#504 Let me bore you to sleep

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

Now there is a bit of background sound in, well Andrei is running around a little bit, but also there is, yeah, there may be some background sounds in one of the, one of my neighbours, so, but I can't allow that to stop me from making recordings, you know, it's just, so, I'm gonna keep going anyway. See, because I am a trooper, as they say, a super trooper. Now, I had a Mars bar ice cream.

It's a Mars bar ice cream, or Mars ice cream. And I opened it up, and I was just like faffing along with it and watching telly at the same time and opening it. A quarter of the corner, not quarter, but a corner of the ice cream was missing.

Andrei, what are you doing? A quarter of the corner, he's saying quarter, a corner of the ice cream was missing. Now that's strange, isn't it? It's a weird thing. But I thought maybe it compacted into the rest of it, and I just squashed it or something, because it had been in my pocket.

Not for a long period of time, just between the kitchen and the living room. I put it in my pocket. Not sure why, actually, I must have been using my hands for something else.

I don't know what. Oh, I know. Basically, what it is, is I've got a recycling tub on top of my freezer.

So I take the recycling tub off the freezer. I put it on the bin. I take out what I need from the freezer.

In this instance, the ice cream. Put the lid down, and then I put the container back onto the freezer. So I probably, yeah, that's probably why I put the ice cream into my pocket.

I think it was my left pocket. And yeah, I don't know why I've got a tendency of using my left hand to pick stuff up. Even when I've been shopping, and I carry this, if I've got one bag to carry, I would generally carry it with my left hand.

Well, not just the hand, the arm as well. You know, and I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because of the injured shoulder, because I've got an injured right shoulder.

Back in 2005, I hit it on a shelf. I mean, not purposely. I was talking to a friend called Will, and we were just chatting quite late at night.

And we were just chatting anyway. And I stood up. And because I wasn't so familiar with the surroundings, because I hadn't been living there a huge amount of time, I hit the shelf with my shoulder, the corner of the shelf.

So I suppose the strength of standing up, the speed of standing up, not that I was stood up really quickly. I mean, I've never really stood up hugely quickly. Yeah, I mean, I suppose if there was an earthquake or something, mind you, I'd be under the table.

But does that work? Does that stop the earthquake? I don't know. Anyway, I banged me shoulder on the shelf. And it was a wooden shelf.

It was, you know, I don't know what the right color is. It's probably the same kind of color as my table here, which would be brown, but very light brown. Very, very light.

It's almost if I remember rightly, when I was in junior school, balsa wood, it's that kind of color of balsa wood, but not varnished. Although this is probably varnished, but not the dark because of balsa wood. If you've in my memory, if you varnish balsa wood, it does darken it because it's quite a very light wood.

And I used to like balsa wood because I never bothered with wanting to make planes because that didn't really interest me. But I liked making boats. I like the process of hollowing out the wood and sanding it and, you know, sort of making it nice and smooth into a kind of a like a boat kind of thing.

And I remember doing that in junior school because it was when I was at the junior school, this was the school just before I went to high school. So I was about nine and 10. When I was at that particular school, when I went to high school, I was 11.

And I can't really remember learning that much. It was very easy going. I don't believe there was any homework or anything like that.

Not that I really did it when I was at high school either. I pretended. Did I pretend? I don't know.

But I, what did I do? Yeah, the balsa wood was really cool. I liked it a lot. It was a lot of fun.

I think it's something about creating something out of nothing, which is kind of what I do here, I suppose. The only difference is I create nothing out of nothing when I do the podcasts. So it's a slightly different.

And so I've got the Hulk is on telly while I'm talking. It's on mute. The only reason it's not because I wanted to watch telly while I talked.

It'd be because... What's he doing? Andre's got a fascination of the shed now. He's spending quite a lot of time in there. He's in there right now.

I can hear him because he's squeaking the door. I wonder what he's doing. What's he up to? Why? And he does it sometimes when I'm in bed.

So yeah. And the balsa wood, I quite liked it. And I had an accident once which wasn't so good.

But other than that, it was all right. It's just, I suppose I was a bit careless with the knife that I was using to cut the wood. But it was fun.

I quite liked... I'd say I probably quite liked all of the junior schools. I went to three different junior schools just in my town from the age of seven to 10. So I just happened to have moved around.

Plus I went to other schools previous to that. So before high school, I probably went to, at the very least, probably five, six schools before going to high school. So I would have gone to one in Southend.

I did go to one in Southend. I can hear him. So I just pressed the recording on pause to find out what he was up to.

And he had his, one of his nails, his fingernails caught in the... Hello? Hello? I'm holding him. He had one of his fingernails caught in the blanket thing that covers the shed. So he was trying to get out of it.

