#880 Books - Let me bore you to sleep - Jason Newland (17th August 2022)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name's Jason Newland and this is Let Me Bore You to Sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Hello, how are you doing? You all right? I just realised that, I don't know if I'm too far up.

I'm quite close to the end of the, the end, the top of the screen. I don't think I need this much of my body being thin. Anyway, hello, hope you're well.

I don't know if you can see, oh yeah, only listen when you can safely close your eyes if you haven't, if I didn't say that already. The background, I'm trying to do a background which is acceptable. So I've got my books in the background.

And most of them are hypnosis books you probably might not be able to see. But there's other ones as well. One particular book, which is, it's a book I've had, it's my longest book.

I don't mean lengthwise. I don't mean lengthwise, there's two lengths, isn't there? I don't mean girth, but it's, there's not length as in how long it takes to read or how thick, but, or the size of it, physical size. But I've had it the other book in my, it's quite a small library that I've got, but I'm going to increase it.

I used to have a lot of books years ago. In fact, if you can't see them, there's a few videos online from my early days back in 2006, 2007. Some of them are in black and white.

And there's some videos of me doing hypnosis and stuff like that. And the backdrop was all bookcases. There's about four bookcases behind me, I think, maybe two or three, two then, yeah, so there's all bookcases.

And I quite like that. I don't have all those books anymore. But I've got, I've replaced a lot of them, the important ones.

But I don't have, I used to have a lot of Buddhist books, I used to have a lot of philosophy books, I used to have a lot of psychology books. Other subjects I used to have, I used to have quite a few books on mental health issues. I went through a period when I was very interested in Asperger's, you know, kind of that kind of autism.

I'm not sure if it's a very nice term, but the higher functioning autism, like Asperger's, etc. It sounds a bit demeaning to other people, doesn't it? Like, so I got bipolar. And some people, you know, you get these books and these, and go online, and you find out that some of the most creative people in the world's history had bipolar, or as it was called manic depressant, manic depressive.

But that's what it used to be called. And it's like, oh, and then they might do a little test, see whether or not you're a creative genius. And then you do the test and you think, oh, great.

So you know, I'm not high functioning. Brilliant. Wonderful.

I'm not a genius. Oh, great. Thanks.

Thanks for clearing that up. Now I can go along with my life all happy. So this is one of my oldest books of all time.

As in, I've still got it from when I originally purchased it back in, it was either 1990, I'd say it's about 1993. Maybe 1994. The latest would be 1995.

But I think it was about 93 time. And might have been 92 even, but it was about that time. It's a book called The Teaching of Buddha.

And don't worry, I'm not here to try and convert you to Buddhism. But I've still got the price label in it. £25.

Now £25 for a book in the early 90s was a lot of money. A lot of money. I mean, for a book, okay, £25 itself wasn't huge, huge, huge amount of money.

You know, you couldn't buy a house for it, obviously. Unless it was made of Lego. But £25 for a book was excessive.

Especially when you look at it. It's a small book. It's not a big book.

It's got quite a few pages. I mean, there's over 600 pages in this. So it's very thin paper.

Now, if you're listening to this on a podcast, if you want to have a little look at what the book is to see the cover and you know, whatever I'm describing, maybe visit my YouTube channel and have a little look. Because this is both a podcast, this is both, you know, on YouTube and on all of the podcast hosts, basically, Spotify, I got Apple Podcasts now, isn't it? It's not iTunes anymore, is it? Stitcher, Spreaker, Google Podcasts, Luminary, and I don't know, lots, lots of different ones. In fact, I can tell you exactly.

No, no, yeah, I can. No, not the website. Yes, the website.

I don't want to see your website. No, it's okay. Don't worry.

It's fine. It'll be fine. Let me just show you.

For example, let me bore you to sleep. If I click on that, it should tell me all the different podcasts it's on. Yeah, it does.

Don't read it out. I'm going to read it out. So Apple Podcasts, Spotify podcast.

