(Long | Voice Only) Q&A Friday | #1596 Let me bore you to sleep | Jason Newland | 18th April 2026

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. And today is a genuine Q&A Friday.

Yesterday, I started off thinking that it was a Q&A Friday. But it wasn't actually Q&A Friday. It was an act.

In fact, not yesterday, the day before yesterday, Thursday. Yesterday should have been Q&A Friday. But it is, I didn't feel, I'll go into, I don't want to go into it.

I'll go into it if you want. Want me to go into it? I'll go into it. I'll do a deep dive.

Shall we do a deep dive? That's the language now, isn't it? Let's do a deep dive. So I had, earlier in the week, I had my tooth out. And I did have my tooth out.

I had a toothache for about a little while, on and off. And then it started to get a little bit, ooh, what if it doesn't go off? You know what I mean? What if it stays on? So I looked around for an NHS dentist, could not find one. I looked everywhere.

I looked under the bed. I looked in a loft, couldn't find an NHS dentist, which is National Health Service, which means that I wouldn't be charged huge amounts of money. So I ended up having to go private for the appointment I made.

Went along thinking that I was gonna either have a filling or a tooth removed. That seemed to be the standard kind of thing that happens these days, when I get a tooth like that. Well, it turns out that it does need to be either removed or have that other thing done in the gum, which no one likes.

So I just said, all right, I have to have it out. And the dentist said, no, can't do it today. First of all, because we don't have time, it's gonna take 40 minutes.

You don't have enough slot, your time isn't big enough, you got other people to see. And I said, but the person you spoke to yesterday told me that you would sort me out whatever treatment I needed. And she said, ah, but you can't have treatment because you need to get the infection down.

And while the infections in your gum, you won't be able to the anesthetic won't work. And I said, I think you're lying. And she said, I don't think you'd really say that in real life, would you? I said, what do you mean? She said, well, I think you're just lying just to be show off to your listeners.

And I said, that's a fair point. So I didn't say that. And we basically, I had to just settle for antibiotics or penicillin or whatever.

So when I had the had the penicillin, and good, good, good, good, the infection definitely seems to have gone down because I'm you know, does not hurt him. But it acted on the say activated over activated another part of my body. So I won't go into it.

But I've not been able to I've not been able to really venture too far away from the toilet since Wednesday. Which is why I've not gone to my dad's for his birthday party. So I'm sure my my name's mud there today.

Or should I say poo? I've not really been able to go too far away. And I can't believe I mean, I must have lost weight. I should weigh myself.

I wouldn't be surprised if I haven't lost a stone in weight. Just the last three days. Was it Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? Yeah.

And today? I mean, I'm just glad this isn't like there's not a big toilet roll drought or whatever that there was a few years back, because I would be in trouble. So yeah, so that's that's situation there. So yesterday, I was just tired.

Because it takes a lot out of you, you know, just, I guess the body's getting rid of the infection and all that stuff. And which is a good thing. And it's exiting the way anyway, it can probably, I suppose that it gets out, it's even to get out through, through your body somehow, isn't it through the skin or whatever.

But so then it's gone, it was that's what's happening. And yesterday, I was and I've been quite tired by it. I'm still eating, still got to eat.

But it's been tiring. I've been drinking a lot. And I'm also aware of that I'm probably losing a lot of salt.

So I don't want to over drink if I've not got any salt coming in. So I'm still got to wait to make sure I've got some salt coming into my, my, my body. Luckily, I'm eating processed food, which is probably, you know, got way too much salt in so it's probably a good balance right now.

And so yeah, just so I didn't make, I didn't make a recording yesterday. I did, I posted a little thing on Facebook to say that I'm not making a recording because I'm just a bit tired. I didn't feel I'm well, I didn't feel well, but I felt just under, under energetic, as it were.

It's that make any sense. And it's really weird. Here's something strange.

Yesterday, I, because my back was hurting again. Because that's another thing. My back hasn't hurt new your week.

Really, it's still painful, but not much because the arthritis in my lower back, hardly anything. And I thought, maybe it's because I was focused on the tooth, you know. And once the tooth started to go away, my back started to come back, which is very, it's very strange, very strange, indeed.

So I kind of increased the pain meds a little bit because I stopped. I started taking the penicillin instead of the pain medication at those times, because I've also got to take my bipolar medication in the evening. And I don't like to mix things together.

So last night, because yesterday, because I was taking the pain medication from my back, I decided to take the penicillin medication when I had my evening meal, instead of my bipolar medication. Wow, who'd have thought I'd have all this medication. Anyway, here's something that happens when I don't take that medication.

I have a clearer mind. My words come easier. Um, I feel more focused.

Now I know that's like, you know, it's a slippery slope. But that's, and it's only been 24 hours, however many hours more added on to 24 hours. So since Thursday night was the last time about probably six, seven o'clock when I took the medication before last.

So I guess it's probably getting on to two days, isn't it? Really? So I just noticing that my brain works so much quicker when I'm not on that stuff when I'm not taking it. Weird, very strange. It's not the first time I've noticed it because occasionally I do have a little break.

You know, kind of. I never used to drink and on the same and take tablets at the same time. So I mean, never, ever, never, never do that.

So if I was like having a few drinks in the evening, I just wouldn't take the tablets for that day. But then I might have a hangover the next day. So it's a different situation.

But yeah, it's like when I said a slippery slope, it's almost it. It's a tempting thing. I've got a bit of the dogs barking, but I can't, I can't stop my life because there's a dog barking in the garden.

I have to continue doing what I'm doing. Otherwise, I wouldn't do anything. You know, so it's an option.

Either there's a little dog in the back. You can class that little dog as part of this podcast. And it is a long way away.

It's just a bit echoey, if you know what I mean. And I know it can be heard. But one way of not hearing it is if you listen with music, you won't hear it.

But I'm kind of fed up with having to maneuver myself around other people's actions or other people's lifestyles, other people's sounds, when actually what they just they just live in their lives. They're not. They're not purposely trying to get in the way of my recordings.

But if I try and make my recordings around what other people do, it means sometimes I'm waiting all day to make a recording. Also, sometimes, well not sometimes, I want to make a recording when I'm in the mood to do it. Because I'm not in the mood to do recordings.

Probably all day. There's certain times a day when perhaps I'm not into it. Sometimes a day when I really, really want to.

I mean, especially with the hypnosis ones, I get like a real urge or want to make a hypnosis recording. But I can't because of the noise. And it's a little bit frustrating.

I mean, sometimes I actually get all the equipment set up by set up I've been plugged in. And I go, Hello, and welcome to Jason Newland's hypnosis recording. Sit back and relax.

And then there'd be like a lawnmower go off. Oh, man. So Vinnie, Vinnie is sunbathing.

So I've got the curtain drawn back, I would have it completely like drawn closed. But he was sitting in sunshine in the bedroom on the floor. So I thought, well, you're clearly enjoying that.

So I brought him in here. Because if I leave him out, if I leave the door open, the living room door open, he will go into a barking frenzy at some point. As soon as someone's door handle turns in the building, or someone puts a step on my on the set of stairs, he goes or the one in the front or the back door go.

He is always listening. He's a little guard dog, aren't you? You do daddy's little guard dog. So what I've done is I pulled the curtain open enough so that he can have the sunshine on him.

Besides, should I really be having my curtains drawn closed at this time of year when it's actually sunny and bright? When we spend maybe not half the year, but at least four months of the year, the last four months of the year where it's been really, really dull and dark. Pretty much what October, November, December, January, February. Yeah, about five months of the year where it's not particularly bright.

So we just got through all that and it's now bright and it's light and the birdies are singing and it's actually quite beautiful really. Oh no, I'm also grace, not gracious, I'm grateful. See my words come easier as well when I don't take the medication.

But if I didn't take the medication, isn't it a weird one, isn't it? So my brain works better. I can think more clearly. I'm not as slow, I can still, I'm a slow talker generally, because I quite like to, I like to think about what I'm saying and I quite like to speak in a way that's understood so that I'm not slurring or I'm not saying that I never slur, but I'm just saying so that people from other parts of the world or other parts of the country can understand me.

It's not that I've got, I don't think I've got a particularly thick accent, but I probably have to somebody that lives maybe in other parts. I won't, I won't point out a specific part. I'm just thinking of parts of the country that are got really thick accents.

Now, I know they've got, I've got some, I've got Scottish people listening to me and the, I think Glasgow, only from, I met a few people from Glasgow and it seems like a very, very, very strong accent. And I take the idea that maybe if I, I can tune into most accents because, because I worked in call centres for years and it's a skill you have to learn.

You can't, you won't survive in a call centre talking on the phone all day long for years and unless you can tune in to people's accents and like manoeuvre around them.

So I can tune in quite quickly to people's accents. But one of the strongest ones was some parts of Scotland and then like Newcastle. But I noticed that a lot of it, okay, there's some places that you do use their own words.

It's like a different language in some ways. But I think a lot of it is just the speed, the speed of which people talk. And that's the same, I would say everywhere, in every country.

Like most people speak quite quickly. I'm not the quickest speaker. So you'd get a lot of people probably that live if you say if you got someone locally to come and just sit on here and do, to take over from me for an hour and just said to them, just talk about your day.

This just because this isn't as easy as I don't think anyway, I don't think this is as easy as a lot of people might think it is. I reckon a lot of people, if asked, would probably say, yeah, I could do it. But most would probably say, why would I want to? It's like, you know, but I do wonder how many people could actually do it.

Bearing in mind, I never have to edit what I say. The only editing I ever do is I probably should edit what I say. I'm just really thinking about that.

Like perhaps you should JJ, perhaps if you listen back to what you say, the words, not just not just the interruptions. If you listen back to some of the things you say, maybe you'd have a bit a larger audience. It might be true, might be true.

But I never really ever edit the background sounds like listen out for like, if I cough, or if I sneeze or if Vinnie barks, that's it. I never, ever really have to edit what I say. And the only time I ever need to edit what I've said is times when I don't upload the recording.

If I've gone into a proper moan, like, you know, if I've gone off the rails a little bit, which has happened, but I never ever released those recordings. They get deleted, which is a shame. So I'm sure they might be.

They might be quite interesting or amusing to some people. To me especially, you know, I'd like to listen back to something that 10 years ago when I was ranting, because I was in some kind of weird manic stage. And then, but self aware enough to realise that, no, this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing.

But after I said that, when I just said self aware enough, I thought, but am I self aware enough? Or am I actually releasing myself talking about stuff that I shouldn't be talking about? And maybe I really don't know what I'm saying. It's like I'm not aware enough to realise that I should be editing myself. I don't know.

It's hard to know, isn't it? Because we all have our blind spots. One of my blind spots is forgetting the topic of the podcast. Like Q&A Friday, or boring Monday object things.

I sometimes forget. I often forget. But that is kind of the part, the reason, the process, the this whole thing that I'm doing is that I move from subject to subject and just follow my stream of thought.

And that's what it's been built on. Since that's that, that was the aim. That was the aim of it.

Because I was doing these long before I was doing these. That makes sense. So I used to do a thing called, I don't even remember the name of them.

They're on my hard drive somewhere. It's basically where I used to talk. It's just exactly the same as this.

No different. But I just gave them a different title. And HypnoThoughts.

Was it HypnoThoughts? No, not HypnoThoughts. It was something anyway. And I remember I had a friend say to me, she listened.

I mean, I don't make these recordings for my friends or family to listen to. I'd rather than not if possible. Mind you, the benefit is like, they'll get to know who I really am.

Not who they think I am. Not who I, you know, the twice a year visit, good boy that doesn't say much, maybe says a few jokes. You know, if you really want to know who I am as a person, then you can listen to these recordings.

