#689 Let me bore you to sleep - MY STARFISH HAS TURNED INTO AN OCTOPUS - Jason Newland (13th July 2021)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You To Sleep. So I hope you are. Now, now, if you, if I'm laughing, if you would like to help me pay for the podcast costs, uh, this month, which at the moment is $120, £92 UK sterling.

And if you'd like to help pay towards that, that'd be very useful and it'd be very good aid for and, um, that'll keep the wolves from the door for one more month. Thank you very much. My PayPal account is PayPal.

What is it? That is something. I don't know. Was it? I, um, paypal.me forward slash Jason Newland.

The links on the website, the links on my page, Facebook page as well, I think. But, uh, it's the money's actually gone, gone out of my account already, but it's left me with nothing. I didn't, I just need to plan a little bit better.

I swear they take the money out different times of the month. I'm sure it should be at the end of the month, not 13th. I got a text me.

I know I got an email from the bank from one of my credit cards saying, uh, we've had to charge you £12 a charge because you haven't, we're not being able to take the money out for this month's, for the card amount that I am supposed to pay. But then it said, but if you, if you pay the money now, everything you own now, we'll return the £12 to you next month. And I thought, cool, I'll do that now.

Went to, went to my bank, online banking, uh, was like, oh, where's all the money gone? I had £150 in there the other day. Now it's not there anymore. So you have accrued that £12 charge.

And I don't get any money till next Wednesday, which is, it's only Tuesday today. So I've got another eight days. What was it? Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

Yeah. Eight days till I get paid. And so yeah, it's a little bit annoying.

I thought I was, you know, when you feel like, oh, I'm ahead, I'm ahead. And that's what I thought. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't ahead.

Now we've got the catalogue, I can't afford to pay that. And the electric bill can't afford to pay that. But I paid something off of it last week.

So I'll have to wait till the end of the month and I'll pay it then. I'm usually quite good with bills. I pay up ahead of time.

Quite often I do pay up actually more than I need to. I'll put into the, the electric and gas or the water bill. Sometimes I'll put in an extra 20 quid or whatever just to cover it.

But, you know, having us do that lately, it'll all come fine. By the end of the month, it'll all be sorted. But it's just eight, eight days, or seven days, really.

Because Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, seven days. I've got food in the freezer, a few, few frozen meals, enough milk for a couple of more days. Was it when? Probably enough milk till Friday I reckon.

I've got breakfast cereal. I reckon I've got enough breakfast cereal for now until I get paid Wednesday. That's horrible breakfast cereal.

That's horrible. I've got all bran and bran flakes. Two, two packets, two boxes of one of each.

All to grease the wheels as it were, of the little train. At the moment, it's less of a train, more of a puddle. But wow, talking about puddles.

I think it might be happening in other parts of the world as well. But in England, we've been having these extreme rainfall, like a huge amount of rain in a real short space of time, causing floods in places that don't normally get floods. There was a part of London that got completely flooded due to the rain, because the drains are not built for a huge amount of rain.

I mean, I think London does pretty well considering. I mean, I lived there for 12 years. And I don't really remember outside of a burst pipe.

I don't remember there really being any floods. There's always like water in the gutter, you know, they'll get over overflown, overflown. Yeah, they'll get full very quickly.

Maybe the water will rise a bit but not flooded, flooded. Just enough for the cars to go past and completely drench you if you're on the pavement. Great.

Some people do on purpose. I'm pretty sure of it. Pretty, pretty sure.

Yes. Oh, stomach still a bit weird. Still a bit weird.

But hey, there you go. And I've got the last few days. Well, I meant to if I mentioned this, I did a I've been transcribing, I think I managed to transcribe about 130 recordings over that three day period using this new website I found.

And I ran out of space or ran out of credit or whatever you want to call it. So I have to wait till 6th of August before I can download the next lot or transcribe the next lot. But 130 is enough for me to be getting on with because I've not even looked at them yet.

So that's fine. It's not something that needs to be done really quickly. I can take my time on it.

And by the end of the year, I'll have the majority of my recordings will be transcribed, which is a good position to be in you know. I mean, for me to transcribe for myself blindly, and I had to do this at university, I didn't have to do it because I could have got it done for me. In fact, I did get it done for me at one point.

But some of the you know, the coursework was actually transcribing a recording of an actual session that we did with a client and transcribing the whole thing and then making notes and observations and stuff like that. And that would be like a 50 minute recording. And it took me hours and hours.

I'd say for every minute probably frame every minute recording transcribing would probably be probably four or five minutes. And don't forget I'm typing it out. So as I'm listening to it, and I'm not, I mean, it probably would have been quicker to write it out and then it's copied.

And then that didn't let it typed out afterwards. Because typings, I'm not a typer. You know, even when I was doing, I know how to use a keyboard, I know how to, but I do look at the keyboard, usually, perhaps not as often as I realise, I might be a bit better than I realise.

I think I can type my own name, aren't I clever. But when I worked in insurance and in offices, a lot of the typing I was doing was just filling in names into a form on screen. So I say, well, can I take your first name, please? So Sam, Sam.

Okay, are you a man or a woman? And, you know, just things like so I just type it in. Some of it is just you click on something like M, F, whatever. But there's a lot of typing, but it's just small amounts.

You know, I put a postcode in and it brings up what number and you find it says this is 7245 918 gong gong gong road. Like, okay, good. And it's quite simple.

It's just little, little boxes where I've got to fill the little box with my fingers, you know, typing is fairly easy, but actually typing out sentences and paragraphs and stuff. Although I can do it. It's I think it's a little bit, there's a bit of pressure if you're copying, I found a bit pressurized to copy what I'm saying, typing out at the same speed as I'm talking.

Bearing in mind, it's a counseling session. So it's not just my voice, it's the voice of the other person. And most people do speak quicker than me.

So having to type in both voices on one of the pieces, of course, course material, I did get a transcription service to do it for me. And I don't know if it was on Fiverr or whatever. Fiverr might not been around back then, but it was somewhere I found.

