#441 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (30th June 2020)

Hello and welcome to Jason Newland dot com. My name's Jason Newland. This is... Let me bore you to sleep.

That was a video. Sometimes I have YouTube and Facebook and I can't... I have a video come up and I can't get rid of it. I saw this video earlier.

Only listen when you can safely close your eyes, if I haven't said that. I watched this video on Facebook earlier and it showed... It was a very, very earnest. It's a very, very earnest video and it was... This man couldn't... This man couldn't afford to buy a birthday cake and someone else changed his life.

That was the title of the video. It dragged on a bit, went on for a bit. Anyway, there's a bloke with his daughter in a shop going to pay for a cake and some mayonnaise, chocolate cake and some mayonnaise.

It's like a birthday cake. Weird mixture. And then she said, oh, it costs too much.

You know, it's only... There's only 8 dollars there. It's going to cost you 16 dollars. Something like that.

And he said, what if you put the mayonnaise back? And she said, oh, that's only going to take 4 dollars off. It's still going to be 22 dollars or something. And so he leaves.

He leaves and the bloke behind him, there's a man behind him going, oh, I can't believe... Can you hurry up, man? I can't believe you're taking so long. I've got things to do. And then another person comes out of the shop and runs up to the man and the girl.

He says, hey there, man. I got you. I got you some... Here's a carrier bag.

Here's some stuff. And the man was like, oh, what is it, man? And the other bloke says, oh, look inside. And it was the stuff that he couldn't afford to buy because he didn't have enough money.

You know, the mayonnaise and the chocolate birthday cake. And then he gives him a card and says, he tells him a story about how someone did something like that to him before and handing him a card saying, pay it forward. So it's a lovely little thing.

And then they take it back. It's to his dad, to the little girl's granddad. And it turns out that, you know, kind of it was a full circle kind of thing.

Anyway, what I thought would be really funny is just the man came running out saying, you forgot this. And he said, I got this for you, pay it forward. And he opened the bag up and it was just the bottle of mayonnaise.

And that was it. That just tickled me. I couldn't stop laughing.

I just, that's what I thought was going to happen. I thought it was a comedy. I thought it was because the whole pay it forward and helping people out.

I mean, it has happened. Hasn't there? I've seen videos of it on YouTube where people have been in a queue in a supermarket and they've sort of walked to the front of the queue and said, I'll pay for his stuff. And everyone's like, what are you doing? What are you doing? Oh, oh.

And it's like really, you know, it's people actually been doing that. Thing is, the person originally was probably three or four in the queue and he might just have lots of money and very impatient. I thought, I know, I'm going to get to the front of the queue.

I'm just going to walk through, pay for the bloke's food at the front of the queue. That way I'll get out earlier than everyone else. It's only going to cost me $30.

Oh, do I sense a tint of cynicism? Anyway, that's what I thought. I thought it was a comedy sketch. I thought it was come running out and say, there you go.

And the man opens it back up and there was the mayonnaise bottle. But it wasn't. I was so disappointed.

Oh, well, let's have the heating on today or tonight. It's been cold in here all day long. And, you know, being, considering it's the 30th, 30th, yeah, 30th of June, I was like, no, shouldn't have to have the heating on.

That's just no. Then I thought to myself, why should I be cold? Why should I? You can't make me. You can't make me be cold.

What's the game? Am I going to get a medal? I'm going to get an award for sitting here cold. No. So there you go.

So I put the heating on. So let's see if I've got any messages. I changed my Facebook picture, you know, the banner a couple of times yesterday and today.

And I quite like the one today because it's got over one million downloads yearly, which is true. It's like, wow, I could put over one and a half million, but I thought I'd just stick to one million. Don't want to get too carried away.

And I did have a message. Generally, I did have some messages. I'm sure I did.

Just a message for Lucille. Lucille, thank you. I've got your message.

Thanks for that. Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Did I get a message? Well, I did get a couple of things.

A couple, a couple. A couple of messages. One was, I woke up to this, which is lovely.

My name is Patrick and I used to listen to your podcast. Hey, help me go to sleep until those annoying loud ads get waking me up. How can you remove those annoying loud ads? People who subscribe to you don't like them.

