#591 Let me bore you to sleep

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. Hope you're well and please remember to only listen to this or any of my recordings only when you can safely close your eyes and relax.

So today is Saturday the 6th of February 2021. I just can't believe it's already Saturday. I can't believe it's 2021.

I believe it by just really really just like wow there's just you know I think back to I mean literally it's 20 2091 30 years 30 years when I started doing stand-up comedy in London in the comedy cafe.

Actually that wasn't my first gig but that was the memorable one 30 years and it's been 20 years since I last did a gig over 20 years it's like wow so I did it for about eight years and I was like blimey that's I think that's part of the reason why I try and do something every day I try and make recordings try to try to do something because I don't want the next 20 years to go by and okay I don't do I feel like it's gone by and I've done nothing and I've accomplished

nothing no the last 15 years I think I've done quite a bit so but the five years before that not so much so between 2001 and 2006 I don't didn't really feel like I accomplished a huge amount personally I mean I did a few things I went on did some courses and became good at sales and and I went through quite a difficult time with my health so you know I had a few challenges and stuff like that but I just in a way it seemed like my life on a certain level only really started

when I started doing this back in 2006 and don't bother don't bother trying to listen to any of the old stuff because it's awful it's really bad it's not bad it's just really bad quality sound yeah I had I had a I built a following up you know even back then had an audience who would listen to my recordings but they were just I don't know it's I just think the I mean some people I know some people complain or the volume is not loud enough and I'm working on that and that will be corrected

within about a month or two once I got get the proper equipment and learn how to do it but that's a mixture of a better microphone it's not even about a better microphone I mean it is a better microphone I'm going to get but this microphone is good but it's it's not ideal for podcasts it's good for singing it's good for probably interviewing people but as far as a podcast goes it's not really it's not perfect it's but how it's this is way better than it was even six months ago I would say the quality

of the sound is better so I want to start using the new microphone when I do get it plus the new software that I'm going to be using I'm going to be using Adobe for the audio as well as for videos those two combined and then the mixer should produce professional level sound there's still be background sounds you know if there's there's a plane going over the house then that may well be in the recording and I hope not but it might but it'll be less hopefully and it'll just be crisper be nicer it'll be

my I guess the ideal situation be radio level radio level um audio I think yeah I do I do think um oh it's really good that now the the the UK health people have now decided that the COVID vaccinations are safe after they've vaccinated 11 million people now they're saying yeah it is safe we've just checked after bless them better be my dad was vaccinated a couple of days ago so it better be safe because Boris I'll be looking for you if anything happens to my daddy I'm coming for you so I what am I

what am I I don't know I'm thinking you know me I'm always thinking of and trying to think of new things and new ideas and silly things I can do because I don't want everything to be serious I'm thinking of getting myself a ventriloquist dummy yeah seriously um because I quite enjoy doing like the conversations and I don't you know I don't rehearse a conversation I might have with myself I don't you know I just go with the flow that's why it's not all the time it's just occasionally and I go with whatever my wherever

my mood takes me I go as far as what I talk about and why how silly I am on these recordings and but there's a level I won't go down you know if if I'm not really feeling it you know as far as there's been times when I've turned to I've you know I've forced myself to sit down to make a recording sometimes that works fine and that's kind of just oh I actually I'm enjoying this which I am right now it's something I enjoy doing and I need to keep it that way it need

I know it's not always to be consistent means pushing myself well for everyone we yeah we have to kind of push ourselves a little bit to to do even the things that maybe are usually really enjoyable sometimes maybe you can't be bothered so on occasions I'll push myself not not today I'm I was kind of looking forward to doing another one for some reason I did a relaxation for stress hypnosis thing podcast earlier a few hours back and the internet kept cutting off as I was trying to upload the damn thing after I'd edited it

honestly it took hours literally hours to upload kept on to turn the internet off turn it back on again yeah I don't know why it's like that I really wish I had and they won't come there's no point even contacting them because I've done it in the past and it's never really made much difference they can't come into the building they refuse to come inside the building and the good thing about it and now it's not because of the smell it's because they're not allowed to enter buildings so unless they can do what they need

