#284 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (23rd December 2019)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is readme for you to sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. By the way, you've only got two days left to enter this competition that is revealed on Christmas Day.

You can win a thingamajig by doing what's name. So enter it if you want to be the lucky fellow person, human, to do that. So I've really sold that haven't I? I just got up.

See I make these recordings whenever I can. I don't fit the men, but you know, just, see normally I do them in the middle of the night, kind of. When I say middle of the night, I mean probably about three, four in the morning, two in the morning, you know, it's those kind of times when it's quietest in the world.

Everybody except me and one farting snail are still awake. But today, or earlier today, this morning, I was still awake but I was busy so I didn't end up making a recording. So I went to bed about half five ish.

Actually, maybe later than that. I've woken up just now after yet again the same dream. It's weird.

I used to make recordings oh I did honest, I did used to make recordings, still do. But I used to make recordings back in some year, 2012, something like that. And maybe 2013, maybe two, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so.

And I used to make a recording whenever I got out of bed, you know, first thing in the morning. And it used to be quite strange. They used to be quite strange recordings because I would talk about my dreams, not as in aspirations and, you know, wishes for my well-being for the future and various items I'd like to collect during my adventure on this planet, but more dreams as in whilst sleeping.

And they got a bit weird because I used to be quite, I don't use the word explicit, I think just the word honest. I think that's probably a better word. Oh, that was explicit.

You've given me all these details. Yeah, I'm just being honest about the dream. I'm not, I'm not dampening it down to suit your sensibilities.

I don't want to make you blush. Can't believe you said that word. Oh, you said a naughty word.

Yes, because I was talking about a naughty event, which isn't really naughty because if it was naughty, then the whole of humanity throughout the human race would have been naughty, haven't they? Yes, otherwise we'd have. So yeah, so some of those recordings are a bit strange. I've got this reoccurring dream and there's a few different dreams I have and there's this reoccurring dream and it basically evolves around two, three, well actually it evolves around rooms.

It evolves around rooms moving into places, something which I've done a lot of over my years. It's not really just my adult years either, really, because when I was, how old was I? When I was 15, I was sleeping on a camper bed in my step mum's, my step mum's mother's living room. So officially, I was homeless, you know, sleeping in someone's living room, basically sofa surfing at that point.

So I was there and I moved backwards and forwards a couple of times back to my dad's, like the family home, but he refused to put the heating on. So it was freezing cold and there was no food or anything, you know, because I was only 15. And I needed to eat and I wasn't, yeah, I didn't have money to sort of buy my own food or anything.

So, because I was still, yeah, I was still officially at school. Yeah, that's it, because basically I'd left school, but I was still at school. You know, I'd just come to the point where I could leave, but I had to go back to do my exams and I got a job in a chip shop.

Yeah, I dream about that as well. I had the strangest dream about the chip shop the other day. That was actually yesterday.

Anyway, and I, yeah, I moved around a lot when I was 15. Then I moved into the flat above the chip shop at age 16 in April or it was Easter. Anyway, so it was either end of March or April.

I remember because I had hot cross buns on Good Friday, which was the only time I ever had hot cross buns. Now I have them every day. Well, tea cakes, because I can and I'm just, it's just a groovy thing to do.

But back then, you know, the tradition was hot crossed buns, tea cakes just with a cross on top, but extra kind of sugary and more fruit hopefully, because tea cakes don't have enough fruit in them. I don't want it to be, there's a fine line, there's a fine line between a tea cake and a fruit cake, you know, I don't want it to be so full of fruit that I feel like I've had my one a day fruit, you know, that I perhaps need to cut down on the rest of my food in case I overdose on a fruit. I don't want it to get too many currants and prunes.

Mind you, prunes isn't so bad, it's quite good. There's lots of things that are quite good for that though. And what am I thinking about cucumbers? No, I, so I moved around a lot and because I remember my friend Neil came round on that day.

I think it was Good Friday, as I said, unless I waited till Easter day to have them, but no, Good Friday because the shop was closed, downstairs was closed. Good Friday opened up again Saturday, closed Sunday, you know, which it would anyway. So the Good Friday was just the only day that we kind of normally had off, that we'd normally work and I had that off.

And he would have had his day off because he was working on the docks. And because he'd left school, we were both six, he was 16, long before me. And he was, I think he was couriering and on a little moped, driving around.

I think, I might be wrong. No, he wasn't. No, he wasn't.

He was going to college. That's right. He was, I'm sure he was going to college, doing catering.

I think, I might be wrong. I don't know. I don't know.

He might have said something about it, but I might not have listened. So I moved around a lot. So from that place, I then moved.

