#399 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (15th May 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is Let Me Bore You to Sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

So I'm actually, as I record this, attempting to transcribe it. I don't know why that was funny, I'm trying to transcribe it at the same time using an app on the tablet. So I've got a few different things working all at the same time.

And I don't know how it's, you know, what is it, Dragon Software or Dragon Everywhere, I think it's called. So I don't know, don't know how it's going to work because I'm looking at it, the screen, as I talk. I'm recording on a different thing with a microphone, of course, with my lapel microphone.

And it's a little bit distracting, if I'm honest. I mean, just then when I said it's a little bit distracting, if I'm honest, it missed out the if I am, and also put Manchester N1 in as well. So this is going to be hard work to decipher.

It's just, it's annoying. I wish there was someone out there that was a whiz, like a proper whiz with transcription, that would transcribe all my stuff for free. Why would they do that? In fact, if there was someone out there that would transcribe my stuff, edit it, and help me edit it into books, I'd happily, and I could sell the books, and I'll happily go 50 50.

As I've created the content, but the idea of, you know, I keep trying to urge myself to do it. Because, you know, I don't, I want to keep everything I do free. So I want to keep the podcasts free.

And, you know, you know that if you listen to me regularly, you know that that's what I'm about. At the same time, you know, I do have a little bit of reality, a bit of a reality check every now and then, and think, ooh, what, you know, I'm gonna, I might need some money at some point. You know, if I got ill, or if I needed, if Andre needed veterinary stuff done, or, you know, to get a new carpet, you know, new chair, things, just little things, clothes.

But, you know, for the future, because I don't know if it's something about getting to 50 now. I don't know if for some people 50 is not old. I mean, 55 is a lovely age.

49, nearly 50. For those of you that are young in your 20s, or teens, even, don't get too comfortable with that. You're going to be 50 before you know it.

Wah, wah, wah, wah. And I'll be laughing when it happens. Of course, I'll be 90 then, so it won't probably be, well, I might not know what I'm laughing about.

But there you go. So I need to do a shout out, but I can't see the name of the person. Give me two seconds.

I'll change my glasses. Put my other glasses on. They're glasses for reading, which I've been using for looking at the screen.

So I've got a shout out for Jan. So it's Georgie's mama, Jan, who's 58, on Sunday. So it's Friday now, isn't it? So in a couple of days time, happy birthday, Jan.

And I hope that, you know, I wish you a happy birthday. And I'm sure that everybody listening to this recording is also sending their love and their wishes to you as well. And please, you know, eventually learn to forgive me for telling everyone how old you're going to be.

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to do that. So I thought I'd do it anyway. Never going to meet you, so it's fine.

Please don't come looking for me. I'm sorry. 58's all right.

But 58, it's not old. I'm glad I'm not that old. It's not old, you know, but I'm only nine years away.

Wow. Less than nine years, in fact. Eight years and what month is it now? What month is it now? May, June, July.

Yeah. Wow. I'm literally three months away from being 50.

Three months and one week, something like that. And now, what the hell? The dragon thing is just completely, it went on to pictures for some reason, which was a bit weird. Why did it do that? I don't get this thing.

I'm going to give up on it. I'm going to stop it. Stop.

Come out of that now. I can't be bothered with that. It's not recording me properly.

It's not. This is, this recorder is, but man, I just want it to be, I want it to be done properly. I want it to be proper.

You know what I mean? You get me? That's what I want. I don't want much. I want huge amounts.

Just, just the things to work. That's all I ever really wanted in life. Just things to work properly.

It's not much to ask, is it? Not much to ask. So yeah. Happy birthday to Jan.

So Jan, is that short for Janira or Janaby? Janalily? I don't know. What could it be short for? January. Janicle.

I don't know. Jan. Jan.

Yeah. It's got, could, mind you, well, probably not. Well, I'll say probably not.

I'm just saying that I've noticed with my nieces and, and what's the other ones? Nephews. I've noticed that that generation seems to be, I say that generation, I'm generalizing by the, the kids that are in my family. I'm not sure if they're boys or girls, but boys all, but they're some, they're one of them.

But they're, they've got short names, like the shortened version of a name, but not really the name. One's called Alfie. Alfie was short for Alfred.

Alfie isn't a name in itself. Alfie is what people called Alfred was called. It's like calling someone Ted when Ted is short for Eddie.

I don't know why it's short for Eddie because it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It can also be short for John as well, I think, can't it, Ted? Because you had Ted Kennedy, but he was John Kennedy, wasn't he? Or was that his wife? I don't know. John, there was two of them, weren't there? Two brothers, John Kennedy, John F. Kennedy.

Yeah. So they called him Ted Kennedy, didn't they? Which doesn't make sense, John and Ted, but then Edward and Ted, Ed, Ted, Eddie, Teddy. Maybe that's what it was about.

All I know is that my granddad, you know, his name was Ted. I thought he was named after one of the characters on the magic. Was it? The rainbow, wasn't it? Yeah, rainbow.

But it wasn't. It was didn't realise his name was actually Edward and his son was called Edward as well, but they called him Eddie. So there is Ted and Eddie.

