#252 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (10th November 2019)

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

I'll put some new battery, or a new battery, in my thingy. So that's good. The microphone is on.

And I wasn't sure if yesterday's recordings that I did were a little bit tinny sound wise. So I thought, oh, better change the battery just in case. Luckily, I never had a battery run out on me while I'm in the throes of, you know, doing this.

So I've always managed to get to the end and finish without, you know, the battery going. Because I imagine that would be annoying. You're just about to get there, just about to finish, and the battery dies and I have to sort of re-record the whole thing.

So yeah. I got a shout out to do for Vanessa Skye. Hi, Vanessa Skye.

It's, not it's, she, is, it's, well it is, that's correct, but no, not it. It's, I'll start again. I'd like to do a big shout out for Vanessa Skye, one of my YouTube subscribers.

So hi, hi Vanessa Skye. It's a nice surname, isn't it? Skye. Is someone that works in a shop and their first name is Skye, I just, I kind of, this part of me just wants to keep going over there.

I just want to go over there and say, it's not a real first name. It should be called Susan or Anne. Skye is not a real name.

The surname is brilliant. First name, I don't know, it just sounds, this seems wrong. It's very silly.

I mean, who cares? But, you know, just, oh. But there was someone I used to work with years ago and his surname was Love, like L-O-V-E. Brilliant name.

Jason Love. What a perfect surname. I did kind of wish that I'd picked a different surname for myself.

You know, like actors and recording artists and famous people sometimes change their name sometimes to, because they don't like their name. Sometimes because they, they want to kind of perhaps have a different persona. Sometimes it's because they go to get an equity card, which you need in order to be in films and on stage and stuff, on television.

And somebody else has already got their name. So that happened to Harry Hill, the comedian. And there was already, well, basically his name is Harry Hall.

Or at least that was the name that he had as a stand-up comedian. I'm not sure if that's his real name or not, but that was the name that he had when he first started doing stand-up. And then he must've gone for an equity card because he was, you know, giving a TV show or whatever it was, just before he kind of became famous.

And he changed his name to Harry Hill instead of Harry Hall. So that's a bit of useless information that you never needed to know about. And you may never have known about if I hadn't told you.

But now you know, because I've told you. Also, I saw Lee Evans's first performance of the Bohemian Rhapsody sketch bit that he did in 1991. It's another little bit.

It's not really general knowledge, is it? But he did it as a tribute. And I was in the audience the first time he did it in public. If you've never seen it, I'm not sure if it's on any of his videos, Lee Evans.

It might be on his first live video. I don't know. But this is before he became famous.

And I think he became famous about 92, 93, something like that. If you're in America, or as you know, if you've not heard of Harry Hill or Lee Evans, because comedy spreads around the world, so you may know them. You may have their DVDs, or you might see them on television or whatever.

If you haven't, check them out. Go on YouTube. Check out Lee Evans and check out Harry Hill.

And for Lee Evans, really, you can't be in the audience because he's retired now, I think. But there was something special about seeing him when he was young. When he was young, but still young now, but probably older than me though.

By a few years, only a few years. But man, he was so energetic. And he sweated so much.

He'd be on stage and just... And that was just with comedy club lighting, which isn't that bright or that hot. Compared to being on stage. Because when you're on stage, like in a theatre, the lighting's really bright and really warm.

But in a comedy club, you've got the heat from the audience because they're quite close up. Even the big comedy clubs are still quite close. Like the comedy store, they might have... I mean, the comedy store I used to go to, it's expanded, but it used to be probably a couple of hundred people, 250 people in there, maybe more, but they were squashed together.

So the heat that came off them... I mean, you could literally go through the whole of winter without having the heating on, if you just stayed in that room with all those people. A little bit restricting, I suppose, but yeah. So, what other things? Why did I get talking about Harry Hill? I want to talk about some dreams.

I suppose I used to like Harry Hill. One of the reasons... See, some comedians, when I was in the comedy world, didn't... I was very young. I was 20 years old in 1990, January.

So I was 20. And I was 21 at the end of August, 91. So I was eight months, nearly nine months away from being 21.

