#700 Let me bore you to sleep - 700TH JUICY RECORDING - Jason Newland (6th August 2021)

Hello. Welcome to jasonnewland.com. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. My name's Jason Newland and please only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes.

Yeah! See, a bit of energy there. I was watching someone on YouTube. They said, you can't just be boring when you're doing a hypnosis session.

You've got to have energy. You can't just talk boringly. You have to have lots of energy.

Admittedly, this isn't a hypnosis session, but you know. I'm always boring, whatever I do. Does that mean that nothing I do works? Blimey! I've been doing it wrong for 15, 16 years.

I should have been going, now you can focus on your feet. Notice how your feet feel. Now your knees and your back.

You can feel your back relaxing. No, I don't. It actually hurts my throat talking like that.

Oh, it's cold. It's cold. It's actually cold.

I'm not just saying it for the sake of saying it. Though I am saying it for the sake of saying it. It's chilly.

I'm not saying, well go indoors then. I am indoors. I am.

It's just chilly. I've closed the window, which is a start, I guess. But the heating hasn't come on.

It's very weird. The heating's all that. It's as if the boiler doesn't really know what it's doing, bless it.

It comes on sometimes. It's like, it's sunny outside. What have you come on for? And then when it's actually cold, it ain't doing nowt.

There you go. So welcome. Hope you're well.

And everything's going groovy for you all. Just received a Facebook message. It's just a, like a, a local garden centre that's around the corner from where I live.

And I don't normally get notifications notifications from them. But I just had one and I thought, oh, I'll have a look at that. That's interesting.

What's that? Let me read it to you. Let me read it to you. Now in stock.

In capitals, the rest is just in normal human writing. We have received delivery of select lines of garden furniture. Wow.

Garden furniture. So it's the 6th of August. The summer's kind of nearly over.

The summer period. And we've had like rain, lots and lots of rain. I guess they probably ordered it months ago, but it's, it ain't, it ain't garden weather.

It ain't. It really ain't garden weather. Not really.

Mind you, I don't need it to be very warm to sit in the garden, although I never do sit in the garden. The problem with sitting in the garden is someone might come out and want to talk to me and I just don't want to talk to people. You know, I want to sit in the garden and read a book.

A nice book. Yeah. But garden furniture.

So let's see what matches I have on my Facebook dating. Who liked me? Oh, no one. That's nice.

And I shouldn't make these noises, should I? No, I'm just going. I wasn't looking at any pictures of anyone. I was just making that sound randomly.

I was just, you know, just a sound. You know, just a sound. It wasn't like, what is that? No, it wasn't at all because I'm not like that.

I'm unlike all other humans who judge my appearance. Some of the things I've noticed, it's really bad. The picture's right.

There's this one here. Okay. I'm not going to say her name.

Sarah. But. So there's a picture of her.

At the top. There's another picture of her with sunglasses on. There's another picture of her.

Then there's a picture of her in the field with a little girl. But the little girl's got her back to the picture. They're walking away from the camera.

So I guess she's left her in, you know, because you can't see her face. There's a picture of her with someone else. And the face has been drawn out by literally scraped out with light on paint shop or something.

There's another picture of her with two women and those pictures, faces have been painted out. Then there's a picture of her with someone in a nightclub, but her face was okay to be left in. No, cross.

No, thanks. Oh, she's nice. Amanda.

There's no information about her. All it says is five foot seven has children. This really is just the case of going by what she looks like.

That's it. And only one picture. Yeah, I'll marry her.

I'll have her. So, Rebecca. I tell you what's different between the older women and the younger women.

I don't see any younger women on there. But, you know, like on some of the other dating apps I've kind of looked at over the years. And also things like Instagram, Facebook, just.

I see pictures of when I say young, you know, say under 30, let's say, for example. I don't know how they do it. But they can make themselves look completely different.

Like completely different. From picture to picture, like complete almost if you're going to do a bank heist. Then, you know, you dress yourself up and make your face look like that, because no one's going to notice you and recognize you because you look completely different to how you did in the last picture.

But not just different from picture to picture. It's like 14 different people. It's amazing.

I don't know how they do it. I know there's filters and stuff you can use on your camera and that. But it doesn't even look like they've used that.

Although it probably does look like they've used that actually. But I think they're like human chameleons. They're able to change how they look so drastically.

But how? I don't I don't get it. I mean, it's not like I don't. You just don't understand the concept of makeup, do you? Yeah, I do.

