(Long Voice Only) #1661 Let Me Bore You To Sleep | 9th August 2026

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

It is 7.49pm on Saturday the 8th of August 2026. I nearly said 25. Wow.

Oh, a year late. A year out of date. If you look at the clothes I'm wearing, I'm probably about 30 years out of date.

Oh, we're Hawaiian shirts. I couldn't believe it today. Today, someone probably in their late 70s asked, well, I don't know, but someone in their 70s asked me where I got my Hawaiian shirt from.

And that's the first person that actually liked the shirt. So I'm thinking that maybe, I don't know. He didn't actually word it like that.

What he said is, I said, I got it. Did you get it from town? I said, no. He said, I was wondering about that because there isn't a joke shop in town.

I said, what? He said, there's not a joke shop where you can buy fancy dress clothes and stuff. So I was wondering where you got it. I wonder what he was trying to say.

Hmm. So yeah, this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. My name's, uh, as I said, Josh.

I did a really amazing sleep hypnosis recording earlier today. And when I say amazing, I do mean it was pretty good. In fact, I'm looking forward to listening to it myself tomorrow.

I'm not even kidding you. Uh, I mean, I'm partly tongue in cheek when I say it was brilliant. Who am I to say whether it was brilliant or not, but I'm looking forward to listening to it because it's, it's quite good recording.

It's called You Are Perfect The Way You Are. And it's available, you know, on the normal podcasts, sleep hypnosis, uh, whatever it's called hypnosis for sleeping deeply and relaxing sleep hypnosis daily podcasts. It will be on the sleep hypnosis podcast when I eventually saw it.

Well, once I updated everything on there, I'm a little bit, still a little bit behind on that. Now, as I talk to you, as I talk to you now, I am watching the boxing and it's on mute. It's very, very strange to watch boxing on mute.

I mean, it's not the first time I've done it, a little bit distracting to do two things at once. I've also realized that I need to upload my recordings to SoundCloud and also to my website, which I haven't done. That's the recording I did earlier today.

So it's all a bit, um, yeah, a little bit behind. The reason for that is, so I woke up early like I normally do. I had my breakfast and then I listened to some music chilled out, you know, my life.

A lot of it is about staying relaxed. I've been trying to learn to relax and keeping an almost relaxed state. I suppose to try and make that my normal level, and I spent decades trying to get there, which also includes meditation, listening to audio books, positive audio books, lectures, inspirational stuff, reading books, you know, things like that, as well as creating my own recordings and listening to them.

So I kind of, um, I do look forward, I do listen to my recordings. So I'm trying, I'm trying not to look at the screen, but I can't help it because the screen's big. And I put my my voice on automatic then.

And I'm not really sure what I was talking about. I hope I didn't start talking about cars and umbrellas. I don't know what I was talking about.

Yeah, just being relaxed. And I find when I create a relaxing session, I feel more relaxed. I mean, you could say technically, it was a sleep hypnosis recording.

And you could say it is a inspirational kind of healing kind of recording, or sleep hypnosis recording, you could call it whatever you want, really. But any long recording I do, because this one lasts for an hour and 25 minutes, that one I did hour and 25 minutes and 58 seconds. Any hypnosis recording I do that lasts for an hour and a half is going to be a sleep recording.

I defy anyone to stay awake for that long, listening to my boring voice. Especially when I'm really focusing on the hypnosis side of things, where I'm not just chatting nilly milly willy like this. Chatting about willies and nillies and millies.

You know focused. Well, I know that I can't stay awake, I wouldn't be able to stay awake during this recording. So if I listen back to this tomorrow, for example, I won't be able to stay awake through it.

Probably. But I know definitely 1000% when I listen to the sleep recording, the hypnosis recording I did, when I listen to that tomorrow, I will be zonked out, gone, completely gone. So, and the good thing about it, it doesn't have to be, do you hear me stutter then? It doesn't have to be that I'm good at what I do.

Doesn't have to be due to talent. It can just be sheer boredom. The monotony of my voice.

So it's a win win. Whatever the reason that people fall asleep listening to me, it kind of doesn't matter, does it? If it does the job, it does the job. But also, with the one that I was talking about, you know, you're perfect the way you are.

Even if the person listening to it or the people listening to it don't fall asleep, it kind of doesn't matter because it's potentially transformational. There's a lot of real meaning in the recording. I'm really picking up myself today, aren't I? Genuinely, I don't want to do hypnosis recordings, I try and I put a bit more work into them than I used to.

I think it's because after 20 years, doing just a standard sleep hypnosis recording is, it's just too easy in a sense, or it doesn't, it's not interesting for me. So I'd rather incorporate something useful added on to the sleep. Whether it's becoming more positive, whether it's some kind of emotional healing or self-acceptance or, you know, something like that.

That to me just seems a bit more, a bit more useful as well as falling asleep. Yeah, I think so. I don't know, I've not given it, I was gonna say I've not given it a lot of thought.

I actually have given it a huge amount of thought. Blimey, I do, this is what I think about a lot. So today, so I had lunch with my friend, my Buddhist friend on Wednesday.

And I talked to him about maybe going along to the center on Saturday, this is on Wednesday. And he said he probably wasn't gonna go. He didn't know if he was gonna go or not.

And I kind of just left it at that. And then last night, probably, well, yeah, probably about five or six. I just said, decided, I decided that I got a fly right in my ear.

I decided that I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go to the Buddhist center. And it's a Saturday morning thing.

There's meditation, then there's a talk. So I thought, yeah, you know what? There's certain things missing from my life. And I do miss my, my Buddhist friends.

