#218 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (17th September 2019)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is Let Me Bore You to Sleep. Please only listen to this and nothing else.

Just this forever and ever and ever. No, only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes. Now, the point behind these particular recordings, the Let Me Bore You to Sleep, is for me to bore you to sleep.

I realise it sounds quite obvious, but that's pretty much it. Although, it can also be a company, you know. I can be a friendly voice on the computer or on the phone that you can listen to, you know, most days.

I try and record an hour or something. Sometimes I'm talking about things out of a book. Other times it could be the outlay of a house that I once lived in.

You know, it could be various different things. Now, I think, I don't know what number I'm up to, I think it's about 215 or 216 episodes of this podcast. Which is way more than I expected to be making.

I mean, even with the Deep Sleep Whisper Hypnosis podcast, I think I've done about 145 of those. The Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety and Panic Attacks, I did episode 55. Yesterday.

And there's 66 episodes on the Self Help and Self Development podcast. And they kind of range from nail biting to helping with tinnitus and eating and all, you know, various different kinds of things there. And that's quite a good podcast.

The Relaxation podcast, Relaxation Hypnosis is, I think there's about 185 of that on that one. And the Sleep Hypnosis, I think I've done about 25, the Sleep Hypnosis Weekly. So it's quite a few, yeah, quite a few floating about.

I'm not floating literally, but I produced and I think I've produced three the last two days. And it was really weird tonight. I was, I had my dinner.

So I had something to eat, you know, food, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, swallow, yum, yum. And I laid back in my chair, a big black squeaky chair, and I was listening to a video. And it was an audio book.

And I thought on YouTube, so I just listened to it. I think it's called As Man Thinketh, Thinkest or something, by something Alan. Anyway, I'm listening to that.

And it's, I think it's supposed to last about an hour and 45 minutes. Not that I necessarily was gonna listen to it for an hour and 45 minutes. And then I fell asleep, like proper asleep, like with dreams and stuff.

You might be thinking, what? Dreams? Yeah, yeah, dreams. And when I woke up, I was about 40 minutes into, or no, about 50 minutes into the next video. Like, wow, it was nearly half past two.

So I'd, you know, it's like, wow, been asleep for over two hours. Or nearly two and a half hours or whatever. I was like, uh, what's going on there? So I almost feel like I've missed part of the day.

Because it's now 3.25 in the morning. I'm only starting to make my first recording. And after I got up, I woke up at about 1.30 yesterday afternoon.

And I, I've done a fair bit, you know, I've been working on my website today. But I didn't go back to bed. So I didn't have my little, little nap later on.

This is why I was so tired now. Sometimes I like to just lay down and maybe listen to a you know, an audio book or something and just lay in my bed. I just, I just enjoy laying down, it's nice.

But I've been working on my website. And it's, it's one of those websites that's never, ever going to be completed ever. It's just, it's a, it's a continuous build.

Just for the simple fact that every time I make a new recording, then that needs to be added to the website. So it's, you know, it's constant. So there's, I'm going to be putting some tags in there into the website.

So if it's categorized, but it's by podcast, I want to, I want to do tags so people can find stuff easier. So like, for example, have a tag for tinnitus, have a tag for nail biting, just so it makes it a little bit easier to find stuff. Instead of going through the self development and, you know, so I won't have a tag for relaxation, because basically, there's so many relaxations things on there, that you can search through them.

And if I put relaxation in, then I'll have hundreds and hundreds of things come up, which defeats the point of searching for stuff really, doesn't it? I think. So that's what I'm going to do. But at the moment, I'm in the process of changing each page by adding an introductory block, which is already pre prepared.

And I've nearly done it now, nearly gone through the 1050 odd pages, down to the last probably 50, I imagine. So I'm nearly, nearly finished on that. And when I have done that, I'm going to look at the tags and put together, there might not be huge amounts of tags, but enough.

So, you know, there'll be a block of tags, a bit like, do you remember, doesn't seem to be about so much now, it used to be go to a website in the past, and it'd be a block of words, which were tags, but they'd be kind of cloudy, like in clouds. Because I used to have that on previous websites. So this time, I'll just have the, you know, maybe 30, 40 tags, which you can click on, alphabetical, easy to find.

So A could be for abacus, if I had a recording based on the subject of abacuses. And B could be a recording about Brexit. If I had such a recording, C, what word begins with C? Country, if I could, if I had a recording about country, countryside or trees and stuff.

