#781 Let me bore you to sleep - HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE - Jason Newland (24th DECEMBER 2021)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. This is Let Me Bore You to Sleep. My name's Jason Newland and please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Today is Christmas Eve and welcome one and all to this seasonal episode of well however the pronunciation is LBB.

So how are you getting on? Everyone okay? All looking forward to Quimbo? Are you looking forward to it? I wonder how many people if anyone will actually listen to me tomorrow. Being Christmas and that I guess a lot of people have got way more interesting things to do. I'm not one of those people.

I'm guessing a few of you are not also one of those people and perhaps there's a few of you that are listening today or listening now or that listen to these recordings. Maybe you're on your own or you don't celebrate Christmas or maybe you don't for you know personal reasons or maybe because maybe you don't have anyone to celebrate Christmas with. I'm kind of somewhere in the middle of that.

I will be on my own Christmas day. First time really since 2015 because I had Andre with me every Christmas during that period for 2015, 2016 Christmas, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. So I had six Christmases with him.

And now it's 2021 and yes it's been me on my own which is fine. I'm not bothered. I'm not bothered.

Could have gone to my dad's but the thing is with the things as they are with the old COVID. I just I don't want to risk taking it to him because you know he's elderly now and you know if he if he is to get it if he gets it and if he was ill you know however terrible that would be anyway if I had visited him there'd be that like there'd be that thing in my mind thinking was I the one that gave it to him?

Did I pass it on to him? You know so at least I don't have to have that and hopefully he'll be fine and he won't catch it or if he does catch it it will be mild. He's had his all his jabs and everything.

We're like animals now aren't we? We're almost like pet puppies. He said you've had your jabs you can now take him for a walk. It's a little bit like that but yeah he's he's hopefully he's going to be okay you know he's not ill I'm just saying hopefully he won't he won't catch it.

It's just um my dad's had a few problems in the past with his chest.

He when he was in Russia he was because he travels quite a boy not recently in the last couple of years but before that he's since he's retired he's really made the most of his time and traveled various countries being on cruises and you know he's got around quite a bit Germany various places but when he was in Russia he had a chest infection which put him in hospital so he was in intensive care in Russia with this really bad chest infection so he was on oxygen and I suppose how you would be people with

Covid you know he was very poorly so I know he's you know he's there's that I don't think anyone else thinks about it I think he probably doesn't even think about it and I'm sure his wife and his other the family around him and they don't even give it a second thought but I think about stuff like that and I think prevention is is is you know important if possible and so yeah it's not that he's got an underlying health condition per se but he's had a few chest infections and I think it's a hereditary

thing because my nan used to have pretty bad chest infections every now and then not all the time but just every few years it'd be like really bad chest infection and I myself have had them as well over the years so it's it seems almost be like it's a hereditary thing I don't know how that works you don't know how hereditary things work well yeah I do kind of know how it gets passed down I understand that part but I don't know if there's even a name for if it is even a condition just I

guess it's no different from something like getting ear infections or bladder infections or you know someone's prone to that for whatever reason and but anyway hopefully it'll be fine and but I just don't want to be responsible for taking it down to him so I've not gone and I decided about a week ago I think it was exactly a week ago that I said I think it's last Thursday because it's now Thursday that's Friday now isn't it so it's a week ago and I phoned up and I said I won't be going and that was

before the statistics went absolutely crazy with infections at the moment we've got more infections daily than anywhere else in the world in the UK so that's you know clearly not very good there's something about 120 000 new cases today which is way more no other countries even close I mean there was 650 000 new cases throughout the whole world we had 120 000 of those just gives you an example it's just it's been going up every day I imagine tomorrow there'll be hardly any new infections because Christmas day and they probably won't even be collated

or if they are you know who's going to be doing swab tests on Christmas day I imagine it'll be everyone just like a take a day off of it all although look the government has sort of put out notice on TV and stuff that you can still get your jabs on Christmas on Christmas day I just thought well just have a day off let everyone have a day off it's Christmas day you know all the shops are closed pretty much I mean some shops open you like off licenses and garages you know petrol stations in

the UK or in England let's say England because I don't know about Scotland and Wales but in England there's pretty much nothing open on Christmas day of course hotels are open and those that I don't know I guess quite a few maybe have closed now but those that are open they'll have their restaurants where people have booked their dinners Christmas dinners and spending 150 pound or whatever for a Christmas dinner so there's those places but some pubs will open Christmas day lunchtime so people can go and have a drink whether or not that's going to

happen here I don't know whether people whether the pubs will open or not I kind of would like to go and have a drink if I'm honest I might actually do that I might walk down to see if the pubs open and just have a few pints of lager just you know just do something break the day up a bit I've never done that before but I've worked Christmas day before in a pub long time ago so I'm guessing it's still the same now I just don't live near a distance I think I've been told