I miss the social aspect of being around people that I know. That I've known for a long time. The Sangha, we call it in Buddhism.

And I suppose I haven't seen my friend a couple of times recently. And also, he's unwell. He's got a very serious medical condition.

So I'm kind of watching him and seeing that he's doing more than me. And I'm able to do more than him. Yet, I'm sitting here and I'm not, I'm not doing anything.

I'm not, I'm not making recordings, which is good. I'm pleased for the fact that I'm pretty. I'm pretty, I'm very pretty.

Pretty, oh, so pretty. Did you know? It's not necessarily related to what we're talking about. You know, Oliver the movie? Yeah, Oliver the movie, really famous, one of the most famous movie musicals ever.

One of them. I think it was like 1968 or something that came out. Huge in England.

It's played on TV. Every Christmas, it'll get played. Probably again during the year as well.

I don't know if it's a big one in America, but it's very dark, but it's a musical as well. And for years and years and years, I wondered, is Oliver Reed related to the director? Because the director, I think it was a lady called Carol Reed. Is he related to her? Well, it turns out, first of all, Carol Reed was a man.

And secondly, yes, it was his uncle. I think it was his uncle or his granddad. I think it was his uncle.

So and I think that that movie was what made, again, I might be wrong, actually. I got to check this out because I'm kind of making it up. Oliver Reed.

Oliver R. Oliver Double D. My laptop is starting to play up a bit. The E's are not working. Seriously, the E, I tap it sometimes and nothing happens.

So I end up with a bra size. It's weird. Oh, okay.

Okay. Okay. 1960.

Oh. So I'm just gonna go and have a look. Let's have a look.

80s. Michael Winner. Why can't I just give a list? A list of his movies.

Bibliography. Come on. Wow.

I had no idea. I'm just looking at Oliver Reed filmography. He was in, he started movies in 1955.

So he was in two movies in 55, two in 59. And he was just like an extra in one. He wasn't like, yeah, apparently he's uncredited.

He wasn't really like, he wasn't famous or anything then. Then in 1960, he was in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 movies. Again, he was just kind of, he wasn't the star or anything.

Like he was a spectator at a sideshow, artist in a cafe, teddy boy in a cinema fight. Then 1961, his and hers, No Love for Johnny the Rebel, The Curse of the Werewolf. Why do I remember that? First leading role.

That's why. I remember that movie. Why do I remember it being in colour though? Because 1961, that'd be black and white.

The photographs, the image of the, like the poster is colour. Was it in colour? I don't know. I'm just having a look.

So it starred, well, Clifford Evans and then Oliver Reed. Reed. Anyway, I remember that.

That was a good movie, I do believe. So Oliver Reed going back. So it was his first starring role in, what was it called? That's so annoying.

Oh, Curse of the Werewolf. He was in, you know, because he was a teddy boy in one cinema, in one movie, he was a spectator at a sideshow. In one movie called No Love for Johnny, he was a man with a bucket on his head.

The thing is, you have to kind of use your previous work, your past work to promote yourself for future work. So that must have been quite hard when he was going for the Curse of the Werewolf. And they said, what have you done? What have you done before? Well, I was in Life is a Circus.

Life is a Circus. What did you play? I was a spectator at a sideshow. All right, what else have you done? The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll.

Well, that's good because we're doing a horror movie. That's good. What, who did you play there? I was a thug.

Okay. Anything else? I was in the Bulldog Breed. Okay, that sounds good.

What did you do there? I was a teddy boy in a cinema fight. Oh, okay. Anything else? Well, I was in The Rebel.

Okay, what artist in a cafe? I was artist in a cafe. Well, nothing, none of the, none of the roles that you played so far really is kind of makes you suitable to be a star, to be the star of this movie, which I hope is going to go on to be a big, you know, a big success. Is there anything else you can tell us about yourself, any other role that you've had that really will push you to the front of the queue?

Because we've got a lot of people we've seen, a lot of great actors that have had some really good roles so far, not starring roles, but like co-stars.

And you know, that's what we're looking for, someone that we can take them to the next level and they've got the experience. And Oliver Reed saying, Oh, well, I'm sorry. That's kind of everything really.

Well, thanks, Oliver. Thanks for coming in anyway. But maybe when you've got a bit more experience, we can do something, you know, because, you know, you've, you seem like a lovely chap, lovely moustache.

And maybe, you know, once you've got a few more, a few more movies under your belt, perhaps you can start getting some more speaking roles and more co-starring roles, you know, and we can look back, look, give you another look. And Oliver said, Oh, thank you very much, sir. And he's on his way out.

And suddenly, Oliver stops at the door. He says, Wait a minute, sir. I just remembered.

What's that, Oliver? I played a man with a bucket on his head in the movie No Love for Johnny. And Terrence Fisher, the lead, you know, the director like, that's the one hot dog. That's what we need.

You're the one for for me. Brilliant. We've got our lead actor.

I'm not sure if that happened. So he was in a lot of movies in the 60s. A lot.

But none of them, other than Oliver. So it comes that I haven't heard of before. And apart from the Curse of the Werewolf.

So he did 1, 2, 3, 4, no, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. He'd done 28 movies before 1968, where he was one of the stars in Oliver. So I was kind of thinking, oh, his uncle just got him a job.

But you could argue he, I mean, he'd done 20, he'd been in 28 movies. Some stars, some of the biggest stars in the world, never get that many movies under their belt. Wow.

So yeah, Oliver. Why am I talking? Oh, yeah. So basically, he was related to Carole Reid.