But he wasn't making any weird noises. He was, I guess, trying to do it himself. So I went there, let him out.

Can you say hello to everyone? Can you hear him? Go on, say. That's it. He's right near the microphone.

He's giving me kisses. Good boy. You're daddy's little angel, aren't you? Yes, you are.

You're daddy's little angel. He loves kisses and cuddles. I took him out for a walk earlier, about five o'clock or something like that.

It was still light outside. God made the most of it being light at five because in the next few weeks, it's going to be dark by that time. Isn't it, Andre? So I took him out and he was shivering.

It was like a little baby. Weren't you? A little baby. And all he wanted to do, because I'm holding him to start with as we go outside, and he's trying to get inside my jacket.

That's it. I let him in the jacket and he's going to sleep. Absolutely pointless me taking him for a walk if he's going to go to sleep.

I might as well just have left him at home. It's pointless. It's just pointless.

So I try and carry him outside my jacket as much as possible, hoping that it'll come around. You know what I mean? Maybe sort of get a bit interested to go for a walk and to get down to smell the grass and to smell all the dogs have been wee-weeing. You like that, don't you? And he just had no interest, showed no interest at all.

So we get around. I even go to the field and I go into the field a little bit to see if he wanted to walk into the field because I didn't particularly want to do that, but he loves it normally. Didn't want to do that.

I put him down. He wasn't interested. But he was shivering though.

Now the temperature has dropped, admittedly. It's dropped considerably since was more than half the temperature just in the last few days. But he's normally okay with that.

It's not cold. I had a t-shirt on and my jacket and I wasn't cold. It was fresh, but it wasn't cold.

A bit windy. He's got a fur coat on. So, well, he was feeling it.

He felt the cold and I can't ignore it. It's okay for me to say, yeah, but I'm warm. I'm okay.

You should be okay because that's just ridiculous, isn't it? Because we're all different, aren't we, Andre? He's just staring at me. I think he's been hypnotized. He's staring at me and I'm holding him.

Been rubbing his tummy and he's supported so he doesn't have to do anything. Even supporting his hand, his head with my finger so he could just lie there. And he's just staring at me now and I'm rubbing his hand with my other thumb.

Andre, don't bang stuff. Good boy. I love this little boy so much.

He's ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And the thing is he's so warm.

So I'm holding him now and he's really, really warm and it's nice, but he doesn't like it because I'm probably squeezing him. Am I squeezing you too hard? Am I squeezing you too hard? All right, let him down. Whoops.

He's gone. Eventually, I walk around and he still, he gets down every now and then, walks a little bit in the park, then gets up. And once we're getting closer to home, he's running.

He's running towards home and he's enjoying, he's loving being outside, but because he wants to get back. So basically, that's what I did. Just let him lead me home, came back, and then he was full of energy.

Isn't that weird? Literally, he's like, sometimes he does that. I'll bring him back from going for a walk and he's really inactive. Put him down and he starts jumping up and down and wants me to chase him.

He's like, but you just went for a walk. You didn't. What? So he loves his home.

I think he does really love being here. This is his place and I suppose it's his territory and that, but I guess he probably considers the park his territory as well. Because when he goes out every day, especially probably in the summer or when there's less rain, he can smell where he's been.

But he still seems to be able to do that even when it has been raining. And also because he's his friend, he's got a dog downstairs that's his friend. So I think he likes to follow where he's been as well.

So they're like best friends, but unfortunately Andre bites him so they can't be together. Andre bullies him, but I don't think he does it with that intention. He just, it's him playing, but unfortunately ferrets are rough when they play with each other.

They're not gentle. Well, from what I've seen, there might be some that are gentle, but he isn't. And his uncle, who was a ferret, well, a ferret, not moon, not moon pig, whatever cat thing, you know, he's a mixture, fire cat, I don't know what, I don't care the name.

But when they both got together, they used to fight really. And you'd think, oh, they're trying to hurt each other, but they didn't ever, ever. They never, ever hurt each other, but still had to keep them apart because it started out that the other one that was older used to push Andre around.

And then the other one got weak and elderly, and Andre started hounding him, pushing him around. And it's like, I didn't like it. And what was weird about it is they both wanted to be with each other.

They both wanted to cuddle. And even though Andre would be asleep and I'll bring the other one up, because at this time he was, he was in his last few months. And I brought him upstairs.

And Andre kept like, pushing him away and like, biting, well not biting him hard, but you know, like kind of trying to control him and stuff. And this other, the other ferret would try and sneak up to him when he was asleep, just to cuddle. Literally, he just wanted to go to sleep with him.

