#597 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.

And Andre Dooley Newland is in the background having something to eat. And I, also in the background, am pressing against, or pressing a tennis ball against my lower back using the back of the chair that I'm sitting in. I say tennis ball, it's not, it's a dog ball, like a tennis ball for a dog, so it's a lot harder than a tennis ball, which is exactly what I need.

And I'm pressing against an area of my back which hurts. It's a little bit counterintuitive in a sense of, ouch, why am I doing this, it hurts. That's the hurty part.

Why would I press something on the hurty part of my back? Well, the reason is because afterwards my back doesn't hurt. And I can walk around without any lower back pain for a certain amount of time. And I realised that I went for a longer walk today and it started to hurt a little bit nearer the end of the walk, but I hadn't really prepared properly.

I spent probably about 20 seconds pressing against my back, pressed against the wall. Not spending like five, 10 minutes doing it like I normally do. And the reason I do this is I saw a video and I thought I'd give it a go.

You know, you might say, well, you watch a video on YouTube, did you? You thought you'd try a video on YouTube for something serious like a lower back pain and you thought you'd use a tennis ball, did you? You thought that would be a good idea, did you? You thought, oh yeah, use a tennis ball. Yeah, it wasn't a juggling channel. It was actually a chiropractor.

And I thought I'd give it a go. I've done stretches. I've done all kinds of exercises to try and help my lower back.

I've done weight training. I bought an exercise bike, you know, constantly trying to stretch the area. And the tennis ball is the thing that's really been quickest at relieving the pain, which is, personally, I think is pretty amazing.

So I think it's, part of it is sort of stretch the area, stretch the muscles, but I do wonder, can you hear him? His new, well, it's not a new thing, but something that he does now is, excuse me, he's got these tubes. I suppose they're like tunnels, but they're plastic. And they've got holes in them so he can, either side and also at the top, so he can get out of them halfway through.

And he started sleeping in them. Yeah, that's the whole story really. He just, he's got one in the bedroom, he's got two in the living room.

I'm sure there's another one somewhere. He loves them. Absolutely.

Well, I don't know if he's, I've not read his diary. Dear diary, I love my plastic tubes. They're really comfortable when I sleep.

I don't know if he loves them. I don't know what he's, if he has any emotional attachment at all. But he seems to like spending time there.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to keep this ball and just move it around different parts of my back whilst I do this recording. So yeah, shut up. I was doing a recording earlier, it was for my stress and pain relief podcast.

I've got so many podcasts. And every now and then, he'd sort of be fidgeting because he's, when he's asleep, he's constantly moving around. And it's like, shut up.

Anyway. Oh, my tummy. I've got one new message.

Oh, money is waiting. 33 spins on a gambling app. Yeah, brilliant.

Thanks. No, thank you very much. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Go away. Gambling apps. I wonder how much money the supermarket has taken out of our bank.

That's weird. NW0647. That's weird.

Don't understand that. What is CWP? I got an extra payment, which isn't good because, you know, I like to know. ESAC.

What's that mean? Oh, they've given me a cold weather payment. It killed weather payment. So we must have had extra cold weather for certain.

Oh, that's nice. Didn't expect that. Basically, if you have a certain amount of days in a row where it's below zero temperature, the government pay a certain amount of money to help with bills.

It's nice that they do it, but I don't think they should do it. It's winter. It's supposed to be cold and we're supposed to have the heating on.

I don't have the heating on anymore when it's minus degrees or minus five degrees. And what I do if it's just above minus, the heating's on. I'm not going to turn it up.

Maybe it does go up a bit higher. I don't know. But the heating's on anyway.

I don't turn the heating off when it gets to just above minus, you know. I only turn the heating on when it's below minus 12. No.

I don't have the heating on. I'm a pensioner. No, you have the heating off because you want to give your grandchildren money and spend money on stuff like that.

Put your heating on. Stay alive. Put your damn heating on.

Oh, no, I can wear a jumper. No, put your heating on. That's what you get the pension for.

Put your damn heating on. Okay, I want to give Charlie, buy him a jumper. Buy yourself a jumper.