I didn't know Carole could be a man's name. I know, I mean, anything can now, but I'm talking about, you know, in the 60s. And I'm guessing Carole Reid was probably born in the 20s.

So yeah, I didn't didn't realize that. I'm just looking. I remember seeing Oliver Reid in a movie that was, it basically involved him wrestling men in his underwear.

I mean, they both had their own individual underwear on. That'd be weird, wouldn't it? If they're just both wearing just one pair of underwear, but it's, I don't know what that was. But it was a strange movie.

It just just was strange. I think I saw that in about 1987 on TV. And I remember thinking, this is this a bit strange.

It didn't seem to really be a plot. It's just every opportunity they seem to just strip down to their underpants and start wrestling on the floor. Maybe it was a wrestling movie.

That reminds me. Do you know that for years and years and years, I thought to myself, you can't fix a fight, a boxing fight. Not really, because they're punching each other, they're gonna hurt each other.

I mean, you can fix it, but not the whole way through. And then I saw, you can search this if you want. It's on YouTube.

Mr. T against I think it's Roddy, Roddy Doyle, or Roddy something who was I think he was a wrestler or a big sportsman anyway. And it was I think six rounds, and it was fixed. No real punches the whole way through it.

I couldn't believe it. I really thought it was real. I thought, wow, Mr. T is going to go out there and just Mr. T isn't it? This is when he was famous when he was like, you know, in the 80s and stuff.

It was, it was just throwing each other around. And the knockout, you could see it wasn't a knockout, but it looked real. It looked, but it just missed.

I mean, I'd obviously practiced it like wrestling because Mr. T was a wrestler wasn't he as well, I think. I'm like, wow, the choreograph of it was so good that it did actually look real. To a degree, I've seen worse fights, like real fights that were worse than that.

And then I started thinking, hmm. I wonder. So I just have a look.

The 70s. So he did the three musketeers, Oliver Reed, in the 70s, which is weird because he did that. It was Athos.

I was going to say then he did Marla and he was a train conductor. But apparently that was a cameo appearance. And that was a Ken Russell movie.

So it's been in quite a few Ken Russell movies. And so I guess he just did him a favour. He's been in a lot of Ken Russell movies.

Wow. A lot. So.

Ah. So the four musketeers, was he in the three musketeers? Didn't three musketeers happen first? Because the three musketeers was the actual name of the book, wasn't it? Oh, it was the first movie he was in, Athos, 1973. So he played Athos in three musketeers.

I remember watching that and thinking, oh, he's so broody. So when I was a kid, this is like growing up because, you know, this is like 1970, three musketeers of 73. So it probably came on TV, probably late 70s, early 80s.

And I remember thinking, very broody. Very broody. I wonder if we'll ever see him strip down and start wrestling in his underpants.

But I had to wait another sort of nine years for that. The four musketeers was 1974 and he played Athos again. Who's the fourth musketeer? The fourth musketeer, was it Raquel Welsh? They had some really big names in these movies.

Oliver Reed, Raquel Welsh, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York, Frank Finlay, Christopher Lee, Faye Dunaway, Charlton Heston. I mean, all really big names. I don't know about Frank Finlay, but as far as like Hollywood legends, all of them really.

Just in one movie. The thing is, oh, look at this. The budget was 4.5 million and it's 10.1 million in rentals.

Rentals. 1973. We didn't have video rentals in 1973.

How does that make sense? It doesn't, does it? It doesn't at all. Let's have a look at the car. It normally says the film in critical response.

It was funny. It was a funny movie. It was my favorite.

Oh, who's the one with the moustache? That might have been Frank Finlay. So, Michael York, because I don't know if you remember Michael York was in, oh man, it was a, I'm going to find it for you. Wait a second.

He was in, well, he was in the Musketeer movies. Logan's Run. He was in Logan's Run.

And do you know what Logan's Run is? Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'll tell you what. If you don't know Logan's Run, it's worth watching it.

The TV show is really good as well. It was a different actor in a TV show, I think. Yeah, it was.

But it's really good. But it's, I don't want to just to describe what happens, because, because this was the period where, like the middle to late 70s, I think movies started to really to think about the future. You know, so I guess that's how Star Wars came about, Battlestar Galactica, and obviously Star Trek, I guess started the trend in the 60s.

But loads of science fiction TV shows were around in the late 70s, early 80s. Blake Seven, for example. And what's that one? Oh, there was one that was really good.

I used to love watching it. In fact, I had one of the toys from the TV show. And there was a bloke that looked like an eagle.

And there was a lady that could turn into any animal. Oh, forget it. Forget what the name of the place that the TV show was.

And of course, we had to Doctor Who as well. Yeah, Doctor Who. I remember Doctor, the old days.

I remember I'd be, I used to do this thing where I would be upstairs and I was probably nine, 10. And I had a, I had a telescope, and I'd focus it on the moon. And then I'd get into my pyjamas.

And by the time I changed from my clothes into my pyjamas, the telescope had moved. Or the moon had moved one of them. I was never really sure.

I think the moon had moved. I thought it moved really quickly. Then I realised the tripod was broken.

But I couldn't believe how quickly the moon moved in such a short time. So we'd gone around the moon. Do we go around the moon or the moon go around us? Whatever.

I know that the sun, the sun goes around us, doesn't it? Once a day. Wow. But it's quite sometimes what I do is I'd be on the telescope.

I wouldn't be on the telescope. I wasn't pretending it was a horse. I would be looking through it.

My stomach's gurgling. I think I need a toilet. And my mummy would call down, she'd call up, Jason dearest, Doctor Who's on.

Yoohoo. And I'd get all excited and I'd put the pyjamas on and I'd run down. I'd wear my dressing gown.