But it was I think I did it for like a practice one. So we did a practice recording with other the other college, you know, other students. But I didn't really feel right having a complete stranger listening to an actual session.

That makes sense. So I did it myself. So I didn't send that off.

Because with the students, a lot of time, they just make stuff up. They'd be the client, and they'd pretend to be going through a certain thing. I can't help it.

For those that don't know, I'm a counselor. I was a counselor. I fully trained, fully qualified counselor, person centered counselor, plus I've got a degree in counseling studies, BA honours, BA honours, or is it BSc? I don't know, one of them.

Anyway, I got a three, three years full time education. Hard to believe when you listen to me talk. Really? Yeah, she went.

I'm surprised. I didn't think you didn't go to school. Never mind university.

And you know what? For those young people, there's two things I've got to say. First of all, if anyone's young listening, I know some people young do listen, it's mainly, I think the majority of people listening are sort of in their 90s. But for those young people, by the way, it's not an insult.

Imagine people are like, I'm not bloody 90, you bastard. I know that. I know.

But for those that are young, see, I've got no kids. I mean, I kind of thought I had a couple of daughters. And to me, they were kind of like my daughters, but they just, I'd have lost track.

Unfortunately, they had a bit of a crazy mama, as it was. There's a lot of infighting in the family. And because I didn't take sides, I was with the the person at the top of the family.

I was kind of Yeah, I think the doors decided easier not to see me than to have to have all the arguments like it was weird, very weird. But yes, I don't have any kids, not any biological. So I did I do the reason I'm saying this, because I always thought, well, what advice would I give a child if I had one? Now, I've given this thought in the past, not lately, if I'm honest, but in the past.

I have thought about it, because I feel like many, many kids or many adults that have been kids, we all been kids. And we, a lot of adults is, even if you get on really well with your parents, which I hope you do, you know, I don't care. But you know, generally, it's nicer if you can.

You might not want to raise your kids the way that they raised you, you might do. But you know, in a sense, easy to see fault in other people. It's easy, it's easy, easy to see fault in my dad.

But you know what, could I have done a better job than him? I really don't know. Because what he went through in his life is huge compared to in some ways to what I've been through. And he survived.

And he's so I don't know, you know, for me, it's so easy. It's really so easy to judge others, like for how, how they've done something and to think, well, I do I could do better than that. Well, maybe in my circumstances, I could maybe with my education, because he didn't have my education.

He had his education. He's very clever, very, very clever. He's very talented, brilliant at what he did.

But he doesn't have he didn't have my education. My knowledge of maybe a bit more of the psychological stuff. The Yeah, I don't know how to word that really.

But it's just a different knowledge, you know, plus it's different times. And it is again, it's very different now, the younger generation, the people in their 20s. Compared to me, when I was in my 20s, it's very different.

So that's the next generation. That's the current generation, really, I'm not really current anymore. They're the current even though I'm more popular than them.

But yeah, right. I, it's different. It's just different, isn't it? I struggle a bit keeping track of all these labels that people are really loving, and they're putting upon themselves.

Especially when it comes to not sexuality so much, but and the way they perceive themselves to be. And because it is being a man, thinking that he's a woman, or believing that he's a woman born in the wrong body. And going through a tremendous amount of work that they have to do.

I'm not sure if the public, general public are aware of it. How because I've counseled people. They've gone through it.

In fact, I had a really good friend that went through it. Huge, huge, it's not easy process at all. And that's not about sexuality, not like it is about your sex.

But it's not about it's about identity, isn't it? Not about who you want to go boom, boom with. So yeah, I think I'd struggle a bit. Being part of today's society, in a sense of the it was quite basic, when I was a kid.

And when I was in my 20s, men generally acted a certain way, which I didn't really understand, you know, so I wasn't I've never been like a general man, like getting excited about sports or drinking or and fighting or women and just like talking about women in a horrible way. I'm not I'm generalizing here. And a lot of men do it when they're together.

But don't necessarily mean it in a horrible way. It's just you know, I mean, it's just chitchat banter, if you want that word wasn't around when I was a kid, or women, again, just being horrible about men. And it's, you know, it goes both ways.

I spent a lot of time with women and I've a lot of time, a lot of time with groups of women. I was at college, I mean, college with women up in the university with women have been on courses with women. And so I spent a lot of time with groups of women, including the Buddhist center as well years of that.

And, yeah, there's definitely a different dynamic, women together, to men together. Not two men together, men, men in a group and women in a group, different dynamics. Very, very different.

In some ways, I prefer women. But one thing I noticed is, and even, I mean, it's not just that in training, I've had loads, loads of training. Because outside of once you become a counselor, there's the extra learning thing.

So you go on day courses and stuff. I've done day loads of day courses or morning courses, as well as I did a whole, I think, week or 10 days doing a specific course on depression. I remember the first thing they said is, well, that's just halfway through the course.

They said, what do you find, you know, to us counselors, the person training, what do you find is the hardest subject to do over a client? And I said, depression. That was after halfway through the thing, I mean, I'd kind of already been established that that was an issue. But it is, it really is.

It's the hardest, it's not the most emotional for me, in a sense of hearing some of the stories I've heard, will stay with me, if I'm honest. It is just, yeah, there's some clients I've forgotten. Because I had a lot of clients over, I think it's three years or something that I was practicing.

Three, 12, 2011, 2010. I mean, I qualified in 2009. I started counselling in December 2009.

So I counselled in 2010, 2011, 2012, and part of 2013. So part of 2009, then 10, 11, 12. And I finished, I think, well, in sort of summer, maybe springtime 2013.

I think, let's attend 11. Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah.

So I did it three, three and a half years or whatever. And that was full time. That was full time.

Although I didn't have enough clients for it to be full time. And the most I ever had was, I probably saw about 19 one week. I think that's the most I ever had.

The thing is, I can't really talk about the clients, because obviously, it's very personal. And regardless of how much I joke around, and, you know, try not to be too serious, if I can help it. And I come across as I don't maybe don't care about that much.

