#370 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (8th April 2020)

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me, Let Me, Let Me Call You To Sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. And this particular recording has the special bonus of background sounds of Andre the Ferret being extremely creative with some bubble wrap and a dirty old slipper.

I said slipper. So there you go. It's very versatile.

He'll make, he'll make a very lucky lady very lucky one day when that lucky lady meets him. I think, I don't know. It's a little bit distracting if I'm honest.

I'm sitting in the brown chair. This is, it's like a therapy kind of chair. I want to say that it's sort of similar to the chairs I used to use when I was a counsellor.

In, you know, when I counselled for charities, they seem to, the therapy rooms seem to have these kind of chairs. So they're comfortable, but they're not too comfortable. You know, you don't want something so comfortable so the person is fallen asleep, which, you know, is a possibility when you've got me talking to you.

But, you know, so comfortable enough so your feet are on the ground, unless of course your feet aren't on the ground. And yeah, it's not my chair, it's my friend's chair, but he donated it towards my recording studio so I can sit in it in there. At the moment, I've left it in here in the living room because it's quite comfy to sit in when I'm making the Let Me Bore You To Sleep recordings.

And I do have this little portable black chair, which he also donated again. And it's in my garden shed in my bedroom. It's a little bit squeaky when I first sit in it, but once it gets used to my, I think it's not so much squeaky, it's more the sound of pain from the chair.

Like, oh my god, what is this sitting in me? When it gets used to my weight, it's okay. We've got a little, we've got a little, a little agreement. Two things I have to agree before the chair allows me to sit in it.

First one is, I sit down once. I don't keep getting up and down, you know, so it can kind of balance itself and rest. So I can take the one hit, you know, and the, you know, that's fine.

The second one is I don't fart. Because it's quite enclosed space. Well, it's very enclosed space.

I mean, it's a shed with a lot of wrapping. It's basically, it's like a really, really badly wrapped Christmas present. The size of a shed, but without wrapping paper, which would be badly wrapped, wouldn't it? If you get me, I have wrapped stuff with just newspaper before, just for the sake of it really, just because I thought it'd be funny.

Or A4 size sheets out of a pad. I have to give it to him today. He's, he's done a few little naughty things, but he's been good as well.

So he's done a, he's done a big poo near the, near the door, the front door on the carpet. That's where he normally goes to the toilet, but I moved the paper to a different place. So I can't really sort of blame him too much.

But other than that, he's been pretty good with the paper. He's been sort of getting it on the right place. So that's, you know, he's been good.

He's also, because I spent a lot of time in bed today, I haven't felt very well, or yesterday rather, and he's been cuddling up to me, sort of sleeping in bed with me. So that's been nice. He doesn't generally do that too much, unless you want something, but he didn't seem to want anything.

He was just quite happy to, he was scratching, he wanted me to put my hand down so he could grab hold of it. I picked him up, had a little play, a little bit of a bit of, bit of a fight earlier on, bite at me and stuff. And then he just went to sleep.

He's now having a drink. I don't know if you can hear that. He's built, he's built up a thirst.

He's moved his girlfriend's, the slipper away from the bubble wrap. Doesn't like the head and the body being too far together, too close together. I don't know, maybe he thinks he doesn't want them talking to each other.

I don't know. And then about, I don't know, a half hour, an hour ago, I cut his fingernails and I'd say nine out of 10 times he's a pain when I do that. Wiggles about, sometimes he wiggles about so much that I end up cutting too close and it bleeds a little bit, which is the last thing I want to do.

But it's very difficult when you've got this, he's so bendy and all I've got hold is just one hand. And the other, you know, I've got using one hand to hold one of his hands and I've got the nail clippers. He's got his whole body to maneuver around.

And some can be a bit difficult, but today he just laid there, let me do it. And he only started moving a little bit near the end. But for the first hand, absolutely fine.

I got everyone, every nail clipped and they were getting very long. I should have done it a few days ago actually, but they got nice and short, but not too short because there's a black line inside the nail. I forget what they call it, but you need to cut it before that.

If you get to that bit, I think there's like a vein or something and it can bleed. And so my concern is, first of all, it hurts him a little bit. It's not, he forgets about it like straight away, but I don't want to cause him discomfort.

