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Hello and welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. My name's Jason Newland and my website is jasonnewland.com where all my recordings live. Yeah, I also have a Facebook group Jason Newland's Boring Group on Facebook.
There's a link on my website to there and also YouTube channel at Jason Newland. So please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. This is Boring or Monday's Boring Objects.
Now Vinnie is on the floor at the moment having a little chew. I put some food out for him and he's not touched it because it's not the food that he likes. You could argue well would you eat food you didn't like? It's a fair enough argument.
But he he used to like it. What if you've never gone off food? Have you? He liked everything. You've always liked every single food you've ever had.
You've never eaten something then got fed up with it. All right. Okay.
Blimey. Calm down. Yeah, there have been things that I've overeaten.
There was this biscuits once. Biscuits is going to be the subject today by the way. Biscuits.
I'm scraping the biscuit tin for this one. Biscuits. How can I talk for an hour about biscuits? If anyone can do it, I can do it I suppose.
Biscuits. Well, the memory I just had was I used to visit my nan. This is when she was alive.
And best time to visit people I find. And she had these. Oh man, they were so nice.
They were because in the early days, before she kind of lost her mobility, she used to be making cakes. Such nice cakes, especially the rock cakes. Bestest rock cakes I've ever had in my life.
Still to this day. And they were just perfect. Even if to be fair, even if they were sometimes a bit burnt.
It didn't matter. They were just perfect. They were my nanny Newlands rock cakes.
They were just perfect, however they were. I want to say burnt, you know, because sometimes if you leave them in the oven a little bit too long, we know what burnt means. Am I going to have this? Are you going to be argumentative the whole recording? Maybe.
Right. Vinnie started barking. There was a dog in the distance.
Well, somewhere. I mean, what is distance and what is close? I'll tell you, talking about distance and close. I was in the park earlier and I thought I saw a couple of Dobermans running towards me.
Off the lead. So I was like, oh, but I got it wrong because I didn't have my glasses on. I forgot to take my glasses with me and I realized I looked down.
It was just a couple of Chihuahuas. Chihuahuas that was actually about two inches from my feet. They look exactly like.
They look the same as Doberman. Anyway. There's a few unfriendly dog walkers.
There's like the friendly ones and then there's the ones that just almost don't want to interact, which is up to them. I know, but. I've made the effort to be friendly if I can.
Uh, I don't know. There's just some, some dog walkers. They're like, they're kind of pull their dog away from me.
Even I understand if it's a dangerous dog or, you know, if it's a dangerous dog, why is it not on a muzzle would be my question. But, uh, strange, strange old world, the dog dogging. And so this dog, I don't know.
Vinnie was, he wasn't just barking. He was howling like a wolf. You know, his, his, his face looking up to the sky.
Oh, oh, oh, which he doesn't do very often. So it's very much a kind of a pack call. He was definitely, there was, there's something kind of communication going on there.
Um, I would say. I had to shut him up because there may be downstairs is probably asleep. I don't want him disturbing the neighbors, especially as tomorrow the building works begins.
Yeah. My neighbor opposite has his bathroom. It was bathrooms going to be rebuilt.
So it's going to be noise, noise, noise, noise for it probably be full on for about a week. Well, the rest of this week, Tuesday to Friday, and then it will reduce a little bit after that. The first bit is I seem to dig up the concrete when they, I think digging up the bath is a proper like shakes a whole building.
I'm not going to be able to make a recording when they're here. So I was thinking maybe try and do the recordings today while it's relatively quiet. I mean, I was thinking actually early on, I should make the most of it being quiet and relax.
Maybe watch a couple of movies, you know, just have like a relaxing day. Where there's not noise because guaranteed what happens when there's noise in one flat, another neighbor would turn music on to cover up that noise for them. And then another neighbor would turn up to cover up the noise of that music.
And before you know it, it's like noisy, really noisy. And it's yeah, it's just human nature to do that. I mean, the most I would do is I put my headphones on.
So I can, I can kind of block out the noise with my headphones, but it limits me to what I can do. I mean, I can listen to music or I could watch TV and stuff, watch a movie. I'll probably just take this one out for a few long, longer, nearly said the word longer journeys tomorrow in it.
So I reckon Tuesday and Wednesday will be the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, which yeah, the next, the rest of this week will be the most amount of disruption auditory wise. But then there's a lot of doors slamming and coming and going and you know, so that that agitates the old vinster here. So I guess he'll be doing a bit of barking.
So what I'll try and do is when they do get here, what I like to do, if there's builders coming into the building, I try and introduce Finny to them so that he knows who they are. Once he's met them, he doesn't seem so bothered. But if someone comes in and out of the building continuously, and he hasn't seen them, he doesn't know who they are.
It seems to irritate him a bit. Don't it? Hey, what are you sniffing there for? There's nothing there. Trust me.
Well, there is, but it's nothing, nothing, nothing interested. Wow. Yeah, so my nan got these biscuits.
I can't remember what they were called, but they were super delicious. And she'd make a cup of tea. Like, you know, when I go around, she'd make a cup of tea.
Sometimes I'd do it for her, you know. Especially when she lived in a shared accommodation. I'd make a cup of tea for her.
I remember saying, I remember the first time I made her a cup of tea, which is going to sound weird. But I think the first time I ever made my nan a cup of tea I was in my 40s. She always did it, you know.
And I'm just saying, how many sugars nan? Six. She had six sugars at a tea. And being, being British, being English or whatever, I had no choice but to say, oh, would you like some tea with your sugar? And because, you know, all English people are say that and we find it hilarious every time we say it.