to do outside which they're not going to be able to do here because this is a a broadband thing I I think it might be well apparently I didn't realize this I went onto the website and I'm with Sky and they they said on there if you have problems with your broadband and it cuts off or it's particularly slow it may be because you have neighbors that also have broadband with us other Sky customers and that can slow down the broadband so turn it off and then turn it back on again now when I go

into my broadband settings to attach my broadband or my wi-fi whatever you want to call it I am not the only Sky user in this area there's quite a few including my downstairs neighbor another neighbor another so one two three four at least four people in this building I've got Sky no three people just in a six six flat building I've got Sky one two no four four that's four four people all us at the top and one at the bottom and maybe someone else as well so there might be five but there's at least

four which is clearly getting in the way of using the internet and they said something on there like if it goes below four megabytes a second then you know or three megabytes a second and I'm thinking what and I looked and that's their guarantee although I don't have a guarantee for some reason I wasn't able to get the super fast one which should be up to 70 megabytes a second mine's the supposed to be fast but I can get up to well according to this 37 megabytes or 36 megabytes a second and it says there

or if you do have the guarantee which you don't but if you did but you don't but if you did but you don't if you did we'd guarantee up to three megabytes a second which isn't even enough to stream Netflix without it buffering three megabytes a second what what I really really need fast internet not I mean I don't it's not for you so I know some people like what do you need fast internet why should you have it and probably the majority of people would use the internet for just regular things you know use

using websites watching streaming stuff and you know YouTube and things like that um and then you've got the category of people that use it for gaming and they need fast internet they need a good solid connection people more so than anybody else actually they don't deserve it any more than anyone else but they do need um so I've looked into this people that do gaming they get especially if they do it with laptops those gaming laptops are the most powerful laptops you can pretty much get like really really powerful and you could you could pretty

much do anything on them when it when it comes to running software and lots of different things it's proper powerful but they're also very expensive and you know maybe a couple of grand some of them but probably the majority of people that do gaming would be people using I suppose what is it the Atari and playing pac-man and ping-pong tennis thing you know beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep that one and I used to be the voice for that yeah I had four pounds seventy pence an hour I don't know why I said

that Christopher Plummer died okay and if you related to Christopher Plummer my condolences this is someone that he was in his 90s and he was I want to do some research before I just tell you this stuff I want to I want to actually give you an idea of the mentality of the TV okay so Christopher Plummer he was in he was 91 and he was I want to see how many films he was in he was active from 1946 to 2021 okay he his awards he was nominated for the academy so he was nominated

for three Oscars won one in 2012 he was nominated for two British Academy Awards he won one and four Golden Globe Awards he won one and four Screen Actors Awards he won one so altogether he had 20 he was nominated for 63 awards in 125 okay so his first film was in 1978 and he was in television from 1959 and here's the thing oops all right the film oh these are the films that he was nominated for he won the Oscar in 2012 for Beginners a film called Beginners in 2012 and he um Golden Globe

Award Best Supporting well it's Vancouver Screen Actors Online oh blimey I can't find it where's the Oscars why can't I just call it Oscars I'd have to call it the Los Angeles film anyway I don't care he was in a lot of films that's what I was really trying to um point out right Wikipedia has a whole new page just for his films okay so so they're not even listing them he was in 119 films okay 119 films yet the only thing that they mention on the TV is that he was in Mary Poppins or

you know Mary Mary Poppins film Spoonful of Sugar no not that one the one with the Nazis the nasty Nazis the Sound of Music and I was like really he was in 119 films and they just pick out that movie that was about 100 years ago yet he won an Oscar in 2012 I'm not really sure what my point is I mean he appeared in lots and lots of films and he was being the fact that he was nominated how many times for academy awards three times Oscars anyway that was just my thing it's like

why why are they mentioning a film that was from 19 50 1965 1965 1965 55 years ago and admittedly okay that's the most famous film perhaps anyone's been in if they were in that film I personally think that Mary Poppins was better but then that's like comparing ice cream to your favorite carpet I mean it's just completely different isn't it different I had a friend like that well I prefer that film to that if it's the different films the different types of films you know it's like airplane you know airplane and comedy and then my

