#176 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (9th July 2019)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Please only listen to this every single day, forever and ever. Now only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes.

Now, that's me tapping a book. I don't know if I told you, did I mention to you that I have a punch bag? I got a punch bag the other day, I think it was Thursday. So it's now Monday.

I think it was Thursday that I got it. And I think my friend helped me to put it up on Friday. Or was it Saturday? I think it was Friday evening.

I say he helped me put it up. He put it up and I watched. So I held the punch bag up for him when he connected it to the rack.

It's got a lovely rack. It attaches to the wall like a nice rack. It's a light one that fits properly.

Because with a punch bag, if you've got the rack that it attaches to, you have to have a nice one that fits securely to the wall. Because in this case, the punch bag is really heavy. Because you can get a heavy bag, you can get a light bag.

And that's kind of the most obvious thing to say, I suppose. But when I was 13, 14, my dad had a conservatory at the bottom of the garden, which he used as an office. But he only used part of it as an office.

And the other part he had, because he was an electrician, so he had stuff stored in there. There's a lot of space. So he put a, not so much a rack, but like a squivel screw thing into the ceiling, which a punch bag could be attached to.

And it swiveled around and stuff. And I bought a punch bag, like a normal punch bag. But he also got a kit bag, which was like an old army bag, and he filled it with... I'm not sure which was which.

I think the kit bag might have been the heavy one, and we filled it with sand. And the punch bag I got didn't have anything in it. And I filled it with like rags and stuff.

So one was light, one was heavy. Again, I'm not sure which was which. But I had two punch bags.

One was light, one was heavy. One had like rags in. It was, it was compressed.

So I didn't kind of lose my hand in it. It wasn't just really so light that it just blew around in the wind. I didn't have to keep the windows closed in case it blew around and fell off.

But you know, it was heavy, but not heavy, just firm. But it's nice to be able to just play around with a light bag. But with a heavy bag, if you want to, you can do both on both really.

You can't do really heavy punches on a light bag. But you can do light punches on a heavy bag. But sometimes it's nice to have a little bit of... to do something a little bit different, you know.

And now I've got... it's a heavy bag. But it's, as I said, it's got a nice rack that's attached to the wall. And this rack's been screwed with one, two, three screws.

Two at the top and one at the bottom. There's like a bar going across. There's another bar underneath that attaches to it.

And like a little T-shaped kind of thing from the side. And then the punch bag attaches to the thing after you've obviously, obviously it's been attached to the wall. It's a little bit wonky because unfortunately, unfortunately, the bag is a lot better quality than the rack that it's attached to.

So the bag is proper quality. It's Everlast. And it's a proper boxing bag.

And it's, you know, it's good. It's good, good material and stuff. I've had quite a few punch bags over the years.

But this rack is a little bit squeaky. But it's okay. I just, it's just fun.

It's really fun to have it. So I've got it on the side of the wall. And the thing is, if I punch it too hard from the front, it bangs against the wall.

And I've got a lot of soundproofing material on the wall. So it doesn't like bang against the wall directly. But I'm gonna have to get myself a big bit of foam to put on the wall in front of it.

So when it hits the wall, it doesn't sort of make too much noise and doesn't like shake the building or anything. But previously to this, I've been buying the stand up punch bags, the ones that before I moved here, I had one. Why I didn't bring it here, I've got no idea.

But why did this cost me 200 pounds, and I just left it there. Anyway, it's it had it basically just looks like a punch bag. It's about six foot tall.

And it's got a, or maybe it's not actually probably about five foot punch bag size, but it's on a spring thing. And then there's a big, the bottom bit is plastic, really thick plastic, which you can fill with water or you can fill it with sand. It's probably better to fill it with sand or something like that.

If you're indoors, I imagine. But it's pretty, it's pretty good. I've had two of them.

Again, I left it at my other place back in 2000. And what year was that? Yeah, beginning of 2011. I left my other punch bag that I'd had for a couple of years.

I left that in the garden. And so yeah, I've had a few punch bags. So this time, instead of getting one that stands up, because it shakes, and it'll shake the floor, and I didn't want to do that.