I kind of do. But I didn't think makeup was supposed to make you feel look different. It's I understand some very young people would perhaps wear makeup to make themselves look older.

And some older people might make up, put makeup on to make them try and make themselves look younger. And some people would put makeup on to try and make themselves look like a woman. If they're not a woman on a man, if they're not a man, whatever, you know, I guess to change their appearance, I'm talking about on stage as well in movies, you know, makeup.

But not to completely change your appearance if you're just like a normal human being. Of course, if you're in a role in a movie, change how you look. And I used to work in a place where they had page three girls coming in.

It was in a newspaper, and they they had like a page three. This particular newspaper didn't do topless, but it did do like swimsuit level. It's still I don't think they do that anymore.

I don't think newspapers do it anymore. They might still do it. I don't know.

I haven't read a newspaper in years. But I imagine I know I'm pretty sure that the main newspapers that used to have topless ladies have stopped doing it due to pressure of people that didn't like it. Which meant women.

I'm not sure if any men ever complained. But then men don't like to complain about things. I mean, I found it horrible and sexist and vile that they'd have topless ladies in the newspaper.

I remember when I was a kid, I was disgusted at it. I just couldn't stop looking. I was so disgusted and repelled by the female body.

You know, it's like, oh, it's just horrible. And I was just too embarrassed to say anything. I just didn't want to.

I don't want to speak out. So when they did stop the page three, girls being topless and stuff back about 15 years ago, 10, 21, I don't know how long ago it was. I was so relieved because I felt that my eyes were safe again.

And because especially seeing a nipple, I just honestly, my part of my head would just explode with anger and confusion and just, oh, didn't know how to deal with it. Deal with it. I didn't deal with it.

I just went off the rails. I think it's been the cause of a lot of problems in people's lives. Be you know, being brought up with newspapers that had breasts in them.

Oh, it was oh, it was terrible. But I'm glad I'm glad that they don't have them anymore because I feel safe. I feel safer in society.

I'm glad I got that off my chest. So to speak. Sometimes you're speaking out loud helps, you know.

It just. So, yeah, I had this place, this newspaper, I was security there and they had these models. OK.

And. They were the ugliest women I've ever seen. Now, let me just explain what I mean by this.

The amount of makeup they had on their faces, they looked disgusting and they weren't. Ugly or that they weren't ugly, but the makeup made them look really, really disgusting. And it was plied on.

And I didn't understand it because they'd walk in looking lovely. OK, with the clothes on and then it'd walk out in a dressing gown or something to go into the photography area with this face that just looked like it was going to just melt. And they were just horrible.

And. I had to explain to me what the reason was. Basically.

The cameras that they used. It was so hot that the the the, you know, the lighting was so hot that if they didn't wear that makeup, their skin would just melt off. So that's what I had to have that as protection.

It was actually wax. It really was wax. And used to pull their eyebrows off.

It was terrible. Now, I think it's. The way the cameras work because they, you know, the superficialness of media is so that the ladies had zero blemishes and perfect skin, but actually it wasn't their own skin.

It was like, you know, 17 inches of. Of stuff on top of their heads. I'm not saying they look like the elephant man, but the size of their heads compared to how it was when they walked in because they wouldn't have been able to get through the door.

I mean, and the lift wouldn't have been able to the elevator, if you call them elevators, wouldn't have carried their weight because their head would have been about 300 pounds just on its own with that makeup on. So they. The whole point, apparently, is to make them look how they looked before.

That's what I was told. We're trying to make her look how she did before, but for the camera, because without the makeup, she won't look like that. She'll look pale and she'll look.

What's wrong with looking pale? What's wrong with just looking how you look? They said, no, she won't look how she looks. She'll look different. That's why TV presenters have lots of makeup on to make them look like they look like in real life.

So that's kind of what they're aiming for. So if you used to see someone in real life. They try to make you look like that on the camera.

Does that make sense? I don't know. Now, I've seen I'm sure, I guess a lot of us have seen the odd famous person over the years. You may work with famous people.

I actually used to work kind of with semi. Yeah, I used to work with famous people actually at times. Yeah.

With the comedians of I did a gig with a few famous people. Some of them before they were famous, to be fair, but some of them while they were already kind of. It's established.

Yeah, I suppose. Technically, work is a stressed. Oh, it's a bit of an expanded word on that one.

I did gigs, I didn't necessarily get paid when I was in the same room as them. But I still performed on the same stage. I met Jack D once I was so excited.

