#452 Let me bore you to sleep - MY LIFE HASN'T ALWAYS BEEN GLAMOUROUS' - Jason Newland (15th July 2020)

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

Yeah. By the way, if you hear this sound, it's just me moving around. That's all.

So, I hope you're well. I hope you're happy with yourself. Yeah, I'm alright.

I'm okay. It's three minutes past one on whatever day it is today. It's the 15th of, Wednesday the 15th of July 2020.

Yeah. So, not done a huge amount today really. I spent a fair bit of time in bed.

I spoke to my psychologist at three o'clock this afternoon and I did three recordings in the early evening. So, this is yesterday really, but I did a deep sleep whisperworm and sleep hypnosis weekly, one weird and one about music. And now, now, now I'm doing this.

Yes. And I was talking to my psychologist and I was just saying, I don't know what's, what does the future hold apart from the obvious, you know, what is it? What am I doing with this stuff? Where am I going? Yeah. That's it.

That's the whole, that's all I can tell you. That's the conversation I had. Just a little bit like, oh, and she's bringing it to an end as well.

So, probably in a couple of months, I'll be like, I'll be signed off. That'd be like the last psychology session. It'll be, I don't know, what do I do then? What do I do? I don't know.

See, I don't know. I'm a little bit tired. The weird thing is once I finish this recording, I won't be tired anymore.

But I made, I did those deep sleep whisper recordings and the sleep hypnosis weekly in my shed earlier, because there's now a dog downstairs and I thought I need to sort of be as quiet as possible. I was sweating so much. And I did them back to back.

So, I did one recording, the deep sleep whisper, and then I did the other one pretty much straight away. I fell asleep while I was doing it. So, I was talking about, you know, letting your mind drift and my mind was drifting.

It's not the first time that it's happened. But it's still a bit, I'll have a drink here, still a bit. It's a bit of a weird experience because I can't let myself go to sleep because I'm in the middle of recording something.

But at the same time, I'm drifting and I kind of wake up. And I can't remember the last thing I said. And also, I'm not sure if I said what I was thinking about, which would be, I don't know, probably inappropriate or very weird, very muddled.

So, I listened. I can't listen to the whole recording because that'd be too boring. But I skipped through it just to make sure that I hadn't strayed too far off the path.

But there was these gaps where I fell asleep. I just left it as it is because I like that. I like it when I'm talking about getting relaxed and tired and sleepy.

And actually, I am getting sleepy. I'm talking about drifting and I actually am drifting. And for me, there's something about that energy.

And I don't know how it comes across to other people. But I imagine it would come across as real because it is real. You know, I really am falling asleep while I'm talking.

Because technically, you know, I could do a recording where I did a little bit of, I'm going to count down from 20 down to one. And you know, every number you feel relaxed, more relaxed and calmer. And then while I'm doing the recording, I could just say, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, and then when it comes to editing, I could just spread them out.

So there's maybe 30 seconds between each number. Now, I don't do that. But I have done that in the past, many years ago, when I've sort of tried to put together a kind of a professional-ish recording, you know, everything sounds good.

And I tried to sort of put together and also because where I was living, it was quite noisy. And I didn't want to wait until it was really quiet because I was at college at the time. So I couldn't be up all night.

So I had to get up in the morning. So technically, I could do a 30 minute recording in 10 minutes, if I just skipped. And then, you know, just said what I wanted to say, and then put spaces in between them.

Now, technically, no one would probably know. Well, they wouldn't know, unless I told them. But I would know.

And for me, the energy would be different because it wouldn't be real. So that space where I'm just sitting there, for maybe 20 seconds, I'm not saying anything. And then I say the next thing or count the next number down.

That's the amount of time to me that they should be. Does that make sense? I'm not sure. It does to me, makes sense to me.

So I think I need to start thinking about doing some new things. And I don't know if I'm going to continue doing these, let me boil to sleep. I don't know.

And I've talked about it before. 400. This is 452.

I think. It's quite a lot. I don't know what the... I mean, there are no rules.

There's no rules. It's just... Yeah, this is number 452 episode. I just don't know.

It seems quite a lot for just one podcast to have so many episodes. So I don't know. Maybe... But then, you know, the Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress podcast, I've now done, what was it? Number 100, or yesterday, 164.

So, and I can't stop that one because it's one of my most popular podcasts. But then, this one has grown in stats. So I don't know what to do.

What should I do, man? Oh, I don't know. I've had 165,721 downloads. I don't know, it's strange.

It's all strange. It's sort of strange. But yeah, I'm getting more downloads and listens on this podcast than I have done before.

I'm not really sure why. It might be actually because of the stories that I've added, you know, the story time. Oh, that probably wouldn't make sense.

Yeah, I forgot about that. How did I forget? Yeah. It's weird, isn't it? You'd think I'd remember such things.

And let's have a look. I quite enjoy doing those, don't tell anyone. But I do quite... Although, I don't know if they're getting... What are they getting? Yeah, Rapunzel was fairly popular.