He wanted to cuddle with him. That's all he wanted. And Andre just weren't having it.

Then when the other one ignored Andre, Andre was all over him. It's just really an unusual situation for the two of them. Andre wants certain things, but he, maybe he takes after me, but he doesn't know how to, you know, he doesn't know how to go about it or whatever.

But it's weird. I think like sometimes he wants my attention. He wants to play.

So he bites me and runs away. But he does it because he wants to play, because he's rough. But he's not, I kind of trained that out of him.

It's probably the only thing, there's only two things that I've trained him or, I don't know how that trained him, but the only thing that really he listens to is when I say gentle. So if he bites me too hard during playing, I say gentle and he is gentle. He starts licking my finger.

So, you know, he's very, very vicious, but not really vicious, if that makes sense. He's just, I mean, when that little kid kicked him a few months back before he hurt himself, because I kind of didn't really can, the little kid was basically kicked him and Andre was hissing like whoosh, whoosh, really angry, let off a proper pong. He was furious, but he didn't lay a finger on the kid.

He didn't do anything. He didn't bite, he didn't, you know, he could have done. He could have at least like, you know, he could have ran at him and bitten his feet or, you know, sort of, he didn't hiss at him or anything.

But when I picked him up, he was like whoosh, whoosh, really, really furious. And I've only seen him like that twice. Once was when that happened.

And the other time before that was when he ended up inside a dog's mouth. This is a couple of years back. And he got, again, exactly the same thing, whoosh, whoosh.

And he was, I put him inside my jacket, like I did this time. And he was shaking with anger, wasn't scared. He was just absolutely furious.

And it was his fault because he attacked the dog. What can I say? He attacked the dog. The dog grabbed him.

So basically, he went to bite the dog on the nose. And the dog grabbed hold of him and he was inside the dog's mouth. I opened the dog's mouth and removed Andre.

And he was, you know, he was all wet and stuff. And the dog's owner was all apologetic. And I said, I checked him out, you know, I'll hold him up.

There's no blood, no bites or anything. So it's fine. But he was like, whoosh.

I was like, it's your fault, Andre, you did that. That dog wasn't going to give you any hassle. You, you know.

But it's, I feel it's weird how quickly I had my hand in that dog's mouth. Literally just, there was no, no time at all. It's just suddenly pulling the dog's jaw apart.

And removing, removing Andre and then just letting the dog go. And that might have looked quite bad from a different angle. But the dog's owner didn't seem to be upset or anything.

But I was not going to leave Andre inside a dog's mouth. That was not, never will happen. I will, I will remove Andre from any, any place where he's not supposed to be.

He will be removed by me. He always, always, his safety has to come first. But you know, there's ways, you know, there's ways of doing it where everyone works.

But everyone has to be a winner. That's what I like. And it's a beautiful dog.

You know, I love dogs. I'm not a dog person or a cat person necessarily. But I do love animals.

I think animals are amazing. And especially, well, I'm a fan of squirrels. I do love squirrels.

The reality actually, back in 2000, I don't know what year it was. It was a year before I moved in here. And I was in a pretty, not in a good space generally.

I've been unwell and lost my job and stuff. A therapeutic for me, thing for me was to go and feed the squirrels. Genuinely, it was therapeutic for me.

I actually looked forward to doing it. It changed. Yeah, I wouldn't say it changed my life, but it affected me.

It helped me get through that period. And that period was also very difficult, difficult financially, because I had, I was living on about 40 pound a week or something. So I did, you know, I just, it was a difficult time.

But I got through it because I had those squirrels. I know this might sound, might sound strange, but I genuinely, because I got, I was on like the most lowest amount of money that I could be get, that I could get for about 10 months. I think it was the March or February, all the way to November.

Okay. What is that? March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November. It's about nine months where I was on minimum amount of money and my rent wasn't even covered.

So they paid, they would only pay 66 pound or something towards my 85 pound a week rent. So I had to come up with the other bit of money plus, you know, credit cards and other stuff that I still had to pay for. So I was left with such a small amount to get by for those months until November.

And then I suddenly, I got the payment for the back dated when I was eligible to get full payment. So suddenly I had no money in the bank. It's really weird.

And so that was November. So December, it might have been December, actually, I think it was November. And then I moved in here in April.

So luckily I still had about over a thousand pound left. And that's what I spent on the carpet, the bed, the washing machine, the various different stuff that I had for this flat when I moved in was from that money. So it kind of worked out, I suppose, in a way.

But those squirrels, I loved the squirrels, I really did. They were just, I don't know what's the right word. It became a cathartic.

