#485 Let me bore you to sleep

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name's Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You to Sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. So the good news, let me get my glasses, the good news is, have you heard the good news? The good news is that my adapter came through today.

Which means, for those that don't know what I'm talking about, I mentioned it yesterday's recording. So it's an adapter that goes into my iPad, which then lets me connect my Focusrite adapter thing, which then connects the Rode microphone to that, to this, so you know, it's basically means that I'm now, I'm now using a decent microphone. Which should mean that it's much better, clearer sound with less background.

And partly because I forget the name of it, but it generally picks up my voice. And it doesn't take much notice of stuff that's far away, far away. And I literally stopped the recording there, just so I could listen back to it with my headphones on to hear what it sounded like.

And now I can continue to record. So I'm using the software, the the audio app that I purchased a couple of weeks ago. The one that I do my my editing on.

Now I tried to record on it before using just the inbuilt mic, and that wasn't particularly good. But this, I mean, technically, I suppose I could do with the microphone being a little bit closer. So yeah, that's, I just moved the mic a little bit closer to me.

So the volume might be a little bit more, just not a lot. But not only have I got a mic, I've also got a, I don't know what you call it, you know, I think it's called a spit stopper. But it's like it's a round thing that's got black felt, and it stops, hopefully stops the S's.

Hopefully. So yeah, the only thing is I can't use the iPad at the same time as I'm recording, which is fine. It's all right.

Unless I can, I don't realize. So, I'm mildly, mildly excited. Can you be, can you be mildly excited? Well, I'm mildly.

The thing is, it does pick up sounds that are quite close to it. So I'll just put my phone down in a bit of a click. So it's not going to be completely absolute perfect sound with just my voice and no other creaks or crannies.

I don't know the right word is. But you know, like the chair is going to creak. For example, I do it now.

That was the chair creaking. And here's me picking up my can of Coke and putting it down. However, I've been testing it out.

Testing the mic. I did a deep sleep whisper recording about an hour ago. And I uploaded that.

And it didn't take long to edit. That was what's so good about it. Because I'm recording it directly onto the iPad.

I save it. And then I edit it. And because well, when I did this one, it was more than an hour ago, it's probably about nine o'clock.

Or maybe it was 10 o'clock. But anyway, it was around that time. And no, maybe it was earlier than that.

Because it was unless I was Oh, no, I don't know. But I was recording, listening to background sound. And just recording it without saying anything and just getting an idea of what the microphone picks up.

And it didn't seem to pick up the stuff very clearly that I could hear. Which I thought was quite cool, actually. So it seems to be very much focused on what it's aimed at.

So when the microphone's aimed at me, it's listening to me. But it's not taking any notice. I'll give you an example.

I left the kitchen door open while I did the deep sleep whisper, and you couldn't hear the fridge, couldn't hear that. Normally, there's a sound, you know, sort of a little humming just a little bit. But even here, when I stop talking, the volume goes down to practically nothing.

But it's almost nothing going on. Even though probably just the drink fizzing away, you can kind of hear that a little bit. Of course, when I'm making these recordings, you're still going to hear Andre running around now and then.

At the moment he's asleep. This seems when I don't know, it seems like I might be able to make more recordings. Because I won't have to avoid the background sounds.

And even if there are background sounds, less of them will be picked up, which means there's less editing, which means less work. Which I quite like because I'm ever so lazy, as you know. Oh, this is a little bit weird doing the whisper one because I was quite close to the mic.

And although I'm not far away from the mic, I'm closer than I am to the mic on the the tablet. But then there was a 14 pound mic. This one's about, it was about 150 pound.

So it's a good mic. It's a really good. I don't know, you can get mics that cost thousands of pounds.

What would be the point in that though? For me, I mean, of course, if I had that money to do it, yeah, I would. I'd have the best mic in the world. But it's a pretty good mic.

And so I've got two, two of these Rode mics. And it's R-O-D-E. And I could have one the other side.

But technically, I don't need two mics. It's just me talking. If I had, if I was doing an interview, and there was another person talking to me the other side of the table or something, then I could have two different mics set up.

And the, I don't know what it's called, but the Focusrite hub thing that the microphone is connected into can take two mics. And that is almost kind of a professional thing. Because these microphones have, you know, they're not a, they're not USB mics.

