#428 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (13th June 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 it is Saturday, the 13th of June. And so yeah, that's it. That was exciting, wasn't it? And yeah, I felt a bit tired today.

And hence the I mean, what time is it? It's 1049. It's wow, that's really late to be making a recording for the day. I mean, it's the end, literally the end of the day.

But hey, I like to try and do one every day. So there you go. Had a little bit of a weird experience with Andre today.

He was insisting on going out. And I thought I didn't want to. That's what I thought.

I thought I didn't think I didn't want to. I thought I don't want to. Because I was in the moment.

And he kept looking up at me for okay, I'll take him out, just for a short walk, just to the park. No walking in the fields or anything like that. And you know, he was, I was carrying him, he was trying to get down on the floor, did not want to be held, he wanted to be on the floor.

So in the end, you know, got outside, walked in through the park a little bit and then ended up in the second part of the park, I noticed something on his left foot, his back foot. It was red, I thought, I don't know if it was like mud or I don't know, something. So I picked him up and there was blood.

So I pick him up, all he wants to do is get down. I said, nope. I even said to him, okay, even if you do a wee and poo on me, you're not getting down.

Even if that's what you need to do, because I'm not, not letting him go on the grass or any on the dirt with, you know, with an injured, with his open wound. I didn't know what it was. All I can think of it is he's scraped it because he can't lift his leg up.

He's scraped it against something which he wouldn't normally do. He's never done anything like that the whole five years. And he's never ever hurt himself like that, you know, where blood's involved.

So I bring him home, clean it off. I know that I've got the vets on Monday and it's, you know, Sunday tomorrow. So it's only one day to go.

He doesn't seem at all affected by it. Not bothered at all. And even when I was cleaning it off, he didn't like it.

A little bit of a smell off, a little bit of a stink, like, you know, a bit of a angry, you know, stink that he does. Afterwards he was fine. And I put him in my bedroom, put him in the bed to let him sort of just rest in there, just to keep him in one place.

An hour later I saw him and I showed my friend his leg or his foot. He couldn't even see it. The colour had changed, just gone back to what it was before.

It looked, because I knew where to look, I could see it very mildly. But, you know, he couldn't see where it was because of his patterning. It was no longer red.

It was just the same colour as the rest of him. And I started to think, have I made it up? Did I dream it? But no, I didn't. So, yeah, I can't take him out now until he's got himself sorted because, I don't know, it just seems really weird.

But it didn't bother him at all. And it was, he doesn't get hurt easily. You know, he's constantly rough and tumbling.

He falls off the bed and he lands in the most awkward positions. Not awkward, but awkward positions. There has to be a whistle there.

But that's what he does. He's bendy and he climbs up things and then jumps off. That's what he does.

He's not scared of doing that and it's what he's always done. I can't control that. So, I suppose I could literally wrap it up in cotton wool or bubble wrap.

But that would be, I suppose that would be cruel, wouldn't it? Funny, but a bit cruel. I suppose if I just took a few pictures. So, yeah, that is it for him really.

He's now back. He's asleep in the corner. He seems happy enough.

So, but he's still, you know, hobbling along on three legs rather than four or three, two hands and one foot rather than two hands and two feet. Because they're his hands, aren't they? You know, he does use them. So, when he's peeling a banana and chopping up the vegetables and stuff, doing the washing up, he uses his hands.

Doesn't use his feet. So, I don't know if I've got any messages. I might have.

I might not have. Oh, someone's coming. Sarah says, oh Jason, he's gorgeous, but seriously looks like a spinal issue to me.

Did you say he's booked in for Monday? Nice to see his head is ruled in his body regardless. So, I'm assuming he is in no pain. Thanks, Sarah.

There's a message left, a comment left on my little video I put on Facebook about, it was on my Let Me Boy To Sleep Facebook page. And he's just like running around, but dragging himself as well. He doesn't seem to be in any pain at all.

I mean, Jen, I really don't think, it wouldn't make any sense that he would push himself through a pain barrier just to walk around on the grass. It doesn't seem that rewarding. I can see why he would do it if he needed to get to the toilet or he needed to go and have his food or he was hiding from me because I was getting him ready for a bath.

So, you know, because that's what he does. He hides. I don't know.

I really, he doesn't seem to be in pain. He's not making any noises. He's not, it's hard to know.

