(no music) #1131 - Q&A Friday - Let Me Bore You To Sleep (24th May 2024)

Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep or l m b no l l m b y t s or sleep i don't know yeah anyway Let Me Bore You To Sleep welcome my name is jason newland i'm joined by vinnie andre newland who is eating a pig's ear which is gross and uh what's he doing i got yeah there's quite a bit of uh uh sound should we call it sound coming from the garden hopefully you can't hear it i've closed the window and drawn a curtain so

that should block some of it so please only listen when you can safely close your eyes and this is Q&A Friday i don't know what that was i think this is this is the fourth one i think this is the fourth one i don't know why i said it twice but i do think let me just search let me search let me have a look do Q&A Friday oh no i need to sign in first blimey what am i doing right here we go so gee Q&A Friday q and oh no no oh come on shouldn't be that complicated Q&A Friday.

I'd better put my name in just in case there's other Q&As. OK.

So, I had a Q&A Friday. Look, I'm itchy bum. I should have, left buttock I should say.

Left cheek. 10th of May. Let's work this out.

So I did one on 19th of April. 19th of April. 17th of May.

10th of May. 17th of May. Got that already.

10th of May. 3rd of May. 3rd of May.

And 17th of May. Got that one. Q&A Friday 26th of April.

No. I haven't done 5 already. I've only done 5 already.

Wow. No. I really didn't.

Honestly, I'm not even joking. I did not know that I'd done that many. Wow.

Time really does go, doesn't it? So, the first one. I guess. Wait a minute.

11th of April. What? 11th. I'm confused now.

26th of April. I've got Q&A Friday. Q&A.

Q&A. Oh right, because I wasn't calling them Q&A Friday until after I'd done a couple. Q&A part 10th of April.

Oh, OK. Q&A part 1. So I did the 10th of April. Then I did part 2 on the 11th of April.

Because it took too long. And then. Wow.

10th, 10th, 11th, 11th and 11th. That's confusing. And then I did the 19th of April.

So what about the 19th, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. So basically, the first was the 10th and 11th. So it was over 2 days.

The second, so that was on the 10th and 11th of April. The second was on the 19th of April. The third was on the 26th of April.

Which, oh, and then the fourth was on the 3rd of May. The fifth was on the 10th of May. And the sixth was on the 17th of May.

So there's actually been 7 recordings done so far. The first two were in two different days. But it was the first recording.

Because it was just too long. To do one recording. Because I was all excited because it was the first one.

But I didn't actually call that Q&A Friday. It was just a Q&A and it was on a Friday. And then I said, do you want me to do more? Do you want me to do more? Hoping that he would say no.

That was enough. And he said yes. So here I am.

Wow. I can't believe. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. This is the 7th Q&A Friday.

So next week. Two months. I've been doing this.

Blimey. That's weird. Honestly, I genuinely thought this was like number four.

Oh, wow. I'm going to need to do a whole new playlist just for these. Oh, dear.

So. Welcome. I think I've done all the things that I need to say.

As far as I'm aware. As far as I'm aware. There's no added questions since I last looked.

So I'll get on with it. Which will be the first time ever. I did post yesterday.

Last chance to ask me a question for this week's Q&A Friday. But nothing. Nout.

So I'm going to assume that everyone's asked all the questions they want to ask for this week. But I do have six questions. I've also.

I'm organized today. I've written it all down in a pad. So I've got a question from Robin.

Question from Christine. Question from Christine. Number three.

Four's from Cindy. Five's from Joanne. And number six is from Molly.

So six questions. So I should be able to get that done in the next five minutes. I'll just shoot them all out.

And we can all have an early night and enjoy the weekend. How about that? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Good. It's actually bank holiday weekend this weekend.

We have to buy any UK, England, Commonwealth, Europe, Britain. We have two bank holidays in May. Now, if you're in the UK, you can have it.

Well, you know, I know that. But bear in mind, there's people in other countries listening. So, yeah, we have one.

I don't know which one is. I don't know which one is May Day because there's two. There's two bank holidays.

I think May Day is the first one. And, oh, good, that is him. I heard his crunching and moving around.

I thought, oh, no, the mice are getting really big this year. Leaning against my leg. Blimey.

Size of an Alsatian. Which he isn't. I don't know why I said that.

So I, yeah, this is the bank holiday weekend against this weekend. Against again this weekend. So I need to get to the petrol station after this and get anything I need to get just in case it runs out.

Oh, if you'd like to support me, just personally, send a PayPal gift if you choose. I'd be very grateful. And that's it, really.

Weather's been nice today. Today, we had two days of quite a bit of rain. Quite a bit of rain.

Although yesterday I managed to miss quite a bit of the rain. The day before, I didn't miss it. And I started letting Vinnie off the lead again.

Because he started behaving himself again. So I don't know what that was about. Especially with Archie, I don't want... I think if we were able to communicate verbally without him shouting at me, telling me off.

I think we would both agree that we love playing with Archie. He loves it and I love seeing him do it. There's a love there.

There's a real... I did film them, but I need to post that. I saw my phone a few weeks back. It's weird, actually, because I've been looking at... I've been uploading videos, old videos of Andre.

They're not going to be new ones, are they? It's old videos of Andre. And it's got me a little bit nostalgic. And I'm starting to think, well, I should really do more videos of Vinnie.

Not for any weird reason. You know, not for the future, really. Just for now.

Just let people see what he's like and what he does and some of the weird things he does. But he's just not a very cuddly dog. He does cuddle, but it's not really his thing.

You know, some dogs will just lay on you and you can video them and they're happy. He's not like that. He likes to be moving around and doing stuff.

He's very similar to Andre, really. About the same size. Today I've been uploading my relaxation hypnosis for stress and anxiety recordings.

I think I did 30. I've nearly uploaded 20 of those videos onto YouTube. So I'm still doing that.

It's taken days and days. I've got 423 now uploaded. And the plan really is literally just that.

Just to upload all the old stuff. And then, but at the same time, carry on with the podcasts. Because in the past, I get distracted.

No, I don't get distracted. I get focused. That's probably the better word.

I get very focused on just one thing. So if I'm creating or if I'm uploading YouTube videos, then that's what I will focus all my time on. To the exclusion of doing anything else.

I don't think that's syntactically correct. The exclusion of doing anything else. So what I've done is I've now got this little routine going on.

Daily routine where I make these in the early evening. Afternoon. Whatever.

The podcast episodes. And then I turn everything off. Have my dinner.

Wait till my food's digested. And then I go to bed. And then I get up in the morning and I do the editing stuff.

So that's a nice little routine that seems to work. Seems to work. Yeah.

Blimey. So here we go. Here we go.

Number eight. This is number Q&A Friday eight. Honestly, I'm shocked.

Or no, seven. Sorry. Q&A Friday seven.

That's not so shocking, is it? Seven. Eight was like, wow, a seven. Oh, that's all right.

So here we go. Here we go. Here we go.

So the first question. By the way, I'm not guaranteed that all the questions will be answered truthfully. Just, you know, just in case you're wondering.

So Q&A Friday, 24th of May, 2024. Here we are. And thank you, everyone, for your questions.

So that's Robin, Christine, Cindy, Joanne, and Molly. Thank you very much. So Robin asks, if you could travel through time, what time period would you visit? You know, I thought about this.

And in a way, we don't need a time machine to go back in time. As far as during our lifetime, because we've got memories, haven't we? So we can kind of go back in time with that to a degree. I know that it's not going to be exact.

There's not a lot that's happened in my life that I'd like to revisit. There's a few experiences, I guess. But I did it then.

I don't need to do it again, if you know what I mean. There's not many things that I was like, oh, there's a couple of things. I was just thinking about one particular thing.

But generally, I would want to go forward, I think. I'd like to go forward in time. I thought it'd be quite interesting not to go too far forward.

But at the same time, it'd be cool to not just... If it was just one journey, you'd get one journey and that's it. That'd be a very, very difficult one to do. Now, to be fair, if there was just one journey, then I probably would go back in time and save someone's life.

So, to be honest, that's what I would do. Because that's the only thing to do, really. I'd make sure that... Well, there's a choice of people, to be fair.

It's not just my friend Luke, it's my friend Andre. Simon, when I was 17, he died. He was an older boy, but I worked with him.

His dad owned the restaurant. He was like an older brother to me, to be honest. He always used to tease me and I really liked him a lot.

Who else? Yeah, a few people. A lot of the people I wouldn't be able to do anything about because it was natural causes. By the way, some of the questions are not going to necessarily bring out humour in me.

I'll just let you know that now. I will try and be honest. I know I joked about lying, but... It wasn't really a joke, I do lie.

I make stuff up, I know that. These questions, I do try and answer as honestly as I can. Which means it's not always going to be light-hearted.

And I do try and keep things light-hearted. But sometimes I might get a little bit carried away and be too truthful. So I apologise if that's unsettling to anyone.

I'm not going to be going into any kind of graphic detail or anything. That's not what this podcast is about. But I might broach some subjects.

You know, skim over. There might be some subjects left with a few skid marks. If you know what I mean.

See, I even managed to put skid marks into a conversation about extremely bad things. I managed to say the word skid mark. So, forgetting serious stuff... Well actually, I could just answer.

I'd go back in time. I'd save Luke's life. I'd save Andre's life.

I'd save Simon's life. If I could do multiple trips, I'd go back and save... Well, I'd just be looking through the newspaper and see how many people's lives I could save. You know? It'd just be endless.

In fact, it would be a full-time job for thousands and thousands of years. Which means I wouldn't be able to do it. How do you choose? Martin Luther King.

Gandhi. John F.K. All the different people that have had huge influence over the world. Like, in a positive way.

Yeah, so... It's weird talking about assassinations and stuff. It's not really what I was expecting to discuss. But, if we do it in a more light-hearted way... Okay, again, I can't help it but add stuff.

So, if we could go through time... Okay, what time period would I visit? Here's my questions, Robin. I have questions. I've always got questions.

I don't realise I've got questions until I'm in the moment. Then I realise I do have a lot of questions. What are the boundaries for this specific offer? So, you offer me the opportunity to go forward or back in time.

Or to go travel through time. It doesn't say go back in time. It says travel through time.

What time period would you visit? Now, I realise the future isn't really a time period. Because it doesn't exist. It hasn't existed yet.

However, I'm going to assume that you meant either forward or back. Am I able to interact with people? Or will I be invisible? Will I still be alive? Or will it be like some kind of holographic AI version of myself? You see what I mean? Because, let's say if I decide I want to go forward 200 years. I want to make sure that when I get there I just don't turn into dust.

Because that's not going to be much fun. It's bad enough that part of my body has turned to dust. I don't need anything else.

So, it's those parameters that I need to navigate, as it were. I'd like to visit the future. And I'm thinking, incrementally, I'd like to just go forward a couple of years.

To start with. Because I'm interested in how the AI is going. I'm also interested in how the world events are going to play out.

My main interest, I know a lot of people that are interested in AI may be thinking about, how can this benefit me financially? Or how can this, how is this going to ruin everything? Or how is this going to, you know, all these things. My interest is, how is it going to benefit the world medically?

That's kind of my interest, is the fact that if you did blood tests from everyone in the world, got blood from everyone in the world and you knew, you know, you got a list of their medical issues, their situations, medical records, put them into a computer, the research and the studying and the analysis of all the different bloods and everything like that would come up, we'd be able to do more in a month, as far as searching for stuff, than would probably have took 10,000 years.

If it was human beings doing it.

Because they can do millions and millions of calculations and analysis and whatever, which would take thousands of years for humans, because unless you've got the entire world doing it. So, that interests me. I mean, there's already medical breakthroughs coming out, maybe every week a new medical breakthrough, which is phenomenal.

And so, yeah, that interests me. Plus AI has been used for years. Medical breakthroughs already that have come through, has been used, AI techniques, the, you know, new ways of research, new ways of examining.

It's all. Maybe the word AI needs to go, just technology. Just science.

But anyway. Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway. I'd like to go into the future.

I'd like to see a couple of years ahead. I'd like to go 200 years ahead. And just see.

Would I have superpowers? That's not really relevant, I guess. But would this time machine give me superpowers? Because I'd quite like to be able to be a superhero. So, I'd go into the future.

I'd be interested to see what the planet's like in 200 years. Because I think either it's going to look like we have reversed by thousands of years. Or we have, you know, gone forward thousands of years.

Developed. It's going to, I guess it's going to go one way or the other. Because, you know, certain things happen.

We could all have to start all over again. No computers. No, it's like everything starting off living underground.

And, you know, it just be starting from scratch. So... Which, there are some people who believe that's how we got here. You know, we're just re-going through what's already been... We're going through now is what's already happened already.

I think that was part of the Planet of the Apes, wasn't it? Theory. You know? They... They basically realised they're still on Earth. And it was, they'd just gone forward in time.

Well, not back. So... I don't know. Yeah, I think I'd like to go forward.

And revisit. I mean, I would, there's certain things I'd like to do. I'd love to be able to go back and just see my Nan.

But I'd like to see her when she was well. It might sound, maybe that sounds wrong, but... Just, and I don't mean like super well. Just... When she could make cakes for me.

Which again sounds really wrong. I don't mean, I don't want her to... Be making, I do want her making cakes for me. I do.

I don't know why I'm lying. I do. Rock cakes.

She made the best rock cakes. But she just was so full of life. So energetic.

And... Fit and healthy. Even when she was... You know, fairly elderly. Until she broke her hip the first time.

And then she went downhill and everything. But... She... Duh. But even then... It wasn't really until she broke her hip the second time.

That's really when it all kind of went. But before that, she was still pretty much able to get around. But it was difficult.

It was difficult for her. But I still let her make me cakes and stuff. I still let her make me dinner.

Because it's important, isn't it? That I felt, well... She needed... It's like physical therapy for her. To move around. And to be stretching.

And to be bending down into getting stuff out of the oven. And stretching up. You know, getting on a little stool.

So she could reach the cupboard and get stuff to make my cakes. And some would say, well, that's dangerous. But... I don't know.

It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I'm joking, by the way. Blimey.

She didn't need a stool. She had a ladder. So... I... I'd like... If I had the choice of going backwards and forwards... Then... Yeah.

I'd never make another podcast. Because all I would be doing... Was going backwards and forwards. And... I think I'd go backwards... To save people.

But then there's the whole butterfly effect idea, isn't there? So... Okay. Would you... You'd make one change and it can... Let's say... Okay. You save... Save... Save JFK.

JFR? JF... JFK. Yeah. Let's say... Or... What's his name? Oh, the one that was in the cinema... In the theatre.

Not Albatross. Yeah. Anyway.

Just one thing like that. Which would be a huge thing. But what would that... How would that change... The western world? Or the entire world? Because America has been such an important country for quite a while.

In the world. So I'm just wondering how that would affect... You know. It might be like... Oh, it's good.

It's a positive thing to stop whatever happening. But then... I don't know. The results might be... Something much worse overall for the majority... You know.

For billions of people. So I don't know. It's... You know.

I think if it's just an individual person... That's not... Got any kind of power... You know. In the world. They're just like... Just an average person.

I think saving them is... It's gonna be less detrimental... As far as butterfly effect goes. I would say. But then you don't know, do you? Because... If I save my friend... Then everything that's happened after that wouldn't have happened... In the way it happened.

In my life anyway. And everyone else's life that was affected by him. Yeah, it's weird.

I don't know. I really don't know. I'd like to go forward though.

I'd like to go forward. But if I could actually... Intervene... In my own life. Regarding my own situations that's happened.

