#571 Let me bore you to sleep

Hello and welcome to Jason Newland dot com. My name is Jason Newland and welcome to let me bore you to sleep. I forgot what I was doing then for a second.

Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Yeah. So yeah, cool.

That's it. That's it. It's not annoying when you you see someone's post online, you know, on social media and you're concerned about them as you contact them and they ignore you.

Stop ignoring me. I'm I'm too important for that. So well, well, well, well, well, well, I don't know if you saw on the Facebook page.

And there is a link to a website. But if you just go to if you just go to Facebook and put my name in there, just not my name in my JSON, you know, put in my name. It'll come up as a couple of Facebook pages.

There's sort of my normal kind of page. Then there's one for the let me bore you to sleep specifically. And then there's another one.

So this is a few different ones. And on my, on my actual Facebook cover, you know, the picture at the top. I've got like a Happy New Year, thanks for living, not not thanks for listening rather.

And I've got my stats for 2020. And I added it all up and I had 1,804,026 plays or downloads or streams, whatever you want to call it. So I was listening to 1.8 million times during 2020.

So thank you everyone for listening. And here's to another year, another year. Let's just call it a year.

Shall we just another experiment? Yes. So thank you for your lovely messages. Oh, bit tired, bit tired.

It's okay. It's okay. So it's technically it's Saturday.

Well, actually, it is Saturday, technically Saturday. So today is Saturday, the 2nd of January 2020. I was going to put this down as the 1st of January, but it's too late now.

It's 420 in the morning of the next day. So I can't really, I'm not going to put it down as the 1st of January. If I do a recording at one in the morning, as far as I'm concerned, it's still the same day because I'm still awake.

But as you have been to sleep. So I'm going to, I'm going to put this down as the second, which is a little bit annoying because to me, because I wanted to try and do recording every day. But I did do quite a few last year.

So I'm not, I'm not going to beat myself up over it. No, no, no, I'm not going to. No.

Andre's sneezing. So bless his little, little pink bum. He's got a cute sneeze.

It's weird sometimes I forget. Because I'm because I know he's, he's like middle-aged now. And he's five, but you know, he's, he's kind of, I don't know, probably 40 in human years.

I don't know. I'm not sure what it is, but I feel like it's kind of similar to a dog's years. In fact, should I do the research? Let me do the research.

If I put in ferret years, ferret years. I reckon that should come up. Calculating ferret age in human years.

Life expense. Okay. I'm not going to read that out.

Oh, really? The life expectancy of a ferret varies between five and 14 years. I don't like that. Okay.

The gain perspective of the lifespan each year of a ferret's life is approximately equal to 10 to 14 years of a human's life. Okay. So if that's just, if that's the case, yeah, just, just sort of from what that said earlier, five to 14 years.

So, so 14. That means if a ferret lives to be 14 years old, it's 196 years old in human years. Yeah.

Now that doesn't make sense to me. So they're, they're guessing, aren't they? Another one of those guessing things that people take on as fact, when it's a guess. So let's say 10 years.

Let's go for the lower one. So he's 50. He's the same age as me.

We're both the same age. Now you might laugh at that and say, yeah, you know, you might think it's funny. In a year's time, I'll be the one laughing though, won't I? Because it'll be 60 and I'll be 51 and the year after that, I'd be 70 and I'll be 60, uh, 52.

So there. I love that little baby. I do so much.

It's ridiculous. I know it probably sounds a bit weird to be saying out loud, like, of course you love him. Why do you keep telling us? I don't know.

I feel what it is, is it surprises me how much I love him. It surprises me because I'm not really, I don't know. I don't feel like I'm a really loving type.

I don't really, I just don't have, I don't know. Yeah. I've lived with dogs in the past and I'm not being rude when I say that, you know, I mean dogs, animals.

I've lived with dogs and I lived with them and I had a relationship with them. You know what I mean? I've lived in a place where dogs were. I've also dated seven nurses, not connected, but I was wanting to talk about that, whether or not there was something wrong with me.

I don't want to, it's, you know, I don't know. How could you, how is it possible to date seven nurses over, well, you know, an adult kind of period. I've lived with a few dogs anyway.

First dog was when I was a pet, really. Let's say my first, actually, yeah, my first pet was a fish called Popeye. And I had a basically, there was this, I don't know if it was in the, yeah, I guess it would be the summer in this little town that I used to live.

There was a, like a fair, a fete that they used to have every summer and it was brilliant. Well, you know, when I was a kid, I thought it was brilliant. And it was loads of stuff going on.

I mean, if I went back in a time machine, there's probably like three, three little rides and a candy, candy floss machine. But, you know, at the time it seemed like it was pretty cool. And to be fair, after living in a children's home, being run by nuns, I was just happy to be around people in normal clothes.

You know, that was just nice. Just being around people that didn't look like penguins, angry penguins at that. And I remember I won in this, I don't know what the competition was, what thing was, but I don't know if it was chucking balls against coconuts.

It doesn't seem like something that would have been done because I was at that age. So I was very little. I was what, eight, seven or eight, probably about eight years old, maybe seven.

Yeah, maybe probably I was seven. But anyway, I won this goldfish. And it was in a little blue bag.