it's about half hour one one side and about 45 minutes the other way so or maybe an hour nearly so there is there are pubs but they're not close you know there's a bit of a travel involved so we'll see I might go online and just have a little look to see if they've got most places seem to have their own websites these days so I might check it out you know check it out other than that um I don't yeah I'm not really sure I'm guessing I don't normally talk about Covid on these recordings

as you know but I'll just I'm briefly mentioning it but um because otherwise I'd just be talking about it in every single recording wouldn't it because that's that's almost the the topic of conversation and news wise and and I don't want to just I've tried to spend the last two years not really talking about it I mention it occasionally because you know a lot of things especially Christmas or my Christmas or what I'm doing and what a lot of other people are doing has or will be affected by what's going on with that stuff as

it was last year although last year I had Andre and I wasn't leaving him here on his own and I would never do that I never would have done that because even if he was asleep I think he just liked to know that I was here you know so he would get up and look and then go back to sleep again he liked you know he just I think he liked me being there so that you know I couldn't leave him for three days or something I mean I could have probably got my friend to

look after him but I wanted to work I think if you celebrate something like Christmas it's nice to wake up for me it makes sense to want to wait to spend Christmas day with the person that you love that you spend the rest of your year with so I spent the rest of my year with Andre so I wanted to wake up with him I wanted to spend my day with him and go for a walk in the fields or something like that and yeah so I'd normally see my my neighbor although he's away this

Christmas so I won't be seeing him but that would be the first no last year he was ill he he was here but he wasn't here he visited a friend I think the day before Christmas Eve and he was ill for about four or five days really ill and maybe he had the thingy so I didn't see anyone Christmas day last year and I won't this year so I will actually I'm going to go to the garage the petrol station because there's someone working there and he's he's working Christmas day so he won't really see

anyone so I'm going to go in there and say hi I might um I don't know just go in there and just say hi and wish him a Merry Christmas and get myself maybe a couple of bottles of water and I don't know what else I've been thinking about drinking but you know I had a neighbor came around earlier and she brought a bottle of wine around to come around and just have a glass of wine and a chat so I let her in eventually and it's the first alcohol I've had probably since May when

I was in Cornwall the first alcoholic beverage I've ingested since then although that's not totally true I might have had a glass of wine with my friend probably since then but I mean it's literally so rare just really hardly ever drink alcohol but when I was in um when I was in Cornwall that first pint of lager it was cold it was a hot summer's day or it was a summer's day wasn't hot hot it was nice and that cold lager was beautiful it really was I think it was a pint of Foster's and it

was cold and it just went down really well I really enjoyed it and I hadn't had you know any alcohol probably for the first part of that year I mean even last year on my 50th birthday I got eight cans of lager I sat down here with my friend gave him a can I had a can I couldn't even drink half of it and I gave him the rest and said see you you can take them with you I'm not going to sit here watching him drink and I just didn't want to drink so in

the end I just gave him the other six cans and he left so yeah there was something I guess it was to do with mood I wasn't in the mood but when I was in Cornwall I really was in the mood to have a little drink and I think I could have if it wasn't for the pub closing very early again because of restrictions I definitely could have stayed there till closing time you know 11 or 12 but as it turned out I think they close about eight o'clock in the evening something stupid like that

so didn't get to have a real proper drink but it was nice you know in the old days when I moved in here actually still I was still drinking every night pretty much I'd have four cans of lager a night no I had six that wasn't four six cans of lager a night it wasn't quite as regular I don't think when I moved in there I think it was mainly weekends but before that in the past it was every day for years and years and years but by the time I moved into this flat in

2015 I think I was just drinking Friday and Saturday night yeah I think that was about it so it's just a couple of nights a week which I think's fine that's quite uh it doesn't matter does it it's up to an individual although alcohol is very bad for it's very harmful actually to the brain but it's harmful especially to people with mood mood issues like I've got a mood disorder you know with the bipolar and then there's a personality disorder and emotionally unstable emotionally unstable personality disorder yeah EUDP or PD or whatever um and alcohol

is not useful for that stuff according to the experts because I listen to lectures I watch lectures on um by psychiatrists and neurologists and stuff like that brain experts behavioral experts so you know this is not my opinion this is just what I am told or what I read and what I listen to and hear and see on these lectures from these experts these professionals these professors so they can't all be wrong um therefore I guess that's not the reason I don't drink but I lost interest in it it didn't do for me what I

needed from it I didn't get what I needed now when I was in Cornwall I did get what I needed I think I needed to get away from the people I was with just for a little while just a break from you know being with anyone and just to sit outside it wouldn't have mattered if it had been a big glass of coke really to be fair I don't think it made that much difference but it was just nice to have something a bit different nice nice big coke cola so yeah excuse me here we

are again that wine made me cough really did red wine makes me cough I think it's the what's that stuff in red wine is it satins or something in the red wine really seems to get on my in my throat a bit makes me cough a little bit but I didn't drink much I probably had three quarters of a cup of wine she left it here and I've not touched it since she left and especially after she said um after she said what she did with the bottle felt before um I so I had a