I just hope he isn't. And a spinal issue, I mean, wow, that doesn't sound good, does it? So, yeah, I mean, it's no way of, it's a case of waiting until the vet sees him and sees what happens. But thanks, Sarah.

Or is it Sarah? See, some people call themselves Sarah. I've actually got a friend who's named Sarah. She was named Sarah and her parents call her Sarah and her family call her Sarah.

But she introduces herself to people as Sarah. So, I didn't realize that. I was called a Sarah and I met her mum and I said, how's Sarah? And she said, who? I said, Sarah, because I was visiting the hospital.

She said, you mean Sarah? I said, who? Sarah. I said, I don't know anyone called Sarah. She said, I don't know anyone called Sarah.

So, we just both left hospital. That's the whole story. I got a message from William.

So, I think I responded to that already. Just say thank you to Jen. Thank you there.

These recordings are becoming thank you messages. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Stephen.

Thank you, Eric. My name is Eric. Right, I'll finish a couple of messages and I'll get on with the interesting stuff.

What interesting stuff? So, it's Saturday, isn't it? Okay. So, I don't think I've had any, you know, I think I have, but I keep forgetting where it is, unless it's on my let me bore you to sleep. Ah, it is.

Nicole, did I mention this one? Hello, Jason. Thank you so much for this incredible service. I discovered your let me bore you to sleep podcast randomly about seven or so months ago on Google podcasts.

I was so fed up with being unable to sleep. I've suffered with PTSD and insomnia for five years. There were many nights that I dreaded going to bed.

Thankfully, I stumbled upon your podcast and I've been listening ever since. I even find myself looking forward to going to bed each night because I get to listen to your soothing voice. Oh, that's lovely.

Thank you. You've become an essential part of my nightly self-care routine. Thank you again and keep up the great work.

Much love, Nicole. I think it's Nicole. It might be Nichole.

It's N-I-C-H-O-L-E. So, it might be Nicole or it might be Nichole. P.S. I do enjoy Andre's background appearances.

It always makes me giggle. Silly little ferret. He is a silly little ferret.

You're right. Very silly. But I say it quietly because he might get annoyed.

Thank you, Nicole. Very kind of you. I should say thank you.

I didn't reply on thing. Thank you very much. Much for your kind words.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I've replied there.

And I got one from Ali. I don't know if I read that one out. Hi, Jason.

I hope you will be listening to your podcast now since February. I started listening because of sleepless nights now listen most nights as going to sleep. Love this community you've created.

Keep boring us, Ali. Thank you. Thank you, Ali.

And I say a big hello to Linda as well. So, this is the let me bore you to sleep messages. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, keeping track of all these different podcasts. There's just so many. All right.

OK. Damon or Damon asks what happened to him. And I wrote back his back leg stopped working.

Seeing the vets Monday. Yeah. So, as far as what's happened to him, I don't know what has caused it because he might have injured it.

You know, I mean, he might have. It's no way of knowing. I mean, it's no way of me knowing how he did it.

He might have he's constantly exploring and he might have got trapped somewhere. I mean, there's a few things even he got trapped in between, you know, the gap of the door. You know, when you open the door, there's the gap in between the door and the doorframe.

We're in the bedroom. He actually got his towel stuck. He was inside the bedroom, playing around just inside the door and the door closed and he was trapped and he was screaming.

And now he couldn't. I mean, I'm assuming it's never happened before. This isn't recently.

This is probably about five months ago. And luckily, I was there, opened the door. I took a few photographs first, videoed him.

And I opened the door, got him out, gave him lots of cuddles. And I thought, wow. So straight away, I thought that's never going to happen again.

So I removed all the doorframes. Now, I've got these chains, they're like safety, security chains I used to have on my front door. I've now got them holding both the living room door and the bedroom door open.

So the only way you can close the doors is by unchaining them. So he's here on his own, if he is, or when he is, he can never get caught like that again. So when I see something happen, I'll make a change.

If I see, there was one time, I did do a video of it. It's somewhere, I don't know where. He got into my chair, got into the table, climbed up and started knocking books off the bookshelf and fell off with the books.

Because the books pushed him off the chair as well. And he landed on the floor with books falling on him. Now, when I stopped laughing, I did film it actually, so probably not good.

