(music) Q&A Friday LMBYTS #1425 Jason Newland 29th August 2025

Hello, hello. Hello everybody, how are you doing today everybody? Oh that's nice. Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name's Jason Newland.

And please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. And welcome to Q&A Friday. This is Friday's version of Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

LMB YTS. L M B, yeah LMB YTS. And Vinnie was all calm and quiet and as soon as I start talking he jumps down and decides to make as much sound as he can.

Bless his little bum. So yeah it's um what is it? It's Friday the 29th of August. Yeah 2025.

And by the way I tried to say thank you to everyone that sent me a PayPal gift. But there was, I wasn't able to contact everyone because I couldn't find a way to contact. See on PayPal usually it has like an email address or something but on this one person it didn't or a couple of people so I do apologize.

But I did post thank you on my Facebook group. So I should let you know I've got a Facebook group called Jason Newland's Boring Group. And as it says as you imagine it's probably not the most exciting place to be but it's really just for people that love listening to the Jason, to the Let Me Bore You To Sleep podcasts.

Yeah. Okay. What have I done today? I was going to say actually if you if you want to help me out and this would really really help me out a lot um to get more placed on Google is and also help the podcast out is wherever you're listening to me could you perhaps leave a review?

That'd be brilliant and maybe regularly as well you know if there's a recording you particularly like maybe you can just say what you like about it because the more reviews I get on my podcasts whether it's on Spotify, if you're listening on I don't know there's quite a few different places that you could be listening.

Where have we got? What have we got? Apple Podcasts, Podcast Addict, Overcast, Spotify, my website jasonnewland.com, Castbox, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Edge, Pocketcasts, Chrome, Antenapod, Spreaker, Android App, iVoox, Audible, VLC, Alexa, Media Player, Roku and many others actually. If you can do that that'd be really really helpful because it can help me to reach more people and hopefully help more people. Thank you very much.

So I haven't done a huge amount today. I woke up, had my breakfast, took Vinoy out and then we got rained on.

It was raining and and to start with it's just like a little bit you know spitting as they say just a little bit weird word isn't it weird term for rain and being spat on like yeah lovely but that was okay and then it started proper raining and I ran back this is about eight o'clock in the morning so I'm running back with Vinnie and Vinnie decides he wants to start he wants to start smelling things sniffing things like why but yeah um it's now warm in here it wasn't warm

earlier it wasn't cold but it was cool let me undo my top that's better oh that's made no difference great just have a look at some uh messages I've got here right so I'll get on with the recording shall I don't normally just taking them out again there's quite a lot of screaming outside but it is in a distance so I'm guessing it's possibly a like a party or something kids party because it's very high pitched so I'm guessing that's what that is and it's it's not it's not close by

unless it's in someone's flat but it sounds like it's like a distance away you might hear it you might not hear it I've got my curtains drawn the windows are closed which is probably why it's hot in here they're stuffy and for some reason this is weird for some reason there's a cobweb and it's moving around so I'm wondering if the heating's come on it shouldn't really have come on it's not that cold it's not warm outside but it's not cold either it feels it really does feel like autumn is

approaching it's a very autumny kind of ish you know yeah I took him out again a little while ago about an hour ago and it's weird because Vinnie's got into this thing like he never used to bark at dogs and he always used to love saying hello to everyone including dogs now and then he changed and he started to be a bit barky towards some dogs and but always like really friendly to all people and more recently over the last few months he's he knows who he likes and he you

know he's not he's so but he knows who he doesn't like and there's this particular couple with a dog and he barks every time and I don't know they seem to be annoyed by it I can't help him barking I mean he does that's what dogs do isn't it I'll make sure we keep him away and he's not like he's a scary dog or anything he's a tiny little Jack Russell but I don't know if it's the dog or the people that he's barking at because I'm pretty sure I saw

them out without the dog once and he's barking at them so I don't know he's just got his own sense of I guess who he likes and who he doesn't like and I can't figure it out so yeah it's it's a shame because he barks at the wrong dogs as well he's just the dogs that have got no like the nice dogs not always there's a few dogs that are not so good and they look like they want to eat him but a few dogs he'll bark at and they're so

gentle but then he's got a handful of dogs that he loves that he spends time with and you know he doesn't necessarily play with them but he's just happy to be around them but he gives the attention to the owner to the to the human and then there's three dogs that he's friends with that he will play with and he's not particularly interested in the owner he is still I mean he'll get treats he's always around that's his main focus in life is to get treats but at the same time

he also likes to play with the dog I just can't keep track of I don't really I wish there was a way of communicating with him in a way that would make sense of his behavior I'm no dog expert and before anyone says why don't you just watch those dog those programs on dogs and the dog expert tv programs you could probably watch lots of them on YouTube and the answer is no I can't do that because as soon as a dog comes on the screen Vinnie lets me know there's

a dog on the screen which is very annoying especially when I'm watching a movie and it's like early hours of the morning or it's the evening time when I really don't want him to be barking you know like nine ten at night although I'm usually in bed by then but if I'm watching a movie and a dog comes on it's so okay he barks he doesn't do the sound I made but he barks and there's been times I've had to turn the movie off because he won't stop barking and it's

just like hold stop it man please stop it so yeah we went out earlier came back downstairs flat is being refurbished this is funny well it's not funny but they're putting in a brand new kitchen now the person lived down there for a year because that's where Luke used to live she she moved in two people were getting their bathroom their kitchens done Uncle Sausage was one of them and another person downstairs I didn't I've had my kitchen done she called the council that's what she told me this is the

lady that was living in that flat for a year she moved out recently to say am I when am I getting my kitchen done about herself rather not about me and they told her this is what she told me she said they said to her that the kitchen had already been done a couple of years back which I know is untrue because I probably would have remembered that wouldn't I don't you think it's like nothing that interesting has happened in his flat when he lived there in a sense of anything

I mean his windows were hanging on by a nail his front windows they would like rattle when it when it was windy there'd be a breeze when all the windows were closed they literally it would blow you over so because it was just like all loose the council came around and they hammered a couple of nails in that's it it's like wow okay so when she moved in she said like she wanted a new kitchen and a new bathroom and all that stuff and the council said no because it had

already been done which I hadn't it had been done but maybe 20 years ago and I've been in all the flats except one yeah I've not been to one flat I've not been in I don't think but I've been in all the other flats it's not like regularly but I've seen the kitchens in every flat I mean downstairs is pretty much identical to my flat like below me it's the same layout and Luke's old flat I imagine upstairs the one that I've never been in would be the same design the

same layout however and perhaps not actually because Uncle Sausage's flat yeah that's weird Uncle Sausage's flat was maybe not maybe it wasn't different no it probably no it's the same layout the same layout is downstairs as well yeah same layout I'm just trying to remember because I've not been in that flat very often it's been a while since I've been in there and I know Uncle Sausage's flat layout quite well and my own of course and you know the one that my friend used to live in I went in there

a couple of times since the new person moved in I should move down now but I went in there a couple of times it's very weird I didn't like being in there although it looked nothing like it did it was really if you closed your eyes and someone took you in there you didn't know where you was took you into one of the rooms not the kitchen or the bathroom because that looks the same but they took you into one of the rooms and just like you wouldn't necessarily know where