Where did I move? I stayed at my dad's for a little while. And then only for a short period. So I was there and I got a job in the co-op supermarket.

It's only a tiny little shop really. It was a co-op and I worked. And that wasn't too far away from where my dad lived.

So I stayed with him in his new house. And then I moved out of there and I lived above. Oh, this is a habit, isn't it? I lived above the co-op, which was, yeah, there was a flat and the manager lived above the flat, above the co-op in a flat.

It's a nice flat. So I lived up there with her. I moved in as a lodger because I've always been lazy.

Ironically, I used to get to late worker. I used to get to late worker than I did when I was dad's at my living. I couldn't believe it.

So I'd end up getting there later than before when I lived further away. It's like, what on earth? Which is exactly what she said. She said to me, this is the manager.

And what on earth? How come you get so late? Why are you so late? I said, well, you were late too. She said, no, I wasn't. I said, yeah, you were.

I saw you. She said, how did you see me? Well, two reasons, but first one's rude. But the second one is we live together.

We left at the same time. And it was quite nice because we'd be sitting there probably watching, I don't know, morning telly. Could have to be there fairly early in the morning.

Not early, early, but I'm sure I had to be there by about 8.30, maybe eight. And it would be, oh, we've got 30 seconds to get to work. Yeah, well, I might as well set off.

And it would take probably 10 seconds. This is a case of just walking down some steps, some stairs. It would be there.

And then she left for, well, she, yeah, she left the shop, the job, which meant she got evicted, which meant I got evicted from the, the place. I also left the job as well, because after she left, it was, it went a bit horrible. And the new manager kept moaning about the motorbike being outside.

I got this bottle of water. It keeps cracking. Stop it.

So there's this, yeah, this motorbike, and this bloke sold it to me. I couldn't drive. I couldn't ride a motorbike.

I wasn't old enough to ride that type of motorbike. And the bike was so heavy. I wouldn't have been able, physically been able to manage it anyway.

It was a huge, huge thing. It was like, if you think, you know, in Chips, the TV show or the movie, if you've watched the movie, the, that kind of motorcycle. Yeah, there's nothing like that.

And it's, but it's probably that kind of heaviness. Probably not actually, but it was very heavy. You know, I couldn't lift it.

And so yeah, I ended up, I bought it. I don't know why. I just, I just did.

And I probably spent, I don't know how much I spent on it. And then I, I left it outside the shop because I lived there. I mean, what am I going to do? Stick it the other side of town? You know, I'm going to put it where I live, aren't I? So it was a bit of an eyesore.

People say that though, but I didn't notice anyone saying all my eyes are sore or anyone rubbing their eyes as they walked past it. You know, it wasn't really an eyesore. It was just a motorbike.

In fact, some people used to sit on it and like play, like play with themselves, not with themselves, but play with, play on the bike. You know what I mean? Like it's an arcade game or something. And I could have made some money out of that.

People used to get their kids, put them on and take a photograph of themselves. We've seen a bit weird. Put your kid on a bike and then take a photograph of yourself while the kid's on a bike out of the way.

How weird. So selfies aren't just a mobile phone thing. We've been taking selfies for years.

I always have. So I don't know about you, but whenever I go through, with my nan, she had these boxes and boxes and boxes of photograph albums, plus lots of like photographs as well. I'm not saying the photograph albums were empty.

They were full, but there's also like loose photographs. Not loose and like trying to get away and all like loose as in, you know, just giving it to anyone gone. They weren't that kind of, they weren't conspicuous.

They weren't selling themselves. Those were just photographs. They were just in a box, big boxes, quite a few, quite a few big boxes.

And they really was a lot of them. There was thousands and thousands. I mean, she was, she was about 600 years old.

So, you know, there was a lot of photographs and she sneezed dust. That's how old she was. And she, I used to look through the photo albums and it's really, I don't know if this is like normal for everyone, but the only time I got a slight tinkle, slight little, ooh, is when I saw a picture of me.

I just, I wanted to see pictures of me, of, you know, when I was a kid, because the only pictures of me was from the age that I ever saw before that really was the age of seven onwards. But the years before that, there was, there's no pictures. And my nan did have not only pictures of me from the age of seven onwards, because yeah, she didn't have that many, but there's a few.

But she also had some pictures of me as a baby. Not many, but a few. So, all the pictures between the age of seven and 15, let's say, have gone.

That whole period of me living with my brothers, with the parents, gone. It just, I don't know who has them or if they've been destroyed. And, you know, so I haven't seen any pictures of me and my brothers generally as a, from the ages of seven onwards, apart from the odd one that my nan had.

