(no music) #1191 - “Tea Bags” Mondays Boring Objects - Let Me Bore You To Sleep (16th September 2024)

Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. My name is Jason Newland. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

I'm here with Vinnie André Newland. He's here with me now, as he has been lately. I'm hoping he's going to be a little bit calmer tonight.

It's hard to know. Oh, bloody. So it's 6.22pm. Good boy, good boy Vinnie.

Good boy. Calm down. No, we're not play fighting, no.

He didn't even want my attention until now. He was quite happy being in the other room. Seriously, he was on the bed or on the windowsill, wherever he was.

He wasn't interested in me and as soon as I turned that... Well, as soon as I start talking into the microphone or start setting the equipment up... That's him, he's in here. What are we doing? What are we doing dad? Are we making my podcast again? Okay, it is kind of your podcast, you are the star really. It's both of us, isn't it? It's me and you.

It used to be me and André, now it's me and you. Yeah, yes it is. Me and Vinnie.

Me and Vin-Vin. So, before I start, I want to say a big... Send a big loving hug to Molly from me and Vinnie. So, Molly if you are listening to this, big hugs.

You can only send virtual ones unfortunately because... You are the other side of the world, literally the other side of the world. So, what is it if it's... So, Thailand is... Because Australia isn't... Wait a minute, I'm just trying to work it out. Three, six... I think Thailand is 6,000 miles away.

I think. Have I got that right? And then Australia is probably another six on top of that. So, it's about 9,000 miles from here.

I think. Blimey, that's it, just calm down. But time wise, it's 12 hours.

So, basically if you go from here to Thailand and you do it in two different journeys. So, you go to Dubai for example. And that takes six hours or six and a half hours.

And then from Dubai to Thailand is another six or six and a half hours depending. Now, as far as I'm aware... From Thailand to... From Australia to Thailand is about the same distance as Dubai to Thailand. So, I think it's about six hours.

So, my estimation, that would be 12, what, 16 hours on a plane. But again, I might be wrong. So, I used to think it was only 12, well not only, blimey, 12 hours is a long time to be sitting in one chair.

Although I've done it a few times here. But at least here I can get up and I can stretch and I can let off as much wind as I want. You know, you can't do that... Well, you can do it on a plane.

But, I mean, what surprised me is how noisy planes are. Because I hadn't been on a plane for 20 years. Last time I was on a plane before I went on one a couple of years ago was 2002, I think.

So, it's very strange. I've forgotten how loud they were. Not quiet things at all.

I mean, I had my headphones on which are noise cancelling headphones. And I wore them for quite a lot of the journey but I couldn't wear headphones all the time. I'm getting itchy feet now.

I want to go, not travelling, but I'd love to go somewhere. I guess that is travelling, isn't it? I don't know. Yeah, it'd be lovely.

I just don't know how to make it happen though. That's the weird thing. Anyway, so, what I was saying is, so by a plane it's what? A long journey.

But if you go through the Earth's core it'd be quicker, wouldn't it? Although, this will be more for Trivia Tuesday. Trivia Tuesday, Trivia Tuesday. I'm trying to think of some kind of, I need to get some little tunes, don't I? For the things like Q&A Friday, or Trivia Tuesday.

This today is Monday's Boring Objects. Yes it is, yes it is. I'm kidding, I'm talking to him.

So this is the first of the Monday's Boring Objects. And this is kind of an extension of something that I used to do. I used to do Sleepy Boring Objects in the past.

But I'm now going to incorporate it into the Let Me Bore You To Sleep family podcast. I'm going to be part of this, the same as the Q&A Fridays are. And tomorrow's Trivia Tuesday will also be part of that as well.

I probably won't do any more new days for now. I think three's enough. I would say that I have the Q&A Fridays now established.

Because I've probably done it for, blindly, half a year now. It's ridiculous, but it's true. Let me have a look.

I can tell you exactly. Let me get to my phone, Vinnie. Stop licking it, stop licking the phone.

Okay, so, that's weird. Right, so Q&A Friday. Q&A Friday, when was the last one? It was number 24.

So that's 48. 24, 48. So it's nearly half a year.

24 weeks. 24 Fridays in a row. It's nearly half a year.

So it's not, it's, blindly, let's say five months. Anyway, so it's five months. So I would say, I don't know, you may agree or not, that that's fairly established.

So now, I just want to say Robin sent a message, posted a message yesterday saying, I think Trivia Tuesday is a great idea. And I said, thank you. Christine said, I love boring objects.

Cool, so that's what I'm doing today, really. To be fair, because of what Christine said. Also, I'm going to do the, I decided to go ahead with the Trivia Tuesday, because of Robin and, you know, so other people are saying that they think it's a good idea.

So thank you for your feedback. Marie Jo, I did, did I mention this yesterday? Oh, it's just three days ago. Okay, I won't, I would have mentioned it.

Just saying, I love your podcast. Listen to your podcast every night. So helpful with my insomnia.

So thank you. Oh yeah, I've got another one, I forgot. Sundays, Sunday papers.

So I've got four, four days now that I'm going to be doing a specific thing. So Sunday, Sunday papers, or if we start on Monday, Monday's boring objects, Trivia Tuesday, Q&A Friday and Sunday papers. So four out of the nine days, or however many days in a week, there's going to be actual particular things.

I guess it's, it's kind of my way of just trying to make things a little bit more structured, maybe. Although to be fair, just because I've got a title for the day, you know, doesn't mean it's going to be a structured recording. I don't think that's ever going to happen.

So I did a poll. So I asked yesterday, has anyone got any ideas, what you'd like me to talk about for Monday's boring object? And then I posted them into a poll today. This was this morning.

And I had, and you basically just let people choose. I've got crockpot, teabags, the bins, reusable shopping bags, wellies, leftover change, money, elastic bands, and lastly, all different types of glue. So only two of them didn't get any votes, elastic bands and leftover change money, which I'm surprised because the person that voted that mentioned those hasn't voted for them.

But I don't know who it was, but someone did because I collected all the different things. So here's what I've got. I'm going to give you the results.

So I will need to come out of here. Sign in under, oh, sign in under my Jason Newland hypnotist profile because I'm the admin. Well, it's my group, isn't it? But I'm the, I can't do any admin things under my normal page.

Jason. Well, here we go. That's weird.

That's me. Well, okay. Let's just see what the percentages are.

Crockpot, six votes. Teabags, sorry, no. Teabags, I've just deleted Crockpot.

I didn't mean to. Sorry. Teabags was the winner with 46%.

So Chris, Ruth, Sarah, Tina, Sky, and Samantha have voted for that. So, Diana, Robin for reusable shopping bags. Wellies was Andrea, so that's Boston Chicky, and Anita.

All the different types of glue. And Crockpot I've just deleted by accident. But that didn't have, that had a few people as well, but it didn't have as many as teabags.

So I apologize if you voted for Crockpot. I don't know how I managed to delete it. That's weird.

Well, I pressed the cross button, which is to delete, but I didn't mean to. So, that's it. That's what I'm going to talk about.

I'm going to talk about teabags. So, the way I normally do these things is I just, I don't necessarily talk about the subject as, I don't research the subject. I don't.

I mean, especially now, because I haven't got the laptop in front of me. I could use my phone, but I don't. I just talk about my experiences or maybe my knowledge of that particular product.

And teabags is a really good one to start with because I'm guessing everybody has had a life experience with a teabag. A wonderful experience, hasn't everyone? So, and you've got teabagging. I was going to call it teabagging or teabags, but I suppose it could, you know, because teabagging for those that don't know what it means, it's basically just, it's what you use.

You know, the teabags that come with strings. Because some, my teabags I've got, I think I've got triangle teabags. I think they're better because they release the, this is boring me already, because they release the flavour.

Apparently, that's the advert, I remember. Pyramid. Pyramid tea.

So, some teabags come with strings, like little tampon kind of things. And you don't get muddled up. Oh no.

And you can dip it in and out and that's what's called teabagging, I think. So, I don't have any with strings on, but I have. And it is handy because instead of using a spoon to dip it in and out of the hot water, you can... I'm doing the visuals here, you're missing out.

It's no video, damn it. I'm actually moving my hand almost like I'm manipulating a tiny little puppet made of tea. And you lift it up in and out of the hot water and it's probably a little bit more satisfying than using a spoon.

But I use a spoon and I don't, I don't find it really makes a huge difference to my life. But there's something, I don't know, I quite like, yeah, the strings are okay. So I guess I would say I'm a teabagger.