But at the same time, I don't want him getting infected or anything like that. So I managed to cut every single nail nicely, really, really good. It's probably the best job I've ever done of his nails in nearly five years.

I think the only other time is when he was asleep and I picked him up gently, I didn't rattle him. And I kind of laid him on my lap, sitting down in a chair and he was fast asleep the whole time that I was cutting his nails. And at one point I thought, why don't I take his appendix out, see if he stays asleep.

But then I thought, no, because I'm not a vet and that would just be really, really unusual thing to do or to even think about really. So I did his nails and it was fine. So I'm quite pleased with him for that.

So he's been quite loving today, the last couple of days, especially as after I tidied up this room and the flat, moved stuff around, he wasn't happy. He didn't like it, you know, but everything's, you know, he seems to be okay now. He wants to go out.

I took him out earlier and this evening or last night, just to, it wasn't a big walk, but he seemed to enjoy it. So, you know, basically I think he's okay now. He's gone off somewhere.

I don't know where he is. He's in the bedroom. Oh, now he's got a new place to sleep because I've wrapped the shed up with bubble wrap.

There's two throws, like big throws that are now inside the door, like the main opening. Then there's a door inside that closes on those. So it's like extra filter and those throws are nailed in to the actual shed around the side, so it doesn't fall off.

And then bubble wrapped. Well, he's found a way in. There's a little, it's like a little den for him that he can go and he goes to sleep in there now.

He also likes to go around the shed. So who knows what he's up to. I mean, they might be hiding stuff around there.

I sometimes wonder where, you know, where he gets his stuff from because I was cleaning, I was vacuuming the kitchen yesterday and I opened the door because the door is usually like pushed back the whole time, mainly open, you know. And it's all this stuff behind the door. Bits of tea cake and little bits of food.

I don't, if I drop anything on the floor, it's going to be bits of, I don't know, packaging rather than actual food itself. You know, I've got food, it's on the plate. And then when it's finished, I'll put it in the bin.

If I don't, I don't just scrape it onto the floor. So somehow he must have nicked stuff off plates that I've left in there and just hidden it because that's what they do. They hide stuff.

So he's always got something to eat. And I don't know where else he's got stuff hidden. And I think he's got something hidden behind the bedroom door as well.

So I need to, I need to sort through that as well. And now he's in the kitchen doing something. Anyway, I got rid of that stuff from behind the door and chucked that in the bin.

I couldn't believe it. What on earth? He's just, he's like got this little, not like a squirrel because squirrels, they do hide their nuts. But so I used to be really into squirrels a while back.

Not romantically, just when I got ill, back in, how many different times has there been? But when I, when I lost my job in insurance through illness, I was, it was like a difficult, you know, any kind of illness is difficult, isn't it? I hope he doesn't try and jump onto that table. No. Want to give me cuddles? Want to give me cuddles? Come on then.

Come on then. No, he doesn't. I think this was what, 2013.

And was it 2014? Maybe 2000, yeah, 2014, something like that. And so I was living on very little money because the basic ESA, unemployment benefit was, I think £70 a week. And I was paying £63, £73.

Yeah, I was paying about £12 a week. Towards the, was it less than £70, £60? Anyway, I had about £40 a week to live on because the rent didn't cover my rent. So my rent was £85 a week for this little room that I lived in, which is actually less than what I'm paying here.

So I've got a one bedroom flat, which, when I'm in a good state of mind, I think is beautiful. And I'm very, very lucky to have this, very fortunate. I'm going to start crying in a minute.

But yeah, I am fortunate. And the room I had before was £85 a week. But the landlord had it down as a flatlet, like a flat, because it had a kitchenette.

So it's this little room, but connected to it was the kitchen, which was kind of the entrance. In fact, I would say the kitchen was about three quarters of the size of the bedroom. So this is a very small, small place, but the kitchen had a sink.

The kitchen was actually okay, to be fair. It didn't have a cooker. It had a, what are these, camper ovens.

There was enough room, there was an under, under counter fridge, which was enough for what I needed. I mean, I'd never had access to a big fridge before, like on my own. And to be fair, even now I don't, because I've got a, yeah, I don't need more than a portable fridge.

