#85 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (28th January 2019)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. I think it's number 85.

I should have a little party when I get to 100. So only listen to this or watch this video when you can safely close your eyes and if you're watching on YouTube please subscribe. So what was I going to do? I'm going to talk about what? I don't know.

I never know. I don't plan these things. I don't know.

Just in case you're wondering. I'm not sitting around for three or four hours doing a big plan of what I'm going to talk about. Okay let's talk about that and then move to the next subject and then go back to that subject then move to something else and then go full circle and come back to what I originally started speaking about.

No I don't plan any of this. I'm just talking and the idea really behind this thing is that by listening to me just talking you can naturally, your brain naturally starts to slow down through boredom and you just everything becomes slower you know everything just slows down and I suppose in some ways you start I suppose you you build rapport with me. I like to call it report.

You build rapport. You build rapport with me and because I'm going quite slowly you then start to go slowly. Someone told me yesterday although it might have been earlier today I think it's probably early this morning so yeah it was today but the thing is I classed yesterday as before I went to bed and when I wake up then it's a new day even if it is half past 12 in the afternoon for me it's a new day and yesterday it can be all the way up to four o'clock in the morning today if I'm still awake that's how I kind of view time.

I'm not saying that I've reinvented time and should write a book about it. A short history of time that's quite a catchy title isn't it? Like a little short history of time which is kind of what I've just done there. Well I suppose it's not really a history but it's a short description of what I do with time.

I suppose the history bit would be how long have I been doing this for and I'd say probably I've always kind of thought that way about you know I go to bed and when I wake up that's the new day and I reckon that a lot of people feel that way. That the day starts when you wake up not when you're still awake. So let's say for example you're awake on a Saturday evening at one o'clock in the morning.

The next day hasn't started because you're still awake even though you're still awake. So officially and when I say officially I don't know who officially made up these rules. Show me the rule book and it's really weird when I said show me the rule book I had an image of the Monopoly board or actually the Monopoly box.

So I think the box with board games is just very important isn't it because you've got the it keeps all of the bits together. So if you was to play Monopoly and you didn't have all the bits you know like the what is it? Is it a horse, the hat, the iron? Why? But yeah is there a horse or is it a dog or donkey? But I know there's an iron in Monopoly you know the characters that you can be. Is there a pig, washing machine? No I really I forget but I know there's an iron and isn't there a little man that looks a bit like Colonel Sanders from KFC I think.

I wonder if Colonel Sanders from KFC really was that small though that he could fit on a Monopoly board probably not. It's hard to know isn't it that's things of history. So I could call my book a history of time but I reckon if I write it in my underpants my underwear which is what I would do I'd be wearing my underwear while I was writing the book I perhaps should let people know that I'm wearing my underwear so perhaps call it a brief history of time.

I'm taking a little bow there. I'm very pleased with that. It's made my day.

I'm never so chuffed with myself. The Monopoly boards the boxes are quite good because they keep the things together. Although I have played board games where I've used sort of other items like with Monopoly.

I remember it didn't really work out but I tried to use a real iron because the iron was missing. Is there a little dog? An iron, a hat and there's a dog isn't there? See using a dog like a real dog it's not just the size. They keep walking around and knocking everything off the board.

So perhaps that's why they had them as little pieces. Perhaps the original board game did actually have like a real iron, a real dog and a real hat. They all had their problems.

You know the iron was too hot and a bit too big really for the board. The dog kept doing wheeze and poos everywhere and knocking everything off and the hat had its own problem. It just didn't do anything.

Just sat there. Because hats can be quite lazy. I'm not being prejudiced against hats.

I'm just saying that they can be quite lazy. They don't do much. They just sit there.

I don't think hats really contribute enough. But I'll stop talking about hats. So Monopoly, I used to quite like playing Monopoly a bit.

When I was younger, everything really happened when I was younger. I remember probably talking Christmastime after dinner, after lunch and me and my brothers and parents and you know the family really. I just should have said just me and the family.

Didn't have to go around each individual person. I'm not sure if my dad was wearing a Christmas jumper or Christmas, what do you call it in America? Is it cardigan jumper? Not sofa because that's a different, that's something you sit on. Top jumper, top cardigan.