You know, over just a normal teabag or just a teabag on its own. It's quite nice to, sometimes to wake up to a nice teabag and you know, it's just, if you leave the, I get a little bit frustrated, but I want the tea. You know, in my breakfast I want the tea and I want to have a cup of tea and it's just putting the teabag in and I don't know if I put, yeah, I normally put a teabag in first and then the boiling water.

And it's just, when is it going to be ready? And even with a spoon, like picking it up and then dropping it in, get splashes, splashes go everywhere. Sometimes I end up with splashes on my, in my eyes. Yeah, sometimes I end up with tea in my eyes.

It never happens when I have teabagging. So it's, it's just, I just think, I mean I say my eyes, my glasses, although saying that I don't wear my glasses when I get my breakfast. Because when I get up in the morning, which is what I do tomorrow morning, and I did it this morning as well.

On a proper day, when I've made a recording the day before, which is, for me, that's a proper day. If I don't make a recording, a Let Me Bore You To Sleep recording, then it's not been a proper day. That's how I, I feel like I've accomplished something.

Maybe not much, but something. You know, like I've actually, I've created something, I've made use of some of my time. And bearing in mind that with the recording, making the recording, editing, processing, uploading, that's at least three hours a day I spend on that.

So maybe an hour and a half making the recording, because most of my recordings seem to last about an hour and a half these days. Used to be an hour on the dot. I don't know if you remember that.

Always used to finish within an hour. Like, just pretty much an hour. I don't know how many more times I've got to say an hour to stress that it was literally an hour.

But now, I don't watch the clock. Unless I do. So, I mean, if, if, for example, this was a Saturday night, or Saturday afternoon, should we say, because boxing is on Saturday afternoon in Dubai.

No, not in Dubai, in Wembley. And it's the Anthony Joshua Dubois fight, and it's a big old occasion, part of the Riyadh season. That's going to be starting about three o'clock.

So I will need to do the Saturday recording if I make one, you know, looking like, doing it at midday or one o'clock. Or if I do it at two o'clock, start at two o'clock, and the boxing starts at three, then that will be an hour long recording. Because I'll have, you know, I have to watch the time, because I don't want to miss the boxing.

But outside of that kind of situation, I generally don't watch the time when I'm making a recording. Especially now that I'm sitting back in the settee, on the settee, I don't have the laptop in front of me. Although yesterday I did have the iPad in front of me, but that was, I was using an app with the, not yesterday, yeah, yesterday, Sunday, yesterday, it was Monday today, Sunday.

Yeah, yesterday I was using the app Readly, R-E-A-D-L-Y, and it's got newspapers on there. So I was reading, because it was Sunday's, Sunday's papers. So, but they didn't have the time on it.

There's no time on the app, so I didn't know what time it was. It was easy enough to look, if I wanted to, but, you know, I don't like to, so, I don't really like to put that limitations on myself. So, when I get up in the morning, that was the point I was trying to make, when I get up in the morning, I'm going to talk about teabags, I'm about to, I'm about to.

Blimey, give me, give me, give me a chance. When I get up in the morning, so my normal morning routine is, I wake up, I guess that's pretty universal for most people, I suppose, it's kind of the first thing you do, you wake up, go to the toilet, I mean, maybe one day it'll be the opposite, it'll be reversed, but hopefully it won't.

So I wake up, then I go to the toilet, I've got to do a wee-wee, because I've always got, I always need to go to a wee-wee a little while before I can go for a wee-wee, because I, I don't want to ruin the ceiling, but it's, you know, which is a good thing, it means that everything's kind of working.

So, I go to do wee-wees, I normally look in the mirror and say hello to myself. I've got this new thing, I don't know why, why am I telling you this? Okay, because I do weights, I've got weights in my bedroom, I do them every day, and the only part of me that looks okay is my arms. I mean, my shoulders look okay as well, but the rest of me is just, is like a, I don't know.

Has anyone, I don't know if you've ever had Angel Delight, or what's the other one? Whip, something whip, Cool Whip. Can you imagine that? Just holding a bowl of that, a plate of Cool Whip, or jelly, or you know, something like that, and then just running along, just seeing it wobble, that's my body, basically. But my arms and my legs are okay, kind of.

So I do this thing where I just, I don't tense my arm, but I just move it up and down so I can see my biceps moving, and I don't even know why I told you, because it's not like I've got big biceps, it's just, they're not too bad. And it's about the only part of my body left, it's not the only part of my body left, most parts are still there, but just on its own, it don't look too bad.

Because sometimes, you know, because the mirror, which is to the side of my toilet, it's in the bathroom, if if I turn my back to the bath, then there's a mirror, and it's a little cabinet, what do they call it, you put it in the bathroom, a bathroom cabinet.

So it's one of them, two mirrors, and two little doors. It's been up there since I moved in, my dad put it up, and I remember that, because he helped me move in, well he didn't help me move in, because I didn't have any belongings, which is weird, right, because I lived in this smelly old little room before I moved here, and it was in a basement.

I was living like a vampire, basically, it was brilliant.

Anyway, I had a punch bag, a stand-up punch bag, exactly like I've got in my bedroom, exactly like I had, literally, this is the third one I've had, every time I've moved, I've left it, and they're like 200 quid, 250 pound each, and every time, or 180 pound or whatever, you're going back 10 years, but I left it there.

I did it when I moved out of the place I was, when I was doing my degree in counselling, I bought one and put it into the garden, because I was going to boxing like twice a week, so I had that and I'd train every night, well, when it wasn't raining, I'd train for like an hour in the garden, but when I moved out, to be honest with you, I forgot all about it, I was so focused on just moving my stuff, because I was evicted, and I was given notice and everything,

but I completely forgot that the punch bag was there, and then I got another one, not the next place I moved in, but the one after that, so a year later, so I stayed in the place for a year, then I moved to this dungeon place, so I got a punch bag, a stand-up punch bag and I had that there for a couple of years, and then when I moved out of there to move here, I just put it into the garden, the front garden, I don't know why,

why didn't I bring it with me, I left my weights, it's almost like I didn't want to bring anything with me, I had to bring the bed, because I needed the bed, I didn't have a wardrobe, I didn't have, I had the smelly chair, everything was damp in that room, so I had the chair that I brought with me, and I booked this big lorry or van, it was a lorry, but like a removal lorry, truck thing, and they laughed when they came in, they said look, there's three men turned up,

this big truck, and all there was to take was a couple of bags of clothes, some books, and one bed and a chair, they just, literally I think they took one thing each and that was it, and it was right at the back of the truck, and there was enough room, I mean you could have fitted like 200 people in there, I guess, I don't know, but that's not really my expertise about how many people you can fit in the back of a lorry, I'm just saying, lots of tea bags,

see I remember what we were talking about, I did have a kettle, I had to buy my own kettle when I lived in that room, because there was nothing there, it was a kitchenette, at the end of quite a long room, it was very, I could nearly touch either side of the room, of like width wise, with my arms, that's quite difficult, so it wasn't particularly wide, but it was just wide enough for him, for the landlord to legally let it out, but even though he had a kitchenette,

it was a shared toilet, or shared bathroom, so it wasn't eligible to be a flat, even though he called it a flatlet, it wasn't eligible, so when I was unemployed, near the end of living there, I wasn't able to get the full rent, so I ended up paying £22 a week, myself towards the rent, out of my £60 a week benefits, or whatever it was I was getting, so yeah, but I did have tea bags, which is the point, see I will bring it back to tea bags, continuously,

and that's the difference between this, and the other podcasts, the other normal Let Me Bore You To Sleep ones I do, this is still a Let Me Bore You To Sleep, Monday, boring objects, but I will keep bringing it back to the subject, to the object, I mean really, it could be Monday's boring subjects, or Monday's boring objects, or Monday's boring objects slash subjects, but that's a mouthful isn't it, so when I say objects, it doesn't have to be, it could be, it could be planes, but it could also be plane journeys,

now plane journeys isn't an object is it, holidays isn't an object, haircuts isn't an object, but that's also valid, does that make sense, so it just opens up the, opens it up, so there's lots, I've got, what am I 68 now, so I've got 68 years, I've got over 12 years of experience of being alive, so I've got, he's three foot tall, and he's 68 years old, so yeah, I, yeah the punch bag was weird, I left it, I could have just said, cos they were there to help me,

it's not like I had to carry this stuff myself, and I paid a good bit of cash to get the delivery as well, to get it all done, it was a professional operation, I didn't just like, get a friend to do it for 10 quid, it was, and they laughed and said, why did you pay so much money, cos they were just working for the company, they didn't, I think it was a charity, I think I might have, it might have been the Heart Foundation, yeah I think it was the Heart Foundation,

and they would also do deliveries and stuff, I think, and or it was Emmaus, which was a homeless charity, either way I didn't mind, cos the money was going to charity, so I was, I was fine, just happy to get out of there really, but why didn't I take my punch bag, and I gave my other, cos I've had a punch bag in here since I moved in here pretty much, I used to have a hanging up one, and I gave that to my friend downstairs, he never used it,

and he's told me that he was going to give it to another friend, like well, if you don't want it give it back to me, don't be giving it, giving my stuff away to other people, I've never been so angry, I just, yeah I'm trying to remember that phrase back, that phrase, phrase back, catchphrase, so yeah anyway, I, have had, this isn't about punch bags is it, ok, how did I, why was I talking about punch bags, so I wake up in the morning, I go to do a wee wee,