I would definitely go back. And I'd be carrying a baseball bat with me. So... I'm not even joking.

I would. I would sort out a few stuff. A few things along the way.

But... Again, that's not probably the answer. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is.

It would have been. But it's... Just... You can't... How would my life... How would any of our lives be if... We went back and changed one thing? Especially early on. Because everything's kind of come from that.

It's so weird. Weird with it, isn't it? It's just... You know what I mean? It's like... I mean... I wouldn't be making these podcasts... If I hadn't had the life I had. That's pretty much guaranteed.

I wouldn't have got into... I wouldn't have even... I had no interest in hypnosis... At all. Until 1997. No, 1998.

January. I had no interest. I became interested in self-development... Well, kind of in the 90s, really.

But more so... In, like, the late 90s. Like, 98, 97, 98. But that was because of... The difficulties in life.

So, if I'd have took away that stuff... Because I sometimes wonder... Well, what if I'd just stayed in a children's home? Just, like, stayed there... Until I was 18... And got my own place. So, I don't know how I could have effected that... You know, by going back in time. But then, where would I be? I don't know if I'd still be here.

So, that might not be a good idea. If I could go back and... Sort out situations when I was a kid... I would have ended up in care anyway. Regardless of what happened, I'd have ended up in care.

So... It's one of those situations, I mean... I suppose... If I could have stopped my mum from going to the foster parents that had us... For about a year and a half... Before she came and got us... If I could have stopped her... From getting to take us... Then I might have grown up... More, kind of, stable... Kind of... Human. Because I'd have been with the same people...

From the ages of 6 months... 3 months or 6 months, whatever it was... All the way till... Well, till now. They'd still be my parents, wouldn't they? Because they wanted to adopt us.

So... That would have changed... All of our lives. Me and my... Only... Me and my other brother were together. The oldest one was with my grandparents.

Don't know if we saw them or not. I don't know, I was a baby when I... So... That would have been... That would have had a... Like a huge impact. So, it's not just going backwards or forwards... But it's also... If I go back... Make a change... There's no point going... If it's going to go back just to observe... Then... All it is, is just interesting.

It's not going to be... I mean, I could learn from it, I guess. I could... Get more of an idea... Of what really happened in the past. Where, maybe... You know, my memory is mixed up.

Because... Psychologists... Do say that... It's like... We mix memories together... Without knowing it. So, someone that maybe goes to... Lots of different... Rock concerts or whatever... For example... Or plays... Hundreds of games of... Chess or darts in tournaments... In pub tournaments... Then they're going to remember... Certain things from each one... And maybe remember a night where... Bobby was in the team... And... Tony... Spilled a pint of beer...

Onto a hedgehog by accident... And... Robbie had... He had a... He turned up on a hoverboard... And... I wet myself... You know, just like... But those might have been all different occasions... All different days... All different... Dart nights at the pub... But I kind of combined them all into one night... Because it makes a better story... But I don't realise I've done it... Anyway... Erm... What was I talking about?

Yeah... If all I can do is observe... Then it would be interesting to... Map my life out a little bit better... What I do... What I would like to do... Which would be weird... Because you know, say... You know, if you could step inside... Someone else's mind... It would be like the worst... Psychedelic trip of your life... Vinnie... Come on mate... Calm yourself down... It would be like really freaky...

To be like... In someone else's mind... Which I understand... I completely agree... That's very much true... I reckon... Because we've got a lifetime... Of getting used to being... In our own minds, haven't we? Some people are not used... Never get used to it, I guess... And... But I wonder... If I could go... If... See... Robin... If part of this thing... Can I step into my own mind?

You know... Throughout my lifetime... So if I went back to... I don't know... For some reason, I've got myself... Lying on the bed... Sitting up in the bed... In my flat in Stratford... No, in my room rather... In Stratford... Watching television... Watching the boxing... On a black and white television... And... What's in my mind? What's my mind doing? See... The way I remember it is... I was the same as I am now...

But I wouldn't have been... I wouldn't have been the same person... I wasn't the same person back then... I mean... Every cell in my body... Is different... Like everything's rejuvenated... Is it every seven years? So none of the... Nothing is the same as what it was... I mean DNA wise it is... But it's not... Everything is... I don't know if it's true or not... I think it is...

I heard it once... I saw it on a Christmas cracker joke... I don't know if it's true... But... You know... I'm a different person... Physically... Mentally... I know more... But I've lost... I've also forgotten lots as well... So yeah... I don't know... It just... It interests me... Just I wonder what it was like... If I can go back to the days of... I don't know... Working in that bakery...

Like the really hard bakery... The sun-blessed in Walthamstow... In that heat... Surrounded by... Well... The noise... Couldn't hear anyone... It didn't really make that much difference that... I was one of the few people that... Really spoke English... I wasn't one of the few people that could speak English... It's just that... Most... And this is genuinely true... Most of the people... Working there... Were... Like originally from other countries...

So they would speak to each other in their own language... Which is... Exactly what I would do... If I was working... In a place full of people... That weren't my language... And I was working with people... I would be speaking English to the people that were... You know... Obviously this makes sense... It also made it very difficult... And dangerous though... Because you'd hear someone shouting... But not know what they were shouting...

Not know if they were shouting... Oh... Hello... Are you alright? Are you seeing your nan this weekend? Are you going to go and have... It's time for dinner... Go and have some... Go and have your break now... You know... They could be saying that... Or they could be... Because... It wasn't because I didn't... I couldn't hear them very well as well... But they didn't always know... Who was who...

It was just... They'd be shouting to everyone... But what it could mean is... Everyone get out... The oven is about to explode... So I'm the only one there... Still... Putting stuff in baskets... You know what I mean? So health and safety... I mean it did exist... Then... But... And probably was... Really good back then... In a place like that... It had to be... But it... Compared to now...

I bet the health and safety is well... Well stricter than it used to be... And what they used to do is... When you started there... Give you... Short sleeved... Top... Like you know... The white baker's stuff... They used to give you... Short sleeved... Top... When... Taking the trays out of the oven... And the reason they did that... Is so you learnt... Not to burn yourself... And... And everyone burnt themselves...

Because they'd come out... So fast... And... You know... It's like constant... I was covered in burns on my arms... And then... After about two weeks... The manager... Or the supervisor... Was laughing... I said... Why are you laughing? He said... Oh come here... He said... You take over from that... And you've got some hours... To take over my bit... And he handed me... A new top... And it was a...

Long sleeved top... And I said... Why didn't you give me... A long sleeved top to start with? Like everyone else has got... And he said... And he was laughing... He found it hilarious... I literally had... Scars... I don't anymore... I had scars all... Up and down my arms... And my hands... But especially my... Like the front of my arms... Wrists and... Or upwards... From the... The trays...

That the bread was coming... Or the rolls were coming out on... And he said... Well we do that to teach people... To be careful... And after two weeks... I bet you burn yourself less... Don't you? I said... No I don't... That's the point... And I... Hit him... With an apple... My first disciplinary... So yeah... It was weird... But that was... If I could get in... That mindset of...

How I felt... Working there... Doing that... In such high heat... It was the hottest job I ever had... I mean I've worked in hot places... Like... The chip shop... That was really hot... Being over the fryers all day... Especially in the summer... Blimey... And... I worked in the other bakery... That was... When I was a kid... So that was really hot... It was all year round... But especially in the summer...

And... That was the only really hot jobs... I had... Then three... And if I did... Of course I did... I had hot jobs in kitchens... Didn't I? So yeah... I had hot jobs in kitchens... Every kitchen's hot... Apart from when it's not... But when everything's turned on... The ovens... The fryers... The grills... The... The... All that stuff... The hobs... Everything's like... Huh... And... Even... Even washing up...

Especially the... The washing machines... Not the washing machines... But the... The... The dishwasher... Because they're like... Big old metal things... The heat that comes out of them... Huh... Huh... Really... Why do we go like... Huh... When something's hot? Huh... I don't know... So yeah... I'll probably go in the future... Go into the future... I'd like to visit the past... If I could talk to myself... There'd... There'd be a lot of...

A lot of one sentence being said... Don't do that... Don't do that again... Yeah... I wouldn't if I were you... So there'd be a lot of... Telling myself off... But... Knowing how I was back then... Unless... I had the same physical appearance as now... But... You know... I might not even believe it's me... Do you know how some people... When they get old... They look the same as they did...

When they was young? Like an older version... But they look... Like my little brother... He's gonna look the same... He looks the same now... I think he's got the same face... As he had when he was born... He's... He just looks the same... Yeah he's bigger and older and everything... But he's... He's... 8 years younger than me... So he's what... 45 now... So if he looks like that now...

And he's had the same face... All these years... When he's 70... He's still gonna have the same face... He's still gonna have those characteristics... I do not look the same... As how I looked when I was... 16... 17... 18... 21 even... 25... Now... Maybe 30 onwards... You can see... It's the same person... Because I've... I suppose because I was so slim... When I was very young... And...

I'm not... Not so slim these days... Oh did I tell you... Oh man... I forgot about this... I got a text yesterday... Or was it the day before... Let me read it to you... It was yesterday... And this is from... Xyla.health That's... X-Y-L-A.health And it says here... Hi Jason... I'm Paula... A virtual assistant... From Xyla... Your healthier you... Provider... For the NHS... National Diabetes Prevention Programme... I saw your profile on Facebook...

And you really are fat... And so fat in fact... No... Can you imagine if it said that... Well... That'd be a... That'd be a lawsuit... Wouldn't it? That's probably... Until they saw me... And then everyone would just laugh... And say well... They didn't lie did they? And... I'm contacting you... Regarding a referral... That... That does make me laugh actually... Imagine if I took someone to court... Like all of...

And it was like... And I had money... Because you know... If you've got money... You can really sue... Can't you? Especially in America... But here as well... I mean it's... Defamation of character... All that stuff... The average person... Can't do that... You know... But someone with money... They can... If you've got like a million quid to spare... To take someone to court... Because this is something... Derogatory about you...

That you don't agree with... Or whatever... So... If someone said I was overweight... And I decided that was... Uncalled for... Unkind... And derogatory... And defamationally... Whatever... Took them to court... And... You know... Everyone's in the court... I'm the last to turn up... The judge had just... As soon as I turned up... The judge had just dismissed the case... Wouldn't they? Said well... You are overweight... See ya...

So... It says... I'm contacting you... Regarding a referral... From your... Turn up... I've eaten a Big Mac... So... I'm contacting you... Regarding a referral... From your doctor... At... The... My doctor's surgery... Please click the link below... To learn more... And it's basically a link saying... PreventingDiabetes.co.uk Booking... Chatbot... So I click on this... Accept all the cookies... I thought it was some kind of... Spam... Some kind of...

Junk... Some kind of... Scam... I guess... You know... It's like... Why would... Why would the NHS... My doctor's surgery... Why would they send me something... Like that... Without telling me they were going to... Just out of the blue... Why would I receive something like this... But the fact is... They've got my name... And they know what doctor's surgery I go to... Now... There's no way... Really... Anybody's gonna know...

What doctor's surgery I go to... Because I never deal with them online... So... I don't know... The only people that know that... Even... Even... Ambulance drivers don't know... They have to ask... So... We have received a referral... From your GP surgery... Following a blood test... The results showed that... Your blood sugar levels... Were slightly raised... Placing you into the... Pre-diabetic range... Have you been made aware of this?

No... No... No, no, no, no, no... I have not been raised... They told me... That... I was... I had... A high cholesterol... Which is not the same thing... So... And I have to... I've got a doctor's appointment... Next month for that... So what I will do... I'm gonna leave that app alone... What I'm gonna do... When I get to the doctor's surgery... I'm gonna say to him...

Oi... Well, to be fair... The doctor's... It isn't really about the high... The high cholesterol... It's about the results of the test... The test results... So I had... A blood test... Also it was a test for my prostate... As part of that as well... And... Erm... Cholesterol... And... Diabetes... They did tell me... They were testing me for diabetes... Diabetes... And... I've gone online to do a little bit of research...

I didn't know that diabetes 2... Is... Not only preventable... But also reversible... Diabetes 1... Again, I didn't know this... Is inevitable... That's what it said on the diabetic website... So I'm not... This is not something that I'm... Saying... Off the top of my head... Because this is very serious for people... That are dealing with it... Diabetic 1... And... So... Progression from prediabetes... To type 2 diabetes... Isn't inevitable...

So... I'm now in prediabetes... Yay... Brilliant... Eating healthy foods... Making physical activity... Part of your daily routine... And staying at a healthy... Weight... Can help you bring your blood sugar level... Back to normal... And... Wow... So diabetes 1 is... It's a different situation... I didn't know that... I just thought it was... Type 1 diabetes... Is not considered irre... Is not considered reversible... It's an autoimmune condition... Which the immune system attacks...

Okay, so... It's... I didn't know... Honestly, I genuinely didn't know... I thought... It was like a progression thing... So... I didn't even know there was a predia... I imagine everyone was prediabetic... Who wasn't diabetic... Hence the term... But... I guess before... Before now... I was pre-prediabetic... Now I'm actually prediabetic... And hopefully... I will stay... Maybe... Hopefully I can go back to being pre-prediabetic... I used to think...

And I still have very little knowledge of it... And... But... Diabetes 1... Also known as juvenile diabetes... Or insulin dependent diabetes... Although... Type 1 diabetic... Typically appears during childhood... Or adolescence... It can develop in adults as well... And... And there's no... There's no cure for it... So... I thought level 2... Type 2 diabetes... If it wasn't... I know that... I know that with diet... Some diabetics... Can control their diabetes with diet...

I've heard of that... I know people that have told me that... And... So they don't need the insulin... But... I thought type 2 then led to type 1... And it was that kind of thing... I didn't realise type 1 was... An actual... It was... I just didn't know it was more serious... I kind of knew... But I didn't know... That it... That there was a huge difference between it...

So... With this... With my situation... I'm pretty sure if I was diabetic... Like... Naturally diabetic... I mean... I'd know by now... Before I got... Now I'm 93... And I... But... I need to reduce the sugar... Can you imagine what my sugar level would be... If I was still drinking coke? Wow... I'm trying to cut down to like... Only 2 bags of sugar a day... That might help...

I don't know... But there's... I had a cup of tea... I had a cup of tea last night... Without any sugar in it... And I thought to myself... Hmm... What kind of life is this going to be? Tea with no sugar... Is there any point in drinking tea with no sugar? That would be like having... Breakfast cereal... Not with no sugar... Or... Chocolate with no sugar... Fizzy drink with no sugar in it...

There'd be no point... I don't mean to existence... Just no point to... Having those particular products... So what I might do is... Look at some alternative to sugar... Maybe honey... I've tried in the past those clicky things... You know... And I find that they just... Leave a bit of an aftertaste... I don't like them... Sweetex... Things like that... So... What I might do is... Look into... Maybe some natural honey...

Something like that... And just have a little bit of that in the tea... Yeah... So we'll see... But I need... I mean I do get out... It's not like I'm indoors all day... I do sort of take him out a few times a day... Go for walks... Oh god I said the word didn't I... Oh he didn't hear... And... You know... You know... So... I kind of got a little bit of an exercise plan...

Envisioned in my brain... Which I'm going to perhaps start very soon... We will see... So I got a little bit distracted from... But I just had to tell you... Because it was so important... While it was in my mind... I thought I'll let you know... Let you know... So... I hope I've answered your question Robin... I don't believe I have really... Because I'd like to go forward and back...

