#332 Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (14th February 2020)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is Let me bore you to sleep. Please only listen to this when you can safely close your eyes.

And I'm just putting my thingy on to mute in case you wonder what the clicking was. Now, yeah, if you'd like to support this podcast or this free hypnosis service that I provide, and if you'd like to send a PayPal gift, please go to paypal.me forward slash Jason Newland. The link is on the website.

And please subscribe to this podcast. And just to let you know that Andre posted his own podcast earlier today. And all I've got to say on that one is he's a very, very naughty boy.

He was using language that he's not supposed to use. And he was making fun of me as well, which I'm not particularly happy with. And he's also making lots of noise right now.

He thinks he's clever. He really does. You wait.

Well, I've done all the same now. I'm not going to do anything but more. Earlier, just literally just now, I just got back from taking him out for a walk.

And he was doing that old thing again that he hasn't done for a while, where every time I move, get up from the chair, go to the toilet, go to the kitchen, whatever. He jumps out of his bag and he's just staring at me, just following me. And I know when he does that, he wants to go out for a walk.

So I get my shoes on, I go put my coat on and he's just there. He's basically, I get the lead and he's on two legs, trying to sort of wanting me to pick him up, put the lead on. He hasn't done that for quite a while.

So I did it yesterday, so that's a bit of a lie, but not quite as much as today. So I don't know what it is because it's not particularly warm outside. It's not cold, cold, but I did wear my hat because I don't know, it feels right.

I like my little grey hat. Well, it's not little, nothing that covers my head's going to be little, but it's because I've got a massive head, huge, massive. Honestly, it is, you know those things that you could bounce around on when you were a kid and they'd have these little horns that you could hold on to, little like ears and you could hold onto it like a space hopper.

Yeah, that's my head. In fact, that's my ears, the top of my head wobbling. Space hoppers.

I don't know if I ever had one, but I used to play on my friends because that's the good thing about kids, isn't it? When you're a kid rather, is you can play on your friends' toys or with your friends' toys. So my memory's a little bit mixed up about what I had myself and what toys I played with because, you know, there's on one side there's toys that I played with my friends, like their toys and the toys that I played with on my own, my toys, which were the toys that I didn't let my friends play with because they were mine. Mine, like a dog with a slipper.

It's mine. Don't you dare touch my dolly. It's my dolly.

I think I would have quite liked to have dressed up in girls' clothes when I was a kid and I think a lot of kids would. I don't know why I'm mentioning that. I just, I think it's fun.

What do you want, Andre? Come on then. He wants to get up. What do you want to get up for? What do you want to get up for? No? Well, go away then.

He's just staring at me. And part of the reason he's staring at me is because he hasn't got the food that he likes. So, here's a story.

It's very interesting. I went out of my way to purchase some special food for him because he has cat food and it's go-go, is it go-go cat or whatever? Go-cat. And he loves it with gravy.

Now, I saw this new recipe, exactly the same brand, cost him more money, I think, but with extra gravy. And I did wean myself a little bit with excitement. It was like, yeah, brilliant.

And I thought Andre would be so happy. Extra gravy, more of what he loves. Exactly the opposite.

And not only did I buy, I bought a big box of like 48 instead of the the standard 12 that I normally get. So it was, I don't know, 10 quid or 12 quid or something. So now I've got a big container full of these packets, which he won't touch.

He will eventually, but he don't like it. He turns his nose up at it. He looks at me like I'm dirt, honestly.

And I was trying to do a nice thing. It's like trying to, like helping an old lady cross the road and then sort of moan at you saying, I didn't want to cross the road. Okay.

So it's just like, you try to help someone and they don't. I'm always offering my help to elderly people because I realize I'm not far off it now myself. Yeah.

Another 10 years, I'll be nearly 60. So, you know, once I get to 70, I'll probably be classed as elderly. So another 20 years and I might actually welcome someone helping me across the road or helping me to unpack my shopping from the trolley or to help me to spend my pension money, you know, whatever.

I'm sure I'd like people to be able to help me in some way, but I might not. I don't know. I mean, I kind of think I hear people say I'm self-sufficient and I want to, I'm used to doing things my own, you know, my nan was like that.

But I don't know if I'm really like that because I think about it and I'd kind of quite like to live in a care home, but be physically abled. I suppose that would be the thing. You know, it's all about health, isn't it? But I'd like the idea of having someone help me with a shower.

I'd even like to have someone feed me. I'm very, very lazy. You know, as long as they fed me in the right speed, because I did, I have fed some people in the past.

I did some voluntary work in a care home and it's really weird because it's hard, I found it hard to get into the other person's perspective, you know, sort of to be in the other person's shoes. I mean, she had a size four shoe, but that's another thing. And I was basically trying to give her more food while she was still chewing the food she had, not realizing how damn annoying that would be.

And I suppose disrespectful, but I didn't mean it. I was, you know, I was very young. I didn't, I was four years old.

