#354 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (18th March 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You to Sleep. Please only listen and you can safely close your eyes. And on the website, I've been doing some new bits on there, so maybe check it out.

I don't, it's a bit boring to be fair, but it's, check, check it, check out the Boredom website. Nice. I've been, um, been changing and organizing things so everything's much easier and mobile phone-friendly, because the majority of people that visit my website are using a smartphone.

So I'm trying to, you know, I've reduced a lot of the text, a lot of the descriptions and the titles, so it's not taking up half the page, just one title. So I've done a lot of changing around. I've made the images so it gives you the information on the actual image per recording, as far as the number, what the recording is, and the duration of the recording as well.

So I'm kind of, I'm moderately pleased with it. I noticed something, realized something, that I can't delete the website now, because it's been paid for for the next month by listeners. Which means I can't delete it, even if I wanted to.

So if I have a little, um, I don't know what you want to call it, but a moment, a little blip, or a big blip to be fair, but you know, if I kind of just decide to give up on everything and delete everything, I can't delete the website because it's kind of no longer owned by me. Does that make sense? I've no longer, I don't, yeah, I can't, can't do that. So not that I want to delete it, but I do have a tendency of like shutting it down, you know, every now and then.

And because there's always 30 days before it completely, you know, the website host deletes all of my stuff. So I kind of can reboot it before that time. But so I need to keep it, I have, well, I have no choice.

I have to keep it going for the next month. As I said, not that I'm intended to want to get rid of it. I want to keep it.

But it's more for other people, because all of my stuff is on there. All of the old stuff, if you listen to some of it, you can actually hear, if you listen over the years, you can hear me turning into an adult over the years. As long as I was about four when I first started, I'm like, hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. In fact, I used to go www.jasonnewland.com. Now relax.

Go on, relax. Relax your toes, relax your head, relax your eyes, relax your, you know, so I had to learn how to talk slower. That's what I used to be like.

And now relax your knees, relax your knees. Now go to sleep, go on, go to sleep. But as I've got older, and for some reason, my voice is deeper today.

I've not felt very well today, actually. But I'm going very easy on myself. Very slow, very, very slow.

Very calm. It's almost as if I'm also doing this recording to calm my own mind. And I know that I don't normally go into this kind of zone when I make these recordings.

This is more for when I do the, you know, the relaxation stuff or the sleep stuff. But this, this is the zone that I'm in tonight. So hopefully you won't get too, you won't be too, too excited, you know.

It's just all be really boring, if anything, more boring. More and more boring. With every breath you take.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. See, this is, I don't know what's going on. I mean, generally, my whole life I've not really been, you know, trying to figure it out.

But there's a lot of weird stuff going on at the moment in the world. I'm just a little bit confused with what's going on. And one of the things is the statistics on my podcast had gone down yesterday.

It was less than 3,000 downloads on listeners, which is low considering I made three new recordings. Well, two, but one was like doubled because I've had music with it. So I don't know if it's because the podcast host has got people like short-staffed maybe because of what's going on.

So they're not able to update the stats. But normally on a day like this, I'd be having 4,000 plus. And I know that it's not all about the stats, but it is.

For me, it's not all about the stats, but it is a big, it gives me an indication of whether or not what I'm doing is useful. Because only a tiny percentage of any of the listeners to this or any of my other podcasts will actually post a review on my website. And that's fine.

And I do get some beautiful comments, lovely reviews and stuff. And I've had lots of testimonials over the years that have been really good. I really enjoy them.

But of course, I don't expect to be getting thousands a day. But if the stats change, and I started thinking, maybe there's like one person that's been manipulating the stats. And now they've stopped.

They've been manipulating it somehow, like, I don't know, got some kind of way of making the stats higher. Just so that I kind of, it doesn't make me feel good. You know, I feel that I was doing well.

And now they're kind of, they don't like me anymore or something. And they've stopped. Nothing like a little bit of paranoia in the evening, is there? So yes, it's weird.

It's never ever for a long time have I had such a low amount when I've released. If I release two recordings, I'm always, you know, even if I do one recording, it's usually about three and a half thousand plus. And to be at 2700, it's like, what on earth is that about? Very strange.

It's just, you know, and I know that some people don't like me talking about the stats because it's boring. Oh, wait a minute. What's the title of the podcast? Oh, okay.

It's called Let Me Boy To Sleep, not Let Me Boy To Sleep by talking about my stats every single time. That's the point. I'll be honest with you.

I don't think I'd want to listen to someone if all they did was just talk about the stats. If that was, you know, if I was just there reading off the stats. Although it is tremendously boring, to be fair.

So I think that would send me to sleep. It's kind of on the same, it's on par with the weather forecast. There's a thing in England, and this might be famous worldwide, but it's something that's been on the radio for forever.

