(no music) Animals on Trial | LMBYTS #1395 | Jason Newland | 17th July 2025

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com and my plastic bottle of water that's just heckled me. So my name is Jason Newland, this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Vinnie is cuddled up next to me.

He's very warm. Aren't you Vinnie? He's all cuddled up. Are you cuddled up next to your daddy? Yes you are.

And what was I gonna say? Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. And this is, well I didn't get an opportunity to do a Q&A, no I do a Trivia Tuesday. So this is going to be a Trivia Thursday.

I thought I'd just, why not, why not indeed. I've got the day off today, kind of. I've got the day off, so I did already do a recording earlier on.

But on this recording I'm not even going to mention, I'm not going to mention any sausages or anything like that. I'm going to just, I'm going to focus on the recording. Oh yes, so what I thought I would do is, as it's Trivia Thursday instead of Trivia Tuesday, I want to find a particularly weird subject.

Very obscure, as it were, and I'm going to focus on Animals on Trial. Animals on Trial. Yeah, that's what I'm doing.

Or I could just, could you feel that excitement and energy as I sung that. It was like I was on a big stage with guitars and drums and a big microphone and a glitzy suit. You know, obviously showed my midsection of muscles.

Yeah, actually, I've been having problems with my upper back muscles, and yesterday and today I did some bench presses and it seems to have kind of helped. So I'm going to do that every day. And it just, I don't know, who knows why, but maybe it's because the last month I've done hardly any exercise.

I've done hardly any weights. I've done more walking. But I haven't done, because normally I do weights every day for my lower back, which probably helps with my upper back.

And I've done hardly anything, pretty much in the weight division, in the weight division, in the weight department. So yesterday and today I've done some bench presses with my dumbbells. And actually, it's strange, but I can kind of, it feels a bit better.

My back feels better for doing that. Who knows, who knows why, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to moan about it. I'm just going to enjoy it.

So I do, I feel my upper back feels better than it did. So I will continue to do that every day. I'm only doing like 30 or 40 reps.

It's not, not heavy because technically I was thinking if you can do a push up, press up, push up, whatever you want to call it, technically I should be able to bench press my own weight. Because that's what you do when you do a press up, isn't it? Or push up, it's your own weight against yourself. So technically I should be able to bench press 95 pounds, 95 kilos or I am.

Should be able to do that easy. Well, yeah, I should, surely. Yeah.

So that's 200 pounds, 200 and something pounds. So I should be able to do that. It shouldn't, that shouldn't be hard at all.

So really three, I suppose 300 pounds technically I should be able to do. It's been years since I even bothered with a bench press, like as in a bench press machine. I never really enjoyed doing the free weights, bench presses in the gym, like, you know, like a proper gym when I was younger or at any age really.

Partly because when I was a kid, I'd do it and I'd always choose the bench press machines if there was other people around. Even just doing curls, arm curls, it was a little bit, um, just didn't feel comfortable doing it because it'd always be someone coming around, pumping up the weights and putting on bigger weights than the ones I was using, showing off and stuff, or just those stronger possibly as well.

And I wasn't really into that.

So I'd be in the gym on my own, doing my own little thing when I was like a kid, if I'd known 14 and you know, all the, like the tough kids from the year below or whatever, would all be in there and they'd all be like trying to outdo each other. And they'd all have bigger muscles than me and generally be bigger than me because I was quite small for my age, very small for my age.

And I just, I mean, they didn't show me any disrespect, but it just, it felt a little bit like, oh, okay.

If I was standing there next to them doing only like 20% of the weights they were doing, that'd make me look silly. They were doing like an arm curl with a barbell and then they'd come along and they'd like doing, I don't know what I would have been doing back then, three pounds or something. I don't know.

And they'd be coming and doing these big, big weights. And I'm like, okay, that was bad enough. But then as an adult, it seemed to be the only people that were doing free weights, which is by just, you know, where you put the weights on the end of the bars rather than using the machines.

The only people that seem to be doing free weights are the huge people. You know, the ones, the bodybuilders, types, and I was always going to look really, really silly next to them. I mean, there was one bloke who was so big, this was when I was like in the 20s, he was so big and muscular.

I stood next to him and I disappeared. No one could see me. It was just in comparison.

I was like, I was invisible. I realised I'd fallen down a hole. It was not the most enjoyable experience being around people like that.

But then I went to a proper bodybuilding gym. Not on purpose. I mean, I didn't accidentally, I didn't think it was a hairdresser's or kebab shop.

I didn't know it was a gym. But this was different because the other gyms I've been in have always been like public, general gyms. You know, even now, the ones where just anyone goes, maybe they're open 24 hours a day and you've got a little security key and stuff and you still get the young lads sort of showing off their muscles and stuff like that, which is what I would have done if I'd ever been able to, if I'd ever had the muscles to do that with.

But then when I was in Stratford, I went into an actual bodybuilder's gym and it was run by a former Mr Universe, Wilf Sylvester. And that was a different experience because although there was huge people training there, none of them were arrogant. None of them were showing off because they were all big.

It was almost, it's a weird one. It's like you had, they didn't have to, I guess they were competing with each other as in, you know, the competitions and stuff. But there was, you had some people just going in there for just to train, like me.

And you, it's basically that. And then you had these massive, super fit men and women who were athletes. And I've never been an athlete, never been one of them.

I can't even spell the word. A, F, T, L, E, E, E, E, T. Oh yeah, I can. But that for some reason felt like a more safer space.

Because the man running it didn't take no crap. It was lovely, very friendly. But at the same time, that was his dream to own his own gym.

So he worked his whole, he worked for years, decades as a bodybuilder and working for the Ford car company in Dagenham, I think. They sponsored him in his bodybuilding career. So he traveled the world, you know, doing bodybuilding contests and stuff.