you was to start with I mean the window is the same but the decor the furniture it's very different very different it was much neater tidier and yeah it's much more it's just nicer very I would say minimalist not that he was a hoarder but it's you know it had less stuff in there just different kitchen the kitchen looked different as well but then you know it had a new fridge freezer new cooker new microwave new toaster new kettle and how do I know that because I'm the one that bought

it all yep yeah and a new tv I got that as well why did you do that then I don't know I just wanted to help and this is last summer but yeah hey not this summer but you know last year 2024 she did say she was going to give me give me money back for it but she didn't so I'm trying to think what is that noise out there maybe it's a birthday party good on them that's the thing I try you know if there's if I was doing a

recording where I needed complete silence I mean that's the ideal situation personally but as long as I've got Vinnie eating treats on the floor there ain't gonna be complete silence and as long as I'm talking there's not gonna be complete silence but because I can hear it I don't know if you can hear it it's a it's not a distraction for me now although I guess it is because I'm mentioning it but not in a kind of annoying way but if I was sitting here doing it like now I'd like

to focus on your toenails we're going to relax your toenails and moving up to your pubes but now is it that kind of where I would be trying to be all sensible and serious and deeply relaxing it's a bit of incongruence when internally I'm thinking will you shut up that noise you know and every now and then getting up and shouting out the window and then sitting back down and continue that feeling of your knees knocking together I don't know why that would happen so I suppose I should just get

on with the uh the point the reason why I'm doing this recording shouldn't I Q&A Friday no no jingle um that's weird okay there we go there we go oh okay sorry I just got a message from Cara thanks Cara that made me laugh your message made me laugh um I'm going to read it out because it's not private it's that oh my it is private that's not um oh my good oh my gracious I'm losing my marbles laughing over Luke embarrassing you by saluting magpies I love it so much

I love it so much I love it so much I love it so much I love it so much thank you Cara um that was yesterday's recording so um by the way anyone that watched the my little I did this little like blowing a kiss thing a couple of days ago and it was AI I did say it was AI I said thank you again for your birthday wishes I created this AI video from a photo I have better teeth here and it's me blowing and then this big smile and

like perfect teeth I mean my teeth ain't awful but like they're not it looks like uh kind of I had my teeth done you know they were like perfectly sparkly white and um in fact I don't think if I smile my teeth that amount of teeth doesn't show if that makes sense I'd have to lift my upper lift up like that I was just doing it and it didn't actually make sense I can't I can't tell you what I had to do and do at the same time because you it's

not understandable so I would have to lift my upper lift up in order for my or staple them up I can say again it didn't work or you know push them up somehow me trying to tell you that is this I'd have to fiddle my teeth up in order for you to see all my teeth see doesn't quite work but it's quite amazing though because the rest of me looks fine my face looks the same um it's it's kind of it does look like me well it is me but there's

part of it which is quite amazing I think because my face because as you look at it like that is how my face would go generally if I smiled apart from that there wouldn't is not as much toothage yeah AI is getting very clever so Q&A Friday I posted a Q oh yeah any questions for Q&A Friday I posted it on Monday I do believe so that's what I've tried to do because a couple of weeks ago I think I posted it on the Wednesday and I got one question so

and I didn't do I didn't do it because one question wasn't enough really to do a whole podcast although technically it probably was thinking about it I mean I've not even started the questions yet and I'm still down like nearly half an hour I can't help it I just can't stop talking so I've got a new way of doing it now so on a Monday if I remember I post this image which is on a post on Jason Newland's Boring Group why not join and it's just basically a colour thing

colour thing and it says any questions for this week's Q&A Friday kiss kiss kiss and then a couple of arrows either side pointing down to a yellow part part of the image and then the date when the Q&A Friday will be so in this case the 29th of April and I'm going to post one of those if I remember every Monday but just change the date you know I mean next week's one will be why is this not opening oh there it is so I want all all comments right got it so I've got questions from Maria,

Hope, Rich, Robin, Kathleen, Mary, Dev and Cheryl so I'm going to ask you I'm going to answer Dev's question first because as it says here hello Jason also belated birthday greetings to you thank you Dev this is a sort of rollover question from last week but I probably posted it too late yeah I think you posted it I'd already made the recording at that point so I'm going to answer Dev's question first because of that because this is from last week as you were involved in the comedy scene I wanted

to know are there any books or audio books podcasts etc that you would recommend for learning about writing comedy thanks in advance Dev what I would advise I didn't do this myself which explains why I wasn't very good but there are comedy courses you can do depending on where you live of course so I'm based in England but at the time I lived in London which is still England but and they had a comedy course I forget what it was called but it was very popular and I would say probably

60 percent of the new comedians had been on that course maybe 40 but quite a few comedians had been on that course and quite a few of them went on to do okay so I went on to do really well I didn't do the course and yeah I didn't I don't know why I'm not sure I kind of wish I had I would have benefited from doing that but then also I think I did go to a I did go to a Mandy Knight who's really I don't know if she's

still doing comedy but she was I used to get on really well with her and she was originally in a double act where she did improv she's really good she's a really funny funny lady and she held this improv class so I went along to did it to do it and thinking about it the way I've kind of turned out I reckon I might have been better at doing some kind of improv you know bouncing off other people that might have been a better way for me to go instead of

sitting standing on stage just trying to you know remember something that I'd written down at home so there's lots of different ways to do it so it's I think if I'm going to come from the I mean one answer to your question is there are books out there there are where books on how to do stand-up so I'm going to do all the work for you instead of you going online and searching for yourself I'll do it don't worry I've got plenty of time I'm not busy on Amazon there is

a is a particular two books if I remember rightly okay this is one I don't know oh Richard Belser okay he's he's very famous comedian in America how to be a stand-up comedian so that's a hardback book I've not read that the oh where is it this is a book I used to have called the last laugh the world of stand-up comics now I almost want to get it again but I'm kind of cutting down on my books now but if you want to know about the history of stand-up comedy

in America because that's pretty much where it originated stand-up comedy is an American thing really is we is they were doing alternative comedy in the 50s we started doing it in the late 70s you know is I say we but in this country they've always been decades ahead of us not anymore not anymore but for a long time and the English stand-up comedians would we've kind of when I say the newer breed I'm talking last few decades hugely influenced by American comedians hugely influenced but I would say possibly Americans are

now influenced by us maybe as well because because of the internet everything's kind of in the same time span now we're not really behind anymore but that that book the last laugh won't teach you to do stand-up comedy but it's really I used to have it in one of the first books on comedy I ever bought in about 1991 I lent it to someone and I never gave it back who was it did that anyway it was a really good book and it talks about I'll give you an example of

the book out of it talks about Rodney Dangerfield I said Rodney Dangerfield was a comedian in the 60s and he he went he basically quit comedy for about 10 years and then he came back and he became famous in the 70s but he was like a lot older and you know I mean if you think about Rodney Dangerfield I know he's no longer with us but I can't ever remember him being young of course he was at one point we all was at one point but he always that that look

he had made it kind of fitted in with his comedy so maybe he was too young before because a lot of the stand-up comedy really kind of post-war post-second world war they would you know in the you know the 40s late 40s 50s there'd be lots of coffee shops around America and people were performing coffee shops so they're nothing practically but you know there'd be a whole alternative kind of culture and that's where people like Lenny Bruce came up and George Carlin and maybe Richard Pryor as well and then in

the 60s Lenny Bruce was a huge star in America for a while and Richard Pryor was in the 60s to start with it probably started in the 50s actually but he was in the 60s he became well known in America for a while because he'd I think he said something what did Richard Pryor say he he earned a really good living for about five years mimicking Bill Cosby and by that I mean like with the jokes with the act nothing else and for those that don't know Bill Cosby don't worry