I've got a fridge in my kitchen. I've got two freezers. And I've got one fridge that's on top of the counter, which could go under the counter.

So it's the same size and it's fine. You know, I don't need that much room in the fridge just for me. But usually in the past, I've had the same size fridge, but sharing it with maybe two people, or one person, or shared a big fridge with maybe six people.

So it's not, you know, not always so easy. But this, so I had this room, and the landlord, to be fair, he was completely honest with me. When I said I was unemployed, he said, they won't give you the full amount.

And I thought, well, surely they have to. Anyway, I, they didn't, because it was a shared bathroom. If it had been, if I'd had my own shower or something, and toilet, then I would have got the full amount.

Because they pay, I think, at the time, I think they pay up to £104 a week towards a flat, a private flat. So if I'd had a flat, and it was £150, I'd have to come up with the other £46 or whatever. Andre, what are you doing? You look like you're about to fart.

I can't believe, and he's run away. Oh man, that is so rude. He really is.

You may wonder how I knew he was going to fart. He was holding a piece of paper saying, I'm about to fart, Daddy. He, he, he.

Smell this, and then he just ran off. That's very naughty of him. Yeah, all right.

Sorry, that was just the chair complaining. I didn't make an agreement with you. I made an agreement with your mate, the one in the other room.

I never mentioned to you that, oh no, we had no agreement. We didn't. He's saying, okay, we had no agreement, but can you at least open the window? Shush, you're a chair, you can't talk.

And I, I, yeah, so I had to come up with the remainder of the money, and I think they gave me something like £63 towards the rent, something like that. So I had to come up with, yeah, £63, £73, £83, £22 a week. So yeah, it didn't leave me with a huge amount of money.

So it was, it was a difficult financially, but a little difficult for a while, especially I haven't been working and having a regular income and stuff, and just wish I'd put a there you go. And also had debts and stuff that I had to pay out on telephone bills, you know, so I didn't have huge money. But the thing that got, kind of got me through it, and it's going to sound a bit strange, drugs, no, joking, medication.

But I used to go to the park every day and feed the scribbles. But I actually get the proper nuts, you know, from the, I forget what nuts they were, I used to get them from the supermarket or from the health food shop. Like the proper nuts that they like, rather than just giving them any old stuff.

So I went online, researched what do actually eat. And is it hazelnuts? I can't remember. But it's been a long time.

It's quite a while ago. And I used to go into town, because I lived near town. I'd go into town, I'd go and see my friends in the evolution shop.

Because I used to work there. It was a Buddhist shop. So my friends, Buddhist friends, and also volunteered in there a little bit as well.

And then I'd go to the, what's it, the park, and they'd all come out and say, Hey, JJ, Uncle J. So hello. And I'd have these bag of nuts, and I just walk from tree to tree. And I literally hand it to them, they just take it out of my hand.

And I know schools were pretty much, you know, always the fussiest eaters. But I thought it'd be nice to give them something that's actually what they would normally eat. Admittedly, they could have just picked them off the ground from the tree, but you know, forgetting that bit.

They were my friends. And I was strange in my sound. They were my friends for quite a few months.

I did that. I guess, but yeah, quite maybe a year, but for quite a few months, I was going into the park, feeding the squirrels, taking a big bag of nuts. And then I started taking bird seed for the pigeons, because the pigeons would be flocking around.

And I know that, again, pigeons will eat any old thing, but bread and stuff, apparently is not great for them. So I actually got, I found out what the pigeons and birds like. And so I actually bought some bird seed.

So that's what I did. I went and fed the pigeons. I was surrounded by pigeons and squirrels.

It was like a big disco. There was nothing like a disco. I don't even know why I said that, but you know, it was lovely.

And it kind of gave my day some purpose, gave my day a bit of routine. So I'd do that. I'd come home and I would watch Terry and June on television about 3.30 in the afternoon.

Or it might be George and Mildred or The Good Life or some like old 70s sitcom that I love, you know, that it just feels nice watching them. Might sound strange, but it just feels, feels really comfortable. I suppose it is like the old cliche, putting on a big, comfy condom.