Humpty Dumpty as well. Three pigs, not so much. And where's the three bears? That's weird.

All right. It's not that they weren't popular, just the ones that I've done since then seem to be more. So the first one, this is just on Spreaker.

I've got 195 downloads for the first story, 120 for the second story, the third story 260. The fourth story, 225. And yesterday's story, 96.

But I don't know. That's just on this podcast. I do also add them onto the others.

The other... Are you all right, Andre? Come on, baby. Makes some weirdest noises. Yes, on the Sleep Insomnia Hypnosis podcast, I get a lot more downloads for... For example, the yesterday's story time, 156 there.

The previous story time, 354 downloads. That was for number four. Number three.

Number three. Where's number three? Oh, I didn't put number three on there, but I put number two. Number two, got 251.

For some reason, I didn't put number three on there. I think I decided not to put that on there, and then I sort of changed my mind. It's unlike me.

I'm usually just always... Oops. I'm so excited. Yes, I am.

So excited. So yesterday's one, this is for the Hypnosis for Sleep and Deeply podcast. 170 downloads for the number five, Mrs. Tiki Wimple.

So that was number four story time. I did upload that on this, 370 on this one. And again, I didn't put number three on there, but I put number two, three pigs, 245 and 260 for the three bears.

So each one has had like six, 700, kind of each spread over. Which is all right. Anyway, I don't want to bore you.

Oh, wait a minute. So let's see what messages I've got. One from Molly.

Right. P.S. I know you weren't sitting in the chair, and I'm glad that the comment made you laugh, though. It's all right.

I know. It was funny. The way it was worded, it's like, oh, I've got Messy Messy.

I'll give you the update on this one. So she sent me a first message on the 10th of July. Hello there.

She added me. Well, she asked to be my friend. Will you be my friend? And then the 12th of July.

Hello. And again, hi. Monday, I said, Hi.

She said, Hello. I said, Hello. She said, How are you doing? I said, Fine, thanks.

How can I help you? And she said, Hello there. Tuesday. And I just said, Fine, thanks.

How can I help you? This was yesterday. And she said, I'm a stranger on Facebook. And I came across your profile.

And it looks interesting to add you as my friend. And I decided to add you as my friend. And I hope that we can chat to know more about each other, if you don't mind.

And then later on, she says, Are you there? And I put, and I answered later on, What do you like about my profile? You can see she's even looked or he or she, whatever it is that's really behind the profile. As the thing is, there's so many kind of messages like that, they're almost generic. You know, I came across you online.

You look really lovely, really handsome. It's like, no, there's a picture of a ferret on my profile. There isn't a picture of me.

You know, unless you fancy ferrets. Although I do look like a ferret with my beard. Rachel said, I fell asleep last night listening to your Let Me Boy To Sleep.

Missed your story, but hopefully I hear it tonight. Thank you again. Keep up the good work.

Hope you and Andrea are doing okay. Thank you, Rachel. That's very kind of you.

I won't read the other message because that's personal. Just about my black chair. I've got other messages as well, somewhere.

Leticia says, What gives people the right to be disrespectful? Sorry, FB friends, but I'm not here for a hookup. Disgusted. All I can say to that is, Leticia, I'm sorry.

I apologize. I love this. Someone's writing.

Oh, no. Some men are just pigs. I don't even know what day or time or much or much.

Let's hook up. Yep, men can be... It's kind of like a swear word. Thank you.

Just like some women can be total witches. I respect my friends and I expect the same. You deserve to be treated with respect as well as every woman.

Thank you all. You're very welcome. Enjoy your day.

Likewise. Exactly, says another one. Just because someone comments on your Facebook, and you respond with kind words, because it's a decent thing to do, they take it as a ticket to jump into your inbox with inappropriate comments.

Like if you even like them in that way, can't even be nice to people. There's another one. I accept friend requests that I shouldn't.

And then another one again. Being there, girl. Being there, girl.

It's not really a bad thing if they're going to respect you. But unfortunately, the majority of these guys out there, they don't respect anybody just to be safe. A lot of generalizations going on there.

I have to look at people's profiles to get a little bit of an idea what they're about. Can't really judge just by that. She's her thing.

Got posted. This is another person, not the one, not my friend, but a different person. A female that works hard to provide for her kids is a queen, no matter what job description is.

And that's from a female that, danieldmusicstore.com. Cool. I suppose it's different because I live in a country where we actually have queens. Well, we have one queen.

And she doesn't do anything. So the idea of a queen doing something is not what queens do. What I mean is they don't go to work.

She does stuff. Plus she's nearly 100, so she shouldn't have to do anything. But the idea of loyalty is that they get everything they want, and they don't really have to do much.

I don't normally take offense at posts on Facebook or Twitter. I know it's just full of people that get a little bit carried away, get a little bit brave, and they say stuff that maybe they wouldn't say. They say what they're thinking.

And the first thing we learn as humans is we shouldn't say what we're thinking all the time. There's a filter process that needs to go through. I've not quite learned that yet, but I'm getting there.

