#911 Punch up with a lamp post - Let me bore you to sleep (Jason Newland) (26th October 2022)

Where's that bloody vibrator? Oh, maybe I left it in the sink. Yeah, in the washing up bowl. Hello and welcome to let me bore you to sleep.

With a little bit of banging in the background. Not the good kind. It's weird, it's 10 o'clock at night and somebody's in the garden hammering I tell you, hammering.

So, my name's Jason Newland. My website's jasonnewland.com. So, I hope you're well. I hope everything's groovy, bedoovy.

And thank you for listening. So, I'm hoping that any, any kind of background banging is, will stay in the background and hopefully you won't hear too much of it. But, you know, if you do then you probably hear less of it if you listen with the background music.

Because usually if there's a little bit of, a little bit of background sound, which there sometimes is, it can be kind of, somehow masked, as it were. Somehow masked. So, that was my pen, by the way.

I'm just going to fill in my gratitude journal. Yes. My gratitude journal.

Today, Wednesday, what date is it? The 26th of October. 26th of October, 22. So, I've got three things.

Number one, okay, did I say only listen when you can safely close your eyes? Eyes. Did I say that? So, my first thing on my journal, my first gratitude journal will be, I'm going to be repeating myself, I guess, when I do these journals. I don't always remember to do it when I make a recording, but today for some reason I have.

So, the first thing is going to be my podcasts. Because making these podcasts gives me a purpose, gives me a purpose. And it was, it meant so much, I said it twice.

Yeah, it gives me a purpose. So, three times. It's what I think about when I'm awake, what I think about before I go to bed, and it's what I think about when I wake up, you know.

So, doing what I do online is my purpose for existing, kind of. And it pretty much has been since 2006. The online videos, podcasts, various different things that I've done, the websites, it's all been, even when I was doing my degree, it's three years at university, full-time, which I should have been focusing on that, and that should have been the main thing that I was focusing on.

And it wasn't. What I was doing online was the main focus. It was still the most important thing out of everything else.

So, I'm grateful for my podcasts. Second thing I'm grateful for is, this is going to sound weird, and it's going to sound a bit self-indulgent, but I'm going to pat myself on the back. Okay, I am.

And I'm grateful for my ability to let go of stuff, or to not hold a grudge, or to forgive. Now, this might sound, it does sound a little bit self-indulgent, well, probably is very self-indulgent, in a sense of like, well, aren't I wonderful? And I don't mean it in that way, really. I'm just pleased that I've managed to get to a point in my life where I'm able to let go of stuff.

Not everything, but I can let go of things a lot easier than I ever used to be able to do. So, I'm going to put forgiveness, letting go, kind of slash letting go. It's just something that I guess I've learned over the years.

And yeah, so I've had a few examples of that lately, some personal stuff. And I, yeah, I'm kind of a little bit pleased with myself. You know, not as I said, not in like, oh, I'm wonderful.

Oh, yeah, good boy. Not like that. Just a little bit like that.

In fact, exactly, exactly like that. I'm a very, very good boy. And I deserve a lollipop as a present, as a reward.

I'm grateful for the third thing. I don't want to spend too much time on this. Maybe you can do this with me or, you know, you don't even have to, we don't really have to write it down.

Just maybe think of a few things that you're grateful for. While we had this little part of the recording, if I remember to do it. I'm grateful to my friend Noel, who helped me a huge amount, many, many years ago.

Well, he's helped me since then. But he, he helped me at a time that I was in need of help. He gave me, yeah, so if it wasn't for Noel, my friend Noel, I wouldn't be doing this.

Because what happened from there led me to do this. If that makes sense. He, his, his help.

Yeah, I'll stop saying, I noticed that the other day, um, um, um, um, which is a really, that's a sign of a very bad public speaker, isn't it? Don't you think? So I'm going to put Noel. Friendship. It's a Noel, he's a friend of mine.

So that's, that's my three for today. So I was thinking about him earlier, when I was in the kitchen, making some toast. So I'm not saying that the toast, the bread reminded me of him, but nothing to do with the actual food I was preparing.

But the toaster, you know, the way that, no, it's nothing like that. My, my podcast, forgiveness slash letting go and Noel's friendship. So those are my things I'm grateful for today.

Thank you very much. So I'll put that down, put the lid on. So I thought in a minute, I'm going to read from one of my books, not read from it like first of all, it was sudden shine, and then the clouds came and there was a cow called Moo Moo.