Well, not always, but sometimes. Yeah, I'd wear my dressing gown. And I'd go down and I'd watch Doctor Who.

That's the whole story really. It wasn't quite as exciting as I remember. Anyway, I just had to have a little break there.

I had to empty my tummy. My tummy was making some sound. And I realised it was letting me know that certain bodily processes needed to be accomplished.

But let's not focus on that. On the screen right now. I think it's, this is a Fury boxing.

So it's Dean Fury. I think he's Huey Fury's brother, I think. And Huey Fury is Tyson Fury's cousin.

I, you know, I'm a fan of Tyson Fury and Huey Fury as well, although he's just been, hasn't been active for really for years. But I was, I watched all his fights. He fought for the world title like absolutely probably eight years ago, if not longer.

So I was always a big fan of Huey Fury and his boxing skills were amazing. Anyway, I don't really, none of the other Furies, even though they're probably doing the same kind of skills and, you know, it just doesn't, I don't know. They ain't Tyson Fury.

There's something different about him. I don't know what it is. Well, obviously he's better, but there's, hmm, it's his first fight.

So I'm just going to stop. I'm not, I don't mean to judge him. He's 20 years old.

He's just started, but what he's not just started boxing. This is his professional fight, but he is an amateur champion, but it's just not, and he's good. He's outboxing the other bloke like completely.

So I think that's probably it. The other bloke's just in there just to get, you know, to get paid. So it's not going to be, I guess it's not going to be a clean fight because the other bloke's not coming in to really sort of win.

I don't know. Anyway, the main fight's on probably about 10. It's now 20 to nine.

Will I be still awake? Or will I still be awake? Or will I be awake still? I don't know because I'm used to go to bed at nine recently. Hmm. It doesn't really matter, does it? I can watch it back tomorrow, but you know, sometimes I don't, I don't feel in the mood.

You know, it's nice to watch it when it's live. Watching it back afterwards is, it's something that I need to do sometimes because if I'm, if it's on when I'm not awake, then I can't watch it, can I? So it has to be watching it back on repeat. But it's not the same.

It's not. That's why I will get up or stay up till whatever hour in the morning is required to watch the really big fights. Unless I think there's a possibility that I won't find out the results.

But guaranteed, like for example, I think it's November, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua are going to be fighting each other. And apparently it's going to be in New York, which means they're aiming it for American time. So unless they do it in the afternoon, which means we'll be able to watch it earlier, I think.

But either way, it's going to be, it's not going to be on a normal time here. So if I go to bed and wake up the next day to watch the fight, I have to literally avoid looking at the internet, watching the news, anything, because it's such a big fight. That it's going to be, the result is going to be on the news.

Because it'll be so hyped up when it happens. Because a lot of boxing fans have been waiting for a decade for this. It's the two, two of the world's best heavyweights for the last 10 years, both British.

Two of the two, I'm not saying the only two. So there's been four great, you know, heavyweights of the last 10 years. Wow.

I'm just watching this. Few is getting punched by this bloke. If this continues, he's going to lose.

I wonder, could you be able to find out? Because I'm sure a lot of this is fixed. A lot of the boxing is fixed, just in the sense of, I mean, they don't even have to, both fighters can go in and do everything they can do. But if the judges decide to vote for one person, if both fighters can do their best, but if the judges have been bribed or been paid to vote, vote or score rather, in a certain way, then it doesn't matter how well the fight is done.

He's going to lose. So had another distraction. Vinnie started barking.

He did. Now, the dog in the garden over the fence started barking and Vinnie started barking. But I knew it wasn't because of the dog over the fence because Vinnie doesn't bark at that dog.

And then I heard another dog in the distance. So basically, Vinnie and the dog over the fence were barking at that dog in the distance. And once he gets going, my little furball underneath the table, it's like he's been wound up and he has to just let it out.

Oh, by the way, did I tell you that I've made some changes to my website? Useful changes, that is. Unlike my normal changes that are just there to annoy everyone. Useful changes.

So in the menu at the top of the page, we now have Apple podcasts and Spotify, two different pages. And you can click on each one. And it's got all my podcasts with a link to those individual podcasts.

So all my podcasts, just click on the link that takes you to the one that takes you to Apple podcasts. And then let's get rid of that one. Spotify is the same.

Takes you to all of the podcasts that are on Spotify. Okay, yeah. I don't know if I should, I might just I've got the actual full address on there.

Maybe I don't need to do that. Just have just click on Let Me Bore You To Sleep, it will take you there. Maybe that's what I'll do.

Or maybe I'll change it, have just the images of the podcasts. That's what I might do. At the moment, that's this how it is.

Also, on the homepage, at the bottom of the page, I now have 123456789 different apps, where you can click on them and see the podcasts. So at the moment, I've just got Apple podcasts, and Spotify, but I'm in the process of putting the others together as well. So there's Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, and Audible, Castbox, Deezer, Podcast Addict, and Podchaser.

There are others. There are other podcast apps, quite a few others. But at the moment, they're the ones that Spreaker shares with.

So there's a little bit of playing around with them to get them at the right size and all that stuff. But it's okay. I'm just doing it slowly.

Because I don't, if I focus just on building a website, then I will not forget, but I will focus, I just won't make a recording, maybe for a few days, because I get so into it. So it's about balance, you know, about doing both. Yeah.

Although I am more productive when it comes to the website, if I focus just on the website, I can get quite a lot done if that's all I focus on. But you know, it's just just, yeah, it'll be done eventually. I reckon.