So I got excited. I used to get like, not excited, excited. I mean, I wasn't, you know what I mean? It was just normal excitement, the friendly kind.

And I really just, I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened to those photographs. I'm not even sure why I'm talking about photographs.

But yeah, so when I moved out from that place, I was evicted from that flat, along with the lady that was renting it originally. But because I was lodging there, I was also evicted. So that was my first eviction.

How many times have I been evicted? That's the thing about it. So I'm going to class these as official evictions, as well as people just saying, get out. I want you out.

Which is an eviction. That's an eviction when your landlady or landlord tells you they want you out. I've had a few official ones, you know, with letters and stuff as well.

So the first eviction was the one above the, then, there, that was an eviction. So where's the next one? Do do do do do do do do do do. We're going to go there.

And there, so it's two, two places near the beach. Then, I think, I went back to my dad's for a while, but then he asked me to leave. And then I moved into this lady's place, which was someone that she was a friend, my friend's mother.

I stayed with her for a while that's when I went to Spain for the half of the day and I'd already left I've moved out so I went back for a little while and I stayed with her for a bit you know another week or two so she that wasn't really an eviction that was just an understanding of I don't want you living here anymore it's then she did want me to move out so she used to moan that I was having a bath it's not really the way things turn around she used to moan

because I had a job with different shift patterns sometimes I'd have to be at work at 6 and she'd moan if I had a bath before going to work and now all these years later people moan for the opposite reason they say well can you please have a bath Jason please please that's that's like all the local neighbors that's people in other roads people and just you know there's people like a mile away coming knocking on my door so please Jason have a bath it smells just too much so what other ones I had so

I left there so it wasn't really an eviction it was but it wasn't you know it was just so I'll ignore that one I said I move what other evictions did I did did did did I don't feel it was any for quite a while I basically just moved on from places so I didn't actually yeah I don't feel there was any there just thinking about the different places lived there moved moved lived there lived there you hear that don't know how loud that is for you that's why I don't make these recordings during the

day I don't know why people like power tools I do wonder if power tools are like Viagra for people it's like the only thing that can get them stiff get them get them the juices flowing nothing else works honey get the drill we've we've we've got shelving to put up I don't wanna I don't wanna do that it's boring don't worry you'll be happy I've done it when I've done it and I'm gonna do something else that we haven't done for ages because you know floppy dick syndrome so I don't know if the um floppy

floppy floppy I don't know if the person's gonna continue doing that I don't want to stop recording because I'm halfway through unless I just make it a little bit shorter today I can probably edit out some of it I don't know so I moved this over look I moved again and again and moved again moved to London and moved again then I moved back then I moved away from London stayed with my dad again then I moved out and moved into a studio place which I actually quite liked there's been a it's been only a

very few like a few places that I've lived in that I've actually quite liked the the room or the build you know the place and that was one of them because I had my own bathroom kitchen it was basically like a little holiday chalet thing not holiday chalet thing I'm pretty wrong is it was a building but they were holiday flats so I said it was studio so you'd sleep in the living room so the I'm not sure I think it was like a bed and basically it was a bed there was a bed and

there was a settee as well and there was a television and it was I liked it but I didn't live there for too long and I ended up moving out of there so I couldn't pay the rent and I moved into another little room and yeah then I moved back to London I suppose I could close the windows it's so noisy well perhaps if I close the windows it'd be less noise I'm gonna do that now okay I've closed the windows oh I just put the phone on mute or pause while I did that now

they're banging I mean you don't hear it oh dear it's lucky I'm not allowed a gun it's a nice rifle anyway I one of the places I've got three so far that I was evicted from the next eviction oh yeah yeah so I moved back to London there I was there for four years I think this little room had mice it had seriously I don't know why I put myself through it all because I wanted to do comedy and I could have had a stayed where I was had a decent paid job you know okay

pay you know and enough to pay for somewhere nice to live once I kind of got my act you know once I got myself together but I really kind of anyway I had I had this little room and there was a bathroom heater in the bedroom and that's the only thing no central heating and it was I think it was the oldest house in Europe I think it was our oldest house that still exists it was anyway I lived there and then I moved out of there and then I moved in to a place with

my friend and we all got evicted after about five weeks and we lived in there so that's my fourth eviction so I then moved in with a friend who saved us all by giving us somewhere to live so I lived with him I found out Andre as well because Andre was already living with him so I went and stayed with yeah I moved in with him and he got evicted so I got evicted so we both got evicted out of that house and the so then I went to live I was literally homeless at that