And put your heating on. There should be a rule. To be fair, I don't think any pensioner, anyone, retirement age, should have to pay electricity or gas bills.

That's where I stand on that. If someone's spent 60, they got to 65 years old, they should have a free life after that. Anyone that's been alive for 65 years should be, have whatever they want to have.

That should be it. That's what I think. It should just be, everything should be free for them.

No bills, no rent. The thing is, if they're over 65, they haven't got to pay rent because if it's council or rented, they get that paid. I think, yeah, just yeah.

But pensions are not a lot of money. Unless you've got private pensions. It's weird because for my generation, my generation, my generation, because I've got, what is it, another 18 years before I can retire.

So by then, the chances that there actually be in a pension, I think is quite slim. And the pension age will probably be sort of 72, 75. So it'll probably be gone up by then.

So I don't, I don't think I'm going to be relying on a pension, a government pension. So it used to be 65. When I left school, the pension age was 65 for men and 60 for women.

Why that is, I mean, that's prejudice, isn't it? I mean, you know, talk about one inequality, we'll have the same pension age then. In fact, have the same death age as well. You don't get to live a longer, you don't get to live longer.

So I never understood that. Well, women pension earlier. Yet, statistically, women live longer than men.

Statistically. In the Western world, I don't know if that's the same. I imagine it's probably even more so in some, some countries with all the wars and stuff.

It's the same, I think, I've been being nearly 70 years old before you can retire, which I think will be the age of people who are maybe 15, 20 years younger than me. Imagine that 70. Because those five years between 65 and 70.

You can see people ageing. You show a picture of a 65 year old and a picture of them when they're 70. They look older.

The old the ageing process. There's nothing wrong with it. It's normal, we're supposed to age, but it's definitely an ageing process.

I mean, my dad since, yeah, since he was, since he turned 70, definitely looks older. You know, he looks, I didn't know, I don't wouldn't, I wouldn't necessarily say he looks his age. I'd say he probably looks about 14.

Well, that's funny. He looks. Cool.

My dad's always got to be. He's 75, my dad. So I'd say my dad looks probably looks in his 60s.

Maybe 65, maybe 66, 67. Maybe 69. I don't know.

It's weird because he's gone from having grey hair to having pure white hair, like snow. It's lovely. So it's really, and he's grown a beard.

And he looks lovely with a beard. He does. It's weird, really.

I don't know. It just looks really jolly. Which isn't probably a word that you'd use to describe him generally.

But he looks, it really softens him. Because he's a big bloke, you know, he's not particularly tall, taller than me. Most people are.

I think he's about 5'10", something like that. But wide, very wide. And yeah, I think having that beard just, I don't know, when I first, I saw a picture of it online, and it's sent in to me.

As I, because I've not seen any, not seen any of the family since 2019. It's the last time I saw any of my family. And he just looked lovely with his big white, it's not a massive white beard, but it's a, you know, it's a proper white beard.

I was like, oh, lovely. So that's what I'm going to be like, when I am, I don't know what age, but when I don't know, because although I've got some grey in my beard, it isn't grey, you know, the whole of my beard isn't grey. So personally, I'm doing better than he did with greyness.

He was greyer than me earlier than I am. I reckon by 45, he was greyer than me. But then, you know, he had a lot more on his plate.

I mean, he was mortgages, and children to raise, and all that stuff. He'd been through it.Me, what have I done? I've made a few recordings where I just talk rubbish.

It's not really the most stressful lifestyle, is it? I guess. Oh, I shaved my head. I shaved my head.

And I realised that I can, well, I can't go to the hairdressers, for obvious reasons at the moment. And so it's better maintained by just shaving it off. But if I do that, I have to have a beard.

I mean, at the moment, I've got a beard, but it's a very, it's more like long stubble, really. But it's beardish, beardy-ish. I can't be shaved and have a clean face, or a clear, clean cut face.

It's, it doesn't suit me. I need to have some, some hair somewhere. And the hair on my head's not really my best friend at the moment.

I mean, there's a bald patch at the back. It's receding at the front. And it almost, it goes curly now.

And there's clumps of grey. But I still would say 85% not grey. So I'm about 15%, or maybe 10% grey.