So I was doing my recording this morning, my sleep hypnosis recording. And basically, oh, yeah, last night, that's what I was gonna say. Last night, I booked a train ticket, a return ticket to go into town to go to the meditation thing today.

I did this last night. And it was £6.50. I could have got £2 off if I'd have bought if I'd have paid £35 for the the train card thing, which gives a third off. But I thought, well, let's just, you know, just see if I turn up.

Well, as it as it was this morning. I mean, it's not really a surprise, but I didn't want to go out. And I started doing the hypnosis recording, still thinking, well, I'll do this, then I'll get ready.

Not realising that the actual recording was instead of being half an hour long, ended up being an hour and a half long. Which did not leave me enough time to get ready and to catch, well, to walk and catch the train that I'd need to catch. I was like quarter to 10 train.

I think it was, or 10 to 10. So I'd have to leave here about quarter past, excuse me, about quarter past nine to walk up there. Well, I get a phone call at 10 past nine from my friend who I'd had lunch with earlier in the week on Wednesday.

And he'd already texted me twice, which I didn't realise because I was in the doing this, doing the recording earlier. And I didn't have my phone on ring, but, you know, the screen flashed up and I saw it was him. So I answered straight away.

And he said, are you still up for today? I said, uh, he said, well, I've decided to go. Are you going to come along? I said, what time do you want me to pick you up? So he was all prepared. He sent me a text message at half seven this morning.

And I was, I was awake, but I was surprised I didn't look at the text. Mind you, half seven, half eight. Yeah, I was probably, it wasn't long after that, that I started making the recording, I suppose.

Well, I said, well, okay. And he said, well, I can pick you up. I said, well, I've got a train ticket, but I decided I couldn't do it because I can't get there in time.

He said, well, I can pick you up at 10 to 10. And it was about 12 minutes past nine at this point. And I thought that's enough time because I needed to eat something.

I needed to get cleaned up and get dressed and also take Vinnie into the garden. So it was, you know, just enough time to kind of do everything. So I washed my hair and try to make myself presentable because I was going to be in a room with people.

It's not so bad, you know, being outside. Because, you know, I'm not talking about being smelly, but just generally, I want to make sure that I'm clean. And if I'm in a field, providing the wind's not blowing towards the other person away from me, sort of blowing my stink to them.

They'll just blame it on the field and just say, yeah, it must be spreading manure again. Weird how they only do it when you're out walking Vinnie, isn't it? Which is a bit rude. So yeah, I go along and my friend, I get in, right? And there's no room to get in the front, like to put my feet.

I don't, I mean, I don't carry my feet with me, but you know, to put my feet like when I get in there on the floor. And I said, what's going on? He said, well, I said, there's no room in the front. He said, well, you're going to be able to get in the back.

I looked and it was just full of bags, these bags of forest bits. You know, like shrubbery and greenery and all kinds of bits. That's about 20 bags, if not more.

And I thought, okay. And he said, yeah, we need to go there on the way back to the, to the, the tip and chuck them, chuck them down there. And it's free apparently, if you're not a business, it's free.

So you can just go there and get rid of your stuff, which makes me wonder. Now, I don't know if you can do that with, if it's just garden waste, you can do it with, or are you allowed to do it with normal waste? Because if that's the case, when the dust people were on strike, why didn't people just take this stuff to the tip? If it didn't cost anything and just get rid of it instead of just letting all the black bags just build up?

Maybe they weren't allowed. I'm sure there must have been a reason why maybe they couldn't, but it just makes me wonder if that is all I can think about now.

So I, we went to the center. I was a bit nervous because I've not been there. I've not been there regularly for 10 years.

I've been there on and off every now and then, but I used to be really involved. I'd be there a lot. Before I moved here, that was.

Well, I didn't expect to see so many people in the place. So it's pretty rammed. And I also didn't expect to see so many people that I knew.

Some people remembered me, didn't remember my name, but they remembered me. Remembered my funny face or remember me as a person. And yeah, the people, I didn't remember everyone's name either.

But it was interesting just to see people and just chat to them. They're so friendly. And I didn't talk to any of the people that go there as, I was basically just talking mainly to the order members and the people that have been going for a long, long, long, long time.

Any of the people I say knew, I mean, they might have been going for eight or nine years, but I didn't know any of those. So I didn't speak to them because I didn't know them to talk to. I imagine they must have wondered what's going on.

Why is this new person? How does this new person know everyone? But it was nice. It was nice to just kind of be there. And I'm sitting next to this bloke that I haven't seen again for ages.

And he's been going for 30 years. And I used to sit next to him and chat to him in the past. And it was just kind of like doing the same thing again, just chatting.

He's very funny. He's got a very, very dry sense of humor. He said, I was talking about Vinnie.

He said, so why did you get a dog? I just found that hilarious. I started laughing. I said, that's the strangest question I think I've ever been asked.

Why did you get a dog? Just, I don't know, just seemed like a weird question to ask. And it was very funny. So I'm trying to think, but yeah, so we were doing, there was a talk to start with.

And I said, I spoke to quite a few people, just briefly saying hello. Sort of, kind of a catch up, but a couple of people said, am I going to go back again? I said, I don't know. I don't want to, I didn't want to say, yeah, I'll be here tomorrow.

That there is something going on tomorrow, but it's all day. I can't leave Vinnie all day. But not, not yet anyway.

And I left him for, this is possibly the longest I've left him. Possibly since I've had him actually, like on his own, I mean. So I left here at quarter to 10, because I went to wait outside.

And I got back about two. So I was, yeah, I was gone for at least four hours, maybe 10 to two, I was gone at least four hours. And he howled for about three minutes.