I didn't know any different. And so as long as I had someone that was caring, because that's where we kind of, we have carers, but we need to have caring carers. And there's millions of caring carers, but there's a few carers that perhaps aren't as caring as maybe we'd like them to be.

And I know it's a hugely difficult job. And I think people can get into gallows humor a little bit and maybe stop seeing the people as human. Or as human as, I don't know.

I worked in a mental or psychiatric unit, worked, didn't live there. I worked there for a little while when I was at university. And the carers, the people are supposed to be carers, because I was a carer, didn't seem to care at all about the patients.

If anything, they were winding the patients up to get a rise from them so that they could have a bit of drama to pass the time. And I didn't like it. I joined in, of course, because it was fun, but I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't.

I, nothing bad would happen because I wouldn't have allowed that. And nothing, there's no bullying or anything like that. But it's really, they were showing little respect.

You know, they weren't, they were almost like trying to push their buttons, but very covertly. Well, I don't know how to explain it really. I can't be bothered.

But so what I did, because I was just sitting around watching telly all day and I was doing a, I think it was like a 15 hour shift, starting at six until nine or something ridiculous like that. Or yeah, five to eight, I don't know. But it was a long, long, long shift on a Friday and Saturday or Saturday, no, Saturday and Sunday.

And the people working there seemed very happy to just sit and watch telly and I find that boring unless I'm on my own. If I'm on my own, then I'll watch telly. I don't want to watch telly with other people because, I don't know, just it seemed, it somehow seemed wrong to do that and get paid.

And watching telly does not pass the time, particularly quickly. Well, I didn't find it to be the case. So plus I need to be in control of the television.

I do. I need to, if I'm going to watch, I can't watch other people's programs. It has to be what I want to watch.

Because I'm selfish as well as very lazy and inconsiderate. I'm all of those things. And so, you know, I've got my own TV, my own TV remote control.

I watch what I want, when I want. And that's the benefit of being lonely and not having a Valentine. By the way, Happy Valentine's Day for those of you who care about such things.

And what I did at this psychiatric hospital place unit, and I was with just all women who lived there. They were inpatients. Some of them were allowed out for a few hours during the day, some of them.

Some of them weren't allowed at all. And it was locked. You couldn't get out without being buzzed out and escorted.

So even the staff couldn't leave without getting permission. So what I did is I went into, I said, isn't there nothing you can do in this place? I said to the ladies that were living there, I said, this is boring. Don't you get bored? And they said, yeah.

And all I did was just smoke. You know, they had to go in the garden and smoke, but that's all they did. There was nothing else, watch television or smoke or sleep.

That was kind of the, or if they got to go out, they could go out where they smoked. But you know, but they had the garden smoking and it wasn't even a particularly big garden because there was lots of units all together with a little space between each one. It's not totally true, but it's, you know, they were kind of segregated.

And I said to one of the patients, I said, what do you do? What can you, this is boring. I said, I probably shouldn't have said that, but I said, it's boring. And I was kind of ready to go home.

I thought, no, I'm going to do this. So this is a bit silly. And he said, she said, well, we do have games and we could play games.

I said, I'm not allowed in your room on my own because that was the rule. And she said, no, no, we've got a game cupboard. I said, well, show me.

So they, in the living room, they had a games cupboard and loads of board games. I mean, board games, they're called board games for a reason because they're boring. But, you know, anyway, he, she rather, showed me.

It was loads, but it was dusty. No one had had them out for ages. No one bothered.

They were happy just to sit there, go outside and smoke with the patients or just watch telly or do paperwork, you know. So had to keep writing down incident reports and stuff like that. Or maybe also cooks and dinners.

And the females could do more because they were allowed inside the rooms with the females to make sure that, you know, the place is tidy and stuff like that. But I, because I was a man, there was one other man with me working as well. We weren't allowed in the bedrooms.

We weren't allowed to be with the females on their own at any time. I always had to be in the living room. It was okay, but there was cameras in the living room.

So in the living room, all the eating area, there was cameras the whole time filming, but not in their bedrooms. So I was allowed to be in the, in the, in the living room with them, with the patients, the females. I don't know what it's like with the male patients because I didn't spend any time in any of those units, in any of those sections.

Sections is not a good word, is it? But it's hard to explain, but they were all connected. All these, literally the kitchen, in the kitchen, there was a door. And through the door, it led to another unit.

But in that unit was a bunch of other people, maybe like six, eight, 10 people. So my guess is probably in their kitchen, there was another door that led to another unit because there was about, at least about eight different units. And there was a tuck shop, which was outside, still and those that had permission to, allowed to go outside.

They weren't allowed to leave the premises, but they're allowed to go outside. Technically they could leave the premises, although the gate was supposed to be locked. And there was this tuck shop and they'd get given, I suppose, like little jobs that they could do and a bit of responsibility in that.

