(no music) #1161 - Q&A Friday (16) - Let Me Bore You To Sleep (19th July 2024)

Hello and welcome to Q&A, Q&A, Q&A Friday, Q&A, Q&A, Q&A Friday. What day is it? What day? That was my attempt at a jingle. So welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

This is Q&A Friday. Yeah, my name is Jason Newland. Before I continue, I want to say a big thank you to Alison for your well also and Minky, Minky Rat for your PayPal gifts.

Thank you. And I was I was gonna say I don't know if I should use Minky Rat's real first name. So I'm going to just put Minky Rat.

But I think I might have done in the past anyway. But anyway, thank you and everyone else that sent me I already thanked the other people on my last podcast. Thank you very much for your PayPal gifts.

It has enabled me to get some food, some shopping, some gross groceries. And last week, I managed to pay off one of my debts, which left me with nothing. But it was.

So that's the first question. Did I say only listen when you can safely close your eyes? I'm not sure. And but do that anyway, or don't do that.

Or, you know, me. So I'm going to also do my gratitude, my gratitude or what am I going to do now? Gratitude or credit? Gratitude do great. Grateful.

What am I grateful for? At the moment? I'm feeling quite grateful for managing to lose a stone in weight. To managing to reduce my I mean, I don't know until I had my blood test in September. But I imagine that I have reduced the sugar level in my blood due to the fact that I haven't had any sugar for about six weeks now.

And no sugar. I think it might be six weeks. I don't know.

But no sugar in my tea, my coffee. I don't even drink coffee anymore in the morning. I'd have tea now.

I ran out of coffee, six pounds for a jar. So I thought, ah, so I'm just tea and it's a bit better for me because I don't coffee's a little bit too too strong. So no sugar, no cakes, no chocolate, no fizzy drinks, pretty much.

Well, I don't have anything like that now. A neighbor put a crunchy bar through my letterbox the other day, which might sound like a weird thing to do. But he was just saying thank you for something I did to help him.

I don't know what it was I did. But he put it in the fridge. I've not touched it.

It's been in there for seven years. No, it hasn't. It's been in there for probably about a week.

And every now and then I have a little little urge, a little. Last week, I think it was last weekend. I don't know.

I even I was looking at the possibility of getting a burger at McDonald's. Now I hardly ever eat meat. I haven't had a delivery in a long time.

I don't know why I was just had this urge for some something, you know, something tasty to eat, maybe. Anyway, went on to the Uber Eats, went on to the McDonald's site, and something that you never you never used to get this before. Not before Uber Eats, it's probably always been there since the online stuff, but the calorie, the calorie of a burger.

And I mean, literally, I'll go on there now. Let me just see what the calorie is. Uber Eats, where are you? There you go.

Uber Eats. I did all of my groceries through them. Let's have a look.

Convenient. What did they come under then? Not pizza, not Chinese. Barbecue.

Blimey, that's weird. Asian, Thai, Italian. Convenience.

No, that's what would it come under then? It's not pizza. It's not Greek. American.

American. Yeah, comes under America. Okay, fair enough.

So I went on to the McDonald's. Now, I always, well, I always, I rarely eat in McDonald's. I mean, it's like once a year, if that.

And the only thing that I really ever have is a quarter pound of cheese meal with a milkshake, like strawberry or banana. And I've had that. That's been my main thing since I was pretty much a teenager.

I mean, there was a time during my 20s, I used to go to the West End most Saturdays if I could afford it. And I'll get myself a quarter pound of cheese. Okay, here we go.

Quarter pound of cheese. So 509 kcal. So quarter pound of cheese meal is a large quarter pounder with cheese meal is nearly 1000 calories.

And I don't know if that includes the drink, which is probably a few hundred calories itself as well, maybe. So 1000 calories. I don't know the average adult is supposed to have about 2500 calories a day.

But the calories in a burger are not going to be the kind of calories that an adult should be having. It's it shouldn't be 2500. You know, you don't eat two and a half of that have two and a half meals of that and think well I've done my two and a half thousand calories.

Because it's you know, I didn't even realize because I've got my cholesterol. My cholesterol is high according to the last blood test. So high sugar level, pre diabetic, but also high cholesterol.

And I got the wrong cholesterol. The wrong ones high, the good ones too low. I didn't even know there was different types of cholesterol.

I thought it was all bad, bad for you. I don't know. So maybe I need to learn something.

Possibly. I'm so focused on learning about the brain and psychology that maybe I should start learning a little bit about the body, the body. So I'm grateful for having been able to stick to the not eating sugar.

The discipline actually the discipline of because this I think was last weekend. It might have been the week before I lose track of time. But I nearly got a burger nearly went and got a burger.

But I didn't. I was noisy in it simply because of the calories. Now, that is the first time in my entire life.

And I'm talking ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. Have I even looked at what the calories are or something I'm about to eat. I've seen the calories, you know, because they're on menus and stuff.

I don't take any notice of them. Maybe occasionally in the past, I might just fall one down just for fun, you know, something to do, especially if it's a first date. But never, ever have has it actually swayed my choice ever before.

And this happened. And I've never, ever stopped eating, having sugar in my tea. Even in 2004, I stopped eating.

I stopped eating chocolate, cakes, things like that. And I went down to 11 and a half stone. I was working out every day.

I was a slimmest. I've never been that slim since, even though there's been other times when I managed to slim down. And whenever I do exercise, regular exercise, when I was doing boxing, when I was doing Taekwondo, when I was doing Wing Chun, Kung Fu, those years of doing them, I slimmed down.

