#469 Let me bore you to sleep

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com, my name is Jason Murad, this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Please un-listen when you can. Safely close your eyes.

Right, I've got a couple of messages. Okay, where is it? Where are you? So I've got a message from Brad. Hi Brad.

Hello Jason, hope he's all is well. Did Andre fully heal from his leg thing now? I say yes Brad, thanks for asking. He seems to be completely healed and back to normal, which is good, which I'm really pleased about.

And he said, can I possibly get a birthday shout out for my daughter Tessa? No. She's turning eight tomorrow. Thanks man, keep doing what you do.

I listen every night. So I'm guessing today is Teresa's birthday. No, Tessa's birthday, sorry, Tessa's birthday.

It's my eyesight. Or no, it's Tessa, but I'm not wearing my glasses. So all together now.

Happy birthday to Tessa. Happy birthday to Teresa. Happy birthday to Felicity.

It's a happy birthday. And the big eight, turning eight, a big eight. Before you know it, you'll be 50.

Trust me. It's a happy birthday Tessa. And thank you for the message Brad, and I hope you and your family have a brilliant day today.

I have a message from Ben, saying just a quick hello, new listener. So hi Ben, thank you for listening. This is a message I had yesterday that I was going to talk to you about yesterday.

By the way, Andre is in the bedroom because he's naughty. He was scratching at the front door half an hour ago. And it's now quarter to one in the morning.

And I thought, nope. So I didn't put him in his cage in the storage room. I put him in the bedroom.

At least that way he can sleep on the bed, sleep in the shed, which is one of his favorite places at the moment. I think it's quite cool in there. It's weird because it's not... I thought it was really hot in there.

Maybe it's cool for him. Who knows? He knows what he wants. He wouldn't go somewhere that was hot.

And yeah, the only thing he doesn't have access to is water and wood, food and water. But he's able to go half an hour without that. So this is from Deb.

Love listening to your X Factor pod. I live in James Arthur's hometown and it's a regular in our restaurant. This was on Thursday.

Andre's scratching at the bedroom door. Which is probably a door I don't want him scratching at. He keeps doing that.

I'm going to have to let him in. He annoys me so much. And there's a picture of Deb and James Arthur together.

He's a cool dude. And I said maybe I'll get to visit one day. She said it was lush up in the north, north out now.

Especially evenings like tonight. Yeah, lovely picture. You know what? I don't think it matters where you live.

If it's a lovely day, it's a lovely day, isn't it? You know what I mean? It's like, well, whether that, regardless of it's sunny, whatever you class, that's a lovely day. Then it's a lot, you know, we get it everywhere. And there are parts, I guess, that are a bit grey out.

Like London. A bit grey. I'm going to have to let Andre out.

He's scratching the door now. So I just put it on pause and I've just gone and let him out. I'm holding him now.

This is his last chance. You know, it doesn't, I can hold him and cuddle him. He can, when he gets down, he can play in here.

Ideally not, you know, because he's a bit noisy when he plays, but or go to sleep in here. The second he scratches at the front door or any door, he's going into his, he's going into the cage. Yes, you are.

Give daddy kisses, good boy. You've been such a good boy all day. Why are you misbehaving now? You've been out three times today.

Yesterday, rather. Three times. I took him out three times.

There you go. He goes to the door, he goes to the front door. He's had his warning.

Now we're just going to make as much noise as he can for the next hour, probably. Blessing. Happy anniversary to my dad and his wife.

I've been married for 28 years now. Wow. Yeah, 28 years.

Got married in 92. Blimey. So a few things, a few little changes I've made.

One of them is, it's dawned on me that this is no longer a hobby. As far as the amount of work I put in for the recordings, I'm not saying that in like, I'm a hero or anything like that. But there is a lot of, there's a lot of work, a lot of time put into this.

And I enjoy it. I do. I like it.

And I'd like to think that there's a future in me doing this. Not just this, the amount of times I've said, not just this podcast, but you know, all the different podcasts I do, as well as future things I'm going to be doing, future projects and maybe some books and courses and who knows what I end up doing over time. God, he's so noisy.

Oh, well. I'm not going to separate him from his girlfriend while he's in the heights of passion. Doesn't seem fair.

When he's asleep, he's so damn cute. But when he's awake, he's so awake. And he's, the thing is, people, I've been told, I've read online, and people have said, well, if you get him done, you know, get him castrated, which is basically what they're saying, he'll calm down.