I get out of bed, now when I do get out of bed, I have to be very careful not to squash this one, because, as you're laying down, or as I lay down, I'm on the left side of the bed, so let's say there's two pillows, one's on the, oh blimey, sitting, yeah if I lay on my back, the wall is to my left, but technically I guess I'm on the right side of the bed, he's on the left side of the bed, facing the bed, if you're at the bottom of the bed,

the right side is where I am, but when I'm laying on my back, that's the left side, he's on the right side, because to my right is where he is, he sleeps either on the pillow, his pillow, he sleeps cuddled up to me, or he sleeps at the bottom of the bed, so I have to figure out where he is, before I get up, because I don't want to disturb him, like for example, this morning I woke up early, like three o'clock, which is rare, I normally wake up about four,

sometimes five, but it's about four o'clock roughly, and I'm in bed by about ten, nine or ten, and this morning I woke up early, but it wasn't, sometimes I wake up early and I get up, and I think, why did I get up?

I only woke up because I needed to go to the toilet, and I'm sitting there trying to edit a recording, and I've fallen asleep, but I realised, this was different, I was awake, but I was actually awake, and I think part of the reason of that, is because I got up so early, on a Sunday morning, to watch the boxing, which meant I spent quite a lot of time in bed yesterday, so I didn't kind of need so much sleep, so yeah, that's it really, tea bags, I don't drink tea, so yeah there's no point in this, but anyway, this is the end of the recording, I don't drink tea, why have I chosen to talk about this?

I didn't used to drink tea, for years and years and years, never drunk tea, not true, I didn't drink tea at home, I used to drink tea at work, or coffee at work, but I didn't drink tea or coffee at home, I just drank water, or coke, or beer, I wouldn't really drink tea or coffee, that wasn't my thing, but I was, I did grow up, drinking tea, I say grow up, I drunk tea, I don't remember drinking tea, before the age of, I don't know, the period of like seven onwards,

I don't remember drinking tea at seven, but I know we used to have tea, cups of tea, you know, as a family, British thing to do, just drinking tea, so definitely used to have tea, wasn't a big fan of coffee, especially coffee, that has hot milk in, like you know, because it's just, it's that skim across the top, that I just don't like, so, tea bags, when there was a time, I remember, I don't think us as a family, like in the house where I lived, with my dad, my step mum,

my 600 brothers, the, we just had tea bags, my memory is we had tea bags, however, when I went round my nan's, or my nan and granddad's, she would have proper tea, like in a, teapot, tea leaves, and, yeah, she'd have a, like a tea strainer, yeah, and biscuits and rock cakes, they were lovely, love of rock cakes, so yeah, that was, but that's tea leaves, so that's a different subject, isn't it really, although technically, tea bags are tea leaves, in a kind of, condomy, okay, maybe not condom, but you know,

contained, imprisoned, imprisoned tea leaves, would be a tea bag, with, perforations, perforated, little holes, little holes, yeah, it's quite ingenious really, when you think about it, it's just, my nan didn't like tea bags though, it wasn't real tea, I think, she was a, she was more horse and cart kind of girl, you know, like these spangled new things with wheels, no, she, only thing she'd have wheels on is a wheelbarrow, or anything with the word wheel attached, she never drove, my nan, never drove a car, my grandad didn't either,

I don't know if he was able to, I'm saying that because he was in the army, his career was in the army, before the second world war, so when he retired at 29, the war, it was just before the war broke out, and he went back in for another 6 years or whatever, but he'd served his time, so I'm guessing, you don't join the army without being able to drive, they teach you to drive, I'm guessing, because he would have gone in the army straight from school, and he, you know,

because my nan had an army pension, his army pension, she had her own pension, and some other stuff, so I remember her saying to me, that she's better off now than she's ever been, financially, this was, well, she'll be gone 10 years in December, the end of December, 29th of December, 10 years she'll be gone, so, but she said to me, I was going to say when she was alive, but that's kind of obvious, and if I was able to contact her, through some kind of medium,

or she was able to contact me from the spirit world, she's probably not going to be wanting to talk about pensions, is she, probably more interesting things to talk about, or teabags, funny enough, and that's something I might talk about, you know, if I was a ghost, I might come back, to start discussing, the time that I used to, iron my underpants, and my socks, but probably not everyone's going to be wanting to talk about stuff like that, anyway, I'll be coming back, you won't believe, Elvis Presley, and his feet stink,

he's got stinky feet, Elvis has got stinky feet, of course he hasn't, but you know, just something silly like that would be weird, so yeah, teabags, so when I get up in the morning, I, wake up, I get out of bed very carefully, so I don't squash this one, and sometimes, he'll open his eyes and look at me, and if it's early, he just like nods, like nah you're right, I'm staying here, just closes his eyes again, because once he's zonked out, that's it for him, it's getting hot in here,

that was my, jumper, my cardigan zip by the way, just in case, so he, sometimes, he will wake up, and he'll look at me, and I'll get the bed covers, and I'll put them over him, and he's okay for the next four hours, if I do that, but then other times, he just follows me in here, or I'll go into the bathroom, do a wee wee, and then I'll come out, I'll go into the kitchen, and I'll take my tummy tablet, which is for the acid reflux, take one of them a day,

probably like half an hour, to an hour before I eat, and then I come into the living room, sometimes he's on the settee already, just looking at me, or giving himself a clean, let's call it that, or he's laying down, on the settee, so I'll go and sit down, at the table at my desk, where my laptop is, open that up, I look for, you should check the stats, on the podcasts, check Facebook, see if there's any messages, any new people joined the Facebook group, which we have had today,

and I forgot to mention it, let me mention it, let me mention, we had a new member, of Jason Newland's Facebook group, Jason Newland's boring Facebook group, so where are we, here, let's welcome our new member, Emily, so hi Emily, welcome to the group, the group, what on earth was that, I've joined threads, which is like an extension of, is it Facebook, I don't know, but there's, or is it Instagram, extension of Instagram, the thing is, I don't know how it works, I'm very confused, very confused, by the whole thing,

I look at it, and I just like, I don't know, I don't understand, how it works, maybe I'm being slow, it wouldn't be the first time, oh well, so, come on, so I just check the stats, have a little look, see YouTube, check YouTube, if I've got a podcaster with it, that's what I do, so I'll walk over to the, recording equipment, take out the disc, you know the little, SD, hey, calm yourself down, take out the SD card, and then I'll stick it into the, the extender thing, extender,

I don't know what it's called, but anyway, it clicks into the iPad, adapter, yeah adapter, I think they call it, you can basically connect things, through the lightning USB, or from the normal USB, things, into the iPad, through that, so it's like an extension, adapter thing, so I put the, the disc into there, and I'll open up, I'm going to go through everything I do, but I'll start editing, I'll start editing the, the podcast, and then, after I've, I'll try and do all of the editing if I can,

but I can't, let's say get it all done, so the editing can take an hour, so what I do is, I do some of it, I get as much as I can done, and then I go into kitchen, and I'll boil the kettle, but I have to, make sure there's no lime scale in the kettle, so I kind of squish it around a little bit, and, because I don't, I'm not a big fan of lime scale and stuff, so I boil the kettle, I have ready break, in the morning,

so I, I put some milk in a bowl, I normally have to wash up the bowl, because I've only got two bowls, I've got one plate and two bowls, and the two bowl, one bowl is, quite often I've got one dirty one, and one soaking, or I let them both soak in overnight, and I wash one of them up, the thing is, the washing up liquid I've got at the moment, is really strong, it's very liquid, but it's this lemon, thingamajig, and, it doesn't stink, that's not the right word,

but it's very strong smelling, and I don't, I can still smell it on the plate, or on the dish rather, the bowl, the breakfast bowl, or it could be a soup bowl, I mean you could eat, or you could have, sorry Vinnie started barking at, something in the garden, what's that on your, on your tooth, he's got something stuck, no, look if I want to do that to your tooth, I'll do whatever I want, because your teeth belong to me, yes they do, yes they do, okay, maybe they don't,

he's laying on me now, I'm just stroking his, his chest, he likes having his chest stroked, he does, so, so I boil the, the kettle, and, I'll put some milk in a bowl, once I've washed it, the thing is the washing up liquid is so strong, that I have to keep rinsing it out, until the smell has gone, the smell of, the washing up liquid, because that, I don't want that on my bowl, I did realise that actually, part of the reason I was smelling it, because it was,