I'd like to go back and see the dinosaurs... But I'd also like to go back and see Jesus... I'd like to go back and see the Buddha... Admittedly I wouldn't be able to understand either of them... And... I'd like to... It'd be interesting to go back and be able to take pictures... And then write a book... In fact it's not a bad idea for an actual book...

Just sort of saying... Oh by the way this... Just at the start of the book... This is all true... All I'm going to tell you is true... I actually... I invented the time machine... I went back in time... And you never guess what Jesus really said... And it's like something like that... And... You know... Who knows... I mean the fact is we don't know... It is one of the weird things...

Like with the Buddha... It's all word of mouth... No one wrote down what the Buddha said when he was alive... Not one person... And there are... I mean compared to the Bible... The Bible is like almost like a pamphlet... Compared to the amount of Buddhist writings there are... Honestly... The canon... Is so many... So much stuff there... And... Each... Like they basically take one sentence... And then break it into like...

Ten books... Just that it's really... Detailed... And... But then it's weird... Because you've got the New Testament... Which is multiple versions of the same story... But then... How much of that was changed... By the different... You know... The different versions of the Bible... That were kind of edited... By... You know like King James or whatever... I don't know... So... Brings me to the next question... I'm doing quite well...

I've answered one question... It's only been an hour... So Christine... Asks... What... What's the most dangerous situation you've been in... Blindly... Really? Really? Really? Do you really want to know? Well... Well... Well... I've put myself into a few dangerous situations... But it didn't turn out bad... You know... I got in the middle of people fighting in the past... That... Ended up okay... Like didn't end up bad for me...

All them really... You know... But it did stop them... And... Nearly put myself into some really serious situations... But I was lucky that I didn't... Like I went towards it... And it didn't happen... Almost went to cause it... And it didn't happen... I won't go into details but... There was a period when I used to drink... Like every day and... I lost... I lost the plot a little bit one night and...

But nothing... Nothing happened in the end but I was... And there was another time... Nineteen ninety... Nineteen ninety... Seven... And... Yeah... I was... I was looking... Looking... To do something... I don't know what it was but just to... To release the rage kind of thing but... You know... Nothing happened so that was good... One person did... Say hello to me and... Get shirty... And I just told them to go away...

And they did... But... Other than that... I mean dangerous... I mean I've been attacked a couple of times... But it wasn't dangerous... I mean it could have... It could have got... Could have got dangerous... I mean one was when I was a kid... By another friend we had a fight... Well he had a fight with me and I just... Let him get on with it because... I didn't want to...

I didn't want to hurt him... And he was drunk and... I was trying to avoid it but I did... Basically kind of beat me up to be honest... But he... He had... He'd been in a car accident... Like about a year earlier... And he still had... His whole face was a mess... And... I didn't want to... I couldn't punch him... Just for that simple reason... Couldn't punch him because I didn't want to open up one of the scars...

And the other fact is his dad was one of the toughest blokes in the town... I knew that... It was a no win situation... I mean really what I should have done was just kick him in the nuts... But I didn't... I just didn't want to do that... But... I didn't... I couldn't bring myself to hurt him... So I just stood there and let him kind of...

I was going to say let him pummel me but that sounds weird... But... I blocked most of them but I did get probably about... 10... 15 punches... So I was... I was what? 16 then... And... It was the first time that... I ever let anyone really do that... And I didn't... I didn't know what to do... And I didn't really freeze as much because I just... I was aware and...

I knew that I could... I could have done something but... I was also a bit drunk as well... So I was a bit slow... And it all started because I kicked him in the back... And that sounds like well you deserved it then... Well no... We were play fighting... I didn't mean to hurt him... But I hurt him... Now... If you hurt someone accidentally... It means you can hurt them on purpose...

He didn't really get that at the time... Like... I accidentally... Pretty much made you cry... So what do you think would happen if I tried to do it... If I tried to hurt you... But... Again... Logic wasn't really... It was all emotional at the time and... I didn't want to hurt him... Either accidentally or on purpose... It was genuinely an accident... We were practicing the Kung Fu and that you know...

The thing is I'd done Karate... He didn't... He hadn't... So I guess I kicked a bit too well... And I kicked him in the back... Probably in the kidneys or something... Didn't mean to... It was... It wasn't a hard kick... As well... It was a soft kick... If I'd kicked someone properly... It would have been like... Probably five... Six times harder than that... It was a tap...

But it hurt him... I didn't mean to... Genuinely... I keep saying it... Not mean to... I'm not like that... I'm not into that stuff... Especially not friends... So... That was weird... Because... I ended up... I didn't get... I got bruised... I had a few bruises... The next day... On my face... In the evening... He started on me twice... It's like... Just you know... Later he calmed down...

And he started again... Like what? And he pushed me into these bushes... And... Like ripped all my arm open... It was just like rose bushes or something... And like... It was bleeding... So he went to the hospital... Just because... I didn't know if I needed stitches... Because it was... My wrist was ripped open... And... And I was... I was sobered up by this point... Really pretty much...

And he was... I think he was getting sobered up... We'd been out drinking for the night... Had two shanties... And I kept it together emotionally... I didn't get emotional... It was just like... I was annoyed... But... I knew there was no win in this... Because... If I did something... I just figured I was going to get... His dad was just going to come and see me... And...

I'd prefer... Not to have that happen... So... I was just like... Okay, we'll just let this happen... And move on... I won't have anything to do with him again... After tonight... Which I pretty much didn't actually... Although I know I did a little bit... I did go out... I was like... This is whole... Yeah... I mean... The thing is... He's a good bloke... And I'm sure he's had a good life...

And hopefully he has... And he calmed down... He was just a teenager... He left school... He was little... As far as short... Like I was... But... After the car crash... He grew... And became big... Like his dad... In fact... He was probably taller than his dad actually... And big... A big bloke... So... He was suddenly... A bit like me... All his childhood... He'd kind of been little...

And suddenly he was a big man... Amongst the other kids... You know... The other 16 year olds... He was quite big... So... I guess he wanted to prove himself... Wanted to prove that he was... Tough like his dad... And stuff like that... Which is understandable... Especially in a little town... It's just... It's normal I think... Normal behaviour... Really... To wanna... With me... I just... I never really saw my dad...

My dad didn't used to go to pubs... Or anything... He was always working... So... Even though I'm a tough... My dad was a tough guy... It didn't... He wasn't that kind of tough guy... If you know what I mean... He... He just worked... But... Big strong man... And... No one ever messed with him... Plus... He was... He knew judo... So he... He did judo when he was at school...

So he... He kept... He knew how to... Put someone... Into a lock... You know... To lock someone down quite quickly... But... Isn't it ridiculous... I'm 53 and I'm bragging about my dad... My dad's tougher than your dad... My dad's bigger than your dad... What if my dad's doing the same thing... Bragging to his friends... My son's fatter than your son... My son's got less hair... Than your son has...

My son does less work... Than your son... He smells worse than your son... Yeah... Maybe... He's contributed... He's contributed nothing to the world... Your son's done something... My son's done nothing... That'd be my dad... Bless him... So... I... What was weird is... On the way to the hospital... Because this little hospital in the town... Wasn't a proper... It was a hospital... It wasn't... You know... It was like an accident emergency ward...

But... Not for serious stuff... You know... If you turned up with something serious... They'd call an ambulance... So... My stomach just went weird... I... Hmm... We were walking towards... I remember this... I don't know why... And he started being... Verbally horrible to me... It was enough that he'd been... You know... Physically attacking me... And now he's being verbally... He said... Oh... No wonder your mum left you...

That was the thing... I started crying... I didn't know that was even in me... Now... She hadn't been gone long... Literally a few months... When he said this to me... And... I'll be honest... I nearly... I nearly bit... I nearly... I nearly turned... I nearly like... Ah... But I didn't... I just thought... No... And he turned up... And... He apologised though... When I started crying... And... My arm was okay...

It was just scratched... It wasn't... It was a lot... It wasn't cut or anything... Just scratched... I had bandages and stuff... Went to work in a chip shop... The next day... And... I was bashed up a bit... In my face... Had a headache of course... And... I didn't have a black eye... But I was swollen... I had like a swollen cheek... And a swollen face a bit...

I didn't have a black eye... But not like a proper black eye... It was swollen a little bit... And he turned up the next day... He said... Sorry about that... I said... Okay... And then he said... And we kind of made friends again... But I was weary... Very weary of him... And then a few... Probably a week later... We was just walking down the street... Because we still were friends...

And... You know... We... He promised never to do it again... All that stuff... And... I don't remember which order... All this stuff happened... But I remember this was definitely after... After that occasion... Someone shouted out to him... You want a scar face? Which... Was not a good thing to do... But I thought he was friends with him... It was someone from school... He was a year younger than us...

So I guess at this point... He might have left school himself... I thought... He knew him... No... I would never call someone that... Even if I was best friends with him... I wouldn't call someone that... Just... You just wouldn't do it... Well... My friend... I called him a friend or whatever... He went over to him... And... Beat him up... Like... Very quickly... And he ran off crying...

I didn't see that coming... I just didn't know that... That was going to happen... So I was like... Okay... So you're beating me up... Now you're beating him up... There might be... You've got a little bit of a problem here... I say... He didn't really beat me up... Because I let him... And... I didn't run away... I have run away... In the past... So don't worry... I'll get to that...

And then he... Then he took off... I thought nothing of it... I thought... Oh... Okay... Well... Clearly the kid wasn't his friend... He called him a scar face... He had scars on his face... From having gone through a windscreen... So he's... It's... You shouldn't say that to someone... And therefore... And you don't say that to a young man... And expect to get away with it... Really... It's...

You shouldn't expect to get away with it... Saying it to anyone... But... Especially a young man... Full of... Like... Energy... And... Testosterone... And stuff... I never tested his testosterone levels... I wouldn't know... I'm just saying... You know... He was young... Even I used to have testosterone in my body... At one point... I had testosterone in my bloodstream... It was very high... And that was just sugar... So...

He... I thought nothing more of it... I went home... It was opposite where I lived... So I just went home... And... We used to like to congregate in that area... Because it's easier to get back home from... He lived just up the road as well... So... The next day... I'm working... In the evening... Probably about 7 o'clock... 8 o'clock... I got three lads... Standing outside the window...

Calling me outside... Offering me out... Basically saying... Come out... Or fight us... Two of them were very tall... Looked a lot older... And it was the one that... My friend had... Tapped a few times... So... And I remember thinking... No thanks... You're alright... It's okay... No, you're alright... No... See ya... But they were really insistent... And I thought... Well... What's this got to do with me? I've not done anything...

But... That's what I realised... Just by association... So... What other people do... When you're with them... Can affect you... And I hadn't... Didn't really know that... Didn't... That was a lesson I'd not really learnt before... Not really... Yeah... And I think perhaps in the past... I was the one causing problems for other people... By association... And I think that's why my friend Dean... Stopped hanging around with me...

Because... I was just causing him problems... And... You know... I'd be unembarrassing in front of other people... And... He didn't want to be classed as that... Because he was a good guy... He was a really nice bloke... My friend Dean... So... He... He was like more respectable... And he... Went on to be a chef... And... Probably owns his own restaurant now... And his own hotel or whatever...

So... He... And I saw him on Facebook... He's definitely got kids... Let me have a look... It's weird isn't it... I'm stalking him... It's very strange to... Yep... There we go... It's really weird... Thing is... He looks young... No... How can he look so young? That can't be him... He didn't look like that... I don't remember him looking like that... Serious... So... It's very strange... You know when you...

It's like... He just doesn't look like... Like I remember he looked... It's... Very strange... But there you go... It's definitely him... Because... Who's the mutual friend I've got? One mutual friend... Is... Who? Really? Maybe it isn't him... I wonder if it is... He's a big bloke now though... He was never little but... No... That might not be him... I don't think it's him... I haven't seen him since I was 18...

No... I think I saw him when I was 20... Or 19... 20... I think I did see him for... Very briefly... We went out for a... Spent a few hours together... Just as like... For old time's sake really... No... That can't be him... Well this is another one... Because I'm pretty sure he moved... And... Blah blah blah blah... People... Nope... That's Queensland... So that's not right... Well I think if that's him then...

Mind you everyone's going to look different from how they were when they were 16 aren't they? I suppose... Posts... What? What on earth is this? I found him... I found him... That's him... Oh my god... Vinnie shush... This is Dean... This is the Dean... Wow... Dean... Dean... Dean... Dean... He's got a big old beard... He's losing his hair... Yes... Good... He's got two kids... From the looks of it...

That's Dean... He's a big bloke... Yeah... He's definitely... He was never little... He was... I think he was always taller than me anyway... Most people were... But he's grown... You know what I mean? Like grown into his body... He's... Stocky... He was always... I don't know... I didn't used to take much notice of stuff like that... Because I liked girls... No... I just... I've just seen something that he posted...

And I've just seen it... I haven't just seen it... Because I actually replied... Why did I not try and contact him? So he sent me a message... On the 3rd of June 2011... I know... You know... Only 13 years ago... He says... Hi mate... Don't mean to be rude... But have you lost weight? He's a little bit rude isn't he? I mean it's not as rude as if you put on weight...

And... I said... Not sure... The video was from January... I've probably lost weight since then... I don't know how much I weigh these days... Hope you will... I always like two stone heavy... Now I was doing... 2011... Yeah... I was probably about three stone lighter than I am now... At least two and a half stone lighter... So... How weird is that? I'm going to add him... Not add him...

But just add him to my... Just add him as a... As a person... Just on my... Browser... So I can keep an eye on him... So the last time he posted anything was 2020... Why is that? I guess he's just not... Perhaps not really into the old... Internet... Or like Facebook I mean... I wonder... I'm very curious... Very curious... Because he's clearly married... Or he was married...

Works at a water company... About... I wonder if he remembers me? Do you think he does? We've been best friends for years... Like pretty much all the way through... From... Junior school... So probably from the ages of... Nine... Until I was... We kind of drifted... Parted ways when I was about 15... We just went... You know I left school... He left school... I still saw him... At college because we...

He was full time... I think... Or maybe he was on the YTS scheme but... I think he was training to be a chef... And I also was at the same college... Doing my... One day a week part of the YTS scheme... In catering... So... I used to see him once a week there... He got a job opposite where he lived... He might have already had that job actually...

Like... Working part time first... But he was always much nicer than me... It might sound... It might sound strange... It might... It might sound hard to believe... That anyone could be nicer than me... Yeah he was... He was a nice person... A nice guy... And I don't mean that derogatory... I mean genuinely... A nice... One of my... One of my favourite memories of him... Was... So I was doing karate at this time...

And... We... What we used to do... In the summer... Me and Dean... We used to go down to the arcade... Not even in the summer... But just like in the evenings... When I wasn't doing karate... Which was twice a week... Tuesday and Thursday... We used to go down to the arcades... And search for... Sad... Search for spare change... That had been left in the slot... You know...

You know where you get your... When you win stuff... You know in the arcades... So there was one... Two... Three... Three arcades in town... On the sea front... So... We went to the first two... That were down in the... You know... Near the town... And we walked all the way... Up to the one... That's at the end of the prom... Went in there... I mean this might have been a Saturday...

To be fair... So it might not have been an evening... But I think it was an evening... But it was summer... So it was still light... And... We went in there... And I saw... One of my friends from karate... Called Danny... Weird that I remember his name... But... There's a reason why I remember his name... Is because... Again... He was lovely... And he was an adult... He wasn't a kid like me...