But you know what? Him being sedated, when I took him to the vets, that image of him just lying there, looking at me, is etched in my brain. And I never want to see him like that again. In first, I'd have to have him sedated in order for him to have the procedure.

But then the idea that he's going to be a bit like that all the time, you know, just a bit like just chilled out. That's not him. He is very relaxed most of the time, but then he's not, you know, he's, he's active.

He wants to run around and he wants to go for walks. And although it's annoying at times, I don't want him to change. He is who he is, because his personality.

And I couldn't, I wouldn't want him to be like a sedated version of an Andre. That'd be horrible. I might as well just have him stuffed.

I'm going to do that, you know, it's just something to look at then, isn't it? Instead of this wild animal. That's one good thing about having a ferret. It's got nature, got nature around me always.

Because it's not like the usual, you know, I was, I was brought up with the idea of dogs and cats. So a dog and a cat is just a normal, or a goldfish, or a gerbil. But something like, I've never even seen a ferret before until I moved here.

It's just such a different pet, or did I say the word pet? They're a very different member of the family, very different son to what, you know. Because with a dog, you know, I just keep saying the word, you know, I notice that that's a problem with editing. I listen back to myself and it's like, oh, I keep saying, you know, I try and stop, you know.

Anyway, he's doing his thing. So what I've been looking at, what I've done is, first of all, I've added the adverts back onto the podcasts. Now, from the complaints that I had about the adverts, it wasn't that there was adverts, it was the, the loudness of the adverts compared to the loudness of my recordings.

That seemed to be the issue, that the adverts were a lot louder. I contacted the podcast provider that I got a couple of days ago, they said they can't do anything about the volume of the ads. And it's a loudness rather than a volume.

It's like a, it's, it's a production thing. But they told me what I needed to be aiming at for my own recordings. So what I've done is I've spent a couple of days researching online to see how I can do this.

And yes, there's quite a lot involved in the whole process, especially as I don't, I've never got that involved in the, the mastering of the recording side of things. I just recorded, I mean, in the old days, I didn't even use to fade in or fade out. You know, I just used to record and just upload.

Now, more recently, the last few years, I've done the fade in, fade out, and try to do a bit more editing. And more recently, I'm spending an hour per recording, if not more editing, just to try and make it sound okay, take out the clicks and the hisses and the bits. I feel stressed actually, having him doing that at this time in the morning now.

Actually don't like it. Apart from the fact it's a bit unprofessional, isn't it, to be making a recording with that in the background. I bet people listen to this thinking, at last he realizes it.

But I also know that he's got a lot of fans out there. So I don't mind it now and then, but I don't want it in every recording. I don't want him doing what he's doing every time I make a recording.

Why he has to do it on noisy paper and bubble wrap, you know, it's just like, anyway, it is what it is. And I don't want to put him into his cage, but I will do if I need to. If he keeps doing it, if he keeps, because it's like one o'clock now, when I finish this recording, if he's still doing that, then I'll put in his cage for the rest of the night.

And I'll just, it's hardly the end of the world. I mean, he's got a hammock, everything he needs in there. Okay.

So I haven't had any messages lately. That was my knee, that was. I tripped over on the stairs earlier, went downstairs, just have a quick word with my friend.

And I'm running up the stairs. I know you shouldn't really run upstairs. And I've got concrete steps.

And I had my, I don't know what they are, like crooks. And I tripped over. After some reason, my reflexes are quite quick.

Now, my knees didn't hit the floor. My head didn't hit the floor. Nothing.

Basically, I managed, I managed to get my hands. So I landed on my hands, but the full, my whole full weight landed on my hands. From a standing position to a laying down position, admittedly at an angle.

So I hurt my wrists. And I stayed there for a few seconds thinking, have I hurt my wrists? Have I really hurt my wrists? But from the feel of it, it's just, I didn't even sprain them. It was just mild.

It's like, oh, it was a bit of a shock. I might feel it tomorrow. I don't know.

But yeah, it's a few hours ago. Probably about 9, 10, 11, 12, 1. It's gotta be a good four hours ago. So I think, yeah, I think I'm all right.

So here's what I've done. Here's the latest. Where is it? That's weird.

I thought that would have been on my thing. Yeah. Okay.

So I downloaded the editing software on the iPad. I've been using that. And I forget the name of it, but Twisted Wave.

So I paid $9.99 or something for that. I think that was last week or the week before. So that's coming quite nicely.