Because when I, when I shave it off, I look through the hair. And I've got a lot, especially at the back of the, back of my head, a lot of hair that's, you know, dark brown, still without any grey or anything. And I've got very thick hair growth at the back and at the sides.

So I'm not, you know, I'm not really balding, balding, balding, balding. So in the middle of my hair, plenty of hair, at the back on the crown, there's a gap, there's a little eye, it's not an island, is it? It's a bit of sea, I guess. And at the front, it recedes more.

But it's more noticeable when I've got hair than it is when I've got no hair. Because the gap between hairs and hair follicles, it's a little bit like a forest that's been detreed. You know, where they cut down lots of trees, but just left a few.

That's kind of, that's how my hair is a little bit at the front. There's a couple of hairs where there's actually a gap where my hair used to come down on my forehead. The hairs, a couple of hairs are still growing where the hair used to be, the hairline used to be.

And then there's like a few inches before you get to the next hair. It's really weird. And then there's others like a little bit of a gap.

Very strange. Very, very strange. I was making fun of some stuff in yesterday's recording.

Just make fun of people chanting the country that they're from, when they're in the country that they're from. What else did I do? I did a recording a sleep hypnosis weekly yesterday. And that was, well, I know it's personal opinion, but a good recording, actually, I thought it was a good recording.

And I did a recording today, earlier, the stress and pain relief podcast. Another good recording. He's making some real squeaky noises.

But I know he's okay. I just don't know why he makes those noises. I don't know what he's dreaming about.

Earlier on, I picked him up and laid him on my lap. I just stroked his tummy and started massaging his tummy and his legs and his feet. Normally, he's like, get off me, get off me.

But he fell asleep. So he's just laying there. I've got my left hand on his, I guess his chest bone, you know, on his chest, not holding him down, just resting on him.

And because there's no point holding him down. If he wants to get off, he will. He just wiggles until he gets out of it.

So I'm just resting it there. And I'm just stroking from his chest down to his tummy. And just gently massaging his intestines and from outside.

I'm not, you know, I wasn't operating on him or going in any other entry. And so I'm just gently giving him a massage and stroking his tummy and his back and his spine and you know, just his lower half of his body. And I looked at him in his face.

I'm thinking, why is he not moving? I know he likes it sometimes. But usually, you know, a couple of minutes is enough. And he wants to get on and do other things.

He fell asleep. So I just keep doing it for probably about 10 minutes. And eventually he woke up.

He looked at me like, what are you doing? How do I get up here? And again, he wanted to get off so he did. I think it's just really natural for ferrets not to want to spend too much time cuddling. See, he has no choice when I grab him.

And I cuddle him. He's got no choice. He's not strong enough to get away.

But at the same time, he does rub his face against mine, his head against my face kisses me and stuff. So he does. You know, if he wants to get down, he lets me know, like proper lets me know.

And usually he doesn't. Usually he's happy just for a cuddle. But as long as it doesn't last too long.

Apart from the exception. So the exception to the rule is if I have someone here in the flat with me, or if I'm outside talking to another person, or if I'm at the door talking to someone, I'll pick him up and he will stay in my arms for an hour. If need be.

He sort of clings to me. So I quite like that, because he doesn't do it really any other time, unless he wants me to carry him. So if we're out, and he wants me to carry him, he lets me know.

And usually he tries to climb inside my jacket so he can go to sleep. If I'm walking, and especially sort of in the summer, and I might not have a jacket on, I might just have a t-shirt. Maybe I want to show off my nipples, you know.

And he, someone comes along, you know, they're talking to me, and that Andre will get fed up because he wants to move around. And if he's just there on his, you know, he's got the strap, you know, on him. He's got a strap on.

The harness, the harness. He'll eventually want me to pick him up, and he will just cling to me. But if someone knocks on the door, and I answer the door and then Andre comes to see who it is.

Again, I pick him up, and he'll cling to me for the duration of the conversation. And the same as if I've got someone sitting over there, in here. He, if he doesn't know them, quite often he will want me to pick him up, and he'll just cuddle into me and he just clings.

And he's in no hurry to let go. So I think, I think in a way, I think he, I think he's attached to me. I think in a, in a way.