So I just removed them. See, there you go, Patrick. So all you've got to do is just send me a check for $450 a month.

That'll cover that. Thank you. Samuel says, I love your podcasts, especially Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

Isn't it weird? You've got two different, well, two different tones, as it were. I love your podcasts, especially Let Me Bore You To Sleep. I haven't slept this well in months.

Five out of five. You've graded me. I know that they give you, but I've never actually been graded before.

It's like being at school. Your podcasts are amazing. Thank you, Samuel.

And that, I do believe, is all the messages I've got. Yeah, I think that's it. So yeah, I took all the adverts off the podcasts now.

So they're gone. You know, I'm not here to cause problems for people. And I mean, it's an experiment to see what's he doing? Andre? Andre is now in my arms.

I've just picked him up. What is it you want, mate? Huh? You just want to cuddle? You just want to cuddle, cuddle? You want to cuddle with daddy? That isn't what he wants. He wants me to take him out for a walk.

And he's already been out for a walk. Took him out a couple of hours ago. We went out to the park, didn't we? Yes, we did.

Have to make sure that he only walks on the grass though. Because when he walks on the grass, he doesn't, he doesn't scrape his, he doesn't cause his foot to bleed. Because it's softer, I guess.

But you know what? Even though, I mean, it's not a big park by any means. It's like, it's a little village park. No, I live in a village.

It's a tiny little place. But the parks, for someone his size, it's a nice size park. Stop sneezing, shut up.

And even when I've got him on the extension lead, he still has to pull against it. Seriously, I think the extension's about, it's got to be about 12 foot. And he has to pull as far as it goes.

He doesn't want to walk near me. He wants to get as far away from me as possible. Now, I don't mind, but you know, I can understand it when we're indoors, but surely outside, that's whistly, wasn't it? Surely outside, I shouldn't smell quite so bad.

Yeah, it's really weird. He's he's laying down on his back. And with my left, with my right hand, I'm just holding his tummy and his back.

And with my left hand, I'm playing with his left, yeah, his left foot, the injured one. Just gently, just gently playing with his toenails and the little pads underneath each toenail. And then he's got another, he's got one, two, three, one, two, three, four pads on the actual kind of the bottom of his feet.

And then one little pad under each of his five toes. And I think he must enjoy this. Because if you know ferrets, or if you've ever seen on video with me, because I've made a few videos over the years, he doesn't like to sit still when he's awake.

And right now he's almost he might be falling asleep, I don't know. And maybe there's, what's weird though, is I'm putting my fingers in there, like in between the bottom of his feet. I do the other one, and he's so relaxed.

His feet aren't wrapping around my fingers. Does that make sense? Normally they kind of automatically grip to my fingers. So he's so relaxed that the natural response of gripping whatever's there.

So if I put a stick against the bottom of his feet, it'd grip against it, or my fingers or anything. But he's not. He's just enjoying just being here.

He wants to move now. Do you want to move now? Or don't you just sit there? That's it. That's a good boy, just sit there.

And I'll play with his, the palms of his feet now. Of his, oh he wants to get down. All right then.

I'm gonna wash my hands when I finish this. Who knows what's been in his little feet. See, I have to let him go sometimes, you know, he's, sometimes he's just, he's restless.

But right now he's gone because he wants to go and have something to eat. Who am I to stop him from doing that? Or if he needs to go to the toilet or whatever he wants to do, he can do whatever he wants. You know, he's his own person.

And you see, I've run out of cat food. He doesn't like the cat food I'm giving him. So he's eating dry food now.

And I got, just before probably the beginning of the lockdown, I got a lot of cat food to last me probably three months. And I've come to the end of it yesterday. And the cat food that I've got for him is like leftover from before that.

It's still, it's not, it's in packets, you know, still fresh. But it's, it's, he doesn't like it. It could, you know, it's an extra gravy version of the, yeah, an extra gravy version of the one that he likes.

So I figured he's gonna love this because he loves gravy. But then he started saying, soup is not a meal. And I thought, oh my goodness, he's heard me say that in the past.