So he was... It probably wasn't a lot of difference in age... He probably was only... I reckon at the time... He might have been 17... Maybe 18... You know... So he was still a kid... But he was a big grown man... But at 14... You know... 18 year olds were grown men... So... He wasn't as old as what I probably thought he was... But anyway... He was working in the ice cream parlor...

Of... The... Arcade... And we went in there... I was like... Hey... Danny... And... He was all excited... You know... I'm not saying we were all excited to see each other... But he was like... Hello... He said... Right... What do you want? He didn't... And he... And he's like... I had to chat with him... He introduced him to Dean... And... He said... Do you want ice cream? I said...

We ain't got no money... Which does make me wonder... How come I had no money? If I was doing Karate... Then I was paying to do the Karate... And my memory is... I had money at that time... And I was buying equipment... I was buying... I was paying for the Karate... I was buying magazines on Kung Fu... I was constantly buying weights... And... You know... Gym equipment...

Which could explain why I didn't have any money... Because I was spending it all... But... I don't know what job I had... Maybe it was the... The bakery... Or it was the... Evening paper round... Probably the evening paper round job... And the monthly leaflet job... So there wasn't a lot of money coming in... But it was enough to kind of pay for bits and bobs... Well... I said...

I ain't got no money... And Dean said... I ain't got no money... He was always mimicking me... He used to annoy me... He said... We ain't got no money... He said... Don't worry... On the house... I said... I'd rather just be in a cone in my hand... And he laughed... And... And we did... We got... He... He didn't put it on the house... He actually gave us the...

A cone each... With ice cream... Which is really cool... I don't know if we got a flake... Now... Knowing what I was like back then... And still am like... I would have complained about that... Regardless of the fact it was free... What? No chocolate flake? No chocolate... 99 flake? What kind of service is this? I want to see the manager... But I just gave it to you free Jason...

I don't care... I want to see the manager... This is disgusting service... I will never... Frequent this... Place again... So I used to be a bit silly back then... So here we are... I said... Cheers Danny... And we left... We... So we're walking... Down the road... And I even remember... We were going up the hill... Which led to his road where he lives... And we'd walk past his house...

He'd go in his house... And then I'd... I'd walk through town... And go to my house... Which was probably 10 minutes... Probably not even that... You know... It's a short walk... And... It took me an hour... Because I had short legs... But you know... It's still quite a short walk... Everywhere I walked was a short walk... With short legs... And he said... We were walking... He... Honestly...

I swear... He had ice cream... All over his face... All... Over his face... I said... And I was cleaning my face up... You know... Wiping it on... I saw anyone walking past... I'd grab their kid... And just wipe my... Wipe... My face on them... Just to get rid of the ice cream... And that... Or I saw someone with a... A dress or whatever... I'd like... Try and grab it...

So they couldn't see it from behind... And wipe my face... You know... Or someone's hair... None of that happened... I don't know why I'm saying that... It's just silly... But... You know... I went to the beach... Rubbed sand all over my face... To try and get it off... You know... Like you do... That didn't happen either... Although I did try that once... Stuck to my face... I feel like...

Icky... Just thinking about it... That's how we invented glass... I invented glass... Ice cream and sand... You didn't know that... Did you? Hey? You don't know everything... See? Anyway... We're walking back... I finished the ice cream... He... Has finished his ice cream... He's tried his best... To keep it lasted... But it ain't... You know... Even though it's not... It's not warm... Warm outside... It is quite... A nice...

Summer's evening... And the ice cream... Didn't stay cold... For a long time... And it's a fair... It's a fair walk... A good... A good 20... 30 minute walk... Really... Unless you walk it fast... Or human speed... So... We get to the bottom of this hill... Which leads to where he lives... So walking up there... And I look over at him... I've not looked at him at this point...

I just did... I knew what he looked like... I knew who I was talking to... I didn't need to look at him... I just talked to him... But anyway... I looked over... And he was covered... In ice cream... Like his whole face... Was covered... All his wrists... His hands... His sleeves... His top... Covered... In ice cream... His forehead... His hair... Honestly... Everything... Covered in ice cream... I said...

What are you doing? I said... What are you doing that for? He said... So when I get home... When I tell him I've had ice cream... He'll believe me... That I had a free ice cream... He wanted to prove... That he had a free ice cream... So he literally... Covered himself in it... I said... Did you actually get to eat any of it? He said... A little bit...

Wow... It was so funny though... It was just such a funny sight... I'm not exaggerating... I don't know how much there was... But he literally did have it... All around his mouth... Because he wanted to... To show that he'd... He'd got a free ice cream... That was very funny... See the thing that me and him had... I'm not saying his surname... So I can talk about him...

No one else is going to know... Who he is anyway... I mean he knows who he is... But he won't be listening to this... And if he does... I'm not saying anything bad... We didn't get on so well... In the later years... You know... I don't know why... When we got to like 15... We kind of drifted apart... Just... Life I guess isn't it... Just... You know...

We still sort of hung out and that... But I think... Maybe I was going off the rails... A little bit... I don't know... It's... It's hard to tell... I can't remember... But he was my best friend... Through school... And... My closest friend... Throughout... You know... All the way through high school... Until... Maybe the last part of the year... You know... I'd see him... But it wasn't the same anymore...

I don't know... I think we did have a... We did have a fight... And I think that kind of messed things up... Yeah... It's not always a good thing... It's just... He wanted to have a fight with me... And I didn't want to have a fight with him... I really didn't... Because I don't believe... Even now... Don't fight your friends... Never hurt a friend... Not physically... Blackmail them...

Steal off them... That's fine... But don't physically hurt them... So... Yeah... It was... Again... It's just two young kids... You know... That's all it was... So... You know... If I could go back... Well... It's not a lot I could have done about that... Really... It just happened... But... He... I admired the fact... That he was so much more... Sensible than me... Like not... And I don't mean boring...

Just... More together... He... And he had a... A background of living in care... Like I had... Which is one of the things... That we had in common... Which I kind of related to him... For that... I mean... When I met him... He was living in Barnardo's... And because I'd lived... In a children's home as well... Admittedly... Being a couple of years earlier than that... So I met him when I was nine...

I moved out of the children's home... Just before I was seven... And... I might still be eight actually... When I met him... But you know... At that... At that age... It's a long time... A year and a half... Is a huge amount of time... When you're seven... It's like... Or eight... Or nine... It's a long time... Now it's... Blimey... It's like a week... So... I used to visit him...

In the children's home... When I first moved to where I lived... And... The... The place closed down... It was St Bernard... No... St... Barnardo's... It was St Barnardo's... Or Barnardo's... Children's home... And it closed down... And the man who ran it... Well it might have been a couple... But I never saw the man... The man who ran it... Adopted him... And his sister... And he went and lived with him...

My friend went and lived with him... And... He lived in an old people's home... It was... He basically... This man... He's clearly a really... Pretty good bloke... The fact that he... He had the children's home... And then he started a... A residential home... For elderly people as well... And my friend lived there... So I think that's why... He grew up to be such a... A decent person...

Because he was around... Elderly people that needed care... And he... He saw more of that side of life... He got more of a... Maybe appreciated being young... Maybe... Had more of a respect... For humans... And I... I'll be honest... I don't think I had any respect for humans... When I was... When I was younger... Not in a bad way... I just didn't... I didn't class myself as human...

So... I didn't really... Could relate to them... And... You know... We were like two peas in a pod... But he was the good pea... And I was the naughty pea... But I wasn't bad... I was a little bit... A little bit naughty sometimes... And... Yeah... We weren't very close... Me and him... It's weird... I hope he's alright... But you know... What do you do? I think time goes by...

I wonder why I didn't contact him... Maybe I did... Maybe he just didn't go anywhere... Maybe I actually... I wouldn't have spoken to him... But... I didn't block him... Because he's still there... I don't know... I hope he's okay anyway... So... That was a funny memory of that... What was the original question? Christine... What's the most dangerous situation you've been in? Okay... Well... That was when I was...

You know... That situation where the three lads were outside... That felt dangerous to me... It felt dangerous... But at the same time... I was a little bit excited by it... Because... I knew upstairs I had a sword... And I had nunchucks... And I had sticks... And all kinds of martial art weapons... And... A little part of my brain wanted to go up and get my sword... Because they were waiting outside...

There was this... Like a shelter... They were all sitting and waiting for me... So I thought... I'll go and get my sword... Or... I'll fill a... I'll fill a... A dust... What is it? A saucepan full of hot oil from the fryer... Just like that... Those silly things went through my head... Which would have put me in prison... I'm so glad I didn't do any of those things...

But that's what I was thinking... At the time... Because... You use what's available... And that was what was available... And... It's really silly... To pick on someone that works behind the counter in... A chip shop... Or a restaurant... Or someone that works in a butcher's... Or fishmonger's... Or anything like that... Because they've got lots of... Stuff behind the counter that... Could be used in a dangerous manner...

You know... So... It'd be a bit silly to go in there and start... Getting aggressive... But they didn't come in... They waited outside for me... And I thought... Oh... I'll just leave them... The thing is... The more they were waiting there... The more stressed I got... So I thought... Well this isn't fair... First of all... Three on one... It's not fair... I didn't do anything to anyone...

I didn't do anything to him... That's not fair... Why is he coming for me? Why doesn't he go for the... Kid that did it to him? So what I did is... I got permission from my boss... Because my boss was worried as well... I think he was going to go out there... And have a word with them... Because he was a grown adult... Like a 27 year old... 28 year old man...

Strong... Big, strong... Everyone's big and strong in my stories... But he was a big... You know... Adult... And none of them would have messed with him... But... He didn't get involved... I didn't want him to get involved really... I did... I wanted to go out and beat them up... But he wouldn't... I just didn't... I didn't think I'd have to ask... Have to ask him to do it...

But... So I said... I need to go and try and... Go around my friend's house... And get him to come... That'll be the two of us... He... Let him face the music... He's the one who started all this... Although technically he didn't start it... Because... The other kid called him a horrible name... Which... It's like... Well that's not a reason... But... Teenagers... That kind of would be a reason...

You know... I mean... Put it this way... If I was dating someone... That had a... Or was married to someone... That had... Had a scar on their face... For whatever reason... And someone shouted out... On their scar face... The police are going to get called... As simple as that... And that would be the same with anyone... You know... You're not going to walk away from that... It'd be hard...

Or... I'd like to think I could... But it'd be hard... An ambulance might come to collect me... You know... Who knows... So... In reality... But... In my little imagination... I would turn into Hong Kong Phooey... I always carry a little set of... Filing cabinets with me... So I can get in and change... Into my Hong Kong Phooey suit... And I've got Vinnie... Scrappy Doo... So he was like...

Let me in... Let me in... So that... Yeah... It's all good... Anyway... I was bricking it... If I'm honest... I don't want to pretend I was... I was being... Brave... Because I wasn't... I was scared... I was scared... Because I like... It was the unknown... And I had no backup... I was on my own... And it just seemed like... What the hell am I supposed to do here?

You know... So... I went out the back way... And... I went up... To where my friend lived... He just lived a few doors up... Just... So I went up there... Knocked on the door... His dad answered... And I said... He's whatever... I can't remember his name now... Is it Ian? He said... No... He's not... He's Mum's... So I told him what happened... And he said... Oh... OK...

Now I was... I was hoping he was going to... In fact... I actually asked him... Can you come? He didn't want to... He wasn't scared... Obviously... He just was watching telly... And he said... All you do... Go up there... And just punch the biggest one in the face... That's what he said to do... I just go up there... And just... Just punch... So that's what I did...

Well... That's what I was going to do... And it was really weird... Because... And he said... If you've got a problem... Come back... So he said... Deal with it... And if you do one of them... The others will run off... So OK... This is what he said to me... So... I said... And he gave me a little pep talk... He... And he said... Right... These days... This is irrelevant...

Because... Things aren't the way they used to be... But now... In 1986... In a little tiny little town... Those situations... Unlikely to end up... Bad... I mean it could... But it was unlikely... Because... They were just kids... Just like me... All little... Just kids... And... He said... If you get any problems... Come back... And I'll come out... And sort it out... And... So... I said... Cool... So I walked there...

And I'm feeling all tough... And I'm walking... Towards them... And... Even my boss... I walked past the front... Of the window... Of the shop... And he said... I looked... Weird... I had a weird expression... On my face... It's like... Yeah... I just pooed myself... Of course I had a weird expression... And... I was... Head to death... I'm walking towards... And it's dark at this point... So I'm walking towards this...

Er... Shelter thing... Couldn't see inside it... I wasn't going to walk inside... Because I wouldn't be able to see nothing... But I was going to... Stand in the light... And say... Come on then... But they weren't there... They'd gone... Now I know they didn't run away... You know what I think might have happened? I didn't even think about this... I think my boss might have gone out there...

And spoken to him... But he didn't tell me... He said... It's just dawned on me... Why else would they be gone... Like ten minutes later? Well... Half an hour later... Because I stayed and watched some television... With my friend's dad... But... I didn't want to go back outside... I think he might have had a word with them... And just told them to leave... Get lost... Well... He didn't tell me if that's what he did...

Because if he had done that... I'd have loved him forever... See... I... I appreciate stuff like that... That's something I never forget... Ever... When someone... Does something like that for me... You know... Because... That's a debt... That can never really be repaid... In my mind... I know it might sound a little bit... Over the top... But... That's how I think... You know... Like someone... If I'm hungry...

Like really hungry... And someone gives me food... Then I'll always remember that... If someone gives me food... When I'm not hungry... I probably will never remember it... You know... If they've been kind... I'll remember that they were kind... But if I'm hungry... Especially if I don't have to ask... If they can see that I'm hungry... You know... Instead of like sitting there... Making all lots of... Oh...

I'm so hungry... I wish I had some food to eat... You know... That kind of stuff... So the person feels sorry for me... Or just blatantly... Like now... I'll just ask for food... I've got no pride... There's no pride left in me... But if someone actually gives me food... Knowing that I'm hungry... That... You know... That does mean something... Because... It's just... There's one thing that happened...

Now this wasn't... This wasn't a dangerous situation... So I realise I'm going off a little bit... And this might be the longest recording... I've ever done at this rate... Because... I'm not really getting to the point... Am I? Hard to believe... Because you know how concise I normally am... So sorry Christine... Sorry Robin... Sorry Cindy... Joanne... And Molly... I reckon by the time I get to the 11th...

The 11th week... I'll get around to doing Molly's recording... Molly the boss... Her question... So anyway... Christine... The most dangerous situation has been this... It felt dangerous to me... Okay... It felt dangerous... It genuinely felt dangerous... I was... I might have been petrified... I don't know... It's hard to remember... I had various different emotions... To be fair... I knew that my boss would come out... Because he was also a karate man...

But... An adult... And I knew... That he wouldn't... Just leave me to get battered... So... There's a pun there... He worked in a chip shop... He wouldn't let me get battered... Oh dear... So... A chip shop... A fishing chip shop... Batter... Okay... I was pleased with that... I don't do puns... And that was a very pleasing moment... I'm so childish... Anyway... So... I'm pleased... I'm really pleased with that...

It's weird isn't it? It's the highlight of my week... So... I... I... Um... I'm really pleased... It's really... How did it take me? What is it? 16... 26... 36... 46... 56... So basically... 37 years... No... 38 years... How did I come up with that? Wow... So yeah... Um... I... The next day... So I... I just... I was still thinking about it... I'll be honest... You know... Even when I left work...

Went upstairs to my flat... I think he... My boss kind of... Came with me... He didn't come upstairs but... Made sure that I was in safely and everything... To make sure there was no one around and... And I didn't leave the flat at all until... The next day... When I had to get up to work... By then I knew everyone else was safely back at school... They might have left school by now actually...