Yes, we do. Yes, we do really. Yes.
It's like another one is like when someone say F in hell, I won't say the actual word F in hell. And the comeback for that being English is, I hope so. There's no TV there.
It's, what did I say? I had a radio DJ the other day moaning about pigeons. Now, if you follow me, you know that I'm a pigeon lover. Horace is one of my best friends and he's a pigeon.
He's been visiting me for 10 years. It's weird. He looks younger now.
Oh, but, and he's a different colour. So, but you know, Horace, I like, I've loved pigeons. I always have done.
Even when I was a little kid, going to Trafalgar Square, that was, this DJ, this radio presenter was moaning about, you know, pigeons and he lives in London. And he was saying it's so good now that they, the, the, the government or the London mayor at the time managed to get rid of those people selling, I don't know, pigeon seed to the tourists in order to stop encouraging, because I made it illegal to try and get rid of the pigeons from Trafalgar Square.
What did they think Trafalgar Square was famous for around the world? Those big statues? Maybe.
The pigeons? Yeah, as, as an experience, the statues don't do anything. They just stand there. And yeah, they mean something.
I don't know what they are, but they mean something to people that are into that stuff. Historically, I mean. Is, is church, I don't even know what statues are in Trafalgar Square, to be honest with you.
I know there's a lion. There's a lion, isn't there? A big golden lion or silver lion or something like that. And I mean, they're impressive, especially when you're a little kid, like, wow, they're huge.
How did they manage to fit them on there? God, whoever lifted that must have been super strong. Perhaps it was Superman. That's, that's what, well, that's what my brothers were saying.
I said, nope, it's Wonder Woman, because I was obsessed with Wonder Woman back then. And I just, you know, like, actually, what do people take pictures of? You can't take a picture of you. I suppose if you're, if you're far enough away from the statue, you can get a picture of you with the statue in the background, I guess, like the Eiffel Tower and things like that, which is just up the road, I think, I think that's in Leicester Square.
And, but what do people go home with? When they've been to like, what, back in those days, in the 70s and the 80s, maybe, and probably decades before that, people took photographs of their holiday to London. There would be at least one photograph of them covered in pigeons. That's what Trafalgar Square was famous for.
The pigeons, they got rid of it, they got rid of the pigeons. And I can't seem to let it go. It's weird.
I didn't, I didn't realise it affected me so much. I love the pigeons. One of my happiest memories as a child was, apart from being on a Rolf Harris show, which was kind of, that's a whole different, what are you doing? You're attacking me.
I'm talking to Vinnie there, not Rolf. Hey, stop it. Yeah, I was on a Rolf Harris show.
That wasn't a joke. I seriously was on a Rolf Harris show when I was about 10, nine or 10. And it was one of the best days of my life, genuinely.
And I would say there's hundreds, thousands and thousands and thousands of other kids that would also say the same, maybe not the best day of their life, but it was an amazing experience for most people that did it. Because it was just, I loved it. I got to see Keith Harris with Orville and Cuddles.
And I got to see Dollar, who were really big at the time as well. They were a group. I can't remember what song they sung.
You can do something like that. Anyway, I've talked about that before, but that is just, you know, but one of the experiences I really enjoyed was, I was in a children's home and it's a little period between moving in with my dad and his new wife. And so it was in Southend.
We were going to move in. I don't think we even knew we were going to move in, but we were visiting every weekend to, I guess, for them to get to know us and us to get to know them and to see whether or not they wanted to, you know, it was a process. It wasn't just like, here's your kids, you haven't seen them for five years, take them.
It was, there was a process to it. And even then, this was like 1977. So we'd go every weekend.
And then one weekend, our auntie picked us up. And she said, Oh, you're going to come and stay with me in London, because the step mum's unwell. She's got, I don't know, measles or mumps or something like that.
I said, what are you talking about, Willis? Which is weird because I'd never seen different strokes at that point. So it hadn't been on, didn't come on till about 79. I'm wondering, maybe they copied me, because I used to say that all the time.
We talked about Willis, even when I was like five. I could be owed some money, royalties. And she said, my name's not Willis, call me auntie.
I said, I don't know if I've really known you long enough to call you auntie. How do I know you're really my auntie? You know, you just turn up out of the blue. I've met you a couple of times, admittedly, because you know, there's that whole thing, you know, when we went around, it was like, I felt like I was in a zoo.
When we went to visit, my dad, he came and picked us up, took us back to where he lived with his wife. And his wife's mum, they lived in her house. And all these people came along, like uncles and aunts and people I'd never seen before.
Like, I'm your uncle. Really? I'm your uncle as well. Really? I'm your auntie.
Really? Like, you know, it's like, I'm your uncle. Oh, okay. And I'm also your auntie.
Really? I'm your cousin. So like, like 10 cousins, five uncles and aunts, 10 cousins, nanny and granddad, and another nanny, like way too many people. So I didn't remember her.
But that weekend was one of the best weekends ever. So she picked us up, took us to London, London's not far from Southend. It seemed a long way when you're a little kid.
To be fair, I don't even know if we was in a car, she might just, we might have gone on a train, because there was a train directly to Liverpool Street from Southend, Victoria. I made the journey many times as an adult. Yeah, I used to, used to visit Southend.
Southend used to be a place that I would go to when I fancied a day out. Like a kind of, I think I took, yeah, I took two different girlfriends there, or went on two different dates, maybe more to Southend when I was in living in London. And just like, let's go for a walk.