And there was a tuck shop, so I went out there. So I got to meet some of the other patients from the other units. And I got on well with everyone, to be fair.

I think I probably got on better with the patients and with the staff. Although I had no problems with the staff, but patients were more interested and had more to say. And they wanted to do something.

I didn't want to sit watching telly apart from the ones that were just dosed up, completely dosed up so they wouldn't do anything. I think it's, what do they call it, the chemical handcuffs, I think it's called, or the chemical straitjacket. It's someone that could be a problem given so much medication that they just sit there like a zombie all day staring at television.

And I don't know, it's not nice to see, but there's only one like that, one or two there that were like that. And I didn't get it. I did not get it.

I thought, why? They're all nice. They're all so sweet and nice to me and friendly. And when I got the games out, everyone wanted to play, argued a little bit.

Some of them wanted my attention more than, you know, sort of, but I tried to include as many people as possible and played the games. And at the end of the first day, we had to write a report about what happened during that 15-hour shift. So I did.

I just wrote, nothing happened. We played some games. Although there was a couple of incidences, but it didn't involve me.

And sometimes it's like infighting between the patients and they used to wind each other up and stuff. But when I looked and saw what they were in for, some of them, I couldn't believe it. They seemed so nice and innocent and not innocent, but so calm and relaxed.

Obviously they were there for a reason, but my life was at risk being there. I didn't realize it was, you know, these dangerous people, but didn't seem it. And you know, I don't know, I think, and this is very simplistic, very, very simplistic, how we treat other people affects their behavior, how they're treated, how they perceive other people are treating them.

So that's another thing. It's the perception as well, isn't it? So you can treat someone really nice, but actually they perceive it as something different. It got to be complicated.

So that was me working as a carer. Let me tell you about the other caring jobs. I had two different caring jobs.

That was the first one. I volunteered as a carer and quite a long time ago. But the second caring job I had was like an agency.

So I was sent to different places. And I don't know if I've ever talked about this before, but I probably have. I've talked about pretty much everything else that's ever happened in life.

But I had a few different jobs for this one. And some of the little content here might be a little bit adult. So if you're not an adult or whatever, you know, it's not nothing bad.

So the first person I ever saw was an autistic gentleman and he had severe epilepsy. But I had three hours training with him. So it was an hour or two hours sitting with him, with his carer, his regular carer.

And then basically I was to take over for the rest of the shift and then come back when and they needed me. So I think I did about three shifts with him and all he did was smoke. All he did was smoke.

And at that time I had been a non-smoker for quite a long time. It was, I think it might have been winter as well. So the windows were closed.

And again, watching telly, he didn't really sort of want to speak to me, which is fair enough. Again, it was boring because we weren't doing anything. Just watching telly.

And I know that jobs aren't supposed to necessarily be exciting and I wasn't looking for excitement. I really wasn't because I knew what excitement would mean. It'd mean, you know, calling ambulances and stuff.

So I didn't want all that stuff, but I wanted to feel like I was making a difference. And maybe I was, but I didn't realize it at the time. And maybe being there and I didn't think about it in that way.

Maybe being there and keeping company was actually really nice for him. But it got to the point where I was actually volunteering myself to clean his toilet out of boredom of just sitting there watching something I didn't want to watch on telly. I was hoping he'd fall asleep so I could get hold of the remote control and switch the TV channel over, but he didn't.

And I ended up cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the kitchen, which wasn't really what I was there to do. But I had to do something because, you know, he was self-sufficient so he could do all that stuff himself. I wasn't there to clean, just there to make sure he was okay, keep him company, make sure he took the medication, you know, that kind of stuff.

And he was a really nice bloke. So I did that a few times. And then I had a job in a children's home with the agency.

Couldn't find a place and then when I did find it, they said, we don't need you. They've sent too many people. So I went home and I still got paid for it, which is not too bad, is it? And I can't remember what others, but there was one last job they sent me on.

And I'll remember this forever. They said to me, it was a Friday afternoon, I was in the office and they said, look, we've got this job for you. It's on Monday.

I said, okay. And it's a very difficult patient. It's in a hospital setting.

It's actually in a hospital. But this person's got severe epilepsy, but also severe anger issues and needs to be contained regularly, needs to be calmed down. And I thought, well, I'm quite calm and, you know, I generally can sort of talk people down and send them to sleep.

And I said, yeah, okay, I'll do it. I needed the money. I needed whatever job they gave me, really.

I said, yeah, okay, I'll do it. So I turned up on Monday, walked for miles to get there, got there on time, had a white shirt on. They said, you need to wear a white shirt, black trousers, black shoes.

You know, it needs to be smart. I think even have a tie on, which is not a good idea if you're around someone that might grab your tie. And she said, before I got there, she said, all you have to do is sit with the person all day.