Yeah, like a little family. It was nice. So yeah, but then I moved away and pretty much not seen a squirrel since, which is weird.

But I did, what was it? Well, I mean, I got Andre obviously, it's sort of in the September. So it wasn't long without a nice little furry friend to play with. Maybe that's why I got Andre.

I know he's not a squirrel. He's not even in that family. He's not a rodent.

And I never really class squirrels as being rodents before. But the fact is their teeth keep growing. That's a rodent.

So they have to keep chewing on stuff for their teeth to go down. Otherwise they end up with ingrown teeth, toenail teeth, things, big teeth. What if rabbits are rodents? Are they? Are rabbits rodents? Because they've got big teeth.

Mind you, horses have got big teeth, haven't they? Donkeys, they're not rodents, are they? Are they rodents? And then I got Andre. I do miss him a little bit. What do you mean you miss him? You still got him.

I know I still got him, but I kind of miss, you know, the excitement when he was little, when he was like first here and the constant playing and he just destroyed everything. He was constant, had so much energy. And I do miss that a little bit.

Yeah, I do. It was just so funny. Honestly, I used to take videos.

I've got a few videos stashed away somewhere of him doing all kinds of weird things and ripping up the settee and stuff. So I don't know where they are. They're hidden.

They're somewhere. But I also lost hundreds of videos of him as well along the way. So the same as with me, I used to, I had many, many, many Jason Chat videos where it was a vlog, which is kind of similar to this really, but they were videos.

And I used to put them onto YouTube and they were, you know, I had an audience. I don't want to use the word popular because that's probably incorrect, but I definitely had an audience for them. And yeah, I've lost most of them.

I've probably only got about, about 50 stored away somewhere. I say stored away somewhere. They're on a hard drive.

But the hard drive is a bit big. I mean, nowadays, I think it's two terabytes, two terabytes. Well, actually the iPad here holds one terabyte.

And this hard drive that was actually bought for me by a fan was a heavy old thing. But then that's, I had that before I moved here. So that was back in 2014.

I probably got that maybe 2013 even. So I've had it for quite, you know, go back there, what, seven years. So I imagine you could probably get a thing the size of a mobile phone that would have more space on.

Not the actual phone, but you know, like a hard drive. It probably would be something that you could, I might look into it actually. I mean, at the moment I use the, I don't know what it's called, but the iCloud.

Is it iCloud? So I have, I pay two pound, I think it's £2.99 or something a month for, I don't know how much space. Is it 50 gigabytes? Or is it 500 gigabytes? I don't know. I'm not sure.

But I need to keep updating it every now and then because I use up all the space. However, it's really good to have everything backed up. That's a pretty amazing thing.

So it's not only is it backed up, but that's where it's stored. It's all stored in the iCloud, which means I never, I can't lose anything that I do. So every recording I've done in the last few months is, since I've had the iPad, has it been a few months? It might have only been a couple of months I've been using the iPad.

It feels like forever now. And I can't believe I actually learn how to use it. Because I did not like it to start with.

After doing everything on a laptop, for years and years and years. And to be fair, I think I quite, I struggled a little bit with laptops after using normal PCs for so long. My first laptop was not, what, 2004.

So from 1999 or 98 to 2004, I was using PCs. And then I continued using PCs at work until I was last working, I was using a PC. But then I got this iPad.

And I had an iPad back in 2000. And I think it was 2011. I think.

Might have been 2012. I got an iPad because the laptop broke. I have a lot of luck with laptops.

Anyway, it fried. So I had, I got an iPad, which was a contract, like this is, from the telephone company, mobile phone company. So I got that.

And then it was a lot smaller than the one I got now. But it was a lot thicker. I mean, I don't know how long iPads have been out at that point.

But they were, they weren't that fairly new. I think it's probably the second one or a third one that they've made. Maybe I might be wrong.

I don't mean the second actual iPad. I mean, they made millions didn't they. So I had this, that iPad, and I could not get my head around it at all.

Not one bit. Genuinely didn't like it, didn't like the iPad. I just, in the end, I gave up on it.

And I just didn't use it. And it became defunct. Because I've still got it here.

You can't do nothing with it because none of the the operating systems out of the new operating system doesn't work on that. So the apps don't work. I mean, I could probably still use Google and stuff like that on there.

But ultimately, just a bit pointless. When I got this iPad, I also got a keypad with it, separate, which means it's like a laptop, using it kind of like a laptop. But with the touchscreen, and using the apps and all that stuff.

So a bit of a bit of a learning curve, but I've done it. And I feel quite pleased with myself that I've managed to learn how to use it in a productive way, because that is what I got it for. I don't have it for fun.