And then when he retired from bodybuilding, maybe he retired from the car as well. And he went and opened the gym when he was probably, I'm guessing probably in his 40s, early 40s. And in the window of this gym, I used to walk past it for years.

Never went in there. Well, I did go in there eventually, but you know, for years I walked past it. And it was this cardboard cutout of him.

I didn't know who he was, Wilf Sylvester, even though I used to be really into bodybuilding when I was at school, as in reading the magazines and wishing upon a star, basically. I thought if I kept reading the magazines, my muscles would grow. It didn't happen.

So I knew quite a lot about bodybuilding. The main people back then, Lee Haney, Rich Gaspari. Yeah, lots of different ones back then.

There was Al Beckles, who was about 90 years old then. And now he's 150 and he's still going strong. And he was in the top 10, I think, of the Mr. Olympia.

The oldest ever top 10 like placement in Mr. Olympia. And he was, I think then he was like 48, maybe even 50. Maybe 50, maybe higher than 50.

Because it's definitely, he's in his 90s now. And this was like 1985, 84, 85. Because I used to take the bodybuilding magazines, I think one was called Flex.

It was definitely called Flex. Another one was, I think, Bodybuilding Monthly. So I used to take them into school and read them while I was in classroom.

So it was between those magazines and the martial arts magazines. I used to like the boxing magazines, KO. That was a boxing magazine I liked to read.

And then the martial arts magazines was, I don't know, you'd think I'd remember that one, wouldn't you? What was the martial arts magazine? Kung Fu Panda, not Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu, Karate. No. Hmm.

That will come to me. I can search for it. I can search, but I can't be bothered.

I've got the laptop in front of me. But I want to try and see if my memory perhaps works slightly. No, I can't remember.

Oh no, nearly had it. It wasn't Kung Fu. Or is it martial arts? It might have been called martial arts.

Kicking, punching, blocking. Fighting. It's some kind of name.

It had a name anyway. And there's a specific one I used to buy every month. Or was it weekly? I think it was every month.

At least, yeah, I think it was. It might have been fortnightly. No, I can't remember what it was called, but those were the types of magazines that I used to read.

Well, they're the ones I'd read in public. It's got, I'm the only person that actually had a pot. It's weird.

I was a little bit embarrassed about reading bodybuilding magazines. So I had them. So when I was at school, because you know those desks that you can open up and they're like wooden desks and they're open and you can put stuff inside.

Don't know if you've ever seen those. That's like from decades ago. I'm not sure if they still exist.

Well, I used to hide my magazines and read them with that up or I'd put it on top. And I didn't want other people to know that I was reading bodybuilding magazines. So what I'd do is hide it inside a copy of Playboy.

And it seemed to do the trick. Or Penthouse, whichever one I could, whatever I managed to find in the bushes. When I say bushes, I mean like real, okay, let's just move on.

So it's all about bushes. Had the trimmer around. It's really weird.

They trimmed everything except one bit. And as we come out the front of where I live, they've got this big hedge, this big bush, but they haven't trimmed it off of the pavement, which means you can't see around it. I know technically I've never been able to see around corners, but I can't see what's coming.

I can't see what's, you know, it's like really, because when I take this little munchkin out for a walk, I like to, I said the word, did he hear it? He didn't seem to notice. Good, I think he's asleep. I can't quite see what's coming to the left of me.

But they haven't trimmed it back yet. So this, what was I talking about there? Oh yeah, I like that. That was a good gym.

Had a punch bag as well. So Wilf was cool. I got on really well with him.

It's just, I'd stop and I'd chat with him and I didn't really get to know him until I think 96. So from 96 to about 2001, I knew him. I'd like to talk to him, to chat to him.

Sometimes he'd be outside and I'd just have a chat with him. Really nice bloke. I used to go in there with my cousin in about 96 and I think she fancied his son.

Yeah, I think she did. Yeah, she did. Yeah, because his son used to be a trainer as well.

And it was weird, he was so down to earth, such a nice bloke, Wilf. And I'd go in there, sometimes it'd just be him there on his own and we'd train together. And I say train together, he'd kind of give me training tips.

I mean, I couldn't, I wouldn't even be able to spot for him. So if he was lifting three weights and he was doing a bench press, I'd be no good. So if he was, if he'd be like, oh wait a minute, because if you don't know what spotting is, basically you're there to help the person with the weights if they, if it's too much, if they've done too much and you need help.

I couldn't help him with his weights. I couldn't lift them. If you can't lift them, what the hell am I going to do? You're for Mr. Universe.

So, you know, I didn't help him, but we used to like have a go on the punch bag and hold the punch bag and stuff like that for each other. Just, you know, it was a really, really nice bloke. I liked him a lot.

So I did a whole recorded on him actually a few years ago. Animals on trial. So these are medieval legal oddities.

From the 13th to the 18th century in Europe, animals were routinely tried in secular courts for crimes, just like people. Wow. You know what? You want people like in, they call themselves, the people in the West call themselves first world countries, and how, how, you know, and make fun, maybe like talk about other countries being so outdated and it's not that long ago that people in my country and all over Europe were taking animals to court.

And bearing in mind that, you know, those countries are the ones that went and, you know, spread to other countries. So I'm sure this stuff probably also went on in America, possibly went on in Australia as well. So yeah, wow.

So pigs top the list of pigs. Why did pigs get such a hard time? Pigs top the list of offenders due to free roaming pigs, often causing problems, you know, maybe hurting people accidentally or damaging property. I'm going to water down some of the stuff that it says here.

So I just should point out, I've got this list from chatgpt.com. Don't take any of it's true. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it if there's anything that's a little bit horrible, I'm gonna either not mention it or I will make it more palatable. Okay.

Yeah, pigs do get a bad time. And the amount of people say, oh, don't eat pig is a dirty animal. Name a clean one.

Name one clean animal, including humans. None, none are clean. We have points where we are clean.

I'm sure pig is clean when it's been raining, and it's been rolling around in the rain, the mud. But you know what I mean. In 1379.

