(no music) (5 hours) Whisper Wednesday #1503 LMBYTS Jason Newland 3rd December 2025

Hello, hello, hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com, my name is Jason Newland, this is Whisper Wednesday, it's a day late, but it's Whisper Wednesday anyway, and I'm still gonna put the 3rd of December on the date, even though I'm recording this on the 4th, because I'm a rebel, yeah. So thank you for listening, only listen when you can safely close your eyes, I realise I might have said that twice but I don't even, I genuinely don't notice when I've said it.

I don't want to go outside, I don't, I really don't want to go outside, it's 9.28 in the morning, and it's raining, doors end, and I'm actually enjoying being dry, I wanna go out there, and Vinnie just got up, sort of cuddled up to my leg, because I'm sitting at the desk, I get up to go to the toilet, when I come back he's gone, he's clearly looked out the window and thought, it's raining, bollocks to that, he's just gone back to bed.

He don't like the rain, the thing is, sometimes he doesn't care, other times he's just like, I can't be arsed with this, he'll do a wee wee and then he just wants to come back. But then, if it's first thing in the morning, I kind of have to drag him into the park, because I know he needs a poo, so I have to stick around and wait until he's done one, then we can come back.

Oh dear, oh dear, went to bed about 10 o'clock last night, woke up half past five, breakfast, and then I sat on the couch just listening to Rory Sutherland lecture on YouTube, and I fell asleep, and I was basically, that last, well, I woke up about 20 minutes ago, so I was asleep for, maybe, yeah I'm not sure, maybe longer, I was just listening, because Rory Sutherland is a bit of a YouTube phenomenon, talks about stuff, he knows so much, and he's a marketing guru, he's also funny,

and I just find what he says interesting, not interesting enough to stay awake, clearly, the thing is, it wouldn't matter who I was listening to, if I close my eyes, I fall asleep, honestly, I've done this in person, with, I remember when I used to regularly go to the Buddhist centre, and it was part of a Buddhist organisation, and the leader of the organisation, who founded the place, founded the whole thing, not Buddhism, but that UK branch, in the 1960s, came along to visit the centre, and to do a,

well I fell asleep, and unfortunately, when I fall asleep, I do snore, occasionally I talk, I actually do wake myself up by shouting stuff out, it's almost like sleep Tourette's or something, it's weird, another thing I've noticed about myself, when there's no one else around, I make weird noises, and I started to think to myself, can I make sounds when I'm outside as well, which would explain why I'm continuously being egged by these sounds, when there's other people around, last, I suppose, well now anyway, this part of my life,

I can be a facade, and if I meet anybody, where I have to put a facade on with them, I just don't bother talking to them, if I can't just be myself, and think back into the past, when so much judgement about how I was as a person, and it's so different to the way that I've treated other people, I want to make out that I've always treated everyone properly, but there's been occasions, two occasions, where I've met people, one was when I was cleaning, another when I was,

no three occasions, where there was people being bullied, and I put a stop to it, one was the first one out of those, no four, five, it was in junior school, it was when a kid, my friend Andrew, that's a bit croaky wasn't it, Andrew, my voice is getting old, Andrew, he only had, I think, one liver, he had a, like a, a whatsit thing, that he had to have attached to him, and I didn't really understand at the time, but I knew that it was for toilets, you know,

things like that, and bearing in mind I was eight years old, but he was my friend, and he was my neighbour, I had two friends, Andrew, that lived about three doors up, and Ian, who was my bestest friend at the time, who lived just around the corner, I wanted Ian to travel, you know, if you're going to be friends, be friends with someone that's local, it just makes sense doesn't it, it's just easier, anyway, Ian was really cool, but his dad was brilliant as well, anyway, so, um, Andrew,

his parents were Jehovah's Witnesses, not relevant really to the story, and I actually ended up working for his mum, briefly, when I was a cleaner on the docks, a few years later, again, not relevant to the story, and me and the person I was working with couldn't stop giggling, we were just laughing our way through, she kept coming in and telling us off, not relevant to the story, but did keep in contact with him, even when I moved, because my nan lived in that house still, when we moved out,