I'm not gonna actually read from a book. And that gives you an idea of the kind of books I read. And that's the level of my reading.

I've got a bunch, I've got a bunch of books that are specifically for these podcasts. I need to increase that book collection to ones that aren't kids books, kids encyclopedias. So I've got one here that is not a child's book.

This is the great book of British useless information. Everything you ever wanted to know about Britain by Hannah Warner. So this is a book I'm just going to dip into it.

Even that sounds rude for some reason. So I'm going to read this and it says I'm from 2009. First published in hardback.

This is a paperback version. paperback was 2010. So this is, it's basically got introduction contents, great British history, money, money, money, great British food and drink.

Great British icons, great British laws. Let's go to the laws, shall we? Let's go to the laws have a little play with that. 57.

So before I read anything out there, okay, so I'll leave that there for a minute. Drink. All right.

Did I make? Yeah, I did make a podcast last night, didn't I? Okay. So this is all my podcasts are now back. And since they've been back, I've made blah, blah, blah.

Two new podcasts. Three? I don't know. Anyway, so they're all back.

And that's good. What is kind of, well, not strange, but it's quite nice is there's been a big surge of increase. I guess that surge and increase would be the same word really, wouldn't it? of listening.

So that's nice. I always like that. That's a good thing.

And yeah, so that's really cool. So everything's back to normal. I'm going to be working on my website, but I've decided I'm probably going to spend maybe one hour a day on it.

And then gradually over the next few months, get the website back to how it was. Because I deleted everything on the website a few months back. And I wasn't able to get it reinstated.

So I want to get it back to how it was. And I figure, you know, because I spent hundreds of hours building that website up to how it was. And then I figured, well, if I spend an hour a day for the next six months, the next 150 hours or something, that should be enough to have everything rebuilt to how it was.

Maybe even less than that, maybe in three months. Because I've already done it, I kind of know the process of what I'm going to do and hopefully make it even better. So once that's done, I might continue to spend one hour a day focused attention on the website and do some other stuff that will help to get more people visiting the website.

A bit of SEO stuff, a bit of stuff to attract traffic. So that's, that's something that I'm gonna, I've already started, I did that today. I started on it today.

So that's my plan an hour a day to keep this, the website process going. And eventually, it will all be really good. And I want it to be the best website I've ever had.

Because admittedly, I don't get huge amounts of visitors to the website. And in the past, I used to, before podcasts kind of really took off, people used to come to my website, in order to listen to my recordings, they'd maybe stream it on the website, because I'd have it, these three websites where I don't know if they exist anymore, they probably do. But they used to have to pay them, upload a podcast episode, or an audio recording.

And then they would give you a link, or the code to then embed that code into your website, into the HTML, HTML into the actual code of the website. And a player would come up where you could play. Some of them will just have a link to their page to an individual page, where you could then play.

So I had that stuff, or sometimes it just be a link. So you'd upload the recording to this service, they would give you a download link, which would automatically download the audio recording. For the you know, whoever's on the website, just click it and it downloads to their laptop or computer.

This is all really before phones became the standard way to to stream and to listen to stuff. Because, you know, back then, the internet was much better on laptops than it was on phones. The internet on phones wasn't so great.

And there was a point I remember, blimey, I remember when we used to have a thing called, what was it called? WAP, W-A-P. And that was the internet. It's like the mobile phones had their own internet.

Now I realize some people listen to this might have only been babies. At this time, this was in the, wow, like what, 2001 time. And later in 2001, 2000, maybe 2000.

So some people might have only been like two or three years old, or maybe not even be maybe not even born. Can you imagine? Wow. It make me feel a little old.

I'm quite young, really. Really. We're all young to someone.

We're all old to someone. It's just, the longer you're alive, that ratio changes. See, when you're like two, three years old, let's say you're four years old, you're younger to more people than you're older to.

To two year old, you're ancient, like an old man, or woman, or frog, or centipede, or whatever. Kettle. And as we age, as we, you know, in years, so I'm now older to more people.

I don't know, I'm probably, yeah, I'm probably older to more people than I'm younger to. Younger then to, younger to then, then to. I don't know what the ratio is of people below 50 and above 50.

You know, it's like how many people there are in the world that are above. But then it doesn't matter about the world. No one sees me in the world.

It's only people locally, and that's about seven people, and most of them are older. So I'm young. Although there are some young people as well.