And my family would realize kind of, because they don't see me enough to really know who I am. They've probably got that version of me from the past, mixed with a version of me that they see every once in a while. And in the same way that I don't really know them.

You know, it's a different thing. You say, well, yeah, but you've known them for 30, 40 years. Yeah, but that's, it's not like a regular, it's still like you, you could, you could see someone every day at work.

I think you know them. I think you could live with someone and think you really know them. But then you could live with me.

I think you know me. Then you listen to my podcast and think, wait a minute. He didn't tell me he thought that.

Which worries me because I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be that person that kind of is just being horrible about people. I hope I don't.

I moan, I do moan about things. Sometimes I do. I know I do.

There's no point pretending I don't, but I do sometimes have a little bit of a moan. But this is probably the closest, I say that though, but then sometimes I'm very rude in real life. So I don't, I don't really use any naughty words.

And I don't say anything particularly rude in these podcasts. But in real life, I would do. And I had my moments where I would be aggressive in real life, verbally anyway, only like in a situation that possibly deserves it.

And I don't do that in these podcasts either, because that's not what this is about. This is about calm and, you know, but this is the real me really. You know, this is a me when I'm not being prodded and poked.

When I'm not being taken advantage of when I'm not, this is me when I'm just free. And I prefer this version, this part of me. This is the inside me.

This is the way I think. And, you know, this is my thoughts and my voice, both syncing up together to present a real version. So I'm not trying to show off to, to make anyone like me or I'm not trying to appease, you know, I've had a habit in the past, excuse me, of getting in the middle of people who are arguing or in a fight and stuff, because I just want, I want people to be peaceful.

And I don't, I want to stop that. I don't like people, you know, hurting each other and stuff. So that's my, I don't know why, but that seems to be my natural thing that I've done in the past.

But that's not really what I want to do. That's just not what I want to do. I don't like doing that.

And I prefer not to be in that situation. It's good to have that in the locker. You know, it's good to know it's there if I need to use it, but I don't need it here when I'm doing.

But then I think how much of, how much of that kind of negotiation is there between the real me and the me that presents myself to the outside public, because I do have conversations that I don't want to have. And I do talk about subjects that I don't want to talk about sometimes when I'm out. And I do keep my mouth shut, especially because quite a few of the people I see are fairly, quite a bit older than me, and they'll come out with something.

An example is, I was talking to a couple of people and we were just having a laugh, talking about the world and stuff. And this, this man, I say elder, he's probably not that much older than me. You know, he's probably got 15 years, you know, it's probably in his 70s.

I'm 55. So he probably looks at me as being the same age. Even though we all know that I'm very pretty and young.

So he said, Oh, yeah, everyone's got mental health issues now. Everyone's got, didn't have that when we was young. And I just said that, that is a trick that that's me.

I know, didn't used to use the word triggered when I was a kid. When I was younger, it was react. That was a reacting moment.

But I noticed it inside. And if you'd have been younger, I would have kept it verbal, I'd have just like pointed out how stupid, well how stupid it was what he just said. And potentially, you know, actually, yeah, probably would have done, I would have struggled not to.

But I would have handed myself in as an example. You know, so like, well, okay, tell me that my, I'm not real, my, my situation is not real. And also, bearing in mind that we get on really well.

Although there's been a couple of people that I did tell them that I was bipolar. And they seem to have avoided me after that. They seem to, you know, looked at me differently.

Admittedly, I mean, some would argue, why would you tell your postman? Why would there's no point in that is there but she doesn't want to come into the flat anymore. But she never did though. That's weird.

Yeah. Actually, it might be just because I kept inviting her into the flat. See, that's what I mean by inappropriate.

So none of that happened. But definitely a couple of people seem to be almost like I just told them that I just got out of prison for groping a monkey or something, you know, it's like, it's like, no, I just like literally I haven't. It's not my fault, man.

They're so cute little monkeys. So anyway, so I just thought I just realized I'm just talking and I That's a problem. That is what this recording is about.

Just talking. But I did, I did a recording anyway, years and years and years ago. And my friend, not friends anymore, but used to be very close.

He told me he listened to my recording and I was mentally ill. That I needed psychiatric help. Bearing in mind, he knew I had bipolar.

So it probably wasn't a really good thing for him to be saying, making fun of my, you know, but he was like, really like, it's what you're saying. I think he had a problem because I was being honest. And maybe there's a certain generation, maybe not just generation, just people in general don't like honesty.

Now I limit my honesty to just casual, general, quite light subjects. I don't go heavy. I don't go deep.

I don't know why that makes me giggle internally saying that. But you know, I can't, but emotionally, I talk about emotional stuff, but it's not supposed to, it's just in a casual way, in a human way. Because there's more to these podcasts than just dozing off or relaxing.

I hope they're always relaxing. You can feel relaxed and listen to someone else's perspective, or maybe get an insight or maybe realize that you're not alone. That we all have that internal struggle going on.

And maybe we all feel we need to act a certain way when we're around other people. And maybe some of us also feel how I feel that people, family, long time family, don't really know me. Not really.

But then I don't really know them. Not really. I know them, you can love someone and know them, but you can never really, you can't know what someone's thinking.

And I've been in situations, I'm still in situations where I, I'm just disagreeing with them internally, but I'm just like not saying anything. Because well firstly, I'm fine to disagree. I think it's boring being around people that agree, that have the same opinions as me.

Bores me. If they're, if they're verbally intelligent enough to actually have a discussion without an argument or a discuss what they mean, then I'm open to talk about, you know, so if someone says about, let's say they've got an issue with, it's too much, too much dust, too much dust, too much, there's too much sand in the desert, maybe for example, yeah. And they're saying there's too much sand and I'm like getting internally a little bit, a little bit like, actually I think there's not enough sand.

I wish there was more sand in the desert. I'm actually on the verge of being personally offended. It's a ridiculous situation, but I'm open, providing they're not going to start shouting and going on.

To have a nice semi-intelligent, I can only go as far as semi, love the word semi, I can have a semi-intelligent conversation about the level of sand in deserts without getting all uppity. But then sometimes it's like how they act can reflect in my response and I guess my way I act is going to have an effect on what they say and how they respond. And sometimes you just have to like, you know, some people say, I don't discuss politics or religion.

Sometimes you just have to add other subjects to that list. And the level of sand in deserts may be that one of those subjects. That was probably one of the weirdest little monologues I've ever done in my life.

He ended with, he started off talking about sausages and then he ended up talking about concrete. So yeah, I've lost my train of thought now. So let's go for Q&A Friday.

Q&A Friday. Yeah, Q&A Friday. So let's have a look.

I'll go to the, did I say only listen when you can safely close your eyes? And also, oh, okay. Mike is posting something saying, this is why I'm grateful for Jason. He's put like this image thing on it says, the first image is, I can't sleep.

Second image, I can help and it's a sheep. And the sheep and, but he says, but you're alone to the sheep. How am I supposed to count? And the sheep bonks him on the head with a baseball bat.

Brilliant. And sweet dreams, you little, I'm not going to read that naughty word out. So thanks, Mike.

I basically, I'm a sheep that bangs people over the head. I tell you what, I've noticed I've noticed that I, I really do bore myself to sleep as well. And I've mentioned that I listen to my recordings.

I look forward to my own recordings. And you might be thinking, yeah, but don't you remember what you've spoken about? No, not really. I can't tell you what I spoke about 10 minutes ago.

I wasn't listening. So I mean, okay, sometimes I listen and I'll remember the beginning bit. Because the beginning bit is so similar every time.

You know, I'd say hello, this is Jason Newland. Thank you for listening. Let Me Bore You To Sleep, blah, blah, blah.

I would sometimes I go like a little song q&a q&a. I didn't do that today. Because, you know, I did it in the last recording when it wasn't even Q&A Friday.

Don't listen unless you can safely close your eyes. And I mentioned the two websites jasonnewland.com, Jason Newland.store. You can download all my stuff for free stream all for free YouTube channel, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, I do need to say thank you to Mary for your very kind PayPal gifts.

Thank you. So I should also mention if you want to help support the all the money I have to pay every month to provide this free service, then I'd appreciate a PayPal gift. And then that's it I think and then I get on that normally takes me about five minutes to say I just did it really quickly there.

Proving I can in fact talk quickly as I can. Yeah. I've actually I'm still working on the store.

And I am near the end of completing the completing the collection. If it comes up, it's on the screen. Come on.

Short music, sleep hypnosis. So I've done short voice only long voice only overnight voice only short music. So I've nearly nearly kind of probably past the middle part of that.

In fact, no, I'm not. I've done 10 products out of 30. So I'm third of the way through.

And when that's done, I'll do the long music, then the overnight music. And that's a whole section of the website done. Not a big section, but it's you know, and then you can download we can still download any of the ones that are without music.

But at the moment, and every time I produce a new recording, Let Me Bore You To Sleep, I add it to the collection. So this one now is number 1596. And according to this, nope, that's no good.

I don't know how many. So the Oh, okay, if I go back, newest, not newest, oldest, nope, newest. So yeah, oh, wait a minute, oldest, oldest.

Oldest is one. I mean, you could say what is clearly there's 1595. No, there's about, I think, 15 missing over the eight years, maybe 11, something like that.

I just missed them. I must have either deleted them by accident, or they got lost in the when my podcast deleted, my podcast host deleted a lot of my stuff. They did that.

In fact, they did it twice, just because Spotify didn't want my recordings the way they were formatted with music. Yet Spotify hardly even listens to my podcasts. My main podcast listeners is Apple podcasts and pretty much everywhere else.

Spotify, it wouldn't made any difference to me if I wasn't. I am on Spotify, but with SoundCloud. So if you listen to Spotify thinking, wait a minute, I listen to you on Spotify.

That's going to probably be my SoundCloud podcast that's connected to Spotify. The stats, I can even tell you, I can show you the stats for the whole. Okay, how far back do you want to go last the last 30 days? Sources, Spotify, 1140 in the last 30 days.

You see what I mean? It's like, it's only, it's not even 10% of Apple podcasts. And 1140 out of 31,500. So if I go for the whole year, the last 12 months, Spotify, I've had, this is ridiculous.

I've only had 8,559 downloads or listens on Spotify with my Spreaker podcasts. Now I know I've had a lot, lot more than that via my SoundCloud. But if you if you compare it, so you've got Spotify, 8,559, Apple podcasts, 212,218.

Podcast Addict, 26,864. Or Overcast, 23,309. So I know it's not a lot.

But over the last 12 months, I had 325,404 downloads in the last year, last 12 months. Plus probably, I don't know, let's have a look. On SoundCloud, hopefully I've got a login.

Don't know which one I'm logged into. Okay, that's probably the, I can look at my stats for the last year for there as well. No, why does he keep going back to stats? Hasn't he learned? We don't want to hear about the stats.

Let's have a look. Insights is called Insights last 12 months. Right.

On one of my podcasts, which is the sleep hypnosis one, on SoundCloud, the last 12 months, I've had 113,437 plays. So add that to 325. Anyone? 438, 140, 440.

440, roughly. Does that make sense? 440. Why is May so big? Hmm.

440. Now let's have a look. If I log into the other one as well.

440. Still very, very low numbers, to be honest with you. So I'm going to now log into the Let Me Bore You To Sleep on SoundCloud.

So let's have a look at the insights on this one, which is another word for stats. They must know that people don't like the word stats. Right.

73,454. So I have, and I think most of this possibly comes from Spotify. It doesn't tell me exactly.

But I think so. Anyway, it's, so what's that? 440. So over half a million.

Sounds better if you say half a million than 500,000, doesn't it? So half a million over the last 12 months. I mean, it's not a lot. You know, I'd prefer to have what I prefer to have that every day.