I'm used to using it. It's very basic, but it does the job. Although it seems to get annoyed after about, if I do too many cuts and pastes and changes, it eventually stops wanting to do anything else.

That's usually after about an hour of doing it. And then I have to save it as it is and then upload it again and just carry on. So I think that's possibly just an iPad thing.

I'm sure if it was on an iMac, it'd work a lot better, but it still does the trick. It's pretty good. I was looking for something.

There's a thing called the LUFS or LUF level, which is like minus I think 16, which is what the ads are. I'm getting more technical here. And it's the loudness.

It's not volume, it's loudness. There's a difference. And it's basically the average sound of the recording throughout.

That's my understanding of it. So of course, when you're listening to the recording, you can still turn the volume up, turn the volume down, but that's how it goes when you're listening to it. So what this does is it... Well, first of all, the first thing I downloaded was an app called Euphonic, but that was going to cost me an absolute fortune, like a lot of money.

Yeah, probably 50 to 100 pound a month to be... And I don't know still, I might end up using it in the future, which will apparently supposed to be really good, and it does everything for you. Once you edit it, you have to edit it by hand, and then it evens and equalizes everything. And then I found, so I downloaded it and saw how much it was going to cost.

I tested out the free, you know, free first, because you can use up to two hours free as a trial, but it didn't work. It wouldn't upload a whole hour and 20 minutes recording, which is going to be no good to me because, well, I've got 469 recordings at over an hour long, plus all the others. So I put that on the back burner, left that, and continued my search.

And I finally came, because I had to, I had to find something that wasn't for Windows and it wasn't for Mac. It wasn't for a laptop, it was, or PC, had to be for iPad. I suppose I could have gone for the Android, but because I've got a pen with the iPad, well, I've got a pen with the Android as well actually, but the pen with the iPad is a lot better.

It's a lot more finer. And so, I'm actually thinking about, maybe there is an Android version that may be better, but I found something called Grand Final on, for the iPad, which is basically, it's a master, mastering portal. So, I researched it and checked and I thought, you know what, it's, it's saying that it does everything that I need it to do.

It's got a lot of recommendations and stuff. So I downloaded it. It was £14.99, a one-off download.

So I kind of thought, yeah, okay, I'll do it, give it a go. And then I was struggling to upload the stuff from the iPad and the iCloud onto the, into the app. And it turned out that I'd used up all my space.

So I had to purchase another 200 gigabytes for the iCloud. So I thought, okay, so that was another £2.99. So that kind of just ripped me dry. And so I, and then after I did that, everything seemed to work seamlessly.

And although I don't know exactly what I'm doing, I can hear what it sounds like when I make changes, because there's quite a few knobs to change, to turn. Of course, I don't physically turn them like in a recording studio, you know, sort of done by moving the pen and turning, you know, I think you know what I mean, visually just turns up the volume and turns up different bits and bobs. And I don't know what everything represents, but I can hear what it sounds like once I've done it.

I can keep going back to beginning, fast forward it whenever I want it to play. I've got headphones, I can listen. And I've got it, it's about to the level of the adverts, the minus 16 LUF or LUFS.

Which means, hopefully, I can replace the recordings, I can, I can, the thing is, it's going to take ages to do it. So please bear with me. I'll start doing every new recording like this.

It probably took about half an hour, maybe longer to process like a Let Me Fall Into Sleep recording, the last one I did yesterday. So it's quite a process, like it's a good two hours added on to the actual recording time. Just for Let Me Fall Into Sleep.

That's with the whole uploading, making a webpage, sharing, all that stuff. Editing, processing. Wow, that's quite a bit of time.

But hopefully, if it means that the adverts aren't going to be like really, really loud compared to the podcast, then I think a minute, a minute or two of adverts at the beginning of the podcast is not too bad, really. Considering there's no adverts at the end, there's no adverts during the podcast. You know, it's just right at the beginning and that's it.

So, and then that will mean that I'll be able to hopefully move towards earning a living doing this, which seems like the next thing to do. At the very least, cover my costs. But then look to, as the audience grows, hopefully I'll probably be a bit more motivated if I know that I'm going to be able to at least cover the costs and pay for what needs to be paid for.

It opens up possibilities that perhaps I didn't really believe were possible in the past. So I'm kind of, you know, interested in what happens next. Because, yeah, I think it'd be quite cool.

You know, if I have, even on a, I don't need that much daily to get by. You know what I mean? To actually, to sort of, here comes my calculator. Yes.

