#435 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (22nd June 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. And it's a bit warm, it's a bit warm. And what is this? This is, yeah, my name is Jason Newland. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. I've had to close the window because I'm recording this at, what time is it? 2.22 in the afternoon, which means there are background sounds. As we speak, there is no avoiding it.

So I closed the windows in the living room and it is very hot, very warm. Andre's asleep and for some reason the tracksuit bottoms that he sleeps in, they're moving further and further away from the wall so they're now practically in the middle of the room. So I have to step over him to get to the door.

So when he's not in there, I'm going to move them back to the wall. How much room does he really need? I'm sorry, I'm moaning, I shouldn't say anything about him because you all love him so much. But yeah, my lifestyle has needed to change a little bit because I've got new neighbors moved in, which means it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to sleep during the day anymore.

I don't know 100% but last night I went to bed fairly early, got up about 12 o'clock lunchtime and I may need to be doing that. So I may be making recordings during the day. I'm not pretty sure how that's going to work out.

Oh, here I am. So there. So you know, I could get a knock at the door.

I've got the phone on mute. Have I got the phone on mute? Yeah. So I won't get any phone calls.

You know how popular I am? People constantly phone me. Hi, Jason, how you been? Yeah, all the time. And that's it, really.

That's the whole recording. So I hope you're well and take care of yourselves and I'll speak to you soon. But before I go, I better talk for another 55 minutes.

I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know. I know what I want is the most important thing to say really is thank you.

A big old thank you to the people that have helped me to pay for the podcast. So I got a message yesterday saying that if I didn't, they couldn't take the payment. It was meant to have been took on Friday or Saturday.

And they couldn't take it because there wasn't enough in there. And they said, well, if you don't pay it, we'll try and take it out on the whatever day is 22nd today. Otherwise, we might cancel, you know, the podcasts.

So I asked for help, but on Facebook, and I'm not sure if I mentioned it in my in my actual podcast themselves, but I did post on Facebook. And I've had some help, which is really lovely. Let me just have a look.

I'm trying to see if I can get a list of the people that have. I must be able to surely. Oh, damn, that's weird.

Support, get paid support money. This is weird. I have to have to go back.

I have to go into my inbox to see who sent money. And so the people want to say thank you to is is is is. Oh, where is it? Okay.

First of all, Anika, or Anika. Thank you very much. And so I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Anika. And secondly, Rachel. Hi, Rachel.

Thank you very much for your support. I really appreciate it. I will be sending personal messages to the people as well.

I've already thanked a couple of people from yesterday. And I say thank you to Kay. Thank you very much, Kay.

Really appreciate it. I say thank you to Jenny. Hi, Jenny.

Thank you very much. It's very pretty, you know, pretty. And thank you.

I think that's it. And if I've missed anyone out, I'm sorry. Cynthia.

Sorry, Cynthia. How could I forget you? Cynthia, thank you very much as well. Really appreciate your help.

So we're on to the what's it called? The PayPal app, but it doesn't seem to I can get online and see who's paid. But the app doesn't seem to give me that information. Just like the latest one.

So make sure I've got everyone. Cynthia, Jenny, Kay, Rachel, and Anika. So thank you very much.

If I've missed anyone out, it's because I can't find it on my, I'm pretty sure I haven't. But if I have, I do really apologize. No, I think that's everybody.

Thank you very much. And the, let me have a look. So I managed to raise, managed to raise, just, it was really weird because I managed to raise 48 pounds.

Oh, wait a minute. More than that. Um, unfortunately, uh, PayPal takes a percentage off whenever anyone, so they don't get a full amount, but I got 50 pounds.

It looks like a 50 pound and 22 pence. And they tried to take it out again today and there wasn't enough in there. So I know it's I think $77, but I don't know what that is in pounds.

I'm going to have to check it. I'm literally just below, which is annoying because you think they just, well, no, I'm not going to say, well, we'll just take less, but at least, well, quite often my bank actually lets more go out than it's supposed to. So I don't actually have an overdraft, but a couple of times they've given, they've taken 24, 25 pound out of my account to equal the amount that's supposed to be taken out.

And then I've been in arrears, arrears and manage your pro plan. Okay. Let me manage my pro plan.

It's $72 a month. I should have paid it on the 25th. And what is it now? That's weird.

Oh no. I should have paid on the 21st, which was yesterday, which was, oh, that's sick. So don't take payments on a Sunday, do they? So they tried to take it on the 20th, the day before, or maybe even Friday.

I'm not sure when I got the, I think it was Saturday. Yeah, Saturday, they tried to take it. So the next time they're going to take it is going to be, I thought it was tomorrow.