But fact is, I do care. And I take it very serious. I'm stuttering.

I take it very seriously. That confidentiality, and I do I have spoken, I can I have spoken about some things that I heard and some things, but I would never you'd never know who it was. Was it I mentioned Tracy? No, but you never know who it was.

Tracy of Attica Road, Northampton. No, if there is a Tracy in Attica Road, Northampton. I apologize because I made it up on the spot.

Attica Road is where my Nan used to live. Okay, so Attica, A-T-A-K-I, I think. Attica, A-T-A-K-A, A-T-A-A, A-T-A-T-I-C, Attica, Attica, Attica, A-T-I-K-A, still my favorite road in that town.

Because that's where my Nan lived. It's where I used to live. I keep going backwards on that one, don't I? Keep going back to that.

I don't know. I sometimes feel there's parts of my life that are just, they're not, almost like that chapter's not closed. But it is closed because she's dead.

I mean, she's, someone else moved into her house long before she died because my aunt owned the house. My Nan went into a sheltered accommodation because she couldn't walk anymore, hardly. And my Nan sold the house because she owned it.

She bought it just after my granddad died because it's a council house. So she got it really cheap and made a big profit. Good on her.

And my Nan lived there rent free for 20 years. No, not 20. Yeah, maybe 20 years.

Yeah, not far off of it. I mean, she passed away at the end of 2014. So she was in sheltered accommodation, I'd say for six years, but it might have been less, might be more.

But she had good like 18, whatever years, rent free. She had a pension. She had my granddad's pension from his job and his pension from the army.

And she said that she's got more money now than she's ever had. And she doesn't want it. Because all she wanted was my granddad.

And I said, I'll have it. And she, she thought I was joking. And so she did pay the bills, she paid the bills.

And, you know, things, those stuff needed on the house. I don't think she paid for that. I don't know.

But yeah, generally, the thing is, I don't know. But if you're a pensioner, don't you get if you're in a council house, don't you get your rent paid anyway, if you're a pensioner, which means she gained nothing from it. So the only person that was my aunt.

Because, mind you, thinking about it, though, I don't know how long the council tax has been in. But she had three bedrooms. One was a box room.

I mean, I don't I don't think it was he. I don't know if it was officially big enough to be a bedroom. It's a lovely little room.

I mean, that's where I slept when I used to visit her. I used to stay there sometimes overnight at Christmas and stuff. Love that little bed.

There's a little bed in there. The airing cupboard was in there. I think a few little bits in there is like a storage room, but it wasn't full.

Just had a chair and a couple of little bits in there and a nice bed. And I used to sleep in there when I was a kid when I was little. When I was between the ages of seven and eight.

That's where I slept in that room. Loved it. Well, I loved it.

I can't admit I didn't, you know, I mean, I didn't have a diary back then. Wake up, woke up in my room again. I love this room.

You know what? After living in a dormitory in a children's home, I think I probably liked a cardboard box would have been nice. Just anywhere which was a bit on my own, you know, a little bit of space. Maybe that's why I value space.

That might be it, you know, because although, you know, I haven't lived in a dormitory since I was seven. I haven't lived with like 14 other kids in one room. I might be more.

I did live in a family where there's like four kids and two adults, too many people. I should have been a single parent. Child, a single parent's child.

Yeah. I'm sure there's benefits to being in a, I know four kids isn't a large family, but it's definitely above normal. It's more than a two point whatever kids.

So four kids, it's, it's, yeah, not huge, but it's definitely a large kind of family. It's too many. I don't know what the benefits are supposed to be.

What's the, I think surely some of the benefits of having older brothers is they look after you. Well, that didn't really happen for me. It happened a couple of times.

I give my brother Jews where it's due. My one above, one of the, my oldest brother did nothing. He was useless.

In fact, I don't think he even beat me up when he was four years older than me. So he wasn't really, I think he was quite pacifist, bit like me, really quite calm, not really into that stuff. But I don't know.

I don't know what he used to get up to. Because I was in a different school to him. I went to a different high school to both my older brothers.

So I gained nothing from having them. You know, I had to find my own way. I was always like an only child at school, and then I go home to a big family.

Because normally if you've got two brothers, one's two years older, one's four years older, or sisters, or sisters, and you go, to the same school, you're living in the same house, you go to the same school, but the way they worked, it didn't quite work out that way. Two high schools in one little town, and I had to go to a different one to my brothers. And I went to the rubbish one.

So luckily, I wasn't, although I was the smallest, pretty much the smallest kid in the school. When I went, when I was in first year, I was 11. I'd been 11 for probably two weeks when I went to school, maybe less actually.

I was born on the 26th of August. So going back to school is usually beginning in September. So I'd only been 11 for a few days.

And some of my other, the other children in my class, in my school, in my year, they were turning 12 a few days after starting school. So literally, I'd turn 11, and maybe two weeks later, three weeks later, they'd turn 12. So they were a year older than me.

And it doesn't, it means a lot. Imagine a baby, a baby and a year old baby, is a big difference in there. It's not much difference when you're 25 and 26, or 51 and 50.

It's not a lot of difference. 32, 34, 33, it's all kind of the same. It's not a huge difference when you're eight and nine, nine and 10.

But at that kind of puberty area, that teenage, on the brink of teenageness, 11 and 12 year old, there can be a huge difference. I mean, without getting biological, you know, I was a child. And in my year, in my class, in my changing room and PE time, there were adolescents going through puberty, and I wasn't, I was a child.

I was a child. I was a high pitched voice. I can't do it.

I can't do my high pitched voice. No, that's it. Yeah.

That was loud. So it was unfair when it came to physical stuff. I don't mean making love.

I'm talking about, you know, football, basketball, basketball, there was no point. What was I going to do? And everybody was taller than me. In fact, even when I was in the third, fourth year, the first years were taller than me.