So let's say I need 15,000 a year. It's 41 pounds a day. 41 pounds a day.

15,000 pounds a year isn't a lot. It's basically minimum wage. So 15,000 divided by 52 equals 288 a week, divided that by 37.

7.79 a year. It's minimum wage. But it's just about doable.

Just about livable. 40 pounds a day. I can already get 20 pounds a day already from the adverts on like a good day.

So all I need to do to earn a living is double it. Double the amount of views. That's easy.

I just, I don't know how. So in order for me to really, to live a better lifestyle than I'm now and got, is to be getting 60 pounds a day. So in the ads, what you're getting is not a lot of money.

But that'd give me 21,900 a year, which would be a lot more than I'm getting now. And if he starts scratching the door, he's going into the cage. He's at the front door now.

I can hear him. The second he does it, it's almost like he can hear me. How can a little creature like him make so much noise when he runs around? That's one of the first things I'd do.

If I was able to, I came into a bit of money, I was able to earn, start earning some money, you know, proper money. I would get this flat kid out with really, really good carpet. Proper thick, the most soundproof carpet I can get.

So that he can do whatever the hell he wants. And it's not going to affect, it's not going to be hurt anywhere. That's what I would do.

I'd also quite like to go on holiday. I'd like to have a break. You could say, well, do I need a break before I do anything? That's a good, good point.

I'd love to go in a caravan or stay in a caravan. So go somewhere nice on a train, not too far away, but take Andre with me. So go and stay in a caravan where they're pet friendly.

And be near the beach or something and just be away for a week. You know, go somewhere for a week and just chill out. And take him for long walks and just sort of keep him with me, you know, pretty much the whole time.

Go and drink outside if it's a nice place, if you've got a bar, just a caravan site or something. God, this is making so much noise. Isn't it weird how I'm the quiet one and he's the noisy one.

I almost want him to start scratching the front door so I can put him in his cage. I know he's going to do it. I know it a hundred percent.

I know him so well. He can't help himself. He's doing it.

I'm going to put him in his cage. I'll just put you on pause there. Put him in his cage.

Let you go into an empty little water tank thing and put more water in, clean water in for him. And that's it. He wasn't happy.

You know, as soon as I went into the hallway and turned the light on, he was running. Looked like he was running at me. He was trying to run through my legs as he knew I caught him.

He's just so cheeky, but I can't have him doing that. Not at this time in the morning. He's very echoey in the hallway.

Besides, it annoys me, but it's more because I don't want to disturb neighbors and stuff. So perhaps, and it's not like I've put him into a tiny little cage. He's in a one, two, three, four story cage with a hammock and another really comfy bit that he can sleep in as well.

Food and water on tap. He's got our cat litter at the bottom, the cicadas, all fresh. You know, I put a whole bag on there so he can just go to the toilet whenever he wants.

So everything's fine. It's easy. And it's more comfortable probably than anywhere else he sleeps.

And it's pitch black as well. So he's not disturbed by the lights. He doesn't really like the lights.

And it's going to be quieter as well. Although can you hear the fridge? God damn it. I'm just going to close that door now.

You know what's bugging me is I'm tiptoeing around here. And I'm probably one of the few people on the entire planet tiptoeing around. And I'm annoying myself by doing it.

But I can't help but be considerate. Just I try, really try hard. But at the same time... Anyway, if I get soundproofing carpet in here, like really proper stuff, then I shouldn't be heard at all.

And I should just be able to do whatever I want. So that's going to be my goal for next year. Ideally, I don't know, maybe somewhere nice.

But I like my flat. I just I think I'd like a different lifestyle. Well, ain't lifestyle.

This isn't even a lifestyle. This is just... I don't know what this is. I'd quite like to do something different for the next half of my life.

Yeah, I suppose realistically 15, kind of nearly halfway through, maybe a third, quarter through, I don't know. So you know what I'm going to do for the next 50 years? I could do something completely different. I could just stop doing this stuff and do look for something else to do.

But there isn't really anything that interests me. Anything else? You know, I wonder how many times I've said, you know, during this recording. You know, I think about, you know, I think, I'm sure I said, you know, there, without even meaning to.

I think about retraining in some kind of new profession. And then I think, well, I'm 50. And the reality is, and I know this, it's more, you know, it is hard.

There is quite a lot of ageism around. And some people don't care. Some people value experience.