Now I don't I don't normally get excited about meeting a celebrity. And as I said, like a lot of the celebrities I've met weren't celebrities when I met them. So they went on to be famous like Jimmy Carr.

Carrie Hill. Just trying to think of some Lee Evans, although I didn't mean no Lee Evans, but I've met a few times back in the day. Lee Hearst used to come into the comedy club actually, but he was already famous at that point.

And he was nice. I like Lee Hearst. He was always friendly, really friendly.

But he opened a comedy club, not far from where the comedy club was I was at. So my boss wasn't madly happy about that. Because you don't really want to a very famous comedian.

And he was probably, I'd say probably the most famous comedian in the country at the time, Lee Hearst. Because he was on a TV show called, I can't believe it's not butter, is it? It's over, but it is now. Can't believe it's not over, but it is now or something like that.

And he was one of the team captains and he became a star, big, big, big star in the UK for, you know, someone actually when he was on stage at the comedy store. So I remember, because I'd met him before, seen him before, long before he was, in fact I saw, he is weird, I saw him do his first spot at the comedy store, his first paid spot at the comedy store, Lee Hearst, back in probably 91. And that's what they said.

That's what the comedy store said when they said this is this is Lee Hearst, his very first paid spot, new comedian. And then you know, went on to be like a big star. And he did.

He's funny. Very funny man. Very funny man.

But apparently did a gig at the comedy store. This is because he went on to be a headliner. He's one of these that were just really good.

And he went on to be big on the circuit very quickly. You know, a headliner, which meant he would headline he'd be the the closing act. And the comedy store, I don't know if it does still does the same thing.

Don't even know if it still is opened up yet from the plague. But he they used to have like two shows one early evening and one late at night. So what the comedians would do is they'd perform twice on a Friday and Saturday night at the comedy store.

And then in between those acts, they'd go somewhere else and do another gig somewhere else in London, ideally somewhere close by so it's not so far to travel. And some of them would do literally three, four gigs in one. I think I remember one comedian done five gigs in one night.

Because one was like early evening, he went on very first. And then he went on to another gig. And then you know, so they were all quite close together.

Went by motorbike or something. But yeah, so like they do for three to four gigs, Friday and Saturday night. So earning some good money.

Some good, good, good money. I'm not sure if John was did two shows as well. I don't remember.

Anyway, apparently when he was at the comedy store, this is probably about 94, 93, 94. Someone laughed so much at a heart attack. Like, they're okay, they survived and everything.

But it's like it was his headline news. And this is before he was famous. It was like in all the papers and everything.

So they say no publicity is bad but not so great for the man was it? He was very funny. He still is. I haven't seen him for years.

I haven't. He used to say hello to me. But I think if you go into a place and someone's just always there, you say hello to them.

You don't necessarily know who they are. So I think that's what I was to a lot of the people. I was just someone that was just always there.

Or just seem to always be there. So some of them would learn my name and say, Hey, Bobby, how you doing? I said, Yeah, fine. Be embarrassed not to, you know, didn't correct them.

I didn't mind being called Bobby. I think it's quite a nice name. And, you know, it was all right.

It's all right. Yeah. No idea how I got onto that.

So I've been looking at these, this Facebook dating thing, and I just, I don't know, I look at it and I think, nah. But I know that can be completely different if I met that person in front of me there. Yeah.

Look at I'm thinking, yeah, you're right. Like, don't see anything that I'm particularly interested in, what they've written or what they look like or anything. But if I met that person, and they were shorter than me, and nice, I might actually really like her, you know, it's because it is put, it has to be personality.

I know that is what someone looks like is in order to say it doesn't matter. Give me a call because you know, I'm your man. But I mean, how do I explain my someone said, Oh, you know, this thing with me is, I smell somewhere like a mixture of dettol and lingering mould.

That's kind of what I smell like. So if you're single, get in contact. Personality is, I think it's important.

I think my first real, not my first example of this, because I've met some horrible women, and men over the years, just like personality wise, like rude, arrogant, dismissive, aggressive, just, just humans, basically. But you know, being out and about when I was younger, I've met some few people that were just really, are really attractive, physically attractive women that were just not nice, or not, at least not nice to me. At that moment, they might be a lovely person just having a really, really bad year or something.

I don't know. And because you know, if we I don't want to look into it too deeply, because then we realize that all human beings are kind of mainly okay, generally, just have bad times. And, you know, you meet one person, it's horrible, and then you meet them.