I was just short all the way through. It's only really the last couple of years that I, I managed to stretch myself to five foot eight. I was probably about five foot six in the fourth year, and managed to get to five foot eight just before I left school and I stayed the same height forever.

And I didn't really feel like I'd even gone through puberty before I'd even left school. I knew I had because I, you know, I'd, I'd managed to get the tap working as it were. But I, I didn't feel like a man.

Blimey, I was skinny. The old joke is not to run around in the shower to get wet. I was proper skinny.

And I hated it. I hated being skinny. Ironic, innit? And that's irony.

That's the real meaning of irony. Look at me now. But I was muscular.

Because all I did was work out on weights on a punch bag, doing karate, doing sit-ups, press-ups, running. I was very physical outside of school. Inside of school, I didn't get involved in any sports at all.

And I was kind of banned from a couple of them. Um, what was it? Um, what's the girl's sport? Okay, what's the, what's the sport that females uh, excel at more than men? Um, hockey. Maybe not in America because you've got ice hockey over there, haven't you? And that's proper violent.

But over here, hockey, like football was a man's, it used to be a man's sport. It used to be classed as a man's sport. It did, a boy's sport.

It's a fact. Now, it's not the case anymore. Women, girls have, have realised that they can also kick a ball around and do it really well.

Just like boxes. Some of the best boxes in the world are women. Not because they're world champions, because they're really, really good.

I mean, in women's boxing, you haven't got a, you can win multiple world champions, championships, multiple world titles in different weight groups a lot easier than you can in the men's world. Because there's less boxes, there's less, there's less competition, just physically less amount. But that doesn't take away from the fact that some of them are brilliant.

Like really, as good as the men, as good as the best men. That's what I mean. Not as good as the men.

The best women are as good as the best men. I prefer the men, only because it's, it's not that many of the females that have, I guess I haven't followed them as much. Like someone for me, Tank Davis is up there in my favourite boxes at the moment.

You got Clarissa Shields in America. She is an Olympic world champion, Olympic gold, as well as being, I think she might have won Olympic twice. But she also, in boxing, and then she also has won multiple world titles.

And she's, I think she's kind of classed as the pound for pound in the women's boxing. One of the, but then you got our one here. So it's kind of Katie Taylor.

So it's, who's the best because she's also unbeaten. And she's also won multiple world titles. And did she do the Olympics? I don't know.

And, but it's this one, I prefer more than both of them. Although I'm not really seeing Clarissa Shields. I saw in the MMA fight she had recently, but not not really that up to date on her fights in boxing.

Because over here, I don't really see why, but they seem to focus, especially like Sky Sports, seem to focus more on the British fighters. Well, I do understand, because they're trying to build it up, they're trying to showcase who we have, I suppose it makes sense. But, you know, in the same point, we're missing out.

If America doing that, and all the other countries are just kind of keeping their own women to themselves, and showcasing. And we need to start spreading the love, you know, so everyone get together and spread your love. And start to see some of them coming over to different countries and fight in and stuff.

Fighting, not farting. How do you manage to make every subject end up about boxing? I don't know. I really don't know.

I just, I just love, love the boxing. I really do love it. I love it so much.

Makes my willy wobble. I was so skinny though, when I was younger. I mean, the only advantage and I didn't realise at the time is I'm not going to say the rest.

It just accentuates other parts. Gives the illusion. Gives the illusion.

You know, if you just does it gives the illusion because if you're really, really got a really tiny body, then it gives you know, just to say my feet, yeah, of course, that's what I'm talking about. My toenails look much longer than they really were. It's weird though, because now I got so fat, I've almost got an innie.

It's this, you know, I have to try and sort of, I have to try and like pop it out so I can say this stuff. I am single, by the way, if anyone's out there listening and thinking, now that's a catch. Rather than, I'm not sure what I could catch from him.

Don't worry, I'm clean. Well, I'm not clean, but I'm clean as that, you know. I've had me tests done.

I did, I had a test. I had a girlfriend who would not sleep with me until I had a big full check on everything. And the weird thing about it is she didn't have one done herself.

That's what dumb dumb I am. She called the shots. She said, I've had one done before.

And I just took her through that. Instead of what I should have said, no, we'll go together. You have yours done.

I have mine done at the same time. And let me hear your results. And then I'll get my results.

Yeah. But I'll be honest, I wasn't thinking with my head. I remember when I got the results through, they said, is this outside Argos? This is this catalog shop.

It's now. Yeah. It's a good way to spread illness and diseases because I've got these, lots of these counters, screen touchscreens, and I use all of them loads of them in there.

Instead of catalogs, it's basically a touchscreen to computer system, which gives you a directory of all this stuff. And so you can go in there, you could pick your nose and, you know, put it onto the screen and stuff like most kids do. And a good way to spread viruses.

It's brilliant. And just like McDonald's is and doctor surgeries and train stations, where else have these things, even the library. I couldn't believe the doctor surgery though.

How dumb would you have to be? Supermarkets, obviously, that's another one, isn't it? touchscreen. How dumb would you have to be to think that that would be a good idea to put a touchscreen system in the doctor surgery, where people come in and touch it to book themselves into the appointment? How absolutely dumb I mean, that is the, you know, I don't like to call people dumb. But as far as an idea assist, that is, you got people coming in with all kinds of illnesses, diseases, stuff they don't even know they've got tropical stuff, especially if you live.

Once we get anywhere, I mean, you don't know where people have been on holiday. If you if someone's just gone to another country, forgetting the situation to now, but in any time in the past, someone's come from another country, tropical place where they might have picked up something, and they come in not feeling well, they come into the doctor surgery, touch the screen. And doesn't that seem so irresponsible from the doctor's surgery perspective, especially when if you go up to the counter and say, I've got an appointment, we need to go over to that screen, you know, one covered in pus and germs, feces, if you use that screen, feces, the feces screen, and you need to book it in there.

Well, I'm here now, can't book it. Nope, you got to go over to the screen and do it there. The touchscreen, the one that all the people have touched that man over there that's coughing phlegm, he was touched a second ago.