So I'm also old. So I'm old and young. I wonder if anyone looks at me and thinks I'm just a young man.

Because I suppose someone is like, maybe 130, would look at me like, they'd turn around, but they probably wouldn't turn around because their neck is probably just dust waiting to evaporate. But you know, it's like, you're a very young man. You know, so like, okay, thanks.

Cheers, matey. There is a time when, see, if someone calls me young man, I kind of find it funny. When I was in my 20s, I didn't like it.

Because I felt it was quite, almost like the person was talking down to me. Okay, young man, like, oi, wait a minute. I am young.

I kind of had an argument in my head, but I couldn't verbalize it. It's like, so I just used to swear at them, like, oi, shut up. Don't talk down to me, young man.

Because sometimes people do, and they're only in their 40s. Maybe I got it wrong. Sometimes I felt like they were trying to be superior, or I was just like a kid to them.

The fact is, I was just a kid. I still am in some ways. I mean, it might surprise you, but I'm not the most mature person in the world.

Internally. Externally, I'm a reptile. I'm about a thousand years old.

Internally, I am like a little baby. I'm not, not that young. I'm a toddler now.

Let's have a drink. I need to get these drink, a drink holder that isn't made of metal. That might be better.

I had some weird dreams last night. I won't tell you about them. Blimey, my tooth is still, the gap in my tooth is still hurting.

A week, it's been a week now, but I don't think it's hurting as much as it did. It's not hurting as much as it did, and my tongue will not behave itself. Apparently, because my tongue keeps going into the gap, that's what I'm going to stop it.

Apparently, our tongues never get tired. The muscles in our tongues never get tired. It's not true, is it? It's not true at all.

So, I actually heard a specialist say, that's one of the only muscles in the body that does not get tired. Now, okay, maybe not tired from talking, and I can talk for, it's not so much the tongue. I don't know how much of the tongue I use for talking.

I don't really, I suppose, I don't notice it because it's always been there, you know. I think the only time I notice my tongue is when it's not working properly. So, if I've had, I mean, sometimes I've bitten it by accident, you know, and it's like, ah, I got ulcer on it or something.

It's like, oh, brilliant. Did you hear that? Every time I do a podcast, I get a stupid notification on my iPad, and I try and turn off every single notification possible, because I don't want notifications from anything ever. Why? I just, I don't, I don't want it.

I had a neighbour recently, and there was like, every probably 30 seconds, the phone would beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, some stupid tune, and it was like, clearly a text message. I was like, really? Do you need it that loud? That was the first question. And secondly, do you really need to be texting for hours on end? I mean, that's got nothing to do with me, I know, but it's like, really? What possibly could you have to type about or to text about? Because it's not a conversation.

I don't think texting is a conversation. It's, you know, I just, it's not for me. I'm a, I guess I'm just more of a verbal person.

In fact, I don't even like anyone else being there. I just like to talk to myself. Miss out the middle man.

And some people, you know, say, say that, you know, it's funny, but it's true. Like, hence doing this, because there's no interruptions, apart from the iPad. Like, shut up, shut up.

So I, um, I like chocolate ice cream. I have no idea what I was talking about before I got interrupted. Nope, can't remember.

So, Great British Laws, squeaky desk. One day, I'm going to change the desk. And you won't hear the squeaks anymore.

And you'll be like, Oh, Mr. Squeaks. Or not. So, wow.

I don't know if I've read this out before, because it sounds like something that I would have read. But hey, I'm blimey. Is this number 911? I think.

Now, I reckon that won't be until the new year now. But it won't be far into the new year. If I do record in every day.

That's what's November, December. So that's 60. So take me up to, you know, roughly, I'll be entering 2023, about 971 or 972.

Or 973, something like that. So by February 2023, we will be at the 1000th episode. Now, what should we do for that? I feel like there should be some kind of celebration.

Well, that's a landmark, isn't it? I remember getting excited. I don't know if you won't probably remember this. For those that listen, back in the day, back in the day, I heard a small child say that.

Yeah, back in the day, like, you're five. Do you mean back in the day, you have to be at least 40 to say back in the day. So back in the day, I was getting excited, because I was coming up to the 100th episode of the Let Me Boy To Sleep, couldn't believe, could not, could not believe that I'd stuck at something for 100 episodes.