And that was it. That's all he did. And oh, by the way, I recorded him.

That's how I know. So whenever I leave him on his own, I leave, you know, the recorder that I'm using a recorder here to record me. I don't use the microphone, because that uses up more energy of the iPad.

So I just record on the iPad, just automate, you know, I mean on itself. So it kind of records for longer on the battery. And well, it doesn't run out basically, because it's plugged into the, into the power.

What am I talking about? Yeah, that's why. So if I plugged the microphone in, then it's no longer in the power. And it can last a couple of hours, usually.

On it's like just general battery, internal battery. So I could have been out for eight hours, and it still would have recorded the whole eight hours, providing my lap, my iPad didn't shut down to, I guess, update or whatever. So that's what I do whenever I leave him.

I come and check. On Wednesday, all he did was just barked a couple of times. And that was it.

A few weeks ago, he was like barking and howling and a little bit on and off for about 15 minutes. But today it was three minutes. It was proper howling though.

Oh, oh, oh, all that stuff. It sounds so distressing. I don't like the sound of it.

And I don't get it because he acts like he doesn't even care about me. But he doesn't like me not being with him. Or maybe not me.

He doesn't like being left on his own. Maybe it's not to do with me. I hope it is a little bit.

So I like to think that he misses me. He doesn't like being in here on his own. So what I do is just had a big bang, like something fell off the table.

And maybe it's just the sound of both me and Vinnie jump. Oh, yeah, that reminds me. I was in the shrine room.

So we're done with meditating. It's the first time I've meditated there for I don't know, probably this year. I don't think I've been there for at least a couple of years probably.

And I didn't realize that I'd fallen asleep until someone coughed and I nearly fell out of my chair. And I wasn't the only one. It was like, and then suddenly, like you could hear movement all around.

I mean, some people are in chairs, some people are on cushions. I tried to meditate on a cushion for the first three years of going to the Buddhist Center. Back in well, it started in November 2002.

Until I think it was the summer 2005. And I was at this festival retreat. And someone said to me, because I was I was in pain, the whole time.

Every time I meditated, I was in pain. Because basically, my lower back's been a problem for decades. And it was just it hurt.

And someone said to me, you know what, I said, Well, that's what I ran away. They said, No, what? I said, Well, you could try just sitting in a chair. Which was always available for me always.

This and I kind of knew that really, I just, I felt that to be a proper Buddhist to, to meditate properly, I should be doing the, you know, the full Lotus, whatever it's called. And my body's not built that way. Not even when I was a kid.

I could never do that. My hips have never had that kind of flexibility. I just even high kicks when I was doing karate, I just I could, I could do high kicks, but it Yeah, I used to kind of injure myself sometimes doing it.

And doing the splits, never. I mean, I'm not saying I could never do it when I was little, little. I'm nice to buy my own toenails when I was really little.

But so I'm sure you know, there's a point when you're little, you can pretty much put your head behind your legs and just the flexibility is just ridiculous, isn't it? And some people keep a degree of flexibility more than others. And I just for some reason, I could do the half splits quite easily. But that's the stretching.

I always found the stretching is the hardest part of doing martial arts. The first time I ever did stretching was I did a bit of school, you know, a bit of like, a little bit. But really, it's when I started doing kickboxing.

And my neighbor opposite me, he was in the the armed forces in America. So he was on the American base. And my next door neighbor, the kid next door, there's two of them.

The younger ones, he was younger than me. He knocked on the door and said, Do you want to come to kickboxing with me? And I said, No, go away. And he said, Please.

I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, what's his name? I knew. I kind of knew who he was. Opposite, because I knew his son, who's sort of pretty much the same age as my little brother.

And he said that he's he teaches kickboxing. And he wants to, he wants to teach, I asked him to teach me, but he said, I can only do it if someone else comes along so you can spar. I said, All right.

So I went along. And went on to the base, the American base and went to this gym first, really all set up. And, you know, when we actually did the sparring with so much padding on our knees, just body, head, everything was covered.

It was no way of hurting each other, really. But the thing I struggled with wasn't the punching or the kicking, because, you know, I had enough flexibility to kick and punch, because I was like, well, 12, 13. The stretching that destroyed me, absolutely destroyed me.

Honestly, I could hardly walk the next day. And I thought, Okay, it's just a thing. The next week, I could hardly walk again.

Because it was just Saturday mornings for a few weeks. And then I started karate and I was doing both for a while. And I decided karate is for me.

Because the thing is, with the kickboxing, it was just me and the other kid. There wasn't any camaraderie, there wasn't like, like with karate, there was a bunch of people, a lot of, most people older, a lot of adults. And other kids that were kind of my age, a bit older, you know, not really anyone, maybe a couple younger, but generally, you know, sort of school age, and some adults.

And I think karate felt a bit more closer to Bruce Lee than kickboxing. Although, you know, if I went back, I would have stuck with a kickboxing as well. The problem is, when we sparred, the American bloke was cheering on my neighbor, kick him, punch him, you can do it.

It's like, and I didn't like that. Because, as far as I was concerned, we were equal in this situation. And we, he was younger than me, actually, but we, he was bigger than me.

But we were kind of probably equal in strength, possibly, I don't know. He's probably stronger than me as well, to be to be fair. He was one of the toughest in his year, and I wasn't.

But with all the padding on, we couldn't really do hurt each other anyway. And it was fun. I liked the sparring, but I didn't like that bloke.

It got to the point where I didn't want to punch or kick my opponent, I wanted to punch and kick him. Which obviously wouldn't, wouldn't have kind of ended well for him. No, but I didn't like that.