Maybe three months later, in a different situation, you might think they're the most amazing person you've ever met. So it's different, different. Just, yeah, just that.

Just that in it, in it, hey, hey, that don't make sense. Don't have to. So there's one particular, let me tell you about her.

I'm not going to say her name. Tammy, no, I'm not going to say your name. Say your name.

Rebecca. No. So this person.

And she's been a couple. Okay, let's, let's think of another one. Okay, there's been a few.

So they've all been mad. The thing is, if everyone you meet is rude to you, you got to start looking at the common denominator there. Denominator, denominator.

And you realize that you're the common denominator in all those situations. And maybe it isn't the other people. It's, it's, it's, it's a hard one, isn't it? I, there's this, this, I think she's about 24.

I was about 26. She was about 24, I think. And on paper, she was absolutely perfect for me.

Way, way out of my league, really. But I didn't used to care about that. You know, I mean, if you look at leagues, football teams, leagues, or rugby teams, or soccer teams, or whatever, they can all move up and down through the leagues, can't they? No one's stuck in any particular league.

You just got up your game. I'm such a sporting expert. I think that analogy works.

Anyway, I asked her out when I very first met her, and she said no. Now, what I did, I didn't realize at the time, is by asking her out, I let her know very, very blatantly that I liked her, that I fancied her. And she said no.

But she wasn't horrible about it. She didn't like run away laughing, or anything like that. But she just, and I was going to continue to see her, because she was someone that was there, where I was, where I was at, where I was working.

She was just one of the people that was around. And she said no. I said, okay, fair enough.

But something about me asking her out, I think intrigued her. Because I was getting, it might sound like a lie, but it's not. It's actually true.

I was getting quite a lot of attention from the females, other females, at that time, in the same place. So I think that intrigued her. Like, why are these other females wanting to talk to him? She didn't realize I was, you know, selling them all drugs.

She didn't realize that. No, I wasn't. She didn't.

She didn't realize that. She didn't know what I was about. She didn't know.

Hadn't really spoken to me. All she had was just me saying, oh, do you want to go out? And I think I'd sent her flowers. I think I was a little bit overboard.

But hey, I just thought she was amazing. I thought she was beautiful, really. That's what I thought at the time.

I was wrong. Because I was just going by outward appearance. Outward appearance.

So Susie, this lady, Sue Suzanne. You can call her anything. I call her Anna Susanna.

Sue, because the name is Suzanne. Susie. Nah.

So lots of different, different nicknames we had for her. And she, I couldn't really get my head around because she was still saying hello to me. But then she started spending more time talking to me when I was on my own.

She used to come down and talk to me. But when there's other people around, she wouldn't. So she'd stand there because I used to get a group of girls just chatting to me sometimes.

And she might be in that group of girls. She was the oldest one. The rest were kind of more late teens, early 20s.

But she was probably the eldest out of them all. Only by a little bit, really. But she was, she'd just mingle in and wouldn't say anything.

And I'd still be like focusing on her, really. And she knew it. And then, you know, nothing really happened.

I never sort of dated her or anything. But I did, I kind of saw her a few times after the event. So once I stopped working there, I saw her a few times.

Just like, just stayed friends, kind of. But if you didn't like her, why'd you stay friends? Because I wanted to, um, keep in contact. I didn't stop fancying her.

You don't stop fancying someone if you fancy them. But I didn't know really what she was about. And it was, I'm not going to, it was probably one of the worst experiences ever.

Like, the most least romantic experience ever. And I think, you know, personality is just so important. Otherwise, just get yourself a doll or something, you know, if that's what you want.

You don't want someone just, um, a doll to play with, you know, like a Ken doll or something. She was, I don't know, something, I think it's because we went out for a meal and she was rude to the waiter or the waitress. I forget who, if it was a man or woman.

I'm not sure if we're allowed to say man or woman anymore, are we? You know how much I care about that? Not at all. It was a man or woman, I don't know. But she went and she complained.

She called the waiter over and said, this isn't done properly, or it isn't done, not how I wanted it. Take it. But she was rude.

She wasn't friendly as well. She wasn't shouting and swearing and hitting him with a hammer, but she wasn't friendly. It was quite very obnoxious, uh, talking down to this waiter.

And the waiter said, oh, I'll take your food back into the kitchen then. There was someone else with us as well, I think one of her friends. And the waiter said to me, do you want me to take your, your meal into the kitchen? I said, no, my meals fine, thanks.