Let's let's go for a walk. Let's go to Southend. Get on a train.
It's like 45 minutes or whatever on a train, maybe an hour, I don't know. And then we'd be there. Southend Beach, have a nice walk, go on to the pier.
That's a, that's a journey in itself, just to walk along the pier. Candy floss, fish and chips, maybe not candy floss, I suppose they did have candy floss, ice creams, just anything you want, really, just like anywhere else. And it was a nice day out.
It wasn't far away. But it was totally different from being in London. You know, being near the sea.
I mean, Southend's not the nearest sea if you're in London. I think there's closer sea. I think Harwich is closer.
I'm not sure. But you've got Billericay, Billericay, I don't know if that's the Isle of Dogs, I suppose there's a sea there, maybe. I wonder where there's a sea.
You've got the Thames, which leads to the sea. Yeah, I don't know. So we yeah, the Southend is where I used to go.
But I would say this day in London, it was lovely, lovely, lovely. She remembered, went to Southend with a Spanish female that I met at, was it Stratford, Stratford train station. I saw her and I thought, I'd like to talk to her.
So I went up to her, I just said, excuse me, sorry. Could you tell me? Could you tell me? And I asked her a question I knew the answer to. Because I wanted to talk to her and I ended up she gave me a telephone number and name and her address.
She wrote it down on a piece of paper. Or did she have it already written down? Or was she just randomly giving it out to men? Possibly. Anyway, so we went out, we talked on the phone a few days in a row.
And then I kind of fell for her really. She was just, I just like really liked her a lot. And we went out to Southend for the day.
And there was a couple of, because you know, when you're abroad, you can hear your own language being spoken, can't you? Like, it's just one of those things. I remember when I was in Belgium, there was, we were walking down the street in Belgium and I was with like three or four people from work. This is when I was about 18.
And we were walking down this busy road. And suddenly one of my work colleagues shouted out, English, you're English. Over this crowd and the other, there's another little group of men.
English, you're English. Got so excited to meet another English speaking person. I mean, we'd only been there for about 10 minutes.
And how much can you miss the fact that he was with four other people that also spoke English? Why would he miss being around English speaking people so much? I didn't understand it. I couldn't really get it. But it was funny because they were jumping up and down, hugging each other.
It was very erotic. It was, it was kind of strange. So anyway, I was, yeah, we were walking, me and this, what was her name? Marta, Marita, Marita.
We're walking down the, yeah, we were on the pier. And suddenly she noticed a couple of Spanish men and they noticed her. And they started talking in, I couldn't really understand what they were saying.
It's some kind of language, different language to English. And even though it's in a different language, I can, I could, I knew what they were saying. It was weird.
And I asked her and she told me, she said, yeah, I was right. So what I could see, and it was, you know, they were not speaking English and were basically mocking me. And they said, oh, is that your boyfriend? And she said, no.
But it wasn't like, no, no, like that. Yeah. Bearing in mind that we kind of were dating-ish kind of.
And I knew even in another language, it's the same energy, it's the same looks, it's the same, it was the same tone of voice. And yeah, it was a bit awkward after that. Yeah.
I don't know if that was before or after I visited her at her home because she invited me around. Yeah, I think it was, it was before. She invited me around to her place because she was a nanny, or an au pair, au pair, au pair, she had an au, no, she was an au pair.
And she was 19. I was, 23. And she had dark, well, she was Spanish, and so she had dark hair and brown eyes.
But I'm guessing the majority of people in Spain have probably got dark hair and brown eyes. Because that's the Spanish look, isn't it? Did you know that most people in the world have got brown eyes? Blue eyes is an anomaly. Did you know that? I just thought that blue eyes, because I don't have blue eyes, I just thought it's just, most people would have blue eyes, but they haven't, apparently.
Not everyone looks like me. I don't understand. So she's, yeah, I really liked her.
I really fancied her. But I really liked her. I did get on really, I got on well with her on the phone.
Even though there was communication, and her English was really good, but my Spanish was zero. She taught me a few words. Si, Senor, acapella, I think that's Spanish, isn't it? And was it, e, l, if you say l before you any sentence, something that helps.
El hello. No, not el honcho. No.