But I didn't expect that to happen. I just couldn't believe how he got up there. And then, you know, but anyway, to make sure it never happened.

Sounds terrible, isn't it? I was filming it. But to make sure it never happened. Okay, someone else filmed it by accident.

I don't know how it happened. And I can't believe he didn't put the phone down and help Andre. Anyway, I was just so angry about that.

To make sure that Andre never does that again, I've had to take away one of the shelves. So he can't get onto the top shelf, the first shelf, and then climb onto the next shelf, and then to the next one. So it's about adapting, always adapting, making little changes.

Because the slightest little change, he takes advantage of. I'll give you an example. I've got a recycling container on top of my freezer.

And for some reason, I must have gone into the freezer. I put the recycling container on the floor in the washing machine. And I must have just forgotten to put it back on.

So I'm sitting here watching telly. I hear crash, crash, crash. I go in, Andre's in the sink, knocking everything off of the counters, of the kitchen counters.

So basically, he's managed to climb from there and climb onto the top of the recycling bin, climb onto the laundry basket, and then jump onto the counter, and then proceed to move and push everything off. Luckily, I was here to stop him from doing too much damage. So any opportunity, he takes it.

And he actually, this happened years ago, years and years ago, I came home one day, and my kitchen, I thought I'd been burgled. Because my kitchen, cutlery, broken plates, food, everything, pretty much everything that was on the kitchen counters, including the kitchen, the plate rack, was just on the floor, broken and spread everywhere. Food was all over the place.

I honestly couldn't figure out. I was like, oh my God, I've been burgled. So I come into the living room.

Everything's fine here. Go into the bedroom, make sure my bed's still there. Counted my pillows.

I don't know why that's funny. Counted my pillows and checked that the toilet roll was available now. Everything else was fine.

I couldn't figure it out, honestly. And then I looked for Andre, and he was hiding. I found him and he had bits over him.

So I think there'd been like some food and he'd sort of got a bit of stuff stuck to him from the kitchen. I'm not quite sure what, probably maybe some jam or some porridge or something that was sort of on him. So I picked him up, took him in there, and I realized that he'd, I think I had a chair, I left a chair in there.

So he climbed onto the chair and then climbed on to the washing machine and gone from there. He knocked everything. There was nothing left.

He'd knocked the whole lot down. I mean, there's knives all over the floor, everything. Seriously, it's like, this is, this is not good.

I mean, he could have really got hurt. And I looked at him and he had this little innocent little face on him. Like, I don't know who did it.

Maybe we've been robbed. He really is a wind up. But it took a while to clean that place.

So seriously, he knocked everything off. Saucepans off the cooker, frying pan off. He's anything.

I mean, he must have had the time of his life. Seriously, he must have really, I think he was wet as well. He must have fallen into the the washing up bowl.

And trust me, he's never going to get trapped in water. He'll always find a way out because he hates water. And he can get out of the bath.

And the bath is really high. It's got a high back to it compared to him. But he can get out in a second because he hates, he moves so quickly.

He almost defies gravity with speed. And yeah, that was weird. So I have to keep an eye out for him.

I have to learn. There's a certain distance that he won't jump. I have to gauge that distance just right.

So I know how close I can put the table, my table to the chair. So get onto the chair. You can go to the little side table.

So I have to keep taking everything off of there. But there's a certain distance that he will jump to get onto the table. And then that's it, mate.

He'll knock everything off the table. The only thing he can't knock off is the laptop because it's too heavy. And it kind of sticks to the table.

Not in a weird way. I mean, the table is not sticky. Well, it's not.

I just cleaned it actually. It's quite, yeah, compared to him, it's quite a heavy object. But any plates, remote controls, you know, sometimes he'll wake me up when I'm asleep with the TV.

He turns it on. Oh, man. And he'll just knock everything on the floor.

Anything he can, he'll knock onto the floor. He does the same with the wardrobe, not the wardrobe, the dressing cabinet, you know, the set of drawers next to my bed. You know, I've got stuff piled on there so he can't actually move it.

But if he can, he'll get on there and he'll just knock everything on onto the floor. It's just he can't help it. A flat surface has to be cleared.

In some ways, you can make quite a good waiter. Just from the aspect of this table needs to be cleared, but not in how he does it. You know, the technique's probably not very good for a restaurant.