Now, I don't know whether or not my granddad was called Eddie until he had his son and called him Edward and then realised, oh, wait a minute, this is going to get very confusing. Everyone calling each other Eddie. And my nan probably said, well, we're not all called Edward, are we? There's six of us in the house.

Seven, actually, seven. You know, he said, yeah, you know what I mean? And she said, ah, but it's OK for us. So what do you mean? So, well, I'm called Eileen and Edward is called Eileen.

Yeah, but I call you mum. Yeah, I think we need to talk about that. I'm not your mum.

I don't mind. You know, I don't really want in public you calling me mum. I'm younger than you.

So, yeah, I suppose. Dad and mum said Ted. So I don't know what there's no shortened version for Eileen.

Is it Eil? Eil? Eil? I don't know. Eileen. I like the name Eileen.

And it's like Patricia Pat or Patrick Pat, like for a man or woman. And that's the thing is it can be a little bit confusing, especially if you work in a call centre and all you've got is the first name Pat and the surname. You say, oh, can you speak to Pat, please? And then they speak.

And then because of their voice, you still can't tell whether it's a man or a woman, which does happen, might be due to the line or just due to their voice. And eventually it's got to come a point where you find out what sex they are. And that's one of the questions in the questionnaire for car insurance is you need to put down male or female, but you have to put it down straight away.

It asks Mr or Mrs, you say, oh, have you got a title? And you can make a joke of it saying doctor, professor, you know, that kind of thing. Sir, king, queen. And sometimes they just say no.

In this situation, they always say no. So then you've got like, OK, I can't say so that's Mr then or that's Mrs or Miss or me. And it'd be very strange, you know, at one point you can't just say, kind of like, by the way, I need to go to the toilet.

Is it OK if I just put you on hold? And they said, yes. And you come back five minutes later and said, yeah, I just went to the toilet there, you know, wash my hands and everything. Yeah, yeah, I did wash.

Even if you haven't, you could say you have. No one's going to know. And as we know, washing hands is important.

It's not like it can spread. But wait a minute. Oh, and it's it's weird.

Yeah, I'm back. I'm back. Thanks for waiting.

Thanks for being patient. Hoping that that voice has changed a bit so you can get a bit of a Mulan idea. And you can sort of add things like, all right, mate, but that's a bit little bit too informal, you know, it's not hugely respectful to sort of call someone mate on the phone if you've not met them or you're not related to them or they're not a teacher.

And I, so what I would do then, I say, yeah, just sorry about that. I just I've had the got a bit of a bladder infection because I had a dog bite and I was putting leaflets through the door. I got this free hypnosis service I do online.

I've been putting leaflets through the door during the summer because, you know, I'm at university and and I've got this part time job doing, you know, doing this. And he was saying, well, he or she was saying, yeah, yeah, okay. And I said, yeah, so I took these antibiotics because I had to have a tetanus jab.

Took half my finger off, but it's all right, I'm not that bothered. I don't use my little finger very often. And it's, I had these antibiotics, which seemed to be okay.

But then I've got this bladder infection, which meant I needed to go to for a wee constantly. Always felt like I needed to go for a wee. It's like all the time, even when I'd gone, it was just continuous.

Just never, you know, it didn't continuously wee, otherwise I'd be, well, I'd just, I'd crumble, wouldn't I? I'd just dry out like cardboard. But, you know, I just felt the urge, you know, when you feel the urge, you know. And I said, so yeah, that's um, so I had to go into the toilet and I was, went in there and I was standing at the cubicle.

You know, the, the toilets in the cubicle, the cubicles in the toilet as well. Look, I forget where I am. And so when you go to the toilet for a wee, do you stand up or do you sit down? Just out of interest.

Yeah. It's one of the questions on the screen. Yeah.

I don't know why they need to know that. I don't know. I think it's something to do with insurance.

You sit down because you're a woman, obviously. Yeah. I mean, I think the reason they ask is because women are such better drivers than men and you get a much cheaper insurance because women are so far, so more, so more, I'll get my words out in a minute, so more, much more, um, superior drivers than, uh, human males.

And, um, do you believe anything I said so far? So yeah, it's getting a bit weird. Like it's Pat. I watch, I suppose it's short though, a way of doing it.

So can you spell your full name? P-A-T. No, that's not your full name, but now some people are getting called just a shortened version like Alf, Alfie, Bob. Instead of Robert, Bob was a shortened version or Bobby.

Now Robert, you know, don't, no, don't call a kid Robert. Call the kid Bob or Bobby. So no, stop it.

Or Leticia. There's some, yes. If I can't pronounce a name, I don't want to say it.

Some names are just so complicated. Oh, how many S's? That's just, really? It's hard. I just, it'd just be easier.

Mind you, I'm not in a kind of, uh, I'm not in a, um, I'll shut up now. All I know that I saw people being, doing that, but in a kind of a racist way. When I used to work in London and they'd have someone and I was, I don't know, we used to have a lot of people from Africa come and, uh, from West Africa, work there on the agency.

And the supervisor would come along and say, what's your name? And they'd say their name. And I said, okay, I'll call you Paul. And he said, what's your name? And it's the person to say a big, long name.

He said, I'll call you Tony. You can be Sid. And I'm thinking, I'm working with Jesus.

I mean, Jesus was the only person who used to walk around changing people's names. Your name is Scott. I'm going to call you Peter.