So I was one of the youngest people on the circuit, involved in all that stuff. And some of the comedians that were really popular didn't particularly like me because of what I used to do. But some of them were really friendly.

So people like Harry Hill, he didn't care where he performed, because he knew he was going to be a star. He was so good. It happily... It'd be at a comedy store or a Jonglers or Banana Cabaret or one of the big clubs and get paid, I don't know how much they got paid, but like maybe £200, £300 maybe, for a performance.

And they might do... It might be doing like three or four gigs in a night in London. So you might earn, I don't know, maybe £1,000 for the night. This is back in 1991.

Again, I'm guessing. But they got... So it might be, do the comedy store early, do two other comedy clubs and then go back to do the comedy store late night one and end up with loads of money. And then on a Monday, so it might do that Friday and Saturday night.

And on a Monday, it'd go and do a place called The Comedy Pit in Stratton. And it'd be a door split and there might be about 12 people in the audience. So it literally, it probably wouldn't even cover the petrol money.

But it'd do all the gigs. It'd go everywhere. Just to practice and to try out new material and stuff.

It was amazing. So he was really friendly. So I used to like him because he used to say hello to me.

Lee Evans was like that as well. He was really friendly. What was weird though, once I stopped performing, the comedians seemed to like me better.

It sounds a bit weird. So when I was actually working at the comedy club rather than performing in a comedy club, the comedians, I suppose they got to know me a bit better, like as a human being. And at some point I was even phoning up and booking them to perform in the club.

Well, they really liked me then. So yeah, it's weird. So I got to know quite a few comedians after, sort of once I started working.

It was like Jimmy Carr and what's his name? Lee... Lee Mack, that's it, Lee Mack. Actually, it's a true story. Lee Mack started doing comedy probably about 96.

Maybe it's a bit earlier than that, but he saw me perform in 1998 and he actually said he liked my act. Can you believe it? Didn't know who he was. But he was already headlining comedy clubs because I'd been a little bit out of touch with comedy for over a year.

And by nearly two years, really, 96 and 97, 98, 99,000. So yeah. So I got to know... There's another comedian I used to know.

He's... Well, I used to know, but I used to see him. I can't remember what his name is, but he won America's Got Talent and he's a ventriloquist. But he was headlining the comedy circuit in London and probably other clubs around the country in the 90s and 2000s.

So he was already doing that here. And then he went over to America and he won America's Got Talent about, I don't know, four or five years ago. And he used to do his act.

So I used to help him take his stuff onto the stage during the break before he went on. Because he had a lot of stuff with him, like crates of stuff, like dummies and whatever. But then it'd leave so much mess all over the stage.

So I began clearing it all up, helping him get it into his bags and his boxes, ready for the next act. And also he always needed to go off to another gig. Because again, he was doing like two or three gigs a night.

And the reason I'm telling you this is because I know it's boring. I know it's boring for everyone else, but this is my life. This is what I did.

I think part of the reason I feel quite nostalgic is because 2001 was the last time I really had any kind of a regular social life. So yes, 18 years ago. I'm not saying I haven't been out.

I have been out. But I had girlfriends and I had friends. But back then, when I was living in London, I was meeting new people every single weekend.

And it wasn't always fun, but it's the last time I really had any fun, like consistently. There was occasional difficulties like there always is, but I had a lot of, well not a lot, but I had consistent activity, like stimulating activities going on. And then I feel nostalgic for 2000, because that's when I started building websites.

How I got absolutely hooked on coding, like building, well it's not, I suppose it is coding, but not coding as it is now. It was building websites from scratch using HTML or HTM, as it was back then. And then it turned into HTML.

So building websites from scratch. And I absolutely loved it. And I almost kind of feel like going back to it.

Sort of relearning and learning some more stuff. But the thing is, I'm thinking if I go to do a job, I'd quite like to do something that was, that I was good at. So if I learn more like IT skills, becoming proficient in web design and app design and all that stuff, I perhaps would perhaps garner myself a job, if that's the correct phrase.