But half a million. There's been times when I nearly reached just under a million in one month once during a period when people were very much at home a few years back. So, you know, it's all right.

I can't, I'm not going to moan. I mean, if I don't know how far back this can go. How far back can it go? Let's have a look.

Just going to look. Oh, nope. January 2024.

Yeah, January 2024. January 2025. What's going on? Oh, is it only giving me, let me do a year at a time.

Is that really? Really? Okay. So I can't even do a year. It's only let me do the last 12 months custom.

Nope. That's a bit weird. If I go for all time with the SoundCloud, that gives you an idea what I've kind of done.

I don't know how many years it's been. But if I go for insights for the whole. Wait a minute.

There we go. There we go. 1,010,392.

That's the overall downloads. Oh, since 2016. I didn't realize I've had that podcast so long.

That's crazy. 10 years. That's not very good in 10 years.

Is it a million? Wow. Oh, I know what it is. I'll tell you what it is.

In 2024. I didn't even hardly use Spreaker. I had everything on SoundCloud.

Because on that year I had 559,775. So maybe not the whole year, but part of the year. Wow.

And 2023, 349,000. 2025, 83. And so far this year, it's just under 16.

So 16, 30. With all the different changes, it's hard to know really what's driving what. But I mean, if I look at the most popular recording I did for the most popular place that's listened to me on the Let Me Bore You To Sleep podcast on SoundCloud is Sunderland, Denver, and Andover.

So if you're from any of these places, please say hello. Let me know if you're listening on Spotify. Now you might think, well, how will I know? If you listen, I mean, you've got to be listening a lot.

Yeah, I would say if you're listening to mind you, it's a bit silly of me to think there's only one person in each of those places that's listening. So there might be multiple people. But I would suggest that there's probably at least one person in each of those places that is listening like really regular.

So maybe get in touch. So here's the top places there. Sunderland, Denver, Andover, North Vancouver, Liverpool, Mustague, which is I'm not sure, Gateshead, Sam Clement, Brussels, Brisbane, Manchester, Boardman, Ashburn, Newcastle upon Tyne, Birmingham, Panama City Beach, Sydney, Newham, Toronto, Hackney, Atlanta, Vancouver, Council Bluffs, South Shields, Walthamstow, Istanbul, Chelmsford, loads and loads.

Wow. I never look at the stats for SoundCloud. Genuinely, just don't.

I look at the stats as how many people have downloaded generally. And it's never like a huge amount. But just looking at this, I mean, this is all time.

So if we go back to the last 12 months, Ashburn is a top, Boardman, Council Bluffs, Falkenstein, Manchester, Columbus, Philadelphia, St Helens, Leicester, Chepstow, Hackney. Wow. I think with all the mix up, I had a few mix ups with the podcast a while back.

Maybe people that were listening via SoundCloud are now listening via Spreaker. It's just I had a really, it was quite a big problem with the whole podcast thing and it took ages to get it sorted. It's all sorted now.

I hope. I've had no one contact me to say otherwise. But yeah, basically in 30 days on Let Me Bore You To Sleep, I'm getting 6,000 plus plays on the SoundCloud one.

But then that's just the Let Me Bore You To Sleep. If I add the, if I look at the Let Me Bore You To Sleep here for the last 30 days, so how many did I get there? 6,112. Spreaker for the last month, I've got 9,686.

That's just for the Let Me Bore You To Sleep. However, the podcast where I get the most traffic is the Hypnosis For Sleeping Deeply, where, oh, maybe not. Not on this occasion, it was about the same, 9,820 the last 30 days.

But I do get, I put more stuff on there. I also put the, that's really weird. So 30 days, 30 days, and normally the Let Me Bore You To Sleep is way more.

But on this occasion, no, they're about the same. 9,820 for Hypnosis For Sleeping Deeply, 9,686 for Let Me Bore You To Sleep, and the rest were like 1, 2, 1, just under 2,000, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 500, 800. So yeah, oh, that's interesting.

That's the last 30 days, isn't it? So yeah, if you do it over the year, over the last 12 months, it's a different story. So Hypnosis For Sleeping Deeply, 154,263. Let Me Bore You To Sleep, 115,874.

Deep Sleep Whisper, 14,056. And all the others like 12,000, 5,000, 4,000, 3,000. Interestingly enough though, I bet you really find it hard if you search to find a podcaster that will just tell you what their stats are.

I literally, I talk, I probably talk enough about stats to cover every other podcaster in the world. It's all you talk about is the stats. I wish you wouldn't.

Sorry. What is a time? I almost feel, almost feel that perhaps I should have just got straight to the point. I don't know if you realize how difficult that is for me to just get straight to the point.

I don't find it very easy. I honestly don't. Right.

So yeah, I should need to get on with the task at hand, which I seem to have forgotten about for some reason. So Q&A Friday. Ironically, I don't think I ever used the word ironically correctly, which may be ironic in itself.

So I've got quite a few questions to answer. I'm going to start with John. Are you going to take a vacation anytime soon? And where would you want to go? John? No, is the answer.

I mean, technically, I don't deserve a vacation. So, you know, I'm not working. So I don't, I'm not really earned it to go on holiday.

Can't do it financially. I did talk to my neighbor, who's Vinnie's mum. And we were talking about maybe trying to get a rent out a caravan somewhere for a weekend off season.

Because during the season is like proper expensive. But maybe kind of go halves on that and take Vinnie and they normally have like two or three rooms. So have a room each.

And then he'll Vinnie or just that's a question. Who would he sleep with? Who would Vinnie sleep with? Who would he favorite? Because he's used to sleeping with me, like every single night. But when he's with his mummy, he he just he's a different person.

He's, he's turned into a baby, basically. So I don't know whether or not he would just stay with her, or he just go between. That'd be interesting.

That would be wouldn't it? I'd be very interested to see what he would, what he would choose. Or maybe he'd do one night with her one night with me. I don't know.

Hmm. Because he used to sleep with her when he lived with her. Because she had him before me for about three months.

For three or three. Yeah, it was 10 months when I got him. Her family bred him.

He went to a home, his first home when he was however many weeks old, you know, old enough to go and do that. Then the person looking after him is a lady and she, I think she became ill or she wasn't able to look after him for whatever reason. So he, she gave him back to the family who bred him, which was my neighbor's family.

And then she, my neighbor looked after him for about three months. And then, unfortunately, he bit her on the face when he was just under 10 months old. And because she's got grandkids, she wasn't risking it.

Now he didn't mean to do it. He got overexcited because she was eating chicken and she wasn't giving him any. And I think he probably went to grab the chicken but like hit her face instead.

To be fair, she does look like a piece of chicken. So she doesn't. She looks like a leg of chipping.

Chipping? So you can imagine she looks like a leg of chicken. No, she doesn't. It doesn't at all.

But yeah, she like, no. Because you can't, you can't even, you can't mess around when it comes to kids, can you? So it's like, no, he's got to go. So it just happens that my friend downstairs took him and gave him to me.

He bought him for me. Although I paid. So yeah, hey, but it was a gesture, wasn't it? I don't know why it ended up costing me £350 because they'd already been paid for him by the other person.

Why would you need to be paid twice for a dog? That's a question maybe I will ask. It's, some people are just greedy and they just don't think beyond it's like, yeah, money, money, money, money, money. Let's see how many times we can sell him.

Who can we find this? Let's try and sell him to someone that's in a coma next. That way we'll be able to get the money back. Or they'll be able to sell him on to someone else.

Like, I don't know. I don't know what the process was there. But he ended up here.

And then I didn't really know his mum before I met Vinnie. And I didn't even really know her afterwards either because she was friends with my friend downstairs. When my friend downstairs left permanently, we kind of bonded me and her because we were both friends with him and literally she lives just across the road from me.

And, you know, we kind of just got to know each other. And Vinnie loves spending time with her. So it's, you know, this all kind of worked out okay, I guess.

He adores her so much. Ridiculous. But then he's known her since he was a baby.

I've got pictures of her holding him in her hands. I can tell it's her hands because they look like chickens. They look like chicken feet.

No. So he's always known her since he was a baby. Since he was first born.

So you know, he's got that. What do they call that? Chickens have it don't they? Where they follow you. I've got a thing about chickens now.

Ducks. Ducks follow you around don't they? They call it embedded, whatever, or forget the name of it. Not implant, inbred, not inbred.

It's a word encoding or something where you just they think of you as being like their parent. And they just follow you around. Or what's the word? It doesn't matter.

But anyway, in answer to your question, John, no, I'm not going to be going anywhere anytime soon. And where would I want to go? I mean, I talked about you know, maybe a caravan on a beach. I'm not, I don't know if that would, I mean, I'd probably prefer if I was on my own really.

I don't know if I'd want to do that. I don't know. I'd quite like to maybe go to Thailand.

I couldn't go anywhere at the moment. I can't be I can't be more than about five, 10 minutes away from the toilet. Because of my stomach.

But you know, other than that, mind you on a plane, you're never far away from a toilet. Whether or not it's free is a different matter. That's where the problems arise.

You know, when I've been on planes, I've got this system. I make one bottle of water last the entire journey, if I can. And I just sip little bits of water so that I don't need to urinate during the flight.

It's hard to do that on a 12 hour flight, I know, but it's still minimal. That's why I kind of like, why are you feeding me food? Just make it as minimal food as possible. That way, I won't need to.

Well, if you're on a 12 hour flight, you'll have digested the food and it will need to continue its journey, won't it? If you know what I mean. And I don't know. Anyway.

You're focusing a lot on that today, aren't you? No, not really. I'm just, you know, I don't know where I would go. Yeah, that is definitely a question to think about.

But it's kind of fantasy. It's a fantasy question. At the moment.

Christine asks, is this weekend? Is this the weekend you're seeing your dad for his 80th birthday? It was Christine. But because I'm going to say tummy upset. It's a bit more than that.

But it's a tummy upset. I can't go out. I can get I can go to the park and take Vinnie.

But I'm not taking him any distance. And I know that I can get back within a couple of minutes. Just because, you know, I'm timing it after like, should we use the word evacuation after an evacuation, I will take him out, knowing that hopefully there won't be another evacuation needed for, you know, an hour or so, hopefully.

There's no way of knowing. And I haven't stopped eating, I'm still eating, still doing everything like that. I don't have a stomach ache like I did yesterday.

I don't feel good. But it doesn't, you know, yesterday was a bit, bit worse. But it's sort of, I think it's tailoring off a little bit.

But it's still, it was a good decision not to go out. Because I'd have been stuck. I think I'd have been stuck.

I mean, wow. Anyway, yeah, it's my dad's birthday. I sent him a text last night or yesterday afternoon.

So I can't go. And he sent me a text back. And I sent him a text back after that.

And I didn't phone him because I know that I'd feel really bad after phoning him. If I spoke to him, I know that I'd come out of the phone call, feeling really crap, feeling judged and just yeah. And I couldn't really face that.

I chickened out. I really mummied out, chickened out. And but yeah, his 80th birthday is I've sent a card and I sent a present.

It's not his birthday till tomorrow anyway. But yeah, I think I can feel my ears burning. I think there's a few people moaning about me there.

But hey, probably not the first time. Probably won't be the last time. Oh, well, at least I know, you know, at least because I promised I'd definitely be there and all that, you know, but I didn't know I was going to have a toothache.

I didn't know I was going to have. I didn't expect to have medication for the tooth. I really thought they'd just take it out.

But they refused to take it out. And I had to medic I've never ever had a toothache. I've had toothaches before.

And every time I've gone to the dentist, they've even given me a fill in or they've removed the tooth. Never ever had medication for an infection on my tooth or my gum or whatever. Never.

But this time I had and it kind of, I suppose if you weren't me and you're not like seeing my life from the outside, it might look like I just made that as an excuse. But it's genuine. I'm really honestly, it's been a bit of a few grim days.