point and and we knew the I knew the eviction was happening so what luckily that that gave me a little bit of preparation time but not enough preparation time to to do anything to really couldn't find anywhere to live so I ended up going to work at Butlin's holiday camp for the Christmas season because I needed somewhere to sleep so that's what I did moved there came back found somewhere else to live when I got back in January or whatever and what happened then I got the next time I got evicted was 2001 so it

was a house I was living in for about four years got evicted from there but that was all official that was a letter with three months notice or two months notice and stuff and then the next time I got evicted so I moved from London I moved from that place to a new place that I moved from that place to closer to where my Nan lived so I lived there then I moved to a different place different a different studio place then another different studio place within the same kind of complex and then I moved

to a caravan then I moved back then I moved to a room that had no heating at all this is in 2004 how can you rent a room out of no heating it's a big room which really made it worse because there was no heating at least I saw my family books and then I moved from there to the Buddhist community and I moved from there when I started University so the place the University had accommodation when I was at University and then I was there for three years living in that place and then I

got an eviction letter and so that's the seventh eviction so then I moved to I think I was given two or three months notice I don't know what it was and that was it's very awkward when you if you because two of us is awkward in any eviction situation but two of those situations where I've received letters it's very formal I was living in a family environment where I was living with the landlord and landlady not not like as a family necessarily I was you know renting a room and they would see them every day

found anywhere to live yet found anywhere to live yet like you only gave me the letter two minutes ago I was being in the toilet crying and yeah it's very very awkward but you know I ended up I got out in time and I pulled out in time and got found somewhere else so I moved there I moved so yeah so I moved out of there I had to put all my stuff in storage because I didn't couldn't find anywhere because my rent was so cheap and I was unemployed no no I wasn't unemployed I

just started a new job and it was just yeah it was all a bit weird but and I got help to sort of get that sorted so I moved to a new place then I moved out of there after a year because it was awful then I moved to another another place which had mold slugs seriously there was slugs in the place the mold in the walls it was awful and then I moved here so yeah seven evictions out of those seven evictions I suppose one two three four five were official but not done officially

all of them two of them were done officially but back when I was younger I don't know if there was laws the same laws as there are now so when I was working above the chip shop they basically said we've quit the job you gotta quit the gotta get out of the flat as well now if that was now I could probably stay there for six months or three months you know I could stick in there and as long as I paid the rent I'd be able to you know they couldn't kick me out for

for quite a while but back then I just I just got out because I didn't know any any different with the one above the chip shop the one above the co-op that was official because they got the bailiffs in so we actually stayed right to the end because she refused to move out I didn't even realize we were being kicked out she lost her job before I lost my job well I left she lost her job and I left and that's why she gave me a room in order to have some money coming in because

she didn't work for you know couple of months and I was there from probably about May till August something like that so yeah there was all official and eventually we had a date and we had to get out by that date so that was an official one as well so I've only had the official ones was that one the one where my friend was living with my friend he yeah he had to get out of there and that was an eviction and that was bailiffs and there was a two times with letters which was official

as well so I've only had four official ones and one of the other ones was when it was a sublet I was staying with a friend and literally we were working in the same place he came up to me during break time he said yeah we have to move out I said when he said tonight is it I think it was a Tuesday that's really weird I remember that it was a Tuesday he said yeah it's a sublet and the why didn't you just rent somewhere proper then why did you rent a sublet anyway that's

what we ended up doing and it all worked out okay so I have these dreams where and I've got this place now it took 30 years but I've got this and I don't know there's something I keep having this dream right where and it's a reoccurring dream and I've got this I have to get out of the where I'm living so that's like an experience I had quite a few times over the years and I found a place but this place that I've got isn't and it's not self-contained it you know it's it's got other

doors where people can walk through or there's people can get and use the kitchen or use the bathroom and then I go back to another place and which is a council place Andre's been a really good boy he's just gone to the toilet on the paper I've just watched him I think I know why he doesn't like going on the paper because his legs his feet slide they kind of slide open like he's doing his splits he just looked at me he just said look daddy I'm not a girl I can't do his splits I

said look it's got nothing to do with being able to do the splits whether you're a girl or not he said I think it has so I do want to argue with him so in this dream that I just had a little while ago I traveled down I was back in the same town that I used to live and at one point during a dream I've got this big pink what's in my hand and I'm it's a swan and it's I'm pulling not pulling it a little bit it's kind of just walking along with me

and I'm looking for to visit the flat the proper flat is like I'm in this building I keep visiting it so there's this this place that I'm renting and then there's all these different people that can get into it you know this basically it's shared but I only started off with one door because it was I went under I first looked at it in the dream and there was a you know it's a nice very big place and I looked around so I've walked through that's you know to find out where the bathroom was find