Hello, what's the Oh, I know the word for hello. in Spain hello hello hello hello hello I don't know I've never been great with languages I did I've nearly I learned a few words in Thai I learned a few words in Bulgaria but that was just because I was talking to females at the time that I wanted to I guess communicate I was I found a very early age probably it was probably with the Spanish lady that sometimes having a different language can be useful for communication or useful for like
the beginning of a relationship because learning each other's words and I also figured out after years and years and years the reason I got on so well with foreign women is because it took them longer to realize what I was really like it's they thought I was nice for much longer than people that have met me that knew what I was saying once I realized what I was saying they didn't necessarily like me so much I'm joking kind of I did upset someone in Thailand a waitress didn't mean to genuinely
did not mean to if it turned out I was trying to communicate with her she was trying to communicate with me and I was getting it wrong so there was all these posters around for this like some kind of swim wear bikini beauty contest bikini pageant there was posters all over this place it was just a bar it was like a normal bar restaurant so hooters but it was still you know they have food and stuff and I like it I've never been I've never been into I like American bars
and that was just like an opportunity to go there every day and there wasn't anything weird it's just a normal you know it was a family place you could take your kids and stuff I didn't have any kids to take but if I had kids I wouldn't wouldn't yeah I mean it's not holidays if you've got kids with you how is that a holiday a holiday is when the kids the other side of the world surely maybe not maybe I got it wrong I used to know someone who said if
the idea of it it's not a decent holiday if it's not a proper holiday if when you get home you know it's only a proper holiday if you get home and you need a holiday so if you completely exhaust yourself then it's a proper holiday you've had it's like no that's the opposite to what I'm thinking of you know because you like to go skiing and windsurfing and probably mountain climbing and potholing and deep-sea diving swimming with sharks you know all the things that I wouldn't want to do and it's
got nothing to do with lack of fitness because you know I'm not as fit as I used to be it's I don't think I think my mountain mountain climbing days are possibly behind me but they were never in front of me either I've never wanted to jump out of a plane I've never wanted to go down a pothole and start not pothole is it potholing I didn't want to go down like find a crack in the in the earth and let's see where this leads no no it's like no I
just not not not interested in that you know oh let's go down to the bottom of the ocean no no I never wanted to do that as that's a that's a deal-breaker I used to be in love with this this female that really really really liked her a lot she didn't really know I existed but she I really liked her and I got talking to her I finally got managed to build up the courage to say hello and this is when I was a prison guard in a women's prison so
eventually you know no this is so I don't know I got talking I think it was like what you doing you're right she said oh I found says see you next week oh I'm on holiday next week okay normally I someone told me they're on holiday next week I said oh why are you telling me what use is that information how am I gonna how is that gonna benefit me knowing you're on holiday next week which could be a bit attitudinal I've got work on that maybe when I was younger
that is you know that's when I got five or six stinking thinking I did when I was five or six just like yeah Christmas look Jason look where your brothers bought me for Christmas it's a it's like I never heard the end of the rest of it because I switched off it's like what do I care what he's bought for you for Christmas I don't even care what I bought you I don't care about what I bought you for Christmas I'm only interested in what I get for Christmas Christmas is
about receiving not giving and any kid that says the opposite is lying it's about receiving presents how many kids do you think go to sleep Christmas Eve and they can't get like mom I can't get to sleep I can't get to sleep and their parents going what is it little JJ I can't get to sleep daddy and mama dada mama why is it what why can't you get to sleep is it because father Christmas and yeah is it because a Christmas morning tomorrow yeah it is he said well what is
it that's keeping you awake he said I just can't I can't I can't sleep because I'm so worried and excited about whether or not you like the presents I bought you for Christmas that conversations never happened not once I guarantee you that but I'm just I'm just I just want you to be happy like any kid cares what they want is to be happy oh my right my big toe my right foot just seized up thankfully I don't need to use it very often so it's okay oh that was weird
I stretched it doesn't normally get any stretching I'm only joking by the way when I say things it wasn't really did really like get stiff I got one of my legs seizes up sometimes the calf muscle and it changes my mood I was on a date with someone I was in here and it was going quite well well she hadn't left so I always take that as a positive sign and I've been sitting down so I just stood up and stretch my legs I just I don't you know we kind
of probably got onto my toes and my left calf cramped up and she was like are you okay like get off me I wasn't quite that bad but it was like oh that was not pleasant she said do you want me to massage it no and she did I said oh okay so that helped she says that better I said yeah and I said I just gotta go and get something oh I've cramped up again what your calf again no it's my groin no I made that up so the pigeons
I just like the pigeons what's this got to do with biscuits I've got to talk about biscuits but I can't even remember where I was going with that I don't know if I was going anywhere really but I remember her she was nice that was what 94 time she was so lovely I forgot I had a girlfriend no I didn't forget so I I yeah this these biscuits that my nan had they were lovely and I'd have them every single time I visited her I can't remember the name of them
but they're really nice they're nice with or without tea I mean you can dip them or not dip them never double dip one dips enough otherwise it would break and I don't know what it is once it once the biscuits broken into the tea I mean some some do float on the top but some don't some will just sink down to the bottom and it's almost I feel like the tea is contaminated I don't want to drink the tea anymore unless I get a spoon and I get the biscuit out
but the weird thing about it even though I feel like the tea is contaminated I don't want to drink the tea when you get the biscuit out of the spoon I want to eat the biscuit it's weird in it it's like I don't want to drink that water from that from that river because it is waste at the bottom and then getting the waste out and just munching on it like no weird weird other biscuits I think my favorite biscuits are probably plain old digestives McVitie's digestives and I like rich