And if we just said what we were thinking the whole time, no one would have friends. You wouldn't have any friends. You wouldn't have a job.

You'd have nowhere to live. You'd probably have no food. If all we did was just say what we thought all the time, because no one would want to be near us.

I think that's all of us. Because let's face it, I think there's things that we say to ourselves that we shouldn't. If we said that out loud, people would be thinking, what? Even though they themselves also probably say horrible things to themselves, which is a whole new thing.

Not a new thing, but it's something that I think we should all work on. Because, as I say in my Relaxation for Stress podcast, and I used to say it to clients, and I've said it for years and years and years, when it comes to things that we say to ourselves, when we're being horrible to ourselves. For example, I used to, for years, I said, I'm crap at maths.

I'm thick. I'm stupid. And my question is, would you say that to a small child? Would you go up to a small child? And it doesn't even have to be someone that you care about.

It could be just a random, you know, strange kid in the street. Mind you, that would be a really weird thing to do. But you wouldn't go up to someone and just be horrible to them, say something nasty.

So why do it to yourself? You know, I've stuck to that idea. I like that. That proposition, that the idea of, well, you wouldn't do it to a small child.

Just in the same as being rude to that shop, person in the shop, maybe. But would you do that to a doorman, or a nightclub, or to a policeman, or woman? You know, it's, yeah, I've not really gone anywhere with that. It was just a bunch of thoughts.

I'm making all this noise with this chair. I'm sure I had some other messages. I did have a message from Sebastian.

Yeah. Molly like my link, Lane, Stephen, Barry. I don't live for your money.

I don't live for your money. All I need is love. So let me have a look at inbox.

So I've got to send this video. It's very funny. It's just, it's a friend of mine.

I blocked him from Facebook. You might say, well, how can you block a friend? It's easy. You just click on the block.

It's very simple. And trust me, when you do what I do, and you've been on Facebook as long, you know, I've been on it from the start, doing this stuff. I had to block a few people along the way.

Just because of, with him, it's because he's so rude. Even though it makes me laugh, it's upset other people on my Facebook page. It's just every opportunity will undermine me.

So, you know, he posts stuff on my YouTube channel, or telling everyone other video was about, it's about me getting on with a goat or something, something like that. That's just, that's, that's a mild thing they would say. And so then his new thing now is make pictures of me with, dressed up as different people and stuff in the past.

He's very creative. He's funny. I did a podcast with him, or podcast episode with him.

But then he blocked me for some reason. I think I said something he didn't like. And then he started, yeah, so if he could behave himself, I'd probably do a podcast with him.

Because we were going to do it, but he's so naughty. Honestly, I've got enough with Andre. I can't be dealing with another naughty person in my life.

But he did this thing where he made a video. It's a video of me. And it's my, it's one of my most popular videos.

No, is it? I don't know. It's a video anyway, from YouTube. So he's taken that and he's dubbed over it with his own voice, talking about how I'm impotent.

The weird thing about it is he's got a really good voice. And for doing relaxation stuff, he's got a very, when he wants to, he's obviously, he's mocking me doing it. But he actually sounds good.

He's got a nice timber to his voice. And he's from Germany. And it's not his fault.

He's, yeah, he's blocked. He said to me, what did he write? And all these perverted YouTube comments is actually straight. So look.

Oh, yeah. Unban me, you disgusting man or else. This is the next level of hair arsement.

Dear, oh dear. He said, writing all these perverted YouTube comments is actually stressful work. You ought to pay me.

It's creative genius right there. He should post a picture of himself. He said in the next one, I will be topless.

Consider that. And this has got one video that he sent me. And then there's another video of another person threatening me.

He's, oh dear. So yeah, it's funny. It's strange.

You know, I've always, always quite liked, quite like strange people. People that, I suppose because I'm a bit strange. I like, I like, well, I don't really like anyone.

No, I do. I like some people. This is one person.

When I was, I wasn't a security guard properly at the time, as before I became one. But I did it for my brother because he was, he was a security guard. And he said, Can you help out over Christmas? So I did.

Because, to be fair, I needed the money and I thought it'd be interesting just to try something out. And I think I had more money. I think it was just one night.

I just did a one night overnight thing. I probably earned half the amount of money like I would do for a whole week. So I probably got about 40 quid or something, 50 quid.

Something like, it was Christmas. It was for 12 hours though. I think it was six to six overnight.

It was this car showroom. And I loved it. But then when I became a security guard, like a proper security guard, it wasn't quite as groovy as that because they used to have people coming around all the time.

And, you know, and checking up. What do they call them? There was a name for them. It's not security.

Mobile. I think they used to call them the mobile. So because they were mobile, they'd be in a car traveling around.

And that's what my brother did. He had a, I think that was his job. He was a mobile.