It's been on since the beginning of the radio, radio one or radio four or whatever in this country. And it might be now because of the internet, you can listen to every radio station pretty much in the world. But this one is the shipping forecast.

I think it's on radio, it's either radio two or radio four. And it basically gives the shipping forecast. And it lasts for about, I think, 15 minutes, maybe longer.

It's really relaxing because it's just someone reading out. Similar to kind of like stats, just a few facts, you know. The wind is this, and this shipping, the tides rise here, and la, la, la, la, la, la.

They don't actually go la, la, la, la, la, la, but you know, as an example, because I don't really know much about shipping forecasts. But I remember the first time I heard it, I was, here's a weird, well, it's not a weird story, but I was visiting my dad, Christmas, Christmas period in 1990, 1990, 1990, I guess it'd be 1994. No, 1995, 94, 93, 94.

Yeah, it was 1994, I was visiting my dad for Christmas. And my brother, who I hadn't seen for ages and ages and ages, he had a job in security, and he said, do you want to do some security work over Christmas? And I said, okay. Basically, because I had no money, you know, I was working very low pay, and I was like, I need to earn a bit of money.

Plus, I don't know, I'd never done it before. So basically, I worked as a security guard. Those were the days that you didn't have to have any training, you didn't have to have any kind of checks or anything, any criminal checks.

It was just, it was very unregulated back then. And I did actually become a security guard again, properly when I was two years later, or just over a year and a half later. But I did have to go through some training, a little bit minimal, minimal.

But there was security checks. And now it's a lot more stricter. You have to actually go on training courses.

And I thought about doing it. In the past, I thought maybe I could go back into that. Get a night shift in an office block where I'm not going to be bothered.

And then I could make recordings. And then just live exactly the same lifestyle as what I'm living now. But I'd be getting paid for it.

But I don't know, because you couldn't, the only problem is, well, the things I thought about was, it's not always as simple as that with security companies. So I worked for insurance, for security for a couple of years back in the middle of the 90s. As a, from 96, I think it was April, until the summer 97.

So it's just over a year, I suppose. But I know, yeah, 97. I, even then, you know, they'd just move me from one job to another.

So I'd be doing night shift, then they'd say, oh, we need you to do day shift next week. We need you to do the 24-hour shift. You couldn't, you know, wasn't allowed to leave my position until the next security guard turned up.

And sometimes they just didn't turn up. So it wasn't a very reliable, it wasn't a very secure job, that security job. It wasn't, I was reliable, because I always turned up when I had a shift.

And part of them at the end, when I didn't. But I was not very well at the time. But I'd, not everybody would turn up.

So I'd be there all night long, needing to go home, because I'd just done like 15 hours shift, needing to get home. It's going to take me a couple of hours to get home, go to bed, get up and go back to work. That would be pretty much the whole week.

And I'd do that for, I think I did that six days a week. In fact, I think I did it seven days a week for about a month. And then I went down to about six days a week.

So I didn't have a huge amount of spare time. So if someone didn't turn up at eight o'clock like they were supposed to, and I'd been there since three o'clock the previous afternoon, it was a little bit like, what's going to happen now? You've got to stay here until they turn up. Yeah, but I want to go bye-byes.

Well, didn't you sleep during the night? I said, yeah, that's not the point. What do you mean it's not the point? Well, you're not supposed to know that I was asleep. Because I'm supposed to be awake, aren't I? Yeah.

So there. Oh, and I had a friend, he actually gave me a job. He was going to give me a job as a security guard.

He had a security company. And he, oh dear, I just remembered. It's not really funny, but it is not funny at the time.

But he was a security guard, and then he ended up running a security company. And he was a great boss. I never actually worked for him, but I know he was a good boss.

And he went out of his way to do everything he could for the people who worked for him. But when he had his security job, he had, I think he had some kind of a rash on his thighs. And the doctor gave him an ointment that he had to keep putting on his thighs every four hours or something.

And he was in a porter cabin, at the security, he was the security in the porter cabin. And he thought there was no one around. So he dropped his trousers and started putting the lotion onto his legs.

And I think a lady walked in. I think it might have been like a manager or something of the company of the place. And yeah, he was sacked.

Of course, it wasn't funny from that angle, but it's almost like a comedy sketch. It's not his fault. If you got a rash, if you got a rash, you can stand there scratching yourself, which doesn't go down very well, apparently.

Or you can put the ointment on, which stops you from scratching yourself. But in order to do that, it means you've got to drop your pants. I don't think anything particularly weird happened when I was a security guard.