I mean, a ferret's very different from dogs. They don't have that, that same attachment. You know, he doesn't have one particle within him that wants to please me.

You know, he doesn't care. He doesn't want me to be happy. He doesn't want to protect me.

He doesn't, any of that stuff. He definitely doesn't, sometimes he wants my attention. So that's one thing, but not kind of constantly.

You know, he's not needy at all, which is something that I like. But at the same time, I'd kind of wish he was a bit more, you know, a bit more like a dog. But he isn't.

Just because I, you know, take him out for walks with his strap on. I don't, you know, he isn't a dog. He doesn't have any of that, that, that wanting to, I don't know, like be near me all the time, or wanting my attention all the time, or needing me to, you know, do stuff.

Now, I don't think I've got the patience for a needy dog. So I understand why some people prefer cats than dogs. Because although cats need us, it's more just for the basics.

You know, food, and stuff like that. Outside of that, they decide when they want to give affection. And dogs are complete opposite.

They almost seem to want affection all the time. And I'm generalizing, I know some dogs aren't like that. I've met some dogs that aren't like that.

That's some dogs that really are like that. However, I've never been, I don't really like the word owner, but I've never, never been the parent of a dog. I've lived in houses where dogs lived.

And I've seen how they are with me, than how they are with their parent. Very different relationship. You know, there's a, yeah, it's very different.

Very, very needy. Very do absolutely anything for that person. Do nothing for me.

So yeah, having a ferret is, I suppose there's some similarities between a ferret and a cat. Can't let him run around and, you know, outside. Can't put a ferret flap in the door, because he wouldn't come back.

He might come back, but I don't know if he would. I'm pretty sure if I lived in a place with a garden, and the garden was ferret proof, so he couldn't escape from the garden. And no matter how big the garden was, even if it was huge, the size of a field, I like to think that he'd still come back through the ferret flap and come and hang out with me and sleep, maybe in the same room as me.

I might be wrong. He might dig tunnels and sleep outside in a tunnel, because that's more nature, isn't it? I like to, I like to think that he'd be outside playing, and he'd probably spend quite a lot of time outside, sleeping and digging and just chilling out. But he'd also want to spend time indoors with me.

Maybe I'll get to find out, maybe get myself a house, get a garden. I'd have to put the, have some way of stopping him from digging out. You know, because he could dig underneath the so I'd need to find a way of stopping him from doing that.

I don't know, electric wires or something. But it would be cool to be able to give him a ferret flap so he could come and go as he pleased in the garden. Or I'd just go in the garden with him.

I'd leave the door open and he could come and go during the day and then I could hang out with him and when it was time for bed, I'd bring him in. Time for bed Andre. I don't want to come in.

I like it outside. Maybe it's time to come in now. I don't wanna.

Why not? I'm a ferret. I'm a ferret. I'm supposed to be outside.

Are you gonna go down that road are you? What road? The I'm a ferret road. But I am a ferret. I know you are a ferret but you want to go down the road of being a ferret.

You want to live like a ferret do you? Maybe. In that case, hunt your own food. No.

Honestly, I think that if he ever did, if he ever did actually run away, he'd have to take a, I don't know, a tin opener or something so he could get hold of cat food along the way. I do wonder how he would get by. So we've got fields just up the road.

Now if he managed to get to the fields, which I hope he would, you know, ideally someone would pick him up and bring him here, but there's no way of knowing so I hope he never gets out. I've not got anyone coming in and out of here that would leave a door open or anything like that. Very vigilant for that stuff.

He has escaped a couple of times so I'm very careful and it was easy when he was little because apart from the fact that he moved really quickly, he was tiny. Now, doesn't move quickly at all and he's big. He's not big, he's quite long compared to what he was.

I can't believe sometimes a little baby, a little baby boy, five years ago. Five years. Yeah, it's five.

Is it five years? Yeah, because it'll be six years I'll be living here in April. So five years last September he moved in with me. Five years, that's the longest relationship I've ever had and it's not a relationship, it's not that, it's nothing weird.