I mean, I'm not. It's not bad, bad, but it's not, you know. I prefer having an upset stomach to having a toothache anyway.

So yeah, I didn't get to see him. So I'm sure he's very upset and angry and stuff and disappointed. But if I worried about everyone I disappointed in my life, I would have no rest.

I've been disappointing people my entire life. I don't mean to but hey, I don't mean to. I do my best of what I've got, you know.

Janice asks me, if you could visit one place in the US, where would you go and why? That is an interesting question. Because a majority of my listeners live in America. So it would be a case of, when I say tour, I don't mean like, like a superstar.

But it would be, I think I'd like to go visit everywhere. Just start from one side of the country and move away around it. Maybe even put some like meet and greet nights on, you know, in local bars or whatever, just I don't know.

Just even if it's only five people turn up, it's still something in there. I don't know how many people in America I could get together in one venue. Even if it was like a small space.

I'd like to think I could get at least 100 people that would be would be interested in just, I could go on stage and just talk, you know. I'll just do a live broad, a live, Let Me Bore You To Sleep. I don't know.

I don't know. And just thinking away of a way to cover the cost of visiting because it would be an expensive trip, wouldn't it? And it'd be a little bit of a shame in some ways to go to America and bearing in mind that I do have thousands of listeners in America that listen to me regularly. I guess some listen to me every now and then, but some people, you know, it's like regular amounts.

So I'm not going to do through. What's going on here? That's weird. Okay, I have to go by podcast, I think.

So go to Let Me Bore You To Sleep podcast. Okay, so if I go, it's according to this. Yeah, I've got thousands and thousands of listeners that listen to me sort of regularly.

But I don't know, it's no way of knowing, like where people are listening, I'm getting an idea from the stats, but geolocation, if you look at America, the California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington, Utah, Indiana, Missouri, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Chicago, Michigan, Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota, Connecticut, Alabama, Wisconsin, Montana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, North Georgia, Arizona, Virginia, Maine, Colorado, New Hampshire, Idaho, District of Columbia, Alaska, West Virginia, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Tennessee, New Mexico, Delaware, Kentucky, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Kansas, Rhode Island, Arkansas, Vermont, Louisiana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota.

And then if I click on each one of these, and it opens up to Santa Ana. Santa Ana is one of my, I've got someone that listens.

It's a very popular place. People listening and Helm, Woodland, Huntington Beach, Los Angeles, Mountain View, Napa, Santa Clara. Yeah, I think Mountain View seems quite nice because it's as it got is I think it's got a view of a mountain.

It's either got a view of a mountain, or it's got the view of a mountain. Isn't it weird those two same sentences can mean different things. So you can say it's got a view of a mountain, we can see the mountain.

That's why we call it Mountain View, because we can see the mountain from where we live. Or it's got a mountain view. Because you're on a mountain, and you can see from the mountain.

So you can see the view from the mountain, which is a mountain view as well, isn't it? So I'm very pleased with myself on that one. I'm not quite sure why. Mrs. T sitting in the tree with Jason.

So we got San Marcos, South San Francisco, South San Francisco, Berkeley, Corona. By the way, you know, I've got just let you know, my email address is Jason Newland at hotmail.co.uk. That's also my PayPal, just in case you want to say hi, if you got a Q&A Friday, just in case you're not on Facebook as well. You're not on Facebook, because not everyone is.

Not everybody's on Facebook. Or Carolina. Then you got Texas, got Dallas, Northridge, huge country.

Did you know there's a place called Katy in Texas. So I'd like to go to Texas. So see, the thing for me, or the thing probably for a lot of people from around the world, I guess, is a lot of what I know about America is what I see on the TV.

Like news, forgetting the news so much, but like movies, TV shows. And a lot of that will just be exaggerated and tropey, you know, be like just the same old tropes, just like with English, the idea that English will speak with a like a posh, posh like everybody like that, or they speak like Dick Van Dyke from Mary Poppins. And it's kind of, you know, there's lots of different accents here.

And there's not red telephone boxes, wherever you go. That's all changed. You know, there's lots of things that aren't how it might seem from the TV and the movies and stuff.

Especially as I think the English movie, they got a tendency, sometimes of making old movies, or movies set in the like the 80s and the 70s and the 80s, you know, so this stuff, it might be a new movie, but you'll have all these. It just it looks, it doesn't look like it looks now. So yeah, this country, just like America, I'm sure is very different to how I imagine it really is.

Because even on YouTube, just like the news, quite often, it just shows you, it shows the side of countries that maybe isn't the best advert for them. Because it gets views, doesn't it? If you shoot showed a video of America, a nice calm city, a nice calm town, where people get on with each other. And I guess that might be might not be interesting.

But if you do the same in this country, it might not be interesting for viewers to watch. But I'm sure there's loads of places like that around the world, where it's peaceful, and it's lovely. And it would be, I mean, visually stunning.

I imagine every country's well, maybe not every country, but a lot of places, I've got visually stunning parts, whether it's lakes, whether it's jungle or forests, mountains, just even towns, you know, some especially in like, some parts of Europe where the towns are so old. They got stuff from hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago, houses still there, like Italy. And I'm talking about Italy, like I know anything about it.

And I don't. I don't at all. But I think it'd be quite nice to visit.

But then the only time I really see anything about Italy is in movies again. And so like Columbia, some of these places look really nice, but the movies make it sound a little bit not sure if I'd like to go, you know. But then if you watched YouTube videos about this country made by the auditors on YouTube, you might not want to come here either.

Because if they don't paint a great picture, but they go looking for people that are causing problems in that. So I think the one place I wouldn't want to go, actually, I'd say the one place would be really good if you got rid of all the people living there, London. So if you moved everyone out of London, just made it into a holiday destination, turned all the houses in, I mean, I know you couldn't physically do that because there's too many people, but it'd be such a lovely place to visit.

You know, like if they cleaned all the streets, and then they opened up all these different attractions, you could have a fair ground, you could have all these things in London that was just make it like phenomenal, really amazing. Because there's lots of really good stuff in London. But it's, it's just overpopulated, it's way too many people in such a small little area.

And yeah, it's not somewhere that I would visit. If I, it's not somewhere I particularly want to visit now, to be honest with you. And I lived there for 11 years.

I was born in London. But I don't, yeah, I don't think I'd like to, don't even fancy just even visiting now. Because it's not how it used to be.

I sound like an old fart now, don't I? Oh, things are so much better in the in the old days. Yeah, those damn taps. Why can't we just go back to just getting my water from the well, from the well.

We didn't have a tap, if it didn't rain, we didn't drink. Living taps, you don't know how good you've got it. You know, I don't want to go quite that bad.

But it's, yeah, so I would definitely like to visit America. But it need to, again, it's so much of, and I'm not moaning, I'm just, you know, I'm lucky. I have to hold on to gratitude of what I do have, which is I've got a home, I've got a roof over my head.

I've got my little boy over there, Vinnie, who loves his daddy, doesn't he? Did you love your daddy? He's giving me a look of like, I can't really be bothered to pretend to react right now. I'll, I'll, I'm a bit too, I'll wiggle my, I'll waggle my tail later. Is that okay? Okay, fair enough.

I don't see a treat in your hand, daddy. Therefore, not much point in really giving you any honey right now, is there? You know, it's an exchange situation. You give me the treat, I'll pretend to like you.

Wow, that's harsh. So I, yeah, so I've got that. But I don't, financially, I can't go anywhere or really do anything.

So, um, in the future, it'd be good. But I just hope it isn't too far in the future where I can't enjoy it, you know? So, Vinnie started barking. Apparently, he just heard another dog barking, but it was an angry bark, so he barked.

Anyway, um, yeah, I'd love to go to the US. I'd love to visit. Visit all my fans.

All my fans. All the people that love me. I do, I think I'm, I think people have never met me, like me more than the people that have met me.

So, I just love the opportunity to disappoint a few more people, you know? I could call it a disappointment tour. Okay, you can see me in person, I think. Oh, can you imagine if people, because some people probably don't even know what I look like, and they go by what I sound like, and I know I sound younger than I look.

I know I sound a lot younger than I am. I know that anyway. I always have done.

When I was about, when I was about 30, I sounded about 10. It's true. I've always, if you listen to my really early recordings, or my videos from, like, I think I've got some videos on YouTube from 19 years ago, and it literally is, hello, welcome to Jason, www.jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland.

So I didn't do the new land back then. The only reason I do the new, the new land, is because I figured it'd be easier for people to spell my name and to spell the web address. It's amazing the amount of times that people correct me.

I go and get my prescription. What's the name, please? Jason Newland. Oh, Jason Newland.

Don't correct someone on how they pronounce their own name ever. That's a rule. It's a rule.

That's one of the rules I'm going to put in force when I'm the king of the world. So yeah, I'd love to go to the US. I'd love to visit the UK.

Because I've got my main listeners are America, and my second, second highest group of listeners are from the UK. So that that would be really cool to travel around and put on not a show like just like a greet and meet Q&A, like a Q&A Friday, a traveling Q&A Friday, maybe. And then you get to realize when I'm in person, that this is what I'm like, although I could be distracted by people.

And you know, I mean, like, if I'm sitting there, because at the moment, I've got no one staring at me. Life's easier like that when there's no one staring at you. And if I was on stage, even I'm not talking about in a theater with thousands of people, I'm just like, my 50 people, 30 people like a like a small comedy club from the 90s, which is a lovely audience size, actually, if they're like, if they like you, I've never been on stage where people liked me, but no twice, maybe twice.

And but then I was never able to be myself. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know.

Really. I was trying to be something I wasn't. Now I don't, I can't be bothered.

The only time something I'm not is when I'm visit family or visit, you know, maybe. I don't know if you know, I've noticed it sometimes friends from a long time ago, not all of them, but some friends from like, I haven't got many now anyway, really struggled with the fact that I was changing, because some of them didn't seem to change. It's like, they, it's almost maybe they found their own voice a lot earlier in life than I did.

So it's not for me to judge them. Maybe they were just genuine a lot earlier in their life than I was. When in a conversation with another person.

So yeah, so maybe it was just me, I was just I was just very immature. And I think, I don't think it's a secret that I am still quite immature. I'm a, I think that's what's kept me going.

Being very immature. And a majority of the time, not taking myself too seriously. I say majority of the time, because there are times when I really do.

And that's where things go pear shaped. That's when it's not good. So I have to kind of not go in that direction.

Because then I, yeah, this happened, happened many times. But it doesn't last. Usually.

Well, no, it never lasts. Obviously, I've always, I've always been there now, wouldn't I? So no, it doesn't last. You already asked if I wanted to go to the US.

And I'm telling you my life story. See, I can't help it. I can't help it.

Oh, Anne asks me, this is a follow on question. Have you ever been to the US? No, I haven't. Never been.

I almost feel like I have been because I've been watching. Just because of the TV shows and the movies I've been watching since I was a kid. I almost feel like I can do an American accent.

I can not not regional necessarily, but I can do like an American accent. I can. Do you want to hear my American accent? Here is what should I do? I'll just read out some of the questions.

If you could visit one place in the US, where would you go and why? See? You see? Very good, wasn't it? And then Anne's one. Have you been to the US? Yes. That's another American accent.

I'll do Christine's one. Is it this weekend you're seeing your dad for his 80th birthday? That's another American accent. See, I've got some skills.

No one recognizes them. They're almost invisible. So no, I've never been to America.

Vinnie keeps going up to his food. Look at it, smelling it, looking up at me in disgust. There's nothing wrong with the food.