I'm trying to think. I think when I first started doing it, I was at the Canary Wharf, because there'd just been a bomb gone off in, this was 96, early spring, might be in February, March time. And it was a huge, huge deal in England at the time, or in London.

And I remember because I was actually in the house, I was in my house where I lived, because I was unemployed at that time. And the whole house shook. And everyone came, you know, there was, I'm sure there was a lot of people at work, but the whole load, Andre's now come out to go to the toilet.

Blimey, really strained there. I wonder why he's straining so much. Did you hear that? I think that's because I gave him some milk earlier.

It's bad for him. But he loves it so much. It's absolutely joyful going in one end, but not so much out the other end.

I have to stop doing it. It's... And then I remember him scratching at the door and I'm thinking, I certainly might. Not really, not really.

Maybe a little bit. And so people actually came out of their houses in the road I was, and I'm, what the heck was that? Did you feel it? Yeah, I felt it. Did you feel it? Yeah, I felt it.

And someone said to me, did you feel that? No, I just wandered out in the street for no reason. The same as everyone else in the road. What do you think we're going to have, like a street party? You don't have to be rude.

I'm just, I'm going to ask. Okay, sorry. And it did shake, but I never ever experienced anything like it.

It shook the building. And because I lived in Stratford, which was East London, and the Canary Wharf was in, was in Docklands. It's not far away at all.

It's basically, it was the area where the docks were, hence Docklands. And it became a big area of just land that wasn't being used. And then the city decided to build their own kind of thing there, which they did very successfully.

So the city's still in the city, you know, as far as like Liverpool Street. But Docklands is also the hub as well. So I'm pretty sure there's a hell of a lot more in Docklands than there is in the original city of London, as far as like, I don't know, banks or businesses.

I know that some of the major newspapers moved to Docklands, instead of being in, what do they call themselves? Was it Knobhead Row? No. It was, there was a place in London, it was a street that was specifically where the tabloid and the press, you know, basically worked and printed their papers and worked from the offices there. They'll come to me in a minute.

But I know definitely that the Mirror Group, who printed at the time, they did the Mirror, Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the Racing Post. And I think they might have also done Today. There used to be a paper called, I think it was Today, and it was the first colour paper ever in this country.

Because before the 90s, it was pretty much just black and white. There might have been some colour pictures, but I'm pretty sure everything was black and white. And then Today, I think it was, which was the magazine.

Again, I might have the, not a magazine, a newspaper. I might not be correcting the right name of it. But it was definitely the 90s.

And it was fully, full colour. And it was sort of a game changer, because so many other newspapers started to integrate some of that, I guess, technology into their own newspapers. And then Today just closed.

I'm pretty sure it went into like new ownership, and then got closed. Yeah. But it was, I think as part of that company, Mirror Group, they also, well actually I was quite surprised at the time, because when I went in there, there was actually almost like a company tree, which told you with all the different branches from the company.

And the Mirror Group was, I think they also had the Daily Mail as well, possibly, or the Telegraph, something like that. So I know the company that owns The Sun, which would be Rupert Murdoch. They, well, they did, I think they still do own The Times, which is an actual newspaper.

And The Sun is a tabloid. It's like The Times is more highbrow, apparently. More words, less pictures.

And looking at this tree, there's a big plaque on the wall in the reception, above the reception, in Canary Wharf, the most expensive building ever made at the time, I think, in this country. It was huge. I think at one point, it was the tallest building.

I don't think it is anymore. But it was huge, massive. You know, it's got a light on the top so that planes can see it, basically.

And so it had all these different companies, some of which I didn't really under, didn't recognise. But I think there might have been some oil companies that were above the newspaper. So basically, these companies owned these other companies.

The top was, I think it was Galaxo, or some kind of pharmaceutical company, drug producer. It might have changed now, but that was what it was, in my memory, back in 1996. So it's a long time ago.

I was surprised. I was like, okay, so you're running a newspaper. So there's connections between all these different companies and this newspaper, which means there's going to be biases.

There's going to be a bit of kind of unconscious selling going on there. Promotion without people being aware of it. So I did find it quite interesting.

And then the lift, the lift door opened and I started thinking about something else. It happens. I never realised I could fall asleep standing up until I did that job.

And the thing about it, it was, I actually applied to work as a security guard for this company. And because I decided I didn't want to stay at home and be unemployed. Boring.

I wanted to do something. So I applied for the job. Had the interview.

They spoke to me on the phone, I think the next day, saying you were unsuccessful. I said, why? They said, we don't like you. I said, oh, okay.

Fair enough. And that was it. After the bomb went off, it couldn't have been more than two days.

Phone rang. You know, can we speak to Jason New with a hand, please? I said, yeah. Well, actually it wasn't me answering the phone.