It's basically like a supervisor, traveling around to different sites to check to the person's not asleep, or to go there in the event of an alarm going off or as backup, you know, that kind of stuff. Or to take people to the sites. You know, so I guess, if somebody phones in the air, and they, because I had that with my job, they'd say, well, they'd phone me up and say, can you can you cover tonight? And I said, yeah, but I've got nowhere to get in there.

So they said, Oh, I will pick you up. So I had to go to Stratford station, they'd pick me up and take me to North London or wherever it was that the site was, and they'd pick me up in the morning to bring me back. So yeah, it's, I should talk.

Have I told you much about the security work that I did? I'm not sure if I have. Let me tell you now. Let me tell you all about it.

It's my new thing, clearing my throat during a recording. I thought I'd give it a go, see how it goes down. I imagine it's very popular, very popular.

So here we go. This is my security job. I'll skip through the first part a little bit, because I have told this part of the story.

But I'll skip through it quickly. First of all, I got a job there, then I got a job, I said, I got the uniform, then I went there. So then I applied for the job, went for the interview.

It was in I think the West End, I think the office, might have been South London, I was in London anyway. And they phoned me up, I think two days later and said, no, we don't want you. And I thought, oh, okay.

Fair enough. Didn't lose anything, really. It's just an afternoon of my life.

That's it. You know, I applied and I guess because I didn't have any experience. I didn't have a car.

Ideally, that's what we're looking for, people that have got a car because they're more flexible. Well, anyway, a bomb went off. See, this is a quick action packed story.

A bomb went off in Canary Wharf. This is true. This really happened in 1996.

And I think the day after or two days later, I got a phone call saying, do you still want that job? I said, what job? He said, the security. I said, no, not really. Never wanted to start with.

I just did it because my landlady was hassling me. She wanted some rent. He said, well, do you want the bloody job or not? I said, where is it going to be? He started laughing.

Why are you laughing? He said, you might not like this, but it's going to be at Canary Wharf. I said, what, the bomb site? He said, yeah. Yeah.

And basically, they'd increased their security by huge amounts. Because what happened is with because it was Docklands, and it was basically, I'm saying the word basically a lot. It was just, I think Docklands is that silver town.

But anyway, there wasn't much going on there. People lived there. But as far as there was a lot of where the docks were, you know, where people used to work, there wasn't anything going on.

So billions of pounds put into the area, they built Canary Wharf, they built loads of buildings, massive, made a hole, lovely, really big, basically built the city within the city. Not a sea within a sea. So the city that was in Liverpool Street, they just moved.

So I think the main bank of HSBC is, yeah, and I think some of the Fleet Street moved. So newspapers like the Mirror Group moved there and it became the financial hub of London. Canary Wharf, Docklands rather.

Canary Wharf was a part of Docklands. But that's where the biggest building was, that's where I worked. And it was the biggest building in the country at the time.

Not sure if it still is. I'm not sure maybe the Eiffel Tower is, or the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I don't know. But it's got a light on the top and you can't always see it because it's sometimes it's cloudy.

I can never see it anymore because I don't live in London. But very impressive building. It's really, really nice.

So the bomb didn't blow up the building, but it blew up a part of the area outside. And it was a big deal. And when it happened, I was at home and shook the building.

I honestly thought it was an earthquake, never experienced anything like it. And people were running out of the, not running out, but walking out slowly out of their houses like, what the hell's going on? So it was the shake and then there was the sound, which is weird. I think that's what happened.

It was whoosh, you know, and then it was like, big bang, like, whoa. Because ultimately, it's not far as the seagulls sails through the sky. It's not a long distance.

It's a bit wiggly with trains and stuff. But if you could just fly there, it's probably five minutes, 10 minutes. You know, it's not far at all.

It's just there's lots of buildings in the way. And so yeah, it was maybe the reason why the, this is all tube stations, I guess there's lots of underground tunnels that aren't even used anymore in London. And stuff that's hidden down there that we don't know about and sewers.

There's actually, there's rivers that are covered up. It used to be in London, they're still in London, but they're covered up. So people are walking across rivers.

And I think there's about at least three or four that used to be just open rivers and they've just been paved over. So there's a lot of stuff. I don't know why.

I suppose that's why it was so echoey. I'm guessing. I don't know.

Anyway, my job was to just stand for all of us. I think we were looking after I think, maybe six floors, maybe more, maybe 10 floors, maybe 12. I'm not sure.

But they actually had a security office in there, which we were there, had lots of different security companies working in that building, including downstairs. And, you know, it wasn't just one security firm because whoever, if only one firm held that job, that place, they'd be millionaires, really rich, because there was a lot of security there. All the bags are being checked and stuff.

So I went there and as part of my job is to check people's bags and check their IDs before letting them in. So we'd all be stationed on a floor. And either side of the floor, there'd be two lifts each side.

So whichever way people were coming in, we'd need to check them. When it's busy, they'd have two people on one floor to check people's IDs and stuff, but then get to know people. And just kind of have to, you have to be like a human being.