I had some but I'm just not really into it it wasn't enough to give me even the slightest little buzz at all I think you need to drink at least a glass I didn't even drink a whole glass for really you need to I think you need a glass or two in order to probably get a little bit merry or have a little bit of an effect I didn't drink enough to have any effect but it's okay I'm not bothered really I just uh I wasn't even gonna let anyone in here but I thought maybe

she needed to talk you know and this time of year some people can get a bit lonely so I let her in and she you know she had the bottle of wine and um we chatted for about an hour and a half and then she left and that was it I mean I don't get many people knock on my door thankfully so when it does happen I'm not that too worried oh I let people in sometimes if they sort of if I know them obviously if I don't know them I don't answer the door I've

got my peep hole and I do not answer the door if I don't know who the person is just don't don't see the need I mean when I lived before I moved here I never answered the door never answered the front door ever because generally I lived in a shared place so my previous place there was three of us living in rooms in the cellar there's a basement those three rooms three little rooms and a bathroom and there was a door to that and then there was another door but that would be uh usually that

was unlocked but so you had to get through one door and then there's two locked doors to actually get in and the front door and then obviously each individual door that was locked I wouldn't answer the door if someone knocked I didn't answer ever if someone knocked on my door uh I generally didn't knock unless I knew who it was my neighbor right next to me I got on quite well with him so he'd knock and I'd knock at his and we'd have a chat and you know I'd borrow his vacuum cleaner and or he'd

borrow mine or whatever so you know this we had a quite a good friend you know friendly neighborly relationship so that was cool but outside of him I didn't really sort of have any contact with anyone else although I got on okay with one of the other people well two two the other men that lived upstairs because it was there was probably three six nine twelve rooms in that building because the three-story building plus the basement so I'm pretty sure there was three on each level I might be wrong two of them are one of

them I met him for the first time and I thought he was uh I thought he was going to be scary because I used to hear him shouting and he was quite high up and I'd hear him shouting really swearing and getting angry and I thought wow what kind of person is that and then I met him lovely lovely person but he was playing video games and he said to me when I play those video games I go absolutely nutty I get so involved and I'm shouting honestly shouting yeah really getting into it but outside

of the playing the video games he was fine he wasn't like that he was just a really nice bloke and then another bloke who used to work this other man he worked in Tesco in the supermarket opposite where just near where I lived and I think he left there but he still he still lived in a place where I lived and I'd already so I kind of already knew him to have a laugh with so I've been going going into that Tesco store for years and he was working there and he said all right man

we'll chat and just like hello and you know nothing just just have a laugh you know and then he moved in there and when I moved out I gave him my guitar because I bought an electric guitar with an amplifier and I never used it it's one of those things that I've always well I don't know I've always wanted to learn to play guitar I've never wanted to learn to play the guitar I wanted to be able to play the guitar I've never wanted to learn to play the piano or keyboard I wanted to be

able to play the piano and the keyboard if that makes sense it's the learning I didn't want to do I wasn't that passionate about it to learn it I just wanted to be able to do it now I realized that that's the only way that's ever going to happen is if you'll naturally have a natural ability to do something you know some people just just naturally gifted insert we're actually in fact I'm going to say we're all naturally gifted in something it's just not everybody finds out what it is I'm still waiting I can watch

television I'm quite gifted at that sleeping I'm good at sleeping but I think everybody has a gift that they're naturally talented at but that doesn't mean I don't think that means that you don't have to work at it so if someone's talented musician and they just can learn they can pick up a guitar or sit at a keyboard on the piano and bang out a tune kind of straight away it doesn't mean that's not why they're good they still have to practice they still have to learn but the learning is just so much easier if

they've already got that innate talent that just seems to have been born with maybe it's an ear for the music maybe it's the for a pianist I guess it's a lot of it to do with the fingers that the rhythm the coordination the because you know my fingers are stiff if I make a fist you know my fingers are stiff my hands stiff probably because of the years of punching punch bags and stuff that I've probably damaged my hands a little bit over the years I try to be a little bit careful but they're not