I was never skinny. I was never slim, slim during those periods, apart from when I was doing the Wing Chun, then I really slimmed down. But when I was doing the boxing, if anything, I bulked up, it was more muscular.

We know what bulking up means. I mean, I potentially put weight on, but my waist, my waist kind of shrunk a little bit. And because I had weights and then a punch bag in the garden, and I was doing that every night for about an hour, an hour workout every night.

And I was going to boxing twice, twice a week in the evenings. So, and then when I was doing the Jeet Kune Do, that was part of the Wing Chun as well. But that was 2004.

So the boxing was about 2008, 2009, 2008 time. The Taekwondo was 2011. It was about, it was about the summer time I started doing that, 2011.

And I had to stop doing that in 2014 because of my lower back. So I went there regularly, then I'd have the occasional break, especially when I was, during the period when I was a bit unwell, I didn't really go out, I didn't do anything. But, although it would have done good to be fair, and it was relatively close.

It wasn't far away from where I lived is just like probably 20 minute walk. However, I just, because of the arthritis in my lower back, I didn't know it was arthritis at the time, but I just couldn't do all the kicking anymore. It was too much.

So, but even then I lost, every time I do any kind of exercise for a while, the instructors, whether it's the boxing coach or the, the, the instructor, Taekwondo instructor, they always said, or even the Wing Chun man, or Sifu, they all said the same thing like, please wear clothes. Clothes. You need to wear clothes when you're here.

No, they, they always said like, oh, you've lost weight. You've lost weight. You're slimmer.

I said, yeah, it's nice, but do you have to keep grabbing my belly? Just stop touching me. And so it was kind of like, oh, but then in my memory, I'm like, okay, I was pretty slim when I was doing Taekwondo. And then I see a picture, an old picture of me that I posted on Facebook or the club.

Yeah, I did post. Yeah. I posted on Facebook because I just done a, one of my gradings and you could see the belt, but my stomach was, you couldn't see all of the belt.

It was, it definitely had a bit of shading with my, with my belly. So I don't think the geese, the, the, not the karate costumes, but you know, the uniforms, whatever you want to call it, you know, the white uniform, the white, some would call them pajamas, I suppose those that don't do it, but they're called geese that the, they're not always white either, to be honest.

So the one I had, it didn't, I would argue that it didn't flatter me.

I wasn't there to be, to flatter, you know, I wasn't there to show off or, I mean, I couldn't anyway, if I tried. I mean, there was people way younger than me, kids way younger than me and adults way older than me that were all fitter and better at what they're doing it than I was. So that's fine.

I couldn't do the high kicks anymore. I mean, even when I was a kid, come on Vinnie, no, even when I was a kid doing karate at school, I could do the high kicks, but I was about three foot tall. So a high kick was up to someone's belly button.

You know, it was never high. I've never, I've never been able to kick high. It's just, it was high for them.

Now I'm knee level, probably even less now, but anyway, I feel grateful that I stuck to the plan, which was to reduce my sugar, which I've done. I've been eating salad quite often for my meal, salad, hummus, maybe tuna fish and rice cakes, low fat rice cakes. I mean, it's, I'm guessing the calories of that particular meal is quite low, but it's still healthy.

It's healthy stuff. So yeah, I have the main thing I have is breakfast cereal. I still, that was how I kind of planned to try and lose some weight by eating.

Instead of missing a meal, have a breakfast bowl of breakfast cereal instead of that meal. And that's, I'm still doing that, but I don't have any sugar on the, on any of the breakfasts. So I've dried fruit instead of sugar.

Yeah, so that's it. I think I'm, I don't know if I'm going to get rid of the drinking tea because there's always like, okay, there's that nicotine, not nicotine, the caffeine. And I'm not sure if that's particularly good for, for my body, but then I only read, I never drink a cup of tea outside of when I eat a meal.

So I will, I mean, I'm going to use the word literally because it is a literal, it's a literal number is four cups of tea a day. No more than that. It used to be more than that when I used to eat biscuits.

So I'd make a cup of tea and eat some biscuits with it. Now, because I don't eat biscuits anymore, even though I do have still have a packet of biscuits in my cupboard, like the most low fat, rich tea biscuits, which just the only way that they taste okay is if you put them into tea, basically, you know, but dip them into tea. Because I don't have, I no longer have a cup of tea and biscuits anymore.

So they just didn't have been in the cupboard for a few weeks. Okay, all together. There's a hero.

If you look inside your heart. His name is Jason. Because he's left the biscuits in the cupboard.

Anyway, so that's it. So that's my gratitude journal done. And we're nearly at the end of the recording.

Blimey. So there's not many. It's not many questions.

No one had many questions this week. I don't know if I left it a little bit too late to post them because I posted the any questions for today's Q&A Friday this morning or 13 hours ago. It's now nine minutes past 9pm in the evening.

So I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

Vinnie, calm yourself down. And here's a lovely comment I got from Christine. I'll just read it out because it just it was a lovely comment.

And this was from my podcast number. Let Me Boys Sleep 1159. People I'd like to thank.

And Christine wrote, and this is on the Jason Newlands Boring Group. So if you'd like to join, be part of the party. Part of the party.

I guess that's what part E is, isn't it? Part. Party. Being a part of something maybe.

It's like I'm part T. Right, well, Vinnie started barking. So I'm not sure if I can edit this. I don't know where I got excited going to the front door.

He was making out that someone was there, but there wasn't anyone there. Calm down, Vinnie. I brought him in, closed the door in the closed the living room door.