If you get to know someone like a cameraman, or a TV, because there was a TV channel there as well. So if there was a TV star, or someone that was, you know, presenting the news, and they'd forgot their ID, obviously like, no, you can't come in. Got, you know, a little bit of, I don't want to use the word common sense, because it's not that common, but you know, just a little bit of, you know.

My favorite job was upstairs, and I don't know what floor it was, but it was the live TV, which was the TV station. It was a 24 hour TV show, got a TV station they had. It was a comical, fun TV channel.

It was also sexist. And I'm sure people would say as well, but at the time, I didn't care. To be fair, I just just, I just, because I never really got to see any of that stuff in generally.

But they had, you know, there was a newspaper, the Mirror Group, but then they had models coming in to be photographed. So they'd be coming in, and they'd be like dressing gowns on and stuff. They looked awful.

Really, like the faces look absolutely awful, because it was covered in makeup. But in the picture, they look awesome. I'm sure the pictures look lovely.

But they had to have makeup on to, in order for the picture to look good. With the makeup on, they looked absolutely terrible. Really disgusting.

Wasn't their fault. I'm sure they were attractive people. But it was like caked on, proper, shoveled.

And someone, some of the photographers explained to me is trying to get this chair, this isn't even a squeaky chair. I'm moving around a lot today for some reason. The photographer said, the idea is to take a picture and get them to look facially how they do when they haven't got all that makeup on.

But they had to put loads of makeup on in order to do it. So it's kind of false. But if the person didn't have it all trailed on like huge amounts, I'm talking huge.

I'm not talking about someone going out to a nightclub. I'm talking something that you would never see in reality. It's not like, oh, that person's wearing lots of makeup.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about, you know, enough to their head is twice as big as what it was before. Almost like a papier-mâché, papier-mâché, whatever.

Like a balloon. And that's what it was, is to make the person look the same as they do to a human eye, if you were to see them in person, when they look their best, maybe without makeup or just a little bit of makeup. So they have to put six tons of it on.

Maybe an exaggeration, but you know. So that was weird. I kind of found that strange because when I first got there, they said, oh, pay tree girls are going to be coming in there.

And they're going to be taking glamour shots. And I thought, oh, that'll be interesting. Never seen a couple, not for, not really, not officially seen any glamour girls.

Because back in them days, you used to have pay tree and stuff like that. That wasn't me. I didn't create it.

I didn't promote it. I didn't, you know, it just was what was going on before I was even born in the UK of England. And I, I was shocked when I saw that.

Wow. Is that really what? Okay. So I've been looking at these pictures since I was a kid.

And suddenly I'm confronted with this monstrosity of, it was, I don't know how to explain it. It's almost like it wasn't a face because it wasn't, you know, it was just like a bricklayer's accident. I don't know.

And I said, it's no one's fault. It's just because of the camera. Maybe the camera wasn't very good back then.

I imagine the cameras on the iPhones and, you know, smartphones are probably better than the cameras they had in 96. Professionally, but I might be wrong. I usually am.

And I liked it. So I got to see them. So that was interesting as I open my eyes a little bit.

And then I closed them really quickly. And then this TV show, they had things like topless darts. Again, I'm not responsible for this stuff.

This is what they did. It didn't, wasn't me. It's, you know, but I really like being around, not that, because I never got to see that being done.

But I like being around the, the energy of television, making TV shows and filming the news. And everyone involved just seemed to be having fun, you know, seemed to be enjoying themselves, working hard, but enjoying themselves. And I often wonder what that would be like.

You know, back then I was thinking, oh, I wanted to get a job there, but I never managed to. It's what I really wanted. And I spent most of my time up on that floor.

In the end, they, they kind of left me up there. And then when they wanted to tell me off, they'd move me to a different floor, sometimes down to the basement. I don't really care where I was really, but it was just more fun because I had someone to talk to and chat with.

And I talked to some of the actors and because they had this ongoing soap opera in there as well, that was based around working in a TV studio. But it's almost, um, was it a life, imitated life? And it was just, so there's these people working in there. One of them was Richard Bacon.

And he was lovely. He's a radio personality now, but he was also on TV. He's known, been around for a long time.

And he does radio shows and he's lovely. He was absolutely lovely to me. He's one of these, you know, I mean, he wasn't, back then he wasn't a big star, but he was the star of the show.

He was the star of the, I can't remember what, it might've even been called Canary Wharf. That might be the name of the show. And I was even on the show a couple of times, playing a security guard, stopping him or trying to stop him from getting through and pushing me out of the way.

So that was, that was interesting. And what I would do also, they'd ask me to hold the doors open for them and things like that when they were filming, so they could sort of walk in and out backwards, you know, the camera. And sometimes I sort of, they say, can you just make sure no one comes in? So I would, I'd block the door for any, any staff members to walk in if they were filming in the hallway.

So I felt a little bit included. It was quite cool. I didn't have to do any of that really, but just, it's fun.

And there was another, this, this lady, she was young, she's probably a little bit older than maybe my age, maybe younger, maybe older, I don't know. But she was lovely. I really liked her.

