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Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You. Sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.
Hey. Hey, how you doing? Are you well? Are you okay? Yeah. So yeah, hello.
Oh, it's 10 53 p.m. on Sunday the 6th of March 2022. So yeah, hi, everything's uh, it's weird. I've just made, well not just, but it was about, um, I finished recording at half eight.
So what was that? Two and a half hours ago. So I just spent the last two and a half hours editing, processing and uploading. Um, a relax and sleep hypnosis daily recording.
First one I've done for a few weeks, I think, blimey. It's a daily podcast and I haven't done one in ages. Um, I'm getting back on the horse as it were.
What horse? Okay, not literally. But you said a horse. What's going on about a horse? I don't actually have a horse.
I'm not getting back. It's sort of, you know, I'm getting back to what I used to do. That's what I mean, getting back on a horse.
What do you keep going about horses for? I'm not going on about horses. Just it's just an expression. Horses was all about horses.
What was he obsessed with horses? I'm not obsessed. I just like them a lot. I don't.
I don't dislike horses. Apparently, apparently horses are supposed to be very therapeutic for people with anxiety, PTSD, stuff like that. Spending time with horses is supposed to be really relaxing.
Unless, of course, you got PTSD from falling off a horse, then I suppose it wouldn't be that relaxing being around horses after that. But, yeah, generally, it's supposed to be very good for people with depression and stress and stuff. In fact, I think there was a local place, local to here, locally, where they have a like a horse sanctuary or something.
And people go there and just look after the horses and spend time with them. And it really, really helps. So something I never, never did, never kind of went down that road.
Maybe, maybe I should have done. Maybe I still can. Might be therapeutically beneficial to me to do something like that.
I used to, I used to pat, not pat, pet horses when I was young. You know, as a little kid, give them sugar lumps. And because I always used to say, make sure your hands are flat.
Otherwise, they'll eat your, not your feet, your, your fingers. So really, make sure your hands are flat because they'll eat your fingers. I don't know.
I mean, they pretty much just licked my hand and licked the sugar cubes off of my hand. They weren't like chomping, like that. You know, it wasn't kind of like eating out of a bowl of porridge or something.
Big old things, horses, and they, apart from the small ones. It's like anything though, isn't it? They're really big apart from the ones that aren't big. But never really, I'm not a horsey person, really.
I've got nothing against horses. I just never, I think it's the cleaning out bit, which I never really, you know, I used to, I've got a cousin that was absolutely mad about horses and would just have one or two horses and she'd go to the stables early in the morning before going to work and clean out the horses and clean out and muck it out, you know, get rid of all the poo and stuff. And then go there in the evening and do the same thing.
Just for the opportunity to maybe ride it on a Saturday morning or something. It's like, it's a lot of work just to, for, you know, a couple of hours pleasure. I mean, that's too much like a relationship.
All that work with a little bit of pleasure. I went once with her, a couple of times actually, to help out. By help out, I mean, I just used to go and just watch.
But yeah, I went, I went twice. I always say twice. I went once with her and I helped her carry some stuff.
And then I started dating a girl who was really into horses and she used to, I mean, I remember the only person I ever dated that ever said to me was crying because her pony died. I've never had that happen before. Like, oh, I kind of couldn't relate to it.
But I'd never had a pet or I'd never, I'd never had, okay. I'd never loved. Yeah, I don't like the word pet.
It's, I think it's quite demeaning. So it's almost just, I don't know. I'd never, I'd never loved an animal before.
Genuinely, never loved. I've lived with dogs, but they're never my dogs. And they're always, I like them.
I didn't love them. I didn't, you know, it was, I cared. I like them as a friend.
Now I cared about them, but I didn't, I didn't have like a really close, close relationship with them the way I did with my boy. And it was only really Andre that taught me, just what taught me, made me realize how important animals become to, again, the idea of being an owner, an owner of another living being just seems, I mean, that's slavery, isn't it? Like I wasn't Andre's owner. If anything, he was my owner.
He was my boss. You know, we, I like to think it was an equal, you know, equal relationship, but I guess it really wasn't, I suppose. But I was his dad and he was my boy.