To be honest... They probably had left school... At least... The other two looked like adults to me... So... And I know this kid was a tough kid... Because he was always a tough kid at school... Even though he was in a younger year... He was always one of the tough kids... Or was it two years younger? I don't know... Well... I think he was still at school actually...

Thinking about it... He was in the... The high school... The last year of high school... So he was probably 16... So he'd have been 16... Or 15... And I was... So... Because I was like a year... I was the youngest kid in my school... In my year of my school... Not that I did a survey... But I know I was... I actually did do a survey... I did go around asking people...

There were some kids like... We started the new year in September... The new school year... And they were literally turning 16... Three days into the school year... And I didn't turn 16 until... The following August... End of August... Weird... Like they were literally a year older than me... They were adults... The next day... One of his friends turns up... Who is the tough kid at the school...

Toughest kid in the school... Comes along... And has a word with me... So he like asked me to come out the front... Which I do... And I stay in the shop... Because I know that I'm safe there... And... But I knew him... I kind of knew him from the past... So... I knew him to say hello to... And he wasn't... He wasn't being aggressive... And he wasn't...

I knew him to talk to... Not... We weren't best mates... But... We would chat... And he was also a regular customer... In the chip shop... So... You know... He... I got on all right with him... And he asked me about the situation... And I explained it to him... I said exactly what happened... Never saw the kids again... As soon as I explained to him what happened... And I told him...

Or I asked him to keep him away from me... He did... And he was best friends with that other kid... The one that... That was kind of trying to... You know... Give me hassle with his two friends... As soon as... And he said OK... I'll sort it out... And he did... It was good to his word... He left... I gave him free chips... For the rest of his life...

Shoulder rubs... Bought him a new car on his 18th... You know... Just little things like that... So yeah... Space rocket on his 30th... It's all been good... It's great... He's had about 6 billion dollars out of me... But it's worth it... That's what I'm saying... It's worth it... He lives in a mansion... Has five horses... But you know... It's OK... Because I didn't have to deal with it...

So... That was good... So I found that a little bit scary... The evening... Not the next day talking to him... But the evening bit... Now the reality of the situation... Is... If... Anything had happened... Then... There would have been comeback for them... Potentially... So... You know... It's... Those things come and go... Then more... More would happen... And it's... Tit for tat and all that stuff... But... I'm glad it didn't...

Because I just... And the thing is... I'll be honest with you... I took exception to... For defending my friend... Who had already beaten me up... Like... Two weeks or whatever before... I was almost on the kid's side... The ones that wanted to beat me up... I said... Yeah... I said... You should go around where he lives... Here's the address... I didn't... I didn't know the address... But I said...

Go around and see him... He's the one you're after... And... I don't know if anything ever happened... Well, I did see my friend... A couple of years later... On the bus... And he was talking about... How he beat me up... Two years earlier... And I explained to him that... I let him... And of course... He had to be the tough guy... Well, come on... Do it... Let's do it again then...

Let's go out... I said... No, you're right... He was even bigger by now... He was even tougher... I was like... There's nothing to prove... At all... Because... There's one thing being... Not knowing that something's going to happen... But if you know something's about to happen... You're prepared... And if you're prepared... And you've got a little bit of... I would say... I'm no expert at any kind of...

At anything... Ever... But... I've got enough... Combat sport knowledge and experience... Since the age of 14... To be able to have the... At least the very basics in self-defence... I would say... I think it's fair to say that... Without... Blowing my own trumpet... It would be nice if I could... So... You know... I think the very... The very... Basic... Self-defence... Provided I can keep calm... And I don't freeze...

Which has happened... In the past... So... I don't always function... So the next one... Is... I'll skip through these quickly... I've had a couple of... Difficult... Situations... One was when... I bought... It's going to sound bad... It's going to sound bad... I bought... OK... It's a long story... Why does everything have to be a long story? OK... I was with my friend Neil... He was in his car...

This was a period when he was... He kept paying... He kept playing... The album from... Dirty Dancing... And... I fell in love with... She's like the wind... Through my dreams... She's like the deuce... Into me... You know... Patrick Swayze... She's like the wind... That's one of my all-time favourite songs now... And I kept hearing it... Over and over again... Because we used to go out... Nearly every night...

And... And this was... What... 89... Time... 88... 89... 80... Yeah... Probably about 89... Not every night... Because I was working in a pub... But when I wasn't working... I was out with him... And he had a car... So he could drive... All around the place... And... You know... So that was good... And he was a friend from school... That I'd had for... Many years... And... His parents were the only parents that liked me...

Well... I don't know if they liked me... But they... Tolerated me... The only ones that would... No other parents... Even my own parents... But no other parents... Of my friends... Would ever want me around... So I must have been annoying... I didn't know I was annoying... I didn't... I didn't mean to be annoying... It's not like I'd just... Turn up with a bag of poo... And just chuck it on the dinner table...

It wasn't... I mean... It happened twice... Twice... Come on... Everyone gets a couple of chances... We all make mistakes... But it's not something I would normally do to... Ruin someone's Christmas dinner... It's... So... I don't know what it was... I think I sometimes would say the wrong thing... And... It would come across as if I meant to say the wrong thing... Purposely to... Cause trouble or to...

Be rude... When in fact... It's just the way my mind was working... And... I mean that's part of the reason... You know... It wasn't until... I'll be honest with you... I had a little bit of self-awareness... When I was about... Probably 15... 14... 15... Near the end of school... Near the end of like being at school... We were all in this... Auditorium... It wasn't a big auditorium...

But it was a place where we'd... Like sometimes watch films and... You know... Lectures and stuff... I don't know... I didn't really get... I didn't see any lectures... But there was... It was a room... You know where all the like each... Each row of... Benches or whatever... Went a bit higher each way... You know... And... Don't shout at me... We know what an auditorium is... Anyway... There was two rooms...

So I was in one of them... I can't be in two... Can I? And we were watching... I don't know what we were doing... But... We were in there... And I think they were... They'd shown us... I think it might have been sex education... Something like that... It was some kind of... Lesson... Because we were at school... So I guess it was some kind of lesson-y thing...

And the teacher was asking questions... And I was shouting stuff out... Now... I always did this... But we were in a group... Where... I was in a group that I'd not been in before... So they'd kind of mixed... Because this was like a... I think this might have been a year thing... So they tried to put everyone... Or they broke the year up into like... Maybe three groups...

To teach this lesson... So I was mixed with other... Other classes that I'd not normally be with... So I was shouting stuff out... And people were laughing... And the teacher was telling me off... But I heard something that made... That changed my life... A girl... Said to me... Keep going... Keep doing it... And I looked at her... And... I thought... Wow... The first time a girl had even spoken to me...

It was like... Wow... I mean as a... Like a teenager... Wanting women to speak to me... I mean I had girls talk to me... But... I didn't class them as... I didn't class them as... It's not that I didn't class them as human... But I wasn't interested in them... In that way... The ones that I was... Apart from like... Girlfriends and that... But... The ones that were just...

Almost like precious gems... And I looked at them... Almost... You know... All their boyfriends were way older... You know... They'd get out of school... They'd get picked up in their boyfriend's car... That's kind of... You know... Those were the girls that I liked... And... And I thought... Wait a minute... I'm making them laugh... But I don't know... How I'm doing it... I'm just shouting stuff out... It wasn't...

It wasn't irrelevant stuff... It was to do with what... Was being spoken about... I wasn't just shouting... You know... Bagpipes... It was randomly... That would have been weird... You know... Cheese sandwiches... Because again... That just would have been surreal... I mean... Surreal humour is nice... But... I looked at it and I thought... Wow... This girl... Has noticed me... She really noticed me... And I started to... Think about it...

Like... Oh... Because I always just thought... People were laughing at me... It didn't stop me... It didn't prevent me... I just thought people were just laughing at me... And I didn't like it... Because... I wasn't trying to make them laugh... If I wanted to make someone laugh... I would... Purposely... Well... I'd basically just be with my friends... And it'd be... You know... A private thing... And we'd do silly things...

But... Physical stuff and that... But... The fact that... People would laugh in the classroom... I thought it was... They were laughing at me... Which they might well have been... But then I realised that... Even as I got older... Especially... I'd noticed that... Much older people would laugh... Downwards... They'd almost be... Ridiculing me... As if I didn't know anything... And I didn't like that... I never liked that...

Even though I didn't... Necessarily know much... But I felt... Just because they're older... Doesn't mean that they're better than me... Doesn't mean that they... And as far as life experience... Yeah... They might... You know... Years wise... They might have more experience... But I knew I'd had a lot of experience in life... Even at an early age... I'd been through situations... Lived in different places... Around the country...

You know... Some of these people that were like... All adult and... Talking down to me... Had lived in the same little town... The whole life... In the same house the whole life... And... Maybe not had to deal with too much... Adversity... Maybe... I don't know... So... But they were more confident... Within themselves... To... Yeah... I just... I don't know... I just wasn't confident... I was confident before I left school...

When I left school... I lost confidence... Because... I guess I didn't... I didn't have any backup... I didn't have anything... I was sort of on my own really... Literally on my own... So... I lost nearly every friend I had... When I left school... Didn't really see hardly anyone... Made a few new ones every now and then... But... Kept in contact with... Neil was pretty much the one that I had...

That continued all the way through... From leaving school... Well from being at school... All the way through till I was... So I moved to London... In fact I came back from London... And he wanted me to go to... To France with him... Because he wanted to travel through Europe... And... I was already living in London... So I was visiting my dad... And I went round his house...

So I was probably what... 21 at the time... And... So I'd known him for 10 years at least... At that time... And he said... He wanted to go... Travelling... Would I go with him... And I said no... Because I was doing a comedy... I wanted to do... I'd travelled... I'd moved to London... To do the comedy... And I had no intention of... Giving it up... Because I'd given up so much to do it...

I was working in a really low paid job... I didn't have anything... You know... But I was... It was worth it... Because I was able to have my evenings free... I was able to have my weekends free... And I was able to... You know... Pursue... The thing that I loved... And that's why I became such a success... Oh dear... It's embarrassing isn't it... But... I think he went...

I think he got married... I think... I visited his mum... In 1996... So about 5 years later... I visited his mum... And... She did update me on him... He wasn't around... I think he was still in... He was still in Europe somewhere... And... That's the last time... I had any contact with the family at all... So it is... Strange... Not strange... But just... Just the way it is...

Wow... So yeah... I was with Neil... We were driving... There was someone... Had broken down... Their car had broken down... It's in the countryside... So we just drove past... Laughing and... You know... Sticking our fingers up and... Just laughing at them... Loudly... And then he said... Wait a minute... It's a female... And so... None of that happened... We stopped... The fact that... She was female... See... I've got two memories of this...

One was we stopped... And then we walked around... To see if she's OK... Or see if they were OK... And then this female... Like pokes her head up... She's looking in the... In the... I don't know... The front bonnet or whatever... And then we realised... It's a female... The other version is... We drive past... See it's a female... And then back up again... And then park in front...

Or he did... I don't remember which one it is... To be honest... One's a bit nicer than the other one... But I wasn't in charge of the car... I'd happier just driven on... Just... You know... No I wouldn't... Yes I would... I'm not sure... Anyway... She was... She was lovely... And... We... Gave her... I think he gave her... We waited... Yeah I think she's already called AA...

We waited for AA with her... Until the AA got there... And then he got there and... He put the car on the back or whatever... And drove... Drove her home... So... During that time... She told us where she worked... And all that stuff... I decided to go in... To see her at work... She worked in a... Travel agency I think... She worked in a travel agency... And...

I went in to see her... And she was really friendly to me... Like... Oh okay... So... I... I asked her out... And she said yes... Now I didn't know what to do with that... It was just weird... Because... She was so out of my league... Like... You know... She was an adult... I was a kid still... I was... What? I was like 18... And she must have been in her early 20's...

She was... Just an adult... Amazing... And I thought... Okay... I was making her laugh and stuff... Which was good... Now I made a big mistake now... And... No I didn't strip off... And... What happened... Is... I stayed too long... And this is something that... Every... Well... A lot of sales books will tell you... Seal the deal... And then move on... Because otherwise... You can end up getting...

Buyer's remorse... You can end up actually... Undoing the sale... If you talk too much... And I realised... Asking someone out... Isn't a sales situation... But you're kind of selling yourself... In a way... You know... Until they get to know you... And then... You know... I don't know... In a kind of a way... It's probably not a good analogy... But... For some reason... I decided to stay... And I wore her down...

So much... That she changed her mind... And said no... I think... But she basically got to... Got to find out... What I was like as a person... And I was probably showing off... To the other staff members... And... It... And that was it... Now... I couldn't believe it... I'm walking home... So instead of walking home... Thinking... Yes... I asked her out... And she said yes... I should have walked out of there...

Left her... And... You know... Met her up for the... Even if it didn't go well... At least it would have been... It would have been a date... Well... It... Yeah... It didn't go well... So I walked out feeling... Urgh... The next day... I bought some flowers... I was going to thought... I'd just apologise to her... Say sorry... I was going on a bit yesterday... I was just so excited...

And... I don't know... I don't know what I thought... I was going to do... But I bought flowers for her... And I kept walking past... And I couldn't bring myself... To walk in there... To give her the flowers... And... In the end... I just couldn't do it... And I went to chuck them away... In the bin... And I thought... No... I'm not going to chuck them away...

That's a waste... It's like... I was working... In... The pub... So this was the equivalent... Of probably 20 quid's... Worth of flowers... Today... Maybe more... So I just... I took them home... And I gave them to... One of the females that lived... Where I lived... She had a room with her boyfriend... Yeah... Boyfriend... I wasn't giving them to her romantically... I just gave them to her... And I told her that as well...

I said... It's either you or the bin... Again... It's probably not the best wording... You could ever give someone... But... I said... Look... And I explained to her everything... That I'd asked this girl out... And I was actually asking her advice... And she said... Yeah... You've blown it... Pretty much... And so... I said... Okay... Fair enough... So I said... You might as well have these... Now... She didn't tell...

The... She didn't tell her boyfriend... What I told her... All he knew... He came back... And there was flowers... There... That he hadn't given her... And... He attacked me... She jumped on him... And I ran out... He actually pushed me over... I didn't see it... It was like... I just didn't know it was going to happen... He pushed... I fall over... I get up... Back then I could get up...

Within 10 minutes... And... So I ran out... Absolutely petrified... Really... I felt like it was a dangerous situation... And... I ended up hiding in a block of flats... For a couple of hours... And I went round to some friend's house... And stayed there... The next day I went back... And... He apologised to me... And then he came back the next night... That night... Drunk... And was... Aggressive as well...

Not directly to me... But he was shouting and stuff... And... I don't think I even had a lock on my door... So... That was weird... Yeah... That was... That was... And I hadn't done anything wrong... Really hadn't... And he was just... He just turned... You know... Just one of these people who just turned on me... For no reason... And... He was like chucking back every bit of information I'd ever given him...

And... We were chatting nicely... But he just turned and like... Why are you being like this? Anyway... So... I got back... She'd left him... And he was there on his own... And... I don't know what happened to him... I don't care what happened to him... To be honest... Because... I'd done nothing wrong... Yeah but you gave his girlfriend flowers... I told his girlfriend why I was giving her the flowers...