I don't think they're arthritic but they do hurt sometimes so playing a piano I suppose it'd be very good for my fingers it'd be great exercise and stretching but I don't know and I haven't got wide fingers if some pianists their fingers are about 12 inches long aren't they big old like fingers like little spiders going up and down the keyboard is I did try and learn the piano because my step-mom my second mother she was a great pianist she learned the piano at school or when while she was at school I think she might

have even did like a level in music so she was good good at it and then she left school and she got married quite early uh probably 19 or 20 to my dad so she was still quite young well of course young isn't it and then suddenly she had three kids to look after then she had a fourth one a fourth child her own first born in 1978 so she was probably about 23 at that time so she's still young and where are you going with this Jason what's this got to do with a bloody

piano okay okay listen wait wait wait I'm coming up to it and so my dad got her a piano bought her a piano it was an old um brown one that you stuck up against the wall so it wasn't like a grand piano but where the hell do you put a grand piano you need a whole room for something like that don't you but it was she loved it and I used to play I learned a few things on it because at the time I was playing the violin so I could read music and I

knew how to read music I'm not sure how much of it I understood if I'm honest you know I was taught the scales and I had lessons piano violin lessons for I don't know how long a year or two maybe a year maybe I don't remember it's all for a while so I think twice a week once or twice a week during my lunch I would go and have a violin lesson and for a half an hour or something I did one concert that I remember and I remember that was scary not it wasn't just

scary but I was doing it with one other person so some would say well it's got to be easier if you're playing the violin with someone with you because if you're just doing it on your own you're on this it's almost like you're on the stage on your own boy yeah they say well and if you mess up everyone can hear it well if there's two of you and you mess up everyone can hear it trust me if there's a whole orchestra violins are quite prominent and quite high pitched you can hear if a violin

messes up but the problem is if you've got two like there was just me and the other person and I don't think there's anyone else on stage we were just there was there was a concert and the different musicians or musical children got on stage I got on stage with one other person that played the violin and we was we had to do it in sync and that is harder than I would say than doing it on your own because you have to do it at the same time as the other person now I don't

know how the hell I pulled it off if indeed I did pull it off I don't remember yeah I didn't get um there was no booing but I was probably nine years old ten years old nine nine or ten you don't boo a small child do you at school um at least you shouldn't do but I don't I don't think I was particularly good at it but I I don't know I might have been competent I really can't remember I remember once right this is totally true I had to take the violin home with me

to practice and I did I I was pretty good like keeping to the practicing uh cleaning the strings uh doing what I needed to do to keep the violin in good condition I looked after it I really did look after the and they were all old all old violins not you know hundreds of years old but they were I guess some of them probably 20 odd years old just because they'd been at the school for that long and I did look after them the guitar the violin I had and there was this one time and

it was a nice it was a really nice violin after being there for a while they gave me a nice one so to start with they just let you take a you know a bit more of a tatty one home to make sure that you were trustworthy and then after a while they they gave me a really nice one that sounded nicer than the one I had before and it was it was almost like giving me a a present although it wasn't really mine but I quite liked the responsibility I think and it was nice

and shiny and it wasn't shiny wait a minute was it was it a trumpet no it's a trumpet not not a violin that wasn't and I don't remember once I'm I'm running it must have been icy or raining or something and I'm running home and I've got this violin in one hand and I've got my backpack you know with my school books and whatever else in the other hand or shoulder and I trip over I don't know if I tripped over or I got hit by a or something happened I can't remember but the result

is the violin smashed onto the the case smashed onto the floor and it opened so either I didn't have the latches on properly uh or it just the the shock of it shook it open and the violin smashed onto the floor and partly broke it was damaged it was probably irreparably damaged actually but the it was it was kind of in pieces really now I put it you could rattle it you could rattle a case which you shouldn't really be able to do with the violin I guess you shouldn't really rattle a violin case anyway

but so this was the Friday night and I had to so I hid it I hid I just put the I didn't have to hide the violin case I just put the violin case on top of the wardrobe when I got home and I didn't touch it all weekend and I didn't know what to do I was so scared to tell my parents and the anxiety that I was suffering was huge because I knew it was an accident but my dad wasn't really a believer of accidents really he'd find a way to I figured he'd

find a way to blame me and to really be horrible to me about it that's that's what I was thinking and I'd get in trouble and maybe like really you know in trouble and because I was a kid I I made it bigger than it really was although it's kind of a could have been a big deal really you know in a way but it was an accident I fell over and the thing smashed it's not like I was running down the street playing the violin you know I mean I wasn't you know it was

in the case I wasn't like using it as a baseball bat or anything like that I was it wasn't anything silly I only did that once anyway so come the next week so the whole weekend was awful come the next week Monday I had to you know take it back in because I had a lesson I had two lessons to do that week I think it was maybe a Wednesday and a Friday something like that or Tuesday and a Friday it was definitely a Friday because I remember walking back I'd have to walk home on

a Friday so I went in and I said I forgot my guitar I forgot my violin so I went to the lesson I think one of the lessons I just said I'm unwell I can't do the lesson today and well I might have even took a day off I might have just pretended to be ill so I didn't have to go to school well by the end of the week I kind of had no choice I'm pretty sure I stretched it out to two weeks didn't take it on a Friday didn't take it on them