I just say I've never, other than family, I've never lived five years of anybody. The last person I lived five years with would be when I was a kid living at home with my three brothers and parents and that ended in 1986. How long did that last for? How long was I there for? About six years.

Wow, that's not long is it? Six years. No, longer than that. Moved there, what, 78, I think, 78, maybe 79.

Yeah, 79. 1979, moved into that house. So I was there 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86.

Seven years. Seven very long years. So yeah, that was, to live with him then, Andre, for five years, that's a long time.

I think the longest place I lived before this was, I lived in a place for four years and then every other place I lived for was like for a year or two. I lived in a place, moved to 91 January, moved out summer 94. So 91 January, 92, 93, 94.

So I was there for about three and a half years. I was in this room, right? Oh man. Anyway, I was in there.

It was a bed. It was, it was all right. It was just a room.

But in the winter, it was cold because on the wall was a bathroom heater. A bathroom heater on the wall. And it was, and I had a electric meter.

And I used to put 50 pences into it and the 50 pences didn't last very long. Wow. So I used to, yeah, that room.

So I had a room. There's a bed and I probably had a set of and there was a table and a chair. I spent a lot of time at that table writing and stuff like that.

And I didn't have a chair to sit in, like a proper comfortable chair. And so I used to sit up in bed and watch television. And I had a little portable TV.

Yeah, I had that for years and years. I don't, once, once I rented a television and video from from like a video rental place. And I think it was, I don't know, £10 a month or something like that.

And it was big, big TV, video recorder. It was on a a stand, you know, it's all kind of all connected together. It was good.

So I liked that, but I just didn't have enough money coming in to sort of to afford it really. But I think I kind of needed, I should have, I gave it, I think, yeah, I gave it up after a couple of months. I don't know.

Yeah, must have been just financial reasons. Wow, £10 a month. And it was a nice TV.

It was top of the range, size wise. I mean, it wouldn't, it'd probably be smaller than the TV I've got now. I think I've got a 36 inch, which isn't big, but compared to the one, that one probably would have been probably 30 inches.

And the, this is weird, because if I look at the TV screen, right? For me, my TV looks big. I mean, really 25, I think it's 36, it might be 32. I think it's 36 inches.

And for me, it's a big screen. Admittedly, as I'm sitting here, it's not that far away from me. Now, if I, you know, upgraded it, updated it to get a 50 or 55 inch screen, then the one I've got now is going to be look tiny, you know, in comparison, absolutely tiny.

But at the moment, it don't look tiny, it looks fabulous, fabulous. It does me, it's, it's not quite big enough when it comes to reading dialogue in, you know, subtitles. So if I'm watching a foreign movie, or a documentary or something like that, or YouTube videos, there's quite a few YouTube videos with subtitles in.

I can't always gauge what's just being written down. So I tend to, I tend not to watch foreign films anyway, if they've got subtitles. If they're dubbed, then I will.

Because I've watched quite a few TV shows that have been dubbed. And especially ones about Sweden, there's one called Ragnarok. Great, great show.

But it was dubbed. I think it was dubbed. Really, really good show.

I loved it. And I've seen a few shows. I mean, if you go to Netflix, Netflix is full of, at the moment, a lot of Asian films, like Chinese and like, lots and lots of TV shows.

And I think some of those are dubbed, which I don't, you know, quite cool with. But the ones with subtitles, I struggle to follow. Because I'm not close enough when I'm sitting on my chair over there, to the screen, to really follow, to see what's been written down for any length of time.

It's just a bit too, it's just not an enjoyable experience for me, personally. But films that are dubbed, I'm quite okay with that. Because again, I'm far enough away from the screen to not really see whether or not the, you know, the audio matches the word movements, the mouth movements of the people.

So I kind of don't, you know, get to the point where I don't really care. Yes. What's my point? I suppose a big screen TV would be groovy at some point.

But to me, that is a big screen TV. Because up to, yeah, I've never had a, I had a big TV twice. But they were like old, old big TVs, you know, and the ones with the huge backs.

So I've had a couple of TVs like that in the past for, yeah, so I've had a couple, yeah, so I've had those. But generally, most of my adult life, I've had small TVs, portable TVs, were they like 18 inch or something? 15 inch? Which was okay, before my eyesight was less than it was. Now I kind of, you know, I need like a bigger screen.