See a cardigan is more something that you have buttons on that you do up, isn't it? That's a cardigan and I don't mind cardigans as long as they're baggy. I like my tops to be baggy so that I don't like, I'm really into tight tops. Just sometimes I think if I've got a tight top on, I look a little bit like, you know, like a sausage in a skin.

Just, you know, sausage meat being pushed into a skin or like an icing bag or something like that. It doesn't, I don't know, I just don't like it. It just doesn't, doesn't feel comfortable to me.

We have weird names, don't we? Comfort table. It's either comfort bit but what's the table got to do with it? I'm not wearing that because it doesn't feel comfort table. Well, where did the table come in? We're talking about a top or a top hat.

Okay, why do you call it a top hat? It's a hat. It's always at the top. It's on your head unless it's the top hat like your favourite hat out of your hat collection.

I used to have a hat once. I had a trilby and the reason I got it was because I wanted to be like my brother who had a trilby and I remember the first time I saw him wearing it and because my brother's taller than me so I looked up and I suppose I looked straight ahead and I looked up and I said, what's that? He said, what's what? I said, what's that on your head? He said, it's a hat and I kind of knew it was a hat. It wasn't so much what is it is a hat.

I knew it was a hat but I just didn't recognise the type of hat it was because during my life, I think up to that point because I was probably 16 at the time, I think maybe 15, 16. During that point, up to that point rather, the only hats that I recall seeing would be perhaps flat caps and cowboy hats. See, when I was a kid, I used to wear cowboy hats because that's what we did.

That's what the kind of toys that were around. So I used to have a cowboy like a uniform, not a uniform but a costume. So there'd be the hat which would have a string which I could do up underneath my chin to keep the hat on in the wind.

Isn't it weird, Alex? Sometimes things just rhyme and I had a little top on like a cowboy. It's probably set up to look like a cowboy. A little cowboy top on and which I'm not sure if it did up but it was like a kind of like a cardigan kind of thing.

And then I don't think I had it. Oh yeah, I had a holster and like two guns either side. They weren't real, they were just plastic toys.

And then I had these, what were they called? Not skittles. They're things that we could put on the back of my shoes and they turned around and they were like spiky. And it's what cowboys used when they were on horses and stuff, not stilts.

Anyway, I never got to really, I wore them but they were plastic. But I never got to sit on a horse wearing them. And then there was other costumes things that wouldn't be allowed today so I won't go into them.

But there was a lot of cowboy films on television when I was a kid. And the thing is they weren't up-to-date cowboy films. That was what's weird about it is the cowboy films were all old.

So I was, let's see, when I was wearing that, the last time I wore the cowboy outfit I was what, about 32? No, I'm joking. That's 29. No, I was about, I don't know, 11, 12, 10, 9, 8, I don't know.

But at that time the cowboy films would, had all been made in the 60s. You know, the big cowboy films. Maybe the early 70s, 60s, 50s, 60s.

So I don't really know why they were so popular, the cowboy films. But they used to play them on television. Every Sunday there'd be a cowboy film.

And then I think even during the day there'd be like films on, like in the afternoon and stuff, weekdays. So I don't really know why. Maybe it was, maybe it was like a celebration of America or something like that over here.

Because we've always had a very close connection media-wise to the USA. Like television programs, films, music, stuff like that. So I don't know what other hats.

Let's listen to the cowboy hat. Oh, what other hats had I seen? Oh, an astronaut hat. I'd seen an astronaut hat, not in person.

So I've never actually known an astronaut, even now. It's strange, isn't it? I've never actually ever bumped into an astronaut. Never, wherever I've been.

I've lived in a few places. Admittedly, I've never, I've never gone into a pub that's near NASA, or near an astronaut school, or wherever astronauts live. But I've never ever bumped into someone and just, oh, or got talking to somebody.

So what do you do? Oh, I'm an astronaut. Oh, cool. You're also a man.

So move along. And I'd like to talk to a lady. Not like that.

Well, maybe. Astronaut. Never, ever, ever spoken to an astronaut.

Oh, the amount of times I used to get stuck talking to men. I'd be at a party, and I'd just end up someone talking to me, and I just didn't really want to. I never went out to a party to meet new men, and to meet other men.