I'm not going anywhere weird with this I think a lot of people outside of America maybe don't realize how big Bill Cosby was and I'm not talking about TV wise I'm talking about before television not before television was invented but before television he was on television like anyone in the western world is probably very well aware of the Bill Cosby show or maybe remembers it if they're you know over a certain age maybe I don't I don't think it's shown very often now for some reason the reruns aren't on TV

anymore so he was he was the biggest paid star it was weird because in about 1989 1988 something like that the three biggest paid stars according to the newspapers I was reading were all American so the biggest paid stars in America anyway entertainers so you had Oprah Winfrey Bill Cosby and Prince and they were all making like a hundred million a year something like that Prince was constantly on tour selling millions of albums Bill Cosby was on TV um and his TV show was everywhere the most famous comedian in the

world although I didn't know he was a comedian I just knew he was Dr Huxtable I didn't know he was being didn't really know I mean I knew he was called Bill Cosby because it was the it wasn't the Huxtable show was it was the Cosby show confuse me a little bit that doesn't take much and isn't that amazing but before that Bill Cosby I'm not saying that he was more famous but he was a huge star long before the Bill Cosby show the you know Cosby's in America he filled

out arenas all over America with his stand-up he had best-selling albums comedy albums in the 60s huge star 60s and 70s he was massive and of course he was massive in the 80s as well for a different thing he was huge it's really I don't mean to gush it's a weird word isn't it I don't mean to be all gushy about it especially as you know I'm forgetting about any personal stuff to do with him but it was on a level that I don't think anyone really reached because he reached

a much wider audience than someone like Richard Pryor who a lot of people because a lot of comedians they would say they may say maybe not now but they used to say this is Lennie Bruce was pretty much the most influential stand-up comedian ever but the king of comedy was Richard Pryor and that used to be kind of the pretty much the understood accepted I'm not going to say the word narrative oops I've just said it of stand-up comedy it's like Lennie Bruce he broke through barriers he got arrested constantly

and he pretty much he died for his art you could say and he was funny but then he got very he got caught up in all the court cases and that's all he did on stage was talk about his court cases Richard Pryor and he broke a lot of taboos which more than probably anyone else at the time then when Richard Pryor went on stage he he got away with a lot more because it was you know a few years later and also he could talk about being black and he

couldn't get in trouble for that Lennie Bruce used to talk about the different things between the races in America and he got in trouble for it and people got upset but Richard Pryor I don't know why that's funny but just Richard Pryor did it in a day I'm just thinking of I'm remembering Richard Pryor that's all I'm laughing at it's got remembering some of the stuff that he used to talk about um do you want to know should I tell you one of his jokes from his albums Richard Pryor I

can't even tell you the name of the album okay I mean the bearing in mind right now you can't buy the album the out the they put a sticker over the the cut of of the image of it like if you watch it if you go on Amazon or stuff like that they will cover over the word but in the 70s they didn't but one of his name um his albums was that n-word is crazy bicentennial n-word and you know and he used that word a lot but his albums were

named with that word on it now Lenny Bruce if he'd have done something like that he it's it'd still be in prison would still be alive probably wow but Richard Pryor got away with that it just shows you how different things were by the time Richard Pryor was famous but one of his jokes on one of his albums is um there is two brothers as he he what he said two brothers stand because he was talking about the cliche of different body parts and sizes between races and stuff I'm not

going to go into it but he said I won't do that his voice I used to be able to do his voice quite well two brothers standing on a bridge doing wee-wees so it's that's you know side by side weeing off a bridge and one of them says oh the water's cold and everyone says yeah it's deep too um so it's yeah it's quite a funny joke it's funny when he says it I just think there's something that I can't tell you this you know is worth listening to if you've

never I realize that's not the question but if you want to hear something that you've perhaps never heard before maybe check out a Richard Pryor album because if if you've seen Richard Pryor just in movies and as I had up to the age of about 18 or 19 I didn't know he did stand-up comedy maybe 18 I knew he was in um Brewster's Millions and See No Evil Hear No Evil and Stir Crazy and all those movies that he did with um what's his name and Superman 3 so you know

I loved Richard Pryor when I was a little kid or growing up I loved him it was hilarious but I didn't know he did stand-up comedy and there's no way in the world that anyone was going to show me his stand-up comedy because I was a little kid because it was adults rating and my dad was never into that kind of stuff anyway so I never got to hear it and then when I was 9 to about 18 I I thought oh I was in a second-hand shop I think like

a record shop and I was looking through the albums because I started listening to albums like Steve Martin Emo Phillips I started buying albums as well so Emo Phillips Steve Martin Steven Wright um Bill Cosby there's quite a few Bill Cosby albums and it was like I was so transfixed and I started getting videos as well so Steve Martin as I said uh comics from here as well Jerry Sadovich um loads loads of sort of stand-up comedy I had quite a nice um library actually of videos and I discovered Richard

Pryor so the two things that I really remember discovering was well Steve Martin I had no idea that he was a comedian I'd seen him in movies and some of his early movies I loved long before he was famous in this country I watched these films like dead men don't wear plaid and um lonely guy and the man with two brains and stuff like that um what's the other one two of me or I forget it but they were good with Lily Tomlin that was so funny and then he did

the jerk and he became like more famous worldwide he was famous in America already I didn't know that he was selling out arenas doing stand-up comedy now Dev you're probably regretting asking me that question because you've got me onto a subject that I didn't realize I still had a bit of passion for which is weird um but yeah the when I discovered Richard Pryor's albums I couldn't believe what I was listening to because it was stuff that I wasn't supposed to be saying well still not allowed to say but it

was I hadn't heard hadn't really heard other people say it and then I discovered George Carlin who in a way probably made me laugh even more some of his earlier stand-up comic um like albums so funny and I really got into him probably in the early probably about 1990 and then 91 so I was listening to him quite a lot then when I kind of started out doing comedy and I had no it influenced me in no way so I was listening regularly regularly I was listening a lot to some

of the greatest comedians and it did not improve my performance and also I was seeing in person some brilliant comedians regularly like every week sometimes two three times a week including those that I used to be on the same bill with and I still didn't get any better well I got a little bit better but I didn't um I didn't improve to the to the point where you kind of think I would do being around such talent which I was for a long time I mean I was involved with the