Because I've worked in catering establishments and I had a pretty good idea, a variety of different things that was going to happen to her food once it got into the kitchen beyond closed doors, the way that she had spoken to him. Now, if you think, if you're in your own brain, if you think it's okay to be rude to a waiter or waitress in a restaurant and you send your food back to the kitchen, having been rude to them, I would suggest pay your bill and leave, do not put any of that food in your mouth. That's what I suggest.

Because they're human beings. I mean, disgusting human beings at times, if they, because it's not something that I would do, but I've seen people do it. I've seen people do pretty horrible things to food when they've been rude, when customers have been rude to them.

And I was a lot younger back then. Nowadays, I probably want to, I'll probably punch someone if they did something like that to someone's food. And I had stopped someone as well, have stopped people doing stuff like that.

But I think, but because I was like a teenager, early teen, early twenties, I didn't kind of care so much. But I've never done it myself. The only thing I ever did once was, that was probably against all humanity, probably, is somebody had, they didn't want, for religious reasons, they didn't want a knife being used to cut up their food in preparation for their meal.

And I said, okay, and I just went and I used the same knife anyway. So to be fair, at the time, I didn't really understand what they were on about. I just thought they were just being silly.

And I just went in, and I just basically just brought back out the same knife. And they were happy. So I thought, well, they're happy.

That's the main thing. And I didn't understand about all the different religious ways to kill animals and stuff, you know. So I'm going to use ignorance on that one.

But the person was rude. So I just, I didn't want, I didn't really want to go out of my way to help them. Because when someone's rude, you know, if you're phoning a call center, and you're rude to the person, they don't want to help you.

Just let you know that straight away. They'll do the very minimum to help you if you start off by being rude. Now, most of the call centers, they don't have to put up with swearing or shouting.

They can hang up if you swear or shout. But rudeness, providing you're not shouting or swearing, is still quite easy to be rude without doing those two things. Or some people can't because they're, you know, maybe a bit dim or whatever.

But so you can still so if you're rude to someone in a call center, especially if you can't see them, if it's in a bank or if it's in a shop, for example, if you're rude to someone and say, I don't like this, get me one from in the stock room. Chances are they'll come back, they'll go into the stock room, go out the back, have a cigarette, or maybe have a cup of coffee, have a chat with a friend, and then come out again and said, no, we haven't got any. Or they might come back with the same item and said here.

And there you go. And you know, the one and you'll end up walking out with the same thing that you didn't want. You're not going to get good customer service by being rude to a member of staff.

Now there is a chance that same member of staff would have done the same anyway, even if you've been friendly. But that's partly there's a lot of hungover people, hungover teenagers, working in shops on a Saturday morning. That's worth remembering as well.

If you want to get good customer service, don't go shopping on a Saturday morning. Because you're going to have a lot of teenagers that are very hungover and not really with it. And you know, they probably not thinking of that job as a career move.

Probably not that interested in the job or care. You know, so wow, I've just dissected the whole of the economy and the retail world. So the secret is basically what I'm trying to say is maybe don't be rude to anyone.

See with me in my local petrol station, it's the other way around. They're rude to the customers. It's like they've all been taught by Basil Fawlty.

Basil Fawlty. Basil Fawlty. So very rude.

And I'm sure they got a new woman starting in there. And instead of having the young friendly girl that she's, I don't know, she's quite young. She's at college.

I spoke to the other day. Instead of having her teach the new person, they got some old grumpy woman there. She's old, she's probably younger than me.

But she has never smiled, I don't think in her life. They got her teaching her the way. So if you got someone grumpy teaching you the ropes, the chances are you might end up being like them thinking, well, that's the way to be.

That's the way to do it. And I think they keep employing people from their own country as well. Because it's easier because I haven't got to put out any adverts or anything.

They just bring someone over from Malaria, wherever is she's just from. And it's like malaria, not malaria. What's the place where Dracula was born? Transylvania, not Bulgaria.

I always forget the name of Romania. I don't I think they're all Romanians. I think apart from two, three, there's three.

And one young lad is very friendly. He's from Romania. He's nice.

The girl that used to work there and her boyfriend from Romania, they were lovely. They were husband and wife. And they were very lovely.

Although the bloke called one of my neighbours used to go over there and talk for hours. And this lady's husband said to him, have you ever considered having a bath? Because you stink. That's rude.