Just chuck everything on the floor. Although that's, you know, I've seen cleaners do that. Just knock stuff on the floor and just push it under the chair so no one can see.

I'm going to talk about cleaners. I'm talking about myself. Nice little drink.

Oh, Coca-Cola. It's really weird. I don't even think about buying alcohol.

I don't understand why. It used to be one of my, you know, even a few years ago, even when I didn't used to drink much, just like maybe at the weekends. Don't even think about it.

Doesn't even cross my mind, apart from when it does. But I, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Okay, that's not bad, is it? Count up to seven.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I had the heating come on last night. It was pretty hot.

It's been getting cold at night. Yeah, during the day, it's been quiet. And I suppose some people would class it as yummy.

It's been yummy weather. But I don't know. It's been, because going out isn't, well, I don't go out, really.

And it's not an enjoyable experience. You know what? This is totally true. Yesterday, my friend knocked on my door and asked me to go to the chemist with him, the pharmacy, because he didn't feel very well, but he needed to go there.

And I'd like to hold him hand with emotional support, you know, not physically hold his hand. And I said, okay. We help each other out.

So I said, yeah, all right. Got on the bus, waited for the bus, 50 minutes, 55 minutes for the bus before we got there. Got on.

And the bus went past us to start with, and was like, whoa, waving. We both already put our hands out. And the bus driver stopped.

He said, oh, I thought you were just standing there talking. Well, a bus stop. I said to him, well, for the last hour, how would he know that I'd been there for an hour? And then he started being friendly.

So we're chatting and saying, oh, yeah, it's been, had two buses break down and the bus timetable's back to normal now. Because it didn't seem like it was, but apparently it is. And that was all right.

But, you know, then we get, then we get to the next, the bus stop that we're getting off. And it took about two minutes on the bus. It's probably about a 15, 20 minute walk.

It's a really, it was a really short bus journey. It didn't, there's no bus stops to stop back. There's no one waiting, no traffic.

And the driver said, oh, you'd have been quicker for you to walk. I said, yeah, I know that, but he's ill. He said, yeah, I know.

I was like, it's just, you know, okay. I would not wait 50 minutes for a bus to take me just up the road. You know, not, not, no.

I'd have gone home long before that. And then we wait and we get the bus back. And on the way in, I got on and there was, they hadn't had a new seating arrangement before.

I'd never been on where there'd been a seating arrangement. And I said, where do I sit? And the bus driver said, you can sit anywhere where there's not a label. The label which says, do not sit here.

Do not sit on this seat. So I sat on one and my friend sat on the other side. And I just thought, you know, technically there's no reason why me and him can't sit together because we're in the same bubble.

You know, the, the, the legal law abiding bubble, he's my bubble and I'm his bubble. So he can come up here. I can go down there.

We can be, sit next to each other in public. If we can do it in private, then we can do it in public. I don't sit next to anyone anytime ever.

But you know, I'm just saying, you know, I like, I've always got my distance from everybody. I mean, what's the point? Why would you sit right next to somebody? What's the point in that? But anyway, we were distanced. And then the bus back, he sat down on one of the seats and there wasn't another seat for like a few seats back before I just stand.

And I thought, you know what, I'm going to count, see how many seats there actually are. And I think there was 55 seats or 50, 50 odd seats on the bottom of the bus, you know, would normally be available. Only seven spaces for people to actually sit down.

Seven. So I'm guessing the same will be upstairs. So they can fit 14 people seated on a double decker bus, which would normally hold maybe 100.

And also people would normally be able to stand, but you can't stand together without the distancing. How is that going to work? Wow. That's just, that's just wow.

And then on Monday, it didn't matter. It didn't matter yesterday, but Monday everyone has to wear masks or face coverings rather on the buses. All public transport face coverings have to be more.

And then I think they're expecting more people to go out because all the shops are now allowed to open on Monday. Okay. And I don't know why today wasn't okay.

Monday apparently is different. Maybe it's a different, you know, different air on Monday or something. So it's why people start using the buses again, because I've been on the bus maybe four times this year or four times since this stuff started.

So that's February time. And mainly just to go to the chemist. I think twice to go to the chemist, once to go into town and then once yesterday.

Although I say four times, that's coming back as well. So that's eight times, I guess. But there's never been anyone hardly on the bus, like maybe two other people during this period that I've been on the bus.