I literally opened a fresh can, put it onto the plate, and he don't want to touch it. But the fact that he keeps going back to it means that he must be hungry. So he's having like a standoff between his will to not eat the food I give him, but also the need to eat.

I tell you what's really weird, not quite quite funny, actually, I quite like it. Whenever we're about to go out, and he thinks we're about to go out, he runs to his bowl of water and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks, loads of water. So he's got plenty to do wee-wees.

That's clever, isn't it? Maybe I'm childish thinking that's clever, but I do. I know sometimes when I'm out, I say, oh, he does this, and all dogs do that. I don't like hearing that.

I like to think that everyone's different, and nobody does what my little Vinnie does. I realise I'm being a bit simplistic, yet it feels nice to think that he does his own special things. You know, I say, oh, he can't get enough treats.

Well, all dogs love treats. Yeah, but when someone says that to me, they're pretty much just saying, that's the end of the conversation. You know, everyone does that.

Okay. And what did I say to someone recently? I don't know, I said something similar to someone recently. I didn't mean it in that way, and then I kind of turned it around to kind of get out of it.

I kind of backed out a little bit and reversed and parked on the pavement, the other side of the road. I don't know, but you know, kind of like, actually, I don't like when people do that to me. And I just did it to them without really meaning to, you know, communication.

So no, I've never been to the US. I'd like to, I mean, I've said I've spoken to many people from America. I'd like to visit Canada.

I mean, it makes sense if I'm in Canada, if I'm gonna go to the US to also visit Canada, because it's, there's no flying involved. I can just go, you know, by probably not taxi, but by coach. Unless I was in a hurry, but I'm not.

Well, hopefully I wouldn't be. So yeah, go by coach, go into Canada and just travel through Canada. I've heard it's an amazing place.

I've got regular listeners in Canada as well. It'd also be cool to go. So once they got to the borders, let's say Texas, Phoenix, places like that.

So maybe, I don't know if I'll be allowed, but going to South America, parts of South America. I don't know what the rules are for that. But that'd be nice to go to like Mexico and Venezuela and I don't know all the different places, but there's lots of different countries, isn't there? Right, so Mike asks me, what part of the UK do you live in? I live in England.

So I know from outside of the UK, you're Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland, a part of the UK. Isn't the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight also part of the UK? And Jersey and Guernsey as well. And there's quite a few different places that are part of the UK.

But generally, that's what we kind of class as the UK. England, Wales, whatever's on this landmass and then Northern Ireland. And then maybe the Isle of Wight's gotta be part, isn't it? I don't know.

So I live in England, I live in the south of England. I have lived in other places. So I've lived, I was born in London, I lived in, so I lived in London for the first couple of years.

And I moved to Newcastle. According to my oldest brother, we also lived in Scotland for a while, but I have no memory of that. That might have been before Newcastle, I don't know.

I remember Newcastle. And then we moved to Southend, I remember Southend. And then, this is me, when I say we, I'm talking about me and my brothers.

And then we moved to Suffolk to be with my dad and his new wife when I was seven. And then I moved away from there when I was 19 to move to London. And I stayed in London until I was 20, I was 31.

And then I came back, moved back to Suffolk, a different part of Suffolk, because I had a job in a sales place. And then I moved to Essex. But I also lived in Ireland, I lived in Bognor Regis for a while.

During the 90s. And yeah, I kind of sort of moved around a fair bit over the years. This is the plate, this is why I'm trying to sort of, I think I need to do a gratitude journal.

Just to remind myself of what I am grateful for, because I don't feel grateful a lot of the time, I'll be honest. But I think sometimes when I do the gratitude thing, I kind of put down three things, or five things, and I can't think of five things. Or if I put a list of three things, I struggle with the three things.

And then maybe the next day, it's the same three things. And I feel pressured to try and think of different things I'm grateful for, when actually, I don't want to be fake. I don't want to like pretend I'm grateful for something.

But I know part of the process is to actually get in touch with things that maybe I could or should be grateful for. And then maybe I become grateful for it. So I suppose I could be grateful, in theory, for going bald.

But I can't think of any positive thing about it. And I mean, the only thing about going bald is it keeps away gold diggers. But, you know, my face generally has done that all my life.

So I didn't need to go bald for that. Gold diggers. Yeah.

That's a good, I like that song. Is it Kanye West and what's his name? The actor, singer, comedian. I love that song.

She's a gold digger. It's a good song. Now, if you've never heard that song, and let's say I was new in the charts, you might not want to listen.

You might not want to listen to it. I don't think I've really sold it to you. She's a gold digger.

But it's a good song. I really like it. It's a quite an old song.

It's probably about 20 years old now. But I like it in 20 years is not a long time for someone like me. So yeah, what's new? Here's Robin.

What's new and exciting in your neighborhood? I missed this one out. I went straight to Mike. Sorry, Robin, you were next.

Robin, what's new and or exciting going on in your neighborhood? Well, because I haven't done a Q&A Friday for a while for a week or two, I'm gonna see what's been happening around here. Well, the council have been doing that, like, you know, cutting the grass and stuff like that. It's that time of year where they're starting to kind of clear up.

Recently, we had all the bushes was about a month ago now, but had all the bushes and hedges taken away from the outside of the back of the building, because they had mold inside the flat. And the council thought that might be causing it. So they removed all of that.

It's made the garden look bigger. But I don't really use a garden anyway, because it's communal. So it's no privacy.

And I do. I think I Yeah, in my neighborhood. So I'm just trying to, as I was going to talk about website, but that's not really a neighborhood thing, is it? It's what I've been doing.

So neighborhood wise. Everything's kind of calmed down. It's not not much going on now.

As the downstairs flat has been getting a new bathroom that's lasted about three weeks. Unless unless they're getting something else now. But definitely getting a like a new wet room or bathroom in the building downstairs.

And so that that's kind of Yeah, two or three weeks has been going on. There was some other building work going on downstairs at another flat. Nothing going on upstairs.

I haven't had anything go on here. And I mean, Uncle sausages had a new bathroom and a new kitchen put in. Which was, I mean, he he liked the fact that he got a new kitchen, because he was around to see that.

And he had that was done at the end of not last year, the year before. So we had, you know, good eight or nine months to enjoy his new kitchen, the new bathroom styled and he never got to see it finished. So the lady who moved in, after Uncle sausages moved out, as it was, she's moved into a flat with new bathroom, new kitchen.

It's almost like a new flat, really. I've been in there actually. And she left the door open.

No, she left. That sounds wrong. I've never do that.

And she invited me in the other day, because she needs to ask me something. It's so different in there. That's what's really weird about these flats, right.

And it's probably the same about every single home in the world. It's probably nothing unique about this at all, I guess. But when someone moves out, and then take all the stuff, all the stuff is moved out.

And then someone else moves in. It's so different. I mean, I'm guessing there was a time in the past when maybe everybody had a very similar setup, like a settee, a chair, maybe some table and chairs, TV, you know, maybe they had the same kind of setup in the living room.

And in the kitchen, maybe a table and chairs for the kitchen, you know, maybe it was the same kind of setup. And maybe it still is in a way, but it's so different. So you wouldn't even know that you'd walked into the same flat.

Just like downstairs. When my friend left, Luke two and a half years ago. And I've been inside that flat.

Blimey. I don't know how many times in the 10 years that I've known him. So long, many, many times, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times.

And I couldn't really imagine the flat being that much different. But I've never seen it empty. And I never saw empty, like, I didn't have access to the flat once the council took it and they emptied everything.

And I didn't get to see what it was like inside there. Until the new person moved in, and she invited me in. And it was not the same flat in any, any way, shape or form.

It just wasn't. I genuinely didn't like I didn't feel like I knew where I was. It's exactly the same as over there.

It's just so different. And then she moved out. And another person moved in just before Christmas.

So she moved out last summer. Another person moved in just, I'd say about November time. And he invited me in.

Everyone invites me in. I don't know why, but invited me and I went in there. I think it was just because of the floorboard in me and another neighbour.

Because he's got mould as well. Sort of like we have that both downstairs has had a lot of problems with mould. But completely different again.

So different, like the flat, even though it's just amazing, just like how, and I can't believe I'm getting so excited about this, but it makes you wonder what I could do with this place. Because this is just messy. It's really, you know, I've got these old soundproofing stuff on the wall, which is black and grotty.

And it's the same colour that the same colours when I moved in. We painted them, but just painted them the same colour, which is a bit pointless. And because I don't put any effort into things like that.

I'm not house proud. And I kind of wish I was a little bit. Because this anywhere could just be lovely, can't it? You can make anything lovely.

But I think the problem, apart from my body, I think the problem is, I've moved in here with the attitude that I've always had, is that I'm going to be moving on. Because that's all I've ever done. I've just lived in rooms, pretty much, even if it's been for a few years, but I've always moved on.

I've never, I was never settled. So I never painted any of the rooms I moved into. What's the point? In fact, I don't think that was even an option.

It might have been. I didn't even think about it, actually. But I just rented a room.

It came as it came. If it was decorated, if it was, if it had like a bed. Yeah, most rooms had a bed and a chair, maybe a table.

So they came furnished. Most of the bedrooms I rented over the years. And I just lived there for a year or two years or four years and then moved out.

Through choice or through eviction, whatever. And I suppose when I moved in here, I had a little bit of a painting, got a carpet. I was pleased with the carpet when I got it.

Then I got Andre, my little ferret, and he was also pleased with the carpet, which is why he destroyed it. It was his little toy, big toy, in fact. And then he came in and continued the destruction.

And I just haven't, yeah, I kind of like to be house proud in a way. But it's just I've always, I think it's because I never really got a chance to live messily. I think I'm quite a messy person.

Because I've got stuff here on the desk, I've got my laptop, got my iPad that I'm using to record. I've got a recorder, I've got the hard drives where my recordings are stored. I've got multiple things on the desks that probably aren't even necessary to be on there.

Everything's within range that I can reach. Vinnie's now staring at me. He's sitting on the edge of the settee staring right at me.

Go away, leave me alone. It's not time to go out anyway, it's only ten to four. Why don't you eat your dinner, Vinnie? Why don't you eat your din-dins? And that distracted me.

What was I talking about? Decorating? Yeah, I could have. I think I'm talking about like past tenses. I could have done so much with this with this flat.

There's still time, I hope. Maybe I should look into it. Maybe gradually over time start to make the flat nicer.

Perhaps. I need a new carpet. This carpet is ridiculously horrible.

But I've had it for 11 years and it's worn out. It was worn out within a year, unfortunately, but it was proper worn out. I'd like to get some soundproofing for the floor so that it's just better.

Because, you know, when I'm making recordings, the less noise or sound there is, the better. I did think about maybe trying to put some kind of soundproofing on the ceiling because Elvis Presley, because I'm now comparing myself to Elvis Presley. Yep.

Didn't see that coming, did you? Elvis Presley, in one of his rooms that he used to like to jam, like, you know, sing and stuff with his friends, with his guitar, had a big massive carpet on the ceiling for the acoustic, for the soundproofing. Now I'm not quite sure how much work would be put into that. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't a cheap carpet either, was it?

But I don't know how how that would be done.

I don't know. I do have some newer soundproofing that I put on a few months back. Blimey, beginning of the year, maybe.

And it looks nicer. I don't know how soundproofing it is, though, because I'm not sure. But it seems to be OK.

But then I realized a while back that actually, although I want the sound to be a good quality sound, I don't necessarily want it to sound like too professional or too like a radio, because it sounds a bit unnatural or like a CD. It might not, you know, like really perfect studio, professional kind of sound. Great for singing, but I'm not sure if that's necessarily required, because I had my recording equipment broke, didn't it?

A while back.

But I've still got that microphone, which was it's actually the microphone that Frasier uses in his sitcom, Frasier. If you look at the microphone he's got on his desk, exactly the same microphone. So it's still going.