I don't really go on the internet much. I don't go onto the internet very often. Generally, you know? Yeah, not that much.

And then quite often I use my phone now. So if I want to do some, if I want to search for something, I do a Wikipedia search, look for something that's happening or do the news or emails and all that stuff. I use my phone now.

So I don't need to, unless I'm actually at the laptop, not a laptop, I'm at the iPad at the desk. Of course, I could just check, check my phone, check stuff like that. But it's easier just to do it on the phone.

Check emails, check what else? Oh yeah, if I've had phone calls or texts, I could do all that on the iPad as well, because they're both connected. In fact, when someone rings me, I think I've turned the notification off, but it used the, even if I had it on mute, my phone, the iPad would ring. I've turned that notification off.

So I can talk to people on the iPad. I can make phone calls. I'm not sure how to, because I've not done it, but yeah, I don't.

That's what the phone's for, isn't it really, I guess. But it's okay. I've got used to it.

I've got used to, once you get used to doing what I'm doing, if you're doing something like making recordings or videos or stuff like that, it's about remembering where things are stored, how to get that thing into an app in order to do the editing or the recording or whatever, and then how to transfer it out and how to, just remembering where things are. It's probably not a very good description of what I do, but I can't even know what I mean when I say that. It's really being a little bit organized.

And it works out all right. It took me ages to figure out how to save stuff and how to upload things. Because before that, it was easy because I was always doing it on the PC, the laptop.

Easy peasy. And then suddenly I'm doing it through the iCloud and maybe the storage on the iPad as well. So it's like, oh.

However, it's worked out all right. I suppose that's the benefit of making regular recordings. If I was doing one recording a week, I might actually forget how to do the process.

But because I'm doing easily at least one to two, three, four a day, it's just second nature now really. Isn't it weird? Isn't it strange? So I've got an order bit of the supermarket. See, I'm trying to get... Oh God, I well overspent this week.

Stocked up with some stuff that should keep me going until Christmas. But I've still got other things I need to get as well. So this week, if I can, if I can, I'm going to get very basic, minimum 40 pound order, but very, very basic stuff.

No stockings. I'm not going to buy any stockings. No stuff that, you know, for the future, just to get me through the two weeks before I get paid again, because that's a long two weeks without any money.

So I want to try and get as much food to keep me going for those two weeks. So that's what I'm going to plan. That's my plan.

It is. It's a plan. It is a plan.

So that's what I'm going to do. And then, yeah, I should be right for two weeks. And then I've got October.

I can't believe it. Seriously, it's October nearly. Where's the year gone? I spoke to my dad and I spoke to my parents, my dad and my stepmom.

I spoke to them today on the phone. And I was just saying, we were just saying like, wow, it's October on Thursday. It's October on, it's four more days.

So it's the 26th today. It's four more days of the year of the month. So Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

So yeah, the first is Monday, Tuesday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is the first of October. And then we've got Halloween at the end of October. Not just Halloween, but also we're here.

I don't know about in America or other countries, but we have the clocks go forward, forward, back, forward, back. No, forward, they go forward. So October, the last weekend of October, the clocks go forward an hour.

So that's Saturday night. And then it's Halloween. So I don't know what, let me have a look.

What days are what? Let me see. So Thursdays, October the 31st. Oh, it's actually a Saturday.

So Halloween's always on the 31st, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Halloween, yeah. It's all day.

Yeah, 31st of October. So the 31st, Saturday, and then at the end of the day, before you go to bed, before you go beddy-byes, the clocks go forward an hour. I think officially it's something like two o'clock in the morning, but it's like, what is it? Daytime saving.

Wait a minute. No, I got it wrong. I think I got it wrong.

According to this, I'm just looking at the phone. Sunday, the 25th of October, British summertime ends. So does that mean the clocks go forward on the 24th? Or, you know, the 25th? Wow.

No, I don't know. I just don't know. How weird.

So yeah. So anyway, the reason I remember, the reason I remember, even though I've clearly not remembered it properly, but one of the reasons I remember is the clocks going forward is because I was working, I was, I met a lady in, I think it was probably 1999, and I really liked her. Might have been 2000, but I think it, I really, I really liked her.

And she'd already been in the club before, in the nightclub. And she was basically just being hounded by men. It was like they were queuing to talk to her.

It was ridiculous. Having seen, having, yeah, it's, that was quite rare to see such a spectacle of men just queuing to want to talk to her. And she was lapping up.

She was just laughing. She found it hilarious. And she was 19, I found out.

So I was about 10 years older, I guess. Yeah, about 10 years older than her at the time. Well, I suppose I still, still would be, wouldn't I? Anyway, she, she came back again.