They put here Thursday, the 25th. I'm trying to lose track of this. So, but $72.

What's that in pounds? I'm literally, I think I'm about four pounds out. It's really, it's not a lot. Let's have a look.

20. How do I get the dollar sign? 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 77. $77, 62 pounds, seven pence.

Wow. It's getting lower. The pound is getting lower and lower all the time.

It's ridiculous. Oh, 72 pounds, not 77. 72.

I changed that. I just saw a complaint saying that was really boring. It's supposed to be 58 pounds and four pence.

So 58 pounds and I've got 50, 50 pound 22. Wow. I thought my bank would have just allowed the rest to go out.

There you go. So I really appreciate it. Thank you.

And I'll be in there. And it's, you know, I think with all the vet bills, I mean, I got to last week, I had to pay the vet bill. See, I can't talk properly during the day.

The vet bill last week, and then I had other stuff come out. I had the website, $29 come out of my account. I forgot about that.

So that just like came out on the Wednesday as well. So I literally, you know, I think on, I think Friday, I think I had one pound in the, in my bank. Yeah.

I think Friday I had one pound in my bank. It might be Saturday. I think Friday.

I went up to the shops to get a stamp. In fact, I think it was Saturday. Yeah.

I had one pound in my bank, one pound 18 or something. Went up to the post office. I bought a first class stamp.

At which I needed to get paid on the card. I didn't think they were going to take it, but they did. I, you know, sometimes it's like a minimum of five pound before you can use your card in some shops.

And it's really weird because it's not, I suppose there was a little bit of like, oh, feeling sorry for myself. There was a little bit of that, I'll admit. But there's also a bit of like humor as well there.

And then kind of like, wait a minute. So I've now got, I think the stamp cost me about 40 pence or something like that. So I've got 60 pence or 50, 70 pence to my name.

Less than a pound anyway, less than a pound in 49 years. It's taken me to save less than a pound. It's like, what? So, my perspective has changed over the last week.

And I think what's changed with Andre, because I had to borrow money for to have the x-ray done for Andre. So that's 120 pound, which I have to pay back on Wednesday. So I start thinking, you know what? I don't like not having enough money to do the things because there's nothing there for emergencies.

And he's an emergency. In fact, he's a priority over myself. If it was a case of feeding him or feeding me, I'd feed me.

No, I'd stick him in there, put him in the field, let him catch his own food, catch his own dinner. I guess I'd just try and share the food. I'd make sure he's always got food.

And I suppose it's like most people would. I'm not special like that, but I was always told I was special. I didn't realise what it meant at the time.

I actually really, I thought it was that I was special and I was gifted. That's why, well, not about gifted, but I thought it was, because at the time I thought I had superpowers and stuff. And I thought I could become invisible.

Didn't always work. Sometimes I did get caught in the bathroom and they'd see me. But it was getting told, oh, you're special.

I didn't realise it was like another, another word for saying that, you know, you're really not, you know, so anyway. So my perspective has changed. I now know that I can't, I can't afford to be there for Andre in his hour of need financially at the moment.

So I need to make changes for that. I can't, you know, he might need an operation. He might need some stuff.

His legs not healing. He's still dragging himself around. He seems perfectly happy.

He doesn't, you know, in himself, no change, still being naughty, still got an appetite, still doing everything that he used to do before, just a bit slower. And I'm just trying to think, well, I don't know what I'm going to do is I need to do, I need to make some changes, which is what I'm doing. So I've decided to build, build what I've already got, build my online presence, build the podcast audience, which is growing anyway.

I'm really, I feel really lucky that I've got, I've got some amazing listeners, really have. I mean, look, the people helped me out to pay for the podcast. I've had people offer to help, even with Andre's vet bills.

I've not asked anyone to do that, but it's really, it's lovely that people have, you know, offered. So there's people, I think it's everyone like, everyone loves Andre. I think if it wasn't for Andre, I don't think I'd have anyone listening.

Unless you've seen me do videos and you see my beard and you actually thought I was Andre. My beard is so big now. Honestly, if I was in London, I would not wear a backpack because I'd be scared that a police would pull me up.

Seriously, it's like, oh, I'll be profiled. And that does go on. I've got a massive beard.

It's huge, huge, huge. It's so big. It is.

For years, I've not been able to see my feet because of my belly. Now I can't see my belly because of my beard, which isn't a bad thing, I suppose. So, yeah, I've decided, decided.

And I've put this, you know, so many people over the years, why is it free? Why are you doing it for free? And that was the whole point. I want it to be free. It still has to be free.