tea as well they're they're the two best biscuits for dipping into tea I think in my opinion the thing is you've got a really I mean that's why we're trained in I don't know if you're not in England you might not know this but in England we actually have classes at school for biscuit dipping and it's called biscuit dipping that's just the class it's called biscuit dipping what are you doing where you got go I've got maths oh where you biscuit dipping okay just give you an example and you might
think you might be in a country so what you mean maths don't you need math no maths that's the correct way it's it's not mathematic it's mathematics maths is short for mathematics not mathematic there's no such thing as mathematic it's mathematics I'm just you know it's all about helping isn't it and so we have these classes at school it's in every year right away from like infant school all the way up to high school by the time you get to leave school at 16 maybe 18 depending on when you leave
you almost become a master of biscuit dipping it's not just tea you have to learn coffee the problem coffee is it tends to hold the heat a little bit longer unless you put lots of milk in tea tends to calm down it would become experts on tea and coffee as well the temperatures how to make a cup of tea see the problem is though there's a little bit it's become a little bit like a religion tea making in this country so you know you've got kind of the Catholics the Protestants
the different Anglo Anglican churches are different kinds of Christianity ish stuff it's a little bit like that with with tea making so there's people that put the milk in before the water before the hot water and those are people who put the milk in after the hot water so it's very much a controversial thing once a year people go on rallies today they all dress up as biscuits it's just very very very strange and and for some reason they decided to take the rich tea and digestive they're kind of taking
those two even though it's not really about biscuits not really but you know they've kind of taken on because milk they have the white like the the what's it called the rich tea because they're kind of much paler than a digestive biscuit so they're the ones that like the milk in first digestives are now classed as the ones that like the milk in afterwards so I'm a digestive because you know you put the water in for me I put the water in with a teabag and then add the milk so
it's just there's some people do you know someone and you can't put the milk in first because the hot water scorches the milk I've never heard milk scream once so I don't know where they come up with that stuff I don't even know would people even notice if you did a blind test and you gave someone a cup of tea so I've made cups of tea with people and I've never once had them say wait a minute did you put the milk in first or the opposite you know plus I
like to do whatever they I like to do the opposite to what people say when I was younger not now but when I was younger so someone said oh make sure you put the milk in before the teabag and the hot water I would do the opposite and they never do they couldn't tell the difference so I just there was one time though I did it I gave them the wrong cup so I ended up with the one with the milk in before the teabag it was disgusting I was so
angry I didn't know at the time but once I realized it tasted the same at the time but once I realized it tasted horrible it was a week later but dear Jason these are boring Mondays I used to like them because you'd focus on a subject but you seem to have lost your way a little bit the recent one where you talked about biscuits and scorched milk and a Spanish girlfriend and tea-making classes biscuit dipping it's just seems to have gone in a weird direction please can you talk about tires
next week okay I'm still not an expert though a biscuit dipping occasionally if I'm distracted okay so let's remember there was yeah I had this part-time job no I was I was in a bank and I was I think I was trying to get a loan or something and they gave me a cup of tea and biscuit I couldn't believe it I was good so I'm there at one of those tables opposite the bank wasn't the bank manager but someone that worked in a bank and then there was the big
counter over the other side there's a few other tables dotted around so I'm just having a cup of tea and the bank gets robbed so these bank robbers come in and shouted and stuff so that distracted me because I was trying to dip my biscuit in but I left it in too far too too long and it broke now that nearly ruined my day and all I can remember is them shouting get down on the floor get down on the floor don't look at us don't stop stop dunking your biscuit
in your tea I was like what else am I supposed to do because as an English person this there's a saying in England once you start dipping that that's it so once you start to dip a biscuit in your tea that's what you're going to do because the whole process starts with the thought of dipping the biscuit in the cup of tea it's not just like we don't do it any old how you know especially if you've been trained from like the age of two how to dip biscuits in tea
because you've been trained at school like we are and by the way if you ever get into if you're in another country and you want to you know show off your knowledge of other countries this is something you could tell people that we've they'll be fascinated and impressed probably in fact they may if it's a crowd of people that may actually lift you above their shoulders and parade you around the streets singing your name loudly so it's possible anything's possible I suppose and once you have the idea I'm gonna I
want to dip a biscuit in the tea and it wasn't there to start with but you know I had the cup of tea and I thought I wish I had some biscuits that's another thing normally English people carry around biscuits and we keep them in our socks before we say that's grim no they're in a packet you know they're not they're not you know and it's not the whole big massive long packet of biscuits and these are smaller packets so you might get maybe three biscuits or two biscuits maybe so
they fit inside the socks quite easily and so generally every English person would have at least one packet of biscuits in their socks now it depends how long you're gonna be out for if you're just if you're just popping around a neighbor's house then you just like one one packet of one packet biscuits in your socks is normally enough and it depends because generally if you go around a neighbor's house they the rule is in this country if you visit a neighbor or friend or family whoever it is the visitor
gets well okay the host let's say the person who owns a place so the visitor gets given biscuits and gets to choose what biscuits they want so this is an English thing this is just this happens happened here for centuries I think and the so basically what happens just in case you didn't know this in every English home there is if you go into the front door every English home has a room full of biscuits every single type of biscuits and you can say well not all biscuits can be dunked
they can that's the if that's a thing if you're not trained like we are you might struggle to dip a soggy biscuit into tea it might not work for you but even something like a Jaffa cake there's an art to doing a Jaffa cake and not leaving any chocolate in tea or you can do it where you just leave a little love heart on the top of the tea see is this so much art connected to this it's hard to explain I realize it's it might this might be new to