And even Yeah, fair enough. I've done 1000s of recordings over the years, I've lost probably more than I've actually made, or that I've got available, because, you know, over the years, I've lost hundreds at a time, but I've made a lot of recordings. But not in a series, not, you know, I didn't, I didn't really start doing series, or like, you know, like, Let Me Boy To Sleep, or the, you know, Deep Sleep Whisper, or, you know, that kind of stuff, or the boring objects, sleepy boring objects, which is kind of more of a newer thing.

I didn't stick to just, although this is not the only thing I've done, but I've not, I didn't, you know, never did anything like this before, where it was like a continuous thing. And I remember getting excited, like, what should I do asking the audience? What should I do? We're coming up to the hundredth episode. I've never been so excited.

And I'll be honest, I don't remember what we did. I do not know. I didn't know.

But I remember it. I remember sort of saying it, because I was sitting over the other side of the room. I had completely different setup back then.

This was, I don't know, probably 2019. And now I'm not far off the 1000 mark. It's just ridiculous.

It's just how on earth did I get to 1000 episodes of just talking rubbish for an hour? I don't know. Honestly, I don't know how I got here. And I'm grateful.

I'm grateful for everyone that listens. And I know over the years, people have come and gone and people have come back and some people have, you know, it's different. I don't know.

You know, I hear from like a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the audience, of the listeners. And that's every now and then. So I don't hear from, you know, if I had a day when I actually received a comment, a positive message, nothing negative, from everybody that listens.

That would be quite a busy day. You know, and that'd be like, maybe we can do that. Maybe for the 1000th episode, I can read out messages from people.

Maybe let me know how long you've been listening and something nice, you know, something positive and maybe tell me where you're from and you know, wherever. And I can just read those out for the 1000th episode, like a special one. And if it takes two hours to do, I'd spend two hours doing it.

That might be a nice thing to do. Just read people's messages out. But specifically for that 1000th episode, so I can have them all ready, organized and prepared for the recording.

But you know, that's quite a long way off anyway. It's not until, well, two months away. Two months away? No, three months really, isn't it? November, December, January, and in February, that's when it will kind of be.

Because the most I would do a day is one, one of these. So, yeah, I don't know. If you think about it, if you've got any other ideas, I don't know, just to see.

I said I don't know a lot, haven't I? I wonder what that is. I don't know. Oh, la la la la la la la.

I used to be a happy little girl. Then I discovered Lycra. Lycra.

Lycra. What am I doing? What am I singing about? Lycra? What is Lycra? I used to be a grumpy little boy. Then I discovered sandpaper.

Then I discovered hand lotion. Num num num num num num num num num. Diddly diddly diddly diddly do.

And relax. And relax. So, my wonderful people, let's have a look at this book.

Right. Great British laws in Anglo-Saxon times. OK, just remember, these are not my words.

These are words from the book. OK, I neither agree nor disagree. With what I'm about to read.

I don't know what it is I'm going to read, but I'll just read it out. It's not like I read it first and now thinking it's quite funny and it should be a good idea. No, not at all.

I'm just randomly going to pick something. I say, OK, so in Anglo-Saxon times, a man could divorce his wife on the grounds that she was too passionate. I have no, nothing to say about that.

Right. Apparently this is laws now. It is legal for a male to urinate in public.

As long as it is on the rear wheel of his motor vehicle and his right hand is on the vehicle. So basically he can do it. He can do it on the wheel of his car as long as his hand isn't touching it.

Is that to make sure that it's just a wee that he's doing? They're assuming everyone's right handed. Hmm. They're assuming that everyone likes to do a wee-wees on.

You know, it's weird, though, because if you if you if you parked outside, OK, if you drove if you drove around, right, OK, if I drove, I can't drive. But if let's say in a world where I could drive a car and I drove and I looked out for some police people and our motorbike started. If this motorbike starts, we're going to have to end this early because there is clearly it better not be a lawnmower because that's someone on drugs, isn't it? If it's a lawnmower at half ten, they're either very, very drunk or something wrong with them.

Either way, I will be going outside to remove them from the lawnmower because I'm not going to listen to that at half ten in the evening and I won't be the only one out there either. Oh, no. That's that's that.

Oh, that's my trigger, a lawnmower at ten thirty, an inappropriately timed lawnmower. So you imagine driving around. So if I drove around, looked for a police car for the police people, parked opposite them in a place where it's safe to park, that it's fine.