I won't read the word podcast out for each one because that's just tedious, isn't it? Amazon. I'm on Castbox, Stitcher, Google, iHeartRadio, Curio, Caster, Luminary, Overcast, Player FM, Pocket Casts, Podcast Index, Podchaser, Podfriend, Podstation, Podverse, Radio Public, Fountain Podcasts, Podcast Addict, Spreaker, Podbean, Audible, Acast, Listen Notes, Radio UK, TuneIn, Podparadise, iVoox, Chartable, Deezer, Rephonic, Backtracks, Owltail, Geo7, Podtail, Angami, Blueberry, Podtoppin, and YouTube as well when I make the videos. So, you know, I'm kind of spread out all around the place for the podcasts, but the videos are only available on here.

And I guess I will perhaps make them available on the website. I don't know, maybe. So I've had this book, had this book since, yeah, early 90s.

And I remember I basically, I've been collecting books and then losing them, or maybe selling them or giving them away, or, you know, different things over the years. I used to be an avid book collector when I was a kid. Now, I haven't got the book on me.

Where is it? Where is the book? The book? I haven't got it. Oh, I basically, I ordered a book. I'm saying basically a lot.

I've got to stop that. I basically got to stop that. I ordered a book online, which was the very first book I ever had.

I just realised my sleeves are up. What's that about? What's up with that? That's about good. And I, I'm going back, my very first book, and it's somewhere, I think it's over there on that table.

Might be on that table somewhere. And to get to it means I have to stop the recording because it means moving this desk out and blah, blah, blah. So I can't be bothered.

So I, I had that book. And then when I was, that was the only book I had that I remember until, and that was when I was about five, probably, maybe six years old. So that was my first book that I remember.

I mean, there might be books before that that were read to me. I don't remember that. But this is the first book I had of my own.

And I was in a, I was living in Southend, I think it was Southend at the time. I was living in a children's home. And it was run by nuns, Catholic nuns, always lovely.

And they had this phaeton, like a jumble sale, which I guess was to raise money for the children's home, I don't know, something like that. And the public would bring in bags of stuff and crap they didn't want, because that's what people give to jumble sales, isn't it? They don't give stuff they like, they just give like any old rubbish that they don't want anymore, rather than chuck it out. And some people would say, No, that is not true.

I give my most valuable, my valuable possessions to charity places. Yes, of course you do. And this wasn't a charity, well, it was, but it wasn't.

And it's run by the Catholic Church. So I guess that is, is that a charitable place? It seemed very charitable when I lived there. So I guess we must have got some money sometimes, because we did go out, unless we just didn't have any money.

And I saw this book, and I wanted it. But I had no money. So they were setting up all the little tables and putting stuff out and all that stuff, you know.

And I saw this book, and I wanted it. But I had no money. Didn't get pocket money, didn't, didn't have any money, money.

I don't know. Well, I guess we must have got some money sometimes, because we did go out, unless we just didn't have any money to buy anything. I don't know.

Can't remember. It's a long time ago. But I didn't have any money anyway, on that particular moment.

I must have forgotten my wallet, my checkbook, credit cards, I must have just left them in the dorm. So I just, I said to the lady, I can't remember the exact conversation, because it was, it was like 1000 years ago. But the end result is she gave me the book.

She said, you can have it. Because that's how I imagine she spoke. All the time.

Oh, good morning. How are you today? Yeah, that's all the time. I'm really hungry.

I'd like some cheese on toast. That's how I imagine she spoke. Whether she did or not, I don't know.

Might have been a man. Don't know. Might have been, could have been an elephant.

I don't know. Who knows these days. But it was a woman.

And she gave me this book. She said, oh, you can, you can take it with you. And I said, okay, thanks.

You mean I don't have to sort of keep coming back when I want to read it? I was a little bit sarcastic back then. She said, no, you can take it with you now. Take it home with you.

I am home. This is where I live. Oh, it's like, I think it was something like, I'd like, can I get that book, please? This book? Yes, of course you can.

That'll be 25 pence or whatever. Well, I don't have any money. Can I get it for free, please? No, we're selling these books to raise money for the poor orphan children who live in the building over there, the big white building.

I am one of those children. Give me that damn book. I didn't say it like that, obviously, because I was a small child.

I was, plus, sniffing, that's nice. That's a good sound effect. Yeah, I didn't.

You wouldn't believe, if you had a picture from over there of me, you wouldn't believe how squashed I am right now into this little space that I've made for this recording. And normally when I make just a podcast about a video, I'm over there and I've got space and I can swivel around. And I don't swivel around, but I can move around.