comedy scene for a long time long long time um but anyway yeah so Derek and Clyde was another one was Derek and Clive Derek and Clive uh which was what was it Peter Cook and Dudley Moore I discovered them in 1990 or maybe it was 89 maybe 1990 I remember listening to it during my breaks at work with another colleague at work and we were just laughing because it was so funny because I'd never heard an English person talk like that say the things that they were saying was so outrageous

so wrong on every level but hilarious I just found it absolutely hilarious and there was three albums um I think including the live ones so there's Ad Nauseam Come Again and I think it was just a live one I think unless there was four albums I think it was three anyway um as far as books go he's got a couple I can't find the one I was looking for so there are quite a few stand-up books a stand-up comic how to become a stand-up comic um on Amazon so there's a

few but what I would probably recommend if you're living in London or if you're in a city or just check there might be something local is if you can find a course which you can go to um you know like a four-week course one evening a week or one Saturday afternoon a week for six weeks or whatever because the benefit of that is firstly you'll be it'll be an introduction to the comedy world um a much probably quite a gentle way to do it in some ways so I think quite

often the way they they like format it is you go along you're in a room with maybe five six ten twelve people that you've never met before but they're in the same they're the same level as you they're the same if they're just starting out or maybe they've done a few gigs or maybe they've never done it but what they'll have in common with you is enthusiasm and you know the dream of doing it and maybe most of them have never been on stage before as a comedian and then you've

got the teacher who is going to be very much likely or have many many years of being a comedian and thinking about this course in London they used to have headliners from the comedy circuit in London every week come along and talk to the group which is something you're not going to get in any other situation it's you know you it's I mean you probably can go to a comedy club and say hello to someone that's been on stage you know they're the headliner himself I really enjoyed your your performance

they might say thanks but the chances of them sitting down for half an hour and actually going through what it's like to be a comedian and getting advice and even I struggled to get that and I was a comic and I knew these people you know once I started I got to know some people and I didn't get hardly any advice I think I was given up for as a lost cause first you know very early on and I just it seemed like the biggest joke of my comedy act was

me and that was the biggest joke bless um see I'm sure I've I've been I've either been diva or whatever I used to have a book but then another thing in the course they do is generally as far as I know they build up to you doing um to put in a nice five minutes together and you perform in every week you go and perform something in front of the rest of the group with the culmination of an actual gig at the end of it and all of you will go

on stage in front of a paid audience or maybe a free audience at a comedy club or come a comedy night or something like that so there'll be an audience and audience members will be there and you get a chance to perform in front of complete strangers an actual proper comedy audience for the first time and the good thing about that is the audience know what they're coming to it's not like an ordinary open night spot night where they might be coming to heckle and stuff they're coming to support because

they know that you've just gone through a course a six-week course so they're going to be supportive you're not going to laugh if it's not funny but they're still they're not going to be um hard on the comedians and I'll be open to like it's nice now I kind of I've got a lot of information from about these courses because I know a lot of people that went on them or did and yeah so that's what I would recommend the books are good you can learn something from books of course

most of my learnings really come from books I guess but yeah there's there's a lot there's a lot of books on a stand-up comedy that you can get hold of I don't know which one I would necessarily recommend I'm just looking down um all right there's a Woody Allen but it's a stand-up comic okay so I can't figure out I'm going to put Richard Pryor in because I just want to see what the uh if it's censored Richard Pryor okay best if I spelt his name right it'd be better here

we go right oh it's all of his films from 80 to 91 on blu-ray uh Richard Pryor is also what oh there's a book about him called Pryor Convictions another book called Becoming Richard Pryor okay he did I still it's really childish but there's a movie that he did and um he's I think it's called The Toy and he's like uh looking after this little kid who's rich and I think he's kind of like the kid's toy just to do what the kid wants him to do and he gets introduced

to this little kid and uh so this this is Mr Pryor whatever his name was in the movie and said welcome and like you to meet uh your new boss Master Bates now I saw that when I was what probably about 14 13 and I'm still laughing because I'm so childish I still find it hilarious it's weird isn't it um so yeah that's my answer to your question Dev is try if you can find a a place where you can maybe do some training go to a course a stand-up comedy

course and they'll include things like writing performance how to hold a microphone how far to have the microphone away from you from your mouth where to look when you're on stage I guess just you know things all the things I still don't know how to do so thanks for that so Maria hi Jason on a recent recording you mentioned that you might need new glasses spectacles soon yep yep definitely would you have to be bifocal would they have to be bifocal or varifocal have you ever worn contact lenses or it's

something you consider doing thank you well thanks Maria um I'll answer the first the second question first no and no and no and no and no um contact lenses no I could no it's not something I would do uh I know I understand why people do do it especially like younger people I mean not everyone likes glasses and to wearing glasses and they can get in the way you know it gets steamed up at times and they get dirty and um depending on what you're doing I mean I'm I'm a

messy eater but contact lenses no I just don't know it doesn't really appeal to me never has uh as far as bifocals or varifocals I'm not quite sure what varifocal is bifocal I think it's I think I have been varifocal is that where like the different parts kind of you can't see but that yeah you can see because the glasses but um my glasses at the moment the bottom part is for reading and the middle part is for like distance and supposedly the you know the highest part is for like

computer work but generally it's the bottom parts for reading and it's not big enough because I need separate reading glasses um maybe that's what the varifocal is I used to have trifocals where I this is years ago when I was in the call center and or was it bifocals yeah the but they were almost they had like a line across so the I could read again read at the bottom the middle was for distance and it was really weird it's very it felt very strange because I felt like I was

taller than I would normally be because instead of like the the distance you know it brings it closer doesn't it but the bottom part was pushing things further away for some reason so I felt really tall which was nice but then I felt you know a bit stumbling a bit I tripped over a couple of times and I realized my shoelaces were undone no I didn't that was weird but yeah I think no no contact lenses but also no longer am I going to get any kind of bifocals I'm going

to stick to from now on at least I'm going to stick to glasses for read for reading separate glasses for everyday use for distance which I definitely need more than anything else and maybe try and get some glasses for computer use the three separate things I do have anti-glare I think they're supposed to be anti-glare but I do you know video myself and they do glare so I'm not sure what that's about they stare right at me but the other active light active active light or whatever so they go they

turn into kind of shades when I'm outside in the sunlight that's something that I had because in my family we've got macro degeneration is kind of like a hereditary thing and a few years back my what's it optician said yeah the best thing to do because he looked at the back of my eyes he said well it's potentially the beginnings of that you need to just protect your eyes when you're outside so that's what I do and he said well you can wear sunshades I said yeah but I need glasses

so I'd have to get the sunshades in my prescription so it'd be easier just to get the demonstrate you know to shade on their own yeah I'm going to get some soon maybe not before Christmas but I will eventually when I get things sorted out I've got a few bits going on so once I get everything sorted out I'm going to get myself some glasses and that'll be it so that'd be good um hope asks how did you end up adopting Andre well I didn't want a ferret that's a good

way to start to start my story about the my one of the loves of my life which Andre was it still is actually I love that little boy I will love him forever um my Luke downstairs had a ferret when I moved in he had a ferret and I was like okay first of all I was very a little bit scared very a little bit a little bit very scared because I just didn't really know what to do with it it moved very quick had very sharp teeth and he was

