so much fun. And I did a couple of competitions and it's, I think two or three.

The first competition I had, I just ended up just fighting, like proper just fist fighting, not doing karate because I think they went, they punched me. I didn't like it. So I ended up just scrapping, which is, we got in trouble for, but I kind of went out quite early in that round.

And the second or third, I think I won the first two. And I think the third or whatever I got into the quarterfinals or something, but I never, never got into the final, never won, but I did win a few, a few of the matches, which is quite nice. I think if I'd have stuck it here, I'd have got better.

I think that's maybe part of the reason why I've stuck at this, at this online thing that I do, you know, being boring and the hypnosis stuff and relaxation, sleep, hypnotic buffets, the whisper stuff, whatever. It's all that kind of stuff that I do. I stuck at it for 12 and a half years.

Maybe it's because I learned or yeah, I learned that in order to become the best we can be, it's something I suppose is to just keep doing it, keep practicing, keep doing it. So I think being boring is something that I've become quite good at. It's amazing that it's something that I feel quite good about as well.

I remember though, you know, with the karate I did, how many I do? I think I did three or four gradings and I got a first class pass in all of them, which is a top. Occasionally I do let people skip a grade if they're so good, you know, they skip a grade, but I never got that. One of my friends did, but I did get a first class pass in all my grades.

And that was quite nice because I'd never got a good grade in any subject at school ever. I never got told that I was good at something ever until I did the karate. And I think with, because it's a grading and because to be the top of the class, or to be maybe the only person out of the grading to get a first class pass, was something that I'd done myself, something that I'd accomplished myself, not something that has been given to me and something that I'd worked for as well, you know, by practicing and practicing and practicing.

So it's quite, I quite enjoyed that. Never had anyone with me though. Nobody wanted to come and watch me in the grading.

Never really knew why that was. Most people had their parents with them. I remember that, all these parents at one end of the hall, probably at the back of the hall or the sides, and the graders sitting on tables at the front and calling people up by their belt, you know, by level of belts, some white belts first, then yellows, then oranges, greens, blues, browns, black.

I think that was the order. Kind of lose track a bit. But it felt so nice to, to get presented those belts, the new belt that I'd just won, you know, in a sense, earned myself and that certificate.

Wish I still had them, but I don't. I don't know what happened to them. So I did, what I did do probably about 2011, I started doing Taekwondo.

I was going to say my local town, but I'm not going to travel to Japan to do it. It has to be quite local, doesn't it really? So I did that on a, I think that might've been a Tuesday and a Thursday or a Monday and a Wednesday. I forget.

But this time I found it more difficult because of the kicking. I've always been able to punch, always found that easy. And it's the kicking.

I don't have the flexibility that I once did, but not many people do. I don't think, you know, that 13, I was a lot more suppler, a lot more flexible physically than 41 when I started doing Taekwondo. Nevertheless, I went on and did four gradings and got a first class pass in all of them.

So I still did okay. Unfortunately, I had to stop doing it because of my back. I just had a back thing going on.

Also did Wing Chun Kung Fu. Sounds like a meal, doesn't it? Wing Chun Kung Fu, two portions. So I did that for about a year in 2004.

So I was 34 at the time. No, I was 33, actually. 33.

And I did that. And that was good. Again, I used to go out three times a week and I lost quite a bit of weight, got fairly toned, which was nice.

And I was a vegetarian as well at the time. But you used to do like standard Wing Chun, then we'd do Jeet Kune Do. And then I think it was a Thursday night or Friday night, we started a thing called Leg Spa.

And that's all it was. It was nothing. It didn't do anything with your hands.

It was all legs, including blocking. Blocking the legs with your feet, stopping the other person. And even then I was fairly flexible.

So that was good. So I enjoyed that. Learned quite a bit from there actually.

And then in 2000 and I think it might be 2009, I did boxing for about a year. And I went there, I think that was on a Monday and Wednesday night. And that was good.

It was a lot of kids there, but there was some adults. And definitely helped. I did lose some weight doing that.