Some employers would value that. But some, I think it's, and I can understand it in a way. I've worked in places where in the past, they want young people, not just because the energy level is higher.

And perhaps they're easily motivated by less money than an older person would be. Because it's all new. You know, if they've just left college, or school, university, they're getting paid, you know, 20,000 pound a year.

I was like, wow. But to someone who's 45 or 50, 20,000 pound a year, I know it's a lot more than what I get now. It's a lot less than I used to get when I was working.

Not a lot less, but you know, quite a bit less. So, and there's also the thing is, people that just left school, they used to be told what to do by teachers, by parents. I'm not used to being told what to do.

I can be asked. But, you know, even in recent years, the places I've worked at, they didn't ask. It was a case of do this.

And it was always by someone younger. Every single manager that I've had since 2001, yeah, every single job that I've had since 2001, I've been managed or supervised by people a lot younger than me. Like, you know, 10 years plus younger.

And although I don't really care, I don't really get that bothered. It's sometimes very noticeable. The first job I had, not the first job I had, but the first insurance job I had, my supervisor was, I think, 22 and I was 31.

And it was a big deal. I didn't seem like he even knew what he was doing. In the sense of, you know, I'd ask him a question and he'd say, what do you think the answer is? You don't know, do you? Do you think I know? I don't think you do know.

Why don't you think I do know? I've never got a straight answer. So I think it was his way of getting me to learn. But at the same time, I did wonder if he actually knew himself.

He probably did, actually. So I don't know what it would be like to get back into the work environment at 50 and to be starting all over again. And it seems to me, as though the ideal solution for me would be to be self-employed, to have my own business, to work from home, to do my own hours when and when I felt like it.

And those times that didn't feel very well or wasn't up to it, I didn't have to work because I wasn't working for someone else. So if I needed to spend a week or a few days in bed, then that's what I'd do. But I'd always make those hours up, because I know that if I did this as a job, you know, sort of self-employed business, I'd work more hours than I ever would in a job.

In fact, sometimes I probably do anyway. But it's not a job, you know, it's not a hobby either. It's just more than that to me.

And I'm not trying to, you know, encroach upon, you know, the huge stars in the podcasting world. Mark Maron, or is it Seth Rogen? You know, those people that are just the Rogen Experimental Experience. You know, the ones that are earning millions of pounds every year with their podcasts.

I'm happy just to have my little chunk. I've earned it, I think. I've been around a long time, 15 years, been doing podcasting.

So, you know, I'm one of the first people to do it. I'm one of the first kind of collection of people to have done this, and sort of stuck to doing it. Admittedly, I didn't know what, you could say I might still not really know what I'm doing, but I know a little bit.

And I've tried to educate myself a bit more on some podcasting etiquette and procedures and and try to make some, well, try to make some okay images for the podcasts, without putting my funny face on them. Gone through the process of trying to edit and, you know, do all that stuff as well. As well as being fairly prolific, I would say, over the last few years, I've made a lot of recordings.

You know, I'm not a once a week person. You know, I don't know how many recordings I do a week, but it's got to be, I reckon even on an average week, over 20 recordings a week. You know, sometimes four or five a day.

But I'm just saying on an average week, I'll work it out one day I might actually, yeah, I might do that. Look at sort of what I've done the last, because I've been, I've been dating my recordings for the last few years, which I used to do originally, right at the beginning, like 2007, 1st of April, 2007. And, you know, and somewhere along the line, I stopped doing it.

Yet some of the recordings actually that I've got, I hope I still have them on the hard drive somewhere, that they've got, like the original recordings have got the date it was originally recorded. So going back to sort of 2009, 2010, 2013, and stuff like that. Because within each mp3 file, there's actually information that you put in, as well as the, you know, the audio is, you know, the title, name of the person that speaks in it, and the date.

It's just, it's information on what type of recording it is, has it been encoded, is it a WAV, is it an mp4, mp3, you know, whatever it is. As I try to do my recordings to suit Apple, because they're the, they're the leader when it comes to podcasts. So I try and do everything to suit their criteria.

So yeah, I just, just sort of looking into it. It's going to take a little while to fine tune the audio so they fit in with the ads, so they, you know, kind of hopefully will be the same level of loudness. Which means then, if you want the recording, if you want to listen or turn the volume down, which means the adverts will be lower, and so will the recording, but it will become the same, hopefully same kind of level.

But what this is going to mean is I'm going to need to go through every single recording from the back catalog, and redo them, not re-edit, but re-master them to get them to the correct level. And then re-upload. So I don't have to do anything to the actual podcast, just replace the file.