Unfortunately, well, not unfortunately, but I have I've closed one of the windows, but there has one window has to be open. Because this is actually the hottest day of the year so far in the UK, England, Britain, Commonwealth. So it is.

It's too stuffy to not have a window open. But this, you know, the downside is, it doesn't affect me any sound outside general. Well, if you listened to three previous podcasts, you know, that's a lie.

But generally, I'm not that bothered. He hears everything. Everything.

There's nothing he don't hear. Apart from when I'm calling his name when he's in the park and he's playing with his friend. And I'm shouting come back here.

Doesn't hear that. Doesn't hear that. No.

It's selective. I do believe it's called. So lovely comment from Christine on Let Me Bore You To Sleep number one one five nine one thousand one hundred and fifty nine.

That's not what she wrote. That would be weird. So just I'll do it in Christine's voice.

Just listen to this. And I think it's one of the best to get to know a bit more about your early years. Very nostalgic.

Made me feel warm inside when you were talking about school days and your dad with his lovely beard. I can't do the voice anymore. Sorry.

The girl who tickled you. I could tell it was nice for you to talk about it with fondness, fondness and really heartwarming. One not to be missed.

Hope you get to meet your foster parent. Thank you for sharing. Thank you very much.

Yeah, I was actually talking about that with someone earlier. I don't know quite know how to go about that, to be honest. Also not sure if it would be a good idea.

I don't know. Time will tell. Vinnie.

Oh, he's chasing a fly. Had the same fly in there for about a year. Seriously, it's just I don't mind seeing a little brother.

I remember he was bragging. Bragging that he had a goldfish and he had it from the age of two or three and he got it from a fete or carnival or something. And he said that lived that lived till I was seven.

I lived for ages, for years, that little goldfish. And my dad and this brother was in his probably in his thirties. He's about 90 now.

And my dad said he started laughing. Are you laughing? He said, we replaced that goldfish about four times during that period. And my brother was crushed.

He was just it was brilliant. No, no, you just I don't know if you believe my dad or not. Just so anyway, at the end of that were me when my goldfish passed away.

Just like Jason fish is dead. Time for dinner. What's for dinner? Fish and chips.

It's like, don't worry. That wasn't enough. Wasn't enough for all of us.

You can have Popeye. But as I may not name my fish Popeye. I named him Popeye.

Because of his appearance did not realize it was a disease. Felt a little bit guilty after that. Because, you know, I had one eye and I three times bigger than the other.

And I thought calling Popeye. And also the, you know, back then, we're talking late 70s, well, 77, 78. Popeye was a big thing on TV.

Popeye cartoons, cartoons, Popeye cartoons, I think they used to be on sometimes even on a Saturday evening. The Pink Panther show, if anyone's old enough to remember that, they used to be on on a Saturday evening, like primetime. The Muppet show, primetime Saturday evening entertainment, same kind of time as you get the X Factor, like six o'clock or 630 or something.

Wow. Start barking again. There's something outside.

It's really caught his corn. I don't know what it is. caught his corn.

I don't know what that means. I really don't. So what have I got? Okay, right.

So just checking what messages I have. I do have one message from some woman called Molly. I don't know who that is.

I don't remember inviting her to the group. And it's underneath the there's a picture to a picture. Oh, I don't remember even posting that to be honest with you.

There's a picture of Vin in the park with his ball and a on the lead. As you got two comments, I think. So look, all comments.

First comment was from Mike. Would he run away if he took the leash off? And, and my answer is like, No, not if I've got a ball. He'd the only reason I took that picture of him, because he had the he carried the ball from home to the pet to the to the park.

I had a ball the other ball in the carrier. He ran, ran ahead. Like so I like get come Vinnie.

Stop it, mate, please. Please calm yourself down. No, don't answer back.

You always have to have the last word. Guaranteed. I say that's enough.

Guaranteed you'll say something. That's enough now. Okay.

So he's not doing it because I mentioned it. Now what now he looked at me like, Nope, not going to do it. I'm not playing your game.

Would you run away if it so he wouldn't run away. If the lead is off, because basically he's is a ball. He loves the ball.

As long as I've got a ball in my hand or in the in the carrier, he will come back. And so I got not one of his balls. Mike says, Well, I wouldn't be running away very fast if they were if if you were doing the same to me.

Okay, yeah, I think there was a Okay, right. So this person, Molly, is it Molly? And is this at the park? Yeah, it's the the part that I mentioned. It's really weird.

I'll tell you what's weird. It looks bigger in the picture than it is. Because if you think about it, look, look at him.

He looks quite big in the picture, but he's actually tiny. I mean, he's not like my news. But if you look how big the bin looks, the bin looks like half the size of the building behind it, which isn't.

Vinnie looks quite big. So nice picture actually, if I'd have had him off the lead, it would have been a better picture. It just looks a lot bigger.

I mean, it's not like a tiny field. But it isn't big. It's not big field wouldn't take you more than like wouldn't even take a minute to walk from one side to the other.

But it's it's just it's just looks bigger. But it's big enough. I mean, I can throw a fairly good throw and not reach the end.

That might just be my weak arms. Possibly. But yeah, that's the field.

That's the little park that I mentioned. I mean, I'd like to take him into the actual fields, but they've been they have not been cutting them back this year. And it's like stinging that was everywhere and thorns and you can't see where you're standing.

It's you know, they haven't cleaned just there's because there's a path. There's not that is a few paths you go around the field and go and just can't use them at the moment. And which is weird because the best times when they're the most clearest is during the autumn when it's cold, well colder.

