#46 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (14th October 2018)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. This is Let Me Bore You to Sleep with Andre Dooley-Newland. Or Andre Dooley-Newland, my little boy. He's my son, this Andre.

He's kind of asleep. So we're having a little father-son bonding time. Looks a bit like I'm breastfeeding him, doesn't it? But I'm not.

So, I'm making an attempt. I just realised that there's a big stain on the wall. Um, there used to be a bookcase here, and I think it kind of stained the white wall.

But it's okay. Even he's yawning. Look.

I'm glad I've got him here to cover up my belly. Because if he was not there, it just... Yeah, I'd have to kind of rearrange the camera somewhat. So my attempt is to... I'm filming it.

I'm also recording it. And to link those two together so that it's a good quality sound as well as being a good quality video. I've got a light in front of me just there shining on me.

So hopefully it should be good quality. And try and forget the stain. The nappies.

The diverse nappy stain on there. I can't stop looking at it now. I don't know what it is.

I'm looking at the screen. It looks like it's on the actual camera, but it's not. So, only listen to this or watch this video when you can safely close your eyes.

Because the whole point of it is to bore you. There's no other reason than just to me talk boringly about things. Some of it is going to be real.

You know, like memories and stuff. But some of it might just be made up. It depends on what I decide to talk about.

And I won't know until I've started really. So, I suppose my advice is to close your eyes. You know, get yourself comfortable first.

It's always a good way, you know, idea to do that before you close your eyes. Otherwise, you trip over things. And get yourself comfortable.

Maybe you've got a chair like mine that you can sit back in. Or maybe you want to lie down in your bed. Maybe, you know, if you are sitting in a chair, because it is a boring, sleepy thing, it's probably a good idea to have a chair that supports your body.

So, it's not an ideal situation to sit on a stool or, you know, a standard chair. Maybe sit in one that supports your arms and your body. So, if you're in the middle of a tight rope, you know, and you're balancing.

Or maybe climbing a mountain or something. Oh, look. Do you want to say hello to your fans? Say hello, look.

Hello. Look. Look at you.

He wants the microphone. You can't have the microphone. No.

He's just wiggling for those that aren't watching the video. He's just having a wiggle. He's having a wiggle.

You want to get off? He wants to go. Okay. Oh, that's fair enough.

You wanted to go to the toilet. You just needed a wee-wee. Do you want to come back? Want to come back up? Now he's had a wee-wee.

Andre. I don't think he does. He doesn't seem to bother.

He's gone back into his plastic carrier bag and he's gone to sleep. No, he's not. He's gone into his tube.

I would show you, but it means moving the camera around and I can't be bothered. All I've got to do is go like that, but still go. No.

So this t-shirt is not very flattering. Not showing my boobies off very well. Nice and firm.

It's like that. They look all saggy, don't they? They're cool. It's like I've been breastfeeding for, and they've gone all, oh, they're firm.

So, that's more for the visual. For those of you that are just listening, I just pushed my breasts together. My man, my man breasts.

So anyway, back to sensible chat. I suppose I could talk about Andre. We talk about when I first got him.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before on any of these sessions, but the thing is, what's that? The thing is I've, I think this is the 46th, 46th session of Let Me Bore You To Sleep. And averaging between 40 minutes and an hour each, that's a lot of pointless chatter. That's, isn't it? That's a lot of absolute nonsense that I would have spurted out of my mouth during that period.

So, I might have mentioned when I first gave birth to Andre, but yeah, maybe I'll mention it again anyway. So, originally when I moved into this flat, I was back in, I'm trying to think what year it was. Well, I've been here for three years.

It was three years last April. The April's just gone. So, it's now October the, I think it's October the 14th today.

So, it was, so it's now 2018. So, going back, so would that be 15? Yeah, it's just April 2015 was when I moved in to this flat and it's a council flat. So, it's, it's pretty much a home for life, but the rent is low.

So, I don't, it's like social housing. So, the rent for this is something like £83.50 a week, which is a lot lower than it would be if I rented a flat, especially this because it's fairly big, quite a big size flat. So, if I rented something like this in the private market, it would be, it'd be a lot more anyway than what I'm paying.