Not in February, but since February. In February it's like full, full of people coughing and sneezing. Lovely.

And then come March, everything, you know, changed. So I don't know. I don't know how it's going to work.

I'm going to, I don't know what's, it's very strange. It was just, it was just strange. So I'm going to have to get on the bus on Monday.

And I really don't want to because I can't wear the surgical masks. I've realised what happens is the, I didn't realise this till yesterday because the day before I wore a surgical mask in the garage and I came out and I got a few, I've got enough stuff to last me for a few days in the garage. And I got home and my eyes were stinging.

So I get home. I went to the garage to get my friend some stuff because he couldn't get out because he was unwell. So I went to the garage, got him some stuff, got myself some stuff, and then came back, gave him his stuff.

This was a couple of days back. And then I thought, all I'll do now is I'll take, I took his dog out for a walk. That's it.

Because he couldn't, he couldn't get out. He was unwell. So I took his dog out for a walk and my eyes, I couldn't hardly keep my eyes open.

I don't get hay fever. I get the odd little bit of a sniffle sometimes in the summer. So maybe the pollen affects me a little bit, but not a proper hay fever.

But my eyes were watering and I couldn't figure out why. I really thought, well, there's something wrong here. My eyeballs were stinging.

And then the next day, or the day after, I went back to the garage, had to get some stuff for myself. And I realized that the surgical masks, because before I used to have the surgical mask over my glasses, which was steaming my glasses up. And someone said, why don't you put the surgical, why don't you put the glasses over the surgical mask so that it doesn't steam up your glasses, which didn't work.

But the surgical mask was rubbing against my eyes. I didn't realize it, but I was so focused on what I wasn't able to see. It wasn't the garage.

It was the, um, it was the, yeah, it was the shop. So I had to go to the shop and I was asking for help because I couldn't see properly. I was saying, look, I can't, do you have any tea cakes? Tea cakes are important to me.

If you know anything about me, you realize that. And I haven't had any proper tea cakes that I used to have from Iceland for, I believe, three months. I used to have them every day.

My big treat of the day, apart from, you know, my daily poo or two, my big treat of the day was to have my tea cakes, toasted tea cakes, can of Coke, and watch in an episode of Minder, or maybe like an old sitcom from the past that would be on TV or on TV before. Maybe it's George and Mildred or Terry and June or various different ones over the years. But that's been my little treat.

And that's what I mean. Sometimes, you don't want to say be kind to yourself. It's those little things.

Sometimes it doesn't have to be extravagant. It doesn't have to cost money. Tea cakes were a pound for four tea cakes.

I'll have two tea cakes in a sitting. What's he doing? So I'll have two tea cakes in a sitting, like, you know, for a nice little snack. So it'd be 50, it's a 50 pence treat, you know, basically for two.

And a can of Coke, which works out being 60 pence, something like that. So that was a very snotty sneeze, Andre. So like one pound, 10 pence.

I've got a nice half an hour of pleasure. It's pleasurable. I've got to admit, it's nice.

I've been doing it for years. Just, you know, there was a time I used to, when I was quite unwell, back in 2014, was it? 2013. And one of my favourite things to do is go to the park, go and feed the squirrels.

I'd actually buy food from the supermarket, like proper nuts and stuff, and seeds for the pigeons as well. And I'd do that. I'd feed the squirrels.

They'd be jumping all over me and, you know, because they got to know me. I'd go there pretty much five days a week, maybe six, feed the pigeons or the birds, whatever birds wanted to come along. A few penguins used to pop up, you know, and some would fall over, so I'd pick them up.

And I enjoyed it. It was nice. Then on the way back, I'd say hello, I'd pop into the Evolution Store, which is where I used to work, and also used to volunteer a bit at that point as well.

So I used to volunteer, helping out when I felt well enough. And they didn't really call on me that much, but more just for deliveries, or if they were short-staffed, I might go in for a few hours, but not much. And I'd say hello, have a chat with my friends in there.

And then I'd say, got to go, Terry and June's on in a minute. And then I'd walk home because I was very close to town. So from town to my house, yeah, I'd go down.