It has to be. And that's what I love about podcasts because they're free. And YouTube, it's free.

But people can still make money from the YouTube. That's why I thought YouTube was so great for those that were willing to put a lot of work in. I'm not talking about myself.

I'm talking about some of these YouTube creators that they devote their life to. You know, every day is making new videos to entertain their audience. I made hypnosis videos.

And I had a bit of a bit of success on YouTube a few years back. But yeah, I got very, very few views now. On my newest YouTube channel, I don't get many get about 2000 views a month.

Of my videos. And, you know, that's, that's half of a quiet day on my podcast. You know, I get at least 4000 on my podcast.

That's when I don't even release a new recording. So it's YouTube. I don't know if it's ever gonna grow.

I don't know. It might do. If perhaps put a bit of effort in and make some decent videos, I suppose it could.

But I want to focus on the podcasts. And, you know, I said some recently, I'm going to look at trying to turn this into my occupation, my living, you know, my the thing that pays my rent, and my bills and buys my food and, you know, that stuff. And my friends said, well, isn't that the whole point? And I said, no, never was.

Never was. When I started this, I had a job, which I was, to be honest, I was quite happy with, actually. I was quite happy with the job I had.

It was fairly easy. I was in an office around nice people. It was a daytime job.

So there's no weekend work, no evening, no shifts or anything like that. I started doing the free hypnosis, pain relief with the local people, you know, going to people's houses and stuff. I started volunteering in two rehab centers for drugs and alcohol.

And I'd started doing these, you know, free recordings, online videos. And so, you know, everything was really nice. So it wasn't, the idea of making money wasn't even there.

I wasn't interested, because I had enough money to live on. I was living in a Buddhist community. The rent was quite low.

I think, not all the time, but I think, I think it calmed me down being there. Especially one of my friends who was an Order member, living with him, and I got very close friendship with him, still do. I don't see him, but still a lot of, he's a very kind, very kind, generous person.

And he helped me, I think. I wanted to be a bit more like him. I don't meet many people that I want to be like.

I don't want to be like him. I don't want to be the sort of person he is. Oh, no, that sounds wrong.

No, what I mean, I want to be me. I want to be me, which is something we can all kind of, you know, it's important to be ourselves. But we can choose what version of ourselves we can be, or what we focus on.

So I've focused on, I've tried to focus on being kind and being generous. And it's basically being online. I've tried to do that.

I don't know if that comes across. I might not come across like that at all. And some people may have only discovered me over the last year or a few months, or maybe the last couple of years.

But I've been doing this for a long, long time. You know, I was a young man when I started this. I was 35 years old.

Literally, seriously, that's not old, is it? And now I'm nearly 50. So I didn't have many gray hairs back then. I had, I mean, I was still producing hormones, I think back then.

I don't anymore. I'm a walking eunuch. I really am.

It's ridiculous. So I'm a eunuch cycle. And it seems weird, doesn't even feel real to me in some ways that I have been doing it so long.

When it dawned on me the other day that actually, I'm one of the original podcasters. One out of thousands and thousands and thousands, admittedly, but a lot of those perhaps haven't done it since. But I was in on it when it very first started back in what, 2007-ish.

I think it had been going for a year or two, but I was in on it very early. And then it just didn't, it sort of lost its popularity. And now it's become more and more popular over the last couple of years.

This is really weird to think, wow, I've been doing this a long time, making videos for a long time, though I don't really make videos anymore. I don't have the face for it anymore. I don't.

The good thing about making recordings, podcasts, like just recordings is you can wear your pajamas, you can sit there naked if you want. I don't, by the way, just in case I want to freak anyone out. I've never made a recording naked.

And shall I tell you why? First of all, it made me feel a bit ill, because what if I caught sight of myself? Secondly, I got nowhere to pin my microphone to, because it's a lapel microphone. I tried pinning it to my nipple, but it's really pinches. And I've got sensitive nipples.

They're supposed to be sensitive, aren't they? I'm not talking about my nipples, I'm not doing it for that. I also thought maybe I could clump up some of my chest hair and put the microphone to my chest that way. But again, it's going to hurt trying to sort of get it off.

So yeah, but the point is, dear Jason, will you please stop talking about your hairy nipples? My nipples aren't hairy. There's hair around them, but my nipples are very perky. Pinky perky nipples.

Okay, I'll stop. Pinky and perky. I don't have to get dressed up.

I don't have to change my clothes. I don't have to brush my hair. And my beard is just, it's not public friendly.

You know, it's not user friendly. It's not fit for purpose. I don't know what different terms you can use.