But at the same time, he didn't do anything that I asked him to do. He ignored me. He always did what he wanted to do.
Always. But what's weird? Oh no, he's talking about a bloody ferret again. Yes, I am.
What is weird is when it was just me and him, he just did his own thing. You know, he'd have cuddles and stuff like that, but a lot of it was me instigating it. I mean, sometimes he would climb on me and, you know, he wanted attention.
But at the time, the only time he really um, was baby, was like a little baby sometimes. When I give an example, if someone came to the front door, like a neighbor who I didn't let in. So I talked to them on a doorstep and I had to hold Andre because he'd try and get out the front door.
So I'd hold him and he would cling to me. Not because I was going to drop him, but because he was being very, almost shy, like a little shy child. And that was strange because he'd do that in public sometimes when I was out walking him.
And so I'd start talking to someone in the street, and I'd hold on to, he'd like, so he'd pick me up. So I'd pick him up and he'd cling to me. And it's a strange thing, literally, we'd like really quite, you know, almost, it was, I don't know, it's hard to explain, but he really seemed to become a little baby.
Like a little shy, little toddler, like, you know, like holding onto my leg and like for dear life. I don't really understand it, but I quite liked it, quite liked it because he, oh, that's weird noise. It's almost like I felt that he needed me, like he almost valued me, like I was important to him.
I don't know what was going on in his mind. It might have just been, oh, well, he's going to drop me any minute, I better hold on. But I rarely dropped him, you know, it didn't happen very often.
And usually, in fact, I don't think I ever dropped him. He would occasionally, I'd hold him and he'd just jump out of my arms and land on the floor from about five foot, which was just ridiculous. Why he would do that, I don't know.
He just, sometimes he just decided just to jump. So, you know, I'd be playing with him and he'd be crawling on my shoulders. Next minute, he's jumped off the back of me.
Instead of crawling around the front, most of the time I'd catch him, but occasionally, so you could say, well, you stopped doing it then, didn't you? I did stop doing that, didn't I? Once he did it and landed on the concrete, I'm like, okay, I'm not allowing him to do that again. But that was just me holding him while trying to lock the door. And for some reason, he decided he didn't want to, I mean, he was on the lead as well.
But he just jumped. So he was in my, he was actually in my jacket, he just jumped out of my jacket onto the floor. I was like, what are you doing? So I'm trying to think, a decision I made, I'm not going to Thailand, decided I'm not, not going to travel there.
Not this year anyway. I'm not going to travel anywhere. This really is not the right time to travel.
There's too many restrictions. There's only nine countries in the world that don't have restrictions at the moment for visitors from my country. And out of all of those places, there's only one place that I'd like to visit.
And that's Denmark. I'd like to visit Denmark. It's a beautiful country, and I think it'd be a nice place to visit.
But it's just not the right time for various reasons. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to travel. I might try and get away at some point in this country, like I did last year, for a few days to have a, you know, a holiday or something.
But I don't know where. Torquay is one of my favourite places I've ever been. And I went there in 2003, so it's a long time ago, and my memory of it, I mean, it might be very different now compared to what it was in 2003, because let's face it, it was like 19 years ago.
So I'd like to go and visit again. I'd like to go to the exact same place, but I don't know where I went. I don't remember where it was.
I mean, it was just Torquay. In my mind, it's Torquay. But then I go online, and Torquay's got loads of different beaches.
So I'm like, okay, well, I'm only at one beach when I went there. Have they expanded? But yeah, there's lots of different beaches. So I think I just lived in, lived rather, I visited the main, just Torquay itself, like Torquay train station.
And I just stayed at the, wherever the main beach is, near, I guess, the town centre, wherever that is. But I don't remember going to the town centre though. Because when I went to Torquay, it was to visit my cousin.
And my cousin was living with his girlfriend, who he ended up marrying and having kids with and everything. And I used to be really close with him, but lost contact, really hadn't seen him for a long, long, long time. Long, long, long.
In fact, that might have been the last time I saw him. And mind you, that was a weird, a weird stay. Yeah, is so basically, I was very close to him.
And we used to make music together. And he was pretty much a musical genius, as far as he just could play any instrument he could. His dad was in a band.