So if he can do I'm sure you can. I'll use my knuckles then. No, no, you got to use your fingertips.

You only use it you have to have your fingertips otherwise it won't work. And you must put your fingers in your mouth before and afterwards. But the advice I would give if I had a child, okay, young people, if I was to give advice to a young person regarding university, I would say, go.

If you want to go, go to university. Don't worry about student loans. Because if you're in the UK, okay.

If you're in, it might be a different situation in other countries. So you know, you got to go by what is relevant to your destination that you are currently at. But in the UK, go to university, the student loans and grants, it's all gone up.

It's a lot more students. Yearly, it was three grand a year, went up to nine grand the year after I finished my course. So I paid nine grand for the whole three years of university.

So I borrowed that to do it. Plus I got grants as well. So I think I owe them about, I think when I left, I owed nearly 30 grand, like 26, 27 grand.

It's gone up over the years. And so I finished what 11 years ago. Blimey, crazy, isn't it? How quickly time goes by.

That's, you know, that motivates me. Not necessarily in a positive way. But when I remember stuff, and I think back, I realised it's 20 years ago.

And how quickly the last 10 years has gone by. The last six years, I've lived here for over six years now. How quickly that time I had with Andre came and went.

I mean, one minute he's well, the next minute he's ill, and the next minute, you know, it's like one minute I've got him, he's a little baby in my hand, tear away. And the next thing he's can't even walk. It's just crazy how quick time goes.

And that's, I think that's the one thing I really, and I think a lot of old people, older people, that's the one thing I think that I had it tried to be instilled in me, loads of elderly people over the years, have probably tried to say that to me, like, and everyone says it. Everyone, I don't know what I offer, maybe 50 is the time it starts, maybe 60. But like, time really does go quick.

It does. Not always, though. That's the thing.

If we could reverse time in the way that it acts. Okay, so when something really horrible is happening, let's say, you're sitting on the toilet, trying to give birth to a donkey's cock. Okay, you got, you know, that time goes really, really slow.

You know, it's everything's almost in slow motion. But if you're out on a date, with the most, or if you're doing something that you really enjoy, doesn't have to be on a date, it could be whatever. You just might be, maybe you're just having a night in with your loved one.

Or you're on out going for a day out with your kids or I think that's nice. Okay, you're having a nice night in with your loved one, with your partner. And maybe that, you know, you're on your own.

Maybe you don't get enough time on your own together. And this is going to be wonderful. You've got everything you need in your home.

You don't have to go out, you've got you maybe you get a takeaway. Maybe you'll get you know, whatever. And it's a really nice evening, you get to have nice romantic time or whatever.

It goes so quick. Unless you don't like them. Of course.

I mean, for me, I've been there, I just go so quick. But I would say that to a girlfriend once said last night, it went so quick, didn't it? I thought it was so quick. And she looked at me said, What do you mean? Not for me.

Really? Yeah, so really dragged. I thought we're having a great time. Did you? What gave you what all the yawning I did? Mistaken yawning for orgasms again.

Damn. So we could swap that time around. So that the unpleasant experiences go really fast.

And the pleasant experiences just drip by really slowly. But it'd be nice. And it'd be nice.

I think it would. And even a pleasant experience doesn't have to be. I haven't yet a holiday.

For example, I've not been on a holiday that's nice. Really probably. Yeah, one is just a really good holiday.

I've not. Yeah, I've not been on a really good holiday, like a holiday that I came out thinking, wow, that's brilliant. Not done that.

And I mean, when I was a kid, we used to go to Wales, and Wales is beautiful. And we had some fun. And, you know, I'll probably moan about my brothers, and I don't have much positive memories of them.

But we probably had a lot of fun as well. You know, in reality, we were kids, we loved each other. Didn't like each other a lot of the time, probably, but we did.

I'm sure we loved each other. And, yeah, I pretty much would have done anything for my brothers. And when I was a kid, I would have.

And Pewter just, I just got a message through from Facebook. See, I'm, I can't ignore this, because I'm continuously putting in, do not bother me with notifications. Yeah, it doesn't listen to me, damn you.

Don't listen. Don't understand it. I didn't understand why.

Okay, well, what was I saying? Advice to a young person. Time goes quick, but I wouldn't just leave it there. I'd go into a bit more information with a few examples.

But as far as university goes, the first thing I'd say is, if you want to go when you're young, go. If you don't, don't. Do what you want to do.

Because it's never really too late. If you, I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but in the UK, you can pretty much go to university at any age. There's limits.

I mean, if you're 85 and you want to do a university course in midwifery or something, it probably, yeah, you might not get on that course. But in a way, it's never too late. Generally, I'm a living example of that.

I started my university course when I was 37. Yeah, 30s, just turned 37. And I gained my degree when I was 40.

So admittedly, it doesn't sound that old now, considering I'm an old fogey. But back then, it seemed quite old. Now, what I would say to people that are thinking about university going, if you're young, if you're old or whatever, and you think, oh, no, do it, go for it.

If you don't like it, and if you really, really don't like it, you don't want to do it, you can stop, you know, you don't have to do anything. But if you want to go to university, then go, whatever age you are. I mean, I think you can still go in your 50s.

I don't think there's, I don't know what I think providing you've got the qualifications or the skills and the mental capacity and the money to pay for it. I don't think many universities really care. They just want ideally the right people skill wise.

It was annoying because I didn't get a very good grade in my degree. And it's gotten in the way of me getting going on to do a master's. I actually got funded for a master's degree last year in positive psychology, got it paid, nine grand they lent me.

They didn't give me the money, it would go straight to the university. But they agreed nine grand, like, wow. But the university told me to F off, go away.

We don't want your kind here. And that was just before the whole world shut down. So it's lucky because I would have ended up doing it from through zoom or some crappy way of, okay, I'm getting to nine grand of debt to talk through a screen and to not meet anybody.

You know, like, yeah, sounds positive to me. Nah, no, thanks. No.