It was my landlady. Because I didn't have a mobile phone back then. Hardly anybody did, to be fair.

And I think the only people who really had mobile phones back in the early, you know, right at the beginning, like 96, you know, when they started to be, you didn't have to be really strong to carry them around. It was basically the people who worked in the city, or those kind of jobs, you know, that paid really well. So they could afford to have a phone.

Drug dealers and students who were being given them really cheaply because they were students. But outside of that, the general population was not using them. It wasn't really until a couple of years later, when 97, actually it wasn't long, but about 97, then it started to grow in 98, 99.

It was the biggest industry, probably in the world, for a while, I think. Mobile phones, they were just like grew and grew and grew. They were almost like fashion accessories.

I actually knew people had like two or three different phones, and they just put the SIM card in different phones. I would like carry them around, like different shoes. Or should I wear, should I wear a different tie? Should I use the Motorola or should I have the Ericsson? You know, that kind of thing.

They might not go, oh, but... And I phoned me up, the security company said, yeah, it's Ted from, I don't know what his name was, might have been Gertrude, I agree, I don't remember. In fact, if it was Gertrude, I would remember. It wasn't Gertrude.

And he said to me, do you still want a job then? I said, depends. He said, depends on what? It depends on who you are. He just phoned me, who are you? He said, oh, no, it's Gertrude from whatever our security company's called.

I said, you don't even know what your security company's called? He said, no, you're just saying that because you can't remember it. It's part of the story. Oh, okay.

And I said, well, I've not come for another interview, have I? He said, no. We've done the interview. You've just got to turn up, collect the uniform, and we've got a job for you to start on Monday.

But you're going to have to come and collect the... I think this is on the Thursday. He said, you've got to come and collect the uniform tomorrow and then start working. Actually, it wasn't even Monday.

I think it was Saturday. You'd start working the following day. And I said, okay, where is it? He started laughing.

And he said, Canary Wharf. I said, what? He said, yeah, Canary. I said, do you mean the bomb site? The place where the bomb just went off like literally three days ago? He said, yeah.

And basically what happened is they, which is kind of, I guess, a normal thing to do, they increased the security by huge amounts, huge amounts. And it was only a temporary thing, I didn't realize, but it still lasted for about two or three months. Was it April? Yeah, until about June.

So I had about three months working there. And it was the best paid role that I had in security because I was paying, I think, about £8 an hour, £7.50 an hour. And there was no minimum wage back then.

And I probably, yeah, it's the most I've ever been paid and actually it's not. I got paid more than that when I was doing canvassing when I was 18 for double glazing. But as an actual proper job, it's the most I've ever been paid.

Because previous to that, I've been getting paid about, I don't know, £2.10 an hour. So I see quite a big jump. And not only that, it was 12-hour shifts.

And I worked, I think I worked about 55 days in a row, something silly like that, 45, 50 days in a row without a break, because they needed people. And some people didn't like the job because it was boring, it was just standing, checking people's bags, letting people in, being friendly. I checked their bags, a friendly bit, I just, no.

No, I quite liked, well, I partly liked it, but it's very clean. I had a lot of quite, not dirty jobs, but jobs that were quite manual. So to be in a place where it was really sparkling clean the whole time, there was hardly ever a speck of dust on the floor, they had cleaners coming around, everything, it was basically a brand new building really.

And it was a little bit dusty outside, you know, where the bomb had gone off, but the bomb hadn't actually hit that building, but it hit some buildings around. It caused a lot of damage, but it was, it didn't, yeah, it did nothing that hadn't, otherwise you wouldn't be able to use the building. But anyway, I got there, I remember getting there the first day thinking, well, how am I going to get there? How do I get to Docklands? Because it's, isn't it Silvertown or something? It was, I don't know, but it's, well, it's actually Canary Wharf, that's the stop.

And I went to Stratford, because I think I needed to start at, it might have been seven in the morning to seven at night, or eight in the morning to eight at night, something like that. And I went to Stratford to the train station, and I said, how do I get to Canary Wharf? And he said, well, first of all, you need to talk to me normally. I said, okay, how do I get to Canary Wharf, please? He said, that's better.

I've told you about that before, haven't I? I said, yes, mum, sorry. I said, thanks for packing my lunch today. She said, it's okay.

I said, well, can you now tell me how to get to Canary Wharf? And she said, I will do if you, you know, sort your attitude out. Oh, come on, I just need to get to work. He said, okay, well, what you do is you go on a train and you get off at Canary Wharf.

I said, yes, that's not the thing. What train? She said, you stamp your feet on the floor again like that, and you're going to be grounded. I said, I'm sorry, I just want to give you a good impression.