It's really, really bushy. Andre loves it. Loves rubbing himself against it.

I mean, it helps him scratch himself. I think that's what he's doing. He's actually scratching himself by rubbing against it.

Or he thinks there's another ferret. It might be. But he likes my beard.

My niece. Yeah, no, wait a minute. Yeah, my niece.

When I saw her for the first time last year, it was January, and she was in hospital. And she'd been in hospital for in and out for months, really. She's a very poorly young little thing.

And so I met her for the first time. And I had a bit of a beard, probably not quite as big as it is now, but it was a bit bushy. And she loved it.

She grabbed hold of it. And was just yanking it, like trying to pull it off or something. Because my brother, he don't have a beard.

He's clean shaven. So I don't think she'd ever seen anyone with a beard before. Like in person.

What she might have done, I don't know. There's no way of me knowing that, but I'm just assuming. But she grabbed it.

She really was trying to pull it off. And I can't believe that a little child of four or five months old can have such a strong grip. She was hurting me.

I was crying. I was screaming, please get her off me. She's scaring me.

You know, luckily I was in the hospital, so I stayed overnight for treatment. Seriously. I don't know.

I might keep it. I'm thinking about letting my hair grow, like really, really grow. I'm talking really grow.

Now, if you ever see the picture of me, please don't look. If you've got an image of me, if you've only ever heard my voice, and you've got an image of me in your head, and you like that image, and you like going to sleep with my voice and that image in your head, don't look at a picture of me. That bubble will pop at a volume that you've never heard in your life.

It will explode, that bubble. Oh my God, does he really look like that? Because in your head, you can imagine that I'm human height. You can imagine that I've got a nice little nose, nice clean shaven, blonde hair maybe, piercing blue eyes.

I don't know, whatever sort of rock you try, but that's a good thing about that. But then if you see me, it's an old fat man with a big smelly beard. I don't think it's smelly, I hope it's not.

Smelly beard, that just sounds wrong, doesn't it? But man, I don't even, you know what? This is totally true. Years and years and years ago, I was in a call center, I think one of the, a young woman that I was talking to, we got on really well, and she said, can I phone you? I said, I shouldn't really, it's not supposed to. She said, oh, go on.

I said, well, you can, no, okay. Didn't take a lot, so I said, yeah, all right then. So I gave her my number, and I gave her, not supposed to, but it was a rare, it wasn't something I would do normally, but we got on so well.

Anyway, we were talking, you know, I didn't talk to her again anymore during work, outside of work, we got on really well. And then she said, can you send a picture of yourself? I actually said, she said, I'll send you a picture of myself. She did, and she was lovely and everything.

She said, can you send a picture of yourself? No, actually, wait a minute. She said, can you send a picture of yourself? And I said, I don't have a camera phone. Those were the days, I'm talking 2001, 2002.

I said, I don't have a picture phone on my camera. I don't have a way of taking pictures. Hard to believe now, but it's true.

And I'm not saying that, well, there were cameras that you could do that with, I just didn't have one. Anyway, she sent a picture of herself, I think by email. So she sent a picture on her phone.

And I think she sent it to me by email. So I got to see what she looked like. And I said, well, how am I supposed to do it? She said, well, you have to get yourself a phone with a camera then, which is what I did.

It's totally true. I was out down the beach. On this particular day, I got myself a new phone with a camera.

And I was going to still use my old phone because I preferred that one. This one is just, I just got it for the camera. And I sent her a picture of myself.

And she just replied, just waited, waited, waited to reply. And the reply came through. I thought, wow, good.

And she just said, no, thanks. I just wonder what would happen if I'd sent her a picture of my face. Blimey.

But yeah, she just completely like, no, wasn't interested. Like, I thought we had a connection. Nothing.

As soon as she saw me, I don't think so. Thank you very much. Which is really, see, I didn't really understand what was going on.

Because before, before that, I was doing DJing, I was in a nightclub. And I was, I don't know, it sounds a bit crude or whatever to say, I was popular with ladies or was successful and stuff. But, you know, I did get a lot of attention.

I did. Mainly from women, but some blokes as well. But, you know, it's the women that I was interested in.

And I just, in fact, in some ways, it got a little bit boring. I remember once, one December, during the Christmas period, I was doing the DJing every night for, I don't know, 30, no, probably, apart from Sunday, it was open every night, Monday to Saturday, for Christmas dinners, you know, and comedy and stuff. And that went on for three weeks.

So that was a lot of nights. So 20-odd nights, you know, practically in a row, the whole month, basically up to Christmas, two days before Christmas Eve. And it started at the end of November.