And it's water in there as well, which was helpful. And I was just staring at me. And I thought initially that the one side of the bag was magnified.

It was also some kind of special plastic that was magnifying it. And the other one was just normal. But it turned out that he had a big massive eye on one side.

Big. Yeah, one eye was like normal and the other one was like had been in a fight, like a punch up with another fish, I guess. Who else would he have a punch up with? A giraffe? I mean, he wouldn't win, would he? You know? I don't know.

Well, no, he wouldn't win. I'm just trying to think if it was out of the goldfish bowl, then the giraffe would have more of a chance. Inside the goldfish bowl, the fish being in its natural habitat.

Although goldfish bowl isn't really its natural habitat, is it? Just like a zoo isn't a national, the natural habitat of a giraffe. People sometimes moan about zoos and stuff, but where else would you get to stand there making fun of a lion? You know, bending over, taking your trousers down, mooning the lion. There's nowhere else you could do that other than a zoo.

You could do it in the jungle or the rainforest or wherever they live. You could do it for a very, very short time. Mind you, I do have the special, my special superpower farts.

So the lion might, well, I imagine if I bent over, the lion wouldn't want to come near me anyway. But if it did, I could just let off a quick fart. I think I probably, that's probably why me and Andre got on.

Because we both belong to the skunk family. We both have that, you know, stinky ability. Because he has it.

He's sun-pooled, so I can smell a ferret in there. But they're not smelling the bad smell. They're just smelling the smell of a ferret.

Just a natural smell. And I think the natural smell of a ferret is lovely. He smells, you know, I get close up to him and he smells lovely.

That's not the bad stink. They can let off, just in the same way as a skunk can. But skunk proper sprays people with their stench.

He doesn't do that. He just produces the smell through his glands. And they are horrific sometimes.

Really bad. They're not as bad as they used to be when he was a kid. Because he couldn't control it.

I guess it was just a bundle of emotions, just like a child is. Like a little baby. Angry one second, ecstatically happy the next.

That's, I guess, what he was like. And I've taught him to be generally miserable most of the time. You know, I've brought him up that way.

So, he used to let off stinks. Sometimes, I think by accident, he didn't really, he didn't mean to, he didn't have. Because I think he has got a lot of control over it.

It's dependent upon his, his moods. And his, you know, if he's angry, he lets one off. And it's, I guess, in the wild, that would be a warning to, you know, another animal, maybe even another ferret, I don't know, just to keep away.

It's equivalent, I suppose, to the silent treatment. It's, it's, you know, it's like, well, keep away from me. I'm not ready to talk to you.

Or slamming the door, or cooking dinner for everyone else in the family, except you. You know, it's kind of, not that I've ever really experienced that, because I'm, I'm, Andre doesn't cook. I remember when he was really little.

And I was holding him one day, and there wasn't any logical reason for him to let one off. I mean, maybe he was excited, he was happy. Maybe he wanted to get down and I didn't let him down quick enough.

I don't know. But he let off one of the worst things ever. And he ruined the t-shirt I was wearing.

So, although, like a skunk sprays people, apparently, I've only seen on sitcoms, really, and movies. He clearly has the equivalent kind of thing. But on a lesser extent, because he'd left the t-shirt ruined.

I had to take it off. Now it doesn't happen these days. If he lets one off, it, I use, you know, it stinks, but it's just, I don't, you know, it doesn't happen.

Now. But that might be more to do with his, because when he was little, he had less hair, shorter hair. So his skin was more closer to the, to me, I guess, because now he's got, his hair's a lot longer.

And it's really his hair that's pressing against me, rather than his skin. I don't know if that, that might make sense. Apart from his belly or, you know, where he's, he hasn't really, he's not hairy on his, he's got a hairy chest.

But his lower abdomen is pretty hairless. I think, yeah. I can hear a dog.

I'm sure I can, like, you know, when you hear a dog, like, it's really distant. So it's not my friend. It's not my friend's dog.

Because he's like, really deep, loud shakes. And now we're back to dogs again, and pets. Wow, this is going well, isn't it? I'm really sticking together all of the topics.

So I had this, this goldfish. When I got it out of the packet, when I, when I unwrapped it, it was, one of the eyes was, as I said, huge. It was huge.

It was so huge, the eye needed its own separate bowl, own separate goldfish bowl. That's how big it was. And I called him Popeye.

Because even then I was clever and witty. Popeye, because his eye looked like it was about to pop. And plus Popeye was, you know, a very famous cartoon character that I used to see on TV on Saturday mornings.

And his eye looked a little bit like Popeye's eye as well, you know, half closed. Because Popeye was always getting into punch-ups, wasn't he? With, was it Beirut? Not Beirut, Brutus? Is it Brutus? Brutus, I think. I really believed spinach.

I'm not sure I believed it, but I really hoped that spinach would have that effect. That it had on Popeye, you know, making him more strong and stuff. And I quite liked that, you know, because even though he was, he had forearms the size of a, a tree basically, didn't he? His big old forearms.

And Brutus used to try and bully him. So it's, so I've just got this memory of this little, this pipe and it's open, it turned into a can opener or something like that, and opened the spinach. And then he'd suck in the spinach through the pipe and suddenly each arm would become massive and turn into, his forearms would turn into anvils.