Come walk across the water to me. You know, that's my abbreviated version of the Bible, the whole of the Bible, actually. It's not, not a very good, uh, version admittedly.

I think that's so, yeah. Hmm. So it's Judas.

Was he renamed? His original name was Trustworthy. And Jesus thought, no, I should call you Judas. Can't use that name anymore.

I might though, if I had kids, I might call my, yeah, I might call my kid Judas. Just for a laugh. Yeah.

SquareBobSpongePants. That'd be another good name for a kid. That'd be a daughter though.

I'd have to call her, call her that. I think if you can make it through school with a name like that, you're going to do, you know, you're going to be very successful in life, either that or completely broken. So yeah, perhaps.

But I would teach my kids Kung Fu. Oh, I did that to my little brother. I didn't call him Napoleon or, you know, I didn't give him a weird name.

I wasn't inconsulted, which annoyed me a little bit. I mean, the way I see it is if I've got to spend, I don't know, 60, 70 years, 80 years talking to my little brother, who's a few years younger than me, I should have a say in what his name is. My parents just don't, don't think about that, do they? Anyway, he, I taught him karate, because I was doing karate and he was too young to do karate.

Because the school I went to, or the club, it was on a Tuesday and a Thursday evening, 7.30 till 9.30, I think it was. Or 7 till 9.30 or 7 till 9, something like that. And so I'd be in the garden and I was obsessed, absolutely obsessed with anything martial art.

I mean, I was just obsessed with it. It was my entire life. I thought about it.

As soon as I woke up, I probably dreamt about it. It was everything to me. I'm not saying I was any good.

I just loved it. I was, I was, I was okay. But I was absolutely obsessed.

And I wish I kind of kept that up at the time, because when I got my chip shop job, I was working evenings and I gave up the karate when I should have. This is about a hundred years ago, so it doesn't really matter now, but I wish I'd have sort of kept that and got my black belt because I was halfway there probably. Yeah, I was halfway to the black belt and I'd stopped taking gradings probably for the last year because I couldn't be bothered.

Partly, and it sounds weird, but I used to, I went to, I think I did three competitions, you know, fighting competitions where you go in and you spar and stuff, and I didn't do very well. But I came to realize when I saw one of my friends that was in there, he had a, there was someone there that was a green belt or a blue belt, and he was winning everything. And a blue belt's quite high, but it's not, you know, it was blue, brown, then black.

I think there was like two browns or whatever, but, and you have to wait six months in between to take gradings, if I remember correctly. Anyway, I was like, I don't know if I went up to him or I spoke to someone else, like, how is he so damn good? And he's a green belt or he's a blue belt, you know, how? He's better than some of the black belts, or he seems to be. And someone told me that the reason for that is he doesn't take gradings.

He's been at that belt for about three years. He purposely stays at that level so that he can win competitions, win medals and trophies and stuff, even though he's at a level of a black belt, like skill-wise and, you know, I suppose experience-wise. So that's what I thought I'd do.

Maybe I'd stop taking gradings and I was at a green or, I think I'd done three or four gradings, I think, and always got a first class pass. Yeah. And I'd, that was my thinking about that, but it didn't seem to help me because I was, I just, I probably, I've probably spoken about this before, but I'll talk about it again, because it's interesting to me.

The first competition I went to, I always got lifts there because I was a child, I didn't have my own car. And the, I remember the first one because I think it was my instructor or one of the instructors, they were all, there was a few, I think, two black belts and a couple of brown belts that were, you know, also, you know, not far off black belt. So I got a lift, I think it might have been with the actual teacher, the big teacher.

It was big. It was a big, strong man called Paul. He was brilliant.

He actually, in that competition we went in, he won it. He won the black belt competition, you know, with the combat. It's not sparring, I don't know why, because it's, what do they call it now? I forget.

It's not called combat, you know, but it's, it's competition anyway, it's fighting. And my instructor won the whole competition, the overall, because it's like anything, it's like the heavyweights. So I suppose the real world champions are kind of the black belts, you know.

So the best of the black belts are the best of everyone, kind of would be classed as. And so that was really cool. But at one point he said to me, can you go into the car and get me, he gave me the keys, go into the car and get me my sparring stuff, because he'd left it in the car.

So I went out and the car was open, like unlocked, so I didn't need the key. I was pressing it, and I'm thinking, oh, I don't know if they had those things back then, but I'm sure they might have had the, the buzzer, the buttons that you could click and open. Yeah, we had electricity back then, yeah.

And yeah, there's an odd dinosaur running around, you know, so long ago. And so I opened the boot, and I'm looking for this bag. And I'm thinking, I kind of know what bag it is, kind of, because he used to, he used to bring swords in.

So he'd have a big, big bag. But he'd have, I think he'd have two bags, one with swords in, and then he'd have bags, he'd have, you know, different things. So he had a lot of stuff with him.

And I thought, I don't know which one it is, because there was, there was a couple of bags in there. So I'm looking through it. And then I realized I'm in the wrong car.

I've literally got in the boot of a wrong car, which in any normal situation is not a good idea. But a karate tournament, where everybody there was able to beat me up, it was really not a good idea. And I quickly got out and realized that the car we came in was a different model and color.

