(music) (5 hours) Q&A Friday LMBYTS #1431 Jason Newland 14th September 2025

Hello and welcome to Q&A Friday. Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. So this is Q&A Friday.

My name is Jason Newland. Vinnie is sitting on the sofa staring at me making some weird noises. I've got his food that's on the floor on a little plate.

There's about a quarter of an apple also on the floor for him to eat and some fresh water. And he's still staring at me as if to say, where's my food? So I don't really know what's going on with him. It's very, very strange, very strange.

Other than that, please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. And also my website is letmeboydesleep.com for this podcast. But I do also have my jasonnewland.com which is still available.

I did delete it, but I made it available again. It's a little bit different format, but it gives you links to all the different places that you could listen to my other stuff as well. I know I haven't been hugely active the last... I don't know, I did a recording on the 6th, which was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 days ago.

And I did one on the 5th, which was the Friday day before. One on the 4th, one on the 3rd, one on the... Alright, and then one on the 30th of August. 29th.

28th. 27th of August. 25th, because I had my birthday off.

Then 24th, 23rd, 22nd. 21st, 20th. 19th.

18th. 17th of August. 14th of August.

12th of August. 11th. 10th.

9th. 8th. 7th.

6th. 5th, 4th, 3rd, so... You know, it's not like I haven't done any recording, it's just been like a week. And the stats have gone down to practically nothing.

It's weird. I did do a recording, although I didn't... You know, I'm still in the process of sorting some of the podcasts out. I did start... if this is a bit echoey, I'm sorry.

I've moved my microphone to a different part of the room. And I might need to get some kind of soundproofing on this wall here. There.

Because the bookcases aren't here anymore. I can get that sorted. I'll sort that out at some point.

Or I could just move back to doing it on the chair, but that's a little bit uncomfortable. It's not uncomfortable, as far as sitting, but... Making a recording, I'm kind of... I don't really have the back support that I need. My neck's a little bit bent, and I'm kind of having to lean forward.

Here, I can just talk, and I'm sitting up straight. It's a little bit easier. And also, because I'm looking at the laptop to get the Facebook questions, it's kind of handy to have it in front of me, rather than to keep looking down.

So, yeah. I'd just like to say thank you to those of you that have sent me lovely messages of support. Thank you.

And... Yeah, and also a big message, a shout-out to Brooke. I do... I've got a message from Cara. I've not replied yet.

I'm sorry. I just... I think I've missed a few messages that I've not replied to. And I do apologise.

I'm not meaning to do that. Just... I've kind of lost track of stuff, if I'm honest. But I did try and do the Q&A Friday on Friday, and... Oh, it might have been Saturday morning.

No, it's Friday. I think. I ended up talking about something completely different from the Q&A Friday, and it turned into, I suppose, quite a serious conversation, so I just ended up ditching it after about 40 minutes.

But this is Q&A Friday, and I will be focusing on just the questions. If I can find it. Here we go.

Right. OK. Here we go.

Here we go. Here we go. Here we go.

So, no big, long blah, blah, blah. I'm just going to get straight down to it. Straight down to the nitty-gritty.

I'll have a drink of water as well. Spent half the night up last night watching the boxing. Canelo Crawford.

It was very good. So, Hope is the first question, and Hope asks, What are your top five favourite movies? Okie doke. Off the top of my head, I'm just going to shout them out.

The Wanderers. Airplane. It's a Wonderful Life.

The Life of Brian. Groundhog Day. I'm not going to say they're my absolute favourites.

It's a Wonderful Life is my absolute favourite movie. Of all of them. But the others, I love.

And have watched multiple times. Although, Airplane, Life of Brian, not so much. Because, I kind of, yeah, it just, because they're comedy, it's good to leave them a bit, you know.

Let them marinate and come back to them maybe a few years later. Leave it a decade or so. But they are five off the top of my head.

I'm just trying to think of any other ones that I really, Going back to when I was little. Movies, I'm trying to think of a movie that blew me away. Probably, End of the Dragon would be another one.

So I'm going to add that on. In fact, I would add that, probably number two. Out of all the ones.

Although, I couldn't really watch it anymore. But, as far as having an impact on my life. I think Let Me, It's a Wonderful Life had an impact on me.

I remember watching it the very first time. I was living above the co-op where I was working. It's 1988.

There's a story behind this, shall I tell you the story? Yeah, go on then. Right, I was working in a chip shop. I've probably mentioned this a few thousand times over the years.

And what happened is, My boss, I said something that annoyed my boss. And this would have been beginning of March time. Maybe February, March 1988.

So I've been working there for nearly two years. At this point, I've been living upstairs in the flat for a year. So one day, He was just talking about going to see Stevie Wonder in concert.

I was getting annoyed because he was talking about nice things he was doing. And I had no money to do anything. I don't know, I was probably jealous possibly.

And I was a bigger fan of Stevie Wonder than he was. Because I listened to Stevie Wonder nearly all the time back then. And I said something that upset him.

And he pushed me against the wall. And he was like twice my size at this time. He wouldn't be now, but back then he was twice.

He pushed me against the wall and I just told him to get off. He did apologise. He did apologise.

Because I walked out. I just walked out and went upstairs. And he apologised.

I couldn't let it go though. So I kind of said, no, don't worry. And then I went back to work and I couldn't be there anymore.

So I quit, I left. I was given a month to get out of the flat. But I didn't know where to go because I didn't have a job or anything.

So what happened is I ended up moving in with my dad. Who had a new house. So I was 17 at this point.

I stayed in his spare bedroom. It was only temporary, it was a temporary situation. And I... Yeah, he didn't ask me to leave.

But I worked in... I got two jobs actually. The first job I got when I was living at my dad's. For the first time.

Was in a care home. Like a residential home. And I was helping in the kitchen because I had... Whatever you want to call it, experience, you know.

Catering experience. I'd been to college. Spent years at school working in kitchen.

Doing... I can't remember what it was called. What was it called? Domestic... Domestic education or whatever it was called. But it involved cooking and stuff.

So I got a job working in the kitchen. Now I thought I'd be able to handle that. And I'll tell you right now.

It's going to be very hard for me to move my way back to talking about movies. Because I'm going to get stuck on this I think. But hey, just letting you know.

So I... I'm in this... I go to this job. I wasn't enthusiastic about it. But back then I just took whatever I could get.

It was just a job. I think that was the understanding. I could stay with my dad, but I had to work.

And it was very easy to get a job back then. At my age, you know, basically. I didn't have to take those menial jobs.

There's nothing wrong with working in a care home, blimey. It's a really good job to have. You know what I mean.

Although I wasn't directly caring for elderly people. I was cooking for them. And that's a very important part of being alive, isn't it? Having food, apparently.

So... I'll tell you right now, it didn't work out very well. But we'll come to that. I could have done anything, really.

I lived in a place where there was a docks. One of the biggest docks in Europe. I could have got a job as a runner.

Just taking parcels from one place to another. You know, I could have got a job in... I don't know, there wasn't a lot going. But there was probably thousands of jobs that I could have applied for.

On the docks. And... I didn't even think about it. All I wanted to do was just get the first available job.

Which is what I did there. I just went to the job centre, I said, oh, I'll go for that one. They phoned up.

That's in a daze, right? I don't know what it's like where you live. And I don't know what it's like now, either. I was very salivary.

I don't know what it's like now. Anyway. I'm getting auditory feedback.

From my own mouth, even though I've not got headphones on. Back in those days, we had this little job centre on a corner. And it was little.

There was no room. There was literally... Two docks. Two seats, with people at the other side.

And then some jobs in the window. Some jobs in the other window, the other side. And then some jobs on the other side.

It was the size of a corner shop. Like a corner sweet shop. It wasn't big, at all.

And... I've no idea where people used to go to sign on. I was never unemployed, so... Well, I was, but I never claimed benefits. I think it must have been somewhere else they went.

Because there was no room in there. But they had these bits of cardboard. So there was this big plastic sheeting.

With, I suppose, pockets. Which you could put... Not like pockets in trousers. But you can put these, I suppose, postcard size or index cards in.

And it advertised the latest jobs. So I'd look in the window. And it had them either side, so you could look outside and you could look inside.

Different jobs. And then I could just like... I think you'd maybe write down the reference number. Or, maybe even take the card out and take it to the desk.

I can't one million percent remember. I don't think he's having a nice drink. I wonder if he'll eat some dinner now.

So it's 11.32. He hasn't had his breakfast yet. But he has also had a bit of a weird night. Because he's been up with me.

And then asleep, then up, then asleep. So I went in. Because I needed to get a job.

And they sent me for an interview at this care home. A residential home. I don't even know where it was.

I mean, I did at the time, because I worked there. But I couldn't tell you now. See, I know, I can still remember the outlay of that town.

But I don't remember where that nursing place was. Hmm. Oh, I think, oh, wait, oh.

No, I don't know. So, I turned up. Straight away, the woman in the kitchen, she was my boss.

She didn't seem to take a liking to me. But in all fairness, I don't think I was particularly likeable. Not in a bad way.

I just, I had a bit of an attitude on me. I think. A little bit.

I didn't want to be there. I was willing to work. I was a hard worker.

But I just, I wasn't interested in the job. It wasn't like it was my life's ambition to peel potatoes. Which I've been doing for the last two years, to be fair.

I was quite good at it. And I remember at one point she was actually trying to say, I've got a little bit of experience doing this, baby. She said, don't call me baby.

I said, sorry. So she didn't like me. And everything, I didn't seem to do anything right.

All it was was just prep. Mainly just preparing the food. She did the cooking.

I prepared the food. And then I got given the responsibility of making the porridge. Now I've talked about the porridge incident.

I don't need to talk about it again, possibly, but no matter what I did, the porridge was not up to standard. It got, it kept, every day for, I was there for two weeks. I had a two week trial.

I think, or maybe it was a week's trial. It seemed like about a year. And every day people would complain.

The porridge was too thick. Or it was too thin. Too runny.

It was too sweet. Too salty. And it was never, basically we had probably, I don't know, 50 people living there.

Maybe more, maybe less. They all liked their porridge different. You can't, you can't, it's just an impossible situation.

In that kind of situation, they have to add their own sugar, their own salt, don't they? To make it how they want it to taste. Because I can't make one that's going to make everyone happy. So that got a bit frustrating.

I wasn't as amenable to criticism as perhaps I am now. I'm not saying I'm amenable now, but I was a little bit more reactive. So I was having arguments with people about it.

And just telling them what I thought. I said it's ridiculous. You can't, can't please everyone.

I think I went into the, where they all sat and ate and I started shouting. I was like, you can't, everyone come in and cook your own porridge. And I got told off for that.

The thing is when I went there, I always had a lot of respect for elderly people because of how close I was to my nan. I just, I guess I just automatically had this unquestionable respect, I guess, to elderly people. Because my nan's always been old.

Well, she's not around anymore, but I'm not saying she was born old, but ever since I've known her, ever since the age of seven, seven, seventeen, twenty-seven, thirty-seven, forty-seven, eight, nine, yeah, she, well no, she's probably, you know, she's probably about my age. But anyway, it just didn't feel right that I was being, I mean, some people come in shouting at me. Like, why are you shouting at me?

You're old, you're supposed to be nice.

I didn't realise that being old doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. It just doesn't mean someone's old, they're going to be like my nan. Just because they're the same age as my nan.

At this point, I was, what, seventeen, my nan probably getting on to seventy when she, she passed away when she was ninety-five, I think, ninety-six, and that was ten years ago, when I was forty, forty-four. So I can't work it out, how old she would have been when I was seventeen. You might be able to, I can't.

Forty-four, thirty-four, twenty-four. So nine, seventy, eighty, seventy-six, eight, nine, ten, seven, sixty-nine. Does that make sense? About sixty-nine, maybe sixty-nine-seventy, roughly.

And to a seventeen-year-old, that's old. It was to me. I mean, I realise now that sixty-nine is very, very young.

I keep saying it to myself, maybe it would come true. And I wasn't sure what to do with that job because it wasn't going well. And then there was an added element.

Now, when my step-mum, kind of when the family broke up, let's say, and I went and lived with my step-mum, my little brother, and my step-mum's mum. I was sleeping on a little camper bed in the living room for about, blimey, it was nearly a year, maybe ten months. Yeah, nearly a year actually.

So during that period, she dated a couple of people and she dated one particular person who had a motorbike. And I wasn't a big fan of him. I probably wasn't going to be a big fan of anyone that she was dating, to be honest.

But it was not really any of my business. Well, after she left and moved away and ended up, you know, starting a new life in a flat which was 19, it was, yeah, just before I moved into the chip shop, a flat above the chip shop. That's when she moved, so that's when I didn't have anywhere to live.

So, you know, this all happened. That man on the motorbike was coming into the residential home every single morning to see the woman that was my boss because she was his, not his actual mother, but like a mother to him, which is kind of ironic really. Now I've missed a little bit out.

This is going back another year. So the previous year after my step mum, who I classed as my mum, had moved away and I didn't really see her again after that. I had no regular contact since.

And I was in a nightclub and I guess I was probably 17, late 16, I don't know, it's hard to keep track, but I was living above the chip shop during that year that I was living up there. I was in a nightclub with one of my friends and this bloke, the motorbike bloke who used to date my step mum for a little while, came up to me and he whispered something in my ear.

I can't tell you what it was he whispered.

I can tell you part of the sentence. The first bit was I, that was the first word, and then there was another word, and then the last two words was your mum. He giggled and walked away.

Now it wasn't the nicest thing anyone could have done, to be honest. And he was a lot older than me, a lot bigger. It was difficult what to do in that situation because I was still a kid, I was still a teenager.

And he was probably 26, 27, 25, I don't know. Three times bigger than me. And then he's in there, coming in so a year later he's in this place every day walking in.

Talking about how wonderful his mum is, even though she's not his actual mum, which is a similar situation to me really, because my mum wasn't my mum either really, not biologically. And I could see the irony in that, to see how close he was to her and how important she was to him. And maybe he just didn't, he'd forgotten he'd said it.

But I hadn't. And he wasn't, I think it was, it didn't come in the first day but I think the second day he came in and that was me done, that was like nah. I stuck it but I thought I don't want to be here now if that... And I think I did say, what's that idiot doing there? And she said, that's my son those.

And I let him know that I didn't want him, I didn't want to know him. But it was really weird, it kept coming in, like really? And yeah, I had some weird thoughts back then so that wasn't good. But everything worked out and I got sacked.

Everything worked out well, I got sacked. Basically my trial ended and he said you know you haven't passed the trial. I said yeah, good.

The only reason I stayed for the whole trial was because of my dad because I promised I would. I wouldn't have lasted probably two hours there I wouldn't have put up with that stuff. Because I was living with my dad and when I told him I had a two week trial just promise me you'll stick it out for the trial.

Okay, okay. So I left there. My dad wasn't massively happy but I managed to get another job within about a week working at the co-op.

I don't know why I'm talking about, oh yes I do, it's about movies isn't it. So I started working at the co-op which is, if you don't know what it is it's a supermarket. It's big in the UK, or in England anyway I don't know about other parts of the country or other parts of the land mass of which I live.

And I worked in this co-op it was I'd say it probably wasn't much maybe a little bit bigger than the average small shop. You know, probably a little bit bigger and there was space around the back for deliveries in fact if they'd have removed all that they could have had a much bigger shop but they would have had to deliver from the front. So they had a storage for pallets and stuff so it was a professional set up.

And I started working there I think it was probably within a week of stopping at a place, I think it was like April time 1988 and I didn't love it that would be kind of the stamp line or the headline or the standard response to pretty much every job I've ever had is I didn't really love it I can't say I particularly liked any job I did maybe a couple I didn't mind too much but I've had 50,

60 jobs yeah I've never quite liked working in insurance I liked being good at something but I didn't like doing the thing I was good at so selling car insurance on the phone I didn't like doing it but I enjoyed being the second best out of 250 people that was nice but the actual job itself it was nice to see myself on the leader board sometimes the top sales person of the week or the month, sometimes the second it was always like second or first usually second to be honest I could have just bragged and said first you'd never know but unfortunately someone else was first most of the time because he was much better than me it's as simple as that Cody?

I think it was Cody he was just better than me that's simple but it was still nice to be one of the best but I didn't enjoy doing that kind of work the only nice thing about it was perhaps being around people there was a bit of a social life I think because of how well I was doing I don't know so it was partly ok but anyway I get this job in the co-op really Vinnie?

they give me this horrible brown jacket when I first go in there so I've got trousers and a shirt and a tie it was brown, smelly it had a weird smell it wasn't smelly as in covered in dog poo or anything like that it was just smelly it just had a weird smell and I didn't like that because I didn't want customers coming in thinking that that was me because I was fairly hygienic back then I'm not saying I'm not now because I hope to be able to have a girlfriend

one day so I knew I needed to smell nice and look presentable unlike now so I'm in there and it's too tight bearing in mind I weigh maybe 9 stone or something so I'm skinny, really skinny and I'm wearing a jacket that's too small for me so I'm constricted now it's very hard for someone a male being 9 stone to wear something that's constrictive because I was tiny really, really,

really little I mean I wouldn't be able to even get my arms through it now it would be ridiculous but I struggled even then eventually sorry about the noise if you can hear the screaming people in the garden I managed to get a bigger one in the end but then it was too big I couldn't win the problem I've got I realised that as I put weight on I had the bone structure to have the weight I didn't realise it back then I don't have long arms so it's quite hard

for me to buy stuff now as well if I buy some trousers it's hard for me to buy trousers that are the right length if it's my upper body XL or XXL or whatever usually the sleeves are too long because of my arms my arms don't match my body length wise I'm more girth than length as it were and so I'm working in this shop I remember getting in there and one of the things one of my main jobs to start with was to load the bread section so to put

the the bread and I suppose the cakes and all that stuff into the bread section which was low down which wasn't really an issue back then because I was able to bend down comfortably and then other things I think when the deliveries came I had to check everything off on the list from the pallet then there was busy periods I think about half ten so there'd be a separate till and there's two separate tills and then there's the big till at the front on the main counter where all the cigarettes

would be high end and the alcohol and all that stuff and there was a shutter for that section because it could only be they could only serve that stuff from half eleven in the morning till I think two o'clock in the afternoon because that was the licensing hours I don't know if it was just the alcohol and I don't think I was allowed to sell cigarettes I wasn't allowed to sell alcohol anyway because I was only seventeen so I had to get every time I wanted to get I needed to

ask permission for a member of staff to sell this alcohol so I wasn't asking the customer's age I wasn't asking my own age either because I knew what it was but it was weird I was kind of getting permission for myself rather than for them and sometimes I'd have people come in that were younger than me and I wanted to be served so it was hard so if I saw someone that was able to get served I'd always serve them then they could perhaps get me something in the future if I was out and I needed to get something from the shop they'd go in and buy it for me so that was quite good can you hear that?

I don't know how loud that is on the microphone I suppose I could close the window I'm just a bit careful about closing the window when they're out there because if they see me close the window they might just up the volume anyway, so I'm in this shop and one of my memories of this there's two memories I've got really of working there one was every break time not dinner,

lunch but every morning break I would get a packet of biscuits usually fig rolls but they were nice fig rolls I've never had a fig roll I didn't like but there were specific ones I liked they were more flat than sausage roll type and a can of coke and I'd buy that usually I'd buy it before my break so I could just go in and eat it so I'd buy it first thing in the morning and then I'd go and eat it or I'd pay for it later whichever way worked out and I'd go and have my break listen to the radio in the sink with a little table,

about three chairs I think Vini can you make a bit more noise please OK, it doesn't want to and I don't know what else was in there probably a coat rack I think it was locked as well so you had to use the coat to get in and out and there'd be a radio playing and I just remember this particular time because you can actually check the timings the years by these two songs Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac and Fast Car by Tracy Chapman for some reason those two songs kept playing

not for the duration of me working there but regularly for a few weeks those two songs just seemed to be playing usually both of them in that 15 minute section for some reason, so kind of weird and it might be a lie as well it might be a lie, it may be true and another memory is I would go home well I'd go back to my Dad's during lunch because he lived just up the road and I was borrowing the bicycle and it was a girls bike did you just say girls bike?

yeah, and there still are girls bikes you can buy they still do exist believe it or not I've had this conversation before I don't understand right why are girls bikes so much more comfortable than men's bikes they haven't got that spa thing that you have to get your foot all the way over I don't it's like why just a nice, so you can get your you should be able to put your foot over to the other pedal easily why does it have to be a struggle so I liked that bike

and it had a basket in the front and the saddle was comfy one of the things that my previous bike did not have a comfortable saddle before I had a saddle it used to basically was quite intrusive at times very spiky, very thin and I had to put my foot over it and it didn't have a basket at the front I suppose the only other difference with this is it was pink so I was going backwards and forwards and it took about 6 minutes to get there and get back well

to get there and either side of the journey so I would leave about 7 minutes to the hour which wasn't really ideal but anyway I'd go back so I'd have 40 minutes out of the hour and I'd watch Neighbours on TV I'd get myself a sandwich maybe a cup of tea I don't remember and then I'd go back so it got me out of the place which was nice Right I've just closed the window because it was excessively loud I hope that that will keep some of the noise out Oh

where was I OK so I'm working in this shop I'm trying to get back to the movie question Wow this is a long way around the streets isn't it to get back to that so what happened is I got on pretty well with the manager or the manageress rather or the manager I suppose so I got on well with her and she offered me to rent a room upstairs because being a manager she had the flat upstairs so she offered me to rent me a room up there I think part

of the reason was so that I'd be on time for work because I'd be late a little bit only a few minutes and I thought yeah it's quite good because then I can just go upstairs during my break and being with my dad was only ever temporary so it suited me so I moved upstairs it was quite good actually and I was listening to CB radio all night all I heard was ch ch ch over over do you copy do you copy all that stuff whatever the CB radio thing it

was very loud and I don't know how she managed to get up in the morning because she didn't seem to sleep she was talking to men and it was nice she had a lovely living room kitchen she'd cook on a Sunday and sometimes I'd have a meal and yeah it was quite nice I was kind of left alone to do what I wanted and I had my own TV in my room I didn't really get involved in her life but we got on well you know we'd go out to sea

sometimes and she wanted to get something to eat so I'd go with her and get myself something yeah so it was ok and I made friends with some of her friends and yeah so it was ok anyway I've said that a lot haven't I so I'm at work and I did stay friends with her for quite a long time even after what happens next happened so it was weird because I'm at work there's only me her one other person that was the manager who was like the assistant manager but she

didn't work full time I don't think and there was a couple of part time staff and me so I was the only full time staff member and then the other lady who was the assistant manager I think she did like like 30 hours a week or something because she was a grandparent she was lovely she was I think her name was Brenda and she gave me a Michael Jackson album so technically you could say this was quite a successful job because I got on well with the assistant manager I became

pretty good friends with the part time worker we had a little bit of a conflict at the beginning but that was just me that's how I made friends and then we became friends and he was like a year younger than me or something and the manager I was living with her set up really and my job was very secure if I wanted to stay there now the area manager was called Mr Cook don't know why I remember this but he was like a troll I don't know how to explain it

something that lived under a bridge he was like that he didn't like me perhaps I shouldn't have told him what he sounded like and did an impression of him in front of him perhaps that's why he didn't like me but that's why I did the impression because he wasn't very friendly and I think he all but said pretty much the only reason I was still there is because the manager wanted me to stay and I think she only wanted me to stay because he wasn't pleased with my progression so even

though the manager wanted me to stay she was clearly not giving me a very good appraisal was she so plus I had a bit of an attitude on me as well back then hard to believe but I was a little bit rude by rude I don't mean rude rude but I didn't play the game ever at any point I wasn't extra polite to people just because they were in a higher position because at that time everybody was at a higher position than me in pretty much every job I've ever had

I've never been in a high position so I just treat people the same way as I treat anyone else and I like to think fairly respectfully but as soon as they don't with me back then anyway it would be gloves are off so when I was 15, 16 17, 18 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 38,

39 40 pretty much until I was no longer working once I stopped working I was a much better employee much more patient and wow but if people were nice to me but as soon as someone kind of turned and they were rude I'd like okay and I think one of the hardest things of it all was as I got older my bosses became younger so I'm in my 30s mid 30s and my boss was like 21 which wasn't an issue because I really liked him he was one of the nicest

people I've ever known and my previous boss who was like 22 when I was 31 became a nice bloke but he was just he didn't seem to know what he was doing his answer to any question was what do you think the answer is okay that's not a way to answer a question what do you think the answer is wow there's a moth inside here this morning I don't know how I got in probably through the window because the window was open that was a weird question wasn't it seems to

be interested in my shirt but my shirts are clean moths don't it's only been on the hanger for a few years I don't think the moth would have got to it so yeah I I lived in this place so I go to work one day I'm just in there just a normal day erm yeah I remember the so I'm standing there two people come in a man and a woman and stand at the counter the assistant manager so the manager is standing behind the counter who I lived with walks up

to the door closes it and locks it and puts closed sign up and tells me to go into the staff room and I'm walking in and I say but I've got my fig rolls and my can of coke and she said this isn't a break I said okay but just go into the other room so I went into the storage room to see what was going on I asked her and she wouldn't tell me and then erm I was in there for about an hour maybe less but about an hour

and then the what's her name the assistant manager came in in fact I think the assistant manager came in and she said what happened tell me what happened so the manager the people at the front desk were undercover police and the co-op thought that someone was stealing money so they set up the manager they basically gave us some marked money and when we came back in they searched her and she had that money in her pocket and it was like 20 quid or something and as I said earlier I still

stayed friends with her I was living with her and I still stayed friends with her for years afterwards so you know she made a mistake and you know she lost her job on the spot which was not good for me it wasn't good for her either to be honest she did get another job but it was I was kind of with her during the process during the whole because I think it went to court quite quickly I think she ended up getting suspended sentence or something like that they couldn't prove

previous money going missing or anything like that so the manager the assistant I said to the assistant manager are you now going to be the new manager and she said no I don't do enough hours I couldn't do that and I said oh and straight away she came back to me and said it's not going to be you either I said no it didn't she said yes you did I could see the look on your face you started looking around all the cakes you could buy with the extra money I

said wow she could read my mind because back then that's what I would do with money a pay rise more cakes and biscuits that's my mentality back then it hasn't changed that much we got a new lady it happened to be a fit we got we got someone nice came in for a week or two and then we had this woman comes along and she didn't like me for some reason and we didn't get on and yeah we really didn't get on and I didn't like her so much I left

but in the meantime I was still living upstairs so I think what's her name the manager who went upstairs they had to give her three months notice to move out eviction notice so that was the very first time I'd ever been evicted because I was homeless as well when she got kicked out so that was during the summer I started working so I moved in there probably June maybe and I moved out possibly October maybe November because at that point I'd already got a new job in the September so I

had to wait till I was 18 years old before I applied for this factory job and I was working there and I'd been there for at least a month maybe two before I moved out so this whole kind of police thing must have happened July August September in the meantime I think this was before while she was still working there I was sitting in my room I had the TV on I had a little black and white portable TV just watching TV and there was three channels back then no four channels sorry BBC1,

BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 and it was either a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday afternoon I couldn't tell you which one but it was one of them and I'm just sitting up in my bed watching a TV and this movie is on and I'd never seen it before I didn't realise it was in black and white because the TV was in black and white and before anyone says how old are you?

you're 17 years old and you're watching a black and white TV no we did have coloured TVs back then I just couldn't afford one so I had a black and white TV or maybe I could afford one, I don't know probably could have done, I don't know how much they were back then I know I was earning £60 a week from working in the co-op or £62, something like that yeah it is weird because when I was 15 I was earning £60 a week working in a chip shop when I

was 15 for the first few months up to September so from like April to September I was getting £60 a week then I went on to the YTS scheme which is the Youth Training Scheme and my money went down to £27.30 a week for the first year, second year it was £35 a week so when I started working in the co-op and I was getting £60 a week it was like a huge amount of money again still not a very good amount of money but you know,

it was ok I was probably paying £25 a week for rent something like that I don't know, something like that probably I think the average room was about £35.30 a week and then, but I didn't have to pay any rent once my, what's the name my landlady well she wasn't really my landlady anymore because she was being evicted but she didn't work for the company anymore once she lost her job she didn't have to pay any rent because she was, I think she got the flat with the job paying rent,

I don't know either that or I just stopped paying rent that might have been the situation it's like, well you don't work downstairs anymore I'm not paying rent and then I left and I didn't have any money coming anyway other than a couple of part time jobs cleaning yeah, I had a couple of part time jobs cleaning one in the morning one in the evening so that gave me enough to like eat,

you know and then I got a job in this other company so I the timescale is not quite working out but anyway I did get a job in this maybe I'd only been there a month before we had to get out of the room on the seafront now the weird thing about it this lady that took over the managers job I left the job because of her because she was,

I just didn't get on with her the irony is this the room I moved into after I was evicted from the flat above the co-op I didn't really like living there and I moved I moved into it was a house owned by the lady that was the manager of the co-op the new manager so I literally lived rented rooms of two managers of the same co-op at different times except the second one owned her house and she had it as a I don't know,

like a lodgings thing when I was 18 and I lived there that was at the end of the end of 1988 so probably, I was definitely in that house in December till probably February 89 the weird thing about it is I got on really well with her then outside of work I got on okay with her inside work we didn't get on so well so I just turned up it was weird I phoned up about a place said can I come and have a look at the room person on the phone said yeah,

turn up and she answered the door and I'm thinking oh god don't tell me you live here as well I thought she might rent a room and I suppose maybe because I was making her money I was paying her mortgage I suppose me and the other five people that lived there so she viewed me in a different way I was no longer a thorn in her side that maybe she thought I was before hmm yeah that didn't work too well either so yeah that was one of the reasons I never

lived but I just remember that movie watching It's A Wonderful Life on that black and white TV and it was one of the first movies that really had an effect on me really had a I don't want to say spiritual but it had hmm emotional maybe yeah so thank you for that Hope it's only taken me three hours to answer that one so the next question I got is Isabel ooh it says that there ooh maybe this has been asked before but what dog what kind of dog is Vinnie also

where are some of your listeners from ooh ok that's going to involve me looking at the stats yeah ooh so Vinnie is a little red Jack Russell which was I suppose kind of like a is it a parson's dog or something and yeah so he's only a little thing he's very noisy at times screeches so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so I've got countries here 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 22 25 so there's 25

different countries this is on my Spreaker I'm also on SoundCloud as well so there could be more so according to this there's 25 different countries the United States is number 1 always number 1 always has been since I've been doing this so the most listeners I've ever got on any podcast over you know 19 years nearly 20 years is the United States second is United Kingdom which is where I live I would say to start with United States was there still is a lot more I'm getting more than double the

amount in America than I am in my own country but it used to be a higher percentage so the amount of people listening to me now in my own country is a lot more than it used to be number 3 is Australia which is pretty much been over the years Canada is number 4 Ireland is number 5 Sweden is number 6 Denmark is number 7 New Zealand is number 8 now there was a time when New Zealand would be up there with Canada and Australia and Ireland I don't think there's

people in New Zealand listening it's just I've got more people in Sweden and Denmark Spain then I've got France Norway Germany United Arab Emirates The Netherlands Chechya Iceland America Turkey Mexico India Belgium Malta Israel and Singapore they're the ones listed I guess and I don't understand English I guess it makes sense that would be the case wouldn't it but there might be people in these other countries that are maybe originally from England or there may be people listening in I know there are people listening in the second language not their birth language their birth tongue as it were so I'm grateful that listens, everyone.

It's amazing that anyone listens really. Shouldn't really say that should I but I'm still amazed.

Why does anyone listen ever? I don't know. Let's see if it's changed over the last month. Current last month.

Let's see what the geolocation is more recently rather than just over the entire year. This is interesting. The United States is the top.

It's still double what United Kingdom is. Then you've got Australia, Canada, Sweden. So one, two, three, four, five.

Sweden's fifth. Now Ireland was fifth for the whole year but Sweden's fifth more recently. Then Ireland, France, Denmark, Chechya, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Somalia.

So that wasn't on the overall year one was it? Spain, South Africa, Turkey, Iraq, Mexico, Finland, Malaysia, Greece, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Jordan, Algeria. So if I go by month, it breaks it down more to shows more countries. Because I think what it is if I go for the like the whole year, it only shows it's limited to how many it kind of shows and says others.

That makes sense. So say last 12 months. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot others which it doesn't even mention.

So it's 4.5%. So over the last year for 4.5%, or just under 5% of my total listeners come from other countries than the ones I already mentioned. So yeah, that's um, there's a lot of countries, probably pretty much every country in the world, I guess. There might only be a few but still quite nice.

As far as whereabouts when you got United States, there are 12345678910. Wow, these regions are California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, New Jersey, Washington, Utah, Ohio, South Carolina, Carolina, Massachusetts, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, Oregon, Missouri, Connecticut, Minnesota, Colorado, Mississippi, Maine, Montana, Winconsin, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, Kansas, Alaska, Nevada, New Mexico, Delaware, Oklahoma, Louisiana, District of Columbia, New Hampshire, Idaho, Hawaii, Arkansas, North Dakota, West Virginia, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Vermont, South Dakota, Wyoming, and others, some others as well.

So how many is that? 12345678910.

So in 2022 2426 2830 32 34 36 840. There's like 50. I mean, these are regions, not states are they? States, all regions.

So it's like 12345678910 and 12, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 57. So 57 districts or regions. So I don't know how many states there is.

And so for always every state, but California is not a state then is it? I don't know. I'm confused. And then we click on California and you got Los Angeles, Napa, Mountain View, San Jose, sorry, San Jose, Woodland, Elk Grove, Fresno, Palm Desert, Richmond.

There's a lot. It's a lot, a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot. Texas, how many in Texas? Dallas, North Richland Hills, San Antonio, Houston, Austin, Waxahachie, Frisco, Ligu City, Grapevine, Abilene.

I mean, it's a lot, a lot of different places. If we go to United Kingdom, you got England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. If I go to England, so England is the most.

However, however, no, there is no however. So however, England is 85, nearly 86% out of the United Kingdom. Scotland is 7.36%. Wales is 3.28%. Northern Ireland 0.46% and other is 2.94%. So that could be the Falkland Islands or Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, Jersey, maybe, I don't know, places like that.

Can't think of any other places. So England, there is Sidcup. So if you're from any of these places, contact me, let me know.

Sidcup, Bristol. So this is, this is over the last year. This is the top places in England.

Like, you know, that's the most viewed. Sidcup's number one. I don't know where Sidcup is.

Bristol, number two. I've never been to Bristol. Newcastle upon Tyne, used to live there.

Birmingham. So hello to everyone in Sidcup and Bristol and Newcastle on Tyne and Birmingham and all the other places I mentioned. Trowbridge, Hartlepool, Cambridge, Gosport, Great Yarmouth, Leeds, Huddersfield, Manchester, Ashford, Dagenham, London, Huntingdon, Hounslow, Sunderland, Bexleyheath, Leicester, Hackney, Aylesbury, Forham, Portsmouth, Dewsbury, Sutton, Wandsworth, Worksop, Islington, Milton Keynes, Sheffield, Milton Keynes.

Why did I say it like that? Milton Keynes. It's very posh of me. Sheffield.

Is Milton Keynes a very posh place to live? Sheffield, Hull, Croydon, Eastleigh, Oxford, Leigh, Maidstone, Cramlington, Liverpool, Swindon, Wembley, Luton, Nottingham, Kensington, Solihull, Newham, Watford, Chorley, Eastbourne, Wallingford and then 33.2% is in other places, which is quite a big amount. So basically, there's not enough room for them to cover everything. But Sidcup is number one for the year and so is Bristol.

So if there's anyone out there that's just mad in love with me, just contact me. Especially if you're human. Let's have a look.

What other thing? Let's say for the year, for the month. So let's say the last month for England. Let's have a look.

So I'm going to see which one's the top. Last month, the top one was Portsmouth, Wembley, Wallingford, Manchester, Croydon, Birmingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sheffield, Camden. These are places, some of them I've not mentioned before.

These must have been those other 33%. And you've got Gosford, Fulham, Bristol, Wandsworth, Widness, Hartlepool, Leeds, London, Lewisham, Leighton Buzzard, Sutton, Bromley, Harrow. I wish I could say Bromley and actually roll my tongue, but I'm not.

I'm just making my lips vibrate. Which is a skill, isn't it? I suppose in some ways. Harrow, Nottingham, Sleaford, Gloucester, Richmond, Sausages, Rochester, Amisham, Brent, Redditch, Lowestoft, St Helens.

Wow, there's loads, isn't there? This is more than the other one. Wow. Petersfield, Whitney, Eastleigh, Ashford, Southshields, Southampton, Walsall, City of West Minster, Windsor, Swindon, Windsor.

Does that mean members of the Royal Family are listening to me? Hello, Your Highness. Thank you for listening. Wakefield, Corsham, Waltham Forest, Hitchin, Leicester, Oxford, Tamworth, Thetford.

I used to know someone that was from Tamworth, someone I worked with. He was a really nice bloke. He was a comedian as well.

Really friendly, nice, nice man. That's a long time ago. OK, let's go at this month so far, because that was current month.

That's this month, not last month. That's the current month. So Portsmouth, whoever you are in Portsmouth, hello.

You're the one listening to the most to me at the moment. And then Wembley, Wallingford, Manchester, Croydon, Birmingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sheffield and Camden and Gosford. Fulham.

So you're the ones listening to me the most. Before I go last month, let's have a look. England.

Oh, Newcastle-upon-Tyne was the top one. Portsmouth number two, Gosport, Birmingham, Hartlepool, Wallingford, Leeds, Nottingham, Wandsworth, Dagenham, Whitchurch, Solihull. So many places I've not been to.

Isn't it really weird? I think it would be nice to travel the world on a boat, though. You know, on a, not a ferry, like a cruise. I'd like to go on cruises.

But I don't want to go cruising. Oh, let's go cruising. No, I mean, just on a cruise, just travelling around and have something to talk about.

That's kind of, that's my new dream. That's my new dream. Wimbledon, Sutton, Newham, Wembley, Abingdon, Ashford, London, Sleaford, Widness, Harrow, Stockport, Oxford, Hull.

There's a lot of places up north that I've not been to. I liked it in Nottingham. I know technically it's middle, it's the middle, it's not north, it's the middle, isn't it? Like Middle East, Middle East, not Middle East.

That's a different place. It's Midlands, I suppose, isn't it really? It's kind of just like Newcastle, it's up north, but it's not. There's those places that are nowhere near the sea.

But really, there's parts where you can't get near the sea because you basically have to go into Scotland to get to the sea. I'm talking like I, oh look, Bognor Regis. I used to live in Bognor Regis.

If you're listening from Bognor Regis, hello. Do you remember me? No one, no one's going to remember me from any time, I don't think. Bognor Regis, yeah, I used to work at Butlins.

Momentarily, Stratford-upon-Avon, not my Stratford, but Stratford-upon-Avon, Devontree, Prescott, Ellesmere Port, Lowestoft, Hell's One. I've got a family in Lowestoft. Spennymoor, Hackney, Great Mizzenden, Southampton, Haywardsheath, Sheffield, Pontefract, Bushy, Accrington, Hereford, Hammersmith, and Lee, and Lee.

I'm just trying to think, if I look at the other one, the other studio, the SoundCloud. Let's have a look, see, I think SoundCloud is less UK. Oh wow, that's weird.

Got loads of listeners on there today for some reason. Yeah, it's predominantly, there's some English places, but it says on here, so this is one of my SoundCloud Let Me Boil Your Sleep podcast. Council Bluffs, that's a city, wherever that is, it's in America.

So the countries are America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Canada, Australia, France, Norway, Philippines, Malaysia, Hungary, Russian Federation, Singapore, Latvia, Vietnam, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Thailand, Croatia, Qatar, Croatia, Poland, Italy, Pakistan, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Portugal, India, India, Togo, Barbados, Bahrain, Turkey. It's actually Turkey, but we still call it Turkey. They rebranded.

Did you know that? Turkey rebranded and decided to change their name instead of T-U-R-K-E-Y, like the bird, it's now T-U-K-I-Y-E, and it's supposed to be pronounced T-U-R-K-E-Y-E. Maybe it was always pronounced T-U-R-K-E-Y-E by people in Turkey. But then Germany is pronounced Deutschland, and Spain is pronounced Espania, and France is Francais.

Like, you know, most countries are pronounced wrongly by foreigners. Like me, being a foreigner to another country. So it's just, it's standard.

It's not disrespectful. It's just, it's just how we're taught at school, isn't it? I mean, I have very, very vague memories of school. I'm guessing I once went.

But they've got the cities or the towns. It's a Council Bluffs. That's a weird name, isn't it? Council Bluffs.

Because Bluffs is like when you kind of lie, isn't it? Or you misdirect. So Council, a lying council. And they've got Boardman.

Is that another city or town? Ashburn. So that's in the United States. So that's the top three.

Then you've got Manchester, Dublin in Coors Island, Sandy and Phoenix in America, Falkstein. I don't know where Falkstein is. Falkstein.

All right, don't shout. I'll find it. Oh, yeah, it is in Germany.

I wonder if that's, what's his name? Sebastian. Philadelphia, Melbourne, Stirling, Columbus, Huntingdon, Portland, Winnipeg, Vilgen, Schweingen. And that is Germany as well.

Yep, Germany. I've got to be careful because I remember years ago, I learned about flags. I know a lot about flags.

I probably know more about flags than anyone else ever existed. No, I had a book of flags. But I noticed that some of them are very similar to each other, but just the colours in a different order.

And so I need to be a little bit careful. Because some people would take offence. And I'm not out to cause offence, I'm out to cause love in the world.

And sleep. And relaxation. Chicago, city of Muntinlapa.

Muntinlapa. I genuinely don't know how to say that. I mean, I do mess up the names on purpose sometimes.

But on this occasion, I don't know how to say it. And that's in the Philippines. So whoever is from the Philippines, or from wherever you're from, hello.

Maybe contact me, say hi. St Helens in England. Kilhay.

Kilhay? What's that? America? Kilhay? Yes, it's in America. Portland, Chicago. Bayan Lepas.

Bayan Lepas? Lepas? Lepas? Lettuce? Lettuce? Where is that then? Malaysia. Okay, Malaysia. Sydney, Lydney, sorry.

Alpharetta. Lakefield, Birmingham, Budapest, which is in Hungary. Trondheim, Stockton-on-Tees, Brisbane.

Sunderland, which is near Newcastle. Albury, Riga, Reading, Wylie, St John's, Salt Lake City, St John's, Minneapolis, Albury, San Antonio, Millbrook. So yes, quite a few different places.

But what about the other countries? Why do you keep focusing? So okay, let's go. We could go Scotland, United Kingdom. Should we go to Scotland? Let's have a look.

Scotland. The top places for the last last month. Okay, this is the last month.

Glasgow, or Glasgow, or Glasgow. So if you're in Glasgow, Glasgow. Glasgow, if you're there, say hello.

Grangemouth. Is that how you pronounce it? Grangemouth. Grangemouth.

Grangemouth. I don't know. Edinburgh, Toryburn, Falkirk, Dundee, Kinross, Bellshill, Alnus, Hamilton, Eyre, Aberdeen, Kirkcaldy, Levin, Strathmiglo, Ardery, Airdrie rather, Inveroo.

Inveroo. That sounds like an Australian name, doesn't it? Where do you live mate? Inveroo? I live in Inveroo. You live in Inveroo? Yeah, Inveroo.

Kilmarnock. That was a really bad Australian accent. I apologise.

I know I've got a lot of people from Australia listening. Please forgive me. Molly, please forgive me.

Forgive me. I didn't mean nothing by it. Inveroo.

Oh, it's Inveray. It's not Inveroo. It's Inveray.

Inveray? Inveray. Kilmarnock, Livingston, Bonnybridge, Galashiels, Barhead, Inverness, Dunn, Firmire Line, Aloe, Oban. Aloe.

Where do you live? Aloe. Well, hello, yeah, but where do you live? Aloe. Well, we've already done the greetings.

Where do you live? I'll stop there. Oban, Petershead. So where about Wales? We can't miss Wales out.

And we'll go to Northern Ireland as well. So we can't miss, can't miss the different parts of Northern Ireland, of the United Kingdom. And Wrexham, Chepstow, Barry.

This is in Wales. So Wrexham's the top. This is last month.

Chepstow, Barry, Caldecott, Deeside, Maesteg, Cardiff, Cwmbran, Ferndale, Tonypandy. That's my favourite name ever. Tonypandy.

Why is it? Why do I love that name so much? Tony, where do you live? Tonypandy. Wow, I wish I could live there. You can.

You've just got to buy a house. It's got to move. Oh, I want to live in Tonypandy.

I don't know if I'd want to move there. I don't know what it's like. Maybe if you live in Tonypandy, you can tell me.

Tonypandy, what a brilliant name. I'm probably pronouncing it wrong. It's probably like Tonypandy.

It's a completely different sound. Aberdare, Holywell, Caerphilly, Newport. I used to know someone who lived in Newport.

Bargoad, Llanelli, Blackwood, Swansea, Pontypool, Mountain Ash, Menabridge and Aberstwyth. So the top ones there, Wrexham and Chapstow, Barry, Caldecott, Deeside. I did think about maybe, I'm thinking of getting married.

I mean, I haven't met anyone yet, but I'm just thinking about it. I'm just wondering, hmm, maybe it'd be nice to get married because I'm thinking I'd quite like to go away. I'd quite like to go away and, I don't know, cruises if I can afford to do it one day.

And it just seems like it'd be much nicer. I'd be able to do it and it'd be more, if I had someone to look after Vinnie while I went on holiday. So yeah, I'm thinking of getting married.

I don't know what you think. What do you reckon? Do you want to get married to me? Do you want to marry me? Do you love me? Will you, will you love me forever and ever and ever and ever and ever? Right, last month, Northern Ireland, Newtown Abbey, Belfast, Dungannon. Okay, because that's Uncle Sausages was from Northern Ireland.

So I just thought that'd be interesting. What other places are there? So many different places. I can't, I just can't begin to go through it all.

I mean, France, Lille de France, Algiers, Alps, Grand Est, Nouvelle, I can't even say the names. It's terrible, isn't it? I'm so, I'm such a lower class, I am. I've got no style at all.

Brittany, Occitanie, Normandy, Horts de France, Pays de la Loire, Corsica. Corsica, is that in France, is it? I didn't know that. I thought it was, I don't know, I thought it was a different country.

Paris. So Paris is the top place in France that people listen to me. That's nice.

I just want to go back to the last year, last 12 months. So I want to see in the UK, United Kingdom, England, Sidcup. We've already done that, haven't we, Sidcup? So we've done England, United Kingdom, let's go to Scotland.

Scotland, Glasgow is number one, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Grangemouth, then Motherwell, Bowness, Hamilton, Dundee, Pennyquick, Aberdeen, Livingstone, Dunfermline, Inveroo, Inverie, Inveroo, Johnstone, Bellshill, Toryburn, Wick, Brechin, Ayer, Kinnoss, Cooper, Owl, Ness, Albroath, Leaven, Coatbridge, Kirkcaldy, Invergordon, Inverness, Dalkeith, Earlskine, Perth, Greenock, Cumbernord, Bathgate, Kilmarnock, Strathmiglow, Galashuth, Glenroth, Macduff, Paisley, Glenvillage, Irvine, Dumfries, Prestonpans, Airdrie, Barhead, Broxburn, Alexandria, Forres. That's quite a few, isn't it? And then you've got Wales. This is tiring me, this is.

Bangor, so the top one is Chepstow, Wrexham, Caerphilly, Pembroke, Dock, Caldecott, Bridge End, Blackwood, Maesteg, Cardiff, Hengode, Barry, Elbowale, Ebbwool, Aberdare, Flint, Newport, Pontypool, Deeside, Ferndale, Tredegar, Pembroke, Pontypridd, Mountainash, Swansea, Holywell, my favourite name of all time, Tonypandy. I just love that name, I don't know why. Bangor, I think I might need to move to Tonypandy.

Bargoad, so if there's anyone out there that wants to be a dog sitter, I mean my wife, yeah, if you live in Pondypandy, Tonypandy. Oh, Bargoad, Haverford West, Aberstwyth, Cwmbran, Port Talbot, I thought Port Talbot was in America. Royal Neath, Menai Bridge, Porth, Portig, by the way, don't contact me and say no, it really is in Wales.

No, I know it's in Wales, but I think maybe there might be a Port Talbot in America as well. So you've got Bowl, Buckley, Langdwyne, Langdonow, Port Maddock, Abergavenny, Rufin, Merthyr, Tidfil, Cowbridge, Cowbridge rather, Bangor. Okay, well lastly I'll do the, hmm, what's the other one? Northern Ireland, don't want to miss that one out.

So, oh, there's a lot more in the year. Bellarmina, Belfast, Cookstown, Dungannon, Londonderry, Newton Abbey, Newry, Omar, Ballymoney. Ballymoney, that's another nice word, isn't it? Not because it's got the word money in it, just, just Ballymoney, I don't know.

Craigavon, Bangor, Downpatrick, that's another quite good, maybe it's just because of the names, it's got a name in it. Downpatrick. And you've got New Townards.

This was the last 12 months. So, what other places, I was thinking, let's go to Ireland. Leinster, Munster, Connach, Ulster.

Ulster. I thought Ulster was Northern Ireland. No? Well, it just shows you what I know.

I'm so out of touch with places. What about Sweden? Nor, Vinnie's just farted. Nor, I think, I hope it's Vinnie.

Nor, I didn't feel anything, so I'm just smelling it. So, blimey, I really hope it is him. I wish I'd kept the window open now.

Norbottom County, Stockholm County, Vatra, Gotland County, Ostroglotland County, Uppsala. Uppsala. That's very Viking.

Uppsala. Isn't that, now, I know this is Sweden. Uppsala.

Now, I watch the Vikings, and I realize, you know, you can say, oh, it's the wrong country, but perhaps I can't remember. But Uppsala, isn't that where some of the Vikings lived? I watched every episode of the Vikings, and there was about 7,000 different series, you know, of it. It went on for ages.

And I loved it very much. Uppsala. Farmlands.

Let's have a look. I'm going to click on Uppsala to see if there's any places that I remember. No, just Uppsala.

So, if you're in Sweden, I remember going to Sweden. It's just on the airport, on the way to somewhere, and I just, not surprised, but it was just, everyone was blonde. And, you know, I see that on the newspapers and TV shows, and I kind of just assume it's a, it's just a cliche.

But, I don't know, obviously not everyone in Sweden is going to be blonde, but it seems to be, there's a few people that are. What about Belgium? Let's have a look at Belgium. You've got Brussels capital, Flanders, Wallonia, Wallonia, Wallonia.

Oh, cool. So, hello to everyone from Belgium, and India, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark. Let's have a look at Denmark.

Capital region, Central Jutland, South Denmark, Zealand, and North Denmark. So, Fredericksburg is the top place for the year. Copenhagen, Copenhagen.

Municipal, Valby, Bromshoj, Hunderstedt, von Loos, Ballerup, Municipality, Gloucester, Municipality. I can't even say it. So, thank you to everyone.

I can't go through every single country, but there's a lot of countries. It kind of covers everyone in the world, kind of, as far as, not everyone as in every single person, but it's going to pretty much cover most cultures, most religions. Perhaps, perhaps not.

I mean, I've got no idea. Jonathan asks, what does a typical day's meals and beverages consist of? It depends where you're going and what you're buying. If I was, when I was going to visit Uncle Sausage's in hospital, I think it was about 20 quid for a coffee, maybe two coffees and a couple of sandwiches, about 20 quid a day.

It does depend where you're going because, you know, there's cheaper places you can go and get something for sometimes meal deals. If you're out, you can get like a meal deal for £5, where you get a drink, sandwich and maybe a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar or something, you know, so you get enough for like a little meal thing. Beverages, I mean, I only really just drink tea and water most of the time.

Occasionally, I'll have fizzy drink, but it's not often. So I don't know how much fizzy drinks cost. The, I don't know how, it's weird really, because I don't go into pubs.

I don't drink alcohol, so I don't, I don't know how, I'm not even, not even the faintest idea how much a pint of lager would be. So if I put pint lager cost, cost UK, pint of lager £4.60. The average cost of a pint of lager in the UK is £4.60. Okay, right, so it depends where you are. According to this, it says London is £5.44 for a pint and Wales is £4.21.

So it's the cheapest place to get a pint of lager.

London is the most expensive. Southeast £4.94, the second most expensive, because that's where I live. North East England £4.56. This is pounds, slightly above the national average.

And then £4.93 in South West are also amongst the highest prices. Oh, let's have a look. What's the, let's have a look.

So it's got a little chart here. Let's have a look at the chart. Is there a chart? Yeah.

Oh, go away. I don't want to be a paid member. Go away.

Right. So according to this, South West £5.16, South East £5.21, London £5.59, East Midlands. Oh, so nothing for Norwich then.

No, they don't buy lager there. East England, East Midlands £4.74, £4.74 West Midlands and also Wales. North West £4.87, North East £4.56. Actually, I just realised the North East and North West does also have a C. Depends where you live.

Scotland £4.87. So it depends what you're eating. I mean, you can, or what you're drinking. So if you're going to drink alcohol, then you're looking at like £5 roughly for a drink.

If you're, if you get a takeaway delivered, you're looking at about £20, you know, roughly. It could be more, depends what you're ordering, depends where you're ordering it from, what time of the day, what kind of delivery charges there is, you know. Yeah, it really just depends on what you get.

But then you might be talking about me specifically. So I get my, everything I get is delivered to me. And I just had a delivery this morning from Eats, whatever it's called, Uber Eats.

And that cost me, I think like £34, something like that. And for that, I got four milks. Oh, look, it's some bananas, some apples, some pizzas, just two little pizzas.

I got a packet of bags, which, you know, store stuff in for the freezer and stuff and the fridge. And I got some Jaffa cakes and another little packet of biscuits, some bread rolls, ciabatta. And I think that's pretty much it.

Trying to think what else there was. Cheese, got some cheese as well, some cheese slices. So, you know, you could buy stuff like I have.

So if I have a cheese and tomato bread roll, which is what I'm planning to have for my lunch, then the pound probably, two pound. But then Vinnie has to, he loves cheese. So I kind of have to share it with him.

Where is he? He's not even under the table. I don't know where he is. He's actually right under my chair, like behind my chair.

I didn't even know he was there. I didn't know where he was. So, yeah, it depends really on what I'm eating.

But if I get a takeaway, it's pretty much at least £20, if not more. And as far as like a takeaway food, whether it's a pizza, whether it's a roast dinner, whether it's, yeah, whatever it is, really looking at roughly £20. But then, I mean, I guess most of my money really goes on food.

I mean, there's priorities, you know. I got the bills. So bills and food.

And that's it really. That's the two things I kind of prioritise on. And I include, you know, Vinnie's food as well in that.

I get that delivered too. So yeah, that's kind of it. That's really, so I don't, I guess I don't take too much notice of how much things are.

I'm more interested in that I've got enough to cover how much things are, if that makes any sense. Because I've got direct debits for all of my bills. I don't have to pay anything like I have to pay it, but I don't have to kind of go and do anything.

It just automatically goes out my account. We know how direct debits work. All right.

Wow. Is it Sunday today? It is, isn't it? I just seem to be very sarcastic towards myself. I'm on a sarcastic Sunday.

So yeah, Jonathan, that's kind of it, really. I just, it depends. What does my, you said typical days meals consist of.

You didn't say cost, did you? It's because I've been up half a night. I'm not reading it properly. What does a typical day's meals and beverages consist of? Not cost.

You didn't ask me cost, but I'm telling you the price of stuff. I have, in more recent years, I've generally eaten, I try and have something cooked and a sandwich and maybe a couple of bowls of breakfast cereal through the day. Water, juice, if I've got it.

If I don't have juice and I don't know, water basically, and tea, cups of tea without sugar. Sometimes I'll have regular takeaways. Sometimes I'll go without having to take away for a little while, but you know, I do get, I haven't had one for over a week now, which is a long time, but then I haven't really been eating.

I've been spending a lot of time in bed, so I didn't really, I couldn't face kind of doing it, but yeah, I don't eat a huge amount, really. I've never, never been a big eater. I mean, I'm, you can say I'm a big eater because I'm an eater and I'm big, but I've never been a big consumer of food other than when I am.

Chocolate or Christine asks, any sign of new people moving in? I know that you said there was a couple of empty places in your block. Well, it's weird because downstairs, right, the flat downstairs where my friend used to live and then a lady moved in and she's moved out within a year of moving in there. They've put in a new kitchen downstairs because apparently they like to do it when there's no one living there.

Well, I'd like a new kitchen. Please, can I? So they put a new kitchen in. As far as I know, they already started showing that flat out to people.

The flat opposite, which is Uncle Sausage's, they came last week and I think it was last week, they emptied his flat very quickly and they were chucking stuff out a window into a, not a skip, but it's like a van with a kind of big metal cage on. They could chucking stuff in there out of his window, which didn't sit well with me, to be honest, just seems a bit disrespectful.

But hey, and the painters have been in there, the painters being downstairs.

So I think that one's not nearly ready to go as well because all I had to do is just sort out two rooms because both the kitchen and the bathroom were brand new. The bathroom was literally being built or rebuilt when Uncle Sausage's was in hospital. He never got to see it finished.

So there's probably less for them to do in there. It's weird, really. So I don't know really what's going to happen.

There's been people coming in and looking around and I did see the lady from the council coming in because she got the key off me and she came in and she was, she had her board on her. She was going into Uncle Sausage's flat. So it looks like that's ready to go nearly.

So they've really like pulled out all the stops to get them done as quickly as possible, to let them out as quick as possible. But when people do move in, I'll let you know. But at the moment still, both the flats are still empty.

But it looks like, I mean, what is it now, September? I wouldn't be surprised if, well, I'd say 100% they're both going to be full by Christmas. I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of them isn't occupied by the end of October, which is only, well, six weeks away. So I wouldn't be surprised.

I wouldn't be surprised if both of them are occupied by like November. It'd be lovely if it took six months or a year, a little bit of quiet because, you know, it's, the thing is these doors, they slam. If you don't, if you don't close them quietly, they just slam on their own, which is kind of part of the fire regulation safety thing, you know.

But it's very noisy and it shakes the whole building when they slam because they're heavy doors. So out of the six flats, two are empty. So I'm going to start at the top of the building.

Uncle Sausage's closes door quietly. His next door neighbour closes the door quietly. I close my door quietly.

Below me closes their door quietly. The one opposite lets their door slam continuously. They don't, like they're not aware of it, they just let it slam and it does shake.

It makes Vinnie bark and it shakes the building. The one next door to that one used to let her door slam. So I'm hoping that whoever moves in just doesn't let their door slam because then Vinnie's going to start, especially if it's at night, he'll start barking and if the person lives in opposite me lets their door slam, it's just going to be disruptive for me because it will literally shake my flat.

It's one of those things, a building's not, it's not like a flimsy building, it's not made out of cardboard, but it really, you know, all the flats are joined together, aren't they? And it just seems, and because everything echoes in the hallway, it would seem natural that, well, that someone wouldn't let the door slam. I mean, sometimes it's going to slam, my door slams sometimes, you know, if I'm getting shopping in or something, you know, sometimes it slams, but I don't like just continuously let it slam.

I try and stop it.

Once I tried to stop it and I broke my heel, so that wasn't so good. But other than that, because it, because it goes, you have to push it to open it. So I was trying to stop it from slamming and it, my heel got caught in between the door and the doorframe, the bottom of the doorframe.

Oh, I was limping around for about two months after that. That was painful. And so, yeah, I'm not sure, but it looks like soon.

Maria asks, have you ever fractured or broken any bones? If so, when and how? Thank you. Well, my favorite subject. It's not really.

I have, I've probably broken more bones than I realize, but I think all of us have potentially. I remember an expert on toes. I didn't speak to him personally, but it was on the news or whatever.

I think this was during David Beckham pulled out of the World Cup or the European Cup because he had a broken toe and people were mocking him. So how can you pull out of such an important event with a little broken toe? Oh, is your toe hurting, David? Sorry, you're not getting paid enough, not a million pounds a week. It's not enough, is it? For you to just endure a little bit of, oh, my toe.

And this expert was saying, actually, it's agony. To kick a ball around with a broken toe is the most ridiculous thing ever. It's not something you can do.

And also, they said that probably nearly everybody's had a broken toe without even realizing. If you stump your toe, quite often a little bone breaks. And we're in pain for weeks, but it gradually goes.

But it's just one of those things. So the first real bone I remember was I broke my right hand punching a piece of frozen meat, was a box of frozen meat. And yeah, I had to go into hospital.

And basically, I pushed the bone. It was the second knuckle in from my little knuckle on my right hand. It compressed the bone right into itself.

So I don't have a knuckle on that hand. And, oh, that was weird, because I was what was I, 24, 24, what was I, 23, 23, 24, something like that. And so I had about five weeks off work, unpaid, which was difficult.

And I had to learn because I couldn't do the job, because I needed my hands to do the job, because it was manual work. And it was so weird having to learn, because there's certain things I needed my right hand for, because I was right handed. Well, pretty much everything, like writing and that, but it's like toilet stuff.

I'm not going to. It's very difficult learning to do stuff with my left hand. It just felt so weird.

It wasn't all bad, but you know, just generally. And so that was the first time. The second time I broke anything was, I can't remember.

I can go through the bones. So I think 2004, my rib, when I was doing Wing Chun. And then I, oh, yeah, I'm going to, I can't go through the different years.

I can't remember. I do it by body part rather than year. Starting in my head.

I don't know what I've broken in my face. I couldn't tell you. Maybe when I was very young, but not that I can remember.

Nothing in my shoulders, my arms. I broke my left wrist when I first moved in. I fell out of the bath.

So I broke my left wrist. I broke my right hand twice. So the second time I punched the door, and this was about six years ago.

Hey, so I broke my hand again. I've damaged my left hand numerous times, but I don't know about whether it's broken or not. It might be like a little crack or something, you know, but not like proper broke.

Broke my rib again. So I've had my rib broken twice. Had my wrist broken once.

Had my right hand broken twice. Broke my toes a few different occasions. Had broken toes.

My big toe, at least twice. The top of my foot, at least once. My heel.

Now the heel, I didn't go and get anything sorted, but I was hobbling around for two months. So I think I broke something in my heel as well, or chipped a bone, something like that. And then I fell down the stairs a couple of years back and I fractured my back in two places.

That was the first week that I got Vinnie. And it was weird because it had snow, really solid snow, settled and everything. And I got Vinnie that week and all week we was in the snow and I was wearing my boots, making sure I didn't fall over.

I slipped once, but it was in the snow and in the fields. It didn't hurt because it was in the snow and he laughed at me. And I said, don't laugh because next time I'm going to land on you.

He stopped laughing then. And the last, I think it was a Wednesday, maybe it was a Thursday, it rained and everything melted away. All the ice went.

No snow, not a sight. You couldn't see it had even been there, like it didn't exist. And then Luke calls up.

I think he might have knocked on the door. He might have rung me up. I don't know.

He said, oh, do you want to bring Vinnie down in the garden and play with Logie? I said, all right. This was like nine o'clock or something. He was, I think he was more excited about Vinnie than I was.

So Luke was downstairs at this point. I let Vinnie out and he ran downstairs into the garden to play with Logie. I come down.

I got my Crocs on, but I did put my coat on because it was cold. And Luke was standing at the bottom of the stairs. I was just talking to him as I was like getting ready to come down.

And I think I got down about two steps or three steps and I went. And I bounced down the whole of the staircase steady. It's not like it's concrete steps, not like big, not loads of steps, but it was enough.

And Luke was laughing because he didn't know I'd hurt myself. He just, he said it was so funny to watch. Just you bouncing off of each step and a look on your face because it happened so quick.

I didn't really, I didn't really know what was going on to be fair. I didn't, I couldn't really process it because it was so quick. Yeah.

One minute I was standing there. Next minute I was at the bottom of the stairs having been on a really, really weird rollercoaster. Well, it wasn't a rollercoaster.

It was falling down the stairs, but you know what I mean? It was a kind of very strange experience. So he's laughing. I'm not feeling great.

And I mean, it ended up that I'd had a fractured back in two places. So imagine, you know, I wasn't, my back wasn't feeling wonderful and I couldn't get up. I needed his help to get up.

And he was, he said I needed to go to the hospital and I said, nah, I'll be all right. But I couldn't sit down. I couldn't stand up.

I couldn't do anything. It was just, I knew something was broke just for the simple fact that, well, I felt it, but at the same time I thought, no, I don't, I can't face being in a, in a hospital for the next 12 hours. 30, I think it was 13 and a half hours I was in there.

But he said, yeah, but what if you got internal, something internal happened, you know, other outside of, uh, something else, you know, it might, you know, it might be serious. So he wanted to come with me. I said, no, it's all right.

I'll just get a taxi in. He looked after Vinnie and yeah, it was, the doctor even said, oh no, can't be fractured when he eventually sort of saw me. So he can't be fractured because it was fractured, you'd be in agony.

I said, I'm, what do you think I'm in? He said, no, you wouldn't be able to, you wouldn't be able to stand up. If you had a, if you had a fracture in your back, you wouldn't be able to stand up. But he said, I'm going to give you an x-ray anyway.

It was a CAT scan. And then he came back and said, yeah, it's fractured in two places. He said, I don't know how you can stand up.

I said, sitting down is worse than standing up. It hurts more when I sit down. I've just spent the last 12 hours, 12 and a half hours sitting down and standing up was relief, but then it started hurting again when I was standing up, but it was relief compared to sitting down for such a long time, which, oh, so yeah.

So what have I got? I think, um, so my knuckles, then I guess I've got two hand, two, my right hand twice, my wrist once, my ribs twice, two different times and my foot, the top of my foot once and my big toe at least twice. Yeah. And the heel, I don't know, but that that's the breaks I've had.

So it's a few little breaks along the way, but I suppose the, the scariest one would be when I fell out of the bath, to be honest, because I hurt my shoulder and I couldn't, couldn't get up. I was on my own and I was, well, everything was out, you know, I was naked. So it wasn't an ideal situation.

Um, but when I fell down the stairs, um, but at least I had a t-shirt on the rest of me, I was naked. And then I was at, when I was at work, yeah, I pretty much was naked most places, most times. It's weird, isn't it? Well, we were born naked.

I mean, it's not a bad thing, is it? It's not, it's not an awful state of undress really, is it? It's natural. Doesn't hold up in court though. Doesn't stand up in court.

Wow. So yeah, I've, I've had a few, a few little, uh, knocks around, but probably other than like falling out of the bath, that was not good. But the, the stairs one that was, yeah, that was probably the worst, the worst.

I don't know. None of them were nice, but that was, you know, sitting down, standing up, whatever it was just, it took a long time for that to calm itself down. Yeah.

That was weird. That was, yeah. Since then I had a few problems with my upper back.

I don't know if it's to do with that. Almost like a misalignment or something. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. So that, Maria.

So that's, uh, thank you for Maria, Christine, Jonathan, Raviel, Isabel and Hope. Thank you very much. That's all the questions I do believe I've answered in this here particular Q&A Friday.

And Vinnie knows straight away, I'm bringing this to an end. He always knows. How does he always know? I don't know.

So yeah. 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.