on the following Tuesday and then they said you have to bring it in Friday because they were doing I think it was some kind of concert like for the school but it was like a in-school thing no parents but just like a little thing now I hadn't practiced so it was you know like oh I'm gonna do it but anyway I told I in the end I had to take the violin in and explain to the teacher that it was broken what happened I broke it it was an accident teacher didn't care it's like accidents

happen it's fine you know I didn't realize as a kid I didn't realize that this had probably happened loads of times with lots of the different kids over the years you know kid pierced the drum or maybe you know a trumpet get run over by a car you know just things like that happen in life it's it's not like I purposely did it it wasn't as a big issue as I in my mind I thought it was I really was the biggest there wasn't anything bigger in the entire world in my mind at that time

and it's weird I've never talked about this before ever I don't know if I've ever I forgot all about it until just now seriously forgot all about it and I came home on the Friday and no what wait a minute no what I did you remember I started crying and I was my step my my second mum she and I said I've got something to show you I'm really really sorry and I'm really started crying and I showed her the violin I told her what happened and she said it's okay she went yeah she came

into the school with me to see this to see the school teacher the music teacher to explain what happened and as I said they were fine about it and then they gave me another violin they trusted me with another violin would you believe and yeah you can have the old one back so yeah I left and I had another violin and it was it was all okay she never told my dad which is the thing I was more worried about than anything that he'd get angry and upset with me and but she never told him

and that was such a relief because I was petrified of that and you know sometimes it wasn't that he was going to do anything bad it's just I was going to have to listen to him going on and on and on and on and almost being expected to like sometimes the truth just wasn't enough I fell over and the violin case hit the ground opened and smashed onto the ground that was a truth but that's not enough it was just like what you do running what you do and to make it last about four hours

and for me that's just torture that was just I couldn't put up with that couldn't handle that it was too much I was like this is what happened that's it but that wasn't enough so I just dreaded that conversation that ongoing trying to justify my existence conversation to the point where I didn't even know what the truth was anymore because to make to feel that like it's almost like I want to admit it you smashed it on the floor on purpose I'm just like no I didn't though I didn't not my brother I didn't do

that my brothers might have done something like that I don't know but I didn't I remember once my brother he chucked a Christmas tree through someone's spokes of their bike while they were riding they shouted abuse at him and this was when we was very young I was about eight and he was 10 so this kid rode past shouting out like that to my brother so he picked up this Christmas tree it was a branch of a Christmas tree you know like the outdoor trees not it didn't have tinsel on it but he picked it

up and he threw it like a javelin and it went through the scope through the spokes of this the back spokes of this kid's bike and he went flying for about a mile and about 10 minutes later knock on the door and there was a appearance of this kid holding the kid who was a bit bruised and damaged and crying and a bike where the bike was completely ruined like you know the the wheel was buckled to to complete it was almost in half but the rest of the bike was smashed because of the hit

in the ground and my brother's saying no it weren't me and then he looked at me like so what happened in those days at that kind of age you know before the age of eight nine ten I had a tendency of admitting to stuff just even if it wasn't me sometimes I started to think was it me was it me that did it I start to feel guilty even though it had nothing to do with me but I must admit I enjoyed watching it I mean this kid was being he was rude he was being

rude to both me and my brother but to see such that's weird to see such athleticism of a kid a ten-year-old kid in fact it's probably nine because I was about seven at the time so I was about nine to see him pick up just a branch and to be able to hurl it and for it to land between the spokes and we weren't close we weren't a long way away you know in my mind we were about you know 100 yards away and it was like an amazing Guinness Book of Records but it wasn't

it was but we weren't right close so he did it from a distance and wow the aim was amazing so I was well impressed with that and then to see this kid go flying it was brilliant as a kid it's fun to see someone you know get their just rewards he wasn't hurt he had a few bruises and stuff and probably ego more than anything else but my brother refused to admit to doing it no it wasn't so then my dad like was it you to all the rest of us well why are you asking

me if it was me the kid said it was him like the kid said that it was my brother the kid that fell off his bike so why are you asking me if it was me if the kid just said it was him that's what I said I said didn't he just say it was Darren you know but why are you asking if it's me ask him was it me no I'm not going to grass up my brother but don't try and put the blame on me god damn it and my dad said to bed

now up those stairs um no dinner for you good don't not ravioli anyway but it was my brother was I think if he hadn't um gone the way he went in his life you know he went in a different direction but I think he could have been an athlete like a proper Olympic athlete and you might have yeah yeah yeah yeah no I'm serious he had physical talents that you couldn't even teach I see him do stuff like during sports day right and I don't know you might not have sports day where you live I'll