But a small screen was fine, as long as I could hear it and see it, that was fine. And I was never in big rooms. So I was always quite fairly close, in fact, closer to the TV than I am now.

So the TV was never more than like legs length away from me. And then I moved here. And I had that portable TV.

But I was further away. So I had a chair over there. I had the TV on the side.

And I was, I guess probably maybe two legs, two legs length away or one and a half legs length away. So I was further away. And the TV just wasn't, I couldn't see.

I could see the screen, but I couldn't read any subtitles. I couldn't even see the description of the TV channel when I kind of looked on it. So eventually I got this television, it was actually bought for me by one of my fans.

This is back in 2000. 15 15. So I've had this TV for ages and ages and ages.

And it's, it's fine, it works okay. It's now on the wall, it used to be down on, you know, on a stand, balanced and it was on a TV unit that I had. Now it's on the wall.

So it's a better height. And it, it almost feels closer being on the wall than it did when it was down there. So if I did get a larger telly, I might, I might need to move the bracket over.

I'm not sure. But that TV, I like my TV. It's all right.

But a friend, a friend of a friend had a TV and he came up here with it, because we were watching boxing. And he said, well, why don't, why don't I bring my TV up? I said, so I got a big TV. He said, yeah, mine's 55 inches or 60 inches, something like that.

I said, well, if you want to, if you want to carry it upstairs, fine, we could plug in, plug in what we need to plug into it and it'll be fine. And, you know, put it onto the table. Huge, absolutely huge TV.

And, you know, all kind of worked really well. I've never had a problem watching boxing or anything on my TV. It's always been fine.

So there, so there, I was looking at something online. And there's this place, it's a website that offers auditions for voiceovers, to read audiobooks. And basically what you do is you audition.

So you sign up and you look at what jobs are available. And I guess some may be, you know, they might say, well, you want Mexican speaking, you know, for this book, need a female for this one, a male for this one. And someone that can, with a Scottish accent for this one, you know, there's a lot, there might be certain criteria.

So I don't know what kind of books I could read or would be suitable for me. So I'm probably going to visit the website. But the problem I see is that, you know, if I, you basically do is you read you for the audition.

So you record yourself reading the bit of script that they give you for that particular job on offer. And then you send it to them and they listen. And then or they whoever listens, or if it's the, the author themselves or the publishing company, I don't really don't know.

And then they offer you the offer whoever they like the gig. And they offer you sometimes a share in the profits, or a lump sum an hourly rate, or a lump, you know, hourly rate and a share of the profits. And some of them had the hourly rate at $200.

And with the hours to read the book, eight hours. Now it's going to, it's going to take longer than eight hours to record, edit, all the stuff that's required. So you're really looking at double the hours.

So 16 hours. So instead of $200, you're getting $100 for an hour. But still, for me, that's, you know, it's, it's pretty, pretty good amount of money.

Then the issue of having to need a pretty silent background when recording that book. See, I can't have that and then Andre in the background, scratching and snoring, and farting and eating and making love and all that stuff. I can't have trains in a distance, you know, and people in the garden over the fence wearing each other.

I can't have that kind of stuff. When I'm, if I'm going to be recording in a professional recording for an audio book on Audible or wherever it's going to be sold. Or so again, I'm saying this, I don't even know if anyone would want my voice.

I don't know. It's no way of knowing until I actually apply. So I might.

I'm just not sure. I think the ideal situation would be for me to maybe try and get a couple of gigs that are very small, like a small audio book that maybe lasts for an hour or two. And see whether or not I enjoy the process and what I could do to improve the quality of the sound and also without any background disturbances.

But that might be more a microphone issue or a microphone fix. In fact, I think it might be that once I get the decent microphone, the one specifically for podcasting, then it's going to pick up less of any kind of background sounds. Which I'd be very pleased with.

Very, very, very, very pleased. Very pleased. Yes.

Very pleased. So just, yeah, I'll see. There's lots of things to look into.

But right now, I'm just going to chill out and bring this recording to an end. Then I will finish and get it done. So thank you for listening.

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