And I still doesn't stop me going out but it's it's a nicer it's nicer when it's nice weather. But can't can't get around the field can't get around there. It doesn't bother him because he loves it.

When he's in the grass, the long grass is like he's swimming. Seriously, it's like swimming. So that's two questions I've answered.

Oh, excuse me. I've got a question. I only got two questions for this week's Q&A.

So maybe does that mean we're coming to the end of the Q&A era? Maybe we don't need to do any more Q&A. Maybe everyone's knows enough about me now. I don't know.

But we'll see. We'll see. Let me know.

I had a question. It was too late last week to actually answer it. So it came in after I'd done a recording.

And I remember what it is. I'm just trying to get the right word in. But I remember exactly what the question was.

Then he is reacting to a neighbor sounds like neighbors crying or something. So he's reacting to that. Which is a good thing.

You know, for him. He is so caring to everyone. Except me.

I'm just his. I don't know. I feel like I'm just just something.

Vinnie. I put him in the bedroom a few minutes ago. I put him in the bedroom.

And he was barking. I get so angry when he keeps doing that. I want to just shout at him.

I don't but I want to kind of I feel bad but I do just want him to shut up. Don't you wiggle your tail at me and get any like laughing. He's laughing at me now.

Stop laughing at me. I'm trying to make a podcast Vinnie. If you knew how many people thought you were cute.

You'd behave yourself. You would. Mind you, he is behaving himself because he's so in concern, which is more what I'm doing, isn't it? Really? I mean, I know.

I can't hear who it is. But someone I don't know if it's someone I know. But it's always people crying and shouting around there.

It's just I don't know who's doing what. And I've got my phone on. So those that I know they can contact me if they need to.

And there's someone I don't know. I can't know everyone. See, even when I like cue him, he knows.

What are you looking at me like that for? Just try and keep quiet. Don't lay on your back. Be all submissive.

Don't be all submissive. It doesn't work on me Vinnie. He does it.

He goes all submissive. He does that with people. He does it with dogs.

He does it with me sometimes, especially if I do like the bleepy thing. To stop him from barking. He's all submissive.

Then by the next minute he's biting me again. It's like, what's the point? Pretending to listen when you're not listening. He's so cute though.

That's why he gets away with so much because he is just so little and so cute. And he's just excited. He loves people so much.

I just, you know, I can't even, I wanted to put him in, I didn't want to, but I put him into the bedroom, stay in there for a little while. Close the door, close the door in here. He starts barking like really loud.

Go in there. He's on the windowsill barking at, I couldn't even see what he's barking at. So I take him off the windowsill, close the window, I didn't close the window because it needs some air in.

Pull the curtains, pull the chair away from the windowsill so he couldn't get onto the windowsill, which he could if he was determined, he could still do it. I know. It really put him on the radiator and get up that way, but I don't think he's that bothered.

And I came and then I left, I put him on the bed and I came out, close the door again. And he started barking. I think, what's he barking for now? And I opened the door and he runs out.

He didn't want to be in there on his own. I was like, well, if you're going to be in there, just try and keep quiet just a little bit. So I can make this very important.

Broadcast this amazing podcast thing. Right, here we go. I've got it.

Teresa asked a question. What does it mean when you say you called up the catalog? Well, let me tell you, I didn't get to answer that one because that was right after I'd already done it. I'm just seeing if there's any other questions.

Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. So I answered Joanne's one about the OU courses. I actually just let you know, I started one.

Started, started doing one the other day. One of the free courses on Open University. It is, um, it's actually a pre a pre-course for the actual.

Uh, I don't know what you want to call it unit or for the actual course I'm doing the first, the first year, uh, which is the childhood development, childhood psychology development stuff. So, um, that one is the precursor to that. It's got the same title, but it's like a introduction to the introduction kind of.

So I've started doing that and I've also been listening to some audio books on psychology and getting, it's very interesting, very interesting stuff. Um, okay, here's a bit of an interesting thing. I don't know if you knew this, but now I'm not going to tell you because some people might take it the wrong way, but, uh, now better not.

Uh, it was, it was not to do what I was talking about. It's just something else that I remember from before that I was just, it's a documentary I watched on, um, not Stalin, the original fascist, the original fascist. It was, what's his name? It's an Italian one.

The Italian, uh, fascist, what's his name? Mussolini. Why was I, what one did I say? Stalin. Was Stalin, Stalin wasn't a fascist, was he? Stalin fascist.

I don't know. I'm not great on, uh, all the different, it's a bit of a jump, isn't it? From red fashion, fashion, faster revolutionary. He was a Soviet revolutionary, uh, members of the anti-fascist committee.

Okay. I'm not going to get into all that. They saw Stalin as a savior of the anti-fascist war.

They've since learned that Stalin helped to make Spain safe against, so as to, okay, I can't bother to read that, but it was about Mussolini. It was a very interesting documentary and someone, there was an assassination attempt on him and they shot and they missed him, but they hit the end of his nose. It was absolutely true.

I'm not making it up. And it's just, the reason it's weird because I literally, Mussolini, Mussolini. I actually watched this documentary last week, not this week, just gone, but the week before.

And so I was putting Mussolini nose. Oh no, that's not it. Mussolini shot nose.

That'd be it. Shot nose. Okay.

Right. So Gibson, Violet, Violet Gibson shot Mussolini, Italian's national fascist party leader, as he walked among the crowd in the Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome, after leaving the assembly of the Nishnagros of surgeons. Well, at least he was around the right people.