explain what it is for those that don't know what it is once a year in the schools um just one afternoon it lasts for maybe two or three hours maybe maybe a bit longer in the afternoon in the summer there's a day of sports all the years get together the parents are invited to sit and watch and if some of the races are a bit fun um what do they call it the the hopping races and egg and spoon races and the sack races and sometimes the parents would even get involved in some of them

but they were the fun events but outside of those they already had they all were there they also had proper events like running hurdling and pole vaulting uh the long I think maybe high jump they had stuff like that and my brother seemed to win everything he won the 100 meters he won the 200 meters I think he won the pole vault that we didn't have pole vaulting but the uh high jump whatever he was he was just athletically superior for his age and and he wasn't skinny he's he was almost not chubby but he

had you know he wasn't he wasn't it wasn't like big big but he's definitely wasn't skinny he wasn't he wasn't fat or anything but he had obviously he seemed to have this energy where he could be really quick really like instantly be like super fast and that might have come from our childhood when we had to run away from things you know there's we were born we lived on this council estate in Newcastle which was very rough um and he used to start trouble with people he'd shout out abuse at people for other kids and

then run he'd leave me there to deal with it thanks I was only about four years old or something like oh brilliant here we go again but another time again I was eight so he would have been ten I had this kid like give me hassle and we I had this it wasn't a friend he was like an enemy but we just kept fighting I've occasionally it was like turned into fistfights and I always won but occasionally it just was just a bit verbal and it's you know he'd hold his own on that one and

sometimes I just couldn't be bothered I was just chilling out you know and he'd come and start oh and I think I think I think he pushed me over from behind so he pushed me onto the grass I did I was just talking to someone and he ran up and he pushed me over so I'm a bit dazed like get up and my brother was a fair distance away right and he threw a tennis ball and it landed right in his eye socket now it might sound like oh yeah yeah no I'm see it really

did because he had the biggest black eye afterwards how could you even aim I mean he's like that's a lucky shot yeah but he aimed he unless he was aiming it at me maybe he was like oh no that little brother of mine is annoying me I'll hit him with a tennis ball but he threw it and he was I don't even exaggerate how far he was away but it was a proper throw in the air so you couldn't even see it coming like you'd look up at the sky and I'm not saying it was

in space I'm not saying that I'm saying if the the sun was shining you wouldn't like quite be able to see where it was and it hit him right in the eye and I was right next to the kid you know he was same age I was right next to him when it so it hit him and and this sounds like a lie but it's true another time we was walking from the beach up to to home and there was these three kids giving us hassle now we were there was me my brother but and

we had our little brother who was very little he was probably about three or four we were limited to what we could do because we had him we couldn't just turn around and start you know getting into a barney because we had my little brother to look after and we knew if anything happened to him we would get into serious trouble so we just carried on walking and tried to ignore them and they were following us and spitting at us and trying to really like verbally call you know and chucking stones at us and um

my brother warned them a few times because one was probably his age maybe one was a little bit old and then one was about my age and the other one was like in the middle somewhere and they were like tough kids or whatever like trying to be tough once we got to the end of the road where we lived my brother said to my little brother just go in so my brother my little brother ran into the house to get my dad i said get dad because i was like oh i've had enough of this

what we're going to do my brother turned around and he punched all three of them with one punch now this sounds like a lie i'm not even joking he hit one his fist slid off of his face hit the chin of the next one slid off of his face and then hit the nose or whatever the eye of the other one now again it sounds like a lie but it's true honestly two of them were crying and the other one was like oh you do that for but he literally punched just a left punch left

hook and he hit all three of them with one punch now i've never seen that in my life before or afterwards didn't think it was possible still can't believe it really happened but it did happen now my brother went on to be like a fighter like a proper he you know he could fight and he loved fighting and that was one of the things that he loved doing and probably one of the things that he was had a natural ability to do and when he was in the forces he he learned martial arts and i

thought he may probably done a bit of boxing and stuff as well but that's where he and he was always he loved fighting he used to go and get into fights with the army and with the royal air force and stuff it was just seems to be part of the culture if you're the raf or the army or the navy you'd go out with your troops and you'd end up getting into go to the pubs end up getting into punch-ups with other forces which is weird because you think they'd all be in the same kind

of if you think they'd all be together wouldn't you i mean it's they're all serving the same cause the same country but hey it's a culture thing that i didn't really understand but my brother loved it but yeah so i don't talk much about my brothers um but when i do i try and keep it nice and you might feel well it doesn't sound very nice you're talking about you know punch-ups and stuff well yeah but i've done it in a light way like it's not talking about anything bad um at that time but he

had a real skill is there was a a quickness of him i mean he's very quick-witted very had a very very quick mind very quick mind and um almost just i don't know how to explain it but because i'm quite slow i'm just i'm almost like a snail and i do leave trails on the carpet but i'm i'm almost very sticky and smelly um i scream when i when i even see salt i scream and run now i'm don't salt on your chips no i don't i'm a slug don't you know um i've always had