you you might not have known this about English people but it's it's a I started to think about this you know because I might be the only English person you ever listened to as far as a podcaster or you may not know any English people and your English your your knowledge of England might come from television or from movies and of course some of that's true you know but things like Downton Abbey it's that's not real it's real but I mean there are people that used to live like that but
it's not the general thing what I'm telling you is what everybody does so it's it's worth knowing that before you come here and you can you can you can sound very very knowledgeable when you tell people about this stuff when you tell your friends and family maybe over Christmas dinner it's like did you know that in England every home has a room specifically for biscuits see they wouldn't know that until you told them so I guess maybe I can tell you some other stuff about England another time this is just
gonna be the the first I hear that this is a so yeah the little piggy in my throat so in the biscuit it's called the Bicky room okay that I should tell you that we don't call them biscuits here we call them Bickies that's genuine it's like it's just short for biscuits Bicky got time for a cuppa cup of tea is cuppa got time for a cuppa and a Bicky so that's two different things have you got time for a cuppa sometimes that just means well you just have a quick
cup of tea drink it and leave but if someone says have you got time for a cuppa and a Bicky what that means is they like you and they'd like to spend more time with you and get to know you better it's kind of like a an English chat up date route a chat up line in a way but it's very subtle so if you're it happens quite you know if you literally someone says to you what you'd like if you're in a coffee place in in the UK or in
England and you order a coffee and they say would you like some biscuits that means 100% that they're in love with you so it's worth just this is information worth knowing that they they're basically letting you know they love you and that's it really is I think it's quite handy to have this knowledge but if someone invites you round or you visit by the way if you visit and then if you if they don't invite you and you just visit then you don't get to choose what biscuits you want they
get to choose but if they invite you you get to choose in fact you don't even get an opportunity to go into the biscuit room or we call it the Bicky room but you don't get a chance to go into the biscuit room because you've not been invited you've just made up your mind to knock on their door and go in or you know wait till they answer the door of course in that situation they can give you the horriblest biscuits that they want they still have to give you biscuits
it's the law but they don't have to give you the nice ones they give you are because we have a thing here this is gonna this is gonna shock you oh this is this is it's gonna be hard for me to say this out loud I'm a little bit embarrassed by it but then he's having a dream he's dreaming about biscuits so we have this thing in this country we have supermarkets that's not the shocking part we have supermarkets and they sell biscuits again that's not shocking part the shocking part
is there are amongst the many many types of biscuits a thing I'll be saying this out loud again this is quite a secret we're not supposed to share this but hey I suppose I've just broken all the rules we have a thing here called home brand and so if it's even Sainsbury's supermarket Sainsbury's home brand biscuits and they're still calling the same like digestives or rich tea but they're not really digestives and they're not really rich tea and some would argue people with no sense of taste no taste buds will
argue it tastes the same it doesn't taste the same just in the same way Domino's and Pizza Go-Go do not taste the same Pizza Hut and Domino's don't it's different things they just taste different just because the word pizzas in it doesn't mean it's all gonna taste the same I kind of talking about food it makes me think it might be my tummy saying a biscuit so yeah what some people do and it's it's you don't have to okay but you have your right as an English citizen to provide instead
of providing the decent biscuits you provide the home brand biscuits for the cup of tea and also you don't have to provide endless biscuits when I say endless I mean they're all the same there's no like massive biscuits but although the wagon wheel used to be quite big is it a biscuit is it is it like a chocolate because it is chocolate but has marshmallow inside but also had biscuit it's kind of a weird one is and it's too big to fit into a cup to dunk it see it's one
of those weird things where you have to cut it in half first or in quarters depending on how much you want to put in your mouth and that's that's that was I think I probably spent about three months of school just learning how to do a wagon wheel how to dip one of them without ruining everything because they drip really drip that's the thing that's why we have the you know you got a cup and saucer we don't really have we don't really use saucers so much indoors but that's what
saucers were for was collecting the the remnants of the biscuit of the tea dripping off the biscuit and any kind of chocolate or biscuit bits could like just be kept in there so it didn't go onto the table or drip onto your trousers but yeah generally I think it's quite nice to have something different from other people because you know I know that in Japan I think they have the tea ceremony but it's very different I've done a tea ceremony and the Buddhist Center and they very slow it's not something
to be done when you're thirsty that's all I'm saying it the tea ceremony isn't isn't really about the tea it's about mindfulness it's about noticing every move that you make every physical movement every it's very slow and it's nice very calming but it's not it's not really a social activity I would argue I'm trying to think what other biscuits I liked I used to have this little routine I'm gonna say ritual routine ritual back in 1988 88 yeah 88 and I used to watch remember I used to come home from
work finish it when I was working at the co-op on a Friday evening I would watch Roseanne and Cheers so between 9 and 10 I couldn't tell you which one was on first Roseanne or Cheers I don't know but they'd both be on and what I would do is I would have a can of coke and a packet of biscuits and I would just eat the whole lot maybe even two packs of biscuits but I think it's one pack of biscuits it was either fig rolls maybe it was two packs
actually yeah but ginger nuts probably and I would just feel bloated too much but then and when I was at the co-op I definitely went for a bit of a biscuit period I guess a different visual is that biscuit period and lunchtime not lunchtime at break time the first break of the day when I worked in the co-op which was a supermarket thing it wasn't a big supermarket that I worked in and two tills that was it really I think or three tills something like that four tills I think two
tills on the main till and then there's a couple of other little tills when it was busy anyway I went and I had this little routine when I would have my break I buy a can of coke and I would buy some fig rolls they were not home brand fig rolls because they were for me they weren't for a visitor that had not let me know you know an unwanted visitor that's the one that would get the home brand fig rolls these were nice fig rolls and there's nothing wrong with