Just, you know, I don't mind, you know, I meet men in work situations, and, but just, I prefer, well, generally I always prefer to talk to women anyway, because I think I always found women to be more interesting to talk to. And it's a generalization. But I think I'm quite feminine in some ways.

I think I've got quite a feminine-ness. Maybe quite a female brain in some ways. So I can feel a bit more connected to females than to males.

I get on with most people anyway, to be fair. I feel like I should get back to talking about hats. Hats.

Very important subject. Hats. The amount of times I honestly, when I was a DJ, I'd get this bloke wanting to talk about life.

And sometimes I might not quite like that, but I'd just be working, and it's nice to just, I don't know, just, sometimes the conversations would be a bit forced, you know, like, let's now talk about football. Let's now talk about golf. Let's now talk about motorsports.

Let's now talk about women. Let's now talk about me. It's just, it was never like that.

I don't know why I'm trying to make out that that's what it was like. It wasn't. Although I have known people that like to set out a timetable of subjects to talk about during lunch.

But I'm never really quite like that. It's just because I don't plan. I don't, I don't, just don't plan.

I'll tell you one thing though, the temperature's dropped. And I have to turn the heating on. Because it's a bit chilly, you know.

So what other hats have I seen? So I haven't seen astronaut hats in person, but I have seen astronaut hats on television and also in, you know, in movies. Yeah. And I suppose on television, apart from the movies I've seen on television, where an astronaut would be wearing a hat.

And it usually comes with the suit as well. Because you need to, I think the suit supports the weight of the hat that the astronaut wears. Because I get a sense, and I'm not a hundred percent sure, because I've never, ever, I've never touched an astronaut's helmet.

So I've never like had one in my hand. So I don't know how heavy they are. But I imagine that the, the suit is quite heavy and the astronaut's helmet is supported by the suit.

Because it like fits in, doesn't it, clicks in or something. So I don't know if, I don't know the weight of an astronaut's helmet. So I don't know other, I saw a helmet, astronaut's helmet during like live launches of the space shuttle and also in movies.

So was it Mars? Just a film called Mars. Damon, what was his name? Matt Damon. See, I got to see Matt Damon's helmet.

I'd never seen Matt Damon's helmet before. And he was wearing, wearing his costume. He's with his, you know, astronaut's costume for quite a while in that film.

Never got to see the end of it. Never got to see the end of it. I should make the effort.

It's quite a few films over the years that I've seen the beginning, but I've not seen the end. And some films I've seen kind of the middle, but not the beginning or the end. And the occasional one where I've only just seen the end, but not the beginning or the middle.

But having seen the end kind of takes away the point of watching the beginning or the middle. Because you know what happens. You know what happens at the end.

That's why I didn't watch Noah's Ark and why I don't watch any war films. You know, I already know the ending. There's no point watching it.

It'd be different if there was, if it was like a new ending, like a different slant, a different, different take to it. It'd be interesting. You know, let's say Noah's Ark and the floods came, but then a big giant sausage started floating down and pushed the Ark over and made a big hole in the ship.

But the hole was blocked by the sausage. So it was still able to keep afloat. And the outside of the sausage, the outside were in the water.

They used the sausage as a rudder. So that was like the first ever rudder invented for boats. And the rest of it, they just ate the sausage from inside because they were hungry.

And they hadn't figured out what all of them could eat. What could we eat that we all like? And no one could like come to an agreement about what they all could eat. What do we like? What do you like? What do I like? Well, I like this.

You like that. Other people like other things. But it turned out that they're all quite partial to a bit of sausage.

So it turned out okay. They all shared the same sausage. They all had a nice, you know, nice little nibble.

And it kept them going until it was time to repopulate the world, I suppose. Isn't it amazing how well behaved all the animals were? It just shows you that we do pull together, you know, when we need to. Even the animals.

Because you had lions, gazelles in the same enclosure. And they were, you know, weren't bothering each other. Crocodiles, and I'm trying to think what crocodiles eat.

Well, obviously sausage in that situation. Even the elephants. The elephants, you know, they said, yeah, well, admittedly, we would prefer to have trees and eat, you know, plant-based diet.