And she was the co-star, and she was equal probably to Richard. And so they were like the two main characters. And she, again, she used to, she used to flirt with me.

But I think it was just her being nice. She invited me to a party that I went to and no one talked to me. That was good.

And she, it was like a showbiz party. And it was okay. I think what someone came up to me and said, so what do you do? I said, I'm a security guard.

And they said, Oh, yeah. Bye. Anyway, this, this lady, this female woman, I forget her name, but she ended up being in Emmerdale, starring in Emmerdale.

She was quite a big deal. And I'm not sure if I can tell you who she is. Let's have a look.

Let's have a look. Canary Wharf. So yeah, it was called Canary Wharf.

1996 to 1997. Oh, man. And I can actually tell you who was in it.

It's good. I've got it up here. Oh, this is live TV.

Okay, no, that's not what I want. TV show. So it's IMBV.

So here we go. The cast. Oh, no.

Maybe I got it wrong then. Well, Richard Bacon must have been a TV presenter on the show. But the person who's the lady is, let me tell you, I really annoy someone when I go online, and I'm trying to look something up, and they insist on like, go to the app.

I don't want to go to the app. Just give me the internet. The normal, normal internet.

Oh, man. Hopefully I can get out of this and go to a proper place page. Okay, I've got live TV presenters.

Matt Arnold, Richard Bacon, told you. Donna Bernard, Julia Bradbury. She became a big TV star.

Simon London, Charlie State, Roderick Williams. He went on to be a TV host, like mainstream kind of thing. Oh, okay.

This is funny. Live TV presenters. Basically, they had the news bunny.

And the news bunny would be like this big man dressed up as the bunny. And they'd be the news presenter, usually in the studio, sitting on a desk. And they were the first ones to do that.

You sometimes see it on some of the other channels, where they see like, it's more casual now. But back then it wasn't. It was really stuffy, sitting behind a desk with a tie on.

And it still is quite a lot. This was different. Anyway, they had this news bunny.

And he'd be making funny, funny face or funny kind of hand movements and dancing around while the news is being done. And it didn't always work. Because as you're probably aware, most of news stories aren't particularly nice.

So there was one particular time, particular, particular, particular. And there was this really horrible story and news bunny was prancing around. I just, I couldn't believe that.

I said, Wow. Anyway, let me have a look. I know what I'm going to do.

So if I go, Canary Walk, Emmerdale. Here we go. Canary Wharf.

Wharf. Okay. A.R.F. Anna Brigham, born 1971.

So yes, a year younger than me. She played Lady Tara in Emmerdale. And wow, she's 48.

So she would have been about four, she's about 25 back then. She was so lovely. And really liked her.

She was just really friendly to me. So she's been in, oh, she was in Doctors, been in a few films. So Emmerdale, she was in it for, from 97 to 98, in 2000 to 2002.

And she came back in 2007. So I thought she was really good. Yeah, she won the most popular newcomer award at the 1998 National Television Awards, and Best Soap Newcomer at the TV Good Awards in the same year.

She also won Best Actress at the 2000 Manchester Evening News Theatre for a performance in the Blue Room. So she was awarded Best Newcomer in 1998. Why did she leave the show? Because she was really popular.

I remember at the time, they were raving about her, because she was funny and quirky in real life. But that came across in the show, in Emmerdale. For those of you who don't know what Emmerdale is, it's a documentary that's been running for years.

And it's basically based on people that have got, it's like this little village of people that have been genetically modified. And they're only, they had 72% of their brain removed. And that's just as an experiment, really.

Because the whole thing is we only use 10% of our brain. So why do we need the other 90%? And the fact that we can rewire and brain plasticity, neuroplasticity, whatever you want to call it. So yeah, so they did that.

And they came up with the Emmerdale. It used to be called Emmerdale Farm, because originally it was an abattoir. And by abattoir, there was also apple trees as well.

That used to be called Apple Tree Abattoir. That was the name of the show. And someone said, should we call it Emmerdale Farm instead? I said, Emmerdale Farm, why? Well, it's a farm, and it's in Emmerdale.

They said, oh, yeah, okay. Not a bad idea. And so yeah, so what's her personal life? I really fancied her.

I did. I thought she fancied me. I know she probably didn't.

She might have done. But it's hard to compete with TV celebrities. Because once you're in that business, even though she wasn't in Canary Wharf at the time, it wasn't a big, it wasn't a huge audience, although I was one of the audience members.

I thought it was a great, great channel because I had topless starts. And she would have just had a choice of all these powerful, wealthy, successful men. And here's me in a wearing security guard uniform.

It's really weird because I used to travel on the lift with her. And she's like, chat. I'm sure she asked me one day, well, what do you want to do with your life? I said, I want to be with you.

I want to live with you on a farm. I want to just call you Lady Tarver. She said, what? I said, that's what you're going to be called when you join Emmerdale.

She said, do you think I'm going to join Emmerdale? I said, yeah. Guaranteed that she was going to do well. It wasn't that I thought she was such a great actress because I had no idea.