friend's saying or what was it I prefer Reservoir Dogs to Airplane why am I having this conversation with you you what where is what where what brain cells managed to put that together it's not even compatible it's a different thing I know he's like well they're both movies but they're miles apart they're not I suppose you could say well I prefer instead of slapstick comedy that's funny very very funny I prefer horrible stuff with horrible violence and written by a man that clearly loves the n-word way too much bless him I do I do like

some of his films but I think it's the dialogue like there's a difference between this dialogue like I was watching EastEnders the other day and EastEnders the dialogue was they were using so many cliches as it was getting ridiculous it was like really it was just cliche after cliche like the words you know don't um what is it I know you better than you know yourself it's that those kind of really ridiculous things that I don't know if people really believe it when they say stuff like that but I think it's role-playing without us knowing

or realizing that we're role-playing yeah so there's that unrealistic dialogue in a soap and then you've got the other complete opposite where everything the person says is unique and that sounds weird as well because people don't talk like that either generally so there has to be a you know I've I've read this book the other day and it was just it was I struggled to read it and then I realized it was upside down and it was in Chinese what's I should say he was from China China I this is something about reading now compared

to when I was younger I noticed things more things that just don't ring just don't ring true don't really it's almost just I know I mean if it's a book if it's a bit of fiction then it's not true is it technically maybe based on a true story but I don't know it's just it's something I've tried to read some books and I just can't it's just almost I'm bored before I start yeah so it's the way let's describe the room I don't care what the room looks like oh and uh and I tried on

this dress and the dress felt like I tried to describe the feeling of the dress who cares and I might be in the minority here honestly but if I try something on it's gonna be it's too tight or try some trousers on no me balls are squashed or I can't breathe out can't breathe out with these trousers on so you know it's not like and I put the trousers on and I could feel the the the hairs of my legs being brushed as I pulled the trousers up and I could smell the newness the newness

of the material as it reached closer towards my head I'm putting off so I don't know how to put trousers on properly but it's just oh it's just come on I'm just maybe the maybe the poet in me has gone it's gone and I couldn't I couldn't write like that and I know that um I don't know but I guess you know we need to write in our own style but that seems false because that person wouldn't talk that way you know if you said to someone um see I don't know for example I you

went to the did you get the flowers from the flower shop for the for the wedding and uh for me it would be yeah how did it go did it it was all right did you know and I say yeah it's all right they had them um that's it now according to these some of these books that I've read what I should be saying is when I walked through the misty misty late afternoon it was quite cold I could feel it getting colder with every step and as I walked towards the where we're going um

like the flower shop the florist St Bernard's florist I noticed the smell of tripe and I thought oh what was that where's that from and I realized that um there was a bag of tripe on the paper on the pavement perhaps that wouldn't be included yes and I pushed my way into the door and you know we've only three minutes left until they close and the wedding's tomorrow I was so relieved I could feel my bosom heaving with relief and I I could smell I could feel the all the different flowers filling my nostrils with

pleasure I was in a daze no I'm not I mean my bosom does get heavy sometimes I've got nothing else to say that was it that was the whole thing that was it so I was thinking you know if I ever write my own book it would be very basic and I don't know how that would come across to the extent of not editing seriously I'm thinking of writing a book but not editing I want to say that I would check spelling that's a spell check that's not difficult to do I would check pronunciations and

make sure that it is as correct as possible you know written and you know all the full stops in the right places and all that stuff so that's that's a few hours of work to do that make sure but it shouldn't take long because I'm pretty okay with that stuff generally I think in fact when I'm reading a book I notice mistakes in the books when I'm reading or if I'm reading something online or whatever it is I notice mistakes in the writing so I'm I think if I had the qualifications and the time and

the inclination and the interest and the ability I might make quite a good little editor is it not is that the right word editor proofreader something like that but I'm not going to do that but I would do it for my own book you see I'm pretty sure that Barbara Cartland didn't edit her books especially near the end she had somebody dictate the books for her so well not dictate she'd dictate she'd talk to a lady who would record it and write it out or I think both she'd have a recorder and she'd be writing

taking shorthand and she'd just verbally dictate what she wanted to be written and she I think she had trouble getting getting up from the sofa I mean she had no physical problems it just had too much makeup on it was too heavy for her so she couldn't get up and she just like she laid there talking out loud or loud enough for the person that her secretary to hear and then out of that a book was produced and because she'd done it for so long and she was the biggest selling author of all time am

I right I don't know let's check fact check I'm really quite into fact checking at the moment because I spend so much of my life here in complete BS from people that just regurgitate stuff that they're heard now because of the internet and because I say it's like hardly a new thing but being around people that still do that that still say stuff that I heard 30 years ago which is still as untrue now as it was then I fact check to make sure that I know the truth and sometimes what I'll do is I'll

go through different places to find it I don't I don't just go to Wikipedia I normally if it's yeah go and check it from different angles of course it might not be true I might not have the right information but I'm going to have I'm going to be closer to the truth than somebody that's just regurgitating and just yeah just saying spewing out stuff that they've heard especially when they say it like it's their own idea blimey own idea you have to have an original idea first don't you right okay let's have a look Barbara

Cartland Barbara okay here we go here we go right blimey blimey wow 98 years old when she she left us she wrote 723 novels wow 700 all together can't I say 723 novels wow honestly I just her novels apparently she wrote the most amount of novels of anyone ever wow in 1976 Cartland wrote 23 novels in one year 23 novels that's one every two weeks roughly earning her the Guinness World Record for the most novels written in a single year okay the 70s and 80s were her most prolific period wow 723 now there used to

be a book like a thing called who's who I don't know why I'm saying it most people probably know that but um they're almost like encyclopedias really about they're like biographies of people famous people um and it says here by 1983 she rated longest she had the longest entry in who's who but though most of that was just a list of her books wow brilliant so she sold over a billion books I mean okay I gotta work this out 723 723 divided no 1 billion 100 million oh damn you I know how to do it

1 million it's a hundred million it's a thousand million one thousand one hundred one thousand million which is a billion okay divided by 723 so it's 138 million each so each book sold 138 million I mean I don't know if it did or not but that's kind of where you're looking that's the ballpark figure how amazing did you hear that one guy just came in here scratched made as much noise as he could looked at me stuck his tongue out and run off so I want to know I pretty sure I watched a documentary on

her many years ago because I've been a fan of books and authors I don't just I just had a interested I'm interested I was found did you enjoy going to the toilet near the front door Andre he answered me he said go away mind your own business well enjoy it Andre because I've got that pet fence that I'm going to put up and you won't be able to go anywhere near the front door ever again so this documentary I read or I watched rather pretty sure in fact what I'm going to do authors that never

edited edited their books I can't even there my spelling is atrocious 17 famous authors and their rejections no okay here we go got one wow according they've got a few things they're called Ernest Hemingway had an arrangement with publisher that nothing could be changed not a word letter or punctuation mark okay so let's have a look that's interesting I've heard maybe it was Hemingway that was the one I was thinking of as well I think I saw a documentary of him so I put this in and they're going basically this is called boards.

straightdope.com and they're talking about editors trying to change authors books now I'm not talking about I'm talking about authors that published a first manuscript authors that published published first manuscript who is the best publisher for first-time authors no first it doesn't I find it's struggling sometimes to find the information I'm looking for no I'll give up on that one so 723 books 26 books in a year I could be that they'd be rubbish but I could they'd be about one paragraph each I quite like the idea of because you know what if you read a

book and it's because I'm I won't be writing any if I wrote a book it wouldn't be about fantasy and castles and dragons and it won't be historical it'll just be about me or a version of me or just some made-up stuff but it'll still be me so I'm kind of thinking why put too much effort into it if the person's only going to read it once and if you read a book more than once you've got too much time on your hands I'll say that there's a couple of books I've read more than once

so there's more than a couple but generally I prefer just to yeah it's like watching a movie I really want to watch a movie more than once you know once especially especially there's some certain movies I just can't watch more than once an example of that and there's lots of films like this maybe not as famous but the Bruce Willis one that one I forget what it's called so once you know it's there's a few there's a few that have twists you know and you once you know the twist to be fair that is quite

a good movie to watch a second time once you know because it's interesting to watch it to see whether or not they mess up or not but once you know the ending once you know it's like there's no point watching it again that's one of the problems I suppose because I think I've possibly seen I reckon I must have seen at least 70% of the movies made probably during my lifetime I've seen a hell of a lot of films from before I was born I mean when I was a kid cowboy films were really popular