That's all I need to do. So all the stats stay the same. Everything else is the same.

It just means I re-upload a new file. And because there's so many, it's going to be quite a big task. So if I just try and make sure that all the new recordings I do are at that level, and then I can listen on the various different apps on my phone to hear if they kind of, I'll just be interested to hear whether or not it works, if it's kind of coming.

It doesn't have to be exactly the same loudness, but at least roughly. You know, I don't want it to be twice, to sound twice as loud as my recordings and the adverts. I want it to be kind of in sync, if at all possible.

And if I can't do it, then I'll find a way to do it. I'm determined to find a way to do it. And I think I've found a way.

And so I'm going to continue with the route I'm going. And hopefully it's going to take a few months probably, because to do the back passage, to work on the back catalogue, because so many recordings, it's going to take hundreds and hundreds of hours of processing. And when I'm processing it on the iPad, I can't use the iPad for anything else.

You know, it has to stay in that window. So yes, it's a bit of a... It is what it is. I can use the Android app.

There's a few, quite a few. I mean, I can make recordings, I guess, while that's going on. So it's a juggling thing.

It's a juggling thing. But this, I don't know why. I suppose I do know why, but I don't know why at the same time.

I'm feeling the need to make changes as I'm nearing my 50th. And I didn't think that I would. I didn't think that I'd want to move towards actually earning a living doing this.

So I think it's a mixture between seeing what is possible, having run the adverts for nearly a month, a couple of months ago, and seeing that some days I can get 20, 25 pound a day, or $25. Some days it's $12. But you know, on a really, really busy day, where I've maybe got 5,000, 6,000 downloads, that's $25.

And 6,000 downloads isn't really a huge amount compared to what it will be in the future, possibly. I like that word, possibly. Hopefully.

And just compared to last, that was a whisper, wasn't it? Last year. You know, based on the the growth from this time last year, even if I didn't really do much different to what I'm doing now, I'd imagine I'd be on 10,000 plus a day downloads. If I just continue to make some new recordings, but not put that much effort into making lots, but for me, it's not about making a lot.

It's about keeping each podcast going and updating each podcast. Because I've got a few, it's a fair bit of work. And it's worthwhile, because hopefully I'm helping people.

And it doesn't cost people anything to listen. Just, you know, a few adverts at the very beginning. That's it.

So I get to earn a living eventually. Yeah, it's still a free service. That's like a win-win situation.

And I'm pretty sure that with the advertisers, the more people listen, I think the higher the rate goes up as well. So the more I learn, not just statistically, but also they just, you know, I'm not sure if that's true. That's what I've read.

I've done a little bit of research. I think that was in between research and the intelligence of dolphins. So yeah, that's how I'm thinking.

Is need to be positive towards the future, to have a goal, to have something to aim for, rather than, not that I've been wandering aimlessly, because I've had targets in my head, I knew that I wanted to reach. I think when I was first started, well, when I first, I think it was October, November 2018, when I started putting these, was it 17? Blimey, I genuinely can't remember. But I was getting my listener, I think like a few hundred a day downloads and I've reached a thousand and like, on my next target, I want to be able to reach 2000.

I reach 2000 a day. And, you know, so I've kind of set myself targets like that. And, you know, I love it when I, when I reach six, 7000 in a day, that's like a particularly good day, really.

But if I make one new recording, I generally get over 4000 downloads a day. Yesterday I got about four and a half thousand, I think. If I do a few recordings, I might get five, six thousand.

But I'm grateful for it. It's lovely. I like it.

I like the, it's quite exciting for me to see the growth, to see, you know, sometimes I'm thinking, it's like, okay, so I've got 140,000 downloads last month, or 138,000 or something. Or 136,000, it's 3000 down from the month before, it should be going up. But then I look back six months, we have less than 70,000, less than 80,000 a month.

You know, it's growing. And something happened in January, I don't know what, but it grew. This is before any kind of people staying indoors at home or anything like that.

It's just from December to January, suddenly I was getting like 1000 more a day, sometimes. So it's just over time grows. And just need to put the work in, you know, you, you know, you know, you know, you know.

Technically, there's no work involved in these recordings. It's kind of sometimes me messing around and sometimes me just opening up and telling me what's going on and sharing my life. And I quite like it and I feel quite close to people listening.