Daddy, soup is not a meal. Gravy is not a meal. Oh man, he listens to me too much because I just, do I moan a lot? Do you think? I think I might do.

I don't mean to. I try and be positive, but so much more fun being negative. Anyway, he won't eat it.

He won't ill eat it, but he doesn't like it. So what I did is I tried to separate as much of the gravy as I could out of the meat. But what I've seen they've done is there's less meat.

It's a lot more gravy. So it's a smaller amount of meat. And he's still only eating about three quarters.

And he's preferring to eat the dry food. But I can't afford to buy him any new cat food at the moment. So he's gonna have to make do with the one I've got.

It's like, oh, ridiculous. Woe is me. Woe is me.

If anybody would like, I was gonna say, if you'd like to buy him some cat food, you can. He's got a wishlist, but I forget what, I can't remember what the link is to it. So it's not much help, is it? Never mind.

You'll have to starve. Yeah. I'll get him something next week.

He's got food. He's not gonna go without food. He's just gonna have to eat what he doesn't like.

I don't understand it. It should be exactly the same just with more gravy. So I've reduced the gravy.

I've drained it. I mean, other than dry each individual piece of meat, I don't know what to do. But he's so fussy.

Although he's better than he used to be. He will eat goat cat and he will eat whiskers. As long as it's got gravy, he can't stand stuff with jelly.

Cat food with jelly. Seriously, Andre. I finally just put that clean paper down.

Don't pull on it yet. Don't, don't. Oh, now he's having a drink.

Oh, bless him. I think his legs working better. He's still, he's limping.

And now he's, it's date night again. Why does he always have date night when I'm doing these recordings? Genuinely, I mean, if you listen, you hear him, it's the amount of times that he's asleep for so long during the day and during the night. And I started recording.

Do you want to get up? No? Okay. Andre. So yeah, he's, I forgot what I was saying now.

Oh, he's going to sleep now. I think he likes to be part of it. He knows that he's the star of the show.

He likes to be part of this podcast. So, and I like him to be part of it. If I looked a bit better, a bit more human, I would do a video version of this as well.

You know, sort of record myself as I have done in the past, but not for quite some time. But my beard is getting so long and straggly. It's, honestly, the other day, I was, I got a mirror near the front door.

So I'd been out, I came back, turned the light on in the hallway, and I saw myself. I didn't realize it was me. I actually put my hand in my pocket.

You know, I was about to give my spare change to the person in the mirror. It's like, oh, it's me. Ridiculous, really.

It's terrible. You know, we sort of, the other day, I was waiting for someone, you know, and my friend, outside the shop, with the dog, because the dog can't go in the shop. I like to, I hold him and he goes in the shop.

Someone came over and gave me a cup of coffee. I was like, I'm not home. I'm not home.

That's what you're doing. He said, well, I'll take it back then. No, no, it's fine.

You got any sugars? Has he got sugar in it? Or just one? You know what? I've actually, I'm not saying this, you know, to be a hero. Of course, I am a hero, but that's not the reason I'm saying that, is because I try and give something like this. I try and do something for the people that are, not everybody, but people that are begging.

I do occasionally, you know, try and if I've got money or not so much money, I'd rather buy them a cup of coffee or get them a burger or get them, I don't know, something like a sausage roll from Greg's. I remember doing that. And I gave those two people, so I've got a pack of four sausage rolls.

They weren't warm because they were in packs. Obviously, they can't put them into the plastic until they're cooled down. But I thought, that's all right.

And I thought, I'll have two for me for when I get home, maybe one now and then one when I get home, or maybe on the bus. But they do make a mess, don't they? They're very crummy, very crummy. And especially with my beard, it's, I just don't know sometimes what's on it.

It just crumbs. And that's probably the only benefit, probably, of having a girlfriend is that I have someone to tell me that I look ridiculous, just to remind me, oh, by the way, you've got stinging, stinging nettles in your beard. Can you remove that, please? And stuff like that.

The only benefit. That sounds good, doesn't it? Well, I, what was I going to say? Oh, yeah. And I gave one sausage roll, there was a couple of homeless.