I want to get to work on time, and I want to give you a good impression. She said, you really want to give a good impression on your first day at work? I said, yes. She said, well, how about wearing some trousers then? I looked down, and she looked at me, she said, got ya.

She's always playing, playing pranks on me. I actually thought I'd walked all the way there without any trousers on. Oh, dear.

And so we got, I got off, there was basically, it's a train, which was the Docklands Railway, and it didn't have a driver, which is my first time on a train that didn't have a driver. There was somebody on the train that was opening the doors and closing the doors, but there was no driver. There was just a person pressing start and stop, I think, and I found that very weird.

But they were nice trains, they were brand new, and very little vomit. It was very, very nice. And I got there, and over time I got to know so many other security guards, and so, kind of, I'd get on there, they'd be there, and we'd, like, have a laugh and stuff.

And I remember walking in there, and just, I'd never been to Canary Wharf, the area before, like Docklands. And Canary Wharf, although it was just the building, but it was also, kind of, the area as well, around the building. That's a huge, huge building.

The biggest building I think I've ever been in, I think. I'm trying to think, where other big buildings have I been in? I don't know. I used to live in a big building.

That's a tower block, council flats in Newcastle, but that was, I think it looked bigger because I was closer to the ground then. Yeah, what other buildings have I been on? I've been in a few buildings that are quite high up, but not, yeah, nothing as high as Canary Wharf. And they had, like, the security was really, really big anyway before, you know, before any of this previous stuff had happened.

So I went in there, and they said, yeah, hi. I said, hi. I said, I was just, I'm starting my work today.

They said, okay, can I just check you back? I said, no, and I started running. And then I stopped and said, I'm going to get in. And he said, do you ever do that again? You're likely to get shot.

I was like, okay, I'm sort of messed up now. He said, yeah, it's not really, not the best start really, is it, for your first day? I said, I mean, it's a joke. You know, but I used to do that in train stations sometimes, during the 90s, the early 90s.

Sometimes I'd leave a bag and I'd just run away. I wouldn't kind of, and then I'd come back to collect it. And you could see people looking at it, like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What's he doing? This is, you know, back in the 90s when we had a lot of special people leaving suspect packages.

And of course, I was very childish back then. I wouldn't do anything like that now, but I was very immature. Unlike the mature person you see before, or you can't see me, I know, but if you look out your window, I'm in a tree, you can see me.

I'm eating, a pear, because I like a nice pear. I'm eating that, with all the juices dribbling down onto my t-shirt, making me look even more like a tramp, with this big, weird beard of mine. I almost look like a squirrel.

I do look a little bit like a squirrel. I'm eating that pear, I look like a squirrel, with big cheeks full of nuts. Not that my cheeks are often full of nuts, but I'm saying as an example, if my cheeks were full of nuts, I got quite, I'd say my cheeks are quite busty.

I got quite, quite perky cheeks, quite, quite fulfilling, quite generous cheeks. Or just fat, I suppose. I just have a fat, I used to get called, people used to call me fat face.

They did, years ago, sometimes, they'd say fat face. It's a bit rude. I said, I guess, okay, big nose then.

I said, no, I don't like that either. We've got to call you something, you have to have a nickname. I don't want big nose.

I don't like fat face, but I prefer fat face over big nose. They said, well, fat face it is then. I said, no, you don't get the point.

Why does it have to be anything rude? Why can't it be, I don't know, giant willy or super sexy, just supermodel, something like that. They said, yeah, but you're none of those things. If we said, if I said to one of my coworkers, one of your coworkers, have you seen supermodel? Do you know where he is? No one's going to think of you, are they? That's a bit rude.

It might sound rude, but it's also factual. I had to kind of agree, you know, oh yeah, fair enough. My chair, I'll move around a bit.

Sorry. My well, my well-developed cheeks. Fat face, that's rude.

I always have to have nicknames. I had these, when I was a kid, I had no choice about what I wore. I don't think many kids do, but it might be different now, I don't know, but, and everybody has a different experience.

However, when I was a child, I used to just get taken to a shop, a shoe shop, a clothes shop, and just got bought stuff that fitted. And there was a school uniform, so it was kind of the basic, this is what you're getting. And the rest of the time, things like jeans, socks, underpants, jumpers, gloves, hats, coats, they'd be Christmas presents or birthday presents.

Not a present, not a good present for any kid. A jumper, underpants, socks. I don't know, although I did get bought socks.

My step-mom bought me socks for Christmas a couple of years ago. They were nice, but inside I was thinking, socks, socks, socks. I mean, to me, that's the equivalent of buying toilet roll, you know, toilet roll or tampons for someone.

It's like, come on, or buying toothpaste, or, it's like, it's not a present, is it? You know, it's not really a present. Here's some kitchen roll. Happy birthday.