It's a strange, strange thing, really, I guess. But it's all I was saying, I think yesterday, how I didn't create my own family. So when it comes to birthdays and Christmas, I don't really get much, you know, attention or anything.

Yeah. In a sense, I have created a family. But you, you know, people that listen to me, especially I think with this podcast with the little boy to sleep because it is boring, it's supposed to be boring.

And my life is quite boring. Life is very boring, actually. In some ways, I don't generally get bored, because I'm quite okay to live a solitary life.

I've got Andre with me, so it's not that, it's not, I'm not on my own. I've got my friend I can call who's downstairs. I've got the internet, I've got recordings, I've always got things to do.

If I want to do stuff, it's not like I've got nothing to do. Plenty to do. It's never ending.

And that website, these recordings, it's a never ending process, it's never going to be finished. Literally, you know, I could still be making these recordings in my 90s. Moaning about, moaning about how rough my carer is when she washes my balls or something.

I don't know. I'm just saying, we should be rougher, I don't know. But this could continue.

I don't know about the other stuff, the other recordings I do, but this one could continue forever. But it might cease to be what it is now. It might end up just being, you know, a diary of an old man.

It's at the moment, it's a diary of a middle-aged man. So yeah, that's pretty interesting. I think for me, I don't know, maybe.

And I think I'd like, really like to go on cruises, and travel around and share that with you, you know, listeners. So I've got something to talk about, actually doing something. And I can make it boring.

Okay. And hopefully, you know, get a few laughs along the way. So I quite like the idea of, I can't do it at the moment, because I've got my little boy, I can't take him on a cruise with me.

But even saying that, I could probably leave him here and let my friend, ask my friend to look after him for a week. You know, not anytime soon, but maybe, you know, the next year or two, if I can afford to go on a cruise, or afford to go somewhere on holiday. But then I can make recordings, because as long as there's an internet connection, don't need the internet connection to make the recording.

All I need to do is take my iPad and my tablet, take both of them with me, do the recording, or I suppose I could do the recording on the iPad. But it's finding a recorder that is decent enough quality, because the one I've got on the on the Android is fairly good. But I could probably do that.

So let's say I'll just take the iPad, make recordings, including the hypnosis sessions, it's got to be, it's always going to be somewhere that I can go where it's quiet. I can make a couple of recordings and, you know, it's, and then just travel around. And I quite like the idea that you get to get a little bit cultured, you know, talk about what I've seen and who I spoke to, maybe even do a few interviews with people along the way.

And maybe even do some hypnosis with people and record it. Yeah, that could be quite interesting from that angle. And because I think it's about feeding, you know, I need to feed my brain.

I mean, not with food, although food is obviously important. I like to learn stuff. Sometimes, sometimes.

I like the organic way of learning. So I'm not a traveler. I've never really done much traveling.

But when I have, I've kind of enjoyed it. I quite enjoyed the freedom of not being here, and not being in this country. I'm not having a go at this country.

I'm very lucky to be living in England. It's a very, very fortunate to have been born here. You know, it's, especially with mental health conditions I've got, there's some parts of the world where I'd have been just locked up in an asylum or just left to rot in the street somewhere, begging.

Here, I've been supported. So I'm lucky. It doesn't always feel lucky, but ultimately, I am.

And this is, I'm not saying it's like a wonderful country I live in, but this is a pretty great country in a lot of ways. I'm not going to go into lots of details, but I just think there's a lot of things wrong with everything, isn't there? But you know what? I want to start focusing on positive things. That's what I want to do.

I want to spend the next 50 years being more positive, focusing on more positive things, but not to the level of being pious, or being, taking myself seriously. You know, I still want to mess around and see the funny side and the absurdity and all that stuff. But at the same time, have a bit of gratitude.

Because I think it's practically impossible to feel grateful without positivity. It's almost, you need the two go together, you know, yeah. So this could be, and you know what? There's people all around the world that, there's a few people that I know would quite like to, or I'd quite like to meet up with, and would possibly quite like to meet up with me.

A few I know definitely would. Isn't that be nice? I could come to your town, stay in a hotel somewhere, you could show me around, show me the sights. Yeah, that'd be cool.

Whether it's Australia, New Zealand, Canada, America, Scotland, Norway, Thailand, Germany, Spain, Italy, you name it, France. I've got people from all over the world that listen to these recordings. But my, you know, I'm just looking for a free lunch.

So basically, stay in a hotel. If you can buy me lunch and take me out for some drinks, you pay for them as well. And I'll give you a signed autograph from Andre.