but not like up-to-date cowboy films old John Wayne you know 1940s 1950s cowboy films for some reason I guess the reason television showed them is because it was cheap cheap entertainment old films stick that on the Sunday afternoon those actually there's people probably don't realize this in the UK of England and Britain in the up to the 80s now things started to change I think late 80s maybe 90s I'll lose track but during my childhood years Sundays everything was closed the only things that opened in the retail world was news agents would open for a

few hours in the morning so people could get their newspapers petrol stations were open and churches of course were open Sundays pubs were open for um I think it was like 11 30 till 2 and then open again at 7 30 till 10 30 or something like that so that was the Sunday I think I might be wrong I think that off licenses were allowed to open during those hours as well but I might be wrong there but no supermarkets were open nothing no shops zero so if you wanted yeah I'm pretty sure the off

licenses weren't open back then it might have been different in cities because I didn't live in the city during most of my kind of older childhood lived in a little town so it was very backward kind of town so you know when I moved to London it was like wow electricity it was a bit of shock and if you wanted something on Sunday you had to get to the news agents before it closed because then you'd have to wait until Monday morning so if you wanted sweets chocolate milk because usually news agents would be like

a corner shop so you'd have lots of different things you could buy and you'd have to get everything you needed pretty much the day before really and there'd be nothing there'd be you know it just all there'd be was television musicals old old musicals from the 40s and 50s Fred Astaire and I'm not knocking it I used to like him but it was so outdated outdated it was so far away it's almost so what's that 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s so watching stuff from 30 years ago it would be it'd be weird if the only

thing they showed on television was movies from 30 years ago they do still do that but everything's a bit more up to date now I'll tell you something they used to have um blimey Richard Chamberlain has a lot to answer for now I loved him in Dr Kildare again I was fed this old stuff from the 60s Dr Kildare Richard Chamberlain from the 60s it's like proper old stuff and this is in the 80s I was watching this stuff now Richard Chamberlain was in two huge mini-series might be more than two but two that I

remember Shogun and the Thorn Birds Richard Chamberlain these mini-series were from America and they lasted forever but they were also really good that's the thing they were really really really good and Shogun because this was a period when I was into I guess I was into karate kung fu and stuff so anything to do with Shogun or ninjas or samurai or anything like that got my attention and they went on for hours and hours and hours and hours hours and hours and hours honestly they lasted forever and ever and ever our men really really went

on and on and on and it was quite a few of those type of shows there was another one I'm sure called Seagull Island I don't know if that was Richard Chamberlain as well there was just really a lot of that stuff very dramatic yeah very atmospheric I wouldn't want to sit through it again I'll be honest but at the time I don't know how popular these shows were in other countries but over here it was big I don't think this country I'd ever seen anything like that before I mean there was a few wasn't

there like Roots was a huge really big long mini-series and there was I forget what it's called but it was like a Vietnam thing I think that went on not went on you know just lasted for many many hours yes it's very popular back then for a while I don't know whether or not I'm pretty sure I know the answer something like that could actually be done anymore because each episode was like three hours long you know it's really it may have had adverts I don't know I don't know which channel it was on but

it's a long long long drawn out episode which makes me wonder how come I've got an audience because everything I do is long apart well apart from the one thing I'd like to be long but everything is long recordings drawn out slow yeah every now and then I get a message from like a really young person telling me how much they love listening to these recordings and and it kind of goes against the the cliche doesn't it it's there's the cliche of all young people who've got no um attention span and stuff like that and

that's just a bit unfair really isn't it I mean people that have a low attention span are people that have a low attention span but that low attention span may be for certain things and other things they might be very able to focus I remember once I was at school I think it was maths I used to sit there and ignore everything and then one day we had a temporary teacher come in and I fell in love with her instantly and I've never given so much attention to any lesson in my life as I did

and I think it was double maths as well so I was there for 90 minutes or whatever and I was very alert and I think I even participated and was verbal but not not verbal annoying verbal you know I was trying to be helpful I would have honestly I would have offered to clean the whiteboard for her or the blazer actually we had blackboards and chalk back then I would have offered to clean the blackboard for her um but I wasn't able to get out from my desk anyway that's the end of that recording thank

you for listening remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy do something nice for yourself lots of love bye