I mean, jumper, sweater, you know, big loose, don't like tight stuff. The problem is with tight jumpers or whatever, is I just, I struggle to relax because all I want to do is just go into the bathroom, look in front of the mirror and just pose as if I was being, having pictures taken for a glossy magazine. So yeah, I prefer to have big baggy jumpers.

Because of my size, I can't really, I have to have quite big, big baggy. Otherwise I feel a little bit restricted. So I think like XXXL or whatever would be the right size for me to just really feel loose.

Does that make sense? Either that or nothing. I suppose I could just wear nothing but not, yeah, I don't really want to do that. I don't know, it's part of me, I kind of, I know there's no one around.

I know that there's, I can draw the curtains and, you know, don't have to answer the door. If so, if I phone someone, I don't have to do a video call. Or answer it with a video call, scare them.

But there's something about sitting around with no clothes on. I just have a little bit of guilt. I just, I'll be honest, I feel sorry for the chair.

I just think that's just not nice, is it? It's not fair on this chair to put it through that. I mean, I put it through so many other things. I could at least wear clothes.

Now this chair, you said, yeah, and stop farting. I didn't, it was Andre. You stop.

Why is it only me that can hear these chairs talking? So it's quite a kind of a sort of a nostalgic period, in a way. Because, you know, I was living really carefully, sort of financially, we have to be really, really, really careful. I was also going through kind of like a bankruptcy at the same time, as well as going through the process of trying to get a council or get on a council list, as well as going through psychiatric evaluation, being told by psychiatrists, different things.

And you know, just, so it's a real kind of a weird time. And, and eventually getting sacked from my job because I didn't turn up. The thing is, with the job, right, it was August 2013, when I started to get very unwell.

So I was honest with them. I said, look, I've been to the doctors, I'm on Prozac for depression. That's it.

And I said, just let you know, I've been diagnosed with bipolar back in 2011. Didn't tell you about that bit. But at the time when I got the job, I'm telling you now.

But I'm just telling you about the Prozac, telling you that I'm on medication. And I'm, you know, but I intend to come to work. I don't want to have any.

Oh, no, I didn't say that. I said, yeah, I'm on Prozac. That's it.

And about a week later, I said, look, I need some time off. Can I take some holiday because I'm just really struggling to come in. And I think my Nan had been, my Nan was unwell at the time because she had, trying to think, I'm sure in the period of me working there, she broke her hip and she had sort of breathing problems as well.

So she was in hot. She was very elderly. She was about 95, 94, 95, something.

And so I guess I was worried about her and other stuff, you know. And the place was about to be made redundant. They were trying to, like, they were laying people off.

It was all weird. So anyway, I had, I took a long weekend off. They let me have five days off, sort of as a holiday.

So you can have those out of your holiday, you know, try and have some rest and stuff. So it's really nice of him. And I did that.

And I didn't go back. I never went back, like, properly at all. And got signed off by the doctor.

But I did try and go back twice. You know, I actually went into the office twice to try and get back to work. And both times I couldn't go in.

After I went in and then I, then I had to leave. And at one point, they actually sent me a letter saying, you had a disciplinary for not turning up for work or for having too much time off. And I, and they said, you didn't, we sent you a letter that you had a disciplinary.

How can you give someone a disciplinary when they're ill? It's like, really? Telling someone off for being ill? And they said, sent me a letter saying, because you didn't attend. I sent him an email saying, I'm, I'm, I'm unwell. I can't attend a disciplinary meeting.

That's the last thing I need to be going to right now. If you think about it logically, if you kind of give it a little bit of brain cell activity, don't, you know, I'm not sure if I could, I'm really in the right space to be being told off and explaining myself and trying to justify, you know, what's going on. So they sent me a letter saying, we've dismissed you.

Because you didn't turn up, you've just been dismissed. So I called them up and said, what are you doing? What are you doing? So this was probably October, probably October time, 2013. And I said, what's, what's the crack, Jack? Why are you, why are you laying me off? They said, well, you didn't turn up.

I said, because I was ill. You know, they, I said, can't you, can you speak to me on the phone or something? Can't you, are you really going to lay me off for being ill? And it's really weird talking to me, I think, gave them the impression that I was a human being. Or maybe reminded them that I was a human being that they were dealing with, not someone that they didn't have to look at face to face.