I had bubbles on my thumb, so I was smelling my thumb, instead of the bowl, and the bowl was fine, it was just I was smelling, I was smelling the washing up liquid, because it was on my thumb, in the, in the form of bubbles, but, now what I do is I rinse my, what the, what the, what am I talking about, I, I now rinse my thumb, so that, that doesn't happen anymore, because I've learnt from my mistakes, it's a new thing, and I put some milk in, into the bowl,

it's pretty much the same amount every time, I don't measure it, I don't have a little measuring bowl, because, I don't really see the point, especially as, I put the ready brick, the powder or whatever it is, the oats, into the milk afterwards, so it kind of doesn't matter, how much milk, I put into the bowl, it just means the more I put in, the bigger breakfast I'll have, so, I'll put that into the microwave, for the same amount of time every time, blimey, there was a very strange noise coming,

shaking the whole flat, what the heck is that, mind you I did hear a motorbike earlier, maybe it's a motorbike, yeah it's a motorbike, bless them, yeah so, 2 minutes and 40 seconds, I used to do 2 minutes and 50 seconds, now I do 2 minutes and 40 seconds, sometimes, if it's a smaller amount of milk, I'll do 2 minutes and 30 seconds, occasionally I'll do 2 minutes and 20 seconds, it just depends, sometimes I have a feeling, I have a feeling that, it doesn't need so long, I don't,

I don't know why, I just get a feeling like, no there's not enough in there, you know, maybe it's the end of a bottle, it's not enough, maybe it's the extra 10 seconds, of microwave ability, so, I'll put that in there, what I'll then do is, let's say the kettle's boiled at this point, I'll put a tea bag in, the cup first, that's a, I always do that, it's a mug but it's not a very big mug, I used to have a big mug, but I don't know where it's gone,

I think I might have broke it, definitely used to have a big one, this one is blue, I don't know where this one came from, might not even be mine, it might be someone else's, so, because sometimes, I mean my friend downstairs used to come up here, with a cup of tea, or I'd go down there with a cup of tea, you know, and I'd end up leaving my plate there, or leaving, I wouldn't have a cup of tea in a plate would I, but you know, maybe he'd have something,

he'd have, sometimes we'd swap each other's cutlery, or dishes and stuff, he'd have my plates, and sometimes I'd have his plates, and he'd cook a meal, and he'd give me the meal, and I'd keep the plate, and sometimes, sometimes a plate tastes better than a meal, do-do-do-do-do-do-do, it's not true, I've never, never eaten a plate that tasted nice, no plates taste nice, so I, that mug might have belonged to him, I'm not sure, I don't think it did, but this way, it's this, I don't know, I can't remember,

but I've only got, I think I've got one mug left now, just yeah, I seem to have lost a lot of plates and dishes over the years, so, so I put the teabag in first, that's the point, and then I put the hot water in, and I leave it in there to ferment, or whatever the right word is, er, gradiate, I don't know, what's the correct word for, is that the right word, ferment, so then I go into the bedroom, I go into the bathroom, and I do my bathroom deeds,

at this point, I normally need another wee-wee, and, well I don't need one, but I do one anyway, because I figure, while you're in there, you might as well just, it just makes sense, doesn't it, why don't you come into the kitchen with me, because that's, it's just the journey I'm making, so I might as well make use of that journey by taking something with me, so that's what I feel, I might as well empty my bladder, if I'm near the bladder emptying machine, so that's what I do, and,

brush my teeth, and then I, use the mouthwash, and then I, clean my face with the wet wipes, I've got these, Nivea or whatever, you know the, face cleansing wipes, they're, I don't know, they moisturise and all kinds of things, so I use, I do that, in the morning and at night, and sometimes more than once a day, if it's like a hot day or something, if I've been particularly sweaty, and, yeah, and then I wash my hands as well, just so that, I've probably already done that after being to the toilet, I pretend, because I'm saying it out loud, if I say that I do it afterwards, it might sound a bit grim, you mean you only wash your hands once a month?

No, I didn't say that, so I, do that, and then I dry my hands off, now during this period, I normally hear the microwave go, ting, ting, or whatever, which is, that means that the microwave has finished, it's work, I mean that's the only thing it does all day, doesn't, you know it gets used once a day, and that's it's whole purpose really, is just, warming up that milk, it's not a bad little job is it really?

So, I do that, I mean I'd rather be a microwave than a toilet, I mean at least I haven't got to buy the microwave flowers once a month, and a letter of apology, occasionally, put it this way, I've never had to book, a Valentine's dinner, for my microwave, so I come back, I've done that, I come into the kitchen again, and my tea's ready, so I move that, I've got a tea bag, because that's what this is all about, tea, so tea bags, I move the cup, onto the side,

away from the cupboard, and the reason for that is because, when I open the cupboard, and I pull out the, what's it, the bag of oats, or the ready brick, sometimes a few bits, just like of dust, from the oats, so I move the cup of tea, away from that, I get the milk out of the microwave, it's still in the bowl, I find that's the easiest way to, transport it, and it's, normally, because if I did this, and I just waited, because sometimes I've had ready brick, and I've just waited,

for it to ting, and I go and get it, and it's too hot, the bowl's hot, and it's like quite unpleasant, it's not such an enjoyable experience, but if I do it, in this process, by the time I go into the kitchen, the bowl, it's not cold, but the bowl is cool enough for me to pick it up, and everything's at the, the correct temperature, pretty much, so, so I do the, I do the ready brick, then I come into the, into the bedroom, and, what I do is,

I turn the TV on, at this point, I haven't had the television on, and I sit down, Vinnie's either in bed, or he's sitting on, my chair, my seat, and he moves out of the way, now, sort of lays down, he cuddles up to, like my, on the seat, seat bit where I'm sitting, rather than on the leg rest, where he likes to hang out sometimes, and he goes back to sleep, or, he just goes back into the bedroom, or he might still be in the bedroom, dreaming of tea bags,

I imagine, so, that's my routine, the thing is, I nearly ran out of tea, in fact I did run out of tea bags the other day, and, I said to my neighbour, I didn't know what to do, because I didn't have enough money to buy any tea bags, and, I don't like to ask for things, I don't, especially neighbours, I don't, like in real life, I don't like to really kind of bug people, especially for things like that, anyway, I kind of did, because, I was running out, well I didn't have any,

and I was going to have to have my breakfast in the morning, without any tea bags, but I did get paid that next morning, but it would have meant I'd have to go to the petrol station, at like, five o'clock in the morning, or six o'clock, and I didn't really want to do that journey, really, the night before, I just, I sent a text, didn't phone, because I didn't want to sort of disturb her, this neighbour downstairs, and I texted and she, I said, I suppose you've got a couple of tea bags I can nick please,

and she didn't reply, I thought, oh no, I've overstepped the boundaries, I've gone, I've gone too far this time, oh, what is she thinking of me, blindly asking to, asking for a tea bag, oh, I knew this would happen one day, but then, I think she was out, and a couple of hours later she replied, of course, and I'll bring them up now, and she came up and, she gave me like a big bag, not a, you know, like a shopping bag, but a, see-through plastic bag, full of tea bags,

and, I, it's the same brand as what I smoke, not smoke, drink, which is PG Tips, or is it Tetley, no, PG Tips, so, I only wanted a couple, but she gave me enough to last me the week, so, that was good, I didn't have to buy any tea bags at all, well, I've got enough here, because I only have, four cups of tea a day, one in the morning, one early morning, when I wake up, one mid-morning, one mid-afternoon, and then, one to, yeah, one like, late afternoon,

and I don't have any tea after that, the last time I have a cup of tea is about four o'clock, I don't drink tea in the evening, so, I, yeah, so that was quite good, but I just, it's like, I don't like having to ask, but I just, the idea of getting up and not having a cup of tea, just felt weird, because I got into that routine, of drinking tea, in the morning, and there was a time, back in, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, 1997, and, I was living with my friend,