And at the end of it, I had so many telephone numbers on my wall. I had like a little cork board, you know, where you could pin sort of stuff on. I had so many numbers on there that I'd forgotten who was who.

Because I didn't have time to call anybody, because I was working the next day, then I was working the next day, going home, working the next day. And that was a real shame, because I met some really lovely people, but I'd forgotten them. Because again, I was meeting another 200 people, another maybe 20 women were coming up for, you know, asking for songs, maybe more, and chatting to them.

I just completely lost the plot. My brain was frazzled by the end of it. Honestly, the last night, which had been New Year's Eve.

No, not New Year's Eve, Christmas, the one before Christmas, the day before Christmas Eve or whatever. I'd hide. I didn't want to talk to anybody.

All I wanted was the evening to come to an end. So I could go home and rest. It was weird.

And then, strange, then a few years later, I'm sitting at home on my own, thinking, what are all those numbers? Where are those pieces of paper with those numbers on? I did actually phone someone up, probably about two years after meeting them. And we used to talk on the phone. And I phoned her up and said, yeah, are you all right? She said, yeah.

And she told me about how she'd got married and she'd got kids. And I said, this is pretty a bit pointless, isn't it? She said, yeah. You had your chance.

Okay. So my little bit of luck used to come every now and then. I had little periods where I'd be completely, almost solitary in the sense of no attention at all.

And then suddenly bombarded with it. So when I was at Butlins, I had a lot of attention. But I had a social life.

But I couldn't really do much without attention because of the circumstances. And then when I was doing security, again, I had quite a bit of attention about the place I was working at. But then I was limited to what I could do there as well, as I was at work.

It's weird. And now, it's different now. I think if I was doing this in my 20s, honestly, I'd be traveling to meet people.

If I was in my 20s, I'd be, if I got on with someone and they liked me, which does happen and hard to believe, but it do happen. I'll be traveling. I used to travel.

I traveled to Birmingham to meet someone. It's nowhere. I'd probably travel to a different country if I needed to, to meet someone that I liked.

I was Mr. Romantic back then. I used to write poetry. I used to write love letters, everything, seriously.

Hard to believe, but it's true. I think the last love letter I think I sent, yeah, she was an English teacher. She just corrected a spelling.

She said there's only two L's in swallow. Okay. Brilliant.

So, I dated one, two, no, only one teacher, I think. Or was it two? I've not dated anyone for years, not really. I semi-dated someone in September, but I messed that up.

I messed it up by being scared. If I'm honest, I was. I think it's because I want to be a, well, I don't want to be, but if I was a boyfriend to someone, I'd want to be a good boyfriend, like a really decent person.

I think I am a decent person. But I don't know if I can be the kind of boyfriend that I'd like to be, that I'd like to be. Yeah.

Yeah. I bet if that makes sense. And maybe, I mean, there's no perfect, there's nothing perfect, is there? But I don't know.

I just feel as I've got older, in some ways I've got a lot more to offer, but I've got a lot less. I've got less physically. I'm not slim.

I don't have the physical energy that I used to have when I was younger. There was a time when I used to talk a million miles an hour. I would be constant.

I was very, very, a bit over the top. Now I'm just a lot slower. Not all the time, but I'm, I prefer to be like this.

I prefer to live a slow, slowly, but at the same time, I don't want to have a, I want to have a good life as well. I want to sort of start doing some things because I haven't done anything, really, hardly anything at all, or been anywhere at all. And pretty much since I left London in 2001, you know, I've just, I haven't done anything.

I went to Bulgaria on holiday once in 2002. And that's the last time I went abroad. That's the last time really I had a holiday.

I had a short break in Somerset, I think it is, where my cousin was living and I went and visited him. I needed to get away. I just, you know, just from my job and have a break.

So that's what I did. And I just went there, I think on the Friday, and I came back on the Sunday or the Monday. So it was lovely, really nice, got really drunk, even got kissing someone, which was nice.

Until I realized, my cousin said, can you leave my girlfriend alone? Just trying to sleep. No, no, it didn't happen. I'm just messing about.

And so that was nice. But that's a beautiful place. And let me tell you where it was.

Where's my phone? I need my phone for things like this because otherwise. Oh, dear. Dear, dear, dear, dear.

And if I put in best beaches in the UK, in UK, in England, if I put England, because otherwise loads of beaches from Scotland and Wales will come up, because there's some beautiful places. I've never, never been to any of the beaches in Scotland, but I know Scotland is a beautiful country. Just it's mainly based on television, if I'm honest.

And, but I did, apparently I did live in Scotland for a little while when I was a kid. That's what my brother told me. I think we was, either we went there with our mum, or we lived in a children's home there for a short time.