Before it was okay, because it was outside, and the other one was inside, but I was on the ground. I was in a basement. So I wasn't shaking the floor for anyone.

I'm quite light on my feet. So it's, it's better to have one that's supported by a nice rack. But I also got a swivel thing for the ceiling.

I bought a separate thing, which cost me 20 odd pound, which because I originally was going to have it in the ceiling. But it's hard to know where to put it. But I don't know, I might get another punch bag and put one in the bedroom.

I don't know. Let's see. Also, I'd like to get one of those speed balls as well.

Because I just like, I like punching. Just not like in a violent way. I just like the, it's something I've always liked since I was a kid.

I've liked that kind of exercise. It's just fun. It's good and it kind of, it stretches your body.

I've noticed since I've had the punch bag that I'm not really doing a lot of hard punches, it's more just playing around with it. But I've noticed that I've been stretching my lower back, the left side of my lower back, which I've had problems with for years now. And I'm, I can feel it stretched.

I can feel it's been stretched and and it feels a lot better. It actually feels like it's kind of loosening up a bit, which is really good. And another thing I noticed, I didn't realise this before, which is weird considering the amount of bags I've had and the amount of different things I've done, like martial arts and things over the years.

And I've always thought of myself as being just like orthodox boxer. If I was ever, I'm not a boxer, but if I was, I'd be leading with my left hand. But I noticed that actually, if I go unorthodox and I'm leading with my right hand, when I got quite a good left punch, and that's really good for stretching my lower back on my left side.

So I've been doing that quite a bit. I did it purposely to stretch my back. And I realised there's a bit of power there.

So if I could get a little time machine and go back 30 years, probably 40 years even, I could, I might have been an okay little boxer. It's a little bit late now, but you know, that was one of my little dreams I always wanted to do. Another thing I wanted to do is, because I did karate, I did kickboxing first with a neighbour and then I did karate.

And once I started doing karate, I fell in love with everything to do with martial arts. And I think that's standard for most people, especially like kids. And I became obsessed with everything, whether it's kendo, kung fu, Wing Chun, judo.

That's one of the things I didn't ever want to do. I did go to a judo class once just to watch. And the problem I had with it was that I was little.

And I know it's not about the size. I realise that now. I didn't realise it at the time.

But I just didn't feel comfortable or confident in my ability to wrestle or to, I don't know, it just didn't seem, didn't grab my interest. And I felt confident with the punching and less so with the kicking, but I was pretty kind of flexible back then, a hell of a lot more than now. But I would never have wanted to go close up and try to wrestle with anybody, because most of the people were bigger than me, even some of the kids that were younger than me were bigger than me.

But that didn't matter when you're punching and kicking. And so yeah, I got really, really involved and loved it. And my dream, I wanted to be a boxer, but I wanted to be a bodybuilder.

I did not have the body for it. Couldn't just, I didn't have an ounce of fat on my body. So even when I left school at 15, all the way up to pretty much, yeah, pretty much to the age of 25, my body was just, I was just really, really slim the whole time.

And I had muscles, of course. I mean, everyone does don't they? But I wanted to be big. I wanted to be like, look strong.

It's okay being strong, but I wanted to look strong. Like I've never kind of had that wish come true. But so the bodybuilding kind of just didn't, it was like trying to be a basketball player, didn't have the height.

So I know that if I'd have tried to join a basketball team, I'd have been surrounded by people that were, you know, a foot taller than me, if not more. You know, so it's just, this wouldn't have been, how do I ever got the ball off them? Because all I got to do is hold it at their head height and I won't be able to reach it. So I didn't, you know, didn't do that.

But I wanted to be a monkey boxer. I wanted to travel to Australia and learn how to do monkey boxing and go to a Shaolin temple. Although it was not, I guess, it wasn't a Shaolin temple because it was in Australia, but it was still a Kung Fu temple.

But I also wanted to go to learn Shaolin Kung Fu as well. So that's what I wanted to do. That's, you know, before I left school, that was my dream.