So it was sort of just a, just a name, just, you know. But when they actually dealt with me on the phone, they didn't want to sack me. So they gave me another chance.

They gave me a date to come back. They were going to ease me back in. And I was up for that.

So I wanted to go back. I didn't want to be unemployed. And so I went in, very strange, because I didn't realise, but the friend that I had in there had told everybody that I'd had a breakdown, which was not the greatest thing to everyone to be knowing.

It's private, isn't it, about that. And so I was a little bit, a little bit miffed about that, slightly. But I let them get away with it.

And so I went in and they put me in a different team. I was in a completely different team to the one I was in before, which was weird, because suddenly I'm sitting next to people I've never even worked with before, which was kind of the opposite to what I needed, really. It was good in one sense, but it was new.

But another way, like, well, I'd quite like to be next to my friends. But, you know, so I sat down. Just in that period of time that I hadn't been there, loads of changes had happened.

They got new contracts. They got new, I think, even new software on the computers, different ways of doing stuff. Very complicated computer system.

They were basically using a really old style system that I used back in 2001, when I first started doing insurance. I think it's called CDL. They were still using it.

But because it didn't work in the way that they needed it to, you know, they needed it to do different things that it wasn't supposed to be able to do. It meant going back and forward and all around the houses, taking a scenic route to get to where you wanted to be. And so they're just pressing a button and it going where you want, which would be like an up-to-date company would do, I guess.

You know, the computer system should be easy for people that are on the sales, on the phone. Because it's about the customer. It's about, you know, but to me, you know, you know, you know.

You might not know, but you might know. So I'm thinking, oh, what on earth's going on here? I'm sitting next to this bloke and he's being really friendly and everything. And I said, well, first of all, he got me a chair.

I sat in it and the chair collapsed. So everyone in the whole building, it was like the second time they're all staring at me. It's like, okay, well, all my stuff, I kind of got this, I know it wasn't said, but I almost heard oh no, he's having another breakdown.

Well, the chair's caught it. The chair's now breaking down. So I couldn't go back.

Couldn't go back. I tried again and I couldn't go back. So I tried three times to go back.

One, I just couldn't get in the building. Second time, I think I got in the building. And the third time I got in the building and stayed there for a day.

Or I might stay there for a day. And then the second time I stayed there for an hour or something. Yeah.

So and I kept telling them I wanted to go back. And then I said, can't you put me in a different department? Can you put me in an administration department? Administration or administration? Administration or administration. You hear that car in the background.

It's a van. Every day, six o'clock in the morning, sometimes earlier. It's too early to be making noise like that.

I hear that. So what people do, they park, they drive halfway up the road, and then they back up into the school and then drive back the other way again. So you get to hear it twice.

Do you remember the film, you might not know this, but there's a film called Scanners from the 80s. If I had scanners, there'd be a lot of exploding cars. Swansea.

So I, yeah, so I was, I was hoping that I went on, to start with, I was on normal pay, I think for the first couple of weeks. And then as soon as I put a sick note in, I was on reduced statutory sick pay. And it's weird because as the months went past, it got less and less.

Less and less. Until February 2014, they sent me a lovely letter saying, your employment is terminated. Now, I don't know if that's even legal.

I'm sure that it must be, they wouldn't do it if it wasn't. But I think it shows the difference of, in maybe the law or people's opinions, of physical and mental illness, the difference. So if I'd have had a physical, serious physical illness, pretty sure they wouldn't have sent me a letter.

I'm pretty sure, first of all, they wouldn't have tried to pressure me to go back or tried to sack me for not attending a disciplinary. But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have sent me a disciplinary, you know, your dismissed letter after, what was it, August, September, October, November, December. Six months.

I know six months is a long time to not be working if you're employed somewhere. But, I mean, I would say, I mean, the job had a lot to do with what made me ill, to start with. Because the environment was just the most negative environment I've been in.

Rightly as well, because it was horrible. It was really, and it's awful. But I really liked the company.

I really liked the people I worked with. I have done pretty much every job, every insurance job I've had, also every sales job I've had, really. I've liked the people I've worked with.

Not everyone, obviously, but you can't like everyone. Well, I can't. You might be able to.