Yeah, generally, I just go down the, yeah, past, I think it was Poundland, there's a Poundland shop, turn left, there was a greetings card shop ahead, and I think an optician's on the left, and then turn right, another optician's on the left. Then on the right-hand side, there was a few different shops. I think an HMV used to be there, I think, before we moved, on the left-hand side, moved to a different place.

On the right-hand side, I think, what is it, WA Smith, and a few of my clothes shops and stuff, and a mobile phone shop. Then turn right, there's like a church. So if you go left, there's a library, and hopefully it's still there.

Turn right, there's a few other shops, the chocolate shop, Marks and Spencer's, it's the backdoor entrance. And sometimes I go in the backdoor entrance, I mean, I don't know, I'm so used to going in the front, into the main entrance, but it's the other side of the road. Sometimes it's nice to just do something a bit different.

So I'd go in the back way, and used to go through the clothes section, then you get to the food the other way. So the front entrance, it's like everything's there, and that you could see everything, but it's a much bigger entrance as well. You have like two or three triple, double doors open.

The back entrance is a lot smaller, it's a bit harder to get in. And so there's just like one door that opens, and it's a bit dark, kind of sense. You can't, in the entrance, it's more like an alleyway, it's quite dark as you kind of enter, can't quite see.

There's a lot bigger inside once you get in there, but it's, and it's closed. And I think there's an escalator that goes upstairs, and there's more like bedding and stuff like that, I think. But in the front entrance, it's easier because that's where they have the cakes.

It just tastes better. Not that the front entrance tastes better, it's where I like, I mean, I prefer to look at cakes than look at clothes. That's what I'm saying.

Yep. And but then if you turn left, go down, and it's a little road, it's not a little road, it's a road. It's not a big road, not a little road.

It's a road. And it goes all the way down. And then turn left.

I mean, that that road is got 12345 coffee places, just sitting that road alone. And a couple of mobile phone places. I'm sure there's a charity places, there's a shoe shop there.

I think it's called Jason. There's a shoe shop called Jason. Can you believe it? I never get any percentage of the earnings.

Where's my residual check? Seriously. So then you keep going down. There's a place where the girl that I used to be in love with, she's not there anymore.

And then turn left at the bank. And it's an alleyway, another alleyway that you can go down. Or you can turn left and go all the way around.

The alleyway is easier. Use crossover, go down the alleyway. Go down the steps.

And then just turn left, go down the way and then cross the road. And then cross the next road. Walk down to the end of that road.

Another couple of coffee shops. And there's Tesco, which is handy. A Laundrette as well, which was... I don't like Laundrettes, but it was handy because I didn't have a Laundrette in my room.

So I needed to go to a public one, which was across the road. I still didn't like doing that, even though it was close. And then I... There's something about washing your dirty laundry in public.

Anyway, then I'd cross the road. There's two parts of the road. Or I'd walk up to traffic lights.

It's not that far to walk up to traffic lights to cross safely. But I'd get over there and my road was directly opposite pretty much the supermarket. And I'd walk up.

It only took a couple of minutes and I'd be home. I lived in a little dungeon, a little underground dwelling. The place itself, it had something going for it.

I can't think of anything right now, but it had... The thing that was going for it was its location. It was a brilliant location. It was so close to town, which would have been a really good thing, I think, for me to be closer to somewhere where there was... You know, with the park and just... The thing is, I don't know, because like most little towns, it's just a couple of roads or a few roads with some shops.

And then that's kind of it. And then the nightlife changes because the pubs and the clubs and stuff. But I'm not really, really into that.

So maybe, I don't know, it was just nice to be near a supermarket, especially at Easter or leading up to Easter. Every day after Christmas, I'd buy another Easter egg. Oh, it was lovely.

Well, it probably wasn't. It might not have been that healthy for me, I don't know. But, you know, I did it.

I did it anyway, because I'm a rebel. I'm a rebel, I am. And yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think if I get this flat moved closer, I think it would be nicer. But on the safe side, I was just far enough away from town to not hear too much of what was going on. So I don't think I'd want to be in the center of town, because there's lots of activity at night.

Especially, you know, Friday, Saturday evenings, which is normal. That's what's supposed to happen, isn't it? So I don't know. I used to live in the town center when I worked in a chip shop when I was 16.

That was my first flat. It's really weird. My first and only flat from 16.