But I don't really make those kinds of recordings. Mind you, mind me, if I had tags for these let me bore you to sleep recordings, I possibly could have tags. And I could put down A for aliens and B for beavers and C for cockatoos and D for driving and C, D, E, E for evil Knievel, and F for Freddo.

Was it Freddo bars? You know, those little chocolate bars, Freddo, the frog. I used to eat them when I was, well, when I wanted to eat them. But because some of them, I think they're called Freddos.

And they used to be, I think they used to be five pence. And then they went up to 10 pence. And now they're about 30 pound.

So the, I still remember, I used to haven't had them for a long time. Some of them were just chocolate. Some of them had, were chocolate with a toffee, like melted toffee inside.

And they were yummy. And I remember back in 1991, I was living. Yeah, I was alive then.

And I, you know, some people might be listening in that weren't alive back then. And they're thinking, 1991? Was the planet even here then? Yes, it was. 1991.

How many years is that? 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 2000, 2001. So that's 10 years. 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005.

2010, 2011, 20 years. 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019. So yeah, it's only 28 years ago.

That's all. It's only 28 years ago. And I was 50 then.

It's amazing being 94. It's quite nice. I didn't realise, I sound, I sound quite good for 94.

Don't I? 94. It's all right being 94. Unfortunately, my body's turning to dust.

But other than that, it's okay. It's fine. So 94.

So 91, back in 1991, I used to walk home from work. And I remember going into that shop. It was, I'm saying that shop like you should, like you know what shop that is.

Of course, you're not going to know. Although it's all changed now. But I used to go into this corner shop.

And it basically was, it was a newsagents. It was groceries. I don't know whether or not they sold alcohol, whether they were an off-licence.

I don't know. Can't remember. Because I didn't really drink alcohol during those days.

But there was an alcohol, alcoholic shop. There was an off-licence up the end of the road. Because that's the good thing about living in London.

Generally, you're never that far away from somebody. So I got this, this shop. And I was living in this house.

And it was, I'm trying to think of the name of the road. I can't remember. I do remember.

I just don't want to tell you. No, I can't remember. I think, I think it was Tomato Soup Road or something.

And it was a cul-de-sac. And, believe it or not, it was just, basically behind it was a graveyard. But an old graveyard.

Not one of these shiny, fangled ones. But an old one. Like, old, old.

I never got to go in it. Actually, I did. I did climb over the wall once to look for my landlady's cat.

They got stuck down a hole. Because she had this big high wall in the back of the house. And it was quite a small little area.

I think it'd be quite nice. It's big enough for a couple of people to sit down with deck chairs and, you know, enjoy the sun and the quiet. Because it was quite a little, not quite a little area.

Considering it's London, living next to a graveyard is fairly peaceful. And it's quite ironic. I remember looking out the garden.

Because that used to be, when I looked out the window of my bedroom, that's all I could see was the graveyard. And I remember sitting there. And one of the neighbours had a song on repeat.

It was Gabriela, Dreams Can Come True, or Dreams Do Come True. I don't know if you remember Gabriela. She was a singer.

And she was a pirate. I think she, I don't know if she was a part time pirate. But she, she was a singer as well.

And she had a parrot on her shoulder and stuff. And she used to sing this, dreams can come true. You know you got to have them.

You know you got to be strong. Dreams can come true. See that bit there, it sounds like I've forgotten the words.

But I never knew what the words were. Because she was a mumbling pirate. I think it might have been pirate talk.

Like special pirate language or something. So it was kind of a weird thing. Because this was this, I think it was a Saturday morning.

It was sunny. And I'm thinking where's this music? What is this? What is this? It's this weird sound. Because I've never heard music before.

But having that with the view of the graveyard was a weird, weird emotion. Well, wasn't emotional. But it was, it's just, it's quite funny really, I suppose.

But it's great. There's a big old area of ground. And further up, so if you go around the block.

So come out the house and go around. And then you go past the some houses. And then you go past, there's the corner shop.

The news agents on the left. And then you can turn left down another road. Go down, you don't have to go down a huge distance.

And then there was the new graveyard. Although it wasn't new, it's probably about 300 years old, or 400 years old. It was the newer one.

I'm not even sure if that one was used anymore. But it was newer. Actually, I think it must have been used because we had, the public had access to that one.