a biter which put me off I think it's I think it might be thundering so it put me off okay because I didn't want that I didn't want something that was going to be biting people who came around not that I get a lot of people visiting but I didn't want to be bitten myself he found it funny he'd let L was the name of the ferret he'd well it's a polecat but he'd let him bite him and he just didn't care he bit me once like really bit me on

the on my arm and what ferrets do is do like the crocodile roll it's not good and it really hurt it left a mark on there for weeks this was early on my time living there so I thought no because I considered because I wanted to get a dog and he said oh why don't you could get a ferret I said no you're right and I was going to get a dog and then the dog that I went and visited didn't like me a bit like Vinnie just didn't wasn't interested

at all and it was a puppy but it was in a like a shelter you know an animal place and I just like I want my my feeling my theory my idea if I ever got a dog of my own would be to go and visit that dog and maybe there's like six dogs and one comes up to me and chooses me that's what I wanted I wanted a dog to choose me it didn't happen so I kind of I visited twice still didn't really feel any connection with a dog

so I decided not to get that dog and they kept saying they kept calling me well we've got other people that want to take I said we'll just do that then because it just didn't feel it's a beautiful little dog but it just just didn't it didn't seem like the dog liked me a bit like Vinnie and he doesn't seem to like me I think he loves me but he doesn't like me I think sometimes and so I didn't get an animal in the end didn't get a pet and then

around the November time might be in October November ish I normally say November but I don't know and this was 2015 Luke says to me ah I said yeah he said my friend who breeds ferrets has got two ferrets going needing new homes and I said yeah he said are you interested in getting a ferret now these but you might not know this but Andre was related to El so El was Andre's uncle like blood blood relative because he'd got El from there as well from that same friend like a

couple few years earlier so they were related anyway um I thought yeah maybe I will but then I thought you know they do stink a bit I personally love the smell of of Andre but I know not everybody's into that kind of stinky stink I think he's I mean he didn't always smell good because they are kind of bit skunky at times anyway I thought about it I thought yes no yes no and then I thought no no I've got a brand new carpet it's only been in there for a

few months the the flat's looking good I don't want it ruined well I got a bit interrupted then because Vinnie started barking and I couldn't figure out why he was barking and then I heard some thunder now we've had thunder before I don't mean you know in history but you know since I've had Vinnie there's been thunder and normally he doesn't seem to be too bothered but it did oh yeah I think normally you know maybe the be the tv would be on so it kind of cover it up a

little bit but yeah it was he didn't like it the only other time I've seen him really disturbed by anything um outside you know is fireworks once we was out at night and the fireworks were going off and he pulled me home so he didn't like that another time he didn't like the aircraft going over to a air display because there's lots he didn't like that because it was very noisy and the air balloon the other day last week or whenever it was he pulled me home from that he didn't

didn't like that most things don't really bother him but just things from the sky generally I said to him just don't look up and he told me I was being silly I haven't got to look up to hear the thunder have I I said all right wow so yeah um Andre so at this point I'm thinking I don't want I'm thinking I don't want someone that's going to bite me and it's going to make a mess everywhere and no I really decided I was a firm negative like no 100% no

not don't want one I love L I did I mean he was pretty good with me as long as I remember to wear a long-sleeved shirt or t-shirt because if I kept off guard he'd have a little nibble but he was really he was a very loving ferret you know very cuddly and but at the same time you know he'd like to have a little bite every now and then a little snack treat himself to a bit of a human so and I 100% nope don't want one so I'm just

like going out my life as I do and I'm walking home I don't know where I'd been probably been to town or something or to the garage and I'm coming back and I see this bloke holding he's in looking in the back of a car and he's holding a cage then I see this is outside the front of my building and then I see Luke come out and he waves to me and he says look look these these are the two ferrets the two baby ferrets I said oh okay and

he said come and have a look at them he was so excited that's one of the things about Luke when he was excited he brightened up so much it was very contagious so I kind of got very intrigued and was excited as well to sort of have a look with no intention of taking one on I didn't want to take it and bearing in mind the bloke didn't want any money he wasn't doing it for money he just loved ferrets so there was two ferrets one of them you know was

Andre one of them was his brother and one of them had to be that he hadn't decided which one was already been adopted by someone else but he was going to deliver that ferret I think a few days afterwards because he had to get a cage and stuff for it this bloke who was also a friend of Luke's so they're running around on the floor I fell in love with Andre I fell in love with him see that that what I wanted to happen to me is you know like a

dog wanting to fall I wanted a dog to fall in love with me and to come up to me and like just have that attachment the reverse happened with Andre I absolutely fell head over heels in love with that little boy in a way that I'm really so surprised about because you know if you just said to me a few years back before that like one day you can have a ferret running around your home I would have I wouldn't have believed them I would have just laughed because it's like

no way to me a ferret was like a rat you know there was no difference there's a big difference but at the time I didn't really know I just it was just some something that was very weak very wiggly wibbly wobbly moved very quickly and bit people and I didn't want to didn't want to know I didn't want to know I didn't want to know at this time I knew a little bit more about ferrets because I'd spent time with Al and he used to come up here and he was

good as gold apart from the occasional snack out of my arm and so Vinnie um sorry not Vinnie Andre absolutely hated me I picked him up and he bit me at every opportunity he bit me just on that occasion he really grabbed me in his razor teeth remember he was tiny at this point he could like fit him in the palm of my hand and there's videos there's probably pictures on Facebook but there's loads of videos of him on my YouTube channel Andre and I had to hold him the bloke

who would brought the two around he showed me how to handle the baby and so did Luke so there's a certain way you basically put your finger and thumb around the neck because the neck's so tiny you're not choking it it's just basically there's a lot of loose loose skin there it just means that they can't maneuver their mouth to bite you and another thing is which is something the parents do to ferrets is they pick them up by their neck so it doesn't hurt them the the back of the

neck the skin but they just completely stay still they stop being naughty as soon as that happens or you can drag them back like that and they just stay still so if it doesn't hurt them but it makes them be passive they give up they kind of it's you know so that's kind of something I learned to do but the rest of it was just not made up as I went along but Luke kind of taught me quite a bit I suppose as well yeah yeah and I went from nowhere

in the world or on those smelly things in my flat to I've never wanted anything as much as I ever did in my life that's probably a bit of an exaggeration but I really like the other one I had no interest in and it was just as cute as I'm sure every baby ferret is just as cute as each other but there was something about Andre I don't know what it was there was something about him something about his little face and his little mask that he had it like a

almost like he had a eye mask on him like he was a highway dick turpin or you know something like that bank robber maybe maybe not but yeah it's just cute his facial features and I had to have him I thought there was no there was no option in fact I think the man said that he was going to give him to the other bloke and Luke said well he won't know will he he won't know which one he just knows he's going to get one so and I wouldn't have

took the other one however weird that sounds Andre it was him it wasn't because Andre was a ferret that I wanted him I didn't want a ferret I wanted Andre it was I just fell in love with him he's just something about him and so for the first two weeks I had him and all he did was bite me but I continued to pick him up every single opportunity cuddle him and he never bit me on the face so I could literally put my face right up to his he's probably

scared to be fair imagine seeing my face so close up probably scared the hell out of him but he never bit me on the face it's always my fingers if he could and after like a couple of weeks the bite I've told this story loads of times but I was just sitting down on a Saturday night watching the boxing and he climbed up my leg and I was wearing a dressing gown and he climbed up my left sleeve of my dressing gown and went to sleep and from then on he

was good as gold we got on perfect he never bit me again not not on purpose he used to bite me when we played when we had play fights he'd bite me sometimes he'd get very carried away but all I had to say was gentle and he'd stop so if he if he bit me too hard I say gentle it just releases jaws so his his teeth were just kind of touching my skin he he we communicated quite well which is a bit weird I think but yeah I think perhaps

I should I should have got another ferret maybe but you know what then he came into my life and and you know I'll be honest when I lost Andre it was it was too much I mean I don't I I didn't really believe that I could be so attached to a little thing like that but I was and you know my vow and a lot of people do that is that they say like I'll never get I'll never get another pet that's it and I definitely meant that I wasn't going

to get anything not a dog not a cat anything I'm not allowed to have a cat anyway but not up here because I'm on the first floor and the cat can't get out however you know so this was in the summer 2001 and in 2002 November or December Vinnie ran through my legs as I answered the door to Luke he was laughing and this little thing ran through and Logie was there like looking at me and he ran in as well I was like what the heck is Logie chasing I

thought for a second I thought he'd got another ferret and it wasn't it was Vinnie but Vinnie was 10 months old so he was he wasn't a hugely smaller than he is now but he was smaller and I mean I couldn't see him he was moving so quick and you know that's how I ended up with him but with Andre that's how I ended up with him it was just a fallen in love situation and no matter how you know the ending wasn't good and I just it was hard but

he did bring a lot of pleasure into my life he made me laugh a lot and yeah I actually adored him adored him and I know that there's a couple of people over the years as I've mentioned like saying why why why does he not to me but like on the maybe on a Facebook group or on a Facebook page why does he keep talking about Andre he's been gone for ages that's why it's the same reason I talk about my Nan and the same reason I'm probably still going to

be talking about Uncle Sausages in 10 years time the reason I'm still talking about Luke because they were big parts of my life and that doesn't change just because they're no longer here is you know they're not I mean they're no longer a big part of my life day to day but I think once someone has that makes that impact I mean Uncle Sausages made his impact more really over the last year even though I've known him for 10 years and especially more when he got unwell I mean that period

that we shared together is something that's kind of bit precious really that whole you know situation and there's no way I could ever forget that and yeah so he's always going to be remembered by me I hope I hope and even if he's not the memories recorded it's on to you know I mean it's it's me talking about it so even if in 30 years time perhaps for whatever reason I don't have the actual memory I can listen back and hear about it and think oh he sounds nice who's this

bloke that's talking why has he got such a squeaky voice so yeah that's that's how I got Andre thank you for that Rich asks when's Finny's birthday it's the end of February so he would have been born in 2000 and yeah end of yes end of February 2023 no 22 so end of February 2022 was when he was born the exact date I used to have I could probably get it because I used to have a picture with a date on where he was literally a baby you know like a

it looked like a I don't know like pink little turnip or something but yeah so end of February he'll be four next year Robin asks me have you ever been inside Hampton Court Palace I'd love to visit there first of all I thought I don't know but now I do know Hampton Court Palace I'm pretty sure it's got a zoo I don't know why but I have the feeling there's a zoo there Hampton Court Palace Zoo Zoo right it doesn't look there's Hampton Court Beasts okay yeah there is is there

okay does I'm going to change it to does have a zoo Hampton Court Palace does not have a traditional zoo but its magic garden adventure playground features mythical beasts that's probably what I visited when I was a kid I thought they were real animals wow no wonder I was able to uh kiss a tiger on the lips all that bragging the years afterwards thinking I was more invincible than Tarzan when clearly I wasn't it wasn't I wasn't I wasn't uh yeah I have been there even though I clearly don't know

where it is but I have been there and then he started barking again the thunder and yeah I have been there it's a long long long long time ago like decades ago so I don't really remember it but I've been to all the main um tourist attractions either when I was very young or when I was kind of in my 20s and I include in all the museums Madden Two Swords Tower of London uh the palace the whole walk up to the palace whatever that's called um the zoo London Zoo

uh the library is it London library or whatever so I've been sort of now pretty much everywhere but not for a very very long time um Kathleen asks what's the best birthday present you ever received well technically I would say I know it's my birthday was three days ago but your question Kathleen that's the birth that's the best present I've ever had um I don't know really best birthday present um see when I was a kid not nothing as an adult but when I was a kid I enjoyed this this

year because I got some Paypal gifts that was really lovely kind of I almost felt like I was I don't know just felt quite nice I felt very nice uh I think as a kid as an adult nothing I mean not nothing but um yeah nothing like particularly that I can think of off the top of my head as a kid nothing really stands out because they're all the thing is with my my dad and his wife they were very generous when it came to Christmas and birthdays I'm not saying

they weren't the rest of the time but they were very I always got lots of presents for birthdays and Christmases from the age of 7 to 15 so it was yeah it was like every year I mean 15 was a bit of a slow one but all the other years is you know when the whole family was together yeah every year was good you know like Christmas as well I never there was never any disappointment there was never like oh I didn't get enough presents because I always got more presents

than I ever needed you know it was I was very very fortunate and the same was with birthdays I always got lots of presents and I liked all of them really I remember one year when I was probably about 10 11 10 I don't know and I had a video game so that was cool like a kind of a space invaders asteroids kind of game that was handheld but a big old thing the batteries the batteries were the size of a car it was a big thing but it was loved

it yeah things like that that was nothing like how it sounded but I can't think of any particular presents that had off the top my head that is I'm not saying there wasn't any particular presents that I liked most of all I'm trying to the big presents really I think were Christmas time because I got a couple of the two biggest presents I remember at Christmas oh no I got the best present I ever got for my birthday was when I was seven and it might not been on my birthday

it was around that time because we all got bike but it was a bike I got a new my first ever bike when I was seven my seventh birthday and my dad taught me to ride and he did that whole thing where he's like holding on to the because I kept falling off and he put stabilizers on and he kind of he said I'm holding on and he was behind me and I was cycling and I said he's still holding on he said yeah he's still holding on he said yeah