If you're going to get shot, be around doctors, I guess. And why are they ruined? Go back. And it basically, it shot off the end of his nose.

And there's a picture of him. I don't know if it was the next day. So one bullet grazed the nose of Mussolini, but the Italian leader survived the assassination attempt.

And then he turns up, I think, I don't know if the next day, but he's got a bandage on his nose, on the end of his nose. Well, on his nose, but it's just really weird that I watched this documentary. I was a picture of him.

It looks a little bit like the, you know, the sleep, the sleep things you put on your nose to help to open up the, the nostrils. So, yeah, it was just weird that because he was the Italian leader at the time and to be so, to be that lucky, not, there's nothing lucky about obviously having that happen, but to escape was an amazing thing. I'm not quite sure what it, what made me remember that, or maybe think of it.

But, you know, it's not something I normally talk about, but this is a fascinating documentary, like really fascinating, because the people in Italy, they really thought it was good. You know, they didn't know where it was going. They didn't know what was really, how things were going to end up.

And apparently Hitler was his, his biggest fan. And again, I think in Germany, people didn't know where that was heading. They didn't know it was going to be as troublesome as what it was, but they, yeah, it's a, it's very fascinating, actually.

You could see how easily people could get caught up in, in following someone that's offering a way out of a situation they don't want to be in anymore. It's, it's the same way, I think, with prisons. Apparently, a lot of, especially in the UK anyway, I don't know about other countries, and this is what I've been told by prisoners, ex-prisoners, is a lot of people decide to convert to the large, the largest majority religion in the prison, because then they are protected.

But if they refuse to convert, then they could like become a target. So some people go into prison completely with their own belief system, and they choose to convert. I mean, that's, that's something that you would never really have heard of before.

So it's, it's interesting how, what people do to, I guess, keep safe or to, to get through, get through something. I suppose reading the old Viktor Frankl Man's Search for Meaning, I mean, after revisiting that book, I went online and I went to YouTube and I watched, you know, loads of interviews that he gave, and also interviews from his followers, you know, the, his students, people talking about him, because he, he, he passed away a long time ago.

So it's very interesting to, I mean, the fallacy was that he, you know, he was a prisoner of war and he came out and he started his own psychotherapy called locotherapy based on his experiences during that period.

And that's not the case. He'd already created logotherapy. He was a psychotherapist already of quite high esteem, I think, as far as I know, or at that point before all this stuff happened.

And then he had to take a six year break. And when he came back, he wrote, I think in four days or five days, he wrote the book, Man's Search for Meaning. And he, he did the whole thing, wrote it.

And, but then he, he based it around his experiences. But the actual theory of logotherapy, the idea that if we have a meaning, if there's meaning in our lives, then our lives are worthwhile is a degree of, I don't know what the right word would be. I guess it's different for everyone.

But if a lot of people with maybe, perhaps people that don't have meaning, don't feel that their life has the meaning they'd like it to, are more prone to be ill than those otherwise, potentially. I'm being very vague and I'm not really into the whole kind of, everyone does this, everyone does that, everyone, you know, shush now Vinnie. And so yeah, I don't, I've saw plenty of people that don't feel they've got any meaning, don't even care.

But there's a lot of people that do care. I'm pretty certain. And having meaning is, I mean, for me personally, I've, this gives me meaning doing this stuff, but it's not always enough.

It's been enough so far overall, if that makes sense, like, you know, over the 18 years, well, blimey, 24, yeah, 18 and 18 years and seven months I've been doing this. It's been an overall kind of meaning connected to it. But there's times when I see no meaning, I see it as pointless.

There are times, I'll be honest, it's true. And that's when I don't do anything. That's when I don't make any recordings and I have to take a step back.

And in the past, I have deleted stuff. I deleted the YouTube channels, deleted podcasts, all kinds of things in the past. You know, I decided not doing it anymore.

Once I even destroyed all my books. This is a long time ago. But it happened.

So it's, yeah, I'm not in that place anymore, hopefully. I haven't got enough books to destroy anyway. I used to have such a big book collection.

That I spent years as my hobby, really collecting books. And I had so many books, so many. I used to go to London.

When I got paid, I go to London. So when I had my insurance job, and I would spend like 250 pounds on books. And I come back with two or three carrier bags full of these books.

And I just felt so good. So good. So lovely just to have all these books.

Most of them were hypnosis books. A lot of them were old books, you know, ones that aren't around anymore. Foils used to have quite a lot of original books that were old.

They'd actually been on the shelves for like 30 or 40 years potentially. So I don't know if Foils is still around. There used to be a very famous bookshop in London.

It was just around the corner from London Liverpool Street Station. Foils, let's have a look if Foils is still there. Foils bookshop.

Foils bookshop, London, London, London, London Foils. Don't tell me it's just a website now. Surely not, please.

Right, London. So London Charing Cross Road. That's where I guess it used to be.

So it must still be there. The iconic flagship. Yeah, it's open from nine till nine.

Store opening dial 920 21 22 23 24 29 26. About the shop. Here we go.

You ready? While we can't quite live up to the old saying the spirit of our books. We've got the books. And the one you're looking forward to the ones you haven't heard.

Okay. It's the new encartion in 2014. We moved from our beloved, if ramshackled old premises.

I moved 2014. Okay, shows you how long it's been since I went to London and went to books. So I don't know where they are now.

They've moved from there. And said move to a different place. Damn you.