And he got sacked for that. So you know, there's there is a line and you can't just say stuff like that to a customer. So the thing is, he was lovely.

He was really friendly. He was a nice bloke. And he still used to come in every night and pick up his wife.

And sometimes I see him and have a chat with him. He used to show me pictures of his cats, I think because he had, because I had Andre and he had a cat. And he had some bread because I had special bread out there.

And he was he was the kind of person you meet and you feel like I want to learn about Romania. And she was a similar kind of person. I used to talk to her sometimes.

But like every time I saw her, I talked to her because she was friendly. She was really, really nice. And then she left, she got pregnant, left and I think she went back to Romania.

And I haven't seen her since. But I really liked her because she was friendly. And because she was friendly, and most of the other staff are unfriendly.

She came across as being almost like Mary Poppins. I mean, she didn't have the skirt, or, you know, the hat. I'm trying to do an image of Mary Poppins in my head.

It's hard to do that without getting aroused. Or the lamppost. Is that lamppost? Well, there was a lamppost wasn't there in the scene where she's floating with the brolly.

Wasn't there? Doesn't Mary Poppins start with the man putting out the lamps? Dickie, Dickie, whatever his name is. Vic Dan, Vic Dan Vike. Dick Van, no his name is actually, yeah, Vic, Dick Van Dyke.

Dyke, Dyke, Dick, Dick Van. Blimey, Dick Dyke, Dick Van Dyke. He, I'm pretty sure he was putting out the the street lamps because they were, I guess at that time, made of oil.

And he was like blowing them out. Had a little ladder, a big ladder. Yeah.

Anyway, she was like Mary Poppins, but it's just nice. She's just really nice. She was nothing like Mary Poppins.

She hardly ever sung. But yeah, I just wonder if they're going to teach that, the new lady, just to be grumpy and rude to the customers. And it's, I'll tell you what makes it worse is I hardly have any contact with people.

And I'm kind of housebound, but not really, but in a way I am in a sense. So sometimes the only person I see over like a two, three day period is the garage, the people in the petrol station. And I avoid going in there.

I go in there when I have to, when I need milk or stuff like that. And eight out of 10 times is going to be someone that's rude, just statistically. And it just, just it's deflating.

It's a bit deflating, you know, to have the only human contact be someone from there. Uh, I just, yeah, it's a bit of a let, a bit of a letdown as it were. A bit of a letdown.

So this person, this person's looking for someone to compliment, not complicate my life. Ideally looking for my forever after. I'm easy going and very laid back.

I have three lovely children who come part of the package. Next, I, I think I've met a few women over the years that have kept it a secret to their kids. I mean, not to the kids, but they just, I've just got to break something to you.

You've been born. Oh, well, oh, we exist. Yeah.

I just kept been keeping it a secret for a while. Now, I mean, women that just, women just haven't mentioned they had kids. Now, I preferred that.

I preferred it if they kept, still kept it quiet. But then eventually, oh, by the way, I've got eight children. Oh, that explains a few things.

What? Nothing, nothing, nothing. I just know it's not me. What do you mean it's not you? Nothing.

Don't matter. So you've got eight kids. Blimey.

Eight children. Eight. Could we just, eight, eight, zero, eight.

Wow. Like a snowman figure. Eight.

Whoa. That's a lot. That's quite a lot of children, isn't it? Didn't used to be.

Back in my grandmother's day, eight kids, well, even in my dad's day, really, eight kids was, wasn't excessive. I'd say like five was about average. I remember my stepmom's mother, I think her mum was one of about 21 children.

Admittedly, she did talk a lot of crap, but I think she didn't. She was lovely. She's, she's not here anymore, but she was, I used to love talking to her because she was funny.

Yeah. But anyway, she had a very large, very, very large family. I think some people who are born into really large families didn't want to have a large family themselves because they'd experienced what it was like to really just be almost invisible in a way.

If you're born in the middle of like 10 kids, you're not the oldest, you're not the youngest, you're just there. You're the youngest for maybe a year or so, but you're too young to appreciate it, to enjoy it. And then another baby comes along and the attention goes on the baby.

I mean, I was the youngest, technically I was the youngest for eight years because my little brother wasn't born until I was eight. That's a boring sentence, wasn't it? But I didn't really feel the youngest. I didn't, I think I didn't feel the oldest.