However, part of the reason for me to get a job in the future would be, I don't want to use the word company, interaction, like social interaction. I know that jobs aren't supposed to be like your social life, but for me, if I spend a day with people, I kind of feel relieved to go home. And I'm quite happy to be on my own in the evening, because I've used up all my social credits.

All the credits are used up and I've got available for interacting. But if I work for a company or a small place, then I only see a minimal amount of people, which is, it's got its benefits, but there's, you know, I worked for insurance, three different big insurance companies. I say big, I mean, they're quite a few staff.

One was massive, got lots of different offices. That was Churchill Insurance. So that was huge.

And there's loads of hundreds of people working in my office or the blog. And then I worked for another one, which is smaller, but it got took over by a bigger company and they took on loads of new staff. So there ended up being three floors worth of staff.

So I don't know, maybe 150 people, maybe more. And then I worked for another company, the more recent one, although it was over four years ago. And that was, it was part of a bigger company.

Again, they sold or they got bought by another company. But this, they didn't get bought by an insurance company. They got bought by like a capital company that was basically just separating it out to make money out of it.

So I'm, I forget what they call it, but it's, yeah, I'm not really a fan of such things. It's weird though, isn't it? The three insurance companies that I worked for all got bought by another company within a really short time of me working there. Isn't that strange? So when I started working at Churchill, they got bought by, they get bought by, was it HSBC Bank? It was the same company that owned Green Flag and the same company that owned direct insurance or whatever direct, whatever it is.

I forget what the name of it is. So Churchill still stayed there, but it was owned by a bigger company. So that was taken over.

The second company, oh, wait a minute. Yeah, that's it, yeah. The owner of Churchill, he sold up, that's it.

I remember. I think it was, but the company that previously was bought by Churchill to become part of Churchill, which is the block that I worked in, they'd previously, like the year before, bought it before I went there. And the person who sold, this is getting complicated, the person who sold, person who sold the company to Churchill Insurance was a local business person.

And he then went and bought another insurance company or started a new insurance company. So when I left Churchill in, I think it was November, I started working at this new place in August or September. And it was quite weird because they then got taken over by another company because he sold it.

So this is, he basically, that's what he did. He built companies up and then sold them to bigger companies. And it was very successful as well.

And then, and the way I got that job, and the way I got the Churchill job is my, it was 2001. And my nan broke her hip and I was living in London. And my dad wasn't able to contact me because I'd been evicted from where I'd lived.

And so he kind of lost contact for a few weeks. And so I, when he did contact me, I came straight up to see my nan. I left work and she, you know, she was in a, she was in convalescence.

So she'd been through the whole process, had an operation and all that stuff. She was being convalescent. She was in a few weeks.

And so I was just visiting her. And so I still remember now, walking down the road, I went to the Wimpy and got a burger. And I think I went down to the seafront to have my Wimpy and eat it there.

I also had a bunch of flowers with me to give to my nan because she's allergic to them and makes her sneeze. So I thought that would be funny. So I took the flowers and I had my burger.

And I remember walking down the town and seeing someone sitting on a bench and looking at them and thinking, I had my little judgy hat on. Very kind of, I don't know why, I just felt very judgmental towards them for no reason. Very strange.

And I think they were looking at me as well. Maybe it was the mouthful of burger and the flowers and the burger dropping into the flowers. Maybe, I don't know.

The source from the burger. But anyway, I went and saw my nan, thinking that she was going to be, well, I just thought the worst, but she wasn't. She was all happy, smiley.

Oh, Jason. Well, I think she went through all the names. Oh, Bob, Aaron, Sean, Steve, Tracy, Ann, Belinda, Paul, Jason.

She'd go through all the names. It wouldn't be so bad, but she said names that didn't even, weren't part of the family. I don't know if they were people she'd seen on telly, I don't know.

And I got to this place. It's not there anymore. I think they might have turned it into flats, possibly, but I think it was called the Fludges or something, but it was there for years.

I mean, I think it was there during the Crimean War or something. I'd been there for hundreds of years and people used to use it for convalescent. And so she was in there and she was doing really well.

I mean, I didn't think about it until just now, might have been the morphine that sort of perked her up a bit, but whatever it was, she seemed like good spirits. And until she started sneezing. But I don't know, I said to her, I can't remember you saying you was allergic to flowers.

Well, if I'd known that, I wouldn't have bought them for you. I feel bad now. And she said, don't feel bad.

It's okay. You can leave them there. Because she sneezed just like a ferret.

Just like Andre, he takes after his great nana. And then on the way back, I think I might have, what did I do? Yeah, I think on the way back, I went to the next town, which was where the train station was, to get back to London. Because I'd left work.

Well, basically I found out about it on the Sunday. I went to work on the Monday, because I was gonna go and see her the following weekend. But I was really silly.

I was at work, and I went down to the toilet and started crying. Now, it doesn't always happen. Sometimes when I see how little me Willie is, it makes me cry.

But on this occasion, it was just a kind of, oh, so I thought I have to go and see her, which is what I did. But on the way back, I passed this agency, like an employment agency. I think it was Reid, I think, but it might not have been.

Not Oliver Reid. Reid, R-E-E-D. It was a, yeah, it still is an employment agency.

Gone downhill a little bit, I would say, but it's just, I might be wrong there. And I looked in the window, actually, I don't think it was Reid, I think it was a different agency. And there was this sign in the window saying, sales staff needed telesales, immediate start.

And I thought, hmm. Because when I saw my Nan, I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to stay there.

Didn't want to live in this place, this convalescent home forever. I like my Nan, but I didn't want to sleep in the same room. That'd be weird.

And especially in a hospital. But I thought I need to, I just felt this urge to, or this need to move back closer to her. So it kind of all happened so quick.

And I just, I went into this agency and I said, hello. She said, can I help? I said, I don't know. And I didn't know what else to say then.

Because she had these earrings that hypnotized me. And I was just standing there. I say earrings, but anyway, I was hypnotized by her.

She, let's just say earrings. Earrings, they hypnotized me. I was like staring at her earrings.

And she said, my eyes are up here. And I said, oh, sorry. I said, window, window, thing in the window.

She said, yeah, window, door. This is a word association game, is it? I thought, that's damn rude. I mean, I'm the customer here.

And she said, you're not really a customer here. I said, I thought, how do you know? I was thinking that. I didn't actually say it out loud.

She said, you didn't know, but you did write it on that pad. I said, oh, God, stop doing that. She said, yeah, it's a little bit rude.

I said, you're calling me rude. What about you? She said, what about me? I said, I think you're lovely. I think I'm in love with you.

She said, should we start again? I said, okay. So I went out, outside, and felt the curry back, a couple of breaths, and I went to push the door, and she'd locked me out. So that didn't really go very well.

Eventually, she let me in. She was just joking. No, I wasn't happy.

Anyway, I said, look, that job for the telesales, instant start, could you please inform me a little bit about it? She said, I can do better than that. Now, I thought she was going to do some kind of song or something, or read a poem that she'd prepared, describing the position, some kind of artistic manner. And she said, no, look, come with me.

I'll take you around there. I said, what? She said, you haven't even got to fill in details. Just, I'll take you around there.

You can have an interview. And then we can, you can join the agency if they take you on. Really? So, I mean, they were in a hurry to get people in there.

I said, all right. And she took me around, literally, she was around the corner. Now, in my memory, she held my hand, but I don't think that actually happened.

And no, she didn't burp me either. No, she didn't pat me in the back or rock me until I did a big burp. I don't want to gas out.

Although letting the gas out before a job interview is a good idea. But that's a, by saying let the gas out, I don't mean of the wheel of your prospective boss's car. Because that would just be rude.

A lot of rudeness tonight. So I went in there, she said, yeah, got another one for ya. Got another one.

Caught one. And she let me out of her net. And I was wiggling around on the floor, you know, not breathing, just like, oh, what do I do? What do I do? And she said, just have the interview.

I said, but I'm not even dressed for it. She said, it's fine. You're not the first person to turn up in a dressing gown.

I said, yeah, but she said, don't worry. I'll explain to them that you just popped in and I brought you around here. So I had an interview and they said to me, if you're successful with this interview, you'll have another interview and then we'll let you know.

So I went in, I had an interview. I explained to them that I was already doing a sales job in London, selling mobile phone contracts. And they seemed, you know, I explained to them my success, uh, how I was the second top person in there and it surprised everyone because no one knew how I did it and, you know, all that stuff.

And they seemed, well, yeah, they seemed fairly happy. And then they said, bye. We'll let you know.

We'll phone you if, if we want to interview you again. So I've never been interviewed twice for a job. To be interviewed twice, or I haven't since either, to be interviewed twice, I'd expect some kind of high positioned job, you know, and this really wasn't that.

But anyway, they, I went, I phoned my dad and I said, listen, oh no, they phoned, they said, oh no, I think they said to me, yeah, we'd like to interview tomorrow again in the afternoon on Tuesday or Wednesday, whatever. I don't know, whatever day it was. And I said, yeah, okay.

And I phoned my dad, I said, they want to interview me. I got no clothes because I was wearing my dressing gown, obviously. And, uh, what do I do? And he said, listen, Jason, what you got to do, if you come home, we can sort it all out.

I said, yeah, but, I'll just, I'll just, by the way, my dad's from France. And I said, yeah, but I got no clothes. He said, it's okay.

I got the dress. I got so childish. I got a, I got a tie you can wear.

I said, okay. I don't need more than a tie. I don't think, if you've got one that's going to go together with the dressing gown.

He said, don't be so silly. You can't wear a dressing gown in a job interview. I said, okay, I'll stop.

I'll stop doing the accent and, uh, I'll do my dad's real voice. And he said to me, I've always had a nice shirt. As well, you can wear a nice shirt.

It's ever so nice, ever so comfy, put it a bit loose on you though, because I'm big and strong and you're just weak and slim. Which wasn't true at all. I wasn't, uh, slim.

I'd, uh, but that's what we did. So basically, because all I had was like probably jeans, maybe trousers. I don't know, but whatever I was wearing, that's what I had.

But Ethan, you said you had a dressing gown on. You're lying to us. Yes, I am.

Um, I'm also not 23, blonde hair, six foot four with a massive ego. So I went back to me dad's. I stayed there overnight and he basically kitted me out in his clothes.

So I was wearing his shirt, not his underpants. What did I do for underpants? I don't know. Anyway, I wore his shirt, a tie, trousers, and all that stuff.

Went for the interview and the bloke that interviewed me, I didn't know at the time he was a team leader. And he told me a few months later that he really wasn't sure whether or not to give me the job because he didn't think I'd be any good, which was interesting. But, uh, anyway, I had the job interview and he, yeah, I got a phone call probably about an hour later telling me that I've got the job and I start on Monday or can I start on Monday, which was the, it was the 9th, no, yeah, 9th of September, 2001.

Or, yeah, 9th, Monday the 9th. And I think it was that. So, and during the interview, I said to him, maybe that's why he was a bit like dubious.

I said to him, listen, mate, listen, you old mugger. I said, look, I'm, I'm probably going to be a bit rubbish at the start. It takes me a bit of time to, to accustomize myself to what I'm doing.

But once I know what I'm doing, I'll be one of the best here. But it's going to take me a few months because it's, you know, it's a lot to learn. It's a big, it's just very different to what I'm used to.

And I stuck to my word. So I started in September. I was pretty crap all the way through September.

The training was September. Then I started October, November, December. Still didn't know what I was doing in December really, but I was giving it my best.

Absolutely hated the job. I really didn't like it because I wasn't very good at it. And there's so much to learn.

January, starting to improve. February, starting to get a bit better. April, 2002.

Bing! I was still a bit rubbish. Now, come April, something happened. Something changed.

And I became pretty much number two again. Something about being number two. And Jodie was number one.

And although I did sometimes beat him, and other people sometimes beat him. But I think if you look at consistency, I was pretty much about number two for quite a while. And sometimes I was number one.

Sometimes I was number three, number two, number one, you know, so I was always in that bracket. I was always in the top five. And from pretty much April until I left, pretty much.

And I actually went part-time at the end, because I was ill. And so I was trying to keep the job, but not lose the job, you know, but keep trying to keep working. And I was part-time and I was still earning more in bonus than most of the full-time people.

How ridiculous is that? So my basic was 12 grand a year. And I was getting, I was earning 24 grand a year. So I was doubling my money with the bonus.

And so I was getting, I don't know, part-time, I was getting 600 pound a month or something. And other people working, struggling to get maybe 250, 300 pound bonus. And they couldn't understand it.

How can I be earning more than the full-time people? And I had to explain to them, because I'm brilliant at lying to people. Because a lot of people think they're getting car, they think that I'm paying, I'm getting them to pay for car insurance, but they think they're getting a new caravan. See, it's all about, I'm joking, I am joking.

I would never, never pretend to sell a caravan to anyone. Although when I did canvassing for double glazing windows, when I was a teenager, there was someone that thought that we were window cleaners. When the salesman turned up on the doorstep to measure our windows, she thought we were window cleaners.

So, but I don't recall ever, I would never just say, oh yeah, we're window cleaners. It was just a missed communication. But I did win a bottle of champagne.

So that's been weird. Mind you, a lot of things are misheard sometimes. So that might be what it was.

And then I moved and I had to move. So I literally had Wednesday, that was the Wednesday or Tuesday or Wednesday. And I needed to move back to London, or to back from London.

I needed to give my notice in, but not work the notice, which meant I didn't get paid. Or at least I didn't get paid the bonus. I think they paid me what I worked, but they didn't pay me any bonus because I didn't give the notice.

And in that time, I moved all of my stuff. Again, I didn't give any notice to the landlady either. But I said to her, sorry, this is an emergency.

I've got to go. I've got nothing I can do about it. You should have given me notice.

I said, I didn't know that this was going to happen. And I have to move away for family issues, which is true. So I moved all my stuff out and I put all at my friend's place.

And then, yeah, this place, oh man, it's mainly books. I had just hundreds of books. I'm just amazed he put up with me because I just filled all his cupboards and everything with books.

And then I moved down. Then I had to try and find somewhere to live. And my weekend job that I had, I kept that for another, I think, two weeks because my train was for two weeks and it was during the week.

So I had the weekends free for two weeks or three weeks. So I was going up to London at the weekend, staying with my friend, working the weekend and then traveling back on the Sunday evening. But in the meantime, I had to find somewhere to live during the week.

And I ended up paying for a bed and breakfast for, I think, the first two weeks of working or the first two weeks of training. And I stayed in this bed and breakfast and it was just weird. It was almost surreal, the whole process.

Like my life changed dramatically overnight. And the only part that stayed the same was the weekend. But even that wasn't the same because I was sleeping at my friend's place.

But I still had to find somewhere else to live. So I was looking in the newspaper, in newsagents and stuff, and I went to view a room in a house and I got there and I explained my situation. And I was there early.

I was there probably about half an hour earlier than I should have been. And I said, you live quite a long way out of the way, so I had to find where you were, so I didn't want to be late. I explained my situation, kind of an emergency, needed somewhere to stay, got this new job.

I said, this is while I was staying in the bed and breakfast, I was looking. And the landlord showed me around and then there was someone else waiting who was late for their appointment. So they showed me first, then I sat down and waited and they showed the other person around and they said, oh, we're going to give it to the other person.

We already agreed that anyway. I said, well, if you knew that, why did you just show me around then? What was the point in showing me around a place that you're not going to let me live in? I almost, oh, I did and almost growled. Anyway, I'm glad that didn't work out, because that looked like a bit of a weird place to live.

So I was in the office at work for the weekend and I was going in there in the afternoon. One of the managers was sort of saying, I don't know what to do. I can't find anywhere to live.

My boss and my friend did offer me money to get her to pay for a flat, but I turned him down because I didn't want to borrow money. And then my friend said, the person that worked there and my friend as well, she said, have you tried the YMCA? I said, no, I have not. There's no time for singing and dancing.

I've got to find somewhere to live. She said, no, no, not a song. She said, although that is a good song and it is nice to dance to.

I said, yeah, I agree. But, you know, what are you talking about? And she said, well, they have accommodation. You might be worth trying.

So I phoned up the local YMCA for where I was going to be living. Where I was now living since I moved. And they had a room for me.

They said, yeah, we've got a room for you. It's a studio flat. Just like that.

Yeah. Just got to come and look at it. If you're happy, you can move in straight away.

I was like, what? And I did. That's what I did. Moved into a studio flat in the YMCA.

And it was, it was an okay size. Had a bathroom, kitchen, one sort of big room to live in, a bed. Yeah, everything that was kind of needed really.

So suddenly I kind of went from living in a, so that was, that was probably one of the best places I've lived in. Sort of as far as space goes. For a long time, I've lived in two studio apartments.

One flat and this place. And the rest have been rooms, little rooms. Or one caravan as well.

And yeah, also I lived at Butlins for a little while. And in Ireland for a little while. Where else have I lived? That's just as an adult, as a child.

Well, it's different. I lived in different places. Newcastle, London.

I was born in London. I lived in Newcastle. Lived in Southend.

And then I moved to Suffolk when I was seven. Just, yeah, about that. And then I moved to London when I was 18.

I came back for another year. Then I went back again when I was 20. And stayed there until I was 31.

Yeah, man. But the studio apartment, very nostalgic, isn't it? This story. The studio apartment was just a bit, well, let's say it wasn't quiet.

And there was a few little bits happened. But eventually I moved to another flat, or studio flat. But that was just below, or just above one of the main entrances that was just banging the whole time.

And near the car park. Although I liked the room, actually. Or the studio bit.

I liked it. It just, it was, yeah, it wasn't ideal. And I said, if you've got anywhere quieter, please.

And they put me on the top floor. And I literally, I had a neighbour downstairs, but I had no other neighbours either side of me. And there was this room that was used for functions during the day.

But it was, didn't really hear much from it. And I had no one above me either. And I quite liked it there.

I quite liked that room, that studio. The room was about the same size as all the others, but it was cosy. It was quieter most of the time.

And then, you know, I had a bathroom, had a kitchen, had everything I needed. And I don't know what it was, but I just I had some neighbours downstairs that were just a bit noisy and just like, music. And it just got on my nerves.

So I ended up moving. I didn't move that far away, really. But it was just another room.

But I moved out of this place that had heating all included. It was about £65 a week. And heating was included.

Water was included. And they had an electric meter that I put, you know, had to put credit on. But other than that, there was nothing else to pay.

And, you know, all this hot water available. And I didn't even realise until I got, until I was ill. And I was suddenly around there a bit.

I had a few weeks off work. I realised that there was a gym downstairs. Like, you know, facilities for the residents and for the public as well.

There's also a restaurant. And the meals were like a pound or something. I've been there for a couple of years, didn't know that.

So I started kind of eating there and stuff. And yeah, I got to know a few people that worked there. People in the gym and the staff.

And even when I was going through a bit of a rough period, the counsellor, I couldn't believe it, she actually knocked on my door. This is when I was in one of the other rooms, but she knocked on my door to see if I was okay. And she offered counselling to me.

Well, how amazing is that? Just, you know, I should have moved out really. I should still be there. But if I still stayed there, I, because I was on a waiting list.

She gave me some emergency counselling, but she put me on a waiting list for counselling with her because she had a long list of people that she was seeing. And because of where I was living, I would have been shortlisted for my own council flat, which I, you know, but I couldn't be bothered with all that. I just, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't really thinking that way because I wanted to work.

I had a job and that's kind of all I was thinking about. I just wanted to get well really. And I wanted to keep my job because I was good at it.

And I was surrounded by, actually I was surrounded by people I'd got on quite well with. You know, I was mainly younger than me, but back then I was only 31, 32. You know, I wasn't exactly old, but there's a lot of people there in their early 20s, some even in their late teens, some my age, some older, but a lot of them were kind of more early 20s, which isn't that much younger than early 30s really.