And I think at some point, you know, every waking moment of my life was seemed to be preoccupied with martial arts and watching every single martial arts movie there has ever been. And I actually, I used to buy the, a couple of martial arts magazines that were either weekly or monthly. And there was a man who taught praying mantis Kung Fu, and he learned it from, I think, going to China, and he learned it there.

And he was the only person in the UK to teach it. And he was Sifu Simon something. So he taught, he kind of basically introduced it to England.

And he used to be in the magazine quite a lot. And I used to read it and think, wow, this looks really good. And if you watch any of the old like Kung Fu films, a lot of they'd have like praying mantis style, monkey style, dragon style, snake, snake fist style, and, you know, various drunkard master style of Kung Fu.

And praying mantis looks really cool. Well, here's the thing. I moved to Stratford in London, East London, when I was late teens.

And I was walking down, I think it was the Romford Road, just past the library. I think it's on the left hand side, but it's not there anymore. But there was this building, big building.

And it looked closed, it looked like a derelict building that hadn't got anything in it. But there was a sign saying praying mantis Kung Fu. So this is a days long before the internet.

And as far as I'm aware, he didn't advertise, because I used to buy the local paper. And I never saw adverts for it. So it's the kind of thing that you'd only hear about, probably through word of mouth, or maybe it was in the phone book, I don't know.

Or if you passed and saw it, which is what I had, I saw this and I thought, praying mantis Kung Fu. But it didn't have any times, it didn't have any information, just the sign. So I went into this building.

And it was it was empty, pretty much. But the door was open. So I walked in the door.

I didn't expect to see lots of praying mantises running around, but I walked through, went up the stairs, I think it was. And there was, I looked through these doors, and there was this big room, big, big, big room. And there was all these swords and this big display, all these swords and weapons on the various like butterfly knives and stuff like that around the walls.

And I think there was some punch bags and stuff. And these big, long, kind of like, not swords, but I suppose, spears and stuff like that. So I thought, this might be the right place.

I know it wasn't. It wasn't a takeout restaurant. I knew that.

But you know, chances are it might be the right place. But I didn't, wasn't sure. But I kind of, there was a clue, I suppose.

Plus, it did have a sign that says, praying mantis Kung Fu. So I went in, and there was a man just sitting there. I think he was meditating.

So I said, oi, oi, get up. No, I didn't. And he stood up, looked at me, stood up, walked over to me and said, right.

Yeah. And he was, wasn't very tall, probably my height, maybe, maybe a little bit taller, maybe a little bit shorter. I don't know.

But he wasn't very tall, but he was very muscly and, you know, fit and he had blonde hair. He wasn't, wasn't very old either. He probably, probably late 20s, perhaps.

And I said to him, I just saw your sign outside. He said, yeah. We didn't say yeah, we said yeah.

And the rest of this conversation, I'm going to make up because I can't remember what. But it kind of basically, I said to him, I know you. He said, do you? I said, yeah.

You're the person that was in the magazines. You brought this style of Kung Fu to England and stuff. He said, yeah, that's me.

I was like, wow. I said, I didn't realize you was in Stratford. I said this, because in those days, before the Olympic Games in 2012, there weren't a lot happening in Stratford.

You know, this, it, yeah, it was, it was busy, but it was just, you know, there wasn't, it wasn't a glamorous place. Not that it'll ever be glamorous, probably, but I'm sure it's lovely. But, you know, I did visit it after the Olympic Games and there's a lot of changes in the area around the stadium where they built it.

You know, the, I mean, the actual main stadium for the Olympic Games is now the home for West Ham United football ground. But all that area, the shopping centre, is it Westerfields? I forget, but I've not, I've not been in there, but, you know, that was all built kind of in preparation for, it was just basically a huge money injection into that area. But if you walk far enough away in any direction, you end up in exactly the same as what it used to be.

The roads are the same, the houses are the same, you know, it's kind of the same, but just the area is different. That area around the bus station and the train station, that started getting transformed years and years and years ago, long before the Olympics were even mentioned. The train station started transforming.