I had a security job, I can't remember which site I was on, because I had lots of different sites, that I worked at, over the years, that I was working there, but I did, I used to wake up in the morning, the first thing I'd do, was make a cup of tea, and, have a bit of toast, and I'd go back to bed, I'd write in my journal, because that's what I had to, I was a prolific journal, inputter, so I used to, write everyday, and I kept journals for,

a long time, and it was my only real expression, I guess, my only real way to kind of, I found it was, fairly good to, kind of discuss, with myself, in a certain way, work things out, just like, how am I feeling, why am I feeling like this, you know, I just found it helped, and, I suppose in some ways, I do that now, but I do it in a verbal form, which is hopefully, nice and boring for people to listen to, but back then, there was no internet, I,

it wasn't far off being internet though, I think there might have been internet, but it wasn't like, as we know it, I think some businesses started to use it, and then it, you know, but it wasn't actually publicly around, I've never heard of it, in this country anyway, so, the first time I heard of the internet was, it was 97, but it was late in 97, and then again, yeah, like then 98, 99, and I didn't, I liked the internet, and I used the internet, but it wasn't until 2000,

that I started, really liking the internet, and I started building websites and stuff, so that's when I got, completely hooked, on website building, and HTML coding, and all that stuff, but yeah, that was my little, I went through a little phase of that, but yeah, I used to have my tea back, you know, I'd get a cup of tea, you know my friend, is this weird, just tell me if this is weird or not, he used to, I used to, and, I'd open the cupboard, and he was inside the cupboard,

with his trousers down, that's weird isn't it, it's a weird way to sleep, don't you think, what he used to do, he used to leave things open, which now gives you a different visual, when you imagine him underneath the cupboard, in the cupboard, he honestly, if he ate bread, right, he'd leave the bread open, he wouldn't put it back in the cupboard, he wouldn't like twist it round, you know, so it's kind of sealed again, just leave it open, butter, he'd leave out, which I kind of understand now,

because the kind of butter he had, was Irish butter, and it goes hard in the fridge, so give him that, but margarine, I don't think he'd leave anything, just leave it out, I just, I just, I know it's probably time to let it go, but, anyway, so, just thinking back to the time, so I used to, I can't remember the first time I had tea, and there was a time when I used to, never drink tea, I think really, when I was in my late teens, when I'd left school,

I don't think I really drank tea, I was more into Coke, or fizzy drinks, Lilt, Lilt was one of my favourites, and water, I've always been a water drinker, so, right from, yeah, even when I was a kid, I just, I like water, so that's, I think that's probably the only healthy thing that I've done consistently, is I drink a fair amount of water, the, tea, I'm trying to think when I started, and there was a time, oh man, because when I stopped smoking, I kind of, back in, 2000,

there was a period, for about a year, when I put a lot of weight on, and I was eating more, and I was drinking more, and all that stuff, but there was this little period, when I used to watch the wrestling, late at night, I think it was live, like it was the, WW, F, I think it was back then, and now it's WWE, isn't it, it was WWF, in the late 90s, oh no, 2000s, early 2000s, so I used to watch that, and it was so funny, it was just,

so anarchic, so just silly, but I used to love it, because they'd have the live shows, and they'd have the British Bulldog, and The Rock, and Big Show, and what's the name, Big Show, and Triple H, I can't remember, I remember their names blindly, Steve Austin, Stone Cold, Steve Austin, and I used to follow it, I just used to enjoy it, because it was just, it was funny, it was silly, but it was funny, and the other programmes I used to watch, but the reason I mention the programmes,

because they were late at night, early hours of the morning sometimes, but I went through this little phase, when I was having a cup of tea, so I'd go down into the kitchen, because I was lodging in this place, so I just had a little room, but I went into the kitchen, I try and be quiet, because I do try and be considerate and try to be, and I, it's hard to do that with a kettle, because they're not the quietest things, but I'd close the doors and stuff, the problem is,

whenever I made a cup of tea, back then I liked to practise on the drums, so yeah, it was a bit of a noisy experience, so I made a cup of tea, and I'd have crumpets, they're like tea crumpet things, and I think I might have had jam on the crumpets, or maybe I had crackers with jam, I think it was crumpets, and I'd bring them upstairs, and I'd sit there, and I'd eat these crumpets, or the jam on crackers, or maybe jam on toast even, it was just whatever was available,

and it was lovely, nice cup of tea, and I probably spent all day working on the websites, building websites and stuff, because that was what I was into at that time, and it was so nice, I just remember that, so that nice cup of tea, but I didn't drink tea that often, even then, I mean all the way through, really, having been brought up to drink tea, or brought up with tea, I then went quite, not against it, I didn't really drink tea much, and then, I went through a period,

because I used to work in this cold, like this place was very cold, like a fridge thing, so a cup of coffee, or a cup of tea, that was warm from the machine, was actually useful, it was just to warm me up, and then, but it was always the same kind of tea, I mean, I never had a favourite type of tea, I didn't really care, I was, I guess I was affected by the adverts, I didn't know what kind of tea I was drinking at home, so, just didn't care,

just a cup of tea, I wasn't a connoisseur, hadn't really, yeah I wasn't bothered really, but the big tea bags, the big companies back then, you had PG Tips, Tetley Tea, I can't remember what other ones there was, is it PG Tips that used to have the monkeys, the talking monkeys, all dressed up, I think that was PG Tips, Beans, Means, Hinds, no that's a different product, but yeah it was the monkeys I think, Tetley Tea, unless that was Tetley Tea with the monkeys, what other, you've got PG Tips, Tetley Tea,

Red Label, oh is that another one, but that was, yeah I don't know about that one, it was in a red box I think, PG Tips, Tetley Tea, I mean there's lots of different brands, I just can't remember, what ones, I think PG Tips and Tetley are the two biggest brands, yeah I think they are, in the country, there's probably others that are really really famous and I've not thought of them, it's because I use, what's the Yorkshire Tea, that's quite popular I think, Yorkshire Tea, but it's a little bit too strong for me,

although sometimes, not so much now but, in the past, and I do mean recent past, going back a few months, I used to put two tea bags into a cup, so that the tea would be ready quicker, so it saved me about two seconds, but I didn't need to do that when I was making my breakfast because the tea bag would be in the cup of hot water for maybe four minutes, maybe longer, so I didn't need two tea bags, but I think part of the reason is because I was visiting someone that was making me tea,

but one tea bag, it wasn't that they were putting too much milk in, but I think they were putting too much milk in, so with two tea bags it kind of cancelled out the extra milk, because I literally put a dash of milk in my tea, not really a, I like milk, but not in tea so much, although I don't really want black tea, I can drink black tea if it's got sugar in it, but I don't have sugar in my tea anymore, so it completely ruins the point of it,

in fact, I don't drink tea, because, I'm getting used to it, I'm getting used to it not having sugar, because I haven't had sugar for over three months in my tea, so I'm getting used to it, and I suppose if I'm honest, and let's face it, we all know I don't like being honest, I probably don't even notice it so much anymore, yeah, I probably don't actually, so my taste buds have readjusted around it, but, it's still not the same, however, you know, it's been worth it, I'm glad,

I'm glad that I cut down on my sugar, and it, you know, I actually did make some changes, so, my blood pressure is perfect now, my blood sugar level, still waiting to find out about that, but the, the, the cholesterol is way down, and my weight's decreased by about, I've lost over a stone, maybe a stone and a half, in four or five months, so, yeah, it's been good, it's definitely not, because sugar's quite easy to cut out, it's not easy, necessarily, but it's easy in the sense of,

outside of processed food, which potentially has sugar in, it's quite, yeah, we know that there's sugar in chocolate, there's obviously sugar in sugar, and, as far as sugar in a tea and stuff, but sugar in chocolate cakes, biscuits, they all have sugar in them, so, by cutting all that stuff out, it has, and fizzy drinks, but I'd already drunk, I'd already cut out fizzy drinks pretty much altogether, long before I started cutting out sugar, that was more to do with my tooth, I had a tooth incident at the beginning of the year,

and I thought, ooh, I remember that, and I wasn't sitting in this chair, but, I might have been standing up, but I remember thinking, ooh, that's it, no more coke, I remember like, no more coke for me, no, no, no, no, no, no more coke, no, although, I do sometimes feel just the urge to have one in my mouth, you know, just, just that, you know when you open a can of coke, and it just, that first like, especially if it's cold, or on a summer, hot summer's day, but no,

I chose, I'm not putting one anywhere near my lips again, this is it, I say again, I mean, there's no harm in having a drink of coke every now and then, but I haven't yet, and I don't miss it now, I don't know, the fact that I'm talking about it may mean that I do miss it, but I used to drink six cans a day, six cans, sometimes a lot more, but six cans every day, and, yeah, I liked, I liked it a lot, and sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar,

it's like continuously, cakes, biscuits, cans of drink, you know, it's like sugar was my, it was my everything, it was a love affair, I had a love affair with sugar, and that love affair came to an end, and now, literally, my tea is bitter, now, like at the end of lots of love affairs, there's bitterness, and that's my tea, although I'm getting used to it now, I'm getting used to it, but just getting used to something doesn't mean it's okay, but hey, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine,

the weird thing about tea, I always thought tea is just tea, it's a tea bag, it's tea, that's it, just a tea bag, and, you know, I've served cups of tea in a canteen, I've served cups of tea in various different settings over the years, different jobs I've had, you know, I've served hundreds of cups of tea in a setting, in a seating or whatever, you know, during a lunch time, when I worked in a canteen, but, what I never really knew about, did I know about it?