And I used to sweat so much. Honestly, I was just so sweaty. It was embarrassing at times.

But I just loved it. So every bit of energy was just gone at the end of it. I just used up everything.

So I've done a few little things and I kept going. But there's been gaps between. It's just that I was going to say that first bit when I did the karate.

Although that wasn't the first thing I did because I did kickboxing previous to that a few times with one of the neighbors. But I decided to just stick to the karate. I don't know, I just liked it.

I liked the instructor. I liked the club. It became my life for a few years.

I suppose it gave me some discipline as well through my teenage years. Kept me fit. I used to go jogging regularly.

I had a gym at the bottom of the garden. I had two punch bags, one light one and one heavy one. I had weights and I'd practice in the garden, kicking and all that stuff.

So I'd be doing that every day for hours sometimes. It was the only thing that I was interested in. I kind of wish that I'd got interested in hypnosis back then.

Imagine what kind of life I might have had. I'd got interested in hypnosis, maybe become a therapist. I've done that as a career because the internet didn't really come around until the late 90s.

I left school in 86. So it was a good 13 years or 12 years of working before the internet arrived. And even then it was touch and go really with the internet.

I think it wasn't fast. It was very slow at the time. Didn't really speed up until about 10 years ago, I'd say.

And once broadband came in and once you no longer had to dial up, although I do miss that little bouncy sound of the internet. Is it a router or what do they used to call it? Anyway, the thing is like bing, bing, bing. It's like a little bouncy up and down sound.

That's funny. Back in those days with the internet, it was what do they say? The window to the world. You suddenly have access to all this information that was never available before or didn't seem available.

Yeah, it would take 10 minutes to upload a picture. It'd just take forever or upload, download it to show a picture on the screen. Those were the days.

I do wonder what things would have been like having the internet when I was a kid, to grow up with the internet, to have all that knowledge available just by pressing a few buttons. I reckon it'd be quite cool. I remember back to being young and the first computers coming out, the first home computers.

Was it an Atari or I can't remember the names of it, but I didn't have anything to do with it. I had no interest in computers. We had them at school and you could access.

It was the really most basic computers. I think there was an opportunity to learn a bit about them, but I had no interest. The teachers and people, the adults were saying, this is the future.

You'll have to know how to use a computer in the future. One day, everything will be using computers. I said, no, really didn't want to know.

I actually remember the very first time that my boss at the paper shop, I had a paper round and he got himself a computer and he got it all set up and he was so excited because he was printing out the route, the addresses of where the papers had to go. He already was doing that anyway, but apparently it was much easier now because he had the computer and I don't know what system he was using previous to that. I can't imagine he was typing them out because that'd be a lot of work.

I just remember hearing the printing. Sometimes we'd be waiting. We'd all be waiting there for the list.

We'd have the papers in our bags, but I still remember the smell of the freshly printed papers and they'd just be printing out the addresses for the paper route. I realize if you're in America, you say route, I say root, but we say root here. You know what I've been wondering, apart from the fact, why do I not do something about that squeaky chair? Why don't I do something, some kind of oiling it or something? I don't know.

You know, what I was thinking is, I was thinking something that's gone out of my head. What was it? I started thinking about pizza and then my mind went blank. There's no weird.

Hmm. Anyway, no, I still can't remember. It was something to do with paper rounds.

I wonder how things would have changed or been different if I'd have got involved in computers at an early age. I just, you know, there was something about the idea of spending two hours typing a code into a computer just for a scrolly word that says, hello, I love Marmite or something like that. To put that much effort just so a word scrolls down the screen didn't really seem like a good way to spend my time.

So I didn't. However, if I had, I might have got really into it. As it is in 2000, the year 2000, my cousin was really into building websites, you know, with the code HTML.

Actually, it was called HTM back then. And I kind of caught the bug from it. And I started getting into it.

And once I started, I didn't, I couldn't stop. And he lost interest. And I continued really, you know, pushing it.