But you don't want to sit in their room. You'll sit outside the room and you can't approach them because if they wake up and they see you, they might attack you as well. Okay.

This is going to be interesting. So I turned up to this place and I got into the hospital and this doctor came up to me and he said, are you from the agency? I said, yeah. He said, have you been here before? Do you know what you're doing? I said, no.

He said, have you been here before? I said, no. And he had a go at me. He started ranting, why do they keep sending people that don't know what they're doing in here? He's got very valid point on that one.

I mean, I was there to do something that an experienced or someone trained should be trained to do, not someone that didn't know what they were doing. I agree. However, I don't agree with being spoken to like that.

So that wasn't going to really wash very well with me. So a little drink. I'll tell you the end of the story in a minute.

It's exciting. And then he said, well, come on then. We're just starting a meeting with all the nurses and there was care assistants there as well, but then nurses and he was the doctor in charge.

Or he might've been a nurse in charge. I can't remember, but he was, and it was a big hospital and it was dementia hospital for dementia. And he said, he started telling the nurses off and the carers.

And this is a bit, you might want to block your ears if you just, this is completely what he said. I was standing at the back trying to keep quiet. And he said, ladies, there was no men there.

So I was there, wasn't I? Yeah. I don't know. That's very rude, isn't it? But he said, ladies, ladies, you need to start washing the groins of the patients.

Suddenly I became very alert. I'm like, what? And he said, specifically the penis. You need to wash the penis.

I thought I'd walked into some kind of comedy sketch, something like Monty Python or something. And I'm not even making this up. This is totally true.

Totally true. He said, one of the patients I went to check on didn't have a clean penis. And I had to wash it myself.

And as I was washing it, all this pus squirted out at the end of it. I was, I was basically, basically, I couldn't, I started laughing. And, you know, basically like, no, I think you're fine.

That wasn't pus. And none of the nurses were laughing at the way he was talking about it. I had to wash his man bits and, and rub it and clean it.

And then suddenly stuff started, like, yeah, it was so serious. Really telling them off. And the angrier, he really got angry as well.

And the angrier, more serious he got, the more I just wanted to laugh. Really laugh out loud, like proper, had to hold it in like a, like a fire funeral, you know, just had to, and eventually everyone got released. And a couple of the, couple of the ladies were smiling as we, as they walked out.

It wasn't what he was saying. It wasn't the, the fact that the patients needed to be cleaned. Of course they did.

That's important. No one would, would question that. It's the way he was describing it that was funny.

Plus I didn't like him anyway, because he'd already sort of had a go at me, which doesn't normally happen. I was growling. Anyway, he said, come on you.

Who would come on you? Okay. And I said to him, look, if you've got a problem, I'll just go. Yeah.

If you've got a problem with me, I'll just leave. You find the only, so you get someone else. He said, no, you're in now.

Okay. So he took me up to the end of the hallway, gave me a chair to sit in. And I sat opposite an open doorway where there was someone sleeping inside a room on a mattress on the floor, snoring.

And I sat there and I sat there. And every minute that passed, I was getting less and less enjoying being there based on how I'd been treated by the man who greeted me when I first arrived. And also the way he'd been talking to the ladies, the other staff.

I say like there was no other men there. I was the man. He called me a lady as well.

So the way he'd been talking to the other staff, talking down to them, almost ridiculing them. I didn't like that. And eventually I just got up and I won't say the exact words I said, but I walked up to him and in so many words, I said, you look after him.

You go and sit in that chair. And I just walked out. I took the tie off, tucked the tie in the bin.

As I was walking out, made a phone call to the agency. I said, don't ever contact me again. And hung up, blocked their number.

And that was the end of my caring career because I realized it's the wrong word to be using for those agencies. Care. You know, I'm not an uncaring person, but at the same time, I wasn't trained.

I was not trained to deal with people with dementia. It needs training. It needs, or at least working in an environment, in a stable environment, I say stable environment, in the same place, learning from the other people on how to do the job.

Not just turning up for one day and then being off in a completely different place, different setting the next day, doing something way different. Yeah, that wasn't for me. So I left.

I walked out. Ta-ra. Good luck.

Good luck with your willy cleaning. And even though I just shot myself in the foot because I didn't have, I literally just walked out of a job. The ironic thing is they still paid me.

The agency still paid me. And they were apologizing to me because I told them what happened in the Answer Machine message. They, actually, I didn't block the number, did I? I lied about that.

They did call me back, but I left messages. I didn't actually speak to them. And they're saying, sorry, sorry.

We shouldn't have sent you there. The bloke is well known for being, you know, rude to our staff that we send, the agency staff. And we'll never send you back there again, but can you, you know, we'll make sure we send you somewhere better next time.

And I just, nah, didn't do it. But I needed to do it, but I didn't. Because I thought, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's just, it's a weird, weird industry. I'm not an expert on it. I just have my little taster, a little bit of a taster.