And then his pipe would go like that or something. And yeah, wow. I used to like stuff like that.

I used to, it used to make me laugh. Very clever. A little bit, yeah, pretty, it's aggressive, but it was funny.

You know, I never once did I go to school thinking, oh, this is like an ideal opportunity to reenact that Popeye cartoon that I saw Saturday morning. I never once did I think that, you know, never, I wasn't that affected by what I was seeing in those cartoons because the difference between those cartoons, I know people go, oh, they're violent. The difference is it was so absurd.

Like Tom and Jerry, the Roadrunner cartoons, they were absurd. You know, they'd be putting a, like a rock was about to land on them, they'd put a little umbrella up and they'd stop it, you know, things like that. And then a feather would come down and crush him.

I just, it's, it was funny because it was absurd. And that was the whole point of it. It wasn't, well, I didn't class that as violent.

It was just silliness. But I know they've come under a little bit of, a little bit of attention over the years. Like, oh, no wonder we've got a society the way they like.

Is it because of the cartoons? No, I think it's the way kids are and grow up. It's not because of the cartoons, I would say. It's because of the adults in the house.

That's why it's not to do with the cartoons, it's to do with the people that let them watch the cartoons. Maybe. I had this goldfish, Popeye, and he was, I was trying to describe him.

I suppose the best way to describe him is, he looked like a goldfish, you know, but he stood out because of his eye. Popeye. And I wasn't sure if it was going to pop, but I loved him.

He was my, he was my one and only. He was my lovely little boy. He was my first, I guess really he was my first son.

So I was seven and he was my first little boy, my first little baby. And it turned out that his eye was like that because he was diseased. So I'm not sure if I took him to the vets, but I ended up with medication for him.

And he used to put the medication into his, not into his food, because it's quite hard. It's not the same. You can't hide it in fish food the way you can with a cat or a dog.

Because the fish food is just really crumbly, very flaky. In fact, they're flakes. So you can't, and if you, and the medication was liquid, which I didn't quite understand how is it gonna, how is the goldfish gonna know to eat or to drink the medication if it's just in the liquid, in the bowl? It's almost, it's like spraying, isn't it? It's like, okay, we're going to give you some medication, Mr. Jason, and just spraying some air at me.

Oh, okay. That's nice. Thanks.

So I don't know how it works, but, oh, yeah, he also turned green. I forgot to mention that. He, at this point, he turned green.

And see, at the time, again, influenced by television, I was into the Incredible Hulk. So I thought not only is he Popeye, he's super strong, he's, he's, he's a superhero as well. I was pleased.

Who wouldn't want a green goldfish with an eye the size of a, it was the size of the garden shed. And at this point, we needed to move him into the, into the bath because he was so big. Technically, that's not correct.

And I decided to move him into the bath. It wasn't really a family decision, if I'm honest. It's only then that I realized that two things a goldfish cannot, cannot really take.

It's two ways to kill a goldfish. Is even the Hulk, even the green Hulk, Popeye mixed goldfish. Because I used to think like the Hulk was in invincible and incredible.

That I thought he was like, you know, invincible. But a goldfish version, there's a few things. What a couple main things is being sat on.

That's that doesn't, it's not great. And hence the bath water. But why would you just assume because the bath, the bath's been filled up, that it's it's someone's been running the bath for you.

I don't know why, but another thing it can't take is boiling water, hot water. So I think the mixture of having the, the cold water in the bath, having hot water added so that it was nice and hot. And then having someone sit down on, I think those two combinations.

I mean, it was a time, I remember thinking if only he knew, if only he like would knew how strong he was, he could try and crawl up through the body and come out of the mouth. But again, that would be weird, you know, cartoon thinking really. That would be.

Just imagine my, my dad saying, oh, thanks for running the bath Jason. Going in and looking in the bath like, oh, where's Popeye? And my dad said, what do you mean where's Popeye? And then Popeye like opening my dad's mouth and looking out. Oh, I'm here daddy.

I can't think of the Popeye voice. So that was Popeye. That was my first, it didn't last the long time.

I remember my little brother, right. He actually said to me, I think it was only a few years ago, a couple of years ago, maybe last year, even he said, cause we were talking about goldfish. And I think I mentioned Popeye and there's a little bit, I guess, a bit of competition between the two of us.

And so I'm saying, oh, you know, Popeye didn't last very long really. And then my brother said, well, my goldfish Tinkerbell or whatever, he lived to be 14, 14 years, 14, like really. And my dad started laughing.

And like, what's going on? My dad started laughing. He couldn't stop laughing. He said, yeah, but we did replace him seven times.

It's not brilliant. I loved that. Like for goldfish, I think they can in an environment of a river or pond rather.

I think they can live to be a long, long time. And they get big, goldfish get big, big, big, big. Now I don't know.

I don't know where a goldfish would live in the wild. I know they live in ponds and stuff, but ponds are more human made, aren't they? Generally. So for goldfish, I'm talking about a goldfish specifically, not a fish, although technically they are fish, but a goldfish.