No, it's not a present. Imagine that, you know, you come to, you've done your 25 year, 30 year service in your company, it's your retirement due, and they hand you a bottle of washing up liquid. Thank you for your service.

It's, you know, washing up liquid. But, you know, it's not a present, is it? If you're going to buy me something cheap, and I don't expect expensive stuff because I don't live an expensive life, I don't, you know, if you're going to buy me something that's going to cost a five pound, buy me something I can eat. Not food.

No, no box of fish fingers. Not a present. Not a present.

That's not a present. It's not, though, is it? I'm sure if I, if I turn up my dad's, you know, happy wedding anniversary, dad, and handed him a loaf of bread, he'd be pleased, wouldn't he? No, he wouldn't. Can you imagine that? No.

So you're going to spend like a pound or three pound on, which is going to be a really crap present. There's no getting around it. It's not going to be a good present.

And you can't make out it's the thought that counts because you've given no thought. Because you clearly don't care about the person if you're spending two pound on them. It's better to not buy anything and just tell them a joke.

Or, you know, just do something like that. Don't, don't give someone a present worth two pound or five. But then you say, well, I've got 30 people to buy for.

Yeah, that's the thing, though, isn't it? It does add up. You know, I do sympathize with that. I just don't know 30 people.

I've got no friends, so I'm quite okay that way. Buy me something to eat, even if it's just a Mars bar. Although ideally, I would go for a crunchy bar.

And you know what? I've had no chocolate nearly all week. And I've just had a little bit craving for chocolate just this second. And I think tomorrow, or today, rather, later on, I'm going to buy myself, going to treat myself to some chocolate.

Going to have to, will, must, buy myself some chocolate. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Yes. A crunchy bar. In fact, I don't want to buy a packet of crunchies, because I doubt they've been sold out in the shops for all this panic buying.

Because, you know, you can't wipe your bum with crunchy bars, can you? Chocolate bars. So, and they don't get rid of headaches either, apparently. Although I have recordings that can.

Because Boston Chickie, she listened to, I don't even remember which one it was. I think it was one of my Relaxation for Stress podcasts. And it was a relaxation session.

And she sent me a message saying it helped her to, yeah, got rid of her headache. So I should, I should put that in the title, like headache relief as well. Not for this recording, but for that recording.

I don't want to come across as ungrateful. But I'll be honest, I'll let you into a little secret. If someone buys me a Christmas present, and it's a can of deodorant, but it's a little secret between me and you, I'm not grateful.

I'm really not. I've got about 20 cans of deodorant in my cupboard. It's not, that's a necessity.

It's not a present. It's not a gift. Just because it's in a box.

You know, it's still not a gift. The fact it's in a box means you've got it for £5 or maybe £10, but it would have cost you a lot less if you'd bought it individually. Plus you can't buy talcum powder anymore, I don't think, unless you've got athlete's foot.

Isn't it weird that the only people that get athlete's foot are people that aren't athletes? I've not ever met one athlete that says, oh, wait a minute, I've just got to put some talc on my feet. Why is that? I'm an athlete, am I? Oh yeah, athlete's foot. Nope.

What the term really means is sweaty toes. Sweaty. Andre, the original Andre, stinkiest feet you've ever smelt.

Seriously, I'm not even joking. When we went, it's like wherever he went, he had to leave his shoes outside the door. His sister wouldn't let him into the building, into her flat, unless he left his shoes outside.

Everyone else could come in, but not him, because his feet stunk so badly and his shoes stunk. It was just, I don't know, I looked in his shoes once, and I came out there, because I thought I must have gone out to do something with a cigarette or something. And I said, oh man, you've got to watch out for your shoes, because it's raining out there.

And his sister looked out the window, she said, it's not raining, look, it's a bright blue sky. I said, it is raining. She said, no, it's not.

This is the one that I said earlier that found out she didn't like me. Actually, to be fair, I'm not surprised, it was a bit annoying. And I said, it's not, it must be raining.

She said, why? I said, well, Andre's shoes are full of water, they're soaking wet. And they all started laughing. I thought, well, clearly I've missed the joke there.

And she said, they're all soaking wet, because he sweats, he's got sweaty feet. That's kind of the end of the story, that wasn't really, didn't go anywhere, did it? I had a lot of hope for that story. I really did, I really, I thought it was, when I started telling it, I had an image of it being one of the best stories I've ever told.

Something that I'd be remembered for, for a long time. Long after I'm kind of gone, you know, I kind of thought, there'll be that story. There'll be people who say, have you ever listened to Jason? Jason, which Jason? Andre's sweaty feet story, Jason.

Oh, that Jason, yeah, that's Andre's sweaty feet story. Oh, classic, classic. Oh, I was brought up on that story.