They don't attach themselves into a laptop. Though you can attach it into a laptop. If that makes, if that makes any sense.

So you've got, yeah, it seems to, it's a USB connection. But because that goes into another extension that I've got, that then goes into the lightning connector. This is all pretty gobbledygook, gobbledygook, I suppose.

But even to me, anyway, it fits into the thing. So for the sake of £20, which it cost me for this Mokin connector, there's quite a few different connections I can have. Which means I can hear, I can also potentially do some other stuff.

Maybe even connect my hard drive to this. And also add stuff to the disc drives I bought for the winners of my competition about 17 years ago. Then I can do that hopefully and send them out.

So it looks like it's all coming together. Also tomorrow I've got the delivery of a battery, exciting stuff on it. But my video mic, I want to see if that works for the tablet.

And if it works good, if it works as well as this, I'll use the tablet to record the Let Me Boy To Sleep recordings. And I use the iPad for the other stuff, two separate mics set up. Because I like to sit on that chair over there when I do the Let Me Boy To Sleep, because it's more relaxing.

And because the Let Me Boy To Sleep recordings last a lot longer than the other stuff I do. It's quite nice to just chill out a bit, you know. But I don't mind sitting at the table today.

But if I can get it set up so that I can use the other mic, and it can still be the same quality sound as this, then I'd be very happy indeed. Yeah, it's pretty cool, isn't it? Don't you think? I think so. Also I need to get an I need to get some headphones for, so that I can actually hear my voice as I speak, so I can hear the level of volume.

Although perhaps I don't need that. But it may be useful. Yeah, it may be useful.

Unless I can figure a way of wirelessly being able to hear it. I'm not sure. I reckon if I downloaded the Focusrite editing software, I could probably then connect the wireless microphone.

But I'm using a different software, and this is better, I think. It might not be. But I know how to use this one now.

And it didn't cost much. I can't remember how much it cost. About £20, I think, when I bought it a few weeks back.

It's had plenty of use. I've edited probably 30, 40 recordings in that time. So it's pretty good.

I just never tried really to record anything, because the the mic wasn't at the same level as the one in the tablet, for some reason. But now it's using the external mic. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

And I don't actually know, because I don't have the same lead to connect to the tablet, the Android tablet with this microphone. But the other microphone it does, it plugs right into the normal, you know, like a little normal headphone, or microphone socket, like the old days. It's got one of them.

So that actually might be better for me, for that one over there. We'll see. But I'll test that out tomorrow.

Oh no, not, is it tomorrow? I don't know what day it is today. Yeah, I think it's tomorrow, I should get it Monday. And then I can test that.

And if that works fine, brilliant. It's, you know, it's gonna be really cool. Because then I've got two setups.

And I might try and see, I quite like the idea of having it set up, maybe. Having a table in the corner of this room, and have it just for this, just to record, have the chair over there, the other side of the room, just to record the Let Me Boy To Sleeps. And then have a setup in the shed as well.

So I can start recording stuff in there. So I've got three different places to record. Sometimes I like to, I do like to do it out here.

But I spent a lot of money on that shed and getting it put up and the soundproofing and got help with the soundproofing as well. And so, as well as having soundproofing stolen before it even got to me. So, you know, it's probably about 500 pound all in all, if not more, on that shed, including getting it put up, which cost me about 100 pounds.

So I'd like to get that set up. But I think one thing to do is, instead of having the microphone stand, I've got, I think I've got three microphones. No, no, I haven't got two microphone stands and a couple of camera stands.

So to have the microphone stand, it'd be much better if it was actually hanging down from the ceiling. And I'm not sure how I would do it because I'm quite, well, the ceiling's quite a long way from my head. Unless I actually sit down on the floor, then my head, my head bangs against the ceiling because my bum's so big.

I like that. I don't know why it tickles me. And I mean, it is doable.

It would just be a case of setting it up. Or another way of doing it is if I did have this on the other side of the room, and they had a table there just for the recording, I could perhaps have a bracket. I could probably, yeah, I could probably get a bracket and have the microphone stand with the microphone hanging down.

So they'd just be in front of me. So I could move it a lot around, a bit like how they do in, if you watch podcasts on YouTube, some, you know, the professional ones, sometimes they do, they can move the mic around in front of themselves, or maybe on radio shows. So that might be the next step.