So he kind of inherited that musical gift. And he loved, he was very into, I don't know, dance, dance music. So this is, you know, late 90s.
So he was into dance music. He produced it, created it and stuff like that. He actually had a music room, like a room with all the music equipment and computers and guitars, keyboards, all that stuff.
And I used to go around and we used to, we used to write music sometimes and I'd sing and would create some songs and stuff. But we also used to hang out and as he got older, he was very popular with the ladies. You know, it's weird.
I used to see him, we used to walk around and I used to see girls just checking him out. It was just, not that it's weird, but it's just, it's just strange. I couldn't quite see what they were, not as, it sounds bad.
I couldn't see what they saw in him. It wasn't that, it's just, I was trying to figure it out. What was it? Because I don't think I've ever had a woman look at me like that, ever.
I mean, I think I'm more of a like, end of the night, all the other men have gone, run out of money, need to get home in a taxi. Maybe he'll be going my way and I can share a taxi with him and hopefully never see him again. That's kind of my, where I am with women.
So yeah, when he was about 18, because he was quite a bit younger than me. So when I was about, it was probably about 11 years between us, maybe 12 years. So I probably would have been about 29, maybe when he was 18.
And so I guess in a way he was like a younger brother to me, really. I was close to him and his sister. And so we, a couple of funny things is, I remember he came to the comedy club and see, I don't remember who else was with him because it was just me and him.
So I think he might come with his sister and his sister and another cousin or another of my cousins as well that I'd never met before from the Isle of Wight, I think it was. And they were visited. So him, his sister and my other cousin, who was staying at my house that I was living in at the time with my cousin, lots of cousins here.
And I think they left and he stayed because it was an after party going on. I don't know if it was a birthday party or something like that. And because I was sticking around and he only lived around the corner from where I lived, he was going to get a taxi back together.
I just drop him off on the way or he drops me off on the way, whichever, whatever works. And it was funny because he was a bit drunk. He'd come to and they'd had the night there and watched the comedy and everything.
I was working. And I said to him, what was that weird sound you just made? And he said, it wasn't me, it was you. And all you keep doing on your podcast.
It's very unprofessional. And I said to him, listen, mate, when have I ever pretended to be professional ever? And he said, good point. Fair enough.
Let's get on with the story. There was this funny bit and he said, so he came back. So they watched the show, sat at a table, watched the show, had something to eat.
And then the disco started and I was doing it, I was a DJ. And they were having a good time. It was nice.
And then they said his, yeah, that's before he had a girlfriend, because he also brought her at least once or twice to the club. And the one he married. But anyway, at this time he was single.
This is before he'd even met the one that he married. The one, she was the one. He actually got a job in a pub in, I'm sure it was Islington.
No, Ilford. Ilford. It was Ilford.
And if I remember rightly, she worked in the bar as well. And he asked her out and she said no. I think he kept asking her out.
Eventually she said yes. And they, yeah, I'm telling you information that's not really mine to tell, but it's not my story. But hey, I don't care.
And very happy, very happy together. She's a lovely, lovely, lovely person. And I was really pleased for him because it's nice, isn't it? It's nice to see people fall in love and all that stuff.
And she's a beautiful girl and he's a beautiful young man, I suppose. And yeah, they made a nice beautiful little couple. Bastards.
Anyway, he was single at this time. And we were at the after party. And there was this little bit of a hallway.
So, so you had the comedy club downstairs. And it's probably, I might try and see if I can get some pictures and stick it on the website so you can get an idea. Because this is the most important place of my life.
Really, the comedy club, that was the most important building of my lifetime, really. And I love that place. And I was, I was connected to it really for 20 years.
In some capacity, over 20 years, in fact. So it's, it's weird, because, you know, I did, I was there in 1991. And then in 2009, as a nearly 18 years later, I was back upstairs in the office helping out.
So because I was at university, I used to go one or two days a week to help out. And just, just in the summer and the build up, lead up to Christmas. And I was there in the very last night when they closed.
And that was sad. But by then it wasn't what it was, the club wasn't the same. And the comedy was upstairs, it wasn't downstairs anymore.
They had some kind of, like it was more of a music venue. The bar was in a different place. It was all weird.
Didn't like it. Didn't didn't like how it ended up being. And I know that it was like that for a reason, because it was trying to trying to salvage it trying to keep it going.
And but it just wasn't the same, you know, I don't like change, man. So I, the basic layout of the club was at the big doors at the front. And it used to be an old mill.
So the building was like an old mill. And upstairs, there was, there was three floors. So it was upstairs and another third floor up the top.
And then there was a roof and stuff on the roof. And on all three that the show the big doors at the front, then above the big doors on the second floor, were two big doors again. And on the third floor, two big doors, same size as the front doors.
And they and they had these little pulley things that were still there from when it used to be a mill. And they used to use a pulley system to pull things up. And I don't know what was done in there.
It was a big, big building, big, big building. And there was a whole part of it that I never got to see. So when the public never got to really see the upstairs, necessarily, although part of it was turned into a bar place called the bedroom bar.
But that originally was when I first started doing comedy. Even up to the about a 98 even, it was a, I think it was a call center to start with. Then I think it became a taxi firm.
So that whole space was being used by and the person who originally who had the business who rented the building, who then sold it to my friend. He had different businesses in the building. Now the comedy club wasn't going particularly well.
And this man, he's passed away now. And he was friends with my friend. They were like good friends from I don't know, from an island or I don't know how they how they'd met.
But this this bloke had his brother managing the comedy club. And his brother wasn't it wasn't doing a great. It wasn't good.
I don't want to say anything bad about him. Because he was pretty much always nice to me. So I don't want to say anything bad about him.
And he had issue drink issues and stuff. But the club wasn't wasn't going great, apparently. So his brother, who owned the business, got my friend to come and manage it, to see if he could get it going.
Because my friend was a comedian, and an actor who lived in New York, he, he actually went to drama college or whatever, with Robin Williams, they were both friends. And there's a video that my friend has, where they both did it, they made a video together. And Robin Williams was dressed in.
Oh, I don't forget what that kind of what it is that kind of um, dress, but like polka dot, with like, white makeup. I guess mime kind of a mime outfit. And they both were kind of being filmed on this cine, cine camera from the suppose the 70s, isn't it? I guess Yeah, well.
Anyway, my friend took over the club, managed it, and turned it into a success. And then he ended up buying it off of his friend. And it was, it was really, it went really well for a long, long time.
20 years of success. And then you know, the comedy went through a bit of a bit of a lull stand up comedy went through a little bit of a lull in London for a while. And then there was a recession or something.
And then the rent was put up, the rates were huge. And then the rent went up by an extra 150,000 pounds a year or something ridiculous like that, added on to what it already was. So it was just impossible.
And my friend had to close the club. So that's a little bit history of the club anyway. But downstairs, you go in the main doors to the left was a bar to the net, you know, the end of the end of the building, the end of the room, there was a fireplace, and there was a cigarette machine.
And then to the left, there was the kitchen, and a very little cubby hole where you could, the food would be put through. And on the outside of the building, there's lots of cartoon characters from the Beano cartoon comic. So you had was it the Beano or was it Dandy? I think it was Dandy actually, it might be the mixture of Dandy and the Beano.
So Desperate Dan, I'm pretty sure you had Dennis the Menace as well. So that was the Beano, Dennis the Menace. Desperate Dan was Dandy.
Yeah, so I think it was a mixture. He loved those comics, my friend. And he's retired now.
So he's he's now traveling the world in his yacht. And he's very happy. As far as I know, I speak to him every now and then he phones me every couple of months or so just to see how I'm getting on.
And I can't really phone him anymore, because I don't know where he is in the world. It's a little bit easier when he was just when he's in London, I just phone him. Because you know, but if you phone someone and they're in another country, that's it could be like a huge phone bill.
So I have to be a little bit careful. I don't want a hundred pound phone bill because I've been on the phone for an hour. So anyway, he's he's he's happy now.
I think pretty sure. I hope so. But we were in the club and as you got the bar and everything and then up a little bit, there's toilets.
See, I remember I remember how it's changed or how it changed over the years. So there's no toilets on the left. There was a toilet but it wasn't.