I generally get on with most people. And in the sales environment, because I've always been able to hold my own. Although I've been advised not to do that in other employments.

And I guess people treat you a bit, a little bit of respect if you're there, if they see you as their equals, or maybe you can even do a better job than them, or equal to them, possibly. And I've found people that work in sales are usually pretty cool. I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of people over the years in sales, and I've got on with pretty much every single one of them, even the ones that didn't like me when they first met me, ended up being nice to me.

So it's, I feel, yeah, it's weird. Well, it's not weird, but I didn't want to lose that job because I liked it. But the place closed down anyway.

The building had now been turned into flats, into apartments, you know, private accommodation. The company just pooped. So, you know, I suppose it was a case of, I got laid off, and a year later, the whole company went, pretty much.

So I got laid off, and then everyone got laid off. And then I tried to get a job a couple of years back with my old boss, who was working there. And I went into the place that he works at now, where he's the sales manager.

And I went and spoke to him and said, look, can you give me a chance? You know, I'm good at what I do. And he said, yeah. I said, but I don't know.

I think he's, I just don't think he trusted that. He was a bit wary, which is understandable. A bit wary of me.

And I think he found me a little bit of a handful of times. Although I liked him, you know, but he, he was a micromanager. And it really doesn't suit me.

Because I know, well, I don't always know what I'm doing, but if I don't know what I'm doing, I'll ask. I'm a very, very verbal person when it comes to that. I will ask.

I don't like the idea of blagging. I don't like the idea of making something up, especially not with a customer. You know, I want to tell them the truth.

I want them to be completely transparent and open. I think it's important. But it got to the point where you have to ask questions in a certain order and ask them in a certain way, verbally, in exactly a specific way.

And that doesn't suit the sales process. Because you might as well just have a computer doing it. You might as well have someone, what is your name? You know, they have some recorded message and just fill in the gaps.

And that didn't really suit me because my whole style was talking. And I was the, again, highest converter. But I had the longest phone calls.

I'd be on the phone for an hour sometimes. So I didn't always get the most sales. But I had the most sales per quote.

And I pretty much had that everywhere I've ever worked. Because I take the time. Well, I used to take the time.

And I would happily be on the phone for an hour where other people might be on the phone for like seven minutes. And I'd be chatting to them and I'd just, you know, it's building that rapport up to the point where some people would just pay, they'd buy it anyway. They'd buy the insurance even if they had a better price.

Sometimes they'd just come with me because they liked talking to me. Or sometimes I'd just keep talking and they'd just give up. I'd say, okay, just take my card number.

I'd just wear them down. But with kindness, with kindness, of course. And maybe, maybe I miss it a little bit.

I do. So when I talk about it, sometimes I think, oh, I'm talking about it like it was good times. So maybe it was.

Maybe it was good times. I remember in that job, there was a weird time when the whole place was, it was basically when I first started the job in the December, during my training, I think it was two weeks or three week training, they came around with a, I think it was a letter, because we didn't have our own emails at that point. So it's because we're in training, a letter to say, by the way, the company's been sold to an American, I forget what they're called, financial company.

You know, one that's just money. They basically just bought it, bought it, and they're going to break up the company. It's a hedge firm or something like that.

So yeah, so that was like, okay. And they started to, I think they sold part of the company to another company, and they didn't know if they were going to keep the housing and car insurance together. They had a specialist department for, I think, motorcycles, and they sold that.

So that whole department closed, never one left. And then some of them might have moved to a I'm sure they had a department for caravans as well, but I might have made that up. So there was the bottom floor, which was like the basement, but had loads of people working there, they all left.

Or, you know, left, you know, for good. And then the top floor all left as well. So there was only one floor, which was mine.

And it was still a big floor. There was how many sales? There's one, two, one, one, two. I think at one point there was three sales teams.

Maybe three, yeah, three sales teams. There was another sales team that was outbound. So they used to call people up.

So my job was answering the phone to people, calling in for a quote. Although they didn't always call in for a quote, sometimes they were calling in to complain or calling in to renew or calling in because they needed administration done, you know, like they needed a cover note sent or maybe even had a claim, you know, sometimes they'd end up coming through. So we transferred them to the right department.

And then there was renewals, which was literally behind the seat where I was at. There was a table, renewals there. And next to them, a bit further up was the outbound.

They got paid a lot more. But they had to call people up, chase up people that already had quotes online, or people that had done quotations with us, but not taken a policy out. So they'd phone them up.

And also people that didn't want to have, that said no to having the renewal. So they'd have the power to reduce the price by quite a lot. And my argument would be kind of, well, why don't you give us that? If you're going to offer them 20% discount to get their sale, so why don't you offer it to us and the renewal department for us to use it as a last resort? You know, not to use it straight away as, you know, but, you know, they listened to the calls anyway.

So you could listen to it and see that they didn't suddenly say, by the way, here's the price. It includes a 20% discount, but here's the price. No, I don't want that.

Let's see what I can, you know, just bearing in mind, the bonus was based on the amount we sold in that company. It was like a really tiny percentage, but it still was based on the amount. So if you sold, I don't know, 50 grand's worth of insurance a week, you can maybe earn, I don't know, a hundred pound bonus or a 160 pound bonus.

I don't know, something like that. I'm making it up. I don't know what the stats were, but the, yeah, that's weird.

I'm thinking about that place. I'd probably still be there, you know, if I hadn't been for like anything, isn't it? If I hadn't been for what happened, I'd still be doing what I did before I did stop doing it. But the reality is I wouldn't still be there because the place doesn't exist anymore.

Oh, but the squirrels, they really helped me get through a very strange period of my life. Very strange, but almost freeing, but strange. It's very weird, a weird time.

In some ways, a nicer time than currently. Well, in a lot of ways, a much nicer time than current, but just it is what it is, you know, things change. I miss my squirrels, man.

I miss them. But then I've got this little, this little monkey. I can just see him, he's asleep.

As you see the top of his head sticking out of my, well, his little bedding that he's got. Who'd have thought? Seriously, five years ago, and it's literally five years to, not the day, but it's Easter. It's bank holiday this weekend, bank holiday Monday, Good Friday, Saturday, Easter Sunday, bank holiday Monday.

I came to look at this flat the Tuesday after the bank holiday Monday, five years ago. So it's nearly five years to the day that I first looked at this flat, and signed the contract. Five years, and then I was living there a week later.

I actually, I think it was two weeks, because I had to, I had, yeah, I had to take the keys and move in by a certain date. But when I came to move in, there was no electricity, there was no gas. I didn't have a cooker, I didn't have a fridge, didn't have anything.

Because I didn't have, all I had was a single bed, and a few books, and a chair. That was it. I had no furniture, very little, little stuff at all.

In fact, I rented a van, a removal van, to move my stuff. And they were laughing, because there was three men there to help me move. And I said, why are you laughing? They said, well, you just paid us all this money, and we could have done this in a little van, we could have done it in a car, and we didn't need three people.

Although it needed a couple, because of the chair, it was quite a big chair. I said, yeah, it's here now, just shut up and do your job. He said, what did you say? I said, I said, I love you.

He said, okay, I love you too. And that's it, just moved in, put my bags up here, and put the bed out in the bedroom. There's no carpet, no table, no just one chair.

I had nothing in here, apart from a few bags, clothes, and some books, a laptop, a little television. And yeah, that would pretty much be everything. A few bits, you know, yeah, just very little stuff, very few bits.

And I think it's gone quite well in some ways. It's taken five years, but I got the place okay. Do need another carpet.

Book collection is a lot better than it was back then. I've done hundreds and hundreds of recordings in that time, probably nearly a thousand recordings, maybe not a thousand, but 370, 470, 570, 670, 870. Yeah, probably getting onto a thousand recordings, maybe 900.

Yeah, it might be a thousand in those five years. So I think when I moved in here, I had about 600 recordings when I first moved in there, before I first moved in it. So in that time, so for 11, from 2006 to 2015, so nine years, I did 600.

The last five years, I've done a thousand. So yeah, about one, yeah, it's got to be 1,600, maybe even 1,700 now, because I lose track a little bit because I've done so many. So yeah, I suppose it's quite a good thing.