But at the moment, this step is the one I'm focusing on. And I thought about it for a while. And I was fairly pleased with the microphone, because it took me ages to find one that would work decent enough with the tablet, especially recording and able to record live as well, or stream live.

But now, yeah, it just seems to be kind of working okay. So I'm fairly pleased, very, very pleased with how it's going. And, you know, eventually, the only thing with this shed, and the only, honestly, the only problem for me with that shed is simply that it's too hot.

And I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't know how to cool it down in there. And there's not a lot of space.

And if I did it, if I guess if I did things, I want to use the word properly, but if I, if I was a bit more professional, maybe in how I did things, I reckon I could turn it into quite a good recording studio. Very, it's very small, all the equipment really, other than the microphone, would, would be outside of the shed. So there's not enough room to have the, or just the equipment I've got, you know, including the iPad, really.

The ideal situation to be just to go in there, already press record, go in, perhaps have my headphones in on so I can hear that it's recording me. Yeah, that's a weird sound. What if that was Andre? Do you know how a dog flaps its ears when it like moves his head? That's what it sounded like, but in the kitchen.

Very strange. I'd say the benefit of having Andre here is if I hear weird sounds, I just attribute it to him. So I don't really think about it, you know.

Before he moved in here, I used to hear, you know, just building sounds, you know, just, I don't mean people building, I don't live in Fever Rock, constantly building stuff. But you know, the sound of the house moving, the wind, the windows creaking, just general stuff, radiators and stuff like that. And when I first moved in, I remember lying in bed thinking, what's that? What's that sound? What's that sound? Especially as I had keys to the front door, which I thought maybe the previous tenant had the same keys.

You know, what if they came back or if they knew a way in? Because I moved out of a place once, well actually I was evicted and I was renting a room in this house that my friend had. Anyway, I went back about probably about five, six weeks later because some of my stuff was still in there. I thought I wasn't sure if my friend had left my stuff or if he took it.

He was supposed to be looking after it, but he just disappeared. And there was no one living in the house. So I knew how to get in without opening the door, without unlocking it.

I just knew a way in. And because he'd lived, he'd lived there all his life. So he kind of showed me the, a few little tricks that you wouldn't know about.

And he'd left all of my, all my diaries, all my journals, all on the bed, by the bed that I used to sleep in, still there. He didn't even take them with him. I don't blame him because they're quite heavy.

But if I hadn't have gone there, I would have, other people would have been reading my personal stuff and I would never have got them back. I couldn't believe it, honestly. But I got out of there pretty quick because, you know, I wasn't officially, oh well, I wasn't officially allowed in there because, because, well, I'd been evicted.

I was really surprised they didn't have anyone living there or moved in. Yeah, that was a bit, that's a long time ago. A long, long, long time ago.

Blimey, I was still in my 20s. I mean, now I'm like, what, 93. So yeah.

Don't time go by ever so fast, innit? So today I spent a lot of time in bed, which is okay, actually. I'm okay with that because I was listening to an audible book. So I was listening to that.

And then I was up for a while and I did some stuff and yeah. I had a lazy day. I admit, I did.

I admit, I admit, I admit, I admit, I admit, I admit. I had a lazy day. And I spent, it was really either laying down in bed or on the bed.

Sometimes a vendre comes up and lay on a bed with me. Give me a few kisses first. And then I'd get up, watch a bit of telly, go back to bed a little bit, listen to some music, which I did earlier this evening.

For a couple of hours, got up, took Andre for a walk, came back. And you know what's nice about it is I didn't beat myself up. I didn't give myself a hard time or you should be doing something, you should be... It's a Sunday.

I'd already made, yeah, I hadn't made any recordings today. But I did one earlier, you know, sort of later in the day. But it's okay because there's stuff that I could have done.

See, my carpet cleaner came in yesterday. No, on Saturday. So it came in and it got delivered eventually.

So there's a lot to do. There's a lot to do. There's a lot of cleaning to be done.

And you know what, I might not even do it tomorrow. I might have Monday off. It's a bank holiday Monday anyway.

And I might not do anything and just wait till Tuesday and do it then. Get on with it. So yeah, I'm not worried.