So pigs that unfortunately caused a lot of problems for a particular man in France were tried. Even in court, even pigs who merely witnessed really, even pigs who are who merely witnessed the incident were judged guilty. Wow.

And that, that's mind blowing, isn't it? So one thing, charging a pig, because it stampeded or whatever, and it kind of got out of hand, and it caused serious problems for someone. But because other pigs were just minding their own business, just sitting there, you know, human roll, you know, a human sandwich with some eggs. And they had nothing to do with it.

Just watching. So they're going to get in trouble as well. That doesn't seem fair.

Some pigs were found guilty and sentenced to the worst sentence for eating a consecrated host. A consecrated host. Eating a consecrated host.

I don't know what that means. Friday was a serious aggravation. I don't even know what that means.

A consecrated host. So, a so, yeah, a so, not just so, but a so, and she asks, is that really the name of a female pig? A she asks, she asks, she asks. Sounds more like a donkey, doesn't it? She asks, she asks.

A so, and a she asks were condemned to be, they were condemned on appeal, but on appeal, they wouldn't. I'm not going to read this out. They basically were condemned to the worst punishment, but in the end they had a lesser punishment.

So they really were being treated like humans. Dolphins were tried in Marseilles in 1596. Dolphins.

What on earth has a, can a dolphin do? I'm going to have a drink. A Swiss town's donated moose was believed demonic. Townspeople.

Oh, I can't, some of this is horrible. I'll tell you what, this medieval people. Not nice.

This really, I'm glad we've got laws now. And this is when we had laws, but oh, anyway, I can't, I just want to say the word, the sentence, a Swiss town's donated moose was believed demonic. Okay.

Weasels, horses, eels, bulls, dogs, sheep, even rats and locusts faced trials in medieval Europe. Even locusts. You would think, wouldn't you? I'm just thinking possibly.

So you've got a locust, one locust. All the hassle. I mean, how did that even go? How many people were involved in the trial? Another question comes to mind, how much time did these people have on their hands to be taking a rat to trial or an eel? I wonder what that got in trouble for? Trial records show that all this stuff was going on and it persisted into the mid 18th century where they were actually sentenced to perish all the way to the mid 18th century and in some cases early 20th century.

I tell you, if I was living somewhere and suddenly a chicken was on trial, I would move, I would move as soon as possible. Oh, this, this is something, yeah, this is something I actually believe, because this is such a kind of human stupidity that I just could just imagine that this is true. So back in 1474, 1474, in Basil a rooster was prosecuted for laying an extra large egg, an extra large egg, because this rooster in 1474 was deemed unnatural and demonic.

Wow, and you know, there's probably still people today, do we still believe that? They're the ones that need to be up for court, they need to be, they need to be in court being judged and being sentenced. People that believe stuff like that. Wow.

Not the rooster. Absolutely ridiculous. And now the internet has just gone off.

Brilliant. Great. Why has it gone off? There was no need for that.

Okay, I got it back. I don't know why, I think I just pressed the wrong button. I pressed the wrong button.

It's not the first time. At least I'm able to find the button now. Ecclesiastic excommunications, vermin courts in brackets.

Okay, here we go. Courts enrolled insects, rats, locusts, and weevils as defendants in ecclesiastic trials. I mean, it's all ridiculous, but insects.

But then, it's no more ridiculous than rats or locusts or weevils. I don't know what a weevil is. There's one thing, prosecuting an animal, because, you know, technically, they can just sit there and be accused and just keep quiet.

They don't necessarily have to do anything. And it's maybe up to the lawyer to do a defense. But a defendant has to kind of talk, don't they? So how, how, how, how, how, oh, oh, how this this is weird.

In 1587, weevils, again, I don't know what a weevil is. Is it like a weasel? I don't know. V-shaped weasel.

In St. Julian, France, were presented by a lawyer argued to have divine protection. Okay, I'm not quite sure what divine protection is, but I'm guessing it's it's quite a good thing to have, maybe. I mean, divine protection, it sounds like something that you'd quite want to have, isn't it? More powerful than a seatbelt, possibly.

Oh, that's that in my eye. Oh, no, I haven't. Right, what's next? It's hard to have any commentary on this because the sentences are just ridiculous in themselves.

The judge ruled in absentia. Final verdict lost to time. Destroyed by rats or bugs.

Okay. Excommunication anathema was used to banish pets rather than kill them. That's good.

That's nice. So, animals were excommunicated. I mean, that's just assuming that the rats and the bugs and the ants and all that stuff that were in the church were there to pray for the sermon, as opposed to maybe that's where they lived.

One, you got to be pretty proud of yourself, and you'd be pretty popular if not just the humans turn up at your sermon, but all the animals flocking as well. It's the new Noah. Maybe.

Courts ordered locusts to depart a region. I'll do it. Okay.

Courts ordered locusts to depart a region by a certain date and time or face excommunication. How? What did they put up signs? They send a letter in the post, send an email. I mean, what? What? What? Maybe it was a Facebook group, locusts Facebook group, and they just posted it on there.

You've got to be out of here by this time. Otherwise, you're going to be excommunicated. I didn't think that, I didn't think that religions back in them days believed that insects got to go to heaven anyway.

Maybe I'm wrong. In 1545, public prayers were held to coerce weevils away. Miraculously, the infestation ended.

It just shows you that it works, doesn't it? So stop mocking it. Stop mocking all these. And I'm trying to educate you.

Let me educate you. I'm trying to teach you something. Stop mocking some of the greatest factual facts of our history, legal principles and implications.

Animal trials treated creatures as moral agents capable of intent. Yeah, I find animals, I mean, animals can be crafty. Vinnie is very crafty.

He knows what he wants, and he will pretend to do stuff to get there. So he'll pretend to be eating something off the floor. Because he's waiting to see what the dog is coming closer to see what kind of dog is.