I can't believe someone's, someone's asked, are there any nice beaches in England? Cheeky bugger. We've got beautiful beaches in England. Somewhere.

We really do. But that was in America. Someone from America asked that, because someone's planning to move, to travel.

And the best beaches I've been to, previous sort of one that I'm about to tell you about was, I think, Yarmouth. When I was a kid, I went to Yarmouth with the Sea Cadets. We went to, I think it's the Pleasure Beach, not a Pleasure, yeah, it might have been a Pleasure Beach, where they have like rides and stuff.

And then I also went to, I think, Yarmouth and other stuff when I was a kid with my family. Went to Wales with my family. Beautiful beaches in Wales.

The best, never, ever been anywhere like that in my life. But I have because I went there, I mean, before that. And great, beautiful.

And the tide would go out, and you could walk really far out. Admittedly, it's probably not as safe as we thought, because the tide came coming quite quickly. Mind you, that would explain why my dad was still in the car.

Okay, kids, you just keep walking, that's fine. And also, you could see the little fish jumping up out of the water. It's amazing.

And you could walk in the water for, well, it just seemed like forever, literally, and still only be up to your knees. The beach that I used to live near, when I was sort of growing up from the age of seven onwards, I mean, that was just, well, there was part of the beach had some sand, but a lot of it was just pebbles, which is, when you're a kid, you don't really care. I mean, it's the sea, it's the seaside, it's a nice day.

You get to chuck stuff at your brothers and annoy them. I mean, that's what it's, you know, doesn't really matter if it's pebbles. Also, if it's pebbles, you can chuck them at your brothers, you know.

So, we'll chuck them out at sea and stuff, trying to hit the swimmers. No, I'm joking. But we also had a part of the beach which was, had some sand.

It used to make sand castles and stuff. But the beach has gone to a bit rubbish, because they've got loads of these big rocks on there now. I don't know if it's part of the sea defence or what it is, but it's just, you know, and I'll tell you what else is ruined.

I'll tell you what I think is, and no one's mentioned it. I've never seen anyone mentioned this. I think one of the things that's ruined people wanting to go to the beaches in England is the wind, the wind farms.

I know it's brilliant that we've got wind farms and, you know, it's ecological. It's amazing. But it ruins it scenically for people on the beach.

Because one of the things about being on a beach, especially if you go to the beach and you live somewhere like London or in a city, if you live in a city, you can never look for any distance without seeing something. I suppose unless you look into the sky. But you can always see, there's always something there.

Even if you go to a park, there's always something that you can see, trees or, you know, elephants or whatever, giraffes. So one of the things I used to like as a kid, and notice this and maybe other people do too, is being able to sit on a promenade or sit down, maybe sit on a beach and just look out at the sea and not being able to see anything. You know, you can see, I'm not saying you're blind.

I'm just saying that you not being able to, that'd be weird, wouldn't it, going blind, looking at the sea? A bit ironic. But being able to just look and not have anything blocking your vision and sort of be look forever. I mean, there were sometimes you could see bits of France and stuff.

And it was really particularly clear day and you have to be a bit higher up. And there'd be boats and ships going past. So now it's different.

Almost. And that was a moving object that was going to be out. They weren't always there.

It's, you know, it's probably a bit busier now than it used to be back then. But there's something about the ships that was quite cool as well. Because even though they'd be there, they'd move out of the way, you could still focus, move your eyes a little bit, and you still see without anything there.

Now they've got the wind farms, especially I'm thinking of a place like Lowestoft. And Lowestoft, beautiful beach. Last time I went there was 2005, I think.

Beautiful, beautiful beach, sandy, going on for miles, perfect. And I think they had to wind farms. In fact, I know they had to wind wind farms on there.

And they have them at lots of different places now. And they're big old things. And they're not pretty.

I mean, I'd rather look at my own toenails. Seriously. I'm not saying that I think you should make the wind farms look like my toenails.

Because that probably would be a lot worse than the actual wind farms. Plus it'd be very surreal, wouldn't it? Imagine turning up to the beach and suddenly seeing my toes sticking out of the water. But yeah, it's, I don't know, I don't, scenically, I don't like them.

I think it ruins the thing. Maybe it's because when I go to the beach, I'm not distracted by other people. I'm not talking to anyone else.

I'm on my own. And I'm just looking into the sea. And I can do that all year round if I'm near a beach, but I haven't been.

I can't even remember the last time I went to the beach. I need to try and do it soon, I think. And many times when I was a kid or like early, you know, my teenage years, when I was still living there, I try and make decisions.