I don't think so, I might have kind of known about them, but it wasn't until I worked in a gift shop, a Buddhist gift shop, and that was around November time, maybe December, November, December 2003, I started working in this gift shop, and they, I couldn't believe it, they said, because I was a newbie, one of my jobs was to make tea for everyone, and the Buddhists loved their tea, I came to find out, especially this bunch, they loved their tea, and, I said okay, I'll make you a cup of tea,

and I said, I said where's the kettle, they said it was just near the sink, I said where's the sink, they said the kitchen, where's the kitchen, like just show me around, okay, so they showed me where it was, and I said where's the, where's the tea, they said oh, it's above the, it's above the kettle, like the cupboards, and it's in the other cupboard as well, I thought blimey, they must buy in bulk, so, because there was, one, two, one, two, one, two, three, four full time people working there,

and me, I mean I was kind of, sort of employed, to cover the Christmas period, and I stayed on, until the summer, but part time, so it was only a part time job, but I probably did a few more hours during Christmas, because that's their busiest, that's basically, for the rest of the year, I mean there was also like Mother's Day, and, you know, birthdays and stuff like that I guess, but generally, Christmas, and the, bank holiday sales, that was where they, were the most busiest, a lovely little shop,

it was really nice, and I worked in both of them, I worked in that one there, in that town, and then when I moved, to go, to be closer to my university, I worked in that one, that gift shop, so I ended up working in two different gift shops, from the same, it was the same Buddhist company, so, yeah so there was like four, four, five people including me, and maybe a part-timer as well, maybe even a volunteer, so it was, there was a handful of people, maybe six,

and they wanted a cup of tea, so what I did is, I got one of those little pads, little pad thing, whatever, and I just like go to people, like basically, you know, how many sugars, do you want milk, how many sugars, that was it, that's what I thought I was going to be writing down, that is not what I ended up writing down, I was, honestly I couldn't believe, what was happening, I was getting requests like, licorice, and strawberry, echinacea, and rattlesnake, and stinging nettles, literally stinging nettles, stinging nettle tea,

with, crocodile tongue, I don't know, whatever, different, so many different types of tea, sometimes mixed, never any sugar, never any milk, well sometimes soya milk, so sometimes they would have like normal, tea, but with soya milk, they didn't drink, never had milk in there, and, I remember looking at this list thinking, really, really, how was that tea bag, how was that tea, well, I went in to the, to the kitchen bit, and the cupboard, above, the, where the kettle area was, the sink, full of tea bags, but not the ones I needed,

I thought, well I can't do the, stinging nettles, and albatross tea, and the, wicked witch's hat, and Dorothy's, toothbrush, tea is not, it's not there either, and they said, no, no, it's in the other cupboard, I opened the other cupboard, there was like, 50 boxes of tea, lots of different, everything you can imagine, I'm, licorice, I, honestly, I, you might think I'm exaggerating, and I probably am, but, there was a lot of tea bags, a lot of boxes of tea, of all types, never seen, hardly any of them before,

I knew about, mint tea, I'd heard about that before, and, the, I think that's supposed to be quite good for you, isn't it, I think, for cleansing, and stuff, well, anyway, I didn't know what I was going to find, when I opened these boxes, so it all seemed a little bit too, not Ouija boardy, but, witchcrafty, but just, a little bit herbally, a little bit, I guess they were herbals, herbs, a little bit, esoteric, possibly, a little bit Stonehenge, a little bit, I'm getting out of here, I'm not going to hide,

kind of, it was a bit, a bit, not sure about this, but anyway, I opened them up, and they were just, the boxes, it was just like a normal box of tea, bags, looked exactly the same as tea bags, but, had, or smelt different, definitely, a lot of different fruit teas, strawberry, and blackcurrant, and, as I said, peppermint was one, and none of them had caffeine in, even the tea bags didn't have caffeine, and I think it was, I don't think there was any normal tea, in fact,

I think I had to go out and buy some for myself, because I wasn't willing to try any of that, muck, that they were drinking, I think that was my attitude at the time, although I came round, and, I did, pretty much tried a lot of them, a lot of the different teas, and they were okay, I just, it wasn't tea, you know, it wasn't tea, they call it tea, but it wasn't tea, because tea is tea, isn't it, and, putting something in, in the same format as a tea bag,

doesn't make it tea, you know, it's, put a squirrel in a goldfish bond, a goldfish bowl, doesn't make it a goldfish, it's, you know, it wasn't, it wouldn't be a nice thing to do, it was saying just, generally, I only tried it once, but generally, it's just like, this isn't tea, but it is, a flavoured water, which you could argue that's what tea is, but it wasn't too bad, because one of the things about, one of the things about Buddhism, is, one of the, pre-tech, you know, what you call them,

is to not, indulge in stimulants, and that doesn't just involve, alcohol or any of those things, but also caffeine is a stimulant, so, I mean not everybody, abides by that rule, not everyone classes, caffeine as, you know, as a stimulant, but some of them did, so they really tried to keep off anything like that, I was never that hardcore, but I did, well, I didn't even stop drinking, I did stop drinking for June 2004, I don't drink any alcohol ever now, but I used to, hell yes, if I was,

you know someone actually said to me, not to me, but they said about this podcast, that I must be drunk, because of the way I talk, and the stuff I talk about, my stomach's gurgling, the ironic thing, it's probably not ironic at all, but the thing is, if I was drunk, this would not, be like this, this recording would not, it wouldn't be like this, I never once, made a Let Me Bore You To Sleep, whilst drunk, in fact I don't even think I've even, had a drink, whilst making a recording,

like, alcoholic beverage, not, I don't think even once, I might be wrong, but I don't think I ever have, definitely, I haven't even been drunk, since, I don't think I've ever been drunk, inside this flat, it's only when I've gone out to, like weddings, and stuff like that, just to kind of, I've always, I've always struggled a little bit, with big, social events, so yeah, but anyway, I, this is not how I would sound, I don't mean, I'd be slurring, I don't mean it like that, I mean, I'm not like this,

when I'm drunk, I'm a different, different little fishy, altogether, I would say, depending on my mood, but I think it possibly, accentuates the mood, I'm in, which is, can be either good or not so good, so yeah, that's why I don't, it's not why, because I don't, I've got no interest in alcohol anymore, which is, probably why I drink tea, because, there is, my stomach's gurgling, can you hear that?

If I didn't drink tea, it'd just be water, and, water all the time, is, it's a bit, it's not really, exciting, not that a cup of tea is exciting, necessarily, but it is, it's nice to have something a bit different, I suppose, I can, drink fruit juice, try and find one that's low in sugar, but, generally, I seem to have found an even, you know, I might, I'm thinking about going, getting back into juicing, where I used to do carrots, and, various vegetables, and stuff, and, I had a juicing machine,

that was quite good, I might get back to doing that again, because it's quite good for detoxification, and, it's, got a lot of vitamins, and stuff in there, so, I might look into that, I don't know, we'll see, the other thing, okay, so, that was, I mean, so many different, types of, tea bags, now, I made a bit of a mistake, do you know when you, try and tidy up, and you put all your tea bags, into kind of, one big container, well, I got a little bit carried away with that,

and realised, that all, of the tea bags, looked exactly the same, even though they weren't, so I ended up having to guess, which boxes I went back into, so, yeah, that was, that was a weird situation, but that was, that was alright, I don't, I haven't had fruit tea, for a long time, but I used to drink fruit tea, you know, every now and then, and all I, we have to say that sentence, every now and then, I think of the Bonnie Tyler song, I need a hero,

if I don't have a hero, till the end of the night, I need a hero, so, every now and then, I get a little bit, it's going wild, turn around, every now and then, I get a little bit, sound of my tears, around, every now and then, I get a little bit, I love Bonnie Tyler, I was so sad, when she tried, when she, she actually applied, to be on, what's that, chair turnaround, music thing, not the X Factor, but the other one, where they've got their, they've got their backs,

to the singer, and then they turn around, the voice, the UK, the voice, Bonnie Tyler applied for that, not as a celebrity, but as an ordinary person, as a normal member of the public, and I, not understand, to this day, why, because she didn't even get through, it didn't even turn around, and, as far as I, she is still a superstar, she's, you know, like Shirley Bassey, or, Bonnie, what's her name, what's her name, Lulu, or, I'm trying to think, Flash Boots, Welcome to the Thunder Zone, Thunder Zone,