But we realized that this is a very, very extreme situation. So we too will just nibble off of another sausage. So that worked out okay.

I think it's nice when we get together and make the effort to get on. And, you know, I think it makes such a difference to the world. It's a shame they couldn't have kept it going though, really.

Imagine if we all just like lived our lives eating off the same sausage. Vegetarian or vegan options, of course. Perhaps there'd be more peace in the world.

All due to sausage. Noah's sausage. Cured the world.

I don't know if Noah had a hat. To be fair, you'd think, you know, one thing you would want if you're going to be on the ark, Noah's ark, is you'd want to wear a hat, wouldn't you? It's going to be all that rain. It's not even just the rain, it's the spray off the sea.

That would be quite, you know, I mean, if you're wearing glasses, you'd have to continuously be wiping your glasses. Unless, of course, maybe Noah had contact lenses. But you would need, basically, Noah would need my old cowboy hat because it had a string underneath to keep it on.

He'd need something to keep his hat on because I'm guessing it was quite windy. I don't know. I don't mean because all the animals are eating sausage it's going to be a lot of wind produced.

I don't mean that. I'm talking about, you know, the natural elements of the sea and the wind and, you know, all of those technical things. But then didn't he have his family with him as well? So maybe they had hats.

I don't know. So I don't know if he had a hat. Were there hats? Roman hats? I don't know.

But I have a recollection that I might have had a Roman outfit when I was a kid. Pretty sure I had a big sword, like a big plastic sword, but it was hard and it did hurt people when I hit them with it. So I was a kid.

Yeah, I think it was, I've got this fake recollection that it was grey, but also all like silvery grey, bluey grey silver, and also one that was gold. And is it scabbard? Do you know the thing that you put the sword into? I'm pretty sure I had a, I had, yeah, I just have a recollection of holding a Roman's helmet in my hand and just like patting the top of it, of the helmet, because it was quite a nice helmet, because I think it came down and covered more of my face, because like a, I suppose like a a replica of how a Roman's helmet would have been. It's nice and shiny.

And I think, I'm pretty sure that Roman's helmet leaked. A little bit of, I think there was a thing at the top, so if it was raining, it kind of, the water would get in. Maybe it was at the side.

I don't remember other aspects of that costume. Maybe there was a top and like a, like a grass skirt, like a pleated thing that Romans used to wear. I might have had a policeman's hat.

We used to call them policeman's hat, but they're person's hat now. A police hat. Yeah.

Because when I was a kid, policemen and police women used to have different hats. So the policemen used to have big, tall, kind of spiky helmets and their helmet would have a, like a policeman's helmet would have like a big, like a metal thing at the end, like a piercing kind of thing. It's weird.

It was like a stud at the top and a little visor at the bottom, kind of, you need to go online and have a look to see what I mean. And there used to be the old joke, say, oh, you, you got your sandwiches under there today, Bob? Bobby? And he'd say, no. And if you say that again, I'll arrest you.

No, he didn't. But it was kind of a, an ongoing joke. I think that the policemen used to have their packed lunch inside, you know, inside their helmet.

Whether or not they did, I really don't know. It wasn't something I really ever asked myself because, you know, I used to see people say on television and it referred to food inside a, it used to be a thing, what's inside a police, a policeman's helmet. I know some joke about it.

I can't remember the punch line, but I think it used to, I can't remember. It was something about pork sandwiches or something. I forget.

I forget. But females, police officers used to wear a flat hat, a flat cap, not a flat cap, but it was like a flat hat. So they had very different hats to, in fact, I think female police officers, I think very much similar to traffic warden hats, if I'm correct.

So they had different hats. I don't know if the men had those hats to make them look taller because it did. I mean, it was probably a good two foot, had another couple of foot onto them.

And I wonder if they, you know, I just think how much water could one get inside of the police hats. I heard once that there was a boating lake, local to where I lived. And there was a, like a child was in one of the boats, but it lost the oar.

The oar had like fallen into the water and the kid was like getting a bit upset. Like, help me, Mr. Policeman. What's in your hat? And you know, the policeman said, oh, so this is just the myth.