I try and figure out what am I going to do? How am I going to get out of this mess? What am I going to do? Where am I going to live now? Whatever the situation was, or I need to get a job. And I just sit there and just look out at the sea and almost hope that it would give me something back. Because to me, the ocean always felt like it's the most powerful thing in the world, on the planet.

I guess technically it is, I'd say. The ocean is just so powerful. So important, but so powerful, more powerful than anything that we human beings can produce.

And it's just seeing this because it's so much bigger than me. You know, you can't... no human being is bigger than the sea. I mean, that's obvious.

No country is bigger than the sea. Nothing is bigger than the sea, apart from those things that are bigger than the sea. So, I mean, I don't know what percentage of the planet is water, but it's the majority, isn't it? You know, so there's more sea than there is land, I think.

Yeah, pretty sure. I'm pretty sure it's true. It must be true.

Surely it must be true. How could it not be true? Surely. It must be true.

And okay, so I don't know if they've got this everywhere, though, those thingies, the wind bits. Well, apparently, according to this, Seven Sisters in Sussex is classed as one of the best beaches. It's one of the most arresting coastlines in Britain.

Okay, Brancaster Beach in Norfolk. Dungeness Romney, Marsh Kent. Now that looks like it's all pebbles, though.

You've got Pentley Bay, Sicily Isles. Wow, it's white sand. Beautiful.

Polsieff Cornwall. I'll probably pronounce that wrongly. And that looks like it's all sand as well.

Like huge, huge beach with sand. PEDN, P-E-D-N, PEDN, Vounder Beach, Cornwall. Oh, that's lovely.

Really? Durdal Door, Jurassic Coast, Dorset. Okay, another one, Blackpool. The adverts keep popping up.

Stop it. Blackpool Sands at Devon. That looks nice.

Oh, very. Wow, yeah, even the sand, the sea looks, it almost looks like a cove. In fact, I reckon it probably is a cove.

It's a sea, but it's a cove. It almost looks like it's, I don't know how to explain it. Yeah, yeah, it looks like a cove to me.

That's what I'm saying. There's another one here. Blackpool Sands, Devon.

Holkham Beach, Norfolk. Bantham Beach, South Devon. Wow, blue, blue seas and sand.

See, I'm not really a sunbather, but I like watching other people enjoying themselves sunbathing. Yeah, a bit like sports. I like seeing other people playing sports.

Can't really, didn't really do it myself. And I'm the same with sunbathing. I like to watch.

Sennon Cove, Cornwall. That looks nice. Filey Brigg, North Yorkshire.

Now, that doesn't, it looks nice, but it doesn't look like a beach. I hear a noise in the background. Sorry.

West Wittering, West Sussex. Loads of sand. Wow.

South Sandbanks, Dorset. Very sandy. St Bees, Cumbria.

They've done that one at night though, so it's hard really to see. It looks lovely, but Wollacombe Sands, Devon. Cromer Beach, North Norfolk.

Wow, very sandy. Whitley Bay, Tyneside. It's a very famous place.

Yeah. Sheringham Beach, North Norfolk. Now, Sheringham.

I think I had a relative lives in Sheringham. I've just seen something here and it doesn't even look real. South Bay, Scarborough.

It's the reflection of the blue skies. So the, the water and the sand is all blue. Obviously it can't be really, but Vetna, Isle of Wight.

The best beach. Oh, okay. I know how to find this.

Where was Torquay? It's where Fawlty Towers was based. Torquay, Torquay, Torquay, Torquay. I love Torquay.

So Torquay Beach. Okay, here we go. Let's get some images.

Yeah. Beautiful. I don't know what it was about it.

I'm not sure. Maybe it's because I really needed a break from my job. And, you know, I put it, I might've appreciated just looking at maybe a pile of popcorn at my, that might've been enough for me just to, just to give me a rest.

But my memory of the Torquay Beach was it's beautiful. Very beautiful. Beautiful water.

I don't go in the water anyway, but it's nice to look at. I like sunbathing. It's nice to look at.

Yeah. So I was thinking what I'd quite like to do, maybe in the future, I think I'd quite like to live in Torquay, move there because of the beach, because it just seems like a really lovely place. I mean, everybody's experience of somewhere is going to be dependent upon their own life choices, I guess.

And also how, you know, life is for them. And, you know, depending on how they've been brought up and, you know, whatever situation they're in, their health status and their occupation status, all that stuff's gonna have an effect upon how they perceive their surroundings, of course. But I think it looks lovely.