I can't think of her name now, but she was, you know, someone like, I know that she had a much, bigger career, than any of the others, not Bonnie, but this, this one, I can't remember her name now, I know exactly what she looks like, I know the songs she plays, she played rather, but, not Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, what a voice, but, you know, someone like Aretha Franklin, she was, a legend wasn't she, she was, in a, on the, on the level, on the level of, not, not necessarily fame,

but just, accomplishment, Aretha Franklin was, one of the true greats, and, but I think Bonnie Tyler, was also, a superstar, to me, because those songs, you know, especially the, for, Turn around Every now and then I get a little bit turn around every now and then I got a little bit Bright eyes Every now and then I get apart cause I need you more tonight And I need you more than ever And if you only hold me tight We'll be holdin' on forever We'll be holdin' on to the end of

the night And it's goin' on to never be the end of the night I'll always be your side by the end of the night I really need you tonight Forever's gonna start tonight Forever's gonna start tonight Once upon a time I was fallin' in love Now I'm only fallin' apart Something I sent to a total eclipse of the heart That's it, total eclipse of the heart That was one of my favourite songs ever I mean, in the world, ever In my entire world of being alive That was one of my favouritest songs As was the Down Under Minutework They did the song, what was it called?

It was about Do you come from a land down under, down under Yeah, it was That was, I think that was kind of a similar period to The total eclipse of the heart from Bonnie Tyler And I would have been about 12 That was a very, very memorable period of my life And I loved the songs of that year That was just one of the really good years of the 80s for me Personally, songs-wise, song-wise And I think I had my appendix out that year as well When I was 12 So that was a lovely holiday I loved being in hospital Having the appendix out That was one of the highlights of my life, that was Sad, but it's true And What else?

So Even Like, when I had my adenoids out Trust me, I'm going back to teabags See, I stick to the subject Told you I don't do that in any other recording I do On the Let Me Boyd Asleep podcast I never, I don't I don't really keep I suppose with the Q&A Fridays I do Because I've got questions that I answer So I am kept in check with the questions So they bring me back to what I'm doing But outside of that, this You know,

the fact that I'm here to talk about teabags Is It keeps me focused As you've probably noticed, I've been incredibly focused on teabags And I'll be honest with you, I feel quite proud of myself I think this might be the greatest accomplishment Of all time That anyone's ever done Any human ever When I had my adenoids out When I was 8 Yeah, I was 8 years old 7 or 8 Basically it's because I was going I was partially deaf in one ear I say partially,

quite badly deaf in one ear And I was having earaches And I didn't know what was causing it And they didn't know what was causing it, the doctors And I kept having tests and I went through a period when I was going to the school nurse Nearly every day With an earache And They kept examining my ears And they were giving me hearing tests And I was Partially, you know, I was like I say partially,

I don't know to what extent But I was deaf in one ear We don't know how long it was for Whether I'd been born like that Whether it's The doctors said at the time it could have been caused by a Trauma to the head Or to the ear Or, you know, it could have been Multiple things But I might have been born like that And There was a discussion at the time With the teachers I think my step mum said to me That's why I was so behind in school That's

probably one of the reasons why I was so behind in school I mean it was The simple fact that we kept moving around Like before Before I was with her We moved around so much That I never really settled in one school And then even when we went and lived with her And my dad It was I still moved to three different junior schools And then to high school So I was in my third junior No, I was in the second junior school Of that town And I'd already been in another junior school before that

So I'd moved around a lot So I didn't The theory What she said was Weird that I remember this but She said something Yeah Why are you hiding in the cupboard?

That was one thing But then when I came out I said No, nothing So why are you wearing my bra?

So that Anyway, forget that She said Why did you I said to her You know You know like What do you mean This is why I'm behind in school She said Well you know that we've all been calling you a dunce all this time I said Yeah, I noticed She laughed I didn't And No, she didn't say that She said You've not been able to hear properly Which means that The teachers thought you were just ignoring them But actually Because I used to sit at the back Because I was trying

to ignore the teachers The I didn't want to be You know I didn't want the attention on me really And I I guess I wasn't able to hear properly What was going on The fact is, I mean I wasn't interested anyway And I also Found it very distracting having other people around And very noisy sometimes Even though I was partially deaf I used to Didn't like the noise But I used to sit very very close to the television And I remember the Yeah,

my dad always used to say How come whenever you talk to me You always You always move your right ear towards my face I said I don't know Didn't know I was doing that But I always started trying to hear He said But you're only two inches away Get your ear out of my mouth I was like No I I didn't know I didn't know that I was partially deaf Didn't know it Did not know Until the doctors told me And I was As I was getting tested And I used

to have this machine Used to go Beep Beep All the different sounds And I'd be in this little cubicle with headphones on And I used to have to press the button Every time I could hear the sound And They'd do it in each ear You know, sort of tested So one ear was Okay And the other ear was not okay So at the end of that They removed my adenoids Because they said Well,

it must be some kind of a blockage So this might help To clear the canal Or whatever I don't really know how it all works So I went to hospital There's teabags involved in this story Don't worry And Just Just letting you know I'm on the ball So I was in there This was like a This wasn't a nice experience The same as when I had my appendix out That was brilliant That was in a bright ward Upstairs You know Other kids It was great This one Downstairs Like in a

Some kind of crypt It was dark It was Underground I think And it wasn't As far as I remember There wasn't even anyone else in the room It was a kids ward But it was just There might have been one other person One other kid And it was just Dull And Mmm Grimy It wasn't Yeah But it was an old hospital They closed it down And Yeah I'm not sure if they removed the other kid from the bed first But I imagine they did So I This woman She was a

I guess she was a nurse She might have not been a nurse But she came with a trolley Full of stuff Like tea Coffee You know Anything you could want And she said Would you like a hot drink Before bedtime And I said What do you mean bedtime? She said Well Bedtime I said I've been in this bed for three days All time is bedtime When you live in a bed She laughed She said Do you want a cup?

I said What's on offer? What is it? She said Tea, coffee, hot chocolate or bovril Those were the four things Have you got any fruit tea? Stinging nettles maybe?

I didn't say that Erm So she said Yeah So tea, coffee, hot chocolate Maybe bovril I think it might have been hot chocolate or bovril I know they're not the same thing But they're kind of similar Er to me And Bovril I've never had bovril before And I just thought I couldn't decide Something about me you might not know Apart from being super sexy Is Oh did I say Lies Other lies No I've Struggled For Since I was little To make decisions To choose Which is why I just stick to

the same thing I eat the same breakfast every day I eat the same thing every time I go to McDonalds Not that I go in there very often but It's been the same meal For 30 years pretty much A quarter pound of cheese With a milkshake That's what I've had Just have the same thing Sweetcorn pineapple pizza If I have pizza If I start looking at the menu I don't know what to do It's too much choice Too confusing I can't Whenever I make a choice or a decision Then I change my mind So if I go into a restaurant with somebody I choose what they're eating Because otherwise I want what they're eating Does that make sense?

Like if they have A burger And chips Or something tasty And I choose a salad When my salad arrives Quite often the meals will arrive at the same time I will want what they've got So Whatever they've got I want It's not that I want other people's stuff It's just I can't choose Even when I've ordered something I start thinking I start looking at the menu again thinking Oh Perhaps I Maybe I'd like some asparagus Instead Asparagus soup I don't know what asparagus is But I might like some in soup What if they do it on toast?

So yeah Do it in tea Tea bags Asparagus tea I'm not sure Isn't asparagus supposed to be quite good for something?

Can't remember what I'm not sure Asparagus Hmm So I Struggle to make decisions So that's why I'll eat the same as what other people eat Unless they're having something that I don't like Now Generally As things are now I probably wouldn't choose Well I wouldn't If I was with someone Let's say I met up with my dad In a cafe or something And he had a full English cooked breakfast I would not have the same thing I would have done Six months ago But now I wouldn't So In a situation

like that I'd have to choose something else But at the same time If I had something healthy Or tasteless Healthy and tasteless Maybe I wouldn't It'd taste worse Just knowing that he was tasting nice stuff Although If I go into a cafe Especially the ones around here Not that there are any around here But in town When I used to go into town One of my favourite things to have was A Cheese omelette Chips, beans Two slices of bread And butter And a can of coke Or a cup of tea, depending And I used to

love that Because I thought, well it's got eggs So it's relatively healthy Beans are good for fibre And that was it really I suppose you get some protein From the eggs, don't you?