If they grow, just, you know, if they, if they can grow as big as they're allowed to get, how big can they get? Because in a pond, a big pond, they get massive, massive, honestly. I don't know why I'm telling you that, I'm sure most people know that, but I couldn't believe it. How big they get.

Can you imagine if humans were like that? You'd have a big area. So if you live in a tiny little village, like I am, everyone would be really, really small. Then you move to a town, a bigger town, and you see people that were bigger, and maybe those people who are small from the village move, and they get bigger.

And they go to somewhere like London, and they get huge. And if they move somewhere like America or Australia, they get massive. They get like, wow, big as a dinosaur's poo.

And it's like, wow. I don't, well, that doesn't happen. I'm saying imagine if it did.

But we don't want to imagine it. We don't have to imagine it. I'm just, just talking.

I'm just shooting the, shooting, shooting from the hip. The next pet I had was, it wasn't my pet. It was a family pet.

It was a cat called Tigger. I think, I don't know if we had her from a kitten. I'm not sure.

It's too long ago. I remember Popeye because I was, Popeye was mine, and it was a big deal. The kitten, the cat was a family cat.

And I never liked sharing. I wasn't, it was probably a hell of a lot of fun, and I probably, you know, it was brilliant and that stuff. But weird because my dad hates pets.

He's got a real, real issue. Doesn't like them. Doesn't like cats or dogs.

And he tries to, he pretends, right, that he's allergic to them. But he's not. Because he spent 35 years going in people's houses, doing, working in people's houses as an electrician.

And he would be seeing dogs and cats all the time. He wouldn't be able to do that job if he was allergic to cats and dogs. Unless, of course, I'm wrong, which I might be.

He just doesn't like animals. He's just not an animal person. He's, mind you, he wasn't a child person really until he had grandchildren.

So I think if, I think, you know, he might, he's probably, I was going to say when he gets to old but he's there now. I don't know, probably he could come around, you never know. Not with Andre, it's too late there.

But, you know, I wouldn't let Andre anywhere near him as he doesn't like him. People don't like Andre. Technically, I don't like them, but it's my dad, so I can't do that.

So I wouldn't let Andre near anyone that didn't like him because he's my boy. I don't expect people to love Andre, although I know that you love him. I know that people listening love him, but I don't expect everybody loves Andre.

I don't, but if he used to annoy me when people were all scared of him. When, admittedly, there's no reason to hold him, unless you want to. You know, that, it was never an issue.

I never like, I wasn't one of those people that force their children upon you. Like, isn't he lovely? Isn't he pretty? Isn't he pretty? Isn't he pretty? Isn't he lovely? Isn't he the most prettiest, cleverest child you've ever met? And you can't be honest. So you're like, yeah, sure.

Do you want to see pictures? I take about 75 pictures every hour of my child. Do you want to see the last three hours worth? Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, brilliant.

It's almost like when people go on holiday. Oh, I've got a picture of you. Yeah, yeah.

You want to come around? It's like the old cliche, isn't it? Going around and seeing the holiday snaps on a big slide show. Let's spend an evening doing it. Yeah, let's not.

Let's not. The thing is, I take it further. I'm like that with weddings.

Oh, we've got the wedding snaps back. The wedding pictures are back now. Do you want to come around and see them? I'll give you a guess what the answer to that is.

I'd love to come around and see them, but unfortunately, I'm going to be experimenting with a variety of different poisons. I don't think. Oh, yeah.

Wedding photos. My standard answer is if someone says to me, do you want to come around? Or there might even be sitting at a table opposite me in a restaurant or I'll be in their home or they're sitting in my home, whatever. Well, that the last one probably wouldn't happen, but and they'd say, oh.

Do you want to see the pictures from the wedding? Because they'll be walking around with them in a bag. What if you just got back from from the place that developed them? No, no, that was last week. They're walking around with them to show people.

I mean, isn't the wedding ring enough? You know, it's like I'm wedded. Well, I don't know why you're telling me you're married, so I did two poos before I left the house today. I'm not telling you that.

Well, I just did. But what what what was just sharing random information about our lives? So now someone says to me, oh, I got the pictures and you want to see pictures from the wedding? My absolute instant answer is no. I was there.

Hopefully, that's enough, or I have to say no, thanks. So I would say no, thanks. I don't want to be rude.

I'm rude. You know, I'll talk rudely when I'm talking about it, but I'm not rude, generally. Although I did.

I did kind of do a joke and it backfired a little bit. My little sister, we're about to go to a wedding. This is a couple of years back.

And she said, how do you feel? Do you look all right? How do you feel? Look, as you show me address. She's all dressed up. I said, do you feel okay? I don't care.

And it was a joke. It was just like, I don't care how you look. With kind of what I was trying to say, because I can't, I've struggled with that.

Oh, you look lovely. You always look lovely. But she does.

She's always, I don't see her as a woman. And just sort of as a sister, you know, just a stepsister. Just, I don't see her as, it's not, I don't see her as a human.

Of course I do. But I don't see her as a woman. I kind of still see her, I guess, as that little girl that I used to know.

Maybe, I don't know. Do I look all right? You do know there's mirrors in this house, don't you? You know, there's one in the bathroom and there's one in that room. In fact, there's a mirror just over there.

That's probably the best way to do it. I mean, what do people like that, what does she do when she needs to brush her hair? Well, I phone her and I'm like, mum, can you come round? I need to brush my hair. I need you to check that my hair's all right.

Oh, look in the mirror. That's the looking glass. That's what they're there for.

But I was joking and I think I annoyed her. I've annoyed her a few times over the years. I didn't mean to.

So I think our relationship's kind of, I don't think she likes me anymore. And I just, things like that make me laugh. But I think it's just the, sometimes it's the timing isn't so good.

It's the wrong time to do stuff like that. It's like, no, I don't care how you look, you look, you know, as long as I'm, I suppose if she's about to go to her, if she was about to go to her brother's wedding, so I guess that was quite an important event, wasn't it, for her? I didn't think about that. But at the same time, though, I would never, I'm not, I'm not, well, not now anyway.

I wouldn't sort of start saying, oh, you look like a clown. You know, oh, are you wearing that? I might have done that 20 years ago as a joke, only as a joke. But I'm not into the putting people down kind of, well, that might sound like that's what I was doing, but I wasn't really, I was just, I thought it would be funny.

Everything is, everything. That's why I don't like talking on the phone with more than one person. Because people act, it's one of the things I really, really don't like.

And I have to do it, well, I'm almost forced to do it with two different people. And I can't stand it. It's talking to two people at the same time on loudspeaker, on the phone.

Cannot stand it. It winds me up. It really does.

Right from the start. And even though I push myself through it, and I try and forget the fact that I'm on loudspeaker and I'm talking to two people, and there could be other people listening, you know. I've been caught out a few times that way as well.

Never tell you till it's too late either, do they? Oh, by the way, nicely, I've got a friend now that whenever she answers the phone in her car, she always says, my parents are in the car before I even start. Because there was a time when I used to just, it's hard to believe, but there was a time when I used to sometimes be inappropriate. Inappropriate.

But there was another time when she didn't say anything and her brother was in the car. I said, why didn't you tell me your brother was in the car? And I think it's probably her sense of humour as well. You know, just to say, I wonder what he'd say.

I wonder what he'll say now. Just then I can say, oh, by the way, my brother's in the car. But she wasn't willing to risk that with her parents.

I wonder if she wears a wig. Anyway, um, other pets. The cat, unfortunately, didn't know how to cross the road correctly.

And then we didn't have any pets at all. So, family wise, until my granddad used to, my nan and granddad used to have a, not a pigeon, a budgie. A budgie.

When they lived in London. Now they didn't have a budgie, I don't think, when they moved. They might have done, might have still had a budgie, when they moved to the little town that I was living in.

But they had definitely had a budgie in London. So I remember when I used to visit, when I was sort of, just before I was seven. I used to visit there, and evening after, even when I was seven, I'd visit with my family.

And I really liked it there. I really liked the, the house, the area. I mean, that was my home, actually.

That was my, that's where I was born. Not, not in that house. But in Enfield, North London, that's where I was born.

So, and that's where I lived for the first two years of my life, in that area. So it was home, you know, literally it was home, that's where I was born. So when I used to go back, when I was seven, to visit the area, I suppose, realistically, I had memories of the area.

But I just didn't remember the memories. Does that make sense? So I, I would have been, yeah, up to the age of two. So I'd have been pushed around, in a pram, all around the area, up and down the roads, to the park, to the shops.

You know, so I'd have, I'd have seen a lot of that area over a two year period. Wouldn't I? So I suppose in my brain, as my brain was growing and developing, I was mapping out that area in my, in my mind. And I was, had a lot of, I guess, connections and attachments, emotional attachments, to the different places I went to.

So when I revisited it, when I was seven, including the house that my Nan and Gran had lived in, you know, all those different places that I would have already been before, but was too young to remember. So the last time I probably was there when I was between the ages zero and six months old, seven months, but you know, so although I was a baby, I would have already spent precious time in that house with them. So my Nan would have been among the first faces that I ever saw in my life.

So like, yeah, obviously my mum, the biological producer of me, my father, my two brothers, older brothers, well they were older when I was born, and my Nan and Grandad, I guess, and maybe I suppose my, oh I've got a cough, my, yeah, my other Grandad wasn't around by then, I don't think. I might be wrong, but I don't think he was. So I'd have had my Grandmother, so I had both my Grandmothers, my Grandad, parents, and my two brothers.

So yeah, those, the seven people that I probably saw the most. Then aunties and uncles, because even though I've had very little to do, very little contact with aunts and uncles for 20 years really, if longer, 30 years, when I was little, for some, I think uncles and aunts, in my experience, want to be uncles and aunts when the kids are little, and then just forget about them when they become adults. So that's why I don't, I guess, I don't make such a big deal about nieces and nephews because it's almost not fair on them when they get a bit older and they don't get any of that attention anymore.

So I just don't bother giving them any attention to start with. I just don't see them, I live too far away. So there's no, there's no connection at all with nieces or nephews that I've got.

I don't see them, once a year, if that. So you can't, when they're little, they don't remember, you know, every time I see them, it's like for the first time. It's like living with an amnesiac.

There's like, so there's no way, the only way to build a relationship with a kid is to be around regularly, and I'm not. So there you go. But I don't want to move back to that town.

And also, when I'm, yeah, when I'm on two nieces and a nephew, I've got two nieces and two nephews. I've got two step nieces and two step nephews. And the first one's, I think she's about 10 or 11 now.

And I saw her, I've seen her a few times over the years, but really didn't, never, and a couple of times she was so funny. Like she was just like on fire, basically, just almost doing a comedy act. And a couple of times she'd be sort of, hello, like to me, but she didn't really know who I was.

I was just someone she saw every now and then. And I didn't have really any communication with her, even when I visited, she just didn't really have much to do with me. And then at her grandmother's wedding, no, birthday, last year, well, 2019, she actually spoke to me.

And we were having a laugh. And it's the first time I actually felt connected, like connected with her. And it was on a verbal, in a verbal way, like a conversational way, which is kind of the only way that I can communicate really, in a, you know, you're able to have a laugh.

That's what I mean. It's like she was old enough. The whole kind of sitting there, playing games or telling stories, well, I'm okay at telling stories, but I can't be bothered.

Apart from, although recently I've been doing those stories, or, you know, colouring in books, I can't be asked. I don't know, I just, I've done it. I did it years ago.

I've, you know, I've had relationships with women that got kids and I've done that stuff. And I suppose I just can't be bothered now. So I didn't bother doing it with her, or any of them.

With the hope that once I get older, I'll be able to just communicate on a verbal way and have fun verbally. And then I did, for the first time I had an actual conversation with my niece. And it was brilliant.

So I started sending her book vouchers, or Amazon book vouchers, you know, Amazon gift vouchers to buy books, because that's something we had in common. We both loved books. And I was a book lover.

I still am, but I was proper when I was a kid. I used to just always be reading. And she, so I kind of had something in common with her.

And I thought I can build upon this and be maybe be a decent uncle, try and be a good uncle, but also continue it so when she's older, I can still be there, you know, sort of maybe to help her out in the future and stuff. But then I ran out of money, so I stopped sending the vouchers. But and I never contacted me after that.

Don't even get Christmas cards or birthday cards now. It's weird. My dad's obsessed with WhatsApp.

Honestly, I practically had arguments with him about it. Because he's, he's insists on communicating with me on WhatsApp. And I insist on not doing that.

I say to him, if you don't want to talk to him on the phone, text me. Now, he doesn't like texting, even I mean, it's weird, but not weird, but for probably the last 10 years. He sends emails to me and my brother.

Hello, son, or sons, which that's fine, but Oh, Tommy. It's not so you know, it's okay now if he did, I guess, because the emails already always open. But not everybody checks their emails constantly.

I check my emails probably more regularly than my text messages, because I get quite a few emails to do with the business to do with messages from people and billions and stuff that I'm paying for. And, you know, so everything's kind of done online. So I'm constantly having to keep updated with that on a daily basis.

So any messages he sends will get through generally, though I do sometimes miss stuff. But we actually had conversations, because now he's on WhatsApp, and he's been on it for a I don't know why. I do know why, actually.

In 2011, I met someone that I liked. And she said, WhatsApp me. And I said, What's that mean? She said, No, I said, What's that? What's that me? I said, No, I wasn't saying that.

I thought you said, What's that mean? I was saying, What's that mean? To you saying, WhatsApp me? She said, Well, I said, Yeah, WhatsApp. She said, Can we start again? I said, I don't know. I think we've gone too far now.

I don't think we can ever go back. And she said, I didn't know what WhatsApp was. I genuinely didn't.

And it was new. It was a kind of a new thing back then. That's like nine years ago, what 10 years ago, isn't it nearly? It wasn't the popular thing that it is now or has been.

And I said, Okay, so I went online, I bought the thing. I bought the app. She said, You got to pay you got to get online.

I think I must have had an iPhone at that time. I thought I paid 10 pound for the thing. Seriously, I bought the WhatsApp app.

And she didn't contact me. So I added her. I said, You're right.

And I think she said, Yeah, thanks. And then I got a message, a sort of, you know, a couple of messages, just how the flowers today. You hear my stomach sounds like a chamber.

I thought she'd like me. So I got this WhatsApp and it I think it was a just I connected the I suppose you know, it not working out with the WhatsApp app. So I didn't like it after that.

And then eight years later, my dad's in love with the thing. And I tried to explain I don't like WhatsApp. That nonstop stream of like, lots of people leaving messages, but it's not as good as Facebook.

Facebook's way better. If you want to just it's just as a communication tool, in a sense of like a group, because he's got we've got a family group thing. Facebook's way better because you just I just think it is I'm used to using it.

But WhatsApp is not it's just not really not a big fan of it. Doesn't stop him though. I find him sometimes he said, Oh, did you get my message? What message? What I say to him? Oh, I've not heard from you yet about that thing.

Oh, I sent you a message on WhatsApp. Oh, no, he says I sent you a message. I texted you.

And then his wife says you did on WhatsApp. He's defiant. Honestly, I told him I tell him please text me.

You've got three ways to communicate four if you include post five smoke signals. You know, I mean, he can communicate text, telephone, email, three things you can do on his phone to get hold of me. And it's not I'm not I'm his son.

I'm not just some random person. You know, he's, but he won't. Honestly, he's eventually sometimes he does.

But usually only if I send him a text message, and he'll reply to the text message. But if he contacts me, he sends, he'll send like that, a WhatsApp. And I don't see it because I don't go on to WhatsApp.

Hardly ever. So we actually had a conversation. He said, Well, that's what I'm going to do.

I said, Well, I said, Yeah, I'm only going to communicate on WhatsApp. So we talked about I said, you text me or you phone me. Just that's that's what it needs to do.

If you need to get hold of me. Nope, doing on WhatsApp. And he's, I could see him almost de-aging, almost turn into a little child.

During the conversation. It's almost like we had reversal roles. I was the adult telling him no, you do it by text.

He didn't go, yeah, I want to do WhatsApp. Yeah, I'm doing it. You can't make me do WhatsApp.

You're not my real dad. So he still does it. And I've told him.

And I've asked him, I asked him, I didn't tell him, I asked him. And he still ignores it. And it's just like, come on.

Come on, Pete, because come on. I had she is weird, right? I spoke to them yesterday on the phone, Happy New Year, stuff like that. And I didn't want to kind of bring up the subject of my uncle, uncle's coming up, you know, funeral that's coming up.

So he died two weeks ago. And I wanted to start as my dad's brother. And I just, well, then I just thought, okay, well, can I just ask you what's happening about uncle, uncle's funeral? Quick as a flash.

Oh, we've already had it. What? Yeah, we had it before Christmas. So I didn't say, well, so I wasn't invited then, no.

Clearly, I wasn't invited, which is weird, because I've been invited to every family funeral that has been since I was, you know, since I've been old enough to go to funerals. So, yeah, since the age of 17, I've been to every single one. Apart from two.

I can't remember the reason for that. I was a bit unwell at that time. But generally, I'm always, you know, I will go, just to have respect for the person and the family.

So I wasn't invited. So I didn't say anything. And then they started saying, well, yeah, it was a limited amount of people.

And I thought, oh, yeah, I suppose, which is what I expected with what's going on. And they said, yeah, only 30 people were allowed. 30 people.

Okay. Only, you know, immediate family. Blimey, how big was his family? How many grandchildren did he have? What, 15? So I wasn't invited.

But I wasn't told. I didn't even know it happened. I thought that might have been mentioned.

But I guess it's something that's never going to be talked about again. Okay. Very weird.

That was, that was just a bit, I don't know why that was a shock. That they wouldn't even have told me. And I was, it would have been something that I would have wanted to be, try and be supported with.

To sort of say, I hope, you know, thinking of you and hope the day goes okay and all that stuff, you know. But I didn't have an opportunity to do that. But then the reality is they don't need my support.

They've got each other. He's married, he's got a wife. Doesn't need me for that stuff.

So, you know, when someone passes away, that telephone conversation, I'm left on my own and he's left with, with support. So I guess maybe I should get married. Just to help me through, through bereavements.

I wonder if it's possible. What am I, I'm 50 now. Is 50 too old to be getting married? And I can't, I mean, realistically, you know, I've got to meet someone first.

I'm unlikely to want to get married to them within the first, I don't know. I like the idea of at least being with someone for a year or two before marrying them. But then I'm thinking at my age, would I want to wait around? Why not just jump in there and see how it goes? A bit like, you know, jumping into the cold sea.

See whether or not I can take the pain, you know, of being married. I don't know. I don't know.

The shock of it. Although I'm thinking, I've always liked the idea of running off to Gretna Green in Scotland and getting married there and coming back saying, oh, by the way, I'm married. And I think actually that would probably suit everyone.

Because it wouldn't cost anyone any money. I think it costs other people. Yeah, I think it'd suit other people for me to do that.

Plus, if I got married, I don't know if I'd actually have anyone to go. I've only got a handful of friends really that I would invite. Invite.

Because I've moved around so much, I just leave people behind. So I moved, when I moved out of the town, the last town I was in, I pretty much broke ties with every single person. All the people that I'd got to know through work, through going to the Buddhist center, all those different people, suddenly I just didn't see anymore.

And I was there like six years, I got to know, got to know a lot of people actually. A lot of people I've walked down the street and I'd be able to say hello to them. Because I'd worked at three different insurance companies.

No, two different insurance companies in that town. So I got to know hundreds of people that I would kind of say hello to, and quite a few that I could talk to and chat to and stuff. I don't have that here.

There was a few in the town because I now live in a little village, but in the town there was a few people I've worked with and stuff, but not that many. And now living here, I see hardly anybody. Literally my life is so small in a way.

I've got my friend that lives downstairs. I see some of his friends sometimes. And when I go out walking with Andre, there's only one neighbor that I talk to.

Like one of the dog walkers that I regularly will stop and chat to. I'll stop and talk to anyone if they want to kind of say hello to Andre or, you know, I'll have a little chat with anyone, I don't care. I'll try and be friendly if I can.

And, but only one, this lady that lives a few doors up, lives at the end of the road, and I just get on with you over. So I talk to her, and she's got a dog, and she knows Andre and asks about him and stuff. In fact, sometimes I'll take him for a walk and people do say hello Andre to him.