I mean, at the moment, I suppose I can move both my arms, but I might bang the microphone. Or should I rephrase that to maybe knock the microphone? So I've got this book and it was a Jackie Norby book. And I've talked about it a few times over the years, more recently as well.

And I mentioned that I was going to buy it and I'd ordered it when I got it through. And one day I'll show you it. Right now I can't because it means getting up.

And when I sit down, that's it. That's it for a few hours. You know, it's just the way it is.

Sorry. Just the way it is. And so, oh, I, that was the first book.

Now, I don't remember if I brought it with me when I moved into my dad's house when I was seven. Like we moved out of there and moved away. So I don't remember because I just don't remember.

Simple as that. I really don't recall it. But that was probably one of the most important books of my life in my childhood, because I kept reading it over and over again.

And it gave me a love of reading. And I think it improved my reading. Not my vocabulary, because it's a small child's book.

And it wasn't necessarily going to, you know, I can't think what the words are. See, it didn't improve my vocabulary at all. So I think it helped me reading wise.

Because when I went to, when I moved away, when I was just before I was seven, I moved to a new town with my brothers, into my dad's house, my original dad, and his new wife. And we moved there. And I was very low down on the educational spectrum.

And just due to circumstances having moved around a lot as a small child, never settled, never really stayed in one place for long. So I didn't go to school for long at any particular school. And which meant there was no consistency with my education.

So I imagine most of the stuff that I learned was from television, and just what I'd see around me, you know, just generally, were little sponges on my little babies, my little kids. And I was more like a dried up lettuce. But anyway, and I was behind.

And then I found out when I was just before I was eight, that I was partially deaf in one ear. And then they attributed that to my behindedness, I was very behind in school. And just apart from for reading, my reading was the only thing that I was, I don't, I wouldn't necessarily say I was more advanced reading wise, because I wasn't, probably I was, but I wasn't as behind.

And then as soon as I, because I went from there to school, and as soon as I had books to read, I gobbled them all up. Now, I don't mean I literally ate them, because I was no longer hungry, and I didn't have a packed lunch. Jason's a bit weird, he's eating the books.

So we have to, we have to lock them up. I just took books home and brought them back the next day, because I, you know, would be allowed to read something during the day, or perhaps English and would read a part of a book. I'd say, can I, I want to take it home, I'm going to finish it.

And the teachers would let me, and I'd always bring them back the next day. So I might take one book, maybe two books. And I'm not talking about big, thick encyclopedias, but storybooks.

And I'd read, I'd finish it, and I'd take it back. And I'd do that over and over and over and over again. And I'd read every single book that I could.

And just, I just loved reading, loved the old reading me, I did. And it was, it gave me something that nothing else gave me. Nothing else has ever given me, something reading gave me.

It was, maybe it was taking me away from life, took me away from my own thoughts. It was, I guess, kind of fantasy land in some ways. But I also like reading fiction, not nonfiction, but I like to read factual stuff.

You know, if you look at my book library, most of the stuff here is about hypnosis and stuff. And it's very dry. And I'll be honest, I don't, I'm not always into that.

I kind of miss, I've been thinking about it recently, and I need to maybe get back into reading. Because when I talk about it, and I think, wow, I was a bookworm. I was a proper, proper bookworm.

I loved reading books, and no one else that I knew loved reading books, that I knew of. You know, I'm sure there were kids at school that loved reading books, but I didn't, I didn't know about it. And it really took me away, really gave me an opportunity to step out of, I guess, reality, or whatever my version of reality was at the time.

I remember years ago, everything's years ago, isn't it really? In the past, everything's in the past. I went through a little period, but I don't know why. And maybe it was a little bit of a depressive period, but I was in school, and I was in probably third year, third year of school, probably, third year of high school.

And what I did at break time is I hid. I just didn't want anything to do, like lunchtime this was, so we had about an hour for lunch. I would just hide.

And we had this, I was in this classroom, that was my registration room. So we had to go there at the beginning, at the beginning of a session. So we have to go there in the morning.

First thing, we have to go there after lunch. And I would say, I think we might even have to go there just before we get a leave in the afternoon. Okay, so it was kind of like a signing in and signing out thing.

But this was, I like this place because it had a back door as well as a front door. Most people came in the front door. But the back area was, there was backstairs, it's more like a fire escape, really.