And she's like, do you remember me? Because at the end of that evening, when she was ready to go home, I didn't talk to her. I didn't, I just laughed at her and said, look, you're like a pied piper. You know, all these men just dribbling over you.

And she said, yeah, I know, it's pathetic. And she went home with her girlfriend, whoever she was with. So the next time she turned up, she came and spoke to me.

She said, do you remember me? I said, yeah, I remember you. And she kept coming up to the DJ booth and talking to me. And in the end, I said to her, do you fancy doing something sometime? Do you want to go for a, go out sometime if you fancy? And she said, yeah, okay.

I said, well, here's my number. And then she came back later and spoke to me and we kissed. And then she came back at the most of the customers had left.

She came in and sort of hung out with me for a little bit. And she talked about, her friend knocked on the door and said, are you ready to come home or whatever? Because I don't know if they were sharing a place, but they came together. To be fair, her friend was probably annoyed with her, keep leaving her on her own.

Um, and her friend said, is he coming on with us? And I, I had already given her money for the taxi to get home. And I was going to, she was going to give it back to me, which she did. So he gave it back to me the next day.

And I just figured, well, if she wanted me to go home with her, she'd have asked me. I didn't, didn't feel right to just have her be put on a spot like that. And that wasn't the arrangement.

The idea was I wanted to, I liked her, so I thought it'd be nice to go for a date and, you know, rather than just, uh, uh, I don't know, whatever else. So I said goodbye and she gave me a kiss and her friend said, go away. And they went.

And then the next day, it was a Sunday and I was, I told her I'd call her the next day. But I called her way too early, not realizing that the, the clocks had gone forward. I remember the first thing she said, it was like, she said, this is way too early.

Why'd you call too early? I said, I forgot. I said, I forgot the clocks had gone forward. So it's not really this time.

It's like, you know, and she said, yeah, but it's six o'clock in the morning. Why? She said, I said, just enthusiastic. And, uh, plus you owe me money.

And so in the end we went out, I went and yeah, I got a taxi to where she lived. She didn't live that far away from me. And yeah, we ended up going to the cinema, I think, to the pub and then a cinema.

Can't remember what film we watched. And that was it. I never saw her again.

So it was a weird one. I had a very similar situation to what I had with a Spanish girl that I was dating, well, kind of dating. Exactly the same situation.

I was out with her. And for some reason, I don't know why, sometimes men, and maybe it's the same with women. I don't know.

I don't want to generalize, but I've been out with some women where men think it's okay just to chat them up, regardless of who they're with. It's happened a couple of times with me and both times I allowed it. I was like, that's just rude, isn't it? You know, it's never happened with anyone that I cared about that I was sort of in a relationship with, but it happened on a couple of kind of dates.

And these, she went up to the bar to get me some drinks because she, it was her turn, she said. So she went up to the bar and two men were at the bar and they were like flirting with her. Or maybe she was flirting with them as well.

I don't know. And I was saying, are you with him? And she said, no. Is he your boyfriend? No.

I heard it. I don't think she thought I heard. That's when I realized that I better, you know, go to the cinema quick before she goes off with him.

And the same thing happened with, well actually it's three times, isn't it? Same thing happened with this Spanish girl that I was, she was also 19, but I was 24 at the time. And she was an au pair and we, it was a good name for her job. Au pair, what a, what a, yeah.

She definitely, she was a good, she had a, yeah, she's looking after some doctor's kids and stuff. So it was good, good, good, good job and stuff. And we were in Southend, walking down Southend pier on a date.

We just, you know, had a day out. It was lovely. Really nice.

Enjoyed myself. We had a laugh. And some blokes started talking to her in Spanish and they were asking her, they asked her something and she was nodding her head.

So, but it was in Spanish. So I didn't know what they were saying. And I pulled her up.

I didn't pull her up. I just turned, turned towards her. I didn't pull her towards me.

I just like turned and said, oi, bonjour. And I said, did those men ask you if I was your boyfriend? And she, she said, how do you know? How do you know that's what they said? I didn't think you could speak Spanish. And I said, and why were you nodding no and laughing hysterically? She said, um, look at the sea.

What was it? Look at the sea. No, I don't know. I can't.

I'm not very good at the Spanish accent. It's not very good Spanish, but there was a Spanish bloke who was the, he was a manager at the comedy club for a while. And my friend, he used to laugh because he said, I can't understand a word he says.

His accent was extremely strong, but he was really good at his job. He was really good. My friend couldn't understand him and he employed him.

It's like, I can only stand, I can understand probably every fifth word that he says. And he speaks so quickly. And it was a lovely bloke.

It was like, he said, I love him, but I can't understand him. So we had to get other people to sort of communicate. It was very strange, but it was nice.