They were begging, so I don't know if they were homeless. It's a presumption on my part. So I gave them, I gave one a sausage roll, and it's like, cheers, man.

I've been ignored. Not everyone's just ignored me all day. It's like, I feel like I don't exist.

And I said, no one's sort of spoken to me or anything. And I'm just like, I don't really want to speak to you. I'm just giving you a sausage roll.

And it's not that I didn't want to speak to him, but I don't want to speak to anybody, really, when I'm out. I don't know them. I'm like, what are you going to talk about? So how's the kids? How are you getting on? But he was really nice.

So I thought, okay, that's cool. Got any money? Like, no, I haven't got any money. Just a sausage roll.

Then I gave a sausage roll to another person. He said, well, what's that? I said, it's a sausage roll. He said, what am I going to do with that? And I'm thinking, well, how do you answer a question like that? So it's just, it's a sausage roll.

It's to eat. And he said, how am I supposed to buy drugs for a sausage roll? I need money. I said, aren't you hungry in the meantime? He said, yeah.

I said, well, there's a sausage roll then. He said, but I need money. I said, we all need money, mate.

You know, I had more money than I did before. Well, I had more money before than I do now, because I bought you a sausage roll. He said, there were only £1.49 before.

I said, yeah. He said, well, you'll give me one. So what's that? It's like 30 pence each.

I said, no, it's at least 30, it's 40 pence each, isn't it? 48. I said, no, it's less than, about 37 pence. Something like that.

And he said, oh, wait a minute. And he pulled his phone out, his iPhone, and checked on the calculator. I said, why don't you put on your phone? He said, well, what would be the use of that? I said, yeah, then if you put on the phone, then you've got money to buy the stuff you want to buy.

He looked at me and he said, yeah, but if I pull my phone, how am I going to order it? I need the phone to order it. I was like, do you want the sausage roll or not? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. And there's a sausage rolling.

If it makes you happy, it eases your conscience, does it? No, trust me, giving you a sausage roll will not ease my conscience at all. For anything that I've done in my life, trust me, giving you a sausage roll is not going to make a dent in my conscience. But what you've done, what you've done then, nothing, don't you worry.

I think the thing that gets me is I've discovered, because I know some people, and a lot of the people in my town, they're not actually homeless at all. Some of them are, some of them are kind of officially, in a sense, they're not living on the streets, but they're sleeping on someone's couch or someone's city or whatever. So that is homeless, obviously.

But some of them have got their own flats, they've got their own places that they're living. But I think that anyone that's willing to sit outside in the winter, in the winter, not in the summer, in the summer, if it's nice, I wouldn't award anyone anything for that. But in the winter, freezing cold, and they're willing to sit outside, they deserve, they deserve something, they deserve a place, they deserve somewhere to live.

But if they do have somewhere to live, they still deserve something more. Because that's a hard job, isn't it? Sitting outside. Oh, I used to work in a market stall in the winter, and that was cold enough standing up.

I did try and help out a big issue seller. Well, I tried, I did help her out, and bought her a bunch of shopping and everything like that. Bought her a new trolley.

I even bought her some new shoes. And I bought her kids shoes for Christmas. And she still, all she wanted was more, more, more, more.

Honestly, she was never satisfied. And I was trying to help her out. Seriously, I remember I said, I bought her shopping.

This is totally true. I bought her shopping. And then I walked back with her, and I bought her lunch.

So it was like a toasted sandwich or whatever. Bought her coffee. I think I got her some nappies for a child.

Diapers, you call them in, you wrongly call them in America. And the... You wrongly... Diapers, what? It doesn't... It's really weird though. I say that, and then I think about the words that we use here.

Nappies. Where did that word come from? That doesn't make sense either, does it? Nappy. I just think nappy is a funnier word than diaper.

Diaper, nappy, diaper, nappy, diaper. They've probably got other words. What are they in South Africa? And what are they in Canada and Australia? And Switzerland, Brazil, what are they called? They can have different names for them, I guess.

Yeah. I... Anyway, yeah, so I bought all this stuff. I bought... Yes, I did.

I probably spent about a hundred pound. This was last year. And I couldn't do it now, but I didn't... I don't know why.

For some reason, I had... I just decided to... I wasn't going... I'll tell you the truth, all I was going to do is take her to the supermarket and spend 20 pound, maybe 16. That was my plan. I ended up spending about 60.

Ridiculous. It's like... Because I said, just get what you want. Honestly, I thought I was paying for one meal because that's what she said she needed.

I just need some food for me and my children for tonight. Okay. For me, see, the way my brain works is get some bread, get some cold meat, cheese, that kind of stuff.

And you can feed yourself and the kids for, I don't know, 10 quid. You know, that will be more than enough to sort of cover that if you're being helped by somebody else. But that's not what she did.

She went and started getting legs of lamb and all kinds of stuff. It's like, you say, is that okay? I said, no. I said, thank you.

A miscommunication there somewhere. And I think the lady that was serving on the counter, because I think she's proper racist as well, the one, because before I went in there with this girl, she was always friendly to me. Always friendly to me.

And on this occasion, looked at me like I just took a dump on the conveyor belt. Seriously, that's what she looked like. Trust me, I know that look.

That's why I don't go in all of the supermarkets. And she just, I wonder what that's for? What's that about? And ever since then, she's, this woman who works in the shop ignores me. Before that, she used to be really friendly to me.

It's weird. Because this lady that was helping out from, I don't know, Bognoregius, not Bognoregius, Romaneria, somewhere like that. And she, so there's a very big language barrier.

But anyway, I just ended up just paying for this stuff. I bought her lunch. I think I might have bought her lunch before.

And I'm about to go and she says, are you going to buy a big issue? I said, no. I said, I've just spent, I bought you shopping. Basically, I think she had a shopping for the month there.

She had so much stuff. I said, would you want me to buy the big issue? She said, yeah. I said, no.

She said, have you got a spare, do you have a couple of pound then? I could not believe it. This is not even, I'm not even joking. This sounds like one of those silly stories I tell.

It's actually true. It's a true story. I was like, really? Are you sure? She said, yeah.

And then I said, no. And I laughed and walked off. And then she, the next time she's like, oh, very friendly to me because I'd helped her out.

And I didn't want nothing from her. You know, just, I don't know, something just seemed wrong because she's this little, she's very petite, very little. She's young, probably early 20s or something.

And I think she's married. She's got two kids. And just, it's like, why are you out here in the freezing cold? I just couldn't, I couldn't understand.

Why? Surely you can get help if you've got two kids and they'd be born here. So there was something not right about the situation. I just couldn't figure it out.

I know enough about the system to know that if you have kids here in this country, probably the same in most countries, the government have to help the kids, have to pay for the kids. You know, the rent has to be paid. You have, you know, so I don't understand what's going on there.

Anyway, the next time is, I think it's a couple of weeks later, I go and walk up there and it's freezing cold and it's raining. And she's standing there in these shoes that were ripped open and her toes were sticking out and she was shivering. So I said, what? Why aren't you wearing shoes? I think she might have even had carrier bags on and then she showed me her shoes.

They were just really not wearable really. I mean, her shoe size was about a minus four. Honestly, tiny, they were like almost didn't exist.

They were so little. And I said, well, if I'd known, I'd have bought some Barbie shoes for you. And she said, oh, what? I said, don't worry.

So really, I struggle a little bit when I talk to someone that can't understand me. Because for me, it's all about verbal communication. And it's like, you know, I've known a lot of people from different countries and it can be fun, you know, learning the sort of them teaching me a little bit of their language and me teaching them a bit of slang.

Because usually, I think pretty much everyone that I meet from other countries over the last 30 years have been pretty good of English. But they didn't necessarily know the slang words, you know, some of the phrases that we use. And so I've kind of taught some of that over the years.

And, you know, I've worked, I said, it's amazing. When I think back to the amount of people that either worked with or dated or met that have been from other countries, just huge, huge amounts, loads and loads. And that's one of the good things about living in London, is you get to meet people or live with people or marry or date or, you know, work with for whatever, for all over the place.