Because if I remember rightly, I think that place was like a chemistry, chemistry lab. So Bunsen burners and stuff like that, explain why I had a fire escape. So I would sit at the back on the floor, just out of the way, no one, I'd hardly ever see anybody.

And I'd read, I went through a period when I was reading Star Trek books. So this, as I said, this was like, what, 1983, probably. And Star Trek was from the 60s.

But they hadn't made any new Star Trek television shows at this point. I can't remember when they made, when did they make the Star Trek Next Generation? Was it late 80s, early 90s, wasn't it? Maybe early 90s. But yeah, Star Trek, the next generation with Picard hadn't started.

And I found all these books that were like available, and they were all based on the, you know, Captain Kirk crew, all those people that were in the original series. And I was just gobbling them up. I was really ingesting them one by one.

And I'm not even sure why. But anything was better than reality at that time. It took me away.

It gave me, yeah, it calmed me down. I think that's what it was. It calmed me down.

It reduced my stress and tension, it calmed me down. And when I think about reading, and not reading necessarily textbooks, because that's not always that calming, if I'm honest. I mean, I like, I like nonfiction books, as well, anyway, you know, things that, I guess that are not related to what I'm interested in.

It might sound strange, but sometimes it's quite nice to read something that I've got no knowledge about. That sounds a bit up my own bum, doesn't it? Well, you know so much about so much things, do you? You know about everything, so it's so hard to find a book about something you don't know about, is it? No, that's not what I'm saying. It's not what I'm saying at all.

There's millions of things I don't know about. It's, what I mean is choosing something that I'm a little bit interested in, but I know practically nothing about it. Maybe that's probably a better way of wording it.

Sometimes, like with, it's not reading, but on YouTube, sometimes I'll watch a documentary on a subject that I don't really even have any interest in, but I find fascinating because there's a lot of new information. And it's like, oh, really? Wow. Wow.

I actually make that noise. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. Ooh. Yeah.

I'll stop now. So I, I just think, you know, sometimes it's nice to read, to have a look at things that are out of my comprehension. Out of my interest.

And, you know, sometimes I'll pick, I'll pick a book up and I look at it and I think, eh, eh, and I'll put it down again. But sometimes like, oh, okay. See, things like, let's say, I'm interested in the brain.

I'm interested in how the brain works. I'm interested in, but I guess I'm more interested in how it, how that knowledge can be useful rather than just be a factual thing. See, I can learn about, you know, I can, I'm not really a memory buff of facts just for the sake of it.

So, you know, like what's the highest mountain? What's the deepest river? What's the longest sausage? You know, it's like, I don't know. Because I don't need to know because it's of no interest or value to me to remember things like that. Which song was number one in the charts for the longest period? Like, you know, just I don't care.

It's just, you know, this doesn't, it's not that important to me. I mean, I probably do know the answer to that actually. It's one of three songs in the UK.

But still, it's like, how is that going to help my life? Unless your life is built around winning or looking good in a pub quiz, then of course, knowing nonsense like that or completely useless information is going to be useful and fun. So, you know, it's sometimes I can't really get into, I mean, I've got stuff, I've actually just for this podcast alone, for the Let Me Boy to Sleep, I've got books, loads and loads of books of useless information. Just for the sake for this podcast, so I can read it out and, you know, Guinness Book of Records and stuff like that.

I mean, look, I can't show them because again, I'm completely I'm trapped in this little space, unless I move the desk out, which is easy enough to do, but it would disrupt the video somewhat. So yeah, I like reading about facts, but I'm kind of thinking, I had this memory, this memory back in 1989. So I was, yeah, I was 19 at the time, still a teenager.

And I got some new glasses. In fact, it might have been the first time I'd got glasses to read since for a long, long time. And because I was given glasses in 86, it's actually not that long ago, is it? Not a long, long time.

I was given glasses in 86, and I stopped wearing them, because I didn't want to be walking around with glasses on. And then in 89, I got, I went to the opticians and I got glasses for reading. And then I remember the first day I got them, because I sat on them by accident.

But I had a bed. I think I might have had a chair in that room. I think I might have had a chair.

It was just a basic room I was renting, sharing a bathroom with about 700 people. So yeah, but what was good about it is I can open a window and there was a little bit of space that I can actually sit on. And I remember, this is the beginning of 1990, actually.