It's like, why? Don't take sides. There's only two of us. It's different.

Like, for example, when I was at karate, there was this really tall lad. He was a brown belt. He got, he got his black belt, I think, once he left school.

But he was a lot older than me, about six foot six, just, and he used to, he used to bully me on, when it comes to sparring. He just kept kicking me over, and I'd end up having to accidentally punch him. My head height was, which was his groin height.

So eventually he learned to stop doing it. But then when I left school, and I started working in a chip shop, it turned out that my bosses, well, both my bosses was a man and a wife, he's my husband and wife were both my bosses. I dealt more with him, because he worked in a chip shop, but she was, she was pretty much the boss.

Her brother was a black belt in karate, the same as the same, it was just another version of the same club that I went to. So there was a tournament on, this is when I was literally probably 16. And we all went along.

But I'd been to tournaments before with my karate club. But at this point, I'd stopped going to my karate club, because I was always working. But we went along on this, I think it was a Sunday, must have been a Sunday, because we always worked on a Saturday.

So we went along on a Sunday. And who was pairing up on the black belts? It was my boss's brother, against this tall bloke that used to push me and kick me all over the place, who's now a black belt, you know, when I was like karate. Ironically, my boss's brother was just as tall as him.

So I was cheering for him. He had ginger hair, but it didn't stop me cheering for him. See, I'm not prejudiced.

And he literally, honestly, he, he won in spectacular fashion. And it was almost, I don't know. It was nice.

It was just quite nice to, I know it's not really bullying, but to see the bully get bullied. He wasn't it wasn't he wasn't a bully. He was, you know, with me, he just used to have fun and just kick me all around the place.

And because his legs were so long, I couldn't get near him. Literally, I couldn't get near him because he's so tall. But it just it was impossible.

So but I got you know, I'm not sure whether he was able to have children after messing with me. So there's a chance that he came off worse. But the good thing is, if someone's really tall, and you're like a kid at school, and it's always an accident, because you're like, well, I don't realize he's so tall, I can't help it.

I'm just I was punching at the chest, my chest or my head. And then I heard this scream, and he's on the floor. Yeah, those are the good old days.

I remember when I did Taekwondo, there was this bloke, and he he used to annoy me because whenever he'd do something, he'd block and it hurt. In sparring, he'd block but he'd like, he'd do it like it was a real, real fight. Instead of just I'm trying to explain.

If you used to let's say someone's to go into punch you and you blocked, or you block their leg, you would the idea is it's not just about blocking. It's not just about stopping the person from hitting you, punching you or kicking you. You also want to damage their arm or the leg.

It's a very wing chun thing. And he couldn't he'd done something previous to karate or to Taekwondo and he used to keep doing that to me. So I grabbed his leg.

And he didn't like it. So he went to kick me. And I grabbed his leg and stood on his toes.

And he said, you're not allowed to do that. That's not part of Taekwondo. And I thought, wait a minute.

I'm not allowed to grab your leg. That seems like a bit of a silly thing to tell someone in a combat situation. That's not part of what needs to be.

Really, if someone's coming to kick you, grabbing a leg is probably the best thing you can do. Because once you've got their leg, they're very restricted. Just moving their leg away gently.

Just moving it away, Hope. That's okay. You can put them off balance.

But they've still got both their feet to kick you with. If you grab one of their legs, that means they're on one leg, which means they're dependent upon you. What you do next is going to depend on what they do next.

Having so much wisdom is very hard at my age. So much, so much wisdom. So, so, so, so much.

But, yeah. What do you think? Imagine if you as a neighbor said, oh, we'll teach both your kids. I'll teach both your kids to do boxing, for example.

And you went and watched. And you saw the instructor, who's your neighbor, egging on one of the other kid. Not yours, but the other kid.

Not saying, go on, both of you. It'd be annoying, wouldn't it? And you could argue, well, you know, it was 43 years ago. I should really let it go.

Wow. 43 years ago. 43.

Say it all together. 43 years. And that was my first taste of any kind of combat sport.

43 years ago. And since then, I've done, well, I did karate. I did Wing Chun.

I did praying mantis Kung Fu, Jeet Kune Do, boxing, and Taekwondo. I've done a few different things over the years. And I can honestly say, I wasn't very good at any of them.

It's true. I wasn't. But ironically, I got a first class pass every single grading I did.

Always got the top mark. But what I didn't get, which I saw some people get is bumped up. That happened to a friend of mine.

And he basically, he went from, instead of going up one grade, he went up two grades because he was so good. Never happened to me. And I was pleased.

I was pleased for him. I was jealous, but I was pleased for him because he was my friend. And he was also my friend, the friend that I went to karate with to start with, that was his brother.

So he went along to see his brother doing karate because his brother was saying I was really good. And so my friend at school, his brother was a year younger. He said, I'm going to karate tonight.

And I said, can I come along? And he said, no. And I turned up on his doorstep. So I ended up going with him.

And my friend, we did it. He was there for a few months and then he stopped. I don't quite know why.

I think he got bored of it or he wanted to do something else. But he, his brother was, I became friends with his brother as well. And his brother was just really good.

And so yeah, he's the only person, I think he actually skipped belts twice. That's how good he was. And that's almost unheard of.

You know, it's to go from, I think he went from a white belt to an orange belt. Then he got his green belt and then he went to blue or I don't know, whatever it was. And here's a funny thing, right? This is absolutely ridiculous.

He was really big for his age. And I went, I did about three contests, three competitions, karate competitions. And he was matched with someone the same age.

So I did it by age, which is, it makes sense on a certain level. But when you saw them both together, he was a man, he was physically a man. And the kid he was going against was a child.