quite quick responses or reactions responses as in you know so if i thought if i dropped something i can i can catch it quite often and you know that's that's quite good but i think it's probably it's probably no more than anyone else but i just you know i don't know how those reactions are now but i think doing the martial arts in the past helps with that helps sometimes with balance and it helps with because you know you have to block punches and kicks and stuff like that so there's a degree of reacting perhaps

a bit more quicker than you would normally need to because normally you wouldn't have people kicking or punching you you know in an ideal situation that would never happen but in the gym if you're training doing that stuff then of course it happens you know twice a week or whatever weeking week out so yeah um i don't even know why i'm thinking about that stuff but they just i think it's because i was talking about it earlier with someone that's probably why not about those situations but just about yeah certain things maybe i suppose because

to me christmas i haven't had a proper christmas since 1985 when my brothers were with us you know when the family was together all of us together 1984 1985 that's kind of the last two years where both the parents and all four kids were together and no matter how we didn't really get on that well uh generally christmas was one time where it was almost like a truce you know i'd get on with my brothers there wouldn't really be any arguments uh my dad would be the happiest he'd be all year christmas day it was

his happiest day of the year and still is so my mom would be happy as well but she'd be very busy i didn't appreciate back then how much huge amounts of work go into this whole thing well my dad probably did most of the well not that i think he did quite a lot of stuff like in the evening getting all the presents out and putting them in and um you know getting christmas ready christmas eve um so he'd do a lot of stuff there but you know when it came to wrapping i think that

was i feel i used to help out with that but of course i didn't get to wrap my own presents and then because obviously santa did that hmm i don't get to see your own presents till santa delivers them and he a mom my second mom she's a third one really i've had a few moms like the first mom the one who i popped out of and in 1970 it was a wednesday in august and then my second mom really was the one that fostered me for a year and a half so i grew up

thinking of her as my mom in some ways you could say she was the most important female of my life because that period between um six months three four five six months whatever and two years has got to be the most important time in your brain development it's such a huge you know especially with things like attachment and um so don't know who she was don't know what her name was or anything because i've not seen her since i was two and then my third mom wasn't until i was eight no seven seven years old

just before i was seven so that's when the third mom came along and i called her mom and then she she had my little brother when i was eight so she you know in fact the day before my eighth birthday he popped out still got the same i say this for years he i say it to his face he still got the same face the same head and same face same size as when he was born seriously no wonder she was angry and and and walked funny and so i don't think i appreciated and i

don't think anyone really appreciates when their kids how much the parents actually do when it comes to especially things like christmas all that cooking all that preparation it's a huge job it's it's not like just like cooking a meal and then you know just cooking one meal for six people is quite a lot a lot of work there but you know it's it's it's not really that much more work it's more quantity than anything else but depending on the size of the cooker and stuff you know it's it's it's a case of trying to get

all kind of ready at the same time so it's ready to eat at the same time but christmas she must have been knackered at the end of the day really all the stuff she did and i didn't appreciate it i really didn't not one bit i gave it no thought i mean she didn't have to do the washing up we always did the washing up i hated it but we all did it and i would help around stuff with cooking and but i think on christmas she didn't really um want my help or need it

i think my nan came down her mum came down so i think that she had a bit of help with that but you know so it wouldn't just be six of us there'd be maybe six seven eight nine maybe more for christmas day lunch so it'd be quite a big lunch oh you know and yeah it's a lot of work but i loved christmas honestly i can honestly say no matter how weird my life has been over the years you know childhood onwards christmases from the ages of 8 onwards or probably 7 onwards actually from

7 to 14 or 15 yes just from 7 to 14 ages 7 to 14 were brilliant i don't remember uh any negative really okay a few little bits and bobs but generally christmases were great i think the last christmas was a bit weird not weird there was a few weird bits but you know pretty much um it was still a good christmas but it was a bit strange because we were all older and my oldest brother was like what 19 or something 18 and he wasn't really that interested 19 actually i don't even know if

he was still living there so that might not have been we might not have all been together that year but the year before definitely 1984 we were all together and so from to from 1990 1977 christmas to 1984 christmases were brilliant rest of the year not so much but christmases were great you know i honestly i can honestly say i couldn't have had better christmases well i wouldn't even wish for better christmases than what i had they were the best um you know as far as parents go we had the best parents in the world

at christmas they were just brilliant we had loads of presents and you know it was just so much it's just never uh food the tv was always good because in them days we used to have movies on that would been had been at the cinema and they'd been and then they'd show them like maybe four or five years after being in the cinema they'd show them on telly like the new james bond film or something like that and it was just really really good times and yeah so very they're kind of the probably the most