I'm just saying I didn't. It's only really from the ages of seven to eight, just, just over a year, maybe just before I was seven, just, just over a year, I felt like the baby of the family because I was babied. My step mum, my dad, my first step mum, used to, used to sit on a lap and snuggle up into her and just be babied, basically.

Used to walk, my dad used to carry me on his shoulders. Everybody said, you're getting too old now, son, you're 43. She said, um, that's what, yeah, even though he had a bad neck, he still used to um, do that.

And I remember I used to like twist around and try and hurt his neck even more. No, I didn't. Pretend he was a little horsey.

Come on, you horsey boy. He didn't like that for some reason. Come on, boy, hurry up, boy.

Giddy up, giddy up. I said, you're 43, get off. Giddy up, son.

So I just, um, I was a baby for about a year and then my little brother came along and once a little baby comes along, you're no longer the baby. Even if, you know, I was eight, technically, I wasn't a baby anymore. But I wasn't the youngest anymore, either.

It was almost, in some ways, just kind of became secondary. And I think that's the same with most kids, I guess. You become secondary to the baby.

The baby's the important one. The baby. You gotta love me, I'm a baby.

You gotta love me. I said, all the dinosaurs, isn't it? Like, remember that dinosaur program? Gotta love me, I'm a baby. I watched that.

I didn't enjoy it like I used to. Some programs are weird. You know, you watch them when you're a kid and you watch them again, although dinosaurs probably... Was it late 80s or early 90s, the dinosaurs, the program? Owl is another one.

I've not seen Owl. I'd like to see it. Is it Owl or Alf? Alf? Owl? You know, the alien puppet.

The alien. And I used to laugh. I used to roar with laughter.

I used to love that show. Was it the same bloke that was in Different Strokes? It isn't, is it? Owl. Owl TV show.

Owl TV. America's Weird Al... No. Alf.

Is it Alf then? Weird... Owl is a TV show starring Weird Al Yankovic. I'm not interested in that. It's not Alf then.

Is it Alf? I'm not really into comedy songs. It's weird, isn't it? Just not Alf. It was Alf, not Owl.

Okay. Alright, okay, yeah. When an ugly creature who loves eating cats crash lands into the Terran family's garage, they treat him as a guest and allow him to live with them as he comments on the stupidity of mankind.

1986. Okay, cool. Okay, streaming.

Alf streaming. Oh, you can. You have to buy it.

You have to pay for it. Hmm, yeah. That's not good.

Streaming UK. I'd quite like to watch it again just to see. Currently you're able to watch Alf streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Stars play Amazon channel all for free with ads on Tubi.tv, the Roku channel VUDU3. Is a show Alf on Netflix? No. So the thing is, I realize, you know, Prime Video, Amazon, they have to make money, you know, to help send rockets into space and stuff like that, but great speech he made, wasn't it? Old Bezos.

I just want to thank all my, when he got back from space, I want to thank all my, all my customers at Amazon. You paid for this. Really? See, 20 years ago, if someone had said something like that, they would have been annihilated.

They would have, the, the, the company probably would have just completely crumbled. Everyone would have hated upon it and not used the service anymore. It happened with Ratner.

There's a bloke called Ratner, Gerald Ratner, I think. And I don't know if anyone remembers this. And if you're not in the UK, you won't probably have heard of this.

Gerald Ratner. Now what happened is, he attended, he was in, there was basically this stores, jewellery stores called Ratner's. And they were everywhere, loads of places.

And he, he was at an award show. I think he'd, um, he won an award, or he was doing awards for the best shops. I don't know, something like that.

But he won an award or something. And he came on the stage. And he said, I think, I'm not going to exactly what he said, but he said, um, not bad for selling crap.

And that was pretty much what he said, not bad for selling crap. Now, the audience laughed, I'm pretty sure. And it says here how Gerald Ratner lost 10 billion in 10 seconds.

It was the UK's biggest jewellery chain. And people stopped going in there, like instantly. The whole thing crumbled.

Because basically what he was doing, he was selling cheap jewellery to people that couldn't afford expensive jewellery. And I was definitely in that, well I still am in that market of not being able to afford expensive jewellery. But the thing is, for those buying it, it wasn't cheap, it was still expensive.

Because if someone's buying, someone's spending £200 on a, an engagement ring, that's a lot of money to that person. Really, because otherwise they'd spend two grand. Because no, I don't think anyone really buys something cheap, something that's cheap to them, for something that's as important as, I'm assuming people find that engagement's important, I don't know, I wouldn't know, but I imagine.