He's very, very crafty. I just saw him once and he was like, pretending he didn't want to leave the park. So what he was doing, I was chucking the ball.

This is when I was able to let him off the lead. I was chucking the ball nearer to the exit of the park, so that he'd run and get it and then put him on the lead and go out. He was grabbing it.

And instead of bringing it back to me, he ran right past me, and he dropped it further in the park. Because he knew I was trying to get him away from the park. I've literally seen him.

Right? I've chucked food on the floor for him to try and find. And what he does is once he's found it, he chews it and he looks up at me for the next one. On this particular occasion, I could see where it went.

But he didn't see where it went. And he couldn't find it. He ran in a completely different direction.

He pretended to eat a treat. And then looked at me ready for the next one. He hadn't eaten anything.

He just pretended. And I could see the treat on the floor. And I could also see all the grass was short.

I tell you how he missed it to be fair. But there was nothing there. He was just pretending to eat it because he couldn't be bothered to search for the other one.

Devious. Judges and clergy genuinely applied human justice to animals. Not all satire or folklore.

Wow. Legal records from France are some of the best preserved. That's nice.

Great. Cases raised foundational questions. If animals can be guilty, must they also have rights? That's a good point, isn't it? Yeah, if someone must abide by the law, then surely they must be part of society.

So you'd think they'd have equal rights to society like everyone else in it. Yeah. Trials blurred lines between superstition, theology and secular law.

It is. The thing is, theology, religion, belief systems, a lot of it comes from superstition anyway. So, you know, believing in something that you can't prove and believing in it, that's almost kind of, isn't that the meaning of superstition? So, I don't know.

Believe. Yeah. I like to call it stupidstition.

So I'm not superstitious. I actually sat on a bus with someone. With someone I was on the bus with like traveling together.

I'm not, I mean, there was other people on the bus as well. She saw, what's those birds that steal stuff? Not Goldilocks, not hens, sparrows, blackbirds, blue tits, red tits, yellow tits, big, and what's, what was it called? What are they called? The ones, not wrens, not falcons, not falcons, sparrows, those birds that you suppose, anyway. She saw these two birds together and she got up and she saluted out of the window.

Who was on a bus and she stood up face towards the window to where these two birds were and she saluted. It's among the most embarrassing moments of my life. I just thought, you know what? That is, it became, it became a passion of mine to not have any superstitions after that.

Because it was ridiculous. The idea of, because I used to be a bit superstitious. And mainly because my life was so rubbish at a time when I was like a kid, when I was, you know, when I was like a late teenager, 16 or whatever.

And then people would say, well, don't walk on the cracks on the floor, on the ground, the cracks in the pavement or the concrete, because that's bad luck or whatever. And I thought, well, I don't want any worse luck than what's happening already. So I would try to avoid it.

Things like that. And I started to kind of buy into some of that crap. And then as I got older, I, I become more educated and realized it's just absolute nonsense, obviously.

And, but also realizing that belief, that stuff can have an effect on people. Because belief is super powerful. One of the most powerful things that we have.

That's why having a lucky object, a lucky token or lucky souvenir or whatever, in itself does nothing. But to a person's mind can do everything. So if a person really believes that by having that lucky, I don't know, lucky condom in their pocket, lucky used condom in their pocket, they might actually, or hanging off their ear, they might, it might help them with their university exam.

Or it might give them more confidence on a first date. Wearing your, wearing your lucky set of underpants. The ones that you've been wearing for 35 years.

Why don't you wash them? No, dad, dad, wash out the luck. The luck's in the dirt. If they're so lucky, how come you never ever get a second date? I don't want to talk about it.

So it's weird though, isn't it? You know when you got like a really, really, you got a lucky thing. I remember I had this, what did I have? This lucky little mouse, it was a wooden mouse. And I had it, a little tail, it was wooden.

And that was my lucky charm. And I'd go on dates and I was telling people, like my friends, that's my lucky charm. I'll take it on all my dates.

And they said, why come no one wants to see you again afterwards? And I said, I don't know. I left, I started leaving at home. It turned out it was my personality.

Nothing, you know, it was because I started to think it maybe it was bad luck for me, but it wasn't. It was just my personality that was stopping people from wanting to see me again. I remember I went into, I went to the cinema with someone.

I was, what, 16 at the time, I think. Maybe 17, 16-ish, maybe 15, even 16. I think 16.

I don't remember the girl that I went to the cinema with. I asked her to go to the cinema and she said yes, for some reason. All I know is I thought she liked me.

We sat down to watch the movie. All I did was put my, I put my hand on her knee, literally. It was like, just gently.

I didn't like plonk it down. I wasn't wearing a big heavy metal glove or anything like that. I wasn't anything weird.

I just put my hand on her knee. I guess trying to be romantic. Even though there's no enjoyment for me, putting my hand on a knee.

I don't get anything out of that. Never have, never. It's like bone, isn't it? Oh, did you get, how did you get on last night? Oh, I felt one of her bones.

It was lovely. Oh, oh, that's, that's nice. That's like, oh, maybe tomorrow she'll blow, blow on me.

I can get to smell her breath after she's eaten some garlic. Oh, that'd be good. No, it's like it was a bone, a knees, not a, I suppose some people like knees, but it is just a bit of gristle, isn't it? Ultimately.

It's not, it's nothing. I've never looked at a knee and thought, oh yeah. Oh, never, never had, never happened.

Oh, oh, I can't concentrate on anything. It's just, there's a knee, cover your knee up. I can't concentrate.

Yeah. Well, that was the end of my paramedic career. But hey, you know, it's good to find out in training, isn't it? I had a, I had a thing for knees.

No, no, I don't. I just like, I didn't know how to act back then. I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know what the correct way to be on a first date was. I was a teenager and there was no, there was no training for that stuff. No training whatsoever.