I dated a half Italian, um, just the left side. And she, she used to speak, yeah, she was, her dad was Italian. Mother was female.

And she, they had, she spent most of her summers during her childhood in Italy. So she spoke Spanish fluently. And, um, I can't imagine she would have spoke Spanish in the home because her mom was English.

Uh, but maybe she spoke it with her dad, but she, you know, she had grandparents, all kinds of stuff. Like in every summer holiday, I think she used to go, go to, uh, to Italy. Did I say Spanish? It's, she was Italian, half Italian.

And she was, actually at one time, I would have said that she was the love of my life. And, and I would still say that I probably never loved anyone like I loved her, even, you know, up to today. So I can't remember.

I think, you know, I think I did love her. What I quite liked about her is when she, I liked her best when she was asleep. Bit like Andre, when he's asleep, I really love him the most, but she could sleep through my snoring, which was perfect for me.

You know, she, when she was asleep, she was gone. That was it. She always looked so cute.

So I quite liked that. When she was awake, she had a mouth on her sometimes, full of Mona. But I shouldn't say that because we're friends again.

We kept in touch, but she's, she's lovely. But she was, she was too young for me. We were too young.

I was, yeah, we just, I was, I was too young. What was the old song? She was too young to fall in love and I was too young to know. Where did I give my heart so fast? Never would it ever again.

So what did I do? Oh yeah, I, um, did you say I was Hispanic? There was one, another female that I went and dated. It wasn't really, there was a friend, but we were kind of having a, a date, kind of. Yeah, it was a date.

And we were in a pub and I was drinking my diet. It wasn't a diet Coke, it was a Coke. No, she was having a diet Coke.

I probably had a beer, but I might've had a Coke as well. Cause I've never really, back then, I don't think I was really much of a drinker. And this man just walked over and sat down at the table and started talking to her, trying to chat her up.

Now she wasn't my girlfriend, but I knew that she was coming home with me. So there was something about that knowledge that made the situation kind of funny. And I just, I just made fun of him basically.

And he was getting wound up cause he was trying to show off. And to people actually, I suppose some people are affected by people showing off. Look what I've got.

Look at my muscles. Look at my car. Some people are impressed by that.

I remember once watching Big Brother and there is this young Indian lad on there and he, from what I could see, he's probably never, never left India before. It was his first time. And he was on Big Brother.

It was like big deal for anyone that gets on Big Brother. And he was trying to show off to a couple of the, one particular female on the show. And she was, I don't know, she was English or Scottish or somewhere from the English I mean, to be fair, he might be British.

Depends what part of, I don't know what the, I don't know all the politics and which, I don't know. But yeah, he was from India anyway. So he'd never been here and he came here for the Big Brother and he was funny.

But what he didn't realise is the difference, I don't know if it worked in his country, but he was trying to show off and impress the woman that he really liked by telling her that he had an education, that he'd gone to school, that he'd graduated from school. And it was never going to work because everyone goes to school here, pretty much. It's not really a big deal.

And it was just almost, he got into quite a bit of trouble because they complained about him because he was a little bit full on. But I felt a little bit sorry because he, something that perhaps, a line that worked maybe in his own arena, where he perhaps meets people, wasn't going to work here. Telling someone, oh, I'm educated.

I mean, if anything, that could be almost, so you're telling me that I'm not educated? Is that what you're saying? Is it? Anyway, got kicked out of Big Brother for something he did. But it was, I miss Big Brother so much. I wish it was on.

Honestly, out of all the programmes on television, out of all of the reality shows, and let's face it, TV is full of them still, isn't it? And it has been for, what, 20 years? It's gone on a bit, hasn't it? I remember, I remember putting about, 99, it must have been. And the newspapers, they were talking about how reality TV was going to start. And all these new reality shows were going to be starting.

And they weren't wrong. There was, in the early days, there was things like, there was one called Shipwrecked. There was one that was in a salon, like a hairdressing salon.

I like that. And there was stuff on a pig farm. But I think that was celebrities.

And there was all kinds of weird stuff. So over the years, yeah, Shipwrecked was pretty good, if I remember. And then it turns, even stuff that wasn't, wouldn't normally be classed as that, reality television sort of turned into it.

Like Bear Grylls, putting people onto an island together for like a month or something. And again, it's a reality TV show, isn't it? That is the equivalent to I'm in the jungle, get me out of here, except without the tasks. Now, I like celebrity, get me out of here.

But I want it to be without the tasks. I don't like the tasks. I don't like any of the eating things that they do and don't like it.