So we, we just do, you buy something that you can afford, but it's still expensive, isn't it, to you. Or to them, even though it's cheap to another person. But he was just joking, it was just a bloody joke.

He didn't mean it. Not bad for selling crap, that's something that I would say. Like something, just a throwaway comment like that, not meaning anything by it, just for the, just a cheap laugh.

And then, the newspapers, and the TV channels, the, you know, everyone started aiming at him. I'm not sure how many people, I'm sure he had thousands of staff, all got redundant, made redundant, lost their jobs. And it wasn't because of what he said, it's because of the, the response to what he said, the over exaggerated, absolutely ridiculous.

And this was in, when was this? 2000, it was 90s, 90s, I think. Oh, my stomach's going weird. It was 1991.

Gerald Ratner took the stage before 6,000 high powered business people, journalists and dignitaries, whatever that is, at London Albert Hall in April 1991. He had no idea his speech would be a professional death sentence. His incredible success had led him to be, to this moment, he'd inherited a struggling chain of jewellery stores, that's gotta be hard, and turned it into a 1 billion enterprise in less than a decade.

He'd flipped an elitist industry on its head by making earrings and rings for the working class. And in the process, he'd built his company, Ratner's Group, into the UK's biggest and recognisable jewellery chain. But in a matter of seconds, on that fateful night in April, a few jokes would destroy it all.

Wow. So apparently, he was going to do the speech, and he got someone to look at it. And the person looked at it said, I feel you should put a couple of jokes in.

People like your jokes. Blimey. Ratner's doesn't represent prosperity, and come to think of it has very little to do with quality as well, he began.

We do cut glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver plated tray that your butler can serve your drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, how can you sell this for such a low price? I say because it's total crap. Wow. Then several minutes later, just for good measure, he says, we even sell a pair of gold earrings for under £1.

He said some people say that's cheaper than a prawn sandwich. I have to say the sandwich will probably last longer than the earrings. So the headlines, you know, jewellery CEO calls his own products crap, which we did, didn't they? But it was a joke.

The thing is, for a joke, he went into a bit too much detail, didn't he? I mean, I remember those earrings for a pound. I remember I was saving up at the time. I couldn't get them on credit.

So I had to save. £4.95 for that decanter. Wow.

How's it going to be? That was the future, but hey, it didn't work. It didn't happen. It's amazing.

I don't know how I got here, but there you go. That's how I got here. I got here somehow.

But Gerald Ratnar, Gerald Ratnar, Rat, Rat, Rat, Rat, Rat, Rat, Ratnar. Apparently he's now, he's now rich again. I mean, depending if he owned the property.

And he also owned a lot of stock, didn't he? If you had all those shops. I imagine you could probably come out of it with some money. If you just close.

So that's it. We're closing. Sell off all the jewellery cheap.

But he's still got, still has some, a few million coming in, I imagine. I don't know. I don't know how it works.

I've never had to close down hundreds of shops. That's not the same as saying, well done, thanks for, you've paid for this. But he was kind of saying, you've just paid for this billions of pounds that I've just wasted, or just spent in the last hour.

All that fuel. All that, all that environmentally unfriendly fuel. Anyway, no.

Blimey. Let's see what happens, says Sarah. No, let's not.

Oh. So this one, I think she's distorted the pictures because it's almost like she's breathing in to fit into the photograph. I mean, she's slim.

I'm not saying she's, but she looks like she's trying to fit into the photograph. I think they're, she looks very uncomfortable. She looks like she needs a toilet.

Yeah, bye. I do like people that are comfortable. I realise that's a bit of a weird sentence, probably.

But you know, someone that's comfortable in their own skin and they're not all uptight and trying to be something they're not. And like some humans. I've got a friend who's trying to have a long, drawn out conversation by text.

I'll knock that on the head. Can't put up with that. It's not what texting is for.

It's not for a conversation. It's for just a short message. She's like, I'm thinking about getting a mountain bike.

What do you think? I said, well, if that's what you want to do, get a mountain bike, then look for a mountain. So that's, I just, that was it. That's the end of the conversation by text.

I thought, now she sent me another text. I'm not biting. I'm not going to respond.

I will not have an elongated conversation by text with anybody ever. I will not allow it. Not allow it.

No, no, no, no. Don't do it. I wonder why I've got no friends.

Yeah, maybe. So I'm going to go. Thank you very much for listening.

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

Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye.