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Hello and welcome to a very noisy dog pound. The two of the dogs make so much noise together. One's ripping a packet of food apart and the other one's drinking.
And now he's crunching. Anyway, welcome to Let Me Boyd Sleep. My name is Jason Newland.
Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. And I was going to read out of the Guinness World Record 2024. But the writing's really small.
Unless my eyesight has just got less. Perfect. I don't know.
I mean, let's have a look. Where was last year's Guinness Book of Records? Guinness World Records 2022. Okay.
So it was a year before. Let's see if the writings are small in this one. Yeah, pretty much the same size.
Oh well. So I got this book thinking I would go through it and I'm quite surprised at just how much noise Logie's making. So what I did is, Logie's got his big food that he eats.
And I give Vinnie a little packet of food in the evening. So he also eats the big food as well. But he eats bits, you know, here and there and sometimes Logie will eat it and he'll drop stuff on the floor and Vinnie will eat that or he'll just help himself.
It's not big bits that Vinnie can eat it. It's just a little bit bigger than what he would normally eat. But he just copies what Logie does.
So I gave Vinnie a bowl of his own wet food. So I emptied about three quarts out of it, out of it, of it out and then gave Logie the packet so he could get the rest of it out and he's completely destroyed the packet. But he went over to where Vinnie was eating and Vinnie just growled it in.
Like that. So, and Logie backed off, which was nice. Yeah.
Oh, the largest collection of number one singles. Oh look, Dave Watson owns 1,258 UK chart toppers, including shellac, vinyl and CD singles. What's a shellac? As verified in Dunstable Bedfordshire, UK on a 5th December 2022.
His first purchase was 1988's Don't Turn Around by Aswad. Aswad? Yeah. Which cost just 99 pence.
The hardest record to get was Lita Rose's How Much Is That Doggy in the Window, 1953, which eluded him until internet search engines arrived. Internet search engines arrived, what, 20 years ago? Over 20 years ago, isn't it? How long has Google been about? 100 years? 1,258 UK chart toppers. I wonder how many years worth that is because, I mean, there could be at least 52 number ones in a year.
There's rarely that many, is it? I mean, it's quite often a song will be number one for a few weeks, sometimes for a few months, sometimes for decades. But 1,258, what is that? How many years is that? If it's 52, 52, 1,258 divided by 52, 52, 100, so that's 125 years, I think. Let's have a look.
So 1,000, sorry, 1,258 divided by 52, 24 weeks, oh no, 24 years. So 24 years if there was a different number every single week for 24 years, which there wouldn't be. So whether or not he's, it doesn't say if he's got every single number one song since the UK charts started.
That would be interesting to see. There is this comedian called Woody Bop Muddy that I remember from the 90s. He might still be around, I don't know.
But I remember from the 90s, and he used to come on as dressed as like a pirate. And he'd be a DJ and he had this board, a bit of wood. And he would play a song, a single because he'd have a big, big box full of singles, vinyl.
And he'd play a bit of it. And they'd say, smash or, I don't know, so like, like or dislike, you know, but using different words, I forget what it was. And if people didn't like it, the song, he'd hammer it onto the board with a nail, or smash it up.
Sometimes when people like the song, it's still smash it up. But it was funny, it was really, I probably haven't described it in a way that would make you perhaps as excited as you should be, because it was very, very entertaining. And the audience participation is what made it so good.
I think it's one of those things that would work better, if he was actually in the audience than if he was to watch it on TV, maybe I might be wrong. But I always every time I saw him, and I saw him many, many times. And it was he was always did really well.
The most back Charleston kick steps in 30 seconds. Professional dancer Amy Dowden shot to fame after joining BBC Strictly Come Dancing. In 2017, she executed 19 quickfire kick steps.
I don't know what that means. So yeah, I'm not sure. The largest trousers.
The largest trousers. For dazed magazines feature on record breaking fashion, culture, couture, stylist couture, culture. On crew.
John, USA, recreated a pair of ASOS tapered sweat pants with a total length of 42 feet 11 inches, and a waist of 33 inches, actually normal pair of okay, very long, but the waist that's just normal, isn't it? This is an average size pair of pants. And the Titanic trues were unveiled in Paris. I don't know why I'm laughing at that laugh at me and joke.
Most Oh, look at this. Most smarties eaten with chopsticks while blindfolded in one minute is by Avery Chin. My s in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and 25 smarties were eaten with chopsticks whilst blindfolded in just one minute.
Now. There are way I used to know. Well, so still, I don't know.
I'm sitting for years, but a bloke called Dean Gold. And he held, I think he held the most world records out of anyone, pretty much in the world. At one point, this is like back in the 80s or 90s.
He really held loads and loads and loads, even started his own organization for, you know, records. He started his own one outside of the Guinness. I wonder if he's on a G, G, G, G, G, L, M, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Okay.
Maybe she did. Gold girl. Oh, it doesn't got any names on it.
I thought it would have. I thought there were little names of people, you know, people, but he, he held the world record for the most eggs balancing on his hand. The most coin flips right from the elbow to the hand.
He held the world record for the most beer mats caught from the edge of a table and flipping it, catching them. He held the world record for the most, I think, bullseyes with a darts and darts board in a certain amount of time. He, so he held lots and lots of unusual world records.
And I think sometimes he'd look up something that wasn't done, that hadn't ever been done before, or something that hadn't, hadn't been beaten for a long, long time. And then he'd sort of work on it and he really trained. I don't know why I'm laughing.
It just, he would practice for hours to, to perfect the art of what he was doing. And he used to call himself Dexter Steen. And his hands, do you know how our hands curl up, you know, if you, if you face your palm upwards and you do that with your fingers and they go, he could do that with his palms facing downwards and his fingers could point upwards.
Like he could bend his fingers. Not, not enough. He couldn't hold something with his fingers that way, but he could just, I don't know.
I think, I don't know if he's double jointed or what, but he could just make his hands curl. And yeah, I met him when I was doing, I got a job as a canvasser in 1989. And it was basically knocking on people's doors, trying to see if they were interested in getting any new windows, new window replacements, double glazing, conservatories or things like that.
Extensions, I suppose. And I used to do that for three hours a day from about, I don't know, four to about seven or maybe five to eight, something like that. And, and that would be it.
That's what I, that was my full-time job. Three hours a day, five days a week, sometimes Saturday as well. I do get paid extra for a Saturday morning.
And I was getting paid more than I'd been paid anywhere else before at that point. And we used to get a commission as well. So I think the basic salary was like £120 a week.
And sometimes I take home over £200 a week or £180 with bonuses. I'd never earned that amount in my life. I mean, the most I ever earned, I think probably in my, in my 20s was when I had a job in the bakery and I did 100 hours.
And I took home after tax £250 for the week. That was after tax. So I would have probably earned £300 and whatever, which was in 1991 was a fair bit of money for what, you know, for, for the situation.
I mean, I was paying £40 a week rent. So it gives you an idea, like ratio-wise, so I could live food and everything probably on £100 a week with everything, including what I needed to live. Well, I was living on £100 a week after that as well, because I got a job that paid me £100, £104 a week, I think, for a few years.
But that canvassing job was really good. It's the first time I, it's weird, you know, I don't know if you, it's almost like I woke up, I became kind of self-aware. I was going to say of myself, but that probably doesn't need adding, does it? Became kind of, so I remember I was staying with, before this happened, I was, I left the job in a factory that I had.
And that was it, that was a fairly good job, as far as it goes in the town that I was living. It was the biggest, one of the biggest employers. And it was a factory for making meters, electric meters, maybe gas meters as well.
I think it was electric meters, but maybe gas meters. I mean, it might, they might just be the same thing. I don't know.
But I worked there anyway. And this was the second time I worked there, I think. And I left because I don't remember why.
I decided to go to Spain. And those were the days when if I didn't like the job I was doing, I just left. This, you know, that's just what I did.
It's just, that was not very professional, I know. But that is how I used to do things. And I wouldn't necessarily think of the consequences.
And so I walked out of that job. I just didn't go back. I went to Spain.
So I gave up my house, the room that I was living in. I said, I'm moving out tomorrow. It was like, and I said, see ya.
And I left, went to Spain the next day, on a plane, because my bicycle had a puncture. And I then came back the next, I came back in the evening. So I was only, I was only in Spain for the afternoon.
I got ripped off by a taxi driver over there. And then I came back. Didn't have anywhere to live.
Luckily, my landlady, my previous landlady from two days earlier, let me sleep there that night. And then I had to find somewhere else to live. And I managed to, I think, I think I got it the right order.
I stayed with a couple of people that I used to work with. And my job was to look after their daughter, just take her to school, pick her up from school. And that was it, really.
And make sure she had her breakfast. And they were doing the night shift. And I slept on the, pretty much slept on the floor in the living room.
It was okay, apart from the fact that they came home for dinner. So they'd come home at like two in the morning or whatever, one in the morning for their lunch, and turn the TV on. And we'd be eating at dinner, like, I was asleep.
I said, if you're asleep, how can you be talking to us? Mmm, which was annoying. So I had to get out of there. This was just, it was ridiculous.
And in the end, I managed to get out. And I had a part time job working in a, when I was there, because I had no, they didn't give me any money. They did feed me.
And they let me sleep on their floor. That it might be in a camper bed or something, I can't remember. Or maybe the cushions off the city.
And it was a comfortable flat, it was a nice flat. And I could eat. But I didn't have any money of my own to do anything with.
Like even buying a Mars bar, I just didn't have anything. So I got a part time job in the supermarket opposite, which was like six to eight, or five to five to seven, or five, 530 to 730, something like in the morning. And then I'd finished that and then I'd go and I'd take no, I got that during the summer.
I must have done because otherwise I'd have had to be there. Yeah, I got that during the summer, because I was still living there. So I didn't have anywhere else to live.
And then I moved out. And I got I got this job working as a canvasser. And it's really weird, because I remember, and it's strange that I remember this, maybe I don't know.
I remember walking around, because I was phoning for jobs, phoning, you know, job in papers and, you know, adverts and stuff and spoke to this bloke called Jeff. And he said, it's a canvassing job. And he said, Well, basically, just just come along.
Turn up and see if you like it. You know, come along to this address. And we'll you can come along and give it a go.
And you know, no training, just just tell you what to say and just see if you like it. And I remember thinking, well, I didn't know if I wanted to do it. Really didn't know.
Because the idea of knocking on people's doors did not fill me with ecstasy. Not to start with. I really, really didn't quite like the idea of it, to be honest.
And I was quite a shy person, I would say, in certain circumstances. And I just didn't like I really wasn't going to turn up. You know, I was 90% sure I wasn't going to go.
And then I went. And I remember walking along near the sea. And I'm walking along the cliffs, you know, where the sea is below the cliffs.
While in the sea, the cliffs with the cliffs, and just the higher up, and I was just walking along. And I still kind of almost visualize it, not knowing, just staring out at the sea, not knowing what to do. And this was probably it was in the summertime, early summer, I really, really wasn't sure if it's something that I could even face doing, knocking on someone's door and talking to them.
I said, it's not an easy thing to do if you've never done it before. You know, to not have a reason, well, there is a reason, but normally in the past, I've been knocking on someone's door because I was calling around a friend's house, or maybe to see if they're in before burgling them. No, just joking.
Or maybe when I have my paper around, knock on the door and given their paper the week before Christmas. So hopefully they give me a tip. You know, those kinds of things.
It didn't work. And I just thought, shall I do it? I don't know. And for some reason, I did it.
I don't know why I just turned up. And Dean said, there's a reason why I'm telling you this is because Dean Gould, the Guinness Book of Record man. He was there with his wife, Natalie.
And it was basically me, Dean, Natalie or Nat, and Jeff, who was the boss. It was just the four of us. I think there might have been another person before me that I was replacing.
I can't 100% remember. But what happened is, for some reason, I was really good at it. It was almost as if I came alive.
And I could just, yeah, I guess, in some ways, it was kind of a performance. And I was, I would say I was probably going through a little bit of a hyper mode as well. Back then, at that period in my life, I was going, I was a little bit up, which helped.
I mean, I can't knock on someone's door and go, I suppose you want any new windows, do you? No, I don't. I don't suppose you do. I don't blame you.
It's cloudy in it. You know, that wouldn't have really been too good. And I used to have people laughing.
They'd be on the doorsteps. I'm not interested, though, straight away, and then I'll be there just almost doing a stand up routine that was making them laugh. Something that I was never able to do on stage.
I was never that good on stage. But on the doorstep, I seem to be quite good. Never really knew, I could never remember what I'd said.
But I guess I just bounced off the people that I was talking to. And it was, it was good. It was actually fun.
And Dean was really funny. And Natalie was lovely. She was such a lovely person.
I say she was, she is a lovely person. And she, so me and Dean would all, I'd get more leads than anyone else. Dean would get loads of leads, Natalie would get less leads.
But Natalie's leads were better than ours. She had a higher conversion. So when the sales person went to contact the person who'd, who said that they were interested in getting some new windows and were, we made an appointment, we made an appointment to get a, I don't know, just, what do they call it? To have a visit, you know, so they could show them the windows, or show them, you know, measure up and stuff like that.
And Natalie was way better than either of us. Because people only, the only people that gave her an appointment and let her make an appointment with them, were people that were genuinely interested. Now, I think some people gave me their, their details just to get rid of me.
And I say probably Dean was better than me as well, as far as conversion. So I'd get way more. So I still did well, because, but my conversion was probably lower than the other two, definitely lower than Natalie's, and lower than Dean's as well.
So I wasn't, I was really good, but I wasn't, they were better, you know, at the actual job. But I surprised myself, because I could have made that, I could have just said I was the greatest, couldn't I? But off to the point. Facts are facts.
And I was pretty good, considering I'd never done it before. And I did get better with time. I did it for about three months, four months.
Until I think the end of, end of September time, maybe October. So all the way through the summer, well, through probably June, July, August, September, so about four months probably. And it was the best summer, pretty much of my adult life.
I was really just had a good summer. It was, I had money, I moved into a place that was pretty cool to live. Just generally, it was, I didn't, it wasn't just very quite easy, you know, didn't have anyone on my back, to sort of, oh, you've got to tidy up, me, me, me, me, me, me, none of that.
I was eating out every day, for all my meals, pretty much apart from breakfast. And I was working three hours a day. Which is not bad.
It's not bad. And what I started to do, which probably, maybe not during the week, but I used to go drinking, sort of at the weekends. And I'd be, we had these things where they had competitions.
So whoever got the most amount of leads, you know, new, potentially new customers, would win. Or sometimes it'd be like as a group, we had to get, I don't know, 100 leads in the week, let's say. And then we'd win a big casket of champagne and stuff like that.
So I ended up winning loads and loads of bottles of champagne. So I remember I was walking down the beach with a couple of my friends and we were just drinking, drinking out of the bottle. And it was fun.
It was almost the first time since leaving school that I was able to actually have any fun. Because before then, I was working and had no money, hardly. And it was so nice to just almost have, I had money to spend.
And there was a freedom, you know, I could buy clothes. And there was no, you know, I had a girlfriend. And it's like everything was quite good.
And it all came crashing down. At the end of September, I think it was or beginning of October. The, because we were working for a company that was a building firm, but they did double glazing, but they weren't, they didn't do the original, they didn't go down the route of hard pressure selling.
The way they did it is by being genuine, or genuine, or genuine. And they'd go in as mainly the two owners of the business. To start with anyway, because it's quite a fairly new firm, I think.
And they'd come into the people's houses and say, here we go. They might even have overalls on, I'm not sure. I made that bit up.
Little cap. They really wore stilts. That's that I do know.
And they just say, look, we measured up. Here's what we do. Here's the price.
Do you want it? And no hard sell. No, no camping in the living room for 16 hours, trying to wear the person down none of that stuff, no manipulation, just, you know, here's a really good price. We were good at what we do.
Here's what you can get. And you can also, here's an address, here's a couple of addresses you can go to if you want to see what other people have done, who have had our windows and, and because they were actually builders, they were doing it. They were doing a proper job.
I'm sure I'm sure every all windows, replacements do a proper job, I'm sure. But you know, back then they sort of double glazing salesman had a bit of a bad reputation. Back in the 80s.
And the 70s and the 90s. The 2000s, maybe I don't know, but there was a period when they weren't the most trusted of people, which is why the company that I was canvassing for, even though I was working for Jeff, who was making more money out of me than the company was. Because I found out later that he was, we were getting paid for six hours.
So they thought we were out all afternoon. So we were getting paid, I didn't know this at the time, until later on, but we were getting paid for six hours. And, and he paid and so that's why we got paid so much, because he obviously he skimmed off some money for himself.
Because that's, you know, that's, that's kind of what happens, I guess. He was self employed. And he was contracting us.
So we weren't employed by the double glazing company. Jeff was the boss of us. He was also the boss of himself.
And it was all right, you know, eventually, I think in end of September 1989, maybe October time, they decided to invest their money in advertising on the radio, as opposed to canvassing. So I moved to London. And then I came back in.
Well, basically, what happened is, I moved to London, they've got a really, really low paid job, which was, I think, about 95 pound a week, was at 85 pound a week, something like that. And I did that from, I think, October to March. So 89 to 1990, March.
And I spoke to Dean on the phone. Or he called me or something. He said, Oh, Jeff's getting a team back together.
A bit like the A-team really. He's getting a team back together to because the company that had us before, they want us again. But this time, he had even more people, he had, I think, two companies that he was going to canvass for.
So he took turns canvassing for different companies. And I said, really? He said, Yeah. So I came back.
This time I was getting paid more money for the same amount of hours. I think it might be in four hours this time. So like four to eight, something like that.
And so I came back in the April, end of March, April time, 1990. And I did and I came back to a job. So I came back, like Friday, moved on a Saturday, started working on a Monday.
And it was really weird to be back doing it. And to have that time to not be, you know, working quite physically hard job for very little money. And then I started to realize that I didn't enjoy it as much as I used to.
I wasn't really it was it was okay. But then I also remembered how, how quickly it stopped last time, without any warning, you know, suddenly, I was finished. There's no more work.
So I didn't really want to go through that again. So I've got a job back in the factory that I used to work in twice before. Why they gave me a job, I've no idea.
This time, though, it was in a metre factory, and it was in a night shift. So I could still continue doing the canvassing. So I've worked from 10 to six, 10 in the evening to six at night.
10 in the evening to six in the morning. Yeah, that'd be a long shift, wouldn't it? 10 in the evening to six at night. So I do my eight hours.
Then I go to bed, get up about 2345. Yes. And then I'd be maybe starting at four.
So I'd have about an hour, two hours between getting up and going to going to work. And then I finished work about eight. And I'd have another two hours to sort of between then and start work again.
Even though it's two different types of job, it wasn't sustainable. But for a while, it was quite nice to be earning that amount of money. Because the night shift, it wasn't, I mean, yeah, it wasn't like huge, huge money, but it was good for the time, you know, I think I was taking on about 800 a month.
750 800 a month, which I know it's not a lot now. But back, you know, 24 years ago, whatever. Here, it was a fairly good take home pay.
And that was for the factory. And I also had another 150 a week coming in from the canvassing. So it was nice for a little while, for a few months or two.
But then I just had to quit one of them. And I wasn't going to quit the actual the proper job. So I quit the canvassing.
And then worked and it was better then because then, you know, I had a bit of space between getting up at two in the afternoon and start and work at 10. Because you know, it's what's needed need some time. Otherwise, I just work in all the time.
Why am I telling you about that? I don't know. I'm not sure. creaky chair.
See, might be my back. Hope it's not the chair. I have to get a new one.
It's easy to replace a back. So why was I even talking about Oh, yeah, Dean Guinness Book of Record. Yeah, Guinness Book of Records.
Dexterous Dexterous Dean. What was weird is Jeff, who was the boss. He was he was this old.
He was old then. It was about 112 then. And he always dressed really smart.
Was it like a suit on? I think I'm sure if you wore a hat. I think he might have glasses. But he had this moustache that you would very much fit together with the 1940s RAF.
Very like a curly moustache. A big old moustache but curly on the end. And he ironically did used to be in the RAF during the war.
And it always tell these stories. So he was in the RAF. And then he when he left the RAF because he was a young man at that time.
When he left the RAF, he became I think he had his own company or something like that. And he was a sales persons, salesman for a I think it was double glazing company. But he did a lot of sales, a lot of sales.
And that was his pretty much his life. And then he retired and he I think he might got a bit bored or just thought he needed to get some money. So he started up this little business, getting together some people to and I'm guessing that he knew people in the industry.
So he said, Well, let me get you, let me get you leads. So you can make appointments, make money, sell, sell the products, and I'll take a certain amount every week. And then I'll employ the staff and do everything else.
Which means he probably got two, four, three, he probably had like 500 pound a week or something coming in. And then he did everything else, which meant he'd have made maybe 300 himself, or 250. Which is not bad for three hours work a day.
And he's retired as well. And he was lovely. I actually really liked him.
He was very funny. He's very rude. Very rude.
And he used to swear, proper swear. And he was so funny. He just like he just had a funny laugh and he'd big bushy eyebrows.
And he just, I think he took a little shine to me. He quite liked me, I think, a little bit. And I was interested in selling had been for, I just had an interest in selling.
I don't really know why. But I was and at that time, I was reading books on selling. So I was doing the canvassing, but I was starting to sort of, you could say taking my work home with me.
Because I started thinking, Oh, so I'm doing quite well at this, even though technically, I wasn't selling. But it was still is, I suppose I was selling myself. And the idea of maybe considering getting some new windows or whatever.
And, yeah, really kind of used to read quite a few books on the subject. And weirdly enough, I continue to do that all the way through the 90s. Even though I didn't have any sales jobs really during the 90s.
And it wasn't until 2001 that I got my first proper sales job, which was cold calling people with a salary, not not people with a salary, but I had a salary for doing it. So it wasn't just based on commission, though there was a commission added on. And it was mobile phone contracts, but giving away mobile phones, giving away a free mobile phone, the latest version, Nokia 310 or whatever it was.
But also with a two year contract or one year contract or something, mobile, you know, mobile phone contract. And in them days, 2001, it was really a case of getting people signed up. It was more they were thinking like, this is for EE.
They were subcontracted for EE. So that was the company we represented, even though we weren't them. You know, so but we were selling their phones and their contracts.
They were thinking into the future. So they were quite happy to give away the phone, have a really cheap contract to start with, and then hopefully keep the customer and maybe some of the people had a phone with EE back then. It wasn't called EE back then, it was called Orange.
Wasn't it? Yeah, Orange. The future's bright, the future's EE. I'm not quite sure how they got from Orange to EE.
But it's probably some kind of syndication being bought by another company. But now the company was called something different, and they decided to go with, I don't know, Orange or EE. It may be the other company, one was called Orange, and the other one was called Eh.
And I thought, well, Eh has got an E in it, and Orange has got an E in it, so let's call it EE. I don't know. I made that up.
I don't normally make things up, apart from when I lie. I think that was a difficult job. It was.
I remember I phoned someone up once, and they said, sorry mate, you phoned me up, I'm at my brother's funeral. I said, I am so sorry. He said, because I basically, he said, hello, I said, hi, I'm calling on behalf of the Orange, and just wondering if you'd be interested in a free mobile phone with a contract, and all that.
So that was me, that's my little bluff, not bluff, blurb or whatever. And he said, sorry mate, I'm at my brother's funeral. I was like, I'm so sorry.
He said, can you call me back in an hour? Support. And I did, and he took it, he took the contract. I was like, wow.
You know, I phone people up in a weird, that's the thing, for cold calling, you don't know what someone's going to be doing when you call them. And I'm pretty sure I heard some of the strangest things ever. Well, I know I did, but my mind was maybe going in a different direction to what was reality.
Sometimes it's just like, what am I hearing? I remember one of, I don't know if it was that job or the insurance job, but someone, one of my colleagues, he said to a customer, have you got a parrot in the background? I hear you got a parrot. And the customer said, no, that's my son. And he got sacked.
Not her son, my colleague. I was like, wow. And that was pretty short after I started working there.
And another one got sacked during my training. Not one of the trainees, but someone who was already working there. And apparently this, the customer was, and it's no cold calling, it was all inbound phone calls.
So the salesperson was talking on the phone. Hello, welcome to whatever insurance company it was. And the customer or the prospective customer was being really rude, like really rude.
And the salesperson said, sorry, you are the weakest link. Goodbye. And put the phone down.
And this is 2001 when the weakest link was a huge TV show in the UK anyway, with Ann, Ann, not Ann Diamond, not Ann Whitaker, Ann, Ann, she used to wink. I said wink, W I, wink. She used to wink, Ann Crawford, Ann, Ann something, I think.
It was hugely successful TV show. You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
And he got sacked. The weird thing about it, and I never really got my head around this show. This person was popular with the, in the call center, a well liked person.
All of the managers found it hilarious. And they even played it in our training. It was very funny the way he did it.
And she was the man or woman on the phone, the customer. It was a woman, but yeah, called. I don't know.
I make, I don't know. I've got no idea. It might be in a man.
It might be in anything. I don't know. And it doesn't matter.
It's not important. It's not relevant. The customer was being really, really rude for no reason.
Just probably having a bad day, whatever. And when he said this, you are the weakest link, goodbye. And he just, he said it in exactly the same way as Ann Diamond.
No, I can't think of what her surname is. And literally put the phone down. It was just, it was perfect timing.
And we were all laughing. The trainer was laughing. The manager who brought the tape in, the recording in to tell us, to show us what we shouldn't be doing was laughing.
And he was one of the top managers in the building. He found it hilarious. And yet they sacked him.
I mean, okay. The customer complained. You can't get away with it.
You can't just get away and do that. But disciplinary, not sacking, come on. Give the person another chance.
Maybe he had other chances. I don't know. But it just seemed a shame because it's almost, how can you sack someone that is, or fire someone that's just made you laugh doing what they've done? And okay, it was rude.
It was unprofessional. I've done worse. Everyone's done worse.
You know, got away with it. And at some time in the past, you know, when I was a young and little, little young child, 33, 34. But yeah, I'm not sure why I was telling you that.
Why did I tell you that story? I worked in one place. And so I worked in four different call centers, three insurance, one mobile phone contract thing. The second insurance company I worked for, it was run by a bit of a maverick.
And he had a company renting out helicopters as well. He was very rich, man, self-made. And he just, he'd buy companies and then sell them to kind of try and build them up and then sell them.
And it didn't have, he'd be happy, you know, he'd stay with the company for 10 years, building it up. So it's not like you just do it overnight. So he had this company and I'm pretty sure it was, it was something like Line Direct.
Instead of Direct Line, it was Line Direct. It was like a very similar name to Direct Line, which is the, was at the time the biggest car insurance company. But it was just a very similar name, which he picked.
And I remember once he came, he didn't care about breaking the rules. He came up, he came upstairs one day to the sales department, because his office was downstairs. And he said something and one of the sales people, I think he said, everyone keep, keep the noise down or something like that.
I don't, I think it was a quiet day and there wasn't many phone calls. And he said, I'll keep the noise down because people were talking a bit too much. Now someone shouted back like a quip, like a funny remark or whatever.
And the person that did it was the top sales person on the entire floor, the entire building, really. He was a top sales person by a long way. Every week, always outsold everybody.
So he was the one that like, answered back to the boss. And the boss said, get out, get out. It was in front of everyone.
He said, put your coat on and leave, you're sacked. Now, you know, you can't sack people like that. It's not, it's illegal.
You know, you have to go through a process. You can't just, someone's been a little bit cheeky. Well, I can't resist.
It was, it was horrible to watch, really. And he just walked out. Okay.
And he just walked really slowly. Are you sure? And he did, yeah, he left. And that was it.
And I think someone said, aren't you worried you're going to get sued? He said, I don't care. I like being sued. So, okay.
What, two of the weirdest moments at that, at that place, for me was, there's two incidences that were very strange. One was, because on a, on a, quite a few of the lads would go out drinking at the weekend, the salespeople. I never used to really go out drinking, but they did all, go out together.
And I think it was a Saturday night and someone, they were all really drunk and someone wrote a letter. And I think, I think he wrote it himself, but basically telling the manager what he thought of him, the sales manager, and posted it through the door of the locked building. So it was picked up by the security or the staff before opening on the Monday morning.
And he lost his job because of it. He couldn't because of what it said, just because he was drunk. And another weird thing happened.
This was for I think it might've been Christmas, the secret center or something like that. And someone bought or gave as a present, a scratch card to, to his friend, who was also a salesperson on the floor. And the scratch card, it was a, it was a joke scratch card that came up as 50 grand, £50,000 win.
So it was a joke, but it looked legit. I know because someone did it to me as well. So he thought he'd won £50,000.
He started screaming. He was practically doing handstands towards the manager. And he was telling him, that's it, I'm out of here.
I'm going to tell him what I think about him now. And he started to have a go at the manager and about three of his friends jumped on him to drag him away before he got himself into trouble. And they dragged him into the toilets and explained to him that it was a joke.
And because he was, he had to go home. He was so upset, bless him. Because he really thought he'd won the jackpot, you know, enough to change his life and to get out of that.
And then to find out that not only did he nearly lose his job by telling the manager what he thought of him. Yeah, blah. But it's very funny.
It was so funny to see. Now, I didn't know what was going on. So it's probably funnier for other people that did.
But I saw that he'd won on a scratch card. And he was about to go and tell off the manager. So I thought that was quite funny.
Just quite a funny thing to do. Not a nice thing to do necessarily, but just something I've never really seen before. And then someone whispered in my ear that it was a fake.
It was just a, you know, a jokey card. jokey scratch card. And that just made it hilarious.
Now, everyone was, well not everyone, but well everyone except me, I just sat there laughing. But a lot of people just like running up, don't, don't do it. Don't do it.
Just trying to almost drown out his voice so the manager couldn't hear him. Because he did, he started walking up and started shouting. Yeah, this is what I think.
And it's like, oh, it was very funny. Can't think of what else. There was a bloke that worked there.
And he was, he used to be insurance thingy broke. I forget what it is. But he could choose prices and he could change the prices of the policy and, you know, to make a better deal and stuff for people.
And he really took a dislike to me. He didn't seem to like me at all to start with. And then over a few weeks, he really seemed to like me.
To the point where he was bringing in because he was an artist. And he told me, oh, I want to be an art, you know, that's what I really want to do. Because he was, he was at a pad and paper.
And I never really knew what he was up to. And he showed me and I was really, really great, really good artist. And he kept saying, I want to, I just want to make it I want to do that.
And I said, you need to go for it then. And he got offered a job. I think in London.
And I said, yeah, go for it. Doesn't matter if it works out or not. You know, if there's one thing like, I think, follow your dreams.
I've always, especially a bit more now after what's been happening lately. I've started to sort of re-re-evaluate that. And just thinking, hmm, perhaps I need to need to start really think about what I want to do with the time that I have.
But with him, when I when I went to London to follow my dreams of being a comedian, I had no talent, really, as such. You know, I wasn't just it's just something I really wanted to do. And I did it for seven or eight years.
And I was average at best really. At worst, I was worse, really bad. However, I followed my dreams and I felt quite good about that.
But I did sacrifice. I made many sacrifices along the way to get there. But for him, it wasn't a sacrifice moving to London, you know, in a sense that he had the talent.
You know, I think to have the opportunity and to also have the talent as well. It's almost like a perfect storm, really. You have to be silly not to go for it, I guess.
I know sometimes, you know, there's different situations, why people stay, stay where they are and that. But even when I was going to go to, I decided in 1990, in April, I was in the bath. And I decided to start to start keep me bum clean.
Now, I started I decided I want to be a comedian. And that was it. From then on.
For the rest of the year, I was focused on going to London, going back to London. I didn't focus very well, because otherwise I could have actually saved for a year and had money. I had a few 1000 pounds to go to London, get myself somewhere to live somewhere decent.
And you know, done it properly. But I've never done anything properly. I don't think I just hope for the best.
Let it be an adventure. Anyway. And then, oh, yeah, so he did, he left the job and he took off.
And he became an artist, but he was already an artist. He had his own part time business as well. But he, he took this contract in London and good on him.
Good on him. I hope it all worked out good. I had a similar thing with another bloke who worked in the last insurance company I worked at.
He was absolutely obsessed with football. And he was a coach, part time coach for basically volunteering as a coach, football coach for kids. He was offered a job coaching the local team's children side, the local team's junior team.
And the local team's got a stadium, you know, it's a big, big football club. And he was humming and harring. And he was probably about 23, 24.
But he had all he was, you know, he had all the certificates and he was really qualified to do it. And he was doing it as a volunteer. But he didn't want to give up the security of having a job doing selling car insurance to doing something that was I think it was just a temporary contract, maybe six month contract or a year contract or something.
And I said, Look, you don't know where this is going to lead to. This is your dream. You know, what, what have you always wanted to do? You wanted, I suppose, it was either be a footballer, or be a football coach.
Those are two I'm sure being a footballer would have been his, his ideal, you know. But that's something that only a tiny percentage get get a chance to be professional footballer. Although I've known a couple of semi professionals.
And I think he might have been in the past. But he was a coach. I think he actually had an injury.
I think he hurt his leg or something. I'm making it up. But it makes it makes a story more interesting.
Yeah, he fell fell out of an acorn tree and bounced on a trampoline and landed on a helicopter, something like that. He was doing somersaults. And bright red smoke coming out sort of saying I love you, Deidre in the sky.
So it was a very mixed, mixed situation. Because his name was Deidre. So he's confused.
Oh, hurt my leg, but someone loves me. It was very strange. And he, he said, Oh, you feel I should go for I said, Yeah, 100.
I'll be with you in a minute. Go away for now. I'll be with you in a minute.
See headbutts the desk and shakes everything. I feel so sorry for him at the moment. I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to be rude. Bastard. And so yeah, I so I in the end, I think I had a holiday while I was off, came back and he'd gone he'd left.
He took the position as a coach for the children's team. I don't know how he is now or where he is now. But I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have regretted it.
Because, you know, he's, well, it's what 10 years ago now. Yeah, 10 years ago. So 10 years on another 2030 years, he's gonna look back on that.
Even if he if nothing else happened afterwards, he got to be a, you know, professional football coach, like a paid football coach for an actual football club. And there's not many people can sort of say that. You know, statistically, there's not many people in the world can say that.
There are thousands of people around the world. But that's just a tiny number with the there's at least, well, at least 7 million people on the planet, isn't there? So there's over those over 6 million, definitely over 6 million. So yeah, how did I get to this? How did I get to these people? Dean Gould.
Oh, yes, I've got the Guinness World Records. Used to be called the Guinness Book of World Records. But it's called Guinness World Records 2024.
Maybe the fact that it's in the format of a book means I don't need to put the word book on it. Maybe it never had the word book. I don't know.
But I didn't get very far in there, did I? I don't have another look. Maybe another time. I didn't get 2023.
I wonder why that is. I don't even remember 2023. What happened? This is 2023.
Oh, yeah. It's still happening. We're still here, aren't we? It's only September.
Or was it? Is it still November? Is it November, October, November, November, the 30th. So it's the first of December tomorrow. Blimey.
And it's 2149. So it's 10 to 10 in the evening. So probably gonna edit this in the morning, as opposed to now because I'm a bit tired now.
So that's it. Remember, please remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy. Do something nice for yourself.
And, you know, maybe don't put off saying those kind things to others and to yourself. Don't put it off. Maybe do it.
If you there's something you want to say to someone that's maybe a lovely thing. Say thank you or whatever it might be. Maybe don't put it off.
It is up to you, though. Ultimately, don't put off being kind to yourself. Take care.
Lots of love. Bye bye bye bye 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.