Go out my car, but did it in such a way so they could see the back of my car, pulled out my, you know, thingamajig, my wee-wee machine and started urinating over the back wheel of my car, ensuring that my right hand was leaning against the back of the car. There is no way in the world, and I would, I would bet you any amount of money, firstly, because I think I'd win the bet. Secondly, is because I don't have any money, so it wouldn't make any difference.

You bet me a million pound and you're not going to get anything. That you would get arrested. You wouldn't get, you wouldn't get cautioned, you would be arrested because you can't urinate without, I don't want to use the word exposing, but you know, that's a crime in itself.

So even if they said, okay, you're allowed to urinate, but in order to urinate, you have to expose yourself and exposure, although, you know, not great in the winter, it could be quite frosty, is a little bit frowned upon. At least that's what the judge told me. So I think that that law is ridiculous because you would get arrested.

Simple as. So that's silly. Some people say, you know, I remember growing up, he was saying, you know what, if you wanted to do a poo, you can do it in this street and a policeman has to cover, cover you up with their helmet or I don't know, you let, or they have to let you do it in their helmet or something like that.

It's like, okay, let's see how that would work. Let's see, let's see that in real life. A lot of lies told in the world.

I've noticed that I think the older I've gotten, the more I realized that the absolute bull that comes out of people's mouths passed off as truths, almost like a fact. Now, I lie, but I lie in a jokey way and you know I'm lying because, well, because you can hear me. You know, I make stuff up.

But I don't do it in real life. I don't make stuff up to get my own way or to pull the wool over people's eyes or anything. I'm not into that, you know, I've got nothing to lie about.

My life is too boring to need to lie. But I think the problem is, is people aren't lying when they pass on this absolute rubbish information. They believe it because they've been told by someone that's important to them, like their parents or their grandparents or someone close to them.

They don't fact check. Now, I fact check. If I hear something, I like to fact check.

In fact, sometimes, this is a story. Let me tell you. I probably, I might have told this story, but this is a while back.

It's not, it's only a few weeks back. And I told my friend something that was untrue, but I believed it to be true. And it was to do with, was it an actor? I think it's to do with an actor or something like that.

And I told him this, really believe in it. And then I did some research because I thought, I wonder if that's true, because that's my memory of it. I was wrong.

It wasn't true. And I, I told him, next time I saw him, I said, you know, sorry about that. I, I didn't lie to you.

I genuinely thought that was true, but my memory was wrong. And he said, I really don't care. Why are you telling me this? I wasn't listening to you when you were talking about it the first time, which I thought was a little bit rude, but fair enough.

I've already noticed it when I say erm now, it's becoming a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I need to change it for well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, that's going to become even more annoying though, isn't it? Well, well, well, well. I don't know if you, some people are really stuck, aren't they? Well, I remember when I lived in a place and I was talking to my landlady and I just said to her, look, I've just got to pop up to the little girl's room, toilet.

She said, don't you mean the little boy's room? She didn't say it like that, but that's what I heard because I was like, she, I accidentally said the little girl's room. I didn't accidentally, I said it on purpose. You know, it was not like hugely funny necessarily, but I thought I might have got a smile or I was just entertaining myself.

But she really thought I accidentally said little girl's room instead of little boy's room. You know, I mean, how? I don't see how. I don't know.

I don't get it. Not anymore anyway. I used to.

Yeah, I, I like to fact check. The thing is sometimes when people tell me stuff and I not, it's not even just just people in real life. It's sometimes I read something or I hear something on the news and I think I'll fact check that or sometimes I have a memory like before and I think I'll fact check that.

I don't always make that noise. Sometimes it's me. I'll fact check that, you know, it varies, but I'm going to change it to I can't remember this, whatever the noise was I made earlier.

I can't remember. Oh, you're very entertaining yourself today, aren't you? Oh, so I am growing a big beard, growing a big, big old, big old smelly beard. You're going to be so proud of me.

Honestly, you're going to want to watch my videos. You are you're going to want to go to YouTube and just check out my videos. I don't don't bother now, but I'm saying when I wait for a month because it's going to get really smelly and really big.

It's going to be good. It's going to be grand. I can't wait.

Because when it gets like that, I can use my hairbrush and I can I can design it or not design it, style it. That's a better word. Style.

So I can make it standing up on end or it's just oh, it's glorious. I must admit, the only time I get is a kind of a Christmasy feeling. Oh, it's lovely.