It was just like a very basic men and women's toilets. And there was another toilet up the other end of the club. I remember and I think it was about 1990.
It might be 97. It might be 98. When they put in new toilets.
And I remember that I was there cleaning up trying to get the club ready to be opened. So the first night of the week is a Wednesday and it was open act night. So it's new comedians would come along up to 12 new comedians and it was always busy.
Like the the audience had a regular audience that came in and it was free to get in. And Thursday nights was there'd be two comedians and a compare. Friday and Saturday night there'd be three comedians and a compare.
Sometimes the same comedians would be on a Friday and a Saturday night. Which is sort of similar to the comedy store sort of setup. Sometimes the same comedians as the comedy store.
They'd go to the comedy store early early show come to the finish late the late you know late at 11 o'clock at our club and then go and do the late show at the comedy store again. And maybe do another two shows at different places in between. Some of those comedians will work really hard at the weekend.
You know I know someone I'm sure he did about five shows in one night once. Which is just ridiculous. That's five 20 minute sets.
How's that even possible? I mean I think he must have had his show start really early like an eight o'clock show. Must have gone on first and then he got to another show where the show started at nine went on first. And then went past another show where he managed to get on at 10.
Maybe the comedy store did that twice. Did the late show. Did Jonglers did that you know.
So yeah I might make that up but some of the comedians did do three or four gigs in a night on a Friday and Saturday night. I think three is about a maximum you could safely do. But you'd have to basically you'd have to have them within distance.
Within like sometimes even walking distance. But at least within like um getting on the tube you know. So if you're in for example yeah there was a yeah there was a few clubs that were in the West Ends.
You had the Soho, you had the Chuckles Club. They were all though they were pretty much within walking distance of each other. And then you've got the Comedy Store which was in Leicester Square.
Again walking distance. So that's three clubs. So you could literally do you could do four gigs.
Two gigs at the Comedy Store. One early one. One late show.
And you could open up for one of the other shows and close for the another one. So open at Chuckles and close at the Soho and then go and do the late show. So yeah it's it's very possible to do four gigs um if they're kind of within distance.
Within distance. It's not really a sentence is it? Within walking distance. Within a traveling distance.
Yes. So my cousin. I'll give you another little map of the place.
So if you go if you stand at the bar and turn around and lean on the bar. Basically how the club used to be. There used to be seats around the fire.
And people like Jo Brand. She's a very famous comedian in the UK. She's one of the original alternative comedians.
And she used to be just hanging out. A lot of the comedians used to hang out. And there used to be a comics room upstairs which got smaller and smaller over time.
It was a huge room. Massive telly. Pool table and loads of seats and stuff.
And all the comedians pretty much on the circuit. New and old. Famous and unknown.
Would all kind of hang out together. Sort of. I mean just like anything people hang around with people they like don't they I guess.
So I'd obviously I'd quite often sit up there on my own. Yeah so um I so that that's kind of what it used to be like. The only real big event like when all the comedians were together at one time in the comedy cafe that I remember outside of birthday parties and celebrations or you know sort of some uh yeah outside of a kind of everyone's invited and you'd have lots of people all there together.
This but the one time when it was just a normal event and it was it was a world cup match. An England versus probably Germany or someone. And I don't know if it was world cup or European cup.
But it was either the probably a semi-final with the big telly. And there were there must have been I don't know 70, 80 people. 80 comedians.
There's like huge lots and lots of comedians. Most of them standing watching the football. And it was lovely.
Now I don't know if I can't remember. I'm pretty sure that it was the late 90s. But it might have been earlier.
It might be 95, 96. Because I was around from January 91. All the way until like regularly.
I was there until 2000. Nearly nearing the end of 2001. So for 10 years I was there solidly.
Like not there all the time. But there was times when I was there all the time. Like every day there was times when I'd be there every night it was open.
I'd get there before the staff even got there sometimes waiting outside. Everyone got to know me because I was always the first there. So on a Wednesday night in order to get myself on stage I'd leave work or I'd leave home early.
And I'd get there about half six in the evening. And the staff would just be coming in because the doors are known until half seven. And they just let me sometimes they'd let me go in sometimes depending on who was working.