And it's guesswork. I guess it still is. I mean, I haven't had a date for long time, long, long, long time.

So long that I cannot remember the last time I went on a date. Yes, I can. The last time I went on a date, I actually went somewhere.

Is it, does a date, it doesn't have to mean going somewhere, does it? So I had a friend come round here once and that wasn't really a date, was it? Someone that I kind of knew a bit. I did have a date with someone that I spent all week talking to on the phone and she's someone that I'd known for a while and she was talking about having babies and we were talking about building a life together, which is kind of weird.

I don't know.

It felt like things were going quite well and then I go around to see her on Sunday and it was almost like it was a different person. It was like there was nothing there. There was no, like she wasn't human.

It's weird. Not in a bad way. There's no good way to say that, is there? But it seemed like she was, like there was nothing there inside.

She looked the same, but a little bit like, um, oh, Body Snatchers. Remember the Body Snatchers movies? It was a little bit like that. That's what she looked like.

Like she just, I don't know, what? Strange. So I spent the afternoon with her and she gave me soup. Soup.

That was my dinner. Soup. A growing lad of 40.

You don't give a growing lad of 41 or 42, whatever it was, soup. Don't give someone who's 59 soup. That's not a dinner.

It's a drink. It's, I mean, it's a starter for a reason, isn't it? Although I prefer, I wouldn't have soup as a starter. I think if I was going to have a starter, it'd be, I don't know what choices.

Oh, it's made me hungry now. I really do need to have a meal one day. Oh, I, what would be a good starter? I took Uncle Sausage's, my tomato ketchup yesterday and now I've got no tomato ketchup.

Damn him. Damn it. Yeah.

So, and there was at one point, and I'm just sitting there with her in her flat, this, this lady that I was, thought there was something going on between us and it was flat. The energy was like, no energy there. There was a bit of energy, but not from her side.

And I didn't know what to do. It was just really weird. There was, yeah.

In the end, I just left. Well, I had to leave eventually, didn't I? Otherwise I couldn't make this podcast. 15 years later, it's very strange.

But anyway, I touched, you know, when I was, I was a kid myself, I touched this, the knee of the person I was in the cinema with. And she, she picked my hand up and dropped it back on my lap, my hand. That's when I realised, first of all, well, either one or two really.

Well, first of all, we were never going to get married, me and that lady. Secondly, the girl I went to the cinema with was sitting on the other side of me. You know, I touched the wrong knee.

No, I just, it just didn't work. It just, just like, wow. To the point that I've kind of almost erased who she was.

I don't know who she was. I can't remember. Such a long time ago.

What was I talking about? I had really bad dates. I don't know why. That wasn't a bad date.

It was just like a non-date. Another one I've gotten, this is a thing of, I had this, when I worked in a co-op, I had a female walk into the shop. And I was behind the counter.

So I was in there every day. Well, five, six days a week or whatever. She walked in, handed me a note, looked me in the eyes, and then walked out.

She knew my name. So I guess she, I had a name badge on and stuff. So I read it and she said how, how lovely I was.

And she really fancied me. Bearing in mind, she would see me during the day. So it's not like she was seeing me at night when the lighting was good.

And it, you know, it made me look human. She saw me during the daytime. And it was all romantic.

I really like you. And I've, I see you every day. And I'd love to sort get together.

And she wrote down a telephone number and her address and a name. So I called her up. I thought anyone that does that deserves, I thought I'd see her, because they deserve to be rejected in person.

No, anyone that goes to that effort deserves not to be ignored. Because that's, that's a, that's a beyond thing to do, isn't it? To like go to that effort and to walk up to someone like that. So I find her up in the morning.

The next day, I think it was Saturday morning. So I did it wrong. Well, I didn't do it wrong.

I mean, I did. I didn't try and use my knees to dial the phone. I did.

I phoned everything like normal. That's when we used to have those turny phones, you know, spiral things. I used to like them.

And she invited me around. So I went round. She was in the middle of getting ready for probably work, actually.

So she was getting ready to go to, I think she probably had a retail job herself in town. And she was doing her hair. And I just, it was like there was nothing to talk about.

It was just the wrong scenario for us to get to know each other. While she was drying her hair. And I was just sitting there on the edge of a bed.

Honestly, it was so awkward. In the end, I just said see ya. And I literally said bye.

And I never saw her again. She never came back in the supermarket. I never saw her again.

It could have been a lovely marriage. We could have had kids and everything, you know, it could have been, could have, could have, would have, you know. But for some reason, I just, you know, I mean, basically, the ball was in my court, wasn't it? Almost.

It was like, this was a, it was really, I was in a good position. She told me she liked me. She'd wrote a letter to me.

So all I had to do really is just be there. Just turn up. But not when she's getting ready.

Not, you know, that's just a weird time to be going around someone's house. Especially when I had to get to work. And also going around their house probably wasn't a good idea.

You know, I mean, she invited me, but it would have been, unless I just turned up. No, I did. No, she invited me.

You know, if we'd have gone out and got to know each other, it might have been, well, it couldn't have been worse than what it was. And then there's another woman, another lady. I asked her out.

She worked in an estate agent, no, in a travel agency. I asked her out in front of all her friends, her colleagues. I don't know where I've got the confidence to do that, but I did.

I did it. I'd met before, a couple of nights before, because she broke down in a car and me and my friend came to her rescue. So my friend was driving, I was a passenger and we got talking to her and she'd said where she worked and I just popped in to say hello.

And I asked her out on a date and she said yes. So instead of saying, brilliant, okay, what's your number? And then leaving, which is what I should have done. I should have just left.

No, that's not what I did. I settled in for the afternoon and I didn't stop talking for probably two hours, talking to the other members of staff, being silly, being very childish, because I was very childish. Hard to believe that I was ever childish.

Yeah, let me think, maybe it isn't. After about three hours, she said to me, I've changed my mind. Because we were just going to go to the cinema, that's what it was.