But even now, even though I've not been particularly well the last, just for a period of time, I'm still managing to do some recordings and do a little bit of website stuff. And, you know, I only do it when I'm feeling okay. I tried to do a recording a few days ago, and I think I got 15 minutes in, and I just stopped and just deleted it because I just couldn't.

And some of it was quite funny as well, but what to me? Never mind, never mind. Well, today, I'll leave on this. I applied for a job in the NHS, in the hospital for an urgent worker during, well, it'd be paid, paid, but it'd be non-clinical.

So I'm guessing, well, I don't know, but maybe administrative or who knows, could be cleaning, I don't know. But I've applied anyway. I filled the form online about five days ago, but I didn't have my CV updated.

And I kept trying to find free forms and three ways of doing it for free without signing up for anything. And I couldn't, that was annoying me. So in the end, I just, last night, I subscribed to Office.

So I've got all the Office Word and all that stuff. Plus it's a terabyte of, what's it as well? Storage. So I'm going to store all my recordings onto there as well.

So that's an extra place that's all stored. So I was able to redo my CV and I uploaded that onto the application and submitted it about 4.30 yesterday afternoon. Because they kept sending me emails saying, do you want to complete yet? Would you like to still apply for this position and stuff? So I thought, they're very short-staffed at the moment, especially.

And I wasn't able to volunteer because they, for some reason, they didn't want me to volunteer. They sort of gave me, my volunteer application got rejected. They said, we can't identify you.

I sent them a picture of my passport in the application. So that's a bit strange, but anyway, maybe they'll do the same this time. We can't identify you.

They could identify me when I volunteered for them before, a few years back. I went through the whole process, had an interview, filled the forms in. Not sure if I did a criminal check or not, but they gave me blood tests.

And I also came immunization because I wasn't immunized for, I think, measles, which I didn't know. So I wasn't properly immunized when I was a child. I had all the immunizations when I was at high school.

So I did all those, you know, the sugar lump. Is that for scurvy or something? And you know, the injection in the back of the arm, which was for TB or something. So I was covered for that.

But the injections as a child, I never had. I wasn't vaccinated. So before I was able to be able to work in the hospital, a volunteer, I had to be vaccinated.

So they had to test me first to see if I was covered. And they could tell from my bloods that I wasn't vaccinated. So they vaccinated me.

And then I had to wait for, I think, two weeks before I was allowed to volunteer until the vaccination took its place, or I don't know, whatever. I can't remember, but yeah. So all my life I've been walking around not vaccinated from, I think, I don't know what it was, maybe smallpox or, I don't know what some of the immunizations are for.

I mean, I got chickenpox when I was a kid, but you don't get immunized against that anyway. Maybe you do now, but we didn't when we were kids, because all my brothers had it, and I was looking forward to getting it because I had, well, it was great on quite a few levels. It was snowing outside.

I had probably a good week or two off work, off work, off school. My brothers were around, and we were all getting on with each other for some reason, because we were all happy because we weren't at school. It was beautiful outside, covered in snow, plus I got to scratch myself and not get told off.

So it's basically a win-win situation, and I used to get tonsillitis a lot, but I'm not sure what the vaccinations were for. I think measles, I think it's one of them, but I'm not sure what the other one was. Anyway, I got vaccinated anyway for everything that I was supposed to have already been vaccinated for when I was a small child.

Isn't it weird? Didn't I have parents? Where were they? Didn't we have doctors in the 70s? Why wasn't I vaccinated? So, yeah, that was weird. I was like, wow, but I am now. So I couldn't understand why the NHS couldn't recognize me or identify me when I've already volunteered with them.

I've been at the same address for five years, nearly. Same national insurance number, same, you know what I mean? Perhaps a little bit less hair on my head than I used to have, but I don't think that's a criteria for employment. Not even voluntary, unless of course you're advertising, you know, you're getting employed to advertise shampoo or something.

I don't normally employ bald people, do they? Anyway, on the note of fading hair, I'm going to fade my voice and say goodbye. Wish you a really relaxing day ahead, a nice sleep, and remember to do something nice for yourself. And that's it.

That's the end of this recording. So remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve, you do deserve to be happy. Lots of love.

Bye-bye. Ta-ra for now. Ta-ra.