Some of the staff didn't want me in the place. Because I'd be in the way. Some staff were happy for me just to sit and wait inside.
So yeah it depended. And then the next decade I used to visit regularly. And then as time went past because I moved away from London to be near my Nan after she broke her hip.
I didn't think she had long left at that time. But she did a lot. She did.
She recovered and everything. But it was really that at that time I realized that being away living so far away from her for so long I wasn't I didn't have that regular contact with her that I felt I should have been having. So I made the decision to move closer to her to be closer and to see her more regularly.
And I did. And I did. I did that for the rest of her life actually.
Even if I didn't visit as often as I perhaps could have done. I did call and I kept very much in contact. I knew what she was up to and had a regular thing.
Much more than when I was living in London. I think because I was young you know it was in my early 20s. I was 19 when I first started doing comedy.
And I was a bit self-obsessed. Unlike now. I was a little bit self-obsessed.
Probably more concerned with my own life than anyone else's. I probably still am exactly the same now. I've learnt nothing.
So the comedy club was downstairs. The stage was all the way down on the left and it held about 200 people. Seated.
And so you know if that might be a lot that might be a small amount. I don't know. I mean it was busy.
When it was busy it was busy. And it was yeah it was when it was it was great. Great on a really good night when the comedy was really good and the audience were kind of in a good mood and it was brilliant.
There's nothing better really sometimes than just hearing 200 people laughing. It's amazing. It's very magical.
Now I know obviously if you go to a theatre you could have thousands of people laughing. But it's not as intimate is it? It's with 200 people you know if you're on stage depending on the lighting situation you could see everybody. There's nobody that you can't see.
I mean you're limited with the light and obviously if you've got a light right in your face very bright you know you're limited to what you can see. But you know if you sort of duck down and put your hands over your eyes you can you can see everybody in the room. So it is that intimate.
And then right at the back is a DJ booth. So upstairs up the stairs on the side led to upstairs to the comics room which was up the stairs turn left into the door into the what's it and the basically there's the comics room. But there was toilets and you know there's it was it was like Fraggle Rock continuously being built.
Always something being done like a new bar being built, toilets being built. It's constantly I mean my friend who who owned the place or owned the business it's amazing that he could how he was able to fit so much into one place was pretty phenomenal. So anyway I think the bedroom bar was already up by now.
So there was a party going on I'm there with my cousin and we're in like the the hall like a little hallway which it led to the stairs that goes down and then the stairs going up as well to the third floor. Very steep stairs and but a little little landing you know just so you can walk in the door but very steep and but there's a bit it's quite a bit of space and you've got the two toilets in front of you and they didn't used to there was other toilets put up as well later on but that they weren't at that time. But anyway my my cousin was trying to chat up the waitress that worked there called Georgia.
She's a beautiful woman and um my stomach's churning I need to eat. So she was lovely she was only young as well she was closer to his age than mine. I think she was I think he was 18 I think.
I think he might have been 17 but we won't say that let's say 18 because you have to be 18 to drink here. But I think yeah I'm pretty sure he was 18 but just turned 18 but he might have been 16 but we don't mention that because he shouldn't have been drinking. She was probably about 19.
So you know it's but he was it was so funny because he was drunk so drunk and he was just standing there wobbling like and I come in I didn't know um I didn't realize he was in there he's he was talking to her and she was laughing just laughing because he was just coming out with some rubbish absolutely. But it was funny it's harmless but it was funny and it was really like trying to chat her up but really badly. Not that I'm an expert on chatting up but he he was just so drunk and so we were both laughing we were laughing at him but not bad not a horrible way you know more kind of um kind of in a caring way.
I don't know if that makes sense but because I would never have allowed anyone to um be rude to him or to her either to be fair. So but what was weird is he he walks the doors lodged open to where the stairs are and as you walk out there's a flat bit and then as I said to your right down very steep or to your left up very steep when he just walked onto the to the thing and he just threw up and he fell well went to fall he basically just like toppled and is about to fall down the stairs.