I'm just gonna chill out a bit, you know, just relax. And depending on the quality of this recording, I'm gonna go to edit it. I don't know if you can hear Rondre's in the background now.

If the only annoying thing would be with him is if he starts banging against the microphone stand, which he might do. He's behind me. I don't know why.

I know he's having his dinner. So if this is better quality sound, and I can edit it, it's easier. And what it means for me is I'll be able to make more recordings without much in the way of preparation.

I don't mind the editing, but it is laborious. It is sometimes the editing takes longer than the actual recording. It would take a lot longer if I was, you know, professional, trying to put out like a CD or professional recording.

But it can take twice as long. You know, it depends sort of how much background sound there was. If I'm able to, I mean, generally, if I can edit an hour long recording in less than an hour, then it's quite good.

If I can edit an hour recording in less than half an hour, that's pretty amazing. Sometimes what it is, is it depends on how many gaps there are. Because if there's a lot of gaps, and the gaps last, then I can skip through the gap to the next bit and skip.

So basically, I'm skipping between the gaps to the next bit of dialogue, to the next bit of sound. So it's, I suppose, because I'm doing it, I'm using the pen, the iPen thing, and I'm doing it on the screen. And because I'm doing it every day, maybe sometimes four, five times a day, sometimes different recordings.

So I started to speed up a bit in the editing process, just naturally got a bit more, I don't like to use the word, but competent, I guess. So it makes sense, doesn't it? If the more you do something, the hopefully the better you become, or the better I become. But then I suppose when it comes to editing, you know, I did the Deep Sleep one, and the Deep Whisper one, and I edited out a couple of yawns.

I won't do that with this. Probably with the Deep Sleep ones, it was, it was a little bit out of context, or a little bit out of, like, different kind of volume, you know. And the idea with recording is to try and keep it at the same volume level, pretty much, which is quite easy with my monitor, my boring voice.

But there are still jumps. But none of those jumps are going anywhere near the red zone. They're all in the green zone, the whole time that I'm talking.

And normally, when I make a recording on the tablet, over there, over there, the red zone does get, and the red zone is the bit that I'm not supposed to go beyond. And I mean, in a way, technically, technically, I'm talking, I'm talking quietly, anyway. I don't talk loudly, generally, when I do these recordings.

And it kind of goes against the, it kind of goes against what it's about. If I start, that would be yelling, I wouldn't yell. Relax now.

Notice how calm your toes are. You know, that would be a bit strange. But you know what's weird? Well, maybe not weird, but the more I've got involved in the editing process, the more I have become interested in the sound quality.

Because you know, in the past, the sound quality wasn't always great. But in my mind, I justified that by thinking to myself that the content, or the quality of the content would make up for the lack of quality of sound. Now I'm kind of going the other way, I'd rather it sound better, and have no content.

I'd rather me just go, words, words, and more words. Relax yourself and fall asleep. That's it.

More words. Sleepy, and for it to sound good. No content, but now I'm wondering how much noise Andre's gonna make, or how much of it's gonna be registered on the microphone.

Because the mic's not aiming at him, it's aiming at me. But he still is in the room. He's scratching as well, so I hope you know what fleas, you never know, because he goes out.

Fleas, they're in the grass, they're in the bushes, you know. You never know, do you? I don't want to come down with those again though. That'd be pretty, pretty bad.

Yeah, I don't want that. No, I don't.Me not want no fleas.

And I had to, what was the last time when he had them? Well, it's the only time he ever had them was last year. And he, I just took him to the vets and everything. And then the vet gave me some stuff to give him.

And then I couldn't get rid of them. They were like still kind of in the carpet. So I got these bomb things.

So basically, they, I forget the word or the name. But what you do is you put them in a room, you pull the top off, and you set it off, and you close the door. And it just fills the room with smoke, which basically gets rid of any fleas or anything like that.

So I let one off in, I think I left, I think I let two off in the bedroom, two off in the kitchen, no, two off in the living room. And I found one or two in the, or maybe I only let one off. Anyway, so I did it in the bedroom, living room and hallway.

There's no carpet in the kitchen or the bathroom. And never saw another, another flea after that. It just seemed to do the trick.

Bit weird though, because I had to wait hours and hours before I could go back in. Or fumigation, basically fumigation. I think, to be fair, I don't think it's any different to what a professional fumigator would do.

They just go in there, probably charge you absolute fortune. But they do probably quite a bit of the covering the house up or something is what I've seen on TV programs. And then just set these things to just go off.

I imagine they'd use more. But I think it worked out at £6 each, or maybe £6 for two. So I can see how there would be a fair bit of money, a fair bit of money, a fair bit of profit from doing that kind of work.

Because once you're in there, no one else is there. You can, I suppose you can make how you're doing lots of stuff when actually you just placed some of those canisters in each of the rooms and just go and have a cup of coffee and just left it for a few hours. Come back, it's done.

Of course, that might not be the case. I'm making it up as I go along, I don't know. I'm not a a flea expert.

I wonder why, why are marketplaces called flea markets? I've never seen fleas for sale. I don't get it. Is it because the stuff there is all a lot of old and scabby and maybe there's fleas in the clothes that are being sold? I don't know.

Maybe that was what it was originally. Who knows? I'll tell you what I would like. I'll tell you what I'm going to have.

I'm going to have an ice cream when I finish this recording. My friend gave me a Cornetto. Well, actually, it's not real Cornetto.

It was an Iceland version, but still, still nice. So I'm going to have that as a little treat. I didn't buy myself any ice cream this week.

And yeah, it's going to be strange. I don't know if I've got any messages. Do I have any messages? I don't think I do.

Wait a minute. I've got 10 notifications. Natalie shared a thing on the feed and I thought, happy belated 50th birthday.

Thanks, Nat. So Natalie is, let me tell you about Natalie. She's someone I've known since I was 18 years old.

She's married to my friend, Dean. And they were married when I met them. So they must have gotten married really young.

Because I think they're both old. They're older than me, but not by much, you know? Yeah, I was, what, 18. He was probably, yeah, 22.

Maybe she was 22, 21. In fact, I'm pretty sure she had her 21st birthday back then. Anyway, let me tell you about Natalie.

When I started doing canvassing for Double Blazing when I was 18, it was the summer of 1989. And I worked for this man called Jeff. And he was an ex, well, he was an ex, like I say, he was an ex-RAF pilot.

During the war, he was an ex-salesman and business owner. He was really sort of into Double Blazing and really successful. And current nobbet.

And he was, he was, you know, he's basically, he's retired. Even then he must have been, he must have been like 66, 65, maybe older. And he's, he had a wife called Peggy.

And she was lovely. And to be fair, I liked him as well. He was, he was a character, someone that you'd remember if you met him.

He's very, um, I don't know how to describe him. He had this big RAF beard, no not beard, moustache, this big RAF moustache. And he used to walk around and he'd wear a hat.

And he was smoking all the time. And he'd wear, what did he wear? I don't think he was quite smart. But he, he was in charge.

So basically, he got the contracts for us. So he employed us to work for him. And then he got paid by the Double Blazing companies.

So it's basically subcontracting, I guess, in a way. And we did the, I think we worked for three different companies that he kind of did. He's long gone now, unfortunately, but he, you know, but he's, the thing I remember about him most, two things.

Some of the stories he told me. A proper, he told, he didn't just tell me, he told the other people that worked there as well. But sometimes he'd invite me around for dinner.

I think there's, like, Dean and Natalie were the two people I worked with. And they were married and they, you know, they went home and had their dinner. I think he felt a bit sorry for me because I was going home on my own.

So, you know, he didn't invite me around all the time. Although I wanted him to, because the dinner was beautiful. It was really good food.

But then he'd tell me stuff about his past and I was just fascinated. I never, there's only a few people I've ever met that I've been interested in their stories. There's only two that I can think of, really.

Off the top of my head, there was him. And then there was, what was his name? Ray, a man that I met when I was in my, probably about 24. Yeah, about 24, working in this place, this factory.

And he worked with me. And he was only there for a little while, but I just, he cracked me up. I talked about him before, but he was, he was in his 50s.

And he was practically, I think he had glaucoma, so he was very short-sighted. And he was, you know, he said he was going to go, you know, his eyesight was going really badly. But it was so funny.

The eyesight had nothing to do with the story, really, but he knew my supervisor. I think they even went to school together or something, you know, they knew each other. And so he used to tell me all these stories about him that I wasn't supposed to know.