I'm still holding on I'm thinking why why are you doing such a soft voice I said he's still holding on what and I shouted he's still holding on and my phone rings and he said yeah I'm still holding on and I'm thinking mobile phones aren't even invented yet it's 1977 this is really weird I wonder if it's real and I look behind me and it's nowhere to be seen I'd cycled into a different town I've been gone for about six hours never really could gauge time back then so yeah that's

that's when I realized I could cycle without him like holding on I mean but I did have stabilizers stabilizers are good I think everyone should have stabilizers all the time it just makes sense doesn't it because at least then you could just dock your bike wherever you are and just leave it standing up there's no reason not to have stabilizers I remember seeing someone years ago in a park having a go at their kid because they had stabilizers and like almost like you can't still have stabilizers you're nine now and

they like give the kid a break you know what does it matter really right um yeah the bike that was the best present birthday present I got was that bike I did get another bike at Christmas quite a few years later when I was about 13 and maybe 14 13 something like that and it was a racer and early on but probably about age 10 9 10 or maybe 11 even I got a telescope for Christmas I think it was Christmas it might have been for my birthday it's possible I

don't really know remember exactly but yeah I got this telescope really nice telescope but yeah so I can't really I would say I would go with the bike and it was a grifter I think and it was the first time I never had a bike and I mean that was the best summer of my life it was there's no other summer it doesn't it wasn't about the heat it wasn't about the weather you know we may make such a big deal like oh it wasn't as hot as it normally is

or it's been too hot and when I was a kid I couldn't care at all if it was raining or if it was sunny that was my first time with a family like an actual family living and the next year was good as well but that was the first year the first summer which is 1977 when I was well I was late I was just before I was seven but yeah I was seven in August so that was the best summer of my life or in my memory anyway and the

next year was really good as well so basically 77 78 were the best summers that I ever had but 77 especially because we lived near the well we lived near the beach as well actually lived yeah lived near the beach in the big family house but this was like just up the road from the beach a bit of a walk but not too far it was a straight walk yeah so that's what I would say for that um the the bike that was my favorite the best present I ever got

but technically not really the best present I ever got was a family if we're going to be if I'm going to be sentimental so we moved out of the children's home and lived with my dad and his new wife permanently the summer of 1977 and possibly June maybe July it was a because back in them days a couple of weeks was like a few months to a little kid and it's like a long time so we probably moved there after school finished so I went there left Southend and we moved

there instead of visiting at weekends we moved there forever and it was technically that was like the best birthday present I ever had because for the first time well since I was a baby I was had two parents and my brothers all together in one house and yeah so it was brilliant yep and I was the baby for one more year for just one year move on JJ Mary asks me how do you design the episode title artwork you use it's always so creative well thank you I I use different

things so I use a mixture of a Canva and Chachi PT5 and sometimes other things to put together maybe some images I've got maybe images that I've found online to put together what I want to kind of express usually it's something to do with the recording it might be hidden in the recording but it's quite often it's there's a little hint in the image or sometimes I hide little things in the image where you'd have to really have a closer look to see it what it is but generally I I

have to think what I want what I want the record what I want the image to be so I think that up and then I ask Chachi PT5 to maybe create that image this is one one way of doing it and then I get it to redo it and to change things and it takes quite a while sometimes and sometimes half hour an hour to get the image done depends on how well it comes out first time and then I go into Canva and I edit the image and sometimes I

do multiple images and put them all together taking off the background put them into Canva editing it so it looks like one image and yeah so that's kind of what I do I used to sometimes again I take stuff from online and I change the image edit it or pictures of myself or pictures of Vinnie you know just or put in my my picture and make me be in this scenario and yeah things like that so so the Q&A Friday images just generally just Q&A Friday but like I did an

image yesterday Goodbye Uncle Sausages and it was a nice image it was a picture not one I made up just one that had been taken yesterday so I do sometimes do that as well and there's pictures of me in my sea cadet uniform pictures of me in my karate uniform when I was a kid that is so there's lots of different images I mean I've done what 14 1400 and I don't know how many I've done now let's have a look so yesterday's one was number 1424 so this is 1425

so that's how many images I suppose I've done although I think some of the earlier ones didn't have images but I did I started doing images a few years back I do wonder you know because I I listen to some of my old stuff from I don't know 15 years ago and I think oh I can't believe I did stuff that was that wasn't good at all and I've really improved what I do is I mean the quality of the sound is better than it used to be but I wonder

if that's what it's going to be like in 10 years time if I look back at let's say today's recording or the recordings that I've been doing in the last year or so I look back at these recordings I think oh my goodness I don't believe that I used to make such recordings as that I'm so glad that I managed to improve the quality of the content I don't know I might so what was the question again what's the best birthday no no how do you design the episode yeah so

that that's kind of how I do it is they're creative but I have to say what I want so I have to create it kind of in my mind roughly what I want and then I have to find a way to put that together because I'm not an artist like um as far as creating images it which you can do you know there are there are programs you can put an image together and make it from scratch that's that's not something I could do or something that I even want to

learn to do but I know what I want does that make sense if I want um like the other day I wanted an image of a baby jumping out of a cake but chat gbt wouldn't allow it um even though it's basically just my little brother ruining my eighth birthday party because he was just born the day before my birthday party and that's what it was supposed to be him jumping out of the cake ruining my party um like a jokey kind of thing but they could they wouldn't it was

hard to get it done because it was it took ages to put that that image together let me have a look at it um I did that on my the day before my birthday I think the internet's shut down for some reason why that's very strange oh here it is why is it hidden oh I know why so so okay the image I ended up with with um how my brother ruined my eighth birthday it's number 1422 so that was on Monday and it's image of me frowning with birthday brother

t-shirt there's my dad with his beard there's my step-mom holding a new baby and then there's the my oldest brother and my other brother so it's all kind of you know planned and it's got number eight on the birthday cake everyone's laughing except me and I'm just frowning and then there's a big speech bubble aimed it's supposed to be aimed towards the baby saying I'm the baby now ha ha ha so it's it's not always easy to put it all together and but other times it works quite nice so it's

a very simple thing like Vinnie woke me up this is what I did on the 24th of August and I wanted it to be like an image of me it never always comes up right but it's kind of an image of me in bed but I wanted me to be wearing an old Victorian type bedclothes a bit like Scrooge or Dickinson kind of thing but then I wouldn't allow that because that was copyright and like how can I get around that and and I wanted Vinnie basically saying wake up and

there's a little tag with Vinnie on it so I just kind of played around and in the end managed to get an image that kind of worked and then the day before that I did call one called good morning and basically what I was talking about was working at different jobs and I was at one point I was talking about working in the bakery and how if the conveyor belt never stopped hardly so sometimes you'd end up with bread rolls all over the floor so I thought I wanted an image

of me with bread rolls kind of up to my waist and and then falling off the conveyor belt and it took quite a while for me to get it done you know lots of different versions and then I found it so even though the image is it probably looks like quite an easy image to do it took a while to kind of put it together and then I did one last week 22nd August 2025 was it Friday last Friday and I wanted to talk about bottles because I've got 96 bottles

of water delivered and I wanted a house made of bottles and in the end it didn't come out how I wanted it to come out as but I had you know I spent so long on it I just thought it's gonna have to do so you know it I did that I wasn't wasn't crazy about the text but you know it ended up okay I should have you know but if I did it again now I'd make a few changes and I didn't run the day before I bored myself to

sleep so I've got a sheep in a chair asleep but dreaming or thinking or whatever dreaming of instead of sheep jumping running around he's got humans so you've got a human jumping over a fence and two humans like running around it's just little things like that and it's another one called thin legs that I did the day before and it's basically a caricature of me with a big upper body and tiny little legs and because I bought some yeah I bought some uh tracksuit bonds and then teddy bears that's trivia