I grabbed him and stopped him falling at those and she was laughing because he basically was like oh I do fancy coming out sometime and just just everywhere absolutely everywhere and it was hilarious and then he nearly fell down the stairs and but I just basically as he was falling I just grabbed the back of his shirt I just picked him up and stopped him I didn't physically pick him off the you know off the ground but I stopped him from falling and he was only very he's only um slim anyway so I mean if
he'd have been big I mean he might be big now but if he'd have been like my size I couldn't have stopped him he'd fall he would have just fell down I just had to just let him fall because I'd have ended up falling with him but um no and I would have still stopped him it was so funny because he was really showing off and hey yeah I make music you know whatever it was so funny and he's I just you know I was at a soft spot for him I mean we we tried
to start a business making a website this is back in 2000 to probably 99 2000 time yeah 2000 perhaps maybe late 2000 possibly early 2001 we put built a website together which was going to be a sports website and we were going to be making money from advertising and also from promoting the different sports and gyms and stuff like that sporting centers and and we went to have a business meeting with a bank manager and they said well this might be a good idea but you need you need a business plan and all that stuff
and we went we went away and we just gave up on it couldn't be bothered spent all night up like trying to put finishing touches to the website just so it worked you know we literally put everything into it and then we just gave up or he gave up I might have given up as well I forget so I visited he went to move he moved to Torquay with his girlfriend because she lived she was that was where she lived or where she was from she lived in London and he went and there and I
visited in 2003 and it was nice it was it's the only two things I really remember I spent a bit of time with him and one time we near the end of my little stay there we crashed the last night of the proms and they had the last night of the proms there it's quite a big thing in the UK and they they had it all cordoned off we weren't allowed in and we ended up climbing over some fences to get in I don't know why we just didn't just pay to get in and we
spent you know we got some beers and just hung around and listened to the music another thing that happened is we went out to a nightclub to a pub and then to a nightclub and I was on my own I was single he was with his girlfriend and his girlfriend's sister was with a bloke and he was horrible he was really rude and aggressive and all that kind of stuff and I just couldn't be bothered with him so I just ignored him and I just took off I was in the nightclub and I just went
to have a little wander around and I ended up kissing two women or them kissing me which is weird on the dance floor some woman just pulled me onto the dance floor started kissing me and I found kissed another one and then at the end of the night my cousin and everyone they left they just left me there I ended up getting a taxi back with a couple of women and I ended up kissing one of them and it's like it's just weird it's almost like I got my mojo back they kissed me by the
way I didn't make any attempt they all kissed me and they went home and I just went I didn't make any attempt I just went home well I went back to the hotel and then the next day I find out that this bloke had gone all weird and ended up having a fight with my cousin and my cousin's got had a broken arm or dislocated arm or something he had his arm in a sling and it's like what weird so I should have been there for him but I wasn't because I was kissing girls kissing
girls females were kissing me I had nothing to do with it I'm not responsible and yeah then I left I think the last day before I left I'm walking down the down the prom and some woman shouts out I like your glasses my sunglasses okay and I walked over and she starts kissing me now this is sounds like I'm just lying but I'm not genuinely not lying this is true so I don't know what happens in those situations but I just it's a long time ago do you know because thing is when I was 20
I would have been either 32 or just turned 33 probably 32 still so when I was 32 I felt old I thought 32 is old and I was around a lot of young people and I felt old because I was you know it's around people in the early 20s working with them now I'm 50 whatever I'm 51 however old I am I realize that 32 wasn't old at all it's actually very young 32 is not old you know men are quite often in their prime at 30 31 32 they're in their physical prime so you
know I didn't realize that at the time so there I'm sticking to it might be a lie but I'm sticking to it anyway yes I do wonder how he's doing these days I don't know I wonder how Georgia is Georgia Georgia Georgia she was really really really beautiful woman that I worked with and I had this kind of rule when I worked like when I was a DJ I didn't date the waitresses just for the simple fact that it's not on your own doorstep you know it's it just wasn't it just I don't know I
liked having them as friends and liked having them to talk to and stuff but I didn't you know for me a lot you know I think a lot of the some of them might have liked me when they first started and then when they saw what I got up to they probably didn't like me because they'd see me at weekends and see me going home with different people and you know I was a young I was I was only like my late 20s so I was having fun and some people didn't I guess they didn't