And it just had me, it's one of the people, one of the only people at that time in my life that didn't annoy me, or, not didn't annoy me, that wasn't rude to me, or I didn't upset. For some reason, I just liked him straight away and respected him. I don't know why that is.

I think because he treated me with respect, probably. Plus, he was so funny, way funnier than me. And he didn't even have to try.

He just had these stories, and he could tell these stories, and they were just, honestly, it's rude. I was a comedian, and he was making me laugh more than the comedy, the comedians I would see on stage. His delivery was perfect.

And he was so nice. I don't know, it sounds like I was in love with him, but I wasn't. I just really liked him a lot.

Anyway, we went to the pub. I think we only went out once or twice, but there's one particular time, I think it's a Friday evening. And we went to the local pub, which is the round the corner from where I lived.

It was an Irish pub. And we just sat in there, and I was laughing for hours. Honestly, laughing for hours.

And then he went home, and I went home. And then we went back to work at sort of six o'clock in the morning, the Saturday morning. We were both still drunk, I think.

And again, we were laughing. And the thing is, because my supervisor was, I used to be rude to him, and he'd be rude to me. But he wasn't rude to me when I was with his friend.

Because he, I don't think he was scared of him, but he just, he didn't feel, he didn't have that the power anymore, because he knew that he could be, he knew that his friend, Ray, wouldn't have took any rubbish from him. Because the work we did wasn't a job. It was agency.

It wasn't even proper work. It was low paid, two pound an hour, rubbish work, not enough to live on. So there's only so much someone would take to do a job like that, you know.

If you're doing that, and someone gives you a hard time while you're there, you can just walk out, you know. There's nothing to lose, really. So I think my supervisor knew that.

But for some reason, he was showing him a lot of respect. So they went back, they went a long way back. So maybe he respected them, which is unusual, because my supervisor didn't seem to respect anybody.

But then neither did I, so I can't really judge him. I remember once he said to me, I was being rude to him, and he said, don't you want this job? He said, don't you want to work here? I said, of course I don't, you silly knob. Of course I don't want to work here.

I've got no choice. And he started laughing. He didn't know what to say, because, you know, I never folded.

I never, I never did what he told me to do. I did, you know, I did the job, but I never, I never let him. He was, yeah, he was a little bit of a bully, just a little bit, but I think he didn't get away with it.

Not really with anyone, I don't think anyone really took him very seriously. The weird thing about it is, he was, however annoying he was at work, when he was out of work, it was lovely. That's one of those weird things.

So Arthur, his name was Arthur, out of work, lovely. He loved me. He was like, oh, buying me drinks and, you know, we were friends.

But in work, he almost like he hated me. He was very strange. He was like an uncle I never wanted.

Seriously, he just, he cared about me. But at the same time, it just, I think I just wound him up so much. Very strange, very weird.

Because I'd known him since I was 19. So I knew him for quite a few years, all the way up to about the age of 27, 27, something like that, 28. So for nearly nine years, I knew him.

And I knew him before anybody else did in that place. Because he started off pretty much the same time that I started, but then he went on to become a supervisor, and I ended up just going back and forward and no progression. That's funny now.

But anyway, so them two. Yes, it is. So yeah.

But going back to my, to Natalie, which is what I was originally talking about. Natalie, and Dean. So me and Dean, I was, I was good at the canvassing.

Dean was good at the canvassing. But we were both really, really good. I would say I was better than Dean.

But you could argue that, you know. Natalie, she wouldn't get anywhere near the leads that we got. All the appointments.

But she got the best quality appointments than any of us. So she was the best. She was, she was actually the best.

She'd come out, and I learned something from that, from her. Because when I got into the sales, actually selling mobile phone contracts, I didn't sell as much as other people that were at the top. But I had hardly any of them go back.

Hardly any refunds, which meant I was, you know, near the top, pretty much number two on the dance floor, sales floor. And the same thing happened again with the insurance. I kind of learned that actually, the more honest you are, or the more trustworthy you come across, well, hopefully you'd be trustworthy.

But you know, I mean, the more trustworthy you are, the more chance the people would, the customer would actually continue with the process. Because I think it can be a bit intimidating for some people to say no to a person on their doorstep, you know. Or in the street, some people will sign up.