She changed her mind. I said, did you hear about the knee incident? She said, what? I said, nothing, nothing, nothing. What? And she said, no.

And that was it, done. Not good. So basically, I did what is known in the sales world as overselling.

So in sales, I've read, I've read so many sales books over the years. Not anymore, but you know, back in the 90s and the 2000s. And there's a thing, when you get a sale, that's your job done.

Get the sale, process the sale. Stop trying to sell. You don't need to sell anything.

You don't need to sell. I mean, you can still be positive about it and like, you know, but you don't need to sell once you've sold. And if you keep going on and on and on and on, potentially the person will just get fed up and change their mind.

And this is what happened in this situation. Admittedly, the dancing didn't help. And the bagpipes, I don't think they helped.

I mean, you could say, what, why did I have bagpipes on me? But I'm saying, you know, I always had this kind of idea that this mentality of being prepared. You never know when you're going to need bagpipes or skis or a water pistol. You don't know what's going to be useful in any given situation.

As it turned out, none of those things were useful in this particular situation. And haven't been particularly useful in any situation involving asking someone out for a date. Although I haven't asked anyone out for a date since yeah, 15 years, really, pretty much.

Not really. Yeah, because I've met a couple of people, it just kind of progressed from there. But I've never gone up to someone.

There was someone I did ask out. And she said, No, this is ironic. So there was someone I really, really felt I liked in the Buddhist center.

And we got on really well. And I felt real, real connection with her. So I asked her out.

Basically, she said, Oh, I've got a boyfriend. I said, Oh, you can bring him along if you like. She laughed.

People think I'm joking sometimes. And that was it. Then I met someone else that I liked in the Buddhist center.

Then I didn't see her for ages. And then she turned up again. And that's the one that I went and had soup with.

Yeah. So I saw her that night. But then the other one turned up the same night.

Hadn't seen either of them for months and months and months. So I'd already got like reconnected with the other one, the one that ended up giving me soup. And the one that was she had a body snatched invasion of the body snatchers that one.

So this other one, the one that I had really liked before, she actually said, Oh, we should go out sometime. I'll give you my number before we go. Before we finish the evening.

I said, Okay, cool. I just ignored it because I thought, well, no, I've got a date now. You had your chance.

I thought to myself arrogantly. And I never saw either of them again. Wow.

I actually did see. I did see the soup lady. I'm gonna call a soup lady.

She gave me Yeah, she was in the town walking. Like a suitcase with wheels or something. It's very awkward.

Just like we almost banged into each other. All right. Yeah.

She started telling me where she was going. Like, why? Why are you telling me that? I didn't say that. But I kind of thought it was like, okay.

Why? See ya. And it was just like, I haven't seen her since it's been 15 over 15 years. Why am I still thinking about people like that? I don't know.

Actually, I do know. Because the chance I might see her again soon. Depending on if she still works where she used to work.

But it's only because I'm perhaps gonna have to go there. That's all right. I don't think she'd even remember me anyway.

To be honest with you. I might not remember her. Then there was this other girl.

When I was in the co op, I've mentioned this before, but another situation. I don't know. I don't know if it's because I've got such a different.

Maybe I have a different personality when I'm on a date to what I have when I'm just myself. But I work all day with this girl. She lives in a different town.

I was 17. She was probably the same age, maybe 16. She was full time working in the co op, but she worked in a different town.

She came just because we were short staffed. I think the member of staff, the reason she came in because a member of staff that was there got sacked for stealing. She got caught by the undercover police.

She was the manager, so she got sacked. So they needed someone else to come in and just look after the tills and stuff. And there was two tills was three tills.

I can't remember. Anyway, me and her gone really well. Like really well.

And she was perfect for me. In so many ways. Like she was funny.

She laughed at my silly jokes. I fancied her. I'm sure she was besotted with me.

Why wouldn't she be? And she was sitting quite close to me. So my smell didn't put her off. So that's, you know, it's a lot of bonuses there.

And I didn't, I didn't hold in any farts, still let them go. So I went round hers on a Sunday and we arranged to see each other. Gave me an address, a telephone number and planned for me to go round hers the next day.

So this is on a Saturday. And I went round hers on a Sunday. In fact, we might have even spent two days together, Friday and Saturday like at work.

We'd go and sell what we were laughing all day long. Honestly, had a really good time. So go round her house.

The idea is to go out somewhere. I mean, I was limited, bearing in mind that I didn't have much money, but it wasn't just that. I couldn't go into pubs and get served because I looked about 15, maybe 14 even.

I looked much younger than I was. And so it probably would have been just like walking around the streets. That probably would have been the date.

Maybe a restaurant, you know, Indian restaurant or Chinese restaurant or something. Potentially. But it was a Sunday afternoon.

Now back in 1987, was it? No, it's early 1988. About April, May, June time, May. On a Sunday afternoon, nothing was open.

Like you'd struggle to get anything. The pubs had a Sunday times. So they'd be open for a couple of hours at lunchtime and they'd open again in the evening for a few hours.

There was no all day drinking like there is now. Ever, not even during the week. The, you could only buy things like alcohol and cigarettes and stuff during certain times of the day.

I know it's weird, isn't it? But that's how it used to be. On a Sunday, the only shops that really opened, no supermarkets did, the only shops that opened back then, where I lived anyway, I'm sure it's different in London, but where I worked, where I lived at the time, it was the news agents would open in the morning to sell the newspapers, Sunday newspapers. And maybe there might be a couple of like, or you might get some tourist stuff is open on the seafront.

So cafes and stuff, they'd be allowed to be open on a Sunday, because it's touristy, isn't it? And the casino, not casinos, but like the arcades and the pier and those kinds of things, they'd be open on a Sunday during the day. But that would be it. The ice cream hut would be open during the summer on a Sunday.