So I got these glasses probably January, February time. And it was nice weather, because sometimes January, you get lovely weather. It could be cold, but sometimes you get a nice day.

February gets more and more nicer days. March, sometimes almost like summer here in the UK of England, Commonwealth, Britain. So I just thought, oh, so I used to sit out there and read, just sometimes for half an hour, maybe 20 minutes, sometimes a bit longer.

And then maybe it started to get cold, a bit dark, you know, because it gets dark quite early in that time of the year. But I'd have a good half an hour and it was lovely. It was just the breeze and I could sit there and read.

And it was nice. I quite enjoyed it, if I'm honest. It was quite a nice experience.

It's nice. And I still remember the books I had. So I had The Road Less Travelled, and I had The Third Wave.

So them two books, because I remember I bought them. That's not really, not really much of a memory, is it? I remember I bought them. Where else would you get them? What about the library? I remember I bought them at the same time, but I had to order them though.

And then they, I don't know how they let me know, because mobile phones weren't around then. Unless they sent me a letter, I don't know, maybe. Yeah.

So Long Time Ago. Long, long time ago, I can still remember when I used to get letters. Yes, I read those two books.

I didn't read them individually. I did read them individually. I read them at the same time, not literally at the same time, you know.

I didn't have both books in front of me, because that would have been weird. But yeah, I liked them. I think The Road Less Travelled was probably my favourite of the two.

I didn't realise at the time what a legendary book it was. And then I got The Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I read that. And again, that was really good.

Again, another legendary book. So it was really just, it was the first time that I'd really spent much time reading for a while, because previous to that, I just was working and moving around a lot, kept moving from room to room, job to job. And I didn't really have a lot going on.

I mean, previous to that, things were quite good for the summer, because I was doing double glazing, counselling, canvassing, knocking on people's doors and trying to get them to have appointments and stuff. So that was quite a good summer for the 1989. And then that just went away.

But that reading that I did when I was a kid, I was always reading. Yeah, when I discovered the library, when I was first allowed to go to the library, that was brilliant. I used to go nearly every day of the week, literally.

And I'd read a book, and I'd take it back, then I'd get another one, then I'd get another one, then I'd get another one, and just continuously. I'd buy, I'd get books, I'd rent out books that I had no idea what they were. Just, I knew they were books.

I'd get them home thinking, what should I do with this? Do I have to cook it? Do I have to let it float out of the window to see if it flies? No, I knew it was a book. I just didn't always know what I was reading about. Because I had this little pendulum, I think is the right word for new books.

I liked the smell of a new book. That it was like, sniffing doesn't sound nice, does it? It sounds like a saw. And yeah, there was, I remember reading some books that were, I didn't always finish them because I didn't like them, because I wasn't interested really.

No, I used to take books home on things like guns, antique guns. What was I interested in antiques for? Or guns, even. But I remember sitting in bed thinking, I want to get some of these.

And this was like more of a picture book. You know, it was with descriptions and information about the different things, but it was mainly pictures of the items. And because it was beautifully photographed.

And I thought, I want one of them guns. I wasn't thinking of them as being guns. And I remember my step mum would always sort of say, oh, okay.

No, just, just agree. Disagree and hopefully we'll stop talking. I want to get one of them.

I want a tank. That's what I want. I want a tank for my birthday.

Can I have a tank for my birthday, please, mummy? No. Sometimes I'd have to just like be quite strict. No.

But I want a tank. No. No.

You know, my nan used to say, when we were kids, very little, she used to say Bernie to stop us from touching the fire. Right. But then she used to use the same thing for other things.

So if we went to touch, I don't know, I'm trying to think something that wasn't hot, but if we went to do something that she didn't want us to do, she'd say Bernie. And if you think Bernie, like the name, talking about burn, burn, you know, ouch, Bernie, Bernie, like that. But she'd use it out of context, which is quite funny, really.

But, you know, it's like, I remember coming in with stilts once and saying, look, I've got stilts. What we're going to do now is I'm going to ride a bicycle wearing stilts. And I went to the bike and my nan said, Bernie, Bernie.

And I thought, okay, perhaps I'd better not. Didn't mind the fact that I had seven foot stilts on, smoking a cigar. I was only 12.

Bernie. But she did, she's funny. I remember once, she used to run across the road for some reason.

I don't know, sometimes she'd grab my hand. She'd always hold my hand. It wasn't for her comfort.