There's, it's a numbers game. See these, there's a name for them, isn't there? I forget what the correct name is. You know, people in the street will stop you and try and get you to sign up for a charity, even though they're not actually connected to that charity.

But they're, you know, they're working for a company on behalf of the charity. And it's a very hard job. I've done it.

It didn't like it. I've done it very, very hard. And I don't know if it's harder than canvassing, knocking on someone's actual door, their front door in the evening, or, you know, late afternoon when they're eating a dinner or evening meal.

I don't know which is hardest. I'm not really sure. I can't answer this.

I've done both, but I did the double glazing, canvassing much more than the standing in the street bit. But I've also done telesales. I've also done promotions outside, giving out leaflets and asking people questions.

And I've also done canvassing for, I did it for a insurance company, life insurance. When I was in London, I also did it for sky dishes for the sky. And that was easy.

That was just giving people sky dishes. So you can have it for three months. And if you don't want it, we'll take it back for free.

You can have it for free for three months. I should have stuck at that. That's what I should have done.

If I could go back, I would. Not just for that, but I would say, look, I'll do this all day. And you pay me per person.

And ideally, an hourly wage as well, if you can. But I could have got thousands, thousands of people taking me up on it. The thing is, I didn't believe in the product at the time.

I didn't know that sky was going to become the multi-billion pound company that it did. That it'd still be around 40 years later or 30 years later. Or however many years it is.

Yeah, it's over 30 years, isn't it? I was 18, 19. Wow, yeah, over 30 years. I'm not sure when sky started, but it would be the 80s anyway.

So, wow, that would have been, that was an opportunity I didn't realize at the time. And I could have put together my own canvassing team, my own, you know, I could have, in fact, what I could have done is said, look, I'll take over a whole town. You know, I will get, go back to the town that I originally lived in and give me the contract for that town.

And I will get these dishes in, you know, 10% of the houses in this town. Or whatever. I could have made a fortune.

Seriously. But at the time, I didn't really think about it. I was only a teenager.

But Natalie was so good. And she was so lovely. More than what she was, she is.

She's a very, she's one of the nicest people I've ever known. I hardly ever see her these days. And she's on my, on my Facebook.

And I think I don't get up to that town very much. There was a time when I did and I'd visit them and they had ended up having three or four kids. And, you know, they've been married a long time, happy.

And I had both Beatles fans. I don't mean the Insect, the band, both like huge Beatles fans. That's how they met.

Yeah, it's weird. I'll tell you what's weird. It's not weird, but she doesn't look any different.

She looked the same. And so does Dean. They both look the same.

I mean, of course, it's ageing, but still, they look the same. I don't know, it's weird. So I don't, I don't think I look the same at all.

I look very different to how I looked when I was like 19, 20, 21. I was skinny as anything. I had long hair, you know, in my early 20s.

Now I'm not skinny. And at the moment I've got no hair. So it's, you know, very, I look very different, I think.

But Dean, I'm not wanting to talk about Natalie. I've got nothing more to say about Natalie other than the fact that she's lovely, wonderful person. And, you know, Dean, I was going, well, Dean is very funny.

And he's also a bit of a celebrity. He's, he held, at one time, he held the most world records of anyone at the same time. He's been the record breakers.

He's broken so many Guinness World Records over the last 40-odd years. Seriously, even then, this is back in 1989. And I worked with him again in 1990.

You know, he, I think he calls himself, they called him Dexter Stan. Because he can, you know how you can put your hand with your palm upwards, and put your fingers together, he can move his the other way and practically do the same backwards. Honestly, he can balance the most amount of eggs on the back of his hand.

He can catch the most amount of coins from his elbow or beer mats or those kinds of things. Honestly, he's, he's been on TV all over the world. And there was a time when I was actually, because he's got his own world record organization now, being one of the top people for so long.

He started his own organization with some other of the world record breakers. And I actually set a world record about 10 years ago, the longest hypnosis recording on YouTube, but it's been broken anyway, since then. But it was, you know, I was a world record breaker for a while.

Anyway, I'm gonna go. So have a good, have a, have a, have a good week. And remember to be kind to yourself.

Because you deserve to be happy. Do something nice for yourself today or tomorrow. It doesn't have to be expensive, doesn't have to cost anything.

Just do something nice for you. Lots of love. Bye.