Just imagining myself with that big beard and just playing with it and brushing it with my hairbrush. Remembering the times when I actually had hair on my head. You know, I used to have too much hair on my head.

I did. I honestly, honestly did. My hairline.

I mean, there was about an inch between my hairline and my eyebrows. It was ridiculous. I was like a wolf boy.

But without the beard. Now I'm like the wolf boy without the hair. Or the wolf man.

And there is honestly, my hairline shouldn't be this low. It should be higher. Now, I think one of my, I guess role models would have been my oldest brother.

Because he had a higher, higher um, hairline than me. And he was four years older, which still is four years older than me. And I guess I, you know, I kind of used him as a, as a barge pole.

And I think, yeah, thinking about it, because the reason he had a higher, higher hairline is because he actually pretty much went bald. Last time I saw him, he was pretty much bald. He was shaving his head, but he wasn't shaving it when he was with me because we was out in the town.

You can't really shave your head when you're walking through the street. I mean, you can, but it's distracting. And eventually, the plug comes out.

You know, depends how long the cable is, I guess. So I didn't realize that having a low forehead wasn't necessarily a sign of potential chromosome issues. It was, I was young.

I hadn't matured. And now the opposites happen to my hairline. It's not very low at all.

Unless my eyebrows are just lowered themselves. I actually had a girlfriend once, and she told me that she was leaving me because my eyebrows were too close to my eyes. Well, how do you want them to be? Well, my knees.

I mean, they're not called toe brows, anus brows, they're called eyebrows. Although I do have eyebrows on me. Toes, sometimes they get a little bit bushy.

I, you know, they're supposed to be above your eyebrows. I mean, what if they were below my eyebrows? Would that be better? Would it? My eyebrows are too close to my eyes. Now, I admit, I'm the first to admit that I do not have the startled look.

You know, eyebrows high up, looking like I'm always surprised. All the time. I don't have that look.

Maybe it looks like a frown. And sometimes it is, I guess. But that's just where my eyebrows are on my face.

They're not, you know. In the past, I've seen people with eyebrows painted on in the middle of their forehead. And they weren't earning money.

Like in a cabaret show. So it's like, you know, I'm, these are my eyebrows. I mean, they were my eyebrows when we met.

And they will be my eyebrows in 20 years time. What have they done to you? How have my eyebrows offended you? I'll have a word with them. I'll give them a good talking to.

And I'll make sure that they never repeat whatever it is that they did ever again. I'm very upset with my eyebrows. I'd like to talk to you too.

I'm very disappointed. I can't leave you alone for a second. They're just eyebrows.

And I'd understand it if they were, well, maybe they are weird. I don't know. I've got quite thin eyebrows.

They're not really, I don't really have, they're not big eyebrows. I just, I look at pictures, well I don't look, but I've seen pictures of me when I was, you know, 10, 11, 12. Same eyebrows.

And I guess the chance of them changing dramatically. Well, they used to be low, you know, used to be really low down, now they're really high up. Now they're over my ears.

Like, no, they're probably, I'm no doubt as I get older, they'll get bushier, maybe. But, you know, any, I get the occasional weird hair just sprouts out and I'll get, I'll get rid of that. It's like, let me know what that's about.

And it's never the same quality hair. It's almost like it's made out of some kind of metallic material, you know, fiberglass or something. It's just like, this is just, it's like, if I grow this long enough, I'll be able to use it to go fishing with.

It's just, this is just, why? And I don't want random hairs just sticking up out of my eyebrows. And they will. And the thing is, they grow and they hide.

So when you look in a mirror, they're not sticking up. They hide behind the other hairs. And as soon as you go out, sometimes they'll still stay hiding until you want to look your best.

And maybe you go out to introduce yourself to someone that you like, maybe someone that you'd like to be romantic with, or maybe it's a job interview or, you know, someone you want to impress. And suddenly all those hairs will just pop up, stand to attention, almost, you know, like they're excited to be there. They're all saluting.

It's like, there's no, no, didn't know they were there. And once they pop up, they stay up. They don't hide anymore.

And you get back, look in the mirror, like, what the heck is that? Where did that come from? That's, that one hair is nearly as long as the whole length of my eyebrow. I've only got one eyebrow, by the way. I think, I'm not sure if it's true, but I think my friend shaved one of my eyebrows when I was a kid.