Then they transformed the bus station, made it all lovely. And then we're going to have, Edward, the train link, though I don't know if they do, but they started the train connection from the Eurotunnel to come through to Stratford. And that whole area around where the stadium is, or was, and, you know, the whole basic Olympic village, the whole area used to be waste ground, which had, used to be the docks, used to be where all the trains used to come through.

And I used to walk through there. And it was massive. And I remember walking through, because it was like a shortcut to get to the train station from where I used to work.

And instead of walking around, I just walked through it. It's a big old area. And I remember saying to my friends, saying, why don't they do something with this? This is a lot of space.

Why don't they, why don't they have an Olympics or something? No, I didn't. I said, there was just, there was loads and loads of broken down trains that were just rusty. And it was just a massive area that used to be really busy, like, probably 50 years ago or something.

Anyway, I remember the, they started working on it all. And they spent years putting it together. And it's quite cool what they've done.

And that road leading from Stratford to Mile End, the part before the underpass, the Bow underpass, the, there's like hotels now, and stuff like that. It's, you know, put a lot of effort and work into that area, but move away from it and you're back. It's like going back in time to 30 years ago, which is kind of quite cool as well.

It's quite nice to revisit old roads and areas that I used to live in. And it's the same. It's the same.

So, possibly even the same people live in there. Although a lot of people, I know, I know at least one person, but probably imagine thousands of people in Stratford. They sold their house and made a nice profit and then moved somewhere nice to live.

Somewhere where they probably got a lot more for their money. I know someone that bought, they bought a council house for like £14,000 in the 80s, or maybe early 90s or something. And then that house was a one, two, three bedrooms, plus an extension, plus a garden.

That would have sold for probably easily £500,000, maybe £400,000, but at least, I reckon more, probably half a million. So if half a million, you can't get much in London, in most places. But if you move to somewhere like here, where I am, or if you move to some other parts of the country, you could buy a huge house and still have £200,000 left to spend.

So it's just, it's down to kind of, I suppose, how attached you are to the area, I suppose, I don't know. But anyway, I wasn't going to talk about Stratford. Oh, yeah.

So what I did is I spoke to this man. I want to Google it. I feel like I want to Google it because to put his name in, Sifu, which is, I think that means teacher, Sifu, S-I-F-U.

I'm sure his name is Simon something. Anyway, he had this place and I went along. He said, well, come along, we're open.

I think he was open quite a few nights a week, because from the looks of it, it wasn't being used for anything else because it was his. He clearly rented it or whatever. Unless he owned it, I don't know.

So he had this, and I went along and did a bit of, learned a bit of praying mantis Kung Fu. Now, I don't know why, but I didn't, I liked it. But I think because I was more into the comedy, I was more busy doing gigs and going to comedy clubs, as well as working all day.

That I kind of put my energy into that rather than doing the Kung Fu. And I do regret it because it would have been a brilliant thing to have really got good at, that particular style. And I remember we were doing some stuff and I got here and bruised, because there's a lot of conditioning in Kung Fu.

And so a fair bit of bruising happens, especially with like blocking punches and stuff. And this is something I've never experienced before, or since. We went upstairs, it's like this, like a balcony, a few steps up.

And I was put in, I suppose I was getting dressed or whatever. And then I come out and they're all sitting there drinking something or drinking like tea out of these Chinese cups. I know they're Chinese because one of them spoke to me.

I don't know, like Chinese, China, Chinese, I don't know. Basically, he'd made this potion up. I say potion, it's probably not the right word, but it had alcohol in it, but it was roots and ginseng and various kinds of things.

And he said, he put it onto a thing and he said, put this onto the bruise. And I think he said, I think it's the first time I learnt it, is if you bruise yourself, a good thing to do is actually press into the bruise. As you press your fingers into the bruise and that kind of evens it out and it actually reduces the swelling and it reduces the pain.

Anyway, he put this, he did that and he put this stuff on my arm or wherever it was, my hand. And he said, that'll be good for the bruising. And then he said, drink this, this will be very good for healing.