As well as people that obviously are born here as well. And it's, yeah, I've always found it quite interesting. But if I can't, if there's a huge language barrier, then I struggle a little bit.

And there is with this, and I don't really see it, I haven't seen it since December now, because the town has been closed down pretty much since January, there's already been much going on this year at all. And that's why I said, I'll buy you some shoes. So you can't be out here.

I was actually worried for her health. You know, you can't stand out here with practically no shoes on. Here's me thinking, we'll go to the second hand shop.

She's a size three or size four or something. It'll cost me, what, 10 quid. It's fine.

No, that wasn't what she wanted. So after I said to her, I'll buy her some shoes. She took me on my word for that.

And she took me to a shoe shop, like a proper shoe shop, like the most expensive shoe shop in town, I think. And I think I ended up spending 50 pounds on shoes for her, a pair of shoes, maybe even more than that. And I was like, what have I just done? Why did I just do that? And then after I gave her, you know, bought the big issue off of her, of course, because I have to still buy that for her, I left.

I was like, how did that happen? And then at Christmas, oh yeah, I bought her a trolley, because her trolley broke. So I bought her a new trolley. But it was the second I got it from a charity shop.

I just didn't tell her. I thought, I'm not going to be, I end up paying loads of money. I would, you know, even for the charity shop, it was still about 16 pounds.

Or did I steal it? I can't remember. No, I think I did pay for it. And I went to collect it, came back, and it was pelting down with rain.

And when I came back with the trolley, she was gone. So I had to take the trolley back, and it was pink. At this point, it was pink and flowery.

So I'm walking through the town with that. I don't have an image, really. I guess, apart from, I guess I do have the, you know, really, really scruffy look.

But, you know, normally I would wear trousers, shoes. But, you know, I've got very little in the way of clothing these days. Didn't really want to walk through town with that thing.

So I walked through town to her, and then she wasn't there. So I walked all the way back to the charity shop and said, look, can you do me a favour? Can you, do you see that I bought this from you earlier? Can you please burn it? They said, what? I said, no, can you look after it till tomorrow? And I'll come back and get it from you. They said, yeah, all right then, yeah.

I said, thanks. So I did, I took it to her and she said, that's not the one I wanted. Honestly, I thought she said to me, that's not the one I wanted.

I said, what? She said, no, that's not the right one. I said, it's a trolley, isn't it? It's not broken, is it? It works, doesn't it? So she took it, which was, you know, I was very grateful that she took it. That was nice.

And then she, you know, gave me a big issue, of course. And then also every time I saw her, she kept saying, you take me shopping? Take me shopping? I'd say, no, no. You take me shopping? No.

Can you please shop, shop, shop? No, no. I just couldn't, because if I thought it was going to be maybe £5 or £10, but it wasn't. She wanted me to go.

It was one of those situations. I said, well, you need a bicycle, you need to get around. And then her taking me to the local Rolls Royce showroom, you know.

It's like, oh. A lady with very expensive tastes, which is fine, but not for me to pay, because I didn't have the money. And I was embarrassed, because, you know, when I got the shoes, and she took the shoes and put them onto the counter, and they told me how much they were, I was too embarrassed to say, no, no, no.

Have you got anything like a third of the price? So, you know, it's a case of not putting myself in that position again. And then, and then Christmas, before Christmas, just the period before Christmas, I went and I saw her in town, because I was going into town every week. And she said to me, she said, I've got a Christmas card for you.

I said, okay. I used to just walk past her and she'd stop, stop me. And she said, you get presents for my children.

I said, what? She said, it's Christmas. They won't get Christmas presents. Their daddy's in Roman area and wherever.

And she said, oh, they won't have any presents. They'll have this little bag of coal each, and they don't like that anymore. And my youngest one keeps pulling his teeth out to try to, to the, to the two-feral, or give him some money so he can buy himself a Mars bar to have for Christmas dinner.

I said, you're making that up, aren't you? She said, yes. I said, okay. And as I did, I got presents for both of her little kids.