So I think it was still being used. And I used to go in there sometimes and look at the gravestones and look at people like from 300, 400 years ago. It just made me think if this is the new graveyard with people from like 1700 and whatever.

How old are the gravestones in the old, the old one? And I remember I was with Andre. Not my boy Andre the ferret, not my son, but Andre, who Andre was named after. And we, this is probably like 94 time, we climbed over.

I don't know if we were drunk or something, but we climbed over the wall into the graveyard because it was locked at night. And either we climbed over or he climbed over and I just left him. And he couldn't get back out again.

That might have been what's happened, what happened, I forget. Because we, at the time, yeah, at the time we may have been living together in the same house. Yeah, possibly.

I forget, I forget. Maybe it was 95. No, definitely 94.

Because he went back to Ireland in 94. About August time. Yeah, or was it September? I lose track.

I don't know. But this house that I lived in, it was kind of weird. It was a cul-de-sac.

So it was really, you go down there and it's almost like leaving London in a way. And it was quiet. It was quiet until a children's home opened up next door.

And it wasn't so quiet. But having lived in a children's home when I was little, I had no problem with it. But my landlady wasn't too pleased.

Because she was used to being silent most of the time. And so I had, I moved in there. I used to go in and there was a conservatory at the front, which had flowers.

I think there was flowers in the garden. It wasn't much of a garden, but it was a little bit of area in front of the building. Go in, go through the conservatory.

And then there was all these flowers in there. And then turn, the front door was on the left. So open that up, go in there.

It was quite dark because there was no light. Literally, the door didn't let any light in, the front door. And walk a little bit to get through that door.

And then my landlady lived, well she didn't live, but she spent a lot of time in the front room, which was a nice room. But she had that door, sometimes she had the door closed, sometimes she had the door open, sometimes it would be like halfway closed, quarter way closed, it depended. And so there wasn't a lot of light in that area.

And then as you walk through, the hallway was fairly empty. And it was like a big, not big, but like a square bit of area. And then to the left, so if you walk up to the left, there was a little dining area or a table, which I never sat at, I never sat down there.

I don't think she did either. Sort of an untouched area. And then there was a kitchen, which was a fair size, it wasn't like a big house, it was a three bedroom house.

But it was, it wasn't small, you know, it was a decent size. And I think the oven, the oven and the, I can't remember if it was gas or electric, the oven. That was on the right hand side.

Pretty sure that the, pretty sure that the sink was on the left. And I don't recall the decor. There was cupboards in the kitchen, just like most kitchens.

And her bedroom led off of the kitchen on the right hand side, because she had, she needed a walking stick to get around. So she lived on the, on the bottom floor. And so that was her bedroom.

And then walking through another door on the left was the bathroom that had a bath and a shower and a toilet and a sink and a mirror, walls, ceiling, floor, you know. And then if you come out of the bathroom, there was another door ahead, which was the, it was a door, not a, not, it wasn't a door made of, didn't look like a head. So it was just a door that was ahead of me.

And that led to outside to the little, a little courtyard, but it's like a tiny little bit of area. But I imagine, because I never, I never used to go out that much. I imagine it was quite nice if it had been my house, to have sort of sat out in the sun.

It might have been quite nice, I don't know. There might have even been a shed out there. I don't remember.

And a washing line. I think there was a washing line. Oh, and there was trees and stuff in, you know, the ground next to where she lived and what else? Yeah, I think, yeah, trying to get my bearings around it.

I haven't really went out there, but she had about 700 cats that used to live there. So she'd be opening the door, the back and squeaking. When I say squeaking, it's very, you know, it's like with Andrea, like, I go, oh, my little baby.

Oh, my little Andrea. Oh, I love you so much. I kind of seem to put her in a different voice sometimes.

And she was like that with her cats. She'd talk like this, the rest of us normally talk like this. But when she called her cats, it'd be like, Triggy, Triggy.

And Patrick, will you come out, little Patrick, it's Tintin's time, Patrick. And I'd be, oh, Doodly-Doo. So she had like a different call for each one.

And I kind of now know what it feels like to live on a farm. You know, the people that live on a farm, they get woken up by the, they get woken up every morning by a cock. I'm going Cock-a-doodle-doo, like in the garden or in the farm.

And I never liked the idea of getting woken up by a cock. Just, I'm not a big fan of alarm clocks. But, you know, I do like, every day.

And I've been on retreat, went on a retreat once, well, more than once, but it was actually on a farm. And there was a cock there. There was just, there was more than one, it was quite a few of them.