It was, I was, to her, even when I was in my 20s and 30s, I was still a little boy. So, or even 40s, but she'd hold my hand and cross the road. Now, it's okay, for some reason, she's my nan.

That's okay. But not many humans could really get away with that. You know, because everyone would look, think it was his nan, or his mum, you know, some people have elderly, older parents, so it's his mum, or it's his nan.

And it's just normal. But is this why I know how to cross the road myself now, been doing it for some while. Shut up, Bernie.

Come on. I think she got to the point where she forgot my name. She thought it was Bernie.

She said, Bernie coming this weekend. What do you mean, mum? It's Bernie. Is he coming? You mean Jason? Yeah, Bernie.

Why do you keep saying Bernie, mum? He hasn't gone anywhere near the fireplace since he was six years old. Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. That's when I realised there may be a problem.

Houston, there may be a problem. So don't call me Houston. I'm Whitney.

Call me by my first name. So I, I, I, I, I remember, I went through this period, went through this period when I was about probably my teenage years, just to give you an idea where I'm going with this. And I discovered science fiction, but adult science fiction, that I didn't even know existed.

One of the things I used to do, I used to like to go into bookshops and read before I buy a book, I'd read through it, not read the whole thing, but I'd dip in and out of it to see whether or not it caught my eye, it caught my interest. And I remember I came across this book and the cover was very saucy. Should we say the word saucy? And I thought, oh, oh, okay.

So I dipped in and I saw a few chosen words that were being used. And I thought, ah. And the reason previously I'd not got into any of these science fiction books is because first of all, they're so big.

A lot of them are really thick old things, aren't they? And secondly, it didn't really interest me. And I found that it has such big, thick plots, and so many characters in it. I didn't always find it so easy to follow who was who, possibly through lack of interest, if I'm honest, maybe lack of attention, but I'm quite attentive.

I'm quite focused, quite a focused person at times. But I don't think I could have read the, what's it called, the Thrones books. I don't think I could have.

I watched the TV show, but Game of Thrones. I don't think I could have watched, I don't think I could have read the books because based on how many different characters there were, and how intermingled it all went, I struggled a bit following it while watching it because it was like, oh, now we're somewhere else. Kept flipping around to different places.

And there was so many different characters that I'm not sure if I could have followed it as a book. I don't, I've never attempted it. And to be fair, it doesn't seem a lot of point because I've seen the show.

So I know what happens. However, what happens in a book and what happens in a TV show can be very different, can't it? I think the only, the only, I don't know why my voice is going so high now. The only, I remember watching, yeah, the only book that I remember that I loved, and the film as well, was Gremlins.

I read the book, and I watched the film, and I loved both equally. And they were both different. They weren't different, different, but they were, if anything, it made the movie better by reading the book.

And if anything, it made the book better by having watched the movie because I knew what everyone looked like. Does that make sense? You know, I had to look, was it Zach or whatever his name was, there was the kid. And, you know, just, you know, the Gremlins, what they all look like.

And it was, it complimented each other, they complimented each other. So I, you know, I did like that. That's one of my favourite book, film combos.

But then I went through a period when I used to read things like, what's his name? Oh, Adrian Mole. There was a fad in the early 80s. You know, there's a book series, Adrian Mole, 13 and a half years old or something, 13 and three quarters, something like that.

And it basically was just, they turned it into a TV show. Very, very, very popular book show, book series, and TV shows popular as well. And it just went through the life of a kid, looked a bit like Adrian, not Harry Potter kind of age, as a teenager that is.

And just going through puberty and being in love. I mean, I read the books first, but everybody read the books. It was, they were the most popular books at the time.

Really, in the UK, I don't know about other countries, but in England, very popular. Just trying to think of other books I used to read. Oh, I used to like the Asterix books, like the big cartoon books.

Or illustrated, artistically illustrated novels, I think they call them now, but big, big old things. And I used to like to read them. I used to, yeah, I get them from the library.

So I can't imagine how many hundreds and hundreds of books I read from the library over my childhood, like between, I don't know, nine and 15. Quite a few, quite a few books. I'd get books on astronomy out as well.

Just trying to remember, because the children's section of the books, there wasn't a huge amount there, I'll be honest. If you're reading the way I used to read, I'd get through them quite quick. And I'd already read all the ones I wanted to read.