And I could only move there if I was, you know, earning a living from what I did online. So I'd have to, you know, because my experience of being there is there's not huge amounts of jobs. And getting a job is much harder at my age anyway, I've looked.

Plus, realistically, why should I work? Why should I go and get a job? Surely I should be doing this. I don't mean necessarily this, this, but I should not be using what I know I can do and help people. Shouldn't I be doing that? So instead of doing another job that someone else could do, that would perhaps maybe enjoy it or benefit from it, or, you know, I kind of think that if we can use our, whatever talents we've got, my talent being being able to rabbit on talking about nothing for ages and ages and ages, and never seeming to run out of words for some reason, I don't know why.

And it would seem a shame not to use that. Because I know that if I went and got a job, I'd end up doing maybe two recordings a week, if that, instead of three a day. And there's a chance that, you know, just for my own sort of stress levels and all relaxation levels, if I was working all day, you know, say in a supermarket or in a call centre, I'd need to calm down.

You know, I need to do, probably want to watch telly, I might start drinking again, which is not great. I don't really want to go back to that. But yeah, it's starting to, I'm starting to think because I've got, I've got 20 years, or at least 19 years before I can retire.

Yeah. It might seem like I'm getting old, but I've still got at least 19 years before I can retire, officially retire and get a government pension. I've paid enough into it.

So I paid my pension off. I paid enough National Insurance through the 25 or whatever years that I worked to pay everything. It's all been paid.

So anything else I pay extra, I just added on to that. It's not you know, so if I, so if I turn this into a business where I'm self employed, I'll be paying National Insurance, which of course will go towards, you know, hospitals and everything like that. But it won't go towards my pension because my pension has already been paid.

I've already put in the amount of contribution that's needed. Yeah, I have to wait 19 years before I can actually start to collect. And I don't even know if there's going to be a pension in 19 years time.

I mean, they've been, they've been up in the age of retirement constantly since I was a kid. So when I was a kid, you could retire at, I'm pretty sure it was 64. I don't know why, but I got that in my mind.

It was 64. And now I think it's either 68 or 69. It used to be 60 at one point.

I think women could retire at 50. And men could retire at 60. And then men could retire at 65.

Women could retire at 55. Something like that. It's changed a lot over the years, but I'm pretty sure that's true.

I might have made it up. It's a mixture of made stuff up and trying to remember stuff that I really didn't take much notice of originally. A mixture of that.

But the retirement age definitely has risen. And I think it's very unfair for people, not for me, but for people who started working and they were able to retire at 65 or 64 or maybe 60, whatever it was, and then told you've got to work another five years. But no.

And basically what they're saying is the person has to retire. They can't retire till a certain age. And the national living age is 10 years after they retire.

That's the average living age for a man in this country. So they say, well, you can retire, but you've got 10 years left. That's it when you retire.

It's like, really? So I think the government, they plan or the retirement people, whoever is in charge of that, they plan for paying for 10 years. Wow. So also I learned from my friend, he got a mortgage.

No, not a mortgage. He got a pension, private pension, and he was, I don't know how old he was, 50, probably about my age, 50, something like that. And maybe a little bit older, but he's got to be about 50, 51, 52, 50, something like that.

He got a pension. And he went to look at how much he could get. I think he was probably in his, he was probably 63 at the time, 62, 63.

And he looked to see what he could get out of it. And he said, it's like 100 pound a month or something. And he'd been paying a lot of money into that private pension, really well over the odds.

And they said, no, you've got to, you know, because you've only been paying it for 10 years or 15 years, however long it had been. Yeah, 100 pound a month or 115 pound a month. So he's like, oh, I can't retire then.

And because obviously you can't get the public pension until, I think he was old enough to get it at 65 or it might be 66. But it's just, wow. So I'm thinking, I wish I could retire.

I want to retire. I wonder if I ever would retire from this. I wonder if I would just continue to do this forever.

Or will I one day think, nah, I'm going to take up snooker. You never know, do you? Anyway, I've waffled on way too much yet again, again, again, and again. So if anyone is still awake, thank you again for your help.

I really do appreciate it. And thank you for listening, you know, because if you didn't listen, I wouldn't do the recordings. And if I didn't do the recordings, I don't know, something.

I don't have an answer for that particular non-question. So take care of yourselves. Remember, remember, remember to be kind to yourself.

Because you deserve to be happy. Do something nice for yourself today. I mean, like right now, go and do something nice for yourself.

Even if you're about to go to bed, just doesn't matter what it is. Or maybe you want to wait till you got up, whether you are in bed and you're asleep. Do something nice for yourself when you wake up.

Do something nice for yourself tomorrow. And then every day, lots of love. Bye.