So it's a very different, well, it's a minibus. So I don't know. I just, I don't know why I was trying to get into a mini.

I don't know why I had to. Anyway, I ended up and I got into the other one and got his bag and never said anything about it. So if anyone's listening, sorry, I didn't do anything.

I mean, I didn't, you know, no, I didn't do anything. I just rummaged through your stuff. But I wasn't looking through your stuff, thinking it was your stuff.

I was rummaging through it, thinking it was my teacher's stuff. I suppose that doesn't sound good, rummaging through his stuff. It's not like I was putting the, you know, the groin guard over my face, pretending to be Darth Vader.

I wasn't, you know, I wasn't doing anything weird like that, honest. So I just, you know, I left that car and just got the stuff and came back in. And then I had my first fight.

Well, it wasn't a fight really, but it was a, yeah, it was a tournament. So it's like semi-contact and I got beaten. First, you know, basically, I got into a fight, a proper fight with this kid because I couldn't control.

I had no control. I think I might have even got disqualified actually, because I kept, I kept hitting him with my shoe, something, I don't know. But I did, it was, I couldn't control it.

And I've never been in that situation because I've been doing sparring for a long time. And I was always able to control it and not get, you know, didn't get angry or nothing. But for some reason, but that was always with people that I knew and I respected and I was in a, in my own club, dojo, whatever you want.

And then I was always respectful. Not that I was feeling disrespectful towards a tournament, because of course I was surrounded by people that I loved because I was, I loved everything about it. It's beautiful.

It makes me nipples hard just thinking about it. It's great. And did you just say nipples? Sorry, sorry.

And I, I just had a time in my life. It was great, but I lost my control. I lost my cool.

And I was what, 14 probably at the time. And I ended up having a punch up with this other kid who's about the same age. I think that's what happened.

And I think I might, I might not have got disqualified. He might just won because he was better than me, but there was no, absolutely no technique from me at all. It was just, I think he might've hit me.

I didn't like, I didn't like it. So I don't like that. Really don't like that.

Don't be hitting me again. And so I, you know, grabbed one of my teacher's, instructor's swords and chased them around the room. Apparently that's not part of the, that's not respectful apparently.

Who would've known? And then next time I went, I was paired up against this kid who was smaller than me, which is unusual, but he was younger, which made sense. So I was 14. He was probably about 12, 10.

No, not 10, about 12, 13. But he was, he was smaller than me. And I didn't, that didn't occur very often.

The one before me was I think a little bit bigger. And there was a weird thing in my head thinking, I can take him. I can win this.

And I was going to be, I decided I was going to be skillful. I was going to be calm and patient and do the right thing. You know, do it properly, not just get into a fight.

And so I thought, okay. And they said, you ready? I said, wait a minute. And I said, you better have this.

I handed the hammer to the referee. I said, you keep that. I've decided I'm going to do this the right way.

And this kid was like Speedy Gonzalez on steroids. I mean, he was running circles around me. Honestly, I couldn't see him.

He was running circles. Suddenly his fist was in my face. Point back up.

And it was, I think it's like three, three points and you're the winner. So if you just hit them, hit someone in the face, kick him in the face, punch him in the midsection or kick him in the midsection, that was pretty much a point. I'm not sure if you pushed him outside of the area, whether that was a point as well.

I don't know. Or was that sumo wrestling? Something I could do now probably, a bit of sumo belly. And someone asked me recently, I said, are you well endowed? I said, honestly, I don't know.

I haven't seen it since 2001. I honestly don't know. I don't know what's down there.

So the third, so this kid won. I didn't even get to, which is a weird sentence to say at this age and in our context, it'd be a weird sentence, but I didn't even get to touch that 12 year old child. It was, I didn't, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to kick him or punch him or something.

Bearing in mind, I was a child myself at the time, but I couldn't, he was just zipping in and out. He was literally in front of me. He split the atom.

He was moving so quickly. He was both to the left and the right of me at the same time. He kicked me in the face and in the stomach and he was still either side of me.

I don't know what happened, honestly. So I just, you know, I was impressed with him, but I kind of hated him a bit, but it was very humiliating to not to be beaten by someone smaller. Cause that doesn't make any difference.

It's just to be so, so well beaten. And I think in his next fight, he ended up with someone twice his size and they, I think they broke his nose. So I didn't feel too bad.

I was a kid, you know, at the time. Now I wouldn't, wouldn't like that. I think it might have gone to win it actually, which means that's the only reason I didn't win because he was the best and there was no chance I could have done.

And then he went on to be, to win Olympic gold. And so, yeah, and he, yeah, he's very successful. So that's what I'm going to imagine in my head.

And the next one I went to, I actually won the first one. Can you believe it? I won the very first fight, you know, on points. I mean, no one got hurt, but it was just, and I say that because you think, well, everyone's got pads on, got groin protectors.

Not everyone wears them on their face. And you've got, I didn't have anything on me head, but I had foot pads, shin pads, hand pads, like gloves, you know, and groin pad. Yeah.

So I was kind of covered. Did have a head pad though. I think in professional or at proper amateur, in fact, I imagine a lot of karate now and those things probably all wear head pads in tournaments, but in them days you didn't.