Wasn't expensive, like, you know, 10 quid each or something. So I just got some presents. I got some wrapping paper.

I didn't wrap them up. There's a line I will not cross. No, not wrapping it up.

And I gave, I handed her the two presents. And she said, what's that? I said, that's the wrapping paper. She said, what's that for? I said, it's paper that is used for wrapping.

She said, like M&M. I said, no, that's something you eat. We both laughed.

And she said, what, what did she say? Oh, so thank you. Where's mine? I said, what? She said, where's my present? I said, you ain't got one. Why not? I said, I got these for your kids that I've never met.

You know, I just have to take your word for it that you've got children. Didn't say that, but that's what I was thinking. I'm just trying to be nice.

It's Christmas. And she said, oh, you want to get me a coffee and some dinner, some lunch? Get me some. I have a Christmas special.

And it's like, oh, blimey. And she said, don't worry about getting me coffee. Just give me the money for it.

I said, no. I said, I'll get you a coffee. And you know what she did then? She said, oh, wait, you might as well have this.

And it was a voucher, which gave me 50% off that she was saving for herself. So I did that. And I'm in town the last week before Christmas.

And she said, she's there with her cousin or a sister, I don't know, someone. And so she's talking to me. I mean, she hugs me like, oh, get off.

And she's, you know, her cousin was like shivering. And I said, you all right? She said, oh, I'm so cold, so cold. I said, I'll get you some gloves then.

She said, oh, I can't afford to. So I took my gloves off. I said, you can have my gloves.

There you go, just have them. She said, oh, she didn't realize I'd been picking my nose earlier. So they've got lots of bogeys inside them, but they're getting that.

So give me a little giggle on the way home on the bus. So she had my gloves. So now I didn't have any gloves on, but because of my body type, I don't feel the cold that much when I'm outside.

If I'm moving around, you know, it's, I can still feel it in my hands and my face and that, but my body, I'm kind of, well, a bit like a walrus, you know, quite protected. Blubber, basically. And she started saying, well, can I have some money? I said, for Christmas? I said, oh.

And I said, oh, come on, I've already given you loads. And she said, I said, I'll tell you what I'll do. Here's £10.

You can share it between the two of you. Okay? They're cousins. They're related.

They live together apparently. That's what she said. So I gave her £10.

I think I gave it to a cousin. You can share it together. A cousin put it in a pocket and said, I'm keeping it.

So the other one, the one that I was talking to, you know, for a few months, she said, what about me? I said, no, that's yours to share. No, no, that's not. Yeah, yeah.

We wish you a Merry Christmas. We wish you a Merry Christmas. I just sang a few hymns and I left.

And I thought, what a mug. I've been taken for such a mug. Why was I allowing it? And I don't know.

I think there's a genuine part of me that was just, I've been homeless before. Luckily, I've only slept on the streets once and that was for one day or one night. But most of the time I've always, you know, I've always found somewhere to sleep, whether it was on someone's sofa or on their floor.

Actually, I did sleep. I slept in a, I wasn't a homeless at the time, but I slept, slept places like inside on a staircase and stuff when I was younger. But I think I slept under the pier once.

But anyway, I think that was through choice. I was, I got stood up by, well, I was quite surprised because there's a girl, you know, I was about 18 and she was well known and very, very active, very, very liberated, very open, very adventurous and all that stuff. And she stood me up.

So I just, so I sat, laid down underneath the pier for the tide to come in. I thought, well, whatever happens tonight, I'm determined to catch crabs. And I did.

Yeah, that's good. Awesome. And I, I, I, I, yeah, I've not seen that young female since.

And I'll be honest with you, I do not miss her. Complete taking advantage of such a, such a lovely person as myself. I didn't want anything from her, genuinely.

It's like just, in fact, she used to stop me and I'd feel a bit self-conscious because I was standing there chatting to her. And someone would come up and sort of go to buy a big issue. And I'd go to walk away.

He said, no, wait, wait, wait, don't go. You know? Anyway, so that's the story of that. So I'm going to go.

I'm going to go. Thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy.

Do something nice for yourself. Lots of love. Bye.