You know, so let's say he was 12, maybe 13. But he was the size of a 19, 20 year old. And he literally, it was like one, one punch and the kid was on the floor crying.

And it was so ridiculous why they allowed it to happen. That's what I thought. And then I was paired with someone that was much, much smaller than me.

And I thought brilliant. One punch and he'll be on the floor crying. But nope, he ran around me and just kept hitting me and getting scoring points.

Didn't hurt me, couldn't hurt me. But he was so fast. He was like Speedy Gonzalez.

And it was so embarrassing. This is one of the first ever contest I think I did. And it was, I didn't even feel it.

And he'd like punch me in the stomach and like, okay, point, punch me in the face, point, and keep me in the stomach again, point, over, done. It's like, what? I don't think I even got one. I don't think I even managed to, to land anything on him.

Absolutely. Luckily I had a golf, I got some golf clubs. So I did them afterwards in the car park.

No, I didn't. Why did I say that? It's just a joke. But I mean, I mean, wow, I was, I was just couldn't believe it.

I just didn't see anything coming. I mean, he might go on to be really, really, well, he already was really, really good. But if he'd had got hit, if he'd gone against someone that actually had some skills, unlike me, he'd have been in trouble because he was so little, which is weird because I was really little at that age.

He was just even littler, which was unusual. The next contest I did, I, I had two fights and lost the second one. And I think the third contest I did, I think I won two and lost the third one.

But mine used to get scrappy, would end up having a punch up. And I don't know quite how that happened. It just, it started off professional while trying to be professional, you know, punches, you have got pads on, it wasn't full contact.

It was just pads on your feet, pads on your hands, didn't have any head gear or anything on. But it was just a case of like, you know, kick in the stomach or you land, you haven't got to kick hard, just land it or side kick or, you know, whatever to the head or punch. But as soon as I got hit, I, not so much blackout, but I just wasn't aware of my surroundings anymore.

And I was looking for a chair to hit them with. I wasn't. Why did I say things like that? I just, it just got out of hand.

And we had to be pulled apart by the referee and the people there and they'd keep giving us warnings one more time and you both get disqualified. And it was weird. It was a lack of discipline, I guess, on my side, because I just couldn't, I couldn't allow someone to to hurt me.

I just, it just didn't seem right. You know, it was different with the little kid, because it didn't, I didn't feel it. And he won.

But then I was faced against people the same size as me or bigger than me. And I did feel it just like, what are you doing? I'd have been a terrible boxer. Can you imagine that? The first time I got hit in the face, like, what are you doing? Why are you hitting me for? Tell him, tell him to stop.

I just have a tantrum. Yeah, I would. I did do boxing, I went to, like as a kid, I went once, or twice, maybe once, once I remember, I went to this boxing gym, and it was in a different town.

That's why I couldn't really get there. I mean, first of all, I wasn't supposed to be out of the town at that time of night. So I kind of had to sneak out because I was only like 13, 14.

And I think I got a lift on that day with one of my friends. But anyway, I ended up sparring with someone that was the same size as my dad. I mean, like, he, it wasn't just he was a kid and he was big, he was an adult.

He might have only been like late teens. But he's still an adult, you know. And he just kept punching me in the head.

And I was getting really annoyed with him. Because I was kind of thinking, well, I hadn't done anything yet. And he was punching me in the head.

What's he gonna do if I punch him? What if I accidentally hurt him? What's he gonna do to me then? I have to run for it. So yeah, I didn't enjoy it. Because it's an unrealistic situation in boxing to be against, bearing in mind, I would have been at that age, probably about seven stone, seven and a half stone.

And he was probably 14, 15 stone. Just as a guess, he was a large male. I was eight and a half stone when I left school at 15.

So I'm going to take a stone off because it was a couple of years before that. I mean, there's weight categories for a reason. You don't have someone, I mean, the weight categories change once you get to heavyweight in professional boxing.

It's providing you above, I think it's 91 kilos. It doesn't matter if you're 91 kilos or 200 kilos. Everyone's fighting each other.

But below that, you have to be within a certain range of weights. So there's no way someone of my weight back then, which would have been like Benton weight, probably flyweight or Benton weight, against someone that was probably at least light heavyweight, if not cruiserweight or heavyweight, probably, yeah, maybe at least cruiserweight. That would have just been ridiculous.

I mean, I was so light, literally, if I'd have got punched in the chin, I'd have gone up and I would literally be like a cartoon, I just floated down from side to side, like a feather. That's how light I was. When my parents went out, when it's a windy day, my parents, my dad used to use me as a kite.

Wow. That was a funny joke in my head before I said it and I started laughing at the idea of it. Because we used to go onto the, it's like a cliff top on a really windy day and we used to go kite, kite in or whatever you want to call it.

And it was fun to a degree. I mean, it's only much, so much so exciting you can get watching something in the sky like that. But it's interesting if you're the one holding the string or holding, you know, controlling it.

So we sometimes would have our own ones as well, but they get tangled. And that was what I was trying to say, because I was so light, they used to use me as a kite. And I didn't need to explain it really, did I? Possibly not.

It's just because when I started to say I started laughing because for some reason I found it funny. So that's really silly. I guess I was visualizing myself just holding on to some sticks, screaming, get me down, get me down.

I promise I won't wear your underwear anymore. So anyway, I'm going to watch the boxing because they're about to start. I think this is the co-main event and it's going to be supposed to be a good one.

So I'm going to do that. So thank you for listening and remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy and be gentle with yourself. You deserve to feel safe.

Lots of love. Bye.