So it was kind of like a, I suppose like a Chinese tea that he'd made himself though, because he'd spent years living in China. I was like, wow. So I just, it's one of those things that I wish I'd kind of stayed involved in because he was so cool.

And I was quite awestruck when I met him because I'd already sort of read about him because he was well known in the martial arts world. So being this young man that spent, I don't know, maybe seven years or whatever in China, learning, maybe longer, learning this martial arts, learning to speak Chinese, learning, you know, to be a master of the technique of praying mantis kung fu. But I didn't go back.

And then one day I did go back and it was closed. And then they knocked the building down. I hope he managed to get out.

And I hope he wasn't meditating. But what was strange, because that was like in the early 90s, probably. And then, and when I say early, I'm talking like 91, 92.

And then in 2001, and one, I think it was 2001, in the summer, there was a walk past this, just a normal way, just walk past this alleyway that I always walk past. And there was just a bunch of shops and stuff. And I saw a sign praying mantis kung fu.

And I thought, so I went down there, again, went there. And it was him. And he'd moved, he'd got a new place.

I don't know where he'd been before then, probably moved around a couple of times, maybe. And he rented out this, again, it wasn't as big as the old place, but it's still a good size room. And so I went along with my cousin.

And I sweated so much. I remember that because I felt, I looked like I'd just got out of the bath. Because I hadn't really done much exercise for a couple of years.

So I was a little bit, probably, yeah, got a little bit overweight. And then not long after that, I moved out of London. So I didn't kind of get to sort of really get into it.

But I did, so I always felt that thought, I want to do kung fu. I've done karate. And I did boxing.

I did about, I spent about a year or a year and a half going to the boxing club back in 2009, probably. And I lost quite a bit of weight doing that. And that was good.

But back in 2004, I started going to a martial arts, a kung fu club, Wing Chun, that was run by Master Wong. And he was a character, very funny. Like, he's Chinese.

He's fairly short, bald, but so funny. And he just, he lived the life. He really knew what he was doing.

And, but he was cheeky. And it's very funny. But anyway, I did that for over a year.

But I kept getting injured. So, because there's very full on contact especially with the blocking, we just stand there and have to block punches and end up, end up bruising all of my arm and my hands and my shins, my knees. And there's one point where we were elbowing each other in the chest with pads on, with like body armour.

But somehow, so I managed, the person I was with managed to actually, because the body armour was shaped in a certain way, he managed to get underneath the body armour, just missed the body armour and hit my rib. And I ended up with a broken rib. So that was not great.

So I couldn't do anything for I don't know, six weeks or something. Okay, I went and trained a little bit. After a while, I was able to go in and just do a bit of punch bag work, maybe like a bit of kicking and stuff.

And I was there doing that. And I wish, I wish, wish, wish that I'd had a video camera, taping it, because then I could have put it on YouTube when YouTube decided to exist, because it didn't at that time. So basically, there was this big room that we're in, it's like a big hall, really high ceilings.

And off the ceiling, there was this punch bag in the corner. And it was basically hanging off this big long chain. It was a heavy bag.

And I was kicking it. And I gave a good old kick and it broke off. And the bag went flying.

Now, realistically, I know it wasn't me, you know, I'm not a superhuman kicker. But oh wow, that would have looked good. If I'd have had that filmed, it would have looked like I'd know that wasn't me to kicked it and it did break while I was kicking it.

But it would have looked like I kind of kicked it really hard. The reality is, a small child could have probably walked up to it and just pushed it and it might have fell off. Because I guess the hinges were loose or something.

But it felt good. Really did. It was cool.

But as well as learning Wing Chun, I also learned some Jeet Kune Do, which is what Bruce Lee created. And that was fun as well. So it's kind of did Wing Chun twice a week, then did Jeet Kune Do I think once a week.

So Tuesday and Thursday was or was it Monday and Wednesday, I think might have been Wing Chun. And then maybe Tuesday was Jeet Kune Do. And on Friday, it was leg spa, where we always used to get together and weren't allowed to use your hands at all, not even to block.