home brand biscuits you know for other people but you know I've been raised to be a biscuit snob that's how it is so it's not my fault it's like you wouldn't blame me if I had a religious belief if I was brought up to have that belief no matter how silly it might seem to everyone else you can't blame me because I've been raised to believe that I don't know any different and it's almost impossible to believe anything different in a way it's like that's all I know and that's that's
why you know it's very hard to get someone out of that and it's the same with biscuits biscuits are very much like religion don't you know so I used to have these fig rolls fig rolls but they weren't because there's different types of fig rolls you can get and you can get the ones that are like a roll but literally they look a little bit like a sausage roll really like a really small sausage roll these ones weren't them they were more fancy and a little bit bigger and like rolled
over pastry it was different it tasted much nicer and I think it was like one two three four put about six in a pack and I'd eat the whole lot with my can of coke oh yeah 15 minute break and that was what I would do do that listen to the radio in the staff room the staff room was like big enough for two people sitting at a table and probably a coat rack or you know that's that's it there wasn't a lot of room in there I did that for
months just a nice oh lovely fig rolls nice can of coke yeah it was nice I like that it's weird though because I close my eyes and I can still see inside that shop now I have been inside the shop over the years so I visited that town many times hundreds of times since I left school since I left the town so I have been back loads of times it's a long time since I went into that shops many many years so it might have changed but I just remember how
it used to be so you'd go in you'd look at the shop and it was next to a if he was facing it they say he likes you if you walked out of the front door of the co-op shop supermarket and just walk backwards not a good idea you might bang into something but it was quite a big pavement and you stopped and you opened your eyes I mean again why would you have closed your eyes if you're walking backwards but why would you walk backwards would it make any difference
if you had your eyes open because you can't see behind yourself can you unless you're a pigeon so that's what I admire about pigeons because they can see pretty much everywhere they're omnipotence and to the left there was this Chinese takeaway and that was it that was what all there was on that little bit of road so you go into the supermarket and on the right-hand side there was the the bit where the lorries would go in to deliver so you go into the entrance it's like a double door left-hand
side was the counter all the way up on the left hand side so there was cigarettes booze all that stuff yeah I think there might have been two tills yeah and I think there was a conveyor belt as well on there why would there isn't now but I think there might have been back then maybe anyway so there was that and then if you so you go and turn right there's one lane it goes down then turn left there's another lane and turn right and then turn left and that leads
you to the thing so there's a few lanes again it's not but not a large store has freezer stuff at the bottom I did like the smell of the place it's quite a nice smell you know there's lots of groceries and bread and vegetables and I'm sorry vegetables and you could feed your tortoise and stop it I think I just heard a fly I suppose just different yeah dairy products the fridges were there so I guess the smell of the fridges and it was just a nice general nice quite quite
nice smell I think supermarkets do smell quite nice actually it's all that mixture of different things why I wasn't so keen on was the brown jacket I had to wear because first of all it was too tight and I was tiny back then you know I was like nine stone or something it's like really really slim and Wow I'm like six stone heavier used to be seven stone heavier but I lost this I lost some weight I did I did I did and kept it off as well which is pretty
cool oh yeah I didn't like in this smell weird just smell weird it had a weird smell I thought I don't want to smell weird I'm only 17 I just I was hoping to one day get to hold someone's hand you know have romance I didn't want to be walking around smelly I don't know what it was I think someone else had worn it before me I took it home I washed it still had a weird kind of smell and eventually I was able to get a bigger one so I'd
much rather have something that looks too big on me than something that looks too small on me plus it was yeah it was uncomfortable uncomfortable but then I did they did used to employ kids like in the evenings like part-time staff from school at the weekends and stuff so I think they probably they had little sizes for the kids I just happen to be kid size even at 17 yeah that was yeah I wasn't a big fan app it was once I got a yeah I've got a bigger one but
it was too long for me so I had to roll the sleeves up I don't know what can you do it's like it okay I need so I've got I've got a cardigan that I need to be bigger because of my body but the my I don't have long arms so it kind of covers half my hands but the shoulders and the upper body fills fills it you know this is weird just what there's what though is it tarot deck tarot tarot deck door tarot doctor pterodactyl tarot double you know
with the ones with little hands kangaroos that's another one a little way little arms and bigger body maybe that's me not quite that bad but I don't have really yeah I don't have long arms I don't have like really short arms but they're not long they're not long enough to fit my body basically my height is not my legs are not long enough to fit my body either I'm 5 foot 8 my ideal weight should be like 11 and a half stone and I'm not that I'm nor 11 and a
half stone so even if I was 12 and a half or 13 then it's still that's overweight apparently so my weight for my height is ridiculous you know I should be like 7 foot tall for my height for my height for my weight I should probably be about 6 2 6 3 6 5 6 4 to be my my weight I should be yeah that's 6 6 foot 5 maybe 6 3 I could get away with 6 3 6 2 you know well set heavy but quite tall I could get
I could do that but I'm not I'm stumpy and like I wouldn't look at a place on the new Snow White movie I don't mean taking her place she should have another acting job after that yes I've watched a bit of Snow White the new one and it is weird right just leave her alone that's that's that's my opinion it's weird it's just that really really went for it because she was just talking like a teenager she's a teenager or maybe she's in her early 20s I don't know but she
just she just she was just talking away that she talked she was just being herself and it really really went for her it's like leave her alone and I didn't think of that in a sense of like a father figure because I don't feel like a father figure towards a young woman just from a you know a human perspective leave her alone it's Snow White don't mess with Snow White show some respect for the snowy the snowy one do you think that Snow White did she have who's that had blonde
hair in the Disney movies could you think Snow White would have blonde hair I don't know why like just blonde doesn't that snow maybe because white snow is white who had blonde hair Goldilocks suppose that makes sense wouldn't it Goldilocks then she'd have golden hair not not white hair or blonde hair rather who else is there Sleeping Beauty it's a Goldilocks Sleeping Beauty Rapunzel and sure Rapunzel I don't know what color hair she had she had long hair didn't she Rapunzel still one of my favorite is the let it go