My parents used to read it to me every night before I went to bed. He just sent me right off to sleep. Unlike those stupid recordings he used to make that were supposed to send people to sleep, but didn't.

I don't know what that was about. Yeah, I know, he did that for years, didn't he? Yeah, I know, I don't know why. I don't know, he must have thought he was doing some kind of service or whatever, but, you know, this is pointless.

He did thousands of things. Yeah, I know, I don't know why he kept doing it. He must have been bored, I suppose.

Yeah, I suppose maybe that's, that's why he called it, let me bore you to sleep. Yeah. No, I really did have high hopes for that story.

And I thought maybe it would be part of my memoirs. But I don't know now. I suppose I could work on it.

I could, you know, once I finish this recording, I could listen back and maybe dissect the story, add a few little bits, make some stuff up, add a car chase, perhaps a drugs bust, you know, some kind of sword fight in space, you know, some kind of, it's just to, just to perk it up a little bit. I don't know. I could add a donkey.

Oh, here's one. Arnold Schwarzenegger did a video on YouTube telling people to wash their hands 50 times a day. I wash my hands 50 times, I can't do his accent.

I wash my hands 50 times a day. That's, that's my impression of him. And he, the first time he's washed his hands, he had a dog standing on the sink while he's washing his hands.

I wash my hands 50 times a day. So I do. We'll be back in a jiffy.

And it's like, okay. And at the end of the video, he says, remember, remember to be hygienic. And he's sitting in the kitchen stroking a donkey.

I'm serious. He's sitting inside his kitchen, stroking a donkey, and another animal walks past as well. He's got farm animals in his kitchen, and he's got the audacity to tell me to be hygienic.Me. I thought it was funny. I was like, come on, mate.

You know, if I had farm animals in my car, in my bedroom, or my living room, my kitchen, I'd be washing my hands 50 times a day probably. If I had farm animals just walking in and out of the house. I mean, it's about bad enough having one wild animal living there.

You know, I wash my hands constantly because of him, because he's just a dirty little rascal. He is. Mind you, he's always washing his hands as well after he touches me.

I do wonder though, sometimes he does kiss me, and he jumps off and starts licking his bum to get rid of the taste. It's just so rude. He's a very rude little boy.

So yeah, I might work on that story of Andre's sweaty feet or sweaty toes. I know that none of you obviously are going to meet him because he's no longer with us. But yeah, the original Andre, which is why I called Andre, Andre, the little Andre number two, because there's something special about Andre.

He was the kind of person that you just fall in love with. I don't mean like romantically necessarily, just he was, I don't know, cute, charming. I don't know what the right word is, but lovable.

Yeah, lovable. Very lovable person. And yes, that's how I'm going to remember him.

And it feels nice that really the most important person in my life is two of the most important people. I know he hasn't been in my life for a long time, Andre, even before he passed away. But this little Andre here, it just seems fitting that I called him Andre.

For a few different reasons. I might have mentioned it before, but he, Andre, used to be called Little Legs at work, even though he's about the same height as me, maybe a little bit taller. But for some reason I called him Little Legs.

And he used to walk around like Popeye, like he was a bodybuilder or something. And he was strong, didn't have any fat on him or anything. He was a lot heavier than me, but he wasn't big.

He probably didn't weigh about 11 stone. I was lighter than that at the time. And he was muscular and stuff, but he was slim.

He wasn't a big bloke, but he was funny. And one of the things he said once, he was Irish, he said, I got a toothache. That's not, again, it's not a very good impression.

And I said, I said, what? He said, what he did is when he moved to London, he had to slow down his accent and talking so people could understand him. And then when he met me, he had to slow down even more because of how slow I am. He said, oh, he said, I got toothache.

I said, yes, so what are you telling me? It's not affecting my life. I was a little bit rude back then. He said, oh, but I'm worried.

So I am. He didn't say that. He said, I'm worried so.

I said, why, why? He said, I might have to have the tooth removed. I said, what? He said, I might have to have the tooth removed. I said, yes, so? He said, what's the big deal about having the tooth removed? He said, no.

I said, what? He said, I don't want to have the tooth removed. I said, what? He said, I don't want to have the tooth removed. I said, why? He said, because it's in my smile.

I said, what? He said, it's in my, he put a big smile on. He said, it's there. It's at the front.

It's in my smile. I don't want it to ruin my smile. I just find it hilarious.

It was just something about the way he delivered it. It was very funny. Is anyone going to go? Thank you for listening.

Thank you very much. And I will be doing a deep sleep whisper very soon. I've just been, as I've not been feeling very well the last few days but I'm feeling relaxed and calm.