Why couldn't they have just rebuilt it? Now such an iconic today you said today's word iconic. They might have done no beloved. I heard someone use that word the other day on TV.

Beloved. Will you please calm down? Vinnie is pacing like a lion in a cage. Stop it.

Please. Okay. Calm yourself down.

The thing is, everybody's got their windows open at the moment. Because of the hot weather. Every I say not everyone in the world, but pretty much every flat, even even the empty flats have their own windows.

If I can open themselves, because it's just too hot, which means you can hear a lot more than normal. And so the main thing I do to keep him distracted from the stuff outside is I had the TV on or I have music playing or an audio book playing so that he's got that auditory distraction. But at the moment, all he's got is me and my enormous, my boring, annoying, squeaky.

So I want him to calm down. And now I'm getting them all excited again. See, can't win really.

And so yeah, foils still there, but it's not the same. Is anything the same? Is anything the same? So I got a question here from Teresa, what what does it mean? This is from last week, but I didn't get a chance to answer it. What does it mean when you say you called up the catalog? Well, I'm guessing.

Right? Yeah. So you're from America. So I'm just looking.

It's just because if he was in the UK, you I assume you'd know what a catalog was just because they're really old. But it's one of those things that's gone from being a physical thing to an online thing. So a catalog, you might have them under let's see if there's a different name for them.

What are catalogs called in in here? Look, catalog. Oh, you've got catalogs in America. Or maybe not.

Maybe it's a different basically what it is. It used to be a big, thick book, like a magazine type book, really thin paper. And really huge, big old thing, like a telephone directory kind of thing.

And it is have hundreds of thousands of different items that you could buy. And you it's like, yeah, we know how how retail works. No, this is I'm going to explain how it worked with the catalog.

So you'd have a list of things, you have all these pages, index that index, it did, there was indexed. And you basically have an account, and it was a credit. So you'd, you'd buy and then pay it back over a period of time, and a debt interest.

So maybe you buy something, for example, I cover for your car in the shape of a caterpillar, as an example. And you'd have that. And you pay maybe 49 pound for that, or 48 pound 99.

If he keeps barking, I'm just gonna end the recording because it's doing me head in. I just did it again. It's doing me it's it's annoying me now.

I can't keep having to do it. I just want him to just keep quiet for just a little bit. He stares stare at me like that.

It's not my fault. I have to get you to stop. Stop barking.

That's why I asked you to stop. I still love you. Yeah, still love you.

I just need you to be quiet. Just for a little while. It's not for a long time.

It's not like a lot. We're here for a good time. Not a long time.

Come on. Am I just being moany? Maybe I am. Possibly I'm just being a moany moany.

Moany moany moany. So you order stuff. You can't bore yourself now.

You'd order stuff. And you just pay it over months for a certain amount of, you know, maybe over a year or something. And it was really, I think they're really good for people, for families and that, you know.

I started using them in the 80s. I used to buy them off my step mum. I used to buy stuff off the catalogue if I needed something.

I once bought a guitar. And it took me probably about a year to pay it off. And it was a bass guitar which was of no use to me.

Electric bass. I wanted electric guitar like a normal guitar, you know. Six strings.

No, this had four strings. Great if you're lazy or, you know, if you want to play the bass. I needed six strings.

So I kept it. I could have sent it back but I think I might have scratched it. Or I think I might have just been too embarrassed and I just kept it anyway.

Just kept quiet and paid it. The other thing I got was a BMX bike. And I got a BMX two years after they were fashionable.

And I remember seeing all the kids, the next door neighbours, they were popular kids and had all their friends around. And they'd be doing, I mean, they did break dancing. Then they did BMX bikes, I think skating, skateboards.

Whatever the fashion was, they was it. They did it. And I remember I knocked on their door.

And if I knocked on their door, I saw them outside and I had my bike, I had my BMX. Just got it posted or delivered and I'm riding it around on the road outside my house. They were my neighbours, my next door neighbours, these popular kids.

And I said to them, can you teach me some tricks? And they said to me, look, I've forgotten. I've forgotten how to do it because they weren't riding BMX bikes anymore. Or if they did, they weren't doing tricks on them.

They just used them as transport. I mean, he had his own helicopter by this point because he was 35. No, that's not true.

But he's like, I was so behind the times, really. I mean, you think I got, I still had a black and white TV when I was in my early 30s. Sad, I know.

And it's just circumstances. I just didn't care. There was times when I didn't care.

Just didn't care. It's a TV. And I just wasn't bothered.

I didn't spend that much time watching TV in the early 30s. In my early 30s, I didn't watch much TV. I was working and I was just, I think I'm more likely to listen to music.

I didn't do much at all for a while. It just worked. But anyway, yes, the catalog, that's what the catalog was.

And then Argos was a catalog shop where you go in and there's catalogs, which are very, pretty much the same kind of thing as the catalogs that used to be delivered to the home. But they were attached to a desk. And there was all these different desks in his shop called Argos.

And there was other ones like Freeman's. There's a few that used to do this. And you'd look through it.

You'd write down the code on a piece, on a little slip of paper, which is like a betting form for a betting shop. And the pens were exactly the same as they had in betting shops, tiny little blue pens. And you'd write down the number of what you wanted.

And you'd queue up at the desk, to pay for it, you pay for it. And then you'd then go to the other desk and wait for it to be delivered. They give you a ticket, a bit like waiting in a probably a deli or something like that.

Or job center, give you a ticket, and you'd wait. And then they'd call your number, you go and collect it. And that would be it.