But I do like seeing them kind of interacting and that side of things I find really, you know, interesting. But it's hard to sort of get to that without all the tasks. So I haven't watched it for years.

Celebrity Come Dancing. I used to watch Come Dancing, the original show back in the 80s, I used to watch that. So my Nan was a big fan of Celebrity Come Dancing.

Absolutely loved it, really. And I watched it with her, didn't like it particularly. I don't, I'm not a dancer.

Never really found dancing to be of, it's just not, yeah. I don't know, dancing to me, that would be the same as digging a hole in the garden. It's like, what's the point? It's just, yeah, not really my thing.

I don't, never really been into dancing apart from when I was a kid. I used to dance like Shakin' Stevens when I used to go to discos when I was very young. But not now.

The, what else? I'd like to tap dance. I'd like to learn to tap dance. That's something that I'd very interested in doing.

Very much so. So maybe, maybe I might do so. So what else? Yeah, so what else? What else have I got to say? What else is there? I don't know.

I don't know at all. Yeah, I think the, I'm not quite sure what the point was, because I was talking about the yellow table or the brown table. Oh yeah, that, the shelf.

So when I hear it, it's like, oh, so that was a weird, that was back in 2005. That's before I even started doing these kind of recordings. Can you believe it? Can you believe that's how long ago it is? I don't believe it.

No, I don't. It's a long time. You know, in some ways I'm looking forward to the 20th anniversary.

So 2016, so it's only, well, let's face it, it's 2000 and not 2016, 2061. No, 2026. And we're 2021 soon.

So it's only five years away, five and a bit years away until I reach the 20 years of doing these podcasts and doing videos and recordings and stuff. Because I was trying to remember, I don't know if I've already said this, but there was in 2007, 2000. Yeah.

I started university 2007 in the September. And in the January going back in 2008, I showed my fellow classmates, that's when I was doing the degree for counseling. I showed my fellow classmates the stats.

See, I don't just bore you with my stats. I just bore everybody. Been doing it for a long time.

This is back in 2008, January. And I showed them the stats because I was really pleased that I'd reached over a hundred thousand downloads for my podcast at that time. So I started that in at least 2007.

So I know that I've been doing podcasts for at least since 2007. And I started the videos and the recordings, putting them onto MySpace in 2006. So yeah, wow.

It's amazing that a hundred thousand downloads by January 2008. And that was a time when no one knew who I was. And now still nobody knows who I am.

I'm basically like an unknown person who gets listened to for some reason. And I'm very fortunate really. I'm trying to, I know yesterday I did a recording talking about something that was a message I'd had and stuff, but you know what? I'm not going to let stuff like that get in my way anymore.

I'm going to try my very, very best, and I mean it genuinely, try my best to stay as positive as I can, as often as I can. Because things are going okay. In fact, things are going really well in some ways, especially with the, well, with this stuff, with the podcasts, which is my life.

This is everything. And yeah, today it's Saturday. There's less, there is quite a few less downloads today than in, you know, on a normal day.

But it's the weekend. There might be a few less today. I mean, I've got 2,896 or something.

No, 2,898 downloads so far. And it's nearly, it's 10 to 8 in the evening. Now the stats finish about 1.30 in the morning.

So there's still five and a half hours left. I counted that on my fingers, by the way. There's still five and a half hours until the stats stop.

So 3,000 nearly now. There'll be at least four, probably four and a half thousand maybe by the end of the day. Yesterday I had 5,945.

So, but that was a weekday. On a Saturday, generally seem to have less, a few less downloads, which I would put down probably to people that are maybe going out or there's more socializing in the weekend or, yeah, I'm not really sure. It's maybe the weekend is more possibility of distractions, which may be useful.

I don't know really. I mean, all I can do is guess because no one's ever told me. No one's ever sort of said, oi, guess what? Don't like you at the weekends.

I've got better things to do. You're a weekday only person. Maybe, I don't know.

I don't mind. I don't mind being a weekday person. Yeah, so five hours.

Yeah, I probably, I still get towards about 5,000 probably by the end of the day, or at least another thousand, maybe 1,500 in the next five hours. So that's all right. I just, for me, it's, it's, I don't know.

I like, I'm checking the stats all day long. Generally I am. Every few hours I'm checking to see how I'm getting on because it's the most important thing to me.

Making the recordings and also having people listening to them as well. I mean, that's fairly important to me. Sort of kind of the point really, I guess.

But anyway, I've waffled on. This has been a long recording, a long, long recording, and I had no idea what I was going to talk about. But then I rarely do.

I rarely do. So I'm going to go. I want to thank you for listening and remember, remember, remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy.

So do something nice for yourself today. Take care. Lots of love.

Bye.