let it go do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do the cold doesn't bother me anyway I see that's the only let it go and the cold doesn't bother me anyway is the only only bits I remember I like that movie yeah I did and what is it the silly that is it a snowman he's good in that as well yeah that's gotta be the first role that he ever had where people weren't judging him on his appearance blimey leave the
man alone he can't like he's either overweight or like they moan at him you've lost a lot of weight are you okay like leave him alone he's a funny actor he's I'm very in a supportive supporting actors kind of mood at the moment oh yes did you know that the it's not really related to biscuits but Canelo fight against Crawford which is on in September I think it's gonna be on Netflix Netflix so I signed up to Netflix because it's gonna be free well it's not me free but it's gonna
be streamed not pay-per-view one of the biggest fights I would say of the year personally the most exciting fights of the year for boxing fans Crawford and Canelo is it's a great fight it would have been yeah I mean as far as exciting fights go boxing wise I mean you've got the the World Heavyweight Championship with Usyk and Dubois but they've already fought before so although it's exciting it's July the 19th and I'm going to be watching it 1,000% hopefully and I'm looking forward to it but they have fought before
and Canelo and Usyk beating so that that doesn't have the same excitement as Crawford Canelo because they've never fought before and they're both they're both broke records in their own way I mean no one there's no boxer there's no boxer there's no active boxer around today that can match Canelo's boxing record his professional record not not about how many wins he's had just how many names he's fought how many big names he's actually conquered whether he beat them or not actually he just fought so many people and won so many
titles but then but Crawford has unified two different divisions it's a three-weight world champion and he's unified three divisions I think or he's unified two divisions and won three world titles and he's a yeah he's won three I think he's what I think he's won world titles in three divisions three weight classes he's unified in two weight classes and if he is fighting Canelo who holds all the belts in super middleweight so if he wins that he will be the first boxer in history to be unified in three different weight
divisions now Canelo is already one regardless what anyone says one of the greatest boxers of our generation for what he's accomplished just what he's done is just phenomenal and he's potentially on the slide but even on the slide he's still beating everyone so they say he's on the slide because he's getting old now he's what is he 33 or 34 35 maybe now he's been boxing since he was 15 I think professionally I mean he's been a professional fighter for what 20 years he's won so many world titles I don't
know if anyone else has won as many titles as him as many divisions as him maybe Pacquiao Mayweather and Pacquiao Pacquiao and I think Pacquiao had seven different divisions seven different weight divisions and I almost I almost believed that this was just like fake news Pacquiao is actually coming back after years of professional boxing years of like proper you know fighting big names and whatever and he's fighting for a world title no warm-up fights he's fighting straight away for a world title and I will watch it but I do wonder
like I mean he's not the first one to do that but he's been out of the ring for quite a long time you know and when Sugar Ray Leonard came back to beat Marvin Hagler he'd been out of the ring for a good couple of years or so but I think many has been out of the ring for five or six years he's had a couple of exhibition fights maybe they went on his record as being professional fights but he hasn't fought any boxers I think he fought like a kickboxer
but in the ring as it was I think it was a kickboxing world champion but it's still or Muay Thai or something and it was one fight he had when he just kept knocking a bloke down and like so he's had a few fights like that over the years but professionally I don't think he's fought for six at least six years maybe longer as an actual contender in the world boxing scene and he goes straight into fighting for a world title and he's what he's about 44 now I think or
45 or four older maybe even I don't know getting on to 50 I think maybe yeah I think he's getting on he can't be getting on to 50 can he he's in his 40s early 40s I think but then that makes me think you know like I hear people going on about I can hear people like what's this got to do with boxing what about the biscuits we were really interested in the biscuits and now you're talking about boxing again I'll be honest with you I think I've run out of
biscuit stories I didn't think I'd ever say that out loud that's a sentence I never thought I'd come out of my mouth some of these heavyweights you know the people talking about heavyweights on the internet again oh Dillian White he's 38 years old now he's you know he's got most of the tumours going to be fighting him in September and he doesn't stand a chance against him because he's 28 20 years old and Dillian White is 38 doesn't handstand the hope against the young man and everyone's forgotten George Foreman he
didn't come back until he was about 38 and he won the world title at 44 or 45 44 45 he fought for the world title twice before that and against Tommy Morrison and Evander Holyfield and eventually he did win it so he and he had to fight to get it he doesn't just handed it you know he had to have loads of 20-odd fights before we got a chance to fight for the world title the second time around and they're writing people off who are less than 40 it's just I
don't know just it's into a forgotten and then you've got Desic Derek Chisora who's a handful for anyone it is really weird like Derek Chisora I can't say his name today Derek Chisora he's he's been winning quite a few fights lately he's really good he's exciting exciting to watch and he's nearly 40 now he fought and Dillian White that he's not been very active but he's had a great career Tyson Fury who some people say oh he's not any good not really Tyson Fury made both of those boxers look awful
I mean really he made them both look awful it looked effortless for him isn't it weird it doesn't seem to matter no matter what you do like the boxers no matter how successful you are and the minute you lose like oh no he's no good like okay who did he lose to he lost to Yusek who will possibly go down as being one of the greatest heavyweights ever one of the greatest heavyweights definitely of this era this generation these the last 20 years I'd say because of what he's achieved unbeaten
at the moment yeah just I don't know can't we just get along that's all I'm saying let's just all have a cup of tea and some biscuits so I don't know that was a weird recording I'm gonna go thank you for listening and remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy be gentle with yourself because you deserve to feel safe lots of love bye
Paragraph spacing and recurring name or title errors have been tidied. Because this began as a voice transcription, an occasional word or piece of punctuation may still be incorrect.