I wasn't giving them to her... It was more just for the house... Just stick them... Stick them downstairs... Everyone can just look at them... You know... I didn't know where the vases were... And... So it was just a mis... Misinformation... Or mis... Whatever... It wasn't... Do you know what I mean? It's like... Oh... I suppose... You know... If I had a girlfriend and... I come home and she's got flowers from the neighbour...

I can understand like... What was going on there... But... I don't know... I don't know... But that was... I moved the next day... Because I couldn't stay there... I actually moved back with my dad... I never told him what happened... But... I just said to him look... I managed to get a job... Literally the next day... Got a job and moved back with my dad... For a little while...

For a couple of months... Another situation... Again this is not the most pleasant podcast really but... Another situation is... I got three... Two... I got mugged at a cash point machine once... But for some reason I found that funny... And there was... Probably at least four... Big lads... One of them pushed me over... While I was at the cash point machine... Getting money out... Well I wasn't getting money...

Because there was no money in there... I was waiting for a cheque to clear... And a cheque was worth about £12... It was really... You know... That's how my situation was at the time... So... I'm pushed over... I get up like... I'm so... I think I might have been out of it... As well... We were drunk or something... And... I just didn't have it in me... To be angry with what's going on...

It's like... Well... I started... I made them laugh... One of them didn't laugh... And he did look like he... Wasn't very happy... In them days I didn't realise... Why someone would be doing that... Now I've got more... I'm more clued up... To why someone would risk... Going to prison for a long time... And... Because of what they need... To get... And why they need to get money...

So... I know I'm a little bit more clued up... But I didn't know at the time... Just really didn't... It just wasn't part of my lifestyle... You know... And... In the end... I ended up shaking hands with a couple of them... Because I was making them laugh... I was like... Just... Honestly... It was... Because it was a funny situation... And I was just laughing about... How skintight I was...

And everything like that... And I think I asked... You know... Have they got any money to lend me? They found that funny... Well... Not all of them did... And... Can you imagine asking your mugger... To borrow some money off them? And... I was lucky... To be honest... So that wasn't a scary... It was a dangerous situation... I didn't realise till afterwards... How dangerous it was... But it wasn't scary...

But it was dangerous... And... I was lucky... To... I mean... I'd have been better off... If I'd had money... That they could have took... Because they've risked... They didn't take that risk... For something... But to make that risk... For nothing... Is... You know... It's probably enough... To make some people angry... Another time... I was... Getting a taxi... And I was about 20... 28... 27... Yeah... 27 probably still...

Getting a taxi back... From a party... After the comedy club... And this bloke... I was waiting in the taxi queue... Round the corner... From the comedy club... And the bloke... Said... Oh... Walked up to me and said... Oh... Do us a favour... Instead of... I'm right at the back of the queue... I can give you a lift... Where you're going... He said he's a taxi driver... And like...

Just saves me having to wait... For ages... I said... Yeah... Okay... He said... You haven't got to wait... And I haven't got to wait... So everyone's a winner... I said... Cool... So... He walked me into an alleyway... And that's when I thought... Hmm... Got into his car... Which is a BMW... And... Which you don't normally get... Taxi drivers... When the taxi drivers... Are always getting... A lot of them...

Probably couldn't afford to... To run a BMW... Because it was... And also... It depreciates... If you were doing a job... All day like that... You're depreciating... The value of... A nice car... And I don't know if they're really... Ideal for being taxis... But... I didn't say all that to him... But I'm sitting there... I'm going to Stratford... And this was just from... Normally it cost about £7...

For a normal taxi... And he wanted like... £50 or something... We weren't even there... He... Basically he started talking... And what he was saying... Was... Mildly disturbing... To say the least... He was clearly... I'm going to use... The legalistic term... Off his nut... Clearly... And... He was not right... There was something not right there... And... So I'm getting over... We're... We're probably... Still... 10 minutes away... Or 5 minutes away probably...

From where I live... So it's a fair distance in a car... Not a long way but... And I see... I know where there's a taxi service... Across the road... So I said... If you just pull in there... I'll get out here... You said you're going to Stratford... I said we're in Stratford... We're nearly there... I'm just going to get off here... And... He starts going into one...

Oh you think I'm gay? You think I'm gay? What? I said... I didn't know where he was coming from with that... And he said... And I get out of the car... And he's saying... Oh... I said... How much then? He said... I said I normally pay £7... I'll give you £10... £10? Is that what you're going to give me? This is a BMW... You know how much they cost to run?

I was like... OK... So what I did is... I put £20... I gave him two tens... Chucked them onto the seat... I said... OK take that then... Closed the door... And I ran across the main road... It's like a dual... Road... Carriageway kind of thing... He only followed me... I thought he was going to drive off... He didn't... So he started yelling... So I ran behind the taxi service...

And there was all this scaffolding... And I kind of just hid behind there... Seriously... Because I didn't know what was going to happen... I was like... This is really... Strange... Never known anything like this before... I heard him... He went to the taxi service... And he was really kicking off... Really... And... I heard stuff... But I don't know really what happened... And he was looking for me...

And he didn't believe them... When they said that I hadn't gone in there... Because I hadn't... But he couldn't see from where his car was... I was just running towards the taxi... I was going to go in there... And get a taxi home... Like a real taxi... So after a while... It all kind of calmed down... I don't hear anything... So I... I walked down... Instead of walking out of the road...

I walked down further down that road... It was like a cul-de-sac... An alleyway... And there's a... I think it was like a builder's merchant... Down there... With security guards... And I knock on the thing... And I say... Because I've been a security guard... So... I knew that they would come... And speak to me... Because... If you see someone in trouble... Generally you'd... I mean... It was a gate...

There was a big fence... So they'd talk to me through the fence... And I explained to them... Look... I need help... I need to call the police... Or something... And they let me in... And gave me a cup of coffee... And... And... What I did... I stayed there for about an hour... And... I realised... I've got nothing to describe... To the police... About him... About this man...

Didn't know who he was... So... They phoned me a taxi... Because I was going to walk up... And I said... No... Just phone it... They'll come down... So I got a taxi home... And... So I was kind of... I wasn't saved by the security... I felt emotionally saved by them... And... Yeah... I mean... There was other stuff happened when I was a kid... But I won't go into that...

So... That... That was quite dangerous kind of situations... That... I got into... And you could say... Well... You didn't need to... Get into a taxi... With someone that wasn't a real taxi driver... I just believed him... I was just... Maybe gullible... You know... Trusting... Whatever... Which is the same word isn't it really I guess... Too trusting... So... Yeah... That was... That was that... There's been a few other things...

But I hope that I've covered... Those... Questions... Err... So... I'm going to answer... Cindy's question next... What is on your bucket list? Oh... Bucket list... Yeah I don't actually have a bucket list... I have... Thought about writing something down... I do have a few things... Like going to Thailand was one of them... So I've ticked that one off... I'd like to go back... Because... I didn't really accomplish what I was aiming to do...

Which was to have fun... And... You know... I ended up with a chest infection... And I ended up with a broken rib... So that... Kind of messed up the... The experience for me... But I've... It'd like... Be good to go back... But they're... They're having... I mean they've been having like... 40 degrees plus... Heat... And now they've gone straight into the... The... Rainy season... Like just overnight...

So gone... It's just really... It's... It's kind of weird... How quickly... But 40 degrees... That's too much... And it was about 30... 33... 34... When I was there... But 40 degrees... Oh wow... Yeah... I couldn't... I don't know... That'd be too much... So... I mean it's good for the bars... They've got air conditioning... Because no one's going to want to go outside... Or leave are they? I don't know...

I think... Some of the things I'd like to do... I'd like to go on a cruise... Like a world cruise... I've looked online for them... And I'd like to go on these like... 100 day cruises... And maybe do a few... That cover the whole... When I say the whole world... There's parts of the world... I'm not that bothered about visiting... To be honest... You know... I don't want to be on a...

I don't want to be on a... I don't want to be on a cruise... And have to worry about pirates... You know... Generally... You know... Call me old fashioned... So... I like the idea of... A non-flight cruise... So literally leaving from... Maybe Manchester... Or Liverpool... And going to Southampton... And then going to... There and then... Whatever... Going to different places... I quite like the idea maybe... Of travelling across Europe...

Just willy nilly... Just travelling and just staying in hotels... And... When we sort of get to places... But I think I'd like to do that with someone... Rather than on my own... And... Bucket list... I'm starting to really think about... Maybe getting myself fit... One last time... Maybe not one last time... But like I'm just super... Seeing if I can make myself look really fit... Physically... Like I have done in the past...

You know... Get toned and... Even if it only lasts for a short period... Just to see if I can... If I'm able to do it... It might not be... I don't know if it's possible now... With my body but... It'd be interesting to see if I can... Lose some fat... But as far as a bucket list... I wanna... I mean there's things that don't exist yet... But I wanna see...

Scientific... Advancements... Like cures for medical conditions... That will come about... Through AI hopefully... So... I'd like to be around... To see that... I realise that's not really... The idea of a bucket list... To like... I just wanna stay alive... I mean that's not really a bucket list is it? But... I'd like to be around to see that... Because it fascinates me... And... Just trying to think... What would I like to do?

I'd like to... This is gonna... I'd like to do a... I think it's called white collar boxing... I'd like to have one bout... One boxing match... White collar... Which is basically... I think you just sign away your rights... And... I'd have to be fit for that... I'd have to... And it doesn't matter about... Winning, losing... Drawing, anything... It's not about that... It's just about having done it...

For no other reason other than that... And... The problem I'd have is if... Because at the moment I'm a heavyweight... And... If I went in with a heavyweight... I might be in with someone that's like... Five, six stone heavier than me... Which is... And as everyone pretty much is taller than me... It's a real disadvantage... To me... But just for fun... Just to say that I've done it...

That would be on my... Bucket list... Something I've always wanted to do... But I've never managed to do it... And never really... Not even pursued it really for a long time... Is to get a black belt in... Something... Some kind of martial arts... But again... Because I've got arthritis in my lower back... I don't know what kind of martial arts I could do... Where I would... Be able to progress to black belt...

But that was like a lifelong... Well, lifelong... Feels like a lifelong... But a very... It was a dream I've had for... Many years... I mean... Can having a girlfriend be on your bucket list? So that would kind of be on my bucket list... To have... Not just have a girlfriend... Just have someone that loves me... I suppose... Well, you know... A female that loves me... But really loves me...

Not just... Not just with me because of my wealth and fame... And good looks... But you know... Someone that generally just adores me... That would be nice... I know it goes both ways... So I need to... Oops... I need to also... Feel that way... With that person as well... You've got to be a friend... To have a friend... So, yeah... I... That would be nice... Yeah, I'm not a really big fan of the idea that...

That it's never going to happen again... I'm never going to... Never going to know what it feels like... To hold someone's hand... Ever again... That seems a bit... It sounds like... Oh... I feel a little bit too young... For that... But then I see myself in the mirror... And I think... Well... I'm not that young really, am I? I'm not really young anymore... So maybe a girlfriend...

Marriage... I'm not that bothered... To be honest... And... It might be nice... I don't know... To have someone... To call my wife... I mean, I've never really imagined it... Not for a long time... Never really thought it could... Just... Never... It hasn't appealed to me for a long time... I've never been that... That concerned about things like marriage or... Anything like that, but... Maybe it'd be nice...

Maybe I'll be one of these... Old dudes... That ends up getting married in my seventies... And... Just, you know... He's happy... I remember meeting someone like that and... It was at the... It was at the Buddhist Centre... This was like twenty... Or fifteen years ago... And every time I saw him... He always said the same thing... He said... This lady saved my life... He didn't mean it literally...

Well, he kind of did, but... You know... She didn't... Rescue him from... From a frozen lake or anything like that... She... He just said that she gave him... Another chance at happiness, basically... Or a chance at happiness... So... It is possible... I don't know... It is possible, I guess... But, you know... You need to... I don't know how... How it can happen... So... My bucket list... That's about it really...

I don't have any... I mean... Okay... There's a few things like... Get a black belt... Write a book... Record an album... Like of music... Like, you know... Songs... I quite like to record a Christmas album... Funny enough... Like Elvis Presley did... And they would probably be just exactly the same songs that Elvis did... Just... Just... Because I've done it... That would just be it... Just for fun...

Or record an album of my favourite songs... Singing my favourite songs... Or what else... I'd like to... You know, I'd like... This isn't really a bucket list thing... It's just a life thing... I'd like to be successful at something... That would be nice... To really feel that... You know... I was good at that... I was... I achieved something... And maybe that's just the age... You know... I mean, that didn't used to bother me...

When I was in my twenties... I wanted to be a comedian... But... It wasn't really even about success... I just wanted to do it... Because I loved it... I loved comedy... I didn't believe in myself... So I didn't really believe that I was ever going to be successful... Which maybe is the reason I wasn't... I don't know... That and lack of talent, I think... But I... Over the...

As I got older... You know... Once I kind of reached my thirties and... Forties... The idea of... Never having... Really being particularly good at anything... Doesn't... Doesn't leave a great taste... You know... It's just... I'd like to be... And it's not about being... You know, okay at something... I want to be really good at something... Exceptional... You know, even... One of the best, even... I don't know...

Just... To just be really... To excel... At one thing... I'm not... I don't want to be a jack of all trades... And... I know I'm never going to be a master of anything... Because you can never learn everything... You can never... I don't know if you can ever be... The best... I think in sports... If, you know, there's a physical... I suppose... There's the mental capacity as well, isn't there?

So... You could argue, say, well... You can be at your best physically at a certain age... So once you get to a certain age... It's never... It's always going to go downhill... Just because of human... Being humans... And you could argue... Well, mentally... You know, if what you do relies on mental capability... Mental capacity... Then... You know, our brains... May... The memory might fade a little bit...

You know, so... Perhaps... We don't function as well as we did when we was... You know, in our 20's or whatever... But my argument is I never functioned well... My brain's never worked properly, so... I can't really... I don't necessarily want to be back... Where I was when I was in my 20's... I don't want that brain back, thanks... I definitely don't want the one I had when I was a teenager...

Or when I was a kid... No thanks... I don't want that... I like that body... I don't want a kid's body, but... You know, health wise, that'd be nice to maybe... Go back and have that, but... I definitely wouldn't want that brain... I much prefer the brain I've got now... So... Yeah... It's... Understanding myself is... Makes such a difference, I think... I'm not saying I understand everything, but...

I understand more about myself than I ever did... On my bucket list, also... Get another degree... Maybe get a master's degree, and then get a PhD... Four things I'm probably never going to do... Because I thought... I thought, I thought, I thought... That I could do another... Degree course and get it... Get it funded... But I went online to do it, and they said, nope... So I don't have to change the process now...

From a month ago... I don't know... I need to call the Open University to find out... So it's just a phone call to find out... They should be able to help me... Because I was going to do a psychology degree... And then, after that, go on to a master's... And get that funded... And then, after that, go on to a PhD... So I'll be a doctor... So I'll actually already be retired...

Probably before I'm a doctor... I'll be a retired doctor... So I'll be walking around... And I will make sure everyone calls me doctor... On my bank card... Credit card, whatever... Doctor... Seriously, I'm going to do that... And I didn't... I never understood why people do that... And I thought... It's because they've just spent so many years... To gain that name doctor... So many years of hard work...

They deserve to be called doctor... It's not like... Getting knighted and being a sir... You know, where... Maybe you got it because... You donated money to... A political party... And then after... Afterwards, they decided... To give you a knighthood... Which, of course, I'm sure that doesn't happen... Yes, it does... So... That is kind of meaningless... To me... Basically, you just bought it... It's meaningless... But if you've earned it...