The birds have started singing really early now. The clocks go back, spring back, fall forward. No, spring forward, fall back.

Spring forward, fall back. Spring back, fall forward. I've got no idea which is it.

Neither of them make sense. We don't have fall here, we have autumn, but we still can use that to try and remember. But clearly it doesn't work because I don't know which one it is.

Spring, spring forward, fall back. So spring forward would mean it's now 5.30. So next week, I don't know if it's this weekend or it's the weekend after. I think it's the weekend after.

The clocks will be going an hour forward, which means it will be, it'll be light. But this time next week. Is that right? I don't know.

I heard that in America, they're thinking of getting rid of the time changing and just leave it the same forever. I don't know if they're going to do it or not. But if they do it, I bet we'd let England follow because we just, we love to follow what America does.

We're very much, I don't know if America realize how close England are to America, as far as we look to America. They are our closest, they're like basically our closest relative in the world is America. Australia is very close as well.

And New Zealand and Ireland, although I'm not sure if Ireland or like England that much, but I think we, because we, you know, basically we, not we, not me, but England used to, or Great Britain, used to be in charge of Ireland, didn't it, for hundreds of years, which is crazy, really. I couldn't believe that when I found that out. I noticed I'm finding stuff out.

And I can't remember who it was that told me. It kept pointing out all my mistakes with geography and history and stuff. But I was talking to my friend and I realized that I spent five years at high school, pretty much doing and learning nothing.

I just switched off. The very first year of high school, when I was 11, I had an English, an English teacher. We were reading the Beowulf book.

And it came to the end of the session. And he was also my form tutor. So I'd see him every single day.

And, you know, and he said, they go home, this is your first bit of homework. Write down what you think is going to happen next in a form of a story. So I did.

I came home, I was so enthusiastic. And I wrote down all this stuff. I handed it in, I spent hours doing it, genuinely hours.

And I was prolific. I was really enthused and excited about, you know, the teacher telling me how well I've done. Because I've dreamt about what that would be like.

I thought this is going to happen. And so I'm going to get told I did really good. And the teacher said it was awful.

And none of it made sense. And they didn't have the buses in medieval times. And, you know, it's like, just work with me, you know, I'm being creative.

So because of what he said, and from that moment on, I didn't put any effort into any schoolwork for the next five years. I'm very stubborn. I'm sure I learned stuff along the way, but I didn't really try to.

You know, I just went along with it, just sat there, pretended to listen, took magazines to read. Those were the days that we had the phones you could play games on, the phones, the watches, where you could play like Space Invaders and that kind of stuff. So I used to have those.

I think I had one of those watches. So I could do that. And yeah, so I've literally put no effort for the next five years.

So I was at school, high school for five years until the age of 15. So I suppose I left school with not a lot of that general knowledge that would have been of very little use to me anyway. You know, like the highest mountain, the biggest rivers, all the different continents and the countries in the continents and the various, you know, the processes of pollination and flowers and growing and all that kind of stuff.

I just, I think some of it sunk in because it must have done because I was sitting there. So I'm sure I did learn, but I didn't consciously pay any attention to hardly anything. And I was just talking to my friend.

I thought I'd have been better off having learned a trade, having left school at 11, gone to college or gone as an apprenticeship somewhere, learned to do bricklaying or something like that. So I could have earned a decent living, a really good living actually, but I'd have been trained. I could have had a five year apprenticeship.

At the end of it, I'd have had a career, you know, because I wasn't suited for, well, at the time I wasn't really academic. I wasn't really suited for that. But then I realized, you know, like all geniuses, it's just everything is because everyone else was just moving too slowly for me.

I was too advanced to do it, you know. No, I was just bored. It bored me.

I wasn't, I'm only interested in things I'm interested in, which I think is the same for every, isn't that the same for everybody? I don't know. But yeah, I can't force myself to do something that is not of interest. So, you know, I know how to write essays because I've been to university since and got a degree.

I know how to do dissertations, how to do reports, you know, that kind of stuff. I learned how to do that. I don't want to do it though.

Am I going to do it? No. Not unless it's of interest. And if it's something that interests me, I can spend hours researching.

But only if it's interesting. And then I end up filling my brain with useless information that I didn't want there to, didn't want it to be there. I've not done too bad though, really.

I have the ability to talk constantly about nothing for a long period of time. And not everybody can do that. It's kind of like a really pointless and useless skill that's actually become useful just in this particular context.

Wow. Anyway, I'm going to go. I'm going to go now.

Thank you very much. And I hope you're well. Genuinely.

Stay well. Stay safe. So, you know, stay happy and be happy.

And remember to be kind to yourself. Regardless of what situation you're in, do something nice for yourself today or tomorrow. Be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy.

Lots of love. Bye.