They're still popular microphones. But there's a certain sound to it that isn't as natural as this, I think. I think this is a little bit more natural.

It's a bit. I don't know why. Not really sure how to explain it.

But yeah, there's not a lot going on. I tell you what has gone on. I got three letters from the council, one telling me that they're going to do a survey of my building just to check out for asbestos and stuff, because there's asbestos in the bathroom.

And I think they want to check that. Which is fine, just come and do you do what they want. But I've also got in fact, let me have a look.

I'm going to find them here and read them to you. So I've got these letters. And I did have someone phone me a couple of weeks ago saying, Oh, we're calling from the local council, the housing association.

And we're doing a survey. And I said, No, thanks. Bye.

Love you. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Just, I wasn't rude, but I just I haven't got the, haven't got the patience for these surveys. And to be honest, I didn't know if they were real or not.

There's so many scams. But it looks like it was real. So I got a letter.

I'm going to call them next week. I've been too busy this week with the old dentists and stuff. Did I tell you I found an NHS dentist? I didn't actually talk about it, did I? I forgot that's what's really happening.

I know it's not a neighborhood thing. I found an NHS dentist. And oh, man, I was talking to a neighbor yesterday.

The day before, I don't know whenever it was. And I was just mentioning because I hadn't seen her for a while just mentioning that I'd just been to a dentist and on antibiotics. And I was, and I had diarrhoea.

I thought she'd like to hear. Actually, I did. So I said, Oh, I've got something.

She said, Well, I said, it rhymes with biarrhoea. And she said, What? And I said the shits. She said, Oh, okay.

And why didn't you say that then? Anyway, and then another neighbor came out and we were talking about dentists and like, it's hard to get one. But my other neighbor said that she managed to get an NHS dentist. So she gave me the name and I went online.

And I got my motivation back to try and find someone. Because I'll be honest, I'd given up. I'd spent hours on the phone waiting to get through to each one of them.

And everyone was saying no, but we'd do it for lots of money. So I gave up until I didn't. And then I got back on it and found it took a while and I had to, I couldn't get one where she was.

But I did find one eventually. And I also got my friend, Vinnie's mum, also she got into the same dentist on as an NHS patient. And so that was a really that was the big, the big thing of the week.

I mean, technically, the big thing of the week is how much time I've been sitting on the toilet. Or maybe the fact that I missed miss my dad's ATF party. But yeah, I mean, well, you know, I'm not gonna go back to that anyway.

So yeah, so that's good. And 8th of April says 18. So this got sent in normally takes about 10 days to get through.

Believe it or not. But I think this came through probably about two or three days ago. Dear Mr. J. Newland.

I hope this letter finds you well. We have been contacted by your how your home basically landlord to the council housing to assess your home for an upgrade of your existing central heating system. To enable us to complete these works, we will need two surveys to be carried out one by ourselves to assess the heating system that you have in your property.

This will be a survey of the boiler, radiators, air source, heat pump and slash or thermostat dependent on what you have in your property. The second survey that needs to be carried out is an asbestos survey targeted to your heating system. This does not necessarily mean you have asbestos in your property.

Well, I already know I have because I had to sign a form saying it was okay. When I moved in, they said you got asbestos in your bathroom ceiling, and possibly the ceiling as well. So I already signed a form a waiver for that one.

Just basically what they did say it's not dangerous. Well, asbestos, but they said it's, it's minimal. And what was I going to do? Say nope, because I agree the same with every council flat that they're going to offer me.

Okay, to put your heating system, this is not necessarily. I think, I think what it is, is they need to find out what the asbestos situation is, before they start ripping things apart. Because of the danger of that.

To probably the workers, to be fair, and as well as the people living there. I say people, me and Vinnie, he's a person too. The company, so they're going to do that before any work can commence.

The company used for this survey is a contracting worker for the local borough homes. They will be in contact with you directly to carry out this survey. Once we've carried out our survey, and we have received the asbestos report for your property, the upgrade of the system can be scheduled.

New systems generally take one day to complete. The duration of the works will be discussed at the time of booking the installment. Please could you contact us on any of the methods below to arrange your survey.

Wow, I thought they were going to contact me. Okay, that's good. I'll call them.

So, central heating system. Does that mean the radiators? Anyone? Because I had a new boiler put in, I think it was 2000, either 2018 or 2019. And I think in today's terms, that's quite a new boiler.

Because it's probably been in there for 20 or 30 years, the old one. And it kept breaking down, like constantly. That is like it was like every few weeks.

Yeah, the boilers broke down again, and they'd come down and now they do a yearly check. And never had an issue, I don't think ever with a boiler. Never.

Yeah, the boiler is great. It's always passed its checks. And I mean, it's just used only me, me and Vinnie here.

So it's not when it's the heating's on. I'm not I'm not shy with heating. If I do have the heating on in the winter, I'm not going to sit here being cold.

As some people like, oh, you want to wear a jumper? No. Even if I get in debt with the electric company, I do that rather than sit here being cold because that's just not I've had to live like that in the past. You know, when I'd be dependent on landlords or landladies, where I didn't have any heat in my room, because it wasn't September yet.

It wasn't October yet. You know, heating goes on in October, and it goes off in March. Even though sometimes we have colder weather in April than we do in January.

So yeah. And it only comes on for a couple of hours a day. Come on, the amount of times I had to get myself a heater, like a like a electric heater for the room.

And I thought, you know what? They're not saving any money. If anything, it's costing them more money because I'm putting this heater, plugging it in one or two heaters sometimes. And that's going on their electricity bill.

Instead of just having the heating on. So it's probably costing them more money, but I'm not sitting in cold. I did it for too many years.

I wouldn't do it now. But if it does get cold, I will put a jumper on. I'm not sitting here in my bathing suit in December.

Not quite like that. You know, I don't have it on all the time. I don't have it on in the summer.

I love it when I switch it off and then it's not on anymore until hopefully September at least. But there's no way of knowing, is there? If it's a cold day, I turn it on. It's on a like a thing.

So if it needs to come on, it comes on. If it's cold, it comes on. It doesn't look at what year it is or what the month is or what the date is.

If it's a certain temperature, it comes on. And that suits me until the point where I just switch it off altogether. Because there's a period of time when it's just not needed at all.

I don't want it to come on even by accident. Mind you, I might have to, depending on electric and gas, I might have to review my my statement on that one. I might have to start sitting there in the cold.

Oh, I hope not. I hope not. You know, my friend downstairs, he said that to me because he got pneumonia one year.

And from then on, he always had his heating on. He didn't have his heating on. He didn't want to get build up a bill.

And but then on, he said, Oh, I was I was with him cause I was with him. So I said, you got to have your heating on mate. Because he was really, really ill with it.

And he was unwell anyway. So I said, you got to have your heating on. And he was like, I think the last year he said no.

The last couple years he said I'm gonna have to move everything into one room. Because the heating is too much. And I said, Look, even if you get into debt, it's better to get into debt.

And I'll do anything I can to help you anyway. So he's not his own. And you can't let yourself get cold because he did.

He had no body fat. He just literally, it's not like me. I'm like a whale.

I could probably go about a month without eating and not even notice it. Which is a ridiculous thing to say. But I probably could.

You know, I probably I've got so much fat on me. I'd probably I'd just be burping every now and then. As my body eats the fat.

I don't know. It's a weird one. And definitely lose weight.

It's not the way I'd like to. And I said, you got to have the heating on. And the last year, he was like, really, I'm gonna move into one room.

I said, No, look, even if you get behind doesn't matter. They're not going to kick you out. You're not going to get kicked out for being from the council for getting into arrears with your, if you don't pay your rent, you're getting kicked out potentially, but not with the bills.

And they can't switch your meter into a pay as you go meter, because you've got asthma. And he had COPD. So they weren't allowed to do that.

It's illegal for them to change it over to to that. So he okay, so I was really I was looking out for him and waiting for the bailiffs. They did actually turn up after he'd left.

But he didn't he stopped paying the bills. But he had the heating on. So he did part of what I said, I didn't tell him to stop paying the bills.

I just said to him, have the heat on to keep yourself warm. Because I mean, that was he stood like really not look forward to the to the winter, love the summer, love, look forward to the summer. But then he found himself not even between that particularly warm in those parts where he used to be okay.

Like spring, autumn, he was finding himself cold. You know, like April, May time that all and then August, September. So it was cold, where before he'd be walking around topless, with his boobies out.

So I didn't have to really add that today. I don't know what the point was. Oh, yeah, we're talking about central heating.

This is so I don't know. I can't imagine they changed the actual boiler but the some of the radiators don't work and they're falling apart. Seriously, the radiator in the kitchen, the radiator in the bathroom only gets a little bit warm at the bottom.

The radiator in the bedroom and the living room are fine. They work well, which is the main thing to be fair, because that's where I need the most. Not so much in the bedroom, but more in here because this is where I spend most of my time in the living room.

The kitchen the radiator is just turned off. I don't have it on don't need it on. I think it might be broke anyway.

And a radiator near the door. The front door is broken, but it's still heats up but there's bits of knobs falling off and everything. And so there's 12345 radiators in my home.

Two really long radiators because the windows are big in here, in both the bedroom and the living room. And very small radiators, probably the same size in the kitchen, bathroom and in the hallway near the front door. So it'd be good if they replace all the wow, they replace the radiators.

It'll almost not force me but it'll almost guide me towards maybe doing something with this flat. Because it's, I moved when I moved in, it was a bit grotty. I'll be honest, it was a bit grotty.

The doors are still grotty. They still got big scratch marks from when the dogs, they used to have a couple of big dogs living there. Same old doors.

So I might contact the council and see is a way of getting the doors changed the internal doors that is. I know they have to be to a certain regulation, hot, you know, safety and stuff. But they're grotty, really grotty, all of them.

And they're just those ones that you could pretty much punch a hole through. You know, but they are I mean, this they're safe as far as the standard was supposed to be. But they're not nice doors.

They're falling apart. But they were when I first moved in. Although Andre helped a little bit because he used to scratch at the door and try to dig underneath it.

Bless him. There was this one time it was hard. Mrs. T. Cup of tea.

I was it? I think it was about it was a few months after I got Andre. And I had to go to the airport. And I come back.

So I've been gone all day long. Literally, I'd be gone left early in the morning, got back quite late at night. Because a long day I was waiting for ages and everything like that.

Andre had destroyed the living room. Everything was everywhere. Now.

Why didn't I just leave him in his cage? Is the question. But I didn't want to I wanted to, I wanted him to have his freedom and to be happy. So let him do what he wanted.

And he destroyed I couldn't, I struggled to get pushed the door open. Because he pulled the carpet up. So I could hardly get in the front door into the living room door.

And he was just hissing like that's what he did when he was angry. But at the same time, he was happy to see me to see us, you know, so it's a nice memory. Not the trashing of the building, but just my little boy.

So that's interesting. So I've got, I've got two letters from the same company. It's the next one here.

I finished must have been like attached to this one. Why do I need my heating system refurbished? So the company's been asked to carry out a central heating system upgrade in your property on behalf of the council, you know, the landlord. Renewing the central heating system will allow for greater energy efficiency within your property.

A modern heating system has greater reliability, and will provide better control over your heating, which could potentially save you money, as well as being better for the environment. There is there are also many benefits to having your radiators upgrade, such as a faster heating time, and a more equal distribution of heat. The upgrade to your heating system may also include modern modern heating control, this will offer more precise temperature management, which I'm really not interested in.

I don't want it to be complicated. I don't do complicated. I can't even explain to you how how important that is for it not to be complicated.

If your property currently has storage heaters, no it doesn't. It may be an option for you to convert to a gas central heating system should you wish. Now I have a gas central heating system.