And I left there when I was 17. And I didn't get another flat until I was 44, 45? No, 44. How many years is that? 17, 27, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44.

So 27 years. 27 years between flats. Wow, that's quite a long time, isn't it? Though I have lived in a few studio flats or apartments, so they were self-contained.

They just weren't flats. It's like one room, bathroom, kitchen. So I lived in... How many of those? Three, four.

Yeah, four. I lived in four of those. And the first one I ever lived in was when I was about 19, I think.

Or was I 20? Now, I always think I was 20 or 19, 20, something like that. And I moved into this place. I liked it.

I did. I liked it a lot. It was really nice.

Nice bathroom, nice kitchen. The room was big, had a television, a reclining sofa, chair thing, and also a nice bed, like a sofa that turned into a bed. I liked it.

And it's self-contained. And it was the first time that I'd had that for a long time. To be able to just be, had my own space was lovely.

Oh, it felt lovely. It felt so nice, so freeing, just to be able to, you know, even though it didn't have like two rooms and, you know, it's not like this, but it was nice. It was just so nice to just not, you know, lock the door and that was it.

Bye-bye world. And I could just watch telly and chill out. And yeah, it was good.

And then I lost my job, or I didn't go to work, one of them. I think I just stopped going to work because I wasn't, for whatever reasons. And I wasn't able to pay the rent, because I think I was paying weekly, or maybe monthly, but I wasn't able to pay it.

And then one day I come out, come back, and the bloke who owns the place was really not very happy with me. And he said that I left the tap dripping in the kitchen and the whole of his ceiling in his bedroom fell down. And well, I said, well, it wasn't me.

It's not always the best excuse, but the thing about me, and I'm not saying this is a, as a, I'm not saying it's kind of like, or picking myself up, or am I amazing, but I know how to operate a tap. I do. I learned that at a very early age, and I lived with a father that would not allow people to leave taps running.

Trust me, I learned to not leave lights on, to not leave taps running, to put the lid down on the toilet seat, the toilet seat down, stuff like that. So I don't leave taps running. I have occasionally, but it's not something that would normally be done.

It's not, you know, and if it is, it's like a drip. I don't know where he thought I'd been, because I hadn't been anywhere. I'd been out working, and I come back, because I was on night shifts at the time, I think.

Even a drip wouldn't have caused a flood. And he said that it was left running, it was full on going. So I'm wondering whether or not he, maybe he did it for insurance.

He just let himself in, turned the tap on, thought I'll blame it on this teenager, this, you know, and get an insurance claim or something, I don't know. I hadn't thought about that at the time. I'm sure you wouldn't.

I'm sure no one would do anything like that. But I know how to turn it. I know taps are not that difficult to operate.

You know, you turn them one way, you turn them another. One way, it turns them on, opens up the valve, and you turn it the other way, closes the valve, and the water is no longer able to escape. So yeah, I wasn't too, I wasn't greatly pleased about being accused of something like that.

And then I owed him money, which was probably not that great, for the rent. But this was about a month later, because he said, I'll get back to you about the ceiling. So a month later, I packed my job in, and I didn't have any money.

I didn't have enough money to pay him for the week's rent. So he was like hassling me for it. And he said, oh yeah, and I might have to take you to court over that.

The ceiling, if the insurance don't pay out, or something like that. So I thought, I'd better get out. So I just, I did a runner.

So I've waited, I think, early hours of the morning, the next day, and just got my bags packed, and just got out of there, and looked around for somewhere else to live. And yeah, I found somewhere. What a weird, I found somewhere.

And funny enough, I must have had the money to pay the rent. So I think he was, I think he might have been trying to demand more money from me, maybe for the flood damage. So I think that might be what it was, he was trying to kind of keep me hostage over that.

Anyway, I left, rented a room out, in the same road that I used to live in, when I was the age of about eight or nine, to the age of 15. So it's literally just up the road from where I used to live. Three minute walk, two minute walk.

It's a very long road. It's a two minute walk. It's like, wow, how weird.

Very strange. And it's a much smaller house than the one I used to live in. So which was a bit strange.

It's very, I thought it would have been kind of the same outlay, but it wasn't. But it's weird still, because it's the same road. And I ended up sleeping in a room.

And they clearly weren't supposed to be bedrooms, they were like living rooms. But the one at the front was by a couple that were living together. I lived in a room next to them.