positive memories i have i don't really remember that much about them i just remember that they were brilliant christmas day christmas eve as well but christmas day was great great time and you know pretty much the whole christmas period that wasn't really everyone was sort of quite happy they got presents and i i'd get books because i was into books so i'd be reading and i'd spend a bit of time in a bedroom my own reading or then i'd go out with my friend and especially when i got my bike i got my bike probably

when i was about 13 probably 1983 would probably be it might have been earlier than that but it might have been 1982 but i think 1983 i got my racer and because i already had a bike but this was or did i have a bike yeah well i got a racer anyway and it was great and i was out and about all the time from then onwards you know hardly was at home at all for just i was at home but i'd be out on my bike you know and my friend had a bike and

we just we just go for long rides and just hang out and it was fun at that time yeah blimey christmas memories of christmas past i think my last good christmas that i remember where i was really quite happy actually because i've had i've been to christmases at my dad's many times over the years um but i've missed quite a few as well um but during the 90s i used to go every year to my dad's and stay with him because i lived in london so i'd visit him and i'd stay there or i'd stay

at my nan's but my memory my favorite memory of christmas was as an adult was 2004 christmas 2004 and i just started a new job well i started in i think the beginning of september and that whole year i'd been ill and i was starting to feel better and i was slim i'd lost a lot of weight i was exercising i was doing wing chun kung fu and that whole year was a weird year but i was kind of i'd love anxiety and i was dealing with that but i was feeling the best that i

felt for a long time i had a job that i was okay at and and i remember i was sorting out my finances so that was going quite well i'd got a loan to consolidate all my debts so that was i was feeling yeah quite a positive thing and i spent christmas at my nan's i think this was one of the last years she it was the last year she spent christmas there after that she went to my aunt's every year because i used to see her every year at christmas but after 2004 i never

once again saw her at christmas she just never stayed there she was always away so 2004 i stayed at my nan's house stayed in the spare room the year before i think i stayed at my nan's house but my her brother was there as well and what i'd usually do i'd stay there and then i'd um yeah my uncle my aunt and her husband were there that year 2004 so i spent christmas eve with them i stayed overnight and then i went to my dad's for christmas they had their christmas dinner together with my with

my dad with my aunt and uncle and my nan they said christmas dinner there my dad went and visited and everything to say happy christmas i think when he picked me up actually and then uh boxing day they all came to his we all went to his and had dinner at boxing day and i remember i went to church i think new on christmas eve midnight mass but it was on at something like seven in the evening went with my nan and it was just really lovely i just remember uh it's almost like it was

the end of a year that had been very difficult but i kind of got through it and i was feeling okay and i was with my nan i was with my nanny i was a nanny's boy i was with her i was with my aunt and uncle i got really well with and it was brilliant actually i really enjoyed it went to my dad's for christmas that was great and then came back and spent the evening with my nan and my uncle and aunt and then boxing day he went that he did that and then

the day after boxing day i came home because i had to go to work that was the last christmas i really really um i guess because it was with my nan i got to see my nan but it was that particular year just was that's in my memory i don't remember specific christmases really i do a little bit as i think about it probably there are a few but that was one that i really really enjoyed um yeah it's not the only one i enjoyed i'm saying it's one that i enjoyed i really um hold

quite dear to my heart and my dad he loves christmas he is actually santa claus at christmas and he puts on the best christmas he just loves it his favorite day of the year and you know it's always good it just you know it's it's almost like it's not my family it's his family it's his family that he's built you know his new wife i don't not know they've been together about 100 years but his you know step children and then their kids who he's knit his grandchildren who he loves to bits and i'm not

really part of that i don't see them i get on with them i don't see them hardly ever and so i'm not part of what's going on there and it's nobody's fault it's just just the way it is i don't live there i'm not in the loop you know so when you see someone twice a year maybe like outside of these times i'd normally see them maybe once or twice a year and there's only so much you can really talk about because you can't talk about really you say what's what else things going yes it's

going good this is happening this is happening but you can't have the normal conversation that you perhaps normally have if you're seeing someone regularly it's it's limited conversational you know you can't say to me so uh how's your constipation jason um because i don't know about it because i don't see them regularly i don't want to bring up constipation when i'm at the dinner table having me dinner me christmas dinner so how are your piles jj still suffering with shunken willy yeah thanks everyone lovely pasta stuffing so anyway um i'm gonna go so this is

christmas eve have a great christmas eve everybody and i will do another recording tomorrow on christmas day it'll be in the evening or sometime lots of love take care and remember be gentle with yourself okay and if you love this day then you have the best day ever if it's if you don't if you're not a christmas person or you're on your own or whatever just remember it's it's only one day it's only one day and then you know once that's done things just go back to normal pretty much so you can get through it

and you know mate if you've got someone you can phone to say hi to or just have a conversation or if you can get out go for a walk you know do something like that if you can but take care of yourself okay lots of love bye