Or early 50s really, depending on how you look at it. But I did, what it was is I didn't really want to go out and do stuff, but they used to kind of coax me, coax me, sort of talk me into it. So I went through a little period when I would go out now and then, not like all the time, but it's, yeah, so it was quite nice.

And I don't think it was just, I wasn't like this old man that was around all these young people. I think they just, I don't know, maybe I had a bit of respect because I had a beard. And I know that beards do attract, almost demand respect.

From everyone really, don't they? If you see someone with a beard, like, oh I respect that person, they must know stuff. And talking from a perspective of someone that has a beard, it's not true, it really isn't. I know very little, very little indeed.

It's quite weird thinking back. And when I first started, when I first started working, or when I first started going to the comedy club, my friend was younger than I am. And now he's retired.

Now he's in his seventies. But when I met him, he was probably in his early forties. And it's strange how he still looks the same as what he did then to me.

I used to have really long hair. See, I look at myself in the mirror sometimes. That's it, I just thought I'd mention it.

There's no reason other than, yeah, sometimes I look in the mirror. You got a problem with that? Got a problem? So I hope that I bored you enough to fall asleep, because this was very boring. But at the same time, well, nothing else, it was just boring.

And that's a good thing about, oh, you know what I was thinking about doing? I'm going to whisper this because I know no one's listening. I was thinking about becoming the new Barbara Cartland, because I started reading one of her books on Kindle. And I think I could do that.

I think I could. I think I could write a Barbara Cartland book. Obviously it wouldn't be a Barbara Cartland book.

But from what I see, it's really descriptive of stuff that's unimportant. Like the colour of someone's hat, and the fabric, and the, you know, just, I don't know, it's just, I'm not really a visual person unless, well, there are times when I'm very visual, but just on a standard kind of way, I'm not particularly visual, I don't think. More auditory, which would explain why I do these things, why I talk, because, yeah, I'm more, yeah, it's just more how I am naturally.

It's my ting, innit? However, the only difference, I'd need to make, you know, like, there's lots of like love scenes and stuff, so I need to read that. So I need to make the love scenes from the woman's perspective. Because if it's written from a man's perspective, you know, a 200 to 150 page book would probably last for maybe two pages, you know, or a paragraph, even.

So it wouldn't be that much description otherwise, other than like, this happened, this happened, and then, you know, that happened. Mind you, there are lots of poetic, I don't know if men, I don't know, never, I'm not sure if I've ever read a novel by a man, like an erotic, I haven't read erotic novels since I was a child, which is a weird statement to make. But I used to read science fiction books, like, but they were graphically, they weren't graphic novels, but they were graphic novels, if that makes sense.

So they weren't novels or pictures, they were these big, thick science books, science fiction, which were full of all kinds of weird and wonderful and not so wonderful things. And I used to read them, and I was amazed at some of the stuff that I was reading, things that I'd never even heard of before, things that no one was ever going to teach me, things that, if ever did happen to me, I'd just feel very fortunate, but would never expect it, you know, it's like, wow, that's amazing. I can't imagine that would ever really happen, but wow, imagine if it, imagine if it did, and some of it has, some of it hasn't.

I've got a story, but I can't tell you, what it is. It's something that I used to do, when I didn't know what I was doing, but actually, the way I used to do it, was really good. But when I realised what I was doing was wrong, I stopped.

Well, I was not, it wasn't wrong, but I was doing it wrongly, if that makes sense. And then it wasn't so good. Again, I can't go into details, and it's nothing, nothing immoral, just a technique.

And I got that from watching, I don't know, from either watching something or reading something, not realising that normal humans don't do that. Respectable people, I wonder what it's like to be respectable. Respectable, I wonder, I don't know if I ever wanted to be respectable, or respected, maybe accepted, or left alone, I'm not sure.

Accepted, does everyone, does everyone want that, to be accepted for who they are? Yeah, yeah, right, I'm going to go. So I wish everybody all the happiness in the world. Thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love. Bye.