The whole idea, well, not the whole idea, but partly a good read a good part of any adult education is the interaction. Sometimes the hardest part, but it's it adds to it for me. You got open university was brilliant.

And I always used to think that that would be the right way for me to go to get a degree. And I did try a few times over the years. However, I what I found out when I did my degree is I needed help.

I did I needed help. motivation wise, didn't realize I would, but I needed help motivate to motivate myself. I needed help academically in how to do things, how to present what I was presenting.

And yeah, because I didn't have those skills. I can write an essay now. I can put together.

I'd have to, I'd have to brush up on some of the skills, but you know, I can do that stuff because I learned it because I did it. And I had to do it as part of the course. So but before that years before I did, I tried to do essays and I couldn't do them.

Now an essay is actually quite easy. The first thing you need to do is take away the stress, take away the pressure and just do it. Just put down a load of rubbish onto the page.

Write down this is what I used to do. I used to write down everything I knew off the top of my head about the subject. And then I'd go into my books and I'd do some research and I'd write down stuff like that and for references.

And then I'd reword it, mix it together and reword it in the sense of adding references, correcting stuff that I thought I knew, which perhaps I didn't, making sure it was right, fact checking and stuff, and then trying to make it easier to read, condensing it, seeing where I was repeating myself. Hard to believe that I would repeat myself, but I did sometimes. And also keep reading the question because you're answering a question.

With essays, it's always a question. And what I realized I needed to do is to speak to my supervisor or my teacher, tutor, and understand what the question means, because it's not always as simple and straightforward as it looks. And to find out what they're looking for, what they're expecting.

So I got tutorial help. And that's something that I've learned as an adult, something that I wouldn't do when I was younger. I ask for help, maybe still not as much as I need it.

And that's why, you know, when I say, Oh, can you help me to pay for the podcast this month? It's not easy for me to do that, you know, it's not easy, because I don't naturally ask for other people's help. My natural way to be is to sit here with no food, and to just feel sorry for myself. And to just, you know, almost like I'm gonna win an award, an award for misery.

And instead of asking for help, to buy some food, you know, I'll just sit here, it's fine. I'll wait till next Wednesday. And I'll buy myself some milk.

Have a cup of tea. I won't bother with breakfast because I've only got bran flakes. I might as well just pour that down the toilet.

So Mr. Middleman. So yeah, I think what I would say to any young people that are thinking about going to university is if you're interested, go, go now while you're young. And anyone that's older, they're thinking of going to university that thinks, Oh, I've missed out, I'm too old.

No. Find a course you like, that you want to do, that you're really passionate about. Ideally, go for it.

Apply and go. Do it. If that's what you want to do.

Now for young people, I would say, if you can go when you're young, do. Because there's a different experience. It's much more fun for younger people at university.

Because universities are built for young people. They are. Simple fact.

You know, all of the Freshers Week, the clubs, the bar, all that stuff's all about young people. When you're in your 40s or late 30s, 50s, whatever, that stuff's, well, it's not, it's not for you. You can go.

It's nothing. I think if you're a student, you can go to student bar. But they probably think that you're the manager.

If you go in there, they probably think that you work there or you own the place. It's from the experience that I saw, is the younger people were having a really good time. And the first year of university, really, if you're studying a subject, let's say if you're going straight from school, or sixth form college or whatever, if you're in the UK, and let's say you're studying, I don't know, let's say maths or geography, geography, do people still study geography, history, something like that.

And you say you're studying history, or whatever it is, it doesn't matter what it is. You go to university, you've already done I levels and A levels probably in that subject that you're going to university about. Yeah.

So if you've already done A level in history, and A level in history, two years of A level, I think isn't it? In the first year of university, you're likely to not learn very much. Because you're going to be going over a lot of stuff that you already know about. The first year university is easy.

It really is. If you just, if you come straight from education, into university, it's easy, it's going to be easy. The actual academic side, now the other stuff, social side, that's going to be different for everyone.

Because not everybody's, you know, not everybody's into that if you're sharing a dorm room with someone. Sounds horrible to me. I didn't do that.

I didn't live in dorms. I could have. I could have gone for student accommodation, but I was too late.

Because I had all my, everything was set up for me. I had a part time job ready that I got for Christmas that I was, I was expecting to be able to stay after Christmas. I had somewhere to live in that Buddhist community.

It was pretty low rent. I had a girlfriend. I had everything sorted.

Financially, everything was, it was very balanced. Everything was balanced. And I got tipped over by someone that was living in the house with me.

Completely rocked my world, not in a good way. And I got through it, survived it and, but in the process moved away from where I was living, closer to university and there you go. But I had it all planned.

It was all worked out. You know, it's a good thing is I'd be away, I'd be at university Monday to Friday, and then have the weekends here with my girlfriend. You know, I'd, you know, come home every night, but I'll perhaps study in the evening, maybe go to the Buddhist center, do some meditation, have a bit of emotional support from a friend that I lived with.

One of my friends said it was pretty good. And I had a few friends as well that I used to spend time with. And then of course, you know, I had my new girlfriend and that was just growing and I felt I'd only just met our kids for the first time.

So what did I say about the best world laid plans? That was the most organized I think I'd ever been in my life. I spent months organizing it. Right from the summer.

I don't know, June, May time, whatever, when I started, I signed up for the course, probably June, when I applied for it. And all the way through getting the June, July, August, maybe it was May. But the whole process and I was like, okay, well, I need to get a part time job.

This is how much I've got coming in from the grants. And just working it all out, train fair and all that stuff. I had, I even had two placements ready for me, for me to practice client work with, because I was volunteering it to one alcoholic, one alcohol charity, and one drug rehab charity.

And both of them offered counseling to clients, to people that went there. And both of them said that they would gladly have me there as a trainee counselor, you know, so I can get my 100 hours for my course. And also give me work once I qualified.

So I had even further ahead. Once I'm qualified in two years, I'll have a job. I've got two different places to work at.