I'd only ever seen her off camera. But she had such charisma, such charisma and lovely. And I'm impressed by people that talk to little people.

And in that environment, I was kind of, I was, I imagine being a security guard at the same level as the cleaners. I was just someone that was there that would be kind of ignored by most of the people that worked there. But a lot of people didn't ignore me.

You know, the camera guys that, I don't know, it's weird. Not weird, but it's, you know, a lot of them are really friendly. Really nice.

I like that. If I had a different, in a different life, I think I would have quite liked to have gone down that route. Yeah, I've done a kind of internship, but it's impossible because I didn't know where to live.

You have to be able to have support to do that kind of stuff. But how brilliant would that be as a young man? You know, which I was kind of to get my foot into that industry, especially when I was doing, I was kind of in show business, kind of from a comedy perspective. I knew lots of comedians, including some famous or soon to be famous ones.

So, you know, I might have, who knows, I might have met someone that would have, that I could have done something with, you know. But I did, I did have a friend who was a BBC producer. She wanted to do a documentary on me.

And I was too scared. I was chicken. I was chicken.

I was, I was worried what my nan would think if she saw what I was up to. And that's why I didn't do it. I mean, chances are I would have been a laughing stock anyway.

But at least I'd have given it a go. You know, I think it's, if you're 20, 23, I was, yeah, 23 at the time. I was a 22, 22, 23.

I got offered an opportunity to have my own documentary made about me, like a camera crew to follow me around. And I turned it down because I was scared. But also I was worried because my life was so boring.

And the idea was to follow me around and then go to my gigs, you know, and see me on stage and see what I do during the day because I was working during the day, living in that room and, you know, just to see me, see what I'm like as a person. But I wish I'd done it now. Because it was an opportunity and I've turned down so many opportunities.

I mean, she actually wrote a script, the same person, friend, that she, she became freelance and she did a comedy script because she was also doing comedy. That's how I met her. And I used to hang out with her and she was, I really liked her, we got on really well.

And basically what she did, anyway, she wrote a script, asked me to look through it and to add my own material, sort of to maybe liven it up, or, you know, to add my own stuff, sort of my own stance to it. And I messed that opportunity up. And she was going to write a sitcom and we were both going to be in it, I think.

But definitely we're going to both be writing it. And she, she had the means in order to get a pilot made. You know, and then another opportunity came.

The last one I must add with her, and I'm surprised she even gave me another opportunity, was to write a like a pilot for a show, which was going to be me and my friend sitting around watching telly, doing nothing. Now that the format's already now been taken, in a sense of the gobble box. And just two people just chatting about what's on telly.

And, but nothing else, not really any story, really, necessarily, not anything, just two people, two, yeah, two people coming out with silly things. But me and my friend couldn't really agree on anything. This is what we were going to do.Me and my other friend, and she actually came around with this big, massive camera and was filming us. And I just couldn't turn it on. I couldn't, I couldn't turn myself on.

So yeah, that was kind of the, that was the last opportunity I got and I didn't deserve that one. Because I didn't, I didn't take the opportunities for previous, you know, it's, I think the benefit I had with her offering me the opportunity of doing a documentary is she liked me. So she wasn't trying to take advantage of me to make a documentary that made me look stupid.

I mean, it might have made me look silly, but that would have been my doing, probably. Or the editing could have done that, but she was in my corner, if you know what I mean. We used to, us, we used to go out for meals and to the theater and hang out.

We were really good, good friends. I used to go around her, around her flat. She had a boyfriend and everything, but we were just, just got on really well for some reason.

She was a little, it was, yeah, she was probably about, she was older than me, but not that much older, probably about five years older than me, maybe 30, maybe late twenties. You know, so she'd pursued a really good career, done it really well for herself. She'd done documentaries with the BGs and some other documentaries for the BBC.

And it was, well, there was one time she, we were at this, I went to a gig with her and she said she didn't want to do it. And it was at the opening of this art gallery and it was a comedy thing. And she said, well, can I go on instead? She wanted me to go on, I think, instead of her, because she'd been through it for a while.

So I said, all right. And it was like the worst, worst audience ever, because they weren't interested. They were there at this gallery.

It was a gallery opening of some kind, I don't know, some exhibition or something. And a really posh place. And Jimmy Ngo was there, who, if anyone knows who he is, Edvidio Semper, Jimmy Ngo, spender, he was a big, big star in this country in the nineties, eighties and nineties.

When I say big, it wasn't just a big star, he was a huge man. I didn't realize how tall he was. I knew he was tall from the TV show because either he was tall, everyone else on TV was short around him.

He was head and shoulders above everyone else. And he was in the audience. And it's not an exaggeration.

He stood up above everybody. And there was probably 100 people there, all standing up in this big room. And he was standing at the back.

And he was just, he was, all I wanted to do was tell him that I loved him. Not, I just wanted just to say hello to him because I was in awe. Because he was, it wasn't just because he was a big star.