But then nothing else, nothing would be open. So I went to this town, the next town up from where I lived, got a taxi there. And, or maybe I got a train and I got a taxi to a house from the train, possibly.

But there was nothing to do. But we didn't even get that far. Because I was thinking maybe go to the cinema in the evening.

Because cinemas were open in the evening, I'm pretty sure on a Sunday. I think they were. But I might be wrong.

I don't know. Anyway, I went to a house, knocked on the door, went in. And I genuinely had no expectations of anything nice happening.

I just wanted to spend some time with her because I liked her. And we had such a good time at work, laughing all day, you know, it was all it was just to have some fun. And so I enjoyed her company.

So I get there. And she's not alone. She's got a friend with her, which is maybe she wanted to have someone there with her, you know, maybe for whatever reasons, which is fair enough.

But this friend was awful. Because all she did was flirt with me. Now, I know I said the word awful.

In any other situation, I would not be bothered by that. The fact that she was flirting with me, and she was pop clocking, as they say, me, she really got in the way and she started sitting on my lap. And because I didn't know what to do in that situation, I didn't want to sort of be horrible to her.

Didn't want to be verbally rude. I didn't want to physically push her off. So I did kind of push her off.

It was it was kind of a weird one, isn't it? I just well, at the time, I just didn't know what to do. But the girl that I was visiting, it was her house. She was very, very annoyed with me.

Not with her friend, but with me. And in the end, I just left, got a taxi home. And that was the last time I saw her.

But I'd handle that situation much differently now. I wouldn't go around her house now. She hasn't seen me for 40 years, so she probably wouldn't remember me.

Probably doesn't even live there anymore. But no, I wouldn't. Unless I knew someone, I wouldn't probably go around the house unless I knew them.

Well, or, yeah. But I think technically, go around someone's house on a first date, maybe it's not a good idea. Maybe.

I mean, I'm talking like I'm going to have another first date. I don't know. Maybe it's possible.

Maybe. I don't know. But her friend really got in the way.

And I didn't understand why. It's not like I left and her friend was running after me. JJ, JJ, don't leave me.

You know, it wasn't like she was so into me that she followed me all the way home. The friend I'm talking about, she was just doing it to wind her friend up, to wind the girl that I was visiting. And the girl I was visiting, I really liked.

Arguably the one I liked the most during that period. Because I liked her physically, but she was funny. And we had a good time.

It was like being almost like being attracted to a friend, which hasn't really happened in my life. Not really, not much. Well, occasionally, but that's enough about Dean.

And I, yeah, that was annoying. Because she just, ugh. Because for me, you know, I was very shy around females that I liked.

And for some reason, she made it very easy for me to just be myself. So I could just be silly. But I guess we were both different because she was at home, she was in a different environment.

I was well out of my comfort zone because I was in someone else's house. And in a different town. And I remember saying to me, she said, what's all this got to do with animals being on trial? I said, what do you mean? She said, well, you're supposed to be talking about animals being on trial.

You only got up to number 22 on the list of 100. And you start talking about girlfriends and ex-girlfriends that didn't end up being girlfriends, which basically has got nothing to do with animals being on trial. How did you manage to move from one subject to another without even noticing you'd done it? And I answered, well, the fact that I'm mentioning it means that I have noticed, doesn't it?

And she said, no, I mentioned it, you didn't mention it.

I said, yeah, but anything that you mentioned is me mentioning it, isn't it? Because it's me, I'm the one doing the talking. She said, oh, I suppose. I said, no, suppose about it.

It's true. And she got sulky. Now tell me, is this a weird thing, right? Oh, you know, the soup lady, we call her Mrs. Soup.

When she, we were going to go to the cinema. Well, that was kind of the plan. So I had some soup, a bit of bread.

I don't know where she found the bread. And I think it was one of those, I think she, the problem with her is she was healthy. She had a healthy lifestyle and she had this probably gluten-free healthy bread and really healthy soup.

And I probably didn't appreciate that at the time because there wasn't, to be fair, there wasn't much blood circulating in my brain at the time. So I wasn't really thinking straight. So we had the soup and then we went to the cinema.

The cinema was closed. Yeah, there was something going on with the cinema. If it was closed for the day or the next movie wasn't for three hours.

So we just like left. And she said, oh, I've got to get myself a plug. And I thought, well, things are looking up.

And I said, I asked her a few questions. She said, no, not that kind of plug. It's like electric plug for the lamp.

I said, oh, okay. And she said, I can't believe you just asked me that. I said, well, I didn't know.

And she, I think things might have gone downhill from there. I'm not sure. I might not have been the right questions to ask her.

And considering we was on a bus as well. So I, so we go down this hill, we walked to the electric shop and we decide we're going to go and get a film from Blockbusters as well. That's when Blockbusters was still alive.

And we got the Karate Kid. Still haven't watched it. This is the new version.

Well, not the newest version, but it was the one with Will Slappy Smith, his son, Jaden, I think, and Jackie Chan. So we watched some of it. Anyway, so we got the video.

Then, or the DVD rather, then we went into this electrical shop next door, which was, I can't remember the name of it, but Maplins, I think, Maplins. So she went in there to look for a plug and I thought, that's boring. I'm not going to bother with looking for a plug, especially if it's just a plug, electrical one.

So I thought, oh, I'm just going to have a wander around. I'll see, you know, she said, okay. I went to look at the microphones just to see what they got in there.

So occasionally I used to get stuff from there to try and improve the quality of the recordings. I don't know why that's funny. I never seem to manage to do very well with the quality, but it's better now anyway.

So, I get a phone call. My phone rings. So I answer the phone and it says, where are you? And that's the first thing I heard.

So what do you mean, where am I? I'm here. I said, who is this? He said, it's Soup Lady. I can't remember her name.

I said, okay. She said, where were you? I said, I'm here. I'm walking up the hill.

She said, what? And I realised I'd left the shop without her. I'd forgot I was with her. So I'd looked at the microwave microphones, nothing there.