Then, yeah, cool... I mean, you can buy a PhD... You can buy a doctorate online... For probably 50 quid... It doesn't make you worth anything... But... Why are you causing a fuss? Why are you causing a fuss, Vinnie? Right... I'm trying to think of any other... Erm... Any other... Other, other, other... Things on the bucket list... Hopefully, Vinnie will stop barking in a minute... So... That's all the things I can really think of...

For the bucket list right now... Alright, stop moaning... There's a fair bit of activity downstairs now... So all the young people are getting ready to... Enjoy their Friday evening, I think... And I'm sitting up here... Thinking to myself... I need to get something in my tummy... And then I want to go to bed... I'm so old now... Ridiculous... So... The electrician is coming round tomorrow... To fit the cooker for my neighbour...

And then that's done... And that's it... And... What else? Err... OK, I can't think... What's on my bucket list? I can't think of anything... Else... This is those standard things... That I quite like to do... But it's not that important to me... I'd like to be successful... I'd like to be remembered... But I'm not going to know that I've been remembered... I'm not going to know, am I?

So does it really mean that much? I suppose I'd like to... I'd like my dad to be proud of me... That's a bit sad, isn't it? At my age, but hey... Erm... I'd like to be remembered... I'd like to... To feel that... I've made a difference... That... I've made the world a better place... Than when I entered it... It's hard to say that that's possible for anyone to do...

When you look at the world... And what's going on in the world, so... I don't know... Maybe help some people... Along the way... Contributed... Made a difference... Yeah, that's kind of it... I'm kind of coming back to the same thing... So that's... That's kind of the main thing on my list... Joanne says... If you were a Muppet, which one would you be and why? Well, I've been called a Muppet on various occasions...

I'm just trying to think... Erm... Mentally, probably Animal... But... For coolness, I'd quite like to be Kermit... Kermit's cool... He's all pretty much relaxed... A lot of the time... He's... You know... Yeah, I think Kermit... Maybe it's because he's the star of the show, maybe... But then he's not... If you go to Sesame Street, because they're Muppets as well... Who's the star of... Is it the Cookie Monster?

Count Dracula? The Count... He was quite cool... Big Bird, because then I'd be tall... But I'm... Yeah, I'm thinking... Kermit... Yeah, Kermit was cool... He's a good looking, cool dude... Everyone loves Kermit... That'd be nice... Just to be popular like that... Yeah... Wouldn't want to be Miss Piggy... A little bit too demanding... A little bit... Too aggressive for my... For my liking... I think definitely... Amy... Yeah...

That was a short answer... I didn't think I had any short answers in me... Thanks Cindy, you gave me an opportunity to just do a short, quick answer... Kermit... Now, I could go off and talk about... Watching the Muppet Show, but I won't... Christine asks... What three words... Describe you best? I guess... Annoying... And... More annoying... I don't know... What would describe me best? Whatever the word is for not quitting...

I don't quit... I do quit temporarily, but I never quit in the long run... Well, I haven't quit this... You know... For something that becomes really important, I just always... I don't seem to... Ever give up... Is that tenacity? Tenacious? Maybe... And I do quit... I've quit many times, but I've never really quit... I'm like an old prize fighter that... Is always retiring, but keeps coming back for one last fight...

That's me... Three words... Old... Fat... Loyal... I think... I'm quite loyal... I would say... Generous... Yeah, I'm definitely generous... Even when I haven't got anything to be generous with, I'm generous... So... And that's a fault... In some ways... You know... Some could say it's a... It's a blessing, you know... It's a good thing to be... Generous, but... When... I keep giving away things I haven't got... Helping people that I can't really help...

Devoting years of trying to help people that I'm unable to help... Yeah, so... I can't have... Finny... Come on, mate... Calm down... So it's a mixture of the... You're really winding me up now... Always so angry... So if you mix the tenaciousness... With the generosity... Then I become... Erm... I guess what I was like with... A previous friend... Just doing... Even when they didn't want to be helped...

And didn't want to help themselves... I was helping them... So I wasn't really helping them... But I couldn't stop... Because I wanted to help them... Can you hear him? Grumpy... Don't you grumpy be a grumpy... Grumpy... He always has to have the last word... Can you hear him? He's just moaning now... So... Yeah, that would be the... Generous... I'm fairly friendly... I would say... Fairly friendly... Sort of a tenacious...

Generous... I think there might be someone in the garden... So Finny's... Reacting to... So... Yeah, probably... Tenacious... Generous... Grumpy... Moody... I'm going to go moody... Because I am moody... And... I've got a mood condition... So I'm moody... I've always been moody... I probably will always be moody... So yeah, moody... I'm moody... But you know what? When I'm not in a good mood... I keep away from people...

Generally... Because I don't want to really let that... You know? Mess things up for other people... So... Yeah, I'm generous... I am generous... And I'm trying to... I'm trying to think of words that... Describe me... But without trying to kind of... Sort of say... Oh, look how good I am... Look how great I am... Because the generosity... Is not necessarily a good thing... In all circumstances... It causes me a lot of problems...

It has done... It has done this week as well... To be honest... So... Trying to help other people... Is not... It's rewarding... You know? But it can be expensive... And... I'd much rather help people... Than not help them... So... It's, you know... It is what it is... You know? Even if I had a million pounds... In the bank... I'd be given a huge amount away... Just the way it is...

I'd just be able to help people... More people... It's a weird one... It's kind of strange... I don't know why he's barking now... Finny... Calm down mate... Calm down... And... Yeah... So that also... Tenacious... Generous... And moody... That might not be the best... Three words to describe... That's how I describe myself... How would you describe me? And this is to anyone that's listening... I guess... If you listen to me for a while...

If you listen to me... Some of you maybe have listened to me... For years... In some ways... You get more of an idea... Of what I'm like as a person... From these... Recordings... Where I talk for hours... Maybe in some ways... More than people... That I know in real life... Who maybe I only see... For short periods of time... So... Yeah... That'd be interesting... Don't want to hear anything horrible though...

Really... And the last question... The last question... You'll be happy to know... Is from Molly the Boss... How do you... Have such a good memory... For dates... And when things happened? I don't know... I haven't necessarily got... I mean I can remember... I don't necessarily remember dates... As in... Actual dates... Sort of like... The 4th of May... Or whatever... It's more... The year... Roughly the time of year...

Sometimes... The month... I've got my... Life mapped out... Inside my brain... There's... The period of my life... Which... That's up to the age of 7... And I've got that broken up... Into groups... There was a period... When I was living at home... With both my parents... And my 2 older brothers... I don't remember this period... But I was... That was that period... Then there was a period...

Where I lived... With foster parents... From the ages of... Maybe 3 to 6 months... Until a year and a half... Or maybe 2... Something like that... So that's the 2nd period... I was living with my older brother... But not my oldest brother... And then the 3rd period... Would be living with my mum... And... All the stuff that happened there... So that was the 3rd period... Of my life...

And then the 4th period... Would be living in... The children's home... And that would be broken up... Into 2... The one in Newcastle... And then the one in Southend... And then there's various... Different things amongst that... You know... Those different things... So that's a... All kind of cordoned off... The next period would be... The interim period... Between living in the children's home... And moving into my dad's...

So there was a period when... We used to visit every weekend... Which I've not really talked... Too much about actually... And we did that... For a few months... And then we moved... We lived... Moved into... With my dad... And his new wife... Who was our mum... Our new mum... And... So there's that period... So then I break it up... Into periods of... Where I lived... And what schools I went to...

So because I lived in... A little town... Oh this is a squeaky chair... I lived in a little town... And... There was one... Two... Three houses... So between the ages... Of seven... And fifteen... I lived in three different houses... So there was a first house... I was only there for a little while... Then we moved into a council house... Which was on a new build... And then we moved to a...

Much bigger house... So... I was... At the second house... When I was eight... And then shortly after that... We moved... So before I was nine... I think we moved... To... The bigger house... By the time I was nine... So that's split up by houses... Also... For each house... I went to a different junior school... So I went to three different junior schools... So I remember those... Because they're connected to the houses...

And... The council house... Then became my Nan and Grandad's house... They moved up from London... So... That house is my favourite house... Out of all of them... Because my Nan lived there... Right the way up to about... Two thousand and... Eleven... Maybe... Ten... Something like that... So... She lived there... For quite... You know... A long time... And then... So there's that whole period... And then you've got...

The school period... So there's that period of going to... That whole... Being in... So I remember certain things that happened... When I was living in the council house... Things such as going to see Superman... Watching Mork and Mindy on a Saturday evening... Playing on the field... Playing with my friends in the... Like field fields and stuff you know... My brother... Things my brother did and... Just you know...

Having my own little room with... Bruce Lee poster... On the wall... First time I had my own bedroom... So I was eight... Never had my own bedroom before... So that was... Phenomenal... Amazing... And... It's just so nice... To not once be woken up for farting... You know... No one's ever... It's like... No one's waking me up anymore... I clearly don't fart anymore... But I didn't realise I was still farting...

It's just there was no one there to hear it... Or... You know... Open the window... So... It was really funny... I used to take turns waking me up... Always be wearing a gas mask... So I... I remember there's that area... That... The houses... And then the schools... So the school connected to the big house... Was much further away... So I'd walk there... And it would take ages to get there...

And ages to get back... And then I'd break it up... Because I don't remember too much about the other schools... I remember a few little bits... But the last junior school I was older... And I remember more about it... So I can break that as well... Up into lots of different sections... Like having swimming lessons... Violin lessons... Playing marbles... There was this big wall... I used to kick a ball...

A big wall... Yeah... I used to kick a ball around... I used to go there... On a Saturday... And kick a ball against it... And stuff... It was just this huge wall... Just there... On it's own... And I think there might have been a... Basket net... Basketball net on there as well... And... And possibly... A... Yeah... A painted outline... Of a goal... A football goal... And I remember sports day...

And... Just things like that... Art stuff that we did... And reading... And you know... So I've got my little... Memories of that place... And... Then I started making friends there... That went on to high school... So I had friends that lasted... It was the first time... That I managed to make friends... That lasted more than like... A few months... Because I wasn't being... Because I kept moving around...

Until that point... All the way before I moved... From Southend... So I had schools in... Newcastle... Southend... And then I had schools... Three... Three junior schools... At the new place... The new town... And I went to just one high school... For the whole of my high school time... So that was a separate period as well... And then I break it up... By jobs that I had... So I had...

Part time jobs... In a bakery... Evening paper round... Early morning paper round job... Oh that's where I got my money... I had an early morning paper round job... And an evening one... That's where I had money... Blimey... Yeah... So I had that... And... There's also the... The things that I did... So I was in the Sea Cadets... For a couple of years... Then I was in... Doing Karate...

So... The half of my high school... I was in the Sea Cadets... The other half... I was doing Karate... And that kind of took me... Right through to... Like leaving school... So... You know... I've got a lot of... And then the school is broken up... Into years... And... Some things that happened... During... During that period... But... So that... That's that whole period... And then I got a different period...

It's when... The family split... So when I was 15... The whole family kind of... One brother had already gone... He'd already moved out... And... So he was already... Getting a little bit empty... Because he was... Well... He just knew he wasn't there... So... He started barking... So I had to put him into the bedroom... He's done quite well... He's been out with me the whole time... But I have to re-listen...

To see if that barking... He did earlier... Was too annoying... What was I talking about? Oh yeah... So the school... I broke up into bits... It's little... You know... The years and stuff... And then... In... When I left school... So from the ages of 15... Until April time... For two years... That was the chip shop years... So... I lived at my... Step Nan's... For a year... Then I had my flat above the chip shop...

When I was 16... Until I was 17... And then... The April... The next April... Which was 1988... I moved out of there... And I worked in the co-op... So I kind of got all the... The different rooms... And the different places that I lived... I don't remember the addresses... I don't remember... Every single place that I lived at... And worked at... I used to... Do like a memory test...

Years ago... Like every now and then... Count how many houses I'd lived in... How many jobs I'd had... During that period... And it just used to send me to sleep... Seriously... It was hard to do... Because there's so many... And... I once had... Three full time jobs... In a week... How is that even possible? I mean... I might be lying... I'm not sure if it's true... But it's...

It's true... I did... I worked in a... I had this job... In a... Old people's home... Or a residential home... We used to call them old people's homes back then... I got sacked from that... For the next day... I started in a hotel... Got sacked from that... No, no... I left that... I didn't like that one... So I was there for a couple of days... And then I got another job...

Working... Cleaning caravans... I did that for a couple of days... I didn't like it... So... Three jobs in about five days... All full time... It was so easy to just walk into a job... It was very easy back then... But they were all very low paid work... And... I mean... To be fair... The caravan job was seasonal... So it wouldn't have been full time... All year round anyway...

And... The... The kitchen job... I think it was in a hotel... So that was... Probably kitchen portering... So it was just a quite grotty... Grotty job... They had me doing all the horrible... Horrible things... So... And I didn't... I think one of the... The... The chefs was rude to me... So I thought... Nah... So... Yeah... So I broke up the jobs... And I do that also... We're going all the way along...

Trying to remember the different jobs I've had... But there's that period... Pretty much between... So that's broken into two... Then there's the periods between... 1987... And... 1989... But there's a particular year... 1989 was a lot different from 1988... And that was quite a good year for me... In some ways... And then I moved to London... So there's my London period... And then I came back again... In 1990...

At about April... So I had that period in 1990... The World Cup was on... Or was it the Euros... It might have been the Euros actually... And... I worked in a factory... And that was a good year... Most of that year... Was quite good... In a sense... You know... Once April... Until... I don't know... August... Was good... That's only four months... But... After that... It went a little bit...

It was OK... I managed to get some part-time work... And then I... I left in January 1991... To pursue a comedy career in London... So then you've got that whole period... I would say the first four years... Of 90s... 91 to 94... It was comedy... Pretty much... Went off the rails a little bit... In the summer of 94... That's when I lived with Andre... And another friend...

Who I worked with... Or... I lived there anyway... And... Then 95 came along... I still did comedy... But I wasn't doing it as regularly... And... I was ill and stuff... And then I... Went on to antidepressants... And... So I remember that period... That took me to 90... And then... That took me to the end of 95... I worked at Butlin's... So it was the Butlin's period... Before that it was the girlfriend period...

So I also break up the... The years and everything... By girlfriends I've had... The girlfriend I had in 96... When I was a security guard... The girlfriend I had... When I was... Working on a... Council estate... Cleaning... The... Girlfriend I had... When I worked in the... The bakery... In Walthamstow... The girlfriend I had in... The end of 93... Through 94... So... There wasn't that many... Kind of long term girlfriends...

But all of them... Lasted a while... Not a long time... But... They were girlfriends... That lasted for months... Not just days... So each one of those... I guess... I classed as a girlfriend... Like even now... They were a girlfriend... And... One... Two... Three... Yeah... So four... During the 90s... And then... There's the... There's the 96... Which is the insurance... 96... 97... Not insurance... The... Security period... So I break that up into different places...

I went to... In the... Security... So there was a time in the... TV studio place... That I'd... Just secure... And Canary Wharf... And... All these different places... And then I break it up... Again... You know... As I said by going... Butlins... And then 96... It's a new... New time... So that was... Again that's the security... 97... By where I lived... And there's little... There's little markers along the way...

So 97... A few things happened... I mean I... Yeah... Something happened at the beginning of 96... That kind of... Affected my life... Going forward... And then... 97... I wasn't really myself... To be honest... All the way through 96... 97... I just wasn't... I was okay but there was... You know... A few issues... And... I... Yeah... 97 was quite a difficult year... Quite a difficult year... And then...