I think I was at school. I have this memory, and it's just come to me now, where he either, it might have been a girlfriend that did it, not girlfriend, but a friend who was a girl, who waxed my eyebrow and just dared me and for a laugh and just ripped the whole thing off. I think I did remember one thing from the past.

And I was talking to my friend is, I was walking, I was shouting something to someone, this is outside of school, and I was hurling words at someone, laughing at them, or I don't know what it was, something. And I turned around and I walked into a lamppost. Now, for those of you that don't know what a lamppost is, it's, I'm not being condescending, there's going to be someone that doesn't, you know, probably, I don't know if you even have them where you are, but they're basically these big, I feel like I'm making, I'm making fun of you, I'm not, I'm genuinely trying to explain it.

And it's big, big posts with a lamp, like a light on the top. And yeah, so we call them lampposts. Of course, they don't have lamps anymore, they have lights.

But light post just doesn't sound right. Now, most lampposts, at least in where kind of the areas that I live, are now metal. But these ones were concrete, they were made of concrete.

And I walked into it. And I think it was my right eye, it was either my right or my left eye, it was an eye. And I gave myself a black eye.

And it was the first black eye that I've ever had. It's the proper full on swollen mess. I was so proud of it.

It was I've never had a black eye before. So it was like, wow, that it took a lamppost to do it. And I might be running, because that would make more sense.

Because just walking into a lamppost, I wouldn't have thought it'd be that much pressure to cause the sort of damage it did. And so I was probably running smashed my eye. And I could feel it.

This to start with was like, Oh, I might be on the floor. I can't remember. Almost like a bit dazed.

But as I was walking home, because the lamppost wasn't far from the school. And I didn't live that far away from the school either. It was it really wasn't a long distance at all.

It was one road. And then in fact, that one road, it was it was different roads, but it's broken up. So that one road led to town, and then go through town.

No, that one road led to another road that led to another road that led to town. But it's just one straight walk. And then turn left.

And that's where I lived. So I was very close. I lived in town.

But it was a small town. So everyone lived near the town, really. You know, if there were parts where it'd be maybe a 30 or 40 minute walk at most.

But that was like the most outskirts, you know, of the town is really was quite a small place. So you get anywhere within an hour you could get from the corners of the earth to town. I say the corners of the earth because no one lived there knew there was anywhere else.

We all thought that was it. Really, that that was, that was the planet. Didn't realize it was a town before that was earth.

I didn't even give it a name. We just called it the world. So I, as I walked home, I could feel my eye just becoming bigger or my you know, the outside puffiness or whatever the eyebrow, become bigger and bigger.

And I couldn't wait to get home so I could see it. Because my friends were saying, Oh, it's black, it's blue, it's, it's massive. And I said, Okay, right, now tell me what my eye looks like.

And I was so excited. We didn't have phones back then. And I forgot to bring my mirror with me.

So I had to wait to get home and go into the bathroom and have a little look. And I was so excited. I wasn't disappointed.

I was wonderful. I really enjoyed having that black eye weird, weird thing to enjoy. But I've never, I've been punched many times.

I never got a black eye. And just, it was, I don't know. I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed having it. It's a very kind of a strange happy memory to have. I lost a fight to a lamppost.

But it's just, I don't know, it's a happy memory. Because I was just excited by the whole thing. Just like, wow, I was just, I didn't know how big it was going to get.

I thought if it gets any bigger, I'm going to float off. I just, you know, put some heavy boots on. I didn't know.

I held on some weights just so I didn't, I didn't know. Because it was like, blimey. What is this thing? My head's now twice the size.

It wasn't, I'm exaggerating, but you know what I mean. It's like, oh. I just, I don't know.

It entertained me. I found it funny. And it gave me something new to talk about.

Which is always a good thing. Well, not always a good thing, but if it's a mildly, I found it funny, you know, so it wasn't a big deal for me. It's, it's just funny walking into a lamppost or running into a lamppost.

I used to tell people that, it might be true, it might not, might not be, that I was laughing at someone that just walked into a lamppost and I turned around and then I walked into a lamppost. So I was walking backwards. And as I said, walking, I whistled.

That's weird, isn't it? I didn't whistle in the story. I mean, I whistled just now. I can't walk and whistle at the same time.

Two things at the same time. No. So that's it for me.

Blimey, another hour. It's weird, isn't it, how quickly things go. So thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself. Remember to be gentle with yourself, because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love.

Bye.