And so, I moved in here. I was actually going to, when I first got onto the housing thing, I was on, there's a thing called home choice. It might be called different things in different parts of the country and how the system works in England, because I'm sure, I've no doubt that the social housing system would work differently in different countries.

And I've no doubt that there are countries that don't have social housing and some that have a lot more, but I don't know, I'm not really educated on that. I don't know what the rules are and things like that. I know, I'm pretty sure there's parts of Europe who have a really good social housing structure and they manage to meet the housing needs of the population.

In my country, they don't manage to meet the needs of the population that live here. So, there's, not everybody has a home that needs one. And when I was a child, see, I lived, I grew up in council houses and flats for a lot of my child, for different parts of my life.

So, I was born in 1970 and I'm not 100% sure, I'd have to ask my dad this, but where I lived, I think it was a council house that I lived in when I was a baby, but I don't really know. It might've been privately rented. I'm pretty sure it was a council, but I'd have to ask.

And I'm not going to get him on the phone because I'm using the phone to record this thing. I do actually have a camera and it's a really good camera and it records for about half an hour, but I got it out and I've charged it up. I've got a sort of separate battery and I did all that.

And it's a really nice camera. It's a Canon and people, some of my followers and fans actually helped me to pay for it. So, I will be using it.

I just need to, the reason why I stopped being able to use it is because my laptop broke. And then I got the camera because I didn't have a laptop, so therefore I didn't have a camera. So, I got this phone and started using the phone.

And then the picture was kind of as good, if not better than the camera and I can film for longer, but I don't know if it's better. I'd like actually to start, I know it's probably a bit late now, now that summer's over, but I didn't get out that much during the summer. But I'm thinking of maybe taking up a little bit of photography, just as a, I don't know, maybe a hobby, as an additional thing.

And then look at maybe having some nice backgrounds, maybe to some videos that I do that don't, or audios that I do that don't have me on camera. So, maybe go to the park or maybe some pictures of Andre. And yeah, I feel I'd quite like to, because the pictures I'd get on that camera would be a lot better than the ones I'd get on the phone because it's more focused and it's built there just for the camera.

So it should be, I should be able to take better pictures, more striking pictures, you know. So the, I might start doing that. So I lived in a council place, I think, when I was first born.

But I'm not 100% sure, but I lived there for about six months and then I didn't live there anymore. And then I think I was, I was in, I had foster parents for, until the age of two, so about six and a half to two, six months to about two years old. I think they were in a council house, because back in them days, most people of a certain, I think most people did live in council properties.

You know, owning your own house wasn't really, I don't think it was that important back then. There's a lot of social housing and, you know, it was personal. I think it would be nice if we could get back to that, but it's probably, how do you get back? I don't know.

So I lived in probably a council house for the age of six months to about two years. Then I know I lived in a council block of flats in Newcastle for a couple of years. So that was, I should say what a block of flats is.

So it's like an apartment block where there's, and I suppose flat is an apartment. You know, this is a flat that I've got here. So it's, some flats have one room, a living room, kitchen, bathroom.

Some would have two or three rooms. You get maisonettes. I dated someone that lived in a maisonette once.

I didn't date her once. I dated her for a period of time. I saw her more than once, but once as in once upon a time.

There were three bears and I'd never seen a maisonette before. So I remember going in there and I can actually visualize the building. So, because I was, I was working there on the estate, on the council estate when I met her.

And something about sometimes I used to open the door for her because she had like a baby and another child and I used to open the door so she could get through with the door. And much easier to get through when they're open. She probably could have opened it herself.

But the thing is when you got a push chair and it was like one with a baby, it wasn't, like it was a cot rather than a little pram, you know, it was a pram or whatever. So she couldn't really reach the door handle while she was behind the pram. So what I used to do is I'd put my mop down and I'd open the door for her.

And she used to say thank you to me and she'd smile. And I think she, she might've asked my name. I think she asked my name once and I told her what my name was.

And I'm not sure, but I think I asked her her name as well, because at one point I did know her name before I started dating her, before I started seeing her romantically. Because I remember I was on the estate and I saw her from a distance. You know when you can see someone and they're about kind of like the other side of the park, but enough to see her, but can't talk to her in a normal voice.

So hello, she was like, I think hello in a normal voice would reach about six, seven foot, maybe 10 foot, depending on the level of, I suppose it's not just the level of your voice, is it? Whether the person, it's also the person's hearing, but also whether they're thinking this, because some people are walking down the street, they're thinking of other things and they're not listening out. Unless you say their name, maybe they'll hear. Maybe they're not expecting, because not everybody knew me or knew who I was.

So some people might not be thinking about that I might say hello to them or speak to them. So they might just be walking on. So maybe they can, in some way, physically hear my voice, but not really recognize it because they were busy thinking about perhaps what they were going to have for dinner, or maybe thinking about, it could be anything.

It could be thinking about a movie they watched, maybe the weekend before, or perhaps they've got a holiday they're planning, maybe thinking of going to Tenerife or Mauritius or maybe Disney World. And they've been planning there for ages and thinking about, oh, should we go? Where should we go first? Maybe doing research. I mean, back in them days, there was no internet, but you could still research things.

You could go into the travel agency and you get these big, glossy magazines full of pictures and information about Disney World, Disneyland, Niagara Falls, whatever part of the world you go into. I'm not seeming to be focused on America, but always Niagara Falls in Canada. I'm not sure.

But what am I thinking of? Not Everest. Anyway, I used to sometimes get those. I remember when I was about 60 and I used to go into a travel agency.

I think it was Thomas Cook. And I get these magazines and there's like two reasons. One is I quite liked one of the ladies that worked there.

And I did eventually ask her out on a date and she said yes. And this is where I learned that maybe I need to maybe not talk as much. Maybe I need, I don't know.

I think I kind of, well, here's how it happened basically. I went, I was with my friend, Neil, and we were in the car. This was, I was about 16.

So he was a friend from school and I stayed friends with him until, I was friends with him until, how old was I? 19, probably when I'm 20, when I sort of moved away, 19. So I haven't really seen him much since then. I've been seeing him for a long, long time.

But we were, he was Scottish. And that's how, the reason I said that is because when I hear the Scottish accent, some people struggle, especially if they're from like the South, like London, or they sometimes struggle to understand a strong Scottish accent. But for me, it takes me a little while to get back into that, the zone where I can understand the accent.

I'm talking about a strong, strong accent. And because he was one of my best friends, and he had a quite a strong accent, and his parents did, his mum especially, I think they were from Glasgow. So I kind of got used to that accent, a bit like with Ireland as well, because my, one of my best friends as an adult was Irish, Andre, in fact, that's what Andre is named after.

I went and lived in Ireland, and it wasn't so much that the accent was difficult. I don't think the accents is difficult to understand. It's the speed of the talking.

You know, if you slow down the speaking, it's easier to understand, but, so it is kind of more the speed rather than the accent. And it might surprise you, but I'm not, generally don't speak that quickly. There have been times when I have spoken quickly, but there's been times when I've really spoken really slowly.

And, you know, with NLP, neurolinguistic programming, there's this thing about mirroring people and speaking at the same speed that they speak in order to match them, to build rapport, and using the same language in a sense that they use. So if they're using visual descriptions, such as, you know, I see what you mean, or, you know, I hear what you're saying. So it's kind of matching those predicates, those auditory predicates or visual or kinesthetic and stuff like that.

I feel where you're coming from, you know. But then I noticed years and years ago, long before NLP, long before I discovered NLP, because it's been around a long time, but long before I got involved in it, I had a friend who was probably very intellectual. I think that's a good description.

Very intellectual, well educated, very much self-educated, and very interested in religion, very interested in literature and things like that. And he used to... I remember him using a word, a fathom. He said, I can't fathom that.

And that was one of his favorite things to say at that time. I noticed that. So one day I said it just, you know, when I was talking to him separately, you know, and enough in... It was actually in France.

We'd been traveling through France. And I met him. We were hitchhiking.

He was hitchhiking. And I was staying with... I was staying with a couple, and I was looking after their child while they were at work during the night, doing night shift. And I was sleeping on their floor, on a made-up bed or something.

And then I was looking after the child, taking her to school in the morning. I might have been picking her up in the afternoon. I don't remember.

But then during the summer holidays, the child went and stayed with her father. And the couple that were there, they decided to go on holiday. And so they went to... I don't know where they went, but they decided that they didn't want to leave me there.

So I had to go somewhere for two weeks. So what I did is I said, okay, maybe I'll try and visit my stepmom that lived up in Kent. And I really didn't know what I was going to do.

I was basically going to have nowhere to stay for two weeks. So I traveled with them up towards Kent, and on the way, we... well, they picked up a hitchhiker. And he was really friendly and chatty, very talkative.

And I didn't really like him at all, just because it was someone new, and he was friendly, and I didn't really know him. I was just sitting there in the back thinking, oh, when's he going to stop talking? And he won me over. He was lovely, really friendly, and it was just me that was being unfriendly, really.

But it was just how I was at that time, in that moment. And I wasn't rude, I just wasn't... I suppose, to be fair, because I didn't know where I was going to be sleeping that night, so I wasn't really interested in hearing about mining, or whatever else he was talking about. And it ended up that I got dropped off in Dover.

He was going to Dover himself, because he was going to go to France. And we were both there together at the terminal, like the boat-ship terminal, you know, where the ship goes from Dover to Calais. And he's getting ready to get onto the boat, and he said, oh, why don't you come with me? And I said, all right.

I had nothing else to do, so I ended up traveling through France, all the way through the south of France, the mountains, and went through Paris, and yeah, ended up playing about six days, or maybe longer, traveling through, staying in hotels, or just kipping down, sleeping in airports, or, you know, whatever. It was really good, actually. So then, I remember we were staying in a hotel, and it was in this... I don't know if they call them hotels in France, but it was this little village, and it really was... Yeah, we were hitchhiking, we were getting buses, we were getting trains, we were walking, it really was... I had no idea where I was, and he had a map.

At least, I think it was a map, but he had a big thing he used to get out, a paper thing, and look at it, but I'm not sure how much he... Well, he could speak some French, but I'm not sure how much of it... I don't know if he was as good as he thought, because when we was in this little hotel, and he was speaking, it sounded quite fluent to me, but the woman... I don't know, I'm sure she, the waitress, or the manager, whoever she was, looked at me, waiting for me to interpret. I don't know, I just got that thought that maybe she thought maybe I was his carer. I don't know.

But anyway, we was in the hotel room, and I said... I was, at that time, I was writing my... I started writing a diary, like a journal, and I remember, because this was 1989, the reason I remember the year, I'll always remember the year, because Madonna's Like a Prayer was released that year, and it was playing, where, when we were waiting for the boat, I think it was either the boat, maybe we were in Calais, or we were in Dover, I'm not sure, but it was playing on a monitor. It was like a TV screen in there, and it was playing, Like a Prayer was playing. And I liked that.

I do like that song. I still do. I did then as well.

I suppose I wouldn't now if I didn't then, but then it might have grown on me. I remember, what is it, this song called Drunken Love that Beyonce did with Jay-Z, and, oh, for those of you, that's Jay-Z for some people, but in England, Z, we don't do Z, we do Z. There's A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y. It's everything else is the same, apart from in America, in some other countries, they say, they end it, so they go A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

So in England, where the language originated, so in England, our alphabet, it's exactly the same apart from the last letter. So it's A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. So over here, Jay-Z is actually Jay-Zed.

Well, that's how it should be pronounced correctly. Anyway, so Jay-Zed and Beyonce, they did a song called Drunk In Love. I'm pretty sure, and this is a few years ago, I'm pretty sure they, she released the album online or she released it without any promotion, just bang, plopped it out.

And no splashback, it was just there. And it was a big hit and everything. But the first time I heard that song, I'm not like a massive Beyonce fan, but I do like her work.

I do. This tiny child, I used to like that band that she was in. And so I used to, what is that, put a finger on it? No, put a ring on my finger if you want to own me, or I forget the lyrics to that song, but if you want to boss me around, put a ring on my finger.

Is that the words? So that was quite a good song. But this Drunk In Love really just, it didn't do it for me. It didn't spark that interest.

It didn't spark that, oh, that's a good song. I didn't start like wobbling my head and no, just general sort of, kind of, general kind of movements and acts of expression of pleasure through the music. But you know what? After hearing it a couple of times, maybe, maybe five times, it might have been four times.

It's hard to remember the exact amount of times, isn't it? Sometimes that you, you know, you listen to a song and you realize, do you really like it? There has been other songs as well like that, that I just didn't, didn't like until I just, something clicked and it wasn't my hip and I really liked it. I just really like, oh, you know, I just like, really like this song. But then there's other songs that I liked straight away, loved straight away.

I'll give you a few of those. Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler. So Bonnie Tyler, Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Oh, another one. This is years ago. I remember I used to watch back in, I think it was 1987.

I used to work in a chip shop and I used to live above the chip shop. And a good start to my career. And I, I used to watch this television show.

It used to be late at night. So I'd finish work. So if I was working in an evening, I forget what time the place closed, but pretty close about nine, maybe 10, even, I don't know.

But I was, I'd be in there for another half an hour, an hour clearing up and then I'd go upstairs. And even if I was back at work early in the morning, I'd still be up late. I'd still stay up till early hours of the morning.

I've kind of always been a bit like that. I like being up till early hours. I feel the average, probably the earliest I would go to bed, apart from when I was kind of had to go to bed early because of getting up at wonky o'clock.

I'd have to, I've kind of liked to go one o'clock really in the morning. It's kind of the earliest I would go to bed, but really I quite like probably more two to three o'clock, maybe four. Once it gets after four, then it gets a little bit, a little bit like all sleepy in bed all day kind of thing.

But I do some of my best work at night. So I'm kind of quite not prolific, but I do get like a little boost, probably about two o'clock one o'clock, 12 o'clock, because there's not a lot going on on telly, not a lot going on anywhere. It's pretty quiet.

It's not many, there's no one around. There's not much activity that I can just get on with working on the website or maybe make a video or whatever I want to do. Maybe watch a movie even.

Back in that time, there wasn't any internet. This is 1987. There were computers, but I didn't have one.

I was living on seven pound a week. So I was on the YTS. And I don't actually have necessarily always have memories of what's happened.

But when I start talking about something, sometimes the memories come back. And I remember I was going back to France. I was in that room and I said to my friend, I said, because I was doing this journal, I was writing this journal.

And I said something to him like, something that I found a little bit hard to understand. I think it was maybe a behavior, a behavioral thing. Perhaps it was a behavior of some of the people that I've met in France.

Because I don't speak French. I know a few basic words, but I wasn't in, I didn't leave school highly educated. Let's put it this way.

An understatement. I was one of those kids that the teachers didn't bother with. And they left me alone if I left them alone.

That was sort of kind of the agreement, unwritten, unsaid agreement. As long as I didn't give them too much hassle, they didn't bother me. And that was established in the first year of high school.

And since then, for the next four years, I was there for five years. I didn't really learn anything other than, I suppose, some things sunk in. But I'd already learned basic English.

English and language and stuff's always been fairly just, you know, it's just a love of reading. And yeah, I'm not a big, I'm not like a big fan of the English language. I'm no scholar.

But I do, English I found okay. Mathematics, I really didn't, um, didn't really, didn't get excited by. Never, never aroused me.

Numbers never, never got the juices flowing, as it were. Andre's just going to do a poo. Hi, Andre.

So anyway, I was talking to my friend in France, and I said, I can't fathom it. So I was using his language, his use of language in a sentence. And he said to me, oh, I didn't realize how intelligent you were until just now.

That's really intelligent to say something like that. So I kind of learned how to gain false rapport. But I didn't really know what it was back then.

But I do, I think it's, you know, anyway. Favorite songs. Oh, it used to be, yeah, I lived above a chip shop.

There was this film, this TV show I used to watch. And I think it was, it was either on a Friday night. Might have been on a Saturday night.

It might have been on a Sunday night. I'm not sure. Or early hours of the morning, maybe on a Saturday morning, or a Sunday morning.

I suppose, yeah, possibly even a Monday morning. And I'm not sure what channel it was on. Because back in 1987, in England, we had four channels.

So we had BBC One. We had BBC Two. We had ITV.

And we had Channel Four. Originally, originally named Channel Four. Now, well, I say now, back in 1996, or was it 97? I think it was 97.

Channel Five became the fifth broadcaster in my country. And it was actually launched by a friend of mine. Called Tim Vine.

He's a comedian. And I haven't seen him for a long, many years now. But we used to be friends.

And we, he, he basically launched the show with some other people. And he had loads of TV shows on there. He's, he was like the face of Channel Five when it first started.

But back in 1987, there wasn't, all there was was four channels. So I'm not sure. I think this might have been Channel Four, that the show, this music show was on.

So all it was, I can't remember what it was called. But there was like three people sitting on a panel, like, you know, like on chairs, and like a desk. And they would watch new music videos that had just come out.

And they'd judge them. They'd say, oh, I like that. Or, oh, I didn't like that.

Or, you know, I liked it a bit. Or maybe it's a grower, not a shower, you know, whatever, however you describe music videos. Maybe some people would say, oh, yes, it's good, but I didn't like the video.

Or it's, it's a good video, but I didn't like the song. You know, maybe some, sometimes they say, oh, I like the song and the video. But you know, what, what were those shoes that he was wearing? Which I'd never really understood why that would matter.

But, um, so that's another thing, like, people used to say about Madonna, like, you know, people only, they only listened to her music because of how provocative she was, and how, you know, attractive she was and things like that. And even then I thought, even as a young man or teenager, I used to think, well, when you're listening to the music, you know, you can't see the person. This is, you know, if you've got a tape, this is when tapes and albums, you know, vinyl discs, this was before CD players and stuff, or really before MTV, we didn't have MTV on television in my country back then.

And so yeah, you'd have videos, you get to see videos on TV, you know, on Top of the Pops and things like that, TV shows. But generally, if you're watching, if you're listening to, um, True Blue, let's say, a great video of hers. If you haven't seen True Blue, the video that Madonna did then, or Papa Don't Preach, that's probably my favorite one.

But you know, it's, but you don't see that when you're listening to a person. So it's like Elvis Presley or someone like that. You're listening to the voice.

It's nothing to do with how they look, really, I don't think. But maybe for me, you know, like Buddy Holly, I'd listen to Buddy Holly and for me, it was his voice. I don't, I wasn't thinking about how he looked or about his sexy glasses.

I was just about the voice and the, the, you know, the kind of the, the way that he would sing that I liked. And the melodies and the music. Anyway, this, this music, this video, uh, judge channel thing, panel thing, the television program, they played songs and I used to watch it most, most weeks.

And they played a song by Prince called Alphabet Street. And you might not know, but it basically starts off, um, it fits in with the alphabet, doesn't it? Like from earlier, I mean, but then he sort of says, uh, I'm going down to alphabet, to alphabet street. I'm going to crown the first girl that I meet.

To make a better day. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. A better day.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. To make it okay. Yeah.

And I think, excuse me, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. But there's a bit of screeching and, you know, but the video was really good. And it was, it seemed to be the hook that connected the music to the video.

And it's so, um, together, like the video and the music seemed so, both needed each other. I don't mean needed, or maybe needed each other, but also did need as in a sense of dough and kneading the dough and, you know, pushing it together and, and fitting it together, the video and the music together. And the words that he was singing was being played out on the video.

So, uh, there'd be letters from the alphabet on there. So it was like very animated letters and it'd be him. And I haven't seen the video for a long time, but I'll always remember that episode because everybody that was on the panel, I say everybody like there was hundreds.

There was only three. There might've been four. I might've been only two.

I really, there was, I'm sure there was three. Um, so yeah, but it was a really good show. And that video, that was one of my favorite songs, but it wasn't, the song I liked most that Prince ever did was, um, Sign of the Times or Sign of the Times.

That was probably my favorite Prince song. And just absolutely love that song. There's been a lot of songs that I really, really love, but they can, sometimes it's Flying Without Wings by Westlife.

And what other songs do I really, really love? So there's, there's two songs that I connect quite together. So Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler. But there's another song that I connect to that and it's, um, um, uh, Men at Work, Down Under.

And I think they were both the same year, like 83, maybe 82, 83. And I remember they were both massive hits. And I think it might've been the same year that I had my appendix out.

So maybe 83. And I just remember that period of time where the, I think, because when I was in the hospital and had my appendix out, the, the hospital radio came in, not the whole, they didn't bring all their equipment in and there wasn't anyone dragging, you know, the studio with them, you know, all the decks and the mixing equipment and thousands of tapes and that, that would have been a bit weird. There probably wouldn't have been enough room, I imagine, in, in the children's ward.

Now it's all computerized and they don't, you know, everything's digital now, but back then it was tapes and vinyl, you know, it's a lot, a lot more physically, a lot more space was required. And when I lived above the chip shop, you know, I was earning, so I was on a YTS, which is, it's a youth training scheme. It was a way to allow employers to employ young people for a very, very small amount of money, like tiny amount of money.

So for the first year I got paid £27 a week. And the second year I got paid £30. What did I get paid for the second year? £30 something, £35 a week, I think.

And, yes, £35 was for the second year. So I moved into the flat above the shop and it was £40 a week rent. So I was minus £5 a week, but I couldn't even afford to buy the rent, nevermind food or anything like that, although I did eat there when I was working.

So I, I used to love the pasties. Pasties were the best, love the pasties and tomato sauce. Well, I want a pasty now.

So I ended up working extra, doing overtime, working Saturdays, and I managed to make my money up to £47 a week, including extra days, extra time and stuff. So I was living on £7 a week to eat for food. And even though it's a long time ago, it still was a very tiny amount of money to actually get by.

And it was weird because I went from, when I worked there, working a normal week without any overtime, I was getting paid £60 a week. I mean, it was, I was told that come September I would be getting, I'd be on a YTS and I knew what I was going to be getting, but before that period, from April to September. Yeah.

So for about three or four months, I was working and getting paid £60 a week. And that was a lot. I'd never had that much money a week before.

And so it was a lot of money to me. And the first thing I bought was a samurai sword. Because I was really into martial arts back then.

So I had thrown in stars and all kinds of different things, but I hadn't never had enough to buy a sword. So the first thing I ever bought, and it cost me, I think like £60 or £55, and I bought this sword. It was my first thing I ever bought and never got to use it.

But it's a, it's weird, isn't it? The memories, but then going down to £27 after having £60 a week to have your wages halved. And then I was working an extra day a week to bring my money up because I couldn't live on £27, even when I wasn't, because at that time I wasn't living in the flat. But £27 still wasn't enough to pay for just living, you know, buying clothes and stuff like that.

Now we have the minimum wage. So in this country, it's £7 or £8 an hour. And I think they still started the, I think like an equivalent to the YTS, but they call it apprenticeships.

So they're getting people working for small amounts of money. But I think it's a bit better than a YTS. But it was very, it was good for some people.

Some people managed to get qualifications. I was at college at the same time. So some people managed to go on and become chefs and mechanics and, you know, but for me, you know, it wasn't really, didn't really, didn't really lead anywhere.

I learned how to make, fry some good chips though. And fish was very good. I made a nice, I cooked a nice bit of fish, fried a nice bit of fish.

But I'm going to watch television now. So I'm going to go. So I'm trying to think, is there anything that I missed out that I was going to talk about? There isn't because I wasn't going to talk about anything.

Not just talking. I'm going to grow my beard really, really, really long. Like really, just scary long.

My hair's going to just be everywhere. That's my plan. So take care of yourselves.

And I shall speak to you next time. Bye. Lots of love.