I just walked out of the shop and started walking home. Completely forgot I was with her and she was the other side of the shop looking for plugs and probably queued up to pay for it. And then she finishes and she's looking for me.

So 10 minutes later, she's like, where's the bloke that I came in with? That didn't seem to help the romance. So I said, well, do you want me to wait here? She said, no, can you come back down? I said, no, just wait here. You just catch me up.

And that possibly didn't help with the romantic situation either. Mind you, I was a little bit put off because earlier in the evening or the afternoon, we were walking through the park heading our way towards the blockbusters and I kind of held a hand. I didn't kind of, I did hold a hand because I thought at that point we were not married, but I thought maybe, you know, because of all the conversation previously during the week, building up to this and talking about having babies together and getting married and, you know, stuff like that.

Every night for the whole week leading up to the Sunday, including the previous Saturday evening, just like 15 hours ago, we were being all soppy on the phone. And I know she slopped me up. She served me some sloppy soup and a bit of bread, which I don't know where that came from.

And I was like, okay, maybe that's what she eats. And as I said, she was healthy. So that was probably something that she would have for food, classed as food.

No sausages, no cakes, no chocolate. I don't know what's wrong with her, but hey, everyone's different, isn't they? So I'm thinking, well, she still, we still decided to go and, you know, go and do a, what did we do? Do we walk through the park? Walk through the park? Yeah. Yeah.

After that. So yeah. So after the soup fiasco, we walked through the park and as we went to hold her hand, I kind of thought that she would know and we would kind of maybe accidentally touch each other hands and that spark would ignite a love affair that lasted forever.

You know, just something simple like that. There was no spark. All there was was annoyance from her.

So I kind of held her hand and she, but she didn't like say, get off me. You know, she wasn't vomiting in a bush or anything, but it was just very much like that. And I was like, okay.

I mean, again, I just want to express that there was a lot of romance leading up to this moment. I thought, so it wasn't like I was, I didn't, I hadn't just met her. I'd known her for a long time.

Well, probably a year maybe. And hadn't seen her for quite a few months, but we'd been speaking on the phone for a couple of weeks leading up to this. I'm extending now to two weeks rather than one week.

And I did, I thought she loved me. So I thought maybe put my hand out to hold her hand. And she pushed me away.

I mean, she didn't push me in the pond, but she did like have a distance. And she said she didn't like doing stuff like that in public. Yeah, ironically, when we're back at her place, we came back, we were watching the karate kid.

She touched my ear. And I didn't push her away. I thought it was very strange.

I thought of all the places that you could touch my ears and the one that I would choose would not be at the top of the list. But I didn't push her away. I didn't push her away.

I didn't go, get off my ear. Not in public or private or anywhere. It's my ear.

No, I didn't do that. At least I don't think I did that. Mind you, if I did do that, that would explain why she didn't want to see me again.

No, I didn't do that. But I realised there was nothing there. There was like, there was, she's playing with my ear.

And I thought I'm not a toy. You know? I mean, firstly, I'm not a toy to play with. And I'm not a toy that you can just switch on and off.

Just, you know, just, I... And then I left, I went home. And the next day, I bought her some gifts and left it outside her house. That wasn't a good idea because then she sent me a text saying go away.

Well, maybe not those words, but... So even at 40, even at 40, yeah, I was 40 at this point. I did not have the first idea how to deal with relationships. Now, I'm 50, nearly 55.

In five weeks, I'll be 55. Finished snoring. And weird, like, okay, I still don't really know.

I wouldn't know what to do on a date now. I wouldn't even know. I might have been out with people over the years, but not anyone that was like... I've not met anyone that's like, wow, I really want to be with this person and asked them out and they said yes.

And been all nervous about a date and gone out and it's gone really well. In fact, I think, I think arguably I can say that's never happened. Yeah, I've never, I've never, never been on a date with someone that I really was... I've dated people that I've gone with and went on dates with them, but I never, never had that.

I've never asked anyone out really, that I really liked, or maybe a couple of times. Not that I didn't like the people I was dating, but yeah, sort of going on a first date with someone that I didn't know anything about, but I was absolutely besotted, in love with a person. No, never done that.

No. You know, I've got to like people a bit more over time. I think that's... and they do... Yeah.

So if I had my time over again, I've been thinking about stuff like that lately. It's like, okay, what would I do different? And I think back to, there's so many things. My stomach needs to eat some food and that does not include soup.

If I put soup in my belly now, my belly would go, no, no, Bernie, no. Soup, not allowed. Yeah, I wouldn't know.

I suppose one thing is, I would never have stopped the karate when I was 15, 16. You know, I'd have continued. I wouldn't have worked in a chip shop as my first job.

I'm very croaky today. I should get a drink. Oh, so smooth and silky again.

Just a little bit of lubrication and I got my normal voice back again. Oh, sorry. So yeah, I can't remember what I was talking about, but I do need to eat something.

So I'm going to go. I'm going to go. And I realised I haven't really done all of the... The Whatsit names.

What is it? What am I doing? Q&A Thursday. I've not done all of them, but I might go through some of them again and have a time if I can find some weird ones. Okay.

Let's take on a case for a rooster. Refuse to represent a rooster. I think I've heard roosters are a bit of a pain.

Judicial transcripts detail animals behaviour as evidence. Wow. Okay.

Princess of Wales plaque now removed in London for brown dog statue. That better not be true. That better not true.

You've replaced a plaque for Princess Diana for a picture or a statue of a dog, a brown dog. Now, I don't know enough about this, but that sounds... That sounds wrong. Sounds wrong.

Wow. My stomach's gurgling. This is time to eat.

So I'm going to go. Thank you for listening to my super exciting discourse on humanities and such and such. So thank you for listening.

Remember, remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy and be gentle with yourself. You deserve to feel safe. Lots of love.

Bye.