Ignore me. So it's like, okay, great. My tummy's probably rumbling.

I'm going to have some breakfast, I think. That's what I'm going to do. I'll have some breakfast cereal, cup of coffee, and celebrate the beginning of another day.

Yeah, it's Saturday the 2nd of January. And we're in this new, new year. New land to new year.

It's new year and the possibilities. To me, the new year is like a fresh pair of underpants. Everything's nice and it feels comfortable.

You know, it feels nice and comfortable. And on the second day, it still feels fine. By the summer, they start to, you know, not feel quite so comfortable.

Come December, I can't wait to get them off, to put a fresh pair on. You know, it's that kind of situation really. I think sometimes it feels a bit like that with the years, it goes by.

But I'd like to have it a bit different. I'd really like to be, really sort of look more positively towards the future and to build upon what I've already built. So I feel I've built the foundations in a way with the podcasts and the free hypnosis service that I've offered for forever.

15, 16 years, whatever it is, since 2006. So it's now 2011. No, it isn't.

2021. Wow. So 15 years.

And yeah, it'd be nice to plan. That's what I need to really get my head around, the planning bit. I've got it in my head, because I do think about stuff.

So I've got it in my head what I want. But it's not as concrete as perhaps it could be. I mean, my general plan is to improve what I'm doing.

To make better recordings, make more recordings, to get a larger audience, reach more people, get more downloads. And eventually turn this into my career, because really, this is a career. It's been a career for me.

In my mind, it's a career. It has been since 2000. Actually, 2004, really.

Because that's when I started with the pain relief, trying to help people. But I've been going through the process since 1998, really, when I first started, got interested in hypnosis. So what's that, 23 years ago? So yeah, 23 years, and I did my first proper training in that year as well, 23 years.

Yeah, so 23 years, I started this hypnosis journey. 23 years, and it literally was the very beginning of January that I bought my first two hypnosis books. And even just by talking about it, I remember the feeling of wonder over this fascinating subject that seemed almost magical.

And the idea of being able to reach thousands of people every day, wasn't even, I wouldn't even thought it was possible. You know, the internet was just really starting out. I think at that point, in 98, I don't think I even knew what the internet was.

Seriously. I think it was, I might have done actually, but I don't remember. I don't remember really using it.

I didn't have access to it in 90. No, I might have done a little bit, but it's hard to remember. But it wasn't like everything was so slow, and I didn't really like it.

It wasn't until probably the next year that I got to like it, 99, and then 2000, I fell in love with building websites. So yeah, this has been a 23 year adventure, really, with lots of both obstacles and distractions. I think with anything, I've noticed the one thing and that's so quite common in my life, is the distractions.

It should be called destructions, I think. Because when I was doing the comedy, I was distracted by relationships, I was distracted by jobs, just trying to earn a living, distracted by friends. And I didn't want any of those distractions, but they were just part of life.

I wanted to spend all my time writing and preparing for the next gig, next comedy gig. But I had people I worked with that wanted to go out drinking with me. I wanted to hang out.

And my mentality at the time was, I see you at work, why would I want to see you out of work? That's actually what I used to say to people. I spend all day with you, I don't want to spend the evening with you as well, or the weekend. And also, this is totally true, Andre actually followed me home one night to find out where I lived.

Not Andre the ferret, Andre who was my best friend in the 90s. He followed me, not on his own, he followed me on his own. Another person, another kind of work colleague, that ended up being a friend, I suppose.

They followed me home. I'm home for about five minutes and there's a knock at the door. And these two clowns standing there.

And then, when the clowns left, Andre knocked on the door. I can't, there's so much traffic. And they thought it was hilarious.

Because I wouldn't, where do you live with you? I wouldn't tell them, what's it got to do with you, where I live? Didn't have mobile phones back then, this is the early 90s. So I didn't have to give them telephone numbers, didn't have my own phone. There's one in the house that I'd give to, you know, my dad and, you know, people like that.

But I didn't have a mobile phone because they didn't exist. So I could go home and be left alone. No internet, no emails, nothing like that.

And if I needed to phone someone, I'd have to go to the phone box. Which, admittedly, was a bit rubbish. Just finding one that hadn't been used as a toilet, really, was a challenge.

And, yeah, I can't believe it, he followed me home, man, followed me home. That's, that's just dodgy, isn't it? But after that, I couldn't, there's no stopping him, because he'd be knocking, can Jason come out to play? And then, you know, it's like anything, isn't it? Once you start doing something, once I started hanging around and going out with them, I did it more often. And I guess I had my own, had like a little group of friends for the first time, really, sort of outside of school.

The first time since school that I had a group of friends that I could sort of hang around with. But realistically, it wasn't that long after I left school. I left school in 86.

And I'm talking about about 90, 92. 90, yeah, about 92. When, 92.

Yeah, at 99. So, 86, 7, 8, 9, 7 years, 6 years. Oh, so much happened in those 6 years.

It's ridiculous. I had about 500 jobs. It's amazing.

I'm not the good type. Anyway, I'm going to go. So, thank you for listening.

I shall return another time. Remember to be kind to yourself, because you do deserve. To be happy.

Lots of love. Bye.