So that Argos was the first that really went into well not Argos, but those companies, those types of shops, because there's more than just Argos. But I think Argos was the top one, I do believe. And then the internet came along.

The catalogs pretty much went on to, I don't even know if the catalogs print catalogs anymore. I don't know. But it's all online now.

But they might still print it, which means it won't all be online. They might still have a printed catalog. But the one I had, or the one I have doesn't.

And Argos is who I was with as well. So that's another catalog. But I don't class it as a catalog, because it's a retail shop, like a physical shop.

Although the stuff I ordered was online. And you can still go in there and order stuff. Instead of the paper catalogs, which used to have plastic sheets in them.

Instead of that, they've now got, I guess the equivalent to, they've got tablets, you know, which are connected to the desk. And you just do that. You look that way.

Find stuff and search stuff that way. So I don't go into Argos. I've been into Argos for a long time.

And I think Argos was bought out by Sainsbury's supermarket, or whatever company owns Sainsbury's. And what they've done is they've moved Argos into Sainsbury's. Which means the, I don't know if they've done it for all Argos's, but they've done one for the local one, the local one to me.

And apparently they've got spec savers in the Sainsbury's supermarket as well. Now I'm looking at the size of the Argos shop, and then the size of an optician's. How on earth can they fit that inside of Sainsbury's and have them all be the working perfectly? They can't be the same size as a proper spec savers optician, because they're usually big.

And Argos are always big. Usually they're not, never little, usually that I've seen, they're usually quite size, sizey. And so that's what a catalogue is.

I mean, when I was talking about a catalogue, I wasn't so much talking about Argos, more the online catalogue that I'm with. And although I stopped, I could no longer use it, I told them to stop my credit. Because I still had, I think I still had two and a half thousand pound I could have spent, or three thousand pound, I think that I could have spent.

And I just said to them, just stop it. And it's really weird, because when I phoned them up and said, but they didn't want to help me because I wasn't behind. But you're, you're, you always pay your debts, you always pay on time, you're never behind, you're not behind now, you don't owe us anything over the normal amount, you know.

And I said, that's not the point, just stop. That way if someone, the neighbour asks, if someone asks me for something, can you buy me this thing on the catalogue, I can say no, and genuinely mean no, because I can't. And I actually told them, like, that's the situation.

And they were like, really? I said, yeah, I can't say no. And she started laughing, I said, what are you laughing for? She said, well, I'm just going to ask if you could borrow, if you could lend me a hundred pound. And I thought, okay, cheeky.

So did that really happen though? Did it though? Did it? So that's what a catalogue is, it's basically something you buy stuff, and you pay for it later. And I guess you can do that in a way with probably any shop become if you've got a rewards account, or whatever they call it, you know, you've got a card and you can buy stuff and just, you know, but this is, it's based on quite an old fashioned thing that's been around since I think the 50s, I think.

And it's very handy to have, especially I imagine if you're for a young, well for a family, because that's what my stepmom did.

She bought stuff for the house or for us and stuff that was on the catalogue. So what didn't have to keep paying for it. You didn't have to pay for all at once.

And it's a long term investment, I suppose, in a sense like, well, I don't know, I know what I'm saying, but I'm not sure what I'm saying. So that's what a catalogue is. And I hope that made sense.

I've got Matthew asks, why what AI do you now use to generate your cool images? Well, I was using, I was using three. So what I was doing is I was transcribing the recording. Then I was posting the so I was saving the transcription as a PDF file.

But that that costs 20 pound a month for that transcription service. And then I was then posting the transcription PDF uploading that to chat GPT. That's 20 pound a month or 25 pound a month.

And then there was creating an image. And then what I would do is I would edit it with in Canva and make changes, add stuff, remove stuff, whatever. And that's 13 pound a month.

So I kind of had to make some changes. So I've no longer got the transcription. Trend yet transcription subscription to the transcription.

No longer got chat GPT. They won't do anything. Unless you're on a free one, they won't do any images or anything like that.

I've still got the Canva, because I'm using that to create videos of old old recordings I've got. So that runs out now about a week or so. And so I'll decide what to do with that.

And but what I've been doing really is just recently just going on and trying to use other stuff. So not really much. Just looking for images, I can change ideas from what's it called? I'll look up.

So Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft Copilot, your everyday AI companion. So if I put create a image, image of a Jack Russell wearing a I'll see whether or not this works.

Oh, no, I didn't think it would. I thought that would be right. So do do do do do do do do do do no.

Blimey. I was trying to say wearing a gag, but it won't let me do that. What's supposed to be like that's inappropriate wasn't supposed to be inappropriate.

Just do it. If I asked for it, it wasn't meant to be horrible. Just like you know, like someone, I guess being held hostage.

That's not nice, is it? I suppose. But Jack Russell wearing a I can keep a dog quiet image of a Jack Russell losing his voice. So I can accept that.

Oh, yeah, it's allowing that one. A Jack Russell losing his voice. Just you know, through over over shouting and barking and stuff, you know, just temporarily.

You know what? I'm going to use that. That's going to be the image I use for the q&a because I can't get any images for q&a. So I don't know which one I use.

So yeah, it's that's what that's what I was doing. This is what I'm doing now. It's very not so streamlined as it used to be.

There's still a lot of editing though, because even with chat GPT, I don't it takes sometimes up to 1820 attempts before I get an image that I can use. So it doesn't. Guess what? The little monkey started barking again.

Yay. So final questions, this is going to be a lot shorter than all the other q&a is is Jove has asked me and you have this you have discovered a beautiful Island upon which you may build your own society and you can even make the rules. What's going to be the first rule you'll put into place? Wow.