I think you could if you wanted to, but yeah, we didn't. And, but some people did get hurt. There was a few breakages, few broken bones and in the adult section, the adult section, I spent a lot of time in the adult section looking through the magazines.

Now the adults, cause they were hitting harder and there was, you know, there was a local strong man that was, he was classed as one of the toughest people in the local area. And he, you know, he was, I saw the bloke strong, like a strength competition, pull a, I think he pulled a lorry with his willy. Honestly, he was strong.

So I thought, wow, that's disgusting. But then I realized that's one way to, to increase your popularity. And I, so I didn't get injured and he didn't, the person I was with didn't get injured.

So we, I won that one. It felt so nice. So it might not happen this way, but I think, you know, the story will be different every time I tell it because I'm just making it up.

And then the second, yeah. And then the second fight I had on this competition, I think I might've got beaten in the second fight, which would have been, I think if I'd have won the second one, that might have been the quarterfinals depending, or maybe the third fight would have been the quarterfinals then the semifinals. So I think actually winning the first fight put me into the quarterfinals and then I lost in the quarterfinals.

But the person I lost to did win the game. I don't know if that's true. I think it is.

It sounds like it should be though, doesn't it? Yeah. But I taught my little brother how to do a few, you know, like kicks and punches. Cause he'd see me in the garden every day and I used to be down at the bottom of the garden in a punch bag and training with the weights and wishing I could turn into a man.

I wanted to turn into a real boy. I just couldn't. It's ridiculous.

I was so skinny. I mean, to be fair, on a windy day, I'd actually have to carry the weight from the storage thing at the bottom of the garden, the studio, through the garden and into the kitchen because it was too windy. I'd blow away.

I had to actually have something to keep me grounded. And so, yeah, it was quite nice in the summer, you know, practicing and stuff. And Andre would, not Andre, my little brother, he would, isn't it weird that I call him Andre? My little brother, he was only little.

He was probably six, six, yeah, about six years old. No, probably seven. No, five.

No, six. No, six. Yeah, six.

Yeah, about six years old. So he would, I'd be teaching him some moves like, you know, punches and kicks and stuff like that. And I think that was helpful to him in his life.

I think it was because he learned from a very early age and he actually used it on someone that was trying to bully him. And I think that, I mean, he didn't, I don't think he remembers it. He might not.

I don't know. But it was good. It wasn't good to see, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't good having to bury the body.

And, you know, it wasn't good to see the other little kids crying and stuff, but he was bigger than, older than my brother. And he was trying to bully him. And I had nothing to do with it.

I was, I was just walking down the street and someone was yelling, and I'll go over and see what's going on. And I just, in the alleyway, and all these other kids are around. I just see my brother punch him and kick him in the stomach.

And he's on the floor crying. I said to my little brother, get up. Why are you crying? No one's hit you.

And he didn't, he's still standing there. And, but I don't, my brother wasn't really arrogant with it. He didn't, he didn't want to do that.

But he, he was being bullied. He was, this kid was trying to bully him, like, literally physically. And he definitely didn't get bullied after that.

Not, not at that age. And I don't think he got bullied at school after that, because he had, I think he had a little bit of confidence, because bullying is much different with boys than it is with girls, in a sense of it. Well, not, okay, I'm not in this day and age with the internet and stuff, but when I was at school, it used to be more about physical with boys, who was the strongest, who was the scariest, who was the toughest, hardest.

And with the girls, it seemed to be who could be the bitchiest, who could say the most horrible things. And it was, it was more extreme, which were really horrible. But with the boys, you could just, you could end it by just hitting them with a bit of wood or something.

So, you know, so it was just not that I would ever do a thing like that. And you should never, you should talk it through and tell you, speak to your parents if there's any kids listening. But I say that to be fair, if I had a kid, I'd make sure that kid never allowed anyone to bully them, boy or girl, ever.

Not once. Never allow it. No, no, no.

I actually, I did see this kid trying to bully someone, my friend's daughter. And we were picking, I was picking her up from school. She was taking her time, so I'm walking, she's standing in the tree.

And this, this boy is a lot bigger than her and he's bullying her, pushing her. So, you get me hammer out, you know, as you do. I don't, I just said to him, what are you doing? And I let him know never to do it again.

And he never did it again. So, you know, I gave him a little talking to in front of her and he apologized to her. And after that, I think they were friends.

And I told her, you know, don't ever put up, and she never, ever put up with bullies. Because she was quite timid back then, but she, she's not now, or she, she wasn't as she got older. Definitely knew how to look after herself.

And it turned out that she was bullying him. So I got it all wrong. Now, it's weird because it's a strange subject.

So it's probably not really very light hearted to be talking about here, but I've never allowed it, never allowed bullies. I put up with it for a very short period in that job I had for the children's charity, where the lady, the manageress or the manager, the lady, she was, one of her favorite sayings was, shall I bully them out? So it was a member of staff she didn't like, or maybe someone else didn't like in the charity. She'd say, shall I bully them out? That was the thing that she liked to tell people.

And for some reason, she decided to bully me out. And it worked. And I left because I can't put up with that.

And that was a very touch and go situation. It was just weird. Why would you want to be horrible to someone? I don't really get it.