Tuesday last week so I've got a picture of a teddy bear picnic so three three bears all the hats on drinking through straws out for some glasses with some burgers and stuff you know on the on the blanket checkered blanket but in the background so in the park in the background you got all these humans just running away around screaming or running away screaming so I like that and then another one well mental health review I seem to be doing one every day if I've been quite good recently mental health

review is there's Bugs Bunny sitting on a like a psychiatrist couch and the psychiatrist is looks a bit like Freud um and there's that whole thing you know Christine pointing out what's up doc it is the cold yeah so it's quite because I just had a mental health review on the Monday and and then I got one up I don't know why I'm telling you you might already know this you might have seen them I have to go outside and this was I think this was Sunday the 18th so there's

me well it's kind of not really me but it's kind of a me kind of picture a middle-aged man more hair and it's like I have to go outside at the top but he's in a kind of a very gray kind of room and there's a doorway but everything outside the doorway is very bright bright and colorful uh kind of like the Wizard of Oz so that was what I was looking for it took a while to get that together but I was pleased I mean I had to make a

lot of changes to get it to where it was so yeah it's this kind of what is that sometimes it's quite easy you know like Trivia Tuesday a couple of weeks ago I was talking about Vikings I think so I just wanted to be a Viking with green beard with a helmet with a beard the title Trivia Tuesday and that's what it did and it did it very quickly well took a few seconds maybe 10 seconds and it was pretty much perfect straight away so there's times like that when it's

really good and other times when it takes absolutely well it seems to take a long time and sometimes I can't be bothered it's like just I don't want to spend so long working on images so what I get thing out I've made the recording just doing the editing and there's been times where I've actually just put it out without an image because I was like no this is taking way too long especially when I had to keep going up to the hospital so I'd edit and then I just like post

it without an image so that's kind of my creative take on that so some would argue maybe that it's not creative at all because I'm not the one really doing anything I'm giving the instructions but yeah it's coming out of my head it's coming out of my mind a lot of it and I also have to do the editing and I know what I'm looking for so yeah thank you for that so Cheryl asks since you seem concerned about your forehead getting larger oh my goodness um would you consider getting

a hairpiece no never ever ever ever however I think the only reason only time I would ever get a hairpiece it would be probably in the event of if I was in a play or if I was in some kind of fancy dress situation then you know perhaps I would wear like a wig or something but and you know I do understand why people do need to wear hairpieces and wigs and stuff but I don't um especially as although I go on about my hair and stuff I've spent many years

bald I've been shaving my head on purpose it's hard to do accidentally but you know basically I I don't care that much I'm just a little bit annoyed that I don't have control over it anymore because before I'd shave it off and I was in control now I don't have to shave it all off because it kind of does it doesn't grow back so it's a little bit annoying um my forehead getting larger I like that uh no never no I wouldn't I don't I understand um you know like some

famous people they I don't think I'd look younger because that's the thing like okay I could be in my 60s nearly 55 now I don't think I'm going to look younger with a hairpiece I think the only thing that would make me perhaps look a bit younger if I didn't have the gray but then my hair is not that gray it's gray but it's graying at the sides at the top but there's a lot of hair that's still dark dark brown on my head but my beard less so I got

yeah my beard's definitely gone much more grayer than my hair on my head and no I wouldn't I wouldn't get a hairpiece and I think if I met someone and they kind of were really like oh I want you to get a hairpiece I don't like don't like being with someone that's bald mate I don't yeah I'd probably just say well see you then you know find someone else that's got hair or that's willing to wear a hairpiece because I don't don't date someone that's bald if you don't want to

be with someone that's bald that's that's the way I see it is if you want to date someone that's tall don't date someone that's short or if you want someone that's short don't date someone that's tall expect them to crouch all the time walk on their knees you know it's like things like that are controllable not meeting someone that you feel you know you might meet someone that they tick all the other boxes but ultimately why walk up to someone and start talking to them if it's a big no-no them

being seven foot tall and maybe you're four foot five and you know your limit of height is only you'd only go as high as six foot two as to for a partner you know or you want someone shorter or if you've got a really if that's a thing if you've got a real thing you know whatever the person is whether you're male female or whatever if you've got a particular like like so I would say go with that like go with it whether you you you really got a thing for

someone with a certain color hair or someone with a a type of maybe from a certain part of the world or someone who's really really really tall or whatever if you've got something if that really has a big impact on how you feel physically and emotionally then it makes sense to kind of go towards that you know or body size even but then body size like height is not really going to change it's going to get a bit shorter with age it's not really going to change too much glasses you

know you know I guess if you're dating someone that doesn't have glasses and they start wearing glasses maybe you've got an issue with people wearing glasses some people do I used to be a bit weird towards glasses glasses wearer wearers even though I wore glasses myself my attitude was why would I want to date someone that's wearing glasses because it'd be like having a relationship through a window because I wear glasses as well it'd be like wearing you know although I didn't wear them all the time but it'd be like

having a relationship through a window which is rude and I shouldn't have said that out to people loud in public but I thought it was kind of funny but at the time I didn't wear glasses all the time I just had to wear them for reading so I don't feel that way anymore it's not like having a relationship through a window if I date someone with glasses it's well it's double glazing now isn't it pretty much um yeah what was I going to say what was the question oh hair pieces

so yeah I'd yeah I see a lot of the old um movie stars like for the old days that used to wear wigs and you could see it was wigs but it kind of didn't matter it's kind of what one of those weird things is if I'm balding I'm not like I've got a bald patch at the back I'm receding I've been receding for decades of my hair and I moan about it but firstly I can't see the back of my head so I can't see the bald patch I forget

it's there most of the time until people just start laughing at me when I'm walking down the street but I wouldn't I mean I wouldn't get you can't really get a bald you can't get a hair piece just for one tiny little bald patch can you or one average size growing ever increasing bald patch I don't care I'm at an age now where having a bald patch there's no shame there's no shame in ever having a bald patch but I'm 55 I'm allowed to have a bald patch without having to

explain myself you know I mean everyone is it doesn't matter what age you are some people go bald when they're in their teenage years I know I know people I know a girl that went completely gray when she was 14 and it's like she dyed her hair of course she dyed her hair what else was she gonna do but nowadays having gray hair is almost a fashion isn't it with young people or blue hair or green hair so yeah I don't I would never wear it what I do do actually

sometimes there's a lot of banging around I don't know what that is I can't remember what I was talking about now but yeah no I wouldn't I wouldn't wear a hairpiece I think it's okay love me for how I am and love me for how I will be because you can't have how I used to be because that's gone so all you got is how I am now and if you just if you want to stick around you'll be you'll see how I will be mind you if you listen to

the podcast you'll find out how I was as well because I do talk about the past it's hard to talk about the future isn't it because it hasn't happened yet apparently and I do believe that is all the questions so thank you very much for listening remember to be kind to yourself and thank you for all the questions I'll say you Maria, Hope, Rich, Robin, Kathleen, Mary, Dev, Cheryl so thank you all of you for your questions 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