To not a high level, but to the point where it's all I was doing all I was thinking about for a good year, year and a half. So I was able to build my own websites, which I did for quite a few years. Always built my own websites from scratch with code up to the age up to 2005.

When I started using website builders, because it's just easier. And it's long before WordPress and those kind of stuff was around. Now I don't even use any of the work.

I need the you know, the website builders because I don't have the money to pay for them. Now I just use blogger at my website address jasonnewland.com. And it's connected to the blogger website. And that's where I put all my stuff now.

It seems a shame in some ways, because I've spent 1000s of hours working on a website over the years. The amount of times I've redesigned the amount of different website builders I've used. I'm talking loads.

I've probably used nearly every single website host that there is available. At one time, spent 1000s of pounds. She starts singing a song.

Maybe I should write a poem called where did my websites go? Where did my websites go? Like a reindeer urination. In the snow. In the fallen snow.

Yeah. So I'm pretty good with computers now. I'm no expert, but I know my way around.

I know my way around the internet, know my way around a laptop. I can get general things done. I think the good thing with the internet is you can ask.

So it's always a website or something out there that can possibly help how to do video or YouTube or something like that. They can help to resolve an issue that I might be having with even the laptop or a laptop. You know, generally when there aren't solutions for everything.

So there have been occasions where I've looked and looked and looked and not been able to find anything that's able to help me in that regard for that specific event, but usually it's quite good. I mean, a few times Andres climbed onto the keyboard of the laptop when I've not been in the room, where I've been in the kitchen or maybe I was washing up. Maybe I was cooking.

Maybe I was staring at a light in the fridge, trying to figure out how it, does it stay on when I close the fridge? How does that magic work? Maybe I was in the bathroom, looking at the toilet, flushing it, trying to figure out how does that magic work? How? It's amazing. Maybe I was in the bed, looking at the bed for no reason other than just looking at it, thinking nothing really, just, just looking at it, wondering why I'm, why am I looking at the bed? What possible reason could there be to be looking at the bed, thinking that maybe I was expected to say, wonder how the magic works with that. But what, what, what magic? It's a bed.

It's nice to have a bed. I've tried sleeping on the floor on a few times, few occasions in the past. Didn't, I don't recommend it.

It's not, not the best. A nice bed. See, I've got a double bed.

I really, I need a king size bed. I just, I'm greedy. I like to, I like to really spread out.

So when I'm laying in bed, I like to wake up and look like I'm just about to start singing. A closing song of some operatic masterpiece, you know, arms out wide, mouth wide open, you know. So I suppose it is quite a magical place, isn't it? Beds, a place where you can just fall asleep instantly.

The second your head touches the pillow, it can be a trigger, kind of, to just instantly relax all the muscles of your body and your mind starts to just disappear. And what's weird, even when it's hot weather, you can still get that sense of a breeze on your face that can cool you down. That's quite a nice, it's quite a nice feeling.

Yeah, so sometimes Andre climbs on the keyboard. And what I do is, I didn't know what to do when he first did it, because I came back into the room and the screen was upside down. I don't mean he'd broken the laptop.

I mean, everything was upside down. So I needed to go onto my iPad and Google, you know, how to fix it. And it was easy.

I can't remember how to do it, but it was a couple of presses of keys and it undid what he'd done. What I don't understand though, he's done it at least probably three or four times, which means he must have pressed the exact same buttons at the same time, on each occasion. Look how many buttons are on the keyboard.

What's the chances of him pressing the exact same buttons at the same time? Yeah, more than three times. Things like that really don't fascinate me at all. I've got no interest.

I didn't realise how boring it was until just now. I don't care how he did it. It's not interesting.

It's not supposed to be interesting. None of this was supposed to be interesting. It's all about just letting go and falling asleep and feeling relaxed.

That's all this is about really. So this brings us to the end of yet another fantastic let me bore you to sleep, fantastically boring, fantastically long. And that's enough about my feet.

So I'm going to go. Thank you for listening. Speak to you next time.

Lots of love. Bye.