At the end of 97... It turned out nice... So the end of 97... Some September... Maybe October onwards... It was a good year... But before that it was... Quite a difficult one... But there was stuff that's memorable... Like the election... Labour getting in and stuff... And that was quite a big deal... In the country... New... Yeah... Was it... Was it a new TV channel? Was that 97?

Channel 5? Or was that 96? I lose track... I think it was 97... Was it 95? No 95... 95 was the... Lottery started... So... And then... There's the period of being... At the comedy club... Being there for like... Quite a lot of time... For four years... Just helping out... And doing DJing... And just having... Having a good time actually... Just having fun... And then I break up that period up...

By... The beginning of 88... 98 rather... Got involved in hypnosis... And then started training... So I was studying hypnosis through... The end of the 90s... But at the same time in 2000... I became completely obsessed with... Building websites... So I spent a whole year... Focusing on that... That was my focus... Pretty much the whole time... All day every day... For nearly a year... Just... Building websites... Or learning how to do it...

Completely... Obsessed... And I loved it... And then... 2001 again... I was still kind of doing that... And then... I also break up... By the different places... That I've been evicted from... Jobs that I've lost... Being sacked... Or whatever... Girlfriends... It's all... Different things... Break up and... Are markers... On that little map... Of my life... My little... The little map... Of my little life... And... Then... 2001... Is like a new...

A new... Adventure... Not a good adventure... But a new adventure... When I start doing insurance... I move away... To be close to my Nan... And I start doing... Working in insurance... The first of three insurance companies... And... Then I'm making... I'm making new friends... And I've got... I've almost got a bit of a social life... For the first time ever... You know... When I was in my 90's...

Well, in my 90's... When I was in my 20's... During the 90's... I would go to comedy clubs... That would be my social life... And I'd hang out with the comedians... That would be it... I'd almost be like a groupie... Slash comedian... You know... I wasn't a groupie of anyone... There was a couple of comedians I was... A little bit... Like... Admiring of... But... I'd just be there...

Sometimes I wouldn't even be seen... But I'd be there... You know... I went to have... I had lunch with... Or no... It was an evening meal... So... Eddie Izzard did a show... This is before he was like... Super famous in this country... Because he was super famous... But this was like... Earlier on... So this was maybe... 94... 93... 94... And... I was just hanging around... With some comedians...

On a Saturday night... And he'd finished his run... At one of the theatres... In London... Which I think... He'd hired out himself... And... He... Promoted it... And he sold out... And he went for a meal... And he invited the comedians... So all his top comedians went... And I went with them... And I sat there... And... He didn't even know who I was... I was sitting in this restaurant...

I don't know if it was a... An Indian restaurant... Or... Whatever it was... And... I couldn't afford to buy any food really... So I felt I just had to... Coke... And... It was just... It was surreal... But at the same time... It was nice... To just be part of something... Even though I wasn't... Really part of it... I was... It was just... Some of the comedians were really nice to me...

Some weren't... Some accepted me... Some tolerated me... Some... Really didn't like me... But... Some seemed to just really... Take to me... You know... Like they... They just thought... They might not have liked my act... On stage... But... They realised that... That wasn't me... That wasn't who I was... As a person... I was quite... A fairly nice person really... Kind of... And... I think... I don't know... So...

So a lot of the... The 90s is broken up by... Comedy shows... Memories of that stuff... Different gigs... Even some of the names of the clubs... And... What else... 2001... So there's the... Three insurance companies... Well two insurance companies... Were quite close together... So there's that period... Then there's a period during the anxiety... Unfortunately that's... My anxiety period... Which lasted about two years... Three years... Something like that...

It's November 2002... Until... 2005 really... But... 2003 and 4 were the... They were the... Really hard... Hard time doing that... I lost everything... Lost my job... Lost... Yeah... Got into debt and everything... Because of that... But... I came out the other end... Got another job... In security... Because I lost my job in insurance... Kept going off hill... Kept coming back... And... You know... In the end... Started to...

Did a... I've also got educational courses... That I break things up by as well... So I was at college... Doing a YTS scheme... One day a week... On a Wednesday... Catering... And then... I've attempted on numerous occasions... To do a degree in psychology... When I was in London... But that didn't happen... I just started access courses... And everything... I've had open university courses... That were free... I could do the whole degree for free...

This is... You know... I think I did that three times... And I quit... All three times... This is the person that ever quits... By the way... This is Tenacious... And... I kind of think that I'm not a quitter... Because in the end... I did get a degree... But... That's what I'm thinking... Long term Tenacious... Maybe not temporarily... Maybe... Is that a cop out? So... I then... So I break things up by that...

I was... I did a college course... In holistic therapy... Then I went to... I did... Obviously different courses in... Hypnosis... NLP... And then I did the degree in counselling... In 2007... For three years... Full time... So... It's broken up by the educational stuff... But also by the change of town... So... And there's also the period of being... Quite engrossed in Buddhism... So... There's overlaps... If that makes sense...

So I can... Like by the different Buddhist centres I've been at... The friends I had... The... Retreats maybe I've been on... And then... The book collections... And... And then the places I've volunteered at... When I was doing the hypnosis... Relaxation groups... And... Then the online stuff I started doing... The pain relief... Free pain relief service I offered... So it's all... You know... All broken up into little bits...

That kind of connect... And... A few memorable situations that actually... I'll always remember for the rest of my life... Hopefully... Where I've helped people... So that's been nice... And... Or felt that I've helped people... You know... I've sort of seen it with my own eyes... That I actually... Have made a difference there and then... In that moment... And had feedback... Not just immediately... But also... The next day...

Or a couple of days later... When... They've dealt with what it is that they came to me to deal with... And then... I guess I would break it down to... The period when I was drinking... So that... That was between... 2000... And... Yeah... Pretty much... I don't know... 2015... So about 15 years... Not solidly for the whole time... And I don't mean that as a joke either...

I mean... I wasn't drinking every day for 15 years but... I was drinking every day for... Between 2000 and the end of 2003... I was drinking... Like regularly... Regularly nearly every day... And then I stopped drinking for a whole year... 2004... Didn't drink anything... And... No alcohol I mean... At all... Or did anything else... So... And then I started drinking again in 2005... Kind of got back into it again...

But I didn't drink as much... Or as strong a lager as I used to... But then I started going into pubs... Near where I lived... I used to go into the pub... Local pub and... It was just... Just my release... My escape from things... I did that for a couple of years... Came to... Started university... Had a pub opposite the road... Which wasn't particularly good for me...

So I used to go there... It wasn't even across the road... It was literally... The opposite... The house... Like a dirt track... It wasn't even a road... Really... Always a little road... So... I used to go there... And get food and drink and everything... And my landlord and landlady would be in there... And that's my way of maybe... I made a couple of... Got to know a few people in there...

Briefly... So I was there for about three years... And then... For the duration of the course... I was drinking... Pretty much most nights... When I was there... Usually in my bedroom... And then I moved out of there... So there's that period of being at university... But I'd only have wheat lager... You know... Four cans and that would be it... Or six... I don't know... A hundred... And...

Then I got evicted from there... And I moved into... There's the period of living in that place... The next place... Which I didn't enjoy... I was drinking when I was there... And... And then there's that... There was a period when I was... Diagnosed with bipolar... For the first time... And... So I've been diagnosed twice... The first diagnosis... I took the diagnosis... Took the medication... Didn't like the medication...

And I was trying to function... And work... And... Then I got ill again... But... That's a separate thing... And then I moved out of there... And then I got the period... I break things up as well... Not just by jobs... But by the martial arts... Or the... Combat sports I've done... So... There's a period at school... Doing karate... I did kickboxing for a little while before that...

With a neighbour... And then I did karate... Didn't really do anything... During the 90's much... Did a little bit of... Praying mantis kung fu... But I did work out in the gym... So I did... Went to the gym... But I didn't do much in the way of... Combat sports... And then... 2004... I did Wing Chun... Kung Fu... And then... 2008... I did boxing... While I was at university...

And then... 2011... I started doing... What was it? Blimey... Not Chai Mein... That's a dish... Tu Chai... Wing Chai... Bong Chai... Chang Wong... I don't know... What was it called? This is bad... I've been talking for too long... It's gone out of my head... But I did another martial art... Tai... Tai... Tu Kai... Kai Tai... Anyway... It was like karate... Jing Wai... I don't know... It's gone...

Honestly... My brain started to slow down a little bit... Even more slower than normal... I've been talking for like... Three and a half hours... So... I did that as well... For a while... So... I'll break it up by that... And then I break it up by rooms... So I moved into another room... Which was... Almost underground... Well it was underground... To be fair... And that was grotty...

And everything... So I lived there... I was still drinking... I lived there for a couple of years... From 2011... Beginning of 2012... Till 2014... 14... 15... 2015... Is... No... 2015 is when I moved in there... Yeah... So I lived in three... Blimey... I was there for three years... Wow... So I lived there... And I got a job... In security... In insurance again... And then I got ill again...

And then... But I was also... A counsellor... For most of the time... I was living there... So I did counselling... For about three years... I think... And then... So there was that period... So I'll break it up with that... And then there's a period... When I moved here... I also break up the time... With people... As well... The people in my life... That meant something... So... Including people...

That haven't meant anything... But have also had... You know... Had a... That was my foot... That was... That had an impact... Whether positive... Or negative... On my life... Also... Were included in the memory... So... Landlady... Landlords... Friends... Supervisors at jobs... Work colleagues... Comedians... Promoters of clubs... You know... People I went to do martial arts with... You know... All those kinds of people... People perhaps of... Yeah... It's those individual people...

The individual... It's all the different connections... Isn't it? And then... There's the move in here... To get diagnosed again... With bipolar... And a personality disorder... Yee... Double whammy... And I moved... Into this place... That's when a whole new adventure started... So... Only... I mean... Other than... Well then I break up... Into... When I've been here... I can remember... Some of the boxing fights... That I've seen here...

And I remember... Sort of seeing... Anthony Joshua... Win the world title... And... I remember certain fights... Where I was... Who I was with... Things like that... And then... I... I remember when... Andre climbed up my... My sleeve... Of my dressing gown... And he went to sleep... And that was the first time... He'd actually been nice to me... He actually came to me... And he went to sleep...

Up my sleeve of my dressing gown... And he stayed there for hours... And we were bonded... That was it... So there was no more... Because I used to pick him up all the time... For the first two weeks... Hated it... Get off me... Get off me... After that... We were good... It's weird... I wore him down... Basically... And after that... Yeah we were close... I mean... We were very close...

So... You know... I swear people think that... They think that... Oh it's a ferry... It's like having a hamster... It's like having a mouse... It's like having... Almost like it's a... I'm not saying that... A hamster is a mice... Well it's that idea that... Some people just run around on a wheel... Aimlessly... Mindlessly... Without any kind of... Need for... Anything else... And ferrets are not like that...

It's no different to having a dog... Having a ferret... I mean it's different... You know... In certain aspects obviously... But... And it's a different species... Completely different in fact... But it's still... It's hard to explain... Hard to explain... It might not be... It's hard for me to explain... I mean I can't even remember... The martial arts I did... For a few years... Weird isn't it? It's gone...

Gone out of my head... Tai... Something tai... Not Mu Tai... Wing tai... Basically karate... Which is another name for karate... And... So it'll come to me probably... When I'm in bed... In bed... So... I'm saying so a lot aren't I? And so... The other things that are broken up... Living here is... The people... Andre... My friend downstairs... Well the other neighbours as well... Vinnie of course... And...

And then other people... Friends I've had over the years... That breaks up... So there's all those connections as well... And... What I generally do... Until I moved here... And I've always tried to do this is... Keep friends separate... So I've had friends that live in different parts of the country... Never met each other... And I prefer that... Because then there's no gossip... And it's just... You can have a friend...

Who's... I quite like having friends... Who have different temperaments... It's a strange thing to say probably... But I've... I like to have a friend... Who I can be really rude with... Really... Just say things that I shouldn't say... And have that... But I also like to have a friend... Where I can just be really kind with... And be really... Sensitive... And you know... I like to have all those things...

I don't... Don't necessarily... I'm not... I don't necessarily find one person... That has all those... Those... Qualities... Or... Failures... Personality problems maybe... So the last... Yeah the last few years... Has really been... I mean... There was the obvious... Blip... That we all kind of went through... A couple of years back... So that was something that we all... Sort of shared in... And... I would say... The last six years...

Has been about... The Let Me Bore You To Sleep... This podcast... It's been more and more about this... More and more... To the point where... This is... Kind of what I've been focusing on... Every day... And... Yeah... And that's it really... So I don't know if I've answered the question Molly... If you're still awake... I've just got everything kind of... Not compartmentalised... But I guess labelled... Like cross-sectioned maybe...

In my head... And... When I do this podcast... When I make these recordings... I'm continuously going back... And remembering things... And... Perhaps making new connections as well... I mean clearly it's not helping my brain... Because I've forgotten... Erm... Still can't remember it... I'm going to have to look it up... This is really bad... Erm... Taiwong... Nope... OK... Let's see if I can do it... If I just say the things...

In order... Maybe it will come up... So say... I did kickboxing... Karate... Box... No... Kickboxing... Karate... Wing Chun... Erm... Boxing... Chu Qi Yu... Oh man... What on earth... Does it even exist? I'll have to look it up... This is ridiculous... I know what it is... Erm... Taekwondo... Blimey... Tai... Didn't I say Tai? No? Taekwondo... So... I did that for... A while as well... Long enough to remember...

I mean I think I did... 3 or 4 gradings... So... Long enough to remember... What it's called... And that's it... I think I've answered... All the questions... And I realise... It's gone on a bit... This is possibly... The longest one... I've done so far... And what is this? Number 7... Q&A Friday 7... Wow... This is going to take me... Absolutely... Hours to edit... Do you realise that?

Hours and hours... Ah... So... All that's left to say... Is to thank you... Robin... Christine... Cindy... Joanne... And Molly... The boss... For your questions... For today's... Q&A Friday... 24th of May... 2023... I will do another one of these... Next week... Next Friday... Which will be... The... I do believe... It's the 31st... Of... May... It's the 24th... 25th... 26th... 27th... 28th... 29th... 30th... 31st... Yeah... Because I think the 1st of June...

Is on Saturday... I think... I'm pretty... Yeah... I know it is... So... Next Friday... The 31st of May... It will be number 8... The 8th... Can you really believe... I've done 7... Q&A Fridays... In fact... I've done... 8... Because the 1st one... Was broken into 2 different... Recordings... Wow... But 7... Altogether... Really... 7... Q&A Fridays... Wow... I really thought... It was a lot less than that... But then...

You know... This is... What number is this now? Number as in... Like... Recordings... It's... Number... 1,000... 1,131... Today... 1,131... And I don't even know... How many days... I've done in a row now... Honestly... It's got to be... Over 2 weeks... I've done one every day... Maybe longer... I might have a... I might do that tomorrow... Have a look through... And see how many I've done... In a row...

And I've... I think I've broken my record... I don't think I've ever done... This many in a row before... But maybe I have... It's possible... I'm pretty much sure... That I did... I don't know... I'm sure I've done 30 in a row... Maybe not these recordings... But previous stuff... Like daily hypnosis... And things like that... Ah... So thank you... For listening... Remember to be kind to yourself...

Remember to be gentle with yourself... Because... You do deserve to be happy... Lots of love... Bye...