This can be discussed prior to any works taking place. If there is no gas available to your property, we will need to carry out a service of your current storage heaters to ensure that you are up to date. I'm really surprised that storage heaters still exist.

I've lived in places with quite like them actually, but I'm surprised that they still exist in 2026 in a council property. That surprises me. But then, in all fairness, this is probably the same letter that they send out to everybody in the country.

Probably and then they just change the top bit for each individual council that they're working for because they might they might have a contract for the whole country worth hundreds of millions. So that might just like trying to cover everybody, you know, because it did say also if you don't have access to gas, which is there's no one around here in my town that would not have access to gas.

This is we're not.

I know it's countryside where I live, but it's not that countryside. But that you know, there might have been a time when there was no gap. Well, it would have been a time wouldn't it? But probably not on this estate because it's not that old.

It's only about 40 odd years old, 40 or 50 years old this estate. This building was built around probably the late 70s. This flat, so there's been a lot of people living here over the years.

The ceilings are quite high actually. I've not really looked at the ceilings very often. The ceilings are quite high, but that's one of the benefits of being three foot tall.

Oh, so your new system. Oh, if your property currently has storage heaters, blah, blah, we will need to carry out a service of your current storage. Okay, that's not really necessary.

Your new heating system may include an upgrade of some or all aspects of your system. These are a radiator upgrade. Yes, please.

A boiler upgrade. I don't think they'd need to, but who knows. A modern heating control.

I don't want it to be complicated. I like my control. But it's very old.

It's probably it's probably about 40 years old. Replacement of existing storage heaters. No, I don't have one.

Storage heaters to gas central heating. Nope. Air source heat pump.

I have no idea what that is. Anyone? Air source heat pump. It doesn't sound like those words should even be in the same sentence.

What happens next? If you have not already, you will shortly hear from your asbestos contractor. An asbestos report is required by the borough homes in order for us to complete your heating upgrade. This does not necessarily mean that there is asbestos within your property.

This is just a requirement set out by the thing. So yeah, there is asbestos here. Asbestos.

While this report is in progress, we will need to complete our own survey, which is completed by one of our heating supervisors. This will include a check of your heating system and an identification of any elements that need to be upgraded. This will also give you.

This will also give you two opportunity. No one checked the spelling check of this one. Well, this will also give you two opportunity to let us know if you have any additional needs before, during and on completion of works.

Whoever wrote this out. Bearing in mind, this is this is going to be a generic letter that's they're not typed out individually guaranteed. There's not been checked.

There's so many mistakes, not spelling mistakes. Well, the wrong words in the wrong places and the punctuation not correct. And I'm no expert.

Although I do sound like one right now, don't I? Now you just sound like an idiot. You sound like you're just picking fault with things you don't need to. Alright, blimey.

This will also give you the opportunity to let us know if you have any additional needs before, during and on completion of works. This will enable us to tailor our works around any individual requirements. We will contact you in due course to book this appointment.

However, we would greatly appreciate a call from you in the meantime to book this appointment in. Hearing from you speeds us the process instead of up and ensures your works are completed quickly and efficiently. Before we start works, what do we need you to do? Once we have identified the works that need to be carried out within your property, we will contact you to book for these works to be complete.

Completed should be. Our installs usually take one day to install. However, in some cases, work may take a few extra days.

If this is the case, we will let you know the duration of your when we book in your install date. Our heating team will need room around your radiators and boilers in order to change them quickly and efficiently. Generally, this would require you moving personal items from around these areas.

Our surveyors will discuss with you what will need to be moved when they survey your property. Our team are happy to help move any large furniture such as beds and sofas. We would suggest moving smaller personal effects prior to our team's arrival.

A disclaimer will need to be signed by yourself prior to the works taking place. This will be made available to you at survey. This is just contact.

So I'm going to contact him on Monday. I do believe I have a little toilet break. And by that, I mean a break from the toilet.

So I also received these two letters, my three letters, three, well, three. Okay, so no, four. So there's two letters, but there's two parts to each one.

This one was the 10th of the fourth. Dear resident, we are writing to let you know that your home has been selected for inclusion in our 2026-2027 planned maintenance program. These works form part of our ongoing investment to ensure our homes remain safe, well maintained, and comfortable.

The exact works required at your property are still being assessed. However, they may include improvements such as heating systems upgrade. They've already kind of said that they're going to do that, haven't they? So that's already kind of done.

So I'll contact them. It says here before any work can begin, an asbestos survey must be carried out at your home. You'll be contacted by another company.

How many different companies are they using to arrange a convenient appointment for this survey? Okay. So I'm confused now. So this company is saying contact them to get a survey.

And now they're saying a different company is going to contact. So I'm a little bit confused because no one's phoned me. Unless it was that phone call I had about the... I might have blocked that number.

I better just check. I haven't. Hope not.

So to arrange a convenient appointment for this survey, following this our contractor will contact to arrange an initial inspection of the proposed works. Please note that this inspection may take place at any time between April and March. April 2026 and March 2027.

So we kindly ask for you to wait... ask you wait to hear from the contractor. So we kindly ask that you wait to hear from the contractor. Okay.

But the contractor asked me to contact them. Make it make sense. Say it with chest.

Yeah. Once the inspection has been... Okay. All our contractors carry identification cards.

Please do not allow anyone. If you have any questions you can contact us. Okay.

So that's that one. Your sincerely assess management team. And this is my landlord or land lady, land people, land bosses.

But this is another one. This is different though. And this was again on 10th of April 2026.

RA planned maintenance work actual property. Dear resident. See this is weird because they're not saying my name.

I have an issue with that. Because they should know my name. I've lived here 11 years.

But it's just dear current occupier. So it's again it's just like a generic letters that they're sending out to everyone. I want my name.

We are writing to let you know that your home has been selected for inclusion in our 2026-2027 planned maintenance program. You might think this is exactly the same letter but it's not. It's a different letter.

Same word so far. These works form part of our ongoing investment to ensure your homes remain safe, well maintained and comfortable. The exact works required at your property are still being assessed.

However they may include improvements such as kitchen replacement. Oh yeah. I'll tell you what I'd like.

And it's greedy. I know. It's very greedy.

I mean having the radiators having all that change would be great because the radiator is really great. Having the kitchen changed. But if I had to choose between a new bathroom and a new kitchen I'd choose for a new kitchen.

Because again it was it's not good. It's not nice in there. But if I could get a new bathroom as well and new windows that would be.

It's a new flat basically isn't it. It's a new flat. If I've got like new windows.

I mean half the flat's going to be refurbished. If I've got new radiators, a new heating system and a new kitchen. That's half the flat done.

And if I get a new bathroom like a few of the people that live around here have had. That's pretty much everything done. And then new windows.

I don't have a huge issue with the windows although they are a bit grotty as well. Falling apart a little bit. That would be like a new flat.

Then I'd have no excuse really to to not make the place a little bit better for my old age. For my for my pension years. Wow.

Wow. Blimey. So it says here.

So kitchen replacement. So now they're talking about the radiators or the heating system and a kitchen replacement. Before any work can.

You have to do the asbestos stuff. Same stuff as before. And also the same.

This could happen. This whole thing could happen between now and March next year. So I'm guessing the people that will get sorted first.

Will those people will be the people that contact them first. Because ultimately. If I go back to the company itself.

The company that's doing this. They've got a contract and more work that they can they can do. The more money they're going to get paid.

So if they come in there and they say oh well we need to also to do a kitchen and a bathroom. They might not be able to do the windows that might not be part of their thing. But if they can.

You know. If they can find a reason to do a bathroom. Then I could end up with a new bathroom as well.

Because the more work they do. It's better for everyone isn't it. Except the council probably.

I don't know. Plus. It's an investment.

Anyway isn't it. It's an investment in the building. For the council.

Because you know. Someone's going to live here after me. Someone will live here after them.

Someone will live here after. You know. So provided no one actually purchases the flat from the council.

This could be here for another 50 years. Another 100 years even. With different tenants.

Then he started barking again. So I'm not quite sure where I was. What I was talking about then.

Right Maria asks. Not so much a question Jason. More of a suggestion.

As you didn't talk about cats last night in Monday's Boring Objects. Would it be possible to talk about different breeds of cats or dogs at some stage in the future? I like both. Thank you for all that you do.

Right Maria. Maybe this coming Monday. I'll make an effort to do that.

For the Monday's Boring Objects. The thing is. You may have noticed that sticking to the subject is not my speciality.

Which is also part of the process as well. Because it's hard to focus when someone keeps moving around and switching subjects and stuff. Which is kind of part of the process of like.

You know. Helping you to fall asleep and be bored and all that. You know.

Relaxed. But I will try. I will try Maria.

To do one next week. Okay. I will try.

I will try. Ann asks. Ask me.

What was your favourite and least favourite subject in school? I didn't like any of the subjects. If I'm honest. There was one subject that I could tolerate.

And that was RE. Religious Education. I didn't like it.

But I didn't look forward to going. I wasn't waiting outside the classroom five minutes before the door opened. Jumping up and down with excitement.

I didn't like it that much. But I did like the teachers. I'll be honest.

Both the teachers that I had during high school with RE. I liked. If we forget high school.

Because I didn't like high school. All five years. Didn't like it.

I enjoyed. In junior school. I enjoyed English.

I enjoyed learning joined up writing. I enjoyed reading books. Improving my vocab.

I guess I didn't really know I was improving my vocabulary. But improving my understanding of the you know books and the syntax and all that stuff. I had a sense of accomplishment.

When I take a book home and read it and take it back the next day. And the praise from my teacher. Because I didn't get a lot of praise.

I'll be honest. I think my step mum would give me praise. But praise just wasn't it wasn't really the done thing I don't think back then.

But my English teacher did. Gave me praise. And could see that I was really putting in the effort.

Even if I wasn't doing things correctly. I was putting in the effort. And I knew I was putting in the effort.

But that's the only subject. Really that I was. I would say I was.

I didn't have an attitude when I was at junior school. I was kind of still. Because bearing in mind I'd only lived.

With a like a family from the age of seven. So I was in junior school seven eight nine ten. Seven eight nine for four years.

In that town. And the whole time I was. I went to three different junior schools.

And. I would say I was generally quite content. At those schools.

You know I mean I've got friends to play with. At the last junior school I learned to play the violin. I had friends that I used to run around with and play with outside of school.

I liked all three of the junior schools. And. Don't really remember anyone giving me hassle.

Like the teachers being horrible or rude or. Sort of picking on me or anything like that. That I would get in the high school.

So I definitely liked. If I was going to go back to subjects. I would focus on what I liked in junior school.

High school I just kind of forget that. So junior school up to the age of ten. What's the age of eleven actually I suppose.

I liked. Making stuff out of balsa wood. And I like cross stitching.

Which makes me wonder why I don't do it now. Because I'm never not going to like doing it. In a weird way.

Because. What might this is this okay this might put me back into the kind of the special needs section. But I had a teacher that let me make stuff out of balsa wood.

While the other kids were actually doing different things. Probably maths or something. Because I just could.

If I wasn't interested in something then I just. Maybe I was a little bit. And I wasn't aware of it.

Maybe I was a little bit. Disruptive. I might have been.

Without realizing it. When I was in high school I realized I was being disruptive. But in junior school I might not have realized I was doing it you know.

So. They used to let me do stuff. That just.

Placated me I suppose. Just calmed me down. And I would just be left alone.

And I'd spend hours and hours making a little canoe. Out of a bit of balsa wood. Just with some sandpaper and a little knife.

I suppose whittling isn't it is it called whittling. So. Yeah I just.

I'm not sure. Probably English. I think maths.

I could do like the basic adding up. And I remember learning you know you got the. You got adding up two numbers up.