So basically, leg kicking, blocking with your legs. And that was it, the whole thing. And you just go from one person to the next and it was knackering.

But the good thing about it is if you do it enough, you start getting quite good at kicking, I suppose. And that was the last time I was any good at kicking. Not that I was good, but I was okay.

But we'd all be padded up as well. It wasn't like, I think we were, probably had to, yeah, probably had like a body pad. Body pad, that sounds like something you'd see on an advert, doesn't it? Body pad, very comfortable.

Tried body pad. You can now go skating again. Yeah, I think they did, I'm not sure.

I might lose track, but yeah, that was really cool. I liked doing that. And then, as I said, I did the boxing.

So when I moved to this town, I did, what did I do? I did boxing for a while. And then in 2011, I started going to Taekwondo. And I did that for a couple of years.

I did three, was it three or four gradings? I forget, at least three gradings. I've still got the certificates. And I got first class, like top grade passes on those.

Andre's just decided to come out and go to the toilet. That's lovely. Hello, Andre.

So I went to this Taekwondo, and it's, it is more focused on kicking than punching, which isn't really my, I can't kick high anymore. You know, kind of more like stomach level kicking. So, but they had quite a few adults there that weren't, or just equally like my level of flexibility.

Some of them were older, and they still managed to be black belts. So it didn't seem to really matter about being someone that could kick really high, head high and stuff. Which surprised me, and that encouraged me as well.

Because the man that was teaching was in his 50s. And he started probably at my age that I was at that time. So I didn't have the excuse of like, I'm too old, because he said, well, I was older than you when I started.

Plus, I wasn't coming in without having any experience of doing anything. Because I've done various martial arts over the years. So I had a little bit of memory of, you know, blocking and movement and avoiding, you know, stuff like that.

So I sat in the first time, I think. Or no, I didn't actually, I was allowed to join, I joined in the first time, I was concerned it'd be just for the kids. Because the last time I did karate, I was a kid, and it was for the kids.

When I went to boxing, there was, there was a few adults, but there was a lot of kids there. So I prefer it to be adults, you know. But it was, it was very much probably 50-50.

But then the kids were, most of the kids were older, there's a few young ones, but and the adults varied in age from being, you know, in their 20s to being in their 40s. So that was quite good. In fact, there was a couple that were in their 50s, I think.

So there's a really nice atmosphere there. So I used to go there on, I think it was a Tuesday and a Thursday, or it might be a Monday and a Wednesday, I forget. But I went there for, let's see, quite, quite a while.

And I did at least three gradings to get belts. And might have done a fourth one. I'm not sure, because my last grading involved sparring.

And that was, I think that might have been green belt. But I was, I was nervous, I was nervous doing that stuff. Especially with so many people at the grading, all kind of, and they'll watch.

Because when I was a kid, when I did the karate and had the gradings, there was a lot of people, but it was not that many people. You know, it was a much smaller event, because I was in a smaller area. Because where I live now, it's a big, big old area.

So I did that. And eventually, I had to stop doing it because of my lower back. My lower back, on the left side of my, left side of my lower back, due to just wear and tear is, I just couldn't do the kicking anymore.

So I had to stop doing it, which was a bit, a bit sad. So I haven't done anything like that. I haven't done any, because I lost weight again, when I was doing that.

You know, exercise, and it's pretty full on exercise for twice a week for like an hour and a half or whatever. But it's a good old sweat on. Just a sweat.

I do sweat when I exercise. I was like, I squirted, to be honest, it's like one of those puppets, you know, this sweat just squirts out of the head. Which is a good thing, because it's toxins and stuff in the skin gets released, doesn't it? So it's got to be a good thing.

I remember years ago, this person that I, I dated, it was a nurse or former nurse. And she, she was saying to me, only unhealthy people sweat when they run or when they exercise, which is absolute rubbish. Absolutely.

It's like, okay, so every boxer, every boxer in the gym, every boxer that's in a boxing ring, that's sweating, they're unhealthy. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, every runner in the Olympics that's sweating, they're unhealthy.