And the cheese Has got protein in it And The bread The margarine On the bread, that's got Calcium Possibly But yeah, it's choosing Choosing things That's why when I was in that gift shop Bringing it back to tea again All the choices Was too much for me Didn't like it I'd rather just have Like I have in my cupboard I don't drink coffee anymore I just drink tea And water So I've got one Well,

I haven't got a box I've got that bag of tea bags Generally I've got one Box of tea bags Nothing else to choose from No other drinks And that's kind of What I drink But if I had Like 20 different Types of tea I'd spend half my day In the kitchen Trying to decide But once I'd put the water in I'd be thinking Oh, I want that one now Oh, I want that one now Oh,

I should have tried The banana one But though It's just So now just having one thing Is easier So When I was 7 or 8 Whatever age I was When I had my adenoids out The lady came with the trolley So obviously tea, coffee, hot chocolate Or bovril Maybe Horlicks as well But bovril I think I said no thanks Then I thought Then she said There won't be Any other drinks now until Tomorrow morning And I thought Okay And it might have been That I was having the operation the next

day So all that was Was my last drink Before the operation So I wasn't allowed to drink any water Or eat any food between then And I think they were taking me in Like really early hours I think it was like 5 in the morning or something And this was around 8 at night So It was weird Because then I thought I'll have a cup of tea then Because I did feel a bit thirsty And as that was going to be my last drink I should have something Should have something

But I didn't Never really a big coffee drinker at that age In fact I don't think I ever drank coffee at that age Really Every now and then I didn't I don't think I ever had Horlicks I might have had hot chocolate But what I'd never had Because I went through all of them I'll have that, no I'll have that, oh I'll have that And then I thought I've never had Bovril before Bovril is basically just liquid marmite I would say it's yeast extract It's not exactly the same as marmite

I don't think But it's pretty much It's yeah And I thought I've never had Bovril before I'll have that And she said are you sure I said yeah So she poured me a cup of Bovril She said you need to wait Because it's a bit hot But you need to wait a little while Before you drink it I said okay thanks And she said is there anything else you need I said no it's cool She said bye And she pushed the trolley Ran off Giggling And I'm thinking oh I wish

I'd had the tea Or the coffee Maybe the hot chocolate Would have been nice But I still wasn't But then I thought I'm trying something different Good on me Good on you young JJ Well It was probably one of the most Disgusting things I'd ever drunk In my life I didn't like it I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Bovril I'm sure it's lovely But for my Seven Year old palate It wasn't Didn't quite Land on my taste buds Particularly softly Wasn't More of a crash landing If anything And it

was Absolutely bitter Strong It's like drinking Marmite I've tasted Marmite before I didn't like that Urgh You know it's one of those Where you're scraping your tongue Just to get rid of the taste Sticking your tongue In some snow If you've got snow If you haven't got snow you've got to travel To find somewhere where there's some snow So anyway it was I suppose a freezer That's not really snow is it That's ice So yeah anyway I had this Bovril I chose Bovril instead of tea And it was disgusting And

I And it was dry I noticed it dried my throat And all I needed I needed water But there was no water There was nothing And I was just stuck there Not able to drink this drink Knowing that that was my last Liquid Before the operation So yeah That's one of my memories I mean it's kind of a tea bag memory Kind of Ugh I didn't like that So one of the few jobs I never had Is actually making tea bags I'm surprised I didn't end up working In a factory

It's probably because I didn't Where I lived There wasn't a huge amount of factories Because I lived I spent my twenties in London And there was factories and stuff like that But there wasn't A huge amount of places To get jobs And I've worked in different factories Along the way But I think if I'd have been up north If I'd have been in a place where Things were produced Back then I could have worked in a biscuit factory Or a chocolate factory Or created You know built tea bags Or whatever

they do to them And Food factories And Stuff like that I never lived anywhere near A place that did stuff like that I was more Consumer than a creator Of tea bags Just trying to think If I Yeah I I don't mind any kind of tea I'm not so interested in Or too excited about Strong tea Tetley PG Tips Tetley PG I'm trying to think of the others There's so many different types Nescafe?

No that's coffee isn't it Goldblend? Goldblend That's coffee Coffee I could look on my phone but I want to try and use my memory Before I give it a go Doesn't quite work down does it So Yeah coffee Coffee Tea Tea bags I don't mind tea I'm not really a big tea drinker Really I'll drink them I'll drink tea But it's more an accompaniment It's more like For me it's something to dip Biscuits in And I like to Whenever I eat I always have to have a drink With me It's just something that I've Always done

so I'll eat And something to wash the food Down with really To keep the throat Lubricated as it were So Yeah I've always I mean it's been Water a lot of the time but A nice cup of tea But if I'm visiting someone And they make a cup of tea Sometimes I'll say yes Like in the past I'll say yes It's not for the tea It's just something to To fiddle with Something to Like have a sip of tea Every now and then while I'm chatting Just because if I'm talking

It keeps my throat nice and moist But when I visited My Nan it was definitely She made a lovely cup of tea And When she got more elderly It would just be normal biscuits But Previous to that She'd make her own biscuits And she'd make her own cakes And Yeah that was my That was my happy place That was Yep all the way through the 90's Yeah all the way through the 90's It was Yeah right the way up Yeah well late 80's But all the way through you know Always

cakes All the way through My 20's rather You know she was Always had cakes Sometimes she'd be baking them I'd sometimes help her Sometimes We did some I think we made some Pretty sure we made some rock cakes together once Yeah My Nanny Newland New Land My Nanny Newland So Tea bags Yeah that's That's That's it I think I think I've kind of said as much as I can say about tea bags Other than I don't drink tea in the evening Not bothered really about drinking tea For my last meal

I'd rather just Yeah you know Just have something else You know what I mean innit Trying to think of any other tea bag stories No I think that's it really I think covered most stuff No No that's it I don't think there's anything There was a time I went From Sunday to Friday This was And I had no money for food It was when I actually had an insurance job And they made me Take a week off because I had a week owed to me And I'd not even been there

that long So I had to take the week off I'd been there for four months Or three months No it wasn't It was like five days I had to take off So But unfortunately It was the week before I got paid And I didn't have nothing I'd run out By the Sunday I'd run out So I had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Maybe Sunday, Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday It was either four or five days Where I was living off I had Two packets of cream crackers And a jar of jam And

multiple tea bags And that's all I ate for Four or five days I don't know if I even Had any sugar for the tea And It was weird Because what I did Is I read a book called Man's Search for Meaning Which is all about the Housewitch It was very hard for me to feel Sorry for myself While I was reading that book You know And the ironic thing And it's probably not,

maybe not ironic I found out afterwards Because I was living in the YMCA A flat in the YMCA That they had a restaurant Downstairs That I could have got food For free It was a pound a meal But they would have given me You know if I'd have said I've got no money I've got no food They would have fed me Because they were a charity Didn't even know That it was there Didn't even know that I could have done that I mean to be,

if I'd have phoned my dad up And said I've got no food He would have come and given me some food I just didn't ask it I didn't bother anyone I suppose, maybe it was a bit of a challenge Perhaps I wanted to challenge myself To see if I could do it If I could go for You know, quite a few days With just Bare minimum I think for the last Two days I think I had nothing Other than just tea For at least a day,

maybe a day and a half Because we're talking about Two packets of cream crackers It's It's not a lot, to be honest It's not And I might have lost weight I don't know But I do remember drinking tea Really helped Tea and tap water Is what I was drinking And if it hadn't been For the tea bags I think They gave me that little bit of an energy Not that I had much energy But I didn't do anything I stayed in, didn't go out But it gave me Yeah,

I think the tea bags Really helped The tea bags Changed my life Finn is fast asleep Blimey So That's Pretty much my story Of tea bags There's probably a lot that I missed A lot that I missed You know I'll probably finish this recording And I'll just remember The most exciting story of tea bags That anyone's ever said, ever Never mind So Thank you for listening I will be back Doing another Mondays Boring Objects Next Monday Tomorrow will be Trivia Tuesday So I will just Find some trivia stuff To tell

you So in the meantime Thank you for listening Please remember Remember to be kind To yourself Because you deserve to be happy And be gentle with yourself Be gentle with how you talk To yourself And just As I said, be kind to yourself Lots of love Bye