There was loads there that I didn't read, but I just didn't want to. They didn't appeal to me. But then a new one had come out.

And, you know, I was always looking for something to grab my interest. And I remember the first book I really read after leaving school was the life story of Sigmund Freud. Fruid.

Fraud. Fruid. Freud.

And I remember reading that book, it was a big old book, it was a paperback, it was big, big old biggie, biggie, big, big. And I remember just like sitting on the beach reading it. And it was a huge, it was a big task.

It's one of those books that you start reading, and you dip in, you read it a few, you know, maybe a few days go by, and you look at how many pages you've read, and it's nothing compared to how many pages are left. It's like one never gonna, this is a mountain, this is a, well it's a book, but you know, this is a very huge task. Very huge.

And then, before I knew it, it was done. And I used to sit on the beach reading it, and it was nice. And that was, I didn't understand everything I was reading, I'll be honest, I didn't.

I don't always understand everything I read. Things are a little bit easier now with the internet. I could just, if I see a word I don't understand, or a phrase, or a reference that I don't understand, I can look it up.

So, you know, some of these books from the past will reference maybe a politician that was very famous at the time, or a celebrity, you know, especially if you read a book from the beginning of the century, last century, 1903. Like, okay, there's some references I'm not privy to. So that's handy to have the internet for stuff like that.

But these adult science fiction books, wow, wow, opened my eyes, opened everything. It was just, I couldn't believe that they were getting away with that, writing that stuff, because it was proper pervy, well not pervy, but very explicit. I, you know what I mean? I was a kid, I was a young teenager as well.

What? It's the toilet, it's a living toilet. What? And it was, yeah, there was a lot of stuff. I don't have any of those books anymore.

I just kept running out of space to put the books. So they're the books that I buy, because they weren't available in the library, I don't think. Yeah, they weren't decent.

They weren't for decent humans. They were for wrong-uns like me. Wrong-uns is weird.

I used to, I went through, it was only a short period, and I'd read a few hundred of them. And they used to be cheap. And there was a specific shop I could go to, and they had untold of these, lots of them.

And you could tell just from the cover. The picture was always an adult-themed picture, should we say. And yeah, I really liked them.

I mean, I haven't read anything like that since I was about 15, 14, 15. But I went for a little period and I really read a lot of them. And the good thing about it is, I'd be upstairs at the house on my own.

I wouldn't come out for hours at a time. And it was fine because, where's Jason? Oh, he's upstairs reading. Okay then.

Now the question is why I was reading, what I was doing whilst. But yeah, it was a bit of an education, actually. It was fantasy, so it wasn't real.

But some of the stuff was based upon real, kind of, potentially real things-ish. Yeah, you know. Excuse me.

So yeah, this is the first book I, this is a book I've got from, not the first book, but the oldest book I've got. The Teaching of Buddha. It's both in Chinese and in English.

So each page has got one or two pages. I think it's Chinese. Bukkho Dendo Ikiyoki, Buddhist Promoting Society, my foundation.

The Wheel of Dharma is the translation of the Sanskrit word dharmakakra. Similar to the wheel of a cart that keeps revolving, it symbolizes the Buddhist teachings as it continues to be spread wildly and endlessly. Widely, wildly, widely.

The eight spokes of the wheel represent the noble eightfold path of Buddhism. The most important way of the practice, the noble eightfold path refers to the right view, right thought, right speech, right behavior, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation. In the olden days, before statues and other images of Buddha were made, this wheel of Dharma served as the object of worship.

At the present time, the wheel is used internationally as the common symbol of Buddhism. Actually, this is from Japan, so it might be Japanese. I don't know the difference.

I know that Japan is a different country, but I don't do writing. It doesn't say, doesn't say, might say it somewhere, maybe in the back it says it. No.

Oh. Established a company to manufacture in 1934. It doesn't say.

Because it, just because it's printed in Japan doesn't mean that it's, I'm trying to read it. I thought it would have said, like in Chinese and in English, or in Japanese and in English, teachings of Buddha. It doesn't say it at all.

It does at the back, Japanese English. Sorry, there we go. It's Japanese.

I'm not an expert. I'll be honest with you. I'm not an expert.

I'm gonna go now. Thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself.

Remember to be gentle with yourself. Lots of love. Bye.