And then one. If one adds up to more than 10. Then you put the lower number.

And you put the one underneath for I don't know. You know sort of. And I kind of knew what I meant when I said it.

And I just remember like some of that. It makes sense. Times tables.

Yeah. It makes sense. Like basic.

Adding up. Taking away. Times tables.

Dividing a little bit more. Difficult I found. Dividing something by.

And then fractions. Very basic fractions. Like half.

Quarter. Third. But ultimately fractions are.

They're pretty much simple really aren't they. Oh. OK.

They're simple but it's like. If you go even deeper and deeper and deeper. There's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction or whatever.

And then adding up fractions. I think I got that wrong because I did it the same way as you do like adding up numbers. But I know the two halves is a whole.

I know that four quarters is one. Or two quarters is a half. You know I know.

It's not. I'm not saying it like aren't I clever. I'm 55 and I know that two quarters make a half.

I'm not bragging or showing off. I'm not showing off honest. But I knew that back then.

But then when we started going to eighths and sixteenths and. It started to become complicated but it wasn't. It's not complicated in reality.

It's really simple in reality. If you just just break. If you just look at it from a distance like it's just.

You just break it up into 16 bits. Or you break it up into 20 bits. You break it up into 100 bits.

So each bit's one. You break it up into 200 bits. Each bit is half.

Well you know. I'm not sure if that's true. But you know.

Something happened to me with maths where I just I got to a level of probably. I probably got to a level about an eight year old probably. Seven or eight.

And then I kind of seem to kind of get stuck a bit. And I would say I've. Over time.

Just because I've had to learn percentages and in daily life you know had to learn. So when I was in sales I had to figure out what my percentage of calls to sale ratio or what my numbers of quotes to sale ratio and what it was for our team compared to other teams. Right.

I kind of had to sort of learn some of that stuff which I hadn't taken any notice of at school. And realize it's actually quite easy. Not saying I could do it now.

But you know. Back then it's like OK. This is very simple.

It's very it's probably 10 year old maths. But I didn't really get to that level. So.

In junior school I'd say my least favorite. I had two least favorite. So my favorite was English.

Loved English. I loved reading. And.

If I managed to get myself some glasses I want to go back to reading again. This is my eyesight. It's not great at the moment.

I'm not moaning. I'm just stating facts. OK.

OK. OK. OK.

OK. And I am moaning. I'm not.

I think. English is my favorite. Definitely.

100 percent. Choir time. Not necessarily music.

So I guess music was my second favorite. Because we'd sing. We'd sing in the choir.

Practice hymns. All that stuff. So I love that.

Love singing. Least favorite would be maths. But I didn't hate it.

I just didn't understand a lot of it. But the teacher didn't give me a hard time. All I asked in life.

Not to be given a hard time. From people. Individual people.

You know. Give me space. That's what I said.

You know when I had a sales job in London. Selling. Contracts for mobile phones.

And I was number two on the sales floor. Because. I guess I was just naturally quite good at it.

And then I moved. And I applied for a job at a big insurance company. Doing the same job.

But you know selling insurance. And the bloke. He didn't seem very excited to take me on.

Because I was much older than most of the people working there. Who were in their early 20s. And I was 31.

It wasn't exactly old was I. But I felt old. And I said to him. You know what.

Honestly. Here's the honest truth. I will be rubbish at this job.

Probably for the first three to six months. Then I'll be the best. And he was thrown back by that.

I spoke to him later on. He wasn't going to give me the job. It's only because someone else that was that interviewed me as well.

He said yeah. Take him on. Give him a chance.

Or maybe they had an interview. Because they perhaps they got a reference from my previous place. And realised that I was a good seller.

Because they were surprised as well. Like how are you selling. More than everyone else nearly.

I said I don't know. Just you know. But I stuck to what I said.

I made sure I was really rubbish at the beginning. I remember he came round and said you were honest. At least you're honest about being rubbish.

I said no. Just wait. I've got to learn my way around this.

It's a whole new computer system. I didn't have much experience really using computer systems. I could build websites.

But I couldn't. You know. This was a whole new thing to me.

I knew nothing about insurance. So I started in September. Went through all the way through till it was April.

When suddenly I was on that wall. And I was. I think I was number two.

I went from being like number 70 or something. If that. No one knew who I was.

So suddenly my name was at the top. Not number one. But like number two or number three.

And people were asking who's this Jason. And I heard a few people on one table started singing. There's a hero.

If you look over there. He's a bloke who never comes into work wearing trousers. And from then on I was in the top five.

From the whole time I worked there after that. Never moved out of the top five. I'd have a week off and I'd still be in the top five of the month.

How is that? Imagine that. A whole week off where I didn't get any sales at all. And I'd still be in the top five.

In fact I was in the top five when I went part time. I was still in the top 10 percent. In fact I might have been still in the top five percent.

Even when I was working part time. People full time weren't getting as many sales as me. This is starting to come across as bragging.

I haven't had much to brag about in my life. I might as well brag about that. It was the only time I've been successful I think.

But yeah mathematics wasn't really my thing. And the other subject I didn't like really was sports. Now I didn't mind rounders.

Rounders was fun. That's what America turned into baseball. It's like softball.

I think we invented it and it was just a kids game and you turned it into a multi-billion pound franchise which is brilliant. And so we did that. I liked that because I got to run around.

And let's face it rounders is just like a children's version of cricket. You know you hit a ball and then you run around and stuff. But it's a more friendly less technical easier thing to understand.

Not that cricket is complicated I would say. But rounders was the only subject that I enjoyed because everything else apart from swimming. Even though I couldn't swim I was having swimming lessons and the swimming instructor and the teacher that did the swimming was lovely.

So I semi learned to swim when I was at that school. Yeah semi. So I cricket and football.

Someone hit me in the knee with a ball when I was the very first time ever was in bat. And they threw the thing and it hit the one leg that wasn't protected. The one knee and I chased them with the bat.

Apparently not supposed to do that. The bat was bigger than me. And in football the problem was nearly everybody was bigger than me.

That the kids might. Some of them were nearly a year older than me in my year. So I turned for example I turned 10 in the end of August and some of the kids would turn 11 at the beginning of September.

So literally I had a year's growth. And even in junior school some of the kids were like adults nearly physically. So I didn't like the full contact stuff where people were pushing me.

Because when I went to high school we did hockey and someone hit me in the shins with a hockey stick. And I chased them around the field with a hockey stick trying to get them. And I think I did get them and I was banned from playing hockey again.

And I tried to explain to the teacher if anyone hurts me I hurt them back. It's always going to be the case. It's never ever going to be different from that.

It's been the same when I've done martial arts. You know I've done martial arts not it's about sparring. It's not about hurting each other.

It's about technique. About being gentle. Some people don't get that.

They want to be tough and they want to like show how hard they can kick and stuff. So I always have to show them and let them know by accident that they can't do that. So next question Shanthani.

If you could have any superpower what would it be and why? I don't know. The next question. If you haven't to eat the same food every day for the rest of your life what would you choose? I'd probably choose pizza.

Probably choose a Papa John's pizza with a chocolate crunchy thingy whatever it's called. Chocolate. What's it called? Chocolate thing.

Biscuit kind of thing. So yeah. But it wouldn't be a good thing for me to eat every day.

So if I was looking from a more nutritionist thing I'd probably go for a roast dinner. But I'd have such a huge amount of stuff that I could variate. So I'd have everything you could possibly have on a roast dinner every day.

And I guess one day I could leave out the Brussels sprouts. Another day I could not have the broccoli. Maybe not have the Yorkshire puddings.

I'd have mashed potato. I'd have chips, fries, whatever you want to call them. I'd have roast potatoes.

Everything so I could mix and match. I'd have sausages on there as well. I'd have to have bread.

Bread rolls to go with the roast dinner. So then I could put sausages into the rolls. I could put sausages into the Yorkshire puddings to make us I guess toes in the hole.

So yeah I think that would be quite a good idea. Have a roast dinner but with like a huge plate of a roast dinner. Although I guess that'd be quite wasteful.

So not from yeah. Have a bit of everything. That would suit me.

Superpower. It depends when you ask me. I mean I like the idea of being invisible.

I'd like the idea of being invincible. Being just being alive forever. That suits me.

I quite like the idea of that. Being alive forever. I don't know what the correct.

I don't know what that superpower would be. I guess. Yeah I'm not sure.

Wolverine. Kind of Wolverine's powers. I suppose.

Healing powers. Actually I want to change it. I think my if I could have a superpower.

It would be to heal others. Yeah that's why I choose to heal others. Yeah.

So yeah. Healing other people. Physically.

To be able to heal them. And I don't think that needs an explanation to be honest. I think you can kind of figure out why.

It's. I can't imagine anything better. Anything.

Other than being able to produce food out of my toes. That would obviously be a good thing. Or produce water out of my ears.

So I could just travel around the world and feed people and stuff. But if I was able to heal people. Wouldn't that bring peace to the world.

Potentially. You know. I just thought I'm not going to heal you unless.

You shake hands. Now give each other a bit of a hug. A little bit of kisses.

That's it. A little bit. No.

But you know what I mean. Everyone needs to get on. Nicola asks.

What's the most ordinary part of your day that you recently. That you secretly enjoy the most. Getting up.

Getting up in the morning. Eating my ready break. That period.

So when I get up. Check the internet. Check my stuff.

All the stats. All that stuff. And then I have my ready break.

Cup of tea. Watch a bit of TV. Maybe.

Just you know. Maybe watch a bit of YouTube. And then.

After about an hour. I would normally. I'd listen to a hypnosis recording.

For about an hour. Sometimes two hours. Because I wake up quite early.

But I like waking up. Sounds strange. Maybe.

But that's my favourite part of the day. Is when I wake up. Eating my ready break.

Yeah. So Nicola. Thank you.

The last one was from Mary. I really like Q&A Friday. And I hope you keep going.

Keep it going. Question. How did your dad's 80th birthday go? Or is it this coming Saturday? Yeah.

So I've kind of covered that. So my. Yeah.

I didn't go in the end. It was today. Well it's tomorrow.

But the weekend. You know. The birthday party was today.

Or the barbecue was today. So I wasn't able to go. The next question.

This is more of a telling off than a question. When are you going to make an appointment with the optician and buy yourself some new specs? You've been talking about it for years. And you'll be damaging your eyes.

You'd be amazed at how much you can see when you get proper new specs. A whole new world. Altogether.

A whole new world. That's the song isn't it? A whole new world. Was it Elton John? Mary.

You are correct. You are right. And what I'm thinking of doing.

Is on the date that I have to go to have my dentist appointment. I might try and. Because it's.

I think it's in the town. I don't know exactly where. I also might try and get an optician appointment on the same day.

Around that. Or you know. Within a couple of hours of being there.

And that's on a Monday as well. So it's potential. I could have my new glasses by the weekend.

Depending on how much they cost of course. At least reading glasses. That would be nice.

I definitely need glasses for viewing stuff. But I can't. I don't really.

Because it's the very bottom of the glasses that's the reading part. And I find myself reading with the main part. Because that's where my eyesight.

Where my eyes kind of are. And I potentially need to get some glasses specifically for using the computer. I'll look into that.

I mean Mary you're right. I need to look after my eyes. And I've kind of neglected that.

But I think that's what I'm going to do. Get an optician's test. Perhaps on the day that I go to have the old dentist appointment.

And then. At least it's done. Even if I have to wait a couple of months to actually buy the glasses.

At least the test is done isn't it. And I can kind of get going. Talking about getting going.

I'm going to get going now. Because I've come to the end of this ear recording. And according to this I've been talking for a very very very long time.

So thank you for listening. 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.

And thank you everyone for your questions. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye.