#181 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (27th July 2019)

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

And that's it really. That's the introduction complete. So I was trying to think, what could I talk about today? So I'm thinking, I've talked about martial art films that I've watched.

I've talked about the Sea Cadets. Okay, I haven't talked about, I might have talked about my you know, what else has happened in my life? I've talked about butlings. Yeah, what else have I talked about? I've talked about other boring things.

Going on holiday, I've spoken about that. What other things? Spoken about girlfriends that I've had in the past. Can't talk about future ones yet.

I've talked about food that I've eaten. I suppose I could talk a little bit about my recollection of junior school, which is the, it's basically the school I went to before I went to high school. And I went to this school called Colney's, it was.

I actually went to three different junior schools. And from the age of seven, to the age of 10, I suppose. And it's just because we moved house.

So I lived at three different addresses. And there is a different school close to each address. So the first one, I mean, I went to other schools when I was younger than that.

I lived in Southend. And I probably, what I say probably, I lived in a children's home run by Catholic nuns. So I'm guaranteed I went to a Catholic school.

It's unlikely it would have been a school run by a different religion, would it? So it's very, I suppose it's 100% certain it would have been a Catholic run school. And I don't remember much of that. I can't, no, I don't really remember it.

But I do remember the school I went to when I was seven. And then I went to a different school when I was eight. And then I went to a different school when I was nine.

Something like that, nothing that's about works out. So I was at the, yeah, 9, 10, 7, 8, 9, 7, 8, 9, 10. Anyway, so I must, well, I don't must, I don't have to say it.

I choose, kind of choose to say it. I'm not emotionally invested in the next sentence that I say. But I preferred going to junior school as opposed to going to high school.

Because I think there was less expectations. It was, didn't have to really focus on a career, you know? Not that I focused on the career when I was at high school, but there was less of that pressure of needing to fit in. None of the, less of the whole trying to impress the opposite sex or the same sex or whatever.

You know, I didn't have to, because it's, you know, before going to high school, I was a kid, a child, and most of the other kids also were. So, but going to high school, that's when adolescence kicks in and the boys are walking around, thumping their chests, staring at the girls' chests, you know, it's kind of, it was quite a weird atmosphere. And I didn't really know kind of how to, how to deal with it really.

It wasn't, there's no manual. I think there should be a manual for children that are about to leave lower school, you know, to go to high school. It's a proper leap.

It's to go from just quiet, casual, relaxed. Although I had a school uniform when I was in junior school and there was still, you know, very little pressure. One class, you know, the whole time.

And then to go to high school and have a timetable and to have to get from one side of the school to the other within five minutes, stuff like that. It was just, and I could never remember. I was there for five years, five long years, and I still didn't know my way around.

I knew my way around, but I didn't know what all the numbers of the rooms were. So I don't know, I just kind of got a little bit of help and I figured out who was in which class with me and I just followed them. Didn't always work out.

I had one friend that had to go to the dentist and I ended up sitting in a, in the waiting room with him. That's when I realised, wait a minute, where's everyone else? Why's the teacher got a drill? So that would have been quite a good lesson, dentistry. I wonder what other lessons would have been good.

I'll tell you a lesson would have been nice. How to queue for buses. Lessons in how to, politeness, how to say thank you and please.

Those things that seem to have kind of started to erode a little bit within my society a little bit. Saying that though, I might have mentioned this before, but it bugs me whenever I see it on American movies, TV shows, I see people walk in, walk up to the bar and just say Jack Daniels and Coke. Or pint of, I don't know, a lager or get me a beer.

Get me a Heineken. And just that's it, no please. And when the drinks are put on the counter, no thank you either.

Now I don't, is that real or is it just a movie thing? Because in England, of course I can't talk for every single person that lives in this country or every part of the country, because there may be some parts where they don't have any manners. But as far as I'm aware, we always say please when we ask for something. So when we go into a bar, a pub, restaurant, we say, you know, can I please have a pint of lager? And then they take the money then and then they give you a drink or they get the drink and then they take your money and you say thank you.

You don't have to look them in the eyes, that's optional. You don't have to do a little dance, that's optional. I guess saying thank you is optional, but it's not really.

So I don't know, it's just a cultural thing. I suppose it's maybe some cultures might speak louder, or there's some parts of the country they might speak louder. And some where really quiet, maybe.

Or there's some places that are really quiet, you go and everyone just like really, really talks like that. I think what it might be is when someone's a tourist, and I've done it myself, there seems to be a part of my brain when I've been abroad and I become more English. Or when I go to up north or to a different part of country, I become more South, I become more Londoner, Londony or East, you know, Southeasty.

It's like, why am I doing this? Why? Yeah. Instead of just talking, I want to talk now. And I don't know what that is, it's a strange one.

I noticed that when I go abroad, I like really become English, like whatever English is. Saying please and thank you continuously, whilst drinking copious amounts of tea, even though I don't even drink tea. Walk around holding a tea cosy on my head, pretending to be a teapot.

And that's something that needs to change as well. You know those sayings that people have, like it's as useful as a chocolate teacup. No, it's useful as a chocolate teapot.

So that is a joke. It's not part of common language, it's not part of common communication, standard, it's not a colloquialism or whatever you call it. But it's become just like a, I don't know, when did jokes that stop being funny if they're like that? It was pretty hilarious the first time it was said.

Someone said that, you know, you're as useful as a chocolate teapot. That would have been hilarious the first time. Or, you know, I couldn't organise, he couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.

Now the first time that was probably said, and we're probably talking 200 years ago I imagine, that's something I reckon Shakespeare probably would have said. I probably would have been rolling around. He couldn't, he couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.

He couldn't get drunk, he couldn't organise people getting drunk in a place where there's sort of alcohol, or where they make alcohol. I mean it's a funny, it's a funny one. 200 years ago.

But it becomes kind of part of the language. And maybe it's a similar thing in other parts of the world. Of course I don't know, I'm not well-travelled.

The only other parts of the world I've been to, like foreign parts, have been places where they speak different languages. So I never got to learn any of the sayings. So I've been to Bulgaria, Spain, Australia, France, and Ireland, that's it.

I've been to Wales, but that's, well I know they, you know, they do have an old language that they kind of keep alive. But I like, I like the Welsh accent. I think it's one of the only accents that I actually like, that I don't know why.

I don't dislike others, but it's just the one that I kind of, oh, it just, hello, how are you, I'm okay. Actually that's probably not right, is it? Good, okay, I can only do a Welsh accent if I go back to my Heidi High days. Good morning campers, that's it.

I do like the Welsh accent. It's, I don't know, I suppose, maybe it's because of Heidi High, the television show, and I've got fond memories of watching that when I was a child. And it used to be on a Saturday evening, or early evening, I think, and I'd watch it with the family.

And I tell you what's weird, I shouldn't probably tell you this, but I remember, because we had quite a big house, there was a lot of us, there was, how many of us was there? There was me, there was the two parents, me, so that's three, and there's my two older brothers, so that's five, and then my little brother, so that's six. So we had six people living there. How many bedrooms was there? One, two, three, four on the first floor, and the top floor, there was one, two, three, so seven bedrooms.

One was spare for just like visitors and stuff. It also had, I think it had the airing cupboard in, and so it wasn't really ideal for, I did live in it for a while, I quite liked it, I don't know why. I think it was pretty quiet.

I don't know why I liked that room, but I did live in it for a while, but it wasn't a room to be able to have stuff out. It wasn't big enough, there was a double bed in there, and maybe that's why I liked it, because I had a double bed and I could spread out. Just like thinking one day, one day I'm gonna have a double bed of my own, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna grow a big belly, so I can spread out even more.

Yeah, that's what I might have thought, I don't know. I like big beds, I cannot lie, I like them, I do. Oh yes, big beds.

If I ever got into a relationship, and there was gonna be some hanky-panky occurring, and if, I'm not cringing, but if it led to sleeping in the same bed as someone else, I might probably need a bigger bed, because I've got a double bed, but that's only big enough for me. I'd need to get a king size, like a, at least another bed size added to it.

So yeah, so I don't, but then that'd make the room a lot smaller, because at the moment I've got the bed against the wall, so as you go into the bedroom, straight ahead is the window, got quite big windows, and on the left hand side is the double bed, and it comes out from the wall, and I mean, it's not, it's not near the door, and there's plenty of room, but there's not enough room to put a bigger bed there.

I'd have to move it into the middle of the room. Also, if there's someone else there, they'd have to, it can't be against the wall the way it is, because it's all right for me, because I only need to get out one side, but for someone else, not so much, they probably wouldn't want to be. I suppose I'm letting my son make some kind of big cat flap in the wall, for them to climb through, got a little ladder so they could, I don't know, get through the partitions, through the wall or whatever, and they can get out into the hallway and then get to the bathroom.

That seems a lot of work. And also, I mean, I'd have to find someone that's really slim, like, you know, which probably, yeah, it's not, it's not very practical. You know what I used to do? I used to, because most of my life, I've had a single bed, most of my adult life as well.

There's been a couple of occasions when I've had a double bed, I've rented a room and it's come with a double bed and I'll just go, yay, and I've just gone with it and it's been nice. The best thing about that, or the trick, is to try and not think about all the other people that have slept in that bed. But then it's no different from going into a hotel, is it? You can go into the poshest, most expensive hotel, spend 10 grand a night, and you're still going to be sleeping in a bed that somebody might have wet the night before.

So you don't know, do you? You don't know what people have been doing in the bed the night before. So you spend all that money and you're sleeping on a mattress that's probably been turned upside down in order to hide the stains, and you're spending $10,000. I'd just take my own bed.

I think if I was rich, like really, you know, proper rich, I'd have my mattress and bed taken with me wherever I went. I wouldn't drag it along because I might be rich. I wouldn't need to do that myself.

I'd pay for someone to drag it along. The best thing really is to put it into plastic because then you can drag the plastic along on the pavement or the sidewalk, you know, the bit of the road, the side of the road where you walk. We call it pavement here.

I've done that before, bought a mattress and then walked for about five miles and dragged it along the floor. But because it comes in such a big bit of plastic, it doesn't hurt or even doesn't even scrape or scuff the actual mattress. Because there was this shop that I went to, and I don't even remember where I was living when I got this bed.

I remember I was walking for a long distance with this mattress that I purchased. And then there was one time I bought a desk. Because I always like desks.

I've got this table, which is my desk, but it's not really like a proper desk. It's just like a living room table. It's big enough for four people to eat.

Not to eat the table, but to eat at the table. But, you know, there could be a bit of knee on knee action, because it's not very big. So you're going to be bumping knees with other people possibly.

So I wouldn't want to sit at this table with a stranger. But then why would a stranger be in my home eating food at my table? That would be strange. So I got this desk, and this was in East London.

I can't remember what I paid for it, probably £30, £40. And it was heavy. And I carried it.

I couldn't, I had to keep putting it down because it was so heavy. But I carried it for, I'd say a good six miles. But it weren't a good six miles.

It was far from a good six miles. Even walking, even if I had roller skates on, and all I was carrying was a feather duster, it still wouldn't be a good six miles. It was a fair journey.

And I was carrying this table on my shoulder. And I don't know how I did it. I hurt my shoulder, but I don't know how I, no, I know how I hurt my shoulder, it was carrying the desk.

But I don't know how I managed to get that desk all the way to where it ended up being. But I liked the desk. It was lovely.

I love desks. I love having somewhere that I can, where in the past it would have been writing, because, you know, when I was younger, there were no laptop, well, there were laptops, but I didn't have one. And there was no internet.

There wasn't, you know, in the early 90s up to, I think I didn't adopt, not adopt as in, you know, the correct word, correct use of the word. Say I didn't adopt the internet. I didn't, you know, I didn't raise the internet as my own.

One day I'm going to have to tell the internet one day that I'm not his real daddy. I don't know. It's, I think it was probably 1998 when I first discovered the internet.

And then 1999 when I first started using the internet. And then 2000 was when I first started studying and building websites. And I became obsessed with it.

It's weird because it's not very interesting. Well, it was interesting to me. I don't find it interesting now, but I was obsessed.

So every waking minute of the day is like, and I was going to bed late at night, waking up early in the morning. Let's get back and start building stuff. And I don't know what it was.

I just absolutely loved it. And at that time, before I, you know, I didn't have any internet until probably 99. So I used to go to the internet cafe, which was this place.

It's a fair walk, probably a 20 minute walk from where I lived. And it's quite a big place. And I used to go there when it was fairly quiet.

And I'd be able to get a cup of coffee and maybe a bit of cake, biscuit. I think they might have sold food as well. And I'd be online and I'd just be looking at all the different websites.

And just, I just kind of loved the internet. And those were the days when it took ages for a picture to upload. You know, it took ages for anything out other than just basic writing to come up.

But it was just this, oh, this is going to be worth the wait. And it really was. Really, not really, but really, really, really was.

Really, really, really, really was. What's that other thing that English and Americans say? That we say it the opposite way around, but it still means the same thing. And it still makes sense.

Oh, what is it? Oh, yeah. See, in England, let's say in an example, someone says something and our response would be, I couldn't care less. I couldn't care less.

In America, you say what they say, I could care less. And isn't it amazing? It's basically the complete opposite, but it means exactly the same thing. And it both makes sense.

I could care less. I couldn't care less. It's weird, it's so subtle.

But it has the same exact meaning. You know what? I could care less. I couldn't care less.

I care the least I could ever care. I couldn't care less than I do right now. I could care less, even more, lesser than even that.

Less, less, less, less, less. So I used to remember we'd be sitting on a Saturday evening in our house when I was a kid, like a teenager. And for some reason, in them days, they used to be, we used to get to stay up late on a Saturday.

My older brothers could stay up later than me anyway. They had this hierarchy system where depending on what our age was, depending on what time I went to bed. So I don't know, I probably went to bed at say nine o'clock.

And then my other brother went to bed at half nine. And then my oldest brother went to bed at ten. Or yeah, as an example, I don't recollect.

I mean, they couldn't force us to close our eyes or actually sleep, but we did. We participated in the illusion of going to bed. Personally, what I would do is I would stay up reading.

So I'd have my light on and I'd read for an hour or two. And then I'd go to sleep. Until I got my first television when I was probably 14.

I think I was 14 when I got my first television. And it was black and white television. And it was, it was my brother's.

And I loved it. I loved it. I mean proper.

I used to stay up late at night watching television. And I still remember watching Cheers. The good thing about it is I didn't need to watch television downstairs anymore.

So I could watch it on my own. And I could watch whatever programs I wanted to watch. Which is, it's bliss for me.

And it still is. Still love that. I've just been able to watch whatever I want to watch.

But back then, that was a novelty. That was like, wow. Because I was kind of the last person to get to choose.

Because I was like one of the youngest in the house. Apart from when there's no one else around. And I could just, you know, watch what I wanted.

And I remember sitting there watching Cheers. And also MASH as well. And I'd never seen, I don't think I'd ever seen Cheers or MASH before.

And I discovered Friday night television, where on Channel 4, every Friday night, it'd be American sitcoms. Like Cheers. And it ended up, you know, moving into like Roseanne.

And it's just, the list is Golden Girls. The list is very long. There's a lot of different sitcoms that used to be on during that hour.

Between nine and 10, I think it was. And at that time, Roseanne wasn't on. But Roseanne started, I think, was it about 87? I think.

So my regular thing from about 1984 onwards, was Friday night, I would watch the American sitcoms. And I loved it. And I watched every single one.

And I loved them all. But now, Friday nights, they don't do that anymore. They haven't done it for a long time.

That was one of the good things about Channel 4. But maybe it is, I don't know, maybe there's no, there's got to be new American sitcoms. There's got to be some out there. But yeah, I miss that.

What I don't understand, why wasn't Everybody Loves Raymond? There's never been peak time in England. And it was a great show. They show it now, early in the morning, like six o'clock in the morning, or seven o'clock in the morning, something like that.

And there's usually, I think, two episodes each morning. They've been showing it for years. That's on Channel 4. Why wasn't it shown peak? Why wasn't that shown on Channel 4 on a Friday evening? Or even Saturday early evening, like Mork & Mindy was? Everyone Loves Raymond was a great, very funny show.

Just like Seinfeld. And that was huge in America. They only ever showed it here, late at night.

And because I'm a, I'm more of a night person, I, you know, I get to see that stuff. But a lot of people, they go to bed and they didn't get a chance to see it. It's one of the most famous sitcoms ever in television history.

I suppose, I suppose it makes sense in a sense of, I'm in England and they focus mainly on English sitcoms, which I suppose does make sense. But they did have quite a lot of American shows, especially at the weekends. And it was non-stop American TV shows.

You got especially early evening Saturdays, around like between five onwards. So you'd have like Mork & Mindy in the early 80s. And you see 18.

What other ones do we have? Dukes of Hazzard. One of my favorite ones called Mr. Merlin. But that, I don't think that was on Saturdays.

That might have been on during the week. Godiva. Is that MacGyver or Godiva? They used to be on Saturdays with Dallas, Dynasty.

They were a bit later. And technically they weren't comedies, though they were funny. So what other ones? What other TV shows used to be on? The Fall Guy.

Of course, Bionic Man, Bionic Woman. But if I remember rightly, I'm pretty sure that the Bionic Man used to be on during the week. On a Tuesday evening.

Just like Charlie's Angels. Huge show, but I think they used to be on on a Tuesday evening. Heart to Heart.

Huge show. Pretty sure they used to be on on a Sunday. So there's lots of American shows that England loved.

I do wonder how many of English shows were shown in America. You know, peak time. Maybe not that many.

I don't know. Another show, one of the best sitcoms, was for me, was Married With Children. Hardly showed it in this country.

And if they did, it was late, because it was classed as adult. I just, you know, I remember years ago, right? I was, I recorded, I was working in a chip shop. I had a video recorder.

And I was, I was working, so I set the video recorder, I think possibly to record EastEnders. That would make sense, because, or it might have been Top of the Pops, but I think it was probably EastEnders, because the Terry Wogan show was on before. So I set it to record 10 or 15 minutes before, and to end 10-15 minutes afterwards, just to make sure that I caught it, just in case there was a delay or whatever with the schedule.

And so I started, um, no. Wait a minute. No, that's not right.

At least it was right. No, I think I recorded something that was on late, late at night. I can't remember what it was.

I really can't. So, anyway, the program before, oh, I'm getting it muddled up. I did it again with another recording, and it had, I think it was EastEnders, and it had the Terry Wogan show.

But on it, there is Stephen Wright, the American comedian, and being deadpan as he is, but being interviewed and being deadpan and saying how excited he was being on a Terry Wogan show and how much he's enjoying being in London. And it was just hilarious because, you know, with his voice and his facial expressions. And I'd never heard of him before.

I didn't know who he was. And it was just hilarious. But then I recorded this program late at night, and the program before it, the last 10 minutes, was Married With Children.

And again, I'd never, never heard of it. So I just played it as I was, you know, I was intrigued because there was Ted Bundy sitting in a dentist chair, being examined by, I think, a female dentist or something. And I could not stop laughing.

It was absolutely hilarious. And I didn't even have any kind of connection with the character or anything. I didn't really know what was going on, just that he was at the dentist.

I didn't know what he was about, and he was, you know, the character. It was so funny. So I discovered that show, but they didn't show it very often.

Which was a shame. I'm trying to think what other American TV shows used to be on. I think the worst, the most embarrassing bit is sometimes when, because we used to get videos quite a lot, and go to the video shop.

And that was my favourite thing, is we'd go to the video shop and we'd get maybe four videos, four films or five films to watch. And we'd kind of like have a marathon session. Or we'd watch them and then watch another one later, you know.

But it would be, I don't know, it was just, it was really nice. And everyone kind of seemed quite excited, you know. But occasionally there'd be a film.

And what I used to watch, like adult film, not adult as in internet kind of stuff, but you know, whether it was drama or whether it was just general stuff, horror or comedy or whatever. Occasionally there'd be a, like a little, a romantic scene on there. And if you walked into the, into the living room, because it was all in there, if you walked in there, you wouldn't even need to look at the television to know there was a romantic scene.

Because there'd be my dad, there'd be the parents and there'd be, maybe cuddling each other. There'd be my little brother on the floor playing with his Lego or something. And there'd be me and my two brothers sitting there, you know, dressing gowns, all holding a cushion on our laps.

Very awkward, it was. But hey, it's, I used to, I quite, I like that, I like that type. I used to love, love watching movies.

Proper, proper, I'm not a movie buff, I just used to like watching movies. And I didn't even seem to care what it was about. Just watch it.

I'd pretty much watch every new film that came out. And in some ways I still do, but I do less, I do it less now. Because now there's way more choice than there ever was.

You know, you can stream, you know, so many different things now, instantly. Back then you'd have to walk all the way to the video shop and walk all the way back. Didn't even have those shoes to have those little wheels that could pop out so you could skate a little bit away.

No, walking the whole way, no buses, no buses. Walking. But I remember that, I think it was, it was quite cool, you know.

I liked the comedies, that was always my favourite. You know, things with like Peter Sellers in, I liked those. And then pretty, 1984 is when I started doing karate, I think.

And I was really into, I got really into boxing, like watching it on telly. And then I got really into watching every single martial arts movie I could rent. So that was, it's like a rite of passage for for anybody that gets into martial arts of any type.

It seems to be a standard, especially like younger people, maybe at school or whatever, is just get excited about it. And whether it's you're doing karate, taekwondo, kung fu, whatever it is, judo, jujitsu, ikea, not ikea, that's a, yeah, ikea. It's, it kind of just get like, okay, now I need to watch every single Bruce Lee film, and then watch every Jackie Chan film, then watch every Chuck Norris film, then watch every Jean-Claude Van Damme film, then watch every Dolph Lundgren film.

Oh yeah, Bruce, what's it? I missed the cover now. I can't believe I missed it. There's one that's really good and I've lost, forgotten his name.

Maybe his name is Lee as well. I'm sure it's L-I, something L-I, and he's, I forget, but he's been in loads of films as well. I used to, see, I was a big fan of Jackie Chan before he became a big star in the West.

So I used to watch his martial art films that he did in the, I'm guessing early 80s, late 70s. Snake Fist, was it? Drunken Master was one of them, Drunken Master, one, Snake Fist, Dragon something, Monkey Boxer, they might have been another one. So he did lots of, made quite a few films, but they were funny.

And they were dubbed into English, so you didn't have to read, you didn't have to read while you're watching. It was a bit of a funny, a very, it was physically funny. Of course, that's what we kind of expected from Jackie Chan once he became, once people got to know him, he was famous for being physically funny.

And also, you know, the athleticism that I pronounced incorrectly was amazing. But those films, they were the best films I think he made, the early ones. They were proper top notch.

So yeah, very funny. Really, just perfect films, perfect martial art films. The later ones, I didn't, I didn't watch, I've seen lots of his stuff, but the Rush Hour that he's in, I never watched those films.

But I've seen a few of his films where he's, he's made lots, hasn't he, in America. I watched all of the Bruce Lee films, but there wasn't many to choose from because he, you know, didn't make that many films. I've seen a few of Chuck Norris's films, but he, you know, after probably 85, no, after 1986, I stopped watching martial art films.

Apart from, I've seen stuff like modern ones, but I stopped watching the older ones. And I stopped watching like Chuck Norris and most of them apart from the, like the more big blockbuster ones. Jean-Claude Van Damme was probably my favourite of the newer ones.

Although they were based, they were still in the 80s, like late 80s, the Kickboxer and Bloodsport and loads, loads of films. And yeah, I really liked him. Who else? Who else did I like? I liked, there's a bloke called Bruce Lai.

And he was, again, it was funny films, but he was, I think, in a sense, trying to take over from Bruce Lee. He looked like Bruce Lee. He dressed like Bruce Lee.

And he was, they were, looked like much cheaper versions of Bruce Lee's films. But there was lots of them. So there's lots more different scenarios.

But it was great. I used to love watching his films. I can't think of any other martial artists that I liked.

There was one and his name is Avoiding Me. I can't remember what it is. But he was quite, he'd been in lots of films.

No, I can't remember. But there's lots and lots of films I watched. I don't remember what they were now.

It's a long time ago. You think 30, 1986, 1996, 2006, 2016. That's 33 years ago.

Since I kind of moved away from that phase of my life where I was obsessed with martial arts. Wow. So that's probably enough boring stuff for one day.

Thank you for listening and I'll speak to you soon. Bye, bye, bye, bye.