This is gonna this this is controversial. But I probably say no religion. So that would be I know it's a controversial thing to say.

But this is fantasy world, fantasy land. And just the basic rules of life. But not you know, education, education, education, education, we need to.

It's amazing how little I know. And I kind of wish that I learned a few more things over the years. But it doesn't matter how many degrees I do, I might be able to do another three degrees before I'm 94 degrees even, but I'm still not going to know not even a speck of all the information that's out there.

Like in useful information as well, not just rubbish from the internet, just real useful stuff. And I wouldn't know if I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, I wouldn't know how to build a cave. And I wouldn't know how to fly a ship.

You know, there's lots of things I just don't know how to do. I mean, it's how do you climb the sea? I don't know. Lots of different things.

I don't know how to swim in the desert. You know, I'm just ignorant to things. So you know, it's, I probably one thing I'm not really a big fan of generally is fanaticism, extremism.

And everybody has to speak the same language. That would be a thing, not regardless of what the language is, doesn't matter. But everyone speaks, it's just almost impossible to have communication.

It's difficult enough with people to speak the same language, the amount of non communication that leads in to problems. So I guess everyone speak in the same language, everyone have to be vetted. I don't mean euthanized, not euthanized, and have their bits taken off.

But not vetted in that way. But beautiful island, you built your own. Well, to be fair, I'll be the only one there.

If I had a beautiful island, I don't think I'd want anyone else there with me. It would just be me probably. And there's no one that I don't know anyone that I'd want to spend that I'd want to take with me.

So I'll be on my own. So I discovered a beautiful island. But not only I'd be on me and I take, I'm guessing, if it's my island, it means I've got enough money.

Because, you know, I don't think there's anywhere in the world these days, you can just discover and be yours. Someone's going to want to take it or someone's going to make out it's theirs. Even though in reality, no one owns anything on this planet.

There is no land owned by anybody. It's just the just an imaginary thing, isn't it? Can't own something. This is a planet and we can't own anything.

We think we own stuff. But in reality, we don't. It's like, okay, if you own that, you got to have it forever.

Okay. That means over 100 years. Oh, what about 30 years? Nope.

You got to have it over 100, 200, 300, a million years. Forever. Otherwise, it's not yours.

That bit of land there, that house, it's only yours if you can live in it forever and ever and ever. That's a bit conflicting. I never used to really understand that when I was a kid, how can people own land? I know that our ancestors took claim to land, went to another person's country, another people's country, and the idea, well, we're planting a flag here, it's ours now.

Doesn't quite work that way. Not really. I don't think it was quite as easy for them either.

Hmm. Yeah. So I think I'd like to have a hospital just next door in case I need medical attention.

But outside of that, just go with a beautiful island. There's got to make sure there's no crocodiles, alligators, or poisonous snakes or spiders. So none of that stuff.

That's just silly. So I wouldn't have that. Which means, I think New Zealand is pretty much like England in that sense.

So maybe, but it's got a similar kind of climate, but nicer, I do believe. You can even make the rules. What do you mean I can even? Of course, if it's my society, I can make the rules.

I will be the king. Because then if I'm the king, there's no point in being on my own. I might as well have my royal subjects.

So if I get to boss people around, I'm not going to miss that chance. I'm going to take that and grab it by both feet. So I reckon I'd have millions of people just so I could boss them around.

That'd be good. Be a dictator. That's the dream.

That is the dream. But a kind one. Yeah, I think be a kind dictator.

So when I go and take people's life savings off them, and take all their gold and take their property away, I say, thank you. I'd be nice. Be a kind dictator.

It's interesting, if you look back at history, the peasants, or the farmers, whatever you want to call them. I mean, this is before America was even created. America is a really, really young country.

England is quite old. And there was a time when our kings used to get a little bit out of, you get out of hand. They'd be heavy handed, like would come to collect taxes, would come and all this, you know, whether it was in a form of food or, you know, chickens or cows or whatever it was.

And eventually, they got greedy. And then the peasants and the farmers and, you know, the blacksmiths and all that stuff, they just like that. And then they revolted.

In fact, you could say the whole thing was quite revolting. Me, me, me, me, me. It's amazing.

I got all that information from a Harry, Harry, Harry, Hammer House, a horror movie with Peter Cushion. I think it was about Frankenstein. And I made it all up just from a memory of that.

I don't know if it happened. Not the Frankenstein, but when there was a time when this is again, these are strange days, these are strange times. But then people have been saying that my whole life.

These are strange times. I mean, quite often they were specifically referring to me, but yeah, strange times. Very, very strange.

So what rules? I guess serve the master, serve me, serve thy king. Peace. Peace.

No drama. This is going to be controversial as well. No drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes, none of that crap.

When I say no drugs, I'm not talking about medicine. So people can think what they want about that. I don't care.

I'm anti that for me, not for anyone else. But if it's going to be my little kingdom, then I will make the rules. So there's, I don't want to be around people that are strung out and, oh man, yeah.

I've done that. I served my time with that. I ain't doing that no more.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So yeah, I, everyone has to be taught. Okay, maybe not.

I don't know. I like the idea of letting people just do what they want and hope that they just kind, be kind. Yeah, that's about it.

So that's Vinnie keeps barking again. So I'm going to bring this to an end because he's, he's very restless tonight. It might be the heat to be honest.

So I'm going to go thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy. Be gentle with yourself.

Lots of love. See y'all.