like that or they just thought it was immature or whatever but I didn't get to do that when I was in my early 20s you know I didn't although I was on stage and I had the occasional a bit of interest I did have girlfriends and stuff but I didn't have any fun that sounds bad doesn't but not any fun you know like I was very late developer you know the whole going to nightclubs and kissing lots of boys and kissing lots of girls and you know that kind of situation where young people get to
sort of discover who they are and what they like and having fun I didn't do that when I was a teenager because I didn't have any money I was literally didn't have anything so when I was 16 all my friends would be in nightclubs and I was working in a chip shop and I didn't have really the money to go out and do anything or to wear nice clothes or I stunk of fish the whole time fishing chips and fat and grease you know so I didn't have any really much of a way of an
income and then by the time I was 18 I just didn't go out I could have done I had money by then I had a job that paid okay but I just didn't really have any friends anymore I had a few friends you know that I made over the years and a few people I'd hang out with but not I'd lost contact with pretty much everyone from school even though I was living in a tiny little town the only time I'd see people from school was when they came into the chip shop and they'd always
be friendly and everything but it was weird it was almost I felt like I was a failure because all of them had decent jobs doing well had cars girlfriends and I just didn't have anything so I'm not I said I'm not feeling sorry for myself I probably am but from a distance you know I wish things have been different but hey that's what made what made me who I am now yeah but that's just there's plenty of people well way worse off than I was you know in different ways you know I remember there was
um a young lad that worked at the chip shop part-time when I was there and he was about 15 and he was he was good looking he was he might have been 16 by then it sounds weird if I start saying 15 year old boys are good looking but it seems to be okay if I say he's 16 I'm not saying he's good looking as in I fancied him I'm just saying he was popular he was really really fashionable and had like perfect hair and all his clothes were perfect he he worked and he spent
his money on clothes in fact he took me he took me clothes shopping it's amazing that a school kid took me clothes shopping because I didn't have the first idea about fashion and he was the most fashionable kid in his school so he was only about a year between us in age it's just he's he he just he looked older than me he was bigger than me he was more mature than me really it was nice but his parents split up and he was so distraught by it and you know he was and it's really
hard for me to sort of like try and like I don't you know because I remember I was happy when my split up because everyone was so miserable when they were together you know I shouldn't really talk about stuff like this during the recording but yeah it took me shopping took me clothes shopping took me to this little place that he knew that had all these shirts I'd never heard never knew the place existed all different shirts but not one shirt the same honestly no duplicates just all one-off shirts amazing I went in there I
used to bought boots so this is when um um eventually right at my at the end near the end of my time as a chip shop I eventually went to the council and said look please help me I've got no money I've lived for the last year and a half on nothing and I can't do it anymore can you help and they said yeah I said really he said yeah it's going to take a while though and I waited for I don't know a month or two and they sent me a check for money to
help out with like the rent to help out with food and stuff because I was I was earning such a little amount of money so with that money I bought clothes that's what I did with it I bought some clothes which is not a bad it's not exactly a waste of money is it you need to wear clothes especially especially when you're young and you probably want to maybe get to have a date with someone at least once so yeah I did I was very smart for a little while but that was the end that
was near the end of my time in the chip shop so I've given you given you a little insight into the comedy club a little outlay like a little kind of outlay of the ground or the the positioning and where things are you now know where the toilets are in a comedy club that doesn't exist anymore how useful is that not very that's how much love that building love that club still do even though it doesn't exist anymore the building's still there but the club isn't and I still love it even though it's not there
because it was such an important part of my life for so long you know it was the only place in my 20s I could go and I suppose a little bit like cheers you know where everybody knows your name it was that not not everybody knew my name but a lot of people did and I could go there get in for free watch the comedy or just hang out and someone would know me someone I had someone to talk to even if it was just the staff so yeah I loved that place so there you
go I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna go now so thank you for listening remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy do something nice for yourself today and be gentle with yourself lots of love bye
Paragraph spacing and recurring name or title errors have been tidied. Because this began as a voice transcription, an occasional word or piece of punctuation may still be incorrect.