Why can't we just, I don't expect everyone to kiss and cuddle all day long. I just, a bit of respect, a bit of courtesy, a bit of, you know, a bit of, just a bit of that, a bit of this, a bit of those, just, it'd be nice just, oh, so bullies, yeah, can't be doing with it. Nah, decided a long time ago.

I think what it was, my attitude was, first of all, if you've had to deal with a lot of crap from adults when you're a little kid, other children don't scare you. Sometimes, I'm not saying it's always the case, but in my situation, other kids weren't frightening. Adults wasn't so keen about, but other kids, especially when I was young, when I was like seven, eight, nine, ten, and even, you know, and everyone was bigger than me.

I was the littlest, but, you know, I was on holiday once, and this kid, he was probably a good five, six years older than me, and I was in the playground on my own at this holiday camp, like a caravan camp, and he pulled a knife out on me, like literally pulled a knife out on me, and I said, and he was so, I bent down, and I picked up a bottle off the floor, because I don't think it was, it might be a plastic bottle, I don't know, but I picked the bottle up, said, and I basically said to him, what are you going to do?

There was no one around. I had no backup, and I just, I wasn't scared, and that's weird, because I probably, I wean myself just thinking about it now, but back then, no fear, because he was a kid, even though I was older, he was still a kid, you know, he was probably 15. I was about nine.

I just wasn't, oh, you got a knife, so what? It's like, I remember someone said, when I was, this is, we don't ever do this, it's ridiculous, but I think someone threatened me once, and I said, what are you going to do? He stared at me, and I picked the knife out, the cutlery out of the thing, and I started hitting myself in the stomach with it, because I had strong muscles, and it was a blunt, blunt knife as well. Actually, it was a spoon. It didn't really do the job.

It was a bit embarrassing, but my attitude was, go on, I'll do this to myself, what are you going to do to me? Very childish, very silly, but being one of my rules in life, don't allow bullies, don't allow someone to hurt you, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And if you're living with someone that's hurting, if someone's living with someone that's hurting with them, I always think to myself, well, you're living with them, at some point, they're going to have to go to sleep. That's what I think to myself.

So yeah, can't hurt you when they're asleep. Can't really do much at all when they're asleep. So yeah, I got a recording from someone, I forget her name now.

It's a whisper recording, and she's wanted me to make her own recording for me to upload it to my Deep Sleep Whisper Hypnosis recording podcast. So I'm going to do that, either today, probably today. So I'm just going to, you know, she asked if I could do it, and I said, yes.

Spoke to her on the phone, hopefully last month. And I said, yeah, come around and do it here. And just wear a dressing gown.

I always do my recordings in a dressing gown, I said to her. So I find it relaxes your voice, a dressing gown and some chocolates, ideally, and a pizza for me to eat, not for you. Shouldn't eat pizza.

Cheese is not good for your throat, if you're talking and stuff, but it's good for me because I like cheese. And it's going to cost you £300. And she said no to all of those requests.

So in the end, she made the recording and just sent it to me digitally. So I'm going to upload it and see whether or not she's going to call the police. So I'm going to do that.

Upload it. It's very quiet as well. So I've listened to it a little bit just to make sure she wasn't swearing through it, because I don't know, I said, you know, I have to have a little bit of a vetting, just to, could you imagine if someone said, oh, can you do a recording? It's like a guest appearance.

I said, yeah, all right then. And they send me the recording, I listen to it. And the first thing they do is like start swearing.

Some, going on some big racist rant or something. I was like, no, I have to just, I have to listen first. Yeah.

My little brother was actually the very first, he was the youngest, the youngest person ever to join my karate club. In fact, he wasn't just the youngest. My karate instructor started a Saturday night, no, a Saturday morning karate session, an early Thursday evening one.

So I think he started on a Thursday evening at six to seven, something like that, or half six to half seven, and said that children could come along under the age of probably from six onwards, I guess, up to the age of 10 or 12 or something like that. So my brother was the very, my little brother, not my oldest brother, because he was 18 then, but he was, my little brother was the youngest one in that town ever to do karate at a karate club. And he might have been one of the youngest in the whole country at that time.

I don't know. And probably not, but he was definitely one of the youngest ever to start at six, five, six, seven. He might even be five.

I think he was six. And he did his first grading. He didn't like it and stopped doing it.

But the junior karate people continued, because other people joined. We got kids from the street, not from the street, I don't mean, sounds weird, kids from the street, like other kids from the neighborhood to come along. And just to sort of keep the numbers up, really.

And then other people joined, and it's still going as far as I'm aware. So they went from doing it Thursday, or Tuesday or Thursday early evening, and then Saturday morning. And he, yeah, my brother was the first, and it was created for him or because of him.

And I was going on at my supervisor, my trainer for quite a while, begging him to do it. I said, please, please. In the end, he gave in.

I said, look, I'll come and I'll teach them. I'll look after them. And because I was high enough grade to be able to teach basic moves.

And then my teacher said, technically, you should be able to teach basic moves. But after seeing you at that tournament, and seeing that little kid run around you, and hit you without even being able to see. And then the first one you had where you just got into a punch up, rolling around like a big walrus.

I don't know if you remember anything that you've been taught. I said, listen, if you don't cut it out, I'll embarrass you in front of all these people. All these people here that look up to you, think you're the, you think you're the big, the bee's knees.