out where the bedroom was and I was more and more bedrooms and more more rooms and I thought oh that's weird and then I came in one day again this is in a dream a different dream and there was people sitting in there watching telly I said what you doing I said we were watching telly and we're sitting or someone shouted out and we're sitting and I said but this is my place they said no it's our place and it kind of moved from there and but they had their own bedroom and their own bathroom

and then they started using my bathroom and then it's kind of grown from there yesterday or you know tonight well it before the dreams I had before I woke up I was going through different parts of it of this flat of this apartment and there was about four different people living there and they're all moaning about the same thing that they thought it was a self-contained flat and why there are people living there and I said look I'm in the same position because they wouldn't know who I was because I hadn't been there for ages

because I've been I don't know where I've been been somewhere else and I was saying to them look I think you're really lovely I'd love to live with you all but unfortunately I don't want to and they said that sounds a bit rude but also seems to make sense I'm not sure I said look it's a dream it's not supposed to make you know complete sense they said fair enough and I said yeah something else happened but and I decided to look for go back to my original council flat that I'd been given which would

kind of be this but it wasn't it was a place in kind of like the YMCA which is where I used to live and oh man I went there and this is something that's happened lots of times while in my dreams I've gone to this door and I've I just pushed it and it opened didn't have a key just pushed it and I couldn't remember the number because it'd been so long since I've been there so I pulled some letters out of the letterbox because they piled up and it had my name on it so

it must be me but the door was just completely rattled you know it wasn't it wasn't it was on the hinges but it wasn't closing properly and I thought I need to go down and get the maintenance to fix that which is a similar situation that has happened in previous dreams and I go in and I think that this flat now I remember it is kind of the same flat that I lived in when I was 15 when I was sleeping on this on the the bed under the living room floor on a little camper

bed and then so I'm there thinking oh this is rubbish I go into the kitchen yeah it's the same layout I just only just realized going to the kitchen it's just all grubby and because I haven't been in there for ages and ages and ages and then I think I have to contact the council because I've been living at two different places at the same time and how much rent do I owe on this place because I've not paid any rent I can't you know not pay can't pay two lots of rent and then I

remember that I have somewhere that I've got this place it literally is like that I remember that that I've got this home that I'm in now and I feel grateful and relieved and I wake up and I have different variations of that dream it's not always I don't always have a pink flamingo in my hand walking around and yeah it's kind of there's one particular place it is that flat Wow I never even realized it isn't it strange so I've been dreaming about that flat the place that I lived in when I was 15 because

I was kind of evicted from there as well because they moved away they moved away so I needed to get out of there find somewhere else to live but it wasn't so much an eviction as in you know it was family they were just like we gotta get out we're moving so you can't stay here yeah Wow I felt so grateful to have this place and I do I don't always you know but this is to have after all those years from 1986 to I moved in in 2015 in April so 1986 to 2015 what's

that 86 96 2006 2016 so it's 29 years of living in other people's houses as well as lived on people's floors being homeless sofa surfing you know moved over 40 times in that period been evicted what was it seven times so it took me all that time to get this place yeah I think it's because sometimes I think maybe do I deserve this or do you know I only got this because I was ill and you know that kind of stuff but actually I think I've served my time haven't I I think I've I've paid

my dues to get this because I could have been I never asked for help before I could have got help when I was in my teens they were about to give me when I was 16 they would have had to give me the council would have had to give me somewhere to live maybe not my own flat but they would have housed me but I didn't even think about that so I'd have had my own flat you know 30 years ago probably if I'd have gone down the route that I perhaps should have gone down

but I didn't didn't think about benefits or housing or you know anything like that I was just just worked just go to work and that's it and you pay your rent and yeah so I hope I was able to bore you with some actual normally share facts it's facts but it's stuff and it's strange it was a strange I now got this flat big windows got a punch bag I've got a nice telly stop it's not particularly big but it's bigger than I've ever had before what's done that that's nice not true but it's it's

a I think it's 36 inches I mean you wouldn't want that sticking in your ear would you 36 inches so it's a nice size and yeah yeah having a bit of gratitude for the real gratitude I think actually it's really could be really useful to really get in touch with reality like actually this is pretty good also to get in touch with the fact that you deserve these good things just as much as anybody else and just as the plane goes past I'm gonna say goodbye see what it is it's a clear sky today and

it's not raining for the first time in about two weeks so and it's two days before Christmas it's a 23rd today of December so there's gonna be a lot of people about including in the sky Mr.

Plane Man so I'm gonna go thank you for listening by the way when I say Plane Man I know it's a man because I've found out who is it does it all year during the summer he's flying and he goes over this building continuously during the day so there so thank you for listening remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy lots of love boy boy boy boy