And then there was a kitchen. Then upstairs. I think there was also a bathroom through the kitchen.

So I never went upstairs. So I don't really know what was up there. The people in front of me was the mat.

I already met them before. And they were really nice to me. Really heavy drinkers.

You know, really, really nice to me. And they even helped me out financially, not giving me money, because they needed to buy alcohol. But they helped me out to figure out my finances.

Because I wasn't great at that time. And we figured out if I got enough part time cleaning jobs, I'd be able to pay the rent, have enough to buy food and you know. And it's like, they're really lovely.

Seriously, it might sound strange. I don't mean it's the idea that it's strange that alcoholics would be nice, but they really kind of almost took me under their wing. But they were, you know, they were very well.

And yes, and then I sold all of my belongings. Because at that time, I had loads of albums, comedy albums, like a really big collection of comedy albums that I've been collecting for quite a while. Comedy DVDs, not DVDs, videos as well, all stand up comedy, American English, just all, you know, everything you can imagine.

And I sold them all to a policeman, who my dad knew, who was also used to do comedy. He used to do, you know, shows and stuff. And he, he bought a whole lot off me for a couple of hundred pounds.

And in January, I don't even know how I managed to do it. Did I say managed, managed, managed to do it. I managed to get together about 400 pounds or something like that, 500 pounds with the part time jobs I had.

And it was only for about two months. And then in January, I moved to London. And I just had enough to pay for rent for, you know, a few weeks.

And I was going to look for a job. And it's really strange, because I already had in my mind, what I was going to do, I was going to go back to the same place that I worked in, in London, the previous year, which I did, and they didn't have any vacancies. And then my landlady, I told her, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Who's my, my whole kind of plans gone. And I might have to move out, I have to move back. And I don't think she wanted to lose a lodger.

Actually, you know, it's 40 pound a week, then. Imagine how much that would be now. That was in 1991.

40 pound a week. And she said, Oh, leave it with me. Next thing I knew, I was speaking to her best friend, who is the human resources manager of a bakery, like a huge bakery in East London.

I had a job interview, got the job, and I started working the next week. And apparently, according to the chef who interviewed me, he said he had to have a choice in it. He said the job was mine before I even got there.

But he had to go through the, you know, the questions. They said, you already had the job, he didn't have a say in it. Made me laugh.

And then, yeah, probably the next week, I did my first stand up comedy gig that I'd already had booked since December. Because I had two booked in January. Two booked for January, I think.

January 16th or the 23rd, I'm not sure, was the very first gig that I did at the comedy cafe. And I also did a little pub gig before that, like I think the Thursday before. And before that, I did an audition for a Sky Talent contest.

It's a TV show. And that was the year before, which I didn't get anywhere with that. But I didn't even know what I was doing.

I'd never been on stage, never performed anything. I can't even, I don't even know what I was talking about. Like, do I ever? But, you know, it just must have been absolutely awful.

Really. There you go. And, excuse me, that's nice to do a nice big burp at the end.

Don't be scared, it's only gas. Of course, that's not a sentence you'd want to hear during a war, is it? It's only gas. Anyway, I'm going to go.

Thank you very much for listening. And things do work out, don't they? Things always work out somehow. Maybe not the way we want, or the way we expect, but things do work out.

Yeah, yeah. And I do know how to operate taps. I'm sticking to that.

Even though I have a memory of probably about four years ago, a friend of mine came round here. We went out to lunch, came back, and the tap was on full in my basin in the kitchen, not in the kitchen, in the bathroom. Because I was rushing around, and I don't know how, and I still, to this day, I can't imagine how that happened.

The only thing I can imagine is maybe I banged it and I pushed it open again with my sleeve or something, because I know how to operate taps. By the way, for those that don't know what a tap is, you may call it a faucet. You may wrongly call it a faucet.

It's a tap, because you're not supposed to force them. You should be able to just turn it on and off with ease. No forcing should be necessary, so you shouldn't have to need to use a faucet.

It's just a normal tap, but then you don't actually tap it. You do turn it, or sometimes you push it or pull it, depends on what the particular design is. You can't argue that talking about taps is a very boring subject.

So that was boring. So thank you very much. I'm going to go.

Remember to be kind to yourself, because you do deserve to be happy. Lots of love. Bye.