This is the story. The policeman took his hat off and put it into the water, filled the hat, his hat with water right to the top. And when he'd done that, the boy that was in the boat was just sitting at the bottom of the lake because all the water had been taken out by the hat, by the policeman's hat, because it was so big.

But I don't know. I don't know. I'm not saying that's true.

But that's what, that's what my brain just told me just then. So it was quite an amazing feat of kind of a super superhero moment, really, I suppose. What other hats? I used to wear like wooly hats in the winter.

I still do sometimes because I find by wearing something woolen or like warm on my head and covering my ears, when I'm outside in the cold, my head doesn't feel as cold as it would do if I wasn't wearing that hat. And my ears don't feel as cold as I imagine that they would do if I wasn't wearing that hat to keep my ears warm in that cold weather. So I think it's useful to have a hat on when it's a bit cold.

And although at the moment I haven't shaved my head because I do have a tendency to shave my head, you know, maybe a few times a year, just shave it all off. But at the moment, I'm just leaving it. I think it's now that as I look at the front of my hair, I look in the mirror at my hair now, and the front is receding and there's less hairs there than there used to be.

And the hairs that are left look at me as if to say, please don't, please don't cut us off. Please. Just let us be here.

We like it here. So I'm thinking of just leaving them. Or, you know, Jimmy Somerville, you might need to Google this bit.

He used to have hair, but he used to shave his head and have a little bit of hair right at the front, little patch, and he'd shave the rest of his hair. I might do that. He used to sing a song called Don't Leave Me This Way.

I don't know the rest of it, but it was don't leave me this way. A, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a. My tender kiss, ooh baby, don't leave me this way. A, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a. Yeah, I can't remember this.

I don't know if he ever wore a hat though. it might have done because I know from personal experience that when I have shaved my head I've needed that extra layer when I've gone out even when it hasn't been particularly cold just to keep some heat in. My scalp is a reason that I would wear a hat you know like a I nearly said fuzzy hat not a fuzzy hat a woolly I don't know if it's woolly probably synthetic material.

Trying to think someone else that wore a hat ah yes someone that wore a hat was one of my bosses when I did window canvassing back when I was about 18 years old he used to wear a hat and I think he had more than one hat but one of the hats he used to wear was one of the ones that keep that have like the ear section that go all the way down and it's kind of the kind of hat that I'd imagine I'd wear if I was mountaineering or at least living in a mountaineering area somewhere where there's like snow for months on end.

Switzerland maybe? Is it snowy there?

I so I he used to wear a hat like that I remember once he was we used to all be on on foot so he'd park up we'd all get out and he'd say you go that way you go that way and knock on every door and stuff like that and I remember one evening we all kind of met up he wasn't anywhere to be seen but me and the other two canvassers we started talking about him and making fun of him because he had a big moustache I was very young but anyway we were

making fun of him and we saw someone come out of the house and look at us oh that's strange and he got into his car and he still was looking at us and he drove away and as he drove away there was my boss crouched down doing his shoelaces up behind the car listening to what we were saying and it was so embarrassing so all I could do was laugh we just laughed our heads off because he clearly wasn't spending that five minutes doing his shoelaces up he must have been doing his shoelaces up and

then he heard us talking and he just crouched down and stayed there and then this man came out of his house probably thought what on earth's going on why is this man crouching down behind my car and why are these other people just standing there but that's a guess I that man might not be thinking that he might just been thinking I need a Mars bar I've got to get to the garage I need a Mars bar I love Mars bars perhaps he was driving off because he left his hat somewhere so there's no way

of knowing is there he might have had a hat he might visited somebody and then realized he's left his hat there because when you drive it's quite easy to leave coats and hats and without realizing it it's very difficult to do that if you're a pedestrian I've never once walked home from a coffee shop in the winter and thought oh wait a minute where's my coat no you generally put it on if you're just jumping in and out of a warm car I've seen people in shorts in the winter go to the garage to get

petrol and there's me wrapped up with everything except a hat but I had that hat a trilby when I was about 16 it kept blowing off kept blowing onto the floor I think it was too big for my head so that's it for me for today I'm gonna go and do some things turn the heating on it's supposed to have snow tomorrow that'll be interesting I'll tell you all about it you take care of yourselves and I'll speak to you next time