But, you know, making lots of sound, producing a lovely bunch of sound. Which was lovely. Yeah, wonderful.

And so I kind of had that with, obviously my nan lady wasn't saying she was a cock because she was human, but she sounded a bit like, like a cock. And sometimes, like the way she used to yell and going, twiddles. And yeah, I don't know, I can't really do it loud, can I? Because I'm doing a sleepy session.

But, so I used to get woken up by her quite a lot, which was lovely. Not so much during the week, because I'd be up before her. I'd be going to work, but on on weekends, you know, especially Sundays, or just when I needed.

Yeah, I needed to be woken up at eight o'clock on a Sunday. Yeah. Thanks, landlady.

You know what makes it all worthwhile? I think you should put your rent up for offering that cock service. Early morning wake up call. Cock-a-doodle-doo.

Very selfish, isn't it? Imagine just waking up and thinking, oh, I'm now going to wake every single other person up on this farm. Cock-a-doodle-doo. Cock-a-doodle-doo.

Cock-a-doodle-doo. Like, you'd think that all the other animals might get together and kind of gang up. Just like, say, look, at the very least, an intervention.

Like, all the pigs, the cows, the goats, the squirrels, you know, the rhinos, just all come in and say, listen, listen, mate, we appreciate that you wake up early. You're a morning person. Fair enough.

But why? Just because you're up doesn't mean that we need to be up. You don't find me. I'm a night person.

That was the owl. I'm a night person, said Mr. Owl. I don't come up to you and wake you up at night, do I? And the cock said, well, actually, you do howl.

You do go, coo-coo, coo-coo, quite a lot. He said, no, that's a pigeon. He said, no, it's you.

No, that was a pigeon. And the cock said, no, admittedly, it might have sounded like a pigeon, but that was my impression of you. It might not have sounded like you, but that was my impression of you.

When I was doing that impression right then, I was thinking of you. Wasn't thinking of a pigeon, wasn't thinking of a blue tit, wasn't thinking about a pizza. I was thinking about you, an owl, Mr. Owl.

And he said, oh, I know I'm an owl, but I'm not actually Mr. Owl. You know, I do have a name. He said, okay, sorry, Robert.

Robert the Owl. No, just Robert will do. I don't call you Pod the Cock.

Just call you Pod. By the way, what is Pod? That's not even a real name. It's not my fault.

I didn't, I didn't name myself, did I? I didn't ask to be named Pod. Who would? Good point. Anyway, why would, why would you call me Mr. Owl? That's basically saying that all owls look the same.

That, my friend, is prejudice. Ah, Pod said, you do look quite similar though. He said, no, we don't.

We've got, there's loads of different varieties of owls. There's the golden eagle owl, there's the snow owl, there's lots of different ones. And Pod said, yeah, however, they're not here, are they? What do you mean they're not here? Well, I don't recall lately seeing a snowy owl around here.

But what I do recall seeing is you and, and other owls that look like you. Oh, yeah. And I'm sure if I was in uh, Alaska or wherever snowy owls abode, I would probably only see snowy owls and probably wouldn't see you.

So kind of, therefore, you do kind of look alike. And Robert the owl, he said, look, it's almost like you prepared that speech. Like, what did you, you spent the last six days writing that out, preparing it just for today? And Pod the cock said, nope.

He quickly hid, quickly hid his notebook down his underpants. And then the squirrel popped up, jumped onto Robert the owl's top of his head and said, now that's the end of that scene. Let's go back to the house that Jason lived in.

Let's talk about the house now. Can we? I think we've had enough of these weird, weird stories and conversations that didn't really happen. Can we just go back to the house? Please, can we? You haven't told everyone about your bedroom yet.

Come on, go and tell everyone about your bedroom. It'd be lovely, come on. So I kind of decided, all right then.

So the one route, the one bit I did miss out of the house was as you walk towards the kitchen, there was a doorway on the right, which led to a staircase. It wasn't a proper door. It was almost like a cupboard door, not made of proper wood.

That makes sense. It wasn't like a door. It was just, I don't know how to explain it, but it opened.

It was a door. I mean, technically you could have a door made of spaghetti and it'd still be a door. Dried spaghetti stuck together with a few orange bits added.

It's still a door, but it's not really a door. So I open it up, constantly getting bits of spaghetti on me. It was annoying.

And it was these winding stairs, winding to the right. So we'd go up and then turn to the right. There was a light switch, which is always useful if there's a light.

It's the best way to turn it on, really. And without the light switch, couldn't see anything. Unless the door was open, of course.

And so I turn the light switch on and I go upstairs and there was two doors, one directly ahead of me and one to my right. My bedroom was the one to the right. So that's the one that I usually went into.

And I went in, opened the door. You know what? I don't even remember if I had a key to the door. I don't remember.

Generally do not remember. And it's not whether or not I had a key to the door. I didn't have to keep climbing in the window.

What I mean is, I don't know if there was a key, if there was even a lock on the door. Anyway, I used to go in there because that's where I lived. And I remember, I don't really remember, but I have a vague, I remember the facts rather than the... I remember moving in there and I don't know if I had a television, which I probably didn't at the time.

I don't remember. But what I did have in the room, I had... In what walked into the room, there was a bed on the right hand side, a single bed. There was a window with curtains.

There... I don't remember. There might have been a side table to the bed. I don't know.

But the bed was against the wall in the corner. The wall was at the corner. The wall was led towards the corner, as did the other wall, where they met.

That was the corner bit. But there was a table and a chair. And... I can't remember if there was a wardrobe.

Unless that was... There was definitely... There was a cupboard on the other side of the wall, the other side of the room. And I can't remember, because I know there was an electric meter, which took 50 pences. And I had no central heating in the room.

And there... I don't believe this. I don't think they'd get away with it today. But what she did have, or what I did have, was a bathroom heater.

A bathroom heater on the wall. And eventually that broke after about a couple of years. So I ended up getting another, getting myself a little heater that I plugged in.

But yeah, it was a weird place to live. It was okay. I didn't really... I didn't really want much for myself.

That was just somewhere to sleep, really. And I used to go out. I'd work.

And I'd be going to comedy clubs. And yeah, it was okay. It almost seems like a lifetime away, but I suppose in a way it is, isn't it? Because I left that house in 1994, which is, what, 25 years ago.

And the room next to me, the other room, it rarely had anyone live in there. In fact, I only remember two people living there, in that room. And one didn't live there for... he didn't stay for long.

And the other one moved in, in about 93. And he kind of took over the house. He's this... He's kind of funny.

He's, yeah, a very, very unusual person. But then I moved out and that was good. But it's quite a quiet house.

It's a bit like this place. What isn't, especially this time of night, it's quiet. And I like that.

I do. I like that peacefulness. I mean, sometimes I will sit here and just enjoy the quiet.

Sometimes I'll work on my website, but with no music and no background, no radio, no audio tape, anything like that. Audio tape, like an audio book. It's peaceful.

The only thing is when I sit down on my chair and I lay back, I can just fall asleep so easily. The same is when I'm lying down on my bed. Falling asleep is just, this is the most natural thing in the world.

Just automatic, you know, automatic slumber, which is quite nice just to let go and just to enjoy feeling relaxed. So the point of this story was quite often after work, I'd come home and I'd go to the newsagents and I'd get a Frogo chocolate bar because I liked them and they tasted yummy, which always, always helps. Yeah, I could just so easily just drift off, just fall asleep.

It's very relaxing. There's a lot to be said about just closing your eyes and just sitting there or just lying there. Obviously not if you're driving a car, but you know, if you're just sitting in a chair, not if you're at work, you know, if you're working in an office, but when you're at home and nothing needs your attention and you can just, it's almost like getting in touch with yourself, getting in touch with that, that part of you that's inside you, that feeling of safety that's protected, a place where you can go emotionally and know that you'll always be safe.

And falling asleep is the most natural thing in the world. It's a lovely feeling. It's almost, almost like meditating, but without any focus, without the need for any focus.

Yet that focus is wide, a wide focus just on being, you know, without sounding all spiritual and stuff, just being in the moment, enjoying, feeling relaxed and calm. It's one of my, it's one of my favorite feelings. It really is.

And I'll, I do like to share that with you. And I know it might sound a bit weird. What I say next might sound a bit strange, but the thing is, I almost feel like the level of relaxation that I'm experiencing and the tiredness and comfort is being shared with you as you listen.

And that sense of well-being spreads to everybody that's listening. Now, I like that. It feels nice.

So I should say goodbye for today. And I'll speak to you very soon. So remember to be kind to yourself.

Because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love. Bye.