And also having visited people in hospitals and having friends being in the hospital. I mean, I've been, I was in a hospital twice and I had a great time. Well, you know, as a kid, the first time was a bit, had my adenoids out.

And that was a bit rubbish because the ward I was in was basically like a dungeon. There was like nothing there. It was dark.

I think it was underground. I think some kind of bomb shelter. And the second time I was in hospital when I had my appendix out when I was about 12.

Brilliant. I had light through the window and that was my first time on morphine, I think. I loved it.

I did. Apart from the pain of the appendicitis operation, I had a really good time. It was one of the highlights of my childhood.

You know, it's one of the times I laughed the most I've ever laughed in my life. And I don't think it was just the morphine. I think it was just, it was fun.

And it was freedom, freedom from family, brothers and, you know, parents. Just that freedom, you know, like a holiday. It was almost like a nice, I don't know, five day holiday.

And the nurses were lovely as well. So for me, that was a, I got a very good review online. I did.

I did. I got a very good review on, I don't know what the name is. What's the name of that online review? Review thing? Spotify? Is this? No.

Shop? Something, isn't it? I don't know. Of course, the internet wasn't around then. Now I know it.

So, yeah, I did a little bit of care work. So, you know, going back to me being really lazy, I'd like to have someone wash me. But as long as they were gentle and kind and patient and not rough, you know, I'd want someone that was doing it out of love, not because they were getting paid and they needed to rush off to another place, which isn't their fault.

It's just the job, isn't it? They can't spend hours and hours with people. So I think that's what I'll do when I'm rich. I'm going to have people just for different jobs.

Someone to come in just to make me bed. Someone maybe to come in to put my slippers on for me, do my shoelaces up, and help me get dressed. I'm not talking about when I'm elderly, I'm talking about now.

Just, I don't like doing all that stuff, you know, having to put clothes on myself. I'd quite like to, really, and that's what royalty has, isn't it? That's what, what do they call it? A butler. I'd quite like to have a butler, someone that just does all that stuff, you know, gets my clothes all ready, puts it on for me, maybe scrubs me back when I'm in the bath, runs the bath for me, you know, does everything.

That'd be nice. I'd still live here. I wouldn't be, I'd just be able to afford a butler, but not to actually live anywhere nice because it costs so much money.

Have someone to cut my toenails. That'd be nice. So about, yeah, a good 15 inches long at the moment.

And what other things would I like? I quite like the idea of having a haircut every day, you know, like a nice half hour trim, maybe scalp massage and a shave or reshaping of the beard, you know, or, you know, just pruning. Is it called pruning? A bit of pruning. Make sure I haven't got any weird out of control ear hairs, you know, just generally make myself look as human as possible.

And then I thought I'd have someone there to help me with exercises to like exercise with me as an exercise partner in my private gym or maybe go with me to the gym. At other times, if I'm extra lazy, I'll just get them to do sit ups and press ups and I won't do anything. So I'll just have them do it for me.

So what else? Have someone cook my food. And I don't, I don't really need anyone to feed me. You know, I mean, it is due to, all of this is due to laziness, not due to necessity.

And I'm not at all making fun of anyone that needs to have this stuff done because I'm just talking about being lazy or making fun of myself. But there's something nurturing. You think the last time outside of like elderliness or illness, to be fed was when you were like a little baby, when you were kind of being nurtured and cared for and loved, you know.

So yeah, I turned out to be quite nice to be fed. Maybe not all the time. But I'd get huge if it was all the time.

But maybe not dinner. Probably more dessert, you know, something like ice cream. Not, I was going to say not jelly.

By the way, jelly is, you can Google it, jelly is like wobbly, wobbly jelly. Flavoured water, basically, that's a gelatine set. Having something, the thing is, the problem with jelly is it kind of wobbles, which is nice to look at.

It's nice looking at things that wobble. But once you kind of break into it and eat it, it also wobbles on the spoon. So sometimes it's hard to kind of keep it on the spoon long enough to actually gobble it down.

Yeah, like it will fall off the spoon. It's kind of got its own little life going on there. Please don't eat me, don't eat me.

And ice cream, more ice cream. So yeah, that'd be okay now and then. I think things like that are good for choice.

You know, if it's a choice, that's nice. As long as there's a caring. If I could, if I could have my little, click my, click my little fingers and if I had multiple choices, you know, if I didn't, if I didn't, just one wish, it'd be too hard to know.

Because I think if I had one wish, I'd want to have more than one wish. So let's say if I had like 10 wishes, I think one of my wishes would be for everyone to be cared for, but really cared for by someone that actually cares. Because that means so much.

I mean, you've got to have competency as well. A person needs to know what they're doing. The carer needs to know what they're doing.

So it doesn't matter how caring a person is, if they give the wrong dose of medication, you know, that's no good. But it still needs to be just that caring bit. It makes so much difference.

That's what I noticed when I was in hospital. Nurse Nichols, and she was blonde. I was 12, by the way.

So I fell in love with her. And she was, she was beautiful. I loved her.

And I'm not going to physically describe her because it's, there's no need. But I loved her. I loved her.

She was perfect. Perfect. Mind you, everybody was when I was 12.

So my perfect woman when I was 12 would be Wonder Woman and anyone else that would talk to me. So yeah, I was, the thing is, that's what I wanted in a woman. But the reality is when I was 12, I probably didn't really want a woman.

I just wanted a girl who was fun to be with. I wasn't really that bothered about some of the other stuff that, you know, for that I was just, if anything, experimental, but not really that important. Just out of interest.

A little bit like, I don't know, like finding a dead bee on the floor and kind of want to touch its sting, just to sort of see if it, if anything happens. It's not, not for any other reason other than just curiosity. And plus, your older brother's saying, no, touch it.

It won't hurt you. Yeah, right. It did.

It's weird that I remember that because I was only about four at that time. Lived in a big block of flats in Newcastle. Came down and my, I think it was my oldest brother.

So he would have been, and he's with his friends and there was this bee. They said, touch it. I said, no.

I said, it's fine. It's dead. It won't hurt you.

I said, no. He said, touch it. I said, go on, just put your finger on its sting.

I think he might've offered me like a cigarette or something if I did this. I said, all right then. And it did sting me and I don't think it, maybe it wasn't dead.

I don't know if it, I don't know. Maybe they hypnotized it or something. Yeah.

Never forgive my brother for that. Here's another weird thing I used to do. I used to eat daddy long legs.

I know it's terrible. We never do anything like that now, which is a weird statement to make really, isn't it? You know, I'm 49, but something that's a bit weird about me, I don't eat daddy long legs. That just might be a bit surprising to some of you.

Hmm. That's, that's, that's interesting. So caring.

I wanted to be a caring person, but I never really ended up being one. Not, I am, but I'm not, you know, I think I said this to someone a while back and they were just talking like, how can I be the way I am? And do what I do, you know, the kind of person I am, but also sort of devote my life to helping other people, but also be, I guess, a loner and whatever words you want, weird or weirdo, probably, but you know, very much a recluse, but at the same time wanting to help others. And I said, oh, the thing is what you, the mistake you're making is you're mistaking caring for interest.

I think I said something like that. He said, what do you mean? He said, I care. I want to help people.

Of course I wouldn't do it unless I cared. I care deeply. Doesn't mean I'm interested in every single person because apart from the fact that it'd be impossible to know everyone that listens to the recordings because there's so many people, but I want to help people, but I just don't have much human contact with people.

And he couldn't understand that. He said, but that doesn't make sense. How can you want to help people, but have no interest in being around people? I said, it's easy.

I've been doing it for a long time. It's easy. And he couldn't understand it.

And I don't know if that, is it weird? I don't know. I'm a, I'm a, am I a recluse? I'm just me. We can have these labels, but you know, this is my life.

I'm spending my life doing this and I'm going to continue forever and ever and ever and ever until I'm 97. And then I might start to think about retiring. And by then there'll be thousands and thousands of these recordings.

I have like maybe 20,000 recordings and you'll think, oh, please retire. Please retire. I don't know.

How many would there be? If I did, is there a calculator on this thing? Calculator. I tell you what, this tablet is ridiculous. It doesn't even do anything.

When I touch it. Oh, it does now. Okay.

Has it got a calculator on it? Calculator. Maybe it's on one of the apps. Oh, oh, oh, it might have.

It might. Oh, it does have. How exciting.

So 365. How old am I now? 49, 59, 69, 79. Should we keep going till I'm 70? Yeah.

Or no, wait a minute. 49, 59, 69, 79. So we'll keep doing this till I'm 80.

Let's say. So that's 59, 69, 79. It's 31 years.

So 365 times by 31 equals. So that'd be from now, well from August, because I'll be, I don't know, be over 11,000 according to this 11,315 recordings. So over 11,000 more recordings I'll be doing just of this podcast if I do one every day for the next 31 years.

What will I talk about? Oh, something I was going to read to you. I had a lovely message today. Oh, it's a bit chilly.

Suddenly my knees are getting a bit chilly. Okay. Right.

Here we go. Where's my email address? Those of you that haven't fallen asleep yet, you can listen to this email. That's it.

All right. There's no emails, no email address set up. So I can't read it.

Oh, well, I'll tell you another time. Another time, another time. So I'll probably read it.

Let's see if I can read it now. Where is it? So I had a message today from Alison. This is via my website.

Hi, Jason. Please stop doing what you do. It's annoying.

I don't like it. I just want you to stop. No, it's the wrong one.

I just have to look. No, no, I'm joking. Alison.

Hi, Jason. I love what you do. I particularly like your let me bore you to sleep stories of when you were little.

And although they make me feel a bit sad sometimes, give me a better understanding of who you are. Well, don't be sad. I'm only just talking just for the sake of talking.

Not everything I say is true either. It's well, yeah, it's a mixture. But I also love the silly subjects you sometimes choose.

And I've recently been giggling with you over the famous funny expressions and the history of the toilet. Your laugh is infectious. Thank you.

So I've got a few ideas, subject ideas, anything interesting on the web, history, trivia, humor, all get my vote. Just you reading stuff out, whether it's interesting facts or funny stories, is engaging enough to stop my mind wandering onto the worries of life. And your gentle voice always sends me to sleep eventually.

I had an idea about getting income to cover your costs. And more importantly, some income to actually live off after all this job. After all, this is your job.

And there are many people who would be very sad if you couldn't continue your work due to funding. The gifting via PayPal is a nice idea, but difficult for people to know how much to donate. The more the better.

A million pound, I think is a good amount. I know how difficult it is to create an app. But they do seem to be the way forward as they are so convenient to use.

And like many other app providers, you could have a free version with ads and a subscription version, ad free, but charge a nominal amount per month. I hope this is of help. I've only been listening to you for the past three months, but strangely, feel you're a good friend already.

Take care, Alison. Thank you, Alison. It's a beautiful message.

Really appreciate that. And as far as the app goes, I have had two apps that I've had via Spreaker. Quite costly to get done.

And I can only have one done per podcast. And I've got 48. I added them up the other day.

I didn't realize I had so many. I've got 48 podcasts. Six that are doing well out of those 48.

But the others are also kind of starting to pick up a little bit here and there. So that's why I've got the website to have everything in one place. Most people that listen to my podcasts do listen via podcast apps, such as Spotify, TuneIn, iTunes, CastBox.

The list is quite long, quite long indeed. And in fact, I can tell you... No, I can't tell you. I don't have the... No, I don't have the list.

But there's lots of different apps. Most people are listening to me via apps already. So I can have adverts on the podcast.

And occasionally, I'll put them on there just out of interest to see kind of what I can do daily if it was able to make money. And I could have probably about $7 to $8 a day coming in, which is not a lot, but it's still enough to cover the costs over the month. However, there's been a lot of complaints about the adverts.

Not just personal complaint, but also people posting complaints on the actual podcast themselves. So that when people come along, that's all they see. They don't see any nice comments.

They just see people complaining about the adverts, which might stop people from listening. So what I did is I went on there, logged in and told people that the adverts are now gone. And I took the adverts off.

So that's why there's no adverts. I put them back on last week for I think two days, and then I got them off again. And yeah, so the adverts are gone.

I thought about charging and I've sort of played around with the idea of, it still has to be free, but giving people the option of downloading recordings for a fee, you know, per recording and played around with some other ideas. But it feels wrong to me. Something about it just feels wrong.

And, you know, I think I spoke about this yesterday. If it's not free, I kind of don't want to do it. It was supposed to be a free service in 2006, and it's supposed to always be free.

And I didn't expect it to sort of take my life over quite as much as it has, or for me to get as involved in it as I have. It's more a lifestyle now rather than a... It's not a job because I don't work, but it's a lifestyle. Everything I do is based around this, not just this podcast, but the other podcasts as well, that are equally as important to other people.

Sort of the anxiety and stress relief podcast is more popular than this podcast. And individually, as a podcast itself, some more people are, I guess, relying on that. And the Deep Sleep Whisper one as well, that gets more listens than this one.

So people out there, people, an audience there, whoever people, you know, might... When I call people, people, it sounds rude, doesn't it? Like you people, but I don't mean it that way. And so it's a little bit of a juggling act, but it's pleasurable. And the pleasure is in... I like seeing the stats, seeing that people are listening.

Even when I don't make any new ones for a while, the audience is still there. People are still happy to re-listen to maybe some of the older recordings. Well, you know, especially those that listen, have been listening for a while and know that my situation, and at times that I'm perhaps unable to make recordings.

And so, you know, there might be the occasion where I don't do anything for a few days. Or even a week. And then I get back on the horse again, and I might do like three or four a day for a few days or a few weeks.

You know, I do kind of do what I can when I can. But it needs to be free. I don't know what it is.

I don't know why, really. It's just... It's in my bones. I feel it.

I feel it has to be free. But the weird thing about it is I've got nothing against the capitalist system. I'm not anti-capitalist at all.

I've grown up in a capitalist system. I don't know anything different. I've learned about different things, especially through studying Buddhism and studying, not studying, but learning a bit about how other countries kind of live.

And I used to be a member of a socialist party when I was in my early 20s. Actually a member of it. I used to go on trips with them and used to... Yeah, I was actually actively involved for a little while, about a year.

But... So I like the idea of socialism. I'm not going to get into politics, but I'm not against... I think it's hard to be against something that is my world. This is my world, like it is yours as well.

You know, your world is your world, how you've been brought up and the society you're in. See, I don't see the point in kind of being really down on everything. I think I used to be a bit when I was younger.

I used to really moan about everything, and moan about the country, and wish to live somewhere else. But actually, I never realized how lucky I am to live here. Did I say lucky? I am.

Lucky I am. How fortunate I am to be somewhere where I've got food. And I guess that stuff didn't matter when I was younger, to me, as much as maybe it does now.

Because I'm now at a point where I do need help. When I was in my 20s, I was physically able to pretty much do anything. And I was willing to do anything and go anywhere to do it.

So I'd have traveled anywhere in the world to work. It wouldn't have bothered me. And I'd have worked for pretty much nothing.

You know, food and board, I would have happily... I practically did that for a long time. But I'm not in those... I can't kind of do that anymore. So it's... Yeah, so I'm not against... What am I talking about? I'm not against the capitalist system.

I'm just not selling anything. Although what I would like to sell... I quite like the idea of writing a book. Now, there's no point in me trying to sell a CD because I've got 1,500 recordings.

You know, if I just made one recording, a CD, why would people want to buy it when there's 1,500 free ones to choose from? You know, I probably wouldn't myself. Logically, it's like... And if I'm going to do something like that, I need to charge a decent amount of money. So it's going to have to be like at least £10 for someone to have to download it or, you know... It's like, why would they? It's not really worth it.

Plus, if I recorded something that I always thought was really good, I'd want to give it away free, which is what I did. I actually made, in 2009, I think it was, I went to a recording studio, spent £500 and I made three CDs. Three recordings, professional in a recording studio.

One was for relaxation, one was for sleep, one was for chronic pain relief. I then got CDs made, CD covers, printing. I did all this stuff, put it all together and then I spent another £100 online promoting them on all the iTunes store and all that stuff.

Did not sell one thing on the iTunes store, but on my website, I sold a couple. I sold a few, not many, but they were only for sale for a short time before I thought, I don't want to charge. It doesn't seem right.

So I just gave them away. In fact, I think, this is a bit sad, I'm not sure what I did with the CDs. I might have even chucked them away, because I had a big collection of CDs already to send out for people who bought them.

Either I chucked them away or I sent them out for free. I can't remember, don't recall. So I don't even remember what happened to the recordings.

So even after all that, and that was quite a bit of an investment on my part, and time and put a lot of energy, especially doing it professionally, and still didn't want to charge, still felt wrong. So that's kind of why I'm just going to, a little bit help now and then for anyone that wants to help me. It's much appreciated.

I think I'd like to maybe write a book, but again, I need help with that, because unlike what Andre said in the previous podcast, I can actually read. And I do, I quite like to use what I've already talked about in previous podcasts, episodes, but it means going through it all, and so much, so much, you know, so much, so hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of audio to go through, well over a thousand hours of audio. And I just don't know if I've got the patience to do that, to, you know, traipse through it all.

So I think if I had someone who's as enthusiastic, that was really enthusiastic about writing a book with me, like being an editor, being the editor of the book, that would be willing to go through and put together a book based on what I've talked about in my recordings, then that would be something I'd be interested in doing. And then maybe putting it onto Kindle, you know, but then I'd probably want to make it free. This is, but I think the first book I'd like, if I did, I'd like to have it free, just to see if anyone read it, because if it got an audience and people actually liked what I was writing, or liked what I'd been saying, then maybe there could be some kind of a career in that.

I don't know, we'll see. But anyway, I've waffled on yet again for far too long, yet again, and I'm going to go. And I just want to say thank you to Fascia for, I probably spelled that wrong, I pronounced it wrong, sorry, for your PayPal gift, thank you.

I can't get the email up to actually check, oh wait a minute, I can, wait a minute. Let me do this, let me do this properly. Let me do it properly.

Okay, let me do it properly. Oh no, okay, I'm just logging it in to my PayPal. Fascia, yeah, Fascia.

Yeah, I did get it right. Let's have a look, because you did, you sent me a message. Thank you for helping me fall asleep at night.

I love listening to your podcast and appreciate you. I know it's not much, but I hope it helps a little. That's beautiful, Fascia, thank you, genuinely.

Best wishes, Fascia. It's spelled Fascia, F-A-S-H-I-A, but pronounced like Sasha or Tasha. So, Fascia, thank you, Fascia.

It's a lovely name, isn't it? And of course you're going to agree, because it's your name, but I'm talking to other people as well. Yes, other people. So, I really appreciate that.

Thank you very much. It's very lovely, and a lovely message as well. Thank you.

So, that brings me to the end of this recording, and now we're going to go and listen to Nick Abbott on LBC Radio. So, thank you very much. Remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy.

So, think about something that you can do if you're asleep, and let this sink into your unconscious mind. Do something nice for yourself. Take care.

Lots of love. Bye.