I don't think he's going to be signing anything after we put him in the cage. He's going to be annoyed with me. Probably will.

It's quite nice fantasizing about doing something different. Yeah, there's a lot of things I don't want to change. But one of the things is my financial situation.

I think the Fed's situation with Andre really kind of awakened a part of me, realizing that I wasn't able to look after him when it really counted. I managed, but I had to borrow money to do it. And I also got a bit of help as well from some of my fans and loads of well wishes, which really helped.

It was lovely. Now, you know, it doesn't, I realized that there may come a time in the future where he needs to be there again. And I want to make sure that he gets the best care that I can give him.

So I need to start preparing for that. I need to start preparing for my own old age. You know, you know, you know, you know.

I mean, officially I can retire in about 17 years. Ridiculous, isn't it? 17. I think it's like 67 or 68.

I'm going to be 50 in a few, you know, two weeks. But no pension other than the government pension, no private pension. So I'm going to really need to keep working forever.

Which is okay if it's like with a podcast, if it's something I can still do. And if people are still listening to the old stuff as well, then I should have that residual income coming in. So yeah, there's also things like my dad, if he needs to go, if he needs medical attention in the future, which, you know, we all hope it's not going to happen, you know, we won't need but, you know, reality is he might.

I'd like to really help him out. You know, maybe help pay for a taxi or something to the care home, pay for some black bin liners so he can put his stuff in them. Yeah, I just I'd like to be able to help out.

And not just that, my friend, I've got a friend who's in his 70s. And he's been really, really kind to me over the years. And he's sailing around on his yacht at the moment.

So he's having fun in that. I'd like to take care of him in his elderly age, you know, when he's like in his 90s or 80s or whatever. I'd like to be able to make sure that he's comfortable and he's safe and he's living somewhere decent and he's being looked after.

So they're kind of the two people. And my stepmom as well. Although she's a lot younger, she's only 11 years older than me.

So she's got her kids to look after her. You know, so I think she's going to be all right. And I know my dad's got plenty of people to look after him.

But kind of sort of falls on me as his son to be there when he needs it. But I'd like to be able to be there to help everyone out. You know, in the future, whether it's my stepsister, stepbrother, my brother, my goddaughters, although I haven't spoken to them for absolutely ages.

But I always like the idea of being able to help them out, you know, in the future. But then I didn't expect I'd be unemployed at this age. You know, I really started to notice myself saying that, you know, you know, you know.

Yeah, it's weird. See what happens. See what happens.

I think it might be an interesting journey. It's been fairly interesting so far. The last 15 years or so.

Yeah, I nearly said, you know, the last stop myself. Yeah. Anyway, that's me just waffling on about possibilities.

And there's always possibilities. There's always possibilities. And I think that's, I think that's, it's exciting, really.

Yeah. Right. I'm not going to end this recording.

It's a shame I'm not so tired. It's a shame that I am so tired, right? Because with Andre in his cage, I could make a few recordings without any interruption. All I want to do is go to bed.

So you see, you never know after I started editing this, I might get a second wave. You know, I might suddenly get a little bit of energy and just think, yeah, I'll make a, I'll make a relaxation for stress recording and maybe a deep sleep whisper recording. So I could record them now, and then edit them and process them tomorrow.

Or not tomorrow, it'd still be now, it'd still be today. But, you know, after I've been to sleep, it just because I've recorded doesn't mean I have to upload them straight away. Including this one, in fact, I don't have to edit this and process this.

Right now I can do this in, I can upload it at 10 in the morning or 11. It doesn't have to be uploaded at two or three. It's nine minutes past two.

So this definitely won't be uploaded and processed much before 3.20, 3.30. But yeah, yeah, man. So hopefully, things are starting to come together. About time, isn't it? About time.

So thank you very much for listening. And yeah, if you've got any requests, and you're probably fast asleep by now, I'm not even listening. But if you've got any birthday requests, or wedding anniversary requests, or anything like that, feel free to just send me a message.

Just go to my Facebook page. If you don't know where my Facebook page is, in fact, if you just go to Facebook and put in let me bore you to sleep, search for that. And that's probably the best page to leave me a message for these podcasts.

Although you can just go to my other pages as well. But for the let me bore you to sleep ones, maybe you can leave a message, leave a comment or anything, and I'll see it. So thank you very much.

Remember to be kind to yourself. Because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love.

Bye.