not his house, our house, three doors up, two or three doors, and, so, to start with, I used to visit him and Ian, and then eventually, I stopped visiting Ian, because I'd moved to a different school, and I kept in touch, even as an adult, I popped in to see him, even when I was, like, twenty, so that's quite a few years, isn't it, just to see how he was getting on, and, yeah, however, so we were both the same age, roughly, he might have been nine,

but we were in the same year as school, and this kid was bullying him because of his bag that he had, like, underneath his t-shirt, and I think he might have punched him, I don't know, in that, you know, area, and then, I woke up, no, don't mind this, it's not a dream, but I literally kind of became unconscious, I didn't, I don't remember what happened next, it was basically, I realised I'm on the floor with him, with the bully, and then I'm standing over him, and he's crying, and it's like,

it was weird, but I just couldn't have him bullying my friend, and then another time, just trying to go through it, so that was the only thing there with him, there was a kid in, well, not kid, I was 18, he was probably about 19, 20, I think we were both about as useless as each other at that job, friends, and I used to go round his house, and we'd do music, even after I stopped working there, not that we used to shout at his mum, they had a weird relationship,

he'd like, he'd get home, he'd be all timid, and he'd get home and he'd turn into like a 14 year old, with his mum, and I never really quite understood that, but anyway, I'm turning up to one of my shifts at the pub, where we both worked, and he's standing on the beach, surrounded by two books, two irregulars, and one of them's shouting at him, so I go over, this is opposite the pub, so I just cross the road, just see what's happening, and one of them hits him,

I come to his rescue, I didn't do anything, I just like verbally like, and they backed off, and I don't know why, I don't know what caused it, but I stopped it, because he was two against one, but he wasn't going to do anything anyway.

There's a hero, if you look inside your pants. What's the other two? Oh yeah, no there's more than that, there's three more.

I worked in a meat store place, in the early 90's, and there was this guy who was, again, probably around the same age as me, maybe a little bit older, because I was only like 21, 22, and he pretty much carried his bible around with him, and someone started to pick on him, it's almost like they knew that he wouldn't fight back, he wouldn't even argue back, so, and I really like verbally being abusive, so I went and sat by him, put my arm around him, I said, are you alright, any problem here?

and the bully said, yeah, can you take your arm from around me, go and sit somewhere else, stop touching me, and I said, nah, you've got it wrong mate, you leave him alone, he's my friend, he can believe what he wants, he's not harming you, is he?

he wasn't trying to preach to everyone, he was just a nice bloke, and then, at the end of the day, notice got around to the rest of the workforce, and they all carried me on their shoulders, and had a celebration for my heroicness, maybe not, the next time there was this girl in, I know the next time there was this bloke in a job I did, understand autism, and I know that generally we don't diagnose people based on their behavior, although psychiatrists do exactly that, don't they?

if you went to a psychologist, they would definitely write down in their notes autistic, maybe question mark, this is in a time when autism wasn't really a well known thing, this is 1995, I'm not sure if I'd even heard about autism, I mean as a public we're much more knowledgeable about stuff, I would say, a general person than we used to be, and that's possibly more because of the internet, and just generally it's, because I suppose if you live in a little town or little village, 30 years ago,

40 years ago and everybody lived in that little village, and no one really kind of, maybe traveled away from the village, then all they're going to know is what each other knows, and what they see on telly or hear on the radio, or read in books and they might know the local area, they might get a newspaper or listen to the local radio show, and know what's going on in the surrounding area, and maybe get a little bit of news about, national news, and some international news, you know on the telly,

which is on back then, half an hour a day, twice a day so you could, it's very limited to what subjects they will cover an occasional documentary for our access to information so, doesn't matter where you live in the world, if I want to delve into what is it, that atlas eye meteorite that's coming here, which supposed apparently is the size of this world and it's heading towards this world, but it's, there's confusion over whether or not it's a meteorite, or whether or not it's a spacecraft because of the way it's moving,

and it's supposed to be here, mid-December I hope it is a spacecraft, that'd be brilliant, maybe not for long, but it'd be brilliant anyway it just reminds me of the Martian or the Martians, with Jack Nicholson, Jack Nicholson's the president, and they all come out to welcome the Martians they decide that the Martians are friendly and the Martians get out of the spaceship and they just think they've managed, they've learnt it's language or something instead of being really hospitable to the aliens,

and then the Martians open fire and start blasting everyone and it's one of the scenes the funniest scenes I've seen in TV, or in movies at the time, I just found it so funny anyway, this lad who would probably be classed as, well back then the different words would be used anyway, he was open to being ridiculed by other people, and he'd come out with stuff that was just, he was so honest too honest and one day we were there, and there was another person working as well,

and he started having a go at him, and I just said wait, it's enough because what I used to do is, I'd start having a go at the other person, and making fun of them and generally I find that those people that make fun of other people to their face, in order to humiliate them don't like being humiliated and also, generally just what I've noticed as well over the years, is people that do try and target another person in a public setting, verbally and to try and make them look silly,

and to get people laughing at them, the kind of language they use is very limited, and it's pretty much it's not usually very funny or at least make it funny if you're going to be a bully, make it funny and I find it's usually very simplistic sort of making fun of how someone looks or just using the same old comedy tropes I'm going to start using that word tropes, no I'm not which we've all heard loads of times and then in a work environment I'd see some people laughing,

and other people laughing because they're laughing, even though they might not even know why they're laughing, and then the one being bullied started laughing and I thought you're not helping, so what I used to do is I would turn on the bully the verbal bully this is, and I would turn on them and I'd start picking on them but when I'd start it was much worse because it was funny it could also be personal, and I don't have limits there was no line that I wouldn't cross when I was younger not now,

I'm proud of myself I like that aspect in that situation so that aspect of me wasn't good in most other situations, like job interviews weddings, funerals, things like that but defending someone that's being picked on yeah, that's when it was a really good attribute to have and people that like putting other ones that dislike being put down the most, they're the ones that can't handle it I used to have a friend that used to be very funny but he also used to be, he liked to put people down verbally but he was funny,

he was a funny bloke but he couldn't take it he could give it, but he couldn't take it and I could shut him down with one sentence and he didn't know where to go, and I'd say something funny but he wouldn't know because he needed basically a crowd of people to laugh while he was saying what he was saying but as soon as he did that with me he'd do it with me when I was on my own as well I would cut right through it and he would know what to do because I didn't play that game even when I was,

because I grew up little and everyone I was around was bigger than me and I wouldn't be intimidated by people regardless of the facts, the physical facts they were bigger and stronger no, not being intimidated by people and I'm the same now, doesn't mean I won't run away from trouble, because I will I'll walk very fast, can't run these days like this year, there was this lad, he was so nice in the cleaning job really lovely but he came out with some stuff that he wasn't doing himself any favours by coming out with stuff like that things that we would perhaps do in the privacy of our home that we don't generally talk about perhaps,

I'm just saying and he would just come out of it, but not as a joke now if I spoke about stuff like that it would always be as a joke unless of course it was Christmas dinner then I'd make it serious but my dad's saying one day he said, do you know what, he says when I was about 23 he said, some of your verbal contributions are not necessarily required I used to be a little bit spiky when I was younger I couldn't help it, it's just how I was and anyway,

and then in 2001, there was this girl and I was a lady, I was working in my first proper sales job this is in Essex, this was the summer of 2001 and I was doing alright in there actually I was second best seller and there was this lady I say girl, I don't know how old she was probably early 20s and again she looked, I would say possibly she had autism she might have even told me, I can't remember but someone started picking on her because of how she was acting she didn't like talking to people she wouldn't look at anyone good at her job,

on the telephone and someone decided, and this was in a crowded room like a little canteen area and one person decided to pick on her, like pull her out put the spotlight on her and I shut him down, well it might have been a woman actually anyway I shut them down and from then on, no one said anything, well not while I was there anyway because it was unnecessary she was a lovely person,

I'm sure I just assumed people are nice and she wasn't causing any harm she might have just been really really shy I showed her photographs of my toes but that didn't seem to help her shyness that's the weirdest thing I think I've ever said I showed her photographs of my toes I didn't, I didn't that is random that's the best thing I've ever said ever I showed her photographs of my toes hoping it would make her feel better I was waiting for the paramedics for the lady who fell on the road and she seemed to have broken her leg so I thought I'd show her pictures, photographs of my toes is the pain reduced now?

I said it could increase isn't it wow, and I don't, I mean I genuinely I'm not talking about this like oh I'm so great look we all know I'm great, come on, but genuinely I don't, it's just not fair to single someone out it's different if like I've been in an environment where we all single each other out when I was younger and make fun of each other and it was just a bunch of friends doing that and it was fine but you have to give permission for it and if

you give you have to take it has to be two way street so I think I've been in that situation since have I just trying to think of any other situations that I've had similar to that, there might be some it's probably going to be one that is so obvious that I completely like how have I forgotten that go outside you know when you look outside and the window is just covered in rain and you look and you don't want to look too close because you realise the longer you look the more raindrops will splash against it which means I'm going to get wet,

I'm not best pleased about that, I'll be honest with you and it's not the end of the world but I don't want to and Vinnie has gone fast asleep again he's pretending to be asleep, he does not want to go out there I'm just trying to think if there's any other times when I have had a similar kind of thing at school, not really I mean at school in high school yeah I didn't really protect anyone I was literally the tiniest kid there was kids 3 years younger than me that were bigger than me,

seriously when I left high school when I was 15, there was first years that were the same size as me, if not bigger I just was tiny I tell you what I did do though is if people if I heard someone moaning about a kid oh they smell or they this or whatever I would purposely go and sit next to that person because I know what it's like to be like the odd one out kind of because if you go to a school and you live in an orphanage like I

did for a while you get treated differently so I I always kind of gravitated towards the not the weird kids but the ones who are a little bit different from the normal and that seemed to set me in quite good stead actually, which meant I had more of a variety of people that I could be friends with and none of them were like bestest bestest friends but if you spend 5 years or 7 years including junior school with a bunch of people you become friends with them don't you,

some of them even if I didn't see them outside of school and I generally got on quite well with people for other kids, generally, apart from the horrible ones, like verbally horrible ones I will tell you once right this is when I realised that I, well I think this is the first time that girls noticed me it was the only one, one and only time but we were, I think it was the big year thing and we were all in one big auditorium watching,

I don't know what we were watching it was some kind of educational thing, it was at school I think, but it was at school wasn't it I don't know if it was all of the year but it was like at least 2 or 3 classes and I started to heckle the teacher and the teacher told me off but a couple of girls started laughing other people laughing but these girls, one of the girls said keep going I wasn't sure what she meant did she want me to keep talking or keep being I wasn't sure but anyway I kept going and that was the end,

well it was a weird one because I had the detention I said I can't believe you just gave me detention just for talking my teacher looked at me and said I think you know it wasn't about that it was about the mess you left you know that caretaker took him an hour to clean up that mess you went everywhere, it was a bit embarrassing that's when I realised that certain subjects are not an aphrodisiac to some people so I'm not sure that even made sense and then so yeah I thought oh this is good because I never got female detention,

not really I mean there was I was friends with a couple of girls but then this girl was trying to pick on me and she saw me outside the school I was walking towards the karate club which was in the other high school and she was really trying to pick on me, like get me to have a fight with her for some reason and she opened my bag and started kicking my pads around and stuff like that and I kept telling her to go away and then the karate club started

and she sat and watched and she liked me after that like she respected me because she saw that I wasn't what she thought I was which I don't know what that was and then I asked her out you think I'd have realised that she clearly wasn't a very nice person she was in my drama class and I asked her out and because we were friends after that we got on really well and I thought oh I think I might love her so she said to me I'll tell you after half

term because this was the Friday and we had a week off and I thought no I always had drama on a Friday afternoon in the last year of school or two years, I think it was the last year or so anyway during half term I'm just waiting waiting waiting and I'm walking down the street with my friend Dean down the promenade on the beach and I see her coming up I say hello to her and she's with some bloke who swears at me like what are you looking at?

so I just shrug and he walks off with her and I didn't really know what was going on I'd been a bit slow because I was still waiting for Monday to come to find out whether or not she was going to be my girlfriend the fact that she was holding hands with him didn't seem to be a clue for me so on a Monday I got to school and she said no sorry you know I've got a new boyfriend I said ok, this was right at the beginning of school I go into my class,

because she's in a different class I go into my class and you sit in there that bloke, that lad who swore at me turns out he's her new boyfriend, took me a while to figure that out and he was like a tough kid, walked around with gloves wooden gloves he walked around with these leather gloves fingers cut out dressed in a way however he wanted to dress he'd been expelled from every school for aggression I saw him and I thought maybe that's who she's dating and he walks up to me and he said I just want to apologise to you I said what?

he said I'm sorry I was rude to you the other day I didn't know who you were, I didn't know you were her friend and he shook my hand I was very surprised because I thought he was going to have a go at me like leave my girlfriend alone so she clearly didn't tell him that I'd asked her out and I didn't tell her I didn't tell him that I'd asked her out and after that we got on fine and yeah he was one of the bad boys that was weird,

I forgot about that story what's strange is as soon as I left school I lost contact with pretty much everybody I knew occasionally I'd see someone that'd come into the chip shop pretty much every single friend every single person I'd occasionally see every day, gone and it was a little town, maybe it's because I knew where I was I just avoided it, I don't know the only friend that actually kept in contact was Neil, that was it he used to come round my flat,

well come round where I was living before I moved into the chip shop flat so he continuously visited me and we kept in contact until I was in my early twenties yeah I kind of lost contact with him probably I was about twenty when I last saw him no one else kept in contact I did go round one of my friends houses all round his flat, probably about six months after leaving school because he was one of my best friends at school but we never used to really hang out outside of school really,

we were just gone really well we were laughing all the time and I was a bit aimless to be honest with you I didn't know what was going on in my life and I told him that and he didn't know what to say to me it was just awkward because we were used to just messing about laughing and joking, I'd known him since junior school so I'd known him for about seven years and it was just weird he had plans,

he knew what he was going to do with his life and he was a lot more adult than me more mature he was more mature probably in high school than I am now and I kind of missed, even though I didn't like school I missed that part of it, having a laugh messing around, being naughty not badly naughty but just cheeky and stuff yeah it was weird I remember standing there looking at him didn't know what to say it was awkward and we'd never had an awkward conversation before and he

was one of the few people I could actually talk to I don't mean to have deep conversations but it was never awkward between us like it would be with some other kids because sometimes I just didn't know what to say with him he just seemed to accept me and with that exception accept me with that not judgemental, that's when I thrive I think when I'm not being judged, or when I don't feel judged I don't have to talk about myself, don't I?

who else am I going to talk about? if it's time to take Vinnie outside and face the rain I don't want to face it I'm sure none of us want to go out in the rain actually I still wouldn't mind, it still annoys me but it would be easier if it was warm but yeah, I'm not really I'm not feeling it today, I don't really want to go out if I get wet, which it looks like I'm gonna I'd just change all my clothes when I get back I'd look exactly the same because I've got about 8 pairs of these tracksuit bombs,

all the same colour it's just some have got more holes than others depending on which ones got attacked the most by Vinnie when I was walking him, I think that's it really any other examples of me being a hero no, that's it let's have a look, how long have I been talking for? nearly an hour, so although I'm a day late I am still going to do the Thursdays what is it that I do Thursdays?

I lose track week behind Thursday Thursday Thursday TV shows so I think it's gonna be Thursday throwbacks later today I will do TV shows from 1985 and tomorrow is Q&A Friday because I'm a little bit late doing this one but we could pretend it's Wednesday, it's Wednesday the 3rd did you know today is a full moon the 4th of December, at least it is where I'm living I think it's postcode dependent so that's it from me, thank you for listening remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy be gentle with yourself you deserve to feel safe lots of love, bye