I'll embarrass you in front of all of them. And I stood back, got into my karate pose. And he said, yeah, you can embarrass me, yeah? I said, yeah.

He said, go on then. So I put my trousers down and did a poo on the floor, kicked it towards him. I said, now that's embarrassing.

So yeah, it was, none of that happened. I don't know why. If I'd be able to say the word floor without going carpet, what would it be a carpet in a gym? They don't have carpets in gyms.

I hope he's not listening. He's probably about 100 now, but still wouldn't want him beating me up. I wonder how old he was then.

I'd say 30, late thirties probably, 35 maybe. Yeah, at least, yeah, probably maybe early thirties, but at least in his thirties. So I'd say 35.

So he was at least 20 years older than me. So it'd be over 70 now. He'd still be fitter than I ever was.

Wow. He had these big forearms cause he, he used to use a sword, which I think's a little bit of a cheat really. When someone, all they've got is their hands and their feet.

And he's got this big, massive sword, samurai sword. Never told him that though. But he was like, he'd practice.

So he'd get there early. And I always got there early cause I loved it so much. I was always a bit embarrassed to talk to him though, cause I was shy.

And he said, I remember once he said to me, Jason, do you want to give us a hand to bring the equipment in or whatever? And I said, oh, you know my name? He said, you've been coming two years. Of course I know your name. I said, oh, I didn't, I didn't talk to him.

I was too, too shy. I didn't talk to people back then. Still don't.

That's me doing my karate moves. And yeah, I think the only real prolific, well not prolific, but the only times I was really, I've done a few different martial arts, but the only times that I trained for any length of time was the karate when I was a kid. Then Wing Chun, Kung Fu when I was 33.

That was in 2004 and 2005. And then boxing. I did boxing for a couple of years when I was about 37, 38, something like that.

And then I did Taekwondo when I was 2011 to 2014. But I had to stop because I had a break, but I had to stop because my lower back, I was just, I just couldn't take it anymore. My back was just, just can't, can't do kicks or anything.

I can do them, but I feel it afterwards. And I just didn't have it anymore to be able to do it. So, but I don't know how many, I did three or four gradients with Taekwondo and never did, I never did any sparring.

I did sparring at the club, but I never did any, um, like a competition, but I did do some sparring in one of the gradients. That was part of the grading and that was, that was good. So, yeah, I wish there was, I'd like to do a martial art that didn't have any kicking.

So I used to think Wing Chun. I also did Jeet Kune Do as well, which was by the same instructor, but that was a mixture of different things. So I'd go to the Wing Chun and I'd go Tuesday and Thursday evenings, I think it was, or it might be Monday and Wednesday.

And I think on a, on a Tuesday, I'd go to Jeet Kune Do and on a Friday, I'd go to something called leg spa, where basically the whole two hours would just be sparring, but no punching, just kicking the whole time, you know, pushing the person out of the way, kicking and going from one person to the next, you know, just swapping over. And brilliant. It's such a good way to, to really learn to kick by not being able to do anything else.

When you were allowed to stop and they frowned on egg sandwiches, especially during the sparring. But other than that, you know, you didn't have to kick the whole time. I think one of my glorious moments was, and I wish I had it on camera so I could put on YouTube, but there was this big hole that he had, big hole, it was the size of a gymnasium.

They had to move out because they knocked it down and they wanted to make a kebab shop or something. And I had my rib broken during the training. So I had a couple of weeks off and then I came back and said, once it started to heal, I wasn't ready because the thing is, I was going to get hit.

If I went to train, I was going to be hit in the ribs, even with the pads on, still get elbowed. And there's a lot of that stuff going on. So I couldn't avoid being elbowed or kicked or punched.

That was part of the whole process. So, you know, I was constantly bruised, constantly, you know, it's really, I think one of the things with Wing Chun is you block. So if someone goes to hit you, you block, but you actually, you don't just block, you go to really damage their arm in the process.

Or if you block their leg, you go to really smash their leg in the process. That's part of the thing. At least that's what people did to me.

And when I was, I fully three weeks later, I felt better, but I knew that I was told by the doctor six weeks before I did any, went back to do the training. So I went along because I wanted to just keep my fitness level up and still be part of the club. And my instructor sort of gave me some exercises, like kicking, just, you know, running around and basic exercises.

Take it easy though. And then I said, he said, well, you can practice your kicking on and a bit of punching on the punch bag, practice kicking. But if you want, you can punch if you feel up to it, but just take it easy with the punching.

So I had this big punch bag hanging from the ceiling, which was about, wow, 25, 30 foot high. Honestly, a huge old place, like a warehouse. It was big enough to have three floors.

Seriously, big old place. And it was only about two foot tall. So I don't know how he got the thing up there.

Anyway, so I was punching and kicking this bag and I punched it and the thing just went flying and I basically punched it off the chain, not off the chain, but the whole thing came off the bracket from the wall or from the ceiling lover. And it looked like I punched it really hard, which in reality, it clearly must've just been very loose. And luckily I got out of the way because that big heavy bolt came down and hit the ground and it left, you know, if that had hit me, I would've hurt because it left a big crater.