That was all dependent on whether or not I was any good. Obviously, it wasn't just all going to give you a job. But you know, if all goes well, you qualify and you like it.

And yeah, that's my memory of it. Anyway, they might have said no, we don't want you to go away. But my memory is a nice one.

It was all set. I was still doing a voluntary stuff. And I had to reduce that a little bit.

Once I went to college, but you know, everything just went to weird, very strange. It was the most organized and planned that I'd ever been. I kind of almost felt so confident in a way that, yeah, this is going to work out.

It did work out, but not, not very well, not in a way that I planned on a very different, different direction altogether. And I still went in a different direction. And then when even more in a different direction, and then even more into it.

I think this is the most, in some ways, even though I don't feel necessarily that way. This is probably in some ways the most stable I've been for most of my life, living here. I mean, it's not perfect situation.

But then what is? It's doing something I enjoy. Where people, some people seem to enjoy what I do and benefit from it. And like what I do and contact me when I'm not doing it to remind me to do it.

Why have you not made a recording for four days? Are you okay? Please make a recording. So I do I get I get I get a little kick up the bum sometimes. Where are you? Why haven't you made a recording? If you don't make a recording, I'm going to phone you and actually have to have a real conversation with a human being.

You don't want that, do you? And make a recording. Okay, okay. Right.

So I'm gonna go. So yeah, you young people out there. Young, young, young ones.

Be happy. Be happy, man. If you want to go to university, go to university and try not to put stuff off.

That's another bit of advice. And maybe instead of jumping into a decision, think about it. Jump ahead in your mind 10 years away.

Because you might be the have the, you know, perfect physical, you might be the perfect physical specimen. You won't be forever. No offense, but no one is.

So sometimes, you know, it's really easy if things are going really well, like, well, someone falls in love with you, you really like them, maybe you do as well. But you think, well, I don't want to play the field for a few more years. Chances are when you're older, you may regret that.

I'm not saying don't play the field because do what you want. I don't care. But I wish I took a few, a few steps back sometimes to just really think, to think about, okay, what am I doing here? This person has just given me an opportunity.

So I guess it is opportunities, give opportunities a bit of a thought, maybe more of a thought than perhaps you would normally. Perhaps, I mean, you know, what do I know? But even recently, I had an opportunity to go to America to do like some lectures to university students because a dean of university contacted me, she really, really liked what I do, what I did back then. I don't know if she likes it anymore because I've not, I don't know.

But she's a lovely lady and she used one of my recordings and it helped her, helped her change a habit that she'd had most of her life. So she was about 103. So, you know, it was really, she was really pleased and impressed and she liked listening to me and she wanted, you know, she invited me to go over to America to her university and to do some talks about hypnosis and, you know, in my way.

And I hesitated. It was all, everything paid for. It wouldn't cost me a penny.

I was concerned about leaving Andre because I, even though I do have someone that would look after him, my friend downstairs, he loved Andre. He was his uncle. He loved him.

He loves, he loves ferrets. He's always, he's had ferrets since he was a kid and he had one as well, which is Andre's uncle, who passed away a couple of years ago. And I know that he would have been fine, but I don't know if it, how much it was me using him as an excuse or me procrastinating about making the decision.

But anyway, the opportunity is lost. I didn't, I didn't jump at the chance. I should have jumped at the chance.

I should have said, yep, what do I do? What do I do now? Yep, I'll do it. That's what I, I feel that would have been the best thing because it was a great opportunity. And one thing I know from experience is one, one thing often leads to another, either positive or negative.

So one negative thing can lead to another negative thing. In the same way, one positive thing can lead to another positive thing to the point where I might have been, who knows, I might have met someone in America who wanted to employ me as a radio. So, you know, on a radio, they might think, oh, we like his voice.

We like the British accent over here. Or there might be a business person think, I can make money out of this bloke. I can make money.

Let me see. And they might have the know how to, they might, you know, be able to take advantage of me. And I don't mind that.

Anyone wants to take advantage of me, just get in contact. And I might see an opportunity of making money. And I, oh, because the thing is, we're all unique.

We're all, I'm unique, just like all my friends. We're all got our own thing. And I suppose, unless you don't, unless you show it off, or unless you, I don't know, if you get offered an opportunity, think about it.

That's what I would say. As long as it's legitimate. You know, if that'd be just a random person phone me up and said, do you want to come to America? And I wasn't, you know, I like your podcast.

And I was like, well, I don't even do podcasts. Who are you? What do you want? I want you to come to America. But I need you to pay 100 pound first.

Okay. Here's my credit card number. Not that it'd make any difference.

None of my credit cards have got any money on them. So I'm gonna go. I hope that was clear.

It wasn't, was it? As mud! It really wasn't. Clear. As clear as clay.

As clear as clay on your head. Isn't it time to go to bed? Maybe one day we shall wed. I did a deep sleep whisper recording earlier, which is all right.

And the first day I've done two recordings for nearly a week, but I haven't felt very well. The old tummy has been a bit off for the last five days. Since Thursday.

Since Thursday. Yeah. It's now Tuesday.

But I think, I'm thinking the next few days, I'm going to be a bit better. A bit better. So I'm gonna go.

I'm kind of in a chatty mood, actually. I could probably talk for another hour or two, but I don't think it's fair on anybody. It's not fair on your ears.

Now go on, Jay. Keep talking rubbish. We love it.

Wow. I don't even know how many I've done now. 690 is it? Blimey, mate.

690. Oh, me back. So I'm gonna go.

What I've been doing is, I don't know, I'll be working on my website all day. Last few days doing that. It's a lot of work, but I've got quite, it's stuff that you're never gonna notice, but I've done a lot of work.

And added recordings, streams, you could stream them that weren't on there. There was quite a few. And yeah, lots, in fact, that I hadn't put on.

So every single recording now, as far as I'm aware, but I'll have to check, is available. You can download it. It's now £1.99 to download, but I'm just sort of put that on there for the future, because at the moment no one's, everyone just streams them generally, but they're free to stream.

So it's free service, free to stream. If you, I don't just put the main, the one recording, I put all three. I put the two hour version of music and the five hour version of music on there as well, all on the same page.

So you can stream whichever version you want for free. So that's it. So I've been doing that.

And tomorrow, I'm probably still going to do some website work, but tomorrow I'm probably going to get the old MacBook out and start to train myself into using the Adobe software. So I'm thinking about making some videos for all of my old recordings. So have a, like an animation or some kind of graphics on the, on the, on the video with my audio on the in, you know, added.

The thing with that is it's going to take weeks probably, because of the amount of recordings and to process, to, to, to make them. I mean, there'll be a lot of repetition once I've got the right make, the right mix, the right design for each podcast. And then just add the episodes, and it'll be the same design, I guess, different title.

However, the uploading part will take a while. So I don't know, because I'm a little bit worried, although I haven't got many subscribers, 500 and something, I don't know. And if I start uploading hundreds of recordings, or hundreds of videos, I could lose those subscribers because it'd be so inundated.

So what I might just do is ignore all that, all the old stuff, and then just upload new recordings from now and start to make videos. However, I don't really want to make video I do and I don't. Does that make sense? I think I don't know.

When I just make a podcast, I can sit here in pajamas, I can sit here with nothing on, I can sit here wearing a sailor suit, or dressed as a cowboy, whatever, you know, Zorro, whatever I want, I can, I don't have to prepare myself for a video camera. And it's something that I didn't really give a huge amount of thought to. Recently, I've just, I don't mind, but when I was in Cornwall, and I filmed myself a few times on my phone, and that was okay, because I was outside, it was a scenic view, some of it, and it was, I was doing something like, oh, this is what I'm up to now.

This is what I'm doing now. I'm on holiday, everybody. Now.

But I don't know, I'm gonna see. The main thing is the podcasts. But YouTube, I still, I still love YouTube.

I use, I watch YouTube videos more than I watch any of the other streaming services. I do. I watch during a week, probably 10 times, if not more, 20 times maybe, the amount of time I spend watching anything else, YouTube is the one I go to.

I watch, it's just so much on there, educational, bit of entertainment here and there. Studying Thailand at the moment, so I'm kind of watching a lot of those vlogs from the Thailand, people live in Thailand, because I'm seriously considering my options as far as going there maybe for a month next year, or when I'm able to financially do it. Or maybe I don't live there, because I think someone like that, I'd need to go to first.

When I was younger, I'd have just gone. If I had the money, if I was in this situation, 20 years ago, I'd have just gone to Thailand. If I knew that potentially I might have enough income coming in to get me by to live cheaply, because you can live cheaply in Thailand.

I don't want to live cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap. I don't want to live like a little birdie. I don't want to live cheap, cheap.

I want to be able to do stuff. I don't want to live on such a small budget so that all I've got is food and somewhere to live. Because you say, okay, but you've got the beach, man, you've got the beach.

Yeah, but the beach is gonna, there's more to life than a beach. You know, I want to, I'm still going to want to eat, you know, have a, just go and do things, maybe go and have some drinks and go out and do stuff. Maybe date, get a girlfriend or something and date and that means that my costs will double.

In fact, my costs would probably go a lot more than double because I'll be doing stuff that I wouldn't normally do. Messages. So, you know, things that I wouldn't normally do, like maybe going on mini cruises and going to other islands and going to fun fairs and stuff like that maybe, that I wouldn't do on my own, would do with someone else, but then it's going to cost me quite a lot, well, a fair bit of money to do it.

So, I really need at least £1500 a month coming in to facilitate a decent lifestyle in Thailand if I was going to be living there all the time, but not live like a holiday. If you live like it's your holiday, then I'd probably need three grand a month because, you know, realistically, like anywhere, you can get through money really easily if you're not careful and being on holiday is a time when perhaps we're less bothered about it and just pay on a credit card, oh, it don't matter.

I mean, it'd be easy just, you know, take two credit cards, got a grand between them, I could just go on holiday with that, but I've got to pay them off first in order to have a grand on them, but, you know, it's okay for a holiday, but you can't live like a holiday all year round.

Would you want to though? I don't know, I don't think I would. I don't know, I have to go and see, wait and see, it's, yeah, I also want to go to Norway, I want to go to America, I'd like to go to Australia, Canada, I'd like to, but I thought I'd like to go to some of those places via cruises. That appeals to me, rather than by flight, I'd like to go long haul, long way around with cruises in the future.

Everything's in the future, isn't it? What I mean is not right now, but sometime in the future, I think it'd be fun, but also not to leave things too late. I don't want it to leave everything, oh, in the future, I'll do this in the future. Well, I'm not at an age when I can really do that so much.

I need to start thinking well soon. I'm not, I can't put stuff off for years now. I mean, I might be able to, but I won't know, I won't know until I'm older, how old I am, won't I? Yeah, if I get to live to be like my nan, 95, 96, then, you know, I could say, well, I could have put that off for a year or two years when I was 50.

I could have done it when I was 53, not 50. But at the moment, I don't know that. So I guess I should sort of try and do stuff as soon as possible, start living, start having some fun.

That's what I want to do, I want to have some fun. And to me, I like ferries, getting on a boat and just leaving. That's nice, that's fun to me.

And just sometimes meeting new people, not, not for some, you know, I'm not kind of long term relationship. Let's be friends forever and ever and ever. Because we sat next to each other on a plane.

I'm not really that kind of person. But I can have a laugh with them while I'm sitting next to them on a plane. You know, that's that's can be fun.

You may meet a bloke or a woman or whoever. And you can have time of your life with them for a few hours. You know, in the bar or just wherever, just sit in there.

And you could just have a laugh, it could be fun. And then you never see him again. And I think that's part of the charm.

Anyway, I want to go. Remember, remember to be kind to yourself. Because you deserve to be happy.

Do something nice to yourself today, or tomorrow, or and tomorrow. Lots of love. And I will speak to you tomorrow.

Bye.