It's just, it's just trying to say that because I sweat, I must be that I'm unhealthy. No, I've always sweated when I've done exercise. Because I like to put a lot into it, you know, I like to, if I'm doing something like a movement, or if I'm running around, you know, just like, I just like to do it properly.

I like to put everything into it. So if I sweat, I like to sweat properly. I try and get all of the liquid out of my body.

Let it get all of it come out, let all the sweat that's been built up. I don't know, sweat builds up, but I think one thing that really makes me sweat, I don't know why I'm talking about sweating, when I do the vacuuming. Now, I think that's always happened to me, and it possibly happens to a lot of people, because it reduces heat, doesn't it, the vacuum cleaner.

But whenever I do the vacuum cleaner, I notice it more now, because I wear glasses, and the sweat falls off of my forehead or my face, and I'm looking down at the carpet, and the sweat drips onto the glasses, and everything becomes distorted. It's really weird. But at the same time, it feels quite nice.

Because it feels kind of like a cleansing, like a, I'll just say like a a baptism from inside, but that wouldn't be right, but just like a, like the skin just cleanses itself. And yeah, I like that. Although, saunas, I'm not big on saunas.

There's something about, I don't know, not really, I think if I had a sauna for myself, and it was just me, I'd probably be all right. But I wouldn't really want to be in a sauna with someone else, unless I knew them, like really well. Yeah, it's this very, it's like being in a sauna is like talking to someone in fog, or smog.

You know, it's like I'm talking to someone, but I don't know what they're doing, you know, it's like, well, it's just like, I can't see you, but I'm talking to you. Are you really there? Or have you just left your phone there, and now you're on the bus, and you're talking through another phone, and you're just like trying to fool me. Mind you, that involved buying two phones, so that'd be a bit expensive prank.

So I'm not mad about saunas, and the whole thing of having a sauna and then jumping into an ice pool. Yeah, not so much. Not really.

No. But I do like that it's nice in the summer. And it's been a while.

And when I say a while, I mean a long, long time. But when I was a kid, in the summer, I used to go down to the beach with my brothers. And there used to be this, what was it, like a big water pool thing where they'd have boats, where you could rent a boat out, not a boat, but like a little paddling boat thing.

And you could like rent it out and, you know, pedal around for 10 minutes or whatever, and then call your number in. And so people used to sort of dip their feet in the water. And me and my brothers would have water pistols, and we'd use them and hit each other with them.

No, pistol whip each other. No, we'd spray water each other and stuff. But then it got to the point where it was so hot, and like, I don't know, my son somehow, one of my brothers would appear with a bucket out of nowhere.

Like, where was he? Where was he hiding it? I don't know. He didn't have one when he left the house. I wonder if he was walking so weird.

But you know, he'd pull a bucket out of nowhere and he'd fill it with water and start like chucking the water over each other. And the water was always, it's never hot. It's never sort of cold.

Even though the water was cold, because it was so hot. Because back in them days, the summers are really hot. Really hot.

You know, back in what year was that? Probably probably 19, it could be anything from 1979, 1980, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85. They're all hot, hot summers. The really hot summers were like the proper scorching, scorching summers.

Would have been 75, 76, 77. And I remember those, even though I was little. I remember just how hot those summers were.

But it never stopped us going out, because those were the days when I used to go out with my brothers or my friends and we'd just be out all day. And I'd get completely burnt to a crisp because my skin doesn't take the sun. It's just I've never been able to absorb sunshine.

My face isn't too bad, but then my face goes red, but it goes red in the winter. And my arms can just about manage it, but the rest of my body I have to keep covered. I think I might just bash the microphone.

Sorry about that. And apparently the weather forecast was saying the other day, oh, it's gonna be, it's gonna be the hottest summer in the whole of the history. And it wasn't.

It wasn't at all compared to what it used to be. But I remember years and years and years ago, probably what year? 1990, let's say 1994. I reckon probably.

And I was standing, maybe 95, but I was standing inside a phone box. Again, this is before mobile phones were really around. And I think the mobile phones in 94 were the size of backpacks.