People still visit it now. Some people go in there. You can fit about 600 people in and can have picnics in this big crater.

I was like, wow, I'm glad I got out of the way of that. And after that, I don't think he put it back on. He just left it on the floor and he used to use it for ground fighting.

So I don't know. I think he must've had someone really tall working there or going training once and they put the bag up for him. And then once they left, he didn't know what to do anymore.

I don't know. It's just a guess. Of course, I wouldn't want to say it to him because he's a Kung Fu expert.

He's funny. He's so funny. Come out with these one liners.

And he was, I don't know, he's Chinese or something. I think he was trying to say something. I mean, he might've been Danish.

I'm not sure. But he'd say, oh, yes. So you do this.

Good idea. Good idea. And he was so full of energy.

And he was so funny. And he'd be just very dynamic. One of the most dynamic teachers I've ever had.

And yeah, that was, it was all right. And then I did a Taekwondo in 2011. I did a boxing.

So I did a boxing in 2009, 2007, 2008, 2009, something like that. And I kept injuring myself, kept injuring internally. I'd ripped something.

And I'm going to say my groin, but it was a little bit further up. But I don't know what it is. I don't think it was a hernia.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been that. But definitely caused some damage. So I kept having to sort of stop and start and stop and start.

And I don't have that problem now. So I've had, yeah, this is my third punch back since then. So I've not had any problems with punchbacks.

So I don't know what it was. Maybe I just overdid it. Very hard training, boxing training is.

All the running around and skipping and stuff. I lost quite a bit of weight, got quite slim. Well, not slim, but lost weight.

And that was the last time I was slim. So I did get myself down to a bit of a slim waist, but fairly muscly-ish from the training and stuff. But my waist definitely lost a few, a few hundred inches, a few square feet off my waist.

And the Taekwondo, it was not far from where I lived. And I thought, okay, I'll give it a go. And going there's the first times it was the hardest one.

So I went along and they said, what do you want? I said, I'm just interested. They said, what are you interested in? I said, I want to be a karate man. And they said, well, it's Taekwondo.

I said, what's the difference? They said, absolutely nothing. Which I realized when I learned it, there's no difference. Karate and Taekwondo, I mean, Taekwondo does focus more on kicking.

But it is different techniques, but it's very similar. But I enjoyed it. I thought, yeah, the club was good.

I liked it there. And the good thing I liked about it is the instructor was a lot older than me. Not a lot older, but he was, I think he was in his fifties.

And I think he started training when he was about my age, or maybe a little bit older than I was at the time. So when he started training when he was 40 something, and I was being 40 at the time when I started. So I think he was about 41 when he started training.

So that gave me a bit of confidence thinking, oh, I'm not too old. And he said, you're not too old, but you are too fat. I said, really? I said to him, look, do you want me to embarrass you? I'll embarrass you in front of all these people.

And he said, I've heard about your embarrassment. I think the only person you embarrassed was yourself. I mean, even telling the story, you said carpet.

There's no carpet in the gym. You started on your words. You couldn't even get the whole sentence out.

That's not a way to tell a story. You embarrassed yourself, mate. I said, I'm sorry.

He said, don't worry about it. And, you know, we got on after that. It was fine.

I bought my kebab and he said, this kebab tastes very Wing Chun-y. I said, yeah, it used to be, the shop used to be a Wing Chun Kung Fu club. He said, oh, so that's what Wing Chun tastes like.

And so, yeah, we all went a big, big kiss and cuddle. And I liked that club. It was nice because there's a few people that were actually older than me, which I never expected to see because I was 40.

And, you know, there was two black belts who were older. Most of the other people were younger, but to have a couple of older people, it was nice. And there was, most of the people were sort of adults.

There was a few kids, but mainly adults with the boxing. It was mainly kids. I didn't like that because all their parents were watching and I don't, the last thing I needed in my little t-shirt, my big belly wobbling around was people laughing at me.

And they were, I know they were. And I so wanted to just like say, you do that again, I'll embarrass you in front of all these people. But I realized that line was getting a bit old and I felt really aggressive.

I just remember there was one bloke there and he was like clearly mocking me, laughing at me with someone else. And I wanted to sort of show him how just to be aggressive and threatening, but he could see how I was hitting the punch bag, like a small child, like a toddler. I couldn't be threatening.

I mean, even the punch bag was laughing at me. And it's just, yeah. So other than that, yeah.

I haven't done anything lately, but I've got a new punch bag here, which I quite like, but it's a little bit noisy. It's a bit, a little bit, yeah, a bit squeaky, but it's nice. I do, I don't know.

It's like a constant in a sense, you know. So I had my first punch bag when I was what, 13, 14, 13, 14, yeah, something like that. And now at 49, I've still got a punch bag.

It's a different one. And I've had quite a few in between, but this is groovy. I just like, yeah, I just wish I could find somewhere to put it where it's quiet, where no one's going to hear.

Maybe there's a way of putting it into the storage room, emptying the storage room out completely, and just using that as for the punch bag. Yeah. There might be a way of doing that.

I didn't know. I didn't know. All right.

Well, I'm going to jingle jangle and get off and say, thank you for listening to my absolute rubbish. And I will speak to you another time. So remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy.

Lots of love. Bye.