He also, he did, he had some big music hits as well in the nineties, Crocodile Shoes being one of them, and Love Don't Live Here Anymore, which I think he sung in Edvido Semper. And also Edvido Semper was massive TV show in, I don't know if it was in other countries, but in England, it was, it was probably the first, probably the first adult show I was allowed to watch. By adult, I mean stuff that was on after nine o'clock.

So probably when I was 12, possibly at 13, and I was allowed to watch these shows. And they weren't adult, as in adult content, but they were, they weren't suited for children. So I've kind of got this place in my heart for that TV show as a Timothy Spall.

And every single one of them in the show, apart from the one that died, or two of them that are dead now, Pat, he was a wrestler and he was a huge man. I think he was probably bigger than, I don't think he was taller, but he was as wide as, as what I did, the other one was tall. But great, just really good show, really sort of feel good kind of show.

Grim, but good. It was based in Germany, doing like building, like where the English went over there to help build. I don't know much about the economics of it.

But that's, you know, there was a period when there's a lot of builders, brickies, and going over to Germany and stuff. I suppose in the 70s or 80s. I don't know.

I had a friend that went out there to do that job as well. So he, yeah, that was boring, wasn't it? A boring into a really exciting story. Yeah, and I started talking about security jobs.

I'm gonna have to tell you about that another day. Because I've had, you know, I went to lots of different places, and met some characters along the way. I mean, I'll just list off some of the places I worked.

I worked in a few hospitals at night, and also during the day. Nurses home, worked in a betting shop once, worked in the longest hospital in Europe, guarding that, but it was closed as a former psychiatric or asylum, I think they called it back then. I worked in the National, what was it, the gallery there? Was the big ballerina music place.

I worked there when they were building the new one. What other places did I enjoy going to? Oh, printers. I worked at a printers.

Famous printers, actually, they did. But not the actual printing part, where they wrote the stuff, you know, actually wrote the magazines. And they, that was quite cool.

And they were pioneers in the computer magazines. And also, I think, like Kerang, like some music magazines as well. So they, I forget the name of the company, but it was a big, it was, you know, very, quite a really big company.

But that was their head office where they did the, you know, didn't print the stuff there. They sent that out to a printers, I guess. That was in the days before the internet.

Not long before though. I mean, I was there in 1997. And the internet kind of popped up around that time, didn't it? 97, 98, 99 started to get popular in England.

What other places did I work? I mean, just try and think. I had this place, it was a bridge, under a bridge, one of the London bridges. I had a job there.

You know, it's random, random job. So they just used to take me and then bring me back. The Royal Opera House, that was it.

The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. They were building a new one. I think it was like half a billion, 500 million or something.

And they were building a new opera house. So I worked there for a few months. Trying to think where else.

Off the top of my head, I can't think about where else. It must have been somewhere. I wonder.

So one in North London, that was this big whole area around where the original asylum would be. And then it had all these houses that were vacant. But the patients were living in there, had been living there.

It was a massive bit of ground, really huge. Now it was my job to walk around there and check that no one was coming onto the land. Some of the hospitals, I had one job.

It was in another hospital. I had lots of different hospitals. And this was in a, I think I was in one or two nights.

And it was, I suppose you would class STD clinic, basically. And I was there in the evening just to guard the place. I was in and out of various different hospitals, guarding.

Some of them were closed, some of them were open. I was in one place where there was a celebrity who was having treatment, famous actor. And I was there to make sure that the press didn't get up, because he didn't want the press to know about his illness or about what was going on.

So that was my job. I was there predominantly just to make sure that no one came in. And that the press didn't get inside that ward.

That they couldn't stop them getting into the hospital. But I was there to stop them from getting into the actual ward itself. Of course, I just went to sleep, but that was what I was supposed to be doing.

And what else? What else did I do? I can't remember any others. I mean, the nighttime hospital ones were probably the worst ones, could be walking around with no lights, apart from like a torch, to see and stuff and just, no. I remember phoning in, well, I had to walkie talkie, said, look, I'll do this shift.

But don't expect me to walk around in the dark. This is scary. I'm not doing it.

I refuse. And they said, oh, why then? I said, no, I'll do it if there's someone with me. But the people that I had with me was quite often, they were students.

So they were coming in and doing their paperwork, doing like coursework. And they refused to do anything. Like, well, I'm not doing it if they're not.

I think I worked in the A&E as well in the emergency ward as security, which is pretty much the hardest security job of all of them that they had. And, but I don't think anything happened. I was there because the other guard was in the hospital.

So I, you know, being treated. So I was, yeah, I was there. It wasn't all right.

Yeah, it was okay. There was a nurse's home, of course, I was there. No, I can't think of any other places.

I think that might be the one of them. Yeah, I think that's it. Anyway, I'm going to go.

Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Talking about nothing for 90 minutes.

Yes. Take care of yourself. Bye-bye.

Remember to be conscious of. Because you deserve to be happy. Don't worry, be happy.

Lots of love. Bye-bye.