And I didn't get my first mobile phone until, I think, 97 at the end of the year. Or maybe 98, beginning of 98, I don't know. But anyway, I had, I remember standing in the phone box, talking to my friend for probably about a half an hour, maybe longer.

And I was soaked. Through. It was, I suppose it was like being in a sauna.

But it was so hot outside. And I suppose, I guess really, the phone box would turn into a greenhouse. Because tomatoes started growing out of my underpants.

So yeah, it was like really hot, really, really hot. And I was sweating so much. But it was nice.

It's just, I don't know, it's something quite nice about. I didn't realize until I started talking about sweating that I like it so much. It's a bit weird, isn't it, really? Ah, there you go.

So that's some more boring stories about my life, my Kung Fu days. I think I'd like to... Since I've had the punch bag for the last few days, I've found myself remembering the Wing Chun style of, like, punching. So I'm thinking I think it'd be quite nice to maybe look and see if there's a Wing Chun club.

Wing Chun Kung Fu club that's, like, not too far away. Maybe try and go there just once and see what it's like. And it might be something, because it's a bit more gentle.

It's not gentle, but I think it's, that's not the right word, but Wing Chun was created by a woman to defend against men. So it was created in mind for pretty much anybody to use without that person having to be some big, strong, muscly, huge man. And that sounds a little bit sexist, but, you know, the fact is it was created by a woman, and it was created for that reason, so they could defend themselves.

So the ladies and men also learnt it and continued with that. And so it's something that people that may be, they don't have to be strong to use it. Necessarily it's about speed, it's about little blasts of punches, and yeah.

Another thing I did, I did, what was it called? My uncle's a black belt in it, he's a teacher, jujitsu. I went to, I had a martial arts club just up the road from where I lived years ago, and I went to a jujitsu club. It was in the martial arts club, but it's a jujitsu classes.

And I went for a few weeks, but the bloke just wanted to hurt me. Just every time a new person started, they wouldn't come back, because he just kept hurting them. Like throwing this all over the place, you know, grabbing my wrists, my fingers, twisting them, and I'll be honest, it was too painful.

I gave up, because I didn't like it, because I didn't like the pain. And he was just a bit too rough, I think, and he enjoyed it. In fact, it wasn't just he enjoyed it, he told me he enjoyed it.

He liked hurting people. Oh, another thing I did was Krav Krampa, or Krav Kampa, or something it's called. And it's the Israel martial arts.

And it's a real no-nonsense one, where it's really vicious. And I went there, I think, once or twice. But it's hard to get down back in the evenings.

But the instructor had half an ear ripped off, because he'd been training, and they grab each other's ears. And it's just... What surprised me is, it was full of... The class was full, and there was lots of women there. There was lots of... You had to be, I think, 16 or 18 to attend.

But you'd think it was like a yoga class or something, because everyone's all fit and happy, and like, they're about to learn this kind of style of fighting, which was gruesome, really. So I didn't manage to go anymore, because it was hard to get home from. But the reality is, I was probably just scared.

I'm scared. I wasn't. But... So I managed to bore you, hopefully.

With another bunch of pointless stories of my Kung Fu days, where I didn't... I suppose I did learn some stuff. I did each one for a while, but I do like having a punch bag. I was very pleased with that punch bag.

So I'm going to go. Just to remind you, if you are still awake, I do do sleep sessions, which are very much more, I was going to say sleep orientated, but I do like a deep sleep whisper hypnosis podcast. I do a weekly sleep hypnosis weekly podcast, as well as this.

I also got a Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks podcast, which is also popular as well. So if you are listening still, hopefully you're not in a fast asleep, because I bored you with way too much information about absolutely nothing that you're interested in. Because being boring isn't necessarily about talking about boring things.

It's just about talking about something that you're not interested in. So, you know, astronomy is not boring to someone that loves astronomy. But for someone that's got no interest in it, it might be the most boring thing to listen to in the world, because we're all different, aren't we? So I wish you well.

Remember to be kind to yourself. Remember that you deserve to be loved. And I'll speak to you next time.

Bye.